be_compromised | Promptathon is heeeeeeeeeeeeeere!

Entry tags:

promptathon 2012

Promptathon is heeeeeeeeeeeeeere!

The Good Ship C/N Promptathon
of Magic and Joy: Aka, The Promptathon of All Wonderful Things Involving Two Certain Badass Assassin People Doing Badass Things and Being Awesome. And Badass. And Pretty. And Stuff.

NOTE: The promptathon has now closed, but please enjoy all the lovely fic and fanworks. in our Masterposts below.

Master List of all Promptathon fanworks.

Master List, Part 2 now with more delicious everything!

**Many thanks to rayruzfor the beautiful graphic.

******************

NOTE: PROMPTING HAS NOW CLOSED, BUT FICS AND FANWORKS MAY STILL BE SUBMITTED THROUGH AUGUST 31ST. THANKS!

Welcome!!!! The time is now upon us. This will kick off a month's worth of prompting and fanworking and all the good things. Not sure what to do? Click below for our handy-dandy Promptathon Guide!

RULES ON POSTING SUBMISSIONS
(please read before you post! <3)

The Rules. Just follow these three easy steps!

1. Leave a Prompt.
Prompts can be anything--simple or elaborate, words or pictures, songs or poems, lyrics or phrases. Anything that, to you, inspires a C/N fanwork. Use your imagination. Go crazy. All I ask is that you keep it tasteful and warn for anything explicit or triggery. Also, try to be as specific as you can with your prompts--this is often very helpful to those creating the fanwork.

And leave as many prompts as you want. I’m serious. Keep coming back, y’all. We want all the prompts we can possibly get Also, be sure to leave each prompt as a separate comment.

2. Wait a week.
Tailgate and chitchat and keep leaving prompts. And mull over the epic fanworks you are creating.

3. Submit C/N fanwork like there is no tomorrow.
All submissions should either be posted here or linked to this post via a comment. The nitty gritty details of posting your stuff can be found HERE. Please read before you post

Timeframe:
Prompts will be accepted starting today, Friday, July 13th (!!!) and will remain open until Friday, August 10th. Submissions may be submitted beginning on Friday, July 20th and may continue to be submitted until August 10th.

What we hope to accomplish with all this promptathon-iness:

A chance to get in the game. Been wanting to jump into the C/N fanwork scene but not sure where to start? Now’s the time. There’s no length requirement on the works submitted, you can focus on drabbles and vidlets and short and sweet projects (or do longer more epic stuff if that strikes your fancy as well). It’s really entirely up to you. We’re just hoping to provide a fun, no-pressure environment.

Meet new and awesome people. Because srsly, I love everyone in this bar. It's a good damn bar. Don't be afraid to say hello
Ship like you’ve never shipped before.
Tailgate when appropriate. My motto is, if something ain’t a cocktail party, you just aren’t trying hard enough. In that spirit, aurora_0811and I are hosting the tailgate section (which I think at this point just includes random chatter and ridiculousness, cheerleading and tomfoolery, because I doubt our comm’s talkative nature will be suppressed even during the prompting/waiting period.) So pull up a helicarrier-shaped lawnchair, crack open a cold one and settle in for the festivities. And leave prompts.

And most of all, have fun. :)

Page 53 of 165

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He looks at the scissors she's holding out in her hand with a question on his face.

“What is that for?” he asks. She reaches behind her head to untie her hair. It falls around her like a curtain of red.

“I want you to cut it,” she says.

He looks at her for a couple of moments. “Why?” he asks and she looks away for a couple of moments, then looks back at him with a false smile on her face.

“New hairdo. Fresh start,” she says.

*

She grew her hair for years. She dyed and redyed it a couple of times and she usually wore it long. It was an asset, and she used it just like knives and guns and the rest of her body. But at the same time, it's more to her – it feels like a living document of everything she had done as it grew, a book of her horrible secrets flowing bright red around her shoulders.

She isn't certain she can simply start anew, but she can try. She doesn't need the hair as a part of her mask like she did before, and this realization helps her decide. She wants to cut it off, she wants someone else to look back at her from the mirror.

She wants Clint to cut it off, because she can make this decision because of him. She wants him to cut it off, because part of her believes it will be like a circle that's been closed; like sins that were forgiven.

(It's not how it feels after he's done, but there's something about seeing her hair on the floor, pooling around her feet like past forgotten, and the way her shoulders feel free with her hair short).

*

After the battle is done, he asks her to cut his hair.

She sits on the edge of the tub and trims his hair; short on the back and the sides of his head; leaves it a bit longer on top of his head. Then she slides into the water next to him, with her back to his front and hands him the scissors.

“Cut just a little bit,” she says.

Her hair falls around them like red dust. She stares ahead and thinks how some things can't be forgotten. One can cut off a limb, but the pain will remain.

“All done,” he says and sets the scissors aside. She turns around to look at him, and his face seems younger, clean and fresh. She had never seen him with hair as short as this and she frowns.

“Don't let me cut your hair again,” she says.

“It will grow back,” he smiles and pulls her to him. She lets him and while he's kissing her she feels the comfort of his words.

That's what fresh starts are about.

LOL!!! Oh good. I was looking for an excuse to die my hair red again. :)

Clint's parents died when he was too young to have formed any lasting memories of them. The only thing he has to remember them by is a faded photo Barney gave him at the funeral, which he keeps in the pocket inside his jacket so that the other kids at the orphanage can't find it. Sometimes when he's alone and out of their reach, he takes the photo out and stares at his parents' faces, trying to imagine how his name would have sounded when they called him in for dinner, told him off, reassured him they loved him. He has nothing to go on, and so he always fails. The best he can do is whisper his name to himself while clutching the photo to his chest, and listen as the leaves of the tree echo it back to him.

It always sounds lonely.

--

The girl has no parents. Or rather, she does, but she has never known them. She grew up being passed between families who never kept her long enough to give her a name, who thought she wouldn't live long enough to need one, too skinny and small to survive the harsh winters that come every year. Consequently she has only ever been addressed by “girl” or “child”, or sometimes the name of the most recently deceased female child in the family in order to soothe a grieving mother for a time.

None of this bothers her. A name is only a name, it is not who she is, and so she answers to anything they call her.

--

At six years old, Clint knows how his name sounds when it's said by a brother who is annoyed at him for being too small, too slow, too weak. At seven, he's got used to how it sounds when kids at the orphanage sneer at him, threaten him, cajole him. By the time he's eight, he's all-too-familiar with how it's shouted at him by adults when he's been climbing trees or balancing on fences or jumping across rooves. The strong tones and anger that lace their voices scare him at first – even Barney when he's mad doesn't sound like that – but the impact lessens as he grows older. He comes to expect that his name will always be said in anger and forgets what it is like to hear it any other way.

--

When the girl is five years old, men in suits arrive to take her away to a place that is not a house but will be where she lives. They tell her that she will answer to 'Nadja'. It's a name but they don't use it as such. Instead it serves as a way to refer to her so as to avoid confusion with anyone else. The word is easy to remember and so she does not mind. While she is with them, that is how she refers to herself, and it is acceptable.

--

At the circus, for the first time in his life Clint has a nickname.

Well, it's more of a stagename, but it's the coolest thing he's even been called. When they call him Hawkeye, it sounds like the opportunity to be something more than anyone has ever expected of him. It's success and pressure and showmanship; it's half an hour in the ring giving the audience the time of their lives; it's his cue to put on a stupid costume and become the incredible archer painted on all the posters. He loves it and he fears it, because they gave it to him but he has to show them that he deserves to keep it, and he's damn well not going to let them down.

--

Under the orders of the KGB, Nadja goes by many names. Every mission brings a new one, complete with clothes and personality and appearance. There are no constants save that she accepts every one of them with equal ease. Her targets call her Stefanida and compliment her hair style, Andreea while they gush over her ruthless business ethic, Inkena as they escort her around a ballroom. She flirts and charms and smiles, inhabits her character completely, and feels as much affinity with those names as she does with Nadja.

--

The Amazing Hawkeye stays at the circus when Clint joins the army, where he is Barton rather than Clint. It is a reminder of his position, whether or not it is preceded by his rank. Early on it is used to keep him in his place, to remind him that he's no better than anyone else. Even after they've discovered what he can do and realised they can use his skills to their advantage, that doesn't change much. They still use his name as an order; the only difference is that the words coming after it send him to more interesting places than before.

--

The Red Room takes Nadja while she's in the middle of a mission, pump her body and mind with chemicals and electricity, enhance her natural skills and train her to be even better than she was before. She is their creation, their property, their child. They give her a new name and congratulate her with it every time she returns from a mission, always successfully. She is closed in her rooms with a thick door they lock behind her, but it is not that which reminds her who she belongs to.

--

In many ways, working at SHIELD is much the same as being in the army. There was no Phil Coulson in the army though, with his extra-dry sense of humour, scary-as-shit deadpan expression, and a seemingly endless ability to put up with Clint's disregard for protocol. It takes a good few months but they work well together, and Clint's pretty sure that Coulson actually likes him. Clint is still 'Barton' but when they're not on a mission, it's 'Barton' said with amusement or exasperation or affection, sometimes all three at once. Of course sometimes it's an utterly calm 'Barton' which means Clint's about to get a strip torn off him as soon as they're in the office, because they might like each other but Phil's still his boss. However Phil says it though, it's the closest Clint's ever got to hearing his name spoken with something that's genuinely friendly in it.

--

When she defects from the KGB, SHIELD ask her if her name is really Nadja. She decides that no, it is not, and tells them she is Natasha.

It is not a name she can remember having gone by before, so she can safely make it hers. They ask her if her last name is actually Romonova; like 'Black Widow', it's more of a title than a name so it stays, albeit slightly altered to better fit with her new American citizenship.

Conversations die down when people see her, but she's far better at her job than they are at theirs so she hears them talk anyway. People say her name with suspicion, with fear, with dubiousness dripping from every syllable. They use it as a warning, tie it to her past, make predictions about her future. She understands but she doesn't like it. Natasha is who she is now; encompassed within the name are her skills, her beliefs, her talents. She's earned the right to her name and she will defend it for as long as she has to.

--

It takes them a long time to trust each other. They call each other Barton and Romonoff for six months, cautious, testing, wary. Clint and Natasha creep in slowly, never around others, and the reserve remains for another six months before it disappears.

Eighteen months after he meets her, in the aftermath of a mission gone just a little bit wrong, Natasha sits by Clint's bedside with a fond smile on her face. Shaking her head, she tells him “You're an idiot, Clint.” As she says his name, Clint feels something inside him ache and reach out for the past. Out of the blue, he remembers being an eight year old boy desperate to hear his parents say his name and despairing because he never would. The despair fades now and he smiles as he shuts his eyes. When Natasha says it like that, precise and clear and warm, like she's taking the utmost care of it and him, his name sounds just the way he's always wanted to hear it.

Two years after SHIELD recruits her, Natasha is sent on an undercover mission that could take months to complete. Clint spends the night with her before she leaves and murmurs “Good luck, Natasha,” while he holds her tight. Natasha feels a weight lift as she hears him speak her name soft and low and careful; he speaks it like he means it no harm, like it belongs to her and he's just taking care of it for as long as she's not in possession of it. For once she knows that both it and he will be waiting for her when she returns.

Edited 2012-07-20 20:21 (UTC)

I'm assuming that this is the shameless piece of fluff you were referring to earlier, because if it's not I'm not sure I'll be able to take any more. xD Between Clint and Natasha just casually having their weapons on hand (because selling life insurance can be a very deadly business), the kids and their questions (“Can I shock Kevin?” pfft), and Claire's sting op... so much love. <3

Oh that's so sweet. I especially like the contrast of their communication; Clint sounds much lighter than she does, and she is affectionate, even though she's a powerful storm.

Gorgeous :)

:D :D :D

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it!

OMG, this is the best comment ever. Thank you! **twirls you about**

And what is this? I keep seeing you posting stuff! You have been a busy bee indeed! Can't wait to read!

Banter and dialogue are my favorite things in the world to write, and this was the perfect prompt. And I am SO not a kidfic person, but I'm kind of loving Claire too. *g*

Thank you again for the lovely words. :)

Deadly weapons > ponies. Claire totally won this round. ;P

**giggles**

I'm so glad you enjoyed it. It was unpardonable marshmallow fluff, but somewtimes it has to happen. Best not to fight it. ;)

Wheeeeeeee! *is happily twirled* No probs, always happy to share the squee I'm feeling about fic.

Heh, I'm done posting now, that's all I've got. I spent my week writing fic, now I get to read everyone else's :D

Claire is the most awesome kid, definitely one to love even if you're not a kid!fic person. I would be her friend in a heartbeat *nods*

Aw, this is so lovely and quietly emotional. Such clear explanations of how the hair cuts symbolise so much more, and the explanations of why they do it for each other are just right. Wonderful :)

Stick figures are awesome! No-one will ever convince me otherwise (because they're the only things I can draw and I have to believe they have worth).

Brilliant icon there XD

**raises hand**

Guilty. It's completey shameless and I have no excuse. All empty calories. Nothing to see here. ;P

Between Clint and Natasha just casually having their weapons on hand

Ha! I think those two would be armed to the teeth even at a Tupperware party (... and now I kind of want fic about that), and good ole Claire knew how to take full advantage of the situation. Smart kid, that one. ;)

(i love the Kevin line too. cracks my shit up.)

I'm glad you liked it, bb. I hope you can forgive the shockingly low nutritional value going on here. :D :D :D

**twirls you**

Edited 2012-07-21 00:15 (UTC)

This is so gorgeous - I kept saying "yes, yes, THIS" in my head as I read. I love the details, the progression, the different aspects of what names mean and how they make them (and everyone else) what they are. :)

Thank you! I kept thinking about how hair "remembers" everything about how you treated your body, if you were healthy, stuff like that. Cut off hair - cut off the past that you don't want, in a symbolic way, that was my idea anyway. *G* I'm glad it worked out!

Eeeeeeeee, so pretty! The artwork is obviously stunning, and I adore how you've turned it into these icons. Brilliant choices <3

Aaargh 15 icons slots is not enough XD But at least I can be sure that I'm not the only one having this problem ;)

Holy shit, woman.

Just... holy shit.

Don't you dare apologize. This is fucking amazing. I can't even form coherent thoughts right now.

Natasha's expression is priceless! Beautiful. <3

*blinks*

This is a fic you would count as being a fail? That's really not the word I would use to describe it! So very very far from it in fact!

Gorgeous images, hot like whoa, fantastic interpretation of their relationship; I love this huge amounts. Just... yeah. It's pretty damn awesome.

I'm serious. I just ... gah.

(and dammit-- I really needed those last few brain cells too.)

And how did you make it even better and more descriptive and more guh with LESS WORDS? WHAT IS THIS MANNER OF SORCERY????

So much writerly envy right now. Eeeep!

She will take him, because he is enough. He is not what she needs, not what she craves, and he will never say a word about her silence between the sheets, the breath that leaves her swollen lips as they shape another name.

He doesn't imagine her face, doesn't impose scars and curves and calluses on this untouched body - God, who could be inhuman enough to wish even the ghost of her past on anyone else? - but kisses up the arc of her ribs, counts each slender bone, learns the hollow between her scapulas and the crease under her chin, knows the woman he makes love to is seamless and blameless and loses himself in her innocence.

They sleep with weapons and secrets and other people, lying awake knowing somewhere out there the one they want is thinking of them.

Edited 2012-07-20 21:23 (UTC)

You made me cry with hOw beautiful this is. Wow.

Link please?

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Page 53 of 165

Promptathon is heeeeeeeeeeeeeere!

Fic: It's a fresh start, PG - 13, no warnings

no subject

Fic: The Way You Say My Name, Rating: PG, Warnings: None, Part: (1/3)

Fic: The Way You Say My Name, Rating: PG, Warnings: None, Part: (2/3)

Fic: The Way You Say My Name, Rating: PG, Warnings: None, Part: (3/3)

Re: FIC: CAREER DAY, rating: PG, 2/2

Re: Fic: Eye of the Storm (PG)

Re: FIC: CAREER DAY, rating: PG, 2/2

Re: FIC: CAREER DAY, rating: PG, 2/2

Re: FIC: CAREER DAY, rating: PG, 2/2

Re: FIC: CAREER DAY, rating: PG, 2/2

Re: Fic: It's a fresh start, PG - 13, no warnings

no subject

Re: FIC: CAREER DAY, rating: PG, 2/2

Re: Fic: The Way You Say My Name, Rating: PG, Warnings: None, Part: (3/3)

Re: Fic: It's a fresh start, PG - 13, no warnings

Re: 63 Clint/Natasha art icons

Re: Fic: The Way You Say My Name, Rating: PG, Warnings: None, Part: (3/3)

Re: FIC: switch (rated r for sex, knives, rope and fail)

Re: Art: My Eye On You

Re: FIC: switch (rated r for sex, knives, rope and fail)

Re: FIC: switch (rated r for sex, knives, rope and fail)

Fic: The Moon and Stars Between Us, Rating: M, Warnings: Sex

Re: Fic: The Way You Say My Name, Rating: PG, Warnings: None, Part: (3/3)

no subject