#and maybe he should stop playing with his tin soldiers

[daughter-of-the-clayr]

thinking about spymaster and the fam again. bc the dynamic is a little strange. a little impersonal. sure he fixates on yaz and tries to tempt graham with knowledge but. it's different, bc he doesn't target them. sure he involves them in Schemes but he also never - enslaves their family, or kills their boyfriend, or, and this is The Big One.

he never turns them into cybermen.

bc he threatens their lives occasionally - the plane, the kaasavin - but they're not the targets there, they're collateral damage. he has a chance to threaten ryan directly at the boundary, and he doesn't, he threatens ethan instead. he sets them up to be killed by cybermen but - it's less direct. it's impersonal. (the closest thing he gets to personal is potd, between him and yaz, but that's different again, and you could write a whole essay on that episode)

and i think it's bc he knows. and the doctor knows. and the fam doesn't know but the tardis absolutely sits judgement upon him. that bill was too far.

bill - who was willing to sacrifice herself for the world, willing to let missy kill her, who was conned into friendship bc the master was angry at themselves. for standing with the doctor. bill, who they caused and they walked away from and now the doctor is seething with rage towards them. bill, who they don't know is still alive (sort of) and travelling happily. saxon crossed a line with that - a line that the master hasn't crossed before.

and now killing the doctor's humans isn't fun. or new.

it's dangerous.

[pandagirl45]

Bucky holding an old poster of his favorite singer, one he heard whenever he was sent out to do missions, "one day soon..."

He grins excited at the old poster, this singer kept him grounded. It linked him to a world he barely understands and he still doesn't quite get. Everytime he heard that voice, heard that greeting, 'Hello my lovely roses' he gets a tingle, a zapping sensation going down his spine.

It was a voice that echoed in his glass shard mind. The deep red mask that framed the face down to his red rose outfit. Everything about him made him the doll of the ball. The man of the hour. The piece of the prefect pie.

Bucky clenched the poster at the heavy steps of servos and gears come up behind. A haughty, quite frankly annoying voice, "Tsk, that hazbin? Bucka-roni," cheese and crackers he hates Iron Man. Everytime he even looks at the poster he kept safe, this punk in all but adorable is calling the rose of saints, a Harbin,

"He went out of style years ago, I should know, I've seen him stop playing due to a star panic."

Whipping around to face the man who towered him by 3 inches, bucky leveled a glare finger twitching on a ghost trigger, "You keep his name off your lips. Rosa, he went through to much crap for another one of you to continue to run his name down. Leave the man alone."

"You don't even know the man," iron man had the nerve to laugh behind the tin can of the suit. The disrespect was something bucky can't swallow back.

"Fuck you," with a hiss, bucky walked from the armor of a one army. Cold as his heart probably. Bucky didn't have to deal with that. Rosa already had problems. A panic attack. His heavy breathing. It was the only time he caught the man live. He managed to elude hydra long enough to avoid him

Bucky wanted to find him and, give him all the love and applause he deserves. If he can find his address, maybe buck can write him a letter. Would it be cheesy to put rose petals with the letter?

Tony pulled off his helmet, stepping down the steps. Grasping at his helmet, Tony swallowed hard as the Winter Soldier stood there. Defending him. Well... his celebrity persona.

Stand there trying to square off with the Iron Man. Ready to maul him for insulting, well himself.

He... Tony looked at his old mask he adorn during his concerts. Rosa of the Song. With love Rosa. He stared at the mask then his iron man helmet. The two of three masks he wear or worn, Tony breathes out heavily.

"Only you stark would get the winter soldier as a fan..." he didn't want to come back, but now he has to hide from the winter soldier more. Hide from them all.

He can heard rhodey voice already telling Jim, 'Tones, of course you'd be well known, that is one non tech talent you, you are musically incline.'

He cant musically or technically get out of this one.

[tricksters-captain]

Bucky Barnes imagines - Some Sunny Day Part 4

AN: What a crazy episode! I definitely think this episode was one of the best so far and I cannot wait to see what happens next after that insane ending!

Overall Summary: Before the Blip, you and Bucky were close. After you both returning and Tony’s funeral, you decided to go back to your home town to spend time with your family. When duty calls, you return.  

In this chapter: Now in Latvia, you and the boys must find Karli before the Dora take Zemo away (Based on S1 EP4)

(PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3)

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader, Sam Wilson x Platonic!Reader

Word Count: 6,123

Warnings: Spoilers for episode 4, violence, strong language.

Once inside Zemo’s apartment, you started to look through the cupboards. 

Zemo had excused himself to take a bath but you felt starved. 

Even with the limited stock you managed to whip something up for you and Sam. 

“Thank you.” Sam took the bowl from you gratefully. The food Zemo had given you on his private plane wasn’t exactly edible and you were still feeling the affects of the Nagel fail in your body. 

“Well, the Wakandans are here.” Bucky announced as he entered the apartment; having returned from his walk. “They want Zemo. Bought us some more time.”

“”Were you followed?” Sam looked up at him. 

“No.” Bucky made his way over to you and Sam by the kitchen island. 

“How can you be so sure?” Zemo pondered. 

“Cause I know when I’m being followed.” Bucky sent an unimpressed glance to the man in the bathrobe. 

You pushed a bowl of pasta towards Bucky but he shook his head and pulled out his phone.

“It was sweet of you to defend me at least.” Zemo stated. 

“Hey, you shut it.” Sam quipped. “No one’s defending you. You killed Nagel.” 

“You gotta eat.” You whispered to Bucky. 

“Do we really have to litigate what may or may not have happened?” Zemo rounded the island so he was closer to you all.

“I’ll eat later.” Bucky mumbled back to you as he furrowed his brow at twitter. 

“There’s nothing to litigate. You straight shot the man.” Sam argued with Zemo. 

“Sam.” Bucky had found something. 

“What?” Sam turned his attention to Bucky and away from Zemo. 

“Karli bombed a GRC supply depot.” Bucky showed you his phone screen so you could read.

“What? What’s the damage?” Sam’s concern grew quickly. 

“Eleven injured, three dead.” You said after skimming over the article. 

“They have a list of demands and are promising more attacks if those demands aren’t met.” Bucky added as Sam sighed. 

“She’s getting worse.” Zemo spoke up. “I have the will to complete this mission. Do the three of you?”

“She’s just a kid.” Sam was right. She was only young, she reminded you of you when you first joined the avengers. Desperate to fight for a cause. 

“You’re seeing something in her that isn’t there.” Zemo disagreed. “You’re clouded by it. She’s a supremacist. The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people. It’s that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, to the Avengers.”

“You’re talking about our friends.” You felt the need to remind Zemo that you were actually apart of the Avengers as you placed your empty bowl in the sink. 

“The Avengers, not the Nazis.” Bucky felt the need to clarify. 

“So, Karli is radicalised, but there has to be a peaceful way to stop her.” Sam was determined there wasn’t a need for a fight. 

“The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals. Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path. She will not stop. She will escalate until you kill her.” Zemo explained as he reached for the bowl you had originally offered Bucky. “Or she kills you.” 

You swatted his hand away to which he frowned at. 

“Maybe you’re wrong, Zemo. The serum never corrupted Steve.” Bucky argued his point. 

“Touché.” Zemo picked up a biscuit instead. Holding it on his finger as he spoke. “But there has never been another Steve Rogers, has there?”

“Well, maybe we should give him to the Wakandans right now.” Bucky suggested to you and Sam as he moved over to the couch. 

“And you’ll give up your tour guide?” Zemo asked as he opened the cupboards to look for some food. 

“Yes.” Bucky didn’t hesitate. 

“From my understanding, Donya is like a pillar of the community, right?” Sam interrupted with a new thought. “So, when I was a kid, my TT passed away.”

“Your TT?” Bucky asked, unsure of what Sam had meant. 

“Yeah, my TT, yeah.” Sam nodded. 

“Who is your TT?” Bucky asked as you sat down beside him. 

“Fine. When I was a kid, my aunt passed away and the entire neighborhood got together for a ceremony. It was like a week long. Maybe they’re doing the same thing for Donya.” Sam proposed. He could be right. 

“Worth a shot.” You proclaimed. 

“Your TT would be proud of you.” Zemo sounded more awkward at the use of the phrase before he pulled out a fancy looking tin. “Turkish delight? Irresistible.”

Sam caught the small sweet that Zemo had thrown. 

“I say Zemo put’s some clothes on and we head over to the refugee camp that Donya was staying. See if anyone knows anything about a funeral or ceremony for her.” You ignored Zemo as he looked down at the sweets. 

“Sounds like a plan.” Sam stood from his seat at the island and looked over at Zemo. 

Zemo nodded before disappearing into a bedroom to change. 

It didn't take long to get to the camp from Zemo’s apartment. 

“Shame what’s become of this place. When I was young, we used to come here for fabulous dinners and parties. I knew nothing of the politics of the time, of course, but I remember it being beautiful.” Zemo seemed saddened by the state of the buildings being used as the camp. 

“I’m gonna take a look around upstairs. See what you can find out here. And keep an eye on him.” Sam told Bucky as he gestured to Zemo. 

“I’ll stay out of your way.” Zemo promised. 

“(Y/n), you look around through there. See if you can... You know.” Sam pointed down through one of the ground floor doors. You nodded and left the men.

Most of the adults fled when you entered the building but you noticed a young girl who looked too busy with what she was doing to notice. She had looked maybe 16 or 17 years old and she was embroidering an old silk scarf. 

“That’s beautiful.” You knelt down beside her but as you spoke, her eyes shot up and widened with shock and fear. 

“T-t-thank you.” She stuttered as her eyes flittered around the room for help. 

“It’s okay. I was just wondering if I could have a look at it.” You smiled softly at the girl as you held your hand out. 

She reluctantly gave it to you. 

“This truly is beautiful. You are very talented. May I buy it from you?” You placed your hand in your pocket and pulled out a note that you had previously stolen from Zemo’s jacket.

“You c-c-can have it.” She whispered as she stood. You rose with her as you folded the scarf to place into your pocket. 

“I insist.” You took her hand gently and cautiously and placed the money in her palm. She smiled but she still was nervous and full of worry. You figured she knew who you were. 

You folded your hands over hers and that’s when you unplugged the cork on your powers. 

You closed your eyes and within seconds all the girls memories flooded into your head. 

You tried not to react as it happened. 

You tried your best to filter through the memories quickly. When you reached the time after the blip, you slowed down. You saw the horrors of them being rejected, being abandoned and then you saw Mama Donya and Karli. 

You focused on Karli. 

You watched Karli smile and laugh with all the children, she’d play and look after them as Donya looked after Karli. 

Closer memories brought what seemed like events that only just happened. Karli visiting with supplies. 

You saw the mourning of Mama Donya from everyone and then you saw the arrangements for the funeral. 

You opened your eyes and let go of the girls hand. She thanked you again and left. She would have never realised what you had seen as the memories are shown to you within a matter of seconds. 

You leant against the table and inhaled deeply. 

You felt weak again. 

You pushed yourself off the table and headed back out to Bucky. 

Zemo was surrounded by a bunch of small children.

“You okay?”Bucky asked. The second you reappeared he immediately noticed a change in you. 

“I’m okay.” You lied. “I spoke to one of the teenagers inside. I looked inside her head. You were right, Sam. They are having a funeral but she only knew that she would be taken to it later this afternoon.” You explained as Sam joined you both. 

“Good work.” Sam wrapped his arm around you and gave you a small squeeze of appreciation. 

They both knew how hard it must've been for you to use your powers after the Nagel incident. 

The toll of touching the dead had knocked you for six in the past and in a matter of forty eight hours you had touched the dead and looked into the memories of a live person. 

You’ll need an energy boost before you can do this again. 

Zemo turned back to you and you all returned to the apartment. 

“Well, I got nothin’. No one’s talkin’ about Donya.” Bucky slouched down on the couch in defeat. 

“Yeah, it’s because Karli is the only one fighting for them.” Sam joined him on the couch. “And she’s not wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked. 

“For five years, people have been welcomed into countries that have kept them out using barbwire. There were houses and jobs. Folks were happy to have people around to help them rebuild. It wasn’t just one community coming together, it was the entire world coming together. And then, boom. Just like that, it goes right back to the way it used to be. To them, at least Karli’s doin’ somethin’.” Sam explained himself. 

“You really think her ends justify her means? Then, she’s no different than him or anybody else we’ve fought.” Bucky pointed over to Zemo. 

“She’s different. She’s not motivated by the same things.” Sam argued with Bucky.

“Sam’s right.” You spoke up. “When I looked into that girls head I saw a lot of Karli. She means a lot to those people, she is their light, their Captain America. But she’s just a kid. From what I saw she has a whole lot of love in her heart and I'm not saying that hurting and killing people is right but she sees it as the only way to help her people.” 

Zemo had walked over from the kitchen with a tray as you spoke. 

“That little girl. What’d she tell you?” Bucky questioned him. 

“The funeral is this afternoon.” Zemo only said what you already knew. 

“We know that. Now you know the Dora’s coming for you any minute. In fact, they’re probably lurking outside right now. Keep talking.” Bucky demanded. 

“Leaving you to turn on me once we get to Karli. Hmm. I prefer to keep my leverage.” Zemo sure knew how to push someone’s buttons. 

Bucky shot up and threw Zemo’s cup against the wall. The crashing of the glass made both you and Sam jump to your feet. 

“You wanna see what someone can do with leverage?” Bucky threatened Zemo. 

“Take it easy. Don’t engage him. He’s just gonna extort you and do that stupid head tilt thing.” Sam tried to de-elevate the situation. “Let me make a call.”

“You want some cherry blossom tea?” Zemo offered Bucky as Sam walked away.

“No, you go ahead.” Bucky grumbled, scowling at the Baron. 

“Come on.” You took Bucky’s hand and pulled him away from Zemo. 

You headed into the bathroom and started to fill up the tub with some cold water. 

“Will you get me some ice?” You asked Bucky to which he complied. 

Once the tub was full of ice water, you stripped and climbed inside. 

Bucky had taken a stool and faced the door to give you some privacy. 

“You shouldn’t let him get to you.” You said as you settled into the water. Your body was screaming at you as the ice touched it but you knew it’d give you the wake up call you and your muscles needed. 

“I don’t.” Bucky grimaced. 

“You don’t? Oh, so the shattered cup in the other room was just a scare tactic?” You mused. 

“Yep.” Bucky grumbled. 

“Okay.” You sighed before going under. 

The cold water hit your brain and you immediately sat back up. 

“Feel better?” Bucky had heard the splashing of the water. 

“Yeah.” You admitted, running your hands over your face and hair. “Can I have my towel?”

Bucky kept his back to you as he passed you the towel. 

You wrapped it around you and stepped out. 

“You can look.” You told him.

Bucky turned and his eyes went straight to the bruises that covered your legs and arms. 

“I’m okay, Buck.” You assured him as you watched the cogs turning in his head. 

“I forget you aren’t...” Bucky’s words dropped off as he stepped closer and lightly took your arm, examining the damage. 

“That I’m not a super soldier?” You smirked. “I may bruise but I can hold a lot more than most, Buck.” 

“Doesn’t stop me worrying.” Bucky admitted as he lowered your arm. 

“I know.” You whispered, looking up at the man’s deep blue eyes.

“You better get dressed. You already know what Sam is thinking with us both being gone right now.” Bucky went to go towards the door when you stopped him. 

“I had a dream about Wakanda on the plane ride here.” You confessed. 

Bucky stopped and looked back at you. 

“It was the day you finally beat the Winter Soldier.” You told him. 

*Flashback*

“These are incredible, Shuri.”  You smiled widely as you threw the new high tech Vibranium knives that Shuri had made for you. 

“I know. I know.” Shuri was well aware of her awesome brain. 

Shuri pressed the combat button on the wall which simulated attackers for intense weapon training. 

You inhaled as you closed your eyes. 

A footstep gave away your first attacker. You threw the knives to the holograms and the attackers were down. You ducked and dodged and jumped around the room as you practised with the knives. 

Shuri cheered you when you finished. You smiled through your heavy breaths and Shuri jogged towards you to give you a fist bump. 

“You are something else, my friend.” Shuri praised you. 

The doors opening behind you made both you and Shuri turn to see who had entered. 

It was Bucky. 

He rushed towards you with a bright smile. His lips seemed to quiver and his eyes were glassy. Something had happened. 

It had happened.

He embraced you tightly and you returned it. Your fingers gripped onto Bucky’s long hair as he buried his face in your neck. 

You looked back at Ayo (who had followed Bucky) and Shuri and mouthed a ‘Thank you’. 

Ayo bowed her head at you before leaving the hall. 

Bucky had finally gotten over HYDRA’s programming after all these years of being held prisoner by a few words. 

You and Bucky stayed like that for what felt like hours. The relief from Bucky washed over you and bound him to you until he was ready to part. 

It was an incredible day.

*End of Flashback*

“Maybe you could sense that the Dora’s were close on our tails.” Bucky suggested. 

“No, we all knew that they’d come for Zemo eventually.” You dismissed the idea. “I think it was after seeing Zemo treat you like him again.” 

Bucky remained silent. 

“I don’t think I ever told you how proud I was of you that day.” You folded your arms over your chest as you leant back on the tub.

“You didn't need to.” Bucky assured you. “I already knew.” 

You watched Bucky leave the bathroom so you could change. 

When you had returned to the main space again it was just about time to head out again. 

You felt a little nervous as you didn’t really want a fight with Karli since you weren’t 100% but you figured you had felt a hell of a lot worse before.

As you left the apartment, a voice and face you didn’t particularly wanna see called out. 

“Karli Morgenthau is too dangerous for you guys to be pulling this shit.” John Walker and his little side kick were walking down some stairs towards you. 

“Ah! How’d you find us now?” Bucky called back. 

“Come on. You think three Avengers can walk around Latvia without drawing attention?” Lemar, Walker’s partner, scoffed. 

“No more keeping us in the dark. You could start by telling us why you broke him out of prison.” Walker pointed out Zemo. 

“He did that himself, technically.” Bucky corrected Walker.  

“This better be an unbelievable explana––”

“––Hey, take it easy before it gets weird.” Sam interrupted Walker before things could get heated in front of civilians.

“I know where Karli is.” Zemo kept walking as the others stopped. 

“Well, where?” Walker asked, stopping Zemo by stepping in his way. 

“All we know is it’s a memorial. So, we’re gonna intercept her there.” Sam informed them.

“That means civilians. High risk of casualties.” Lemar relaid to his partner as you continued to walk.

“All right, good, we’ll move in fast. Take her by surprise.” Walker started to talk through his plan when Sam stopped him. 

“No, I wanna talk to her alone.”

“I’m not losing her again.” Walker argued with Sam. 

“Look, the person closest to her died, she’s vulnerable. Now is the best time to reason with her.” Sam was trying to defend his reasoning but Walker wasn’t having it. 

“What? No. Wait, no! No! Stop. Hold on. Stop, okay?” Walker ran up ahead to stop everyone again. “I think we’re way past reasoning with her, unless you forgot that she blew up a building with people still in it.” 

“Sam, you walk in there cold, she could kill you, man.”Lemar tried backing up his partner. 

“If I go in hot and the op goes wrong, more people will die.” Sam handed over the other scenario. 

“You’ll let him do this?” Walker looked between you and Bucky. “Are you gonna let your partner walk into a room with a Super Soldier alone?”

“He’s dealt with worse.” Bucky told him flatly. “And he’s not my partner.”

“I used to counsel soldiers dealing with trauma, okay? This is in my wheelhouse.” Sam walked past you and Bucky to face Walker.

“I know. And I know those soldiers, which is why I know this is a bad idea.” Walker still wasn't on board. 

“Wait, John.” Lemar stopped Walker.  “If he can talk her down, it might be worth a try.”  

“Thank god Battle-scar here has some sense.” You declared. 

“It’s Battle Star actually.”Lemar smiled at you but you ignored him. 

“We’ll deal with you later.” Walker told Zemo as he caved in.

“I’m sure it will all come to an agreeable conclusion. My associate is just up ahead.” Zemo lead you towards the young girl he had spoken to earlier that day. 

“Hello, my friend. This is for your family. Can you show us the way?” Zemo handed her some money and the girl beckoned for you all to follow.  

“What the hell?” Walker seemed a little confused by Zemo’s ‘associate’ being 12.

The girl lead you to the building where the funeral was being held and you all waited for a signal. 

“Karli’s in there.” Zemo announced as the girl ran off. 

Sam went in whilst Walker cuffed Zemo. 

“You got 10 minutes. Then we are doing things my way.” Walker told Sam before he left. 

“Aggressive.” Zemo mumbled after being handcuffed. “But I get it.”

You rolled your eyes subtly at both Walker and Zemo. 

You took up a position by the door with Bucky. 

You watched Walker sit down, his grip on the shield was tight as he slowly huffed in and out. 

You frowned as you studied the man. Your eyes glanced over to Zemo who was also watching Walker. 

You shared a look before you let your eyes fall back down to your feet.  

“Uh-uh. No, no, no. This is a bad idea.” Walker started to pace as he let his impatience get the best of him. 

“It hasn’t been ten minutes, John. Just sit tight.” Bucky sighed unimpressed by the young solder. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t patronise me.” Walker glared back at Bucky. 

“Sam knows what he’s doing.” You backed Bucky up. 

You all watched Walker stop as he thought. His heavy breathes causing his chest to rise up and down quickly. 

“I’m goin’ in.” Walker didn’t want to listen anymore. He stormed towards the door but both you and Bucky stepped in his way.

“This is all really easy for you, isn’t it? All that serum runnin’ through your veins.” Walker didn’t even look at you as he squared up to Bucky. 

That really bothered you.

You took hold of the man’s upper arm and yanked him to look at you. 

“You may be Captain America right now but we don’t follow you. We said we’d give him 10 minutes. So, he’s getting 10 minutes.” You glowered at the man. 

“Your partner needs backup in there. Do you really want his blood on your hands?” Walker leant towards you, trying to be intimidating but it wasn’t working. 

“Just wait.” You looked the man in the eye with a subtle threat in your stare. His jaw clenched as he tugged his arm away from you. 

Walker went back to look at the clock again. 

After a couple more minutes, he tried once more. 

“Time’s up! Our turn.” Walker didn’t hesitate to push past you as he charged ahead. 

Bucky kept his tongue in his cheek as he watched it happen. 

You and Bucky stayed behind Walker and his partner as they marched ahead.

“Karli Morgenthau, you’re under arrest.” Walker announced as he entered the room. 

“This is what that was?” Betrayal flashed across Karli’s face as she looked at Sam. 

“No, wait––” Sam didn’t have a chance now that Walker had intervened.

“––Tricking me until help came?” Karli started to back away. 

“We had enough time to talk.” Walker exclaimed as he headed straight for Karli. 

“Nazi! “ Karli wasn't going the easy way. She hit Walker back and he went straight into a table. 

Lemar tried to keep you and Bucky back but you had easily managed to get round him to chase after Karli. 

Bucky being what he was managed to get ahead of you but you were close on their trail. 

Sam had found his own way but ultimately you all lost Karli. 

“I lost her.” Bucky sighed.

“This place is a maze.” Sam looked around at the several doorways with a frown. 

The sound of gunshots is what caught your attention next. 

“Come on.” You rushed through the building trying to get to the source. 

You didn’t manage to get there before Walker did. 

Zemo was unconscious on the floor and vials of the serum were smashed around the concrete floor. 

“What happened?” You asked as you looked down at the mess. 

“He was shooting at Karli. I stopped him but she got away.” Walker lifted his shield a little to symbol how he had stopped Zemo. 

“Let’s get him up.” Sam started down the stairs and you followed. 

Zemo woke up after a little encouragement and some smelling salts. You had decided it was best if you split up on your way back to the apartment. 

You and Sam were going to stay with Zemo and see if you can dig up anything on socials and the computer and Bucky was going to do a round and see if she had holed up anywhere familiar. 

Sam sat at his computer, he was contacting Sharon whilst you stood with your phone searching Twitter to see if any Flag Smashers appearances or Karli were popping up in recent tweets. 

Zemo laid down on the couch with a wet towel and a strong glass of scotch. 

“You got anything?” Sam asked you. 

“Nothing. I don’t think we’ll find her this time if she doesn’t want us too.” You put your phone down in defeat. It wasn't usual for people to give her Karli’s location anyway. 

“I think you’re right.” Sam hated to agree but this was the first time you had come close to actually talking Karli down and it failed. 

“And now with the serum’s gone. Who knows what her next move will be.” You knew that Karli didn’t have the option to create more super soldiers now and that gives her a disadvantage. The idea of an army is gone now and she would only have her current foot soldiers to help her. 

Zemo moved for the first time in ten minutes as he lifted his cold compress. 

“Were you ever offered it?" He asked aloud. 

“What?” Sam furrowed his brow at the man. 

“The serum.” Zemo replied. 

“No.” Sam smirked at the idea. 

“If you had been, hypothetically, that is, would you have taken it?” Zemo inquired. 

“No.” Sam answered instantly, his smile dropping. 

“No hesitation. That’s impressive.” Zemo nodded before removing his towel. “Sam. (Y/n). You can’t hold out hope for Karli. No matter what you saw in her, she’s gone. And we cannot allow that she and her acolytes become yet another faction of gods amongst real people. Super Soldiers cannot be allowed to exist.”

“Isn’t that how gods talk?” Sam queried. “And if that’s how you feel, what about Bucky?” There was a silence from Zemo. “Blood isn’t always the solution.” 

Before the conversation could continue, the door opened and Bucky strode inside.

“Something’s not right about Walker.” Bucky stated as he removed his jacket. 

“You don’t say.” Sam huffed with amusement. It was clear as day that Walker was at his wits end with the pressure on him.

“Well, I know a crazy when I see one. Because I am crazy.” Bucky poured himself a glass of whiskey. You rolled your eyes at his statement. 

“Can’t argue with that.” Sam retorted. 

“Shouldn’t have given him the shield.” Bucky was back on this topic again. 

“I didn’t give him the shield.” Sam rose to his feet to face Bucky.

“Well, Steve definitely didn’t.” Bucky sipped on his drink just as the doors flew open. 

All right. That’s it. Let’s go. I’m now ordering you to turn him over.” Walker commanded, his face red and his ears steaming. 

“Hey, slow your roll. Shield or no shield, the only thing you’re runnin’ in here is your mouth. Now, I had Karli and you overstepped. He’s actually proven himself useful today. We’ll need all hands on deck for whatever’s comin’ next.” Sam approached Walker to try and pump his breaks. 

“How do you want the rest of this conversation to go, Sam, huh?” Walker chuckled softly as Sam remained silent. “Yeah. Should I put down the shield? Make it fair?”

Sam scoffed, shaking his head at the man’s antics. 

Walker put down the shield but the only thing flying next was a spear that struck the pillar by Walker’s head. 

It was the Dora Milaje. 

They had come for Zemo. 

From your time in Wakanda you understood the language as Ayo spoke to Bucky. 

“Even if he is a means to an end. Your time is up.” Ayo reverted back to English. “Release him to us now.” 

Walker introduced himself to Ayo, not that she cared for him.

“Well let’s, uh, put the pointy sticks down and we can talk this through, huh?” Walker suggested, only to be met, yet again, by silence from the Dora’s.

“Hey, John, take it easy. You might wanna fight Bucky before you tangle with the Dora Milaje.” Sam tried to warn him but he wasn’t backing down. 

“They don’t have jurisdiction here––”

“––The Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be.” Ayo cut Walker short. 

“Okay.” John chuckled lightly. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Walker made the mistake of putting his hand on Ayo’s shoulder. 

Ayo responded with an attack. 

The surrounding Dora’s fell into defence positions as Ayo and Walker fought.  Lemar bounced into action, trying to help his partner out but it only warranted in more fighting. Or more asses getting kicked by the Dora Milaje. 

“We should do something.” Sam said as you, him and Bucky stood together watching. 

“Looking strong, John.” Bucky called out. 

“Bucky!” You tried not to laugh as you scolded the man. 

“Guys...” Sam nodded to Ayo about to strike John with her spear which made Bucky reluctantly intervene. 

“Ayo, let’s talk about this.” Bucky only landed himself directly in the mess. 

You realised how serious this was as Ayo didn’t hold back and went ahead to help Bucky. Sam went over to help Lemar but was met by more Dora's.

You grunted as one of the women attacked you. You had almost forgotten just how incredible they were at combat. Almost. 

You were backed against a wall with the spear to your chest when the room fell silent. 

You looked over at Bucky to see his arm was on the floor. 

You wanted to move towards him but you were stuck until orders were given to release you. 

“He is gone. Leave it.” Ayo had opened the bathroom doors to reveal the manhole had been opened. Zemo had escaped. 

You were trying to slow your breathing when finally the Dora’s fell back. 

She retracted her spear and left with Ayo and the others. 

“Did you know they could do that?” Sam asked Bucky as he pushed himself off the floor. 

Bucky reattached his arm. He groaned as he swung it round to adjust it. 

“No.” He said but the shock on his face from before had already given away that answer. 

You looked past Bucky to where Walker was still on the floor. 

“You all right, man?” Lemar offered his hand to help him up. 

“They weren’t even Super Soldiers.” You heard Walker mutter. 

“Come on.” Lemar tugged him to his feet. 

“I can’t believe he pulled an El Chapo.” Sam walked over to the bathroom and stared at the hole. 

“I can.” Bucky wasn’t really that surprised and neither were you truthfully. 

“Come on.” You beckoned the boys out of the apartment so you could talk. 

You got down to the streets and away from Walker before you spoke again. 

“Walker isn’t stable. He’s on the brink of cracking.” You kept your voice low as you spoke to the boys. 

“What do you mean?” Sam asked. 

“We may not like him but he’s not stupid. He knows that he can’t be Steve, do the things Steve did and it’s killing him. He's so obviously trying to win this fight by himself and it’s going to drive him insane if he isn’t the one to beat Karli.” 

“But he can’t beat Karli. You saw her kick him across the room like he was a cardboard box.” Sam reminded you of what happened earlier. 

“We have to get to Karli before he does because he’s either gonna stop her or kill himself trying.” You weren't worried for the man but worried about what would happen if he finally snapped. 

Suddenly, Sam’s phone started to ring. It was his sister. 

“She said what? Right. Hold on, hold on. I know, I know. Listen, pack an overnight bag and take the boys...” Sam sounded worried. 

“What happened?” Bucky asked. 

“Karli called Sarah. She threatened my nephews.” Sam told you both. “Okay. Go somewhere safe. Only pay cash. All right? Tell me when you arrive. I know. Look, I love you. I’ll never let anything happen to you and the boys. Okay. Bye.” He hung up and then immediately texted an unknown number. 

“What does she want?” You knew Karli was desperate but threatening kids was a different story.

“Karli wants to meet. She left a contact number.” Sam’s phone buzzed with a new text. “She said come alone.”

“We’re coming with you.” Bucky wasn’t going to take no for an answer. 

“Alright but keep your distance.” Sam didn’t bother to fight you on it. “We better suit up.” 

You suited up by adding a few more weapons to your body. You placed your favourite thigh holsters on that held your Vibranium knives out on display. 

Sam got his wings and soon you were at the location. 

“Karli!” Sam bellowed as you entered the building. 

Karli leant over a balcony to make herself seen. You remained on the ground floor but looked up at the girl. Bucky followed Sam. 

“You called my sister? That’s how we’re gonna play this?” Sam was upset and understandably so. 

“Sam, I would never hurt her. I just wanted to understand you better.” Karli confessed.“I see you, um, didn’t come alone.”Karli peered down at you then up at Bucky. 

“You have to end this now.” Sam told her. 

“I don’t wanna hurt you. You’re a tool in the regimes I’m looking to destroy. You’re not hiding behind a shield. If I were to kill you, it’d be meaningless. I was gonna ask you to join me. Or do the world a favour and let me go.” Karli spoke pretty boldly for someone who seemed to be alone. Super Soldier or not. 

“Hey, Sam, new Cap is moving, looks like he’s found them, or maybe they found him.” Sharon’s voice came through on Sam’s intercom. 

“It’s Walker.” Sam looked down at you and then Bucky. 

Karli jumped from the balcony at the realisation the jig was up but Bucky was quick to jump too. 

Karli kicked Bucky back but you managed to weaken Karli as you flipped over and kicked her in the jaw. 

Sam put her down momentarily as he flew down and kicked her also. 

“I’ll send you the location. Go!” Sam ordered both you and Bucky before he took off. 

You knew Bucky would be fast enough to run there but you didn’t have that luxury. 

You crossed the street to a parked motorbike and opened up it’s wiring. Just as you managed to get it running, Sam’s coordinates came through. 

You docked your phone and set off. 

You dodged through the narrow streets and traffic to arrive at another large building. Karli must have a favour for buildings you could get lost in. 

You drove through the doors and skidded to a stop. 

Bucky had gotten there before you. You could hear his grunts from a flight or two up. 

You raced up them only to be met by a super soldier fighting Bucky. 

You sent a knife forward, it embedded itself into the man’s soldier, he cried out which gave Bucky some time to throw him down the stairs. 

You tucked up, over the tumbling body, holding onto the railing and the wall. 

Bucky jumped over the rails and with one final blow knocked the soldier unconscious. 

“Stay there.” Bucky told him before climbing back up to you. He thanked you for the help, handing you back the knife that had been in the man’s shoulder. 

You then both went ahead to find Sam and Walker. 

They were fighting more super soldiers a floor up. 

You didn’t hesitate to go in for the attack.

You pulled a knife and threw it to Bucky for help; he caught it midair. 

You screamed with frustration as the soldier you were fighting, pulled your arm behind you and slammed you into the pillar. You managed to swivel around, taking out the soldiers legs as you freed your arm. 

You threw a knife into both his biceps. You only intended to injure, not kill, them anyway. 

He groaned as he pulled them and tried to use them against you. 

All at once, the fighting stopped when you all witnessed Karli kick Lemar into one of the concrete pillars. 

Lemar’s body slumped down with blood painted across his lips. 

John broke free from his attacker and slowly made his way over to Lemar. 

From the sight of the body, you already knew he wasn’t walking out of there. 

Walker desperately tried to wake him up. 

That’s when Karli took her chance to flee. 

You and the boys took off after her but lost her again pretty quickly. 

When you rounded the building, you saw a crowd gathering. 

What you saw next made you feel psychically sick. 

John Walker stood above Karli’s right hand man, blood splattered up Steve’s shield and across his uniform. 

He had killed the man in front of all these civilians. He had killed a man as Captain America. 

(PART 5 HERE)

Bucky Barnes Tag List

@florencxs​ @mystictimetravelcolor​ @yourphotographyteen16​@shannon-posts​@darkbluenovember @sexwithhiddlesbatch​@thefandomimagines​ @mydarkness-itsnotmyfriend​ @sad-huffle-nerd​ @glitchingghosts​ @themaddies-obx​ @avenging-parker​@delilahsdaydream​​ @felicityofbakerstreet​​ @purplewcrld​​ @opheliaaaa​​ @avisexe​ @lindseyrae20​ @thanossexual​ @smolanxiousdeku​ @soccer-100000​

[thesquidkid]

Together we can quiet all the noises

3k of malex fluff post 3x09 (Read on ao3)

Alex woke up slowly, feeling his face buried into something warm. As he came to his senses, he realised his entire body was wrapped against a human size pillow, making him hum in comfort. He opened his eyes, blinking a few times to get used to the light coming through the curtains. Once his eyes were used to it, he met Michael’s soft eyes and warm smile, who was playing with his hair.

Alex had both his arms around Michael’s right leg, his head on his lap, while Michael was sitting against the headboard, one hand in Alex’s hair and the other holding a book, smiling down on Alex.

“Morning,” Michael said softly, not to disturb Alex, “how are you feeling?”

Alex took a few seconds to think about his answer, enjoying the warmth and the comfort of Michael’s alien body and the blanket. The events of the last few days came back to him, still a bit hazy, but clear enough that he remembered nearly everything. He remembered working on the Lockhart machine longer than he should’ve, missing his and Michael’s first public date, hallucinating Nora, their conversation, standing on the ledge, nearly dying.

But he also remembered Michael coming to save him, them working on the machine together and cutting out his father’s piece from it, Michael driving him back home and Alex falling asleep, Michael holding him close.

“Better,” he answered eventually, deciding that he wasn’t good yet, but wanted to work on it. Michael smiled and continued to play with his hair. Alex sighed, making Michael chuckle, but not stop.

He had a pensive look on his face, having put his book down on the bedside table, clearly playing words in his head, finding the best way to say what he wanted. And so Alex waited, neither of them were in a hurry.

After some time, Michael spoke up again, his voice barely more than a whisper, “You could’ve died, Alex.” He took a shaky breath, his eyes never leaving Alex’s, “I only just got you back, losing you - I can’t -” he went off, looking up and blinking the tears away.

Alex, feeling much better physically after a good night's sleep, sat up to face Michael. He raised a hand to his cheek rubbing the tears away with his thumb. “I’m sorry,” he said, matching Michael’s whisper.

“I know,” he replied, “but next time, call me?”

And Alex thought about that. Michael wasn’t asking him to call so he could stop him from whatever brave or stupid plan he had. Michael wasn’t asking Alex to call him to blame or criticise or whatever it is that both of them would’ve done in the past.

No, this time, Michael wanted Alex to call him so he could help. So he could be present by Alex’s side, just like he was when they worked on the machine together. And Alex knew that it worked both ways now. That Michael understood why Alex had worked on the machine for so long, why he had to.

More unspoken words, Alex thought. Except this time, they also spoke words. This time, they asked each other for help when they needed it.

“I will,” Alex replied, a promise.

Their faces were only a few inches away, and even though they had both grown, had started to communicate more with each other, there was still a language they were fluent in.

Whereas in the past it was usually in a hurry, a stopwatch over their heads, counting down the days, the hours, the minutes until they had to separate, now they had all the time in the world.

It was slow, yet still desperate. Desperate for love, fear still running in their veins. But there was hope too. Hope for a future together. Their lips met, moving as one rhythm, hands coming to their hair, a dance they knew by heart, but was still as exhilarating as the first time.

Until a loud rumble came from between them, making them separate, Michael barely hiding his laugh and Alex blushing. He never cursed his stomach as much as in that moment. He leaned into Michael once more, hoping to continue the dance that was just interrupted, but Michael leaned away, putting his hands on Alex’s shoulder and pushing him away.

Alex wanted to be mad, but looking at the love on Michael’s face, he realised that they had time to do all they wanted. And now, he also realised he wanted food.

His stomach seemed to agree once more, making itself heard. This time, Michael didn’t even bother, and giggled loudly, his shoulder moving up and down, and soon Alex was joining him.

When they both caught their breaths again, Michael pushed Alex down, carefully, against the mattress, straddling his hips, before kissing his nose and getting off the bed. Alex’s hand, who had landed against Michael’s naked hip, followed the other man, then fell on the bed, dramatically. Michael simply rolled his eyes at the scene in front of him, smiling at Alex’s pout.

“I’ll get the bath ready for you then I’ll make you some lunch, how about that?” he asked, in answer to Alex’s stomach.

Alex hummed at the mention of a bath, his water bill would be higher this month, this being the second bath he took since Michael took him home from Deep Sky.

“Wait lunch? How long did I sleep?” he asked in amazement, he had gone to bed at merely 6 pm, so this would possibly be the longest sleep he had since - well since forever now that he thought about it, his father having applied the military clock in the house.

“About 17-18 hours? I woke up around 9,” Michael replied with a shrug. According to him, Alex still needed much more sleep, and maybe to never leave the bed where the two could cuddle all day.

Alex turned around, looking at the clock on the bedside table for the first time since he woke up. It showed 11:36 am. So he had indeed sleeped for the longest in his entire life. Maybe he should do that again, if it got him such amazing sleep…

He realised he had said that at loud, when Michael nearly shouted No! with a scandalised face, before turning around to start on lunch.

“Wait!” Alex called out after him, making Michael turn around so fast his neck nearly snapping, “can, uh, can I help you? With lunch,” he added at Michael’s confused look, making him smile.

“I didn’t know you cooked, private,” Michael replied with a smug smile, which quickly faltered at Alex’s expression.

“I don’t, I usually order take out or eat prepared food,” he said, with sadness and a hint of disappointment in his voice. His dad never thought teaching his kids cooking was necessary, and his mom left before he could even have solid memories of her.

Seeing Alex feeling down, and deciding that he could curse Jesse Manes and his shitty parenting all he wanted, right now his focus was Alex. “I always dreamt of giving a soldier orders,” Michael said instead, trying to get a smile out of Alex.

And it worked, “Fuck you,” the other man laughed out. “Oh and, I don’t have much food in my kitchen…” he continued, feeling slightly ashamed of his cooking skills, or the lack thereof.

“Alex,” Michael said, stopping the spiraling and gaining Alex’s attention, “I literally learned to cook in a junkyard, I - we - will be able to cook something delicious,” he replied with confidence, catching himself up. If Alex wanted to help, how much of a catastrophe could it end up being?

In the end, they decided that the bath could wait until after Alex had eaten something, so they got dressed and made their way to the kitchen, where Alex sat on the counter watching Michael open all his cabinets.

He had often dreamt of that moment, when he would wake up next to Michael in bed, and could see him cook something. He had heard a lot from Maria about Guerin’s cooking skills, and wanted to test them for himself.

Michael, after having a look through all the cabinets, stood up and faced Alex. “Okay so,” he said, standing in between Alex’s legs, “I think I overestimated the food you have.”

All while he talked, he rubbed his hands up and down Alex’s body, making him hum and smile, “But, lucky for you, I am an expert in throwing weird stuff together and hoping for them best.”

“Sure, but we will need to go grocery shopping together soon,” Alex chuckled, putting his arms around Michael’s neck and playing with the curls.

“Oh thank god!” he exhaled, leaning his head into Alex’s shoulder, “I didn’t want to offend you, but babe, this is bad.”

Alex felt more than heard Michael’s laugh against his neck, and couldn’t help but join, somehow not ashamed of his cabinets. Michael had reacted in such a way that Alex was at ease, every cell in his body content to just stay in this embrace, to have Michael against him and to play with his hair. However, his stomach once more decided to separate them.

Michael detached himself from Alex and kissed his pout away, before reaching for a saucepan and giving him instruction.

They cooked in a light atmosphere, music coming out of Alex’s phone, Michael occasionally reaching to him to make sure he didn’t overcook anything. They moved around each other with an ease neither knew was there. Michael still didn’t quite know where everything was and would open three cabinets before finding what he was looking for, Alex claiming that he didn’t know enough about cooking to help. More than once they bumped into each other, both reaching for the same spatula, or both heading to check the pasta.

Once everything was prepared, they separated the food into two plates and sat at the table to eat, sitting in front of each other. Lunch turned out delicious - not that Alex had any doubt. They had made Tagliatelle with white sauce and tins of corn and carrots. It was simple, but to Alex? It was the best meal he had ever eaten.

“It’s because you haven’t eaten properly in two days,” Michael had said with a slight blush after Alex had complimented his cooking.

They ate, talking about nothing yet everything. Sharing little stories they knew the other didn’t know. Little facts that didn’t matter over the course of the last decade. But that mattered now that they were both ready for a steady relationship.

Afterwards, Alex went to take a bath while Michael did the dishes. He knocked on the door and opened it once Alex had agreed. He was met with the sight of Alex laying under a slim cover of soap, barely hiding anything, his eyes merely opened, an arm on the edge of the bath.

“I, uh, finished the dishes,” Michael said, trying to print this image in his head forever. Alex, relaxed, happy.

“Wanna join?” Alex asked, with a tilt of his head. This was new territory for the both of them. They had seen each other naked, obviously, but it was always with the rush of sex, and never with something as domestic as a bath.

Michael nodded with a smile and started to take off his clothes, feeling suddenly very self-conscious about his body. Any doubts he had however, flew out the window when he saw the look in Alex’s eyes. It wasn’t a look of pure lust. Of course the want and lust was there, how could it not be between them, but it was also accompanied by something deeper, something that Michael had never dared to imagine. Love. Admiration. Those were words both dropped after their teenage years. After they realised the hurt and pain the world could cause. After they realised that that hurt and pain came from their love.

But there wasn’t any pain in their love anymore. The scars they wore, both physical and mental, didn’t only bring pain and heartbreak anymore. They were also symbols of the battles they fought to get to this exact moment, naked in front of each other, in more ways than one.

And so Michael joined it, and after the awkward shifts, they leaned into each other, Michael in between Alex’s legs, his head bent in an awkward angle so it could lean on Alex’s shoulder while also looking at him.

They got cleaned, but it was less needed as the bath and shower they took the day before, so they simply relaxed and enjoyed the moment.

After getting dried and dressed, they questioned what to do for the rest of the day. Where before they would have jumped on the occasion to head to bed and have quick, intense, sex, this time they were conscious about it. Alex’s leg was still sore from having worn the prosthetic for so long without a break, and he could also feel each of his muscles tense when he moved. So sex was out of the equation for now. And neither felt bad about it. They just needed to figure out what a couple did on a lazy afternoon.

They couldn’t go to the movies, Alex’s brain and eyes wouldn’t be very happy with it all. And Alex mentioned that technically the only date he had ever been on was at a paintball place, so really he shouldn’t be taken into account when making decisions.

And this is how Michael got his idea (not that he would ever thank Forrest for it).

He drove them into town, telling Alex that it was a surprise, and parked his truck on the main square. He opened the door to Alex, who answered with an eye roll and a blush, and led him towards the library.

They weren’t holding hands, knowing that Roswell was still not a very queer-friendly place, and not really in the mood for bigots, but they were walking close enough that their shoulders would occasionally bump. In their own little bubble, they opened the door to the library, and on instinct Michael made his way to the physics and space section, before remembering why he was there.

Today wasn’t about borrowing a book about space or relativity or agriculture. No, today was about giving him and Alex something that neither had growing up.

Ignoring Alex’s confused questions, he took them to the children’s section, passed all the books and opened the glass doors to the games section. He chuckled as he saw Alex start to understand what they were doing there.

“I didn’t even know there were so many games here,” he said in amazement.

“I know!” Michael replied, “I only found out about it cause some kid got lost in the engineering section.”

They separated to browse all the different games, agreeing to start with two games each and see where the rest of the afternoon would go.

The only inconvenience about the room they were in was that it was built for children and wasn’t the most comfortable for Alex. But Michael, having decided that this day was going to be perfect, went to talk to the librarians - who he was starting to know well, coming here to use their computers or borrow books as often as he could. He came back with a smile, indicating to Alex that they were going to make an exception for them, and allow them to take the games to a reading room by the side, where there were bigger tables and chairs.

And so they played. They played Clue (Alex won, but not by much), Milles Bornes (Michael won, Alex insisted he cheated), Timeline (Alex won, Michael blames the high school history lessons), made funny figures in Chrominos, and struggled to understand the rules of Backgammon, before ending with a Game of Trains.

One of the librarians - Christie - had to come tell them that the library was closing in 10 minutes, but she barely broke their bubble of comfort. They tidied all the games and put them back on the shelves, helping a little girl put back a game of Monopoly, and left.

Once in the truck, Michael didn't drive away straight off. Instead, he turned to Alex, sharing all his emotions in a single look. Unspoken words. Alex replied by putting his hand on his arm, “Next time, I will crush you at Milles Bornes,” he said with a smile. Next time. Because there will be a next time, they both knew it.

They didn’t drive back to Alex’s house, still buzzing with happiness and comfort. Instead, they drove to the Crashdown and sat at a booth, enjoying burgers and fries and milkshakes. And they made plans for the next day. They would go shopping together, Michael deciding whatever he wanted to buy. Afterwards they would enjoy each other and the comfort of Alex’s bed. And once they were well rested, they would go to the Pony. Together.

That word rang differently too. They have been seen together across town, and in the Pony before. But back then, they weren’t together together.

Alex paid for their dinner, insisting that Michael had cooked lunch and had the idea for the library, and had taken care of him for the last 24 hours.

As they left the diner, saying goodbye to Arturo, their fingers found themselves entwined, and they walked to Michael’s truck, hand in hand, without a care for the world.

That day, even though it followed a very traumatising event, was one of the best days they ever had. They learned a new dance, and they couldn’t wait to get home to continue it. After all, they had time ahead of them.

[thanksjro]

Bayverse: Treating These Movies with More Dignity than They Deserve or Contain, Because I’m a Goddamned Professional - Part One

TRANSFORMERS (2007) - UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN TEENAGERS THAT I DIDN’T NEED TO SEE

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

The date was September 17th, 2020, and I was in a stream with nine or ten other people watching the first Bayverse Transformers movie. Why we were watching it doesn’t particularly matter- sometimes you just gotta watch garbage so you can refresh your palate for the good stuff, I suppose. Also, a couple of folks wanted to make goo-goo eyes at Blackout’s rotors.

...It’s not my thing, but I’m glad they’ve got something to make the journey worth taking.

I made some sort of comment about only using my brain for this blog’s content, and someone (you know who you are :)) suggested that I take a proper look at the film. Being who I am, I immediately latched onto this idea, despite it being technically outside of what I write about.

And then I quintuple-downed, because winners don’t quit.

Good to know that my BA in Film Production wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Fun fact, I broke my television trying to watch Transformers for this. I think the universe was trying to stop me, by making me perform surgery on electronics, and also aggravating my carpal tunnel.

This movie came out when I was 13, and it was the first Transformers thing I saw after Cybertron. Yes, the anime one. No, not the one that’s objectively terrible.

Anyway.

How did I feel about Transformers when I saw it the first time? Well… it was okay. I liked the robots. I thought Mikaela was pretty, not that I knew what that meant back then. I watched it a few times, if only because my oldest younger brother kept renting it at Blockbuster. It was fun.

Now I’m older, and wiser, and know feminist theory, so my opinion is less “this exists” and more “blind, murderous rage”.

Our film opens up with some claptrap about the Cube™, a MacGuffin of ultimate power that allows the Transformers to create worlds in their image and populate them. Which means this is how they reproduce.

It always comes back to baby-making, doesn’t it?

The narration goes on about how the Cube™ is very powerful, and some folks wanted it for good, and others for evil. The criteria for being “good” and “evil” isn’t established, and I’m not exactly sure how one would define such a thing, when all the Cube™ does is create life, but, well, we’ve only just begun. Maybe we’ll get some answers later on.

Haha, I doubt it.

So, the Cube™ is the catalyst for our 4 million year war this continuity, and that sucker was lost in the shuffle a while back. This is a problem, because, again, the Cube™ is how the Transformers reproduce. Now everyone’s in a mad scramble to find the thing so their species doesn’t die out.

Three guesses as to where it ended up, and the first two don’t count.

Smashcut to the shit nobody cares about- the humans. We see an Osprey fly over the Qatar desert, carrying a buttload of American soldiers. We get a taste of some good old-fashioned xenophobia, as several soldiers mock a guy for not speaking English and loving his mother’s cooking, going full “funny haha gibberish language” on him. We’re two and a half minutes into the film, and I already want to stab something.

Ed Sheeran breaks into the conversation, I guess because he was feeling left out, revealing that he is the New Yorker stereotype of the film, for some reason. The fellas ask their captain, Lennox, what he’s looking forward to most about getting home from their tour, and he reveals himself to be a family man. While he’s been away, his wife had a baby, who he hasn’t so much as held yet. His men respond by mocking him.

For loving his child.

We’re three minutes into the film, and the toxic masculinity might actually make me have an aneurysm.

The Ospreys land, the lads disembark, and we get a snapshot of what downtime during deployment looks like to Bay. There are a lot of kiddie swimming pools involved. Two men play basketball. We watch multiple men take outdoor showers. A young Qatari boy brings Lennox a camelback water pack with a smile on his face. This lets me know that he’s a prop and not a character in this film. I can’t wait to see how many horrors he’ll be put through to simulate pathos.

We get a shot of a helicopter flying over the desert, one that the US military doesn’t recognize as their own. They send a couple of planes to check it out, and said planes get their shop wrecked. The helicopter is revealed to be the same ‘copter that was shot down several months prior. That’s… not good. Ghost helicopter?

No. Not at all, actually.

Lennox gets on a video chat with his wife and daughter, who is wearing one of the most ridiculous baby outfits I’ve seen in a hot minute. And I used to work in childcare, so I’ve seen a good amount of those. The writing implies that normal bodily functions are unladylike and therefore undesirable… in an infant… and that’s when all hell breaks loose, thankfully saving me from more of Bay trying to make me give a shit about these characters.

The helicopter lands, we get a shot of the mustachioed pilot, who glitches (gasp), and the line “have your crew step out or we will kill you” is uttered. Not even trying to hide the nationalism, are you?

This film hit theaters in 2007, when the xenophobia from 9/11 was still heavy in the air of the general populace, so things like this were more tolerated, and in fact approved of. Of course, it’s not like America has really improved on that subject, or ever really had a point where we weren’t terrible about it, since we live in a world where the military-entertainment complex exists.

See, the Department of Defense and a good chunk of American entertainment industries have a little deal going, and have for the last few decades, and it goes like this: The DoD will allow the use of their vehicles, personnel, and bases, or the likenesses of such, for free, in exchange for their operations being shown in a positive/morally justified light. This is why you never see the armed forces portrayed in a way that makes them out as anything less than heroes- nobody would be able to afford the sets/likenesses without the DoD’s aid. This is also why you see straight-up advertisements for the military branches on televison, in cinemas, and online, and why both the Army and Navy have flirted with having Twitch channels.

It’s all a ploy to get you to join the military, kids. It’s propaganda.

But enough about that, it’s time for our first transformation sequence!

We get a lot of moving parts with this, since it’s realistic CGI in a live-action movie, and it still holds up. It’s hard to tell what’s actually happening, but it, if nothing else, feels alien, surreal, and horrific to behold. They even included the original sound effect in the cacophony, which is nice.

Our ghost helicopter reveals itself to be a Transformer, not that we get that terminology at any point in this film. This specifically is Blackout, a Decepticon. The soldiers start firing on him the moment he starts transforming, then are surprised when the thing they started shooting with several guns retaliates. This is the point where everything ever in this military base explodes, brilliantly and repeatedly, because it wouldn’t be a Bay film without it. There’s a lot of shouting and bright lights, and I’m positively certain that a great deal of people died during this fight.

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

Blackout rips the top off of a building like it’s a tin of anchovies, and then snags all the hard drives he can, downloading everything. This is a problem, but it seems like nobody was prepared for a giant alien robot hack-attack, because in order to shut down the power to the servers, you need to be able to unlock the breaker box, and no one seems to have the key. They solve the problem with a fire ax.

Lennox is leading the Qatari boy through the base towards safety. I should mention that it’s night now, and several hours seem to have passed since the Ospreys landed, so I don’t know why this kid is still here. He’s got, like, a house and family to go home to.

We get some more tank-throwing action, Sergeant Epps almost gets flattened under Blackout’s foot, then the movie decides it’s going to try to make things more interesting by having each shot cut flash, for whatever reason.

Someone shoots Blackout with a rocket launcher, I think, and this is the point where he throws his tiny little man off his back to go do his job. Yes, Blackout’s got a baby, and that baby is Scorponok, his symbiotic pal who likes to dig into the ground and be a sneaky little bastard.

Blackout blows up a ton more military equipment and personnel, and then it’s time for another smashcut.

Now we’re in high school, just like all those dreams I’ve had where I’ve forgotten my homework. This is where we meet Sam Witwicky, our main character, and also the stand-in for our target demographic. He’s insufferable, and I don’t like him. Mikaela Banes, our love interest, is also present in this scene, but we don’t get to know about her character for, like, another 20 minutes, because who gives a shit about women, right? They’re just props, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Sam is presenting on his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, for his family genealogy report, in front of a class containing maybe three actors who are age appropriate.

I know child labor laws are a good thing, and that hiring adults to play teenagers is just the lay of the land, but I swear some of these students look like they’re old enough to be on their second mortgage and third kid.

Anyway.

Archibald Witwicky was an explorer, one of the first to traverse the Arctic circle, and apparently his crew was made up of folks from 2007, because I swear the clothing for a few of these dudes isn’t period-appropriate. We get a seamen joke, because of course we do, and a sextant joke, because of course we do. Sam is also hawking all this crap he’s brought in for the presentation, because he is a little bastard who has no idea what his peers would want to buy, or really how to relate to them at all. He’s selling these “priceless” artifacts so he can get a car. Mikaela finds this charming, for some fucking reason. Also, her boyfriend is weirdly stroking her shoulder blade with his knuckles the whole time this is happening, and I hate it.

Archibald Witwicky went mad after his expedition, talking about an “ice man” so often that his family ended up locking him in a mental asylum, likely to be forgotten about. Which is sad. But we won’t be getting into the medical mistreatment of the mentally ill in Bayverse, now will we? That’s just Too Deep™.

Sam’s teacher didn’t very much appreciate having his class be turned into an episode of Antiques Roadshow, but still gives Sam an “A” on the project, despite it being a very poor report that lasted all of two minutes. I suspect the teacher has tenure, and therefore no longer gives a shit about academic integrity. This “A” means that Sam’s father will buy him a car.

Which is nice, I suppose, if I gave a damn.

Sam’s father, Ron, picks up his son in a car he probably bought at the crux of his midlife crisis, in a green that reminds me of a school gymnasium floor, then plays a prank on his child by pretending to pull into the Porsche dealership. Sam isn’t getting a Porsche, which is good, because he doesn’t deserve one. As Sam gripes to his father, a yellow Camaro drives by oh so conspicuously. Wonder what’s up with that.

Instead of the Porshe dealership, they head over to the used car lot, which is being run by Bobby Bolivia, who spends his time yelling at his employees and wanting to murder his mother. Sam is incredibly ungrateful about the fact that his dad is helping him get a car, even though it’s his FIRST car, and nobody gets a nice one the first go around. Or, at least, they shouldn’t, given the statistics about accidents with young drivers.

“No sacrifice, no victory” is uttered by Ron, which is the family motto, or so he claims. Archibald Witwicky said the same thing when he had multiple people dying trying to get to the Arctic Circle, so there’s precedence for the phrase, but we’ll see how it holds up throughout the film.

Bobby Bolivia shows Sam and Ron the cars he has for sale, and Sam is immediately drawn to the yellow Camaro in the lot, though there’s a small problem- it’s too expensive for what he and his father agreed to. Also, nobody knows where the hell it came from, so paperwork might be an issue. When Bobby tries to show Sam the yellow Beetle they have right down the line, everything explodes, because this is a Bay film, and fuck the original material this movie was based on. Bobby lets them have the Camaro for a lower price, suddenly fearful of whatever strange powers have just visited his place of business. “The car picks the driver” is suddenly more than a bullshit line to spout off in order to sell cars, and I’m certain that’s shaken the poor man.

Over in Washington, D.C., the Secretary of Defense prepares to address just what the hell happened in Qatar, lamenting on how young the audience he’s going to be speaking to is. In particular, he’s referring to the two dweebs and the hot chick sitting in one of the rows. All the women in this movie who aren’t someone’s mom are made up to be very pretty. And not even in a realistic way. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

So, the military network was hacked. That’s bad. Nobody knows who did it. That’s also bad. The only lead the US has is a soundbite, which is the signal that hacked the network.

Everyone here at the briefing is going to be helping to figure this mess out. This is great, if you like looking at Rachael Taylor for a few seconds at a time, and can compartmentalize hard enough to make that worth the effort of watching this godforsaken film.

Back at the Witwicky household, we meet Mojo, a chihuahua with a cast that doesn’t seem like it’s actually doing anything. I wish he was the main character instead of Sam.

Sam arrives home from the dealership, and says “alright, Mojo, I’ve got the car. Now I need the girl.”

As if ownership of a person is something to aspire to.

As if women are property to be owned.

As if women aren’t people, but rather commodities.

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

We’re introduced to Judy, Sam’s mother. She’s shrill, and annoying. This is by design, because none of the women in this film are actually people, but rather archetypes to bounce off of the male characters.

Sam and his father have a moment of what some might consider banter, then Sam gets huffy with his mom over gender roles for the dog. I, for one, think Mojo looks positively dashing in his bedazzled collar, and to hell with whatever Sam says to the contrary.

Sam drives off to go be a misogynist, with the promise to be back by 11PM.

Over in Qatar, the soldiers and that little boy are running from the attack on their base, as Lennox’s wife watches a public announcement on the matter back at home. The Secretary of Defense lets us know that we’re at DEFCON Delta at this point. Lennox Jr. cries, and all I can think about is how they probably pinched that baby to make that happen. They pinched a baby for Transformers (2007).

The soldiers in Qatar talk about shit they have no idea about, Sergeant Epps going on about somehow having been able to see a forcefield around Blackout through his super special binoculars. I don’t know how, or why, he knows this. I don’t know anything anymore.

Ed Sheeran has his doubts about this whole thing, and Lennox is also present in the scene, because I guess he’s important. Through a bit of dramatic irony, Fig- the guy everyone was making fun of for being bilingual at the start of the film- says that this probably isn’t over, as the shape of Scorponok shifts through the sand just beyond them.

Epps is having a minor crisis over the fact that Blackout saw him, but we don’t have time for that, because we’ve got to get to cover. The lads decide to head to the little Qatari boy’s house. Again, I wonder why he was at the base at all, considering that it seems like they’ve been traveling for a good portion of the day.

Back with Sam, he’s picked up his friend Miles, and together they’re going to a lake party. Are they invited to this party? Yes, but also no. It’s public property though, so it should be fine. As they park, Sam notices that Mikaela is here, which is great for him.

Mikaela’s boyfriend, Trent- whose name I had to look up- is a massive tool, and starts pestering the two boys for daring to exist in his airspace. Miles climbs a tree. I’m glad he’s having fun, at least. Sam makes a joke at the expense of people with brain injuries, and this for some reason? Warrants a shot of Mikaela making the blank “pretty girl” face? In response?

Mikaela saves Sam from becoming a wet stain on the grass, which is very kind of her, and more than Sam really deserves. Trent, his boys, and Mikaela start to head off for another party, to get away from Sam and his tree-loving friend. Mikaela offers to drive, and Trent says that she can’t handle his truck, because she’s a ~girl~. This causes Mikaela to ditch him, and start walking home.

The script knows enough about misogyny to know that this would be a nice “take that”. Michael Bay, however, likely fails to see why everything he did with said script involving this character is a goddamned problem.

Because Mikaela, bless her heart, has a lot of problems.

Let’s start with the outfit: a croptop, a jean skirt that BARELY covers her ass, and a pair of wedge heels that are at least four inches tall. On a character that is, at oldest, freshly 18.

Look, I’m all about self-expression and the freedom to choose how you dress for yourself and yourself alone, but this clearly isn’t that. This is a character, not a person, whose wardrobe was designed for the straight male gaze. She’s wearing fucking STRAP HEELS to the lake. This is about oogling. This is about reducing a whole-ass person to the same status as a piece of meat. In fact, who was on wardrobe for this? I’d like to have a few words with-

A woman? Okay, well, what else has she worked on?

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

Miles just called Mikaela an “evil jock concubine.” I don’t like Miles anymore.

As Mikaela walks down the road, strutting hard enough that I’ve got sympathy pains in my hips, the radio in the Camaro turns on, playing “Drive” by the Cars, and giving Sam a hell of an idea; he’s gonna drive Mikaela home, so she doesn’t have to walk the 10 miles to her house. Why he knows how far she lives from the lake isn’t addressed.

Sam kicks Miles out of the car and goes to give Mikaela a ride, which she accepts after a bit of self-deliberation, and also him making an ass of himself. The shot here is framed with Sam like he’s a normal-ass person, and Mikaela from her breasts to the top of her waist. Because of COURSE it is.

She hops in the car and then goes off about her taste in hot guys. Which is weird, and out of left field. Sam is about as confused as I am, then continues to make a fool of himself. This is his nature as a person. Mikaela has no idea who Sam is, even though they’ve gone to the same school for the last 10 years and have multiple classes together. And the fact that she was staring him down all through his genealogy presentation. And at the lake.

This movie isn’t very well thought out, I feel.

It’s at this point the the Camaro turns the key on itself and starts to sputter out and die, as “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye pops on the radio.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid with a girl who didn’t even know his name five minutes ago.

I don’t like how this car knows what sex is.

The Camaro breaks down on a cliff, and Mikaela hops out to work on the engine, and also to get the hell away from Sam’s sputtering.

As Mikaela admires the sweet engine in this Camaro, showing off her knowledge of cars, we get several shots of her from her breasts to her thighs, while Sam is treated like an actual person. Don’t bother trying to play it off as an artistic choice, Bay, this is blatant horndogging. This adds to NOTHING, other than my ire.

Sam says more stupid shit, and Mikaela, who must be the nicest fucking person in the world, just tells him to fire up the engine so she can try to sort out the problem. Then he asks why she goes for jackasses like Trent, and she decides that she’s hit her limit for today, opting to walk the rest of the way home. Good on you, Mikaela. Don’t take Sam’s bullshit.

Sam, realizing that he’s put his foot in his mouth for the 80th time today, pleads with his Camaro to do him a solid and work, and this actually works out for him. Great. Sam, victorious, once again offers Mikaela a ride, which she, once again, takes.

He drops her off without further incident, and she thanks him for listening. Even though they didn’t really talk that much. I dunno, maybe they had a super deep conversation offscreen. Mikaela asks Sam if he thinks she’s shallow, because clearly all women need approval from the men around them, and Sam says that there’s more to her than meets the eye.

Which made me groan aloud.

Anyway, she gets inside without a problem, and Sam professes his love for his new Camaro for allowing him to talk to a girl. Or at least talk at her.

Back in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon National Military Command Center, we’re making weirdly racist calls on who hacked the military.

Up with Air Force One, a conspicuous boombox transforms into a robot, and then runs off to hack shit. The President of the United States requests some snack cakes. A flight attendant goes down to storage to retrieve said snack cakes, and finds that boombox in the elevator with her. Considering this is Air Force One, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse, and we don’t think here.

The flight attendant brings the boombox down with her and places it on the counter as she goes to get the presidential snack cakes. The boombox immediately disappears. Now, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse-

The flight attendant opens up the snack cake package, for some reason, and drops the cake on the floor. She then proceeds to eat it, and then act shocked when it tastes like floor. There’s a robot in her fucking line of sight, and you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing-

She leaves to go feed the President floor cakes, and our little robot friend gets to work stealing government secrets. He, if nothing else, looks pretty cool doing it. He’s a very pointy lad.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie- Rachael Taylor’s character- can hear the hacking. This sends everyone into a panic, because, well, that shouldn’t be happening. The hacking noise is a direct match to the one from Qatar, so that’s obviously a problem.

Back on Air Force One, our little robot friend is looking for “Project Iceman”, which he very quickly finds, and downloads everything they’ve got on it, and also plants a virus. The process seems to be… doing things to him. It’s weird. This movie is weird.

The Pentagon cuts all the system hardlines, stopping the process, but it’s too late- he got what he wanted, just about. Two security personnel come into the room, and the robot kills them both with some spinning blade disc nonsense. Air Force One is forced to land for the safety of everyone on-board. More security detail comes in to deal with the little bastard, but he transforms into a boombox and sits on a shelf to avoid suspicion. Now, you’d perhaps expect-

With the plane grounded, our robot is able to walk his little ass over to a cop car. And when I say walk, I do mean walk; this fucker is in multiple folks’ line of sight and nobody notices a thing. When he enters the car, he’s greeted by the mustachioed driver- the same driver who was operating the helicopter at the beginning of the film. This mustache man is a holographic avatar, one that’s being used by all the Decepticons.

We get our first real taste of Cybertronian language, as our robot- it’s Frenzy, his name is Frenzy- lets everyone know that he’s found a clue to the location of the AllSpark, and, through the power of the internet, knows where to find the guy who’s gonna give them what they need.

Three guesses to who it is, and the first two don’t count.

Back at the Witwicky household, Sam’s car does a runner in the middle of the night. Sam, horrified that his property is being stolen, pursues on a bike, screaming at his dad to call the cops. Sam also calls the cops, as he tears through the neighborhood.

The Camaro breaks into an abandoned building, Sam follows, and we finally get a shot of our audience appeal character. Sam watches in disbelief as a giant yellow space robot shines a beacon into the sky, then makes a video on his flip phone recording the experience. He apologizes to his parents for owning pornographic magazines, and goes to face his probable demise.

However, death does not come from above, instead manifesting itself as two of the strongest junkyard dogs in the known universe, who break their brick-inlaid chains to get at this little dip of a man. Sam is chased through the yard, climbing on top of a couple precarious oil drums, even though there’s a ladder, like, right there. The Camaro rolls in, scaring off the dogs, and Sam bolts, throwing the keys to his ride at his ride. When he gets outside, the cops have arrived, and immediately arrest him.

Back with the US government, the Secretary of State is having a conversation about all the bullshit that just went down with Air Force One. He and his fellow cishet old white men discuss their options, until Maddie comes in to set them straight on some of the facts. They act all indignant about it, because women can’t be smart, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Anyway, we get a weird little deflection of Maddie’s role in everything, because a woman is nothing without the men around her, then she brings up the point that the bullshit that happened on Air Force One went down in just a few seconds, which isn’t something that anyone can actually do. She brings up quantum mechanics, which everyone blows off as nonsense- not that I wouldn’t as well- and theorizes on a DNA-based computer, which is technically a thing, if not trapped in the realm of speculation. It’s at this point that the Secretary of Defense tells her to come back when she can back these wild claims up, and isn’t just clearly spitballing.

And then he snaps his fingers at her, and any point he might have had leaves my brain so I have more room for being enraged.

Back with Sam, we’re at the police station talking to the cops. His dad is here, and Sam is trying to explain that his car is a dude. Even though he took at a video (one that was likely crap, given how quickly he spun his phone around to show off what he was seeing) the cops, understandably, don’t believe him. Then one of them, not so understandably, starts… threatening Sam? With his sidearm? And daring him to try something? This isn’t any sort of statement on the corruption of American law enforcement, it’s just bizarre.

Back in Qatar, our soldier buddies have found a telephone line, and are going to try to use it to get in contact with the rest of the world. It’s just too bad that Scorponok’s decided to make an entrance, and knock said telephone line the hell down. Ed Sheeran has next to no reaction to this, despite it happening maybe ten feet behind him. Fig speaks Spanish, and Ed Sheeran makes a point to be an asshole about it.

Scorponok is about to stab Lennox with his very pointy tail, when Epps notices- finally, someone with peripheral vision- and starts shooting. Then everyone starts shooting, kicking up enough sand to blind themselves, as Scorponok scuttles away, buries himself, then reappears behind Ed Sheeran.

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

The others bolt, not wanting the same to happen to them, and for the fourth time I wonder just why the hell this young boy was at the base in the first place.

Off in the distance, the community of a nearby town wonders just what the shit is going on out in the desert. Our soldiers run into the town, and everyone gets their guns and start firing on Scorponok, who retaliates, because why the hell wouldn’t he?

Lennox demands that the young boy take him to his father, and proceeds to borrow his phone. As shit goes down outside, we have a sort-of gag where Lennox is trying to contact the Pentagon, while a telemarketer tries to get him to buy a phone package. In order for this call to go through, he’s going to need a credit card. This is where the well-known “pocket” scene comes from, as Lennox searches Epps’ pants for his wallet as he fires on Scorponok. It’s probably the best-written thing in this whole film.

With the credit card acquired, Lennox finally gets through to the Pentagon, and tosses Epps the phone so he can talk. Maybe he’s got anxiety about speaking on the phone, I dunno.

Scorponok shows off his disregard for historical architecture, blowing up several buildings, and the US government just watches this all go down. One of the actors in this scene looks like my dad, and it trips me up every time he’s on screen. Anyway, now the Pentagon knows about the giant space robots running around in Qatar. They send over some air support about it. All this manages to do is piss Scorponok off.

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

Also, Fig’s been grievously wounded. The others, for once, don’t make fun of his native language while they help him hold his blood inside his body.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s looking to prove that the bullshit that’s been going on is of the sci-fi variety, and in order to do that, she’s going to need a little outside help. She takes the information from the Pentagon, slaps it into an SD card, hides that shit in her blush compact, and then runs out the door to Glenn Whitmann’s house. Or, rather, his grandma’s house.

Glenn is a hacker, and shouldn’t be seeing anything that Maddie’s brought him, but everyone knows that confidentiality is for nerds, so whatever.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s immediately been caught. It’s almost like slapping the military network onto an SD card maybe wasn’t such a hot idea. But what do I know?

Glenn takes a look at the soundbite and figures out that there’s a code embedded in the thing in about two seconds. Good to know our tax dollars are being well-spent on the US military, that some dude in his jammies can figure this shit out faster than a whole team of analysts. They figure out that “Project Iceman” is involved with this somehow, and also the existence of Sector Seven. It’s at this point that the FBI busts in. Good. I kind of want Maddie to go to jail for this, because she was about as stupid as she could be handling the situation.

Glenn’s cousin goes through a closed glass door- don’t worry, it’s tempered- and there’s a weird cut before that exact same shot continues, and he’s tackled into the pool. There was no reason for that to have happened, but here we are.

Back with Sam, we’re treated to him in his boxers, shooting basketballs in his room. He goes into the kitchen, where Mojo is standing on a stool. It’s a very tall stool, the sort you sit on, and he’s just… there. I don’t know how he got there. There’s no one else in the room besides Sam, and I know he didn’t put him there.

Clearly this must mean Mojo is God, and being on that stool is his divine will. I will be approaching the rest of the franchise with this in mind, because it’s clearly the only answer.

Our merciful Lord Mojo jumps up on the kitchen counter and begins growling at something through the window. Sam looks out… the opposite window… to find that his Camaro has returned to him, and is less than thrilled about it, to put it lightly. He drops a jug of milk- luckily it was mostly empty, given the sound it makes when it hits the floor- and gives his buddy Miles a call. You remember Miles, don’t you? If you don’t, it’s fine, because he reestablishes his quirkiness with a single shot, as he sits in a swimsuit and bathes his huge-ass dog in a kiddie pool, and answers the phone with a headset he just happened to be wearing. He must get a lot of calls during Dog Washing Hours.


After giving us one of the most intense voice cracks I’ve ever heard, Sam books it out of his house, hopping on a bike to escape his murderous Camaro. He’s not seen the thing commit any murders, mind you, but he seems pretty convinced that it would do the job, given half a chance. Also, this isn’t the bike he rode the night before; that one is likely being chewed on by those strong-ass junkyard dogs. No, for some reason, the Witwickys have a pastel pink girl’s bike, with the fun little handle tassels and the basket and everything. As far as I can tell, Sam is an only child, and if you think Bay’s going to allow for a teenage boy to have the vulnerability to own a pink bike, you’ve not been paying attention for the last 48.5 minutes.

The Camaro gives chase, rolling after Sam on his bike at a brisk 7 MPH down the friggin’ sidewalk, one of the only scenes in this travesty of a film to actually get me to crack a smile. Sam races through town until city planning puts a stop to him, through the magic of using chunks of cement to decorate the mulch around their trees. He crashes his bike, faceplants into the concrete in front of Mikaela, and promptly dies, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told a fib. I’m sorry.

Instead, he does a flip and lands on his back, likely receiving a concussion, in front of Mikaela and her friends. Her friends laugh, because everyone hates Sam, as they should, and Mikaela says that what he just did was “really awesome.” Don’t try to be nice, Mikaela, this is Sam we’re talking about; you could stick the dude in the freezer overnight and he still wouldn’t be even remotely cool.

Sam gets back to the whole “running away from a car” deal, and Mikaela decides that this is the sort of thing she’d like to do with her day, so she ditches her friends in the middle of their scheduled Burger King™ time to go see what the hell Sam’s on about.

As Sam is chased by the Camaro who is being chased by Mikaela on her motorized scooter, a cop becomes involved, tearing through the streets to join this ridiculous game of tag. Now, we’ve seen two different flavor of cop so far- the mustachioed avatar cop car that picked up Frenzy from the airport, and the dude who threatened a teenage boy with a gun after accusing him of being under the influence of drugs. Either way, I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Sam.

Sam’s cornered himself under one of those really wide bridges where people can park their cars, which wasn’t terribly smart, but it’s Sam, so this is about par for the course. The Camaro manages to miss him, but the cop car does not. Sam is actually pretty cool with the cops being here, as if they could do anything about “Satan’s Camaro.” I guess he didn’t see the decal on the side of this car that says “to punish and enslave…”

Sam attempts to approach the car for help, and gets clotheslined by a car door for his troubles. He hits his head on the pavement, certainly exasperating the brain injury he received not ten minutes ago. Still, he continues to try to talk to the holographic avatar through the windshield, revealing that the bike he’s been riding is his mother’s. Mystery solved, I suppose.

The cop car doesn’t much appreciate being slapped on the hood, and begins to rev violently at Sam, threatening to run him over several times. Then it explodes into being a robot. Sam, who’s seen a lot of really weird shit in the last 24 hours, nopes out of the situation. It’s at this point that I realize he’s wearing a shirt for the band the Strokes. I don’t know why that stuck out to me, but it did. Guess my brain needed something to latch onto during all this.

Sam is running as fast as his little legs allow, as our newest robot friend takes up a leisurely jog to keep pace. Then he kicks Sam. He kicks Sam’s body like the football. This, of course, instantly turns Sam into a bag of jelly and kills him, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Sam somehow survives being punted by a giant metal leg and lands in the windshield of a car that doesn’t turn into a robot. Then he gets yelled at by the cop car. This is Barricade, a member of the Decepticons, and Sam’s got something he wants. Or, should I say “LadiesMan217” has something he wants.

LadiesMan217 is Sam’s Ebay username. This is both stupid because no teenage boy existing beyond the year 1985 would have ever called himself that, and also because it’s just stupid.

Barricade wants the glasses Sam presented for his genealogy report, and he wants them NOW. Seeing as the thing he wants is for sale, and nobody had been bidding on it, one would wonder why Barricade and his associates didn’t just try to purchase them like upstanding citizens. Perhaps Decepticons don’t understand the concept of money, or perhaps they don’t have a stable address to have the glasses shipped to. Or perhaps nobody considered that angle when the script was being put together. Who can say?

Sam gets back to running away from Barricade, we see where Mikaela got to, and the two of them collide. Sam rips Mikaela off of her scooter, and they both fall to the ground. Mikaela, who did not buckle the clasp on her helmet, asks Sam what his fucking problem is. Then his problem shows up, and they take a very long time to get up so they can run. So long, in fact, that the Camaro has to swing in to save them. After much pleading from Sam, Mikaela gets inside Satan’s Camaro, and the two of them are whisked away to safety. Barricade pursues, and then the butt rock starts.

There’s a lot of screaming and yelling, the Camaro busts through a window and several shelves in an abandoned building, there’s some drifting, and then suddenly it’s nighttime. Barricade somehow got in front of the Camaro, and is circling like a shark. The Camaro locks the two teenagers inside itself, though I suppose they could climb out through the still-open windows if they really wanted to. The Camaro cuts the engine off, then cuts it back on and bolts for the exit, and this somehow tricks Barricade long enough for them to get past.

The Camaro dumps Mikaela and Sam out one of the doors and then transforms into that yellow space robot we saw a bit ago. It’s Bumblebee! Nearly an hour in, and we finally get a proper look at the little bastard. I guess that’s what happens when you spend the first 20-something minutes on being xenophobic and appealing to the focus groups that think it’s fine sexualize high schoolers.

Bumblebee- no, he’s not introduced himself yet, but I just can’t keep calling him “the Camaro” anymore- comes out of his transformation ready to square the fuck up. Barricade throws himself at Bumblebee, they roll around on the ground for a bit, then things start sparking and exploding, because this is a Michael Bay film. Frenzy jumps out and starts chasing down Mikaela and Sam, while Bumblebee and Barricade murder death punch each other. Frenzy manages to grab Sam by the ankles, drag him to the ground, and rip his pants off. Not sure how that happened, considering he’s still got his shoes on.

While Sam’s busy being chased by a sentient pile of safety pins, Mikaela’s taken it upon herself to be proactive about her survival, and is raiding a nearby building for power tools. She sprints out holding an electric jig saw and saves Sam by decapitating Frenzy. If you know anything about Transformers, then you know this doesn’t actually kill Frenzy, but good on her for being a badass. Why couldn’t Mikaela be our main character again? Oh, right, because she’s a ~girl~.

Sam punts Frenzy’s head, like, 50 yards, which seems like something he shouldn’t be able to do, given that he’s a massive weenie, but there you are. With that out of the way, Sam takes Mikaela’s hand and they run off to go watch the giant robot fight. The bottom of Frenzy’s head turns into a spider and he crawls his way over to Mikaela’s purse. He’s gonna steal her gum, the fiend!

Mikaela and Sam have, unfortunately, missed the giant robot fight, which means that we, as the audience, have also missed the giant robot fight. Which is unbelievably stupid, seeing as everyone who has ever watched this movie came for the GIANT GODDAMN ROBOTS.

Mikaela asks just who the hell the yellow robot is, I guess because she’s finally had a second to process what the hell’s going on. Sam claims that he’s a super-advanced robot, “probably from Japan.” Whether or not this is a reference to the Japanese origins of the original toy line isn’t clear, though somehow I think it’s more xenophobia. Sam also makes the claim that if Bumblebee had intended to hurt them, he would have done it by now. This is quite the jump from a few hours ago, when he was calling the poor guy “Satan’s Camaro.”

Sam finally, finally asks Bumblebee what his deal is, and we get our first taste of the Bayverse Bumblebee Gimmick. The Gimmick here is that, due to an injury to his vocal processing, Bumblebee cannot communicate through traditional means, i.e. speech. Because of this, he instead strings together sentences by flicking through the radio frequencies and choosing key words. This can lead to some interesting audio design, like describing his fellow Autobots to “rain down like visitors form heaven, Hallelujah!” because a radio sermon fit what he was trying to say best.

This gimmick is one that has been used in other pieces of Transformers media, at least in part. Bumblebee is unable to speak traditionally in Transformers: Prime, and instead communicates in beeps and clicks that his teammates can understand, but not so much the humans, save for Raf. In Bumblebee (2018), the idea was used whole-cloth, with the injury resulting in his inability to speak happening on-camera within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the idea of “expressing oneself through music” being introduced by his human companion Charlie Watson.

All in all, I rather like the idea going on here; it’s an interesting part of his character that opens up for a lot of interesting and creative moments.

It’s just too bad it was introduced in fucking Bayverse.

But yeah, anyway, the other Autobots are coming to Earth. Shit’s gonna be lit.

Bumblebee turns back into a Camaro, and Sam uses the power of FOMO to get Mikaela to go in the car with him. We get a shot of Barricade fucking dying on the side of the road. Frenzy murders Mikaela’s phone, and then steals its identity, including the little bejeweled heart stickers. Good thing Mikaela remembered to go get her purse, otherwise he probably would have felt very silly doing that.

Mikaela refuses to sit in the driver’s seat, seeing as she now knows Sam’s car is sentient, and sort of feels weird about this whole thing. Sam suggests that she sit in his lap instead, as the camera angles to give us a peek at the cup of Mikaela’s bra. When asked why the hell she should do such a thing, Sam says it’s a concern about her safety, given that the middle console of the car does not have a seatbelt. Sam either fails to recognize that seatbelts going over two layered bodies won’t save either of them in the event of a crash, or he’s just trying to make an excuse to have a pretty girl in his lap.

Given what movie this is, I’m going to guess it’s the latter.

Mikaela has a similar line of thought, but scoots over anyway, saying that the seatbelt line was a “smooth move”. It wasn’t, but if I picked apart every single bad line Sam had in this film, I’d be here all day.

Mikaela questions Bumblebee’s taste in alt-mode, which offends him to the point of dumping both her and Sam out in the street and driving away. He returns, moments later, as a sleek new Camaro, that I’m sure some car aficionados would call “sexy.”

Bumblebee’s alt-mode is a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, of which there were none during the time of filming. It was put together for this movie in roughly five weeks. Sam is blown away by the fact that he now owns a car that does not currently exist in his universe. Mikaela is impressed, or at least she would be, if women were allowed to show that emotion in a non-horny way in a Bay film.

Judy doesn’t count.

As Bumblebee breaks into yet another restricted area, we get a shot of the Earth from orbit, as several objects rocket towards the planet. Sam and Mikaela watch the Autobots burn up in the atmosphere, and Mikaela tries to hold Sam’s hand as they do, and it’s at this point that I have to address how much I hate these two’s dynamic.

I don’t give a single solitary shit about this romance, because A) it’s poorly written, B) Mikaela could do infinitely better than Sam, C) I dislike Sam so very much, D) Mikaela, who is a way more interesting character, got placed on friggin’ love interest duty because ~girl~, and E) it’s useless padding to try and make me care about what’s happening here, and I just DON’T. I do NOT care about whether these two get together or not.

We see the Autobots crash-land, three out of four of them causing massive amounts of property damage and possibly killing at least one person. Their stasis pods crack open, and they each climb out, completely naked and in desperate need of clothing to hide their shame. With a quick scan of nearby vehicles, they’re once again decent to be seen in public.

Bumblebee drives the kids out to what I can only assume is the warehouse district he sent that beacon out in, as our collection of good guys finally come together at long last. A massive Peterbilt semi-truck stops directly in front of Mikaela and Sam.

We’re over an hour into this film, and we’re just now getting to the quintessential Transformer, Optimus Prime himself.

In the original cartoon, Optimus’s alt-mode was what’s known as a cabover truck, one where the cab- where the driver sits- is seated directly over the engine. These were popular during the days when maximum truck-lengths were much shorter than they are currently. This is why when you look at height charts for Optimus over various continuities, his G1 cartoon counterpart much shorter than his other iterations.

Modern trucks are longer, and don’t need the cab to sit on top of the engine to save on space. The designers chose to use a Peterbilt to make sure that Optimus would have an imposing stature when compared to his fellow Autobots.

Because heaven forbid we not have heightism come into play in this film.

Our Autobots transform, and say what you will about these bastards being visually incomprehensible, the transformations themselves are cool as hell. My personal favorite is Jazz’s, where he does a cool windmill into his root mode.

Optimus crouches like he’s looking at a cool bug on the sidewalk and addresses Sam by name. He doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela, which I find to be a bit rude, but whatever. He then introduces himself as the leader of the Autobots.

Peter Cullen is back as the voice for Optimus Prime, sounding wonderful as always. He almost wasn’t brought on for this project, because Michael Bay didn’t want him. If the fans hadn’t thrown a hissyfit, who knows who we would have gotten to be our space dad for the next hour and a half?

This is actually an issue that’s recurred several times in the last few years, and not just with Cullen; Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron, as well as many other Transformers, has been refused roles within Transformers properties. In general, this is because both Cullen and Welker are union actors, and Hasbro would prefer to hire sound-alikes than pay more money for the originals. This isn’t to shame the non-union actors, goodness no, just to merely point out less-than-fantastic business practices.

I realize there have been a lot of tangents, but you have to understand that I am suffering as I do this.

Optimus then introduces his team- there’s Jazz, whose first line is “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”, Ironhide, who incorrectly quotes Dirty Harry, and Ratchet, who calls out just how obnoxiously horny Sam’s character is. We also finally get Bumblebee’s name.

Mikaela asks the very good question of why the fuck the Autobots are here on Earth. Optimus explains that the AllSpark is here, and they’ve got to get to it before Megatron does. He then goes on to explain who Megatron is, stating that he “betrayed” the Cybertronian empire.

No, how exactly he did that isn’t addressed. We’ll just have to take Optimus’s word, I suppose.

If you’ve sussed out by this point the the AllSpark and the Cube™ are the same thing, congrats! You win. Megatron followed the AllSpark to Earth, where he promptly was neutralized by the cold of the Arctic circle. This was 110 years prior to the events of this film, and where Archibald Witwicky came in to the story.

When the expedition was happening, Archibald fell through the ice during a collapse, and ended up finding Megatron’s frozen body in an ice cave. He went poking around on this strange metal giant, and ended up activating Megatron’s navigation systems, which imprinted the coordinates of the AllSpark onto Archibald’s glasses.

Don’t ask how that works, it just does.

So, the Autobots need the glasses, so they can find the AllSpark before the Decepticons do, so those guys don’t use it to build an army out of Earth’s machines, which will destroy humanity.

Sounds simple enough, let’s go get that vision correction device!

Back with the military dudes, everyone’s taking a gander at the tail that Scorponok left behind. They theorize that the metal that makes up these giant murder-robots reacts to extreme heat, but elaboration on that point will have to wait, because the tail has begun to flail. They quickly strap it down, then call the military to let them know to strap anti-tank guns onto anything that’s going to be approaching any giant robots.

Meanwhile, in an interrogation room, Maddie and Glen have been left to sweat a bit. Glen takes to stress-eating, while framing it as a psychological tactic to subconsciously prove his innocence to the FBI.

This is a fat joke, with the added nasty layer of Glen being a black man about to be interrogated by one of the most intimidating white cops I’ve seen in a hot minute.

Glen immediately folds, pinning all the blame on Maddie, and claiming that he’s been a perfect angel his whole life. We get some weird purity culture out of him, before Maddie lets the FBI know that she needs to talk to the Secretary of Defense, NOW.

Over at the Witwicky household, Sam’s parents are watching the news, trying to find out what all those loud crashes were about. Optimus Prime drives down their residential street, the rest of the gang in tow, then they all park to wait for Sam to go get the glasses.

For about 20 seconds.

Sam has to physically hold the door shut to prevent his father from coming out and seeing several very tall robots from outer space tip-toeing around his freshly-landscaped yard, I guess because they got antsy. Optimus plods around on the grass and breaks a fountain, and our benevolent god Mojo comes out of the house, assuredly to smite the leader of the Autobots.

Mikaela runs onto the scene, and Sam chastises her for not controlling the robots who didn’t even acknowledge her existence, outside of pointing out Sam was sexually attracted to her.

Mojo pees on Ironhide’s foot, which prompts Ironhide to threaten to shoot the creature. This is why Ironhide isn’t getting into heaven. Sam, one of Mojo’s chosen few, claims that the mortal shell of his god is seen as a beloved pet by many humans. Sam runs into the house, before Mojo can incur his divine wrath on the Autobots.

While Sam goes to get the glasses, the Autobots decide to do a little peeping on the house, watching his parents watch TV. Sam tears his room apart trying to find the glasses, and Optimus thinks that it would be helpful if he brought Mikaela up to help look. It’s at this point that I realize that Sam has an utterly bizarre fish tank.

I mean, legitimately, what the fuck is this? No filter, no plants, might not even have any rocks on the bottom. Is this a comically oversized bong Sam threw a couple fish into? What the fuck.

Mikaela starts looking for the glasses, running into what is likely a box of porn mags, then they both look out the window to find that the Autobots have decided to hide in plain sight by transforming... in the middle of Sam’s backyard. Amazing work, gentlemen.

Sam finally convinces the Autobots to go sit in the alley and wait, only for Ratchet to run into a power line and trip into a greenhouse. The resulting impact is interpreted as an earthquake. Judy does not have the reaction one might expect from someone who’s lived in California for at least ten years.

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

The power cuts out, and Ron goes up to check on his son, because he’s at least a halfway-decent father. Ratchet’s shining a light to aid in the search for the glasses. Sam’s parents notice this bright light, and bang on Sam’s door to see what’s up.

Sam quickly hides Mikaela and then attempts to salvage the situation, answering the door and trying to control the narrative. Unfortunately, Ron is far too inquisitive for Sam to do this, and then Judy asks if Sam was masturbating.

Judy, is privacy just not a thing to you? Because if not, it really ought to be.

She keeps going with it too, trying to come up with code words, until another one of the Autobots trips and causes Ron to panic again, climbing into Sam’s ancient claw-foot bathtub to protect himself. He looks out the window to check on his beloved yard, lamenting that the earthquake tore it up.

Ironhide is strongly considering killing Sam’s parents. Optimus tells him that they don’t harm humans, and also begins to wonder if he made a mistake bringing this guy along.

Back in Sam’s room, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Sam is an absolutely terrible liar, and Mikaela reveals herself, if only to prevent Judy from trying to talk about self-pleasure again. Of course, now she gets to be subjected to both of Sam’s parents objectifying her, so this might be a lose-lose situation.

Sam is reminded that his backpack is in the kitchen, just in time for the government to show up at his house. Mikaela makes a comment about Judy being nice. I suppose on a surface level, yes, being told that you’re gorgeous by someone’s mom is nice. I do have to question the context that compliment took place in, however.

Sam’s about to hand the glasses over to the Autobots, when someone rings the doorbell. It’s Sector Seven, and they’re here to talk to Sam about his stolen car being part of an issue involving national security. Ron and Judy are more concerned about their yard being torn up, Judy yelling that they “need to get their hands off [her] bush.”

We still have another hour of this movie.

The agent leading this mission asks Sam to come with him for questioning, which his parents are very much against. Mojo also voices his displeasure, but it would seem that Agent Simmons is not a follower of the Tenets of Mojo. Sam gets geigered, and his readings are high enough for Sector Seven to take him and everyone in this house into custody.

As Sam and Mikaela are riding in the back of the car, Simmons brings up Sam’s Ebay account, and also the phone video he took of Bumblebee earlier in the week. Mikaela is rather unimpressed with Sam at the moment, probably because he’s gotten her arrested. She still tries to help him out though, because she really is just the nicest fucking person on the planet.

Alas, the combined efforts of these two teenagers isn’t enough to fool the long arm of the law, especially when it’s a branch of said law that deals with extraterrestrial activity. Simmons threatens to lock up these literal children for life if they don’t start talking. Mikaela isn’t taking the bait, so he goes after her father’s parole hearing instead.

Yep! As it turns out, Mikaela and her father stole cars to get by, and she’s got the record to back that claim up. Simmons calls her a criminal, then says that criminals are hot. Mikaela looks like she’s about to cry, and I don’t blame her in the slightest.

Optimus, I suppose because his dad senses were tingling, takes the opportunity to place his leg in the road for the car to run into, then grabs said car like an unruly cat and lifts it until the roof rips off due to stress. The agents in the other cars pile out and point their guns at the giant space robot. The rest of the Autobots quickly relieve them of their weapons.

Optimus notes that Simmons doesn’t seem surprised that a bunch of giant robots just took all his guys’ guns, and demands that he exit the vehicle, posthaste. Simmons obliges, after a bit more prodding. Mikaela undoes Sam’s handcuffs, and he gets fucking pissy about it, as if this girl he’s had a grand total of three (awkward) conversations with should have told him something as personal as “hey, so my dad’s in jail and I’ve been to juvenile detention.”

Luckily, she doesn’t let him get away with it, calling him out as the spoiled, self-centered, privileged little shithead that he is.

Of course, we don’t get any sort of real acknowledgement from Sam, having to move on with the plot. Perhaps, if we hadn’t spent the last hour and 20 minutes faffing about on drivel, we could have had Sam get an actual moment of self-reflection, and potentially even character growth. However, this is Bayverse, and everyone knows that personal accountability is for fucking sissies.

Mikaela and Sam ask several questions, but get no answers from Agent Simmons. And then Bumblebee pees on him.

I hate that I had to write that. I hate it very much.

Anyway, I don’t know why that had to happen, but it did, and I’m nothing if not thorough.

Optimus tells Bumblebee to cut it out, and with that the Sector Seven agents are cuffs and left on the side of the road. Mikaela orders Simmons to strip, as punishment for threatening her father, then cuffs him to a street lamp.

...Yes, that does sound like a bizarre sexual fantasy, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately for our teen heroes, they forgot to confiscate everyone’s phones, and Sector Seven knows what’s up, thanks to the power of speakerphone. More cars and a couple of helicopters show up basically immediately, and the Autobots decide it’s time to dip.

But not before Ironhide fires off a pulsewave into the ground that causes a five-car pileup.

Optimus, I suppose because he knows he chose a ridiculously flashy alt-mode that is in no way practical, just picks the kids up in and places them on his shoulder like a couple of parakeets, then takes up a leisurely jog to get away from the eyes in the sky. He runs through the city, racking up what is likely millions in property damage, as the helicopters pursue. He passes by a “Legalize LA” billboard, which feels odd to see, given what movie this is.

The ‘copters somehow manage to lose Optimus, despite him being relatively slow, and having a notable radiation level that they’ve been using to track him. He hides inside the scaffolding of a bridge, only for Mikaela and Sam to slip off of his polished body to their deaths, thus ending the film.

No, they don’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Bumblebee snatches them up just before they hit the ground, the impact of his metal body catching them at 75 mph, killing them instantly and ending the film.

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

Mikaela and Sam are fine, some-fucking-how, but Sam’s dropped the MacGuffin glasses. The helicopters swing back around, having noticed the sound of a car crashing into the ground and the screams of two whole adolescents. They break out a fucking harpoon gun and fire on our kid appeal character.

Repeatedly.

They wrap up Bumblebee in a series of cables, as he screams like a moose. Mikaela and Sam are held at gunpoint by what is honestly far too many dudes, and are then arrested for the second time in ten minutes. Bumblebee is smoked... because he’s a bee? Sam, not liking this one bit, finds the strength in his weenie body to push a cop off of himself, run at one of the dudes with the smoke guns, throw him to the ground, and then start smoking him. He’s immediately tackled, but points for trying.

Sam and Mikaela are placed back into custody, and the rest of the Autobots regroup with Optimus to see what the plan is. Optimus says that they can’t save Bumblebee without hurting humans, so I guess Bumblebee is just a POW now. Well, at least they got the glasses. That’s cool.

Back at the Pentagon, things are getting dicey, as the other world powers are starting to suspect that something’s up. The Secretary of Defense is approached by a man with a mustache and a briefcase. He’s from Sector Seven, but the Secretary gives not a fuck about mysterious organizations. All the computers in the room suddenly go down, the virus from earlier working its magic- only this time, the blackout is global.

Mr. Mustache opens his briefcase, while explaining that Sector Seven is something known as a “special access” sector of the government, which is why nobody’s ever heard of it; it’s beyond top secret. Commissioned by President Herbert Hoover 80 years prior, it deals with alien life.

When the Beagle 2 spacecraft was lost on the way to Mars in 2003, the mission was declared a failure. This was a lie. The Beagle 2 recorded several seconds of Mars before being crushed to death by a Transformer. This tidbit is pretty funny, given that the Beagle 2 was rediscovered on Mars in 2014, seven years after this film released. Not a terribly mysterious death anymore, is it?

Comparing the footage from Mars to the footage from Qatar has Sector Seven thinking that these are the same species. Which they are. God, it’d be so fucked up if there were two species of giant robots in this film.

Mr. Mustache theorizes that because the Transformers now know that they can be harmed by human weaponry, they’re being proactive about their safety and shutting down all forms of communication technology with that virus that keeps popping up. It’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan for humanity.

Mr. Secretary tells his guys to try going analog with comms, breaking out the short-wave radios, to tell their ships to return home.

Over at an Air Force base, Lennox and the gang have landed, only to be scooped up by a bunch of dudes in suits.

Back with Maddie and Glen, the two of them have fallen asleep in the interrogation room, Maddie still wearing her friggin’ four inch pumps as her legs are propped up on the table, crossed in a way that seems rather uncomfortable. Glen gets to sleep like a normal human being, with his head resting on his forearms. Why this place doesn’t have a holding cell for these situations is beyond me.

Mr. Secretary comes in to bring Maddie on as his advisor. Glen can come too, I guess, considering he’s the one who actually figured out the sound file virus.

We get a little military glorification, and then it’s revealed that Mikaela and Sam, as well as Maddie and Glen, are aboard this helicopter. Their paths cross at last. Our heroes are transported to the Hoover Dam, where Bumblebee is also. They are still smoking him.

Meanwhile, the Autobots are figuring out where to go, with the power of Archibald’s glasses. Ratchet, who I guess is omnipotent, senses that the Decepticons have also figured out the location, and that this is going to be a race against the clock. And I mean, he’s right, but the phrasing is a bit odd.

Jazz wants to know when they’re going to save Bumblebee. Optimus says that they aren’t, and that Bumblebee’s sacrifice is noble, and that he would want the Autobots to leave him and complete the mission. As this is said, we get another shot of Bumblebee getting smoked and trapped in a lab. Yep, this is totally what he would want. He absolutely signed up for this, giving himself up to the government and not at all fighting like mad to not be captured.

I don’t think Bayverse Optimus actually knows what martyrdom is, which is bizarre, given that it’s a major trait in a lot of other iterations of the character.

Ironhide isn’t even sure why they’re bothering to save humanity, given that humans are violent and awful, his point being hammered home as Bumblebee is tortured for scientific reasons. Ironhide seems to have forgotten that Cybertron has been at war for literally millions of years. Optimus has faith in humanity, however, stating that we’re “young”.

And then he says that he’s going to end his own race, by destroying the Cube™, which is how they reproduce, because that’s the only way to end the war.

Which is arguably one of the most hardcore fictional applications of eugenics ever conceived.

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

Optimus then proves that he does, in fact, know what self-sacrifice is, stating that, if all else fails, he’ll shove the AllSpark into his spark, which will destroy them both. He’s pretty chill about it, too.

Up on top of the Hoover Dam, Frenzy has fallen out of Mikaela’s bag.

Mr. Secretary is also at the Hoover Dam now, as is Lennox’s team. Oh, and Agent Simmons, who is thankfully wearing pants. He offers to buy Sam a coffee, as repartitions for threatening his family, arresting him, and being a complete creep to a teenage girl. Sam gives not a fuck about caramel macchiatos with extra foam and chocolate drizzle, however. He only cares about his car.

Mr. Mustache, who is also here, needs Sam to spill the beans on all these friggin’ giant robots that are running around. This is where Sam realizes he has the upper hand for once, and he starts making demands. One such demand is having Mikaela’s record scrubbed clean, which is an actually very nice thing for him to have done for her. We’ll see if his intent comes to fruition. For now, it’s time to talk about Bumblebee.

We get a shot of all these folks heading into the secret base hidden inside the Hoover Dam, and it’s at this point that I notice that Maddie’s shirt is basically see-through.

Inside the Dam, we see that Sector Seven′s been keeping Megatron this entire time, keeping him neutralized with cryo-stasis since 1935. Cryopreservation was invented in the 50′s. This isn’t a nitpick, I just thought it was a neat little fact.

Megatron being on Earth has resulted in most modern technology. This sort of plot point always bothers me, because it takes away agency from the entire human race. We didn’t use our own ingenuity and work ethic to advance society, we plagiarized from a more advanced species. I dunno, it just rubs me the wrong way.

We get the part of the movie where info is hashed out, so that everyone is on the same page, Sam spouting off Autobot propaganda. We can forgive him for this,considering he’s 16, and no one is immune to propaganda, especially when they have zero way of doing their own research to form their own opinion with.

Sector Seven also has the AllSpark, kept in the room next to Megatron’s, like the chumps they will soon find themselves to be. It’s about ten stories tall and the reason the Hoover Dam exists. With so much concrete suppressing its alien energies, surely no one will ever find it!

Except for Frenzy, who came in through a mouse hole. Whoopsie-doodle!

The AllSpark zaps the nasty little man, restoring his body with its weird MacGuffin powers. Frenzy tells all his coworkers that he found what they were looking for, and everyone starts heading over.

Maddie asks Mr. Mustache what exactly he means by “energies”, perhaps worried that this whole thing has been some elaborate ploy to get her to invest in magic healing stones. Mr. Mustache brings everyone into a testing chamber, since the best way to explain how the AllSpark works is through a demonstration.

There’s a big fish tank in the middle of this testing chamber, in which Agent Simmons places a donated device from the crowd- Glen’s Nokia phone, specifically. Simmons makes a geologically-confused comment. When this is pointed out by Maddie, Mr. Secretary hushes her, simply saying that Simmons is a strange man. The tank is locked down, and then the show starts.

Cube™ energies are shot into the tank, and the phone explodes into life, transforming into a gorilla-shaped gremlin creature. Happy birthday, little dude!

Little dude starts shooting at the tank walls, cracking the glass until Simmons pulls the trigger and ends it. Happy deathday, little dude!

The Decepticons are making tracks towards the Hoover Dam, but Starscream- yeah, he’s in this now, don’t worry about it- arrives first, because he is a very fast jet. He transforms, showing off his ridiculous Dorito body, and fires on the base’s generators. The resulting explosions can be heard all the way down in the testing chamber, and Mr. Mustache calls upstairs to see what’s up. Looks like Megatron may be getting warmed up, seeing as his ice bath has been cut off. Lennox asks if there’s an arms room in Sector Seven, which sort of feels like asking a bakery if they have any flour.

Frenzy has entered the room that houses the controls for the cryo-stasis and set that whole system to “no, thank you”.

Mr. Mustache runs through the base, screaming for everyone to get to the Megatron chamber. Off in the distance, the Autobots approach. Could probably used some fliers on your team, huh Optimus?

Back with Frenzy, he’s decided to just straight-up raise Megatron’s core temperature directly. Hope he doesn’t do it too fast; rewarming hypothermia victims recklessly can do some serious damage.

Outside of the base, Lennox and the boys are loading up with weaponry, along with what’s the entirety of Sector Seven′s cannon-fodder department. Oh, and all the main cast. Yep, just got a couple of teenagers chillin’ in the munitions room.

Sam wants Simmons to take him to his car- he hasn’t used Bumblebee’s name in a hot minute, not sure what’s up with that- even though Simmons is currently busy loading a very large gun. Simmons doesn’t want to do that, because he’s got no idea if what Sam mentioned earlier is even true, and he doesn’t want to pin the fate of humanity on a single Camaro. Lennox takes this opportunity to tackle Simmons, despite likely not knowing that Bumblebee is one of the “good guys”. A Sector Seven guy very much doesn’t like that, and points a gun at Lennox, which prompts all of his guys to also start threatening folks with guns.

Mr. Mustache walks in on the scene, but doesn’t do anything, since he isn’t armed and knows better than to tangle with someone who’s packing. Simmons tries to intimidate Lennox, because he must have missed the day of boot camp where they tell you that guns kill people. Lennox is fully committed to shooting this dude in the lungs before Mr. Secretary suggests he give the people what they want, before things get ugly.

Simmons takes everyone to the robot torture department of Sector Seven, where they are still smoking Bumblebee. Geez, you’d think they’d have something in place for if they ever came across another giant robot after Megatron, but I guess not. The gang gets everyone to stop smoking Bumblebee, which allows him to stop moose-screaming and strongly consider murdering everyone involved with his forced captivity. Unfortunately, revenge with have to wait, as we’ve still got to deal with the AllSpark, and the fact that the Decepticons are here.

They take Bumblebee to the AllSpark, where he makes direct contact the thing, causing the AllSpark to transform, compacting itself down into a far more reasonable size that Bumblebee can carry in one hand. It doesn’t seem to weigh more than a grown adult, if his body language is saying anything. I’d make a joke about the conservation of mass being ignored, but since this is Transformers, I can’t really say much. Conservation of mass doesn’t exist for this franchise.

Bumblebee would really like to get this show on the road, and Lennox agrees, quickly formulating a plan to get away from Megatron and taking the AllSpark to Mission City, which is relatively close to their current location, so that they can hide it there.

Lennox, I know this plan is a first draft, and we don’t have a ton of time for revisions, but the whole point of building a whole-ass dam around the Cube™ was because it was very difficult to hide, given its magical MacGuffin powers. Regardless of this flaw, Mr. Secretary agrees. Lennox also asks that the Air Force be involved in this, I guess because the U.S. military wanted more screentime.

Of course, that whole “global blackout” thing is still going on, so we’re going to have to get creative with how we’re going to contact the Air Force. Mr. Secretary and Simmons make a break for the WWII-era radio Sector Seven has, while Lennox and the boys head out to shoot things, and Mikaela and Sam hop into Bumblebee with the Cube™.

This is about the point that Megatron wakes up. The first thing he does is introduce himself, which I thought was very polite of him. Then he breaks out his flail and starts bashing shit around. Not so polite, that.

Over with Bumblebee, we’re shown that the AllSpark, all-powerful object that can create life and is the whole reason this conflict is even happening, is just chillin’ in the back seat by itself. It’s not even buckled up.

Megatron escapes the base, and it’s actually super easy. He just transforms, goes through the tunnel, and he’s free. I feel like we could have at least attempted some security measures for in case the cryo-stasis failed, given that we’ve had this dude in containment for the last 70-something years, but okay.

Starscream comes over to say hi to his boss, not that Megatron gives a shit. He just wants to know where that fucking Cube™ is. When Starscream tells him that the humans have it, Megatron makes a comment about how Starscream has failed him yet again. This is their first interaction in this movie, and Starscream’s been in the story for a grand total of five minutes at this point. I know that this is a reference to their dynamic in just about every installment of the franchise up to this point, but it doesn’t feel earned in the slightest. Even if it’s going to be expanded upon in future sequels, this is a shit-tier way to set their (awful) relationship up.

Not that anyone should ever bank on getting a sequel anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Megatron tells Starscream to retrieve the AllSpark, and then we cut over to the radio plotline. The radio, which is so cobweb-covered I feel like Sector Seven needs to have a serious discussion with their custodial staff, has its nobs and buttons fiddled with by Simmons until it crackles to life. But where are the microphones? Everyone starts looking for the mics, as Simmons pushes Glen into the seat, I guess because hacking modern computers and using Depression-era radio tech are similar enough.

Maddie asks Glen if he can hotwire a 90′s-era computer to transmit a tone through the radio, so that they can send a Morse code message to the Air Force. Which sounds ridiculous to me, but I don’t know enough about radios or computers to know if that sort of thing would be possible. Maybe it’s fine. Or maybe it’s Hollywood bullshit. Who knows?

Back over with Bumblebee, we get a bunch of car commercial shots, of both him and the other Autobots. Aww, the gang’s back together again! Nobody tell Bumblebee that Optimus was completely cool with leaving him to his fate.

Optimus and the gang whip around to join the convoy, and everyone makes their way towards Mission City.

Back at the radio subplot, someone’s bangin’ on the door, trying to get in. The others try to block the intruder, while Glen does his hacking stuff. Mr. Secretary breaks a case and pulls out a gun that’s about as old as he is.

Glen gets the computer working, and Mr. Secretary gives him the Super Secret Military Codewords™ to use to talk to the Air Force. While he does that, Simmons finds a flamethrower and starts burning Frenzy as he attempts to enter the room. The Air Force receives the message for an air strike. Oh, goody.

Over with the convoy, it appears that the Autobots and Lennox’s boys are being pursued by the Decepticons. It’s difficult to tell, seeing as the cameras have gone full Bay-mode, but I’m guessing that’s what’s up. One of the Decepticons flips over a minivan, likely killing a family of five. another causes a multi-car pileup.

Bonecrusher transforms, then Optimus transforms. Bonecrusher iceskates across the highway, slamming into a bus so hard it just straight-up explodes. He is on fire. He tackles Optimus, and they proceed to fall off the side of the raised highway they’re on. Then they beat the shit out of each other, until Optimus decapitates Bonecrusher with his arm-sword.

Yeah, space dad is a little intense in the Bayverse.

Back at Sector Seven, Frenzy’s decided to leave the door alone, and instead is crawling through the ventilation shaft. Mr. Secretary and Simmons fire off shots into the duct above them, as if bullets would do anything against this nasty little pile of needles.

Frenzy bursts through the bottom of the duct and crash-lands into a glass case, taking cover behind a pillar and fires on the humans on the other side of the room. While this shootout is happening, Glen receives a response from the Air Force, just in time for Frenzy to accidentally decapitate himself with one of his own spinning blades of death. This time, he does not survive losing his head.

The Air Force will be sending fighter planes to Mission City, and to establish this, we get several shots of what some might call “military porn.”

Over in the city, the convoy has arrived. Lennox hands several short-wave radios over to Epps, telling him to use them to direct the Air Force when they arrive, so they can take the AllSpark... somewhere, I guess. Above, an F-22 zooms across the sky. It is not one of the Air Force’s F-22s.

Ironhide recognizes Starscream, and gets ready to throw down. Bumblebee grabs a nearby Furby truck and hoists it up to use as a shield. This marginally works, as the missile that hits the truck doesn’t immediately kill him, though it probably did all those Furbies inside.

The resulting explosion throws all the humans around, Mikaela getting weird heaven lighting as she lies unconscious on the pavement. Sam gets it too, though, so I suppose I can’t complain too much about this particular shot. They touch hands. I really wish that I could take this moment of vulnerability as being anything other than an attempt to set up a romance between these two teens who have known each other for maybe half a week. This movie has so starved me of genuine human interaction I'm jumping at the smallest of scraps.

Bumblebee actually didn’t get out of that missile-strike unscathed, his legs having been blown off. All those Furbies died for nothing. Tragic. Sam asks Bumblebee if he’s alright, and immediately tells him to get up. Sam then remembers that Bumblebee’s legs are off, so he yells for Ratchet.

Over with Lennox and Epps, they’ve realized that the plane they saw wasn’t one of theirs. Which, you know, has already been established, but points for getting caught up, fellas. Sam is crying and still telling Bumblebee to get up. Bumblebee is dragging himself across the pavement and whimpering. It’s awful. Where the fuck is Ratchet? This is basically the only reason he’s in this film, and he’s nowhere to be found.

The actual Air Force calls on the radio, asking for their location. Brawl, who is a tank, starts firing on Lennox’s gang. Jazz and Ratchet race through the city streets. How they were separated from the rest of the team is anyone’s guess.

Sam takes a little sit on the pavement to be with Bumblebee, while Mikaela decides to problem-solve and heads for a nearby tow truck. Bumblebee hands Sam the Cube™ because, as the designated protagonist, it’s his job to handle it in the climax of the film.

Ironhide is shot at several times by Brawl, narrowly avoiding being hit each time. This, of course, means that the people he drives by in this shot are almost assuredly dead, since they’re right next to the explosions. He transforms and does a flip, as the film goes slow-mo on a shot of a woman in a low-cut dress watching him flip. She screams. Ironhide screams. I scream, though probably for a different reason.

Jazz jumps on Brawl, managing to kick off a couple pieces of kibble before Brawl grabs him and throws him into the side of a building. Ironhide, Optimus, and Ratchet descend on Brawl, and so does Lennox’s team, Brawl losing a hand and getting thrown into his own building as a result.

Mikaela breaks into the tow truck and starts to hotwire that shit. Wow, a relevant back story that culminates in her being able to save the day, thus completing her arc and staying on-theme for her character. Why isn’t Mikaela the protagonist again?

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

Megatron lands in a nearby alleyway, and Ratchet, knowing this dude is bad news, tells everyone to head for the hills. Jazz isn’t fast enough, however, and gets shot for his troubles.

Mikaela drives the truck over to Sam, who is still sitting there with the Cube™, and tells him to get his ass in gear.

Jazz gets taken to the top of a nearby building and is ripped in two by Megatron, who acts like a bird of prey the whole sequence. Down on the ground, Brawl is starting to get back up from his smackdown. Blackout appears on a nearby skyscraper. Things are looking grim for humanity.

Mikaela and Sam hook Bumblebee up to the tow line as Lennox approaches them. Sam has left the AllSpark out of his line of sight, like a fool. Despite seeing this, Lennox still gives him the flare to let the military know where to pick up the AllSpark. Doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela. He tells Sam to head for the white building with statues on top of it and set the flare on top of the roof. Lennox can’t leave his men, because he’s the head of his operation. Why he can’t send literally anyone else who isn’t a 16 year-old boy isn’t made clear.

Sam really doesn’t want to do this, probably because he’s a child, but Lennox has recruited him to the military against his will, so he must. Lennox then attempts to make Mikaela leave for her own good, but she tells him to fuck off, because she’s gonna save Bumblebee. Clearly, this is a win for feminism.

Epps radios the choppers coming from the Air Force to let them know they’ll be picking up a package from a teenager, thus locking Sam into the job. Ironhide and Ratchet vow to protect Sam from the Decepticons on his way to the pickup point. Not one single person has pointed out how fucked up this is.

Sam starts to run off, when Mikaela stops him to let him know that she’s glad she got in the car with him roughly an hour ago. They don’t kiss goodbye, which, honestly? Good. This fucking movie hasn’t earned that. Sam for sure hasn’t earned that, even if he did clear her juvie record. No word on that having actually been done, by the way. Sam never got confirmation, and I feel like he’s not really the type to follow up on things.

Brawl fires off some shots and makes things explode. Ratchet and Ironhide provide cover fire as Sam sprints down the road. Yep, they’re making this idiot WALK to the pickup point. Sure hope the elevators are working today, otherwise this is going to take forever.

Sam carries the AllSpark like a football, and in a better movie, this would have been foreshadowed by Sam having actually been a football player prior to the events of the film, perhaps removed from the team for some character flaw he’s since grown from/accepted. However, this is Bayverse, and well, men don’t have to justify their existence in the story with things like themes and having even an ounce of thought put into their character.

Back with Mikaela, Lennox has refused to learn her name, calling her “girl” as he screams at her to get Bumblebee hooked up to the tow truck. Which she was already doing when he got here. Lennox, dude, you’ve got a daughter now, you’re super extra not allowed to treat women like this.

Optimus Prime pulls through an alleyway and crashes into a pile of garbage. I can forgive him being late, seeing as he is a big rig, and probably had to take the long way into town so he didn’t get stuck in too-low tunnels. Don’t worry about how we briefly saw him during the Brawl take-down. This is his for real entrance into the climax.

He whips around and transforms, ready to throw the fuck down. Megatron spots him from his perch and descends.

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

Megatron shoots at Optimus in his alt-mode, and Optimus catches him like a frisbee. Unfortunately for Optimus, it would appear that the horsepower on a Cybertronian flightcraft is hella intense, and he’s carried away. The two of them crash through an office building, then roll around in the streets punching each other in the face, debating the worth of humanity as they do so. Wish I actually gave a shit about either of these people, but alas! The film spent most of its runtime objectifying women and insulting minorities. I know nothing about Optimus, and even less about Megatron.

Megatron transforms his arms into a laser gun, and Optimus does the same. They shoot at each other. Optimus gets thrown into a building, then lands on the sidewalk below, definitely crushing a dude underneath him, but I guess we didn’t check that the shot was clear for where the CGI was gonna go, so he’s fine.

Sam’s still running through the streets, while Blackout murders, like, so many people behind him. Starscream lands in front of Sam, running into roughly 30 cars as he skids to a halt. Ratchet and Ironhide fire on him, as Sam takes a breather behind a car. Starscream transforms and blasts off. He was here for about 15 seconds. Sam begins running again.

Megatron is now following Sam, because he wants that Cube™. Sam is hit by a car- not an evil one, just a regular car- and trips. The impact makes the AllSpark activate, which grants several machines in the vicinity the gift of life, including the car full of bitchy women that just hit Sam, who are upset that hitting a human being might have scratched the paint.

I get it, you hate women, can we PLEASE stop beating this dead horse?

Sam finally gets to the pickup building, which turns out to be abandoned and fenced off. Good thing the gate was open, otherwise things could get really complicated. He heads inside, Megatron crashing through a floor-to-ceiling window shortly behind him. Megatron makes the claim that he can smell where Sam is. I’m going to choose to believe that he isn’t lying here, since Ratchet did something similar earlier.

Sam finds the stairs, and Megatron calls him a slur.

He doesn’t, really, but the voice modulation certainly makes it sound that way.

While this is happening, Mikaela is driving the tow truck down an alley, dragging Bumblebee behind her with the tow cable. She stops for a moment to have a short breakdown, seeing as she is a teenager in what is currently a warzone.

Sam is still running up the stairs. Outside, the military shoots at one of the Decepticons. It is, of course, doing absolutely nothing to the giant metal space robot. Mikaela concludes her moment, looking back at Bumblebee, who gives her the okay to keep going with dragging his ass across the pavement. She whips the truck around and tells Bumblebee “I’ll drive, you shoot.”

Mikaela then proceeds to speed down a main road of this sizable city backwards, running into cars and more or less shoving Bumblebee along to his destination.

The military has finally realized that their efforts have been pointless, but it’s okay because Bumblebee is here with his superior firepower. Bumblebee proceeds to shoot Brawl in the chest, which kills him. After this, he tries to act cute, lifting up his battle mask in a very “did I do that?” way, as if he’s not the same guy who ripped Barricade apart earlier.

Sam, meanwhile, has finally reached the top of this dilapidated building. Helicopters are approaching his location, but will they make it to him before Megatron does? Honestly, I’d be more worried about Starscream on the building just due East.

Sam is just about to hand the AllSpark over, when Starscream fires at the ‘copter, causing it to crash and nearly chop Sam to pieces. Optimus Prime runs towards the scene, on a roof that I refuse to believe could actually support him. Megatron punches thought the roof from the bottom and asks Sam some philosophical questions. Sam can’t answer, given that he’s hiding on the edge of this building, his flimsy grip on one of the angel statues being the only thing keeping him from falling.

Megatron tells him to give him the AllSpark, and in exchange he might not kill him immediately. Sam tells him to fuck off, and Megatron flails the chunk of building he was hanging on to, causing Sam to fall to his death, thus ending the film.

I’m lying to you. Michael Bay is making me into a liar.

No, Sam is, instead, caught by Optimus, very likely breaking several ribs on impact. This is the point where I realize that they’ve given Optimus fingernails. Sam clings to him like a baby koala, as Optimus parkours down the sides of two buildings, Megatron in pursuit. Megatron actually lands on Optimus 2/3rds of the way down, causing the both of them to fall onto the pavement below. How Sam survives this is a mystery.

Megatron recovers from the fall first, flicking a human away from him for having the audacity to exist in his space. The flicked person hits a car, and is almost assuredly dead. At least, I sure hope so, given that this is the director cameo by the Bayman himself.

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

Optimus comments on the fact that Sam almost fucking died to get the AllSpark out of dodge, and we get the return of “No Sacrifice, No Victory”. Which, I mean, I guess he’s allowed to say that, since he’s actually had to do something that warranted it. His dad doesn’t get to, though.

Optimus then tells this teenage boy, who has already had a hell of a day, to kill him by shoving the AllSpark into his robot-soul-heart, should he be unable to defeat Megatron.

I dunno, I just feel like it’s a bit of an ask.

Sam climbs off of Optimus so the Prime and Megatron can rumble. He runs through the ruined infrastructure of the city, so he’s less likely to be crushed. Optimus tells Megatron to square the fuck up, stating that “one shall stand, one shall fall.”

Then he gets ragdolled around a bunch, so maybe he should have saved the talk for later in the game.

The military is running around some more, stopping in an alley to see Blackout transform to root mode. Yes, the goo-goo eyes were indeed made by several members of the watch party that started this whole thing. People went wild for Rotor-Cape Johnson.

The fighter jets from the US military are arriving in a minute. Epps warns them to aim for the robots that aren’t evil. Lennox and the gang spread out, reminding each other to aim for the underboob, since Transformers’ armor is weak there. Epps marks Blackout with a little green light, which Blackout almost immediately notices. Blackout fires on the military.

Lennox has stolen a motorcycle and is driving through the streets to circle back around and jump off of the bike, sliding on his back to shoot Blackout directly in his underboob. Wonder what his uniform is rated for for road rash.

Sam is watching as Optimus gets his ass handed to him. Up in the sky, Starscream commits identity theft, and then attacks the Air Force. The Air Force can multitask however, and light Megatron the fuck up. Sam has, for some reason, come out of hiding, and Megatron uses this to his advantage, trying to take the AllSpark from him.

Optimus tells Sam to put the AllSpark in his chest, but Sam has a better idea. He shoves it into Megatron’s chest, which has been basically shot open at this point. Megatron makes a Space Invader noise, convulses a bit, then falls over dead.

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

Optimus tells Megatron’s corpse that he got what was coming to him, then implies that they’re brothers. What flavor of brother isn’t established, but neither was basically anything between the two main faces of the franchise in this film, so it’s fine.

Ironhide walks up holding the two halves of Jazz. Optimus informs Sam that he now has a life-debt to this child. Whether or not Sam is absorbing any information at this point is up in the air. Mikaela shows up, with Bumblebee in tow.

In tow.

In tow-

Sam stares at her blankly. Mikaela stares back, making the pretty girl face. Man, what a great dynamic these two have.

Jazz is dead. That sucks. Optimus is handed his corpse to hold, while he thanks his new friends for helping out.

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

Sam is obviously shocked by the fact that Bumblebee is British able to talk now, since not talking has been his whole thing up to this point. Optimus doesn’t let it phase him. Neither does Ratchet, despite having been working on Bumblebee’s throat injury for centuries at this point.

Bumblebee wants to stay on Earth with Sam. Optimus is just like whatever. Sam agrees to have a sweet Camaro from outer space.

Optimus pulls what is left of the AllSpark out of Megatron’s chest. I’m sure that’s not a setup for potential conflicts, not in the slightest.

Over in Washington, D.C., the US President has ordered Sector Seven be terminated, and all the Transformer corpses be disposed of. And by “disposed of” they mean “thrown into the ocean.” Dang, sure hope Earth signed some sort of agreement with the Transformers so that they never come to Earth again. You know, just be proactive about our galactic safety.

The Linkin Park kicks on, as Optimus gives us our bookend narration, telling us what the Autobots plan to do now that their race is at a genological dead end. As he does, we see Lennox reunite with his wife and child, who I had genuinely forgotten were in this movie.

Optimus is pretty chill with Cybertron dying out, because now they know about Earth. We get a shot of Sam and Mikaela making out, a shot that becomes more and more horrifying the further they zoom out, because they’re making out on top of Bumblebee. Who they KNOW is a sentient creature at this point.

And then it gets even worse, because the shot changes, and oh hey! Turns out that the rest of the Autobots were just chillin’ off to the side while this went down. Optimus continues his monologue, just walking around in his root mode as he tells all of Makeout Point how they’re “robots in disguise” now.

The monologue is actually a transmission he’s sending out into space, inviting any of his leftover pals to come kick it on Earth with them, because Earth is pretty cool.

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

So. Bayverse 1. A film showcasing xenophobia, misogyny, and toxic nationalism. It’s rough. Is it the worst film I’ve ever seen? Not even close, but it’s bad, and it was a huge deal at the time of release. Everyone was seeing it, everyone knew the actors and robots, everyone had a scene that they liked. Everyone was exposed to Bayverse, and as a result, a lot of people entered the Transformers franchise thinking that it was all like this.

And really, how far off would they have been in 2007?

When a franchise refuses to introduce female characters until years after being established, when all those female characters have the exact same body type, when a franchise hires misogynists to write stories, when it allows shit like “Prime’s Rib!” to be published- no wonder Michael Bay was approached to direct.

What a mess.

--------------------------

COMING SOON:

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - MEGAN FOX I AM SO FUCKING SORRY

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - WILL YOU JUST STAY DEAD

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (2014) - SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) - ACTUALLY, FUCK CONTINUITY

[tiedyemillenialbullshit]

Hope is a Heartache

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky are a series of missed opportunities, but will that stop you both from being happy?

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, sexual situations, swearing, angst, LOTS of angst, fluff

A/N: I’m not sure when I became the kween of angst, but here we are. I think if I wrote smut, I’d die so maybe someday I’ll try that. For now here we are.

Written listening to: Hope is a Heartache by LEON

“How would I ever tell her that? What, that I think she’s the most stunning, hilarious, powerful, brave, most amazing woman I’ve ever met? She’d freak out, I’m like her best friend on the team, Steve.”

“I don’t know pal, but I can’t keep looking at you like this. Every time she walks by you stop breathing.”

Bucky never felt so sick to his stomach as he did when he thought about you and whatshisface. You had been on the team about as long as he had. You were both “freshmen” as Sam loved to joke, together. At first, you annoyed the shit out of him. Always going on about how he needed to try harder at this or move faster at that. Buck always confided in Steve about how much you pissed him off until finally one day Steve snapped. “DUDE. YOU. LOVE. Y/N. If you won’t admit it to me, at least admit it to yourself.”

Bucky remembers telling him exactly where he can shove it before stomping out of the Captain’s office to the gym. He had walked in on you taking some sort of frustration out on a punching bag. You didn’t hear him come in, so he stood in the shadow of the doorway and watched you. You stopped after a few moments to rip your gloves off, fix your ponytail, huff out a swear or four and decide to start punching again sans gloves.

Bucky knew in that instant he didn’t want a different partner on missions. He didn’t want you to want to go on morning runs with anyone else. He didn’t want to trust anyone else besides you.

You remember that day too. You were pissed at him, convinced he was trying to make you look bad because in Steve’s eyes, he could do no wrong. So who cares right? Oh you just wanted to hit him. That’s why you had elected to not place your boxing gloves back on and instead just rely on the tape wrapping your knuckles to not break your skin open.

You heard something behind you, and when you spun around you saw him watching you. At first, this wasn’t startling, the asshole had a serious staring problem, but he wasn’t mad. He was just watching you move. Nothing about his demeanor was menacing like it usually was. It was like Frosty had melted and standing before you was this man.

You decided then that you didn’t anyone else sparing with you in the gym, you didn’t want anyone else giving you a hard time because you couldn’t chug a beer as fast as Thor, and you didn’t want him to want anyone else as his partner.

It was like something clicked into place that day, a thread between the two of you pulled taught. You couldn’t place the feeling, you never had it before.

“Earth to Bucky. *white noise* Paging James Buchanan Barnes *white noise* Will the tin man please join us in this debriefing-“ Bucky finally recognized Sam was talking to him.

“Sorry, what?” Buck knew he was red in the face, but honestly didn’t care. Not after the sleepless night he had after witnessing you kiss your new boyfriend goodnight.

“We were discussing Wednesday’s mission, Bucky. You good?” Steve had a concerned look on his face for his best friend.

You were staring right back at Bucky as he sternly answered “I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep last night. Kept having a nightmare about some prick invading my space.”

The team exchanged glances, but that just confirmed to you that he did see you kiss Nick. You thought you heard someone shuffling inside quickly after giving your new boyfriend a lingering kiss goodnight. What was his fucking problem?

“I hate it when that happens. Maybe you should just try minding your own business in real life, then you wouldn’t have nightmares about it at night.” You shot back not breaking eye contact.

Bucky stood and left. The team knew better than to try and reason with a pissed off super soldier, so they let him leave the meeting early.

You practically ran out of the meeting as soon as it was concluded.

“What the fuck was that about?” Nat asked as she was following you uninvited into your room. Besides Bucky, she was your closest friend. Your closest friend, and your nosiest friend.

“Bucky saw me kissing Nick last night and took that as a signed permission slip to act like a fucking asshole, I don’t know. He never likes any of the guys I bring around. Honestly, that’s probably why they don’t last.” You really liked Nick, and you weren’t going to let Bucky scare this one off. Which would be a feat, seeing as your best friend was the former Winter Soldier.

“Y/N, do you think he ‘scares’ all of them off because he wishes he was them?” Nat looked at you without giving away too much of her thought process.

“What, like he wants to be my boyfriend? Come ON Nat, this is Bucky. It’s BUCKY. Even if he did have feelings for me, he’d never tell me. Because he’s BUCKY.” You weren’t sure why you were secretly hoping she argued with you about that. You always liked Bucky. But you were a professional, those feelings got pushed down a long, long time ago.

“I don’t know, Steve said-“

“OH. So now Bucky and I are the topic of your pillow talk, Nat? Great! Look, just because it worked out for you and Steve that way doesn’t mean it’ll work out for me and Buck like that.” You shot back.

“WOAH. I was going to say that Steve said he had been off lately, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with you, Y/N.”

“Oh, well, I mean, I knew that. Whatever, okay?” You stumbled. “It’s not going to happen. I’m with Nick and I’m happy for once. Whatever his issue is, he can talk to his therapist about it, I’m done being that too.”

One year later

“Y/N. Hi. Uh, I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Bucky stammers to you as he’s holding the hand of some innocent enough looking blonde.

“You mean in my own kitchen? Funny how that works out. I was just leaving.” You say to him. The thought crosses your mind to introduce yourself to his new play-thing, but that will just make it seem so much more permanent. You hope your self-dismissal makes her feel awkward enough to leave but you know that won’t happen.

After the disaster that was your relationship with Nick ended after 9 months, you swore off men, including Bucky. He had eventually apologized for his behavior during that debriefing and things seemed to go back to normal. You now realize “normal” is just your funny way of saying “compartmentalizing.” Things were okay between you two because you never talked about Nick and he never asked.

After it ended between you two, he didn’t even ask. You chucked it up to him giving you your space. But that was a few months ago, and now you see why he wasn’t asking you about it.

“Night, Y/N.” Bucky calls after you.

“At least one of us seems like we’ll have a goodnight,” you yell back at him as you retreat into the hallway.

You think you hear him mumble something to his date and then you hear footsteps behind you, so you slow your pace a bit.

“What’s your fucking problem? Amanda doesn’t deserve your wrath the first time she comes over.” Bucky hush yells at you.

“The first time?! Buck, our rooms are right next to each other or did you forget that?” You actually yell at him.

“Oh trust me, how could I forget? With all the sex you had for 9 fucking months straight, the sound of you moaning is literally engrained into my mind forever and you KNOW how hard that is to do.” Bucky is screaming at you now.

“FUCK YOU JAMES.” You yell as you turn and walk towards the stairs.

“DON’T FUCKING CALL ME THAT,” he screams.

Good. Now no sex for him.

You wait until you get to the stairwell to let loose the tears threatening to spill over. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of winning the fight. You two had fought so many times in your friendship. The other Avengers knew to just leave two be when you got into these kind of moods.

You and Nick didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one was your relationship with Bucky. He was so protective over you, and a few months ago when that stopped you realized you didn’t miss his protection, you missed how he looked at you. You missed the possibility that there was something there between the two of you. It was clear he had given up, and you hated that. He felt cold and distant. Shortly after that, Nick stopped coming around and you didn’t care.

Just as you sit down to let yourself unleash in between the second and third floors, you hear the first story doors open. You go completely quiet as to not want to alert anyone you were sitting on the stairs crying like a teenager experiencing their first heartbreak.

You think you hear whimpering or what could be shushed crying. You lean over the railing to look down at who it is. Sitting there with his head in his hands is Bucky. You don’t make a noise.

“Fucking collect yourself Barnes, she’s just being a bitch. Deal with her tomorrow.”

You didn’t realize you had that much of an impact on him, you only wanted to ruin his desire to have sex with her.

Satisfied and feeling slightly guilty, you walk back to your room for the night, not caring if he hears you.

Two months later

“Is this seat taken?” You turn to the side and look up to see Bucky looking down at you sheepishly.

“Where’s your hot date? I saved two seats for you and Amanda,” you say back to Bucky, genuinely interested in where his date was. After that awful night, you decided to put forth an effort to make things better with him. No one is kidding themselves that when you have personal stuff going on behind the scenes of work partners, it makes work in the field that much harder.

“Uh, she’s not going to make it,” he says with sad eyes.

“Oh, is she okay?”

“Uh yeah, we’re just not. We broke up this morning. Thanks for saving two seats though, that was nice of you Y/N.” Bucky sits down next to you and you wrap an arm around the back of his chair.

“I’m sorry Buck, I really did like her. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am now,” he looks at you with a slight smile to his face. You hold his gaze for a few seconds longer than normal before ruffling his hair as the DJ comes over the music.

“Ladiesssss and gentlemeeennnn please welcome to the stage…”

“I can’t believe Sam dragged us all to a strip club for his birthday,” you whisper in Bucky’s ear as the music gets louder.

“I know, look at Steve I think he’s about to have a stroke.” You and Bucky share a laugh and for a second, it’s like you’re back in your early days on the team when it seemed like all you two had was each other.

Once the girls found out the Avengers were in their midst, it was game over. If Sam’s goal was to black out tonight, he accomplished that almost immediately. Liquor was free, dances were free, and unsurprisingly the team was having an amazing time. Besides the waitresses and a few dancers, no one came into your circle, and it ended up being a really fun night. You and Bucky were having so much fun, you couldn’t remember the last time you laughed as hard as you were.

You even noticed Bucky turning down a dance or two, redirecting the girl’s attention to Thor, or the much more enthused, Sam. You expected a newly single Buck to want the attention, but he was not having it.

As the night went on, you caught Bucky staring at you, and more and more you held his stare with a curve to your lips that was reserved just for him.

“Coincidentally” the strip club was next to Sam’s favorite bar. The team decided that was the logical next destination, but you were exhausted and it must’ve been showing on your face.

“Hey doll, why don’t you say we Irish exist these assholes and head home? I’m exhausted.”

“Fuck. Yes. PLEASE let’s go!” You exclaimed as if Bucky was reading your mind. You didn’t want to be the one to suggest it, but you were so happy he did.

You both stand in line with the team but disappear behind everyone as they all head in. Bucky throws an arm around your shoulders as you walk down the street.

“You know, I’m kind of glad it’s just us the rest of the night, that was too much togetherness for me,” Bucky says. You’re blushing and you know he means he’s happy to have a friend, but you find your stomach buzzing with the hope he means something else.

“Same here,” you laugh, “what do you want to do? Grab a cab and head home? Movie? Are you spent?”

“For you? Not at all.” He’s got that dumb grin on your face that makes you want to either kiss him or smack him so he stops distracting you.

“What’re you staring at sweetheart?” You realize it’s getting harder to hide your emotions. He just broke up with Amanda, and maybe it’s the alcohol or the atmosphere, but you can’t stop the word vomit.

You stop him on the sidewalk under the streetlight. There’s no one really out on this street.

“Are we ever going to get it right?” Ope, there it is.

“Get what right?” Bucky is looking at you confused and you’re hoping you can somehow telepathically tell him you mean the two of you. Together. Finally.

“Us.”

Bucky just keeps staring at you like he did that day at the gym. Neither of you say anything, he’s got a hand on your upper arm, resting there.

The regret starts to set in. Things were just getting back to a good place between the two of you, and you just ruined it.

“You know, Amanda and I didn’t work out for a few reasons, but the main one being... ugh, shit, the main reason is that she isn’t you, Y/N.” Bucky just spoke the words you’ve wanted to hear the most but it doesn’t register at first.

He must see that either on your face or through your lack of response. You feel him pulling you in, and right before he moves his lips over yours, it hits you like a train. You love him. Your stubborn, angry, beautiful, amazing Bucky.

You kiss him back with an intensity you didn’t know was in you. You break the kiss and start giggling against his mouth.

“What! I’m not that bad of a kisser!” He’s laughing now with you.

“Sorry, sorry, I just can’t believe this is finally happening. And on a secluded street, under a street lamp. Write a romance novel already, Barnes.”

Your lips to God’s ears, a group of people start walking your way. Bucky looks around and pulls you into a small walkway between two apartment buildings.

“Come here, I wasn’t done with you.” He’s kissing you up against the brick wall like a man starved and you don’t care if anyone sees you, you’ve never felt this happy in your life.

“Let’s just do this, you and me. I’m sick of pretending like you aren’t my person,” you say against his lips.

“Y/N, I want nothing else, ever.”

[nukacoola]

Companions react to Danse stepping out of power armor for the first time!

Cait: 

She would look Danse up and down very obviously and grin which would make him extremely uncomfortable. 

“Ya’outgha get out of that thing more often Dansey. Who knew there were cookies in that tin can of yours.”

She obviously isn’t actually interested in Danse. Way too boring. But she’s not one to toss out eye candy just cause it isn’t her favorite flavor. She wouldn’t actively follow him but for fun and also to get on his nerves she would definitely cat-call him everytime he was in hearing range. Deacon and Hancock might join in for a few comments if they don’t have anything better to do.

She would not stop unless sole made a convincing plea or reason for why she should and maybe not even then.

Danse would not respond or look at Cait but he would be very red and never get out of his suit in front of her again.

Codsworth: 

“Why Paladin Danse I dare say you’ve been keeping up your workout routine! Cheers to your excellent health whether in or out of your power armor!” Codsworth is reassured that his owner is traveling with someone so equipped for the struggles of the wasteland.

“Uh, thank you, Codsworth.” Danse would feel a bit awkward but he would appreciate the compliment. 

“Might I polish that for you while you're otherwise engaged? It seems to be in a just dreadful state and I would like nothing more than for you to be looking your best in your wasteland escapades!” Though he is reassured by Danse’s physical state and abilities, he is mortified by the state his armor is in. All the scratches, dings, and dirt? It’s just horrible. Codsworth has always wanted an opportunity to fix that suit up and is pretty happy that the day has finally arrived.

“I- If you’d like to you can.”

“Oh good! I do so love a difficult task!” With that Codsworth would zoom away to procure the necessary supplies to return Danse’s armor to it’s original state. Danse didn’t really know whether or not he should be offended at the robot’s comments but he decided to just continue about his business and not think about it too much. 

Curie:

“Oh Monsieur Danse, you are quite zee lovely specimen! I would be eager to do a physical examination if you would allow me to.” Ever since leaving the vault, Curie has been astounded at how many different sorts of humans there are. Danse is particularly interesting to her because of the amazing athletic feats he does so regularly. She is also interested in studying the effects of constant power armor usage on the human body. When she sees him step out of his suit for the first time and sees his overly muscular physique, it just tacks on another reason she wants to study him. 

Before Blind Betrayal:

“The only specimen that needs examining is you, synth. Don’t talk to me unless you’re submitting yourself to the Brotherhood.” The only reason Curie isn’t already on the Prydwen is because Sole thinks it’s their friend. It bothers Danse immensely that Sole hasn’t destroyed or used this inhuman thing already.

(Don’t get mad at me he literally says this in game.)

Curie is very hurt, she expected this reaction but it still hurt. She was still getting used to feelings such as the pained ones she felt in moments like these.

After Blind Betrayal:

“No. Thank you.” Danse’s words were strained. Being around Curie was pretty awful for him. He had treated her so terribly before and he still had strong feelings of disgust towards her despite what he knows now. Everytime he sees her and has those feelings of hate and disgust, he remembers that he and Curie are the same. He’s still struggling to overcome the years of propaganda that were drilled into him. 

Curie is disappointed. Did Danse not see they are the same? If he didn’t believe in her humanity then he would have to not believe in his own. It is very confusing for Curie. She hopes that he will eventually go back on his denial of her offer. He would be a very interesting specimen.

Deacon:

He would be surprised that Danse would be able to wear that clunky thing so much in the first place. He wouldn’t be surprised at how muscular he is under the suit though. It takes a lot of strength to operate those suits. He’d read that before they were fully developed, a lot of trial runs had resulted in really terrible accidents. The kind of accidents that crush all of your bones at once or remove your top half from your bottom.

Deacon would definitely make a few jokes. “Hey the sardine’s outta the can!” “Isn’t getting out of that bulldozer against Brotherhood policy or something?” “And I thought it was glued on! Learn something new everyday.”

Danse would scowl at his comments but say nothing. He did not like Deacon one bit. That man’s hiding something and if it turns out what he’s hiding will harm Sole or the Brotherhood’s mission, there was gonna be hell to pay. Danse could’ve sworn he’d seen him on the Prydwen a few times but whenever he looked back again to check, he was gone. Danse didn’t much like the idea of leaving his power armor alone with Deacon around but Sole assured him he’s harmless. We’ll see...

Whenever Danse returned to his suit Deacon would stand suspiciously close to it and act like he was trying to play cool after almost being caught doing something nefarious. He would never get tired of watching Danse carefully inspect every part of the armor before apprehensively getting in. Man that guy’s fun to mess with.

Dogmeat: 

He was so surprised! He thought this human was just made of metal! But now Dogmeat can play and jump and lick! Yes!!

Danse has no idea how to deal with a dog he wasn’t allowed to kick so he would just try to awkwardly push the pup off until Sole took care of it.

Hancock: 

Oh HELL YES! Hancock has wanted to punch this fucker since he first laid eyes on him. “HEY SOLDIER BOY, TIME TO SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO OUT OF YOUR DAMN COWARD COFFIN!” He would make a beeline towards the paladin and the paladin would speed walk towards the ghoul as well. Sole barely let him insult the damn freak but this was a direct attack of which he was most definitely gonna defend himself from.

Sole would freak out a bit and try to get in between the two. They would both try to get Sole out of the way so they could pummel each other. A brief alliance in order to facilitate their battle. This was too sweet of an opportunity to miss. 

“Sorry Sunshine, this is happening.”

“Sole, it has directly started an altercation with me and I intend to see it through.”

If they both had a great relationship with Sole after a bit of panicked begging to both parties, the men would begrudgingly back off. They would, however, insult each other viciously despite Sole’s protests. 

“You have no fucking idea how lucky you are meathead. I swear to god if they weren’t here…”

“You call me a meathead but you’re the one who’s rotting, ghoul.”

They would continue to jab each other until Sole dragged Danse off to do what he got out of his suit to do in the first place. 

If one or both of them didn’t have a close relationship with Sole, well, it wouldn’t be pretty. They would forcibly move Sole out of the way and fight for a while. Though Danse is much bigger than Hancock, Hancock is quicker and better at hand to hand. Danse, being unused to fighting outside of his armor, was ultimately unable to beat the ghoul. Hancock landed one final blow to his face, knocking Danse flat. When he stayed down Hancock laughed loudly and spit at him.

“Done in by the best, lucky you.” It would be a huge blow to Danse’s ego and he’d resent Hancock even more now. Hancock would gloat constantly when Danse was around. “Heyyy, there’s my favorite punching bag!” “Come on over Dansey I won’t bite!” He wouldn’t out of shame, but if Danse ever did try to retort, Hancock would just taunt him. Saying something like “Oh yeah? Ya know my favorite way to settle conflicts is by beating the other asshole into the dirt. Hop outta that suit and we can go for round two.”

MacCready:

Mac’s always thought of Danse as an annoying asshole. He still thinks of him this way but when he stepped out of that armor for the first time. Ho lee sh-crap. MacCready might have to look into joining the Brotherhood if the rest of those guys looked the same as Danse. He had expected him to be strong cause of the whole carrying 500 pounds of steel everywhere but his body was something Mac was not expecting and something he could look at for a while. 

If Danse came near the merc he would probably clam up and blush a bit. If Danse caught him staring, he would annoyedly ask, “Is there a problem, civilian?”

“I- uh no.” any other day he would’ve fired back some snide remark but he couldn’t quite seem to think of one right now. 

Nick:

Nick really couldn’t give less of a damn. He hated Danse, Danse hated him, and the two did their best to ignore each other. 

Piper: Piper didn’t really care either. Sure he was muscular but she was very turned off by the everything else about him. All she really payed attention to was the possibility of an exclusive interview or an inside look at the Brotherhood’s workings. Danse would never agree to either of those though. Preston: Preston didn’t care. He already knew you had to be strong to wear power armor especially if you wore them as much as Brotherhood Paladins did. He didn’t like the Brotherhood and by extension, he didn’t trust Danse. Preston was mannerly of course, for Sole, but he knows Danse thinks very little of the Minutemen so he didn’t try too hard to be kind. Strong: Strong thinks this is good time to smash strong human. He has killed many brothers but he wears metal suit. He is weak without metal suit. Human friend tells Strong that if Strong smash, Strong will not find milk of human kindness. Strong angry, Strong want to smash, but Strong not smash.

Danse would never get out of his suit near Strong unless he absolutely had to. Sole insisted that the abomination wasn’t going to be a problem but he didn’t believe it for a second. It took all of his willpower to not open fire on the thing whenever he saw it. Sole has poor taste in companions...

X6:

X6 wouldn’t care. He would consider taking this opportunity to get rid of the high ranking Brotherhood soldier, but it would make Sole upset and would do relatively little to the Brotherhood as a whole. 

Ask and ye shall recieve! I decide the winner on Hancock’s one by their special stats. How the hell does Hancock have such good stats and he’s still terrible in a fight??

[writerwrites]

Could I Need You This Much

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: After Bucky is left at the alter he asks you, his childhood best friend, to go with him to Rome so the non-refundable honeymoon doesn’t go to waste. Wanting to support him through his breakup you decide to telework and tag along. There’s a little problem: You’ve always been oblivious about your own feelings until you’re head over heels.

Word Count: 5.8k

Warnings: Modern!au, wedding day break-up, language, past injury mention, fluffy... chronically fluffy

A/N: *THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A ONE SHOT* This is my submission to the [belated] birthday challenge for @burninmatches​​​​ and I chose to combine two prompts from the challenge for this fic. First, the soulmates trope. Second, the song “Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears ; The beautiful dividers were made by @whimsicalrogers​​​

Bucky was always a quiet person, but you’d never seen him this quiet. You had just stepped out of the bathroom in your cute little tux and mini-bowtie, arms splayed out wide making jazz hands. The proclaimed ‘tada’ fell silent on your ruby-painted lips the moment you saw his downcast gaze at his phone. “Buck? Hey, talk to me, what’s going on?”

Steve was checking to make sure things were good to go; the irony of that, he thought. You would be the one to find him like this. “She broke it off. No wedding.” Those were the only words the Army veteran could muster as his lungs felt like ice and his mind filled with water.

You fell to your knees in front of him, kicking off your shiny black heels and pulling his phone from his hand to throw it to the side. “So let’s go. Let’s get out of here. Steve will take care of the crowd. We’ll get Nat to handle the vendors, she’s intimidating enough to stop them from asking questions. You don’t need to be here. You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to. You tell me what to do and consider it done.”

This was what you did with the boys. Steve and Bucky were practically brothers and the three of you were the Musketeers of Brooklyn. You had weaseled into their lives because you had been the talker, the sidekick, the advice giver. Advice...you tried your best with this relationship and though you wouldn’t dare say you told him so, there had been so many bumps along the way. Even sweet Steve had drunkenly said Bucky could do better, about as harsh a judgement as Steve could ever muster. She had drunkenly complained that she hated how close the three of you were, you’d brushed it off. Bucky had been played, taken her back more times than you and Steve could count, and he’d put up with so much to make her happy. ‘At what cost’ was all you could manage to think.

There was a guilt in the pit of your stomach, a little voice in the back of your head, this was your fault. Maybe if you’d spoken up, but there wasn’t time to stay stuck in your own head as Bucky started to pull at his slicked back hair. Grabbing his hands in yours, detangling the mess he made, you pulled him up. “We’re getting out of here, simple as that. If you can’t tell me what to do, I’ll take care of this.”

When his rough hands pulled from yours it felt like he was about to protest, but his hands just went back to his face, blocking you from the sight of fresh tears. It was the first time you’d seen him cry from anything other than infectious laughter. Steve was the emotional one, Bucky was the glue, and you were... trading your heels in for the Chelsea boots you’d worn on your bike ride to the chapel. Grabbing your bag, you shoved in his wallet, phone, anything else that was small and his and put the bag on him. Pulling him to the exit you Gave him your helmet and grabbed Steve’s with little hesitation, a fleeting glance at Bucky’s car covered in hideous ‘just married’ decor. “Just hold on to me. It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone bigger than me on the back.”

He didn’t acknowledge you with words, just little tilts of his head, eyes downcast. Even when you started the motorcycle and patted the seat to get on, Bucky marched like a tin soldier to orders. You were grateful for the noise of your bike and the city, and the built in Bluetooth speakers and mic in your helmet so you could call Steve. With a promise to somehow get his helmet back to him and to make up for the shitstorm that he and Nat would have to handle, you hung up and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and escaped to the one place you knew no one would look for you except possibly Steve, Plumb Beach.

Hand in hand you two walked onto the small beach and you only let go to dig in the bag he still wore for the clothes you’d worn to the chapel to throw them on the sand for the pair of you to have a seat. His eyes searched far and wide, still staying off of you, so to give him some space, you emailed your boss that the three days off next week, your personal time to recover from the partying and subsequent clean up, should just be changed to a full week of telework. With no complaints outside of a joke that you really needed a real vacation, you tucked your phone into your pocket and really looked at Bucky. The sun on his tanned skin, face clean shaven - a rare occurrence, and the lines on his face from years of stress and pain or chronic infectious laughter. As your lips parted to try and weasel the latter out of him, his gentle voice came out in a raspy whisper, “I was looking forward to the trip to Italy. I thought it was going to be a fresh start for us, a new chapter.”

You draped your arm over his shoulder, pulling him close and his chin rested on your shoulder. “Bucky, I know that you know those two things aren’t the same.” Running your fingers through his hair to comfort him like he’d comforted you through your own fair share of breakups, you let out a sigh, “But today it’s okay to let her burn in your lungs and your heart and your head... It’s okay to scream it out or cry. Whatever it takes to not let this moment consume you because you’re going to come out on top. You’re not alone, not for a second.”

When he pulled away you thought he was pulling away for space or going to give some grandiose speech about how you didn’t understand and how he was alone. Instead he was reaching for your hand, pulling you up and, with three squeezes and the corner of his lips you knew what was coming. The quiet countdown, the setting sun, a throwback to junior prom and your ex making out with your nemesis under the bleachers. “One.” You started, eyes on him.

“Two.” His bright blue bloodshot eyes on you.

“Three.” Two pairs of lungs in unison soon empty of air as they let out billowing calls to nowhere.

Two tuxedoed buffoons getting odd looks, Bucky pulling you into his side, and no sound but the waves whispering as you let him process. “Let’s get out of here.”

While you were relieved he was finally stringing along more than a word or two you weren’t sure what he meant. It was the way his eyes seemed to light up like he was having a ‘eureka’ moment. “The last time you looked at me like that you decided we had to take a cross-country road trip before you and Steve left for bootcamp.”

Bucky tugged you back to the bike, “And wasn’t that exactly what we needed?”

Despite your laughter, the knowing that the trip was what you all needed to cope with the gang breaking up, you still recalled how the boys barely made it to the bus on time. Passing him Steve’s helmet with a nod, Bucky pulled it on without shaking hands or hesitation. “Where are we going?”

“My suitcase is in my car. Can you get off work?” You didn’t need to see his expression to know there was a puppy dog look of optimism on his face.

“I actually already did.” As you mounted your bike and Bucky flipped up the visor and you were surprised to see him looking so surprised. “What?” Clearing your throat and flipping your own visor down he got on and you hollered over the engine. “Steve has your keys, too. I’ll tell him to drive it over to you, you can have your suitcase, he can have his helmet. Now where are we going while we wait on him?”

“Yours, knucklehead. You’ve got a bag to pack.”

It wasn’t all that surprising that Steve couldn’t leave on a whim. His job as an art therapist for veterans wasn’t exactly something he put before a social life. As Bucky pulled luggage from the trunk Steve pulled you to the side, “I’m only letting him go on this trip because you’re going. If anything happens I’ll find a way to get there. I’m sorry I...”

Pressing your fingers to his lips you hushed him. “I may not be a therapist, but you two are my best friends. I’m not going to let him lock himself in a bathroom, throw himself off a gondola, or...”

Steve interrupted you with side-holding laughter, “Oh dear, you might need this more than him you uncultured swine. There are no gondolas in Rome.”

“No gondolas in Rome? Well fuck, we better pick a new place to run off to.” Bucky half-smiled as he leaned his head into the door. “We are still putting my non-refundable honeymoon to good use, aren’t we?”

Punching Steve in the arm, you called back at the blonde, “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!”

Bucky stayed, talking to Steve for more than a couple of minutes while you flipped through work emails and kept your boss in the loop on the telework situation. All the while, only catching the tone of concern in Steve’s voice, not the words. Before you knew it you were on your way, body scans and bag checks, and with Bucky’s eyes averted you flipped through social media to see if it was safe to let him near his own phone. It wasn’t, at least not yet. It wasn’t just that she had changed her Facebook relationship status or that she deleted the countless pictures chronicling their relationship, it was that she had unfriended every person around Bucky that had put up with her for his own happiness. It made you wonder what happened, but more than that, it made you glad to put an ocean between her and your fists.

The non-stop flight was just shy of nine hours, the ride to the hotel in the heart of the city was another thirty, and as you walked up to the counter to check in Bucky, who managed to restlessly nod off on your shoulder, looked like he was about to collapse. “We’re here to check in, the reservation is under James Barnes.” 

It was obvious that they were processing the English, disrupted from their lunch, “Ah, che bravissimo, the American newlyweds! Evviva gli sposi!”

What felt like nine in the morning on no sleep for you was clearly better than Bucky’s experience. So you nodded, thanked them, and passed over the passport and other items clutched in his hand. Once it was all back in your hands with room keys you pulled him along to the elevator and, once again, he surprised you. “Are you okay?”

Your eyebrows furrowed and you took his hand. “Despite what some people think, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a Mrs. Barnes.” Sticking out your tongue to lighten the mood, you left him in the elevator as you pulled your luggage along, “C’mon Athos!” The childhood nickname seemed to draw him from his thoughts and his long legs quickly caught up to you. “Want me to go in first and chuck any romantic decor?”

“Fuck, I didn’t even think about that.” He swallowed at the cotton in his mouth. “No, it’s fine. Hell, maybe there’s chocolate on the pillows.”

Wiggling your eyebrows you slipped the keycard in and pushed the door open, but just as you were about to say ‘dibs’ you saw the room. Rose petals trailed along the floor and the room had the soft scent of clean cotton and gardenias. Faux candles of an array of heights and sizes flickered on every surface. The bathroom door sat open and the motion sensor light kicked on to brighten up a jacuzzi tub and oversized shower with a bench. The small area to sit in had a door out to the balcony with a postcard worthy view and just as you were about to rush out there you saw the bed- the one massive bed and the welcome basket and flowers in the center of a massive heart of petals. “Cliché, but I think we have the chocolate covered.”

“I’ll take the couch.” He was so quick, so matter of fact about it that it almost threw you for a loop and you nearly agreed.

“We could sleep on this bed with all of this on it and still never brush elbows. Besides, we’ve shared a bed before.”

While all of that was true and you didn’t think much of it as you kicked off your shoes and left your bags by the door, something was twisting in the pit of Bucky’s stomach. The fact was that it had always been you, him, and Steve; even on the impromptu road trip Steve was always there. The boundaries had always been crystal clear and now you both were single, had careers, grown up, and now, after everything, there were secrets. “Are you sure?”

“Yup. Go and shower first, Army boy. If I do there won’t be any hot water left for you.” As soon as he was in the bathroom you pulled out your laptop, checking in with Natasha about the vendors and letting Steve know you had made it safe. With it being so early in the morning you weren’t surprised by the lack of a response and set out to clean up the room, all the while keeping an ear open for Bucky needing you. Just as you were about to check on him, your toiletry bag and a change of clothes tucked under your arm, you shrieked at the door opening in front of you. Your fist instinctively punched straight ahead into his stomach and set him coughing. “Shit! Sorry.” As soon as you put your hand on his damp shoulder you saw the familiar intense scarring that he usually kept hidden under a henley or leather jacket. Your thumb brushed over the remnants of the wound that had discharged him from the military before you took a step back, “Okay Barnes, I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“It’s my ego. You hit me in my ego.” He mocked as he straightened up. “Steve can never know this happened.”

Sticking your tongue out you walked into the bathroom and shut the door, a long slow exhale passing your lips. You hadn’t even realized you were holding your breath and that might have surprised you if it wasn’t for the flushed look on your face in the mirror. It wasn’t blush- or so you swore.

On the other side of the door, Bucky quickly changed and moved around the room setting a few dozen of the candles back on to turn off the harsher light of the bedroom lamps. His eyes stayed on the bathroom door the entire time while his mouth moved from chewing the inside of his cheek to chewing on his bottom lip. Once he’d finally stopped pacing around the room and decided to take a seat the bathroom door opened and you stepped out in leggings and a long t-shirt. Your eyes were on the floor, hair wrapped in a towel so that it didn’t drip onto your clothes. Bucky’s blue eyes stayed glued on the shirt clinging to the damp skin beneath. “I remember when you stole that shirt.”

“Huh?” Looking down you couldn’t help but snort, “Don’t call me out!”

“You always do that,” The corner of his mouth turned up, in a near smile and it was a relief for both of them to feel the tiniest lightening of the mood, a baby-step to normalcy.

“Do what?” Feigning innocence and flopping onto the bed, you reached for a pillow, causing the old shirt to slink up your curves.

“Buy a present that is actually meant for you and, under dubious circumstances at best, you somehow reclaim that gift.” Once the pillow was under your head, Bucky delicately pulled the shirt down and laid down next to you, rolling onto his side.

“I’m pretty sure I had this shirt first and it’s mine, but I knew you liked it so much that I got you the same one for your birthday.” You looked down at his hand, lingering on your stomach, certain it was just that he needed physical comfort, so you placed yours on top.

“Then at Steve’s twenty-first birthday co-Independence Day party you got so trashed you ruined yours. This is my shirt.”

“James Buchanan Barnes! Are you calling me a liar? Are you trying to steal the shirt off of my back?” You laughed so hard the bed shook and just as you settled down, sides aching, his rough fingertips tickled at the bottom of your soft tummy, right at the hem of your leggings and the shirt. “Even if it was yours, and I’m most certainly not saying it is, it’s molded to my thicc-ness now and  it’ll never fit you again, Army Boy!”

“My whole government name, is it?” He smiled, really smiled, that glowing dopey ear to ear smile that was contagious. It had nearly been twenty-four hours since you’d seen him smile and somehow you were all to aware of an ache in your bones of missing his naturally contagious light. But that wasn’t what caught you off guard, it was the fact that this smile hadn’t been seen in years and the realization was something akin to going through withdrawals.

The choked laugh and the smile that found your own lips was hesitant, reserved, and held between your teeth. Against your better judgement you reached over and brushed your thumb through the lines on his face. “Does it hurt smiling like that after you haven’t in years.”

The words were whispered, Bucky’s sad blue eyes looked up from the threads of the comforter he was picking at and locked dead on you. When your lips parted to apologize, he leaned in close and pressed his lips to your forehead. “New chapter, remember?” Though your breath hitched in your throat, he pulled away from you, “I guess we’ll have to get used to it.”

“I could get used to it.” You half-yawned. “If we take a nap we might be able to reset ourself and waste less time jet lagged.”

“Background noise of tv, music, or--”

“City!” You finished with an excited smile, already sliding off the bed to open the balcony’s door and let in the sounds of Rome. You could feel Bucky’s eyes on you and thought little more of it than his own curiosity about what the pair of you were going to miss during your quick snooze. By the time you turned around his eyes were closed and he’d jumbled up all of the blankets and pillows to get comfortable. “Too fluffy?”

“Spend years in the desert and try and sleep with all of that.”

Walking up the massive bed on your hands and knees, your tired body couldn’t be bothered to shove it all over the edge. He watched you attempt at climbing under the blankets, curious about why you weren’t looking up to see where you were going. It left you brushing against Bucky and he pulled you to his chest in one of his classic bear hugs. “Careful or you’ll wish you were back in the desert or did you forget that I’m a human space heater?”

“Nah, you missed my big hugs.” The steady cadence of his pulse was already lulling you to sleep. If that wasn’t enough, he pulled the towel off of your head and ran his fingers through your hair. It was an intoxicating sort of magic, a little trick he’d learned comforting his sisters and maybe when you woke up you’d feel played because you should have been comforting him, but the stars behind your lids drew you to a comfortable sleep.

As the two of you zipped around the city on your matching pistachio colored Vespas, Bucky knew he’d really started a new chapter. He could still perfectly picture the confusion on your face when you shocked him by agreeing to set work aside for a sunset zip to hunt down the best gelato. He couldn’t remember the last time you’d looked at him and not known what he was thinking. It was impossible for him to recall the last time anyone had set work aside to live a little, even with Steve. Though Bucky had chalked it up to ‘growing up’ a larger part of him wondered if you wold have always said yes or if there was a bigger reason you would’ve said no- like his ex. The fact was that the ex never even let you ask. That chapter felt a lot like the words ‘missing you’. This one felt a lot like three.

Somehow in the last two days in Italy, tossing coins in fountains, eating copious amounts of bread at every meal, sipping on proper espresso to counteract jet lag; he hadn’t cried or settled into some desperate need to get over his ex by getting under someone else. Bucky found himself delighting in the little things and he realized it was just because you were. 

Wine tasted better after watching you bring it to you lips with a hum. Its color was the perfect balance of red and purple as it stained your lips. Then, when you slid it across for him to try it was the melodic sound of your laughter and pleading that convinced him to try something new from his staunchly beer and bourbon alcohol repertoire. 

The mere mention of ice cream was no longer summoning the memory of that time Steve started a scrap that he had to end and resulted in you buying the three of them ice creams to cool off in the humid New York summer heat. You’d scolded the both of them so lovingly hard that yours melted entirely over fingers before your first lick. No, it was those fingers now covered in strawberry, sticky-sweet, and the almost inaudible gasp on you lips when Bucky leaned in and licked it off. He swore it was just for a stolen taste, but in the back of his mind he knew it wasn’t.

The laugh that came with the silly gesture, the familiar warmth of it like a hug to him, was more to you. While you swore it because he was being uncharacteristically childish. “I want to say I could get used to this ‘new chapter’ version of you because I love seeing you back to the Bucky that would protect Steve from his own stubbornness and me from my bad... taste, but if you’re going to make me laugh this much all the time... Can a person die of laughter? Is it going to be an oxygen deprivation type of death?” Laughing nervously, glad Steve wasn’t around to read you like a book. The embarrassment truly stemmed from how you loved the feeling of his stubble scratching your skin. Steve would’ve called you on it, that some how, something had just flipped like a switch and you were seeing the history of your friendship in a completely different way. The anxiety was starting to bubble as you question if he did too.

It felt so obvious to you, that the universe was laying the cards out on the table. You both shared silence and sound, space and somehow time- not just time in the sense of being in a new time zone or having shared a lifetime of memories, it was more and as you parked the rental Vespas at the shop and picked up your little bicycles, Bucky pulled you into the biggest hug. You didn’t ask him what it was for or hesitate to hug him back.

The sun was low, the street lamps turned on, and the only barrier between you two were the bikes. Hiding your smile in the curve of Bucky’s neck you could have sworn you heard him groan when you lips brushed the base of his neck at the collar of his t-shirt. “You know where we are?” He asked as he led you around the bike just a little, still holding you until he pulled on your hip to make you look out at the view. A hefty amount of stairs led down deeper into the plaza, flanked by older peach and dusty rose buildings. The architecture was beautiful, but you honestly had been enjoying the company on this trip more than the food and your love of history was always always something you didn’t flaunt. “It’s late and we’ve been dragging each other all over this city since we got here, so I’ll forgive you for not realizing just yet.”

Buzzing with excitement and curiosity he took your hand, lacing his hand in yours and taking you down the stairs a few at a time. “I’ve got little legs!” You laughed, true or not it was always hard to keep up with the soldier’s longer legs. The joke of protest was met with Bucky’s arms scooping you up. You were so tempted to protest, so tempted to tell him that the last thing he needed was to hurt his arm lugging you down some stairs in Rome. Then you saw his smile, the one that reached his eyes and the only thing you could say was, “The stairs! Stop looking at me and look at the stairs, Bucky!”

“I’d never drop you.” He said it so matter of factly and you believed it. “I really want to enjoy this so close your eyes.”

“Demanding.” You chuckled, no longer hiding that you loved it. “Fine... but only since you completely unnecessarily but oh so gallantly walked me down oh so many Roman stairs.”

With a crinkle of your nose you shut your eyes and he set you down  shortly thereafter. You swallowed at the dryness in you mouth when his hands found yours again almost immediately. Bucky’s breath shook in your ear, surely from the effort of lugging you around, you swore, biting into your bottom lip waiting for the cue to open your eyes. But he waited, his hands still holding yours and then enveloping you in a tight hug, his chest pressed to your back, his chin over your shoulder. “Okay, now you can open them.”

You didn’t have to read the placard to know Keat’s home. When Bucky and Steve were away for boot camp you’d written them every day, jokingly telling the boys to not become blockheads and to keep each other safe. While the letters were fairly similar, you knew Steve was already hiding doodles on the envelopes, he had ‘his thing’. So you sent Bucky poetry, Keats being one of your favorites. How you’d forgotten the stairs was beyond you, but you weren’t breathing, your eyes stung with happy tears. This was a bucket list visit and your chin quivered as you recalled the emotions of reading you first poem and the worry about losing the boys forever. You’d made yourself sick worrying Bucky would do something stupid to save Steve.

“Hey, pretty girl, this was supposed to make you smile!” Bucky squeezed you in that hug a little tighter and finally you took a breathe and the few tears dripped down your cheeks. “I thought you loved John Keats.” You could only managed a mildly frantic nod as you tried to collect yourself, a soft smile- one too similar to an apology found your lips. “This is you in celebrity shock?” A nudge to Bucky’s side made him laugh and you let go of his hands so you could spin around and hug him tightly back. “Ahhh there’s the reaction I was hoping for.”

“You never talked about the poems I sent you. I just assumed you didn’t want to tell me I was being lame.” Chewing the inside of your cheek you looked back at the building and then up at his bright blue eyes, which were only on you.

“I loved them. They got me through...” The arm, he didn’t have to say it and you squeezed his side to let him know that. What you hadn’t expected was the quiet man that kept his longer chatting to odd things he’d dug up on science threads on Reddit or political rants to make a confession in the middle of the Piazza di Spagna in words that you both shared years ago:

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart,         Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task         Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,         Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Was that what did it? Was that the moment you fell head over heals for Bucky Barnes? It felt irrelevant to label the ‘something happened’ moment when, under the stars and in the summer heat you pulled his mouth to yours and kissed him fearlessly. His hands pulled the two of you somehow ever closer and the only compromise to the separation of your soft lips to his was the gasp for air. The dopey smile on his face as he cupped your face gave you the opportunity to use your words. “I’m in love with you, too.”

Bucky’s fingers pressed gently into your soft skin and he pulled your mouth back to his. He didn’t ask when you knew, you didn’t ask him either, and it didn’t matter. His tongue caressed yours and you moaned into his mouth, your fingers tugging on his cloths, his hair, every inch of you pressing into him until you both were breathless messes again. “I’ll bring you back.”

“Promise?” You didn’t know if he meant to Italy or the Keats-Shelley Museum, but you were too distracted by his blown out pupils and how beautiful his lips looked wet and swollen from kissing you. The thought of that action alone was still dizzying.

“Yeah, I promise, but I have one more surprise.” As your eyebrows drew together in confusion his hands pulled away from your face, where they had been resting gently on your neck, brushing your jaw, leaving a sting of heat in their wake. He took your hands in his and he got down on one knee. Your mouth fell open and you picked it up quickly, but your head lulled to the side like a confused puppy as your heart raced so loudly in your chest that you were certain Bucky would feel the vibrations in your fingertips. “Will you marry me? Steve always knew I wanted this. He swore up and down that if I just took five minutes to think about what you meant to me romantically that I would realize every single person I’d been with never compared to the girl who climbed in my sandbox. I wouldn’t have been left at the alter if I would have realized the only person I wanted at my side was the person I wanted at my side in sickness and in health, good times and bad, was always already there. Yes, you and Steve are my best friends, but I should have realized sooner why there were differences between my friendships with the two of you.”

“Everyone saw it but the two of us.” You looked down at Bucky, his hands may not have held a ring, but it was perfect and it was very much the two of you in your own world. “I guess I need to call Steve to come to Rome after all.”

As if he was reading your mind, he knew what you meant, you weren’t leaving this city without marrying him. Pulling out your phone, you tapped the little phone icon and in one swoop Bucky was picking you up and spinning you around, his lips kissing every inch of skin they could find and you laughed breathlessly. Steve answered on the second ring but the pair of you laughing muffled his greeting. You pulled the phone from your face and saw the minutes counting and you hushed Bucky with a smile and gentle little thwack to his peck. “So he told you?” Steve asked, tone anxious.

“Told me what?” Your eyebrows drew together and Bucky set you down, leaning in to listen to the call.

“He told you she called it off because he wanted to marry you.” Bucky swallowed, knowing that Steve was leaving out the key detail that after somehow getting his confiscated phone back he had drunk texted the Bride-not-to-be and told her as much the night before the wedding. “Is it finally happening?”

“Yeah,” You both said in unison, smiling despite the circumstances.

“Well, only if you can get out here. Someone has to give me away and seeing as how he won’t stand there without you and I won’t marry him without your blessing, it’s a bit of a co-dependent situation.” Bucky muffled his laugh, squeezing your hand before kissing your temple. “What do you say, Aramis?”

Steve let out a long sigh, but you could hear his keys jingling like he was already headed for his car. “Far be it from me to delay the inevitable. I’m surprised you two didn’t take care of this before we enlisted. Y’now, speaking of the three musketeers, does the impulsivity of this make him a D’Artagnan?”

Bucky let out a whistle and jokingly pumped his arm in victorious celebration. “You’ve done it now, Steve. Straight to his head.”

“I have to torture you a little for making me live through a couple of decades of angst and oblivion.”

You could practically hear the approving smile, “See you soon, stupid.”

Unceremoniously ending the call, you leapt into Bucky’s arms and picked up kissing him, drizzling in a lifetime’s worth of unsaid I love yous. Through laughing and smiling, fingers tangled in hair and soft curves pressed to the cold stone wall of the museum, you drank in Rome and Bucky. Each kiss was a vow to no longer letting a moment pass you two by.

All Tags: @tom-hlover​​

Bucky Tags: @caplanbuckybarnes​​

[yummysweetroll]

So cold, so Warm.

Butch's pipboy made a soft static sound. For a few days now, nothing connected in that frequency, not even a cry for help or even that annoying Sugarbombs advertisement, just silence ... And that was a bad sign, after all, it is an indication that there was no settlement or big city in the next few miles of road and all Anna wanted most on this cold night, was now to sleep in a bed with a frayed mattress from any inn.

See more here! ⤵⤵

The radio was still hissing when the first rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon. The night fog still lingered, making it difficult to see while keeping everything chilly. Anna shivered with cold, trying to cover herself with the Tunnel Snakes jacket and scarf, while Butch buried his nose in his scarf and muttered under his breath. Thank heavens, for a few days ago they helped a family and they offered some warm clothing as a reward. Turning her arm a little, the girl checked her pip-boy, March 20, the first day of spring.

"Butch, today is the first day of spring!" -She commented trying to liven up the walk -

"Yeah? And ?!" - Butch replied back looking out of the corner of his eye-

“Sooo, I thought maybe, we'll feel less cold on the road… And they say it's time for flowers and birds.” - ignoring her road partner's initial bad mood-

“And what difference does that make now, Nosebleed? We are going north, it will get colder each day and there will be only snow! It is simple, or have you forgotten Broch's classes? Besides, do you think we will find some beautiful flowering field with birds and bees in this nuclear desolation? You're too naive "- He took his hand out of his pocket and pointed at Anna-" If it weren't for your idiocy of wanting to compensate for the Tin Brotherhood, we could be in Rivet City, in that warm room.

Anna snorted, of course she remembered the annoying geography lessons! She also remembers the conversations the two had, about the world outside the Vault and the times they received punishments for talking about it ... And now that they're being able to make everything real and make all the punishments count, he wants to keep his butt in that rusty bathtub? In a place that resembles and feels the same claustrophobic feeling that was the vault? Besides, why flying so many grumpy words at her? Was the cold her fault? Didn't he understand how much debt she owed to the Brotherhood of Steel? They saved her!

"Shut up! If you wanted to be comfortable so much, then you should have stayed in the Vault. Sure you would be warm and living the same life! You came because you wanted to, I didn't ask to follow me. I just thought that… ”- The girl's voice gave a little hesitation and a lump in her throat was installed, along with some tears-“ Damn it, Deloria! ”

Butch opened his mouth to retort, but before he even said anything, Anna stepped up and disappeared into the mist. The boy stopped walking and called her a few times, but there were no answers. What did he do this time? His mind ran through his last sentences, did Anna think he regretted accompanying her? Does she think it's her fault for things going wrong? He had no doubts about that.

"Moron." -That was the only word that crossed Butch's head as he advanced through the fog after the girl. Since when she completed her father's project and woke up in the Brotherhood hospital, after that radiation bath and thank God with all her hair on her head, Anna started to blame herself for many things, be it the death of her father, the other scientists and even for the coma that the blond soldier finds himself in - "You idiot."

Turning off the Pip-boy, Butch managed to follow the small sounds of sobbing and it didn't take long to find the crouching girl crying behind a rut.

"Anna." - Butch called her seriously. And the way the girl's green eyes looked back at him, it looked like he wasn't expecting that. "Anna, are you going to tell me what's going on or are you playing hard to get?"

The girl swallowed her cry, and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the tip of her scarf.

“II, B-Butch .... There is so much going on, so much problems that I have to solve and that almost always ends with someone I like injured or… dead. It is being difficult and too heavy to handle alone. - She paused to get her thoughts in order, Butch did not move or spoke in fear that she would stop talking - “And I don't want this anymore, I don't want to have to take responsibility for others, I don ' t want to decide the future of the world anymore. But I do everything the same, I don't change anything ... You're right to want to make up for it, and look at us now, it's really my fault that we're in this situation, for being away from home, for being hungry and cold, for having this stupid mission. Sorry Butch, I also wanted to be in River City ... But I also wanted to be on the road with you by my side, discovering and making all those detentions we took for dreaming about being here worthwhile. I'm sorry if I got you involved in my problems again. -She finished lowering her eyes again-

She let it all out, almost without pause. Her eyes cried again and Butch crouched down beside her and stroked her head. He sighed and as he put together a sentence, thoughts of her traveled a bit to when they lived in the vault. Since childhood, Butch had to deal with an Anna who lived under pressure to do what society or her father expected, always smiling and as if she were happy ... even if it was totally contrary to what she wanted and believed, And every time those tearful green eyes came to meet him, the boy did exactly as he did now, let her vent (even if he didn't hear much of the complaint) and stroked her head.

It is unknown how long the two stayed there, but it was long enough for Butch to think about something, the sobs to stop and all that morning fog to dissipate.

“Thank you,” replied Anna quietly, still buried in the scarf.

Butch smiled as he took Anna's hand and held it up. He knew that his "tough guy" pose was almost always undone when he saw her crying face ... After all, she was always his best friend and all that silly nonsense that the woman who married the priest comments on about soul mate.

“It's ok, Crybaby. Of course, I was mad at the cold, you know I hate cold ... But I'm glad I came with you, I learned a few things and met a lot of nice people. Besides, that's what I… sorry, we always wanted to do it! - Then he left his tender voice, to bring his traditional debauchery voice - And of course I couldn't leave an idiot like you alone here ... That's what I'm here for, because I can do a lot of things, shoot , stab, make you start to cry and stop and… ”

“Butchieeeee, you always destroy that romantic climate” - interrupted the girl with giggles, pushing him - And you always complain that I'm not "romantic enough".  

Butch smiled smugly, of course there was more that the boy wanted to say to her. But at that moment, it was enough, probably because she wouldn't be able to get rid of this burden so fast.

A strong wind hit them and with his free arm Butch protected her as she hugged him back. When they opened their eyes they realized that the last remnants of mist had disappeared, presenting them with an image that they had only seen in black and white in the films or in the biology books ... A green field dotted with colorful flowers with a few birds flying over them. The two exclaimed in awe as they watched the rare landscape.

"And that talk about not having a place like that ?." - Anna commented softly-

"Shut up." - Butch replied smiling.  

_____________________________________________________

Heey!

❤ Another drawing following the list of clothes and with a little story !! ❤

The truth is that this time it took me longer to write than to draw. 😥😥

Do you like posts like that? Do you think it's worth it?

That drawing came from this list!

✨ OC Outfit Doodle Asks ✨

I want to use this list to train poses, clothes and everything! So please, send an emoji from the list and I'll draw Butch and Anna!

[remmysbounty]

part 2 // din djarin royalty au

hello my boos!! ready for gentle heartbreak time, cause it is now gentle heartbreak time..... hehehheeh all your excitement for this series has made me want to expand what I already have written so it's gonna take a little bit for part 3 to come out since you've all made me want to write more

anyway ENJOY ♡

Your big eyes, filled with wonder and surprise, stayed on his mind all night, as he enjoyed being able to call you his, only to wake up and find you gone. You weren’t getting ready for your day, nor sitting comfortably in the fur-lined chair he’d built for you reading over your notes for the day- you were just gone. He no longer felt the warm breeze that seeped into your room every morning through the window you kept unlocked, nor did he hear the soft music you would play as a way to cover the silence- he just felt cold and empty.

Din wasn’t sure how long he stayed there sitting under your covers. The only sound bringing him back to life being the loud knock that only Paz was known for.

“So here’s where you’ve been hiding all day,” Paz walked in half expecting to find you wrapped up in Din’s arms, only instead he was met with a shell of his friend sitting there in the cold. He stopped suddenly, “What happened?”

A small sound left Din’s lips that couldn’t even be declared a word, and then two small words that made him finally come crashing down, “They left.”

Paz could only watch as the string that held you and Din finally snapped and left Din falling. His friend was broken and he didn’t know what to do.

—

You thought that when Din had finally told you that he loved you, you would have felt like you were on top of the world, like you could do anything you wanted as long as he was by your side- so why was it that you felt like those three words would suddenly destroy you.

Your hands traced his features softly as your eyes watered at the realization that no matter how much you loved one another, what you two wanted would only ever be a dream.

Maybe in another lifetime, things would be different… you wouldn’t have to break Din’s heart after he bared it so openly to you- but you are first and foremost his advisor, no matter how many times Din would say differently.

You gave yourself one last chance to take in his features- the curve of his nose, the softness of his lips, the one small curl that always fell across his face- before you left. As you walked throughout the castle, you were accompanied only by the darkness and the silence. Before taking that final step out the door, you dropped your letter off to the Elders’ conference room- they shouldn’t be surprised when they find it, after all they were the ones who all but told you that you should do this.

It was only when you made it past the Razor Crest that you found the pain of what you were doing becoming too much. All you wanted to do was run back to Din’s arms and accept his love as openly as he accepted yours, but you couldn’t be selfish like that. After all, he was going to be a ruler, a king, and you couldn’t do anything to make that harder for him- after all, that was your job.

—

Din spent the rest of his day focused on either his training, his ship, or his own foundling. Not once taking any time to let himself just breathe after breaking down in Paz’s presence.

This worried the warrior, because while he understood how closed off the Mandalorians typically were by nature, you had brought out this emotional side in even the most hardened of soldiers… only for that side of Din to disappear with you.

He saw the love that you and Din had for one another with his own eyes, and he wouldn’t expect you to suddenly leave the way you did without some type of justification, so after one last look towards Din, Paz sneaked off to see the head of the Elders- the man who had practically raised you since you arrived.

“Did you know they were leaving?” Paz didn’t try to hide the anger radiating from him- no matter how much respect he held for the man in front of him.

A small nod was given in response, “The rest of the Elders felt that it was time they take on a more hands-on role.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Paz was practically towering over the man- decorum out the window.

He motioned for Paz to lean in closer, “The rest of the Elders felt their relationship was becoming inappropriate and recommended that they leave Mandalore and work in another area, or never take another step here ever again.”

Paz sighed as he realized just what the situation entailed- and he’d have to be the one to tell Din, because this was usually your job.

--

It was the next day when Paz finally found the courage to share this new information with Din. He’d spent all night going through the right words to use, to say, and was grateful for once that he didn’t find Din in the first place he checked- his room- only to realize that he’d be in your room. With a sigh he trudged down to your room, his fist resting on the door before finally announcing his presence.

“Din,” his massive body blocked the light coming in from the doorway, “we need to talk. It’s-”

The ripple of the fur blanket haphazardly thrown on your bed is the only sign that Din is awake and listening, and yet even with the lack of light, Paz can’t help but revert his eyes when he sees brown hair peeking out from the edge of the fur instead of Din’s helmet.

A tense silence grows between the two as they both wait for the other to make the next move. Din knew what was going to come, he shouldn’t have been surprised and yet part of him wanted to stay under the blanket and hide away from the world outside your door because by doing that then he didn’t have to admit that it was real. If he just stayed then maybe he could pretend that you’d just stepped out for a bit and would be back soon to once again snuggle yourself into his arms.

He felt his mind spiralling. Did you even love him in the first place? You wouldn’t have left if you did- only Din knew you, and he knew that nothing in this world had a greater value than your job. Your job always came first, and yet for once Din wished that you’d let yourself come first.

--

tags:

Tin Man:  @captn-andor  @thewayofthemandalorian   @magpie-to-the-morning  @magicrowiswritingstuff  @booksmusicteaandanimals  @dinthisisthe-wayson  @littlemisspascal  @din-damn-djarin  @elysiansith  @dincrypt  @ohwaitimthewriter  @poestardust  @dindjarindiaries  @dindja  @dindjarinsghost  @reluctant-mandalore  @pascalpanic @maybege @princessxkenobi @smoldjarin @spideysimpossiblegirl

Starcrossed: @zapsalis-d @itsnottilly @mylifeofcalculatedchaos

[winterironbang]

Art Preview:

 Below you will find the art previews for this year, remember authors that its not quite time for claiming yet!Take a good look and pick 2-3 favourites and remember their Title for when claiming does begin.

If you’d rather see the art as a google doc click here

   Title: Kissing under the fireworks

Description/Prompt: what it says on the tin. Kissing under the fireworks.

This one is a pretty open universe, could be a first kiss, a regular kiss exchanged at New Year's Eve, the fireworks are celebrating that one of them have been crowned King or them finally getting married. Or maybe a romantic proposal at a holiday celebration. 

Warnings: None

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar 

 Title: welcome back / welcome home 

Description/Prompt: Bucky pulls Tony into a bone crushing hug, extremely relieved that Tony is back home and alive. Bucky doesn't plan to let him go, ever again. 

Open verse, could be a no-power AU, or pre-Afghanistan, or maybe sometime when Tony is IronMan. It could be focusing on Bucky's anguish at not knowing where is Tony if he is alive. Or could be the celebration that Tony is home. Maybe how is their life is being affected after.

Warnings: None

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar

   Title: 19th century AU

Prompt: 19th century-vibes AU (or can be Bridgerton AU), with behaving one way in private and another way in public to save face, love, and searching for one's freedom. (Can be ABO or not)

Limitations: dubcon/noncon between the OTP, eye gore, MCD, D/s verse (a normal universe with a D/s relationship is fine though), unhappy ending, pwp. I would prefer if it was not simple love at first sight.

 Title: Sweethearts

Description/Prompt:  Punk!Alpha!Bucky gets into a fight, not on purpose - this time - and while he does win, he gets beaten badly. 

He tries to walk it off, but he runs into his Omega classmate Tony who is heading home from a late night lab-session. 

Tony sees him and is very adamant to treat Bucky's injuries - he lets slip by accident a couple of details about Bucky, showcasing that he pays more attention to Bucky than a "proper" Omega should. 

Tony patches Bucky up, and they fall asleep on the couch, Bucky relaxing after a long while.

They end up becoming friends and Tony offers to tutor Bucky. 

They end up falling in love with Tony, and Bucky stops skipping class and getting into so many fights. Though Tony patches him up, every single time. 

In the end Bucky's grades improve enough that he finishes in the Top 10 of the class. 

Warnings: none

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar  

Title: Iron Man Noir AU

Prompt: Iron Man Noir AU with influences from Spider-Man Noir. It is 1939, Tony Stark is undercover in Berlin in his hidden Cabaret, to gather intel, and help where help is needed. 

Why is Bucky there? Is he sent for undercover work, ready to meet some secret contact? Is he a Russian spy sent to gather information about America's plans? Or is he just some normal guy who wandered into the wrong Cabaret at the wrong time? 

(These are just some ideas for Bucky, if you have others, let's talk! Bucky could be MCU-inspired or comic-inspired, or a mix or something else.)

Limitations: noncon between Bucky and Tony,  MCD, ABO, D/s verse (a normal universe with a D/s relationship is fine though), eye gore, eye things in general, unhappy ending, pwp, smoking except pipes.

  Title: BDSM AU

Description/Prompt: I was definitely thinking praise kink and rope play, but feel free to include others as well. Who is being tied up is the Author's choice, I will adjust the art accordingly (like including Bucky's metal arm) 

Warnings: BDSM, Rope play and I guess other kind of kinks if they get included. 

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar.

    Title: Sea AU 

Description/Prompt: Siren/Mermaid Tony and Sailor/Pirate/Privateer!Bucky - Tony visits his land bound lover, Bucky. 

This one is open verse, I have already listed couple of options for them, but feel free to change that. 

The world can be dark - Siren!Tony attracts unsuspecting ships (and sailors) to their death. Either by Bucky's sword or by shipwrecking them.

Could be angst - ala Little Mermaid style (original or Disney version) or a completely new one 

Could be hurt/comfort - Bucky is the only survivor of his ship, because Tony saved him. But Tony could only bring him to a lonely Island, where the only way out is for Bucky to build a raft, and Tony provides company whenever he can stay above water. 

Could be fluff - Tony and Bucky deeply in love, where in the end Bucky follows Prince Tony into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again by human eyes.

Or any other combinations! Go wild! 

Warnings: None, I would say 

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar 

Title: Vampire Bucky

Prompt: Vampire Bucky AU with Bucky. How does Tony find him like this? Let’s brainstorm together.

Limitations: noncon between Bucky and Tony, unhappy ending, pwp, MCD, ABO, D/s verse (a normal universe with a D/s relationship is fine though), eye gore, eye things in general, smoking, evil Tony, evil Bucky

A/N: It's still very sketchy, total WIP.

   Title: Knight in shining armour

Description/Prompt: The Winter soldier is pulled from a burning HYDRA base by IronMan. 

Open verse, it could be that Bucky is slowly methodically taking his revenge on HYDRA, and everytime he is injured IronMan comes and rescues him, but Bucky never stays, all the way until the end. 

Or maybe Bucky was kidnapped and wiped, and IronMan wiped out the HYDRA base in revenge and now he is taking Bucky home.

Maybe IronMan finds HYDRA during Avengers one and decides to do some recon on his own and comes face to face with Bucky Barnes. 

There are sooo many possibilities! 

(While the IronMan armour is intended to be the Bleeding Edge armour, this can be changed) 

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort? Possibly darker themes 

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar 

Title: Dragon Shifter AU

Description/Prompt: Tony and Bucky are dragon shifters, Tony with fire magic, Bucky with ice magic. They can't stand each other, but they have to get along now... (Basically any enemies/ frenemies to lovers story you can thing of will make me happy, maybe with arranged marriage or a common goal/ enemy?)

Limitations: no A/B/O, no Civl War salt, no non-con between bucky/ tony, no mpreg

A/N: This art is purely self-indulgent. Anyone who wants to just have fun with the idea feel free to pick it up!

Title: Warlord Tony AU

Prompt: Everyone has heard of the warlord Iron Man, a cunning monster whose troops mercilessly slaughter his opponents on the battlefield and who has never lost a single battle. According to some he's not even a man at all: After all, he can cut through weapons and people alike, and survived direct hits that would kill a normal man. His army turns wins fights against superior numbers and his cannons never miss their target. Very few people know that he also hides quite a number of secrets in a calm little valley at the heart of his territory, in a town called Arc.

For Bucky, you can go wild - whether he's part of a tribute, an enemy soldier, an assassin or something else. We're looking forward to talking about plot ideas!

Warnings: implied violence, blood

Limitations: no non-con between Tony/Bucky, no fully evil Tony, no MCD, no ABO, no mrpeg, no team cap  bashing pls

  Title: Alpine 

Description/Prompt: Biker Bucky finds Alpine on the side of the road, abadoned and hungry. Bucky decides to take Alpine to the vet, unfortunately this being - your choice of holiday - there are not many vets are open and most of them is for emergency only. 

Bucky worried that the kitten won't survive the night, runs into vet!Tony who is about to head home. However seeing the kitten, Tony decides to help and nurture the kitten. Alpine survives the night and becomes a bike-riding cat, usually traveling on Bucky's shoulders or back pack. 

The story could be a falling in love at first sight, or Bucky bringing all kinds of animals to Tony, because Bucky trusts Tony to take care of them. (There maybe a cracky story hidden in there somewhere too *wink*) 

Warnings: no kittens were harmed in the making of this prompt - none 

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar  

    Title: Late night dance lessons 

Description/Prompt: Bucky is baking late into the night as a super soldier he doesn't need much sleep and baking is a relaxing hobby. It's 2am, the night is quiet no people around and his favourite music is playing from the stereo. 

This is the moment when Tony arrives (could be a long night at the 'shop, or maybe just coming in from an overnight flight, maybe this is the time they regularly meet), they get into a small talk which slowly evolves into Tony staying and talking and Bucky reminscens of old times and what he can remember. It's a soft and tender talking the one people only have at 3am. Then an old times music comes on, reminding Bucky of nights when he went out to dance. And Tony seeing the look on his face offers to dance with him. 

Warnings: None

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar 

Title: Feats of Flexibility 

Description/Prompt: Bucky is doing push-ups, and someone accuses him of showing off - he had been in the gym for hours now - and Bucky claims that this nothing challenging to him, so naturally he is challenged into proving it. 

This is escalated into more and more complicated and complex tasks ending in Tony sitting on Bucky's back while he is doing push ups, with his feet in the air 

Poor Tony who only come down to keep in shape and tries valiantly to not stare at those feats of muscles and flexibility gets roped in 

Can end in a kiss/confession or more sexy times *wink*

Warnings: None

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar 

Title: Untitled

Description/Prompt: Open to any ideas for some steampunk shenaniganry! Skyships, pirates, dashing captains, scrappy inventors, swash*buckly* adventures?

Warnings: none?

Limitations:  DNWs include a/b/o, mpreg, noncon, dubcon between major protagonists, death of major protagonists, unhappy/ bad endings

  Title: Fantasy Secret Identity AU

Description: Bucky standing in front of a wall plastered with posters of all sorts, among them some wanted posters, one for Iron Man, one for the Winter Soldier.

Prompt: Tony Stark is a well-known noble and mage, and Iron Man is a well-known villain. Of course, the two aren't connected at all. Until Tony Stark takes on a bet to figure out the identity of the man in the armor - and hires James Barnes, a washed-up mercenary to find any clues possible. It's just as well James has no links to the feared assassin called Winter Soldier, because that would be making things complicated.

I'm always open for other ideas but am really hoping for some identity porn :D

Warnings: None

Limitations: no A/B/O, no mpreg, no CW salt, no MCD

A/N: I haven't inked most of the posters in order to leave the author some freedom for the AU they want to make - I'm open for suggestions about adding stuff in!

  Title: Promise of the Desire to Live

Description/Prompt: This is a Pokémon crossover piece. The Pokémon egg on the left belongs to Magearna and will hatch in her original coloring (which are pretty much Iron Man colors). This Magearna will be the partner of Tony. The Pokémon egg on the right belongs to Mewtwo and will have almost the same coloring as Shadow Mewtwo except that his tail will be navy blue. This Mewtwo will be Bucky’s partner. Here’s the prompt – 

            The Avengers are called to deescalate a situation involving a young and semi-inexperienced Inhuman who lost her family due to a suicide bomber. After receiving her powers mere days after that traumatic event, this young girl, no more than 12, is able to sense who has a strong desire to commit suicide and send them to places/people/beings that need help and are able to bring them back from the brink of suicide.

Omega!Tony and Alpha!Bucky are sent to a Team Plasma lab with an egg incubator in the center of the room with two eggs in it. They take the eggs.

Warnings: Discussions of depression and suicidal thoughts

Limitations: Story cannot be ended with the Pokémon hatching. I want a full-length Pokémon journey from Bucky, Tony, and their Pokémon. I want them to find a way to travel between the Pokémon world and their home world. Also, must have A/B/O. No rape.

Title: Bunny Tony/ Wolf Bucky

Description/prompt: No matter what the media and Hollywood tried to say, there wasn't really that much difference between predator and prey presenting people. A jaguar wouldn't love climbing trees and napping all day anymore than a squirrel would hoard nuts and play deadly games with cars.

But whenever Tony's gorgeous rear and fluffy tail wind up in Bucky's line of sight, he has to clamp his teeth against a strong urge to bite. And when Tony comes down to the kitchen each morning, hair a mess and silky, floppy ears on display, Bucky has to fight more possessive urges. He's sure neither the team or Tony would appreciate Bucky dragging the bunny off to his territory...Would they?

Warnings: N/A

Limitations: Happy Ending, No Civil War, No  AoU, No bathroom kinks, Prefer Team as family, Explicit welcome

A/N: The sketch will be colored and have at least one more piece featuring a Wolf Bucky. And maybe a shot of Tony's fluffy tail.

  Title: Untitled 2

Description/Prompt: something based on the John Wick tailor scene or James Bond-Q outfitting or just general spies or mafia? 

Open for brainstorming or alternate interpretations or anything really! Assassins/Spies not up your alley? image can be edited/background removed if your idea is for a non powers tailor au instead!

Warnings: canon typical violence for story (john wick levels or mcu levels up to author?)

Limitations:  DNWs include a/b/o, mpreg, noncon, dubcon between major protagonists, death of major protagonists, unhappy/ bad endings

Title: Hold out your hand

Description/Prompt: The only thing I feel needs to be heavily included in the fic would be about Bucky's relationship with his arm and how Tony helps him with that (though it doesn't technically need to be the main storyline) 

If you want other input then I love tropes especially soulmate type situations and Bucky recovery fics, but pretty much any trope is good. 

Warnings: NA

Limitations: Character death, age play (I am pretty much open to anything else, any rating is cool with me as is including smut or not)

A/N: I am still messing with the composition and finish on this so if you have any input then let me know :) (for example the smaller images of the hands and Tony could be used individually for page breaks in the story rather than being the main art?)

Title: Porcelain and Metal or maybe a Toy au?

Description/Prompt: This particular piece was created because I really wanted a porcelain ballerina tony and nutcracker-ish bucky.This could be a first meeting scene of sorts with bucky being a shameless flirt but the writer could expand and add more scenes of course! I mostly just wanted a very cute and magic realism-ish vibe. 

Warnings: N/A

Limitations: No unhappy endings. A bit of angst for the sake of the plot is fine. Non-consensual acts of any sorts is also a no

Title: Scheherazade AU

Description/Prompt: Based on Thousand and One Nights, war chief!Bucky refuses a spouse and threatens to kill anyone he's set up with. Tony ends up married to him and talks every night, leaving off right before bed so Bucky has to keep him around another day 

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Limitations: no noncon/heavy warnings. Also really not into stucky, even as background influence/past feelings. Also don't want any feminization of Tony by having him as 'weaker' or a damsel. I don't like infidelity or overcomplicated drama because of simple misunderstandings. Some smut is okay, but no hard kinks, PWP, or A/B/O.

A/N: Besides inspiration of original story, I don't have much planned. While no warnings, it would include arranged marriage, but no actual noncon please. I like slowburn so totally down for a long fic. Also pretty relaxed with background ships and always here for some epic friendships (tony and rhodey, bucky and nat, etc). 

  Title: Mirror images

Description/Prompt: Bucky and Winter got separated into two bodies by accident or on purpose, which helps greatly with them getting along better (or at all), until they decide independently to woo Tony 

Both of them show how much they care about Tony, even if it's very very different from each other 

Tony appreciates and loves both and absolutely can't decide between the two (nor does he want to because both are important to him) and it ends in polamory either a triangle or v-shaped

Warnings: N/A

Limitations: No unhappy/ambiguous ending, no alcoholism (but recovery or past mentions are fine), no watersports (kink) 

A/N: The art is not finished I am open to reinterpretation and/or taking the prompt a different way then the one I have outlined or changing the art a bit to better fit the story like Bucky (not) having the arm, short hair or long and similar 

Title: College au meet cute or something

Description/Prompt: No specific plot, maybe Bucky and Tony like each other but both are oblivious to the others feelings. Steve and Rhodey as the "Why am I bestf riends with an idiot" best friend. With minor thundershield please 

Warning: N/A

Limitations: No unhappy endings. Bit of angst for the sake of plot is fine.

A/N: Will color and clean this up a bit. I'll also be willing to make more art for the story if ever.

[fandom-necromancer]

Past, Present, Future

This was prompted by the amazing @skyewillows! I know you likely intended this to be the other way around, but this is the idea that first came to me XD Also sorry for the delay! Hope you enjoy some angst!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: near death experience, slight body horror?, anti-android sentiment)

It had been supposed to be easy. It had been supposed to be a simple mission: infiltrate the warehouse in the early morning and gather intel on the operations inside. They had known the warehouse was used to store and refine Red Ice. They had known they were the newest dealership in Detroit and therefore would soon get trouble with the other people in the business or get integrated in their doing. That was what should have made it easy: Inexperienced humans afraid or at least worried about what was to come. It shouldn’t have ended like this, Nines thought as he laid in the trunk of a car, motor control deactivated and helpless in the hands of the competing drug den.

All had happened far too fast: Gavin and Nines had infiltrated the warehouse and hid in close proximity to the people milling about. They had learned most of what they had wanted to by the early afternoon, from how they synthesized the drug to where they planned on dealing it to the people. Gavin and Nines were both pretty confident all they would have to do now was wait for the night to leave in silence. Instead, a package arrived in the afternoon that the idiots promptly opened, setting off the bomb inside that ripped through the many shelves as well as one supporting pillar. The explosive chain reaction of instable intermediates in the refinement process from Thirium to Red Ice as the first explosion reached a tank did the rest. Nines could only shield Gavin from the falling debris as the roof and walls were coming down. His human had been his only priority at that moment and even now, when he should worry about his own fate, it filled him with relief to know Gavin had been alive up to that point. His memory had become a bit hazy afterwards as a steel rod from the concrete wall had pierced through his chest while protecting his human, pinning him in between two pieces of debris.

He remembered Gavin’s shocked face, his Thirium-coated hands on his face and… he had been speaking then… what had Gavin said to him? Nines only knew how he had interrupted him with the plea to flee as his sensors picked up on distant voices ordering others to search for survivors. He remembered how Gavin had ran. And then he had found himself in this trunk, immobilized and patched up where the steel rod had pushed through his body. He didn’t want to know what would happen next. Patching up an android to take with them was nothing they did from the goodness of their heart. And knowing that they knew their way around an android’s system well enough to immobilise one made Nines bad feeling even worse.

He tried to reconstruct the path his capturers had taken from the pattern of turns and times spent at red lights. Unfortunately, his GPS was offline too, so all he could do was look for overlaps in his maps. He had found several matches by the time the car stopped, and the engine was killed, but it helped little in forming an escape plan. He was still immobile and as he was lifted out of the car, he couldn’t make out enough to determine which one of his preconstructions had been accurate. A dark bag was put over his head, then he could hear someone giving orders again: ‘Get it inside and hook it up. At least this pig can be of use for us.’

Nines wished he could have struggled. He wished he could have seen where he was dragged or that he could have contacted someone. Even if it was ultimately hopeless, he wouldn’t feel so damn hopeless. His stress levels were dangerously high, and he knew he did the android equivalent of panicking as he was dropped on the floor and could hear computer fans as well as the very familiar sound of a maintenance rig being initialised. Not much later he was hoisted up and connected to the rig. Only then he felt his motor control being returned to him and with the strength of the soldier unit he had been designed to be, he pulled at the arms holding him captive. But however hard he struggled, all he managed was flinging the bag off his head as the arms compensated his thrashing and ultimately restrained him fully. ‘Let me go!’, he hollered even before he could see the lone man that stood leaned over the terminal. ‘Let me go and maybe I’ll grant you a quick death!’

Fury was the only reaction he could manage in his situation, unwilling to let his desperation and fear overwhelm him. He couldn’t give up yet. Even if his pre-constructions showed him no possible way out of here if there wasn’t external help. No, he had to ignore that. Humans made mistakes. Maybe this one had made an error when attaching him to the rig. Maybe he- ‘Shut up, tin-can!’

It could have as well been a punch to the Thirium pump. With how much affection these words could be uttered in the right moment, the right place and time and person, it hurt almost physically to hear it in the context it had long lost. Gavin had said it so many times, these exact words. In the precinct, meaning it. On a case, when Nines thought it was a good idea to remind him of proper police conduct. At a bar night when Nines had been a “phcking know-it-all”. On the backseat of their car when he had reminded him this position wouldn’t be comfortable at all. In the early morning when Nines tried to coax him out of bed when Gavin would have liked to cuddle a little longer.

But no, this time it was uncaring. Condescending. A simple disregard to his feelings, thoughts and person. The words of someone who considered him a mere thing. Switching to his soldier protocols he tried again to push and pull against the arms keeping him immobile with no regards to his component’s integrity. He only managed to pull some of his pseudomuscles apart, the rig didn’t move one bit. ‘Stop that, can’t have you losing any more Thirium!’

Nine looked up to the man that pulled a thick flexible tube over and lost his composure. He couldn’t keep up the façade of that fearless predator when he got the feeling he knew exactly what would happen next. And that recognition filled him with pure terror. ‘No. No, stop!’ The human ignored him, stepping closer and onto the platform. ‘Please, don’t!’, Nines begged, trying to keep the end of the tube in his vision, but the man had already stepped behind him. ‘No, please, I’ll do whatever you want. Just please, don’t-‘ ‘Shut up!’, the man interrupted him, his fingers roughly prodding his neck until he had found the right place to press to open the hatch to his neck port. ‘You are just a machine, don’t pretend you feel anything. This is just a fancy program Cyberlife installed to keep their property intact. Playing with human minds, that’s all you plastics ever did.’ Nines wanted to protest, to plead, but the man had already pushed the tube into the port used to refill or replace an android’s Thirium. The RK900 blinked at the sudden intrusion, but the man was already stepping back, attention back on the terminal.

‘Please’, Nines tried once again, knowing it was utterly futile. ‘Please, don’t do this. I have family. We have a cat. Please, I just want to get back to my life!’ ‘You have nothing, bot. Your family has you and can buy another one – sorry – adopt another one now that these idiots were fooled by Cyberlife’s plan.’ ‘That doesn’t make any sen-‘, Nines had begun to protest but choked on his words as he felt the rig accessing his Thirium pump and redirecting the flow without him being able to intervene. ‘No!’, he screamed, static mixing with his voice. ‘No, you can’t do this! Please. Stop!’ The man just stepped back and smirked at him. ‘Sweet dreams’, he teased, then turned and left.

Nines was completely alone in the small room, being notified of his Thirium levels dropping rapidly while he could see the blue liquid flow through the tube on the ground to who knows where. He couldn’t believe he was harvested for the very drug he and Gavin had tried to fight since it had popped up on the market. Gavin… Gavin was safe now, wasn’t he? He tried to remember what had happened exactly as Gavin had disappeared, but nothing came up. Whatever the steel rod had damaged, it must have caused some sort of short circuit causing his systems to shut down to protect themselves until he was removed. He must have made it. He must have made it to safety. Nines just couldn’t bear the thought of him being shot while running away or being caught by the gang to be interrogated or worse. No, Gavin had to be safe. Likely furious and wanting to safe him somehow. How would he react to learning he died? They had been together for quite a while now. He would either be angry and in denial about the fact or struck by grief so hard Nines couldn’t possibly imagine what would happen to him. Gavin was a ride-or-die kind of person and they had found mutual unconditional trust in the other. Hell, they had planned to marry eventually, Nines knowing he would have to be the one to propose to the surprisingly shy man. It would have been perfect.

They could have had so much, Nines regretfully realised. Not a great ceremony, but one of few guests. Tina would have been there. Nines would have convinced Gavin to invite Hank and Connor and maybe Sixty with Allen. Gavin in turn would have convinced Nines to allow Elijah and Chloe there. And besides that there would have been a full life ahead of them. Maybe they would have gone on vacation. Left Detroit for the first time or maybe even America. There would have been Christmases that weren’t coined by revolutions and New Years that wouldn’t traumatise half the population when androids first dared to insert themselves into society. Birthdays and the struggle to find the perfect present. Weekends spent on roadtrips, movie nights with friends, new cases keeping their minds busy. And then the little things. Playing with their cat and laughing at it. Watching a movie only for Gavin to halfway through fall asleep leaned against Nines. Days spent in bed because it was just to comfy. Moments when the sun just fell right through the window on Gavin’s face. Seeing him smile one more time. Hearing his voice whisper sweet nothings. Hearing him call him with another silly nickname. The smell of coffee in the morning. The curses when having overslept. The slow beat of a heart. The way he sighed in content and caressed Nines face when he thought he was already in stasis. The colour of his eyes…

Nines’ systems were shutting down one after the other. His countdown was ticking down. His thoughts were running slow and sluggish. He was long hanging weakly in the arms of the rig. Warning messages popped up, informing him of imminent terminal overheating. Nines ignored it all. He didn’t want to die in fear. He didn’t even want to know he was dying. He tried to remember his short life with Gavin and to imagine how it could have been. It was no surprise to him his mind soon began to fray as his systems switched to critical condition and he saw Gavin before him. Heard his voice: ‘Nines. Stay with me.’ ‘I will’, Nines hummed with a content smile, his tinny voice almost unrecognisable as one. ‘I will fix this, don’t worry’, Gavin’s voice told him and Nines thanked whatever sick twist of fate gave an android the possibility to lose logic in it’s last moments. ‘I know you will’, Nines spoke, not understanding his own words as his voicebox was running on less and less power. ‘I’ve always been safe with you.’ ‘Phck, Nines. Phck, phck, phck!’ ‘I love you, Gavin.’

And then he fell.

  He fell on a surprisingly real floor. ‘Phck, Nines, sorry! Nines? Nines? Phck can you hear me? Say something!’ Nine could barely understand the words uttered as his sensors glitched and switched on and off repeatedly. ‘Okay, your LED is still on, please let that mean you’re still alive! Alright, I will get you out of here, just hold on! We will fix you, we will fix you!’

He… wasn’t dead yet? Nines tried to access his internal sensors and saw that he had been disconnected at a Thirium Level of twelve percent. He was still about to die, but the countdown was trickling down a lot slower now that the blue blood wasn’t forcibly extracted. Unable to move he was once again dragged over the floor for what felt like an eternity when Nines watched every millisecond pass by. If this wasn’t an impressive illusion of a dying operating system, then that had to mean Gavin was really here. And that he was about to save him. That there was indeed a future to look forward to.

The sun outside caused his optics to white out, so it was a little sudden as a bottle opening was pressed to his lips. Havin a hunch, Nines allowed the liquid to be poured down his throat. It took a while until his levels rose and several bottles were emptied, but as they sat at stable 60%, Nines could run a quick diagnose and regained access to all systems that remained intact. It weren’t many, but he could jerkily move, he could talk through heavy static, he could hear, see and feel. And he used all of these abilities to jump up, hug Gavin and kiss him clumsily on the lips. ‘Gavin!’, he gave vent to his relief and promptly kissed him again as if he could loose all this again the next second. ‘Hey, buddy, tone that down a bit’, Gavin laughed embarrassedly. ‘Everyone is watching.’

Nines couldn’t care less. ‘Gavin, I want to marry you’, he burst out instead and as Gavin looked at him in surprise and wanted to respond, Nines just interrupted: ‘Elijah can come if Connor is invited too.’ ‘Alright, not what I wanted to say’, Gavin chuckled, trying to free himself of Nines embrace that was more of a vice by now. ‘We should take time off. Drive somewhere. I want to hold you.’ Gavin pushed him away fully now, holding onto his arms. ‘Nines, what’s wrong?’, he asked with worry. ‘I will get you to a repair shop, don’t worry.’

Nines closed his eyes and vented his internal systems that had heated up yet again. ‘I almost lost this’, he whispered. ‘All of this. You. Our future. I don’t want to wait anymore should this happen ever again.’ Gavin looked at him and sighed. ‘Nines, this won’t happen again. I promise. We are partners, remember? We look out for each other. I know, I was quite… I was almost too late this time. But I will always be there.’ Nines looked to the ground, unsure if his legs would support him much longer. ‘Hey’, Gavin said softly, lifting his head up. ‘You know what? Vacation doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll see what I can do, okay? But let’s get you fixed up first, okay?’

The android rested his head against Gavin’s, noses touching. ‘Okay’, he nodded and let himself be guided towards a car by his human.

[oncejaw]

@massensterben​ said:  “ a part of me still thinks that if i can find the right words, it will save us. ” (misc. quotes)

It is all starting to unravel. No, it has all unravelled already: Reiner rang the bell the moment his last line of defense snapped, the moment when, on top of this wall, the Warrior had left the soldier in the dust and taken over for this one fatal second. Marcel hadn’t been there to see it, Reiner’s abrupt confession; but Bertholdt had told him just enough that he could imagine it. Now sat atop Wall Maria, looking over the ruins of Shiganshina, Marcel welcomes Bertholdt’s muttering in the hollow space in his chest, before tearing his gaze from Reiner to turn it to the youngest member of their group. 

It was never going to last. They had known that from the start; but perhaps Marcel should have been more insistent in reminding them that it wouldn’t. Five years - half a decade on this island, cut off from the rest of the world, cut off from Marley. No one had warned them, how freeing it would be, to be away from it all (how could they?). How easily hope would creep its way into their chest; how easily they might delude themselves in thinking that maybe, just maybe... there may be another way.

It is Marcel’s failure. He should have protected them against such delusions, against the sweet lullabies this strange new normal had sung into their ears. He should have been more stern, more defiant; but truth be told, whenever he would lay eyes on his three friends and the others, having dinner, playing games, laughing together; especially Bertholdt, so young...

He hadn’t had the heart. 

Marcel holds back a sigh, and pours coffee into a tin cup - courtesy of Zeke, of course - before coming to sit besides his friend and offering him the beverage. “Bertholdt.” He starts; a short pause sneaking its way where he didn’t want it to. There is no more space for hesitation. He is not doing Bertholdt any favour by pretending there is, is he? Surely, there is now only one way forward. As sad as it is, as distressing as it is; they always knew it would come to this just not like that. 

“There is nothing you could have told them, or can still tell them, that could change anything.” Yes, he’d heard about that too - from Reiner, this time, shortly before the Jaw had joined the fray. “I’m not blaming you for trying. I even think some of them may have listened. Maybe some of them would have understood, too.” But. There is always a but; and it is his job to keep that in mind. Even if it’s too late. “... but even if they did, there is nothing they could have done to stop any of it. They’re tethered to Paradis and their superiors, just like we are to Marley and ours. We would have been the enemy, and we would have been treated as such, no matter how much sympathy we may have inspired in Connie or even Jean. Their opinions wouldn’t have mattered. Not to the people who do matter.” 

There is no saving Paradis. There is no saving the 104th. There is no us. Not anymore. 

[sparrowsingsstories]

Cry Mercy

I have a desperate need to share some of my writing, so here we go. It's NOT edited...and I am only a little under 30,000 words into this massive project, but heh...I'm having fun:

Fandom: Fallout 4

Mercy had slept in a lot of terrible places. So bunking down in the room where she was held at gunpoint, the front stoop, so to speak, of the Railroad, was fine. It was dry, safe, and not filled with radroaches. Or super mutants…ferals…raiders…or anything else that would attempt to kill them. They hadn’t put up the tents because, well, they were underground. They had requested a fire, which they had gotten in the form of a barrel fire. Deacon joined them. Which Mercy wasn’t surprised about. 

He was still wearing his sunglasses. Mercy watched him from the corner of her eyes as he heated up food and set up his stuff. Next to her, MacCready shifted.

“Damn glasses,” he muttered.

“Spies,” she whispered back, rolling her eyes. 

His shoulders shook in quiet laughter. “Like something outta a comic.”

She glanced over and saw Deacon staring at them. That made her smirk and nudge MacCready. Out loud, she said, “Yeah. Like…the Silver Shroud. Only it’s the Silver Shades.”

Deacon adjusted his glasses and stared at them more intently. That made both of them start giggling, Piper joining in after a moment. Nick chuckled and shook his head.After a moment, Deacon grinned. “Hey. I’ve always wanted to be the Silver Shroud. “Many have sought to pierce the Glasses. To no avail.””

Preston raised his eyebrow at Deacon. “That’s great but…how do you see at night?”

“With my eyes?” 

Preston rolled his eyes. “Do you never take them off?”

“Nope.”

“Preston, leave it.” Mercy shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“I’m just saying…tactically, it’s a terrible decision. And I’m not sure we should…”

Mercy held up one hand. “I know. I have a lot on my plate right now. But Preston, these people…they know about the Institute. Maybe they can help me.”

Preston looked pained. “I just…worry…we have so many people depending on us already.”

“Hey man. The Railroad won’t get in the way of what the Minutemen want. If anything, we can help each other. Synths need places to live. Safe places filled with good people. And even if that’s not your settlements, we need safer roads. Safer towns. More traders who move in and out of the Commonwealth. You all supply us with that safety. Just…look at us as a smaller department.”

“The intelligence department for an army,” Mercy added. “Who’s the biggest threat to the Commonwealth?”

“Well, before I’d say the Institute, but that was before the Brotherhood flew in on their war…thing…” Preston said with a grimace.

Deacon held up a hand, then put it down. “No. That’s fair.”

“I think it’s just a big blimp. Which makes me wonder what’s keeping it up in the air. And if it’s flammable,” Mercy mused.

Deacon leaned back against the wall, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles, “You know, I’d love a closer look at it. Think you can make it happen, Mercy?”

“Well. I did meet a Paladin. Helped him out. Then he asked if I wanted to join up. I was a little busy, still am busy. So I said no. He seemed a little…uh…fanatical.”

“You could always say you had a chance to rethink things. Join them. Get us intel.”

“No. Absolutely not. I’m the General of an entire organization now! I’m not signing up to play Tin Can Marching with a bunch of people who are that fanatical just so you can get a mole inside the war blimp.”

MacCready snorted, “The mental image, Boss.”

“Oh shut it, RJ.”

“I think…I think we can help each other out, Deacon,” Preston said slowly. “I’m going on faith here, so be upfront with me. If we help you, will you help us?”

“We’re not really a military organization…” Deacon started. He stopped when Preston held up his hand.

“I don’t need soldiers. What I need are scouts. People who can move quietly, who can get information, and get it back to us. Can you all do that?”

“Well…yes? But what kind of info does the Minutemen need? More settlements?”

“No. Bigger. Think fortifications. Think presence. Fort Independence, or The Castle, as we called it. It fell a long time ago. Something about a sea monster. We can organize our settlements, organize our troops, if we had it and its radio. And bonus, it’s right over near that big old Brotherhood war blimp.”

“A fort. On the coast? Tit for tat. We’ll get your info…if you help us get ours.”

“We can do that,” Mercy said. “What’s your target?”

“Our old HQ. Get me in there, help me get a piece of tech that was left behind by accident, and you’ll get all of the help we can give you.”

“Deal,” Mercy said. “Welcome to the Minutemen, Lieutenant Deacon. I’m putting you in charge of our Intel Department.”

Deacon’s face screwed up, “Wait…I didn’t mean! Damnit! Well fine, welcome to the Railroad, Mercy. Get ready for a wild ride.”

Mercy grinned, “I mean, it’s been wild so far. I doubt you can make it any crazier.”

“Oh…just you wait…”

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers. 

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist.  The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence. 

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives. 

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology. 

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework. 

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives? 

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists. 

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year. 

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years. 

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network,  lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt. 

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.  

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”. 

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts. 

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back! 

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books. 

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t. 

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat. 

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful. 

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier. 

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

[thirtysomethingloser92]

Chapter 3

Summary: After being removed from his own time, Agent Daniel Sousa finds himself in 2020 lost, alone and vulnerable. You, an Avenger, find yourself face to face with Director Coulson and Agent May begging you to help another man out of time. This time however, instead of a super soldier, you meet an average man haunted by war and a time he once knew.    Pairings: Daniel Sousa x Reader.

“I think he’s spiralling. He’s been obsessively reading those files you gave him; he barely eats, I usually have to force him out of his room to interact with me. I gave him a book on world history but apart from that he knows the basics, but he doesn’t really want to throw himself into it.” You told Phil as you slowly walked up the stairs to your apartment building, “We’re having a few hiccups, but nothing I can’t handle,” You slightly grimaced at the memory of Daniel placing a tin can in the microwave, “Just like teaching a baby,” You thought about it for a moment, “A baby who can use a gun and possibly beat the ever living hell out of me. Anyway, how are you going about this bracelet removal thing?” “I currently have the absolute best I have to offer working on it for you. She says she should have something to try within the week,” A pause, “Are you sure you wanna go down this path? If Ross finds out what’s happening, there’s only so much I can do to keep you out of the Raft. And that’s if he’s feeling nice,” You paused out the front of your apartment door, silence falling between the pair of you for a moment, “I can’t help Daniel the same way I helped Steve if I don’t have it off. And I’m scared that he’ll be swallowed by this darkness if I don’t help him, he’s not a super soldier, he’s not enhanced in any way. He’s just a normal guy who was struggling with the aftermath of the war and now pulled out of time. I’m not scared of the Raft Phil. And I’m absolutely not scared of General Ross,” “I’ll see what I can do,”. You gave him a soft thanks as you placed your phone back into your pocket, giving a small smile to Audrey who walked past you clutching the gem necklace that hung around her neck tightly in her hand. She paused for a moment, “How’s having a new roommate?” “He’s very quiet,” You laughed as you shifted your bags from one hand to another. Audrey shrugged her shoulders, “He’ll come around. New York is a big change if you’re not used to it,” You laughed, “Anyway I should get going. I need to pick up some flowers on the way to see my grandparent’s graves,” “Awh,” You gave her a sad smile, “What type?” “Lilies, my grandma loved lilies. Granddad not so much, but he’d fill the house with them to make her happy,” You grinned, “They’re my favourite as well. He sounds wonderful,” “He was. He was my best friend,”. Audrey gave a small wave to you as she made her way down the path you had just come from. You watched as the brunette walked away before turning back to the door and pushing it open. You could smell the familiar aroma of coffee mixed in with your floral air freshener. You walked into the kitchen, dumping the bags on the counter and pulling out several packets of meat, sauces and pastas, “I’ve decided,” You began as Daniel walked into the kitchen to see what you were doing, “To cook tonight. Phil introduced me to this amazing pasta recipe back when I first started with the Avengers Initiative. And I figured since I haven’t really had the chance to introduce you to my cooking since arriving, now would be a great opportunity. Whatdya say?” You gave him a large grin as you held up the mince packet and the large jar of sauce Daniel gave a soft smile and shook his head, “I’ve love too, but uh,” He pointed back to his bedroom, “I have some things I need to finish first,” “I swear I’m not an awful cook,” You bargained, placing the items down on the bench and leaning forward, “In fact I used to regularly be the chef at the compound. Along with Wanda of course,” “Wanda?” “Maximoff. She’s another enhanced. I hope you both get to meet one day,” You smiled gently at him as he came and sat down at the breakfast bench, leaving his walking stick hanging off the bench by it’s handles. “Okay. I’ll give your cooking a try. On the condition that I cook tomorrow night,” A larger smile crossed your face. This was good. This was him coming out of his shell, a sense of normalcy, “I supervise,” “You supervise,” You couldn’t help the smile that grew across your face as a smile crossed his own. You could still see the haunted look in his deep brown eyes as he smiled back, but you couldn’t help but to count this as a victory. Here he was, with you, away from his bedroom and his case files, a cup of coffee in his hands that he made himself; and you figured that perhaps you didn’t need your bracelet to know what was happening with Daniel Sousa, maybe all you needed was to use your brain.

<> 

You couldn't help but to play with the silver glistening bracelet, even though it was an item that took away your identity, something that you should hate more than anything on this planet, but you loved the way it shone in the sun. You loved how sometimes, when the light from the streetlights hit the right angle, it could illuminate in the night. Like a glowing beacon in a storm.

The night air was cool around your body, the silky pyjamas Tony had brought you a year earlier for your birthday didn't do much to keep out the bitter chill that the Winter nights were bringing in. Your fingers traced the silver band, small dents from the many times you had tried to remove it littered the polished surface. A small yawn escaped your lips as your arm fell limply by your side and you resumed staring up at the darkened ceiling. Sleep wasn't coming easy for you; the worry you held for Daniel was almost suffocating.

With Steve, he would at the very least sit with you on the couch while blankly watching whatever show was on the television. But with Daniel he would hole himself away where you couldn’t see his emotions. You knew that he was trying so hard to be strong, but even the strongest rocks crumble.

You knew he was in his room, because you could hear him occasionally shuffling around. A part of you wanted to go into him, to sit with him so you could reassure him that he had someone to talk too; however you knew that this was something that he had to experience for himself, something he had to deal with by himself.

There was no going back to the past for him, there was only moving forward, and if this was the way he could do that, then you would support him every step of the way.

With a groan, you pushed your blankets back and moved out of your large bed, wrapping your dressing gown around your body and making your way into the kitchen. You didn't put the kettle on like you normally would have, instead you reached into the pantry and pulled out a small pocket of chocolate biscuits before climbing on to the bench, the packet of open biscuits sitting beside you as you watched the shining lights of the New York skyline from your window.

And that was how Daniel found you moments later when he limped out and looked at you in shock, as if he hadn't been expecting anyone else to be awake at this time of night.

"Sup?" You offered; a mouth still filled with a half-chewed biscuit. You reached down and picked up the packet, holding the open end to him, "Biscuit. You bailed pretty quick after dinner," You gave a small shrug when he shook his head, placing the packet back down, "Which is a shame because there was a great movie on tonight you would have enjoyed,"

"Would’ve I? 4 weeks I've been living here, and I can't say our ideas of a good movie match yet," Daniel replied. stepping further into the kitchen, reaching into a cupboard and pulling out a glass, "Dinner was good though. Thank you," He poured some water in the glass as you ate another biscuit.

"Yeah of course it was, I cooked it," You joked, remembering how he hate barely half what he had on his plate. You noticed the dark grey circles under his eyes, how pale his skin was looking, the slight shake in his hand, "You should eat something though,"

He rinsed the empty glass under the running tap as he rose an eyebrow, "Like chocolate biscuits?"

"I never said I was the healthiest person in the world" Your smile faltered as you saw the somewhat distressed look on the agent’s face, “Are you okay? It’s 2am,”

Daniel shook his head and leaned against the granite countertop, his eyes downcast as if he were searching for the strength to actually open up to you. You knew it was going to be difficult for him to do so, especially coming out of the time period he did where men showing any sort of emotion was a sign of weakness. You stopped chewing and watched him closely, watching as his jaw clenched, his fingers grabbing on to the edge of the counter as if he were using it to physically hold himself up.

You decided to take the initiative in this conversation. He barely even knew anything about you, perhaps he wouldn’t open to you until you opened to him.

“I’m an empath,” You started.

Daniel’s eyes shot up to meet yours, his eyebrows furrowing as to ask why you were talking about it. Instead of acknowledging it, you just held up your wrist, once again showing him your band and gave a small smile, “I can feel other people’s emotions with just a touch. I can also manipulate them to feel what I want them to feel. Both a blessing and a curse that one,” You gave a self-depreciating smile, “Ever since I’ve had this band on it’s like I’m missing a piece of myself. I can touch things; I can touch people and I feel nothing. There’s just this emptiness inside me that I can’t find anything to fill it with. It’s the reason why I need it off,”

“Do you feel everything? Or are you able to control it?” Daniel asked, his posture somewhat more relaxed now that you were talking about yourself instead of whatever was going on in his head.

A short nod, “Yeah. I lived in a compound with an egotistical genius who never slept, a super soldier from 1945, a genius with awful anger issues, and two assassins. You don’t live with those type of people and not learn how to control it. Although, when someone’s feeling something and it’s overpowering, I can feel that no matter how hard I try to stop it,”

You remember putting your hand on Tony’s shoulder after he watched that video of his parents dying, the pure rage and betrayal spread through his body and into your mind. Tears welled in your eyes as your body almost crumbled under the weight of grief your friend was feeling. Swallowing deeply, you shook away the memory and turned back to Daniel who was watching you with curious eyes.

“You look tired, you should get to bed,” He gave a lopsided smile, watching as a small smile crossed your own face.

“I’m worried about you,” You admitted, catching Daniel’s brown eyes with your own and holding them.

He shook his head, “Don’t be. I’m okay,”

“Liar,”

A small smile crossed his face as he reached over and grabbed a biscuit out of the packet, holding it up to show you that he had it. You watched as he took a bite of it and leaned on the counter.

“I’ve just sort of realised that no matter what, I’m not going back. I can’t walk around my neighbourhood again, see friends, family. I miss them,”

“Would you go back? If you had a chance?”

“In a heartbeat” There was zero hesitation in his voice, his eyes showing the desperation, the sadness he felt missing his loved ones.

“I’m sorry” You stated quietly.

“Me Too”

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