“Want? No, I don’t want it. Want implies it’s a choice. I need this, Buff.”
“Any news on the Kessel Run?”
“Made it in under six parsecs.”
“Keep it up.
“He still had a crush, by the way. ‘Till the day he died. Which means you’re a cool guy, so I’d like to get to know you.” Xander, for once, doesn’t manage a response, so he laughs. “Not like that. It’d be a little soon after, don’t you think? Besides, you’re attractive, but not my type. I just…” He sighs, drawing in on himself a little. “I could use a friend right now.”
Instantly any hesitation vanishes. “I’ll warn you, I have no idea how to be a friend despite extensive research, but complaints only run in the hundreds, so I think you’ll be fine.”
“Oh, that good, huh?” Cho asks with a raised eyebrow and the ghost of a grin, and in Xander’s head Tony mouths ‘finally’ over a cup of...you know what, Tony probably has no idea either. That gets Xander to laugh.
“Is this a pity date?”
“If it is, the bell tolls for me, not thee.”
Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: faster to read
Word Count: 25
Rating: Teen
“Are you okay?”
The woman, still blinking owlishly like she’s still in shock, glances down then back up again. “I still have boobs. That’s weird.”
Miyamoto is prone to the occasional hyena behavior like whining when she’s not paying attention to what she’s doing, thanks to the dagger spirit. Usually it just means she’s sore from fights or something, but Cordy decides after a bit it’s best to check in, just to make sure. “Are you okay?”
Suna glances up, eye a little vacant and confused, before she clues in and smiles sheepishly, rubbing at the back of her head. “’M a little twig-like, so when I ain’t out causin’ a ruckus my circulation’s shit and I get cold easy. Sucks.”
“I’ll warm you up,” Cordy offers, only realizing the dirty connotations a few seconds after she says it.
She’s not embarrassed, though, not this time. Because that actually might be the slightest hint of a blush, and that’s adorable.
“Feel free ta heat me up anytime, darlin’,” Suna drawls.
When Willow finally asks to see him, everybody breathes a little easier, but they all crowd in to listen, just in case. “I forgive you. For now. You ever do anything like this without my permission ever again and I will make Anya’s demon days look like a frolic through flowers.”
Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: faster to read
Word Count: 30
Rating: Teen
“I didn’t want to just yell at people because I’m in a bad mood. I’ve done that before, and let me tell you, it just makes you feel worse later.”
“What happened?” Xander holding an ice pack to his head is not a common occurrence, exactly, even if he does tend to forget his spatial awareness after a while if he’s been working on a problem.
He winces. “Flying in a hailstorm. Ow. Need to work on that impact absorption.”
“Our Xander is Different.”
“What?”
“TVTropes thing. Nothing. Never mind.”
“Do you have an angry blue sister?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: faster to read
Word Count: 55
Rating: Teen
“Slayer here. You reading me, Paladin?”
“Yep, loud and clear.”
“Okay, report in, what’s up?”
“Well, we were actually wondering if you could have a speech for the folks here at our little shindig.”
“You’re having a party without me?
“We’ll bring you cake.”
“Forgiven. As long as it’s a small cake all for me.”
“That line there about making the world a better place? It’s not just some fancy slogan; I do believe that. Maybe it’s naive and unattainable, but just ‘cause we can’t make it perfect doesn’t mean we shouldn’t improve. It doesn’t cheapen our efforts. It doesn’t erase the good we’ve done.”
He adapts the Exoskel to a Containment Cylinder for villain capture, or Concyl, because everything has to have a catchy name. (Or so he says. Kris suspects he gets a kick out of making people trying to pronounce made-up words.)
“Dear, the science is broken again.”
“Did you try gently vortexing?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
“That’s why you have me here to troubleshoot.”
Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: faster to read
Word Count: 135
Rating: Teen
Kris finds Xander drooling into a pile of some Very Important Official Papers, all capitalized. Her only response? “Not again.”
When Xander thinks about it, really thinks about it, he’s partial to Silver Paladin.
It’s not any more or less derivative than anything else anyone has proposed, and it can evoke ‘White Knight’ without actually being White Knight, especially, well. Not that he has any guarantees that it’ll go the way it does in any of the futures he remembers, but in a lot of universes those end up having connotations he’d really like to not associate himself with. Silver Paladin can have some of the positive connotations with the added benefit of him distancing himself from the negative ones. Plus, then there’s the parallel to Star. Most people won’t know that, he’s keeping the AI stuff closer to his chest because he’s seen how that goes wrong, too, but he’ll know, and she’ll know.
“You have a company?”
“You don’t? I thought they were all the rage, the newest thing. Everyone has one these days, right?”
“...Yep, that’s Xander.”
Staring at this is just kind of pain. There are so many viruses that they’re going to start gobbling each other up and evolving into some sort of ubervirus. This might not even be worth the gratitude or the money he’s being paid to fix the laptop. It’s not like he needs it, with the company, and this is just going to be one big headache that’s going to tempt him into unwise things like inventing Technovore to eat the ubervirus and it’s going to be this whole vicious cycle. Even ‘friend of Larry’s’ doesn’t quite cut it. “I mean, I understand the temptation, but dude, you gotta use protection.”
It is terrifying being cornered by Franziska and he feels ready to confess to something on the spot, before she gets into the actual interrogation. She would use the whip. “You! You’re the fool that that foolish fool Wright adopted.”
“I...um…” He’s pretty sure there’s, like, papers and legal proceedings involved there, but then he’s signed some stuff Mr. Wright’s handed him without reading it since the guy’s his boss and how has he not learned this lesson already? “Plead the fifth. Bye!” In this case, hightailing it is the only sensible option. He can come back later. Much later.
