#abb art

[actualbuckybames]

Another scene from that fic I haven't posted. Excerpt of this scene under the cut

---

Bucky falls the instant he steps inside the facility. Vertigo takes hold and then he’s falling, falling away from himself and away from the howling storm trying to tear him apart. He falls and the Soldier weathers the storm, the memories hitting him like hail. It’s just pain. Pain and noise. He’s done more under worse conditions.

He takes the pain and burns it like fuel as he plunges into the depths, puts the noise where it can’t disrupt his focus. The mission is to confirm this facility’s purpose and purge it. No prisoners. As always, no survivors.

A quarter of them try to fight. They die.

A quarter of them try to run. They die.

The rest beg for their lives. They die.

The last makes a stand in the bare concrete room housing the cryo unit. He manages to separate the Soldier from his guns with a kind of stun baton that leaves the metal arm jolting and uncooperative, but on his next lunge, the Soldier grabs the baton halfway down the shaft with his right hand and crushes it.

His left arm resets and locks in for a punch that sends the man crashing into the cryo pod. Though blood streams from his nose, he fumbles at his waist and unsheathes a knife. The Soldier almost smiles. When the Soldier draws one of the tantos from his back, the man pales. He’s fast enough to dodge when the Soldier whips it at his head and just barely quick enough to catch the second tanto on his own blade when the Soldier closes the gap.

Caught up in the flurry of blows, the Soldier lets the grin twist his lips under his mask. This man is good. Very, very good. As good as anyone can get with unmodified flesh and bone.

But he is unmodified. Sweat gleams on his face and he pants with each lunge, parry, and dodge. The Soldier feels no exhaustion and gives no quarter, chasing him around the small space and ensuring he never has any delusions of reaching the door.

For a minute, the man thinks he’s holding his own. The Soldier lets him think that. It feels good to stretch these muscles, to wield a knife in a way he hasn’t since fighting Captain America—

Fighting Steve—

“Перешеек,” the man gasps, and the Soldier freezes. That is what that word means: silence and stillness. The land between shifting waters, immovable and eternal. His muscles lock. The arm’s plates lock. Everything locks and his thoughts break against his body in waves.

The man doubles over with his hands on his knees and heaves for breath. Drops of sweat splatter on the floor, joining the blood he’s shed from the dozen small cuts the Soldier has inflicted on him over the course of their fight.

They’re fighting. Right. But the man said перешеек—he’s a handler. The Soldier obeys the handler.

“Fuck,” the man straightens and glares at the Soldier, “you are fucking terrifying.”

The Soldier cannot respond, but his muscles are starting to itch with a need to move. There is a headache crawling out from the base of his skull with a sound like a scream.

“You killed all of them, didn’t you?” He peers past the Soldier, towards the door. “I don’t understand why they keep saying to bring you back alive. You’re not worth this.”

He knows: the knife in his hand belongs in the man’s eye, in his brain. But перешеек holds him fast. Can’t disobey the handler. Can’t move. Can’t do anything other than watch as the handler steps close and lines up his own knife.

“Fuck that,” the man says, face contorting in anger. “Fuck you.”

He drives the knife into the Soldier’s chest.

Pain crashes through the Soldier’s mind in a tsunami that rips away the shackles of перешеек. Clarity, as it always does even without the burn of electricity, follows in its wake: this man isn’t his handler. He doesn’t have authority to override the mission. The mission is to take no prisoners and leave no survivors and he is still alive.

The Soldier’s left hand slams into the man’s chest and throws him back. Something cracks on impact; a rib, from the man’s grunt and subsequent gasp. With his right hand, the Soldier rips the knife out of his chest. The man’s next sound of pain is cut off by that knife when Soldier drives up into his brain through the fleshy underside of his jaw. A puppet with its strings cut, the man crumples and the Soldier lets him fall. Even lets him keep the knife.

For just a moment, the room is silent, no more echoes of combat bouncing off its bare gray walls. The Soldier’s breathing is the loudest sound.

He spares the next moment to examine the tear in his jacket. The wound beneath is bleeding heavily from him pulling the knife out but, upon inspection, it shows itself to be narrow and small. At the angle he struck at, the blade must have hit bone, to be stopped from going any deeper. Or the man underestimated the Soldier’s muscle density and the force required to rip through it.

The wound requires cleaning, but he halts his steps toward the exit and the medical supplies beyond when a quiet beep reaches his ears. It’s a sound he knows, a sound deeper than anything a knife can reach. He turns and faces the cryo pod. The beep comes again. Underneath it is the soft hiss of air through narrow tubes. His left hand twitches and he crosses the room in three long strides.

There’s a man in the cryo pod. That doesn’t make sense; this is the Soldier’s pod, even if he has no intention of using it ever again.

He wipes at the fog on the small window and frowns at the pale, gaunt face framed with ice crystals that rests on the other side. That frown deepens when the face and its tousled blond hair tugs at frosted strings of memory in his mind. As the monitor beeps a soft and infrequent report on the man’s vitals, recognition gives way to vertigo and the Soldier—no, no, James, Bucky, my name is Bucky—nearly collapses against the pod. Frigid metal bites into what little exposed skin makes contact but he doesn’t feel it because his eyes are fixed on Steve. Steve, who’s stuck in the pod. Steve, who’s stripped of his serum and small and week and frozen. Steve, whose vitals are sounding off ever slower while Bucky’s own heartbeat thunders in his ears.

GET HIM OUT. The order screams through his thoughts and tears up everything else on its way. He’s slamming his fist on the emergency release before he even thinks to move. But the pod doesn’t open. Doesn’t open when he hits the release again. Doesn’t open when he tries the actual command sequence for defrosting. Doesn’t open when he slams his fist into it with a shout. And still Steve's vitals are slowing.

Static bites at his focus and black creeps in at the edges of his vision. All he can see is the cryo chamber. Steve. Steve. That cold—he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It never leaves. It’s enough to kill Stevie. More than enough.

God, he might already be dead. When was the last beep?

“Stay with me,” he begs the silent figure while he claws at every seam in the pod, hunting for purchase. “Don’t you dare quit, you’re too stubborn to stop now, you hear me? Too stubborn by half. Stay with me, don’t leave.”

He hasn’t heard a beep in—

In—

His metal hand smashes into the side of the pod, denting the metal enough to expose a lip he can fasten his fingers around. He rips the panel away with a roar but it’s just an exterior support. There are so many more. So many.

He’s yelling at Steve, now, so Steve can hear him over the sound of Bucky tearing apart the pod. Screaming for him to stay, to wake up, to stay god please stay, because the monitor isn’t beeping anymore and—

The last hinge gives way with a shriek and the pod door goes crashing across the room. Searingly cold air blasts over him, forcing his eyes into a squint, but he reaches in blindly with his left hand and finds—

Nothing. The pod is empty. Blinking away tears, he stares at the unoccupied restraints in mute confusion, the adrenaline pumping through his veins only making that confusion spiral faster as frigid mist spreads across the floor. A blink and that mist is gone. The cold is gone.

A glance to the right: no vitals monitor. A glance back at the pod: no Steve.

There’s blood roaring in his ears, the ground is swaying under his feet, he can’t get enough air, and he's falling.

---

He comes to after a few seconds, finding himself sprawled on his right side. Another few seconds pass before he pieces together what happened and why his right shoulder and head ache. The wound in his chest is still bleeding. It’s the easiest thing to focus on with his mind fogged by confusion and pain.

Thick drops of blood pool around the fingers of his hand when he brings it near and then fall to the floor. He watches them, transfixed. And then notes how bright red his blood is. A good sign.

With a bit of effort, he gets his left hand braced against the floor in front of him and, fingers scraping on the concrete, slowly levers himself up while putting as little strain on his core as he can. He uses the cryo pod for support as he gets to his feet, leaving a bloody handprint on the metal. The front of his jacket is shiny with blood and the room spins a bit when he stands straight, but it’s manageable once he leans against the wall and takes a few measured breaths. He looks to his right; the cryo pod is empty.

Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?

[the-oc-king]

Refs for my vtuber avatar, Malice!!!

[annaswelle]

Looking back on Grand Festival~ 😌💜✨

[anndr]

my faerie art~

[alphamecha-mkii]

USS Krakatoa Plans by Rusted Gear Art

[sluckythewizard]

'I wont cry for you, I wont crucify the things you do. I wont cry for you, see, when you're gone, I'll still be BLOODY MARY'

[littledaydraws]

I think Rafayel has the attitude of a little princess XD

So here he is, in his underwater palace, in his room, imagining how people will worship him. (He's right to think so...)

[toxooz]

GRRRRRRRRR

[graffic17]

Bakuda!

Worm's first real antagonist and the genesis of Taylor's hatred of tinkers.

Her actual time in the story is pretty brief, all things considered, only appearing as herself (Glastig Uaine's ghost of her doesn't count) in two arcs. But her memory haunts the narrative. Her bombs are used at multiple points, including taking out members of the S9. And her spirit literally lives on as one of Glastig Uaine's spirits.

Despite this we know shockingly little about her. We know she's half White and that she's likely from Boston, but we have no idea what her actual name is, what Asian ethnicity she is (her cape name implies that she's Japanese, but we don't know that for sure), and we have no information on her actual costume beyond her mask. A fate shared by a surprising number of Parahumans characters.

As a character, she's kinda just a broken person. Fitting, then, that Taylor emulates her. They're both people broken by their lives before triggering, trying to take control and avoid that same fate from happening to them again, and essentially failing.

Despite her briefness, she's definitely my favorite Worm antagonist.

[actualbuckybames]

Gotta hate when you go back in time to save your past self and things don't go to plan :/

No-text version and fic excerpt under the cut

One of the bikes passes close to James. He blurs into motion, metal hand fastening around the handlebar while he plants his feet and pulls the bike fully off the ground. In that same motion he’s using his other hand to shove the rider off, and as the bike is spinning to face the opposite direction it’d been going, he’s kicking a leg up and over so both he and the bike are airborne and moving and Bucky’s staring, he can do no other, because what he’s seeing is unbelievable. That kick sends the Nazi in the sidecar flying after his partner and James settles into the seat in the same instant the bike’s back tire hits the ground and then he’s gunning it towards Bucky.

“Get on!” he shouts, extending a hand. Bucky takes it and can’t help a grunt when he’s yanked up and over into the sidecar. The bike swerves for a second with the excess weight and Bucky thinks for a second they’re going to swerve right to their deaths, but James steadies it and opens the throttle to push the bike as fast as it’ll go.

It’s all over in seconds and, like Bucky, the Nazis had been too stunned by what they witnessed to react. But now that’s passed and bullets are pinging off the bike and the ground and the nearby trees while shouts and other bikes give chase.

Bucky’s still got his pilfered revolver so he twists in the sidecar, bracing his arm against the spare tire on the back and his knee on the uncomfortable bench while he plants his other foot at the front of the footwell for what little stability he can get. Thus braced, he takes shots at their pursuit.

It's hell to do with one arm on a moving bike but he manages to catch one of their front tires, flipping that bike and turning it into an unavoidable obstacle for another one behind it. So busy with shooting, he can’t stop his hat from getting plucked off his head by the wind.

“Can you quit swerving?” he yells when another one of his shots goes abruptly wide. James doesn’t bother with a response; the bullets whizzing through the air around them are answer enough.

[the-oc-king]

Updated design of my sona/vtuber avatar, Malice!

[annaswelle]

I wonder how often inkfish get stuck on stuff with their suction cups (very old comic but I still like it hehe)

[garadinervi]

Joe Gilmore (design), Ephemeral ∞ Eternal, SØS Gunver Ryberg, Albert van Abbe – Phasing Waves, Byetone, Children of the Light, (2xVinyl LP, Digital album), PW000, Phasing Waves, Berlin, 2023

[no-side-us]

Why is Holmes holding a severed chicken head on this cover?

[ekkonus]

Wow... Haven't posted in a while, huh.

Well, have some booba Makoto sent to her gf... Just don't tell anyone I leaked this one!

[arthistoryanimalia]

Happy International #HorseshoeCrabDay!

Elfriede Abbe (American, 1919–2012) Horseshoe Crab and Rushes, n.d., 49/50 Wood engraving on Japanese paper, printed in brown ink Johnson Museum of Art 2010.013.005