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heshoes · 3 years

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She was his best friend and they shared everything together already anyway. What difference would it make if it were a hat, shampoo, or the same bed sometimes? So what? That's what the Uni Daze were about, having fun, traditions, getting serious, new relationships, friendships, heart ache, break-ups, make ups, secrets, the occasional/casual bajingo here and there, and possibly, just maybe, finding the love of your life and hoping that it all works out.

Warnings: smut, slow burn, angst, mentions of abortion, mentions of verbal abuse

Harry Styles x OC (Face claim Zendaya)

Uni Daze Masterlist

Chapter 2 ( Word Count 6.7K )

Harry

My school day was absolutely long but it kept me busy and busy to me is a good thing. It keeps me balanced though I know Chelle would disagree since he keeps telling me as such over the phone.

"The only reason you think that trying to fit 72 hours in a 24 hour day is a balance is because of your parents. Just because they're work driven arseholes doesn't mean that you have to follow in their footsteps.”

"That's impossible to do, I don't work that much. My parent's aren't arsehole's they're just successful. Is that so wrong to want success?”

"It is when its your last year of uni and you're being a kill joy.”

"I said I would go out for drinks, Chelle. How is my compliance to something that I don't want to do being a kill joy?”

"Because you're not doing it with a smile. You've become boring. Your sex life and your regular life has turned about as vanilla as a middle aged man. We never had to beg you to come out last year or over the summer, Harrow. Think of it as a week of extended holidays. No one does anything the first week of classes anyway. It's all rules and instructions on how to prepare. We've been in uni for three years. We should know the jist of it by now.”

"But it's not summer anymore, Chelle and you know some professors like to give assignments in the first few days. We have two papers already in seminar for fucks sake.”

Michelle sighed in annoyance.

"Yeah, but, those aren't due for ages, Haz. Fun is due right now.”

"This is the year to pull your shit together. Everyone can't not study and get perfect marks like you. Sorry.”

"The phrase 'can't not' is a double edged sword.”

"What?" I spun around in my desk at work, handing a first year her keys. Its only the first day and she's already lost her keys and has to use her spare for a fifty pound charge. She looks nervous as well and her face is kind of red. She grins at me and says a shy 'thank you' before walking away, staring back at me and kind of tripping over her own feet on her way to the lift. I tried not to laugh, but honestly it was kind of funny.

"You know, a double edged sword? A double negative?You can't say 'can't not' next to each other in a sentence. It's repetitive of itself. You should be embarrassed. This is primary school stuff Harrow. Mr. “I have to take the UKCAT this year.”"

"Whatever Chelle! See? That's what I mean. I need a balance. I need to be able to be involved in school. I should have taken it more serious when we first started out.”

"You do realize balance means a good amount of your job, school work, AND a social life which includes parties and pubs and going out with your mates without a grumble?”

"I'm going out for drinks tonight! You're starting to piss me off."

"If the truth is anything it's annoying, Harry." I nodded my head and began to swivel around in my chair. I'd just gotten to work and had three and a half more hours to go. I'm glad I have a job and all but this one is fucking boring.

Speaking of truth.

"Do the boys know about your um...your new team?”

"No. Actually they don’t."

Oh.

“Oh?"

"Yeah, um, I was hoping that it was something that we could keep between me and you for now. Just until I can figure things out. I'd love to say that I'm for sure just this one thing. I know I said it this morning, but I'm still not sure, okay?”

"Yeah. Sure, of course." I stopped spinning in my seat and dizzying myself when I heard my manager's voice,"Look I've gotta go. I'm not supposed to be on the phone and my boss is coming.”

"Oh so there is some rebellion left in you? You're living on the edge now, Hazland. Why can't you use your phone? All you do is sit in a chair and answer phones and make people keys when they lock themselves out of their dorm.”

"Bye Michelle!" I quickly hung up the phone and stuck it into my pocket smiling awkwardly at Professor Forrester as he approached the front desk with someone else right next to him. She had on a Cambridge work shirt much like myself letting me know that I more than likely wouldn't be alone for the rest of my shift.

"Rion, this is Harry," Professor Forrester spoke to her before addressing me, "today is her first day here at the university and working. I told her that she would be in good hands if I left her here with you. Show her the ropes and maybe show her around campus when you're not at work? I've got to go," Professor Forrester turned to face the new girl before he nodded back at me, "any questions you have, ask him. He'll know all of the answers.”

She nodded her head up and down slowly before giving a shy grin and we were left alone as Forrester left the building.

“Hi."

“Hello."

"I'm Harry.”

She laughed to herself before nodding her head at me.

"So I was told. Nice to meet you.”

Rion, I think her name was, sat down in her seat next to mine after speaking back to me, lowering her rucksack down to the ground before pulling out a book. It was a good idea really. Maybe I should have brought one? I barely get the chance to read, especially living with Michelle. She always finds a way to interrupt, either that or my ADD kicks in, all the more reason for me to put in more effort at school. I took out my phone once I knew that Forrester was gone, but I really had nothing to do with it. I had no new text messages besides Michelle.

Chelle: Drinksssssss 🍻🍺🍺🍺🍻🍻🍻😉

I grinned before shaking my head and replying back to her, something just as stupid as she sent me.

To Chelle: Tortureeeeeeee😣🔫🍺😒

Chelle: Dramatic!

Ignoring her last text, I took out my earphones and turned up the music on my phone as I placed them in my ears. I suppose it was a bit loud because out of the corner of my eye I could see Rion scrunching her nose while she tried to read.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you.”

"No disturbance, I was just trying to figure the tune. Runaway?”

“Wh-what?"

She laughed before she pointed to the phone in my hand and repeated herself.

"Is that Runaway by Ed Sheeran?”

I nodded my head, not able to stop the stupid grin that cut across my face.

"You know Ed Sheeran that’s not on top 40?”

"Who doesn't? The man's a musical genius.”

She smiled at me before she turned back to her book, but I couldn't help but to keep talking to her.

"What school did you used to go to? Um, if you don't mind me asking…"

"Nope, don't mind at all. I used to go to Bristol Uni. How about yourself? Have you been at Cambridge all of your university career?”

I nodded my head and she looked impressed, but I'm sure she wouldn't be if she knew that I was a legacy and that I slacked off for the first three and a half years. Good thing that I'm getting my shit together now.

"Yeah, it’s alright here.”

"Just alright?”

"One of the best alrights I guess. Welcome to Cambridge and congratulations.”

"Thank you.”

I smiled at her and the conversation was on the verge of ending, but before I stuck my other ear bud in I paid closer attention to the book that she had in her hand.

"Scott Fitzgerald."

"Pardon?" Rion raised an eyebrow at me.

"That's F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

She raised her book showing me the spine, shocked that I hadn't seen the cover but still got the author right.

"You know F. Scott Fitzgerald?" She smiled at me while relaying my words back to me.

"Who doesn't? The man was a written genius. Not to mention that the book you're reading happens to be one of my favorites.”

She smiled again.

"Usually people only notice Fitzgerald if The Great Gatsby is involved." She turned her chair towards mine giving me a better view of her.

"Gatsby is a classic, but I think that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has more character.”

We continued to talk and before I knew it the shift was over. No one else needed keys and the phone barely rung. I probably would have stayed beyond the time that I was supposed to get off talking and creating awkward conversation with Rion had it not been for Michelle's reminders:

Chelle: Tonight is gonna be fun 😊

Chelle: You're off work in 1⃣5⃣ min🎉🎊

Chelle: I'm gonna get you so fucked up!😝

Chelle: I'm excited 😬

To Chelle: No 💩. Too excited I reckon 😐

I laughed to myself as I gathered my things to leave the building, not fully believing that I allowed Michelle to talk me into drinking tonight, even though part of me knew that I wouldn't be able to break tradition. Rion put her book away, that she never really got into reading and followed behind me out the door and to the parking lot. She seemed cool from what I got to know about her in the amount of time that I did and since she's new, I figure that it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey, a couple of my friends and I are getting together tonight to The Mill. Its a pub right up the road on Mill lane, if you're not busy, you should, um, you should come.”

"Mill pub? On a Monday?”

"Yeah, it's kind of a tradition that we started when we started here." I rub my shoulder as I wait for her answer. I don't know why I feel nervous about it but I do.

"It sounds like fun, but I shouldn’t, not tonight at least. I wouldn't be able to bear it if I missed class tomorrow because of a hangover, and I kind of also have plans.”

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it like you didn't have anything else to do or-”

"No it's fine it's just... I have a date.”

"Right. Sorry again.”

"I'll see you around though I hope?”

"Yeah, I'll see you at work.”

Rion nodded her head while giving me a content smile before she got into her car and as she pulled off, she waved to me. I waved back but as soon as her car was out of sight, I slapped myself in the face with the palm of my hand. Maybe six months is too long to go without any type of real interaction with the opposite sex besides Michelle, but honestly she doesn't count...or maybe she counts for both now?

I cleared my head of my thoughts as I got into my car that I feel like I'm too tall for. Even with the seat pushed down as low as it can go, I still can feel the top of my head brush against the roofing of it. By now I'm sure I've saved up enough to get a new one. A new car could be my mini treat to myself for cutting myself off from a social life. The more that I think about the way that my conversation with Rion just ended the more that I start to agree with Michelle and the more excited I get for the night of boozy tradition.

As soon as eleven thirty-five hit, my phone rang. When I answered it Michelle's voice came through clear as if she were sitting here next to me in the car, even though background noise and music blares in the room around her.

"Everyone is here but you. Are you en route?”

"Everyone?" I ask her with skepticism in my tone. I would be shocked if everyone showed up.

"Yes everyone. Niall, Darragh, and Zayn. Everyone but you. Are you on your way?”

I don't know why I even asked her if everyone would be there. I knew that Louis wouldn't show even though it was him and Darragh who started this tradition..

"Yeah, I'm on my way. This should be fun.”

"That's the spirit I've been looking for Harrow. It sounds like you've had a change of heart since earlier.”

"Yeah, I think I've been looking at my textbooks too long and not at real people. One night won't kill me I suppose.”

"If one night is done right, then yes, yes it will. And what do you mean you don't see real people? I see you everyday.”

"You're not a real person, Michelle. I'm not quite sure what you are yet.”

"I think I might have an idea by now." Michelle said while chuckling on the other end of the line.

"And what would that be?”

"Getting lucky tonight. Get here soon and I can be your wing-lady.”

The pub was in the early stages of being crowded when I got there and I couldn't deny how excited I was to see the boys, Michelle included even though I saw her only just this morning. The last time that we were all together was in the middle of June, but after that we really hadn't had time to hang out. Everyone had gotten busy and into their own things. Besides keeping in touch over the phone occasionally, we haven't really talked that much either.

The first person that I saw when I got in was Niall. He sat next to Darragh with a cigarette hanging from his lips, patting down his jeans in search of a lighter no doubt. When we made eye contact, he stuck his arms out to the side with his fingers spread wide and a smile on his face. Darragh looked at him as if he lost his mind until he followed Niall's line of vision and then quickly stood from his seat.

"Harry! How are you lad? Drinks are on Liam so order the most expensive thing possible.”

I received two claps on the back from each of them when I reached the table and then a smack on my ass that made me jump and then turn around find the guilty culprit. I should have known who it was straight away.

"Chelle! That actually hurt.”

She laughed at my discomfort with some kind of frothy drink in her hand as I grabbed my bum cheek and rubbed it over my jeans.

"Probably because there's barely any meat there to cushion the blow.”

I shook my head at her and squinted my eyes before I responded, "It's not about what's back there, its all about what's in the front. Girls don't date me for my bum.”

“Well, according to you, girls don't date you at all, not recently at least.”

Niall and Darragh started to laugh and a stream of smoke came through Niall's nose reminding me of an angry bull from a cartoon before he took another drag from his cigarette, this time intentionally blowing a ring of smoke before sucking it back in through his nostrils. I probably could have strangled Michelle in that moment, but it was true. My mind goes back to Rion and work and I can feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

"Mitch told us about your six month drought.”

"Stop calling me Mitch!”

Niall ignored Michelle's outburst before continuing, "She says you haven't gotten laid since your birthday.”

"Do you know what a penis fly catcher even looks like anymore?" Darragh added to Niall's teasing causing my nose to scrunch.

"Penis fly catcher?”

"Yeah, it's better than what you call it. What do you say again? Bajango?”

"No Darragh," Niall cuts in, "Django was a movie. He says bajingo. It makes sense to me.”

Michelle scrunches her nose in disgust and confusion at our conversation but doesn't say anything. Really though, what more could be added to this?

"It's not that big of a deal guys." I bring the conversation back to where it was before it drifted into a dark place so quickly. It can't be that bad. Can it? Perhaps it is? I don't even know at this point anymore.

"Oi leave him alone," Zayn chimed in as he walked up to the table with Liam with two beers in hand, passing me one before he sat down, "its alright Harry sex isn't everything...but six months is a long ass time. But enough about that. What has everyone been up to?”

It was almost like a show and tell as we went around the table talking about what we'd missed out on over the summer since we hadn't seen each other. Niall and Darragh went to Ibiza for the month of July staying in hostels and partying until all hours of the morning. Apparently Niall is in love with a girl he met there, but he doesn't remember her name so I don't know how accurate that is

Zayn spent a good amount of time in France with his girlfriend, sorry, fiancé. The fucker got engaged in France. Everyone thought that he and Daphne were gonna be a short lived thing since they met at a club and all, but people find love and fall in it in mysterious ways I guess. Michelle would be a prime example of that...but love is not involved with her apparently. A player not to be played anymore. I still have questions to ask her about that but I guess I'll have to wait until later since she doesn't want the guys to know that she's traded outies for innies. I could out her like she did me and my drought, but that's way more personal and I've decided that I'm not that much of an asshole, if I'm one at all that is.

Liam was arrested and his parents flipped out. For what I'm kind of scared to ask, but I'm sure it was something accidental. Sometimes I wonder how Liam even got into Cambridge, but I guess that they don't test for common sense, only book smarts.

When it got to Michelle's turn, she just talked about how she flew back home for a few weeks at the very start of summer to visit family and then came back here, but of course that's not anything that I didn't already know. When she came back was when I noticed all of the girlfriends that she had. It was odd to me because Michelle generally hated girls and hanging out with them, but then again, she obviously doesn't hate them that much.

When I told them that the most exciting part of my summer had been joining a book club for some work that I had to get ready to do for senior class, studying for the UKCAT that's not until the end of the school year, and sometimes coming here to Mill pub with Michelle I realized that what she said was true. My life had become vanilla, but I'm honestly kind of alright with it.

We continued to talk, share, laugh and drink until it was at least half three in the morning. I was waiting to see if Michelle was going to change her mind and let the lads know about her newfound liking but she kept it private between me and her the way that she said she would and it kind of made me smile. That along with the ridiculous amount of beer and shots consumed brought a goofy smile to my face by the end of the night.

By exactly three forty-five I was seeing double and couldn't drive home. Niall and Darragh had left to go back to their apartment that happened to be a few blocks down from ours, and Zayn and Liam stayed behind at the bar to drink deciding that they were too far gone now and might as well finish strong. They also decided that class tomorrow isn't important.

Michelle would have stayed behind with them I'm sure, but she has the tendency to be this odd motherly type when I get beyond the legal limit. I think she just likes to laugh at me because I start to say foolish things when my tongue loosens up in my mouth and my words slur. I tried to get up from the table discreetly so that I could walk home while Mitch, Zayn, and Liam continued to chat, but I knocked over a chair.

“Oh shit. I'm sorry bro." I chuckled to myself like an idiot as I picked up the chair earning the lads attention.

"Where are you going?" Michelle's eyes seemed to widen as she took in the state of me.

"Home. I've got class in the morrow-morning.”

"Do you honestly think that you're going to make it to class? Look at you, you can barely stand. My job is complete.” Michelle grins in triumph and I squint my eyes at her trying to figure out when she was going to tell me that she was a triplet.

"You're a horrible people and I don't know why we're friends." I think I was looking at her when I said it, but it could have very well been one of her sisters.

"Alright, and that's my cue. We'll see you later guys." Michelle spoke to Liam and Zayn as stood from the table, a little wobbly at best bus still in a better condition than I was in.

"You don't have to walk me home, Michelle. I'm not no kid.”

Michelle laughed as I stumbled, almost tripping on a crack in the pavement.

"Since I live there too I'm not technically walking you home. I'm walking home with you.”

I checked to see if my car was locked before we began our walk. The crisp early morning air sobered me up a bit, but I was still highly intoxicated and grinning.

"How was your first day of classes?" Michelle asked me breaking the silence of our trek back to our flat.

"Hmm, was okay. Good actually... I met this…met this girl.”

"You did? You were holding out on us at the pub! Who is it? Do I know who she is?”

"No, I don't think you do," I paused to hiccup hoping that was all that I had to do, "She's new here and you don't like girls. I mean, well, you know what I mean. You wouldn't know her.”

Michelle laughed while shaking her head.

“So it's a first year? I'm ashamed of you! I know you haven't dated in a while but that's sweeping the bottom of the barrel, Harrow.”

“No not a first year," hiccup "She's around my age, just new to Cambridge.”

“Oh," Michelle spoke putting her key in the door before she opened it "Where'd you meet her?”

“Work. I kind of asked her to come to the pub with me, but she said she had a date and I kind of sounded like a blubbering idiot when I asked her. I don't know.”

“Harry! You can't just invite people to come to the pub and we haven't met them yet! What if she was awful? Good thing she didn't come. That tradition is sacred for us. Whatever you said to her was probably fine. She just had other plans... Do you know why I've recently started calling you Harrow Harry?”

“Because it's one of the many odd nicknames you've created for me?”

“No. Harrow as in the adjective, it just so happens to fit with you. Har•row when used in verbal tense, means to cause distress to. You're causing unnecessary distress to yourself when you worry about things like the UKCAT and assignments that aren't due until the end of the year, and whatever you've said to this mystery bird that you've met at work. Fun. You used to be much less tense and more fun. You need to chill out and relax. You need to I don't know, get some maybe.”

I rolled my eyes before running my hand through my hair and walking into the kitchen, opening the cabinet in search of my favorite drunken snack, grabbing it when I found it and heading for my room. Quickly stripping off into my boxers, I fell against my bed before I turned on my television and got under the covers. I ate my snack in peace before Michelle knocked on my door twice and then let herself in.

"I could have been naked! you could at least wait for me to say come in.”

“Yeah well, its not like I've never seen a penis before and they're not really my main thing anymore you know?” Michelle climbed into bed with me, intruding while I tried to hide my snacks.

"What are you eating?”

“Nothing.” I slowed my chewing in hopes that she would lose interest.

"Harry I see them! Are those teddy grahams?”

“No!”

“They are! They're a snack for a five year old.”

“Teddy grahams don't have an age limit.”

“You should be embarrassed.” Chelle spoke before grabbing the box and taking a handful for herself, moving around too much for my drunken stomach to handle.

"Oohh these are nice. These are new sheets aren't they?”

"Chelle! Stop moving! Why are you in my room? Get out!”

“My room is too hot, so I've decided that we're going to have a sleepover. You get the better ventilation. You should trade with me.”

“What?”

“I'll sleep on the floor. It really is dreadful in my room.”

I sigh before I grab my pillows and comforter and toss them on the ground leaving Michelle the bed as I make my way to the floor.

“Aww Harry you're the sweetest, but I can really take the floor.”

“No, it's fine. Just don't do anything perverted while you're up there.”

“What like masturbate? I'm not you.”

I chuckled turning to face her from my position on the floor.

“Exactly, but if you do at least that I’m asleep first…Thats just common courtesy. ”

“Sure thing, Harlot. I can do that for you.” Michelle responded without pause causing me to chuckle before my head hit the pillow.

****

“ My head,” I groaned, waking up on the floor with my covers wrapped around me too tight much like a swaddling cloth. After successfully the blanket away from me in an attempt to escape confinement, I sat up slowly only to make the headache worse than it already was and add a new pain to the mix. “My back.”

I had almost forgotten that I slept on the floor to be nice and allowed Michelle to stay in my bed, but when I turned around to look at it I quickly discovered that she wasn't there. I could hear fumbling around in the kitchen and when I stood to follow the noise, the pounding in my head grew. When I reached the small space that we mostly use to microwave shitty food and store alcohol and juice, I saw that Michelle was fully dressed. I mean, well, if you can call an oversized sweater and tights with ladders down the legs in random places dressed then thats what she was.

“Morning, sunshine. How do you feel.”

“Like my head might explode all over the kitchen and I still have to get ready for class. Today is going to be long as shit,” my words slurred proving that there was still traces of alcohol in my bloodstream and when I swayed back and forth feeling as if I might lose my balance, I knew, “I'm still fucked.”

Michelle laughed at me before she flipped her pancake onto a plate and ran it back and forth below my nose. I snatched it from her and took a bite of the buttery breakfast cake without using the fork that she offered.

“Don't be such a savage, Haz. I'm not going to take the food from you after I've clearly been slaving over the oven for five whole minutes so that you could eat. Slow down, chew your food, and sit like a civilized human being. If you eat like that you're going to require the heimlich maneuver and unfortunately I don't know it. You'll turn blue and die in front of me on a Tuesday afternoon and that would put a slight damper on my day.”

“Afternoon?” I asked her while chewing around the pancake, “Afternoon?”

“Yes, Styles. Thats what I said.”

I put the plate that I was holding down on our small kitchen bench before I walked out into living room to squint at the only other clock that we had besides our cell phones, only to confirm what Chelle had just said. I rubbed my hands over my eyes hoping that it was just an illusion and what I'd seen was wrong because if it was the truth, I'd missed all of my morning classes for the day.

“Three eleven? It can't be three eleven! I had classes from nine until two!”

“And you slept through them like a baby.”

“Fuck! Michelle why didn't you wake me up? What's the point of having an Ultimate Alarm if it's not going to be used?”

“Harry, remember that little chat we had yesterday about distress and the use of your nickname? And in order for me to wake you up, I would have had to been up too. Even if I was, I wouldn't be using the Ultimate Alarm to save you with the splitting hangover that I had,” Michelle shakes her head in clear disgust before she continued, “too loud.”

My eyes widened as I looked at my friend, bewildered, annoyed, and somewhere deep down, somewhat amused. I waved my hand between the two of us before I gave up and ran it over my face exasperatedly. This is not how I intended to start the year off. My hand ascended from my face to sliding through my hair in distress, “Thats the point of the alarm, Michelle. It's supposed to be loud. It's supposed to wake you up.”

“Harry, calm down. When we got to sleep it was like seven in the morning anyway. I don't know how you expected to be up, awake, and alert in class. Don't you have like seven others that you can go to tonight? Over achiever.”

“If I shower now I can make it to my organic chemistry class.”

“Gross.”

I looked over to Michelle and frowned before I continued, “ Thanks for throwing me off by the way, making pancakes at three in the afternoon and making me think that it was morning.”

“Whatever time of day that you wake up is morning to me. I was feeling like pancakes, so I made pancakes. You didn't seem to mind them by the way that you were eating them a few minutes ago, arsehole.”

The mention of the food reminded me of how dry my throat was and how alcohol will leave your mouth feeling like you'd guzzled sand if you consume enough of it. I felt like a raisin.

“Do we have anymore orange juice?”

"No. Sorry I finished that all yesterday morning when you almost killed me and Alison with that damn fog horn.”

“Alison?” I smirked at Michelle before I started to tease. "Usually a player doesn't remember a conquests name.”

“You would know," she retorted back while squinting her eyes, “ you used to be one. But don't worry, Harry. I'll get so good at it that you won't ever catch one of them leaving the next morning ever again. I'll be like a black widow or is it a praying mantises that kill all other intimacy as soon as they've finished with them? I'll send them on their way so that I can sleep in my bed alone. It'll be like a switch.”

Michelle grinned as she spoke, silently approving her idea as I thought about how lonely it sounded. It actually saddened me. Michelle isn't the type that can handle being cold hearted and callous enough to kick people out of bed. After being in a monogamous relationship for three years, I could tell that she was the type who craved intimacy. She deserved it. What she just explained to me sounded like eventually it would take its toll on her and she would break down like she did before, substituting my shirt sleeves for tissues.

I keep my opinions to myself, not having enough time before my next class starts to really sit down with her and talk about them. If it's one thing that I cherish about Michelle and I's relationship is that we can literally almost talk about anything, if we had the proper amount of time to do so. I shake my head at her before I head down the hall, calling back to her.

“I never was a player, Mitch. I just wasn't steady in my relationships like you.”

"Whatever you say, Harold. Please go put on trousers…I don't want to see your moose knuckle.”

****

I'd made it to my chemistry lecture on time, and though I tried my hardest, it was extremely difficult to keep my eyes open. Even though I'd slept past all of my morning classes, I still didn't get the best rest from sleeping on the floor. Michelle was irritatingly right again. The only thing that was really mentioned today since it was still the very beginning of the school year, was instruction and what the professor expected from us as a class, so when my eyes closed momentarily as I sat at the back of the room, I didn't feel so bad. Before I knew it the lecture was over and I was rustled awake my the movement of students as they gathered their bags to leave the room.

"You've got a bit of dribble there." A familiar voice laughed as I stepped out of the classroom I wiped my mouth sheepishly before smiling at her.

“Rion, hi how are you?”

“I'm good. Getting around campus well enough, but how are you? You look pretty worn out and its only the second official day of the school year. Did your tradition get the best of you last night? You've got imprint marks from your sweater on your face.”

My hand went to the side of my face that she pointed out, the imprints from my clothing giving away my previous position before I flashed her a quick grin and responded ,Um, uh yeah kind of. I may or may not have missed all of my classes this morning. Mitch didn't wake me up, bad influence I guess.”

“Mitch?”

"Oh, um sh- Mitch is just...Mitch is my roommate." I explained in a panic I didn't want to scare her off with the details. I think I might actually have a chance with Rion, if I don't put my foot in my mouth that is.

“Oh I see.”

Rion smiled at me and I didn't even realize that we've been walking and talking this entire time. Conversation flows easily with her even though I stumble over my words. I feel like I'm just remembering how to talk to the opposite sex besides Michelle and feel kind of pathetic, but Rion doesn't seem to mind as she continues to smile laugh and start on new topics of conversation.

“So how long were you out for?”

“I didn't go to sleep until seven this morning and my head was pounding when I woke up. I really have no one to blame but myself. I told my friends that I would only have one drink and ended the night on my ass. I still have to go back to the pub and get my car, because I had to end up walking home. How I got to the right apartment on the first try is a mystery to me.”

Rion giggled in a cute way before tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear allowing me to see her features more. Her neck was slender and long, connecting to her shoulders delicately. She had a small tattoo that looked to be a ballet flat behind her left ear. Those tattoos placed just there always seemed like they might hurt, like they deserved to be kissed better even though the ache from the needle has been long gone. I could envision my lips on just that spot. I must have glanced at her just a bit longer than I should have causing a rosy hue to make its presence known on her cheeks. It made me smile before I quickly changed the subject this time, not wanting her to think that I was rude or weird for staring.

"How did your date go?"

She took deep breath before deciding if she wanted give a response or not and we ended up in the courtyard right before the student parking lot.

"It came and went, I suppose. Nothing really interesting to report. It sounds like I would have had more fun if I had taken the offer to go out for drinks with you. I'm usually not really big on drinking on the weekdays, but after that date I honestly might have taken a shot or four."

I smiled, selfishly happy that she didn't have a good time. I want to ask her out, but I feel like its too damn soon. I only met her yesterday anyway. Maybe its a good thing that she turned me down. When the time is right to ask her I'm sure I'll know. Hopefully I will.

"I'm sorry it didn't go as planned. Someone should take you out and show you a good time."

"Yeah, hopefully someone will sooner rather than later."

I think the emphasis that she put on the word someone was aimed at me, but I could be wrong. I don't know what else to say so I cap the conversation off with a , "Yeah" and mentally slap myself in the face before I grin awkwardly at her. I look around the parking lot as we come up to a white Toyota and she takes her keys out signaling that the tiny car is hers.

"Oh, well I'll let you go and get on with the rest of your day. Good seeing you."

"Okay, yeah." She responds quietly before she puts the key in the lock to open the door.

This has to be the most awkward I've felt in a while. I radiate awkward and though I don't want to believe it's because of what Michelle and the boys said, I'm kind of starting to think that they might be right myself.

"Wait, Harry?"

"Yes?" I turn my head to look over my shoulder before turning around to face her.

"I can take you to go get your car if you'd like. It looks like it might rain and it would suck if you were to get all wet."

All wet. I blush at her word choice and from that point on I know. Michelle, Niall, and Darragh were right.

"No. No its okay. You don't have to and I mean, don't you have other classes?"

She shakes her head and then opens her other car door, "I'm done for the day. Really I don't have a problem taking you. Get in."

I walk back towards her, thanking her and then giving her directions to the pub from the main campus. When we pull up, sure enough my car is there. Along with a ticket taped to the window for leaving it in the lot overnight. I sigh and rub my hands over my eyes before I get out and thank Rion again. Just as she's about to pull off, I call her name causing her to stop the car and reverse.

"Yes?" She looks at me eagerly with her eyes slightly widened and and traces of a grin on her face. I scratched my head out of embarrassment before I speak while pointing to the passenger side of the car.

"I left my book bag in your car."

"Oh, sorry. Here you go." The grin falls as she unlocks her car door so that I can get my bookbag. This time when she pulls off, I wave an awkward goodbye to her before getting in my car, knocking my head against the steering wheel in defeat causing the horn to honk.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #harry styles fic rec #harry styles x oc #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x original character #harry styles au #harry styles fluff

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artist-issues · 3 years

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@snowybookworm

I’ve seen the logic behind both schools of thought: that Old Steve could only have sat back and allowed events like Bucky’s torture to unfold (thereby being super out of character) OR that he created an alternate timeline where he stayed in character by solving all sorts of problems while living out his happily ever after. And I’m not going to go into that, I’m not going to swing one way or the other. But suffice to say, I don’t think that the portrayal of time travel rules in Endgame supports the idea that Old Steve could only return to prime 2023 via the same portal he left from, because if that were true, how do you explain the Avengers’ big push to get the Infinity Gauntlet into Scott’s van in the final battle? If the only way they could be returned to the timeline they were snatched from was with the same portal, tossing them into the van, a DIFFERENT portal, would’ve been reality-suicide for our heroes.

But I’m not here to argue about what Steve Rogers did when we DIDN’T get to watch his actions. I’m here to argue about what we DO know for sure based on what we WERE given to watch. I’m here to prove that if you think it’s not like Steve Rogers to leave Bucky in the present to live his days out with Peggy, you’ve missed his whole character arc. You’re one of those people who doesn’t see that he HAS a character arc. Captain America has DEPTH. He has LAYERS to who he is. It’s not just “do the right thing,” as close as that may sound to the truth.

He is not the same exact guy Bucky had to lead out of back-alley fights in the 40s. He might have all of the same excellent qualities that we know and love, the BEST qualities, but we’re not at the same point in his story. He’s learned and he’s grown and Peggy Carter is symbolic of him moving on.

Now, that may sound oxymoronic to you, “because he literALLY TIME TRAVELED TO THE PAST to be with the lady he missed out on! HOW IS THAT MOVING ON?!” you ask. Because you’re missing it. Let’s rewind and look at Steve Rogers and his character development, shall we?

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers goes from a guy with everything to prove, who is so willing to take on the world and all it’s evil that it doesn’t matter if he’s 90lbs of asthmatic shortness, he’ll fight bullies and stand up for what’s right! And he’ll do it ALONE if he has to! That’s important, the word “alone.” He’s so committed to that identity that Bucky Barnes, his best friend and brother figure, keeps having to remind Steve that through all of life’s challenges, he’s not alone, that he’s got someone with him “til’ the end of the line.” And Steve believes it: Bucky will be there for him when he needs dragging out of the gutter and cleaning up, when he has nobody else and nothing else. But Steve knows, or thinks he knows, (AND YOU AND I DO TOO, if we pay attention to the actual movie instead of our fill-in-the-blanks headcanons) that however LOYAL AND TRUE Bucky is to him, he doesn’t believe Steve can win. Bucky doesn’t believe in Steve. Now hold your offense: it’s okay that Bucky didn’t believe in Steve. Have you seen Skinny Steve? He’s an amazing moral giant, but physically he’s not going to live past middle-aged. Bucky believed Skinny Steve was righteous, and a hero, and would never give up, but Bucky was resigned to having to help that righteous hero or watch him die eventually because all that gold was locked up in the wrong-sized package. Sebastian Stan has hinted at what the films portray subtly; that Bucky’s is more cynical than his friend Steve from the get-go. He’s always poised and worried that he’s about to watch his hero Steve get killed standing up to the darkness of the world—not WIN against it. Bucky was ready to help Steve out of fights, but—and here’s BUCKY’S character development in that first film—he’s not ready to follow Steve into fights until after Azzano, when Steve finally has the physical capabilities to back up what Bucky has always known was there on the inside: the will to fight the darkness of the world and win. That’s when he realizes, “he’s the little guy from Brooklyn, too dumb to run away from a fight—and now someone’s actually gone and juiced him up with the means to literally take on the jaws of death.” All that heroism and goodness Bucky’s always seen in Steve has gone from being what might get him killed to something that Steve can actually use to do the right thing, however dangerous. And Bucky chooses to keep his promise and follow Steve back into battle after enduring torture, because he is with him til the end of the line. But initially, cynical yet loyal Bucky Barnes didn’t believe his best friend could win.

Steve sees this about Bucky. He knows how Bucky sees him. In the Erskine Enlistment Scene, this line from Steve is so telling: “Look, I know you don’t think I can do this...” and Bucky responds after Steve’s ‘men-laying-down-their-lives’ speech with “right...cause you got nothing to prove.” sarcastically. Steve knows that Bucky loves him and is there for him, but he sees that Bucky doesn’t believe in him. And they’re still friends. They’re still brothers and everything we know them to be, because the word that defines their relationship is “LOYAL.” But you know who did believe in Steve?

Peggy Carter.

She takes notice of Steve’s heart of gold while he’s still skinny, and asthmatic, and everything that Bucky has seen since they were kids. But where Bucky sees a heart of gold about to be snuffed out by harsh circumstances, PEGGY sees something else. She sees something else because she has a similar hopeful outlook on life, a kindred spirit with Steve’s forever-the-fighter character. Peggy Carter, a woman in the 40s, has had to fight and fight and take one step forward for every three steps she’s been pushed back. She’s had to prove herself over and over, every moment of her career, when nobody (except her brother Michael) believed in her. That’s their conversation in the cab. That’s the crux of why they love each other. Peggy has always noticed Steve as never giving up, but until he talks to her in the car on the way to get Super Soldiered, she might have assumed that he was just trying to prove himself for HIMSELF. Then he explains that he doesn’t have anything against running away, and his philosophy about bullies. And she relates to him. She sees that heart of gold and she wants to STOKE it, not just protect it. She knows what it is to want someone to not only acknowledge her potential, but BELIEVE in it. That’s why she has a picture of Skinny Steve on her desk and not a newspaper clipping of Captain America; she loves Steve Rogers for what is inside, for his moral character, and for their kindred fighter spirits. You can see that through her urging him to not settle for being a dancing monkey. “You were meant for more than this, you know.” “If it could only work once, he would be glad it was you.”

And Steve Rogers recognizes that Peggy Carter believes in him. Here’s how. When Bucky and Steve argue at the World Fair before Bucky’s deployment, Bucky leaves with a sort of “I give up,” so-done, snarky “don’t do anything stupid until I get back” attitude. We know and love it. But that’s important. Steve is about to go lie on his enlistment and try to go to war. He’s about to do this risky thing. And Bucky leaves it like “even though I’m against it, I know I can’t stop you, so please just be careful.” When Peggy is faced with a more extreme, but still similar situation where Steve is about to jump headfirst into a risky thing, that’s not her attitude. “I can do more than that.” “Get back here! We’re taking you ALL the way in!” She’s not going to follow him, and she’s not going to shrug and say “fine, go get yourself killed.” She’s not even going to say, like Bucky might’ve, “if you’re dying, I’m dying with you.” JEEZ, the last thing she says to him before he gets on a plane that becomes his tomb is “GO GET ‘IM.” When he says to her “this is my choice” before he ‘dies’ she accepts it, but she still makes that appointment for the dance- almost like a sad, sweet little ‘if you can get out of this, I’ll still be waiting.’ But whenever he goes into danger, throughout that film, she’s going to HELP him. Because she believes in him. She really believes he can do this. She has faith. That’s the word that describes Peggy and Steve’s relationship. “FAITH.”

Bucky = Loyalty.

Peggy = Faith.

And how does Steve grow in this movie? He learned from both Bucky and Peggy: “I don’t have to fight alone.” Whether it’s because he’s scrawny and everybody else would run away from a fight they can’t win, or because he’s an icon and the world’s first super-soldier-miracle, he’s always had this loneliness complex. He lifts the weight of the world because he knows that if you can, you should. But Peggy says to him “you won’t be alone.” It’s a quote important enough for him to experience it in a flashback the first time we see him in The Avengers.

In The Avengers, Steve has to share the spotlight with a whole other cast of heroes, PLUS the writers had to show us what it would be like for a 1940s superhero to lose 70 years of time and wake up with nobody left of his old life, so his growth is smaller. It’s setting up for more growth later. But still, there’s that quote. “You won’t be alone.” And now here he is. Alone. In the 21st century. Worse than a skinny kid nobody believes in, now he’s a cultural phenomenon in a world where everyone looks up to him but nobody believes in him, really, not directly. Whether it’s how well he can stand up against gods and iron men, what makes him special, or why cops should listen to him in the heat of interplanetary battle—in this bold new world he’s woken up in, Steve is on a lonelier pedestal than ever. He’s quickly disillusioned with the government that used to give him order and structure when it loses the Tesseract, which it was making weapons of mass destruction out of, then tries to nuke an island full of innocent people to win one battle. But Steve finally realizes, toward the end of the film, that just because SHIELD and the larger world are new and different and don’t know who he really is, that doesn’t mean he’s alone. When the other Avengers join him in going to take on Loki in their own way, and when Tony, in particular, proves that he’ll sacrifice himself for the greater good, Steve remembers his lesson from Peggy. He’s still not alone.

But being surrounded by other misfits, even ones who are willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good like he is, isn’t the same as being surrounded by people who know Steve Rogers, the punch-drunk kid from Brooklyn. He’s looking for purpose at the end of the Avengers. What do we see the other characters doing? Thor’s off to deal with the family drama that defines a lot of his character arcs in his movies. Tony is seen embracing the whole “work with others” thing by starting construction on Avengers Tower. Bruce is going with Tony, proving that he’s learning to trust himself with the Hulk like Tony suggested, and Nat hands him the bag, meaning she trusts him too. Clint is reunited with her and getting in a car with the SHIELD logo stamped on it, and where is Steve? What’s his foreshadowing/cap to the movie character arc? Is he getting in the SHIELD car, too? No. He’s on a motorcycle. Alone. Driving off to Lord-knows-where. He’s the only Avenger that drives off alone—but before he went, he shook Tony’s hand. That send-off says he’s willing to be on this team, with these other fighters and misfits...but he’s still lonely. Nobody really knows him yet. He’s not alone in fighting, but he doesn’t know what he wants or where he’s going.

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier Steve’s character development is centered around solidifying what parts of him need to change now that he’s “The Man Out of Time” and what parts of him stay true. The whole film is about trust. And yes, that trust is best driven him when Steve is literally willing to die rather than give up on Bucky, the man literally beating him to death. Because loyalty. But don’t miss the scene with Peggy, however brief. Their conversation has nuances, especially in light of Endgame. There’s a lot going on in the scene that shows how in love he is with her, but the part that’s most important is just his reaction when she relapses and realizes that he’s alive all over again. The last thing Old Peggy says is “it’s been so long.” And she repeats it, for emphasis. And he points out the dance. Because remember, there’s this theme that she would have waited for him. That’s their relationship: faith. But she didn’t know he was alive, and how could she? It’s been so long. She’s not smiling. She’s crying when she realizes he’s still alive. Because they missed all that time they would have had together. And his face is the perfect micro expression of grief. To me, it doesn’t read “I’m so sad because I missed out on Peggy,” though I’m sure there’s some of that in there. To me it reads more like Steve always reads because he thinks of others first: “I’m so sad because Peggy had to mourn me and our relationship for so long.” I mean, look, it’s 70 years later and she’s devastated that he’s alive but they weren’t together. (You can be devastated about your lost love AND accepting of your life and other children without him, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, but more on that another time.) Steve never moves on from Peggy because that’s not the kind of guy he is. It’s not nothing to say she was the love of his life. And he wanted to go back to her not just for himself, but for her. Because he’d seen the future where she was still heartbroken that he missed their dance, and I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s literally RIGHT THERE in probably the best-written Marvel Film, Winter Soldier.

In a film that’s all about how what he thought was good and right is literally crumbling or growing Hydra tentacles around him, there are two things he doesn’t let go of. The first is Bucky. Bucky is an assassin now who any other hero would have put down. Heck, STEVE would have mournfully put down any other threat to the greater good, for the sake of Doing What’s Right. But there’s two (2) exceptions to that rule, and the first is Bucky. Loyalty. He won’t kill or even fight his best friend. And the second thing he won’t let go of, thematically, is Peggy. It’s how we go from “I’m alone in the future” in the Avengers to, “and if I’m the only one, so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.” Peggy founded SHIELD. Steve didn’t have to take time out of the very carefully synchronized and tense mission to stop Project: Insight to make that announcement. He could have assumed everyone was HYDRA and got to work. But he stopped, he made a FAITH-BASED decision to let HYDRA know they were there and shoutout to any good people in the building because the movie was about trust. And Peggy showed Steve how to have faith and trust in people because she extended it to him. He puts so many eggs in the Big Risk basket during this movie based on trusting others even though Nick Fury’s crucial words were “Don’t Trust Anyone.” That’s the part of Steve that won’t get corroded away by the new world he’s come out of the ice into. And he shows it by loyalty to Bucky, brainwashed warts and all, and belief in people, which Peggy taught him. There’s a lot that could also be said about Sam and Natasha, too, but more on them later.

The main thing, in CA:TWS and Avengers, to remember about Steve’s character arc is that while he’s learning to hold on to IDEALS like belief in people and defending freedom and innocent people from bullies like HYDRA and Loki, how does he express those ideals? The only way he knows how. By fighting. By finding a mission to complete or a cause to serve and going for it. How else? He doesn’t know how to do anything else. “I guess I just like to know who I’m fighting.” Sam asks, “You thinking about getting out?” And hid knee-jerk reaction is “no.” Then, “I don’t know.” AND WHY DOESN’T HE KNOW? Because he doesn’t know what makes him happy. Seriously! What makes him happy?? People who know him. He won’t go on a date because he has “no shared life experience”. He has no fun plans Saturday because his “barbershop quartet are dead.” Hes straight up politely walking away, kind-celebrity-style, from a potential new friend in Sam until Sam starts talking about being a veteran. He tries to relate to others through fights because that seems to be the only thing left. People see Steve as Captain America, leader of the Avengers, Fighter for Freedom, in the future. Nobody sees the kid from Brooklyn anymore. And he doesn’t know who he is without a war.

Bringing us to Avengers: Age of Ultron. This one’s character development is so obvious it feels like they’re beating you over the head with it Hulk-style if you just take half a second to focus on Steve’s scenes. It starts with how he views the Maximoff twins—he can relate to their lab-rats-of-justice ideals, but nobody else shares that sympathy, as seen in the conversation with Maria Hill by the elevator. Then there’s the scene at the party. No, not the one where he reminds Bruce that he waited too long for Peggy, although HELLO HE’S STILL IN LOVE WITH PEGGY. But I’m talking about Steve and Sam’s conversation. Sam mentions home. In the middle of a party, Steve is asking about Bucky, his one remaining person who knows him, and reminiscing about Peggy, the other person who knew him. Home is in the people who know you. Steve wants that to be the Avengers. He wants them to be the people who get who he is, and I think they come close. Nat, Sam, and Tony especially. But Tony never separates who Steve is from this idea of him handed down from Howard Stark, and Steve is made aware of that over and over. Plus Tony doesn’t trust Steve; the team keeps clashing over trust issues in this film. And Tony even says, in the pivotal argument with Steve over the lumber pile, “isn’t this why we fight? So we can END the fight? So we can go HOME?” Steve can’t go home because Steve feels he has no home. He’s made The Fight his home. And he defaults right back to it in this argument: “every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people die.” So, again, he’s not ALONE anymore, in the sense that others will fight with him. But he’s still stuck on FIGHTING. And nobody really knows him. At the end of the film he says, almost reluctantly, “I’m home” and proceeds to go in and try to train new Avengers. Sam comes flying in among them—that’s a subtle reason why Steve is willing to make the Avengers/the Fight his new home. The one guy who might actually know him and represent who he is when he’s not behind the shield is missing, and Sam was supposed to be looking for him. Sam is with the Avengers, NOT looking for him.

But all of that is wrecked in Captain America: Civil War. Peggy, the love of his life, dies. Bucky, the friend he’d all but given up on finding, reappears and is in trouble. Without Peggy, there’s only one person left who knows who Steve really is, and with all that Bucky means to him, Steve isn’t going to give him up. It just so happens that that goal of remaining loyal to Bucky is synonymous with hanging on to his ideals: combatting the Sokovia Accords with a little moral kick in the seat from posthumous Peggy. I’m not going to go into why his actions about the Accords were in-character in this film. But it should be obvious from everything I’ve written, anyway. And remember, his faith is in people. Peggy taught him that, as we’ve established.

The main point of character development in this film for Steve is that he’s realized that he can’t give up who Steve Rogers is to be who everyone thinks Captain America is. When the rest of the world says that the Avengers should be little better than Government weapons and operate out of fear, Steve remembers that he’s the kid from Brooklyn who will fight for what’s right, shield or no shield. And Bucky symbolizes that aspect of who he really is, because Bucky knows him in a way that no remaining living character does. So when Steve is fighting Tony to keep Bucky safe, it’s not devoid of their conflict over ideals, either. Stave drops the shield but promises to still be there for Tony if he needs him. He’s not going to be everyone’s Captain America. He’s going to stay the good man Erskine gave a chance to, the good man Peggy believed in, and the good man only Bucky is alive to remember.

Now we get to Infinity War. And here there’s so much going on with so many characters that for Steve, it’s just important to realize that, although he’s finally hit a rhythm in this post-ice life as Steve Rogers, Fighter from Brooklyn, HOW is he hitting that rhythm? Settling down in Wakanda to hang with Bucky and the goats? Leaving the justice and peacekeeping to Tony Stark and the law-abiding heroes? No. He’s still fighting. And not just in response to Thanos—we’re shown hints and evidences that Cap and his Secret Avengers have been doing some behind-the-scenes peacekeeping. So why isn’t Steve finding peace with Bucky? Ask yourself that. He had time. He had anonymity, in Wakanda. He’d given up the Captain America mantle. They could’ve been roomies in that little hut, like when they were kids, right?

Wrong. But why?

It’s not because the Russos didn’t think of it. It’s not because of lazy writing. It’s because of Bucky.

Bucky is still Steve’s friend and Steve is still loyal to him. They don’t mean any less to each other than they did in 1945. But Bucky is not Bucky anymore. If you believe that Sebastian Stan did a good job playing Bucky, you have to remember that Sebastian Stan played him as if he would “never go back to being that guy you see in The First Avenger.” Bucky has evolved. He’s part Winter Soldier, now. Does he still know Steve better than anyone? Yes. But that is corrupted by the fact that Bucky was programmed to see Steve, the country Steve represented, and all of Steve’s ideals of freedom as targets to be destroyed for 90 years. That changes things. Steve is always going to do what is best for Bucky, because that’s the kind of friend he is. It was the kind of friend he was in 1945 when he rescued Bucky from Azzano, it’s the kind of friend he was when he wouldn’t fight him aboard Project: Insight, it’s the kind of friend he was when he gave up the Avengers and the shield for Bucky...and it’s the kind of friend he was when he left Bucky in the present.

In Avengers: Endgame Steve Rogers has experienced what it’s like to fight and lose again. He’s lost everything. He’s lost Peggy, and now Bucky, too. He’s lost everything and everyone that ever symbolized home...except, perhaps, Natasha. His friend who knows what it’s like to give up everything for ideals and fight to prove yourself. His friend who can’t stop fighting, either. But he loses her, too. Before he does, though, what does Steve say? In that first conversation before everything sets into motion? He says that maybe the fight doesn’t need to be fought by them. He says they need to get a life. But Nat says “you first.”

Who knows him the closest at this point? Nat. So who’s the best-qualified to point out where he’s at, character-development-wise? Nat. He sees his flaw. Steve Rogers sees that he can’t figure out who he is, without someone who knows him helping him. He sees that he defaults to finding a cause, a mission, a fight. Heck, the posters of him say “one last mission.” Not “one last sacrifice (of everything for Bucky).” One last MISSION, because that’s the only thing Steve knows how to do when he has nothing else.

“But he DID have something else! He had BUCKY! And his new family with the Avengers!”

Now we get to the part people don’t understand. They think, “how could Steve just leave everybody, especially Bucky, to fend for themselves?”

You didn’t see all that character development, especially in the first film where the differences between what Bucky means to Steve and what Peggy means to Steve are established.

Bucky is not the streetsmart protective charming brother figure he was in TFA. But listen. He’s not the broken Winter Soldier anymore either. Not in a way that needs Steve’s help. He’s not on the run. He’s got his memory back. He’s pardoned. He’s got Sam. Don’t you see, Bucky’s biggest problem is Steve’s, at this point? They MIRROR each other. Steve can’t figure out who he is if he isn’t fighting for everyone else because he’s been fighting for so long. And Bucky can’t figure out who he is with his friend, his brother figure, doing that and him. Because if Steve is fighting, Bucky will always be there to have his back. But fighting isn’t what Bucky needed anymore. It’s not what he wanted. Fighting is what Bucky is tired of.

And Steve Rogers can’t not be where the fight is.

Because without a fight, who is he?

Peggy Carter knows.

Steve Rogers left Bucky because Bucky needed him to leave. They needed to be friends from afar. And Steve left Bucky because Peggy Carter was home. Being with the woman who knew who he really was, as Steve “Kid From Brooklyn” Rogers, was the right move for his character because it shows that he’s finally ready to stop fighting. Stop being Captain America, lonely hero, man out of time. He’s ready to go and figure out who he is apart from all of that, with someone who really knows him. Could he have done that with Bucky? I don’t know. Seems to me, from what we’ve seen, that Bucky represented passively understanding Steve while Peggy, at the point they were separated, represented understanding Steve and moving him forward.

Bucky was “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

Peggy is “I had faith.”

Bucky was the guy to have Steve’s back in the fight. Peggy was the woman to show him he was meant for more. She represents his potential. She represents his ability to move on, see who he is when he’s doing more than following orders or standing up for honor or proving himself. It would have been out of character for him to stay in the present because new fights would have arisen, and he never would’ve put down the shield. He would’ve fought until someone killed him. And guess what? Bucky would’ve been right behind him, dragging himself into a fight when what he really needs is to step away from Steve and the baggage of his past for a bit. Not completely, but enough.

But this way? With Peggy? We get to see the guy who was always lonely and always learning how to be less alone actually do it. If you miss how significant that is, and you miss how much sense it makes, you don’t understand Steve Rogers at all.

#snowybookworm #I could’ve said less better #but here we are #avengers #steve rogers is an asshole #steve rogers #captain america #captain rogers #steggy #anti-stucky #captain America endgame #avengers:Endgame endgame #mcu #marvel #Marvel Cinematic Universe

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bamfdaddio · 3 years

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X-Men Abridged: 1979

The X-Men, those globe-trotting mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 117 - 128, X-Man Annual 3) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Terry Austin, George Perez

See Jean? Dark Phoenix is nothing: this is how you turn evil properly. (X-Men 123)

So, these things have been getting longer. Whoops.

Last year, plotlines tended to bleed over in one another, but this year is a lot more arc-based, jumping from location to location. This is basically X-Men: World Tour. After hitting Antarctica and the Savage Land, our team of merry mutants visits Japan, Canada, Egypt, Scotland and even a theme park! (And really, both Murder World and Disney Land are run by capitalist scumbags who pretend to be in it for the art, the only difference being that Arcade purposefully murders his guests.)

But, before we check in with the X-Men, we return to the Institute. See, there’s a mutual misunderstanding that wouldn’t be out of place in a Shakespearian tragedy: Jean and Charles think Beast and Jean were the only survivors of their fight with Magneto in Antarctica, while the rest of the X-Men believe they were the only survivors and Jean and Beast perished. Since the X-Men have been trapped in the Savage Land, nobody has been able to clear up the confusion.

With their grief driving a wedge between her and Charles, Jean leaves the mansion to deal with her feelings on her own. (She’ll end up on Muir Isle.)

This is adorable! And, if the whole "Empress of the known Universe "-thing blows up in her face, she can always become a barista at Starbucks. (X-Men 117)

Lilandra successfully persuades Xavier to leave Earth as her consort, now that there is nothing left for him. Xavier agrees, but not before having a flashback to the time he met another telepath named Amahl Farouk in Egypt. (The Shadow King isn’t relevant just yet, but he’ll become an important villain later on.)

The X-Men, meanwhile, cross a treacherous ocean on a raft and are picked up by a Japanese vessel. The Japanese do not allow them to call anyone, for some reason. Sure. When they finally dock in Japan - six weeks later - some arms dealer named Magnum Moses has put Agarishima is on fire. Like, literally an inferno of such big proportions that even Storm can’t do much.

What follows is an uninspired, slipshod adventure. For some reason, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing are there too, because the president needed American detectives to investigate Magnum Moses (?) and for some reason, Misty doesn’t know Jean thinks Scott is dead, nor does she mention she just saw Jean to Scott. AUGH. It will take almost a year for Scott to figure out Jean isn’t dead and it becomes increasingly more contrived. I get that Claremont needed to isolate Jean to make her susceptible to, er, a certain someone’s machinations, but holy fuck do I have to suspend my disbelief for all of this bullshit.

The only good things about this little arc are:

Sunfire is still a dick.

Wolverine meets Mariko Yashida, a Japanese girl who actually reciprocates his feelings, as opposed to Jean. I’ve mostly been ignoring his budding feelings for Jean, because I stopped finding love triangles interesting since I was 16 and watched The OC, so I can only applaud this development. Mariko brings out Wolverine’s soft side and it’s very adorable. Later on, she moves to NYC for some reason and they start dating.

There is something sweetly disarming about calling Wolverine ‘beautiful’. (X-Men 120)

Anyway, Magnum is holding Japan hostage: either they give him what he wants - I think that might be money, sorry, wasn't paying attention - or he sinks Japan by activating the fault lines and you guys, I am sooo bored. Unsurprisingly, the X-Men stop him and for once, it’s Banshee who gets to play the most important part.

It’s a good thing I was terrible at science, otherwise I might have to point out that earthquakes and sonic waves don’t work that way! I simply get to be entertained by little rascal Colossus, plugging his ears like a toddler, and Sunfire’s gritty determination to not be impressed by some silly screaming Irishman. (X-Men 119)

Banshee pays a steep price for the victory, however: his vocal chords end up damaged, leaving him effectively powerless for the remainder of the year.

Oh, and here’s interesting fact about the above spread: you may or may not know that Chris Claremont and John Byrne were notoriously terrible at working together; this issue became a particular sore point between the creators. See, Byrne wanted to run the above panel without the sound of ‘Kra-Koom’, believing the art was strong enough to convey the destruction. He was livid when the finished product ended up containing a sound effect after all. I get your frustration, man, but if you want a writer who knows how to say less with more, you should maybe not work with Claremont?

(One of the reasons Claremont liked being so verbose and descriptive in his scripts was because otherwise, the artist would fill in the blanks using his own imagination. It’s no wonder these two found it hard to work together.)

On the flight to the US of A, Colleen Wing hits on Cyclops. It has to be the jawline, right? It can’t be the personality. All of a sudden, a snow storm causes their plane to be diverted to Calgary. The cause of this delay is Alpha Flight, who want their Wolverine back!

When even the narration is all “and they think they’re equal to any team of superheroes”, you know you’re a bunch of C-listers. Ugh. (X-Men 121)

Vindicator, previously known as Captain Alpha. He changed his name after accidentally shooting Moira that one time, which is exactly the kind of hollow gesture this dude would make. Ugh. If you think his new-found remorse won’t let him threaten an airplane chock full of innocent passengers, you would be wrong.

Shaman, doctor by day, magic user by night. Him and his magical little pouch are to blame for the snow storm.

Sasquatch, Canada’s answer to the Hulk. (Hilariously, the theory on why he turns furry instead of green is because he’s closer to the Aurora Borealis and this somehow messes with the radiation?)

Snowbird, a young Arctic goddess. Precious. To be cherished. Barely there for this adventure, sadly.

Northstar, an arrogant, hot-headed speedster, the twin brother of

Aurora, a lover, not a fighter. Together, they have light powers.

Vindicator and Shaman hog most of the spotlight, so Alpha Flight continues to be the ever-loving worst. They’re really wasting Northstar’s first appearance here. Here's why they suck:

Alpha Flight accidentally smashes a plane and keeps threatening to drag Wolverine back to the military against his will.

They push the cover price of the comic to a whoppin’ 40 cents.

Johnny fuckin’ Hudson even provokes Storm into an attack in the middle of a mall.

Shaman lets his blizzard get out of control.

After Storm fixes this mistake for him, Northstar has the gall to knock her out, “because she’s obviously the strongest”. Like, you’re not wrong, but damn, y’all a bunch of unpleasant superheroes.

To stop the fight, Wolverine decides to turn himself in. The X-Men leave, but while flying back, they already make plans to save their teammate. Wolverine saves them the trouble, casually sauntering into the cockpit while claiming that pulling a fast one on them was the easiest thing ever.

To be fair, I understand why you’d want to put a country between yourself and those bozos.

And finally, the X-Men are home! Xavier left them the equivalent of a Post-It saying “off to space”, so they try to pick up their life as best they can. None of them contact Jean’s parents, make an attempt to visit her grave or happen to see Beast on TV and by now, my suspension of disbelief is stretched so far that it could replace Reed Richards on the Fantastic Four.

Ororo, meanwhile, makes a little pilgrimage to Harlem, to the building she grew up in before she moved to Cairo.

I have failed you as a recapper, because I have absolutely no idea how to parse this scene. (X-Men 122)

I think I’d have to write a full-on thesis before I could properly analyse this, because so many things intersect here: poverty and racism, the boundaries of a superhero comic, confronting a (shared) past. I can’t even fully gauge if this is a clumsy, privileged attempt at tackling a serious topic or rather, a valuable moment in a comic that continually tries to expand on its themes of racism, exclusion and prejudice. One thing I will note is:

Luke Cage delivers the sort of trite conclusion that they’re superheroes: they’re better at fighting Galactus than at fixing the human condition. Point is, he kind of has to believe that, doesn’t he? It’s the sort of blind spot we all permit ourselves: you can’t fix everything. None of us have the power to fix the earth, or humanity, or the economy, or whatever: if you’re lucky, you can maybe tend to your own garden and leave it better than you found it, ensuring some happiness for yourself and a few loved ones.

Chasing bank robbers is easy. Superhero stuff. But here? Who do you attack here? These kids, or the system that failed them? You can’t really punch a needle exchange into being. Maybe that’s the appeal of superhero comics: there’s a clear villain, which is so sorely lacking in our day to day lifes. There, we are ruled by systems that are rooted in inequality, patriarchy, gender...

But Storm isn’t like Luke Cage, not in this regard. Before she became an X-Man, she used her powers to help people that came to her. And the whole point of the X-Men - other than beating up villains in colorful spandex - is that they want to change the system. They want to fix things, they want to fix a dark part of human nature, the part that hates which we fear.

Storm doesn’t really respond to Luke Cage here, but we know she’ll keep fighting the good fight, despite insurmountable odds. You can’t fix mankind, I don’t think, but you can sure as hell try.

*coughs*

Anyway!

Black Tom and Juggernaut hire Arcade… to kill the X-Men! I’m not sure why? I thought these two usually attempted to solve things on their own and Arcade’s fee is, like, a million bucks, so…? Maybe Black Tom asked his boyfriend what he wanted for his birthday and Juggernaut clenched his fists and said “I WANT THE X-MEN DEAD” and things escalated from there.

So, Arcade is a subtle villain. While Scott and Colleen Wing are on a date, this happens:

I can’t decide which is funnier: kidnapping people by sneaking up on them with A GARBAGE TRUCK or the fact that Spider-Man deduces this is Arcade’s doing by the noise alone. (X-Men 123)

Spider-Man doesn’t really figure into the rest of the plot, by the way.

Arcade successfully kidnaps all of the X-Men (and their dates: Colleen, Amanda and Betsy). Who is this Arcade? Well, he is an assassin who lets his victims run through a gauntlet of some sort, testing them with potentially deadly results in his Murderworld. He’s like a discount-combo of Saw and the Joker, except a lot less competent and a lot more spoiled rich kid. He barely kills anyone, ever, until maaaybe Avengers Arena, some forty years later.

Arcade veers heavily to the silly side of the silly-to-sinister scale, but he at least commits to a theme. Bonus is that trapping your heroes in a bunch of ricocheting balls fubars them ever-so beautifully. (X-Men 123)

This whole adventure is very silly and has very little bearing on the overarching plot, but it’s a fun enough romp: Cyclops nearly gets squashed by a hydraulic press, Nightcrawler gets attacked by bumper cars with chain saws attached to them, stuff like that. The absolute best part is when Colossus is hypnotized by an illusion of the KGB and becomes THE PROLETARIAN.

His insignia is Vladimir Lenin, y’all.

After various shenanigans, everybody is freed from their respective booby traps, everyone except Colossus. See, Piotr has been feeling down, torn between the exciting new loyalty to the X-Men and the more dutiful loyalty to his family and his motherland. (Also, he’s been feeling like a failure because he came up short a couple a times, aw.) Those feelings are exactly what Arcade has been abusing, but when Colossus comes in for the kill, Storm gives the most heartfelt plea:

I’m not crying, you’re crying. (X-Men 124)

Arcade’s all: “Eh, can’t win ‘em all” and yeets the X-Men out of Murderworld. The story has barely any other repercussions, except we stop seeing Colleen Wing and Betsy (Piotr’s date) after this. To be fair, being kidnapped by a super villain is a good reason to stop seeing someone.

Even more inconsequential is the adventure in the Annual. The only important thing to glean from there is that, when Thor is unavailable, Storm is a suitable substitution. Couldn’t agree more.

The quality of the comic has been steadily ascending throughout the year and ends on a supremely high note: Proteus. Because I think it might be Claremont’s best work so far, I’ll be dedicating a full post to that. (Man, that 10-picture-limit is a real bummer, huh?)

Ugliest Costume: I don’t care, I just want someone to cosplay the Proletarian.

Best new character: There’s actually a few options - Snowbird, Northstar, Proteus - but both Jean-Paul and Narya don’t really show their best sides this year, so I’m going in a different direction. My pick is the Shadow King. He is a very effective foil to Xavier, perhaps even moreso than Magneto. I know I rag on Xavier and his cavalier attitude to bending others to his will a lot, but imagine if you had his powers: wouldn’t you just make people do whatever you want? Just, like, all the time? The Shadow King is an effective reminder of what Charles would have been like, had he been immoral. (Well, more immoral.)

No matter how cool your psychic battle may be, this is what it looks like to the rest of the world. (X-Men 117)

Turns evil: Colossus, for the first time!

What to read: 117, 125 - 129.

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zandracourt · 3 years

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I’ve been reflecting a lot on Cas’ recent confession of love and the responses I’ve been seeing across tumblr and Twitter. As a Destiel fic writer, I am thrilled to see this become canon and as a queer woman, also really touched to see how much Misha has embraced this as a really significant thing. I already ordered my Only Love merch. So I’m content with it all as much as it is. SPN has never made queer representation its issue. SPN *has* responded to its fanbase, who have both pushed the importance of representation and also brought the actors into a realm of growth over queer issues that they may never have come to without this show and this fandom. For that reason, I don’t think it’s helpful to be mad at Jensen or the Showrunners for Destiel not being perfect. You don’t have to celebrate them as allies, but the anger and vitriol just doesn’t help, in my opinion.

BUT...where my thoughts have been going is around what it means to be an actor in a ‘ship and what the impact of the story has on the actors, the fandom, and the constant dance of who controls the story because I think this has been something that even with straight characters has had serious impacts on how fans feel about an ending.

My first fandom, Starsky & Hutch, was mostly written by a gay man who wrote “straight” characters because that was what they had to be in 1974. The characters and show plots were such that the actors felt the love underneath the words and acted accordingly. Back then, it wasn’t so much queer baiting as queer coding. I find it amazing that my parents never thought for a minute Starsky and Hutch were gay, but even as a 7 year old, I knew they were in love and saw them that way. And anyone who watches the show now, it’s so clear that it’s almost laughable. When their show won the Peopel’s Choice award in 1977, David Soul said in his acceptance speech that the best part of being on this show was that people saw two men who “could be anything”. He knew that queer folk read their characters as gay and that straight folks saw them as straight and he was happy for both to be true. While the show never had an explicitly romantic declaration, the characters held hands, hugged, and in the final episode, their final scene is Hutch crawling into Starsky’s hospital bed with him, something done with amusement, but was completely coded to mean something else. It was never “canon”, but the ‘ship has lasted 46 years with new fic being written even now.

In the new SW films, actor Oscar Isaac was not at all quiet about his feelings that his character, Poe Dameron, was in love with Finn. He stated he played him that way (and was not directed otherwise) and he even explicitly asked for that ship to be made canon. He was told no and that is not how the story ended. The romance plot was instead focused on two other characters. Some fans liked that. Many didn’t. In general, though, the story is open-ended enough that shippers could have Stormpilot be their ship and there is nothing that really contradicts that. In that scenario, Oscar had his sense of who this character was and felt strongly about that, but in the end, it wasn’t his story, so the ending was what it was.

Hawai’i Five-0 ended its 10 year run last spring. Actor Scott Caan said in an interview during the show’s 5-year mark that he wanted to see his charcter have a romantic story line with his other lead, Steve McGarrett. And while Scott did not go so far as Oscar Isaac did to say he made his acting choices based on that, watching him and Alex play their characters, there was definitely some intention to show their characters as loving one another. Actor Alex O’Loughlin voiced a few times over the years that he felt his character would not get back together with Catherine, a woman his character was on-again, off-again with, because he felt Steve had reached his limit with what Catherine had done to him. The series made a decision to end with Steve leaving Hawai’i behind and flying away with Catherine. Neither actor has commented much about the show’s ending, but clearly it went against what both actors had publicly expressed in the past. Again, they don’t control the story, but they do understand their characters after playing them for so many years and they are invested in that. In that sense, the actor’s subsequent silence about how the show ended says quite a bit. And McDanno fans were very unsatisfied with the show’s ending, myself included.

So we come to Destiel. Over the years, this ship has been very controversial in part because one actor (Misha) has clearly been OK with his character being perceived as being in love with Dean, while the other actor (Jensen) has not. At times he has been very negative about it, and that has been taken by some fans to imply how Jensen feels about homosexuality in general. I’m not convinced it does, but I understand why people feel that way. Over the 12 years since Cas’ introduction on the show, there clearly has been a shift from the writers and showrunners avoiding the topic entirely, to talking about it, and now to having Cas confess his feelings of love to Dean in canon. In the days since, Misha has been unequivocal in saying Cas is romantically in love with Dean and that he has played him that way, at least for this season and likely longer. Misha is proud that he was able to advocate for Cas to be gay and he clearly understands why it is important for the show to have made this choice. For Jensen’s part, however, he has stated he has not played Dean that way and from video clips of him talking about the show’s ending, it appears that he needed some convincing to accept this as the story. To his credit though, once he was convinced that this was something show creator (Eric Kripke) could envision as part of Dean’s character arc, he was on-board with this ending and feels statisfied with it. And I think some of the frustration folks feel stems from both in how the actors portrayed their characters and in which takes were chosen to be in the final cuts of episodes. In that way, the show has fed this ship, whether the actors realized it or not, and that is why Destiel has felt particularly painful at times. The fanbase has been gaslighted for seeing it at all (from actors and showrunners) while the directors have seemed to go out of their way to choose shots where the actor’s choices were more tender and affectionate and write lines where characters make explicit statements about Dean and Cas as romantic. I can’t help but wonder if Jensen really didn’t see Dean as being in love with Cas, but that we saw Jensen’s own affinity for Misha bleed through in their incredible chemsitry together or if Jensen has just been in denial of this ‘ship having teeth for his own personal reasons. I don’t know and so far, he hasn’t been willing to talk about that. Maybe he will once it’s over. Maybe he won’t and I’m not going to be angry with him for it. He’s an incredible actor and he’s lived this character for 15 years, so he has a right to who he believed Dean is and isn’t.

The issues of representation continue to be pressing and what I see happening with Destiel and these other ‘ships is exciting because it shows growth on all sides. We have audiences able to voice not only how they perceive characters without shame but can express a desire for characters to be together. None of that is new for straight characters, but it is for queer characters. We have actors who not only can see these same things, but feel enough ownership of their characters to expresss what they believe their characters would do or feel. And we have showrunners who are going to make their story, sometimes in response to feedback from their fans and actors, and sometimes in spite of it.

What Destiel becoming canon gives me hope for is that as new shows come into being, characters that take off, actors who have unexpected chemistry, and ‘ships that gain a life of their own, will lead to shows that are less inclined to care if those ships are queer or not and just go with what fans respond to. That it will normalize that people can (and do) come out an all different times of life, even after being het-married, having kids, or presenting as straight to everyone else for 40 years. That it will reflect that sometimes, it’s not about having been queer or straight from the beginning, but be about that ONE relationship that just is different, special, or grows into a deep love regardless of the genders of the people. I hope we can get to a place where deep intimacy between same-gender characters doesn’t have to be a war over romance vs. platonic and the story can just develop without the pressure of representation because queer characters will be so prevalent that we don’t have to feel like we must cling so tightly to every one we get. I hope we can come to a place where sometimes relationships don’t go romantic because one person (regardless of gender) just doesn’t feel that way, because that is very fucking true in real life. I want to watch shows where the sexual identity of any character doesn’t have to be etched in stone from the word go, never to change ever because that’s boring and limiting, and honestly, not real life.

I am deeply grateful for actors like Isaac, Caan, and Collins who are willing to see characters outside the heteronormative lens and to advocate for queer romantic arcs. I’m thankful to showrunners who are making shows with greater queer representation than ever before. And I’m grateful to actors like Ackles, who while it wasn’t who he thought his character was, was able to expand his view enough to go where the story was going to go. The arc of the universe does bend towards justice, and we will get there. Until then, there’s fic. And thank God for that.

#mcdanno #starsky and hutch #supernatural #destiel #stormpilot #zandra writes stuff #Scott Caan #Misha Collins #Oscar Isaac #Jensen Ackles

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kyber-crystal · 4 years

Text

Back to the Future

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Words: ~1.9k

Warnings: none except fluff and my bad writing bc this is kinda old, btw this is an AU 2017 timeline shhh steve is 33/99 in this hehe

Summary: In which you give Steve the best birthday present possible, with the help of a few genius Avengers and time travel.

"Hey! It's one of my favorite kickass superheroes!"

"My favorite Baskin Robbins employee!"

Scott squeezed you into one of his signature tight bear hugs. "Hi! It's been a while."

"Two months is pretty long, yeah," you nodded in agreement. "Where's Cassie?"

"She wanted to come, but had to go to a friend's birthday party," he explained. "I can bring her here next time she's free, though."

"Sounds good."

"So, what'd Tony call me over for again?"

You quickly looked around the lounge before lowering your voice to a whisper. "Steve's birthday is today and we wanted to plan a special surprise for him."

"Ooh, surprises? I love surprises!" he said as you sat down at the kitchen counter together, taking a bite out of a chocolate chip cookie. "I'm listening."

"So..." you rested your chin on your hand as you spoke, "we're going to bring his mother back from the 40's..."

"That's amazing! So everyone else is in on this, right?"

"Yeah. I'm having Sam keep Cap out of the compound for at least another hour by making them take a run throughout all of Central Park. We should probably head out now. You got the van, right? And Luis?"

"Yeah, he's waiting outside by the curb. I'll let him know."

"Okay. Meet us in the hangar bay."

Sliding your army green parka, you grabbed your purse and took the elevator down to the giant hangar bay, where the rest of the team had all gathered. Tony was fiddling with the controls panel as Natasha opened the gates, allowing Luis and Scott to park the van inside.

"Aye, wassup, Y/N?" Luis stepped out of the vehicle as Scott prepped it for the time travel, giving you a high-five. "So I hear you're planning a surprise for your boyfriend?"

"Steve's not my boyfriend," you shook your head.

"Yeah? Then what's with all those lingering gazes?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't."

"When are they getting back?" Wanda asked you.

"We have about..." you tapped your watch a few times, "...exactly 52 minutes from now."

"I feel kinda bad," Peter admitted, "I mean, as soon as Cap wakes up we kick him out of the compound to go running and we're acting like we all forgot what today is."

"Don't worry, kiddo, this'll make up for it," Tony reassured him, clasping his shoulder. "I'm sure of it."

"Alright, so here's the plan," you clasped your hands together, "two of you will be sent back to 1935, a year before Sarah Rogers passed away. You'll explain the situation when you arrive and while that's happening, the rest of us will start setting up the party in the lounge. When you're ready, press the buttons on your suits and come back. Capiche?"

"Capiche," everyone replied in unison.

"Great. Who's willing to volunteer?"

"Clint and I can go," Bucky offered, glancing over at the archer for confirmation, and he nodded in response. "I know my way around there very well."

"Alright. Everyone else, you know what to do. Let's get to work."

Both of them being over six feet tall just like Steve himself, and having speedy and nimble limbs, Thor and Loki had the giant banner reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAP!, the streamers, and balloons up and ready within 15 minutes. Wanda helped you, Natasha, and Peter started laying out all the food on the counter, while Tony, Rhodey, Vision, and Bruce organized the gifts and got the cards ready for you all to sign.

By the time everyone was finished doing their respective jobs, you had roughly twenty minutes before the two men were scheduled to return from their mid-morning run. The elevator doors slid open to reveal Luis and Scott standing there with Clint, Bucky, and a golden-haired woman who had the same piercing eyes as your Steve.

"Hi," she greeted, "I've heard from these two gentlemen here that you are the Avengers. How is Steve doing?"

"He's on a run with Sam," you replied. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Rogers. I'm Y/N."

"You're even lovelier than James described," she smiled warmly, shaking your hand. "And please, call me Sarah."

"I'm really not," you grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck, "But thank you. I can see where he gets his kindness from."

"Oh, you're too sweet. By the way, how old is he turning today? I've lost track of time. I guess that's what age does to you, huh?"

"Well, aside from being frozen and all...33," you returned her smile upon seeing her amazed look, "Yeah, I know. I can't believe it either, even though I'm not much younger than he is."

"My boy really has grown up, hasn't he...Does he treat you well, Miss Y/N?"

"Of course!" you laughed as you set the cake on the dining table. "He's a great leader, and teammate." "I've always pushed him to try and find a lady since he entered high school. From what I’ve learned, you seem like the right one for him," she commented.

"Me? No," you brushed the thought off, "We're just friends."

"I may not have known you for very long, but I saw that little twinkle in your eyes ladies only get when they show interest in someone. And Steve, he's very lucky to have you, you know."

"Mrs—Sarah! We aren't—"

"See, even she agrees!" Bucky pointed over at her. "We've all been trying to push them together from the moment they first joined the Avengers."

"When is he getting back?"

"A little under 15, ma'am," Natasha responded. "That should be enough time for the finishing touches."

It was all chaotic from there; with everyone rushing around and making last-minute changes such as how everything was arranged and all. As soon as you got the text from Sam that they were on their way up, you looked up and immediately told the others, as Tony ordered them all to get in position.

"FRIDAY, turn the lights off," he commanded.

"Yes, sir."

The lights dimmed and turned off, and you, Natasha, and Wanda crouched behind the kitchen counter together, as the others hid behind the dining table or simply stood there when there was no more room left, and Peter curled himself into a small ball underneath. Sarah was standing around the corner, behind the pantry.

"Yes, that would be perfect."

"Hello?" Steve called out as he stepped out of the elevator with Sam by his side, looking around all confused. "Tony? Y/N? Nat? Where is everyone?"

"Don't know, man," Sam feigned cluelessness, "Maybe they went out or something."

You felt a pang in your chest upon peeking over slightly and seeing the hurt look briefly flash across his features. Locking eyes with Tony across the kitchen, you gave him a nod that signaled it's go time.

The lights flickered on and everyone jumped out from their hiding spots. "SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE!"

It took Steve a moment to register what was going on before he reacted, mouth dropping open slightly as he took in the scene before him. "You guys did this all...for me? When? How? And why?"

"Because we wanted to make this year extra special for you, Captain," Peter stated with a wide grin, spreading his arms out. "You deserve it. Happy uh...9..33rd!"

"Oh, wait! Before we get to the cake and all, there's one more thing!" Your face brightened as you spoke. "Sarah? You can come out now."

"Sarah what...Who are you talking about?" His brows furrowed together in confusion. "What are you..."

"Hi, Steve," she stepped around the corner, approaching her son. "Happy birthday."

"Ma?" A look of shock and disbelief appeared on his face, eyes widening slightly. "Are you...is this real?"

"Yes, dear, I'm real," Sarah reassured him. "I'm sorry for missing out on so much...I wish I'd been there to see you grow up to become this man you are now. James made sure to catch me up on all that's happened this century."

Tears began watering in his eyes and he was rendered speechless. "I..."

"Hey hey hey, don't cry, sweetheart," she laughed as she wrapped her arms around his broad frame, patting his back as his body began to tremble slightly from his sobs. "It's okay, I'm here."

"Aw, I'm getting all emotional now," Luis sniffed. "This is too much sentiment for me, man."

Steve pulled away a few moments later, laughing as he wiped away the remaining tears from his face. "I can't believe this."

"It was Y/N's idea!" Peter exclaimed. "You have her to thank, not us. You can thank Wanda and I for the cake, though! But this, was all her idea."

He immediately pulled you into his arms, rocking you from side to side and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"You're the best," he mumbled, burying his face into the crook of your neck, as your arms circled around his torso. "I can't thank you enough. How am I supposed to payback for this?"

"It's fine, there's no need to thank me," you chuckled. "As long as I get to see you happy, that's enough as it is."

...

Sarah agreed to stay for the week so she could make up for lost time with Steve before returning back to her normal timeline. After eating Wanda and Vision's delicious feast of Salisbury steak and potatoes, you got ready for cake and presents, sitting around on the couches in the living room together.

"So, from what James has told me here," Sarah spoke up, "Steve has seemed to taken a liking to someone not long after joining the so-called initiative? He talks about you nonstop when you depart for missions without him, Y/N, and you do as well."

All heads immediately whipped over to face you.

"Oh, ha ha, that..." you chuckled nervously, feeling your face heat up. It didn't help that Steve was sitting right next to you, and could probably see how red your cheeks were. "We're just friends, nothing more. Neither one of us has feelings for the other."

"LIES! LIES!" Pietro shouted. "That's a lie!"

"I'm not gonna deny that, because why lie when the answer's already been made obvious?" Steve shrugged. Everyone's jaws dropped at his statement.

"Okay, the ice cream cake's gonna melt if we keep sitting here and watching the lovebirds," Tony cleared his throat and began lighting up the candles one by one. "Let's do this."

After a quick chorus of 'Happy Birthday' (which was surprisingly good to the point that Wanda videotaped it since she claimed you sounded like a church choir) you were on to cutting the cake.

"I just wanted to ask something really quick. I know it's your birthday and all, but...where's the engagement ring, Cap?" Peter questioned, a mischievous grin on his face. "Are you gonna pop the question?"

"There's an engagement ring?"

"No, Ma, he's joking," Steve chuckled, though his face was now a deep shade of scarlet. "We haven't taken that step yet."

"Yet?" You looked over at him, confused. "So we're dating now, huh? Didn't know that."

"I guess we are," he smiled, holding your gaze for a second longer than normal.

"Well then," Sarah beamed, "you have my approval. I wish you the best of luck in your relationship."

"Hahaha, we will never let you fair Midgardians live this moment down!" Thor boomed, voice muffled by the piece of cake stuffed in his mouth.

#avengers imagines #steve rogers x reader #avengers x reader #captain america imagine #captain america x reader #marvel fic #avengers fanfiction #captain america one shot #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america fanfiction #steve rogers fic #captain america fic #chris evans x reader #chris evans imagine

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new-sandrafilter · 4 years

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Timothée Chalamet and Eileen Atkins Interview - British Vogue May 2020

“Maybe your knuckles weren’t bleeding, but there was ice,” Timothée Chalamet tells Dame Eileen Atkins. He is recounting, with no small amount of awe, how he first came to hear of the legendary 85-year-old actor with whom he is about to appear at The Old Vic. It transpires that Oscar Isaac, Chalamet’s co-star in the upcoming blockbuster Dune, was at the receiving end of Atkins’ fist in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (all in the name of acting, of course). Chalamet was duly impressed.

“I gave him the worst time of his life,” says Atkins, bristling at the memory, before merrily launching into several candid, very dame-like stories from her time on set – “That was a nightmare movie. A nightmare.”

It is a Saturday afternoon in late February, and the two actors – one a titan of British theatre with an eight-decade career; the other, Hollywood’s most in-demand young leading man, with an insatiable Instagram following – have just finished being photographed together for Vogue. Chalamet, 24, in louche, low-slung denim and a white T-shirt, has folded his Bambi limbs into a chair next to Atkins, whose hawkish frame, in a navy jumper and jeans, belies her 85 years.

“Do you like being called Tim or Timothée or what?” Atkins asks in her warm but brisk RP, all trace of her Tottenham upbringing erased.

“Whatever works,” he replies in a bright American accent, that shock of chestnut hair falling into his eyes. “Anything.”

“So you won’t object to ‘darling’? I call everyone darling. I’m told I mustn’t say it these days.” He assures her he is fine with it: “It’s a rite of passage, being called darling by Dame Eileen Atkins.”

“You always, always, have to put the dame in, otherwise you can’t address me,” she jokes.

It’s good the two are getting all this sorted now. A couple of days after our interview they will begin rehearsals for a seven-week run of Amy Herzog’s play 4000 Miles, in which they star as a grandmother and grandson, each quietly dealing with their own grief. Chalamet takes on the role of Leo Joseph-Connell, a somewhat lost 21-year-old who experiences a tragedy while on a 4,000-mile-long cycle ride with his best friend. Atkins plays Vera Joseph, his widowed 91-year-old grandmother, upon whose Manhattan doorstep Leo unexpectedly arrives in the middle of the night, unsure of where else to go. What follows is a wonderful, and wonderfully witty, study in human relationships, a portrait of two generations with decades between them trying to make sense of the world.

Its stars, who’ve met twice previously, in New York last year, are still very much getting to know each other – and are confident in the appeal. “There are things like this play – hoping I don’t butcher it – where you can just sit back and go, ‘Oh, this is a delicious meal,’” says Chalamet. Atkins agrees. “I have a phrase in mind that I shouldn’t really say because it’s going to sound terrible in print.” Which is? “I find it a dear little play, a really dear little play. I think it should be very moving. But who knows? We might f**k it up.”

It’s unlikely. Atkins has been a regular on The Old Vic’s stage since the 1960s, going toe-to-toe with greats from Laurence Olivier to Alec Guinness, and fellow dames (and close friends) Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. Chalamet, meanwhile, is a relative novice, with only two professional plays under his belt. But since his turn as Elio in 2017’s Call Me by Your Name (for which he was Oscar-nominated), his celluloid rise has been meteoric. Roles in Lady Bird, Little Women, The King and Wes Anderson’s upcoming The French Dispatch have not only earned him the slightly fraught badge of “heart-throb”, but proved him to be among the most captivating actors of his generation.

He says he couldn’t resist the opportunity to come to the capital. “There was something exciting about doing a play that feels very New York in London,” Chalamet explains of taking on the part. He’s a diehard theatre fan, too, revealing he saw the six-and-a-half-hour epic The Inheritance – twice. “There are films like The Dark Knight or Punch-Drunk Love or Parasite that can give you a special feeling. But nothing will be like seeing Death of a Salesman on Broadway with Philip Seymour Hoffman or A Raisin in the Sun with Denzel Washington.”

Herzog’s writing particularly spoke to him. “Leo’s in a stasis that was very appealing to me,” he continues. “We find our crisis in moments of stasis, but there’s an irony to it when you’re young, because the law of the land would have you think that to be young is to be having fun, to be coming into your own. But as everyone at this age who’s going through it knows, it’s often a shitshow.”

It’s safe to say that, in casting terms, director Matthew Warchus, also artistic director of The Old Vic, has hit the jackpot. He first took the play to Atkins three years ago, but it was only towards the end of 2019 that Chalamet came on board. When it was announced, in December, that Hollywood’s heir apparent to Leonardo DiCaprio would be making his London stage debut, the news was met with a level of hysteria not usually associated with the 202-year-old theatre’s crowd.

“Oh, my friends have told me who the audience is,” Atkins chimes in when I ask who they think will be coming to see the show. “It’s 40 per cent girls who want to go to bed with Timothée, it’s 40 per cent men who want to go to bed with Timothée, and it’s 20 per cent my old faithfuls.” Is Chalamet prepared for the onslaught? “I think it will be 100 per cent Eileen’s faithfuls,” he demurs.

On the surface, they can seem quite the odd couple. Chalamet, raised in Manhattan by an American dancer-turned-realtor mother and French father, an in-house editor at the United Nations, may be living a breathless, nomadic movie-star life but there’s an iron core of Gen Z earnestness there. He arrives on set with minimal fuss, even deciding to wear the clothes he came in for one shot, before knocking out some push-ups, politely ordering an omelette and generally being divinely well-mannered.

He turns on the star power for the camera, though, and I can confirm it’s as dazzling up close as it is on the red carpet, where he has, famously, casually redrawn the rules for male dressing. From that Louis Vuitton sparkly bib at the 2018 Golden Globes, to a dove-grey satin Haider Ackermann tux at Venice last year, he’s a true fashion darling. Then, of course, there’s his dating life – from Lourdes Ciccone Leon to Lily-Rose Depp – that remains an endless source of fascination to millions worldwide. (All this, it must be said, is of significantly less interest to Dame Eileen.)

Atkins started dance lessons aged three, shortly before the start of the Second World War. By 12, she was performing professionally in pantomime, not far from where she grew up in north London, the youngest daughter in a working-class family. A fast-established theatre star, wider fame didn’t find her until late in life. Despite memorable turns in Upstairs, Downstairs and Gosford Park, it was the 2000 television hits Cranford and Doc Martin, when she was in her early seventies, that finally made her a household name. Today, she lives alone in west London, since her second husband, the TV and film producer Bill Shepherd, died in 2016. She has often spoken of being happily childless, and has zero time for razzmatazz.

And yet, despite their differences, the pair appear perfectly matched. They already have their grandmother-grandson dynamic down pat. Atkins does a fine line in mischievous eyebrow-raising, and at one point recites a limerick that is, honestly, so rude it almost makes her co-star blush. Chalamet, meanwhile, is politeness personified, still trying to work out his thoughts on various subjects, less inclined to give so much of himself away. There is a physical likeness, too, in their delicate features and fine bone structure. They share a naturally melancholic look, one that melts away when they laugh.

Their upcoming play, which premiered to rapturous reviews Off-Broadway in 2011, “about a block” from Chalamet’s high school, LaGuardia, could have been written for them. “Other than not being American, I’m very like the old woman,” says Atkins of the Pulitzer-shortlisted play. “I can’t be bothered to learn the internet.” If there’s one thing she won’t tolerate in rehearsals, it’s people on their phones. That’s the only thing that will “piss me off ”, she says, brusquely.

Ah, phones. Are they really the symbol of generational disconnect? “It’s easy to point to these things,” Chalamet says, tapping his phone on the table, “as the cause or the symptom, but I think my generation is a guinea pig generation of sorts. We’re figuring out the pros and cons and limits of technology.”

Equally, Atkins is keen to distance herself from some of the criticism levelled at her age group. “There’s a saying isn’t there: if you’re not very left wing when you’re young, you’re heartless. And if you’re not very right wing when you’re old, you’re foolish. I’m not political, but I’m not with this government I can assure you – and I’m not with Brexit. I wanted to wear a sweater saying ‘I did not vote Brexit’, because it was all old people who did. Not me, not me,” she snaps. “I went on the march.”

Both are in agreement that intergenerational friendships are too rare these days. “So. Important,” Chalamet says, hitting the table between each word. “There is so much to learn from people who have walked the path of life. That’s why I’m so looking forward to these next couple of months.”

Atkins is thoughtful on the matter. “I don’t miss the fact I don’t have children, but I do envy my friends who have grandchildren,” she says. “About five or six years ago I met a couple of young people – they are just about 30 this year – and, do you know, we go out together. And people immediately say to me, ‘Are these your grandchildren?’ And I say, ‘No.’ And they say, ‘Your godchildren?’ And I say, ‘No, they’re just friends.’ Everybody thinks there is something weird about all three of us. They just don’t get it. But the boy makes me laugh more than anybody and the girl is enchanting. I have more fun with them than I do with almost anybody else.”

I remind Atkins about her description of today’s youth as being overly serious. “I do call them the New Puritans, yes,” she says, before motioning to her young co-star. “He probably drinks like a fish.”

Chalamet, currently single, is remaining tight-lipped about plans for his new London life, and how many late-night manoeuvres in Soho or Peckham it may involve. “I’ve got friends here, which is nice. But I’m here for this – to be terrified at The Old Vic.”

Before we leave, there is a final thing to clear up – Atkins’ aforementioned limerick. “Do you know about the Colin Farrell situation?” Eileen asks Timothée. No, comes his reply. “Better get it over with now because someone will tell you,” she says, proceeding to explain how, when she was “69, about to be 70” and filming Ask the Dust with a 27-year-old Farrell, “he made a pass at me. He came to my hotel room. He was enchanting. I let him chat for two hours, thoroughly enjoying it, but no not that. He was very cross I didn’t.”

But then, she explains guiltily, she later told the story during “some stupid TV show” (Loose Women), where despite her best efforts at keeping Farrell’s identity secret, the internet did its thing and news got out. An apology to Farrell was required. “So I left a limerick on Colin’s phone…” she says. She clears her throat: “There once was a **** of a dame…” she begins, in her imitable theatrical timbre, before reeling off one of the filthiest rhymes I’ve ever heard.

There is a moment of stunned laughter. “Wow, that’s sincerely amazing,” comes Chalamet’s response, as Atkins finishes the verse. He gives her a solemn oath: “I promise I won’t hit on you.”

4000 Miles is at The Old Vic, SE1, from 6 April

#timmy #timothee chalamet #4000 miles #british vogue app #Eileen Atkins #my edit

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alcalavicci · 3 years

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So there’s a really interesting interview with Deborah Pratt here. If you don’t want to pay for it, I’ll paste what I can below, but a few points first.

Deborah says she doesn’t know where Dean is, and says she misses him. I guess she hasn’t had contact with him since he left for NZ? And with Russ Tamblyn saying Dean’s hanging in there in answer to a recent Twitter question, that brings up more questions about his condition.

Deborah claims she came up with the idea of Quantum Leap, which I’ve never seen come up before. Also Don wanted to send Sam home?? I feel like she’s misremembering a lot of details/making herself seem better than she is.

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time tht his next leap will be the leap home…”

The premise of Quantum Leap succinctly and empathetically explained by a voice that spoke to viewers week to week, setting the scene at the opening of the episode. It is a voice that left an indelible print on the show, from its inception to its finale. This is the voice of its Head Writer. No, not Donald P. Bellisario, but a woman of color who was leaps ahead of her time – co-executive producer and uncredited co-creator, Deborah M. Pratt.

Deborah wrote or co-wrote 40 episodes of this sci-fi gem and her authorship of the show runs deep through its five seasons. Aside from the opening narration, Deborah is audible as the voice of Admiral Al Calavicci’s pocket computer, Ziggy. She also guest stars in the episode ‘A Portrait for Troian’ (S2, Ep11) as a grieving widow who hears the voice of her husband calling her.

Deeper still, Quantum Leap was a family affair. It was co-created with her husband at the time, Bellisario, and their daughter, also named Troian, appears as a little girl in ‘Another Mother’ (S2, Ep13, who can not only see Al, but also sees Sam as he really is, rather than as her recently divorced mom.

Prior to helming Quantum Leap, Deborah rose through the ranks as an actress, racing the screen in Happy Days, CHiPS, The Dean Martin Show and many more, and was also a writer on shows such as Airwolf and Magnum P.I. She is a five-time Emmy nominee, Golden Globe nominee and winner of countless other awards. She went on to produce CBS comedy cop show, Tequila and Bonetti, and then to co-create and produce the TV series adaptation of Sandra Bullock tech thriller, The Net. But Quantum Leap was Deborah’s brainchild – one which is emblazoned on the hearts of its faithful fans.

Deborah has since moved into directing, including on hit show Grey’s Anatomy (2020), but was generous with her time when spoke in late 2020 to leap back into the past.

It does seem that you were really ahead of your time as a female head writer and a showrunner in the ’90s, especially in science fiction TV. Was it hard for you to progress and to get Quantum Leap made?

“Usually women were relegated to comedy, very rarely was it drama or heavy drama. It’s changed, finally, with people like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal). But yes, I was a true pioneer, even though I don’t have a ‘created by’ credit, it was a ‘co-created by’ show – with Don. I brought him the original concept, and we were married, and he said ‘Let me just run with this. I can get it made.’ And to his credit, he understands how to tell a story to the audience. He simplified it in a way that you could welcome Quantum Leap into the world. But it was still a tough show to sell.

“I think we went back three times to pitch it to the network. It was complicated to explain. Brandon Tartikoff [the executive] said ‘It’s a great idea – It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on TV. Let me think about it.’ Then he asked us to come back, ‘I want you to pitch it to me like I’m six years old, then pitch it to me like I’m 80 years old’ and finally he took it. Then even after the show first aired, they decided to introduce that opening where I tell the story. That was created to explain every week to a new viewer what was going on and it worked really well.”

On rewatch now, the best part of three decades later, the show feels groundbreaking in terms of the subjects you cover. Did you feel like you were pushing the envelope?

“I feel we got to do so much on that show. I remember when I did ‘Black on White on Fire’ [S3, Ep7], the networks in the South in the United States wouldn’t air it because it was a black/white relationship. Even though there is no scene where you see a black person and a white person being intimate.

You saw Sam, who was white, and the girl who was white, but because he was playing someone who was black, it was an issue. They wouldn’t air the show in the South. This was around 1992.

“It was challenging for sure. I think we pushed the limits.

“The beauty of the show too, was that it was about hope, which I see so little of on television today. Everything’s so dark, so mean, so vicious, bloody – how many people can you kill? How mean can you make your lead characters and antiheroes. I think it’s why I didn’t work as much afterwards. A) I was a woman, and B) a black woman. There weren’t any black female executive producers that I knew of in drama. I got to do The Net because it had a female lead, but that was almost ten years after Quantum Leap was created. Any show I brought in that had a black lead was never bought, or a female lead, was never bought.

“I remember I wrote a big action piece – like an Indiana Jones, but female-driven, feature film – and pitched it and the studio executive said, ‘Yeah, yeah, but when did the guy come and rescue her?’ And I said, ‘She doesn’t – she rescues him.’ The look on his face. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

The show darted around TV schedules, but the fans remained with it, and still to this day hold it dear to their hearts. Was that palpable at the time, or has that grown since?

“I think near the end of the first season, Harriet Margulies [Production Assistant on the show] found a chat room after an episode where people from across the country talked about it and it became the ‘watercooler.’ We were the first television show that had a chat room as a watercooler. Before that, it was literally you going into your office and standing around the watercooler and talking about movies or TV shows you were watching. Suddenly, it was online. So we started to go into the chat room and talk to people about what they liked and what they didn’t. Not necessarily telling them who we were, but that fan base is what kept us on the air because the network didn’t know what to do with us. There was no show like it, so they couldn’t like pair us with anybody.

“In the five years we were on, I think they moved the show six times and the fans still found it, they followed it, they watched it. That’s how we knew we had something unique and special. To this day, I’ll go into a meeting with a young executive who’ll go, ‘I have to tell you, I loved Quantum Leap. I used to watch it with my mom and dad’.”

Scott Bakula was such a great hero and heartthrob as Dr. Sam. What was he like to work with?

“He was so approachable, you know, in the sense that he had this great, easy acting style. He took chances and he was likeable – in a way that he could be a man’s man and a woman’s man at the same time. He’s really a brilliant actor. I am saddened by the fact that he has not had the opportunity to do movies in the way that could really have lifted his career. He’s had an incredibly successful television career. He’s a good actor. He’s a kind man. I’ve always admired him and felt like when we were working together, I had a friend that I loved to write for because he was always so giving and willing and wanting to take chances as an actor. So it was fun to go down to the trailer and say, ‘Guess what? You’re going to be pregnant this week’.

He does everything in the show from sing and dance to baseball, football, hopping over car bonnets to fights and martial arts. Did you know he had such a wide skill set from the outset, or did you write the challenges for him to rise to?

“I think we had conversations with him about that. I also knew that he had been on Broadway doing musicals. I knew he could sing and dance. When I wrote ‘Sea Bride’ [S2, Ep20], I wrote a tango number – that was unique for him. When Don knew that he could play the guitar… We asked Scott, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he said he wanted to do a musical and I think that’s how the ‘Catch a Falling Star’ episode [S2, Ep10] came about, which involves a performance of ‘Man of LaMancha’.”

Admiral Al Calavicci – he’s so much more than wisecracking and surface jokes or flirtation. There’s so much depth to his character. Was that fleshed out early on with an end to end journey for him in mind, or did his character evolve through the seasons?

“It was a little bit of both. Dean Stockwell had been on Broadway at five-years-old and had been a major child movie star. I remember when we wrote the show where Sam had the chance to save Al – ‘The Leap B4, Ep1] – he was so good in that. I’ll never forget how beautiful that was. And then in the very, very end, I love the fact that Sam did change history and Al ended up wih his beautiful wife with five kids.

“I remember once asking Dean, ‘Do you want us to write more drama for you? Big dramatic moments?’ And he said, ‘I want you to look at me right now. I want you to tell me what you see.’ And I said, ‘Well, your performance, the pain, fear and loss and all that, because you’re such an incredible actor.’ And he said ‘For me to perform that, I have to be it and live it. So don’t do too many.’

“He had that depth of acting talent. He is so good – Dean, wherever you are, I love you. I miss you.”

The episodes that follow later in the seasons involving celebrities – Sam as Elvis, Dr. Ruth, or Lee Harvey Oswald, was that kind of a direction that you always foresaw? It feels like a sea change as the show progressed.

“The stories were designed, for the most part, to be so, so simple in that they were everyday stories. They weren’t change-the-world stories. I think the biggest one was Lee Harvey Oswald, and maybe the one involving Marilyn Monroe – those were with people that could have had a ripple effect.

“But there were other little kisses with history in the show, but they were very hard to do. They ran into a child version of Donald Trump in a taxi cab, [‘It’s A Wonderful Leap’ – S4, Ep18], then they ran into a little boy who is supposed to be Michael Jackson – Sam teaches him to moonwalk [‘Camikazi Kid’ – S1, Ep8]. The first time I did a kiss with history was ‘Star-Crossed’ [S1, Ep3] – Sam meets up with the woman that left him at the altar and they’re at the Watergate Hotel. That was fun stuff.”

Sam managed to awkwardly kiss lots of ladies in that sense of ‘Oh God, they’re going to kiss me and I’ve got to be this person, what am I supposed to do.’

“We never, ever really discussed what happened to Sam. We didn’t want him to be encumbered by a relationship. But I didn’t get to kiss him. My husband wouldn’t leave the set on the episode I was in!”

Your move into directing – from your TV drama Cora Unashamed back in 2000, to Grey’s Anatomy just last year. Is that something you wanted to do sooner? Were there barriers prohibiting you?

“I was supposed to direct on Quantum Leap four times. Every time it was coming up, something would happen. The only women who directed on the show were two black women – Debi Allen [Fame, Everybody Hate Chris, Jane the Virgin] and the other was a woman named Anita Addison. They each did two shows.

I said, ‘If I’m not doing this, I want black women.’ There were no other black women. And it was a fight. I tried to get black women directors on the show, but I could never get them past.

Then when I went to do The Net, the studio blocked it. I give huge amounts of credit for executive producing to Shonda Rhimes and what she has been able to do. She did what I thought I was going to be able to do. She’s so talented and I’m such a fan of her and her shows. I’m looking forward to what she’s going to do on Netflix. And it was an honour to do Grey’s Anatomy because I’m a fan of the show and I’m really grateful to have that opportunity.”

Has there been progress in terms of female directors and filmmakers being given opportunities?

“It’s very hard for women because there aren’t a lot of women executives at the studios. There are more now. And so there is an evolution that’s happening, but it still feels slow. There were shows run by people I gave opportunities to back in the day, but when I said, “hey, I want to direct on your show,” the response was, “oh, there’s too much machismo. There’s too many male hormones around here. They’ll eat you alive.” And I went, “no, they won’t, you’ll protect me. How about if I do my job?” And that was only last year. But there are more opportunities. There are more women making decisions, but we have to do more because women’s stories and women’s voices are more than half the population – we need to hear those stories. The historic ones as well as the contemporary ones.”

Is there a leap that was your favourite overall? That you feel made you made your mark with?

“’The Color of Truth’ [S1, Ep7] touched so many people and it opened a dialogue. I remember we got a letter from a teacher who said she brought the VHS in and she played it to her class, up until Jesse [Sam as an ageing black chauffeur in ’50s Deep South] goes and sits down at the counter in the restaurant. Then she stopped it and asked the students what they thought happened next. They thought that he just ordered lunch. And then she played the rest and that hostility and the animosity he endures and the fact that he had to get up and leave really incensed these children. They had never heard of or experienced racism. They didn’t want to believe that it really happened. This is how history gets buried and why television is so powerful and important. It opened a conversation that she could not have necessarily had in her classroom, according to her, had she not brought that show in to share with her students.

“We had another letter that was very moving, and I want to say it might’ve been ‘The Leap Home’ [S2, Ep1-2]. There was a couple who wrote and said they had a child that was on a cancer ward and every Thursday the whole ward would watch Quantum Leap. Their child was dying and they had kind of given up and it was just time to help that child transition out of this world. They watched the show and she said, ‘We realized we gave up hope. When we watched the show, we realized we didn’t have to give up hope and we wanted to write to you. It’s now six months later and the crisis has passed. The cancer is in remission. Our child is up and going back to school. And we just want to thank you for reminding us that hope has its own power’.”

Its power and poignancy has never diminished. Though the final episode, ‘Mirror Image’ (S5, Ep22), with the caption saying Sam doesn’t get to go home, does leave a sucker punch.

“That was our last fight. Don was going to send him home. And I said, ‘You can’t, you can’t send him home. If you ever, ever, which we’ve not ever been able to get Universal to let us do it, want to do a movie… If you want to keep the story going, you have to leave Sam out there in the hearts of people, leaving people thinking he could leap into their lives’. And at first Don said, ‘No, no, we need to bring him home’. And I said, ‘Do not bring him home. Or you will end the show. If you leave the hope out there, that Sam is out there and he could leap into your life and make a difference’. You keep the show alive in the hearts and the minds of the fans. And I think I was right.”

The ending was poetic for me as a viewer, but your point about Sam still being out there – Is there a leap back to the future for Quantum Leap?

“I started writing a project called Time Child about Sammy Jo Fuller. I actually wrote a trilogy in Season 5 where Sam leapt back three times into the same family and the second time he leapt he ended up in bed with this character and conceived a child. Then the third time he leapt in, he met her at 10 years old – a girl named Sammy Jo Fuller. So in my vision, Sammy Jo Fuller grows up. I actually have Al say, ‘Sammy is in the future with me. We’re trying to bring you home.’ That was my set-up way back in 1993, in Season 5, to say someday, Sammy Jo being his daughter might take over….

“This was the ’90s. Women heroes didn’t exist really – other than comic books – Wonder Woman was there, Super Girl was there. But I set it up in the show that Sammy Jo was going to bring him home. Sadly, I have not been able to get Don and the studio to give me the green light for Time Child. It might happen someday.”

Right now, it feels like we need more shows that offer hope. Is there a place for a reboot on streaming platforms?

“Universal keep saying they want to bring it back. They’re not going to give it up to Netflix because they have [US streaming service] Peacock now and still have NBC. I personally think it should be on a full blown network. The hard part would be that it would have to be recast if there was a female version using my character Sammy Jo Fuller. Or if they just redid the show, it would be interesting in the sense that there was such an innocence about the show. I still believe that there is an audience out there that wants it, that longs for looking at the past through the eyes of somebody in the present. But who would that person be if you did the show now, what are those eyes like?

“We’re living in the time of COVID and suddenly you go back in time. How do you warn people that this is going to happen? How do you warn people about 9/11? How do you warn people about things in the future?

“I mean, one of the beauties of that innocence too, and I thought that was a great gift from Don to the concept, was that Sam’s memory as Swiss cheese – he didn’t remember things and that made it a lot easier, and Al was not allowed to tell him what was happening in the present. There’s a lot of detail woven into the mythology that allowed it to be innocent and in the moment of time travel. You didn’t have to drag the future back with you.”

Do you have an actress in mind to play Sammy Jo in a reboot?

“Oh my gosh, Jennifer Garner. I always felt she would be a great female Sam. She’s an ‘every woman.’ She’s funny. She does great drama. When I think of a female Sam or even Sammy Jo, I think Jennifer – in a heartbeat. She’s so great in Alias. That show just never stopped. You couldn’t take a breath. If I had to go younger, somebody that would have that kind of believable humour that you think could actually rescue you – maybe Jennifer Lawrence. She’s pretty formidable in that sense.”

“To bring Quantum Leap back. If they’re thinking about it, now’s the time to happen. Tell people to write to Universal! Write for the attention of Pearlena Igbokwe – if anyone can bring it back, she can do it. Write! Write to Pearlena – she’s the one that’ll make it happen. That’s how we stayed on the air for five and a half years. Fans unite and write!”

#quantum leap #article

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mattzerella-sticks · 4 years

Note

hi! i’m new to reading dc, because i hear new 52 and rebirth kinda suck, do you have any batfamily recommendations?

Welcome aboard! I’m gonna say something controversial - new 52 and Rebirth aren’t totally bad. Don’t get me wrong, before Flashpoint Batfamily was GOING PLACES. But I think they started strong with Batman in new 52 (like the Court of Owls wer fantastic and Julia Pennyworth is amazing) but then the aftermath of this Batman v. Joker fight during Scott Snyder’s run kinda fizzled the Batman run. And don’t get me STARTED on the bullshit Tom King has done. Not even James Tynion can save the Rebirth Batman title (but that’s because the powers that be probably had a vision that’s most likely been canned given how a lot of the brass was let go). I digress...

For New 52, I highly recommend: Batman (up until the Batman mantle gets passed, which is 50 or so issues in), Grayson (I enjoyed the spy atmosphere, plus the introduction of Helena Bertinelli, Tiger, and Midnighter - officially), Red Hood and the Outlaws (although the early issues and how they treated Kori are iffy), DEFINITELY Batgirl (especially the Gail Simone run and then the Babs Starr run, Batgirl of Burnside ftw) and - I’m including her into the Batfamily - the Harley Quinn series, because that’s good no matter WHAT. Things I’ve heard good things about but haven’t fully in-depth read were We Are Robin and Catwoman, although the former ends kind of unsatisfyingly. And, again, not Batfamily but adjacent - Gotham Academy. I was SO MAD when it ended because it was one of the best comics DC was producing. Oh and there was a Robin series where he has a giant bat!!! That was really good, too.

Rebirth they really fucked themselves over for the Batfam. Don’t even look at Batman, the first few issues are okay but then it gets muddled in this Bane plot and ‘War of Jokes and Riddles’ which was the WORST Batman storyline ever. Went on too long imo because you kind of forget this is all Bruce telling Selena about his ‘worst sin’ even though she’d be DTF no matter what. Plus there’s so much emphasis on Kite Man (i think even an issue is dedicated to his POV which makes no sense given the context the story’s being told but again Tom King SUCKS). It’ll make you feel like you read a comic book of How I Met Your Mother. Only Batman issues I recommend are the ones that are Flash crossovers because those are my favs for obvi reasons. What you want to do is get into first year of Rebirth Detective Comics because 1) Cassandra Cain 2) Stephanie Brown 3) Kate Kane 4) Clayface!?!?! 5) Tim Drake 6) Dr. Oktober; Honestly it was such a good ensemble piece (James Tynion is an awesome writer, he’s not a miracle worker unfortunately). That was a good run, although it does change plot at a certain point - which was sad - but it still feels like a Batman book even after the ensemble leaves, better than the actual Batman title. So sticking with that over the Batman main series is good. I think Rebirth Outsiders was trying to capture that magic except the writing isn’t that good plus there were a bunch of creative differences that delayed the first issue and I lost any excitement for it (which was sad because I love all the characters in it - Duke, Black Lightning, and Katana). Batgirl, again, although you’ll come to a point where it stops being amazing - and that is when she ditches her Babs Starr costume for something AWFUL. #BringBackBurnsideBatgirl Once you see the costume change either lower your expectations or move on because it doesn’t recover. I’ve heard good things about the Catwoman series but I haven’t read it. What I have read is Harley Quinn (again unofficial Bat family member) and that has been consistently amazing (even if the last few issues gave Harley questional/straightwashed tastes). DEFINITE reads though that shouldn’t be too long (because DC likes ending good things) are Batwoman and Batgirl & the Birds of Prey. The Batwoman comic was too good for this world, we need more Kate Kane in our lives. And the Birds of Prey series felt like the movie a bit. They definitely seemed like friends (unlike the new 52 version, which was AWFUL) and there’s one story where the men of Gotham get sick that is so good I’m waiting on DC to turn it into an animated feature. Those titles are both like twenty or so issues. There’s a Midnigther and Apollo miniseries that was so great (also unofficial member). Red Hood and the Outlaws I liked, but after Roy leaves it lost the magic. Rebirth Nightwing was good at first, but Tom King ruined it even though he doesn’t write for that title. Best storyline was when he gets involved with this group for reformed criminals while in Bludhaven. The most recent storyline wasn’t bad, in a sense. The characters brought on were interesting. It was just apbrupt and clearly not what the actual writer had in mind, but they had to write around Tom King. And overall the character of Nightwing suffered. Young Justice doesn’t feel too canonical (and Drake is a stupid name); Teen Titans is okay but Damian is an edgelord.

Moving on from that, outside of Rebirth and New 52, some other titles that I’ve enjoyed featuring the Batfamily were: Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl, Stephanie Brown’s Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens, Batman, Inc., Batman & Robin (with Dick as Batman, Damian as Robin), the Outsiders (the spin-off from Titans, probably in the mid-2000s with Dick Grayson leading)...

There was an interesting Detective Comics arc I read about the GCPD starring Renee Montoya that dealt with her ‘coming out’ (in the loosest of terms given how it happened).

A Batman/Superman arc I love revisiting is when they re-introduce Supergirl (and speaking of Batman/Superman, find the issue(s) where Superman gets affected by silver kryptonite and turns into a stoner because THAT was funny)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention No Man’s Land or Batman Year One because those two kind of establish Gotham and the Batman character... You could read the Killing Joke but you can easily sum the entire story up with one panel (probably one of the first images that pops up when you google The Killing Joke). A better, edgier Batman story - imo - is when he gets addicted to Venom. Or the Death of Jason Todd - which reminds me Under the Red Hood is a good story! (I didn’t read the comic lol but I did watch the movie - Jensen Ackles ftw).

If you’re looking for kooky, anything from the 40s up to before Crisis on Infinite Earths where ANYTHING went. From World’s Finest to the Batman title, they got to some pretty insane shit. Very campy. Although the nineties-early 2000′s were campy in their own way, like so on the other end of the spectrum from ‘camp’ that it became camp again. There’s two different Batman storylines that were VERY anti-drugs (Shadow of the Bat was the running title, I think; one story against weed and the other against LSD) that were so ridiculous and trying to push kids away from doing drugs that you couldn’t help but realize how ridiculous and over-the-top this was.

Finally there are Elseworlds titles. Everyone always raves for Batman: Gotham by Gaslight but I think two very interesting takes on a Batman of a different world are: Batman - Holy Terror, and Batman: Nosferatu. There’s also an Elseworlds with Barbara as Batwoman and a female Joker (Batgirl: Thrillkiller I believe) and one that has Catwoman as the hero of Gotham and Bruce Wayne as a sadistic killer.

Hope at least one of these suggestions helps 😀

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asterekmess · 3 years

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S3A-E6

Oh boy, here we go, Motel California is just full of absolute bullshit. *sigh* let’s get started then.

Read More’s are good for the environment (or so i’ve heard)

Before we start, I wanna let you guys know that I’m just not gonna comment on the Jennifer/Derek scenes. I just. I really honestly cannot do it. I don’t care. No. Also as this is well, this episode, please be advised that there will be extensive suicide mentions.

Thoughts:

I know this is random as hell, but that truck looks like mine. Oh, and look at the date, it’s only like nine years older than mine. nice.

why does it look like he’s nursing an arrow wound on his leg? Is it just me? That doesn’t look like a claw mark.

Can...can I just point out (god, i already need the tag) that....that they’re drawing a DIRECT parallel between this ARGENT HUNTER and Scott with the whole “lifting up the shirt to reveal the bite on their side’ thing? Like, it’s a perfect replica of when scott does it in the first episode. And they don’t do that with the others. Jackson’s bite was just Visible when he got out of the water and we never see Isaac, and Erica’s bites. Boyd’s was a whole sitting down thing on the Zamboni with his hoodie. They didn’t even do the same thing with Victoria ARGENT’s bite. OH and he’s wearing the heirloom necklace from season 1.

Wait, hold up. So, he just got bitten that night, but he’s already gonna shift? What? The bite works that fast?

....he’s from MA? Why tf is he in california? Also, he’s 27 apparently, oof.

Finstock...honey...you ran out of keys when you have like 6 students behind you still.

why is Finstock paying for Allison and Lydia’s room as well? He’s just that nice, or did he honestly forget they aren’t on the track team?

Maybe it’s just the Sterek shipper in me talking, but someone wanna explain why the fuck Stiles would put Derek on the suspect list for HUMAN SACRIFICES? Let alone TWICE? He literally just helped Derek get his pack back and has been working with them the whole time? Why???Would??He???Suspect???DEREK??? OR his sister???

I totally forgot that Scott promised Stiles he would watch Star Wars after they got back to Beacon Hills. SCOTT YOU ASSHOLE COME ON.

yeouch. You’re putting a huge damper on my Stydia brotp here Stiles. jeez.

*Movie trailer voice* He’s a hunter whose family has been torn apart by a human/werewolf war, who refuses to give up the fight against a species his clan has persecuted for centuries. He does weird detective work that makes no sense and looks like a Dark Souls ghost repeat of someone’s death. He insists on ‘staying out of things’ but then follows people around getting mad when things go wrong. Coming this summer, Chris Argent must actually learn.....to get off his ass and help.

WHY DO THEY ALL DO THE CLAW THING??? Yes, they are obviously claw marks. Why the fuck do you need to put your fingers on it?

Honestly, it makes me so sad because STiles is trying okay? Like, Boyd was pissed that Stiles acted like his friend when they never hung out, and STiles is trying to do the chill smalltalk thing, trying to point out things they have in common. He’s trying to MAKE FRIENDS and Boyd is just....uh...possessed? And still getting candy?? Huh?

Honestly, I’d do the same thing Stiles. Get that candy.

Allison, why’d you get in the shower if Lydia wasn’t back with the towels yet? How’re you planning on getting to them? You expect Lydia to come into the bathroom while you’re showering to put one there? #allydia confirmed.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? I ALWAYS FORGET THIS HAPPENED. WHAT THE FUCK?

Okay, okay, look at that adaptation we got going on here. Remember, okay, the last time Allison was harassed sexually (which, holy shit I can’t believe this has happened twice) it was by Jackson, who was possessed by Matt. So when Scott gets super fucking creepy, instead of freaking out, her FIRST instinct is to check if he’s still himself, if he’s okay. She jumps to ‘possessed’ and tries to take care of him WHILE SHE”S NAKED IN THE SHOWER AND BEING CREEPED ON. Which, while absolutely horrendously terrifying, is also an interesting character growth. We get to see how Allison responds to the same situation, but a season later.

Really not a fan of the weird-ass focus they put on this woman’s stoma ( think that’s the word) like...are you seriously trying to make that a part of the ‘horror’ aspect of this episode? For real? what is wrong with you?

So I did the research, and actually, hotels aren’t required to tell anyone about deaths in their rooms. But they also renovate the entire room basically to clean that kind of thing up. Replacing walls and anything that can absorb liquid and even electronics. Oh, the things I google for this research. *sigh*

So, she says “since opening.” So...why does it even matter that an Argent was here? ALSO...why does the wolfsbane whistle matter? Clearly the whistle wasn’t the cause of the last howevermany (apparently 40) years of deaths, so why would it be the cause of these ones?? They gave like fifty different answers to the question of why the wolves (and only the wolves) tried to kill themselves and none of them make sense?

Hey, so...what the fuck even is this possession thing going on? What is it actually doing to these wolves? Why are they getting affected at different times? or did they all get affected at the same time, and the scene with Ethan and Danny is supposed to have been happening at the same time as the bit with Scott and Stiles? Is it supposed to like, make them more impulsive, or just drive them to do what they want to do? Boyd wants some candy, and he will get some candy. Isaac wants to watch tv so he just sits there and clicks through static endlessly. Scott wants to......fuck Allison?

Honestly? Good dad moment here. Chris. Good Dad Moment. I just, feel so bad for Allison. That when it comes down to it, she will always end up lying to her family to save Scott’s ass. Either when they’re dating and her dad wants to kill him for it, or when Scott shows up in her bathroom and grabs her and she can’t possibly tell her dad about it without Scott getting shot.

WHY do they treat that moment like it’s a big shocker that Allison was there? She TOLD her dad she would be going to help them. This shouldn’t be a surprise to him???

....wait how was allison on the phone with her dad, fully dressed and outside, but now she’s in her bra and drying her hair in the bathroom? TIMELINES. TW doesn’t HAVE them.

OKay, so Lydia says it’s only been 40 years, which would mean that the motel was only 6 years old when Alexander Argent died in it. Plus...Lydia literally says that approx. 4 deaths a year is a reasonable number? So...either this place has a lot of suicides, or it doesn’t. WHich one? Also, just because you have the warning at the beginning of the episode doesn’t mean you need to go into such callous detail about the different kinds of suicides that took place. God, that’s so tasteless.

As horrific as this moment is, I feel like I should point out that the behavior/conversation that Lydia hears...it’s nothing like what happened with the wolves. They’re talking about it, clearly nervous. But the wolves are stoic and silent. What? WHAT IS THIS PLOTLINE? IS THE MOTEL causing these suicides somehow, or are the werewolves poisoned by wolfsbane?? THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT PLOTS. WHICH ONE IS IT?

god, I just..I can’t not point out the contrast here! Lydia is saying she heard two people die in a room across the hall, and after leading Allison there they find an empty room going through renovation. All she has to say is “they were here” and Allison believes her. No hesitation. Stiles’ childhood best friend literally shows up dead and Scott refused to believe a word he said about human sacrifice until Deaton confirmed it. Yet Lydia and Allison have known each other less than a year, and Scott and Stiles are supposed to have been friends for ages.

I just...I hate fisheye lenses. they don’t give me any horror vibes at all, they just look stupid. Personal preference.

Boyd, honey, those things are supposed to have bags in them so they can be reused.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS SCENE? WHAT THE FUCK? WHY WOULD THEY EVER BRING THIS UP JUST TO KILL BOYD OFF LATER? WHY?

Lydia is actually very correct, remember what I said about the renovating?

God, this episode has so much...just horrible shit. I’m gonna fucking ignore it for my own sanity and just focus on how wolfy it is that Isaac wouldn’t want to sleep under the covers at a hotel because it would probably smell. Plus, bare feets. Also, why’d he go to bed so early? Did Boyd go get the ice for him, since he’s sweating so much?

I love that they are roommates.

Okay, I don’t understand. Three more suicides are about to happen. Boyd, Ethan, and I guesss...Scott? So what the fuck was up with Isaac? I just...they’re supposed to like. give into their their worst thoughts or something? Boyd’s guilt about his sister. Ethan’s....something. Scott’s...uh...self-hatred? Or, I think it’s more his lack of self-confidence? He doesn’t hate himself, he just doesn’t think he can keep going. And Isaac’s ingrained guilt of doing the wrong thing? His fear of being useless...I guess? So is it supposed to make them suicidal and Isaac’s a weird case, or does it only do that sometimes, and the rest of the time it just leaves you paralyzed with fear? This makes literally no sense.

Where has Stiles been this entire time?

Uh...that’s not how Alphas work? Just because Derek died, it wouldn’t make Scott an Alpha. Scott didn’t kill him. Even if Derek Was dead, it would’ve been from impact or from the wounds Ennis gave him. In no universe would Scott become an alpha. If it was the impact, Cora would become Alpha, as the next blood relation. If it was Ennis, the Hale Alpha spark would be gone/soaked up by Ennis.

Okay...so, Stiles was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and he didn’t hear Scott talking to the phone?

*snort* Stiles has a Nokia phone. How much do you wanna bet his dad bought that for him after the Pool Scene because he was trying to make sure Stiles didn’t break another phone?

Did...did Stiles just leave the room with the toothbrush in his mouth?

Okay, I get that this is a teen drama...but why does it have to be so obsessed with 16 and 17 year olds having sex? Seriously? It’s not the common occurrence people think it is? Now, if these were college age people...or, hell, even then it wouldn’t be this fucking common. Seriously. I don’t want eye-candy from someone who’s supposed to be 17 at MOST. Teenagers watching this might like the eye candy, but when I watched this at 17 I STILL was sick of the sexy scenes. Knock it off.

Also. Ethan IS STILL A FUCKING MURDERER.

.....uh....Ethan...do you not understand human anatomy? Giving Danny the bite wouldn’t remove the metal bars in his chest. It might heal the cartilage or whatever, but it wouldn’t REmove the BARS. Oh see that’s just creepy. Wait. OKay, are you telling me that Ethan’s thing that he wants, with this possession thing, is to bite Danny? AND HOW DOES DANNY NOT RESPOND TO THAT? HE’s supposed to know about werewolves, which means he HAS to be getting what Ethan’s going for. WTF?

...what the FUCk kind of voldemort “love and monsters” kinda bullshit was that? What does that have to do with Ethan’s deepest fear/insecurity?

I am...so confused. FIrst off, I love having Allison, Lydia, and Stiles all chillin’ trying to figure things out. THat’s amazing. But how do they know something’s up with Isaac? Also, it contradicts what I was theorizing before when Allison says the last time she saw Scott like that it was a full moon. Now I’m even more creeped out? WHy would they have her fully believe that it’s Scott, and just...let him be a fucking creep? Why would they openly admit that he’s been that terrifying with her before and then just...be chill about it? Also, when did she actually see Scott act like that? When he did it on his second moon Allison never saw him bc Derek tackled him into the woods. When did Scott go all creeper on her? Is this a REgular OCCUrREncE?

I know it was wasn’t intentional, but it’s such an adhd mood for Stiles to see the paper sticking out of the bible and just snatch at it. most people would call that ‘attention to detail’ but like...I just see it as ‘wtf is this, gotta know gotta know” mooood.

Why does Stiles go running to the next room like it’s an emergency, and what is the relevance of these articles in the bibles? LIke, yeah, you knew there were a ton of suicides. How does this help?? God, it’s like they were trying to make it a mini-horror film, but they just suck at understanding what the right order is to put things. FInding those articles should’ve been something that happened at the beginningin order to create a sense of unease, not in the middle of figuring things out!

how exactly did Stiles get the damn door open if it was locked? For that matter, how did Ethan know the handsaw was there? Was he on his way to talk to Lydia and Allison, or was he heading for Scott and Stiles’ room to get help? WHat’s going on???

Thank you Allison for not just Standing There. And Lydia for having a BRAIN. <3

HOW DID STILES HOLD BACK ETHAN? Ethan IS AN ALPHA? HOW?

OKay. I know I said I wouldn’t comment on these scenes with Jennifer, but this is just a general observation. DEREK. YOU HAVE A CELL PHONE. YOU ARE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF CALLING PEOPLE FROM THE BED.

What...what does that mean Ethan? “You probably shouldn’t have.” WHat?

I know it’s supposed to be for the Allison/Scott angle, but I just love Lydia and Stiles heading to save the pack. *sigh*

I gotta say, I actually really respect Stiles for straight up telling Lydia about the parallels he’s seeing. Rather than hide it from her, he’s trying to get to the root of the problem, point blank and he’s being honest with her about his worries that she might be involved without even knowing it. And she listens and doesn’t get immediately defensive. This communication is SO GOOD. Stydia BROTP.

I’m fucking on the verge of tears. Sinqua, your acting is just...like, you barely speak in this scene and yet your face is just??So pained?

Bare feets. I know I point it out a lot, but like, compared to kali, who keeps her claws out all the time even in like a fucking hospital. It’s so cute to see Boyd and Isaac wandering barefoot in their hotel room. Just, the level of calm it implies, despite the situation. They feel so safe with each other.

ALSO did Boyd go through all of that while Isaac was under the bed?

WAIT WHAT? WHy is Lydia suddenly all pissed off? WHAT? That makes no sense! But then when she says his name, she doesn’t sound upset at all?? WHAT?

ALSO, I thought this was supposed to be about suicides? Why did they add this totally random (and horrific) thing? It has nothing to do with BoYD! JUST BECAUSE YOU PUT A TRIGGER WARNING DOESN”T MEAN YOU NEED TO MUSH AS MUCH FUCKED UP SHIT AS POSSIBLE INTO ONE EPISODE. GOD. It’s like those people who assume just because they’re allowed to do R rated shit, they have to have random sex scenes in their tv show.

where did Scott get gasoline? Like...where?

God fucking damn it, how fucking demonizing can you get, fucking juxtapositioning Scott’s suicidal monologue about Derek suffering and being dead, then jumping to Derek fucking someone instead of telling anyone he’s alive? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Why is it literally ANY TIME Stiles or Derek are in some way happy (NOT that I’m considering Derek at that moment in time Happy or in any way okay) they always make it out to be the most horrible thing ever? It’s like I said before, Stiles smiling on the field because he actually gets to play lacrosse? Jackson’s about to die. Stiles happy because he’s going to play a game in class? His best friend is missing. Derek....I’m not even going to give what’s going on a name. But then they just layer that over Scott...what even is he doing? Everyone else actually tried to kill themselves. Why is he just...standing there? Are they seriously trying to make the claim that his strength of will is so strong he’s the only one could can hold out against the...whatever the fuck is causing this? Jesus fucking christ do you have to turn him into Jesus every time? SERIOUSLY?

YOU DIDN”T THOUGH. SCOTT YOU LITERALLY REFUSED TO FIGHT BACK. YOU PLANNED A RENDEVOUS WITH DEUCALION BEHIND EVERYONE’S BACK BECAUSE YOU INSISTED FIGHTING BACK WAS WRONG. YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD IF DEREK AND THE OTHERS HADN”T COME TO FIND YOU.

...I get that this is supposed to be an emotional moment, but why the fuck does Scott’s monologue about how much he sucks have to drag Stiles down with him? Stiles was literally always good at lacrosse. He never got ‘better’ before being put on the field. You saying that the both of you were ‘nothing’ is a terrible, horrible thing to say because you’re implying that because Stiles didn’t get the bite like you did, the only thing that makes him more than nothing is being your friend. How does Scott manage to be a total asshole even when he’s in the middle of explaining why he wants to die?

AGAIN WITH THE RANDOM PLOTLINES. DAVIS WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? IS THE HOTEL HAUNTED, OR IS THE WHISTLE FULL OF WOLFSBANE OR IS THE DARACH ACTIVELY MAKING THEM KILL THEMSELVES? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? ANd why would the Darach be making them kill themselves?? THey don’t match any of her sacrifice requirements! This makes no sense with the plotline you follow for the rest of the season!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SCENE? Scott was NOWHERE NEAR Ethan? WHY THE FUCK DID HE GIVE SCOTT THE CREDIT FOR SAVING HIS LIFE? And why would he thank him for it, when he told Stiles he shouldn’t have been saved? WHAT IS GOING ON?

Also, why does Ethan have like, a bruise thing on his cheek? Is that...is that a skin thing, or like, a show thing?

This doesn’t solve the problem of Allison’s car being stuck with an empty tank at the side of the road halfway to Beacon Hills.

dude. you realize that was literally 34 years ago? Deucalion would have to be like 50. and even then he would’ve been a fucking 16 year old Alpha. So that makes Deucalion more likely in his 60s. Also, why the fuck do you care Chris? This is such a random fucking thing. It makes no sense. What the fuck does it matter now?

Last Thoughts: What the fuck even is this episode? It’s like this steaming dumpster fire of half-assed ideas and loose ends to plots we’ll never see and really shitty horror movie vibes. We’re talking D List or maybe E list horror movies. I’m honestly disgusted? I can’t remember the last time I had to watch something so tasteless and cruel and insensitive in every single way?

.....on to the next episode, I guess. God, I need to change all of this in the rewrite, and I don’t know if I can actually make it good?

#personal #anti-scott mccall #TeenWolf-Rewatch

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sxveme-2 · 3 years

Text

Strawberry Pancakes // Bucky Barnes

MASTERLIST

SEQUEL TO BLUEBERRY PANCAKES

DESCRIPTION: Lily Osborne and Bucky Barnes were never blessed with an easy relationship. Whether it be emotional trauma, or Lily's parents trying to be evil scientists. But they somehow made it work, after coming together once again after the birth of Lily's nephew. They were smooth sailing for a while. He proposed, they got engaged, but have yet to marry. While also juggling raising a teenager together as Hunter reaches the age of 16 now. All the while struggling with adjusting to their new lives in Long Island, balancing careers. Meanwhile, Lily struggles with the new found fame of being the fiancé of The White Wolf; and handling the tabloids critiques on her life and gossip columns digging up any information they can on her. While trying to maintain a low profile; and handle her life as it is. And becoming parents. Lily for the second time, while Bucky, well, this is his first attempt at a biological child. All the while a new threat from their past rises up once again, blind siding the family. Bringing forward old hatchets that had been buried, and putting their relationship at risk once more.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any original Marvel characters! All canon plots and canon characters belong to Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios. This is an original work. You may not publish it anywhere else

STATUS: Unedited

NOTES: Takes place after endgame. I have elected to ignore Tony's death and Steve's leaving. Did not happen. Quick Reminder! My works are only published here, AO3 and on Wattpad, thank you.

Chapter Five: The One With Her Uncle

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 2286

Carter Evanson was the one constant in Lily's life outside of her family. He was with her from the moment she filed for divorce with Scott, to when she wanted primary custody, all the way to when she wanted full custody. Then she utilized him once again with Hunter's adoption paperwork. Finally, however, she needed him to work those magic family law skills and get the adoption paperwork filed now more than ever.

"Did you know Scott was moving?" Lily asked, glancing behind her at Hunter from the front seat.

"I hadn't spoken with him since Christmas last year," Hunter sighed, sliding his phone into his pocket, "I'm just as shocked as you are, mom."

"That's alright, buddy," Bucky replied, sending a wary look towards Lily, "Mom and I just need all of the information."

The rest of the car ride to Carter's office in upper Manhattan was silent. No one knew what to say. The entire day had been a complete blur for all of them. Then, finally, this morning, Lily woke up and was excited to pick out a wedding dress to marry her fiance wearing. Now she was on her way to her lawyer's office so that she and Bucky could finally make it legal that Hunter was his son.

"Don't tell anyone about what is going on," Lily reminded as the three stepped into the foyer of the law firm, "The last thing I need is this spreading through the PTA right to Priya."

Hunter nodded and gripped his mom's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Lily knew this was tough on Hunter. Scott has done nothing but make the boy's life a living hell with a new bomb being dropped every other day. It didn't help that Scott seemed to have some sort of vendetta against his ex-wife, despite him being the reason they separated in the first place. It wasn't Lily's fault that Hunter resented his father. It was Scotts.

Lily always tried to be the firm front of her family. She wanted to show everyone that despite the hell they've been through, they were able to come out the other end happy. But it was hard sometimes, especially when Scott got involved in her life again. He always seemed to barge in whenever everything was finally going smoothly. Then, in classic Scott fashion, he threw Lily for a loop anytime he spoke.

Lily slid her other hand into Bucky's as the three stood in the elevator, waiting to get to Carter's floor. She remembered the nights when she and Bucky would camp out in the living room with Hunter when he was thirteen. She was pregnant and preferred sleeping in the living room since it was cooler than their room. Joey would curl up at their feet and snore softly as the three fell asleep to some cheesy rom-com movie.

Those were the times Lily found she was the happiest, when it was just her tiny family away from the outside world. She would watch Bucky and Hunter curl into one another, Bucky's flesh hand stroking the boy's blonde hair as they fell asleep. She would always get up before everyone and make pancakes and wake them up with the scent. When she was pregnant, she had an aversion to blueberries, so she'd make herself oatmeal and watch her boys devour an entire stack of pancakes.

"We're sleeping in the living room tonight," Lily whispered, glancing up at the two boys she loved more than anything, "You two, me, and Stella. We can watch movies and relax. Just like the three of us did at the old house."

"That sounds nice, mom," Hunter whispered, pursing his lips into a smile as the elevator door opened, "Now. Shall we?"

"Let's go make you a Barnes," Bucky smiled, wrapping his arm around Lily's waist and walking forward towards the office.

-----

Three hours. After three hours of Hunter explaining to Carter why there was no chance in hell he wants to be Scott's son anymore legally, the paperwork was filed. Meaning that Hunter was officially Bucky Barnes's son in the eyes of the law. Carter also took the liberty of officially changing Lily's last name in the eyes of the law to Barnes. So when the three left the office, all of them were truly a part of the Barnes family.

Lily no longer had the name Osborne attached to her name. Hunter was free of the Harvey surname. And Bucky had the family he longed for since he was a young kid in the '40s. There was nothing that Scott could do to change what was done. He was no longer Hunter's father, which meant Lily had plans to make sure everyone knew just who the Barnes family was.

"So I guess it's not weird that I call you dad anymore," Hunter weakly smiled as he slid into the car, "Oh my god does this mean I'm Stella's full brother now? Can we take it back?"

"Oh, do not start that," Lily laughed as she buckled herself into the passenger seat, "You love her."

"She's five. She's gross," Hunter grinned, sliding his phone from his pocket, "Why would I ever want to be fully related to a child."

"You weren't an angel at five either, mister," Lily chuckled, shaking her head and sending a text to Rose saying they were on their way, "I distinctly remembering you wetting the bed almost every other day."

Both Bucky and Hunter let out identical laughs as the former started the car. Lily let out a relaxed sigh as she leaned back in her seat, sniffling slightly. She hadn't stopped crying the entire three hours they were with Carter, and she was optimistic that her eyes looked huge. Bucky had barely kept it together as Hunter pleaded with Carter to get everything in immediately, and how he couldn't bear another second of having the name Harvey attached to him. Despite the trauma Hunter has faced, he was a well-spoken and driven person, especially when it came to his father.

"How do you think he'll react when he finds out?" Hunter blurted out as the three sat at a traffic light.

Lily pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder back at her son. He was fiddling with the hem of his shirt, a tall-tell sign that something was on his mind. Lily and Bucky compiled a list of both Stella and Hunter's ticks and how they acted when something bothered them. Along with that, they worked out strategies that worked best for each reaction to help their children the best that they could.

"He has no choice," Bucky stated, "He signed the papers. He agreed. You're my son, Hunter. If he contacts you in any way, shape or form, you tell me. Your mother may be scary, but as far as I'm concerned, that's my fight."

Lily watched Bucky intently as he spoke. Beside her sat the man who went up against a titan while being calm, cool, and collected. He fought against an entire army of aliens and didn't break his composure. Bucky was the man who was brainwashed and used as a weapon but managed to keep his calm exterior while in hiding. But whenever it involved Scott, or any harm towards Lily, Hunter, or Stella, he became frustrated and outwardly ticked off. She only ever really heard him raise his voice when Hunter did something completely offside or Scott spoke with Lily.

"He's right," Lily nodded, reaching her hand over and squeezing Bucky's shoulder, "Scott isn't your father. He never really was, you know this. If he contacts you, we'll let Carter know."

The car fell silent once again as the family drove towards Rose's apartment building. The only noise that filled the void of noise was metal gripping leather. Lily knew that Bucky was on edge. He knew that Scott would try to contact Hunter before anyone else. Especially after pulling a stunt like moving in down the street and attempting to be a father in a way.

Over the years, Bucky grew angrier and angrier at the way Scott was. Especially with his treatment of Hunter. At night, he would cry to Lily about how he would have given anything in his life to have a biological son like Hunter, how he longed to have a child like him. He would tell Lily stories of how back in the '40s, Bucky would babysit the young boys in his neighbourhood with his sisters. Or how he dreamed of having a large "all-American" family.

So, when Lily told him that she was pregnant, she swore his head would explode.

-----

Lily nibbled on her bottom lip as she stared at the two lines on the five sticks laid in front of her. Each was positive. There was no questioning it; Lily was pregnant. She and Bucky were going to have a child. Hunter was going to have another sibling other than Laila. One that he'd get to see every day, not just at scheduled times with Mary. He was going to have a little brother or a little sister or a sibling in between.

Lily was going to have a child with the love of her life. She was going to give him the family that he wanted so badly. It would be difficult for them to figure out, being two working adults already with a pre-teen son, but Lily knew the child would be loved beyond words. She was going to have a baby.

"Hey, doll, what're you doing in here so long?" Bucky chuckled as he pushed open their shared bathroom door.

Lily pursed her lips as tears brimmed her eyes. Doubt shadowed her mind as she thought of the worst-case scenarios. What if he didn't want a kid with her? What if he thought it was too soon? What if he left her? Lily felt her stomach churn and face go pale as thoughts raced through her head. Her fingers gripped the surface of the counter before she decided to rip the bandaid off and tell him.

"I'm pregnant," Lily whispered, turning around to face the man that joined her, "I'm...I'm pregnant."

Lily waited for his outburst. She half expected him to turn and walk out of the bathroom altogether. She figured he would completely disappear from her life or just ignore her. But that wasn't the reaction she got. Instead, Lily found herself being held so tightly she thought her spine might crack.

"We're having a baby," Bucky whispered into the girl's shoulder, peppering it with kisses after each word, "We're gonna have a baby."

Lily felt the tears fall from her hazel eyes as she wrapped her arms around Bucky's neck. He wasn't mad. He wasn't upset. He was happy. The blonde let out a choked sob as she buried her face in his hair, inhaling the intoxicating scent of him. She was having his baby. They were going to have a baby, the two of them. After everything they had faced, Lily never thought she would see the day she'd tell him that she was going to be having his child. She never even thought she'd have another child after Hunter. But there she stood.

-----

"Stella," Lily whispered into the girl's ear, "Guess what we did today?"

"Leave me," the five-year-old pouted as she looked down at her mother, squirming in her arms, "All alone!"

"That's a bit dramatic, Stell," Bucky chuckled as he locked his arm around his fiance's waist, "We made Hunter your full brother. You're both Barnes."

"Bleh!" Stella gagged, rolling her head back dramatically.

Lily laughed and shook her head, dropping her daughter down onto the floor before turning her attention towards Sam and her sister. The four stood for a few beats in silence, appreciating the relaxing feeling that fell over them. There was nothing that Scott could do to mess up what was done. Lily and Bucky were Hunter's legal parents. Scott had signed the papers, and it was a done deal. Hunter was a Barnes, no questions asked.

"Hopefully, they grow out of this phase," Lily chuckled as she turned to look at Hunter and Stella teasing each other, "Not sure I'll be able to handle it."

"I still hate that I'm your full sister so. Not sure if they will." Rose teased before embracing her sister.

"Congrats, cyborg," Sam chuckled as he and Bucky hugged, "You've got two kids now."

"I've always had two kids, Sam. Now it's just in paper."

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champagne-bucky · 5 years

Text

I.O.U.

Summary: Bucky is tired of the youngest Avenger having all of Steve's attention.

Warnings: age gap (reader is of age), smut, dub/non con, dark!Bucky eventually

Notes: This is my first ever fic, so I apologize if it’s too long. I promise the story will progress. I really hope you like it! Please enjoy!!

Ever since she moved into the tower, Bucky knew she would be trouble. Not in that sense of wrecking things where ever she went or being disrespectful to the team. No, the little innocent angel could do no wrong in the eyes of the gullible Avengers, which made Bucky hate her more.

About 5 years ago, a teenage girl was founded by S.H.I.E.L.D.. Fury held her for questioning for days until she snapped. It was then they found out she harbored powers even strong than Wanda. She took out agent after agent until Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff stabilized her enough to get her calm. That's where it all started. Steve Rogers.

After the incident with S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury and Steve both thought the young sorceress would be useful on the team. Much to Tony's chagrin, he accepted her, but she didn't earn her place on the field until after the events of the Civil War happened. When recruitment was needed she stepped up and defended Steve in battle. That's when Bucky first met her.

He remembered seeing her step out of the van with Scott, she was scared, timid, and shy. Bucky could tell she didn't have the fight in her at all.

"Shouldn't you have recruited someone that, y'know, didn't just get out of kindergarten?" Bucky questioned.

"Buck it's fine, she can hold her own trust us." Steve reassured him that she would be okay. However she thought differently.

Bucky paid no mind to her during the fight. I mean he was there to fight not babysit. He remembers after the fight how she stayed in Wakanda with him to get a better understanding of her powers. Again Bucky paid no mind up until he went under.

Bucky never saw himself as the jealous type, but there was something about her that ticked him the wrong way. Right before Steve bid his goodbye to Bucky, he stayed with her the night before comforting her and telling her it'll all be okay. Bucky thought it was a little unusual that he was spending all this time nurturing a child he barely knew when he should've been caring for his best friend that will be at the mercy of the frozen box in a mere few hours.

However, Bucky decided to let it go. After all she was just whisked into this mess so maybe she felt better having some extra comfort before she was stranded again. Then the snap happened.

Both Bucky and her were snapped which left Steve distraught. He had lost his best friend and someone he considered a daughter. He mourned them both for years until it was reversed. Bucky thought Steve would be happy to have them both back, but no, he was just happy to have his little girl. Steve spent a significant amount of time with her after she came back. Bucky becoming more of an after thought.

"Steve wanna come train with me later, then maybe watch this movie called The Shining. I really wanna get caught-."

"Later, Buck, Y/N and I need to practice her fighting stances before she's allowed back on the field. Plus, we already saw that movie. Ask Wanda to watch it with you it's really good."

Steve would give his million dollar smile before heading off with her to train. More and more Bucky would be pushed to the side. He never understood why. Were they involved romantically? Maybe that’s why Steve wants to spend time with her more. Bucky asked Sam this after they were settled back into the new compound.

"Listen Bucky, Steve missed out on his chance to start a normal life, an actual family of his own. Y/N is the closest thing to a child he'll ever have."

"But, I thought I was his family." Bucky mumbled silently before walking away.

It was then the hate from her grew more and more each day. She's a sweet kid, but nonetheless she sunk her teeth into Steve Rogers and ripped him away from Bucky. Steve belonged to Bucky and no one else. If anything Steve owed Bucky from the countless times Bucky saved his skinny ass from fights back in the 40's. Bucky wanted Steve all to himself.

Bucky hated sharing.

---

Every morning was the same. You would get up early, take a shower, eat, and train with Steve. From then on you would either spend your time with Steve or go work with Dr. Banner in the lab.

When you approached the kitchen you noticed Bucky trying to work the coffee machine. It sputtered and smoked a little following a string of curses from Bucky.

You giggled as you approached him. "Here, just put more water in at the top and it should come out fine." You smiled at Bucky as you fixed the machine for him. He didn't look up at you or even mutter a thank you. He looked straight on ahead as he fixed himself another cup.

You could never understand him. He doesn't like you, yet you two have barely been around each other. You don't know what you did to make him hate you so much. Every day you see him you try and be nice to him, even going as far as asking Bucky if he wanted to jump in on a training session with you and Steve, and yet nothing.

"Okay, well, enjoy your coffee. See you later Buck."

You begin to walk away, but only manage to make it a few steps before he grumbles clearly pissed off.

"Don't call me Buck, only Steve calls me Buck.”

You sighed, once again Bucky had managed to make you feel worse about yourself. You love Steve like a father and you wouldn't dream of hurting his best friend ever.

"You're right. Sorry Bucky, have a nice day." You meekly replied before heading to the gym.

---

You were sweaty and panting while sparring with Steve. Usually, he pushed you hard, it was all for your own good though. He believed the stronger you became the tougher you would be on the field.

During your break you chugged nearly half your bottle before turning to Steve, slightly out of breath.

“Why does Bucky hate me?”

Steve stood shocked. He never thought Bucky hated you, he just thought Bucky was being standoffish and shy like usual. The two of you never really hit it off like he did with Sam, maybe he’s uncomfortable with the fact that you’re still a little kid in his eyes.

“Sweetie,” his pet name for you, “Buck doesn’t hate you. He’s shy, he takes a while to open up. You just gotta give him some time.”

“But it’s been years of me knowing him and he doesn’t even look at me when I say hi to him.” You exclaimed.

“Would you like me to talk to him? Maybe you two can sit down and talk about whatever has been going on between the two of you?”

“No, it’s okay,” you give a small chuckle, “maybe you’re right and I am overreacting.” Giving Steve a small smile you begin to pick up your sparring stick before he stops you.

“Let’s end it early today, I gotta head to a mission briefing, might be leaving for the mission right after, but I will let you know.” Steve smiles at you before giving you a kiss on the head and heading out the door.

—

Bucky doesn’t understand what Steve sees in you. As he watched the interaction from afar he couldn’t help but scoff at the fact that Steve thinks he’s just shy around you. Bucky had made several points to let you know that he very much hates you. The kiss on the head made his jealously bubble even further.

“Always a sucker for an innocent one, huh Stevie.”

He muttered before walking to the briefing room. He knows that they aren’t involved romantically, but it irked Bucky to see Steve so taken with someone. You had him wrapped around your dainty little finger and you knew it too.

As Bucky was about to enter the briefing room he stopped when he heard your name.

“I don’t know Sam, you think she’s ready? She’s still learning how to fully control her powers, not to mention she’s not exactly pro at hand to hand combat.”

“Steve you gotta stop treating Y/N like she’s a baby, if she could take out one of Stark’s blasters with just a flutter of her eyelash and go against Thanos not once, but twice, I think she’s more than ready to help us on this mission.”

Oh god no.

Bucky’s worst nightmare had finally come true. He would be having to spend three days with Steve, Sam, and the little brat herself.

“Do you really think she’ll be okay? I just won’t be able to live with myself if she got hurt. I just got her back I don’t want to lose her again.” Steve exclaimed. Bucky was angered by this.

Well what about me? All the search missions you went on? Going against the government for me? Hell I thought we were with each other till the end of that fucking line we would always preach about. And you’re telling me he’s more concerned about that fucking brat and not his best friend since 1930. Fuck you, Y/N.

He calmed himself before he entered the room.

Deep breaths, he probably doesn’t mean it anyway. Knowing Steve, the little brat won’t be joining us.

“Oh, hey, Buck, didn’t see you standing there.” Steve said and motioned Bucky in.

Bucky walked in a took a seat, grabbing a mission report. The mission would take effect immediately. The small team was set to leave for France for a few days to stake out a supposed Hydra base. The mission was simple, a bit of recon, breaking in, stealing files, and getting out. It was nothing new, sometimes the routine got a little mundane for Bucky, boring even.

“So, after some deliberating, Sam has convinced me to let Y/N come with us on this one. She won’t be doing anything too serious, just some recon.”

“So she’s basically gonna be a sitting duck for us to watch? What’s the matter Steve couldn’t find a babysitter for her this week.” Steve glared at Bucky while he snickered at his clever comment, Sam just rolled his eyes.

“Listen, Bucky, I don’t understand all the unwarranted hostility over her, but she needs to get back into the field sometime soon, we could use an extra set of hands. So you either suck it up and deal with her or you can walk out of this room and enjoy a nice desk suspension.” Steve smirked.

Bucky just rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, just know I won’t be the one kissing her booboos when she falls and scrapes her knee Stevie.” Bucky hissed his name when he got up to walk out of the room.

Fucking kid is gonna be the death of me.

—

“Good news!” Steve walked into your room clapping his hands.

“Hmm let me guess… you talked to Bucky?” You quirked a brow while continuing to tidy up your room.

“Well, no, not exactly,” you frown while Steve continues, “you are coming with Sam, Bucky, and I on the next mission, which leaves in two hours tops.” Steve paused to check his watch.

Squealing, you jump and hug Steve. It had been so long since you engaged in an actual mission, despite Bucky being there, you were excited to get back in the game.

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, Stevie.” You hugged him tight while he laughed.

“No problem kiddo, just start packing and meet us at the jet. France awaits!” Steve leaves your room to go pack.

You smile to yourself and get ready, you won’t let Steve down despite what Bucky thinks of you.

I won’t let him ruin this for me.

—

“Danvers! How are you?” Steve greets Carol over the holographic screen.

“Not so good Rogers, I just recently discovered a planet that was affected by the snap, a lot of displaced people Cap, I could use you and Wanda for the extra help.”

Steve sighed, he was suppose to leave soon for France, he didn’t want to leave you alone with just Sam and Bucky, but on the other hand Carol needs help with a whole planet of people.

“How long will it take?”

“About a week, if you leave now maybe even earlier.” Carol smiled before logging off.

Steve was upset, he didn’t want to leave you alone. He knew you could hold her own, but something was telling him you weren’t ready.

She’ll be fine, she’s gone up against Thanos for Heaven’s sake. She’s gonna be okay.

He finished packing his bags and caught up with Bucky before they departed.

“Buck, listen, something important came up and I won’t be able to make the mission, just do me a favor and take care of Y/N. She’ll be good, just make sure you watch out for her. I owe you big time.” Steve slapped Bucky’s shoulder and gave him the mission files before leaving.

“What the fuck.” Bucky said loudly before marching off to go pack.

—

“Where’s Steve?” You said while making your way towards the jet.

“Well the bad news is, a planet that was just discovered has millions of displaced people. So, Steve and Wanda went to go help Carol out.” Sam explained to you. “However, the good news is, you’re stuck with us!” He winked at you and laughed before taking your bags to the jet.

“Since when was taking a newborn to a dangerous Hydra facility good news.” Bucky grumbled while making his way to the cockpit.

“Gee Barnes, what’s been bothering you lately, that Viagra pill you’ve been taking hasn’t been working? It’s okay old man I’m sure there’s a nice old lady in a nursing home waiting for ya.” He scowled at you while Sam laughed again.

“Damn kid, you’re relentless. Yeah Bucky, having trouble getting it up. Wanna watch some Golden Girls to turn you on?” Sam continued to laugh.

“Yeah, yeah wouldn’t you love to know about my dick, Wilson.” Bucky marched past the two of you.

“Listen, kid, stay out of our way on this mission, just do some simple recon and we’ll tell Steve you were an ace on the field.” This was the first time Bucky made eye contact with you before starting up the jet.

“Hey, pay no mind to him. Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine.” Sam smiled at you before taking his seat next to Bucky.

“Thanks Sam.” You smiled back.

Steve you owe me one.

—

The small village located a few miles outside the supposed Hydra base was beautiful. So quaint and desolate, you wish you could just live here forever.

“Hurry up, Y/N, we got plenty of time to sight see.” Sam called you over to the hotel room.

Luckily before Steve left he made arrangements for a joint room so you, Sam, and Bucky wouldn’t have to share a room. The only problem was that the shower was located on Sam and Bucky’s side of the room.

“So, let’s start off with some recon. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious. If something doesn’t seem right call it in and Bucky or I will check it out.” Sam explained to you while getting out some equipment.

“Or, you can stay here and have a tea party while the adults do the work.” Bucky rolled his eyes as he laid on the bed, flickering through the channels. Sam sighed and shook his head.

“Don’t listen to gramps over there, he’s just mad he missed the early bird special.”

You rolled your eyes as you went into your room and began to unpack. Stupid Bucky, he always sees you as a child. You’re sick and tired of him thinking that you’re an incapable little girl. You can handle yourself, you could probably take him out with the slightest twitch of your nose, if anything he should fear you.

“C’mon kid, let’s hurry it up, don’t want Stevie to know you were out past bedtime.” Bucky snickers from the other room, which earned a slap on the back from Sam.

—

A one hour car ride later and you were in another small village. This one was just as nice, but looked more worn down. Nonetheless is was just as captivating.

“Y/N, just stay right up here while Bucky and I take closer look.” Sam finished setting up your equipment and went back in the car with Bucky.

“Remember call in anything suspicious.”

You nodded and began the long watch period.

A few hours had passed and nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just some villagers walking around enjoying the sights. The sun was beating down on you and you were sweating like a madman. You would definitely need a shower when you got back to the hotel.

Bucky and Sam were off somewhere in the village pretending to be sightseeing, nothing unusual. Tons of people looked like they were doing it.

“This is bullshit man,” Bucky began, “it’s hot, I’m sweaty, and there’s nothing here to see.” They both couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Everything seemed normal, of course it wasn’t, I mean Bucky knew what was really lurking on these streets, the people here were just putting on a show.

“Okay pops, will head back. Don’t want you getting all cranky on us youngsters.” Sam and Bucky began walking back to the car.

“Let’s call up Y/N and tell her we are on our way.” Sam began to call you as they drove off.

—

When you were all back at the hotel, you guys started to fight over who got to use the shower first, by you guys it was between you and Bucky.

“C’mon man I was out in the sun the longest and I’m so sweaty. I’ll be quick I promise.” You begged.

“Hell fucking no, if anything I deserve first dibs.”

“Why’s that?” You yelled back.

“Well, I’m the oldest, I’ve been on the team longest, and I’m-“

“Clearly over compensating for something with that large ego of yours.” You fought back. “I mean God, Bucky, you can be such an ass sometimes.” You huffed before stomping to your room.

“Christ, Bucky it’s just a shower.” Sam finally piped in.

“It isn’t just a shower it’s-“

“I don’t wanna hear it. Just let her go first. You and I can go pick up food in the meantime. God, you can be so annoying sometimes.” Sam walked out of the room.

Bucky was pissed. He hates that you always get your way. It’s like Sam is even favoring you over him.

“Fine, stupid kid always getting her fucking way.” Bucky mumbled.

“Hey, brat, you get first dibs. Try not to use up all the hot water.” Bucky yelled before slamming the door.

You sighed, finally happy to be alone. You cannot take anymore days with Bucky. He’s so damn irritable. You brushed off your thoughts of the grumpy super soldier and began to strip. Disregarding your filthy clothes you turned on the shower and let the hot water hit you skin.

You usually take fast showers so you weren’t worried about Bucky reading you the riot act about having to shower in the cold. Stepping out of the shower you realized you forgot your towel. You peeked out of the room to make sure the boys weren’t back yet. When you start to walk out a jiggle of the knob made you freeze for a second.

“Hey, kid, I’m back, Sam’s just park-.” Bucky froze as you stared at your naked, wet, body. No words coming out of his mouth.

“WELL DON’T JUST STAND THERE, GO AWAY!” You screamed at Bucky and he slammed the door behind him.

Holy fuck.

Bucky stood on the other side of the door, breathless. He was half hard when he saw those gorgeous breasts of yours. They looked like they needed to be touched.

“Holy fuck,” Bucky spoke, “I guess she’s not a kid after all.”

“Yo, man you alright.” Sam walked up to him.

Bucky jumped and nodded. Knocking on the door.

—

“Come in.” You answered from your room.

You can’t believe that the first ever boy to see you naked was grouchy Bucky Barnes. You wouldn’t be surprised if he told Sam or was getting ready to start cracking jokes about walking around the hotel room naked.

Slowly, you come out of your room, head down and you make your way to grab the food. Heading back to your room, Bucky calls for you.

“What’s wrong kid, don’t want to sit at the big kids table?”

Fucking hell he’s gonna be teasing me till the day I die.

You huffed and turned around, not meeting his gaze, but Sam’s.

“I’m gonna call up some friends. I haven’t spoken to them in a while.” You mumbled and walked back to your room, hiding you embarrassment.

After you ate you decided to just chill on your laptop and binge watch some YouTube videos. Four hours and many makeup tutorials later you were beginning to fall asleep. It was so hot you decided to ditch the sleep shorts for the night and just sleep under the thin bed sheets.

—

Bucky laid in bed and couldn’t get the image of your gorgeous body out of his mind. He was mad at himself, I mean he hates you, but that body was making him get all hot and bothered again.

Fuck, I want to see that body again. I fucking hate that brat, but I need to see those tits.

Bucky was fully hard now and unaware that he slipped his hand in his underwear and began to softly stroke. He paused.

This is so fucking wrong. If Steve were to find out I’m jerking off to the kid he’ll have my ass.

However, Steve wasn’t here, and no one would know. It’s just a minor problem that needs taking care of.

I wonder if the little minx sleeps nude. Oooh boy Stevie wouldn’t think she’s so innocent after all. All bare and naked waiting for me to ruin her.

Bucky wouldn’t stop thinking of all the dirty things to do to your body. He sprung out of bed and tiptoed to your door. He just wanted to see if you were up. Maybe if you were he could complain that you were breathing too loud or something, just to fluster you. Except, you were dead asleep.

Somehow the sheets found their way off your body due to the heat. You laid on your stomach with your legs slighting spread apart. Bucky was frozen once again. Cute pink panties were staring back at him, with just a little hint of your pussy peaking out. Bucky’s hand was back in his pants as he finished himself off.

You were going to be the death of him, and he wanted more.

#dark!bucky x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes smut #dark!bucky

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