I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like “whatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with you” so he just raises him as normal, doesn’t even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the king’s murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I'mma put him out of his misery.

yoohankim horses. yoo joonghorse, kim horseja, and horse sooyoung ..

By his body’s clock, there’s been less than five years from the beginning until now, from knit top to body armor, from showgirl to warrior of legend, from Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) to Captain America (aka Steve Rogers). He’s barely thirty, which nobody seems to realize or remember. It’s just as well because sometimes he feels all of the ninety-six years the calendar gives him. Never more so than when he looks at the photos and rare scraps of video from before, when he can see how much the transition has cost him and how much of it he paid even before Bucky fell. He never meant for war to become his life, let alone the only thing he understood. And yet it has.

— Hadestown, Come Home With Me

here to the end of the line

Steve Rogers leaves dishes in the sink.

You would expect it to turn out differently, wouldn't you? They wear the soulmate trope like a tailored garment. Their lives revolve around each other in a singular way that no other character can come close to matching. They have their inside jokes and their little rituals and the things only they would know about each other. It's each other's hearts they always seem to see and believe in, more than physical strength or years of brainwashing and control. Their smiles turn so much softer for each other. They were both believed to be dead, yet somehow both turned up alive the same number of years later, drawn inexorably together. They have shared life experience in two ways: they literally shared their early life, and they've gone through similar events since then separately. They're both beaten and bruised by the world in different ways, and yet their belief in each other of all things is never changed. One of their names was the other's last word.

You would expect it to turn out differently, wouldn't you?

“No, I don’t think so. I think he thinks it’s strange. Then again, the circumstances are weird. Bucky gets rescued by this new Steve. For all we know, Bucky is on an operating table thinking he might never come out. That he might never again see the light of day. So for him, every time he comes back from war, he’s like, “Here’s another chance to think whether it’s worth going back. I’m alive. I’m here for one night. I want to live life.” I don’t think it’s jealousy so much, but he doesn’t really have much of a choice because I think for him there’s an element of, “Okay I’m going to go fight and I will survive this one mission and then I’ll come back and I’ll not go back.” But the problem is that he has no choice because Steve’s going and he never lets Steve go by himself. So I think the protective nature of a parent or a brother was was always there. It wasn’t like, “Steve’s this muscle guy and I want to be him.” It’s more like, “Oh god—he’s grown up and what do I do?””

— Sebastian Stan’s response to Do you think Bucky almost wishes he was the one turned into a super soldier? (x)

— Charles Bukowski, Raw with Love

an important gifset

There were times, back then, when Steve was sure he wasn’t going to pull through.

When the fever had consumed him for days, and the breath burned thick in the back of his throat, and Steve felt himself slip too close to the dark place that lived behind his eyelids, across the threshold of his consciousness.

Death, he thought: hovering like a loving mother at his side.

He could feel it, like a cold whisper gusting against his skin, chilling him with words of warning. Soon, it said; and Steve was too weak to do anything but lie there and listen.

He tried to tell Bucky once, drifting out of a delirious sleep.

“If… if death came tomorrow...”

“You’d punch him in the face,” Bucky shushed him softly, carding his fingers through Steve’s hair. The healthy warmth of his hand felt nearly cool against the fevered heat of Steve’s skin, and Steve leaned blindly into the soothing touch, sighing his relief as Bucky’s knuckles stroked his cheek.

Bucky. The world seemed to be fading at the edges, like a sheet of paper burning from the outside in, curling ash-black and falling away piece by piece; but Bucky was still there.

Bucky was made of gentleness and sound, sweet like the sweet nothings he poured in Steve’s ear when Steve slept fitfully, swept into his feverish haze and lost to the world for hours on end.

Bucky was touch: an anchor. Bucky was color, familiar and dependable, like the blue of the sky, the yellow heart of daisies, the stain-black of charcoal.

Steve glimpsed the downturned corners of his mouth, his lovely lovely mouth, red like ripe apples. Steve had dreamed of kissing it once. Twice. Every other night.

Bucky’s cheeks were so pale. His eyes looked so tired, circled by the bruise-like purple of his skin.

He hadn’t been sleeping, Steve knew. Steve had been sleeping, though – he’d stolen Bucky’s share of it while his body burned up from the inside.

“Buck,” Steve rasped, his voice thin and crusty, like plaster peeling off the wall. “If... if I go...”

Bucky shook his head, one curl coming loose from the once careful sweep of his hair. His pretty lips quirked up, a slip of a smile found so easily like he’d rehearsed it a dozen times before.

“Nah. You’re not going anywhere,” he said, collecting Steve’s hand to cradle it in both of his.

Steve’s head lolled sleepily on his pillow, lured by the sound of Bucky’s trembling voice.

“Buck.”

“Shh. You’re staying right here, where I– where I can keep an eye on ya.”

Silence spilled in the room, just for a moment – the space of a sniffle, of a soft, shivery exhale.

“Gotta make sure you don’t get into trouble, don’t I?”

One of Bucky’s hands left him briefly, and when it enveloped him again, there was a wetness there; one little drop trickling from the bridge of his finger, to land cool on Steve’s skin.

“Just. Just like I promised.”

And Steve knew then.

If Death did come; if it seized his wrist with its bone-thin fingers and bade him to follow, Now, child, it is time, Steve would say: No. He’s not ready.

He would think of the apple-red mouth he had never kissed yet, save for in his dreams; of the love he hadn’t quite begun to shape into words. He’d think of the life he’d only just caught a glimpse of, stretched far on the road ahead of him, twined with Bucky’s own as they reached into the future, together. Simply. Always.

No, Steve would tell Death. He’s not ready.

And neither am I.

I mean.. did this not actually happen

(Source: wrongrogers on Twitter)

a weak and tortured bucky making sure steve gets to safety first

— E.E. Cummings, Complete Poems 1904-1962

Look, I didn’t make Bucky’s capture and possible death the catalyst that caused Steve to fully embrace Captain America. I didn’t make Bucky’s death the thing that shifted Steve’s moral center from “I don’t want to kill anybody” to “I’m not gonna stop until all of Hydra is dead or captured”. I didn’t write a conversation about romance where Steve uttered the line, “It’s kind of hard to find someone with shared experience,” about fifteen minutes before Bucky miraculously reappeared with a boatload of shared experience. I didn’t make a vow of lifelong devotion the thing that broke through Bucky’s seventy years of brainwashing. I didn’t write it so the mere mention of Bucky’s name caused Steve to lose focus long enough for someone to almost blow him up. I didn’t make Steve so devoted to Bucky that he went against not only his own government and half his friends but also one hundred and seventeen nations to protect him even when Bucky was actively trying to run away from his help. I didn’t make Steve try to stop a helicopter with his bare hands to keep Bucky with him even though Bucky was trying to kill him in that moment. I didn’t make Steve fight Tony literally almost to death to protect Bucky. I didn’t make Steve drop his shield for Bucky, symbolically and literally choosing him over being Captain America, not just once but twice. I didn’t base Steve and T’Challa’s alliance mostly on T’Challa’s willingness and ability to protect and take care of Bucky when Steve can’t. I didn’t make Bucky the only person Steve ever truly and fully smiles at in Infinity War, and I definitely didn’t choose him as the person to disintegrate before Steve’s eyes, leaving him shocked and devastated.

In short, I didn’t write Bucky Barnes into the traditional role of Steve Rogers’ love interest, but I sure as hell noticed when Marvel did.