#our Brooklyn bois
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My head cannon is that it was drummed out of them by the various powers - I mean Captain America couldn’t have a thick accent because he had to represent everyone.
Plus of course The Asset would have had it beaten out of him rather early on I suspect.
But in the future once they are reunited and Bucky is a ways into his recovery … it starts to come back to them.
When they are really exhausted or really happy (whether just in general or due to Asgardian mead) it comes out and The Avengers LOVE IT!
There are videos of it stored somewhere very safe by Nat &/or Tony.
Oh oh and sometimes Steve does it in press conferences to remind people that he is just a kid from Brooklyn thank you very much (and he wears Kiss Me I’m Irish T-shirts and aprons and not just on St Patrick’s Day and the conservatives lose their fucking minds 😁)
Friendly reminder that Steve and Bucky probably have absolutely wild Brooklyn accents. Maybe it’s mellowed out over the years but sometimes, woild, goil, woist, poifume. Cwafee. Wourder. Fugeddaboutit.
#1940s stucky#stevebucky#stucky#brooklyn idiots#brooklyn accent#Brooklyn accents come out when they are happy#stucky are Brooklyn boys#our Brooklyn bois#Steve is Irish#Bucky might be too or I love a Jewish Bucky too#accents are great#accents#english dialects#my brain is full of Stucky thoughts today#that makes it a good day
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I’m tagging all my favorites here, feel free to do the same
#interview with the vampire#iwtv#dragon age#our flag means death#ofmd#the boys#hannibal#agatha all along#mass effect#shadowhunters#shadow and bone#meme#funny#fictional characters#the office#vox machina#bridgerton#good omens#Brooklyn 99#what we do in the shadows#wwdits#assassins creed#red dead redemption#horizon#young royals#derry girls#fleabag#arcane#how to get away with murder#lucifer
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2 fav lana albums
#lana del rey#lizzy grant#lana del ray aka lizzy grant#ultraviolence#ultraviolence aesthetic#put me in a movie#shades of cool#brooklyn baby#coquette#americana#girlblogger#girlblogging#boyblogging#boy blogger#elizabeth grant#lanita#lana del ray aesthetic#lana del slay#lana unreleased#lana stan#lana is our queen#cds#music#my music#foryou#tumblr fyp#i’m just a boy#i’m just a girl#trailer park princess
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Ok Noah/Mirage community, we need to fix this. Was on AO3 yesterday and noticed our boys ain’t even on the list under Relationships, side point neither are Charlie and Bee. I mean Ironhide and William Lennox only have 89 fics and they’re on there. 🤷🏻♀️
Let’s blow up the fandom! Flood it with serotonin saturated fics of all kinds! Sweet, smutty, angst, comedy, horror! Let’s do this fam, for them💙
#transformers rotb#mirage x noah#noah diaz#rotb mirage#ao3 tags#maccdam#Brooklyn represent#for our boys#charlie watson#charlie x bumblebee#our bai bees too!
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HELLO SEPTEMBER 🩵
The Lateral Magazine Shoot
#BenAldridge
#ben aldridge#spoiler alert the hero dies#knock at the cabin#pennyworth#benaldridge#benjaminaldridge#our girl#benjamin aldridge#the laterals#new york#brooklyn#london boy#gay man#london
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It would be much easier if the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. Just saying 😁
#Brooklyn Dodgers#that would make this easier#LA Dodgers#they're playing great baseball#we gotta come back from this#🙏🏼#love#happiness#thank you#sharing#joy#baseball#sports#ny yankees#let's go yankees#ny baseball#bronx bombers#i love these guys#i love this game#my boys#it's our year#let's prove that#shall we#😁
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30.) Go to like, youtube or smth. The first FNF video, do that character (prompt)
#digitalart#fanart#art#fnf#friday night funkin#ourple guy#ourpleguy#prange guy#whoeverthefuckthatguyinthealbumcoveris#lime guy#uhhh the video is that one after midnight fanmade mod#the one where the album guy is the playable character#instead of our boy brooklyn brooke broke#inktober
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how is this 10 years old already
happy birthday ultraviolence 🖤🦢
#ultraviolence#lana del ray moodboard#lana del ray aesthetic#lana unreleased#lana del ray aka lizzy grant#lana del rey#lana#lana is our queen#2014 tumblr#born to die#west coast#shades of cool#brooklyn baby#cruel world#sad girl#pretty when you cry#money power glory#fucked my way up to the top#old money#the other woman#black beauty#guns and roses#florida kilos#is this happiness#flipside#your girl#driving in cars with boys#fine china#angels forever forever angels#cult leader
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The Uptown Girl and The Brooklyn Boy
Pairing: Greaser!Bucky Barnes x Uptown Girl!Reader Summary: Everyone knows that all any Uptown Girl needs is a Greaser from Brooklyn to make her forget all about her uptown world.
A.N. - Here's a long awaited request from one of my dearest readers @oneofstarkskids, it definitely strayed a little from that initial request but i hope you enjoy! "just reread this and it's still so amazing 😭 do you take requests? if so, would you be inclined to writing a grease themed bucky au one shot?"
Bucky Barnes Masterlist | AnonymityIsFun Masterlist
Picture this... he's from the wrong side of the tracks. He's everything every mother in your neighborhood warned you about. His hands perpetually stuffed in his pockets, a cigarette hanging from his lips, scuffed leather jacket snug around his broad shoulders.
You're none of those things, the complete opposite. Pearls strung around your neck. Perfectly done up, lips painted the perfect rouge. You're as educated as a woman could be in your day and age. You're an Uptown girl. Capital O - Old Money.
Your friends are enamored with Bucky Barnes and his friends - though you all know they'll never do anything about. Not as long as their parents had anything to say about it. And none of them are prepared to give up their high class life. It's just fun for them. A way to sow some wild oats before their parents introduce them to their future husbands.
Every chance they get, they pester you to take the long way home. To walk by that mechanic shop where Bucky and his friends hang out.
They never approach those Brooklyn boys. No, they never offer more than a coy smile and a languid, flirty twinkle of their manicured fingers. They just relish in the attention they get from walking past them.
You hate it. You hate their arrogance. You hate the smell of nicotine that hangs around him. You hate everything about them, down to those oddly charming Brooklyn accents.
"Hey," a blonde boy calls as you and your best friend walk past their mechanic shop one day. "Hey!"
"I told you this was a bad idea," you hiss at your friend, locking your arm with hers. "Now, look."
"I think they want to talk to us," she squeals under her breath.
He picks up his stride, doing a half jog until he reaches where your friend holds you hostage on the pavement. "We see you ladies passin' through every once in a while. Thought we could be friends or somethin'."
Your friend is immediately entranced with the blonde boy. Her face flushes as she beams at him, "We would love that!"
"We have enough friends," you simultaneously reply.
"She's kidding," your friend nervously chuckles, elbowing you in your ribs.
The blonde boy laughs, rubbing the back of his neck, "Well, I'm Steve. My friend there is Bucky."
As if on cue, Bucky saunters up beside Steve with an equally arrogant grin. He tips his head at each of you. "Hello, ladies."
Your friend nods at the two of them, an ear to ear grin taking up her entire face. "It's nice to meet you, Steve, Bucky."
The brunette's eyes flash over to you, speaking through that infuriating smirk, "Pleasure's ours."
"Would you ladies like to join us for a Coke?" Steve offers.
"We'd love to!" she immediately replies.
You shoot your friend an intense, incredulous glare. "I'm sorry, could you excuse us for a second?"
"Sure thing." Steve nods, ambling away from you and your friend to give you a moment of privacy.
Bucky doesn't move an inch. He stands before you with that same arrogant smirk, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "Oh, I'm good right here."
"Fine," you scoff, speaking as bluntly as you can. Despite your polite upbringing, you you find don't care about offending him in the slightest. "We are not staying here!"
"Come on," she pleads. "What's the harm?"
"Where's the good in staying?" you shoot back.
"They're just so handsome," she fawns, looking over her shoulder to give a coy wave to the blonde boy. "And there's one for the both of us, it's fate!"
"It's not fate. They're nothing but trouble."
Bucky snorts, rolling his eyes, "You remember that I'm still right here, right?"
You shoot a glare at Bucky. "I know."
He playfully clutches his chest. "You're hurtin' my feelings, Doll."
You can feel the anger raising your blood's temperature. You don't like how quickly he's gotten underneath your skin. "I'm not your Doll."
"Princess?" he suggests with an infuriating wag of his eyebrows.
There's an embarrassingly large part of you that wants to stamp your foot at him and yell at him to stop teasing you. You keep it together just enough to contain that visceral reaction you're having to Bucky Barnes. Mostly. "I'm not your anything!"
He crosses his arms over his chest. "What did I ever do to you, Princess?"
Your eyes narrow in accusation. "I know your type."
"Charming? Irresistibly handsome?"
"Horrendously arrogant," you seethe at him. You turn back to your friend, only to find her missing, "Now, can we please go-"
"Your friend ran off the second you were focused on me."
Your eyes flicker to behind Bucky to your friend, who sure enough is enthralled in a conversation with Steve. "I was not focused on you!"
"Then why didn't you notice your friend runnin' away from you?"
"You're incorrigible."
The corner of Bucky's lips twitch up. "Didn't they teach you in that finishing school that it's not polite to insult people who are tryin' to be your friend?"
"And how would you know that I went to finishing school?"
He quirks an eyebrow at you like the answer is obvious. His eyes rake over you. From the way you hold yourself. To the dresses that oozed quiet luxury. You and Bucky were as different as night and day. "I know an uptown girl when I see one."
"And I know trouble when I see it," you shoot back. "And you Brooklyn boys are nothing but trouble."
It only gets worse from there. After that first interaction, your friend in fully infatuated with Steve Rogers. There is no tearing her away from him.
And that means, as your friend's dutiful alibi, you were dragged down to Brooklyn far more than you ever wanted.
And worst of all, it meant you spent most of your free time in the presence of Bucky Barnes.
"Please, just be nice," your friend begs as you trudge up to their garage. "I'd settle for polite even."
You scoff at her, rolling your eyes, "I'm always polite - just like I'm always nice."
"Not to Bucky, you're not."
"I don't know what you're talking about," you grumble, walking into the garage. Your friend takes off, immediately falling into the arms of Steve Rogers. Leaving you with Bucky Barnes to sit with him on the the couch that's become your most constant companion on days like today. As you walk past Bucky, you snipe, "James."
Bucky quirks a brow, smirking at you, "Oh, so now I'm James?"
"That's your name, isn't it?"
He walks away from the bike he spends most of his time working on, snatching a rag from his tool bench and wiping his hands of motor grease. Your eyes involuntarily wander to his hands, the care he puts into wiping each and every one of his fingers.
You stare for a second too long for Bucky not to notice you staring at his hands. "Remind me to thank Steve for tellin' ya that."
You roll your eyes, finally snapping out of it. "It's far better than the alternative."
He flicks the rag over, resting it on his shoulder. "So you like my name?"
You softly snort as you settle onto the couch. "I didn't say that. I said it was better than the alternative."
That smirk only gets even bigger. "What else do ya like about me?"
You roll your eyes. "Not a thing."
He settles into the couch beside you. Far too close for your liking. You can almost feel the rough denim of his jeans through your skirt. "I just love these conversations of ours."
"I don't."
His entire torso turns towards you, mischief and amusement gleaming in those blue eyes, "I mean, why would I want warmth and affection when I could have blind hatred?"
"It's not blind hatred." In spite of easily Bucky gets under your skin, you can't deny just how unfairly handsome he is. Even now, you find yourself lost in the depths of his ocean blue eyes. "It's perfectly reasonable contempt."
He gently runs a finger down your cheek. "I love when you talk smart to me."
You swat his hand away from your face. "Don't patronize me."
"I'm not!" Bucky insists. "I really love it! I know it's just your way of flirting with me!"
You scoff, making no attempt to hide your offense, "I am not flirting with you!"
He tilts his head at you, that arrogant smirk once again tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Come on, just admit it, Doll. You're a little sweet on me."
"I am not your Doll!" You fly up out of your seat with an indignant huff. "And I most certainly am not sweet on you!"
"Don't think I haven't noticed the way you stare at me when I walk around here without a shirt. Or the way you were staring at my hands just now. What exactly were you picturin' my hands doin'?"
"I was not picturing anything." Your cheeks flame as you continue to bicker back and forth with him. Sure, he was possibly the most gorgeous man you'd ever laid eyes on. And yes, he could be incredibly charming. And sometimes, you found yourself staring at him in an not so innocent way. But you hated him. He infuriated you to no end. "And I was not staring!"
The grin is practically splitting his face. "And you've definitely thought about kissin' me."
"I would rather walk from here to Jersey than kiss you."
He slides up off the couch, taking a long step towards you. "You've got a hell of a temper, you know that?"
You refuse to back down. You press an accusing finger into his chest. You can't help but notice just how firm the muscles underneath that white t-shirt are. "I just think you're real good at pushing my buttons."
"Real good?" Bucky teases. "I think Brooklyn is startin' to rub off on you."
"You know what I think?" Your chest starts to heave with the anger and frustration you feel towards Bucky Barnes. "I think that you're the last person I would ever let rub off on me. I think that you're an arrogant smart ass that likes to spend his day running his mouth."
"And I think you're a repressed priss that couldn't take what she wanted 'less it's handed to her on a silver platter."
"You wouldn't know a damn thing about what I want."
"You wanna know what I think..." He leans closer, lowering himself to your eye level. "I think that you're pissed off because you know deep down those punk ass rich boys will never make ya happy, I think you're pissed off 'cause you're bored, and I think you're pissed off 'cause you want me - even if you'll never admit it."
You don't have a response to that. There's not a single word that comes to mind. You don't think you've ever been this mad before.
And because you can't think of a single word to assuage your heaving chest and boiling blood, you do something that a polite, good girl like you would never even dreaming of doing. Before you can think, you find your hand opening and winding back.
Before you can even make contact with his cheek, he catches your hand, gripping your wrist between his warm, calloused hand. He hauls you forward until you stumble into his chest.
For a moment, you can almost hear a pin drop. The tension is so thick the only air in the room Bucky's breath dancing across your lips. "I think I'm gonna kiss you."
A soft breath stutters from your lips. "And I think I'm gonna let you."
You weren't sure what it was, but after that first kiss, you couldn't get enough of your Brooklyn boy. Even after your friend and Steve had mostly fizzled out, you couldn't get enough of him.
You waited for the moment that they all talked about, the moment when you had your fill of the boy from the wrong side of tracks, when your wild oats were sufficiently sowed, but it never came.
Every time you laid eyes on him, the seal on your fate only solidified more and more. The more you saw him, the more you wanted him. And the more sure you were that you would never be able to let him go.
You weren't a stranger to the boredom and monotony of your upper echelon life, but this was different. This wasn't boredom, he wasn't a distraction. From the moment you met Bucky, you lost all interest in the upper echelon of it all.
Suddenly, you don't care what your friends think, what your parents would think. Suddenly, you were throughly repulsed by the thought of marrying one of those repressed, trust fund babies that littered your street.
And even your friends, the same ones that lived off their fleeting attention, didn't understand.
Your friend rolls her eyes again, a sigh of irritation leaving her lips as you ready to go meet Bucky, "Are you really going back up there?"
"You're the reason I met him in the first place!"
"I know. I know," she groans, clearly disappointed that you hadn't lost interest in Bucky like she had with Steve. "And I'm happy for you! I am! I just I want to make sure..."
Her tone finally gets your full attention. You put your bag down on the table, your eyebrow pulled together, "Make sure what?"
"You're just sowing wild oats, right?"
Your entire face puckers with distaste, "What?"
"That sounded bad," she backtracks, a guilty look painting her face. She takes a deep breath, resting a condescending hand on your shoulder. "You just - you know your future isn't with Bucky, right?"
You shake her hand off your shoulder. "What does that mean?"
"He's from a different world than we are. You know that."
"I can't believe what I'm hearing," you scoff. "I thought you, of all people, would understand."
"Come on, he's not exactly the sort of guy you can bring home to your parents."
You snort, turning away from her, "I have to go."
"You know I'm right!" she calls after you.
You didn't know that. In fact, the more time you spent with him, the more you saw why he was exactly the right person to bring home to your parents. He was everything you could ever bring yourself to hope for and more. Sure, he was different than you and your family, but he was a good man. He was perfect for you.
Surely, your parents could see that. Surely, they could see how good he was for you.
So that's exactly what you were going to do.
Bucky sighs against your lips, "I missed ya."
You don't know when that happened, but you've come to find a comfort in the scent of the faded leather of his jacket, in the feeling of his calloused fingertips trailing dangerously high on your upper thigh.
In the backseat of his beloved car, you curl closer into his side, resting your head on his chest, "Me too."
He kisses the top of your head, watching as you stare off into the distance, "What's goin' on in that pretty head of yours?"
You pull back slightly, lifting your head off his chest. With a furrowed brow, you ask him, "How serious are you about me?"
"Dead serious," he replies in an instant.
You lightly swat his chest. "Quit playing."
"'M not playin'," he swears. He does an 'x' over his heart, "Cross my heart."
His answer gives you all the reassurance you need. All there was to do was ask him. Still, there was a hesitancy. You worry that this will just make him realize that you two might just be insurmountably, irreconcilably different. You decide that the best way to ask is just ask. "Then what would you say about meeting my parents?"
"I'd love to," Bucky coolly answers.
You can't help the way your face lights up with hope. "Really?"
"Of course. Anything for my girl."
You really like the way that sounds. His girl. You could get used to being his girl.
The look on your face is worth it all to Bucky. He only hopes you don't see the anxiety in his expression.
He wasn't oblivious to how different your worlds were. He knew there was a good chance that this wouldn't last forever. It didn't really matter what he wanted or how much he was willing to fight for you, he knew the reality of it all.
He couldn't offer you half of what someone in your neighborhood could. Your worlds couldn't be more different.
And he's never been more aware of it than on the eve of meeting your parents.
Steve smirks at Bucky as he fiddles with his tie again. "You're really seein' this through, aren't you?"
Bucky smacks Steve upside his head. "Don't be a jerk."
"I'm just sayin'," Steve shrugs, settled into the couch of Bucky's family home. "I'm happy for ya, Buck. You really like this girl."
"I wouldn't be dressed like this for anyone else. Are you sure this is right?" Bucky tugs at his tie again. Maybe it was that the suit hadn't seen the light of day in a few years and was a little more snug than he remembered. Or maybe it was just that he'd only dressed like this for funerals and weddings, but everything about his getup today made him feel like a fraud. He was sure if your parents saw him like this, they'd see right through him. "I feel like I'm goin' to a school dance."
"Where does she live again?"
Bucky tries his best to hide his wince. He'd never been to your side of town, but he'd heard stories. Sure, most of them were made up, but there had to be some truth buried in the tall tales. "Upper West Side."
Steve pats his shoulder. "Stick with the tie, Buck."
He listens to Steve's advice and sticks with the tie. As he walks through your neighborhood, seeing houses bigger than entire apartment buildings on his block that line your street, he's pretty confident in trusting Steve up until the moment he sees you.
Your smile stutters as you see him waiting outside the gate of your home. It was just his luck that your house was one of the biggest on the block. Your eyes trail up and down Bucky's uncharacteristic attire. "What are you wearing?"
His heart sinks. He looks down, patting his blazer and tie. "Am I - Am I not this thing right? I knew it - I told Steve -"
"No, no," you quickly interject. "You look great! I've just never seen you... like this."
"What's wrong with this?" Bucky hedges.
Your soft smile up at him is the only thing soothing his knotted stomach. "Nothing, I - I just wanted them to meet you, to meet the Bucky that I know and - and I want them to know you. Not whoever this is."
"I - I didn't think they would like that Bucky very much," Bucky confesses.
It doesn't escape you that he's nervous, especially as he fiddles with this tie over and over again. You're well aware of how intimidating this all is. Even as someone who grew up in this social circle, in the thick of the upper echelon, you still found yourself scared of doing and saying the wrong thing.
You knew he was only trying to fit in as best as he could. Still, you missed the smell of his leather jacket, the waft of motor oil that often clung to his skin. "Well, I like you the way you are. Greaser and all."
"Thanks." It's comforting to him. Still, as his eyes rove over your house, he can't help but be glad he listened to both Steve and his mother. He holds out the bouquet of flowers in his hand. "My Ma told me to bring these for your Ma."
An endeared smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. He was really trying to win over your parents. He really was serious about this - about you. "My mother will love this."
"Your mother," Bucky corrects himself, doing his best to tame his Brooklyn twang.
"Just be yourself," you assure him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze as you make your way up the long driveway. "No one else, just you."
"Any other tips?"
"If you run out of things to talk about ask my father about his cars. He collects them."
It takes everything in Bucky not to gape like a fish out of water. "He collects... cars?"
You ignore his question, continuing to fill Bucky in on your parents, "And my mother, well, she's a terrible gossip. If you can get her talking about her friends, you've won her over."
"Okay. Anything else?"
"Just relax. They'll love you."
As he walks into your home, greeted by a man wearing a nicer suit than he is who offered to take his coat from him, Bucky's not quite sure he believes you.
Your heels click against the sleek marble flooring as you guide him through your home. He holds on tight to your hand, half afraid that you'll let go and he'll get lost in the labyrinth of pristine beige hallways.
Your father is the first to greet Bucky in your living room. He extends a hand out to Bucky. "You must be the boy we've heard so much about."
"It's nice to meet you both," Bucky returns the firm handshake before turning to your mother with the warmest smile he can muster through his anxiety. "You have a lovely home, ma'am. I brought these for you."
She takes the bouquet from Bucky's hand. "Oh, that's very kind of you..."
"Oh, it's Bucky," he supplies.
"Bucky?" your mother dubiously repeats. "How unique..."
"It's James, actually," Bucky corrects himself, already feeling himself getting flustered. "James Buchanan Barnes. 's where Bucky comes from."
Your mother nods, offering a tight smile, "How lovely."
As your mother hands off the flowers to one of the wait staff, he can't help but already feel like he's already made that dreaded bad first impression.
As though you can see the despair forming in the pit of his stomach and dampening the glimmer in his blue eyes, you give his hand a squeeze along with a smile.
"Dinner is ready," your mother announces. "Why don't we make our way to the dining room?"
"That sounds wonderful," you beam, leading Bucky into the next room. You stutter to a stop just before the dining table. You look at the table as you take your seat, your eyebrows furrowed at something that Bucky hasn't quite caught on to. "Mother? I thought we agreed on a more simple menu tonight."
As you speak you reach under the table, giving Bucky's hand an apologetic squeeze. Just from your inflection, Bucky can tell what awaits him will not be pleasant.
"Nonsense." She dismissively waves you off. "We have a guest."
"We talked about this," you admonish. "You promised."
"Bucky?" your mother calls. "Do you mind having a more formal dinner? I know it might be a tad unusual for you."
"Mother," you sharply warn.
"Um, no, ma'am," Bucky awkwardly lilts. "That sounds lovely."
A self satisfied smirk settles on your mother's face. "See? It's fine."
"Why are there so many forks?" Bucky whispers under his breath.
"Just work your way in," you reply as quietly as you can.
"Do you change forks every bite or somethin'?" It's half an attempt at a joke, half an honest question.
"In between courses."
"Courses?"
Before you can answer Bucky's question, your mother is already beginning her interrogation. "So, James, tell us about yourself."
"There's not much to tell," Bucky replies. "I was born and raised down in Brooklyn."
Your father snorts, "Really?"
You're not quite sure if Bucky catches the sarcastic lilt to your father's question or if he really does just try to rise above it. It's hard to tell with how he rolls with the punches. "Yes, sir."
"Any siblings?" your mother asks.
"I'm the oldest of four, ma'am."
"Any plans for your life?" your father finally pipes in.
"Dad," you hiss.
Your father shrugs, "It's an honest question."
Once again, it rolls off of Bucky's back. "Well, I'm workin' at a garage right now. Me and my friend, Steve, we're hopin' to buy it out. We've just about saved enough between the two of us to buy it from the ol' man when he's ready to retire."
"A man with a plan. I like that."
"Thank you, sir." You're sure that you hear Bucky's sigh of relief as he finds his footing. You can practically see his signature smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Your daughter tells me that you have an impressive collection yourself."
You weren't entirely sure how he pulled it off, but by the end of the night, Bucky is talking to your parents like they're old friends.
You're not even sure why you're that surprised, you hated him up until the moment you succumbed to his charm.
As the evening comes to a close, he stands in the doorway, shaking your father's hand again, offering your mother that charming grin once more, "Thank you for dinner. Everything was delicious."
"You're welcome back anytime, James."
"Thank you." You're almost shocked at your mother's open invitation. He presses a chaste kiss to your cheek. "I'll see ya later."
The three of you stand in the foyer of your house as Bucky walks down the steps and down the driveway with his hands shoved in his pockets. You look up to your father, face filled with hope. "So?"
"He's a nice boy."
You're not sure your grin can get any bigger. "I really like him."
"You'll grow out of it."
Your heart sinks the moment the words leave your father's mouth. "What?"
"It can't come soon enough," your mother groans. "You're far too good for him."
"You don't know him."
"We know his type, dear," your mother condescendingly sighs. "And good girls like you don't belong with boys like that, but I do think it was sweet of you to invite your little infatuation to dinner."
You feel like all the air has been knocked out of you. For a moment tonight, you really thought they were coming around. You truly thought it would all work out for the best. "Infatuation?"
"That's what this is, right?" your father asks, concern painting his expression when he sees the furiously determined look in your face. "You're just... rebelling?"
You look up at your father, shaking your head. "No, no, I'm not just rebelling."
You fought with them the whole night before you went to find him the very next day. They threatened you with everything they could think of. When that didn't work, they bribed you with everything they could think of. You didn't care for any of it.
The moment you see him, you know he knows. You're not sure if he realized it the moment he walked out of your door or if it took him a quick recollection of the night to realize it, but he knows all the same. It looks like he hasn't slept a wink. A deep frown replaces his usual grin. He looks entirely and totally distraught.
He notices you the moment you walk up to his garage just like you did all those times before.
This time, it's obvious is different. There aren't barbed words or verbal jabs. You don't bound into his arms. Even Steve offers you a sad twitch of his lips.
Bucky watches you for a long moment before you break the silence. He reaches into his pocket, lighting a cigarette in between his fingers. "Hi."
"They hated me, right?" He doesn't waste words. Your lips press together in a tight line. He takes a large drag from his cigarette. You can't remember the last time you saw him smoking. He shakes his head, hissing under his breath, "Damn it..."
"Bucky?"
He takes another large pull from his cigarette. Even from feet away, you can smell the nicotine in the air. "Just do it. I understand."
"What?"
"That's why you're here, right? Just get it over with."
Your eyebrows furrow. "I don't understand."
"I'm not an idiot, alright?" he spits. "I know I didn't pass their little test, so just call it already."
"Is that really what you thought last night was?"
"What else would you call last night? 'Cause I think I was the butt of the joke from beginnin' to end."
"You were not the butt of the joke, Bucky."
"Oh, please, I fell face first into their punchline."
You suck in a shaky breath, both your own hurt and the cloud of smoke around Bucky burning at your throat, "Is that what you think of me? That I was tryin' to set you up?"
"Yes! No- No! I just - I - Don't you see it?"
"See what?" you demand.
"That I'm not good enough for you!" he desperately exclaims, tossing his cigarette on the pavement. "And everyone else already knows it! Last night proved that!"
"My parents are assholes, Bucky. I came here to apologize for them, to tell you that I don't care what they think."
His voice quiets, the anger melts off his words until all that's left is a heartbreaking sincerity, "You should. You deserve so much more than what I can give you."
"They don't know you, but I do." You reach for his hand, lacing your fingers with his. "And I think you've got everything I want. I'm yours, Bucky. All yours."
"Do you mean that?"
"Every word."
"What did I do to deserve you? My perfect girl." He kisses the back of the hand he hods, using it to tug you closer to him. He quirks a brow at you when you pull away from him. "What?"
You wrinkle your nose at him. "I hate the smell of smoke."
"I'll quit," he immediately replies.
"You'll quit smoking? Just like that?"
"That surprise you?"
"It's just - Maybe you Brooklyn boys aren't as tough as you think you are," you tease.
He smirks. "Maybe we're not. Maybe I'm not - but I think it's because I'm in love with an Uptown girl."
Bucky Barnes Masterlist AnonymityIsFun Masterlist
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Happy birthday to our fave Brooklyn boy ❤️❤️
#bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#james barnes#marvel#bucky barnes x reader#the winter soldier#buckybarnes#birthday
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The Cards We're Dealt
Title: The Cards We’re Dealt
Pairing: Mafia!Bucky Barnes x Reader
Word Count: 15k
Warnings: Arranged marriage, alcohol, cursing, objectification of women and mild sexism, bad parents, angst, fluff, mentions of drugs
Summary: Bucky and Y/N are the children of the two most prominent mob bosses in New York. When their parents use them as part of a deal, they’re left to figure out how their lives fit together.
A/N: Wow! Another long fic because I have no self-restraint. There’s a bit of Irish in this because I couldn’t resist it when I wrote Steve. Translations are at the end, and anything incorrect can be blamed on Google Translate. As always, thank you for reading, liking, commenting, reblogging, and supporting me in all the ways you do.
There is an unspoken rule amongst the mobs in New York that the more drug manufacturers a man controls, the nicer you treat his daughter. So, when Bucky’s father tells him that he’s once again been pimped out as part of a deal, Bucky knows to ask the question,
“How many does he control?”
If Bucky had his way, of course, he would treat all girls as well as he is able (which is very well). He likes girls, and he likes going out with girls. He just wishes he could choose which girls he got to take out.
“Seventy-five percent,” George Barnes says, and Bucky freezes with his glass against his lips. He has a club soda to his father’s whiskey—he’s in a good mood and was actually hoping to enjoy the day, though now he’s reconsidering it. His plan to lounge by the pool with Becca and soak up as much of the late spring sunshine as possible is quickly dissipating.
“That’s not possible,” Bucky replies. He quickly does the math in his head. His dad owns over half the manufacturers in Brooklyn. “We own—“
“Not anymore.”
The library falls silent as Bucky tries to wrap his head around the news. Just yesterday he’d overheard his father on the phone with one of his men, explaining in great detail what he’d do if they didn’t get him a sample of their newest product by the top of the hour.
“How?” he asks. He sets his glass aside and sits straighter in his chair. “Did something happen? You didn’t tell me about a takeover.”
George takes a sip of his whiskey. “That’s because there wasn’t one.” He sets the crystal tumbler on the small bronze tray nearby. Marta will come clean it up later. “I sold them.”
“You sold them? If you’ve already struck a deal, then why am I taking out his daughter? Isn’t that normally something you have me do to butter their fathers up before you make the deal?”
Bucky watches as his own father stands and goes to watch the landscapers through the library window, his hands clasped behind his back. He’s long since been out of the army, but some habits die hard. Very rarely did the man ever relax.
“You are the deal,” George answers, his voice much too casual for Bucky’s liking.
“What the hell are you talking about?” snaps Bucky.
“Watch your tone, boy,” his father replies. He doesn’t turn around to witness the way Bucky grinds his teeth together in response. “In exchange for the majority of Theo’s territory, you and Y/N will be married within a year and a half, though the exact date is up to the two of you. I believe that Theo mentioned his daughter likes spring, so perhaps a spring wedding. June is popular, from what I’m told, though that’s cutting it a little close to the deadline.”
Bucky’s up out of his seat now. He can feel his pulse thrumming and he can’t quite catch his breath.
“So what? You threw me in to sweeten the pot? Am I just another bargaining chip to you now?”
He’s shouting. He doesn’t care.
George turns and regards him in silence, and, like always, his expression betrays nothing of what he’s thinking or feeling. He doesn’t seem fazed at all by Bucky’s outburst.
“You’re my heir. I make my decisions based on what’s best for our family. Nothing about this decision is impulsive or frivolous, James,” he finally answers, his voice cool and even. There’s nothing familial in his tone—George Barnes is all business.
“You can’t just decide that I’m getting married. I won’t do it. I refuse,” Bucky tells him. He balls his fists at his sides and he sets his jaw, furious. How dare his father try to control his life like this? It’s one thing to occupy the majority of Bucky’s nights and weekends with dates, meetings, dinners, and weapons runs, but it’s another to throw him into a marriage he doesn’t want.
“I can and you will. If you don’t, there will be consequences. To start, you will be immediately cut off from our family. You will have no money, no home, no resources, and no contact or communication with anyone involved in the business, including your mother and your sister.”
Heart pounding, Bucky glares at him. He’s got a migraine coming on. He knows his father isn’t kidding, but he wants more than anything for Steve to pop out and say that this is all just a joke. He’s never even met Theo’s daughter. He’s barely even met Theo. According to the rumors, his only daughter is his most prized treasure. She isn’t someone who frequents any of the bars, clubs, and restaurants that he and the other “mob children” frequent. Maybe “mob children” isn’t exactly the right term, at least not anymore. After all, Bucky’s engaged now. He’s just part of the mob, another pawn to be moved around the chessboard.
“You have the rest of the day off. I’ll see you at eight tomorrow morning,” says George. He picks up his glass and downs the last of the liquor. “Theo and his family are coming for breakfast, and then Y/N will be moving in with us. I want you on your best behavior.”
He pauses and Bucky continues to glare at him, not validating his words with a response. George’s eyes grow dark with a thinly veiled threat. Bucky knows that look—if he pushes his father any harder, he’ll regret it.
“Do you understand, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Bucky grinds out.
Turning on his heel, Bucky stalks out of the library and slams the door behind him. He immediately heads down the hall, then down the stairs and across the ground floor of the Barnes Estate to the garage. His keys are still in his pocket; he’d only just gotten back from a night out with Steve when his father had summoned him.
It doesn’t matter that he’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Bucky climbs onto his bike and revs the engine, speeding off down the long driveway that winds around the house. The guards barely get the gate open in time and then he’s flying down the road, heading straight to Steve’s bar in the city. He knows his friend will be there, most likely nursing his hangover and going over the books in his back office. He won’t be hard to convince to go out again, though Bucky knows he won’t approve of the plan to drink as much as he possibly can in the next twelve hours. It doesn’t matter, though—it’s Bucky’s last night as a free man, and he’s determined to make the most of it.
You sit between your parents, staring at the empty seat across from you. They’d told you this morning that you were going to the Barnes Estate for breakfast, and while you’d expected the grandeur of the dining room and the meal, you didn’t expect the eldest Barnes child to be completely absent. You’ve never met him, but your mother has insisted that you speak to James—George Barnes’ only son and heir—as much as possible during the meal. Supposedly, he’s the same age as you.
Rebecca Barnes is a ray of sunshine and her cheery disposition is a stark contrast to the dark clouds that now hang over your fathers’ heads. Maybe it’s a deal gone wrong or maybe it’s something else, but you don’t like it. It leaves an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Silently, you sneak a hand under the table to find your mother’s. You squeeze and your mom squeezes back, glancing over to give a reassuring smile.
“Y/N,” Mrs. Barnes starts, and you jump a little in your seat. You haven’t been verbally addressed since you’d been seated a half hour ago. The food has yet to be served. “Your parents tell us that you’re very interested in horticulture. Did you know we have a rose garden out back?”
You force a polite smile. “I don’t know about very interested. I have a few house plants that I’ve managed to keep alive, though I would love to see your garden sometime. I’m sure it’s beautiful,” you add.
“Maybe Bucky can take you,” Rebecca says, earning herself a sharp look from her mother. She simply shrugs.
Oh, to be as unbothered as Rebecca Barnes!
“Where is James?” your father asks. His voice is a low, threatening growl and you sink down in your chair, staring at the cloth napkin still folded atop your plates.
“He knows to be here,” Mr. Barnes growls back. “You’ll have to excuse his tardiness, he’s not normally like this.”
Mrs. Barnes gives Rebecca an even harsher look when she opens her mouth to speak, and this time the girl actually looks ashamed. She takes a sip of her orange juice to hide the guilty look on her face. She’s the first person to have actually touched something on the table, and it’s like whatever spell the room has been under is broken.
All at once, the dining room springs to life. A short, slightly heavy-set woman in a gray dress and white apron enters through one door. She’s holding a delicate silver coffeepot and the smell of coffee instantly fills the room. Two younger women in identical uniforms follow behind her, each of them pushing golden carts laden with food. Through the door across the room, a tall man with short, dark brown hair stumbles in. He’s wearing all black, from his rumpled button-up and jeans to his boots and sunglasses. His hair is sticking up in every direction and just like the coffee, you can smell the stench of alcohol coming from him even from your seat.
You grimace at the smell and pull your napkin into your lap as one of the women comes to place food in front of you. It’s a formal dining service and the strange new man who’s entered feels entirely out of place. From his attire to the way he shuffles across the antique rug, everything about him screams that he’d rather be anywhere else. If you acted like that, your father would be pulling you back out into the hallway to reprimand you, and you look anxiously at Mr. Barnes, who’s seated at the head of the table.
“James,” he greets, his voice unnervingly even. A chill runs down your spine. “It’s nice of you to join us. I trust that you slept well last night?”
James collapses into the only empty chair at the table, the one across from you, and pointedly ignores his father. You risk a glance up at him as he reaches for the cup of coffee that’s already been poured.
True to form, Rebecca leans over and claps a hand on her brother’s shoulder blade. “Good morning! Aren’t you excited to have breakfast with our guests?” she shouts, and her smirk makes it much too clear that she’s fully enjoying the way her brother’s scowl deepens. Rebecca also ignores her parents, including her mother, who leans forward to look past James and give her a look of warning.
James shrugs his sister off of him and starts buttering the toast on his plate. You watch for a moment, then start picking at your own food as your mother also begins to eat. Everyone’s acting so strangely that you’re already on edge, and you’ve only managed to get down a few grapes and two bites of dry toast by the time your father speaks up again.
“So when are we signing these papers?” he asks, sipping his coffee.
“As soon as the marriage license is signed,” answers Mr. Barnes.
You frown. Marriage license? Who’s getting married?
“And the terms are the same as when we last spoke?”
Mr. Barnes sips his own drink, something that looks suspiciously like whiskey, and sets down the glass. “Yes. I have that contract in my office. We’ll review and sign after we’re done here. Are all of your daughter’s things ready to be moved?”
Your stomach drops and you turn to stare at your father with wide eyes. He nods, not even paying attention to you as he continues his conversation with the other man. Your mother pointedly ignores you, choosing instead to stare at her plate as she eats. When you look around the room, it seems like almost everyone else is doing the same. Rebecca is the only person who actually meets your panicked gaze. She gives you a pitying look as your anxiety rises.
It feels like your mouth is filled with sandpaper, and you grab your glass of juice. You have to drink half of it before the feeling even mildly abates. As soon as you set it down, one of the women in gray appears to refill it.
“What’s going on? Why are you moving my stuff?” you finally choke out. You twist the napkin in your lap with both hands, wringing it as you look from one person’s face to the next.
Mr. Barnes stops mid-sentence and the whole room freezes. Even James, who’s pouring something into his coffee cup from a small silver flask, stops what he’s doing.
“Y/N, sweetheart,” your mother begins, taking your hand under the table.
You want to pull away. You don’t.
“After breakfast, your father and I are going home, but you’ll be staying here with the Barneses.”
“What?” you whisper, your eyes filling with tears. “No, I don’t— I don’t want to stay here. You never said anything about me—“
“We’re getting married,” James interrupts. He’s chewing and you look over at him, gaping at the casual way he’s sprawled out in his chair. You can feel his gaze on you even from behind his sunglasses and it makes you feel dirty.
“Excuse me?”
He chuckles and sits up, then leans forward in the chair. He drops the greasy strip of bacon he’d been eating onto his plate. “We’re getting married. They’re using us like bartering chips, sweetheart. You and me in exchange for all the drugs and all the territory in New York.” James gestures grandly with one hand, a too-wide grin on his face. There must be at least ten rings on each of his hands and you swallow thickly at the threatening display of black and silver metal.
You’re trembling now and you pull your hand away from your mom’s. She reaches for you again but you shake your head, shying away from her touch. Frantically, you look around the room to see if this is some kind of joke or a drunken rambling, but no one is laughing. Even Mrs. Barnes has the decency to look sympathetic on your behalf.
“No, no. You wouldn’t—“ You look back at your parents, imploring them to say that it isn’t true. You swallow thickly, trying to stave off tears, and your voice wavers as you prompt, “Mom? Dad?”
Their silence speaks volumes and a whimper escapes you as you wring your hands in your lap. The napkin slides onto the floor. It suddenly feels like you can’t breathe and when your mom reaches out for a second time and starts to tell you to calm down, you jerk away and stand. The chair falls backwards behind you, but you ignore it as you rush out of the dining room and into the hallway you’d entered from. Everything is unfamiliar. Frantically, you pick a door and yank on the handle. It doesn’t give way and you continue the process until one of them finally opens and you can rush inside. You lock it behind you and press your back against the door. The curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows are closed, shrouding the room in darkness. You can’t make out much of the furniture through the tears in your eyes.
Out in the hallway, you can hear your mother calling for you and your father arguing with Mr. Barnes. Mrs. Barnes is yelling at somebody too, but it’s hard enough to hear the others over your own gasps and sobs. You’re properly crying now and you sink to the floor, curling up on the carpet as you heave. It’s a good thing you weren’t able to stomach much breakfast.
A knock on the door makes you yelp and then cry harder, and you crawl into the darkness of the room to try and find a hiding spot. You’re lucky enough to find an old, heavy desk right away. It’s the perfect size for you to crawl under for shelter, and there’s no chair for you to move out of the way. The drawers on both sides create a cubby for you, so you crawl into it and curl up into a ball with your back towards the door, just in case someone manages to get in. If you’re quiet enough, it’s possible they’ll walk right past you.
The crowd in the hallway has definitely heard you by now. The doorknob is rattling as whoever’s on the other side tries to get in, but after a few minutes, they stop and the hallway goes quiet. You hold your breath after every couple of sobs, listening for any sign that they’ve found a key or that they’re picking the lock. Nothing happens, however, and after a while, you give up on listening.
You sit in the darkness and cry until you’re thoroughly exhausted. Once you’ve run out of tears, you sit and zone out with your head resting against the side of the desk drawers for a while longer, numb from the news. Your body feels light and a buzzing, tingling feeling makes moving your limbs seem impossible. You could’ve never imagined that your parents would be so capable of treating you so poorly. You’ve always felt so loved by them, and to hear that they’ve practically thrown you away at the first chance of a profit makes you want to puke. Upon that realization, you actually do throw up, and the stink of your vomit on the carpet of whatever room you’re in makes you want to cry all over again.
The door opens just as the stench is becoming too much to bear. Light floods in from the hallway and you squint, curling up in fear. After a moment, the shorter woman in the gray uniform that you’d seen at breakfast appears a few feet away from the desk, right in the path of light. You look up at her.
“Oh dear,” she sighs, and you instantly feel ashamed at the disappointment in her voice.
“I’m so sorry,” you whisper. Your bottom lip is trembling again as fresh tears somehow appear in your eyes. Sniffling, you wipe your nose with the back of your wrists. “I can clean it if you—“
“You’ll do no such thing,” the woman says. Her voice is gentle and kind, so much so that you don’t feel the need to argue with her. She waves her hand dismissively and approaches you, then holds out both hands. She’s careful not to step in the mess you’ve made. “Now come on, up you go.”
You let her help you to your feet and then you straighten out your clothes, sniffling and wiping at your nose again in a desperate attempt to look more put together than you feel. Still a bit unsteady, you whimper for a second time, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, dear.” She gives you a warm smile. “My name’s Marta. I’m the head housekeeper here. It’s very nice to meet you.”
You don’t feel the same way about meeting her, given the circumstances, but you hold that comment to yourself and simply nod in agreement. Marta leads you back out into the too-bright hallway. It’s empty except for a bald man mopping the floor on the far end.
The high ceilings and glossy marble floors make it look like you’re in a castle. Even the silence feels regal. Everything seems so cold compared to your home, and you feel too small in the massive space.
“What time is it?” you quietly ask, looking back at Marta.
“It’s almost noon, Miss.”
Your stomach sinks and you press your lips together, inhaling deeply as you look around again. Three hours have passed. “My parents…”
“They left about fifteen minutes after breakfast,” she tells you. Her words are matter-of-fact, even if she delivers the news in the softest possible way.
Somehow it hurts worse that they’ve left you than finding out they’d practically sold you to the Barneses in exchange for God knows what. Drugs or territory, whatever James had said. Not only did they treat you like nothing, but they’d deserted you after it was clear you didn’t agree with their plans. They hadn’t even tried to reassure you that they still loved you or that you’d still be able to see them. Maybe you wouldn’t be. Maybe they didn’t.
You nod numbly. There’s been nothing to prepare you for this, no precursor or warning, so you keep looking around the hall, though in reality you’re not really seeing anything.
“Your room is ready upstairs, Miss Y/N. Would you like me to take you?” asks Marta.
You nod again. You feel like you’re underwater as you follow her up a grand staircase and then down a long, narrow hallway. It’s decorated similarly to the ground floor, though with a plush Persian rug running its length. Marta talks as she walks ahead of you, no doubt explaining what the many doors lead to, but her words simply go in one ear and out the other. It’s all so surreal that when you finally get to your own room, you don’t even open the door. Marta has to reach around you to open it, and then she gently ushers you inside when you still don't move.
Just as they had said at breakfast, your belongings have all been moved into the Barnes Estate. The furniture here is different, grander than what you’re used to, but your blankets and pillows are on the bed, and the two bookshelves are packed full of the books you’ve collected over the years. Even the strip from the photo booth at an old friend’s wedding is pinned to the bulletin board above the desk. Someone’s even thought to put your plants on their own table by the window.
“There’s a bathroom on the left and your closet is on the right,” Marta explains, pointing to each. “If you’re hungry, dinner is at five.”
“Do I have to eat with them?” you ask.
If Marta is surprised by your question, she doesn’t show it. She simply shakes her head with a gentle smile. “No. We can bring food here if you’d like.”
You nod and stand in silence until she leaves and closes the door behind her. Then, after another minute passes, you drag yourself over to the bed, climb under the covers, and close your eyes.
If there’s any mercy left in this life, you think, I’ll fall asleep and never wake up again.
Weeks pass and you still haven’t adjusted to life at the Barnes Estate. The staff is only slightly less friendly than those you grew up with, but they’re more attentive. It helps that there are more of them. For every member of the Barnes family, yourself included, there are at least four staff members to attend to their every need. It makes you feel like royalty, but it also makes you feel guilty. You don’t need this much. You certainly didn’t ask for it.
You haven’t seen James since the ill-fated breakfast, nor have you seen your parents. They’ve gone so far as to block your number. After that discovery, you’d locked yourself in the massive ensuite bathroom and cried for an hour. Marta had been the one to coax you out. The poor maid who’d found you when coming to get you for dinner hadn’t known how to help. You’d spent that entire evening curled up on your bed while reruns of The Nanny played on the TV embedded in the wall across from the massive mattress. Marta had spent every second with you that she could, but eventually Mrs. Barnes—Winnifred, as you referred to her in your mind—had scolded her for neglecting her nighttime duties across the estate. That made you feel even worse.
“Are you okay?” Rebecca asks, and you turn to look at her from where you’re staring out the hallway windows at the gardeners. The backyard is massive, complete with a rose garden in full bloom, an outdoor swimming pool, a forested walking trail, a large green expanse for games and parties, a gazebo, a fountain, and what seems to be stables far in the distance, though you haven’t ventured far enough to be sure. A visit to the rose garden hasn’t been brought up again either, and nothing seems interesting enough to explore on your own.
Nodding, you don’t say anything before turning back to watch the men work. They talk and laugh with each other as they prune, pick, and water. You wish that you could trade places with them.
“You don’t look okay,” she says. Rebecca props herself up on the window ledge to your right, facing you with a suspicious look on her face. “We haven’t seen you at any meals, and Valerie told me that you were crying in the bathtub three nights ago.”
You should feel ashamed, but you’re too numb to care. It feels like you’re floating through each day, detached from most things. You’ve spent your entire life thinking that you would marry for love and live happily ever after. Now, your parents have sold you to the highest bidder and your husband-to-be is a cruel, disgusting man-child that wants nothing to do with you.
Rebecca’s fingers lacing with yours jerk you back to reality and you look down at your joined hands in confusion. Her nails are bitten short and she wears a single ring with the Barnes family crest. It’s dainty and gold, a stark contrast to the many rings on her brother’s fingers.
“You’re safe here, Y/N,” she tells you, her voice gentle. “You don’t have to be alone. I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. If I had any say in it, you could be home right now with your parents, but I’m far from the top of the totem pole.”
“I hate them.” You spit the words out and jerk your hand away from hers. “I hate my parents.”
That’s the first time you’ve ever said that in your entire life and your heart skips a beat as the anger makes your lip curl. You’re baring your teeth at her but Rebecca doesn’t even flinch. She’s a mafia princess, through and through.
“They made me believe that I could have anything I wanted, that I could marry whoever I wanted whenever I was ready, and then they threw that all away and treated me like shit the first time it was convenient for them.”
She nods. “That’s true.”
“I was so foolish to have believed them,” you growl, but the fight in you is fading just as quickly as it came. You burn bright, but you burn quickly, too.
“No,” Rebecca says, shaking her head. “You’re just human.”
You look away, embarrassed by your display of emotion as your eyes begin to water with more tears. You were raised to be reserved. You knew very little about the inner workings of your parents’ business, but you’d learned as a young girl that you’d fare better if you always clung to the edges of the room, avoiding the dirt and grime and blood that surrounded your whole life. Over the years, you’ve grown very good at hiding yourself and your emotions from the people around you. From the spark in her eye, you have the feeling that Rebecca is the exact opposite. She could hold her own if it came down to it. You couldn’t.
“It’s okay to be upset,” she insists.
Shaking your head, you take a deep breath and look back out the window. You lift your chin slightly and when Rebecca tries to rope you into another conversation with her, you ignore her and focus on the men outside. They’re finished tending to the roses on the edges of the garden. Now they’re working their way inwards.
You’re finally left alone a few minutes later and as soon as she’s around the corner, you let out a heavy sigh and relax your posture. Slumping forward, you lean forward into the window ledge, curling up just a little as you continue to watch the gardeners. The silly song from Alice in Wonderland pops into your head and you hum along, eventually mumbling to yourself about painting the roses red.
You feel a little bit like Alice, you realize. You’re out of your element in a strange land where everything you’ve learned about life seems to be turned on its head. In this world, nobody marries for love and the girls are just as entrenched in the business as the men. Does Rebecca conduct business with her father and older brother? You could certainly picture it. Will the same be expected of you?
That afternoon, Marta knocks on your door with a written invitation from Winnifred. Your presence is being formally requested at their dinner table, though from the look the housekeeper is giving you, it’s more of a demand than a request. With her help, you pick out something to wear. By the time five o’clock rolls around, you’re crossing the enormous hallway in a dress and heels that you’ve never seen before. It’s far too showy for your taste, but it’s clearly something someone wanted you to wear. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have put it in your closet.
George Barnes and James stand when you enter the dining room, as do several other men you don’t recognize. Your father is standing near the head of the table with George, though your mother and Rebecca are nowhere in sight. Besides Winnifred, you don’t recognize any of the other women. The only empty seat is beside James and your immediate instinct is to flee, but then he’s stepping aside to pull out the chair and all eyes are on you.
Slowly, you close the distance between the two of you and sit. He helps you scoot in, then takes his own seat on your right. The other men sit as well and then dinner resumes. You sit in silence, staring at the top edge of your plate with your hands in your lap. You’re not really listening to the conversations around you, either, but you can feel someone’s eyes on you as you try to stay as quiet and motionless as possible.
“Are you sick or something?”
You startle and look up with wide eyes. James is watching you. He’s got one hand on the table with his fingers brushing the stem of his wineglass and the other resting on his thigh. Unlike your fateful breakfast weeks ago, James is dressed in a neat, all-black suit. He has no tie, and his rings are all gone except one. It’s identical to Rebecca’s family crest, except his is silver and has a thicker band.
His eyes are full of something you can’t place and you shift uncomfortably under his gaze. As quickly as you turned to him, you turn away and look back at your plate. The napkin is folded in some elaborate way on top of the plate. You’re not sure if it’s supposed to resemble anything at all, but maybe if you stare at it long enough, it will look like something.
“Y/N?” he prompts. You nod once, tightly, and then pull the heavy cloth napkin into your lap when a server appears to present the first course.
Between the second and third course, you can feel James’ eyes on you. After the third, he gets roped into conversation with a man sitting across the table, but you know that he’s glancing at you all the while. After the fourth, he bumps his arm against yours. You shirk away and feel him tense beside you.
“Excuse me,” you mumble, and you push your chair away from the table. Immediately, the conversations stop and all the men stand again. It’s too much attention on you and you hurry out of the dining room as fast as your heels and dress will allow. You’re stumbling over yourself by the time you get back to your suite on the third floor. The door slams behind you and you collapse onto the floor beside the bed, too overwhelmed to even climb atop the oversized mattress. You’re on the verge of tears when there’s a soft knock from the door, and that rips a sob from your chest that you hadn’t expected.
Immediately, the door opens and James is standing in the open space, a dark look on his face. You sob again and scramble backwards until the edge of the bed frame is digging painfully into your spine.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
You swallow hard and take several gasping breaths, trying to control yourself. Your mind is spinning with insults, calling you weak and pathetic, and you believe every one.
“It’s just too much,” you answer through your tears. “I don’t want this!”
James huffs. His angry expression has faded, now replaced with something more akin to irritation. “And you think I do?”
You shake your head. “Of course not.”
“These are the cards we’ve been dealt, doll. You’re gonna have to get over it. Let’s just get married and then we can live happily ever after in a big house where we never have to see each other. I’ll do what I want and you can do what you want. Sound like a plan?”
You look down at your hands. A big part of you wants to say that no, it doesn’t sound like a plan. You don’t want that life. You don’t want a house so big that you practically need a golf cart to get from one side to the other. You don’t want a husband who ignores you in favor of his blood money or his side chick or the next shiny toy off the black market. You don’t want James.
Though every part of you is screaming the opposite, you nod. He crosses the room and you inhale sharply to steady yourself as he approaches you with no care. His black dress shoes are tracking dirt across the rug. James holds out a hand to help you up and you take it. The heirloom ring on his right hand digs into yours until you’re standing, and then he drops your hand like it’s on fire.
“We need to go back,” he tells you, and you nod again. “Our parents are pissed.”
“Of course they are,” you mumble.
James pauses, staring at you critically. You’ve been staring at the baseboards since he helped you up, but when he doesn’t move or speak, you glance upwards at him. He’s got one eyebrow raised. His expression is thoroughly unreadable otherwise and an unsettling feeling blooms in your stomach.
“What?” you ask. You step back a little, but there’s no place to go except up against the bed again.
He shakes his head at you. “Nothing. Come on, princess.”
“Don’t call me that.” You scrunch your nose. “Anything but that.”
“Sugar?” he offers, and when you shake your head, he sighs. “Well, what do you want me to call you, since you’re suddenly the one calling the shots?”
His words cut deep and you look back down, hating the way shame immediately pools in your belly. How could he seem angry and irritated with you, then borderline kind, and then completely disinterested in your feelings the next? It’s disorienting, and you don’t need that on top of everything else.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”
Grabbing your arm in a grip just bordering on painful, James pulls you out of your bedroom and back down the hall. He holds on as you stumble behind him in your heels. When you reach the ground floor hallway again, he drops his hand and offers you his arm. You’re hesitant to take it, but he sighs a little and you decide that it’s easier to give in than to put up a fight.
The two of you walk back into the dining room and the conversations immediately hush. James leads you to your waiting seats, pulls out the chair for you, and then helps you scoot towards the table again once you’re seated. As he takes his spot beside you, your father speaks up.
“Have you and James discussed when you’ll be getting married?” he asks.
You pick up your fork and stare at the strange food on your plate, ignoring him. Though your stomach is churning, you force yourself to take a bite. He can’t expect you to answer while you’re chewing—it would be bad manners.
“Next spring,” James answers. “In the rose garden.”
You want to spit on the roses. You swallow your food instead.
“Good choice,” Mr. Barnes agrees. He turns his attention back to your father. “Your daughter is quite the well-behaved woman. She’ll do well with our James.”
Beside you, James tenses again, his grip tightening slightly on his fork. You glance at him, holding your breath, and wait until he relaxes again to take another bite of your food.
The rest of the dinner passes with mundane, meaningless conversations. Nobody addresses you for the remainder of the meal, not even your parents, and finally the men begin to make their way out of the dining room to an adjoining room. You hadn’t even realized there was a room connected; the door is hidden amongst the paneling and crown molding on the walls.
“You can’t go in there.” James grabs your wrist as you stand to follow the group of men into the new room. His voice isn’t malicious and his grip isn’t tight, but you flinch away from him anyway. It’s only then that you realize the few women that had been in the room are leaving through the door to the hall with their wineglasses in hand.
“Because I’m a woman?” you counter.
“Because you don’t want to hear the things that they’re going to discuss,” he answers. He tosses his napkin on the table and stands, towering over you. After a long second of eye contact, he steps away from you and heads towards the men.
You watch him go and silently weigh your options. A few weeks ago, you wouldn’t have even thought about following the men into the second room. You would have simply taken the same path as the other woman, though your wine would have continued to remain untouched. Now, however, with your wine in hand, you stood at a crossroads. You could go into the room and potentially face the wrath of your father, James, and George Barnes, or you could live forever curious as to what was actually being discussed.
With your mind made up, you down your wine, step around James, and head through the open door into the room. It’s a study with dark wood paneling on the walls, leather couches, and stale cigar smoke in the air. As soon as you enter, the laughter and conversation stop and all eyes land on you.
“Y/N, you should be with Winnie and your mother,” Mr. Barnes says, stepping towards you. James is behind you now and though you’re hedged in, you simply lift your chin at the older man.
“Why? Am I not allowed to know what family I’m marrying into?”
His face darkens. “Girl, I’m warning you—”
“Don’t speak to my wife like that.” James’ voice from over your shoulder startles you and you quickly turn your head, looking back at him with shock.
Why is he suddenly standing up for me?
“Hold your tongue, James,” his father snaps. “You aren’t married yet, and Y/N needs to learn her place. One would think her father would have taught her better, considering the problems his wife caused.”
Though you hate your parents for what they’ve done to you, your blood boils at the insult. Your anger rears its ugly head even more when you realize that your father doesn’t look intent on standing up for you or your mom, either.
“That’s enough!”
You swear the room rattles around you when James shouts and you grit your teeth, furious at Mr. Barnes. How dare he insult your father? How dare he talk to you and his son that way?
James grabbing your hand shocks you back into reality. Once again, his grip is almost painfully tight, but you force your face to reveal nothing.
“Y/N and I are going out. If I so much as hear that you’ve said a single thing about her in my absence, you will regret ever giving me any kind of power in this business,” he growls. “The next time you see her, I expect that you’ll treat her with the respect she deserves.”
The men stare at you and James in disbelief, and then you find yourself being practically dragged out of the room. You’re too stunned to fight back, so you let him pull you across the ground floor of the estate to a door only two down from the dark room where you’d hit the morning your parents had left you behind.
“We’ll have to take the car, unless you’re okay riding the bike in that dress,” James says, pushing open the door. He doesn’t look back at you as he speaks, and it takes you a second to realize he wants a response.
“Car,” you answer after a few seconds. “Please.”
The room James has led you to is a massive garage, stretching farther than you ever realized a similar room could. Three of the walls are made of light gray cement, as are the floor and ceiling, and the fourth wall is made up of windowed garage doors, each one big enough for several cars to drive through simultaneously. Running down the center of the rectangular garage, there is a row of seven parked cars, with enough space to fit at least another car between each one, and beyond that, you can see a row of several motorcycles parked in a similar manner. The cars are in varying shades of gray and black, with the exception of one red sports car at the far end of the group. You can’t see the bikes well enough from the door, but you catch glimpses of blue, silver, gray, and black.
Four enormous, black and silver tool chests are lined up against the wall facing the hoods of the cars, but there isn’t a spot of oil or dirt in sight. You don’t even see any loose tools or equipment. Looking around, you wonder if the tool chests are just there for decoration, or if someone on the estate actually works on the cars and motorcycles.
Maybe James works on them?
“Are all of these yours?” you ask, unable to help yourself. He seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy driving around for fun, and he’s just mentioned something about a bike. You stare at the side of James’ face as he plucks a set of keys off a black pegboard on the wall. There’s a button embedded in the wall beside the board. James pushes it with one thumb and the keys in his hand bump against the wall.
One of the garage doors near the last few cars starts to roll upwards onto the ceiling, revealing the outside of the estate. The sun has completely disappeared from the sky, and the moonlight is blocked by the clouds you’d seen rolling in earlier in the afternoon. The leaves of the large shade trees that surround the estate and form a protective shield from the outside world rustle in the wind. Crickets and cicadas chirp, reminding you of the cool spring nights you’d spent on your family estate as a little girl. You’d run around in the grass near the garden while your mom or your nanny watched you. Sometimes your father’s men would watch from the perimeter of the property, and when you’d wave, they’d wave back, asking what you’d done that day. You always answered them, even if you knew it would get you in trouble. They never stopped asking either, even if it got them in trouble, too.
You stop walking and close your eyes, then breathe in deeply as the night air rushes into the garage. It’s the first time you’ve been even close to the outdoors since arriving at the Barnes Estate. Your skin is still warm from the stifling dining room and the anger you’d felt in the men’s study. The breeze is a blessed relief, even if you do shiver after only a moment. Goosebumps form on your exposed skin—the dress Marta had picked out for you did little to keep you safe from the elements.
James keeps walking down the aisle formed by the wall and the front of the cars, though you hear his footsteps pause a few moments after you stop following him.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
You’re a little surprised that he’s not demanding that you catch up. When you open your eyes, you immediately meet his gaze, and a weird feeling bubbles up in your stomach. The expression on his face betrays little, but his stare reminds you of the way your father’s men looked at you all those years ago—interested and almost fond, but ready to push you away at a moment’s notice. You nod and hurry to catch up with him.
Once you get closer, James presses a button on the key fob in his hand. One of the cars in front of the open garage door rumbles to life. The sound it makes is a low purr, almost seductive, and you raise an eyebrow as James approaches, then runs his fingers over the hood. Even if the others aren’t, this car has to be his. It’s a sleek black, with dark tinted windows and a gleaming silver grill in the front. The BMW logo shines proudly in the center. It looks like a car your own father would own. Though you know he’s never owned a BMW, if this car is anything like the ones in your father’s fleet, you know that the inside will be as much a picture of luxury as the outside.
You slide into the passenger seat when James opens the door for you, and in the time it takes him to cross around the front of the car to the driver’s side, you take inventory of the interior. It’s a manual transmission—something your father once said was obsolete, except for car collectors and enthusiasts—which means that you wouldn’t be able to drive it, even if you tried. The car is pristine, so much so that you’re afraid to move. Two water bottles are in the cupholders, and it still smells brand new inside. There isn’t a speck of dirt or dust on the dashboard, nor on the floor mats. The leather seat is soft and there’s a control for seat warming and cooling on the control panel.
James climbs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door. He buckles up and you follow his lead, and then you sit back as he reverses the car out of the garage and onto a winding driveway that leads you around the front of the estate, then along the other side to a large gate with a guard house. You’d forgotten about the extensive security since the last time you’d been outside the Barnes Estate. Your father had handed over your driver’s license, along with his and your mother’s, before breakfast all those weeks ago, and there’d been a strange code word of some kind. It dawns on you as the guard opens the gate for you and James that you’d never gotten your license back.
“Where are we going?” you ask as James pulls onto the main road. It leads away from the estate and into the city.
“To get some real food,” he replies. His tone is gruff, and it feels like he’s on the verge of an angry outburst, so you slump back in your seat as he shifts gears and the car accelerates. The tension in the car is thick. You don’t want to be the one to deal with it, especially since he’s the one creating it.
After several minutes of watching the enormous mansions and the forests surrounding them pass by, you look over at James again. His expression, just like in the garage, reveals nothing, but you can tell that he’s more put-together than the last time you’d interacted, and it’s not just the tailored suit. His hair has been trimmed and styled, and he has an even dusting of stubble that frames his jawline nicely.
In the time since you’d learned you were engaged, James hasn’t said anything to you. You’ve heard him talking in the hallways as you wandered, but you haven’t wanted to be near him. This is the closest you’ve ever been. Your brief conversations so far tonight make up the majority of the words you’ve spoken to each other. His words from the bedroom echo in your head, until finally, you can’t help but blurt out your thoughts.
“Do you really not want to marry me?” you ask. Your voice sounds small and pathetic, and you hate it, but it’s too late now.
He glances over at you with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear shift. “What do you mean?”
You sit up a little in the seat, though you keep your hands in your lap and you try not to move your feet, just in case there’s dirt on your shoes.
“I mean,” you say, watching him carefully for his reaction, “that when you came to get me upstairs, you said you didn’t want to marry me. Is that really true?”
“I never said that.” He shifts gears again as you near a stoplight, and the car slows.
“Yes, you did.”
“No,” he shifts again, his teeth now clenched, “I didn’t. I asked if it looked like I wanted to marry you, and you said it didn’t. But I never said I didn’t want to.”
Now you’re confused, and you frown at him, ignoring the obvious irritation in his voice. The car rolls to a stop behind a Ferrari blasting music out the open windows.
“So you do want to marry me?” you ask.
He sighs and drops his hand from the gear shift, then looks over at you. “Y/N, I’m not going to pressure you into anything you don’t want to do, so if this is you testing to see how I’ll treat you, then you have nothing to worry about. I’m not a monster.”
“It’s not. I just…” You stop, unsure of how to phrase what you’re feeling. It’s strange to be upset over a marriage you don’t even want, but for some reason, you are.
“What?”
“If you don’t want to marry me and I don’t want to marry you, then why are we going along with this?” you finally ask, settling for the bigger question than the one that’s truly nagging at you.
“Because we know that if we don’t, life will be hell,” he answers.
It’s the truth. You know it is, and you know it deep down. If the two of you refuse this marriage, your life will be worse than you could possibly imagine, and you’re fairly certain that your fathers will find a way to make it happen anyhow. They’re well-connected in every sphere of life, not just when it comes to drugs and weapons. Your father probably has a priest on his payroll.
The light turns green and James moves the car forward again, merging into the right lane almost immediately. He slows as you approach a valet stand outside an upscale bar you’ve never heard of. It’s not one of your father’s, which means it probably belongs to George Barnes.
Then again, you think as a uniformed man opens your door, maybe it belongs to James.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Barnes,” a valet on the other side of the car greets.
James hands him the keys. “You too, Tommy. Listen, don’t park it too far off. We’re not staying too long.”
The man nods and climbs into the driver’s seat as your own valet leads you away from the curb. James meets you next to the valet stand and offers you his arm, then heads towards the doors.
“What is this place?” you ask as he holds open the door for you.
“My friend’s bar,” James says.
Your stomach twists itself in knots as heavy club music starts to get louder. The bass rumbles in your chest and you dig your nails into his arm as you near a set of glossy black double doors. You haven’t been to a club in a long time. The last time you’d gone, you’d been dragged by a childhood acquaintance, but you’d spent most of the night alone after she’d ditched you for someone she met on the dance floor. You’re not particularly eager to relive that experience tonight, especially with the man you’re being forced to marry. Who’s to say he won’t ditch you for someone else right in front of you, just to rub it in your face? After all, he’d said it himself in the bedroom—you’ll do what you want and he’ll do what he wants. It’s the cards you’ve been dealt.
If these are the cards, then I’ve got a sucky hand.
“James—”
“Bucky.”
You stop and squint at him in the low light of the entrance hallway. The two bouncers in all-black suits stop with their hands on the door handles, ready to open them for you once you start walking again. The music pounds in your ears, so much so that you can feel your eardrums vibrating.
“What?” you ask, not sure you’d heard him correctly.
“Bucky,” repeats James, a little louder this time. “You should call me Bucky, if we’re going to be married.”
“Is that… a nickname?”
Even in the darkness, you can see him laugh, and a bashful, boyish smile spreads across his face. “My middle name is Buchanan. Steve used to tease me about it when we were kids, and he started calling me Bucky as a joke. It caught on.” He shrugs it off, but there’s a fondness in his voice when he speaks of his childhood friend, and it makes you smile just a little.
You loosen your grip on his arm. “Okay then. Bucky,” you add.
When Bucky steps forward again, the doors are pulled open, revealing a much more casual bar than you could’ve anticipated. Though it’s clean, it looks a little run down, and the heavy music fades into jazz piano as you step through the open doorway and into the large, open space. With almost cathedral-height ceilings, walnut floors and support pillars, and well-worn wooden booths and tables, the bar feels more homier than you’d expected. It’s clearly been well-hidden from the busy crowds of New York. Only a few patrons are scattered around the room, sitting in the booths or at two-top tables, but Bucky leads you to the wood, u-shaped bar that juts out into the room from the back wall. A single man stands behind it, drying glasses with a white bar towel. He smiles when he looks up and sees you approaching.
“Bucky,” he greets, and he reaches over the bar to pull Bucky in for a hug. It’s the first time you see Bucky smile—a real, full, genuine smile—and you watch in silence as he hugs his friend.
“Steve,” Bucky replies. Instantly, your brain starts connecting the dots. This is his childhood friend, the one who gave him his nickname.
“Tá sé go maith tú a fheiceáil.” Steve turns his attention to you, and you quickly look away from Bucky and at him. Your brain whirs as you try to place the language he’s just spoken. It’s not one you’ve heard before, which means none of your father’s men speak it, and neither do any of the Barneses.
“You must be Y/N.”
You nod and offer Steve a small, polite smile. You’re not sure how to act around Bucky’s friends. If they’re also part of the mob, it’s possible they’ll treat you even worse than George Barnes had after dinner, but a new, surprising voice in your head argues that Bucky would never be friends with someone like that.
“It’s okay,” reassures Bucky. He reaches out and touches your arm, gentler than he has all evening. “Steve’s a nice guy, and he knows about our family businesses. You can trust him.”
Steve looks between the two of you before picking up a glass and setting it right-side-up in front of you. “What’ll it be, Y/N?”
You glance at him, then at the wall of liquor behind him. After a moment, you list off a drink that’s not your favorite, but that you know you’ll be able to stomach no matter the circumstances. Steve nods in response before starting to make it.
Silently, Bucky takes one of the chairs at the bar, and you do the same. He sits with his arms folded on the counter. He’s still wearing his suit from dinner. You feel a little out of place in your fancy clothes, and you wonder if he feels the same.
Your drink is placed in front of you a moment later, and after Steve’s silent prompting, you take a sip. It’s delicious, and you can’t help but smile at him.
“Aha, I’ve still got it!” Steve cheers, and you laugh. He grins at you, a charming type of smile that makes your heart flutter in your chest. You feel a little sheepish at the intensity of his joy, and you fidget in your seat, then with your hair.
Beside you, Bucky rolls his eyes and tosses a round paper coaster at his friend. “Knock it off, Rogers,” he huffs. “Stop flirting with my girl. You’ve already got one of your own.”
You glance over when he calls you that, but you don’t say anything. There’s another weird feeling in your gut now. This one, unlike the one you’d had in the car or the fluttering feeling Steve had given you, you recognize immediately—pride. It feels good to have Bucky call you “his girl”, even if you barely know him. It’s strange, and the thought makes you squirm in your seat again. You drop your hand down to the bartop and take another sip of your drink, trying to quell the strange feelings inside of you.
What is going on with me? Why can’t I just feel normal about all of this? Is there even a normal way to feel about this?
“You hungry?” asks Bucky, and you nod when you realize he’s talking to you again.
“I make a mean twice-baked potato,” Steve says. He plants his hands on the bar to look between the two of you. “Whaddaya say, Y/N? You up for it?”
“Only if you put the jalapeños on the side this time, punk,” Bucky tells him before you can reply. He seems to remember himself a second later, however, because he looks over at you. “Unless, of course, you want them on top.”
You shrug, not wanting to upset anyone, and Steve groans.
“Come on, Y/N,” he says, and he smiles wide as he gestures around the almost-empty bar. “I’ve got all the time in the world to make your food exactly the way you want it. Don’t make me guess.”
“He’s bad at guessing,” Bucky chimes in.
“Terrible,” Steve adds, nodding earnestly.
Tentatively, you list off what you want, and Steve makes a note of everything on a notepad that seems to appear out of nowhere. Once he’s got your order down, he disappears through a door in the back wall. Before it closes, you catch a glimpse of a shining kitchen filled with stainless steel, and you wonder how many patrons come through the bar if Steve has what looks to be a full-sized kitchen in the back.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner, so I figured I’d bring you someplace that actually has good food,” Bucky says. He reaches across the bar to grab a bottle of beer Steve has left out, and he uses one hand to pry the top off.
You gape at him, too distracted by the blatant show of strength to properly process the very thoughtful thing he’s just said to you. “What?”
“I said that you didn’t eat much at dinner, so I figured—”
“You just pulled the top off like it was nothing. How did you do that?” You look around on Steve’s side of the bar for another bottle, hoping to try your luck. Maybe it’s some new kind of bottle that he’s trying out before it hits the market, or maybe Steve has bootleg beer with a different kind of cap.
Bucky is staring at you, seemingly just as confused as you. “With my arm.”
“With your arm?” you repeat. You’re certain that he’d used his hand to pry it off.
He stares at you for a second longer before the confusion disappears and is replaced with a glint of mischief in his eyes. It makes the shadows on his face melt away a little, and his blue irises seem bright and youthful again, entirely unlike a man who’s seen too much.
“My arm,” he reiterates, and then he pulls off the black glove you’d assumed to be part of his personal style. It’s not just for show, however, because he pulls it off to reveal a black metal hand with dull gold knuckles. Bucky continues, standing and shrugging off his jacket, then rolling up the sleeve of his button-down shirt. As he reveals more and more, you realize that the black metal continues, making up what would be his left arm.
No wonder it hurt when he grabbed me.
“It’s metal,” you dumbly say, and he snorts.
“Observant.”
You shake your head and look from his arm to meet his eyes. “You have a metal arm. How didn’t I know that?”
Bucky shrugs and drapes his jacket over the back of the chair. He leaves the glove on the bar where he’d first set it down. Once he’s seated again, he rolls up his other sleeve to match.
“Beats me. I figured everyone knew. My dad wasn’t subtle when he was bragging about the arm he had made for me when it first happened,” replies Bucky. He takes a sip of his beer, then sighs and sets it back down.
You don’t want to pity him, so you try your best to school your expression by taking a sip of your own drink.
“Was it an accident?” you ask after a minute has passed. He doesn’t reply right away, and you scramble to save the conversation. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
He shakes his head. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen,” he says, and his voice is quieter than before.
You look back down at the drink in front of you. Twisting the glass around and around, you ask, “And it was an accident?”
Bucky takes another swig of his beer. “I was with my dad, working a job. I didn’t even realize I’d been injured until I woke up in the hospital, two weeks later, missing an arm. Apparently, falling shipping containers are heavy.”
You can’t help but curse. What he’s describing sounds horrible, but Bucky only laughs.
“That sounds about right, yeah. I’m lucky I had Steve around to keep me sane,” he tells you. “My friend Sam was a big help too, but he moved down to Louisiana a few years ago.”
“Steve seems like a good friend,” you agree. “They both do.”
You can feel Bucky staring at you now, and you take a sip of your drink while you wait for him to look away again. When he doesn’t, you glance in his direction.
“What?” you ask.
“What?”
“Why are you staring at me?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are!” you laugh, and you look at him fully this time. Bucky’s grinning, and you ball up a cocktail napkin and toss it at him.
“Okay, I was staring,” he admits, still smiling. “But I can’t help it. You’re pretty, and you’re nice, and you seem smart.”
You feel your cheeks grow warm at the compliment, and you look away. “You don’t have to say that. We’re already engaged.”
“I’m not saying it because we’re engaged. I’m saying it because it’s true.”
You don’t have a chance to reply before Steve comes out with two hot plates. He places them in front of you, joking briefly about giving you the wrong order, and it’s distraction enough that you sit up tall and smile wide. You push Bucky’s compliment out of your head as you chow down, groaning and moaning about the potatoes. They’re exactly what you need after the stressful dinner. Bucky was right—you hadn’t eaten much, and Steve’s cooking is delicious.
Once you’re full, you push your plate away and lean back in your chair. Steve grins at you before he goes back to counting the cash drawer. The other patrons have left already, leaving you, Steve, and Bucky alone in the bar.
“That was amazing,” you tell him for the hundredth time, and Steve chuckles.
“Thank you. I’ll be sure to tell mo bhean chéile—my wife—you said that, considering she still believes potatoes aren’t a meal.”
You notice the wedding band on his left hand as soon as he says it. Above it, also in silver, is a familiar ring. If you weren’t able to see the family crest, you would’ve thought it was the same as Bucky’s, but this ring has an eagle and a star engraved on it, rather than the wolf you’ve seen on Rebecca and Bucky’s rings.
“Potatoes are a meal!” you argue. You can tell that Steve has clocked you looking at his rings because he shifts his hand, instinctively blocking your view as he looks for your own ring. You’d taken your parent’s ring off the day you’d cried in the bathtub and you haven’t worn it since, but no one in Bucky’s family has replaced it with their own. It’s the first time since middle school that you haven’t worn a family ring, and you’d be lying if you said it was a weight off your shoulders. You’d thought it might be, but instead it just makes you feel naked.
Steve laughs and his posture relaxes. He stops hiding his rings from you when he realizes your hands are bare. “Well, whenever you meet her, you can have that argument with her, because I’ve already had it at least a dozen times.” He closes the drawer and fixes his eyes on Bucky, who’s just finishing his food. “Speaking of, when are you two coming over? I promised Peg I’d wait until Y/N had settled in to ask, and you seem settled enough to me.” He glances at you for the last part, and you look down at your empty plate.
“It’s not up to me,” answers Bucky. “We’ll come over whenever Y/N is ready. This is the first time we’ve been together since my dad dropped the bomb on us.”
Steve pauses, his hands on the tablet he’d set down before starting to count the night’s profits. “Wait. Really?”
You nod when he looks at you, suddenly self-conscious again, and you pull your hands into your lap. “I haven’t been the best house guest…”
“You’re not a guest, Y/N. It’s your home now, too,” Bucky interjects.
Reaching over the counter, Steve smacks the side of Bucky’s head. His accent is thick when he huffs, “Íosa Críost, you thick! You didn’t think to go talk to her? To see if she wanted to watch a movie? To see if she needed anything?”
Bucky stammers over in his seat, and you keep your head ducked to hide your smile. Clearly, Steve knows more about being married than Bucky does—most likely from experience, since he’s already mentioned his wife—and he isn’t afraid to tell his friend off for not looking out for your well-being.
“I’m sorry!” exclaims Bucky, ducking another hit. “I wasn’t thinking!”
“Like ifreann you weren’t!” Steve retreats and picks up the tablet with a huff, then looks at you. “Y/N, I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with him. He’s actually a nice guy when he’s not being stupid.”
“Stupid?” Bucky protests beside you.
“I wouldn’t have talked to him even if he’d tried,” you admit, finally looking up, “but it wouldn’t have hurt if he had.”
Steve nods, satisfied with your response. He leaves you a minute later when his phone rings. The wide smile on his face is enough to tell you who’s on the other end, but then he says her name as he walks away, the phone already held to his ear.
“So what’s with this place?” you ask. The quick change in subject is purposeful, and you hope that Bucky will take the bait.
Thankfully, he does. Bucky glances around before finishing off the last of his drink and setting the empty bottle closer to Steve’s side of the bar.
“Well, Steve wanted a place that we—and other people like us—could spend time without feeling like there was always a fight about to happen. We didn’t have that growing up, you know? And now that he’s in charge, he can do what he wants with his money. Everything’s filed properly, he doesn’t advertise, and all employees are paid above the table. If other people show up, then sure, they’re welcomed in, but they’re also fully vetted once Steve gets their IDs. Weapons aren’t allowed, and there’s no shop talk of any kind.”
“So it’s your little hideaway,” you say, propping your head up with one hand. The heaviness of the potatoes combined with the alcohol is starting to make you sleepy, and the emotional exhaustion from the night has started to weigh heavy on you, too.
He smiles a little. “Something like that.”
Bucky stands and rolls his sleeves back down, then pulls on his glove. He pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket and sets it on the bar.
“Come on, doll. We should head home,” he says.
The warm feeling you’d felt when Bucky had called you his girl comes back, and you smile a little when he holds open his suit jacket for you. A little sheepish at the gesture, you slide off your seat and let him help you into the sleeves, then take Bucky’s hand when he offers it.
“Bye Steve!” you call, waving with your free hand.
Steve looks up from the other end of the bar, where he’s wiping down a counter with one hand and holding his phone with the other. He lets go of the rag to wave back.
Silently, Bucky leads you out to the front, where the valet already has his car pulled up. You’re not sure how they knew to have it ready, but you don’t dwell on it. Stranger things have happened in your world. Bucky tips the valets with another wad of cash before opening the passenger door and helping you in.
You fall asleep on the drive home. You don’t mean to, but Bucky turns on the radio a few minutes into the drive, and he lets the first station that comes on continue to play. The music is soft, and he drives so smoothly that it lulls you to sleep before you’re even fully out of the city.
When you wake, it’s because Bucky’s stubbed his toe on something, jostling you in his arms. He’s muttering curses under his breath and hobbling down the hallway, and though the jerking motion and his tightening grip isn’t the most comfortable for you at the moment, you keep your eyes closed and force yourself to keep your smile at bay. Bucky is a much sweeter guy than you’d first thought him to be, and it seems like he’s trying now to make up for lost time. You’d misjudged him at first; just like you, he has his own ways of dealing with the life forced on him by his parents, but he really is a gentleman underneath it all.
He carries you to your bedroom and carefully lays you on top of the covers. Then, as gently as possible, you feel him lift your foot and pry off the uncomfortable shoes Marta had picked out for you. Bucky stays totally silent as he takes the shoes off and sets them on the floor at the end of the bed. He pulls a thin blanket over you, one that you’re sure is just for decoration when the bed is made, and presses a kiss to the side of your head. You have to force yourself not to smile when he whispers,
“Goodnight, sleep tight.”
The door clicks shut as he closes it slowly, and you peek open an eye after a few seconds have passed. Your room is dark and empty. Silently, you smile to yourself and crawl under the covers, your eyes heavy. It’s been a long, exhausting evening, and you’re happy to be in bed. You fall asleep to the sound of spring rain on the estate windows and with Bucky’s jacket still wrapped around you.
Over the next few weeks, Bucky slowly enters your life in both big and small ways. He smiles at you over meals in the dining room and late night snacks in the kitchen. He drives you to the city to visit Steve, Peggy, and his other friends, and when he finds out that his father still has your license, Bucky argues with him for over an hour to get it back. Marta delivers your license to your room the very next day, along with a handwritten note that the dark blue Mercedes in the garage is there for your use. Sometimes, you wake up to a bouquet of flowers with another handwritten note. Sometimes it’s a text, and sometimes it’s a gift. Bucky develops a habit of purchasing anything you mention enjoying or even vaguely liking, and you eventually have to tell him to stop because he’s bought you so much that there’s nothing left to buy for yourself.
Bucky turns out to be a closer friend than anyone you’ve ever known. He’s kind, and funny, and intelligent, and he remembers all the little things about you that nobody else does. When you’re sick or feeling lonely, he’s attentive and his presence alone reminds you of all the good things in the world. He makes your days brighter, even the worst ones. You find yourself falling in love with him, much to your surprise. You admit this to him one day. He kisses you then, and he tells you that he’s been in love with you since the first trip you’d taken to Steve’s bar.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas roll around. New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, and Easter come and go. The Barnes’ grand celebrations for every holiday blur together as the months fly by, until eventually, it’s June and you’re standing in your room, staring at your reflection in the full-length mirror.
The wedding dress you’d picked out a few days after Christmas is just as beautiful as you remember it being. It fits you perfectly, thanks to the impeccable work of several tailors employed by Winnifred, and your hair and makeup are flawless as well. There’s no possible way you could’ve imagined how beautiful you look and feel on your wedding day.
Through the open window, you can hear a string quartet playing outside in the rose garden, where the ceremony is set up. Steve has already come by once to check on you at Bucky’s request, but both men are back downstairs. Bucky’s no doubt at the front of the garden with the priest—the one that you now know for certain is on your father’s payroll—and Steve is waiting with the rest of the wedding party. The only people remaining in your room are Marta, your mother, and Peggy.
You’ve grown to love Peggy more than any of your childhood friends. She didn’t grow up in the same world as you. She didn’t even grow up in the same country, and you love her all the more for it. She’s rational, cool-headed, and kind, though she’s not afraid to stand up for what’s right. On top of all that, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. It’s easy to see why Steve fell for her during his time in the military.
The quartet finishes the song and moves onto a new one, one that you recognize after only two notes. Your stomach drops and you close your eyes, gripping your bouquet tightly. It’s the song you’d been listening to the morning you’d found out about your engagement. You’d discovered it the night before, and you’d had it on repeat before going to sleep that night, then again that morning as you’d gotten ready. You’d even listened to it in the car on the drive from your parents’ estate.
Who added this to the playlist? Is this some kind of sick joke to them?
The same feeling of dread you’d felt that morning comes back, making your mouth dry and your head spin. You try to take a slow, deep breath to calm your nerves and block out the song, but it doesn’t work.
“Y/N?” Peggy asks.
You inhale sharply at the sound of her voice so close to you. She’d been texting Steve from near the window only moments before. You hadn’t thought that anyone would realize your distress, and you’d hoped to be able to collect yourself before it was noticeable. You hadn’t even sensed her coming closer.
“Y/N, are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” you tell her, but your voice wavers and your lower lip quivers. You try to take another slow breath.
“What’s going on?” Marta asks. Her hand lands on your arm and you pull away, closing in yourself and pulling the bouquet tight against you.
Your mother’s scolding makes you feel like you’re a little kid again. “Careful, Y/N! You don’t want to ruin those flowers. We don’t have time to make another bouquet for you. George is already hounding your father about how soon after the ceremony you’ll be signing the certificate.”
Anger wells up in you at her thoughtless comment, and you open your eyes. She’s standing behind you in the main part of the bedroom, near the foot of your bed. Any guilt you might’ve felt over ruining the flowers is gone now, and you turn and chuck the bouquet at the carpet by her feet. It bounces once, then lays motionless in a heap of smashed petals and ribbons.
“Enough, Mother!” you shout.
Marta rushes to close the window so the guests in the garden won’t hear your outburst.
Your mother gapes at you, somewhat surprised, but she doesn’t budge. “Y/N, dear. What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” you yell, stepping closer. Your dress swishes as you walk, and you normally enjoy the sound, but you’re too furious to care how pleasing it is. “What are you doing? I am your only daughter! You should be treating me like a princess and worrying about how I’m feeling and what I need, but instead you’re too busy thinking about the damn flowers! I’m sick of you thinking of me like I’m an object you can sell, steal, and trade away whenever it’s most convenient! You and Dad are so obsessed with the timeline you’ve created for yourselves that you don’t even notice how much this has affected me! You didn’t even ask if this is what I wanted!”
She scoffs at you, and any trace of motherly care and concern has disappeared from her expression. Your mother is showing her true face—the mafia wife that has almost as much blood on her own hands as her husband does, if not more.
“It’s too late for that now, isn’t it?” she asks. She picks up her clutch from the end of your bed and steps closer until you're standing eye to eye. Her voice is patronizing and infuriating, and she continues, “It’s your wedding day, dearest, and you can’t back out now. We’ve made sure of it. Even James has agreed to the contract.”
Your anger wavers. “Contract?”
“Yes, the contract,” she repeats, smirking. Her cards are all on the table now, and she’s got a winning hand. You both know it.
There’s a malicious glint in her eye as she says, “It’s already in effect. It has been since we agreed on the marriage.”
“What contract? What are you talking about?” There’s a sinking feeling in your chest, like your heart has decided to drop into your stomach, then down to your feet and through the floor. Bucky hadn’t said anything to you about a contract, and you trusted him, but you certainly didn’t trust your parents anymore, nor did you trust George and Winnifred Barnes.
Your mother smiles, a sickeningly sweet smile that makes you want to puke. “That’s a conversation for another time. After all, it doesn’t even matter to you until James gets you pregnant.”
The alarm on your phone rings and you close your eyes, your hands trembling. You’d set that alarm to remind you when it was time to leave for the ceremony. Right on cue, the wedding planner knocks on the door to your bedroom.
“Y/N?” she calls, knocking again. “Are you ready?”
Slowly, you squat down and pick up the bouquet. It’s smashed on one side and the petals have fallen off of various flowers, but it’s mostly intact. It shakes as your hands tremble and tears well up in your eyes.
Marta appears in front of you, having pushed your mother out of the way, and over the ringing in your ears, you hear Peggy talking to the wedding planner. Somehow, you make it out to the ground floor of the estate, to the double doors that lead out to the rose garden. You’re dazed by your mother’s strange revelation. The sound of the alarm is still ringing in your ears. Peggy says something to you, but you can only stare straight ahead.
Your father is next to you then, as Peggy disappears through the doors and joins the rest of the wedding party. You see her glancing back at you, and whispering to the rest of the groomsmen and bridesmaids. Most of them are Bucky’s friends who have now become your own, and all of them look worried.
“Let’s go, princess,” your father says, and he pulls you forward by the arm.
Numbly, you follow his lead. Not even Bucky’s initially delighted expression shakes you out of your trance, but the way he rubs his thumb over your hands at the end of the aisle pulls you out of it just enough for you to lift your head and look around. You don’t remember walking to him, nor do you remember handing off your bouquet to Peggy, just like you’d practiced last night at the rehearsal.
“Y/N? Darling?” Bucky asks. He crouches and tilts his head slightly to try to catch your eyes. “You okay?”
“I—” Your mouth is still dry and you swallow, your eyes flitting from one place in the garden to another with no rhyme or reason. The world feels like it’s spinning and you clutch Bucky’s hands, unsure of what to do.
“Someone get her a chair,” Bucky orders, raising his voice enough that you flinch. He immediately starts murmuring reassurances to you, and he pulls you into his arms until he can lower you into a seat.
Someone fans you and a cool glass is pressed to your lips. You drink obediently, closing your eyes as the water helps the sandy feeling in your mouth abate just a little. When the water is gone, the glass is pulled away.
“Y/N, can you hear me?” Bucky asks.
Slowly, carefully, you nod your head. He sighs in relief and when you open your eyes, he’s kneeling down in front of you. His shoulders are tense and his forehead is creased with worry. You’ve never seen him this stressed over anything and it makes you want to cry.
“I’m sorry,” you croak, heat flaming in your cheeks. You feel horrible. Bucky has been looking forward to the ceremony—he’d told you last night at the rehearsal dinner.
“It’s okay,” he quickly replies. He reaches forward and takes your hands, and you glance away from him to peek at the guests, your parents included, who are still watching you from their seats.
“Are you ready for this, or do you need a break?”
You look back at Bucky. “A break?”
“She’s fine,” your mother says, and you look over at her from your seat. She’s standing in the front row, her eyes fixated on the priest behind you. “They’re fine, Father. Y/N’s been a bit nervous all morning. Wedding day jitters, you know.”
“I—” You frown at her, still clutching Bucky’s hands. “That’s not what it is.” You look down at him and shake your head. “I’m not nervous to marry you.”
“I’m not nervous either,” he says with a small smile.
“Then shall we continue?” the priest asks.
You turn to shake your head at him. “No. I’m sorry, Father. I need to talk to Bucky—James—in private for just a minute. Is that alright?”
He smiles gently and nods. “Of course.”
There are more agitated murmurs from the crowd, but you ignore them as Peggy, Steve, and Bucky help you up and back down the aisle. When your mother moves to follow you, she’s blocked by Sam and Clint, another one of Bucky’s friends. She calls after you once, but you ignore her as Peggy helps you onto a bench inside, then leaves, closing the double doors behind herself. She’s handed back your bouquet, and you clutch it with both hands like it’s an anchor in the storm.
“Is everything okay?” Bucky asks. He stands near the door, and you can tell from the way he rolls his shoulders that he’s stressed. His prosthetic always bothers him more when he’s agitated, and you suddenly feel even worse about stopping the ceremony.
“Yes,” you say, but then you shake your head. “No, I’m sorry. Obviously, it’s not, or I wouldn’t have stopped everything. I’m sorry, Bucky, but I have to ask you something.”
“Okay…” There’s a wariness in his eyes, one that you loathe yourself for. You put it there, and you wish with all your might that your mother hadn’t told you what she did. Maybe then you wouldn’t have had to do this.
“Did you sign a contract? With our parents?”
He frowns and his whole body grows very still. “A contract?”
You nod. “Yes.” With your hands still fisted tightly around the bouquet, you inhale deeply and add, “A contract about getting me pregnant.”
“What?” Bucky’s furious response is immediate. He shakes his head, his eyes searching your face for any sign that you might be making this up. “Y/N, what are you talking about?”
“Did you sign a contract agreeing to marry me, and agreeing that my parents get something after you get me pregnant?” The words make you sick to your stomach. You haven’t eaten anything all day, which doesn’t help, but the thought of Bucky agreeing to something so vile… It’s enough to make anyone nauseous.
He’s shaking his head at you again. “Why the hell would I sign anything like that? Do you really think I would do that?”
You shrug a little and look down at the bouquet. “My mother…”
“Darling…” Bucky sighs and comes closer, and he kneels down in front of you again, just like he had outside. All the fight and anger has left his voice. “I would never do anything like that. Not in a million years, and especially not to you. I love you.”
“She said you signed it before they’d even told me we were engaged,” you said, quiet now that he’s so close. You’re afraid to look him in the eye, to see what his face might be telling you that his words aren’t.
“Can you look at me? Please?”
Reluctantly, you lift your eyes from the flowers in your lap to meet Bucky’s eyes. They’re just as blue as the ribbons wrapped around the flower stems, a choice you’d specifically made without the wedding planner’s guidance. You’d wanted him to be your “something blue”, even if it felt a little cheesy.
“Do you want to marry me?” Bucky asks.
You swallow the lump in your throat and nod. “Yes.”
“Do you believe me when I say I had nothing to do with that contract? That I didn’t know it existed?” he questions.
You nod again, tears forming in your eyes.
“And do you trust me to help you find a way to get rid of it, once all of this is over? Do you trust me to protect you?”
You nod for the third time, and Bucky takes both of your hands in his.
“Okay. Then let’s get married, and I swear to you that as soon as our honeymoon is over, the guys and I will start doing some digging.”
“What about me?” you ask, sniffling. You pull one of your hands away to dab at your eyes before the makeup can get too damaged by your tears.
“What about you?”
“Can I dig, too?”
Bucky chuckles and kisses your knuckles on the hand that he’s holding, and then he pulls himself up off the floor to sit beside you on the bench. He pulls you into a half-hug and you cling to him, sniffling and smiling as he rubs the your back and answers,
“You can do all the digging you want, doll. I’ll even hand you the shovel.”
Tá sé go maith tú a fheiceáil. = It’s good to see you.
Mo bhean chéile = My wife
Íosa Críost = Jesus Christ
Thick = A stupid person
Ifreann = Hell
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Bucky Barnes: @lipstickandvibranium @valhalla-kristin @buckymcbuckbarnes
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Brooklyn Baby
Symphony smut series Day 2: Lana del Rey's Brooklyn Baby
Lyric: My boyfriends' in a band, he plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed
Pairings: dom!Heeseung × dom!Jay × fem!sub!reader
Warnings: Poly relationship, SMUT MINORS DNI, vibrator, double penetration, oral (f and m recieving), dacryphillia, degradation, reader wears a dress, mention of breeding, Heeseung fucks reader with a vibrator, edging, orgasm denial, unprotected sex (definetly not for you), threesome, kinda mean doms hee and jay
A/N: Day 2! I love this song with all my heart so I thought Jay would be the perfect fit cause duh, but then I was like why don't we make it a little interesting and add Heeseung into the mixture? Anyway this is my first time writing poly so please be kind everyone.
THE SYMPHONY SMUT SERIES MASTERLIST
When you took up the offer in college to be lead singer of a three-person band, you hadn't expected to become a celebrity princess overnight. What you also hadn't expected was for your two loving members, Heeseung and Jay, to become your loving boyfriends. A little bit of poly never hurt did it?
"Darling, we're going to be late if you don't hurry up." Jay peeked his head around the door, to see you applying your lip gloss all prettily around your lips.
The lip gloss he had gotten you.
"How do I look?" You turned to him with uncertainty. The dress was beautiful, one that your fans would adore. The makeup was also done to perfection by your '24 hour routine' as Heeseung called it.
"Beautiful as always." Jay responded, stretching his hand out to you, and twirling you around, relishing the tight fit of the dress against your waist, "I think engenes are going to want to steal you from me and Heeseung."
"Please." Heeseung's footsteps announced his arrival into the room, his eyes widening as they fell upon you, "They won't ever be able to do that.
"So protective." You wrapped your arms around Heeseung's neck, whilst Jay's stayed on your waist, "Are we ready?"
You looked into the mirror infront of you, where you all stood out perfectly in color coordinated outfits. A flurry of blues and purples perfectly describing your band's genre stared back at you in the mirror.
"Perfect."
"And now we have the overnight musical sensation! Please welcome Enhypen!" The host's voice boomed across the room, as you entered from backstage, both arms twirled in both your boyfriends' arms.
The audience applauded and hooted, cheering your names, the official fanchant over and over again and again.
"Well aren't they excited for today?" The host merrily laughed, as you sat down in between Heeseung and Jay.
"Well, welcome to the show! How are you feeling?"
"Nervous I guess." You answered with a slight chuckle, calming down as Jay's hand pressed on yours.
"Well of course! I believe you are excited for the live performance tonight?"
"Well of course." Jay responded this time. His perfume did smell good, you thought as you watched him speak with such eloquence. He did always have a way with his words everywhere.
"You're not ignoring me are you?" You heard Heeseung whisper into your ear, his hand creeping up to your thigh. You were thankful for the table infront of you which shielded the bottom part of your body, a part which Heeseung loved to touch.
His hand reached lower into your thigh, tickling your skin with his cold hands as he gripped them hard.
"And Miss Y/N!" The host said, snapping you out of the sudden urge to moan, "How would you describe your relationship with the boys?"
Great, you thought, another dumb question just for me.
"Um I'd say we're best friends." You nervously said. Revealing your relationship to the world wouldn't really be all sunshine and rainbows. "We've been friends since college actually, when we decided to form Enhypen. And well I guess we're close to family now." You awkwardly laughed to cover up the situation as the host moved on to the next question.
"And now, our dear audience let's get ready for the performance!" The host's voice boomed again, as the audience clapped their hands off.
A microphone and two guitars were all prepped and ready as you walked up, adjusting the mic to your level. Jay examined the guitar carefully and slipped it on, teasing the audience by playing a few notes on it, to which you heard girls scream his name. You smiled to yourself, remembering all the shit they wrote on your boys, all the fanfiction which they really thought would come true.
Hah as if! The boys belonged to you, and you only.
If only you knew what was coming for you after the performance.
"Best friends huh?" Jay pinned you against the wall, Heeseung's chuckles filling the room, as he slowly removed his belt and watch, "Too afraid to tell the world what we are darling?"
"Jay y-you know we can't." You reprimanded him, trying to take the upper hand. But only failure came to you at that moment, as you felt your thighs become stickier by the moment.
"Aww look at her." Heeseung chuckled again, "Our good little girl. Why don't we teach her a lesson, huh Jay?"
Jay smirked at you, going in for a kiss before saying, "Want her first?"
"Nah you have fun, I'll take her later." Heeseung settled himself comfortably on the loveseat facing the bed, his legs wide open in a manspread.
You felt shivers around your body as Jay, picked you up like a rag doll and threw you onto the bed.
"We don't need this, do we?" Jay toyed with your panties. The straps of your dress pressed tightly against your shoulders and Jay, pressed his fingers to your clothed labia, removing the underwear with ease and depositing it on the floor.
The shaky breath you took made Jay smile against your skin, the warmth of his breath crashing against your exposed flesh.
As his fingers slowly began to curve in and out of you, he came to kiss your skin, moving down with each kiss towards your clit. The sensation of his lips grazing the latter inevitably brought your hand to rest in his hair as you arched your back.
The room was dimly lit, courtesy to the closed curtains, but you could see Heeseung from the corner of your eye, smirking intently at Jay reaching down to your clit, one of his hands massaging the bulge on his pants gently.
Jacking off while Jay works his way through you, typical Heeseung, you would have scoffed if not for Jay providing heaven to you at that moment.
Jay's tongue made sinuous circles around your clit as his two fingers accelerated slightly. He knew which places he had to touch to make you produce the sweetest sounds, and he wasn't going to deprive himself of hearing them.
You can feel him grinning while he licks and swirls his tongue around your swollen nub, hands beginning to slow to a halt. His fingers pull almost all the way out you, causing your eyes to finally open and a noise of protest leaves your lips.
Your walls were perfect, taking his thick, long fingers into you so good. He curved them while making smaller and smaller circles centered on your clit, kissing and licking it.
Your hands gripped his hair more firmly, your breath quickening as the heat rose to your cheeks and the knot tightened in your belly.
And just as you the climax reached closer and closer, your mouth almost about to scream-
"Jay!" You cried, laying an eye on Jay's face peeking out from between your legs, "Why'd you stop?"
Jay chuckled and glanced over at Heeseung, who sighed and got up, striding over to you, the buttons of his shirt slightly opened, giving him a more powerful look
"Only our girlfriend deserves to cum, but you're not her are you?" Heeseung moved to the atmosphere above you, as Jay slowly collapsed on the loveseat where Heeseung had been sitting, "Remind me what she is Jay?"
"Our best friend." Jay said, an unusually sadistic tone to his voice, "Do you want the vibrator or will you be going in with your fingers?"
"Hand me the vibrator." Heeseung said, stroking your thigh with his fingers again, eliciting a mewl out of you, "You wanna use the pink one princess?"
"Don't ask her that you know she'll say yes." Jay's voice could be heard from across the room, as he dug and dug into the cupboard, "Aha! There you go."
A needy moan falls from your lips as Heeseung presses the pink machine deeper inside your pussy, whining a bit as it clenches tighter. Pleasure rushes through your core while your moans grow louder and needier.
"Aww look at her." Heeseung chuckles, "so fucking needy aren't you?"
He groans softly, biting his lip as he takes in the sight of you before him. Heeseung was never the one to keep his control. The vibrator slides through your folds absentmindedly, keeping you wet and needy. Heeseung's eyes darken a bit at the sight of your arching back.
"Fuck, princess," he whispers, kneeling on the bed closer to you. His free hand come to rest on your hips, sliding along, caressing your thighs, your curves in admiration and desire.
"How does it feel? Good?" he whispers, voice almost raw with need, "Do you want something better?"
"Fuck Heeseung!" You cry, feeling the vibrator switch to a faster pace, Heeseung pushing it deeper and deeper into you.
Tears falls down your face, the pleasure rushing through you almost being impossible to take. And yet, you didn't fuck two men at the same time to crumble so easily did you?
"Are you close, princess?" he leans his body over yours, whispering in your ears, "Do you wanna cum for me?"
“i-i’m gonna cum… fuck! Heeseung–!” you cry out, ready to tip over that peak until the pleasure your boyfriend was giving you was ripped away. "No!"
You whip your head around, glancing over your shoulder to see the shit-eating smirk Jay was wearing on his face.
“ah… i guess you really wanted to cum right?” he teases, one of his hands rubbing soft circles on his dick.
“aw… m’sorry baby,” Heeseung coos at you, his hands coming up to rest on your jaw. “but brats don’t get what they want, now do they?” he says, the grip on your face tightening.
“Think you can handle two dicks in your tight little cunt?” Jay teases, no having joined you and Heeseung in the bed. You've never heard him talk with such vile language before but you loved this side of him. “Yes daddy~” you moan out.
Skin colliding with skin filled the room, the sound bouncing off the walls.
With a loud moan you nodded, feeling how good the stretch provided by Heeseung's cock felt inside your cunt "right there daddy" you mumbled against the tip of Jay's cock before his hips slammed it inside your mouth once again. You couldn't help but whimper while his cock used your mouth, causing waves of pleasure to travel all over Jay's body who was harshly gripping a fistful of your hair as he deep throated you.
"You love doing this don't you, slut?" Heeseung chuckled, "Making us feel good?"
"but who fucks you better, huh darling?" Jay questioned, his eyes focusing on your face completely fucked out. Your ruined make up, your messy hair, the way your cheeks and nose were all red because of how roughly he was using your mouth and the sight of saliva all over your lips and chin made his cock twitch under your hand.
You moan around his cock with the sting of his condescension, feel Heeseung stiffen inside you with a rut of his hips, grazing your tender g-spot with the added swell. He stutters and curses, Jay grins through a breathy moan as he no doubt recognises the signs he’s seen a hundred times before.
"You wanna cum darling?" Heeseung's chuckle sounds like heaven to your ears, "What do you think Jay?"
"She's treatin me so good." Jay groans, feeling his cum in his belly, "Let her."
Heeseung nods, reaching around you to circle your throbbing clit with surprisingly firm and steady motions despite his impending release. He gets you there, bursts through the dam of white-hot pleasure with a final rut that forces you deeper onto Jay's cock, and the three of you come in an eye watering display of lust and synergy that shouldn’t be found in a group that says they're 'best friends'.
With Jay's cum dripping from your lips, Heeseung's from your post-orgasmic pussy, you wonder how you’re ever going to have sex again after this. Nothing could possibly come close to what you just experienced.
"Fucking hell." Jay collapsed on the bed on your right, while Heeseung did the same thing to your left, "That was good, wasn't it darl-" Jay's words stopped in their tracks as soon as they saw you clinging to Heeseung's bicep, and lightly snoring.
"You wanna get showered?" Heeseung whispered to Jay, "I got your favourite shampoo."
"Nah wanna stay like this." Jay answered, wrapping his arms around your waist, spooning you into comfort, "Family." He scoffed, "The only family we're ever going to be is when we fuck our cum into her."
"That's what I was thinking." Heeseung laughed, the three of you holding each other and collapsing into a cocoon of comfort.
#enhypen#Enha#jay#heeseung#heeseung smut#heeseung imagines#lee heeseung#park jay smut#park jay fluff#enhypen smut imagines#enhypen smut#enhypen smut reactions#enha smut#jay smut#park jongseong#park jay imagines#park jay#lee heeseung fluff#lee heeseung fic#lee heeseung smut#enha hard hours#enha hard thoughts#jay hard thoughts#heeseung fanfic#Enhypen smut fics#enha smut fics#poly relationship#jay park smut#heeseung × reader#jay × reader
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Some intro dialogues with their s/o
Game: Marvel Rivals
Characters: Magik, Luna, Star Lord, Winter Soldier
(Short cause I still need to learn the lore of this game and the characters)
——
Magik
Magik: Stay close. I’ll prevent any of your blood being spilled.
M/n: That’s sweet Illyana. But I can take—
Magik: I wasn’t. Asking.
…
M/n: Magik, Whoever gets the least KO’s pays for dinner
Magik: Hmm? Do you truly wish for defeat this much love?
M/n: Don’t worry, your dinner will be you eating those words.
….
Magik: With us fighting together, our victory is assured.
M/n: Obviously, just feel bad that they’ll go back to their timeline with their pride destroyed.
Magik: That’s not the only thing that’ll be broken.
…
M/n: Illyana, is it cool if you do the heavy lifting? I’m getting sleepy.
Magik: I do not mind. Come. I’ll allow you to rest on me.
M/n: During battle…? Yeah no, better if I just power through.
Luna Snow
Luna: M/n—
M/n: I’m not singing to you.
Luna:…sheesh… could’ve at least let me finish saying it.
….
M/n: Seol, keep me alive yeah?
Luna: Duh~ I wouldn’t love you the same if you were dead.
M/n: Right…that was a stupid thing to say
…
Luna: M/n! We gotta finish this quick!
M/n: Uh… why?
Luna: Our reservation for that fancy restaurant is in 3 hours!
…
M/n: Think about it Luna. This is definitely better quality time then having to be bombarded with the paparazzi and media.
Luna: Yeah.. least this way I can assault without it being a crime.
M/n: Now your learning my language hot stuff. Or.. cold stuff….?
Star Lord
Peter: Aww yeah!! Time to—!!
M/n: Quill. Loud doesn’t equal attractiveness.
Peter: okay sorry.
…
M/n: Yo Pete! Got some bangers on that headphone?
Peter: Ya know it hot stuff!
M/n: Well don’t hog it, come on over space boy
….
Peter: Hey! After this, let’s go to the bar!
M/n: Pete… I don’t want to have—
Peter: Da— HA HO HEE wait! Hold on! I didn’t— why would you—!
…
M/n: Peter, if you carry this battle, I’ll kiss you.
Peter: Only one kiss? Come on babe, I come in high demand.
M/n:…Two and half kisses.
Winter Soldier
Bucky: Long way from Brooklyn, ay m/n?
M/n: As long as I’m with you, I’ll always be content
Bucky: You always know how to lighten my mood.
….
M/n: What else can that metal arm do?
Bucky: Uh… now isn’t the time to—
M/n: Dude, I was talking about battle. Save that stuff for the bedroom. 
…
Bucky: If hydra comes from you, I’ll end them
M/n: Pretty sure you’d do that anyway. But it’s nice to know you’re protective of me.
Bucky: Obviously.
….
M/n: Bucky, wanna switch weapons for this?
Bucky: Nah. Don’t think I can handle anything you have going on.
M/n: Oh? We oughta test that theory out.
…
The end, this shit sucked 😭
#male reader#marvel#marvel comics#marvel games#video game#marvel rivals#magik#luna snow#star lord#winter soldier#bucky barnes#peter quill#illyana rasputin#seol hee#magik x male reader#illyana rasputin x male reader#luna snow x male reader#seol hee x male reader#star lord x male reader#peter quill x male reader#winter soldier x male reader#bucky barnes x male reader#fluff#romance#character x male reader
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My thoughts on Beatles 64
Am I a terrible person or something because I’m genuinely having such a hard time wrapping my head around these people’s reactions to their president getting shot. Like I can count on one hand the people I’d give a fuck about in DC and I’m not crying if that happens. I’m angry. I’m scared. But I’m not sad.
Who is this covering all my loving? It’s pretty.
I will forever love Paul and George’s big and little brother dynamic. Deep, cloudy scouse: they’re in perfect synchronization. Bright, squeaky scouse: Are they? Like, where is George’s little chimney sweep costume?!
And Paul’s sharp tone calling John’s name. I don’t know, I could obsess over any little scrap of footage of them. I just love picking apart details that reveal dynamics.
George’s insecure, curious, “Are you filming now?” Compared to his over-it, sardonic, “Are you recording our conversation?” He aged about twenty years between 64 and 69.
John’s reaction to his own voice in his ears is always a straight shot of joy.
I like that they’re showing all the boys. You know, because if only girls like them, then they’re just a silly pop group, but if boys like them too, well. That’s something else, isn’t it?
One of my favorite moments. No wonder Paul took so well to shepherding. His blood pressure spiking if John gets out of arm's reach. And John is of course so happy to be pulled back in.
Their hair really was so fluffy!
John spreads his legs when he’s playing because he’s an anxious attachment. Paul keeps his legs closed because he’s avoidant. In this essay I will.
This mix of She Loves You is really highlighting Ringo’s drumming for me. He’s so talented and attractive.
This is why Paul’s my favorite, genuinely. Because he goes from the most polite, people-pleasing, tender-heart to an absolute mean girl cunty bitch in the span of less than a second.
Ringo is the quickest wit, I’m telling you, and if anyone says otherwise, I’m cancelling you for classism.
Why is it always Paul these middle aged creeps feel the need to touch? I mean, I know why. But it makes me sick. That kind of thing is reserved for the mutuals. Definitely not cops.
It’s literally sooooo funny for me seeing this guy choke up about She Loves You. Like I’m genuinely happy for him, but I was literally just over at my husband’s grandparents double-wide and they Still go on about how stupid the Beatles haircuts were and how they remember the days before the Beatles when there was ‘real’ rock and roll on the radio.
So, Paul’s been telling the story of Jim critiquing She Loves You for literally sixty years now, and originally it was with mix-ins from John and George and without a lot of artificial sweeteners. Here’s the sixty-year-old version:
Back home in Liverpool, we used to sing over some of our songs to relatives—I did to my Dad and my aunties,” he recalled. “My Dad would look at me looking disappointed. ‘I don’t know young Paul,’ he’d say. ‘I try to get you to speak properly, and you drop your aitches. Why sing ‘Yeah, Yeah’ when you mean ‘Yes, Yes?’ I tried to explain this was the whole point of the song,” Paul continued. John broke in: “Anyone ever heard someone from Liverpool singing ‘Yes’? It’s YEAH.” Paul continued: “Well, we just laughed. My Dad gave us some of the worst advice ever. He said this music thing will never last. It’s all right on the side, he’d say, BUT PAUL IT WILL NEVER LAST!” “Remember,” said George, “he always wanted us to sing ‘Stairway to Paradise’?” – Ray Coleman article 1964
What a cutie. Shouldn't be allowed.
“That wasn’t really the case.” (that America was the land of the free). He always almost gets to his political views. You know? Microdosing? Left-bating? Maybe both. Whatever.
I LOVE their funny little accents with all my heart. John does posh scarily well.
Ringoooooooo!
“Go on! Defy convention!” Quotes that define the speaker. He should sell t-shirts with that slogan.
This girl’s Brooklyn accent and her confidence are so beautiful!
Why did they buy John an ID I’m actually dying! Oh! They don’t mean, they mean like Paul’s and Ringo’s bracelets. Got it. Okay. I was like ‘are you trying to help him ten years in advance with his immigration struggle?’
The juilliard girl is phenomenal.
I want the nylons and I want the shoes.
“Would you do me a tremendous favor?” “I’m not gonna kiss you like Elisabeth Taylor.” See? Ringo is the funny one. Ringo is so fucking sharp and nobody gives him the credit he’s due.
Ronnie Spector you deserved better, Queen! I love her. She’s so gorgeous, she’s so cool, she’s so young and energetic!
Two excellent Lennonisms right in a row. “Have you been watching the newsies?” and “I don’t care,” I say as I care caringly. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he has the most sunshiny smile in the Beatles.
Ringoooooo!
Not the picture of JohnandPaul singing together as “with lovers and friends” plays.
Love Paul offering Ringo a candy. In yet another accent. People need to make them talk in goofy accents more in fic because it’s incessant. But I just love them offering each other food. It’ll always get me.
See, this is what I love about John. “People have been tryna stamp out rock and roll since it started.” “Why do you think that is? What are they afraid of?” “I always thought it was cause it came from black music.” He’s not ‘honest to a fault’ or whatever the boomer men love to say. But he’s very, very blunt, and he’s not going to try and skirt anything. You know?
Literally the most embarrassing thing a person can ever be is white.
“I thought it was very weak. You know what I think, I call a spade a spade. I thought it was weaker than weak.” Cook him! And then the mimicking! I love him so much! Holy shit, that would’ve been so enraging.
And then the quiet sass of the guy being interviewed right after. “Well, the versatility, the originality. I like anything that’s original.” I love some clever tumblr web-weaving in my documentaries.
In my husband’s grandparent’s defense, the “real rock and roll” they loved before the Beatles was literally only black artists.
I love this picture for ever. Look at how tight he’s holding on to John with one hand and the other hand raised in joyous triumph, engagement bracelet visible. This is Paul in heaven.
“The whole assumption of male vs female is not prominent. They’re sort of in-between.” Yes. Love. Keep going.
Ringo’s got all the quips, again. “Ringo, look over here!” Puts his hands up. “Don’t shoot!”
I didn’t know Smokey Robinson and the Miracles went to the Cavern, that’s cool! And here I was thinking I wouldn’t learn anything new from this doc. His whole interview is very lovely and generous.
I always think “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” probably spoke to John in terms of his relationship with Paul, but I go there so easily. Anyway, Smokey Robinson had every right to be pissed that they released a cover of his song without even asking. Like that would be illegal nowadays, right? And yet he’s so kind about it.
We talk about how scary Beatlemania was and we should because it was, but it really puts it in perspective for me personally hearing Smokey say he was shot at for trying to use the bathroom.
Oh I love that we have footage of Paul taking Ringo’s picture! Makes me think of “eye of the storm” obviously, but also the way he’s mocking the photographer's jargon of the time as he’s doing it. The fact that he ended up marrying a photographer who made a point to depict him as not just “some doe eyed sex object” in her pictures, and also of his song “pretty boys” and his quotes about the sexualization of “male models”. Definitely not about anything he himself experienced. Anyway, thoughts. Strings. Pins. Etc.
Also Ringo turning to the camera still filming him, “what do you think I am, a monkey?” Remember that part in this footage where Ringo says something like, “are we ever going to have a break from all these cameras?” And he’s exhausted. It really seems like, from the footage selected by this doc at least, that Paul and Ringo were doing the bulk of the lifting at this time just with cooperating with the show biz stuff. And isn’t that (interesting? Sad? Poetic? Good?) that they’re the ones still cooperating sixty years later.
How dare they cut out “but we ain’t written no poetry!”
As John’s panicking, “how are we gonna – have you seen the kids? How are we gonna get in, then?” Paul’s just calmly going, “Hi girls!” With a patient smile and a cute little wave. “I’ll just go in and speak to the people first, okay?” I love Paul “calming-down-other-people’s-hysteria-is-my-calling-in-life” McCartney.
Cute, George introducing a song he’ll do a viral backflip to in twenty years.
I wonder what that letter is. John’s being very tender with it.
“You’re fired!” “It’s Love Me Do, whacker!” With the sweetest most innocent smile. I love when John is John, you know?
“To me they’re all obviously low or middle class, highly illiterate, unintelligent wild kids seeking a little fun and pleasure . . . I think there’s something very strange about it at the same time, something very sick. . . . I’m sure that sexual reasons have something to do with it. They find the Beatles sexually attractive and they’ve made some kind of psychological tie with them. I think the whole thing’s a little bit frightening and quite sick.” Where’s that old meme with Trump describing the democrats in the most hateful terms he can think of and people being like “yep that’s me”?
Paul stopping to say goodbye by name to each of the people who've been in their hotel room one by one. It’s giving *Opra voice* “and you please don’t hate us and you please dont hate us and you please don’t hate us”
Ringo coming back because he went the wrong way is the most me-core thing.
Paul will come in with the random shouts and yelling in the middle of a song he’s singing lead on all the way from the very beginning and all the way to the very very end, huh.
I just get filled with so much rage at this image of the Bernstein family, especially after the footage of the Gonzalezes. Like, I know I need therapy. I know. But it costs money. Anyway, all rich people can go straight to hell. “I was allowed to wheel the TV set down from the library, down the corridor and into the dining room.” Oh, were you! Well, you must be very special, then.
I wonder if Paul’s title of his exhibition has anything to do with this quote from John about “It was like being in the eye of a hurricane.”
The girl hanging on Ringo like a jungle-gym is me. I love the way he flirts, it’s so smooth, physical, casual.
Classic John moment and he doesn’t even open his mouth.
My dearest wish is that these two are happily married now, holding hands in the theater watching this.
The voice of the woman asking Paul “what do you think of the American TV” sounded extremely like Linda’s. I sort of panicked for a second. Linda’s voice is lower, but the accent and cadence and the sort of wealthy slouch is the same.
I love them picking up on the dystopian beginnings of America’s version of late-stage capitalism and broadcasting the ridiculousness of it all to a public that didn’t know any different. “The situation in China is very bad. Have you ever wondered, when you’re eating at home?”
The guys setting up wearing Beatles wigs? Ew. Why?
Ringo’s so funny! “Watch any band. If anything goes wrong, they go – Blame the drummer.” And he’s so endearing and sweet. “I just always wanted to be IN the band, not like ‘oh, I’m over here.’” Reminds me of his quote about being lonely as an only child and ending up with three brothers. What a tenderheart.
Huh. Always thought some idiots just set up his rostrum backwards. The rest of the stage spinning around it makes much more sense.
That little smile between the two of them.
George in tears! Poor baby! I really do think, with the way this affected him on another level than it affected the others, and with the way he talked about his experiences at the Inny compared to Paul (not that you can trust Paul to say anything actually gets to him) that George maybe was more sensitive to classism than the others.
I hope Paul said something to that affect to George after. “They’re working at an embassy. We’re on the road, rocking. I don’t give a flying fuck.” You know? I could see it.
Another thing I love about John. You need that guy on your team, whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. That when people are being bitchy, you tell them to fuck off and you leave. I bet Paul, George, and Ringo were so relieved that John did that for them.
After Ringo talked about not wanting to be back behind and separate from the band, I’ve noticed all three of them stepping back sometimes to stand more in line with him when they’re not singing. I don’t know if it was conscious or natural, but either way, I love that they did that and I’m sure Ringo did too.
The looks and smiles
I usually maintain that Paul is only sexy from 60-61 and from 68-98 and from 18-now. But. This is just objectively hot, I don’t care who you are.
It’s so sweet to see George being such a ham, getting John to do silly bits with him, putting on a waiter’s uniform and passing out drinks, climbing up in the luggage compartment. I wish they could’ve somehow kept it at a pace that was manageable for him so he could’ve kept on being so happy with his life, you know? I mean it’s not like it just disappears completely. There’s some of it in Get Back and even in Anthology, but it’s just not the same.
This is what happens when you’re a slut, Paul. You get paternity suits that ruin your mood. Shame, shame.
Interesting that Paul points out Brian’s “defying convention” by having them play their scandalous rock and roll shows in all these “hallowed halls”. I’d never thought about it as Brian’s conscious decision but obviously it must’ve been, and that’s very clever and snarky of him.
“That man, who is strong enough to be gentle, that is a new man.” Betty Friedan is pro-beatle. We love to see it!
Watching Paul try to behave like a human being on stage with all of his early twenties energy is honestly painful. It’s like Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, you know? Like I can just see him aching to let himself free, but there are weights put in place for a reason. I know Brian was right to calm them down, and this documentary is proof that if he hadn’t done his taming, either they never would’ve made it or there would’ve been all-out class warfare or something, but it breaks my heart, it really does.
Ronald Isley, again, just like Smokey Robinson, being so so charitable here, and managing to do so without playing down the fact that things were absolutely rigged against him and his group at the time. “We should be on the Ed Sullivan show doing . . .” Yes. Yes.
I looked it up, and this quote is genuine. “If it wasn’t for the isley brothers, we would still be in Liverpool.” – Paul McCartney. That’s one thing I love about him. He’s always giving – very much due – credit to his black contemporaries. People ask him about Elvis and he always says, “yes, and Little Richard.” People say he was the most innovative bass player of his time and he says, “yes, and Fred Thomas.”
Ringo literally gets me every time. George: I don’t remember Wales. Ringo: It was before you joined the group.
The way Paul talks about George living “the good life” is very much in the tone of an older brother who’s helped his little brother do well for himself, you know? It’s adorable.
Of course Paul’s out feeding seagulls.
Not even going to comment on the “i love you” thing. Nope.
Okay I do have to say, the end of this guy’s story about going to liverpool and getting deported is incredibly sweet. I was kind of ignoring him, and then when he said he met John during Imagine, I sort of braced myself. But it turned out absolutely adorable. I love John’s little antenna miming and that he promoted this guy just for having made the front page of the Liverpool Echo. It’s all very John, very endearing.
I hope Paul and this weepy old guy had a talk about healing yourself from abuse through music. There’s like a 1/100 chance, but I still hope they did.
John loves a good boat analogy, doesn’t he? “There was a ship going to discover the new world. And the beatles were in the crows nest on the same ship [as everyone else] and we just said ‘land ho!’
Love the use of “Roll Over Beethoven” as the final song.
#paul mccartney#the beatles#john lennon#mclennon#george harrison#ringo starr#brian epstein#beatles 64
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A little nostalgia for Yankees fans. Ebbets Field was home to the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1913-1948. Next to it you can see the old Yankees Stadium. In the bottom right corner, you can barely see the new Yankees Stadium. There's a lot of history in these photos. I've been to both Yankees Stadiums, but I'm not old enough to have gone to Ebbets Field. Let's go Yankees!!!!!
#ebbets field#Yankees Stadium#old and new#history#Brooklyn Dodgers#NY Yankees#love#happiness#thank you#sharing#joy#baseball#sports#ny yankees#let's go yankees#ny baseball#Bronx#bronx bombers#i love this game#my boys#let's win#it's our year
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1930s:
Brooklyn teacher: These two reckless boys are pain in my ass.
2023:
Steve: Do you think Mrs Higgins will be proud of us?
Bucky: *shooting* Hell yeah because we did exactly what she asked.
Steve: *throwing shield* What is that?
Bucky: *protecting Steve from a bullet with metal arm* Stopping bothering others and leave our stupidity to each other.
#bucky barnes#marvel#incorrect stucky#steve rogers#incorrect avengers#stucky#incorrect marvel quotes
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