#fake/pretend relationship looking a lot like this is fucking creepy in real life

[alexjcrowley]

Okay so you know when you say "some things are great in a story but they would suck/be scary af in real life"?

If you came across enough posts of my blog, you know I am moving to Germany, but I am still (desperately) looking for an apartment. I am writing email left and right responding to every offer on the market that fits my bare necessities.

I came across this room rented by this guy, he says to write in behalf of his mother looking for a roommate. It's overall a bit fishy, but I can't afford to be picky. I write an email, hoping he won't answer like the majority of other landlords did.

He answers me just the day after sending the email and at first I'm like "OH MY GOD SOMEONE ANSWERED ME" but then I red the email.

So, I have my reasons to not trust this guy (as I said even the offer sounded a little fishy), but who knows, maybe he is telling the truth, maybe one should grant him the benefit of the doubt. Someone else, though, not me.

Point is this would probably make a banger beginning for a fake/pretend relationship fic, but in real life? I am very creeped out and I want to fucking run.

I am not sure there's a moral to this story except I can't believe this really happened to me. It's wild. And it this is a scam has it ever worked with anyone, my dear Guy Whose Name I Will Not Mention? I hope, for the sake of a lot people, not.

Always beware of scams and creeeps, anyway.

[shit-talk-turner]

I don’t necessarily think mods agree with every bullshit anon says. I know you don’t. But you choose what’s gonna be the topic of the day and it’s highley opinion-forming. (mostly negative) You don’t say much and still influence others. Provoke and wait. Share and get other people to spread it. „Smart”. That way it’s never your fault. „Oopsie”. No remorse whatsoever even though you’re responsible for a lot of weird comments on a different platform and some really creepy profiles PRETENDING to be „fan accounts”. (they’re getting blocked for a reason, another long story) Because being annoying on here is not enough. But what can you do? Admit it? It’s easier to shift the blame and call people crazy. Oversensitive, of course. Looks like someone who cares is a big turn off you. 😜 Into bad boys much? Get well soon, honey. (Sorry, bad joke, we don’t romanticize it here, I know….unless…)Anyway. A lot of blogs are problematic but this one is the final boss? Probably the most active one? Not sure. But it’s famous for sure. Even for people who forgot Tumblr existed. Apparently it’s not just „a shit chat” here?

Manipulating younger, more naive fans it’s easy. A bunch of fake screenshots is all you need. Little minions will eat that shit up and spread it for you.

What a hero. Girl „ended” racism but invented a whole new genre of misogyny. Did we just end old misogyny to replace it with a modern, more subtle, yet still effective one? Like it never went away, you just got better at hiding it. Eh. If you want others to grow and apologize for their mistakes, how about you do something different once and use your platform for good? Boo. Boring 🤣 I know I’m crazy for asking that. You’re clearly way more influential than you claim to be. So own it. How about one thing that will make someone smile, for a change. SINCE YOU’RE SO OBSSESED WITH SMILES. Such a waste of potential. Smh.

Also tell me, how is it that you’re always against taking it from here to harass people on other platforms? And little minions still come back here with „Hey. I sent them a DM.” LOL! Saying that only out of guilt and then again, my personal fav: „I didn’t advise that.” Wow, thank you but it’s clearly not working and you’re aware of it as it’s been proven many times before and that, right here, makes you a part of the problem. Btw. Being able to read someone like an open book by one facial expression would be a great superpower. I absolutely agree! I guess we all dream of that one from time to time. We can joke about it, that’s for sure. But if you take joking/humor to like, seriously diagnose? a „toxic relationship”, now that’s something I’d call a stretch. Sorry, I laugh every time you say but they’re just „famous people”so it’s okay - that’s even worse. Maybe with people you actually know in real life you’d be at least slightly more accurate, so you’re only digging yourself a deeper hole, eh. Now say you don’t do that, look up the comments some people leave and tell me you never „kinda agreed” on that here. Yup. I’m not saying this blog is the worst thing that happened to humanity just because I say some things here 🤣 Yeah, there are bigger problems. Lol. I think the root of the issue here is that a lot of you are desperate for answers of things you’ll never get answers for which only leads to frustration. :(

A friend somewhere posts a comment and you’re all like „it has to be trolling”, if a friendly, wholesome, completely harmless comment is trolling to you - then what the fuck is this? Everything that’s NOT cruel to her can’t be real, smh. If you wanna troll, make it clear it’s a science fiction blog then? We are all hypocrites to some degree, yeah. I’ve made peace with that long ago. But the level here…. PS. delete your little #alexturnerwouldyoumarryme cute, innocent hashtag from all the „fan” accounts you have while you still can. Cause who knows(JOKE) maybe, one day, you’ll date him(no) and his whole fanbase will try to cancel you for it. 🤣Well, not cancel-cancel but them twisting it and using it against you at some point is inevitable. I think you often use this one here to prove…dishonesty? Whatever. All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg 🤣 TLDR.

So this is the last time we’re going to post your mania rants so if you want to continue this discussion we can do it off anon or you can start your own shit talk blog about us to post your manifestos. We appreciate that you think we’re the big bad boss of the AM underground or something, but we really don’t have that much power. There is no manipulation or cancelling happening here, just gossiping. We don’t care what other peoples opinions are as long as we can all play nice and keep it to some light hearted shit talk. We do not hate Louise like you seem to think we do and I guess you missed how often we do defend her (or delete unnecessarily hateful, disgusting asks about her). It seems you are genuinely misunderstanding a lot that is happening here or mistaking us for fans elsewhere or accounts elsewhere and are clearly having some kind of obsessive episode where we are concerned. We recommend you step back and do something else with your time because this is absolutely not healthy.

[lokittystuckinatree]

LCU (Loki Cinematic Universe) Rewatch Part Three here we come!

Thor: the Dark World

Oh Gods I forgot how…indescribable this movie is. I have no words. The outfits and settings look so real and the elves look so fake?

Me every time I see Loki: oOmMgGg Hiiiiiiiiiii 😘

“Mother did I make you proud?” And the whole way he handles this scene…How did anyone ever take him seriously - no wonder he went off the rails, that’s his greatest fear

“Do you not feel the gravity of your crimes” ok this is pure speculation but going off of what we know about Loki’s moral and emotional system - he’s capable of remorse and empathy, but he tends to compartmentalize and bury guilt and shame, repress and conceal his true feelings, and rationalize, minimize and justify his actions instead of accepting what he sees as weakness, so yes, I’d imagine that deep down he absolutely fucking feels it. And it don’t feel good.

Loki justifies his imperialism genocide and violence in an imperial genocidal militaristic society but the second he becomes king he decreases military intervention something something (one of the good bits of Ragnarok)

“I don’t enjoy hurting people” But Odin does. And so Loki pretends to.

BOOOOOO Odin no one likes you BOOOOOOO SCREW YOU

oMggg Sif hiiiiiii. Look at her, Thor. LOOK at her! With your eyes! She prettyyyyy

Odin and Thor: talking about Thor’s love life. Loki probably: rocking back in forth in his cell because no one’s ever gonna love him. Another Loki at the same time: chasing his soulmate across spacetime because she pulled a Loki on him and he finds that endearing

The sets and ambiance of Asgard are gorgeous how do I move there

Yet another obscure character I don’t remember, Darcy’s in the comics now I’m so proud, Selvig’s lost his last marble, so have I Selvig, so have I

The weird gravity/time space anomaly/warp thing in that abandoned building actually makes for a fun scene. You cannot change my mind on this. The Aether is pretty creepy though ngl.

Thor and Jane are so cringe together. I love them. They also break my heart

The plot of this movie is really…something

Loki and Frigga’s bond actually makes me teary I know they didn’t have the best relationship it was strained and toxic at times but omg they care about eachother so much I’m getting emotional…she genuinely was the only person Loki truly loved in a healthy way. And he fucking lost her. FUCK

Cut to me relating to Loki so much it makes me physically recoil. I’d get into why but I’m not trauma dumping today.

“I don’t know why Loki helped the dark elf get into the palace”…lol stop lying to yourself you know the reason very well. You have the same resentment and lust for chaos inside you that Loki does…that desperate grief that makes you want to burn down the world that burned you. you know. I see my worst in Loki, and his story gives me hope that I can change. There’s a good chance I will die young (medical shit) and Loki dying young also gives me comfort.

This movie is peak Loki. I just fucking adore the little shit. I just aahfhkjkmng *aggressively squeezes*

Heimdall is underrated

Someone on discord said Frigga autocorrected to Fridged on their phone and Frigga’s dying and that’s all I can think about rip…bruh this scene hits a lot harder after my dad’s death ✌️

HE WASNT EVEN ALLOWED AT HER FUCKING FUNERAL FUCK YOU ODIN DRINK BLEACH!!!!Anyways I forgot how cinematic and heartbreakingly beautiful the funeral was

YOU CAN SEE THE SPARK LEAVE HIS FUCKING EYES IM GONNA FIGHT ODIN IN A DENNYS PARKING LOT. I’m ending on the Loki illusion scene for tonight because it’s 3 am and I’m in emotional distress.

How can anyone watch the illusion scene and the deleted bits and actually believe Loki is a cold hearted psychopath? I have this fucked up headcanon that Loki almost attempted suicide after Frigga’s death and either stopped himself…or Thor showed up right on time. I can’t prove it but I know it’s true by gut instinct.

There’s something so weirdly profound about someone who seeks out death being unkillable. Character who thinks he represents death actually represents life. That’s something the Loki series actually did well. They definitely screwed up his character in places, but I can see the backbone of what they intended. I don’t know how to explain this, but I don’t ship Sylvie with TVA Loki, I ship her with Pre-Ragnarok Loki. Aka, I characterize TVA Loki as closer to OG Loki than he is thus far.

There’s a tiny detail about Loki that makes me go feral. You have to psychoanalyze a little, but Loki doubts his brother even cares about him, so whenever Thor says he feels betrayed and threatens him, Loki smiles. It means Thor cared. It means there’s hope. Negative attention is better than none at all. Disappointment is better than apathy. I wish I didn’t know how he feels.

[mrs-march-ahs]

Dating Zicky Zamirez

I wholeheartedly ask you to forget about the real-life person before reading this. This has absolutely nothing to do with the real person. The real person disgusts me just as much as everybody else.

Even after watching 1984, I don’t see much of the real-life killer in Zach Villa’s character. I see him as a fictional character like James March.  For the sake of separating Zach’s character as much as possible from the disgusting person he is based on, this is not headcannons about dating the sickening serial killer Richard Ramirez.

This is a post about the fictional character Zicky Zamirez that I just created. He looks like this.

-Very explosive and you need to learn to not be afraid of it -Zicky is Pisces sun, Scorpio moon and Leo rising -Which means that he is emotional and sensitive in a non-conventional way -He is creative and creepy -His inner Scorpio wants to be obsessed with you, but he manages to not be -You two live different lives and spend a lot of time apart -But when the two of you get together, it’s very intimate -He’s very easy to talk to even though he isn’t the best listener -Definitely wants quality time with you and just you, talking about anything and everything

-Gets riled up quickly talking about certain things -Time as a group with other people (not that anybody else in the camp wants to be around him) doesn’t count, he needs 1 on 1 time with you -Zichard thinks he’s always 3 steps ahead of you and is so much smarter than you, but he’s pretty easy to soften up and manipulate if you need to -Would truly do anything for you -The relationship is intense and serious very fast -The song he dedicates to you in the car is either You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi) or Maneater (Daryl Hall & John Oates) -In the car singing along to music together, practically screaming along to the songs -You have to know as many Billy Idol songs as physically possible -Baby names include: - “Look what I did for you baby” - “Last chance baby girl” - “Uh yeah sorry babe” - “Good girl” - “Yes sweetie” -When you’re doing anything particularly feminine or doing something that in his eyes is throwing a tantrum - “Sorry princess” -You don’t like being called princess so he only calls you that to piss you off -In exchange you call him Zichard - (like the vine) What the fuck, Zichard

-Definitely talks dirty to you cause you like his voice -Is fine with transactional sex but really likes to lay with you after, smoke some weed, and trace hearts on your chest like the little bitch he is -Would rent a room in a motel just to have that time with you -Blows smoke in your mouth and vice versa -Likes sharing a cigarette with you just to have that little smudge of lipstick on it -Obsessed with your boobs -If you wear a low cut top around him, don’t bother talking because he can’t hear it -Noise cancelling boobs -Despite how much of a fanboy he is, he’s pretty mature and the relationship isn’t particularly teenage-y -He likes to see you wearing his jacket though -He tries to be interested in your interests, like aerobics, and in exchange you’re willing to worship Satan with him -It’s only fair -When he firsts takes you into the forest and draws a pentagram with sticks, you don’t think much of it -You both cut your hands and drip the blood in the middle and worship together -You see how into it he is and he shows you how powerful it is, insisting that you kill him just to prove to you that Satan will bring him back -Whether you do it or you don’t is up to you -He pretends he doesn’t have a soft side but really likes when you touch his hair -A total top dom -Doesn’t even really like you riding him -Licks your feet though -Can and will spend hours between your legs and is great at it -Lay on the couch with him and he’ll find a way to sneakily massage your feet just so he can see them and touch them -When he eventually goes to prison you always visit him, but when he starts acting crazier, asking for more, and being less excited to see you, you visit him less and less -He complains if you come visit him in something that doesn’t show your tits -Eventually he escapes, and comes straight to you, and shows up at your door with fake passports -You run away together so he can be far away from the camp -If the people at the camp found out that you wanted to run away with him, they might kill you -He can’t resist seeing you and would come visit all the time, eventually becoming trapped himself -Trapped together forever -The others at the camp don’t want him to escape, but as long as you’re stuck there he will stay with you

━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━

i don’t particularly know if i’ll ever write for... zicky again but i think i would want to, tell me if you want to be taken off the taglist for that<3

@milly-louise  @amourtentiaa  @kitwalker02  @tatestripedsweater  @therenlover  @maria-akira​  @tatesimper  @sallyscigarettes  @mossybank  @ahsxual  @mxlti-fand0m-imaginess  @mrs-march-ahs-biggest-fan  @kitwalkerangel  @kitisagoldenretrieverboy @darlingkitt  @blackbat2020  @whiiiiplaaaaash @kaismessiahbb @elaineygrace @divinerulerluvr @johndeaconshands @kais-messiahbaby @xmaximoffic @tatesweaterweather @undeadcortez

[citowon]

spring troupe and gender neutral s/o watch horror movies

about time i finally write for this blog... i was hit with the image of masumi watching a horror movie with his s/o, thought how lovely it would be if there was content of that, then realized i have that power now

word count: 1,935

tags: established relationship, non-detailed mentions of horror themes (gore, monsters, etc)

sakuya sakuma

🌸 when the topic of a horror movie date first comes up, he’s a bit scared. he’s only seen a couple, one of which was for mankai play research.

🌸 when it’s actually showing, though, he’s pretty calm! the anticipation was the worst part, and he somehow doesn’t get scared even during the most terrifying movie of the year. he’s great at reminding himself it’s just fictional in the end

🌸 vampires? not scary. aliens? he thinks they’re cute! gore? well, yeah, it’s unnerving at first but it’s all fake, and once he reminds himself of that he’s fine

🌸 he gets scared at the littlest things though. there might be a continuity error where a knife is in its holder on the counter in one shot and then removed the next, and no one in the movie acknowledges it nor is it supposed to mean anything but he can and will psych himself out thinking about just what moved it

🌸 king of predicting plot twists! he might be very good at spotting continuity errors, but he’s even better at picking out little bits of foreshadowing and putting together the mystery

🌸 gets spooked the most by jumpscares. every time he squeaks a bit (on really bad ones he might scream) and every time he always does the same embarrassed sigh afterwards and goes to squeeze your hand to calm himself

🌸 psychological horror is definitely the best pick for sakuya. he thinks a lot about what’ll happen next in the movie and loves to discuss about movies with you regardless of the genre, so with thought-provoking psychological films it fits him like a glove

🌸 and hey, if things ever get too intense he loves b-list horror movies! he thinks the bad acting is endearing and always finds something to compliment even with the trashiest, corniest flick

🌸 if you ever get uncomfortable, he might commentate in the movie and try to poke fun at it- i mean, the killer clown is kind of funny! look how bright and colorful it is compared to the rest of the set! he keeps his voice light and sunny so you have something comforting to concentrate on

masumi usui

🎧 he loves the idea of horror night. cuddling with you, holding you protectively as the suspense rises, stealing kisses to distract you from the monster and erase your fear...

🎧 he’s only seen a few horror movies in his life, less than the fingers he has on one hand, but whatever. it’s a movie. it’s not real. if he got too immersed he could just tell himself it’s fake and be done with it.

🎧 spoiler alert: he didn’t.

🎧 masumi did not, and i repeat, did NOT expect to get so invested??? even if you’re scared, he’s definitely the most terrified

🎧 that’s not to say he’ll show it. he’s doing everything to keep a neutral face, and you’ll probably assume he’s holding to you tighter during the scary parts like he’s protecting you.

🎧 (it’s actually because you’re the one [1] thing grounding him. you’re protecting him, not the other way around! in hindsight, he likes being cared for even when he thought he’d be the one spoiling you, not the other way around. he just wishes it didn’t have to be during such a scary movie, that’s all)

🎧 will take his fear to the grave... unless you ask him directly about it. please hold him and tell him the monsters aren’t real, even though he’s a heavy sleeper he will stay up until 3 am, his mind reminding him how creepy the movie was every time he’s about to drift off

🎧 so does not fuck with ghosts, if he didn’t believe in them before he certainly does now. the poor guy looks up how to ward away spirits and ends up carrying around a salt packet on him for the next two weeks

tsuzuru minagi

📖 tsuzuru’s not exactly a horror fan. he claims it’s brainless and pointless

📖 (admittedly he’s a little scared of them, but he still thinks they’re dependent on shock alone, and have zero rewatch value since the writing is more focused on in-the-moment spooks than actual plot.)

📖 he’ll roll his eyes and tease you a little but eventually he’ll go along with watching a horror movie

📖 to psych himself out of his fear tsuzuru decides to watch them critically and note what plot points to do (or more likely not to do) for future plays

📖 this works out for the beginning but by the middle of the movie he’s enraptured. he can’t tell if it’s actually good or if it’s a car wreck he can’t help but watch

📖 does the corny move where he yawns and wraps an arm around you, and you’d almost buy it from his earlier cynicism but then the killer shows their face and he tenses up like hell and you just know

📖 gets embarrassed every time he’s scared- he even turns pink, and gets even redder if you try to hold his hand or cuddle him closer (even though there’s nothing he’d want more after something that creepy)

📖 by the end he’s got a few new ideas that might go to autumn or winter troupe’s latest plays, and admits okay, fine, maybe horror isn’t so pointless after all

itaru chigasaki

🎮 screw movies, you’re playing horror games instead!

🎮 most of itaru’s horror games are single-player, so one of you takes the controller while the other sits next to the player, but itaru’ll drape his arms around you from behind in a back hug the entire time you play

🎮 he doesn’t really shut up. the entire time, he’s either cracking a joke or trying to freak you out more, if only so he doesn’t get in his head and overthink the creepy atmosphere

🎮 asshole only quiets down when the game gets tense, and then suddenly puts his hands around your shoulders or neck to scare you. regardless if you fall for it or not, he always laughs at himself and just-so-happens to break the tension as a scary cutscene plays

🎮 still commentates when he’s the player, but gasps or jumps even at small atmospheric scares

🎮 itaru definitely overthinks the game. he gets super cautious over tiny details and makes the missions way harder than they should be since he keeps overestimating the enemy line of sight and how noisy the avatar is

🎮 if you happen to be playing a co-op horror it’s a constant “no u” battle over who should do the scariest tasks

🎮 “reader, we need to cleanse the room next. you should do it” “no, you should do it. you have the quartz item remember” “i can give it to you since you have the ghost ward” “the ghost ward doesn’t apply to this quest, besides, you’re better at this ghost attack quick time event than me” “no it does, and you’re more optimized” “i can just give the items to you-“ “no you should do it” “no you” “no you” “no you” “no y-”

🎮 you both lose

citron

🍋 citron loves horror movies! he thinks they’re... comforting?

🍋 turns out he’s only seen movies about cursed dolls and b-horror, which explains a lot- he loves dolls too much to be scared by them and he thinks b-list horror is hilarious- but he’ll still proudly proclaim he’s unflappable and swear to protect you from the bad guys

🍋 when you’re actually watching the movie you can’t tell if he’s faking his reactions or not. he’s very noisy

🍋 he gets scared enough during the gruesome and horrific scenes to hold you close and tight like a teddy bear, and during the worst of it he might muffle a scream by diving into the crook of your neck, obscuring his vision until the scene changes

🍋 and yet, he laughs at the next scene’s unrealism, and manages to poke enough fun at the movie that you giggle and his terror disappears, he loves your laugh way more than he can be afraid of monsters

🍋 can’t do gore for the life of him, but when it comes to the actual plot, he’s rather critical of characters acting dumb. he catches on to nonsensical writing quick, but usually asks you to clarify the plot holes before realizing that he found a loophole in the writing

🍋 whenever you’re scared and not even his goofy reactions and commentary can help, he plants a sweet kiss on your cheek, strokes your hair, and holds you close to his chest until the fear goes away. he’s surprisingly good at protecting you from the movie

🍋 after the movie he’ll say his country has a similar legend to the movie monsters, but he claims the legends are true in zafra, and zafrans have a very specific tradition to prevent the monsters from attacking them

🍋 the movie also gave citron the idea of creepily standing behind you silently until you turn around and get startled, or occasionally chanting in a strange, cultish language and pretending he didn’t say a thing, or making a doll with the same markings as the clown puppet from the movie...

🍋 citron continues to be even scarier than the actual horror movie, but can’t wait until the next horror night! maybe watching it was a bad idea after all...

chikage utsuki

🌙 chikage just doesn’t get the appeal of horror. it’s just a fake movie, why do people get so creeped out by terrible sfx and unrealistic monsters?

🌙 he’s seen scarier things than any werewolf pack, zombie outbreak, or witch coven can throw at him. if you insist on watching a scary movie, fine, he’ll be happy to let you sit on his lap, just don’t expect to creep him out as well, or else you’ll be sorely disappointed.

🌙 he analyzes the movie more than he watches it, but doesn’t speak up even though the fight scenes look pitiful. if this were real life, he’d sweep the whole brood of shambling monstrosities in record time and be back home in time for izumi’s curry

🌙 chikage runs his hands under your shirt whenever the monster’s on screen to scare you. it’s actually really creepy- his fingers are light and quick and always makes you flinch, even if you know it’s just your boyfriend

🌙 he’ll listen to your thoughts about the movie, but doesn’t have strong opinions himself. he thinks the scares are mediocre at best, even without considering his background, but won’t mention how unrealistic it was unless you mention it first.

🌙 psychological horror, however, is a whole different story

🌙 maybe chikage can’t get scared by generic spirit halloween monsters but once you introduce thought-provoking plot, questions and dilemmas, now he’s hooked

🌙 he really likes wondering if the protagonist is actually the good guy and making theories about the origins of the monsters and why they’re so destructive, even if he forgets about them once the movie’s over.

🌙 love love looooves the “the monsters were harmless creatures before humans dished out the first blow” trope. he knows how common it is, but there’s a lot of ways to go about it, especially on a subtextual level, and he just can’t get enough

🌙 the deeper the plot is, expect a longer conversation about the ins and outs of it. they get surprisingly thoughtful and introspective, even if chikage throws in a few bullshit stories related to the movie just to watch you squirm

[elizabear]

my home is your body, how can I stay away?

I WROTE MY FIRST FIC. And I was brave enough to post it. So, if you want to read a fake-friends-to-real-lovers Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes post-Endgame AU where we pretend that Steve and Natasha are still alive and well in the 21st century, you can check it out below or read it on AO3.

Title: my home is your body, how can i stay away?

Rating: Explicit

Category: M/M

Relationship: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes (background Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanoff)

Additional tags: it’s like fake/pretend relationship, but it’s actually fake best friendship, fake friends to real lovers, post-Avengers Endgame, Epilogue What Epilogue, Natasha Romanoff Lives, Steve Rogers Stays, is everyone bi?, ambiguous barbershop quarter, bisexual Sam Wilson, bisexual Bucky Barnes, bisexual Steve Rogers, bisexual Natasha Romanoff, Captain America Sam Wilson

Words: 30,367

Link to AO3 here

Summary: "Anyway, I think if we team up, we can convince Steve that we’re best friends now. Then he’ll get jealous and remember how much more important we are to him than Natalia.”

Sam considers this carefully. He’s never been pressed so close to Bucky before, their faces only inches away from one another. From this distance Sam can see how long and thick Bucky’s eyelashes are. He can smell the pleasant scents of Bucky’s clean sweat and spicy aftershave. 

He wants to press his thumb into the cleft in Bucky’s chin.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea,” Sam hears himself say.

“Great!”

After they save the world, after Steve leaves and returns again with a smiling Natasha tucked tenderly underneath his arm, after all the happy and tearful reunions, after Tony Stark’s funeral, Sam Wilson takes a minute to sit his ass underneath a tree and freak the fuck out about the fact that he’s just been dead for the last five years.

He’s listening to a robot tell him for the fifth time that his mother’s number is “no longer in service,” his hand shaking as he presses redial on Steve’s borrowed cell phone. He wants to call his sister, wants to find out what happened to his niece, but he can’t remember his sister’s number and the only thing he can think of to do is just to keep calling his mom over and over again. He’s starting to really settle into the panic attack, gulping for air as his heart pounds wildly in his chest, when Bucky Barnes squats down beside him, perfectly balanced on those lean and powerful thighs.

“You OK?” Bucky asks quietly. Sam shakes his head silently, too overwhelmed to even begin to answer that question.

Like people are just OK after waking up five years in the future. Like people are just OK after turning to ash and then reforming into a human being. What is he even made of right now? Is he made of the same atoms and cells he was made of before he turned to dust? Is he even the same person? Did Sam Wilson die? Is he just a new Sam Wilson that Bruce Banner created out of thin air, a brand new body with the same memories as the first Sam Wilson? God, what is this Ship of Theseus nonsense, everything about this is so fucked up—

“OK, I need you to breathe,” Bucky says gently, interrupting Sam’s spiral into actual fucking madness. Bucky grabs Sam’s hand and pulls it to his chest. “Can you feel my chest moving? Feel me breathing in and out? Stop thinking, close your eyes, and match your breaths to mine.”

Sam squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on the feel of Bucky’s chest rising and falling underneath his hand. Bucky’s sternum is flat and bony underneath Sam’s palm, but he can feel the gentle rise of Bucky’s strong pectoral muscles underneath his fingers. Bucky’s skin is warm through his shirt, and Sam focuses on the solid feel of him as he follows Bucky’s slow and deep breathing. Bucky’s thumb presses firmly against the inside of Sam’s wrist. There’s an anxious tingling all over Sam’s skin, washing over him from head to toe, making Sam afraid that he’s going to buzz right out of his skin.

But Bucky is breathing deep and slow, and Sam lets himself relax into it, feels himself fall in sync with this not-quite-stranger, his best friend’s best friend, who is very considerately trying to keep Sam from falling apart.

“You’re doing great, Sam,” Bucky praises gently. “Just keep breathing, you’re doing great.”

“I hate this,” Sam mutters.

Bucky strokes his thumb over the sensitive skin of Sam’s wrist and leans closer, hesitating briefly before resting his forehead against Sam’s.

“Just breathe, Sam. You’re doing so good,” he murmurs softly.

Sam feels a warmth uncurling deep in his belly, reacting to Bucky’s closeness and his quiet praise. Is Bucky the most instinctually effective peer counselor in the world or is he actually seducing Sam right out of a panic attack? Sam absolutely cannot think about this now, he needs to focus on the original source of his practical and existential terror.

“I hate every part of this,” Sam admits, frustrated. “I hate that I can’t get in touch with my mom. I hate that I don’t know if my niece is OK. Bucky, who has been taking care of my niece?”

“Hey, it’s OK, Sam.” Bucky says, his tone gentle and reassuring. “We’ll find your niece. If she survived the Snap, Steve and Natalia would have kept track of her. They wouldn’t have just let her disappear into the system. You have friends.”

“Right,” Sam says, feeling that glacier sitting atop his chest begin to recede a little. “OK. Friends. Steve and Natasha will know how to find Michelle. I just need to ask Steve and Natasha how to find Sarah and Michelle.”

“Great! See, you have a plan now and everything,” Bucky says encouragingly. “Everything is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine, Sam.” Bucky leans back onto his heels, and Sam breathes a little deeper as the world comes into sharper focus.

Sam nods. This is all going to be fine. He’s alive, he’s breathing, and he has his hand on Bucky Barnes’s warm, firm chest. Bucky’s eyes are kind, and Sam can almost understand, maybe for the first time, why Steve cared so much about bringing Bucky home. Maybe Bucky isn’t so bad. Maybe everything is going to be fine. Sam can just about manage, now, to stuff all this panic inside his chest where it can’t hurt him. If he just stuffs it in there forever, he will never have to deal with it.

Sam takes a moment to congratulate himself on his healthy coping strategies.

“You’re not too bad at this, man,” Sam says. “Where did you learn to handle a panic attack like that?”

“Well, I mean, I had a lot of them after realizing that I was responsible for literally dozens of grisly murders,” Bucky replies dryly. “But also I spent like fifteen years obsessing over the state of Steve Rogers’s lungs and trying to keep him from dying of asthma so he could grow up and be Captain America.”

Right. Captain America. That’s the other thing he’s panicking about.

“Hey, what just happened?” Bucky asks gently. Bucky strokes his thumb over Sam’s wrist. “Your blood pressure just shot way up again.”

“Tell me you’re not some kind of human sphygmomanometer,” Sam says. “I don’t have the patience for that level of weird right now. Stop monitoring my blood pressure. That’s creepy.”

“OK,” Bucky says slowly. “Sorry. What’s going on?”

“Steve asked me to be Captain America. Says he’s not retiring, but he’s needed off-world for a while, and he thinks I should be the one to carry the shield.”

Suddenly, just like that, the strange, tentative peace between them shatters. Bucky’s face turns white, then flushes a deep red.

“Steve asked you to be Captain America,” Bucky repeats coldly. All traces of warmth are gone from Bucky’s face, and Bucky’s mouth settles into a grim line. “Excuse me a moment.”

Sam sighs as Bucky stalks off in Steve’s general direction.

Bucky returns a few moments later, Steve in tow, the two of them having some kind of whisper fight that Sam can’t really hear.

“Can’t believe you would do this—”

“—you know he’s a good choice—”

“—supposed to be your best friend—”

“—c��mon, Buck, you know I wouldn’t—”

Bucky yanks on Steve’s wrist as they approach Sam.

“OK, first of all, Steve, where the fuck is Sam’s family?” Bucky demands.

Steve pales, then looks genuinely contrite. “Oh, God, Sam, I’m sorry. I should have told you right away. Sarah and Michelle, they survived. They both survived the Snap. They’re living in your mom’s apartment in New York.” Steve hesitates for a moment, then adds, “Your mom was one of the ones who disappeared. She was at home watching Michelle when it happened. She should be safe. We’ll get a phone to her right away.”

Sam feels his stomach plunge at the knowledge that Michelle is five years older. He already missed two years of her life on the run with Steve after the Accords. Would she even remember him?

“Nat has your old phone stashed away. It should still have all your contacts in it. Natasha—she paid the bill. Every month you were gone. She never gave up hope we’d get you back,” Steve says, looking proud and a little teary-eyed.

While Sam works on processing the fact that his six-year-old niece is now his eleven-year-old niece, Steve rambles on about Natasha, and how brave she was, and what a rock she was, and how she kept everyone together, and how she sacrificed her life to save everyone, for kind of a while. Sam’s honestly kind of surprised. Steve and Natasha have always been close, but Sam’s never seen Steve as openly effusive about anyone other than James Buchanan Barnes Before The War, Steve’s most favorite person ever.

“OK, that’s great, Steve,” Bucky interrupts in a frosty tone. “But what’s this about Sam being the new Captain America?”

“Oh! Carol wants Natasha and me to go with her to a couple of planets that are struggling to organize after their populations suddenly doubled. Actually, I thought maybe you could come with us, Buck?” Steve offers. “I know how much you love space and—”

“No, Steve, I think I’ll stay here with Sam,” Bucky says stonily, glaring at Steve. Sam is a little stunned.

“What? Why?” Steve asks. He looks a bit like a confused golden retriever. “I thought you’d jump at this opportunity, Bucky, you really—”

“I really think I should stay here. Since I’m Captain America’s right hand man and all. And since Sam is Captain America now.”

Sam doesn’t really know what to do with all of this, because it seems like there’s really a lot going on here between Steve and Bucky that he doesn’t want to get involved with. And honestly, he’s not one hundred percent sold on the idea of working with Bucky at all, since they hardly even know each other. Today is the first time they’ve really interacted in a way that isn’t hostile or at the very least kind of pissy, and to be honest the uncomfortable sexual tension Sam felt earlier wasn’t exactly welcome.

But then a thought occurs to him, and Sam is instantly filled with delight. “So wait. What you’re saying is that you’re going to be my sidekick!”

“What, no, I’m not going to be your sidekick, I’m going to be your partner,” Bucky argues.

“Nuh uh, nope. It’s right there in the comics. Bucky Barnes was Captain America’s sidekick,” Sam says with a smirk. “Are you gonna wear the outfit?”

“What outfit?” asks Bucky, narrowing his eyes.

“Oh! The outfit with the little booty shorts?” Steve asks.

“I’m not wearing an outfit with little booty shorts,” Bucky says scornfully. “I’ll wear my regular outfit.”

“Leather bondage gear it is, then!” Sam replies. He feels more cheerful already.

***

“So what else did we miss?” Sam asks later, when they’re all settled in at one of the cabins on Tony’s property.

Steve and Natasha are tangled up together on the sofa, Natasha’s legs slung over Steve’s lap and her head resting against his chest. Steve and Nat have been trading inside jokes and finishing each other’s sentences all night, and it kind of seems like Sam and Bucky must have really missed a lot, because Sam doesn’t remember Steve and Nat being so telepathically linked before he got dusted.

Bucky is sitting alone, tense and uncomfortable-looking, in a chair near the fire. He must still be pretty pissed at Steve for choosing Sam over him as the next Captain America, because he keeps shooting murder glares at Steve through narrowed eyes. When Steve’s not gazing adoringly at Natasha, he’s busy having a silent argument with Bucky through a complicated series of expressions that include rolled eyes, pleading looks, clenched jaws, and prissy, pursed lips. Sam is honestly feeling pretty left out right now, because there’s a lot of unspoken communication going on here between basically everyone but him.

Steve heaves a frustrated sigh, tears his gaze away from Bucky, and responds, “Well, they built a giant wall between the United States and Mexico. It was a pretty big deal, lots of people were really unhappy.”

“Seriously? Half of the entire United States population disappears, and Americans are still freaking out about immigration from Mexico?” Sam asks incredulously.

“Oh, no, we didn’t build the wall. Mexico actually built the wall,” Natasha says. The wicked look in her eye suggests that this is going to be a good story.

“Wait, what? That stupid promise actually came true?” Bucky asks.

“Well, kind of?” Natasha says, giving a little so-so motion with her hand. “Mexico didn’t actually build the wall because of illegal immigration, though. They built it after a bunch of riots and border skirmishes in late 2020.”

“So, what? Gang violence? Drug cartels?” Sam asks.

“Nope. It was the season finale of a television show on the CW called Supernatural,” Steve explains, as if this doesn’t make the whole thing somehow even more confusing.

“You’re telling me that we were gone for five years and now CW shows are a source of tension between the United States and Mexico and they built an entire wall about it,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows.

Sam is dubious as hell about this new foolishness—he’s starting to feel a lot more sympathetic towards Steve’s frustration with all the impenetrable pop culture references people expected him to grasp—but Bucky visibly perks up at the mention of Supernatural. “Oh, how did that go? Is Destiel canon yet?” Bucky asks.

“No,” Steve responds at the same time that Natasha replies, “Si.” Then they both cackle wildly, as if this is some seriously comedic shit, and honestly, Sam’s getting a little annoyed with all their inside jokes. He sneaks a look over at Bucky to see how he’s responding to all this, and Sam is relieved to feel slightly less like an asshole when he sees that Bucky doesn’t look any more charmed by Steve and Natasha’s Abbott and Costello routine than Sam feels.

“OK,” Sam says slowly, really drawing the word out. “So I guess if I want to understand all of that”—here, Sam gestures broadly at Steve and Natasha, attempting to convey his incredulity at their unnecessary dramatics—“that you just did, and apparently also current U.S. foreign policy, I’m going to have to watch a TV show on the CW.”

“It’s fifteen seasons, it makes for great depression watching,” says Natasha, shrugging. Bucky nods in agreement. “And Steve was pretty genuinely moved by the relationship between the two brothers.”

Steve confirms this with a solemn nod. “They were brothers, but they were also best friends.”

“Anyway it was better than a lot of the junk we watched while you were gone,” Natasha continues. “Half the time Steve and I spent in bed together we were just binge watching trash tv and getting overly invested in the love lives of twenty-five year olds pretending to be teenagers pretending to be detectives.”

Bucky shoots Sam a significant glance at this, somehow communicating half the time they spent in bed together? with the tense raising of his eyebrows alone, and says, “Sam and I will watch Supernatural together. I’ll get him caught up.”

And yeah, maybe fifteen seasons sounds like an awful lot of time to commit to spite-watching a television show with Bucky just to handle how weird he feels about Steve and Natasha’s whole new bed sharing thing together, but then Bucky stretches his arms over his head and reveals a pale sliver of belly, little trail of hair drawing Sam’s eyes pleasingly downward.

“Yeah, all right,” Sam says. After all, this Supernatural show does sound pretty important to this sketchy new future Sam didn’t ask to find himself in.

Bucky turns to Steve. “So when do you and Natalia have to head out?”

“Probably in a week or two. We want to make sure everything’s settled here before we head out.”

“A week or two, Steve, really? You think Sam’s going to be ready to be Captain America in a week or two,” Bucky says flatly.

Sam thinks Bucky sort of has a point, but out of loyalty to Steve and his own sense of competence he keeps his mouth shut.

Steve’s shoulders hunch defensively. “It’s going to be fine, you’re going to do a great job supporting Sam.”

“I shouldn’t have to support Sam, Steve—”

“Bucky, c’mon, you know I wouldn’t have—”

“Not even a supersoldier, Steve—”

“Sam doesn’t have to be—”

Natasha is listening to this argument with a fond look on her face, like she actually missed this shit while they were gone.

“OK, listen,” Sam interrupts before Steve and Bucky get too distracted by their bullshit. “The Captain America thing is huge, yeah. But I feel like maybe we also need to be concerned about the world’s population suddenly doubling instantaneously? That’s kind of a big deal.”

“Oh!” Steve lights up. “Natasha’s had a plan set up for that since like a week after you guys disappeared. She’s spent the last five years preparing for every contingency, basically every scientific or magical possibility that might bring you guys back. In fact, phase one has already started, getting lines of communication open to reconnect families and arranging emergency housing.”

Steve beams down at Natasha, and then—Sam can’t even fucking believe this—Natasha actually blushes in response. Steve and Natasha are, respectively, the most repressed and tightly controlled people Sam knows, and now they’re acting like emotionally healthy people who express their feelings in front of other people? Sam is suspicious as hell, and when he looks over at Bucky, Bucky is bug-eyed, looking frantically and significantly at Sam with that unmistakable are you seeing this too, what the fuck expression on his face. Sam hates the fact that things are so weird now that he’s bonding with Bucky over this.

“Pepper Potts is coordinating everything through the Avengers Foundation,” Natasha says. “She needs something to do right now, and she’s basically the most frighteningly efficient person I know, so. Your only job right now is figuring out how to work together without killing each other.”

Natasha eyes them both a bit skeptically, and Sam is instantly offended at this implied slight to his professionalism.

“Bucky and I are going to do great,” Sam says. “We are definitely going to be absolutely fine at working together.” He shoots Bucky a hard look, daring him to disagree.

“Absolutely fine,” Bucky repeats dutifully, then hesitates. “You’re sure, though, right, Sam? You really want to do the Captain America thing?”

“Definitely,” Sam confirms. Bucky searches his eyes for a moment, then nods, apparently satisfied with whatever he finds.

“Great!” Natasha says with a pleased smile, and shares a satisfied look with Steve.

“Anyway,” Sam says, changing the subject, before they can figure out Sam has no fucking clue how to be Captain America and definitely doesn’t feel certain about working with Bucky Barnes. “What else did we miss while we were gone? How did Brexit go?”

“Oh, God,” Steve says.

***

The next morning, Sam walks down to the cabin’s kitchen for breakfast and finds a disaster.

“Is this a murder board?” he asks, aghast.

The wall next to the kitchen table is absolutely covered in papers that have been hastily pinned up, and there are at least eleven different colors of string stretched together in a complicated web over top of them, forming a bizarre rainbow of crazy. Where did Bucky even find that many different colors of string in the middle of the night? Did he break into a Joann Fabrics?

The kitchen table is littered with papers as well, and Sam counts six different green tea bags sitting on a napkin next to Bucky’s mug. “Have you been up all night?”

“No! And yes!” Bucky answers, his eyes red rimmed and wild, looking simultaneously exhausted and absolutely frantic with energy. He cards his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Do you know how much money Stark was spending on the Avengers Initiative after you guys blew up SHIELD? The litigation team! The insurance premiums! The property damage settlements! Weapons and technology! Research and development! Sam, the cost was astronomical!”

“Wait, this is all financial stuff? I thought this was more of, like, a traditional murder board situation here.” Sam pauses, then struck with sudden uncertainty, he asks, “Is financial stuff part of Captain America stuff?”

“Well, I mean, kind of, yeah,” Bucky responds. He stands up and restlessly paces the tiny kitchen. “You didn’t think you were going to just run off with the shield and, like, live off the kindness of strangers or something, did you?”

“Obviously, no,” Sam says, offended. Actually, though—not that Sam is going to admit it—Sam hasn’t had a real job in so long that he sort of forgot that this was going to be an issue. “Wait, did you get all this stuff by hacking Stark Industries?”

“Well, yeah,” says Bucky, defensive now. “I didn’t want to be rude and ask Ms. Potts in the middle of the night. Also I killed her daughter’s grandparents.”

Sam considers this for a moment, then shrugs. “Yeah, that’s fair,” he says. “So what about the funding we had before? Is that gone?”

“It’s not gone, but there’s no way the money in Steve’s and my bank account will be enough.”

“Wait, you and Steve share a bank account?” Sam asks, raising his eyebrows.

Bucky’s forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Well, yeah, of course. Why would Steve and I need separate bank accounts?” he asks, looking puzzled.

“Why would you...” Sam repeats faintly. “OK. Moving on from that codependent nonsense, you and Steve were the ones funding us while we were on the run? Steve never said.”

“Well, I mean, I did steal a bunch of money from HYDRA, and Steve had some backpay saved up. But there’s no way Steve and I have Captain America money. Stark barely had Captain America money. Sam, he was spending down his entire fortune on the Avengers Initiative. Did you guys know he was doing that?”

Sam closes his eyes, shaking off the waves of guilt and grief he felt at the mention of Tony’s generosity. “No, I didn’t,” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” Bucky says grimly. “It’s bad. Like, really, really bad. You aren’t an international fugitive anymore. If you want to be Captain America, you won’t be able to just save people, destroy a few buildings, then dash off to the next country before the police catch up to you. You have to actually deal with the fallout afterward. And, most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, you need actual income. Was Stark seriously the only one of you with a real job?”

“I mean, yeah?”

“Of course he was,” Bucky says, deflating and leaning back against the counter with a thud. “God, you’re all idiots. I went off to war in the 1940s and I left one Steve back at home. Then I fell off a train, woke up seventy years later, and found out that Steve managed to find an entire team full of Steves, and each one of you is just as beautiful and heroic and stupid and utterly impractical as he is.” Bucky raises his metal hand to massage his temples, apparently fighting a headache so powerful that even his serum-enhanced regular arm isn’t strong enough to deal with it.

Sam carefully ignores Bucky’s insinuation that he finds Sam beautiful and heroic. Instead he pours Bucky a glass of water and slides it over to him. “OK, so what do we do?”

“Well, you’re not going to like it.”

“I’m not, huh? Just tell me.”

“We have to rebuild SHIELD,” Bucky states firmly. “We have to get in touch with Nick Fury.”

“Absolutely not,” Sam says.

“Sam, it’s the only reasonable choice. We can’t afford to privately fund your career as a superhero, OK? I mean, the insurance? The legal team? I’ve drafted fifteen different budgets and there’s no way we can get this off the ground. But if we rebuild SHIELD, there’ll be funding and qualified immunity. You won’t even have to work directly for SHIELD. You could be an independent contractor.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I know. But it’s the only way.”

“Is Fury even going to listen to us, though?” Sam asks skeptically. “Like, will he even hire you? You shot him, like, five times.”

Bucky grimaces. “Yeah, that wasn’t great. But listen, the man’s probably been waiting for this moment for years. If he can get Steve and Natalia’s public support behind SHIELD 2.0? He’ll seize the chance.”

“Shit,” Sam says.

***

When Steve and Natasha come downstairs, sleepy and happy looking, casually emerging from the same bedroom that Sam knows only has one queen size bed, like bed sharing is just a regular part of their regular lives now, Bucky introduces them to the financial murder board.

“So if you really want to do this, if you want Sam to be Captain America, we need to rebuild SHIELD,” Bucky concludes.

“SHIELD?” Natasha perks up. “We’re getting the old gang back together?”

“Natasha, like, 40% of the old gang were secret Nazis,” Steve says reproachfully. “And more importantly, Nick Fury didn’t notice they were secret Nazis.”

“He definitely started to suspect something was wrong near the end there, though,” says Natasha.

“Well, he’s our best shot at getting government funding, so unless you want to ask Tony Stark’s grieving widow for money, I think this is the best we can do.” Bucky turns to Natasha. “Natalia, you know how to get in touch with him, right?” he asks.

“I do. Pepper sent out working satellite phones via courier last night. They should have arrived by this morning. I’ll give him a call,” Natasha says. “He’s going to love this.”

“Your mom should have gotten a phone too, Sam,” Steve says. “I’ll text you her number so you can give her a call.”

“Thanks, man,” Sam says, relieved. While Steve works on sending Sam his mom’s contact info—does Steve’s phone have a holographic display? Does Old Man Steve know how to work a phone with a holographic display?—Sam asks Bucky, “How did you even pull all these records together, by the way? Are you like a secret accountant?”

“Bucky worked as an actuary before the war,” Steve responds absently, thumbing at some buttons on his phone screen. “He was getting his degree in mathematics before he dropped out to enlist.”

“An actuary?” Natasha asks thoughtfully. “I can see that. That actually makes a lot of sense.”

“It paid the bills,” Bucky allows.

When Sam receives Steve’s text with his mom’s contact info, he steps outside for a bit of privacy. Sam watches Steve and Natasha leaning together through the sliding glass window as he waits for his mom to answer the phone. Sam feels a pit growing deep in his belly, a black hole that’s been sucking in everything Sam could have lived and built and experienced in the past five years, leaving him empty and lonely and lost, missing parts of himself that he should have been gaining. Inside, Bucky is standing alone in front of murder board, his shoulders tense, while Steve and Natasha talk and smile and touch each other’s forearms.

“Sam? Sam, baby, are you OK?”

“Mom!” Sam exclaims. “Mom, I’m OK. I’m OK.”

“Thank God,” she says in relief. “We’re OK too. Sarah and Michelle, they’ve been living in my apartment. Michelle’s eleven years old now, Sam. We missed five years of her life. How did this happen?”

And Sam tells her how it happened. He tells her about the battle, and then the second battle, and then realizing that he had died and was resurrected by magical stones. He tells her about Bucky Barnes, standing there in disgruntled disbelief when Steve and Natasha explained that they’d woken up five years into the future, his only reaction to state flatly, “I was told that this wouldn’t happen to me again.”

When he tells her that Steve’s asked him to be the new Captain America, Sam’s mom gasps in surprise. “Captain America? Sam, are you sure?”

“Yeah, Mom. I am sure. I think I could really do some good,” Sam says softly.

“Do you have good people around you? Do you have people who will take care of you?”

Sam thinks of Steve and Natasha leaving for space in a few weeks, moving on to bigger and more complicated catastrophes, superheroes who’ve grown so powerful and competent and amazing that they’re needed elsewhere, on worlds larger than their own. And then he thinks of Bucky Barnes staying up all night to do superhero math so Sam can be Captain America, even though Bucky is apparently pissed that Steve chose Sam for the honor instead of him.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I have people who will take care of me.”

***

That evening, Sam and Bucky sit at the table and watch Steve and Natasha put together the most disgusting struggle dinner Sam has ever seen. Steve is piling gross stacks of bologna onto bread and seems to think condiments are optional, while Natasha has dumped a bag of iceberg lettuce into a bowl and poured an entire bottle of ranch dressing on top of it. This, she insists, is a “salad.” Steve and Natasha move expertly around each other in the kitchen like they’re performing a choreographed dance, casually touching each other’s shoulders and hips as they slide past each other. Obviously they’ve created this sort of repulsive dinner situation more than once. What have these two been eating for the last five years? Sam can’t resist glancing up at Bucky to catch a look of horror on Bucky’s face, his nose scrunched up in disgust.

When Steve sets their plates of dry bologna sandwiches and the soggy bowl of lettuce onto the table onto the table, Bucky suddenly announces that he’s vegan.

“You are?” Steve asks suspiciously. “Since when?”

Sensing an opportunity, Sam rushes to support Bucky’s desperate ploy to avoid this dinner. “Bucky and I are both vegan, actually. It’s new.”

“Really,” Natasha says. “You and Bucky do stuff together now. Stuff like going vegan.”

“Uh huh,” Sam says staunchly.

The best way to handle Natasha is just to brazen it out. She’ll suspect that you’re lying, but she won’t actually say anything until she has proof. Unfortunately, she’ll stoop to any and all means—however invasive or conniving—to catch you out. Sam guesses he and Bucky are both vegan forever now.

“Go ahead and eat your dinner,” Bucky says. “I’ll just make Sam and me something while you guys eat.”

While Steve and Natasha eat and trade inside jokes and talk about a bunch of political events Sam does not understand—did Michigan actually successfully secede from the Union?—Sam watches in astonishment as Bucky prepares the most incredible looking burrito bowls Sam’s ever seen in his life. In like twenty minutes, the dude whips up some chipotle lime black beans, diced tomatoes, corn, fajita veggies, and quinoa, then proceeds to make pineapple mango salsa from scratch using a mortar and pestle. Where did Bucky even get these ingredients? The last time Sam checked, the fridge was almost empty.

Bucky looks relaxed and capable, and Sam watches the muscles in Bucky’s back shift and move as he chops and grinds and sautés. Bucky’s got a kitchen towel slung casually over his shoulder, and a few strands of hair at his temples curl a bit in the steam coming off the stove top.

“So what else did y’all get up to in the last five years?” Sam asks.

“Oh! Should we tell them about the—” Natasha begins, her eyes lighting up.

“You mean the dude with the—”

“With the plastic fangs!” Natasha finishes, wheezing with laughter. “What was that guy’s name? Oh, God—”

“—Baron Blood!” they exclaim in unison, cackling.

Sam can’t help but feel a little annoyed by how easily Steve and Natasha finish each other’s sentences. Sam knows, intellectually, that Steve and Natasha lived each one of the five years that went by in seconds for him and Bucky. He knows that Steve and Natasha have always been close and that it makes sense for them to, like, trauma bond after everything they’ve gone through together. But he’s never felt so left out by his own best friends before. He looks over at Bucky, relieved when he sees his own feelings of frustration and isolation mirrored on Bucky’s face.

“Wait, you fought the Bloody Baron from Harry Potter?” Bucky asks.

“No, it was Baron Blood, not the Bloody Baron.”

“Was the guy an actual baron, or were his parents just rich and tacky? Was his first name Baron?” Sam asks, fascinated despite himself.

“I think it was, like, a self-appointed title?” Natasha says. “I don’t think he was a real baron. Anyway, Steve decapitated him with his shield.”

“He was a Nazi vampire,” Steve explains.

“Like an actual vampire? Are we fighting actual vampires now?” Sam asks.

“I think so,” Natasha says doubtfully. “Steve had to soak his shield in holy water blessed by the pope first. It was a whole thing.”

“Wait, are you guys talking about Todd?” Bucky asks. “Brown hair, red eyes, ranted a lot about what an important superpower echolocation was?”

“Yes! Did you know this guy?” Steve asks.

“Eh, we weren’t close or anything. But there were some weird ass HYDRA experiments in the eighties and nineties. Most people these days think the Satanic Panic was a myth, but actually HYDRA really did have agents trying to indoctrinate daycare kids into supernatural cults. Todd was one of the evil brainwashed HYDRA daycare kids, volunteered to get some really hinky stuff done to him to try to create a master race of genetically pure vampires. Oh, and he was super obsessed with you, Steve.”

“Oh, God, was he ever,” Natasha says. “Let me tell you what he did when he got Steve tied up in his gross dungeon—”

***

While Natasha says goodbye to Bucky, squeezing Bucky and muttering something in Russian in Bucky’s ear, Sam is startled to feel Steve grab him tightly and pull him into an aggressive hug. Sam takes a minute to breathe in Steve’s familiar, comforting smell—still wearing Bay Rum even after all this time—and rests his chin on Steve’s strong shoulder.

“We love you,” Steve says, then hands him off to Natasha.

Natasha gives him a sweet kiss on the mouth. “We’ll miss you,” she says.

When Steve and Natasha disappear into the distance, Sam looks over at Bucky. “We, we, we,” Bucky says wryly.

***

Six weeks later, Sam and Bucky have formed a pretty solid partnership. They’re still living in one of the cabins on Tony Stark’s property in upstate New York for now, but they’re scheduled to report for duty at the new SHIELD headquarters in New York City on Monday.

Steve and Natasha are coming back to Earth this evening, scheduled for security briefings and press events promoting the resurrection of SHIELD, promising the public that Sam is going to make a great Captain America and that there definitely aren’t any more secret Nazis in the upper echelons of power at SHIELD.

As far as Sam can tell, Bucky’s still pretty pissed at Steve for asking Sam to be Captain America instead of him, but fortunately that grudge doesn’t seem to be carrying over to Sam. Instead, Bucky is perfectly pleasant and helpful as hell, which is pretty terrific considering the fact that Sam could use all the help he can get right now. Learning how to use the shield—especially while flying—is complicated as fuck and Sam probably would have lost patience pretty quickly without Bucky reassuring him that Steve was shit at math and definitely was not doing trigonometric calculations in his head while he fought.

“Does Steve seem like the kind of guy who’s doing a lot of thinking while he’s fighting? No, this is all practice and muscle memory,” says Bucky, clapping Sam’s shoulder. “C’mon, Steve and Natalia are scheduled to get here in like an hour. Let’s take showers and get ready to meet them for dinner.”

It’s humid as fuck outside and Bucky’s shirt is drenched in sweat, clinging so tightly to his skin that Sam can count each one of his abdominal muscles individually. Bucky raises a water bottle to his mouth and takes a long pull. Sam watches a drip of sweat slide down Bucky’s throat.

“Yeah, good plan,” Sam says. A cool shower sounds really refreshing right now.

***

When they meet Steve and Natasha for dinner, Sam nearly forgets that he and Bucky are pretending to be vegan until Bucky orders a wheatberry salad and then kicks Sam underneath the table. Sam grimaces and reaches down to rub his shin, looking regretfully at the shiny picture of the giant burger and fries that Steve ordered on his menu.

“I’ll have the wheatberry salad too,” Sam says, trying not to sound too sad about it.

Steve and Natasha are bursting with stories about space. They’re happy and full of excitement, and if anything, they’re somehow even closer than when they left. They have very strong feelings about Kree politics, and they tell a lot of stories about famous people from space that Sam does not know. They touch each other constantly.

The wheatberry salad is amazing.

“So what else happened while we were gone?” Bucky asks, mercifully changing the subject from the boring Kree legislative process. “How did the last season of Game of Thrones go?”

“Oh, it was incredible,” Natasha raves, her eyes lighting up. “David Benioff and D. B. Weiss were taken in the Snap, so they had to hire this fantasy author named Brandon Sanderson to write it. Everyone was really skeptical about how it would go—especially with half of the cast gone—but he did an amazing job. It’s now considered one of the strongest finales of any show in history.”

“You know, I never could get into Game of Thrones,” Sam remarks. “All those big-budget fantasy dynastic political dramas are just so unrealistic.”

“See, that’s what Shuri said when I told her I was watching it to research living in a monarchy after I moved to Wakanda,” Bucky says. “But then her secret illegitimate cousin traveled from across the sea to claim her brother’s throne in a trial by combat. And then her supposedly slain brother dramatically returned from the dead with the help of a magical herb in order to defeat the usurper in battle, so.” Bucky lifts his shoulders and raises his hands in a sort of smug, so who turned out to be right there? kind of shrug.

“Yeah, OK,” Sam concedes, tipping his head to acknowledge the point.

“It’s crazy that we’ll never know how much better it could have been with Benioff and Weiss at the helm, though,” Steve says, and Sam’s stomach drops a bit as he’s hit by another wave of wrongness, that same ears-ringing, tunnel-vision-forming wrongness he’s been feeling since he dramatically returned from the dead. Because what’s the deal with Steve being so literate in pop culture that he not only watches hit prestige dramas but actually knows the names of the writers? To Sam, it was just a few weeks ago that Steve declared Star Trek: The Next Generation “a bit too flashy” for his taste.

“Hey, did George R. R. Martin ever finish the books?” Bucky asks hopefully.

“No, he died,” Steve says.

***

Later that night, after Steve and Natasha have conspicuously gone to bed together, Bucky grabs Sam’s hand, puts a finger to his lips, quirks an eyebrow, and leads Sam silently into a small closet on the first floor of the house. The closet is full of thick winter coats that push Sam and Bucky right up against a wall, their bodies pressed tightly together. Bucky turns on the flashlight app from his phone to give them some light.

“What are we doing in here?” Sam whispers.

“It’s the only place in the house where Steve won’t be able to hear us. Just keep your voice down,” Bucky explains.

“Oh, shit. We’re not plotting to overthrow SHIELD again, are we?”

“No!” Bucky says. “It’s been like six weeks. HYDRA won’t have a secret majority interest in SHIELD for another twenty years at least. Look, have you noticed how Steve and Natalia are, like, obsessed with each other now?”

“Yes! What is with that? I thought I was Steve’s best friend!” Sam hisses.

“Well, you and Steve are definitely close friends,” Bucky says skeptically. “But best friendship is an exclusive relationship. It’s the closest and most intimate connection you can have with someone. And you can only have one of them. Your best friend is someone you would kill for, someone that you would die for, someone you would come back from seventy years of brainwashing for. Someone you would drop the very symbol of everything you believe in for. So, I think we can all agree that I was Steve’s best friend.”

Bucky looks pretty self-satisfied after that whole speech.

“I don’t think we can all agree that you were Steve’s best friend,” Sam says, tilting his head skeptically.

“Well, I was, but the point is that I don’t think I am anymore. I think Natalia might be Steve’s best friend now,” Bucky whispers, irritated.

“I know! I hate it,” Sam confesses. “Steve and Nat and I used to all be best friends. Now they have all these inside jokes and I feel left out all the time.”

“Again, Sam, you can’t have two best friends,” Bucky corrects. “Anyway, I know we haven’t always gotten along in the past, and maybe some of us have made mistakes like kicking people off helicarriers or wrecking their cars, but I think if we want Steve back, we might be able to work together on this.”

“I’m listening,” Sam says.

“OK, so I think we need to try to make them jealous.”

“I don’t think Nat gets jealous. Does Steve get jealous?” Sam says doubtfully.

“Oh, Steve gets jealous,” Bucky confirms. “Did you know that like five seconds after I admitted that I remembered growing up with Steve, he immediately started getting passive aggressive about some redhead named Dot that I spent three dollars on back in 1937? It was like the very first thing he brought up.”

“Oh, God, was Dot short for Dolores?” Sam asks. “Steve complained about her all the time while we were out searching for you.”

“That was her!” Bucky says. “Steve was so jealous of Dolores. Anyway, I think if we team up, we can convince Steve that we’re best friends now. Then he’ll get jealous and remember how much more important we are to him than Natalia.”

Sam considers this carefully. He’s never been pressed so close to Bucky before, their faces only inches away from one another. From this distance Sam can see how long and thick Bucky’s eyelashes are. He can smell the pleasant scents of Bucky’s clean sweat and spicy aftershave.

He wants to press his thumb into the cleft in Bucky’s chin.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea,” Sam hears himself say.

“Great!”

***

The next day, while Steve and Natasha are busy in meetings with Rhodey and Fury, Sam moves into his new apartment in Brooklyn. It’s not actually so much his new apartment so much as it is Steve’s old apartment, but apparently Steve doesn’t need it anymore since he’s spending so much time out in space with Natasha and he “can always just stay with Nat while I’m in town, it’s no trouble, Sam, Natasha and I are used to bunking together.”

Sam actually has a lot of questions about how used to bunking together Steve and Natasha are.

Sam’s unpacking his clothes when he hears the doorbell ring. His spine stiffens and his fingers twitch for a weapon. Steve and Natasha are both scheduled to be out for hours still, and Steve’s a pretty private guy. Sam doubts many people know about his apartment.

He grabs a gun from his safe, loads it, and walks silently toward the front door.

“Sam, I know you’re in there.”

The muffled voice on the other side of the door is thankfully familiar. Sam feels the tension in his chest release and he lowers his gun. It’s just Bucky.

Unfortunately, all that tension in Sam’s chest immediately returns when Sam opens the door to discover that Bucky is, for some reason, carrying a duffel bag and surrounded by cardboard boxes. Sam’s stomach sinks.

“What the fuck, Sam?” Bucky complains, shoving past him into the entryway and setting down his bag. “You didn’t even look through the peephole to make sure no one was holding me at gunpoint? If we’re going to live together you’re going to have to be a lot more careful about security. I have a lot of enemies.”

“I’m sorry, if we’re going to live together?” Sam repeats, horrified. He puts the safety back on his gun and sets it down onto the counter.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Um, yes? Remember our whole fake-best-friends plan? You literally just agreed to it last night. Here, help me with these boxes.”

Bucky goes back into the hallway, where he bends over to lift a box labeled “pots and pans,” his skinny jeans stretching obscenely over his ass and thighs.

“Yeah, OK,” Sam says, and follows him out into the hallway.

***

“OK, so, explain this to me again: why does being fake best friends mean that we have to be actual roommates?” Sam asks later, passing Bucky a beer.

They’re sitting on Sam’s couch now, surrounded by fifteen boxes labeled, variously: ���favorite grenade launchers,” “crossbows,” “guns (1 of 10),” “scopes and silencers,” “marijuana,” and “warm sweaters.”

“Is this beer vegan?” Bucky asks, checking the label. “Hold on, I’m gonna need to look this up.”

“Wait, are you actually vegan?” Sam asks, watching in astonishment as Bucky pulls up an app on his phone, types in the name of the beer Steve left in the fridge, frowns, and then gets up to put the beer back into the fridge. “I thought we were just pretending to be vegan to avoid Steve’s bologna sandwiches and that gross salad.”

“We were! But then I looked it up afterward to make sure I could pull this off in front of Natalia and I actually read a lot of really harrowing and kind of horrifying stuff about animal agriculture,” Bucky says, grimacing. “Anyway, if we want Steve and Natalia to believe that we’re best friends, we’re going to have to live together. Steve and I always lived together, and Steve moved in with you like five seconds after he met you.”

“To be fair to Steve, he did make it two very sad years living alone in the most depressing apartment I have ever seen, and he didn’t move in with me until you shot a man through his walls,” Sam says.

“That was just an excuse,” Bucky says, waving his hand airily. “Steve and I spent the entire winter of 1937 living in an uninsulated attic apartment with a broken window. If Steve didn’t want to live with you, he would have just slapped some duct tape over those bullet holes and gotten an extra blanket.”

Sam considers this and then reluctantly concedes the point. He’s seen Steve look unnervingly comfortable in some pretty horrific living situations over the past couple of years.

“All right, fine. But do we really need every gun ever made in our living room? I feel like surrounding yourself with this amount of weaponry has got to be an unhealthy coping strategy.”

Sam feels pretty confident about this—he’d been like three-quarters of the way through his Master’s coursework to become a licensed professional counselor when Steve Rogers bulldozed his way into his life.

“And what are we going to do if we need to take down SHIELD again, Sam?” Bucky demands. “How much do we really trust Nick Fury? Anyway, we aren’t storing these in the living room, Sam, that would be tacky.”

“Uh huh,” Sam says, his stomach sinking. “And where are we storing them?” He has a bad feeling about this.

“In the spare bedroom, of course.”

“What spare bedroom.”

“The spare bedroom-slash-armory! We only really need one bedroom, Sam. Steve and I always shared a bedroom.”

“Did you,” Sam says. “And I suppose you shared a bed too.”

“Of course we did. Why would Steve and I need separate beds? We were best friends.”

Bucky gives Sam an odd look, like he thinks Sam in the one being strange about this. As if indefinitely sharing a bed is just normal best friend stuff. Sam wants to believe that this is some kind of Depression era, growing-up-in-poverty sort of thing, but honestly Steve and Bucky are just so intensely weird about each other that Sam is pretty sure that it’s actually a Steve-and-Bucky thing.

Sam thinks about sharing a bed with Bucky every night. He wonders if Bucky wears a shirt to bed, or if Bucky slides into bed bare-chested, wearing only a pair of shorts or maybe even just some tightly fitted boxer briefs.

“All right,” Sam says, sighing.

***

Later that night, when they’re lying in bed catching up on Supernatural—he has got to know how this show somehow became relevant to international geopolitics—Bucky leans over to pull a huge bag of weed out of the nightstand. Then he slowly, carefully rolls the fattest joint Sam has ever seen. It’s somehow absolutely massive but still structurally sound and perfectly balanced. Sam puts the show on pause because he has a lot of questions about this.

“Where did you learn how to do that? Does marijuana even work on you?” Sam asks. “Did you learn how to do this as part of that whole Eat Pray Love thing you did while Steve and I were looking for you?”

“What? No. Steve taught me how to do this back in the thirties.”

“Excuse me, Steve Rogers taught you how to roll a joint in the thirties? Steve ‘Captain America’ Rogers knows how to roll a joint?” Sam asks, scandalized.

“Yes? I didn’t have any other friends named Steve—actually, Steve was always my only friend,” Bucky says offhandedly. “Anyway, Stevie started rolling his own asthma cigarettes when he was like twelve, had those perfect long-fingered artist hands even when he was little. Then when he started art school he started bringing home marijuana after class. He’d roll us a joint and we’d sit out on the fire escape and smoke before bed every night.”

“Steve Rogers,” Sam says, wonderingly. “What a little punk.”

“Right? I’m always saying that but no one ever believes me. Here,” Bucky says, passing the joint over to Sam. Sam hesitates for a moment—he hasn’t smoked pot since before he joined the Air Force—but then he gives a mental shrug, figuring that SHIELD probably isn’t going to drug test him. Yeah, Nick Fury is kind of a dick, but Sam doubts that he’d give a shit about a little recreational marijuana use.

Sam feels a little thrill when he raises Bucky’s joint to his lips, the paper still slightly damp from Bucky’s saliva. He seals his mouth around the end of the joint and sucks in deeply, sharing this wet vicarious kiss with Bucky, who watches Sam’s mouth with interest. Sam feels the sharp burn in his lungs as he holds in the smoke, then coughs violently when he exhales, passing the joint back to Bucky.

“Damn,” he says. “This stuff still works for you?”

“Yep,” Bucky says. “HYDRA wanted to make sure they’d still be able to drug the shit out of me when they were experimenting with their own version of the serum, so unlike some reckless assholes who actually volunteered to get the bona fide serum, I can still get stoned. Which is I guess some small consolation for spending seventy years on some pretty intense amphetamines and weird psychosis-inducing experimental drug cocktails.”

“Yikes. Well, that makes sense, I guess,” Sam says. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Bucky pauses. “Well, it’s not fine fine. But I’m fine. Now.”

“I’m glad,” Sam says, and he realizes he means it.

***

The first time Sam fucks up as Captain America, he finds out the answer to a great personal mystery: why Steve Rogers was considered “the greatest tactician in American military history.”

It’s not because Steve is actually a great tactician—in fact, Steve is an instinctive fighter, brash and brave and most of all impulsive.

Apparently, the real reason Steve was considered the greatest tactician in American military history is because Peggy Carter was the greatest tactician in American military history, and Bucky Barnes was the greatest bullshitter in American military history.

When Maria Hill orders them to Fury’s office for debriefing after that disastrous mission, Bucky grabs Sam’s arm and digs his nails into the tender skin on the underside of Sam’s forearm.

“Whatever you do, do not say anything,” Bucky hisses. “Just shut the fuck up, and let me handle this. I mean it.”

“I need to take responsibility for this, Bucky. Steve would take responsibility for this.”

“Steve would absolutely not take responsibility for this,” Bucky states firmly. “Trust me, I’ve been bailing that little punk out of trouble for one hundred years. Do not say anything.”

When they get to Fury’s office, Sam witnesses an actual miracle. Fury begins by asking them a series of terse questions in a clipped tone that slowly grows more and more agreeable as Bucky’s answers—calm, thoughtful, and pleasant—make Sam’s actions sound both necessary and entirely reasonable. The tone shifts from an interrogation to a more customary debrief, and by the end Fury’s countenance is less thunderous and more just his sort of standard expression of grim disapproval.

The truly bewildering part is that Bucky’s explanations for Sam’s behavior are so convincing that Sam himself is now questioning whether he even fucked up at all. Nothing Bucky says is a lie, and Sam’s not even sure he would characterize anything as misleading, but nevertheless Sam slowly moves from the distinct impression that both he and Fury considered the mission a failure, to the cautious notion that maybe he’d actually made the best of a bad job after all.

When Fury dismisses them, he offers them a gruff, “Excellent work, gentlemen,” and then he actually claps Sam on the shoulder as Sam walks out the door.

What the fuck.

***

“Excuse me, are you some kind of hypnotist or sorcerer?” Sam hisses when they return to their office. “What the fuck was all that?”

“Should we get Thai food for lunch? I’m thinking pad see ew,” Bucky muses, scrolling through the menu on his phone. “What about you?”

“Get me the tofu pad thai,” Sam says. It turns out Bucky wasn’t wrong about the environmental impact of animal agriculture—that’s actually some deeply sobering shit, and Sam feels like he should probably try to be a good role model now that he’s Captain America. “Seriously, though, I did fuck up that mission, right? I wasn’t imagining that?”

Bucky sighs. “Sam, you made the right call. Maybe Fury wouldn’t have agreed immediately, but I didn’t spend my entire life justifying Steve’s aggressive self-sacrificing bullshit to people in positions of authority for no reason. Steve knew when to step up and do what was right, sure, but he also knew when to shut up and let me do the talking afterward.”

Everything about Steve’s career in the Army makes so much more sense now.

“Thanks, man,” Sam says, awkwardly. He hesitates a moment, then asks, “You really think Steve would have made the same decision today?”

Bucky gives Sam a long, considering look. His gaze is solemn and sympathetic, and his lips press together in a sad smile. “Sam, you’ve got to stop comparing yourself to Steve.”

***

Sam misses a lot about Steve, but he very specifically does not miss running with Steve. That’s because Steve is an asshole, and while Sam may enjoy the view from behind when Steve laps him for the fiftieth time, he definitely does not feel like Steve deserves to act as smug about it as he does when Steve is quite famously the recipient of performance enhancing drugs.

Sam and Bucky are running their usual route in Prospect Park, feet pounding together in rhythm as they listen to the dope ass Carly Rae Jepsen playlist Bucky made for them on their headphones. It turns out that Sam’s been putting up with a lot of shit from Steve that wasn’t actually necessary, because despite being a full year older than Steve—or is it four years younger, now, after the Snap?—Bucky has managed to develop some pretty cool taste in music. More importantly, Bucky seems mercifully content to run at a speed that is completely normal for unenhanced people who are still in fantastic shape and also have great legs.

Speaking of great legs, Sam’s having kind of a hard time handling the length of Bucky’s running shorts today. Bucky’s legs are long and strong, lightly muscled and flexing attractively as his steady stride eats up the pavement, and his thighs—

“So how come Steve won’t run like a regular person?” Sam asks, reluctantly dragging his gaze away from those lean, golden thighs.

“Did he try to give you some shit about how he has to run that fast to stay in shape as a supersoldier?” scoffs Bucky. “No, Steve runs that fast because Steve has anger issues and a high sex drive. Otherwise he’d be starting fights and jerking off four times a day.”

Sam’s breath catches a bit in his chest and he tries very hard not to stumble at that. “Oh?” Sam asks, trying to sound casual. “And you? You’re not jerking off four times a day?”

“Living with you, sweetheart?” Bucky says with a wink. “Of course I am.”

***

This isn’t actually Sam’s first time living with a Russian assassin, because he spent two years on the run with Natasha, so he’s used to a lot of weird ass habits. But one thing that confounds the shit out of him is why Bucky insists on navigating Brooklyn solely through a maze of gross alleyways that smell absolutely foul.

Steve and Natasha are finally home from their peacekeeping or worldbuilding or diplomatic journey through the stars—whatever the hell they’ve been doing for the past few months—and Sam and Bucky are on their way to meet them at a café for lunch.

“Man, are you sure we’re not going in circles? I could swear we’ve passed that blue dumpster at least twice already. Is this some kind of spy thing where we’re doubling back to lose a tail or something?” Sam asks.

“No. And this blue dumpster is the blue dumpster behind the hipster café with the oat milk latte that you hate, the one with too much cinnamon,” Bucky explains patiently. “The other two blue dumpsters are behind the artisanal pickle shop and the thrift store where the secondhand clothes actually cost more than they do when you buy them new.”

“Right,” Sam says with a heavy sigh. Then he perks up when he sees their favorite stray cat. “Oh, hey, it’s Steve the cat!”

“Aw! Hi, Steve!” Bucky coos. He reaches into his pocket to toss a few treats toward the skinny, ill-tempered cat, who eyes them suspiciously before hissing viciously, his scraggly hackles raising. Steve the cat ignores their treats, presumably offended by their insulting attempts at charity, and Sam and Bucky positively melt at this pointless and self-destructive display of spitefulness.

“He’s so cute!” Bucky says.

“I love him so much,” Sam agrees. “C’mon, let’s leave the treats here and keep going. Maybe he’ll eat them after we leave.”

“We should stop at the pet store on the way home and pick up a different brand. Maybe Steve has allergies,” Bucky suggests.

“Good idea,” Sam says, nodding.

As they head toward their lunch with Steve and Natasha, Sam’s surprised to realize that he feels pretty relaxed and confident about their whole fake-best-friends plan. Usually he’d be having some kind of heart palpitations at the thought of trying to pull one over on Natasha, an actual spy who actually lied to the actual God of Lies and actually succeeded at it, but instead Sam thinks that he and Bucky might really get away with this whole fake-best-friends thing. It helps that Bucky looks so cool and self-assured walking beside him, hips loose and easy and confident as those long legs lead them toward their whole best friends debut.

Eventually they weave their way out of Bucky’s trash labyrinth and make it to the café, where Steve and Natasha are waiting at a table along the sidewalk. Steve and Nat look happy, laughing and chatting animatedly, their body language intimate and relaxed. Sam feels a brief moment of apprehension, but Steve smiles broadly when he sees Sam and Bucky approach, and Steve and Nat both stand to offer hugs and kisses in greeting.

“We’re so glad to be home,” Natasha says, sitting back down with a sigh. “Do you know that after spending the past few months trying to navigate alien bureaucracy, I’ve actually missed filling out post-mission paperwork at SHIELD? Do not repeat that to Fury.”

“Fury’s already trying to convince Natasha to train as his replacement when he retires,” Steve brags, putting his arm around Natasha’s shoulders. The flash of envy Sam feels at Steve’s obvious pride in Natasha is swiftly overwhelmed by Sam’s genuine happiness for her. He can’t think of anyone he’d trust more than Natasha to be the next Director of SHIELD. Probably she wouldn’t let in any secret Nazis or mad scientist artificial intelligences at all.

“That’s great, Natalia,” Bucky says warmly. “How soon can you start? I already hate working for Fury.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure Fury has like three decoy replacements lined up and at least another decade of weird mind games in him before he’ll seriously consider retirement,” Natasha says, nodding her head approvingly. “And to be fair to Fury, he’s probably still pretty pissed about that time you nearly killed him.”

“Actually, Fury really likes Bucky,” says Sam defensively. “Just last week Fury even thanked him for giving him the chance to fake his own death—said he’d been looking for just the right opportunity for years.”

Bucky smirks and nudges his knee against Sam’s underneath the table. Sam deliberately doesn’t move his leg away, warmth spreading through him from the point of contact.

“I feel like I should be surprised that Bucky won Fury over that quickly, but honestly it makes sense. The nuns loved Bucky,” Steve says, rolling his eyes.

“Fury does have kind of a weird nun energy, doesn’t he,” Natasha says thoughtfully. “I’ve never really thought about it before but now I’m kind of obsessed with the idea.”

When they’ve finished ordering—bacon cheeseburgers for Steve and Natasha, falafel salads for Sam and Bucky—Natasha asks them how they’re enjoying their new vegan lifestyle.

“Have you been eating a lot of aquafaba?” Natasha asks, too innocent by half.

A surge of triumph wells up in Sam’s chest. He knows that Natasha is testing them, and he knows that they’re going to pass this test.

“Aquafaba’s actually more of a baking thing, sort of an egg white replacement,” Sam explains, biting his lip to resist shooting Bucky a smug grin. “And Bucky doesn’t eat anything with added sugar, so we don’t do a whole lot of baking.”

“And since when is Bucky such a healthy eater?” Steve asks incredulously.

“Some of us got hasty Nazi knockoff serums, Steve,” Bucky replies. “I’m like a hundred years old. How do I know if I can just eat whatever I want and still have perfect blood pressure and cholesterol like you? Also, do you know how much we’ve learned about nutrition since you and I were in school? When was the last time you even got a physical, Steve? Natalia ought to be making sure you take better care of yourself. I make sure Sam exercises and eats a sensible diet.”

“I stay fit,” Sam agrees.

Bucky smirks and lets his eyes travel along Sam’s biceps and shoulders. “Yeah, you do, sweetheart.”

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to get a physical, OK? But my primary care physician was taken in the Snap,” Steve says defensively. “I didn’t have time to find a new one. I’ve been very busy.”

“I’m actually finding this all very interesting,” Natasha says, her chin propped on her hand and her voice low and amused. “Has Bucky always been this fussy and meddlesome?”

“Only when it comes to my best friend,” Bucky explains with great apparent sincerity.

Steve chokes on his soda, coughing and sputtering violently, and Sam looks up from his salad to grin and catch Bucky’s eye. Natasha gives Steve a few strong thumps on the back.

When Steve recovers from his coughing fit, he narrows his eyes in disbelief. “I’m sorry, your best friend? Is Sam your best friend? Because I thought Sam was more like your best friend’s best friend.”

“We’ve gotten really close since we moved in together,” Sam says earnestly, slinging a friendly arm around Bucky’s shoulders.

It’s not even a lie, really. They’ve got a pretty great routine going, and Bucky’s an easy roommate. They wake up every morning and drag themselves out of their shared bed, sleepy and warm, and head out for an early run, letting Bucky’s bomb ass running playlist and the exertion of their run build up the physical and emotional energy they need for the day. They take Bucky’s weird secret assassin route through the alleys to and from the subway every day, and when they come home in the evenings they catch up on all the movies and music and weird political news they’ve missed in the past five years. They smoke a joint together in bed every night before they go to sleep, and they laugh and swap stories and usually make fun of Steve. It’s all very comfortable and cozy. It’s actually, Sam is startled to realize, the closest thing to home he’s felt in the past two-slash-seven years.

“So you moved in together,” Steve says, his voice awkward and high pitched. “That’s—so great!”

“Speaking of moving in together,” Bucky says innocently. “Have you guys decided where you’re going to live? We can move the weapons out of the spare room at our place if you want to move in with us.”

“I’m sorry, the spare room? It’s only a two bedroom apartment, Bucky!”

***

Sam is happy to be back in the field with Steve and Natasha, but he can’t shake the slight uneasiness that comes from thinking he’ll be able to predict their actions, that he’ll be able follow the rhythm of their fight together, only for the two of them to do something totally different than what he expects at the worst possible moment. It turns out that five years was just long enough for Steve and Natasha to fall perfectly in sync with one another and out of sync with Sam.

It’s Sam and Bucky’s first official SHIELD mission with Steve and Natasha, and everything is going mostly fine except for the fact that instead of turning into nice, clean piles of dust like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, these gross ass vampires are exploding like giant bags of blood every time you slay them. It’s super nasty and definitely unhygienic.

The vampires are feral, mostly mindless leech-like creatures that don’t seem to have a lot going on in their probably decaying brains. So on top of dying in a rather revolting sort of fashion, they’re not even sexy or sophisticated or even European the way pop culture has promised him. The whole experience is a real letdown, and it isn’t even really dangerous so much as it is messy and tedious.

“Last one!” Bucky calls out, firing his crossbow straight into the heart of a vampire standing in front of Steve. The vampire explodes in a disgusting spray of borrowed blood, drenching Steve from head to toe in its recycled bodily fluids. Sam stifles a laugh.

“God damn it, Bucky,” Steve complains, his face twisting in distaste. “Just for that I’m taking first shower on the Quinjet.”

Sam gives Bucky a discreet fist bump when they climb aboard, whispering, “Nice shot, man.” Bucky snickers.

Steve is always so funny when he gets all prim and fussy, like some kind of stuffy Victorian schoolmarm. It’s kind of adorable.

In order to fit a full decontamination chamber and shower into the Quinjet, there’s only one of them, so they have to take turns showering. Sam and Bucky have a sort of medium amount of blood on them, while Natasha has somehow managed to escape the whole gory ordeal without a single drop of blood—or even sweat? Literally how is she so pristine?—anywhere on her. Since they’re only in New Jersey, not too far from home, Natasha decides she can wait until they get back to SHIELD headquarters to shower.

“So what’s the deal with all the vampires?” Sam asks. “I thought you and Steve killed that Bloody Baron guy.”

“We did,” Natasha replies, frowning. “It must have been a nest he left behind. Usually new vampires are too stupid or underdeveloped to feed themselves—they’re sort of like human babies that way—but I guess after their vampire dad guy died they must have gotten hungry enough to try to find something to eat on their own. I would have thought that they’d have all starved to death by now, though.”

When Steve finally exits the shower a thousand years later, he shoots them a smug smile. “Good luck fighting over who goes next, guys,” Steve taunts, in an irritating, self-satisfied sort of way. “There’s probably not enough hot water left for both of you.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Bucky says casually. “Sam and I always shower together anyway. We can share. C’mon, Sam.”

Bucky grabs Sam’s wrist and tugs him along toward the shower, and Sam uses every ounce of energy he has left in his body to keep his facial muscles firmly under control, refusing to offer any kind of reaction whatsoever to that frankly shocking claim. What the fuck, Bucky? On the plus side, though, Sam has the pleasure of watching Steve’s eyes widen and his stupid smirk fade as horror slowly sets in.

Natasha’s face, of course, lights up in surprise and then sheer fucking delight at this unexpected turn of events, because Natasha loves drama.

“What,” Steve says weakly.

“Yeah, it’s no big,” Sam says, nonchalant as hell. “We’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Steve and Natasha whisper furiously at each other as Bucky pulls him out of the room.

When Bucky shuts the door to the decontamination chamber behind them, Sam falls back against it, running an open hand down his face and groaning. “Bucky, man, what are you doing?”

“What?” Bucky asks, eyes wide and guileless. He’s unbuckling the chest fasteners on his uniform, and Sam decides to take a moment to indulge his purely intellectual curiosity about how exactly Bucky straps himself into all that tactical fetish gear.

“Steve and I always used to take baths together,” Bucky says. “Do you know how long it took to heat up buckets full of water on the stove just to take one bath? And by the time one person was finished, the bath water would be dirty and cold! And Stevie was so little, it was just easier to bathe together so we’d both stay warm, especially in the winter—”

While Bucky prattles on about Depression-era plumbing, filthy shared tenement showers, cold water apartments, the potential dangers of cold baths for people with weak lungs, and how extremely normal it is for best friends to shower together, Sam watches Bucky methodically strip down to bare, sweaty skin.

“Do you need help, sweetheart?” Bucky asks, amusement in his voice.

“What,” Sam says absently. His eyes are intently following the path of a bead of sweat that’s sliding slowly down the hills and valleys of Bucky’s well-defined abs.

“You’re still dressed.”

“Oh! Right. Yes. I mean no! I don’t need help.”

As Bucky turns on the water and adjusts the temperature, Sam undresses hurriedly, tossing his bloody uniform into the laundry container marked “BIOHAZARD” and stepping into the shower with Bucky.

“Now, Sam, I just want to say: it’s OK if you get hard,” Bucky says sincerely, clearly trying but then utterly failing to hold back a grin. He looks directly into Sam’s eyes and claps him on the shoulder. “You know, Steve and I always—”

“Don’t say it,” Sam interrupts. “Do not say it or I will kill you, I swear to God.” Literally the last thing Sam needs, as he desperately tries to redirect the flow of blood running to his cock, is to think about Steve and Bucky showering together with erections. Jesus Christ. Sam is not made of fucking stone.

“I’m just saying, it’s perfectly normal—”

“I will kill you, Barnes,” Sam warns.

“It’s the beauty of nature!” Bucky proclaims with a shit-eating grin, then easily dodges Sam’s half-hearted blow to the face. “And if it makes you feel better, I will be making literally no effort to avoid ogling you, so.”

Sam rolls his eyes and suppresses a smile. “Whatever, man. Help me wash my back.”

***

After they shower together on the Quinjet, Bucky apparently decides that there’s no reason for them to stop showering together now that they’ve started. So every morning when they finish their run, Bucky follows Sam into the bathroom, stripping off his sweaty clothes and just stepping right into the shower, waiting for Sam to join him. And at this point it feels like maybe it would be weird if Sam said something, like maybe he should have said something the first time Bucky decided they were the kind of friends who took showers together, but quite frankly the first time Sam was so distracted by the shift and pull of Bucky’s muscles as he tugged off his shirt that Sam didn’t think to protest.

So now they shower together every morning, and they share the same body wash and shampoo too, because Bucky says that they already smell just like each other from spending so much time together that it doesn’t really make sense for them to use different products. Plus, Bucky explains, with two full grown men in the shower at the same time, there’s just not enough room to clutter up the space with a bunch of different bottles.

Sam is pretty sure that Bucky just likes it that Sam smells like him, though. Bucky’s weirdly possessive that way, and it turns out that maybe Steve is too, because every time Sam gets up close in Steve’s space during training, Steve’s nostrils flare, the briefest look of jealousy crossing his face.

So, on the plus side, their plan is definitely working.

On the down side, however, Sam has exactly zero opportunities to jerk off now, and he’s about to spontaneously fucking combust out of what is probably fatal sexual tension. Because every morning, Sam wakes up to a soft, sleepy Bucky pressed against his back, hips grinding gently against Sam’s ass. And every morning, Sam watches Bucky get sweaty and breathless on their run, thin t-shirt growing slowly more transparent, clinging to those perfectly sculpted pectoral muscles. And then, after all that, Sam has to actually get naked and shower with the guy, who is not at all shy about the way his erection springs up out of his running shorts as he pulls them down his hips.

And all of this—this whole fucking blue balls-inducing, brain-melting, sexually frustrating journey into madness—happens before Sam can even get a goddamn cup of coffee. It is eight in the fucking morning and Sam is about to die from his boner.

“Hey, Sam?” Bucky asks, giving himself a critical look in the bathroom mirror. “Can you cut my hair?”

“Do I look like a barber,” Sam replies flatly.

“No, but I feel like if we’re going to your mom’s today, I should probably look sharp, right? And I just don’t feel like the long hair goes with a suit.” Bucky frowns. “There are probably plenty of videos about hair cutting on Youtube, right? I’ll bet you could figure it out.”

Sam does not remember inviting Bucky to his mom’s house with him today, and he has no idea why Bucky is planning on wearing a suit, but he does remember how Bucky Barnes had looked in those old photos, with that classic haircut highlighting his sharp cheekbones and that perfect fucking jawline. He’d looked like an old movie actor, like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck, and Sam has always had a weakness for handsome men who look like they could take you to church and then take you straight to bed so you’ll have something to confess about next week.

“Yeah, all right,” Sam agrees.

It turns out there are actually a bunch of tutorials on how to cut hair on Youtube—apparently there was a whole thing that happened in 2020 where everyone had to cut their own hair for a while?—and after two or three videos Sam feels reasonably prepared for this potential disaster.

He sits Bucky down on a chair in the kitchen, because Bucky’s hair is thick and long, and Sam wants to make sure he can sweep everything up nice and easy when they’re done. When Sam runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair to start trimming the length, Bucky groans softly, his eyelids fluttering closed.

“Forgot how much I like having my hair touched,” Bucky murmurs.

“Oh, yeah?” Sam says, biting his lip. He wonders if Bucky also likes to have his hair pulled, and for a moment he regrets ever letting Bucky talk him into this hair cut, because he thinks he’d like to see Bucky’s long hair twisted around his fist as he guides Bucky’s mouth down onto his cock.

“I never had a professional haircut before the Army,” Bucky confesses. “My mom always cut it for me when I was a kid, and then when I moved in with Steve we’d do it for each other. We always needed money back then, couldn’t afford a barber.”

“Hold still for a moment,” Sam says, touching Bucky’s jaw and gently guiding his head into the right position. He runs the clippers over the back of Bucky’s neck, fingers pressing lightly against Bucky’s temples to move him where he needs him. Heat blooms deep in Sam’s belly at the way Bucky shivers under his touch. When Sam finishes trimming the sides and back of Bucky’s head, he leans down to softly blow the excess hair off the nape of Bucky’s neck. Bucky moans quietly, biting his lip and arching his back almost imperceptibly. Pretty little goosebumps rise on the back of his neck.

“Take a look,” Sam says quietly, handing Bucky a mirror.

Bucky turns his head left and right, preening a bit as he admires the tidy cut Sam gave him. He looks gorgeous, hair neatly trimmed in a way that draws focus to that devastating bone structure.

“Not too bad for your first try, sweetheart,” Bucky says, grinning. “Think your mom will like it?”

“Oh, I think she will.”

***

When Sam’s mom opens her door to see that Sam has brought a friend to visit, she looks delighted at this unexpected turn of events.

“Sam, baby! It’s so good to see you! Come in, come in!” she exclaims, pulling Sam in for a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek before leading them into the living room. “And who is this handsome young man?”

“This is Bucky,” Sam replies, shooting his mom a warning glare. Do not embarrass me, he communicates silently. She widens her eyes in response, giving Sam an overly innocent look and covering her heart a touch dramatically with her hands. Moi? her body language says. Sam is not fooled. “Bucky is my co-worker. And my roommate. And my friend.”

“Hello, Mrs. Wilson,” Bucky says, smiling like a goddamn choir boy. “It’s so nice to meet you. I hope you don’t mind that Sam invited me along today.”

Sam most definitely did not invite Bucky along today, but he feels like it would be rude to point that out in front of his mom, who looks very impressed by Bucky’s whole general existence. She looks even more impressed when Bucky presents her with the vase of lilacs he insisted upon buying along the way.

“These are lovely, Bucky! I’m always happy to meet one of Sam’s co-workers slash roommates slash friends,” she says teasingly. “And don’t you look nice! Sam, doesn’t he look nice?”

“You didn’t have to wear a suit to meet my mom,” Sam says with a sigh, rolling his eyes.

They already had this whole argument before they left, but Bucky was adamant about wearing the suit, and honestly Sam didn’t work that hard to try to talk him out of it. Sam didn’t even know that Bucky owned a suit, let alone one that was so perfectly tailored to those shoulders and those slim hips and those long legs. Once Bucky actually put on the suit, Sam suddenly felt like all of his objections were a bit trivial and unnecessary. So now, like an idiot, Sam is also dressed up, wearing a button-down shirt and a navy blue blazer to visit his own mother.

“It’s a Sunday, Sam,” Bucky says reprovingly, in a tone that suggests that the day of the week is somehow relevant to his sartorial choices. Sam’s mom nods approvingly at this, so maybe it’s some kind of weird older generation thing that Sam is too young to understand.

Sam feels a bit ill at the unwelcome realization that Bucky is technically older than Sam’s mother.

Sam’s mom serves them tea and cookies while they catch up, and Bucky is unfailingly polite, charming in a sincere sort of way that Sam should have expected from all of Steve’s stories about growing up together in the neighborhood. It occurs to Sam that Bucky probably developed this skill as a self-defense mechanism against the inevitable havoc that Steve wreaked in their lives, using it to keep the two of them out of trouble with mothers and teachers and, eventually, commanding officers.

When the subject of Captain America comes up, Sam’s mother frowns disapprovingly and says, “I just don’t know why that boy asked you to take on this kind of burden. Is he even retired? Why couldn’t he be Captain America?”

Sam’s mother always refers to Steve as that boy.

“That’s what I said!” Bucky exclaims. “I was furious when Steve said he wanted to pass the shield on to Sam. Why did Sam need to be Captain America? Sam was already a superhero. I mean, he was the Falcon! He could actually fly. How cool is that? Steve could never fly—Steve just fell, usually without a parachute. Being Captain America just meant doing the same thing Sam was already doing, but with an unfamiliar weapon and a lot more attention from bad guys. It seemed so risky and unnecessary.”

Sam is a little stunned at this revelation. He thought the reason Bucky was mad at Steve about the whole Captain America thing was because Steve hadn’t chosen him to be Captain America, not because Bucky was worried about Sam.

Sam’s heart thumps a bit in his chest, warmth flowing through his veins to thaw out a part of him that he hadn’t even realized had been just a tiny bit frozen, an icy chunk he’s been carrying around inside of him ever since he’d accepted Steve’s offer to be the new Captain America. Bucky looks soft and sincere, and Sam didn’t know how much he needed to hear that someone believed in him just as he was—that there was someone who didn’t just think that he’d make a good Captain America but that he was already a pretty great superhero all on his own.

Sam’s mom nods enthusiastically. “Exactly,” she says, then turns to Sam. “I like this one, Sam. He seems so much more sensible than that other boy. That one was always getting you into trouble.”

Bucky chuckles. “Oh, Steve is good at getting people into trouble. But the thing about Steve is that Steve attracts people who are just like him, people who are good and brave and ready to stand up for what’s right no matter what the cost. Sam was fighting for what he believed in long before Steve ever came along. You raised a good man, Mrs. Wilson,” Bucky says, smiling softly at Sam.

And Sam’s heart breaks a little in his chest at this, because he doesn’t think that Bucky realizes that Bucky is the very first person Steve attracted who shared his innate goodness and integrity, because Bucky doesn’t think he’s a hero like Steve and Sam.

Sam’s mom is clearly pleased by Bucky’s compliment, and she looks proudly over at Sam. “Sam is the best man I know,” she says, her voice strong, full of conviction. “I’m glad he has a partner who understands that his heart is just as valuable as his training.”

“Sam’s heart is exactly why Steve chose him as Captain America,” Bucky says. And then he tells her stories about Sam’s new job, stories that are carefully edited to minimize the danger they had faced and to maximize Sam’s capability and competence in dispatching various minor villains. He tells her about all of the countries they’ve traveled to, all the little boys and girls who’ve looked at Sam with stars in their eyes. Bucky makes sure to include Steve in these stories too, subtly but effectively touting Steve’s unflagging loyalty and care and dependability.

Sam remembers Steve telling him that Bucky was the first to shout “Let’s hear it for Captain America!” when they returned from Kreischberg, successfully distracting Colonel Phillips from any disciplinary action he might have been contemplating against Steve for going MIA. It’s hard to throw the book at someone who’s actively being celebrated by hundreds of grateful, cheering soldiers.

Bucky, Sam is beginning to realize, is the greatest hype man Sam has ever seen.

“Thank you so much for a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Wilson,” Bucky says with a kind smile. “It was really nice to meet you.”

“Come back next weekend!” Sam’s mom replies enthusiastically, giving Bucky a warm hug. “You can meet Sam’s sister Sarah and his niece Michelle. They’ll be sorry they missed you this week. Sam, dear, come give your mother a hug.”

When Sam pulls his mother in for a hug, she whispers, “I’m so proud of you” in his ear. Sam flushes a bit, feeling awkward and self-conscious.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says.

***

That night when they’re lying in bed, passing a joint back and forth, Sam makes a long overdue confession.

“I was mad at you, you know,” Sam says apologetically. “When you ran away. And when you didn’t come back after Peggy died. I thought you weren’t being a good friend to Steve. I don’t think—I don’t think I was being very fair to you. And I’m sorry.”

The thing is, Steve had told Sam a lot of stories about Bucky, about how charming and funny Bucky was, what a good friend he was, what a good sergeant he was. In Steve’s stories, Bucky was a giant, a larger-than-life sort of figure, a man who never gave up and never let anyone down.

And maybe Sam bought into all of that mythologizing, because when Bucky didn’t come back to Steve, Sam felt betrayed on Steve’s behalf. And he realizes now, with a sharp pang of regret, that this reaction was deeply unfair to Bucky, based on the legend of Bucky Barnes rather than the man. Because Bucky was supposed to be the loyal Howling Commando from Steve’s stories, Captain America’s Sergeant and Steve Rogers’s Best Friend, the hero who always rescued Steve when he needed it, even when Steve didn’t think he needed rescuing.

And Steve had so desperately, desperately needed rescuing, especially after Peggy’s death. Sam would never forget the sight of Steve Rogers, Captain America, tired and small and so very fragile, dipping under the weight of Peggy’s coffin as he carried her down the aisle.

When Bucky turns to face Sam, there are lines of grief in the corners of his eyes. “I was sorry about Peggy,” Bucky says quietly. “She was my friend too.”

Sam reaches out to brush his thumb along Bucky’s cheekbone, cupping Bucky’s face in his hand. Bucky raises his hand to cover Sam’s, cool metal against Sam’s skin, and Bucky shivers a little under his touch.

“You’re a good friend, Bucky. I’m sorry I thought you weren’t.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Bucky says with a tired smile.

***

When Steve knocks on their open office door, he looks with surprise at the sign on the doorway. “Sam Wilson and James Barnes?” Steve reads aloud, looking concerned. “Sam, they didn’t give you your own office? I feel like Captain America should get his own office. Do you want me to talk to Fury? Because you shouldn’t have to share with Bucky.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Sam says casually. “Fury gave us two offices, but we just figured it was easier to share since we’re always together anyway. Bucky’s office is our murder board room.”

Steve looks disconcerted by this. “OK,” he says, frowning. “Well, I just came by to let you know that Nat picked up another HYDRA facility on her radar, right near where we found those vampires in New Jersey. She sent you an e-mail with the details.”

Sam doesn’t know why Steve needs to stop by to tell him something that Natasha already sent him in an e-mail, but whatever. There’s something a little bit hesitant in Steve’s expression, a little bit lonely, and maybe Steve just came by because he wanted an excuse to see them.

“Thanks,” Sam says, with a warm smile. “C’mon, let’s go over to the spare office to tell Bucky to put it on our murder board. Make sure you tell him how great it looks, by the way. We spent like thirty minutes at Joann Fabrics picking out just the right shades of yarn to tie everything together. He actually has a whole color-coded system for it, with a key in an Excel spreadsheet and everything.”

While they walk down to go see the murder board, Steve tells Sam all about Bucky’s job as an actuary before the war. Apparently all those years doing informal risk assessment calculations to try to keep Steve from killing himself while they were growing up led to an actual career. “He was actually in college for mathematics when he dropped out to enlist.”

“I wonder if he put that on his resume when he applied for the job,” Sam says. “Actually now that I’m thinking about it I wonder how Bucky fit like 80 years of experience as an actuary, a commando, a brainwashed assassin, an international fugitive, and then a goat farmer on a one-page resume.”

“Wait, Fury actually made you two submit resumes?” Steve raises his eyebrows.

“Nah, just Bucky,” Sam replies, grinning. “I think Fury just wanted to give him a bit of a hard time after he shot him. Bucky actually wrote one up for him too. Wouldn’t let me see it, but if Natasha just so happens to find it anywhere on SHIELD’s servers at some point…”

“I’ll let you know,” Steve says, chuckling.

When they get to the spare office and see Bucky tacking up some new papers on the vampire murder board, Steve’s laughter catches abruptly in his throat. Bucky’s newly short hair is styled today in an appealing combination of his old, neatly parted look and a more modern fashion.

“Bucky?” Steve says breathlessly, his voice thick with emotion.

“Oh, hey, Steve,” Bucky replies awkwardly, raising his hand to his newly cut hair a bit self-consciously. “How does it look?”

“Great!” Steve says fervently, eyes shining. “You look—God, you look so great, Bucky.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, biting his lip shyly. “Sam cut it for me. Had to look respectable if I was going to meet his mom.”

Steve looks unexpectedly stricken for a moment, but then recovers quickly. “Well, it looks great,” he says. “And you met Sam’s mom! That’s—great. That’s also great.”

“She loved him, of course,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “He wore a suit. And he brought her flowers.”

“Bucky always did bring my mom a flower when he came to visit, even if he had to steal it from someone else,” Steve says wistfully. “That’s—that’s so great that he still does that.” Steve looks dreadfully, deeply jealous right now, although Sam honestly can’t tell if Steve is jealous of him, jealous of Bucky, or jealous of Sam’s mom. Probably a weird combination of all three.

“Well, it turns out Bucky is great with moms. Even put in a good word for your sorry ass while he was there,” Sam says cheerfully.

“Wow! Good! That’s—that’s so good,” Steve says, his voice a little weak now. “Wait, does your mom not like me? Actually never mind. We can talk about it later. I’ll just—I’ll just be going now. I can see that you two have a lot of work to do, so I’ll just—go.”

When Steve leaves, Bucky raises an eyebrow at Sam. “You think maybe the whole make-Steve-jealous plan is actually working?” Bucky says wryly, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a crooked smile.

Sam stifles a laugh. “Yeah, just a bit.”

***

Sam and Bucky are just getting out of the shower after their run on Saturday when they hear an unexpected knock on the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Sam says, pulling on a t-shirt and a hoodie. Bucky’s still standing in front of the closet, clad only in a gratifyingly small towel as he takes his time deciding what to wear today.

When Sam gets to the door and opens it, he’s surprised to find Steve and Natasha standing in front of him. Steve looks a bit sheepish, but Natasha appears utterly relaxed, at ease in the way that she always is no matter what’s going on or how weird Steve is.

“Surprise!” Steve says awkwardly. He raises his hands briefly like he might be attempting some sort of jazz hands or something, then clearly thinks better of it and sticks his hands in his pockets where they can’t get him into trouble. “We’re here to take you guys out!”

“Sam, sweetheart, where’s our blue sweater?” Bucky calls out from the bedroom.

“Sweetheart?” Steve repeats thinly.

“Our blue sweater?” Natasha repeats gleefully.

Bucky emerges from the bedroom, hands smoothing out a few wrinkles in the aforementioned sweater as he tugs it into place. “Never mind, I found it,” Bucky announces. “Hey, guys.”

“Well, hello, Bucky. So you two share clothes now,” Natasha observes, the corner of her mouth curving blithely upward. “Isn’t that interesting?”

What’s particularly interesting, Sam thinks, is that he is ninety-nine percent certain that he saw Steve wearing that same white t-shirt Natasha has tied neatly at her waist just the other day.

“Of course we share clothes. Why would Sam and I need separate clothes? We wear basically the same size, even if Sam’s shoulders are a bit nicer than mine,” Bucky says, winking at Sam.

“Your waist is trimmer, though. You’ve got that nice lean look going on, it’s really working for you.”

“OK!” Steve interrupts, sounding a bit frantic. He and Natasha trade a few weird, indecipherable looks back and forth and Natasha rolls her eyes. “So we were thinking we would take you guys out this morning, have some best friend time.” Steve says this last part with particular emphasis.

“Great, where are we going?” Bucky asks.

“Actually,” Steve says, “we were thinking about splitting up. Sam, how do you feel about going to a ball game with me?”

“Sure,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “What are Natasha and Bucky going to do?”

Natasha and Bucky have a brief conversation in Russian, gesturing back and forth a bit before Natasha flatly states, “Bucky and I are gonna go to yoga and then get mani pedis.”

“OK,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow in skepticism. Honestly he probably doesn’t want to know whatever it is they’re really planning to do, if only for the sake of plausible deniability. Sam wonders if he and Bucky should think about getting married at some point so they don’t ever have to testify against each other. He should bring it up later, probably not in front of Steve.

***

Steve and Sam are sitting in the sun, relaxing at a Mets game, and Sam has missed this so much. It’s spring, still a bit chilly, but the sun is out and the day’s warming up quickly. Steve looks happy and relaxed, golden hair shining in the sunlight and a little bit of pink on his cheeks and forehead that will fade away before they’re even home from the game tonight.

“So you and Bucky are getting along well,” Steve says, glancing at Sam out of the corner of his eyes.

Sam hums noncommittally, taking a sip of his water. He’d checked the app on his phone to see if any of the beers they had on tap were vegan, but unfortunately none of them were. Which is fine, really, because Bucky’s been nagging him to drink more water lately. In fact Bucky’ll probably ask Sam about it when he gets home, so now Sam will be able to tell Bucky yes, he had a bottle of water today, he’s staying hydrated.

“You don’t think Bucky’s a bit—much?” Steve asks uncertainly. “Some people used to think he was a bit overbearing.”

“Nah, he’s cool,” Sam says mildly, then hesitates. “But, well, he doesn’t have much use for privacy, does he? I mean, he’s always so—around. And so attractive! And sometimes a man needs some time to himself, for personal, intimate things. You know what I’m saying?”

“You’re dying of sexual frustration, aren’t you.” Steve smirks, with a knowing little glint in his eye.

“God, yes.”

“Old Bucky Barnacle. So that’s still his move, huh?” Steve says, his voice wry. “Well, good luck with that. If history repeats itself, I’m sure the situation will eventually come to a head one way or another.”

Sam doesn’t know what to do with that ominous remark, but since it’s such a nice day he decides to let it slide.

“Bucky did say something to me once, kind of struck me as odd. He said that you were his only friend growing up. Which—that’s not true, right? I mean, he’s so handsome and charming and—surprisingly sweet. I feel like a guy like that would have a lot of friends.”

Steve laughs ruefully. “You’d think so, right? But Bucky never really seemed to want other friends, and honestly a lot of people thought there was something a bit—funny, about him. And about me.”

“Funny like maybe you two were a little too close?”

Steve rubs the back of his neck, looking a little flustered. “Yeah, maybe,” he admits. “We were always together. God, Bucky used to get so jealous when I’d make other friends. But he loved me, wanted me to be happy. I think he was happiest when we were a part of the Howling Commandos. He just wanted me to be around people who valued me and appreciated me, I think.”

“He liked Peggy a lot,” Sam says mildly, carefully.

“He talked to you about Peggy?” Steve’s eyes widen slightly in surprise.

“We talk,” Sam says, careful to keep his tone guarded. Sam doesn’t know how much Steve and Bucky have really had a chance to connect after Bucky came back from Wakanda, doesn’t know how much Bucky is comfortable with Sam revealing. He gets the feeling that Steve and Bucky have been dancing around a lot of things for about eighty-five years now. “He likes Natasha too.”

“Does he,” Steve says, with a small, speculative smile.

***

They’re sitting on the sofa, catching up on Riverdale, and Sam can’t believe how much better the show has gotten since the Decimation forced them to write out Archie Andrews. They’ve just finished the episode where Betty Cooper reveals that the murdered Jason Blossom was actually just a clone of the real Jason Blossom—who apparently was in the witness protection program the whole time—when Bucky suddenly announces, “I think we should practice kissing.”

“Yes, absolutely, one hundred percent,” Sam agrees immediately, then pauses. “Wait, why?”

“Well, Steve and I used to practice kissing all the time, so it’s obviously a pretty normal best friend thing to do,” Bucky reasons, gazing earnestly at Sam with wide, too-innocent eyes. “I feel like it would be suspicious if Steve found out I haven’t kissed anyone in almost eighty years and my so-called best friend didn’t help me get back into practice.”

Then Bucky pulls his right arm across his chest, casually stretching the strong muscle in his shoulder, the thin material of his t-shirt straining over his firm bicep. And wow, Bucky really should have been a lawyer or a politician or something, because Sam always finds his arguments extremely convincing. He’s honestly the most persuasive guy Sam has ever met.

“Yeah, OK,” Sam says. “C’mere.”

Bucky leans toward him, hand coming up to touch Sam’s face gently. Bucky’s so close that Sam can feel Bucky’s soft breath against his mouth, and Sam leans forward to rest his forehead against Bucky’s.

“OK?” Bucky murmurs.

Sam hums in response, leaning forward to touch his lips softly to Bucky’s. Bucky’s hand trembles a little on Sam’s face, nerves or anticipation, but then Bucky’s grip tightens and he pulls Sam closer, opening his mouth to capture Sam’s lips between his.

The kiss starts out soft and sweet, tentative, and then slowly grows more passionate. Sam gasps when Bucky’s teeth pull gently at his bottom lip, tugging his mouth open so Bucky can slip his tongue inside. Sam moans and strokes his tongue against Bucky’s, heating burning through his veins as their tongues slide wetly against each other. Sam can feel Bucky’s heart beating right against his own, through their shirts and their skin and their sternums, a pounding, frantic rhythm that matches the pulse of blood traveling directly to Sam’s cock.

Sam tangles his fingers in Bucky’s hair, gripping the short strands in his fist and tugging gently, pulling Bucky’s head right where he needs him. Bucky pitches forward a bit, off-balance, bracing his hands on Sam’s thighs before climbing eagerly up onto Sam’s lap. Bucky is making sweet, urgent little sounds that send a shiver of want down Sam’s spine, and Sam has to pull back for a moment, take a minute to breathe and let his racing heart settle in his chest.

“Sam,” Bucky says, pupils dilated and dark. “Fuck, sweetheart.”

“Yeah,” Sam breathes, panting and fighting to keep his hips still, trying to keep from shifting them up against Bucky’s. “That was—.”

“Good?” Bucky asks, lips curving into a crooked, cocky grin.

“It was all right,” Sam replies casually, feigning nonchalance. “I think you still need more practice. C’mere.”

***

They practice kissing a lot after that, which is great, and also lucky, because when Bucky hisses “kiss me” to Sam in the middle of a HYDRA raid, Sam doesn’t even hesitate.

They’re sneaking into that New Jersey HYDRA facility Natasha found near the gross vampire lair, and Steve and Nat are breaking into one end of the facility while Sam and Bucky creep through the other. They’re trying to be quiet, don’t want to be caught before Steve and Natasha have a chance to get the data off HYDRA’s servers, so when a HYDRA goon stumbles into the hallway with them, Bucky hauls Sam right up against him and kisses him fiercely.

The HYDRA goon makes a noise of surprise and confusion, clearly baffled by the two heavily armed men making out in the middle of a research facility, but Sam’s having a hard time paying attention to him over the feel of Bucky’s lips, which are spit-slick and firm and insistent against Sam’s. When Bucky starts grinding his hips against him—wow, Bucky is really selling this—Sam lets out a low moan that Steve and Natasha will almost certainly hear over the comms.

“What’s going on here? You’re not supposed to be here!” the goon says.

Bucky releases Sam’s lower lip from between his teeth with a loud pop. “Huh? Oh, sorry, guess we got carried away,” Bucky says sheepishly.

“That’s OK, just—hey, wait! You’re the Winter Soldier!” the goon exclaims, apparently catching sight of Bucky’s metal arm.

Steve and Natasha burst into the hallway at that moment, and when the goon turns back around to face them Sam pulls his shield from its harness and throws it at the man, who falls to the floor like a sack of bricks. Sam catches the rebound.

“Oh, hey, guys,” Bucky says with a grin, casually reaching down to readjust the lines of his uniform from where Sam’s fists had wrinkled it during their makeout session. “You didn’t have to come help out. We had everything under control here.”

“Had everything under control here,” Steve repeats. “We saw you on the security cams necking right in front of a guard!”

“Well, sure, but the guy caught us red-handed sneaking down the corridors. Thank God Bucky’s such a quick thinker or that guard would have thought something was suspicious going on,” Sam says, shooting Bucky a grateful smile. Bucky grins back at him. “Using the old pretend-to-be-a-couple-making-out scam was a great call.”

“A great call?” Natasha says, raising her eyebrows. “You’re dressed as Captain America and the Winter Soldier and you’re right in the middle of their facility. In what way did you appear to be two passionate lovers out for an innocent stroll?”

“To be fair, that guard would have no idea if Captain America and the Winter Soldier had a more than professional relationship,” Bucky points out.

“And are you questioning Bucky’s professional judgment as a master of covert operations, Natasha?” Sam says reproachfully, shaking his head in disappointment. “Bucky was a ghost for over fifty years. I think the man knows how to keep from blowing a cover.”

Steve sighs heavily, rubbing his temples in frustration. “Look, let’s just do a quick sweep through the basement, OK? It’s the only place left that we haven’t checked out.”

When they make it down to the basement, Sam is surprised to find that the whole thing has a very distinct incel-with-a-sex-dungeon vibe to it. Which is not really an aesthetic that he thought HYDRA would be embracing, but he’s learned to roll with it when it comes to the weird shit that HYDRA gets up to. The room looks moldy and kind of wet, with a clammy cement wall that has an actual, albeit cheap-looking, coffin propped up against it, right next to some rusted metal chains that look like a serious tetanus hazard. There’s also a microwave and a pretty expensive gaming PC down here, screen turned on to one of those gryphons and gargoyles MMORPGs.

“Is someone living down here?” Bucky asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “Or, even worse, is someone living in that coffin?”

There’s only one way to find out. Steve walks over to the coffin and yanks it open, jumping back in horror when a man wearing a neck brace and plastic fangs pops out and cries, “Steve! I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist coming back for me and my vampire babies. And you’ve found my new dungeon!”

His creepy red eyes are on fire with ecstasy.

“Ew, it’s Todd,” Bucky says, making a sour face. “I thought you killed that guy.”

“Yeah, me too,” Steve says with a frown.

“My name isn’t Todd,” Todd says peevishly. “It’s Baron Blood. How would you like it if everyone called you Bucky instead of the Winter Soldier?”

“Everyone does call me Bucky.”

When Todd has the nerve to look judgmental at this, Sam narrows his eyes and snaps, “Bucky is a great nickname.”

“It’s very cute,” Natasha agrees.

“I gave it to him,” Steve says, nodding proudly.

“Did you,” Todd says, eyes widening in alarm. “I didn’t mean to imply that Bucky was a bad nickname! Not at all! In fact, I love it. I was just—pointing out that it might be a tad unprofessional to use someone’s regular name in this kind of formal confrontation between a superhero and his archnemesis. I mean, this is really more like a work meeting, so I think it’s best if we just stick to titles, right, Captain America?”

“You called him Steve, earlier,” Natasha says.

“Well, the relationship between a superhero and his archnemesis really is such an intimate connection,” Todd purrs.

“Gross,” Bucky says.

“Anyway,” Steve says loudly, “Sam is Captain America now, I’m just a regular SHIELD agent. And I’m actually kind of in between call signs right now, so you can just—just call me Steve, I guess.” Steve looks a bit queasy at this.

“Wonderful, Steve,” Todd says smugly, his smile sharp and unnerving underneath those plastic fangs. Then he turns to Sam, looking him critically up and down before disdainfully stating, “I certainly won’t be calling him Captain America, though.”

“Why not? That’s pretty rude, Todd. We’re having a work meeting.” Natasha’s tone is disapproving.

“Well, for one, I’m racist,” Todd explains. “But also there will only ever be one Captain America, and that’s Steve Rogers. This guy’s just the Falcon.”

He says it scornfully, and Sam honestly might have felt a little insulted, but instead he remembers what Bucky said to his mother, that the Falcon was cool, that he could fly, that Sam was a superhero before he ever met Steve Rogers. And so Sam stands tall, raises his head high, and does his fucking job because he is a hero and a professional.

“Whatever, Todd,” Sam says. “I’m going to have to arrest you now.”

Unfortunately, Todd chooses this moment to reveal that he has the ability to transform into a swarm of bats, each of them wearing a tiny neck brace and plastic fangs as they form a small cluster and fly right out of the room and presumably away into the night.

Sam sighs in frustration. “You’re out there somewhere, Blood Baron, and I’ll find you!” he calls out after Todd.

“No, you won’t!” Todd shouts from a distance.

Sam puts his hands on his hips and narrows his eyes. “Yes, I will.”

“Nope!”

Bucky looks around the room, sighing in disgust as he takes in the mess and chaos from dozens of vampire bats flying about, leaving bat fur and guano everywhere.

“Great, now we’re all going to have to get rabies shots,” Bucky complains.

 ***

Sam and Bucky’s whole fake-best-friends plan is working phenomenally well, because ever since that Saturday Steve and Natasha had showed up unexpectedly to take them out, they’ve been regularly scheduling what Steve insists upon calling “best friend dates.” So long as they’re all in the same city, every Saturday they get together in pairs or as a foursome so that no one ever feels left out and everybody gets some quality time with each other.

When Steve and Sam hang out, they usually go to a game or to the gym—not to do any serious training, just to spar, getting sweaty and screwing around trying out new moves on each other. The best part is that for whatever reason the other SHIELD agents seem super reluctant to work out at the same time as them, so Sam and Steve always have plenty of room to wrestle and grapple around on the mats, pinning and taunting each other until someone gets frustrated enough to really slam the other one around a bit.

Sam has no idea what Bucky and Natasha do on their mysterious outings—they claim they’re going to drag brunches or yoga or spin class, but Sam can only guess what kind of sketchy shit a pair of formerly Russian former assassins might get up to together. Thankfully they’re always careful to mastermind their operations in Russian, presumably so that Sam will never be forced to reveal anything incriminating about them if he’s questioned. Bucky takes care of him like that.

Sam’s dates with Natasha are always super weird and fun—they usually end up going to see some kind of crazy conceptual art exhibit or avant-garde foreign film, then get coffee afterward and pretend to be fancy art critics. Or they’ll wander around old flea markets and antique stores and look for insensitive gifts for Steve and Bucky.

Sam is pretty sure that Steve spends his dates with Bucky doing something really homoerotic and intense like drawing semi-nude portraits of Bucky in 1940s military uniforms.

Actually, if they’re not already doing that, Sam should suggest it. He could probably try to pass it off as “healing” or “cathartic” or something, and maybe Steve will even show him the drawings afterward now that Sam has so much experience critiquing art with Natasha.

Today Sam and Natasha had planned on going to an outdoor art fair for their best friend date, because it’s funny to buy Steve tacky cat art and then watch him fumble for an appropriately gracious response, but this morning dawned with the sound of thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. By noon it’s pouring rain, a thick wall of icy water erupting from angry gray clouds, and Natasha is soaking wet when Sam answers the door.

“Jesus, Nat!” Sam says, ushering her into the apartment. “Let me grab you a towel for your hair. Do you want a change of clothes?”

“Sure, but don’t worry about the towel,” Natasha says with a careless wave of her hand. She opens the duffel bag she’s brought with her to reveal a barber’s cape and a pair of shears. “You’re going to cut my hair!”

“Oh, I’m going to cut your hair,” Sam grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Why does everyone seem to think I’m a barber?”

Sam leads Natasha into the kitchen and pulls out a chair for her before heading into the bedroom to try to find a pair of sweats that might fit. Natasha’s tiny, petite even when she wears heels, and it’s easy to forget that about her when she always stands so tall and confident. Sam wonders sometimes if that’s how Steve looked before he got the serum, all tiny and full of courage and swagger. Sam definitely does not think about how he and Bucky might have a type, and instead he grabs a t-shirt and the smallest pair of joggers they own, the ones that pull nice and tight over Bucky’s thighs and ass, before heading back into the kitchen.

Instead of waiting in the chair, Natasha’s standing in the nude, unselfconscious, wringing her clothes out over the sink. Her skin is pale and damp, glistening even in the dim, stormy light of the kitchen. Sam swallows and allows his eyes to trace the path of a drop of water sliding down the side of her neck only until it hits her collarbone, then looks away.

Sam clears his throat and tosses her the bundle of clothes. “Here, put these on,” he says, keeping his gaze averted while he grabs her wet clothes out of the sink. “I’ll put yours in the dryer.”

“Leave the bra out! If you put it in the dryer you’ll ruin it!” Natasha calls after him.

Sam rolls his eyes. “I have a sister, you know!”

Sam hangs Natasha’s bra up above the dryer, and damn, he can see why she doesn’t want him to ruin it. It’s gorgeous, black and lacy and expensive-looking—sexier than the three no-nonsense cotton bras that Natasha rotated between during those two years on the run. Sam smiles as he fingers the lace along the band, a gentle wave of happiness cresting over him at the thought of Natasha finally allowing herself to wear something beautiful.

When Sam returns to the kitchen, Natasha’s dressed, cozy and comfortable in Sam’s favorite t-shirt, joggers rolled up around her waist in an attempt to keep them from hanging onto the floor. Sam tries very hard not to feel any sort of way about how Natasha looks in Sam and Bucky’s clothing.

“So what am I doing here?” Sam asks. He flicks on the light and wraps the barber’s cape around Natasha, snapping it carefully at the back of her neck. Natasha’s hair is already damp, and Sam combs it straight, parting it just above her left eyebrow the way she likes. He’s lost track of the number of times he’s watched her straighten and style her hair this way over the years. “Do you want to keep any of the blonde?”

Natasha shrugs. “Nope, just lop it all off.”

“You’re lucky Bucky’s hair was long enough that I had to watch a bunch of videos on how to cut women’s hair too,” Sam says. He uses the comb to pull her hair taut and then trims off the bleached ends. “Actually, you’re lucky you’re beautiful enough that you can pull off an at-home hair cut from a dude with exactly one professional reference.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and reaches back to pinch Sam’s leg in response.

“Careful!” Sam warns, jerking back to dodge her unnecessarily strong fingers. “If I slip with these scissors, you’re gonna end up with the same haircut I gave Bucky. Do you want to be matching Russian murder twins? Steve and I won’t even be able to tell you two apart anymore.”

Natasha gives him a sly look from beneath her lashes. “Are you saying you and Steve would mind if Bucky and I switched places on you once in a while?”

Sam bites the inside of his cheek and ignores the massive trap Natasha has laid for him, all giant wooden spikes sticking out of a hole in the ground that Natasha’s barely even bothered to camouflage with leaves.

“You and Steve are nasty,” Sam says. “Don’t get me and Bucky involved in your business.”

“Sam,” Natasha teases in a sing-song voice.

Sam ignores her and focuses on trimming her hair, watching the blonde strands drift down to the tile floor. The kitchen is silent around them, quiet enough that Sam can hear the hum of the refrigerator over the soft sounds of the rain pitter-pattering outside, finally beginning to slow.

“Sam, ” Natasha says.

“I’m almost done,” Sam interrupts. He trims one last stray hair that’s escaped from the rest. “You like it just below your shoulders here? If you part it in the middle you’ll look just like you did when I met you.”

“Sam—”

“Here, take a look,” Sam says, handing over the mirror.

He unsnaps Natasha’s cape and busies himself with cleaning up, bringing Natasha’s scissors over to the sink to wash them. Sam soaps up the scissors and watches the storm move off into the distance through the kitchen window. There’s a ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds off to the west, just beginning to hint at the promise of a pretty day ahead.

When he’s done cleaning the scissors, he turns back to face Natasha and catches her smiling at herself in the mirror. “Sam!” she says, her eyes bright and sparkling. “I do look just like I did when you met me.”

“Yeah, Nat, you do,” Sam says with a fond smile, tugging on a lock of Natasha’s hair. “You look just like yourself again.”

The corner of Natasha’s lips tugs up in a wicked grin. “You think I’ve still got what it takes to bring down an entire secret government agency?”

“Nat, you don’t need to bring down an entire secret government agency. You’re gonna run one someday.”

***

The next Saturday Sam and Bucky are making their way through the alleys of Brooklyn on their way to lunch with Steve and Nat, and Sam can’t honestly say that the smell of dumpsters is really doing a lot for his appetite. He’s hopeful that they might run into Steve the cat, but otherwise it would really be nice to just go the regular way for once.

“Man, I don’t think we’re being followed,” Sam says. “Do we really have to go through the whole trash maze today? Can’t we just walk on the streets like regular people?”

Bucky looks concerned. “Wait, what do you mean being followed? Do you think we’re being followed?” Bucky’s spine stiffens and he looks alert, eyes darting back and forth to check the alley entrances for suspicious characters.

“No? But isn’t that why we walk through all these alleys every time we go somewhere?”

Bucky looks shifty for a moment, then embarrassed. “No? It’s really more like—OK, so the truth is—I don’t actually know my way around Brooklyn through the streets,” he mumbles.

“I’m sorry, you just said what now,” Sam says flatly. “Bucky, you grew up here.”

“I know, OK?” Bucky lifts his arm to scratch the back of his neck self-consciously. “But do you know how many fights Steve got into in these alleys? We didn’t have cell phones back then, Sam! The only way to make sure Steve was safe was just to take the alleys everywhere and hope I’d run across him before he got himself killed.”

“Oh my God, you really are the world’s best best friend,” Sam marvels. “No wonder Steve wouldn’t shut up about you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes and trying to hide a pleased grin. “All right, sweetheart, show me how to get there the fancy way. Lead on.”

So Sam leads Bucky out of his weird little warren full of dumpsters and feral cats and into the sunny streets of Brooklyn. Their shoulders and hands bump a bit as they walk along, and Sam’s heart beats a little faster when Bucky briefly tangles their pinky fingers together and gives him a little squeeze.

When they get to the restaurant they find Steve and Nat sitting close together, grinning and laughing and looking fondly at one another, and Sam is surprised to find that he doesn’t feel even the slightest burn of envy at their casual display of intimacy. Instead his heart swells with affection for them, his best friends, and Sam feels thankful that whatever trauma and heartache they’ve suffered over the last five years, at least they’ve finally learned how to express all those emotions they’d been keeping locked so tightly inside of them.

Steve and Nat seem lighter, happier, quicker to offer smiles and physical affection and verbal assurances of love. It’s kind of sweet really, Sam thinks.

Steve and Natasha look happy when they see Sam and Bucky arrive, standing up to give them big hugs and quick kisses on the cheek or the lips. The four of them chat for a while about what else Sam and Bucky have missed over the last five years—they’re still catching up, working their way now through the four legendary albums Taylor Swift released after her boyfriend was lost in the Decimation. She dropped all four albums at the same time, received massive public and critical acclaim, then disappeared for the next four years. Sam is profoundly unsurprised by the revelation that he and Bucky share an appreciation for hot, artistic blonds.

When the subject turns to work and thus to Todd, Sam groans. “So what’s the deal with that guy anyway? I thought you literally beheaded him.”

“I did,” Steve says with a grimace. “But he had that whole neck brace situation going on? So I guess he’s using it to just sort of—hold everything together.” Steve looks a little nauseated at the idea.

“Todd is so gross,” Bucky complains.

“You soaked the shield in holy water blessed by the pope, though, right?” Sam asks, frowning. “Todd’s Catholic, so it should have worked.”

“We did,” Natasha confirms. “Steve took a trip to Rome and went to a special mass and everything.”

Steve turns to Bucky, looking displeased. “Oh! Did you know that they do the mass with the priest facing you now? So now he can see if you’re goofing off in church. And they don’t do it in Latin anymore, so they expect you to actually listen too.”

“Remember when Father O’Connell caught us sneaking comic books into our hymnals and Ma wouldn’t let me see you for a month?” Bucky says, shaking his head and letting out a low whistle. “She always did think you were a bad influence.”

“I honestly thought you were going to die every single night when you snuck up that death trap of a fire escape to my bedroom in the pitch darkness.”

“Well, c’mon, like I was really going to go an entire month without seeing my best friend?” Bucky says, scoffing. “Plus that was like the same month we discovered masturbation so forgive me for being willing to risk death to come see you every night.”

Natasha snorts a little at that, and Sam makes sure to look directly in front of him at Steve so that he does not catch Natasha’s eye.

“Anyway,” Natasha says loudly, clearing her throat. “I think our mistake was in getting holy water blessed by the wrong pope.”

“The wrong pope?” Bucky lifts an eyebrow. “There’s only one pope, Natalia.”

“Not anymore!” Natasha says cheerfully. “After the Snap, there was a huge schism in the Catholic Church between the ‘faithful’ and a group of people who thought that what we actually experienced was the Rapture. There was this whole conspiracy theory that the old pope and a group of cardinals—who were all taken in the Decimation—deliberately suppressed information about the Rapture because it conflicted with Catholic teachings. So the remaining ‘faithful’ cardinals elected one pope, but then another group of cardinals broke off and elected a different pope.”

“What,” Sam says.

“Yup!” Natasha says, eyes alight with amusement. “So the schismatics moved their Holy See back to Avignon in France, but before they did, they—get this—collected the old pope’s ashes and put them on trial.”

“What,” Sam repeats, mouth dropping open in disbelief.

“It was the most batshit insane Medieval farce of a trial I have ever seen, and I grew up in the Soviet Union.” Natasha tips her head in reluctant approval at this lunacy. “So anyway, now there are two popes, and they’ve each ex-communicated the other.”

“So if Todd is a follower of the schismatic pope, then I guess we need to go get some holy water blessed by that guy instead?” Sam says.

“Natasha and I can go,” Steve offers.

Bucky narrows his eyes at this and bumps Sam’s knee under the table. “Nah, Sam and I can go. The last time I was in Avignon, I was in the infantry and it was being bombed by the Germans,” Bucky laments. He knows how guilty Steve feels about the horrors Bucky witnessed in the war before Steve rescued him from Kreischberg. “Plus Avignon is really beautiful this time of year.”

“It will be a healing trip,” Sam says earnestly.

***

One of Bucky’s many mysterious superpowers is that no matter where they are in the world, no matter what part of any city, no matter what language everybody is speaking and whether Bucky can speak it too, Bucky can disappear for fifteen minutes and magically return with the best weed Sam has ever smoked.

They’re at their hotel in Avignon, relaxing after a pretty tense dinner with Pope Stephen X—known apparently to “regular” Catholics as the Antipope of Avignon—and his loony band of schismatics. Sam has already expended the majority of today’s allotted emotional energy pretending that everything this guy did wasn’t deeply weird.

“Do you think he’s actually going to release a papal bull against Destiel?” Bucky asks. He sucks on the end of their joint, cheeks hollowing out attractively as he inhales, before he exhales and passes it back over to Sam.

They’re on the roof of the hotel, where they’re probably not technically allowed to be, but Sam used his wings to get them up here anyway and he’s sure they have some sort of diplomatic immunity or something, right? Probably. They have a gorgeous view of the Rhone, painted dark purple in the setting sun, and the Palais des Papes looks Gothic and romantic as hell surrounded by Medieval ramparts.

“I don’t know, man,” Sam says, shrugging. He feels warm and lazy. “I tried to tell him it’d be political or religious suicide or whatever if he did. Like 40% of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America and they’re all Destiel believers down there.”

They lapse into silence for a moment, and then Bucky says, “Hey, Sam? Do you ever think about submarines?”

“I mean, occasionally, I guess,” Sam says thoughtfully. “Why?”

“I dunno,” Bucky replies, leaning back and looking up at the sky. “It’s just so funny thinking about all the submarines floating out there, hiding from each other. Like, what a ridiculous thing we all decided to do. We just send people out for months at a time and tell them to find other submarines but not to let other submarines find them. And like every major superpower does this, and it costs billions of dollars.”

“That’s a good point, but also you’re high as fuck,” Sam replies, stifling a grin. “Where did you even get this weed?”

“French Mafia,” Bucky responds blithely.

Sam shakes his head in disbelief, wondering when that became a thing. He pours another glass of wine from the picnic basket they brought up with them and takes a sip. “This is a nice ass spread, by the way. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

Bucky grins in response, and oh, Sam knows that grin.

“C’mere, baby,” Sam says. “Let’s make out.”

***

It takes a while for Natasha to track Todd to his new lair, but eventually she finds it in the Free State of Michigan. Like everything else about the world after the Snap, everything about that situation is confusing as hell too, because when Michigan seceded from the Union, the Upper and Lower Peninsulas actually split apart from each other. It wasn’t even because one peninsula wanted to leave and the other wanted to stay either—they both wanted to leave, but the Lower Peninsula refused to let the Upper Peninsula tag along with them, arguing that they didn’t contribute enough to their tax base.

So now the Lower Peninsula is an independent country known as the Free State of Michigan, while the Upper Peninsula is still a part of the United States of America and is known simply as Michigan. They fought a lot over which peninsula got to keep the name Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula only narrowly won that battle after Ohio got its trashy ass involved.

Finally, after the Battle of Toledo and the total shit show that was the Second Michigan-Ohio War, the United States government finally agreed to let the Free State of Michigan leave so long as they got to keep the Upper Peninsula and call it Michigan. So now the Lower Peninsula is a libertarian hellhole called the Free State of Michigan and Sam has to use his passport to get there.

“Do you even need a passport?” Bucky asks. They’re in the middle of fighting Todd, who’s not actually that good at fighting but is very good at exploding into a group of bats every time they try to land a punch. “You’re Captain America. I feel like this is a situation like the Queen of England, where she doesn’t need a passport because all passports are issued by her.”

“I don’t think that all American passports are issued by me,” Sam says doubtfully. He should probably check with Nick Fury or maybe the President about that, though.

Todd re-forms back into a person just to be a dick and tell Sam he’ll never be the real Captain America.

“You’re an asshole, Todd,” Sam informs him. Then, before Todd can become bats again, Sam slings his shield, already coated in holy water blessed by the Antipope of Avignon, directly at Todd’s neck, busting through his brace and re-severing his head.

 “Nice hit,” Bucky says, whistling in admiration.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to do the trick, because Todd just stands up, gropes blindly for his head, and once he finds it, he poofs into a swarm of bats, each one cradling its little head in its right wing, flying off into the night at a distinctly wonky angle.

“Damn it, Todd!” Sam calls after him. “What the fuck do you even believe in, man?”

***

They don’t stay at a hotel in the Free State of Michigan because it’s a dystopian nightmare where every hotel room is a smoking room and Sam is genuinely concerned about being hunted for sport, so they take the Quinjet back to New York.

They get in late, showering perfunctorily and climbing into bed nude together, too tired to bother pulling on pajamas. When Sam wakes up in the morning, he can see that it’s really more like mid-afternoon, the sun streaming in through their curtains, filling the bedroom with soft, diffused light. Bucky is pressed up against his back, too hot and just a tiny bit sweaty, his hard cock nestled up against Sam’s ass.

When Sam shifts a bit against him, reluctantly considering the prospect of getting up and starting the day, Bucky makes a discontented little noise and wraps his arm around Sam’s chest to pull him back.

“No, come back here,” Bucky mumbles, voice rough with sleep. He throws his leg over Sam’s, trapping him into place, and drops a warm kiss onto the back of Sam’s neck. Sam shivers at the feel of Bucky’s lips against the sensitive skin at his nape, and Bucky’s hand wanders down Sam’s chest and along his flank as he subtly grinds his cock into Sam’s ass.

Sam lets out a low chuckle. “Oh, that’s what you want?” he asks with amusement.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Bucky breathes. “That’s what I want.”

Sam turns over to face him, capturing Bucky’s lips in a slow and dirty kiss. Bucky moans softly, and his hand slides down to blatantly grope Sam’s ass, fingers kneading into the hard muscle. Bucky’s cock is pressed against his, and Sam can’t resist grinding a bit against him.

When Sam pulls back from the kiss, he asks, “You sure about this? Sex changes things.”

“Sure I’m sure,” Bucky says, grinning. “I mean, it’s been awhile, but Steve and I always—”

“Do not tell me you and Steve used to fuck back in the day.” Sam groans, willing his brain not to indulge those mental images.

“Wait, did you and Steve not—”

“No!” Sam says defensively. “Steve and I were best friends, not boyfriends.”

“Sam, first of all, it’s totally normal to fuck your best friend, it’s called friends with benefits. I looked it up, and it’s a thing.” Bucky sounds placid, relaxed, his tone entirely too reasonable, his expression even and unbothered. “And second of all, you and I are only pretending to be best friends, so it’ll be even more fine for us.”

Bucky shifts his hips against Sam again, and Sam stifles a low moan. Sam is absolutely going to go along with this nonsense. God, all of his relationships with all of his friends have gotten so deeply weird ever since Steve came into his life. Steve’s boundary issues with Bucky are infecting the entire rest of the team.

“Yeah, OK,” Sam agrees, then gasps as Bucky leans down to lick and then gently bite Sam’s nipple. The sensation goes straight to Sam’s cock and he can’t resist thrusting his pelvis up against Bucky’s hard abs. “Fuck, baby.”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Bucky says, licking his way down Sam’s chest, mouthing and sucking at the skin on Sam’s lower belly and thighs, soft and gentle and careful, like maybe he doesn’t want to leave any bruises. Sam wonders if that’s a leftover habit from fucking Steve, if Bucky hadn’t wanted to leave marks on Steve’s pale, delicate skin, still so quick to bloom purple even now that his bruises fade in a matter of hours. As Sam pictures Bucky’s mouth on Steve, licking and sucking at him the same way that he’s torturing Sam now, heat spreads through his entire body, his skin on fire.

Bucky spends an excruciatingly long time just teasing and kissing around Sam’s cock before he finally, finally runs his tongue slowly up Sam’s hard length.

“Fuck,” Sam curses, fighting to keep his hips still. Bucky looks up at him from beneath those long lashes, and Sam feels a sharp tug in his lower belly at the sight of those gorgeous gray eyes. “Fuck, please.”

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Bucky says soothingly.

He presses a soft kiss to the tip of Sam’s cock and then wraps his pretty lips around him and slides down, maintaining eye contact as he takes Sam deep into his mouth. Sam gasps at all that wet heat surrounding him, shocked by the fire racing down his spine as he feels Bucky swallow him down.

“Bucky,” Sam says helplessly, reaching down to put his hands in Bucky’s thick hair, soft and still messy from sleep.

Sam shifts restlessly, trying not to fuck Bucky’s mouth as Bucky leisurely drags his mouth up and down Sam’s cock, his pace maddeningly, frustratingly slow. When Bucky slides all the way down to the base of Sam’s cock, taking his entire length into his mouth, Sam’s hips jerk involuntarily and his fists clench in Bucky’s hair.

“Fuck, baby, I need—I need—”

Bucky pulls his mouth off Sam’s cock and Sam moans at the loss of that tight heat. Bucky’s eyes are knowing, his lips spit-slick and pink, so pretty and swollen.

“I know what you need, sweetheart,” Bucky says sympathetically, wickedly, his voice rough from Sam’s cock down his throat. “You gonna let me fuck you, Sam?”

“Yeah, God, yeah,” Sam says. Sam’s pulse leaps at the thought, and he takes a deep breath to try to force his racing heart to calm down, to steady his shaking hands.

Bucky kisses his way back up Sam’s chest, leaning over Sam to whisper in his ear, “So gorgeous, sweetheart. Gonna make you feel so good, Sam.”

Bucky reaches into the top drawer of the nightstand to pull out a condom and a bottle of lube. Sam starts to turn over, to bring himself up onto all fours, when Bucky stops him and says, “No, stay there, sweetheart. I wanna see you while I fuck you.”

Bucky grabs a pillow and slides it under Sam’s ass, pulling Sam’s knees up and spreading his legs apart so he can look at him. Sam trembles under Bucky’s gaze, his skin prickling as Bucky’s eyes roam greedily over Sam’s body.

“Fuck, Sam,” Bucky says reverently. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Sam gasps, arching his back when he feels the slick press of Bucky’s finger at his hole.

He tries not to clench up, tries to relax his muscles as Bucky slides a finger smoothly inside him. Bucky is sweet and soothing, praising Sam as he works his finger in and out of him, telling Sam how beautiful he is, how good he feels, how much Bucky can’t wait to be inside of him. Sam’s poor, neglected cock is dripping precome onto his lower belly, and Sam reaches down to take himself in hand, giving his cock a gentle stroke.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” Bucky says, his eyes hot and admiring as they watch Sam’s fist moving over his cock.

Sam keeps at it, leisurely jerking himself off while Bucky works a second and then a third finger into him. Bucky’s eyes are dark and hungry, and Sam feels aroused and exposed and needy, desperate for more, ready for Bucky’s cock to fuck him open and fill him up. He’s panting and gasping, chanting, “Please, please, please” as Bucky’s fingers stretch and pull at his loosening rim.

“You want it?” Bucky says, ripping open the condom package, pulling out the condom and sliding it down the thick, flushed length of his cock.

“Please, yes, I need it,” Sam begs.

And Sam’s embarrassed by his eagerness, how desperate he is for it, but the humiliation only makes him more aroused, his cock hardening further under his hand. He’s always so quick to say yes to Bucky, so quick to be tempted even against his own common sense, and Jesus fuck is he grateful for that now because that is Bucky’s cock sliding into him, pushing past the tight ring of muscle at Sam’s entrance and filling him up.

Bucky grabs Sam’s legs and hitches them up around his waist, sliding another inch of his thick cock deep inside Sam, who’s gasping and panting beneath him. Sam’s knees tighten around Bucky’s sides, gripping him tight and using his leverage to pull Bucky deeper into him. Sweat begins to form at the small of Sam’s back and behind his knees, prickling at his overheated skin.

“Sam,” Bucky moans. “God, Sam, you feel so good, sweetheart.”

Bucky bends down to steal a wet, filthy kiss as he slides his cock deeper, pushing that last, final inch all the way into Sam. Bucky’s hips are flush against him, and Sam feels so connected to Bucky, with Bucky’s tongue sliding slickly into Sam’s mouth and Bucky’s cock thrusting deep into Sam’s ass, and Sam swears Bucky’s heart is beating in time with his, twin rhythms pounding faster and faster until Sam feels like they’ll both burst into flames.

“C’mon,” Sam urges. “I need it. Please, baby.”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, leaning down to give Sam one last kiss before he braces himself on his arms and starts moving, slow and deep and dirty, into Sam. Sam’s head falls back as his back arches, and Bucky’s teeth nip gently at the exposed skin of Sam’s neck. Sam reaches down to grab Bucky’s ass, and Bucky inhales sharply when Sam pulls him, hard, so far inside him that Sam feels like he’ll choke on Bucky’s cock.

“Sam—Sam, you—”

“Yeah, baby, please—”

“God, Sam—”

Bucky fucks him so slowly, so sweetly, that Sam feels like he’s going to float off into space, lost in the feel of Bucky’s cock hitting that sensitive spot before dragging back out against his tender rim. Sam moans every time Bucky hits his prostate, feeling his balls begin to tighten and draw up against his body. Bucky’s pace slowly shifts from controlled and relentless to wild and irregular.

“Sam, Sam, look at me,” Bucky groans. Sam opens his eyes to find Bucky looking wrecked, his lips swollen, eyes dark and dazed, looking beautiful and so utterly focused on Sam. Their eyes meet and Bucky holds the contact, biting his lip and moaning. “Sam, Sam, I’m gonna—”

“Yeah, c’mon, do it—”

Bucky comes with a choked cry, shuddering and thrusting his hips erratically against Sam. His body shakes and shivers, breath coming in heavy gasps against Sam’s mouth.

Sam groans and focuses his attention back to stroking his cock, his hand moving faster and faster as Bucky pants and recovers above him. Sam’s almost there, so close, when Bucky leans down to kiss him, teeth biting gently at Sam’s bottom lip, and stars explode behind Sam’s eyes as he spills over his fist.

Bucky is slow to pull out of Sam, kissing him lazily before removing the condom and then collapsing on top of him. Sam wraps his arms around Bucky as they breathe and let their hearts settle, pressed tightly against one another.

“God, Sam,” Bucky says, voice muffled by Sam’s neck, sounding happy and exhausted and overwhelmed.

Sam lets Bucky rest on top of him for a while until he begins to feel suffocated by the weight of an entire supersoldier resting on him. He nudges Bucky to the side a little, and Bucky rolls onto his back, pulling Sam over to rest his head on Bucky’s shoulder.

Sam wonders if Bucky understands that “friends with benefits” usually don’t make love to each other the way that Bucky just made love to him.

“Good, sweetheart?” Bucky asks, pressing a kiss to the top of Sam’s head.

“Yeah.” The corner of Sam’s mouth turns up in a grin. “You did all right.”

“You were pretty good yourself,” Bucky says appreciatively. “Thought I was going to die when I got inside you. Christ, sweetheart.”

They lapse into blissful silence for a moment, and Bucky reaches over to grab Sam’s hand and pull it onto his chest. He plays with Sam’s fingers idly, intertwining their fingers and then pulling back to stroke his thumb over Sam’s palm. Bucky seems utterly relaxed and content, and Sam hates to break the comfortable silence but he just has to ask.

“So,” Sam says casually, “is that always how you fuck? All slow and romantic and full of eye contact?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve only ever had sex with Steve, so I guess so?” Bucky says, frowning. Sam is a little stunned at this revelation, eyebrows shooting upward in shock, because Bucky is one of the most attractive men Sam has ever met and Sam now knows for a fact that Bucky knows how to seduce someone if he wants it. “I guess I’m not really sure how I’d fuck someone other than you or Steve. I mean, maybe Natalia—”

Sam decides to interrupt Bucky before he finishes that interesting thought. “Rumor has it that you were a real smooth operator back in the day, though, taking ladies out on the town and double dating with Steve and going out dancing all night. You’re saying you never seriously tried it on with anybody else?” Sam asks in disbelief.

“Well, I mean, there were girls,” Bucky says slowly. “But I sorta got the feeling that they didn’t really take me seriously? Like, they were happy to go dancing with me, and they’d give me a sweet kiss at the end of the night, but if I tried for anything more they’d just pat me on the cheek and tell me to say hi to Steve for them and I really should take out their friend Betty next week.”

Bucky shrugs, obviously baffled by this behavior, but Sam suddenly understands exactly why Bucky wasn’t very successful with the ladies, and Sam really should have been way less surprised by the fact that even the sheltered Catholic girls of 1940s Brooklyn could tell that Bucky and Steve were deeply weird about each other and Bucky wasn’t exactly available.

“Did you ever want to get married and have a family?”

“Sure, someday,” Bucky says carelessly. “But Steve and I were still young when the war hit. I thought we’d have more time together. And then we didn’t, and Steve met Peggy, and you know how everything went after that.”

“It didn’t bother you when Steve found Peggy?”

“No, of course not,” Bucky says, his eyes shining and earnest. “Peggy was a doll. And I’ve been in love with Steve my whole life. I knew we’d always be best friends. It never even occurred to me that I could ever really lose Steve, not in a way that mattered. After all, who can ever really come between someone and their best friend?”

And that—explains a lot about Bucky’s near fanatical devotion to the very concept of best friendship. Sam shakes his head at this, knowing that there’s probably no point in trying to shake Steve and Bucky out of the wacky coping mechanisms they’ve developed for 1940s homophobia. After over a hundred years that shit has got to be way too deeply entrenched in their psyches.

Sam resigns himself to embracing their crazy on this particular issue. At least Bucky is hot.

***

Sam and Bucky are visiting Sam’s mom, and Sam doesn’t know how his mom knows, but somehow she definitely does know that something is different between Sam and Bucky, and boy does she look thrilled about it.

“Thank you so much for the lovely flowers, Bucky!” Sam’s mom gushes. “And you thought to bring a dish for dinner! Sam never used to bring a dish with him to dinner.” She beams at Bucky, so clearly approving of all of the changes Bucky has brought to Sam’s life, then looks meaningfully over at Sarah and Michelle. “And don’t they look handsome!”

Michelle simply nods obediently at this, because she’s eleven and not particularly impressed by Sam’s too-formal attire, but Sarah gives him a quick once over and then raises her eyebrows in mild surprise at his tailored blazer.

Sam and Sarah have a quick conversation through facial expressions, communicating “What’s all this then, Sam?” and “Don’t make a big thing about it, Sarah,” and “Is he your boyfriend?” and “Shut up, Sarah!” through a series of suggestively waggled eyebrows and narrowed eyes and teasing smirks.

“I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you to plan a meal without meat, Mrs. Wilson,” Bucky says with concern. “If it’s too much or you don’t want the hassle of meal planning, you’re all more than welcome to come to our apartment for dinner on Sunday nights.”

And the thing is, Bucky’s not being smarmy or insincere about it at all. He would be genuinely happy to have Sam’s family over for dinner every Sunday night, because Bucky likes cooking and he likes Sam and he likes families, and maybe Sam’s starting to feel some kind of way about all of Bucky’s effortless charm and openhanded generosity and muscular thighs.

“So you and Sam are living together,” Sarah says with interest. Even Michelle perks up at this, finally glancing up from her phone, where she’s been texting rapidly or possibly live tweeting this entire embarrassing conversation.

Bucky puts a casual arm around Sam’s shoulders, and come on, Bucky has to know how this looks to Sam’s family, right? “Yep, for probably around six months now, right, sweetheart?” Bucky says, smiling at Sam.

And suddenly Sam realizes that maybe Bucky doesn’t know how this looks to Sam’s family, because Bucky has such an extreme lack of awareness regarding normal friendship boundaries, and also because they’re so far deep into this whole fake-best-friends thing that this is just the way that the two of them act now, all the time.

And, really, Sam has to blame Steve and Natasha for this too, because the two of them are only encouraging this madness with all the “best friends dates” and the excessive physical affection and their own overly invested relationship. Literally no one in Bucky’s life is modeling basic relationship boundaries for him, no wonder he slipped through the cracks of normal human friendship behavior.

And Sam must be crazy too, because he just smiles back at Bucky and says, “Yep, that sounds about right, baby.” Because Sam isn’t really all that concerned about normal human friendship behavior when Bucky looks at him like that, gray eyes all warm and soft and pleased, like Sam’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

Sam’s heart beats a little faster in his chest, warmth traveling through his veins, and oh, this is a thing.

“You know, when you and Steve were living together, he never invited us over to your place,” Sam’s mother points out. Thanks to all of Bucky’s hard work rehabbing Steve’s tarnished image in Sam’s mother’s eyes, Steve has been upgraded from that boy to Steve, always stated with a faint moue of distaste.

“Steve and I were international fugitives, Mom,” Sam replies, his tone patient. “We didn’t have a stable place to invite you to.”

“And whose fault was that!” Sam’s mom says triumphantly.

“Mom, I made my own choices when it came to the Accords.”

“Sam’s not a follower,” Bucky agrees, and it’s sweet that Bucky thinks so but Sam realizes now that that is a complete lie, because Sam has done nothing but follow Bucky along in this foolishness ever since he felt Bucky’s body pressed up against him in a closet. “And if anything it’s probably my fault how everything went down. I was the one they blamed for that bombing—Steve and Sam were just trying to help me. They really are the best friends I could ever ask for, and I’m still not sure I was worth everything they went through for it.’”

And maybe it’s just a fluke of the phrasing, maybe Bucky didn’t really mean it, but Sam can’t help but notice that this is the first time Bucky has ever used the plural form of the term best friend.

“Oh, dear, that wasn’t your fault!” Sam’s mother protests. “You were framed for that bombing!”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t Steve’s fault either, Mom.”

Sam’s mother sniffs. “Well, I still think Steve could have made more of an effort to get to know your family.”

“I’m still friends with Steve, Mom,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “Our friendship is not past tense, we’re not, like, broken up or something.”

“Then why isn’t Steve here for Sunday dinner with the rest of the family?” Sam’s mother gestures around the table at the five of them, and Sam’s heart skips a beat as he realizes that his mother is including Bucky in the family.

Sarah and Michelle are observing this conversation with ill-concealed glee, unabashedly enjoying Sam’s friendship-slash-relationship-slash-familial drama. Bucky’s arm is still wrapped around Sam, his thumb rubbing absent little circles on Sam’s shoulder, and Michelle is tapping away on her phone as she watches. Sam doesn’t have high hopes for this staying off the internet when he catches Michelle snapping a surreptitious photo of Sam tucked in snugly under Bucky’s arm.

It’s Bucky’s metal arm, too, so no chance of passing Bucky off as some random dude.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, Sam thinks. He leans over and gives Bucky a soft kiss on the mouth right in front of his family.

***

Sam and Bucky are fooling around on the sofa after finishing season one of The Mandalorian—apparently Pedro Pascal’s bedroom voice really does it for both of them—and Sam is finally getting the chance to trace Bucky’s abs with his tongue the way he imagined every single time he jerked off in the shower back before Bucky started taking showers with him.

Sam shifts down to suck a bruise into the sharp jut of Bucky’s hip bone, and Bucky moans underneath him. Bruises don’t last any longer on Bucky than they do on Steve, but Sam still likes seeing Bucky’s fair skin mottled with fresh marks, likes the possessive little thrill it sends through him to see Bucky’s perfect flesh marred by Sam’s mouth and teeth.

“Sam, please, suck me, sweetheart,” Bucky begs.

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, pulling Bucky’s boxer-briefs down his hips and watching in satisfaction when Bucky’s hard cock springs forward, flushed and thick and perfect. Sam is impatient tonight, wants Bucky’s cock in his mouth now, and he leans forward to swallow Bucky down in one long, slick slide.

“Fuck, Sam,” Bucky moans.

Sam grabs Bucky’s hips as he bobs his head up and down, fingers digging in tight, bruising, to keep Bucky from thrusting into Sam’s mouth. Bucky is strong enough that he could easily break Sam’s hold but he doesn’t, squirming restlessly underneath Sam, frustrated and needy and desperate.

Sam pulls off Bucky’s cock long enough to take in a big gulp of air before he slides back down, taking Bucky as far back into his throat as he can, and Bucky moans brokenly when Sam tightens his mouth and lips around him. Sam sets a steady rhythm, swirling his tongue around the head of Bucky’s cock and then sucking him back down again, spit slicking up the way. Sam reaches up to roll Bucky’s balls between his fingers, squeezing and tugging gently, admiring the heft of them in his hand.

“God, Sam, Sam,” Bucky chants, hands fisting in the sheets to keep from grabbing Sam’s head and fucking his face. “Sam, sweetheart, I love you. I love you so fucking much.”

Sam moans around Bucky’s cock, and Bucky cries out, tapping Sam’s shoulder in a desperate warning before he breaks Sam’s hold on his hips and thrusts forward, flooding Sam’s mouth with come. Sam swallows him down, bitter and salty, and then leans forward to rest his head against Bucky’s pelvis and catch his breath.

“God, Sam,” Bucky says, panting. He looks flushed and beautiful, and Sam’s heart feels like it’s going to explode in his chest.

“I love you too,” Sam says helplessly.

Bucky looks awestruck for a moment, then says, “C’mere,” in a rough voice.

He pulls Sam up and gives him a quick, hard kiss, then reaches down to unbutton Sam’s jeans and slide his hand around Sam’s cock. He strokes Sam firmly, a brutal pace that drives Sam half out of his mind. Sam’s already so hard from sucking Bucky’s cock, can still taste Bucky’s come in his mouth, and he won’t need much to get there.

“Baby, please, I need—”

“I know what you need, sweetheart,” Bucky says comfortingly. He buries his head in Sam’s neck, biting down on the thick cord of muscle that leads to Sam’s shoulder, and Sam’s back arches in pleasure. Bucky strokes him just a little faster, almost enough, thumb rubbing at that sensitive spot right beneath Sam’s glans. “C’mon, sweetheart, come for me.”

And Sam does, come splattering over his lower belly, mind going blissfully blank and toes curling in pleasure. While Sam comes down from his high, Bucky reaches up to cup Sam’s face in his hand, stroking his thumb tenderly over Sam’s cheek. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

Sam leans forward to kiss him, losing himself in the warm heat of Bucky’s mouth, their lips moving in a slow, gentle slide against each other. They make out lazily for a while, hands roaming appreciatively over each other’s bodies, until Sam reluctantly pulls away to clean up.

When Sam returns to the living room, Bucky is sitting in the dim light of the television, chewing anxiously at his lower lip. Sam plops down next to him, turning on his side to face him and putting his feet in Bucky’s lap.

“Did you mean it?” Bucky asks uncertainly. “It wasn’t just, like, a heat of the moment thing?”

“I did,” Sam confirms, his voice sure and steady. “Did you mean it?”

“God, yes, Sam. I love you.”

They look at each other dopily for a while, then Bucky tugs at Sam’s legs to urge him further down the sofa, closer to Bucky. They curl up together and enjoy the comfortable silence until Bucky says, “Tell me something you’ve never told Steve.”

Sam thinks for a moment, then groans. He covers his face with his hands, peeking embarrassedly through his fingers, and says, “OK, so I went through a phase, when I first got out of high school, where I told everybody to call me Snap Wilson.”

Bucky laughs incredulously, then claps a hand over his mouth to stifle it, mostly unsuccessfully. “I’m sorry, you told them to call you what now?” he asks gleefully.

“I told them to call me Snap Wilson,” Sam grits out. He is already regretting this, but Bucky looks so fucking elated that Sam can’t bring himself to care too much about the inevitable teasing he’s going to receive. And it’s Bucky, not Steve or Natasha, so Sam knows that the ribbing won’t be too savage.

Bucky is already trying to suppress his wild grin, pressing his lips together until they turn almost white. “So was this like a rough time you were going through, like trouble at home or something, or did you just think Snap Wilson sounded cool?” His voice is a mixture of genuine concern and barely concealed amusement.

“I just thought it sounded cool,” Sam confesses.

Bucky laughs in delight, and Sam gives him a sour look, poking him in the side. “Yeah, yeah, your turn now, buddy,” Sam says. “Tell me something you’ve never told Steve.”

Bucky sobers up, clears his throat and says, “I didn’t enlist in the Army.”

“What?”

“I let Steve think that I enlisted, because I didn’t want him to know that I had to drop out of college to pay for his medical bills when he got sick the winter of ’41. Got called up shortly after, told him that I enlisted.”

Sam’s heart breaks a little at that, for Bucky, because he would have done anything to take care of Steve, and for Steve, who never would have forgiven himself if Bucky had gotten drafted and sent home in a body bag on his account. To this day Steve still feels guilty about leaving Bucky behind in that ravine, even though he had no reason to believe that Bucky could have survived the fall, and anyway Steve drove a plane straight into the Arctic like a week later and couldn’t have rescued Bucky anyway.

“So wait, how does Steve think you paid for his medical bills?”

“I told him I got paid to pose for some dirty pictures,” Bucky says with a saucy grin. “Then he asked to see them and I had to beg one of his photographer friends to take some for me to try to sell the whole embarrassing lie. Honestly I was a little flattered that Steve had exactly zero questions about the whole thing, like of course someone would pay to see me jerking off wearing a pair of women’s stockings.”

Sam raises his eyebrows at that. “Any chance those pictures are still around somewhere?”

“I’m pretty sure Steve burned them all before he headed out on the bond circuit,” Bucky says with regret, then brightens. “But on the plus side, I think I just came up with a great idea for the erotic portrait series Steve’s been working on during all of our best friend dates.”

Sam grins cheerfully at this. “Nice.”

***

A month later, they’re in Eastern Washington with Steve and Natasha, fighting off a horde of formerly human white nationalist cult members who are now a group of largely mindless but probably still racist vampires.

The vampires aren’t much of a threat, but there are a bunch of them and they’re good at causing enough chaos that it’s hard to get close to Todd, who’s in a neck brace again and back on his bullshit.

Sam’s done a ton of research on Catholicism since the last time they met and he’s still not sure how to finally kill this guy. The holy water blessed by the Roman pope didn’t work, and the holy or possibly unholy water blessed by the Antipope of Avignon didn’t work, and Sam’s pretty much run out of popes to get holy water from. Out of a commitment to preparedness Sam’s brought along vials of leftover holy water from each pope, but he’s honestly not sure if they’ll be much help to them if neither of them even works.

Sam, Bucky, and Steve are all covered in blood from the vampires they’ve slain so far, but as usual Natasha still looks perfectly pristine as she lectures Todd on his many sins and hypocrisies. God, she even had the audacity to wear a white uniform to this. Sam’s heart swells with affection for her.

“I thought you were supposed to be Catholic, Todd. It’s not very pro-life of you to create all these vampires,” Natasha says, shaking her head in disapproval.

“I’m just trying to make humanity great again,” Todd snaps defensively through his ridiculous plastic fangs. “Society works best when there are a few strong leaders and many weak, dependent followers. HYDRA believes in order. The Catholic Church used to believe in order too—it used to understand the value of an authoritarian system of governing its followers.”

And just like that, Sam understands Todd’s belief system. “He’s a Sedevacant!” Sam announces, pointing a finger in triumph.

“What?” Bucky asks, firing a crossbow into a vampire trying to latch its fangs into Steve’s calf. The vampire explodes in a shower of red, and Steve wrinkles his nose in disgust but keeps fighting. At this point there’s not very much of Steve that isn’t covered in blood, and Sam hopes they aren’t all going to have to worry about bloodborne diseases from this whole gross situation.

“Remember all those changes in the Catholic Church since you and Steve were kids? Those all came about after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Sedevacants believe that the church lost its way and fell into heresy when it embraced modernism. So according to them there is no valid pope—the seat of the pope is actually vacant,” Sam explains, tossing his shield off to behead a vampire looming over Bucky.

“Thanks, sweetheart!” Bucky calls, blowing him a kiss.

“Great,” Natasha says, irritated. “And how are we supposed to get holy water blessed by no one? Wouldn’t that just be regular water?”

Sam frowns in dismay at this terrible, zany loophole Todd has apparently discovered.

Todd cackles triumphantly. “You can’t! You’ll never be able to kill me—there’s no holy water on earth that’s been blessed by no one,” Todd boasts. “I’m invincible!”

“Not so fast,” Bucky says, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “Sam, do you still have both vials of holy water?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Mix them together!” Bucky says. “Holy water blessed by the pope plus holy water blessed by the antipope will cancel each other out.”

Todd’s eyes widen in horror. “No, that won’t work!”

“It’s simple math, Todd,” Bucky says smugly. “Sam, do it, I’ll cover you!”

Sam’s hands are steady as he unscrews the tops of the bottles, sure in the knowledge that Bucky will have his back if any vampires try to latch onto him while he’s busy. He coats the shield in holy water from each of the vials, making sure to cover every square inch. Then, with a mighty throw, he launches the shield toward Todd, nailing him directly in the throat.

When Todd’s head is blown back off his body, he explodes into a bloody, disgusting mess.

“Gross,” Steve says.

The baby vampires stumble around, confused and lost without their leader, and it only takes about twenty minutes for Sam and the others to slay the rest of them now that Todd’s dead.

 Sam makes a mental note to use all of his influence as Captain America to get Bucky an honorary doctorate in mathematics from Harvard or Yale or something after all this.

***

Sam and Bucky spend forty-five long minutes showering off all the blood after their showdown with Todd and his racist vampire gang, the last fifteen of which are spent with Bucky pressed up against the shower wall with Sam’s tongue in his ass.

“Fuck, sweetheart, please,” Bucky begs. He’s trembling and squirming, spreading his legs shamelessly for Sam. “Fuck me, Sam, please.”

Sam reaches down to squeeze the base of his cock, liquid heat pooling in his belly at the thought of sliding his cock into that tight hole he’s been eagerly, methodically loosening. Bucky’s hands are pulling at his own ass, spreading his cheeks so sweetly, so obediently for Sam’s mouth. Sam traces a finger around Bucky’s wet rim, poking in just a bit to test him out, and Bucky’s thighs twitch and shake around Sam’s face.

“You think you can take it standing up?” Sam asks, giving Bucky an assessing look.

Bucky bites his lip and sobs a bit, panting and gasping, his face pressed up against the shower wall. Bucky looks wrecked already, so pretty, and Sam decides to take pity on him.

“C’mon, baby, let’s go to the bedroom,�� Sam says, standing up and shutting off the shower.

He wraps Bucky in a towel and leads him to the hotel bedroom, and Bucky shivers prettily in the cool air, goosebumps rising on his clean, damp skin. Sam crowds Bucky against the mattress to warm him up, leaning his head down to dip into the wet heat of Bucky’s mouth, sliding his tongue against Bucky’s in a dirty kiss that leaves them both moaning.

Sam grabs the lube and Bucky spreads his legs eagerly, obscenely, and the sight is so erotic that Sam feels like he’s been punched in the gut, breathless with desire and desperate to plunge his cock into all that tight, willing heat. His hands shake a bit as he fumbles with the lube, and he coats his fingers until they’re nice and slick, ready to slide right in with just the slightest amount of pressure.

Bucky gasps when Sam slips one long finger into him, biting his lip and arching his back. “Sam, more—I need—”

“I got you, baby,” Sam says, sliding another finger in next to the first. Bucky’s mouth gapes open, his throat emitting a choked off little cry, and Sam’s cock is achingly hard at the sound, weeping messily against Sam’s belly, dripping little trails of precome. Bucky’s a quivering mess underneath him, and Sam presses wet kisses between Bucky’s thighs as he ruthlessly opens him up. “God, look at you, baby.”

Sam gives him another finger, and Bucky takes it, keening and begging. “More—please—Sam, I want your cock.”

“Oh, you think you’re ready for it, baby?”

“Yes, please, Sam,” Bucky whines, and Sam reluctantly removes his fingers, climbing up to settle his body over Bucky’s, letting gravity pull him down so they’re pressed tightly together. Bucky may be sweet and pliant underneath him now, but Sam knows how strong he really is, how easily he can bear Sam’s weight.

When Sam starts pushing his cock inside of him, Bucky gasps, mouth opening in a small o of pleasure. Sam fucks Bucky shallowly until he grows impatient, needs to go deeper, grabbing Bucky’s thighs to pull them up so he can bend Bucky in half underneath him. Bucky’s limbs are long and flexible, moving easily as Sam moves him right where he needs him. Sam bites his own lip, hard, as Bucky’s hole pulls him in, clutching greedily at Sam’s throbbing cock.

When Sam slides all the way home, Bucky gasps and says, “Sam, Sam, wait—”

Sam pauses, his cock buried fully inside Bucky, panting harshly at the effort of keeping his hips still.

“Yeah, baby,” Sam says, voice straining. “What do you need?”

“Sam,” Bucky says, and he sucks in a deep breath, closing his eyes and visibly working to control himself. “Sam, I need to tell you something.”

Sam looks down at Bucky and waits, letting Bucky take the time he needs to settle. Sam’s hips are flush against Bucky’s ass, his cock seated fully inside of him, and he feels so connected to Bucky, like they’re two parts of the same whole.

Bucky pants raggedly for a few moments, squirming and restless under Sam, until he calms again, opening his eyes to look at Sam. Bucky’s lashes are long and gorgeous and damp, his pupils dark and dilated.

“Sam, I have to tell you,” Bucky says, flushing prettily, his wide eyes so earnest and sweet. “I—somewhere along the way, I want you to know, everything became real for me. You—you really are my best friend.”

Sam closes his eyes, heart so achingly full in his chest.

“You’re my best friend too,” Sam says softly, seriously, because he knows this is important to Bucky. “I love you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.” Bucky’s eyes are wet and shining.

Sam grinds his hips against Bucky’s ass, his lips curving up in a dirty grin. “You gonna let me fuck you now?” Sam asks. Bucky gasps, hands coming up to grip Sam’s back, fingers digging in bruisingly hard.

“Yeah, Sam, yeah, fuck me,” Bucky breathes.

Sam pulls out and then slams his hips back into Bucky, who gasps in surprise, spine arching in pleasure. Sam sets a hard and deep rhythm, letting loose all of the leftover tension and stress from the fight earlier, taking all that frustrated energy out on Bucky’s willing body. When Sam nails Bucky’s prostate, Bucky’s hands scrabble over Sam’s back, clutching and pulling at him frantically. “Yes, there, there,” Bucky says, voice desperate and breathy.

Sam drives his cock into Bucky faster, pounding harder as he feels his balls tighten and heat race up his spine. He’s close, so close, and he leans down to brace himself on one elbow so he can reach down to grab Bucky’s hard cock. He can tell from the noises Bucky’s making, those sweet, high whimpers, that Bucky isn’t far behind him. When he strokes Bucky hard, his fist sliding brutally up and down Bucky’s cock, Bucky arches his back and comes, spilling all over his sweaty chest.

The sight of Bucky’s come, pearly and glistening over his taut abs, sends Sam over the edge. Sam’s hips jerk and stutter, his thrusts erratic, shuddering as he feels his balls empty into Bucky’s tight hole. He wants to collapse, wants to let go and fall onto Bucky, let Bucky catch him and hold him, but instead he pulls out. Bucky whines quietly at the loss, and Sam can’t resist reaching down to rub his fingers against Bucky’s wet, puffy hole, admiring the slow trickle of Sam’s come dripping out of him. Bucky shivers at the touch of Sam’s fingers to his abused hole, probably raw and oversensitive, and Sam reluctantly drops his hand.

“Sorry,” he says, kissing Bucky’s knee in apology.

“S’ok,” Bucky slurs. “Like it when you get all vulgar and possessive on me.”

“Speaking of possessive,” Sam says, heaving out a heavy sigh and collapsing back onto the bed next to Bucky, hooking his ankle over Bucky’s. “Can we talk about the whole fake-best-friends thing? Like, where are we with that and what was our endgame there?”

“Well, I guess I was wrong about only having one best friend,” Bucky admits, looking at Sam out of the corner of his eye and grinning bashfully. “And I guess the plan was just—make Steve jealous.”

“And?” Sam prompts.

“And—I think that was it? I’m not really sure where I saw it all working out,” Bucky confesses.

“I feel like maybe you’re not all that great at planning without a murder board.”

“I’m a visual planner,” Bucky says defensively. “And it seemed kind of disrespectful to make a murder board about Steve given the fact that I did, in fact, try to murder him several times as the Winter Soldier.”

“That’s fair,” Sam concedes, tipping his head to acknowledge the point. “But we’re good now, right? I mean, we’re best friends with each other, we’re best friends with Steve and Natasha, Steve and Natasha are also best friends—and I’m kind of crazy in love with you.”

“What I’m hearing you say here is that my crazy plan worked.”

“Yeah, OK,” Sam says, hiding a smile. “Maybe it did.”

***

It’s a Saturday, and Sam and Steve are on their best friend date, and Steve is kicking Sam’s ass in the gym. Sam knows, intellectually, that he’s in fantastic shape and that there’s no shame in being beaten by a scientifically enhanced human being. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still hurt his pride—and his back, motherfucker—when Steve manages to take him down hard without even having the decency to break a sweat.

“I think that’s about enough for today. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job wearing you out,” Steve says, smirking like an asshole, because he is an asshole. “Let’s hit the showers.”

When they get to the SHIELD locker room, it’s nearly empty, the way it usually is on Saturdays. There are still a few particularly dedicated SHIELD employees roaming about, mostly new guys. For whatever reason most of the seasoned employees stay away from the gym locker room on Saturday afternoons when Sam and Steve work out. Today, when people catch sight of Sam and Steve walking in, they blanch and immediately speed up with whatever they’re doing, hustling out of the locker room like it’s on fire or something. In under two minutes, Sam and Steve are the only ones left.

“It’s weird how everybody always leaves when they see us coming in to shower together,” Sam remarks, stripping off his sweaty shirt and tossing it in his locker.

“I wonder if they’re intimidated by us,” Steve muses, then takes a moment to admire Sam’s bare chest. Steve’s eyes are hot and appreciative as they travel lazily up and down Sam’s torso.

Sam shrugs in response, then winces as he feels a muscle tighten up in his back. “Ouch,” Sam hisses. “Man, I know I’m not twenty-five anymore, but damn, I really don’t need the reminder, you know?”

Steve’s brow furrows in concern. “Here, let me take a look at that when we get in the shower.”

They finish undressing and then get into the shower together. They share a stall, because Steve read an article about water conservation that he apparently found very inspiring, and also because sometimes it’s nice having a buddy with you. Sam lathers himself up, and then out of habit he reaches over to spin Steve around so he can wash Steve’s back too.

“God, that feels good,” Steve moans, the sound of it echoing in the strangely empty locker room. Sam spends a good few minutes really working Steve over as he scrubs Steve’s back, groping and kneading at Steve’s lats and traps while Steve moans and arches his back in pleasure.

When Sam finishes, he gives Steve a little pat and says, “OK, you do me.” Obligingly, Steve turns around to rub Sam’s back, massaging the tight muscles, his hands sliding easily over Sam’s skin with the slick of Sam’s body wash.

“This where it hurts?” Steve murmurs, digging his fingers into Sam’s lower back. “God, you’re really tight here.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, groaning at the pleasure-pain of Steve working at the sore point in his lower back. He huffs a frustrated, petulant sigh. “You know, sometimes I feel like the more I lift, the tighter I get.”

“Maybe you should start going to yoga with Bucky and Natasha,” Steve suggests. “Actually, they’re starting a class in about twenty minutes. If we hurry up in here, we could probably meet them there if you want.”

“Wait, Bucky and Natasha are at yoga today?” Sam asks in disbelief. “You’re telling me that Bucky and Natasha go to yoga? That’s what they’re doing on their best friend dates?”

Suddenly, Steve looks very anxious and very guilty.

“Wait,” Steve says slowly, apprehensively, “Bucky does tell you what he does on his best friend dates, right? He—I mean, you do know—”

“Yeah, Steve, I know,” Sam says, his tone dry. “I just thought yoga was, like, a cover for something. I didn’t think they were actually going to yoga.”

“Oh!” Steve brightens. “Yeah, it’s doing some really amazing things for Bucky’s flexibility. And for Natasha’s ass.”

Sam shrugs. “All right, then, let’s head over.”

Sam and Steve finish up in the shower, moving more quickly than their usual leisurely Saturday afternoon locker room shower pace. Sam’s skin is still a bit damp under his fresh gym clothes, but the air outside is warm, and he’ll be sweating again soon anyway once he starts working out in the humid yoga studio.

When Bucky and Natasha see Sam and Steve, their faces light up with big smiles.

“Hey, sweetheart!” Bucky says, coming over to give Sam a hug and a kiss while Natasha does the same to Steve. “You and Steve are done earlier than usual.”

“Yeah, he whooped my ass,” Sam admits, scratching his jaw.

Sam and Steve switch hugging partners, and Nat’s body feels small and strong in Sam’s arms when she goes up onto her tiptoes to give him a warm hug and a kiss on the lips. And when Sam sneaks a look downward, he notices that Steve was not lying about all the great things yoga’s been doing for Natasha’s ass.

Sam lets go of Natasha and turns back to Bucky. “So you and Nat really do yoga,” Sam says, shaking his head ruefully. “You know, all this time, I thought you two were doing some secret spy shit that you were trying to keep me from having to answer questions about? I was half-convinced that we should be thinking about getting married just so we wouldn’t have to testify against each other.”

Steve and Natasha raise their eyebrows in surprise, but Bucky looks pleased at that. “Well,” Bucky says, lips curving up in a crooked grin, “let’s not take that marriage idea off the table just yet.”

Natasha clearly aims for a sober expression, but the corner of her lip twitches and her eyes sparkle with mirth. “You know, I can’t say that we’ll definitely never get up to any secret spy shit, Sam. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to keep that in your back pocket.”

Steve raises an eyebrow and nods thoughtfully. “Plus, do we even know if Bucky’s still considered an American citizen?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Bucky admits. “But being married to Captain American should grant me automatic citizenship, probably.”

Sam shrugs placidly and slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

After all, Sam’s mom always did say that happiness was being married to your best friend.

[killiansprincss]

We Found Wonderland

Summary: Trapped in the past after the S3 finale, Killian and Emma are forced to fade into the background as a newly married couple in a village while Rumplestilskin works on the portal to send them back to the future. (No Marian) What challenges will they face, after all it’s only pretending to be married after all right? Inspired by Taylor Swift ‘Wonderland’

Due to tumblr word limit I’ve had to post this in 2 parts, find part 1 here

Also on AO3

“It was so lovely to meet you Emma, I love that I finally get to see the woman who keeps Killian on his toes. I hope we can do this again sometime.” Cassian says.

“Good luck with your child, I can see he or she will be brought into a loving house.” Emma tells them as they leave, not even looking in Killians direction.

____

“What the fuck was that all about back there?” Emma practically screams as they enter their home.

“What do you mean love?” Killian asks dumbfounded,

“Don’t play dumb with me Hook. The proposal story.” She uses his moniker, she’s angry with him, she’s pissed off.

“Touching didn’t you think? Really brought a tear to their eyes.” He smirks, he knows he’s winding her up but he doesn’t care.

“You want to know what I think? I think someone’s getting a little too comfortable in this life, you know pretending to be married and all. I think someone is forgetting. We are not actually married! We are not from here, we do not belong here. You’re in love with me but I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same.”

“You want the truth Swan?” Killian said through gritted teeth. “Fine. Yes I am getting comfortable with this life, for once you’re not always yelling at me when I’m trying to help. I won't lie and say I don’t enjoy you flirting with me for once instead of it always being me. And I don’t believe for a second my feelings for you are one sided.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Emma asks, the anger building up inside her.

Killian scoffs. “You know what I mean. When we were getting your parents together, at the ball. You looked at me different that night, like you were seeing a new side to me. You could’ve said something when we danced together over and over, but you didn’t. You got closer and closer to me over those 2 days, and when I rescued you from that blasted prison you acted like we were lovers and they didn’t question it. Ever since we found out we were stuck you’ve only been flirting with me more and more.”

“Because we are technically married. And it’s not flirting. It’s-“ Emma begins.

Killian moves closer, closing the gap between the two. She can practically feel his heartbeat as he looks into her eyes, “it’s what? Because I think you’re trying to ignore that gut feeling that you feel something for me. You don’t want to admit how you truly feel. What I feel. I’m not an idiot, you kissed me back in Neverland for a reason, and you felt something as I did. Bloody hell, I gave up everything for you Emma, I traded my ship to Blackbeard to get a magic bean to find you in New York even though you had no idea who I was. I-I” he couldn’t quite finish his sentence.

“You did what? Your ship?” Emma’s tone suddenly changes, “as in the Jolly Roger?”

Killian nods. “Aye. It was the only thing worth a magic bean.”

“You traded your ship for me?” She asks, still in shock. Nobody had done that for her before, he literally gave up his home for her. Everything he had. And she was a bitch to him.

Killian just nods. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it important.”

His ship. His home. Killian traded his home to find Emma. She had no idea who he was, he didn’t know if the memory potion would even work, but he did it anyway. He came and found her, brought her home.

Instead of saying anything Emma takes another step towards Killian closing the already small gap between them and captures his lips with hers.

They both didn’t know how much they had been longing for this, it was similar to their first kiss back in the Neverland jungle, hot and fiery. It’s filled with passion and wanting. Killian breaks the kiss for just a second to move positions and when his lips are back on Emma’s small moans escape. For in this moment, in this kiss, nothing else mattered. They forgot about their argument, about the angry screams and cusses from before. All that mattered was each other and that they were together now.

Emma wraps her legs around a Killians waist as he leads them over to the bed. Suddenly only having one bed and having to share didn't seem like such a problem.

The moans escaping from each other’s lips were getting more frequent and louder with each kiss. These enchanted forest clothes were a lot harder to remove than modern ones, but Killian was happy to oblige the removal of the dress.

“God's you’re beautiful.” Killain says taking in the sight of the almost naked Emma.

“Just shut up and kiss me.” Emma tells him. She wants him, she needs him.

Killian happily obliges, kissing her lips and her cheek and her neck leaving marks that will need covering up tomorrow. He sucks on her neck and leaves hot kisses down from her neck down her body, paying close attention to her breasts and then her stomach and inner thighs causing her back to arch and more moans start to escape.

“Killian I need you please.” Emma pleads, she wanted him.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes please. Please.”

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

After that night of pleasure, they never had to argue over the bed or awkwardly untangle themselves in the mornings. The next few months are spent exploring each other’s bodies every night, and finding out new things about each other every day.

Their relationship took a turn from pretending to be real and pretending to be in love, to not being so pretend anymore. They fell into the routine of a happily married couple.

There was also something else magical about that night. It seemed Emma’s magic had returned. Sparks flew that night in one way or another. It was electrifying.

___

“Hmm something smells good.” Emma says as she walks through the door after another horrible day at work.

Killian comes out from around the corner and presses a kiss to her lips.”I’m glad you’re home. I made you a surprise for dinner.”

“You know I hate surprises.” She whines

Killian chuckles, “I promise you are going to love this surprise.”

Emma sits down at the table as Killian puts a blindfold on his ‘wife’. “Whatever this is it smells good.”

Killian removes the blindfold as he pieces the plate of food in front of her,

“Is this?” Emma asks as she sees what seems to be a grilled cheese in front of her.

“My attempt at an Enchanted Forest Grilled Cheese. I went to the market and got the finest bread and the best cheese imported from Agrabah. I then made it into a sandwich and heated it up. I couldn’t figure out how to make the onion rings, which you so enjoy too, but this is the best I could do.”

“You did this for me?” Emma is shocked that he did this for her, he didn’t have to, but he did.

“I know you’re missing home, I can’t go to Granny herself and ask her to make you one, but this is the next best thing.” Killian gives her a smile. It wasn’t to get points or anything, he did it because he was really enjoying their time together but she was always talking about Stortybrooke, so he thought he’d bring a little bit of it to their home.

“Oh.My. God. This is incredible.”she says as she takes a bite “I love you.”

Realising what she just said, they’re both taken aback.

“Slip of though don’t worry I’ll pretend you didn’t say it.” He says awkwardly scratching behind his ear, a sad tone in his voice.

“No. No, I meant it. Sure it was a slip of the tongue but I don’t regret saying it. Killian, I love you.” She finally admits. “I didn’t admit how I was feeling for the longest time, but you stayed with me and helped me through it all. You didn’t have to come find me in New York but you did, you didn’t have to help me make sure my parents met but you did. You even became my fake husband so that we can slip through the cracks until we can go home.”

Her walls were slowly coming down each day she spent with Killian. He wasn’t running away, and Emma didn’t want to run when it all became real either. And for each wall he crashed through, she didn’t feel the need to build another.

“Gods I’m so pleased to hear you say that Swan.” Killian grabs her by the waist and spins her around, releasing laughter from Emma. “I love you too Emma. So much.”

_____

So we went on our way

Too in love to think straight

All alone, or so it seemed

But there were strangers watching

And whispers turned to talking

And talking turned to screams

Emma and Killian had been in the Enchanted Forest for around 10 months, hopefully Rumplestilskin would keep his word and have the portal so that they could go back to their world in 2 months time.

10 months in the Enchanted Forest, and Emma was still not used to the clothes or the food. Cassian and Maeve had invited them round a few more times, and this time they didn't need to lie about their relationship or their feelings as much anymore. The two of them had welcomed a baby girl, and Maeve had returned to work at the tavern, so at least Emma was no longer alone in battling off the creepy men.

Although, Emma couldn’t completely control her magic so there were times it spiraled out of control and she had hoped nobody would notice it was her. There was one time she was pouring drinks, it was a really busy shift, and she accidentally made the barrels explode and beer went everywhere. It took a lot of effort not to laugh at the beer that practically drenched the guy that had been trying to touch her up all shift.

“This happens all the time, don’t worry about it.” Maeve tells Emma as she grabs a rag to start cleaning up.

Phew. She got away with it. For now.

Except it kept happening.

Emma didn’t know why or what was happening, but her magic was uncontrollable.

“It’s happening again, I don’t know what to do.” She confides in Killian. She knows he will want to help, and not just because it will keep their secret safe.

Killian trusts her, he knows her magic is never intended to harm anybody. “Why does it keep happening at work, you don’t seem to have outbursts at home.”

“I feel safe at home.” Emma admits. “When I’m with you, I feel safe, I can pretend it’s just us and the rest of the world doesn’t exist. When I’m at work I get nervous because you’re not there and I have to do it all alone, keep up appearances. You’re so much better at it than I am.”

“I have something for you then.” Killian says as he pulls a chain from around his neck, with a cool silver ring attached.

“Wow, wow wow.” Emma’s heart suddenly starts to race, she loved Killian, but if this ring was his way of proposing they were moving way too quickly.

“Calm down Swan, I’m not proposing.” He realises he should have led with that before pulling out a ring. “You know I’m a survivor, and this ring is why. It belonged to my brother, a better man than I am. It’s kept me safe all these years, and now it’s going to keep you safe. At the very least it’s a reminder that you’ve got a smouldering piercing eyed pirate at home who loves you.”

She kisses him and smiles. Her smile is so bright, nobody has ever cared or loved her the way Killian does, and it’s kind of scary, but Killian hasn’t left her, he stuck by her and she’s slowly realising that being in love, especially with Killian, is nothing to be afraid of. “I love you too.”

Now when she was at work and felt her magic or became overwhelmed, she would hold the ring on the chain, and breathe. She would think of Killian and how they would be going home soon.

______

For the first couple weeks after clinging to the ring, Emma was fine. Her magic did become slightly overwhelming but she took the ring and held it for a few seconds, thought of Killain, and she was fine.

But then their story started getting poked at.

“Where did you say you came from again?” A girl at work would ask.

“Crestbourne, just north of here.” Emma says, hoping the subject will change soon.

“Crestborune? Isn’t that South?”

Emma plays dumb, “Right, I meant South. Sorry my head is spinning today, too much rum after work last night,”

Killian experienced the same thing.

“You say you were in the Royal Navy Jones?” Someone at work would ask.

“Aye, me and my brother. Under King Elijah.”

“Only because I have a friend currently in King Elijah’s army, and he hadn’t heard of a Jones in that army for over a hundred years.”

Killian didn’t know what to say, he didn’t expect to be caught out like this. So he just laughs and says, “Well I guess I didn’t make much of an impact if nobody remembers me.” It’s the best he can do.

That night at home, Emma and Killian discuss their situation.

“What do we do? Go back to Rumple? Work for him for the next 2 months?” Emma suggests, despite the fact that she doesn’t want to do this, maybe they had no choice.

“No. Absolutely not. I still don’t trust the Crocodile. If we go to him now before the Portals is ready- who knows what he’ll do with us?” Killian had every right to be afraid, especially as this Rumpelstiltskin was not the Mr. Gold they could threaten in Storybrooke.

Emma was worried, how much longer could this go on? “Then what do you plan we do?”

Killian takes Emma’s hand and pulls her in for a kiss. “We’ve come this far together. As long as we stick together, we can wager any more storms that come our way.”

Emma can’t help but smile at his sea analogies. But he was right, they had survived ten months together without any complications, they just needed to survive 2 more. As long as they were together, they could do this.

____

The next day Emma heads to work with Maeve, they both have an afternoon shift and she appreciated the company. Poor Maeve is working 3 days at the tavern and 4 days at the market. She and Cassian can barely afford clothes for their baby girl who is growing every day. Emma wishes she could tell her that it gets better, and that soon she hopefully wouldn’t have these problems. She’s pretty sure all jobs in Storybrooke pay a decent living wage.

“What’s happening up there?” Emma asks Maeve as they see a crowd start to form outside the tavern.

“I’m not sure.” Maeve looks equally as confused as they approach the growing crowd.

“WITCHES! BURN THE WITCHES!” They hear.

Oh no. No. This was not good.

This wasn’t like Storybrooke, people didn’t always accept magic here. And if they found out about Emma, who knows what they would do to her.

“I know there’s a witch here. Strange things have been happening, I know magic when I see it.” A man with a pitchfork says. Emma recognises him as a regular. A regular who likes to touch the girls that work there.

Emma’s heart is suddenly racing. Last night she made the barrels explode again. She tried to think of Killian and his ring, but she heard the name ‘Henry’ and her emotions, and therefore her magic was spiralling. The lights flickered before they cut out immediately and goblets started to shatter-despite being made of a heavy duty material.

Maeve looks at Emma, “Go. Go now before they find you.

Emma gives her a confused look, “what do you mean?”

In a quiet voice, she tells her, “I know you have magic. I see it, but you can’t control it. You would never use it to hurt anybody, but they don’t know that. Go now, escape while you still can.”

Emma gives Maeve a hug, “Thank you.”

“I know you don’t belong here. So I hope you can get back to wherever it is.” Maeve whispers.

Emma nods, Maeve was smart. “Things will get better. I promise.” Before she runs away back to their home.

Bursting through the door, she sees Killian taking a nap, he’d been working a lot more shifts lately, in his attempt to slip through the cracks.

“Killian! Wake up! Killain! We need to get out of here. They know. We need to find Rumple. I don’t care that it's only been 10 months. I need to be safe. I can’t do this anymore.” She’s rambling, Killian can’t understand what she’s saying.

“Swan calm down. What’s going on?” Killian asks, in his half sleep state.

Emma takes a deep breath and explains the Witch Hunt going on outside the tavern and how Maeve knows she has magic, and has given her a head start.

“THE WITCH LIVES HERE! I'VE SEEN IT!”

Suddenly there’s a pounding on their door. Emma and Killian look at one another. “Swan if you have a way of getting us out by magic, do it now.”

The door breaks down and there’s a crowd of angry villagers with pitchforks and spires, “There’s the witch, I’ve seen sparks and white fog coming from their house time and time again. She’s practising magic.”

“Killian I can’t control it, I don’t know how to get us out.” Emma whispers, panic setting in, her fists are glowing, letting the angry villagers know they’re right about their assumptions.

“Swan. Look at me.” Killian says, using his one hand to turn Emma’s face to his.”Your magic is inside of you. I understand you can’t control it, but I’ve seen you do it before. You can do this, I believe in you.”

Emma takes Killians hand in hers and thinks hard about what she wants. She wants to get home to their family. Killian has been by her side through it all, he’s been her rock, she thinks of his ring and how much she loves him. She feels her power, and focuses on escaping.

Her fists glow brighter, and a second later they disappear in a puff of white smoke, and appear into the great hall of Rumple's Castle.

Emma opens her eyes to see the results of her first time really using her magic.

“You did it Swan!” Killian wraps his arms around her. “You’re bloody brilliant you know that!”

Emma breathes a sigh of relief as she hugs Killian. She did it, she actually did it.

“You wield in magic. I’m impressed.” Rumples' voice tears them from each other’s thoughts about what just happened.

“The villagers found out about us lying. And we were at the centre of a witch hunt. Is there any way the portal can be ready early?” Emma is practically begging, which she never thought she would. This Rumple was far less likely to help them than Gold.

The Dark One just laughs. “Oh I haven’t been working on the portal.”

“Please tell me this is a joke.” Killian half laughs, hoping it wasn’t true.

Rumple raises his eyebrows, “I don’t joke. I’ve been working on a memory potion for myself. I already know too much about the future, can’t know anymore.”

Pressing her lips together to stop her from wringing her hands around his neck, Emma simply asks, “so how do we get home?”

“With this.” He says as a wand poofs into his hand.

“I don’t understand.”

Rumple rolls his eyes at Emma. “You have proven yourself powerful enough these past few months, you are the only one who can replicate the spell that brought you here.”

“So you’re telling me, these past 10 months have been a test? That we didn’t need to make up a fake life and live here?” Killian asks, anger building up.

Rumple laughs. “Of course it was a test! You needed to prove you were powerful enough. And like I said, there was no use for you in my Castle, I already had help.” Emma notices the Castle isn’t as clean as it was 10 months ago, assuming Belle had been captured by Regina by now.

“I’m gonna kill him when we get home.” Emma whispers to herself.

/\/\/\/\

Rumple poofs them into the basement, or the dungeon of his Castle, filled with what was most likely the most dangerous magic and weapons.

The glamour Rumple had put them on had vanished, and they were back in their other clothes, Emma’s leather jacket, her armour was back on and she felt somewhat safe. The wand felt heavy in her hand, it was powerful magic, also likely dark magic if it were able to replicate any spell or curse.

“How do I do this?” She asks Killian.

“You’re the magic one Swan not me.” His tone was cold, what was up with him?

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just eager to get home.” He says looking around at the magical objects

Emma lowers the wand and turns to face Killian. “What’s wrong with you?

Avoiding her gaze, he simply says. “Everything changes when we’re home.”

Emma furrows her brow, “What’s changing?” She grabs his hand and forces him to look at her. “Killian, what is going to change?”

“Us, Everything. Your feelings for me. It was nice while it lasted.”

“You think I’m going to leave you when we get back home?” She asks, slightly hurt that he would even think that.

“I’m a Pirate Swan. You think your family of royals and heroes are going to accept me?” Killian was afraid of going home, it wouldn’t just be him and Emma anymore.

“Killian, I love you. And that’s not going away when we get home. I don’t care what my parents think, you have stayed with me all this time. You have a mark in the hero column.” She kisses him, letting him know that while things will be different, things aren’t going to change between them.

As she kisses him, the wand In her hand begins to glow white. Holding Killians hand tight, she raises the wand in the air and thinks of home, and her family.

“You did it Swan.” Killian says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, looking at the golden shimmering portal which had opened.

“Let’s go home.” She says as she places the wand on the table and grabs Killians hand as they jump into the Portal.

/\/\/\/\

They come through the Portal with a bump. Storybrooke. They’re home.

“We did it! We’re home!” Emma can feel tears coming from her eyes, she didn’t know when she would see home again.

“You did it Swan. You’re bloody amazing.” Killain says picking her up and spinning her around, the same way as when Emma told him she loved him.

“Let’s go. Let’s go find our family.” Killian could almost cry at the way Emma said ‘our’, they may not be married anymore, but she still loved him and they were in this together. Whatever they face next, they face it together.

And so they walk hand in hand to Granny’s to find everyone.

In Storybrooke, only a matter of days had passed, thankfully they hadn’t missed almost a year. But she did miss the official name ceremony of her baby brother, Prince Leo, named after Snow's father.

“So you’re Princess Leia?” Snow asks, as they flick through Henry’s book to find Emma and Killians adventure now in it.

Henry chuckles, “Nice alias Mom!”

“I guess that means you’re finally one of us. A fairytale princess at last.” David says as he muses the picture of Emma and Hook dancing together at the ball.

“So what happened after that? You were there almost a year? What was it like? Did you slay a dragon, or get caught in the ogre war?” Henry asks, wanting to know all about her Enchanted Forest adventure.

Emma rolls her eyes, “Sorry Kid, no dragon slaying or ogres. Gold, or uh Rumple. He wanted to test us, test my magic. So we had to pretend to be a married couple living in a small village out of sight, and I had to work in a tavern for 10 months until my magic returned and I was the focus of a witch hunt.”

“Witch Hunt?”

“Married to Hook?”

Her parents clearly had different reactions to her story.

Emma just laughs, “It was a scary experience all right. But I couldn’t have gotten through it without my ‘husband’. It wasn’t so bad, but I’m so happy to be back at Granny’s, I missed her onion rings.” And she gives Hook a knowing look that causes them both to smile at the memory.

“Wait-are you two?” Henry asks realising the looks and smiles his mother was sharing with Hook.

Emma doesn’t quite know how to react, she wasn’t ashamed, but her family didn't know Killian like she did.

“I’m happy for you Emma. Really.” Snow says, holding out her hands to both Emma and Hook.

“I guess the Pirate isn’t so bad, as long as you don’t hurt her I’m happy.” David fights the urge to say something worse, but in all honesty he was happy for Emma.

“Does this mean Hook can teach me how to sword fight?” Henry asks his grandparents with a grin on his face making Emma smile.

Her family was reunited. She wasn’t alone anymore. She had a family who loved her and wouldn’t leave her. It may have taken time, and a curse, but it was worth it. Henry didn’t bring her to Storybrooke to break some curse, he was bringing her home.

[genderfluidlucifer]

Response to being asked to give  an opinion on Connie’s calout by residentevil-4

(Tw: CSAM, rape fic, incest fic, predatory behavior, racism, ableism, kink mention, nsfw mentions. Minors should probably dni.)

“Connie and I know each other irl and went to school together for 3 years, although they now live in a different state and have cut contact with me. We went to a private therapy school in Manhattan as we're both disabled and were deemed unable to attend public school. Even though we were pretty close, Connie didn't like having photos taken of them, so I don't have any selfies of the two of us; however, these are from our sophomore and senior yearbooks which at least confirms that we were in the same year at school. People who have seen Connie's selfies should be able to confirm that that is what they look like. First and foremost, Connie is not TMA. They are intersex and the two of us have discussed intersex issues both in person and online, but they are still decidedly CAFAB.” Ok so first off, I want to address this part of the callout. To be honest...was it really necessary to literally doxx Connie ehre? Because this textbook definition of doxxing. Yes Connie’s done some shitty things but I freally don’t think that what they’ve done warrants this level of doxxing. Or...even better, any doxxing. This feels like a really unnecessary breach of privacy, revealing sensitive information on Connie’s childhood that they choose to confide in you with. I really don’t agree with this aspect of the callout as it feels very invasive and bordering on stalkerish.  Btw when I say bordering on stalkerish I’m not directly calling you a stalker Bonnie. Just so we’re clear. I am not defending Connie supposedly faking being TMA. Because faking being TMA is a very serious issue. HOWEVER since I don’t know Connie irl and to be quite frank it’s none of my business what the nature of their agab is. Were not close and I’m certainly not going to like lead Connie onto thinking we’re friends just to confirm this with them because that would be creepy. So to be honest I’m going to take this part of the callout with again of salt for now.

[ID: A cropped screenshot of a numbered list Connie posted to their blog hadrosaurs in response to an ask. 

“3. I’m TMA And that’s completely irrelevant. I’m not accusing them because of their gender I didn’t even know their gender when they said that to me saying that they said that because they fucking said that and the reaction to it was incredibly alarming. Don’t fucking say that stuff to people.]

I mean I”m not a trans woman so take this with a grain of salt if you want but...I don’t see how this is really proof of Connie being deliberately transmisogynistic? Yes Connie gives iffy retellings of mistakes they’ve made in the past. I’ve seen that on their blog before and I won’t pretend it doesn’t happen. BUT here they sound genuine enough and to be honest a growing issue I’ve seen with callouts as of late is. A person confirms they in fact did not do the thing they were called out for. And then the people who make the callout choose to see it as proof of incriminating behavior anyways. To be honest it’s a big problem and it’s also incredibly unfair to the person being called out. If you’re so determined at that point to see the person as bigoted no matter what they say then of course anything they say can be seen as proof. So I’m going to have to pass on this bit of evidence. “Connie responded: “Final note: I have spoken extensively with several trans women about using TMA to describe myself. I will not be getting into discourse about that on this blog again. All that leads to is people demanding my medical records and calling me slurs. If you wanna have a thoughtful conversation about it direct message me cause it’s not happening again here.” Again this really doesn’t seem all that self incriminating. Connie mentions here that they’ve talked to rl trans woman about whether or not they can be considered TMA. Connie really doesn’t have to disclose that personal information to people for any reason. Yes even when people are e including this ask response in a callout. And considering lots of people DO get invasive about Connie’s medical history ans general personal life over matters like this? I feel their reaction is pretty understandable here. “Connie has constantly compared “exclusionists” (or anyone, really) to TERFs, even when the people in question are not transmisogynistic, trans exclusionary radfems, or are even transmisogyny affected themselves.

“ Gonna have to disagree with this part of the callout too. Lots of ace inclus blogs, even some run by trans women , have proven that the ace exclus movement was started by swerfs/terfs. But the blog that has the most evidence for this is courteousmingler on tumblr. I suggest you check out that blog’s archiving of the history of ace exclus rhetoric before rushing to call me a transmisogynist for disagreeing with this part of the callout. I looked through all of the evidence for Connie being racist and tbh as a black ndn it all feels incredibly flimsy. It’d be one thing if Connie was using their experiences to derail and invalidate the discussions about how black people are oppressed But they weren’t doing that there at all. This part of the post feels incredibly biased. And like OP is looking for things to be mad about. Going to have to pass on this list of evidence. Also uh I seem to recall that residentevil04 got called out for some questionable behavior as well. “Both me (insepsy, hi) and ezrat have had really weird spikes in activity on our Statcounters, both on the same day. (Saturday, 4/17/21) For both of us, majority of the pages looked at by these visitors have been related to or about Connie, or have been posts that Connie would find "problematic" such as the f slur untagged or something related to "panphobia"/aphobia. I’m sorry but...none of the proof of cyberstalking holds any water. Visiting someone’s blogs and rbing posts to disagree with them is not cyberstalking. Keeping tabs on urls that an abusive person who has harassed are using so you can block them (in this case with kyoshi) and warn your mutuals is not stalking. As a victim of rl stalking it’s...really weird to call this legit stalking at all. Much less claim that you have damning proof of it being stalking when no such evidence exists in the callout. Besides after Connie and nonbinarydave called out one of kyoshi’s buddies for sending a death threat hate anon to nonbinarydave’s toddler st4lker partly admitted to doing it a few times. Then other mutuals in kyoshi’s toxic social circle clearly began joining in. Making side accounts where they tried to spin a false narrative of nonbinarydave’s daughter being one of their alters (ableist as hell.) And also trying to do it in such a way that they thought would trigger nonibnarydave’s psychosis (also ableist as hell.) If you’re going to drag Connie for their mistakes and never let them move on from those mistakes then it’s only fair to do that to people you agree with who also do toxic/bigoted things. ALso the fact that your wording here suggests that you think panphobia and aphobia aren’t real makes me doubt this claim even more. Exclus and their allies are notorious for mislabeling inclus disagreeing with them as stalking. “connie said that they would release that info at a later time and the minor began to argue with them that they had a responsibility regardless of their complicated relationship with age. in this argument connie for a time kept their age ambiguous and at one point told the minor (who confirmed in a later ask that they were severely traumatized by adults) that they obviously weren’t traumatized. connie quickly deleted this ask and any mentions of it and the next post they reblogged was about how wrong it was to try and quantify or discount others’ trauma. on my old blog i @ed them in the replies and asked if they had just done that. connie admitted to it and said it was fucked up but quickly blocked + deleted my comment. i can’t remember whether or not connie apologized to the minor, they may have? but yeah. i thought that was pretty weird.”] I do agree with some of the concern here that adults shouldn’t over expose minors in discourse. I’ve been contemplating this for awhile myself. And trying to figure out how to take better steps to avoid including minors who are triggered by discourse in discourse, especially. HOWEVER I have one little issue with this addition to the callout. If that is the case then exclus and their allies need to practice this as well. You cannot ignore the fact that the reason a lot of minors are getting involved in exclus discourse is due to adult exclus and their allies forcing minors to pick a side in the discourse. Y’all are not at all exempt from this problem. I still remember an ex mutual of mine trying to convince a minor to agree that aces can’t face corrective rape. And based on how aggressive it got with me when I tried to avoid giving an opinion on the matter, I can’t imagine that it would’ve reacted better to the minor refusing to give an opinion or to the minor outright disagreed. Refusing to put these standards on exclus and their allies is both hypocritical and quite frankly very transparent. The claims about them glorifying dark topics on AO3 through their fics also seems unfortunately legit. I mean those asks of shaming people who ask their viewers to not romanticize or glorify abusive relationships in their works is very damning. I’m very disappointed to see that Connie has taken being an inclus to the point of validating antis anti culture wholeheartedly. I can’t think of much more to add to my opinion on that part of the callout. As for the issue of Connie interacting with pro shippers in the past, I do know that this claim is legit. I’ve seen it before and so has Breeze. This was why for a brief time we decided to stop following their blogs. Because it was triggering to have pro shippers put on our dash. And sometimes we just don’t feel it’s worth it to always let people we’re platforming know they’re rbing triggering stuff. So sometimes we just quietly unfollow and choose to not interact until we’re sure they’re filtering what they do and don’t rb in some way. I definitely don’t agree with that behavior. And if they’re still doing that I”ll deplatform again. “The anon asks: “A weird question but do you know any other stimboard blogs with your follow criteria? (No radfems, racists, fandom antis, etc.) I was hoping to find more through your “similar blogs” but a lot have no anti-antis for their DNI or allow truscum/transmeds and exclus. :(“

The user responds: “I know of @turtle-pond-stims, @outofangband, and @kinaesthetics! 🍂🍄" “[ID: A cropped screenshot of an ask sent by Connie from their now-deactivated blog, butch-with-a-tortoise.

Connie says: “hey anon I have safe stim blogs. dm me if you want them. And radfems/bigots aren’t allowed to interact. For my own safety (because the community is honestly terrifying) I can’t publicly say on my blogs that I’m safe for proshippers/kinky people but I try to spread word how I can.”] [ID: Screenshot of a post by evilwriter37, which reads, “I’ve been seeing posts about fandom police leaving ao3, and it’s like: Good. We don’t want you here anyway. Go find your own fanfiction site.”

The post is tagged “#Fandom #AO3 #Antis #Purity Culture” and has 87 notes. It was posted on December 21st, 2020.

There is a reply from main-to-outofangband-andothers saying: “there are Silm antis on that site who are against Russigon (Maedhros and Fingon) not because they’re cousins but because they’re both male (coded)”] [ID: A screenshot of an anonymous (though signed off as being from outofangband) ask sent to evilwriter37, which says, “Melkor and Viggo solidarity is ‘Look there’s nothing wrong with keeping my enemy chained up in my personal chambers at all times so please just focus on the war efforts and I’ll focus on the boy* in my chambers’ -@outofbangand.

*boy used figuratively @ antis”

The user responds: “Pfft!!! Hahaha! You’re absolutely right! (And Viggo does refer to Hiccup in canon as ‘my boy’).”] I can’t really say anything to refute this. Because these are all posts of Connie outright stating that they disagree with antis. And not only sympathize with anti antis but are fully against antis. Looks like very damning evidence. Although ngl I’m not entirely against kinky blogs as a whole? Just so long as they truly stay in their lane with their kink content. And don’t force it on others in any way. Or shame people who are triggered by their kinks. It is true that being entirely against kinky blogs no matter what is dipping your toes into swerf rhetoric. Tbh I’m not going to look at the rest. This is pretty much all I need to make a decision on whether or not I”ll continue platforming Connie. Though I will try to get some more  perspective from people who I interact with as well. Because I feel better about making a more definitive decision after doing that. Also in general please don’t not try to get an opinion from me on how I feel about syscourse. A lot of the claims about Connie’s age weirdness and them using their alters as a shield feel like syscourse to me. Especially if this callout was written by one or several singlets. Singlets should never be trying to judge how legit someone’s system is ever. Even if their system friends encourage them to. You can call out a horrible person with a system without trying to insinuate that they’re lying about their alters in some way. Doing otherwise is ableist ESPECIALLY if you’re a singlet. Also in general the reason I stay out of discussions of judging how someone is handling their systems is because it’s syscourse and syscourse is triggering for my system and I. If this post was an attempt to get me to give an opinion  on the validity of Connie’s system I don’t appreciate it. And I would appreciate not being dragged into such matters again, thank you.

In general there’s like a few parts of this callout that feel legit. Which is unfortunately cluttered with obvious bias and obsessive hatred of Connie. I’m not here to stan or coddle Connie. I know they are not a perfect person. Especially since no human being in the world is perfect. But I feel the way this callout was created was very sloppy since a lot of the evidence was messy at best. And some points were very hypocritical as well as there being some no true scotsman moments from OP. In acting like exclus never do any of the thing that they tried to call out Connie for. Which is behavior that I am not a fan of. This is why people need to be more careful about callouts and like make roughdrafts and have a more unbiased person helping them if they don’t feel they can do it on their own. I’m even trying to make a resolve to do better at that myself. So it’s not like I’m unwilling to put my money where my mouth is. Anyways those are all my thoughts on this messy callout. And tbh I’m not going to get too much more heavily involved in this. Because I need to focus on more immediately serious rl stuff more often, like doing what I can to get out of the hellish landscape of a house I currently am stuck in.

[missn11]

So I’m going to be a killjoy and talk negatively about Himbos for a bit or rather how fandom and people tend to view them, cause the last I saw about Himbos and some of the comments actually made me feel a some type of way.

I’m very sorry if I come off as shamey towards people who love Himbos and/or have characters they would call Himbos, I’m merely having a rant about how over used the term can be used at times.

Namely, in one person’s words, “and he never changes” and this creeped me out and I wanna talk about why that is.

So from what I understand what a Himbo is a kind hearted, attractive man of low intellligence, a contrast to the assholish, smug, pseudo-intellegent man who thinks they know everything and won’t admit they are wrong no matter what.

So easy enough right, but in reality not all people who are shall we say ‘dumb’ are kind, a lot of them are actually hurtful in their willful or unkowably ignorance and some of them are really nasty. In short while there are so many ‘smart’ people who are assholes so are there many asshole dumb people, God you can just go on a Reddit threat like AITA to find them!

But also, another thing we have to take into account, not all male characters who are labled as ‘Himbos’ are dumb, some have tunnel vision when it comes to their goals, and that makes them not always think things through, others are uneducated or culturally ignorant of a country’s social cues (and perhaps the only reason they sound ‘dumb’ to you is that they might not have for example a grasp of english, isn’t that kind of fucked up to call someone ‘dumb’ because they are still learning a second language and a whole another culture???) and also we have to acknowledge that some of them might be non-neurotypical too, so that makes me really uncomfortable to say the least to have them be called ‘dumb’ when they are merely different from the norm.

Also, why can’t a character be smart and emotionally intellegent as well? That’s kind screwed up to me that we have this binary where someone who is intellegent can’t be kindhearted but a person who isn’t intellectual but is able to have a heart of gold. Of course, it’s better to have more people who are compassionate and emotionally intellegent and honestly we need more of that frankly, but why at the cost of their intellegence? A truly smart person will admit when they don’t know something and be willing to learn or ask for help. But of course, a Himbo will actually realise that they need help and will ask without assuming that a woman doesn’t know anything and will actually respect her knowledge and I think that’s a good Himbo trait.

But let me get back to what I was creeped out about this comment “and he never changes” , I find it kind of gross that no-one, anyone no matter the gender, would want their partener/friend to even have the chance to grow as a person, honestly if you heard a man say that about his ignorant girlfriend, you would rightfully call him out on his sexism and creepy behavior! Trust me it’s an ideal that is worrisome and impossible, as no matter what a person will change throughout their lifetime for better or worse. And would you want someone to never grow and be stagnant, they can still be a kind person but perhaps wiser.

And let’s not forget another thing, someone that helpless in life that you need to constantly teach them everything, will get mentally tiring after a while. Provided that the person is acutally able to remember or willing to remember what you have taught them, cause if they can’t, they have memory problems which that need to be looked into, faking being ‘dumb’ or etc, etc, either way it’ll be exhausting to deal with daily!

Also, I’ve seen enough stupidity in my time to put me off the idea that it’s ever cute to deal with frankly, like I’ve said not all ‘dumb’ people are emotiaonally intellegent, a lot of them aren’t! And also, how emotianoally and intellectually stimulating are they in a relationship, again depending on the person the answer might be yes or no.

So, I had mentioned some men pretending to be ‘dumb’ so their so usually their wife will have to do everything, cooking, chores and looking after babies/children. Remember about that post about the man who pretended that he didn’t know how to make deviled eggs so his wife had to cook them rather than simply telling her he liked it when she made them?

You could say the post about the man who worked hard to make his wife the perfect breaded chicken cutlets is a Himbo, though we don’t know how intellegent he is, he could be real smart, but what we do know is that he cares about his wife and has the emotional intellegence to show it!

I think the thing is that we want more men/people to be respectful and emotionally intellegent towards woman’s/other people’s and you know what that’s beyond vaild but does it have to come at the cost of a person’s knowledge?

And labeling a character a Himbo is ignoring all of their characteristics and depth, therefore shutting down any meta discussion around in favor of a easy box we can place them in.

[epicstuckyficrecs]

2019 New Writers Fic Rec

After seeing some Discourse on Twitter, I decided to make a fic rec with some of my favorite new writers! All of these writers only started posting Stucky fanfic in 2018 or 2019. So here are some “new” writers and some of my favorite fics from them! (in no particular order)

PS: sorry for not putting the trope, word count and rating as I usually do, I wanted to try and make this fic rec quickly! 

PS2: also sorry if I chopped all your summaries, but some of them are hella long and this post is already... pretty long.

PS3: this went way past “favorite new writers” and just became “great new writers” because I wanted to prove a point, oops. 

verzacefatale 

You be yours and I'll be mine : “Oh, god. We got married, didn’t we?” 

14-Inch Cock and a Few Hundred Bimbos : There are some things in life, Steve muses as he stares down at his crotch, that nothing can prepare you for. His dick suddenly growing six inches in length and another two in girth, just because he opened a box in a Hydra dug out that maybe he should have read the instructions on before he did? How was he to know it was literally magic that would make his cock grow huge?

~

2bestfriends 

Collar Full of Chemistry : AKA a fantasy BDSM romance featuring heavy mutual pining, feelings denial, and enough kink to blackout a bingo card. 

Like Real People Do : AKA the "Lumberjack Steve/Twink Bucky" fic of our hearts.

~

deadonarrival

100,000 Miles And Feeling Very Still : Steve Rogers took a job at NASA and his life is pretty okay. Maybe not great but he has some good friends and things seem to be mostly stable. Except one day their new astronaut recruit walks in and everything in Steve's life goes upside down.

Latte Art and Slow Dancing in the Dark (WIP): Bucky is a somewhat well-adjusted former army sniper that got his shoulder blown out. He took his discharge and went home to finish school and is working on his international relations masters. His best friends and roommates (Nat & Clint) are CIA agents and tip him off that their local Sbux is hiring. He gets a job there and meets none other than the hottest guy on earth.

~

voxofthevoid

(series) couldn't get the boy to kill me (ongoing): Captain America and the Winter Soldier are a terrifying duo on the field, working together with a well-oiled precision that tears through their enemies. Captain Rogers and Agent Barnes are distant coworkers, all polite nods and mission briefings. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are fire and gasoline; the sparks between them have no choice but to roar into raging infernos.

happily ever after has bite marks in it : In which Bucky is aggressively okay with his self-imposed exile from society, and Steve is a werewolf who’s nothing like the Brooklyn boy Bucky still dreams of.

darling heart, i loved you from the start (but that's no excuse for the state i'm in) : Or, the one where Steve saves the mind stone for last and decides to fuck the timeline beyond all recognition, which regrettably involves crawling delicately up Hydra's asshole and less regrettably involves showering a very confused Bucky Barnes with affection.

(series): i'm guilty of treason (i've abandoned control) : S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Bucky Barnes is captured on a mission and meets Commander Steve Rogers, the erstwhile Captain America.It escalates quickly.

four dreams in a row where you were burned : When Steve uses the last of his Pym Particles to travel to 1944 and save his best friend, he doesn’t have a plan beyond leaving behind the battlefield and living his life alongside the people he loves. But the life that finds him is not the one he expects.

~

deisderium

much tattoo about nothing : Steve Rogers gets a lot of email requests, but never one like this: James Barnes wants to use his healing factor to practice tattoos.

(series) tits out, lads : On the walk back from Azzano, Bucky keeps touching Steve's chest. Then he touches it some more. And more.

Let Them Eat Cake : Bucky wanted to know why their new pastry chef had gun calluses on his right hand.

deep dive : In which single dad Bucky Barnes has a crush on his daughter's dive team coach and thirsts awkwardly. 

thot through the heart (and you're to blame) : In which Bucky is a baby vampire, a disaster, out to have a good time, and hopelessly in love with his roomate; and in which Steve has a few secrets of his own.

Political Animals (WIP) : or—Steve’s best friend is the U.S. Constitution and he can’t seem to stop fucking a hot Republican. They shouldn’t fall in love, but somehow they do.

~

thedoubteriswise

time on my hands (could be time spent with you) : "You doing okay, kid?” Steve releases a breath, deciding how honest he wants to be. No point in lying. No point in telling the truth, either. "Glad to see you.""That’s not what I asked, but same to you, punk."

honey don't feed it, it will come back : He’s stroking the cat’s fur, which is soft and fine now that it’s clean. He looks so open and inviting. Steve doesn’t close his eyes, watching Bucky’s gentle fingers and trying to come up with a plausible excuse to go touch him.

Ill With Want : Bucky pretends to be asleep when Steve crawls into bed, too tired to feel guilty over the quivery pleasure that settles in his belly when Steve’s arm brushes his. He drifts to sleep in a comfortable haze and tries not to wonder where this feeling was two hours ago when he had Marie in his lap.

~

steebadore

Controlled Release : Bucky's just having a little trouble...finishing. Completing the mission. He can squeeze the trigger but he can't make the shot is what he's saying. Which is why he's here, loitering outside a nice brownstone in Park Slope, trying to find the courage to knock on Captain Come Control dot com's door for his three o'clock appointment.

it takes a lot to know a man : Bucky flips to the next page, and the world around him grinds to a halt as his brain struggles to process what he's seeing. The noise of the train fades and static fills the inside of his head as he looks down at the sketches of the metal-armed guy without the mask. It's—that's him. It's Bucky's own goddamn face staring back at him from this stranger's sketchbook.

~

AidaRonan

Quench : Or the one where archeology intern Bucky Barnes meets actual archeologist Steve Rogers and reaches levels of thirst scientists once believed to be theoretically impossible.

Carnal Synchronicity : AKA A Tale of Two Stevies

Fraternizing With the Enemy : Steve and Bucky are both the presidents of their respective fraternities. Steve thinks Bucky's frat is filled with selfish party animals who care about little else. Bucky thinks Steve is a giant pretentious douchebag who owns too many Lacoste polos. They hate each other. Passionately.

~

lockedlocke

I just need you to show me : A quick google search tells him that the app he needs to get for something quick and easy, with no strings attached is Grindr. He downloads the app while he watches a bit of a Simpsons episode. It doesn’t take long, and when the app is downloaded, he looks at black icon with the yellow mask.

Pride : So here he was, at Pride despite the fact that he’d rather be at home. It’s hot, boiling and his feet hurt a bit from standing all day. Converse might be nice shoes, but Jesus they were terrible for his knees.

~

mcwho

it never hurt nobody : “I thought we agreed that that was creepy.” “No,” Bucky says slowly. “I asked you what you thought about people calling their boyfriends daddy, and you said you thought it was creepy, and then I asked you what the hell you’d done with my grey sweater after you did laundry, and we never talked about it again.”

(series) the serum amplifies : Little PWPs about Steve and Bucky’s sex life and the serums effect on it.

~

missandrogyny

don't know where i'm going (but i'll get back to you and me) : AU where Bucky is an assassin who just can’t seem to kill Steve

~

LeeHan

The Right Partner : Steve meets a beautiful man with a bright laugh on a sunny day in Italy. Captain America meets the elusive Winter Soldier moments later.

The Best Way to Wake : James Buchanan Barnes lay in a glass pod in the middle of the table, frozen since he fell. Steve’s hands were on the glass before he realized he’d moved. “Get him out,” Steve whispered, his hands searching for a clasp, a keypad, something.

~

amethystkrystal

Taking This One Step At A Time : In the weeks that follow, Bucky's omega urges start going haywire, and he realizes that night with Steve may have left him with more than just a fond memory.

Realignment : After assembling their own Infinity Gauntlet, the Avengers defeated Thanos and brought back everyone who disappeared. But their victory came at a great cost: in order to take the Soul Stone, Steve had to sacrifice the Captain America mantle and all the super-soldier strength that came with it.

~

cydonic

Home Is Wherever I'm With You : This is what happens when you buy a house to flip having only seen the online images: you get more than you bargained for. Bucky Barnes brings all the tools to handle a dilapidated home, but he's hardly prepared for a smart-mouthed child (with poor aim), a crying baby, and the hottest dad he's ever seen in his life living right next door.

~

deadto27

The Sweetest Spark : Steve Rogers runs a successful business. He has great friends and a great life. It seems like he has it all. So why is he sitting in a diner on a Friday night alone? Maybe he's just a little lonely. Maybe Bucky Barnes can help with that.

Maybe This Christmas : Bucky’s not going home for Christmas. But it’s fine. He’s spending Christmas alone in his apartment, but it’s cool. He’s not feeling up to seeing his family after his accident anyway, plus he has to work. He’s totally fine with it. But then he runs into Steve, literally, and suddenly his Christmas isn’t looking so empty after all.

~

NachoDiablo

Reconcilable Differences : AKA, "What To Do When Your Zany Fake-Relationship Scheme Actually Works."

~

odetteandodile

If Only In My Dreams : Bucky is a highly successful cooking and lifestyle blogger. He writes all about life in his Connecticut home with his D.H. (darling husband). Only problem? It’s all complete fiction.

So I Took a Faithful Leap : Bucky doesn’t fall and Steve doesn’t crash. The Howling Commados take out the remaining Hydra bases…and then they go home, just like all the other allied soldiers. Steve buys a farm in Washington state, and tries to relearn how to be at peace.

Art Thief, Heart Thief : Agent Steve Rogers is facing a series of art thefts that has him stumped, and looking for a break in the case. Convicted art thief and general high end criminal Bucky Barnes wants to make parole and happens to know all of the right people who could make Steve's job easier.

Under the Hawthorn Tree : A young man wanders into the woods one night, and wanders until he isn't a young man anymore—but something else. Seventy years later, another man follows him. Inside of a magic ring, they meet.

~

canistakahari

don't threaten me with a good time : Steve's taken him on vacation to a cabin in Canada in the middle of winter, so it's obviously the perfect time for his body to go haywire. Bucky is determined to stick it out, though, partly because he's a stubborn bastard, but mostly because he feels some kinda way about Steve.

Heckin' Chunker for Love : On the inside of the big floor to ceiling window of the office across the street, someone has used Post-it Notes to spell out a message: W H A T I S Y O U R C A T ’ S N A M E ?

(TBR) All of Your Love is Sunlight : Sometimes the path to happiness involves bad timing turned good, a butt plant, and a little everyday magic. For Steve and Bucky, it's all that and more.

~

birdjay

(TBR) STAR PLAN : He’s the most gorgeous thing Bucky’s ever laid eyes on.He’s his new tentative boss. Maybe. If this interview goes well enough, anyway. “So, Mr. Barnes?” Steve asks, blinking at him from across a particle board table. “You ever work security before?”

stay : The platform buzzes, and suddenly goes quiet. The cycle has finished. Bucky doesn’t bother to look. There’s no way Steve’s coming back when he has the chance to stay. He moves to walk away, to move on with his life, somehow. “Buck -- ?”

(TBR) The Conservation of a 17th Century Painting : Steve can’t even remember the last time he’s spoken to someone actually interested in art, who coincidentally is also someone he’d like to bang. Actually, no. He’s never had that happen.

~

dragongirlG

Searching Every Lonely Place : After the Battle of New York in 2012, Steve searches for Bucky with the help of the Avengers as he bumbles through a series of comedic misunderstandings with undercover HYDRA agents.

Reclamation : The Winter Soldier’s mask never falls off when he fights Captain America on the overpass and the helicarrier. That doesn’t stop the Soldier from recognizing Captain America and wondering why the man’s face is haunting his scattered memories.

~

megs_bee

Nothing Good Ever Happens On A Tuesday : Recently discharged soldier James Barnes is back in Brooklyn, down an arm and missing five years of memories, but he’s got his PTSD mostly under control, a fancy metal prosthetic, and what’s starting to feel like it could be a half-decent life. What he doesn’t have is any memory of the kid looking at James and asking him, “Are you my daddy?” -- or the gorgeous blond guy standing next to her.

A Ghost Before You Were a Ghost Story : “I’m sorry to wake you, Sir, but there appears to be an intruder on the roof. ”Tony finds the camera showing a figure standing alone on the roof, black tactical gear blending into the black night sky. Barely a shadow among shadows, save for the glint of silver along the figure’s left side. The Winter Soldier.

~

VenusMonstrosa

Extant : After a sudden and violent storm forces the crew of Insight III to perform an emergency evacuation, astronaut James Barnes was believed to have died and was left behind on Mars. Two years later, Commander Steve Rogers still refuses to let go. Fortunately, so does Bucky.

Through The Woods : There’s a legend in Mansewood, nearly as old as the town itself, about a pack of werewolves that once lived in the forest. They say only one survives; a monstrous and snarling beast with fur like a blizzard and fangs the size of daggers. Steve doesn’t care about any of that. He only wants to know if it prefers T-Bone or ribeye, and would it please stop tracking dirt through his house? He just mopped the floor.

~

BlueSimplicity

(series) You Are Responsible For What You Tame : After the events in DC and on the helicarriers, and the realization that his friend Bucky Barnes is still alive, Captain Steve Rogers swears that he will do anything he can to find him. It is easier said than done, as Steve searches desperately for any hint or clue that will lead him to his friend. Steve searches, but Bucky does not want to be found. And so begins their game of cat and mouse, as Steve does everything in his power to convince Bucky to come home.

~

GoldBlooded

A Midsummer Knight's Dream : Sir Steven, knight, alpha, and baron of a small countryside estate, receives an invitation to a Royal Tournament: It’s a winner-take-all competition, and the prize? The hand of Prince James, the kingdom’s most eligible omega, in marriage.

Feast On This : Steve, Sarah, and Bucky are headed down to Florida to visit the Barnes family for Thanksgiving. Bucky's tired of the interrogation about his love life from his Ma, and Sarah suggests the simplest solution would be for he and Steve to fake it for a few days. How hard can it be, right? After all, they've shared a bed before. After all, it's only pretend... Right?

Luck of the Irish Stroll : Every year Steve and Sam go on the Irish Stroll Bar Crawl, and ever since their first time on the Stroll four years ago, Steve and Sam cross paths with Bucky and Natasha. Every year Steve’s world is rocked by the gorgeous, blue-eyed man that has captivated him since they first locked eyes fighting over a couple of pints of Guinness from the bartender. But Steve's starting to want and need more of Bucky... will this be the year he can make it last for more than one night?

~

girlbookwrm

(TBR) (series) The Hundred Year Playlist : Steve and Bucky, start to finish. "Come on, pal, it's me. Take another hundred years if you want, I'll still be here."

sidereal : Captain Rogers never did a self-portrait; we can only speculate who his soulmate — or soulmates — might have been.

~

ClaraxBarton

Holding On : “Your poll numbers are way down, and we need to get them back up.”

~

stfustucky

Salt & Sugar (collab with GoldBlooded) : Steve Rogers is a bigshot celebrity chef in New York City, and Bucky Barnes is a classically trained pastry chef in Moscow. When billionaire and mutual friend Natasha Romanoff calls on them to collaborate for her Memorial Day Benefit Gala, they both brace themselves to spend the week working with some jerk they're bound to hate. 

Honestly, Fuck Brooklyn : Or, the one where it takes yet another apocalypse for the somewhat oblivious Bucky Barnes to figure out that his dorky artist boyfriend Steve is actually Captain Goddamned America.

~

writeonclara

How to Woo the Winter Soldier : Or: Steve courts the Winter Soldier.

[onisiondrama]

PART 8 - video #14 & #15

(Click here for video mirrors)

[I just want to note: these are not my thoughts or words. I’m only summarizing what Greg / James is saying in his videos for people that don’t want to listen to him. I had a couple messages in my inbox from people who (I think) misunderstood what I’ve been posting, so I wanted to clarify I’m not defending Greg lol.]

the did nots

- Greg says someone named Kelly wrote him. He asked her to watch one of the many videos about him and tell him what the accusations were because he wants to address them because it’s easy and fun for him. - 4:25 His ex claimed she had a seizure and he was the cause of it. - He asks how could he be the cause of a seizure? Unless he hit someone over the head with a rock. Despite what people say about his brow, he’s not a caveman. - He didn’t call an ambulance and he recorded it for a Youtube video. - Greg says she faked the seizure. She had done it twice before. One of those times when he went to call an ambulance she popped up and snapped out of the seizure. If you met someone like that you’d understand, but it takes life experience to understand who they are. - 6:00 Claimed he groomed an underage person. - Says grooming isn’t calling someone a c-u-n-t. That’s like brushing your hair with razor blades and lemon juice. - 7:38 Greg targets vulnerable people. - Says it doesn’t make any sense. Are all these people damsels in distress? Are they incapable of defending themselves? Sarah was arrested for beating the crap out of a grown man. Not vulnerable, actually scary. So scary he spend the night in the garage because he was afraid she’d murder him. She had a full gremlin face. People like talking without knowing and call themselves reporters. - 8:31 Kai send and received explicit photos. - Says we no, Kai hates p-o-r-n. People make these claims with no evidence. You don’t have to give $20,000 to some a-hole, you just need legitimate concrete evidence. No one does that because no one has it. He’s seen people threaten to fake evidence. He’s seen screen shots of people who want to create fake evidence with deep fakes. If you wanted something done you should have talked to a lawyer and handled it privately, now the case is manipulated and contaminated. The livestreams contaminated everything. It’s a circus. - 8:00 Two people argued over who will take someone’s virginity. - He says “retarded” isn’t a good enough word for that. No one would argue about taking someone’s virginity unless you’re talking past tense. He says that’s totally different. They didn’t take her virginity. Kai did nothing and just layed there. [He talks about the crime against Sarah again.] People shouldn’t say Kai likes CP. That’s crazy, kids are disgusting. Nothing is attractive about them. Snot, my little pony obsession, backpacks, they don’t understand anything in the world. - 9:07 Claimed he instigated and had a threesome with someone then kicked her out shortly after she turned 18. - He says no. He says one person was receiving oral and he made love to the 18 year old but they weren’t kicked out shortly after. They were kicked out when they said he needs to impregnate them when they were “mano y mano” with each other in hopes the three of them would come together and be poly. He realized she didn’t care about the other person. - Greg abused his ex. - He asks if it’s the one that cheated on him and got pregnant with someone else’s baby? One time he called the cops on her because she threatened to kill herself and make it look like he did it. That person? Asks why no one considers the abuse toward him. Threatening to make it look like he murdered her is a crime. If he sold prescription pills, he’d be in jail. Sarah sold pills and she told him her mom tried to set her up to marry a guy for a green card and he’d pay her. Those are crimes. He thinks Sarah’s mom is innocent because after everything Sarah said about them they can’t believe anything. It’s loco Sarah shit. She admitted to doing cocaine too. - He dated Shiloh when she was underage. - He says you finally got something- [he cuts off and nods his head]. She was 17. They were both in areas it was legal and he was 24. The police looked into their relationship and checked stuff and they were good to go. Someone tried to get him in trouble, but he knew the law. When you love someone you don’t worry about taboo. - 11:08 Greg had an affair with her while he was still with Skye. - He says if his pp is 3,000 miles long maybe. He didn’t meet her until he filed for divorce. He says this person is an idiot and is spreading slanderous statements. How can you cheat with someone who is on the other side of the country? He laughs and says Skye’s last name isn’t Tantaga, that’s her username. He got a plane ticket when he was already filed for divorce. - 11:55 Shiloh may have been 16 when they first met. - He says he didn’t even talk to her until November 2010. He says look up her birthday she was 17 1/2. “Fucking facts yo.” Why don’t people care about the truth? -14:24 Greg made videos about ex girlfriends that were filled with lies. - He sarcastically says, “very specific, very proof.” No logic, just say “they lie.” - 22:17 Greg had photos from 12-17 in various states of undress on a forum. - Greg says you could just prove that if it’s true. Everyone forgets that website was 18+ and was heavily moderated. “Fucking idiot.” - 23:50 Greg removed forums because they were being investigated. - He asks what forums? He didn’t have forums and he doesn’t care about Hansen. He’s the one that called the cops on Hansen. The cops weren’t there for Chris Hansen, they told Greg to file an anti-harassment protection order against him. There’s nothing to fear. Chris Hansen is an old man and his last job contract wasn’t renewed because someone sued for $100 million and won. The only things to be afraid of are his douchiness and his creepiness. “Fuckin’ boomer.” - 26:10 Youtuber admits he gets more views when he talks about Onision. - Greg says finally something truthful. When this guy talk about anything that doesn’t have to do with Greg it’s like [thumbs down and laughs]. Greg tells them you know what you do and you don’t actually care. - Greg silences ex girlfriends by threatening to sue. - Greg asks when did this happen? He doesn’t remember that. If he did that it didn’t work. The girls are re-tweeting people threatening to burn his house to the ground. Sarah tweeted she wants to psychically attack him. He says she is going to be no one’s victim because she’s a fighter and he’s scared of her.  - Greg has 7-8 other victims, possibly more. - Greg says that’s a tough sell because these people aren’t his victims, they’re just people he dumped. He says it’s like high school when people break up and they start rumors about each other. Youtube is high school 2.0. - 29:00 Kai is a victim and was underage when the relationship started. - Greg says Kai was 17 1/2, but told Greg he was about to turn 18. When Kai revealed the truth Greg already fell for him. He doesn’t agree with the victim part because they’re still married. This Youtuber should let kai speak for himself and not speak for people and pretend to be their hero. “Douchebag” - 29:10 Greg violated the mann act, accuses him of human trafficking. - Greg says if that happened, then prove it. When and how did he violate the mann act? - 30:15 He forced someone into signing an NDA and forced her to remain silent after they kicked her out. - Greg says Sarah said she wouldn’t sign the NDA unless she gets what she wants, which was sex. Later on she apologized for r-a-p-i-n-g them. He doesn’t know if she denied it yet, but she probably will. What she did was extortion and was a crime. Says this guy should make a hate video about Sarah now if he really gave a shit. - Greg took advantage of Kai because he was a fan, but that’s subjective. - Greg says stop speaking for Kai. Nobody asked Kai. - Greg groomed Kai. - Greg gives the same response. He says Sarah said she wasn’t groomed. She said “if anything I groomed you” and they thought it was funny until it was real. - Kai had a tinder. - Greg says that was for a video. It was a joke. He calls the Youtuber a joke.  - Says he might respond to more because he doesn’t gibe a fuck anymore. He tells people to join OnisionFans.com to DM him questions.

oh my

- He apologizes from the heater noise. He says certain people get mad at him when he turns it off for videos because it makes the house cold. - He’s not sure if he’s being left now for speaking out. He doesn’t know what Kai is going to do now that he’s speaking out. - He wants to talk about the “investigation” (air quotes). He says he doesn’t take it seriously because he knows what actually happened. [Sarah NDA story for the 100th time] If an officer investigated the situation, he would arrest Sarah instead of Greg. Greg also has a witness who was also heavily pressured. You never heard this story from Sarah because she’s a fraud, a liar, she has BPD, she has a number of mental problems. Sarah wouldn’t say anything that would get her in trouble, but Greg said things that might get him into trouble about pressuring Kai. He did that because he felt bad for Sarah, but he should have had no sympathy for her like her mother. Her mother saw her for who she really was, one of the most toxic people he’s ever met. [Locked himself in the garage story.] When Sarah’s mad at you her eyes go from brown to black. - He says a lot of people will agree with him because it’s common sense. About Hansen and his crew, you don’t talk about a open investigations. You don’t try to monetize people’s pain when you’re trying to pursue them legally. You’re supposed to catch them by surprise.  - He says when Chris had a show about people who went after 12 year olds, Chris didn’t warn them and tell them he was looking into them. He didn’t make a 9 month series about how terrible they are, then tell them he’ll go to their house to get them. He says it doesn’t make any sense. - Chris is getting donations and ad revenue. These girls feel sorry for themselves because they were dumped. Now they’re vengeful and malicious and they want to get back at him because they probably still want to be with him. If he never dumped them, would they still be together? They never dumped him except when Shiloh dumped him for h-e-n-t-a-i. He thinks they would still be together. Why are they only mad at him after he rejects them? - Hansen is paid to say there is a crime here. Greg saw Hansen allegedly stated he didn’t care about any of them and just wanted money, but he doesn’t believe that. He also saw Hansen hired someone named Anonymous Gene to dox Greg and his whole family. Greg says that doesn’t make sense to dox his whole family. It takes an evil person to do that.  - When you have an investigation, you are supposed to stay silent then you catch them by surprise, take their stuff, and try to find something that would prove they’re guilty so they don’t have time to hide anything. - He has never spoken to Regina before as far as he knows. He thinks Regina is ugly. When Regina started talking to Kai when Kai was 17 so anything Regina has to say in nonsensical because of their ages. Kai denied anything was exchanged and isn’t interested in p-o-r-n. Kai is a beta male cuck, nervous, scared, anxiety disorder person, which is why he didn’t want Greg to talk about anything. Regina is a scumbag, horrible human. Regina is now working for Hansen and that’s a conflict of interest. You can’t have a witness work with someone who is making money going after someone. That’s absolute corruption. - Now people are saying they have evidence on him, they have a laptop. Spoiler alert, if you have evidence you tell someone they have it so they can get a warrant. It’s ridiculous because he has nothing of interest, but if he did the audience would have tipped him off forever ago. This was all handled horribly. He saw the other day he saw a public figure say”I hope we get this guy” with no evidence that Greg is guilty. You can’t do that, that’s slander. - The person who had the laptop before Sarah was a woman and she would have never looked at CP. It went from a woman, to another woman who apparently held onto CP for years, said she brought it to the police who did nothing, got it back, sent it to Vince, Vince sent it back. Vince got fired and changed Chris Hansen’s site to his mugshot. Greg says he was told Chris Hansen’s site now redirects to OnisionFans.com. He thinks that’s weird and funny. - Sarah started off by saying she was not groomed and only had her feelings hurt. Then people started working her up and her story progressively became something else. - This is the sloppiest investigation he’s seen in his life. He can’t believe the lack in professionalism. This isn’t a reality show, it’s real life. Greg is worried for Hansen because he put his whole career on this [he lists Hansen’s financial troubles] and if he doesn’t find something legit he’s screwed.  - [Sarah laying in his lap story.] Greg thanks Sarah for describing his junk as “perfect.” “It’s just so perfect.” [Sarah being loud story again.] He says she complained he didn’t use the wand on her after he broke up with her. [He shrugs.] Says he meant to but didn’t get around to it. - So your investigation is a guy who had sex with an 18 1/2 year old? This person sexually extorted and blackmailed them. You should investigate her. [He lists supposed crimes she committed.] Greg said she had no idea these were crimes until he told her. “Idiot.”

[ammapreker]

amity bell 21 / student & cheerleader / lily-rose depp

[ content warning for mentions of death, hazing ] i never want to grow up / semi-sweet cheerleader with better publicity than she actually deserves for the amount of hazing she’s been involved in / likes the thrum of power, but never one suited to the spotlight; instead, her pleasure arises from being the one bandaging them up / ignores her future so often she’s half-convinced it won’t ever come / still considers herself a virgin because she exclusively gets fucked in the a** / daughter of the town dentist whose pearly teeth are shown on every ad / “seven devil’s best smile” except there’s less kindness behind it than one might expect / after the loss of julia riley, she’s more vacant, nothing but a ghost haunting her old steps needs » the dare me request !!!!! / i DO have a family request written for them but essentially, if anyone’s character’s parents died in some tragic accident, amity’s mom has a tendency to one-up her fellow society frenemies to absurd degrees (baking a house full of baked goods for a bake sale, adopting a shit ton of puppies after someone wanted to donate to the local animal shelter) and that included adopting some girl with a tragic past when she and amity were in high school. also a younger sister please and thank you… / COUSINS would be amazing, especially from her mom’s side!! her mom grew up in the trailer park so any connections there could be fun!

daisy wilkes 19 / receptionist / face tbd

[ content warning for mentions of death ] the almost baby, spoiled rotten / sink your teeth in, she dares you, with a cheshire grin / never fails to push at the cages binding her / transformative, her personality of the moment dependent on those around her / for her father, she dons the guise of a doe-eyed innocent / for the girls in the death brigade, a girl willing to do anything to find the truth / alternatively inciting chaos or distracting from it with a cheeky joke / everything’s overrated except secrets and chocolate / haunted by her dead sisters’ ghosts / taking a “gap year” before college / dealing with her trauma, the rumors suggest, but “dealing with” is much too high a bar / using her position as receptionist at the sheriff’s station to help discover the identity of the angel of death / never thinks further than one step into the future / fancies herself impenetrable, pretending not to see her own darkness seeping through the cracks needs » the rest of the wilkes girls / the remaining members of the death brigade, inspired by now and then, who grew obsessive with a mystery in their youth and are now trying to find the angel of death following goldie’s murder / boys for her to flirt with but refuse to f*ck

lemon eisley 20 / volunteer & pageant girl / elle fanning

[ content warning for mentions of suicide ] a marionette tripping on her own strings, never realizing they’ve curled around her neck until it’s too late / she’s a pageant girl, a social butterfly, a beauty with brains enough to know she doesn’t need them for what she wants in life / which is destined (in her own opinion) to get by on her looks, perhaps become a trophy wife and life in the lap of luxury / is that really too much to ask? no / volunteers at the local historical society so she’s not considered a useless layabout, but mainly only welcomes guests and keeps everything looking orderly / determined to win the miss seven devils pageant even if it kills her (or someone else) / (it wouldn’t be the first time) / a prank gone horribly wrong led to one of her friends committing suicide in front of her eyes, but that’s what pills and ignoring trauma is for ! needs » the rest of olive’s amazing until dawn request (she’s the jess!!) / PLEASE give me pageant girls, all the pageant girls!!! especially the ones who’ve been competing against each other since they were kids and probably have been frenemies for so long / ALSO don’t make me write a request but . lemon needs two siblings ALSO named after the fruits their mother craved during pregnancy (i know it’s silly, but haven’t you ever wanted a character named apple???). while lemon and her siblings always thought their parents were disgustingly in love, their mother recently discovered their father’s affair with his secretary but, aside from their father sleeping on the couch and the fights the siblings have heard through locked doors, they aren’t addressing it at all, not even with the kids

mina whelan 24 / waitress / anya taylor-joy

[ content warning for mentions of parental abandonment, teenage pregnancy, death of a parent (stroke) ] a girl of two wishes; the first: to leave. the second: to never come back / one comes true, at the cost of a heart and a reputation; the second she’s forced to discard / grew up filing in line with two siblings who remain equally fatherless with a mother who’s lost her heart to love once, twice, thrice / she swears: i’ll never fall in love / she breaks it; bad luck / falls in love with a boy who’s destined for greatness and so she wrecks it before he can leave her / just after he leaves following graduation, she’s stuck with a pregnancy test in her hand and an immense desire to say fuck him / she has the baby as a fuck you rather than anything else, and mostly doesn’t regret it / hightails it out as soon as she’s earned a diploma, leaving her baby daughter lily with her mother as she tries to find herself / (spoiler alert: she’s still lost) / her mother’s stroke sends her back to seven devils to a family as willing to discard her as she once discarded them / perhaps wishes are only curses waiting to be met needs » two or three half-siblings PLEASE do not make me write this request… their fathers are all unknown (which made their mother the subject of plenty of gossip) so they should all be half-white, but half anything else!! currently also includes britt's girl billie (19)!! / former friends she hung around with in high school who probably were more like frenemies… they can have wine nights and pretend like they don’t spend the rest of the time talking about each other behind their back / i have a diner request coming soon to a theatre near you inspired by the pulp fiction diner (recent renovation that puts all the waitstaff in costumes of 50’s stars) so lmk if you’re interested!

owen wickham 23 / estate sales employee / face tbd

[ content warning for death of a parent (suicide), missing sister ] a cryptid in his own right / originates from that wickham family, you know the one / their sister went missing when they were kids and their father became the prime suspect / he committed suicide soon after, taking away their father and their answers / tends to be seen as: creepy, weird, potentially a vampire? / definitely not, but when him and one of his friends showed up to a towner halloween party with fake blood, the rumor got started / keeps to himself, mainly finds entertainment reading letters to whatever recently deceased persons estate the company he works for has gotten their hands on needs » the rest of his family (reach out to rachel if interested!!) / some fellow outcasts to pal around with

richard “dick” noble 29 / true crime podcaster / joe keery

[ content warning for mentions of death of a parent ] still that boy in that house, swallowed by memories of a life undone / buried himself so deep in his past that he can’t find his way out / grew up too fast [thanks to the trauma!] and then stopped growing entirely / craves the truth, but runs at the first sign of it / the worst elder brother except in a crisis, during which he’s still the worst but at least he shows up? / constantly dons a “polite grimace” unless he likes you [a rare occasion] / talks a lot about the Real World™ for someone who avoids the hell out of it / avoiding his own feelings about living in whitethorn (the site’s version of hill house) again by doing the podcast season on searching for the truth about what happened the night his mother died / a canvas of okay intentions resulting in misery needs » the remaining members of the noble family (inspired by the haunting of hill house) / co-producers of his true crime podcast ghastly / other potential mysteries dick and co. could have investigated on said podcast during seasons one and two (currently starting season four) / various past relationships that inevitably ended when dick would grow waaaay too obsessed with his current case

[danetobelieve]

What’s black and white and bled all over? || Orion, Ricky and Winston

Winston hated life right now. It wasn’t that they had a hard life usually. Really they had a pretty sweet deal. But all they had wanted to do was get burgers with their friends and enjoy themselves. So as they stepped out of the car and spotted a mime version of themself and what looked like a mime version of Ricky, they couldn’t help but swallow nervously. “That’s not good news…” they looked at Ricky who was in the passenger seat and behind him Rio, “they’ve just been following us around everywhere so far, I think we’re okay to get burgers right? There’s three of us and only two of them….” Why did Rio get to avoid his mime-ganger when Winston and Ricky were forced to confront them head one. This wasn’t fair. They didn’t want to have to pretend their mime copy wasn’t currently sat in the car park of Al’s. 

“I just wanted a burger. One fucking burger… okay maybe two burgers because I skipped lunch but I just wanted burgers. And fries. What I didn’t want to see that motherfucker in a dark parking lot.” Ricky carefully exited the car and moved to stand next to, if slightly in front of, Winston, “There’re three of us and two of them but I’m not entirely convinced they’re not magical in some way which is what’s scary to me because I definitely know my parents didn’t have any other kids so the fact that there’s a mime twin of me means some fuckery is afoot.” He started to move cautiously towards the door of the restaurant, watching their mime-twins as he moved, “Maybe they won’t follow us in the restaurant? I mean it’s bright and well lit and maybe they don’t like crowds? We can hope? I don’t know. I’ve never had to deal with this before.” 

Orion was starving and had really been looking forward to lunch. At least, he had been. Until they pulled into the parking lot and saw those… things. He didn’t know how to describe them. He had thought Erin had just been playing a trick on him before. Until… well until he ran into the real Erin. And then when he was with Blanche also. Whatever those things were, it wasn’t human. And he hadn’t quite gotten around to mentioning them to Winston or Ricky. Despite it all… it seemed a little unbelievable. Besides, Ricky and Rio hadn’t exactly had that talk yet. About the supernatural. He climbed out of the car with Ricky and Winston, though he didn’t exactly want to. “Hey uh… so now is probably the best time to mention that I ran into one of these earlier this week.” He scratched at the back of his head nervously, deciding which parts to mention. The part where it had super strength, just like Rio himself? Or maybe the part where he murdered it and it… evaporated? What exactly had happened to it? “And it may or may not have tried to kill Blanche and I. So… uh- Maybe we should just eat somewhere else?”

Looking around, Winston decided that they were too hangry to deal with this bullshit, and yet as they conversed amongst themselves Winston noticed that the mimes were also mimicking their conversation. Their mouths moving exactly the same way as Ricky and Winston’s without any sound escaping. “Rio, next time you almost get murdered by something with Blanche please tell us, it usually comes back to bite us in the ass.” They laughed and looked back to the front of the restaurant. So close. But so far. “I don’t know if they’re going to let us go in and I don’t think that going somewhere else is going to stop them from following us or from just reappearing. Either way, I don’t think we can get away from them…” Winston looked at their mime who looked back at them with worrying intensity. “Any suggestions?” Winston’s mime moved on their own, without Winston moving first. It didn’t look away or move, it just took a slow, deliberate step forward.

“I love that girl but I swear every time something weird or creepy happens she’s always got a finger in the pie, as it were.” Ricky kept one eye firmly on the doppelgangers that were mimicking their every move, down to mouthing the same words that they were in the conversation. Which was when he noticed that his doppelganger was the same as him physically in every way; down to the (horrifyingly) black and white striped fangs that were revealed every time it opened its mouth to mimic his speech. He quickly clamped his mouth shut and turned his back to Rio, surreptitiously pointing at his mouth and then at the mime hoping Winston would get the message. He’d been about make some flippant comment about their enemies when the Winston Mime took a slow and unerring step towards them, “Oh that’s not good. That’s so not good. Rio… stay behind us. We should back slowly towards the car and get the fuck out of here.” 

“She’s… just unique.” Orion shrugged. It was true, she did somehow end up involved in everything. She had really become something of a social butterfly. Big change from high school. The Winston mime took a step towards the three and Rio instinctively jumped backwards. It was just a small step, and yet knowing what he knew, it was so terrifying. So far, their versions of the mimes seemed a bit less… murdery than Blanche and Rio’s. But they were also still a while away. Rio heard Ricky tell him to stand behind them and considered whether or not he should listen. Physically, Rio was the strongest of the three, though that didn’t speak much to his ability to protect them. Rio had almost gotten sick when he had killed his mime, and he and Blanche had cried about it. He followed Ricky’s advice, moving towards the car and reaching for the door handle, pulling at it feebly, the door unmoving. “Um… did you lock the door? It won’t open.”

“I won’t hear any shit talking about Blanche, it’s not her fault she’s got a heart the size of a house and all the bad luck of Kansas.” Winston jested of course, there were few people who were less likely to genuinely badmouth their friend then the three of them. Winston noticed the fangs and caught the look and gesture that Ricky shot his way. Winston had been hoping that it wouldn’t mean that their mime was the same, but then the door was locked and Winston knew exactly what was going on. “No, I definitely did not lock the door.” The central locking on their car had gone a long time ago and what did you know it, Winston had had the good fortune of leaving their keys in the car. Great. “I guess we have no choice but to …” looking around frantically they tried to think of an option but the mimes were heading towards them and they weren’t far away now. “Rio, try and stay out of the way I guess, there’s no point running… uh, you’ll see why.” Pulling their jacket off, Winston set it gingerly on the hood of the car. “I really didn’t want this to be the way I first did this.” Winston whined as they saw the other mime’s hands flicker and spark. It didn’t take it long to conjure this into a ball of fire and hurl it their way. “Move!” Winston shouted, tackling Rio to the ground. 

“Oh nobody here is talking shit about Blanche. I’d go to fucking war for Blanche. But she also does manage to find herself in the center of any and all weird supernatural shit in this town. Like literally all of it. I think it’s because she’s friends with literally everyone and everything.” Rio’s comment about the door made Ricky wonder exactly how similar their clones were because if Winston’s clone had the same level of magical ability that the real Winston had this could be incredibly dangerous. “Do you think they’ve got…” the rest of his sentence though was cut off by Mime Winston conjuring a ball of fire and tossing it directly at them, “Well that answers that question.” He looked at his own clone stalking slowly toward them, fangs bared sinisterly, “I THINK THIS RELATIONSHIP HAS A LOT OF POTENTIAL AND WE SHOULD SIT DOWN AND TALK ABOUT WHERE THIS IS GOING. WHAT ARE WE? I THINK THIS COULD REALLY BE TRUE LOVE!!” His clone faltered in its tracks at this and Ricky couldn’t help but laugh a little “That probably says nothing good about me but that is a little bit funny at least” It quickly recovered from the existential terror of a committed relationship and continued moving towards them. “Fuck. This isn’t how I wanted to do this either.” he slid his false teeth out of his mouth and into the pocket of his jacket, baring his own fangs as the mime headed towards them, “You gotta take care of Magic Mike over there but I’ll try to take down Ricky 2.0.” He lowered his shoulder and charged, aiming for ribs that he hoped were as injured as his own were. 

Was that… fire? Orion tilted his head curiously as the magic seemed to appear from nowhere, and also moved closer and closer to them. He felt someone tackle into the side of him and the next thing he knew, Winston and Rio were on the pavement, Winston flattening Rio against the ground. “Woah. Thanks.” Rio muttered, lying there for a few moments as the gears in his head turned. There was a long moment of confusion as he finished the puzzle in his brain. Mime Rio had super strength. Rio had super strength. Blanche’s mime didn’t have super strength. Rio’s mime didn’t have fire powers. Winston’s mime did have fire powers. Which meant… “Holy crap.” Rio gasped, interrupted by Ricky’s yelling. Rio slid back onto his feet and watched Ricky take his… teeth out? Fake teeth. Right. In any other moment, Rio would be incredibly excited that he had been right. But they had other things to worry about at this exact moment, like Winston’s silent but deadly doppelgangar. “Just a heads up… these things aren’t human.” He began, realizing that that wasn’t exactly what he meant. “Or well.. Not that. The human part doesn’t matter. But they’re… not normal. When they die they sorta… poof into darkness.” It was the only thing that had let Rio get over the fact that he had killed it. Knowing it was some kind of demonic illusion or something was comforting.

“You’re welcome, and yeah, holy crap, you’re, I mean, I - this wasn’t how I wanted you to find out about this,” Winston popped up to their feet and summoned as much energy as they could muster. If this thing was them that meant that they could do the same thing right? So Winston just had to be smarter then themselves? That couldn’t be hard right? RIGHT? Winston looked as the flames sputtered out on the pavement and tried to think of something smart to do. But there wasn’t really all that many options. Winston looked around for something, for anything. Their mime was stood next to a car, which was probably as good as this was going to get. Focussing on the windscreen, Winston forced it to shatter, the chunks of glass shooting towards Magic Mime who had just conjured another fireball and prepare to hurl it in Rio’s direction. The glass seemed to shatter into smaller pieces as it approached Winston, but they focussed, forcing the panes towards them as they felt the energy pour out of them. They could do this, if they kept them busy then Winston Mime couldn’t hurt Rio. “Wait, you’ve already killed yours?” Winston felt sweat trickle down their brow, “Any tips?” 

Ricky had a moment of intense pride when he saw Winston, his Winston not the fucking freak in mime makeup, turn a car windshield into a magical shrapnel grenade. The moment however was short lived as his shoulder collided with his own mime clone, sending them both to the ground. Of course, since this was his cursed existence now, his mime made no noise to indicate whether or not Ricky had his freshly healed ribs with his shoulder, but the look of rage and pain that skittered across his face made him think he had, “Jesus we’ve all had the fantasy about fooling around with our clone but this is definitely not how I saw it going.” His moment of glib quippery was quickly cut short as his clone buried fangs into his shoulder “Fucking shit!” He attempted to roll away but Mime Ricky had a far firmer grip with his fangs than Real Ricky would have preferred. “I didn’t know these things were so fucking sharp!” He kneed the clone quickly in the groin, wincing with sympathetic pain but scurrying backwards as the mime released its fangs. “I didn’t wanna have to knee you in my balls but you didn’t give me much of a choice.” The mime started to stalk slowly towards him and Ricky took a low stance, “Winston. You good? I saw the windshield thing. That was dope. Rio? You good? Anybody have a gun?” 

“Uh I think they die like anyone else does, at least mine wasn’t especially hardy.” Orion shrugged, trying not to dwell too much on the feeling Rio had when that mime died. It hadn’t been a great feeling. But he was a bit less horrified once he realized that the things weren’t exactly… living. He stood between Ricky, in a full on fist fight with his mime clone and Winston, having some kind of mental magic standoff with his clone. All while Rio was standing there, doing nothing. Helpless and useless as per usual. He saw Winston’s mime preparing something else when the windshield by it shattered. Orion recoiled back before realizing that it had been the real Winston that had done it. Jesus that was cool. He couldn’t just stand here, watching them as their mimes tried to kill them, right? But from back here, what could he do? “Uh… I’m okay, all things considered. Please focus on your mime and not us.” He tried for a nervous laugh and held a thumbs up out to Ricky. “I don’t own a gun.” He stated as if this should be obvious. “Stay here. Keep them focused on your magic.” Rio said, finally forcing himself to move, staying low and practically crawling on all fours across the parking lot and closer to the restaurant. Maybe he could sneak up behind the mime like he had with his own, when it was trying to kill Blanche. Clearly, he was not being as sneaky as he thought he was, because Winston’s mime turned towards Rio and started conjuring up another fireball. “Oh god.” Rio mumbled, realizing that he was stuck between the building and a parked car. With nowhere else to go, he did the only thing he could think to do, he dove for the window. He crashed through the window just as the fireball crashed into him, tumbling over one of the booths and crashing into a mess of broken glass on the restaurant’s floor. His back ached against the broken glass and his side stung, “Ow.”

As Ricky did his best to keep his mime-ganger busy, Winston felt their energy all but pour from them. Their shrapnel bomb was a good idea, one that they were rather pleased with. But their mime didn’t have all that much trouble dealing with it. The glass shattered against an invisible barrier with a shattering cacophony that Winston would never have been able to imagine. Sweat poured from their body and their shirt clung to their skin, it was already damp from the perspiration and Winston could feel the material stick to their back as they released their latest spell and the remnants of the wind shield disappeared. Winston took a moment to breath but spotted the fireball a moment too late. It hurtled towards Orion, and might well have hit their friend as they went through the window of the restaurant, but Winston managed to deflect the bolt of fire a little, not much, but it didn’t kill anyone and although the customers in Al’s were already scattering via the fire exits, Winston didn’t exactly have time to think as mime Winston started chanting something in Latin. Winston didn’t need to know what they were planning to know that they had to deal with it now. The Latin words for death and decay had been said a total of three times. “Can’t talk gotta counter spell this shit,” Winston snapped to their friends as they spotted Rio, but they couldn’t stop chanting and they couldn’t allow the mime Winston to complete this ritual. 

Several things happened in quick succession that Ricky wasn’t necessarily the most thrilled about; firstly MimeWinston knocked Rio through the window of Al’s with a fireball and while Rio seemed fine, it wasn’t really how this was supposed to go. Secondly MimeWinston started chanting in Latin, which was nice for breaking the eerie silence of the whole mime routine but was concerning in that Ricky had seen enough horror movies to know where this was going. Thirdly… Mime Ricky appeared to have produced a knife from inside his incredibly tacky outfit and had changed his tack to head towards Winston, theoretically to attempt to stop his counterspell. “Not my fucking brother you stripey fuck.” Ricky picked himself up off the ground, ignoring the blood pouring from his shoulder and charged his clone once again; tackling him around the knees and sending him crashing to the ground, “White… and… black… stripes...are… not… our… color… scheme…” Each word of his diatribe was punctuated with as hard a punch as he could manage, at the very least trying to keep his clone distracted “RIO! ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!” the knife slashed for him and he rolled away at the last possible moment, “Are we gonna have to kill these things to stop this? Not that I’m against a very literal manifestation of kill your demons but I don’t think my therapist has any openings this week to talk me through this.” His mime snarled at him, licking his blood off of its fangs, “Oh that’s just gross. Come on dude, do us a little credit here. You’re making me look bad.” 

Orion laid on the floor of the restaurant for what felt like forever, not wanting to put his body through the strain of standing back up. But finally, after a deep breath and an internal conversation with himself while he stared at the ceiling, his body began to stir and he grabbed onto the booth’s table to help hoist himself up onto his knees. His body felt hot, which probably had something to do with the fireball that had come way too close to hitting him. He glanced down to find the side of his sweater completely singed, a reminder that it apparently had hit him. He glanced out of the window to find that Mime Ricky now had a knife that he was trying to take Ricky out with. And Winston was in a full on chant battle with their mime. Rio guessed that the whole silence thing didn’t seem to matter when it came to dead languages. Rio didn’t know what the spell was supposed to do, but he did know latin. And he knew that those words couldn’t mean anything good. He began pushing himself up onto his feet when a stabbing pain shot through his body. He glanced down to find a shard of glass protruding from his leg. “Oh. Great.” He took a deep breath, grabbing at the glass and pulling it from his leg with a yelp. “Ow, ow, ow.” He kept repeating to himself, raising his arms in a thumbs up towards Winston and Ricky. His sleeve may have been burnt, but at least it still covered his arms. He needed to find a weapon.

Were mimes supposed to chant? Winston was confused at why the thought struck them at that very moment but they were determined to finish their chant first. In reality they finished at the same time. Winston was drenched in sweat now, their bones felt like they were made out of lead and Winston wasn’t convinced that they would have been able to stand up if they weren’t already braced in place. They felt light headed. There was a flicker of sparks around the other mime who looked like they were in an equally precarious predicament and then light leaped from both of them and collided, whirling together for a second before blinking out of existence. Winston was not best pleased by the fact that what remained of their scant energy in that moment drained from their body. They felt faint, the pavement rushed up to meet them and Winston fell to the floor with a fairly visceral crunch. Pain exploded along their left side as their shoulder scraped the concrete and their vision swum in and out. Was this what Morgan and Nell had meant when they’d mentioned that magic could take too much from you? Had they taken it too far?

As far as trips out for burgers went this was probably the worst time Ricky had ever had. He looked up from his narcissists wet dream of tussling with his mime clone to see Winston hit the deck; whether from injury or exhaustion it was unclear “RIO!” Ricky shouted through the shattered window to the restaurant, tackling his clone as they once again tried to go for Winston. “Leave them the fuck alone!” he grunted as they hit the ground once more and Ricky felt a white hot pain lance through his thigh as the knife finally found purchase. “RIO. YOU GOTTA COVER WINSTON.” His mime scrabbled for purchase as he and the true Ricky rolled around on the ground, before Ricky managed to get ahold of the curly brown hair he loved so much. Yanking back as hard as he could he exposed his snarling clone’s throat and the pale black and white stripped skin “There is room for exactly one fucking Ricky Cordero on earth and it ain’t the fucking mime version.” His sharp fangs found purchase easily enough as he bit into the mime’s throat and ripped it out in a great gout of some disgusting tar-like substance. “Burn in mime hell you mute french fuck.” He spit the tar out of his mouth and pulled the knife from his leg, limping towards his fallen roommate “We gotta go!” 

Orion limped towards the counter of the new abandoned restaurant. He heard Ricky screaming his name from outside, and limped faster, the fresh wound from the glass still hurting. A good night’s sleep would mostly take away any of the limp, but the wound would probably scar if the glass went too deep. But that wasn’t important right now. He limped behind the counter and started scrounging around, finally settling once he got hold of a steak knife. He turned and bee lined it for the entrance. Pushing out of the door just in time for Ricky to spit some gross black liquid out of his mouth. Gross, but it must have meant that his mime had been taken care of. Which just left Winston’s. Both Winston and their mime seemed to be completely exhausted, whatever spell the two had been working on had done a number on both of them. Rio didn’t waste any time, he stalked up to the crumpled mime and fell on his knees besides it, plunging the heart into the mime’s chest. A few seconds later it exploded in a cloud of black and white striped smoke. Not human, not human, not human. That thing had to die. He pushed himself back onto his feet and jogged over towards Ricky and Winston, trying to ignore the pain in his leg. Orion wasn’t much for PDA. In fact, he wasn’t really comfortable with any form of intimacy in most cases, so it surprised even him when he got to Ricky and wrapped him into a hug first thing, “Holy crap! That was horrifying! And also really cool. Later we totally have to talk about the Selkie thing. Please don’t get that gross slime stuff on me.” Rio laughed, jerking away from Ricky and the gross liquid on his mouth. He swooped down to help Winston up, taking the chance to wrap them into a hug too, “I’m really glad none of us died. You’re amazing.” He took the opportunity to help Winston backup to their feet. Clearly, Winston was too exhausted to do anything at the moment, and Ricky looked like his leg might be hurt pretty bad too. But they would figure that out after this. “So uh… Guess this means I’m driving home then?”

It all happened in a blur, Winston couldn’t imagine what on Earth was going on but they could vaguely see Ricky and their mime scuffling then they moved out of view and Ricky came out wiping something dark from their mouth. Their head was spinning, everything seemed to throb and pulse and Winston gasped down several gulps of air. Suddenly Rio was by their side and hugging them. Almost delirious with exhaustion Winston clung to Orion still squinting at where their mime-ganger had lain, now there was just a weird smoke drifting away. Winston could’ve sworn that they were hallucinating but was it black and white? “Fuck, you guys were great, fuck has anyone got like anything to eat, I am fucking starving …” Winston looked over at the ruined restaurant and sighed, “fuck I guess we can’t eat there.” They tried to stand but faltered, leaning on Orion for support. “Please, take the keys, we’re going home now.” 

[krreader]

BTS scenario → pranking you and it going wrong.

pairing: bts x reader fandom: bts warnings: language genre: angst ; fluff ; crack

a/n: listen,  if my boyfriend “pranked” me by telling me he got into a car accident I’d kick his ass to the outbacks. there’s a line, you know? so I settled for less intense pranks, I hope you still like it though!

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kim seokjin

Jin and you had been annoying each other all day long.

Your relationship has always been the playful kind and it consisted of a lot of laughing fits, but maybe today was the day that Seokjin finally took it a bit too far.

He was making dinner, a separate portion for you because there was something in this dish today that you didn't particularly like. And because he was making it separately, he saw his opportunity to make yours a.. little spicier.

Just a little.

And then he accidentally put the whole package in and knew that re-doing the whole thing would take too long.

“Ah, she'll be fine,” he muttered to himself, placing the bowl in front of you thirty minutes later when everyone was sitting at the dining table.

The boys were all happily eating, Jin watching you shove spoon after spoon into your mouth with a bit of worry, but also amusement.

And then it finally hit you.

All at once. 

“Oh my god,” you quickly said, grabbing the water in front of you and downing it in one go, but that definitely wasn't enough from the looks of it. Your mouth was on fire, but more importantly, and more worryingly, so was your ass.

And guess who knocked on your door forty minutes later, because you’ve gotten diarrhea from his stupid prank.

“I didn't mean to put in the whole package, just a little bit to make it a little more spicier and to annoy you..-”

“You're going to regret this, Kim,” you yelled, “Just you wait..”

He was so fucked.

min yoongi

Yoongi didn't mean to hurt you, he just thought this was an incredibly funny idea.

He had bought himself a few new pieces of jewelry a few weeks ago and as he was cleaning out his room, he found one of the empty ring boxes.

“Stop standing around and help me clean. This is your room after all, not mine,” you complained when you walked back into his room, but then stopping dead in your tracks when he turned around with the box, “What are you..-”

But Yoongi had already crossed the room and knelt down in front of you as if he was proposing to you, “(Y/N), will you..-”

“YES!” you said before he could even finish the sentence. It wasn't romantic, but it wasn't something you ever thought to happen. So you didn't waste a second of your breath, your mind was already set.

But when he opened the box, a big fat junk of nothing looked back at you. And when your eyes drifted to your boyfriends' he added: “..have sex with me later?”

He was still grinning, but the more your shoulders slumped, the more he realized what a fucking mistake this had been.

You had been dropping hints for years, but he always told you that he wasn't ready for marriage yet. And then he does this? Despite him knowing you wanted to marry him so badly?

You had pretended to laugh, but the fact that you almost ran out of the room so that Yoongi wouldn't see your tears gave away just how much this “prank” had hurt you.

And that had never been his intention.

So even though he still wasn't ready for marriage, he bought you a ring a week later and when he gave it to you, he said: “I love you. And I know that I will only love you for the rest of my life. I will marry you one day, I promise you. When BTS is done, when I'm done with it all.. then you and I will marry. So.. wait for me?”

You did.

With that ring on your finger as a promise.

jung hoseok

You guys were at this really fancy party, everyone mingling and chatting with various celebrities.

Hoseok and Taehyung had found this really cool candle that looked like it was real, but was actually fake. Taehyung had accidentally touched the “flame” and realized that it wasn't a real flame.

And now the two were playing around with it like two little kids, not caring about the fancy shit the venue had provided.

“Imagine if (Y/N) saw you right now,” Taehyung laughed, “She's always so protective of you..-”

“HOSEOK!”

As if on queue, you sprinted towards him and stopped him from reaching out to the flame.

“No, I wasn't..-”

“I swear to god, I can't even go to the bathroom without you doing something stupid!”

“No, but it's not real, look!” he pointed at Taehyung, who was happily holding his entire hand into the flame to prove the point, “We were just playing around with it!”

Almost giving you a heart attack in the process wasn't really worth it, though.

kim namjoon

He had gotten the idea a while ago, as all those fake articles about a possible FRIENDS reunion had come out.

He just wanted to prank you a little, he didn't mean for you to react that way.

“BABE!” he ran into the room and held out his phone, some random article being on display, “THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE ANOTHER GAME OF THRONES SEASON!”

“What?!” you pushed your laptop away and pushed yourself out of his bed, nearly falling in the process, then ripping the phone out of his hand only to read an article about how to help you poop better.

“Got you,” Namjoon grinned, but then his eyes widened when he saw how angry you suddenly became.

And then it turned into this huge ass pillow fight, which was actually just you throwing all of his Ryan plushies into his face until they were all lying on the floor and occasionally telling him how much you hated him for tricking you like this.

park jimin

Spiders were fascinating, but there was a reason that people thought they were creepy. And honestly, even someone who says they're not afraid of them would shit their pants in a situation like that.

Jimin had bought the rubber spider at this prank store while he had been on tour. Thought it would come in handy sometime, or he just thought it looked so real that he simply had no choice but to buy it.

Whatever his reasoning, you hated him for it.

Him and you were watching a movie on his bed when he pulled out the ugly thing. He was either really sneaky, or you were simply too entranced by the movie, so you didn't notice it.

You felt something brush against your shoulder, then your arm and as you were turning your head to the side to check what it was, he let it fall onto your lap and it looked so, so real..-

You immediately screamed, jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving a laughing Jimin behind, literally rolling on the floor from how funny he thought this was.

But what had been so incredibly funny at first suddenly wasn't so funny anymore when his girlfriend didn't want to spend the night in his bed, but in Jin's instead.

“Hyung, she's my girlfriend,” Jimin tried to argue, trying to push past him inside his bedroom.

“And she's my best friend. She doesn't want to see you tonight, she's still shaking from your ridiculous prank.”

“This is ridiculous..- (Y/N), come on. Talk to me, please.”

“Go jerk off to your spider, Jimin,” you yelled from within the room, “I'll stay right here in this comfortable spider-free bed.”

Yeah, that prank didn't go according to plan at all.

kim taehyung

Taehyung was only playing around like the little kid that he could sometimes be, he wasn't thinking rationally that his girlfriend was an adult and that when she would see him like this, she would lose her goddamn mind.

His manager has had surgery on his knee a few weeks ago and was here to visit him and the boys. And while the 'grown-ups' were talking, Taehyung was walking up and down the hallway with his crutches, despite knowing that you'd show up at any second.

And when you did and the first thing you saw was Taehyung with the crutches, one foot raised as if he had genuinely hurt himself? 

You lost it.

“What the hell happened?!” you dropped your bag and sprinted towards him, observing his features to see if there were any other injuries on his body.

But Taehyung just chuckled and shook his head, quickly putting the crutches aside and grabbing your hands to kiss them.

“I'm fine, (Y/N). They're not mine.”

He nodded towards his manager, a bandage wrapped around his knee that signalized he was the one with the injury and not your boyfriend.

You hit Taehyung’s chest, your own heaving heavily from how scared you had been for a second, “You're such an asshole. You don't play around with crutches! How old even are you?! 8?!”

Sometimes, yeah.

jeon jeongguk

A fan had given him the air horn today at a fan meet, he had been scaring people all day long with it, annoying literally everyone that he knew.

Only one had been spared so far, but he was about to change that.

He was waiting behind the door of his room, knew you had arrived when he heard you and Namjoon do small-talk in the living room.

And when the door finally got opened he pressed the air horn and..-

“Jeongguk, what the fuck?!” Namjoon yelled out, immediately rushing to your side as you had fallen down and hit your head on the door handle.

So what had started as him just wanting to scare his girlfriend, ended in him having to drive his girlfriend to the ER because she had to get stitches.

“(Y/N), I'm so sorry,” he looked so awful, regret clearly visible on his face.

“I know you didn't do it on purpose,” you sighed, contorting your face when the doctor continued to clean the wound, “Just.. try to be more careful, okay?”

Oh, that he would be.

[kmp78]

J didn't mold Valery into anything, it is Valery that is always and had always copied JL in a very fanatical way she's mega creepy and has no identity or personality, everything she does is a copy of J or something or someone JL is interested in, the last years Valery has been obsessed with J's real girlfriend with the girl he loves, she not only acts up to hurt her and screw up J and his relationship with this girl, but also  Valery copies her like a maniac and it's very obvious, and not in a good way but more because she's jealous and wants to have what she has that J admires or she thinks he admires, I mean VK is pretty fucked up, the fact that J keeps calling her for bs also speaks of his issues, but talking about her creepy behavior she tries to copy the real girlfriend trying to be natural and a real beauty, trying to be smart and intellectual, trying to be high class, copying her about the psychology, in the reading, in liking music and to be interested in an instrument, trying to pretend to be talented and artistic, the painting or drawing she's now attempting to, it's actually pretty desperate on her side, also when she said "she wants to learn astronomy" that's a huge one, also a huge one with the whole cooking and cakes stuff, pretending it was for J and bs like that, pretty low too, her pretending to be sweet and friendly, her bs about being a good friend, about liking nature, desperately trying to be sexy, how she pretends with her bought comments to get nice compliments, getting obsessed with having a small nose. big cheekbones, and nice lips, all sorts of things, but all half assed, fake, low level cheap, very obviously fake, she tries hard but fails, and ends up just showing what she really is a dumb fake pretending 24/7, it's secondhand embarrassing if I was J I would be creeped out if my mind, but I'm guessing to him is an ego boost, she also has copied Cameron a lot and I mean a hell creepy lot in so many ways, I mean she's too stupid to notice how obvious she is in her way of copying everything JL related, just look at that clip you posted photobombing Taylor Hill, she behaves exactly like J, look show she poses, the faces she makes in pics, how she copies J's mannerisms and symbols, how she tries to copy his socials and emojis, it's phenetic and if you ask me just sick, J should get his act together and stop messing up his life with bullshit and these types, all kinds of sorry for him.

***

Eh...

Talking about "HER" creepy behavior...?

Or... yours...? 😬🙄🤪🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

[vitosscaletta]

🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓 Christian, Helena, Gina, Georgie, and Aaliyah!!!

THANK U!!!! sorry this is so late :(

CHRISTIAN

IDK if I ever said this but his whole mansion in Bel Air is modeled after the interior in Versailles - still modern but with STRONG Baroque vibes

His favorite european city - besides Versailles of course - is Venice 😳 he lived there for some time in the 18th century and loved it there... he misses it a lot

He has a ghoul.... his name is Claude, the only living descendant of his favorite sister :(( Christian tracked him down in the early 1900s in Paris and eventually offered him to embrace him, but Claude was like nah... I wanna see the sunlight dude. They’re still living together in Bel Air since they’re the only family they have left :0 

Hangs out in LA nightclubs a lot - not the goth ones we see in the game.. the sexy ones where rich people hang out, he mostly feeds from them there.. slurp slurp!

Can speak english, french, italian, german and a few words in latin.. op king. being that old gives you time to learn languages ig

Went into an overdramatic state of fake depression after Helena dumped him.. didn’t leave his mansion at all, just hung around in his room, not eating (... drinking blood..), moping and talking about killing himself bc Toreadors are fucked up. Claude is like.. get up dude -_-

HELENA

I also dont know if I ever said this but even though shes not the fledgling.. Heather is still her ghoul (she was in the santa monica clinic to get somehting done for la croy and yeah).. she regrets it because Heather is soooo annoying and does all of this shit for her like calling her her master and all that and it’s just so uncomfortable. Especially when she offers her her student loans. Helena is like “oh my god I can’t take this what the fuck?????????? this is yours. okay you know what.. if you insist.. i will take it 😏”

She doesn’t have the heart to kick her out though.. mostly because Helena misses having a roommate :c

The only people who were genuinely sad about her death are her mom and sister jhdsjhds.. the fake rich friends she had before her embrace didn’t really give a fuck about her until they realized they could get attention through it & started posting sob stories on myspace. Helena is mad about it.. those hoes treated her like a third wheel when she was alive 😤

she probably ends up “accidentally” telling her family she’s alive.. 

what annoys her the most about her death isn’t even the fact that she was killed.. it’s the fact that she didn’t die in a beautiful way, she was just some random nobody with no friends or fame who may have been killed by her boyfriend (except that the official story is that she never arrived at his house). Christian couldn’t have waited until she was an established actress so it could have been more poetic, nah he had to embrace her when nobody cared :((

She liked Christian’s Bel Air mansion but honestly?? her weird old apartment was still better - it wasn’t big and the furniture was a mess but it was still her home

GINA

Grew up with a single mother because her father died early in an accident... he was a construction worker or something :c her mom worked as a maid for a rich family until she got fired for stealing from them jdfkjsd

gets to rapture by assuming some rich girl’s identity. idk how she does that but.. somehow she does. Of course nobody knows about that, it’s her big secret 🤫 to the other rapture residents she’s just a rich heiress who acts a little different from New York’s high society because she lived abroad

she dislikes Rapture’s upper class for living so large when the poor have nothing just like she had nothing growing up.. doesn’t do much about it though..  Gina: *donates like a tiny amount of her wealth to an orphanage* wow helping people feels so good :)

Doesn’t have any real friends in rapture either except maybe Diane.. ironically because she thinks everyone else is fake 🙄

She didn’t like F*ntaine AT ALL because she thought he looked creepy but also because the Bronx accent scared her.. she’s really paranoid that he might have run into her while she was still living there and remembers her even though that’s soooo unlikely 😒 every time they’re in the same elevator together she turns away and pretends to look for something in her handbag

The civil war is just the worst for her bc she doesn’t want to align with the rebels they’re all freaks but there’s also no way in hell she’ll be on Andy Ryan’s side.. she’s just like *reluctantly joins rebels because she thinks its the winning team and because she thinks A**** is hot and doesn’t realize its the same guy she hid from at parties* *doesn’t do shit* 

GEORGIE

has a weird relationship with her mom... she died when she was very very young and Georgie really doesn’t remember much about her - almost everything she knows is from her father reminiscing about how beautiful and loving she was but that’s not.. true.. its just how he remembers her, in reality she was a very cold & narcissistic person. she’ll never know the truth though :/

does NOT care about any politician or noble whatsoever but had a soft spot for Jessamine mostly because she made a friendly impression on her (from what she’s seen on posters and all that stuff).. Georgie liked to imagine she wanted to make things better for people like her. (the heart when pointed at Georgie: this bitch digs through garbage cans. freak.)

has little pots with flowers all over her little clinic in the distillery district, it adds a little life to her weird looking little home and makes it look even more goth-ish because they’re all dried out :/

is one of those people who are pretentious about drinking tea

has a weird rivalry with dr Galvani that he doesn’t know about 😒 her clinic is near his home and she's mad jealous of him, this dude has money to fund his research and expensive tools and what does he do with it?? dissect fucking rats? (she heard about it from Granny Rags and yeah she believes everything she says).. she’s out there calling him an idiot, meanwhile Galvani doesn’t even know she even exists

used to be a pickpocket as a kid.. mostly when her dad didn’t make enough money, she still got into trouble for it most of the time though and stopped when she got older -_- its ok though because she got to steal family heirlooms at the Boyle mansion during their masquerades because one of the sisters called her ugly

AALIYAH

unlike the game wants you to believe she’s from Nevarra City rather than Ostwick 😳 the youngest of 5 siblings and the only mage in the family - since Nevarra is pretty chill about magic and has no circles, she grew up without the whole oppression thing that’s going on in the rest of thedas, thus all this templar shit is nonsense to her. We’re fine back home, thank you! Your mages are just fucked up because you put them in prisons!

She was supposed to become a Mortalitasi and have a pretty powerful position in the Nevarran court until idk something political that involved the chantry in one way or another happened and she got shipped off to ferelden’s circle (post blight duh). She managed to escape after a few weeks in its weakened state and joined the mage underground - she never really was a circle mage like in the game 🙄

She and a group of other mages she was friends with were supposed to go to the conclave together to.. vote for mage rights but you know what happened! Also you know this excerpt from a very angry person’s journal you can find in the fade? that was from her best friend who died in the explosion :c She still misses her a lot

The only people she’s close to within the inquisition are Sera, Varric and Dorian.. the rest are either more acquaintances or outright hate her (especially Vivienne.. i love her but BOY did they not get along).. She likes the advisors a little more, Josie is cool they’re not like bffs or anything but they like each other.. Leliana and her got along soooo well I think they were really good friends. Cullen was.. unfortunately her boyfriend but they also hated each other in the beginning. more on that later

The worst thing for her was the attack on Haven it fucked her up sooooo bad :c All those innocent people she wanted to protect dying, she tried her best to save them but it was still too late for some of them despite her best efforts.. it just really messes with her and she hates thinking about it.. she actually tried to run off on one occasion after that 😳

Feels sooo weird about the fact that she’s nevarran because on one hand that’s her home and she’s proud of it!!! on the other hand everyone acts like she’s the biggest freak bc they think she was in a death cult or something and she HATES it :((