baby tony + busy parents

here take some sketches because i can't stop thinking about them ever

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

Mission:AU

Chapter One- Gender Swap

Peter Parker x Barnes!reader

Previous Part

You woke up in an unfamiliar room and you sat up and stretched. You looked around the room to try and find something you recognized. You saw a phone on the bedside table and grabbed it. You caught a quick glance at your reflection on the screen and your jaw dropped. You were Peter. You looked down and saw that you were definitely in his body. 

Peter woke up in a familiar situation. He immediately noticed he was you, since you had a full length mirror opposite the bed. He jumped up and looked around for your phone. He could hear music playing and figured Bucky was awake. He unlocked the phone and called you, or himself.

You got a call on the phone in your hands. You saw it was your own name (or Peter) and answered. 

“Y/n? What the hell happened? Are you trapped in my body? Because I’m trapped in yours!” 

“Yes Peter. It seems we are in quite a predicament,” you tried to remain calm while Peter freaked out. You both agreed to meet up at a park and hung up. You snuck out of Peter’s room and he did the same. 

You didn’t know Queens very well, since you grew up in Brooklyn. You asked some people for help to find your way to the park. After about a half an hour of riding the subway and walking, you spotted Peter. You were surprised he managed to pick out such a good outfit. You didn’t even change out of the clothes you woke up in. 

“Oh my god Y/n!” Peter ran towards you and pulled you into a hug. 

You awkwardly maneuvered out of his grip, since people started giving you weird looks.

“Do you have any idea what’s happening? What’s the last thing you remember before this morning?” you wanted to get to the bottom of this. 

“Umm. We were on the mission and the guy attacked us with the machine. And then I woke up in your room.”

You rubbed your temples in frustration. Peter walked you over to a bench and sat you down, sensing your stress.

 “Damn it. It’s like we’re stuck in that one movie with the fortune cookies.” you tried to remember what is what. 

Peter helped you out, “You mean Freaky Friday?” he asked.

You nodded.

 “True but we don’t have to learn a lesson like they did. Maybe we have to do something else. Oo! Like in Teen Beach Movie! The characters get stuck in a musical and the only way to get out is to finish the storyline. Do you remember that movie?”

You glared at him, “No Peter. I don’t remember some stupid movie because if you can recall, I was stuck in Wakanda for two years and then I had to deal with my dad and my friend’s death. I didn’t have time to watch movies,” you snapped, “And besides. We’re not in a musical so there’s no storyline to finish,” He was taken aback. And quite frankly so were you. You never really snapped at anyone before. You stood up from the bench and Peter followed. 

“I’m sorry Y/n I didn’t realize. Maybe instead of a storyline, we have to live the day as each other.” 

You turned your head and looked at him. It did make sense. You sighed, “Yeah probably. We just can’t get caught. Try to stay away from my dad today and I’ll avoid May.”

“How am I supposed to lie to The Winter Soldier?” he asked. 

“Tell him you have cramps. It always works. Plus, he’s not The Winter Soldier anymore,” you shrugged. 

Peter was about to say something but you were already skipping down the sidewalk back to Queens. 

Peter got back to the apartment complex you and Bucky lived in. He went upstairs and quietly slipped in. 

“Hey sweetheart. Where’d you go so early?” your dad asked. 

Peter hesitated until he remembered what you told him, “Uh cramps!” he blurted. He smiled sheepishly and waited for Bucky’s response. 

He stood up and walked to Peter, putting his hand on his forehead, "Are you feeling ok? Normally you don’t leave bed because of those.”

Peter had to think quickly, "I just uh… needed some fresh air.”

Bucky nodded and left the room. Peter quickly made his way back into your room. He pulled out your phone and called himself. 

“Hey Y/n. Did you get back ok?” Peter asked. 

“I’m on the subway still. I’ll be there in a few though. What’s up?”

“I was just making sure you were safe. It can be dangerous out there.”

You giggled at Peter’s protectiveness for you. You two had only grown close over the last day but anything he had done had given you butterflies. 

“I’ll be ok. I was a Hydra assassin for decades, remember?” 

Peter nodded, even though you couldn’t see it. He remembered the girl at the airport. He didn’t want to hurt her. She looked so fragile until he saw her almost take down Natasha by herself. He so badly wanted to pull her away from the fighting and keep her safe. Tony had told him not to. ‘Who knows what Barnes and Rogers would do if they found out you took her,’ those were the exact words Tony said. 

“Also there's a change of clothes I keep under my pillow. Just letting you know so you don’t have to dig through drawers.” 

“Ok thanks Petey!” you said. You had never called him that before.

“Goodbye Y/n/n,” he said. 

You hung up the phone just in time to get off the train. 

The rest of the day was pretty boring for both of you. You had to shoo May away multiple times. Claiming you had a huge headache and just wanted to sleep. Instead of sleeping, you looked around Peter’s room. You studied his photographs and posters and flipped through his books and comics. You pulled down a cardboard box from the closet and opened it. They were a bunch of old yearbooks. You sat crisscross on the ground and read them one by one. School changed a lot since you were last in one. You imagined yourself in Peter’s place and then imagined yourself alongside him. Being his best friend through all these years. 

Peter did the same thing you did. He went through some of your things from your childhood. He was always fascinated by history. He flipped through the clothes in your closet until he noticed a section in the back. The hangers were facing the opposite way as the others. He pulled them back and found a box. He grabbed the box and sat down on the bed. He pulled off the lid and stared at it’s contents. There were multiple journals, new and old. There were also loose leaf papers that looked like they belonged in a museum (which they did at one point). He emptied the box and looked at the papers. Some of them were flyers advertising the enlistment stations and others were photographs of you as a child. Most of them were either taken by Bucky or if he was in them with you, Steve. He saw a picture of just Bucky in his uniform by the train station.

 “This was probably the day he left,” he said quietly.

 He went to put the photos back but the bed dipped and some of the journals fell. He leaned down and saw one of them fell open. 

He grabbed it and read the page it was on:

I dreamt I was on the beach. Dad and Steve were playing catch. I was wrapped in a blanket cause Dad didn’t want me getting sick. I was about three. Before they tried to enlist. I remember Steve was invited but didn't want to go at first because Dad said it was ‘daddy daughter bonding time’ eventually Steve gave in and joined. I don’t remember if this part happened: I was really excited and tried to go swim but dad grabbed me by the waist to stop me. He said I had to stay with him since I was so small. I didn’t like that so I pouted. Then he tickled me and chased me until I was smiling and laughing. I hope that part was real. It was one of the happiest times of my life.

Peter smiled at the thought of baby you being happy and stress free. He noticed a note at the bottom of the page. It was dated the day of your mission. Peter remembered you told him you had a good dream, this must've been it. He heard Bucky’s footsteps down the hall and quickly put everything back in the box and slid it under the bed. Bucky knocked and Peter let him in. 

“Hey I was just seeing if you wanted something to eat. I can make something or I can order in. Up to you.” 

“Uh I don’t really mind. I’m ok with anything.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows, "Really? Normally you beg me to order from Panda Express. I don’t even know why you like that place so much.”

“Yeah I mean I’ll have that. I just wanted to let you have a say also.” 

Bucky chuckled and shook his head. He turned and closed the door. Peter heard him a few minutes later on the phone ordering food. Peter went to go to the bathroom. He looked down and screamed. Bucky came running to the room and opened the door. “Y/n? What’s wrong? Are you ok?” 

Peter walked out of the bathroom and looked at your dad, "I’m...Uh...Bleeding.”

Bucky had concern written all over his face., "Oh. Do you need help with the wound or help cleaning up?” he asked. 

Peter looked at him and realized he didn’t know what he meant, "It’s not from an injury though,” he explained. 

Bucky looked confused. Then it hit him, "Sweetheart. You know this happens every month and is normal. Do we need to have the talk again?” 

Peter was mortified. He totally forgot that he didn’t know that he was trapped in your body. Peter shook his head, "Umm. No, I'm good. It just sur-” a sudden wave of cramps hit Peter and he doubled over in pain, “Shit it hurts,” he mumbled. 

Bucky bent down to pick him up. He carried him to the bed and sat him down. 

“I’ll get you some meds ok. You can eat up here tonight,” Bucky kissed the top of his head and left. 

You had run into a similar situation in Queens. You were laying on Peter’s bed staring at the ceiling, messing with his webs. You were shooting them around the room, seeing what you could grab. You were too preoccupied and didn’t hear May knocking on the door. When she didn’t hear a response she opened the door and went in. You got startled and somehow managed to web yourself to the bed. “Oh sorry Peter. I didn’t know you were doing… what ever you were just doing,” 

“It’s not what you’re thinking Mis- I mean May,” you stuttered. 

“Peter it’s fine. You don’t have to explain. But we do have to get you out of those webs,” she moved over to the drawer where Peter must’ve kept the web remover stuff. After a few minutes, you were finally free. 

Missing Pieces

for @buckybarnesbingo !!!

by: Lira (me)

square filled: U1 - galaxy

main pairing: bucky/clint

rating: T

major tags: emotional hurt comfort, childhood memories, angst with a happy ending, established relationship

summary: When Clint becomes down and distracted, Bucky takes it upon himself to discover what's bothering his boyfriend. Even though Clint won't talk about it. Even though Bucky has too many missing pieces. Or, In which Bucky goes to great lengths to make Clint smile.

word count: 2942

*

“He’s on the roof again, isn’t he.”

Natasha nods, eyes flicking almost imperceptibly to the ceiling. Bucky shoves his hands into his pockets, his face drawn down in a scowl.

“He still not talking about it?” she asks.

He glares, she quirks an eyebrow. He almost laughs; they rarely have to resort to words to communicate.

Bucky walks back through the doors, heading up to the roof.

“He’s sad,” Natasha says with a sigh. “He just doesn’t know how to show it.” Then, softer, “Please find a way to help him. This doesn’t seem to be a take him to the gym until he punches it out or tease him until he screams at me kind of situation. I’m pretty sure it’s boyfriend territory.”

“I–” He stops, unsure how to go on. He knows it pains her to admit she can’t solve a problem on her own. “Thanks, Natalia.” He doesn't look back, but he can feel her downcast, almost-smile.

* 

He finds Clint on one of his rooftop perches, the one that sticks out over the edge of nothingness and makes Bucky’s stomach do a little flip-flop to see Clint so easily sprawled there. His lithe, muscular body looks relaxed, like he could roll off any second, but Bucky knows he’s in perfect control. Bucky takes a moment to just look at him: straw colored hair turned silver in glow of the rooftop lights, head leaned back so he can stare at the cloud-streaked sky, a band-aid on the back of his hand. His hand… The rest of him looks relaxed, but the hand Bucky can see is balled into a fist.

Clint holds his tension in his hands.

Bucky makes sure his steps are loud enough that Clint isn’t startled when he says, “Hey doll.”

Waiting until Bucky’s standing almost behind him, Clint swings his body around so he’s straddling the perch, his feet hanging down in the air, arms folded on the top of the metal post that had been his backrest, chin resting lightly on his crossed wrists.

“Heya sweetheart.” The easy smile is missing, but there’s a softening around the eyes.

Bucky eases up close, kissing Clint’s forehead and taking a moment to breathe in the scent of his hair. “Nice night,” he murmurs. “Spy anything interestin’?”

Bucky feels the tension radiating from Clint. “Nothing to see.” His voice has a bitter edge. Waving a hand at the sky, he adds, “There’s nothing but clouds. Not even those, really.”

The sky above them is a hazy muddle of black and grey, with some of the grey being a little brighter and streakier and cloudier. Clint’s right, an airplane could fly directly overhead and they wouldn’t see it.

“Guess not,” he says. “Still, it is a nice night. Almost warm, for September. You mind if I sit up here with you for a while?”

Clint shrugs, then turns back to face the city and the sky again. “Be my guest. It’s Stark’s rooftop anyway.”

It feels like a wall dropped down between them, but if Clint says he can stay, Bucky’s staying.

They don’t talk at all, just sit in silence. It’s awkward at first–not because they’re uncomfortable with each other anymore, but because they both know Clint’s hiding something. Clint’s giving off angry-embarrassed-melancholy vibes that practically chime in the air around him, and Bucky’s projecting “caring boyfriend” as hard as he can. But after twenty minutes or so they both figure out how to calm down and just…be. When Bucky steals glances he notices that while Clint’s hand is still clenching and unchencing, worrying at something, his jaw is relaxed again.

He notices other things too. Clint’s breathing is easy, but every once in a while there’s a slight hitch, as if his breath catches on a stray thought. Whenever there’s a particularly strong gust of wind, he squints at the sky, as if it might reveal something previously unknown. And although his bow and quiver are in easy reach, they’re propped up on the roof behind him, not actually on his person. So whatever’s eating at him, it’s not an outside threat.

Not the kind you can shoot with an arrow, anyway.

“I think I’m gonna head down to bed,” Bucky says, feeling his knees pop as he gets to his feet. He may be a supersoldier, but his body still reacts to being in a semi-uncomfortable position on a hard rooftop for several hours. Not that he hasn’t done it before, in far less pleasurable situations than this. He gives his head a tiny shake, a physical reminder that he’s not the Winter Soldier anymore. He looks at Clint. “You comin’ anytime soon?”

Clint swallows, looks down at his hands, then turns his face away. “I, ah, was thinking I’d maybe sleep up here tonight. The last few nights our bedroom, our floor, the whole Tower, really...it’s all been feeling a bit…” He sighs, then finally turns to look at Bucky. “It all just feels too small.”

Small?

Keeping his voice as even as possible, Bucky says, “Clint, at least fifty percent of the time you spend in the Tower is spent crawling through the vents.”

Clint looks back at the sky. “And yet.”

Bucky presses his lips together, holding back the urge to shout, “What is wrong?” at the top of his voice. After a beat he says, “I’ll go get you some blankets, then. Or,” he adds, inspiration striking, “I could send Natalia?”

“Got everything I need.” Clint gestures vaguely over his shoulder, and Bucky sees a muddle of darker darkness he’d missed before among the other shadows on the roof. There’s a cot and a sleeping bag and a pillow, even a thermos Bucky’s sure is full of coffee.

“Say, were you a Boy Scout?” Bucky teases.

“Just because I wasn’t a Scout doesn’t mean I can’t be prepared.” There’s an almost hurt tone to Clint’s voice, hurt and maybe a little reproachful.

Bucky doesn’t know what to say, so he just lets the silence stretch for a few more minutes. Then he puts his hands on Clint’s shoulders and kisses the top of his head. “Night, doll,” he murmurs into Clint’s hair.

Our bed won’t be the same without you, he wants to say.

Pretty sure I won’t sleep tonight, thinkin’ about you up here in the cold, he thinks.

Do you know I hold onto a pillow when you’re not around to hold at night? he doesn’t ask.

Instead of saying anything at all, he takes one more breath, waits one more moment, then turns and walks away.

 *

Bucky doesn’t get much sleep. He thoroughly examines their darkened ceiling, the shadows on the walls, the thoughts bombarding the inside of his skull. He’s trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing pieces. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach at the image; it’s too much like a look back at his own past. There are too many things he still doesn’t remember, even after all this time.

He dozes off a little after three am, sleeps for about an hour. He’s not restored when he wakes, just cranky and tired because the bed is–of course–empty, and all he can think is that Clint must be cold without his own personal supersoldier to warm him up. After a few minutes of attempting to kick the blankets and pillows into submission he gives up and stomps to the bathroom to shower; Tony won’t be happy if he breaks another of their beds, even if he breaks this one on his own.

 *

Although he wants to take breakfast to Clint on the roof, sense wins and Bucky waits in the kitchen. He knows Clint will be down fairly early; that thermos might last a person with an average coffee habit a whole cold night, but Clint’s coffee addiction is far from average.

Bleary-eyed from less than stellar sleep and rosy cheeked from wind, Clint stumbles into the common floor at 5:27. Bucky’s waiting with a mug of coffee, hand outstretched.

As expected, Clint doesn’t speak. His grabby hands speak for him.

“Mornin’ doll,” Bucky says with a grin. As Clint slumps onto the stool Bucky flips pancakes and bacon onto a plate and slides it in front of Clint, along with the butter and maple syrup. “Thought you might be needin’ a little pick-me-up.”

“You gonna pick me up?” Clint says with a sly, sleepy wink. He punctuates the wink with a jaw-cracking yawn.

Bucky laughs, shaking his head. “Even exhausted and half frozen you can’t help a good innuendo, can you.”

“Never,” Clint says, digging into his breakfast; with less alacrity than normal, maybe, but at least he’s eating. After a few bites he looks up at Bucky, leaning against the counter a few feet away, and smiles. A real smile. “Thanks. This hits the spot.”

“You’re just sayin’ that cause I made coffee,” Bucky drawls.

“I’m able to speak because you made coffee. I’m saying thank you because you made bacon.”

It’s a nearly normal day in the Tower: the usual breakfast and light-hearted bickering, target practice on the range, working out in the gym, playing ridiculously competitive games of MarioKart in the afternoon. Clint is there but not there; he participates, and even though his shooting is flawless as usual he’s clearly distracted, at least to Bucky’s trained eye. Clint’s not fully engaged in anything, and so much of Bucky’s attention is focused on Clint that when they’re sparring Sam lands a punch Bucky could have easily blocked. Everyone in the room collectively gasps a breath.

Almost everyone. Clint doesn’t even notice.

Later in the day, from the corner of his eye, Bucky spies Clint peeking down from one of the vents.

His mind keeps coming back to the puzzle with too many missing pieces. There’s no way to see what the picture is with a bit of the border and a few scattered center pieces. The vents are okay, but the Tower at night is too small? And how does any of that connect to Clint’s air of melancholy, his distraction? It’s bewildering.

Clint sleeps on the roof again that night.

 *

Bucky’s a little jittery with nerves when, two nights later, he joins Clint on the rooftop again. When he stands behind him, resting his hands on his shoulders, he feels Clint relax, minutely, at his touch. Just that tiny thing calms him, and when he speaks his words are even, without a hint of a tremble.

“Will you try something for me, doll?”

Clint swings around to face him in that easy, graceful way he has. Bucky’s seen it a hundred times, a thousand, but he’s still in awe. He moves like the world had been built as his playground, like gravity is something to be toyed with instead of taken seriously.

“Anything for you, sweetheart.” Clint’s smile is slight but true, so Bucky barrels onward.

“Come downstairs. You don’t have to stay,” he adds quickly, seeing the smile on Clint’s face ebb away. “I promise. I just want to show you something.”

Bucky can see Clint pulling bits of himself inward, building that protective shell that’s been coming up more and more the past week or so, but still he climbs onto the roof, snagging his bow with one hand and reaching his other out to find Bucky’s in the glow of the rooftop lights.

“Alright,” he says, trusting.

Squeezing Clint’s fingers, Bucky says, “Yeah. Alright.”

 *

The lack of typical Clint chatter is glaring, somehow shouting in the empty, echoing stairwell. But neither of them hesitates. Bucky, for one, is too focused on getting Clint to their bedroom, keeping him tethered to the earth when his ever-increasing nerves threaten to carry him away. Clint is probably miles away, in another state if Bucky’s guess is correct. He’ll find out soon if he’s found the missing puzzle pieces.

In the doorway of their bedroom Clint says, “Huh. It’s clean.”

Bucky fights to resist and fails. “That’s what happens when you’re not here to throw everything everywhere,” he says, his voice dry. “Half of this couple knows how to put things away. Maybe you’ve figured out which half that is.”

Clint chuckles. “Aw, Buck, you wouldn’t want me any other way.”

Leading him to the bed, Bucky asks, “But isn’t it nice to be able to walk across the floor without tripping? Maybe we could use as many as ten fewer bandaids per year if you just put your dirty clothes in the hamper.”

Clint sits willingly enough, but when Bucky tries to pull him down so they’re laying side by side on their backs, Clint resists. He’s laughing, but there’s an edge to his words when he asks, “Was all this just about getting me to bed?”

“Doll, we’ve had sex on that roof more times than I can count.”

He feels Clint relax beside him. “Remember when Tony caught us under the quinjet? Ah, good times.”

Sitting up, Bucky rests a hand on Clint’s thigh, rubbing soothing circles. “Jesting aside. If you’re uncomfortable you can go, but…” He’s looking for the right words to say when he feels Clint’s hand on his. “It’s alright,” Clint says. “I trust you.”

It’s moments like these Bucky fought for–still fights for. Tiny bits of closeness, of another human being reassuring him he’s still human himself, still true, still worthy of love. He kisses Clint’s forehead–he rather desperately wants to do more but this particular bedroom visit is not about sex and he doesn’t want to give either of them the wrong idea–and sprawls beside him, tangling their fingers together. “Ready, JARVIS?”

“Of course, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Wha–” Clint starts, but his question is answered almost before he can ask it when the room plunges into darkness.

“Oh.”

Just one word and Bucky knows it’s going to be alright. Awe and wonder and no more walls between them.

“Stevie helped, but it was my idea. I just asked him ’cause he’s used to holding a paintbrush.”

Laughing, Clint squeezes Bucky’s hand and scoots closer on the bed. “How’d you do it?” His voice, soft, is lighter than it’s been in days.

“Glow in the dark paint.”

Clint elbows Bucky in the side. “I can see that. I mean…” He waves at the stars on the ceiling, the patterns and constellations mimicking the sky they can’t quite see through the light pollution of the city.

“JARVIS projected the, ah, map, I guess you’d call it, onto the ceiling, and Tony rigged up some hover platforms for us to lay on while we painted. Just call me Michaelangelo,” Bucky deadpans.

Clint turns his head and presses a kiss into Bucky’s shoulder. “Thanks, Buck. I–” His breath hitches; he takes a minute, then starts over. “When I was a kid I used to climb out my window onto the roof, when things got to be...too much. The sky was so big, I could look at the stars and just...get lost. Forget about everything else in the vastness of the universe.” He chuckles, though it sounds a bit forced in Bucky’s ears. “Not that I was thinking like that back in those days. Mostly I was just thinking that I was alone on the roof, but I’d be really alone if I could get to the stars.” After a shaky breath he adds, “Alone and safe.”

They look at the stars together for one breath, two breaths. Then Bucky says, “I’m sorry it had to be that way for you.”

“I’m not.” Before Bucky can object, Clint says, “Don’t get me wrong, there are times–many times, if I’m honest–I wish my childhood could have been brighter. Warmer. Safer. But all that crap is what made me who I am. Would I have ever picked up a bow if Barney and I hadn’t run away and joined the circus? Would I be an Avenger? Or would I be married with a dog and two kids and a white picket fence?”

Still staring up into the galaxy spread out above them, Bucky says, slow and soft, “Without my own hellish past I’d be an old man now. Or…” He doesn’t finish the thought, but they’re both thinking the word. Dead. A word they both think often enough, in their line of work, but try not to think about each other. Or say. Almost as one they move closer together, heads clunking almost audibly.

“Ow!” The sound Clint makes is half laugh, half bark of pain.

And then Bucky’s laughing; loud, full laughter that eats away all the tension that’s been building for days. Soon they’re clinging to each other, laughing so hard tears stream from their eyes. Laughing until they can’t even remember why, until they’re only laughing because it feels so good.

“So,” Bucky says when their laughter fades to the occasional gasp or giggle. “Is it okay to say I’m glad you walked down the path that led to me?”

With barely contained laughter in his voice, Clint says, “Only if I can say I’m glad you made it all the way to my present to be struck by Cupid’s arrow.”

 *

Clint does not sleep on the roof that night...but he and Bucky do sleep under the stars.

***

We are made of stardust– every atom in you, in me, once came from Sirius, or Alpha Centauri; they hung from the buckle of Orion’s belt or fell from Cassiopeia’s fingertips.

So together we make up a galaxy an ocean of stars with islands of planets

and where our lips meet, a supernova.

Careless

For @b-lank-0 in return for the lovely art she drew for Witness!!! It was awesome and amazing and you can find it on my Instagram

Warnings: non/dubcon, rough sex, multiple partners, threat of violence, humiliation.

This is dark!Bucky Barnes and dark!Steve Rogers and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: You share a floor with Bucky and Steve in Stark Tower. They’re growing tired of your general cluelessness and they let it be known.

DISCLAIMER: READ ALL WARNINGS. ALL OF THEM.

It was difficult at first. You hadn’t lived with anyone since that one year in university. After that, you had requested a private dorm; late nights filled with your roommates blaring music and raucous voices had been too much. Ever since, you had held to the pattern of solitary. You weren’t anti-social per se, more socially inept. Your childhood shyness had only grown to adulthood aloofness. So it was that you had moved into Stark Tower with trepidation.

You had been an intelligence operative for years but only recently promoted to work directly with Stark and his team. Your move to New York had been stressful in itself and Tony had generously offered to save you a fortune in rent with a tenure at his infamous skyscraper. You had accepted if only because you had no other option. Yet the prospect of living alongside those you had only ever seen on the news was even more overwhelming than merely the thought of living with others.

The actual arrangements had cemented your anxiety; stirring a constant storm of nerves within. You were to share a floor with the two super soldiers and thus far they had been less than welcoming. You supposed that was mostly your fault. Your shyness was often mistaken for standoffishness and you were clumsy to boot. Disaster was never far behind you. The only thing you were skilled at was your job and that only took up so much of your time. When left to your own devices, well, you were better off doing nothing at all than even trying.

Today was no exception to the rules. It had been almost a month since your arrival at the tower. You were slowly growing used to your roommates. You had learned to time your own daily routine around theirs. You woke up early to shower before they woke so you were gone before them and ate your meals in the common room a few floors down. When you were in the loft, you tried to stay in your room. The few times you had run into Steve or Bucky, you felt as if you were in their way. Especially after spilling a bowl of cereal on the former and elbowing the other in his rib as you tried to untangle your sleeve from a door handle.

You were in the shower when it all fell apart. You were just washing the last of the soap from your hair when the alarm began to wail. Shit! You forgot you put the kettle on for tea and you had taken a bit longer than planned. You pulled back the curtain and wrapped yourself in a towel before you dashed into the hallway. You cursed under your breath as you ran to the stove, the smoke rising as you turned the knob to ‘off’. You took the dishcloth from over the oven handle and began to fan the thick cloud away from the alarm’s sensor.

“Jesus,” Bucky’s angry voice was the last you wanted to hear. Steve followed behind as they arrived to scowl at your latest fiasco.

The alarm stopped its song and you lowered your arm and hung the dishcloth back in its spot. You gulped as you clutched the top of the towel together. Water dripped from your hair in cool pebbles down your back. You shivered as the smoke cleared and the super soldiers remained; grumbling as they crossed their arms at you.

“Sorry, guys,” You cringed, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Well you did,” Bucky growled as he neared and leaned against the fridge. He yawned though it sounded more a snarl.

“You know, we just got back from a mission?” Steve huffed, his chest rose and fell dangerously. You noticed then that neither of them were dressed. They only wore their boxers and it made you even more aware of your own lack of clothing.

“At three a.m.,” Bucky added, “So about three hours ago.”

“I really didn’t mean too. I was just making tea.” You blinked innocently.

“While you were in the shower?” Steve’s arms uncrossed, his hands on his hips now. “Smart.”

“You really need to get your head on straight,” Bucky gritted through his teeth, “This little sweet act isn’t gonna cut it forever.”

“Tony and his pet projects,” Steve chortled darkly, “He does pick the most tragic characters.”

“Hey,” Despite the active discontent aimed in your direction, your hackles rose at the jab. “I earned my place here. Same as you.”

“No, you see we’re agents and you’re, well...” Steve looked to Bucky.

“A desk jockey,” Bucky finished. “You’re Stark’s little pet. Running around, grabbing his files and his coffee.”

“No,” Your voice peaked, “I do more than that. I-I-I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Oh look, the little mouse is upset,” Bucky chuckled, “She might even bite if we push her far enough.”

“Just leave me alone,” You grumbled and made to walk past them. They moved in tandem and closed the space between them; blocking your way out of the kitchen. “Get out of my way.”

“You gonna make us?” Steve challenged.

“Just...you two, stop, okay? I’ll go talk to Tony and have him change my room.” You hugged your chest as the towel threatened to slip.

“Hmm,” They looked at each other before their eyes went back to you, “We don’t want you to move.”

“No, we just want you to learn a few things,” Bucky smirked, “Like how this whole thing works.”

“What ‘whole thing’?” You asked dryly. You stepped back just a little under the heat of their gaze.

“Living together, working together…” Steve’s eyes strayed along your bare shoulder, “I don’t think the problem here is your general oblivion.”

“No, there’s tension, you see? Anger at first, sure, but more than that,” Bucky flexed his biceps as he spoke. “We need to get it all out in the open. Take the stress out of this place.”

You took another step back and looked around the loft. You weren’t sure you caught their meaning clearly. You swallowed your nerves. “Look, I’m just going to have my tea and you two can get back to bed.” You turned and opened a cupboard, distracting yourself as you searched for the breakfast tea. “I’ll be quiet. I promise.”

You closed the cupboard door, the tea swiftly snatched from your grip. Steve threw the box over his shoulder and it bounced into the sink. You tried to back away but found yourself colliding with another; unseen until his arm was around your middle. Bucky clung to you and shifted you next to the stove. With his free arm he reached over your shoulder and moved the kettle from one burner to the other. He grabbed your hand and raised it over the hot coil; just close enough to feel its heat.

“Now, you’re going to do as we say or we’ll just teach you the old fashioned way,” Your hand was only an inch from the burner. “Understood?”

You trembled as he held you against the stove. Your voice rose an octave as you choked out your answer. “Y-yes.”

You glanced over at Steve, shocked as he hooked his thumbs in his boxer and removed them with a single swipe. As he stood upright, so did his cock and you gasped. Bucky pulled you away from the stove and released your hand. He tugged at the towel until it fell away and you tried to catch it. Bucky’s hands were on your shoulders, pushing you towards the island opposite the counter. Your stomach hit the lip painfully and you soon found yourself bent over the island.

Steve came to the other side, his thick fingers brushed your damp hair away from your face. He smacked your ass, your feet dangling to the floor as you struggled to reach the tile. Steve’s hand knotted in your hair and he pulled your head back, his other hand on his cock.

“Don--” You were smothered as he pushed himself past your lips, grazing your teeth.

You almost bit down as you felt Bucky’s cock prodding at your entrance. You kicked your feet out and he slapped your ass with both hands. You yelped around Steve’s cock as he shoved himself further, gagging you as he met the back of your throat. Bucky entered you as he spread your ass, bottoming out as Steve did the same. Your hands gripped the countertop as you struggled to breath.

“Now, I think this is much better than arguing,” Steve remarked as his hand went to your neck. He could feel his cock as it moved inside.

The sensation of both of them inside of you was too much. The shock of how quickly it had all descended was worse. You could barely breathe, the invasion of both mouth and pussy was painful. Bucky’s metal fingers stabbed into your hip and Steve’s hand formed a vice as he held both your neck and hair as he plowed into your face. You were struggling to stay conscious as Bucky got deeper inside, well past your limit.

You gurgled around Steve’s cock, the slobber coating his length and your lips. Their grunts and the slapping of flesh drowned out any noise you made in your distress. You reached out to grasp Steve’s thighs, trying to hold him away from you. He only thrust harder and you started slapping him blindly, your eyes rolling back.

You felt yourself growing wetter as Bucky worked into you easier. Your face was on fire, both from the ongoing assault and your shame. The little flicker was growing to a spark. You felt Bucky’s grip on your leg as he forced you to bend it up on your counter at a right angle. You were even more open to him and he held your leg in place with a growl.

“Fuck, Stevey, you were right,” He snarled, “She’s not so hopeless after all.”

“Oh yeah,” Steve pulled out of your mouth suddenly. “Come on, switch.”

“P-please,” You tried to pull yourself away from Bucky’s relentless pounding. He dragged you back and pinched your ass before he removed himself. Your leg slipped down weakly.

His hands were replaced by two flesh ones and Steve entered you without warning. He wasn’t any gentler than Bucky and you writhed as you heard Bucky coming around the counter. “Don’t worry,” He grabbed your hair, “I don’t need your mouth to finish,” He stroked himself as he smirked down at you, “All you have to catch.” His hand slipped to your chin and he squeezed, “Open up.”

You were forced to obey as his fingers crushed your jaw and he rubbed himself faster, his tip tapping your lip as he began to moan. Steve’s thrusts were unwinding you as you watched Bucky play with himself. Steve moved your legs together, creating a snugger fit for his cock. You let out a long moan which peaked as your orgasm came suddenly at the change in position. Bucky hissed and white streams spurted forth, some in your mouth, more along the bridge of your nose and above your eye.

Bucky backed away as he slowed to a halt and your hips were slammed into the counter’s edge. You were empty within the second and felt another hot stream along your back as Steve came too. You slipped from the marble as he let you go and you crumpled to the floor heavily. Neither of them paid much heed as they breathed heavily above you. You could barely keep sitting up as your muscles buzzed.

“Now,” You sensed them as they came near and looked up. Spit and cum all over your face. “I think we’re ready to go back to bed.” Steve smirked as Bucky flicked his brows up. “Think you can keep quiet?”

speaking of mcu spidey weirdness, am i the only one who feels like they tried to fuse flash with a harry on a particularly bad trip? i remember him being brown in a comic timeline but never mean when sober. and after pheathers, making the bully a smart member of a minority group just feels tonedeaft

I think there’s a very good argument for Norman and Harry being mixed race in the main canon, because I think Norman reads best as a character if there’s something about him that he’s personally and to his detriment deeply ashamed of and repressed about and that he goes to great lengths to cover up. This could be that he’s mixed race --- the tight curl pattern of the Osborn hair, and Harry’s afro in Spider-Gwen’s flashback scenes could lend themselves to this -- or that he’s Jewish -- again, the tight curl pattern of the Osborn hair and Harry’s afro in the Spider-Gwen flashbacks, along with the extremely questionable decision to have Harry bullied for being rich by having kids call him “the Green Goblin.” (It is actually still antisemitic if you don’t actually go all the way there, Jason Latour.) The self-hating Jew aspect definitely becomes problematic in a canon where Peter Parker isn’t himself openly and proudly canonically Jewish, so I tend to steer clear of this one, though I do think it could be very interesting in terms of Norman turning himself into the ultimate stereotype of the wealth-hoarding evil Jewish business man through his own self-hatred. My current favorite reading of Norman is that Norman is a deeply repressed gay man. There’s plenty of subtext here to support this: the obsession with Peter Parker as the young and strong masculine ideal, the deeply campy original Green Goblin design with the fuschia purse and the huge fake eyelashes, Norman’s eschewing and disdain for his genetic descendants, the paralleling between Norman’s abuse of Harry with a father’s sexual abuse of his son in The Child Within, and the seduction and later the torture of Flash Thompson when Norman recruited him to be his assistant after his return from the dead. It’s all potentially, to use a word I hate, very problematic without a deft hand in the storytelling, but I think done right and balanced against some honest and positive representation any of the above could offer up some very good stories. 

Anyway, all that Osborn stuff aside, yeah, the decisions made with Flash in the MCU truly baffle me. I like the casting of Tony Revolori, who I really enjoyed in Grand Hotel Budapest, but the decision to make him a nerd who verbally bullies Peter instead of a jock who antagonizes Peter is bizarre, to say the least. I think I read an article somewhere that said the change was made because jocks aren’t the “in kids” anymore, which, like, presents a weird picture of current American high school politics where all the nerds are just picking on each other now in an attempt to become the new pop culture ruling class. Then there’s the fact that Flash, now A Smart Kid, is routinely passed over in favor of Peter, kicked off the decathlon in favor of Peter, and, during the Washington Monument scene, depicted as a person who would rather save a trophy than help his classmate and in-comics high school girlfriend, Liz. So now that Flash is brown, the MCU has decided to portray him as a smart kid who is routinely passed over for the supposedly smarter white kid, and a materialistic coward beside. I’ve seen Homecoming get a lot of praise for its diverse cast, and I have to say I do like much of the casting, but the follow through in the actual movie is, I would say, far less progressive than it looks on paper. See also: this being the first Spider-Man movie with a black love interest and coincidentally the first Spider-Man movie without a kiss scene in it, and the erasure of Mary Jane’s identity by pasting her nickname onto a character the screenwriters have been very open about saying isn’t Mary Jane, a character who isn’t even given a last name within the film, following the massive racist backlash after rumors broke out that Zendaya was playing Mary Jane. 

It’s also important, in my opinion, to note that in main comics continuity Flash Thompson’s childhood was marked by violent and repeated physical abuse by his father. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is the only film franchise to reference this, even though Flash Thompson is a character who has appeared in all three Spider-Man film franchises. The Thompson family in 616 is depicted as extremely blue collar: Flash is a high school football star whose father is a cop and an alcoholic who beats his son and ridicules his wife. They live in a modest apartment. MCU Flash, by contrast, is depicted as a nerd who drives a very expensive car and gets ousted from the academic decathlon by Peter, who doesn’t even care about the decathlon and just needs an excuse to go to DC where -- conveniences of all plot conveniences -- the decathlon is being held. I mean, they just bussed my dad out to Brooklyn when he was a mathlete, but whatever. (Spider-Man: Homecoming has a deeply weird undercurrent about financial status; almost everyone in the movie is either depicted as comfortably middle class, including the Parkers, or as rich.) I’m going to admit: the scene where Peter steals and wrecks Flash’s car made me deeply uncomfortable in the theater, knowing Flash’s comics backstory. Absence of on-screen or referenced abuse is not, in and of itself, a lack of that abuse within the story, or rather an erasure of the contents of the work the story was adapted from. If we assume 616 is the main universe, and that everything leads out of there, then from my perspective, unless other evidence is offered up, there’s no reason to assume things don’t line up, i.e., without direct evidence otherwise I have to assume Flash is still a victim of parental abuse. Expensive gifts like a car isn’t direct evidence against that. Flash being a nerd now isn’t direct evidence against that.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #-1)

(Amazing Spider-Man #574)

(Venom (2011) #27)

So I think about scenes like this and then I think about Flash being the butt of the joke in Spider-Man: Homecoming over Peter stealing his car and at the very least, I have to say, I’m not happy with the lack of nuance presented, or the implication that the MCU’s Flash couldn’t be a victim of abuse because he’s a rich nerd in this iteration. It is, now that you mention it, a bizarrely Harry Osborn-esque take on the character: the expensive car, the rich background, smart but not as smart as Peter, a bit of a jerk to Peter in their early acquaintanceship in a verbal rather than a physical way, not exactly the bravest crayon in the box. But there’s an issue in that too because, like Flash, although rarely depicted as physically, Harry was also abused in his childhood by his father. So we’re back to square one with the car scene and some troubling implications, turning a character who bears the name of one abused character and wears the traits of another into the butt of a joke so Audi could fit another car into the movie. 

Like I said, I do like the casting and I think Revolori is a great actor and did his best with the part he was given -- I just wish the character had been handled by the writers and director with any compassion. A big part of me wishes that instead of pasting Ned Leeds’ name over Ganke Lee, Miles Morales’ best friend, the MCU had compressed the timeline and just let Flash Thompson inhabit his future rule as Peter Parker’s best friend. Instead, we get Flash Thompson, The One Note Bully: Nerd Remix. 

Reunited: A Stucky Story

I recently fell down the Stucky wormhole after @dracosollicitus started posting her Stucky WIP What’s Left of Kisses (side note, go read that when you’re done here). I’ve read a lot of Stucky stories in the past two months, but I couldn’t find one that had them reuniting in a modern-day, non superhero setting. After a while I decided I should write it myself. I added in Shuri/Bucky BroTP because I LOVE them as besties, as well as a little Jessica Jones/Bucky Barnes friendship because I love JJ and want her in all the Marvel stories. And of course, the women of Marvel ship Stucky and take measures to throw them together. This is my first Stucky story, and, if it’s a ship you’re into, I hope you’ll like what I’ve come up with.

Title: Reunited

Rating: T for mild language and brief mentions of sex

Summary: Bucky Barnes never thought he’d see his childhood best friend, and source of his first heartbreak, Steve Rogers ever again. He is thrown for a loop when Steve ends up working for one of his new clients. What happens now that these boys are together again? Can Bucky finally overcome his nerves and confess his true feelings to Steve?

Also on AO3

On a typical Wednesday morning, Bucky Barnes walked into work, completely unaware that by the end of the day, his life would change forever. That morning had seemed like a normal day in the office. The coffee was stale, the old donuts sat untouched and unmoved, and Shuri was teasing him just like she did every day. “Hey Bucky!” she yelled from across the room. “Yes?” He asked, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement as he approached their shared workspace. Shuri’s brown eyes sparkled with mirth. “Peter and I are in an argument-” “More like a disagreement,” Peter interrupted, his head poking above the cube wall. “An argument,” Shuri continued “about what dating was like before cell phones. I figured you could help me settle it.” “Really?” Bucky raised his eyebrows in response. “I’m not that much older than you guys. I got my first cell phone in high school.” “But that was old tech,” Shuri clarified. “No dating apps; limited texting. What did you do when you had to… call… people?” She said the word ‘call’ as if it offended her. “I don’t know,” Bucky replied, “I just called them.” He dropped his messenger bag to the floor and sank into his desk chair. “What even is this argument about?” “I say people didn’t… have sex,” Peter explained, a flush rising up over his cheeks and ears. “I mean, that is, they didn’t have sex as soon. They waited longer. Since, you know, they weren’t sexting or sending-” he cut himself off as the remainder of his face turned the same shade as a tomato. Shuri gave an exasperated sigh. “Dick pics, Peter. The phrase is dick pics.”

Bucky groaned and hung his head, his chin length hair falling around his face. “You know, we are working…” “Anyway! I say that even if they couldn’t send dick pics, people still found ways to get nasty because people have always found ways to get nasty.” “What did I just walk in on?” Shuri’s brother, their boss and owner of the company, T’Challa walked up with a concerned look on his face. “Do I need to call Okoye?” “No, please, sir,” Peter fumbled. “Ha!” Shuri laughed. “Peter’s scared of HR!” “I’m not scared of HR; just Okoye. She can be so tough!” “Please make them stop,” Bucky pleaded, turning to T’Challa. Their boss only laughed in return. “If you find a way to make my sister stop, Barnes, you come let me know. I haven’t found one yet.” He walked on, continuing his morning lap of the office. After a minute, as Bucky was bringing up his email, Shuri pushed her chair over to his desk. “So, old man, what did you guys do?” Bucky stopped his perusal to reminisce. He remembered rushing home to get to his computer and see if Steve was online. They would chat for hours via AIM, unless one of them had to get off the computer so a parent could use the phone line. When they each got cell phones they would call each other at 9:00pm sharp, when minutes were unlimited, and talk until one or both of their phone batteries died. A flush grew on his cheeks as he remembered the not-so-innocent turn their conversations sometimes took. While he never did anything explicit with Steve, he thoroughly remembered some of the thoughts he’d had during those conversations; thoughts he’d been too afraid to express. And the things he did with other people, in an attempt to get Steve out of his head. “Shuri’s right.” He said, looking at Peter. Shuri smirked conspiratorially. “Oooo… Bucky got nasty!” “That’s all I’m saying,” Bucky replied, turning back to his screen. Bucky worked for Wakanda Tech, or WT as the employees called it, a startup taking the corporate communications world by storm. T’Challa inherited the company from his father, but most of their recent products came directly from Shuri’s designs. She was a wunderkind, with an innate understanding of technology that put people twice her age to shame. And somehow she managed to combine her technical ability with a personality that was warm and engaging. It was impossible not to like Shuri. Bucky considered himself lucky to have landed a position at WT. Most of the employees were in their early 20’s. He was a random outlier, having met Okoye, their director of HR, at a job fair for veterans. Okoye was not your typical HR rep. She had a strict no-bullshit policy and had no issue with calling out her employees when she felt they were in violation of that. But she was also fiercely loyal and dedicated to the success of WT, having grown up alongside T’Challa. Okoye had an eye for talent, and she saw something in Bucky, even if he didn’t really see it himself. He worked as a implementation manager, helping get new clients on the platform once they’d purchased a license. Bucky had an eye for organization, a direct result of his military training. His personal life might be a mess, but he knew how to get other people in order. Once Shuri and Peter settled their dispute, the office became quiet, although a hum of anticipation still hung in the air. Today was a very important day for WT. T’Challa had been in discussions with Tony Stark about bringing their product to Stark Inc. If they landed this contract, there would be a huge bonus for everyone. Negotiations were almost complete; Stark was coming by later to hopefully sign the final documents. Bucky couldn’t calm the anxiety that crept up his spine. He never liked brash, overcompensating men like Stark- or at least the way Stark was portrayed in the media. When he was younger, he’d stopped more than a few of those types from beating Steve to a pulp. He’d learned to live with them in the Army, being surrounded by meatheads who preened like peacocks to hide their insecurities. He’d had his fill of guys like that during his time in the service, and did his best to avoid them now. Unfortunately, there was only one other Implementation Manager at WT, Peter, and he was too green to take on the Stark job. Like it or not, Bucky would have to be in the room with Stark later that day, and he’d most likely also have to suck up to the man. His stomach roiled and he skipped lunch, hiding out at his desk while he nibbled on a few crackers.

The day kept moving like a freight train, and, before long, it was time. The quiet, efficient atmosphere of WT was turned on its ear when Tony Stark walked in. Bucky watched from the safety of his desk as Stark was greeted by T’Challa. “Mr. Stark,” the always professional entrepreneur began as he shook Stark’s hand. “No no,” his guest interrupted, “if we’re gonna work together, you gotta call me Tony.” The man spoke his words in a rapid clip, as if he didn’t have time to breathe properly between syllables. “Very well, Tony: welcome to Wakanda Tech.” T’Challa gestured proudly around the office. “Small operation you got here, huh?” “We believe in a flat organization structure, to maximize efficiency.” “Great use of buzzwords there, pal,” Stark replied, placing his hand on T’Challa’s shoulder. Shuri chose that moment to stand from her desk and extend her own hand to Bucky. “Shall we go in?” “Do I have to?” Bucky whined petulantly. “Yes!” she scolded, looking much older than her 22 years. “Get off your ass and come with me.” Bucky straightened up and grabbed his tablet, standing to follow the younger woman. They headed to the conference room and made it inside just before Stark and his entourage entered. “This must be Shuri!” Stark exclaimed, greeting the lady on question with a hug. Shuri halfheartedly returned the gesture before pulling away with a smile. “It is good to meet you, Mr. Stark.” “I already had this conversation with your brother. Call me Tony.” Shuri smiled politely in response and then turned to Bucky. “This is James Barnes. He is the Implementation Manager that will be working on your account.” “Jamie!” Tony said, patting the other man on the shoulder. “Tony,” Bucky returned with a bemused smirk. “Finally someone who gets it,” Tony said with a smile. He turned to the people surrounding him. “Allow me to introduce Pepper Potts, my right hand and the only reason I have any success in this world.” A tall, willowy redhead nodded her head toward Bucky and Shuri. “And this is Rhodey, my other right hand and best friend in the world.” The man in question smiled tensely at the group. “And finally, this is-” “Steve,” Bucky said in awe, looking up at the last member of Stark’s party. “Steve Rogers, from my legal team,” Tony filled in, a little deflated. “I’m sorry,” he said, pointing between them, “do you two know each other?”

“Bucky and I go way back,” Steve said, his smile still as devastating as ever. He flashed his blue eyes at Bucky, and the other man felt himself get weak in the knees. “Bucky?” Tony asked with a smirk. Bucky grimaced. “My full name is James Buchanan Barnes… but my friends call me Bucky.” “Splendid!” Tony said. “You didn’t tell me you knew someone who worked here, Rogers.” “I didn’t know I had a connection,” Steve replied warmly, still looking at Bucky. “It’s been a while since we talked.” Bucky gave Steve a shy smile. “A lot has happened since we last saw each other.” They stood like that, staring awkwardly at one another while butterflies danced in Bucky’s stomach. Finally, T’Challa intervened. “Shall we get started?” he asked as he gestured toward the table. Bucky wasn’t sure how he made it through that meeting in one piece, but, in spite of the awkwardness he felt, the meeting was a success. Stark seemed keener to sign the contract knowing there was a personal relationship between a member of his staff and someone at WT. As soon as the meeting adjourned Steve pulled Bucky aside.  

“You look good, Buck.” “Thanks,” Bucky said, refusing to meet the other man’s eyes. Steve had changed so much since he’d last seen him, He was at least a good foot taller, with much broader shoulders. Bucky had to actively try not to drool. “You do too, but… I thought you were smaller.” Steve chuckled and scratched the back of his neck. “I had a growth spurt right after I moved away.” “You look… really good,” Bucky said. He took in Steve’s chest and thick arms that filled out his jacket just right. His mind wandered to the last time those arms had been wrapped around him in a hug, when Steve was thinner and shorter. He couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel now to have them wrap around his body; to get lost in that strong embrace. “Bucky?” Steve asked, meeting the other man’s eye. “Huh? Yeah?” Bucky came back to himself with a jolt, cursing his train of thought. “You wanna get a drink later? Catch up?” “Yeah,” Bucky replied as a brilliant smile bloomed across Steve’s face. “Yeah, I’d like that.” Steve gave Bucky his card, adding his personal cell number and making Bucky promise to call him. Then he had to go, and Bucky was left standing there, feeling dumbstruck. He heaved a sigh the moment the room was clear. He was so, so screwed. ~/~ “What the hell was that?” Shuri asked the moment he got back to desk. “What are you talking about?” “Um… how about the way you eye-fucked Stark’s lawyer the entire time? Although it seems to have worked in our favor. We should pimp you out more.”

“I did not ‘eye-fuck’ anyone,” Bucky protested. “Steve’s just an old friend.” “Right… ‘friend.’ You know, it’s 2019. You don’t have to use euphemisms anymore.” “I’m not covering anything! I’ve never tried to hide my sexuality. But Steve was never like that. We grew up together.” “From the way you were looking at him, it seems like homeboy ‘glowed up.’ You gonna go for it?” “Nah. Steve’s not into guys. He’s a heterosexual, all-American boy,” Bucky replied, unable to hide the tinge of sadness in his voice. “You might want to reconsider that opinion,” Shuri replied. “What makes you say that?” “Because he spent the entire meeting looking at you the same way you were looking at him.”

This new information distracted Bucky for the rest of the day, and he had trouble focusing on even the most basic of tasks. Finally, at 4:55, he decided he couldn’t do anything else, and began to pack up. As he flipped through his portfolio, the business card Steve had pressed into his hand fluttered to the ground. Before he could retrieve it, Shuri scooped it up.

“Steve Rogers gave you his card, did he? And he wrote his personal number on there?”

“Yeah… he mentioned going to get a drink.”

“So call him!”

“Yeah… I will. Just… I need some time. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Steve. A lot’s changed. I’m not the same kid I was in high school.”

Shuri’s gaze softened and she placed a gentle hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I think the issue is actually that you’re a lot more like that kid than you realized, and seeing an old friend brought it all back.”

Bucky huffed a sigh and gave her a wry smile. “As usual, you prove how much smarter you are than me.”

“You heading out. Bucky?” Peter asked, poking his head over the cube wall once more.

“Yeah Pete. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Actually, would you be free to head over to Nick’s with me? I wanted to ask your advice about something.” His gaze shifted to Shuri and he gave a scowl “ Away from interfering parties.”

Bucky laughed. “Alright Pete, yeah. Let’s do it.”

~/~

Steve Rogers was an adult. He’d graduated early from Harvard Law and landed a lucrative position at Stark Inc. before he’d turned 25. So influential was he in that role that he’s ended up becoming one of the principal members of the legal team at the company 18 months later. Steve was on lists like “30 under 30” and he didn’t like to brag, but he was considered in some circles to be a ‘big deal’. So why did he currently feel like a nervous teenager waiting by the phone?

He’d tried to play it off, but seeing Bucky earlier that day had thrown him. Bucky had been his best friend for the majority of his young life. He brought school work when Steve was sick and sat by his bed, helping to keep him entertained. As they got older, he’d helped protect Steve when he got into fights he couldn’t finish. He’d been there in good and bad times. Losing Bucky in his life was a blow Steve had never really recovered from.

After the meeting, he’d wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the day catching up with his friend, but there was too much to do. He cursed himself for not getting a commitment to meet the other man somewhere later on. Leaving the planning up to Bucky filled him with anxiety. Steve did not like to wait. He was not a waiter. He was a doer.

At five-o'clock his phone finally rang, the caller an unknown number. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as he pressed the ‘accept’ button.

“Bucky?”

The voice on the other end of the line gave a dry laugh. It was definitely female, so not Bucky. “No, this is Shuri.”

It took a moment for his brain to catch up with the name. “Oh, yes, from WT, right?” It was a bit strange that she was calling his personal line, but he wasn’t going to be rude. “How can I help you?”

“This isn’t business related, Mr. Rogers.”

“Please, call me Steve.”

“Yes, Steve,” she replied. “I thought you might want to know where Bucky Barnes is heading for an after work drink.”

“Oh, well if he wants me to join him, I’m sure he’ll call me and give me the place.” He pulled his phone away from his head to look at the screen, silently hoping there would be another incoming call.

“No, Steve, I don’t believe he will. I have worked with Sergeant Barnes for two years, and I know when he is vacillating. This is one of those times. He needs a nudge in the right direction.”

“I don’t know if that’s really-”

“Trust me Mr. Rogers, he would not call you of his own accord.”

This felt wrong to Steve, a violation of his old friend’s privacy. “I mean, if he doesn’t want to call me, he doesn’t have to. I’m not going to force him if he doesn’t want to.”

“No, he wants to. Of that I am sure.”

“What’s your aim here?” Steve asked, his tone changing as his suspicion rose. He didn’t want to insult the young woman, but he was starting to wonder why she was so invested in telling him where Bucky was going to be.

“I don’t mean any harm. I only wish to see my friend Bucky happy, and I know he’ll talk himself out of calling you if left to his own devices.”

Steve sighed as he took in her words. He wanted to believe that Bucky was more confident than that, but the last time he’d been in contact with his friend, he’d had the same impression. “Tell me.”

She gave him the name and address of the bar where Bucky was heading.

“Are you sure he’s gonna be there? Maybe he’s just going home?”

“He’ll be there. Our coworker Peter is going with him to make sure.”

“Is everyone at WT in on this?”

He could practically hear her smile on the other end of the line. “Just get there, Mr. Rogers. As soon as you can.”

~/~

Seeing Steve earlier in the day brought back a flood of memories for Bucky. Steve had been his best friend for his entire childhood, all the way through to the summer before their junior year of high school. He and Steve did everything together. They grew up alongside one another and had been closer in many ways than Bucky was to his own flesh-and-blood sibling.

But Steve was more than just a brother. He’d been Bucky’s first love. At the same time that he was just starting to realize his sexuality, he simultaneously realized that he was head-over-heels for Steven Grant Rogers.

When they were younger, Steve had been overlooked by nearly everyone. He was the smallest kid in class and had a slew of health problems that were the likely culprit for his stunted growth. Most prominent was his asthma, followed closely by a spinal curvature that led to him wearing a back brace for a few years. He had poor eyesight with color blindedness, which he wore thick glasses to help correct. And he had a weak immune system that caused him to get sick, and therefore miss school, all the time.

None of the other kids wanted to play with Steve. They were irritated with his inability to keep up when they ran. Or how he would break into a coughing fit in the middle of a dare, freaking everyone out with the fear that one of their cohorts might actually die from one of their stupid stunts.

Bucky was the opposite of Steve. Rambunctious and outgoing, he’d been friends with nearly everyone. He always had kids asking him to play. But Bucky only ever wanted to hang out with Steve.

He couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d first felt drawn to Steve. Bucky had known the other boy since the first grade, but they weren’t in the same class until the third grade. Because they lived in the same building, Bucky would often bring homework for Steve to do when he was out sick. At first, Steve’s mom had just expected Bucky to leave the work and run off, as other children must have done, but Bucky was precocious little fuck.

“How’s Stevie doin’ Mrs. Rogers?”

“Oh,” she’d replied, genuinely surprised at his question. “He’s getting better. He’s in his room, but he’s up and reading.”

“Can I go say hi to him?”

“Sure. Let me just poke my head in and let him know you’re here.”

Steve had seemed just as surprised at Bucky’s appearance as his mother, but welcomed the company.

“Whatcha readin’?” Bucky asked, pointing to the comic book in Steve’s lap.

“Oh, um… X-Men.”

“Killer! I like X-Men too! Who’s your favorite? I like Wolverine.”

Steve smiled at Bucky then, a real, genuine smile, and launched into a diatribe about how his favorite was Professor Xavier because even though he was in a wheelchair, he was one of the most powerful of the X-Men, but he still used his power for good, taking in young mutants and helping to guide them.

From that day forward, Steve and Bucky spent almost every afternoon together, talking about comics, movies (they once had a very heated debate about which trilogy had the superior Harrison Ford performance: Star Wars or Indiana Jones), and, when they were older, girls.

One afternoon, when they were 12 and sitting in Steve’s room, the blond turned to his friend and very innocently asked “You ever kissed a girl, Buck?”

“Yep,” Bucky replied nonchalantly, only half listening while he flipped through a comic book.

“What?! No way! When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Bucky looked up at his friend and cringed. “It’s not my proudest moment.”

“When was it?”

“At Sharon Carter’s last birthday party. She wanted to play ‘spin-the-bottle.’”

Steve got a dreamy look at the mention of Sharon’s name. It was hardly a secret that he had a thing for the girl. She was kind to Steve, but had no inclination toward him. Steve had actually been invited to that party, but hadn’t been able to go because he was recovering from a wicked bout of bronchitis.

He looked back to Bucky with a goofy smile. “Who’d you kiss?”

Bucky’s face went red at that.

“Who was it?”

Bucky bit his lip for a moment, deliberating what to say, before finally deciding on the truth. He never usually kept secrets from Steve, and this one had been eating him alive. “I kissed Sharon.” He watched in horror as his friend’s face fell. “I’m sorry man!” Bucky continued. “I know you like her, and I didn’t want to, but the bottle landed on me when she spun it, and it was her birthday party, and I didn’t want to reject her in front of everyone.” He huffed a breath as he paused.

Steve, being Steve, gave him a gentle smile. “It’s okay, I get it.” His smile broadened into a grin. “How was it?”

“Kind of embarrassing,” Bucky admitted with a groan. “We went into a closet, and I was so nervous that I just barely gave her a peck. I couldn’t touch her because my hands were so sweaty. I didn’t want to gross her out.”

“Well maybe there’s hope for me yet.”

“As long as you can kiss better than I did.”

“Doubtful,” Steve snorted. “At least you’ve kissed someone once. I’ve never kissed anyone.”

Bucky got a wild idea then, and didn’t have the good sense to censor himself before blurting it out. “Wanna practice on me?”

“What?” Steve’s face was a mixture of shock and confusion.

“I mean, we’re buds, right? Let’s just practice with each other. Make us more ready when the next time comes.”

“Um… okay.”

Although his first kiss was technically with Sharon, Bucky always considered his kiss with Steve to be his first true kiss. It ignited feelings in him that he didn’t quite understand. He had a hard time looking at Steve the same, once he knew how soft the other boy’s lips were.

Steve eventually did get to kiss Sharon. Despite her initial reluctance, she decided to give Steve a chance and they even went steady for a few weeks in the eighth grade. But beyond that, Steve never had much luck with girls.

He remained smaller than all the other guys in their class, and ended up being the target of more than a few bullies. But Steve was scrappy. Although he was small, he could take a hit, and refused to run or stand down when confronted. Bucky always teetered on the fine line between when to let Steve stand up for himself and when to intervene to make sure Steve didn’t get seriously injured.

Bucky continued to hang out with Steve, even as he was taunted for it by the more popular kids in high school. He didn’t really care what anyone else said. Steve was his best friend.

One night during freshman year, when they were talking on the phone, Steve was whining to Bucky about how he would never have a shot with another girl in his life.

“You’re great, Stevie,” Bucky’d said, more than a little annoyed with the situation. “The right girl will come along eventually. She’ll see all the good in you and not worry about the other stuff.”

“I wish I could find a girl just like you, Bucky.”

That caused a lump to stick in Bucky’s throat. He’d decided to never tell Steve how he felt, knowing that Steve didn’t reciprocate his feelings. Bucky was terrified of destroying their friendship. He swallowed thickly before replying. “You do?”

“Yeah. You’re my best friend, Buck, and you always see the best in me. I’m so glad I have you.”

“I’m glad to have you too,” Bucky choked out in response. He’d almost decided to confess his feelings then, but Steve sighed and changed the subject before he had a chance.

“What about you, huh? I heard Lori’s got a thing for ya’.”

“Well, um… I think I might be gay,” Bucky replied, in lieu of confessing. He had been deliberating for some time on how to share this with Steve. He knew Steve, and knew his friend would never reject him, but, nevertheless, he braced himself for a bad response.

“Oh yeah?” Steve simply replied, and Bucky was immensely relieved to hear the smile in his friend’s voice.

“Yeah,” he sighed in relief.

“Okay man, cool. You got your eye on anyone, or just been thinking this for a bit?”

“Just been thinkin’ it,” Bucky admitted, not quite ready to tell Steve that he only had eyes for his best friend.

That had been the extent of Bucky’s coming out for another year, before he finally confessed to his parents and friends. He ended up going on a couple dates, had a few kisses, but never dated anyone seriously until after Steve moved.

The summer before their junior year, just after Steve turned sixteen, a bomb dropped in his world. His father, who had left his mother heartbroken when he was just a baby, suddenly died. Steve was shocked to learn that his dad had left him a house and a sizable amount of money. The house was in Indiana, and he was contacted by the grandfather he never knew he had to come out for a visit.

That summer ended up being a turning point for Steve. He got into a medical trial that ended up helping him overcome several of his physical ailments. Sarah went out several times to visit her son, and ended up really liking the area. When the summer ended, Steve’s grandpa asked if they would consider moving there. The house was nice, and Sarah would be able to make more money as a nurse if she wasn’t paying rent. And Steve wanted to get to know his family. His only concern was leaving Bucky.

“Come on, man,” Bucky’d assured him. “We got lots of ways to stay in touch. You ain’t getting rid of me.”

So Steve had gone, and although he never said anything, Bucky’s heart broke that day.

At first, they’d stayed in touch much the same way they had during the summer, through email, phone calls, and instant messaging, but, as the school year progressed, they began to drift apart. Steve had new friends. Since he wasn’t sick all the time and missing out on everything, he had an easier time meeting people. It was a fresh start for Steve, and Bucky didn’t want to keep his friend from his new social circle.

So, instead, Bucky dealt with his heartbreak in self-destructive ways: drinking heavily, experimenting with drugs, and losing his virginity to a random encounter at a party. He had lots of sex during his last two years of high school, with boys and girls. The further Bucky fell down the rabbit hole, the less he would talk to Steve. In the end, he screwed his grades up so bad that he barely graduated and didn’t have any college offers or scholarships to speak of. Directionless, he’d opted to enlist in the Army.

Enlistment had been the final thing to sever his connection to Steve. They had separate lives, and Bucky just assumed there was no chance he’d ever run into the other man again.

~/~

Bucky sat in the bar, trying not to lose his shit on Peter. He really did like the younger man, but he could be a bit over eager at times, like a puppy. Today seemed to be one of those days.

Peter got up to head to the bathroom, and Bucky decided to approach the bartender and order something harder than the beer he’d been nursing. As he stood there, waiting for his drink, he heard a surly voice speak from behind him.

“Barnes.”

“Jones,” he replied, turning to face the newcomer. Bucky liked Jessica Jones, even if she was an acquired taste. She was a PI that he’d met in this very bar, when she’d caught him on a date with a cheating husband. Jessica didn’t want to blow her cover, but after she had the pictures, she pulled Bucky aside and clued him in. Bucky had no idea his date was married, and thanked God that he hadn’t slept with the man.

“What are you doing here?” Jessica asked, the hint of a smile playing across her face. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been going out much. It’s cheaper to drink at home and don’t have to wear pants.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.”

Bucky considered her for a moment. Her dark hair hung down past her shoulders, and she was dressed in her usual armor of a t-shirt, jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. But something was different. It could have been a trick of the light, but she seemed to have taken a little more care with her makeup. Her brown eyes looked bigger than usual thanks to her artful eyeliner. And she wore a dark lipstick that set off her creamy skin beautifully.  “Something’s changed about you, Jones. What’s going on?”

She schooled her features and gave him a stern look before breaking out into a full-on grin. Bucky couldn’t stop his small gasp when she smiled. She was truly beautiful, but her usually sour disposition tended to put people off.

“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my friend Jessica?”

“Shut up,” she replied, shoving his shoulder. “I’m on a date.” She nodded her head to the table behind her, where a gorgeous man with tan skin, jet black hair, and a neatly trimmed beard sat, watching them with interest.

“Damn girl,” Bucky replied, looping her arm with his own. “Does he swing both ways? Cause if so, send him my way when you’re done with him.”

“Oh fuck off, Barnes,” she laughed, freeing her arm.

Bucky relaxed for the first time all day, forgetting his nerves about Steve in his excitement for his friend. “You look good, Jess. Happy.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at something just over Bucky’s shoulder. “Well, I just wanted to come say hi since I haven’t seen you in a while. I’m gonna go back to my date and let you get back to yours.”

“Oh, no, I’m not on a date, just here with Pete from work.”

“Yeah?” She leaned in close and whispered as quietly as she could in the din of the bar. “Then who’s the blond beefcake two stools down who keeps staring at you?”

Bucky turned his head suddenly to see Steve sitting there, wearing a smirk and looking positively delicious. He’d removed his jacket and unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt, exposing the hollow of his throat. Bucky bit back the sudden urge to trace the other man’s adam’s apple with his tongue. “Oh my God… that’s Steve. I didn’t call him. How’d he know I was here?”

“That’s Steve?” Jessica asked, and Bucky automatically hissed at her to keep her voice down. He had shared the story with her one night over drinks, and she knew all about the torch he carried. “Well, Mazel Tov and all that,” she said with a wink. “Let’s get coffee sometime and you can tell me how good he fucks. And um…” she leaned to the left slightly, presumedly to check Steve out, “maybe we could arrange a trade.”

“Fuck you Jones.”

Jessica had already turned away when she called over her shoulder “We tried that, remember?”

Despite his annoyance, Bucky managed one last smile while he flipped her the bird, before gathering his courage to turn around and face Steve.

~/~

Steve watched Bucky with interest as he turned away from the stunning brunette he’d been talking to. He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the ease between them. It was obvious they weren’t lovers, but they were friends, and Steve missed having Bucky as his friend.

Bucky downed the shot he’d ordered and left the glass on the bar as he sauntered over to Steve. That was really the only way Steve could describe his walk. He didn’t seem as confident as the Bucky Barnes of their childhood, but he sure as hell knew how to fake it.

“Either you’re stalking me or Peter slipped something in my beer and I blacked out, because I don’t remember calling you.” Steve felt his cheeks warm as Bucky spoke. He took a minute to process the words, realizing they were harsher than the tone Bucky used to convey them.

“Um, right… well, Shuri called me and let me know you’d be here, so I thought I’d stop by after work and see if you’d be up for that drink.” He hadn’t looked Bucky in the eyes yet. “I can go, if it’s making you uncomfortable.” He moved to grab his wallet and pay for his beer.

“No, Steve, wait,” Bucky said, with a chuckle. “I was fuckin’ with you. Don’t go. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah?” Steve’s lips spread wide in a grin and he finally looked up to meet Bucky’s gaze. What he saw there was heart-stopping. Bucky always had the most beautiful eyes, their color a cool gray-blue that changed from icy to steel depending on his mood. Right now they were brilliant, even in the dim light of the bar. And they were complimented by an amazing smile.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, not breaking eye contact.

They stood there for a few seconds, just drinking one another in, before the spell was broken by the approach of Bucky’s coworker.

“Hey Buck-” Peter began.

“Shit! Pete! I’m sorry man,” Bucky replied before Peter could finish his sentence. “I abandoned you. I just ran into a couple people, and-”

“Yeah, man, no problem,” Peter replied. “I was actually gonna say I gotta split. My buddy Ned called and he needs me to come over.” Bucky raised his eyebrows at that, but before he could say anything, Peter sputtered on. “I mean… not ‘needs me’ like that, needs me. Ned’s just a friend. I mean… not that I have any problem with dudes, but Ned’s got a girlfriend and I’m kind of into this girl we went to high school together, and-”

Bucky interrupted the younger man’s diatribe. “Pete, it’s okay. You didn’t say anything to offend me.”

“Phew, that’s a relief,” Peter said, literally wiping his hand across his brow as he said the word ‘phew.’ Steve’s nerdy heart went out to the younger man. He could definitely remember being just as awkward in his own youth.

Peter swiftly made his exit, and Bucky ordered a fresh beer, abandoning the one he’d had at the table he was sitting at with Peter. He settled onto the stool next to Steve.

“So, bigwig legal guy at Stark Inc. at 28, huh? How’d you manage that?

Steve blushed again and looked down at the bar top. “I met Tony in college, and he took over his Dad’s company just as I was finishing law school. He contacted me and asked me to interview for a job on their legal team. I wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity like that. After I got the job, Tony told me he needed to clean house and that he wanted someone with his ear to the ground in legal. I helped him catch some bad actors, and when their positions were vacated, Tony asked if I wanted to take one.”

“Damn, that’s quite the story.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of unbelievable, right? Little guy from Brooklyn like me ending up here.”

“Yeah…” Bucky trailed off as he took a swig of his beer. “I always believed that little guy would go places.”

“That means a lot coming from you, Buck.” Steve looked over at the other man, his eyes soft.

“I never stopped believing in you, Stevie,” he replied, his voice soft.

“So…” Steve said after a pause. “What about you? How’d you’d end up at WT?”

“I met Okoye, the head of their HR, at a VA job fair.”

“Yeah? I remembered you enlisted after graduation. How long did you serve?”

“Six years, three tours. I was planning to retire, but I got injured on my last tour and was medically discharged.”

“Shit… What happened?”

“IED. Not a very big one, but enough to do some serious damage to my left arm. I was a sniper, and I couldn’t keep doing that job if I couldn’t hold the gun steady.”

“Oh damn… I’m sorry to hear that man.”

Bucky looked at Steve for a second, his eyes watering and his upper lip quivering. Steve felt his heart speed up at the thought of his friend’s pain. He started to stand up to give the other man a hug when Bucky’s face broke into a huge grin.

“You always were so gullible Stevie.”

“You jerk!” Steve replied with a laugh as he settled back on his stool.

Bucky pretended to look hurt. “What? Me? I’m not the one laughing at a wounded veteran, ya’ punk!”

“Yeah. yeah, asshole.” Steve tilted his beer to take a swig, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s. When he placed the bottle back down on the bartop, his smile faded a little, becoming wistful. “I’ve missed you, Buck. What happened to us?”

“I’m an asshole who doesn’t deserve nice things, that’s what,” Bucky said, suddenly looking anywhere but at Steve.

~/~

“What the hell does that mean?” Steve asked, and Bucky felt his heart constrict a little more. Sweet Stevie, always caring so much about everyone else.

“Look… it was a long time ago. Let’s forget I said anything. Tell me more about you.”

“No, Buck. I don’t want to forget it. What did you mean? If anything, I’m the asshole in the situation since I left.”

“No, Steve, no.” Bucky suddenly felt panicked at the thought that Steve would ever blame himself. Without thinking, he grabbed Steve’s hand in his own. “You could never be an asshole. You have always been the kindest, most selfless person I know. You going to Indiana was a good thing, wasn’t it? Without that, you might never have gotten healthy, and I doubt you could have afforded law school if you and your mom stayed in Brooklyn.”

“Then why? Why did we lose touch? We were always so close. Even when I had nothing, I had you.”

Bucky cringed. Even after all these years, it physically pained him to keep anything from Steve. “It was all my fault. I became a mess those last two years of high school. I was a drugged out loser. I barely graduated. You didn’t need someone like me dragging you down.”

Steve’s face softened and he squeezed Bucky’s hand with his own. “You would never have dragged me down. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to help you. It sounds like you were really hurting back then.”

“I was trying to find something.”

“What was that?”

Bucky looked up at Steve then, his eyes a bright cornflower blue, expressing his earnestness. “You,” Bucky replied, unable to tear his gaze away. “I was trying to find you.”

“You knew where I was, Bucky. If you needed me, I would have come back in a heartbeat.”

“I didn’t want to tear you away from your new life. You finally had everything you ever wanted. How selfish would it have been if I’d asked you to come back because I was working through a little bit of depression?”

“But, other than my ma, no one has ever been more important to me that you. I would have done anything to help you.”

“Naw… you had a new life. I remember those pictures on Facebook. You had that cute little girlfriend. The blonde one, kinda looked like Sharon. What was her name?”

“Kate,” Steve said with a small grin. “I think the main reason I first talked to her was because she reminded me of Sharon.” Bucky made to pull his hand free, but Steve kept his grip strong. “But what did you mean when you said you were trying to find me?”

“I…” Bucky sighed deeply and looked at the floor. “I wanted to find someone to take your place in my life. So I wouldn’t feel so empty.”

“Did it work?”

“No. Every person I hooked up with just made me feel more alone, but I kept trying. I must have slept my way through half of the teenage population of Brooklyn, but no one could hold a candle to you.”

Steve suddenly got very still. “What do you mean, Bucky? We never hooked up.”

Shit , Bucky thought, there goes my big fuckin’ mouth gettin’ me in trouble again. He looked up to meet Steve’s eyes once more, his mouth gaping like a fish out of water..

“Bucky… did you… did you want to be with me?”

“I… uh…” fuckfuckfuck “Um… I mean…” He felt his face flushing crimson red. “Shit. I never meant to tell you that Stevie. I’m sorry. Fuck… Let me just.” He grabbed his wallet out of his pocket and threw down whatever cash he had on hand, praying it was enough to cover his drinks. He’d just humiliated himself in front of Steve. The last thing he needed was to also stick him with the bill.

Steve stared open-mouthed as Bucky turned and walked as fast as he could out of the bar, heading for the parking lot. He was unlocking his car door when he heard Steve calling out his name.

“I’m sorry Stevie. Please… let me go home and hide for a while. I can’t deal with this right now.” He realized he was babbling, but it was like a dam broke and he couldn’t stop. “We were just reconnecting and then I went and fucked it up. Damnit… I am so sorry Steve. Please can we just forget I said anything? It was a long time ago and-”

He was cut off abruptly when Steve surged forward and captured Bucky’s mouth with his own. Bucky was shocked momentarily before his reflexes kicked in and he kissed back, Steve’s lips just as soft as he remembered them. He moaned softly as Steve’s hand grazed up his neck and over his jawline. The kiss seemed to drag on forever, a heavenly meeting of plush lips and velvety tongues and light nips of teeth. Bucky felt himself swoon a little inside.

When they finally broke apart, their chests panting, Steve brought his other hand up to cup Bucky’s cheeks. “You still talk too fuckin’ much,” he growled, and Bucky laughed before leaning back in for another kiss.

“I didn’t think you liked guys,” Bucky said in awe when they separated once more.

“Bucky… I have been gone for you from the moment you kissed me when we were kids. I was just so afraid to tell you then and lose you as a friend.”

“You punk… we could have had so much more time together if you’d have just said something!” Bucky chuckled as he pulled Steve’s body closer to his own.

“If I’d have said something? You’re the chatterbox you jerk! You should have told me how you felt.”

“I didn’t want to lose your friendship either.”

“Shit… we gotta get better at communicating with each other if we’re gonna make things work this time around.”

“Why don’t we start practicing on Friday? Will you go out on a date with me, Stevie?”

“Yes,” Steve whispered before closing in on Bucky for another mind-blowing kiss.

~/~

The next morning, when Bucky walked into work, Shuri was standing in the middle of their shared workspace wearing a self-satisfied smirk. “Did you have a good night, Bucky?”

Bucky tried to look offended, he really did, but he’d spent the night having pleasant dreams of kissing Steve at an outside table of a restaurant by the waterside. He smiled at his coworker. “I did.” He shrugged off his backpack and sat at his computer.

“How is Steve?” She asked as she followed him. “Will you be seeing him again?”

“You really don’t do subtle, do you?”

“I don’t have time for such things. Do you have a date or not?”

“Yes,” he replied, unable to hide his grin.

Shuri squealed with delight and danced in place. “Bucky’s gonna get nasty!”

“Just don’t send him any dick pics,” Peter mumbled from the other side of the cube wall.

Bucky blushed in response and Shuri cackled. “It’s too late for that, Peter!” she called back. “Did he send you one back?”

“I’m not saying anything about that, Shuri.”

She chuckled and took her seat at her desk. “As a sign of your gratitude, I fully expect your first daughter to be named after me.”

“Well, I was planning to do that anyway,” Bucky said with a grin.

“Damn right you were.”

Bucky looked up at his monitor and began to peruse his email. A minute later a notification popped up on his phone with a text from Steve.

Can’t wait for tomorrow night.

Bucky was unable to hide his grin as he picked up his phone to send a response.

If you enjoyed this, I’d really love a like, reblog, or comment (or all three!). Thanks for reading!

Just A Dream

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Stark!Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: You’re in the delivery room, having a baby, but something is just missing from  your life. A dream helps you feel better about everything.

Warnings: Infinity War spoilers kinda?, semi-descriptions of birth, off-screen character death, cursing, family drama, bad parenting (smh Howard)

A/N: Y’all, ik it isn’t WCBB or my other writing challenge prompt but I saw Mamma Mia 2 and I fell in love with one song in particular just because the scene it happens in is so good and so tear worthy (I loved the whole show tho and all of the songs are 10/10). So thus, this song fic was born!

Key:

Y/N - Your Name

Y/N/N - Your Nickname

Y/H/C - Your Hair Color

Y/E/C - Your Eye Color

Song Inspiration(s):

My Love, My Life - Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Cast Recording

I’ve never felt this strong

I’m invincible, how could this go wrong?

No here, here’s where we belong

You screamed in pain, clutching Steve’s hand for support. Contraction after contraction, it never seemed to end. Your forehead was drenched in sweat, plastering your Y/H/C to your face.

With is free hand, Steve pushed your hair out of your face. He was clearly flustered and so unsure of his movements. “It’s going to be okay,” he tried to reassure you.

“You try pushing a damn baby out of your fucking body, Steven Grant Rogers!” you practically screamed at him before grasping his hand as another contraction hit. You finally whimpered as it passed, your head slamming into the back of the raised bed. “I can’t do this...”

“No, no, no, you can do this.” Steve gave your hand a tight squeeze before meeting your Y/E/C eyes. “Come on, Tony wouldn’t want you to give up here. Besides, you’re so strong. You’re almost there. Come on, Y/N, you can do this.”

Gulping, you nodded despite the fact that you felt so much pain and a huge want to just give up. Still, you knew you had to do this, not just for your loving husband clutching your hand. You had to do this for Tony.

Tony...

Your brother was killed after the events of the Infinity Wars, as it would be come to dubbed in mainstream media, had come and passed. After everything had been fixed, everyone brought back from being turned to dust... your brother didn’t make it. And he never did find out about your pregnancy.

The thought of your brother, your last living blood relative, being gone made your heart swell. No, you would make it through this. You would make it through this god damn birth because, dammit, Tony wouldn’t give up... if he could ever have a child.

You laughed at your own thoughts, which seemed to make Steve relax. You looked towards your husband and nodded. “Okay... okay, I can do this.”

His lips pressed against your forehead before Steve smiled at you. “I know you can, doll. You can do this.”

I held you close to me

Felt your heart beat and I thought: I am free

Oh yes, and as one are we

In the now and beyond

Nothing and no one can break this bond

A cry filled the air as you relaxed back into the hospital bed, exhausted. “It’s a boy,” the doctor shouted over the cries of the newborn baby.

A small smile tugged at the corner of your lips as you looked over to Steve. His eyes were lit up, a huge smile tugging at his lips. A boy, your own little boy...

The small baby was placed into your arms, pulling you from your thoughts. Your voice choked on a small sob, looking at the small squirming baby. “Hello, my love.” You smiled brightly at the baby, your fatigue slowly edging away as he silently squirmed in your arms. With the baby pressed against your chest, you could feel his hammering heartbeat. You practically melted from the overwhelming joy that filled your body. “My boy...” you mused.

Steve smiled and kissed the top of your head as all six feet of him leaned down to your height to watch your baby move around in your arms. “He’s amazing,” he responded, almost as dazed as you were by the small infant.

“I want to name him Tony,” you quickly said, not even aware that the words had left your own mouth for a moment.

However, you were aware of Steve’s response to what you had assumed were your thoughts. “I think Tony is a great name,” Steve responded, holding you closely to him. “Tony James.”

Slowly, you nodded, silent tears falling from your cheeks. “Tony James Rogers. Named after his uncle, godfather, and you. It’s perfect,” you finally said to fill the silence, smiling down at the bundle. You held your son close to your chest, a small laugh escaping your throat. “Our parents would be proud, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah, yeah they would,” he said, kissing the top of your head once more. “As annoying as Howard was, he would be proud of you.”

“Even if he never showed it.” You couldn’t help but sigh at the memory of your father. You had been young when he had gone from the world, and it still hurt. If only you had had more time with your father...

The doctor cleared his throat, once again pulling you from your train of thoughts. “We’re going to have to run some tests on little Tony, but we should be done soon. In the meanwhile, I would suggest you get some rest, Mrs. Rogers. Captain, you’re more than welcome to stay by her side.”

You handed the little bundle over to the doctor before relaxing back into the bed. “Please don’t leave me, Steve,” you murmured to your husband, relaxing into the bed.

In answer, he dragged the chair from the window over to the bed, sitting down and grabbing your hand. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you, doll.”

You smiled softly to him before finally lulling off into sleep.

Like an image passing by, my love, my life

in the mirror of your eyes, my love, my life

I can see it all so clearly

All I love so dearly

You stirred gently before lifting your head to take in your surroundings. You were no longer in the hospital room in those silly gowns. Instead, you were standing in your childhood home.

“You know what?” your father said, smirking as he leaned against the piano that was in the grand foyer. “I never thought I’d see Steve with anyone but Peg. Even if she got married to someone else. Hell, I figured he was as good as dead, but then he showed up in... 2011, right? Well, rambling aside, I have to say I’m proud that he ended up with you, even if he is some 65 years older than you.” The man who stood before you was hardly the man you grew up with, he was much younger and definitely more relaxed. He was easily in his early 30′s. Still, he was definitely still your father.

“Dad?” you asked, shocked.

“Hiya, Pumpkin.” He pulled you into a quick hug before he took the time to admire you. “You sure have grown since I last saw you. You were 9 the last time I saw you in person. And I probably looked a helluva lot different, didn’t I?” He chuckled to himself before walking over to the small bar, pouring a tumbler of whiskey. “You want a drink? Childbirth isn’t an easy thing, your mother can vouch for that. She did it, twice.”

You shook your head in answer, looking around. “Is mom here? What about Tony?”

Howard only waved his hand in dismissal. “They’ll be here soon enough.” He took a seat on the white couch, patting it for you to sit beside him. “I figured I’d show up here early and get some talk time with my girl before everyone comes to congratulate you.”

“Talk?” you questioned, sitting down where he had motioned. “Talk about what?”

“You. How much you’ve grown. You know, you were a surprise to both your mother and I. You were a last minute surprise and, given both of Maria and I’s ages at the time, a complete and utter shock.” He laughed, taking a swig from his whiskey. “But you know what? I’m damn proud of you.” You scowled in response and he only sighed. “Your brother did the same thing when I told him. I know, I’m terrible at showing it. But I am proud of you. Of both of you.”

“You didn’t have a terrible way of showing it. You had a shitty way of showing it.” You cleared your throat, fully ready to mock some of the things he had said to you as a child, when a voice interrupted both of you from speaking.

“Howard, I better not see you antagonizing the poor thing,” said the soft voice of your mother. “She just gave birth to your grandson.”

Like reflections of your mind, my love, my life

Are the words I try to find, my love, my life

Yes I know I don’t possess you

With all my heart, God bless you

You stood up and turned to see your mother and brother standing there. You wanted to act normal, like you weren’t happy to see them, but the moment your eyes landed on Tony standing there, the same as you had last seen him, your heart broke.

So, instead, you ran up to your brother and wrapped your arms around him tightly, sobbing hysterically. “Tony, you’re here...”

His strong arms wrapped around you, too, holding you tightly. “If by here you mean whatever weird dream thing this is, then yeah, okay, I’m here.”

“Anthony,” said the warning voice of your mother, but you pushed her voice to the side.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, hiding your face in his chest. “I’m sorry I never told you about my pregnancy and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I’m sorry, Tony... I’m so sorry.”

Suddenly, your arms were unwound from his torso as your brother held you at arms length. “Hey, none of that sorry crap. You shouldn’t have even been on the battlefield if you were pregnant, Y/N/N. Besides, I’m not sorry, especially since you named the kid after me.” He pointed a finger at your father. “You owe me money. Why the hell did you think she would name the kid after you any way?”

Howard only rolled his eyes, getting up to his feet to refill his tumbler with whiskey. Once it was filled, he turned his attention to the two of you. “I don’t owe you anything, Tony. We’re dead.”

“You made the bet, old man. Can’t pull this shit here.”

A calm hand landed on your shoulder, forcing your attention to your mother. Now she... she looked exactly as you remembered her. Her white hair was pulled back tightly in a bun, but her eyes were just as sweet as the day she left.

“My love, you need to wake up,” she said calmly, her smile soft. “Steve and Tony James are waiting for you.”

You took a step back and examined your family. Tony and Howard had finally stopped bickering and we’re giving you bright smiles. Your mother was leaning into Howard, her head resting on his shoulder. Once again, you felt tears threatening to spill

“Hey,” Tony said, pulling your eyes back to his brown ones. “Don’t cry, got it? And definitely don’t give up on my behalf. This kid needs you. You’ll see me again when you’re ready.”

“But I miss you. Why’d you have to go?” Finally, the waterworks started as tears started to stream down your face.

“Aw geez, come on, Y/N/N. What is it that Steve would say? Uh...” He racked his brain for a moment before snapping his fingers. “‘Every war has its casualties.’ Well, it sucks because it was supposed to be Pepper and I having the kid and all, but.... I suppose my nephew will have to do.” You rolled your eyes, fighting the smile that was threatening to take over your face. “Doesn’t matter. I still love you, kiddo. So go on and make the world a better place, got it?”

You simply nodded, unable to find the words to answer.

But I know I don’t possess

With all my heart, God bless you

You’re my one and only

You woke up in the hospital room and glanced over at Steve, who was on the phone in the corner of the room, talking away to whoever was on the other line.

“... Yeah Sam, I know. A boy... Yes, you can see him once we’re out of the hospital.” His eyes glanced over to you, lying on the bed, and a huge smile took over his features. “Hey, I’ll call you back, Y/N’s awake.”

He hung up the phone and returned to your side. “Hey, how long was I out?”

“Only about thirty minutes.” His hand brushed along your face, pushing your hair back behind your ear. “Doc said he’d be back in a couple minutes with little Tony and your release papers.”

You hummed in response, leaning into his hand. Your mind flashed back to your dream... dream? Was that the right word? Well, whatever it was, you thought of it, and of how your family was there and how much they loved you. And Tony... Your heart broke just a little, remembering your brother.

The doctor entered the room again, your son nestled into the crook of his arm with a stack of papers wedged between his arm and the side of his body.

“This little one is for you,” he responded, handing over the baby, “as are these.” The papers went to Steve. “All of the paperwork is signed for. You’ve given birth to a healthy baby boy. You’re set to leave whenever you’re ready.”

With that, the doctor once again left. You smiled down at your son and his brilliant blue eyes. Just like Steve. “Do you think he knows how much he’s going to be loved? And how many unofficial official aunts and uncles he’ll have?”

A chuckle came from Steve as he leaned down to look at his son. “I’m sure he does. Especially since Sam’s in the waiting room with some of the others, waiting to see the little squirt.”

The two of you laughed quietly to each other before looking back at Tony. You sighed in contentment before nodding your head. “Yeah. He’s going to be loved by everyone, I can feel it.”

Tags:

@uservalkyrie @youreafangirl-harry @thedaydreamingwriter @starksparker

Fic: Tell Me You’re Joking

Pairing: Darcy Lewis/Loki Rating: Teen. Warnings: No powers AU. Word Count: 3,994 Square Filled: Blind Date. Summary: Darcy and Loki haven’t had a date in a while for various reasons. Jane and Thor think they’d be perfect together so they set them up.  A/N: @marvelfluffbingo Alright so like with my last bingo card I thought I’d kick things off with some Tasertricks. Ironically, anonymous had prompted Tasertricks - Blind date in my ask around summer 2018 when I last opened my ask to prompts. So why not? This also serves as a fill for my fluffbingo card on Dreamwidth with the prompt first date. I got a three in one hit go me.  Somehow in the writing of this oneshot and AU, Darcy became Tony Stark’s daughter. Which is a trope I kind of dig in Darcyland, I just never had a story that lent well to that particular line of thought. 

Fill for my First Date prompt on my Fluff Bingo Card. Marvel Fluff Bingo Masterlist Read on AO3

“Please tell me you’re joking?” Darcy bursts when Jane finishes.

“What do you mean?” Jane asks with a confused look for her friend's disbelieving response.

“You set me up?” The intern starts, “On a blind date with your boyfriend’s younger brother?” The disdain drips from her voice as she enunciates each word.

She loves Jane don’t get her wrong. Loves that the astrophysicist is happy with her hulking blond beefcake of a man. He helps drag Jane from the lab at decent hours, though both have terrible eating habits no matter what happens. Both her and Thor are all too content to live on processed sugar and coffee and it makes Darcy’s stomach churn at the thought.

“When you say it like that it actually sounds sort of bad. But he’s exactly your type and you’ve both been having terrible luck on the dating front.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow at her friend. “Terrible luck on the dating front?” She says the words slowly, maybe they would sink in for the older woman on the other side of the lab.

“You can’t tell me Ian was a good idea in retrospect,” Jane breathes putting her work aside for the first time in the whole conversation, her work forgotten. Boss lady wasn’t going to like that she was going to need to rerun the model she set up, but it serves her right for dropping a bomb like this on Darcy.

“Not the point. Maybe I’m happy in singletown right now.”

“Are you happy in ‘singletown’?” The air quotes clear in her voice.

“Happier in singletown than I will be on that date you set up for me.”

“Just go, give it a try. If you don’t enjoy yourself, I will let you boss me into eating and sleeping without complaint.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow at her, “Can I have that in writing?” 

“Brother, I have wonderful news,” Thor boasts entering the library in their family estate.

Loki places his thumb between the pages of the book he was reading and glances toward his older brother and eyebrow raised in question. Thor had a hard time keeping things to himself when he was in such an exuberant mood. If he didn’t say anything and just let him speak, his brother would explain why he was so pleased with himself.

“You aren’t going to ask me what it is?” Thor asks when the silence stretches too long.

“You asked Jane to marry you and she said yes,” Loki responds flatly.

“Not yet, but mother helped me secure reservations for dinner next month at The Skyline.” Thor’s shoulders droop a little that Loki would think he’d jump so far ahead of himself when there was still so much to plan for the proposal. Shaking his head, he smiles at the slim dark-haired young man waiting.

The younger son of Odin can feel a headache forming. His brother can be a bit dense at the best of times. He was also capable of sharing the intelligence of a rock at the worst. But in the years since childhood and the transition into adulthood, Thor had grown greatly. His selfishness tempered, his cruelty near entirely erased after Odin nearly cut him off two years ago. For almost two years Thor had to live like the average citizens of the United States and find a way to make it work. It had done wonders for his older brothers’ temperament, he’d even gained a surprising amount of wisdom.

“Shall I start guessing then?” he asks replacing his thumb with a bookmark and setting the book on the coffee table, his expression bland. He’s glad Thor is so happy in his relationship with Dr. Jane Foster. As it is he’s still amazed the woman has managed to outlast Sif’s passive-aggressive attempts to drive her away and their mother’s false sweetness in the early months of their courtship.

“No need. You have a date in a week with Jane’s best friend.” Thor explains looking pleased with this development.

Loki blinks owlishly at the hulking at his brother, a date? With Jane’s best friend?

“And I am to do what exactly?” He wishes he could summon the energy to be annoyed, all he can summon, however; is bewilderment. HIs happy self-centered to a fault brother was setting him up with his girlfriends closest friend.

“Go on a date,” Thor says it slowly as if the meaning is obvious.

“No.”

“Brother, please!”

“I said no. I have no interest in having my older brother find me dates. I’m perfectly capable of doing it on my own.”

He doesn’t wait for Thor to try to convince him, Loki sweeps by him intending to leave the library. Instead of walking past as he normally would though, Thor catches his wrist and pulls him up short. His eyebrows raised at  Loki's claim as if to say they both knew his words for the lie it is. Not that he would say as much aloud after his time away.

“Just meet the girl. If it doesn’t work out, you’re free to leave.” Thor gives him his best beseeching look and Loki’s frown deepens. Like their father, he doesn’t explain why it is so important that he go on the date. Knowing the happy couple, he was likely to be Thor’s best man at the wedding and if she is as close to Jane as Thor says, she’d be the maid of honor. Pinching the bridge of his nose and inhales deeply, he is in no mood for the lovebirds playing matchmaker.

He might be known for spinning tales and crafty stories to get what he wanted or manipulate others, but he had nothing on Thor’s earnest manipulations. The way he made you want to do what he was asking because it would do nothing more than make him happy. It worked best on their mother and Sif, and Loki had thought he’d long ago grown immune to the look. Apparently, that was not the case as he sighs.

“Fine. Where am I to meet this girl?”

Thor beams as he rattles off the address for a chain restaurant that skirted the line of middle-class fancy and casual and Loki wonders if he just agreed to some horrible punishment for some prank Thor finally realized he pulled. His green eyes narrow at his brother. He looks far too pleased with his acquiescence to the request. That never bodes well in the long term.

"If you think I’m going to like her you’re sorely mistaken.” Loki snaps.

“Of course, I would never think such a thing. I just wish to see you have a good time away from your books for one evening.” Thor agrees his mouth spread into an amused grin as he walks away, hands folded behind his back. 

 In the end, Jane does put their agreement in writing, Darcy will have free reign in determining the length of lab activities for a week if she doesn’t have a good time on her blind date. Once the agreement is carefully filed away in Darcy’s shoulder bag, she tilts her head at Jane.

“So how am I going to know his brother from every other Joe Schmoo in the place?” She asks.

She made it a rule when Thor and Jane started dating that she wasn’t allowed to google anything about Thor’s family. The general idea is that if she didn’t look them up in the media, she would be able to develop an opinion of the hulking blond that made her friend blush like a school girl on a regular basis. For the most part, that rule has worked perfectly well for Darcy. Overall, she finds Thor to be a good guy, a little goofy, somewhat ridiculous, and very larger than life in attitude and action, but a good guy.

“I forgot you haven’t seen a family photo. I’ll get back to you on that.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve a rose and a favorite book, I will probably be okay with it,” she flips through a few pages of notes only half seeing the scribbled contents, “And just how fancy is this place going to be? Like do I need to buy a new dress for the occasion or is the black number I wear to faculty cocktail parties going to be fine?”

Jane makes a vague grunt of acknowledgment which means she’s already back in work mode. Sighing Darcy settles in for long hours of transcription and data entry. Her friend would get back to her eventually. As things stand now she's leaning toward her black cocktail dress. Knowing Jane and Thor they were going somewhere nice but also low-key. Her cocktail dress was perfect.

  A week after agreeing to the insane idea of taking Jane’s best friend to dinner, Loki pauses in his research to find a slew of texts waiting for him on his cell phone. The notification light flashing a brilliant green demanding his attention. Giving up on ignoring it, he picks up his phone and checks his texts. All of them from his brother.

How would you prefer Darcy recognize you? Brother? Loki are you there? Loki this isn’t funny.

Sighing heavily Loki pinches the bridge of his nose. Did no one respect the workload of a Ph.D. student? He had work to do, there wasn’t time to be discussing how he was going to reveal himself to Darcy. The entire date wasn’t important enough to warrant so much of his attention. Frustrated that Thor was so insistent about the whole thing, Loki responds with the first thing that comes to mind.

I’ll bring her a rose and one of my books. At least if it turns out to be terrible, I can get some work done.

Perhaps something else? She explicitly said she would prefer not to have such items used to identify you.

Then maybe she should pick how I’ll identify her.

Jane says she’ll be wearing a black cocktail dress and a gold necklace with a jade pendant.

The colors catch Loki’s attention. He’s always preferred black, gold, and green. At that thought his eyes narrow at his cell phone. His long fingers typing out another message to his brother.

Did you tell Jane what colors Darcy should wear?

No.

Truth.

I did not. She picked them herself.

For a moment he stares at his phone unsure of what to say. She picked those colors herself. No coaching. It could mean she liked them herself, it wouldn’t be strange. Plenty of people liked those colors together. But it felt too pointed to be natural. Not that it stopped him from trying to visualize what she would look like in them.

Very well. Tell Jane I’ll meet Darcy out front at 7 pm sharp.

Of course.

He can almost hear Thor’s pleasure in those two words, and it makes him scowl as he returns to his work. Twenty-four hours to go and he would find out just what made his brother think this girl would be a good match for him. And probably prove how wrong he was.

  On the day of the date, Jane somehow manages to wrap up on her own. She nearly forces Darcy from the lab, with some half-baked excuse that she had dinner plans with Thor that she couldn’t miss. The harried actions and the way she wouldn’t meet Darcy’s eyes when she asked why she hadn’t told her about this date spoke volumes. Jane wanted her out of the lab and getting ready for her date. Heaving a heavy sigh, Darcy packs up more to humor her friend than over any excitement for her approaching date.

The actual process of getting ready seems to drag by. Setting up your friends on blind dates when they aren’t actively looking for someone to date takes all of the fun out of getting ready. The usual excitement missing, there are no flutters in her stomach making the whole process robotic and she finishes a full hour before she needs to leave. It’s enough to make Darcy think she shouldn’t get excited about dates at all if it makes her hair and make-up cooperate for once.

Her hair styled into careful waves over her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes rimmed in thick black lines of eyeliner that wing at the outer corners of her eyes. She's looking fine if Darcy does say so herself.

She paces her apartment after that. Thumbnail between her teeth as she attempts to reign in the desire to chew on the nail. Her frustration with the whole situation serving to make her stomach twist. Not helping.

Going into the kitchen she gets a glass and pulls a bottle of ginger ale from the fridge.

“I could stay home, tell Jane I got sick.” She mutters to herself as she fills the glass halfway with the soda. Her eyes flicking to the amber liquid in thought. It wouldn’t be a complete lie if she texted right now. She did feel terrible and it wasn’t nerves.

Taking a sip, she leans a hip against the counter, “If I do blow him off I’ll never hear the end of it.”

God, she was losing it if she was debating herself in her kitchen. Draining the glass, she sets it down and goes to get her purse. If she has time to act like a crazy person, she has time to leave and give it a try. She has an agreement to enforce, and she's looking forward to bossing Jane around for thinking she needs help getting a date.

Pulling out her phone she pulls up the messaging app.

Call me fifteen minutes into the date to give me a convenient out. I will not forgive you if you don’t.

You sure about that kid?

Very.

How will I know you don’t need it?

I won’t answer.

Fair enough.

Satisfied that her “dad” would help for once, she shoves her phone back into her purse and leaves. It was better than the endless memes he sent about the blind date for the last week. She doesn’t know how Pepper puts up with him sometimes, but she gives the woman credit for it every day. That woman is a god damn saint in Darcy’s book.

  Loki sweeps across the sidewalk outside the restaurant for the fifth time. She’s late. He’s watched no less than fifteen couples go inside and six different women. None of them wearing a black cocktail dress with a gold necklace and jade pendant. He swears if she stands him up after he actually showed up (with minimal cajoling from his brother at that), he is going to be livid.

“If you’re Loki I deserve a refund just for showing up,” a voice states with a click of heels.

“You’re late,” he shoots back as he turns to look at the speaker.

He isn’t struck by her beauty. Nothing so mundane. She’s pretty, she put effort into her hair and make-up. She’s shorter than he imagined given his brother's stories, but the heels help close the otherwise large gap in their height. Her necklace rests peacefully on her chest the jade pendant stopping just above her ample cleavage. His gaze quickly shifts up before she can correct him. Something about the way she’s standing with hand on jutted hip screams she would in less than a heartbeat.

“What were you doing timing me?” She asks her lips twitching like they want to form into a smirk.

“It doesn’t matter, shall we?”

She gives the restaurant a once over and shrugs, “May as well.”

Her easy nonchalance comes as a surprise. Based on her greeting he would think she didn’t want to be there any more than he did. But the way she heads for the door like a woman on a mission, he comes up behind her and pulls the door open a little wider as they press into the lobby.

“You have a back-up plan don’t you," he presses a little closer than strictly necessary to whisper in her ear.

“Of course, I do. You probably do too. You scream planner.” She replies stepping to the hostess station, “Hi we uh called ahead under Odinson.”

The hostess looks relieved and her smile goes from polite disinterest to genuine. “Of course, it’ll be about ten minutes.”

“Cool thanks,” Darcy replies and turns to come nose to chest with her date. Her eyebrows rising in curiosity as she tilts her head back. She bites back the sassy comment about getting too close. The lobby was quite full so she was willing to give him a little wiggle room.

“I scream planner?”

“Don’t get offended. Every family has to have at least one. Though based on stories, the only one that doesn’t really plan in your family is Thor.”

“He does have a way of running headlong into everything.”

“That he does. Do you,” she waves her hand between them, her fingers grazing the soft dark material of his button down as she does, to illustrate he should move.

“Sorry.” He takes a step back.

“Mhm.”

Darcy walks away and takes a seat on the bench along the wall as they wait.

“What’s your back up plan?” He asks after she’s settled.

She grins leaning back into the cushion of the seat. He can’t help but return it, her attitude is almost infectious. She might be unhappy about the arrangement as he is, but she seems to enjoy toying with him. Add that she has a plan to escape the situation much as he does, doesn’t even seem to mind that he does, and Loki is suddenly much more intrigued by her. More than he was when she walked up.

“Is this one of those ‘I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours’ situations, because honestly, that tends to go over better when I’ve had a couple of drinks and have a decent buzz going. Remind me to stop feigning enjoyment for Jane and Thor when they drag me to burger joints.”

“Stop feigning enjoyment when Jane and my brother drag you for burgers,” he responds, she laughs, and it isn’t one of those ‘wow-that’s-so-lame’ kind of laughs. He amused Darcy by responding with equal amounts of sass as she gives.

Either way she doesn’t respond at first, and Loki remains quiet. He can wait out his most stubborn tutors and professors, he can wait out one young woman that his brother is fond of and routinely refers to as his sister. The prolonged silence doesn’t appear to faze her at first, but after a couple minutes of them staring at each other and then pretending not to look at each other at all, she starts to fidget. Her hands go from her lap to her hair, to sitting on the bench at her thigh, back to her lap, and finally crossing her arms under her breasts when the hostess call them.

“Odinson, party of two.” The hostess announces and Darcy is on her feet, brown hair swaying about her shoulders as she crosses the small lobby to the hostess station once more.

The hostess smiles at them and leads them to a table in the back, the lights just far enough away to create a romantic atmosphere. There’s a small tealight on the table already lit and flickering as the hostess places their menus across from each other on the table.

“Your server tonight will be Angela and she’ll be right with you,” the hostess states before leaving them to figure out what comes next on their own.

Darcy starts shrugging out of her dark coat.

“Let me help you,” Loki offers moving behind her he takes her coat from her and hangs the coat on the hook at the top of the booth before she can protest. His own follows a moment later and he slides into the far side of the booth. His back to the rest of the patrons his head cocked to the side waiting. His mouth turned up into a cocky smirk as she studies him.

“Keep that up and I may reevaluate my desire for a refund,” she quips taking the open seat across from him.

“Sounds like a challenge.”

“And if it is?”

He leans forward until the table stops him and his smirk widens considerably, “Consider it accepted.”

Her eyes widen and he watches how she swallows like something he just said was particularly enticing. Too bad there was a table firmly between them. He wouldn't mind discovering how else she might react to him.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the chance as her phone starts ringing. A low gravely almost computer sounding voice growls ‘I am Iron Man’ as guitars start in the background. His brow furrows in confusion as she pulls the device out of her purse and clicks a button on the side before laying it face down on the table, silent once more.

“Do you need to get that?” He asks leaning back.

“Back up plan.” She says simply with a shake of her head as their server comes up.

“Hi, I’m Angela and I’ll be server today. Can I start you with anything to drink?” The perky blond server asks.

Darcy has a bemused expression as she orders without ever taking her gaze from Loki’s, “Water with lime please.”

“Coffee please.”

“Alright, I’ll go put these in and give you a few more minutes to look over the menu.” The server leaves and Loki tilts his head at Darcy.

“Your back-up plan was to get a phone call fifteen minutes after we were supposed to meet?”

Darcy is starting to answer when his own phone starts ringing. His cheeks flushing as he works to get it silenced before it disturbs the dining room. Perfect timing.

“Need to get that?” Darcy asks a self-satisfied smile plastered to her face as she leans back.

“It’s just an alarm.” He hisses as the ringing goes silent.

“I’m sure. So are you going to bolt on me or are we both in agreement to see what happens next?”

“Let’s see what happens next, shall we? I’d to be accused of not giving things a legitimate chance.” He pauses as their serve returns with their drinks.

They ask for a few more minutes before ordering. Loki leaning forward in his seat and Darcy does the same her grin mirroring the one he can feel splitting his face. She is beautiful he realizes once he stops trying to dismiss her. Now that he’s paying attention instead of thinking about his thesis project. And if he was gauging her reaction correctly just as much interested in a little payback at her friends as he was.

“What do you say to telling them that it was a terrible date?”

“Sounds like an idea I can get behind.”

“Excellent.”

Dinner goes well. As they eat the pair plan all the ways they plan to convince Thor and Jane that it was a horrible experience. They start simple, keeping the beginnings as close to what happened as possible. Mixing truth with fiction was the easiest way to remember a lie, a fact he was pleased to see that she was already familiar with as they talked.

When they finish, Loki lingers. She lingers. He couldn’t remember feeling quite like this before. The last time a person caught his interest like this was a long time ago. Getting up from the table he picks up her coat and holds it out to her to help her put it on once she stands.

“Can I drive you home?” He asks putting his jacket on.

“No, I’m good, but you can call me tomorrow if you’ll give me your phone.”

“Of course.”

Handing over his phone he watches her type in her phone number and her name. Red-tipped fingers returning his phone to him.

“I’ll do that.”

“You had better mischief. Otherwise, our little prank will be very real.”

“I promise Darcy.”

Meta Meta Everywhere, Let’s Drop Dean in the Drink

I want to talk a little bit about Exodus in 14x12, particularly in relation to Tony Alvarez’s three victims. 

First, let’s summarize what we know about Tony. When we first see him drowning Jane Doe in the bathtub, we know nothing about him. For all we, and our favorite brothers, know, he’s the monster of the week, carrying out senseless acts of violence for ritual sacrifice/personal gain/marinating a home-cooked human for his freak pallet, etc. We later discover that Tony is a malformed prophet, firing at half-potential due to Donatello’s comatose state. He believes he is carrying out the Word of God by kidnapping, torturing, and killing his vics (or at least, most of them, but hey, two-out-of-three-ain’t-bad).

Our first introduction to Tony is the second scene in the episode, in which he tosses vic number one into a bathtub filled with salt water. After dunking her head back under (baptism, anyone?), he slits her wrist, turning the bath water red with her blood. When Sam and Dean break into Tony’s apartment, we find that Tony is recreating the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea (Exodus 14).

Vic number two meets his death for being the eldest of two twins—the first by four minutes, we learn—and is taken as the First Born Son. Whether this ties in to the King’s command to kill off all first-born sons of the Israelites, or the subsequent plague God sends down to slaughter the first-born Egyptian sons is left to interpretation. (Exodus 11)

What is striking about both victims is the wrongness of their deaths, and not just in terms of, say, basic human morality. Taking into consideration the story told in Exodus—in which Moses (notably, the first born son of an Israelite who is later saved by the Queen after his mother sends him in a basket up the Nile to save his life) receives the true Word of God—it should be clear that Alvarez’s version of the Word is incongruous with this part of the scripture. This is not to say that there is no bloodshed in the Old Testament. In my personal, unsolicited opinion, it’s the most metal religious text out there. However, this particular book of the Old Testament leaves the bloodshed in God’s hands—the Israelites themselves, even Moses, never directly intervene or seek revenge (except for that one Egyptian dude Moses buries in sand, but that’s before he receives the Word so, I mean, can’t really blame a guy).

What it boils down to is this: God gives Moses ten rules when he speaks to him on the mountaintop, the Commandments, the first of these being “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other God before me.” Pretty important stuff—we’ll examine later how this ties into the 3rd vic’s story.

The second Commandment is “Thou shalt not kill.” 

Whatcha doin’ there, Tony?

I recognize that this may be kind of a long shot, given the actual bloody history of the Old Testament. However, this may be our fist indication that something’s off with prophet boy.

Aside from this, though, the vics Alvarez chooses just don’t quite fit the bill.

We don’t know too much about vic number 1. We don’t get an interview with a grieving family member, or a peek into her apartment. We can pretty readily assume, though, that she hasn’t enslaved anyone.

In Exodus, God drowns the Egyptians in the Red Sea for pursuing the Israelites on their diaspora from Egypt. They had previously enslaved the Israelites—apparently for being too numerous, and overpopulating to the point of there being more Israelites than Egyptians in Egypt, leading the King to order the death of all the first born sons of Israel—and were now coming to stop them from fleeing their oppression by either re-capturing or murdering them on the way out. So God tells Moses to go ahead and shake that stick, and He collapses the Red Sea down on them after granting safe passage for the Israelites to cross first.

What has vic number 1 done to merit that same fate for herself? Is she a slave owner? Probably not. Is she trying to prevent someone from leaving her? Leaving an oppressive relationship with her, in some way? No indication of the same anywhere, but even if that was the case, does it warrant a death sentence? There’s not even anything to allude to her being Egyptian in some way, which would be the absolute shoddiest reason for Alvarez to pick her.

The fact is, we don’t know why Alvarez chooses vic number 1 as his first sacrifice. We don’t even get a feel for who she is by seeing his initial kidnapping of her.

What we are asked to understand pretty immediately is that vic number 1 is absolutely a wronged victim here—we do get to see, at length, Alvarez murdering her. This second scene of the show opens with tight shots of her wounds, her sweat-stringy hair, her bound hands. We hear her pleading and whimpering through her gag, and eventually trying to beg. We see the abject fear and desperation in her eyes. The majority of the scene is arguably shot from the victim’s perspective, right up to the point of her drowning where she’s shot from beneath, seemingly floating high above us in the water, and illuminated by a bright yellow, almost Heavenly light.

This coupled with the shots of Tony’s cold eyes, his uncaring, vacant expression, his apparent glorious satisfaction upon the completion of his task—it’s clear that we’re meant to sympathize with, possibly even identify with, the victim here. We don’t yet know who is whispering to Tony at the end of the scene, and we don’t particularly care outside of our boys finding out who it is and ganking their evil asses. The whole thing is black-and-white up to this point; victim. Monster. Presumably evil motive. The works.

Then we learn about vic number 2, and things get a little more complicated. Deciding to take on the case, Sam and Dean don their fed suits and pay a visit to 2’s heartbroken twin brother. We learn, through their conversation with him, that the vic was friends with Alvarez prior to this whole mess, and that Alvarez had an Enochian tattoo meaning “the Word” on his forearm. Sam and Dean struggle to parse out what kind of monster would be fluent in Enochian, what the motive of this apparently otherwise zealously devout man would be. Something’s off. The boys know it, and as they know it, we know it. A standard salt-and-burn, monster-of-the-week, last hoorah for Dean this ain’t.

After a quick, heart-shattering call to Cas, the boys find out that this Tony Alvarez is next in line to be prophet, after Donatello eventually dies. They discover that Donatello is still kicking, and there’s no way that Alvarez should be rockin’ and rollin’ on the prophet express at this point. So what gives?

Turns out, Donatello is sending some mixed messages to Alvarez subconsciously. He’s muttering bits and pieces of bible verses, and Alvarez hears him, taking his incoherent ramblings as the Word of God, and interpreting them to mean he should act out these scenes from Exodus.

But he’s failing. Again, vic number one is no slave-owning murderer, and vic number 2? Can we really count him as a First Born son?

We find out from 2’s twin that he was born earlier, and refers to himself as the big brother, because he was born first—by four minutes. That’s some fast and loose interpretation on Alvarez’s part. Is it because he knows vic 2? Maybe. If he knows his buddy calls himself the big brother, the eldest, and he already knows where to find him, well, maybe that’s just gotta be good enough.

The point I’m trying to make here is that Alvarez is pulling off half-cocked reenactments of Exodus, in direct defiance with the actual Commandments Moses receives as the actual Word of God, and it turns out he’s not even getting the Word from the man himself. What he’s getting is a faulty half-message from a half-functioning prophet who’s stuck in dream land. So, in sum, unclear messages from a presumed higher-power that he’s ultimately misinterpreting and carrying out incorrectly.

Hm. Sounds like someone we know.

Before I finally address that point, I’d like to touch briefly on the third vic, our escapee.

I couldn’t quite catch all of what Alvarez was saying as he was getting set to deep fry our pal extra crispy, but what I did get was something about Abraham, and being purified in flame, or meeting one’s salvation through fire. That struck me as odd, because Exodus? It’s not Abraham’s story. He’s the outlier here, and so, consequently, is the one that got away.

I couldn’t think of a biblical book that particular tie-in was from, as a matter of fact. It’s not that Exodus is flame free—far from it. We’ve got the burning bush where Moses first hears the voice of God (first referred to as an angel speaking for God, and then referred to as God himself…more mixed messages), and the pillar of fire God appears as in the night to light the way of the Israelites. But neither of those instances include someone being lit on fire for their salvation. So I did some digging (read: I Googled it).

What I found was pretty interesting, and I am wide open to counters or suggestions on this. But the best link-up I could find was the story of Abraham in the Genesis Rabba (original cut of Genesis), as a midrash positing possible tales about Abraham’s childhood and early life, which we do not get in the Bible itself. “What’s a midrash?” you may ask. Fear not, fair reader—I didn’t know either. I am but a simple gentile, but based on what I read, a midrash is essentially a rabbinical teaching or interpretation based on biblical text.

This particular midrash tells the story of Abraham working in his father’s idol shop. His father leaves him to man the shop one day while he goes off to do something else (God knows what…HA), and Abraham subsequently mocks all of the customers who come in to worship the assorted idols, challenging their beliefs, and questioning why they would choose to worship false Gods, essentially. Abraham’s dad hears about this, and he’s not too happy. He takes Abraham for a little visit to a guy named Nimrod to educate him on proper worship.

Bare bones of it is, Abraham argues with Nimrod the whole way through, and eventually Nimrod decides to chuck Abraham into the furnace, saying that if Abraham’s God is so great, he’ll come save him. Long story short, He does, and Abraham walks off Scott free because of his absolute faith in God, who, at that point, he’d never seen or heard from. The same can’t be said for his brother, who decided he’d only side with Abraham if he came out of the flames unscathed, but I digress.

So, essentially what we’ve got going with the third vic, from what I understand, is Alvarez’s interpretation of Donatello’s coma-babble about an interpretive tale meant to illustrate a story from the original cut of Genesis that isn’t a part of the modern-day old testament. AND Alvarez is, once again, doing it wrong. It’s safe to assume he means to really burn the third vic alive, not to yank him out of the flames and expect him to be unharmed. So unless vic number three is meant to represent Abraham’s brother, who doesn’t get saved, Alvarez is once again misinterpreting the jumbled Word from a middleman.

It’s important to note that this is the only story that actually gets carried out correctly, despite Alvarez’s attempts to the contrary. The false prophet dumps some gasoline, lights a match, and gets ready to watch our vic go up in flames—only to have Sam and Dean bust in and save vic 3 at the last minute.

What does this mean for the episode at large?

The episode opens with Dean’s anxiety dream about pulling off his stellar “let’s throw me in the ocean” plan. Much like with vic number 1, we see Dean in a state of absolute distress, his eyes squinted against tears, his nails clawed bloody from trying to scratch his way out of the Mal’ak box. He is at the bottom of the ocean, bleeding, alone, and desperate, crying out to someone that isn’t going to save him, not this time. When Dean wakes, he finds himself in bed in another motel room, but his reality is essentially no different. The wallpaper mimics ocean waves in style, blue-green in color. The lamps on the walls cast a bloody red light here and there.There are claw marks in the wall next to his bed where he chipped his nails bloody against his imagined coffin lid.

Cut to drowning vic number one in the Red Sea. The imagery surrounding her establishes that she shouldn’t be there. Should Dean?

Vic number two is, again, an eldest brother by four minutes. Dean’s older by four years. Hm. And, of course, there’s the brother left behind, who says he’s “lost a part of” himself. Who is clean cut, and quiet, and heartbroken. There’s no righteous mourning for Sam’s mirror (shameless plug—I hope to address all the fun mirrors everywhere in this episode in a separate post).

Dean tells Sam and Mary that the only way for him to keep Michael contained and stop him from destroying their world is by locking himself and Michael up in that box forever at the bottom of the ocean. He says Billie’s books say it’s the only way. 

And what do we have here? Instructions from a higher power that we never actually got to see. We never read the book Billie handed Dean, the one with the only apparent way out of this situation. We’re relying on Dean’s interpretation of what Billie’s book says or does not say. What her Word means. Just like Alvarez is relying on the faulty Word he’s getting from Donatello. Cas reveals that Donatello is essentially muttering nonsense in his unconscious state. Alvarez carrying out a word he doesn’t really understand, but is convinced is the righteous, correct thing to do. But he didn’t really get clear directions. Maybe Dean didn’t either.

Maybe Dean, like Alvarez, is damn wrong.

Again, I’m not going to go into mirrors in this post, but I will drop this little tidbit. Alvarez, dressed in a way that’s pretty reminiscent of Dean, at least in the army green jacket, carries out his supposed orders without so much as a flinch. Until he learns the truth, discovers that he has been doing the wrong thing this whole time.

Then he shoots himself with Dean’s gun. Dean’s white hilt, cowboy-flower-engraved, can’t-watch-the-show-and-not-associate-this-gun-with-Dean, gun. Hm.

A final word (ha) on the third victim. What saves Abraham is, ultimately, his faith. Abraham believes that God will save him from the fire, and therefore, he is saved.

What will save Dean, it seems, is Sam’s belief in him, and ultimately his belief in Team Free Will. In Sam, in Cas, and in himself. He affirms for Sam, “I do believe in us,” and decides to go on home and hash things out before proceeding with what Cas refers to has his “suicidal plan” to drop himself in the drink. Suicidal like Alvarez, who, based on Sam and Dean’s reaction when they realize what he is about to do, doesn’t really deserve the death he gets either, despite it all.

Earlier in the episode, we have the bro-ment in the car, in which Sam, for the first time I can personally recall in the series, directly states that Dean “practically raised” him in lieu of their absent father. He recognizes Dean as his father-figure, at least in part. Sam then goes on to talk about his belief in “us” as a unit. Dean agrees that he believes in “us…in all of us,” factoring Cas in as the third in their Trinity. Dean of course now recognized as the father, Sam the son...and Cas?

Cas the celestial wave of intent, a brilliant, angelic, burn-the-bad-guys-from-the-inside-out entity inhabiting a humanly body? Who is Cas if not the Holy Spirit in our little Trinity?

So Abraham’s belief in God saves him from the fire. And Dean’s belief in his own Trinity, maybe, is what will save him from misinterpreting how his story ends.

The Queen’s Return (4)- Riverdale

A/N: It’s taken it’s sweet sweet time lol but here it is! Part 4! So i know it’s not exactly the big reveal but i really didn’t want to make this any longer and i think it wrapped up quite well here and hopefully there’s enough drama to keep ya going!

Pairing: Sweet Pea x OC

Warnings: One lil swear at the end

Word Count: 2029

Summary: Cassia makes an entrance in part 1 of her revenge plot, and sweets gets dragged along too.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Tag List:  @asifblackmagic @jolomez@deanilostmyshoe@poolpartyingwithjaws @bbygigiiii @lady1505@sweetacp @randomnesss-of-fandomness @serpentsweetspea @cabbagemagic

That night she’d expected for some sort of retaliation from Jughead, something about how Sweet Pea wasn’t a welcome guest in his trailer and that due to Cassia being a guest herself, she should respect his wishes or get out. But to her surprise, there was no reckoning or ultimatum just some silent yet questioning glares before an excuse about him being ‘too tired’ to stay up and watch their childhood favourite film together.

Cassia was up and gone the next morning before Jughead was even remotely awake. She had learned quickly that Jughead Jones was not a morning person, and despite her efforts to cook him breakfasts to show her gratitude, her effort was often wasted as she would return to the trailer and see the plate completely untouched. So this morning she decided she would let the boy sleep undisturbed whilst she went for a run in attempt to clear her mind. Having finished her pathetic attempt at annual exercise, she called it quits and stopped by Pop’s on her way back, partly in an attempt to not have to speak to Jughead but mainly because she had realised running on an empty stomach was not advisable.

Unfortunately for Cassia, the former of her reasoning for entering Pop’s had earned one big laugh from the God up above because as she swung open the door to the diner she noticed a beanie clad boy sat hunched into a red leather booth staring intently at the laptop screen in front of him. Crap she thought instantly, now she had to sit with him and despite her unconditional love for the boy, she didn’t want to talk to him because that meant questions and she wasn’t ready for questions just yet.

“What a beautiful surprise it is to see you here” She grinned, sliding into the seat opposite her friend after having given her order to Pop Tate.

“It’s my monthly early morning rise” He grinned which earned a questionable hmm from Cassia

Cassia spotted the corner of a dull yellow sheet of paper that was obscured partially under Jughead’s laptop, she could only make out the letters: SoDale

“What’s this?” Cassia asked impatiently, tugging at the corner of the flyer

Jughead lifted up his laptop obligingly in order for her to pull the paper out from underneath.

SoDale Construction She read, the words felt bitter in her mouth at the faint recollection they had in her memory

“An open house?” She asked incredulously “Planning on going?”

“No” Jughead scoffed “Betty and I are doing stuff”

“Ooh a date” Cassia cooed mockingly which earned a glare from the boy opposite

Pop set the food down in front of Cassia and instantly she dived in, Jughead pinching the occasional fry and Cassia kept the conversation to a minimum only asking Jughead questions about the book he was writing or about the people of Riverdale. She had learned a lot about Betty, naturally, as well a few of his other friends: Archie Andrews, Toni Topaz and most importantly to Cassia, Veronica Lodge. She instantly recognised the family name and suddenly the SoDale Construction clicked into place.

After quickly conjuring up an excuse to leave she made her way out of the diner and sucked in the fresh air almost desperately. She knew today was the day, the whole reason she was back was resting on today and it made Cassia feel sick with nerves.

She waited for about 15 minutes after Jughead had gone to meet Betty so that she knew for certain that he wouldn’t return unexpectedly. She had already double checked before he left just to confirm that he would be out all night which made her breathe slightly easier. She went into the shopping bag that she had brought from earlier that day, and pulled out the black silky dress and smiled as the black fabric pooled at her feet, she laid it out on Jughead’s bed so as not to crease the fabric and hopped in the shower in an attempt to clear her head and steady her nerves.

Once out of the shower and now dressed in her new purchases, she topped off her look with her favourite red lipstick, she smiled to herself remembering her dad’s words about her own mother “If she had red lips she meant business” Cassia hoped that her lipstick alone would show that she was in charge, even if she felt like a child playing dress up.

Before she left the trailer she eyed up Jughead’s leather Serpent jacket that was tossed over the arm of the sofa, with a shrug she draped the jacket around her shoulders and shut the door behind her. Steadying herself as she got used to walking in heels, she drew in a deep breath and headed away from Jugheads.

Cassia’s small balled fist rapped firmly 3 times on the door in front of her as she smoothed out the dress at her side whilst waiting for the person on the other side to open up. It was a minute before the door swung open and Sweet Pea stood there in an old faded band tee and a pair of boxer shorts, his hair was a mess and he had a slice of half eaten toast in his hand. His jaw was hanging slack and his eyebrows were raised in a look of pure shock

“You have a truck right?” Cassia asked instantaneously, she wasn’t certain if it was out of nervousness of wanting to set things in motion, or out of fear that he’d start asking her questions that she wasn’t ready to answer yet.

It took Sweet Pea a second before he could comprehend what Cassia had just asked him before he answered with a stammered “yeah” before his lips curled up into his regular smirk

“If this is a date can I at least get dressed first?” He quipped before motioning to his current attire

“It’s definitely not a date” Cassia stated “but I’d rather you had pants on” making the corners of her mouth twitch up too.

Sweet Pea turned around and withdrew into his trailer and left the door open for what Cassia assumed was her invite inside. She hesitantly followed him and stood in the doorway awkwardly, observing Sweet Pea’s trailer

“Nice place” She mumbled, both to be pleasant but also as a genuine compliment to the boy.

Granted, it was how she’d have decorated it if she had her own place but it felt very much like the kind of place that Sweet Pea would live. There were plates stacked on the kitchen sideboard, presumably waiting until he’d ran out completely of clean dishes before they got their chance at being washed, bottles gathered on the little wooden table that sat in the corner next to the somewhat tattered sofa that had a grey knitted blanket tossed haphazardly across the back.

“So why you dressed like you’re going to prom in Transylvania?” He smirked as he came out of his bedroom zipping up his jeans as he spoke

“Please don’t ask any questions” Cassia mumbled with a roll of her eyes before looking over to the boy who was stood in the doorway to his room

“So I’m handing my truck out to strangers and I’m not allowed to ask any questions? You are dangerous Cassia” He smirked with a shake of his head

“Actually,” Cassia began “I need to ask one more favour… can you drive?” Cassia asked looking up at him with a hesitant expression

“It’s hard to do anything with these heels” She grinned and kicked her shoe out from under her long dress so Sweet Pea could see exactly what she was having to deal with “And I would’ve taken my bike but…” She trailed off and lifted the fabric at her side to motion to the boy that she most definitely could not ride a motorbike in her floor length dress.

“Do I get to know where we’re going?” He asked with an exasperated sigh before grabbing his keys off the table and heading towards the door “Or do I have to wear a blindfold whilst you steer to a top secret location?”

“Very funny” Cassia smiled sarcastically at him before pulling open the passenger door to the truck and sliding into her seat.

The truck was mildly beat up and looking worse for wear, Cassia assumed it was second hand at the very least and she got the impression that it was rarely used due to the 3 attempts it took to get the engine up and running.

“So why are you wearing your boyfriend’s serpent jacket?” Sweet Pea asked, eyebrow raised at the girl beside him

“He’s not my boyfriend” Cassia deadpanned

“Sure” Sweet Pea smirked which earned an eye roll from Cassia.

The rest of the journey remained silent apart from Cassia’s directions and soon enough the pair pulled up to Cassia’s intended destination

“An open house?” Sweet Pea laughed “Interested in the southside demolition?”

“Thanks Sweet Pea” Cassia said, ignoring his question and getting out of the truck

She began walking along the strip of red carpet that was laid out when she heard a slam of a car door followed by the sound of Sweet Pea’s voice

“Hey! I drop you on the north side of town and I don’t even get an explanation?” He called from behind her but his rapid strides meant he was they were neck and neck by the time he’d finished his sentence.

“Just don’t say anything until I’m done” She ordered “I’ll explain everything afterwards, I promise”

“Hang on-”

“Please Sweet Pea” She asked exasperatedly and stopped to look up at the boy next to her

He nodded in agreement, even if it was hesitantly which earned an appreciative smile from Cassia.

The pair walked through the tent entrance, both being handed a complimentary glass of champagne on the way in. Cassia could only thank the God’s that their timing was more than impeccable, 3 figures stood up in a line on a makeshift stage. Cassia instantly knew who they were, well 2 at least and that was all that mattered to her.

Pushing her way through the crowd she and Sweet Pea stopped at the front so that Cassia could be sure she would be seen.

“Southside as we know it will be gone, replaced with a new Eden” The voice said and Cassia could sense Sweet Pea’s tenseness next to her.

“You’d sure love that wouldn’t you Hiram” Cassia piped up, the attention of the crowd now diverted solely on her “I bet you’d even be willing to kill for it” She continued, she could see Sweet Pea’s confusion from her peripheral and as disturbing as it was she carried on

“Sorry you didn’t catch my name did you?” She asked sarcastically and took one step forward, so that she was even closer to the man

“Cassia Clay” She announced

She noticed the sudden change in emotion to confusion to bewilderment on Hiram’s face, his wife too slowly realising who the girl in front of them was. She heard an audible ‘Shit’ from Sweet Pea that made her mentally laugh

“You probably remember my dad don’t you?” She asked, another step forwards

“Ok everyone if you’d like to help yourself to more drinks, canapes” Hermione Lodge interrupted, gracefully extending her arm out in an attempt to distract the crowd away from the scene in front of them. She snapped her fingers and music resumed the gazebo and light chatter of shock filled the air.

“Look” Hiram began but was cut off instantly by Cassia, whose eyes now burned a bright red fury to match her lipstick

“I’m not here to interrupt your façade Mr Lodge, I’m just here to remind you” She said fiercely enough for Sweet Pea to know that he would definitely not want to get on her bad side, “I know what you did”

She turned on her heels and made a step towards Sweet Pea before changing her mind and glancing over her shoulder before uttering: “I’m sure my invite just got lost in the post”

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited

In November 2007, an entirely contextless video of me being punched in the face went viral. You might have seen it. It still does the rounds every couple of months, often when something notably bad happens that warrants a response of disbelief. In these strange times, it’s managed to remain endlessly prescient.

For the uninitiated, the video in question is an 11-second clip in which, aged 16, I appear wearing a dressing gown cord around my head, a chain necklace, some children’s sunglasses and a black T-shirt. I sit down and address the camera, ostensibly about to tell the viewer what I was thinking. I am immediately interrupted by my friend Tim, who appears stage left and lamps me. Rather than react in pain or anger, I err more towards disappointment and dismay, bewildered that something like this could happen. “Ah fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this,” I said. End scene.

It’s been nearly 14 years since I uploaded the original video and to this day it still prompts questions. Who was the guy who got punched? Why did he get punched? Who punched him? What was he thinking? Why did he react that way? Why did he leave YouTube?

In recent years I’ve come to appreciate and even enjoy its bizarre status as an enduring piece of internet history, but my relationship with the clip in the decade that followed its inexorable rise hasn’t always been easy. To understand why, it’s useful to remember that the internet in 2007 was, for better or worse, a very different place.

Having spent the best part of my school years filming stupid skits with mates instead of studying, there was something semi-appealing about the prospect of being able to put videos online to share with friends. It began in mid-2003, when myself and a group of friends would have been in our early teens. Inspired by the likes of Jackass and Bam Margera’s CKY movies, our impressionable young selves set about ignoring all relevant safety warnings, hurling ourselves out of trees, riding scooters into curbs, and racing tyres down hills on skateboards.

At the age of 14 or so, I had envisaged cutting the footage into a chaotic feature-length video of “stunts.” I’d probably have soundtracked it with music from the Tony Hawk games, alongside countless other homemade skate videos people made circa 2003 that probably featured a mix of Ace of Spades or Guerilla Radio. I still have a box full of VHS-C tapes kicking around somewhere, which can only be viewed on one of those absolutely insane VHS adapters. Having not watched any of it in well over a decade, I can safely say that the content contained within those tapes is unequivocally shit.

All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in.

Looking back, the whole endeavour was entirely aimless, but aside from coming away with mild head injuries from time to time it was an innocuous way to spend my childhood. At the very least it also means I have a bizarre, tangible record of my youth that I’ll be able to laugh at one day when I’m old and wizened.

By summer 2004, we had started filming on Mini-DV, which opened up a whole new world of editing possibilities. Plugging a video camera into a computer and capturing footage directly to editing software is pretty much a given for today’s generation of content creators, but back in the early 2000s, this was revolutionary.

We’d eventually gravitate away from ‘stunts’ towards more structured skits and sketches. Nothing was ever scripted per se, but we’d usually start out with a rough idea of something and see how it played out.

There was an ambitiously misguided 'silent horror' short, soundtracked by Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, in which someone chopped off ‘my cock’ (a banana) with a garden shear. We considered this to be the absolute pinnacle of comedy.

There was an ill-advised 'Ballers' skit in which we ventured out in sports gear to make a mock training video taking the piss out of a guy at school who fancied himself as a bit of a gangster; this painfully middle-class white kid who listened to rap metal and liked basketball. He obviously never saw it and there's no question that we looked like idiots filming it at the local park. It’s probably quite offensive in hindsight.

The author at the Bristol Climate Change Protests in September 2019. Image: Shanya Buultjens

There was a James Bond 'spoof' that involved misquoting portions of dialogue from that scene in GoldenEye where Q gives Bond an exploding pen. It was funny to about three people. One of them was my mum.

One time a mate of mine fell out of a tree when he tried to swing from a branch. He landed on his back and ended up coughing up blood. He didn’t go to the hospital even though he probably should have. He’s now a doctor and a father.

Mercifully, none of this stuff ever made it online, but I did sell a couple of DVDs to people at school who rightly/probably/hopefully never watched them. In an ideal world, I'd own the only copies. I'm also fully aware that writing about this now only makes it more likely that one of the four people that still have a copy will dig theirs out. Please do not do that.

In 2005 and 2006, YouTube was very much in its infancy. This was the time when clips were limited to about 100mb and you could only upload about 30 seconds worth of footage at a time, which basically made it perfect for bursts of frenetic, inane content. As the platform grew, it became a dumping ground for skits and footage that we’d accumulated over the preceding years. Much of it went completely unnoticed until late 2007, at which point things started to get a bit weird.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it.

The clip that people have come to know started out as an aimless skit filmed in Summer 2006. We hadn’t planned anything, least of all me being punched. In the footage building up to the event, I pushed Tim off the chair, he fell and hit his head on a filing cabinet off-camera. Rather than react to Tim, I sat down and proceeded to ad lib something that I’d venture to guess would have been considerably less funny than the act of violence that followed. Unprompted, Tim upsided me and I reacted with an inexplicable, completely incredulous response, which has followed me online ever since.

The footage sat on a tape until July 2007 when I decided to upload a brief segment under an ambiguous title. Fast forward to November and the video had somehow blown up, had its comments section relentlessly spammed, been ripped countless times and had offensive Wiki pages written about it. I also received a few direct messages which could at best have been described as ‘worrying’ and at worst ‘threatening,’ which was nice.

To this day, I’m none the wiser as to how it blew up in the way it did. I originally uploaded the video under the title ‘ ___________’ but the video somehow found its way onto 4chan where it spread like wildfire. The earliest mirrored link I could find was from January 2008, by which time it had been re-uploaded by multiple accounts, the most prominent of which had already clocked up almost double the number of views compared to my original upload.

At the time, going viral wasn't really comparable to any other experience and it certainly wasn't something I could discuss in solidarity with my friends. All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in. After yanking down several other videos on my YouTube channel, I opted for the latter.

When the video blew up, I got a call from a friend who informed me that the video had made the front page of Break.com. I peripherally knew what that meant: they offered a buyout scheme for videos that made the front page, which meant that I could make some money from it.

As it transpired, this wasn’t such a great idea. After signing a release form with some pretty appalling terms, over the following months I had several unnerving interactions with researchers for various TV shows looking to license the clip. Each offered far more favourable terms than those of Break. One of them harassed a bunch of my mates on Facebook. I think he even offered to pay one of them for my contact details.

By that point, it was all too apparent that I had completely fucked it. Break had the rights and I couldn't do anything with it even if I wanted to. At just 18 years old, I had sold out. In the short term, I used the money to buy a TV, which was great, but I soon started to get the creeping feeling that this was a decision that would come to haunt me. At that point, it was easier to disassociate myself from the clip, abandon YouTube, and move on with my life.

And yet, for the best part of 14 years the questions have kept coming: no, it wasn’t staged or scripted, it wasn’t a set-up, I didn’t know it was coming and, yes, it hurt. It was also very funny, which is presumably why I felt the need to upload it in isolation in the first place. Incidentally, Tim and I are still friends and contrary to some of the absolutely insane comments people leave on YouTube I can confirm that neither of us are in prison, the punch wasn’t a reaction to some sort of disagreement and he’s a lovely bloke.

To be clear, the lack of context wasn’t a deliberate choice to add intrigue either. I’d never even considered the possibility that anyone outside my circle of friends would see it. To me it was just another daft clip that a few mates would find funny.

Around the time I’d started to make peace with the issues around ownership, in 2018 it came to my attention that Break had shut down and its owner Defy Media had gone bust. The site was subsequently purchased by Yeah1 Network, but to this day I have no clarity whatsoever on my legal rights to the video. Any attempts to receive guidance have either turned up dead ends, or led to suggestions that I speak to IP lawyers, whom I have neither the means nor the time to deal with. Incidentally, if anyone has any insights in that area, I’d love to hear them.

Having said this, there’s something quite empowering in taking something embarrassing and admitting to it before someone else can point it out to you—a bit like taking ownership of an amusing surname. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what gags can be made from the name ‘Weedon,’ but I learned quite early on that if you make the jokes yourself and beat others to it, no one can fucking touch you. It’s much easier nowadays to hold my hands up and admit that I shouldn’t have sold the rights, make a joke of it and move on. At the very least, it makes for a good anecdote at parties.

As I suspect is probably the case for old content creators, if you can even call us that, the real story about I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This isn’t in how it’s aged and endured, or even how it’s impacted my life. For me, it’s tied up in issues of rights, ownership, and monetisation. As mercenary as it might be, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t regret missing out on a slice of the pie when it came to YouTubers being able to monetise their content sooner. On the one hand, that's probably a very cynical view for something that was created by a bunch of teenagers who were fooling around making videos for fun in the noughties, but on the other, that's just the world we live in now.

Perhaps the strangest thing about my experience with it nowadays is the way people engage with it on a day-to-day basis. The comments vary from young people discovering its origins for the first time, surprised to discover that it is in fact a 14 year old video and not a recent creation filmed for Vine or TikTok. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are incredulous that someone with a video that has 9.2 million views and an account that’s amassed over 15,000 followers without really trying would step away from the platform and not want to make content.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it. I love seeing how it’s been re-interpreted in modern mediums and that positive association has made it easier to accept. Charles Cornell turned it into a sad song. It got sampled in a KIll The Noise track. I had a nice interaction with The Sidemen about it. Will Smith even featured it in an insane Instagram post during the pandemic. I DM’d him to say thanks and he obviously didn’t reply.

To that end, a small group of us have recently started work on a film project exploring the nature of the meme, how it grew, its impact on my life and my relationship with the internet at large. In doing so, the hope is that, while answering some of the burning questions that other people still seem to have, I’ll ultimately be able to make peace with the whole thing.

@Twotafkap

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

have yourself a merry little Christmas;; 2x09 gift analysis

I’ve been putting A LOT of thought post-episode into how I feel about the Christmas and gift aspect of the episode, because it was actually my favorite part and something I personally felt was poignant for each character in their relationships and personal development despite all the ‘in-your-face’ plot devices of a typical mid-season finale. Each gift told a story, or had a greater meaning that I felt was glossed over for sake of pace for the episode and overall time but I get to extrapolate upon that here and I will of course be focusing on Betty and her web of interpersonal relationships through the clever use of Christmas presents.

First, we see Archie has drawn her name for Kevin’s Secret Santa and she can tell who’s given her gift solely by the poor wrapping skills which speaks to the many years of friendship they’ve shared, and the number of Christmases they’ve spent together and exchanged gifts. Where there is a camera pan to catch Veronica’s jealousy (not for the first time) over the bond Betty and Archie share, but what we see in Jughead’s expression behind her is more hurt than it is envy. The thoughtful gift from their shared idyllic childhood and the joy in Betty’s reaction solidifies his worst fears (please see: 1x10) about slumming it with him until Archie changes his mind and I think he’s afraid of just that now when he and Betty are already on rocky ground post-Serpent dance parking lot conversation and more so now when he sees that Archie can make Betty happy in a way he’s convinced he never could. Now the gift itself: a Swiss Family Robinson read-along record that Betty and Archie listened to when they were kids. It’s an incredibly sweet and thoughtful gift on Archie’s part and I would expect no less from him as Betty Cooper’s best friend. However, as far as romanticizing this moment goes for Barchie in terms of a potential jumping off point for a rekindled relationship, I’m not buying it. It’s a gift of nostalgia, a second thought when Archie and his dad were cleaning out their garage and it’s a piece of their shared history but one that remains firmly rooted in the past. Archie’s friendship and her previous feelings for him have helped shape who Betty has become as the person she is now but she has grown up and is far from the same innocent five year old girl next door he listened to that record with as a kid. In an incredibly Dickensian way, this gift is a ghost of Christmas past and where it shall remain cherished but still her history as opposed to the present or future. The next gift, or what I like to call the ghost of Christmas present is the anonymous gift left for her by the Black Hood. (Shout out to the perfection that was Alice Cooper festively baking Christmas cookies in the kitchen - literally EXACTLY as I would picture her.) No one was surprised by what the typed-tag gift had in store for Betty. While personally I was expecting an ear, there was nothing more cinematically classic than a sawed off finger of an assumed kidnap victim. The entire Black Hood saga of this season regardless of my feelings on how well or poorly it’s been executed as an overall story arc has been Betty’s present and is forcing her to not only confront the darkest parts of herself, but to choose and incorporate those parts of her into the person she will become. This is her pivotal turning point and it’s leaving her in the precarious place of the point of no return, first the parallels the Black Hood draws between the darkness that exists within them, aligning herself to the Serpents as adjacent because of her love for Jughead and now solidified as we watch her pull the black hood from Sheriff Keller’s office out of the fire. It’s foreboding to say the least, but a final nail in the coffin of the Betty Cooper who listened to the Swiss Family Robinson record; Archie’s beloved perfect Betty. Finally, at the end of the episode both her gift and Jughead’s are revealed after the excruciating entirety of the episode and frankly, they couldn’t be more well-thought out. Enter: ghosts of Christmases yet to come. Jughead is, even for a brief glimmering moment a snapshot of his former self: a kid with the best gift a writer could be given by the one person who owns his heart. The vintage Underwood Typewriter, the “typewriter of champions”, is the gift Jughead would have always secretly wanted, but never would have asked for himself because his family never had that kind of money for extravagant gifts. He would have never selfishly put himself before survival necessities and bills needing to be paid and honestly would have sacrificed his own gifts on more than one occasion to better Jelly Bean’s Christmas than his own. Jug is humble in what he does have but doesn’t ask for beyond his means because he knows (especially now) the lengths his dad has gone to and how hard he’s really worked to provide for his family what little they do have.  Jug gets to be a boy with a dream again, a dream of telling his story and finally leaving behind a town who’s never been kind to him in his rear view and all because he fell in love with a girl who understood his purpose and passion as a writer. An old school shout out to their time spent together in the early days of their relationship at the Blue and Gold which will always be shared and treasured memories for their friendship as well as the starting point of something more between them.  Then we see how in-tune Betty and Jughead are even in the spirit of Christmas gift giving when he gives her the signed first edition of “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, with an endearing hand-written note of word-play and affection from a boy who doesn’t easily profess and share his true feelings. We know this is Betty’s favorite author from all the way back in the pilot when she was telling Archie about her summer vacation but even then we don’t get the sense that he was really listening to her while too focused on his own needs regarding his music, Ms. Grundy and of course his attention on Veronica when she enters the diner. This gift is the result of what has likely been hours long conversations about favorite authors and literary heroes between Betty and Jug when they’re perfectly at ease and alone together, finally able to be themselves without fear or judgment with Jughead genuinely listening and picking up on her passions as much as she does his. The literary and intellectual connection these two share levels the playing field between them and puts them as equals, which is an important aspect I’ve always included in their relationship dynamic. My final point on this gift is the fact that Jughead would have taken A LOT of time to save up for such a lavish gift. He’s had the forethought and idea for this gift for months and months for someone we know isn’t well off by any means and even as a sixteen year old he’s managed to save and spend hundreds of dollars on this first edition book with everything else going on in his life including his father’s incarceration when he was living alone in the Jones family trailer without so much as a foster family to feed and take care of him. Jughead stopped at nothing to get her what he thought was the perfect and most special gift, a gift too that shows the trajectories of their growth as adults for their respective futures, passions and career aspirations.  Merry Christmas indeed fellow Riverdaliens....

2019 Academy Award Best Picture Nominees Guide For Those Who Haven’t Actually Watched Them

It’s the 91st time Hollywood comes together to pat themselves on the back and this year marks the 5th time I’m bringing you the rundown of every Best Picture nominee so that you aren’t the “goddamn idiot” someone at your Oscars party is referring to when they ask, “Who invited this goddamn idiot?” Only, as in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014  (check out the hyperlinks for previous years’ rundowns - and likely some jokes that don’t age very well) - this is all based on the name of the film, the poster for the movie, or things I’ve heard while flipping past Extra or E! So take it all in and enjoy my tips on things to say to other guests so that your party has an ending that is more like Ally’s and less like Jackson’s!

Black Panther

After Creed loses in embarrassing fashion to Ivan Drago’s son, he tats up, grows that hair out, and heads to outer space. After landing on a planet right between the planet from Avatar and Naboo, pissy Creed picks a fight with a space prince who was bit by a radioactive space panther in the movie that had audiences saying, “I bet Forest Whitaker is in this movie. How is Forest Whitaker not in this movie? I’m honestly shocked that Forest Whitaker is not...oh, yup, there he is.”

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A little insider Easter egg here - Wakanda backwards spells Adnakaw, which happens to be the name of Thor and Loki’s OTHER brother who is going to save everyone in Avengers: Endgame. He’ll be played by...Forest Whitaker.

In a deleted scene, Black Panther’s brother, The Pink Panther, visits to check out the Wakandan castle’s attic and then installs fiberglass insulation.

Spike Lee really turned the super hero movie genre on its head with this didn’t he? (Pause.) Oh. That was...um...oh, well um... (Slowly walk backward out of the room and do not return.)

BlacKkKlansman

The Chapelle’s Show’s first skit-to-feature length film gives the big screen treatment to the story of Clayton Bigsby. Based on the success of this film, 2019 also saw the big screen adaptation of The Chapelle’s Show’s “What Men Want” skit to a movie starring Taraji P. Henson. In 2020, anticipate a feature length Rick James biopic, a Playa Hater’s Ball film, and “Game, Blouses: The Movie”.

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This film marks Ricky Jerret’s first acting role after he was cut from the Miami Dolphins by Charles Greane - who he thought was his friend - for his use of PEDs.

This film holds the distinction of having the highest number of different spellings on social media - just barely edging out Bohemian Rhapsody and The Favourite (well, in America).

Reggie Miller purchased a seat in the front row of the Oscars and is planning to wear a The Favourite jersey and baseball cap, then spend the entire show heckling Spike Lee and screaming, “See?! How does it feel the other way around?!”

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody is a French film with a title that can be loosely translated into English as “The Sassy Singing Lad With The Donkey Snout”. 

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A bit of trivia for you. Did you know that Freddie Mercury wasn’t his first choice for a stage name? It was actually Fred Mercury.

A bit of trivia for you. Did you know that Brian May wasn’t his first choice for a stage name? It was actually Brian February.

A bit of trivia for you. Did you know that Queen’s first band name was actually Princess and they didn’t become Queen until they married Prince...and enjoyed a Purple Reign? Yup - I will show myself out now.

The Favourite

Rain droups on rouses! This perioud piece stars Oulivia Coulman, Emma Stoune, Joue Alwyn and Nichoulas Holt! It’s abot a grop of people in the contry of England that’s two hors long and y will find fabulos! 

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This is the movie about a Queen that doesn’t end with an AIDS diagnosis...I think.

Wigs and bodices accounted for 48% of the film’s budget.

The film’s title has nothing to do with the plot or characters and is instead a sly attempt to influence the outcome of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences members’ voting.

Green Book

In this sexual thriller, we see the raw, animal side of Kermit the Frog as he provides details from his Little Green Book of every single Muppet he’s fucked. With an original working title of Fifty Shades of Green, we’ll see how Miss Piggy was at first a mousy and demure fill-in interviewer whose sexual spirit was awakened by Kermit’s dominant yet mesmerizing magnetism. Kermit also does some butt stuff with Bunsen Honeydew and gets down group style with all of The Electric Mayhem.

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There’s an odd cameo halfway through the movie where Mahershala Ali enters a gas station on the road and encounters a man in his late 20′s/early 30′s who says in a southern drawl, “I’m Stephen Dorff and I’m your partner,” then another Stephen Dorff, this one in his 40′s limps up and says, “And I’m Stephen Dorff. I’m also your partner,” then finally an old drunk one in his 70′s hobbles up and says, “I’m Stephen Dorff and I too am your partner!”

Mahershala Ali generally tried to avoid Viggo Mortensen, who continually would run up saying, “Dude, Mahersh! We have to get matching tattoos of the number two - for the two of us to commemorate this journey that we’re on together. It’s what you do with your cast mates!” When Mahershala would decline but say it was nice what Viggo and the cast of the Lord of the Rings trilogy did together, Viggo would walk off grumbling, “Hidalgo got a tattoo with me...”

*Before the next comment - be sure to do a thorough research on Google and on social media to determine the prevailing public opinion of if Green Book is a remarkable cinematic achievement faithful to the story of Don Shirley and Tony Vallelonga’s relationship and an examination of the complicated issue of race and its impact on friendship and business OR if it’s just another white savior movie before you speak, so that you can make sure that you’re aligned with whatever is currently the popular thing to say at that moment in time about this movie. Then say...

Ahem. This is the same director who wrote and directed a scene in Movie 43 where Hugh Jackman is on a blind date with Kate Winslet and has prosthetic testicles hanging under his neck which go into her mouth - and that’s, like, it.

Roma

Set in a world with no color, this movie is about a bunch of people (mostly children) hugging on a beach who may or may not be related to each other, may or may not be involved in some kind of national tragedy in either Italy or Mexico, and may or may not be sick, dying, sad or overcome with joy. I honestly have no clue on this one. But it IS on Netflix.

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They say that Alfonso Cuarón painted a realistic picture of his childhood in Roma which is the exact same tactic he employed in making Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Netflix forced Cuarón to cross promote other Netflix titles throughout the film, so there is an odd scene in which Cleo’s son meets his Big Mouth Hormone Monster to talk about masturbation and then later on the family enters The Upside Down (or Al Revés de Abajo). Also, every single cast member gets a stand-up comedy special.

Yalitza Martínez plays a housekeeper here and after this star-making turn, she’s got it MAID!

A Star Is Born

Jackson Maine wants to create a star. But after consulting a high school astronomy textbook, he learns that the only way that a star is truly born is to squeeze atoms of light elements under enough pressure for their nuclei to undergo fusion. He closes the book and says, “To hell with that science shit,” then gets drunk and just hires Lady Gaga to write a song that sounds like she’s a child screaming at her mom to watch her do a dive at the community pool.

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As a first-time singer, Bradley Cooper devoted countless hours over several months in order to unlock the instrument of his voice to become a mostly-inoffensive singer. As a first-time director, Bradley Cooper bought one of those chairs with “Director” on it.

Bradley Cooper refused to urinate for the duration of filming until the big Grammy’s scene so it played better on film. He did poop a lot during filming though.

The young actress from Eighth Grade is already planning her Oscar bait remake of A Star Is Born to come out in 2043 where SHE plays the aging star and enters a romance with a young male singer played by Boy from Bird Box.

Vice

As the DC Comics universe continues to expand, we finally get the origin story of Batman arch nemesis and super villain, The Penguin.

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Unable to shake his Saturday Night Live roots, Adam McKay decided to insert a scene late in the movie where - unannounced - the real Dick Cheney walks in to surprised applause from the audience and Christian Bale acts flustered before stammering out that it is an honor to meet him. Cheney pauses for the awkward “oh my god, can you believe this” murmur to die down in the audience and then stiffly delivers, “You know, Christian, you could have just worn a fat suit for this role.” The audience erases all memory of the terrible atrocities that the man has committed during his lifetime and erupts into wild clapping and bark-laughing like seals while Christian and the rest of the cast just have to hand it to the guy for being such a good sport about it all.

Dick Cheney is just happy that A Star Is Born is in the field this year so that in defiance of Vice he also doesn’t have to root for any movies about gay guys, black people, immigrants, or foreigners.

While watching the film, Laura Bush continually had to remind a startled and frightened George W. that no, he was not trapped up in the big movie screen.