liara-shadowsong-fanworks

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

So I have about a thousand terrible fanfic ideas, most of which will probably never see the light of day. I have one for Naruto that visually appears to go AU between the "Search for Tsunade" and "Sasuke Recovery Mission" arcs, but once you actually get into the meat of it, actually diverged from canon during the Third War. Various spoilers for canon below!!!

Basically, the whole "Sasuke leaving the village" plotline gets derailed before it can even properly get momentum (to clarify: he never leaves because Things Happen) going because practically as soon as Tsunade becomes Hokage, maybe during a modified version of "Land of Tea Escort Mission", two nominally-civilian-ish chakra users from a family that hails from Whirlpool Country show up requesting asylum, offering to enlist as Konoha shinobi in order to earn their keep, and things just sort of go topsy turvy.

One is named Umino Akira, and she is the younger sister of Iruka-sensei's father (she's about forty). She has been desperately trying to get reunited with her nephew for years, but because she was one of the ringleaders of a mass exodus of bloodlimit clans and other people in Kiri who were in danger of execution over fifteen years before, and as such was listed as a missing-nin for years until they gave up / assumed she was dead / Mei became Mizukage, her request was repeatedly denied even though the civilian members of the clan were allowed to move to the Fire Country capital in exchange for Iruka's parents serving as Konoha shinobi. She's a medic nin, but keeping a few other secrets (most of which are highly unlikely to bite anyone in Konoha in the butt, so Tsunade says yes to letting her in when Iruka vouches for her and the other member of her party).

The other person traveling with her is her vaguely-mid-twenties adoptive son, who she found nearly dead on a battlefield during the war, took in as her apprentice after saving his life, and later adopted after it became clear that even though the brain injury he incurred healed well enough that he has little to no loss of overall function... he has a degree of retrograde amnesia and he is unlikely to remember enough of his childhood to go back to his previous life (because he doesn't even know for sure what country he's from originally). He is a seal specialist, and his name is Umino Tobi. Yes, that Tobi. Iruka's Auntie got to him before Madara in this universe. :) And then, you know, Shenanigans Happen.

Also, this world's Naruto was raised by a series of ANBU nannies, and then moved in with Iruka and Anko after graduating (yes I ship Iruka and Anko, shut up they're cute). And after the Uchiha Massacre, Sasuke was taken in by a civilian friend of his parents who runs an omurice stand near the Hokage's office (she actually served as a genin until she quit/retired at sixteen to take an apprenticeship as a cook, and she's secretly Fugaku's bastard half sister... Fugaku's parents were an arranged marriage that happened after she was already born, and Fugaku's and Kaori's mothers were close friends with no bad blood between them).

Also also, Rin survived in this universe, but she works exclusively in the hospital and doesn't take out-of-village missions any more and doesn't appear in Bingo books as a result, so everyone in Kiri thinks she's dead even though she isn't. She's still a Jinchuriki, but hardly anyone knows because Kiri doesn't want to admit they misplaced an entire Biju. She was Naruto's pediatrician because he's Sensei's kid.

And as you can probably tell, anytime what I want contradicts canon, I just go "uh huh, that's the official propaganda story, here's what's really going on". So yeah, Thinky Thoughts that probably won't get turned into a real fic, but maybe they will.

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

The last year or so keeps shitting on all my fanfic ideas LOL

So I have an idea for a Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess story I've literally been sitting on for at least five years no joke, but... You know how there's probably a bunch of dead parents? Link's apparently an orphan, whichever of Zelda's parents was the royal one is presumably not in the picture if she's getting coronated that young, Shad's dad is explicitly dead, Ilia's mom is nowhere to be seen... Logically there was likely either a war or an epidemic sometime semi-recently for this to happen. I decided to go with an influenza epidemic. Like three years ago in the plotting process. And now it's too enmeshed into the plot to swap for a war. RIP that story, unless I wait another five years before I write and post it. Not that anyone would read it anyways, that game is fourteen years old, and I don't think it ever generated much fanfic interest even though it's a great game. Also, I don't think cis-swaps are very popular any more, and I don't know how many people would want to read about a Link who's an autistic butch bi cis-woman. Or about hypothetical explorations of Gerudo culture in the context of that game. And I don't think Link/Shad is a very popular pairing. Nor do I think bringing in Ilia's mom as a character who's basically a cryptid swamp witch would go over that well.

I also had a fabulous idea for an MCU / Supernatural crossover. (It's not actually fabulous.) It would go AU after the original Avengers film and SPN season 5, so it's not like later events would actually matter, technically. But between Endgame and season 15, I rather suspect the two fandoms are dead, or at least going to be dormant awhile. May be not, though, Harry Potter fandom is still kicking. But you basically go "The almost apocalypse happened ten years ago, nobody's seen anyone who was there since, now some weird shit's happening and not all of its aliens, Loki showed up and he's acting fucky especially in the context that MCU Loki and SPN Loki are the same guy... Now fucking extrapolate wildly, okay?" It's actually garbage. But like, fun garbage. Except for the part where I don't actually know how popular the Thor franchise's supporting characters are, and they're... Kind of really important to the plot? I feel like fandom Darcy is mostly a vehicle to write het, instead of the awesome badass that she is? (And the Darcy in this story is definitely a lesbian.) And people just plain forget about her, or treat her as a background character, and her role in this one is, like, big. Also, I'm bad at writing romance, and the Thor/Jane pairing is kind of super important here, also. Because Reasons. No, like, actual plot reasons.

So yeah. I kind of want to dust off my writing skills during the long winter of being trapped indoors by plague, but I feel like what I have in mind would probably go over like a lead balloon. And I crave kudos if I'm going to undertake something that big. ??? Also, my ideas are weird and convoluted. Like, do y'all actually care what kind of crops they grow in Ordon Village other than pumpkins, or how they managed to throw together paperwork for Thor in like sixty seconds when he landed his ass in the hospital?

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

Illustrations for "Welcome to the Twenty First Century, Steve Rogers" are on hold indefinitely because I have no idea WTF my scanner is doing. ????? They'll happen eventually. But for now, my job and other offline obligations take priority over figuring out why my printer will photocopy but not scan despite the fact that both functions involve the same panel of glass to set the images on.

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

:) Not quite what I meant, though. I worded it badly. It was meant to be, like, that Sam and Nat are the only pair out of the four that are definitely sexually intimate, and they're not romantically involved. I want to make sure that their relationship isn't shown in a way that makes it seem like it's less important because they're "friends with benefits" or whatever the hell people get weird about, and doing that will probably necessarily involve more sexual content than I really feel qualified for. Because I plotbunnied feeder!Sam, but then proceeded to end up with a mixed-orientation poly relationship including largely non-sexual romantic and non-romantic feedism, non-romantic sexual relationship(s), non-sexual romantic relationship(s), queerplatonic relationship(s). Among other things. And idek, but things. Whatever. I'm tired. Oh, and my work schedule got weird again. I'm not off this Friday now, but I get next Friday off and don't have to go Th-M inclusive again next week like I did Labor Day weekend. And I am working a thirteen hour shift, not a six hour shift, this coming Monday. But in the process, I traded in a twelve hour shift later in the week for a seven hour shift at a closer site, and got my Friday shift shortened by two hours in the process of moving it, so the total hours come out the same. ??!!??!? HOW IS THIS MY LIFE? X/

The fact that there are so few poc into feedism is a thing I wonder about a lot.

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

Aaand just realized I cannot type tonight. Was meant to say ace-spectrum Steve, aro-spectrum Nat. Whatevs, you get the point. But that's still only half a plot. Also, I feel like this idea is meant to contain some degree of porn, which I can't write for shit. Eh. I'll make do. But yeah, ten hour days Tu/W, off Th/F/Sa/Su, short shift M. So Imma try and do stuff, although that stuff also by necessity must contain continuing education things and also furniture shopping. Also, I wholly blame you for the fact that I now have another plot bunny when I've already got a gajillion in various states of incompleteness on my computer and in my head. o3o xoxo

The fact that there are so few poc into feedism is a thing I wonder about a lot.

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

...So the plot bunny seems to have finally coalesced, with the worst timing because I work ten hour shifts the next two days but had today off. And also when I tried to post a summary over here on my fsnworks secondary, it got eaten by the website?

Shortish version: Sam and Steve go searching for Bucky. They start dating and also begin a feeder/feedee relationship because Reasons. By the time they get Bucky, this has caused Steve to gain a few pounds. Then Sam ends up Bucky's feeder, too. And Natasha shows up at some point. Cue a bit of Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, except Steve is on the asexual spectrum and Natasha is on the asexual spectrum, and Bucky isn't quite ready for romantic or sexual elements to enter his relationships with anyone but Steve at this point during his recovery although they will probably happen later. Eventually, the four of them move back to New York. I don't know if they even try to hide their various relationships, but Bucky's and especially Steve's weight gain as a result of Sam being their feeder is fairly obvious by this point (there is much confusion over the fact that Steve's belly is round and jiggles at the slightest provocation, especially) and I doubt they'd very much want to anyways, at least in the company of friends. In short... *dramatic sigh* Saaaaam~ ;)

The fact that there are so few poc into feedism is a thing I wonder about a lot.

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

Chubby Stucky Exhange 2/2: "Welcome to the Twentieth Century, Steve Rogers..."

Part 2 of 2 of my Chubby Stucky Exchange Story, for iamgroottiltheendoftheline (formerly waterchuck)

  This part is actually five scenes, not six as originally planned, as one scene was cut and its contents folded into the others where applicable. Please note that this story ends on a positive but open-ended scene, and may eventually become the first of a series. Also, I’ve been having some scanner problems, and so the sketches might not go up for a bit. I will make a master post with links to both story posts and the art post, then reblog it to my main, for archival purposes, once everything is up. As before, if you spot any glaring mistakes or possible triggers needing warned for, let me know. Please note that the fourth scene is a bit stuffing-heavy and may be triggering for people with problems regarding binging even when not associated with an eating disorder (a la Thanksgiving dinner). There is a doctor visit in the second scene that, although a relatively positive experience, mentions one that was not.

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  Over the last few months, Bucky had gained quite a lot of weight, nearly thirty pounds. At first, modern food hadn’t seemed to stick to him at all, but all at once his cheeks rounded out and he suddenly had a double chin; at this point, the numbers on the scale started to steadily climb. Aside from the initial bit in his face, though, every pound went straight to his middle, leaving him with fairly obvious love handles and a round, squishy belly that he struggled to squeeze into his shirts and which bounced in time with his steps when he ran.

  He’d been largely making do in terms of clothing, though, because he could fasten his jeans under the swell of his gut and didn’t particularly care if a sliver of flab was visible or if the seams of his shirts struggled a little where the clothing articles pulled tight against his stomach.

  Bucky found himself in a department store, shopping for larger clothes to better accommodate his increased girth, however, for the same reason he generally found himself doing things that he didn’t particularly mind but would still rather put off for as long as possible: Steve.

  Steve, who had gained even more weight than Bucky, albeit with only most and not all of it being fat with at least some muscle, and on a smaller frame size that had previously been worryingly underweight. Steve, who had literally swelled outwards everywhere with each added pound, growing thicker in a way they’d never imagined possible back Before. Steve, who had found himself unable to even get his jeans over the generous swell of his ass this morning, never mind zip or button them over his admittedly still fairly small squishy tummy. Steve, whose thighs rubbed and chest jiggled almost as much as his little belly and luscious ass. Steve, who was currently being measured by a friendly (but not inappropriately “friendly”, and actually quite likely a lesbian, if Bucky’s gaydar wasn’t acting up) sales associate, while wearing a clean set of workout clothes because it was the only thing left in his wardrobe that he could still squeeze into and wasn’t in the laundry (and really, both the mesh shorts and novelty tee gifted from Natasha barely stretched over his slightly-chubby body, and Bucky could almost feel himself drooling at how well-fed and plump his boyfriend was looking after months of having plenty to eat and the best medical care of his life).

  “Well, I have good news and bad news,” said the saleswoman as she finished measuring. “They’re actually both the same news. I know why you can’t get into any of your old clothes – you’ve gone up two pants sizes since the last time you went shopping.”

  “...I think my hearing aid needs to be recalibrated. Did you just say I’ve gotten two sizes bigger? I know I’ve been gaining weight and all, probably a little faster than I ought to, and my clothes have been getting snug for a while, but I just replaced my pants with a size bigger a little while back.”

  “Yep, you heard her right, Steve. If it’s any consolation, the weight looks really good on you.” He leered jokingly.

  Steve rolled his eyes, blushing. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you wiggling around trying to get comfortable. Your clothes are too tight, too. You’re next.”

  Pepper, who had dragged the boys to the mall after hours with a few well-chosen calls and a few well-greased palms, including that of the saleswoman, Tina, after Steve popped open a shirt button at dinner in the Tower a few days earlier, chose this moment to return with some henleys that might actually fit over Bucky’s gut, unlike the one that he was currently one deep breath away from his stomach popping out of. She set them on the counter. “Thank you for setting up this appointment, Tina. I know it was short notice.”

  “Ms. Potts, it was no problem at all. You’re certainly paying me well enough for my extra time. Besides, even if I can’t exactly tell people I helped Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes pick out modern civilian clothes, it’s still my pleasure; he never knew them personally, but my maternal grandfather was in the 107th.”

  “Really? Small world. You’re sure you don’t mind...?” Steve gestured at his short, plump frame.

  “I don’t mind signing an NDA about what happened. And you’re neither the first nor the last person to gain a bit of weight, Cap. Plus, your boyfriend over there is right; it’s a good look on you. If I was into men, I would probably have to restrain myself from flirting with you. Him, too. As it is...” She shrugged, and calmly continued helping Steve and Bucky continue to shop.

  In the end, they both looked amazing in their new clothes. Bucky was especially fond of the skinny jeans Tina found for Steve that clung lovingly to every softened curve of his plump backside and dipped gently under the swell of his little pooching belly.

  O

  “So, who all is going to be here again, Steve?”

  “Sam is in town to visit family and stopping by for a bit. Natasha and Clint, of course. Tony and Pepper – I know the last time you saw Tony was for maintenance on your prosthetic, but he’s a lot easier to deal with when Pepper’s around. Tony’s friend Rhodey, who I think you’ll like a lot. Bruce is back in the country too. Thor, his girlfriend Jane, and her friend Darcy; Dr. Selvig’s somewhere in Norway at the moment, I think. You... may or may not get on with Thor; he’s really nice, but just tell someone if he’s too loud for you to handle.”

  “That’s kind of a lot of people, Steve.”

  “You already know most of them, and nobody will be upset if you need to go find somewhere quiet to sit and regroup for a few minutes, I promise. And you won’t need to interact with all of them if you don’t want to. In fact, I doubt any of them will mind if you just find somewhere comfortable to sit and eat all evening.”

  “Good thing I’m wearing loose pants, then?” Bucky chuckled nervously.

  The elevator dinged on arriving at the penthouse level of the Tower. JARVIS did not verbally chime in, because as interesting as Bucky found the AI, that would be just a little out of his current comfort zone.

  Natasha greeted them at the door, relieving them of the gag food contribution of a large lime gelatin mold full of bits of solid food (something Clint had told them Bruce secretly liked, which was why it was full of pieces of his favorite fruits and not broccoli or something else funny but less palatable) and alerting them that Sam hadn’t arrived yet.

  She quickly steered them away from Tony, who was fiddling with some bit of machinery that was throwing sparks every which way, much to Pepper’s annoyance, and pushed Steve in the general direction of Rhodey and Bucky towards Jane. Clint intercepted Thor before he could accidentally startle Bucky too badly; he was kind and wise and at least as out of his depth as the resident time travelers, so it would be best to introduce the two to each other cautiously.

  Everyone hit it off surprisingly well, all things considered. Tony’s promise to build Sam a new pair of wings broke the ice between him and Bucky, whose memories of his final mission as the Winter Soldier were still a little fuzzy but definitely included ripping apart his old pair. And Steve and Thor bonded over their respective significant others geeking out together over an article published in a recent issue of a physics journal that both blonds could theoretically at least somewhat understand but had no real interest in.

  Bucky’s pants were still straining at the seams by the time they had to make a decision whether to accept a guest room for the night or to take the subway back to Brooklyn halfway to a food coma and, at least in Steve’s case, slightly tipsy despite sticking exclusively to beer and not anything stronger. It was, however, because there were so many dishes to choose from and he and Steve wanted to try them all, rather than because of methodically stress-eating to avoid talking to anyone, so they called it a win.

  They ended up accepting the guest room, as did everyone else. At breakfast, they speculated quietly wit Rhodey that with SHIELD mostly disbanded, War Machine still on active duty and not able to visit as often as he’d like, and Pepper not-infrequently on the other side of the country for a week at a time, Tony might be trying to set up a semi-permanent base of operations for the Avengers out of Stark Tower.

  Neither one was willing to sell or rent out their apartment to move to Manhattan, especially since neither one would be in the field for the foreseeable future, but they certainly weren’t adverse to visiting a little more often.

  The day had gone great. Despite the fact that Steve was still a complete light-weight in terms of drinking, despite not being so light on the scale any more, and managed to give himself a mild hangover despite staying away from the hard liquor and making sure to alternate with non-alcoholic beverage occasionally.

  O

  “I’m sure you remember the peak flow meter from last time, Steve. Deep breath in, and... great!” Peering at the result, Doctor McIntyre smiled. “Much better. Looks like your asthma medicines are working well. And your blood pressure’s back under control with the water pill Doctor Johnson started you on. Feel free not to answer if you’re not comfortable with doing so, but why did you want to switch back from him to me, anyways? Not that I mind seeing you, but I moved from Texas to Jersey, not New York, so it can’t be terribly convenient for you.”

  “Um.” Steve could feel himself blushing. “He was actually being kind of a jerk about my weight. I know I’ve gained a little faster than strictly recommended, and probably more fat than suggested for my overall frame size, but my health has been getting better, not worse, this whole time. I’m taking my medicines right, exercising more than I ever could without Project Rebirth in full effect, and feel great. And I’m actually more comfortable with my body now than I ever have been before, even when I was actively being Captain America. So the way he was starting to harp on the fact that my stomach sticks out and jiggles a little really bothered me.”

  “Steve, you are doing great. And frankly, I’d rather you gain more weight than suggested than less. I can’t really speculate as to whether Doctor Johnson read through your file, especially the part about you being malnourished, thoroughly enough. But in any case, I’m more than happy to see you, and Bucky too, whenever you need follow-up. Now, were you having any other problems with your health that we haven’t discussed, or any lingering symptoms that you feel haven’t been addressed adequately?”

  His slightly shy little smile said it all. “Nope. I’m feeling great, and you’ve covered everything pretty thoroughly. It still feels weird not being in the field, and being in the twenty first century but also having Bucky here, but it’s a good weird. And I’ve got a therapist to talk to if it ever becomes a bad weird. Thanks, Doc.”

  “No problem, Steve. Give me a call at the office if you or Bucky need anything.”

  When Steve made his way back out to the waiting room, Bucky was waiting for him, sprawled out on one of the chairs re-reading Bruce’s dog-eared copy of “I, Robot”.

  “Steve!” His face lit up, his round cheeks looking even plumper as he smiled broadly. “How’d it go?”

  “Everything went fine, Bucky. Doc McIntyre is a keeper for sure.” Steve settled into the chair next to Bucky to wait for the nurse to call him over for his blood draw for follow up labwork, snuggling against his boyfriend’s soft belly. He sighed contentedly as Bucky’s flesh arm wrapped around him and his hand settled on and slightly sunk into his own love handle, musing that metal-cased prosthesis aside, cuddling with Bucky was much more comfortable now than it had been when Steve was skin and bones and sharp edges and Bucky was nearly as lean but with more muscle.

  O

  Bucky had wanted to go to the science fiction event that Rosemary had given Steve a flyer, and Steve was more than happy to go with him, especially since Bucky had been more than happy to go with Steve to various art museums over the years, including revisiting all of the ones in New York to see how they’d changed in the seventy years they’d both been out of commission.

  It had been a great time for everyone, where everyone meant Steve and Bucky, Rosemary, Rosemary’s boyfriend Keith, and Natasha, Clint, Sam, and Pepper, who had just sort of showed up in costume without warning. Apparently, Tony was on the other side of the country and Pepper was bored, so Natasha scrounged up some extra tickets and found a costume that would keep Pepper from being recognized, which generously included one of her own wigs.

  Now that the main festivities were over for the day, all eight of them had meandered over to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

  “You’re sure Keith doesn’t secretly mind and is just being polite about it, Rosemary?”

  She snorted. “Keith’s only half Chinese, and his dad can’t cook worth a damn, Pepper. He’s not going to care whether or not the buffet food is authentic. I’m more concerned about Natasha being upset if random half-assed Russian foods show up.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’d just find it amusing, don’t worry.”

  While Rosemary, Natasha, and Pepper calmly discussed the finer points of a book they had all read, Keith seemed to have never seen Bucky and Steve be let loose on a large selection of foods before. It had confused and concerned Sam the first time he saw it, too.

  “They’re... really taking the all you can eat part seriously, aren’t they?”

  “Yep. To be fair, they always eat like it’s going out of style. It’s a long story. But don’t worry, they seem to know what they’re doing; they’ll probably be fine.”

  They were not precisely fine. By the time he stopped eating, Bucky could barely stand up to go get more desserts, and Steve was worse.

  “Okay, on three. One, two… Three!” Natasha and Rosemary, the two people closest to Steve’s height, each were holding onto one of his arms, and as they pulled at the same time he lurched upright. Bucky, who was being supported by Sam and cradling his stomach with both arms, winced in sympathy as Steve’s, packed tight and food-round enough that it only half fit in his shirt, proved itself too full to even bounce and wobble.

  In fact, Steve was so bloated that he was literally waddling away from the table. In the end, Natasha and Pepper ended up half-carrying him.

  “The buffet probably wasn’t our best idea to date,” Natasha mused. Pepper agreed with her with a wry half-smile.

  “Bucky, I know you can hold more food than us mere mortals, but could you try to avoid a repeat performance quite like this until Thanksgiving?  That goes double for you, Steve. I think you scared Keith a little bit. Hell, I think you scared me a little bit. I don’t think I’ve seen you pack it in like that since that one night a few months ago.” Bucky and Steve both halfheartedly apologized to Sam, looking a little green around the gills but still inordinately pleased with themselves.

  O

  Steve wasn’t sure what to expect out of his first day back to college, but he definitely wasn’t expecting to start the day by fighting with his clothes. Natasha had declared his new wireframe glasses “kind of nerdy, but in a good way”, which he was choosing to take as a compliment, and his hearing aid had a brand new battery in it. He had a red-white-and-blue pair of the canvas-topped athletic shoes Tony had recommended waiting by the door next to Bucky’s leather boots, and his blue, purple, and pink plaid shirt was only a little bit snug around his torso, which although still growing plumper by the day was not nearly as thick as would be usually expected for someone who had gained as much weight as he had, mostly because he’d been so incredibly thin before. But he could. Not. Get. His. Jeans. On.

  “What’s taking so long, Steve? Breakfast is going to get cold, and I don’t want to take up Stark’s offer of a car to get to class on time.”

  Bucky’s jeans evidently went on just fine, Steve mused, for all that he’d gained nearly as much weight as Steve had, and not being in serious need of added muscle mass the way Steve had been at first, it had mostly settled into a jiggling roll of flab around his middle that his tight navy Henley did nothing to disguise. Although the rest of him had been getting fatter lately, too, especially his ass, which just seemed to get rounder and rounder every time Steve saw it.

  Bucky wandered into their bedroom, spatula in one hand, pan of cheesy scrambled eggs in the other, wearing a custom apron he’d been given as a joke by Thor’s girlfriend Dr Foster with the words “Cyborg Buck Rogers in the Twenty-First Century”, which she must have heard from Sam, and a rocket ship on the front, only slightly distorted by his round belly. “...Why’re you trying to squeeze into your old jeans?” At Steve’s withering glare, he continued, “Those were from when you first got changed and were still bony enough that even Stark felt the need to mother-hen you. There should be a clean pair that actually fit in the bottom drawer of your dresser.”

  “You just want to make me bend over, don’t you, Bucky? I’m on to you, babe, you know.”

  “Steve, I have been in love with you since we were teenagers, even if I couldn’t remember that for a while. I would be interested if you had stayed ninety-something pounds, if you went back to being Super-Soldier-y, or if you gained so much weight that you waddled all the time and not just when you’ve stuffed yourself to the brim so well that you can barely move. I will admit that the current view is particularly nice, though.”

  “Love you too, you big lunk.” Steve went up on his toes to kiss Bucky, then made a show of attempting to bend over seductively to retrieve the proper jeans. It was interrupted by the ones he was wearing splitting at the seams, although by the look on Bucky’s face, the sole reason that only kissing ensued was lack of time.

  They still ended up having to take Steve’s motorcycle to class. Given the amount of breakfast Bucky had cooked for them, he could just barely concentrate on the road with the feeling of his partner’s food-rounded belly against his back, and his arms wrapped around the heavy swell of his own slightly bloated stomach.

  The first day of class went excellently for both of them.

  O

   End 2/2

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

Welcome to the Twenty-First Century, Steve Rogers (Side effects may include: loss of super soldier enhancements, weight gain, and some hipster tendencies)

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Welcome to the Twenty-First Century, Steve Rogers (Side effects may include: loss of super soldier enhancements, weight gain, and some hipster tendencies)

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This is part 1 of 2 of my  Chubby Stucky Exchange story, written for waterchuck / iamgroottiltheendoftheline. It is being posted a day early on my secondary blog because of work-related time constraints (aka my longest workday of the entire month) on 8/20, and an appropriately-tagged link post is being made on the deadline itself (hopefully, that is how you found yourself here, dear reader). Part 2 of 2, as well as some simple art to accompany the story, will be posted in a few days, most likely on Thursday or over the weekend, and a masterpost linking both sections of story and the art, along with a summary, will also be made at that time for archival purposes. The story carries approximately a teen rating. Please message me at my main blog, liara-shadowsong, regarding any proofreading or formatting errors or any questions including regarding possible triggers.

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  It was while hunting down a HYDRA cell in rural Texas with Sam (who had cashed in a few days of vacation time to get in on the action) and Natasha (who was taking a much-needed break from her newly-reestablished identity of Natalie Rushman, where Natasha had just finished a brief stint as Pepper Potts’ temporary fill in executive assistant cum bodyguard for a major conference that she couldn’t bring her usual official team to, nor officially alert anyone not already in the know to her lingering superpowers after the Extremis incident) that Steve found himself on the wrong end of an experimental weapon that left him in his old body, complete with multiple chronic illnesses and a frame so frail that Natasha’s gym shorts nearly fell off his narrow hips despite the double-knotted drawstring.

  The particular discovery, of just how thin Steve’s non-super-soldier body really was, was made after Bucky seemingly appeared from nowhere to help rain vengeance on the HYDRA agents. At this point, he, along with Sam and Natasha, quickly drove Steve to the on-site medical facility for the El Paso branch of Stark Industries to be checked out by an experienced former SHIELD physician who had decided to jump ship for the private sector, bringing with her several loyal agents injured in the fall of the Triskellion, including for a brief time Commander Hand and what was left of her attaché before the former joined the DoD.

  Doctor MacIntyre was in later middle age, of an average height and sturdy build, with long rapidly-greying reddish hair that reminded Steve of one of his aunts and a friendly but stubborn and no-nonsense attitude that made him and Bucky (whose memories were coming back, albeit sporadically and disjointedly) of his mother. After offering to shoo out Steve’s friends and being reassured that Steve wanted Sam and Natasha to stay and that Bucky probably knew more of his medical history than he did, gaps in recollection notwithstanding, she set to starting a physical that was quickly interrupted in order to set Steve up with treatment for the asthma attack that had just started, and then comparing what could be salvaged of his old medical history with his current state.

  “Well, it looks like your blood pressure is running high, just like it was before the Serum, but it’s not so bad that you need to take anything fast-acting for it right now. You can probably start medicine for your hypertension later, once a doctor from the New York office follows up with you in a few days. And it looks like you aren’t in atrial fibrillation at the moment. If it starts happening again, though, it might be worth taking aspirin for, if not necessarily a stronger anticoagulant. And, luckily, it looks like your rheumatic fever is fully in remission, and that the underlying trauma that caused your acquired tritanopia must have been fully healed if you can still see yellow.”

  “Well, that’s good news, Doc, but I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Steve answered around the mouthpiece of the albuterol nebulizer a nurse had brought him.

  “Yes, well, we can already see that your asthma is still causing you problems. I can show you how to use the portable rescue inhaler version of the medicine we have you on right now, but you’re probably going to start a daily inhaler for preventing attacks, too. And I don’t feel safe sending you back to New York without starting you on a few days of prednisone, too, given the severity of this attack.”

  When the four began the trek back to the east coast, Bucky carried Steve back to the car, because he still wasn’t completely steady on his feet but refused to get into the wheelchair Doctor MacIntyre offered.

  Natasha carried a bag of what clothes she had been able to scrounge up that wouldn’t swamp Steve’s small frame too badly, and a second of medication and medical equipment. All told, this included, among other things, the two promised inhalers, a travel-size nebulizer, a week-long taper of prednisone to help his breathing until the maintenance inhaler kicked in, a stomach medicine used for ulcers just in case the ones he’d had before hadn’t been caused by bacteria or said bacteria weren’t wiped out during Project Rebirth, and a hearing aid because although his vision was still in full color he was still about half deaf in his right ear.

  Sam carried two large packages of nutritional supplement drinks, because according to the clinic’s scale, Steve actually weighed slightly less than he did during Basic Training. They weren’t really sure how this was possible, except that he’d weighed two hundred forty pounds initially after Project Rebirth, and had only maintained a weight of about two hundred twenty after being thawed despite easier access to the amounts of food needed to fuel his enhanced metabolism. And considering that he’d only been carrying ninety-five pounds on his five foot four inch frame previously, even a small loss of less than five pounds was fairly concerning.

  Steve seemed determined to take the doctor’s orders to try to get back over a hundred pounds as soon as possible to heart. Or, at any rate, he seemed determined to get his stomach full enough to keep his borrowed shorts from falling down.

  “Steve? You’re starting to worry me, buddy. If you keep inhaling your food like that, you’re going to choke. I don’t remember what to do if you start choking.”

  Sam chuckled. “I still have my EMT certification, Barnes. If your tiny boyfriend starts choking, I can give him the Heimlich maneuver.”

  Steve paused in shoveling an unholy mixture of meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, and broccoli in his mouth, just as Natasha returned from the diner’s front counter with a plate of pie for each of the table’s occupants, which seemed to contain an entire pie divided between the four and a ridiculous amount of whipped cream on each (which was probably why she insisted upon retrieving them herself, after whispering in Russian with the matronly waitress who was the late shift’s sole worker aside from the cook).

  “Sorry,” he said, cheeks still puffed chipmunk-like around the food he hadn’t swallowed yet. “But I just feel really hungry, and everything tastes so good right now.” He swallowed. “My appetite was always so hit and miss before the Serum that I thought I’d better take advantage of it while it lasts.”

  Natasha slipped back into the booth with her sugary bounty. “Could be a temporary holdover from the transformation. The Doc said it looked like your metabolic rate was probably normal-ish, but you never know. Could be the medicine; corticosteroids make some people hungry.” She shrugged. “I say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and eat up.” She set one of the plates in front of him, her lips quirking into a small smile when his eyes bugged out at the sheer size of the slice of apple pie before him.

  Somehow, he managed to finish it, and between that, thoroughly cleaning the plate of his hearty and generously-portioned entree, and his adventurous foray into trying a peanut butter milkshake, Steve was well and truly stuffed by the time he attempted to return to the car, and needed Sam’s help to waddle back while Natasha and Bucky settled the bill.

  By the time Natasha’s low-key undercover car rolled into the garage under Stark Tower three days and many rest stops later, Steve’s breathing sounded relatively clear, Bucky had stopped trying to bolt every time the vehicle stopped and Steve wasn’t actively holding his hand or napping with his head in his lap, and on the follow-up appointment when Tony’s personal physician wrote new prescriptions for the medicines Doctor MacIntyre had started and added a low dose blood pressure medicine, Steve had already gained a pound and a half, bringing him back up to only two less than his weight from Basic Training.

  O

  What was left of SHIELD, subsumed into other government and private entities, was given word that Captain America was out of commission but alive and well, but the actual investigation into the experimental weapon that caused the reversion was undertaken almost exclusively by R&D at Stark Industries. The FBI, CIA, DoD, and the rest of the government alphabet soup brigade had their hands full enough with the SNAFU left by the re-emergence of HYDRA to care much beyond the fact that Rogers was still alive despite any reports to the contrary, and that the American POW who had spent the last several decades forced into the role of the Winter Soldier was free, recovering, and in the process of reclaiming a civilian life. They set Bucky up with appropriate paperwork and other resources, but otherwise didn’t press into his new life any more than necessary, and prevented other people, such as the erstwhile General Thaddeus Ross, from doing so either.

  Which was for the best, because Bucky had no interest in any involvement in the Army, and neither he nor Steve was going to be going into the field any time soon – Bucky was in no mental state, and Steve was in no physical state, to do so.

  In the first two weeks after returning to New York, neither man left Stark Tower much. A parade of doctors, psychologists, and the occasional tactical consultant came through the living quarters to talk to them, while Steve and Bucky’s day to day routine seemed to rotate between deciding whether allowing a particular visiting medical professional literally or metaphorically prod at one or both of them would help or hurt, running a base of operations for the ongoing efforts to weed out HYDRA operatives out of Tony’s living room, and cuddling while eating everything in sight.

  O

  The coffee shop Steve had started to frequent, was, as Natasha had described the first time she’d joined him, “incredibly hipster”. Steve was a little bit afraid to ask what the term meant in the twentieth century, knowing only the jazz-club-related definition from before the war. What he did know was that despite their dyed hair and apparent love of tattoos, the clothing of the regulars and staff had more in common with what he was familiar with than most, albeit mixed with many elements that would have been very out of place indeed in his youth.

  The other thing he knew was that his new favorite fancy coffee drinks probably had enough calories to them to be a meal in and of themselves even before adding solid food, as Clint had noted the first time he joined Steve and Bucky in lieu of Natasha, who had been out of town (they’d yet to bring Tony, who stood out on a regular day, and would have been even more noticeable if he hopped the counter to improve the various machinery, as they suspected he might try if brought when tired enough to forget that it would be a bad idea – and it was always hard to tell when he was well rested versus when he was tired, although a few people including Pepper apparently had it down to a science).

  Steve still bought the large mixed coffee drinks he had discovered he liked so much, made with whole milk and enough shots of syrup to make most of the Avengers feign gagging, every time he visited, usually with food if it was a meal time (and sometimes still with a pastry even if it wasn’t, because his appetite was still better than it had ever been before the Serum).

  “What’ll it be today, Stevie?” asked Rosemary, who was his favorite barista despite her tendency to treat him like a little brother. Today, her hair was blue and her vintage-style dress was a bright shade of green that contrasted beautifully with her deep brown skintone. There was a little patch of cinnamon sugar powdering one corner of her white apron, from where a batch of scones earlier in the day had nearly gotten the best of her, the mixer malfunctioning slightly just as she was about to add the wet ingredients into the dry ones.

  When he rattled off a string of words that made no sense to Bucky, followed with an order for a medium Americano for his boyfriend, and some baked goods to share, her eyebrows rose. “I have no idea how you drink things like that and stay so skinny, Stevie. What’s your secret?”

  Bucky chuckled as Steve blushed. “His secret is that he’s not staying skinny, Ro. It’s hard to tell given the way he wears his clothes some days, but Steve’s gained ten pounds in the month since he found this place. Not all of it’s down to the coffee shop, sure, but still...”

  Cocking his head in a silent request for permission, Bucky slid the gloved hand of his prosthetic off of Steve’s waist and the tiny hint of love handle there to gently cup his backside, which was much larger than it had been when the Serum was initially removed from him. In fact, as Steve jokingly prodded at the pooch of Bucky’s softening belly in retribution, he noted that Steve’s ass had probably at least doubled in size during the two months and twenty added pounds, causing his jeans to strain against the now surprisingly-generous swell (which would surely grow even more plump and luscious if Steve didn’t stop drinking close to a dozen nearly-six-hundred-calorie fancy coffees every week).

  O

  Steve shifted, attempting to find a sitting position that didn’t put too much pressure on his middle, as he skimmed course offerings at the various New York City universities. This was to no avail, and he finally was forced to unbutton his jeans from around his overfull stomach.

  Bucky, nestled against his side with his left arm over Steve’s shoulder and looking at the engineering portions of the catalogues with as much eagerness as Steve had for the art courses, undraped the right from the back of the couch to massage his temporarily rounded stomach.

  “I think we finally found the right school to enroll at, Buck. Now we just have to wait for the last of the paperwork with our new official birthdates and all to finish processing before we can apply.” Noting that Bucky’s clothes were looking snug, though not nearly as much as Steve’s own, which he had barely been able to button even before he’d started eating the meal that was currently pushing his belly out far enough that his tee shirt was riding up to show a strip of taut skin above the unbuttoned waistband of his jeans, he added, “Although we might need to go clothes shopping before classes start, too.”

  Bucky chuckled. “Probably. We’ve probably been enjoying modern food a little too well, haven’t we?”

  As Steve’s stomach gurgled while it valiantly struggled to digest his generously portioned and hearty dinner, he replied, “Well, the doctors said I’m definitely not malnourished any more. They can just deal with the fact that I’m probably going to end up gaining more weight than they’d meant for me to.”

  O

  It came as only a small surprise that Steve eventually applied for a part time job at his and Bucky’s new favorite coffee shop, and Bucky at the trendy independent book store a few doors down.

  Bucky loved the quiet of the shop, the smell of old books. He’d loved to read before the war, to many people’s surprise even more than Steve did, although there wasn’t much time for it on the battlefield. He read a little less science fiction and a little more history now that he himself was, as Sam had once joked after learning that he and Steve were a thing, “Cyborg Buck Rogers in the Twenty-First Century” (luckily Sam had made sure it wasn’t too soon to joke about Bucky’s prosthesis first, and Steve had found the whole thing just a little too amusing, laughing so hard that he’d nearly had an asthma attack). Steve was happy about the live music at his job.

  Both were glad that their jobs not only provided a steady income that wasn’t their invested back pay from the army, which they had used to buy their apartment and planned to use for college expenses but would rather not touch otherwise for the time being, but also reminded them to spend time with normal people other than Sam once in a while (because nobody would accuse any superhero other than Sam, nor any of said superheroes’ friends and acquaintances, other than maybe Darcy Lewis on a good day, of being anything like normal – and even Sam and Darcy were probably stretching it a little).

  Natasha came in to visit one day, back from a few weeks somewhere in Europe that was very hush-hush. Officially, she was meeting with a contact; unofficially, the contact in question was Nick Fury, who was rebuilding his network starting with acquaintances and friends in Great Britain.

  “The usual, Rosemary,” she said as she approached the counter.

  “Small caramel latte, soy milk not dairy, no whipped cream but extra caramel?” Rosemary’s hair was pink today, and she was wearing a plaid shirtdress whose shade of orange probably should have clashed with it but somehow didn’t. Natasha, in the spirit of discretion, was wearing jeans and a hoodie in a shade of purple that implied it had been liberated from Clint’s closet, rather than anything that would approach usual spy-wear.

  “Exactly. Thanks.” She sidled up to the pastry counter while she waited, where Steve was arranging baked goods fresh from the kitchen. “Hey, stranger. Long time no see.”

  Steve looked up and smiled. He seemed to be doing that more these days.

  “Wow. Working in a coffee shop and bakery seems to be doing you good, Stevie.” She hadn’t noticed before that he had a dimple, only on one side, probably because he didn’t smile much before Bucky, and his face was so thin when he first got turned back. But his cheeks were round now, and the apron he wore over his clothes curved outwards just slightly over a hint of a belly.

  “The doctor says I’m in better health now than he’d imagined I could ever be, given the size of my medical record, but he wishes I’d gain weight a little slower now that I’m not malnourished or anything like that.” He shrugged and patted the tiny protrusion of his tummy. “I’d rather be gaining than losing, though, all things considered. And, well, any baked goods left at the end of the day that can’t be easily be donated to a food pantry like the breads can get to go home with the employees. So I’ve maybe been eating a few more sweets than I should, on top of way too much fancy coffee, which I now know the exact calorie content of in addition to how to make it for myself at home.”

  “Well, there’s that. But I also mean the fact that you and Bucky both seem to be much happier now,” she replied, holding up the cheesy paranormal romance novel she’d purchased few minutes before while visiting the other half of the time-travelling duo. “I’m glad you’ve been settling in well.”

  “Thanks, Natasha. Are you going to be in town for a while this time?”

  “Yeah. Pepper offered me a more permanent job in the legal department, and Clint one in accounting. So I think we’ll both be in New York for the foreseeable future, barring extenuating circumstances. Now you just need to convince Sam to transfer to the VA up here, and Thor’s Dr. Foster to do some consulting on the East Coast instead of in New Mexico or England all the time so he’ll follow her here, and you’ll be able to run your mobile command out of Tony’s living room with a full team of Super Friends if something goes wrong.” She didn’t mention that she and Clint especially would leave town on occasion anyways, to help the various government agencies continue to ferret out HYDRA plants, or that he may eventually end up running missions of that kind remotely from Tony’s couch, but it was understood.

  Steve laughed. He didn’t mind not always being the one to save the day when he had friends like Natasha and the others to make sure it got saved anyways. Plus, he was up to date on all of his firearms certifications, and Tony had been making noises about building a tiny red, white, and blue Iron Man-style suit just in case, so it wasn’t like he was unprepared if they needed a hand. He’d be able to handle the odd HYDRA attacker if there was a problem even if he couldn’t expect a punch in the face to do much good even if he had been working out hard.

  O

End part 1 of 2

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

“Don’t even think about it,” said Steve with his mouth full.

Bucky paused for a moment in the act of fishing another doughnut out of the box and putting it on Steve’s plate—but only for a moment. “Aren’t you and Nat here going to Russia in a month or two?” he asked sweetly. “We need to get you...

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

Upcoming fic idea

I have had an SPN/MCU crossover fic idea brewing for a while, and I think I finally have things sorted out enough to start writing it soon. I'll link to the relevant posts on my main blog later if I can successfully unearth them. But the general premise is that up until the end of SPN season 5 happened as in canon. Nobody sees or hears from anyone who was planning to go into battle, but the world doesn't end so apparently they won, and people who were caught in the crossfire suddenly start showing up alive and well with no idea what happened. Ten years later, Fury's Big Week happens. Oh, and we're only dealing with one Loki. Feel free to extrapolate wildly. I'll tag relevant posts here with "the Jane and Darcy show" for now, because they suddenly became the main characters when I started planning things? Also because I don't have a series title yet, the working title for the initial story is "Redux".

[liara-shadowsong-fanworks]

Obligatory Intro Post

Hello! This is the secondary blog of Liara-Shadowsong. I've set it up to post fic and drawings on Tumblr in something that at least vaguely approximates an organized fashion. This may potentially include ficlets too short/messy/awkward to post elsewhere, drawings that are incomplete or created for a particular Tumblr user or community, in-progress fic ahead of AO3 posting, and anything else at my discretion. Eventually, I will put up an icon here, which may or may not be the same as the one on my primary blog.