That Captain America Healing Factor Is All Well And Good Until Someone On The Team Has To Pin Steve Down

oh theyre about to have the best sex imaginable i bet

Odysseus after ten years of suffering, picking up Poseidon’s trident: Traumatize them back :)

Poseidon: Hey… Buddy… can we talk about this?

Odysseus: No :)

What isn't there to love about the idea of MCU Bucky becoming Captain America?

It's the right thing to do, isn't it? He was the one who watched him fall. (He tried to catch him but he only caught his tags. The bitter cold tore him away in the blink of an eye, with a scream that Bucky hears when he tries to sleep.) Steve was the best of them both, and if he thought this cause was one to die for, then Bucky would finish it. He's followed him this far, hasn't he? Long enough for the bruises Zola gave him to fade, but not enough that hearing his voice in that train wouldn't make him freeze. (What if he finds him? What if he go back there, strapped down, poked and prodded and injected with God knows what -)

But besides that?

There's nothing.

He's known Steve almost his entire life. He barely remembers a time where there wasn't Steve. He once had him to himself, only he saw the goodness in him, he loved him first, but now he shared it with the world. Because of some holy serum; but the bastardized version of the same thing ran in his own veins, and Bucky knew deep down that he would never be Steve. He could try, but he could never be him to the world.

So why wouldn't he crash that plane?

He never wanted to be a weapon. But he wakes up, and it's asked of him again. Be a soldier. Be an officer. Be Captain America. His gun was an extension of himself, the shield of Steve, and he would never, ever drop either of them. (Not again. He dreamt of it, that scream still scratched into his brain no matter how much time had actually passed, seventy years or seven days.)

And then, one day, beyond his wildest dreams, he'd see him again. But this? This hollow ghost? This isn't the Steve he knows and loves. But he slips from his fingers again,

And on that helicarrier, the glass cracks beneath his feet, bullet wounds and serrated skin and black bruises, but he still has it in him - he catches him. Metal fingers that were foreign to him, but still, Steve.

Never again. Never without him.

Rely On Time

Wherein I'm a whore for Jewish Bucky Barnes and love writing things inspired by religions and myths.

────

2023

Bucky had never truly felt alone in the world.

Of course, as the Winter Soldier, he hadn't had much of a consciousness to even consider that idea. Even when he was in Azzano, he had his men. Strapped to Zola's table in experimentation, the idea of being alone hadn't mattered so much, knowing he would be dead. Before the war, he had Steve.

Steve.

Fastened to his side, Steve had always been there. It had been a month, and he still couldn't believe it. That he would leave so easily, after all they had gone through. But that was just it, wasn't it? Steve had time taken away from him, had his freedom stripped under the stripes of that shield in an attempt to fight for the freedoms of others. Of course he would choose to go back for a second chance.

Bucky didn't have that option.

Eve was her own being, her own thoughts. Though fashioned from Adam's rib, she was not him. Her own desire lived within her and the snake knew it. But why is that a sin? The pursuit of Knowledge in the name of growth, even at the risk of disobeying God? Could it have been what He intended all along? He planted the Tree, he created the snake, he fashioned humanity knowing they would question it all - all for humankind to learn and grow, to plant their roots alongside the Tree.

He wondered, sometimes, what he was. Was he a collection of thoughts? Are people only the recollections of times past? He walked as living proof of not only a time that no longer was, but the strength of a people who lived despite all odds.

Despite all odds.

Was that all it was? Random chance? Did he ever fight anything? No choice but to accept the draft. Too sick to fight Zola back, barely lucid enough to keep himself from biting off his tongue. The chair, the abuse, was that all some twisted fate that he had to live through because it was meant to happen? Did all that happen so he could be where he was now, laying on cold hardwood floor because he was falling through his bed?

Could he rely on time, when it was ripped from him?

He sometimes thought about what his life could've ended up like, if he hadn't gone to war. He thought, at one point, that he would get married. As Adam and Eve wed under the Tree, he could stand under the chuppah in their image surrounded by love and life and foliage. Sometimes he thought about what it could be now, if things somehow got better. If he could sleep in his bed without drowning. If he could look a man in the eye and not see his ancestors instead.

Could he be a shadow?

Something that varies, melding and changing. If he was made of memories, what would happen if he forgot again? Hands of Esau but Voice of Jacob. Was he now building to the divine Israel? Making up for his wrongs, turning to virtue.

Was it worth it? Trying?

At this point, what could be good? What all could he love? Everything was a mess. He wandered.

Maybe he was meant to be lost. He could choose to believe he was worthless, aimless without his other half. Or he could make his own choices; eat the apple like Eve, take the virtue like Israel, and trust that someday, everything that happened to him would make sense.

And that one day, he could trust that he wouldn't ever be alone again.

chapter 3/8 now available on AO3 <3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), avengers (2012)

→ bucky x steve

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ canon-typical violence

──────────────────

Bucky’s mind swelled with panic at the implication - Peggy, Monty - people he loved were dead all at once - but he had to take it in stride. He had to. There was no purpose to dwell on it. If he thought about it all too hard, he wouldn't be able to get through it.

What happened, happened.

He'd process it later. He had to accept it.

“Captain Rogers woke up about an hour and a half ago.” Agent Barton shared. If he noticed Bucky's barely buried alarm, he didn't say. “Director Fury handled him. He broke out and ran into Times Square.”

“Sounds like him,” he said, monotone.

“He's in a conference room. Fury's asked me to bring you once you're ready, so he can speak to you both.”

That made him come to mostly full attention. “He's not detained?”

Clint's head cocked to the side. “Neither of you are detained, Sergeant.”

Bucky opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. They didn't know? How could they not know?

JORGE IS THINKING ABOUT MAKING AN ILIAD MUSICAL IN THE FUTURE HELLOOOO??????

I need my Hector & Apollo songs please please please Jay I'm begging you please

"i don't comment on ao3 because i don't wanna be annoying or weird" skill issue + you greatly underestimate the power dynamic here, writing multi paragraph comments is like feeding a bunch of deeply insane and possibly starved ducks at the park and watch them go completely mad over having received a piece of bread

chapter 7/8 now available on Ao3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), iron man 3

→ bucky x steve

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ gore, canon-typical violence, iron man 3 plot

──────────────────

“I’ve never fought a super soldier.” Killian grinned. “This’ll be -”

Bucky uppercut him hard enough to snap his neck. Stepping back from the crumbled body that was now glowing even more, he called out, “Potts, we gotta go!”

Pepper ran out of the open doorway, taking Bucky’s outstretched hand. “Where?” she gasped partway down the hallway.

“First thing’s first,” he ordered, “get to the car!”

so… sam and dean use jewish words/phrases all the time & they have a relative named MOISHE from NEW YORK but im supposed to believe they aren’t jewish? hmm

And just like that.. I’m back on my Bucky Barnes bullshit.