#(Partly also because I usually end up having to refer back to my bookmarks every time someone asks me abt his merch)

[histrionic-dragon]

Weekend Reading Recs: Captain America (MCU) Fanfic Disambiguation List

A much longer list than my usual Weekend Reading Recs, but hey, it’s a holiday weekend (in the US, at least).

It may or may not happen to anyone else, but I know that there are fanfics with similar names and/or premises that I get mixed up frequently. I have these stories bookmarked, but I will still have to open them to tell which one it is. 

So, partly for my own clarification and partly for your edification--and partly because, hey, if you know and like one, you might like the others!--I’m making a fic rec list pair by pair, sometimes group by group. 

All MCU Captain America, mostly set at least partially in the 21st century, many but not all Steve/Bucky.

Set 1: Reference Works

Encyclopedias/dictionaries/glossaries, or, stories about Steve adapting to the 21st century and the bumps inherent in doing so.

A Partial Dictionary Of The 21st Century By Captain Steve Rogers, US Army by  copperbadge

Summary: Steve is adapting well to the new millennium, and he has the dictionary to prove it.

Halbereth’s notes: The one that’s actually in alphabetical order and has Professor X in it. Also, the Steve/Tony one.

A Glossary of the 21st Century by  kinky_kneazle

Summary:  Steve's sick of not understanding what's going on, and the team are not all that helpful, so he starts keeping an illustrated notebook for further research. With the help of wiki, google and Logan he starts to settle in and find his place in the twenty-first century.

Halbereth’s notes: The one where Steve has a notebook full of things to look up (even though I’m pretty sure this was written pre-Winter Soldier release), he’s frustrated but eventually the others realize what’s going on and help, there’s really well-done tension between Steve and Tony that gets resolved well, and Wolverine’s in it. This is the one that has (had? It’s all the Livejournal logo now) art, the one with Steve and Bucky as lookouts at a speakeasy as kids; the one that’s meant to be early Steve/Natasha, only I didn’t realize that until my third time reading it.

I feel like there was a Steve/Bucky one, too, but I’m not sure what it was. Possibly The Steven G. Rogers Guide to What You Missed the Last Few Years by  what_alchemy. 

Summary:  Steve's got the hang of this 21st century thing.

Halbereth’s notes: post-Winter Soldier. Bucky’s himself again and living with Steve. Steve helps him adjust to some of the different things about this time, but it’s also obviously really good for Steve to have someone else who kind of boggles at things too. 

Set 2: Courtship through food

The Quickest Way to a Heart by VictoryCandescence

Summary:  Steve and Bucky: an edible history.

Halbereth’s notes: Bucky is living with Steve, post Winter Soldier, and fresh-made food keeps appearing in the kitchen, food that reminds Steve of when he and Bucky were younger. A slow burn romance with most of the slow burn via flashback. Cute and touching and makes me hungry every time. Also, it’s nice to see Bucky helping Steve remember for once. The one with the cookies and whipped cream and booze.

the food of love by biblionerd07

Summary:  Bucky and Steve communicate through food. Sam is a good person, so he doesn't complain about his kitchen being taken over. Not too much, anyway.

Halbereth’s notes: Featuring a semi-feral post-Winter Soldier Bucky who Steve leaves food out for on the fire escape. Of Sam’s apartment. The one with this line: “He did not expect to glance out the window as he got a drink of water at 5:40 am to find Bucky Barnes waiting patiently on the fire escape, eerily still and peering in the window. Sam screamed out loud and dropped the glass of water.”

Set 3: involving apple cake

 Bucky Barnes Versus Sarah Rogers' Apple Cake by  fedzgurl, rayskeptic

Summary:  Bucky Barnes learned two crucial, lifelong lessons during the summer of 1941. The first was that he absolutely hated apple cake. The second was that he loved Steve Rogers enough to make up for it.

Halbereth’s notes: The one where Bucky makes it for Steve, with many, many tries to get the recipe right, starting in the forties. Absolutely would also go in Set 2. 

 Apple Cake (and other remedies for an ailing soul) by Mici (noharlembeat)

Summary:  It is something that’s mentioned in the Smithsonian exhibit, for reasons that Steve cannot actually parse. He is an American Hero (so they say) who saved New York (more than once), and under all that information on one of the see-through plastic descriptions of his heroic deeds is, for some unintelligible reason, the sentence, “he currently resides in the D.C. Metro area, and his favorite food is apple cake.”

Halbereth’s notes:  The one where Bucky doesn’t make it for Steve.

Find My Way by Brenda

Summary:  Well, someone had to write the post-Winter Soldier fic where Bucky gets a decent meal and some homemade apple pie, right?

Halbereth’s notes: The one where it’s not even apple cake but it has an apple dessert in the summary and I found it while looking for the others, so here, have the rec. Now, what is this one again? *skims* Ah, yes. Bucky in a diner in the middle of nowhere. Hmm, I think “Bucky recovery-fic set in diners” ought to be another category.

Set 4: In which Bucky moves into Steve’s apartment while Steve is looking for Bucky

To Stop My Mind From Wandering by Lynchy8

Summary: "Leaving the man – the mission – the mission who was a man who was also important, so important, more important than this mission… which was terrifying because nothing had ever been more important than a mission before… leaving That Man on the banks of the river, had been almost impossible."After the fall of Hydra, Steve goes in search of Bucky in the hope of bringing him home. Meanwhile someone has broken into Steve's D.C. apartment, but what kind of burglar or assassin buys paint and drywall mud?

Halbereth’s notes: Bucky remodels Steve’s apartment, starting with fixing the bullet holes he put in the wall when he shot Fury. Featuring Jeff at the hardware store. Just a great story about Bucky healing and making himself comfortable--and taking care of Steve, kind of, too, by making his SHIELD-issued DC apartment actually a home.

. . .  OK, as of now I don’t seem to have a specific second one bookmarked, but this is a whole freakin’ subgenre of Captain America fanfic, so. I’m sure you can fill in your own. 

Set 5: Steve/Tony with past Steve/Bucky, then Bucky comes back

What We Asked For From Each Other by Speranza

Summary:  "I don't like pain," he told Banner. "Or assassins. Or boyfriends, actually."

Excerpt from the author’s note, which is a better summary: Anyway, I'm totally not putting this in the summary line, but this below is the actualfax summary, as I explained it to Merry:Ces: I mean Ces: in my head this is a story where Ces: Bucky shows up and just kicks Tony out of any universe where there was a Steve/Tony pairing Ces: and its mostly a story about Tony going OOF Ces: and HEY Ces: and I WASN'T SURE I WAS—okay, yes, I'm done with that. Ces: All yours.

Halbereth’s notes: ^That. It’s the one with Stucky endgame. It’s sweet. It’s short, well-written, well-characterized, and plays with the dynamics and relationships involved in 11K words. (By comparison, my Heroes are Easy, People are Hard also focuses on Steve, Tony, and Bucky, albeit in a different way, and is 152K words long.) Encapsulated, for me, in this exchange: "Okay," Tony said finally. "The thing is: I kind of wanted to be the kind of guy who would want you." "Yeah," Steve said levelly. "You should meet him. He's in there.”   

gonna be trouble by fictionalcandie

Summary:  In which Bucky comes back, Tony is doomed, and the Avengers want their breakfast.

Halbereth’s notes: The flip of What We Asked For From Each Other. Encapsulated by  “seriously, your buddy’s a genius, I’m going to make him the best goddamn prosthetic arm in the universe, I love you, we’re idiots.”

Set 6: Bucky recovery fic in diners

As noted above.

Find My Way by Brenda

Summary:  Well, someone had to write the post-Winter Soldier fic where Bucky gets a decent meal and some homemade apple pie, right?

Halbereth’s notes: see above.

Third and Sixteenth by Le_Rouret for sheraiah 

Summary:The thing about Manhattan diners is, you can never tell who's gonna walk in the door.Bucky struggles to remember who and what he is, taking refuge in a small New York diner. But the outside world simply won't leave him alone.

Halbereth’s notes: A really good Bucky recovery fic. Starts in a diner; ends up with Clint Barton and family, because Clint gets the post-brainwashing deal--and also, Clint adopts strays regardless. 

Set 7: Becca Barnes

My Ghosts are Six Feet Under by  what_alchemy

Summary:  Steve showed up on Becca’s doorstep a month after the invasion in New York, larger than life and trying to hide it.

Halbereth’s notes: set entirely in the 21st century.

My Brother, The Hero by Odsbodkins

Summary: Becca Barnes is eight years old, and her big brother can do no wrong. The events of the two Captain America movies, from the perspective of one of the sisters Bucky leaves behind.

Halbereth’s notes: the one that follows Becca from age 8 to after Bucky falls, and then picks up again around when Steve comes out of the ice and follows through past the events of Winter Soldier. The one with Mystery Cake.

This will possibly be added to--I think there was something I mentally associated with Source Code by Closer, for starters--but that’s enough for now!

[stephhannes]

get better or cry trying

“grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable”

i started november off back in NYC, which is always a weird experience for me. i was so eager to leave back in may, but now, landing at laguardia feels like home. when nathan and i left new york, i always assumed it would just end up being a chapter in our story, just something to look back on when thinking about where we’ve been. i assumed that philly would end up feeling like home, and had we spent more time there, i’m sure it would have. but now with this transgression of events, new york is just where my heart is. 

new york was always special to us, just because it was the first place that was ever ours. we had spent three months together in abilene, and about a month together in austin before we lived in new york together, but both of those places were riddled with history, of memories of a time before we were together. when nathan visited new york the spring break before he moved there, i was the first person he told that he had decided on columbia for grad school. so from the very beginning, it felt like ours. it was where we finally got to be together every day and where we learned how to compromise and where we respectively made some of our best friends and where we got engaged. and while nyc has its share of pitfalls, it’s where i lived my best life (even though it didn’t feel like it at the time).

so anyways, i went back to nyc for a week at the beginning of november and i was truly back on my bullshit. by “back on my bullshit” i mean i showed up to the theatre almost every night and instead of having to work i was able to just sit and chill during the show. i went to the crocodile lounge two times in one week which was a weird experience both times. the first night we watched some dude try to shoot his shot with a handful of girls, eventually get successful at it, and then blow his chances by getting real weird and kissing the back of the girl’s kneecaps? men are weird and i don’t trust them. the second night we watched some dude sleep for like 30 minutes in a booth and then PLOT TWIST it turns out, he works there. we went to the cauldron which is one of those trendy things i kept seeing on facebook. you show up at a place, dress in a hogwarts robe, get a wand and get to magically brew some drinks. what they don’t tell you though is that the drinks are absolutely disgusting and taste like soap. the experience was fun but oh my god if i ever smell lavender again i’m going to puke. after that, i was drunk and we all went to another bar, where i started crying in the club. for some reason, when i hit a certain level of drunk i always start crying, and then i man up and get over it and rally for the rest of the night. but for that brief moment, it’s always real awkward for everyone around me. oops.

important life update: while i was in nyc i finally did something that was long overdue. like two years overdue. so here’s the thing: i only own 3 pairs of shoes. a pair of sneakers, a pair of sandals and a pair of black suede ankle boots. i wore those ankle boots through a nyc winter and i regretted every day that i did it because not only is faux suede not snow-proof, the boots also had holes in the soles. i FINALLY bought new boots. and i invested in a pair of docs because honestly after this year i deserve it. i’ve never spent more than 40 dollars on shoes before but they’re beautiful and have 100% less holes in them than my old boots.

most importantly, when i was in nyc, i had this brief moment of clarity. i remember having this period of time where i almost felt hopeful. i finally felt like i needed to get my life together and maybe move out of my mom’s house and try to be a normal human again.

grief is weird because some days i feel like a functioning human, like i’m back to myself. i briefly thought that i was actually starting to recover, but as of late, i’ve been having a really bad time, honestly. for the last two weeks or so, i’ve been constantly exhausted. i’ve been incredibly quick to start crying. i’ve started getting that foggy feeling again. i walk into rooms and forget why i was there, and i trail off in the middle of sentences because i forgot what point i was trying to make. the other day i drove to austin and it felt like i blacked out for the 3.5 hour drive because when i arrived i didn’t remember any part of the drive. i’m easily irritated. i’ve started having nightmares again. the thought of leaving my house makes me anxious. i can’t focus on anything anymore.

all of this hit me hard on thanksgiving. i didn’t want to go to thanksgiving dinner with the entire family, but i did it anyways because my mother would have been sad if i didn’t go and i’m too nice so i sucked it up and went. i showed up, said hello to everyone, and then sat at the table and didn’t talk for the next two hours. partly because i couldn’t focus on anything long enough to hold a conversation but also because no one in my family ever really talks to me at these things so whatever, it’s nothing new.

it doesn’t really feel like it, but i guess technically, i survived my first holiday without nathan.

the very last thing i accomplished in november is that i dyed my hair back to black. i’ve spent the last three months experimenting with fashion colors, but i started to get overwhelmed with upkeep so i just went ahead and went back to my natural hair color. it feels weird. i originally went blonde two weeks before nathan died. i bleached all of my hair, and cut a decent amount of it off. i did this because i wanted to both a) grow out my hair and b) be blonde for the wedding, and by starting the process back in july, it would ensure that my hair wouldn’t look like straw by the time the wedding rolled around. when i first cut off a bunch of my hair, along with the first stages of the bleaching process, nathan kept telling me i looked like he-man. which was true. i kept obsessing over my haircut for like three days, continually taking off more and more hair trying to get it perfect (why don’t i ever just go to a salon and get my hair cut??? i know that i’m poor and can’t afford it but oh my god my life would have been a million times easier). i was getting so obsessed with it that nathan literally just hid all of the scissors in the house because he was Done with watching me stress about it, and finally i just ended up with my he-man hairdo. but that was fine because i planned on growing it out. anyways, after nathan died, before going back to black i decided to mess around with some color again, like i used to in college. and it was fun for awhile, but now i genuinely just don’t have the energy to touch up the color every week, and bleach my roots every month. so i went back to black. and for the first time, i really realized that we aren’t going to get married anymore. i felt it a little bit back in august when we were cleaning out our apartment and i threw away the calendar that i had been taking planning notes on for reference: 

and i felt it a little on the day that i realized i couldn’t take seeing wedding stuff in my email anymore so i unsubscribed from all the websites i was using for inspiration, and i deleted my pinterest and i un-bookmarked all of the wedding dresses i was considering. but for some reason, dyeing my hair, i’ve felt it the most.

on another note, last night i actually cooked for the first time since nathan’s died. i’ve been eating like a garbage can for the last three months so i’m trying to get back on my chicken and rice bullshit and it felt so weird going through those motions again. the last time i cooked chicken was the day that nathan died and this is such a bizarre thing to have thrown me into a sadness spiral, but here we are anyways.

along these same lines of “progress,” the other day, i finally stopped sleeping on “my side” of the bed. when i lived alone and had a bed bigger than a twin, i would sleep next to my laptop, phone, and a water bottle. after nathan died, i kept to “my side” of the bed, i would put my laptop on the floor next to me, water bottle and phone on my nightstand, and left the left side of my bed empty. i even had a pillow and extra blanket on that side. the other day, i finally moved all of my pillows into the middle of the bed. i fell asleep with my laptop next to me. i usually wake up curled in a ball, back on “my side.”

++

the other day, i remembered a paragraph from a letter i had sent nathan after he came to visit me during his first year at columbia when i still lived in austin-

“It was really great to get to see you again because being apart for so long, I had kind of forgotten what it was like to actually be together. I had forgotten how much I love to spend time with you. I had forgotten how annoyed I get whenever you do that thing where you say the same thing as me before I even say it. I had forgotten how much fun I have when we’re together.”

you don’t realize how much you forget about someone when they’re not with you 24/7. when we lived apart, we made things work, but i didn’t realize how different it was to not be right with him until we were face to face again. when we were apart, i’d forget about the little facial expressions he’d make when i’d start to tell a story he’d heard 100 times before. i’d forget about the way he was constantly putting on chapstick. i’d forget about the terrible sound his ankles made every time he cracked them. but we still talked on the phone every day, so i remembered his speech patterns, and his laugh.

but now i’m realizing that i can’t remember what his laugh sounded like. i can’t remember what exactly his voice sounded like. that’s always the first thing you forget. i lost the phone that i had during our year apart, so if he had left me any voicemails, i don’t have them anymore. i don’t have any videos of him. i still remember how he smelled, and every time i put on chapstick i remember him. i still use the same shampoo, body wash and moisturizer that we used, so every time i shower, i remember him. i still remember what he felt like. the other day when i was drunk and sad, i sent nathan a text that said “i’ve been having a hard time because i feel like i’m forgetting everything about you. but i still remember how it felt to touch your face. and how it felt to have your head on my chest. and how it felt to run my hands through your hair. i still remember how i felt every time you kissed me. and what it was like to lay my head on your chest. i wish that when i woke up sad in the night, you were there to hold me closer to you. i still remember how it feels to have your arms around me. i love you. i miss you so much baby.”

at least i still have that that i remember. 

++

i’m still not doing great, but at least now when i wake up, my immediate first thought isn’t “i hope i get hit by a car today.”