#but then after bucky almost fucking DIES during the war the two of them get back together

[mentalmeles]

A lil sketch while I keep working on the Would You Fall in Love With Me Again animatic!

I like to think these two idiots in love had a few close calls during the war, since Steve was still trying to grapple with… Well. *gestures vaguely*

Bucky didn’t ever seem to mind, though 💕

[evita-shelby]

12 Days of Smuffmas:

December 17th - tinsel and talking dirty(Bucky Egan x Diane Shelby)

part of the Paper Moons series

cw: dirty talk, dominant!Bucky, mentions of nightmares, sex as coping mechanism, reference to ye olde vibrators and dildos, couch sex, mentions of baby fever

He used to try and dream what his life after the war would look like, what a life with Diane would look like.

Sometimes they’d stay in England in that beautiful townhouse in London with him doing fuck knows what and mooching off her parents. They’d live lavishly, without a care in the world and forget the hell they’d lived in during the war.

His Lady Di had lost her little brother during the blitz, a boyfriend in the Mediterranean and enough friends to remind him some German girl had lost the same thanks to him.

He’d wake up from nightmares where Di’s buried in the rubble, tortured by Nazis for the crime of being of two races or just gone. Bucky still gets them, along with the ones of what happened to him and the others in the war.

Struggles to sleep so much he dozed off in the couch this afternoon when they were supposed to start decorating for their first Christmas together in this quaint house in a well-off neighborhood where her folks are to visit.

“Did you sleep well, sleeping beauty?” Di asks carefully placing the tinsel that’s gotten everywhere except the fucking tree since they got it.

“Like a baby.” John stretches and stays where he is as he watches his tiny wife balance on a step stool decorating the tree exactly how she envisioned it in that strange mind of hers.

Her hair is shorter, just over her shoulders and bouncing as she turned her attention to him and then back to the tree. Knows when he’s lying with just one look, but his answer doesn’t ring off any alarm bells and she resumed her work in artfully placing the fucking tinsel on the pine tree they picked out yesterday.

“Would you help me get the tree ready?” she asks but he shook his head preferring to watch her do her work unimpeded. Reminded him the Diane in his nightmare last night was just a figment of his fucked-up imagination.

This Diane hadn’t been killed by a bomb while he was away, this Diane hadn’t been put where all the dead go and left only the necklace he brought her back from Algeria. No, this Diane was alive, in one piece and wearing the necklace that matched her wedding ring.

“Like the view too much to change it.” Bucky has another way of reminding himself the dreams aren’t real, but he thinks it would be good to wait until she’s done. Once he tried to interrupt her doing inventory at the base to fuck her between missions and his Lady Di was cross enough with him to leave him hot and bothered before his mission.

Flew back to base in record time just to get his revenge on his English Witch. They’d done it like beasts, on the cold grass, against their tree and even on his bed before the rest of the officers returned to their quarters.

They fucked on Buck’s bed, almost as if foretelling he’d become more than their cherished friend.

“What are you thinking, Bucky?” the witch knows exactly what he’s thinking, can tell when he’s having filthy thoughts about her even when they’re not even in the same country.

He used to get letters mentioning how his dirty fantasies would reach her in England and how she’d fuck herself with the fake cock wishing it was him fucking her blind.

“About that toy of yours you used to love so much.” Bucky’s gotten her a better toy to replace it having lost it in the move here.

The blue-eyed man remembers that toy too fondly, remembers how fucked out she was that she agreed to invite Buck for his special birthday fuck. “And how I got that fancy oil just for my Lady Di, ‘cause her first ass fuck needed to be done properly.”

She gets flustered when he talks dirty to her, so flustered she gives up whatever she is doing so Bucky can make those words real. “Then why haven’t you used the one we got a couple of days ago, love? Good fucking keeps your nightmares away, you know.”

“It’s a surprise, princess. If you’re naughty, it’s gonna stay unopened for much, much longer.” He threatens playfully knowing the moment the door’s shut behind their families the mystery gift will be unwrapped and used with great appreciation.

An improvement to the fake cock, this one vibrates for better…massaging. The department store lady had gone beet red when a far too cheeky John Egan had pointed at it and asked how much it cost.

“A shame, maybe I want to be bad.” His English girl teases and bends over to pick up some of the tinsel on the tree skirt.

If Di didn’t want to be fucked in the tinsel covered living room maybe she wouldn’t have worn that short blue dress knowing it would give him a fantastic view.

“Panties off, Di, if you want to be bad at least give your hard working husband a good view of the pussy he killed Nazis for.” The newly minted Lieutenant Colonel orders knowing its exactly what she wants.

She wants a baby, seen it in the cards they’ll have one next year and the disappointment of the all-night birthday sex not resulting in a pregnancy to announce at Christmas had her ravenous. Bucky’s surprised he had a nightmare last night when they’ve been at it like rabbits.

Not that he minds, John Egan has yet to get tired of fucking his girl. He doubts he ever will, he thinks as his wife removed her flimsy and lacy panties before tossing them to him.

“Anything else, Bucky?” the witch asks loving this game they play.

“Not yet, though I bet I can get you to leave the tree and climb me instead.” He fucking loves this game too.

John talks dirty, Diane tries to finish whatever she’s doing and then they see how far she gets before she’s too aroused to think of anything but wanting to jump his bones. First time they played he’d gotten injured enough to need Nurse Shelby’s tender loving care and been rewarded with a frantic fuck in a supply closet.

 “Can even keep the dress on if you like, looked good when Buck and I fingered you on the cab ride to the train and looks good on you know.” The memory of that day the left the base will stay with him forever as will the way he gets hard when she wears it.

Couldn’t get through a church service once because he wanted to get her to take the Lord in vain as she bounced on his dick in the car with some bullshit excuse no one bought.

“You tasted so good on Buck’s fingers, almost as good as your pussy tastes in his mouth.” John goes on as his Lady Di bites her lip and nearly drops the piece of tinsel in her hands. He’d help her decorate the rest of the tree, once she gives up or finishes putting all the tinsel she claims the fucking tree needs. “I'm gonna fuck him hard as he eats your pussy on the dining room table, maybe Marge will come too, and you show her why we love your mouth so much. Wouldn’t that be fun? Show her nothing’s wrong with the way we love.”

“Shame I lost the fake cock on the move here, I could have fucked her that way too. Like we did with that performer we both wanted so badly.” Lady Di reminds him of that singer with the big tits who entertained the troops one night and got fucked hard by Di’s toy while she tit-fucked Bucky in her dressing room. The Performer had left England with a very fond memory of Lady Di and Major Egan.

“We could always find you another one. A better one, if you stop ignoring your husband and be a good little wife to him.” How she hasn’t figured out he got her a vibrating fake cock is beyond him; he never gets anything past the witch.

“I’m always a good wife to you, love.” Di laughs and yet leaves the tree alone to come and climb onto his lap. She kisses him sweetly and holds onto him as he sat up getting comfortable for something much better than decorating a Christmas tree.

“Especially when your wet and ready to go for daddy.” Bucky let her free his little soldier from his pants as he undid the fastenings of her dress. He’d said the dress would stay on, just not how.

His English girl takes him all in and takes his hand to the slight bulge his cock gives her while they fuck hard and loudly not giving a shit the neighbors can hear them fucking. “How couldn’t I be when I hear your filthy thoughts as clearly as if you say them?”

Mind-reader, too.

“Suppose I gotta make those words a reality, can’t have you thinking your man is all talk, Lady Di, can’t I?” John’s grip on her hips grows tight as he thrusts up to meet her hips and goes as deep as his princess can handle. They’re good together, like a good duet making sweet music even if Buck’s not often here to make it a trio.

There’s tinsel on the fucking couch, but it doesn’t matter when Di locks her tan legs behind his waist until they both come hard and fast while everyone else goes on about their afternoon outside. Bucky stays inside her, content to be buried in her cunt and home where the war never touched a damn thing. They used to fuck to the sound of bombs near and far, to the sirens of ambulances seeking out the injured and planes coming and going.

He used to talk dirty to her while taking shelter from the air raids, as she checked him for injuries and patched him up if need be. Now he tells her filthy things in peace and quiet where there’s nothing actively trying to kill them.

John Clarance Egan has no fucking clue what he did to get a woman like her. “Don’t fucking know how I got you to notice me when you had your pick of the litter?”

“You talked dirty and fucked me blind against a tree, remember?” Her words are just as breathless as his and kissed him harshly like her life depended on him.

[phoenixstark1708]

the daughter of an archangel

chapter 1

sooo..... this is my backstory in my marvel DR, major trigger warnings, this also crosses over into supernatural later, but i havent even written that yet.

trigger warnings: abuse, torture, blood, death, fucked up timeline, etc.

pairings: later will be sam/dean winchester, and even later will be bucky,

in this, endgame/inf war doesnt happen, i took plenty of creative liberties.

summary: (this is written in first-person) phoenix is a girl who was created by the nazi organization HYDRA, and she meets the winter soldier on a mission, i cant say much more without spoiling future chapters. will try to proofread but no promises.

word count: 2,654/10,649 - that ive written so far.

change of POV's will be indicated

“Get up you stupid pig!” the guard said, in a thick Russian accent, banging the cell door with his truncheon. He shone a flashlight in my eyes, making them burn from the lack of light for the past two days. I stretched out my sore muscles, wincing from the scabbed-over cuts all over my body. After days of no contact with anyone, just me and the cold, dark cell. Somehow being dragged away for training almost feels like a blessing. I stood and allowed him to cuff me. at this point, I know the drill. “so, Angel, how was your weekend?” He asked while holding my shoulder, guiding me out of the cell – the only place I’ve known as home for my whole life – literally. I was born in the damned bullpen. My mother died during birth, I guess having twins really had her beat.

On the way to the hell chamber – sorry, training room - I saw him, I saw Benjamin. For the first time in weeks, I saw my twin. He looked rough. Probably just had a sparring sesh with one of the winter soldiers. he’s always been smaller than me, But there was something different. he seemed especially weak. I haven’t eaten anything in what I assume has been around 4 days. He probably hasn’t either. They were always doing this, trying to weed out the weaker members. Its grim, but I knew he would die soon. It was clear that I was stronger, and if it came down to it, I would kill him without a second thought. After all, that’s how I was trained. I was bred, raised, and trained to be ruthless. And that is the only reason that I am still alive. HYDRA has no room for error.

As I walked into the training room, I saw the winter soldier, long, brunette hair, with a metal arm. The only time ive ever seen him is in cryo-sleep, he looked so peaceful, so harmless. The man standing before me was soemthing different entirely. His eyes were blue as ice, and just as cold. He looked right through me, almost like a drone. “this is her first mission. You will be supervising her.” he hands the man with a metal arm a file containing four pictures of senator james martin, whos been a public neusence for hydra for a while. The winter soldier grabbed me by the arm and dragged me through the door.

It was a quiet drive on the Harley, at the moment, we were just n full assassin gear. My small arms were wrapped around his waist, making him clearly tense up. His metal arm was glinting in the moonlight as we pulled into a nearby parking garage, a birdseye view of the gathering senator martin. “I will stay up here while you go inside. As many casualties as possible. No survivors.” He said gruffly, setting up the rifle. “They won’t let me in. I’m wearing a costume.” I said, my voice gravelly from days of no use. He glanced down at me for the first time, and gazed at me for a moment, before pulling out a T-shirt that had the senators face on it, and a pair of grey sweatpants. “Change into these, keep your weapons concealed until my signal.” I quickly stripped. he turned away, giving me privacy. I was more then used to being watched, so this was surprising. I fixed the too-large clothes, and looked harmless. Instead of looking like an eight-year-old assassin, I looked like a normal kid.

There was something in the winter soldier’s eyes that I didn’t recognise, almost like affection. I walked down the stairs of the parking garage, feeling his eyes on me the whole way. Slowly, I crossed the street, nearly getting hit by a truck that I didn’t know to look for. As I made my way to the entrance of the granite building, I noticed trucks outside, like the kind I saw at my home, - armoured trucks. I, of course thought this was normal. “Careful, there are hostiles in the building. Captain America and the black widow are protecting the target.” His voice came through my earpiece. “I don’t know who they are” I whispered back. “You will. They won’t want to hurt you, use that to your advantage.” And with that, he went radio silent.

As I walked barefoot through the large doors, I spotted a woman in a similar outfit to what I wear, only without the red skull. She spotted me immediately, and I tried to disappear through the crowd. I was unsuccessful. A man in a red, white, and blue uniform grabbed my arm gently, holding a shield in his other hand. “Who are you kid?” He peered down at me “I’m here to see my daddy.” I said, feigning panic. I pulled my arm out of his grasp and ran toward a random man, tugging on his shirt. Shield guy turned away before he could see the man push me away. I stayed by him, trying to convince the people that he was my father. I got a little turned around, when a perverted looking man grabbed my wrist “hey sweetheart. You’re gonna come with me now.” He said, his voice just as weird as him. The man in the jumpsuit put his hand on his shoulder “why dontcha leave the girl alone pal.” He dragged him away.

Just then, his signal came, by shooting the senator in the gut, taking him down. The panic set in immediately. People running around screaming like headless chickens. The man with the metal arm burst through the door, sealing off the only accesable exit. I grabbed the first person I saw, they just happened to be the senators daughter. She couldn’t have been more then seventeen; I snapped her neck. I unfurled my wings and tripped some old man with them. I stabbed him in his corroded artery, a fatal blow. Killing got easier the more I did it.

The fight went on like this for a while, until the red-haired woman pushed me to the ground “stay down kid.” seeing me pinned down, the man i was on the mission with began to make his way over to me. I waved my hand, and the woman went flying, hitting the wall with a thud. Oh yea, something I forgot to mention; I'm not a normal person. In addition to having my DNA spliced with the peregrine falcon, giving me wings, and the ability to fly, I was also experimented on with energy from the soul stone, one of the six infinity stones. Ergo, I had ‘powers’. The winter soldier stared at me, shocked, his brief moment of distraction caused him to get a wooden chair to the head. He shot the dude that hit him.

The man in the flag costume, and the woman ran. Smart. Tactical retreat. I ran to every person I saw, and killed as many as I could. Once we were sure that there were no more targets, the winter soldier grabbed me, and threw me on the motorcycle behind him.

We stopped at a motel that charged by the hour… if that tells you anything. “we will stay here for a while. You need to get clean, I know that the hoses hurt.” he said, a hint of compassion in his voice. Hes right. They used fire hoses to ‘clean up’ whenever any of us got dirty. I walked into the bathroom and stripped. I didn’t close the door, because I assumed I wasn’t allowed to. I didn’t know how to use the shower so I just sort of stared at it, waiting for it to turn on. The man walked in, turned the handle of the shower, and left. I jumped when water started to spurt out of the faucet. I stepped into the water slowly, gauging the temperature before completely immersing myself into it. My muscles involuntarily relaxed at the sensation of the warm water. I began rubbing the dirt off of my limbs when the winter soldier walked in.

He didn’t look at me, but made a damp washcloth and started cleaning his wounds. They were worse then I assumed, and I coudnt help but observe him while washing the rest of the dirt off of my body. I only sustained minor cuts and bruises in the fight, but he had deep lacerations on his face, presumably from the chair. I stepped out of the shower and stood there, a towering three-foot-seven-inches, short for my age. He glanced at me and handed me a towel while dabbing his wounds “whats this for?” I asked “dry yourself. They will notice our absence if were not back soon.” so, I dried myself off, and put on my uniform, running my fingers over the red skull with tentacles, like a squid. I giggled, imaging it wiggling its tentacles.

Bucky

The little girl was looking at her uniform, giggling. For a moment I thought of two young girls in brooklyn. I was a teenager with sisters… what? No, I wasn’t. I am a weapon for hydra. Whats going on? I was steadily bleeding from the prick who hit me with a chair, we needed to get back to base. She suddenly looked up at me, concern evident in her sweet, blue eyes. “are- are you okay? You're bleeding,” she frowned. “Let me help you. I can make people feel better.” I skeptically sat on a bed near where she was standing. She slowly reached over to me; I shied away when her hand got close to my wound, remembering the various punishments I've had over the years. I am a wild animal. I need to be controlled. She looked into my eyes, the child-like glimmer long gone. It's unfair; all children should have that. No. She is not a child; she is a weapon. That’s it- like me. She gently laid her small hand on my head near the cut. All of the sudden her eyes started glowing, a certain gold color I'd never seen before. Her hands began glowing the same, and my head started tingling.

I immediately felt better. I can't explain it, but she somehow lodged herself into my memory, unintentionally. And I knew I would never forget her. She looked at me worried, noting the glazed look in my eyes. “are you alright? I'm sorry if I hurt yo-” I cut her off “My name is Bucky,” I blurted out; I had no idea where that came from. “You need to call me Winter, or ‘the winter soldier’, otherwise they’ll kill us both” she looked at me confused and alarmed “okay… I will” “we need to go back.” so I took her small hand, gently, and led her to the HYDRA-issued motorcycle we came here on. The drive back to base was cold. I could feel it in my bones. I couldn’t help but wish I could help her warm up. I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I knew HYDRA wouldn’t like it. I am a machine. Not a man.

I rode up to the gate “солдат?” soldier? “миссия успешна. приветствую гидру.” mission successful. hail hydra. The gate opened, and we rode into the garage. She was immediately ripped off the back of the bike and dragged away. “you are late. The camera in your suit shows you made a ‘pit stop’. She had an effect on you. You will both be heavily punished for this.” no. I practically jumped off the bike. I grabbed the mans neck and snapped it before being sedated. The last thing I heard before I got knocked out was “well, after we make them watch, we’ll have to wipe him again.” I woke up strapped to a modified autopsy table. Modified so I was reclined enough so that I had a clear view of the girl. And she had a clear view of me. One of the doctors walked in with an array of surgical instruments “doctor- sorry- creator! Thank goodness! I was scared we were taken by the bad people!” the little girls face lit up with relief. The doctor sighed and placed his kit on a surgical tray, the knives clattering against the cold steel. “child, птичий урод.” bird-freak “you have been very bad. And you know what happens to bad children.” he put on surgical gloves, and picked up a Sickle Probe, the device that dentists use. He walked toward her slowly “creator, im sorry! It was a mistake! Please. Im sorry” she cried out. however, she didn’t struggle against the restraints. “it is too late to apologise freak. You will be punished.” “yes sir.” she slumped against the autopsy table, keeping her fear-filled eyes on the doctor. He walked up to her small body, and turned off the magnetic cuff, allowing her arm to fall. The monster grabbed her arm, and stuck the hook of the sickle probe into the inside of her elbow. She began silently crying from the pain, blood slowly dribbling from the wound. He slowly dragged the hook down her arm, toward her wrist, tearing her skin. The blood was flowing heavily now, and he was trying to stifle her cries. After reaching her wrist, he put the probe down and picked up a rusty razorblade.

He moved to her chest, and drug the blade down her sternum, and to her lower stomache. She was crying freely now. “heal yourself.” she did as she was told, her eyes glowing gold, and the wounds shimmering as they healed instantly. He grabbed a klein tool – essentially a broader pliers. He walked to her bare feet, and clamped down on her small toe. He bent it to a sickening angle, causing the bone to snap with a disturbing CRACK. She screamed. He used the wire-clipping part of the klein tool to cut off a patch or skin on her foot. He grabbed a knife, and made slow, deep, and deliberate cuts all over her body. After nearly an hour, he decided hed had enough of that. he only reason she was still alive was because she wasn’t fully human – she couldn’t have been. “heal. Now. Not your foot though. You will deal with that.” she did as she was told. She was exhausted. She collapsed against the table before he shocked her with a set of jumper cables rigged up to a car battery. While watching this, I struggled against the restraints so much, my wrist began to bleed. Every time I screamed for them to let her go, my restraints would get an electrical charge. I was muzzled like a dog. Reminding me that I am no better then one. I am one. She screamed every time he cut her, shocked her, stabbed her, or tore the skin off her flesh. When she screamed, the building would shake. Not figuratively either.

She was clearly more powerful than she could see. She could easily kill him, she could kill everyone in this god forsaken building. HYDRA had control over her mind. But not in the same way as they had mine. They beat her down, made her feel powerless, made her think wrong is right, and right is wrong. I have to get her out of here. The doctor made his way over to me “judging by your reaction, she made an imprint on you. Well, time to forget her!” he said, laughing malevolently. “no! You cant-” I was cut off by a blow to my temple. They dragged me to the Memory Suppressing Machine. A white hot pain ripped through me. I couldn’t remember the mission, but I could remember a girl. A sweet, young girl. I knew I should protect her. As far as they're concerned, I don’t remember a thing. “Желание. Семнадцать. Ржавый. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Товарный вагон” my trigger words.

let me know if you wanna be tagged in pt2

[margarethx]

It’s weird how people treat Bucky as the mysterious and secretive one within Sambucky when you can look at him for like two seconds and deduce everything you need to know about him. Sad boi, traumatic past, doesn’t like talking about it, quiet, frustrated, you better don’t interact with him unless he lets you.

Sam Wilson on the other hand? I have no clue what’s going on in his head most of the time. (I mean... I kind of do, as a viewer. But I’m not sure the characters he encounters are just as informed.) He seems like a pretty positive, optimistic person, but there are so many moments when he just looks desperate and on the verge of tears. Like he’s not sure anything will ever work in his favour. He doesn’t talk much about his emotions or his past unless it’s very relevant - and he does that mainly to connect with other people through shared experience. That’s why he mentioned Riley’s death. Or his aunt... who also died.

Karli called him a hopeless optimist. But is he an optimist? I wouldn’t say so. He likes joking and smiles... relatively often... but that’s it. For me he seems more like a realist who knows when he can get the job done to fix a problem. And he fixes a lot of problems. It seems like he helps other people all the time, so you might think he’s just selfless. But his desperate attempts to keep the family boat against Sarah’s protests were pretty selfish. (Objectively. I’m not judging him here.) Giving the shield away was not exatly selfish (he had every right to do so), but he still didn’t listen to anyone telling him to take up the mantle, because he didn’t want to, end of discussion.

For people like Walker he seems like a sidekick and a “wingman”. Someone who followed Steve around. But he didn’t. Sam made all the decisions himself - in ca:tws Steve even discouraged him from joining the fight. He went and fought anyway. Even Bucky, who knew Sam way longer than Walker, just assumed that he went against the Accords, because Steve did. But Sam formed his opinion first - it just happened to align with Steve’s. And how can he be a sidekick who just follows other people when during just his second conversation with Steve he said he likes working at the VA, because there’s no one above him giving him orders and that’s nice?

“Sam is the rational one!” - says the fandom. ...Sam kicked a fucking helicopter mid-flight. And jumped into one almost falling into the rotor.

“Sam is stubborn and will hold a grudge for a long time” - says the fandom (or at least the part of it who clearly dislikes the guy). ... Meanwhile, Sam helped Tony find Steve right after he was shot by him in the face for an accident that was not Sam’s fault. And he helped Vision in Infinity War even thought he was part of said accident. He still talks with Rhodey like they’re okay and nothing happened. And he tried to become friends with Barnes after he almost killed him three times. (As the Winter Soldier, but still.)

Zemo didn’t expect Sam to not hesitate about rejecting the serum.

Karli was surprised by Sam’s character. Later she was suprised again and disappointed that he (of all people) decided to become the new Captain. Isaiah didn’t expect him to take the shield either. But he did take it and Isaiah had to admit he was wrong about Sam after he heard his speech.

“I never said pilot ;)” ... Yeah, I know. You never did, Sam. Because you say so little about yourself. And it’s so vague and carefully selected.

“He speaks Arabic...” Yeah, Torres. I was surprised too.

--- ----- ---

This whole show (and Sam’s entire story in the MCU) seems like it’s just a person after a person, after a person making assumptions about Sam and then realizing that... Actually they were wrong the whole time. Either partially or complitely. 

Sam is so secretive about his own thoughts and feelings that he tricked everyone around him into thinking he’s an open book, so no one bothers to even ask any questions. Because they feel like they know him, but... Do they really?

And I can just imagine that the longer Sam and Bucky work and live together the more Bucky sees how other people misjudge his partner... all the damn time. (Just as he himself used to do.) They just assume Sam will let them do anything they want and he doesn’t. Or they assume they can give him orders and he’s like: “Subtle? Got it!” - and does whatever he planned, following only his own rules.

It must be pretty amusing to watch. And it probably feels like some kind of honour to actually get a chance to know the real Sam Wilson.

[bxcketbarnes]

Assassination to Soulmates

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (Soulmate AU)

Words: 4200+

Author’s Note: I see a lot of soulmate type pov’s on tik tok and decided to write one of my own, and here it is. I did not expect it to be so long... oops. Uh, I really hope you enjoy it! Lemme know what you think, okay? I love feedback xox

"Mr. Pierce says that he needs to be eliminated," you hear a gruff voice say, and your brows furrow together, halting your footsteps.

You peek your head around the corner of the dark alleyway, seeing two men with guns in their hands and another man kneeling on the pavement.

"Well, we shouldn't be doing it right here," the other guy suggests and turns his head towards you. You quietly gasp and shuffle out of view before they could see you, feeling your heart pounding against your chest. "There could be eyes anywhere and then we'll get out asses chewed out."

"It's almost midnight, dude. There's no one out right now. C’mon, just fucking do it so I can go home."

You peek around the corner once more in time to see one of the men lift his gun before shooting the civilian in the head. Your eyes widen and a louder gasp leaves your throat, gaining the attention of the two gunmen.

"Goddamnit, I told you!" One of the men shouts and you start booking it down the street.

You start to hyperventilate as you can hear the footsteps running after you. A few gunshots are heard and you duck your head before running down a side street.

Fuck fuck fuck. You curse to yourself as you desperately try to find somewhere to hide. You eye the dumpster warily, not exactly wanting to jump into it but there's no way you're outrunning these guys.

You quickly throw the dumpster lid up and jump inside, resisting the urge to gag as you quietly close it afterward. You hold your breath as you hear the footsteps become louder, huffing and puffing leaving the men's lips.

"Goddamnit. She got away," one of them states and you chew on your lip, keeping your breathing steady.

"Not for long. We'll send him after her. Pierce will know what to do. C'mon," the other mentions and you wait a bit longer as their footsteps grow quieter.

You sit in the dumpster for what feels like forever before deciding to finally leave. Your heart beats quickly against your chest as you constantly look over your shoulder during your walk home.

Who were they?

Who's Pierce?

Are they in a gang?

What did they mean by sending him after you? Who were they talking about?

Why did they kill that man?

So many questions go through your head as you shakily unlock your apartment door, slipping inside the dark space. You let out a deep breath and rest your head against the wooden object, feeling like you're going to vomit.

You lock your door behind you, deciding that you're not going to leave for a bit before things cool down.

It's been almost a week since the night you witnessed a murder. Almost a week you've been hiding out in your apartment, too scared to leave for anything. Your anxiety has heightened since that night and you find yourself pacing in your bedroom multiple times a day.

A sigh leaves your lips and runs a hand through your hair, deciding to take a bath to ease your mind. You strip yourself out of your night clothes before walking into the bathroom, turning the faucet on.

You wait a few minutes for the water to fill up, staring at the clearness as that night flashes through your memory. You shake your head before letting out another sigh, needing to get your mind off the horrible event.

You grab a bath bomb from under your sink and remove the plastic wrapping before dropping it into the tub. You step in and lower yourself into the steaming hot water, your hands gripping the edge of the tub so hard your knuckles are white.

"I can't live in fear forever," you say to yourself while sinking further into the water. You calm your nerves for almost an hour when your door opening catches your attention.

You quietly try to get out of the tub, leaving the water in it, and grab a towel from the rack beside you. You press your lips together as you tightly wrap the fluffy material around you, securing it before walking closer to the closed door.

Something crashes from the other room and your breath hitches in your throat, causing you to stumble into the shelving unit beside you. You wince as a few things get knocked off the shelf and you quickly turn the light off before hiding in the corner.

You suppress a scream when the bathroom door gets kicked open, the wooden structure coming off the hinges completely. What the fuck. Your eyes look towards the man who walks into the room, his long hair and the mask he's wearing covering his face.

You swallow the lump in your throat as your eyes come into contact with the metal arm he's repping. Who is this guy? You think to yourself as he walks farther into the room.

Taking a deep breath, you quietly sneak your way towards the open doorway without having the strange man notice you. A gasp leaves your lips as he turns around immediately, seeing his steel-blue eyes reflecting off the moonlight.

You quickly make a run for it, not making it very far as the man easily catches up. You go to open your front door when he slams you against it. A groan escapes your lips and you glance over your shoulder to see him raising his fist. You dodge his fist, crouching a bit as the metal fist bursts through the door.

Your heart pounds against your chest as he suddenly wraps his hand around your throat. Eyes widening in fear, you start to pry his metal hand off of you. You're gasping for air as his grip tightens and your eyesight begins to grow fuzzy. "P-Please…" you plead as best as you could, looking into the eyes of the man in front of you. "I-I won't say anything I swear. I'll move to a different country if I have to."

The man doesn't lighten his grip and you're sure that you're going to die here. Black dots begin to fill your vision as your struggling dies down. Your window shatters and the man gripping your throat suddenly lets go of you.

You fall to the floor, taking in deep breaths as you attempt to crawl away. You look towards your shattered window to see Captain America standing in your living room, relief filling your body as the two men begin to fight.

It doesn't take long before the metal-armed man jumps out the window, but not before looking back at you one more time. You cough a bit, gathering your oxygen back as your eyes begin to finally focus.

"You okay, Miss?" The Captain asks you while kneeling beside you.

You nod your head a bit before looking up at the man. "T-Thank you," you choke out and rest your head against the floor.

Captain America gently moves your head to look at your neck, seeing the skin already bruising. "Why was he after you?" He questions with a furrow on his brows.

You slowly sit up, letting out another cough as you rest your back against the wall. "I witnessed two people kill someone," you inform him and a hum leaves his lips.

"I'm Steve," he introduces while holding his right hand out for you to shake.

"Y/N," you tell him and raise your left arm to shake his hand, his blue eyes drifting towards the birthmark on your arm.

Steve tilts his head before looking up at you through your lashes. "Interesting mark," he mumbles and your cheeks flush, pulling your arm away from him. "My friend, Bucky… he used to have one just like it."

Your heart breaks at the past tense he uses, your eyes casting down to the unique shape on your arm. "Used? He- Is he dead?" You ask softly and Steve nods his head.

"It's strange though since he was born in 1917," Steve mentions and a short groan leaves your lips. Of course.

"Only I would have a soulmate that's not from this day and age," you sigh while subconsciously rubbing the mark. "I've kinda got used to the fact that I'll be alone, so I guess it's not so bad."

Steve frowns and lays a hand on top of yours. "You'll find someone. Whether it be your soulmate or not. Maybe there's another out there that has the same mark."

You nod your head, not wanting to talk about it and Steve moves to stand up. "Steve?" You ask and look up at him, gaining his attention. "What am I supposed to do? I-I can't stay here."

He smiles kindly at you and holds his hand out for you to take. "C'mon, I know a place where you can stay," he mentions and your lips part slightly and you grab a hold of his hand.

-

"So, this Winter Soldier is after her? Damn, he's got a lot of contracts," Sam mentions as you, him, Natasha, and Steve sit at the table.

Steve brought you to Sam's place, informing you that you can trust him to keep you safe. You fiddle with your fingers as you listen to their conversation, not making any attempt to say anything.

"Y/N?" Steve asks and you snap your head up, looking towards the man. "The three of us are going to leave. We've got some stuff to do, but please stay inside and out of sight, okay?"

You gulp and nod your head, mumbling your thanks to Sam. The man smiles gently and waves his hand. "It's no problem. A friend of Steve's is a friend of mine. I'm glad to help," he tells you and you smile in reply.

Steve pats your shoulder, mumbling to you that it'll be alright before the three of them walk out the door. You wait a few minutes before standing up from your chair, walking towards the window to see if everything is clear.

A deep breath comes from your lips as you think how stupid this plan is, but you couldn't get Steve's friend he mentioned out of your head. You recall the blonde mentioning that Bucky was alongside him in the war before he fell from a train in Germany, so you decided to sneak to the museum to see if they have anything on him.

You grab one of Sam's hoodies that sits on the edge of the couch, quickly putting it on before walking out the front door. You shove your hands into the hoodie pocket while lowering yourself into the cab, telling the driver to bring you to the museum.

You pay the driver once you get to your destination before heading inside. You walk around the Smithsonian, taking in brief information as you suddenly find Bucky's memorial. You see a picture of him and Steve together, smiles on both of your faces, and your chest clenches.

He's cute. You think to yourself as you frown, seeing a full-body photo of the man and notice the unique birthmark on his left arm. You bring your hand to your mark, gently rubbing it as you silently wish you could've met him.

You've always been confused by the whole soulmate's thing. You've never heard about two people who lived in different generations having the same mark. It made you curious for sure, but you didn't know any expert on the matter.

You leave the Smithsonian after almost an hour when you hear screams in the distance. You throw your hood up, not wanting anyone who works with those two men to recognize you as your feet take you closer to the chaos.

You're hiding behind a few cars that have been knocked over and your breath hitches in your throat upon seeing the Winter Soldier and Steve fighting. You watch as Steve throws the soldier over his shoulder, noticing that his mask fell off in the middle of it.

Steve's eyes widen as the man slowly turns to face him and your eyes begin to widen as well. How's that… "Bucky?" He asks and the brunette tilts his head a bit.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" The Winter Soldier asks before going to raise his gun when Sam comes flying in, kicking him in the back.

You quickly leave the scene as Steve gets arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D., noticing Bucky walking down an alleyway and you stupidly decide to follow him. You keep your head down slightly as the two of you walk farther into the alley, trying to gather the courage to yell out to the man.

Your brows furrow together when you look back up to see the Winter Soldier disappeared. "What the-" you mumble and quickly turn around, finding yourself alone. You turn back around and let out a gasp as the soldier now stands in front of you.

His metal arm wraps around your throat once more, pressing you against the brick wall. "Who are you?" He asks and your eyes stare into his.

"I'm Y/N," you whisper and Bucky pulls out a knife. You panic slightly and grab a hold of his wrist, stopping him from stabbing you.

Flashes of the two of you together flood your minds, your chest rapidly rising and falling. Another gasp leaves your lips as the flashes fade and tears come to your eyes. The soldier suddenly lets go of you and stumbles back, a look of confusion on his face.

"What was that? What did you do?" He asks and you can hear the agitation in his voice.

"I-I didn't do anything," you stutter and place your hands up in defense. You swallow thickly and push the sleeve upon your arm, revealing the birthmark etched in your skin. "Do you… do you recognize this at all?"

Bucky's blue eyes dart down to your forearm, seeing the unique mark before furrowing his brows. He gently brings his hand to your arm, feeling his fingertips glide over your warm skin.

Before he has the chance to say anything a blunt force meets the side of your head, knocking you out instantly. Bucky manages to catch you before you fall, glancing to his left to see two agents standing beside him.

"Pierce needs you. Bring her too. He'll want to see her," he states before walking away.

-

You jolt awake when someone throws a cold bucket of water onto you, a yelp leaving your lips as you shake your head. "What-" you cut yourself off as you try to move your limbs only to find them restrained. You look around the room, seeing about five other agents standing around along with a few scientists.

Blue eyes meet yours and your breath hitches in your throat, seeing Bucky sitting in the chair across from you. "Buck-" you start but get cut off by the man beside you, your cheek stinging by the slap you received.

"Not a word," the man growls and you swallow the lump in your throat, nodding your head in reply.

The Winter Soldier stares off as the scientists work on his arm, looking to be lost in his mind. You jump when Bucky suddenly swings his metal arm, sending the scientist that's working on it across the room.

The guards raise their guns, aiming them at the man and you start to worry that they might kill him. Your cheat heaves rapidly as you keep your eyes on him, hearing the door to whatever room we're in opening before closing once more.

"Mission report," an older gentleman demands and you tear your eyes away from Bucky. "Oh, and a familiar face. A job you couldn't finish I see."

Bucky goes to move out of his seat when the older man walks towards me only to have two agents hold him back. You try to pry your hands from the restraints, wanting nothing more to be out of this place.

A gasp leaves your lips when the man slaps you in the same spot as the last slap you received. Tears spill from your eyes as the stinging almost becomes unbearable. "Leave her alone," Bucky suddenly says, causing the man in front of you to whirl his head around.

"Interesting," he goes and looks between the two of you, a smirk on his lips. "Now, what would be the reason why our asset would suddenly want to protect you?"

"Mr. Pierce," an agent pipes up causing the blonde to look towards the man standing beside you. The agent lifts your sleeve to reveal the birthmark on your arm. "We believe that they're somehow soulmates."

Pierce clicks his tongue before letting out a laugh. "That is interesting indeed, isn't it? I'll get to you later," he tells you and turns to face Bucky. "Mission report, now."

Bucky's eyes stay on yours and you can see a tinge of softness in them when Pierce crouches in front of him slightly. You jump once again when the older man backhands Bucky, the soldier whipping his head a bit before furrowing his brows.

"The man on the bridge," he mumbles and looks towards Pierce, "who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment," Pierce tells him and Bucky's eyes dart towards yours.

"I knew him."

Pierce grabs the stool beside him before sitting down onto it. "Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos, and tomorrow morning we're going to give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine. And HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves," he explains to the soldier.

"But, I knew him," Bucky states once more before pressing his lips together. You can practically see his brain putting the pieces together about Steve and you're feeling relieved. Bucky looks back towards you once again, seeing an unreadable emotion in his blue eyes. "And she's my soulmate."

Pierce lets out a sigh and stands up from the stool, telling the scientist beside him to prep Bucky. "He's been out of cryo freeze too long," the man in the lab coat explains as your heart begins to pound in your chest.

"Then wipe him and start over."

"W-Wait," you whisper to yourself as the two scientists lean him back in the chair. Bucky places the mouth guard into his mouth when his eyes meet yours. His chest heaves quickly when he gets locked into place, his head leaning back as the electrode machine begins to descend onto his face. "Stop!"

You thrash in your chair as Bucky's muffled screams echo off the walls. Tears stream down your face as you squeeze your eyes shut, not being able to watch what's happening to him.

"What do we do with her?" An agent asks the older man and you can feel his eyes on you.

"Wait until he's done and then have him kill her," Pierce orders before walking out of the room.

A couple of the agents undo your restraints and lift you from your chair. You thrash and kick amongst their grasp, doing everything you can to get out of their death grip. Screams leave your lips as you look back towards Bucky, his screams stopping as the scientists finish the mind wipe.

"Bucky, please!" You desperately call for help as the two men throw you into a concrete room before shutting the door.

You pant heavily as you back up against the corner of the room, running a hand through your hair. You can faintly hear them ordering him around on the other side of the door and you look up at the ceiling, feeling like that’ll be the place you'll die in.

The door bursts open and you jump, cowering against the wall as Bucky walks into the room. His blue eyes are stone cold as he waltz's over to you before wrapping his hand around your throat for the third time.

"Bucky," you plead, your hand resting on his chest and you frown when the flashes don't play through your mind again. Your lip trembles and you gasp for air when his hand squeezes.

You slowly bring your hand to his face, gently stroking his cheek as you begin to grow dizzy. Memories from the first time you met the Winter Soldier plays through your head as you slowly lose oxygen.

Bucky releases you and you slump to the ground, growing unconscious as the brunette looks down at you. He can still feel your hand on his face as he glances over his shoulder.

I'm getting you out of here. He suddenly thinks to himself while coming up with a plan.

-

Bucky drags his fingertips up to your spine as you sleep peacefully, his lips peppering light kisses along your arm. A soft knock on the door makes the man glance over his shoulder to see Steve leaning against the frame of it.

"How is she?" He asks while crossing his arms over his chest.

"She's good. No major injuries which are good," Bucky sighs while slowly removing himself from the bed, making sure not to wake you.

The two men walk out of the room you and Bucky share, the ex-Winter Soldier looking back at you once more before quietly shutting the door. "How are you feeling? With all of this?" Steve asks, causing Bucky's brows to furrow.

"What do you mean?"

A slight laugh comes from Steve as the blonde looks towards him. "The whole Soulmate thing. Is it going well?" He clarifies.

"Oh, uh, yeah. It's going great. Other than the times that I tried to kill her when we first met, I'd say we're doing well," he explains and scratches at his jaw.

Bucky and Steve sit at the table in the main area, seeing some of the others watching whatever's playing on the television. "Do you still think about it? The time you two first met?" Steve mentions and Bucky sighs before nodding his head in response. "You know that it's been four years, right?"

"Doesn't stop me from thinking about it, Steve. Hell, I still think about the people I've wronged as the Winter Soldier," Bucky comments with a sigh, leaning his chin against the palm of his hand.

"Did she tell you what she did when she first heard about you?" Steve asks and Bucky furrows his brow before shaking his head. "It was right after you jumped out the window of her apartment. I noticed the mark on her arm and mentioned that you used to have a similar mark on your arm back in the day."

Steve notices you walk into the living area and you press your finger to your lips, silently telling him to not say anything.

"So, Y/N told me this a few years later but when I brought her to Sam's place to keep her safe… she snuck out to go to the Smithsonian to learn more about you. She thought you died in the war, and well, so did I obviously."

Bucky's heart flutters a bit at the story he's telling, fiddling with his fingers. "I just… I don't know how she feels about everything, you know? Like, we've never really actually talked about it," he sighs and you frown from behind him.

You drape your arms over his shoulder, causing the older man to jump in his chair before whipping his head back. "Hi, Buck," you whisper and feel him relax at the sound of your voice.

Bucky rests his flesh hand on top of yours and squeezes gently. "Hey. How long have you been standing there?" He asks and you chuckle in response, placing a kiss on his cheek.

"Long enough to know that you don't know how I feel," you inform him and Bucky's heart stops, not wanting you to find out this way. "Why don't we go talk?"

Your soulmate nods his head and stands up from the chair he's sitting in. You lace your fingers together and lead him back to your shared bedroom. Once inside the room, Bucky sits down on the edge of the bed and you climb onto his lap.

"What's going on inside that pretty head of yours?" You softly ask while running your hands through his now short hair.

Bucky's hands rest on your hips, gripping the soft flesh every few seconds as he takes a deep breath. "Do you ever wish that you had someone… normal? Someone who's not a murderer?" He questions and you shake your head immediately. "You didn't even think about it."

"I didn't have to. Bucky, I don't care if you used to be the Winter Soldier and that you once almost tried to kill me. That wasn't you. You were being brainwashed by a horrible group of people," you explain to him and his blue eyes soften at your words. You smile at him before leaning in to kiss his lips. "I love you in every way possible. You're funny, kind, dorky. Everything a girl could ever ask for. So, please, stop worrying about me."

"God, you're incredible. How did I get so lucky?" Bucky asks with a slight laugh, hiding his face in your neck.

Giggles leave your lips as you card your fingers through his hair, pressing gentle kisses to the side of his head. "We all need someone to keep us grounded. I'm just glad I got you."

-

Taglist: @jessalyn-jpeg​ @bumblebet-20​ @queen-of-mischief​

[earlgreydream]

enemies.

| bucky x reader | fluff |

requested by @fitzfiles​ enemies to lovers 

this is technically a highschool au, but only slightly. we love bucky being a loveable ass out here

Your eyes narrowed and you glared at Bucky. You couldn’t stand him. Bucky was popular, flirtatious, and an asshole. He was always flirting with you at school, and you always felt like he was trying to make a joke of you in front of everyone. On top of that, it made other girls envy you, tainting friendships with jealousy.

It seemed like you were the only one who didn’t want Bucky Barnes. 

“You’re such an ass!” You snapped at Bucky, who only laughed in response. You hated when he tilted his head to the side, the stupid smirk you loathed pulling at his lips. 

“Don’t be like that, doll.”

“I’ll do whatever I want! Leave me alone, I’m not going to fall at your feet like everyone else!” You stood up from the library where he had been absolutely intent on distracting you from finishing your homework, the reason for the fight in the first place.

You were the only one who didn’t give him every ounce of attention he desired, and he was determined to get it. 

You sat on your bed, a folder of history homework open in front of you. You studied with music softly in the background, needing a break from trying to study with Bucky bothering you every five seconds. 

“Y/N,” your mom called your name as she walked in the door. 

You looked up, setting down the document on World War II. Your father was behind her, and you grew uneasy, wondering what they possibly felt they needed to both talk to you about.

“We’re worried about you, dear.”

“Worried? Why?” you laughed, surprised by their explanation.

“We’re just concerned that you don’t have the same social life people your age have. You seem to always be up here, studying in your room. We want you to meet some people, and have some fun,” your father explained.

You were confused by the explanation. You spent most of your time at school, and around other students. You did have friends, but you also prioritized your grades. You certainly were not the hermit they were making you out to be.

“You don’t need to worry-”

“But darling, you’ve never dated. One of our friends has the most charming son, and we think he’d be perfect for you. We want to set you up.” Your mother was smiling, and you raised your eyebrows.

“Perfect for me?”

“Yes! He’s so charming, and he’s sweet. He’s also incredibly intelligent, his grades are wonderful. He travels a lot, you know, has that worldly kind of sense. And, he’s beautiful. We were thinking of setting the two of you up, having them over for dinner.”

You couldn’t deny that this sounded too good to be true. The boy they were describing sounded perfect for you, and although you cringed at the idea of your parents setting you up, you were intrigued.

“What is his name?”

“James!” She beamed, and you raised your eyebrows.

“I will go on one blind date with him, if you stop giving me a hard time about my social life.”

“One date. You can meet him at dinner tomorrow, and then the two of you must go on one date. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. But try for us, honey.”

“I will, I promise,” you smiled at your parents, excited and nervous to meet your supposed dream-man. 

You dressed up for dinner once you were home from school. You’d never even seen this boy, and yet your tummy was filling with excited butterflies. Your name was called from downstairs, and you quickly ran down to meet them. 

You nearly tripped over yourself as you stopped dead in your tracks. You were met with an all-too-familiar silver gaze, and the smirk that made you so, so angry.

“Bucky.” 

Your voice was cold, and all of the butterflies shriveled up and died, the excitement fading from you. You were furious that you’d agreed to go on a date with him in addition to sitting through this dinner.

“You two know each other?” His mother asked, surprised.

“Quite well, actually. We have history together at school, right doll?” Bucky was trying not to laugh, only fueling your irritation. 

“It’s Y/N. And we’ve met, yes.” 

This motherfucker. 

Dinner was long and painful, and you were forced to listen to what a perfect prince everybody thought Bucky was. You were surprised to hear about his academic standing, one that competed with your own. It was clear by his expression that he didn’t want the news to get out that he wasn’t a complete anarchist. 

You cringed as your parents praised you too, unsure of who they were trying to impress. You were quiet, not giving a single damn about being polite to the boy you hated. 

“Why don’t the two of you go upstairs?” your mom suggested, and you sighed, holding back a massive eye roll. Being alone with Bucky was about last on the list of things you wanted to do.

You stood up under the pressure of four gazes, and Bucy followed you up the flight of stairs. He couldn’t contain his amusement for the situation, and you walked into your room and sat down on the edge of your bed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Did you know it was me?”

“No, I really didn’t. But I’m glad it is.” He almost sounded sincere.

Bucky looked around your room, taking in the soft lavender walls, and the white bedspread that you sat on top of. Everything was soft and sweet, like you. Fairy lights hung above the bed, casting a gentle glow over the room. Bucky thought you looked beautiful.

“Quit staring at me,” you snipped, pulling your knees up to your chest.

He smiled, stepping in from the doorway and sitting beside you on the bed. You were angry at yourself for noticing the way the lights seemed to make him look golden, glinting in the reflection of huge silver eyes.

“How could I not?” He breathed, and your heart stuttered in your chest.

No. No, this is not happening. You will not let yourself be seduced by this cocky asshole. 

“Save it for the date,” you rolled your eyes and he smirked. 

“You’re not looking forward to it?” Bucky asked, and you shook your head with a face.

“No, of course not.”

“Come on, I’ll show you a good time. You’ll probably even realize that you’re in love with me.” His grin was infectious, but you fought off the urge to smile back.

“In love with you? Hardly.”

“I’ll give you one night. You’ll change your mind.” 

“You seem confident,” you snarked, rolling your eyes at his arrogance.

“I always am.”

You watched him as his eyes traveled over the room, seeming to take everything in. Bucky noticed every small detail, including the sketch of daisies that leaned against the wall on top of your desk. 

When he was finally called away, he stood in front of you, leaning over you with one hand on the wrought iron bed frame. A soft smile broke onto his face, and you felt warmth spread through your chest, reaching up to your cheeks.

“Goodnight, doll.”

You scowled at the dress that was laid out in the end of your bed when you got home from school. You’d been dreading the date, especially when Bucky winked at you during history class. He didn’t make a show of embarrassing you in front of his friends. You hadn’t even heard gossip about it, so he must not have told anybody. 

You were a bit surprised, you thought that Bucky would seize the opportunity to be the subject of gossip and attention, dragging you into it with him. 

Your parents were out of town for the weekend, and you’d been set up for a friday date after school with Bucky. The doorbell rang, and you went to answer it, your eyes widening a bit when you saw him in jeans and a button down. 

Fuck, he was handsome. 

“Hi James.” 

“Y/N, you look beautiful,” he said honestly, and you couldn’t stop the warmth from blossoming on your cheeks. He held up a bouquet of daisies, and you bit back a smile, taking your favorite flowers from him. You realized he noticed the drawing, and something about that made you feel fuzzy inside. 

It was too bad you didn’t even like him.

“Let me set these down, thank you.” 

You put them in a vase on the table, and he followed you. 

“You didn’t tell everyone at school.” It was a statement, but you meant it as a question.

“Why would I? I knew you wouldn’t appreciate everyone in your business,” Bucky confessed. Despite the amusement he gained from getting on your nerves, Bucky did like you, and he did respect you. The idea of others participate in the teasing, more than just his bit of playfulness, upset Bucky.

He wanted you to like him. 

You followed Bucky outside to his yellow car, one that was sort of vintage. He didn’t drive to school, and you realized you had never seen his car, but it somehow fit him. You got in the passenger seat, and he handed you the chord to play your own music.

You nervously scrolled through your phone, deciding that the safest bet for music was bon iver, and he broke into a smile, leaning forward to turn up the stereo.

“I love this song,” Bucky grinned, surprising you.

“Where are we going?” you asked, leaning forward and watching the buildings pass by as he drove you to an unknown location. 

“Just trust me.”

He parked and was opening your door for you before you could get out. You stepped out and took his outstretched hand, deciding you had to at least give this as much of an effort as he was. 

His hand was soft and he squeezed you gently as he led you inside the huge aquarium in the city. It was your favorite place to go, and you wondered how Bucky knew that. 

“You mentioned it once, in class,” he spoke as if he read your mind, or at least read the bright smile on your face.

“I can’t believe you remembered... Or that you even listened,” you laughed.

“I always listen.”

You walked through tunnels filled with colorful fish, and they swam around you on all sides, even under your feet. You gasped and pressed your hands to the glass, letting go of Bucky as you watched a sea turtle swim by. Bucky watched your delight, smiling at your excited squeal.

“Look!” you pointed, and he grinned.

“I see, it’s so cool,” he indulged you. 

You moved through the tunnel, into a room of separate tanks, all smaller and holding their own creatures. You struggled to see the clown fish in the top, even standing on your toes.

“What’re you doing, doll?”

“Trying to see the nemo fish, but-” you squeaked as Bucky’s hands went around your waist, and he lifted you up so you could see. You blushed and smiled, looking at the fish swimming around. He gently set you down, and you wrapped your hands around his arm, a little bit shyly.

The two of you spent hours looking at the creatures, and you let him wrap his arms around your waist as you stood and watched the jellyfish. 

“They’re so pretty!” you gasped, and Bucky could see the reflection in your wide eyes, and he couldn’t ignore how his heart raced when he looked at you.

You found yourself feeling the same way.

“This was great, James. I didn’t think you’d manage to win me over, but this is the best date I’ve ever been on,” you confessed shyly as you left, the sky already dark. He beamed at you, his silver eyes lighting up when you smiled at him.

“I’m so glad, but we’re not finished yet, doll.”

“You spoil me,” you giggled, and he pulled you to the car.

“Come on, or we’ll miss it,” he hurried you, laughing as he got behind the wheel. 

He drove to a park and got a blanket from the backseat, producing a basket that you hadn’t noticed before.

“Picnicking in the dark?”

“Hush and come with me,” he insisted, laying out the blanket on the grass and pulling the food out. 

You bit into a piece of fruit, leaning against his side. You gasped as fireworks started to go off overhead, and you looked at Bucky, who just smiled back at you. 

“I thought you’d like them.”

You watched the light and colors explode in the sky, enjoying the dinner he brought. You ended up leaning back against Bucky’s chest, wrapped in his jacket when you complained of being chilly. You couldn’t believe that over the course of a few hours, he had managed to work his way into your heart, and you were now in his arms.

“Do you want to come in and stay?” you asked Bucky as he pulled up in front of your house.

“I’m invited?”

“Yes.” 

He smiled, grabbing sweats from his trunk, explaining that he always had a change of clothes, on account of being an athlete. You teased him with a giggle, going inside with him and up to your bedroom. 

You changed into a pajama set and laid on your bed with him, the two of you staring up at the tiny, glittering fairy lights above you.

“You look perfect like this,” you whispered.

“Not as perfect as you.”

“What happens Monday? Do you go back to being an ass and I go back to hating you?” your voice was soft, and although you were joking, the fear behind it was real.

“I was hoping I could call you my girlfriend on Monday.”

You leaned over and kissed him, answering the question. When he kissed you back, it was like a million tiny fireworks exploding inside of you, instead of in the sky overhead. 

“You changed my mind in one night.”

[medeafive]

no because your thing about nat having a side character death is so painfully true. so much so that everyone who isn’t a natasha stan, just forgets that she died to save the universe the same way tony did. and the fact that yelena was clearly the one to get her a gravestone (because it said sister, no one else knew about her family except them, and it’s under the trees like her mother’s was) meant that not a single avenger gave more than those few tears at the lake for her. at best(hopefully), we might get a little honouring for her at the barton household in the hawkeye series that’s it. steve shed two whole tears, bruce was solemn that he couldn’t bring her back, tony didn’t even fucking realise he was her family, and thor who didn’t have much of a relationship with her anyways, got a little angry. that’s it. and everyone that was currently snapped at the time gave us NOTHING. sam didn’t mention her once, which was honestly awful considering they were friends, and anthony loves natasha’s character. wanda, who nat genuinely cared for so much and worried about so much during their nomad days, had two words to say to clint about it. not to mention we even had t’challa acknowledge tony’s death despite barely knowing him/not liking him, even though he was actually friends with nat before and after she helped steve in CW, to the point where he let her stay in wakanda while she was a fugitive once they made up. and technically bucky doesn’t count because they barely touched on their shared history (but like also she still saved him multiple times, and would have interacted with him in wakanda after he came out of cyro), but we got nothing from him too.

natasha’s relationships with people (besides clint, and occasionally steve and bruce) often felt so one sided because she loved them all so much and they rarely batted an eye at her, and the way they treated her in endgame just solidified that. natasha worked her ass off to take care of each and every one of them, keep the team together, especially after civil war, and was honestly the glue of the mcu, and yet nothing.

anyways thanks to clint and yelena for being the only bitches to love her as much as she deserved.

All of that is true and you should say it!!!

I just think we shouldn't put it too much on the characters, if that makes sense. Like, Natasha's death in-universe wasn't Clint's fault (which is why we can't really get excited about Yelena going after him, he really really tried to save her) but narratively, it is - she had to die so he could live. I know it's hard to distinguish but for me, it's really the narrative and the structure of the movie that didn't give the characters more place to mourn. Like you said, casual viewers just forget Natasha died, probably already by the end of the movie, and that's because they didn't give her death the same impact as Tony's. Her death literally mattered less than his and that's just telling the audience that she mattered less than him. I think the characters come across as not caring enough to us but to the writers, it was the appropriate amount of mourning she deserved based on how important they thought she was, and that's not a lot.

This also shows in the movies and shows after Endgame. TFATWS didn't mention her even once even though she would have fit in at several points - neither her sacrifice nor the SHIELD data dump nor her role in Civil War, not any brainwashing parallels to Bucky, Sam literally says "Steve and I were on the run for years" without mentioning Nat was with them, Sharon didn't mention her once, she wasn't even in Bucky's victims book even though he tried to kill her three times. And the TFATWS story works totally fine without her because they didn't feel the need to address it any way. Meanwhile, Spiderman Homecoming is about Tony's death to an almost absurd amount, and that's because Tony's death is important(tm) and they expect it to matter to us and that's why they feel like they have to talk about the consequences even in future movies (see also that quote from the Eternals trailer about who leads the Avengers now that Tony and Steve are gone- they mattered. Nat didn't). Imagine if Tony or Steve or Thor would have died somewhere in the middle of Endgame - that wouldn't have worked, right? They wouldn't have dared get rid of them like that. But for Nat, it's okay because the implicit understanding is that she's just a side character and so she can die like a side character, too.

That's just my interpretation, of course- if your interpretation is that the other characters didn't care about her as much as she did about them, that's perfectly valid and angsty and good! I just feel like they're constantly telling us (through the narrative and the characters behaviour) that Natasha and her death shouldn't matter all that much.

I wasn't really upset that Nat died - characters die all the time, hell, Loki "died" in the first Thor movie and look where he is now - I'm mad because her death wasn't made to matter and they seem to think that's the appropriate weight the end of her arc should get. They could bring her back anytime if they wanted to. They just expect us to be okay with what she got and honestly, it seems like a lot of people are.

[stevetonyweekly]

SteveTony Weekly - May 2

I know I say every week that I read a lot this week but I have been indulging in my favorite coping technique and so this list is ridiculously long. Twitter encouraged me. Blame them. 

**Indicates my recent favs 

~*~ 

On the inherent homoeroticism of cake decoration by welcoming_disaster (616/8K)

“She’s matchmaking, Barton,” Carol sighed.

“We,” Thor corrected, thumping himself hard in the chest, “art matchmaking.”

“Who, Cap n’ Tony?” Clint asked, his mouth full.

“Cap and Tony,” Janet confirmed, cutting herself a thin slice of egg and gently depositing it on her whole grain avocado toast, “it’s getting ridiculous.”

“Wait, I thought they were—“ Clint frowned, glancing around the room as though to confirm. Nothing but confused faces met his questioning gaze. “Huh. I really thought they were fucking.”

“And there is the crux of the issue,” Jess licked a bit of spaghetti sauce off her lip.

“Aye,” agreed Thor, “there’s rub.”

-----------

The team tries to set up Steve and Tony. Things don't go as planned.

Baby lovers like you and me (never say die) by FestiveFerret (Old Guard AU/7.5K)

The Avengers. They'd found him frozen in the ice, told him he was immortal, of all things. And with the way he'd lived through seventy years deep in the Atlantic, he found himself inclined to believe them. They'd also been very… convincing.

Without question, they integrated him into their unit - The Avengers, a secret team of unkillables seeking wrongs around the world and making them right, supported and housed by an enigmatic billionaire named Tony Stark. Their immortality, it seemed, was a secret to everyone but him.

Ready, set, bake by ChocolateCapCookie (Great British Bake Off/11k) 

The Avengers are on a nationally televised baking competition, but nobody seems to have warned the producers that the Avengers, while they save the world everyday and put their loves at risk doing so, are a) insanely competitive, and b) absolutely terrible bakers. Steve Rogers, especially, has a competitive streak a mile wide, and he's determined to win this competition, but it's not easy when his only real opponent is also the man he's been in love with for years.

***To make flowers grow (in this barren heart) by SoldiersShield, KakushiMiko (Hanahaki AU/16K) 

“You hide yourself away in your technology, but you are just as human as the rest of them. Your heart betrays your desire to possess.” Her gaze falls to the arc reactor, and Tony's blood runs cold in his veins.

“The Earth will reclaim what we have lost,” she says, dragging a hand over the chestplate of the armor. “It is you, and your kind-- your greed that pulls life from the soil as if it were nothing. You will reap what you have sown, Stark. The avarice in your heart will strangle the very life out of you.” Arna meets his eyes once more, a serene smile on her face as she leans forward.

“I hope he is worth dying for,” she murmurs, before digging her hand into his ribcage.

(Tony Stark falls in love with Steve Rogers. A rogue enchantress ensures he pays for it.)

Shelter from the storm by silkspectred (KidFic/5k) 

Tony adopts a baby. Guess who's Majorly Fucked Up™ about it.

Keep on beating by itsallAvengers (Domestic Fluff/6K) 

There were an awful lot of things Steve loved about Tony. But one thing in particular Steve could never get enough of was his heartbeat.

The good or bad thing by petreparkour (Multiverse/10k) 

 “It’s the metal suit,” Thor informed Steve, his normally-booming voice tinny over the SHIELD comms. “What did Stark call it—Iron Man?”

“But he’s down here,” Steve protested as the Hulk roared in Stark’s face, startling him into waking with a shout. “How could—”

“It’s damaged,” Thor reported. “But it looks different. More advanced. And he—ah. He’s carrying you, Captain.”

“Please tell me nobody kissed me,” Stark breathed out, and then Stark’s voice suddenly came over the comms, but the man lying next to him hadn’t moved.

“Guys, come on, you’re killing me here. What is it, 2012? God, I hate time travel. First, I'm fighting Thanos. Now, I have to deal with my past self and Thor's bad haircut? Oh my God, Cap, yes I hacked their comms, they’re my comms.”

Steve nearly opened his mouth to protest that he hadn’t said anything when he realized that this replica of Tony Stark wasn’t speaking to him.

***The tipping point by nightwalker (Domestic Fluff/7K) 

Tony has a few quirks. Steve's still trying to figure them all out.

We two, how long we were fool’d by glassessay (Soulmate AU/9K) 

Steve Rogers comes into the world as unblemished as his mother. When Anthony Stark is born, his soulmark is an obvious pattern of ink across his tiny chest.

It only takes a century, two names, and a shared love of Walt Whitman for them to find each other.

The tape in the cave by betheflame (Canon Divergent/5K) 

Steve had no idea what was happening.

“You think I didn’t know that?”

Tony was staring Zemo down as though the Sokovian was actual vermin - which, Steve reflected, he kind of was.

“You think that I,” Tony continued, not hiding the sneer in his voice, “Anthony Stark, who has more powerful technology in my literal fingers than most nations have, that I wouldn’t know everything possible about how my parents died? That I wouldn’t know it wasn’t an accident, that your silly little HYDRA Nazi knock-off pals are the ones who murdered them? Please, you are pathetic.”

Happy ending by Robin_tCJ (No-Powers AU/28K) 

 Steve is a mobile massage therapist, and Tony is a stressed billionaire. What could go wrong?

With a decent happiness by torigates (Teacher AU/16K) 

Tony Stark is Iron Man. Steve Rogers isn't, and never was Captain America.

Or, the one where everything is the same except Steve is a kindergarten teacher.

Nothing left but scars by SailorChibi (MCU/6.7K) - Reread

Steve wakes up to the fact that no one ever compliments or even says thank you to Tony, and that he has fallen into the same trap of painting Tony with a specific paintbrush.

This is how he showers a very confused Tony with praise to make up for it.

Our hearts should remember and follow by frostfall (MCU/5K) 

Steve hums. “I didn’t know you could play. Or sing. Don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention it before.”

Tony shrugs. “It’s one of the few things, skills, I don’t flaunt. Not something people are interested in, anyway. Not gonna sway any board members by playing fucking Für Elise for them. Sides’, there’s a high chance I wouldn’t even play. Well, maybe if you get me drunk enough and near an instrument. Then, I might reconsider.”

(After a dream leaves Tony rattled, he turns to the piano as a way to distract himself.)

Finally, you and me by pensversusswords (Multiverse/10K) 

Because in every layer of time, in every conceivable dimension, he was always meant to love Steve.

By some miracle, Steve was meant to love him back.

***Full disclosure not required (but appreciated) by Potrix (Identity Porn/16k) 

The one where Steve knows more than he lets on, Tony knows less than he pretends, Clint has a big mouth, Bucky is a little shit, and everyone learns why keeping secrets never ends well.

Almost never, anyway.

Heartlines by nanasekei (MCU/7.9K) 

“Let me,” Tony repeats. He regrets it deeply, so much, he wants to stick the words back into his mouth again, and it must show, in the way his voice wavers. He feels exposed, all of a sudden, as if he’s asking something bigger than what he can actually say. Let me touch you, let me take care of you. “Just… Let me do it.”

i found a way to let you in, but i never really had a doubt (marriage series) by quidhitch (Marriage Series/16k) 

Tony Stark doesn’t believe in marriage. It’s nobody’s fault. —Well, it’s Howard's fault, probably, but Tony doesn’t like to think about that for too long, finds that it dredges up all sorts of issues he’d rather keep buried under a mountain of strategically employed sarcasm, humorous self-deprecation, and the occasionally effective substance abuse.

***Hide your love away by sineala (Soulmate/33K) - Reread

Tony has suspected for a long time that the soulmark on his chest matches Steve's -- but he's never told Steve about it. And then it's too late to tell Steve anything at all ever again. In the wake of Steve's death, the Skrull invasion, and Norman Osborn's rise to power, the identity of his soulmate is just one of the many things Tony cuts out of his memory forever.

When Tony returns to consciousness, he's forced to deal with the aftermath of a war he no longer remembers fighting, not to mention a Steve Rogers who can barely stand to be in the same room with him. Surely the last thing Tony could ever need in his life is more amnesia. But that's what he gets. And Tony's new missing memory just might be the key to finding out the truth of his soulmark... as well as his chance to make things right once and for all.

Break the chain (can’t live in circles again) by orphan_account (FWB/19K) 

There had been seven amazing weeks of dating Steve Rogers before Tony realised that they weren’t dating at all. And then it was a scramble to adjust to the situation as it had always been: being Steve’s friend-with-benefits.

And if Steve seemed a little confused and bewildered by the way Tony was acting, well. Tony was probably just misreading that, too.

Five times steve and tony (tried to) bail each other out of jail by Teyke (MCU/6k) 

Twice before Civil War, twice after, and once during. For very loose definitions of both 'bail' and 'jail'.

Cracked hearts under iron ribs by XtaticPearl (Established Relationship/14k)

Rhodey is away for almost six months now and comes to meet Tony after the mission. He doesn't understand the domesticity of the whole Tower and unknowingly sets off a whole truck of insecurities which make Tony crawl back into being a Stark instead of just Tony. The team is not at all happy and Rhodey joins them in trying to figure out a way to help their resident genius feel better in his skin.

The single biggest problem with communication by BlossomsintheMist (616/108K)

In the wake of Steve's return from the dead and the end of Norman Osborn's reign of terror, the superhero community is recovering--Steve has taken on a new role and Tony is trying to put his life back together. Things are still awkward between them, but they're determined to put things to rights. But when a discussion about their feelings leads to further misunderstandings, they discover that might be more difficult than either of them realized. Set in the early Heroic Age after the end of Dark Reign, this is a get-together story about crossed wires--and second chances.

What are friends for? by bobertsmallismydad (MCU /2.8K) 

In which Steve is targeted by a virus. Will the Avengers be able to save him in time?

Starving by festiveferret (Vampire AU/2K) 

Steve woke up starving.

***Everybody wonders (What it would be like to love you) by SoldiersShield (MCU/3K) 

“...Is that what this is about?” He asks slowly. Steve blanches.

“Oh my god. It is.” Tony has no right looking as giddy as he does. “Steven Grant Rogers, are you jealous?”

--

Or: Steve and Tony have been dancing around each other for a while now, and Steve's rather content with it. Attending a gala together just might change that.

Re(A)d all over by brandnewfashion, MusicalLuna (Drunk Flirting/3k) 

Contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark can blush.

It just takes Steve getting drunk on some magical Asgardian mead for it to finally happen.

***The Do-over Proposal by nightwalker (Established Relationship/1.2k) 

Steve wants to go on a journey, Tony doesn't think it's a good time, and Bucky needs to beat some sense into both these idiots.

A Winter’s Ball by alliejowrites (Victorian AU/3.8K) 

Steve moves to London in search of a patron, so that he can finally devote himself to painting. He is not expecting everything he finds upon meeting Lord Stark. A fluffy little Victorian AU. One-shot.

What’s a fanfic by starksnack (AvAc/1K) 

Kamala introduces Tony and Steve to the world of fanfiction. There is a surprising amount of content about them being gay.

[exyrpf]

best stucky fic recs pwease

Okay, disclaimer, these are all like five+ years old (which is the best Stucky era, imo) and definitely not the only ones I enjoy; these are just a few in my bookmarks on ao3.

In no particular order besides the order I bookmarked them and under a read more because there's a shit ton of them (really, it's a lot):

- hold me until we crumble; Not Rated, 23k

“Sam told me you were watching Antiques Roadshow,” Natasha says, shaking out her hair. “I assumed it was a national emergency.”

- despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained); Explicit, 72k

“They really didn’t want the mask to come off.” Hill thumbed through the scans, and pulled out a film that she then handed over to Sam, face mostly expressionless but for the flat line of her pursed lips.

Sam accepted the film and held it up to the light, angling so both he and Steve could see it, squinting at the outline of the Winter Soldier’s skull, and the blips of unnatural white that showed up, God, in his brain, not to mention about half his teeth, plus the mask, with its thin protrusions��

“Those are pins,” Steve realized. He looked over at Hill. “The mask—it’s nailed to his face.”

Hill’s face was as unmoved as ever. “Like I said. They really didn’t want it coming off.”

- family means no one gets left behind or forgotten; Teen, 11k

“Why did you think I wouldn’t like you for being gay?” Steve asks gently.

“You’re Captain America.” Eli’s got his teeth clenched and is resolutely looking ahead. “You stand for truth and justice and the American way. You stand for American morals. You stand for…” he shrugs awkwardly. “Not people like me.”

Steve blows the air out of his cheeks slowly, trying to figure out how to keep the anger out of his voice so Eli doesn’t think it’s at him.

Or, Steve comes to terms with his new world, and gains some children in the process.

- Mistake on the Part of Nature; Teen, 1.3k

Steve takes in Bucky's betrayed look and Sam's confusion, follows Sam's gaze to the pile of mangled fruit in the trash can. Sudden comprehension fills his face.

"Oh," he says. "Bucky found out about bananas."

In which an American icon is mourned. But probably not the one you're thinking of.

- Swear Jar; Teen, 1.5k

Bucky isn't the only troll in the future.

OR

Steve has a Swear Jar and he makes the Avengers pay up every time they cuss.

- Barnes & Rogers and the Goddamn Truth; Not Rated, 19k

There are three well-known facts at Shield High:

1. The history teacher Mr. Barnes is a stone-cold terror, and it’s not even because he only has one arm. 2. The other history teacher, Mr. Rogers, is a mysterious enigma, and it’s something to do with the body of a Greek God and contradicting stories of his past. (They’re all rumours, anyway.) 3. Mr Barnes and Mr Rogers hate each other.

Bucky wouldn’t have it any other way.

- perfectly right wrong number; Teen, 32k

It all starts because Steve is too dumb to handle his smartphone.

A wrong number AU in which Bucky Barnes doesn't enter Steve's life (meaning: Bucky wasn't born until the eighties, but Steve is still Captain America) until Steve accidentally dials the wrong number. Wherein there is a lot of texting, some advice via Natasha and Darcy, a bit of pining, and a first date in an amusement park. Oh, and on top of being a disabled veteran, Bucky is a professional catwalker. Literally.

- The power of the right shirt (a.k.a. God bless America); Teen, 1.2k

"He just…" Phil trails off, mouth gaping. He is staring at the field outside the house, eyes glazed.

Clint sighs. "Yeah, he just ripped a log in two with his bare hands."

- To fill it up with something; Teen, 21k

A fateful encounter with Dr. Strange leaves the Winter Soldier transformed, and Bucky Barnes reunites with Steve Rogers in a most unexpected way.

“Steve brings the puppy inside, into the apartment that doesn't quite feel like home no matter how much he's been trying. He isn't used to being alone. Before the war, he always had Bucky, and his mother until her death. During the war, Bucky was there, too—and the rest of the Howlers, of course—but Bucky always meant home. (And well, maybe Steve's already got a name for the puppy in mind)."

- build it bigger than the sun; Teen, 10k

“Yeah, because nothing says heteronormative like living in Dupont Circle for two years and wearing skin-tight shirts to hit on hot airmen when you go running in the morning.”

“Look, I know you’re being sarcastic but I really don’t get how no one picked up on that.”

Steve and Bucky try to work out their relationship. The Avengers keep getting in the way.

- Memories Circle (Like Birds of Prey), Teen, 32k

Everything seems to be going right, Steve's fighting with his Commandos, they've saving lives-- until Steve falls from a train, is taken prisoner, and turned into the Winter Soldier. Meanwhile, Bucky takes up Steve's mantle as Captain America, and thanks to Zola's experiments, he gets dropped into a whole new time, only to cross paths with a Steve who doesn't know who he is anymore.

Essentially, the events of CA:TFA, mild mentioning of Avengers, and CA:TWS but with Steve as the Winter Soldier and Bucky as Captain America

- The Gentleness That Comes; Mature, 9k

Steve Rogers never really views the things he had to do to get by before the War with any sort of shame or embarrassment. People ask him for his opinions on modern issues in interviews, but Steve has gotten good at talking around those types of questions. Fury insists that there's no way to answer them without casting a shadow of controversy across the reputation of the Avengers, and that's the last thing Steve wants.

But then a sex tape is released featuring Tony Stark in bed with another man, and Steve can't stay quiet any longer.

- salt for the sea; Mature, 7.5k

Natasha comes home with intel regarding the fate of the Winter Soldier; Steve leaves to go and avenge Bucky Barnes.

“It's a list of everyone who was involved in his death, and a rough timeline of everything that happened beforehand,” she tells him.

“And the notebook?”

“I explained what they did,” Natasha says, “The blank pages are for you to explain what you do to them.”

- Lone Cat and Samurai; Teen, 8.4k

"We lost Kitten America sir!" Junior Agent blurted out. Then turned an unlovely shade of purple. "I mean, Captain America. Who’s a kitten. Because magic. Sir."

- Waiting To Prove You're Not Alone; Explicit, 41k

Months after he woke up on the banks of the Potomac, when a reporter mistakenly assumes Steve would disapprove of homosexuality being as accepted as it is in the modern day, Steve accidentally snaps and unleashes his real opinion on the matter... and with that, a secret he's hidden for over eighty years.

When that secret comes looking for him in New York, Steve can only hope that he can get a second chance at saving his best friend, even if it means keeping his heart in check.

“Yeah, back in my day it wasn't tolerated, and because of that I knew from the minute I figured it out, that I’d never get to tell my best friend that I loved him, and sure enough, he died without knowing that I’d been in love with him for a decade."

- I'm Not Sick (But I'm Not Well); Mature, 30k

Steve Rogers doesn’t meet Bucky Barnes in the 1930’s. Instead, Steve meets him April 17th, 2012.

Well…sort of meets him.

In actuality, Bucky had almost hit him with his truck.

Or: The fic where millennial Bucky Barnes nearly runs over a freshly thawed national treasure, and what Steve Rogers did to adjust to modern NYC during those two weeks before the events of The Avengers.

- pure as the driven slush; Explicit, 11k

He should have worked it out sooner. But then, Steve always was a sneaky little bastard—had to have been, just to survive this long.

For the SteveBucky Fest prompt, "Steve is quite experienced while Bucky's never gone beyond second base with anyone".

- Let's Be Exposed and Unprotected, Explicit, 5k

Bucky’s pretty sure he should be into getting fucked through the floor while walls explode around him like in that Mr and Mrs Smith movie that Clint loves. But he likes it like this. He likes being on his back with Steve looming above him, big and naked, blocking out the rest of the world.

- Man of Steel; Explicit, 6.7k

It’s like Steve looked at his metal arm and thought ‘Challenge Accepted.’

- 5 Times Steve Got Arrested and 1 Time They All Did; Teen, 4.9k

What it says, 5 times Steve Rogers ended up in jail (with and without Bucky) + 1 time all of the Avengers got arrested with him.

- the best of you; Teen, 16k

Bucky is on a mission when he gets the call.

They tell him that Steve has been compromised.

[The story wherein Hydra captures Steve to create a new weapon. Bucky, alongside the rest of the Avengers, come together and work through the fallout.]

- pull apart the dark; Teen, 79k

Steve's unending faith in his best friend was beginning to look less like hope and more like fantasy. When they'd caught the Soldier – in a fire fight that still gave Sam nightmares – the only thing the man seemed to recall was how to hit exactly where it hurt.

Four months later, Barnes still refused to speak English. Refused to heed anything but Steve's voice.

So, all in all, it was not a great time for Hydra to attack New York. All in all, Sam really wished they'd just killed him, instead of turning Captain America into a baby.

- Not Another Supersoldier Fantasy; Explicit, 8.9k

Bucky finds a popular sex toy modeled on Captain America's own anatomy. Well, isn't this just perfect? Because even after all this time, he still hasn’t seen Steve’s supersoldier cock. But apparently in this day and age anyone with $29.95 can get a decent replica. The unfairness of this is of galactic proportions.

- the blood of the covenant; Teen, 7.5k

Steve has a "thing" for hot water.

Or, Sam Wilson adopts Steve Rogers.

- Mighty like Love, Mighty like Sorrow; Teen, 19k

After freeing himself from the Russians' mind control, Bucky is left at loose ends, drifting through the decades. Still, he's in no hurry to take up Nick Fury's offer to once again fight the good fight -- especially not when Fury has the nerve to put some imposter in his best friend's old suit and send him out to fight against Chitauri.

- Read Me Like a Book; Gen, 1.5k

In which Bucky accidentally becomes a book collector, because when the universe gives you a million biographies about your boyfriend, you go bookcase shopping. And then he finds out about The Grenade Incident, and the boys actually talk about it like actual adults. (Somewhere, Sam sheds a proud tear.)

- the broadest stroke of color; Gen, 16k

Sarah Rogers always loved Steve's hands.

"Your hands will do a lifetime's work," she'd say. "Remember to do the work you can for those you love."

Almost a century later, Steve does just that.

[The story wherein Steve draws comics for Bucky to help him recover his memory. Through a series of events, the issues are leaked, and Steve finds himself reviving the Captain America comics. He still isn't sure how that happened.]

- If You're Loved By Someone (You're Never Rejected); Teen, 9.4k

You’re fifteen when you realize why you stare at Bucky’s lips more than normal when he laughs and when he says your name. You lean into his shoulder when you walk next to him and when you’re sick you don’t fight off his soft hands. You tease him, he teases back and being around him is so easy you forget what it was like to live without him. You can’t remember life pre-Bucky and it scares you.

- Unusual Weather; Explicit, 8.7k

Bucky’s been at the Avengers Tower for three weeks before he finally gives in to Steve’s gentle coaxing and Stark’s cheerful waving of fistfuls of circuits, and lets them scan the arm.

It doesn’t go well.

- this city bleeds its aching heart; Explicit, 35k

The one where Steve and Bucky pose as a happily married couple while on a mission for SHIELD, to catch an international arms dealer hiding in a suburban neighbourhood.

- Good Boy; Explicit, 13k

Bucky is still adjusting to life with the Avengers, and Steve is willing to do whatever it takes to make him feel comfortable. Increasingly, though, what seems to make him comfortable is strangely intimate.

Surprise, Steve! You're a gentle dom and Bucky wants to be your pretty pet!

- Brooklyn; Teen, 8.8k

"Captain America, what's your stance on gay marriage?"

Everyone knows that, by now. Everyone but Bucky.

[olivemac]

heartbeat | chapter two | b.b.

Summary | When Steve Rogers asks Kate Stark to find the Winter Soldier, she gets too involved.

Notes | Captain America: Civil War re-write, essentially. Starts just after the events of CA: Winter Soldier.

Pairing | Bucky Barnes x fem!oc, Bucky Barnes x Stark!oc

Genre | romance

Rating | explicit

Story Warnings | angst, fluff, romance tropes, so many romance tropes, coarse language, alcohol use, canon-typical violence , smut (m/f), oral sex (f&m receiving), 18+ ONLY

Chapter Warnings | coarse language

master list | AO3 link

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prev chapter

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Kate is on the next commercial flight to Bucharest. She's worried Bucky will move on before she can get to him, but she knows Tony would never approve of the use of one of his jets to chase down an ex-assassin in hiding. The less he knows, the better. Which is why she told him she was escaping to Europe for a long respite after feeling oh so overwhelmed with her work at Stark Industries.

Tony barely bats an eye when she told him. There were some advantages to being Tony Starks' baby sister. The first being he feels guilty about his ineptness at raising her after their parents' death and would literally let her get away with murder. The second is an almost unlimited bank account left to her by her father and supplemented by Tony's previously mentioned guilt.

Kate Stark was her mother’s mid-life crisis. Maria, three decades younger than her husband, had – at forty-two years old – decided she wanted another baby. Tony, who was eighteen at the time, had balked at the idea. But Howard relented and called in the best team of fertility doctors money could buy, and Kate was born.

She doesn't remember her parents, not really. She was only three when they died, and she doesn't remember that event either. Though she was there, in the car, when it crashed on Long Island.

Tony's only ever spoken to her about it once, after she accused him of hating her for surviving when their parents died. Really, he hated that he survived.

When rescue workers arrived at the scene of the wreck, they found her parents dead in the front seat and her tucked safely into her car seat in the back, bundled up against the December cold. She was an orphan, and Tony, at twenty-one, was suddenly responsible for a toddler.

So, he did the only thing he could think of. He hired a series of nannies to raise her, then sent her off to boarding school as soon as she was old enough, all the while playing genius, billionaire playboy.

He wasn’t surprised when it turned out she was just as smart as him or their father. And it surprised him less when she followed in his footsteps and attended MIT. What did surprise him was when she started hacking government databases for fun. She only agreed to work for him at Stark Industries in exchange for him not sticking Rhodey on her after she released documents regarding the US Air Force‘s involvement in some less that savory overseas dealings.

On the plane, she starts an email to Steve telling him where she was headed and what she had found. Then she deletes it and starts over. Then deletes that. She chews her thumbnail and thinks. If she tells Steve where Bucky is, he'll come blazing in, shield at the ready, and Bucky will.... She doesn’t know what Bucky will do, but she has a feeling the encounter would end with a fight and Bucky running. Which will kill Steve. Again. So, she decides she doesn't need to tell Steve – not right away. She'll see if she can figure out what Bucky remembers – if anything – before telling Steve where he is.

_____

A little over forty-eight hours after her software found Bucky, Kate is assembling IKEA furniture in her new studio apartment in Romania. Getting the landlord to lease her the empty flat next to Bucky's was easy enough when Kate offered him double what he was asking in rent. He was discreet enough to not ask any questions. Most of the people in the building were hiding from something so a young American woman who paid cash upfront wasn't the most unusual thing he'd dealt with.

She makes her bed, unpacks her suitcase, and re-reads the Winter Soldier file. That night she dreams of her parents and the wreck that killed them. In the dream there's always a man outside of the car, but she can never see his face. Her father begs for help: "Help my wife, my daughter. Please. Help."

She wakes up sweating, a scream caught in her throat.

_____

The apartment next to his is no longer empty. Bucky can hear music and soft footsteps through the paper-thin walls. If he focuses his hearing, he can hear a heartbeat other than his own, but he's working to turn off the super soldier reflexes, so he tries to ignore it. He's enjoyed the silence that the empty apartment afforded him, and he hopes the new tenant isn’t as nosy as his neighbor in Kiev who had asked so many questions. He hadn't stayed long after that meeting.

Around two in the morning, he wakes to the sound of a strangled cry from his new neighbor. Bucky sits up straight, suddenly on alert. He listens closely, focusing for the sounds of a struggle, but he only hears the unfamiliar heartbeat. His neighbor was having a nightmare, he imagines. He had plenty of those himself.

Sometimes he was staring down the barrel of a gun, his only intent to kill. Other nightmares took him back to the HYDRA base and their machine that scrambled his thoughts over and over again. And others found him falling from a train, the blonde man from the Triskelion reaching out toward him. He always wakes up just before he hits the icy river he knows awaits him.

Bucky knows now that the blonde man is Steve Rogers. Without HYDRA's influence, he's started to remember more: flashes of Steve and a group called the Howling Commandos during the war, but also flashes of Steve before the war, smaller, shorter. And flashes of a family – his family – a father, a mother, a sister. Rebecca. The name comes to him one afternoon while he's browsing the used bookstore near his flat.

He's started eating plums and jogging to improve his memory. He isn't sure if it's helping, but the memories are becoming longer and more frequent. He sees himself with Steve at Coney Island, riding the Cyclone until Steve lost his lunch and Bucky laughed so hard tears were streaming down his face, and he sees himself flirting with an auburn-haired combat nurse in Italy, following her back to her tent and undressing her slowly.

He wakes the next morning feeling restless. He had slept in fits and starts, listening for any more disturbances from next door. None came.

He dresses and goes for a run, and when he returns, he catches his first glimpse of his new neighbor. She's coming out of her apartment, her face turned downward toward her phone. When he reaches the top of the stairs, she lifts her head and smiles. Bucky is struck by how pretty she is, a thought he hasn't let himself have since leaving HYDRA. He turns away quickly and slams the door to his own apartment. He doesn't need pink lips and dark curls reminding him of what he can never have again. He's too broken for her, or anyone else for that matter.

_____

Bucky has seen his new neighbor more times in five days than he's seen anyone else in the building over the past two months. They always seem to be coming or going at the same time.

The first time he actually speaks to her, she's dropping groceries up the stairs from a rip in her canvas bag.

"Fuck," she mutters as an apple rolls beneath the railing and falls to the landing below.

Bucky has a brief vision of her uttering that same word while his head is buried between her legs, but he shakes if off quickly.

"Let me," he says in English, scooping up some rogue potatoes and taking the bag from her.

"Thanks," she says before unlocking her door and holding it open for him.

Her apartment is the same layout as his – one room, with a tiny bathroom at the front and a small kitchen along the back wall. He sets the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and steps back.

"I should—"

"Thank you—"

They both speak at the same time. Bucky bows his head and motions for her to continue.

"Thank you for your help." She pauses. "And it's nice to speak English for a change. My Romanian is atrocious," she laughs. "How’d you guess?"

"All the music you listen to is in English," he replies brusquely.

She cringes. "Sorry. I'll turn it down."

"No," he says, "It's fine. Really."

There's an awkward pause as they both stare at each other.

Bucky breaks the silence first. "I should go."

"Right." She leads him to the door. "Thanks."

Bucky nods.

When his own apartment door closes behind him, he sighs and scrubs his right hand over his face. He needs to avoid her. He doesn't need anything to distract him from regaining his memories, and he certainly doesn't need to get close to someone he'll inevitably hurt. He doesn’t even begin let himself entertain the thought that she could be a HYDRA agent waiting to turn him in.

_____

Later that evening, he's startled by a knock at his door. When he peers into the hallway, there's a plate of food on the floor, covered with a cloth and a note. He picks it up.

Thanks for saving my groceries.

- Kate

Bucky considers the possibilities that she is a HYDRA agent and the food is poisoned, but he decides it's unlikely HYDRA would take that approach. If anything, they would want their soldier back, and if they didn't, they wouldn't kill him quickly. Also, he can't remember the last time he had a home-cooked meal – definitely before the war – and he’s starving. Protein bars aren’t really cutting it anymore.

He studies the note as he eats. He runs his fingers over the name written in curling handwriting: Kate, and debates what his next move should be. He needs to ignore her – for her own safety – but his mother raised a gentleman so he should at least thank her for dinner, right?

_____

Kate nearly steps on the plate when she leaves her flat the next morning for a run. It’s sitting right at her doorway, clean, the dish towel she had with it folded with a note peeking out.

Kate,

You’re welcome. Thank you for dinner.

- Bucky

If she knew how long Bucky had agonized over whether to write back, she probably would have cried. Kate definitely would have cried if she knew he had debated whether or not to sign the note “Bucky” or “James.” He’s been using James at any off-the-books odd jobs he can get, but with his memories returning, he’s been feeling more like the Bucky Steve referred to in DC.

_____

Kate makes a potato soup that night and leaves it outside his door sans note. She brings him dinner for a week straight before she asks him to dine with her.

"Come over,” she says the next time they pass in the hall.

"What?" Bucky freezes.

"Come over tonight,” Kate repeats, “for dinner.”

"Why?" He sounds rude. He should really work on that, but she’s caught him in one of his broodier moods after another sleepless night.

"Why not?” she shrugs. “I have wine."

He’s staring at her. He realizes he needs to stop staring at her and answer.

“Okay.”

“Seven thirty?” she suggests.

"Okay," he replies.

"Okay," she laughs.

For a second, Bucky wonders if she's laughing at him, but there's a softness in her eyes that makes him think not. Talking to women used to be easy, he thinks. It took him hours to come up with the simplest response to her note the other night, and now he can't even form a sentence in front of her. He spends the rest of the day worrying he's made a huge mistake in accepting her invitation.

He's not the only one. Kate has half a mind to call it all off, phone Steve, and get on the next plane back to New York. What if he doesn't remember anything? What if he's still the Winter Soldier? She has a brief vision of Bucky snapping and wrapping that metal hand he's been hiding around her throat – and not in a fun way. But when he knocks on her door at seven thirty, she thinks she might actually die from how sweet he looks.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi," he responds, running his tongue over his lips nervously.

They're caught in another awkward moment of just staring at each other when she finally invites him.

The old Bucky would have bought flowers and then made some quip about how the flowers aren't nearly as beautiful as she is, but this Bucky – post-HYDRA Bucky – feels like he's forgotten how to interact with women at all and his tongue has suddenly turned to lead.

Kate's debated how much to reveal about herself. Finally, she decides she'll tell him everything. Well, mostly everything. He doesn't need to know that she's a Stark or friends with Steve Rogers or here on some crazy rescue mission to save the Winter Soldier because maybe, just maybe, she read his file one too many times and got caught up in the look in Steve's eyes when he talked about Bucky. No, he doesn't need to know that.

Kate's also considered how much to ask him about himself. She wants to know what – if anything – he remembers, but she also doesn't want to give herself away by revealing she knows who he really is. And she doubts he’ll tell her outright. The fact that he signed the note Bucky seems like a good indication that his memories are returning, though.

"How long have you been in Bucharest, Bucky?" she asks, plating their dinner.

"Almost two months," he says.

"Here for work?" she asks casually.

"Uh...it's complicated," he says, scratching at the back of his neck. "You?"

She looks up at him. "It's complicated."

They're staring at each other again, and Bucky has to force himself to look away.

"Family?" she asks.

"Also complicated," he says. God, he thinks, he sounds like a jackass. But it's not like he can tell her he's a ninety-eight-year-old ex-assassin in hiding so his family is probably long dead.

She motions for him to sit at her small kitchen table and sets a plate in front of him.

"You're not hiding a wedding ring under those gloves, are you?" she asks, a smirk on her lips. She knows about his arm; she just wants to see what he’ll give away.

He blushes and looks at his hands. Then he realizes he's taking too long to answer, and she probably thinks he's an idiot. "No... uh...no. No," he finally says without elaborating.

Kate can sense he's nervous so she does what Tony would do in a situation like this and just keeps talking. She tells him about Tony – minus the Stark detail. She talks about MIT and New York and the last book she read. He listens closely, laughing softly when she makes jokes and asking questions where appropriate. He likes the way her lips look when they form his name and the way her eyes light up at her own humor.

When they finish eating, Bucky helps her wash dishes. She considers asking him to stay, watch a movie or something, but then she thinks maybe she should take this slowly, not overwhelm him, so she bids him goodnight and closes the door behind him.

Bucky thinks Kate might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. Then he thinks that might be because she’s the first woman he’s interacted with in so long. Either way, he tries not to think of her that night when his body remembers what it's like to be a man.

He decides that staying away from her would be too hard.

On the other side of the wall, she’s thinking of him, too. She hadn't expected his eyes to be so impossibly blue. She had stared at the black and white military photo for hours, but seeing him in person, she was caught in the Arctic waters that made up his eyes.

_____

next chapter

[carol-effing-danvers]

Steve Rogers is a Monster

Yeah, that’s a hell of a title, isn’t it? Strap in, it only gets worse from here. 

(click here if you’d prefer to read this on AO3)

Forewarning, if you enjoyed the epilogue for Endgame, this particular essay is not for you - and no, I am not bashing the Steve/Peggy shippers, you are beautiful human beings who make the fandom brighter and I’m happy that at least someone in this fandom got the ending they wanted.

Additional warning: if you expect this to be another Civil War debate, you will also be disappointed. There has never been a measurement invented that can adequately describe how much I loathe the verbal dick measuring contest that seems to pass for human interaction between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers in this franchise. It’s not funny or entertaining - it’s exhausting, uncomfortable, and frankly it’s rather lazy writing.

This is about the very specific way that the epilogue in Endgame completely changed the way the character of Steve Rogers can be interpreted, and I don’t just mean the very illogical and contradictory way that time travel is explained, both in the movie itself and the fact that the writers and directors have two completely different views on how that worked out. 

I mean that the choice made by Steve Rogers in the very last minutes of that movie alters the way I view each and every one of his actions starting from The First Avenger and that alteration is exactly what I want to talk about, because whether you view it as deserving or not, what Steve does at the conclusion of Endgame was the most selfish thing humanly possible. Time is a thief, but somehow Steve managed to steal even more than Time.

Side note here: I understand that I am a completely biased Stucky shipper, a friend to Barnes and Noble, a Starbucks aficionado - sorry. Anyway, I’ve always believed that Steve and Bucky were destined blah blah blah, but I was never expecting a Stucky ending. Disney wasn’t going to do that, and I knew that, I wasn’t bothered that Steve and Bucky weren’t doing the smoochies by the end. But Bucky’s facial expression during those last minutes was gut-wrenching. Like...I have no idea what kind of cues the script and directors gave him, but in the future, please don’t ask Sebastian Stan to look sad unless you want soul-crushing devastation. It’s not Seb’s fault, his features are just arranged that way - but the fact that the editing staff allowed Sam to be sad though elated to be entrusted with the Shield and Bucky looked like his soul was being physically torn out of his body was an… interesting choice. 

Other side note: if you’re writing about time travel, I’m begging y’all to get your facts straight. Or just don’t write about time travel. It almost always sounds better on paper than it does on screen and it means that you’ve opened doors to more questions than you’ve probably got the answers for. I know this was about trying to set up the idea of the multiverse, I get that, but there were better and less messy ways to do that, and I know that because I’ve done it before. @Marvel: Let me write you a six-way orgy you fucking cowards~

By going back in time, Steve robbed Peggy of the future that would have been hers - not only that, he’s robbed her of even the chance of making the choice between those futures, because you honestly could not tell me with a straight face that Steve told her the complete truth of what he had done and she would be okay with him alternating the very course of the future. It doesn’t help his case that he has a history of not disclosing truths that he knows will be painful or inconvenient for other people in his life.

He robbed his loved ones - Sam, Bucky, Wanda - of the years they would have spent with him. Sure, he ‘came back’ after Peggy passed away, but they are adults in the prime of youth who knew him sixty years ago in his own time and he is an old, old man who has lived an entire life completely separated from them. He is practically a stranger with a name they know, but a history that no longer belongs to any of them - not even his oldest friend. They have him back, but judging from his age, they’ll be lucky to get even ten more years with him. Assuming of course, that any of them can stand to speak to him - I certainly couldn’t blame them if they tell him to go to hell and take his dad jokes with him. 

Steve has stolen away their friend and dropped off an elderly and dying near-stranger in his place, and this is treated by the writing (and the majority of the acting) as a wild and unexpected but not tragic event. 

Is it really that unexpected, though?

I recall seeing a Game of Thrones essay on Daenerys across my dash (I’m sorry, love, I don’t recall who you are since it’s not a fandom I’m in, but if someone knows who wrote that, please post the link!) which detailed how her ending in the series was foreshadowed many times by her penchant for bloody killings and her habit of surrounding herself with her own fawning friends.

Months after reading that, I had the thought: though Steve is never really shown thinking about Peggy after Civil War, except in a few scattered scenes in Endgame, was this foreshadowed? Whether you believe that his actions are justified or not, what Steve does is still, in the end, selfish at its very heart, and Steve Rogers is not a selfish person. 

Oh no, my dear friends and readers. Because taking this action has solidified and clarified Steve Rogers as the biggest and most selfish asshole in this whole universe.

Steve does not do the right thing, Steve does the thing that will most make him feel better. The fact that this often happens to be the right thing in the end is more the result of happy coincidence than any special sort of moral authority that the man holds. 

Rescuing Bucky Barnes and his fellow captives in a prisoner of war camp from being experimented on by an insane Nazi eugenicist? That was not a moral stand, that was endangering himself, Peggy Carter, and Howard Stark because he couldn’t handle the reality of his best friend being killed in war.

Sacrificing himself by putting the Valkyrie down in the Arctic Circle? That was not about sparing human lives, that was about Steve seeing his friend die right in front of him and not being able to deal with the grief. There were ways he could’ve prevented the plane from killing people without killing himself.

Trying to make Bucky remember who he was? And later on, saving him from the government agencies who wanted to hunt him down? Although, arguably, that last one is also just good common sense - Steve was already shown that government agencies could and were corrupted by HYDRA and he’d also seen how dangerous the Winter Soldier could be when unleashed. 

Steve did, I think, truly believe that this was the right thing to do, but it was also about keeping his connection - his very last, since Peggy had descended into dementia caused by Alzheimer’s before she ultimately died - to a past that for him, was only months or years ago, rather than decades. In some ways, this is completely understandable - Bucky might be the very last person left alive who truly knows who the real Steve Rogers is, because the rest of these people only know Captain America and we are consistently shown through multiple movies how uncomfortable this makes him.

This gets...considerably less and less understandable as we are shown Steve’s growing relationships with Natasha, Sam, Wanda - even Sharon, though she barely gets any screen time and they share the most awkward kiss I’ve ever seen - and indeed, what might be the most uncomfortable kiss in cinema history.

Side Note 3: This is made even more awkward by the director’s choice to have two of Steve’s friends watching them the whole time - seriously, who even does that? Why would you make them do that? Only sociopaths make out with their friends staring at them like that. It’s so fucking creepy - and don’t even get me fucking started on the fact that she’s also apparently his own niece. AHHHHH!

But we are shown, over and over again, that Steve is capable of building close meaningful relationships with people in the present. They don’t know his whole history, but they do know Steve Rogers rather than Captain America and they care about him deeply. 

Side Note 4: Notice that I don’t count Tony Stark among those people - despite this strangely persistent narrative that the various writers and directors tried to sell to the audience, Tony and Steve were not friends. They were never friends. They were colleagues at best, but these were two men who neither liked nor understood each other very well, but had to work together. And sometimes that’s okay, too. (Oh dear, I just gave the Stony fans a fit too, didn’t I? Sorry, guys. Enemies to Lovers is a great trope, I support you!)

But let’s set aside Steve’s gross betrayal of the people who loved him. We’ll also ignore the question of whether the motive for these good actions has tainted the actions themselves. Because even without questioning these, the conclusion of this story arc still transforms Steve into the biggest monster this franchise has. 

The very fundamental way that the writers and directors can’t agree on how the time travel mechanics in their own story work mean that Steve has just done one of two things and they range from shady and very questionable to absolutely fucking horrific. 

The first, that he’s created his own alternate universe to exist in, is morally dubious at best. Even the people who support this theory and liked the ending seem to feel that it wasn’t necessarily a ten out of ten on the moral goodness spectrum. They’ll say things like ‘he deserved to have his happy ending’. Even that phrasing seems to acknowledge that doing this was the opposite of the right thing. It just considers doing the wrong thing as being justified rather than horrifying. 

But let’s examine this first idea for a minute - even this, the more innocent of the two implications, means that rather than really processing his grief or dealing with the repeated tragedies and losses that have occured in his life, even as he was running group therapy sessions and grief counseling, Steve Rogers chose to escape his current life by creating an alternate universe that specifically allows he himself to live out his own fucking fantasies of the way his life should have turned out. 

That, in case you are not aware, is wildly fucked up. I thought I was playing pretty fast and loose with Steve’s characterization when I turned him into an extremely polite serial killer but as it turns out, I clearly just wasn’t setting the bar high enough, because that’s somehow even more fucked up than being an undercover child soldier with a small sadistic streak. 

Hm, and now I feel I should have been more creative there...

The second, and even more horrifying option, is that this older Steve Rogers has been in this world the whole time, watching as things unfolded just as we’ve seen over the past decade, taking ‘the slow way’ through time. 

Side Note 5: I do kind of understand why you would do it this way, because that’s really cool and shocking when you say that! Until you think about it for longer than three seconds and suddenly you realize…

Everything that has happened here, every tragedy and downfall these people experienced, happened because Steve Rogers lived his happily ever after with his beautiful wife and did absolutely nothing to stop it. He got to fuck Peggy Carter and watched as his wife built an empire of intelligence networks, knowing that her efforts were completely in vain because her agency was rotten to the core and he never told her.

Every horrifying act committed by HYDRA under the guise of SHIELD was permitted through Steve Rogers’ negligence. And that’s just the wider big-picture worldview, large and shocking, but not personal. 

What about the people that Steve claims to actually care about? 

This means that Steve lived his whole life in contentment with his wife and children while his best friend was physically and psychologically tortured for over seventy years and just...let that go. 

He allowed one friend to murder another in the nineties, when the Winter Soldier was sent after Howard and Maria Stark. Then their child was being advised by a greedy self-interested warmonger who paid terrorists to drag him off to be tortured and slaughtered, and Steve did nothing about that, either. 

Bruce Banner was exploited, experimented on, and made into a monster against his will in the failed pursuit of recreating what was done to Steve, resulting in billions of dollars in damage and dozens or even hundreds of lives lost, and Steve allowed that to happen, too. 

Like Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanov was physically and psychologically tortured for others to use her as a living weapon - except that this was probably happening to her since early childhood, and a man her future self loved and trusted implicitly did nothing to save her from this upbringing. 

The Maximoff twins are shown to have not wealthy but loving parents who are murdered in front of them and they both endure days of laying in the rubble of their ruined apartment, wondering if the bomb in their living room would go off and kill them. Later, they are taken in by HYDRA, experimented on, and recruited as child soldiers to the cause when they show signs of having supernatural powers. They start a series of events that result in the destruction of a major city and the loss of what is probably thousands of lives. Pietro is murdered while trying to help the Avengers to stop this, and Wanda suffers the loss of the very last living person she loved. None of these things seem to have bothered Future Steve. 

Steve “I can’t sit on the sidelines when I see a situation go sideways” Rogers, planted himself on that fucking sideline and observed for nearly eighty years as friends, colleagues, and his own wife were lied to, brainwashed, tortured, vilified, and hunted down like animals.

And then there Steve Rogers himself - not the Endgame Steve Rogers, the Steve Rogers who brought down a Nazi plane and will lie beneath the ice for seventy years while everything he knows disappear (mostly) innocent of these horrors, the life he would’ve lived stolen from him by a stranger with his name and his face from another universe.

What I’m saying here is that if you consider this idea for any amount of time, it took Steve Rogers less than ten minutes to become the most evil and disturbing figure in the entire MCU, only (not really tho) contested by Thanos himself. 

Gross and poorly reasoned libertarian ethics aside, Thanos genuinely believes that he did what he did for the sake of the entire population. It’s made fairly explicitly clear that Steve didn’t do this for anyone but himself. 

Call me crazy, but if everyone you know needs to suffer and multiple planet-wide devestations have to happen in order for you to get your happy ending, you might be the bad guy. 

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned?

[sadachmesarthim]

coercive notions - stucky

content: semi-graphic violence, blood, minor character deaths, emotional manipulation and abuse, false imprisonment, kidnapping, torture in the form of nonconsensual body modifications, stockholm syndrome.

dead dove: do not eat. steve sucks big time in this one. i’m not really sorry about it. 

note: happy 6k followers to @sweeterthanthis​ !!! i love the idea of these prompts, they definitely did their job !! i was thrilled when i saw i got my quote of choice. this one’s based on ”i wish i knew how to quit you” from brokeback mountain (my favorite angsty husbands) 

if the timeline is nonsensical in this - think 2 years post engame but no one's actually died! there is also some background starker but it's only mentioned twice. this is my first time writing for steve and bucky, and my first ~dark~ piece. it was definitely the challenge it presented itself as, and i’m super thankful for the opportunity to participate alongside so many talented witers!! 

word count: 4.2k ; read time 15 minutes

Steve'd survived because of Bucky. 

Bucky was the one that kept the fevers at bay, bought him medicine, nursed him back to health even when neither of them thought he'd survive through the night. Bucky was the one that dragged him out of the river, and left him alive on the bank.

Left him to wake up. 

Bucky was the one that welcomed him with open arms when Steve was abandoned by the Avengers. Steve'd lost his home, his family - everyone and everything he had - when the world rejected him (the millionth time). Bucky was the one that came back. He'd lost his arm, his identity, everyone and everything he remembered - but he still ran to Steve without hesitation. No matter how far away they got, no matter what separated them, they always came back to one another. 

They got together right after the fight with Tony in Siberia. 

They'd found each other, and suddenly gained a future. 

Steve had never... really pictured himself having a future. When he was younger, he accepted that he'd die young. A fever that wouldn't break, a cough that wouldn't leave, pneumonia he couldn't beat... Then he joined the army. He suddenly... had possibilities.

But there was still war, he was still fighting, and he was still in the line of danger every single day. It didn't matter if he was fighting Hitler, homophobia, Hydra, - someone was always gunning for him. Someone was always trying to get him killed. And it worked! He died! Crashed straight into the ocean and froze, for seventy fucking years!

Until someone had the audacity to defrost him, and yet again force him into the line of fire. Without really consulting him first. It was something Steve was slowly coming to terms with - he’d always be fighting, always be serving, always be protecting. 

He’d been failing his job as a protector, lately. 

+//////+

They all thought it was a bit weird, but then again, so is living with two men that look seventy years younger than they actually are. So is living with your coworkers. So is being a superhero. So of course none of the other Avengers said anything. 

Not when Bucky started asking Steve permission for things - to get up from, and leave, the table after meetings. If he could get seconds during breakfast or dinner. If he was allowed to come on patrols or missions. Everyone just assumed it was a forties thing, or that it was just Bucky getting more comfortable around them. The dirtier minds of the group (Tony, Peter, Natasha) chalked it up to a kinky sex thing. 

Steve saw it as devotion. 

Bucky saw it as a way to keep him appeased. 

See, Steve'd gotten more... irritable, lately. Every time Bucky got hurt on patrol, was in a bad position during a mission, needlessly volunteered to do something dangerous  - it pissed Steve off to high heavens, for no reason. It'd gotten significantly worse over the course of a few months, to the point where Bucky could barely breathe without Steve getting upset. 

It came to a head one day when Bucky got pinned during a fight with New York's latest nuisance. He wasn't even supposed to be there, it was his day off, for fucks sake. But he'd heard the call go out, and suited up before following a few minutes behind the rest of the crew. 

This particular species of big nasty™ (a xorrian dog? Thor had called it?) had an... upsetting taste for live, warm flesh. He popped up outta nowhere over Manhattan during the Friday morning rush, apparently scouting Earth for the next course in their Milky Way Dinner Service. 

Bucky, self sacrificing moron that he is, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as Steve laid down the final blow, narrowly avoiding the alien's jaw, Bucky slid underneath it, shoving his hand between the soft plating of the monster's stomach. He reached in, single-handedly gutting the thing while Steve put a shield-sized dent in its skull.

Their foe dropped almost instantly, crushing Bucky beneath several tons of dead weight. None of them would have known he was there, either, if Tony hadn’t programmed life-sensing protocols in a new combat arm he’d gifted the soldier for his second anniversary home and Hydra-free. A signal went to Tony’s suit the instant FRIDAY sensed structural integrity issues, sending him a precise location.

“What do you mean he’s here, babygirl? We didn’t call him in.” The worry in Tony’s voice was apparent, calling the attention of the rest of his team. They were all intrigued, prematurely pulled from their celebrations of a fight well won. 

“It seems that Sergeant Barnes is approximately twenty paces northwest of your location, and his elevation is slowly decreasing. Would you like a map of the area?”  

“Uhh, no Fri. I think I know exactly where he is. Cap, get your ass over here!” His heart rate was increasing by the second. If he thought correctly (as Tony almost always did), Bucky was... underneath the alien. “We need to pick this fucker up, or flip it, or something. I think Bucky’s stuck under it.” 

Steve’s blood ran cold. “Tony, what the fuck are you talking about? Bucky wasn’t part of the group today.” 

Steve didn’t hide his anxiety well when it came to Bucky. Their team knew that he was Steve’s whole world. One more life threatening situation, and Steve might actually die from old age with all the years Bucky’d stressed out of him. FRIDAY sending a detailed ping with Bucky’s combat arm location didn’t do anything to ease his anxiety, either. He knew it was just like Bucky to do something like this - jump in without word, all act and no think. Try to help his team out and wind up crushed by an alien pet the size of a 787.

Peter was next to them, soon, ready to help get this thing off their friend. Together, they managed to drag Mister Beast-of-the-Week far enough down the street, revealing a very unconscious, very bloody Winter Soldier nestled in the asphalt. 

Steve was on him in a second, picking Bucky up with both hands. Tony already had FRIDAY doing preliminary scans and sending them back to Cho and Strange. Initial reads weren’t terrible, all things considered, but he still looked like shit. He might be five hundred times stronger than the average man, but no one’s prepared to be stuck under 200 tons of pure xeno-reptilian mass. Not even Bucky Barnes. 

His head rolled back freely as Steve picked him up, exposing an already bruised and swelling jaw. Steve’s breath caught in his throat, choking him on his own shock. Saved by the bell, Cho called Tony back immediately, sending for one of them to bring him to the tower surgical site immediately. 

“We have to go, Steve. Let us take him, we’ll get him fixed. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. But you have to let him go.” Steve’s upward glance brought him Tony’s exasperated face. He was dizzy, everything felt like slow motion. 

He didn’t register the movement until he saw it, watching Peter’s hands as they held him back. Tony took Bucky’s lifeless form, carrying him toward Stark Tower and away from the wreckage. 

The wreckage he shouldn’t have been anywhere near in the first place. 

The wreckage he wouldn’t even have known about if he didn’t beg Tony to be included in all mission alerts. 

The wreckage he would have avoided if it weren’t for the martyr complex he’d had since birth. It might not be nearly as strong as Steve’s, but it was still there. Bucky’d always gone to obscene lengths protecting the people he loved. 

Steve had a track record of doing a piss poor job of repaying the favor. He couldn’t save him from the war. He couldn’t save him from the train, or from Hydra. He couldn’t save him from Thanos. He couldn’t even save him from a stupid little skirmish downtown. No, from where he was standing, Steve’d fucked up. Big time. 

He promised that day, he wasn’t going to let anything like this happen again. 

+//////+

It was weeks before he was back to normal, and even then - Bucky wasn't entirely sure he wanted to leave. Not because he was still sore, or not feeling up to par. In fact, he'd been antsier and more ready to get back into the field than ever. He missed his friends, he missed the people he fought evil with every day. He missed sparring with Sam and going on runs with Peter, listening as Thor regaled stories about Old Asgard no one.. could quite follow. Missed the twice weekly calls from Shuri. But most of all, he missed his freedom. 

Steve wasn't ready to give it to him. 

When he woke up after surgery, Steve was right next to his recovery bed. He almost looked like he did back in the day - sleep deprived, worry lines forcing their way to the surface of his face. Vague frustration enveloped him, even when he met Bucky's conscious form for the first time. 

Their first few conversations were tender, loving, but it didn't take long for them to sour. 

Steve'd insisted on bringing Bucky back to their shared floor immediately after he woke. He allowed Cho to look him over, FRIDAY to scan him, everyone to come say hi - but he never let Bucky out of his sight. Not while Bucky was awake, anyway. 

He slept a lot in those first few days. He was still healing, and while it might have been much faster than anyone expected, he was also recovering from what should have been several deaths over. He spent most of his time in bed, asleep, or talking to Steve. 

Most of it was lecture, some was praise. How stupid he was to get involved on his day off. How much Steve loved him. How he wasn't allowed to go being a martyr like that again. How much Steve loved him. How Steve was going to do a better job of watching over him from now on. How much Steve loved him. 

There was a lot of that, after Bucky woke up. How much Steve loved him. How important Bucky was to him, how much it meant to him that Bucky was alive and breathing and conscious and okay. Every time he got a lecture, or a reminder, Steve's hand was on him somewhere. His shoulder, his wrist, his face. His throat. Every time he spoke, he squeezed, just the tiniest bit. Not threatening, not even to force acknowledgement. Just.. Because he could. To the untrained eye, it was just physical contact. 

Bucky knew better. 

Bucky knew conditioning when he saw it. When he felt it. 

Bucky also knew he was significantly more susceptible to conditioning than most people. 

Bucky was fucked. 

+//////+

Tony didn't think anything of it when Steve asked for handcuffs that could hold a supersoldier back. He, too, was a pervert with a genetically enhanced super-boyfriend, who was he to deny the Captain a little fun? He'd designed restraints Peter could use without breaking (or hurting himself!), why not share the love?

No one thought anything of it when Bucky stopped joining them on missions. Trauma has a different effect on everyone, maybe Bucky just needed time to process almost dying (again). No one would blame him for it. Hell, most of them encouraged his staying home. 

None of them... really thought anything of it when he quit leaving altogether. They trusted Steve's judgement, and if he didn't think Bucky was ready to leave, then he wasn't. Bucky knew better than to defy him, too - just kept his mouth shut around "yes, Steve"s and "okay, Steve"s.

The conditioning didn't stop as he got stronger. He'd been back to 100% weeks ago, but Steve was still babying him. Carrying him to the shower, not letting Bucky bathe himself, or brush his own teeth. He couldn't dress or eat without help, go anywhere without asking. "I just want to keep you safe. I need to know that you're not going to get hurt." Steve's words remained calm, level, but his face betrayed the threat behind them. If you don't listen, you won't be able to leave at all. 

Bucky'd learned the hard way that if he didn't listen to Steve, he wouldn't have a choice. He'd attempted to leave their floor by himself while Steve was out on a mission with Tony, Nat, and Thor - he got up early, showered, got dressed. His first taste of freedom in a long time, he was so excited to go see everyone again. 

He was downstairs and halfway through breakfast with Bruce and Peter when Steve got back. 

+//////+

Bucky couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the sun. It's a familiar feeling to him, one he thought he'd never deal with again. The isolation. The lack of control. The fear. 

Steve initially hadn't looked mad. He let Bucky finish his meal, kept a distant but watchful eye over the group until the two others finished and moved on to their lab work downstairs. 

Bucky knew he was fucked. He'd broken rules. He'd left their room without permission. Steve might not have looked it, but Bucky could feel the anger and disappointment radiating off him. 

After that... He wasn't allowed to do anything. 

No workouts, no missions, no patrols. No leaving their room. Steve'd used the restraints Tony made - had him thoroughly tied down to the floor below their bed. No internet, no phone. Not a single book or movie or boardgame in sight. Good boys don't require entertainment to behave. No eating - Steve'd placed a gastric tube down his sinus to provide nutrition. His muzzle, the one hydra'd used... Steve'd locked it over his jaw, and left it there. Good boys don't need to use their mouths - not to drink, not to eat. Not to talk back or call for help.  No using the bathroom on his own - he had a catheter replaced once a day, and Steve changed his bag as needed. Good boys don't get to leave the bed, not even if it's an emergency. 

He learned to wait for Steve. Learned his schedule - early morning meetings with Wakanda, check ins with Fury and Maria, patrol a bit after lunch. Then, he'd come back, make sure Bucky's bag was empty and his feeding tube was flushed and clean before feeding him. 

Steve allowed him to use the bathroom and shower at night, under incredibly watchful eyes. The restraints Tony'd made were long enough to stretch the entire perimeter of their room, but Steve kept him on a short leash. Bucky had five minutes total - shit, shower, shave. If he didn't finish in time... There's always tomorrow. 

If he did, he'd get rewarded. 

Steve'd wrap him up in a large fluffy towel, carry him to bed. He'd bring back the sweet little reminders, with his hand around Bucky's throat. How much Steve loved him. How this was all for his protection. How Steve wasn't going to let anything happen to him, ever again. How proud Steve was of him, for letting him return that favor, even decades later. How well behaved Bucky was, how good he'd been for Steve.

Steve was so different from Hydra, too. That's what made it so fucking difficult to resist the love bomb-type conditioning. He wasn't the torture type - didn't like the idea of doing anything he didn't have to. Steve didn't want to hurt him, and Bucky knew that. He found it harder to reject Steve's advances the longer he was locked in that fucking room, found it harder to discern whether or not he... wanted... to reject it.  

He was Bucky's dialysis, and his drinking problem. 

He was Bucky's oxygen machine, and the cigarettes he'd smoked to earn him one. 

Steve could ask Bucky to do anything, ask him for anything... and he was powerless to say no. He'd tried. 

+//////+

It'd gotten him a flick to the mouth, for his hesitation. 

"When I ask you a question, love, you need to answer me. Do you understand?" The tears in his eyes nearly spilled over, sharp pain from his lips radiating into his nose and the corners of his eyes. He didn't want to answer. He wanted to leave. He wanted to run, to get the fuck away from Steve and the compound and everything. 

"Yes."

"Yes what, angel?" Steve might've been good about keeping his emotions checked in public, but Bucky could tell he was smug. Gloating. He enjoyed this. What'd happened to the sweet kid from Brooklyn that could barely hold himself upright? Bucky missed him. 

"Yes, Stevie. I’m sorry Stevie." Saying his name was painful. This wasn't his Steve. This wasn't the Steve he'd fallen in love with. Wasn't even the man that'd dragged him out from underneath that alien... How long ago? Months? Years? 

Bucky didn't know anymore. 

Didn't know why his friends hadn't saved him yet. Didn't know how his absence went unnoticed for... however long it'd been. Didn't know why he was struggling to be upset about it all. 

Steve, observant as he was, could practically see the gears turning in the other's head. He cradled Bucky's face in his hands, drawing him into calculated eye contact. Bucky felt sick. There was something... wrong, there. Something Bucky'd never seen before. 

"They don't love you like I do, Buck. They don't want you. They don't love you." 

Bucky flinched at the words, physically recoiling from Steve's grasp. He knew it wasn't true, he knew... He thought it wasn't, right? 

Steve's laugh pulled Bucky out of his own thoughts, bringing him back to the room in front of him. He had a display up, with various recordings of the rest of the Avengers. He flipped through them, muting and unmuting seemingly at random. 

"... I mean, he's probably ditched us for Zemo again. Would that really shock you?"

"he almost died again. I don't blame him, i wouldn't want to be found eith-"

"-e can take care of himself, let's just give him time."

Steve waved the holo display away when he saw the first few tears fall. "Don't you see, Baby? They don't care like I do - they don't love you like I love you. No one will ever love you like I love you." Steve's words stung, but Bucky couldn't deny that they made sense. Of course no one was looking for him. He was unpredictable, still kind of an outsider. Why would they try to come find him? Why would they care?

Bucky's mouth moved before his brain could stop him.

"'m sorry, Stevie, please, I'm so sorry! I-I- I thought they cared, please, please don't leave me Stevie! I was so wrong, Steve please! Wish I knew how to stop, Stevie, but you know I can't. You gotta help me stop Stevie, I've been so confused, been tryin' to quit you Stevie but I can't. Wish I could quit you but I can't, I can’t be left alone anymore. Please, you can take my arm if you want it, Stevie. Take anything, take whatever you want from just please, please don’t leave me alone anymore!"

He was in hysterics at this point, unable to believe what was coming out of him. Was he really okay with Steve taking his arm away? Did he really love this Steve back? Was he just scared?

The worst part was that he couldn't tell. 

+//////+

The smell of fresh coffee woke him before he was ready. His eyes burned, still dry after Steve refused to close the window before they went to bed. 

Bucky would have closed it himself, but he couldn't actually reach that far. 

They'd moved out to the cabin a few months after Bucky finally broke realized how wrong he was. It was a cute little place, big enough for the two of them but small enough to not draw attention if someone came upon it by accident. Not that they really could. Steve'd installed motion sensors five miles out, and had fully automated... solutions, in place, should any threats or issues arise. 

They went entirely unused. 

It really was a beautiful plot of land - they had a few animals, a cute pair of kittens to dote on and play with. He had enough room to move around, to sit in the sun or curl up in bed. He had plenty of books, games, anything and everything he could want to occupy his time, really. He had Steve. 

And breakfast now, apparently. 

Steve set the plate on the bedside table, gently sitting next to his lover and planting small kisses on his still shut eyelids. Bucky looked up and smiled, blushing at the hand that'd wrapped around his neck. He reached out, gently thumbing at the inside of Steve's wrist. Oh, how he'd missed this. Missed contact with his Steve. 

He opened his mouth, accepting the bite Steve offered him. Steve always made the best pancakes, he thought, appreciating the hot meal hitting his tongue. He hadn't eaten this good in weeks. It was hard for him to cook without his arm, but Steve always provided. Steve cooked for them, cleaned up after them, made sure Bucky was sated. Safe. 

He'd taken off for a mission nearly a month ago. A dangerous one, he'd said. One he might not return from for a while, he'd said. Bucky worried. He always did when Steve left, especially since he couldn't know where or why he was going. But Steve always came back to him. Sometimes, he was back in one piece. Once, he'd come home with an arrow in his stomach and several gunshot wounds. That'd been a... scary night. Another time, he came home with half of his hair singed off and his clothes in tatters. 

Last night... Last night he finally came home, and he looked like shit. 

He was covered in bruises, nearly 40 pounds lighter than he was when he'd left. There were holes in the shield, too large to be bullets but too small to be anything else easily recognizable. Some were through his suit, too - puncture wounds littering his chest and stomach. They were already partially closed, but he was still bloody. 

There were still webs in his hair, too - Bucky brushed them away after Steve closed (and locked. always locked.) the door. He knew better than to comment. Steve was just protecting him. Steve loved him, he was doing what he needed to keep Bucky safe. 

But that didn't mean it didn't hurt. That each time Steve left for a mission, Bucky cried himself to sleep. He thought, eventually, that the pain would go away. That the death of each of his friends would get easier, somehow. That the fear, the hope, of losing Steve would stop consuming him. 

He'd just smiled, kissed his husband's cheek, and helped him strip down. He'd mouthed at the graze left on the side of Steve's neck, reverent in the presence that was his protector. Bucky'd developed quite the complex, in their time of isolation. Every time Steve came in - from cutting firewood, picking food from the garden, feeding the animals, or from nights like last... Bucky just couldn't stop talking. 

About how he wouldn't be alive without Steve. How he'd still be a mindless slave for Hydra, killing innocent people under everyone's noses. How he owed Steve his life, a thousand times over. How he'd've been taken by Ross or Stark or Clint or someone, and locked away miles under the sea. He'd pressed them into Steve's jaw like kiss-coated secrets, like no one in the entire world knew these things but Bucky & Steve. Like they were bits of information to cherish, to chew on and savour before swallowing. 

Steve just laughed, picking Bucky up and bringing him to bed. He followed shortly after, cleaning and patching himself up before snuggling right up to Bucky. 

Sleeping was interesting, initially, but they'd adapted. It was easier to cuddle Bucky without his arm, but sometimes Steve woke up with his legs tangled in loose chains by the footboard. It was an easy enough trade, in Bucky's opinion. Give up his arm, give up a bit of freedom, and get a loving, devoted husband in return? One that would make him breakfast in bed, one that would hold him and kiss him and praise him whenever he needed? One that would kill for him? Die for him?

Bucky saw it as a fair enough trade, and if that meant their friends needed to die... He tried not to think about it.

[kybervisions]

slight obsessions [bucky]

summary: after months of obsessing over a senator, bucky is given the opportunity to save her. he then visits her in the hospital  

author’s note: warning, warning, this will feature aspects of the u.s government,,, \\ lil bit of fluff and mentions of torture ,, just a kidnapped senator and bucky pining  ,, requests are open :) 

The security footage of your kidnapping at the fundraiser was leaked to the media. Millions watched as a prominent U.S senator was ambushed and drugged before being dragged into an unmarked vehicle. Bucky’s heart ached. “We’ll find her,” Sam, well-aware of Bucky’s infatuation with you, promised his friend.  

Bucky was unprepared to find you in the state that you were, bloody and bruised. There was a cut above your eyebrow and blood dripped down your face. Your skin was riddled with red and purple. The metal cuffs around your wrists and ankles dug into your skin and caused you to bleed. There was track marks on your arms and your knee didn’t look too good either. 

You looked nearly unrecognizable — almost nothing like the senator that so adamantly advocated for his pardon. 

“Captain?” You mutterly weakly, barely recognizing the two figures near the doorway. The drugs they pumped into you fucked with your vision and made you feel absolutely sick. You could barely keep your eyes open. Everything hurt and you shivering from the lack of warmth. 

Sam quickly ran past Bucky and his fingers searched for a pulse on your neck. Weak, but it was something. Once up close, Sam could see the multitude of track marks on your skin and his fingers gently touched them, causing you to cry, something that completely shocked you. Zemo had stopped giving you water a few days ago. 

“We’re going to get you out of here, senator,” Sam pulled out a Widow’s Bite, which he had secretly stolen from Natasha, and used the electricity within the bite to override the power source of the cuffs.  

When the cuffs opens, you were released from the vertical interrogation chair. Before you fell on the concrete floor, Bucky quickly reached out to catch you. 

“Fuck!” You shouted and startled Bucky. You bit your lip in an attempt to silence your pain. After weeks of absolute hell, you were sensitive to touch. Tears filled your eyes and you weren’t strong enough to hold them back. “It hurts,” You whimpered. You felt sick. Cold and weak and wanting to puke but having nothing in your stomach to regurgitate.

A protectiveness he had not felt since before the war consumed Bucky. Seeing you so weak and in pain filled him with both anger and the need to make you feel better. Your big, soft, and tear-filled eyes awakened his primal instinct to defend and protect. 

He acknowledged there was still something wrong with him, because even in the state that you were in, Bucky wanted nothing more than to press his lips against yours and hold you against him. 

For a short second, while looking down into your eyes, the world was quiet. 

“C’mon, man,” Sam urged them. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in here when the timer goes off,” 

“Alright, alright,” Bucky agreed. “Um, can you run?” He looked down at you again. You were smaller in person. The television must make everyone look like titans. On the screen, you had such a larger than life presence. Whether it was asking questions during committee hearings or speaking out against a bill, you were imposing. 

“She can barely stand,” Sam answered before you. With all the drugs in your system, you were nearly unresponsive. “Pick her up and let's go!” 

Once they reached the C.I.A medical facility, Sharon told a room full of reporters that the senator had been found and was being examined by professionals. She did not give too much information, which was typical for intelligence agencies. 

By “being examined by professionals”, Sharon meant you were undergoing surgery because whatever was injected into your body caused you to go under septic shock. She omitted that part, not wanting to give the public further cause to worry.  

After the surgery, only family was allowed to enter your hospital room. Some of your staff was able to bypass that rule. You were still recovering, but your top aide, Winnie, had begun planning your first public appearance. 

“You’re a certified badass now,” Winnie informed you, and it made you chuckle. Winnie had been by your side since you were a congressional freshman and you loved them to death. “The corpses will have to show you actual respect now,” They smiled, referring to your coworkers as corpses gives them a bit of joy. 

“I’m sure Stern will find a reason to call me a traitor to the country,” You replied. Your strong opposition of the intelligence agencies earned you a lot of enemies. 

“Yeah, well, he’ll — ”

The door had opened and there stood a “Hi, sorry. I, uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Bucky stopped at the doorway. He was holding a small bouquet of your favorite flowers and scratched the back of his head, avoiding eye contact. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” You smiled. Bucky looked to you, and he’d never seen or heard anything as beautiful. He had heard you say his name a thousand time over, but hearing it in person was just swell.  

“Bucky’s jus’ fine, senator,” Bucky returned a toothy grin. You swear you had died and gone to heaven. He was even more beautiful in person. 

“Bucky,” There was a shine in your eyes when you said his name. His name sounded so pretty coming from your mouth.  

“O-kay,” Winnie chuckled and their eyes bounced between yourself and the soldier, who was just a few feet away from them. “I’ll be back tomorrow to hash out the details,” They turned to look at you and gave you a small peck on your head. “Be careful,” It was a warning. 

Bucky stepped into the room, allowing Winnie to easily slip out. 

Now that the blood and dirt had been washed out, Bucky could truly admire how striking you were. You were glowing. There were still bruises and healing wounds but they didn’t diminish your beauty. 

He set the flowers on the visitor’s chair. 

“I wanted to properly thank you and Mr. Wilson for saving my life,” You told him. He took a few more steps towards you. “W-Winnie has a press conference planned once I’m discharged, and there might be a Medal of Freedom in your future, after the Congressional Gold Medal, of course,” 

“What?” 

“Yeah,” You smiled. “It took a little bit of convincing but the bastard caved eventually,” 

Of course you had recommended him, and Sam, for such prestigious awards. It was further proof that he had been vindicated from the dark part of his history. You helped profoundly in his path to finally accepting himself, and for that, he would always love you. 

When the nightmares returned, Bucky would rewatch your old speeches for the campaign to pardon him. He felt pathetic — having to listen to a woman he had never met before passionately advocate for his freedom in order to feel better. You saw him as human, worthy of forgiveness. 

“I know they’re practically worthless in the age of superheroes, but I thought I would be nice,” 

It would be nice. “Thank you,” His smile slowly faded as the conversation took a serious turn. “For everything, the campaign and the pardon and now these medals,” A breathy chuckle escaped. “I...you never attended the ceremony,” He commented on your absence during his pardon. It had plagued his mind for countless nights. 

“I wasn’t invited,” You chuckled at the irony of it — having spent months working for his freedom only to not be present to watch it happen. “A picture leaked of me at a protest in college and they thought it would be too controversial for me to attend,” You shrugged it off. 

Ensuring Bucky’s freedom was all that mattered. Your acknowledgement was not important to you in the greater scope of things. 

“I’ll make sure you get invited this time,” Maybe you could give a speech before he’s awarded the medal. He could finally be present to hear you praise him. 

Bucky’s eyes lingered on your lips. Your nervousness returned. There was a distinct look in his eyes that terrified and excited you all the same. 

“Senator, time for your medication,” A nurse entered the room and pushed a cart with her. There was an IV set, some pills, and a cup of water on the cart and all that medicine made Bucky feel anxious. 

He was well aware of the dangers of so much medicine and he was scared. He couldn’t afford to lose you now. Not when he finally has you within his grasp. 

“The pills help with the pain and the IV gives me nutrients,” You noted the panicked look on Bucky’s face when he saw the cart. “Or so they claim,” You looked at the nurse, who was not entertained by your accusatory comment. 

“I should head out,” Bucky nodded. “And allow your drugs to be administered in peace,” You laughed, and he was quite proud of that. 

Feeling bolder, Bucky took a few final steps toward you. You offered your hand and he lightly held your wrist, stilled bruised, and bowed down to kiss your hand. It was a small and sweet gesture, but it left you an absolute mess. You held your breath and felt your heart in your throat. 

Bucky admired you once more before leaving the room. He nearly memorized how you radiated in spite of the harsh cold white light that illuminated the hospital. In that moment, he was certain you’d be his. 

[awesomerextyphoon]

A Warrior’s Heart | Phase 1: Welcome – 3

A Hero’s Welcome?

Summary: When someone with a connection to Steve’s past dies, he’s reminded of the promise he made to Dr. Erskine and whether or not he’s failed. Can Ife help him see that he hasn’t?

Characters: Steve Rogers, Ifekerenma ‘Ife’, Abraham Erskine (mentioned), Marlene Erskine (mentioned), Nick Fury, Eliza Maza, Azeneth Ramirez

Main Pairing: Stucky x Black!OFC (Ifekerenma ‘Ife’)

Rating: 18+/Explicit

Word Count: 5,801

Warnings: Depression, Talk of Death, Slightly Cynical Steve, Politics, Smutty Thoughts

A/N: I’m sorry that this so long. I really wanted to try something different with Erskine and the time around CA:TFA. Also, I wanted to explore how Steve would be feeling right after AoU (little bit of a downer, but it will get better). Furthermore, this story will diverge a bit from MCU in terms of Steve’s and Bucky’s abilities. Feedback is welcomed and greatly appreciated. Dividers were by the lovely @firefly-graphics​. Thanks to @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ for the beta!

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Early June 2015

“What do you have to report, Ifekerenma?”

Ife pursed her lips together,”Wanda is doing well with her training. Djamila and Nazaret had some sung her praises during their first session.”

It took a few days to convince the team and Fury to let her friends train Wanda. Luckily Nat had her back and Wanda was able to show the compound how much she improved from what Ife was able to teach her. Unfortunately, Azeneth was unable to make it due to being tied up with a BNA mission and relocating to the NYC division.

“That’s good to hear. Have you made made any progress with the others?”

Ife’s eyes casted down in thought. Vision was a no-go for now. Pietro was warming up to her, but he thought she was still suspicious (wasn’t wrong). She didn’t want to try Rhodey yet (too close to Tony). Nat was..difficult; she’ll try again later.

“I’m going to try Steve next. He seems like a safe bet, even with the serum. Hopefully, he won’t catch before it’s time. I will need Erskine’s folder though.”

Eliza’s lips turned upward in a small smile, “Agreed. I’ll have it sent to you within the hour. Best of luck, Ife.”

And with that, Ife got dressed and headed towards the common room.

  Steve leaned back and clasped his hands together behind his head in thought and vexation.

The 21st century must be fucking with him.

Right after Operation ‘Captain Briar Rose’, Steve went to Brooklyn. He could barely find any trace of his old neighborhood. The apartment complex where he and his mother lived was now a ritzy condominium with a Starbucks on the ground level.

All of the places he’d go with Bucky were now soulless veneers filled with empty promises of ‘happiness’ or ‘self-esteem’.

He remembered the time Bucky bailed him out of yet another beating by Arnie and his gang back in 1928. His mother berated him for getting in yet another fight while Bucky’s mom laughed and treated them to ice cream from the local sweets parlor. Bucky’s sisters – Rebecca, Rose, and Annabelle – were making a fuss and bursted out in giggles when Annabelle got ice cream in Bucky’s hair. It was one of the best days that year.

A T-Mobile now stands in its place.

All of his friends and comrades save Bucky and Peggy are dead; he nearly bawled in the middle of briefing when found out that Timothy ‘Dum Dum’ Dugan died and had a cry alone in his quarters afterwards.

Felt shitty about the current state of the country. It seemed as though everything has gotten worse. He found out about the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Wars. How income and wealth inequality has somehow gotten as bad as, if not worse, than the Gilded Age. Corruption has turned DC and NYC into dog and pony show.

He was furious at all of the politicians and corporations that wanted him to endorse them or their actions. They wanted Captain America’s helmet and shield to mask their heinous acts. They were the same if not worse than Senator Brandt.

Some days Steve wished SHIELD let him stay in the ice. Even worse, there were days he felt that Captain America was for an America that never was.

Nowadays, he felt even more like an anomaly.

It started when he got out of the ice. He felt a lot stronger and faster; only Thor knew the extent of it and he has to hold back a lot when fighting for fear of government asking for more of his blood. Though he suspected Ife and Natasha might be onto him.

He was a lot hungrier than before he went on ice as well. Often time, he would have late night ‘dinners’ (now it's every night), To be honest, he was a bit embarrassed at how much he ate, though the thought of pinning the blame on Ife did cross his mind. It wouldn’t work due to Ife almost never eating with the team and Sam said that he would know if Ife was the culprit. Steve suspected that Ife has been using her connections to restock the food between when he retired to his quarters and before the rest of the team came for breakfast. Also, she kept leaving him fun pop culture facts and media recommendations for the night.

Steve didn’t feel he could go to Dr. Cho since he doubted she had anything to go on in his case.

He did wonder if Ife could help him. She seemed to like helping the team and she was knowledgable about Non-Humans. Wanda’s rapid improvement in her powers and control bolstered his decision.

Sighing, Steve sat up straight in his chair and picked up the letter he received that morning. Marlene Philomena Erskine had passed away and he was invited to her funeral.

It was sad to have yet another link to his past slip from his grasp.

  Steve was finishing up another book to fight off his jitters. It was the night before the operation and he needed to have a few moments of respite from the war.

He was so engrossed in what he was reading that he failed to notice Dr. Erskine entering.

Erskine, for his part, was eyeing several books in Rogers’ makeshift bookshelf: They Odyssey, Of Mice and Men, Murder on the Orient Express, Tender is the Night, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Homage to Catalonia, and To Have and have Not.

“What do you think of the book?” Erskine asked as he sat across the startled recruit.

“Just finished. Y’think it wise to get buzzed before a major operation, sir?” Steve noted when he saw the bottle and two shot glasses on the bed.

Erskine chucked, “Calms my nerves a bit. What did you think of the book?”

Steve pressed his lips together for a moment, “It was a good read. The book had a lot of good points for something written eleven years ago.”

“What truths?”

“Well, for one thing, how technology is used to make the populace happy, but not better. The World Government found a way to get people to willingly trade self-expression, self-awareness, and their happiness for cheap happiness and comfort. Makes you wonder if the US was next, you know?”

Erskine was taken aback by his answer. It was much deeper than most of commanding officers gave if they even read the book.

Though that last sentence was interesting.

“What do you mean next?”

“Isn’t that what happened in Germany?”

Erskine sighed, “Yes and no. Most people here think Hitler came out of nowhere, but he didn’t. Not everyone in Germany was for WWI. There was a 100,000 person march in Berlin, but it didn’t matter since the Social Democratic Party failed to rise to the occasion and went along with war effort. Many were scapegoated for Germany failure, Matthias Erzberger for instance.”

“What about the Weimar Republic?”

Once again, Erskine was taken aback by Steve’s knowledge, “Weimar Germany was a great place to be creative, curious, and make new discoveries. I met my wife, Greta, in Berlin during that time. I made a lot of friends, friends I had to leave behind.”

Erskine frowned as his face darkened,”The terrible thing, my friend, was not that Hitler was dangerous, it was that either people didn’t take him as the threat he was or they wanted to use him for their own ends. The cops and judges sympathized with the Nazi Party to get one over the Socialists and Communists. Industrialists wanted to make money off of the Nazis getting into power. Even the German and International newspapers didn’t cover him with the urgency required.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Ja, and it almost happened here, didn’t it?”

Steve nodded in reference to the America First movement and the German American Bund. He still remembers getting the crap beaten out of him by the Silver Shirts when he spoke out against them a few years ago.

“So why did you choose me?”

“I suppose that is the best question.” Erskine admitted while glancing at Steve’s bookshelf, “What do you think of the Odyssey?”

Steve shrugged, “The adventures were fun, but they were just fantasy.”

“They may not be, Mein Freund. How old do you think I am?”

“Uh, mid sixties?”

Erskine laughed, “You’re too kind. I will be 94 this September,” he smiled noting Steve’s shock, “Things are not always as they seem. I come from a long line of ‘healers’ dating back to before Rome. One of them was able to ‘make a man more’. They inspired me to go into this profession.”

“Making super soldiers?”

“Medicine and bio-chemical engineering.”

“Oh”

“Did you know that you will not be first to undergo this?”

“Who was?”

“His name was Konrad Jager. He was a lot like you: small, frail, but had a great deal of courage and compassion. He was willing to fight Nazis in the streets knowing he’d lose. One day in 1930, his parents begged me to save him as the doctors had given up all hope.

I was woking on a serum that would make the body impervious to all diseases rather than wait for the next outbreak to occur. I thought it would propel the medical field.

The trial worked and he was healed. He became much taller and broader in size as a result.”

Erskine pulled out a picture of himself next to a tall, well-built young man.

“That’s Konrad isn’t it?”

“Yes. I was able to help eight more people through the earlier version of the serum. All but one turned out well.”

“What happened to the one?”

“Ah yes, Eren Kant. He was a shy young man before the serum, but then became more like Hodge: a philander, arrogant, and bit of a bully with a temper. He ‘grew too big for his britches’ as one would say and was arrested by the Munich police. He let his arrogance blind him and he escaped in a way that intrigued Der Fuhrer and was taken to Berlin soon after. By this time, rumors had spread of my work and the Nazis were anxious to be the ‘best of the Aryans’. They were able to get my whereabouts from Eren and sent Schmitt to fetch me, but I was already on my way to Switzerland when he reached my home.”

“How did he get you?”

Erskine slightly jerked his head to the side and back, “A year prior to my attempted escape, I met a man in Geneva who warned of the dangers that lied in Berlin. He gave me his card if I needed to escape. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have waited so long before I made the phone call. I was tipped off by an old colleague of Eren entering Nazi custody.

Everything was set. My family and I were to enter Switzerland by crossing Lake Constance. We made it to Meerburg and the lake was in sight when Schmitt and his agents cut us off.

Schmitt believed that there was a power left behind by the gods. He believed himself to be a leader of a new race of men. He wanted me to ‘perfect the serum’, make him stronger than Eren. He had my children, Klaus and Marlene, taken to the outskirts of town as insurance implying that they would be sent to Dachau if I should fail.

I stalled for as long as I could hoping Schmitt would forget about me, but it was not meant to be. A few years after I was taken hostage, Schmitt stormed into my lab and pointed a gun to Greta demanding I give him the serum.”

“Did it make him stronger than Eren?”

“It did, but it had...side effects. The serum was not ready. Schmitt’s skin turned red and his face became so disfigured that Hitler called him the Red Skull. He killed Greta with his bare hands,” Erskine wiped away a few tears, “and ordered Marlene and Klaus to be sent to Dachau while I was banished to the dungeons.

Fortunately, Agent Carter and the SOE were able to save Marlene and myself. Though Klaus sacrificed himself when the agents could only save one of them.”

“Your son is a hero.”

“I only wish I could’ve told him that myself. But, back to your original question. I chose you because, like Konrad, you are a weak man. You see, the serum amplifies everything; good becomes great and awe-inspiring, bad becomes worse and a nightmare. Men who are strong their entire lives often do not value strength and abuses it. However, a weak man who is compassionate and brave will use it to help others. You were chosen because you had the aforementioned virtues and because you use your mind.

The world does not need perfect soldiers, look where that has gotten us. No, what we need right now are good men.”

Erskine poured out two shots and gave a glass to Steve.

Steve raised his glass, “To the little guys.”

The liquor was just about to touch his lips when Erskine snatched the glass from him, “What are you doing? You have an operation tomorrow. No fluids.”

Steve chuckled as Erskine bid him farewell and good luck tomorrow.

  Ife found Steve in the Common Room hunched over a chair with a letter in his hands. Emotional echoes of gloom came off in waves as she approached him.

“Whatcha looking at, Steve?”

When Steve didn’t respond, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, “What’s wrong?”

Steve finally turned to Ife, “I received an invite to a funeral. It’s for Marlene Philomena Erskine, Dr. Abraham Erskine’s daughter.”

Ife nodded in understanding; he feels that he failed Marlene by not protecting Dr. Abraham Erskine.

But in fact, he didn’t fail her.

She lived quite the life for a human.

Not long after her father’s assassination, Marlene became a badass mechanical engineer and physicist. Her designs and schematics for transportation vehicles and energy storage/distribution gave the colonizer nations a fighting chance during the Wars Against Colonialism.

Though part of it was because the UA was a little cocky at that point. Marlene sure lit a fire under their ass! Ife can still hear her Aunt Eziamaka pouting at the news of one of UA bases nearly falling into their control.

Marlene’s assistance with the war effort didn’t last long as her gratitude towards the people who saved both her and her father wasn’t enough to overlook the Military’s treatment of some her colleagues.

Her life from there was pretty standard. She became a professor at MIT, got married and had a few kids.

BNA took her off the ‘humans of special interest’ list in 1971.

Thinking back on it, Marlene may have had a better life by her father not making it past WWII.

Though Ife thought it would be wise not to mention this to Steve.

“When is the funeral?”

Steve didn’t raise his head, “It’s in a week.”

“In that case, might I accompany you?”

“Yes...and thank you.”

“No Problem! See you later.” Ife wrapped her arms around him in a quick hug and went on her way leaving Steve slightly bewildered.

  Steve didn’t know what to make of Ifekerenma.

She was always asked the team how they were feeling at what seemed to be the right moment. Shoot, she even talked to custodial staff that few of ever acknowledge. Compassionate to nearly everyone, especially the child hostages during the last mission.

She’s nerdy to the point of Sam jokingly calling her a weeb (anime lover?) when she walked around in an oversized Cowboy Bebop t-shirt once. Wanda mentioned a ‘digital friend’ in her room and caught her mentioning how slow Stark’s tech was much to the amusement of team at Tony’s expense.

Steve’s certain Nat sent Clint a video of the whole thing.

Also, she was what Sam called a ‘Supreme Chef’. He contently patted his midsection remembering the feast she prepared for the team last night. Her cooking would’ve put some of Stark’s gourmet chefs to shame. She asked the team what they liked and she ended up having to create a dinner rotation. Steve was especially touched when she went to an antique bookstore for a recipe that was close to what his mother would’ve made for him.

Furthermore, she would leave out little homemade treats/ snacks at night. Pietro and Sam would sneak some when they thought no one was looking. She even giggled when he accidentally let out a huge belch after an amazing dinner a couple nights ago saying it’s a sign of thanks on her home planet, Avlenia.

Ife always called him Steve; not ‘Captain’ or ‘Cap’ or even ‘Good ol’Century Virgin’ (damn it, Tony!). She never made light of him ‘taking an ice nap’ or asking him about the 1940s in a demeaning way like some reporters and ‘little upstarts on social media’. Somehow, Ife found out about his love of drawing and got him art supplies with a list of recommended artists

She made him feel more like a person and not a symbol or a far off figure who’s emotionless.

Steve felt warm whenever he was around her in a way not unlike Bucky or Peggy though much more like Bucky. She seemed to sense that he was desperate to truly be seen in way that only Sam and sometimes Nat has.

It also didn’t hurt that she was a total knockout. He had the, ahem, pleasure of seeing her out of her uniform and training outfits a few times. She usually wore clothes that were more on the modest side...except for that one time when she wore a Sailor Moon crop top and high-waisted shorts as a dare from Nat. Half of the compound was staring and Steve spent most of the day in his quarters nursing a hard on he was so aroused.

And yet, Ife was one of the toughest women he knew; even Nat was a little scared of her (at least, he thinks). She might be the strongest person physically and she doesn’t take shit from people who badmouth her or the team; Agent Roussel learned that the hard way.

All in all, Ife was...something else, someone he wanted to get close to.

  The day of Marlene’s funeral started out well enough.

Ife spent the early morning making Sam’s request of cinnamon rolls, sausage, omelettes, waffles, and hash browns since he won the raffle of Vision’s turn as he doesn’t eat.

She was handing out everyone’s first servings (didn’t care what happened afterwards) when she felt Steve’s emotional echoes of depression, melancholy, and despair noting how his eyebrows furrowed and how tense his body language was.

She just hoped she could get to him.

  Steve was walking to garage hoping his outfit wasn’t too much.

Nat somehow convinced him into wearing a Highbridge Black Custom Suit with an Eastley Dobbey Blue Shirt, a Black Solid Tie, a Navy Blue Pocket Square, and Ink Black Dress Shoes.

He ‘upped the swoon dial’ as Nat put it. Could’ve sworn he heard Sam snickering.

Steve reached the entrance hoping not to keep Ife waiting when he heard clicking of heels behind him.

He turned around to find Ife looking almost unearthly.

She was wearing a black Ankara (?) dress with a cape that was black on the outside and golden on the inside with various blue, silver, and khaki rectangle clusters. Her hair was mostly contained in a wrap with a few strands framing her lovely face. Her full, plump lips were coated in a Light Plum (?) Matte Lipstick and she wore minimal gold eye shadow.

Her outfit did a splendid job of hinting at her voluptuous curves without needlessly flaunting them like the women who throw themselves at him at press tours.

Ife smiled at him and asked which car were they taking.

Steve motioned to one of the Black SUVs and the two of them strapped in for the three hour car ride.

  Ife sighed and gazed out the window at the scenery. Neither one of them had said anything in the past twenty minutes. Steve wasn’t a fan of most of the music that’s on the radio despite Sam’s best efforts. Ife had to break out her puppy dog eyes to get him to let them listen to some instrumental music from her favorite movies.

It seemed that they weren’t going to say anything until Steve cleared his throat.

Ife, not wanting to suffer in silence, decided break it, “How did you know Marlene?”

Steve raided his eyebrows for a split second, “I didn’t. I just feel like I should pay my respects, you know? I mean, I should attend the daughter of the man I failed’s funeral.”

The last sentence struck a chord with Ife. Emotional echoes of despair hit her like a tsunami.

Tentatively, Ife continued, “How did you fail Erskine?”

“I-I don’t think I’ve fulfilled my promise to him. The country has changed so much since I was on ice. It’s funny; I thought that Brave New World would only have a one of two aspects come to life, but I didn’t see nearly the whole book being right.”

Ife didn’t argue with the last two points. The US was nothing but a never-ending commercial sometimes. People were too busy being ‘happy’ or trying to get the newest thrill to realize that they were living in a sham of a republic.

Though she was concerned about the first sentence.

“What was the promise you made to Erskine? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Steve turned slightly, “To be true to who I am; a good man, not a perfect soldier. To be more like Konrad.”

Ife nodded musing on his answer. Erskine would want everyone he helped to be a good person considering the dangers of such power.

Though she wondered if she knew Dr Abraham’s full history.

Abraham Erskine came from a long line of Homo Magis who specialized in Alchemy . He turned to science when it was clear that his magical powers would never manifest (being only 1/16 Homo Magi). Erskine started working on what would become the Super Soldier Serum in 1920 after the witnessing the horrors of WWI firsthand as a medic.

He made a breakthrough in 1927 when he found what looked to be an old power cell in the attic of his childhood home. Turns out it was a modified Atlantean battery dating back to the 1600s, but whatever.

Konrad Jager was the first of nine volunteers; most of whom went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades and be part of the German Resistance’s Special Forces during WWII.

Needless to say, they were recruited into BNA’s European Division.

Only Eren Kant was deemed a failure in the end.

Ife shook her head at the info in Erskine’s folder.

Eren was pompous dumbass who broke himself out jail by bending/breaking the bars of his cell after getting arrested for being a player and bully by the Munich Police in August of 1935. His show of superhuman strength got Erskine’s work onto the Hitler’s radar. BNA had to send a cleaner to ‘handle’ Eren before he could get everyone in even more trouble.

She wondered if Konrad and the others would make an appearance.

“What do mean by not staying true to yourself?”

Steve sighed, “It seemed a lot easier to do so in my time.”

Ife wanted to go further, but she couldn’t. Steve was punishing himself up for something he couldn't control and it was tragic.

She hoped that she could actually help him, not for the mission, but for himself.

  They arrived at the venue twenty minutes early. Steve was trying (failing) to fix his tie while Ife was looking as glamorous and poised as can be.

Sensing Steve’s unease, she gave his hand a comforting squeeze, “You’ll do fine,” she whispered as she fixed his tie while not trying inhale his delicious natural scent like a creep (again).

“Let’s go inside.”

  Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing when they entered the venue. Though Ife had to hand it to the guests; no one asked Steve for an autograph or a selfie. She noted several BNA officials and a couple of Earth-based Non-Human big wigs in attendance.

Guess Marlene was popular.

“Ife!” Azeneth shouted as she strode over to from a corner and enveloped her in a hug.

“Azeneth, how are you? I didn’t think you would be back from Mexico City so soon.”

“Well, the mission was short and they wanted me in New York to accompany Eliza here. Now, who is this fine gentleman, Ife?” Azeneth queried while Steve started shifting uncomfortably.

“This is Steve Rogers, one of my new teammates and Ca-”

“Captain America. I know, Ife. I was jesting.”

Ife sighed dramatically while rolling her eyes, “Steve, this is Azeneth. She’s one of my best Earth-based friends.”

“Kickass friend.” Azeneth corrected, “How are you liking Ife? She’s not too much trouble.”

“Stop it, ‘Aze!” Ife playfully hit Azeneth’s shoulder, “Feel free to ignore her, Steve.”

“Hmm, no. I don’t think I will, especially after the stunt you pulled on the first day at the compound.”

Azeneth burst out laughing at Ife’s shocked expression and Steve’s sly grin. She probably would’ve kept goin if not for Eliza cutting into their conversation.

“Excuse us, Mr. Rogers. I’ll have to speak with Ife for a moment. My name’s Eliza Maza, by the way.”

  Once they were out of Steve’s line of sight (Azeneth was keeping him busy), Eliza activated a noise canceller.

“So did anyone die in the attack on the Magic Council?” Ife asked as she made sure Steve wasn’t looking at them.

“No one was harmed, but several books are missing from the library.”

“Shit! Okay. Well, would Dr. Strange be available to assist Wanda with her training? Wong and Nazaret are at the Sanctum and he said that he knew of some spells that could help.”

“I’ll look into it. I should have an answer in a week”

“Okay.”

“Ife, please give me a call when you get back to the compound.”

Ife eyed Konrad Jager, Gregor Eisenberg, Sonje Decker, and Lukas Denhart making their way to Steve. She hoped they weren’t going to drop an info bomb on him today.

“I will.”

  The service was short and sweet as Marlene didn’t want everyone to be bored to tears on her behalf. The crowd got a laugh out that joke.

Afterwards, Marlene granddaughter, Zahara, requested if Steve could stay for a bit. She gave him a beautifully wrapped package.

“My grandmother wanted you to have this. She saw you fighting in the Battle of New York and knew you would know what to do with it.”

“It would be an honor, Miss.”

  Ife thought about her earlier conversation with Steve on the say back. She realized what’s happened to Steve was heartbreaking.

Here was a man who gave up everything for a country that only wants him as a cudgel for their heinous deeds. Someone who, if he hadn’t fallen into the ice, would’ve probably been ruined by the same country he swore to protect. They would’ve labeled him as a communist and destroyed his good name for not immediately getting on board with the next war.

To be honest, Ife didn’t think much of Steve before joining the team. She thought he was just the banner boy for colonizers to feel good; he was the reminder of that brief moment when the US was totally the bad guys (totally being the operative word).

But now?

She saw the toll the helmet and shield had on him. Ife doubted he knew that he was going to be alive for awhile judging how neither Konrad or the others aged a day since they received Serum 1.0 and Steve supposedly got one that was at least 3x as powerful.

She wanted to comfort him somehow, but she was lost on what to do.

When she got back to the compound, she gave Steve a hug and went straight to her quarters to call Eliza.

“Eliza. I can’t do this by myself, and if we’re going to pull this off, I’m going to need some serious backup because the Avengers need some serious help.”

  Fury was going through some mission reports when he heard a knock on his door.

“Come in.”

Oddly enough, Ife was the one to enter the room and not Maria Hill.

“Good Evening, Fury. I have someone who would like speak with you.”

“Well, give me a name and contact info and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Actually,” Ife reached in her pocket for a disc, “I can do you one better.”

Ife tossed the disc into the air and a moon-door portal formed from it. Out came Eliza, Azeneth, and Angela in her gargoyle form.

Eliza gave Ife a quick nod and turned to Fury, “Good Evening, Nicolas Fury. My name is Eliza Maza and we’re from the Bureau of Non-Human Affairs or BNA. I would advice that you lower your weapon. It won’t do you a lick of good,” Fury lowered his gun,” Good. Put Maria Rambeau on speaker, we need to talk.”

  -Somewhere in France-

 Maeve was enjoying her brunch while watching the footage of Eliza officially making contact with new SHIELD and SWORD.

“Well, it looks like it’s time to ‘get the band back together’ as the kids would say.” She chirped to the woman across the table.

“That expression pretty much died in the 90s. No ‘kid’ uses that phrase anymore.” Koronis deadpanned.

Maeve scoffed, “Anyone born after 1800 is a ‘child’ to me. This is what I get for trying not to sound like ‘an old hag’ as you put it.”

“Well, is everything on track?”

Koronis, or Carol, closed her eyes for few seconds, “I see nothing standing in our organization’s way. However, we should have the meeting sooner rather than later.”

“Duly noted. Anything else?”

“The new variable, Ifekerenma, will be more useful to our plans than I originally anticipated.”

“Oh, I do love surprises! I mean, I know how it will end, but I still like to be at least a little surprised. I knew it was a good idea to let Klaue be discovered by Ultron in Istanbul!”

Another woman walked up to the pair,”You wanted to see me, Mistress?”

“Yes. Svetlana, call the others. It’s time to put our plan into high gear. Hell’s Moon is upon us.”

  Steve was having a shitty birthday.

The press was pestering him about the presidential election. Several outlets have called him a sellout and a coward for not endorsing anyone.

He was figuring out the best way to take a shower and hit the hay in less than 30 minutes when he found a beautifully written note taped to his door.

It said to come to Ife room wearing his best dancing clothes.

Ten minutes later, Steve knocked on her door and it instantly opened to reveal a modest dancing hall not unlike the ones he went to with Bucky before the war.

He was so lost in thoughts admiring the place that he failed to notice Ife hovering a few feet from him.

“Happy Birthday, Steve! How do you like it?”

Steve turned to see Ife in a knee-length golden yellow African Wax Print Ankara dress with cold shoulders, ruffled sleeves, and a v-neckline. He didn’t miss the modest view of her cleavage or how her legs looked oh, so smooth in the dress.

Ife, for her part, was super nervous about this. Nat said that people went to dance halls all the time in the late 1930s and 1940s and it took her five days to get the architecture, the music, and the lighting just right.

She hoped that Steve wouldn’t be angry with her.

Steve looked incredibly handsome in his simple dress shirt and slacks. His powerful shoulders, thick biceps, trim waist, and beefy thighs were accentuated by the lighting which made him look like he was glowing.

Ife would’ve drooled if she knew that he didn’t like it when most women would throw themselves at him.

“It’s amazing. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry about the dress. I couldn-”

Steve raised a hand to stop her from going off on a tangent,”You look beautiful.”

Ife felt a flurry of warmth in her core at the compliment.

“So, what would like to do?”

Before Steve could answer, Duke Ellington’s Don’t Mean a Thing starting playing.

Steve stretched out his hand, “Would you like to dance?”

Ife took his had and they glided onto the dance floor.

“Where did you learn to dance?”

“Bucky’s mom made us learn when Bucky started getting attention from the girls at school. She thought it best that we knew how to treat them to a good time.”

“I see,” Ife giggled, “Then she was wise to make take the lessons. Though I’m more familiar with the jitterbug.”

Steve chuckled as they resumed swinging. He hummed a bit as they danced to Ella Fitzgerald, Caro Emerald, Jo Stafford, Billie Holiday, and Gene Krupa.

Ife was impressed with Steve’s dancing skills. What were those women thinking passing him up like that?!

After a couple more rounds of dancing, the music shifted to something more modern but not (it was Howl’s Moving Castle’s Main Theme) , the colors on the walls and ceiling brightened, and several chandeliers formed on the ceiling.

Steve gave Ife a slightly confused look and asked her if she would like to try a waltz this time.

The song lasted a little more than five minutes. Steve was somehow able to lead their movements in sync with the song.

Ife felt her body was aflame with gentle yet commanding touches Steve was giving her. He even lifted her a few times making her feel as though she was flying with how gently he held her.

They were absorbed in their own world they either failed to notice or ignored Nat and Wanda entering Ife room to see if they could have another spa day. Nat even got a few pictures of the two dancing.

Steve gave Ife one last life during the climax and pulled her in when the music came to a close. They were about to come in for a kiss when Ife pressed her lips together and back away.

“We should probably retire for evening. Goodnight, Steve.”

Steve’s shoulders slumped in defeat, but left Ife’s room with a simple goodnight with Nat and Wanda in tow.

Ife frowned. She knew Steve wasn’t in the best place for a relationship and her conscience wouldn’t let her take advantage of that.

[enkelimagnus]

Delacroix

Bucky Barnes Gen, 2565 words, rated T

Jewish Bucky Barnes, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Episode 5 Truth

Bucky spends a few days in Delacroix with Sam and his family. On one evening, as they both have a beer before dinner, watching the sun set, they have a conversation about life, about therapy, about work.

TW: US healthcare system and the military industrial complex, mental health

Read on AO3

Part 33 of Making a Home - the Jewish Bucky series

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Sam’s family house is more of a home than anything Bucky’s lived in since he was deployed.

It’s warm and luminous, with big windows and light paint on the wood and the walls. There’s a poarch where they all end up sitting at the end of the day, when the sun sets over the bayou. The walls outside are blue and the roof is red. There are crayon drawings stuck with magnets to the fridge and mismatched furniture and containers. It’s been lived in, loved in.

A few days after his surprise arrival, Bucky stops feeling like a blood stain on the tapestry of life of the Wilson home.

Sarah’s nice and warm. He immediately takes a liking to her, and her to him, and he can see how much that infuriates Sam. What can he say? She’s a gorgeous woman, funny and bright and caring and her smile is honestly the kind that probably stopped a few hearts in her lifetime. Yes, she’s his sister, but he still has eyes, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t at least show appreciation. Besides, she seems to enjoy it. He’d stop the second he’d sense uncomfort.

He hasn't gotten to flirt and be comfortable with flirting in a really long time. It seems to be the same for her. What if they’re just… enjoying the flirtation? And enjoying infuriating Sam? Bucky considers it his duty as Sam’s friend.

Delacroix is unlike anywhere he’s ever been. It’s half an island and half a town. It’s relaxing. And the food… Bucky doesn’t think he’s eaten as much seafood in his life as he had in the past week.

It’s a slow end of day in Louisiana when Bucky and Sam find themselves sitting on the plastic chairs out back, with beers, watching the surface of the water. There’s music playing in the house, the kids are doing their homework.

It’s simple. Bucky breathes in and out, unobstructed.

He hears Sam’s intake of breath and knows a hard conversation is coming from that alone. No, that’s a lie. Sam’s shifted, ten seconds ago. He’s looked between his beer and the water four times in the past minute.

“We haven’t had time to talk about Madripoor,” Sam starts and Bucky immediately tenses.

He’d almost forgotten he’d told Sam they’d talk about that later. Because still, he’s not ready to talk about it. He’s not ready to talk about that part of his past. It’s still an infected wound in him. It’s still hurting. He can’t do it. He’s about to say that when Sam holds up his hand.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he says, surprisingly. “I don’t need to know shit if you’re not ready to tell.”

Bucky goes back to breathing. It’s a reprieve. Even if one day, Sam might expect him to be ready… it’s extra time. He’s so thankful for it.

“I’ll tell you though,” Sam keeps going. “You need a new therapist. Because if I know one thing, after everything, and what I saw in that precinct? it’s that Raynor’s not working for you. You need better. You deserve better.”

Bucky looks up at him then. Sam is looking at the water, but there is that look on his face. The look of determination, of drive, the look that Bucky knows… there’s no use in trying to go against what he is saying now.

No one has ever told him he deserved better.

He’s told himself that a few times, in the few moments where the clouds parted and he didn’t feel like the worst person in the world.

But he doesn’t think anyone has ever told him that. Even Steve. There was a couple ‘you deserved better’, but they were all in the past tense, all regarding Hydra, not Bucky’s current situation. Because his current situation is good. It’s great, compared to the past seventy years. Maybe even compared to what was there before. Because he doesn’t break his back in the factory during the day and in the docks at night anymore.

He’s so silent and shocked Sam just keeps going.

“And don’t give me bullshit about not needing help or whatever. I know your generation didn’t do therapy but that ain’t gonna fly with me. You deserve a therapist suited to your needs, and I know that’s gonna be hard to find, with your trunkload of decades of trauma, but we’ll find them.”

He says it with such determination, like it’s his new personal mission. He has much better to do than try to help Bucky more than he already has, and yet… Sam looks at him finally, for a long moment.

“Raynor’s not a bad doctor,” he says. “She’s just not the right fit. And that’s not uncommon. We just need to find you someone that’s better. And someone that’s not me. Because I can’t be your friend and your therapist, man. And out of the two, I’d much rather be your friend.”

Bucky’s still staring. He doesn’t know how to handle this. Nowhere in his databank of social interactions is there something that prepares him for this. He’s had long talks with people before, hell, even with fucking Zemo, but this is entirely different and he has no idea how to handle it.

“I’m sure you’re a great therapist,” Bucky says quietly after a moment, before he takes a big swig of a beer.

Sam chuckles, shaking his head. “You do realize I ain’t a therapist right? I’m a counselor.”

“You’ll have to give me the difference on that because we were still using alienist the last time I heard about psychoanalysis,” Bucky points out.

“There isn’t much of one. I guess I’m more about… finding practical solutions for people to deal with their trauma than really knowing the root cause of it. Probably because, since I worked with the VA, I knew what the root was.”

Bucky hums, nodding. That makes sense to him. More than the ‘how does that make you feel’s. “Either way, I’m still sure you’re a great counselor.”

“It ain’t difficult, with your experience,” Sam shrugs, watching him. “You don’t know better, old man.”

Bucky snorts at that, watching the water again. Sometimes, his eyes catch motion, but he’s never sure if it’s wildlife under the surface or just a trick of the light.

AJ and Cass seem to be debating with their mother whether they can finish their homework later, after dinner. Bucky barely knows them, but he already knows it won’t actually get done if they follow their plan. Kids are kids. Bucky’s sisters could never finish their homework after the radio show either. Too distracted, too tired.

He turns his attention back on Sam after a moment.

“Walker is in a bad shape,” Bucky says quietly. “Now, and before Hoskins died too. The second we saw him in Germany, I felt it. That guy didn’t get help.”

Sam sighs heavily. “Yeah. Not enough of them do, when they come back. You wouldn’t, if you weren’t forced to.”

Bucky can’t deny it. “Yeah, but I’m 107.”

If Sam noticed the year added to his age, he doesn’t mention it. At least for now.

“Some of it hasn’t changed that much,” Sam explains. “The army… You know that culture of toughness, right? Gotta be strong, gotta be a man. Can’t cry, can’t show you’re struggling. I’m sure they had that shit too, in your day, probably even worse.”

He’s not wrong. There were a lot of issues in his day but that was part of things. Emotional outbursts that weren’t from anger were frowned upon. Once they got to the war, it was even worse at first, until it started really getting hard. And then there were two options. Either you fucking cry with your buddies, or you end badly. Bucky had Steve, and the Howlies.

“Men like Walker… Because they’re these tough white guys, they’re encouraged to be like that. Aggressive, emotionally-closed off, fight-hungry. They’re the ones that shove you and call you a pussy for not laughing at their frankly horrible offensive jokes. It’s like they think the trauma we all face just won’t touch them. Or that they can’t show anyone it touched them. So they keep it all in. And the only way they get to be… emotional is in combat.”

Bucky nods quietly. They’re worse off than he thought.

It wasn’t good in his day either, but it just feels worse now. It churned and churned and got bigger with every spin, and now it’s all a giant fucked up stick of trauma cotton candy, all twisted in itself and sticking to itself.

“When I work for the SRT… Sometimes I see these kids,” Bucky mumbles. “They’re what? 22? And I ask them why they’re here, you know, try to pass time. And they tell me they enlisted for college. Or healthcare. And it’s…” He closes his eyes. “It’s been eighty fucking years…”

He takes a swig of the beer again, shaking his head. “When the crash hit, in the 30s, things were bad. No one could afford shit, there was polio, there was syphilis… It was really bad. And they made plans. They tried to get healthcare on the way, and they half succeeded. And more than like… two thirds of the population was for it too. And we had basically none of the resources we have now.”

He looks up at Sam for a moment. “It hurts to see… that it’s still… We’re still here. At least on that issue. On other stuff… Rights and all, that’s getting better.” He finishes. “But healthcare… and college…” He shakes his head. “It’s criminal. That’s what it is. It feels criminal.”

Sam bumps his shoulder with his fist, chuckling. “Don’t say shit like that next to journalists, they’ll say the Soviets put communism in your brain along with the murdering.”

Bucky chuckles at that. “Nah. That was all America. Living in it. Dying for it.”

Behind them, AJ and Cass have lost their battle of wits with their mother.

“You happy with what you’re doing?” Sam asks after a moment.

Bucky takes a deep breath. The answer is easy. “No,” he mutters. “But I don’t have a say in the matter. Until they decide I’ve done enough to undo the damage I perpetrated as the Soldier… I’m gonna be clearing Hydra safehouses. And after the shit I pulled with Zemo, I’m gonna be at it for a while longer, I think. But… I was expecting that.”

He can feel Sam’s eyes on him. “You knew what would happen.”

“Yep. On all accounts. With the Dora Milaje, with you, with Walker, with the U.S. government, and the GRC, and everything… Still did it.”

Sam huffs loudly. “Stubborn ass.” He shakes his head. He’s smiling, beautifully, brightly.

Bucky smiles at that. “You know it. Wouldn’t be alive without it.”

The sun is starting to set over the bayou. Every evening, Bucky finds himself thinking he’s never seen anything quite like it before.

“Whatever happens,” Sam points out after a moment, looking down at his empty beer bottle. “You got a couch here. Somewhere to crash. Somewhere to rest. I don’t know what your situation is, up north.”

Bucky sighs a little. “I got a house,” he answers, looking back at him. “A townhouse, in Brooklyn.”

Sam’s eyebrows rise up to meet the descending sun. “Well excuse us, mister.” He teases.

Bucky shakes his head. “It’s not like that,” he starts. Sam looks even less like he takes him seriously. “It’s a former Hydra safehouse,” he adds, and now his friend’s eyes get a little sadder, a little darker. “The army got tired of me taking space in their housing, so the second we raided a place within proper commute distance, they handed it over to me.”

Said like that, it sounds even worse than it actually was.

“It wasn’t like.. Full of Nazi or Hydra shit, or anything. It was just a house. They got rid of the bodies.”

The emotional journey on Sam’s face as he talks is worth a good dozen of sunrises.

“And you live there?” Sam asks. He’s struggling not to let his bewilderment and horror show, but he’s failing.

It makes sense. It sounds like an absolutely terrible situation to be in. It is an absolutely terrible situation to be in. As much as owning a townhouse in Brooklyn can be terrible.

It’s been about four months now since he signed those papers and moved his bag of things into that pretty house with the marks in the doorways and the basement he still hasn’t stepped foot in. And now that he’s been away long enough…

He guesses he kinda misses it.

He doesn’t miss the house in itself, much. He does miss… everything else though. Charlie, Miriam, the neighbor whose name he still doesn’t know, the familiar commute, the Chinese place he gets a lot of very late night food at, the proximity to his childhood streets, the way life feels there. He misses his night jogs in the relative quiet. He misses the weather, and the oven he baked kugel in for the first time.

Brooklyn has become familiar again, in all of its differences with his memories.

And he didn’t even realize it was happening.

“You should come, one of these days,” Bucky shrugs. “I have a couple guest bedrooms.”

Sam punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Fancy ass ‘couple of guest bedrooms’.” He teases and Bucky smiles. “So I’m guessing I should try and find some good therapists for you in New York then,” he adds.

Bucky shrugs lightly. “I feel like… I have some stuff tethering me there.”

Sam’s expression shifts for an instant. “Like the SRT?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nah. Like my childhood congregation, that somehow still exists, and has a shul not too far from where I live.” He points out.

“Shul?” Sam asks.

Bucky smiles lightly when he looks up at him. A few days ago, Sam spoke of his teetee and Bucky probably made the same face Sam’s making now.

“Synagogue,” Bucky explains. “Jewish temples. Shul’s yiddish.”

Sam makes a small ‘ah’ sound and nods. For a moment, they’re silent again. The noises of the world around them aren’t threatening to overwhelm them though, they’re… comforting. A warm tapestry in the background.  

“You’re Jewish, I take it?”

“No, I’m Mormon,” Bucky replies with the straightest face he can muster before chuckling.

Sam punches him again, a little harder this time. “Come on, dude.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m Jewish.”

That’s the first time he says that out loud in… He’s never said it like that ever. This is the first time in his life that he says it that way. The first time he’s not afraid of the outcome of such an admission.

It’s a heady, wonderful feeling. He never thought he’d ever be comfortable enough to do that. Somehow, he might have Zemo to thank for that. Zemo and his fucking questioning. Not that he’s going to be asking much more questions from the Raft.

He’s Jewish. That’s a truth that doesn’t deserve to be hidden right now. Not when he can carry it. Not when he is strong enough to bear it proudly. He feels like his heart is going to burst with something he cannot name.

“Did Steve know?”

Bucky bursts out laughing.

[finalfrontierpioneer]

2020 Fic Recs

Okay, I did a fic rec list last year for 2019, and nobody asked for this, but you know what, I’m gonna do another one. Really the only thing I wanna look back on about 2020 is the fic- bc damn there were some good ones!

Same as last year, these are fics that were completed in 2020. (So no in-progress fics here)

So here goes, 20 fic recs for 2020, in no particular order! And full disclosure, these are all totally different ratings/pairings/whatever.

I tried to tag all the authors who had tumblrs, but i probably missed some, and some of them aren’t actually working but hey! the username is there!

Some stucky bc of course

Sharpened Claws by tragicama (Explicit)

Steve Rogers has a unique talent of getting himself into danger. As one of New York City’s best homicide detectives, it isn’t easy to ignore the constant call of trouble and gore. At least, that’s what he tries to tell his overprotective and brooding boyfriend, Bucky Barnes, even if he knows it might be a lie.

Bucky is dangerous, gorgeous. . .and a werewolf. As the Alpha of New York City, he is easily considered the most powerful being in the world. But when Bucky begins to lose his control over his shift, he slowly becomes aware of a bond that sends him reeling, and one he’d never thought possible.

But everything is not as it seems. After a homicide case unleashes a sequence of events that neither Steve nor Bucky are prepared for, they soon find themselves entangled with a danger that threatens to rip them apart. With the help of Steve’s partner and best friend, Sam, Bucky and Steve navigate a dark web of pack politics, masquerade balls, and a crash course in what it means to be a pack, even as a greater danger looms. And one that might succeed in ripping them apart.

These Happy Gilded Years by crinklefries @spacerenegades, nalonzoo (Teen)

Steve Rogers, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and mostly happy disposition, had lived twenty-three years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

( Steve is wealthy and and charming, with good humor and good temper, doted upon by his mother and the highest of New York Society, with no one to ever criticize or say the word no to him. Well, other than Bucky. But he doesn't count.

He is also warm and friendly and has a talent for matchmaking. Or so he thinks. Actually, he's kind of terrible at it.

Importantly, Steve will definitely never fall in love or marry, himself. He tells everyone this, repeatedly. Well anyway, we'll see about that. )

Jane Austen's Emma, but a little gayer, set in 1890s Gilded Era New York City

Demon Seed by SucculentHyena (Mature)

[Transcript 00:11:48]

MS: You were with him the most throughout the course of events, both before and after. Your account could shed light on something we may have missed.

JB: What difference will that make?

MS: It could make all the difference. Captain Rogers’ case is unprecedented, he’s the most intact victim we’ve ever recovered-

JB: [laughing] You call that intact?

A Noble Steed by alby_mangroves @albymangroves or @artgroves, leveragehunters (Teen)

"You say the Warhorse showed up last night," Sam said in tones of profound doubt.

"Yeah," Steve replied.

"The Warhorse. The Warhorse of legend. Daelland's Warhorse."

"The same as the one on the back of the transit card, yes."

"And he appeared in your living room?"

Steve eyed the Warhorse, very large and very black and giving him a dubious look out of his strange grey eyes. "He's standing in it right now."

"Uh huh," Sam said.

"Hey, I'm not any happier about it than you are."

* * *

Steve's mom had left Daelland long before he was born, following her heart to New York, but she'd raised him on stories of its famous Warhorse. Before she died, he'd promised he'd go back and learn the country she'd come from.

That was why he was in Daelland. Not so Daelland's legendary Warhorse could appear in his living room. But planned or not that's what had happened—now Steve had to figure out what to do about it.

a hat, a horse (a Hyundai), and the will to ride by elkane @elkane, synonym4life @synonym-for-life (Explicit)

After Steve and Bucky rescue their pals from the Raft prison, they decide to dig deeper into Zemo’s involvement in the UN headquarters’ bombing which sends them on a backpacking trip across select European countries. Steve and Bucky believe this is a story about their mission. Scott Lang and Sam Wilson, who join them halfway through, believe it’s a story about their Eurotrip (and they’re probably right). This writer, however, has been waiting to tell you that the fic’s true mission is Steve and Bucky missioning towards missionary.

Follow them on their journey across Europe in tiny cars, packed subway trains and even on skis as they tumble down the Swiss Alps (in a fun way this time!), all the while reigniting untold feelings of the past through inappropriate sexual encounters and terrible communication skills.

someday at christmas (there’ll be no wars) by stevebuckiest @stevebuckyinc (not rated)

A mission on Christmas. Not even on Christmas, technically. A mission after Christmas which means he and Steve and the Howlies will be trekking through the tundra towards possible death on what used to be Bucky’s favorite day of the year. Jesus Christ.

(alternatively: bucky and steve try to make the best of a shitty situation)

the cabin by natalie_nebula (Explicit)

It felt like he… It felt like they were always so close. Everything seemed like it was under control. He remembers hearing Wanda’s voice, seeing a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. He remembers yelling something back at her, telling her to stop, to not come any closer. He remembers a bright flash, then a boom, and ringing in his ears. He remembers a black blur, and hands on his back, around his waist, then—darkness…

After the explosion in Lagos, Steve wakes up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and all he knows is that Bucky's the one who brought him there. While Sam, Nat, and the other Avengers try to figure out what happened to their friend, Steve takes the time away to heal—both his relationship with Bucky, and with himself. My cozy, romantic, and introspective Civil War rewrite.

Every Feeling by Nestri (Explicit)

Steve completely surprises Bucky with a visit, scent thick with heat. The Alpha keeps his hands to himself until Steve makes it clear he doesn't want him to.

Halbarry!

A Speedster and a Space Cop get into a Car by ChocolateTeapots @chocolateteapotsvis (Teen)

Hal and Barry embark on their most perilous mission yet: picking Wally up from the airport.

For Halbarry Week, Day 3: First Times “And you just called me Barry, genius”

Crosswind by Cinderstrato (Explicit)

Hal had collected plenty of regrets over the years. What was the weight of one more?

Just A Mark by the_butler @the-butler-fanstuff (Mature)

“What a nerd.”

Barry had been haunted by these words all his life, seeing as they were his soulmate’s mark. It came out during puberty, just like everyone else’s, but by then he was already well on the way to being a ��nerd’ so to speak. He wasn’t just some guy claiming to be nerd because he was into Dungeons and Dragons or anime, oh no. He was a bona fide science nerd- went to interstate science fairs and competitions even.

—————(Originally a one-shot, now continued)——————

Barry Allen was working at the forensics lab of Central City PD when it waltzes the new transfer from Coast City, Detective Hal Jordan, not just into the lab but also into his life. There’s the matter of them being soulmates- but Barry is unconvinced. Science tells him there’s a likely chance that they’re just platonic soulmates, so Hal suggests an experiment of sorts: they go on three dates, and then decide whether or not they’re just platonic, or something more.

Tired by ceelolights @ceeloilights (Gen)

Hal comes home to Barry still working late into the night.

Last but most certainly not least, Jeronica:

The long way round to heaven by Bearfacedcheek (Mature)

“This could screw everything up. Jesus why couldn’t you just, fucking not?”

“I did just fucking not Jughead,” she retorts hotly. “I’ve been not for months. No one was ever supposed to know, least of all you. So, don’t blame me for what you saw when you invaded a private moment.”

“Oh, my bad Veronica,” sarcasm, his most comfortable armour, wraps itself around his words. “Did my near-death experience compromised your privacy? I’m sorry that my spirit took an astral fucking walk out of my almost corpse and y-”

“Don’t,” she gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth and it trembles visibly as she draws it away. “Don’t say that. Jesus Jughead we almost lost you.”

sadder, badder, cooler by thefudge @thefudge (Teen)

AU. Just who is Veronica's mysterious new husband? (based on season 5 spoilers)

all i’ll ever need is you by whatacoolkid @whatacoolkid (Teen)

jughead and veronica but make it ✨christmas✨

destined to be forgotten by bothromeoandjuliet @kindnessinpain2000 (Teen)

There are plenty of broken things in Riverdale - broken families, broken trust, broken hearts - but in the middle stands the two most broken things of all, Veronica Lodge and Forsythe 'Jughead' Jones.

(Jughead and Veronica learn about the Barchie kiss - this is the aftermath)

I Really (Don’t) Know What I Want by Bella_Dahlia @bella-dahlia (Mature)

There were many potential disasters to befall an average weirdo high school student; when one had an active imagination and a love for John Hughes films, as Jughead Jones did, you sort of assumed you had foresaw the possibilities. Plus, after solving a sordid murder and joining a gang, he really thought he gone through his fair share of teenaged trauma.

Having to fake a relationship to save his best friend from dedicating his life to a mafia and getting punched repeatedly in the process definitely had not crossed his mind before now.

——————————————

Or, Jughead and Veronica don’t really know what they’ve gotten themselves into.

all the lovers with no time for me by Krewlak (Mature)

jeroncia goes to stonewall. that's it. that's the fic.

call it what you want to by an_expensive_imagination (Teen)

“First things first,” Veronica says, reaching up to slide the ever-present gray beanie off his head, “no beanies in college.”

And here’s a one off random spideypool:

Shooting For Your Heart by X_Gon_Give_It (Teen)

“In my defense, I didn’t expect you to get hurt.”

“And I didn’t expect to be run out of town, yet here we are.”

He went suddenly stiff, “Wait...you were run out of town?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Peter grumbled, but when he looked up he did a double-take at Wade's confused expression. “Almighty, you really don’t know, do you?” he snapped the drawer shut, “Well, after that little fiasco by Two-Stone Canyon, a little rumor spread that me and you were in cahoots. The rumor got some ground and it turned the whole town against me. I was run out before I could defend my case. Why'dya think I was out there the other night to begin with?”

<><><><><><>

When Peter Parker, a deputy known as Webslinger, gets accused of working with the West's deadliest outlaw he finds himself on the run from the people he once trusted. In an effort to prove his innocence, he finds himself captured by the very outlaw tarnishing his name.