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imtryingbuck · 5 months ago

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Family Dinner

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC!Theo

Summary: Bucky has to marry a woman who surprises him more and more as their story goes along.

Word count: 1,842

Warnings: angst. Swearing. Dot and Eliza. Insecurities.

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As the door comes open Bucky takes a hold of Theo’s hand rubbing his thumb across her knuckles a silent way of letting her know that he’s right by her side. Reassuring her that she is not alone.

“Welcome” Bucky greeted their guests. God he hates this. They’ve not even been here for ten seconds and he already wants them to leave.

“It’s about time you invited us for a dinner” George says shrugging his coat off and handing it to Martha.

“Hi son, it’s been quite some time since we’ve seen you” Winnie then says, greeting Martha with a hug and a kiss to her cheek before finally moving to Bucky, giving him a hug.

“He’s probably just been busy Winnie with his wife, you know how it is” Michael says before Bucky could say anything to his mom. No one reply to what Michael says, no one says anything else until Martha moves everyone’s coats to the closet.

“Right well, let’s have dinner then” Bucky said already walking into the dining room with his hand tightly holding onto Theo’s.

As everyone settles down in their chairs Nat and Wanda notice Eliza eyeing Theo in disgust as Bucky slides her chair closer to the table. When Eliza felt the cold gaze from the two redheads she looked down at her hands, two sets of green eyes roll in tandem.

Conversation started to flow between everyone else whilst Theo was sat silently keeping her head downward, her fingers tracing patterns on Wanda’s dress. Her head snapping up towards Bucky when she saw his hand on hers.

“You okay?” He asked gently.

“I’m-“

“She’s always rude Winifred, don’t mind her” Eliza’s voice cuts her off. Winnie replies with a scoff before looking back at Theo.

“I said that I like your dress, where did you get it from?”

“I-Its Wanda’s Miss”

“It’s suits you perfectly” Winnie smiles, no hint of sarcasm in her words.

“T-thank you” Winnie smiles, whilst Wanda winks at her.

Soon enough dinner is brought out everyone but George, Michael and Eliza saying thank you to Martha as she puts their plates in front of them. The only sound being made in the dining room is the scraping of cutlery against the plates.

For Bucky and his friends it’s the most uncomfortable dinner they’ve ever had.

All of them wanting it to be over with quickly.

As soon as Bucky swallowed the last bit of his food he was getting ready to stand so he could get their guests coats so they could leave. Despite that fact that no one else had finished eating. That’s how bad he wanted them gone.

“Ah son we need to talk business” George informs whilst putting his knife and fork down.

“Tonight?”

“Yes tonight. Michael’s here so we can talk”

“Right-“

“Winnie, Eliza take his wife into the living room so we can talk” Bucky rolls his eyes at his dad interrupting him.

“Her name is Theo, father.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. Ladies leave”

Bucky clenches his jaw at his father’s dismissal, he stands up pulling out Theo’s chair and helps her stand. “I’m sorry Angel” he whispered in her ear before placing a kiss to her cheek. Winnie stands and smiles at her son, holding her arm out for Theo to take they leave Eliza behind.

In the living room alone with a woman she didn’t know and a woman who spend years tormenting her Theo sat awkwardly on the couch with her head down. The two women didn’t say a word to each other only sharing false smiles when they caught each other’s eye.

“So Theo, how are you finding married life?” Winnie speaks breaking the uncomfortable silence. Truthfully she wanted to find out if her son was being a better husband than her own. Theo goes to reply when Eliza’s voice is heard.

“Winnie I know you hate me”

Looking at Theo, Winnie rolls her eyes “I don’t hate you”

“You do. I know you do and I’m sorry, please don’t hate me”

Winnie’s eyes roll once again at hearing the fake distress of her voice. “I don’t hate you Elizabeth”

“Matt”

At hearing her brother’s name Theo’s head snapped up towards Eliza then to Winnie whose face held no emotion whatsoever. Winnie looked Eliza dead in the eyes and smiled. “In order to hate you Elizabeth it would require me to think about you which is something I do not do. In order to hate you it would mean that you would have affected me in such a way that requires hatred towards you, again you have never affected my life even in the smallest of ways. So like I said, I do not hate you”

Theo had to fight off the smile that wanted to make an appearance on her face at seeing Eliza’s face drop and pale. Never before had she ever seen Eliza be pushed aside in such a way. She had never seen or heard someone other than Michael talk to Eliza like she was nothing. It was hard not to smile even if she didn’t know why Matt her sweet older brother had anything to do with why Winnie would hate her. Winnie turned to Theo with a soft smile on her lips and informed her that she needed to go to the ladies room and she’d be back in a moment.

There was no smile wanting to appear now that she was going to be left alone with her tormentor.

The door had only just closed before Eliza started on Theo. “Why hasn’t James asked your father for a divorce yet?”

“I-I don’t k-know ma’am”

“Have you shown him your body? Asked for sex?”

“Yes ma’am”

“And?”

“H-he didn’t say anything ma’am”

“Dot wants to be his mistress and you’re going to let that happen. Is that understood?”

“He said he doesn’t want one ma’am”

“He’s a man and all men wants to have a mistress”

“H-he said he doesn’t want one though ma’am”

Sighing and thinking on how to respond, Eliza smirks “My daughters will be having his children you have gotten that through your thick skull right?”

“He doesn’t want them too ma’am”

Frowning Eliza hisses “I don’t give a shit what he wants Theodora! You make it happen or you will regret it. Do you understand me?”

The next word out of Theo’s mouth has not only Eliza shocked but herself. For the first time she’s not scared in front of the woman who hurt her more than Bucky realised. Though she knows the moment that that word spilled out of her mouth she was going to receive a beating she felt proud of the fact that she finally stood up for herself. “No.”

“No? What you mean no?”

“James has a say in this matter as-“ Eliza lunges at Theo cutting her off but stops herself when another voice cuts in.

“Lay one hand on my daughter in law and I will kill you myself. Do you understand? I asked do you understand Elizabeth.”

Eliza stands up to her full height and looks over to where Winnie stands by the door and smirks. “Your dear husband wouldn’t allow you to do that”

“My dear husband wanted to put a bullet in between your eyes all them years ago, it was me that stopped that dear husband of mine from doing that.” It was Winnie’s turn to smirk and for the second time that night Theo has to fight off the smile at seeing Eliza’s once again being put in her place.

“Y-your lying”

“No I’m not. See the difference between you and I Elizabeth is that I don’t make the other woman in my husband’s life suffer, why? Because I have and always will be the stronger woman out of the two of us. Now, if you want to see if my dear husband would come in here and stop me you are more than welcome to go in to where they are and get him.” Winnie smiles stepping away from the door, clearly giving Eliza the opportunity to go and get George.

Eliza huffs knowing that what the other woman is saying is true. But not only would George not do anything but neither would Michael. Looking at Theo then to Winnie Eliza huffs once more before walking past Winnie trying and failing to knock her shoulder into the other woman’s but fails when Winnie moves out of the way.

From across the hallway they both hear Eliza complaining to Michael that she wanted to go home now. Michael reluctantly agreeing. “Are you okay darling?” Winnie asks.

“I-I’m okay, Miss.”

“She’s a wretched one isn’t she?”

“I-“

“Come on love, time to go home” George says interrupting what Theo was about to reply with. Winnie nods and crosses over to where Theo stood and wraps her arms around her.

“It was lovely meeting you, next time I’ll have to come here alone and get to know you better.”

“I would like that Miss”

“None of that darling, call me Winnie”

Bucky helps his mom put her coat on, giving her a kiss to her cheek he moves over to where Theo stood. Only Winnie says goodbye to Theo as Michael and Eliza had already left.

“Time for dessert” Sam exclaims already on his way into the kitchen.

Everyone follows behind him but Bucky who hangs back with Theo. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay”

“Did she say anything to you?” Theo thought about lying to him but worried that Winnie might say something to him about what had happened so she tells him word for word what was said not only between herself and Eliza but the conversation that his mom had. Bucky’s blood boiled at hearing what Eliza had said, grown confused about what Matt had to do with anything. Then he felt proud of the fact that she had stood up for herself.

“I like your mom” she says after finishing what she was telling him.

Bucky smiled placing a kiss to her lips “she likes you too, come on let’s get some dessert before Sam eats it all.”

He knew he was going to have that conversation with his mom about Matt, he needed to find out why Eliza would think she would hate her because of his wife’s brother but until then he wanted to sit down with his family, with his wife right by his side and enjoy the homemade vanilla cheesecake.

On the other side of town Eliza’s in her walk in wardrobe on the phone to Dot. Both of them thinking about a way to destroy the marriage between Theo and Bucky. Dot herself knows that Bucky would never take a mistress or “accidentally” cheat on a woman, there’s only one way to have him all to herself.

Eliza smirks whilst agreeing to Dot’s plan. Dot gets what she wants and Eliza makes Michael suffer even more.

It’s a win-win for the pair of them.

“I’m going to have her killed”

Tags: @sapphirebarnes @bellabarnes1378 @unaxv @skulliecadaver-blog @mrsnikstan @sebastians-love @pattiemac1 @julvrs @undf-stuff

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positivelybeastly · 2 months ago

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From the Ashes Infinity Comics #15: Pygmalion, Part 1

So, for those who are not aware - Infinity Comics are online-only comics distributed through Marvel Unlimited, their subscription based app and browser collection of comics. Regarded as 'inessential,' but still very much canon, the raft of Infinity Comics coming out of From the Ashes have been quite good, but I haven't seen fit to comment on them for a bit, until now, because . . .

Let's go.

For those not aware, Pygmalion is a famous novel by George Bernard Shaw, detailing the attempt by a phonetics professor called Henry Higgins to 'elevate' a Cockney flower-girl named Eliza Doolittle.

Intrigued by a bet that he could pass her off as a duchess through careful schooling, he decides to take her on, and though he succeeds, she ends up feeling marginalised and overlooked, treated as an object of gambling and curiosity rather than an individual in her own right, and though the play is best known for the 'culturing' of Eliza Doolittle, it is as much about the arrogance of Higgins, who is a thoroughly unpleasant and rude individual, in thinking that he has any ownership over Eliza for his education of her. He may have 'created' her, but he does not control her.

The Factory that the X-Men are living in at present must have really good central heating for Cyclops to be wearing basketball shorts and a crop top that short.

Beast is currently investigating some kind of issue with Magneto's chromosomes - to put it succinctly, he appears to be ageing rapidly, and does not have access to his X-gene at present. This is a continuation of the storyline in the previous Infinity arc, which focused on Magneto.

Something worth noting - this is the first acknowledgement of the fact that though Hank's body may be of roughly the same physical age as his original, his mind is considerably younger, situated at some point in his mid 20s. For someone who was always the oldest of the original X-Men, this is fairly significant.

Also worth noting - Hank joins the ranks of superheroes who are actively seeking therapy for their problems! Good on you, Hank! And good on you, too, Scott, for suggesting it. Though, perhaps, given recent developments in the mainline X-Men comics, you should take your own advice . . .

The fact that Hank refers to himself as the only one left seemingly confirms that X-Force took care of the Beast clones who Beast Prime planted around various landmarks as part of the Ghost Calendars arc. Though they were defeated in their respective future timelines, I wasn't quite sure if they had been taken care of in the present as well. This seemingly confirms that they were.

Hank's therapist is Dr. Andrea Sterman, a supporting character from Jed MacKay's Moon Knight run, and a member of the Midnight Mission. Given that the writer, Alex Paknadel, confirmed on Twitter that he talked with Jed MacKay about making sure all the details for Hank's storyline would line up with the mainline X-Men book, I can only imagine this was done as a rather fun continuity nod.

Hank also refers to a Shi'ar warship, an avian alien race that the X-Men deal with on a regular basis. This makes sense, given that Hank was beamed aboard the Shi'ar imperial flagship during the events of Dark Phoenix Saga in 1981 - ancient history for us, but relatively fresh in Hank's mind, given his memories come from 1985.

Hank, naturally, does himself a disservice here. Dark Beast was, assumedly, abducted at a relatively young age from his human parents, and indoctrinated by Mister Sinister as something of a protege - a protege living in perpetual fear of his mentor. He probably didn't have a chance to develop any kind of moral code divorced from the social Darwinist hellhole that is the Age of Apocalypse.

That being said, Hank probably lacks that context, and Dark Beast is unique among Age of Apocalypse denizens, not just for his unerringly cruel nature, having never shown any altruistic tendencies (unlike, say, AoA Cyclops or Nightcrawler), but also for his resilience. He persists, even now - though last seen in Immortal X-Men #9 as a head in a jar, he has come back from the dead at least twice before, and it is unlikely he is gone for good.

Fun fact - his appearance here is based on the costume he wore during his scrap with Emma Frost's X-Men team in a confrontation with Spider-Man and the Lizard. Though the X-Men naturally encountered him after this point, it's fun that this appearance by Dark Beast is considered iconic enough to be the 'definitive' look for him by this comic.

Hank's final remark, about 'Henry McCoy plus time equals atrocity,' is a sentiment often repeated on social media boards, and it's interesting to see it being internalised by Hank himself, given his unique perspective on the events that created his future self and the other potential timelines the X-Men files likely refer to.

Mm. A lot to unpack here.

Hank's relationship with his X-gene has always been complicated, and the way he views it here, as essentially morphing him into a shape that he finds abhorrent, predatory, and beyond his control, is consistent with how Hank seemed to see himself during his feline mutation, which lasted from 2000 to 2013.

Though his feline phase is not referenced in this comic, beyond the 'over time, and with a little help, these became more pronounced,' (probably a reference to Sage's jumpstarting his secondary mutation) it assumedly would be in the files Hank has been using to catch up, and one has to wonder if he's been repeating some of the thought processes that made feline Hank such a uniquely neurotic version of the character.

It's also nice to see a canonisation of my long held fanon that Hank's X-gene is actively attempting to craft a form for him that is best suited for survival, a belief that Hank only hinted at back in Morrison's New X-Men, but which made sense, given the circumstances of his mutation in X-Treme X-Men.

That being said, Hank's own mind seemingly strays back to the night his furry mutation first manifested at the Brand Corporation in Amazing Adventures, where he flew into a berserker rage and nearly killed Carl Maddicks, which always seemed a little incongruous with how Hank was written in subsequent appearances in Avengers and Defenders, but which now seems to be retroactively made an expression of the brutality he was capable of during his feline phase.

The 'violent upheavals' Hank refers to here are likely his initial secondary mutation, and then his near-death experience when said mutation randomly destabilised in All-New X-Men. It could also be a reference to his numerous genetic troubles during X-Factor volume 1.

His opining that he found refuge in the life of the mind is very reminiscent of Hank's desire to find meaning in poetry, literature, art, humanity, in the wake of the changes in his body in both X-Factor and New X-Men. X-Factor #33 and New X-Men #117 both specifically reference his delight in the freedom to think, in opposition to the clouding of the mind that came with his Pestilence inflicted dumbing down, or his newly awakened predatory impulses.

Ironically enough, Magneto is, aside from Simon Williams, the character with whom this version of Hank has shared the most panel time and dialogue, between his conversations in X-Men and previous From the Ashes Infinity Comics. It would appear that Max's need for a cure for his condition are fostering a necessarily stronger bond than Hank and Max have ever shared before in canon.

Precisely where the rest of the team is during the course of these events is unknown. If I had to guess, it's possible this might be set during the events of X-Men #2, where the rest of the team was attending to a mutant rescue in San Francisco, accounting for the lack of availability of the Marauder and a reliance on an old Quinjet.

Quite how Hank got his hands on said Quinjet is unknown, though it's possible it might be a holdover from Hank's Defender days, where he would regularly borrow a Quinjet from the Avengers, for purposes ranging from actual superhero missions to attending Patsy Walker's wedding.

Though this Hank's memories originate in closest proximity to the Defenders, and though that team did enjoy some degree of notoriety under Hank and Candy Southern's stewardship, the Avengers have always been where Hank was most popular in-universe, and he has had a habit of using that association to smooth things over in mutant related books, such as in X-Factor volume 1 and the 90s X-Men run.

Unfortunately, mutant rights are in a more dire state than ever before, with things having seemingly gotten only worse for them since the 1980s, and it's likely Hank didn't expect this level of hatred from normal civilians.

I have, unfortunately, run out of images, so I'll be posting the last of this issue and my final thoughts and predictions in another post.

#outofmuffins #hank mccoy #henry mccoy #max eisenhardt #scott summers #beast x-men #from the ashes #infinity comics

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