Mismatched
Jul. 29th, 2017 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Marvel Crossover AU (Self-Made Hero: The Infinity Mirror)
Summary: The group slowly starts to become more of a team and less than a collection of individuals, but it will take time.
Word Count: 760
Rating: Gen
AN: Tony's nicknames start to come out; Xander's named Illyria Blue, Big Blue, and Muad'Dib already.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Marvel Crossover AU (Self-Made Hero: The Infinity Mirror)
Summary: The group slowly starts to become more of a team and less than a collection of individuals, but it will take time.
Word Count: 760
Rating: Gen
AN: Tony's nicknames start to come out; Xander's named Illyria Blue, Big Blue, and Muad'Dib already.
They’re an odd group, Xander notes, bound together by the fight against evil, against a particular evil, by their aspirations to the heroic. And yet, for all that, they’re so dissimilar, in cases aware of the others in their own respective universes but hesitant, unsure of how they all stand together. How they work together. It’s uncannily familiar, to the point it scares him.
And he does get afraid. He just doesn’t respond like your average Homo sapiens to the emotion, provoking rather than smoothing over the situation or withdrawing.
The mechanic’s instinct says they have to get along or they’ll be broken.
The teenage boy in him, though, can’t help but stress test, niggle and nag to discover weak points, lines of fracture, likelihood of retaliation. Which is how he winds up with a blade at his neck, courtesy of a fallen Hell Goddess.
“Call me Blue again, you disrespectful cur, and it will be your last breath.”
And then there’s a familiar golden mandala between his skin and her blade, and he grins.
“Xander, I know you have a knack for saying exactly the wrong thing but could you not try to get yourself killed? I’m enjoying having a…well, I was going to say sane you around, but I’m getting the feeling that’s a lie….” Willow, voice with steel and wisdom and still gentle and disappointed.
Suddenly there’s a wetness in his eyes that he can’t remember having given permission to appear, and he steps back, for once using an ounce of self-preservation.
Even Muad’Dib’s eyes look a little less murderous, although he’d prefer not to feel so exposed at the moment. He misses his armor.
Oz, who moves unnaturally quietly for a werewolf, is suddenly beside him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder and nothing more. As words aren’t wanted, he’s only following his tendency to speak the least necessary for the moment.
“I’ve seen his type before, Goddess,” Angel joins them quietly. “He only means offense if you take it. And perhaps he seeks the oblivion of a fight.”
“Who did you lose?” Big Blue asks quietly. It could almost be compassion in that voice.
“Oh, I dunno, other than my entire goddamned dimension?” he asks, voice turning into a snarl before he can rein it in. His shoulders fall, and now he just feels old and wrung out. Goddess, next thing you know he’ll be moaning that his good days are behind him and muttering about kids on his lawn. “Fiancee.”
Willow looks stricken, and he wishes she’d stop staring at him like that. “Anya?” she asks gently. He shakes his head decisively to reply.
When he loves, he loves completely, which is maybe why he’s still on good terms—was still on good terms—with so many of his exes, because there’s just something so intoxicating about genuine regard. He’ll never stop feeling her loss, but they were like a train wreck in slow motion. Maybe in a universe where she was more self aware, or he wasn’t destined for money and a little too easily distracted by sex. The loss of Kris hurts as much as the others, maybe more, because there wasn’t the sense of this is wrong, something will go wrong beating away in his brain. “Pretty sure you don’t know Krista.”
There’s a moment of cool sobriety, of the others staring at his shaking hands and coolly unaffected fake of a demeanor and then of apologies. Honestly, he should apologize, but as usual Tony’s ghosts murmur a protest so he’s left without words.
He sniffs instead, pulls himself back to the here-and-now.
“Okay, To Do List, gang. We have got to get everybody up on their popular movies. I’m gonna make toys for everyone, and we are all going to tell at least one embarrassing story.”
“Ocean’s Eleven,” Oz requests quietly, and he glances over to see the hints of a conspiratorial grin, and some ache inside of him eases, because he quietly adds Numbers Four and Five to the List of Awesome—namely, making money again, because he’s not completely oblivious about the necessity of funding for a group like this, despite the fact that Tony likes to pretend he’s not aware of how economics actually works, and finding someone, anyone, entirely possibly Krista, again. The logistics he’ll have to—casually—enquire about from the G-man, but if there’s anyone who’s very good at getting what he wants, well.
It’s a pet project, but he’s got the time to work it out. He is a genius, after all.
And he does get afraid. He just doesn’t respond like your average Homo sapiens to the emotion, provoking rather than smoothing over the situation or withdrawing.
The mechanic’s instinct says they have to get along or they’ll be broken.
The teenage boy in him, though, can’t help but stress test, niggle and nag to discover weak points, lines of fracture, likelihood of retaliation. Which is how he winds up with a blade at his neck, courtesy of a fallen Hell Goddess.
“Call me Blue again, you disrespectful cur, and it will be your last breath.”
And then there’s a familiar golden mandala between his skin and her blade, and he grins.
“Xander, I know you have a knack for saying exactly the wrong thing but could you not try to get yourself killed? I’m enjoying having a…well, I was going to say sane you around, but I’m getting the feeling that’s a lie….” Willow, voice with steel and wisdom and still gentle and disappointed.
Suddenly there’s a wetness in his eyes that he can’t remember having given permission to appear, and he steps back, for once using an ounce of self-preservation.
Even Muad’Dib’s eyes look a little less murderous, although he’d prefer not to feel so exposed at the moment. He misses his armor.
Oz, who moves unnaturally quietly for a werewolf, is suddenly beside him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder and nothing more. As words aren’t wanted, he’s only following his tendency to speak the least necessary for the moment.
“I’ve seen his type before, Goddess,” Angel joins them quietly. “He only means offense if you take it. And perhaps he seeks the oblivion of a fight.”
“Who did you lose?” Big Blue asks quietly. It could almost be compassion in that voice.
“Oh, I dunno, other than my entire goddamned dimension?” he asks, voice turning into a snarl before he can rein it in. His shoulders fall, and now he just feels old and wrung out. Goddess, next thing you know he’ll be moaning that his good days are behind him and muttering about kids on his lawn. “Fiancee.”
Willow looks stricken, and he wishes she’d stop staring at him like that. “Anya?” she asks gently. He shakes his head decisively to reply.
When he loves, he loves completely, which is maybe why he’s still on good terms—was still on good terms—with so many of his exes, because there’s just something so intoxicating about genuine regard. He’ll never stop feeling her loss, but they were like a train wreck in slow motion. Maybe in a universe where she was more self aware, or he wasn’t destined for money and a little too easily distracted by sex. The loss of Kris hurts as much as the others, maybe more, because there wasn’t the sense of this is wrong, something will go wrong beating away in his brain. “Pretty sure you don’t know Krista.”
There’s a moment of cool sobriety, of the others staring at his shaking hands and coolly unaffected fake of a demeanor and then of apologies. Honestly, he should apologize, but as usual Tony’s ghosts murmur a protest so he’s left without words.
He sniffs instead, pulls himself back to the here-and-now.
“Okay, To Do List, gang. We have got to get everybody up on their popular movies. I’m gonna make toys for everyone, and we are all going to tell at least one embarrassing story.”
“Ocean’s Eleven,” Oz requests quietly, and he glances over to see the hints of a conspiratorial grin, and some ache inside of him eases, because he quietly adds Numbers Four and Five to the List of Awesome—namely, making money again, because he’s not completely oblivious about the necessity of funding for a group like this, despite the fact that Tony likes to pretend he’s not aware of how economics actually works, and finding someone, anyone, entirely possibly Krista, again. The logistics he’ll have to—casually—enquire about from the G-man, but if there’s anyone who’s very good at getting what he wants, well.
It’s a pet project, but he’s got the time to work it out. He is a genius, after all.
