B(l)ending Time: (Un)Chosen Paths
Fics in which events follow a different path - Mostly (but not always) due to characters' choices
(Generally moderate to major Canon divergence - Occasionally slightly ooc)
(Closed, Moderated)
Random bookmarks
-
- Words:
- 34,978
- Works:
- 2
- Bookmarks:
- 247
Bookmarked by Scribbled_Seconds
25 Aug 2025
Bookmarker's Collections:
Bookmarker's Notes
After Eddie blows up his entire life, Chris says he wants to move in with Buck, and Eddie lets him. In fact, Eddie moves out, and Buck moves in. That's the best solution for everyone, right?
(Or: Eddie gives up everything in the divorce, the fic.)
-
Enough Rope by Amber_and_Ash
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
30 Jul 2017
Tags
Summary
Tony can't get himself back from Siberia, and it takes the night for him to be rescued. While waiting to see if he'll die of hypothermia, he realises something for the first time. It wasn't that he failed because he hadn't tried hard enough. He had failed because he had tried too hard. His so-called team-mates had formed the habit of blaming Tony for everything because he had let them. He had shouldered the blame, let them attack him without consequence, and cleaned up after their mess, all so they could continue to feel self-righteous in peace. But it wasn't just him they were attacking, and saving the world didn't give them a free pass to be the very bullies that Steve claimed to fight against.
Tony woke up in hospital, still sustained by the relief of his realisation. Things sucked, but they would get better. He was Tony Stark, and no challenge was too much for him. It was odd how much easier it was to plot when he actually did intend ways to manipulate the ex-Avengers into falling in line. And since that was what they seemed convinced he was doing all along, they didn't deserve a warning that it would now be true.
Series
- Part 1 of Enough Rope
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 89,164
- Chapters:
- 24/24
- Collections:
- 27
- Comments:
- 1,916
- Kudos:
- 11,425
- Bookmarks:
- 3,601
- Hits:
- 321,062
Bookmarked by Scribbled_Seconds
20 Jan 2025
Bookmarker's Collections:
Bookmarker's Notes
T
<3
-
"It isn’t an insult to me, because it wasn’t written to me. It was written to his conscience. It creates a reality in which our actions were equivalent, he was just wiser than me." Reading the letter with that mindset, interpreting it as ‘please tell me I’m right, because I can’t afford to be wrong’ did help temper the smug self-righteousness.
-
Wanda had made Vision doubt his own selfhood. She had spent so much time assuring him that she regarded him as a real friend, only to go through him as if he were an inanimate object the first time he’d disagreed with her.
-
"The Howling Commandos were a bunch of trained, experienced, knowledgeable soldiers and civilian freedom fighters, dismissed as little more than sidekicks.”
“Steve always did say success was a result of the team. Perhaps we should have taken him more literally.”
“Could the team have been doing all the actual work and just let Steve think he was the one in charge?”
“I’ve seen teams successfully work around a problem commander before, and that’s with rules and conventions in place to try to prevent it. People simply looked to someone else for orders. A leader naïve enough - or lazy enough - wouldn’t realise those orders [existed]. It actually explains a lot about why Steve tended to act like his job ended the second he stepped off the battlefield.”
“So Steve is the military version of the ‘ideas guy’.”
People might [try to] cast Tony as the quintessential ideas guy; Ideas seemed like the glamourous and unique part of a new product. However, ideas were a dime a dozen. The difficult part was turning those ideas into practical, profitable, implementations.
-
Curing his physical condition didn’t change his personality. He was still the person who was willing to lie, cheat, and put others in danger. There’s plenty of ways to [accidentally] screw over your buddies.”
-
“And Maria Hill? Melinda May? General Talbot? President Ellis? 911? Was every member of the whole damn planet part of Ross' conspiracy against you, that you couldn’t drop a note to any of them?"
-
If she attempted to torture Stark to death because she thinks he killed her parents, then she is criminally insane and needs treatment. Delusions like that don't just get better.
-
When T’Challa had extracted James Barnes and Steven Rogers from Siberia, he’d expected that it would be a strictly short term matter. He’d protect them until the evidence against Zemo had been confirmed, and then they’d return to their normal operations.
T’Challa had been technically correct that Captain America would not simply allow his teammates to answer for his own crimes. He just hadn’t realised that ‘setting things right’ was not Captain America turning himself in, assuming the bulk of the blame and arguing his position. It was Captain America breaking the rest of his team out of jail and bringing them with him into hiding. T’Challa had missed the opportunity to set a time limit on how long he was willing to protect them for.
-
Retirement sucked. He’d gone from being one of the most important men on the planet to his wife’s unskilled assistant, and he’d hated that. He’d spent years fantasising about how wonderful it would be out in the open air, spending his entire day with his family. It had been the only thing that got him through the worst of the SHIELD bullshit, some days. Reality hadn’t come close to matching up. He’d liked his old job. He’d liked making a difference.
When Steve had called, Clint had been stuck in cycle; frustrated at the pettiness of his new life, then guilty about being frustrated, then angry about feeling guilty, then frustrated about feeling angry. Over and over again. In SHIELD, and even in the Avengers, he'd had outlets. On the farm there was nothing other than physical labour, and that was the source of half of his stress.
-
[They] had been acting as if Tony was simply the face of the resources division.
-
Wilson was upset that the Raft existed, Barton was just upset that they dared to treat him like he was the outsider.
Natashalie tripped over her own in-group/out-group disconnect.
-
"Natasha's trust issues give my trust issues inferiority complexes. When something threatens her self-concept, she panics. Unless you're telling me that full frontal SHIELD data exposure was a calm and measured response?"
-
Steve didn’t think anything about the Accords, he just feels they’re bad. He had a very strong sense of right and wrong, but it was instinctive rather than reasoned out. He never stopped to consider whether ‘doing the right thing’ was the same when you were a powerless sickly boy in the forties, a soldier during war-time, or a powerful civilian super-hero.
-
Was the guilt he’d felt at Pietro’s death completely natural? -
Static by RainingPens
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel
25 Aug 2018
Tags
Summary
"No don't- don't engage!" Tony yelled, frantically pulling harder on the Infinity Gauntlet. "We almost got this off!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew it was useless. He could see the despair and anger on Quill's face, and Tony's first thought was that he probably looked like that back on Siberia, before everything went to shit. Which was why Tony opted to shoot Quill instead.
-
Where To Draw The Line by AuroraKant
Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
05 Oct 2021
Tags
Summary
Batman had just punched one of his allies (as fragile as that allyship had been), knowing that the rest of the family was listening. Because that’s what they were: a family.
Dick called Jason his brother, and he knew Jason did the same.
OR: Bruce punched Jason - and Dick remembered his past.
Series
- Part 5 of Whumptober2021
-
Agency by SofiaDragon
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
12 Dec 2020
Tags
Summary
In the upcoming Loki series, it looks like he's a time cop going around fixing timelines.
In another timeline, Frigga ignores Odin's order that her son rot in the dungeon and gets Loki some professional help to deal with his issues while he is imprisoned instead of just some books and furniture. While on the Throne pretending to be Odin, Loki decides that fighting Thanos might not be hopless and that they should organize a proper fight against the tyrant just in time for the heroes of the most likely (and preferable) battle ground to have a Civil War.
This is how he sorts it all out, with a press conference and a lot of grandstanding.
Can be read as a sequel to "The Norn's Tools in Another's Hands" if you want it to be. Can also be read as Loki throwing Wanda under the bus instead of it actually being Wanda's fault if that's your jam. It's Loki, some things are going to be a little unclear.