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As , the United States, potentially heads into another forever war I can only think of this quote.

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prompt fill! i got an anonymous request for tony/bucky for the prompt: concealing an injury. so here's a little fic about tony stark, slowly dying of palladium poisoning, and vampire bucky barnes.

warnings for general vampire violence.

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Stark doesn’t like him. Never will, probably, and Bucky can’t blame him for that.

Steve’s got ideas about redemption and forgiveness, but one night, years ago, Bucky licked Howard Stark’s blood off his teeth and then ripped open Maria’s throat, and no matter what happens now, that happened first. It’s hard to build a functional relationship with a man after you introduce yourself by orphaning him.

They keep the peace by keeping apart. Outside of missions, Bucky doesn’t even speak when Stark’s in the room. Pretends he’s back under some Hydra facility, buried in another box, waiting.

But Bucky can’t help being what he is. He has a predator’s knack for sensing weakness, and Stark’s getting weaker by the day.

He’s rotting, somehow, from the inside out. Not cancer. Something else.

Bucky waits a week, and then another. He can track Stark’s movements by the smell of sickness through the Tower, and he thinks about going to Steve, but he’s taken enough from Stark for a lifetime. He might as well leave him his dignity, if he can.

“JARVIS,” he says, when he enters the elevator, “I need to talk to Stark.”

“Mr. Stark is not accepting visits or calls right now,” JARVIS reports. “Would you like to leave a message?”

“Sure,” Bucky says. “Tell him I know he’s sick. And if he doesn’t tell Steve, I will.”

There is a long pause, tinged somehow with disapproval. And then, without comment from JARVIS, the elevator rises, and the doors open, and there’s Tony Stark, standing in his suite with a tumbler of whiskey in his hand, looking impatient and annoyed.

“You think you know something about me, Barnes?” he asks.

“I can smell it,” he says. No reason to lie. Tony Stark knows exactly what he is.

Stark’s mouth twists in an elegant, expressive curl of disgust. “Of course you can.” He gestures at himself, a telltale flick of his fingers toward his chest. “Poisoned meat, right? Wouldn’t want to upset your digestion.”

“Poisoned sounds about right,” Bucky says. “Is that what it is?”

“Maybe. Why? You want me to type it up for Steve? File a report? Prep some blood samples for Fury?” He laughs, dry and a little choked. “You want a couple hits while I’ve got the vein open? Or am I too compromised for your tastes?”

Sometimes, when Hydra buried him for too long, Bucky would rise so weak that he’d crawl after sick rats, drink whatever was too diseased to drag itself away. But there’s nothing to gain from telling Stark a thing like that. He’s the one who found the bodies; he knows damn well how starved Bucky used to be.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, instead. “Are you treating it?”

Stark laughs again, longer this time, and finishes his whiskey. “Sure,” he says. “I could treat it. All I’ve gotta do is stop my heart.”

There’s some kind of machine in Tony’s chest. Implanted, Bucky thinks. Nobody talks about it. Maybe nobody knows much about it. Maybe nobody’s wanted to.

“The arc reactor,” Bucky says. “It’s poisoning you?”

Tony shrugs. “Sure.”

“And you can’t take it out?”

He shrugs, again. Dismissive and uninterested, all his mannerisms suggesting that Bucky is wasting his time. “No.”

“And you know it’s going to kill you?”

There’s a moment of hesitation, a slight flinch. Tony’s heart beats faster, but his face stays blank. “I’m a dead man either way, Barnes. I’ll live longer with it than I would without it.”

If you can’t cure a sickness, you treat it. Bucky is always going to be a vampire. As long as he stays well-fed, he’s not dangerous to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.

“I can fix this,” he says. “Mitigate the symptoms, clean the blood.”

Stark’s eyes narrow, and, suddenly, finally, it feels like he’s fully in the room. “You,” he says, voice rising, “are not getting a single drop---”

“No. Not yours. Mine,” Bucky says. “It’d be my blood. I can give you--- it’ll heal you.”

That low, dismissive derision kicks abruptly into open rage. “Are you out of your Goddamn mind?”

Bucky shakes his head. “No, listen. It’s not---”

“You drained my parents like a six pack at a beach party,” Stark says. “You ripped them apart. And now you want to make me your familiar? You gotta take every fucking drop from this family, Barnes? What the hell did we ever do to you?”

It’s a lunatic plan. It’s a terrible thing. But it’s not his fault that the only thing he can offer is a devil’s bargain. He is a devil.

“I want to keep you alive,” Bucky says.

“Alive,” Stark repeats. “Alive? Alive as what? Alive in what form, Barnes? As your puppet?”

Bucky swallows. He stares at Stark’s face, tries not to see Maria’s eyes staring back. “I’ve been a puppet, Stark,” he says, when he can speak. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Stark stares back him. His heart is racing, and that machine in his chest is killing him and saving him, and Bucky can smell the spreading rot that’s eating him alive, cell by cell.

He knows, already, what Tony’s going to do. He knows because Steve’s right: they’re not that different. Bucky drank sick rats to stay alive. He’d do it again; he’d do worse if he had to. The pair of them, they’d do any damn thing to themselves. Weighed against all the misery they’ve brought into the world, what does it matter how much it costs them to stay here?

They’ve got debts to settle. They’ll pay with whatever blood they have.

Stark throws his empty tumbler against the wall. Bucky feels like he’s watching a pinned butterfly beat its wings against glass. There’s no rage that can break a trap like this.

“Fine,” Stark says. "I'll do it."

Bucky picks a shard out of the carpet, doesn’t think about Howard, doesn’t think about Maria, doesn’t think about the winding thread of blood tying them all together.

“You don’t have to drink much,” he says.

“Jesus,” Stark breathes. For a second, there’s open misery on his face, a cut that goes right through him, an old wound gone rancid. And then he smiles, wide and dazzling, an ugly irony hooking up the edge of his mouth.

“Bartender,” he says, “pour me a double.”

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eh, screw it *releases my fucked up vampire au from the confines of my mind*

anyway I decided my blog is for me and I can draw and post all the weird silly concepts of my dreams and nobody can stop me. I actually have a lot of potential comic ideas ping-ponging in my head for this AU — not a linear story or anything (beyond what's on this post), just some good fun and shenanigans.

bonus:

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OK, with 1 minute to spare, I just tried to post my WIP in the thread, & it's not letting me do it. It's forcing me to Dreamwidth and I don't have an account there- I thought you didn't need one??? This is my first posted fic it's the Endgame Fix-It 200K words that I've been working on for six months, I really wanted it posted to the community & on the list. Can you help me? Any way I can get it on the list even though I'm past time?

Hi, thanks for asking and sorry if you've been having issues. You don't need a Dreamwidth account to take part, because you can comment to the Dreamwidth post anonymously without an account - just include an online handle so I know who you are.

The deadline is midnight whatever your timezone on Sunday 15 June. Which means ALL the midnights have to have happened before we cut off. I'm in the UK so it's only 19:25 here on Sunday and I won't be doing a masterlist until Monday after work, so there's absolutely still time! And if you have any more issues please just let me know and i'll make sure you're included on the masterlist.

CONGRATS on posting your first fic! ❤️💜

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baby dragons whose scales are much more shiny and iridescent in order to hide in their parents' hoards

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i think it is unrealistic for fans to expect sequels to be published a year after the first one and also want the book at its highest quality. it's okay to expect a few years in between and i think it weird how much pressure authors face to publish their next book immediately. that's a lot of stress on authors and i think it often leads to books being put out before they are ready.

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my arch nemesis cynthia is, of course, at the bank, because we both were sent like clockwork to pick up the checks of our husbands. she is wearing a lovely long green gown, which i know was on behalf of me, because, as my husband will tell you, our house abhors green and glamour. already the tellers look at each other under their little hats, for they love our tirades, i’m sure, although not more than i hate them. 

“oh, is that your knitting?” my arch nemesis cynthia peers her eyes at my hands. “is it some kind of… sock?” everyone knows she and i used to be close before we were married and our husbands, smartly so, have introduced us to the idea of true vengeance.

“it is a scarf,” i say. i want to tell her that when the time comes and the world gets cold it will go over my mouth and i will breathe warm air and it will fill my lungs and i will be able to run around with my love even in the dark night. “it is not,” i say, “over surprising that you should be caught unawares of a scarf,” i say, “as i’m sure enjoying winter festivities are too beneath the handsome qualities your husband prefers.” pompous ass.

the tellers pass each other eyes for now it has started and they are delighted.

my arch nemesis cynthia thrusts out her hand. a white bottle. “rat poison,” she says. “i would expect the whole town knows about your little problem.” stage whisper. “such a shame, my dear.” then she rustles her long green skirts - which i know she wore on behalf of me - and she shimmies herself out of the room like royalty. oh, she floats everywhere she goes, beautiful black hair behind her. the bottle in my palm is cold. i will devise how to get her back starting first thing tomorrow.

the week, as always, is a long week, for there is much to make and do and knit and be. my husband comes home and i love him for who he is; for he never comes home without checking the state of the house up and down. he is the kind who loves his home so completely and sets each room like a stage for a great band to come playing. i am too ashamed to tell him why so many of the rats go missing, only make him a stew the next morning to celebrate. his favorite, although not mine, i’m afraid. plenty left over.

my arch nemesis today - of course - in a green the color of rotting. a bruise is uncarefully covered on her cheekbone, so striking against all of her dainty. her husband would say it was for her ungraceful nature, and i know mine would agree. i strike first, already delighted by my master plan, shoving over our best picnic basket tied with a bow. “i made you and yours a stew,” i say, “for beneath all that you carry” all that horrible wealth of your husband  “it seems you’re getting rather skinny.” i can’t resist one last comment. “i am worried you’re about to waste to nothing.”

She plucks it out of my hand. “yes, if it weren’t for you and your husband’s dwindling wealth,” her sarcasm is biting, “i’m sure i will be nothing in, oh, 5 weeks time.” she arches a brow. “so long from now.”

“i am counting the days,” i tell her. her lips purse. the tellers behind me make a choked titter. perhaps, by their estimation, i have won this round quite completely. i go home to my husband smiling. he asks where i have been and i tell him i’ve been at the bank, but he checks anyway because i like to get up to tricks and he doesn’t like to fall for it. it is a good game we play. at night, when he is asleep, i am so in love that i must convince myself to pull the covers over my nose and practice breathing. how silly to wake him up for a young girl’s feelings. 

the first week of five: she gives me a solid, ugly ring that requires three knuckles to hold. “i feel so badly for your status, and i must remember to practice charity,” she says. “it such a small thing, but do be careful amongst all that thin pine furnishing of your house, which dents so easily.” my husband appears at the bank’s front door. just checking. so lovely to be picked up by him. at night, in a rage, i try it - beneath the table bends easily. i scuff out the scratch with walnut before my husband can see. i pull the covers over my face in bed and breathe.

the second week: i wear her ugly ring and give her more stew, this time hearty with meat. her dress is a meadow. my heart each time it sees her collapses on itself. she hands me clothes for my husband, since his wealth continues to go missing, and the charity of her heart is so loving. i am so ashamed i bury them far by the old tree, where all my shames go hiding. again, the covers. it, by now, helps me sleep. i have gotten so good at it that i can simply shimmy my shoulders to be perfectly toasty and buried.

the third week: she asks how comes my knitting. i tell her it’s nearly complete. she asks how comes my husband, whom she must know has been ill recently, and who is doing quite badly. i go home to him, shaking. even sick he is a good housekeeper, who comes home examining for dust and dinge so i do not fall behind on my chores. who checks to be sure i spoke to only him and no one more, for fear a man might snatch me. tell me, who else has a man so involved, in this day and age?

the fourth week she is envy green. i shove a whole heaping of stew at her, for now her husband has gotten it. i say it will return him to spirits, she laughs, a sudden, beautiful sound, even in the quiet of a bank. everyone stares. maybe it is the stress that is making her quite improper. i feel the same way. so much is happening and it always seems she knows. she says she heard he has left me nothing in the will, which everyone already knows. she says she doubts either of us can dig upwards from the hole we’re both in. i look at the bruise on her nose. i tell her to mind her own husband, and be careful where she goes.

the fifth week: so final. her, garishly lime green. and i in black, to pick up a check that hardly seems the effort. it will be enough to cover my husband’s funeral. she smiles at me and hands me a silver bottle. she says quietly: now that i am destitute, there is one thing for it all, and everyone would understand quite completely. it would be quiet, and quick, and complete.

it is the night of the new moon, so dark no man can see in it. i receive notice her husband has died, and i am sorry to say i find a terrible joy in it. the air has changed cold. i have left a note asking to be buried in my scarf, the last thing i have made on this earth. i go through each perfect room, but there is nothing else to take with me, for the house has always been his and his alone, and now aches to be gone of him. i would not serve as a good tender for it. having spent so many nights watched carefully, the silly girlish freedom i’d gain would surely set the house ablaze.

i follow her instructions. quick, quiet, complete.

the horrible rustling is what does it. like a million green skirts. and then it is dark, and i am in my own coffin, eerie with pine. my head hurts but i must be quick and quiet. they have listened and buried me with my scarf. i shimmy my shoulders just-so and get it over my face. bring my arms up, ugly ring heavy, and begin to hit as hard as i can, over and over, the thin wood of my husband’s favorite furniture, the cretin. it would be pine, of course - he left me no money to be buried in any nicer recourse.

the wood splits so horribly, and then it is very hard to breathe, harder than under the covers, and i have to remind myself to be patient and continue to dig upwards, while my throat closes and my heart beats so loudly and the whole thing is so heavy it is a universe. the shifting of gravedirt is loud, and loud, and i feel i will be turned into a worm, and i fear everyone has forgotten about me, or i have gotten the timing wrong, or i will really die down here in the dirt and the cold

but then her hand, and my hand, and we are both digging towards each other, and she lifts me so easily from the ground like a plucked turnip and holds me against her, us both panting and muddied. we can only stay like this for so long, here in my pauper grave, and then we are both running to the old tree where we met, and unburying a second thing; my lovely box of shame, and men’s clothes, and all of my husband’s dwindling fortune i have slowly been squirrelling away.

my love and angel cynthia, who has black hair like a curtain and a mind so fast i sometimes am in frank awe at it, who is, even now and dirty and raw: even now the only sun in my life.

like this, i a man in an almost-dawn, and us cleaned by the river, and her smiling so widely, and only a faint bruise on her, and our pasts behind us in ugly garish colors. and her delicate hand and beautiful nose and when i finally get to kiss her it feels like green feels; my favorite color, all warm and nature and sunny grace and grass and lying awake so filled with love it makes you shake.

i hold her, and she holds me, and our future is a love like a dream unburied.

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you know it really isnt immoral, if you do it right, to raise cows and sheep for meat. so. well. i think there should be a story about, vampires who have a town of humans that they keep well-maintained, so long as the humans donate their blood once a month, like vampire blood farm stuff

but instead of antagonistic everyone's like. no he's a nice man you leave the count alone. he keeps us safe and cared for and he just needs a lil snack now and then, it dont hurt anyone. like a cow that loves the farmer and the farmer that loves the cow, even with both knowing one will end up on the other's table. because its like. its like. cows just have such pretty eyes, you know? they love you so much. i think it should be like that

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bucky and yelena my beloveds 💜 happy pride month, friends

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A lil compilation of ace pride artwork I’ve made over the past year! 💜

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In the late 1970s a glowing orb appeared in the sky. Every day at about 5:00 Greenwich standard time, the orb would go somewhere new, shoot out something similar to a laser, and kill one person. Every day, always at the same time, always exactly one person.

The person killed by the orb seemed completely random, with almost fifty years of studying it we've been able to find no rhythm or reason to who it kills. It kills the old, the young, the rich, the poor, the urban, the rural, anyone. Every human on earth seems to have an equal chance of being killed by the orb. It's a headline the few times someone of note is killed by the orb: Britain famously lost a Parliament member to the orb, Brazil to this day remains the only country where a head of state was killed by the orb while in office, there was a short lived sitcom in the 1990s called Freinds that ended halfway through its first season due to the orb killing one of the main actors on set. However, these are outliers, on any given day the person who dies via orb is very likely to be someone you never heard of. There are billions of people on earth, and only one is killed by the orb every day. In almost fifty years only a little over 18000 have died because of the orb, which is nothing in the face of the sheer amount of humans that exist.

When the orb first appeared people were horrified. Both the US and USSR thought it was a weapon from the other side. Almost every religion made some claim of it being proof of their beliefs, oftentimes claiming it was divine punishment. Atheists claimed it was proof no loving God could exist. People were so very apocalyptic and horrified by it, they thought of it as part of the end times, because when it was new that's really how it looked.

However, it's been long enough so that's changed. Most people have lived their entire lives in a world where the orb exists. The orb isn't that scary a concept. People know their odds of being killed by it are low and that it's not going to end the world or anything. The orb has become normal, and we've accepted that the orb is just something that kills people the same way cancer, or heart attacks, or natrual disasters, or car crashes kill people. In the nineteen eighties there were efforts to find a way to stop the orb, but it's since proven to be extremely difficult, and it's as distant and nebulous as finding a cure for cancer. When a community is struck by the orb you'll see that community in mourning, but it's not a global thing anymore.

So people grow up learning about the orb, as part of science, like anything else. A lot of gen z remembers learning about the orb from Magic School Bus. It's just something normal. There are a few people with an orb hyperfixation, and a few cults that give the orb importance but it's not most people's concern. The orb is how we first confirmed that interdimensional objects existed and are possible. A lot of people theorize dimensional studies wouldn't exist without it, meaning without the orb we might not have thermitizers or grand drives, we might not even have a moon base without the orb. Some have even rather tastelessly claimed that the orb has saved more lives at this point that its taken with all the knowledge it's given us.

Which is why I regret to inform you, that just last week, without warning, the orb killed two people in one day. And for the past seven days it's been killing two people instead of just one. Nobody knows why.

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Mermay 2025 (11-20) by Christophe Young

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i feel totally normal about this and the scope of my desire is completely average

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Space Chefs

So I don’t know if anyone’s written about this yet, but I was trawling through the humans-are-space-orcs tag and I was hit by the sudden realization that I’ve seen nothing about space chefs. 

Space chefs must be like one of the most knowledgable professions out there, think about it:

“Alright, so this is a Crexian from Norix- that means capsicum is a deadly poison, Omega-3 will cause muscle spasms and due to the atmosphere on Norix, calcium will give them terrible diarrhea- no wait, this is a male, so Omega-3 is actually delicious–”

“–a Bio-bot, model Gamma-341, so absolutely no organic oils in anything or their systems will stop working, and for Stabby’s sake do not let anything with iron in it so much as look funny at their food–”

“–Mariddian fresh out of hibernation, shove as many protein additives into that meat as you can get away with and remember not to use salt, it fries their neural pathways–”

Like. I bet there’s an Interstellar Chef magazine in circulation full of recipes that are two pages long and then all the species that can and cannot eat it are listed for the next five. And every time a new species joins the intergalactic mess, the magazine runs a special issue as all the space chefs die a little more inside. The special issue gives a brief breakdown of the new species biology and then dives straight into what’s poison, what’s nutritional, what’s considered delicious and whats considered choke-worthy. If at all possible, the special issue also includes recipies from the species native culture while all the space chefs desperately try to figure out what dishes they can jury-rig into a new definition of edible.

They probably love humans though.

“Hey Jaxki, did you hear about the new species that the Crynsu found? They’re supposedly from a Death World, can you belie–”

“Oh fuck another speices?!?! They found three last spin and I’m still trying to figure out what to feed the Hrethad. Any word what they eat? You get the Chef before me.”

“Hold up let me look, I just got it today…void and dust!”

“Oh novas, what, can they not have water or something?”

“Jaxi these fuckers eat everything! They can digest chlorogenic acid! Some of them do it every day, by the void-loving gallon!!! And that’s just the nose of the Quarlag! This thing has a whole list of chemicals these guys consider delicious or edible and I swear to you it’s like someone mixed their list of the universe’s most common compounds with its spacing deadliest poisons!”

“Oh thank FUCK.”

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"Bob..." Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes // Thunderbolts* 2025

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