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theconstantsidekick · 2 days ago

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This was the most amount of fun I have ever had writing anything because this literally just me. I could find you a reference from some random niche show for literally any situation and wax poetic about it.

If I could give a 75 minute lecture, you best believe it would be only about media influencing people in ways that should never be downplayed—media you consume will always shape you, whether you like it or not!

Aaaaaah this was so fun. Some of the best shit I have written.

Captain America: Civil War ft. Static (5)

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Stark!Reader, Tony Stark x Stark!Reader (siblings), Bucky Barnes x Stark!Reader (future)

Genre: Angsty with a hint of Fluff?

Summary: Fighting off the Winter Soldier and having a kind conversation with Bucky Barnes, Y/n didn’t think both of those things could happen all in one day. And yet…

(These scenes incorporate y/n, codename—Static, into the pre-existing story as a character without making drastic changes to the plot or mythos. All the major plot points from the MCU remain in place with the addition of the reader as Static, who is not only a Stark but also enhanced. Whatever events from the canon aren’t mentioned, take place without much change.)

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Past Trauma, Mentions of Torture, Mentions of Alcoholism, Suicidal Ideations.

a/n: if any of you have watched the show I'm referencing, you fucking hit me up, you hear me? YOU HIT ME UP!

Y/n figures it out moments before the sirens are sounded.

After the verbal showdown with her brother and her boyfriend, she needed to blow off some steam.. Or well, just blow off some smoke. The cigarette was burning past the filter when the pieces clicked together, about why Sergeant Barnes was framed as the culprit of the attack.

But the loud sirens and the entire control room filled with agents rushing around meant she was a little too late.

As she enters, she takes a moment to spot Natasha and Tony making their way toward the exit.

“Please tell me you brought a suit,” Natasha says to Tony.

“Sure did,” Tony replies, buttoning his blazer and breaking into a jog alongside Nat. “It's a lovely Tom Ford, three-piece, two-button. I'm an active-duty non-combatant.”

“If you don’t have a suit, we gotta call in Y/n,” Nat states gravely.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Tony bites back.

“We cannot let her get anywhere near this,” Nat reminds him.

“Anywhere near what?” She asks casually, sneaking up behind them.

“For fuck’s sake. You can’t sneak up on people like that under high-stress situations like these,” Tony scolds her.

She just chuckles in response, jogging along with them.

“Y/n,” Nat tries but Y/n shuts her down.

“Come on! I’ll be fine.” She insists jovially.

Nat stops to fix her with one of her serious this-is-so-not-funny looks.

“What?” Y/n asks petulantly.

“You know what,” Nat replies.

“We don’t have time to waste. So I’ll cut to the chase. I won’t lose control and do something crazy, okay?”

But then it’s 10 minutes later and Barnes just threw her brother, her Tony across the fucking room and if there were ever any circumstance that would make Y/n extremely prone to violence, y’all have been reading this shit long enough to know, it’s this. “Yeah, Nat, remember what I said about the whole not losing control and going crazy thing?” She asks calmly, straightening up.

“Yea…” Natasha replies, apprehension clear in her tone.

“I lied.” She jumps over the railing from the floor above and lands right in front of Barnes. When she faces him, looks him in the eyes, she realises, this really isn’t Barnes at all. It’s her dearest, oldest friend.

“Soldat.”

There is a beat, a hint of a hint of recognition. And then he charges at her with her metal arm. But unlike all the times she had previously fought the Winter Soldier, this time, she is not afraid.

He hurt Tony.

This time she is just fucking angry.

She dodges easily, by stepping out of the way.

He turns to land another blow, she sidesteps that too.

She smirks, “Sie sind eingerostet.” You’re rusty.

That seems to piss him off. He punches her straight in the gut, throwing her back.

Skidding onto her knees, she looks up, gut sore, eyes watering. She isn’t losing to him this time. Not again. Never again.

Standing up straight, she lets out a short breath and motions him to come at her. He takes the bait. Running up to her, he throws his metal arm aiming for a mean left hook but it clashes, letting out a loud clang.

The metal banging against metal rings out loud enough to halt the commotion around them.

Well, that and the fact that Y/n just brandished a fucking sword out of fucking nothing. Yeah, shit like that usually catches attention, she reckons.

She hasn’t used the damn thing in… give or take two decades? And god! It feels damn fucking good. It’s exhilarating, to say the least. The dark metal of the sword shines pink as it reflects the light. It’s a soft glow, ever so delicate. But it still manages to bathe the Soldier’s pale metal hand in pink. It makes her smile.

The Soldier, however, doesn’t seem to find it even remotely charming.

His face twists in confusion. Only a beat passes before he strikes again.

She blocks again.

Another beat.

They both assess each other.

For the first time in all the thousands of times, they have faced off against each other, the Soldier seems confounded.

But the moment doesn’t last for too long. Pushing himself back, he runs up to her, gaining momentum and attacking again.

Dodging out of the way, she circles around and counters on his right side.

His reaction is a second too late and she slashes him. It’s a small cut, a scratch at best. But it draws blood.

She smiles.

Losing his temper, he charges. He strikes, she blocks. He strikes again, she dodges easily, moving around to kick his legs, causing him to loose balance.

It’s a delicate dance, as most fights are. But this one’s different. It used to be a routine for her—fighting the Winter Soldier. Day in, day out, they fought. A dance of fists and limbs, gutwrenching and unending. But this is so fucking different.

For once, she’s not scared.

She doesn’t have to fight to survive, she doesn’t have to hide a part of herself as she does. She doesn’t have to worry about making it out alive. Her brother is right behind her. Natasha is too. Steve’s a few moments away. Though she doesn’t need them to win this time around, it’s fucking comforting knowing that there is no version of this fight that ends with her dead. And maybe that’s what she needed? Because for the first time in her life, she is kicking the Winter Soldier’s ass.

For every hit he lands, she gets him back two times over.

In all honesty, she feels fucking cocky.

She smiles.

Her sword is an inch away from his throat, and there is an eerie silence hanging around them.

“Sie können nicht mehr gewinnen.” You don’t get to win anymore.

But before she can strike the final blow, her arm is pulled away as she’s pushed out of the way.

Sharon is on him in an instant, fighting with all her might the best she can. It’s not enough though. She’s a good fighter but you have to be better than good to take on the Winter Soldier.

Y/n raises her sword, ready to fight again but there’s a tug on her shoulder, pulling her back.

When she turns to look at the offender, “Barnes is still in there,” is all that Natasha says before she jumps in to help Sharon.

And fuck if that doesn’t hit where it hurts.

Barnes is still in there.

She forgot about him.

She forgot about Bucky Barnes.

In her rage and vengeance, she forgot about the man behind the mask. She made him the monster again, she forgot the man beneath, again.

Fuck.

Unfortunately, the downside of having a heartbreaking epiphany (of the fact that you’re a shit person) during a goddamn superhero fight is that you don’t have the correct tools or the required time to deal with said epiphany. Because Barnes is already in motion, T’Challa hot on his trail and Natasha is gasping for breath, having been choked by a metal hand.

It’s not until much later when she’s sitting in an abandoned warehouse with a semi-conscious Barnes coming to with his metallic arm clamped under a huge hunk of metal that she tries to come to terms with her murderous rage.

As Barnes mumbles himself awake, Sam calls Steve into the room.

“Steve,” Barnes mumbles.

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” Steve asks.

“Your mom’s name was Sarah,” he says before a painfully soft smile breaks onto his face. It reminds her of something but she can’t put her finger on it. It’s so gentle, it confuses her. The dichotomy of the rugged, broken warehouse and the reminiscing smile on his face almost breaks her. “You used to wear newspaper in your shoes.”

Steve smiles too then. He looks at her once, where she stands leaning against the wall on his right. “Can’t read that in a museum.”

“Just like that, we’re supposed to be cool?” Sam asks, frustrated. Which, yeah fair question.

“What did I do?” Barnes asks.

“Enough,” Steve tells him.

“Oh, God,” Barnes laments, anguish clear on every inch of his face. “I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words.”

“Who was he?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know.”

“People are dead,” Steve’s not pulling his punches. “The bombing, the setup. The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than ‘I don’t know’.”

Barnes thinks for a second, “He wanted to know about Siberia,” he says, eyes flinting around in recollection but never too far, never to her. “Where I was kept,” a beat. “He wanted to know exactly where.”

“Why would he need to know that?” Steve inquires.

And then for the first time since he came to, Barnes looks at her. There is a hesitance in his look too. As if he’s afraid to even look at her—like he’s not supposed to.

When his eyes fly away, looking down with shame, it clicks.

He’s afraid to mention it in front of her, ashamed even.

And fuck if that doesn’t hurt her worse.

God, I suck, she thinks.

So she does him this little kindness. Stepping up, she replies, “Because he’s not the only Winter Soldier.”

Hesitantly Barnes tells them about the rest of the Soldiers, how they were trained, how they were made… and that story… She can’t really say why but it feels familiar somehow. She doesn’t have the time to assess that thought.

“Who were they?” Steve asks.

“Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. Except—” his eyes flicker over to her once again.

“Except me,” she supplies for him, another act of kindness.

Nodding shyly, he continues. “And all that was before the serum.”

“They all turn out like you?” Sam asks him. His tone is a little too accusatory but again, she gets it.

“Worse.”

“The doctor,” Steve chimes in, “could he control them?”

“Enough.”

“Said he wanted to see an empire fall,” Steve remarks, addressing Sam.

“With these guys, he could do it,” Barnes informs them. “They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night. You’d never see them coming.”

Stepping up to Steve, Sam speaks in a hushed voice, “This would have been a lot easier a week ago.”

“If we call Tony—” Steve tries.

“No.” Sam cuts him off. “He won’t believe us.”

“He’ll believe her,” Steve counters, nodding at her.

Sam looks at her and relents. “Even if he did, who knows if the Accords would let him help.”

Steve looks at her then, there’s concern on his face. It’s almost sweet. The chaos around them just fades away when he looks at her like that—eyes all soft, hints of an annoyingly cute frown forming on his forehead. He looks so beautiful, always beautiful.

“What do you think?” He asks, stepping up to her.

She takes a moment. She needs a lot more than that but a moment is all she can afford. Exhaling audibly she says, “I think there’s something more.” Her words make his frown prominent. “I think there’s something we’re missing.”

“Like what?” Sam asks.

“Like why now? I know the timing of the bombing seems… opportunistic, but it feels like there’s more to it somehow. There’s a huge piece of the puzzle that we’re missing and I think the answer lies somewhere in who the fuck that fake ass doctor was,” she tells them.

“You want to figure out who he is?” Sam offers.

She shakes her head from side to side, “Yeah but we can’t let him beat us to Siberia. We need to find those Soldiers before he does.”

“And if Tony tries to stop us?” Steve asks.

“You’re on your own on that one.” She is not going to fight her brother. “I came because it was you and because—” she looks over at Barnes for a second before shaking her head. “Actually it doesn’t fucking matter why I came. If Tony’s on the other side, you’d be a bunch of dumbfucks to count on me.”

Steve, with his kindest blue eyes, just nods. He gets it.

Tony is her person. That one person for whom she’d burn the world down. He was there for her when no one else was. There aren’t words to describe the devotion she has to him, she doesn’t think there ever will be.

Steve gets it.

And why wouldn’t he?

His person is the one who got them all into this mess.

“We’re on our own,” Steve tells Sam.

But then Sam shrugs, “Maybe not. I know a guy.”

The three of them begin prepping. They make a few calls, and gather their resources, before Sam and Steve head out to grab something for them to eat and steal themselves a ride.

With as much gentleness as he can muster, Steve asks her to watch over Barnes. And she agrees with a curt nod.

After taking a few moments to gather her courage, she walks back into the room. “So,” she begins as she brings herself to rest against the wall in front of him, “The red book, huh?”

The icebreaker seems to work as she intended.

Slowly looking up at her, he asks hesitantly, “You know about it?”

Instead of a reply, there is just silence. It’s so unexpected especially when matched with the look of shock she’s wearing that it makes Barnes frown.

“Fuck sorry,” she blurts out, shaking her head. “For a second there I completely forgot that you talk now.” When Barnes just looks at her with a flat face, she adds, “What? In half the century that I’ve ‘known’ you, you’ve spoken like 17 sentences—And I think just TWO of them were to me. I’m allowed to forget that you talk.” Barnes just rolls his eyes. She smiles then, “But yeah.” She shrugs jovially. “I read about it in some old files after Peggy got me out. They obviously didn’t use it on me…” She looks at him with a challenge in her eyes. “But you knew that.”

There is a beat of silence.

And then—

“I’m so—

“I’m sor—”

That shuts both of them up.

The silence seems palpable.

“You go ahead,” Barnes breaks it.

“I just—” She hesitates for a second. Gathering up her courage, she begins again, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

But apparently, that isn’t what the man wanted to hear. “What?” He throws back, shocked.

She shifts her weight from one foot to another. “I’m sorry,” she repeats.

“What for?” He scoffs almost as if the entire notion is completely stupid.

“For almost killing you—well not you, him but… You were in there, you always were and I just didn’t—I never…” She shakes her head, trying to shake away all the overthought thoughts from her head. “I shouldn’t have done that. Back at the base. I shouldn’t have gone as hard as I did.”

“I would’ve hurt a lot more people if you hadn’t,” he counters.

“Maybe,” she offers. “But I could’ve kept you busy without murdering you. Waited for Steve to get there. Knocked you unconscious—I don’t know. There were a million different options apart from straight-up murder. I shouldn’t have gone as hard as I did.”

“I deserved it.”

“I could’ve killed you,” she argues.

“I would’ve deserved that too,” he replies slowly, head hanging low, looking too small for a man as big as he is.

She understands the sentiment. She doesn’t agree with it, but she can relate to it. She has been exactly where he is. She wishes to expedite the processes for him… another small kindness.

She clicks her tongue. “I don’t agree.” His face contorts into something akin to disagreement, but before he can voice it, she adds, “Despite our… colorful past, I assure you, you do not deserve that.”

As expected, her words don’t carry the weight that is necessary to make a man as reverently known as James Bucky Barnes feel any less guilty.

So she tries again.

“You remember what I told you?” Her question makes him look up. She takes that as yes. “I’ll tell you again, just cause I feel like you need to hear it. We are not what they made us into, Sergeant. We are not monsters. The only way to prove them wrong is to be better.”

The James Barnes she had heard tall tales about seemed a relentlessly charming flirt, who was a little cocky but in that endearing kind of way which made you fall in love with him. But the James Barnes in front of her has this silence to him that could only be explained by years of trauma. He’s not cocky or flirty but she can still see the hints of an endearing man. So much so that when he speaks next, she wants to listen as keenly as possible.

With short, stiff movements while his hand stays stuck underneath the hunk of metal, he says in a low, unsure voice, “It might be true for you… But it doesn’t—I’m not… I haven’t done anything to be better. I haven’t even begun to make up for all the horrible things I did.” There is venom in his voice as he speaks. “I am still the monster they made me.” He looks at her, “You saw today who I am—WHAT I—”

“I’m gonna cut you off there Sarge.” She takes a step forward. “Do you really believe there is something you can do to make up for all the shit you did? Because newsflash partner, there really isn’t. There isn’t some grand equation where you save 4 people for every 1 person you killed.” She needs him to understand this, right here, right now. It’s fucking important. “There is no way to ‘make up’ for our sins, Sergeant. We did what we did. We cannot undo any of it. No matter how badly we want to.”

He looks absolutely lost as he asks, “So I shouldn’t even try?”

She relaxes again, “Now, when did I say that?”

“So, you’re saying I should try but expect to fail?” He asks, almost confounded.

Y/n smiles then, “Well, I’m not trying to say that either.” She’s met with scrunched-up brows and a scowl worthy of an award of some sort. She can’t help it, she lets out a chuckle. Taking a few steps closer, she sits down on the floor. Her knees are still up cause she refuses to ruin her beautiful oxfords, while she’s manspreading cause she likes it.

He stares at her as she tries to make herself comfortable in her (once) impeccable suit.

“You know what I love about the way the world changed throughout the years?” The question is purely rhetorical, so instead of waiting for what would obviously be an annoyed zinger, she continues, “I got to watch them develop technology, language, food, social constructs, yadda, yadda, yadda. But my favorite part, the fucking best part was Media. Watching people understand the power of the media they produce was so fucking fun.” She’s wearing a huge grin on her face. “And that—” she laughs a little, manically almost. “That led to some quality fucking television! I mean top-fucking-notch, alright?”

He’s looking at her like she’s lost her mind.

“Now, why am I going on this random unrelated tangent, you ask.”

“I didn’t,” he replies with a straight face, the cheeky bastard.

She waves him off. “Because it’s not unrelated at all. Back in the late nineties, early naughties, there was this show called ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’, which as the name suggests was about a teenage girl named Buffy—which yes, is a very peculiar name—who used to slay vampires which were like soul-less undead and unfeeling evil little dipshits. It was a great show. It was a spec-fucking-tacular show. Peak television and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

“But we aren’t talking about that today.” She shifts a little closer. “Buffy The Vampire Slayer had this spin-off show—which essentially is another show set in the same universe as the first, usually staring a side character from the original story as the main character in this one.” Waving her hands around, she continues, “Anyway, so Buffy The Vampire Slayer had a spin-off called Angel, which followed a dude named Angel—obviously—who used to be a vampire long before either of the shows started, and did like a bunch of crazy homicidal maniac shit but then got cursed with having his soul back.”

“That doesn’t sound like a curse,” Barnes interjects, almost shocking her.

“Doesn’t it though?” she counters. “After wreaking havoc, killing innocents, creating chaos everywhere you went, with no regard for the consequences—and doing so for like a century… you wake up the next day having to feel the guilt for all of it?” Cocking her brow she asks, “Is that not the worst punishment one could possibly get?”

Barnes’ eyes shy away.

“I thought you said this was relevant,” he contends half-heartedly.

She smiles again. “It is. Will you just give me a second?” When all he does is exhale audibly in patient annoyance, she continues, “So, as I was saying; Angel leaves the setting of the previous show and moves to L.A. where his show begins. Fights two or three bad guys, meets a few old friends, has a couple of revelations where he comes to realize that the only way to move forward is to help people, to be better. And so he decides to start an investigation agency to ‘help the helpless’.” He looks at her with a discernable look in his eyes.

“The reason I’m telling you all this is because, there comes a point in the show where someone like you, asks him why he does it. If he knows that his actions don’t matter, the greater scheme, the big picture. If there is no grand plan, no big win… If none of it changes because of what he does, then why do it? Why even try to be good? Why help people who if given the chance might not help him?” She smiles reminiscing. “And he says—and I remember it like it was yesterday cause that is how spectacular this show was—he says to the woman, ‘If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do… cause that’s all there is.’.

And there it is…

There is the moment.

Not too long, not too short.

Just a moment.

And then she says, “It’s a great fucking show… I mean it has 5 seasons, three of which are almost unwatchable but it’s still a great fucking show. And I do not say that lightly, I mean—it’s so simple yet poignant, right? Redemption isn’t something you do for a certain period and then you’re done. The show—and this is another reason why I say it is a fucking genius piece of television—but yeah, the show equates Angel’s search for redemption and struggles with being a vampire to alcoholism. His thirst for blood is quite similar to an alcoholic’s thirst for booze and sobriety is a cruel bitch. You don’t become sober by not drinking alcohol for a set number of days. It’s something you practice every single day. You wake up in the morning and choose to be sober till you go to bed. And then you wake up the next day to make that choice all over again.”

She exhales loudly.

She’s been talking too fast.

Tony keeps telling her she talks too much about shows or films she likes.

“All that was just a long-winded way of saying that we cannot make up for what we did. But trying regardless of that? Now that—” she clicks her fingers, “That is what proves them wrong… it’s what makes us good people,” she tells him.

A hint of a smile glints across his face.

Then he asks, “Is that why you do this?”

With furrowed brows, she asks, “You mean this superhero shit?” When he nods, “God no! The hero gig is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I do it just for Tony, so there is someone to watch his back when he’s out there because I know for a fact the kid isn’t capable of doing it for himself.” She smiles at the thought of her brother. Shaking her head, she adds, “I—I’m a lawyer. That’s how I decided to help the helpless.”

“It’s kind of funny I suppose.” Slowly she gets up, standing up on her feet. “If there were an actual scale I’d be a lot more fucked in trying to balance things than you are.”

“Why would you say that?” He asks, confused.

As if the answer isn’t fucking obvious. “You were violated, controlled into doing what you did. I on the other hand had a choice—fuck! I was probably the only person in that goddamn place who did!”

“A choice between what? Doing what they told you, or dying at my hands?” He counters, incredulous. His voice rising for the first time.

In the distance, she can hear Steve and Sam parking whatever car they had jacked.

“Just because it wasn’t a good choice, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a choice.”

He doesn’t understand. He can’t.

What he went through was beyond horrible. But it wasn’t like that for her. Every single step of the way, and every single time she chose the easy way out. She chose self-preservation over what was the right thing to do. She was selfish, dangerously so.

Therefore it’s only fair that the price for her freedom should be higher.

How can he not see that?

His jaw clenches at her words, “You’re a hypocrite.”

As Sam and Steve make their way inside the warehouse, she puts her hands inside her pocket turning away from him, she smiles, “33 sentences in half a century, Sergeant.” She turns her head to look at him again, “You do not know me.”

And just like that, the unspoken truce they’d agreed upon has been violated.

When Sam and Steve enter the room, the tension is so palpable Sam asks cautiously, “I feel like we’re interrupting something. Should we step out?”

“Nah, we’re done here.” With that, she turns around and walks out.

Read next part here. Find the series masterlist here. Find other Static Verse works here.

tag list: @aryksworld @freeflyingphoenix @arikarapli @just-anotherstan @justab-eautifulmess @ceo-of-daichi @roxannejblack @asimovethroughthisworld @paintballkid711 @starkleila @heyitsmereading @fairlygothparents @euphoriavholland @sidepartskinnyjeans @mini-kunoichi @third-broparcelicito @siwiecola @haleybutnotthecomet @mvaldez7821 @rockybutmakeitlame @romanoffswoman @ashpeace888

tag list is open again. hit me up.

#steve x reader #bucky barnes x you #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers x reader

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