#she will begrudgingly rent a car if she's in america but she hates it

[ofpsalms]

The Pope's Exorcist was not a good movie but the scene where Ru.ssel Cro.we is zooming around Rome on his little vespa is so Nico-coded

[lovelyirony]

"Maybe I’ll see you in another life/if this one wasn’t enough" from Florence + the Machine prompt lists, for winter13, please?

Sharon is no stranger to knowing tragedy. She sees the way Aunt Peggy’s lips curve up and fall slightly when she talks about knowing Steve Rogers. It’s a life that is not defined, not confirmed. But there was possibility. Sharon knows about possibilities. 

When she’s eighteen, she sees him. 

Winter Soldier. 

The legend that Peggy tells her about. 

“I’m not supposed to be telling you,” Peggy whispers. Sharon knows more about SHIELD than she should, but Peggy’s soft when it comes to Sharon. She knows Sharon’s destiny, knows that she needs to know more than the average recruit when she goes into the organization. 

“Be careful,” Peggy says. “The Winter Soldier isn’t a myth. He’s real. They remade a man into what they wanted, and that’s...Sharon, you know how dangerous that is.” 

She does. She knows that this person, whoever they are, will not hesitate to kill. He won’t listen to any pleas or bargains, because that’s not in his code. He will not stop, will not stray from the mission, and will not look at you--he will look through you. 

Her graduation present from her parents is a trip to Europe. She gets to visit Vienna and learn all about old history, carefully taking note of suspicious characters. Peggy has come along to tell her all about World War II and the history of it, rare smiles gracing her face as she explains a prank Sergeant Barnes pulled on the rest of the division or the time Dum-Dum messed up ordering food. 

They see him. 

Winter Soldier is not on a mission for Director Carter--or rather, former Director Carter. He’s on a mission for someone else. 

“We need to follow him,” Peggy says. “Sharon, get the car.” 

Sharon has never driven in Europe before. But she manages just fine as she nervously presses on the gas pedal and they zoom forward. Winter Soldier is chasing after someone, and someone who knows it. 

Aunt Peggy sees red hair and pauses. 

“Sharon, get out of the car. Let me drive.” 

- 

Sharon is not allowed to tell her parents that she met Black Widow, or that Peggy dented the car hood by attempting to run over the Winter Soldier. 

She also does not tell anyone about the fact that as she opened the car door for Black Widow and her charge, that Winter Soldier tore off his goggles and stared. 

That was...unsettling. His eyes were brilliant. She could tell they were a light color from a hundred feet off. 

“This your girl?” Natasha Romanoff asks Aunt Peggy. 

“Yes.” 

“I’m impressed,” she says. “Welcome to SHIELD, Sharon.” 

“I’m not inducted in yet.” 

“You might as well be, facing off the Winter Soldier,” she says with a snort. “Come on. Peggy, we need to start training.” 

Sharon starts during college. She still goes to college, although her heart is not completely in it. She finishes her classes with passing grades, gets a degree in sociology, and moves on. 

Natasha trains with her and she becomes skilled as all hell. 

She still dreams of light eyes staring through her. The dreams are more like nightmares as they get closer and closer. 

- 

She sees him again when she’s in New York helping out with protection at an undercover science delegation meeting. Some of the most influential scientists are the ones you never hear about. Sure, they have published papers, but they also have papers that never see the light of day because it would change the fabric of reality as everyone knows it. 

Winter Soldier doesn’t spare her a glance, not until she launches herself at him to knock him into an alley. 

“Stop,” she hisses. 

Sharon didn’t think this through. She most definitely is not on his skill level, and they both know it. 

“Let me go,” he says, voice almost dead. “I have a mission.” 

“So do I,” she says, “and it involves stopping someone like you.” 

“You miss the point of my existence,” he says, almost robotically. “I am not a someone. I am a something.” 

“You know the difference. Robots don’t,” Sharon says, dodging a fist that goes slamming into concrete. “Now back the hell off.” 

In all of the missions that Winter Soldier can recount, (oh yeah, they’ll let him remember the decapitation but not his own fucking birthday. Classic) most of the agents that are sent to stop him are not this bold. 

Because a.) they realize in the moment that they are outmatched and outclassed in every way that matters, and b.) they have accepted death. 

Not this girl. No, she’s young and she’s fierce but she knows...she knows something. 

This gets him distracted. 

And this allows Sharon to be able to slash a knife down his leg, and it’s not the kind of cut that allows continuation to be done. He would survive, but this is gonna slow him down. 

Begrudgingly, she has his respect. 

- 

He doesn’t tell his handlers about her. He doesn’t know why. Usually he’s fine with revealing anyone who got in his way, and usually someone catches onto the fact that he’s lying and make his brain circuits go pop. But not...not this time. 

They believe the fact that a spare part from a crashed car knicked his leg as he jumped down. They stitch him up, give him a good old brain wipe, and send him to the freezer. He’s not sure when the next year will be, if they’ll even let him out again. 

(There’s a joke about rent insurance in there somewhere.) 

-

Sharon cut the Winter Soldier. She fucking cut the guy who people said would kill you. She got away. 

This isn’t something you brag about. She could but then she’d be an asshole who everyone at the office hates. And instead of them stealing Rumlow’s lunch once a week, it’d be her. 

And she likes that Rumlow keeps bringing quality food. 

She doesn’t tell anyone. Well...Peggy doesn’t count. 

Peggy is riveted, on the edge of her seat. 

“You didn’t,” Peggy swears. “You didn’t!” 

“I did,” Sharon responds. “But I don’t know what he told whoever he works for. I could be dead, Peggy.” 

“Nonsense,” Peggy scoffs. “It’s been more than a week, correct?” 

“A month.” 

“You just told me this today?! And it’s been a month?!” 

“...I didn’t want you to worry.” 

“If you had told me the day of, I would have worried. But if they haven’t sent anyone to kill you, your little escapade is safe. Although it does make me curious...” 

They sip on tea for a while longer and laugh about Sharon’s father, who is fretting about Sharon all over again. It’s a bi-monthly occasion, very entertaining for Peggy, who knows that Sharon knows a little over a hundred ways to incapacitate someone who’s up against her. 

Sharon kisses Peggy goodbye. 

- 

Winter Soldier is woken up for another mission. 

He remembers a woman with blonde hair and a firm ask for him to “stop.” 

There’s a feeling that she’s important. There’s a feeling that Hydra doesn’t know anything about her. 

He’s sent to make sure that SHIELD is destroyed. 

Great. This is gonna go fantastically, he’s sure. 

-

Sharon really knows what’s going on. Peggy had her suspicions, and made sure that Nick Fury thought outside the box. Hell, that he thought outside the universe. She knew that SHIELD would never be pure of intention. Peggy never was, why would her organization be? Humanity isn’t either. 

She knows that Hydra is inside SHIELD and it’s looking for Captain America to be its first example. 

Do they know it’s a Wednesday? Like honestly, it’s a Wednesday. It’s two p.m. She thought she would get herself a pizza tonight, make a wine night. Wine Wednesday. It would’ve been fun. Maybe Natasha could’ve come. 

But no, Hydra decided they wanted to eliminate threats they couldn’t control so now she’s on the run from the guy the next office space from hers and has to deal with Rumlow bitching about people stealing his sandwiches. 

“Your own fault!” Sharon yells, swiping his feet from under him. “You’re also just annoying as fuck!” 

She then has to run. 

She knows that Natasha and some special agent who was in the flight division are helping Steve and maybe Maria. Probably Maria. They wouldn’t have gotten as far as they had if Maria wasn’t in on it or if she was Hydra. 

God, if Maria Hill was Hydra...

Couldn’t think about that travesty now. She has a world to save. 

- 

Steve, naturally, has been sort of a disaster. He makes it functional. She sort of wishes that she could make it functional, but she is not able to have that sort of function in her life, unfortunately. 

He’s wearing his old uniform. She doesn’t know why, just that he’s stupid. She doesn’t care how carefully the restoration workers at the Smithsonian have repaired it, she knows his levels of stupidity. 

And then he turns. 

Winter Soldier. 

Now, apparently, Bucky Barnes. 

What a kick in the goddamn head. 

She can’t even think. She doesn’t want to think, she just charges and kicks him out a window. 

Steve slams the card in, they save the world, and she’s diving after a man with a metal arm. Metal is also falling from the sky, so you could imagine the level of difficulty she is under. 

But she finds him. He’s a heavy guy as she lugs him to the shore, waiting for him to wake up. 

“Who the--?” He’s coughing out water, trying to get up. 

“I’d suggest you take a vacation,” Sharon says. “I think you have a lot of days saved up.” 

Sharon doesn’t know why she leaves him there. She really doesn’t understand why she doesn’t just say “hey, come with me,” and then he decides to join SHIELD and Steve and him can bond over not understanding music apps. 

But he needs to have time to himself, she reasons. 

“You’re insane,” Natasha says to Sharon. Steve is trying to visit Sam and hang out, so they’re doing their own thing. “You let him go?” 

“He needed to find his own life,” Sharon says. “You know Steve likes to define what he knows, and he knows Bucky Barnes. But I think Bucky Barnes isn’t really a sure thing right now. So we’ll find out.” 

“Okay.” 

“Hey. If I’m meant to have him in this life, great. If not, then that is what it is,” Sharon says. 

- 

She doesn’t know that Barnes did not hop a plane to Europe. Not yet, anyway. 

No, he’s a block away in an abandoned office building. He’s not sure what he’s doing, just that he doesn’t want to leave anything yet. 

She may hold answers. Answers that he wants. 

[mintzias]

i don’t think a real introduction post is necessary for me, but i’m still gonna yeet my new character your way. relatively new, beau has been a wip for a while but i never wanted to bring him anywhere for some reason. didn’t feel right before but now i’m gonna try.

anyway, since he’s been under works for a while i actually have a proper info sheet about him saved, so i’m just gonna tweak it a bit and post it under a readmore for anyone who might be interested! he’s not as infuriating as james thank god, so there might be some more connections to me made.

and this is a way for me to feed my obsession with supercars lmao.

tw car accident, death, violence, long post.

born in london to an american mother and english father. spent the first two years of his life in england, being tended to by countless nannies his parents eventually found useless and hired a new one. luckily for beau being so young, he hardly felt the impact of the familiar faces always changing.

on his third year of life he moved to america when his parents were offered a new businesss proposition that required them to be on site most of the time. he lived a posh life in manhattan and was graced with the finest kindergarten while the chaos with the nannies kept on going. not too academically inclined even as a youth, he spent most his time causing trouble and running around like a rascal he still is. this did help him make friends and he was a more physical kid than mental, so he fell easily into the stereotypical boy group.

he was twelve (and his new baby brother was four) when another move came upon them and the family rented out their home and packed their bags. tokyo was calling them for the future and beau was grumpy as hell that he had to leave behind all his friends, and everything he had learned to know just because his parents found a new project to take part in.

they moved, and beau had a hard time adjusting to new culture and new language. he became reclusive and very emo about the injustice his parents made him go through, and it took him close to three years to get his life relatively normal again. he went to school and learned the ways of his new hometown, and reluctantly made friends with his classmates. 

things started to go well and his parents’ project calmed down enough for them to spend more time as a family and not just two businesspeople with a child. things were normal for them, beau continued his academics and his role as an older brother, which would become twice as difficult when his youngest brother was born.

a simple life went by quickly and the next memorable moment was when beau enrolled in university. he wanted to attend a vocational school but his parents scolded him for such menial ideas and told him to keep up his image by getting himself a business degree. he begrudgingly agreed just to please his parents, and with a promise that he would be taking over the million-dollar business.

most of his high school friends parted ways when he started his new studies, but he had a safety new of four when he first stepped into his adulthood, and the harder studies he knew he wouldn’t be able to finish. it was hell, and even if beau tried his hardest, he barely got acceptable grades and was close to flunking. that’s when he met ayame.

romantic meeting or not, she started tutoring him first and eventually they fell in love. they began dating at 19, and it looked like it would last forever. his parents approved of her, and her parents approved of him even with his insecurity about being a foreigner and a whiny white boy.

she was a classic girl-next-door until she dared to show her rebellious side. it took her a year to gather the courage to bring him along to her nightly escapades, and that’s how beau was introduced to street racing. it was a tight community, the underbelly of the tokyo he had learned to know and the racers he had only heard rumors about. ayame was right at home with the gangs and introduced him to them. it became a frequent thing they did together, and ayame taught him their ways, how to race like a pro. it was an adrenaline spike and beau became addicted to it, spending more and more time with the crew while his academics plunged below the point where they could’ve still be saved.

it didn’t take him long to drop out and focus his entire attentions to the races. he never told his parents about his failure as a student, but they didn’t have time to ask him either. he kept his illegal activities away from the eyes of his family and never pulled them into the dangerous lifestyle he was leading.

being acquainted with the wrong side of the law helped beau fake his graduation as well, the fear of his parents knowing of his incompetence fresh on his mind. after the papers were presented, he told them he’d found a job and would be moving in with his girlfriend for better access to the workplace. they agreed and wished him well, and that’s when he became his own man.

he did indeed live with ayame, and they were happily together for four years before he popped the question and they got engaged. it was the happiest time of his life, and the engagement held for a year forward before they would be tragically torn away from each other. 

they partook in a race as a celebration, ayame with her own car and beau with the one he had won some time before. it was a high-stakes race, every car on the line, winner takes all sort of situation. the couple was confident of their chances to walk away with three new supercars, the confidence coming from countless of races won in the past.

the winding roads were coming to an end and beau held his first place while his soon-to-be wife was second. it seemed like a clear win for them until the third placer abandoned the rules set for the race and rammed his car against ayame’s, causing her to lose control in the speed. her wheel hit the curb and spun out, crashing violently, spinning on the asphalt for several meters before coming to a stop.

there was not even a thought spared for the possible win when beau caught what happened through the rearview mirror. the two others that were in last place were the next ones to stop by ayame’s wreckage, and beau yelled at them to help him get her out of the car. when her body finally laid in his arms, she was barely breathing. he tried everything he could to get her to wake up and come back to him, but despite his best efforts, she drew her final breath.

beau was crushed. his entire life fell into pieces when he held his wife for the last time. he was forcefully pulled away from her when the ambulance and police were closing in and his fellow racers tried their best to keep him from going into a rage when he arrived at the finish line. reasoning with him was impossible and his keys were confiscated when he tried to get back to her, his wife. when there was no way to get out, he lashed out at the one that ran her off the road, beating him into a bloody mess. he was restrained before he could take it too far, but the still fought the men holding him back.

he informed his parents, and mourned with her family. the support of her parents helped him stay in line and not lash out too violently even if no day went past that he would cry his eyes out and hit the walls. as much as her accident haunted him, he didn’t withdraw from the races and became determined to get revenge on the man that caused her death. 

avenging her was nothing short of wrathful. on the same road, the same time of the day, same conditions. he abandoned the set rules and swerved full-body against his car when passing him, sending the man into an uncontrollable spin. the wreck wasn’t as bad and the man survived, but beau didn’t stop to help him. he didn’t finish the race and went home, sent a message to his friends and family telling them he was moving back to america. 

trying to adjust back to the american life was hard and without a proper education he didn’t get a job that could support him. as much as he wanted to give up his career in racing, he weaseled his way back into similar crews and got his debut on the streets. it was no different from what he did in tokyo and the competition was the same, still falling behind him after the starting line. he built his reputation from ground up until his name was just a hushed whisper during the meets, their glances full of fearful respect. he left everything behind in tokyo and tries to live his life to the fullest. death doesn’t deal with warnings, a motto to live by.

FUN FACTS!

his everyday car is a 2017 McLaren 570S, while his main racing car is a 2002 mazda rx-7 spirit.

races independently but has claimed a crew for himself nonetheless ( forest hill riders | f.h.r )

owns a private garage where he stores the best cars he has won.

out of sentimentality, the license plate of his day to day car is ‘AYAME’.

he still tells his parents he works in business that pays extremely well. sound weird to say “yeah i make a couple of mil for driving and selling illegal cars”.

he doesn’t admit that he flexes his cars but he absolutely flexes his cars.

careless af with his money. hears someone say “i want that” and he’ll step up and buy it.

takes his work very seriously and is very stoic when it comes to preparing for a race.

fluent in japanese and english, and can put on a british accent like no ones business.

refuses to drive white cars. hates them in fact. does not like white cars.

bought a 1992 honda nsx and restored it to the same condition as ayame’s car was before the crash, down to the smallest imperfection and craziest mods. it���s not in use, but has stood in the garage for nine years.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

another racer, a type of frenemy situation where the competition is playful yet serious. they would have known for at least ten years and hang around each other during meets, but have a wedge between friendship due to different crew affiliation.

either one of his brothers (born 1993 and 1995) who don’t know about his lawless lifestyle but have made something of themselves. or not. i haven’t put much thought into them, just that beau was fiercely protective of them before leaving tokyo. all they know is that he makes money, has a job, and that he’s still shaken from the accident years ago but kept to himself.

any other connections are welcomed too! i’m bad at coming up with these lmao. if you got this far, thanks!