The Great Child and the Dire Mother

Meredith Quill was a beautiful woman with a smile made of pure light and love that could blind anyone. She grew up in a small Missouri town and worked as a waitress until she met the man she'd later marry. Meredith and Ego would often take long drives to the woods, then they'd walk and talk and love each other. They even had a son together, little Peter growing up strong and healthy.

On Peter's eighth birthday, the family piled into their old station wagon and trundled out to the woods behind the Waffle House. They trek through them without a problem, Peter running ahead while Ego and Meredith kept up a slow pace. When Peter was out of sight, a strong hand shoved Meredith to her knees.

Meredith, unaware that the hand belonged to her husband (unaware or in denial, it was never found out), cried as she felt the barrel of a revolver pressed against the back of her skull. She offered the attacker money, but the man only responded by pulling the trigger. She dropped with a scream, a searing pain rippling through her torso as the bullet tore through her shoulder. She offered him the keys to the Waffle House cash register. He responded by shooting her in the stomach.

A boot flipped her onto her back so she could see her husband standing over her with the revolver clasped in his hand. She was forced to watch as he reloaded, dropping two bullets into the cylinder and shooting her once in the heart. She never learned why he'd done this and no one ever found her, but there was an article in the paper a few days later showing hers and Peter's smiling faces. The headline read missing in big, bold letters.

The Basement

Clint isn't going to lie, he loves his job. He can't cook and he's not particularly good at cleaning up messes, but kids love him and their parents love looking at him. Bucky Barnes is only different from those other parents in one way: he's never tried to touch Clint. Well, he does touch him—the Barnes are a tactile bunch—but he's never tried to touch him touch him. His dick has remained in his pants is the point Clint's trying to get across here. That's why he's still with this ragtag family, wandering around a glass house in the middle of the woods.

"Are you sure Dad won't get mad at us for being up here," Steve asks. He's pouting because he had to carry his scooter upstairs. Clint had given him plenty of warning that he'd be the one carrying the damn thing around if he brought it with them.

"If he says anything, we'll blame your sister." The sullen pout melts into a grin that makes Clint happier than it should. He's supposed to distance himself from these kids in case he's fired or quits, but he can't help it. He loves Steve and Darcy.

"That's a good idea."

"Mm, I recommend it highly." Steve's laughter is like bells, bouncing off the glass walls as they go down a short hall. Darcy had disappeared into a bedroom five minutes ago, so Clint's not too worried about her finding out their backup plan is to blame her.

"Oh, cool! Look at all the toys!" Steve darts into a bedroom on the left and Clint follows, taking in the large bed with the firetruck-red bedspread, glass shelves that are covered with toys and comic books, and an attached bathroom. It's a bedroom designed with children in mind, which is odd when you remember Obediah Stane didn't have any children. "I call dibs on this room."

"You can have it, Stevie. I'll take one with a jacuzzi tub." He'd lounge in that tub for hours, eating strawberries and reading trashy romance books. Clint sighs at the thought, letting his gaze wander about the room. His eyes catch on a pair of glasses on a shelf over Steve's head, seemingly made of clear plastic with a single light on the outside of the lenses. "Oh, rad."

"What?" He slides the glasses on, doing a little pose when Steve looks up at him. "Hey, those are mine."

"How do you figure?"

"They were in my room." Steve stands up and looks about ready to start throwing a tantrum, so Clint hands them to him to cut it off. The fewer screaming fits, the better his eardrums like him. He'd love to not have to buy a new set of hearing aids, thanks very much. "Oh, cool! It makes the words on the wall light up!" Clint pouts this time, but he gives Steve's pale hair a fond ruffle.

"There better be a pair of those in my room or I'm stealing them back."

"Fight you for them."

"Thanks, but I'd rather stay out of jail or the grave your father would dig for me out back. They'd never find my body out in these woods." Steve frowns, seeming to think this over for a long while. When he looks up at Clint again, his blue eyes spark with mischief.

"I'd put flowers on your grave every Sunday." Clint gives the kid a playful shove, smiling all the while. Steve laughs again, then he's unfolding the scooter and taking off down the hall. Clint does his best to keep up, but Steve is fast for how small he is, zipping into different rooms and down the halls until Clint can't even hear the rubber wheels on glass tiles anymore.

"Oh, Bucky's gonna take off his arm just to beat me over the head with it." Clint's just about to check downstairs when a grinding sound makes him pause, the metal panels outside the house shifting and sliding until the view of the yard is entirely blocked out. "That can't be good." Clint rounds another corner in time to spot Bucky up ahead, his brow furrowed in an impressive scowl that even Darcy wilts under.

"He's with Clint," Darcy's saying, yanking her arm out of Bucky's hold. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize who they're talking about since the only missing person is Steve.

"He was with me, but he ran off."

"You're supposed to watch him," Bucky snaps, angrier than Clint's ever seen him. "That's what I pay you for!" Bucky storms away with an expression like a thunderstorm, easily finding the stairs that'll take them back to the first floor. "I'll find Stevie, but I want you two out of here." Clint tries to protest but Bucky throws up a hand to cut him off. "I don't want Darcy by herself and I know you can knock just about anyone on their ass, Clint."

Which, yeah, that's about accurate.

"But—" Bucky spins to face Darcy once they're back to the first floor, some of that thunder softening into something more familiar. Bucky never gets truly pissed off at his kids, nothing worse than a few scoldings or the time-out stool if they've been particularly bad (Clint himself has had to sit on the time-out stool after teaching Steve the word motherfucker).

"No buts. I want you guys to wait in the car, I'll be out as soon as I find Steve."

"Why are you freaking out?"

"Darcy, just this once, don't argue with me." It's not until they nearly run into a wall that they realize the door has disappeared. "What the hell?"

"Did we take a wrong turn?"

"No, there's that same suit of armor from before," Clint says, pointing. He bets he'd look like a total badass in that armor, but he's not chancing bringing down the value of it. If that thing sells for even half the price Clint's imagining, the Barnes family would be set for at least two generations.

"Move away from the glass, I'm gonna break it," Bucky orders. Clint drags Darcy away from the wall as Bucky picks up an antique desk chair and hurls it against the window. The wood cracks with a sound like breaking bone, splinters spilling across the floor in a torrent. The glass, meanwhile, doesn't even have a scratch.

"Is your whole family full of drama queens," asks Jumpsuit. Except he's not wearing a jumpsuit anymore, he's wearing a pair of jeans and an AC/DC tee that's actually old and not just bought to look like it. He's planted his ass in a chair out of the way, rubbing his temple with an orange prescription bottle. "You're wasting your time, Bucky. It's all sealed up."

"What do you mean it's sealed shut?"

"What part of that code are you having trouble cracking? I looked for another way out, but I couldn't find one down here."

"Then we'll look again after we've found Steve."

"That's sweet, but I think I'll wait right here." Tony's eyes slide shut and Clint briefly considers kicking him in the crotch. "Kick me and I'll frame you for cyber crimes, blondie." Clint scowls and shares a curious glance with Bucky, the other man mouthing psychic at him. Fucking fantastic.

"Look, I don't know what the hell's going on and I don't know who the hell you are, but my son is missing." Bucky's voice is a little tremulous when he speaks again, anxiety and a bone-deep fear making his hard edges go blurry. "Until my questions are answered and my boy is found, you're not leaving my sight. Now get up." Tony looks up at Bucky for a long while, dark eyes moving from Bucky's shaggy hair to his biker boots and then back to the grim, desperate light in his eyes.

"Fine, but I want it on record that I'm not happy about this."

"Noted, Stark." They're heading farther in the house when Clint realizes there's someone other than Steve missing. The lawyer, creepy as he is, is nowhere to be found.

"Hey, did the lawyer split," he asks.


Steve moves slowly through the basement, head on a swivel as voices hiss and whisper at him. He's ninety percent certain that Darcy and Clint are down here messing with him, but there's still that ten percent that says he's about to get eaten by the boogeyman.

"Stevie," a voice calls, feminine and soft. He thinks it might be coming from up ahead, but it's hard to tell as it bounces crazily off the glass. "Stevie, come play with me!" Steve speeds up, convinced now that his sister is messing with him. He figures if he gets his scooter to go faster, then he can run over her toes with it and then tell his dad that he just lost control.

"Darcy, come on," he yells petulantly. "Stop hiding or I'm gonna tell dad!" He comes to a stop, gazing around for any sign of his sister. With all this glass it should be easy to spot her, but Darcy's always been the best at hide and seek.

"Don't turn around, Steve," a new voice whispers. His heart stutters in his chest and his fingers tighten around the handlebars because he knows that voice. That voice used to read his bedtime stories and silly jokes, that voice taught him how to tie his shoes. He turns, expecting to find his mommy, but he finds something far more horrible than his imagination could conjure instead.

There's a woman behind him in a rotting prom dress, her hair dyed purple-red and hanging limply around a face crawling with maggots. Her hands are bound behind her back and there's a man's tie around her broken neck and Steve has an almost overwhelming urge to puke. Fight or flight is a wonderful thing, though, because he takes off as she starts to convulse.

"Daddy," he screams. "Daddy, help!" He goes too fast around the next turn and the scooter slides out from under him. Steve lands hard, driving the breath out of him and leaving him floundering on his butt until he can breathe again. "Da-daddy," he gasps, forcing himself to sit up.

Steve looks behind him, but the monster has vanished or just wasn't in the mood to slow-cook a little boy. Either way, Steve is thankful. He lets out a hard-won breath, grabbing the funny glasses and sliding them on again. The strange writing along the floor glows bright red, but what catches Steve's attention is the torso wrapped in cellophane trying to crawl toward him, a head wrapped up in the same stuff screaming between Steve's splayed ankles.

Steve doesn't even bother with his scooter this time, scrambling to his feet and sprinting away from the ghost. The halls twist and turn and double-back on each other, but he doesn't slow down. When finally he feels safe, he slows enough to look over his shoulder, and that's when he slams into a wall of glass. He's on the floor before he realizes what happened, his cheek throbbing and his recorder lying a few feet away where it must have fallen out of his pocket.

"You need to put on your glasses, baby," that voice says again, the voice that means comfort and warm milk and sunshine. "Put on your glasses and go find Daddy." Steve stands up slowly, reaching for the glasses but hesitating to actually put them on again. He doesn't want to see the dead things that live down in the basement. Gathering all his courage, Steve slides the glasses on, and with his heart beating like a hummingbird's, he turns around to find the owner of that voice. The woman at the end of the hall doesn't look much like Steve's mommy anymore, not in a hospital gown with her fingers wrapped around an IV pole for balance. Her vibrant red hair has been singed in places and the left side of her cheek looks a bit like hamburger meat, pink and raw and mangled by flames.

He wants to run forward and wrap her up in a hug, but then another thought strikes him like a pebble to the forehead. What if this isn't really his mommy? What if this is just some mean trick? What if the ghost shuffling toward him wants to turn him into dinner?

Steve turns and runs like hell around the corner and right into the solid chest of a person. He hits the ground again, his head aching as he stares up at the person. It's a man, tall and broad and horrifying. There's no humanity left in his dark eyes, but why should there be? The deep gash along his throat would be enough to kill even Nightwing. A small voice in his head is telling him it's dangerous to fall asleep with a head injury, but Steve passes out all the same.

Around the corner, Natasha howls her rage.


Tony is doing his best to keep up with the Barnes family, but they don't exactly make it easy. They don't take into account that Tony's short or that he's totally fucking terrified to be locked in Obie's house of freaks. They're too busy calling out the name of the missing kid, varying from panicked (Bucky), angry (Darcy), and guilty (Clint).

"Hey, Glass Family Robinson, you're wasting your breath! This whole house is made up of Ectobar Glass. It's shatterproof and soundproof, so your kid might have a hard time hearing you." Clint frowns as they all come to a stop in the hall, running his fingertips over the spells etched into the glass.

"What are these," he asks.

"They're containment spells. Ectoplasmic entities can't cross them. The supernatural has laws to obey just like we do. In the case of ghosts, it's spells; written, spoken, it doesn't matter. They have to obey what the spells tell them." Tony shrugs because this is all old news to him. He remembers being a kid and watching Obie sketch these same designs in a leather-bound notebook, how Obie had given him that dead man's grin and ruffled his hair. Tony wishes he could go back in time and shove Obie's pencil through his neck. No Obie means that Tony might have had a stable life.

"So, what are these spells supposed to do," Darcy asks. Her dark hair has been swept up in a ponytail, but a few curly strands have fallen out and brush her shoulders.

"Right now, they're the only things keeping us alive." She sucks in a breath and steps closer to her dad, fingers grasping at Bucky's sleeve. Tony's gaze flicks down to follow the motion, the black sleeve revealing more of the prosthetic arm with its red and black paint job. Tony thinks it might be a rose or maybe that faint curve with the thick line of black following it is part of a helmet. "Is that a fucking Jason Todd painting?"

"What," Bucky asks, then follows Tony's gaze. He pulls the shirt sleeve up to reveal more of his arm and, yep, that's definitely the helmet Jason Todd wore in the Outlaws comics. There's also a dark blue bat signal, two little Pikachus, a rose with vibrant pink petals, and a dark purple bow and arrow. "My daughter's an artist and my family is made up of nerds."

"That's awesome—"

"Can we get moving now or do you also want to see the wolf tat on my ass?" Tony opens his mouth with a plan to be sarcastic, maybe even a little scathing, but then he processes Bucky's words and he grins wickedly. Bucky Barnes is a wonderful specimen and Tony's all for seeing everything he's got to offer. No touching, of course, having a seizure is a bit of a mood-killer.

"Is that an invitation?" Bucky flushes a bright pink that nearly matches the rose painted on his arm, twisting his thin lips into a scowl.

"Help us find my brother and you can ogle my dad all you want," Darcy says. Bucky squawks and looks down at her in betrayal, but Darcy only raises a brow. "What? It'll motivate that weirdo and you need to get laid." Darcy makes it all of two steps before she stops and spins on her heel to face Tony again. "Wait, why would Obie need containment spells in his house?"

"Because there are ghosts in the basement." Darcy's face makes a series of complicated expressions before she gestures vaguely at the floor.

"In this basement?"

"It's more likely than you think. I'll prove it." He pulls out his spectral viewers, ignoring Clint when he says the kid is the proud owner of another pair, and then makes an indignant noise when he steals them right out of Tony's hand.

"What are these things, anyway," Clint asks as they start to walk again. It's hard to focus on anything with Darcy and Bucky shouting, but Tony does his best.

"They're called spectral viewers. It's not exactly an original name but nobody could ever accuse Obie of being original." The hulking mass of malice and daddy issues was basically a walking stereotype, the type of villain that fourth-grade kids think is hiding under their beds waiting to drag them to hell if they get up in the middle of the night.

"I don't see any ghosts."

"That's because they're locked downstairs, Einstein."

"There's more of that crazy spell shit on the floor." Tony frowns and steals the glasses back, slipping them on and kneeling to run his fingers over the newly-revealed spellwork. It's intricate shit, signs that Tony's never seen before all looped together and interconnecting like a beehive. "What are they? Containment spells?"

"I think they're barrier spells. Why would he need more protection?" Tony glances up when Bucky's feet come into view, brown eyes traveling up from worn boots to the stressed way Bucky's twisting his hands together and then to the man's face; finely carved like an Italian Renaissance sculpture.

"Do me a favor and spare me the haunted house bullshit," Bucky says, falling naturally into the Voice™ that frustrated parents everywhere seem to have memorized. Tony is very familiar with that tone, his own father had used it often enough, and hearing it now has him standing automatically. "After we find Stevie and get out of this place, you can ramble all you want about how Casper is hosting a cocktail party in the attic."

"Basement."

"Whatever!" Bucky takes off again and the others fall into line behind him, Tony okay with taking the hall that leads toward the library. It's only when Bucky turns unexpectedly to the left, facing the basement stairs, that Tony slams his open palm against the glass wall. The sound is little more than a thud, like a pen falling on soft carpet, but Bucky's muscles lock into place.

"I tell you that there are ghosts down in the basement and that's where you decide to go next? I've got an idea, let's not be those white people, Buck! Let's be smart and—"

"I will break you like a toothpick if you don't shut up about ghosts." Tony's mouth snaps shut with an audible click of teeth, Bucky's glare doing all sorts of things to Tony and only one of them is a fear response. It probably says something about Tony's mental health that being threatened turns him on. Bucky softens at whatever he sees on Tony's face, looking like a worn-down father rather than a soldier. "Look, I'll pay you whatever Obie owes you, but you've gotta help me find my son."

Tony doesn't say or do anything for a long moment, the silence stretching out to uncomfortable lengths until he finally thumps his head against the wall. He doesn't care that he leaves a slick sheen of sweat there or that his breath fogs up the glass because Obie's no longer here to hit him with that damn cane. Obie's gone. That, more than anything, gives him some courage.

"Fine," he huffs. Tony rounds the wall and stomps his way down the stairs, shouldering roughly past Bucky. He's sure that the other man really could break him in half, but Tony's past the point of caring.

The group comes to the bottom of the stairs, then moves into the glass-lined passage with Tony in the lead. His head is already starting to throb and there's a tell-tale tingle along his tongue that bodes nothing good. Tingly tongue is usually a warning before the psychic-induced epilepsy makes an appearance. He really doesn't want to have a seizure down here.

"You going to be okay," Bucky asks, stepping up beside him. There's worry in his eyes and it's for more than just Steve. It's something like a shock to know that someone's worried about Tony, like an iced coffee on a brand new laptop.

"Yeah," Tony nods. "Just keep an eye on me, okay?"

"You got it, Tony." Tony nods once and then he's stalking away down another corridor. The four search the empty basement hallways, finding nothing but more glass and shadows. Tony only stops again when they come to an intersection that he doesn't immediately recognize, the throbbing in his temples picking up the pace. "Hang on, Tony."

"Hmm?"

"This place is way too big. We're gonna have to split up. Darcy and I will go to the right, Tony and Clint will go straight ahead, and we'll all meet up right here in five minutes."

"Have you never watched a horror movie, Bucky? You don't just wander around through haunted houses because that's how white people die. What's more, this basement practically screams enemies of the heir beware. If we turn the corner and find Tom Riddle chilling with the Torn Prince, then I won't be surprised."

"Just five minutes." Tony takes a deep breath, vision swimming with tears that he stubbornly blinks away. He won't cry in front of total strangers, he refuses. Instead, he squares his shoulders and straightens to his full height (not very impressive around these giants, but, dammit, he's trying).

"Fine, but don't touch anything."

The Torn Prince

Sam Wilson was born in 1940, and was discovered to be a gifted baseball player in high school, despite his attitude problems and superiority complex. As a destined, all-star player, he was offered first-class scholarships from various colleges, all of them offering him the best opportunity to leave his small town life.

However, fate threw a curve ball when Sam was 17, Johnny, a greaser that challenged him to a drag race, but unbeknownst to Sam, had cut a brake line in his car prior to the event. This, of course, caused Sam to lose control of the car; resulting in an accident which tore a large amount of flesh off of his chest, as well as the right side of his face. This incident quickly ended Sam's life. Sam's body was buried in a plot of earth overlooking the local baseball diamond where he played at.

As a ghost, he still carried his wooden baseball bat and would attack nearly anyone with it. If he couldn't be alive and happy, why should anyone else be?