#gayest thing buck has ever done

[bludhavensbirdboy]

this is actually what was happening in this scene try tell me i’m wrong!

[tommystummy]

“Saying ‘you wanna go for the title’ is the gayest—” The gayest thing Buck has ever done is play a sport for a boy he likes. We’ve all been there.

[buddieisgoingcanon2024]

You know do you wanna go for the title is like the gayest thing Buck has ever done and he kissed a dude in that same kitchen once and he kissed that dude twice now but still the chemistry in the do you wanna go for the title scene like are we interrupting something.

Truer words have never been said.

[luna-rainbow]

meta: limbic system dysfunction

(Thanks to @samwontshare for the files: highly recommend checking out the full thing. I've only quoted some parts)

His limbic system was, and still is, like a Christmas tree on psychotropic drugs. It is a wonder he can recollect anything at all, with the damage done to his hippocampus.

The limbic system is a deep part of the brain that has a lot of functions to do with the consciousness, like emotions, memory and behaviour.

Shuri probably uses advanced Wakandan tech to look at Bucky’s brain function. In real life functional MRIs can work out which part of the brain is active during an activity, and in the case of memory recall, whether the memory centres light up in recognition or not. If Bucky’s hippocampus is damaged, it tends not to show any activity, but other areas of the brain often lights up in an attempt to compensate.

As an aside, one of the common diseases associated with hippocampal damage is Alzheimer dementia, which is known for memory problems.

Essentially, it was as if Sergeant Barnes was in REM sleep while awake, in a dream-like state where he would comply with orders. And while in this induced state of mind, his short- and long-term memory were constantly in flux. (...) the shared memories of Barnes with his best friend, Steve Rogers, momentarily fired memory centers, jogging bits and pieces of his past life while in the sleeplike trance.

Just briefly, the hippocampus is involved in consolidating explicit memories (faces, experiences), but that’s not where long term memory is stored. People with hippocampal damage have trouble laying down new memories but not necessarily issues retrieving long term memories - Bucky is the opposite, as he can’t recall long term information but can lay down new memories. There’s a case series of people with seizure related amnesia who lost distant autobiographical memory, so maybe Hydra worked out the recipe with ECT.

The amygdala is involved in emotions, but particularly the fear/stress response. It is very effective at reinforcing memory with the emotions it is associated with (particularly fear). The area is also very active during REM sleep.

The other important function of the limbic system is the reward pathway. Like the rest of the limbic system, it's not well understood, but it is a complex neuronal network involving multiple areas of the brain, including the amygdala and hippocampus. It is this reward system that gives us emotions like pleasure, love, compassion and empathy.

Okay, here comes the meta (finally).

The first time Shuri attempts to examine Bucky in a mind-controlled state would have been a big undertaking. Shuri herself probably can’t see the fuss, but T’Challa has the Dora Milaje on stand-by, and Steve had also flown in, even though Bucky didn’t want him to watch.

T'Challa watches worriedly as Shuri adjusts the EEG leads and brings up the holographic reconstruction of Bucky’s brain on functional imaging. He’s torn between not wanting Shuri to get too close but also hoping she can solve the problem. All of them are watchful because none of them - except T'Challa - have seen Bucky look so cold and threatening.

Shuri calls Bucky's name. Bucky turns his head and looks at her expressionlessly. She tries "Sergeant Barnes" then "James" then "Bucky", but nothing stirs. T'Challa also tries, nothing.

Ayo - who had spoken the code words - tries, and Shuri gets excited about the increased activity in the prefrontal cortices. T'Challa tells her to explain in a language other people can understand. Shuri explains the working memory is coming on when the person giving the commands is speaking.

Shuri is fascinated, because she can't figure out how they've altered the pathways. Encoding, storage and retrieval of episodic memory is not completely disrupted, because Bucky can recall details of missions he had undertaken over the years. However, there appears to be selective inability to retrieve memory related to his own identity. Pictures of familiar icons from his youth, photos of military training, places and names he should know - there was recognition, i.e. he acknowledged they were familiar, but no recall. He couldn't name them, and could not connect them with himself. There is also disrupted emotional response, with no change in the brain response between negatively connotated words and positive.

Then they get stuck. Nothing they tried could break him out of the hypnosis. Eventually they ask Steve to come in. Bucky didn't want him to see him go under control, but had agreed for Steve to be called on to help as a last resort.

"Bucky," Steve says as he rushes to his side.

Bucky looks at Steve, and Shuri takes a sharp breath as the projected images shift. One by one, the amygdala, the cingulate gyrus, the entorhinal cortex, the nucleus accumbens - the entire pathway of emotions, behaviour, memory, motivation, reward - these quiescent areas are slowly coming alive.

"Buck, do you remember me?"

Everyone holds their breath as they watch the colours grow more intense, then finally, like a fragile candlelight trying to take hold, a small spot within the hippocampus lights up.

Something resembling human emotion crosses Bucky's face, even if it is only confusion, "Steve?"

Shuri sniffed. It was the gayest thing she had ever seen, and the most beautiful.

[thebumblebyog]

The Next Monday (complete version)

My longest fic yet! Guess what kids? It’s getting EVEN GAYER!!!!!!!!

Izzie took a deep breath before walking into the hall of Clayton Prep. She thought for a moment and undid the top button on her favorite blouse (the last week at Clayton was casual dress) made it halfway down the hall, thought again, and re-buttoned it. Izzie walked the rest of the way down the hall, stopped, and reached for the button again.

 “Fucking-” Izzie abruptly turned the corner and lightly but angrily slapped the wall repeatedly. She hated this. Liking someone was not supposed to be this hard. She’d been on plenty of dates, with girls and boys, and none of them had ever gotten her all flustered like this.

Then again, those people had all made the first move and she had decided that dating them was worth a shot. Come to think of it, she had never asked anyone out before; she’d never been interested enough in anyone to bother. And if she had, who would turn her down? She was amazing. But with Newton it was different. Izzie was absolutely terrified that Casey was going to turn her down, but she knew that she had to ask anyway, because there was no way she could be okay with not knowing.

“Wow, that’s the gayest thought I’ve ever had,” Izzie took a deep breath. She had to hype herself up for this. She did things both ways, but she didn’t do them halfway. This was just like a big race; you had a goal to reach and an opponent to beat. It’s just that this time the goal was a date with Newton and her opponent was gay anxiety. She closed her eyes and pictured Newton. She looked surprised...then flattered...then so, so happy as she blushed just a little bit, and she was nodding. Izzie smiled. Newton leaned in closer. She was gonna do this, and Newton was gonna say yes.

“You okay, Iz?”

Izzie snapped out of it and jumped back, seeing the girl she had just been picturing kissing in real life made this seem a lot less doable.

“Yeah, I’m just...really tired,” she said in the dumbest tone she had ever heard. Dear god, why was she lifting her arm like that? This was the worst thing anyone had ever done with a limb. It was too fast, it was too jerky, and it was at an insane angle.

“Oh, well do you want to get a coffee before first period?” Newton asked, not noticing that Izzie was acting weird or at least pretending not to. “The snack bar has coffee, right?”

This was perfect; this was her chance.

“Sorry, I really gotta get to class,” Izzie slipped past Newton and walked away as fast as she could.

“Oh, well, I’ll see you at practice I guess,” Newton responded, sounding confused.

Izzie waved as she walked off but didn’t turn around. She couldn’t have blown that much worse than she had. Apparently she was going to have to hype herself up some more, because gay anxiety was not going to be an easy opponent to beat.

Casey waved back to Izzie, but she didn’t turn around.

“Fuck,” she sighed, leaning her head back against the lockers. That pretty much confirmed it; Izzie was avoiding her. She was sure Izzie had been trying to kiss her…She was pretty sure anyway. It had at least been pretty obvious that she had been trying to kiss Izzie and there sure hadn’t been any objections before Elsa had decided to interrupt. Then again, probably better that it had happened then and not thirty seconds later when they would have been-

“No! No gay thoughts yet!” Casey half-heartedly banged the back of her head on the locker she was leaning against. There she went again: thinking like she didn’t have a boyfriend, like she didn’t have to figure this out. She had to talk to Izzie about this; Evan too. She wanted to do this right, but that was never going to happen if Izzie was too weirded out by their almost-kiss to talk to her. Unless…was Izzie mad? They had just gotten out of a fight about boyfriends and cheating and, well, Casey had been pretty obviously trying to kiss her while Evan was waiting downstairs. Maybe Izzie just didn’t want to talk to someone who would do that. Maybe Izzie was just too good for her. Maybe she was just like her mom; maybe she was a cheater.

The fancy warning-bell rang; Casey stood up straight and started walking to class, feeling like shit. She wanted to be with the right person, and she was starting to think that Izzie was the right person for her. But maybe she wasn’t the right person for Izzie if she couldn’t be trusted not to cheat. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be with Izzie…Maybe she didn’t deserve to be with anybody.

The stupid Disneyland-ride sounding bell rang and Izzie stood up, walking with purpose and focus. She had spent the last two classes appropriately visualizing her goal. First period she had spent freaking out and the second class she had spent…inappropriately visualizing her goal. Anyway, now she had it all figured out: she was going to have lunch with Newton; they were going to flirt, and Izzie was going to use her name a lot and make physical contact, and she was going to ask Newton out on a date and that beautiful, goofy bitch was going to say yes and then they were gonna make out.

“Okay, maybe dial it back a little,” Izzie said to herself, shaking her head as she walked into the cafeteria. She found Newton quickly and the butterflies came back. The lump in her throat and the pit in her stomach got progressively worse as she got closer to the table. God she was so hot and pretty and sweet and she looked so…sad. Why was she sad? Why was Newton sad?! Who needed to get hit?

“Hey, you okay?” Izzie said, ditching determination and anxiety for care and concern.

“I’m just…worried about bio,” Casey said, shrugging and shaking her head a little.

“But you got an A on your last test,” Izzie said, moving her hand a little closer to Newton’s, seeing a chance be a good friend and make a move at the same time, “You’re in the clear, right?” Casey Leaned back, putting her hands behind her head. Izzie drummed her hands on the table a little bit, trying to cover her tracks.

“I mean, I’ll pass, but a C? Colleges aren’t gonna like that.”

“Yeah, fastest girl in the state went to Clayton and we can’t take her because of a C her Sophomore year,” Izzie gave her a little shove, just so she could touch her, “Give yourself a break Newton; you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

Newton smiled. She smiled so big and sweet and it was just…the best. Izzie bit her lip like she always did when she was the good kind of nervous, like she had when she was at Newton’s party and she had known she was gonna kiss her. This was it; this was the moment.

“Oh my god,” Casey gasped, leaning forward abruptly; Izzie heart was pounding. She almost closed her eyes, leaned in, and kissed Newton right then and there.

“What?”

“You just admitted it!” Newton was bouncing up and down in her chair.

“Admitted what?!” Oh fuck, she knew. She knew and it was a big joke to her. Her best friend had a big, gay crush on her, and Newton was just gonna laugh in her face about it.

“That I’m faster than you!”

“I did not!” Izzie came back to herself a bit. Being competitive always calmed her down, “You’re the fastest girl in the state because I’m out of that running. I’m already the fastest girl in the world, wouldn’t be fair of me to take both spots.”

“Pffft, whatever, second place,” Newton went back to eating her garbage health food. This was driving Izzie crazy; she had to just ask already or she was gonna lose it.

“So, you free this weekend?”

“No, as usual I’m very expensive.”

“Please, I could have you for a strawberry slurpy.”

“Hey, I have high standards: grape or nothing.”

“Either way you’re still putting out for a buck fifty,” Izzie said before giving Newton the bedroom eyes, back on track with her flirting plan, “Now if you’d said cotton candy flavored…”

“There is…no way that that’s a real thing.”

“Oh, it is, and it’s magic.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it then?”

“They’re crazy hard to find; I haven’t had one in like five years,” Izzie cocked an eyebrow, “But, now that I’m single? If somebody found me one?” Izzie spread her legs and licked her lips, pretending that it was a joke.

“Ugh, you’re gross,” Newton laughed as she started to blush. It was working. Time to take her shot.

“So, you gonna let me buy you a slurpy and take advantage this Friday?” Izzie said, smiling and giggling a little, trying not to make it obvious that the offer was completely genuine.

Newton laughed, but then she looked sad again. It was reserved, kind of held back, but Izzie still picked up on it.

“I actually have a date with Evan.”

Oh shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. How had she not thought about Evan in all of this? Newton had a boyfriend. Like, an actual good boyfriend who wasn’t a lying, cheating bag of dicks. And she was getting in the middle of that. After all that shit Newton had been through with Elsa and with her and Nate and…god she was such a dick. Newton deserved better.

“Oh…shit, I’m sorry I…didn’t think of that.”

The silence between them was long and strained.

“I mean, we can go some other time.”

“No, just forget it, you should be with the person you love.”

“Izzie, I-“

“I gotta go, I forgot to…I just gotta go.”

Izzie stood to leave, but Casey grabbed her hand. They both froze for a moment, lost in their touch. Izzie broke the pause and tried to pull her arm away, but Casey stood, pulling her close. Izzie looked down at her shoes.

“What’s going on Izzie?”

“I don’t want to come between you and your boyfriend, Newton,” Izzie finally let herself look into Casey’s eyes; they looked so hurt, “But I’m scared. I’m so, so scared that you’re gonna go off with him and your family and that you’ll get all caught up in your own life and that you’ll just…forget about me. That you’ll just…” She couldn’t say it. The tears were welling up. Newton’s gently held Izzie’s face in her hands and tilted her head so their eyes met.

“I’m not gonna leave you, Izzie,” Casey gently pressed her forehead against Izzie’s, “We made a promise, remember?”

Izzie laughed bitterly, “No, I forgot the gayest, dorkiest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Well I didn’t,” Newton squeezed her a little tighter, “I’m scared too; I have to figure things out with Evan, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen with him, but I’m keeping my promise, Izzie. We’re never leaving each other; you’re stuck with me now, no matter what.”

Izzie wiped away a tear and smiled, “I think I can deal with that.”

This silence was just as long, but it was perfect, comfortable…so of course, Casey decided to ruin it.

“You should undo the top button;” Newton said before snorting, “You look like a nun.”

“Please, you're not ready for this.”

Newton smiled, “Nah...soon though.”

[sapphicscholar]

Summary: 

“Alex has no memory of the attack, nor of Reign or really much of the past couple of months,” J’onn explained.

“And?”

Eliza turned to face Maggie. “And she’s asking for you, Maggie. She’s asking for her fiancée.”

Or the one where Alex loses her memory and wakes up thinking she and Maggie are still together.

A/N: Alright, I've never written anything quite so angsty, but my fiancée asked for angst and amnesia, then along came this prompt on Twitter, and here we are. I hope you...is enjoy the right word with angst? Who knows! I'm a little nervous about posting tbh.

The first two chapters are short, and then we jump to long chapters from there on out. Most of the fic is already written (and it's completely plotted out), so it'll be posted on a regular basis until it's done (I'm thinking about 6 or 7 chapters over 2-3 weeks)

Chapter Text:

“Turn off your phone!” a voice yelled from behind Maggie in the movie theater, and she scrambled to find it and click off the volume. She’d never wanted to be one of those people, yet here she was: that asshole sitting in a crowded theater with her phone’s ringtone blaring, not muffled in the slightest by her seat or the bag. And god, it was for a random number too, not even the precinct. It wasn’t like she could do the whole, “I’m a cop! It’s an emergency!” and run out looking like someone who mattered.

Really, the whole incident seemed like a summation of her life these days: one shitshow after another. She didn’t even care that much about the movie; it had just seemed like a good way to get out of her shitty new apartment for a few hours to distract from the reality of everything that had happened. New apartment. She hated that phrase. It sounded like something she chose. Like how once upon a time National City was her “new home” because she’d chosen to leave Gotham. Only this time she hadn’t been the one to make a choice at all. Alex had. Alex had decided that her earlier promises about Maggie’s being everything she needed didn’t actually hold true, that Maggie wasn’t enough for her, just like she’d never been enough for anyone to want to keep her around. And so now Maggie had a “new apartment” far from the precinct with water stains on her ceiling and rats in the stairwell and a cheap mattress she’d gotten at IKEA that felt like sleeping on a pile of old yellow phonebooks. It made her long for the days of dormrooms and regulation furniture. At least then she had someone to call about the rats.

When she looked back up at the screen, she realized she had no idea what was going on. Two people were kissing, and she only recognized one of them. After a few more minutes of confusing dialogue, she got up and left. It wasn’t like the wasted twelve bucks for her ticket really compared to the wasted thousands of dollars on wedding shit that she’d let Alex convince her mattered. Because it had mattered to Alex, and Alex had mattered to her. She would’ve been happy enough to go down to the courthouse and get married—it wasn’t like she had family or even many friends coming out for her. The handful of friends she was still close with would understand. They’d make it down to whatever casual celebration Maggie eventually threw. Really, she’d wanted to have a party on the beach—just get the people closest to them to come out and have a bonfire and some drinks and good food and celebrate being alive and together and happy. Even after all these years, Alex still loved the beach, and Maggie loved things that made Alex look light and happy, like the cares and stresses of her job and her day-to-day life could finally fade to the background. But Alex had wanted the biggest, gayest wedding National City had ever seen, and Maggie couldn’t say no to that. And, she thought, with Alex by her side, she might just have been able to want that too, even if her side of the wedding would be quite a bit smaller than Alex’s, filled out as hers would by her family and all their friends. The same friends she saw still hanging out with Alex at the alien bar—the bar that had once been a space where she felt comfortable. She stopped going. It wasn’t the same after M’gann left anyway.

As she wandered the blocks around the theater, Maggie checked her phone, finding a voicemail from the unknown number. Furrowing her brow, she typed in her password and held the phone up to her ear.

“Ms. Sawyer? This is Nurse Roberts at National City General. I’m calling because Ms. Danvers was in an accident and is in the ICU, and this is the number she had listed as her emergency contact.”

Maggie hung up before the nurse had even finished her message. She was in a cab before she was quite conscious of having hailed one. In what felt like mere seconds, she found her feet propelling her toward the front doors of the hospital she knew too well from seeing crime scene victims rushed here after terrible accidents.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

Maggie blinked slowly, as if just now realizing that she had made it all the way up to the ICU. “I, uh, I’m her emergency contact.”

The woman arched an eyebrow at her. “Whose emergency contact?”

“Alex. Alex Danvers.” The words felt heavy in her mouth, and nothing seemed like it was quite real.

“ID?”

Maggie passed over her badge, figuring it worked as well as anything else.

“She’s in room 311. Can you follow the signs alright?”

“What happened?”

The nurse’s frustration seemed to give way into pity then. “I don’t know, dear. Her nurses and doctors will be able to tell you more.”

Maggie nodded mutely before wandering down the corridor. Everything seemed different, like she was getting all the sensory inputs but not in a way that made sense anymore. She heard herself speaking and responding, but the voice didn’t sound like her own, and her body seemed to move independently, as if it still knew what to do even when she no longer did.

“Ma’am. Ma’am!” a voice yelled as if from underwater.

“Yeah?”

“You can’t go in there,” the nurse explained, stepping in front of Maggie.

“I’m her emergency contact.”

“Ah, Ms. Sawyer?” he asked.

“That’s me.”

“Alex is currently being examined by her doctor, but you’ll be able to see her in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want a seat? I can drag a chair into the hallway for you.”

“What happened to her?” Maggie asked once more.

“No one told you?”

Maggie was surprised to find that the urge to snap and yell wasn’t as strong as she expected it would be in a situation like this. There had been a few times when Alex had gotten injured at the DEO or when she’d been late home from a dangerous mission. Somehow this felt different. Maybe it was because she genuinely knew nothing this time. How could she be mad when she needed whatever scraps of information she could salvage from these people? “No,” she answered simply.

“She suffered severe trauma to the head.”

“Is she…”

“She’s in a coma right now. We…people do wake up, though.”

“Right.”

Maggie slumped down to the floor of the hallway, ignoring the nurse’s offers to get her a chair. Eventually the doctor came out and said more words to her. They were all similar. Coma. And traumatic brain injury. And blunt force. Then he told her she could go in.

It wasn’t how she’d expected to see Alex for the first time in months. She’d caught glimpses of her at crime scenes, and then the one time out at the bar, but she hadn’t seen her like this. Well, she’d never seen her like this. Now Alex’s face was mottled with deep bruises. A line of stitches ran across her skull and through her hair, and there was still some matted blood that the sponge bath Maggie assumed she probably got hadn’t taken care of. She wondered how much earlier Alex had gotten hurt. She wondered why she hadn’t been called then. Then again, if it was urgent enough that she was rushed into surgery without identification…she didn’t want to think about what any of it meant.

She sat still in the chair until the doctor came in again to check Alex’s vitals. It was a new doctor this time—a woman with graying hair and shallow wrinkles around her eyes. She introduced herself, and Maggie managed the most basic of pleasantries. She didn’t seem to expect anything more from Maggie.

One of the overnight nurses brought Maggie a blanket and a pillow at some point and showed her how to use the recliner in case she wanted to sleep. Maggie reclined the chair back and covered herself with the blanket and stared up at the tiled ceiling. There were watermarks on this one too.