#i want him to be easily breakable by the most stupidest things PLEASE

[xhanisai]

The Claw design has grown on me but I love Emodrien. But you cannot tell me that OG Adrien wouldn't be able to break Emodrien like a twig, even if he may be apologizing for it

If Emodrien can't be broken by baby August, let alone OG Adrien, then he's not worthy of the emo title

[cake-writes]

Breathe (Lecture 1)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Story Warnings: Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mixed Delivery (Social Media & Written Parts), Eventual 18+

Summary: Bucky takes a history class at his local university in hopes of catching up on the last few decades, on everything he’s missed whilst under Hydra’s control – but he winds up learning a lot more than what’s on the syllabus. He learns how to heal.

Written for @the-omni-princess​​’s 1k writing challenge!

(Formerly Hope & Happiness; I decided that I needed a better title!)

TAG LIST: OPEN

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So I took the time to find an actual university course to complement this story because I’m just that invested, you guys. (I’m also a huge history nerd, lmao.) The syllabus and lectures are real, and any content relating to these in my story is straight from the source.

Lectures are recorded and available for a listen! Most written chapters will correspond to a lecture; I’ll list which one at the top of the chapter if you want to learn along with Bucky. Each one is about 40-50 minutes long and in English. Click here to access them!

This is definitely optional, though, so please don’t feel pressured to listen, but if you’re a history nerd like me then you may want to take a look!

Wednesday, August 24

Lecture 1: Introductory Lecture

Although Bucky had been on campus a couple of times before now – first to apply, and then to meet with an advisor as all new students were required to do – he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the sheer size of it. Universities these days were massive: cities within a city, buildings upon restaurants upon shops and all he wanted to do was learn.

That was all he’d ever wanted to do, really. Learn about himself. Learn what made the world tick. Learn all the things he didn’t know. He’d always excelled in school, and once upon a time he’d started to save money in order to attend university. Didn’t know what he’d study – just knew that he wanted a degree in order to support the family he thought he’d have one day.

Ambitions for the future.

Then came the draft. Because hadn’t yet been able to save enough, he’d been shipped out to the European Theater – sent to hell, not to college.

Ambitions for the past.

Two years spent in cold, wintery foxholes gave him an opportunity to think, but all he could think about was the stench of death surrounding him, surrounding his unit, surrounding every waking moment of his life at war. Not his death, of course, but it may as well have been.

Bucky learned to hone in on the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, the rush of adrenaline in his veins, the sensation of his boots in mud and snow. He learned to focus. He learned to survive.

And all the while, he lived with the very real possibility that he wouldn’t make it through – and, well, he didn’t. Not really. Some parts of him never made it back; what little remained became the property of Hydra. Mind corrupted, soul shattered, will broken into sharp, jagged shards of glass.

Fragile. Breakable. Erased, but still alive.  

Bucky may have survived, but he’d never really been right since – never really been whole. Physically and mentally, with too many pieces of himself missing or damaged, one constant stayed the same: a desire to learn. He’d gotten through the war and Hydra’s harsh training because that quality was a part of him – one of the only parts that made it through.

Battle-worn and weary from surviving – not living, not really – Bucky finally had the opportunity to take a step back from the battlefield to just… exist. To live. To breathe. In taking a leave of absence, he embarked upon another journey: to rediscover the man he used to be.

It would be difficult task, he knew. The twenty-first century was far cry from the 1940s, a far cry from home, and the sheer size of the college campus only served to remind him of that. In fact, he was only able to recognize that he was still in New York because this school happened to be the very same one he’d once planned to attend so long ago. Staten Island University. Right across the bridge from his present-day apartment in Brooklyn, not to mention his old family home.

Home.

But this unfamiliar new century was his home, now, so he sought to learn what he’d missed over all the decades he’d lost to Hydra. In the process, maybe he’d learn about himself, learn what made the world tick, learn all the things he didn’t know.

What better place could there be to do that than at a university?

Bucky soon found out that his education would be paid for by the United States government for his service in the military. Ironic that the very barrier which forced him into war was the same thing being gifted to him now. The GI Bill. A reward for his patriotism. A thank you for his sacrifice.

Flowery words for a bribe meant to keep him silent. Call him jaded.

Worse still, if Bucky thought tuition was expensive back then, he didn’t know what to call it today. He’d been rendered speechless when he found out what a single class would cost, but rest assured, Uncle Sam would pay for it so that he didn’t have to.

Physically, it only cost him an arm but mentally, it cost him so much more.

U.S. Society and Politics Since 1945. Mondays and Wednesdays at two o’clock. Three credit hours, whatever that meant. He signed up for the class after his first meeting with an advisor – thought that it might do him good to put his past behind him and learn.

Bucky arrived about twenty minutes before the class was due to start, all nerves and first day jitters – absolutely ridiculous when he really thought about it, so he tried to put it out of his mind and selected a seat in the very back row in hopes of not being noticed.

Counting seats proved to be a good distraction. Three hundred seats. Would there really be that many students? Save for a handful of his new classmates scattered about, the too-large lecture hall seemed like it would never fill. Sure enough, however, it eventually started to – not all three hundred seats, but close enough.

It wasn’t until then that Bucky realized he might have been woefully unprepared. Just about everyone else had laptops sat out front of them, and while he could use one – clunkily – he still preferred something more a little more tangible. All he’d brought along was the required textbook, a notebook, and two pens, one of which he’d been rolling in between a gloved thumb and forefinger for the last few minutes. 

That was a nervous tic of his, one he’d picked up in the army, except today it was a pen instead of a cigarette and he sure could have used a pack of Lucky Strikes right now. A cigarette would have done wonders to take the edge off, but he didn’t smoke, not anymore. Frustrated, he dropped the pen back down onto his desk and slumped down in his chair.

Had school always been this nerve-wracking? He couldn’t remember.

A snort drew his attention, and Bucky glanced to his left to find you sitting a few seats down in the same back row, watching him in amusement. 

It caught him off-guard.

“Is this your first class?”

A innocent question, unprompted – untainted.

While Bucky knew that there would be some socializing required, especially in the discussion section of the class, never in his wildest dreams did he think that anyone would be willing to strike up a conversation with him. He had half a mind to say ‘no’ and ignore you as long as possible, but for whatever reason, he didn’t. He opened up.

“How could you tell?”

You shrugged. “You’re fidgeting, for one. But mostly because you don’t have a bag.”

Why would he need a bag? He was only taking one class.

At his doubtful look, you spoke again, voice light and airy, “Don’t worry. You’ll learn.”

Well, that was foreboding. Then again, you seemed like you would know. You looked slightly older than most of the other students who were likely fresh out of high school, and you appeared to be all sorts of prepared, what with a leather laptop bag on the chair to your right and some brightly-coloured notebooks, binders, and a few thick textbooks all strewn about the desk in front of you.

A laptop bag, but no laptop. Strange.

Bucky wasn’t really sure why he wanted to know, but he nodded to your books and asked anyway, “What else are you taking?”

“Mostly upper-level psychology classes. I’m in my final year. What about you?”

“This is my only class,” he admitted, and to him, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer. He was only taking the one class with no particular goal in mind, but here you were, taking at least four other classes judging by the number of textbooks on your desk.

You had a goal. 

He didn’t.

You didn’t ask why, though; instead, you offered him your name, along with a bright smile.

“Bucky,” he found himself telling you way too easily.

“Well, Bucky, it’s nice to meet you.” You paused, then, before you made an offhanded comment of, “I think it’s really good to have a friend in class, you know? Mostly so you can steal their notes when you skip.”

A joke, perhaps, but Bucky took it literally. That may have been the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “I’m not gonna— Who pays thousands of dollars in tuition and then decides not to come?”

Your brows rose in surprise for a moment or two, but then you laughed at his stick-in-the-mud response. “Oh no, you’re one of those. What a goody two-shoes!”

Don’t worry, you’d said. You’ll learn.

But the mischievous sparkle in your eyes let him know that you were just teasing, and what’s more, he actually didn’t mind. No, he kind of liked it, having some normal human interaction for once – not whatever the hell he’d grown used to at the compound. Between blood-spattered banter in the field and too-dark humour used as a coping mechanism, his interactions there were anything but normal.

Bucky also liked that you had no idea how wrong your sentiment was; not that he’d never admit it. This was the first time in a long, long while that he’d been treated like a regular person – not enhanced, not a science experiment, not an Avenger – and he had no intention of shattering the illusion anytime soon.

“I’m not giving you my notes, either,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Super goody two-shoes. My mistake.”

When he opened his mouth to respond to your sassy one-liner, however, the professor’s voice sounded from the front of the lecture hall. You gave him a final wink before you turned to face the front, purple pen already poised and ready to go.

Good afternoon! Can you hear me in the nosebleeds? Yes? With me? Okay…

Forty-five minutes passed in a blink, and most of the students quickly started to pack up their belongings – but not you. No, you stayed in your seat and continued scribbling away at something in your notes, seemingly having zero plans to leave anytime soon. Bucky couldn’t help but be curious as to why you weren’t packing up, but it wasn’t any of his business and he didn’t ask.

Armed with a new syllabus and a daunting list of required readings for the week, he pulled himself to his feet and collected his own belongings; only managed to push the chair back in and take about two steps toward the door before he heard your voice again.

“Hey, Bucky, wait.”

He turned around to see you still reading through one of your textbooks, not even looking in his direction, but in your outstretched hand was a bright pink sticky note.

What?

“Come on,” still focused on your reading, you waved the post-it, pink paper flapping in the makeshift breeze but staying stuck to your finger anyway, “Take it. Here.”

Hesitantly, Bucky stepped closer and accepted the proffered note. Upon it, he found that you’d hastily scrawled your name and phone number, along with what he assumed was meant to be a smiley face. The drawing was god-awful, and a welcome distraction from the way his heart had immediately leapt into his throat because a woman had just given him her phone number.

Her phone number.

“Th— Thanks?” he stammered, unsure.

Now, he certainly wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, but this—

“Don’t get any weird ideas,” you interrupted his train of thought, finally pulling your eyes away from the textbook to look up at him. 

Gorgeous, glimmering, big doe eyes focused right on him, now, and seeing you up close like this, a fleeting thought crossed his mind about how attractive you were. He blamed it on the fact that you’d just given him your number, and now his brain only wanted to overthink what he’d interpreted as the first sign of potential interest from the opposite sex in – well, far too long. 

Bucky hadn’t been expecting that at all, and he wasn’t particularly interested to pursue such a thing, either. At least not right now. He still needed to get his head on straight; still needed to figure out his own problems before he took on someone else’s.

Even if you were a pretty little thing he might have taken dancing, once.

Then you added, “If you have any questions, just shoot me a text, okay? I remember how lost I was when I first started, especially because I’m a,” you did some air-quotes, then, “‘mature-aged’ student.” Another snort, one much less ladylike than before. “Mature-aged. I’m not that old!”

So it was a friendly offer. Nothing more. Not like the implications in the 40s – and Bucky thought, then, that if you were considered to be ‘mature-aged,’ he didn’t want to find out how he’d stack up.

“Thanks,” he said again, this time a little less unsurely. “I appreciate it.”

Another one of your bright smiles brought a sense of calm over him, a feeling that carried over even when you poked fun at him again, “Then I guess I’ll see you next week, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.” 

“Yeah,” he responded, feeling the corners of his lips turn up just a little at your goodnatured teasing. “See you next week.”

And when he left the lecture hall, fluorescent pink post-it stuck to the inside of his notebook, Bucky’s footsteps felt just a little lighter than before – and so did his heart.

Part Two

[roh-tae]

Still Beautiful

genre: fluff/angst(sad)

a/n: not requested, I just randomly wrote this, sorry if it’s bad. I feel like I have been lacking and not doing so well with my writing lately…inspired loosely by Highlight’s “It’s Still Beautiful”

Namjoon looked at the little velvet box in his hands, containing the symbols that had the power to forever link two people to one another. Two rings that were especially picked out, for the other in mind, to signify what you meant to each other. Looking at these two simple, but meaningful rings, Namjoon couldn’t help but think back on all the times you two spent with one another.

It was your first date with Namjoon, and though he thought he was being cliche by taking you to the movies, you were excited. You’d really been wanting to see the movie he’d picked, so that made things a bit easier on him. The two of you getting drinks and popcorn, which Namjoon insisted on paying for, then made your way to your seats.

As the movie started, you set the popcorn inbetween the two of you, so it was easier to access. Namjoon didn’t seem to mind. But it was when you both reached in at the same time, your hands grazing one another, that things got slightly awkward. The two of you blushing and giggling softly, retracting your hands as quickly as you could. “Sorry” was all Namjoon could muster, letting you reach in first to grab a handful.

He’d never forget how awkward your first few dates were. Mostly his doing, but there were times when you could be a little nervous too. Especially if it were anything fancy, like dinner. Never knowing what to wear, not wanting to look ‘ugly’, even though Namjoon constantly told you that you always looked beautiful.

And of course there were the nights you insisted on accompanying him to the studio. He always warned you that he would be late, and you’d probably get tired. But you didn’t care. You just wanted to be with him. And yes you did fall asleep on the couch most of the time, an hour or two into him recording. Namjoon didn’t mind though, just loving having you there supporting him and keeping him company. He’d always do his best to hurry up when he saw that you’d fallen asleep, not wanting to make you sleep too long at the studio.

He never understood how he was able to land a girl like you, surely someone paid you to date him. But no, you were his girlfriend, and it was no joke or bribe. You truly loved Namjoon, with all your heart. That was why you insisted on moving in with him only after a few months. Sure it seemed fast, but you two were in love, things were great. And so he said yes.

Namjoon set the rings down, walking to look himself over in the mirror. As he was dressed in his suit and tie. Chuckling as he fixed his tie a bit, he thought about the struggle you two had moving into your shared apartment.

“Namjoooooon! It’s heavy, please hurry!” You whined as he’d left you holding a large box while he cleared space for it in the living room among all the others. “Okay! Coming, I’m coming!” He ran over, grabbing it from you just in time. Any longer and the box would have hit the floor, and anything breakable inside would have been in pieces.

As Namjoon set the last box down, the two of your collapsed onto the couch. Exhausted from moving in, and becoming even more exhausted thinking about unpacking it all.

“Welcome to your new home babe.” Namjoon smiled as he kissed your head, but you soon protested. “Not my new home, our new home.”

The countless dinners you two shared in that apartment. The bottles of wine that would accidentally be finished, leading to fits of laughter over the weirdest and stupidest stories. Every night ending with you two wrapped up in each others arms, Namjoon singing you to sleep, wondering how he was so lucky. Namjoon would never forget those nights, even though they had slowly ceased to exist.

Somewhere, Namjoon had lost sight of it all, of how lucky he truly was. Forgetting that things could go away just as easily as they came to be. He’d taken your love for granted, and now the nights that used to be filled with laughter, and end with you two cuddled close to one another. Were now filled with fights, and ended with one side of the bed being empty.

At first, you didn’t mind things changing. Namjoon’s work had taken off, he needed to be more focused. But as that change became the new norm, you started to wonder what you were waiting around for. Most nights you slept alone, or when Namjoon did come home things always turned into a fight.

Things were so different so fast, Namjoon didn’t know how you two had ended up at that point. He was sure things would have been different. You two had talked about the future, that special day. You’d made all the plans in your head. He made you so many promises, wanting you to feel special. But he couldn’t keep them.

So here he was, with a small black box, containing two rings. Sitting in the church wearing his suit and tie. Wondering where he went wrong. Wondering what he should have done to fix things before he pushed you to this point.

As the door opened, Namjoon was snapped from his thoughts, smiling as he greeted the man who entered. Wrapping him in a hug before handing him the rings. Wishing the man well, Namjoon stepped out of the room, and as he did, he saw you. Though he wished he hadn’t.

Wearing the dress you’d dreamed of. Beautiful white lace, long train. It was perfect, you were perfect. Soon your eyes caught his, and though you wanted to look away, you couldn’t. Doing your best to hold back any tears that might threaten to fall, you asked for a minute. Walking past the bridal party and over to him.

“You look beautiful. I’m happy that you could still have your special day, even if it’s not with me. You deserve this, and you deserve to be happy.” You went to say something, but he stopped you. Squeezing your hand reassuringly as he had to take his place up front. “Don’t trip on that train okay?”

All you could do was smile, same old Namjoon. And without another word, just a kiss on your cheek. Namjoon left your side to take his seat among the crowd. Though he wished he would be the one at the end of the aisle waiting for you.