I Got Interviewed By The Daily Fandom About My Fandom Experience!! It Was An Amazing Experience, And

I got interviewed by The Daily Fandom about my fandom experience!! It was an amazing experience, and I hope it might be able to help some others, in whatever way <3

We talked to Eirlyssa, a fanfiction writer and author, about their process, their love of FFs and fandom, and how they deal with backlash. #behindtheminds #eirlyssa #fanfic #fanfiction #winteriron https://thedailyfandom.com/behind-the-minds-of-fanfiction-writers-interview-with-eirlyssa/?feed_id=22329

Whumptober day 3 - Delirium

My third fill for @whumptober2019​, also available on Ao3.

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There were honestly a lot of reasons Tony didn’t like board meetings. To start with, they were either incredibly boring or, if they weren’t, they tended to be incredibly frustrating. Not to mention they brought back plenty of unpleasant memories having to do with either Howard or Stane, as well as unpleasant memories of the way previous members of the board had treated him when he was younger.

Right now, though, one of the reasons he disliked board meetings the most was the fact that it meant interacting with people, which meant catching their illnesses.

Which was why he was currently hiding away from the other Avengers and feeling increasingly terrible.

Being ill had always been a bit of an issue for him, especially since both of his parents had made it fairly obvious that they did not appreciate him being more of an inconvenience than he already was. Jarvis, in contrast, had always been more than considerate.

As a result, he tended to isolate himself from most people when feeling unwell. On the other hand, he had a tendency of being very clingy and affectionate with the ones he did trust.

Tony whimpered, trying to find a way to lie down that did not somehow hurt. Fever always made his skin more sensitive than usual, and even his expensive sheets felt like sandpaper at the moment. Wet, uncomfortable sandpaper that was either too hot or too cold. He just wanted it to be over already, to be able to think properly again and to be able to get up without getting so dizzy he had to lie down again immediately.

“I have sent DUM-E up with something for you to drink, Sir,” JARVIS informed him. “If you do not ingest some liquids within the next half an hour, I will be forced to call for assistance.”

Another whimper escaped him, and he could feel the way his thoughts were slipping. He found himself simultaneously wishing that someone would be there to help, to make him feel better, and wishing to be left utterly alone in his misery because he’d just be a burden to everyone else.

He sobbed softly, turning around yet again in hopes this position would be marginally more comfortable. It didn’t work, unfortunately.

Soft beeping from the doorway alerted him to DUM-E - no matter what else, he’d always know that sound, and he managed to bring up a trembling smile as the bot approached far more slowly than he usually would. In his claw, he was carefully holding a bottle of water with a straw in it, for easier drinking.

“I can’t,” he found himself sobbing - it was too much, too hot, too cold, too painful. He couldn’t bring himself to even hold up his arm to grab the bottle, and the thought alone of trying to drink made him nauseous.

DUM-E’s soft beeping became a little more insistent, and he tried to lift his hand to grab the bottle, only to miss. Later, he could only be grateful that DUM-E was still holding it, meaning he only spilled a little of it, but it was enough. The cold water hitting his face hurt, and suddenly he was back in Afghanistan, face wet and hurting all over and feeling trapped.

There were voices - one, at first, and then more of them, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. The words sounded foreign, unfamiliar, and he gritted his teeth in order not to whimper. “No,” he insisted, trying to sound so much stronger than he felt. “No.”

But there were hands on his arms, holding him down, and he cried out. He couldn’t… He couldn’t. He’d barely survived the first time, he couldn’t do this again, please.

Everything hurt, and he was stuck right back in one of his worst nightmares.

Cold hit him, and he whimpered with pain. It was good, because he was burning, but it hurt, and he had no idea what was going on and he wanted all of it to stop. And then, blissfully, slowly, he started sinking away, the fear and the pain and the heat and the cold slowly backing up until there was only peaceful darkness.

The last thing he heard was a soft “we’ll take care of you, Tony.”

Whumptober day 7 - Isolation

My seventh fill for @whumptober2019​, also available on Ao3.

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Taking another sip from his beer, Tony listened to the party raging inside. He knew no one would come looking for him, not unless they wanted something from him.

Despite the amount of people around, he felt utterly and completely alone.

He knew he'd been lucky - being born to the Stark family came with a lot of wealth and privilege, and he had been aware of that from a very young age on. He had opportunities that most others would only ever be able to dream of, even more so because he was white, male, and highly intelligent.

And yet...

There were days he hated it. There were days it was particularly bad and he wished he could have traded it all for one person who would love him. Just one.

His father was disgusted with him, his mother did not know how to handle him, and while he knew Jarvis cared about him, Tony also knew that his job had to come first. And he'd learned very early on that the people who would like to claim to be his 'friends' only did so until they'd gotten what they wanted from him. Whether it was money, or fame...

Tony knew he should feel lucky with everything he had - it was a lot, he was aware. And it felt stupid, almost childish, to want love. If his father heard him think it, Tony knew he wouldn't like Howard's reaction.

But he couldn't help it. Although he was old enough by now that he should have grown out of this kind of infantile dreaming, he'd still hoped that, perhaps, he could find someone at MIT who would care. Someone who would be there for him without him having to pay them for it somehow. Someone who would love him without him having to change himself so much he didn’t even recognize himself. Someone to be himself with, to feel comfortable with, to hug without there being expectations of more.

Bitterly, he took another sip.

Stupid dreams. He was sixteen now, and far too old for this. He wasn’t six anymore, was almost an adult, and the days of talking to his Captain America poster and wishing for a friend of his own should have been in the distant past. But no, here he was, staying away from the party just to look at the stars and feel sad for himself.

No one cared. So what? He’d dealt with it for sixteen years, he’d deal with it for the rest of his life. He should be happy with all the things he did have, all of the advantages life had given him, instead of mourning the one thing he couldn’t have.

His father had been right - he was pathetic.

Just as he raised his beer for another sip, considering perhaps going back inside and finding someone to at least help him feel a little less lonely tonight, there was a voice from behind him. “Hey, aren’t you a bit young to be drinking?”

Turning, he saw an African-American guy perhaps a few years older than he was.

Unbeknownst to him, the falling star above him faded away, its job done.

Day 4 of Buckytober: Trick or Treat

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The Halloween Party went off without a hitch. Each Avenger had a role and they all played it well. 

After the guests left, Tony walked up to the Trick or Treat booth Bucky had been running. The man was still seated, packing up a few odds and ends that were scattered across the table. 

"Trick or treat?" he asked after he noticed Tony approaching. 

"Surprise me," Tony replied, a small smile forming on his lips. 

"I don't like you anymore and I want a divorce," Bucky stated with an unreadable gaze. 

For the briefest of moments, Tony thought it in himself to be hurt by those words; but then he remembered he and Bucky were only friends, and definitely not married. 

"Just kiddin', that was a trick," Bucky grinned making his way around to the front of the booth, "How about a treat instead?"

Tony raised an eyebrow and replied, "Wasn't the point of this game to get a trick or a treat? Why do I get both?" he said with a smirk; but he still didn't appear uninterested in the treat Bucky was offering. Curiosity was in his nature, after all.

Bucky grinned again before leaning over and planting a kiss on the shorter man's cheek.

"I think I like the treat a lot better," Tony said quietly; face dusted with a light pink blush. 

"Good," Bucky stated. 

"How many lucky ducks got that treat tonight?"

"None, was savin' that one special for ya." 

Tony smiled at that and Bucky returned it. This was definitely Tony's favourite Halloween to date. 

Whumptober day 12 - "Don’t Move”

My twelfth fill for @whumptober2019, also available on Ao3.

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When awareness returned, Bucky's face was the first thing he saw.

"Hey doll." He was smiling, but Tony knew him well enough to know that something was wrong. "Good to have you back with us."

How had he gotten here?

Vaguely, Tony remembered an alien ship. It'd had weapons, hadn't it?

"Did we win?" he asked, trying to see past Bucky.

"Don't move, doll. Don't worry - we won." And while he was telling the truth, Tony knew there was more to it. He could see the strain on Bucky's face, and the way he was paler than usual.

"What happened?"

"You know there was an alien attack, right?" Tony managed a tiny nod, but it was enough. "They had some kind of advanced weaponry we couldn't get past at first, but you took it out. Unfortunately, they decided that made you the primary threat, so they... shot at you. Fortunately, with the weaponry disabled, we managed to finish things up."

As he was awake longer, Tony was starting to become more and more aware. And while he knew there was more that Bucky wasn't telling him, he was starting to think that might be for the better.

He wasn't sure he wanted to know why he couldn't feel most of his body, or why he had the faintest inkling that that might be for the better.

Just as he was trying to scour his mind for a lighthearted subject, Clint's face appeared beside Bucky's. "Good morning, sleeping beauty." His grin appeared only slightly more believable than Bucky's. Tony appreciated the attempt. "Lemme tell you, no amount of sleep will make that face any prettier."

"Can't improve perfection," he volleyed back, noticing the way his quick reply lightened both of their expressions ever-so-slightly.

It was hard to miss that something was wrong though. Despite not feeling pain, he didn't feel quite right. It was a disconcerting, uncomfortable cold that went bone-deep and that made him want to try and move, to get away from it somehow. But he trusted Bucky, trusted that not moving was probably the best idea at the moment.

"Everyone else okay?" he asked instead. Aside from tired, worried, and a little bruised, both Bucky and Clint seemed fine, but he hadn't seen the others.

"Just fine," Bucky assured him immediately. He didn't appear to be lying.

Beside him, Clint nodded. "Nat is working with Pepper on easing everyone's minds, and Steve got Sam and JARVIS to help deal with clean-up efforts. Thor is doing double duty wrangling Hulk and supplying whatever he knows about those aliens. They have collectively whined about how much work this all is and how they never realized how much you usually do, so feel free to gloat about that later."

Tony managed a grin. "Does that mean you're stuck doing SHIELD debrief?"

A small huff of laughter escaped him at seeing the hilariously horrified look on Clint's face. "Awww, debrief, no," he whined. Then, he smiled hopefully. "Maybe I can still switch with Thor!"

"Good luck on that," Bucky went along with the joke, though it was clear his heart wasn't in it. "I'll admit, having Thor debrief Fury could be funny, though I'm not sure I want to know what kind of backstory you'd come up with for the aliens."

"I'd make up something appropriately epic, of course," he tried to claim. Tony felt his own eyebrow raise critically at the same time he saw Bucky's skeptical look. "I would!"

"A race trying to take over the world because they want to steal our coffee isn't epic." It wasn't his best quip, but Tony thought he could be forgiven, considering it seemed rather more difficult to think clearly than it should be.

Fortunately, Clint seemed to agree, chuckling. "Chocolate, then?" he tried.

"I mean, if I were an alien race..." Bucky trailed off with a faint grin.

"Just because you are a chocolate addict, doesn't mean everyone is," Tony joked affectionately. Whenever Bucky was having a bad day, all he had to do was bring the soldier some chocolate to make him smile again.

The reminder of it made him smile, though it felt oddly exhausting. Everything did, if he was being honest. Which, to be fair, didn't really surprise him.

Not when he'd just recalled the size of the approaching spears that had been the last thing he'd seen.

Whumptober day 2 - Explosion

My second fill for @whumptober2019​, also available on Ao3.

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Twelve seconds.

It only took him one second to think it all through. More time, and he probably would have been able to defuse the bomb. One minute would have been enough.

But he didn't have one minute, and it looked like it'd wipe out half of Brooklyn, if not all of it, when it went off.

They'd evacuated the immediate area, but that wouldn't be enough. Not even close.

Three more seconds and he'd stabilized the power source enough that he could move it without it instantly exploding in his arms.

Two more seconds to exit the building safely, without destabilizing the foundation.

That left him with six seconds to get as far away from civilization as possible.

"Iron Man, what's going on?" he heard Steve demanding over the comms as he bolted off as quickly as the armor could go, out over the Atlantic where hopefully no one would get hurt.

Except him.

"Emergency detour," he informed them. "Mind the 'bang'."

"What -" he could hear Bucky starting to ask, but there simply wasn't enough time.

With one second left, he threw it as far away as possible, arms coming up in front of his face and chest to protect himself as much as possible. He knew it wouldn't be enough.

It went off with a flash that just about blinded him. After that, there was nothing.

(He didn't feel himself hitting the water, where he started to sink quickly. He didn't feel the water entering the armor through the damage caused by the bomb. He didn’t feel the way Thor grabbed him, dragging him up and out of the water and back to the Coney Island beach, where the other Avengers were waiting for them.)

(He didn’t feel the way they carefully took off the pieces of the armor, keeping him as stable as possible, to get him ready for the ambulance. He didn’t hear Bucky begging him to hold on, to please live. He didn’t notice the way Steve had to hold Bucky back when Tony was taken away, assuring him they’d join him in the hospital as soon as they could.)

(He didn’t see the tears on Bucky’s face as the doctors told the Avengers about his injuries. He didn’t feel the way Natasha stroked his hair as he lay in the hospital bed or the way Bucky held his hand ever-so-gently. He didn’t hear the way Clint rambled at him to have something to fill the silence or the way Steve told him he’d done well even though no one was happy with this result either. He didn’t smell the food Bruce had made in hopes of waking him up. He didn’t taste the potion Thor had brought in hopes of saving his life.)

The first thing he felt was pain. It was like there was no part of his body that hadn’t been injured. Then, his brain desperate for something else, anything else, he could feel the way a hand was holding his.

When he opened his eyes, infinitely grateful that the lights were down, the first thing he saw was Bucky, head resting beside his leg as he slept restlessly.

As much as he was hurting, he put in all the effort he could in order to squeeze his hand around Bucky’s. He was not surprised when his boyfriend shot up immediately, eyes red and hair a mess. “Tony…” His voice was rough, either from sleep or from worry, but the relief was obvious.

Aware of the fact that he would not be able to talk, not with how much his throat was hurting, Tony shot him a crooked smile.

It was enough.