#★~ the process of being myself | verse ~★

[iernat]

a sweet birthday kiss for bucky.

A soft grin crosses his lips as their lips press together in a brush of love and affection. "Thanks Steve," he states softly. "Another year older than ya."

[iernat]

@enthrclled sent “Oh come on, the second we got to know each other, the due date were already set on us. We were never meant to last forever. Our relationship had a deadline, and now we’re at it; so, what you gonna do?” [ clint ]

          “Due date? What due date Clint?” James questions, his tone firm as he tried not to let the emotions of being pushed away sink into his heart. To fact the fact that Clint was basically telling him that it was now over and asking how he was going to handle it. It hurt. It hurt hard and he didn’t want it too. He’d fallen in love with Clint. Maybe this has started as a fun mutual agreement this man had become his safe space. Clint had gotten into his heart to the point that trying to leave triggered his defense of not wanting to lose what had been so good to him. Didn’t they both deserve the happiness they clearly felt when they were together? After all they’d been through in their lives, they deserved it. He was sure of it.

          “I’m gonna stay. Our relationship’s deadline is when one of us is dead Clint. I’m not gonna just walk away like ya don’t matter ta me. I love ya and I’m not leavin’.” His eyes lock on Clint’s as he tries to desperately to see if there were any signs that the archer didn’t love him back. If the words were matching the emotions behind the eyes.”I’m gonna stay. I’m gonna keep lovin’ ya until the day I die.”

[iernat]

@oxtaiiiled sent “  i’ll still be here when you need me.  that will never change.  ” / from steve.

          James glances over at the other and gives a weak smile at Steve’s words. That was the hardest part since he broke from the brainwashing and trying to get back to himself. For years he felt like he was on his own until Steve had found him to rescue him from going down for the framing Zemo had cooked up. That was probably all he needed but it was nice to hear that confirmation aloud. He hated how vulnerable he felt at times with it all. How much fear that he’d be alone to fight away the demons that still haunted him. It was always there. No matter how much he pushed himself to try to be happier, at times it just wasn’t something that could happen. The nightmares too terrible. The list of names of people he hurt.

          “Thanks Steve,” he replies quietly. “This sure is some hell of a test though. Ya know... when we became friends I don’t think either of us knew we were gonna end up here.” Who could’ve known? How could they know that they’d end up here? That there would be so much more trauma following them. Never could catch a break and just have happiness for long. “But I hope ya know, I will still always be here for ya as well. I’ll always have your back and keep ya safe... whatever the cost.”

[iernat]

"Birthday Hershey Kiss!"

"Well thank you little unknown for the chocolate."

[iernat]

“Happy Birthday Bucky.”

"Thank ya Sharon. Officially an old man."

[iernat]

Offers Bucky a chocolate Kiss

"Is this like actual Hershey chocolate kiss? Or a kiss that involves chocolate? Just want to make sure I understand before I accept."

[iernat]

@seidrborn​ sent “I guess no matter how hard you try, you can’t escape your past.“

          The words were thick. Honest without meaning to be perhaps. James knew that very well now whether he liked it or not. No matter how much he ran. No matter where he kept himself hidden. The past follows behind him like a monster that can never be defeated The blood that stained the metal of his hand even if it was scrubbed away. A nightmare that haunts him and drives him to be better than he ever was.

          “No, I s’pose I never will,” he mutters as he stares at the metal fingers shift for a moment before glancing up at Loki. “It haunts nightmares. Influences the choices that I make now. It’ll never... go away. Never but I keep hopin’ maybe the monster in me will disappear if I push it away. Truth is, I’ll always be deadly. Only difference is I get to make choices of my own now. Past makes who ya are now and that you can change.”

          A huff of his breath fills the air and his head shakes a little. It had taken him a long time to get to these feelings. To accept that there was always a fragment of the Winter Soldier in him. That he could snap into it so easily because it was a past familiar. “People will always see the monsters inside us that they’re familiar with. Sometimes that’s an advantage... but there is power in changing it.”

[iernat]

@youxmove​ continued from x

"....I know you want to...but it's not something you will forget Bucky. It's not something you can. You know, my mentor was in a horrific fire on one of his early missions- had scars all along the left side of his body, and he always said it was cliche but he'd tell me how his scars were just a map of all that he's overcome. Now...I know- I know yours are a little more traumatic but...it's just skin Bucky. Just some discolored and raised skin...they don't need to be monsters....it's just your skin."

           “Yeah it’s just skin... but it’s not as easy as you make it sound Sharon. It’s a map of my past sure and I’ve overcome it... but it still haunts me. I didn’t choose this.” His eyes shift down to the metal fingers and watching as he shifts them. Sure it was silly to constantly be holding himself back but he hated that he was like this because someone else decided it for him. He could’ve just died. Couldn’t been left alone and instead he had been turned into a weapon. That was changing now as he changed himself but he still hated the pain of the constant reminder of what he had once done.

          “If these scars were just about losing my arm I could move on easier. At least it would’ve been the accident that caused the lost but the fact that they dug metal into the wounded flesh is what gets me most. What transpired from that moment forward. It could’ve been so different.” Gaze shifts up to the other as he lets the weight of his feelings fill the air between them. Perhaps letting himself talk about the pain would help. Letting someone close to him know how much the burden weight on him would help. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to help him feel better at the end but at least he would have released the weight of it all. “How different would it be if I never had this arm?

[iernat]

@affcgato 🥀 for my muse to confess a secret (Loki, 40s verse but can be modern day)

           “Ya know... when I first broke through the brain washing, you were the first person I remembered fully,” James admits quietly in the silence that had filled his apartment as he leaned against the other. The rest of the Avengers still had no idea of just how close they were and hadn’t figured out why he was so insistent that they all trust Loki. Very few trusted him which meant Steve was doing the bulk of the trusting that if they weren’t careful the future would not be kind to them. But that meant that moments like this were rare. Just as they had been back in the 40′s. Soaking up the comfort of the other’s presence as if it could be the last at any moment. Those memories always fresh and without a hint of doubt that they happened.

           “The times we spent together played out in dreams before they turned into nightmares of what had happened.” It pulled at his heart a little to even remember but he hadn’t told anyone that. Granted with no one knowing the bond they’d had all those years ago that certainly help him keep it locked up in his heart. Heavy like a weight. “Nothing else came so easily and clearly. It was strange but I’m grateful... especially since no one knew. Steve wouldn’t have been able to confirm any of it...”

[iernat]

          It was a wonder how Steve didn’t see it. All these years, all they’d been through in their lives and it had changed nothing. When he looked at the other he still remembered those cold nights that they huddled together to keep warm from the crisp New York winters with only a few blankets. Those nights where he dragged them out on dates so that they could be together without anyone thinking the wiser. All the times he wanted to scream to stop fighting people twice his size because of fear that one day he wouldn’t be there to save Steve. Turned out that was a fear he’d never have again when he saw the man as America’s soldier. Instead it just made it all worse. That love aching even more.

           He hated that he could never find it in himself to tell Steve before. The 1940′s was a different time. One that wouldn’t have taken kindly to that kind of admission from him. It would’ve only landed them both in trouble so perhaps it was easier to swallow then. For the safety of Steve. But now they didn’t need to worry. He didn’t need to worry about anything more than having the rejection of Steve not feeling the same way about him in return.

           “Darling, you’re the one I want,” James finally inserts as Steve is going on about how he was always flirting with all the dames when they were growing up. His frustration finally seeping to the top of his voice. Unable to hold back from letting the admission finally spring free only 70 years later. Perhaps that didn’t count if there was a chunk of it where they were frozen away from each other. “It’s always been you! I love you! I don’t care about how many dames I dated... they were nothin’ compared to you.”

@multiwrites​ gets a random sappy v-day starter

[iernat]

@scientistm​ sent 🧸 to give my muse a giant teddy bear ( bigger than newt )

          Expecting the unexpected was common when it came to Newt. James was never sure what he’d get or be told but he supposed that was part of the fun sometimes. One of those little traits that seemed to draw him in. Though that hadn’t prepared him for what he saw when he opened the door to his place. A pair of beaded eyes almost at his eye level. A brown fluffy fabric that when he looked at it in whole resembled a bear. One of those cheesy red bows tied around its neck. He couldn’t even see Newt at this point.

          “Newt.... do I even want to know how ya got a bear that’s bigger than you?”

[iernat]

@scientistm​ sent ❛  how unfortunate - you’ve caught me at a really bad time .  ❜ 

          The scientist was almost impossible to catch at a ‘good time’ it seemed. James could only roll his eyes from the doorway as he watched Newt scramble around the lab working on whatever idea was brewing this time. Despite how dumb some of those ideas were, he always found himself enjoying the process of the other went through.

                    “Of course I have. What crazy plan have I caught ya in now?”

[iernat]

@alteredcanon sent “ what do you mean a thesaurus isn’t a dinosaur? ” - from Wanda because chaos reasons

         “What do I mean? Seems kinda self explanatory Wanda... a thesaurus isn’t a dinosaur.” James raises a brow at her slightly, trying to determine if she was just trying to push him or get him heated about a useless topic. But it was sort of working but not enough to get him fully started on explaining it to her in great detail. Then again perhaps she really didn’t know. Did they not teach that kind of thing when she was growing up? “A thesaurus is kinda like a dictionary but for synonyms. Not as fun as a dinosaur I s’pose but it’s useful....”

[iernat]

          Coming back from the ‘snap’ has been jarring for everyone. Finding a place among the crowd once the funerals for those lost during the battle took place. The Avengers all parting their ways to go back to their families or on to the next place in their lives from here. Meanwhile he was going through the process of just being accepted into society again as a human being that was actually capable of doing good. It hadn’t been an easy task thus far for him but he was managing. Working his way through a list of people that he needed to make amends with in hopes that it would help get rid of the nightmares and allow him to live in peace. To establish a life that wouldn’t require him to have to keep fighting. Perhaps to trade in that work once and for all. He’d been through enough wars to last a lifetime at this point that having no more for the rest of his life sounded great but knowing full well it wouldn’t happen. Steve had given him a job to keep an eye on Sam so that’s what he’d have to do which meant that he’d be called in for anything at any point.

         What he wasn’t expecting was a text from Sam that just said ‘SOS Wanda has taken over an entire town in PA’. The only other member of the Avengers that had suffered at the hands of Hydra without truly knowing it. She had suffered a loss just as bad as the other Avengers had. Vision. He hadn’t seen the two together much at but he knew enough to know the pain of losing him hurt her. When they parted ways last she had mentioned getting her hands on Vision’s body so that she could hold a proper funeral. A sense of peace for herself if anything. It was the common form of mourning. With the text he also gets a shot of a team named S.W.O.R.D. trying to get through a physical barrier that Wanda had created. That sure as hell wasn’t going to get anyone anywhere. He might not know the full details but if there was anyone who’d understand her and bring her down it was going to be him. He’d lost everything that meant the world to him just as she had.

          He texts back that he’ll go check in. After all NYC was closer to Westview for him to do a drop in check. It only takes a few hours for him to make the trip down and stopping on the outskirts of barrier of the town. This was going to have to be an unofficial join in whatever was going on. No official invitation meant that he had no idea what he was actually about to enter beyond the city line. But it was a risk he needed to take if it meant helping the woman who’d experienced the experiments of Hydra as well as he had. That if someone was trying to get to her through violence were only going to make the matters worse for themselves. He slides off his motorcycle and starts to walk towards the town border line. Metal arm reaching out first to figure out just where the barrier started and what it was made out of. Sam hadn’t exactly given him a ton of detail but perhaps it was passed along the grape vine to him. That this would be a task better suited for him.

          Fingers suddenly seem to vanish into nowhere before his entire body is dragged in behind them. A sensation taking over his body as he changes to fit the current mold of Westview. A nice suit and his hair slicked back nicely. 1950′s. A voice filling his head and he recognized it immediately. Wanda. Her thoughts. Her memories. Her absolute pain from losing Vision. It was so overwhelming that he almost wanted to burst but he found himself restrained. Just quietly walking through the town until he comes to a talent show and finds himself sitting among the crowd. What the hell was happening here? His mind could process everything. The black and white. The fact that everyone around him didn’t seem to be plagued by the voice of Wanda’s pain in their head. Were they now willingly just going about everything around them? They couldn’t possibly. Then again he was falling in line just like they were. He had showed up where she’d made him come immediately. But where was Wanda?

plotted starter for @mxndwitch​ 

[iernat]

@alteredcanon​ sent [ text ] sometimes i pretend to be boring so people leave me alone. - From Natasha

[text → Nat] you? boring? [text → Nat] you really must have to be pretending cause you’re not boring at all. [text → Nat] this must be an assassin trait [text → Nat] maybe you should consider getting a metal arm [text → Nat] most people decide that they should leave me alone.

[iernat]

@executiioner​ sent ღ for a first kiss drabble

          Affection publicly was never Anita’s thing but when he got the little tastes of it, it was like a treat. James didn’t need the world to know that Anita loved him. The two most unlikely pair. It always been a cause of interest. How could the two with such different ideas on how to handle bad guys get along so well? Two badly damaged people finding the comfort in each other. What better way to find comfort than in someone that understood the struggle of trauma? Talking their way through their own struggles was the best thing James had ever found and they had such a good banter. Outsiders would always turn heads when they heard him. Steve even asked a few times if they were really just dating or if he was just taking her for a good time. Maybe at first it was all just for the physical desire but it definitely wasn’t that anymore.

          The Avengers were scattered around the compound getting themselves patched up from the mission. James found himself sitting in the far corner getting stitches in his right shoulder and on his side. They’d only need a day or two. Only benefit to the serum meant that it would take half the time that it might for any of his fellow Avengers who were a bit worse for wear from the mission. Still he’d rather keep the burden of the power away from them. It’s a pain that no one else deserved the burden of and he firmly believed that no one else should be granted this. It made him harder to fight. Harder to kill. That no matter what he’d be around for way long than he should.

          His eyes are down so he hardly notices the blur of a small woman running through the compound until he’s suddenly surrounded by black curls around his face. The familiar scent that trailed along with Anita giving him reassurance of just who embraced him. His arms grasping around her as if he never wanted to let go of her again. He hadn’t been near death but damn if he hadn’t been a little fearful about the outcome. Had she been keeping tabs on them? What had they told her? He wasn’t sure but he didn’t want to know. He only want to focus on her now. To go home with her.

         “Hey Anita,” he greets quietly, as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear how soft he was when he was speaking with her. The tone that was reserved just for her. Perhaps a bit for friends but never was it public. Not where all the Avengers could hear him. Public. He shifts himself back to finally get a glimpse of her features. Her eyes with that hint of worry. A bit of a winch as his right arm raises as his hand goes to cup her face and his lips pressing against hers. The soft kiss slowly growing desperate as the emotions from it all started to hit. Keeping her pulled close and kissing her like he’d just gotten back the most precious thing in his life. He had.

          “I’m gonna be fine,” he murmurs when he finally pulls away. His nose pressing lightly against hers as he catches his breath. Enjoying the comfort that she brought. He barely remembered that the Avengers were surrounding them and probably watching the exchange. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was her.