somniloquence

Question today comes from kass: What do you love most about Steve and Bucky right now?

You know, it's weird how much I had to think about this, since my default lately is simply STEVEANDBUCKYOMG4EVA!!! But Civil War really threw a monkey wrench in things for me--it was really obvious, between the first trailer and the beginnings of the press for it, where we were treated to things like the Russos saying "Stucky fans will be very happy" and numerous publications writing about how clearly not just friends Bucky and Steve are (and that if we lived in a better world, they would be allowed to be in a romantic relationship), the Disney/Marvel honchos got into a big gay panic and put the kibosh on the hoyay. Chris Evans even confirmed that most of the truncated and heavily edited bits were the bits between him and Sebastian.

And that tag felt like…punishment, for Bucky, which the writers have actually said out loud, that Bucky was guilty and I don't even know how to unpack such a tone-deaf statement from the people who gave us so much good stuff with him previously--but it also felt like punishment for us. Like they were wagging their fingers at us and telling us to stop talking about them like they're gay for each other. I hate that tag so much it's just been really hard for me to find a way in to write anything post-CW, and while there's certainly 90 percent more functional Bucky to vid with, it's still a challenge because they made such a point of keeping them physically apart, and keeping Steve's helmet on. The tag also felt like it was tacked on at the last minute, as part of that memo to PLEASE STOP WITH THE GAY TALK. Keep them separated, the same way they do in the comics, where they pine for each other and talk about each other relentlessly but only spend time with each other once in a while and they are very straight they have girlfriends please shut up thank you very much.

So what I love most about them right now is hard because it's wrapped up in all the stuff I'm actually really angry about, and I'm having trouble separating that. Most of what I've tried to write lately is stories that are separate from the new canon, even if they're set post-Winter Soldier, because that's kind of the only place I can be happy. I don't mind thinking of Steve being Nomad, because I love me some Nomad, he's adorable and hilarious and so earnest, but I definitely don't like thinking of the MCU Bucky being separate from Steve, as the Man on the Wall like he's been in comics recently or leading Thunderbolts, or sometimes even Bucky!Cap, because that'd mean Steve's gone completely from his life. If he's going to be Bucky!Cap, I just want it to be because Steve's also fighting, just in some other way than as Cap specifically. (I love thinking of the comics Bucky in Thunderbolts with Kobik, being a reluctant but pretty good dad, as a possibility for the story in MCU, I just don't want it separate from Steve.)

I love them trying to get on with their lives, to find a place together and figuring out who they are in the modern world. That never ever gets old for me, honestly, their struggle to fit in here, that they are really the only people in the world with shared life experience. Most of what I write certainly focuses on that, and I feel like the development of who they are in this world is an endlessly deep well we can mine (Marvel won't, but fan writers can). I love them being domestic and fucking shopping for curtains because they never had that chance before and now they can live a life together. I want them having tons of great sex if that's what they want, or none if they don't want it, and eating sandwiches and drinking good coffee and discovering what to them might be weird new foods. And having a great time with their new found family of friends. I love them because they're astoundingly resilient, considering everything they've been through, and they're strong and they will get through the really bad days.

So I guess that's what I love about them, in spite of Civil War's best efforts to kill my passion. In the midst of all the crap around them, they are strong, and they offer some hope, and they find a way to keep going, and I find that encouraging.

So, in a fit of madness, I signed up for the Stucky Big Bang last May. Through a lot of circumstances, mostly to do with unpleasantness that made it hard to write but some other stuff too, I really struggled to get through this, but somehow I eked out 40,000 words of dreamsharing awfulness. But the best thing was that an artist signed up for my fic who turned out to be incredible, and incredibly inspiring for me to reach the finish line--one of the art pieces is an animated gif, I kid you not--and I'm actually way more excited about the amazing art than anything else.

Still Let Me Sleep (40489 words) by gwyneth rhys, Riakomai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel 616
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Thor
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Peggy Carter, Jimmy Jupiter (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Heimdall (Marvel), Frigga (Marvel), Jim Morita
Additional Tags: Dreamsharing, Dreamscapes, The Land of Nowhere, Road Trips, Asgard, Grief/Mourning, See the USA in your Chevrolet (with an Asgardian prince), We're Dream Engineers
Summary:

When the Valkyrie hits the water, Steve doesn’t die. Instead, he crawls out of the wreckage and finds himself in an amazing, confusing land that could be the alternate universe of Nowhere—or it could be his dreams. And he gradually realizes he’s not the only one. Steve doesn’t know if he’s even alive, but he’s certain of this: Bucky’s there with him, sharing his dreams, and outside their idyllic world, he’s suffering. Something is terribly wrong. Steve has to find Bucky—if he can. But how does he do that in a new century where he feels like he’s all alone?

Thanks so much to sineala for all the BB advice and helping me with the summary and just being a sounding board.

Don’t Wait Up for Me (35994 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapter 4: Blind Alley

Chapter Summary: “It feels like a dream,” Bucky said idly, and he recalled it: that liminal moment when the ice came down and he wasn’t blank and black inside just yet, and flashes of a life he knew couldn’t have been his shone in his mind.

An informal announcement since I'm hoping to have the completed one later. There’s one more chapter, the epilogue, coming very shortly, maybe even by tonight if I can get rewrites done. 

Don’t Wait Up for Me (14591 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapter 2: If We Knew You Were Coming, We'd Have Baked a Cake
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov
Additional Tags: Closure, Soul-Searching, Friendship, Forget Your Past, Action/Adventure
Summary:

“This was the last place where I knew who Bucky Barnes was. No matter how many times they stuffed the soldier inside me, or tried to rip the old Bucky out, a little bit of him still hung on inside, you know? I just need to see that place where it all changed.”

I was completely shocked yesterday when I got a notification that there was a treat for me in Yuletide Madness. Since I hadn't signed up, I never expected anything like that, and I didn't even think you could do that! Like, I don't know if it's legal, but I don't care, someone wrote me a lovely sweet interlude between Mack and Jonas from The Unit. What kindness!

the hour before dawn (266 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Unit
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonas Blane/Mack Gerhardt
Characters: Mack Gerhardt, Jonas Blane
Additional Tags: Mornings, Trust, Fluff, Voice Kink
Summary:

Even half asleep, Mack can hear everything he needs to know from the sound of Jonas' voice.

And my darling devilpiglet posted the third of her Steve/Bucky series right before the tidal wave of Yuletide broke, and even if it wasn't a gift it FEELS like a gift, the best Christmas gift we could get because it's gorgeous and emotional and funny and tender and the writing is exquisite, which is like my favorite stuff all rolled into one, and you should go read and leave her glowing feedback because she is magnificent.

The Mercy Seat (5343 words) by DevilPiglet
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanov, Original Dog Character(s), Maria Hill, Nick Fury
Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Trauma, Past Torture, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Series: Part 3 of A Nightingale Sang
Summary:

“If you come for Bucky,” Steve says, “I walk.”

Fury’s voice is very, very soft when he replies. “Watch yourself, Captain.”

“Keep the shield. Keep the costume, give it to the next guy you run up the flagpole. Bucky and I will disappear, find a beach on the other side of the globe and live out our days in peace.” There’s bitterness, there at the end.

So my birthday is in exactly one week, and I'm trying to resurrect my old tradition of posting fic on my birthday. Last year I actually posted a bit earlier than that, with the Groundhog Day-time loop Steve/Bucky story, because it was done and I was still working hard on my book for work. This year I'm again working hard on a book, which has turned out to be something of a nightmare and they had to both extend my hours and the deadline, thank god. But I'm also trying to fix up this story to post, which is taking a lot of time because I have to keep stealing little bits of work time away from actual paying work, and it feels so completely, soul-crushingly not worthwhile to be writing fic at all.

Plus it's another baseball series fic, so it's like "just what no one asked for!" But I couldn't help thinking about the ballgames that soldiers used to play in the war, and it seemed like a natural place to take the series.

I also started a Steve/Bucky vid but then got bogged down in trying to work on that plus the book, so I haven't made any more progress. I wish I knew how to get the look I want from it. I just don't know how to make it look visually like I want to see it in my head, and it's frustrating as hell. I don't like vids that are all showoffy with effects and stuff, most of the time, I'm there for the story and a lot of times I find that the story gets lost when people are spending all their time on effects. But this is one time where I really do wish I could understand and use those kinds of things.

I'm also trying to talk myself out of getting dorkbait's series of Bucky drawings they made for inktober--they are stunning, absolutely stunning, and it tells a somewhat cryptic but fascinating story of Bucky thinking about his progress. They've made the art available through a kickstarter book project, but I'm a) broke and b) already waiting for a birthday present I bought myself to arrive, so I feel like I shouldn't. But I have a feeling I will probably cave, just because wow, this fandom is still so strong for me, it's the only thing I really care about, and gorgeous fanart should be supported.

In the Stardust of a Song (9837 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Peggy Carter, Brock Rumlow, Original Character, Alexander Pierce
Additional Tags: Music, Triggered Memories, Missing Scene, During Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Summary:

The shudder courses through you again, there’s a vicious throb like that first touch of the ice on your skin. You don’t know this song. You don’t know any music at all.

Apologies in advance to those who hate second person. I'm awful, I know.

Written for ranalore's prompt Steve/Bucky, modernity.

The second of two for ranalore, about Things We Lost in the War:

I guess for that one I'd love more meta than commentary, really. I'd love to hear what inspired you to write the story, which is one I kind of really, really wanted and never expected because I always want poetry+my OTC fic in all my fandoms and sometimes it fits better than others and in this case I thought it might actually fit but I wasn't sure anybody else saw it that way and so I resigned myself to likely never getting it.

You know, I was trying to remember what started me down this path but I can't for the life of me remember, I started writing it so long ago. A lot of times an idea will just spring fully formed into my mind, and I think at some point the idea of Bucky not being ready to have contact face to face with Steve was there (honestly, it probably came out of writing Dark Approach, I believe), but that he could write, would want to write. We forget these days how important letters were to people back then, how difficult and expensive even phone calls were, and I had been reading some letters from the front of the European theatre during the war as well as my dad's letters home. My dad, genius though he was in the sciences, couldn't string a coherent sentence together half the time in print, but his letters from the war were still really amazing and full of such vivid detail it almost didn't seem like the dad I knew--and I think that's one of the things that wormed its way into Bucky's story, that people can have these different layers to them that come out in different ways depending on the type of communication.

Letters pull forth a different type of thinking, there's a...space, I guess, to process your thoughts, and an intimacy of thought when you're sharing communication with someone. They give you time to sink into your feelings, and you're safe, in a way, to respond to the prompts of someone else's letter to you, there's no one there to talk over you or have a body-language reaction that might overcome what you want to say.

And I know a lot about dead drops, but when I was in Washington DC last October, I went to the Spy Museum, where they had the post box that was used as a dead drop in the famous FBI spy case, and I found where Steve's apartment was, because I'd been thinking about this story and planning the letters and how they'd get delivered. It was a super inspirational fannish trip, and that put a lot of thoughts in my head about how the story itself would develop, how things would proceed and what they'd do along the way--sort of the blocking, as it were.

I've never been the biggest poetry fan, to be honest, but the poets and poems I like, I really really like. Rilke's one of them, and it helped that he was of an era where Bucky could have read his stuff and he would have had that presence and be well known enough. Thinking about Steve being a painter was what inspired me to want to have literary!Bucky--that Bucky could have a gift too that was beyond just being a soldier and a weapon, beyond the typical fanfic tropes of working at the docks or something like that. I've been writing since I was five, and it's just always been this thing in my life, even when I wasn't doing it, so I really liked thinking about Bucky having something like that in his life. That he could have had such a rich interior life.

But of course, that would be something that would come out in his letters home once he was in combat, and in writing to Steve because he didn't know how else to deal with his pain. Some of the WWII letters I've read over the years were just so amazing, so tragic and hopeless and yet beautiful, and I wanted some of that for Bucky, so that Steve could see the parts of Bucky he never did back then. And then they could move forward.

To be honest, I didn't expect people to embrace this aspect. I thought everyone would laugh at it, that the idea of Bucky loving poetry and literature would just be...stupid. Because of circumstances, I wasn't able to get it beta'd as I'd hoped, and that was my biggest fear, posting it without having anyone to tell me that it was a ridiculous idea and a poorly done story. And I still wonder if some people I know think it's a ridiculous idea; I haven't ever been that nervous posting something. But the people who've liked literary!Bucky seem to really like it, so I'm breathing a bit easier now.

I think it's really easy to see guys raised during the Depression, in poverty, in tough old Brooklyn, as only being rough and tumble. With Steve, we have his canon as an artist, but the most we have about Bucky is the tough teen sidekick that Brubaker created and gave more of a background and maturity to. I just didn't think being tough and having that background cancels out an appreciation for art, or a capability. Bucky contains multitudes, you know? I just really wanted to give him that chance at an artistic voice, too, while writing a war story and a recovery story and a love story.

Things We Lost in the War (31645 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Rebecca Barnes, Peggy Carter, Sarah Rogers
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Dead Drop, Letters, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Poetry, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Steve Has Issues, World War II, Ephemera - Freeform, Guilt, Memories
Summary:

Tell me what is really true. Tell me if I belong to you the way I think I do, if these are not just lies someone put inside me to warp my mind. Tell me this pounding in my chest is what I feel for you and not fear.

This thing has been kicking my ass since last fall. In the time I've worked on it, I've written six other stories. Maybe that was a sign I should give up, but I promised minim_calibre.