#fun fact this is the first time i’ve drawn a dick so it was an interesting experience….my search history for references is real spicy now

[michi-chelle-draws]

ace solo sesh whennn 😩

(full censored versions & a bonus under the cut 💦)

[babydollmarauders]

IN A BOX — TREVOR ZEGRAS AND JAMIE DRYSDALE

trevor zegras x fem!reader x jamie drysdale

12 DAYS OF KINKMAS

summary: in which Trevor and Jamie do the ‘dick in a box’ joke to their fuck buddy, leading to a threesome

warnings: NSFW CONTENT, threesome, oral (f and m receiving), p in v (unprotected), degradation. (2.7k words)

notes: welcome to day 9 of the 12 days of kinkmas! this is the first threesome i’ve ever written, and it features everyone’s favorite dynamic duck duo! this starts out jokey and it makes me laugh ngl.

i’ve never claimed i was smart.

if i were smart, i probably wouldn’t have started sleeping with two of my best friends.

i probably wouldn’t have agreed to their friends-with-benefits arrangement.

and i most certainly, wouldn’t have had my expectations so high when they claimed they had christmas gifts for me.

yet, here i am. sat on Trevor and Jamie’s couch for the past fifteen minutes, a rapidly cooling peppermint hot cocoa clutched in my hands, and a sneaking suspicion that they do not, in fact, have christmas gifts for me.

“guys, are you coming?” i shout in the direction of the stairs, my voice bouncing off the walls of the house.

i can hear Trevor’s wheezy laugh carry down the steps. a mischievous lilt hidden in.

“we will be soon!” he calls back and i huff, slumping further into the couch cushions.

my flight back home for the holidays is tomorrow, the 23rd, and the boys had claimed they have presents they want to give me before i leave. i arrived armed with gifts for each of them, and after they opened them, they had stated they just had to grab my presents from their rooms; but i’m beginning to think they’ve lied to me.

“okay, close your eyes!” i sigh out a ‘finally!’ at the sound of Jamie’s words, squeezing my eyes shut.

“are they closed?” Trevor snickers, sounding closer now.

“yes, Trevor! they’re closed!” i snap, covering my eyes for good measure.

i can hear their footsteps get closer, padding down the stairs and into the living room, before Jamie tells me i can open my eyes.

i’m immediately confused by the sight in front of me, bewildered at the two men clad only in flannel pajama pants. both hold a gift box in front of them, wide smiles on their faces.

“why are you shirtless?” i giggle, my brows threading together as they stand side by side in front of me.

“just open your gifts!” Jamie urges.

“we’ll hold them! you open them!” Trevor tells me. “at the same time! gotta open them at the same time! or else the other present will be spoiled.”

i raise an eyebrow at the hyper hockey player, but he just notions with his head for me to hurry up.

i set my hot cocoa to the side, the mug clanking against the top of the wooden side table beside the couch. i glare at them suspiciously as i scooch to the edge of the couch.

reaching forward with both hands, i pull the tops from the christmas paper lined boxes, only to find what i least expected. there, poking through holes cut in the sides of the boxes, were Trevor and Jamie’s dicks. both already hard, so i’m drawn to assume that’s what they were doing upstairs.

“oh my god!” i peer up at the boys with amusement, a wide, humorous smile on my face. “you guys did not just do the dick in a box gift gag to me.”

“what do you mean ‘gag’?” Trevor jokes, “these are your gifts.”

the hockey players stare down at me, and it’s only then that i clock the lust in their eyes, obviously determined to finish what they started by themselves in their rooms.

my tongue flicks across my bottom lip, wetness pooling in my panties at the thought of a threesome.

sure, i’ve slept with the both of them; but its always been at separate times. never together, despite my persistence to them that i would love to do it.

“well, i guess i should have some fun with my gifts then, right?” Trevor and Jamie smirk at my words, removing themselves from the boxes and leaving themselves untucked from their bottoms.

i let the gift box lids tumble to the floor, reaching both hands forward, to grasp one of them in each hand. i tug, my eyes flitting between them to gauge their reactions.

while Trevor bites his lip, letting out a muffled moan, Jamie’s head tilts back, his jaw going slack.

i continue my movements, slowly jerking the both of them off. getting more and more aroused by the sounds they let out, echoing throughout the downstairs of the house. and when i abruptly stop, both men’s eyes pop open, staring down at me.

“well, you can’t expect me to have fun like this, can you?” i tease them, my tone sultry and low, and just to show them exactly what i mean, i pull my sweater over my head; leaving me in nothing but my skirt and bra.

the two men make quick work of joining me on the couch, sitting on either side of me. Trevor’s hand grazes my neck as he pushes my hair off my shoulder, his head dipping down to attach his lips to my collarbone, suckling and leaving wet kisses up the column of my throat. whereas Jamie takes it upon himself to press his lips to mine. what starts out as lust driven and rushed, quickly turns into passion and need. the defenseman’s tongue runs over the seam of my lips, gaining entry when i part them and pushing his tongue against mine.

Trevor’s hand rests high up on my thigh, slowly inching his way up under my skirt, and it doesn’t take long for him to get even bolder; his fingers finding my clit through my soaked lace panties. his middle finger presses, rubbing me in circular motions, and a high pitched moan escapes my lips, muffled by Jamie’s.

as though coordinated, both men pull away from me, Jamie’s lips puffy and swollen. the tip of Trevor’s nose drags up my throat slowly, until he reaches my ear, his finger halting in its movements.

“you want this?” Jamie asks me, smirking as i nod my head and let out a choked whimper.

“then we need you to be a good girl and strip for us.” Trevor whispers in my ear, pairing his utterance with a roll of my earlobe between his lips.

he pulls away, both pairs of eyes settling on me as i rise from my seat. i unzip my skirt, letting it pool to the floor into a puddle of fabric at my feet, and they suck in a breath at the sight of my matching red lacy set.

“someone knew she was gonna get fucked today.”

i nod at Jamie’s words, bottom lip caught between my teeth as i unclip my bra, pushing the straps off my shoulders and allowing it to drop down to the floor. my nipples are stiff and peaked, the cold air doing nothing to help.

“i didn’t know i would get both of you today though.” i confess, a boost of confidence surging through me as the hockey players ogle my breasts.

“keep going, baby.” Trevor all but groans, watching intently as i begin to drag my panties down my legs, stepping out of them and leaving myself bare for them.

“i hardly think this is fair.” i huff, feigning a pout. “you guys still have your pants on and i’m here all naked for you.”

Jamie hops up from the couch, tugging his flannel pants from his legs, while Trevor merely lifts his hips and takes his off while sitting. both men look at me, seeking reassurance, and i nod.

“much better.”

Trevor grins, leaning forward to grip my by the waist and pulling me back onto the couch. he pushes me flat down, sprawling me out on the sofa, and guides my leg to hook over the back of the couch, leaving me open and vulnerable to his gaze.

my eyes flick to find Jamie, but rather than standing in the spot he once was, he now sits in the chair beside the couch. his hand grips around the base of his cock, squeezing gently to tease himself as he watches Trevor and i.

“let’s see if you taste as good as your cocoa.” Trevor smirks. i roll my eyes at the joke, laughing at his cheesy remark, but my giggles get caught in my throat when he bends down, licking a stripe up my core.

“fuck, Trevor.” i cry out, one hand flying to his head and burying itself in his fluffy dirty blonde hair, as the other fists the couch cushion beside my head.

Trevor chuckles lowly, repositioning himself before diving in like a man starved. his tongue laps at my arousal, my eyes squeezing shut at the feeling, and i can hear Jamie groan from his place near my head.

licking up, Trevor flicks his tongue against my clit, his hands holding my thighs apart to keep me from squeezing them around his head. his lips close around the nub of nerves, sucking it and rolling it between his lips, and i give a tug to his hair, a moan bubbling up my throat as my hips buck against him.

“yes! please, don’t stop!” i whimper, but rather than listen to my words, he chooses to release my clit, letting his tongue drag back down to my entrance.

continuing his assault against my cunt, Trevor brings his thumb to my clit, providing just enough pressure as he begins to rub.

my eyes roll back in my head, my back arching, and i can feel the pressure in my stomach growing; getting stronger and stronger the longer he continues.

“make her come, Z.” Jamie pipes up, “i wanna watch her let go.”

Trevor hums in agreement, the vibrations traveling from his tongue to my pussy. and with just a few more rubs of his thumb, and flicks of his tongue, my breath catches in my throat, my lack of oxygen quickly making me woozy and aiding in tipping me over the edge. i heave out a breath, mingled with a high pitched cry as my vision turns white, my legs shaking as i release on his tongue.

he doesn’t ease up, lapping at my wetness even after i come down from my climax. it’s only when i whine, pushing his head away, that he finally backs away, pushing himself up.

“i’d say she’s ready to be properly fucked, wouldn’t you Jimmy?” Trevor chuckles, staring down at me as i pant to catch my breath.

“yeah, i think i must agree, Trev.” Jamie sidles up to the couch, joining his best friend in watching me in my fucked out bliss. “i think she can take another one, don’t you?”

“i know she can.” Trevor confirms. taking ahold of my hands, Trevor helps me up, motioning for me to spin around. once i do so, Jamie nudges my back, forcing me onto all fours before he kneels behind me.

“can’t wait to have those pretty lips wrapped around my cock.” Trevor mutters, his thumb running along my bottom lip. “you think you can handle me fucking your face?”

i peer up at him through my lashes, working hard to focus my vision, as i can feel Jamie running his tip through my wetness. nodding my head, Trevor smiles down at me darkly.

“yeah, i know you can.”

gripping his cock, Trevor pushes the tip against my lips, urging me to open up for him, and i happily do so, relaxing my throat as he pushes in. it’s in this moment that Jamie thrusts in to the hilt, bottoming out inside of me, and i choke, my eyes rolling back as i adjust to the fullness.

“fuck, you feel like heaven.” Jamie grunts, pulling all the way out before he intrudes me once more, setting a quick pace. “so fucking tight, i could fuck you all day.”

i clench around him in acknowledgement, a groan falling from his lips at the feeling.

i can barely hear his grunt over the sounds of my gagging as Trevor thrusts into my face, his hands gripping the side of my head as he guides me. pulling out, i’m given a little reprieve, sucking in a deep breath as Trevor slaps my cheek with his cock, drool and pre-cum dripping down my chin.

“you’ve been wanting this for so long, haven’t you?” the forward mocks me, slipping himself back past my lips as i whine.

“you just wanna be filled, don’t you?” Jamie chimes in, “fucked thoroughly.”

i can’t respond, but i have the suspicion that’s how they want it, both laughing as i focus purely on pleasure.

i can feel myself sucking Jamie in every time he thrusts, my walls closing around him in effort to keep him there. his tip drags against my g-spot every time his hips snap, and i can feel the pressure in my stomach building itself back up. tying into knots as he quickens his pace.

his skin slaps against mine, and his hand spreads across my back, pushing down to get me to arch it, and i follow his lead. the new angle makes my toes curl, but i can’t focus too hard on it because i can feel Trevor’s dick begin to throb.

Trevor’s head tips back, a loud moan escaping him as he pulls back again, letting me breathe through my mouth for a moment rather than my nose, before he pushes my head back down.

“shit! i’m gonna come!” Trevor breathes out, and i relax my throat, hollowing out my cheeks as he pushes me until my nose makes contact with his abdomen, holding me there as his abs flex. his cock twitches just before he sighs, ropes of cums spurting in my mouth and down my throat.

pulling out of my mouth, he gazes back down at me.

“show it to me.” i open my mouth, allowing him to see his release, and he grips my cheeks, pulling my head up. drawing his head back, he spits, some making it into my mouth while rest splatters on my cheek. “now swallow.”

his hand slides down to my throat, feeling the muscles work as i gulp, swallowing it down.

“good girl.”

with Trevor finished, Jamie takes this as his time to alter our position. shooing away his teammates hand, Jamie replaces Trevor’s grip on my throat with his own, pulling me up until my back is flat against his chest.

his hips buck, fucking himself up into me at a hard and fast pace, making my legs shake. his other hand finds my pearl, rubbing as he thrusts.

“that’s it. take this dick like a good girl.” Jamie whispers, his lips ghosting the shell of my ear, and it’s the combination of those words and his fingers circling my clit, that set me off, clenching around him as i reach my orgasm.

tears roll down my cheeks at the pleasure, my breath hitching once more as i come on his cock.

“fuck, squeezing me so tight, i’m gonna come.” Jack curses, making me clench around him again, spurring on his own release. he continues fucking me through our orgasms, causing chills to run down my spine.

releasing his hold on me, i flop down onto my back on the couch, catching my breath as the boys on either side of the couch do the same.

it’s silent in the room, nothing but the sound of heavy breathing, until Jamie speaks up.

“so remind me, why have we never done this before?”

Trevor and i let out shallow laughter, the defenseman joining us when he finally caught his breath.

“so…” i trail off, gaining the attention of both boys.

“you can use my shower.” Trevor tells me, and i nod. but when i make no move to get up, they both furrow their brows at me.

“give a girl a second!” i huff, “i think my legs are jello.”

at my words, both hockey players smirk, Trevor lifting his hand in the air for Jamie to fist bump.

once we’ve all three recovered, taken quick showers, and Jamie has remade my now long having gone cold cocoa; we rejoin on the couch, a blanket draped over the trio of us.

“what do we wanna watch?” Trevor questions, the remote clutched in his hand.

“a christmas movie.” i state, as though it’s obvious.

“Elf?” Jamie suggests, and i nod, Trevor already finding it on a streaming service.

about 20 minutes into the movie, i curl my legs up, cuddling into Jamie’s shoulder while Trevor’s hand grips my foot in a calming manner.

they both glance over at me, but upon seeing my still open eyes, immediately look back at the tv. Jamie repositions us, his arm now around me while my head lays on his chest, and despite my hardest attempts, my eyes flutter shut not long later. my breathing evening out as i fall asleep.

[vaguely-concerned]

BEHOLD! The list of evidence for my bold claim that Pan and Freddie dislike each other ferociously on sight because they are, in some key ways and despite appearances, very similar people: 

- First instinct upon seeing Grace sad is to try to make her laugh to cheer her up. (See: Freddie’s very first lines in the game starting off as she means to go on, and about half the things Pan ever says or does lol. In the last scene with him before The Trial you can even tell him you’re there just because you wanted to talk to him and have something cheer you up.) General sources of levity and fun and play in Grace’s life if you seek them out. 

- They react with similar anxiety to the idea of Grace being really angry with them (Freddie’s surprised/dismayed “Why are you angry at me?!” in the red route of ‘I Can Teach You’, the millenia-old god of the wild hiding behind a tree for ten minutes because he thinks Grace might be about to yell at him lmao <3)

- Both of them seem to have similar interpersonal insecurities in general, judging by the enforced choice between them in ‘I Can Teach You’ (I love you both so much but oh my god. is this a constructive use of time or energy under the circumstances lol), softened and alleviated by the fact that at the end of the day the most important thing to either of them is that Grace is happy. It isn’t possessiveness, but there is an element of underlying ‘Hey. Hey I am your favorite right?? 🥺’ insecurity there that trips them both up to begin with. Once you play the game and go back to look at this scene again knowing everyone’s real motivations, they’re even coming from the same place deep down — genuine fear for Grace’s safety and wanting to help her. (Freddie uncomplicatedly out of love🥹, and Pan at that stage probably more out of a guilty sense of responsibility, though he does seem to take a shine to Grace herself pretty quickly as well. Also he demonstrably isn’t, uh. Completely wrong in saying Freddie’s involvement in this whole mess is likely to end in tears, even if he is being a real dick about it) 

- If you don’t choose either in ‘I Can Teach You’, they both show up within minutes of each other to watch Grace’s back in the Medusa quest anyway. One brain cell ping pong and no one notices because they keep trying to swat each other with the racquets whenever Grace glances away for a second

Sidenote but flirting with both of them one after the other in that quest is fucking hilarious, they’re just taking turns ‘Really? Right in front of my salad?’-ing directly at the camera (...listen I feel that there is a chance that as long as they kept Grace between them the whole time there could be a thing here. I think a possible universe out there where it happens at least once does exist if one cared to go seek it out. That’s all I’m saying.) 

- Seems a bit obvious but what else am I here for: both very drawn to Grace no matter what main trait you choose. Whether this is true vice versa is of course player-dependent, but it is one way you can play the game. 

- Incredibly similar defensive reactions to being picked on or sniped at (and no hesitation whatsoever in subjecting each other to exactly that immediately anyway haha) 

- A bit dark when you think about it, but they both express the sentiment that it would be better for them to step in and die if it means Grace lives. (Freddie very directly of course ;______; and then in ‘It’s time’, Pan in ‘The Trial’ and the little talk you have with him later in Athena’s office.)  

Matching ‘ride or die’ instincts once awoken, is what I’m getting at. Freddie gets extra points for sheer longevity and constancy, Pan gets extra points for getting there in a week. You’re both unhinged (affectionate) 

- They’re the only ones among the main cast wearing green, right? I think I’ve got that right? Well, Charon does too, I suppose, but he’s a bit more peripheral. (Persephone and Aphrodite wear blue-green, but that seems more associated with death and the underworld and the river of grief everyone keeps using as a metaphor throughout the game.) Somehow I find the idea/metaphor that once you get Pan out from under like three layers of bullshit he’s the same colour as Freddie (who is inarguably The symbol of devotion and steadfastness in this game no matter your choices) quite sweet. 

- Nerds. You know I am right. Slightly different kinds of nerd (Freddie is distinctly geek-flavoured and Pan collects rare books for sport sort of distinction), but still. Oh my god. Freddie should get the whole cast together to play D&D in the Reliquary post-game. It would be absolute carnage. It would be glorious hilarity. *GASP* no wait not the Reliquary, let’s go to the Underworld so Charon gets to play too. For the love of all that is good give this to me now please I need it 

- The only two people who think Freddie losing control of her powers and causing a dance number at a funeral is hilarious

In short this is a recognition of the self through the other (derogatory) situation for both of them and neither of them decides to take that with any dignity or grace (ahaha) in the slightest, I love them very much,  thank you and goodnight 

[burberrycanary]

Hi there! I am about midway through reading your story Lost Vocabularies and it is amazing!! The whole series has been so lovely, I’m obsessed with the way you write! The way that you convey the boys complicated emotions and capture all the little nuances of their dynamic has me feral!! Beyond even them the way you inject so much personality into the locations is so good, I feel like I am there!! So thank you for writing this lovely story 💕 I was wondering if you happen to have a list of all the books that Bucky and Steve read? I have been looking up a lot of them and adding them to my to read list bc they sound so interesting lol! On that same note, how did you decide what books to mention? Are they all ones that you have read or did you do research to find ones you thought they would like?

I’ve been coming back and rereading this kind and wonderful comment in my inbox over the last few weeks when way too many massive, stressful, time-sensitive things were all happening at once. 💕 But since I have a little breather between crazy periods, I get to dive in here as a treat.

Lost Vocabularies involved a lot of research, which I hope isn’t apparent because I didn’t want there to be any noticeable difference between the parts of the story that are based on places I’d been, foods I’d tried and books I’d read personally—and what was created purely based on research. Fingers crossed that the seams don't show!

In this series, we see both Steve and Bucky use art to process—helping them understand themselves and connect to the world again. Bucky is drawn to stories while Steve as an artist is much more visual, but the underlying impulse is similar. In the same way that you learn a lot by glancing through someone’s bookshelves, what characters read is interesting to me, and revealing. This version of Bucky is a very private person so these books offer a glimpse into his inner life. And as the POV character we get to experience all these things alongside Steve.

I’m not much of a sci-fi or fantasy reader so some of Bucky’s picks were a real challenge for me. But I wanted these to be grounded in the characters and the storytelling functions, not based on my own taste and opinions, though of course those always bleed through. 

Steve’s Reading List

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Alice Neel: People Come First by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

The Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston, edited by Ann J. Abadie

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang

Bucky’s Reading List

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time by Richard Feynman

Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos by Steven H. Strogatz

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I’ve included some notes and commentary on why I picked each of these works under the cut.

The Same River, Twice (The Man Is Still Left with His Hands)

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Classic post-WWII dystopian sci-fi that focuses on society collapsing after a series of catastrophes that were unintentional but very much caused by people, which leads to a lot of the population becoming blind. Thematically this work engages with the loss of identity that people, both abled and disabled, face in the process of survival and a dark look at what happens after societies break down. How this applies to Bucky is obvious, but part of the argument of this post-Endgame series is that it applies to Steve, too. 

Also, there are huge mobile carnivorous plants. 

Fun fact: the opening of this novel is said to have been the inspiration for 28 Days Later!

Still Left with the River (The Paradox of Motion)

Alice Neel: People Come First by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

Alice Neel’s portraits are extraordinary, almost unnervingly vivid. In this story, Steve is familiar with her work as a fellow New York-based artist active in communist circles in the 1930s. She also worked for the WPA, producing wonderful street scenes that documented New York neighborhoods of the era. 

To be honest, I have so many questions about what Steve was up to in the late 1930s before his war mania of the 40s hits.

One of the core themes of this series is Steve struggling with what his body is for if it’s no longer for violence. Who is he if he’s not a soldier? What is his radically changed body if it’s not a weapon? How do you come home from the war?

In this regard, Steve and Bucky have all kinds of shared life experience.

So thematically I include Neel because of her startling gift for capturing personalities and bodies through a process of frank, earnest, truthful observation of the integrated completeness of body and self: this space that’s you. 

But a book of Alice Neel’s work with her sensitive portraits and fleshy frank nudes pulls him into flipping through page after page of these personalities and bodies, not idealized: seen.

Steve isn’t ready for that when he bumps into this big “impractical” art book in a holdover Barnes & Noble in Brooklyn, not when he’s still so shook up and adrift. But he will be.

There’s such empathy and radical humanism to her pieces. “People,” as she famously said, “come first.” I stand by the conclusion that Steve would love her work.

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft was relatively unknown in his lifetime—he died in 1937—but his stories were published in popular fantasy pulp magazines like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories, which is where Bucky would have come across his work. The fact that Steve recognizes Lovecraft by name means that teenage Bucky must have talked about what he was reading and the pulp stories he liked with teenage Steve, which is adorable—“this Lovecraft fellow, Steve, you wouldn’t believe the stuff he comes up with.” And Steve was paying attention enough to remember two decades and change later without the benefit of his serum-enhanced memory, which hurts my heart a little in the best possible way. 

That’s how Steve all these years and decades later is able to wordlessly toss this collection of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories at Bucky on a hot hazy stumbled-upon beach in northern Florida and watch Bucky’s whole face light up. 

And of course Bucky would view Lovecraft as a great beach read 😂

But this is the basis for something I’ve written into this series: Bucky excitedly sharing things he finds interesting with Steve—wanting to tell Steve first, Steve most. And although Steve is quiet, stoical and very self-contained, he’s paying a whole hell of a lot of attention.

Given that Bucky is canonically a Tolkien fan, I think the imaginativeness and ranging scope of Lovecraft’s complex, often interconnected stories would appeal to him. And, thematically, Lovecraft is distinctive for the era for having characters psychologically fragment when confronting these vast inhuman others. 

“The Call of Cthulhu” opens with:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Steve and Bucky have each voyaged out a long way.

Trauma, in a way, is a form of terrible knowledge. You can heal but you can’t unknow things. 

Not Language but a Map (The Grammar of Sensation)

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

This is the first book in the series that we see Bucky pick for himself. And, wow, he picks a doozy with themes of multiple and unstable identities, invasive surveillance, manipulation, psychosis, and how individuals can get chewed up by larger systems, falling through the cracks of society. Dick was writing based on his own troubled experiences with southern California drug culture of the early 70s, but this work gets at much more fundamental darknesses that I think would speak to some of the horrors Bucky has gone through and won’t talk about, not even with Steve. 

Within the first few pages, we get this:

It was midday, in June of 1994. In California, in a tract area of cheap but durable plastic houses, long ago vacated by the straights. Jerry had at an earlier date sprayed metal paint over all the windows, though, to keep out the light; the illumination for the room came from a pole lamp into which he had screwed nothing but spot lamps, which shone day and night, so as to abolish time for him and his friends. He liked that; he liked to get rid of time. By doing that he could concentrate on important things without interruption.

The Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston, edited by Ann J. Abadie

Eggleston was an early pioneer in color photography and that fascination with color is very apparent in his work. I think this focus would grab Steve as an artist who doesn’t take seeing the full spectrum of color for granted. Even in the MCU’s thin action-film scripts, Steve comments on things that offend his aesthetic sensibilities even when that has absolutely no bearing on the situation at hand, from Stark Tower to Lang’s van.

Not even a world-ending crisis can keep Steve from going, wow, no, that’s ugly. I enjoyed running with that 😂

Steve’s view of Eggleston’s photographs shifts over the course of the series, reflecting what he’s feeling, from the fragmented and disconnected detachment—“isolated and off-kilter”— that he sees in them at the beginning that shifts to the passionate engagement in the world he finds in them later. 

Steve looks through the whole book of William Eggleston’s photographs again and at first the colors still roll over him like the shockwave of a distant explosion, all he can focus on. But gradually the subjects and compositions pull forward, too: monumentalized images of the everyday that at first seem neutral, the work of a detached observer. But the off-center framing of ordinary life is so deliberate as though everything might be important and where every detail deserves attention—that’s nothing like neutral. That’s not detached at all. You have to care a whole hell of a lot.

This mirrors the journey this post-Endgame Steve goes on. Because Steve Rogers should be a character who cares a whole hell of a lot, not what the MCU writers eventually reduced him to. And that’s what this fix-it is trying to fix. 

Lost Vocabularies that Might Express (The Memory of These Broken Impressions)

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman

I love writing Bucky as a big fucking science nerd. His last night in New York and how does he want to spend the time? At a science fair with his best friend and a couple of pretty girls. So Bucky reading about quantum electrodynamics is delightful to me. The thing is, though, Bucky is a bright enough guy with a high school education. He’s not a genius—and the MCU is lousy with geniuses. But if Bucky wanted to learn a little more about all this quantum stuff he heard about in passing during some vague and very improbable sounding explanations, which by the way also allowed one of the few people still living who truly matters to him and the closest thing Bucky had left to family to fuck off to the past, well, Feynman’s QED isn’t a bad place to start in understanding some of this quantum stuff, at least. 

Feynman here is very much writing for a popular audience. His writing is conversational—the book is adapted from a set of lectures he gave—and his voice is witty, casual and surprisingly light, but at the same time Feynman is deeply invested in helping lay people understand quantum mechanics. The book opens with:

Alix Mautner was very curious about physics and often asked me to explain things to her. I would do all right, just as I do with a group of students at Caltech that come to me for an hour on Thursdays, but eventually I’d fail at what is to me the most interesting part: We would always get hung up on the crazy ideas of quantum mechanics. I told her I couldn’t explain these ideas in an hour or an evening—it would take a long time—but I promised her that someday I’d prepare a set of lectures on the subject.

I prepared some lectures, and I went to New Zealand to try them out—because New Zealand is far enough away that if they weren’t successful, it would be all right! Well, the people in New Zealand thought they were okay, so I guess they’re okay—at least for New Zealand! So here are the lectures I really prepared for Alix, but unfortunately I can’t tell them to her directly, now.

C’mon! Tell me Bucky Barnes would not be hooked by this opening. 

Thematically, and more seriously, the question of how could Steve do this? has two very different meanings. So far in this series Bucky isn’t ready to confront the harder version of that question which comes potentially with some very painful answers: how could Steve make that choice? Nope, he’s not ready for that. Instead, his brain unconsciously takes the easier way out: trying to understand quantum electrodynamics. 😂😭

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Bucky must have liked A Scanner Darkly, because he went for another Philip K. Dick novel. Today remembered mostly as the source material for Blade Runner, this bleak dystopian novel is set in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war that destroys most life on Earth. The work has themes around empathy—who feels empathy and for what?—materialism and what really makes us human. 

I find it interesting how Sebastian Stan talks about The Winter Soldier in terms of someone who has undergone a process of total desensitization, which to varying degrees is deliberately part of the training of all soldiers. But rebuilding his core sense of empathy was one of the things Bucky chose to do as soon as he had any agency in that two-year period where he was on the run, which is remarkable. As a person who has been treated as though he wasn’t human and had his empathy forcibly stripped from him, I think Bucky would have a lot of complicated feelings about the enslaved androids who escape but are ruthlessly tracked down and killed. Some of these escaped androids are dangerous and do lack basic empathy—shown in the book by torturing and mutilating an animal—while other androids seem like ordinary people just trying to live their lives. 

I like that Bucky talks about the book with Steve later in the story, returning in my view to a very old habit of bookworm Bucky wanting to share what he’d been reading with Steve <333

“I need to find something to read next,” Bucky says after wrapping up his description of an imagined religion that involved plugging into a box to virtually suffer the existence of a man forever walking up a steep hill while struck by crashing stones. 

“Well, did the androids dream of electric sheep?” Steve asks.

“Who knows?” Bucky knocks into him gently as he takes the bowl Steve passes over. “They just wanted to be free. Though the free people just wanted to own stuff or plug into a box and suffer. So, you know, sort of a grim outlook. ”

“A little light, cheerful reading.”

“Hey, we live in a world where people write ‘Take back what’s yours’ in the streets and then smash up the windows. Dystopias don’t seem so far off the mark.”

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time by Richard Feynman

Another case of Bucky sticking with an author he likes! To me, this implies that Bucky has already read Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces, which explains some of the foundational basics of physics for a very broad and non-technical audience. Six Not-So-Easy Pieces is also drawn from Feynman’s famous Lectures on Physics, focusing here on relativity and space-time, but this work assumes a greater knowledge of math, hence the name. But as a legendary sniper Bucky must have a strong aptitude for math and anyway I just leaned into making Bucky an all-around nerd, because Bucky Barnes, nerd who grew up hot, is delightful to me. 

Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time are all on point for a post-Endgame fix-it, which I think should count as a not-so-easy piece in its own right. 

Throughout the series, we see Bucky using physical copies when he reads fiction, more or less from unconscious nostalgia: connecting back to memories of his younger self who was an avid reader of pulp magazines and cheap paperbacks. Once Steve gets him going with that first quietly tossed-over gift, Bucky always carries around a sci-fi or fantasy book in this series despite the limited space in his backpack. And this familiarity wouldn’t just be from his pre-war life since I figure Bucky would have gone for the Armed Services Editions that were distributed for free to soldiers. Bucky likely traded with other soldiers once he finished a book if he couldn’t get a new ASE distribution: trading in his finished novel for a new one is Bucky unconsciously falling back into another old habit.

But for non-fiction, Bucky is absolutely here for the Modern Marvel of being able to carry around as many books as he likes on his phone. I figure Bucky would have used public libraries during certain stages of his recovery when he was homeless and migratory since they are a place to get information that is consistently available in cities; and a warm, quiet place you can go with a minimal number of security cameras. I headcanon a middle-aged librarian who has a few streaks of gray in her dark hair—and who reminds Bucky of someone but he has no idea who—explaining what e-books are to this tall, gaunt, soft-spoken homeless guy with an eye contact problem. And this person who isn’t the Asset anymore and isn’t Bucky Barnes yet has the out-of-nowhere thought: huh, whaddaya know. That’s pretty neat.

Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, And Engineering by Steven H. Strogatz

Isolated systems tend to evolve towards a single equilibrium and these equilibrium points have been the focus of many-body research for centuries. But life is generally not that simple because most systems aren’t isolated. Often the dynamics of a system result from the product of multiple different interacting forces and objects in these systems can change between multiple different attractor wells over time. Or as Strogatz puts it:

As we’ve mentioned earlier, most nonlinear systems are impossible to solve analytically. Why are nonlinear systems so much harder to analyze than linear ones? The essential difference is that linear systems can be broken down into parts. Then each part can be solved separately and finally recombined to get the answer. This idea allows a fantastic simplification of complex problems, and underlies such methods as normal modes, Laplace transforms, superposition arguments, and Fourier analysis. In this sense, a linear system is precisely equal to the sum of its parts.

But many things in nature don’t act this way. Whenever parts of a system interfere, or cooperate, or compete, there are nonlinear interactions going on. Most of everyday life is nonlinear, and the principle of superposition fails spectacularly. 

You can think of nonlinear dynamics as situations in which the sum of the parts is insufficient to understand the whole. This connects to multiple themes in this story as Bucky and Steve try to understand themselves, their lives and each other. But here Bucky is also just continuing to live his best life as a nerd with a strong intuitive knack for math, a high school education, an internet connection and a growing collection of science e-books. Or as Bucky puts it:

“It’s nice, though, like this smart guy is just talking to you but doesn’t assume you’re dumb because of what you don’t know.”

It’s touched on only very lightly in the series so far, but Bucky has a lot of complex feelings about higher education that relate to class, indirectly to sexuality, and go back to the experience of being the son of upwardly mobile working-class immigrants who were very bought-in on a traditional take on the American Dream.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I picked this partly because I thought the title would grab Bucky, who has been a stranger in a strange land several times over. Thematically this midcentury sci-fi novel focuses on challenging social norms through having the main character, a human who’d been raised by Martians on Mars, come back to Earth as an adult. A best-seller in its day that was controversial for its rejection of Christianity, monogamy and the nuclear family, the work is very tied to the looming cultural changes of the 60s and 70s. 

The novel’s critical reputation has been steadily in decline for decades, but I think Bucky would find it interesting since he grew up within the traditional early 20th-century culture this novel satirizes and challenges—mores that this story’s version of Bucky didn’t unquestioningly accept but didn’t openly challenge, either.

Having Bucky pick this novel reflects the themes for the last act of this story that focus more on Steve and Bucky's different experiences as closeted queer men growing up in a deeply homophobic society. These experiences continue to shape and impact them and yet are also a past these two are coming to terms with and growing beyond. 

Fun fact: this novel coined the word “grok.”

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang

Of all the books featured in this series, One Mighty and Irresistible Tide is my top recommendation. This is an accessible, well-written history of a topic that haunts American history: immigration. The specific focus is the waves of legislation passed in the first half of the 20th century that tried—and often succeeded—in limiting who could legally immigrate based on the racial and ethnic hierarchies that equally haunt American history, right down to the foundation. 

In this series, I wanted to pick up the themes of social justice and immigration that were so vaguely and incoherently included in TFATWS. These themes are inherent in the Snap and Return plotline except that Disney does not want to touch any of these politics with a ten-foot pole. But I remain fascinated by trying to wrap my mind around what it would mean for half the population to vanish and then return five years later, catastrophically in both cases. It’s a huge, intricate, sticky, difficult world-building problem that’s inescapably political. 

Steve isn’t quite ready to dive into facing or helping to fix the problems of the post-Return world that his actions helped to create. But here we get to see Steve’s burned-out passion and conviction slowly rekindle as he reads about the complicated and often ugly history of American immigration—and he gets mad about it. Of course, he gets mad about it! This is my answer to the ludicrous idea that Steve Rogers could quietly sit out the second half of the twentieth century. 

At the same time, I can have compassion for Steve knowing he can’t keep going but not knowing how to help himself, only to be given the cursed monkey’s paw of time travel. And he fucks up. His actions have real and lasting consequences. But that doesn’t make the situation hopeless or mean Steve can’t try to repair the relationships he damaged or work to regain the trust he lost, assuming he’s lucky enough to be given another chance by people who love him but have been hurt by his choices.

One of the greatest challenges in writing this Endgame fix-it was accepting Endgame as the starting point of the story and trying to reconcile a character I love with the choices canon has him make. Over the course of these stories, the central point isn’t Steve coming back to Bucky. It’s Steve coming back to himself. Through a slow and painful struggle, Steve finds himself again—rediscovering his stubborn endurance, his compassion for others and his drive to set wrongs right. Steve stumbled, badly, but he gets back up. Because that’s who Steve Rogers is. 

And because of who Bucky Barnes is—his innate kindness, his warm-hearted generosity and his stubborn loyalty that isn’t blind but runs deep—that’s how these two characters come back to each other, after everything.

Deliberately, this series is the first hard-fought and hopeful glimmer in a long trudging process that can get so heavy to carry forward, day after day, but is shot through with moments of beauty and joy all the same. 

I can't go on; I'll go on.

In other words, to quote one of my favorite poets: what the living do.