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widowsofchaos · 4 years

Text

Kool Aid, i

summary: One phone-call is all it takes to unravel regret.

pairing: Winterwitch (Bucky x Wanda) x black!reader

warnings: mentions of drug abuse, vulgarity, domestic abuse, childhood abuse, mentions of mental health; eventual smut, angst.

a/n: Beta the glorious @heli0s-writes aka mom. Thanks for your incredible insight, and commentary; and for teaching this rusty writer to be better!

ao3 // kool-aid masterlist

do not repost my works.

Inky indigo falls over Pennsylvania.

Moonless darkness cloaks the fifty-acre land. Skittering stars twinkle and gleam in the night sky like uncut diamonds - crickets chirp across the freshly cut lawn. The low hum of security light sensors buzz around the perimeter as patients sleep off their detoxed bodies.

Security guards slip into hazy slumber in their seats at the front lobby. Jumpy crickets ignite sensors and the white light filters through the one-window of a shared room painted creamy white, rays of artificial light flares upon two bodies.

“I burned and ached for wings. A child born from hate learns to self-loath like a badge of honor.”

A watery sigh infiltrates the deafening silence, interrupting your overflowing thoughts. “Jesus - that’s heavy.” The crumpled paper held between two brown spidery fingers, handing it back to you, you huffed a hollow chuckle, as you retrieved the tiny note-pad.

Beyond crumpled due to constant refolding, an anxious tick you never quite kicked, you mumbled a genuine thanks.

It’s difficult letting strangers read your poetry, you feel as if your skin was peeled off, and exposed raw for the salts of judgment. Writing has always been an escape from reality, releasing pent up emotions onto paper. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to stop the binging.

But with MJ, you never felt more safer. You were comfortable. You read her lines of Shakespeare, both sharing books and music. She taught you odd historical facts - recites buzzfeed unsolved mysteries to exact memory, facts about serial killers, and feminism -- observant, bold, honest -- a whizz this spitfire is.

It’s been a long-time since you felt the comfort of another person, just a year ago - you were abandoned, thrown out into the cold by the very ones who promised a better future. How naive, you actually started to joke that the drugs were finally starting to rot your brains for believing such bullshit.

A cruel joke, all the day-dreams, obsessing over the tiny details, because when you’re in love, all the tiny minuscule moments of the ones you yearn for is pure brilliance. As if they could do no wrong. Mesmerized with moon eyes as your beating heart bleeds over the stitches in your fore-arm.

Love is a monster. A beast that feeds on the mush of your scrambled brains. Destructing your flesh, ripping your skin apart with its claws, gnawing on bones, till finally it reaches your soul - that's love.

You fall hard, deep within hell’s pits, but it’s agonizingly slow. It doesn’t bring the best out of you, because life is unfair, and humans tend to savor evil acts of betrayal.

Layers of trauma, and depression unravel - the strings that attached your leaning limbs are flailing, you become yourself a clingy, and needy little beast. Bury it under grave dirt, the maw of pure unadulterated pain. The falsehood of euphoria dwindles from a ball of sunshine, to a dying star particle.

You lost what made you years ago.

Moving on a greyhound to PA to a pristine rehabilitation center was meant to recover, maybe learn how to be independent emotionally - recover from drugs, you weren’t too sure.

You shouldn’t have talked to MJ, confess your dirty secrets, insecurities, the relationship with your parents - except for a particular one - that one needs to wither in ashes.

MJ understands. The pain, and the emptiness. She’s been there, one in the same. No one understands, especially your parents. Not for the lack of effort, or so you think. Mom, and dad supported you physically: put clothes on your back, fed your belly, gave you your prescribed medicine - although muttered chastised indirects on how pills were unnecessary, you weren’t ill enough. If you’re not dying, or suffering from broken bones and bruises - you’re not ill.

They were your parents - it’s their obligation by default.

It’s duty, not love.

The addictions crept slowly over the years, progressing into aggressive vices - suffocating, but balms of comfort. You became a masochist to your demons: you would hurt in the aftermath, but kept running for more-- that one moment in time - as if you were floating into emptiness.

No one can hurt you there - where you are nothing. Weightless nirvana. Self-hate festers in your mind, you don’t even feel like your breathing. Then it happens - the fall. Your breathing slows down, rapid choppy spurts - your limbs become numb, your mind fizzles like TV static.

You know a lot of people hate you, and you understand that - you hate yourself too. If you could turn the hands of time, and change yourself, you would. You don’t do it for yourself, but you do it for your mom, and your dad - although you resent them at the best of times, but ever so the people pleaser. And now for MJ.

“You’re beyond talented. I wish I was good at something -”You cut her off, “No, don’t say that. You have so much potential. You just have to unlock it. I never met a person so intelligent.” You turn your head facing her side profile, admiring her button nose, and the smooth slope to the tip. MJ side-eyes you, her face straight forward, a curled smirk before she winks at you. “You really think so?” Hazily smiled at her, you nodded.

“I know so.”

You mourn for the girl you used to be.

You wish you were like a girl like MJ.

Beneath a snarky girl is revived dreams. With her brains, beauty, intellience - yet tenderness; she will make it far in life.

You? You’re surprised you made it past eighteen. Maybe God is gonna snuff you out at thirty. Damn, you hope so.

It’s all in your head.

Maybe you’re not trying hard enough?

You don’t want to get better hard enough - you’re lazy. If you did, you would be feeling better now.

You want to get better - but how? Fake it till you make it, right? Crying spells, and the dissociation hidden from the outside world. Exhaustion from laying in bed all day, the copious amount of shedded weight, the purple hues under your eyes - one time, you couldn’t leave the bed for days.

Refusing to relieve your bladder, all the urine just building - the cramps were monstrous. Got a uterine infection, and spent a few days laid up on a hospital bed.

Why bother? Why try? You’re too hurt to give one single fuck - your garden is barren any fucks to give. Slowly die, just lay in bed, and do nothing. Maybe one day, you’ll disappear. What a miracle that would be.

Cause quite frankly, you’re just fucking exhausted.

“Hey-” a poke on your ribs, “Where did you go?” MJ has been trying to gain your attention, but you slip hazily into that decrypted space, as always in that depressing bubble. It worries MJ, but doesn’t surprise her. Not anymore anyways.

“Nowhere special.” Your tongue turning sour from the kool aid you had earlier, nervously rubbing against your teeth. You wiggle your body more into your old navy blue university sweater, skin seeking desperately for warmth.

Like a child seeking their own personal woobie blanket - your bird-nest hair sticks to your face, too tired to brush it, MJ usually badgers you for her to detangle the curls and braid it.

MJ’s nimble fingers caress your hairline, weaving it’s travel into your matted curls, “Do you wanna talk about it?” Not yet. “Later, I’m really tired. Can we just rest a bit?” you ask, a bit breathless. Panic of abandonment sores through your veins. Your throat constricts, as your first tear of the night threatens to fall.

Your body instinctively twists, and shifts into MJ’s caring arms. “Sure.” A loving embrace, a friend. Finally a fucking friend - while your old ones spilt to find their own purpose, and sobriety.

All contact cut off - because of that one night. That fatal night. A croaked laugh slips from your plump lips, the cracks of your shield splinters, and shatters. Tears form at your squinted eyes, a smile reaches your ears, stretching your brown cheeks, and it hurts.

All of it hurts.

MJ shushes you, engulfing you in her arms, the smell of laundry detergent floods your lungs. It’s a certain smell your nose is familiar with; a homebody smell - anonymous in description, and name but nostalgic.

Smells of the past - you nuzzle your nose into her loose fitted shirt, the flaps of her red checkered plaid shirt curtain your face, a quick kiss on the forehead.

Wrists tucked against her shirt, afraid to let go. Please God, let me have just one friend.

“It’s okay.” MJ, a Queens girl, forced here by her parents, has seen pain like you have. Thin razor scars on her arms, and thighs tell stories of a frightened girl who seeks to feel alive through pain. Cuts, and slashes - to remind herself, ‘Hey I’m still here.’

Rubbing circles on your scalp, “I gotta brush your hair soon.” She understands, and does it with sincerity. Encourages you what you need to do to take care of you, and somehow you listen to her advice. Listens to your troubles, and instead of mindless efforts to move, she says things like ‘It’s okay, take your time. I’m here for you.’ ‘You’re important to me.’

The only good thing rehab has done for you is bring her into your life. All the droning repetitive phrases uttered out of that tyrant therapist of yours, ‘How does that make you feel?’ ‘Um, shitty. As always. Now can I please get some fucking valium?’ The kumbaya bullshit in group therapy is - no, not for you.

The fake closeness, holding hands for inner strength and even passed judgement bestowed by fucking assholes who abuses the same drugs as you, but different reasons - upon each other. It makes you forget how to breathe - the compulsive urge to count your breathing has gotten worse over the weeks.

Family workshops? Choke. Die. Rebuke it. You screamed, and threw furniture across the facility like a feral she-beast - shouting on the top of your lungs that you rather sodomize yourself with your own detached right arm then confront the very ones who fucked you up since birth.

Two needles of tranquillisation settled your lungs, and brain - that was a spectacular one-woman show of mental deterioration. You slept it off for a day, and a half.

Nine months of being rehab buddies turned into a full-fledged friendship.

Thank God for MJ.

A disembodied voice beckons you out of a dreamless slumber, bracing above you as you clutched onto a knocked out MJ. The blinding fluorescent tubes shine through the dreary dark room. A constant call of your name. Through bleary vision, you croaked, “Yes, God?” A low timbre of your name. Scolding an overgrown child. “Y/n, there’s a phone call for you at the main desk. It’s your mom.” You grumbled at Ms. Brown, a nurse administrator.

There’s an edge to her voice, it’s odd - she’s usually patient, and speaks in kind tones.

“Okay.” You groaned, your eyes too dry, and groggy to roll back to the base of your skull of annoyance. Carefully detaching your arms, and legs that were tucked in MJ’s petite frame, crawling out of the nest of wrinkled paper-thin sheets, as Ms. Brown awaited with her hip leaning against the door-frame.

Padding out of the room in white socks, black shorts, and an oversized pull over. Trailing behind the massive presence of flesh and bone, like a baby chick to a hen, down the hall to the main desk in the lobby. Embarrassed by your repulsive state, you hide your ratty hair in your hoodie, and stash your chewed nails in the pockets. Ms. Brown picks up the black rotary phone that laid on its back on the shiny desk. Was that pity in her eyes?

You searched for the clock that hung above on the wall, 3:38 am. You snarled, your mother must have a good reason to bother you.

It’s been about five months of no contact with her, your spine crawled at the anticipation to hear her voice. Clutching the phone between ear, and shoulder, “Hi, mom.” you deadpanned.

A sniffle, then a sob. Your brows furrowed, “Mom, what’s wrong?” mindlessly your fingers toy with the curled extension cord. “It’s your father, baby.” Your chest began to cave, your eye twitched, “What’s wrong with daddy?” your chapped lips spoke closer to the speaker, your knuckles whitening from caramel brown.

“Oh honey -” cut the theatrics, and spill it. “He’s dead.” A light in your head went out, your pupils widened, your breath stopped, your lungs shriveled to ashes, “How?” you wheezed.

Is this shock? You couldn’t tell - your mother’s nasally voice drowns into white noise, unshed tears form at the brim, all you heard was heart-attack - perhaps two funerals are at the horizon, you’re tipping at the iceberg - a potential asthma attack.

Ms. Brown keeps ushering the words, ‘focus on your breathing.’ A caring hand placed between your shoulder blades, rubbing in circles.

“You have to come home.” You wretchedly spit on the marbled desk, dry-heaved on the spot at those words, and Ms. Brown quickly snagged the phone from your hand, holding your trembling form in her soft doughy arms. “She needs to lie down for a moment. It’s three in the morning, so she needs some sleep. I’ll make sure she’s okay …” all the bulbs in your head burn out, an empty cranium.

You have to come home.

Back to Brooklyn.

Ms. Brown leads you back to your room, constantly asking if you’re okay. You reply robotically, yes. Tending to you, tucking you into your own bed as if you would fall by the sims. Cocooning you in the white blanket, reaches up to your chin. You close your eyes, trying to numb yourself.

You wait.

Till her footfalls fade, with a click of the lock. Wait at least sixty seconds, brown hues open with a careless flutter of the lashes.

A moment of peace - now search. Perked on the tips of your toes sinking into your mattress, you skillfully remove the ceiling tile above your bed, your hand snuck inside, c’mon, c’mon, where is it? Aha! Stretched fingers glide a plastic packet out of its hideaway. A little jiggle between your fingers, white powder of delight - a morning snack.

Skip over to MJ’s bed, you grasped her arm, and draped it over your shoulder. “What happened?” MJ mumbled, her eyes still shut closed, a beat of silence. “My dad is dead.” MJ’s eyes peel open at the news, “How?” You love that she doesn’t ask if you’re okay, because you’re far from it.

“Heart-attack.” MJ hugged your body tightly against hers. “The last time I talked to him, I screamed that I hated him.” Your voice wavered, muffled at the crook of her neck, “I never got to say goodbye.” MJ harshly swallowed the bile at her throat, she didn’t say a word. There’s no need, the impassive cadence was enough confirmation - the grief hasn’t fully ingrained in you.

“You’re gonna save some for me, right?” A half-hearted joke.

The packaged cocaine still hidden in the confines of your pocket bellows for your nostrils, to rub it against your teeth and gums - your parched tongue.

“Of course.”

You blink.

Another blink.

You sighed a distant exhale, your swollen heart dying against your cavity, and you blink.

All you can do is blink.

#buckybarnesplumwhore wrote this #winterwitch x reader #scarlet witch x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x black!reader #bucky barnes smut #scarlet witch x reader smut #scarlet witch smut #marvel fanfic #modern au #avengers x reader

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egoludes · 4 years

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since you’re such a good writer, you seem like you’d have taste haha!! what bucky or Steve fanfics do you recommend for a good read?? thank you!!

honestly i love spreading the wealth and promoting authors / pieces i love so this got long-winded – i hope you find something in here that you enjoy! please come back if you do because i’d love to hear what you thought! and thank you so, so much for enjoying my writing, you are a blessing 💞

screaming about some faves below the cut!

before we get into specific pieces, i would hit up any of the following folks for incredible reads. a few of them are recent follows so i haven’t read too much, but i’m blown away so far: @tropicalcap, @sunlightdances, @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan, @whistlingwillows, @wkemeup, @honeyloverogers, @all1e23, @heli0s-writes, @gagmebucky, @cake-writes, @venusbarnes, @brooklyn-boy, @cptnbvcks,@dirtychocolatechai, @barnesrogersvstheworld, @evanstarff, @floatingpetals, @shotsbyshae, @justreadingfics, @heartopen-testify, @moonstruckbucky, @interestedbystanderwrites, @captain-kelli, @bitsandbobsandstuff, @feminarrie, @shreddedparchment, @captain-rogers-beard, @et-lesailes, @sunriserose1023, @notyetneedcoffee, and @invisibleanonymousmonsters.

now, for actual fics! disclaimer that some of these are from writers who tread into darker / grittier territories in their full masterlist. this obviously isn’t everyone’s cup of tea so, please keep that in mind if you decide to explore beyond what i’ve linked (i don’t read anything violent/noncon, so no need to worry about that here). heed warnings, and only read what you want to!

slow like honey by @heli0s-writes - any and everything helios writes is top tier, but slow like honey was the first fic by them i read and it was such an experience. like truly an experience. i felt that fic from start to finish; every emotion was captured beautifully, every point in the plot from the first date to the heartache to the reconciliation fit together so well. i think if you start anywhere on their masterlist, that is the perfect spot. honorable mention though? mystery of love - steve and bucky are such distinct, but cohesive soulmates in this fic and it is such a joy reading the journey of their falling in love. and it is still one of the best fics i’ve read probably ever.

never let you go by @bitsandbobsandstuff: all i can say for this one? get ready to ache. it is such a beautiful portrayal of loss, grief, and the absolute desperation that can come out of losing someone you love. what i really love about this fic is the very, very raw look we get at bucky and steve because of reader’s death – our super soldiers are so ordinary, so human here and it hurts. it resonates. they’re just as broken as anyone else would be and it just leads to some really great spooky consequences. also love me an appearance from the winchester boys!

looking for a heartbeat by @justreadingfics: this is a recent read, but god is it intense. i, for one, love exes back to lovers fics, especially when there is some real focus on unpacking the reasons things didn’t work out. throw in attempts to move on, some well-written action, and the struggle not to fall back in all over again? i’m completely sold. the fic was recently completed, too, so it’s a good option for a binge!

parabellum by @whistlingwillows: there isn’t much i can say about this one without ruining the plot, but god it is so worth it. beautifully written with twists and turns in ways i never expected – hydra!steve is always going to hurt, but this just took it to another level. easily a top ten fic rec every single time.

ingenue by @until-we-fall-in-love: listen - mafia aus deserve hella rights and this one is just written so beautifully, both from a historical and characterization perspective. the tension between reader, steve, and bucky is damn near palpable and the whole thing is just so easy to envision - like an episode of peaky blinders unfolding in writing. there is also some appearances from other beloved characters like sam, which makes it all the more fun.

compromise by @cake-writes: i don’t think i can explain how much i love this one better than my original tags about it, so we’ll just leave it at that, heh.

literally anything by @brooklyn-boy - honestly, i don’t think i have enough words to do aura’s writing justice, so let’s just go with this: three of my all-time favorite steve fics – wanderlust; sugar, sugar; and twenty/twenty – all came from her and the list just continues to grow. the impact. the power. the talent. her characterizations of steve is my favorite and i always just want to melt into them when i read her fics. another major reason to show love? she’s moved towards writing woc!readers exclusively, and that representation is so important. love that for us!

hungry like the wolf by @imanuglywombat: i’m a big sucker for werewolf aus, and this one is written so deliciously. it’s only at two parts now, but i’m so intrigued to see how the reader progresses not just as steve’s mate, but also as someone only just now realizing she’s a wolf at all. i think the newness of it makes it a fascinating, fun read and a fresh take on the au so i can’t wait to see where it goes.

tapestry by @darkficsyouneveraskedfor - a darker fic, this one just full of intricate plot, characters, relationships, and build-up. it’s a really well-written look at the ugly side of royalty, particularly a very thirsty greedy king and roo portrays the politics of this situation so well. that ended up being the key reason i read it in the first place too – the drama and push and pull between reader and the court is so intriguing, it’s hard to stop.

push and shove by @tropicalcap - oof. toes fucked me up enough, so to get a whole series out of it was a doozy. just a very realistic show of the way emotions and relationships ebb, flow, and cool. i think it can be hard reading fic that doesn’t have a happy ending, but honestly it’s real and as valid as any perfect ending. and i love the progression this had, it was cathartic in a lot of ways and so artfully written.

astrophile by @all1e23 - we opened this with a single dad!steve au, so it feels only right to close it with single dad!bucky. this fic is so CUTE and the will-they, won’t-they vibe between bucky and reader that builds from chapter to chapter watching them fall in love was as heartwarming as it was painful. one thing i particularly loved about this one, though, is the care that went into build ori and reader’s r/s as much as bucky and reader’s. by the end of it, you end up so attached to everyone in bucky’s found family and that’s the best thing a fic can do, i think. make the people in it real.

there are tons more incredible fics out there and i’m realizing i have not done a good job of reblogging them as i thought, so i’m also going to link my fic rec tags for future reference - i’ll be beefing it up with all the things i’ve read on mobile recently without getting a chance to reblog! so, feel free to keep checking back for more :) folks can also submit their faves and i’ll post!

steve fic recs

bucky fic recs

#steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #sr fic rec.#bb fic rec.#buckywritez #we love our local content creators!!

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buckthegrump · 4 years

Text

McCormack’s Wall

Summary: Bucky doesn’t return after finishing a mission.

Word Count: 1214

Warnings: swearing

A/n: the second installment of The Himbo Chronicles because y’all told me to do it and I did it. this if part of the writing challenge i did for @heli0s-writes (I don’t know if you want to be tagged in all of these so I’ll stop tagging you in them)

Y/n glanced at the clock on the bedside table. He should’ve been back by now. It was a simple mission, all they had to do was go and make sure that their intel was correct, and if it wasn’t, correct it.

Steve had suggested that more than two people go, but Bucky had insisted that just he and Y/n would be just fine. He had been right for the most part. But now Bucky hadn’t returned when he said he was on his way back to the hotel room half an hour ago and according to google maps, it was a ten-minute walk.

Y/n was about to call him again when her phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Bucky greeted, but he sounded like he was up to no good. “Uhh, what are you doing?”

“I’m sitting in the hotel room waiting for you to come back. I think the better question is, what in god’s name are you doing? How does a walk that takes ten minutes, maybe fifteen, end up taking half a fucking hour?”

“Before you get mad -”

“Too late,” she deadpanned.

“I was coming straight back, but then I got roped into going to a wedding,” he said.

She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a moment. Shaking her head, she put it back to her ear.

“How the fuck do you go from returning from a mission to getting invited to someone’s wedding?” She asked.

“I’m a very likable person Y/n,” he said, “So are you coming or not?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll send you the address!” The next thing she heard was the three tones signaling the end of the call.

* * *

The address that Bucky had sent her was way out in the countryside. How he ended up here was a mystery to her. But that didn’t matter, she needed to get him so they could go home.

There were tents set up in a field behind a pub. A roar of laughter came from the group of people under the tents.

“Y/n!”

Over the heads of the partygoers, Bucky waved like a maniac. Doing her best to hide her face, she looked at the ground and walked over to him.

“Bucky, we gotta go,” she said once she got there.

“But you just got here, c’mon I want you to meet someone. He says that I’m his favorite superhero, but more importantly, he told me that he thinks that Sam’s wings look dumb,” Bucky led her over to the groom.

“His wings don’t look that dumb,” she said.

“I know, but he doesn’t need to know that I said that,” he whispered then at regular volume, “Hey, Ian! This is the friend I was telling you about!”

“Hi, Ian, congratulations. Sorry for him barging in on your big day, I’m trying to get him out of here.”

“Oh no,” he said in the thickest Irish accent Y/n had ever heard, “It’s not a fucken’ problem.”

Ian then went on to explain that it was great that Bucky had shown up because they had a last-minute no-show, and the plate they had for those people would’ve gone to waste if Bucky hadn’t shown up. At least she was pretty sure that’s what Ian was saying, his bride was slightly easier to understand, but they were both pounding back the drinks pretty hard.

What Y/n couldn’t wrap her head around was the fact that Bucky had actually talked to these people. It was very unusual for him to be so extroverted. When Bucky was done talking to Ian, he dragged Y/n out to the dance floor.

“Typically, you ask someone to dance before leading them out to the floor,” Y/n said.

“If I had done that it would’ve given you an option to say no,” he smiled at her, “besides, do you really want to sit down at a wedding where you don’t know anyone? Because I see quite a few old people here and they just love asking questions. Not to mention that you’re not the best at understanding accents.”

“I can understand accents,” she scoffed at him.

“And you’re not great with people,” he added. He spun her around, then pulled her back in.

“I do just fine with people.”

He chuckled. “You’re better with a computer.”

“Are you trying to hurt my feelings?” She said, her face twisting with fake hurt.

He stuttered over a sentence that didn’t make any sense before he finally figured out what he wanted to say. “I only meant that you’re not a very sociable person.”

She pursed her lips and watched as he panicked internally.

“No, wait, that’s not what I meant either. What I really meant is that you sometimes are awkward around people you don’t know. Fuck.”

“It’s ok, Buck,” she laughed. “I am better with a computer than I am with people. Speaking of which, it’s not very like you to be as sociable as you are today.”

He shrugged. “It was the first time anyone has ever come up to me and told me that I was their favorite superhero. It’s actually the first time anyone outside of the team has called me a superhero.”

She smiled softly at him. “Well, next time you decide to get invited to a wedding and then drag me along, can you maybe give me enough warning, so I don’t show up in overalls?”

“You look cute.”

“Great, because that’s gonna find me a date, being cute,” she joked.

“Doesn’t matter, you’re my date today,” he said.

“Fair enough.”

They fell silent as they continued to dance to the folky music that the band was playing.

“If I get married, the band has to have a person that can play the fiddle; otherwise, what’s the point?” Y/n said after a minute.

“What do you mean ‘if’?” His brows knitted together. “Do you not know if you want to get married?”

“We’re not getting into my own personal fears about love and whatnot at a wedding,” she sighed. “What we can get into is what you bought with eighty thousand dollars.”

“Oh, that,” he grimaced. “I thought you forgot about that.”

“Believe me, I wish I could. But I can’t. It keeps me up at night. What did you buy? Is it a zoo? You didn’t actually return the goat or the llama -”

“Alpaca,” he corrected.

“Oh my god, you kept them, and you bought a fucking zoo. Or a farm. Do you even have time to do the upkeep for either of those?”

“I didn’t buy either of those things, and I did return the animals.”

“So, what did you buy?” She prodded. “Are you ever going to tell me?”

“Maybe.”

“The fuck do you mean ‘maybe’?” Her jaw went slack.

“I mean, maybe. You have nothing to worry about, the bill has been paid.”

She groaned but dropped it, she would figure it out if it killed her. And it just might.

They continued to dance for hours until Tony called and ordered them to get back on the quinjet and get home because there was a not so emergent emergency. Which ended up being a debate that needed subtitling over what was the best superpower.

#Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes Fic #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #the himbo chronicles

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until-we-fall-in-love · 4 years

Text

to the one i will always love

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader (unrequited love), Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Bucky watches as you begin to favor Steve. He can’t blame you.

Regency Era AU, Pining, Unrequited Love

Warnings: None? Angst. Just angst, a little fluff, mostly angst.

A/N: sorry for my recent inactivity!! happy valentine’s day!! but this is for the lovely @heli0s-writes 2k writing challenge!!! congrats on such a milestone, you absolutely deserve it!!! you’ve been so kind to me since i’ve started posting fics and it means the world!!

my prompt for this writing challenge was “amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus” which is in Latin and means “love is rich with both honey and venom”

Hope you enjoy! pls let me know what you thought!!

***

1812

Bucky watches as you dazzle the room with beauty and grace, your face expressive and eyes so bright and shining. He could watch you for hours, even if he despises high society, it’s all worth it if he can simply glimpse the way your smile slips so easily onto your face. The curve of your sweet cheek and the slender line of your bare neck and shoulders.

You’re a star, the life and love of every event. Wit and brilliance pour out from honeyed lips, excitement and merriness that he is always reaching for. He grasps for it the same way you used to reach for fireflies in the summer or falling leaves in vibrant autumn, but you are always laughing, flushed with color in his memory. He feels grey, leeched and dry, where you are bursting with splendid light.

He’s known you for years, since you were an awkward teenager and he was a young man fumbling through life. Swaggering about with a chip on his shoulder and too much to lose; too many mouths to feed. Steve to take care of.

He and Steve went to war as boys, the ones that you knew and had ran and played with in the apple groves, and they’d returned men with badges and new titles. Now apart of the fevered life of high society you had been groomed for.

He thinks of you now, before he’d left, clinging to girlhood and him, hanging off his neck and begging him not to go. But he had and he’d come back different, more eclipsed.

You urge someone to strike up music, so that you can dance until you’re dizzy, until the whole room is in love with you. He spends the evening watching you spin and twirl with Wanda, your dresses of pale silk shining, swirling together the way the snow swirls outside.

By the end, when you are warm and tipsy with wine, Bucky and Steve see you home. You crowd together in a carriage alongside Wanda, your voice like twinkling bells, melodic and sweet to his ear as you talk and chat about the evening.

Steve, though in a similar position of being uncomfortable with high society, is at least lighter than Bucky in spirit. He is noble and sure-footed, a truly good man. One of the best Bucky has ever known, if not the best.

And he isn’t as shadowed as Bucky, he isn’t as mysterious but open and trustworthy. He is more social, to some degree, better at navigating this new world.

Bucky watches as you begin to favor Steve.

He can’t blame you; Steve has really grown up in recent years. No longer scrawny and sickly, but broad-shouldered and strong. His skin is still milky and pale, a flush likely to come over his cheeks. His eyes are sharply blue, uncut sapphires or the open expanse of the sky that you love or as saturated as sweetened blueberries. His jaw is strong, a beard now growing thick and darker than his pale hair.

He’s courageous, infinitely courteous, and gently protective. What isn’t there to favor? Especially when Bucky feels so out of place, so lost in all the tulle and silk and glitter. He retreats into himself, hunches his broad shoulders slightly, tries to rearrange his bones into the man he had been before he’d gone to war.

War is a terrible thing, Bucky thinks, looking at you and your untouched smile that is directed at Steve. And Steve’s so lucky to have that smile, to bask in it’s warmth and covet it’s sweetness. Bucky longs for warmth, dreams about the sun or the summer moon and berries with sugar. The green grass wet and beneath his back as he watches the clouds pass lazily overhead. In his dreams, he can feel you there, against his side, alongside the exhale of his ribs. He can feel your slight body, when you were young and smitten with him and he was young and foolish.

Sometimes he thinks he’d give anything in the whole world to be in that flower-sweet apple grove with you again.

Bucky helps you out of the carriage when you arrive at your home. You take his hand and hop out on nimble feet, steady yourself with a hand against his collar bones. You look up at him through lashes with sparkling snowflakes caught in them, a little cloud of air puffing into the cold as you give a small, sheepish laugh.

“Thank you, Bucky.” You say and his name feels like a secret on your lips, impish and fun. He should be Sergeant Barnes to you, maybe even James. But to you and Steve, it’s always been Bucky. Even if, as you’ve gotten older, it’s inappropriate. But his name on your lips carries the love of youth, the bittersweet past that he aches for in his great, broad chest.

He doesn’t know what to say, half taken with your beauty or the way you look at him, too.

Until your eyes flicker up past his head, out, your face alighting with wonder.

“Oh!” You gasp, move past him, almost in a trance. He turns over his shoulder to watch you, to feel the way your fingers slowly slide away from him. You wander out into the snow before, softly, he hears you exhale, “The moon!”

And Bucky looks up, into the dark expanse of the sky.

The moon hangs heavy and round, large and luminous in the night, breaking through the thin clouds. It’s bright and white with the snow, which glistens under its brilliance. Everything shines, sparkles like new, glitters untouched and serene. It almost feels dream-like, surreal with the vastness of the sky and the largeness of the moon.

Like maybe he could reach up and touch it, maybe it’s light would pour through him and you would love him the way you’re starting to love Steve.

You turn to him now and there are tears in your eyes, gathering in your lashes like dew drops.

His brows pull in, concern flooding his features. He reaches out like he might touch you, comfort you. Instead, you say;

“Oh, it's so beautiful!” And turn back up to that sky with such wonder and love. He thinks you are filled with moonlight, too, he thinks you shine silver and mercury and are as brilliant as the stars.

“It is,” He says, voice thick, as he looks at you.

“There will never, never be a night as lovely as this!” You nearly sob, your voice catching as you look up at the swirling snow and cosmos. Your face is full of such love and adoration, such a tenderly sweet ache.

You look as if you know you will never be this happy again, as if you are trying to keep it forever. You are deepened by a strange sadness; the kind that knows you might never be this joyful again and you try to grab it and hold it as tightly as possible.

Bucky looks at you and he understands that melancholy. He looks at you and aches.

And then you do something that might just break his heart in two.

You look at Steve, with all that delight and heartache and you say in a soft, small voice, “Isn’t it the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen?”

And he nods, wordless, breathless, but he’s not looking at the moon, either.

***

Bucky’s feelings are not for you to know or worry about. He knows you and even more, he knows Steve. He knows, deep down, if he were to tell Steve that he loves you, that he wishes to propose to you; Steve would let him. No matter how heartbroken, Steve would step down and watch Bucky be happy with you.

And he thinks maybe, if he told you, you would love him, too. He thinks you could’ve. He thinks at once you loved him in the way girls love young men; on coltish feet and with too much recklessness. Maybe once, in that grove of trees you loved him when you were too young to know what love was. Maybe he should’ve loved you then. But you were young, the dew and dawn still hanging off you, and he couldn’t take advantage of you like that.

Maybe you could love him now.

But he doesn’t tell you, he doesn’t see if you would.

His feelings are his alone, not yours nor Steve’s. He will love you both from afar, the same way the sea loves the shore. Steady, always present, but always receding and sliding back into its place.

He will love you both and not dare wish for love in return.

You both give it anyways in unselfish, horrible amounts. Steve with his care and attentiveness, the way he puts a broad hand on the back of Bucky’s neck. Sometimes, when they hug, Bucky will tuck his face into Steve’s neck, feel the scratch of his beard. Steve will exhale hard, maybe hold him tighter.

And you, you rush to Bucky with such love and light. Sometimes, when you’ve had wine you will hang from his neck the way you used to in the springtime. You will laugh and tease him and urge him into dancing, pull him up onto his feet as Steve laughs warmly at his bewildered face.

Steve claps you two on, until Bucky can crack a smile, until all the world melts away and it’s just your smiling eyes and the way your skirts flare out as he turns you around and around and around.

“You used to love to dance with me!” You say with your hand on his shoulder, nimble feet carrying you through the jaunty music. “You taught me to dance in the apple grove, don’t you remember?” You say and his heart beats fast and joyful and hurting;

How could I forget? How could I forget? It sings.

When the song ends, Bucky returns you to Steve. You take Steve’s arm again, just like you belong there, right against him. In your gown of white and creme and rose, against the navy of Steve’s military uniform.

Bucky watches the two of you late into the night, on the dance floor, in the center of the room, the center of his universe.

He watches you two fall in love, the way you can hardly seem to catch your breath. The way you look almost scared and vulnerable peering up into Steve’s open face. It’s such a raw expression that Bucky almost looks away, but he can’t. He watches Steve’s hand tighten over yours, he watches him pull you closer, he watches the softness of his eyes and knows very simply that he watches you both fall in love.

And knows he loves you both, too.

Maybe his eyes are shining, maybe the world is spinning; or it’s just you two, still twirling and you are his world.

Maybe he leaves early, disappears into the cold and longs for those spring days. Maybe he can’t watch another moment of the two of you, maybe he can’t look away. Maybe he’ll never know love like yours or Steve’s or each other’s.

Maybe he’ll just quietly love you both for the rest of his life, the way the sea loves the shore.

***

“I’m happy,” Steve tells him one night, puts his broad hand on the tender spot between Bucky’s neck and shoulder. He squeezes lightly and there is such a brightness to Steve’s eyes, maybe they outshine the stars and the moon and maybe that’s why you love him so much.

Bucky musters a smile, wobbly but growing, and he says, “I know, Stevie.”

“I think I’m going to propose to her.” Steve says now, softly, like he can’t believe it.

“I know, Stevie.” Bucky says again and swallows around the lump in his throat. Bucky puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder now, too, jostles him a little, digs his thumb into his skin.

“I’m happy for you, too,” Bucky says and tries to mean it with every damn bone in his body.

***

“Bucky!” You squeal, run straight into his arms and he catches you effortlessly. “Oh, Bucky, I am so happy!” You cry and bury your flushed face into his neck.

For a moment, he lets himself believe that it is him who has made you happy. For a heartbeat, he believes that you cling to him the way you cling to Steve and his heart unfolds the way the flowers do in the spring. For a fraction of time, he holds you close to him as if you were his.

He puts you down and smiles because you’re smiling, “I’m getting married!” You say with your hands still on his chest and he knows this. He helped Steve ready to propose to you. He has known for so long now that you are in love and it is not with him, not in the way that he wants.

It still comes as a blow though, it still hits him squarely in the gut.

“I know,” Bucky says around the tightness in his throat and his chest.

But he leans in and kisses your cheek, just a breath away from the corner of your lips. He savors the moment, your soft skin beneath his lips, and knows he will never feel this again. He will never kiss you or hold you or dance with you the way Steve will. It is his goodbye in a kiss, a farewell, the final note of the song.

He lingers a beat too long and you blink up at him. Perhaps you can feel it, too. The closing, the parting of you two. As if maybe he can feel you leaving him in the apple grove once and for all.

“I’m happy for you, too.” Bucky then says and tries to mean it with every damn bone in his body.

***

On the day of your wedding, on one of the first warm, spring days since winter, he writes you a letter that he will never give you;

To the one I will always love,

I wish I could say that I knew when I first met you, that I would love you. I wish I had not left you in the apple groves and followed Steve into war.

Had I stayed would you love me? Would it be me you marry on this May day?

And sometimes I wish I had never returned from war.

But I did, I did, I did.

You will marry the other most dear to me and I will smile as you do so. Steve will give you the most wonderful life; you will both be happy. I have no doubt in my mind that he is perhaps the only one with a good enough heart to have yours, too.

Today, I will see you dressed in white and know it is not for me. I will love you and know that you love another.

But I wish I could empty a drawer in my dresser for you. I wish I could find you in all the corners of my life, the way you have burrowed into the corners of my heart.

You will get married to the one I love and I will smile as you do so.

I’ll always wait in the apple groves for you.

Yours forevermore,

Bucky.

He buries it in that grove of trees, where the earth is soft and fresh. He will let the roots grow through it and burst outward with new trees. He will let it rot and live there, with the tender part of his heart that he tries to leave there, too.

As if he could put his love to rest.

But he can’t, so he watches as you and Steve kiss under the spring sunshine as husband and wife. He wishes he’d look away, but he doesn’t. Maybe his eyes are shining.

Maybe he can’t breathe.

Bucky is the first person that Steve turns to when he looks back out at the people around them. He is so happy that it hurts, but Bucky smiles at him and means it with every damn bone in his body.

You look at him, too, flushed with life and happiness and the brightness of a new bride. As you walk past, you reach out and squeeze Bucky’s hand. As if maybe you know, now. As if you could’ve unearthed his letter by simply looking into his eyes.

Your fingers slide out of his reluctantly as you walk on and past him, and he thinks there are tears in your eyes, too.

But you’re smiling, carrying all that strange sadness that comes with being torn in two. So happy it hurts you, so happy that you could cry or sob, so heartbroken that you could laugh. The kind of melancholy and hopeful that Bucky has always understood.

You leave Bucky there, behind you, in the past when it was you and him and the apple grove. You step onward into summer, into a future with Steve.

***

Fate is a bittersweet creature, full of honey and venom. She knows because there is another letter buried in the dark of the earth, underneath those apple trees. Two twins laying in their graves. She knows because you buried it, addressed very simply;

To the one I will always love.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x y/n #heli0s2kwriting #stucky x reader #stucky x female reader #stucky x y/n #stucky x you

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thesoftdumbass · 4 years

Text

read this - Marvel

Polaroid Hearts by @mattymattymerduck (Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Pietro Maximoff) x reader

Best Laid Plans by @suz-123 Bucky & Sam, platonic

BUCKY BARNES

LOKI ODINSON

one-shots

Childish Antics by @thepokyone

I Was Wrong by @hellomissmabel

A Thousand Food Dates by @hellomissmabel

Choose Me by @dabblinginmarvel

Bruises by @outside-the-government

series

The Ravens by @iwillbeinmynest

PIETRO MAXIMOFF

one-shots

Sokovian Cuddles by @mar-gega

You Missed A Spot by @pietropatrol

macaroni & drunk confessions by @thedevilwearsvibranium

series

14 Days by @theincredibleultron

Not All Trouble by @thedevilwearsvibranium

SAM WILSON

one-shots

Senor Tickle by @eufeme

Imagine Sam catching you dancing by @imamotherfuckingstar-lord

pizza delivery by @captainrogerss

Imagine Sam being mad at you by @imamotherfuckingstar-lord

You Can Hide, but You Can’t Run by @eufeme

The one in which you go on vacation with Sam by @imaginingbucky

I BEMEN 4 ON by @redgillan

series

What You Deserve by @spookyscaryscully

Team Re-Building by @imhereforbvcky

STEVE ROGERS

STUCKY

one-shots

New by @ugh-supersoldiers

Whoops by @relenafanel

you look so perfect standing there by @a-splash-of-stucky

series

Every Rose Has Its Thorn by @bucky-plums-barnes (stucky x reader)

Edge of the Water by @floatingpetals (stucky x reader)

Reign by @bloodiedskirtts (stucky x reader)

Mystery of Love by @heli0s-writes (stucky x reader)

THOR ODINSON

one-shots

Little Nymph by @acreativelydifferentlove

A Thousand Years by @acreativelydifferentlove

series

Mangata by @hellomissmabel

To Be Seen by @shreddedparchment

TONY STARK

one-shots

Say Yes to the Dress by @travelwithwords

Power of Flowers by @thats-what-i-call-british

#avengers #marvel #fic rec #bucky barnes x reader #loki odinson x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #pietro maximoff x reader #sam wilson x reader #steve rogers x reader #stucky #stucky x reader #thor odinson x reader #tony stark x reader

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searchingforbucky · 4 years

Note

I’m looking for a Soulmate AU story I remember that the reader is a photographer and that Pietro is still alive.

Is it a Steve x reader x Bucky? If so, it might be “Mystery of Love” by @heli0s-writes ?

#stucky x reader fanfiction #searchingforbucky #soulmate au #bucky barnes x reader x steve rogers #bucky x reader x steve

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heli0s-writes · 5 years

Text

I. Soulmate Series and Peculiar Pairs

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes Summary: An introduction to the mystery of soulmates and love. You’re just another person lost in the world, trying to find yours.. until you give up. You meet some Avengers on the way. A/N: Part 1 of Mystery of Love.

The world had a very singular definition of soulmates: Two people, entwined by fate, perfectly right for each other, destined to meet and exist as one. The cosmos willed this. God willed it. The universe willed it. Whatever anyone’s religious or personal beliefs may be- there was a reply.

Children were told stories of their parents’ meeting and The Words they said to each other that sealed their future. These prophesized utterances would form onto their skin and scratch itself onto a special place in a script unique to that person’s handwriting. The lore of The Words were in every fairy tale and film. No wonder it had always been your dream to meet yours.

Your own parents met in Kindergarten, when your mother moved from Jersey to Manhattan because her father had been transferred to a higher position. He was hesitant at first, to leave their small city and large family behind, but changed his mind in early spring. The first day she set foot in her classroom, as she’d tell you over and over again, she was seated next to a chubby, freckled boy who shook her hand. With a firm grip, he yelled “Hello, beautiful!” and before she could respond, she had doubled over to scream.

When the teacher rushed over and your mother finally stopped crying, she’d lifted her paisley cotton shirt to see the askew “hEllo BEaUtiFul” letters circling her belly button. She pointed a finger to your father, blubbering uncontrollably, and yelled, “It’s you! You’re my soulmate!” and then it became his turn to double over.

The teacher called both their mothers and their mothers had taken them out of school for the rest of the day. They spent it in each other’s company, learning each other’s names, playing, eating ice-cream, and then took a nap, pinkies touching. They were inseparable ever since.

At age 4, it was your favorite story, and you wanted to hear it every night before bed. Your parents were the essence of perfection: your mother’s hair was always impeccable, your father’s shirt was always pressed, and they always kissed at the door when he’d leave for work.

At age 6, you began to wonder about your own soulmate. “Does it hurt very bad, mama?” “Why haven’t I met him yet?” “What if he’s mean to me?” “What if he moves away, mama?”

Your mother always assured you that it was meant to be. You were designed to be loved. The universe would never, ever, leave anyone out. Soulmates were destiny, and destiny was final. You were pleased with the answers she provided, and happy to hear them every time she reminded you.

At age 8, you’d forgotten all about soulmates. Boys were meant to be chased away on the playground, wrestled with in the grass, beaten in a game of soccer. Girls were your confidants, your sisters, who’d braid your hair and dance with you through the living room. Soulmates were for adults, and more than that, you were afraid of the pain of someone’s Words carving into your skin. There were rumors of 5th graders who found their soulmate in the fall, but they were big kids and you put off thinking about it for many years and stopped asking questions.

At age 14, it was no longer something you could ignore. Many girls were going through changes, some had looked like they were already finished, while you had barely started. Boys changed too. Everyone began to notice each other. And you began to notice yourself in this extant space. High school was extremely daunting, and on your first day, you promised yourself that you’d find your soulmate in this large campus.

Some juniors who had soulmates were already married with their parents’ eager approval. There was a club dedicated to meeting as many students in the school as possible to find your soulmate. On Thursday mornings they held “speed-meeting” sessions where one side held a notecard that said, “You are mine” and the other side, “I am yours” there were many variations that were available such as, “You are the light of my life” or “I’ll love you forever”.

You tried many times, afraid that if your soulmate was a senior and they graduated this year, you’d have to wait forever to meet them. After December, it was taking a toll on your heart. All of those sessions of sitting down and staring into the eyes of new started out exciting, but slowly turned banal and drove you into melancholy. Being bound to one person was supposed to be magical, but the recurring meetings felt disingenuous. You didn’t want to meet your soulmate in a sterilized setting, reading a notecard of words that were not from your heart.

Around winter vacation, you were so despondent and anxious that it began to manifest in severe and constant stomach pains. Your parents began to discuss the possibility of counseling. You refused them, afraid that you’d be labelled as a lovelorn freak for the rest of your life. They did relent, and instead gave you a very nice digital camera for Christmas, hoping it could be a hobby to distract you from your worries. Your very first picture was of your parents under the Christmas tree. Your second picture was of their Words, side by side. It took five months for your spasms to ease.

In your later teens, you began to branch out in earnest to find that person. You had worked as a hostess during senior year to maximize your chance of meeting someone, and even landed a barista job at one of the busiest cafés in Manhattan your freshman year of college at a small conservative university. You joined a sorority and lost count of all the events you’d attend and all the fraternity boys you’d met during that year. It was too much, in the end, you were focused on your studies and couldn’t stand another year in that tiny white picket-fence house always reeking of hairspray and Victoria Secret body mist.

You continued taking photographs and enrolled in art classes the following year. You had won a small scholarship and the funds went into a new professional camera. Mid-sophomore year, you quit your job at the café and began to take pictures for the University’s paper, penning food and entertainment columns here and there, primarily about your local college town. You submitted in group exhibitions and struggled to balance classes, a job, and your own inquiries of love. Most of your friends had met their soulmates, and when your roommate came home breathless, freshly inked in beautiful cursive script, and screamed, “It’s a girl!!”, you broke down.

You had never thought of the possibility of being with a woman. But what if the universe decided that it was? Could you love a woman, like that? You spent the rest of the weekend curled up in bed, ill with stomachaches, questioning everything you knew about yourself and your capacity to love.

You called home to ask your mother, “What if my soulmate is a woman?” and the audible gasp on the other line confirmed the feeling in your gut. You weren’t done yet. “What if my soulmate is a hundred and ten on his deathbed? What if he’s a murderer? What if… god forbid, a child?” the tears wouldn’t stop. You were hysterical. You no longer searched for “the one”.

Junior year, you spent a brief fall session abroad in Italy. It was a small group of 5 with one of your favorite professors and you were free to explore your own body of work in your specialty. This was the perfect opportunity to build your portfolio with historic sites and modern culture. Italy was beautiful, romantic, and being there felt like a dream. One of your cohort members met her soulmate while asking him for permission to sketch his picture. He was a green-eyed man with dark, curly hair swept in a low ponytail. Her Words appeared on his arm, “Excuse me! Do you mind?”

And his Words, “Non parlo inglese” Meaning, “I do not speak English”

After their shock subsided, they shared a laugh and you took their picture together, matching tender forearms side-by-side.

As intended, you didn’t find your soulmate in Italy, either. But you did find a spark. The whole soulmate business was breeding so many questions that were turning into criticisms inside you. The picture of your friend in Italy started churning the gears of your body of work. You began to seek out silly or strange First Words to photograph, and at the end of your spring semester, you held a solo exhibition back home. It was a smash and featured in the local paper on page 5. Soon after, it became viral on the internet.

Reviews raved about the humor of your photographs (one set of First Words read, “You think I’m cute, huh” and “You’re a fucking nightmare-boy”. Another, “Bless you” and “That wasn’t a sneeze” your personal favorite, "Give me your wallet" and "Oh hell no").

People were alarmed at some of the less traditional pairs you found: differing intense religious beliefs (Roman Catholic, and Satanist), age-disparity (15 year gap between them), familial relations (they were first-cousins), those encumbered by illness (one had been in a coma for 5 years), and something that was so rare you’d only read about it happening twice, ever: multiple soulmates.

In that particular case, you had put an advertisement online and received an e-mail that night from someone who wanted to refer you to their uncle and his family. You went the next morning to Prospect Park and met John and his soulmates Francis and Marilynn. You spent three hours with them that day. The photos you took were beyond lovely.

In senior year, you had a portfolio that was known world-wide. You were receiving so many e-mails a day about photo opportunities that your business address bounced back at least twice a week for 24 hours. Most of them were very desperate calls for attention, struggles for their 15 seconds of fame, you rarely had the time (or patience) to give an e-mail a second look. You put that body of work on hold, but still opened an online store to sell prints and gave the occasional phone interview. Between that and the various photography jobs you received elsewhere, you were self-sufficient and hardly struggled. You lived in a one-bedroom apartment and looked forward to travelling in the U.S. after college.

It was winter of senior year when you received a message in your personal e-mail that caught you by surprise. It was from Pepper Potts. The Pepper Potts. You were holed up cozily during a blizzard and almost spilled your tea in your lap. It was an invitation for you to visit Stark Tower headquarters, take a few pictures, and go home. The way she worded it was extremely delicate, making sure to flatter your work but also very strictly state the terms of agreement. She made sure to mention that you would be paid generously, of course.

When the snow melted, you made your journey, camera bag across your chest.

At age 20, you met Iron Man, Tony Stark, self-proclaimed billionaire, philanthropist, playboy, genius. You also met Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow.

Ms. Potts had met you at the door, opening it and extending her hand. She immediately thanked you for coming in the cold and praised your photographs. It surprised you when she admitted that as famous as your Soulmate Series was, she was more intrigued by the tenderness of the candid shots you routinely represented in your work, not your actual choice of subject. She had also done some research and found various college articles where you took pictures of local businesses and restaurants. “The intimacy that you captured of the most mundane of places… they were beautiful. I knew you were the person I wanted.” You laughed about your naiveite in those days, being only a newbie at photography, but Ms. Potts shushed you.

She led you to a conference room and slid a contract in front of you, asking for your patience and understanding at the long document. After the end of nearly an hour and a half of reviewing, questioning, and a sneaky interview process, you were ready to begin. A lanyard was placed in your hand with your picture and a keycode, giving you access to certain floors of the building.

The contract was complicated, but it boiled down to this: You were hired by Stark Industries to photograph their employees (and future employees) as well as any floor you had access to. It was your job to deliver simple and tasteful photos to represent the Stark image. You understood it to mean that your job was to create a cult of personality for Stark Industries somewhere in the realm of capable, trustworthy, and familiar- as if these people could be your close friends. The contract spanned a 30-day period where you were able to enter the tower at your leisure and convenience, wander as you wished, ask any questions you may have, and ultimately submit a binder of no less than 50 pictures with your detailed notes (including personal opinion on each photo).

Ms. Potts strongly suggested that if this assignment went well, she had high hopes for your future at Stark Industries. She kept her promise and continued to reach out to you about assignments.

At 21, almost immediately after your graduation, you met Thor, Hawkeye, and Dr. Banner- you prayed you would never meet his other half. That same year, you also met him.

Captain America. Every child in America knew about Steve Rogers. When news leaked that his body had been found frozen and that he was living in New York, it stunned you. He was a (newly) living (dead?!) legend; the idea of him was too much. When it dawned on you that you would be photographing him, you immediately threw up.

You would never forget that day. Your stomach hurt all night. It hadn’t done that since you were a child.

When you entered Stark Tower- you were too nervous to even notice that it had been transformed to the newly dubbed Avengers Tower. You rode the elevator up to the conference room where you scheduled to meet Ms. Potts, but Mr. Stark was there instead. Next to him, was the unmistakable physique of Captain Rogers. Your stomach twisted itself into a pretzel and you had to suck in a deep breath to continue walking upright.

You were so nervous that when Stark asked you for the umpteenth time to please call him Tony, you nearly twisted your ankle by mis-stepping. Sadly for him, you wouldn’t utter his first name for another few years. Captain Rogers had narrowed his eyes at you and the camera bag hanging limply on your hip. You could not stop trembling under his scrutiny. Even Tony offered you a drink to take the edge off.

Finally, he spoke.

“Good morning,” he said quietly, giving you a gentle nod.

You didn’t stop to look as you bolted out of the conference room and down the hall. As soon as you reached the toilet, you threw up.

The bile and acid that burned a path up your throat lingered all day and flared constantly in Captain Rogers’ presence. Your chest burned like a blaze. He in turn, gave you inspecting, worried glances and never tried to come any closer than 10 feet. You thanked him silently from across rooms and hallways. Mr. Stark joked that the best candid moments with Captain Rogers were in the showers, but if you kept getting sick like that, you’ll never get a chance. Your stomach did not appreciate the insinuation whatsoever.

Ms. Potts was infinitely more helpful. She sent you down to the infirmary but they could find nothing wrong with you. The nurse helping you, however, did notice that you had suddenly formed a bright pink rash right in the middle of your chest after watching you nervously rub your torso.

You thought nothing more of it, and by the time you got home, it had vanished.

The contract Ms. Potts emailed you that night detailed the next assignment, and upon completion, you would be paid 20 thousand dollars, more than double the amounts you’d previously received. Her postscript thanked you for your hard work with the Avengers, specifically, your patience with Tony and his constant quips, but that she wanted you to take some time to yourself and explore the world. Twenty-one, she said, was a tremendously important year for young women, and that she hoped to see more of your photography that was special to you, rather than necessary to her.

That night, you broke your apartment lease and made plans to travel at the end of the month. For the next 30 days, you took some of the best photos you had ever taken of the Avengers. However, you deeply regretted every photo you took of Captain Rogers. They were never as detailed or intimate as any of the rest. He was always either in a group setting, or far off, jogging, training, perhaps reading a book… across the kitchen, on the other side of a window.

You were afraid of him. Or rather, you were afraid of how your body reacted to him. From time to time, you’d see him look at you apologetically, which made it a million times worse.

After your assignment was finished and the rest of the payment was deposited in your account, you sold your furniture and packed two bags. For the two years, you spent time in Thailand, Russia, Italy, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and even a few icy weeks visiting the Arctic.

Once again, you picked up your Soulmates Series. This time you solely focused on what you lovingly called peculiar pairs.

In Thailand, you found a pair of non-gender conforming soulmates who lived in a large community of entirely non gender conforming people. Most of the country itself was extremely accepting and kindhearted, something that pained you to think about in regard to your own home. You learned so much about sexuality and identity in your time with them, and at the end of your trip, you felt entirely changed about your perspective on what it was to be male and female- and whether or not it actually mattered!

In Russia, you met two people who identified as asexual- one being intersex. On the day you met, he identified as male and wore trousers and ordered the strongest coffee you had ever tasted. The next day, you hardly recognized him in a lavender gown, and were surprised and happily obliged when he asked you to use feminine pronouns. Upon your departure, he was back again in trousers and let you use masculine pronouns in your writing. It broke your heart to learn about their struggle in a country that shunned and viewed them with contempt.

Your travels brought you to many identities and many facets of love. There were couples who never engaged in romantic activity, but cherished each other more than you’d ever felt from another soul. There were others still who’s lives were kept secret from their families and their society, at large. There was a household in Italy with a husband and wife, not soulmates, living with another man, whose soulmate had been the husband. They met by chance on the train. The wife was 7 months along, and there was incredible tension under their roof. Most days, they made it fine, some days, she expressed to you, she couldn’t help but fall asleep crying.

Sometimes, you would meet soulmates that made you truly question the work. These pairs haunted you.

In New Zealand, a man was 65 when he met his soulmate; he had waited all his life. She was a young volunteer at the day care center where he worked. He thought she would reject him because of their age difference, but she loved him. They spent one blissful day together. The next day, she was involved in a fatal accident on her way to work. You sat in silence in his living room as he held onto a picture of her and sobbed.

At the end of your travels, departing from Saudi Arabia, your heart was full of grief about soulmates. The last pair you visited was in a dimly lit home, where the husband smoked profusely, and you could not see his wife until the very end. When she came into the light, her eyes were both blackened, and she could not speak due to the stitches in her mouth.

Returning to Manhattan, at age 23, you had given up on not only your own soulmate, but all soulmate indoctrination. Your heart was hardened by the knowledge that predestiny could usher in such suffering, and that love could be so terrible. You began to resist.

Next Chapter

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x reader #reader insert #mcu x reader #Mystery of Love heli0s #soulmate au

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ayybtch · 3 years

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This Or That

Thank you to @thefallenbibliophilequote for tagging me! I don’t think I’ve ever been so indecisive in one of these tag games before? 😂

Tagging: @borkingbarnes @steverrogers @heli0s-writes @ussgallifreyfics @moriamithril @qveenbvtch @bucky-the-thigh-slayer and anyone else who would like to 🥰

#sam’s shenanigans

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captain-kelli · 3 years

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this or that?

Thank you for tagging me, my cheese whiz queen, @nacho-bucky. I’m going to break the rules and do things my own way. 💁🏻‍♀️

I’m an enneagram 7. I suffer from severe FOMO, so you can’t expect me to choose between a water park and an amusement park. That’s rude.

I’ll tag: @bucky-the-thigh-slayer @allaboardthereadingrailroad @moonstruckbucky @sugarfreecapsicle @tropicalcap @heli0s-writes

#captain kelli chat #captain kelli gets personal #tag game

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buckyland · 4 years

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get to know me tag!

rules: bold everything that applies to you and tag people you’d like to get to know better.

thank you for the tag, cait @nacho-bucky and katie @ussgallifreyfics !!! my dramione partners in crime.

re/introducing myself to both new and old friends - thank you to all 1.5k of you! 💛thank you for joining my little party in this corner of the internet.

appearance

i’m over 5’5” // i wear glasses or contacts // i have blonde hair // i prefer loose clothing to tight clothing // i have one or more piercings// i have at least one tattoo // i have blue eyes // i have dyed or highlighted my hair // i have gotten plastic surgery // i have or had braces // i sunburn easily // i have freckles // i paint my nails // i typically wear makeup // i don’t often smile // i am pleased with how i look // i prefer nike to adidas // i wear baseball hats backward

hobbies & talents

i play a sport // i can play an instrument // i am artistic // i know more than one language // i have won a trophy in some sort of competition // i can cook or bake without a recipe // i know how to swim // i enjoy writing // i can do origami // i prefer movies to t.v shows // i can execute a perfect somersault // i enjoy singing // i could survive in the wild on my own // i have read a new book series this year // i enjoy spending time with friends // i travel during school or work breaks // i can do a handstand

relationships

i am in a relationship // i have been single for over a year (make that 24 years 😂) // i have a crush // i have a best friend i have known for ten years (12 years!!) // my parents are together // i have dated my best friend // i am adopted // my crush has confessed to me // i have a long-distance relationship // i am an only child // i give advice to my friends // i have made an online friend // i met up with someone i have met online

aesthetic

i have heard the ocean in a conch shell // i have watched the sunrise// i enjoy rainy days // i have slept under the stars // i meditate outside // the sound of chirping calms me // i enjoy the smell of the beach // i know what snow tastes like // i listen to music to fall asleep // i enjoy thunderstorms // i enjoy cloud watching // i have attended a bonfire // i pay close attention to colors // i find mystery in the ocean // i enjoy hiking on nature paths // autumn is my favorite season

misc.

i can fall asleep in a moving vehicle // i am the mum friend // i live by a certain quote // i like the smell of sharpies // i am involved in extracurricular activities // i enjoy mexican food (GOD ENJOY DOESN’T EVEN COVER IT) // i can drive a stick-shift // i believe in true love // i make up scenarios to fall asleep // i sing in the shower // i wish i lived in a video game // i have a canopy above my bed // i am multiracial // i am a redhead // i own at least one dog // i have a cat

tags! @heli0s-writes @wonderlandmind4 @evansweaters @gamorazenn @borkingbarnes @fvckingavengers @rogrsnbarnes @vennilavee + free tag to anyone who wants to join in!

#tag game #i'm in need of a good bonfire and s'mores night

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fic-for-fic-sake · 4 years

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All I Ask

A/N: Listen, I know I should stop writing fics about endgame and about Steve leaving but I just had to write this, Adele demanded it. Also, I know that Tony’s funeral and Steve going back with the stones probably happened the same day but for the sake of the story let’s just say it didn’t. ALSO! This is very much inspired by two stories from two fanfic writes whom I admire; On The Shoulders of Giants by @heli0s-writes and Three’s Company by @hopelessromanticspoonie. You should go check those out after you read this because they’re seriously amazing.

Warnings: Smut, 18+, bad smut writing (lmao sorry). Also based on the song All I Ask by Adele.

Grief laid around the two of you like a lead blanket as you drove back to what was left of the compound in silence. Tony Stark was dead. You had gained so much, everyone that got snapped five years ago came back, but it came with the highest cost. You didn’t even realize you were crying again until Steve wordlessly rested a hand on your thigh and gave a reassuring squeeze.

He was different too. Distant, shrouded in mystery. Whatever he and Tony had to do to get the Tesseract had clearly taken a toll on him. This was more than grief for Steve, it was something else.

Your heels clacked on cool marble flooring as you made your way to your room, feeling your way around the dark building, the power compromised in the battle. Thanos had torn a hole in your life in more ways than one. Walking into your room you shut your blinds, couldn’t bear to look out at the decimated field where Tony had given his life so that so many could live.

Fumbling with the clasp on your dress you were hysterical again until you felt a strong set of hands encase your own and ease the zipper down your back. Steve pressed a kiss to your temple as he helped you out of your dress. It hit the floor and you stepped out of it, too tired to put it in your hamper. Not that it mattered anyway. You silently made your way to the bathroom and took a shower, the hot water soothed you like a much needed balm. It silenced your tears and you stood under the faucet until the water turned cold. Wrapping a towel around yourself you exited the bathroom to find Steve staring out the window, blinds open, to the field.

“It should’ve been me.” He whispered, voice a fraction away from shattering.

“Don’t say that.” You admonished, walking up to him, his position unchanged. His shoulders tensed up when you put a hand on him, he didn’t notice when you removed it.

“He did this for me.”

“He did this for all of us.” You corrected.

“I saw her.” He breathed into the night air. You stared at him while you tried to figure out who he meant. Committed his profile to memory. The jut of his chin, the gentle curve of his lips, the turn of his nose, and the way his eyelashes fanned his cheeks. Perfect.

“I know.” You replied, deflated. Of course you knew, you didn’t want to believe it but you knew. “You’re not coming back, are you?” Less of a question and more of an observation, but you couldn’t help the way your voice broke off at the end.

He turned to you suddenly, wiped your tears away with the soft pad of his thumb like he had done a number of times over the years, except this time, he was the cause of them. “He did this for me.” Steve repeated his statement from earlier.

Words escaped you. You knew you could never measure up in all your time with Steve, there was always this shadow looming over you two. Shoes you could never fill. This is the man you love and you just want him to be happy, no matter the price on your own heart.

He turned to leave you to your own devices but you grabbed his hand and made him turn around to look at you.

“I’m not coming back.”

“I know.” You murmured as you wrapped your arms around the back of his neck and brought his lips down to yours for a kiss. A kiss that you poured your heart into, all of your love and longing, the years you spent together, the future you had hoped for, your goodbye.

He pulled you close to him as his mouth searched your own, his tongue gently parting your lips. You let your towel fall to the floor as he wrapped his arms around your waist, melding your bodies together for the final time. Hot tears made their way down your cheeks and he kissed them away as he gently laid you down on the bed, his body a welcome weight on your own.

He peppered kisses along your neck and jawline as his hand traveled down between your two bodies to the apex of your thighs, parting them gently before deft fingers worked their way over your slit, eliciting a moan from you. In the darkness of your bedroom you opened yourself up for him as he pushed first one and then two fingers into your dripping core. No words were exchanged as he curled his fingers inside of you, pulling the sweetest sounds from your lips.

Your hand found his hardening length and stroked it to life. His lust blown pupils searched your own eyes, looking for a sign to stop, a sign to ask him to stay with you, to choose you, in your eyes he found no such sign. Only love, unconditional, destroy my heart love. So slowly it ached, he pushed himself inside of you, inch by inch until he was fully sheathed by your warmth. He stilled for a moment, bringing his lips down to yours in a languid kiss before he started to move.

Slow, deep, thrusts that made your toes curl and your vision go white in the gray scale room. You carded your hands through his hair as you spread your legs to take him further. Every plunge of his hips sent you further and further into ecstasy. His forehead pressed against your own as you cried out for him and he you. Your hands tangled in the sheets before he joined them with his, lifting the entwined fingers above your head, deepening his lovemaking.

Steve’s hips snapped in measured, deliberate thrusts designed to bring you two to the peak together. If this would be the last time, you would finish the journey as one, two halves becoming a whole for one glorious moment before breaking apart for good. As you approached your climax you swore to yourself you would remember how his hot breath felt against your skin, the sound his moans made in the empty room. How he coaxed the most sinfully glorious sounds from your mouth. You were sure this love was a once in a lifetime bet, and it wouldn’t come again.

With a final snap of his hips you came in a wave of pleasure, blossoming out from your slick core and radiating throughout your body. You felt Steve still inside you as he reached his climax as well. The two of you stayed like that for an unknown amount of time. Each of you afraid to break the spell. What you do know is that when you woke up the next morning, Steve was gone, once more just another page in the history books of your childhood.

#steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #captain america fanfic #mcu fanfic #steve x you #oneshot #song fanfic

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