#corporate! steve

[jaebeomsbitch]

Constellations and Destiny (S.H.)

Summary: After months of working with Steve you become friends. He invites you to meet his friends, says you'd love them. Friendship turns into something more.

Pairing: Corporate!Steve Harrington x Corporate!Genderless Reader

Mid-Late Twenties everyone

Warning: mutual pining, slight angst, making out, smut at the end MINORS DNI!!!!

AN: I loved every second of writing this. Please go easy on me, this is my first time writing for Steve.

You’d met Steve later in life, you were always a shy kid never really making friends. Your anxiety always keeping your mouth glued shut even when people were talking about something you knew a lot about. Steve was a co-worker of yours, you couldn’t help but notice him on your first day. Glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, sun-kissed skin coupled with a strew of freckles. One day accidentally confessing that you loved his skin, it reminded you of the night sky. Constellations dancing on his face. Of course this comes much later, when you’re actually friends. 

Steve was the first to approach you, asking you about the current correction of your latest project. From then on he’d make it a point to talk to you at least once a day. He was the only person who tried to get to know you. Everyone else was afraid that you were too standoffish, something you weren’t unfamiliar with. You’d always been called a bitch because of the way your face rested, they thought you looked down upon them. Silently judging them with your gaze but truthfully you were not. 

Steve broke open your shell, pulling piece by piece until you’re cracking jokes in the hallways, shoulders bumping each other’s during meetings, fleeting glances across cubicles. Which eventually turns into meetings after work, he offers to show you around town. Said he had friends that you would love, probably even more than him. He said that you would instantly take to Robin, you shared the same sense of humor. 

You meet them on the weekend, they’re incredibly nice. You instantly connect with Robin just like he says. You both whisper into each other’s ears making stupid comments. Steve teases you for “stealing” his best friend. Robin declares that you were her new best friend, intertwining your elbows together before dragging you to the drink table. You can’t help but glance back at Steve, wanting to keep some sort of connection to him. He’s already looking at you, lips spreading into a smile as he mouths “tell her to slow down.” 

Robin now drunk bumps into Eddie, he grabs her elbow and sits her down on the couch. Then he notices you, notices the way you hover over her, taking her drink, placing it on the table, and tilting her head so she doesn’t choke. He jokes that she’s a lightweight before introducing himself. You notice the shirt he’s wearing, accidentally interrupting him by saying you loved his shirt. You knew who they were? Not many people had ‘good’ music taste in this town, he says. You spend the next twenty minutes just listing rock bands you both like, then gushing over your favorite songs. He doesn’t miss the way you keep glancing at Robin to make sure she’s okay or looking over the room for Steve. 

He pulls you away from Robin, introducing you to his friends. Telling you they’re the greatest bass players, drummers, and guitarists, besides himself, that you’d ever meet. You spend another hour talking to them about their band, their visions for the future, and how they got into their instruments. Apparently Eddie worked as a mechanic, their band only having a weekly gig at the Hideout and a monthly gig at a bigger bar two towns over. Gareth and Jeff had actually purchased a record shop together. They talked passionately about how they bought the place when it was about to close out and how they renovated everything. They had spent long nights redoing the entire place. 

Grant, who was the shiest of the bunch, speaking up every once in a while. He was just like you. Gareth had told you he worked at their shop part-time but he was actually really good with computers. He praised Grant, exclaiming that he made their entire salary in a couple days of work. He also pulls you aside later to tell you that Grant always takes a while to warm up to people and to not mistake his quietness for dislike. You reassure him that if it wasn’t for the alcohol you’d probably be too shy to talk to him, you understood him. Gareth clocks the way you look over his shoulder to give Grant a small smile before looking back at him. 

Steve comes and grabs you, introducing you to Nancy and Johnathan. They were apparently high school sweethearts. They both work for the local newspaper but Nancy had climbed up the corporate ladder incredibly quickly. You were always interested in the process of the news. How did they gather their stories? What were their methods for writing? Nancy delves into a very passionate speech about how her care for carefully crafted words was her driving force. She rambles on until Johnathan chimes in. Talking about how they should probably not talk about work, that you might find it boring. However you protest, you loved seeing people who were excited about their work. Nancy and Johnathan eventually excuse themselves to grab a drink after looking over to your right. 

Steve clears his throat asking about your night. Did all his friends make you feel welcome? You gush about his little get together. You’d never met such a kind group of people, they were all incredibly inviting. They all listened to you and made you feel heard in a way you never had before. He smiles at you, says he’s glad you felt that way because you’d probably be seeing them a lot more often. Really? Your eyes shine bright, lips slightly wet with alcohol as you lean up to look at him. You stumble a little, as you misstep, maybe you’d drank a little too much. Steve grabs onto your arm holding you steady. He smiles at you, making a comment about how clumsy you are. The rest of the night he doesn’t let go of you, hand at the crook of your elbow pulling you around the room, arm around your shoulder as you talk to his friends.

You don’t notice the way they all give him the knowing look. He was in deep, head almost under the watery brew of your spell. They noticed the way he was almost possessive, something unfamiliar to Steve. They tell him how he should actually make a move on you the next day. Teasing him about how he followed you around like a lost puppy. 

The days seem brighter for you, you were adopted into his band of friends. Joining them on bar adventures and board game nights. You fit in like you were always there. You start to notice how Steve starts to get touchier around you. Knee brushing yours, hand pushing your hair back, arm around your shoulder, foot bumping into yours when you start to doze off during a meeting. 

The longer your friendship continues the more time you spend around Steve. You spend the work hours with him, leaving work to change and meet him at his house for dinner. You’d take turns cooking dinner at each other’s places with the pretense that you wanted to learn how to cook but there weren’t any single serving recipes. You’d spend nights sitting across from each other laughing about something stupid your co-workers did, wine glasses clinking, emptying plates, then washing dishes together, you’d wash and he’d dry. 

You’d pop in a movie, starting the night sitting next to each other. You don’t know when but one of you will complain about how uncomfortable you are. So you end up laying on top of him, arm around you, your head on his chest. You reluctantly pull away when it’s time to head home, his sleepy eyes silently pleading for you to stay.

But Steve doesn’t like you like that, he’s like this with all his friends right? He is caring and sweet to every single one of them, you were just another person in his long list of duties. Deep down in your heart you know it isn’t true, Steve isn’t making dinner for Eddie, he isn’t holding Robin close or cuddling with Gareth on the couch. You were basically dating without kissing. 

You were afraid of the feeling in your chest, afraid of the way your heartbeat quickens, and your chest moves a little faster when you’re near him. He’d given you something so sweet, something you had long stopped having hope for, friends. You couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk fucking everything up when you finally felt loved. They’d all take his side, he was their friend of years, they wouldn’t betray him for you. 

So you spend the night crying over the phone, calling Robin, finally voicing that feeling in your gut when you think about Steve. She doesn’t know what to say, she understands your fears and she shares the same feelings. Always afraid of the rejection, too afraid to make a move. Despite the late time you head to her house, fall asleep in her arms as you both whisper secrets to each other. It was set in stone, she was your best friend as much as Steve was. 

You spend weeks agonizing over every interaction with him, heart clenching when he passes  you by in the hallway. You long for him in a way you’d never felt before. So you pretend to fall asleep in his arms, pretend like you don’t feel him attempt to shake you awake even though he doesn’t want you to. You pretend to be in deep sleep as he places you on his bed, pretend like you sleepily grab onto the sleeve of his arm so he can’t leave for the guestroom, pretend you’re seeking warmth when you cuddle into his chest when he finally lies down. You focus on your breathing, not wanting to tip him off until you feel his even out. When you’re sure he’s asleep you open your eyes, looking at the constellations on his face, trying to mentally map out every single one. This continues on for weeks, Steve no longer hesitating to join you in bed. You let yourself grow accustomed to the heat of his skin on yours.

What you don’t know is how painful this is for Steve. To have you in his arms only late at night with your eyes closed. It’s like you only want him for comfort, want him for the way he holds you at night. He can’t stop thinking that maybe you don’t like him romantically. Robin had talked about how you had slept in her bed, hugging each other close.

Maybe this was normal for you, maybe this meant nothing in your head but to him this was everything. These were the fleeting moments you allowed yourself to be vulnerable around him. You weren’t shy anymore but you hadn’t let him in yet. He’d hear pieces of your life story through the small grapevines that Robin extended. 

It isn’t until one night he pretends to fall asleep, wanting to watch the way your eyes move around, lips slightly parted that he hears you. “You’re so pretty it’s painful to look at”, you graze a hand over his cheekbones. “Agonizing that I can only see you like this at night”, the tips of your fingers brushing over his cupid’s bow. 

“What do you mean?” His eyes snapping open at your confession. 

“S-steve” Your eyes open wide, scooting backwards trying to get out of his grip but he holds on tight. 

“Tell me,” His eyes searching through yours for an answer. 

“Y-you’re awake,” You try to deflect. 

“Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me you treat Robin like this and I’ll go back to pretending I’m asleep,” He says, eyes a little wild. His adrenaline on high. He looks at you through the minutes of silence, waiting for a response. 

“I- I can’t,” You sigh, eyes closing, afraid to look at him. “Look at me,” He whispers, trying to pull you closer. You relent, sliding through the sheets until your head is on his chest again, stare up at him. 

“This is where you belong,” He says, looking down at you, gaze incredibly intense. You let your face be dragged up by his hand until your lips meet. It’s slow and sweet just like Steve has always been. When you pull away he litters kisses all over your face. He’s sipped the potion, drunk on the taste of your skin on his lips. After the fifteenth kiss you realize this is where you were always meant to be, your fate has pulled you to this town, to this job, and into Steve’s arms. 

He thrusts into you slowly, feeding off your reactions. 

“Been dreaming ‘bout this s’long,” he slurs, tipsy on the feeling of you around his cock.

“Me too,” You gasp, pulling him down so you’re chest to chest. Even this wasn’t close enough for you. His breath panting next to your ear as you slide your hand to hold the back of his neck. 

“Love you Stevie,” You moan, coil threatening to unwind. 

“S-shit, love you too,” He gasps, hips spasming as you both let go. He tries to pull out of you but you hold him close, “stay like this” you plead. He doesn’t have the heart to tell you no. When you loosen your arms around him he asks if he can pull out now. It isn’t until you confirm that he leaves, bring back a warm rag to clean you up. He bundles you in his arms, whispering praises. 

“You’re mine?” He asks, wanting to confirm this was more than a one time thing. 

“M’yours,” You smile at him as he kisses your forehead. 

You fall asleep, tracing the constellation of freckles on his chest. You were always destined to be his, just like the stars were destined to shine in the sky. 

[hbdttg]

“Hold the elevator!”

The elevator doors are mere inches from closing, but Steve dutifully shoots a hand out to stop them. They slide back open, revealing a flustered-looking man about Steve’s age on the other side.

He’s dressed head to toe in black, decked out in a simple black pullover with a modest V-neck, snug black jeans, and all-black leather Chucks with a messenger bag slung across his chest. The messenger bag is, unsurprisingly, also black, but covered in a collection of tough-looking patches and pins in varying shades of—well, it’s mostly red, dark red, white, and some yellows, but the pops of color still stand out against his otherwise monochrome ensemble.

His dark, curly hair reaches a little past his shoulders and he’s got this frankly outdated fringe that, despite its very 80’s vibe, frames his face perfectly. His eyes are large and expressive, and he’s got this frantic energy about him that reminds Steve of a live wire. He’s nothing like the buttoned-up suits Steve usually shares his elevator rides with each morning, and it’s a refreshing change of pace.

The man gives Steve a thankful look before stepping into the elevator and leaning against the side wall. “Thanks,” he says, a little distractedly. He’s got a pair big of headphones on and Steve realizes he’s in the middle of a phone call when he adds, “No, not you, Gare, I was thanking the guy who held the elevator for me. Yeah, this building’s crazy. There’s a whole-ass sixtieth floor—guess I’m kind of a big deal now.” He lets out a small, self-deprecating chuckle, reaching for the panel beside him.

As the doors close and the elevator starts to slowly ascend, Steve notices the man pressed the button for the floor above his. Both the fifty-second and fifty-third floor buttons are lit in a halo of green.

“You know I didn’t want to leave you guys,” the man continues, a bit more quietly now that he and Steve are sharing the same small space, “but shit, I couldn’t turn down the pay.” He scoffs. “Ugh, listen to me, just another cog in the capitalist machine. Man, if high school me could see me now. High school Eddie used to talk big about forced conformity and rising up against the man, and now here I am—”

Steve tries not to listen to the one-sided conversation going on beside him, but it’s difficult when a moment later, he hears his own name.

“—clocking in for my first day at fuckin’ Harrington Hargrove Hagan. The pretentious bastards can’t even shorten it to an acronym or something. God forbid they have to miss out on the sound of their own names.”

Steve manages to hold in the obnoxious snort that threatens to escape him. He’s starting to think he might like this guy—Eddie, his mind supplies helpfully—but Eddie’s next words have him freezing in place.

“And it’s nepo baby central. Yeah, pretty sure all the H kiddies are hotshot brokers with the company. All the biggest accounts—gee, I wonder why.”

Steve can feel the back of his neck burning hot with a mixture of annoyance and shame as Eddie cracks a caustic joke about silver spoons and trust funds.

“You’re kidding, one of them works at this branch? Damn, I guess I’ll just keep an eye out for the guy who most looks like he’s got a giant stick up his ass.”

This is quickly becoming the longest elevator ride of Steve’s life. He grits his teeth and stares fixedly at the floor display panel above the elevator doors, watching the numbers climb higher and higher. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight.

“Listen, I should go, but let’s grab a drink at the Hideout later. Cool, see you then. Bye.”

Forty-one. Forty-two.

Eddie removes his headphones and shoves them into his bag, angling slightly toward Steve. “Sorry about that, man.”

“You’re good,” Steve says shortly, not looking away from the changing numbers. They reach the forty-seventh floor, and all the while, he feels Eddie’s gaze on him.

It’s not like he’s openly staring, but there’s a certain weight to his furtive glances that completely counteracts his attempts at subtlety. It’s the type of gaze Steve’s familiar with, one that he’s been on the receiving end of since his sophomore year of high school when he hit a growth spurt and actually learned how to style his hair. Assessing. Appreciative. Interested.

And in any other situation, Steve would gladly engage. He’d turn on the charm, quirk the corner of his lip up in that way Robin always rolls her eyes at but reluctantly acknowledges as ‘passably effective’, and maybe even make up an excuse to sidle a bit closer.

But he’s not giving this guy his A-game.

Instead, Steve waits in stifling silence until the fifty-second floor is announced and the doors slide open. He steps forward to exit, but at the very last moment stops in the doorway.

He initially wasn’t going to say anything—though, a past version of himself would have definitely spat something biting and bitchy to Eddie about his snark, would have snootily told him to take his little assumptions and shove them where the sun don’t shine—but sooner or later Eddie’s going to realize he and Steve are colleagues, and he’s going to remember shit-talking him in an elevator on his first day of work, and it’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable.

Steve’s just speeding up the timeline, pushing for the sooner rather than the later, when he decides to spin around and fully face Eddie.

“I think you pressed the wrong button,” he says, all sweet and helpful like he’s talking to Dustin’s mom over a sink full of soapy dishes. “Couldn’t help but overhear that you work at Harrington Hargrove Hagan. It’s on the fifty-second floor, not the fifty-third.” Then he takes a small step backward, moving out into the carpeted hallway.

“Oh.” Eddie scrambles for his phone, unlocking it and scrolling quickly until he finds something that has him straightening up and smiling gratefully at Steve. “I guess I remembered it wrong. Thank you.” He pushes away from the wall, takes a step forward to follow Steve out, but then stops dead in his tracks.

Steve gleefully notes the line of Eddie’s gaze, how it lingers at the breast pocket of his shirt, where, clipped to a retractable badge reel, his building keycard hangs. Eddie evidently hadn’t noticed it during the elevator ride up, but he’s certainly fixated on it now.

Perhaps on the abstract yet easily recognizable Harrington Hargrove Hagan logo in the top right corner.

But more likely, based on the positively mortified look growing on Eddie’s face, on the name clearly printed underneath Steve’s photo in bold, black lettering: STEVE HARRINGTON.

Slowly, Eddie drags his eyes back up to Steve’s face. He stares in silence, eyes bugging nearly out of his head, face turning a concerning shade of pink, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and his reaction is extreme enough that a small part of Steve is almost inclined to take pity on the guy and laugh it all off.

Unfortunately for Eddie, a bigger part of Steve thinks Eddie looks kind of cute all red-faced and embarrassed like this. So he glances down at himself thoughtfully before turning his attention back on Eddie. “Wow,” he says with exaggerated astonishment, “now that you mention it, I guess I do look like I’ve got a giant stick up my ass.”

As if on cue, the elevator chimes in warning. The doors begin to close, but Eddie just remains rooted in place with that same wide-eyed, horrified expression.

When it becomes clear he has no intentions of actually exiting the elevator, Steve chuckles and wiggles his fingers in a cheeky little wave. “Welcome to the team,” he says airily, before Eddie’s still-blushing face disappears behind the elevator doors.

/ Now with a Part 2!

[bigcatbulges]

Source - DrawReshi

(Artist's Bluesky and Telegram Channel for art)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Microsoft put their tax-evasion in writing and now they owe $29 billion

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

If there's one thing I took away from Propublica's explosive IRS Files, it's that "tax avoidance" (which is legal) isn't a separate phenomenon from "tax evasion" (which is not), but rather a thinly veiled euphemism for it:

https://www.propublica.org/series/the-secret-irs-files

That realization sits behind my series of noir novels about the two-fisted forensic accountant Martin Hench, which started with last April's Red Team Blues and continues with The Bezzle, this coming February:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

A typical noir hero is an unlicensed cop, who goes places the cops can't go and asks questions the cops can't ask. The noir part comes in at the end, when the hero is forced to admit that he's being going places the cops didn't want to go and asking questions the cops didn't want to ask. Marty Hench is a noir hero, but he's not an unlicensed cop, he's an unlicensed IRS inspector, and like other noir heroes, his capers are forever resulting in his realization that the questions and places the IRS won't investigate are down to their choice not to investigate, not an inability to investigate.

The IRS Files are a testimony to this proposition: that Leona Hemsley wasn't wrong when she said, "Taxes are for the little people." Helmsley's crime wasn't believing that proposition – it was stating it aloud, repeatedly, to the press. The tax-avoidance strategies revealed in the IRS Files are obviously tax evasion, and the IRS simply let it slide, focusing their auditing firepower on working people who couldn't afford to defend themselves, looking for things like minor compliance errors committed by people receiving public benefits.

Or at least, that's how it used to be. But the Biden administration poured billions into the IRS, greenlighting 30,000 new employees whose mission would be to investigate the kinds of 0.1%ers and giant multinational corporations who'd Helmsleyed their way into tax-free fortunes. The fact that these elite monsters paid no tax was hardly a secret, and the impunity with which they functioned was a constant, corrosive force that delegitimized American society as a place where the rules only applied to everyday people and not the rich and powerful who preyed on them.

The poster-child for the IRS's new anti-impunity campaign is Microsoft, who, decades ago, "sold its IP to to an 85-person factory it owned in a small Puerto Rican city," brokered a deal with the corporate friendly Puerto Rican government to pay almost no taxes, and channeled all its profits through the tiny facility:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

That was in 2005. Now, the IRS has come after Microsoft for all the taxes it evaded through the gambit, demanding that the company pay it $29 billion. What's more, the courts are taking the IRS's side in this case, consistently ruling against Microsoft as it seeks to keep its ill-gotten billions:

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-microsoft-audit-back-taxes-puerto-rico-billions

Now, no one expects that Microsoft is going to write a check to the IRS tomorrow. The company's made it clear that they intend to tie this up in the courts for a decade if they can, claiming, for example, that Trump's amnesty for corporate tax-cheats means the company doesn't have to give up a dime.

This gambit has worked for Microsoft before. After seven years in antitrust hell in the 1990s, the company was eventually convicted of violating the Sherman Act, America's bedrock competition law. But they kept the case in court until 2001, running out the clock until GW Bush was elected and let them go free. Bush had a very selective version of being "tough on crime."

But for all that Microsoft escaped being broken up, the seven years of depositions, investigations, subpoenas and negative publicity took a toll on the company. Bill Gates was personally humiliated when he became the star of the first viral video, as grainy VHS tapes of his disastrous and belligerent deposition spread far and wide:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/12/whats-a-murder/#miros-tilde-1

If you really want to know who Bill Gates is beneath that sweater-vested savior persona, check out the antitrust deposition – it's still a banger, 25 years on:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/revisiting-the-spectacular-failure-that-was-the-bill-gates-deposition/

In cases like these, the process is the punishment: Microsoft's dirty laundry was aired far and wide, its swaggering founder was brought low, and the company's conduct changed for years afterwards. Gates once told Kara Swisher that Microsoft missed its chance to buy Android because they were "distracted by the antitrust trial." But the Android acquisition came four years after the antitrust case ended. What Gates meant was that four years after he wriggled off the DoJ's hook, he was still so wounded and gunshy that he lacked the nerve to risk the regulatory scrutiny that such an anticompetitive merger would entail.

What's more, other companies got the message too. Large companies watched what happened to Microsoft and traded their reckless disregard for antitrust law for a timid respect. The effect eventually wore off, but the Microsoft antitrust case created a brief window where real competition was possible without the constant threat of being crushed by lawless monopolists. Sometimes you have to execute an admiral to encourage the others.

A decade in IRS hell will be even more painful for Microsoft than the antitrust years were. For one thing, the Puerto Rico scam was mainly a product of ex-CEO Steve Ballmer, a man possessed of so little executive function that it's a supreme irony that he was ever a corporate executive. Ballmer is a refreshingly plain-spoken corporate criminal who is so florid in his blatant admissions of guilt and shouted torrents of self-incriminating abuse that the exhibits in the Microsoft-IRS cases to come are sure to be viral sensations beyond even the Gates deposition's high-water mark.

It's not just Ballmer, either. In theory, corporate crime should be hard to prosecute because it's so hard to prove criminal intent. But tech executives can't help telling on themselves, and are very prone indeed to putting all their nefarious plans in writing (think of the FTC conspirators who hung out in a group-chat called "Wirefraud"):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Ballmer's colleagues at Microsoft were far from circumspect on the illegitimacy of the Puerto Rico gambit. One Microsoft executive gloated – in writing – that it was a "pure tax play." That is, it was untainted by any legitimate corporate purpose other than to create a nonsensical gambit that effectively relocated Microsoft's corporate headquarters to a tiny CD-pressing plant in the Caribbean.

But if other Microsoft execs were calling this a "pure tax play," one can only imagine what Ballmer called it. Ballmer, after all, is a serial tax-cheat, the star of multiple editions of the IRS Files. For example, there's the wheeze whereby he has turned his NBA team into a bottomless sinkhole for the taxes on his vast fortune:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#economic-substance-doctrine

Or his "tax-loss harvesting" – a ploy whereby rich people do a "wash trade," buying and selling the same asset at the same time, not so much circumventing the IRS rules against this as violating those rules while expecting the IRS to turn a blind eye:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax-loss-harvesting/#mego

Ballmer needs all those scams. After all, he was one of the pandemic's most successful profiteers. He was one of eight billionaires who added at least a billion more to his net worth during lockdown:

https://inequality.org/great-divide/billionaire-bonanza-2020/

Like all forms of rot, corruption spreads. Microsoft turned Washington State into a corporate tax-haven and starved the state of funds, paving the way for other tax-cheats like Amazon to establish themselves in the area. But the same anti-corruption movement that revitalized the IRS has also taken root in Washington, where reformers instituted a new capital gains tax aimed at the ultra-wealthy that has funded a renaissance in infrastructure and social spending:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

If the IRS does manage to drag Microsoft through the courts for the next decade, it's going to do more than air the company's dirty laundry. It'll expose more of Ballmer's habitual sleaze, and the ways that Microsoft dragged a whole state into a pit of austerity. And even more importantly, it'll expose the Puertopia conspiracy, a neocolonial project that transformed Puerto Rico into an onshore-offshore tax-haven that saw the island strip-mined and then placed under corporate management:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#que-viva-albizu

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/13/pour-encoragez-les-autres/#micros-tilde-one

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[techtimechronicles24]

🇺🇲 Dive into the history of the Apple III (styled as apple ///), a computer that marked an ambitious step forward for Apple Inc. Released in May 1980, the Apple III was designed to be a successor to the highly successful Apple II series, aimed at the business market.

💻 The Apple III was envisioned as a business-oriented machine that would bridge the gap between personal and professional computing. Apple sought to improve upon the Apple II's capabilities, both in terms of hardware and software, while maintaining backward compatibility. Steve Jobs, who was heavily involved in its design, emphasized aesthetics and functionality. The Apple III featured a sleek design and was intended to be more robust and reliable, with enhanced performance.

⚙️ The Apple III was powered by a 2 MHz Synertek 6502A processor, an improvement over the Apple II's 1 MHz processor. It came with 128 KB of RAM, expandable to 512 KB, which was a significant upgrade at the time. The computer featured an internal 140 KB 5.25-inch floppy disk drive. An external floppy drive could also be connected for additional storage. The Apple III supported a variety of display modes, including 24 lines of 80-column text and multiple graphics modes. It ran on Apple SOS (Sophisticated Operating System), which offered advanced features such as hierarchical file system and support for multiple users.

💡 The Apple III introduced several innovations, including a built-in clock, advanced sound capabilities, and a new keyboard design. However, it also faced significant challenges: The Apple III initially suffered from severe overheating problems due to the lack of a cooling fan. This led to hardware failures, with chips often becoming dislodged from their sockets. Early units were plagued by reliability issues, which hurt the computer’s reputation in the business market.

💔 Despite its rocky start, Apple released an improved version in 1981, known as the Apple III Plus, which addressed many of the initial issues. The Apple III ultimately did not achieve the commercial success Apple had hoped for, with only about 65,000 units sold. Nevertheless, the Apple III played a crucial role in Apple's development. The lessons learned from its challenges influenced the design and engineering of future Apple products, including the highly successful Apple Macintosh.

�� The Apple III stands as a fascinating chapter in the history of computing. While it may not have achieved the commercial triumph of its predecessor or successors, its ambition and the innovative spirit behind its design left an indelible mark on Apple’s evolution. Today, the Apple III is remembered as a symbol of both the challenges and the relentless drive for innovation that characterize Apple's journey.

[undreaming-fanfiction]

The office was boring.

Boring. Booooring. Borrrring. BoOoRrRINg. No matter how Eddie spelled it, it still sucked. Everyone so prim, so proper, so focused. And yeah, Eddie was over the moon that he had a stable and fairly well paying job, don't get him wrong, but he'd always had a rebellious streak and now he really, REALLY felt the urge to shake things up.

It started innocently enough, with a 1 dollar goggly eye sticker sheet in the display window of the local stationery shop. So sue Eddie, he liked ridiculous crap, no doubt inherited from Wayne Munson and his mug empire. So Eddie bought the sticker sheet and the next day, he secretly stuck a pair of goggly eyes onto Nancy Wheeler's webcam. He really wanted to see if there was anything else to her than the painfully annoying drive and perfection.

He got his wish when Nancy was preparing for her Zoom call and Robin Buckley snuck behind her, pressing a finger against her lips. "Shhhh. Not a word. You're being watched," she whispered and pointed at the webcam.

That was when Eddie learned Nancy had the cutest snort laugh and that Robin grew an even cuter shade of pink when she heard it. Two birds, one stone and all that .

He decided to keep his identity as the goggly eye bandit a secret. No one knew where and when he'd strike.

Meeting invites? If you looked closely enough, you'd see a small goggly eye stuck in the g of the word meeting.

Forgotten lunch in the kitchen fridge? One goggly eye per day, growing like mold.

A directive against use of goggly eyes? Of course there would be a NO spelled out of goggly eyes.

The office became a beautiful, goggly eye-infested place. Not boring anymore, not when the team lead found his stack of business cards gogglified.

But then.

THEN.

Someone started to add puffy cartoon-ish lips to his goggly eyes. Eddie couldn't believe it - his rebellion was being rebelled against. Or co-rebelled. His mockery was being mocked. And the worst part was - no one knew it was him so he couldn't complain anywhere. What would he say to the HR? That he voluntarily took upon himself the responsibilities of the office gogglifier position and someone has been encroaching on his territory? 

But that wasn't the end of Eddie's suffering, oh no. Because in his anger, he got sloppy - on Friday he came home, slammed his backpack on the desk...and the goggly eye sheet was gone. He searched for it frantically, retracing his steps, praying he hadn't done the only possible thing - leave it on the pile of paperwork on his desk. He couldn't even begin to imagine what the repercussions would be when he came back to the office on Monday. He was certain he was fucked.

Except...not?

Monday came and Eddie rushed to the office, throwing himself onto the pile of papers on his desk and digging, digging...and finding nothing.

Huh. Maybe he lost it outside? Maybe he accidentally threw it out?

As he moved his chair to start his work day, he noticed an envelope on his work seat, labelled - "FAO Mr. Munson". Probably another directive, notice or something.

Nope. It was his goggly eye sheet. Along with a horrendous lip sticker and a note that said I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU.

You might think that this was the biggest shock of that week for Eddie, but you'd be wrong.

The real shock came the same day, when he attended a joint team meeting in which the office pretty boy, Steve Harrington, was presenting, making notes on the whiteboard, and, after an agonizing half an hour, Eddie finally realized why the handwriting seemed so familiar. Because there was a small twirl in the Os that Harrington wrote and the puffy lip bandit note burned in Eddie's pocket, tempting him to take it out and confirm his suspicions.

As everyone started leaving the conference room, Eddie still stared at the whiteboard, wondering if this was it, if he finally found his arch nemesis.

Harrington just motioned towards Eddie's company badge and touched it, briefly pressing the plastic into Eddie's chest. "Looking nice there, Munson." He winked at Eddie and left.

Eddie's confusion very quickly dissipated when he noticed that the fucker stuck a puffy lip thingy onto his picture in the badge. His lips curled into an evil smile as he exited the conference room.

This meant war.

[thingspeoplesayintoontown]

[princenotsocharming]

Ok but what if they lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship??

[merrymarvelite]

Cover of the Day: Captain America #219 (March, 1978) Art by Sal Buscema

[your-fav-is-divorced]

STEVE COBS AND ROBERT CYGER

Steve Cobs and Robert Cyger are Divorced!

[intothedysphoria]

Harringrove at a small town pride- Billy wears the flag he had to hide from Neil, sharing it with Steve. They hold hands the entire way through the town, Steve is peak baby gay, looking at literally every stall he comes across, Billy has improvised a speaker and they’re finally happy.

[hbdttg]

Part 1 / tag list below the cut

“I’m quitting,” Eddie declares, “I’m out. Call me a tree, ‘cause I’m leaving. Call me a banana, ‘cause I’m splitting. T-t-t-t-that’s all, folks!” he adds, doing his best impression of Porky Pig’s signature stammering.

Chrissy’s laser focus doesn’t stray from her monitor, even when Eddie bodily throws himself into the chair across her desk with a long, strangled groan. Wordlessly, she raises her left index finger at him in a silencing gesture. With her brows furrowed in concentration, she drags her mouse around on its pad and double-clicks something on her screen before nodding decisively to herself. After another few clicks, she finally lowers her finger, raises her eyes, and meets Eddie’s gaze.

“Would you mind grabbing what I just printed? Please?” she asks, smiling at him imploringly.

Chrissy could ask Eddie to bleach his hair and shave off an eyebrow and he’d do it. She’s actually who he has to thank for landing such a cushy job with HHH—a referral from a trusted associate like her goes a long way in a place like this.

And despite Eddie’s many complaints about becoming a corporate sellout, he can’t deny that it certainly has its perks. The office is only a ten-minute commute from his apartment, the compensation agreement he signed amounted to more money than his last two jobs combined, his benefits package is frankly ridiculous, and he gets to work with one of his best friends in the world. Overall, not a bad gig.

Even so, he makes a show of sighing, loud and longsuffering, before doing as Chrissy asks, leaving her office to grab her job off the printer. Eddie knows she works in HR and some of her stuff can get pretty confidential, so he doesn’t even try to skim the contents of the page as he walks it back over to her.

“Here,” he says, thrusting the paper at Chrissy facedown.

“Thanks!” she says. She makes no moves to take it from him. “That’s for you, actually.”

Curious, Eddie takes the paper back and flips it over. In the center of the page is a graphic of safety sign one might find in a cartoon factory, though Chrissy had edited the original from “[___] Days Since Last Accident” to “[___] Days Since Eddie Last Threatened to Quit His Job”. There’s a big red zero in the counter box.

Eddie tries to glower down at Chrissy, but it’s sort of hard to maintain when she bursts into laughter. It’s been years, but the sound of Chrissy laughing like this, all bright and breathless and unrestrained, never fails to transport him back to his (third) senior year of high school, when they first became friends over a failed drug deal.

“Don’t be cute,” Eddie says with a laughable lack of authority, dropping heavily back down into the chair.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Chrissy counters, brow raised archly.

Eddie rolls his eyes, crumpling the page into a ball and lobbing it in between them.

Chrissy lets the ball land harmlessly on her desk before sweeping it into the trashcan by her feet.  “Just so you know, I’ve had that saved on my desktop since Monday—and I haven’t had to edit the days count a single time.”

Eddie scoffs, but it’s hard to defend himself when this current visit marks the fifth day in a row he’s floundered into her office, vainly announcing his resignation. “Yeah, well,” he says weakly, “printing it seems like a gross misuse of company resources.”

“What are you going to do, report me?” Chrissy says with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

“Let me guess: you’re the one who receives those reports?” Eddie says dryly.

“Yep!” she says cheerfully. “Now, go on and tell me about your latest trainwreck of an interaction with Steve Harrington.”

“Christ, Chris!” Eddie hisses, leaping to his feet and immediately spinning around to check if anyone was around to hear her damning words. The coast is clear, luckily, but he still scrambles to shut her office door before falling back into his chair. “You can’t just go around saying his name all willy-nilly.”

“He’s not gonna suddenly appear if you say his name three times, Eddie. See, watch. Steve. Steve. St—”

“Don’t risk it!” Eddie squawks loudly, cutting her off.

“You’re an absolute mess,” she says through a laugh, shaking her head at him.

And well, Chrissy’s not wrong.

Eddie’s been a mess since Monday morning, when he unknowingly produced, directed, and starred in The Roast of Steve Harrington. He blames his shitty memory for forgetting what floor his new office was on—if he’d known he was sharing the elevator with someone he could have potentially worked with (let alone someone whose surname made up a third of the company name), he wouldn’t have opened his big, fat mouth in the first place.

When he finally gathered the courage to make it back down to the fifty-second floor and show his face at the HHH office, he kicked off his onboarding with Chrissy with a strangled, “I know it’s my first day and I technically just started ten minutes ago, but I quit. Thank you for the opportunity and good-bye forever.”

Chrissy, the traitor, spent a full five minutes laughing in his face over his shamefully recounted story before patting him twice on the head and informing him he wasn’t allowed to quit for at least six months. The overly saccharine tone of her voice alone told Eddie there was no room for argument there.

Still, that didn’t stop him from following her into her office after the all-hands meeting on Tuesday, all the while whining in her ear, “I can’t thrive in these conditions, Chrissy. Please, I beg of you—accept my sincere and humble resignation from this cursed hellscape.”

‘These conditions’ consisted of any rooms and/or conversations that contained Steve Harrington. Eddie hadn’t been expecting to see the guy doting over the catering when he walked into the conference room that afternoon, and he certainly wasn’t expecting his supervisor and trainer, Murray, to lead him over to Steve to introduce the two of them (though that was likely just an excuse to head straight for the sandwiches that were laid out for the meeting).

While Eddie choked on his own tongue trying to spit out some generic, inoffensive greeting, Steve merely watched him with an amused smirk before thrusting his hand out and offering a perfectly friendly “It’s nice to meet you, Eddie, I’m Steve”, as if Eddie didn’t have Steve’s name and face (and stupidly fit body—who the fuck looks that good in a pair of khakis?!) burnt into his memory from the day prior.

Afterward, Murray, who most assuredly did not have a filter of any kind, bluntly commented on Eddie’s awkwardness, then spent the next five minutes trying to determine if it was normal, strangers-meeting-for-the-first time awkwardness, or something more sensational. Eddie stubbornly kept his mouth shut until the meeting started.

Wednesday followed a similar pattern, with Eddie flouncing into Chrissy’s office with a dramatic “I choose to break my blood oath. At this point I’d welcome the sweet release of death if it meant I didn’t have to work here anymore.”

Chrissy just corrected him, patiently explaining that he was employed at-will, rather than by blood oath, and that if he left before his sixth month, she’d personally skin him alive. Eddie had to pause and weigh the pros and cons of being skinless. Surely it couldn’t be worse than his latest exchange with Steve—via email this time, mercifully.

He’d just learned how to field helpdesk tickets and received one from Steve Harrington himself. It was a simple enough software request ticket, so he assigned it to himself and replied with next steps, asking Steve for a code so he could remote into his computer and install the program.

Steve replied back, asking where he was supposed to find the code. It was an innocuous enough question, but then Eddie noticed something a little off about his email signature: his last name was bolded.

Eddie ignored it, assuming it was a stylistic choice—nothing to read into, surely—but then Steve sent another email shortly after to let him know to disregard his last email; he’d found the right app and was just waiting for it to generate a code. This time, Harrington was bolded and at least two sizes bigger than his first name.

Then, in Steve’s third email, sent not a minute later with the requested code, Harrington was bolded, two sizes bigger than his first name, and highlighted yellow—a tactic Chrissy found so hilarious that she had to shoo Eddie out of her office with tears in her eyes so that she could compose herself and actually get some work done.

Thursday was a blessed reprieve from Steve’s unique brand of psychological warfare, but Eddie still somehow managed to royally humiliate himself in front of him. After he slunk into her office and silently pushed a scribbled-on napkin across her desk—

Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from my position as Systems Analyst II at HHH, effective immediately. Effective yesterday. In fact, I’ll pay you back the entirety of my wages earned if we just forget I ever worked here.

—Chrissy tutted at him sympathetically before taking the napkin and reaching over to dab it at the large wet stain on his shirt.

He’d been walking back to his desk from the breakroom when he rounded a corner and bumped into Steve in the hallway. Literally bumped into, bodily contact and surprised yelps and everything. And it probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal, really, if not for the fact that he had a newly refilled mug of coffee in his hand.

“Eddie, oh my god, are you okay?”

No, Eddie wasn’t okay, because he just splashed himself with hot fucking coffee and now Steve Harrington was worriedly fussing over him and tentatively trying to mop up the liquid with his own fucking hands for some reason, and he was embarrassed (and a little turned on?) and he had to get the fuck out of there now.

“I’m okay, sorry, it’s fine—” he managed to squeak before whirling around and scurrying to the bathroom.

So yes, Eddie’s been an absolute mess the past few days, and today is no different.

…Actually, scratch that. Today is different. Today is worse.

“Okay, now spill,” Chrissy says. “What happened?”

With another drawn-out, pitiful groan, Eddie sinks down in his seat and lets his neck hang off the backrest, blinking up at the ceiling.

“Talk to me, Eds,” Chrissy says, concern starting to bleed into her voice. “If he’s actually bullying you, you can file a complaint. I have a form here somewhere.”

Eddie hears her open one of her desk drawers and reluctantly sits up. “He’s not bullying me, Mom,” he says with a huff. “We actually…we talked.”

“You talked?” Chrissy asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, about the elevator. Buried the hatchet and everything. I said sorry, we laughed about it, it’s over and done with.” Eddie’s gaze darts around Chrissy’s desk, searching for something to distract him from the warm and fuzzy feeling growing in his stomach at the memory of their conversation.

“That’s great, I’m so proud of you!” Chrissy says cheerfully. “But wait, if you two are good now…”

Eddie doesn’t want her to ask what she’s about to ask, because the answer might be more embarrassing than all of his other Steve stories combined.

“Why are you still going on about quitting?”

Eddie drops his face into his hands, feeling totally and utterly pathetic. “Um, because I think I’m sort of, kind of, just a little bit…in love with him?”

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

tbh I didn’t think I’d be writing a second part, but if strangers on the internet validate me enough, I guess I’ll do anything~

Y’ALL. I’m blown away by the response to part one of this silly lil au. I didn’t reply to any of the lovely comments or tags, but please know if you engaged in any way (or even if you just read the fic and snorted a little through your nose at a bit you found funny) I love you with my entire heart and you’ve made my entire life.

[Now for the tag list, which I’ve never done before. Sorry if you didn’t actually want to be on here! Or, sorry if you’re stumbling upon this post on your own after asking to be tagged and I missed you oops.]

@messrs-weasley @n0-1-important @bornonthesavage @thing-a-ling @eddiemunsonswife @changenamelater @ispyblu @thesuninyaface

@invisibleflame812 @4nemo1egend @ikolanatari @mavernanche @songbird-garden @trashpocket @original-cypher @over7joyed 

@commonxsenss @justdyingontheinside @mojowitchcraft @maya-custodios-dionach @justmiiriam @imzadidragonfly @lillemilly @gay-stranger-things @child-of-cthulhu @bleedingoptimism @lemanzanabizarra @melaniehere91

@iswearitsjustme @silver-snaffles @csinnamon-fox @paint-music-with-me @epicsteddieficrecs @sweetcreaturetm @hxneyfarms @bossyknow-it-all @vecnuthy @stevethehairington @anything-thats-rock-and-roll @nburkhardt

@gayngerthings @patchworkgargoyle @violetsteve @henderdads @2btheanswertothequestion

[nando161mando]

Don’t be ridiculous!

[unknowablez]

silly boys all silly and in love [til the end of the line etc etc]

[techtimechronicles24]

📅 This day - on July 3, 1991, Apple and IBM signed a letter of intent to form the AIM alliance, which included Motorola. This alliance aimed to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture.

💻 The primary goal was to design a new hardware platform and develop a next-generation operating system that would unify the computing industry. IBM planned to bring the Macintosh OS into the enterprise market, while Apple aimed to be a major customer for the new POWER hardware.

🛠️ IBM and Motorola allocated 300 engineers to co-develop chips at a joint facility in Austin, Texas. Motorola would manufacture and sell these chips to Apple and other customers. Over 400 people from the three companies worked to create a unified corporate culture, promising to "change the landscape of computing in the 90s."

🤝 Despite initial enthusiasm, relations soured, especially after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1998. Jobs ended the Power Macintosh clone licensing, leading to a contentious relationship with Motorola. This resulted in Apple being demoted to "just another customer" for PowerPC CPUs. Apple and IBM briefly expelled Motorola from the alliance, forcing it to halt PowerPC production until it was reinstated in 1999.

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Commander's Omega"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: alpha/omega, dystopia, sex slavery, forced breeding, mutilation, rape, corporal punishment, fascism, hurt/comfort, power imbalance, mpreg, age gap (38/23), mentions of abortion, miscarriage

Summary: After years of a mass infertility crisis, the United States is overtaken by religious fanatics, and Bucky Barnes finds himself thrust into a brutal world of survival. When he's discovered to be fertile, he's forced to serve as a vessel: a caste of omegas who bear children for the political elite.

Chapter V. Shredder

Story Masterlist

Before:

Bucky rushes to the bathroom when the cramps get too painful, sure that something bad—he doesn’t know what, just something—is going to happen. He pulls down his pants and sits on the toilet, hand pressed against his belly. He’s barely started to swell. It’s only noticeable to him because he was always in such good shape before. Twenty weeks is finally enough to make him look pregnant, at least when he has his clothes off.

“Ah!” He cries out, trying to stifle the sound as pain flashes through him. He can’t let the Putnams hear, he can’t. His insides hurt in a way that they’re definitely not supposed to, and Bucky feels scared. Even though he’s almost twenty two-years old and it’s ridiculous, he wishes that his mom was here with him. She’d know what to do. And even if she didn’t, he’d still be with his mom, not all alone in the Putnams' cold basement bathroom. 

He removes his hand from his stomach and reaches between his legs with trembling fingers. When he brings them back forward to look, there’s fresh blood. Bucky whimpers. 

Red. He’s so fucking sick of red.

-

It takes almost two hours, but eventually Bucky’s body pushes out the baby—though “baby” is a strong word for it. It’s small and bloody, the size of a lemon. And it’s shaped wrong. Bucky catches it in his hands before it can fall into the toilet water. Something about that just seems so wrong. He can’t let it go in there, even if it’s just going to be buried or thrown away in the end. For now it’s his, and he’ll treat it the way it deserves.

“Hey,” he whispers tearily to it, once the cramping’s gone away and he’s just left cold and messy and alone. He pulls his pants back up and lies down on the cool bathroom tile, using the bathmat as a sort of pillow. In his hand he cups the fetus, mournful in a way he never thought he could be for something he never wanted in the first place. “M’sorry,” he tells it. “I tried.”

He really had. Having a baby is the only way for a criminally-convicted omega like him to avoid being sent away. And he’s only got five years to do it. After eight months with the Putnams, he’d been excited to get pregnant—Not because he’d wanted to be violated and knocked-up and forced to give away a child, but because it gave him hope that he might be able to avoid the toxic wasteland of the colonies. If he can’t produce a baby for Gilead, that’s where he’ll go.

Eventually, he has to gather the courage to get himself up off the bathroom floor and cleaned off. He unrolls a bunch of toilet paper and lays the fetus on it, not knowing what else to do. Then he runs a bath and gets in, and watches as the water turns pink.

Downstairs, Commander and Mrs. Putnam are having their Sunday morning breakfast. The table’s covered with tureens of sausages and eggs and waffles—more food than the two of them will ever eat. Once they’re done, the household staff will get to split what’s left. Bucky walks into the dining room to the sight of the Commander on his tablet and Mrs. Putnam pouring herself more orange juice. He waits quietly by the doorway to be noticed.

“Ofwarren,” Mrs. Putnam says when she notices him. “Good morning! Blessed be the fruit.” Her face lights up with a smile for Bucky, something it’s only done since she found out that he’s pregnant.

Bucky can’t bring himself to speak, nerves twisting his guts into knots. 

As if he senses this, Commander Warren looks up from his tablet. “Did you want to take some breakfast from the table?” he asks amicably. 

Ever since Bucky’s pregnancy was discovered, he’s been allowed to eat as much as he wants, whenever he wants. No more waiting for prescribed meal times. It’s a privilege that he’s going to miss. “No,” he whispers. “No, thank you. I um, I have something I have to tell you.” God, he’s never been so nervous in his life. What will they do to him?

Both the Putnams are paying attention to him now. They still have pleasant sets to their faces. Not for long. “What is it?” Mrs. Putnam asks.

Bucky has to try several times before he can force enough air past his vocal cords. “I … I lost the baby.”

Complete, utter silence. Commander Warren sets his tablet down, eyes immediately flicking to his wife. Mrs. Putnam has tightened her fingers around her orange juice glass so hard that Bucky fears it might break.

“I’m so sorry!” he says hurriedly, because he is. God, he is! He’s scared shitless right now. “I-I didn’t—”

“Get out of here,” Mrs. Putnam gasps. She sounds like the air’s been punched out of her. When Bucky doesn’t immediately move, her eyes darken and she smacks the table, rattling the silverware. “Get out!”

Bucky turns and runs from the room.

-

A servant comes down to the basement later, to take the fetus away. Bucky never does find out what they do with it.

After:

Bucky takes to spending the evenings with Steve in his office. It’s nice. As the weather gets colder, Steve makes a habit of keeping a fire going in the fireplace, and each night, Bucky pulls one of the couches a little closer to the hearth to read. He goes through several science fiction novels before he finally has the courage to take down a book about politics���old politics, from how the world used to be, but still interesting. It’d been written by some liberal pundit, and Bucky finds himself smirking once or twice while he reads.

Steve looks up from where he’s working at his desk, smiling at Bucky when he notices him. “What’s funny?” he asks.

Bucky tenses up. “What? Nothing.” Steve quirks an eyebrow, and Bucky shifts uncomfortably. “It’s just a joke in here,” he excuses, indicating the book. He doesn’t mention how the joke is at the expense of Christian nationalists. The book had been written back when The Faithful were still worth making fun of. “It’s nothing,” he says again, and averts his eyes back to his reading.

Steve sighs. Bucky hears the desk chair roll out, and then Steve is coming over to sit next to him on the couch. He doesn’t get too close, which Bucky is grateful for (Commander Warren would’ve been demanding blow jobs by now). But so far, Steve has proven to be about as different from Commander Warren as a man could be. “Bucky,” Steve says. “I wish you wouldn’t be nervous of me.”

Bucky’s eyes flick over, not quite making it up to Steve’s face. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“No, that’s not—” Steve huffs, frustrated. “You don’t need to apologize.”

Bucky has to cut himself off from immediately saying ‘sorry’ again. Old habits. He sets the book over the arm of the couch, saving his spot. “I’m not used to this,” he admits. 

“What do you mean?”

He purses his lips, still unable to meet Steve’s eyes. “I dunno. Just … You don’t get mad at me about stuff, okay? You let me come in here and, and read.” He says ‘read’ in a whisper, like it’s something awful, not to be uttered aloud. “You eat meals at the table with everyone else, and you talk to me. And you haven’t—” he cuts off uncomfortably.

“What?” Steve cants his head. “I haven’t what?”

Bucky shakes his head. “You’re just different. I don’t know what to expect with you.” He nearly jumps when Steve’s hand comes over and envelops his own on top of the couch cushion. It’s large and warm, and the simple contact makes goosebumps prick to the surface of Bucky’s skin.

 “You can expect to be treated like a human being,” Steve tells him. “Because that’s what you are.”

Bucky winces. “M’not used to that either.”

“I’dve hoped you could trust me a little better by now,” Steve chides, eyeing up Bucky’s book pointedly. “I told you my household is different.”

“Yeah but you never explained what that means,” Bucky snaps. “I mean, that could mean anything. You know?”

“What do you want to ask me, then?” Steve challenges. “You can ask questions, Bucky.”

“Well aren’t you—” he cuts himself off, shocked at the reckless question he almost lets slip through his lips.

“Aren’t I what?” Steve presses, staring him down. “Ask me, Bucky. Ask the question.”

Bucky looks him in the eye, confused and scared, unable to get the words out for a few more long seconds. Then, finally, he breathes, “... Aren’t you a True Believer?” Steve gets very still, his expression like stone, and for one terrible, all-consuming instant, Bucky is sure that he’s signed his own death warrant. “I’m sorry!” he blurts, sure that he’s finally done it; he’s finally said the thing that’s going to get him executed, or sent off to the col—

“I’m not.”

He falters, his mouth still open from the next preemptive apology he’d been about to fling out. “What?” he says weakly, trying to figure out how to put “I’m not” into a context that makes any kind of sense—because what Steve’s just said could get him arrested, could get him put to death, and Bucky and all the rest of his household reassigned to another Commander. But fraught seconds tick by, and he comes up with nothing, the “I’m not” hanging in the air between them like a baited hook with no fish, like a noose waiting to be filled. “S-steve?” he whispers. “I don’t understand. You’re n—”

“Not a True Believer,” Steve finishes for him, nodding somberly. He’s deathly serious, Bucky realizes, and he’s looking at Bucky in a way that says he’s completely aware of the vulnerable position in which he’s just put himself, by admitting it. He watches Bucky appraisingly. “And I get the feeling you’re not, either.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have the courage that Steve does. He can’t just … just make himself say it. Not out loud. “But you’re a Commander,” he blurts. “How did you get to be a Commander if you weren’t … if you aren’t a—”

“I worked my way up,” Steve says. “I joined the Sons of Jacob before congress was assassinated. I pretended.”

Bucky can hardly believe what he’s hearing. Steve is admitting to treason right now, and he’s admitting it to Bucky. “But why?” 

Steve’s expression turns guarded as he measures out his words. “Because it was my mission,” he says. “It still is.”

“Mission?”

He nods. “We knew something big was in the works, just not how big. I didn’t know—” He cuts himself off, looking pained. “We were put in place to infiltrate the Party of The Faithful. To assess the threat, to try and stop whatever they were planning.”

“We?” Bucky echoes. “Who is ‘we’?”

Steve shakes his head. “I can’t tell you any more, I’m sorry."

Too late, Bucky wants to say. Steve’s told him too much already. “So you’re just telling me this? That you’re some kind of a … a what? A sleeper agent?” He scowls. “You and what army?”

“It doesn’t take an army,” Steve snaps, surprising Bucky with the quiet vitriol in his voice.

Bucky blinks at him, sees the regret flash across his face, and realizes something. “Natasha and Sam,” he breathes, clocking the slight widening of Steve’s pupils. “And Clint, and Sharon?” Steve’s lips thin but he nods, and Bucky exhales hugely. “Well shit.” 

“It’s okay, Buck. We’re very careful.”

He scoffs, feeling dazed. “So, all five of you,” he says weakly. He can’t imagine what Steve and just a few other people could possibly achieve, what they could possibly do to overthrow the whole regime. Gilead is the new United States. A fledgling nation, sure, but with all the same resources that its predecessor had, and more: Weapons, infrastructure, military, a secret police, an extensive surveillance apparatus. From what little Bucky’s been able to garner these past few years, the only states remaining free of it all are Alaska and the West Coast coalition.

He sits there with Steve in thick, uncomfortable silence for a moment, the crackling of the fire in the hearth the only sound to accompany his racing thoughts.

“Buck?” Steve says gently. “Are you going to be okay?”

One glance up at the alpha’s face is all it takes for Bucky to realize what it is he’s really asking: are you going to keep this to yourself? “Yeah,” Bucky says. “Yeah, I’m good.” He offers Steve what he hopes is a reassuring look. “I’m glad.”

Steve’s shoulders relax, and he offers Bucky a tight-lipped smile that is commiserating, if not altogether pleasant. “Okay. Good.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Steve pats him on the knee and then gets up from the couch to return to his desk on the other side of the office. He resumes working on his computer, and Bucky picks up his book to resume reading. Or at least he tries to, but the words on the pages blur together meaninglessly. All he can think about now is how Steve—his new Commander, the man who owns him, whom Bucky’s been renamed after—is a member of the resistance.

Steve somehow gets a hold of Bucky’s medical records. He brings it up in discussion on another night spent together in the library. “You had a baby?” he blurts out, from over at his desk.

Bucky’s eyes shoot up. “What?”

Steve guiltily indicates the folder he’s been reading through. “They gave me your medical records.”

Bucky frowns. “Oh.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to invade your privacy.” Bucky snorts, and Steve flusters and clears his throat. “I just … Well, I’m supposed to schedule a doctor’s appointment for you every three months.”

“Oh. Right.” Bucky remembers that the Putnams had done that as well. It was how he’d confirmed he was pregnant in the first place. “Um, I miscarried,” he mumbles.

Steve’s expression dissolves into something too close to pity for Bucky’s liking. “I’m so sorry, Bucky.”

Bucky shrugs from over his book. “I wasn’t that far along.” 

With the fertility crisis being what it is, he’s known a lot of other omegas to miscarry far later on in their pregnancies, or to give birth to non-viable babies that die gasping and shriveled soon after birth. Just the other week, all the neighborhood vessels had been escorted to OfJoseph’s house to see her through the labor and delivery ritual. But once the caretakers pulled the baby out and got a look at it, the fancy party that’d been set up for Commander and Mrs. Lowe in the downstairs parlor had ended in stricken silence and tears.

“It’s not like I was attached or anything,” Bucky says. “And it needed to die.”

Steve balks. “What?”

“It was a shredder. You could tell. Things weren’t … growing right.” Bucky averts his eyes back down to his book, hating to remember. If he’d carried to term, it just would’ve been declared an ‘unbaby’ and gotten rid of. “It was better that it died,” he says.

Steve doesn’t say anything.

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