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norelationtoatticus · 3 days ago

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i had a stevebucky playlist a while ago and then i decided that it was wrong and remade it and i wasn't going to write anything about it but shocker, i did, so ta da here it is! its in vague chronological order and follows canon up until catws and then it diverges into that alt fanfic universe where cacw etc never happens and steve and bucky just find each other and live.

together -

[if we were vampires by noah kahan & wesley schultz] i've got this scene in my head where neither of them have really contemplated the rest of their lives in any great detail but they do know that whatever they do they'll do it together and like not even in a romantic sense just like they're fused together at the hip they're a pair why would you separate them that's ridiculous. and i'm just thinking about steve and how he's resigned to die first because his body can't keep up, that's what all the doctors have said his whole life and when he was 5 he got scarlet fever and steeled himself to die before his mother and that's a horrible thing to happen to anyone especially a little kid. and then i'm thinking about bucky who's very purposeful and serious and actionable and likes things to happen in a predictable way and being friends with steve is great and all but steve is an unknown variable in the sense that bucky can't place him in a box or predict what he's gonna do or anything, steve isn't certain. and i think for steve, a life well lived is beautiful even if its short, but bucky would rather they be vampires because if they can't die then that's one less thing he has to plan for.

[true blue by boygenius] do i even need to explain this one, well maybe i will just to say that steve and bucky are first and foremost best friends, and they'll be best friends in every story no matter their romantic entanglements and that's vital to their characters. "your love is tough, your love is tried and true blue"

[fast car by tracy chapman] idk man one day i got the brain worms about this and i never went back. this is sixteen year old bucky who's living through the great depression and seeing the horrors every day and putting his brave face on to everyone and then sitting on steve's fire escape and spinning tales about all the places they'll go visit.

[bang the doldrums by fall out boy] angry gay yearning anthem. steve is out late at the gay bars and bucky is too repressed to do anything about it who cheered. on loving someone so hard that you think you might crush them under the weight, but they don't even realize. "i cast a spell over the west to make you think of me the same way i think of you / this is a love song in my own way"

[long long time by linda ronstadt] this song is gorgina and then like whats it like yearning for someone that's so close to you. whats it like going to sleep and waking up beside someone and loving them so deeply and truly but never talking about it. steve and bucky can tell you because i don't think they talk about it until 2016. "i can't say you hurt me, when you never let me near" like okay steve not letting anyone comfort him after his mom dies. "all the while you fell, all over girls you never knew" like okay bucky hiding behind the charming neighborhood boy so hard that he can't tell where the facade ends and he begins.

[last goodbye by jeff buckley] this is like a montage where bucky goes to basic pretty soon after pearl harbor like jan 1942 and he trains for like a year and a half because that’s how he gets to sgt. so this is the montage of all the times bucky leaves and comes back for a little and leaves and every time he leaves they prepare for it to be the last time like he doesn't know what'll happen, he doesn't know when he'll be home again, if he'll be home again, it's all uncertain. so then they act sorta crazy in the face of impending doom and they're like okay next time i see him i'm gonna tell him, i'm gonna do it, i'm gonna risk it, and they never do because it never feels right "kiss me out of desire, baby, not consolation / oh you know it makes me so angry cause i know that in time / i'll only make you cry, this is our last goodbye"

[gale song by the lumineers] this is when bucky starts getting letters from steve when he's on the uso tour and he's like wtf is this dude doing. and he really misses steve and wishes he was there but he's desperately glad that steve is home because every day bucky sees something worse than he saw the day before and he's the oldest child it's his job to handle things but he's never been able to handle steve before, but now he can because steve isn't here. so i think bucky starts doctoring his letters to steve a bit and putting more of the mask on like he does with his family.

[new york by snow patrol] bucky in the hydra camp and he's certain that he's going to die here. he's strapped to the table and zola's doing something horrible to him and he's thinking about his parents and his siblings and steve and he can't remember if he told becca he loved her in his last letter and he doesn't know what his ma will do if he dies. and then steve, and how they've been dancing around each other for years, and bucky decides if he miraculously makes it out of this he's gonna tell steve he loves him because he'd rather die with steve hating him than die with steve never knowing. "if you were here beside me instead of in new york / if the curve of you was curved on me / i'd tell you that i loved you before i ever knew you / cause i loved the simple thought of you"

[body to flame by lucy dacus] i call this one "bucky barnes and steve's rapid descent into captain america" except in my lore this is like the walk back to the army base after they all get out. and bucky is studying this strange large person who wears steve's face and wondering if he's in hell or if this is really happening. and then steve tells him that he's captain america and bucky gets so angry and spends the entire walk back icing steve out and dooming in his head about how steve's life is going to be changed forever because the army is never going to let him be free of this. this is like a hardcore bucky song to me like when i heard "you take me aside to solemnly confide / when it comes the time you plan to give your body to the flame" i was like oh so this is steve. and bucky knows that steve is never coming back. even if they both make it out of the war, nothing well ever be right again.

[james by maggie rogers] yearning on the battlefield who knew this was possible. first bit is steve, with the added horror of "may your snow capped mountains carry you far" like thats cool and fun, but steve is like bucky go home why are you here go home be safe and of course bucky wont do it. and then the second bit is bucky because he told himself in that lab that if he ever saw steve again he'd tell him he loved him but when he sees steve again steve has a girl, and she's lovely and scary and bucky can't help but be really fond of her, and the third bit is both of them like grappling with the idea that if they survive this war things will be different because they are different people now, they wont be tied together like they used to be, they'll have to grow up and move on and live full lives. "no, don't be a stranger now, don't go too far / and though you love places that have lots of stars / just know in the city, you'll always have some place to stay"

[the anchor by bastille] when they're fighting and every day they experience the worst thing they've ever experienced but they always have each other yknow like they're captain america and sergeant barnes, they're steve and bucky, they're not alone. "you're the anchor that i tied to my brain / cause when it feels like i'm lost at sea / you're the song i sing again and again"

[i, carrion by hozier] one night they're on watch and they have group delusion time and talk about what they're going to do after the war and steve is like whatever we do we do it together "and though i burn, how could i fall when i am lifted by every word you say to me?" and bucky is like i am going to die soon "if these heights should bring my fall let me be your own icarian carrion" and its great its so them.

[back to friends by sombr] a week before the alps mission they're all stressed the fuck out and having the worst time and steve and bucky hook up in a tent in the woods and then don't talk about it ever again its so awkward and they spend the next week pretending so hard like nothing happened but also like wondering if it meant anything or if it was just sex and they barely talk to each other they're so cold and weird and then bucky dies (and then in the future bucky is like "hey so did we fuck in a tent in switzerland or did hydra like implant that memory or what" and steve is staring at the wall like "don't ever speak to me ever again")

[in a week by hozier] because when steve put that plane down, he thought he might see bucky. and he was right, sort of. because when bucky was lying in the snow thinking about dying he heard boots crunch towards him and seeing russians and thought he had been saved. and he was right, sort of.

apart -

[televangelism by ethel cain] steve in the ice. within the lore of this album this is about ethel cain dying and ascending into heaven so do with that what you will. mostly this is just a pretty interlude song that makes me deeply emotional.

[the pioneers by bloc party] this is huge vibes, and it mostly has 2012 steve vibes but it also has early soldier bucky vibes, like in the years before they figured out how to make him disappear and he was fighting hard to get out and to keep standing. "all you need is time"

[two kids by yeemz] oh man we're really in it now. the energy of this song continues on for a while, even after they've found each other again "i look ahead but i can't see / i just keep seeing our memories / can't we just go back to being two kids coming home, once more before they go / have you forgot?"

together -

[when you were young by the killers] “I’m not gonna fight you, you’re my friend.” a montage for the helicarrier fight. this meeting was written into the stars, it was always going to happen this way. which is like horrifying and devastating but also weirdly comforting like, bucky being alive is horrible because of the way it happened, but its beautiful because it happened at all. and maybe steve has some blind faith that he and bucky can finally save each other after years of being a moment too late.

[liars by gregory alan isakov] i'm so incredibly unwell about this song i hope you all know. this is very bucky after catws and his head is a kaleidescope of thoughts and feelings and memories that don't fit into anything that makes sense and this is very steve sitting alone on sam's back porch the night after he gets out of hospital running over things in his mind and trying to make sense of everything and wondering what it means that bucky pulled him out of the water and then this is very both of them remembering that night on the front where they spun tales about all the things they were gonna do together when the war was over and its crazy, the war is over, they both survived, and instead of having something real to hold onto they're just sifting through fractured memories.

[running up that hill by kate bush] this is my crazy movie montage of steve and sam gathering facts and reading papers and running around the country to try and find bucky and the entire time steve is having the craziest guilt spiral known to man.

[star by mitski] this is steve looking for bucky and it's not going well he can't find him but he's holding onto hope and idk this is just a stucky song to me like just listen to it doesn't it make you feel like ahhhhhhhhhh "i am yours no matter that love's gone, we just see it shining, we've travelled very far, i'll keep a leftover light burning so you can keep looking up, isn't that worth holding on?"

[no machine by adrienne lenker] basically i heard "to the ocean of your love i am a river" and thought about bucky pulling steve out of the potomac and then leaving and turning that moment over and over in his mind for the rest of his life like why did he do that, what did that mean, and he doesn't even know why he just knows that its true because bucky can run all he wants but he and steve are like horrible tragic magnets.

[voyager by boygenius] when steve is searching and he's missing bucky by hours and he’s leaving little notes and stuff for them in the bases and steve has figured out that bucky is evading him on purpose and he’s specifically remembering how they used to lay on the fire escape in brooklyn and bucky would read and steve would draw bucky and steve just has so much love and he doesn't know where to put all of it.

[love of my life by queen] pry this song out of my cold dead fingers i don't even have any musical analysis i just think it's beautiful and apt and relevant and i'm deeply fond and it belongs here.

[set fire to the third bar by snow patrol] this is like, feeling the weight of time i guess like they've gone through so much both together and apart and it's crazy that they're still here after it all but they're both so so tired and this is like bucky deciding to stop running and let steve follow him and this is like steve deciding to stop following bucky and even though they both decide to stop it's okay because they'll always find each other "miles from where you are i lay down on the cold ground, and i pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm arms" and also i just like how it sounds

[coney island by taylor swift] my meta for this is always 'just go listen to it' because i can't say anything better than this song already does. taylor's verses are steve, the national's verses are bucky.

[futile devices by sufjan stevens] and then its like okay they're done, they're together again, now what. the chase is over, now what. no more fighting, just learning how to exist together again. how to share space. how to communicate "and i would say i love you, but saying it out loud is hard, so i wont say it all"

[a pearl by mitski] this is every time bucky says "dude can you sit down for more than seven minutes and actually rest" and steve, in the back of his mind, sort of does want to take a break right like I don't think he could ever straight up retire I think if he ever did stop being cap he would keep doing other things but at this point specifically steve has been going nonstop since he got serumed p much and he's kind of cracking but he's like built his whole everything around his job and the duty he thinks he owes to the world so he just will not stay and rest and hang out with bucky and that is a source of conflict.

[i and love and you by the avett brothers] and then how do you go back home when home doesn't really exist anymore? this is them trying to figure out how to exist together again but also how to exist in a world that is so greatly changed from the one they remember and i think they both have a lot of issues with feeling like they're wrong or tainted or too different to be with each other and to be back in new york. but i love the ending bit like "dumbed down and numbed by time and age / your dreams they catch, the world, the cage / the highway sets the traveler's stage / all exits look the same" like something about just going where life takes you and not trying to parse it out too hard just moving along. idk man idk.

[renegade by big red machine] this is like idk every time i listen to this i think about taylor's parts being bucky talking to steve about how he can't be still and he can't open up and let himself heal "is it insensitive for me to say 'get your shit together so i can love you' / is it really your anxiety that stops you from giving me everything, or do you just not want to?" but then big red machine's parts being steve talking to bucky echoing the same thing "you've come a long way, open the blinds let me see your face / you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody"

[fake it by bastille] this is them grappling with the idea that they're going to outlive all of their friends and how that's kinda devastating and then further than that, like holding the gravity of their history idek if that makes sense but like they carry so many years even if some of them weren't "lived" in the technical sense they're pushing 100, and facing at least 100 more. so there's all of that. "oh my lover, my lover, my love we can never go back / we can only do our best to recreate"

[lost time by lucy dacus] if infinity war existed in this playlist it would happen during this song have fun with that edit. but for real, this song was an 8 on the stucky event scale when i first heard it. to me, they were pining for each other for years before they died, and then they died and came back and pined some more and now it's cool like they're together and bucky is like wow why weren't we doing this the whole time and steve is like idk what you're on about bucky you're the one who repressed every feeling you ever had and bucky is like shut up steve but yeah like idk they just try really hard to love each other so much every day. and the time they spent as friends isn't lost because their friendship is deeply important, it's the time spent apart that they're trying to make up for, especially in the face of potential future horrors. "nothing last forever but lets see how far we get so when it comes my turn to lose you, i'll have made the most of it" because all they do is lose each other, but not anymore.

[isimo by bleachers] this songs brings me joy what can i say, it's triumphant "you were just a kid when they told you you'd been born to bleed, little soldier / look at you, you made it out" also jack antonoff wrote this song about being married to his wife and like yeah i believe in it. courthouse marriage stucky is real to me.

[fine line by harry styles] to me this is bucky, at the end of all things, finding peace in the fact that things are just going to happen how they happen, and he'll be alright. and he's not crazy, things aren't going to be magically perfect just because they're all together, but they're together and they can find balance and peace in that. also re: steve and bucky living longer than most of their friends, i see bucky being like "if we're going to live forever then we must live well" and i think that's my thesis for post-soldier bucky.

[patience by the lumineers] the end <3

#this is so freaking cool #i love all of this commentary #cant wait to listen through #stucky #stucky playlist #steve x bucky

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