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bloodpacks-archive · 3 years

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ooooh if it hasn't been done yet could I request cruore with Seven!!

these were meant to be blurbs. this one is not a blurb. i don't know what happened. also if there are typos shhh. also second part of my birthday event wooooo

cruore | saeyoung choi

warnings: blood/wounds, trauma, it's a hurt/comfort fic w saeyoung it is what it is y'know

word count: 1.9k

Sometimes, it can feel as though Saeyoung Choi is man meant be a painting—someone meant to be adorned in the grotesque shades of scarlet, azure, and violet that are only meant for those who dare test the limits of what life can be. He is covered in differing textures, scars that she cannot fully see now as he wraps himself tighter in his clothes, but ones that she knows lay beneath those layers, ones that she can see peak out from under the seams and the hems.

A bitter crimson now flows from his brow down to his jaw, and he does not dare meet her gaze, not as she gingerly raises a hand up to press at the wound, her touch interrupted by the raised skin of an old scar there.

Sometimes, it feels as though Saeyoung Choi is nothing more than messy watercolor—an outline that was meant to be followed that has now flown out past sketches and black pen. There is too much of him to contain, too much of him left to leak out from the barriers he’s set, even months after he’d sworn he’d take them down.

Of course, he doesn’t feel that way to her. Those are all his words, ones said in poetry or in the confidentiality that only the bloom of nightfall can bring.

Soap and water touch the wound, and he winces, his eyes scrunching and a breath searing past his teeth. He mumbles an apology, leans back into her touch; this is where her interpretation of Saeyoung Choi can begin.

He’s come home to her more times than she could ever wish to count, bloodied and beaten and begging for something of forgiveness as if there was anything he ever had to be forgiven for. She’s seen him collapse onto chairs and lean onto walls, a half-felt smile pressing into his cheeks as though he could hide how hurt he was through the weakest of facades. She’s held his weight against her, led him to their bathroom and helped him sit on the counter when walking made his head feel a little too light.

She’s seen the ways color has adorned his skin in the worst ways, and though she hates to see him like this, wishes to never press another bandage into his flesh, she knows part of his messy watercolor—the part that has broken past the original sketch—is the part that allows himself to come to her.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers again, as though any louder and he may bleed in darker hues than before.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” She replies, a sweetness in her voice that contrasts against the bitter feeling that pushes into his flesh, a softness in her touch against the bandages that lay just ahead of his temple.

“You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“And you should do it yourself?” She says, and although it hardly feels appropriate for the situation, there’s a familiar air of teasing that lays somewhere in her voice, one that makes Saeyoung’s lips perk into a hesitant smile. “You can hardly stand, babe.”

He doesn’t speak again, only bows his head further into himself. She can see the way his fingertips press into his own thigh, the way his jaw clenches and unclenches at the silence that settles into their little space.

She cleans a scratch on his cheekbone, a bruise and a scrape formed together into awful hatch marks amongst the wash of violet. He winces again beneath her, and an ache forms somewhere deep in her chest. By habit, an apology falls out of her own mouth, but as the words curl around the room, as the trill of her muttered voice creeps past both their ears, he leans into her—he pushes himself into her torso, and she’s so sure that he can feel an undeniable ache from the way his wounds press into her, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even make a sound.

His name falls past her lips in a question, her hands now in his hair, her fingers careful against his scalp. She feels as he slips his hands around her waist, wrapping them closer together.

In this moment, it feels as though pieces of him have fallen apart into her hands, as though she can feel the hues of his hurt and his pain slipping through the cracks of her hands, seeping into the pieces of her skin that she’s left open to him (Which is every part. No matter how deeply 707 lays into him, no matter how many layers he’s left for her to uncover, there is nothing he would ever have to work for to know every part of her. It’s the only gift she can think of that may be good enough for him).

She knows the words that lay on his tongue. In the death of nightfall, he’s murmured them into her ears thinking she’d been long asleep—but that pull could never outweigh the wish to hear his every thought, and so she knows.

There is so much more you could do without me.

Something he’d said nearly five days ago, after they’d danced in the kitchen when she’d pulled him to his feet away from his desk, when she’d smiled into his chest as music filled their little kitchen.

I am forever indebted to you, and it will never be something I could repay. I can only wish for you to move to better things, for you to know how much you deserve, and that though I will always want to give it to you, I don’t know if I can.

A whisper after they’d gone for a drive, when they’d explored the fields and the stars and he’d told her of all the ways she’d made him better, and she’d only returned the favor. A night where dusk had fallen into his eyes and left him buried deep into her shoulder.

Why me?

Last night. He couldn’t bring himself to shower, had avoided any reflective surface they owned in this damn house. She’d blocked him from the mirror and undressed him, pulling him into the shower. She’d washed his hair and called him pretty and told him every good thought that had ever come into her mind—past and present.

And she’s sure that now, those words have found their way to crowd into his mind—a broken mosaic of doubt and hatred and hurt so deep into his flesh and his bone that she can’t tell where it begins and ends.

She wants to erase the sketch that was forced upon him, to create something new out of what he’s painted with himself over the years, to let his borders and barriers fall with the breath of morning air as though dusk had never fallen over his bruised and scarred body.

“Saeyoung,” She repeats, broken whispers forming through the cracks in her voice, “Doesn’t that hurt?”

He doesn’t reply, no shake of his head, not even a hum from somewhere deep in his throat, so she sinks lower until she can meet his gaze.

It’s the first time she’s been able to look him in the eyes that night. He’d been so careful about it up until this point, sure to keep his eyes hidden behind his lashes. Now, she can see everything so clearly in him, from the scar that rests above his brow to the way he can’t keep his gaze still on her, lets it flick over her face as though there would be something more for him to discover in her.

His face has become red, little blotches dotting across his cheeks and his forehead, and she knows it’s from how hard he had pressed into his bruises, from holding back a whine that had begged to settle into his throat.

He’s adorned himself in more colors, forced his skin to mold into the pieces he was given, allowed himself to be hurt because hell, what else has he been?

Loved. Something in her begs. He’s been loved.

Looking upon him, she knows she cannot take away his scars no matter how badly she wishes to erase them from where they lay on his flesh. She knows that every drop of blood is one that she can only attempt to bandage and heal, but it is not one she will be able to forever remove from his mind. Every bruise will never be the way it was before. She cannot love away the marks that rest on his skin.

But hurt is not the only thing that should ever define him.

“I love you,” She whispers, because there’s nothing else to say beyond that. She will love him until he doesn’t let her anymore, and then she will love him beyond that. She will love him until a last breath passes his lips, when crows feet have crossed the corners of his eyes because if he goes any sooner than that hell will whisper her name.

“I love you,” She repeats, and then again, until it is no longer the words that hold the meaning but the way her voice feels as it carries in her breath, and the way it meets him both by his ears and the way it hits his skin.

He doesn’t say it back to her, the words lost somewhere on his tongue, but he doesn’t have to. She knows by the way his lips purse and how his body lurches closer and closer to her with every moment that he means it too.

She lets him do as he wishes, so he curls into her once more, wraps himself so close to her that there is no separation between them. When he does speak, it’s a mess of languages that she doesn’t know, mumbled into her skin with the cracks of whispers.

Te amo in Spanish.

Je t’aime in French.

I love you in English.

Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Cantonese, and then Korean.

She doesn’t need the translation for the ones she doesn’t know, she knows by his breath that they all mean the same. He doesn’t press his flesh into her like he had before, but he holds her as though there is nothing else left on this Earth that’s keeping him here. He holds onto her as though the stars have begged him to leave, and he wishes for nothing more than to touch the grass with her one last time.

He holds her like he knows, like he has heard every one of her thoughts, like another border has been erased before her very touch.

Sometimes, it seems as though Saeyoung Choi is a collection—a movement of pieces that leave different whispers creeping at her skull. But, all the same, each of them are him. No matter the medium, no matter how much the paint spills past the canvas or the how far the protruding pieces reach past the glass casing they’ve been settled in.

Sometimes, it seems as though Saeyoung Choi is not a singular painting, but many, and she can only hope to be there as the gallery grows.

#saeyoung choi #707 #saeyoung choi x reader #707 x reader #luciel choi #luciel choi x reader #mysme fanfic #mysme #mystic messenger #mystic messenger fanfic #saeyoung choi x mc #707 x mc

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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... Remember the Russian Revolution au? Which ended with Fedyor's sister very sick and Fedyor searching for Ivan in hopes of getting help for her from him? Fedyor finding Ivan and offering to do "anything" in exchange for his sister's medical treatment? Ivan secretly wanting Fedyor, but refusing to take what he wants like that? Soooo... I would also like the big the big 3 of your coming projects to happen, but... y'know... just.... wanted to bring this au up again... ;)

Behold, the oft-requested follow-up to the first two Russian Revolution au ficlets. Ahem.

Fedyor does not sleep that night. He does not even think about sleeping. He only leaves the army headquarters long enough to think hard about what he is proposing to do, wonder if it is worth it, and decide that it is. Katya needs the medicine, he has no other recourse, and he is categorically unwilling to return home to his family as a failure, when they have placed all their trust and hope in him. Ivan has hinted that he might be able to obtain it, and so that, no matter what it takes, is what Fedyor will have to get him to do. And for that…

He knows that he is not unattractive. He has dark eyes, dark hair, a dimpled smile, a personable and friendly manner that, in happier times, attracted the attention of many an eligible young lady who wished to ice skate or promenade around the park or take a carriage ride, as courting Russian couples are wont to do. However, while Fedyor was perfectly happy to chat with ladies, or escort them to a ball, or fulfill his essential chivalric duty, he was not otherwise interested in wooing them. It was partly for that reason that he signed up to the military, where an enterprising young man can have other opportunities in the darkness of the barracks. So long as his family was kept conveniently unaware.

For all that the Bolsheviks have overthrown the government without a clear plan as to what to do next, and accordingly plunged them all into this miserable civil war, Fedyor does secretly sympathize with certain of their beliefs on the remaking of family life. They say that marriage is outdated and bourgeoisie, that monogamy is unnatural, that women should not be subject to patriarchal systems, and that homosexuality is an equally valid state of nature. Such a possibility of sexual classification and divergence is much discussed in Europe these days, and there is even a small but growing scholarly literature, written by eminent scientists. Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis, published in 1896, argues that the man-loving man is indeed even a possibly improved form of human, associated with superior intellectual and artistic achievement, and that nothing about his attachment is wrong or abnormal. Two years before that, Edward Carpenter wrote Homogenic Love, and in 1900, the German Elisar von Kupffer published an anthology of homosexual poetry, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur. Such texts are relatively easy for an educated, French- and English- speaking young Russian intellectual, such as Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky, to lay his hands on. He is not sure what can come of it, but at least he knows that he is not alone.

The question remains as to Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov’s proclivities. Unless Fedyor is very much mistaken, Ivan was at least considering the possibility of accepting his offer, and turned it down for honorable, moral reasons, feeling it unjust to sexually extort a young gentleman in exchange for his sister’s care, rather than physical horror at the idea of such a coupling. If he’s a Bolshevik, he’s probably acceptably tolerant of their philosophy on an abstract level, but it’s less clear as to whether that extends to its personal practice. If Fedyor turns up in his bunkhouse – which, come to think of it, is probably shared, curse these Bolsheviks and their dratted communality, highly inconvenient for a midnight seduction attempt – scantily clad and willing, will Ivan’s objections hold out then? Or… or what?

Fedyor doesn’t know, but the uncertainty adds to the frisson of shameful excitement, rather than detracting from it. He searches through the streets of Chelyabinsk for some bread (it does not seem in much greater supply than in Nizhny Novgorod) and waits for the sun to go down. In March, the days, though getting steadily longer, are still short and chilly, and it’s bitingly cold when it gets dark. Then he pulls up his muffler, tells himself not to be unduly precious about it, and heads for the makeshift army quarters on Kirovka Street.

The buildings in downtown are beautiful, built in the Russian Revival style of neo-Byzantinian splendor, though the onion-domed Orthodox churches have all been converted into stables and armories, and anything that whiffs of an ideology contrary to the Red one has been economically discarded. Fedyor reaches the door, knocks, and when a disgruntled sergeant comes to answer it, expecting him to be a soldier out too late and in line for a ticking-off, Fedyor raises his hands apologetically. “I’ve come to join up,” he says. “The great socialist cause of the world’s workers is the only true one for a patriotic Russian man, and I vow it my full allegiance, if you will have me. I was speaking to my friend earlier, Ivan Ivanovich, and he suggested it. Is he still here?”

The sergeant eyes him squiggle-eyed, but they cannot afford to look gift horses too closely in the mouth, or turn aside willing recruits. It takes a while, but he shouts for someone who shouts for someone else, and this finally produces the startled personage of Ivan Sakharov, who clearly thought it was for the last time when they parted several hours ago. Upon sight of Fedyor, he stops short, looking alarmed, angry, and wary all at once. “What are you – ?”

“Can we talk?” Fedyor is resolved to do this, he truly is, but he feels it best to get it over with before that wavers in any degree. Whether he wants it too little does not seem like the problem; on the contrary, he fears that he wants it too much, and if he stops to reflect on it or delude himself with any nonsensical notions of it being more than once, that can only hurt the cause. “Somewhere… private?”

Ivan hesitates, as if asking to commune out of sight of the others is tantamount to heresy (though it’s not as if these damn hypocrites didn’t plot in secret, away from their own countrymen, for months and months, Fedyor thinks angrily). Then he jerks his head. “Fine. Five minutes. This way.”

He leads Fedyor up a few narrow, creaking staircases, past closed doors that echo with snorting and snoring and coughing, the cacophony of his comrades, none of whom seem to be enjoying their glorious victory quite as much as they thought. Ivan, however, appears to be sufficiently high-ranking in the Red Guards that the room they finally arrive at, though not much larger than a closet, is at least private. It reminds Fedyor forcibly of Ivan’s room back in St. Petersburg, the one they slept in together, that first night after the Winter Palace. It sounds more intimate in his recollections than it actually was. Nothing happened, of course. But Ivan was kind to offer it, kind when he did not need to be, when a young tsarist soldier alone in the ferment of riot and revolution, such as Fedyor was, would not be likely to see the new red dawn. It is that which Fedyor keeps in mind as he shuts the door with assumed casualness, then turns around, meets Ivan’s eye in a significant fashion, and shrugs off his coat, cap, and muffler. Then, unmistakably, starts to unbutton his shirt.

He has almost gotten to the bottom by the time Ivan, who is staring at him as if he’s lost his marbles (it is unclear if this is an encouraging fashion or not) finally recovers his sense. He strides forward and covers Fedyor’s hands with his own large, callused rifleman’s fingers, sending a shock of attraction burning through Fedyor from head to toe, along with the death of any more illusion that he could continue to be casual about this. “What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Fedyor’s throat is as dry as a bone, but he forces himself to speak. “I said that I would do anything for my sister’s care, if you would help.”

He lingers suggestively on the word anything, just as he did before, in case there was any doubt (as if the undressing wasn’t enough) what he means here. Ivan looks like a cornered bear, but as his eyes catch Fedyor’s and flick across the lean, muscled torso thus revealed beneath the shirt, he swallows hard and has to glance away. The attraction trembles silently in the air between them, tense as a piano string, tuned to snapping. In the old days, that is, when people played pianos, and did not burn them for firewood, as Fedyor’s parents were preparing to do with theirs when he left home. It chokes raw and painful in his throat. He is attracted to Ivan – desperately attracted, in fact – and yet he still hates what the Bolsheviks have done, even if the Romanovs and the Provisional Government were no better. The deposed Tsar Nicholas II is under house arrest with his wife and five children, the four tsarevnas and the tsarevich, in Yekaterinburg. Little sick Alexei Romanov, whose hemophilia opened the door for Grigori Rasputin to control the queen, the royal household, the government of Russia, and so bring about the end of their house. He was like something from a fairytale monster, that Grisha. The rumors of his death, not quite two years ago in December 1916, is that it almost did not happen, he was so hard to kill. A demon. A beast.

“You cannot do this,” Ivan says, his voice too rough, his eyes still struggling to remain decorously averted. “It is not – it is not right.”

“Not right?” Fedyor flares. “So a little spot of armed treason and overthrowing the man who, however deficient he might be, was the heir of one of the oldest and greatest empires in the world? That part was entirely aboveboard, but this, when you want this – don’t lie to me, I’m well aware you do – to help my sister? That would be a sin?!”

Ivan backs up a step, glancing around shiftily. These walls are thin, and he clearly does not want his beloved brothers-in-arms to hear this. “Fedyor Mikhailovich – ”

“Have me.” Fedyor is done playing games. “I’m here, I’m yours for the taking. You can do whatever you want to me, as long as you give me the medicine at the end.”

For a long, spellbound moment, he thinks Ivan is on the brink of agreeing. Then once again, he shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I could not in good conscience consent to this. But I will fetch you the medicine. You do not have to give me anything in return.”

Fedyor gawks at him, shocked – and, it must be confessed, more than a little disappointed. “I thought it was fair trade,” he says. “Tit for tat.”

“It is…” Ivan shakes his head, eyes once more straying to Fedyor’s bare chest. “Button your shirt up,” he says, half-laughing, not angry, breathless and soft. “It is very distracting.”

“Good.” Fedyor takes another step. “I think you deserve it, you obnoxious bastard.”

“Be that as it may.” At least Ivan has the good sense not to dispute it. “I cannot do this,” he repeats, more gently. “You are a fine young man, Fedyor Mikhailovich. Perhaps in another life… but it would not be honorable to trade your virtue for this.”

“My virtue?” Fedyor has to laugh. “What makes you think I have that?”

Once again, Ivan wavers. But to give him (loathing) credit, he will not be swayed. “Button it,” he repeats. “I will arrange to have the money and medicine sent by your lodging by tomorrow, if you give me an address in the city.”

“I don’t have one.” Fedyor folds his arms. “Only here.”

Ivan looks even more startled. His lips part, he takes a step forward, and for a brief, wild, exquisite yearning of an instant, Fedyor thinks he is actually going to kiss him. They’re almost close enough – not quite, but almost – for it to happen. Then Ivan says, “Your family must be very proud of you.”

“I…” It catches in his throat. “I don’t know. I hope.”

“I would,” Ivan says. “I would be.”

And that, somehow, is all that seems to matter. Even as Fedyor spends a night in Ivan’s narrow camp cot of a bed, Ivan insisting on taking the hard floor out of an excess of gallantry, an echo of their first night in St. Petersburg. Ivan does as ordered, gives Fedyor some rubles and some medicine and a train ticket back home to Nizhny Novgorod. He personally escorts Fedyor to the train station to make sure he does not come to grief, then stands on the platform, staring after him like Vronsky watching Anna leave one more time. The train begins to huff and puff, spitting soot and embers, and Fedyor keeps his nose pressed to the glass, leaving a smudge, until long after, as it seems he is never destined to do anything but, Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov has vanished into the mist.

#heartrender husbands #fivan #fivan ff #ivan x fedyor #russian revolution au

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livethinking · 3 years

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Joseph Brodsky: to translate is to exist

The poet lives in his poems and only through these he can assert his own existence; the poet can be oppressed, censored, encaged, also killed, but until he can write, until there’s someone who reads his poem, he will go on living, he will be free despite all. Deported poets, exiled poets, poets oppressed by a dominant and colonial culture, but still poets, although they have lost their language. And as it’s possible to lose a language, it’s possible to find a new one to tell about the self in verses; this was well-known to Joseph Brodsky, a Russian poet and author, moved to the USA because he was condemned for parasitism and for a cultural environment more and more saturated with hostility and suspicion which censored and hinder the publication of his poems, shut his poetical voice through editorial obstructionism, denied his existence as an author, and thus also as human.

Brodsky’s verses didn’t officially exist in the Soviet Union (but read clandestinely and published via samizdat), so he didn’t exist himself as poet, as man and to exist, he had to make the hardest of the choice: leaving his home country, his native language, denying it because this language refused his creative soul. He left Russia after he was compelled by the regime, he moved abroad and reaching the USA, a Country completely different from the Soviet Union, too much free, too much noisy, but perfect for Brodsky’s poetry. There he translated his rhymes in English and his works were officially published, there Brodsky exists, there his art is loved. There’s no way to oppress the voice of a poet, because it will always find a way to speak, as well as self-translation, instruments of poetic (and cultural) resistance, as well as changing the language, the Country, traditions. Also forgoing himself.

Self-Translation is when author and translator are the same person, when an author translate his/her own literary work. As it happens in translation, there’s an original and a translation, or there’s no translation (when the author chooses to write in a language different from his/ native ones, a behaviour that in very common among colonial and post-colonial writers). The Self-Translator is a bilingual and, often, bicultural (because he/she is an immigrant or a child of immigrants, lives between frontiers or in a former colonised country). On the contrary to a translator, the author who chooses to translate him/herself has access to the original intention (i.e. now and why the author chooses to write a certain expression and the original meaning), original cultural context or literary intertext. This possibility has, however, some limits: the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung explained that neither the author is completely omniscient (aware of what he wrote in the past) and «[…] have to read it again and may not even completely understand their own motivation for choosing certain passages, certain examples or a certain style»[1]. The most famous authors who translated their own works were Samuel Beckett (from English to French and German, and vice versa) and Vladimir Nabokov (from Russia to French, and vice versa).

What are the types of Self-Translation?

Michaël Oustinof identified three types of Self-Translation: 1. Naturalising Translation (naturalisante): when an author gives priority to the characteristics of the target language (that is that language a text will be translates into). 2. Decentralised Translation (décentrée): when an author introduces in the target language foreign elements that belong to the source language (that’s the language a text is written in). 3. (Re)Creating Translation((re)créatrice): when an author translate and change his/her literary work (or omit some parts) in order to adapt the text to both the target language and culture.

Who are the authors that translate themselves? 1. Bilingual (or polyglot) authors who wants to expanse their audience or just experimenting. Usually, there’s a relation of symmetry between the source and the target language (e.g. French and English). It’s the case of Samuel Beckett. 2. People who speak minority language but choose to write with a dominant language. It’s the case of Luigi Pirandello who translated his plays in Italian from Sicilian dialects. 3. Colonial or post-colonial author who write both in their native language and colonial language. 4. Exiled or emigrant authors who write in the language of the Country they moved to. It’s the case of the Russian Vladimir Nabokov who, after moving to France, started writing books in French (such as his famous novel “Lolita”) and the same Joseph Brodsky.

The case of Brodsky and other Russian emigrée is a unique case of self-translation. Usually, who translate theirselves are those authors living in a condition of colonialism, i.e. they’re from a colonised from another of more prestige and political and cultural power, consequently their native languages becomes hegemonic to the language spoken by the colonists; the authors who live this kind of experience chose to translate their literary pieces to the dominant language, that is the colonist one, so that their work can emerge from a state of oppression, then reaching a larger number of readers and settling their existence as a creative and make raise their culture from the barriers of the dominant one and speak to the colonists through that; so, we’re talking about a form of cultural resistance.

Emigrant Russian authors didn’t choose to translate their world into the language of the Country which welcomed them, because their native culture weren’t oppressed, but because they were oppressed by their own culture; their works were usually divergent from the aesthetic ideals of the regime, thus they were censored or the official publishing was denied (and, often, neither by Russian magazines abroad); to survive as writers and giving life to their literary pieces, most of these authors chose to translate themselves. This kind of self-translation is, in this case, symmetrical, according to Rainier Grutman, because Russian and Western languages have got the same literary prestige, and the bilinguism here is exogenous (always according to Grutman’s definition) because these languages (especially about the relation between Russians and English) have never shared the same geographical spaces.

What pushed Joseph Brodsky to leave his home country and starting a new life and a new poetic and translating in the USA was the accuse and the arrest for parasitism, happened in 1964 (for which Brodsky was interned in the psychiatric hospital of Moscow and after deported and condemned to the forced labour near Arkhangelsk, on the extreme North of Russia). Thanks to his fame, he was freed in the November 1965 after a petition signed by Russian and foreigner colleagues but for the Party Brodsky was a hostile figure to the regime; in fact, when we requested a permission to go abroad, after he was invited by Robert Lowell to attend the International Festival of Poetry in London, «the Union of Soviet Writers answered there were no poet with that name in Russia: he was crossed out from the official list of Russian writers»[2]; they denied him the right of writing, the natural right to proclaimed himself poet and for a real poet this means denying his life, denying his dignity. Refusing his poetry is to refuse him and thus happened when, in 1972, he was commanded to leave the Soviet Union; that means he was not welcomed by his move country, his Russia, his Russian any longer. So, what can a poet do? Brodsky remembers: «on 10th May 1972 I was called out and they told me:”Take advantage of one of the invitation people make to you to leave for Israel. We prepare a visa for you in two days”. “But I don’t want to take advantage of”. “So, prepare for the worst”. I couldn’t do anything but to give up: I managed to make the gems prolonged to 10th June (“after this date, you’re going to have no identity card, absolutely nothing”): I wanted to pass until my 33rd birthdays with my parent in Leningrad, the last one. When they gave me the expat visa, they make me jump the line: there were many Jews waiting days and night for the visa who looked at me astonished, envying me […]. I past the last night in the USSR writing a letter to Brezhnev. The following day I was in Vienna»[3]. He was in Vienna when he met the English poet Brodsky loved most, Wystan Auden, with whom he attended the International Festival of Poetry in London, event that allowed him to meet other authors from the literary Anglo-Saxon world, such as Robert Lowell, but he already left Vienna to move to the US in the July of the same year: he was offered to work to the University of Michigan (where he taught until to 1980). Thus began one of the most important phase of Brodsky’s work and his path to self-translation, which allowed him to reborn as a man and a poet. He lost his language, his Country, but he found a new language through which thinking, loving, writing, through which expressing himself, through which existing. To write is to exist.

Translating ourselves to exist, translating as that our own work to overcome national and cultural borders, to destroy linguistic barriers, to annihilate the borders. «Civilization is the sum of total of different cultures animated by a common spiritual numerator and its main vehicle – speaking both metaphorically and literally – is translation. The wandering of a Greek portico into the latitude of tundra is translation»[4]. Translation is what allows us to converse with other cultures, with the Other, and the translator is, thus, a cultural mediator that lays between two interlocutors and help them to understand each other, not only linguistically, but also culturally, that let bonds between values, norms and beliefs be understandable to who doesn’t know them. Brodsky gave new life to his poems, already oppressed by the hostility of Soviet regime, and he gave the, new social coordinates, although he destroyed the grammar, i.e. the foundation of English language in order to adapt this language to the linguistic malleability of Russian, in order to everything, the intrinsic structure and so the semantic built by that could persist. «Brodsky […] insisted strongly on a mimetic translation i.e. a translation which would retain a poem’s verse structure – especially its rhymes, verse metre, rhyme patterns and stanzaic design should be preserved above all»[5].

A mimetic translation, them, which doesn’t break the architecture of poetry and it fits, as well, the presence of Russian soul in the English language and so the in grammar and morphosyntax, that comes from Pushkinian tradition, according to the form and the content corresponding and so, none of them should be sacrificed in the translation. A tradition enhanced by the Acmeists (such as Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelshtam), from whom Brodsky took inspiration. According to the Acmeists, in translation, must be preserved the number of lines, verse metre, rhyme patterns, types of enjambements, rhyme types, linguistic register, types of metaphor, special devices and changes of tone. Following this tradition Brodsky translated his poems from Russian into English, though transforming and upsetting the target language, though drowning bitter criticisms for that which will be have called “Englishness”. Upsetting the language in order to appear himself as a poet, as a Russia. His soul must have to emerge, if he wanted to live through poetry, and the only way to do it, in this case, is to annihilate the rule of the other language, a language chosen to survive. This foreigner who transformed a language that is not his to make it an instruments of resistance, an instruments of existence. The harshest criticism towards his English was from the British School, which blames Brodsky of transforming the language to make it adapt to his needs; a criticism that hide the will to protect the integrity of the language from an “intruder” like the Russian Brodsky. Despite all, the poet received much esteem, especially from the American School which appreciated his experimenting with the language. Experimentalism due to the dissatisfaction of English translation to Russian poems that Brodsky criticized because they were not capable to keep the complex morphosyntactic structure of the poetic of Russian language. He wrote about it: «Translation from Russian into English is one of the most horrendous mindbenders. There aren’t all that many minds equal to this. Even a good, talented, brilliant poet who intuitively understands the task is incapable of restoring a Russian poem in English. The English language simply doesn’t have those moves. The translator is tied grammatically, structurally»[6]. Even though his approach which was very little conform to modern translation theories, even though we can blame him to have turned upside-down the English and so we can speak of Englishness in his poems, Brodsky «[…] approached his translation with a fervour verging on the quixotic, squaring the circle of poetic translation, defying the spell of impossibility and bridging single-handedly the linguistic gap with great energy» [7].

Viviana Rizzo

Notes

1. AA.VV., Handbook of Translation Studies, edited by Yves Gambier e Luc van Doorslaer Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010, p. 306

2. «L'Unione degli Scrittori Sovietici rispose che non c'era nessun poeta con quel nome in Russia: era stato depennato dalla lista ufficiale degli scrittori russi», in CONDELLO, Anna, “Iosif Brodskij: una biografia intellettuale”, in Russian Echo, web (http://www.russianecho.net/contributi/speciali/brodskij/bio.html retrieved in 28th May 2021)

3. «Il 10 maggio 1972 mi chiamano e mi dicono: "Approfitti subito di uno dei tanti inviti che le vengono per emigrare in Israele e parta. Le prepariamo il visto in due giorni". "Ma non ho nessuna intenzione di approfittarne". "E allora si prepari al peggio". Non potevo far altro che cedere: sono riuscito al massimo a farmi prolungare i termini fino al 10 giugno ("dopo questa data non ha più carta d’identità , non ha più niente"): volevo almeno passare a Leningrado il mio trentaduesimo compleanno, con i miei genitori, l'ultimo. Quando mi hanno consegnato il visto d'espatrio, mi hanno fatto saltare la fila: c'erano tanti ebrei che aspettavano, che bivaccavano là in anticamera giorni e giorni in attesa del visto e che mi guardavano esterrefatti, con invidia [...]. L'ultima notte in Urss l'ho passata scrivendo una lettera a Breznev. Il giorno dopo ero a Vienna», in CONDELLO, Anna, “Iosif Brodskij: una biografia intellettuale”, in Russian Echo, web (http://www.russianecho.net/contributi/speciali/brodskij/bio.html retrieved in 28th May 2021)

4. BRODSKIJ, Iosif, “The Child of Civilization”, Less than one, London, Penguin, 1986, p. 139, cit. in ISHOV, Zakhar, “Posthorse of Civilisation”: Joseph Brodsky translating Joseph Brodsky. Towards a New Theory of Russian-English Poetry Translation, Berlin, Freien Universität Berlin, 2008, p. 2

5. ISHOV, Zakhar, “Posthorse of Civilisation”: Joseph Brodsky translating Joseph Brodsky. Towards a New Theory of Russian-English Poetry Translation, p. 4

6. SOLKOV, Solomon, Conversations with Joseph Brodsky, New York, The Free Press, 1998, p. 86, cit. in ISHOV, Zakhar, “Posthorse of Civilisation”: Joseph Brodsky translating Joseph Brodsky. Towards a New Theory of Russian-English Poetry Translation, p. 5

7. ISHOV, Zakhar, “Posthorse of Civilisation”: Joseph Brodsky translating Joseph Brodsky. Towards a New Theory of Russian-English Poetry Translation, p. 3

Sources

1. COCCO, Simona, “Lost in (Self-)Translation? Riflessioni sull’autotraduzione”, in AA.VV. , Lost in Translation. Testi e culture allo specchio, vol. 6 (2009), pp. 103-112

2. GRUTMAN, Rainier, “Beckett and Beyond. Putting Self-Translation in Perspective”, in Orbus Litterarum, n. 68, vol. 3 (2013), pp. 188-2016

3. GRUTMAN Rainier, VAN BOLDEREN Trish, “Self-Translation”, in A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2014, pp. 323-332

4. ISHOV, Zakhar, “Post-horse of Civilisation”: Joseph Brodsky translating Joseph Brodsky. Towards a Mew Theory of Russian-English Poetry Translation, Berlin, Freien Universität Berlin, 2008

5. MONTINI, Chiara, “Self-Translation”, in Handbook of Translation Studies, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010, pp. 307-308

6. WARNER, Adrian, “The poetics of displacement: Self-Translation among contemporary Russian-American poets”, in Translation Studies, vol. 11. N. 2, 2018, pp. 122-138

#Joseph Brodsky #self-translation #translation #Russian Literature #Cintemporary Russian Literature #literature as resistance #translation studies #literature #USA #USSR #Soviet Union #Russia #politics #culture #regime #dictatorship #migration #writing #blogging

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yukinojou · 3 years

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I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...

#shadow and bone #six of crows #shadow and bone meta

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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

Text

Lost and Found (Sixteen)

Ughhhh Tissues Needed

Also Generic WS-typical warning for mentions of slightly torture-y things

MASTERLIST HERE

*****************

“Sir, could I remind you that use of this particular suit results in more wear on the arc reactor? With numbers pushing 70%, surely you don’t want to risk it?”

Tony called James from the suit as it blasted towards Washington D.C., ignoring the warning numbers on the screen as the arc reactor surged to maintain the suits demand for power and the projected poison levels in his blood climbed higher.

“Tony?”

Just hearing James’s voice made Tony’s resolve falter, and he was glad he’d programmed in the auto pilot for D.C. as the need to turn around and forget what he’d learned, forget about Project Resurrection and the Ghost Protocol climbed strangling up his throat.

“Hey.” he tried for bright, but was afraid it only came out miserable. “Why don’t you fly out to DC tonight? Have Pepper come with you in the jet. I have to get to a meeting that’s taken about three years to arrange, so I took a suit.”

“I can just wait till you get home again, sugar.” Happy called something in the background and James laughed and the sound almost killed Tony. “What sorta meeting was so important it took three years to set up?”

“Nothing you should worry about.” Tony lied. “But it would be fun to have dinner in D.C. or something, right? I’d like to see you tonight.”

James’s voice got soft, “Dunno how I feel about getting back into D.C. but I’d like to see you tonight too. You feeling better? Last night you were real tired.”

“I’m feeling better.” Tony promised and he’d never lied so much in his life. “Let me know when you guys land and I’ll send a car for you. See you soon?”

“See you real soon, sweet thing.”

********

From Rhodey: Pep says you’re in D.C.? If you aren’t sucking face with soldier boy, let’s get dinner.

From Tony: Only if it’s one of those giant steak eating places.

From Rhodey: Tones, last time we ate at one of those I threw up for three days.

From Tony: And you were gorgeous the entire time.

From Rhodey: I hate you

From Tony: Smooches!

It was so damn easy to lie over text message, maybe that was how Tony should handle every conversation from now until 100%.

It was warm out, but Tony still wore a long sleeve to hide the handcuff on his wrist that attached to the briefcase at his side. Eventually--if he had time-- he was going to tap the tech into a watch that would form into a gauntlet and then a suit from there but for now he had to carry the admittedly stylishly packaged armor at his side.

JARVIS was right, using the suit took more energy than the other ones simply because it assembled in place instead of using robotics to piece together around him, but it had been worth it to get to D.C. so quickly...

...and it would be worth it tonight if everything went right and he needed to leave. If everything fell into place the way it should, but the way Tony kept secretly hoping it wouldn’t, he would leave and not take anyone with him so the suit was perfect.

Perfectly like a prison he kept willingly locking himself into and wasn’t that a piece of poetry worthy of writing down or at the very least making into a tragic movie or maybe he could request it got put in his biography because there should be at least one true thing amidst all the crap they were going to write about Tony Stark.

At least one line should be truth, even if everything else was written by people who had never known him at all.

But he shouldn’t think about that. Not yet. Not at only seventy percent, he had another ten maybe fifteen percent before he had to think about a biography, right?

Right?

Christ, it was getting hard to think.

The SHIELD headquarters were ostentatious and ugly, an eyesore at the banks of the river and a clear warning to anyone who thought to look twice at the city and dare to take a shot. The Pentagon might house the dressed up generals who gave out orders, but SHIELD was the real power behind the United States Government right now.

The ugly building housed all the best minds, all the best weaponry, and spoke of a clearly visible statement Director Fury and Secretary Pierce had been less and less subtle about in the past few years-- Fuck. Off. America is done playing nice.

Not that Tony blamed them for being so blatantly bold. There was no need to be subtle when there was an actual legendary super soldier leading the charge to protect America’s interests both at home and abroad, right?

Tony and Fury met in a little cafe along the river, the eatery quiet and unobtrusive in a way that was meant to be as visibly invisible as possible. There was nothing particularly interesting about the staff or their uniforms, the menu didn’t boast anything that would garner extra attention, there was never a chalkboard out front with a gimmick or sale to draw pedestrians in to try a daily special.

It was the sort of cafe someone either went to as a habit, or never even noticed on their commute and it was exactly the sort of cafe where Nick Fury preferred to get his tuna melt sandwich.

“Well this is quaint and terrible.” Tony sat down across from Fury with suitcase settled between his feet and sunglasses firmly on his face. “What happened to high profile business meetings at steakhouses, or at the very least good greasy pizza? And are you eating a tuna melt? With a fork?”

“Contrary to what you might believe, my Ma didn’t raise a heathen.” Fury was a sight to behold in his trademark trench coat, intimidating eye patch and somehow more intimidating single eye, a napkin tucked neatly at his collar and a knife and fork held daintily to cut his sandwich into bite sized pieces. “And this isn’t as good as hers used to be, but it does just fine for our conversation today.”

“Alright then.” Tony motioned to the waiter, and pointed towards Fury’s plate. “Could I have the same thing please? Make mine with pickles.”

“You’re pushing it.” Fury warned. “You don’t disrespect a sandwich by putting pickles on it.”

“Ma’am, would you make that extra pickles please?”

“Damn you, Stark.”

“Don’t tell me how to eat a sandwich and I won’t tell you to not do all of--” Tony made a vague motion to encompass all of Fury’s look. “--all of this. You look like the Grim Reaper.”

“And you look like a man the Grim Reaper isn’t too far from visiting.” Fury stabbed his fork at Tony bluntly. “Lookin’ like chicken shit these days, Stark. What’s going on?”

“Nothing that matters.” Tony waved off the Director’s sarcastic concern. “I need to talk to you about two things and then we can move on.”

The Director made a ‘go ahead’ motion and went back to eating. Tony watched the knife and fork dissection of a perfectly respectable tuna melt for a moment and then stated, “I don’t trust Pierce. I went to his party a few weeks ago and got a real sketchy vibe from him.”

“Uh-huh.” Fury nodded. “And?”

“And since you have the whole all seeing eye thing going on, I thought you’d want to know.” Tony smiled up at the waitress when she brought him the sandwich, and with eyes firmly on Fury, took a huge bite and crunched deliberately through the pickles. “How do you feel about him lately?”

“I feel like the world’s most reckless billionaire should be more concerned about the effects all that poisoning is having on your complexion and less about what those of us in trench coats are doing.” Fury wiped his mouth and pointed over his shoulder to someone Tony couldn’t see. “Brace yourself, Stark.”

“Brace myself for wha---OW!” Tony jumped when a needle jammed into his neck, delivered courtesy of one rather spandexy clad Natalie Rushman. “Christ! Natalie, what the fuck!?”

“I forgot you still think her name is Natalie.” Fury pushed his plate away and then dragged a chair over for the redhead. “Tony Stark, meet Natasha Romanov. Former KGB agent, former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, former traitor to that particular country and defector to this one, and currently my favorite agent at SHIELD.”

Tony rubbed at his neck a few times and scowled at Fury, then over at Natalie/Natasha. “Former KGB? That was dismantled in ‘91, and you’re only twenty four. Nice try.”

“You do pass for a very convincing twenty four, Tasha.” Fury took a sip of his water. “In fact Mr. Stark, Natasha here is an absolute beauty at the ripe old age of--”

“--you tell him I’m a day over thirty and I’ll cut your tongue out.” Natasha said coolly, and Tony blanched but Fury didn’t so much as blink. “Tony, I just gave you a shot of lithium dioxide. It’s not going to solve anything with the palladium, but it’s going to temporarily slow down the effects so you can focus. I know you’ve been struggling with it for a while, there’s no other way to explain how scattered you’ve been.”

“First you stab me, then you insult me? You are fired.” Tony breathed in slow and purposeful, then out again when his headache started to ease thanks to the hypodermic hit to the neck. “Warn a fella before you shank him, is this foreplay to you scary spandex types?”

Natasha gave him one of those always consistently enigmatic smirks and Tony accused, “How’d you get here so fast? Pretty sure Pepper told me you two were shopping today. In fact, I’m pretty sure she took the jet to Vegas just to spend a gross amount of money.”

“The moment you hung up with Director Fury I excused myself from Ms. Potts and headed towards D.C from Vegas.” Natasha held up her hand to stop the next words from Tony. “And yes, I know there’s no civilian aircraft that could possibly get me to D.C. faster than your suit would, but you left an hour or so after me and also, as everyone is now aware, I am not a civilian.”

Still literally and figuratively wounded from the jab to the neck, Tony only huffed at the redhead and went back to eating because honestly, a new secretary turning out to be a secret spy wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened. At least she was on their side, right? Later Tony could get a little hysterical about having a former KGB agent helping him pick out ties, but for right now, he had other things on his mind.

“Alright then. Ms. Romanov. How do you feel about Secretary Pierce?”

“I don’t think that’s the question you’ve come to ask.” Natasha deflected, green eyes glittering curiously. “So ask the other one.”

“Okay I will.” Tony put his sandwich down and pleated the napkin between his fingers until it tore. “How long have the two of you known the hundred year old prisoner of war Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes was camping out in my house in Malibu?”

“If it makes you feel any better?” Director Fury shrugged. “We just thought he was the Winter Soldier. Wasn’t one hundred percent on the Barnes angle until recently.”

“The Winter Soldier.” Tony repeated, and this time his mind snapped into place with out the stuttered click click click of trying to process. It was almost like being him again and even though Tony knew the lithium oxide was a poison all in itself, he was already wondering how many shots of it he could take to remain lucid up until the end. “Ghost assassin from the sixties and seventies, silver arm, once thought to be Steve Rogers risen from the ice and back to seek revenge. It was James, instead. Product of Hydra experimentation, amiright?”

“And then some.” Fury nodded. “When Project Resurrection came to be and the Captain woke up, he asked for his best pal Bucky and then his best gal Peggy in exactly that order. SHIELD had been aware of the Winter Soldier for decades, but we couldn’t have imagined the connection to the missing Sergeant Barnes. The Captain saw a surveillance photo, said he’d recognize that scowl anywhere, and went off half feral trying to track him down.”

“Half-feral.” Tony glanced between the two of them. “Captain America. Are you serious?”

“I spent almost two years at his side.” Natasha spoke up. “Half feral is an understatement. I’ve never seen a man so determined to burn the world down if it meant finding his friend.”

“Two years.” Fury echoed. “And then just over a year ago, a few months before Stane engineered your trip to Afghanistan, the Winter Soldier dropped off the map. Guess Hydra got tired of having their spots blown to shit or something like that, decided to cut their losses and run.”

Tony only blinked and Fury explained, “Turns out the Captain isn’t exactly the aw shucks good ol boy those posters made him out to be. Anything that stood in the way of finding his Bucky went up in flames, and the man didn’t care if anyone was left inside. On more than one occassion, Romanov went into the rubble herself because the Captain wouldn’t do it. It was a wasted effort though, there were never any survivors.”

Tony looked around and then lowered his voice. “Captain America let people die like that?”

“Not the aw shucks good ol boy we all thought.” The Director repeated. “Never seen a man so angry in my life when we lost the Soldier. Definitely never could have predicted you’d show up with him as your date at a few high profile event. I see a lot.” Fury pointed to his one good eye. “But even I didn’t see that coming.”

“Does the Captain know about James?”

“We thought it was best to feel out the situation and see if we were dealing with the Winter Soldier or if we were actually seeing Sergeant Barnes.” Fury hedged. “Wanted to be sure we weren’t going to walk into a situation with a still activated super assassin when from all appearances, he’s just a nice kid with some memory loss situations. Captain Rogers isn’t the sort to knock and ask to come in, he would have brought that fancy Malibu house of yours down into the ocean trying to get his friend.”

“That seems a little over the top, but--”

“--but you’ve never been seventy years out of your own time looking for the one person in the world who can understand what you’ve been through.” Natasha interrupted. “I’m telling you, there isn’t anything that would stop the Captain from trying to get to his Bucky.”

“His Bucky.” Tony echoed faintly. “Is that so?”

“I’ve been watching James for several weeks now.” Natasha’s voice dipped in sympathy when Tony’s face flickered with misery. I don’t think he remembers anything about his time as the Winter Soldier, but you’re closer to him. What do you think? Do you think he knows who he was?”

“No way.” Tony denied tiredly. “James doesn’t know anything. Not his last name, nothing about technology or recent history. He panicked about using too many eggs the other day and now that I know what I still can’t fucking believe I know... it makes sense. In some weird way, everything I know about James makes perfect sense now.”

“So Sergeant Barnes doesn’t remember anything before he showed up in D.C.?”

“Nothing at all.” Tony said adamantly. “He remembers waking up beneath a bridge and then everything’s a blur for a while and he’s not sure how much time passed. He thinks he lived a year in D.C. before meeting me, but he doesn’t know anything beyond that.”

“That could be for the best.” Natasha muttered, and Fury nodded.

“Well you can be sure we will be keeping an eye on the situation.” the waitress came by for the plates and Fury waited until she was gone before mentioning oh so casually, “I have something that belongs to you, by the way. Your dad left it in storage along with instructions to give it to you when you were ready.”

“I have everything I want of Howard’s and none of it’s worth anything at all.” Tony shook his head. “Forget about it, I want to meet the Captain.”

“You’re going to want this.” Fury countered, and pulled up a photo on his phone. “The real thing is about ten times heavier than anything I’d ever want to life, but take a look at it anyway.”

“I’ve seen this.” Tony barely glanced at the picture. “It’s Dad’s diorama model of the Stark Expo. I used to race my cars up and down the roads until he screamed at me to stop. Why would I want a giant piece of cardboard that holds so many shitty memories for me?”

“I don’t know why you want it.” Fury put his phone away again. “And I don’t know why Howard wanted you to have it. Something about how you’d see the design when no one else could, and how he wouldn’t ever have access to the tools necessary to make it a reality, but you’d probably be the one to invent the technology to make it happen.”

“That’s nice.” Tony pulled out a couple twenties and dropped them on the table to cover the bill. “Put it in the mail and I’ll open it when I get back to Malibu. I’m feeling normal for the first time since Afghanistan and I’m not going to waste it on some homework from beyond the grave. Take me to see the Captain.”

“He’s going to be cranky.” Fury tried one last time to stall the stubborn billionaire. “He doesn’t really sleep much, and since losing track of the Soldier, I don’t think he sleeps more than a few hours a week. Maybe you don’t show up as your patented brand of asshole, huh?”

“I do what I want.” Tony stood up and patted the Director on the shoulder. “I’ll see you and Mrs. Super Spy later on. We should talk about Pierce.”

“I know what you’re doing Stark.” Fury said then, and Tony paused. “You’re getting everything set up so when that poison kills you off, your boytoy is set with someone he knows and loves.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“I’d say it’s admirable, but really I think it’s cowardly.” Fury shrugged. “You’re doing all this without even trying to fight, without figuring out a way to beat it. Gonna sign ye olde master assassin over to the Man with a Plan and then jet off somewhere dramatic to die. Cowardly way out.”

“I’ve exhausted all my options.” Tony said flatly. “I’ve tried everything over and over and nothing works. Now my option is to make sure the people I care about can keep on going with out me. How is that cowardly?”

“This might shock you, but the world will keep turning without Tony Stark in it.” the Director retorted, and Tony shot back, “Yeah well, at least this way it keeps turning with my loved ones well taken care of. Send the address to my phone please, I’ve got a star spangled super soldier to meet.”

Natasha sent a text with directions to Tony’s phone, and after Tony had stalked out and hailed a cab, she turned to ask Fury, “Why does he want to talk about Pierce?”

“Don’t you worry about Pierce.”

“Director--”

“Ms. Romanoff, I am already dealing with Secretary Pierce. Don’t you worry.”

“Do you really think he’s being cowardly?”

“I think if Tony Stark wasn’t so tired of living in pain, he’d realize he could just invent something new to cure himself.” Fury stated. “I watched his dad create scientific miracles out of every day things. Watched his Auntie Peggy create unbreakable codes based on her knitting patterns. He’s been so obsessed with being Iron Man that he’s forgotten he’s Tony Stark. If anyone can fix what is literally killing them, its a Stark. Hell, he did it once in a cave with a box of scraps. He should damn well be able to do it in a state of the art lab.”

Natasha’s lips tipped up at the corner. “You like him.”

“I think he’s a spoiled brat with a small man complex.” Fury picked up the dessert menu. “But I think our world is a lot better off with him in it, so yeah. I’d appreciate if he didn't keel over and die.”

“You like him.”

“You’re pushing it, Romanov.”

*************

It was fifteen minutes to a low rise apartment building, three flights up stairs and then down a long hallway until Tony could raise his hand and knock at the door of a piece of American history

Two knocks and then three more just because Tony was impatient even on his best days and today was not one of his best days.

Besides, when else would he have the chance annoy an actual living Smithsonian relic by knocking too many times at their--

“Can I help you?” The door swung open to Big and Blond and Patriotic, deep blue eyes and a square jaw, ruggedly handsome in a way that the old posters and pictures had never come close to capturing, and the sort of bulging All American Muscles that belonged on a Lumberjack’s Weekly pin up calendar.

Holy Spangles, Batman. Tony thought, and then grinned internally because that hit to the neck might have hurt but at least it had given him back Grade-A witty one liners. Thank you, Ms. Rushman-Romanov.

“Captain Steven Rogers.” he finally dragged his eyes away from the muscles and up to the piercing gaze. “It's nice to officially meet you. Name’s Tony Stark, long time fan, first time fanboy. How are you?”

“Tony Stark.” Captain Rogers extended a hand big enough to cover Tony’s entire face. “Howard’s boy, isn’t that right? Director Fury has mentioned you a few times. Figures you’d know about me being awake, though I’m a little surprised it took you this long to track me down. Howard wasn’t exactly the patient, subtle type and Fury made it seem like you inherited all those qualities as well.”

Tony blinked, and Captain Rogers grimaced. “Ah. Sorry. That came out worse than I intended. I’ve never been quite as charming as those old movies like to pretend I was.”

“No that’s--” Tony blinked again. “It’s fine. It’s actually a little hilarious-- um--”

“I was real sorry to hear about your parents passing.” The Captain’s blue eyes dimmed in sympathy. “I didn’t know your Ma, but despite me and Howard’s differences, we worked together for several years. He was a good man.”

“He was an asshole even on his best days.” Tony finally found his words, and offered a smile to his childhood nemesis hero. “But that doesn’t change the good work he did, so thanks. And yes, I inherited all of his less than charming traits and created a few more of my own which is why I’ve known about you and Project Resurrection for a few years now but just couldn't muster the interest to give a damn.”

“Any by the way, if you were a brunette, I’d be charming your pants off.” Tony winked because he couldn’t stop himself from flirting with an American icon. “But you’re blond, so consider yourself safe from my efforts. That and it’s hard to think sexy thoughts about the literal embodiment of the American flag.”

Good God, even the Captain’s laugh was patriotic, head thrown back and a hand over his heart like he was pledging allegiance to hilarity and Tony looked away to hide an answering grin. Shit, he didn’t want to like Steve Rogers, he had spent his entire life trying to measure up to the bastard, he didn’t want to be making friends when they had more important things to talk about.

“If it makes you feel any better?” Captain Rogers was still cheesing a grin. “Under all that patriotism I’m just a loudmouth Brooklyn kid with a big mouth and not a single shred of self preservation.”

“Eh.” Tony made a show of shrugging. “You’re still blond. I tend to prefer them brunette--”

--he hesitated, then pulled out the picture of he and James together at the redwoods. “--And smolderingly intense in a scary ex soldier sort of way. You know the type?”

All laughter fell away in an instant, the surprisingly easy conversation Tony hadn’t expected to find with Captain Rogers ground to a halt, the smile on the big blond’s face wiped away as quickly as it had appeared.

“I took that in the redwoods last week.” Tony actually took a step backwards when powerful shoulders squared up and one of those massive hands closed into a fist. “Me and James-- we’ve been living together the last couple months. Figured it’s high time you and he got together again, you know?”

“James.” The Captain’s throat jerked when he swallowed. “Not Bucky. He goes by James now?”

“James is the only name he knows.” Tony watched him carefully for any sign of what might be rage, but there was only heartbreak on the rugged features. “We’ve been looking for answers into his past, but it wasn’t until early this morning I came across a family link and traced it backwards. You can bet I was surprised as hell to find myself looking at a picture of you two when the facial recognition software finally pinged him.”

“I see.” The picture shook in the Captain’s fingers and nearly tore between his grip. “Mr. Stark--”

“Call me Tony.”

“Tony. I think you’d better come inside.”

****************

The apartment housing the Greatest American Soldier was sparse to the point of being bare, clean to the point of being sterile, and warm enough that Tony broke into a sweat just walking through the door.

“Sheesh, Captain.” Tony undid a few buttons at his collar. “Tropical, much?”��

“Sorry, I’ll turn it down.” The Captain really was massive, had to turn sideways to get down the narrow hall and to the thermometer. “I uh-- I’m always cold, you know?”

Tony waited with a raised eyebrow and Captain Rogers pursed his lips, shoved both hands into his pockets self consciously. “I did seventy years in the ice, Tony. That’s the sort of chill that gets into your bones. Into your soul. I’m always cold. Can’t seem to shake it.”

“I can fix that.” Tony spoke before thinking, the words eerily similar to his very first thought about James. Was it the super soldier thing that drove him to offer help? Or just the countdown and toxicity monitor and desperately tallying marks on the good karma side so maybe it would get him into heaven?

“I can fix that.” he said again. “I’d think a super soldier would run hot because of your metabolism, so the cold is probably psychosomatic and a weighted blanket or even a sweater with heavier threads might take care of it. People equate weight with warmth, and being covered with being safe so if you let me get some sizes I could have my AI run some programs and figure out a material that could--”

He stopped when the big blond just looked at him. “Sorry, Captain. I tend to ramble. Alot.”

“Call me Steve.” the Captain went for some water and handed a bottle to Tony, then sat down in a nearby chair and clasped his hands between his knees. “And you know, your Dad did that too? He’d get an idea and talk for an hour and you’d start the conversation not even knowing you needed the thing he ended up handing you when he was finished.”

“Sounds like Dad.” Tony agreed. “Guess I did inherit all his annoying habits.”

“You must get your looks from your Ma, then.” Steve said casually, and when Tony about fell out of his chair in surprise, he grinned. “Oh no, not for me. I mean sure, I can appreciate a good lookin’ fella just as much as the next guy, but I used to tell Buck if he got together with Howard--”

“I might actually throw up if you finish that sentence.”

“--then we could double date, but he said he’d sooner kiss Dugan.” he finished and Tony breathed out noisily in relief. “If he likes you, you must look like your Ma. Buck couldn’t hardly stand to be in the same room as Howard.”

And then almost awkwardly, “No offense meant.”

“None taken, most days I couldn’t handle it either.” Tony rolled the water bottle between his palms. “So um, how are you adjusting to life in the twenty first--”

“Tell me about Bucky.” Steve interrupted and Tony’s mouth clicked shut. “I wanna know everything. Where did you find him? How did you find him? Does he know who he is? Who I am? Does he know about--”

He clenched his jaw. “--does he remember being the Winter Soldier?”

“Captain.” Tony began slowly, but Steve cut him off again, “It’s just Steve, Tony. Captain Rogers, Captain America, that’s not who I am. I’m Steve. Call me Steve.”

“Steve.” he started again. “James--er, Bucky-- and I met a few months ago in a diner right here in D.C. I don’t know if you watch the news at all, but I was mid Senate meeting and mid nervous break down, apparently he was just there having breakfast. I saw he was missing an arm--”

“--his left arm?”

“--his left arm.” Tony nodded. “And since I have a weird assortment of various robotic arm pieces laying around the house, I told him I could build him a new one. I gave him a whole spiel about wanting to do some good and that he didn’t have to take me up on the offer but he told me--”

“--that you got a pretty smile.” Steve interjected. “Yeah, you’re just his type. Dark hair, pretty eyes, big smile. Just his type.”

The simple statement from the soldier warmed Tony clear down to his heart, and he ducked his head to hide a barely there flush. “Uh, anyway. He came home to Malibu with me and we’ve been there ever since. He’s getting better. No more panic attacks and his Brooklyn accent comes out more every day and um--”

It felt awkward talking to a total stranger about his boyfriend--partner? He was too old to call someone a boyfriend, right?

It felt more awkward talking to a total stranger that wasn’t really a total stranger considering how Tony knew everything everything about Steve Rogers and Howard had literally helped create the soldier. More awkward talking to a not-total stranger who actually knew James Bucky better than Tony could ever hope to. More awkward talking to a not-total stranger who knew Bucky better than Tony did and would be around at Bucky’s side after Tony--

--after Tony--

“--sometimes I think he’s remembering things, but then I don’t really know.” he finished lamely. “Captain, er Steve. I’ll be honest, it seems weird to tell you about your best friend. I can tell you that he doesn’t have nightmares anymore and that he hasn’t had a panic attack in weeks. He likes Rocky Road ice cream and looks great in the color red and when he calls me sweet thing I actually melt a little bit inside. What else do you want to know?”

“I just want to know if he’s okay.” Steve said softly, softly, spread his hands helplessly and made those All American baby blues as heartbreakingly earnest as possible. “Tony, I woke up from the ice and found a picture of the Winter Soldier and spent the next two years trying to figure out what the hell had happened to my best pal. How did he survive the fall? Who captured him? What have they been doing with him? To him?”

The Captain’s throat jerked when he swallowed. “Does he-- does he smile? Do you make him smile? Or is he real quiet now? Did they ruin him? Break him?”

Steve got to his feet to pace, rubbing his hands down his thighs in agitation. “I’ve read all the Winter Soldier files, Tony. I know what they did to him. You know they-- they didn’t do that stuff to me. Howard juiced me up and sent me out the door but Bucky? He was always a good soldier but there’s a lot of steps between a good soldier and a master assassin. What they did to him to make him into the Soldier…”

His steps stuttered, faltered, and when Steve turned around to pin Tony with a look, his jaw was set stubbornly. “Tell me how he really is. Did they break him? Is he even Bucky anymore?”

“I don’t know if he’s Bucky anymore.” Tony said slowly, honestly. “But I know he’s James, and he’s a good man. Not broken. Definitely hurt, but not broken. He’s-- I think he’s okay, Captain. Or at least he’s getting better.”

“Okay.” Steve dropped back down onto the chair and the springs groaned under his weight. “Okay okay okay. Have you done any research on the Winter Soldier? About what he did?”

“No.”

“Don’t.” That super soldier strength showed up when the arms of the chair splintered beneath Steve’s fingers. “Tony, for your own sake. Don’t. I haven’t read the mission files because it makes me sick to my stomach but I saw enough of what they did to him to know there can’t be anything good in the other ones.”

Tony’s whole body went cold, horror stricken and wanting to scream thinking about his soldier, his Brooklyn being hurt for however long he’d been captive as the Winter Soldier. “What they did to him?”

“Experiments.” Steve muttered hoarsely. “Testing his strength, his healing factor. Whatever super juice they gave him, they had to make sure it worked so they experimented. Broke major bones to time how long it took to heal up again. Put bullets close to major arteries wondering if he’d bleed out. Made him run until he was vomiting and couldn’t take another step to check his endurance.”

“Shit.”

“They wiped his mind after every mission.” the Captain continued miserably. “Got him to the point where all he could do was carry out orders. That’s not even human, they took his soul Tony. My best friend and they took his soul. Wiped it away every time they hooked him up to that damn chair--”

“Chair?”

“--it had straps.” Steve made a motion and Tony’s heart sank, then sank further still when he added, “I crashed a set up once and it was this monstrous chair. Straps and hooks and this helmet thing that went down over his head to fry his brain.”

“What--” Tony wet his lips, flashes of that first awful panic attack hitting him like a punch to the stomach. “-- What did you do to the chair?”

“Broke it apart with my bare hands and then snapped some bad guy’s femur just because I wasn’t done breaking things.” Steve said coldly, calmly. “I can’t read the mission files, not after seeing that. I don’t think you should read them either. Buck deserves to have people who look at him and don’t see everything he did as the Soldier. He deserves to be loved by people who just see him.”

“Yeah, I--” Tony dug his fingers into his knees and bit back a heartbroken noise. “Yeah, he does. So what did you do with the data? It can’t just be out there, that’s not--”

Even now, his brain was shifting into gear, trying to figure out the next step, trying to figure out what he could do to fix what had happened with James or how he could make sure it never came back to ruin his soldier’s new life. “--it can’t be out there for someone else to find. What did you do with it?”

“Natasha dumped it all.” The Captain informed him. “Burned it, erased it, whatever she does. I’m not really up on all the tech of this century yet. But she swore it was gone, and that’s all I care about.”

“You trust her?”

“...I do.” Steve’s smile was almost… melancholy. Almost lonely. “Most people wouldn’t, but she hasn’t lied to me once so I have no reason to think she would about this.”

“Alright.” It was a relief to know the Winter Soldier’s actions weren’t out there for anyone to find, a relief to know someone else was looking out for James the same way Tony wanted to. “That’s-- that’s good. If Captain America can trust her with that, I can trust her too.”

“Yeah.” Steve screwed his eyes shut tight and pushed out a long breath. “Tony um-- can I see him? Feels weird to ask permission to see my own best friend, but I think you know him better than I do at this point. Can I see him? Will you bring him back to D.C., or could I come with you to Malibu? I searched for him for so long, Tony. The canyon below the train-- I spent days there. Days in the snow trying to find him, and I spent the first years waking up trying to find him… can I see him?”

Quieter, almost afraid, “Do you think he’ll know me?”

“I don’t know.” Tony said honestly, and Steve’s shoulders hunched in like the words physically hurt. “But they should be landing here in D.C. in a few hours and I already sent him this address.”

“Seriously?” Steve’s head snapped up. “You would-- you didn’t even know me. You told him to come here when you hadn’t met me yet?”

“You’re Captain America.” Tony shrugged carelessly, shrugged like his heart wasn’t tearing in two right there in his chest as everything he’d feared started falling into place. This was the right decision but it hurt and his heart could have collapsed under the strain. “And he’s Sergeant Barnes. There’s no question you two should be spending time together, in fact, I’m probably just in the way. I’ll bring him in and as soon as I know James is okay, I’ll leave you in peace and let you get reacquainted.

“That’s amazing.” Steve lit up with a mega watt grin. “Tony, thank you. Thank you. You’re giving me a piece of my life back, I swear. I don’t even know where to begin to thank you.”

“Just...take care of him.”

“I promise I will.” the Captain swore. “I promise. I’ll help him readjust to life and we’ll figure out… I dunno. Netflix together? I’ll help him Tony, I will.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Tony tried for a smile that didn’t feel like it was crumbling at the edges. “Now. Are you a enough of a rebel to have a beer in this place while we wait? Or still too good ol’ boy for that?”

“Are you kidding?” Steve laughed again, and yep, Tony would have been seeing stars and stripes if he hadn’t been blinking back tears. “Good beer is the best part of this century! And I don’t get drunk, so I’ve been trying them all! Come on and pick one out!”

“Picking out a beer with Captain America.” Tony struggled to his feet with a hand over his chest and followed the blond to the tiny kitchen. “How could anyone pass that up?”

“Tony!” Steve sounded immeasurably lighter, the smile on his face evident in his voice as he called, “Does Bucky ever listen to music anymore? Have you ever heard of the Andrews Sisters? We heard them sing the night he shipped out for the war, this was his favorite song!”

Before Tony could object or protest or fall to his knees and beg for mercy because he didn’t think he could take another second of this self inflicted torture, the all too familiar beginning notes of ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ floated through the apartment and everything got worse.

“Me and Pegs used to dance to this.” Steve tossed Tony a beer he could only barely catch. “She made Buck dance too even though he didn’t have any interest in the other dames. She always said one day he’d find a fella to dance with too, have you guys danced together yet?”

“Once.” Tony said faintly. “Just uh-- just the once.”

He closed his eyes when the song got to the chorus, when the beat changed and he could almost feel James pulling him in closer like he’d done that night in the lab when everything changed between them.

“...just the once.”

**************

“Hey babydoll.” James was confused when he finally made it up to the apartment door, confused and stiff when he bent to give Tony a kiss hello. “This is uh--” he cleared his throat. “Don’t like being back here, Tony. D.C. doesn’t have any good memories for me. I didn’t want to come.”

“I know.” Tony stood on his toes to chase one more kiss, gratified when James automatically wound an arm at his waist to hold him. “And I’m sorry but this is important, alright? What we’re doing here is important.”

“Important like the way Pepper’s fancy parties are important?” James teased halfheartedly, and tugged at Tony’s shirt sleeve. “Let’s get out of here. I’m a real big fan of the way you’ve blown off work the last few weeks to spend time with me, we should keep doing that.”

“James.” Tony tried for words and failed, squeezed at James’s fingers and tried again, “I’ve got someone you should meet. Re-meet. Someone you used to know and I think it’s important you see him again. I think he can fill in a lot more blanks, help you out a lot more than I can, alright?”

“I don’t want anyone helping me but you.” James glanced around the hallway, glanced at the door and out the far window, then back down at Tony, shoulders set uncomfortably tense and jaw clenched. “Tony, can we go? Something feels weird here, I don’t like it.”

“It will feel better in a few minutes.” Tony promised. “Just um-- be brave, Brooklyn. Okay?”

“Brave? Tony, I’m telling you this don’t feel right, I don’t want to be--”

Tony turned the knob and shoved the door open before James could finish the sentence, pushed the soldier through into the living room and then hung back to just watch.

Be brave, Brooklyn.

“Bucky.” Steve stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets and chin ducked like he was trying to look small, the unmistakable shield sat prominently on one of the chairs, that old picture of he and James from the Smithsonian propped up on the table.

“Holy shit.” The Captain choked out a strangled sort of laugh and freed his hands to run them both through his hair, tugging at the strands and then rubbing at his eyes as they filled with tears. “Bucky. It’s really you.”

James narrowed his eyes at the big blond, at the picture and at the shield, then looked back at Tony in confusion.

“Bucky? Who the hell is--”

Click click click.

“I had ‘em on the ropes.”

“Yeah Stevie, sure you did.”

Click click click.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Click click click.

“You’re keeping the suit, right?

Click Click Click

“I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Click click click.

I know him.

Stevie.

“...Stevie?”

The Captain covered the room in two big steps and James met him in the middle for a bone crushing, desperate hug. James’s legs crumpled and Steve caught him halfway down, Captain America crying unashamed tears and swearing under his breath as he smoothed Jame’s hair back from his face to get a good look at him.

“Stevie?”

“Christ, Bucky I can’t believe I finally found you. I finally found you and I’m never gonna let anything happen to you again, I swear it. I swear it.” ----

--- Tony closed the door to the apartment and walked alone down the hallway, took the stairs up to the roof and stood for a long time looking over the city, over the monuments in the distance and the barest glimmer of blue from the river.

His phone rang and it was James but Tony ignored it so he could undo the latches on the briefcase suit and step into the boots, shivering as the armor climbed his body and encased him in cold metal before it warmed to his temperature.

His phone rang and it was James, and the picture on the screen was of them at the redwoods, the name beneath “Sergeant Barnes” because already James wasn’t James anymore, he was Sergeant Barnes, he was Bucky.

His phone rang and it was James and JARVIS intoned, “Sir, it’s Sergeant Barnes calling.”

“Send it to voicemail.” Tony whispered and the call shut down as the suit powered up.

“May I remind you sir that extended use of this suit specifically strains--”

“I remember.” Tony closed his eyes for a minute. “Send a message to Rhodey? Tell him I won’t make dinner tonight. He won’t be surprised, I’ve missed at least a hundred dinners. Call Pep and remind her that I owe her something expensive and sparkly and to pick out whatever she’d like.”

“...Yes sir.”

“JARVIS.” Tony’s chest tightened until he couldn’t breathe. “Enable Ghost Protocol.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just like we talked about.” Tony was shaking inside the suit, grateful for the exoskeleton that kept him on his feet. “I won’t let this be catastrophic and I-- I can’t watch while James realizes he doesn’t need me anymore. Start the process now.”

In the lab in Malibu, lights in the lab started to dim and the myriad of suits Tony had worked on for months drew back into the walls. The lock codes blinking on each panel changed from Tony’s preferences to ones coded to Honeybear, to Rhodey, to Sourpatch and Platypus, on and on the list went.

Computer screens flickered as dozens of letters went out to various charities and foundations, notifications of soon-to-be-arriving checks meant for specific projects that desperately needed funded. Signed paperwork irrevocably keeping Pepper as CEO and turning over any stock held by Tony Stark to her after a death certificate was produced was sent off to the proper compliance departments to make sure everything was legal.

A program was uploaded into Dum-E’s limited software that would allow the robot to function a bit safer and up it’s interaction levels to ones that would make the kiddos in the Children’s Wing at the Cancer Center smile and laugh whenever it rolled through the halls.

Back in Washington, JARVIS’s comforting monotone listed off each point of Ghost Protocol as it was engaged and completed, and the phone rang as Sergeant Barnes tried again and again and again.

“Send it to voicemail.” Tony whispered through a sheen of tears, and the call went silent as the Iron Man armor took off from the roof and soared into the darkening sky, punching through the atmosphere and heading for the stars.

This was the right decision.

Send it to voicemail.

73%

***************

Chapter Notes:

Did you cry? I cried.

I love Steve in this verse. The “First Winteriron, then Steve comes Along” dynamic is something I’ve never written, and I’ve also never written Fresh from the Freezer Steve and I sort of love him??

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHAPTER!

***************

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#ncts fics #winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #steve rogers #natasha romanov #nick fury

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uwuowotf2waslife · 4 years

Note

The mercs with an s/o who is on the autism spectrum? If you want to

as a person with diagnosed autism( ASD that later changed to SCD but concidering my countrys lack of proper diagnosis and non-existant support when i was growing up, im not sure,it might was a result of chronic abuse or i was a really weird kid) its my duty to answer this ask,

always know that you are perfect with all your imperfections

just because maybe your brain is wired different it doest make you less of a person

you are poetry

Scout

-my boy has adhd ( probably undiagnosed until he was examined by Medic) so you two might have a little problem at the begining.

-he might be the closest to a jack russel in human form, but he cares about you and is willing to sit down and do his research so he can understand you and your struggles. He isn’t a hypocrite, he is a hyperenergetic bundle of daddy issues and is sure he will annoy you from time to time, he annoys pretty much everyone except his mom on rare occasion, he is a hanfull and he knows that years now. But he also has come to understand that everyone has struggles and little things that make them more special than others.

-if you have problems with communication , he’ll be your mouth .Problems with sensory overstimulation? he will escort you to the safest place and hug you tighter than he thought hes capable of. People mistreating or bullying/insult you? the bat is in his hands and his ready to hit home runs on their balls. You might not be the perfect couple, you will struggle like every couple and have fights and arguments, but he is ready to phase every difficulty that comes on your way. He loves you and he is here for the ride even if its bumpy.

Soldier

-( I and i think a big part of the community claim he is actually autistic) Probably the most tricky of the mercs, since at one side he might completely relate/understand you and the relationship go smoother than soft butter on bread, or he might have problems communicating the relationship problems with you.

-as all relationships you two must sit down and communicate your problems. Believe me he isn’t mentally retarded ( a horrible misconsumption ive seen being thrown around), yes he is stubborn and can’t read social cues to save his life, but he is a loyal beefcake with a golden heart hardened by a lifitime of war. He knows he isn’t the perfect man, he has nightmares and panic attacks on the regualr after so much trauma in his life. But he also knows that if he S/O needs him, it doesnt matter if its a small or big thing, he is ready to go through hell and back to make them happier or more comfortable

-you can’t stand loud noises? copy that privet, he will stop yelling/ screaming around you. Certain things make you uncomfortable/ anxious? hes at your side and he is ready to snap necks...you have his heart and his adoration, he ain’t a coward or a pansy, you’ll win over any challenge that comes your way like the absolute unit you are and he is there to assist

Pyro

-fresh from the start they can recognise you have autism, i lowkey think they might be ( actually in young adults asd and mild schizophrenia can be mixed and confused by not good qualified doctors, its been years since i read that study so correct me if im wrong) or have really good gut insticts. Either way, they know you are struggling and trie in subtle ways to help you

-did an important call without stuttering? hug and smooch on the crown of your head, completed all your work/homework? they will cover you in stickers and cuddle you in their pillowfort, stood up for yourself? my girl theyll make a huge cupcake tray and youll two will eat while watching sappy disney films

- you won’t struggle as much, i see them as more easy going than other members of the team. But they also have big issues that may create problems in the relationship that you both need to work on. They are more than a handfull and they aren’t unaware of it, they spended years locked inside their own head doing god-knows how vile and harming things to their mentality and body, they can’t believe they are alive and they wake up every day next to the most beautifull human being they have come across their lif, ( Y/n). You will bond slow but strong , you are their sunshine and theyll make sure their sunshine shines no matter what they have to do

Engie

( lowkey i think is canon he has some form of high-functioning autism, just hide its behind the southern warm and soft hospitality)

- when you confess, he hugs you ( a big thing coming from him since i dont consider him a touchy fella) and returns the confession that he is too. He knows each person experiences different so he won’t press you for explanations or description of what you have is excactly. He just assures whatever happens, he is there to help you with

- doesn’t really change how he views you, but he takes the initiative for things like talking to strangers, calling to order or things that you struggle with, but he doesnt baby you. You are an adult person and will be treated as that, even if sometimes he feels he needs to “help” or “protect” you

-one of the most easy going of the mercs, but his work is his priority so there will be long arguments about it. He understands your frustation, but he is a workaholic years now before you came in his life and can’t bring himself to change that. His work is his routine, the only comfort he knows and the only place that accepted him for who he is. But, he will be more elastic and have more breaks/ days off even if it means the project will be finished an hour or two later, unless it has an urgent deadline. He knows he can be very cold and emotionless, he is an engineer, not a spy for that reason. Furthermore he has his own times when he is stubborns or has an anger explosion because something broke/didnt meet his expectations or got way too invested into something that turned to be worthless/ uselless so he isn’t the one to judge if you are in a sour mood or you have your own “ explosion”. After all said and done, late at night when you are both alonein his workshop he will just cradle you in his arms and make a silence promise to always be there for you through thin and thick ( as we say to go through 40 waves and 40 more ) because you are something that no machine or creation can emulate or recreate, you are ( Y/N) and you are the love of his life.

Demo

-arguably one of the three more knowledgable of the mercs in the topic of mental health department. Being raised in an orphanage i doubt he didnt had at least a dozen other kids who had from high to moderate to severe autism ( during the 20th century it wasnt uncommon for people with autism to be thought less human or that the family of said people couldn’t provide for them in severe cases so theyd be dropped on orphanages and psychiatric hospitals)., so he has some first hand experiene with what autism is. It isn’t something for him in all honesty, after so much trauma and hardship in his life he is at peace that peopleare different and their brains are rarely wired the same

-he also know he isn’t ideal, he acts really stupid when he is drunk and his alcohol consumption alone is a very big problem for any relationship he ever had in his life and i doubt he is the image of psychological perfection, but he also knows that if you are willing to keep him around you have seen him wasted out of his mind, he is more than willing to put up with anyof your quirks or difficulties.

-you want to stim? go ahead he’ll leave the room/the house so you can stim to your hearts content, you want to stay? sure thing lass, hell sit in a corner and drink a bit while you have your thing. Work/ school/ home life is stress full and you are in the verge of a breakdown? he has already wrapped you like a burrito and he is holding you while you cry/vent, you dont want to be touched at that moment? hell take you to an open field and you can blow things up to get all those feelings out of you. He isn’t ideal, he is at peace with that, but now that you appeared in his life, you became the apple of his eye. He’ll cherish you and protect you both as body but as a mind and a soul for whatever shit life throws at you, he was never one to back down a challenge.

Heavy

-due to the language barrier and his nature as a quiet man it’ll take him some time. If you bring it up he’ll simply nod and run to Medic or Spy for translation. He isn’t shy to do a doctors worth of research so he knows what he has to deal with, he knows his english is broken and would prefer to have a migraine over the amount of books hes read than make you feel uncomfortable. Probably will ask advice from Medic ( the most qualified on the team) untill hes satisfied he knows enough.

-probably the sanest of the mercs, but he isn’t perfection. He had to endure famine and death from very early in his life, always be the stone his family anchored on and most people on his life, so he has his own big problems. At one side he is used to so many things, he is somewhat indiferent. You aren’t harming anyone nor its life threatening, so it doesnt really change what he feels about you. All people have flaws, noones perfect and if they do think they are perfect, they are very, very wrong. I won’t lie to you, some times hell get confuse with your behavior or will get tired of being the “ anchor” of the relationship, but he will never admit it. He survived the Gulags and years in Siberia, this is nothing but a walk in the park for him. He isn’t a fuckboy, he doesn’t want you just for some fuck and then hell forget you exist, he is much more sentimental than he appears to be. He beginned this with you because he sees you more than a body, he sees you as someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with even if itll be a challenge, he was never a quiter and he wont be now.

- don’t expect much communication help from him, unless its in russian. But whenever you feel the tiniest bit of self-doubt or anxiety his arms are open to embrace and warm you with his love. He might was raised among anarchy and war, but he is a gentle giant with a heart bigger than Russia herself. He knows you two will struggle especially on the communication domain but he is willing to do what it takes to make your life easier/ less challenging. He came here to stay, only if you allow him

Medic

-Arguably the most medically qualified of the mercs, but considering the era of his studies hes at least rusty on modern terminology and general understanding of what autism is. Nontheless his a doctor ( with or without a medical license) and i doubt he ever followed the rules of ethical and unethical medicine. He is a healer primeraly and he can’t claim to be the most mentaly stable of the team.

-he might be many things, he knows hes at least crazy by normal standards and has made extremely questionable choices in his life,but he cares for the people he is close to, lovers and collagues alike. He won’t try to ‘change’or ‘medicate’ you; unless you specifically ask him for, like yes he has defied any sort of ethical medicine and has played god many times in his life, but he knows that if he changes you, you won’t be ‘you’. You will be you still, but nothing more than a lobotomized version of yourself and he fears that. Let’s be real, he probably choosed you because you are a smart individual ( that includes both street and book smarts alike) so if he “killed” your smart he would essentially kill you and this doesnt sit well with him.

-feeling down? no worries, the doctor is here ( afterhe finis hes re-connecting snipers new kidneys). Stressed? Archimedes will be your own personal cheerleader and the rest of the flock won’t let you all stressed and alone while Medic is working. In the simplest of works,he wants you to know that he might be a madman on the field and the medbay, but he is also your lover and that means he cares about you. He doesnt care if act a lil strange or you have some special things about you, guess what? he doesnt cares. H e never cared and he will never cared, all the greatest minds had something special about them and you are no exception. He chosed to have a relationship with you and you accepted the love request of a surgery-happy maniac , im sure he is beyond equiped to handle you in all aspects. He might not be the most touchy but he will make his point across that you are someone who means wayy to much for him to change

Sniper

- ( i highly think he is autistic, just the way hes potrayed in most fanfics he acts lowkey autistic, mostly in the communication and sociable part) growing up in the middle of nowhere probably he has never even heard ‘autism’ as a word , so his very lost. (another headcanon of mine is that he is also iliterate) You need to explain to him what autism is and how it affects your life. He has a non-pleasant expression on his face, because he realises most things that you say what that “autism”is and the thing it has are things he actually has and felt throughout his life. He looks like hes having a religious expierience and when you are done he only nods and hugs you almost mechanically.

-he will need some time, not because ofyou, but because of him. You might think he is breaking up with, butin reality he just needs some time alone to sit down and think about all the things you said. Its one of the biggest revalations he has experienced on his life and it has hit him like a wall of bricks.

- after a few days he will return to the base and will ask you to meet with him on the most secluded of his snipers nest. While you prepare for the upcoming breakup, he actually showers and wears somet hing nice for the first time in a while. He goes out of his way to make the sniper nest a bit more “ comfortable” even bribe spy into giving him one of his fancy wines. Once you go up the nest and you two meet, he is the most clingy he has ever been and almost drinks the whole bottle out of pure anxiety. Once his tipsy enough he actually confesses that from the things you said, he found out hes also autistic. Que him basically clinging you like a broken koala baby while half-sobbing to expell all the tension he has inside him. Please pet his hair and rub his back,he will melt and quit his rugged manly man persona for that moment. He needs you there, he needs your soft touch to ground him while his whole life comes crushing down and a weight he never imagined is being lifted from his shoulders.After that, its quaranteed you two won’t be seperated ever again, he needs you to ease all this pain he has gathered from his troubled life and he will provide you the world and the stars.

Spy

- he knows what autism is( as a spy he should know about human psychology/mental disorders just to know how to impersonate any person with or without issues) and he is a very observant man. He has above average attention span and knows how to read body language so he has figured you are autistic a long time ago. He is just waiting for you to open up about it or confess it, but he also knows the social stigma around autism so he keeps his mouth shut because he really doesn’t want you to feel uncomfortable or ‘naked’ in front of him

- i heavily headcanon him to be at least depressed/having an ugly anxiety disorder or even a dissosiative disorder considering a big part of his life is carefully crafted theater , so he can’t say he is any more better than you.Furthermore he never really cared about what society thinks about mental ilnesses, whos here to judge who sane and not? he has seen so much shady things behind closed doors of “ pure” people he has lost all respect for what society thinks its normal and what is weird or not acceptable. Yes he follows the rules of “good” society but thats more of a habit than a need. Plus have you seen what the good ol’ society behind close doors? yap youll need a good bible study and some church to wash away the sins.

-eventually when you confess to him,he doesn’t really act. He knows its a heavyemotinal moment for you but he can’t open up for his own problems, at least now. But he will embrace you for now and say all the sweet words you need to hear...untill the same time he gets drunker than he can and confesses to you in french all his psychological troubles while he cries on your chest. He won’t let go unless he wants to vomit and he will cling to you for dear life while he experiences one of the ugliest meltdowns he has experienced in the last decade. Probably will wake up with a monster of a hangover, but once he feels you wrapped around him and feel your heartbeat on the bones of his back something will meltin him. He will gather whatever strenght he has, turn around, give you one of the most genuine smiles he has ever given in his entire life and peck your lips bore he starts whining and requiesting you to either kill him or fetch medic. Perhaps one day hell say all the things he wants to say in you mother tongoue but for now, just know he will cherish you and love you like the most exquisite poetry that has graced his life

#tf2 #tf2 imagines #tf2 facts #tf2 self insert #tf2 spy #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 medic #tf2 heavy #tf2 sniper #tf2 engie #tf2 demo #so #all #long post #autism #relationships dynamic #mentall health

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shadowtongued · 3 years

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long headcanon about the duality of love and the mahjarrat condition pertaining to it from his point of view. if you read all this babble i swear to god, i love you, i hope you have a good day. cw: sex addiction, child neglect, unhealthy coping, unrequited pains. reason for writing: hi i want to die bc of angst.

i think we all know even without playing medieval xp grind lore game, runescape, that sliske is old. very old. he tells us in endgame there's not much he hasn’t done with his life over thousands of years, even traveling to other planets and realms to just see what was out there and how far he could get. i’ve always projected his age as somewhere between more than 8,000 or even more than 10,000. we’re never given a timeline to how long the children of mah have lived. sliske has done a lot with his time; he’s killed a god, had quite a few elder relics in his grasp, SPOKEN to a elder god and managed not to die, mastered shadow magicks, has an excellent grasp on the shadow realm. he’s good with biology, chemistry, has a fair understanding of soul magic which is kind of a rare brand of knowledge, he’s tricked probably thousands into bad contracts to become wights in his army, understands the psychology and bad morals of people. he was a playwright, a high ranking officer, a spymaster. dude is just a determined polymath. you know what he hasn’t done? love. he’s never got to play with love.

mahjarrat are explained as having emotions, but dulled ones. they feel rage and pride apparently better than others. kharshai said after years of really believing he was a human, that when he came back to his true form he states “i feel raw power coursing through my veins. i don't feel pain like i used to, and i'm sure my intellect has increased. but somehow there is something missing. a capacity for emotion that i can't quite put my finger on.” they aren’t equipped for the same range of positive emotions as others are. they feel it, but they don’t understand it fully, it has been said by developers. this whole bit is sadly funny considering in canon, sliske catches feelings. he doesn’t realize he’s attracted to the player character. it’s stated many times, in his journals, in dialogue, etc. he believes their fates are tangled no matter what. and the saddest bit is he probably doesn’t understand these feelings and it confuses him to the point of anger. “ love! a mahjarrat in love? ... i almost wish that were true. it would certainly make the universe a more interesting place. ” “ so perhaps i have loved you. but that doesn’t mean i have to like you.” sliske’s main goal started off as to take the players immortal, unable to be crushed by the divine, soul and give it to himself so he could live forever, as mahjarrats do not have afterlives, once they die they are done, evaporated into energy. but in endgame we learn something from him hidden in masks that refutes that;

“I love you for more than your soul.”

you STUPID fucker, you’re in love.

the remainder of this is a lot of NON-CANON, personal headcanon interpretation that pretty much only works on this blog. as a rough summary: sliske’s ol’ mum was not fond of her kids, half-brother wahisietel or sliske since she did not see them as powerful as herself and was disappointed that's what her legacy came out to. a short, beefy, average at magic son, she had another go and was still disappointed with this spidery, scrawny, gifted but absolutely annoying stick underweight child. his father, saw him once or twice in his life and that was it. dyeosuthua wanted nothing more than to make them disappear and try again until she got offspring she didn’t want to throw into a lava pit in secrecy, infanticide was against tribal law due to population issues. sliske’s mother’s neglect was so severe, ( by the absolute boundless joys of rp development and mutual heacanons ♥ ) that wahi and nabor had an attempt at raising him and keeping him from freezing to death. why is all this jargon important? because while all mahjarrats are raised by tough love, sliske’s attention deprivation from his mother was so severe, he grew up and still has a slew of reactive attachment, psychological, and social issues he still carries as an adult. several times she threatened to kill him and almost made good on it more than twice. when wahisietel had proven he was a survivor of the first ritual of rejuvenation, sliske became dyeosuthua’s main target for abuse despite his gift for magic at a young age. nothing he did could impress her enough. and it left him constantly seeking approval and validation to an insecure mind.

the more he grew, the more confident he became mainly out of spite and to get attention. he’s loud, charming, makes you the only person in the room when he talks to you. he has an innate silver-tongued ability that persuades people to do just about anything. it was a front for his insecurities that he kept very very closed up. in the second age/senntisten capital, sliske had a pretty severe sex addiction as it was one of the few ways he felt validated and was able to get affection in a way he could digest. people with reactive attachment disorders often have sex addictions to fill the space of acceptance without having to commit.. easy, feel good intimacy without having to open up and let someone learn about your vulnerabilities and commit. it was pretty severe, considering mahjarrats find any kind of breeding or intimacies outside their ‘superior species’ as downright foul. sliske had always been the black sheep of the tribe and with his status as praefectus praetorio; head of secret police, really nothing put a damper on him trying to fill the void for affection he had. there wasn’t a species or individual he wouldn’t bed. he would easily take up propositions even for people who just wanted to fuck a mahjarrat because it was ‘exotic’ or because of his status as an officer, he now looks back on this and it bruises his insecurities even more that he allowed himself to do that. not out of pride for his species. but himself, being just a thing to be had because of rarity. azzanadra and his brother, wahisietel found out about it and while disgusted, partially understood what he was doing to negatively self soothe. at one point sliske and azzanadra, the champion of their god and head of the church, as well of one of the strongest living of their kin, had a lasting tryst for a few years and for awhile it made sliske feel very much self important in a way and alleviated his need to be needed so badly, this did not end well when sliske grew tired of their empire and wanted freedom. once childhood best friends and lovers had become absolute enemies once sliske became too unstable and azzanadra became too zealous.

sliske gave up his sexcapades for a long time, thousands of years, his libido dropped when he became interested in other projects and self healing when he was hit with the idea that he hasd essentially allowed himself to be an exotic fling and still burned over becoming his god, zaros, scapegoat after all he had done for him. love was a weird concept to him and still is. despite being adamant love doesn’t exist for his kind, and his belief that he is flawed, unstable, and embraced the idea of ‘you want a monster? fine! i’ll be the monster!’. he expects no pity, not be forgiven to things he has done and even in game when you sycophantically try to cozy to him, he straight up calls out your text choice was awful considering some of the shitty things he might have done to you. to sliske, all attention to him is attention, whether you’re praising or insulting him. he’s on your mind, he exists, that’s all he wants.

backstory aside the real part of this headcanon is that sliske actually wants love. it’s the only thing aside from an immortal soul he hasn’t had. sliske actually has an attraction to humans because they are empathetic, curious, passionate, and determined. he has an easier time assimilating and being around them since he has ALWAYS had a better sense of humor, socializing, and happiness than his kin. he feels emotions a lot stronger than his fellow mahjarrats. it allows him to talk to and connect to humans and humanlike species better. others of his kind have told him there’s “something wrong” with him for that. he’s actually a romantic, even if he’s just mimicking romance stories, movies, and actions from others. he thinks the idea of settling with one person and loving them is both mortifying and interesting. opening yourself up to someone and giving them the hammer to smash your cherry-red painted porcelain heart and seeing if they do, to him might be the ultimate form of trust and biggest gamble of russian roulette. the stakes are so heavy he’s high on the idea. but it’s also horrifying. mahjarrat are prolific for not opening up, not allowing others in, vulnerability out in the open is a death sentence. they live in a kratocracy/meritocracy where they kill off the weakest link. it’s not pretty. being soft is a useless, unnecessary, weak gene to them. it dampers survival.

but yet sliske keeps reading romance novels, writing his own confused poetry, and getting into unrequited one sided loves but practicing a backstabbing betrayal when one gets too close. i have to hurt them before they hurt me, betray and cut them down before they can do it to me. i think he wants to be loved. i think he kinda wants to be taught to love, for the emotions and the sake of knowledge. ( brb james newton howard’s ‘true love’s kiss’ from maleficent just came on spotify and i think i’m going to die bc i did not ask for background music thanks!!! ) he wouldn’t be the best at it, maybe a little too possessive with you, codependent, but very nurturing and fun loving. will sepnd a whole week spooning you.. people who hurt you past, present, and future may end up dead in mysterious ways or turned into a wight for you to beat the shit out of. but he’d try. he’s still got a broken child sitting behind his third rib. i think he would snarl the first few times someone genuinely got close to him, it would terrify him, being known on such a skinned, raw level. having gentle touches that are real and not a come hither to the bedroom. being known for something other than the confident, ego he has is death. he could be taught to be gentle for a crumb of consistent attention. might even cut down the murders and god killing down by 15%. love is not going to fix him, it’s not going to forgive the actual shitty things he’s done. it should never do that. but it will turn the lights on in a dark house.

love could really break him. i think so. i’d type more but this has gone on too long and i feel sad-happies.

#me @ me: die bitch #yell at me in an ask if i roasted both you and i at 450 deg f and basted you with butter and rosemary with a good wine too #// long post #✦ │ 𝙷𝙴𝙰𝙳𝙲𝙰𝙽𝙾𝙽𝚂 & 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙾𝚁𝙸𝙴𝚂 ––– i do hate parting with information.

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captainscanadian · 4 years

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Stay | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Part 1)

My Masterlist

Prologue

Summary: Twelve years ago, you ran into a former classmate of yours at a grocery store and ended up going on a life changing adventure. Thanks to your dear older brother, the two of you had become closer than you used to be. But Bucky Barnes... you had no idea what was going to happen between the two of you.

Word Count: 6535

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Tamilian!Reader, Natasha Romanoff x OMC Arjun Y/L/N, Steve Rogers x Platonic!Reader

Warnings: MINIMAL TAMIL DIALOGUE (I’m more than happy to translate!) & TAMIL CULTURE, References to Tamil Literature & Poetry, Mild Swearing, Alcoholism

A/N:This is my entry for @bucky-smiles‘s 2K Bollywood Writing Challenge! My prompt was to write a Bucky fic inspired by my all time favorite Bollywood movie - Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani! Y’all should go watch it because it’s fucking amazing! But I decided to write this fic with a Tamilian reader because I am Tamilian. I was born in Sri Lanka. But I know that there are a few other Tamilian friends on this site who would love to read this. @jalapenobarnes & @fafulous, THIS ONE IS FOR YOU, MY CHELLANGALA! Ever since I posted this fic, I have received so many kind messages from my fellow Tamilian and other Desi Marvel fans who appreciate the representation that this fic has provided for them. I appreciate every single one of you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for your support for this fic!

12 years ago...

You pushed your black framed glasses up your nose as you squinted, the lined piece of paper in your hand looked like it had been ripped off of an old diary that your mother used to keep. The strains of oil and turmeric on the corner of it, and your mother’s writing in smudging black ink; you wondered how she had even thought that you would be able to read what she had even written. You looked down to read the grocery list in your hand as you let out another exasperated sigh. Your mother’s squiggly Tamil manuscript was barely legible as you tried to figure out what she had written for you to buy.

Despite the fact that you had moved to New York when you had been eight years of age, you had managed to learn English as a second language. While you were fluently speaking English by the time you were ten and had worked rigorously to be rid of your accent that had been the cause of all of the bullying that you had to endure, you could not let go of your first language all that easily either. Your parents had been it their mission to ensure that both you and your brother did not forget how to read, write and speak your mother tongue. From binge-watching VHS copies of old South Indian soap operas to enrolling you in Tamil language credit courses while you were in high school, their mission had certainly been a success.

You spoke Tamil just as well as you wrote it. Your knowledge of Tamil literature and poetry was also fairly extensive, compared to most Tamil kids who were actually born in America. You had read most of the Thirukurral and the poems of Mahakavi Bharathiyar, even Kamba Ramayanam and Silappathikaram. You had your father to credit for that. Your reading comprehension was fairly decent as well, but nothing could have prepared you to decipher what your mother had written on that marinated grocery list of hers.

“Hey, what the fuck are you starin’ at, huh?!” You heard a familiar voice call out, startling you in an instant. “Haven’t you ever seen sexy legs before?!”

As you looked up from the grocery list in your hand, you noticed the familiar red-headed Russian girl whom you had once attended high school with. In her ripped denim shorts and leather jacket, she looked quite feisty as she argued with a young boy whom she had just caught staring at her from behind in the checkout line. She had always been a ticking time bomb, not taking shit from anyone, teachers, bullies and cat callers alike.

“... I have. But those legs aren’t sexy.” The boy had responded to her with sass.

Your eyes grew wide as you parted your lips, unable to believe that a boy his age would dare to challenge someone like that. What even happened to kids these days?

“I’ll fucking slap you!” Natasha Romanoff spat at the teen, raising her voice as she grew irritated by his response. “Apologize! Apologize, right fucking now.”

At that point, the entire grocery store had been staring at the two of them. Leave it to Natasha Romanoff to start a scene like this. She had done so much more during her time in high school though.

While the two of you had not been close, you knew her well enough to know that she was not one to be messed with. The number of times she had almost gotten into physical fights with the jocks and the bitchy cheerleader girls who teased her for being a tomboy and ended up in detention were endless. If it had not been for her two best friends, you were sure that she would have gotten suspended or expelled for her behaviour. After all, that was a consequence to her non-conformity to high school stereotypes.

This poor boy must have been taken aback by her outburst. But he must have thought twice before he stared at her ass and sassed her out when she caught him. If anything, he had to learn his lesson the hard way. “Sorry...”

“Good. Now go stand on the other checkout line and don’t even dare to stare at me, you idiot.”

As you watched the boy walk away from her in defeat, you made your way over to the checkout line having given up on figuring out what the remainder of items on your mother’s list were. If you could get out of here before it got dark, you could stop by the bookstore on your way home and pick up some of your textbooks for the next semester.

It was the holidays after all. You did not have any plans to celebrate; not that you had anything to celebrate anyways. Diwali had been a month ago and it had been a decent celebration. While lighting fireworks and clay lamps was out of the question, you had spent it with your family by heading to the temple and sharing some homemade sweet treats among yourselves. You and your family did not celebrate Christmas, so you had been planning to study your ass off during the holidays.

With your three weeks off from school, you were planning on getting a head start on your readings for the following semester. The perks of being a pre-med student at an Ivy League school meant that you had a lot of pressure to excel academically. Often times this meant that you barely led a social life. Not that you minded, really. You were content with spending all of your free time being buried in textbooks and studying the last of your teenage years away.

A typical Tamil girl your parents had always wanted you to be, you had retained your innocence for as long as you could. At twenty-one years of age, you had never been kissed and never had a drop of alcohol enter your system. You still lived at home with your parents while your older brother had found himself moving out after he had left high school. It was just how things were and you had accepted it, not having a single rebellious bone in your body. As most first and second generation immigrants alike, you had found it hard to be the perfect Tamil daughter and a perfect American teenager. You had resorted to being the former, therefore sacrificing any prospects of close friendships or a social life in the process.

As you made your way over to the checkout line next to hers and began to unload your shopping cart, Natasha was quick to notice you as she began unloading her shopping cart as well. Recognizing you in an instant, she grinned widely. “Y/N?! ...Y/N Y/L/N?” She called out to you, her lips curling into a smile as she shook her head in disbelief.

You smiled at her as you laid out your groceries onto the belt. “Hi... Natasha.”

“What’s up, dude? Long time, huh? What have you been up to these days?”

“Nothing much...” You replied with a shrug. “Just... trying to get through pre-med, you know? Columbia’s been kicking my ass.”

“Oh wow, that’s so cool.” She beamed, waiting for the cashier to ring up her items. “You’re still the same, Y/N. Even in high school, you were a straight A student. That is so amazing.”

“How about you, Natasha?” You asked her as the cashier began to ring up your items. “What have you been up to?”

“Just... arts, you know?” Natasha shrugged. “Studying has never been my thing, you know? Thank God, it’s the holidays though! I’m so glad I can finally relax and let loose.”

“Any plans for the holidays?” You asked her, curiously. As someone who has never had a proper holiday for yourself, you wondered what other people did during the holidays.

Perhaps, you wished to live vicariously through everyone else’s experiences. The only ever time you had a chance to travel were during the trips back home with your family. Other than that, you were pretty much stuck in Brooklyn.

“I’m heading to The Hamptons tomorrow...” She replied, excitedly. “We’re going to be skiing!”

“The Hamptons?” You asked, your eyes growing wide at her response. “That sounds quite fancy. What? Are you going with your family?”

“Oh no, I’m actually going with my friends. As a matter of fact, you know them too. Steve and Bucky, you remember them. Steven Rogers... as in my best friend? And Bucky, I mean, James Buchanan Barnes... you know him. He used to skip class all the time and get detention. You even had to tutor him for algebra once for extra credit or something, remember?”

Your eyes grew wide as you recalled her two best friends. You were slightly surprised that they had managed to keep in touch with her after all these years. But then again, the three of them had always been close. They were known as the inseparables around school, always hanging out with each other and slacking off in class together.

Often times, you had found yourself being jealous of their friendship. You wished you had that kind of bond with someone. You had always wanted a best friend but all you had was your older brother. You had been so lonely ever since you moved to New York.

For some odd reason, your parents had been against you befriending anyone who was not Tamilian. Apparently some bullshit about how anyone else would have corrupted your innocent mind and derail you from your path to being the perfect daughter you had always been. They had claimed that while they ‘trusted’ their daughter, they did not trust the society in which they had to raise their children. It was all bullshit.

Truth be told, your parents really had ruined your chance to make any friends at all. As much as you let your social anxiety get the worst of you, you had to blame them for the role they had played in your lack of a social life.

“Oh... right.” You reached into your purse to pull out the cash that your mother had given you, handing it over to the cashier and taking back your change.

As you grabbed your bagged groceries, Natasha had paid for her own things before walking over to you. “Hey, are you headed home? Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

“What?” You looked up at her in surprise. “Oh no, Natasha... it’s fine. I can take the subway back.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m heading over to see my parents anyways and they live down the street from yours. I’ll drop you off on my way.” She offered with a smile. “Come on, dude!”

For how long could you keep avoiding the kind gestures from people and push them away? You had known Natasha since you had first arrived in New York and you knew that you could trust her, even if your own parents would be against that. Thanks to her short hair, tattoos and piercings that made her seem like bad news according to their judgemental eyes. But at this point, you could care less about what your mother would think about you accepting a ride from Nat. “Fine...” You gave in, struggling to carry your groceries.

“Here, I got it.” Taking one of the bags from you, she began walking out of the store with you in toe. “So, what are your plans for the holidays, huh?”

“Not much, really...” You replied with a shrug. “Just getting ready for the next semester, I guess.”

Nat stopped in her tracks before turning around to face you, her jaw dropping slightly at your response. “What the fuck, Y/N? You really need to give yourself a break. You need to go and do something fun.”

A part of you knew that she was right about that. But truth be told, you did not know how to have fun. For the longest time, your idea of fun had been burying yourself in school. Studying had been fun to you until it became the thing that you always did. Not to mention your lack of a social life ever since you were a kid. After all, you had never even been to a sleepover. Now a legal adult, you had never been to a party. Never been kissed and never gotten drunk. You lived quite a boring life and you did not know how to fix that. “I don’t know, man... I never really did anything fun during the holidays. I just studied... a lot.”

Letting out a sigh of disbelief, she turned around to walk over to her car. “I’ll tell you what...” She unlocked her car before opening the trunk. “Why don’t you come down to The Hamptons with me?” It had been a casual offer, perhaps even one that she had thought you would refuse in an instant, which you initially did. But Natasha knew you and knew how hard it had been for you to make friends in high school. She was finally making the effort to be your friend by offering to let you join her on her trip; she should have done something like this many years ago. But better late than never, right?

“What?!” You gasped, hearing her offer. If it had been that easy for you to pack up and leave to The Hamptons with a skater girl and two boys, you would have done it in a heartbeat. But you knew your parents and there was no way they would even allow you to go on this trip if you had even bothered to ask them in the first place. “Oh no, I can’t...”

“Come on, Y/N! It’ll be so much fun!” She grinned at you before loading the grocery bags in her trunk. “It’ll be just the four of us. It’s like you’re going to be on a trip with strangers. It’s just four school friends hanging out together for a week, catching up.”

“Oh no, Natasha... I shouldn’t be intruding.” You shook your head as you handed her the last of your bags. A part of you was longing to take her up on her offer, but you knew your parents very well and you worried about what they might think. They would never allow you to go off to all the way to The Hamptons with the kids they would have never approved of you to be friends with. Even if you were a pre-med student at Columbia University with a 4.0 GPA, no achievement would have made you worthy of such a trip when it came to their standards.

“You won’t be intruding at all.”

“Yeah, but...” You shook your head at her. “My parents would never allow it.” This had always been your excuse to turning down every invite to a party or a sleepover during high school. Your parents never allowed you to make friends with anyone, because that was just how it was.

“Well, then... we’ll sneak you out. You can’t let your parents dictate what you do and don’t do anymore. How old are you? Like... twenty? Twenty-one? You need to start making your own decisions at some point...” She was right. She knew exactly what she was talking about. “Y/N, you’re a good kid... you’re a good student, you’re doing good in school and working hard. You’ve got to give yourself a break. But there’s nothing wrong with being a little selfish sometimes.”

You sighed. “I... they won’t... I’ve never done anything rebellious my whole life, Natasha. And I don’t know how to... I can’t risk getting in trouble with my parents.”

“That’s why you have me, babe. I’ll sneak you out and have you back home in one piece. You have nothing to worry about. Just pack up your belongings tonight and meet me outside of my parents’ house at 3 in the morning. We’re driving up to The Hamptons ourselves.” She told you. “You don’t even have to pay for the gas. Just bring yourself enough pocket money to rent some ski gear and spend on booze or whatever... and we can spend the whole week skiing.”

“Natasha...” You bit down on your bottom lip. “I can’t...”

“For old time’s sake...”

“I need to think about it.” You admitted.

“Fine... I’ll wait for you until 3:30. If you don’t show up, you’ll see me drive past yours from your bedroom window.” She told you with a playful eye roll. “It’s your loss, Y/N.”

When Natasha had dropped you home that evening, you found yourself locked up in your bedroom for the remainder of the night. You paced back and forth, staring out your window to see her car parked down the street in front of her parents’ house. You had a few hours to contemplate taking her up on her offer. It was either spending another dreadful holiday drowning in your anatomy textbook or skiing with her and her friends. You finally had a chance at making friends of your own and it looked too good to pass up. But the thought of being caught by your parents terrified you, for the punishment would be a harsh one regardless of your academic achievements that should seem to balance it out.

So you did the best thing you could in your search for clarity and told your brother of this offer right away. While being of the male gender had certainly given him more privilege within the family, he knew that his freedom to do whatever he wanted was not something he could take for granted. He understood that as privileged as he was for the way your parents had been lenient on him, you were held to a higher moral standard than he was. Truth be told, he hated that and when it came to advocating for you and what you wanted, he always took your side when arguing with your parents. He was a true ally and the only real best friend you had so far. You could trust him.

“I’ll sneak you out.” Arjun offered in an instant.

Your jaw dropped as you heard his offer. “What?! Anna... are you insane? Amma and Appa would kill me they found out that I left!”

“Illa di, listen to me for a sec. I’m on your side here. Sometimes, you have to be rebellious and go out and get what you want.” He advised. “You’ve been too much of a goody-two-shoes to be treated like shit. I say you take the chance and get the hell out of here for a week.”

“Easy for you to say...” You mumbled as you rolled your eyes at him. “You don’t even live here anymore. But I do... and I don’t want to deal with all this crap because when I get back from this trip, you’ll be gone back to Harvard and I’m the one who’s stuck here.”

Your brother thought for a moment. “I’ll give them an ultimatum.” He suggested, shrugging his shoulders. “If they give you crap for going on this trip, then I’ll drop out of Harvard and flip burgers for a living. Trust me, Amma wouldn’t want that.”

“Anna... no, seriously... no!” You shook your head. “You’re being so dramatic right now and there’s no need for that. I’m not going.”

“Hey... po, di. If you don’t want to go for yourself, enakkaga po. Do this for me, please, di?” He told you with a pout. “Go out there and make some friends. You deserve it.”

You bit down on your bottom lip before sighing. “I’m terrified... but... I also want to go.”

“Then go. Go to the Hamptons... go make some friends. I don’t want you to end up friendless when I go off, get married and have my own family one day.” He admitted, chuckling softly. “You’ve been alone for so long, di kannamma. Go enjoy yourself while you’re young. You deserve it.”

You nodded as you pulled him into a hug. “You’re too good to me. Thank you, da Anna. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Hugging you back tightly, he sighed in contentment. “Anything for my kannamma.” He laughed as he held you close. The two of you shared a close bond and it was frankly because you were each other’s best friend. He would take a bullet for you in a heartbeat, so it was no surprise that he was willing to face your parents for your sake. “Now go up to your room, pack up your things and wait. I’ll come and get you when it’s time and we can climb out my bedroom window, sariya?”

You laughed softly and nodded, pulling back from the hug. “Sari...”

And with that, you had snuck up to your bedroom and managed to back yourself a suitcase full of your belongings. You were only going to be there for a week so there was not much to pack. But you were also cautious of how much you packed anyways, considering that you would need to launch this suitcase of yours off of the roof before you managed to sneak out your brother’s bedroom window. The last thing you wanted was for your parents to wake up from the commotion and catch you red-handed. You did not need this attempt at going on a holiday trip to come to an end before it had even started.

When the time came, your brother had helped you climb out through his bedroom window and threw your suitcase onto the sidewalk. Once he climbed down the roof, he helped you down and the two of you sprinted down the street towards the Romanoff Residence.

“Nat!” You called out to the redhead as you reached her parents’ house, your brother following after you with your suitcase.

“Y/N, you made it!” Natasha grinned as she ran up to you, tackling you with a triumphant hug.

You were taken aback by her embrace but you returned it anyways, your heart still beating right out of your chest from the adrenaline rush that came with sneaking out of your house and running down the street. “Yeah, I... I did.” You admitted, laughing softly. You were glad that you had not backed out of this ordeal, thanks to your supportive older brother who wanted nothing more than for you to be happy.

Arjun watched as the two of you pulled back from the hug. “Natasha Romanoff.”

“Arjun.” She bowed her head at your brother. “Good to see you. Thanks for bringing her over.”

“Don’t mention it.” He winked at her before turning over to you. “You two should get going.”

You nodded as you pulled your brother into a tight hug. “Thank you... for being the best big brother I could ever ask for.” Your eyes glazed over as you realized how much trouble he was going to be in for the part he played in your disappearance for a week. But you were grateful that he had been there for you. “I love you, da Anna.”

“I love you too, di kannamma.” He hugged you tightly. “Have fun, okay? You deserve it.”

Natasha stood by as she watched the two of you say goodbye to each other. A part of her found it quite warming that the two of you had such a close bond. But unbeknownst to her, she had also admired how genuine and attractive Arjun really was. But that was a story for another time.

Once your brother had returned home, you and Natasha climbed into her car and she began driving towards Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes’ loft apartment. After all, this entire trip had been planned by the formerly chubby-cheeked and crooked-toothed boy whom you used to tutor. Hopefully, he would not mind that his little excursion had been crashed by his high school class’s resident ‘scholar’.

Present Day...

You tossed and turned in bed as you struggled to fall asleep, snuggling up to your pillow a you pulled the duvet over your shivering body. Despite the fact that you had slept in this bed for years, you had a hard time sleeping in it now. It was as though a part of you had forgotten how it felt to be home, which was partly your fault. After all, it had been your choice to leave home after you had graduated from Columbia. Your search for even the slightest of freedom had been satisfied, but coming home had always been a pain in the ass. You could not sleep.

You sat up in your bed as you let out a sigh of exhaustion, leaning your back against the headboard as you looked around your dimly lit childhood bedroom. Letting out a yawn, you reached over to grab your phone from the nightstand to check your notifications, hoping to see some missed call or text message from work so that you could have an excuse to leave the house in the middle of the night, this time through the front door rather than your brother’s bedroom window.

But you had been disappointed to find no messages from the hospital, meaning that you had no choice but to force yourself to go back to bed. Before you could lie back down though, you heard a slight knock on your door. “Kannamma?” Your brother said softly as he knocked. “Thoongittiya, di?”

“No... I can never fucking sleep in this house anymore.” You groaned as you climbed out of bed and made your way over to open the door. “Anna? What the hell are you two doing up at this hour?” You noticed that he was dressed in a pair of slacks and a button down shirt, a half-asleep Natasha standing behind him. “You were on call tonight?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I was... I just got called in. You think you could keep your Anni some company while I’m gone?” He asked you with a chuckle. “She likes you more than me.”

You nodded, giggling slightly as you yawned. “Sure, I guess...” You moved out of the way so that Natasha could enter your room and you let her hug you from behind. “I think she loves me, actually. She loves me more than you.”

“Yeah, keep saying that to yourself.” He mocked you with a playful eye roll before turning over to his future wife. “I’ll see you in the morning, Nat.”

“Drive safe, baby.”

“Bye, da.”You called out to him as he walked away.

Natasha chuckled as she made her way over to your bed and lay down. “I can never get used to this.” She admitted as she climbed under the blanket and stared up at the ceiling for a moment.

You closed the door behind you before walking over to your bed. “You know he doesn’t like working nights. He just has no choice in that matter. He’s trying to get it all sorted out, you know. Hopefully, he can open his own practice at some point.” You admitted. “I on the other hand, I love working nights. I love that I don’t have anyone to go home to, unlike my Anna. Hell, it feels strange not working tonight. I can’t even fucking sleep right now.”

She turned over to face you. “You do work a lot so I guess being single is convenient for you.” She agreed. “But do you ever see yourself... actually having someone to go home to? Getting married and having kids of your own?”

You let out a chuckle before shaking your head. “Did you? Did you ever think you’d be getting married... to anyone, let alone my brother?”

“No, I didn’t... but fate works in weird ways, doesn’t it? It brought you and I together and then... it brought your brother and I together.” Natasha reminded, sighing as she hugged you gently.

“You ever wonder what would have happened if we had never run into each other at the grocery store that day?” You asked her, curiously.

“We wouldn’t be best friends.” She admitted, laughing. “We wouldn’t be family. I think we have Arjun to thank for that night.”

You nodded. “Yeah, I guess... if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be best friends.” And you wouldn’t have fallen in love with Bucky Barnes either.

12 years ago...

You covered your ears with your hands as Natasha honked one more time, hopefully the last time she would do so within the last ten minutes. The sound of the never-ending honking must had woken up the entire neighborhood by now, but unfortunately, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes happened to be heavy sleepers.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” She called out as she rolled down the window. “Steve, Bucky, I swear to fucking God if you don’t get your asses down here in two fucking minutes, I’m leaving without you!” She called out towards the second floor window of the building you had been parked in front of.

Despite the fact that it was way too early in the morning to be causing a scene in the middle of the street, it seemed as though the redhead did not give a shit about any of that. Her friends were both running late and she was certainly not happy about being the only one who had any sense of punctuality between the three of them.

After all, it had been Bucky Barnes’ idea that they drive all the way to The Hamptons at the ass crack of dawn. The least she would have hoped was for the two of them to be ready and waiting for her to arrive. But instead they had both been sleeping on their asses until she pulled up and honked for them to come out. With her lack of sleep causing her to be irritated, she was in no mood to be driving as it was and the boys being late was not helping at all.

It was another few minutes and constant honking before the two boys came running out of their apartment building, their duffel bags and ski gear in hand.

“Jesus Christ, Nat! You probably woke up the entire neighborhood!” Steve Rogers yelled at his friend as he loaded his belongings onto the trunk, followed by Bucky’s.

Bucky Barnes ran his hand through his wet hair that had now frosted up in the cold as he got into the car, his eyebrows furrowing as he noticed the uninvited guest in the backseat. He looked just the same as he did three years ago, the only difference being that he had chopped off his long locks for a shorter hair do. It seemed fitting for the young adult look that he had been trying to pull off lately.

But he still had his high school charm on him, the one that you could not get away from no matter how hard he tried. “Hey... you?!” He looked over at you with a confused expression on his face, noticing that you looked so familiar to him yet he could not place how he had known you. He was just as forgetful as you remembered him to be. “Uh... do I know you from somewhere?”

You raised your eyebrow at him slightly. “You... do???” You swallowed your own drool as you caught yourself staring at him and looked away for a moment, tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear as you avoided his eye contact.

“Has your pea brain really forgotten high school that fast, Barnes?” Natasha snickered from the driver’s seat as Steve got in the car, buckling up as he turned around to notice you sitting behind him.

“Y/N Y/L/N?” He gave you a look of surprise, but smiled genuinely happy to see you. “Long time.”

“Hi Steve.” You smiled at him before waving slightly, your eyes darting back to the confused former classmate of yours who had finally managed to recognize you as his former algebra tutor. “I hope you don’t mind me crashing your trip, by the way. Natasha invited me and I couldn’t say no.”

“Y/N?! Oh my God... Scholar Y/N, how could I forget these glasses?” Bucky laughed as he pulled you into a side hug. “It’s been so long, oh my God! How have you been, doll?”

You bit down your bottom lip as you felt yourself blush, slightly taken aback by his rather forward attempt for a reunion hug. “Uh... yeah, I... I’ve been alright.” You did not know what to say as you pushed your glasses up your nose, giggling slightly as you pulled back from him quickly but not as awkwardly as you had feared.

“Jeez, we used to flip a coin to see which one of us gets to sit next to you when we had exams.” Steve recalled with a chuckle as Natasha started the car.

“What? Why?”

“Because whoever won the toss and sat next to you was guaranteed to pass the exam!” Bucky replied, laughing as he shook his head. “You were such a nerd back then, doll.”

“I still am.” You admitted, proudly as you laughed and gave him a playful eye roll. “I take it you’re still skipping class and roaming the town with your camera?” You remembered that Bucky Barnes had a knack for photography, having been involved with the yearbook committee and the school newspaper for multiple years. You had worked closely with him when you had been the editor of the school newspaper during your senior year, so it was not as awkward being in the presence of these three. Thankfully, they were not absolute strangers to you.

“Yeah, I... I’ve been interning with a studio though. Photography is my calling.” He told you as he motioned towards his camera bag next to you. He never left the house without it and he was hoping to document as much of this trip as he possibly could. After all, this was going to be the last trip he was going to take with his friends and neither of them knew that yet.

“So, you still have no plans for going to college then?” You asked him. You remembered that Bucky had initially decided to take a gap year and go traveling after your class had graduated from high school. As Natasha had told you during your drive over to pick up the boys, it turned out that he had not managed to go back to school when he had returned from his trip to Italy.

Bucky bit down on his bottom lip before letting out a sigh. “Not for now...” He told you with a shrug, but it was a partial lie. After all, he had received his acceptance letter for a Journalism and Media Degree in London earlier this month. But he had chosen not to break the news to his friends just yet.

“We’ve actually been saving up our money, Y/N. We’re going to open our own bar in Williamsburg and be business partners, isn’t that right, Buck?” Steve clarified.

He looked up at his best friend with a small smile, but did not nod his head. Unbeknownst to you, the reason behind his silence would eventually cause a drift between all of you by the time this trip came to an end.

Present Day...

When you and Natasha woke up the next morning, the two of you headed out to mail out the wedding invitations that the two of you had finished packing up the night before. Your best friend turned sister-in-law made it her mission to personally deliver Steve Rogers’ invitation to him, just to make sure that he knew that he had no choice but to attend the wedding. With his current financial situation though, the two of you were sure that he would do anything to avoid the wedding. But Nat was not going to have any of it.

You should not have been so surprise to have walked into an empty restaurant, but you could not help but feel slightly bad about how your friend’s business had taken the turn for the worst. You knew that this was not what Steve had signed up for when he had first purchased this restaurant with all of his savings, but he had kept it going for as long as he could.

Natasha blamed his recent increase in alcohol consumption for his failing business, but you knew that there was more to Steve’s pain that he had resorted to drinking as a coping mechanism. Perhaps, this intervention was a much needed one.

“Ladies...” Steve laughed as he walked out of the kitchen with a cold glass of whiskey in his hand. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Steve, it’s 10 am... what the fuck are you doing, getting drunk this early in the morning?! Give me that glass!” Natasha walked up to him and tried to take his glass from him, only to fail miserably.

“I’m a grown ass man, Nat. I can do whatever the fuck I want...” He muttered carelessly before downing his drink and setting down his glass. “Always goes down easy.”

“Steve...” You sighed as you walked up to him, your lips curling into a frown as you pulled him into a hug. “Steve, come on... I know the restaurant is in a lot of debt right now but drinking your ass off is not going to solve that.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, doctor.” He chuckled as he hugged you back. “If I drink myself all the way to cirrhosis, then that’s my fucking choice.”

“I don’t like what I’m hearing, Rogers.” You admitted, shaking your head at his words. “You’re struggling, buddy. Just admit that you need help and we’re more than happy to throw in a little investment, just to get this place back up and running like it did when it first opened. We hate seeing you like this, you know?”

“No...” He shook his head as he sighed. “I can’t do that, Y/N. You guys... have your own lives and your own shit to worry about. Don’t... waste your time and energy being worried about me or my business.”

“But we are worried about you, you asshole.” Natasha admitted, joining in on the hug. “I’m getting married and I hate that my best friend is... fucking miserable. I hate to see you like this. If you won’t even let us pitch in to keep this place going, then at least stop drinking your days away. The last thing I want is for you to leave me for good like he did. I’ve lost one of you already the way that I did... I can’t lose another friend either.”

“Don’t bring him up, please. I don’t want to talk about him.”

You shook your head at Natasha before you sighed, rubbing Steve’s back as you bit back your tears. “Fine, we don’t have to talk about anything... or anyone. But we have a wedding to get ready for. So, can we at least focus on that for the next few weeks?”

“Fine.” Steve admitted, finally forcing himself to smile a genuine smile. “Anything for my two favorite ladies and you becoming family.”

#2kbollywood #aj writes #stay #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes au #marvel au #bucky barnes x desi!reader #desi au #bucky barnes desi au

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years

Text

Concerning the End of the World ... Again ...

Summary: When Crowley shows up for his picnic with Aziraphale in serpent form and refuses to change into human, Aziraphale fears the worst. (1837 words)

Warnings: Some mild angst and anxiety, but mostly fluff :D

(AO3)

“Oh, there you are! I was wondering when you were planning to show,” Aziraphale says, greeting the long black serpent slithering onto his picnic blanket like it’s an old friend.

Namely, because it is.

His oldest and dearest friend.

And, as of recently, his husband.

“Where have you been? I was getting worried.” Aziraphale side-eyes the serpent, waiting for it to stealthily change into human form. But it doesn’t, winding carefully through the jars of jam and honey, the plates of bread and cheese he’d set out. “Uh … is there a reason you’ve chosen not to transform?” He waits for the snake to give him a sign of acknowledgement. When it doesn’t, Aziraphale chalks it up to his husband’s temperamental nature (he is a demon, after all), and continues the conversation alone. “Well, if you don’t, you’re going to miss out! I’ve gotten a few pears from a local vendor, apples, some fresh strawberries ... I took the liberty of sampling a few, and they’re all scrumptious!”

The serpent pauses momentarily, tilting its head as if struggling with a decision. Whatever the options, it chooses to tuck itself beneath Aziraphale’s knee. From beneath the shelter of the angel’s leg, it pokes its head out, tongue flicking to taste the air. A sensation of dread creeps into Aziraphale’s chest, latches on with hooks, and stays there.

“Wh-what … what’s going on, Crowley? What’s the matter?” He looks about, stretching his own mental feelers, searching for anything not quite right in the area. Of course, if someone was going to detect something not quite right, it would be Crowley, his serpent form the best way to keep tabs on it.

Months ago, they’d both been able to convince their ‘powers that be’ to leave them alone, but how long would that last? Aziraphale naively hoped forever, but Crowley is a cynic. If his assumptions are correct, their brief time of peace was a stop-gap - a calm before a storm of epic proportions.

Greater than Satan himself clawing out of the ground? Apparently.

“H-have you heard anything from … you know …?” Aziraphale subtly points down, but the serpent, eyes locked on a point in the distance, neither confirms nor denies. Aziraphale watches, breath held, overly wary of its cautious behavior. He finds himself suddenly dubious of everyone – the ice cream seller, an older married couple, a little girl riding her trike, a corgi rummaging through the bushes for a ball. It may seem ridiculous, but if the events of the Notpocalypse have taught him anything, it’s that their enemies could be hiding anywhere, could be anyone. “If you have, you’re right to remain hidden. Best to stay under the radar, as they say.”

Aziraphale is uncertain which would be less conspicuous – a distinguished man dressed as stylishly as he sharing an intimate picnic lunch with a man who looks like a rock star, or this right big snake?

Either way, it doesn’t matter to him. As long as they’re together.

Truth be told, Aziraphale is quite fond of Crowley’s serpent form.

Maybe he could try his hand at shapeshifting next time. But what would he become? A dove? Mmm, no. Aziraphale loved doves, but that seemed a bit too on the nose. A cat? A sleek, dignified, yet fluffy Persian? Or a Siamese – all cream coat and stunning blue eyes? Ooo, a Russian blue!

But he’s not sure Crowley fancies cats. Would he want one following him about, or perched on his shoulder, shedding fur onto his clothes?

Probably not.

A dog? Yes, Crowley might prefer a dog. A big, strong, strapping dog - something along the lines of a hellhound, Aziraphale assumes, but he can’t picture himself that way. Not as a menacing beast with glowing red eyes and sharp teeth. But he’s sure he can get Crowley to compromise. Maybe he could be a feisty little Scottish terrier in a smart tartan coat, as long as he also agrees to wear something more Crowley-esque – like a spiky, leather collar. That would surely suit the both of them.

It was actually rather exciting now that he’d given it proper thought.

“I haven’t heard anything either,” Aziraphale affirms, though whether Crowley said he had or not, he doesn’t know. Aziraphale can’t speak to Crowley in his snake form. He can’t speak to snakes at all. Or any animal. Though he did feel a spiritual connection to an owl once back in the 16th century. Rupert, he called it. Regardless, he believes that what he and Crowley have is deeper – a connection that allows him to infer what his other half is thinking, even when those thoughts are wrapped inside the labyrinthine mind of a serpent.

“Honeymoon’s over, I guess, hmm?” Aziraphale says with a forlorn sigh, gazing at the world around him – the world he loves – with bittersweet affection. “I know you’ve had suspicions about a battle to come, I just … I didn’t think it would happen so soon. I thought we’d have more time.” He runs a hand gingerly down the neck of the snake, chuckling to himself. “Listen to me. More time. We’ve known one another for six thousand years! If the end is coming, I guess I should be grateful for the time we’ve had.” The snake rests its head on his thigh and seems to sigh as well – not in defeat, but more like sympathy. Knowing Crowley, he already has plans – escape to the stars, other planets, alternate dimensions. Crowley will know a way out of this. He’ll know what to do. And they’ll be fine, provided things work according to plan. But what about the world? Aziraphale wants to spend forever with Crowley, but something has never sat quite right with him about abandoning this world to do it. “We’ve been walking the middle ground for so long, Crowley. And I will admit, even if I didn’t show it, I always feared one day it would end. I don’t want that day to be now. Not now. Not yet.” He bends as best he can in an awkward position to lean close to the serpent, and the serpent rises to meet him. Aziraphale cups it under what he assumes is its ‘chin’ and rubs it’s snout with his nose. It’s scaly and cold, nothing like the warmth of his husband’s skin, but it’s comforting nonetheless. “But whatever happens, we’re in this together. You and I, till the day we …” The rest gathers at the back of the angel’s throat, huddled in a lump, refusing to come out “… well, you know. But I want you to know, I’m not leaving you without a fight. Not ever. Because … well, because I love you, Crowley. I do. I should have said it a million times – the very moment I knew. But I’m saying it now, every day, as a matter of fact. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love …”

“Aziraphale? What on Earth are you doing?”

Aziraphale stops talking. His eyes go wide. He stares questioningly at the snake in front of him. If he didn’t know better, he would swear it shrugs.

“Crowley?” He sits up, hand still cupping the serpent’s chin, and sees his husband – human form Crowley – standing before him. His jaw drops, the apples of his cheeks glowing a jasper red, brighter than twin stoplights, especially since the rest of his color has drained clear away. “Wha---?” Aziraphale looks at the black snake sitting beside him on the blanket, the one he’s been talking to for the past half hour, then back up at Crowley, who’s taken on a rather defensive stance – arms crossed, hip cocked, glaring behind his dark glasses at his angel’s offending hand. Aziraphale pulls his hand away and swallows hard.

“Th-this isn’t what it looks like.”

***

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

“Ah, Shakespeare …” Aziraphale hugs the leather-bound book to his chest, gazing down the length of the sofa he’s on to the serpent lying by his socked feet, coiled against the cold. “In thousands of years, I’ve never had the pleasure of reading works by anyone who could do poetry such justice. Don’t you agree?”

The serpent raises its head, gives a little nod, then rests it on the angel’s ankle, exhaling in contentment.

“Hmm, I do agree. I do agree. So where were we? Ah …”

“Are you reading him sonnets?” Crowley snaps when he walks in and catches his husband curled up on the couch beside the creature he has affectionately begun calling his son.

“He listens,” Aziraphale replies, going back to the book and turning the page, “unlike some people.”

“You forget, I was there the first go round.” Crowley grabs a glass and a full bottle of wine from the desk nearby. “Wasn’t too impressed then, either. Why are you letting him stay here anyway?”

“He followed me home, Crowley! I can’t just put him out! That would be cruel! Besides, I don’t understand why you’re so upset! It’s not like I …” Aziraphale cuts himself short and looks up from his book. “Wait a minute …” A small smile dances at the corners of his mouth, not easily noticed by one unaccustomed to being teased by an angel. But Crowley’s seen it a thousand times “… you’re not still upset about …?”

“Yes! Yes, I am!” Crowley miracles the cork from the wine and drinks straight from the bottle, bypassing the glass clutched in his other hand. “I find it offensive that you can’t tell a common black snake from your own husband!”

“I’m sorry, my dear, but at first glance, you two do look strikingly similar.”

“Oi! Oi!” Crowley points at his angel, stuck for a comeback strong enough to express his displeasure.

“Also, it’s a large, black snake, Crowley! Those aren’t all that common in these parts! How was I supposed to know it wasn’t you? Do you know the odds? Really …”

“That doesn’t excuse the fact that you were getting all lovey-dovey with …!”

“… something that I thought was you!” Aziraphale closes his eyes in frustration and shakes his head. “But don’t worry,” he says, waving away his husband’s ire with a flick of his hand. “I promise not to fall into the same trouble I got into with the last snake that followed me home.”

“Is that so?” Crowley grumps, searching under the sofa and around the stacks of books for the offending bugger. “You have a whole harem of snakes hanging around here, do you?”

“Nope. Just the one.”

“Ah. So tell me, Aziraphale - what happened to him, eh?”

The angel and the serpent, thick as thieves at this point, look at a put-off Crowley, wearing matching smug smirks. “I married him.”

*** Notes: This was a sort of a culmination of different ideas I got from fanart on Tumblr. There's a consensus (I think) that when Crowley shows up in his snake form, Aziraphale automatically knows it's him. So I thought ... what if it doesn't work that way? XD

#Good Omens #Good Omens Fanfic #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #fluff #Frankie writes

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