thestarkinwinterfell:

It’s April 1861. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter has set in motion the wheels of a catastrophic war. President Lincoln has called for a response by volunteer armies from each Union state, and the recapture of federal property. Since then, four more slave states have seceded as the Union seizes control of the border states. War is coming, for thousands of people who, out of all the choices they have made these last few months, never would have chosen this.

Thor Oliphant owns a substantial amount of land in Alabama. The land was his father’s before his, but Odin died six months ago and since then, Thor has been mostly on his own. Now, as the Confederacy musters its forces in preparation for full on war, Thor prepares to leave his home, and his wife, and to shed blood for a cause that he barely feels is his. Ever since pneumonia brought the death of the plain, poor girl he loved, something inside him has broke away.

Sif Oliphant has been married to Thor for only a year. He attended Jane’s funeral, but he married Sif in the weeks that followed, at his father’s urgent request. She loves him like a brother, which makes their marriage particularly hard, because she knows that she has become a symbol of everything he’s lost. She, in turn, glances at his withdrawn little brother and feels kinship, and a hot desire boiling in her blood.

Loki Oliphant left his brother’s home three months before the war broke out, travelling northin search of his true father. He leaves behind a brother who begs him not to go, and, even worse, Sif, who cannot say a word but stares at him with big, begging eyes. He leaves them both behind, and does not look back. He’s living along in Massachusetts when the war breaks out, and, for reasons he’s not sure he’ll ever understands, he joins the volunteer army, even though he knows that he isn’t proving anything.

Natasha Romanoff fled Russia with her family only several months before, after Emancipation Reform began to pick up speed and serfdoms began to crumble. There was no real logic behind the move, but they have found a home in Massachusetts, with a middle class merchant who was willing to take them in. They live in moderate comfort, though space is cramped, and Natasha is not sure that they should have traded their old life for another.

Clint Barton’s family has been exporting goods from America to Britain for several generations, but Clint is at the head of it now. He has not spoken to his father in many years. The Barton house is vast and empty, which is how Clint ended up renting space to the Romanoffs. He rents it for as little as he can afford, because he’s lonely, and they are kind, and when he wakes, sweating, in the middle of the night, it’s their daughter he has been dreaming of.

Steve Rogers is itching for war. Not because he wants it, particularly, or because it pleases him, but because he loves his country, and he is willing to defend it to the death. He is a general in the Union army, and proud to be one. He leaves Peggy, the woman he loves, and one day plans to marry, in New York, and heads South with his men to help maintain the border states. His heart aches, but a hidden, destructive part of him is singing.

Tony Stark does not want to fight, but somehow the thought of so many men fighting for a thing that was, in part, his decision leaves not the slightest sour taste in his mouth. He’s furious that he has been forced to move to Alabama, but if this is the Confederacy’s temporary capital, than so it shall be. He signed the Confederate States Constitution, and what’s done is done, and he and the other leaders will watch as their little soldier boys tear each other apart.

it’s 1861 | an avengers civil war au