#he is not just some cruel asshole of a guy just because Jean's perspective of him is skewed

[shouts-into-the-void]

I feel like the aftg fandom has just swung hard from one mischaracterization of Neil to another.

Yes, Neil is not an innocent little soft-boy like a lot of fans made him out to be pre-TSC, but he isn't some cold, calculated badass either.

He took out a hit on Grayson over Thai food. He doodles fox paws in his notebooks and hates vegetables. He insults FBI agents' parking jobs and he spent a bus ride staring over the back of his seat making heart eyes at his boyfriend. He manipulated the agents while eating takeout in the interrogation room. He canonically internally panics and overthinks the entire time he's attempting to manipulate anyone. He uses people's family trauma to manipulate them. He misses his mom.

Neil Abram Josten is a multifaceted character

[hope-to-hell]

Wet Bones. Bucky Barnes x Helmut Zemo. Smut, angst, dubcon, past noncon, self loathing, abuse of second-person perspective. The two of them shouldn’t work. They don’t work. But Bucky’s gonna chase this feeling.

Hey. Fuck. Listen. Listen. This guy— this fucking guy. Oh he acts like he’s got you on a short leash and damn if you don’t dream about that at night, that horrible soporific sweetness as you slide out of yourself and into him. The soldier. The— no. No. You’re not gonna do this right now. You’re you, at last and well-deserved and if any of this turns out alright it’ll be a miracle. If you live to see the end of it you’ll find a nice quiet someplace, maybe a pretty girl to warm your bed (and isn’t that Sarah just the sweetest thing; if you asked she’d probably say yes. But first you have to ask).

But the thing that’s got your fingers punching holes through the mattress is this: he sees you. Zemo. That rat bastard. He fucking sees you. He looks at you and he sees that sickness, that craving, that crawling wet-bones feeling that’s you vulnerable and invincible all at once; it’s you in the chair, it’s the words in your ear, it’s the letting-go. And goddamn if you don’t hate yourself for wanting it.

He gave it to you, once, and you hate him for that— hate him and hate the way all that programming slid along your spine and switched off everything that made you think, made you question, made you hurt. Oh, you fragile thing. You’re just like shale stone, all hard but you’re gonna crack one of these days and that’ll be the end of you. Hard and delicate, contradictory to the end

(Nah. You’re more like opals. You’re so goddamned pretty and everyone wants to show you off, but look how fragile you are. One strike, one wrong step and you’re broken. Useless. Oh, Bucky. How you’re gonna be alone)

He’s the poison at the center of the suet ball; he’s a feast for the eyes and the body but he’s gonna fucking kill you in the end

(unless you make the first move, unless you snap his fragile little neck; he won’t wake up and really it’s too good for him. He deserves penance and pain and a dark cell deep down where the light can’t reach)

and oh my god Bucky-boy, you’re really gonna do this. Not the killing, not the thousand illegalities of varying size, not playacting the Winter Soldier— and was it acting? You’d have had license, you know. You could’ve done damn near anything and who would’ve dared say anything? Sam, maybe, but Sam knows the cost. Knows the need. And he’s a better man than you.

No. You don’t get to hide. You don’t get to think about other people, other places. You get to think about this and only this, about Helmut fucking Zemo and his hand on your cock; he’s a little softer and a little older than you remember but he’s still so goddamned dangerous. He’s dangerous and he owns that dark little corner of your mind that says you fucking loved being Hydra’s dog; you’d beg and plead but in the end those clinical hands would strip your cock with just the perfect sort of detached cruelty. They’d say good boy and you’d hate it, you’d fucking hate it, but you’d come every time.

And Zemo. He’s worse than all the rest because he can’t be detached, because all of this from the moment he first heard your name has been a long and drawn-out dance; your card is full and it’s all full of him. He palms your through your jeans and it isn’t clinical at all; it’s a little rough and a little inexperienced (surprising, coming from him; could you really be his first? His eyes say no but his hand says yes and you don’t know which to believe) and it is so. Damned. Good. You really could, you know. You could shoot off just like this, with a little friction and a little anger and oh goddamn that’s your hand in his hair.

Vibranium is unyielding, unforgiving; he takes your grip or he loses his hair and some scalp to go with it. He takes it because he’s practical, because he’s vain, because he’s an asshole and both of you are gonna get off like this, before you can even unzip, before you can say a single word.

Oh, Bucky. You nasty boy. You want what you shouldn’t, you take what you can’t, and you regret everything. Or nothing. Who can tell with that stonefaced look? Steve, maybe, but Steve fucked off to greener pastures. If it was him. You know. Sometimes these things change with the seasons. And Sam might someday, or Sarah if you can muster up the balls to move in close. But right now— right now— you’re making the terrible decision not to leave. You’re letting that sweet syrupy darkness creep over your bones to where the remnants of you still ache and itch beneath your armature. You’re chasing the feel of going under and you’re gonna hate this in the morning.

Hell. You hate it now. But you’re still doing this. You’re still breathless when you come and if you could see yourself— oh, sweetheart. To say you look like an angel would be a cliche. But maybe it’s something like that. Something unfathomable, anyway, thousand-eyed and burning; your hands are falling away from Zemo and you’re horrified, aren’t you, but your blood is singing with pleasure and you are absolutely regrettably going to do this again. You’re gonna do it because under oak and water he smells like steel, like blood; he’s cruel and you hate him but it’s not enough to stop whatever this is.

C’mon, Bucky. Pull yourself the fuck together. You’re gonna be traveling in sticky clothes as it is; every painful tug of semen drying on your skin is gonna remind you of exactly what you’ve done. You hate it, and you need it, and the next time he’s alone with you— well. You’re gonna feel that syrup and tar creeping along your bones. You’re gonna fucking let it happen because you just can’t help yourself.