#my first posted Loki fic

[bleue-flora]

Yo! Just noticed it’s the anniversary of when I finished my second fanfic Dreamcatcher, which is the work I actually started to lean into writing fanfiction (since my first work I really just wrote for myself before being encouraged to share it).

So, in honor of that, here is some of the original second nightmare which was actually written from Dream’s pov before I ended up changing it to Punz’s.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Referenced Torture, Blood, Death, Injuries, Profanity.

Dream is wet and panting, in a puddle of watery red flowing into an equally crimson pond to his side, where the non diluted liquid gets thicker.

There’s white fur stuck in it as the body of a dog, slashed to bits lies there next to him. Both sitting in the despairing silence of the box.

Tears form in the corners of his eyes and his vision gets blurry, but he doesn’t let them fall. He just exhales.

Why does everything die around him? Why does everything he dare to care a smidge about get taken from him?

As if to follow his thoughts, the white turns to black. The fluffy bloodied dog shifts into a cat that’s long since stopped breathing. Dream turns his head, and faintly smirks at the sight of the additional body sprawled out on the floor next to him.

He mutters to the corpse under his breath, rolling his eyes, “To be fair, you were being a bitch. Like don’t blame me, you know you d—deserved it… I mean I lasted like—how long before beating your head in? That’s pretty impressive—pretty fucking impressive, you know.”

Tommy’s unmoving body doesn’t respond, just stays there, unmoving and uncharacteristically quiet. His face swollen and bruised, not unlike the innocent cat he beat to death.

Then his body evaporates and Dream finds himself in a new room, accented with black walls and bedrock. It’s detail is perfectly ominous like he wanted.

He’s kneeling, unguarded by armor with an audience of people surrounding him. His heart beats rapidly threatening to burst out of his chest at the danger. But he ignores it.

Indignant, Tommy rips off the mask that always covers his face. Exposing his pale skin to the cool air and the venomously judging faces.

Despite the frustration at his denial of privacy, he doesn’t so much as dignify it with a flinch. It was expected. He was ready. He’s not about to show weakness in front of a crowd.

They are silent as the axe lands, and lands again before lady death finally embraces him.

They are silent as the sword finds its place in his chest and he falls to the ground, bleeding out into the cold stone beneath him.

It’s ok. He knew this would happen. It was expected, it was planned. He didn’t know they’d kill him twice, but it’s fine.

On one life, he makes his way back down with sharp pain running through his veins. Somehow it seems duller than the pain in the prison cell, though it can’t have been less excruciating.

Tommy once again stands above him savagely firing arrows away. As they pierce his flesh and bone, he searches the cold faces around him and listens intently, hoping to hear one sound of objection to his approaching final death.

Surely, someone will say something, right? Surely, someone will oppose his final death, right? Surely, they woundn’t let Tommy kill him off in cold blood. Would they?

But there’s nothing from them. Absolutely nothing. Standing there, dripping in blood, he feels his heart entirely disintegrate into nothing. Leaving only a hollow emptiness in its wake.

Then suddenly he’s freezing from more than just death and despondency. He’s surrounded by ice. Their pillars, tall and sharp, casting the land in a pointed terrain. Despite the bone chilling air and his frozen insides, he stands, planted to the ground, looking at a sign pinned to the glacier. The wood marking the death of his parrot that travelled so far only to die there.

A deep sigh is released from his lungs and the scene smears into broad strokes of colors. Until a well known bleak room encases him in lava and obsidian again.

Sitting there with nothing but the annoying sounds of the prison to keep him company, he wonders if he’s always destined to lose everything. Was it always going to end up like this? Was he always going to end up alone?

[ieatadoptmepets]

Soundtrack and timeline to my fic And It All Leads Back To You, with explanations, 1-10. Check out my other posts for more info!

You Are My Sunshine (1940)- You discover this song again in the mid 40s when steve and bucky die. This song reminds you of them because for a long time they were your only family. You cry to it many nights. It's given a new meaning when you discover that howard, jarvis, and peggy are your family as well

When you wish upon a star (1940)- two meanings. A) you are grieving for steve and bucky. You wish them to be back so long, or that it'd stop hurting. B) you're on earth and have been for almost 150 years. You love Loki. You wish to see your best friend again

Dream a little dream of me (ella fitzgerald) (1950)- you've been dating howard for a while now, and you've accepted that you can love someone new and still hold your love for Loki. Howard reminds you of everything good in the world and shows you a life you never thought you could have

Fly me to the moon (1954)- a romantic song howard plays for you to express his love, and you love it, but you can't help but take the lyrics literally and dream about taking howard above the stars and to asgard. This became your wedding song with howard

Great balls of fire (1957)- one of the sillier songs you know but a testament to time. Always gets you dancing and having a good time

Johnny b goode (1958)- if you go out somewhere upbeat dancing, this song always plays somehow. howard has his ways, and knows you like this song

Put your head on my shoulder (1959)- stands as one of your favorite old love songs. Who knows how many times this plays on a vinyl in your and howards home?

At last (1961)- a beautiful song that reminds you that after all that time of searching you've finally found the love you were looking for

Sway (dean martin) (1961)- howard loves to play this song and dance to it with you, either early morning or late at night- you never could agree on what time it was when you pulled at-home all-nighter dates together

The lion sleeps tonight (1961)- not particularly a love song like the rest but it still is one of "your songs"

[woulddieforloki]

currently obsessing over the idea of Thor and Loki reuniting sometime long after The Dark World (possibly during Ragnarok but that movie doesn't really fit the vibe so probably not) and Thor being pissed that Loki didn't tell him he was alive and obviously they get into an argument about that and finally Loki just cuts him off by yelling, "You didn't even come back for me!" and Thor's like ??? and Loki's like, "I waited for you! I waited for hours and you never came back for me. I sacrificed myself for you, and you left my body in Svartalfheim. You can't blame me for not seeking you out when you abandoned me first!"

[theorderofthetriad]

still haven't watched loki s2 but "for you, for all of us" - always comes back to the daddy issues, doesn't it?

[mysticalsoot]

loki reminds me of a fluffy, harmless, spider like- a good spider !! like a cute lil pet spider- he's mobius' pet spider !!

[solvskrift]

of all the ghosts that bring us down | 16k | loki/steve rogers infinity war fix-it au

Thanos still attacks the Statesman, he still kills Loki, only this time that isn't where it ends. It's just lucky for him Captain America is currently running rogue around Europe looking for trouble. Or, the one where the Tesseract owes Loki a favor, Steve is...Steve, and it changes everything for the both of them.

Steve hopped the low brick wall with ease and sprinted across the darkened courtyard up the steps to the main entrance.

The communicator in his ear crackled and Natasha’s voice filtered through.“Are you seriously going in the front door?”

Despite knowing perfectly well she was four hundred miles away and probably not watching his tracker Steve swept the field automatically, peering through the blackness. “How do you do that?” He snagged a pick out of his belt pocket and stuck it into the door’s lock with an expert twist.

“Lucky guess.”

Steve smirked. “It’s fine, there’s nobody here.” He paused briefly, then asked, “You got the security system, right?” The handle clicked and he slipped quickly through the door, closing it behind him.

“Bit late to be asking that, isn’t it, Cap?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

---

my piece for the @lokirarepairbigbang in collaboration with my partner in crime, @oceanichymns, who is responsible for the gorgeous art!

rest of the fic is here on ao3!

[nostalgia-tblr]

.

[iamanartichoke]

I am struggling to have a Thought, here, but -

I was rereading my fic, The Air Between Two Stars, in which Thor basically brings Loki back to life; it diverges from canon after IW bc Endgame hadn't come out yet when I wrote it.

So I came across these lines (edited for conciseness):

“How?” Loki asks ... "How did you bring me back?” "Magic," says Thor, simply. [...] There are ancient resurrection spells that Loki has knowledge of, dark magic performed at great risk to the mage. It is possible. It is also extremely dangerous. He never would have imagined Thor would consider him worth such trouble. Certainly, after fooling Thor twice, Loki owed it to him to die for real so that Thor’s mourning would not be in vain.

I stopped bc that last line sort of jumped at me - after fooling Thor twice, Loki owed it to him to die for real. And it just struck me, like, I wonder how many people (if any) read that line and felt indignant and mentally yelled at me bc Loki never really faked his death, intentionally.

And it's like, yes, I, Charlotte, the writer, know that Loki didn't set out to intentionally fool Thor by faking his death. But my being cognizant of that on a meta level doesn't mean Loki can't feel like he's fooled Thor, in the story, and that all of Thor's mourning him has been in vain.

It just seems like - especially in the wake of the series - that wiggly space between what the author knows and what the character feels has been lost? Like, I'm not saying the narrative (not just in the series but over the span of the entire MCU) hasn't been unfair to Loki in a lot of ways, including regarding his "faked" deaths, but I also feel like a lot of wank stems from people wanting the narrative to be so "fair" that it hinders how Loki can function as a character in the story being told.

Not sure if that makes sense or not, but like - I guess what I'm saying is that this is yet another area where there's just a whole lotta gray in an increasingly black-and-white definition of "analysis." And it just makes me feel some kinda way, I guess.

[orcelito]

ok it's rly stupid but discacc chapter 42 felt so weird writing not for anything in the chapter but bc i wrote it outside of my normal active chapter document. for the most part. LIKE i have this one document that i use for writing all my discacc chapters and HAVE since like way way way early on. like since chapter 2 ish early on? bc things were getting too long it was freaking out the doc & also it's easier to copy-paste new chapters into ao3 if i just have that chapter there. so i have my main fic thing (well, multiple, since discacc is too long to fit into one document lmfaoo) & then i write new chapters in this active chapter doc & then copy paste them into the main thing once im done

EXCEPT

so 42 was originally a part of 41. it was all gonna be chapter 41. and i wrote like 4.6k words of it in active document with chapter 41. then decided it was gonna be its own thing, so i just plopped that bit into its own document to cut it from the active chapter doc. but then. when it came time to continue it in chapter 42. i just. didnt move it back to the active chapter document. i just kept writing in separate document '42'.

and idk there's just smth that feels so WEIRD about that. like it wasn't a normal discacc chapter or smth. which is kinda stupid but idk. like i couldve moved it back over at any point. but i didnt. bc i was already there

anyways im looking forward to writing again in "DA active chapter" doc aka the RIGHT doc for discacc writing. thank you very much

[noonaishere]

Not me absolutely revolutionizing the Paint Cup by shaking my Posca so hard it flung paint into my drink. Truly trying to emulate the y/n lifestyle.

Also, I think my marker might be breaking.

Anygay, I finally quit my job and I have time to do things again (I’ll have a part time job in a couple weeks, so please don’t be worried), and one of those things is writinggggggg. Not just fics, I’ll also be moving towards original fiction which I will be posting in a serialized way on Not Tumblr (and also, having a Patreon for it because I Too enjoy doing things like “being able to eat,” and “providing for myself,” and my Big Dream is being able to move back to Scotland and become a permanent resident so I can do cool things like “have healthcare without being forced to have a job I hate” and “be able to get around without needing a car”).

But in between all the toxic workplace behavior, squirrels in my office, and the kind of STRESS that makes me develop a muscle twitch (because I am not allowed to know peace at any hour of the day apparently), I have been working on the next fic. It’s a double fic inspired by one of you, my lovely readers, and it’s... halfway done with the first draft?

It feels really embarrassing to say that I started it in April.

Originally I wanted to start releasing it at the end of June/beginning of July, but because of the whole Shit Life Syndrome thing of hating one’s job and not being able to find any energy to do anything after doing something you don’t care about/actively hate for too many hours a day... yeah. I added like... (pardon me while I check...) 40k words to it during July Camp Nano, but then I had to prepare my job for me not being there to do it anymore (since I had to schedule people and email about hours and whatnot... I left it like half finished since I hadn’t heard back from two people so like... hope they’re having fun with that. Not my fault.)

Anyway, I’ve been cleaning up my surroundings and trying to get things in my living space organized since I didn’t have time when I was at work all day, and I know it’s parrrrrrtly procrastinating... but once can find my belt wherever it is in the bottom of my closet and all my shit is organized, it’s over for you bitches.

Though, it’ll still take a bit longer for the fic to be posted because I have to edit it and make the text screencaps and make the new banner and fix the masterlist and do all the What Not, so it’ll still be a couple months maybe.

I wanted to thank everyone who’s been reading the fic and following and stuff, those of you who’ve stuck around and those of you who just showed up - hello to you both! 👋😊 - I will be posting more in the future lol.

[haeva]

Mar's Daily Ficlet Challenge

Day Seven: Crush

(Teenage Loki has a crush, Thor can't be normal about it)

In hindsight, Loki should have known not to tell Thor about his love life. On the other hand, he really had no other choice. It had all started on a beautiful spring morning, or at least that is how Loki remembered it. He had come down to the training yard, to practice his archery skills. That is when Loki met him. He was just a boy, only a little older than Loki himself, but he was dressed in an official uniform. When questioned about it, Siegfried (as Loki soon learned he was called) said he was the weapon master’s son and his father thought it was about time he learned the trade. Loki had never agreed with the man more. 

It was a good thing that his friends and family were always going on about him not spending enough time training, or else his increasing visits might have roused some suspicion. Thor, in particular, was delighted about this new development and regularly accompanied him. In any other circumstances, Loki would have enjoyed his brother’s company, but now Thor was only getting in the way of him spending more time with the person he liked. 

So he started devising excuses as to why Thor could not come with him. He was too loud and Loki could not concentrate properly with him there or he was supposed to go with Amora, who was still mad at Thor. It worked, for a while, but there were only so many lies Loki could come up with. And so Thor eventually drew the only logical conclusion: Loki simply did not enjoy spending time with him.

Thor being Thor, he confronted his brother about it and Loki, not wanting to break his brother’s heart, decided to just tell him the truth. He regretted it almost instantly. 

“You’re in love!” Thor yelled. 

Loki shushed him. He did not want the entire palace finding out. 

“My little brother is in love. That is adorable,” Thor teased, ruffling Loki’s hair. 

Loki wanted nothing more than to wipe the annoying smirk of his brother’s face. “Shut up about it.” It came out way less intimidating than he would have liked. “Shut up, or I will turn you into a rat and throw you in a snake’s nest.” There. That ought to do it. 

“Why, so you could ask your beloved Siegfried to save me?.” Thor cleared his throat, and positioned himself in the exact same way Loki was standing. “Woe is me, my brother-accidentally-turned-rat is being eaten by snakes. I need a handsome, strong man to comfort me in my time of need.” 

“I do not talk like that!” Loki pushed Thor’s shoulder. 

“Do too!” Thor pushed right back. 

“Do not!” 

“Do too!”

“Do not!”

Needless to say, when their parents asked them at dinner why they had been fighting with each other, Loki lied.

[ieatadoptmepets]

Welp it's been many months and my fandom hyperfixations that tumblr needs to know about are back

What if I said 🤨 I was kinda making a fic 🤨🤨 and only the first chapter has been up for weeks but I'm back in the feels again and instead of writing I'm gonna make a soundtrack to my fic and talk about them all 🤨🤨🤨

The fic is an oc (kinda a reader-) x howard stark and both Loki??? Reader* is asgardian and grows up on asgard, until they get into trouble with Loki and cover for him, leading to them getting exiled. Inspired by "where mischief lies". Then about a hundreds years later they meet steve and bucky, and then howard taking the place of maria. It follows the fanon plot of the normal mcu with a few tweaks to add in my oc lore and for it to be a fix it no one dies fic. Throughout the series secrets, prophesies and relationships will be uncovered and put through the rest. Will they all survive?

I'm bad at summaries but the fic is And It All Leads Back To You on wattpad. Ironically enough only the prologue chapter is up but who cares. Many queer headcanons and reader/oc may or may not be explicitly bi or nonbinary but will not be straight and will use they/them. They will be afab but that won't be an important detail until they become tonys mother

*it's an oc, again kinda, because they take the place of freya in norse mythology and im take the russo brothers route by being minimally lore accurate but I did find many norse myth info to put in here. When they're exiled to earth, they gotta go by a different identity and that's when it'll be y/n, until they can go back to being freya

[woulddieforloki]

i'm losing my fucking miiiiind i swear i just tried to embed this stupid fucking link 15 times on ao3 and it wouldn't work. i have never once had a problem embedding links and idk maybe it's because I had to wake up at 5:15 this morning but I kept fucking it up and then it kept fucking it up and I'd try to embed the ao3 search link for romanogers fics that weren't also tagged with frostwidow and it kept going back to just plain romanogers fics and I'm like ??????? it very clearly is not that link???? i can see the total number of fics go down when I exclude that tag???? anyways rip what would have been a great sarcastic response to that person on ao3 slutshaming natasha

[themirokai]

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

[mymreaderlibrary]

/pos

[literaryavenger]

Can I be him?

Summary: When Bucky finds something of yours, he hopes against hope that you feel the same way about him.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Fem!Reader

Warnings: Language cause it's me. Fluff. A lot of angst. Idiots in love. Self-deprecating thoughts, both reader and Bucky. No use of Y/N. My poor attempts at being funny.

Word Count: 4.8K

A/N: It’s 3am where I live, so… Happy 107th Birthday to my favorite Supersoldier! Today I’m posting 2 Bucky fics because my baby deserves it, this one and another one sometime around the afternoon. Hope someone likes it! Thank you to my angels @ordelixx and @mrsbuckybarnes1917 that gave me so many ideas that helped me finish this. I love you🖤

Masterlist

Being an Avenger is not easy.

The long missions, the intense training, the weight of the world on your shoulders…

Everybody on the team has a different way to unwind after a mission: Steve draws, Clint and Natasha compete doing target practice, Thor sleeps, Sam plays video games, Bucky takes motorcycle rides, Tony and Bruce work on side projects in their lab, Loki reads, Peter does his homework and Wanda cooks with Vision.

For you, it’s going to the rose garden behind the Compound.

It’s a bit of a sanctuary for you, Tony allowed you to put tall hedges of roses with a gazebo-like structure in the middle of them facing the lake, only it’s entirely made of vines.

You made it yourself, that’s your power: you can manipulate anything plant-related. 

Everytime you finish a mission the team splits up as soon as the debriefing is over and you walk straight here.

You sit on the bench, also made of vines, take out your diary and start writing.

You write about everything, from details of missions to your feelings about the team. From things you did that you don’t want to forget to things that you want to do after you’re not so tired anymore.

The hedges hide you from view and the only thing you can see when you’re here is the lake.

Sometimes, after a particular difficult mission, you don’t even write. You just sit there and look out into the water, the sunshine or moonlight shining down on you, and you feel at peace.

It helps that nobody else ever comes here. The team understands it’s your safe space, and the agents are mostly scared of your powers ever since you grew a giant carnivorous plant and it bit an agent that squeezed your ass during training. 

The agent got both taken to the medbay and suspended on the same day, and you got the thanks of about a dozen girls that had the same problem with the same asshole.

You walk out of the conference room, the debriefing of the team’s latest mission just wrapped up, and like usual everyone scatters to their own after-mission ritual.

Today, though, you can’t concentrate on anything.

Your feet take you to the rose garden by reflex, but your brain doesn’t even register you’re there until you sit on the bench.

Today’s mission took a lot out of you, not just because of the amount of magic you had to use to get everyone out safely, but also because it was your fault the team was in so much danger in the first place.

You fucked up your task, Natasha had to step in and save your ass, moving away from her post and making her late for her own task and that derailed the entire mission.

At the end, you had to use your powers to take out the hundreds of Hydra agents at the same time, which is no small feat and made you almost pass out.

Everybody told you on the way home not to worry, the mission was successfully accomplished and everyone made it out safely, but you know that if it wasn’t for your screw up the team would’ve gotten in and out of base without so much as a scratch. 

Nobody had fatal injuries, thank God, but Sam got shot in the leg, Clint got stabbed and everyone else had various degrees of injuries because Hydra got the jump on the team.

Because of me.

That was all you kept thinking about. Your brain had a field day making up all kinds of scenarios where your mistake cost someone’s life, a few of them even had the entire team dying because of your stupidity. 

You were so caught up in your head that you didn’t even notice someone following you to the rose garden.

Not that you ever do. 

If there’s one thing Bucky Barnes knows how to do, is move around undetected. He’s a master assassin, he was trained for this for over 50 years, he knows how to be a shadow.

Except now he uses his skills for good during missions and, occasionally, to follow you.

Not in a creepy way, of course, just to check on you. At least that’s the excuse he always uses so he won’t have to admit to himself that what he does is, indeed, a little creepy.

But he can’t help himself, Bucky knew from the moment he saw you that he was fucked. 

The moment you walked into the room to meet the team his heart was yours. You stole it with one simple smile, with one look of your beautiful eyes.

You introduced yourself and shook hands with everyone, but when you looked at Bucky he felt like a light came on and it was just you two.

You shook his hand and he felt like he had to take it off and give it to you, it was yours now. His hand, his arm, his leg, his head, his heart, his soul. Everything he is was now yours, he just knew it.

Then you said his name and he could’ve died right there and then. It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, and it was barely two syllables. Every word you said, every laugh and sound that came out of your pretty mouth, Bucky felt like it was all for him. Nobody else mattered.

Bucky knew then he was in love.

But he didn’t know how to approach you. You were like a fairy, like a princess. Growing flowers, always smiling, baking, growing everyone’s favorite flowers and always willing to help, like growing Aloe when Wanda burned herself cooking, or Chamomile to help with Tony’s anxiety, or Valerian roots whenever someone was feeling down. 

You were like sunshine and he was terrified he’d kill your light. But he’d be damned if he’d let the world kill it either, he’d protect you with his life.

So he took to following you, making sure you were safe from a distance.

But it’s not like he never talked to you, the more time you spent with the team the more comfortable Bucky got around you and eventually you became friends.

Bucky knew you could take care of yourself, you were one of the strongest members of the team, but he didn’t like it when you were in your rose garden by yourself. The tall hedges made it impossible to see incoming danger, so he kept an eye on you just to be sure.

For his own piece of mind. And you never saw him.

That was Bucky’s actual way to unwind after a mission.

He’d tell everybody he was going for a ride on his bike, but he’d drive it through the woods around the compound and to the other side of the lake where he’d have a perfect view of you without you knowing. 

Deep down he knew it was a little creepy, he could just ask you if he could join you, but he felt like you needed your time alone without anyone else around, and he knew if he asked you, you’d say yes no matter what you were feeling, because that’s just the kind of person you are.

So Bucky watched you from afar, always careful not to be seen. He watched you write for hours, it relaxed him to see your beautiful face so concentrated.

Sometimes you’d laugh quietly at what you were writing and those were the only times Bucky was grateful for the supersoldier serum that allowed him to hear such a beautiful sound even with so much distance between you.

But it was torture for him when he knew you had a bad day. Sometimes you’d hug your knees and cry, Bucky could tell how much you’d need a hug, and it killed him that he couldn’t just walk up to you and hug you.

Everytime he sees you cry his heart breaks a little and he always tries to make you feel better when you walk back inside. He doesn’t ask you what’s wrong, he just tries to make you laugh. But all he wanted to do was dry your tears.

You did notice Bucky always seemed to act a little goofy when you're feeling down, like he somehow knew, but you never thought much of it.

You knew he was a very observant person, so you assumed he just saw your mood through your behavior better than most.

Bucky loves hanging out with you, even if it’s just as friends. You make fun of him like with everyone else, you don’t treat him like could explode at any moment, never walking on eggshells around him like most people do.

You’ve never been afraid of him, and he’s glad that you don’t treat him like glass. You treat him like everyone else, and it makes him feel normal.

Everytime time he hangs out with you, you take him back to a time where he was unbroken. You make him feel alive again.

And he falls more in love with you by the second because of it. You’re all he wants, he wants to have you and kiss your lips and never let anyone hurt you. That’s all he can think about, but he knows that’s not gonna happen.

He heard you talk to Natasha and Wanda, heard that there’s someone you’d gone on a few dates with. But Bucky knows that guy doesn’t deserve you, nobody does.

Even Bucky himself doesn’t deserve you, you’re too pure for anyone in this world, but if there’s someone that has any chance of making you happy, Bucky prays to God that that someone is him.

Bucky knows today’s mission shook you deeply. He knows you blame yourself, and no amount of reassurance will make you believe that everything is okay.

So today, for the first time, Bucky actually follows you. He can see your unfocused eyes even as you walk and he wants to be near you, just in case.

He almost walks to you when you curl up on the bench and start sobbing quietly, but he holds back not wanting to startle or upset you further.

He just listens to your soft cries until you stop and compose yourself. You sigh and get up, walking back to the Compound to take a much needed relaxing shower.

But you’re still so much in your own head that you don’t even notice you left your diary on the bench in the gazebo. 

Bucky did notice, though.

He’s tempted to call after you and tell you, but something deep down tells him not to. He waits until you’re gone and then walks to the bench, picking up your diary and opening it.

He doesn’t know why, he knows it’s wrong, these are your private thoughts, but he’s just drawn to it for some reason.

When he starts reading he notices you don’t mention any specific names, which makes sense because only you read it, you know who you’re writing about. He reads a page here and there, reading about your missions or lazy days. 

He reads about some memories with the team you wrote about, some he remembers and others he probably wasn’t there for, but seeing all these memories from your point of view does something to him.

It makes him feel connected to you, makes him feel like he’s reading your heart and soul, because he kind of is. Then he reads something that captures his attention completely. 

You write about eyes blue like the ocean and just as troubled, about a smile that could light up the world. You write about someone with a complicated past that never lost his spark, never lost his love for life. 

A man that went through hell, and never once took it out on the world. A man that didn’t ever blame the world, even when he had every right to, choosing instead to protect it. 

You filled pages and pages with everything you admire about this man, everything you love about him that you know he hates. 

And Bucky feels like every word you wrote, you wrote for him. But could this be him? Could he be the one you talk about in all your stories?

He wants to. He wants this to be him. He prays you’re talking about him. He wishes this could be him… Who is he kidding?

Of course it’s not me. 

It’s probably the guy you’ve been dating. Yeah, that’s it. You’re in love with that guy, that much is clear. 

Bucky gets to the page where you write about your dates with the guy, but he can’t read them.

He closes the diary, not knowing that you compared your date to Bucky every step of the way. Not knowing that you granted the guy a second date just to be sure he couldn’t compare to Bucky, and went on a third date at a coffee shop just to let him down gently.

Bucky didn’t read how you know he’s the one for you, he didn’t read his own name written in your handwriting, the only name in your whole diary because he’s the only person you never want to forget, even though you know you never will.

But Bucky didn’t read that.

He puts your diary back where it was on the bench and, with his heart broken and his hope that one day you could be his lost, he goes back inside and to his room.

It’s only when you go back to the rose garden after your shower that you notice you left your diary there, but don’t think much of it. Nobody ever comes here anyway, as far as you know.

After finding out you’re in love with someone else, Bucky can’t stop himself from acting differently towards you, which you don’t fail to notice.

It’s not like he’s mean, but your interactions get shorter, like he tries his best to end the conversation quickly.

He no longer sits close to you, no longer tries to make you laugh when you’re feeling down, doesn’t hang out with you as much during your down time and if he does, it’s never just the two of you anymore.

It’s silly to say, but you miss him.

Bucky knows he’s been distancing himself, he knows you’ve noticed and he can see it’s affecting you, but he’s doing this to protect himself.

He knows it’s only a matter of time before you present your boyfriend to the team, the man you’re in love with and he doesn’t want it to hurt more than necessary.

You decide not to push Bucky, knowing he has his reasons to pull away from you. Maybe he’s just trying to deal with all the stress the team’s been under and you don’t want to add any more to that, so you let him be.

A few weeks later the team’s on their sixth mission in just as many days and everyone is exhausted. You’ve been taking down Hydra base after Hydra base, because waiting too long meant losing your chance to shut down their operations for good before they got the opportunity to leave.

You’ve been dividing in smaller teams to take down the bases while still giving the team a chance to recuperate, but this last one was the biggest and required the whole team together, which sucked for you because you were in the last team with Steve and Bucky that took down a base just yesterday, so the three of you got barely a few hours of sleep while you flew to the last base.

You’ve cleared the base, all that’s left is the agents in the courtyard who are really going down fighting. The whole team is outside now, the Hydra agents giving you a hell of a fight. You’re using your magic against your better judgment, giant vines coming out of your arms like whips, covered in poisonous thorns. One touch of that and anyone would go down immediately, everyone except you.

Or at least that’s what you think.

As you’re fighting you can see an agent trying to sneak up on Bucky who’s fighting near you, so you quickly take care of it for him.

Bucky turns around and sees the agent down and then looks at you with that charming smile you fell in love with and winks at you. “Thank you, doll.”

That’s the friendliest Bucky’s been towards you in weeks and you can’t help but smile back with a small blush.

You can see the last agent standing coming at you from your peripheral vision and you quickly whip him with a vine, taking him down as soon as you can so you can turn back to look at Bucky, still smiling at you.

Bucky’s smile drops quickly, though, as he sees your face draining of any color. You barely have the time to register the sting of your own thorn on your arm that you’re already falling to the ground.

Bucky tries to catch you, but he gets thrown back by your magic that goes into defense mode, creating a wall of thorns to protect your now unconscious body.

The team doesn't know what to do, none of them know enough about plants to be sure that these thorns wouldn’t just kill them all.

The only one that would know that is you, the person that’s passed out, or worse, trapped in the midst of a cocoon of thorns.

“Okay, we need to find a safe way to-” Steve starts but cuts himself off almost immediately. “What are you doing?!”

Bucky doesn’t even turn around to answer, too intent on breaking the thorns around you with his metal arm, not caring that the thorns are ripping his clothes and scratching his face, all he can think about is getting to you.

He finally manages to get through to you, but nobody can follow because your magic regrows the thorns Bucky broke, trapping him with you inside the cocoon.

But Bucky doesn’t care, his eyes never leaving your face as he kneels behind you, running a finger softly along your cheek and shivering when he feels your skin is cold as ice.

His mind goes to the worst possibility, that there’s nothing he can do, but his brain gives him some hope reasoning that your magic wouldn’t be working if you were dead.

Right?

He snaps out of his thoughts when he feels the thorns around you vibrate, he takes you in his arms and shields you with his body from whatever is about to happen.

But the only thing that happens is the shade cast by the thorns gets replaced by sunlight. Bucky looks up and realizes Wanda used her magic to lift the thorn cocoon.

“You couldn’t have done that before?!” Bucky barks at Wanda with a glare while carefully picking you up to take you to the Quinjet.

“She’s not the dumbass that threw himself headfirst in a mess of thorns without even considering another course of action!” Natasha came in Wanda’s defense, though she seemed more amused at Bucky’s antics than annoyed.

As the team heads back home in the jet, Bruce examines you and lets the team know you’re still alive but in a sort of coma.

Their relief is cut short when Bruce makes it known that he has no idea when, or if, you’ll wake up.

As soon as the Quinjet lands you’re taken to the medbay and hooked up to machines, an IV in your arm to keep you hydrated.

Bucky holds your hand through it all, staying all night next to you just in case you wake up. He didn’t want you to be freaked out and alone, he wanted to be the first person to see your beautiful eyes open.

When morning comes, though, you’re still unconscious, but Bucky doesn’t lose hope. You probably need a good sleep.

That’s what he tells himself for two, three, four days.

That’s what he keeps telling himself for a week, two weeks. Never once leaving your side, not eating unless Steve brings him food and makes sure he eats before leaving, and using the bathroom of your room in the medbay.

He barely sleeps and, when he does, he dreams of you.

Everyone was getting worried about him, he refused to leave your side until one day Steve came into your room to tell Bucky there was something wrong with your rose garden.

Bucky was torn between staying with you and seeing what Steve was talking about, but decided that it would kill you if something happened to your roses so he had to make sure everything was okay when you woke up.

Because you’re going to wake up.

Bucky follows Steve to your rose garden, and his eyes widen in horror as soon as he sees it. The roses, the hedges, the vines.

Everything is dying.

Bucky’s heart breaks, only one thought in his mind. If your plants are dying, does that mean you’re slowly dying too?

No. That’s unacceptable. You’re not gonna die, not if Bucky has anything to do with it.

He takes it upon himself to take care of your garden, watering it and doing everything he can to keep the roses and vines alive, fooling himself into believing that this will keep you alive.

He stays on the gazebo day and night, sleeping on the bench, spending every waking moment trying to keep a hold of even the smallest part of you.

But it’s not enough. Nothing is enough.

Bucky loses track of how many days he’s been in your garden, sleeping maybe an hour at a time here and there, watering the roses every few hours and crying the rest of the time.

After all it’s his fault, if he hadn’t distracted you none of this would’ve happened. You’d be in your beautiful garden, probably with your boyfriend, and the only broken thing would be Bucky’s heart.

That he could’ve lived with. 

But how can he live with the knowledge that he caused your end? That he killed your light? That he killed his sunshine, his hope, the love of his life? He can’t live with that.

Not that he has to.

While Bucky’s spiraling while surrounded by dying roses, inside your room in the medbay you’re finally waking up after almost a month.

You open your eyes slowly, looking around you at the hospital-like room. There’s nobody around and, as you look at the window, you can see it’s really late at night.

You sit up and try to make sense of what happened while rubbing your eyes. The last thing you remember is Bucky’s bright smile, and then nothing.

You look down at your arm and see an IV, which you take out while frowning. How long have you been sleeping?

You carefully get off the bed and make your way outside to your rose garden, just to be sure everything’s okay. It’s not like anyone’s gonna stop you anyway.

When you get close, the moonlight shines on the hedges and you gasp at what you see. Your beautiful roses withering away, the gazebo made of vines dying too.

But the most confusing thing is the sobs coming from the bench, although no one’s sitting on it.

You get closer and see Bucky sitting in front of the bench while hugging his knees and crying softly. You frown and get a little closer before stopping, not wanting to startle him.

“Bucky…” You say quietly and his head snaps up, his eyes instantly meeting yours.

For a moment it feels like he’s trying to decide if you’re real, he reaches out and you extend your hand to take his. That seems to convince him and he gasps.

“Doll…” His voice is barely above a whisper, almost as if he thinks if he makes too much noise you’ll disappear.

“What’s wrong?” You ask him while getting a little closer to him, concern clear in your every feature.

It’s only when you get closer that you see his face full of cuts and you frown. Those are not just any scratches, it’s clear to you that they were made by thorns. “D-did… Did I do this to you?” 

You’re kneeling in front of him now, one hand still in his one the other comes up to trace the cuts in his face softly, but he takes your hand in his and kisses your palm.

“I’m okay…” He reassures you.

Just then he realizes, you’re fussing over him when you’re the one that’s been in a coma for a month. “Are you okay? How long have you been awake?” 

“I… I just woke up.” You tell him honestly, then look around at the dying roses and vines before looking back at him. “What happened to me?”

“You got stung by one of your poisonous thorns.” He says quietly, his thumbs rubbing circles on your skin while he refuses to let go of you. “You’ve been unconscious for almost a month.”

“A month?!” You’re shocked at the news, not knowing what to say or do, so you just stay there while letting the information sink in. The silence is broken by Bucky after a minute.

“I’m sorry about your roses… I tried to keep them alive, but…” He looks around with a hopeless expression. “I failed you.”

Your heart breaks a little. Does he really think he failed you?

You take a deep breath, then close your eyes and when you open them again a second later everything’s back to normal. The roses are as beautiful as ever, the gazebo just as majestic. It’s like nothing ever happened.

Bucky looks around in awe when he feels you take his chin and you make him look at you.

“You could never fail me.” You say firmly, wanting him to understand you mean it. You look at the cuts around his face and you can’t help the guilt and pain that you feel deep within you. “I’m sorry…”

“It wasn’t your fault.” It’s like Bucky can read your thoughts, he knows all you can see are your faults, and he wants you to know he doesn’t blame you for anything. “You weren’t even conscious. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I never wanted to be one of the people that hurt you…” Your voice is a whisper as a tear escapes you. “The world hurt you so much already… I never wanted to be part of that. You don’t deserve it.”

Bucky frowns. He feels like he’s heard those words, but where? No, he didn’t hear them. He read them. He read them in your diary, where you wrote about the man you’re in love with. Could it be possible?

Could I be him?

“It’s me…” He says lower than a whisper, his eyes locked on yours, and it’s your time to be confused now.

“What?” You ask him with a frown while wiping your cheeks.

“It’s me you’re in love with.” His voice is a little louder, but firm. He’s not asking you, he’s making a statement.

Your eyes widen in surprise, you almost take your hands away from his but his hold prevents you from doing that.

“I-I… What?” Is all you can bring yourself to say, confused as to why he’s so sure of it. Are you really that transparent?

“I read your diary…” Bucky says, guilt written all over his face, but at least he’s owning up to it. “You wrote about the man you love… and you wrote the same thing you just told me. It’s me, isn’t it? You love me back?” His voice is more hopeful now, his confident demeanor weavering.

“You… You read my diary?” You say, your mind still playing catch up.

It’s only a moment later that you register the ‘love me back’ and you don’t give him a chance to apologize or justify himself before you’re speaking again. “You love me?!” 

Bucky hesitates a moment but nods firmly. “I love you, doll. I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.” 

You feel like someone punched you and all the air has left your body. You have no idea what to say, so you don’t say anything.

Instead you lean in and kiss him.

Bucky wastes no time kissing you back, but a thought pops into his mind and he reluctantly pulls back. “What about your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” You frown again, having no idea what he’s talking about. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You don’t?” Bucky feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders and he pulls you to straddle him. “What about the guy you went on a few dates with?”

You narrow your eyes at him but decide to table the conversation about how he knows that for another time, so you smile at him and decide to just be honest with him.

“Do you honestly think that anyone could ever measure up to you? Because if you do, you’re an idiot.” Bucky grins and kisses you again. 

Maybe he is an idiot. But when he’s the idiot you’re in love with, how much of an idiot can he really be?

It looks like he can be him after all.