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Historic Features
“Electrical surges with no source, and music coming from the air, and that damn baseball game no one was watching, and I swear I sometimes hear voices right on the edge of hearing when I should be alone,” said Tony. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Sounds like-” said Steve, then hesitated. Tony gave him a pointed look. “Sounds like a haunting,” he finished, reluctantly.
“Oh no,” said Clint, in tones of mock-horror. “Ghosts!”
Bucky laughed and kissed him. “Man, I hope they’re friendly.”
Clint and Bucky are haunting the new apartment that Tony bought in Brooklyn to try and impress Steve.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Marvel
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, homophobic violence, Canon-Typical Violence, This is mostly schmoop though
Words: 19254. Chapters: 1/1
Notes:
Technically this is major character death, but they're dead before the story begins, and it doesn't stop them from having a damn good time, so I decided not to warn. Everyone still exists in the same state at the end of the fic as they did at the start.
“Sounds like-” said Steve, then hesitated. Tony gave him a pointed look. “Sounds like a haunting,” he finished, reluctantly.
“Oh no,” said Clint, in tones of mock-horror. “Ghosts!”
Bucky laughed and kissed him. “Man, I hope they’re friendly.”
Clint and Bucky are haunting the new apartment that Tony bought in Brooklyn to try and impress Steve.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Marvel
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, homophobic violence, Canon-Typical Violence, This is mostly schmoop though
Words: 19254. Chapters: 1/1
Notes:
Technically this is major character death, but they're dead before the story begins, and it doesn't stop them from having a damn good time, so I decided not to warn. Everyone still exists in the same state at the end of the fic as they did at the start.
64 pages, ebook
Published June 27, 2018
1 person want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 3, 2021
A new-to-me favorite! An utterly wonderful take on ghosts, with the full range of feels and humor, and even a thriller scene. It was unusual to have Clint being from the past while Steve is contemporary, but I was fully emotionally immersed very quickly. — my AO3 2020 bookmark annotation
In more depth...
A favorite AU novella, which won me over quickly to its unusual ghost-couple premise (I was going to say "Beetlejuice-or-Topper-esque", but it takes its own direction): Clint was born back in Bucky's generation (and they were murdered for their unsuccessfully-hidden relationship), and Steve is a regular cop from the modern day who just happens to have caught the eye of the Tony Stark, who's now doing his unaccustomed best to seriously woo him, without being too pushy or over-the-top.
Although I couldn't use my "no powers" shelf because that's for "no SF/F", and here we have fully-developed JARVIS as well as ghosts, there's no super-soldier serum or armored supersuit, etc. — apparently no superheroes & -villains at all; even Stane isn't mentioned. (ETA, hmm, good thing: they might have killed Tony by accident if he'd been dependent on the arc reactor.)
Now, I left a long, *fairly* coherent 🙃 comment to the author on AO3 when I finished my first reading of it, so let's see whether I have to hide too many spoilers...
Hmm, nope, I think that's okay as is, if gushy. The author outright tagged the fic as "mainly shmoop" and noted that nobody's state of existence is changed by the fic events, so I feel no hesitation mentioning a "near-tragedy". This isn't a whodunit or something, either — we readers (if not Tony) know what's going on from the beginning, though the backstory isn't info-dumped.
Oh, and I should say, it's well-proofread. I only noticed one error: "hoards" where it s/h/b "hordes".
I reread this story among revisiting several favorite fanfics (I've been working through some very overdue housekeeping in my AO3 Inbox, and I just can't resist all of them when they're recalled to mind), and I was frustrated that little more than the rarepair Winglets series (a Cabin Pressure crossover, ICYDK) is here on Goodreads by flawedamythyst. I like this particular just-my-jam novella enough to bother adding it (and, BTW, there are 2 little sequels/codas, a 300+-word drabble and a 1350-word ficlet; visit the series page for details), but there's lots more flawedamythyst Winterhawk+ that you shouldn't miss on AO3, such as There's No 'I' in Denial (featuring a truth-spelled Clint) and Pack Bonding (a multi-species shapeshifters AU), for just a sample of the range of concepts brilliantly, touchingly, sometimes hilariously (even at the same time), employed.
In more depth...
A favorite AU novella, which won me over quickly to its unusual ghost-couple premise (I was going to say "Beetlejuice-or-Topper-esque", but it takes its own direction): Clint was born back in Bucky's generation (and they were murdered for their unsuccessfully-hidden relationship), and Steve is a regular cop from the modern day who just happens to have caught the eye of the Tony Stark, who's now doing his unaccustomed best to seriously woo him, without being too pushy or over-the-top.
Although I couldn't use my "no powers" shelf because that's for "no SF/F", and here we have fully-developed JARVIS as well as ghosts, there's no super-soldier serum or armored supersuit, etc. — apparently no superheroes & -villains at all; even Stane isn't mentioned. (ETA, hmm, good thing: they might have killed Tony by accident if he'd been dependent on the arc reactor.)
Now, I left a long, *fairly* coherent 🙃 comment to the author on AO3 when I finished my first reading of it, so let's see whether I have to hide too many spoilers...
This is so, so good, pretty much everything I could want in a fic! The emotion, the warmth in both the devoted old relationship and the developing new one, the bated-breath inadvertent near-tragedy while trying to give coexisting a chance (especially given the fellow feeling for another couple), the humor (without which both real life and stories/characters lose an important part of their appeal), logically consistent rules for the haunting (including measurable electromagnetic effects, and the wonderful recreating-memories ability) — and not too much clinging blindly to denial ("It's gotta be 'swamp gas', because only the material world is real") from either STEM-minded Tony or evidentiary-minded cop!Steve, and finally a quirky happy ending for them all (including JARVIS).
Oh, and their not needing any kind of belated justice/revenge, just being together. If their killers were still active, I'd feel different, and doubtless Steve wouldn't be willing to let it it drop, either, but after so many years, this was so much better than tainting their souls with simmering hatred. Rage-energy only when it matters to actually protect!
Yeah, I definitely am an enthusiastic sucker for spiritual-paranormal soulmates tales; I raved about your Clint-remembering-their-past-lives-together fic, The Smell of Coffee, too, as you might recall.
I realize Winterhawk is your OTP for Marvel, and you're brilliant at it, but it would be interesting to see someone into Stucky try a remix, too. (I was initially worried it would be weird having Clint in the past generation and Steve contemporary, but it happily didn't take me long at all to be completely immersed in the dynamics/premise here.)
Anyway, have some emojikudo squeeing to go with this spate of words:
👍👏👌👏🏆👏💐👏
🤗😢😍😄😱😌🤗😏😊
💖💕💕💞💞💗
Hmm, nope, I think that's okay as is, if gushy. The author outright tagged the fic as "mainly shmoop" and noted that nobody's state of existence is changed by the fic events, so I feel no hesitation mentioning a "near-tragedy". This isn't a whodunit or something, either — we readers (if not Tony) know what's going on from the beginning, though the backstory isn't info-dumped.
Oh, and I should say, it's well-proofread. I only noticed one error: "hoards" where it s/h/b "hordes".
I reread this story among revisiting several favorite fanfics (I've been working through some very overdue housekeeping in my AO3 Inbox, and I just can't resist all of them when they're recalled to mind), and I was frustrated that little more than the rarepair Winglets series (a Cabin Pressure crossover, ICYDK) is here on Goodreads by flawedamythyst. I like this particular just-my-jam novella enough to bother adding it (and, BTW, there are 2 little sequels/codas, a 300+-word drabble and a 1350-word ficlet; visit the series page for details), but there's lots more flawedamythyst Winterhawk+ that you shouldn't miss on AO3, such as There's No 'I' in Denial (featuring a truth-spelled Clint) and Pack Bonding (a multi-species shapeshifters AU), for just a sample of the range of concepts brilliantly, touchingly, sometimes hilariously (even at the same time), employed.
Displaying 1 of 1 review