Hi. Long time no whatever. Those of you on my access list will be able to see the post as to why, but for those casual readers who can't, let's just say life has been hard and that it's just going to be difficult for a while longer. I miss you all.
Anyway, I've been trying to keep up with recs, so here are the ones I've written down for the last few months in one big post. Look for the next post probably in early September.
This one's mostly Avengers with one UNCLE fic and one Leverage fic right at the end.
Such Great Siege by
eyresIn the aftermath of defying his country to save his best friend, Steve Rogers agreed to a plea bargain that would grant his friends immunity but send him to prison. That was two years ago.
Bucky had a plan for when Steve finally was released from prison: a quiet house and a big bed, maybe a dog. None of his plans included Steve agreeing to sacrifice himself to save the very people that had stripped him of his title and took away his freedom. But old enemies have a way of coming back.
Written pre-CA:CW, so not spoilery for that film.
The Trick to Binary Stars by
shuofthewindShe'd read that new stars tended to form in pairs. Binary stars, orbiting in close proximity, only becoming single stars when their partner was smashed off them by another pair of wildly spinning new stars. If she pretended hard enough, she could see the multitude of pairs clinging to each other in destructive and creative gravity of their constellations.
To Live Without The Sun by
RainneIt is impossible to live without the sun, and it is impossible to live without your beloved. ~ Russian proverb
She is thirteen when she meets her soul mate. He is ageless, a brainwashed assassin cryogenically preserved over time.
This is the story of what happens next.
A Historical Relic and a History Professor Walk into a Bar- by
thecommodore_squidSteve narrowed his eyes. “I’m beginning to suspect I’ve been set up.”
“I would never,” Natasha said, feigning shock.
Steve sighed.
“God fucking dammit,” he heard someone say and looked up.
AKA
An AU in which Steve is still Captain America and Bucky is the unfortunate history professor selected to help him understand those references.
Thirty-Eight Days and Counting by
thecommodore_squidIt didn’t escape him that Steve shared his assumed last name. “Are you gonna be my cousin?” Bucky asked dully.
Steve frowned. “Husband, actually,” he said easily, holding up his left hand to show a typical golden band.
Bucky scowled and closed the door.
AKA
An AU in which Bucky is put in the witness protection program and Steve is the agent hired to protect him/pretend to be his husband.
Click Here to Read Full Article by
thecommodore_squid“You’re losing public favor at a dramatic rate.”
“Oh.”
Fury glared. “Fortunately, I am smart enough for the both of us and have created a narrow pathway of recovery. This option has a little bit of opportunity-cost, but I’m eighty-three percent sure that it’ll be worth it and it’ll work in the long run.” Nick paused, then amended, “Eighty-two percent.”
AKA
A Fake Dating AU in which Steve and Bucky are famous.
Something That Starts With by
fabrega"Come on," Scott says, "We've gotta keep ourselves entertained."
"We really don't," Sam counters.
Peaceable Skills by
dsudisHe doesn’t steal, and that means he has to pay. To pay he has to work.
Photo Booth by
copperbadgeSeventy years ago, Steve and Bucky had their picture taken.
I Hate Running by
copperbadgeClint and Bucky go running. This was a potential mistake.
Re-Enlistment by
copperbadge (Crossover with Leverage.)
Sophie left SHIELD a long time ago, and now they want her back. (Eliot is livid.)
Jan Versus The Dog Park by
copperbadge (Avengers Academy crossover with Welcome To Night Vale)
Avengers Academy has a dog park. No dogs are allowed.
The Silver Age by
copperbadgeAn alternate universe in which Tony Stark was born in 1950 and the Winter Soldier was recovered in 1967, after a failed attempt to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark.
an approximation of domesticity by
stellahibernisA series of fics set post MCU canon where everyone is happy, no matter what comic book magic we need to get there. Setting is always Steve and Bucky's apartment and each one is a slice of life type of thing, no plotty pieces.
AKA my therapy series to alleviate canon induced anxiety.
say my name by
stellahibernisIt is a lot like that, remembering. The memories of the man named James Buchanan Barnes sometimes come back with perfect clarity, but there’s no order to them, no sense of time. There’s only now. The memories are clear but strange, it feels like they don't belong to him at all, not like the memories of the Winter Soldier that occasionally surface. Those memories hit him like a freight train, like the ground after a fall.
Meta: Steve Rogers' Jogging Route by
sashayedI started thinking absently about Steve Rogers’ jogging route during my run today and then i couldn’t STOP thinking about it because there’s literally NO WAY it makes sense unless you accept that he is specifically fucking up his entire morning routine to get another look at the cute boy he clocked on his run.
this is not how we fall in love by
stellahibernisBucky never wanted to fight in a war; he didn’t dream of the glory of the battlefield as a boy. If he had a choice, he’d want to live a normal life in peace that lasted all his life, but it wasn’t to be. As the fates would have it, the war came when he was just the right age for service, there was the letter telling his name had come up and here he is now. He knows this is a war that needs to be fought, needs to be won by the Allied forces, and he will do the best he can, he will try to get through this, and hopefully go home in the end.
Bearing the Scars of Our Loss by
stellahibernisEverything is going as well as she imagined it could, and still she feels uneasy, as if something bad is just waiting to happen.
“Carter!” Dugan yells from the backroom, clearly upset over something.
Peggy runs in and stops on her tracks. It takes her a moment to process what she’s seeing, because it’s impossible. “No,” she says, disbelieving. “This can’t be. How?”
“My God,” Falsworth whispers next to her. “Is he alive?”
***
In 1955 on a mission to Murmansk Peggy and the Howling Commandos find something they never could have imagined.
Like Real People by
neversaydieNeither he nor Steve can stand the cold these days, for obvious reasons, so the thermostat in their apartment is always turned up high without either of them having to admit weakness and ask for it. But this isn't their apartment. This is the stupid fucking vacation someone in his extensive 'treatment team' suggested, which they obviously had to take in the middle of winter. In the middle of fucking nowhere. So far away from civilisation, in fact, that apparently they don't know what central heating is.
Bucky's had worse, sure, but he doesn't have to have worse anymore. That's why he's so adamantly against it.
Ace!Bucky Verse by
steveandbuckySteve Rogers doesn't expect to meet someone when he signs up on a dating website after being persuaded by his mother, especially not someone like Bucky Barnes, who messages him to gush about his dogs, makes him laugh, sparks a little hope in him, and step by step slots himself perfectly in the empty spaces of Steve's life.
(In which there's a pair of dogs, chance encounters, first and second kisses, Disney movies, lots of cuddling, and two idiots who fall in love.)
Tumblr Ficlets by
greenbergsaysFills for prompts sent to me on Tumblr.
Rec Of The Week -
Ghosts Love Elevators by
thecommodore_squidRogers-Steven-Grant shut up.
“You have power in you. Don’t discount yourself too quickly.”
Interesting. Although emotional speeches from a friend did not equate reaching a level seven threat, the Asset could admit that he was a little bit intrigued.
“Whatever,” Rogers-Steven-Grant grumbled. “I’m putting on some music.”
AKA
An AU in which Bucky is a highly conditioned assassin and Steve is his next target.
If you're a fan of owlet's Inifinte Coffee and Protection Detail series (and who isn't), then this story will be right up your alley. It's full of Bucky-voice, humour, dorks, dad jokes and Bucky breaking his programming for the love of Steve before he even really knows who Steve is. Just dive right in now - but not if you're just about to sleep. This fic is long and lovely and will keep you up reading just one more paragraph until the end.
The Break in the Code by
thecommodore_squid“Well, know that you have it better than a lot of us out there,” the blonde woman named Dottie said.
Bucky bristled. “Yeah, I- I know that. I just... don’t you guys think there could be something more for us out there?”
“What do you mean?” asked the Mandarin, who Bucky secretly thought was kind of an idiot.
Bucky swallowed heavily, looking around. “Maybe I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore.”
AKA
A Wreck-It Ralph AU.
Wherever the Wind Blows by
thecommodore_squid“Children were getting stubborn. They didn’t require his services anymore. So, he was about to go away for a very long time.”
“Okay...”
“What? You don’t believe me?”
“No! It’s just that- he can’t just go away. Where do magical people even go when they’re not being magical with us?”
“It’s a terrible, wonderful place. They call it Zone 21.”
AKA
A fantasy AU in which Steve Rogers is Mary Poppins.
Prisoners of New York by
thecommodore_squid"Hi," he said, and Steve blinked a few times. Because it was one thing to acknowledge someone on the subway, but it was an entirely different thing to actually speak to someone on the subway. "So, I'm with Humans of New York, and I was wondering if I could use this picture of you for our website."
AKA
Bucky and Steve find each other through Humans of New York.
You Put the Cool in Tentacool by
thecommodore_squid“I was here first, so you answer first.”
Steve wrinkled his nose but conceded to himself that the stranger did have a point. He sat up and tried not to look embarrassed as he muttered, “Fucking Charizard is around here somewhere.”
The guy’s eyes lit up, and he suddenly launched himself over the dumpster, dropping to his feet on Steve’s side. “I can’t find him anywhere,” the stranger said, raking a frustrated hand through his hair.
AKA
An AU in which Steve and Bucky meet through mutual love of Pokémon Go.
Kings County by
hansbekhartBucky gets on a Manhattan bound train around 2:30, heading to 8th St. He watches the Lady far off on Liberty Island as they roll over the East River. The train is crowded and people smile at him, pleased to see a handsome young man in uniform. He smiles back, pleased with the world and everything in it. He wonders where Steve might want to go for lunch. What he'd say if Bucky asked him if he’d ever thought about treating this thing between them as real.
He comes out of the subway a little before 3 o'clock, and the world has changed.
-
For the Living by
ScappodaquiMaybe it’s also the sound of Church bells, suddenly so overwhelming that Sunday morning. Church bells and, all over the neighborhood, posters of Captain America. Flags fly at half mast. Maybe that’s why she can’t abide the idea of a Catholic funeral for Bucky. Flags and posters and songs, all so loud: Captain America was Brooklyn’s son.
Well, Bucky was her son, and only hers.
Do it Til We Get it Right by
hansbekhartSam meets Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes on a Thursday night, at a burlesque show, and how it happens is this:
It's already late, later than he should be out on a weeknight, but the theme of the show was a super hero revue and there was no way he was gonna miss that. It's loud in the venue, which is the back space of what probably used to be a warehouse right near the Gowanus Canal, and Sam's already had a few. He's up at the bar during the break, watching the act. He doesn't hear someone say, "Behind!" so when he steps away from the bar, he smashes right into the guy who'd just done the Captain America routine up on stage, and knocks his drinks to the ground.
-
Or, I wanted to see more stories that captured the weirdness and complexity of being queer, in your late 20s, and trying to date in Brooklyn - which is my life - so I wrote one. Takes place in the MCU.
The Portal (Sunlight), 1894 by
hansbekhartHe considers the ancient world - a whole wing of plaster cast replicas, tiny cities in miniature, staggering Greek gods in shining white. But that's all tangled up in memory of school trips (he and Steve of a height, their arms flung over each other's shoulders, standing with their noses up against the glass as Bucky whispers stories about the tiny figures on the other side), and he's hardly a child anymore.
-
AKA, The Saga of Cute Twink Bucky, and his earnest dive into the bourgeois Manhattan gay scene, circa 1937.
The Dead Forest by
hansbekhartThey’ve taken down the elevated line, and without it the Bowery stretches wide and open like a razed country, smelling like nothing in particular, quiet and peaceful.
Ever I Saw Your Face by
hansbekhart“S’too bad,” Steve says thoughtfully. He puts his hands back into the bucket, plucks Bucky’s underwear out of the sudsy wad of fabric down at the bottom. “If you’d gotten some of Erskine’s juice, maybe you’d still be taller than me.”
It does the trick: Bucky’s eyes flash. “I am still taller than you,” he says, threatening. Steve shrugs. “I am,” Bucky says, louder, and stands up, dripping water and soap.
-
His Right Hand SlipAll he can smell is Bucky - stale sweat, smoke on his skin. There’s a faint smell in his hair from the river they both fell into. Something that tickles the inside of his nose that must be - it must be the arm, whatever’s powering it. Steve had touched it, to put him in the vise. It had been just as warm as the rest of him.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E
Making Perfect by
XparrotTag to 4x11 "The Gurnius Affair"
Four years is a long time. But this is not Napoleon's decision to make anyway.
Leverage
like a map of a place you've never been by
bydaybreakHe knows it’d be so fucking easy, if he’d let himself. Because he’s easy for them, has been since that first job, since the day he hauled Hardison’s ass out of a building about to explode. It’d be so easy.
So he won’t.
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