My Star Spangled Invisi-Gal [MCU/Dispatch] (Complete)

[EllaHulk]

Lovely story! Will the status be updated to "Complete" or will there be more epilogue chapters?

 

[cliffc999]

Lovely story! Will the status be updated to "Complete" or will there be more epilogue chapters?

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I knew I forgot to do something.

 

[Lokorda]

Thanks for the Chapter(s), and the whole story!

This was a wonderful AU of Dispatch. I love your writing in general but this really was a good showcase of your character work and focus on relationships.

The romance and character-work was focused on impactful moments and felt a little sparse looking back on things, but that is the nature of having to focus on word economy in a story and make sure you actually finish writing.

I especially love how respectful you are to Steve as a person in this story. I personally had a time where I was much less charitable to him because of the information environment I was a part of and extracting myself from that and being reminded that Steve Roger is the Good Guy of his setting has been something I need to remind myself of on occasion.

In the interest of not mega posting, I have much fewer words to say about everyone else but they were all fantastic to read about regardless.

All that said, thank you for writing this. I've had a fantastic last week or two because of your story.

See you in whatever comes next!

 

[cliffc999]

I especially love how respectful you are to Steve as a person in this story.

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To pat myself on the back, what I'm particularly proud of is how respectful I was to Tony in this story... because that was not easy for me. Being respectful to Steve is hardly a challenge, he's my favorite MCU character. Tony Stark is perhaps my least favorite MCU character, at least of the ones I've actually watched, so keeping his portrayal positive without excessively whitewashing his canon character flaws was a particularly tricky needle for me to thread.

 

[ChickenZero]

"You don't have to help me find him." Steve offered after a long moment. "I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to do. I'm just asking… please don't hurt him."

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Possible edited take for this scene:

Take 1:
"You don't have to help me find him." Steve offered after a long moment. "I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to do. I'm just asking… please don't hurt him. He's a masochist and kinda likes it rough so you'll just encourage him"

Take 2:
"You don't have to help me find him." Steve offered after a long moment. "I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to do. I'm just asking… please don't kill him."

"Don't you mean don't hurt him?"

" Nah, he's a big boy he can take his lumps."

Take 3:
"You don't have to help me find him." Steve offered after a long moment. "I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to do. I'm just asking… please don't hurt him... too much. Maybe just beat him up untill he's half dead."

"What?"

"Did you know that when we were 15 her got us a double date with a hot older chick and her sister? By the end of the date he went home with both of them."

"Ah. That makes sense."

 

[cliffc999]

I do note with interest that "what I have said is not a lie" is very different from "what I have said is the truth", which makes me wonder what the Ancient one is actually planning.

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Ah, missed this question.

Remember that while her divinations beyond that are very imprecise, the Ancient One can scry the timeline in detail up until her death in 2016 - and Age of Ultron is in 2015.

And in this timeline, if Cap hadn't returned then Ultron would have succeeded in destroying all life on Earth, because the Avengers function much less effciently without him and it was a damned close call as is.

So when Cap got wormholed, the Ancient One wondered '... why the fuck did the future suddenly just shift to total human extinction in 2015?'. And of course she started looking with the Time Gem, and of course soon enough found out. And between the whole part where the ending of life on Earth is bad and the fact that the creation of Ultron involved the misuse of an Infinity Stone - something that's actually within Kamar-Taj's purview to go interfere with - she figured to hard derail all that shit.

However, for obvious reasons the Ancient One can't mention Ultron, for the exact same reason that in canon Dr. Strange did not mention that the 'one chance' in Endgame involved Tony's having to sacrifice himself. And that reason is, if she told him what needed to happen... it wouldn't happen.

So the Ancient One very carefully timed Cap's return - because she could have gone and fetched him earlier if she wanted - for two things. First off, the timing was such to make sure that Courtney returned with him, both because the Ancient One is human enough to not want to inflict further tragedy on the man if she doesn't have to and because Courtney's joining the Avengers is one of the two things that the Ancient One is derailing the creation of Ultron with. And the other thing is, of course, Tony and Steve actually deepening their friendship... which is the other why Steve's return is timed for right after Iron Man 3 ends, when Tony Stark is in his most psychologically vulnerable state and at a cusp point where a positive influence can send him in a better direction. (It is not a coincidence that Steve and Courtney are warped directly into Stark Tower at a time when Tony is there convalescing and on pain meds - Tony's emotional defenses are as far down at that moment as they're going to be at any point in the next several years.)

And as can be seen, it works. Things butterfly enough that not only does Tony actually talk to his friends about things and Steve doesn't try to hide Bucky's involvement in the Starks' deaths from Tony (that's Courtney's influence right there), but in the process Tony comes to the realization about just how fucking dangerous the Mind Gem really is... so he's not going to plug it into his AI research.

This is why the Ancient One tells the entirely perfect truth about how Cap's return is necessary to keep Thanos from fucking shit up later - which it actually is, so she's not even lying there - but doesn't say a word about averting the creation of Ultron. She doesn't need to.

As Malevola said, mages like the Ancient One do love their secrets and agendas. Even when they're relatively benevolent ones.

And before you ask 'why isn't this in the fic?', it's because I didn't consciously realize the full scope of what the Ancient One was doing until after you asked the question. I mean, I did plan some of the bits in advance (the pain meds, and derailing Civil War), but even I didn't realize how it all fit together until after the question prompted me. Because yet again, my muse did shit and then didn't tell me about it until later.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the Journey
Cheers!

 

[htgriffin]

I especially love how respectful you are to Steve as a person in this story. I personally had a time where I was much less charitable to him because of the information environment I was a part of and extracting myself from that and being reminded that Steve Roger is the Good Guy of his setting has been something I need to remind myself of on occasion.

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Too much of the "Team Tony vs Team Cap" mess after Civil War?

. Tony Stark is perhaps my least favorite MCU character, at least of the ones I've actually watched, so keeping his portrayal positive without excessively whitewashing his canon character flaws was a particularly tricky needle for me to thread.

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I like MCU Stark. I think MCU Stark is a self-destructive basket case who often needed and often did not have someone with a clue-stick around him at all times. The number of purported fans that did not get the latter is something I did and do not like.