#whenever Steve says someone else is his best friend this is the logic i use. because of course robin is no1 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bludhavents · 3 years

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things that each greaser struggles with:

these are mostly headcanons i came up with. also, this gets pretty angsty.

content warning: alcoholism, addiction, anxiety.

darry:

- maturity. he thinks everybody looks at him like the “dad” of the group instead of just another friend, and he loathes it. he misses whenever he was able to skip work to catch a movie at the drive-in or take ponyboy and sodapop up to the dingo for lunch.

- accidental intimidation. his build is very large and strong, which is good for his job and for when he’s actually trying to, well, intimidate people, but other than that it just makes him feel guilty for being so unapproachable.

- relationships. specifically, darry is very insecure in his relationship with pony. he especially hates it whenever pony dogs on him for forgetting things or accusing him of not caring.

- emotional intelligence. he knows he comes across as cold. and he hates it. he has lots of emotions and he doesn’t air them out in a healthy way, so he tries his best to cut all the emotions off altogether in hopes that the negativity will stop, but it just makes him feel even more insecure.

- social skills. in high school, it was all much easier for him, but now that he’s working full-time and running the household, he’s fallen majorly behind in the social scene. he never goes out to the drive-in or to the dingo, and at first it was because he was too busy, but now, even if he doesn’t have a shift, he’ll make up some excuse because he’s too nervous to go and have to talk to people again since he feels like he’s gonna mess up.

- identity. darry was just starting to feel comfortable in himself and in his role in the world right before his parents died, and when they did, he stopped trying to figure out what made him happy. it has made him insecure of the emotional stint that is centered around his ego and sense of self.

sodapop:

- smarts. it’s canon that he’s insecure about this.

- growing up. while everybody else moves on to new things and grows up, he feels like he’s stuck in the same place watching everybody else progress while he stays behind. this was especially true after sandy left, because marrying her was going to be this huge exciting step in his life and when she left, he didn’t have that fulfillment anymore.

- reassurance. he feels a constant need for approval, and he will take it wherever he can get it. there’s a sort of pride he gets whenever he sees a girl checking him out, but there’s a deeper feeling telling him that she’s gonna run away once she finds out about how ‘stupid’ he is.

- authority. soda has a really hard time talking to people who are in a position of power. he gets all nervous and his hands get sweaty and his face goes sheet white in panic. his charm and social skill is enough to satisfy a conversation with a person his age, but he feels silly trying to be confident in front of an adult. he feels like they look down on him and will laugh.

- fatherhood. he’s very insecure about having a family in the future. he feels like he never appreciated his dad’s skilled parenting while he could, and since then darry has been a sort of fatherly figure in the house, but it’s hard for soda to see it that way. he grew up for 16 years with darry as a big brother and for him to suddenly be forced into a father role is troubling for soda. because of this complicated dynamic between soda and fatherhood, he feels like he won’t be able to be the best father possible for his children.

- legs. he hates his legs. you will never see soda in a pair of shorts, not even when he’s swimming. he doesn’t like the way they’re shaped and thinks that they make the rest of his body look odd, so he wears loose jeans to hide them. he’s also embarrassed of being embarrassed about them, so nobody knows, not even steve.

dallas:

- emotional intelligence. his lack of emotional intelligence is something he battles with a lot. he understands what people are feeling, but he has a hard time understanding why they feel that way. he says it’s because he’s too tuff to deal with emotions, but deep down he knows it’s because he was thrust into a traumatic childhood so early on that he never had time to build emotional bonds with people that would strengthen his empathy and understanding.

- his past, another canon take. he hates talking about it, even the good stuff, because when he thinks about new york all he can picture is 10 year old dallas watching a man being covered in a white sheet by the paramedics on the side of the road. he thinks about his friends from there and knows they’re all either locked up or dead, and it ruins any enjoyment he gets from reminiscing on the good times.

- health. he definitely has crohn’s or IBS or something else that makes his stomach hurt whenever he eats, and it embarrasses him to no end. he’s always anxious that his stomach is going to start hurting when he’s with the gang and is going to have to find some excuse to leave. he smokes so much while he’s out with them to keep from getting hungry until he gets back to buck’s place.

- his friendships. the shepherd gang is close-knit. then, the curtis’ are brothers, steve has known them forever, and two-bit is outgoing enough to make himself fit in to the group. johnny is the closest person dallas relates to, and it’s the friendship hes the most secure in.

- his smile. he knows smoking ruins his teeth, and he knows they’re crooked all over, and he knows that when he smiles his lips crack and stretch out.

johnny:

- his appearance, canon insecurity. he looks young for his age, and when the gang found him in the lot after he was beaten by Socs, they all started treating him like he was young too. he didn’t think the scar on his face was tuff, it just reminded him of being attacked.

- his voice. this is less about how it sounds and more about him not being able to speak over the shouting at home. he hates yelling, and he won’t stand in to speak up for him cause he’s too afraid of being told to “stop yelling”.

- being average. johnny feels painfully average in everything he does. he’s tried to find a skill that he truly loves and wants to take time to be good at, but he always gets frustrated and quits before he can improve.

- romance. almost every aspect of it terrifies johnny. he doesn’t know what a healthy marriage looks like, what he does know was from Mr and Mrs Curtis, but seeing them die together warped his sense of love. he doesn’t understand why you would want to love somebody so much if you didn’t have to. he doesn’t like the “til death do us part” aspect of marriage, because it makes him feel trapped. he’s not afraid of commitment, he’s afraid that he will end up in a marriage like his parents’ and not be able to leave.

two-bit:

- alcoholism. he’s an alcoholic and he knows it, but he’s been stuck in the vicious cycle of addiction for such a long time that the only way he knows how to cope with the emotional baggage of addiction is to drink more.

- social awareness. as of now, he’s very self-aware and extremely skilled in reading a room, but he didn’t used to be. he used to crack jokes at the wrong time and get scolded for it, and it made him feel horrible. like he wasn’t able to experience all the same sad feelings as everybody else because they reacted differently to the sadness than he did. they wanted to process the sadness while he wanted to ignore it.

- being absent at home. he knows he spends the majority of time at the curtis house, and he also knows that his mother spends the majority of her time at work, which leaves his little sister at home alone. he has a good relationship with her, but he doesn’t like for her to see him drunk, and as his alcoholism progresses, that gets to be more and more often. he knows this, and it’s one of the main reasons he’s so insecure about his addiction, because she’s the one who let him know that it wasn’t a one-way street. his problem affected him and her.

- commitment. two-bit is young, but he feels old enough to know how relationships work. he saw his dad walk out on them, and he was never able to process how you could go from marrying someone to leaving and never looking back. at first, he thought that his dad was just a selfish jerk, but when he met johnny and saw that his parents were also married and simultaneously abusive, he convinced himself that all marriages were bound to end up that way. he believes that if the curtis’ lived longer, they would have eventually gotten bitter and tired of each other, because in his mind, that’s just what couples do.

ponyboy:

- confidence. he has a lot of insecurities, and they’re shared pretty evenly between physical and non physical. he doesn’t like his body or his eyes. he doesn’t like how impulsive and dramatic he is.

- security. not in himself, but in life. he’s permanently on edge, feeling anxious about who’s going to be around the corner and what would happen if he got jumped and how many Socs he’d be able to fight off in case anything happened. his parents’ sudden deaths did not help this. he feels like life is constantly tossing him around, and he never feels completely safe.

- emotional outbursts. this isn’t exclusive to ponyboy, but he struggles with it the most. he hates getting upset with people, and he hates hurting other people’s feelings. when he’s feeling too many things, he starts to speak without a filter and gets mad at the littlest things, and he knows that it makes everybody around him feel bad.

- fitting in. in contrast to johnny’s insecurity, ponyboy wants nothing more than to fit in. he’s tired of being the only greaser in his classes, he’s tired of his isolated taste in movies and theatre, he’s tired of being a track star, and he’s tired of all the pressure put on him since he isn’t average.

steve

- masculinity. his dad always enforces an unrealistic standard of being strong, independent, and logical. steve is inherently all of these things, but the pressure he feels to keep it up weighs him down.

- comparing himself to others. it started in middle school when he noticed all of the people liked sodapop more. from then on he couldn’t help but feel like soda was more attractive and charming, darry was stronger and smarter, two-bit was funnier and cooler, dallas was tougher and unbothered, johnny was more likeable and down-to-earth, and ponyboy was more creative and well spoken.

- addiction. there was a time in steve’s life where he was getting high every day. at first it was fun, but then he had to quit track because he wasn’t as athletic as he used to be. it ruined his health and motivation. he started working on cars more to keep himself busy, and it helped a lot, even got him a job.

- hyperindependence. steve’s biggest character flaw is that he can’t ask for help. whether it’s asking for help in school or asking for soda to hand him a tool in the garage, steve can’t bring himself to do ask. it makes him feel like he’s not good enough to do it on his own.

#the outsiders #steve randle #the outsiders headcanons #dallas winston #dally winston #ponyboy curtis #ponyboy x reader #steve randle x reader #dallas winston x reader #johnny cade #johnny cade x reader #two bit mathews x reader #two bit mathews #sodapop curtis x reader #sodapop curtis #darry curtis

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pigeonp0st · 3 years

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you did NOT say “hey send more wanda requests!” but here i am... sending you one jejeje :) how about cute fluffy red eyed jealous wanda? she just wants to hang with reader but EVERY! AVENGER! ALSO! DOES!

Wanda Maximoff x Reader #2

Words: 1,970

Warnings: Jealousy, Cursing

Notes:

Thank you for requesting, and by the way: I appreciate all of the Wanda requests so...hey! Send more Wanda requests. Oh, and this was written during a writers block so it’s not the best but I hope it’s good enough ;( Sorry for spelling mistakes.

————

There are moments during Wanda’s life where she is jealous, believe it or not. No, it doesn’t happen very often anymore; because really she has nothing to long for that she doesn’t already have.

But it happens… So despite her unwillingness to admit it, she’s currently experiencing one of her not so often bouts of jealousy—and it feels like such an ugly word, but it’s how she feels because everyone really just loves you, and she just wants you for herself.

and yeah, okay, someone could make the argument that she ‘has’ you already, and she feels that way, but she knows she doesn’t. Logically.

You could completely decide that you don’t want to be with her anymore, Wanda knows, and if that were something you wanted she wouldn’t even think about stopping you.

She’s not that type of jealous though. She’s not concerned you’ll leave her for someone else, despite how close you and Steve get while you’re discussing something, and despite how many times you fall asleep with Thor on the couch, despite how many times Tony seems to be looking for you, she doesn’t necessarily care about any of it.

As a matter of fact, Wanda would say that she loves the way everyone loves you. She loves how close you are with them...she just wishes it didn’t have to mean so little time for her.

So she’ll train with Clint and watch from the corner of her eye as you train with Natasha, and she’s not jealous about the way that you laugh with her, or the way that she smiles at you, or the way that Natasha pulls you until your faces are inches— okay she really didn’t need to fucking pull you so close-

“Y/N,” Wanda calls, absentmindedly throwing Clint into the cushioned wall with her powers. You don’t pay attention to her, much to Wanda’s dismay, instead you smirk at Natasha and she smirks at you— and really Wanda’s about a second away from throwing Natasha into the wall too— but then Nat headbutts you with just enough force that you’re winded by it, and completely and utterly finishes the fight.

Wanda stops her advancements towards you and starts clapping her hands, feeling utterly ridiculous but hiding it well.

From the way Natasha tilts her head at her perhaps she isn’t hiding it well enough.

You still don’t turn around to notice her though because now you’re locked into conversation with Bruce. And Okay.

She’s able to admit to herself now, that yeah, sometimes her jealousy comes from fear rather than want, but it’s only because anyone would feel threatened by Natasha.

She is also able to admit to herself that this is...harder for her than she previously thought.

————

This continues for a while longer. Wanda looks at you hanging out with the others, tries to get your intention, and gets utterly ignored.

She knows you aren’t doing it on purpose, but it hurts enough that whenever you, or the person you’re hanging out with ignore her she sighs and completely leaves the room.

She waits for you to look for her like she looks for you, she waits for you to be alone, but you never do, and you never are.

It hurts in a way it probably shouldn’t.

———-

Wanda has been pouty lately.

When you ask about it she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest like a disobedient five year old. It’s both amusing and concerning.

Concerning because she’s obviously upset about something, and amusing because she has the cutest pout, and the most dramatic flair about her.

You won’t be dropping this though. “Wan Wan-”

“Okay,” Wanda grimances immediately, “please never call me that again.” She looks horrified when she says it, and your amusement only goes up. Until you see the red glow in her eyes and remember that her powers have been showing the whole day.

This can’t go on.

“Wanda, did I do something wrong?” You ask, clearing your throat in an attempt to start the conversation over.

Wanda momentarily stops glaring at the table so she can glance at you. When she does she seems to sag into her seat at the worried look on your face. This isn’t your fault, she reminds herself, angry that she let her own stupidity affect you. “No,” Wanda sighs, her jaw clenching and unclenching. “No, draga, you haven’t.”

Darling, you remember. That’s what ‘draga’ means. Despite circumstances the term of endearment fills you with butterflies. “Then what’s wrong?”

This time when you ask Wanda answers, looking sheepish and guilty. “I...Y/N I want to spend time with you. Is that…” she pauses, feeling frustrated beyond belief, “is that okay?”

You’re...confused, to say the least. You don’t understand why Wanda would think it isn’t, she’s your girlfriend, you love spending time with her. You had thought that you were already spending time with her before.

“Wanda,” you stutter, eyes wide at the sudden tears in her eyes. When she tries to look away you put a hand on her cheek and force her glowing red eyes to meet yours. “Hey, hey, Wanda—baby—of course it is.”

It’s more than okay.

Wanda nods, looking just as shocked by her tears as you are. “I have no idea why i’m crying,” she says shakily, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t know why...I” Wanda pauses, letting out an angry defeated growl, “just- god, I...i’m just so frustrated.”

And she is, she really is. Wanda hadn’t realized how much this has been affecting her. She’s just angry at herself for needing you so much, and angry at the others for taking you away from her all the time, and then angry at herself again for being angry at the others just for wanting to be with you— she’s just angry. And it’s so exhausting.

But you aren’t. You’re the only thing in this life, to Wanda, that isn’t. It means everything, that’s why she needs you. Not all the time. Just sometimes at least.

You, little does Wanda know, need her around just as much, and more than that you need her to be okay, and she isn’t right now. Wanda looks so devastated and helpless, so helpless, that you’re hugging her before you can even register it, like your body moved on it’s own accord.

“Wanda,” you ask, concerned, “do you feel like i’m not already spending a lot of time with you? I mean...we sleep in the same bed.” Wanda hugs you so tightly though, that you wonder if you’ve been imagining the moments you two have spent together.

“No, no you have been,” she says sadly, and with a resignation in her voice that you don’t understand. “I guess...with all of the loss that’s surrounded me, and with the way I still try to distance myself from the others, I'm just really alone without you.”

You freeze completely, hit with an unbearable amount of sadness for the women you love.

Wanda pulls away from you when you tense, looking frantic because she worded that wrong, she hadn’t meant it to sound like she was guilt tripping you. “Obviously it’s not your responsibility to hang out with me all the time, I want you to hang out with your friends, it’s just...I mean...they do get to do stupid mundane things with you more...and I mean I want that too, but only if—”

You put a hand over her mouth, silencing her immediately. “Baby, slow down. Breathe. You’re gonna die if you don’t.”

“Okay…” you start when you realize Wanda has done what you asked and calmed down as much as she’s going to be able to right now, “no, you’re right, now that I think about it. Lately the others have been asking for me a lot and we only ever get a chance to watch a movie at night...we hardly see each other besides that.”

As you say it you’re shocked to find out how true it is. You’ve been so busy with your project with Tony, and training with Natasha, and Thor has been so sad lately that you’ve been trying to help him— and Clint with his sudden want to start cooking, and Peter with his girl problems, and—

And you hadn’t really taken a moment to realize that you miss Wanda too, you haven’t had the time to realize it while you were shuffling around the compound, but Wanda has had time. She’s had all the time in the world.

“Hey,” Wanda says when she notices the guilt on your face, “none of that.”

So you tackle her. Naturally. You tackle her because you love her, and she’s too sad. She looks too sad, she’s always too sad, and she never deserves to feel that way.

Wanda lets out a loud; ‘oof’ and falls back against the couch with you on top of her burying your face in her neck.

She doesn’t understand at all what’s going on, but she’s willing to give you what you want...until you start making weird noises.

“Rummmmm, tssssssss, weeeeeee.”

“Are you okay?” Wanda asks, legitimately concerned.

“Shhh, babe, i’m charging us up. Weeeee-”

“Okay,” Wanda laughs, pushing you off of her. When you yelp and nearly fall off the couch she catches you with her powers and gently lowers you on the ground.

You glare at her the whole way down, a humorous gleam in your eyes. “I’m trying to help babe, what the fuck.”

Wanda simply rolls her eyes at you, releasing another breathy laugh that has your features soften immediately.

“There it is,” you whisper quietly, reaching up to cup her cheek. Wanda smiles into your palm. “I’m sorry, Wanda. I’m realizing that I've missed you desperately too, so we’ll definitely have to make up for the time we weren’t together.”

“You don’t have to,” Wanda sighs, looking down.

“I want to,” you assure, because you do want to. You hadn’t noticed the ache in your heart until it was pointed out to you, but now that it has been...you just want to spend time with Wanda. But…

“But I want you to have other people as well,” you say quietly, “Do you think you could start opening up to the others? They really love you.”

Wanda studies your eyes, thinking. “I have been open with them.”

“You treat them like comrades more than family, even though they obviously love you more than that, and even though you do too.”

It’s something you’ve noticed. Wanda will protect everyone, and be there for them, and she’ll confide in them when necessary, but she’ll also avoid them, and avoid talking with them.

“Okay, I will try.”

The relief you feel at those four words is indescribable. This isn’t the first time you’ve had this conversation with Wanda, and the fact that she’s finally ready to listen fills you with joy that has you jumping back into her arms and smothering her with kisses.

“Hey,” Wanda protests, but she’s laughing, “I'll have to take it slow. Maybe i’ll start by finally coming to their movie nights”

“Sounds perfect,” you grin. And it does. Wanda hides in her room during those nights, but now she can be your game night partner. “Oh!” You yelp, jumping off her lap, “we should start training now. No one’s been able to beat Natasha at scramble but if we start training now by Friday we’ll be able to take her down.”

“I really am going to regret this,” Wanda sighs.

“It’s only two all-nighters, don’t be dramatic.”

“WHAT? I am not staying up all night.”

“We’ll see about that.” You whisper under your breath. You don’t think Wanda hears until she throws a couch pillow at your face.

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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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vivithefolle · 3 years

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I'm a bit confused. You said in one post that you thoroughly dislike Hermione and that you had no respect for her at all. Yet ... you like Romione? idk, it seems contradictory tbh. I like when Romione shippers acknowledge her flaws and messed up moments but when someone that dislike and even hate her character that much ships Romione and I see them posting about them and calling them "cute" just seems weird

I’ll share with you my whole thought process so you can understand where I’m coming from:

Itty-bitty Vivi who read Harry Potter for the first time (at 13/14, so not so itty-bitty I guess, oops): Woaaah Hermione and Ron yaay!!! They're awesome I love them! They're my OTP always and forever!! Best thing to happen in Harry Potter!! JKR is a genius!

Slightly less itty-bitty Vivi discovering the Harry Potter fandom online (thankfully years after the ship wars, else I probably wouldn't have survived): Why is there so much hate towards Ron? And why are people so opposed to Romione?? It was meant to be since the first book! Or, okay, the second book is when I realized it was gonna happen, but still! Oh well, here is a fic where Hermione berates Ron for everything and he is the only one actually working for their relationship. Cool, more Romione!

Even less itty-bitty Vivi starting her own Tumblr and going around, adding her grain of salt to debates and talking about stuff: Yeah! Ron is great! He's done bad things of course but Hermione has done her fair share of bad things too! Actually, now that I'm rereading the books, I'm reminded of this person I used to call a friend, who was quite smart and cultured but would often be very harsh to me because they claimed it was “for your own good" and “because I'm more mature than you"… I still wanted to be around them, because they were just so smart and passionate, but we often rowed and eventually they really just went too far and tried to make ME out to be the bad guy and most people believed them because they had a reputation as someone cool and logical while I was known for being emotional… wait, what the fuck, that's… that's exactly what happens in the fandom with Ron and Hermione! What the fuck, was I Ron? Admired their intelligence, praised and supported them, fell in love even but was met with scorn and open disdain?!… no, no, come on. Hermione wasn't that bad.

Vivi rereading Half-Blood Prince (and no, this wasn't about the canaries, but about what Hermione was doing after): Oh my god she was that bad.

Vivi as she ponders alternately: Wait, what about JK Rowling? What does she think about all that? What was her intention, what did she want to accomplish with the characters? I know books belong to their readers but if I want as objective an analysis as possible I must try to understand her thought process while she wrote.

Vivi learning about a staple of British literature called “literary alchemy”: The quarreling couple!! Sulfur and Mercury, the Red King and the White Queen, who must marry for the story to end happily!! And their union is represented by… a rose!! Oh my god, that is brilliant, that is so cool! Romione was ALWAYS going to happen, I knew it! Ha!

Vivi discovering the “[Ron] needed to make himself worthy of Hermione” quote: Wha… but… what? Worthy? As if Hermione was some sort of precious trophy or whatever? What the hell? Wait, Ron had to make himself worthy of her but Hermione didn't have to make herself worthy of him? Is it because Ron is the boy or some shit like that??

Vivi going through JK Rowling's interviews and finding sexism and double-standards galore: Yep, it's because he's the boy. And that bit about Hermione being based off herself when she was younger… ouch. And to top it off the scriptwriter pretty much worshipped Hermione…

Vivi rereading the books again: Is it just me, or does Ron hardly ever get any praise or acknowledgement from the adult characters? Meanwhile Harry and Hermione get stuff like “as good as Charlie Weasley" or “brightest witch of her age"! And, damn, I used to side with Hermione because I love cats, but she was completely awful in POA! She apologized but then the plot made her out to be right even then?? And I always thought her Yule Ball entrance was kinda over-the-top, but damn if that's not compensating for something! Also what the hell, I get that Harry is suffering and all but will someone PLEASE pay attention to the fact that Ron is being bullied BY A FOURTH OF THE STUDENT BODY AND NOBODY SEEMS EVEN REMOTELY CONCERNED????? Also what the hell is wrong with the sixth book, I never liked it much but it's like it's trying to make every character look bad, wtf?? And, and, holy shit I never noticed but Ron was asking legit questions during the Horcrux Hunt debate but Harry kept deflecting or mocking him but it's still Ron who had to apologize in the end??? And I've read a whole post about how Hermione punching Ron is the appropriate reaction for a very small child and not a supposedly “mature" character, and that Harry had to SHIELD RON FROM HER, oh my god?? It's… oh my god, what the fuck is wrong with JK Rowling?

Vivi, in denial: Well, Harry Potter is decidedly not a romance. It's about love, but romantic love is quite far down the priority list when it comes to it. JKR has herself confessed that she wasn't too good at writing romance, and I don't blame her because writing romance is hard. But I did enjoy Romione! When I was little I saw it coming from a mile away, granted I was already savvy in literature but that must have been because she was doing something right! And then the sixth book happened… the sixth book which… which was released after the Harry Potter movies were being filmed, wasn't it?

Vivi looking up the timelines: Oh my god. Oh my god it's even worse, the movies were being discussed before Goblet of Fire came out. Come to think of it, I always found that the Trio felt… different, after Prisoner of Azkaban. Harry and Ron especially felt like they had gotten dumber? And Hermione was suddenly explaining everything when exposition used to be split between her and Ron…

Vivi, in mourning: So that's what happened. Ron ended up being shortchanged to make Hermione look better, because Rowling was fonder of Hermione than she was of Ron, and the scriptwriter too come to think of it. Curse you, Steve Kloves!!!

Vivi, who is nothing if not what Pokémon fans call a nostalgiafag: But… but… yeah, it sucks that Ron was shortchanged, and actually yeah it's a freaking travesty and I WILL freaking spread the world about this, mark my words, but, but I still… I can't help it, when Hermione “looked up at Ron and her frostiness seemed to melt" I melt too. When Ron compliments Hermione or tries to take care of her as much as he can I… it still does something to me, I still find myself rooting for them even if I know there's the awful sixth book and the stupid post-Locket beatdown. Their kiss, for God's sake, I've just realized that Ron may have swept Hermione off her feet physically, but it's Hermione who jumped him, you could say Hermione metaphorically swept Ron off his feet!! God damn it, that's good, that's so good!

Vivi, at war with herself: No, I can't let myself be blinded by nostalgia!! The facts are that Hermione shows borderline abusive - even actually abusive - behaviour, this can't be denied! I don't want to root for an abusive relationship! I don't want to root for a relationship that relies on my favourite character being dumbed down to work!!!

Vivi, about to uncover the secrets of the universe: … wait a second. I don't have to.

Vivi, having an epiphany: Reading Solstice Muse's Romione fanfics gives me such happiness because she just gets the characters! She doesn't portray Hermione as perfect and never fucking up, and she always treats what happens to Ron with respect… Well, especially since she can't play them off as a joke since she often makes Ron the POV character. But, yeah! I can still like Romione… if it's well-written. Which, well, isn't the case in the original books… at least, isn't the case anymore after Rowling's bias got the best of her. Even though they do have their great moments.

Vivi, finding purpose in her life: I am going to spread awareness. I am going to tell the world. Fuck, just rereading the books, I've noticed how blatant the favouritism is and how unbalanced it can be. No wonder the fandom seems to collectively scoff at Ron - the books themselves do whenever it's convenient for them! The fandom plays favourites, because the author herself played favourites, and the worst part is that she didn't even realize it! Imagine you spend your life getting into traumatic situations out of love for your friends who always receive compassion and validation for their feelings about said traumas, but YOUR trauma is hardly touched upon and in the rare case it is, it's only to be mocked or used against you… Fuck! You're a piece of work, JKR! And the fandom just swallows it whole like a bunch of lobotomized snakes! Screw it! Screw it, I'm going to say it like it is, and I'm going to say it LOUDLY! People are going to hear about what Ron goes through and we'll see if Harry and Hermione look like the only ones worthy of therapy then!!

Present day Vivi, as she scrolls through the (heavily filtered) Romione tag on AO3: Ugh, another Drarry… and another… and another… oh, a Hinny-centric fic for a change, cool but I'm looking for more Romione than that, sorry. Gah, why is it that Romione appears as a secondary ship everywhere but they can't get their own stories? I've just seen a Snupin come up for God's sake! Oh, finally, a full Romione!! *clicks* … … … awww that was so sweet. Kudos! Okay back to the search… oh, another one!! *clicks* … … … it's Ron-bashing. It's Ron-bashing and it's not tagged Ron-bashing and that's why it showed up in my search AND I'M GOING TO FREAKING RIOT-

#vivi answers #ask #romione #ron weasley #hermione granger #ron weasley defense squad #ron weasley defence squad #ron x hermione #harry potter series #anti jk rowling

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bruciewayne · 4 years

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stars hide your fires

stevetony, steve-centric, light angst, mostly fluff, 2k

Steve’s ten, and he’s known Bucky for a week.

They’re on his balcony at night, his first sleepover.

“The stars mean you can make a wish,” Bucky says, pointing up.

“What do you wish for?”

Bucky grins. “Can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”

It sounds logical to Steve, so he looks up and wishes that he and Bucky are friends forever, he wishes that all the things wring with him go away so he can play with the rest of the kids at recess and for the first time in his life, he really appreciates the stars. He makes his wishes and tells Bucky that the stars are pretty, and he, in turn, tells him about all the constellations he read about in his Pa’s book.

They carry on talking until they fall asleep, leaning on each other, warm in the summer eve.

Steve’s sixteen, halfway to handing Charon his silver coin, and staring out the window next to his bed. He hates the hospital with a passion, he’s spent far too much of his life stuck in here while his mother works just to keep him alive, and, not for the first time, he considers just giving up entirely, what’s the point, afterall, in a guy who has to fight all his life just to stay alive. According to the doctors, he’ll probably be dead by 25 anyway, 30, if he’s lucky, and he doesn’t want the next decade of his, and his Ma’s life to be spent just barely living.

He wishes to the stars dotted across the clear, dark skies that he has a quick and painless death, and for it to come fast, he wishes for his Ma and Bucky’s happiness - Lord knows he can’t give it himself.

He wishes and wishes and wishes and when he wakes up he knows for certain that God doesn’t exist. If He did, would He make Steve suffer so? Would He make his Ma suffer because of him? If he asked his Ma, she would tell him the story of Job once more, and tell him to have faith, and that’s how he knows that his Ma is so, so much better than him - she doesn’t give up, even when he’s been on his death bed so many times Hell is probably sick of it too (there’s no denying, no matter what Ma and Bucky say, he caused the people he loved to suffer, he’s going to Hell.).

He wakes up to the sun in his face and his Ma smiling down at him, relieved.

He’s eighteen and drunk, lying on top of his apartment building. He wants to see the stars, but the skies are cloudy, he wants to drink more, but the bottle’s empty and Bucky refuses to get more (it’s not like the stores are going to be open this late anyway).

He wants his Ma back.

The God he was taught about wouldn’t let a person like Sarah Rogers predecease someone like him, if He really existed, and everything still went the way it did, Steve thinks he would deck him again and again until all his bones were broken, and God would probably just laugh.

He imagines it, staring blankly up at starless, cloud-covered skies, speaking aloud, wishing for things that won’t come true.

He does the same the next day, and the next, until the week blurs together into one hazy mess of drinking and grey skies and tears

It’s a week after and he’s on the roof again, halfway through the bottle, when the sky starts crying with him. It’s devastating, loud, crashing against Steve and the cars below and the metal of the hang-overs of the stores, and Steve knows that he should go inside, lest he catches his death, but he can’t bring himself to, and just stays there, for hours probably, until the storm clears, and he’s probably sick, but finally, finally, he can see the stars, bright and glittering against the midnight blue sky.

He doesn’t wish for the impossible again.

I wish Ma rests well, God, if that’s the only thing you’ll ever do for me, let her rest well, please.

He’s twenty-one and they’ve declared war, and Steve can’t do anything about it, because he’s too damn weak, useless to even fight for his country. Those nights he wishes to the stars that he could do something, anything.

He’s twenty-five when a wish finally comes true, in the worst way possible.

They tell him that he’s doing something for his country, but he’s not. They’re using him as a performer, not a soldier.

He spends the nights wishing he could do more, be more, be enough.

And it’s not wishing that gets him away from it, it’s him actually doing something, it’s him who changes it, says ‘fuck you’ to General Phillips in the nicest way possible that doesn’t get him a dishonourable discharge.

He creates a team, a group. He gets to be so much more than he ever wished for.

They sit together in the firelight, making lewd images out of the stars, laughing and joking despite the horrors of the day, telling stories. They sleep next to the dying embers, under the stars, and for the first time, Steve Rogers isn’t unbearably lonely, nor is he a detriment to his peers, for the first time he thanks the stars (he’s given up on God entirely., but the stars are a nice replacement.)

He’s twenty-seven when he wishes again.

He’s in a blown-apart pub in Europe, wishing he could get drunk, wishing he was better, faster, smarter. Wishing and wishing and wishing until he’s so damn angry and sad he may as well be drunk.

He’s twenty-seven when he crashes the Valkyrie and dies, in the Arctic’s ‘summer’, when it’s months and months until the pole will see the stars.

He’s still twenty-seven, but it’s seventy years later, and aliens fall from the sky.

He’s twenty-seven (and also ninety-seven) when he thinks he sees his first falling star. Not a star, really, but a man in a metal suit. As he falls, he wishes that he lives.

It’s the first wish of this century that comes true.

Once again, he’s incredibly lonely. The team he’s been told to lead are fine, they’re ok, good people, strong people, but they’re not friends, Steve isn’t one of them, the way he was with the Howlies, Steve’s their CO, and they’re not in the trenches anymore, so there’s no real reason to make friends.

He spends a lot of time training, and at SHIELD, probably not enough sleeping, but he can’t-- he can’t wake up again and lose what little he has all over again. So he spends his nights stargazing.

The stars don’t change even though he can’t see many of them, the constellations he learned about so long ago, are still in the same place, though the man in the metal suit, Tony Stark, son of Howard, only in genes, really, and not much in anything else, tells him that they’re in a slightly different place, because of something called ‘red-shift’, but not enough to make it really significant.

“Unless you’re an astrophysicist,” Tony finishes, with a swig of his scotch, leaning over the railing parallel to Steve.

He’d pretty much ambushed Steve, he’d been on the roof, smoking, stargazing, when Tony had come up. He doesn’t hate it.

“Just a soldier,” Steve replies, smiling slightly, and Tony finishes the glass and goes back in after patting Steve on the shoulder, and Steve smokes two more cigarettes before he too tries to sleep.

The next morning, Steve finds a book on constellations, their origins and meanings, on his nightstand.

He’s twenty-eight, but sometimes he’ll joke about being ninety-eight.

Somehow, one of his favourite pastimes becomes stargazing with Tony. They’re equals now, not just him and Tony, but him and all the Avengers, and the new century isn’t as lonely as he once thought.

“Don’t you ever get bored?” Tony asks one night, looking up from his tablet.

“Of the stars?”

“They never change.”

Steve runs that over in his mind. He doesn’t go on the roof every day (turns out, sleeping is far more enjoyable when ice doesn’t flood one’s bones), and not for that long, but whenever he does, there’s half a chance that Tony might join him too, five minutes later with paperwork and two steaming mugs of coffee. A couple months ago, Tony put an actual table up here, and some chairs, he’d claimed that it was for himself, because his bones no longer enjoyed standing around in the cold, but Natasha had made a whip noise when Tony had mentioned it.

“They never change,” he parrots, as his answer. Tony harrumphs and glares at his tablet and Steve laughs, then laughs harder when Tony looks up to glare at him.

“What?” Steve says, still laughing, “You get tired of wishing?”

“You’re a five-year-old, Rogers,” Tony grumbles.

“Better than being fifty-five,” Steve quips, raising his eyebrows at Tony pointedly.

“Ohhhh FUCK you, Rogers, I’m younger than you!”

“You’re fifteen years older than me!”

Tony’s quiet for a second, processing that for the first time.

Finally, he says, “Nah.”

Steve looks at him in disbelief, “Nah?”

“Nah.”

Looking up at the sky, Steve wishes aloud, “I wish Tony believed he’s middle-aged.”

Tony grins at him, brighter than all the stars in the sky put together, “Won’t come true,” he says gleefully, “y’said it out loud.”

Steve, unable to think of anything better, grumbles back, “I’ll say you out loud,” which doesn’t have its intended effect at all.

“Oh yeah? You’ll be screaming my name huh?” Tony says, in that tone that makes Steve think, maybe he’s not just joking.

“You’d want that, wouldn’t you?” Steve says, matching his tone, teasing with an undercurrent of... something.

Tony just mutters something under his breath, which sounds suspiciously like “What am I gonna do with you, Rogers,” but Steve pretends that he has normal hearing and carries on with his drawing. The quiet isn’t lonely this time.

He’s thirty. Or a hundred.

He’s lucky.

He’s out of the city far enough that pollution doesn’t matter and he can see all the stars, properly and clearly and he makes a wish - something rare for him these days - and does something foolish.

And his best friend kisses him back.

Steve Rogers is thirty-one and, once again, halfway to handing Charon his silver coin, and there’s many things Tony’s willing to do for Steve, give him as many things as he wants, but this isn’t something he wants to fund, not if he can help it.

The doctors told him that he’s probably going to wake up, but not for at least a day, and he just has to go outside, the sight of Steve connected to so many tubes and machines, barely able to breathe on his own is too much for him. He stumbles out of the medbay to the elevator that’ll take him up to the roof.

He’s not a religious man, Howard had believed in science and science only, and his mom had told him that she’s been raised Catholic, and sometimes, in times of trouble, she’ll pray. He remembers seeing her clutching a cross pendant sometimes.

So he wishes on the stars instead, like Steve, regardless of how illogical wishing and praying are, fundamentally, but Steve had taught him that it meant hope, and by God, Tony could use all the hope and faith he could get.

He doesn’t dare say his wishes aloud, lest they become untrue, but stares, unblinkingly, at the night sky until his eyes are burning and he’s run out of promises and wishes he can make

They’re on the roof again, under the stars, again, and Steve makes another wish. He doubts it’s his last one, but it’s the only one he knows with a minimum of a hundred percent certainty is entirely futile, because he knows the outcome, because he knows what will happen, he knows that he doesn’t need to ask the ineffable forces above for help, but he wants to, just in case.

Tony says yes before he even gets down on one knee.

They don’t get married under the stars, because that’s utterly absurd, and Tony refuses to be mugged on his wedding day, but they do dance, long after everyone’s left, in the starlight. The sky is clear and beautiful, but neither groom looks up, nor cares, nor dares to look away from his husband, they have all they could ever wish for, after all.

happy steve bingo masterpost

#steve rogers x tony stark #stevetony #stony #stony fic #stevetony fic #steve rogers #tony stark #my fic #my writing #happy steve bingo #happystevebingo #happystevebingo2019 #maybe the title is a macbeth reference.#maybe its maybelline

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buckyreaderrecs · 4 years

Text

So Far Away: Chapter 5/?

Summary: Bucky Barnes doing what he does best. Saving. Loving. In this particular case, the object of both is you. (Bonus: Bucky Barnes happy, healing, doing really well!)

First chapter in series. Previous chapter.

Chapter 5: It’s time to find your family.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, F.R.I.D.A.Y., Cecilia Reyes Additional tags: mostly canon compliant (Infinity War and Endgame didn’t happen, Stark Tower still exists), she/her pronouns, more tags/characters to be added with future chapters, hero Bucky Barnes, canon typical violence, warzone/disaster zone setting, Alpine the cat, other Marvel characters mentioned but not central to the plot, Warnings: possible triggers for anxiety and PTSD, major triggers for death of loved ones and grief, chapter 5 only possible trigger for food

Note: Please heed the warnings for this chapter; it’s a bit intense. As always, I’d love to know what you think. xo Rhi

So Far Away Chapter 5/?

The first night you'd spent at Stark Tower was forgettable in the sense that you had completely forgotten most of it. Vaguely, there was a bath, and Bucky, then bed. That was pretty much it though. So, it wasn't like the day after needed to do anything particularly special to be considered memorable. And yet, it was.

As Bucky put all the Mexican food trash into the paper Ubereats bag, you flicked through channels on television.

"Have you seen this?" you asked, stopping on Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

"I know, I know! I don't know shit about anything, but in my defence, I've been busy helpin' to save the world since I've been… good," Bucky replied, highly defensive but also still in good humour.

"Um… I just meant, 'cause it's a super underrated Disney movie. And nobody's seen it, like Hercules," you told him, holding back a grin.

"Oh… Sorry. Sam's always yelling at me," he explained, throwing the Ubereats bag in the bin and walking back over the couch from the kitchenette.

"About movies?"

"About everything," he said, rubbing his face. "He's cut up about me missing, like, all of hip-hop."

It made you laugh, which motivated Bucky to continue his bitching about Sam Wilson. "And! He thinks me and Steve should have more 'refined taste' in everything." He used air quotation marks, which Natasha Romanoff had taught him to use, much to the dismay of Steve. ("Captain America.")

"Refined taste?"

"Yeah, basically he loses it when he we like anythin' he thinks is bad. Like…" Bucky cycled through his list of favourite things. "The Fast and the Furious movies."

An image flashed in your mind of Steve and Bucky, completely decked out in their respective gear, marathoning the films, cheering at every car stunt and use of the NOS button. It made you smile, genuinely happy.

Bucky continues, "They ain't my favourite or anythin', but they're fun, ya know? He's probably just upset that whenever we get in car races it's mostly someone trying to kill us,"

"I guess that's… fair, but he's… The Falcon… that's super cool?"

Bucky grinned, but quickly shook his head. "Don't ever tell him you said that, okay? Never tell Sam you think he's cool,"

"Is it like feeding Gremlins after midnight?" you asked.

"I watched that one! And, yeah. It's exactly like that,"

"But it's not like you guys don't get to see cool things… and be cool,"

"I guess… We're used to it?" Bucky thought for a second or two, wriggled into the couch and rested his arm along the back of it. You turned to face him, legs crossed and entirely attentive. "Before the war I loved reading about what new gadgets were comin' out. Used to drag Steve to anything with tech stuff. But then, Hydra. I wasn't really conscious enough to realise I was in the future," he told you, chuckling a little to himself like it was funny. It was so nonchalant that it shocked you a little. He hadn't stuttered saying their name, or shifted to a darker mood. "Whenever I got re-programmed, I was re-trained too. Whatever advancements they made, I learnt. Meant when Shuri fixed my head up, I wasn't that inept. Got it a lot easier than Steve that way,"

"Just movies and T.V. and stuff that you missed then?" you asked, feeling like you needed to keep him talking because you'd never heard anything so goddamn interesting.

"Yeah. Hydra didn't exactly have a Netflix subscription for me," he said. You said nothing. "That was a joke. You can laugh," Bucky told you, softly nudging your knee.

"I don't know how you joke about it," you said honestly.

He shrugged. "You'll joke about all this too, one day," he replied.

No. No, I won't.

Bucky saw the conflict flash across you face.

"It's not like there isn't things that still blow my mind… Wakanda, for one," he continued, pulling you from your thoughts.

"Is it as cool as it looks on T.V.?"

"Cooler. It's gotta be one of my favourite places. And when I met Wanda… She thought I was a bit of a meatball. Never met anyone with powers like hers, you know? She's amazing. And Vision. Still don't really get what he's about,"

"So, you are friends with Wanda Maximoff but you think Vin Diesel is cool?" you asked, affronted.

Bucky laughed. "No. I think the cars are cool. The stunts! Vin Diesel seems like a jerk."

Another image flashed. Someone in the world, Vin Diesel, knowing that The Winter Soldier thought he was a bit of jerk.

Bucky watched you laugh.

"Come on, then. What's this one about?" he asked, turning back to the television.

"Atlantis-"

"Underwater city? I'm in."

That's about where you realised that Bucky Barnes was a massive nerd.

It took Bucky ten minutes to tell you that you needed to keep warm, putting the knitted blanket over you. It took twenty to have him scoot closer to you, his arm still on the back of the couch, behind your head. About half an hour in, Bucky said, "Yeah, this is better than Snow White. I love this little mole guy."

Bucky was watching, listening for any signs that the lack of conversation had given you time to think, to spiral. But, it hadn't. Atlantis was a comfort movie for you, a distraction. He could see you smile and frown along with the characters.

"It was pretty obvious that this was gonna happen," Bucky said at the high point of the plot twist. He was aiming for a reaction. You looked at him fast and dramatic. "I'm good at picking the bad guys. Kinda my job."

At the rolling of the credits, Bucky asked, "Ice cream?"

As he put a collection of Ben and Jerry's on the counter top, Bucky caught himself in a sudden realisation. He was keeping you busy. Eventually, you'd notice, or the day would carry on and bedtime would come; the quietness between 'goodnight' and sleep would crush you, pushing from you anxiety and grief. But first, Bucky thought, ice cream.

"Half Baked," you said. Bucky handed you the pint and a spoon.

You watched him open the Strawberry Cheesecake, Cherry Garcia, and Urban Bourbon. "Variety is the spice of life," he said grinning, his voice a strange mocking tone, like he was parroting someone you'd never met.

"I genuinely don't know where all that food goes,"

"In here," he answered, lifting his shirt and patting his tummy.

"Yeah, but like, do you have one of those trash compactor things that mooshes it all down super small?"

Bucky laughed. "Maybe. Who knows what's going on inside 'ere."

You were sitting on a bar stool, leaning against the kitchenette's counter. Bucky put the spoons in the dishwasher and the uneaten ice cream away. He liked things in their place, you noted.

"So," he said, too casually. It felt, correctly, like a lead up. "How are you feeling?"

"Full," you answered, honest, but also not really.

Bucky looked at you, nodded. "What else?"

You dropped your gaze, breaking eye contact. A nervousness grew in you, the gatekeeper to all the bad. It was telling you to flee - answering the question wouldn't be nice. You could tell that Bucky wouldn't change the subject though. He could wait in that silence all day for you to speak.

"I…" you began. "I don't know. There's just… a lot,"

"Yeah. That makes sense. There is a lot… Probably good to start telling me about it." When you said nothing to that, he added, "Or someone else. We can-"

"I feel guilty," you blurted out, partly to stop him suggesting you talk to anyone else, partly because the gate was opening and the guilt as behind it in abundance. Bucky nodded like he already knew what you were going to say, and what you meant. "I… I'm here. Where I'm more than safe," you said, looking around at the suite. "But I haven't done anything to deserve it-" Bucky went to say something but stopped himself. "I'm not the most hurt, or the most useful person to save or anything like that. And then, I haven’t even looked-" That was it. The tears began to stream down your face, heavy and hot. You could feel them pooling in your shirt somewhere. The sentence you started was lost, completely drowned out by sobs.

Bucky remained composed. He fetched tissues from the bathroom, took it upon himself to clear your face, ready for the next wave. It arrived immediately. "Come 'ere," he said, pulling you into him. There would be wetness and snot all over his hoodie when you would eventually move, but you didn’t think of that in the moment and Bucky really didn’t care. He stood between your legs, rocking you gently on the stool for a minute before you spoke again.

"I haven't even looked for anybody," you said, so softly and so painfully that even priests in confessional booths would have hung their heads.

"How could you?" Bucky asked.

During the time before his head was really put back together, that is what everyone did with him. They challenged Bucky's questions, forced logic on him, rending much of the harmful conclusions he'd drawn about himself incorrect. It was a good strategy and he'd learned it well.

You half shrugged and kept crying. A cycle had begun in your mind. You were crying because you felt guilty, but that made you feel selfish and stupid. You thought you should be crying for other people. All of that, of course, made you feel more guilty, starting the cycle all over again. But maybe that cycle was easier to loop on than any real feelings of grief and loss.

"When were ya meant to have time to find people? Couldn't do it in the refuge centre. Too much goin’ on. And your hand was smashed, probably killin' you. And like Doc said - in shock," he said, paused, waited for a response.

Bucky's hands were moving up and down your back with enough pressure to calm you sobs into softer hiccups and sniffles.

"Yeah?" Bucky prompted. You nodded and shrugged simultaneously. "Okay, so, couldn't have done it on the way here or last night. You were exhausted. Could hardly keep yourself upright. Ain't much use to anybody like that."

You covered your nose with a tissue and sat up. Even if he didn't care, you didn't want him to see you with a face covered in snot. Bucky had the tact to look away while he continued. You listened as you wiped your face clean.

"This morning, whisked ya away to Medical. Then force fed you some food. And now, we're here. So, if you're asking me, darlin', not too sure when you think you were meant to do all this people finding, you know?"

Bucky could see it in your face that you knew he was right. When you nodded, saying, "I guess," he felt completely victorious.

You drank the glass of water Bucky poured for you, then took a breath in, two, three, out, two, three.

"Okay," you said, voice almost normal.

"Okay," he repeated in solidarity.

"Can we find them now?"

…

The room was definitely not for civilians, but nobody stopped Bucky from walking in with you. It was a buzzing hub of activity and urgency. Voices spoke fast, people moved faster.

"It's kind of like a command centre," Bucky tried to explain. "Whenever there's a threat, we have a response team that do… I guess what would happen if there was an earthquake or somethin'. Search and rescue. Coordinating relief."

You nodded and stayed close to Bucky's side, not wanting to get in anyone's way.

"Sergeant Barnes," a very tired woman greeted.

"Hey. I'm really sorry to-"

"No time for that. What can we do for you?" she cut him off.

"Finding people that were in the attack zone," he replied.

"Everything we know, F.R.I.D.A.Y. knows. Integrated systems. Find a computer, preferably not in here, and ask her. Anything else?"

"No. Thank-" but she was gone.

Bucky hooked an arm around your waist and walked you back to the elevator.

"She was amazing," you said.

Bucky grinned. "Never met her before, but yeah, lot of people like that around here."

On a floor of the tower that was much calmer, Bucky and you sat in what you supposed was some sort of crazy high-tech boardroom.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"James,"

"Oh, it's James now?"

"Yes. How can I be of assistance?"

The first step was making a list of everyone you knew who lived or worked in the part of D.C. that was affected. You named them, confirmed through social media accounts and DMV records.

"Do you guys have access to, like, everything?" you asked Bucky.

"Probably shouldn't answer that," Bucky replied, winking.

Step two was all F.R.I.D.A.Y. "I work fast, but I'd like to check my work, Y/N," she told you.

"If you can, can you check with-" Bucky went to ask.

"First responder reports?" F.R.I.D.A.Y. asked.

"Must be the day for being cut off by women smarter than me, huh?"

"I could be mistaken, James, but isn't that every day?"

Bucky laughed, looked at you for back up, but saw you staring at screen in front of you. The list of names.

Once you'd actually made it, you realised there were likely less people to find than you first though. Your housemate, Lucas, was a bike courier. He may have been out of the zone, 50/50 chance. Elizabeth, your best friend, lived on the next block over. She was home when the attack happened. You were watching her Instagram live; she was feeding her pet snake, Salem. Then, the girls at the hole in the wall café you worked at, Glory. You didn't know who was shift, so you listed all five.

There were more, but felt like naming everyone you knew would be greedy somehow. Bucky said, when you were ready, you could look through the list of the deceased. Even hearing the phrase made you feel sick though.

"Do you want to wait here?" Bucky asked.

You turned to him, ran your hands through your hair. "I don't know… I can't…" but whatever you couldn’t, you couldn’t even articulate.

Bucky nodded. "How about we get some fresh air? When we get back, F.R.I.D.A.Y. will have something for us?"

…

Out on the street, everything was loud. The whole back-in-reality thing really took you off guard. Seeing the city from the top of the Tower was different to this.

"I got ya," Bucky said, coming to walk right by your side. You looked over at him, and he offered his hand. You immediately accepted.

As you walked by multiple cafés, you wondered if Bucky had a favourite, or maybe there was a secret superhero club behind a hidden door in an inconspicuous bodega or Chinese restaurant. Alas, earwax - no such luck. Bucky held the door of a standard looking café open.

The guy behind the coffee machine nodded. "Buck,"

"Hey, Gee,"

"Seen ya's all on the news. Everyone okay?" Gee the barista asked, the genuine concern evident in his tone and expression.

"Ah, yeah. You know - nothing they can't handle," Bucky replied; you suspected it was the party line.

"Good, good. What can we get for ya then?"

"Don't worry about it, bud. I'll jump in line."

Gee shook his head and smiled as Bucky took his place in the queue to order. "You wanna grab a table? Or wait with me?" he asked you.

"Stay," you replied, stepping closer to him.

While you held your body in a way that shielded your broken bones from people's paths, it was easy being close to Bucky. He was probably very accustomed to being around the injured, so never accidentally hit the cast. You were grateful.

Bucky reached out and curled hair behind your ears, then leaned in to kiss the top of your nose. It was intimate, and brought solace. It was also very public; as he moved away, started greeting the girl at the counter, you realised there were more than a few pairs of eyes on you. Turning from the room, you stood closer to Bucky and listened to their conversation.

"You know I can't tell you that," Bucky said, leaning against the counter like he owned it.

"But, like, it's over, right? We won?"

"Tiff, would I be standing here if there was something else I could be doing?"

Tiff nodded, made a face like she'd been let in on a state secret. "Hmmm," she pondered for a second. Then, with pep, "So, the usual then? For one of Earth's mightiest heroes?"

Bucky rolled his eyes at her. "I hate you," he joked before looking at you. "What will it be?"

You hadn't really thought as far as ordering. Already feeling self-conscious and spaced out, the burning in your cheeks was getting hotter.

"Thinking maybe a pot of tea to share?" Bucky suggested, casual, but also sending you a quick wink - he was saving you again.

"Tea's great," you said.

After ordering, Bucky chose a couple of oversized armchairs by the window to sit in. He let you breathe, let you stare through the glass and people watch for a long time. He answered messages on his phone, checked in with Steve while you daydreamed. So deep in thought, or maybe just completely zoned out, you didn't even notice Bucky had made a call, or that the pot of tea had been placed on the small table between you.

Bucky said your name, but you failed to move. He reached out, tapped a knuckle against your knee. You gasped, felt your heart skip a beat.

"Sorry!" he said immediately. "Didn’t mean to scare you…"

"No, it's alright. I'm just… um,"

"You're alright, darlin'. How do you take your tea?"

It was a simple enough question, but you looked down at the table like it was all alien.

"Maybe you can make your own," Bucky said, pushing the tea tray closer to you. "Give you something to focus on. Bring you back down to earth."

…

Although you were hardly touching your tea or the cookies the staff brought over as a gift, Bucky let you sit for much longer than what anyone normally would. It was starting to get dark, the café closing around you, when you finally seemed to become aware of the rest of the world again.

"Oh. Should we go?"

"Sure," Bucky replied, standing and holding his hand out again.

After thanking everyone, you were out in the city, walking back to the Tower.

The silence that existed between you and Bucky was a comfortable one, but the closer you got to your destination, the more nervous you felt. Something in your mind snapped, told you to try to be normal. So, you started to talk. Fast. And a lot.

"Do you all go there? Like, the Avengers? It was nice. They really like you. The cookies were good-"

Bucky cut in, stopping you more than actually wanting to answer. "It's easier to go to the same places. The novelty of us eventually wears off," he told you.

"Yeah, people don't really stop staring, do they? Must get tiring, having everyone watch you all the time. And treat you different." You internally begged yourself to shut the fuck up.

"Guess I don't really know what 'normal' would be… Don't like people giving me free stuff all the time though. Don't need it. Not really a skip-the-line type of guy," he said.

You wondered how much charity he needed after Steve brought him back into the fold. Instead of asking about that, you thankfully went with, "Must be nice sometimes though?"

Bucky thought for a second. It was one of the changes in personality he experienced after Hydra. Bucky in the 30s and early 40s was a little bit of an attention seeker, a true lover of the limelight. Not so much anymore. He thought of you then - how you'd considered him to be a hero, and how you had needed him. How you still needed him.

"Maybe there's a couple perks."

You nodded, went quiet again. Bucky noticed that you switched between that frantic, almost manic state and scary quiet a fair bit. He rolled with it, a little notorious for the odd mood swing himself.

It was in the elevator of Stark Tower that you started to get jittery. The palms of your hands started to sweat, but Bucky didn't let go. He also tried to not seem like all of his attention was fixated on you, but it was. When he took you back to his suite, rather than the crazy high-tech boardroom, he thought about explaining why, but figured it wasn't one of the main things on your mind.

Sitting on the couch in the same place you'd eaten burritos for brunch, you pulled the knitted blanket back over yourself.

"Ready?" Bucky asked, sitting down next to you and putting a glass of water and box of tissues on the coffee table. You nodded. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., how'd you go?"

You felt sick, real deep down in your stomach. It was a pushing force, making you hot and uncomfortable. Suddenly, the blanket was too heavy and you pushed it away with a weird anger.

Bucky wanted to hold you, but he knew the sensation of feeling trapped by grief. He gave you space and braced himself for what was about to hit you.

"I'm not sure what the best order to deliver this is," F.R.I.D.A.Y. admitted. She knew the limits of her programmed humanity, and it was probably the most impressive thing about her.

"Good news first," Bucky said.

"I've located Lucas and Elizabeth. Lucas is currently residing in an apartment just outside the affected zone. It belongs to a Jacob Short,"

"That's his boyfriend's dad," you said, nodding to yourself. Lucas was safe.

"Elizabeth is currently admitted to Howard University Hospital. She has a broken clavicle and humerus, and damage to the glenohumeral joint - all to her right side. She is in stable condition."

You breathed out hard, then took a tissue to your face. You'd not even noticed that you'd started to cry.

"Glory was destroyed," F.R.I.D.A.Y. continued.

That's when you looked up from the patch of floor you'd been staring at. On the screen of the television, F.R.I.D.A.Y. had been showing you relevant things - the Facebook status geotagging Lucas at his boyfriend's family home, the rental agreement that showed who lived at that address, Elizabeth's medical records, even security footage of her in the hospital.

You shouldn't have looked up.

For a moment, Bucky didn't understand why your breathing had all but stopped. Average people don't get a slideshow to accompany their bad news. He looked at the screen. A photo, then another, showed the entire building Glory was a part of reduced to rubble.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., maybe we don't need the show with the tell," Bucky said.

"No!" you yelled. "I need to see."

If there was information, visual or verbal, you needed it.

"I logged into WorkForce using your credentials to view the roster. Two people were working at the time of the attacks: Carly Underwood and Ellie Gilbert," F.R.I.D.A.Y. told you. Before she said it, you knew it. "I'm sorry, Y/N. Both have been put on the list of deceased. Carly has been identified officially. Ellie is pending, but using our facial recognition and matching, I can confirm it's her."

You stood up, ripping the hoodie you were wearing off. If it was too hot before, now you felt like you were made of lava.

Bucky watched you start to pace. Your expression was alarmingly flat.

"The rest of your co-workers are safe. Only a Tara Constantine was in the affected area. She was on a bus moved to safety by Peter Parker."

There was footage taken from somebody's phone of Spiderman saving bus and carloads of people.

"I used your social media accounts to create an index of known people. As far as I can tell, you do not directly know anyone else on the list of deceased."

The phrase was still making you feel sick.

Bucky mistook that as F.R.I.D.A.Y. being finished. He thanked her, asked her to keep him updated if anything changed.

"Sorry, Sergeant. There's more."

Both you and Bucky went still. What else could there be?

"Your parents, Y/N,"

"They live on the other side of the city. Probably worried about me, right?" You turned to the screen, expected to see a worried Facebook posted asking if anyone had seen you. How could telling them you were safe not be your first thought? Stupid. Selfish.

On the screen was a grainy traffic cam photo of your parents driving. It was time and date stamped.

"They're fine," you said.

"Y/N, I'm sorry… Your parents aren't on the list of deceased-"

"Yeah, because they're fine!"

Suddenly, you remembered you did call them. You were still in the refuge centre, and it took you an hour to find someone with a phone willing to share. First, you called your dad, but it went straight to voicemail. Your mum didn't pick up. Only a month before, they'd had the landline switched off. How did you forget calling?

"But using street surveillance, I tracked their car into the affected zone. They got caught in the attack-"

"No. No. They hate that part of town. I didn't even move in that long ago and they already hate it. There's no reason for them to be there," you said, angry. No reason… except you.

"I checked through unidentified photographs-" she tried to continue, her voice noticeably more robotic than Bucky had ever heard it. He was grateful to have her then.

"The what?" you asked, confused and flustered and still feeling so fucking sick.

Bucky sighed, figured he should explain that one. "It's the same as natural disasters… When they find bodies, move them to try to identify them, they make a catalogue of photos to help. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s saying she checked through them,"

"So? They're fine,"

"Our facial recognition and matching have a 100% accuracy record, but… I could be wrong," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said.

Bucky knew she wasn't, and was discomforted by her attempt at gentleness.

"Wrong about what?" you spat, already knowing.

"I believe your parents have passed away,"

"Show me," you said.

"Y/N, I-" from Bucky.

"Show me!" you yelled, moving to the screen, standing so close you swore you could feel the electricity buzzing from it.

The photographs from traffic cams were still up, static. You stared them down, waiting.

Bucky walked to you, stood behind you, held his breath.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn't speak again. She showed you all the photos of your parents she had found to base her conclusion on. The reach of her skills became apparent and terrifying. There was no way she and everything she could do, was legal. As photos from private accounts, devices, and websites flashed up, along with dozens from the DMV and work place IDs, you felt all the heat you'd brewed up drain from you.

Your body began to meltdown - you needed to pee, your mouth went dry, and earaches formed out of nowhere. It felt like you were being stabbed in the lower back. None of it made sense.

The screen went still again.

"Show me," you said once more.

Two overexposed photographs appeared on screen. Both were framed similarly - head shots of undeniably dead people. Also undeniable was the fact that they were the corpses of your parents.

"Turn it off," Bucky said.

The screen went black but you didn't look away. As long as you stayed there staring, the image wouldn't fade. You could see them in your mind. You could see the indent in your father's head, skull visible. You could see the blood on your mother’s face. Tape held their eyelids closed.

"Y/N," Bucky whispered, standing close. He waited for a response. Time was ticking by excruciatingly slowly. "Y/N, I'm gonna help you to bed," he said, but you flinched, so he stopped moving towards you. "Okay… That's okay. You can stay-" but before he could end the sentence with 'here,' you screamed out a guttural cry that mutated into sobbing.

Very quickly for Bucky then, time sped up again. It was moving too fast though. Your legs gave up, and he caught you only just before hitting the floor. You crawled out of his arms, along the floor, dry heaving between sobs and yelped of pain as you ignored the fact one hand was crushed. In the couple of seconds it took him to work out if you were going to throw up, you did. You puked all the Mexican and tea you'd had, then continued to crawl, making it close enough to a wall that you could lay on your side and lean against it.

Bucky knelt in front of you, tried to pull your hair into the tie that was usually around his wrist. Once successful, he went to retrieve a cold, wet wash cloth. He wiped your face but gave up when the sobbing seemed to get louder. He could make out words sometimes. For the most part, there was nothing coherent in your mind to articulate. You curled up into a ball, switching between deep sobs and outright screams.

Eventually, it all subsided into an even crying but you stayed in a tight ball. Bucky sat beside you, pressed close enough that he could feel each movement you made. After hours, once you'd gone quiet, Bucky whispered, "I'm gonna look after you, Y/N. Promise."

Chapter 6 coming soon...

Tag list for So Far Away: @animegirlgeeky @howthehellisbucky @dumbubblegum @chipilerendi

Tag list for all my work: @bubbabarnes @browngirlmagic @lookalivefrosty @aynaraxas @vibraniumwitch @the--sad--hatter @fairislesheets (of course it doesn’t let me tag you! I’ll message you)

Tag lists are open - message me to be added.

#mine #So Far Away #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes fanfic #Bucky Barnes imagine #Bucky Barnes fanfiction #Bucky Barnes reader insert #Marvel #Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes/Reader #Bucky Barnes x Y/N #Bucky Barnes/You #Bucky Barnes x You

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nekoannie-chan · 4 years

Text

The doubt

Pairing: Brock Rumlow X Reader.

Word count: 1946 words.

Summary: Brock has a secret, you think he cheats on you, but what would happen if you discovered the truth?

Warnings: Maybe sad.

A/N: My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English, if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

This is my entry to the @trashmenofmarvel ‘s Trashman’s 2K Trash Party with the dialogue prompt #13:

“Guess you were right about me after all”

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platform or language (I translate myself my own work). If you find any of my works in a different platform and is not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs are fine.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

You and Brock had been dating for about three years, contrary to what everyone said and believed, in their childhood, neither of you had what could be considered a true family, so since you started dating it was what you tried to form.

When Cap joined the team, you noticed that Brock changed his attitude somewhat, it was as if he was afraid, maybe he would be moved as a leader since he had directed Strike for many years or maybe he thought he would lose you, there were many girls who were trying to conquer the Cap, but you had no eyes for anyone but Brock.

While they were preparing dinner, your boyfriend's cell phone rang, you noticed that he had tensed.

“Is everything okay?”

He looked at you doubtfully, it even seemed to you that he had turned pale.

"Yes, I know I promised you it would be a romantic dinner, but ..."

"A mission," you concluded.

He nodded, you had that bad luck that there was always a mission, you checked your cell phone to see if you also had to go, there was nothing in yours, although sometimes you didn't go together.

“I promise you that...”

"Just come back safe, I love you," you interrupted.

"I love you," he said before leaving the place.

That's how it went, you sighed, you weren't angry, but if you thought Brock was acting weird.

The next morning Brock returned, it had been hard for you to sleep, as each time you had a separate mission it was difficult for you to sleep, more than anything for the fear of losing him, instead of when you had missions together you protected the each other.

Brock was the only one who had been with you in difficult times, whenever you needed someone he was there, like when your family had kicked you out of the house.

He always seemed to be very rude and cold, but with you he was different, he had always been loving and cared for you, so much that he didn't mind getting hurt in the missions in order to protect you.

You had managed to fall asleep two hours before he returned, when he entered the apartment, he observed you, he didn't want to wake you up, he kissed you on the forehead and left the flower that had brought you to apologize for leaving.

"Hi," you said sleepily.

“Morning beautiful.”

He smiled all the time he had been worried, in fact, he didn't want you to know his biggest secret, yes, he had told you practically all his life and everything he thought, wanted and so on, but there was only one thing he didn't, first because he didn't know how were you going to react, second because he was afraid of losing you, losing everything that you had built in all that time.

"How was your mission?"

"It was something simple," he said without giving further details.

The strange behavior of your boyfriend continued the following weeks you began to suspect that something had happened in that mission ... or there was someone else.

One day you noticed that there were some documents on the table, it looked like a file m Brock had forgotten, both of you didn't use to check the files, but this time you needed answers. You took the folder, you started reading it, you were in shock, and you couldn't believe what you read.

Brock was HYDRA, HYDRA still existed ... doubts began to appear in your head, had he really loved you or was it all another mission? Your life now seemed like a lie, what should you do?

You didn't even hear when the door opened and Brock entered.

"Honey now ... what's up?" He asked when he saw the expression on your face.

He saw the documents, tried to remain calm, his worst nightmare was coming true, he had never wanted you to find out, and he didn't want problems.

“Y/N I can explain ...”

“Explain what? Everything is very clear, Rumlow — you said furiously while waving the documents.”

“Y/N ...”

“What? Are you going to lie to me again? All those things you were telling me were a lie, you were simply looking for a way to cover up appearances” — you snapped furiously.

"No, I don't ... I just didn't tell you the whole truth, I love you"

"You betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D., you betrayed me, I loved you, you played with me, I don't even really care about you, I don't believe you, and all this ... all this was a lie, right?" Your voice began to break.

You managed to regain your composure, you didn't want to hear more lies, and you were very hurt.

“Y/N, I ...”

"Go, I don't want explanations, I don't want to see you again," you demanded.

"I didn't betray you, I'm not leaving, I need you to ..."

"Okay, so I'm leaving," you said.

You took your bag and left the apartment, he tried to stop you, but you didn't let him, then he started calling you by your name, you ignored him and left, you didn't want to hear any more lies.

It had been two weeks since you had left Brock, while you had returned to the apartment where you lived before, you didn't answer the calls or messages and at work you ignored him.

You had felt bad, you did a pregnancy test, it was positive, you were not sure to tell him, you still loved him, but you felt betrayed, you knew his past and you managed to understand why he had joined HYDRA, but you did not understand why he had not abandoned the infamous organization or because I hadn't told you.

Someone knocked on your door, you thought it was Brock, and you see through the peephole, it was Steve, Natasha, Hill and a man you didn't know, you opened the door.

“Cap, Nat, and Hill” you greeted

They entered your apartment, it seemed that they were bad, it also seemed strange that they were going to visit you, it was not as if you were very friendly with them.

“Where is him?” Asked Steve.

“Who?”

"Don't act as a dumb," Nat said

You looked at Natasha without understanding, that day you had not presented yourself to work so you had no idea what was happening.

"Rumlow," said Steve.

"I don't know," you replied.

It was logical that they asked you about him, they did not tell everyone about their separation, it was also not like you were interested in others knowing.

“How are you not going to know? Asked Steve.”

"We broke up two weeks ago," you explained.

They didn't believe you much, so they made you accompany them, they didn't speak to you, but somehow you knew that they believed you were also HYDRA when that was a lie, you were thinking about what you should do, you couldn't stop thinking about all those times that you and Brock had talked about having children, if he left HYDRA, maybe you could have a life as a family...

The Helicarriers had taken off, you sneak out to look for Brock, you had a bad feeling, and you saw him climbing the stairs.

“Brock!” You called him

He stopped when he heard your voice, for a moment he thought it was not real, he turned to make sure it was real.

“Y/N ...”

I was very surprised, I didn't expect to see you in this place, after all, that had happened

“What are you doing? What did you do? “You Asked.

"Guess you were right about me after all," he replied sadly.

"Brock...”

“Y/N, I have a mission, after finishing it I will explain everything ... if you want me to listen,” he asked.

"Let's go, let's go together," you proposed.

“Y/N…”

"I have a bad feeling, please let's go, I need you ... we need you”

“You need me? Who else? “He asked confused.

He thought you were on the side of Steve and S.H.I.E.L.D., who had sent you to convince him to leave HYDRA, he had too many mixed feelings.

"We're going to be parents," you finally confessed.

He dropped his gun, which echoed when he hit the floor, he didn't expect such news.

"You just say it to convince me, you're kidding, right?" He said completely dismayed.

"It's not a lie, I'm waiting for your baby," you said firmly.

“How is that...?

“Do you really ask that?

Brock looked at the stairs that climbed doubtfully, the internal struggle he was having was noticeable, he could not continue doing that mission, and he could not lose the opportunity of what he had always wanted.

"To hell HYDRA," he sentenced.

He approached you, kissed you, and picked up his weapon, they would look for them, he was sure of that, but they would find a way to avoid it.

"We have to get out of here as quickly as possible," he muttered.

It seemed almost an impossible mission, it was difficult to distinguish between friends and enemies, and Brock was trying his best to stay safe.

They had managed to get out of the Triskelion, Brock kept thinking where could go, evidently to any of the departments, they would probably look for you there, especially after he had betrayed HYDRA.

Suddenly they heard how they carried a gun

“Stop!” Ordered a woman

You both turned, it was Hill, Brock stood in front of you to protect you, and he wasn't going to let anyone hurt you.

"If you want to fight someone, it will be with me, she has nothing to do with this," Brock warned.

Neither objected when you were handcuffed and taken away for questioning, you might find some protection.

“What plans does HYDRA have?” Maria asked.

“I don’t know.

That was true, you didn't know anything about that organization, more than what you had read in the documents.

"Why you run away?" Natasha asked.

"We were going to run away from everything, leave everything behind."

"You were going to continue with HYDRA's plans," said the Russian.

"No, we wanted to have a new life, far from all this, to start everything from scratch."

"You lied, you said they were done," Maria said.

"I didn't lie, we broke up, but we reconciled, we are going to have a baby, I found out this morning, shortly before you arrived, as soon as I told him, he decided to abandon the mission he had," you explained.

“Did you know he was HYDRA?” Nat asked.

"Yes and no, I found out two weeks ago, that's why I had left him, I didn't really know what to do."

"What were you and Y/N doing as HYDRA agents?" Steve asked.

"Y/N didn't know about this, she's not HYDRA, she found out just a few weeks before," Brock said.

After hours of an exhaustive interrogation, you could finally see each other again, now you had to wait until they made a decision about what to do, Brock assured you that he would do everything possible to mend everything he had done in the past.

"We have made a decision, due to the status of Y/N, we will protect them and say nothing about Rumlow, it will officially appear as one of the victims of the Triskelion, as long as it cooperates," said Maria.

“In what way?” Asked Brock.

"Giving information, where there are HYDRA facilities, the plans, whatever it takes to end them," Steve intervened.

"I will," Brock said.

Brock Rumlow would do anything to keep his family safe, the only one he had and ever had in his life and loved.

#trashman2kchallenge #brock rumlow #brock rumlow x reader #brock fanfic #brock rumlow fanfic #brockrumlow #brock rumlow x you #rumlowxreader #rumlow x reader #rumlowxyou #rumlow x you

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kimannhart · 5 years

Note

need me some more hufflepuff!bucky and slytherin!tony prompts bc that's exactly the houses i see them in too

From the first moment that Bucky laid his eyes on Stark, he hated him. Bucky knew the Stark name and the reputation that their family had (“They’re just a bunch of pureblood Slytherins who think they’re better than everyone else.” were Bucky’s exact words). Bucky’s hatred on Stark grew even more when the Sorting Hat declared Stark a Slytherin.

Bucky wasn’t proud to admit it, but he was rude to Stark. Bucky called him crass things, rolled his eyes whenever the Slytherin would be the first to answer a question correctly during their lessons or when he would ramble on about something he loved.

But then, Bucky saw something that confused him. He saw Jim Rhodes hanging out with Stark… and it actually looked like Jim enjoyed Stark’s company. And that? That threw Bucky for a loop.

How could one of the most logical Ravenclaw he knows deem Stark as someone worth hanging out with? It just didn’t make sense to Bucky.

Naturally, one day after the herbology class that he and Jim shared, Bucky went up to Jim and asked him why he was hanging out with Stark.

“He’s a good guy,” Jim shrugged as he picked up his stack of books.

“Good guy?” Bucky scoffed. “He’s a Stark.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say since Bucky was immediately met with a glare.

“Look,” Jim said sharply, “Tony isn’t anything like the rumors that circulate this school or his family’s reputation. He’s good. I wouldn’t be his best friend if he wasn’t.”

Bucky gulped, not used to seeing anger come from the Ravenclaw.

“And you would see that too if you actually tried to be his friend.” With that, Jim left the room, leaving Bucky to soak up his words.

It’s safe to say after that conversation, Bucky stopped treating Stark the way he has been and just actually watched him. And what he learned surprised him. Bucky learned that the Stark that he and everyone else knew was just a front he put up. It wasn’t easy to notice, but whenever someone would say something harsh to the Slytherin, a flash of hurt would come across his face before a snarky look would show up instead. The hurt was minute, but it was there.

From that point on, Bucky had started being nicer to Stark.

“What do you want?” Stark questioned the moment Bucky sat down next to him in transfiguration.

“Uh to be your friend?”

Stark narrowed his eyes at the Hufflepuff, but said nothing more.

Bucky considered that a win.

The more time went on, the dynamic between the Hufflepuff and Slytherin changed. Bucky wasn’t Bucky to Tony, he was James, and Stark changed to Tony. They spent time studying together, frequented The Three Broomsticks, and Bucky even took Tony home for Christmas when he learned that Tony was planning to stay at Hogwarts. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jim and all of Bucky’s friends assumed that the two were dating, but apparently to Bucky and Tony it was.

“Wait, you guys think we’re dating?” Bucky asked his friends once Tony left to go to class.

Sam raised a brow, “Are you telling me that you aren’t?”

“Yeah. What makes you think that we’re dating?”

“He calls you James—which no one but your family calls you—, you guys are always touching, you took him home for the holidays, you spent the whole week with him when Jim told you that Stone and his friends hurt him and even asked Nat and Sharon to go hurt Stone,” Clint listed off.

“I… but that’s… that’s just me being a good friend!” Bucky retorted.

Steve snorted. “Friends don’t look at each other the way you and Stark do.”

“The way we look at each other?”

“Yeah, like lovers do,” Sam explained.

“We don’t look at each other like that!”

Bucky was met with skeptical sounds. He smacked his lips, gathered up his stuff. “You guys are delusional,” is what he said as he sauntered off to find Jim.

“Do you think Tony and I are dating?”

“Hello to you too, Barnes. How am I? Oh, I’m doing swell, thanks for asking,” Jim sarcastically replied.

Bucky rolled his eyes at Jim’s response. “Do you think Tony and I are dating?” he asked again.

“Are you… are you not?”

Bucky groaned. “No, we’re not.”

“Huh, well that’s surprising.” Jim looked up at him and sighed. “Do you love Tony?”

“Love Tony? What?”

“It’s a simple question.”

“I, uh, yeah?”

“What do you love about him?”

Bucky didn’t hesitate to start listing off things, “He’s cute, I love seeing the way his eyes lit up whenever he starts to ramble on, I love how he soft he is when we—oh. Oh. I love Tony… Gotta go Jim!”

“I love you,” Bucky blurted out the next time he saw Tony.

“Huh?”

“I. Love. You.”

Tony gasped. “I… I love you too,” he admitted.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere,” Tony whispered out to Bucky one night.

Hearing that hurt Bucky’s heart. He tugged Tony in for a hug. “You fit perfectly in my arms.”

Bucky couldn’t see it but he knew his boyfriend was blushing.

“S-shut up.”

Bucky rested his chin on top of Tony’s head. “I love you, Tony.”

“I love you too, James.”

#winteriron #there honestly wasn't enough hogwarts in this but i hope the small tidbits is enough!#joanis writes a thing #ironperalta #answered

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tinytony-snack · 5 years

Text

Pancakes and Henley shirts

[A/B/O, superhusbands, cute, funny, established relationship, mpreg]

“Good morning,” Bucky yawned as he entered the kitchen of the communal floor. If Steve wasn’t busy glaring at his pancakes, he would’ve told Bucky to cover his damn mouth. He growled thought, a deep sound that would’ve made anyone else turning back on the spot.

“I doubt it,” he muffled, having his mouth filled in with his breakfast. He was eating his usual huge number of pancakes, bacon and a spinach omelette, but instead of having a quiet breakfast, he was devouring the food as if they attacked him personally.

Bucky stopped, and a quick glance at his friend was enough to imagine how Steve’s morning went. “I should’ve known better than saying something as controversial as good morning,”

Steve grunted in response, a deep sound that came out of his throat, and stabbed an innocent piece of bacon. They stayed quiet for a while, Bucky poured himself some Cap’n Crunch cereal and milk in a bowl and sat at the kitchen’s aisle in front of his friend. Steve was fuming, and stabbing, and swallowing without chewing a pile of innocent pancakes.

Bucky cracked first, and after a heavy sigh he let down the spoon and glared at Steve.

“Clint said you didn’t say a word to him when he was here earlier, and something about killer vibes,”

Steve’s eyes widened in surprise, and a strong sense of guilt made the last bite more difficult to swallow. His rumbles eased, becoming a background noise.

“I didn’t notice he was here,” he admitted, lowering his gaze.

“Yeah, he figured. What’s going on Stevie?” Bucky had an inquisitor gaze, the kind that brought Steve’s memory back of almost a century.

Bucky was improving day after day, and they were all getting used to his presence in the tower. For Steve, it meant getting re-used to his ways of doing, and trying to keep separate what he remembered about his best friend and the person he became. They were two different people, even if Bucky had full control of his mental faculties again, years and years under HYDRA influence changed him at his very core level.

“Tony kicked me out from our bedroom last night,” he said, making a vague gesture with his hand — something he took from his husband — and talking like it wasn’t a big deal.

Bucky didn’t buy it and continued staring at him suspiciously.

“I asked him if I could wash him, a proper bath with scented salts and all the products he likes, and he,” Steve rumbled in distress again, filling his cheeks with all the food he could.

For a moment, he thought Bucky was smiling at him, a sweet and amused grin, but it went away quickly as he appeared.

“He got upset, accusing me to not liking him as before, that I only want to touch his-” That time Bucky interrupted him, with a screech of the spoon against the bowl.

“-belly,” Steve finished, glaring at his friend. “Next thing I know, he’s pushing me out of our bedroom, growling at me and yelling that I didn’t want him anymore, I was only interested in the baby,” three stabs followed his words, and his mouth was full again. His body required an incredible amount of food when he had to deal with Tony’s sudden mood swings and is pregnancy logic.

“And you haven’t seen him since?” Bucky sounded genuinely surprised: he hadn’t been around for so long, but enough to notice that whenever there was Tony, Steve was nearby. Their attachment even increased after the Omega got pregnant.

Steve shook his head twice, and with a sad sigh he got up to get more food. Twenty-first century made him an emotional eater, he coped drowning everything in maple syrup.

“I made breakfast before leaving this morning, hoping to eat it with him and settling his doubts, or, or fixing whatever I did wrong when I asked for a bath. He ate before I came back,” and that’s what really made him miserable: after a whole night alone, his Omega still avoided him during the day.

Maybe he really hurt Tony, he wasn’t only being over-dramatic or throwing a tantrum for his hormones out of whack. Steve had been patient during the past weeks, always support his Omega during the pregnancy: he prepared in time, he did all the lectures - and made Tony at least listen to him reading them - and asked JARVIS to find useful information on internet. There was too much trash over there.

Last night, the Omega caught him off guards: he didn’t expect to be accused of losing interest in the most brilliant, breathtaking, handsome man on the entire planet. The thought kept him awake all night, and he hoped breakfast would’ve been a chance to clarify, to remember Tony he loved him above anything else.

“Did you take off your shirt?” Bucky asked, bringing Steve back to the real world. He stopped with the fork mid-air, his lips already parted to take in the next enormous bite. He probably looked like a fool, mouth open and eyebrows furrowed, but he couldn’t process what he heard.

“Are you joking?” Steve let out another growl, a warning that resounded in the room. Bucky provoked his instincts by joking about his expecting Omega, and about the fight they had, as weird as it could sound. The other Alpha didn’t wince, he shrugged and dunk the spoon in the milk, while pouring more Cap’n Crunch.

“It works with Sam ‘n Clint,” he spoke while chewing, and it wasn’t pretty. A memory soothed Steve’s spirit: Bucky used to lose his charm when there were only the two of them.

“What?” He sounded hopeless. He needed all the help he could get to make Tony happy again. Tony’s anger was bad for both of them: his Omega was on edge, he was feeling the need to hide from his Alpha, and Steve couldn’t take care of his lovely Omega.

“Just take off your shirt and enjoy the show,”

Steve rolled his eyes up, and Bucky pointed the spoon toward him.

“Hey, how come after seventy years I’m still teaching you how to court pretty Omegas?” He sounded a lot accusatory for Steve’s likings, with the pointy spoon in his direction.

“And after seventy years, I’m still ignoring you,” he answered, very mature. His best friend had the ability to make him sound like a sixteen-year-old again.

They finished their breakfast in peace, Steve still focused on attacking the food and Bucky looking at him with a wry grin plastered on his face, sometimes chuckling and shaking his head, as if Steve was definitely beyond help.

After breakfast, Steve joined Sam in the gym, and actually asked for suggestions. Sam’s moral compass often led him to a solution; he trusted Bucky with all his life, but they still had very different ideas about relationships.

In fact, Bucky had joined Sam and Clint, who were already mates, after having experienced the free life twenty-first century allowed, while he had had his eyes only on Tony since he fell from a wormhole in the battle of New York.

After Sam finished laughing at him for being both dramatic idiots - Steve didn’t get upset anymore, he was quite used to it and limited to roll his eyes - he tried for real to help a friend in need.

Talking with him and releasing some frustration against two punching bags, made him recover sufficient calm to confront his Omega. He stopped for a shower first: Tony didn’t like when he showed sweaty in his lab, and the Omega’s mad already. Better not to make it any harder.

He sighed of relief when his passcode opened the tinted glass door: Tony threatened him more than once to change it without letting his Alpha know, and Steve thought, that time, he could’ve done that for real.

“Tony?” He announced himself, looking around to find the genius.

Tony was working on a 3D holographic model of an iron man boot and he didn’t turn around to face Steve, he acknowledged his Alpha’s presence only by stiffing for a second.

“Can we talk?” Steve asked, hoping to get a real answer. He stepped nearby, sitting on a swivel chair and leaning forward. He didn’t want to impose on his Omega, hence being on a lower height than him usually helped.

“What, you wanna ask if I’ve slept and eaten enough for the baby’s health?” He sounded strongly bitter. What would’ve been so terrible about that, anyway?

He knew Tony cared about their child as much as himself and was trying to quit bad habits like not eating enough, or not getting enough sleep, because he was too focused on something else.

Steve opened his mouth to answer, but Tony cut him off.

“Don’t waste your time here, I did, I did. I slept all night and ate everything you left, and I also watched a documentary about giving births, Jarvis will confirm it. It was disgusting, by the way. The documentary, not the food. Now that I think about it, also the food wasn’t that good. Clint had to remove every little piece of mango from my fruit salad. Why did you put it, were you trying to poison me?” A rush of words hit Steve, leaving him disoriented and confused. Tony was talking and moving agitated, and the growls Steve was hearing weren’t a good sign either.

“Wait, Omega wait. Of course I wasn’t trying to poison you. Since when you don’t like mangoes? You made me buy one just the other day,” it wasn’t the first time Tony was being unreasonable, and his pregnancy hormones made it worse.

“Can’t I change my mind? I bet you wouldn’t hold it against your child!” He yelled in Steve’s face, who was looking more worried second after second.

“I’m not holding anything against you, I didn’t even bring it up! Why do you think everything I say is only about our child?” He resisted the urge to stand up and to physically make Tony listen to him. He would never hurt his Omega, but someone needed to get him out from his own head.

“’Cause it’s true! I know when you said I love you, in reality you mean the baby. I don’t matter anymore, and you’ll get rid of me eventually,” that only left Steve with the most ridiculously baffled expression, with open wide mouth and eyes.

He was about to talk back, and standing up just to make a point, but arguing with Tony exhausted him and it wasn’t good for the Omega too. He didn’t want to spend another night alone, and not being able to look at Tony in the morning, wandering around with the cutest sleepy head and making grabbing hands toward him until Steve put a mug of hot coffee under his nose. Well, it hadn’t been coffee since the Omega got pregnant, but they didn’t talk about it.

Forgetting everything Sam said only half an hour earlier, Steve stood up carefully, without meaning to appear authoritative. He unbuttoned the three buttons of his gray Henley shirt, after which he removed it in a slow motion. Tony and his growls froze, and it was his turn to look stunned and bewildered.

“Huh, oh. You’re... You had...” He waved with his hands in Steve’s chest direction. “There are muscles,” He had his mouth wide open and was gasping for hair, without stopping his hands which were creating imaginary shapes in the air at Steve’s abs height.

That was new for Steve: he knew very well Tony could ramble disconnected words for minutes when he was nervous, but he was never wordless. Steve couldn’t remember a time when Tony had to search for words, instead of having a million of them already on the tip of his tongue, ready to talk a mile a minute.

He didn’t look upset anymore, and that was very positive, therefore Steve decided to use that as an opportunity to make peace. Since Tony was remaining still, except for his hands and mouth, he closed the distance and took Tony’s wrists, yanking slightly to make his Omega pressing his fingers against his own chest.

Tony’s scent instantly surrounded them, sweet and yet powerful, leaving Steve amazed. It was the scent of a pregnant Omega: it smelled like fresh, beautiful flowers, with something of warm and tantalizing brought about by his arousal.

His Omega was excited, and Steve released a low rumble of approval from his chest.

“O-oh,” Tony stammered, stroking him over his pectorals and down to the abdomen, following the marked lines of his muscles. “God, you’re gorgeous,” a purr from the Omega, vibrating though his body and curling the edge of the words.

The purrs increased as Tony pressed his faced in the middle of his chest and inhaled deeply. “Alpha,” he moaned around the word, melting like the sweet, perfect Omega he was.

Steve couldn’t believe Bucky’s questionable method worked, for that reason he took a few seconds before reacting. He had his Omega completely relaxed against him, his delicious scent was filling his nose and he could sense a rush of Tony’s wet slick pooling between his thighs. Fuck, he could already feel the delicious taste on his tongue.

He let go of Tony’s wrists and embraced him with an arm, lifting his chin up with the other hand, forcing him to look up. Tony’s eyes were lost in the haze of pleasure, his vision was blurred, softening at the edges.

Steve’s smile was soft then, sweetened by Tony’s cute expression and loud purrs. “You okay sweet thing?” He asked softly, bumping their noses together affectionately.

The Omega buried his face again in Steve’s neck and nodded, still stroking his fingers over the Alpha’s muscles. “’m fine,” words muffled by his position, but Steve already knew it, anyway. “You smell good,” he mewled, stroking his lips against Steve’s skin, making the Alpha groan, his eyes falling shut.

Steve tried to ignore the tightness in his pants; as badly as he wanted to bend his Omega over the nearest surface and resume the previous night activities, for the sake of his marriage he forced himself to settle. Bucky’s method was dangerous, having Tony’s pliant in his arms was making him forget he had somewhat hurt his Omega.

The Alpha allowed himself only a deep breath of Tony’s hot scent, rumbling deep in his chest, a coaxing sound that had his Omega purring in response.

“You smell incredible,” he stated breathlessly. He was overwhelmed by how good the Omega smelled, and his hands, both on Tony’s back hugging him tight, twitched to grab two handfuls of his swell ass.

“Wanna tell me why you were mad?” He nuzzled his nose in the Omega’s hair, stroking his back and shoulders gently.

Tony circled Steve’s neck with both arms, and looked at him directly in the eyes, for real that time. Steve waited, gaze awed by the beautiful face he was observing, and the Omega stuck out his lips, closing his eyes and leaning forward.

He was demanding a kiss, and Steve huffed a laugh, but he wasn’t really laughing, it was full of fondness as he gave Tony what was due him. “Cute Omega”, he whispered, kissing him carefully, cupping his jaw gently, his thumb brushing over his cheek.

Tony’s answer was to purr again, knowing how he affected the Alpha. But Steve needed answers and growled back with a bit of a warning. The Omega pouted, so adorably the Alpha had to resist kissing him again.

“The baby gets all your attention, you never look at me anymore. You- You’ll grow tired of me, bored.”

“That’s not true, I always look at you,” Steve said seriously.

“Only at my belly,” he pouted more, and moved his gaze away.

“At you,” Steve’s voice was final, leaving no room for confusion or misunderstanding. He cupped Tony’s cheeks, gently, he didn’t force the Omega to look back at him but he did, and Steve kissed him on the lips. Tony wrinkled his nose but kissed his Alpha anyway, digging his fingers in Steve’s biceps and using them as a lift when he raised on tiptoes.

The kiss lasted long that time; they kept it chaste, soft lips moving across each other’s with a light caress, every little movement expressing every bit of love they had for each other. It was an amazingly big amount, and they felt it all. Tony tilted his head back, and the Alpha growled possessively at how perfect his Omega was, at how he tasted so good, all for him.

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” Steve breathed the words on Tony’s lips, eyes half-open and fingers laced in dark, short hairs. “I’m still trying to figure out how to make you understand...”

“What?” Tony asked, blinking slowly. Steady purrs were vibrating from his throat.

“How amazing you are. Brilliant, the bravest person I’ve ever known. Too reckless for your own good, and it scares the hell out of me, but that’s how you are. Kind, funny, and so so very smart. You’re the only person who knew how to help me understand a world I could hardly recognize. I know I don’t talk about it, but it was bad before you. For me, it was terrible, I had lost everyone and everything I knew,” he had to stop for a second, just admiring the view.

Tony’s hazel eyes were wide open, liquid and wet at the edges. He wasn’t pouting anymore but his lips were still curled, as if he was keeping them still. He was. Tony’s lips always trembled a little when he was emotional, and it was another detail Steve loved about him.

“Are you gonna proposing again?” Tony’s throat sounded dry. Typical of him, joking at the worst possible time.

Steve chuckled, shook his head and pressed his lips on his Omega’s forehead, keeping them there. “Silly Omega, I would propose to you every day”

He heard a soft gasp from Tony, then strong arms circling his waist, and the profile of the Omega hiding below his chin. He fit there so well, the first time it happened it made Steve stop searching for a sense of belonging; he found his home.

“How could I ever be bored with you? I want to spend every day taking care of you, baby or not on the way. You’re the one I love, the one I want to grow old with, laughing at terrible jokes and worrying for your life every time you put yourself in danger to save others,”

Steve hugged Tony back as tightly as he could, straighten himself and lifting the Omega up with one smooth movement. Tony instinctively wrapped his legs around Steve’s waist as he did, without even a flinch, and still with his face hid in the Alpha’s neck.

“You’ve planned dis,” a sigh from the Omega, who sniffled. “You’ve planned to make me cry,” another sigh as he went on with his accuses.

Steve’s smile was big and bright, the kind that only Tony could make him do. He started moving slowly, the weight of his Omega was almost non-existent but in real he didn’t have a place in mind where to go. He just wanted to keep hugging Tony, soothing him with feather-light kisses on his cheek and gentle rumbles.

“Yes, I did. I’m a master strategist, I’ve planned to get you mad just to make you remember how good I am at removing shirts and do declarations of love,” he joked too, easing the atmosphere.

A wet giggle escaped from Tony, and his entire body shook because he was trying to not laugh. A fist bumped Steve’s shoulder, lightly but firm.

“You’re good at removing shirts,” the Omega confirmed.

“Are there any chances we can keep it between the two of us?”

“Not one, mister Rogers,” more giggles followed the words. Steve couldn’t blame him, Bucky’s method worked, eventually.

“What if I’ll bribe you, mister Rogers?” He asked affectionately. They both changed their last names after the wedding, and the complete version was Stark-Rogers, but every variant was like honey for his ears.

“... What kind of bribe?” The Omega asked after a moment, sounding amused and pretty interested.

They left the lab while talking; Tony was leaving a trail of delicate kisses on Steve’s neck and jaw, sometimes rubbing his nose against his skin to scent him. Steve was just gladly enjoying all those sweet attentions and couldn’t wait to reach their floors to reciprocate.

“Hum, I’m thinking about cheeseburgers and ice cream for lunch. How does it sound?”

“Shit, it sounds good,” and the keen Tony made, Steve could only consider it as lascivious. Maybe Steve was getting lunch earlier that day, a tasteful, trembling and moaning lunch.

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angelofthenightposts · 5 years

Text

Back To You.

It’s Bucky's birthday, and an old friend he never expects, doesn’t leave him alone.

“Why do you blame yourself for all the bad things you don’t have control over?”

Baby blue eyes are focused on the beige wall, shiny metal fingers constantly tapping out on his knee; Bucky thinks of an answer to the question his therapist asked. At first, he gives one of his famous sarcastic replies as he always does, but when he notices the determined gaze of the woman sitting in the opposite, he clears his throat and looks away. Bucky can’t and won’t leave the room without a sincere answer. It’s two minutes to the end of the session; he has to continue this game between his therapist and himself for only two more minutes. He can’t help but try to find the answer; he could always say that he would never deserve happiness after spending his whole life as a bad guy. Or he could tell her that something terrible would happen whenever he believes everything is fine, but all of these answers would only lead to more pessimistic and longer sessions.

He thinks, no, he is sure that the clock would never chime as the hour and minute hand move slower just to spite him. After a deep sigh, he murmurs, "I don’t know.”

“I think you can do better, James.” He opens his mouth to tell her it’s Bucky; he prefers to be called Bucky but notices that she’s writing something quickly in her notebook. Bucky frowns as he leans forward to see what it’s written. But the woman quickly closes the lid and smiles at him, no different from a smile given to a child because they eat vegetables. Bucky rolls his eyes, leaning back on the couch; he can’t shake this feeling of uneasiness. He’s used to spending hours with therapists in a room that is usually beige or white, but somehow he doesn’t succeed in intimidating this one. Even if, on the first day, Bucky had entered her office by vowing he would never speak about his past, she didn’t give up either until she made him talk willingly.

“You want to know why I hold myself responsible. All right, here’s the answer. It is very difficult to look around with happy and hopeful eyes while I can guess what other people think of me. I’m nothing more than a bloody murderer, a cruel, insensitive monster.

“Who are we talking about here? Is it your teammates or other agents on the base? ”Great, now Bucky is starting to feel like a snitch; he just shakes his head in response. No, the rest of the Avengers are doing their best to make him feel better. He is his biggest enemy, in the middle of one of these previous sessions, it dawned on him. Bucky simply can’t forgive himself. How could anyone else trust him while he can’t trust his own mind?

“James, what you need right now is stability, which means things should go unchanged, and that’s a big factor in gaining your will and self-esteem. If something changes in your life, something really big that I’m talking about here; I know that you put your issues aside to solve the new one.”

“You don’t seem to know our lives, Doc. All we do is try to find out how to deal with things that surprise us a little bit more every day, monsters, aliens… “

As Bucky keeps talking about the things he’d never thought they are real, she adds one thing to his list and it catches him off guard."Or Agent Y/N’s sudden transfer.”

There is a deep frown set on his face, lips slightly gape. If Bucky knew they’re going to talk about you, he would never have stepped in. But she is that sneaky and smart. “Yes,” he whispers.

You are one of the few people Bucky really cared about, and if he had to rank the people in his life, it is obvious that you would be on top of the list. He didn’t give a damn about you when you first met, which wasn’t unusual, because Steve was the only person he cared about at the time. But as time passed, he realized that you meant much more to him than he’d prefer to admit. Behind your agile and fit body, there’s a soft and loving heart that had knocked down all of his ten feet tall steel walls and made him like you. Everything was so beautiful; so he still doesn’t understand why you wanted to go away, leave him all alone again. He can still remember how excited you got on every mission and told him that other field missions were miserable before you joined them. The danger never intimidates you; he saw with his own eyes that you are one of the bravest women he has met. You were good at communicating with everyone in the team and even on top of that, earning the respect of everyone around you streaks out all the remaining reasons on his list of why Y/N wanted to leave. Bucky has no logical explanation for this sudden decision.

“Are you still in touch with her? You told me she’s the one who convinced you to take your first step through this door. ”

“We used to but not anymore. In the beginning, we tried to stay in contact but you know how it goes, busy agendas, the time difference, and all that…”

“I understand; even though things aren’t the same, she still calls me every once in a while to check up on you. You have a good friend, James. ” Bucky quickly raises his gaze from the carpet beneath his feet and stares at her to see if she is serious. He was so angry at you for several months. He tried to comfort himself by telling that your friendship was nothing more than a lie, so he had an excuse not to run to the phone and call you. But that would change everything; you never stopped caring about him. Why would you prefer someone you don’t know instead of simply calling Bucky and asking how he is, that he can’t understand.

“What exactly does she ask you?” With the silence in response, Bucky decides to ask it a bit differently, licking his lips as he wipes his sweaty palms on the fabric of his dark jeans. “What does she especially want to know about me?”

“Bucky, I’ve never talked to her about you. I can’t because of the doctor-patient confidentiality; I’d lose my job. And when I told her that, she didn’t care about the details of our sessions. She told me that she just wanted to know one thing.” She smiles at Bucky and realizes that how quickly his all-body language changed; his eyes glowing with excitement. She leaves the pen and the notebook on the coffee table in the middle, a sign that the session is over for today. She takes off her glasses and rubs both sides of her nasal bone, “She wanted to know if you still hate yourself and think you don’t deserve happiness.”

“And what did you answer?”

“Of course, the truth... I told her that love is something you still don’t want and think you don’t deserve and I’m doing everything I can to change your mind.”

That afternoon, after the session, Bucky leaves her office, his mind so confused that he can’t decide what surprises him more. You called his therapist and asked about him, and you have done it so regularly for months. You could pick up your phone and call him but instead, you chose to learn about him from a stranger. He can’t understand what caused all of these; he always tried to be a good friend to you as much as his fucked up mind let him.

He hears Steve’s voice somewhere down the corridor as he walks to the exit, he has to stay alone and think all of it. He stays still in place when he turns around to ask why the team returned so early from the mission. Steve is in his daily clothes, a pair of dark jeans, and a white tee; he has a small scar on his cheek that has almost healed. But what surprises Bucky so much is the woman who walks with Sam a few steps behind Steve. Although you had a haircut and lost weight, Bucky can recognize you no matter what. He doesn’t avert his gaze away from your happy ones, almost in a captivated way as Steve pulls him closer to give a hug.

"I guess the cat is out of the bag; I was planning to surprise you. Guess who the head chef of the Special Forces in Berlin is?” Steve points at you as if it isn’t obvious and Bucky whispers your name, still not so sure that you are really here.

“Hello, Bucky.” you greet him.

//xxx//

“Instead of staring at her as if you’ve seen a monster, go talk to her.”Sam sits down next to Bucky who is at one end of the room with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He fails all of his attempts to encourage Bucky to join conversations all night. He doesn’t have to question why his friend is back to his old self all of sudden; the reason is chatting with a few people at the corner of the big room. Aware of a pair of blue eyes that watch you all night; you turn your head and salute Sam by raising your champagne glass.

“And what am I supposed to say?” Bucky asks, he doesn’t care that you caught him staring; he is afraid that if he looks away for a moment, you won’t be there. All he wants is a hug since you met a few hours ago, but you quickly crushed his dreams with a quick nod and staying away from him for the rest of the afternoon. It felt as if you didn’t want to see him, and it broke his heart. Bucky can sense the colorful, joyous energy circulating; you are like a rainbow that came out after a terrible storm; you know how to make everyone feel hopeful and happy no matter what.

"I don’t know, I heard hello is popular, ”Sam leaves his empty glass on the nearest surface and squeezes Bucky’s left shoulder to give him some support,“ I’m sure she missed you too, you two used to be very close. ”

“Yes, as you say, we used to.” Bucky pats Sam on his shoulder before turning his back on you and heading up the stairs to the big terrace,” Tell the guests that I thank them for coming. Goodnight, Sam. ”

Bucky approaches the balustrades as the cold air fills his lungs and he looks at the sky. If it wasn’t for the party, he could see the stars shining in the black night, one of the advantages of living so far out of the city. But tonight the bright red, white, and light blue lights stretch to the sky; as usual, Tony wants the whole world to know that there is a celebration going on here.

“I knew you’d get bored with all of this right away and seek out a quiet place.” You take your first step out of the door; you are careful of your steps hence the length of your dress.

"I’ve never been a fan of bright lights, loud music, or celebrations.”As the footsteps approach Bucky, he gets tense even more, warm wind bringing your sweet scent. He never turns his head to you when you stand next to him. The familiar scents of vanilla and orange numb all his senses, he slowly closes his eyes.

“Steve’s talking about how you used to force him to all Stark fun back in the days, so don’t even lie to me.” Bucky groans, a hint that he isn’t happy about what’s going on inside. You add as if you could read his mind, “Steve is your best friend, Bucky. Of course, he will talk about you and your memories, especially on a night like this. ”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see you again. But is that the only reason you’re here? ”

“Tonight is special for you; of course, I’ll be here with you, Bucky.” You pause as you push a lock of hair behind your ear. And your manicured fingers dive into your bag quickly, "I almost forgot to give you this. In my first month in Berlin, I saw this in a small boutique, and I thought if it has to belong to someone, it should be you. ”

Bucky turns to look at you, the first time his gaze meets yours without hesitation or discomfort. He watches as your thin fingers moved inside the bag, finally pulling out a velvet box. You lick your lips in excitement and hand him the black box with a big smile. When he hesitates, you roll your eyes and open the box yourself. "How did you know it’s my birthday?” In the darkness of the night, his eyes focus on the gift for a few seconds and move back up to your face. The fact that you remember has more meaning than any gift in the world.

“From your criminal file,” You reply with a childish giggle, hoping that Bucky loosens up a bit, but instead, he squints at you, “You told me when we first met, remember? I was going to ship it to you but I thought it wouldn’t be a better moment when Sam suggested visiting you. I hope you like it.”

You take the bracelet out of its box very carefully and smile when the moonlight reflects on it. It looks more beautiful and bright than ever, even though it has been waiting in a drawer for months. You, with a few steps, close the distance between you and Bucky. Your fingers move over his skin, and the gift finally finds its place around his wrist.

“When I saw the small symbols, I thought it was definitely designed for you. Look, this is a snowflake and that one is a wolf.” As he stays still there without saying anything you aren’t so sure of your choice; maybe he doesn’t like it. Maybe he finds it too flashy or bold for a man to wear. You have never seen him wear any accessories other than digital watches and physical training trackers; what were you thinking?

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” He reassures you after giving it another look under the moonlight. “No one has ever given me something like this before.”

"You’re welcome, Bucky. You deserve the best. ” You let out your breath with his words of approving but the satisfied smile on your face quickly disappears with realization; nothing has changed when you’re gone, he still sees himself as worthless. Even though you want to tell him he’s special for you, and that he needs, no, he deserves love more than anyone else, you clear your throat with the sounds of laughter coming from inside,” Everyone’s waiting for you to blow the candles.“

You don’t wait for him; instead, you hold the end of your dress and take a step towards the entrance. His left-hand wraps around your forearm and stops you; it has been a problem for you since you were little when people touch you without permission. But this time, you don’t say a single word nor let yourself free from his hold, “Why did you leave?”

“Bucky, this isn’t a good time to talk about it, everyone is waiting for us.”

“I don’t care, please answer me. Why did you suddenly move to the other end of the world? Because I don’t understand, I’ve been thinking about it for months, but I can’t make anything of it. You were happy here, everything was fine. ”Bucky talks in despair until he runs out of breath, he runs his fingers through his hair and sighs heavily,” Did I do something wrong? I did it, didn’t I? Because it can’t be someone else, you’re clearly good with everyone except me. You’ve run away from me like I’m a sick person all night.”

“Bucky, please.” You know it’s in vain when you pull your arm back; he doesn’t need a metal arm to control you. You are no different than a gazelle trying to get away before a lion makes its last move. After seeing the pure determination and desperation in his eyes, you drop your shoulders in defeat. "I, I just needed to get away from you, Bucky. I had to stay away from you, but I wasn’t brave enough to do it, knowing and willingly walked into the fire, Bucky. For a man who doesn’t realize how much he is loved, I deprived myself a little more every day. ”

“Did you love me?”

“I know this is a big surprise for you, but everyone knew, everyone except you. They all were aware of how much effort I had to put in to have a few words with the team’s most distant man. But I know I can’t blame you, Bucky. I know you think you don’t deserve love, that you see yourself as a monster. I’ve tried to give you all the love I have, I really did. But I also know you won’t love anyone else unless you start loving yourself. ”

“I-,” Bucky tilts his head against the palm of her hand, he is afraid that it’s just a dream if he opens his eyes. He has so much to say, but none of it can change the truth, you’re right.

“It is okay, Bucky. You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to realize how much everyone loves you, how much they care about you. Look, we’re all here, for you, to be with you. Please come in with me and look at their faces carefully, and you will see how happy we all are to see you. Happy Birthday, James Buchanan Barnes."

About fifteen minutes later, Bucky finally manages to blow all the 110 candles on the giant cake, as he looks up he sees the people applauding, and Sam and Steve are standing next to him to blow up confetti. He looks at everyone in the room; they all have big smiles on their faces, similar to his own. And there you are in the crowd across; something glows around your wrist under the bright lights as you give him thumbs up. He has no idea how he didn’t notice it all night, but while running his fingers over the little figures, he is sure that your bracelet is a copy of the gift.

#bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes #bucky imagine #Sebastian Stan #Bucky angst #bucky x y/n #fatws bucky #bucky fic #bucky barnes x you #mcu imagine #mcu #marvel

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wintersxsoul · 5 years

Text

The Night We Danced

Summary: Two dorks in love that have to wait to get drunk to confess their feelings.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Maybe some language, drunk people and I think mentions of sex??

A/N: This is my entry for my dearest @writingsoftheloser 1k historical writing challenge! I got the Victorian Era, so I came up with this longass nonsense. I hope you enjoy and as always, feedback and reblogs are free and make me really happy and motivated <3

Bucky Barnes was a dancer.

He sometimes had flashes of his old life in the late 30’s and 40’s, long summer nights dancing with beautiful dames, little Stevie by his side laughing and stepping in the ladies’ shoes. Everything was much more simpler, happier, but war happened and the dances turned into battles, the warm hands that he was used to hold became rifles and glocks. The jazzy tunes turned into gunfire, dates turned into risky missions and the thought of a long happy life turned into dust when he fell off that train.

Bucky Barnes stopped being a dancer to be a soldier, a spy, a deadly assassin.

They had taken all he was away, all his memories, his hopes and dreams. Everything was wiped but not his motor skills or knowledge. They turned him into the most efficient soldier, cold and calculating, his only motive in life was completing his missions. He had killed mercilessly, not questioning even once who was in front of the gun, he just knew he had to pull the trigger.

Everything changed the moment Steve Rogers, his best friend since childhood, found him 70 years after being used and tortured. Steve saved him from the claws of Hydra and gave him the opportunity to gain back his own self, to finally give his life meaning again.

His life changed drastically when he joined the Avengers, he could use his unrequired skills to help people, to save lives. He had his closest friends, Steve of course, Sam, Nat and then he met you. Once he was able to recover almost all his memories, he had a long heartfelt conversation with Natasha since she had suffered in similar ways. The brainwashing, the body killing training, the horrors of the Cold War and the cruelty of the Red Room.

You and Nat were inseparable, both becoming SHIELD agents the same year. You were a freelance hitwoman, both of your missions were to kill the same target. But before you could kill each other, SHIELD stepped in and rescued both of you, seeing your potential and the ability to do the missions other agents weren’t able to. When Bucky first came to the compound, you were away because your last mission went badly and it almost killed you, so Fury and Steve decided it was better for you to lay low for a while. Months went by and Bucky’s curiosity only grew, he really wanted to meet you, since everyone talked about you like you were an angel. When the time came to finally meet you, everything he ever heard about you was not nearly accurate to him. You were as much of a mystery as Nat, but unlike her, you opened up to him fastly, trusting him blindly. You both held each other on your worst nights and were also there for the other when you needed a good laugh.

You could have never imagined that the infamous Winter Soldier could be such an absolute dork with such a pure heart and soul. At first he was a bit sulky and moody, he was like a ghost around the compound, but months of therapy and help from his friends turned him into the man he was today, the man you loved deeply, even though you lied to yourself trying to make it seem like a platonic feeling. For years you remained as best friends, until the masquerade ball Tony organized for Natasha’s birthday.

“So, what are your plans for the party?” You asked Bucky nonchalantly while you looked for costume designers online. He looked up from his book and shrugged, he really didn’t know what you meant but he knew you would elaborate. You closed your laptop and placed it on your nightstand, all your attention on your friend now. You laid across the bed, resting your head on his lap. You were staring at the ceiling so you totally missed Bucky’s adoring gaze.

“Well, apart from getting hammered with Thor’s Asgardian alcohol, I don’t really know.” You rolled your eyes internally at his comment. You laid on your stomach so you could face him, your chin resting on your hands on top of his chest.

“Obviously you are doing that, but it’s not what I meant.” Bucky chuckled and you rolled your eyes. You weren’t sure about asking him to be your partner, maybe he was planning on going with someone else, maybe he wanted to go on his own. You cleared your throat while reaching out to fiddle with the laces of his hoodie nervously.

“Are you going with someone?” He frowned, realizing that you didn’t assume (like he did) that you were going together. Maybe you were planning to go with a date? He knew it had been more than a year since you had dated someone so maybe you wanted to use the party as an excuse to do so?

“What you mean with someone? I d-”

“You should ask Sarah from Forensics, I’ve heard she has a huge crush on you. She’s sooo soft and pretty. I have her number if you wa-”

“Okay, Y/n stop right there. I am not going with Sarah or with anyone else but you.” His eyes widened at his own boldness but he quickly found a logical explanation.

“I mean, we always go together to this kind of shitty parties we both dread. But if you are going with someone else is fine.”

“Yeah, yeah I just thought that maybe you wanted to go with an actual date and not your best friend.” He tousled your hair and you whined jokingly. He mumbled “dork” and you stuck your tongue out.

“My best friend is pretty cool and when she gets drunk the party starts, so I am not missing that for Sarah from Forensics.”

“Oh god James, and I am the dork? You absolute dumbass.” You shook your head in amusement and sat on the bed, putting your disheveled hair in a low ponytail. You slapped him lightly on the right shoulder and got down of the bed, gathering your stuff.

“I can’t stand to see that beautiful stupid face right now, I have to look for a fucking dress. You better wear something in dark red cause, you know it-”

“it’s my color” he mocked you using a high pitched tone of voice and laughed at the face of disgust you jokingly pulled off.

“Fuck you.”

“Why don’t you f-” His sentence was cut off by the bang of his door closing but you already knew what he said. You rolled your eyes and made your way to Nat’s room since you needed to organize shopping days and all that stuff.

Bucky Barnes was a dancer and fortunately he still had some moves, but waltzing was out of his league. He knew what a masquerade was of course, so the fact that he had to learn how to dance a completely different style was...frightening to say the least. He talked about it with Steve so they both were headed now to a masterclass while their dates were out shopping. Nat had asked Steve as her date because she wanted to go with his best friend. Their friendship was the most platonic you’ve ever seen and watching them flirt and banter was the highlight of your days. Nat was a fantastic dancer of course, she used to be a fucking ballerina, so she offered to teach you some moves. She was the only one who actually knew your feelings towards Bucky because you had confessed them one night you had drank your weight in vodka and when you saw Bucky’s text asking you to please be careful, you laughed and told her. You didn’t remember that conversation and when Natasha tried to ask you, she realized she shouldn’t bring up the topic until you were ready to believe it yourself.

“Ooof Nat, should I really buy this expensive dress?” You asked her while checking yourself out in the mirror. The dress was absolutely stunning, made of a dark red taffeta or a similar material, short sleeved and a beautiful v-neck, not very revealing but enough to make your babies pop. The bodice hugged your curves and the skirt was puffy.

“Listen, Stark is paying for everything, that includes our dresses. So yes, you are going to buy it.” She stood up and lead you back to the changing room so she could purchase both of your dresses.

Steve sighed heavily at Bucky’s complaints. They’d been dancing for four hours straight and they weren’t getting any better, or at least that’s what they thought. Bucky really couldn’t believe he had been dragged into this mess just because he loved getting drunk with you under any circumstances.

“Come on Buck, don’t worry. You two will probably be too drunk to even stand, why bother so much in learning this shit?” Bucky rolled his eyes and nudged his friend on the shoulder.

“Listen pal, I wanna do this right. You know how much I love dancing so this is just an excuse to learn something new.” He could almost believe his own lie, but Steve knew better. He knew Bucky better than himself, so he obviously knew the unspoken thing that was going on between two of his best friends.

“Okay buddy, whatever you say. I just hope Y/n appreciates all this instead of laughing at you like Sam and Nat are probably going to do.” He muttered something to himself and left the room without saying a word.

“Fucking idiots, I hope they fuck soon.” Steve said to himself before turning around and smiling at the dance teacher.

“Let’s do this Janet, I have a very dangerous woman to impress tonight.”

“I really, really, really, really regret the day I gave you access to come into my room whenever you want to.” You told Bucky, who was laying on your bed on his stomach, his face buried in the pillows. You slumped next to him and buried your face in the pillows as well. You really thought you looked like idiots but you couldn’t care less.

“Can we stay here? We can watch one of those victorian romantic movies you love and get wasted on our own.”

“You know I would love to, but Nat would kill us. Besides, you hate those movies.”

“I was just trying to persuade you Barnes, you don’t need to be so rude.” You stood up and opened your first drawer, pulling out the two masks you had bought throwing Bucky’s to his head and he responded with a fake “ouch”. He sat on the bed and looked at you amused, the small mask in his hands.

“And you have the nerve to call me rude. I already have my mask and I won’t show it to you until tonight.”

“Wow, sorry for thinking about you and your shitty memory, old man.”

“You know what Y/n? I’ll see you tonight before I throw myself out of that balcony.” You giggled at his fake tantrum. You really loved your friendship with Bucky, because even though you were always joking around each other, you had your backs. He was always there and so were you.

“You want me to walk you to your room?” He frowned at you but his eyes widened when he realized what you were about to say, but you said it before he could cut you off. “In case you don’t remember where your room is at.”

“That was one time Y/n, please let it go.”

“Never.” And with that said, he left. You giggled remembering the first night you two got drunk together. It was the first time Bucky had tried Thor’s alcohol so he was excited to finally get drunk after all those decades. He drank by himself almost three flasks and encouraged you to drink a bottle of vodka on your own, so at 6 am, you were stumbling through your room floor because Bucky had forgotten where his own room was, so he wanted to sleep at yours.

You took a last look at yourself in your mirror and placed the mask in its place. It was a shame that Bucky had decided not to wear the mask you’d bought for him, but his taste was pretty great so you knew it was going to be amazing.

When you reached the party the place was already full of people. Everyone was dancing to the slow melodies or drinking at the bar. You noticed that Tony had removed all the furniture from the room so it looked like a grand dance hall, the usual modern lamps he owned were replaced by huge golden crystal chandeliers, the windows were covered by thick curtains that looked like the ones European palaces had. The cream and golden tones of all the decoration gave a really regal look to the party, the soft glow of the candles in the bar and the sound of champagne glasses relaxed your senses.

You fixed your long silk gloves and sighed, moving through the crowd towards the bar, where Nat stood chatting with who you assumed it was Steve, Sam was behind the counter pouring alcohol to his half empty glass.

“You mind filling this lady’s glass?” Sam smirked and you winked at him. He raised his eyebrow under his cream and red mask and he took out a tall glass.

“What would the lady like to drink?” He rested both of his palms in the counter, looking at you with an amused look in his eyes.

“Vodka on the rocks, s'il vous plait.” You heard Nat choke on her drink and Steve turned to look at you while Sam just poured your drink, a smile playing on his lips.

“Aren’t we starting a bit early, Y/n? Your date is not even here.” You shrugged at Sam’s comment and took the glass when he handed it.

“Since you all seemed so surprised with my drinking choices, I’m going. I need an unjudging friend right now.” You waved your hand gracefully and moved towards the centre, trying to find Bucky. After five minutes and an empty glass, you saw his bulking figure talking to some woman. You needed a moment to gather your thoughts because he looked absolutely sinful with the outfit he was wearing. The black pants marked all his muscles, specially his thighs, those fucking thighs that drove you insane and his ass...you shook your head trying to stop your mind. You needed another drink.

“Wow look who’s back and empty handed!” Steve said to the small group. You nudged him in the ribs and asked Sam for another glass of alcohol.

“Why are you this flustered Y/n?” Nat asked you when she noticed your flushed cheeks. You fixed your mask trying to hide your nervousness and failing miserably.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Your three friends shared a knowing look and you rolled your eyes, finishing your drink in two sips and encouraged by the burning liquid, you went to where Bucky was. You could now see his whole outfit perfectly and your heart swelled. He was wearing a black ruffled shirt with a black and dark red embroidered vest and a black tail coat. His face was covered by a simple half Venetian mask, decorated with the same colors as the outfit’s. He was chatting with some agent you couldn’t recognize and you felt a pang of jealousy at how he was looking at her, smiling and touching her. At that moment you realized the alcohol was kicking in and that’s why you were having those stupid thoughts. You approached your friend and placed your gloved hand to his shoulder, indicating him that you were besides him and waiting for him to pay attention to you. You catched a part of the conversation and they were talking about one of the last missions the undercover agents did, so after a court nod from Bucky and a brief goodbye from her, his eyes were on you.

“Well, look at you!” He smiled at you warmly and you felt something flip inside you. “How did you recognize me?”

“Oh boy, you can mask that face all you want but you can’t mask those thighs.” You smirked and he started laughing at your comment, making you feel proud of your wittiness.

“How drunk are you already?” You brought your hand up between your bodies and pressed your thumb and index together whispering “a little” so only he could hear it.

“Lucky for you, I drank almost a flask, so that makes us dangerous already. Wanna dance?” He extended his hand and you took it accepting his invitation. You suddenly felt really nervous since it was the first time you were going to slow dance with him but unbeknown to you, Bucky Barnes felt sick due to his nerves. He wanted this to work, he wanted to show you and the world that he was still capable of being a soft person, not this cold calculative soldier with a dark past.

The feeling of his hand on your waist and your other hands intertwined was intoxicating you, your bodies pressed together, the only thing between you two were your clothes. You spinned around the room for what felt like eternity, time for you had stopped and everyone had disappeared.

You burst the small bubble you were both in saying you needed a drink, Bucky stopped swaying you and with your hands still intertwined, went to the empty bar.

“I’ve always loved the Victorian Era, you know?” He said while giving you a glass full of vodka, and took a sip of his flask. “The clothes, the courting, the chivalry and all that fuss.” He smiled sadly at you thinking that you wouldn’t notice.

“If you could, would you go back in time and stay?”

He took another sip, now longer, and shook his head. “Of course not, you wouldn’t be there.” He blurted out without thinking and you just giggled at the comment.

“Oh Barnes, don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure you would make good friends there as well.” You gave him a sincere smile and he shook his head again, taking another sip of the flask, this time a long one. You looked down at your glass and twirled the straw, looking at how the ice cubes collided with each other.

“I love you.” You jerked your head up and maybe it was the alcohol clouding your mind or the denial of your own feelings, but you didn’t notice his intense gaze, filled with love and adoration.

“And I love you too, you idiot. As my best friend, you should know that already.” You placed your lips around the straw and finished the whole drink, Bucky still looking at you shocked that you rejected his feelings without you noticing.

“No, Y/n, what I mean is that I’m-”

“You are what, Barnes?” Nat cut Bucky off and you threw yourself into her arms, kissing her face and wishing her a happy birthday. “I missed you, Nat. Where were you?” You started talking to her totally ignoring your friend, who got that as his cue to leave the party. He would never blame you for not feeling the same or not even noticing his feelings, that was totally on him, but he didn’t feel well enough to stay in the party. He knew you wanted him there, to get drunk together and then both of you ending up throwing up in the sink and the toilet, but tonight he needed to breathe, he needed to get out of the crowd.

“Hey, where is going Bucky?” Asked Steve while he approached Nat and you. You frowned and looked at the entrance, catching a glimpse of Bucky’s broad shoulders and hair leaving the party. “I’ll be back in a sec.” You said and stumbled down the bar stool, heading towards the entrance half running.

“We both know they are not coming back, right?” Steve said to Nat, a strong nod and a sigh answered his comment.

You ran as fast as your drunken state let you but before you could notice you slipped with the dress and fell.

“FUCK” You screamed to the empty hall and took off your heels and gloves, standing up trying not to fall again on your ass. Bucky was nowhere to be seen so you headed to his room, your head spinning due to the alcohol.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky startled you, making you lose balance but he caught you before you could fall again.

“I was just checking that you got to your room safely, since you know, you get lost and all that.” You laughed at his fake hurt expression and straightened your clothes. You noticed that he had taken off his mask and that you were still wearing yours. “Why did you leave?”

“I’m feeling a bit sick, I think I drank too mu-”

“James, if you don’t tell me what the fuck is wrong I’ll torture you until you do. The drinking excuse is the worst you could’ve used with me.”

Bucky sighed defeated, he knew he had to get it off his chest, after three years carrying this on his own, he needed to let the words out, he needed you to know. He reached for the laces of your mask and took it off, placing a strand of hair behind your ear and cupping your cheek.

“I love you, Y/n.” You rolled your eyes in fake annoyance just to mess up with him.

“Baby, we already established that I lov-”

“Y/n, you are not listening. I am in love with you. I want to be your best friend, your lover, your partner in crime and your drunk buddy.”

You stared at him wide eyed, not knowing what to answer or to do. He caressed your cheek with his thumb and you gasped at the feeling, making Bucky think that you were rejecting the act. You stopped him from moving his hand and he leaned in, his lips brushing yours lightly.

“Either you kiss me or I faint, so make a m-” And just like that, his lips crashed against yours with a passion and hunger you’ve never felt in your entire life. He pressed you against the door, the stupid huge dress stopping you from feeling anything. Your brain finally woke up and you realized what was going on. Bucky Barnes loved you, he was in love with you. And you were in love with him. You pulled away and stopped him, making him step backwards scared that he did something you didn’t want to.

“You love me?” You really asked him, thinking that maybe your brain was betraying you. He nodded and looked away, not wanting to see the rejection in your eyes.

“Hey coward, look at me.” You held his chin and forced him to look at you. “I love you too, always have. I was just too damn scared to admit it to even myself.” He smiled and kissed you again, this time slower, pouring every ounce of love he had for you in the kiss.

“What now?” He asked you once he pulled away to breathe. He had his hand on the back of your neck, caressing your skin with his thumb.

“As much as I’d love you to fuck me against every surface on that room, I am drunk and tired and I need to process everything.” He nodded and waited for you to come up with what you wanted to do next. “So you are going to take this dress off me carefully cause I can’t do it on my own and it’s expensive as fuck, you are going to give me one for your shirts and we are sleeping, together.” He nodded again and smiled, leaning in again to give your lips a small peck.

“Consider it done, asshole.”

#vi1khistoricalchallenge #Bucky Barnes #james barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #the winter soldier #mutual pining #friends to lovers #best friends to lovers #avengers #the avengers #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n

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rogersstevie · 5 years

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okay ik like everything’s been said about steve’s ending in endgame and i’ve made a million little posts but i’ve been meaning to write my own essay bc i’m MAD (if u liked it for him then like i’m sure u don’t wanna read so u can scroll on past) and there’s a lot of other stuff i didn’t like/that didn’t make sense about the movie but this post is about steve anyway let’s go

so from what i can tell there is not even a consensus among people who liked the ending whether it’s the same timeline or an alternate timeline but let’s talk about the possibilities here and what they mean, at least based on my understanding

option 1: same timeline

this means one of two things. either steve was actually peggy’s husband all along OR by going back and marrying her, that erases her husband and children entirely.

so if steve was peggy’s husband all along, that means that?? old steve has been walking around this entire time and nobody knew about it? this means that in 2016 sharon carter was like “you know what would be fun? kissing my great uncle when he’s young and hot” which WOW i thought it was icky before just bc she was PEGGY’S niece? marvel might have just made that worse. and hey, i’ll be fair, i’m sure in the very little time they likely took to think about this ending, they definitely weren’t thinking about sharon, considering they hardly thought about her when she was actually appearing in the movies. if steve was peggy’s husband all along, that means she was lying in the smithsonian footage, which hey, i don’t doubt her ability to lie, but the whole ass video is floating around out there and i’m just not sure you can fake that kind of emotion. when they ask her about her being the last person to talk to steve? that is a person talking about losing someone they cared for six years ago. it just contradicts so much of catws and other parts of the mcu (and the idea that people have that this was the plan the entire time? yeah fucking right the writers do not plan like that if they did there wouldn’t be so many fucking inconsistencies in this universe. i’m willing to bet they couldn’t name peggy’s husband in catws bc they were planning agent carter and thought there would be an explicit confirmation of who it was) and anyway, even if steve was her husband all along, there’s no way either steve or peggy could have KNOWN that she didn’t have a future being erased. so would either of them have really WANTED to take that chance?

the other option is of course that peggy moved on from steve, fell in love with somebody else, got married, had children, grandchildren, etc. if that’s the case, that means steve just changed her entire storyline. and who knows what marrying steve could have changed. it just........okay, agent carter was the first thing in the mcu i watched before i even knew shit about captain america (literally when they showed flashbacks i was like *maria hill voice* who’s this guy) but while we don’t know with any certainty that daniel sousa was the guy she ended up married to, i would have to guess steve went back to BEFORE she and daniel got together, meaning that like the entirety of agent carter is probably erased. her whole INCREDIBLE journey. i’ve read a million things the last week so if someone can let me know who the fuck said this, please do, but anyway someone said peggy’s story really begins when steve goes into the ice and it’s SO TRUE. “i have lived a life. my only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.” LET THEM KEEP THE LIVES THEY WERE MEANT TO LIVE. and anyway, i just think there’s no way, going back and changing who she marries wouldn’t also alter SO MUCH of what she did, and therefore our timeline.

either way, this option goes against everything about steve. i don’t care if he IS tired of fighting, there’s still no way he would sit quietly and not try to prevent things from happening. assassinations, hydra infiltrating shield, his BEST FRIEND being tortured and brainwashed for seventy years.

steve: if i see a situation pointed south, i can’t ignore it. sometimes i wish i could. tony: no you don’t. steve: no i don’t.

again, i’ll be fair, several years have passed since steve said that, but i just don’t buy the idea that he’s gonna sit back quietly, when his character through the whole mcu has been about fighting for what’s right

option 2: alternate timeline

i’ve seen some people say it’s because of the bracelets they used that would have allowed steve to jump back into our timeline when he’s old and be in the right place at the right time but like..........what’s the point. he ditched his friends and lived through seventy years without them so am i expected to believe that this steve (i don’t know him) even really cares about handing off the shield to sam (which, i did want, just in the form of our steve retiring and living his own life in the PRESENT) idk that last scene was just so much so fast and i was so mad watching it unfold i could hardly stand it so whatever

so okay say steve goes back to peggy and creates an alternate timeline by doing so, maybe in this timeline he rescues bucky and prevents a bunch of other things from happening

........but wasn’t the point of returning the stones to when and where they got them (which, of course we know the only reason steve was doing this alone was to get to this ending, but it’s ridiculous considering they had a whole team going to all different places in the movie WHATEVER) to PREVENT the creation of an alternate timeline? that’s why the ancient one was hesitant about giving bruce the time stone because it would create a branch or whatever IT MAKES NO SENSE.

this theory at least doesn’t necessarily screw over peggy since...our peggy would still exist and the steve and peggy we saw at the end of the movie would be in an alternate timeline

but it does go against the time travel rules as i understand them and it still fucks up steve’s characterization

whatever

everything’s fucked anyway

if they ever address it, whatever the mcu logic is, all these possibilities have flaws/leave plot holes because they really hardly gave any thought to their characters OR their time travel logic bc they wanted to force this ending

seriously all the peggy references throughout the movie like?? ofc he’s still gonna have that compass and i guess still carry it around since he’s been on the run and hasn’t a permanent place and therefore no safe place to keep it but....he looks at her picture before they go after thanos? it would make more sense if he looked at a picture on his phone of like him, bucky and sam or something. he’s at that group meeting five years later and talks about the loss of his chance with peggy which was u know like a decade ago for him (and i know i don’t like people saying ‘oh just get over it’ i don’t mean it like that i just mean like.......he was willing to move on in cacw - with her NIECE but whatever - and suddenly it’s like he’s never ever been over her and calling her the love of his life) instead of talking about the loss of bucky and sam, two of his best friends? wanda? t’challa? maria? nick? even the way he dresses is very reminiscent of the first avengers when he’s JUST woken up, but he gets away from that throughout the cap movies and gets more used to modern life. endgame does everything to force the idea that he’s still completely uncomfortable in this time. as if what? twelve years in the twenty-first century would mean going back to the 1940s makes you just as much a man out of time.

AND PEGGY. my god, i’ve loved peggy’s story though the mcu and look what this fucking movie did. peggy doesn’t even have fucking lines. we don’t even hear her talk when he stares longingly and dramatically at her through a window (it really reminded me of that jess/rory scene in the gilmore girls revival and hey that was a pairing i thought SHOULD have ended up together, but should not have had all that pining very similarly like ten years later it’s just weird the disappointments i feel in both of these things are so similar but that’s beside the point). we don’t get to see them have a conversation when he goes back to her. tony talked to howard and thor talked to frigga and we didn’t see steve talk to peggy. if she’s supposed to be The Love Of His Life (does marvel know if she could have another love of her life then so could he but whatever) and is suddenly his reason for everything or whatever they’re trying to play at, shouldn’t we get more than a longing look (not even a mutual one, like all the ones we got in catfa) and the dance? peggy carter is AMAZING and she doesn’t even really get a say. they reduced her to the object of steve’s affection and nothing more and it’s HORRIBLE.

frigga said “you’re not my thor” and i think peggy, be it 40s peggy or 70s peggy, would recognize that this is not her steve. look at everything he’s been through the last decade. he’s been through so much and yes, his relationship with peggy was a missed chance, but....the steve of now is not the steve that she lost. and i think no matter how much she might have wanted it to be whenever he came back to her, she would have known that and she would have sent him back home where he belongs, with his new family, in the present.

peggy was the one who said in catws “the world has changed and none of us can go back. all we can do is our best and sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.” steve’s whole story since waking up has been about moving on and making peace with the fact that he lost his chance at the life he could have had after the war (much as i hate aou, it does touch on that fact, he says someone who wanted family and stability or w/e isn’t who came out of the ice and he says at the end of the movie “i’m home” THIS IS HIS HOME MARVEL HERE AND NOW). the fact that the trailer used peggy’s quote about moving forward and then fucking went against the whole ass point.......wild

and i hate to say this i really do.........but not in a satisfying way, just in an it-would-make-sense way. i didn’t want any characters to die, i think after seeing characters suffer so much they deserve a happy ending (so don’t tell me i don’t want steve to be happy because i do i’ve been yelling about how he needs to rest since cacw). but. BUT. it would have made more sense if he died, if he sacrificed himself, because that was a thing he constantly did throughout the mcu, just ya know, he always survived it. going down in the plane in catfa, on the helicarrier in catws, in sokovia in aou, and so on

and lemme tell you, steve dying? that was my Big Fear for this movie, i didn’t want to believe they would go there (i never expected they would go there with tony AND NAT god i’m mad about her too but that’s not what this post is about) but i was prepared for the possibility. when i first saw the theory floating around about him going back in time to be peggy, i didn’t think it was feasible (and it’s not! truly! it makes no sense!) and i didn’t think they would do something as complicated as messing with time like that (boy was i wrong) so i wrote it off. but i think.......what happened feels worse, because character death in movies like these can p much always be fixed you know? even if canon doesn’t, fic can keep everything canon gives us and still be like ‘oh they’re not actually dead because ____’ and this....this can’t be changed. fic has to change the ending. that last five minutes. five minutes fucked up ten years of characterization. anyway.

so here’s what i was thinking about? while not exactly the same because it was ya know parents they lost, thor had a conversation with frigga, tony had a conversation with howard. imagine if it had been steve on the mission to get the soul stone. and okay as a clintasha stan (fuck you aou) i LOVED that scene until nat’s death, i loved them fighting each other to be the one to go. but if it had been steve and maybe still nat too, he could have had his own blast from the past like thor and tony did with the red skull because idt he ever even found out it was the red skull in the soul world (is that what it’s called i forget), bc iirc clint just said something about a red guy. anyway it could have made for some nice catfa parallels with steve and red skull and if he WAS with nat it could have made for a nice aou parallel when they stay to get all the citizens out of there (”where else am i gonna get a view like this?” bc both my babies are willing to sacrifice themselves to save the world). but imagine when the relationship between steve and natasha has also been such a big part of the mcu, the two of them learning to trust each other and protect each other, and save each other, imagine both of them disagreeing over who should be the one to die, maybe not in the same way as clint and nat, not with physically trying to keep the other down, but...fighting about it nonetheless. imagine natasha watching him fall, imagine her returning without him.

of course this would’ve made me mad too because that would’ve meant not just that steve died, but that he died without getting to see bucky and sam again. but at least it would’ve MADE NARRATIVE SENSE and not fucked up his character, because it’s exactly the kind of thing he would do. anyway, it didn’t even have to be this idea of mine, it didn’t even have to be death at all, i just think...it would have made more sense than chasing after this fantasy of a life that he realized (and seemed to accept) he couldn’t have years ago.

now. what i’ve been screaming for the last week. to put it simply: STEVE WOULD NEVER. steve wouldn’t take peggy’s past away from her. steve wouldn’t leave bucky and sam and his other friends behind after all the hell they’ve been through, after half the population just woke up five years in the future, something he's experienced on a much larger scale. steve could have still given up being captain america. could have said, hey i still wanna do good but i don’t wanna fight aliens and shit anymore and i wanna have a chance to actually live my life. he could have given the shield to sam (okay ik the shield was destroyed at that point but u know what i mean) and that could have been the perfect ending for him, to get his happiness with who and what he still has, to truly make peace with what he’s lost.

and i can’t say all this without getting into bitter stucky territory. the entire fucking captain america trilogy has revolved around steve’s relationship to bucky. protecting bucky, saving him, believing in him when no one else will. he went on that mission in catfa based on the hope that bucky was alive, he lost him when he fell from that train. when steve found out bucky was alive, he gave up fighting him HE DROPPED HIS SHIELD he was willing to die on that helicarrier trying to save bucky, trying to get him to remember. with sam’s help they spent two years trying to find bucky and okay i’m not gonna get into why cacw bugged me that’s not this post but he STILL was trying to keep bucky safe, still believing in bucky, just....everything it’s too much to even put into words what the two of them mean to each other, what they do for each other.

bucky and steve haven’t really had a chance to be back in each other’s lives since cacw. bucky went back into cryo and sure we can assume steve’s visited him since he woke up but steve’s been on the run with sam and nat like........they’ve had very little time together. and steve just lived another five years without bucky AND sam and ditched them immediately? for someone he had a relationship with ten years ago? for someone he obviously was not meant for BECAUSE they DIDN’T end up together because he went down in that plane and she moved on and i’m just!!!

and anyway is bucky really like okay? like i saw that vid where the fan asked about the movie properly ending their story and they totally bullshitted an answer about them being able to be separate or whatever but like they’ve hardly been able to be TOGETHER, they’ve been pulled apart over and over. and like, yes bucky has his life in wakanda and he has sam but we haven’t really seen much of those relationships so we don’t actually know how much that means! steve is the only person who can understand even somewhat what bucky’s been through (obvs other mcu characters know what it’s like to have their minds fucked with whereas steve doesn’t know what that part’s like, but bucky hasn’t interacted with those characters unfortunately) so ya know at least in terms of adjusting to a whole new life after your old one was ripped away, steve’s all he’s got. ofc now other people will get a sense of that, but still. in terms of history, shared life experience, steve and bucky are all each other have.

all bucky and steve share in this movie is an exchange that literally already happened in catfa but in reverse. they couldn’t even give us an original MOMENT. and bucky apparently knew what steve was gonna do which just makes it WORSE, like he just had to accept it and let steve go, let steve be someone else. if they wanted to end steve’s arc properly, it would’ve been about bucky because THAT’S what steve’s whole fucking story has been about, and the writers and directors who literally made steve’s arc that way fucking ignored that bc they’re homophobic (and misogynistic) goodbyeeeee like u cannot deny that tearing bucky and steve apart permanently isn’t a slap in the face to stucky shippers, they’ve been giving less and less since catws when they realized how obviously romantic their story is. it’s just fucking cruel (don’t get me started on using the song from right before steve and bucky’s first interaction in catws for the dance as soon as it started playing i wanted to SCREAM ik it’s possible they didn’t know it was an association with stucky buuuuuut with social media ppl very easily know what the fandom is saying so. who knows it just fucking sucked) to put an end to the stevebucky relationship when they haven’t had a real chance to be together, even as just friends, since catws, and it’s especially cruel to end their relationship THIS WAY

anyway this ending (JUST A FEW MINUTES REALLY) just does a disservice to steve AND peggy AND bucky and their stories and i’m just so disappointed and angry on their behalf. if anyone wants to talk about it to me FEEL FREE as long as you’re not a dick bc i obvs love to commiserate with the fandom over this MESS

#steve rogers #avengers: endgame #mcu #anti endgame #endgame spoilers #steve x bucky #this is so long and messy and probably won't be read but #long post

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fandomoblivion · 6 years

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And There She Was (Part 2)

Fandom: Stranger Things

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader, kind of Billy Hargrove x Henderson!Reader but not totally

Request: can u do a cute steve harrington x henderson ! reader? idrc what it is im just in the mood for something steve lol

Summary: (Y/N) Henderson has lived all her life pining after Steve Harrington. Steve Harrington: the athlete. Steve Harrington: the King of Hawkins. Steve Harrington: the player. Steve Harrington: the boyfriend of her best friend. But the thing is, when they’re forced to be together while fighting other-worldly creatures… stuff goes down. But hey, you know what they say. Shit happens.

Warnings: Swearing, violence

Word Count: 2,615

Notes: UH. THE S3 TEASER TRAILER. STEVE. UGH BE STILL MY HEART.

prologue / part one

You rolled your eyes as Dustin got into your car, completely dressed in Ghostbusters gear. “Dustin, nobody dresses up for Halloween at school.”

“Maybe not in high school, Miss “I’m-too-cool-for-a-costume.”

“I never said that.”

“But we do in middle school.”

“Did Mom get pictures?” You asked, changing the subject. He nodded. “Of course she did. She takes Halloween way too seriously.”

“It’s a fun holiday!” Dustin protested.

“Shut up, Stantz. We’re here.” You said, pulling into the middle school’s parking lot. “Get out. And, uh, have a great day. Happy Halloween… and all that crap.” You said, making Dustin laugh and close the car door behind him. As you drove off, you noticed that none of the other kids were wearing costumes. “Fuck.” You mumbled, but there was no way you could help him. You had to get yourself to class.

You walked into the lunchroom, Billy trailing behind you. The night before had been… weird, to say the least.

He had picked you up and the two of you went to a diner where he insisted on buying the two of you burgers and fries. You opted out, just ordering a milkshake, and you told him all about Hawkins. At least, you tried to. He cut you off before you could get a full thought out and started talking about himself and why he was “drawn to you.” Pfft. What a smooth-talking, greasy-haired, foul-mouthed asshole. But…

You needed to get your mind off of Steve.

So you played along.

Sure, some would call what you were doing “leading him on,” but anyone who knew you knew you didn’t like him. Just… he didn’t know.

You knew none of this was logical. You knew it was bad. You knew it was immoral. And yet, you couldn’t handle the thought of facing school alone for much longer.

You started to walk over to Jonathan, when Billy pulled you back by your hand. “Do you really want to sit with that photography nerd? C’mon, let’s just ditch. We can go for a smoke out back.”

You scrunched up your nose. “I don’t smoke.”

“Yeah, but I do. So come on.” You huffed and reluctantly followed him to the back of the cafeteria building.

On the way, Jonathan caught your eye. He looked from you to Billy, and back to you, with a quizzical look on his face. “Really?” He mouthed out. You shrugged and looked away.

“I’m driving you home after school.” Billy said outside.

You scowled. “My car is here.”

He shrugged. “Then I’ll drive you to school tomorrow so you can pick it up.”

You looked at him, studying how he was leaning against the brick wall. “No. I want to drive myself home.”

He looked at you, and let out a puff of smoke.

“Fine. Suit yourself, Sweet Pea. Just know that you’ve gotta make it up to me somehow.” He said, wrapping an arm around your waist.

You quickly pulled away and started cleaning your glasses on your sweater.

“What, so you just ain’t gonna say anything?”

You looked up. “How am I supposed to respond to that?”

He leaned in to your face, real close. “You’re supposed to fuck me, right?”

At this your breathing hitched. Like, really, dude? Gee, way to make you swoon.

You scoffed and looked around. Nobody was outside to help you. Your heart was now pounding. “No, I’m not screwing you.” You shoved his arm off of you once more and stormed back into the cafeteria, sitting down across from Jonathan, and now Nancy and Steve.

“(Y/N), what was that all about?” Jonathan asked you.

“What was what about?” Nancy asked.

You and Jonathan shared a look. You stole a fry from Jonathan’s plate and said, “Nothing,” before shooting Jon a glance that said, “We’ll talk later.” He nodded.

Nancy and Steve looked at each other, confused.

That night, you drove to the Wheeler house with Dustin and watched as he got out of the car. The entire time from when you picked him up from school until now was filled with ranting about MadMax, about how nobody else dressed up, and about how Mike and Lucas were bickering before school about who was who in their Ghostbusters group.

You parked your car and got out, dressed in your last-minute costume that Dustin had forced you to get.

You took an old dress of your mother’s--a long, red dress with long sleeves, cut the dress to be a decent length, added a strip of black around the neckline and the hem, and finally you ironed on an iconic Starship Enterprise logo.

You pulled on a pair of tall black boots, teased your hair into a bun for the gods, and put on some “groovy” makeup to finish the look.

“There, you happy now, Little Dude?”

You had asked Dustin. He clapped his hands together excitedly. “Yes! I am! You’ve finally gotten into the Halloween spirit!”

You got out of your car and spotted Jonathan. You waved, and he got out of his car. Upon seeing your costume, Jonathan’s face broke into a grin. “Wow, how long did it take your mom to convince you to wear that?”

You glared at him. “It was Dustin. I felt bad about the MadMax thing and let him dress me up. He picked Lieutenant Uhura.”

Jonathan laughed. “Well you look nice.” He paused and the two of you watched the kids interact. “You’re a really great sibling, (Y/N).”

You smiled, seeing the curly-haired dork annoy the others with his Chewbacca impression. “I try my best. He’s an idiot, but I love him.”

Jonathan gave you a sideways glance. “You still have to tell me what happened at school. I mean, when you came back your cheeks was all red and your eyes were all watery and-” he must have noticed you had trained your focus onto tugging down your skirt in an effort for it to cover more, for he stopped and said, “sorry.”

“So… Dustin is making me stay with him for at least an hour-”

“(Y/N)!” You were cut off by your little brother.

“Yeah, Little Dude?”

“You can go!”

You and Jonathan shared a smile. “R-Really, Dustin? You don’t want me to-”

“No no! If Jonathan’s not staying you don’t have to.”

You smiled. “Thanks, kid.”

“Want a ride to the party? Nancy and Steve are already there, I think.”

You looked at your parked car, sitting in front of the Wheeler household. “I’ll get my car later. Sure. Thanks, Jon.” He nodded with a small smile.

The two of you got into Jonathan’s car, but he didn’t start it up right away. He sat there, looking at you, clearly waiting for you to tell him what happened.

You sighed. “You know that new guy, Billy Hargrove?” He nodded. “Well he and I went out on a date the night of his first day at school.”

Jonathan scowled. “What? Why?” You bit your lower lip and didn’t say anything, but he understood. “Oh. Steve.” You nodded. “So what happened at lunch?”

“He was being a dick. So I got mad at him. But I… I feel like… I feel like he’s the only way to get my mind off Steve,” you said, your brows furrowed and your eyes focused again on tugging down your skirt, even though you were sitting down.

This was when Jonathan noticed your tick. Well, not really a medical tick, but a nervous habit you had whenever you were uncomfortable. The two of you still didn’t know each other very well, but he just acquired a bit more knowledge about you. Then he noticed you exhibited your “tick” quite often. Whenever Steve said something cute to Nancy, you were tugging on your sleeves in an effort to make them longer, or adjusting your shirt to heighten the collar. You were trying to hide.

“Well if it’s hurting you it’s not worth it.” He said after a bit of silence, finally starting up the car as well.

“But I think it’s hurting me more without Billy.”

“Listen, (Y/N). I don’t like Billy. He seems like an asshole. So I’m gonna advocate for you to stay single, or at least to stay away from him. But I can’t really stop you… so just…” He glanced at you, nodding briefly and saying, “Be careful, yeah?” before looking back at the road.

You blinked and reached to push your glasses up before remembering that it was once of the (very few) times you were wearing contacts.

“Yeah. I will.”

When Jonathan pulled up to the party, the first thing you noticed was the music. How could you not? I mean, you heard it from nearly two blocks away. The next thing you noticed were the people. There were so many people, way more than you were used to being around at one time.

The two of you got out of the car and went inside, sticking together and looking around for Nancy.

“That’s how you do it, Hawkins! That’s how you do it!” You heard someone yell as they entered in behind you. People were chanting his name. You smelled the now familiar scent of cigarette smoke and and a new scent--the unmistakable scent of beer--waft your way. You felt an arm sling around your waist as the person slurred a, “Hey, Sweet Pea. Glad you could make it. You look… hot.”

You lost Jonathan in the crowd as Billy pulled you somewhere, the two of you flanked by his goons. “We got ourselves a new keg king, Harrington.” Shit.

You looked up and saw Nancy and Steve talking, leaning against a wall, dressed in a couple’s costume. Of course. Billy’s friends got in Steve’s face about the keg, but the two of them were watching you. You had Billy’s arm around your waist, and you just realized that someone shoved a red solo cup filled with… something… into your hand. Steve took off his sunglasses as Nancy walked away, an annoyed look on her face.

Steve was about to say something when Nancy took off. He saw her walk away, and he looked at you and shrugged, before following her.

“Yeah, that’s right, Harrington. Walk away.” One of the guys standing with you and Billy said.

“Hey, uh, what’s in this?” You asked Billy, swirling your drink around in your cup. The red liquid was opaque, and it reeked of alcohol.

“Some guys are calling it ‘Pure Fuel.’ I call it bullshit. Let’s get you a real drink.” Billy said, taking your cup. You watched on as he took a bottle of Fireball whiskey from someone and filled your cup with it, cutting it with some Surge energy drink. He handed it to you. “It’s a new kind of whiskey. The brand came out this year, I think. But whatever, it’s good as shit, so drink it.”

You took a sip and immediately started stifling a cough. “Oh… shit.”

Billy smirked. “Yeah.”

You looked over and saw Steve and Nancy dancing amidst the crowd, then Nancy pulled Steve in for a kiss. You felt your chest tighten and you turned back to Billy. You grabbed his wrist and led him to sit on the kitchen counter, right near Nancy and Steve. You didn’t know what you were doing; the alcohol that you had now downed had made you mind fuzzy.

From Jonathan’s point of view, he just saw you straddling Billy, kissing him right where you knew Nancy and Steve would see you. But it didn’t make sense to him, since he knew your goal was never to make them jealous. Why would it make them jealous? Nancy didn’t like Billy and Steve… Steve didn’t like you.

It was just something dumb you had thought up. But when Jonathan saw you, he went over to you and Billy and pulled you off of him. You stumbled a bit, and he noticed your eyes were hazy.

“(Y/N), come on. You’re really drunk. How many drinks have you had?”

“I just asked Billy to keep ‘em coming. A-And he did. So…” Your speech was slurred, and Billy was drumming his fingers on the tile that he was sitting on, clearly impatient. “You can go now, Johnny. Go find Nance!”

Jonathan got closer to you and dropped his voice so Billy couldn’t hear him. “Listen, (Y/N). I really think you should come with me-”

“Jonathan, you said you’d let me get my mind off of Steve. So let me.”

You could see the cogs working in Jon’s head while he weighed out the different scenarios that could happen. “Fine.” He said finally. “It’s just a party. I’m taking you home tonight, though. Promise?” You nodded.

You looked back at the crowd where Nancy and Steve just were, but you saw that they had moved to the drink table again. They were arguing over something, and within a second Steve and Nancy had managed to spill her drink all over her top. You just stood there, silently watching, before Billy clapped a hand onto your shoulder. “Serves him right. Fuckin’ ‘King Steve’ bullshit.”

You turned back around and saw Billy standing now, right up behind you. You pressed your lips to his as the crowd’s mood rose again, matching the music of Depeche Mode in the background.

A few minutes passed, and you were still with Billy, drinking and dancing, drinking and kissing, drinking and… well, drinking. Right when something by Kim Wilde came on, you were shoved into Billy’s chest by someone trying to get through the crowd. You turned around and saw Steve, scowling, pushing his way through everyone.

“Billy, I’ll… be right back.”

You followed Steve outside and watched as he got into his car. He wasted no time in peeling away from his parking spot and leaving.

That was when you knew this night was going to take a turn for the worse.

You turned around and saw Jonathan leaving with Nancy stumbling next to him. “Hey, is everything okay?” You called out, running--you didn’t know how you managed not to trip on the way--up to them. Jonathan was helping Nancy into the passenger seat of his car. “You’re my ride home, Jon. A-Are we leaving? ‘Cause I’ll go tell Billy and-”

Jonathan closed Nancy’s door and scratched the back of his neck. “Listen, (Y/N). I need to take Nancy home.”

“B-But my car is parked in front of her house. Can’t you-”

“I need to help her. She’ll barely be able to get to her doorstep, much less to her room without her parents noticing.”

“Jon, I can help-”

“Just… Billy can take you home, right?”

You tugged at your collar. “O-Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I guess he-”

“Great. Perfect. Thanks, (Y/N).” He said, before getting into his car and shutting the door. You smiled slightly and waved at him through his window, watching him drive away, into the dark night.

You stood there, unsure of how to get home.

You lived kind of far away, and your car was far away, too. Your feet would kill you if you walked. You didn’t want to ask Billy, because you knew he’d try to make some sort of disgusting move on you beyond kissing. You couldn’t call your mom and let her know you had left Dustin alone. You knew Dustin would be home and asleep by now, and there was no way he could even help you. You couldn’t ask someone at the party to drive you home, since you didn’t really know anyone there, and you didn’t trust anyone enough to spend time in their car with them, drunk and alone.

You didn’t know what to do.

So you took off your shoes, tears welling in your eyes, and started walking home.

Tag List (let me know if I forgot you or if you want to be added!)

@alonewolfsblog . @harringtonwife . @highly-uncomfortable-titles . @lilithmouse . @lovingcupcake51002 . @natpete . @slythergirlimagines . @whataloadofmalarkey

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bluephoenixdruidicprincess · 5 years

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I watched Endgame yesterday, and as a fan of Steve and Bucky's relationship (platonic or romantic), it really bothered me how the movie ended. I'm not sure if you know what happens, but since you said you were okay with spoliers and rants, here it is: in the end, after little to no interaction with Bucky, and their little moments being very downplayed (and very 100% no homo "dude"), basically ignoring their strong bond, Steve goes back in time to stay with Peggy, breaking the...

2/2 … newly stablished time travel laws of the MCU, and worse, letting it implied that he abandoned Bucky to his fate as a Hydra puppet for years, as well ignoring all the world problems that were happening, just to live a married life with Peggy. And there’s also the fact that the children Peggy would have had won’t have existed anymore. That was completely OOC for Cap, and a complete disrepect to the character development and story archs of these three characters, who deserved so much better.

Sorry it took me so long to answer this one. I know I said I was okay with spoilers but I figured answering this would be best to leave until after I actually saw Endgame so I can have context. Well, I saw Endgame this weekend so now I have context. And the whole Steve situation did bug me too.

Well, my first main gripe with this and it’s really a gripe I have with the entire movie, is how they went about time-traveling. I kind of understand how time-travel in the MCU works but it’s really messy and very confusing and vague. And I think they made it messy and confusing and vague on purpose so they could theoretically do whatever they want. Most times whenever a story introduces time-travel, it never really makes sense but it feels like the MCU went out of their way for it to not make sense. And then, they don’t even follow their own pre-established rules. According to their own rules, we shouldn’t even have met Steve as an old man because when he went back to live a life with Peggy, him going creates a mini-timeline within the main-timeline that has no bearing on the main timeline. If Peggy had originally married someone else in the main timeline and had children with that person, that family line would still exist in the main timeline because Steve going back doesn’t change what’s already happened in the future. And of course, these time travel rules are actually built to not leave our characters any consequences for mucking around with time (but that’s a discussion for another time). But my point is, how did he pop up in the main timeline? I guess the only thing that makes sense is that at some point the timelines merged together again? It’s weird. Like I said, the writers made the logistics of time-travel vague and messy on purpose to basically facilitate them doing whatever they wanted. And I suppose with the logic of the main timeline not being changed when you time-travel, theoretically Steve may have stopped Hydra from taking control of S.H.I.E.L.D. and saved Bucky from years of torment, that all just happened in a mini-timeline existing somewhere along the axis of the main timeline. Like I said, it’s really messy and in the end, it still doesn’t make sense for why we met old Steve. The MCU would’ve been better off just using multi-verse theory. It’s much cleaner to just say that everything you change when time-traveling creates a parallel universe.

And it was weird that over the past movies, so much was being put into the relationship of Steve and Bucky (platonic or romantic) and they were basically an afterthought in both Infinity Way and Endgame. I never really shipped Stucky in any platonic or romantic way, as I’ve said before, I’m just a casual viewer of the MCU and so I never really had too much of a stake in the franchise. But I did admire their relationship and I don’t hate the idea of them being romantically involved. I’m not really surprised they “no homo’d” Stucky, but I am surprised that with the amount of work that went into building this friendship that lasted over 70 years and fought through brainwashing, that Endgame didn’t focus on it at all. Especially when you consider what they did with Clint and Nat. The writers went out of their way basically to show that a male and female can be just friends with no romantic entanglement. The writers showed through Clint and Nat that you can have this incredibly deep connection with each other and still keep things platonic. I can understand the writers not wanting to take Stucky in a romantic direction but it doesn’t mean they couldn’t have something that’s similar to what Clint and Nat had.

Although in the ending scene, it did seem clear to me that Bucky knew that when Steve went back to return all the infinity stones, that he wasn’t going to come back. So it kind of implies that he and Steve least had a conversation about it. But still, I hate that we didn’t get that conversation especially considering how much Steve means to Bucky. It can’t be easy for Bucky to now have to live in this timeline without Steve around. They both were put into this era where they really didn’t belong so without having Steve around, without having someone who understands that, I feel like it’s going to be really hard on Bucky. And it certainly is weird that Steve would just sit out the next few decades with the knowledge that Hydra is currently infiltrating Hydra and that Bucky is being tormented and he doesn’t do anything about that.

And I just feel very weird about Steve showing up to begin his new life with Peggy because it basically devalues the life she had without him. She lived an entire timeline without him, she had a husband and children and presumably she was happy with that life and taking away that happiness she had originally found in the main timeline just so Steve can have his happily ever after, Peggy’s happily ever after be damned. Granted, I’m certainly not saying that she was truly happy with the life she ended up having. We really don’t know. But I got to imagine that someone like Peggy married whoever she did and had children with that person because she was genuinely happy with that person.

I think the only character that was really treated well by any standard was probably Tony Stark. A lot of emphasis was placed on him and his Endgame. Avengers Endgame was less so about the Infinity War Endgame but Tony Stark’s Endgame.

#endgame spoilers

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Suicide Squad: John Cena and the Secrets of Peacemaker

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

John Cena is everywhere. He’s a seasoned television host, currently co-hosting TBS’ absurdly fun Wipeout, a #1 New York Times bestselling author with two new books on shelves, and one of the most in-demand, silver screen actors appearing in comedies, family films, and unsurprisingly, action movies alike. For someone whose catchphrase is “You can’t see me!” we sure have been seeing a lot of Cena.

Over Cena’s 18 years in the WWE, the charismatic sports entertainer has collected 16 World Titles and served as the face of the company and moralistic brand ambassador. Cena reigned at the top of the WWE pecking order longer than past favorites like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and did so with a smile, whether the WWE Universe was behind him or not. Like most of the company’s top stars, Cena inevitably found his way to Hollywood and, after some half-hearted initial forays, has found himself to be an adept and engaging screen presence. You don’t log that many hours on weekly live television without learning how to be a skilled performer.

This summer, Cena’s star looks like it will be shining brighter than ever. Not only will he serve as the main antagonist in the latest Fast & Furious film, F9, but he’s set to make his debut in the DCEU as Peacemaker in James Gunn’s highly anticipated The Suicide Squad. He told us all about it and more in this exclusive interview…

Den of Geek: How did you get the role of Peacemaker?

John Cena: I had tried my hand at trying to crack the DC code for a long time with multiple failures. It was brought to my attention that James had an interest in me playing Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad, and he just wanted to meet with me in person to solidify his instincts. His reputation is one thing, but to see him in action…I got to actually go to the production offices and just see all of their preparation. It’s like nothing I’d ever seen before.

He really just prepares as good as, or better than, anyone and adds to that his passion for filmmaking and his passion for storytelling. I think he sees his story and then he puts together a list of suspects that could be possible fits, and I was one of those and we hit it off.

Based on your physique and your background in sports entertainment, many people expected you to book more of these macho action hero roles, but you’ve sort of subverted that expectation with movies like Trainwreck and Blockers. Is Peacemaker meant to continue that subversion of audiences’ preconceived notions about you or does it sort of play into them?

Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with diving into preconceived notions, if that’s who you are. I mean, if you can remember, that’s exactly what I did at first. I did macho action movies that were complete failures. So I did that and it wasn’t really who I was at the time.

I compare the experience by saying I got to be put in these action sequences with these tremendous stunts, but yet I was doing that every night in front of 20,000 people and the electric passion you feel and certainly the love and excitement I have had and will have for WWE is unwavering. So given the choice between doing stunts surrounded by 36 cameras and no one else watching or doing stuff in a live arena, I wanted to be in the ring. Especially at that point in my life when I began doing these movies, that would be 2004. I was literally just getting comfortable on the WWE canvas and deciding that that was really where I wanted to be.

Fast forward to now, a decade and a half later, and I don’t think anything’s out of reach, with Fast Nine coming up, that certainly is a blockbuster action installment. The Suicide Squad has a lot of gore and a lot of action involved in it, but it’s me realizing who I am and who I’m not.

I think that’s why you see me all over the map from family movies that Playing With Fire to R-rated comedies like Trainwreck to PG-13’s like Daddy’s Home, to a DC movie like The Suicide Squad, to a straight-up blockbuster action like F9. I have an R-rated comedy coming out on Hulu called Vacation Friends, to a straight-up action two-hander with Jackie Chan called Project X that was filmed in China. Everyone always asks, “Well, what’s the next movie you’re looking for?” And my answer is always the same. I say, “I’ll know it when I read it.” I just like to read stuff and see myself in the story. Because that’s the one thing that’s really helped me with WWE, me being able to absorb the story with whoever I stand across the ring from.

Based on what we’ve seen in the trailers, it almost seems like Peacemaker could be a warped version of your character in WWE. Did you draw any inspiration specifically from the “John Cena,” boy scout-esque character?

I remember meeting with James and asking if I should dive into the comics history of Peacemaker, and he specifically told me not to. I think that’s because James likes to navigate his story. He just was like, “you have what I’m looking for. Just be yourself, and if you’re willing to take direction, I think we can do something special.”

I originally had approached this character as much more of an angular, drill sergeant, Full Metal Jacket-esque personality, and about 20 minutes into filming our first scene, James came over to me and was like, “This is not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a douchey, bro-y Captain America.” We do draw from the do-gooder side of John Cena, who has a strong set of values and doesn’t waver from those values. So the answer is yes, but not in my eyes. Whenever I play a role in a movie, it really is never myself. Whereas WWE is the odd thing that a lot of times you have to create an extension of yourself because the narrative is just so damn long.

The Suicide Squad are a bunch of super-villains and every villain has to believe what they’re doing is right and just, and it’s just their warped perspective of society that makes them evil. I think that’s a great way to describe Peacemaker. He thinks what he is doing is right and just. He just has a really abstract perspective.

What’s it been like to work with James Gunn and develop this character together?

It’s amazing. He provides you the freedom to take chances, very much like Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer did in Trainwreck, but man, his preparedness and his commitment to narratives in their entirety, from things as simple as the score— it can’t just be a song, it needs to be this particular song at this particular point. He is passionately immersed in the totality of the experience. I just let go and realize that I am far from the smartest person in the room. I’m going to be my nice little piece, pun intended, on the chessboard and let the master figure out what the opening is and what the next move is.

Peacemaker is also getting an HBO Max series. How does it feel to be entrusted with what is essentially the first television series in the DCEU?

I’m very excited. DC has been trying to create excitement and buzz and it has had tremendous success and it has had its share of setbacks, but at the same time they know what their fans want and they know the satisfaction that their fans are looking for. I really think they’re stepping up to give fans what they’ve been waiting for. They’re taking bold and brave chances with completely new characters like you see in The Suicide Squad or completely new takes on all the properties that they have in their bank. I think both of these projects, The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, are steps in the right direction.

Did it help to have such a strong grasp on the character from working on the movie first? Or do you think there are aspects of your performance that you found while filming the series that you thought, “Man, I wish I would’ve had this light bulb go off while I was filming the movie.”

Man, hindsight’s a dirty rabbit hole to go down. If I could tell my former self a bunch of stuff it would be like Hot Tub Time Machine. So it’s just… That’s not the way I operate. I’m absolutely grateful for what’s put in front of me. I just try my best every day to do my best every day. I don’t look back on any experience saying “I wish I would have” I look back on experiences and say “What did I learn?”

Dwayne Johnson is also coming into the DCEU. I think anybody that knows the history you share would love to see you guys square off on the big screen. Do you have any hopes for your respective characters crossing paths someday?

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Well, like I said before, I think the DCU is making steps in the right direction, and certainly, there’s a lot of buzz behind Black Adam as well. We’re all kind of under the same umbrella. So do I have hope? I always have hope. I know audiences really enjoyed what we were able to do [in WWE] and if we’re able to transfer that excitement and passion from live entertainment to the big screen, I think it seems like a pretty logical jump, but I don’t make those choices. So all I can do is just keep doing me, man.

The Suicide Squad opens on Aug. 6 in theaters and HBO Max.

Check out more on The Suicide Squad in the latest issue of Den of Geek!

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