madimpossibledreamer

It is one of the great fails of the last season of Buffy that we never got to see the First torturing anyone else.  Because, let's be honest.  This is the Buffy crew.  They've had so many people die around them.  I would've liked to see more of that, which maybe makes me cruel, except for the fact that I like...
It's not just to watch them suffer.  Or be angsty or hurt each other.  They do enough on their own.
It would've felt more like a final season to look back on everything that came before and reflect on the deaths and friendships and whatnot.  I mean, people rarely remember Jesse's name (this is people who have watched the show multiple times and I've seen a vast majority of the episodes once.  Crazy, right?) but he was Xander's friend and Willow's friend and he died and Xander killed him.  Or the demon wearing his face.  That's such a pivotal moment and of course Willow and Xander would shrug it off like it was nothing because they're the king and queen of compartmentalization but it was not nothing.  It would continue to haunt them, particularly out of the blue, because that's how guilt works.
Also, it would've made the First that much more dangerous.  We don't see the First do that much.  It's mostly the ancient vampires that are really, really hard to kill, and controlled Spike, and it's so easy to focus on the physical threats because they were shown more.  But this is the First.  The embodiment (ha!  given that it's not actually corporeal...no?) of the concept of all Evil with a capital E.  It would twist the knife.  It would remind them of all the people they failed to save.  It would take on the faces of all the people they loved and lost and taunt them.  You know when Spike's working for Adam and he knows exactly what to say to get them all not only doubting each other but doubting themselves?  The exact words to punch a hole in someone's gut?
The interesting thing about this is that there's a similarity.  Spike might've been "de-fanged" (i.e. not a physical threat) but he knew exactly what to say to break them.  The First should've been like that.  Except so much more so.
Finally, I didn't go into complete detail here.  I showed the first times that Jesse and Cordy showed up, but they were back.  Along with many others.  Partly that's because the imagination tends to be worse than a certainty.  I'm betting my reader's minds can conjure up worse than anything I can write.  (At least, I've found that's true when I'm on the reader's side.)  Also partly because it triggered a panic attack.  (Which I've experienced, if not, luckily, too recently, so I'm writing from my own experience there.)  (It being the First, its words probably magically burn onto the synapses, though.  Or maybe it'll whisper again in his nightmares...)
Wow, did not intend for that to get long.
~Dreamer~

Main Points:

And this is why I didn't want to post this on Easter.  Easter should have happy, light, and fun.  None of which this is.  Well, maybe fun, figuring out how Tony was going to deal with the situation because she's awesome, and conversation between her and Yinsen, but.  Still.  And I didn't want to cheapen it.
~Dreamer~

Main Points:
Iron Man Genderbend (Iron Maiden)
Summary: The Ten Rings want something from Tony she isn't willing to give.  She calls their bluff.
Word Count: 434
Rating: Gen
Warning: Technically, nothing actually happens in this fic.  That being said, it's a female Tony in a cave full of terrorists with questionable morals.  (Partly, it's an answer to surfing through Ao3 and finding that most of the versions of female Tony have gone through sexual assault.  This Iron Maiden isn't going to just smile and go along with it and engineers her way out of the situation like she does everything else, so nothing actually happens; however I was slightly uncomfortable writing this so it might be problematic for others. 
Tl;dr: read at your own discretion.)

 

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: Willow and Xander mourn Zathras.  (The others are there, but Willow and Xander are kind of not noticing the world right now.)
Word Count: 175
Rating: Gen, Grief

        They end up burying the pieces in Jesse’s grave.  Somehow, Xander thinks his friend would’ve appreciated it.
        He loses it all over again when he realizes Jesse would’ve been the War Machine to his Iron Man.  If he didn’t think he was encouraging Willow too much, he’d make her a suit, too, but he doesn’t want her to get herself killed.
        Then again, maybe her casting spells through a technological interface rather than on her own is exactly what she needs right now.
        She’s here, though.  She’s herself and beautiful and so present and so vital and so Willow.  She holds him as he’s crying and as she’s crying.  The tears and grief seem to be cleansing her of all the darkness clouding her aura lately, and she didn’t even insist they try to fix the situation with magic, no matter how much she wants the pain to go away.  (That might not mean that much if he couldn’t also tell that she hadn’t attempted any magic.  But she hadn’t, and it means so much.)

I cannot imagine how I somehow managed to miss that Shawn and Gus are pretty much Tony and Rhodey.  Seriously.
~Dreamer~

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: It was only a matter of time before Xander's home base got attacked.  And it's a hard-fought battle.
Word Count: 360
Rating: Gen, Angst

          One of the quirks of the suit he’d found out is that each separate component in his armor runs off a pseudo separate power supply.  His Repulsors run out, the shock tech doesn’t even phase it, he can distract it with the illusions but that’s, y’know, not actually a battle plan, and neither the flamethrower nor the…light thrower, or whatever, he really needs to get on making a snappy name for that one, do much.  But he’s so incredulous at how badly he’s doing that he ends up using those up too.  (The flamethrower’s easy enough to explain—that does run on Normal Person Fuel.  Any automated ‘put self out’ systems are magic-based.)  Just one of the many fun eccentricities of trying to funnel power from a Cedrian crystal to tech.  Even his Exoskel is starting to flicker, which means he has to conjure shields and that’s really tiring.
          The jet boots have the most juice and even they end up flickering out and dropping him midflight, just into a horn-poky charge, and he feels the metal bend (which, this alloy isn’t supposed to do that, it’s designed not to do that, and he half-panics and accidentally triggers the telekinesis and blasts it into the opposite wall hard enough the building shakes, and he’s really starting to have a headache and everything hurts, especially breathing).
          He eventually beats it by repeatedly ramming it into the ceiling using the telekinesis, enough that he has to channel some of his own power through the crystal and into the telekinesis.  Eventually it slumps over.  He feels like that too, and it honestly seems like the ceiling might crash any second, but he doesn’t have time for that.
          He taps the comm because he’s almost too exhausted to even speak, and he needs to save his strength.
          “Xander?”  It’s Buffy.  Of course it is, given that that’s who he dialed.  She still sounds pissed.
          “I know it’s getting kinda late for your trash collector duties but d’ya think you could make an exception in my case?”  He can’t quite stop the yawn, and instantly she’s concerned.
          At least she’s starting to pay attention.  Sometimes.

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: Really, kid?  Come on, you might as well have said 'be useful'.  We're working overtime on getting the suit together, just hang in there, we'll make it through, you and I.  I'll be pissed if you manage to get yourself killed before we have a chance to legitimately meet. -Tony
Word Count: 365
Rating: Gen

         They turn him away.  Again.  It strikes at old wounds, the fact that they don’t think him capable without the suit.  Which he still has yet to figure out how to make.  To be honest, he’s probably more useful than Willow.  She’s barely focused on offensive spells, while he has wards and shielding spells he could cast in his sleep, UV blasts and energy rays Stark would confuse for Repulsor tech.
         He doesn’t argue.  Who says that I don’t have shrapnel heading for my heart? he wonders, amused by his own dark humor.  He leaves.
         He doesn’t enjoy being with Faith.  Not that he doesn’t like the sex.  He does, and it’s pretty much as Tony remembers it, but there’s a caveat: he’s used to being, uhm, a more active participant.  He’d had fantasies about the way it’d gone.  Maybe he’s lazy.  It’s not how he thought it would be, and he immediately discards all of those fantasies.
         See, it’s nice to have an active partner taking care of your needs, but with Faith, she didn’t care about him at all, which kind of ruins the whole thing.
         For a few absurd moments he wonders whether that’s how all of Stark’s girlfriends felt, but the point is moot.  Maybe it’s a blow to his ego, being the one thrown out of the apartment holding his clothes, but if that’s how any of them felt he’ll never know unless their minds somehow download themselves, too.  PTB forbid.
         It’s got him in a reckless mood.  A mood where he’s hurting so bad it doesn’t matter what he does with himself, because anything’s better than the pain.
         And it should say something that he never feels more heroic than without his suit, refusing to move until the guy disarms the bomb.  He might be able to disarm it himself, but it’s lower tech than anything he tends to work with and he doesn’t feel like fighting the odds.  Not when his friends’ lives are at stake.  If all else fails he might be able to contain the blast with a shielding spell, though it honestly might kill him in the process.
         Might as well go down swinging, right?

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Universe Optional
Chapter Summary: I'd meant to write this, but I was still a little too much Willow.  Basically, the Slayers being scared for the future, such as it will be, and Xander having to reassure them despite the fact that he's not on board for this either.  If you're sick of the politics disregard, but as sad as it is it's hopeful too.
Word Count: 340
Rating: gen
Good luck in the new year, everyone.  We'll make it through with our friends.

             “Hi Wills.”  Xander tries not to sound as exhausted as he is.  It’s bone deep; he’s pretty sure he wasn’t this tired even when the First came around.  It probably says something that this freaks him out more than the First.  The First could only mess with his mind and get him killed.  Well, and get his eye poked out, but still.
             She’s as hysterical as he felt last Tuesday.  But to comfort her and not have them both utterly useless, he has to be the strong one.
             He’s been having a lot of that recently.
             “Nah, I’m…well, okay is definitely not the word for it, but we’ve survived the multiple of apocalypse and we’re still here.  Get ready for the bill, though, ‘cause the Slayers are eating everything.  More than usual.  They’re doing their best locust impression, but given all the other plagues, most of which the plague of stupidity, I can’t really blame them.”
             More than anything he wants to give her a hug.  He’s gotten a lot more hugs from females recently, and there’s no urge to be the jerk of yesterday.  Not like this, when he sees all the uncertainty and pain and the way they’re all trying to pretend that they’re not scared about their entire status of existence.  If he can be the mature one and care for his Slayers, then it can make him feel a little better about the future himself.  It might not affect him directly, but when there’s so many of his friends, family, everyone he cares about at stake, well.  Not affecting him directly?  That’s a lie.
             “Hey, hey.  We’re the Scoobies.  We’ve gotten through so much together.  You need me, I’m there.  I get the feeling I’ll be wearing my ‘free hugs’ shirt constantly for a while.”  That earns a chuckle, even though he can tell there are still tears on her face, and she sends a verbal hug back and hangs up.  One crisis down, a thousand to go, but he’ll help out where he can.  Always.