#steve my sweet irish baby

[lnsfawwi]

Here's a thought:

kid Steve speaks better Gaelic than English. their pastor sometimes takes care of Steve when Sarah is working and he'd teach Steve English but, as one can imagine, the accent is not good. Steve is also partially deaf, he doesn't always control his volume well, so he speaks broken, heavily accented English, and that isn't a winning combo for friendships on top of his firecracker personality.

enters Bucky, the popular kid who somehow decides that Steve is his best friend in the world.

Bucky's grandparents immigrated from England, his dad is Romanian Jew. Bucky is not a very devoted Catholic, and the family still celebrates major Jewish holidays. they even hold a mini bar mitzvah for Bucky's 13 birthday.

the point is, Bucky has a fairly neutral accent that gets more Brooklyn by the day, he is also some kind of a polyglot. he speaks also Yiddish, he learns Italian from the neighbors, and French at school.

Bucky never makes fun of Steve's accent or gets frustrated when Steve can't quite get the pronunciation right. they read together, literally. Bucky would have one of his favorite novels, and he'd read the words out loud for Steve, when it's Steve's turn, he listens and helps him when Steve struggles.

Bucky is also the one to suggest they create a sign language of their own. just simple daily vocabulary like 'food', 'movies', 'home'. they add 'punk/jerk' and 'sorry' to their vocabulary after a short while.

and the thing is, losing Bucky is more than just missing a person in his life, it's that the most basic act of talking - not even about him - just talking, in his own native language, is a constant reminder of this loss. they don't have only their own sign language. in a way, English is their language too. losing Bucky is losing the languages, the tool of communication and connecting with other people and the world around him.

[hainethehero]

Bucky shouldn'tve been in there. Steve's room.

But the idiot had been avoiding him for three months now. And so he thought he'd pay a visit. Unfortunately, Steve was off doing God knows what so, he thought he'd laze around by the time, wait for his pal. It had been about an hour, when he'd heard something clatter from inside Steve's bedroom.

He quickly put down the coffee he'd helped himself to and gingerly approached the location of the sound. Steve's room smelt of sweet vanilla and peppermint. It looked cosy, soft white walls, a king sized bed with baby blue quilts and even softer looking pillows. The walk-in closet door was slightly ajar, with the sleeve of a plaid shirt poking out and a pair of running shoes just on the threshold.

Must've been in a rush this morning, Bucky thinks with a fond huff.

He walks over to the side of the bed closest to the window where the curtains are billowing like sails in the wind. Steve must've really been in a rush to leave his window open. He reaches out to shut the window when something shimmering on the floor catches his eye.

It's a small book. Leather-bound and tan with gold script embossed on the front. Bucky's mind provides a memory of Sarah Rogers walking with it everywhere she went. Of tiny Steve reading from it while he waited at the hospital for his mother after her evening shifts. If memory served him correctly- and these days it occasionally did- they'd buried the prayer book with Sarah when she died. Steve had told him to.

He must've really searched for this one then, Bucky realizes wistfully. His chest twinges at the thought of Steve waking up from the ice, lost and confused and trying his best to find anything and anyone to reconnect with his past again. Then he frowns. If Steve was so desperate to reconnect with his past, he wouldn't be avoiding Bucky right now. It's a bitter thought that seems too harsh in the soft and peaceful aura of Steve's room, so he quickly picks up the book. He eyes the open Bible on Steve's nightstand, a blue-beaded rosary with a celtic cross resting atop crisp pages.

Steve had never been as religious as his mother, but perhaps the future had changed his mind. Bucky knows it had changed him. Maybe Steve thought that going back to his Irish catholic roots again would somehow bring some closure. The thought doesn't comfort Bucky nearly as much as it should, because he knows Steve's been avoiding him, the one person who could probably share in his despair and loneliness and grant him some closure.

He sighs, moving to rest the prayer book back on the nightstand when he notices a word just barely concealed beneath the raised cover of the small prayer book.

Bucky. It says Bucky.

He frowns, reaching for the book again, every voice in his head screaming at him to leave it alone. That this was Steve's private stuff and he shouldn't be prying like some crazy obsessed person. But a part of him- the part that sort of resented Steve for avoiding him like the plague- won out. He opened the book.

Bucky's Prayer, it said, written in Steve's semi-neat scrawl.

The next line is a subheading that reads, "Prayer for Forgiveness."

It goes, "Jesus, forgive my sins. Forgive the sins that I can remember, and also the sins I have forgotten. Forgive the wrong actions I have committed, and the right actions I have omitted. Forgive the times I have been weak in the face of temptation, and those when I have been stubborn in the face of correction. Forgive the times I have been proud of my own achievements, and those when I have failed to boast of your works. Forgive the harsh judgements I have made of others, and the leniency I have shown to myself. Forgive the lies I have told to others, and the truths I have avoided. Forgive me the pain I have caused others, and the indulgence I have shown to myself. Jesus have pity on me, and make me whole."

Bucky knows it from the many times he'd go to church with Steve. Prayers for forgiveness were particularly popular during war-times as many women, children and men who weren't able to join in the war effort were encouraged to pray for their soldiers on the front lines. Steve used to tell him how he knew his mother would go to confessional, to pray for her husband and her ailing son. She often asked for forgiveness. As if it was her fault the way things had turned out.

He reads a line from the prayer again, one that Steve had underlined in blue ink, an anger building within his chest.

"Forgive me for the pain I have caused others, and the indulgence I have shown to myself."

Did Steve feel that way? And why the hell was it called Bucky's Prayer?

He turns the page and sees another subheading, "Intercession." He knew that as the part where the preacher would ask the congregation to say specific prayers for certain things and people they'd wished to pray for, or intercede. The next few lines make him sick.

"For Bucky,

I pray that his mind is healed in totality,

I pray he feels whole again,

I pray he feels loved again,

I pray he never feels alone again,

I pray he never has nightmares again,

And I pray he forgives me for my transgressions, for the pain I've caused him, though I don't deserve it. Amen."

[munsonsreputation]

Sweet Nothing

steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: [9.6K] I did my best to proof read

warnings: warnings: no use of y/n, established relationship, cursing, reader opens up about jealousy, steve's parents being absolutely horrible (what's new?), overall just a bunch of tooth-rotting fluffiness.

summary: when you're gifted a keyboard, you and steve sit and write a sappy love song together about your relationship--all the good, bad, and ugly, but through everything just wanting each others sweet nothings.

_

“Steve!” you wailed, smacking the keys of the piano with frustration as the notes rung through your shared bedroom until they withered and he made his way through the door with a towel draped around his shoulders and sweatpants hanging onto his hips. 

He laughed, following you hurl yourself against the wooden floor where you once sat and now grumbled dramatically. Walking over to you and kneeling down, he smoothed your hair away from your face so that he could see the pout and stress clouding your eyes, “What’s the matter, baby?” 

“It’s impossible! This instrument has it out for me or something!” You glared back at the black and white keyboard like your mortal enemy as Steve snorted, hand coming out to coddle your skull and squeeze your shoulder reassuringly. 

“Didn’t Eddie say he was gonna teach you next weekend?” He rose his brows, throwing his towel off to the side, where you would pick it up later and scold him later for not hanging to dry properly. 

But right now you were biting your lip guiltily, “Forgive me for being impatient…I just want to play and write a song.” 

He raised his brows curiously, lips in a placid thin line, “A song, huh?” 

“You heard that right.” 

“About what?” He requested, and you blushed, hiding your cheek against your shoulder, gawking up at him with blown out heart eyes, “About us?” 

“Us?” He pestered, fingers gripping your chin gently to stop you from hiding your endearing embarrassment. 

You enclosed your palms around his wrists, shaking your head, “Stop, you’re going to make fun of me!” 

“Am not, baby—I think it’s quite sweet, actually…lemme help you write it?” 

“You’d really do that with me? You don’t think it’s corny?” You bit your lip, and he grinned, tilting his head with a tsk, “I never said it wasn’t corny, but it damn sure is sweet and I want to be apart of it too.” 

You scoffed jokingly, flipping him off with both hands before he cackled vehemently, pointing at your keyboard, “C’mon, show me what you’ve got so far.” 

“Fine, but don’t judge me.” You warned, pointing at him and he gave you a soothing nod, sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce beside you while your fingers slowly played the notes, humming along to give your boyfriend an idea of what you had so far. 

When you finished, you glanced up at him, fingers slowly pulling away from the keys, “So? What do you think?” 

“It sounds so peaceful.” He smiled, placing a hand over yours now resting in your lap. 

“Really?” Your voice dripping with surprise, “It’s not too nursery rhyme like?” 

Steve shook his head, squeezing your hand in affirmation as he rubbed his thumb across your knuckles, “Kinda reminds me of a lullaby—the melody is so sweet and soft.” 

You grinned, bringing his hands up to your lips, placing three kisses among his skin, before you let it drift down to your thighs where it laid. Your fingers, going back to the keys to repeat the arrangements with some silly lyrics you thought of off the top of your head. 

“I spy with my little tired eye, tiny as a firefly, a pebble that we picked up last July.” 

That little pebble. It was real. It used to sit prettily on Steve’s shelf, next to a framed polaroid of you and him, back when you two visited a local fair in Chicago last summer. There were vendors of all sorts, and one that especially caught your eye was a woman selling traditional Irish baked goods, among miniature knick knacks. She was a pure middle-aged lady who let you and Steve sample fresh breads and pastries. 

While Steve was busy learning about the baked treats, making sure none of them had ingredients you were allergic to, you made your way to the miscellaneous items. Fingers floating over intricately decorated vases and shiny four-leaf clover ash trays, pausing to take pictures for your scrapbook. And then you saw the small pile of pebbles. Different colors, sizes, and shapes. 

“I picked these from a pond in Wicklow.” The lady smiled warmly as she and Steve made their way over to you on the other side of the table.

You looked up, piqued with interest, “Is there any meaning behind the rocks?” 

Steve’s fingers gently rummaged through the mass, picking up a few to inspect them with a closer eye as the woman began to explain the history of the pebble toss. A Celtic wedding tradition that is said to bring in well wishes and happy hopes for the couple. 

“Pick one, baby.” Steve murmured into your ear, dangling his arm over your shoulders as you looked up at him through your lashes with eyes saturated with adoration. 

“Together?” You proposed, and he nodded with a sure smile, the two of you combing through the pebbles as the woman watched on with joy. 

The two of you settled on the tiny one. It was light tan hue with faint streaks of pink across it. And it was almost in the shape of a heart.

Perfect for you and Steve. 

As the woman packaged up your baked sweets, Steve snapped a silly polaroid of you, kissing the tiny stone you held between your fingers before the lady spoke, “I could take a photo of you two if you’d like.” 

“Please.” Steve responded thankfully, removing the camera strap from his neck and passing it to the lady. 

You took your place in front of Steve with your back of your head pressed against his chest, leaning into his warmth gratefully. And he settled his chin on top of your head, moving both arms to sling across your collarbones. The two of you smiling merrily as you held up the pebble to be seen clearly. 

With a click of the button, your photo was printed and the small bag of goods was placed in Steve's arms. You two offered the kind lady a warm smile and one last thank you as she bowed her head and said, “All the best, lovebirds.” 

He was transported back to that memory the second the lyrics trickled off your tongue like the sweetest honey he’d ever tasted. For the longest time, you had thought that you had misplaced the small treasure after heading back home and not finding it in your luggage.

But of course, one day when you and Steve were out on a date, you had asked him if he had any gum on him. When he reached inside his classic khaki pockets, there he felt the small stone against his fingertips and there he brought it out. Presenting you with the precious little thing sitting in his palm.

You gasped dramatically, as if Steve had pulled out a diamond ring. But this was even better. Throwing your arms around his neck and pulling him into the biggest hug, then the tenderest kiss. 

“Down deep inside my pocket, we almost forgot it. Does it ever miss Wicklow sometimes?”

You looked in wonder as Steve’s skillful fingers were able to replicate the notes you were playing just now with no prior experience. You must have been thinking Steve was suppressing away his musical talents from you all this time, but in actuality Steve was just really observant. Especially when it came to everything that you did and enjoyed. 

He had been watching your fingers glide over the keys, recalling when to press down and change positions as you did. And he did so while singing the verses that were a response to the previous ones that were yours. 

“You’re a goddamn prodigy, babe.” You whispered, shaking your head with astonishment while Steve smiled, wriggling his shoulders carelessly. 

“Did you like that verse?” He asked, and you bumped your head eagerly, sitting up on your knees to reach for the notebook and pen that you had thrown aside out of irritation earlier that night, but here you were fully invested in this little song you and Steve were writing together. 

Steve followed you, eyebrows and forehead pushed up as the pen freely traveled across the lined paper with ease. Blessing the pages with ink that conveyed the collective thoughts of you and the love of your life. When your eyes eventually flickered up toward his, he blinked, finally coming back from the rapture you had him irrevocably trapped in. 

“Do you want to play while I write?” You suggested, already getting comfy as you brought your knees up and rested the notebook on your legs with the pen spinning in your fingers. 

He nodded, rubbing his hands together, “I’d love to, baby.”

“What are you thinking about in the next verse?” You proposed, tuning in to Steve play around with different keys, trying to find what would flow the best in his mind. 

He started off with your original chords, moving his fingers slightly to change the melody swiftly.

“Maybe we should go into the chorus after that part.” he answered, totally just suggesting it, but you trusted him. 

You always did. 

“Yeah,” you grinned, scooting closer to him just because you wanted to. 

“How about this…” 

He leaned over a tad bit to get a better view of the lyrics you had written just moments ago. His voice was calm, singing them to you with his digits moved methodically, and then he changed and sung some new lyrics that had come to him. 

“They said the end is coming. Everyone’s up to something. I find myself running home to your sweet nothings.”

Steve remembered when the gates had reopened. His own safety should have been this first thing that came to mind. But it was you. He’d never in his life had he sped through the streets of Hawkins, like he did that day. Mostly because you’d remind him every day before you two would part ways to, “Drive safely, I need you here.” 

But today, he needed to make it to you, quick. He zoomed through the roads with his friends screeching their heads off, urging for him to slow down. But you were the only thought in his mind. 

This truly felt like the end of the world. Everything in this town that they once called home was crumbling and falling apart in front of their eyes. People who had no idea that there was an alternate dimension living beneath them, were calling it an earthquake, but it was far worse than anything they could’ve imagined. 

When Steve had confessed to you everything that he knew about the Upside Down, he had fully expected you to flee this godforsaken town and leave him behind, because let’s be honest. Who wouldn’t? 

Yet you stuck around. You listened to him open up about all the demons he fought off and the trauma they created. You asked questions about that place. A lot of questions. After all, you’d never been in there, and Steve would never allow you to be. 

He answered each and every single one of your curious speculations about the other side. And when he didn’t have the answer for you, he’d ask his friends, hoping they would provide him with a better explanation so that you could understand. 

And you did. It definitely wasn’t easy at first, wrapping your head around the fact that there was something supernaturally haunted lingering in this town. And the first time Steve had ever brought it up, you had thought he was playing some sort of joke on you. But with just the look on his face and the manner of his voice, you could recognize that this was real. 

He would never lie to you about something so complex like this. He was searching for something.

To be heard. To be believed. To be comforted. And you provided all of that and more.

That day he was desperate for it. Wanting nothing more than to enclose his arms around you and hear you murmur the soft words of solace that made him feel like everything was going to be ok, even if tomorrow or the next day after that wasn’t promised at all. 

When he finally saw your house come into view through the smoke and rubble, he practically skirted into your driveway, thrusting the car into park as he hopped out, leaving Robin to deal with putting the emergency brake up and removing the key from the ignition. 

He frantically dug his fingers into his pocket, searching for the spare key you had made a copy of, just for him. Quickly, he unlocked the door, not even bothering to see if your parents were around as he entered the home, shouting your name, thinking he would need to search every room and inch of the house to find you. 

But there you stood, back facing him, not too long before you had turned around, hearing his voice echoing against the walls. 

“Outside, they’re push and shoving. I’m in the kitchen humming. All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing.” 

He rushed to you. Burying his face into the crook of your neck, nearly lifting you off the ground as he hugged you tight. Tighter than he ever had before. You could feel the tears smearing down his cheek and tumbling onto your skin where he broke down. 

“S’ok…I’m safe. You’re safe. I’m right here, baby.” You murmured, tugging him into you just as urgently with your hands on the back of his neck and the other rubbing soothing circles onto his back. 

He didn’t pull away. Not for another minute, and when he did, he didn’t let you leave his arms. Only allowing enough space between the both of you for him to clearly see your face and kiss your lips as if it was the last time he’d ever get to do something so simple. 

“A-are you ok?” He ordered, holding your face in his hands, scanning every inch of your uncovered skin like you were the one outside caught in the crosshairs of the gates opening. 

You shook your head, reaching out to brush his cheek, “I…I knew what was going on as soon as I heard the news.” 

He turned to look behind him. The TV set in your living room was on but muted. There was live coverage in all areas in which the gates had opened. The red lines crossing boundaries and tearing neighborhoods apart were the only thing caught on cameras. 

Then his ears finally caught onto the tune playing over the radio you had situated on top of the kitchen table. It wasn’t too loud or too quiet. But just enough for you to mask the sounds of the hysteria transpiring around you. He had recognized the song. One of which was on a cassette that he had made specifically for you. 

Just because he was puzzled to see if he was right. One of his arms fell away from you, reaching over slightly to pop open the slot and there was the bright blue cassette. The one he had made for you, loaded with nothing but mushy love songs that reminded him of you and vice versa. It was surreal…you had known that this terrifying thing was back and yet you were here as calm as ever…or at least trying to be for his sake. 

And you had been humming before Steve had barged in. He finally picked up on that. 

“I knew you’d come to me,” Your voice took him away again, drawing his eyes to meet yours that were brimming with tears, “You told me that if anything like this were to happen again, that you’d come for me.” 

It was true. And it wasn’t like Steve was actively thinking about that promise he had made you a couple of months ago. He just did what felt right. And that was coming home to you. 

“I did.” Steve whispered, the realization dawning on him that this was all he ever wanted and all he ever wanted to know. 

It was you. Coming home to you. Being here with you. Through thick and thin. Through the calm and the storm. The ups and downs. 

He wanted it to be with you. 

“I never knew you would make such a talented songwriter, babe.” You commended Steve, relaxing your head on his shoulder while you recorded the lyrics that you two had just chirped. 

It was like you and Steve were talking to each other in the song. Recounting the purest and scariest moments in your relationship and somehow making it sound like the most tranquil lullaby known to the human existence. Sure, most babies would definitely prefer to listen to a voice sing them to sleep by talking about twinkling little stars or their papa buying them a mocking bird. 

But this was you and Steve’s song. The most meaningful lullaby that would hopefully put your future kids to sleep. 

“Me?” Steve accused, gesturing to himself as you laughed inwardly, shaking your head against him, “I’m pretty sure you could get a record deal for your beautiful voice and your song writing skills.” 

You blushed madly, seeking to hide the rose color on your cheeks by pressing your face into his shoulder, but that only made his heart strings pull tighter in his chest. He bounced you off jokingly, craving to see you in all your embarrassingly flattered glory. 

“I’m dead serious,” Steve declared, leaning down towards you to rest his forehead against yours as you closed your eyes, brushing your nose against his. 

“I have an idea for the next verse.” You added softly onto his lips, kissing him several times, before you finally built up the strength to pull away from your idea of paradise.  

He patted the small of your back, kissing you once more, almost making you want to forget about the whole song and take him to bed, but this was so pleasant and you wanted to finish this for the both of you. 

You took a deep breath, nodding your head as he peered up at you, silently asking if you were ready for him to start playing. And so he did. 

“On the way home, I wrote a poem. You say, “What a mind.” This happens all the time.” 

You all had your ways of dealing with the trauma that came after the gates had finally closed. Talking to Steve was always your preferred choice of dealing with all of it. He was like your personal form of therapy. Nothing was ever too heavy for him to take. He’d listen to you every night, detailing the fear that you felt when he went into that place for the last time to assist Eleven and his friends in defeating the monster. 

When he had come back through the portal, you were a mess waiting for him. He was covered in an ungodly amount of blood and yuck, but you had no care in the world. Instantly running into his arms and sobbing as you told him you loved him over and over and over again. 

For Steve, he could handle all the physical injuries he endured. It wasn’t anything new to him, considering the fact that he had experienced this before. At least for him, he had friends he could talk to and relate to when it came to this sort of thing.

But for him to watch you beat yourself up over what had happened….

That was more painful than any bite one of those nasty bats had inflicted on him. 

Eventually, Steve had suggested another way for you to cope, and that was through reading. It was mostly so that you could distract yourself from the horrible memories of watching Steve shout in pain as doctors and nurses tried to tend to his wounds followed by the excruciating weeks of recovery where you could do nothing but kiss and whisper sweet words to make him feel better. 

But surprisingly enough, the world of reading and the library became another safe space for you to travel to whenever you needed to remind yourself that the worst was over and you could finally relax. You had recommended the same to Robin and Nancy, who too were dealing with the lasting effects of the Upside Down in different ways. 

That’s how your little bookclub came to be and Steve was more than happy to support you through it every step of the way. He’d sit and listen to you talk for hours about the recent book you picked up just that morning and managed to get halfway through by the end of the day. He’d accompany you to the library, helping you search through the endless shelves of novels for something interesting when it was your turn to pick that month’s group read. 

Sometimes he’d even sit in during the sessions. Most times though, it was an excuse, just so he could listen to your read aloud, becoming so captivated by the way you were able to tell a story, then taken off his feet when you all would discuss and you would bring up some of the most minuscule yet crucial points with so much passion. 

This month was Nancy’s choice, and she had picked, “Love Poems & Sonnets of William Shakespeare.” It was beautifully complex, many words and phrases that were not usually used anymore, which allowed room for great conversations and different conceptualizations between the three of you girls. 

“Whatcha writing?” Steve glanced over at you sitting the passenger seat of his car where your eyes had been glued to the notebook on your lap, constantly erasing, then rewriting. 

You groaned, turning to him, “Attempting a poem…I feel inspired by what I read, but I just can’t seem to think of anything.” 

He hummed, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he continued en route to his house, trying to think of a way to solve the small crisis you were facing on this Friday night. 

“Why don’t I give you a topic and let’s see what you come up with in two minutes? That way, you don’t overthink so hard.” 

Steve was great at recognizing both your verbal and nonverbal cues, especially when it came to you being flustered by stress. Most times, you’d stare at whatever was giving you a hard time for way too long. Or you’d get annoyed like you did just seconds ago, sighing thickly and muttering to yourself as you erased and rewrote. 

“Okay, that sounds fair.” You agreed, relaxing your dominant hand where your pencil was held. 

Steve smirked, turning to you as he saw you calm down. “Why don’t you write about the stars?” 

“How original of you, Mr. Harrington.” You joke, as he allowed his right hand to leave the wheel for only a few seconds, just to poke you in your side and hear that infectious giggle erupt from your chest. 

“C’mon, two minutes, pretty girl.” He spoke, checking the time on his dash as you had finally begun writing. 

If he could sit here and watch you with his undivided attention, he would. But you were precious cargo that needed to get home in one piece, and he was responsible for that. There would be many nights where he could watch you in your own world, reading or writing something that was probably totally incomprehensible to him, but it was you doing it, so he would find it in himself to understand. 

“Done!” You cheered happily, abandoning your notebook and pencil in your lap when you achieved you goal. 

Steve whistled impressively. “You had twenty-five seconds left.”

“Would you like to hear it?” You proposed, shifting in your seat so that you were close to him as you could be, despite the middle console separating the two of you. 

He nodded, tuning in to you clear your throat as he proceeded to drive on the nearly empty roads. 

“Why must I be so lucky to bask in the presence of one in a million? 

How can I be so sure this isn’t a trick from heaven? 

For your eyes are like saucers from another planet so distant. 

And your smile, shimmering so bright like the moon on Christmas. 

Is it true, art thou, the one I choose? 

Are you the prize I find sitting in my room? 

Is it you I see before I go to bed? 

Not just an allusion in my head?

When I look out the window into the night sky, 

I see it clearly now you are by my side. 

Not just a glimmer in the atmosphere, 

I know now that you are here. 

The love of my life, 

my one and only 

The only touch that dances upon me. 

Like the stars up above, I see him here. 

His name is Steve, and I love you, my dear.” 

Your voice rushed with serenity, but the words were even charming. He praised god that he made it into the driveway by the time you finished because he was so enchanted by the way you were able to write him. How you were able to make all these correlations between him, the sky, and the stars. You’d always had a way with your words, something he was still trying to get used to, especially when the euphonic remarks were aimed at him. 

“That…” His speech sailed off into the quiet night as you watched him click his belt undone so he could comfortably close the space between you two. 

The notebook and pencil were long forgotten now that you had him right where you wanted with his lips on yours. Moving ever so romantically, in no rush or haste to get to the good part, because having your skin on each other was always the good part. 

Finally he pulled away, “….That mind of yours is so brilliant.” 

“This happens all the time.” You moaned, a bit of whining in your statement as you protested that he pulled away just to compliment you, when you wanted nothing more than to keep his lips on yours permanently, if that was even possible. 

He smiled at your admission. “What? Me breaking the kiss or you being the next William Shakespeare.” 

“You dork!” You snorted, driving your head back, before you chased his lips from the passenger seat, to outside in the driveway, then through the front door, up the stairs, then into his bedroom where you and him ruled this private kingdom of love and lust. 

And here you were tonight, writing in that same notebook in which you had written that poem, dedicated to Steve Harrington himself. Though it had been carefully torn out of its binding, finding a new home between a piece of glass and frame where it hung on a wall. You had gifted it to him randomly one afternoon, and since then has been one of his most prized possessions among the other heartfelt gifts you had made for him. 

“I love you, you know that?” He begged, trailing his hands away from the keyboards and grabbing at you until you were a giggling wreck seated between his legs. 

You managed to contort yourself into his weird hold, just enough so that you could turn and bring your lips to meet with such a tenderness that neither one of you could ever begin to describe. It was weird to think that this was the man that you were going to spend the rest of your life with and you were so sure of it. Because no one came close or would ever come closer to how Steve makes you feel. 

For the longest time, you’d been searching for a love like this. Hoping that you’d find that person who would make you blush with every single look of desire. The person who you could run to without ever feeling like you’d be a nuance. He was more than what you could ever dream of or read in a classic romance novel. He was real life and all that you ever wanted was him and his love. 

“Of course I know that, silly—and I love you, too.” You countered never pulling away from him, but just talking against his lips and he understood every word that came out of your mouth no matter how suppressed it was. 

He beamed like an idiot against you, grazing your lips again before finally allowing you to turn back in front of the two of you where the keyboard laid. 

“Here,” you said, reaching for the notebook and passing it back to him with the pen, “This time I’ll play and you write.” 

“Let’s hear what you’ve got, baby.” He saluted, taking it from you, and giving your shoulders a supporting rub as you got familiar with the keys again. 

“Industry disruptors and soul deconstructors. And smooth-talking hucksters. Out glad-handing each other.” 

There was no course that prepared you for facing the hardships of not feeling like you were good enough for Steve’s love. It wasn’t all the time you felt like this, just a few times, but when it did, it was like a wave of sadness crashing into your soul and lingering there, leaving you to feel so heavy. 

You couldn’t pinpoint why you’d feel like this because, if anything, Steve always assured you when it came to your relationship with him. He only ever saw you and he always made that known. Telling you how beautiful you looked every day. Applauding your ability to do things with such grace that he never thought was possible. And he was the kind of boyfriend that would brag about you to all his friends and family because he adored you so much. He wanted to share how kind and generous you were with other people. 

It wasn’t about how Steve made you feel, but particularly about the way you feared that other people felt for him. 

Insecurity at its finest. 

Not many girls threw themselves at Steve, at least not anymore, especially when you and he were always together and he could never keep his eyes off of you, paying none of them any treatment. 

But they never went unnoticed by you.

Especially at parties which were never your thing, to be quite honest. But anything with Steve is fun in your eyes, so you go, usually dancing the night away with you in his arms as he drank his usual fruit punch and you nursed a spiked lemonade. Nights like this were generally all in good nature, but this night was completely the opposite of that. 

First it was Tiffany. 

She was different from you as she ran in the same circle that Steve did when he was in high school. Tiffany was the popular girl—plenty of friends, had an ever-growing social life, and was easy to talk to. 

Then it was Brandi. 

She knew Steve through mutual acquaintances, a guy named Tommy who you’d never met before. She actually talked to you more than she spoke to Steve, which should have been a good thing, but she seemed to have been picking apart your life. Every time she’d ask you about what you liked to do, she’d rebuttal with something much cooler, something that got Steve inquiring what she was talking about and saying, “neat,” every minute.

And last was Dana. 

She was a complete stranger to you and Steve, just a random girl who happened to be at the same party as the both of you. She was bolder than the other two girls, purposely making comments towards Steve’s appearance and how she would kill to have a man like him. And Steve didn’t even entertain the idea, immediately shutting her down and telling her that you were his girlfriend. 

But that didn’t stop you from excusing yourself, rushing through this unfamiliar house to find the nearest bathroom before the tears could spill out of your eyes for everyone to see. The last thing you needed was to be called a crybaby and ruin the fun that you and Steve were supposed to be having. When the bathroom finally came into sight, you scrambled into it before some drunk could, locking the door and bracing yourself against the sink. 

“Fuck,” you sniffled weakly, keeping your clouded eyes glued to the drain as the tears dripdropdrooped down your cheeks off your jaw and into the sink below you. 

It was ridiculous that you were here crying. Steve didn’t even flirt with any of them, and it’s not like he would have anyways. He was just conversing with them to be nice. That’s who Steve was. The nice guy. One of his charming qualities that made you fall for him. But also a quality that just made him so well liked by every other girl that looked his way. 

It made you feel…disgusted. 

“Baby,” You should’ve known Steve was going to follow you up here.

He always made it a thing to make sure you were never alone at these kinds of parties. He worried about you running into the wrong people or someone trying to hurt you while you were all alone. Which is why most times, you’d just tell him when you’d have to go to the restroom and he’d wait patiently outside the door, making sure no creeps would try anything when you were by yourself. 

You quickly reached for the tissues sitting on the counter, dabbing under your eyes, as the other flushed the toilet to make it seem like you were doing your business in here, “I’m fine, Steve…just had to pee!” 

The sniffle that he heard from outside the door confirmed his worry that you were, in fact, not ok. He could feel you tensing under his arm every time one of the girls would approach and conversate with him. He did his best to deter them, even just by completely ignoring them and talking to you, but he could tell it still made you uncomfortable. 

“Could you open up, babe?” He spoke, tapping again as you threw the tissue into the garbage and turned on the water to wash your hands. 

You shouted out a “yes,” and gave yourself one more convincing look in the mirror to try to make it look like you weren’t just crying your eyes out in this stranger’s bathroom. When you finally unlocked the door, he greeted you with a regretful smile that you could easily tell the difference from his normal ones. Steve let himself in, locking the door behind him and just letting it be the two of you in this small space. 

“Do you need to take a leak?” You proposed, attempting to avoid the conversation about what unfolded downstairs. 

He shook his head, taking your face in his hands with a still softness that made you want to cry all over again for the stupid reason of jealousy, “I came ‘cause I know you’re not ok.” 

“I don’t know what y-you’re talking about.” You reasoned plainly.

If Steve didn’t know you like the back of his hand and noticed the minor changes to your voice, maybe it would have been convincing. But the little crack in your sentence and the way you tried to move away from his touch, was already a clear sign that you were deceiving him and trying to cover it up. 

Steve took a deep breath, letting his hands fall so that he could grab at your hands that were resting on your sides. Intertwining them together, he squeezed.

“You can tell me what’s going on, baby. You don’t have to pretend with me.” 

It was so true. You never ever had to pretend to be this mighty strong independent woman when it came to showing and telling Steve how you felt. If anything, he welcomed this side of you, wanting you to know that it was ok to feel vulnerable in front of him. That he would never blame or judge you for feeling like a human would.

You shut your eyes tightly, the tears seeping through the slits before you forced them open and puffed out a deep, frustrating breath.

“I hate how they want you!” 

Steve was attentive, allowing you to unravel your fingers from his as you paced the small space in front of him.

“I hate that they fawn over you. I hate the way they look at you. I hate the way they try to impress you. I hate the way they talk to you. And I most certainly hate the way that they want you, the only way I have you.” 

You gave yourself a second to take a deep breath between your words and tears, even turning around to roughly snatch more tissues to catch your tears, while Steve’s concerned orbs never left you. 

“I hate the way they make me feel so…nonexistent. I hate that I feel jealous, and I know I shouldn’t be—because I know that you love me and only me, but I just hate it! I don’t like this. At all.” 

When you initiated the first contact, leading out to hug him, he knew it was his signal now. That it was his turn to talk and give you the comfort that you needed. 

“Hey, it’s ok,” Steve murmured through your heavy breathing against his heart. His palms rubbed up and down your back, warming you up with his body heat, which was like a natural blanket and safety net that you wanted to fall into all the time in times like these. 

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way—“ 

You shook your head, stretching away to look up at him, only breaking his soul when he saw your tear covered face. “It’s not your fault…I’m just dumb and I hate myself for feeling like—“ 

“Hey. None of that.” He interrupted firmly, his fingers sweeping over both of your cheeks to wipe away the wetness of tears. 

“I should’ve told them to back off sooner. That’s my bad, baby. I’m sorry. So sorry, sweetheart.”

Giving him the best smile you could, you acknowledged him, closing your eyes, “Apology accepted.” 

Steve grinned, dragging your face towards him so he could peck your lips. 

“You’re the only one I want. Remember that. I don’t care about anything they have to say or the way they look at me because I have you, and when I look at you, I feel so fulfilled.” He professed, intensely peering into your eyes and he spoke so closely you could feel each breath he took with each word fanning your face like a cool gust on a summer afternoon. 

“My existence is worth something because of you. I only want you to want me. And I’m sure you only want me to want you.” 

You sniffled, letting out a short laugh while you nodded. “Of course.” 

“See. Now, please stop crying…I hate seeing you so sad.” He sulked, eyes turned down as he remained drying your tears until you finally stopped. 

You and Steve spent ten more minutes in that bathroom with him simply holding you close, swaying you back and forth as he whispered encouraging words into your ear. Jealously may not have looked good on you, let alone anyone, but vulnerability definitely did.

Refreshing is what it felt like when you could have moments like this with, Steve. Never feeling like you had to hide or conceal the impending thoughts in your head, even when sometimes it was self destructive. 

He liked it too.Someone who was honest with him and not afraid to be.

Previous relationships comprised him needing to guess and gauge how his partner was feeling, but with you it was comforting to know that you’d let him into your mind and worries. That he didn’t need to pry or feel like he was invading because you just allowed him to listen. Whether it was his fault or not, he wanted to know how you were feeling inside and out. You were his girl, and he would do anything to take away any ounce of pain or sadness you had. 

He was your home, and you were his. Even in this claustrophobic foreign bathroom, when you had each other in one another’s arms, you were instantly home. A safe space for all the emotions under the sun and over the dark clouds. 

“Shit! My writing is ass, babe.” Steve huffed from behind you, as you sat back into the now, entirely forgetting about the three other girls who could never be you or ever take your place right here, right now. 

You laughed, pushing your head back to stare at him upside down, “C’mon, we’re almost done with the song!” 

“If you’d stop being so cute, we’d be finished with it long ago.” He scowled with no real ill will, scrunching your cheeks together as you continued to laugh until he let you go, guiding you right side up. 

“You get the last verse in the bridge, hot stuff.” You reached back to pinch his thigh gingerly, as he mumbled, thinking before it came to him. A bit of inspiration taken from the last lines you had sung. 

“And the voices that implore, “You should be doing more.” To you, I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it.”

Steve never had a great relationship with either of his parents, but especially his dad. He had even described him as a “grade-A-asshole” the first time you had asked him if it was ok for you to finally meet him. And so when Steve finally introduced you to his parents, it was definitely not what you were expecting.

His mom was really sweet, asking you a lot about your life and parents while his dad stayed quiet for most of the dinner, only giving his input when it consisted of asking you about college and future plans. That seemed to matter a lot to his dad, so when you mentioned taking a gap year and were met with a condescending laugh of incredulity, you had fully expected Steve’s mom to shut that behavior down.

But she sat there and observed, allowing her husband to treat you with such disrespect until Steve had enough, getting into a full fledge screaming match with his father while you attempted to diffuse the situation from intensifying. 

Things with his dad never got any better and his relationship with his mother only seemed to decline as you and Steve’s relationship furthered. The days in which you two would spend at his house were mainly when his parents were out of town on business trips. Other than that, to avoid conflict, he would stay with you at your parents’ house when his were back. 

“Why’re you so nervous, Stevie?” You leaned over the middle console inside his BMW, tearing your boyfriend out of his thoughts as the two of you sat in the driveway of his parents’ home. 

He rubbed his temples, pronounced stress already making itself apparent on Steve’s face and body, “I just wished I didn’t have to say anything,” He groaned, sensing an impending headache arriving. 

For the past week and a half, you and Steve had been moving his things out of his bedroom and storing it in your parents’ garage for the time being. Since you and him had been together awhile now, the two of you figured it was the right time to find a place of your own, a few miles outside of Hawkins and just a town down in Roane County. Of course, with Steve’s parents barely in the picture, they failed to notice Steve’s missing things and his lengthy absence from their home. 

You smiled tightly, reaching out to rest a comforting palm over his shoulders and rubbing fondly, “I know, but it’s better that they find out through us than just finally realize you moved out without saying anything.” 

He knew you had a point. Getting up and leaving was not something that he excepted to come to terms with so easily, but when doing it with you, he knew he’d follow you to the ends of the Earth if it meant waking up and going to bed beside you. But he also knew his father and the way he’d snowball this situation and overreact over his son, simply growing up and starting his own life with his girlfriend.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Let’s just get this over with.” He took a deep breath, flipping his sun visor back up before turning his head and kissing your hand that still rested between his t-shirt and shoulder. 

And of course, Steve was right because the second he had blurted out that he was moving out, mid dinner, his father went absolutely ballistic. Throwing his napkin down on the food and standing up from his chair as he began shouting at Steve. 

You sat there patiently, lying your hand on Steve’s knee under the table where it bounced up and down. And you could see his fists tightly clenched in his lap, wanting to do nothing more than to knock his old man out cold. 

“I mean, what are you thinking, Steven!? Do you even realize the responsibility that comes with moving out?!” 

His father’s voice bellowed through the dinning room, hell it could even be heard from outside the front door if you were guessing. For the most part Steve had mastered the art of letting the things his dad say go in one ear then out the other just so he could avoid confrontation and fights, but it was hard to pretend like his dad was a prime example or someone he could look up to when he wasn’t even present for anything good that came Steve’s way. 

“What does it matter to you? Hell, you’re barely even home! I think I’ve spent more time here alone, taking care of myself than you guys have in the past five years.” 

The shock the spread across his fathers face was amusing, and you wanted so badly to laugh out loud, and tell him off about how much of a horrible dad he had been to Steve, but your boyfriend always made it clear to you that his issue with his dad was between him and his dad only. It’s not that he didn’t want you to defend him, hell you defended him all the time when his dad wasn’t around, never missing a beat to express to Steve how much you wished his dad could just go and fuck himself.

But the words that his father spat were always venomous and filled with such hostility that he would never want directed towards you. It was better if he just took all the hits than to let you be a victim to one of his dad’s tirades. 

“You,” His old man sharply pointed a finger at Steve and rested the other on his hip, “Apologize to me right now! You’d be nothing without me, young man!” 

Steve took a deep breath, closing his eyes, mouth about to move to say his empty apology just so his dad could shut the hell up and stop making a big deal out of this, but you couldn’t possibly stay silent anymore. It was exhausting to see how small his father made him feel. It was as if Steve had just totally became a different person when his father was around, never really being able to express who he was or share any part of his life without being criticized. 

“That’s not true.” You swallowed, glaring up at his dad, whose eyes enlarged, adverting his scrutiny to you. 

Steve’s eyes nearly buldged out of his skull when your voice spoke, turning to you with a rigid look on his face that silently told you to stop, but you shook your head, giving his knee one last squeeze before you stood up, carrying your own. 

“Steve is hardworking. He’s intelligent. He’s compassionate. Everything that you lack, Steve has, and that’s because Steve is a good person—“ 

“A good person that didn’t get accepted into any of his picks for college! Not even his backup—“ 

Anger flooded your nerves. You loathed when his father talked so poorly about his own son, “What does it matter to you? You got accepted into an ivy league and still turned out to be the most obnoxious, overbearing, unpleasant person and, most of all, a sad excuse of a father.” 

His dad did nothing but look between his wife, Steve, and you with maddening eyes and steam metaphorically coming out of his head. 

“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” 

Your shoulders shook and heart thumped against your chest as Steve already nodded his head, rising up firmly beside you. Somehow finding it within himself to defend his own name and especially yours. Steve never wanted to control you. He always admired that you were so headstrong and resilient. Today was no different and he would not let his dad try to belittle you or himself anymore. 

“Yeah, I actually am.” Steve clutched your hand, holding them together as he lifted them up and shook it between the space. 

“She’s right. I am a goddamn good person and I’ve let you walk all over me throughout my entire childhood…and to be quite honest with you, dad, neither you nor mom had ever been good parents to me.” 

His mom gasped, her only input in the conversation as at, “Steven!” 

Steve turned to his mother, sighing exasperatedly, “I am tired of feeling like a ghost in this family…someone you only talk to when it’s convenient to, or when you want me to be your punching bag.” 

His father paid no mind to the previous revelation, just wanting to make the situation about himself in an attempt to feed his ego.

“And what do you plan to do, huh? You don’t have a degree, let alone a good paying job. You have no aspirations. No ambitions. And this girlfriend of yours sure as hell isn’t any help when she should be encouraging you to do more with your life than sell movies to dirtbags.” 

This is exactly what Steve wanted to dodge, you now becoming the punching bag that his father was now hitting with low blows. All he saw was red, releasing your intertwined hands, and making his way around the dining table to push his father’s chest with his hands full of fury. 

“Steve!” you exclaimed, tracking right behind him, attempting to pull him back from getting hurt. 

But your boyfriend was stronger, perhaps because of the adrenaline rushing through his veins, allowing him another push that almost sent his dad tumbling over if it weren’t for his mom, catching him and standing him upright.

“Don’t you ever talk to her like that! She’s done everything and given me the love you two never did.” 

Maybe it was because Steve had buried all this family trauma in the back of his head, and totally forgot about it when he started seeing you, but he would be damned if he would leave this household without telling his parents everything they had made him feel throughout his entire life.

First being the only child, and having no one to talk to when he was a kid, followed by trying to please his parents by allowing them to live vicariously through him, then being painted as the bad guy for finally finding his own purpose in life was too much for him to handle. 

“Steve, please.” You begged, pressing yourself between the two men, and bumping Steve back so he could step away from his father. 

“You know nothing about me!” He roared at his parents, allowing you to make him take a few steps back to find his cool, but never letting the anger die in his voice. 

If your heart was beating a hundred miles over the limit, Steve’s was over a million and his breathing was heavy with your palms finding their way on his chest. The second he glanced down at you and met your eyes, he was grounded. Back to reality. A place he knew he could say anything that was on his chest and get all the baggage off his desk. 

He took a deep breath, reflecting your own breathing before finally looking back at his parents, who stayed mute, watching on to see what their son’s next move was going to be.

And he spoke.  

“She and I got a lease for an apartment down in Roane. I got promoted to manager at Family Video months ago and I make way more than minimum wage. I applied for a second job at a middle school and got hired to help with their after-school program for kids. I applied to a community college and got accept, I’m planning to get my degree in education.” 

The tears gushed liberally down Steve’s cheek, informing his parents all about this life they had no clue about. How successful Steve actually was outside of their ideals that he was doing nothing except selling VHS tapes and riding around town with his girlfriend. 

“Her family actually cares about me. Her dad gives me advice when I ask, not unsolicited like you, dad. Her mom actually let’s me talk to her about anything and doesn’t make me feel less than because I have feelings. And she…” 

He swallowed the lump in his throat, eyes glinting below as he looked at you with such intensity and delicateness that truly revealed how much he felt for you. 

“She’s everything to me. Caring. Understanding. Loyal. Funny. Encouraging. She makes me feel like I’m enough, even when I know I’m rock-bottom shit because of the damage you two caused—but at the end of the day, she’s home.” 

By now, you had been crying, finding your face tucked in his chest as your warm tears soaked through his polo and he could feel the dampness against his skin. He hated when you cried and he knew that you and him were about to make your exit.

Steve was always tender when it came to touches, and that never changed, not even when you were a crying mess in front of his parents. And so with that, he wrapped his arms around you heartily, shuffling the two of you to the front door, pausing only briefly to give his parents one last piece of his mind. 

“This is going to be the last time you see either of us—maybe one day when you finally apologize, we can work things out, but right now, I don’t need either of you. Only her.”

With that, he led you two out of his parents’ home, immediately embracing you tighter, crying within each other’s arm right out in the open. The light breeze wandered over your skins, as he just held you. The two of you whispering to one another constants “I love yous,” not caring that any of the neighbors could be watching the scene from their windows. 

“I’m sorry…” 

You shook your head, pink lips trembling as you let out a “nuh uh,” brushing your fingertips under his eyes to wipe the tears away from his beautifully freckled face, “No…I’m sorry, so sorry you had to put up with that all your life.” 

“Not anymore,” His cheeks rose against your palms when he put on a faint smile on his face, pushing his head down to kiss your lips sweetly. 

“Not ever.” You affirmed kissing him again, before you and Steve drove off into the night, never looking back at what could have been and simply focusing on the fact that it now was you and him against the world. 

And so here the two of you sat in the bedroom you now called your own. The small apartment was just an hour away from your hometown, now becoming a sanctuary of peace and home to new memories that you and Steve had created together, just like this song.

The place was decorated with photos of the both of you and the little trinkets like the pebble and framed polaroid that found its new place on the coffee table in the living room.

Or that poem you had written him, now placed on his desk at work, every morning being greeted by your way of words, even though before he left the apartment, you’d always tell him, “Have a good day at work, I love you.”

And of course, the mixtape of love songs, now finding its constant spot in and out of the radio that sat in the corner of the kitchen island, where you and Steve would chat and end up out of your seats by the end of the night where you’d dance in each other’s arms. 

All that you two ever wanted was nothing but this.

The sweetness and bliss that came with loving him. Not for notoriety or calling dibs on the guy you had a crush on for years before either of you made a move. Just this, forever and always, knowing that you were home for him, and he was home for you. That there was no shame in feeling, but just a safe space for being honest and open about everything.

This wasn’t only a new beginning, but just the start of something so fresh and freeing. Because if there was one thing that the two of you knew, it was that they were going to be great parents and this would be the song that would rock their baby to sleep. 

This was sweet nothing. 

A/N: Okay, so I was able to finish this in literally one day…I think that’s quite impressive for someone like me who literally has a million thoughts running through her mind on a daily basis. Sweet Nothing, which I believe is one of the most underrated tracks on Midnights, really gives me Steve Harrington vibes and I hope I was able to do his character justice and provide some tooth rotting fluff to ring in the new year. Again, all credits to Taylor Swift for writing this amazingly vulnerable song about love that I wish to find one day…but I wrote the poem in the fic myself (don’t come at me for the basic rhymes lol). Reblogs, comments, and likes are greatly appreciated!!!! Thanks for reading!!!

[gay-jewish-bucky]

what are some petnames you think bucky has for steve? or maybe some that either of them have for alpine?

there are a several repeats from steve's nicknames for bucky that i'll get out of the way first: babe/baby, best guy, handsome, sweetheart, my love/love, sugar

now, what we're all here for, bucky-specific nicknames for steve (i was able to find wayyy more yiddish and hebrew endearments than i was irish)

stevie

captain ;)

lyubenyu (yiddish for 'little lover', ha get it bc steve is super tall now and bc he's loved steve since he was that little guy from brooklyn)

zeiskeit (yiddish for 'sweetness')

hartsdekl mayns (yiddish for 'my heart blanket')

a'huvi (hebrew for 'beloved')

chatich (hebrew for 'sexy')

lyube-dushe (yiddish for 'lovely soul')

shabbes-laykhterl mayns (yiddish for 'my sabbath lantern', this makes me feral)

edit: how could i have forgotten 'punk'?

[lindsaywesker]

Deaths In 2023

January

1: Fred White (67, American drummer, Earth Wind & Fire)

3: Alan Rankine (64, Scottish musician/producer, The Associates)

6: Gianluca Vialli (58, Italian football player/manager)

10: Jeff Beck (78, English guitarist, The Yardbirds/The Jeff Beck Group/Beck Bogart & Appice)

11: Yukihiro Takahashi (70, Japanese singer/drummer, Yellow Magic Orchestra)

12: Robbie Bachman (69, Canadian drummer, Bachman Turner Overdrive)

Lisa-Marie Presley (54, American singer/songwriter, daughter of Elvis, mother of Riley Keough)

16: Gina Lollobrigida (95, Italian actress)

18: David Crosby (81, American singer/songwriter, The Byrds, Crosby Stills Nash & Young)

27: Sylvia Sims (89, English actress, ‘Ice Cold In Alex’)

28: Barrett Strong (81, American singer/songwriter, co-wrote ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’/‘Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone’

Tom Verlaine (73, American musician/songwriter/producer, Television)

Lisa Loring (64, American actress, ‘The Addams Family’)

February

2: Calton Coffie (68, Jamaican singer, Inner Circle)

3: Paco Rabanne (88, Spanish fashion designer)

8: Burt Bacharach (94, American songwriter, co-wrote ‘Walk On By’/‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’/‘A House Is Not A Home’/‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’)

10: Hugh Hudson (86, film director, ‘Chariots Of Fire’)

12: David Jolicoeur a.k.a. Trugoy The Dove (54, American rapper, De La Soul)

15: Raquel Welch (82, American actress)

16: Chuck Jackson (85, American soul singer, ‘Any Day Now’/‘I Keep Forgettin’’)

18: Barbara Bosson (83, American actress, ‘Hill Street Blues’)

19: Richard Belzer (78, American actor, ‘Homicide: Life On The Street’/’Law And Order: Special Victims Unit’)

Dickie Davies (94, British television personality, ‘World Of Sport’)

23: John Motson (77, English football commentator, ‘Match Of The Day’)

March

2: Steve Mackey (56, English bassist/producer, Pulp)

Wayne Shorter (89, American jazz saxophonist, Weather Report)

3: Carlos Garnett (84, Panamanian jazz saxophonist)

Tom Sizemore (61, American actor, ‘Saving Private Ryan’)

5: Gary Rossington (71, American guitarist, Lynyrd Skynyrd)

8: Topol (87, Israeli actor, ‘Fiddler On The Roof’/’Flash Gordon’)

10: Junior English (71, Jamaican reggae singer)

12: Dick Fosbury (76, American high jumper)

13: Jim Gordon (77, American drummer, Traffic/Derek & The Dominoes)

14: Bobby Caldwell (71, American singer/songwriter)

15: Greg Perry (singer/songwriter/producer)

16: Fuzzy Haskins (81, American singer, Parliament/Funkadelic)

17: Lance Reddick (60, American actor, ‘The Wire’/’Oz’/’John Wick’ films)

23: Keith Reid (76, English songwriter, Procol Harum)

Peter Shelley (80, English singer/songwriter/producer, ‘Gee Baby’/’Love Me Love My Dog’)

28: Paul O’Grady a.k.a. Lily Savage (67, English comedian)

Ryuichi Sakamoto (71, Japanese musician/composer, Yellow Magic Orchestra, composed theme to ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence’)

29: Charles Sherrell a.k.a. Sweet Charles (80, American bass player/singer, The JBs, ‘Yes, It’s You’)

April

5: Booker T. Newberry III (67, American singer, Sweet Thunder, ‘Love Town’)

6: Paul Cattermole (46, English singer, S Club 7)

8: Michael Lerner (81, American actor, ‘Barton Fink’)

12: Jah Shaka (75, Jamaican sound system operator)

13: Dame Mary Quant (93, English fashion designer)

14: Mark Sheehan (46, Irish guitarist, The Script)

16: Ahmad Jamal (92, jazz pianist)

17: Ivan Conti (76, jazz drummer, Azymuth)

22: Barry Humphries a.k.a. Dame Edna Everage (89, Australian comedian/actor)

Len Goodman (78, English TV personality)

25: Harry Belafonte (95, American musician/actor/civil rights leader)

27: Wee Willie Harris (90, English rock & roll singer)

Jerry Springer (79, English-born, American TV host)

28: Tim Bachman (71, Canadian guitarist, Bachman-Turner Overdrive)

May

1: Gordon Lightfoot (84, Canadian singer/songwriter, ‘If You Could Read My Mind’)

3: Linda Lewis (72, English singer/songwriter, ‘Rock-A-Doodle-Doo’)

18: Jim Brown (87, American football player/actor, ‘The Dirty Dozen’)

19: Pete Brown (82, poet/singer/lyricist, ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’/’White Room’/’I Feel Free’)

Andy Rourke (59, English bass player, The Smiths)

24: Bill Lee (94, American jazz musician/composer, Spike’s dad, scored ‘She’s Gotta Have It’/‘School Daze’/’Do The Right Thing’

Tina Turner (84, American-born, Swiss singer/actress, ‘River Deep Mountain High’/’Nutbush City Limits’/’What’s Love Got To Do With It?’)

26: Reuben Wilson (88, American jazz organist, ‘Got To Get Your Own’)

June

1: Cynthia Weil (82, songwriter, ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’’/’Here You Come Again’)

6: Tony McPhee (79, English guitarist, The Groundhogs)

12: Treat Williams (71, American actor, ‘Hair’/’Prince Of The City’)

14: John Hollins (76, English football player, Chelsea/Arsenal/England)

15: Glenda Jackson (87, English MP/actress, ‘Women In Love’/’Sunday Bloody Sunday’)

27: Julian Sands (65, English actor, ‘A Room With A View’)

29: Alan Arkin (89, American actor, ‘Catch 22’/’Little Miss Sunshine’)

30: Lord Creator (87, Trinidad-born, Jamaican singer/songwriter, ‘Kingston Town’)

July

3: Vicki Anderson a.k.a. Myra Barnes  (83, American soul singer, Carleen’s mum)

Mo Foster (78, English songwriter/musician/producer)

5: George Tickner (76, American guitarist, Journey)

16: Jane Birkin (76, French/English actress/singer, ‘Je t’aime … moi non plus’, banned by the BBC in 1969)

21: Tony Bennett (96, American singer, ‘I Left My Heart In San Francisco’)

22: Vince Hill (89, English singer, ‘Edelweiss’)

24: Trevor Francis (69, English football player, Birmingham City/England)

26: Randy Meisner (77, musician/songwriter, Poco/The Eagles, ‘Take It To The Limit’)

Sinead O’Connor (56, Irish singer, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’/songwriter, ‘Mandinka’)

30: Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman (70, American actor/comedian)

31: Angus Cloud (25, American actor, ‘Euphoria’)

 August

4: John Gosling (75, English keyboard player, The Kinks)

7: DJ Casper (58, DJ/artist/songwriter, ‘Cha Cha Slide’)

William Friedkin (87, American film director, ‘The French Connection’/’The Exorcist’)

9: Robbie Robertson (80, Canadian musician/songwriter/singer, The Band)

Sixto Rodriguez (81, American singer/songwriter, subject of 2012 documentary ‘Searching For Sugar Man’

13: Clarence Avant (92, owner of Sussex Records/Tabu Records, film producer, ‘Jason’s Lyric’)

Magoo (50, American rapper, Timbaland & Magoo)

16: Jerry Moss (88, music executive, the ‘M’ in A&M Records)

17: Bobby Eli (77, guitarist, MFSB/songwriter, ‘Love Won’t Let Me Wait’)

Gary Young (70, American drummer, Pavement)

19: Ron Cephas Jones (66, American actor, ‘This Is Us’)

24: Bernie Marsden (72, English guitarist, Whitesnake/songwriter, ‘Here I Go Again’/’Fool For Your Loving’)

29: Jamie Crick (57, English radio broadcaster, Jazz FM)

31: Gayle Hunnicutt (80, American actress, ‘Dallas’)

September

1: Jimmy Buffett (76, American singer/songwriter, ‘Margaritaville’)

4: Gary Wright (80, American singer/songwriter, ‘Dream Weaver’/’Love Is Alive’)

Steve Harwell (56, American singer/rapper, Smash Mouth)

8: Mike Yarwood (82, English comedian/impressionist)

13: Roger Whittaker (87, Kenyan-born English singer/songwriter, ‘Durham Town’)

16: Sir Horace Ove (86, Trinidadian-born, English film director, ‘Pressure’)

Irish Grinstead (43, American R&B singer, 702)

25: David McCallum (90, Scottish actor, ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’/’N.C.I.S.’/musician)

28: Michael Gambon (82, English actor, ‘Harry Potter’ movies)

30: Russell Batiste Jr. (57, American drummer, The Meters)

October

2: Francis Lee (79, English football player, Manchester City/England)

8: Burt Young (83, American actor, ‘Rocky’)

11: Rudolph Isley (84, American singer, The Isley Brothers/songwriter, ‘That Lady’)

12: Michael Cooper (71, Jamaican musician, Inner Circle/Third World)

14: Piper Laurie (91, American actress, ‘Carrie’/’The Hustler’)

19: DJ Mark The 45 King (62, DJ/musician/producer, ‘The 900 Number’)

20: Haydn Gwynne (66, English actress, ‘Drop The Dead Donkey’)

21: Sir Bobby Charlton (86, English footballer, Manchester United/England)

24: Richard Roundtree (81, American actor, ‘Shaft’)

28: Matthew Perry (54, American-Canadian actor, ‘Friends’)

November

12: Anna Scher (78, founder of the Anna Scher Children’s Theatre)

19: Joss Ackland CBE (95, English actor, ‘White Mischief’)

22: Jean Knight (80, American soul singer, ‘Mr. Big Stuff’)

25: Terry Venables (80, English footballer, Chelsea/Tottenham Hotspur/England manager)

26: Geordie Walker (64, English guitarist, Killing Joke)

29: Sticky Vicky (80, Spanish dancer and illusionist)

30: Shane MacGowan (65, English-born Irish singer, The Pogues/songwriter, ‘Fairytale Of New York’)

December

1: Brigit Forsyth (83, Scottish actress, ‘Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?’)

5: Denny Laine (79, English musician, The Moody Blues/Wings, songwriter, ‘Mull Of Kintyre’)

7: Benjamin Zephaniah (65, English poet/writer/actor, ‘Peaky Blinders’)

8: Ryan O’Neal (82, American actor, ‘Love Story’/’Barry Lyndon’/’Paper Moon’)

Nidra Beard (71, American singer, Dynasty)

11: Andre Braugher (61, American actor, ‘Homicide: Life On The Street’/’Brooklyn Nine-Nine’/’Glory’)

Richard Kerr (78, English singer/songwriter, ‘Mandy’)

15: Bob Johnson (79, singer/songwriter/musician, Steeleye Span)

16: Colin Burgess (77, Australian drummer, AC/DC)

17: Amp Fiddler (65, singer/songwriter/producer)

[sillyrabbit81]

Ready for some Irish Sy updates?

We were over visiting earlier this year. Sy/“Steve” picked us up from the airport. He was waiting for us when we arrived wearing a very Sy-esque T-shirt and shorts. In my head he was wearing flip flops (thongs to Aussies?). Insisted on carrying every heavy bag he could grab from us.

He was so great with my kid. Made her laugh and made accommodations for her shyness but also talked to her like an equal. He gave her the important job of looking after the ticket for the car park. She sensed his authority and took the task very seriously.

Completely forgot to mention before that he’s trained to parachute jump solo. I think he might even be qualified to train other people to jump.

Currently works in the irish military police. Kind of hates it because it’s mainly boring paperwork and giving other people a hard time.

Has bought a plot of land to build a house near his parents and sisters

Is a local life boat team crew member

Has a retriever puppy that he’s done such a great job of training. I’ve never seen such a chilled out and obedient puppy. During our visit Steve was often sitting holding it like a baby (even though it was already pretty big at that point) and it would fall asleep in his arms.

I noticed he was wearing hot pink nail polish after a few of the smallest nieces asked him if he wanted some. It stayed on for the rest of the holiday as far as I can remember.

Right now he’s renting a house right on the lake. Has a sailing boat that he spent months fixing up, replacing the engine etc.

Took me, my husband, my sister in law and a whole gaggle of kids out on the boat. Gave the kids jobs to do and let them do bits of the sailing. They hung on his every word and took his safety instructions to heart. He’s so silly with them most of the time that when he’s serious they know he’s not kidding. He also treats them all with such respect that they don’t mind when he gives them instructions.

More to come.

☘️

Hi ☘️ Anon!

OMG This man... I don't even think I could write Sy this good.

He's like the perfect man for a domestic fanfic, so soft and sweet with a dash of girl dad, but still ticks all the best masculine qualities.

And yeah, us Aussies call "flip flops" thongs... Its made for some hilarious miscommunication online over the years.

Thanks so much for this update. I swear, some of this may end up as inspiration next time I write a one-shot for Sy.

❤️ Rabbit

[elvirasemporium]

https://www.ebay.com/str/elvirasemporium

[cableknit-starbucks-cup]

Here is my July 2022 recommendation list.

Best girl bath with Mafia Stucky by @angrythingstarlight

Getting spoiled by Mafia boys in the most swoon worthy bath. How @angrythingstarlight writes her Mafia! Au is nothing short of divine.

Warnings: smut, fluff, russian bucky and Irish steve make brain go brrrrrrr, stucky.

Baby, heavens in your eyes by @evansbby

Sweet domestic family fluffy goodness with a beautiful dash of Smut. Daddy!Ari? Always a good time.

Warnings: smut, pregnancy talk, kids, fluff.

Taste of honey pt 8 by @imaginedreamwrite

Werebear! Ari and honeybee are getting along better now that she knows what he is, having seen the transformation first hand. But time has passed and As bears do, he goes into rut.

Warnings: smut, werebear, me foaming at the mouth bc I love this series.

A price to pay by @navybrat817

Your rich boyfriend is a jerk. But you never thought he would go so far, as to use you as collateral to pay his debts to bigger fish.

Warnings: mean Ransom is mean, talks of Violence, Navy couldn't miss even if she drove no hands going 80mph.

Drowning in your love by @bonky-n-steeb

You work to much as an avenger and your boss demands you go out, let loose, have fun. And a mysterious and handsome stranger makes you inclined to do just that.

Warnings: Dom!bucky, smut, alcohol consumption, one night stands.

Stay awesome fam.

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[quietlyimplode]

Natasha Romanoff Masterlist of Fic Recs - Version 2.0 - Page 1

Page 1 / Page 2 / Page 3 / Page 4 / Page 5

Updated June 2021

This is not an exhaustive list (and in no order whatsoever) of the brilliant fic that is out there. Please let me know of any i have missed or any recs to put in and I will endeavour to add it. I have not included warnings or ratings. Please make sure you look at the tags, judge for yourself and as always take care of yourself first. (17 authors under the cut)

The Irish Mayhem @the-irish-mayhem

White - part of Perfection of Duality Series - the making of Natasha Romanoff. One of my favourite fics in the world. I will love it forever.  -    25/25

Perfection of Duality- part two - Natasha - Natasha in shield - 4/?

Mypedia @sebuttstianstan

anything that bleeds - Natasha - Natasha is a sub. Don’t let that fool you, Natasha’s backstory with bdsm elements. 21/22

Shadesfalcon @shadesfalcon

Like Real People Do - Clint/Nat - ‘Do we have song?’ Iterations of what’s the ties that bind them together.    1/1

Whether you ask it or not - Clint/Nat - Natasha gets poisoned - and has the line ‘“’Night, little dragon. May your fires ever burn hot upon your unsuspecting foes.”    1/1

Sometimes winning means you’re the last one standing - ot6+everyone - don’t play ‘never have I ever’ without some laughs and trauma rearing its head   1/1

I am good - Clint/Nat/Laura - Clint brings Natasha home for the first time.   1/1

Careful She Bites - Clint/Nat - don’t confront Natasha about the handcuffs. Just don’t.  2/2

What happens here stays here - Clint/Nat- Natasha can’t remember Budapest.  1/1

Koren M- cybermathwitch

I’d Make Room for you - Clint/Nat/Laura - perspectives of each other are important. 1/1

Course Corrections - Clint/Nat/Laura - taking care of each other 2/2 snippets into conversations/life Course Corrections (Age of Ultron Fix-It Fic)

As if you have a choice - Clint/Nat - Natasha gets pregnant. They know they can’t keep it. 3/3

The weight of us - series of 11 - my fav is ‘Seeing Red’ and ‘Sharp and Sweet’. Clint/Nat shield days

Red Flag Warning - Natasha - red is a warning colour. Clint should know.   1/1

Edgeofthegalaxy @natasha-romanoff-deserved-better

buried in your bones, i see it in your closed eyes - Natasha dissociates and its a long way back Clint/Nat 1/1

Origins - Young Natasha in the red room, of learning morality and goodness. 1/1

But even the strong can fall - Natasha goes silent on a mission, Clint knows something is very wrong. Clint/Nat 2/2

Just a Kid - sometimes Natasha doesn’t realise how messed up her childhood was. Sometimes she needs to be told. Nat/team 1/1

Collateral Damage - Natasha comes home from a mission; Tony needs to patch her up. Tony & Nat 1/1

Daughter of Rohan @natrasharomanova

Living Louder - Clint/Nat - break my heart. Origin stories.   21/21

Beside you (sequel to living louder) - Clint/Nat - shield falls. Clint and Nat find each other in the aftermath.

It’s still raining - Clint/Nat - everything happens when it’s raining.  1/1

You are a piece of me, I wish I didn’t need. Clint/Nat/Laura/family. Clint brings Nat to the farm for the first time. Healing ensues.   1/1

Impossibilities- Clint/Nat but with Pepper/Maria/Darcy and Jane - Natasha is pregnant?   1/1

Wake my spirit Cold - Clint/Nat - Christmas throughout the years -    1/1

(We could be) infinite - Clint/Nat - ENDGAME FIX IT. The soul stone split in two. No one dies.    1/1

I am not the only traveler who has not repaid his debt - Clint/Nat - ENDGAME FIX IT. Natasha dies but is alive in a multiverse. Clint dies in the alternate. They meet in the middle.     1/1

Sugarfey @sugarfey

Chrysalis - Natasha - this is how it goes and how she came to be.  Ashes series  1/3

A walk on part in the war. Natasha - Drakovs daughter is ‘saved’.  Ashes.  2/3

World on Fire - Clint (/Natasha) Clint has a history and can play the guitar.  Ashes   3/3 - my favourite part.

First Name Basis- Clint/Nat - getting to know you.    1/1

Right where I used to be - Clint/Nat - it’s Natasha’s birthday, Clint uses this to get to know her better.    1/1

Once was lost - Clint/Nat - slow burn, Natasha offers herself to him once.    1/1

Expresso is not an option - Nat/Maria - ‘you could destroy shield in a heartbeat, couldn’t you?’

Thursdays Child - Nat/fury - fury mentors Natasha-from afar.    1/1

Shelter - Clint/Nat/liho/lucky - Lucky puts one big paw on Natasha’s knee and looks at her as though she hung the sky with pizza -   1/1

Almost home - Natasha - find a mooring and settles -    1/1

Long spaces 3/3 - Natasha/Clint - natasha and Clint fit together - all the broken pieces. .  3/3

Inkvoices - @inkvoices

Smile for the living - POST ENDGAME - Natasha is brought back.     1/1

In deed- Clint/Bucky/Nat. In which dogs and deeds are discussed.    1/1

Driver chooses the music. Clint/Nat - get in the car.

On Names - Clint/Nat- she goes by many names -  1/1

AlwaysLera

Fallout Patterns - what happens when your mind is a nuclear bomb? Nat/Clint - sex is not always sex when trauma is as deep as hers -   14/14

Breathe me with your hands - Clint/Nat - navigating sex -  1/2 One Red Thread Series- Nats pov.

Hold you by the edges - 2/2 One Red Thread - Clint’s pov.

Ghosts that we knew - Clint/Nat - aftermath of the avengers. Natasha navigating the world when Clint safewords out. 15/?? Unfinished.

How the day sounds - Clint/Nat - thanksgiving throughout the years -     14/15 (?fluffy)

You were a kindness - Clint/Nat - a perfect look at the trauma of being brought in. Let herself be nothing but a branch. Let herself be nothing but stardust. Stardust could not be hurt. Stardust could not be used. Stardust could not be held.    1/1

Crashing, understanding, blinding, tumbling - Nat/Tony - plane crashes - tony takes care of Natasha whilst blinded -    1/1

Two plus two is five - Clint/Nat - how do you test a concussion? Two plus two is five in large quantities of two.   1/1

Into the dark (song fic) - team after harrowing mission watch Clint and Natasha dance - 1/1

The ocean carry you home - team- pepper is pregnant, Natasha doesn’t cope well with the news. Yellow blue bus.    1/1

Enigma731 @enigma731

Something just like this - Clint/Nat - Clint is depressed. Natasha doesn’t know how to help.    1/1

Going to the Chapel. Clint/Nat - get married in Budapest and have sex.

September - Tony/Nat bonding - Tony makes a memory machine to cure ptsd, Natasha helps.   1/1

Everything Costs - Clint/Nat- Natasha keeps getting hurt on missions, Clint wants to know why.  1/1

That’s way you showed me (I wasn’t quite so alone) - Clint/Nat - 3 christmas’ -    1/1

Prompts (some lovely short 1 shorts) - team assorted -   13/?

It starts with Time - Natasha - Natasha goes looking for her family -   1/1

The war I can’t win - Natasha/Clint - Clint gets injured. Natasha is his support.  1/1 (it mentions Occupational Therapy this is a winner)

We are not shining stars - Natasha/Laura + Clint - Clint dies (fair warning) it’s all Natasha can do to cope.    1/1

Unpack your heart - Clint/Nat - in the beginning they left post it notes -   1/1

Hearts and Bones and Blood - Natasha/Clint - Clint saves Natasha from mental health services when she first comes to shield. Because sometimes she gets lost in her own head.

What Girls are Made of - Nat/team - 5x Natasha has unconventional means of flying.    1/1

Ghost Towns - Clint/Nat - Natasha has memories implanted in her head, shield medical and Clint try to help.   1/1

The glass parade - Steve /Natasha - he watches her become different people.  1/1

Slipsthrufingers

Cleanliness Is Next To… - Nat/Clint- Or Five Memorable Showers Clint Barton and Natasha Have Had, and One Time There Was a Bath Instead. -  1/1

The more you know - Clint/Nat - this is what they learn first (or Natasha is not what is written in her file) -  1/1

Perspectives - Nat/team - perspective and interpretations; what do you see?

OracleGlass

safe as houses - Clint/Nat - what makes them go to a nonshield safehouse?

The clutch of circumstance - Clint/Nat- he helps her start. 1/1

Ranni

Voluntary Procedure - Clint and Natasha agree to be mind wiped. The others are not happy - Clint/Nat/Team 6/6

Stronghold - Natasha and Clint shut down their various safehouse. Clint/Nat (team) 1/1

Spy Vs Spy (recced by Anon) - Clint & Coulson & Natasha - Natasha Romanov was the most beautiful person in the room and nobody asked her to dance. 2/2

Paperairplanesopenwindows @paperairplanesopenwindows

On the first day of Christmas - Clint/Nat/Laura- Laura wants to celebrate, Clint and Nat aren’t so sure - 1/1

A little to the left - Clint/Nat/Laura - she’s Natasha but a little to the left (POST ENDGAME) -   4/4

Family Togetherness Time - Clint/Nat/Laura - Steve gets concerned about Nat and turns to the people he thinks can help. 3/3

Eauline

In every lifetime I choose you - Nat/Steve - Natasha gets captured to get to Steve. 11/11

MillyVeil

Burn baby, burn. Clint/Nat - Clint saves Natasha from heatstroke. 1/1

Teamwork - Clint/Nat - fuck or die, Clint’s not ok but Natasha is. He doesn’t understand. -   2/2

Other people - Clint/Nat- she’s up for some monkey sex until she’s not.    2/2

altheterrible @altheterrible

Shining white in the sun - Natasha - Clint dies, Natasha tries to cope. She doesn’t do it very well. 7/7

tastes - team - different tastes in points in time - 1/1

strix_alba

places to go, people to be- Natasha - Natasha gets to decide who she really is after the fall of shield 1/1

[miss-kittys-magical-library]

Don't Leave Me This Way

Warnings- angst, marital spats, language, a hint of spice

A/N- After a decade together, Honey and Leon have come undone. But on the anniversary of the day their lives changed, Leon decides to mend that. For @forenschik

Part One:

Honey was, in a word, incensed. That Leon would even think about the two of them going out on a weekday bothered her. Then again, at this point in their busy lives going out on ANY day bothered her. But that, Leon told her, was the problem. It was eat, sleep, work, kids, eat, sleep, work, OCCASIONALLY have sex. Throw in Sunny’s growing powers and the odd alternate universe traveller for good measure. That was the rhythm of married life she responded rather dismissively.

Leon took the club scheduling book out of Honey’s hand and held it high above his head where he knew Honey couldn’t fathom reaching it. “How about fuck off with this rhythm of life.”

“LEON!” Honey both whined and raised her voice at her husband as she scrambled to her feet and attempted to climb him. When that didn’t work, and he simply laughed at her and held the book higher, she stood on the desk chair. “How about you go fuck yourself?”

Leon threw the date book. Honey jumped to go after it, but he blocked her move. He held her tight in his arms so she was made to stand still. “Fuck’s sake, I was asking for a date. Now I’m telling you. You’re gonna go upstairs and get ready and put on that sexy purple dress. I’ve packed up The Littles. We’re taking them to your parents, and then we are going to that Italian restaurant you love on Mulberry Street. Then we’re coming home, and you’re getting a right good seeing to.” Before she could protest Leon clamped his hand over her mouth, “Now.”

Honey shockingly obeyed her husband. Her face crimson with anger as she held her chin in the air, arms crossed in front of her chest before throwing up the double finger. In the shower she realized something. It had been so long, and their lives were so busy, that Honey couldn’t discern being mad from being turned on. A lump formed in her throat because she was ashamed. Or disappointed? When was she ever NOT enamored by Leon? Maybe this date was exactly what they needed.

---

“I don't know, I think we should maybe homeschool Sunny. He's not going to have a handle on anything until he's come to the end of what he can do. Maybe we can communally teach him? Selina is fine, she always will be. She could use other normal kids. I think she and Sun are too dependent on each other. They're only six and seven. Usually that level of codependency comes later in life. Like you and Jonathan. I don't know, what do you think?”

Leon watched as his wife took her first breath since their dinners arrived. She swallowed most of her wine before chasing a tortellini around her plate. Her head in one hand like an insolent child instead of a woman in her thirties. Honey looked at Leon expectedly. He took a breath of his own, but she interjected just as he was about to speak.

“They might resent us if we separate though. Sunny needs to feel as normal as possible. They're in Montessori school, so all those kids are bound to be a little strange too. I guess if they were homeschooled you would have to cut back on your classes, and we would have to scale back on bookings.”

Leon clenched his jaw between sips of his bourbon. He stabbed at his dinner, chewed and swallowed while simmering. He sat back with the expectancy that Honey would continue, uninterrupted the same way she had for the last decade. He could feel the simmer start to boil just below the surface while, sure enough, she kept on.

“Punk is just taking off. I know CBGB is where it's at, but Hilly’s been a mensch sending us Patti, Debbie and The Ramones. I know we're still stuck in folk, but I REALLY think it can turn around into rock. There's this outrageous glam or metal or whatever band from LA. Oh! Did you get to hear that demo from the Irish band? Klaus said they're like, one of the biggest bands in the world. I don't know if that would be in our timeline too, but he's onto something. Get in while we can. But who wears sunglass-”

“αρκετά!!” Leon yelled. ENOUGH!

He banged a fist on the table which drew attention from nearby diners. His nostrils flared with anger and embarrassment. While the outburst mortified Leon, he also wouldn't take it back. It was his only means of getting Honey’s attention. And it did.

She sat back with her arms crossed. One eyebrow arched in challenge. Honey was no shrinking violet. She did tend to her grudges like a little garden. If she had to add Leon to it for a little while, so mote it be.

Leon’s face softened, his shoulders sank while he bit into his lip. Then he sat up straight, an air of defiance about him. Before she knew what was happening, Leon slid Honey around the booth with ease so that they sat side by side. He made a bold move when his wife turned away from him.

Leon snuck a hand inside of Honey’s bare thighs. He knew her. Knew she wouldn't be wearing any panties. It wasn't even meant as a tease. She just couldn't with this particular dress. He took advantage of that.

Letting two of his fingers delve inside of his wife, Leon slid them as painfully slow as possible. Her body reacted. It became instantaneously wet allowing him to slip in with ease. He continued in Italian.

“Tesoro mio, non stai zitto da dieci anni. Hai chiesto la mia opinione e io ne ho una.” His fingers pumped faster. One found her clit for a brief moment before abandoning it “Ora sii una brava moglie e lasciami dire la mia.”

My sweet, you haven't shut the fuck up in ten years. You asked for my opinion, and I have one. Now be a good wife and let me have my say.

Honey swallowed oxygen and choked on it. Her heart pounded in places she forgot carried a beat for the man beside her. Her hips shifted forward while she spread her legs to accommodate Leon.

“I'm.. sorry..” her breath came out choppy. “What.. what do you think?”

Leon removed his fingers and draped his arm along Honey’s shoulders. It curled around her neck but with a gentleness. All of the anger dissipated seeing his wife submit to him so easily. That sexual reminder he had as much agency in this marriage as she did.

“I think,” Leon lifted Honey’s chin so her face drew closer. Instead of her lips he kissed her forehead and caught her gaze, “It's time to send the Littles away without us.”

Honey inhaled ready to release a protest. Leon clamped a hand over her mouth. “For longer than a few days at the lake. Or a weekend down at the shore with your sister's kids. Or overnight at your parents place. It's time Yía Yía takes them to Greece.”

Leon felt his wife’s body start to tense. He knew she was processing what he had to say but was prepared to fight him every step of the way. He kept on, “We can take the kids to London, stay a day or two. Then the two of us are going away together for the first time. Not a weekend here. Or a day there. PROPER vacationing just us.”

“We-”

He cut Honey off with a kiss this time. “We can afford to close the club for a while. I love you, and I bloody love our kids. The three of you are my whole fucking world. Don’t you think we’ve gotten a bit lost? It hasn’t been just us since the 60s. You don’t even know what day it is, do you?”

Honey blanked. Her eyebrows knit together as her brain searched back through time to what she may have missed. Why a random day at the end of August was so important. Leon stared at his wife, willing her to remember. He knew she maybe just took it for granted that this instance had always been there. Neither could remember a time when it wasn’t.

Honey’s body deflated. “Oh, Leon.” Hot tears sprang to her eyes which she angrily wiped away. “When HAVEN’T I loved you? I don’t think I was ever able to boil it down to our last time away together. Has it really been ten years? I always thought the moment I saw you was the moment I fell in love. I held you at bay didn’t I?”

Leon used his thumbs to brush the tears away from her cheeks. One traced along her bottom lip before he pushed her hair off her shoulder to kiss it.

"Gracie, look at me." He lifted her chin again so their eyes met. She sniffled. "I think you know that little bits of me and you could scatter across the cosmos, and we would always find one another. It's why we need to get away, the two of us. C'mon, wanna go for a walk?

He stood, laid more money down than necessary, and reached for Honey's hand. She took it but rebuffed the rest, "Leon, it's midnight. It's the hottest summer on record. And someone is murdering women with dark hair and their lovers."

"So?!" She frowned. "Oh bugger off!" he teased. "Klaus said his name's David Berkowitz, and he never goes outside of Queens. I just want to hold my missus's hand and walk beside her a little while. That's all."

How could Honey resist?

Part 2 coming next week 💋

@elliethesuperfruitlover @magic-multicolored-miracle @maerenee930 @nightmonsters @neuroticpuppy @firstpersonnarrator @frogs--are--bitches @rob-private @bisexualnathanyoung @super-unpredictable98 @messengeronthemoon @a-ghoulish-tale @love-is-dirty-baby @vonkimmeren @duck-noises @feed-davis-and-steve @ghouls-buddy

[softest-epilogue]

wakanda stucky headcanons? 🥺🤲

ooooh my absolute favorite 🥺 okay so

1. I like to think Bucky wasn’t in cryo for that long, but when he was Steve refused to leave until eventually Shuri got tired of his moping and made t’challa find him some missions (nomad Steve time!) but when he’d go on them he was super distracted and honestly brutal. no one really talks about those few months ��� Nat knows what happened, always watching from afar and making sure the media didn’t get a hold of news about captain america burning hydra bases to the ground with people still in them.

2. when Bucky gets out of cryo and they’re settling in, and they’re in their little hut — their favorite time of day is mornings. they wake up just before the sun rises, lazily kissing in bed and make some tea or coffee (tea reminds Steve of Sarah, so he drinks it sometimes) and sitting outside listening to the sounds of the forest and the birds and the goats, the sounds of this now familiar foreign land coming to life before them. they haven’t really said a word to each other, but they don’t need to.

3. I like to think there’s a waterfall and creek somewhere they can swim in and they go in the afternoons. covered by trees and plants, they swim naked and talk about the bath house in Coney Island they used to go to and marvel at the beauty around them. Bucky, who’s finally free, finally at a place of peace able to get back to himself, being the little shit that he is, daring Steve to jump from the top of the cliff into the swimming hole and of course Steve does and Bucky — even though he dared him to — realized he was scared the whole time and swam over to him, faking like he wasn’t checking for injuries when he ran his hands all along Steve’s body. they definitely fucked in the water after that.

4. Bucky adores the animals. Steve adores Bucky. so he’ll watch Bucky feeding the goats and then sit down on the ground and let the baby hop into his lap and the mama goat try to climb up his back and nibble at his hair in a loose bun at the top of this head. Bucky is giggling and he’d lie and say he wasn’t if you ever asked, but Steve secretly took a video and watches it when he’s sad sometimes.

5. of course there’s bad days. there’s nightmares had by both of them. there’s times Steve is talking about something from the past and Bucky gets that distant look in his eye because he doesn’t remember. they’re gentle with each other always, but especially on those days. those are the times for laying in bed and Steve sending a message off to one of the locals they’ve become friends with who watches the goats as well that they won’t be able to that day. sometimes they don’t say a single word and other times they need to keep talking. telling stories of the future, Steve talking about Nat and Sam, about the friendship they’ve built. talking about the technology and movies he’s seen and books he’s read and how ridiculous it is that people think of him as a conservative. other times they’ll talk of the past, sharing memories — whatever Bucky can hold on to that day, and talking about their old friend groups, the secret gay clubs they’d frequent and their sweet old lady neighbor and the cats they used to try to feed as kids. Steve would hum Irish folk music to help Bucky sleep, and Bucky would softly sing a Hebrew song he just remembered and they’d maybe silently cry but it’s healing and that’s all that matters.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

nickname anon here! thank you for answering my first ask! the yiddish and hebrew petnames are so sweet 😭 but yes i’d love to hear your thoughts on petnames for alpine!

I'm glad you like them! my sabbath lantern has me in a strangle-hold

Nicknames Steve and Bucky have for Alpine

al

baby

princess

little matzoh ball

latke

sheifale (yiddish word meaning 'lamb' that's used as an endearment)

bubbeleh (yiddish endearment similar to 'sweetie'/'little doll' ect, mostly used for babies and children)

ketzeleh (yiddish word meaning 'little kitten' that's used as an endearment)

neshomenyu (yiddish for 'little soul')

biti (hebrew for 'my daughter')

puisín (pronounced: pusheen | irish word meaning 'little cat'/'kitten')

albho (pronounced: alvah | irish word meaning 'white')

aili (irish word meaning 'light')

[elvirasemporium]

https://ebay.com/usr/elvirablanton

[merciresolution]

IT’S WHALE TIME

HERE WE GO, BOIS, IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT WHY TOAD AND THE WHALE WOULDN’T WORK IRL LMFAO LET’S GOOOOO

So I know this episode came out years ago, but it’s been on my mind lately. I’ve always wanted to talk about why it’s super unrealistic

But this show itself is unrealistic lmao and I didn’t wanna seem hyper critical of it or anything. This is just for funsies and a chance for me to talk about WHALES

SO LET’S BEGIN!!!!!

So the episode starts. A minute in, Toad sees a beached whale, but no one believes him at first. Let’s ignore that part and talk about the whale itself!!!

It ain’t a Blue Whale, that’s for sure. Thing’s too small! And the markings don’t really match up. Imo it kinda doesn’t look like any whale species I’m familiar with, but for the sake of giving it a species, let’s call it a Minke Whale. Minkes do live in the Irish Sea (where the Island of Sodor is located), plus this thing kinda has faint flipper mittens! Very faint.

Photo Link

So let’s call it a Minke. A Minke Whale washed ashore. It’s not having a good day, clearly. People gather around it, the Search and Rescue Center is alerted, y’know, standard stuff.

Also Duck yelled at Toad, how dare you, sir?????? Let the bab sing.

They givin’ that baby lots of attention. BUT ALSO Why are you bringing trains of water? Why are you bringing fire engines? Why not just... Bucket the sea water to the whale? Surely that’d... Cost less? Probably be more efficient?

BUT IT’S TRAIN SHOW. I’ll forgive it for wanting to add trains.

So Butch comes along with the intent of dragging the whale back to the sea, but Harold says the tide is too far out. YES! This is a real issue that happens when it comes to rescuing stranded cetaceans. Their bodies are so heavy, they can’t really support their own weight on land. So to DRAG IT back to the ocean would probably kill it.

Good job, train show!

But also what were you planning on hooking up to, Butch? 

MOVING ON!!!

The workers cover the whale to protect it from the sun. Another yes! Beached cetaceans are very susceptible to sunburns, so they are often covered with towels and such if rescuing them takes a while. (Also I’m pretty sure the fabric holds in water, thus assisting in keeping the whale moist, so double good!)

© Steve Everts

But uh, after covering the whale they uh spray it with... fire hoses....???

Yeah I don’t think that’s... The greatest plan. The whale still needs to breathe. (Good job, show, for not covering the whale’s blowhole with the towel!!) That might also stress the whale out? I know some cetaceans enjoy being sprayed with pressurized water, but... Not when they’re beached... 

BUT THEY GOTTA USE THE TRAINS IN TRAIN SHOW. SO I CAN FORGIVE, AGAIN.

So Oliver says the whale can swim away when the tide comes back in. Yup, that’s pretty much how these things go! It’s kinda hard to move an animal that can weigh, in this case, up to 10 tons. But high tide won’t be for hours, and Toad wants the whale rescued now. Understandable! So he comes up with a plan to pick the whale up and bring it to the docks, where the water is deeper! 

u h

Well. Some whales have been lifted and brought back into the ocean. Exhibit A. But... They plan on putting it on a train. And... Taking it to Brendam. From Bluff’s Cove. How far away is that, again?

...oh.

Yeah, that, uh.... That- that might be an issue, Toad. BUT THEY GO WITH IT ANYWAYS! IT’S TOAD’S EPISODE!

where the fuck did you get a sling that big how did you get it underneath the whale

what

Also... That poor thing’s pectoral fins are being crushed???? Here’s what a whale in a sling looks like:

©  The Press Association

From what I remember in the documentary Born to be Free, a Beluga was lifted in a stretcher without holes for its pectoral fins, and its shoulders risked being broken. (I think another one’s actually were broken? Like, during a capture. I’d have to go back and look.) But then again, I have seen a few (and I mean like 1 or 2) rescues with slings without holes for their pecs, so I can’t really criticize too much...

but how the fuck did you get a sling that big? did you custom make it? if so, why didn’T YOU ADD HOLES--

SUDDENLY THE WHALE IS HERE NOW, WHAT????? WHO MOVED IT CLOSER TO ROCKY???

That’s just an inconsistency error than a realism issue lmfao

So they load the whale onto a flatbed, and Toad starts singing to it to soothe it along the ride.

Whales do sing to each other. But Minkes don’t sound like what you’d think a whale should sound like. (My personal favorite is the “Star-Wars” vocalization.) But let Toad sing. I’ll allow it because it’s Toad. Plus he’s singing so softly, he loves his new friend so much already

Strangely enough, the whale survives the trek.

And Cranky lifts it up and into the water of the docks. The... Noisy... Polluted... Docks... Whales are very acoustic creatures. Sound is a way of life for them! If this thing wasn’t disoriented already from stranding and being carried across the island to a foreign location, suddenly being tossed into the docks probably didn’t help.

THIS THING BOLTS FROM THE SLING IN LIKE 4 SECONDS FLAT, SO I GUESS IT REALLY WANTED OUTTA THERE!!!

AND GUESS WHAT, SKIPPIES???

It swims away and waves goodbye to Toad c:

IN CONCLUSION the whale should have died. stress should have killed it.

BUT this show is fictional. it’s fun, it’s cute, the story was sweet, toad is baby

and i did this just to scream about a whale

and i’m still very happy a whale was in a ttte episode thank you, season 19

BUT TO BE ACTUALLY SERIOUS FOR A SECOND

If you do spot a stranded animal, please don’t try to push or carry it back into the water. There could be something wrong with it. It could be very sick and disoriented, and if you push it back into the water, it would likely just restrand itself.

Instead, contact a local marine mammal rescue center! Sometimes animals just need to spend a little time in human care to recover, then they can be released, good as new!

THIS HAS BEEN AN EDUCATIONAL MOMENT WITH MERCIRESOLUTION.

THANK YOU FOR READING

AND IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, I LOVE YOU. Have a heckin’ good day.

[thxngam]

Hi! can you do 22 or 28 stucky with pre serum steve? Thank you soo much!!

I’m sure this isn’t what you thought of because I misread the prompt and thought it said “miserable person at their wedding” but...if you don’t mind, here ya go! I will also do 28 btw and it’ll be out next. Also if you do t like this just let me know.

#22, miserable people at a wedding au

“I hate her.”

“Doll,” Bucky tries.

“Nope,” Steve says, popping the p. “I hate her, I have always hated her, and I don’t know why we invited her in the first place.”

Bucky says nothing.

“See, even you, sweet tongue, don’t like her.”

“Sweet tongue?” Bucky asks amusedly, pressing a kiss behind his ear, grazing his newly marked up bond mark with his teeth. Steve shivers, mewling softly, soft enough that nobody should hear it. Bucky tugs him closer possessively anyway. “You sure do like the things I can do with it.”

Steve smacks his arm, scandalized. “Stop it,” he hisses, sure his Irish complexion is giving him away. “Your grandparents are here. My grandparents are here.”

Bucky laughs, but his smile falters when he presses his nose to Steve’s neck in retaliation. “Sweetie,” Bucky starts cautiously. Steve hates that tone of voice. “How are you feeling?”

Steve shrugs, even though it is a little listless. Truth be told, he’s not having such a great time. His wedding is supposed to be filled with magic and joy and being surrounded by the people he loves, but mostly it’s filled with people from high school that Steve is regretting inviting and his snobby extended family. Even his mother looks a little withdrawn, though her face lights up like a Christmas Tree whenever she catches sight of him. “Fine.”

“Fine is not such a great thing to be feeling on someone’s wedding day,” Bucky murmurs, softly mouthing at his bond mark. Though everyone is giving them a wide berth, Steve flushes at the PDA. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“It’s-it’s,” Steve’s humiliated to say tears are pricking his eyes. “We spent so much in wedding planning, and-and it’s too hot, and half the people here are so-so backhanded that I wish I could kick them out and I can’t get drunk on my meds and honestly I’m too tired to even think about consummating our marriage—“

“Baby, baby,” Bucky coos. Steve adores him for trying to console him. “Sh, sweetheart.”

“Sorry, and I know it’s supposed to be a magical experience for you and I just ruined it—“

“Baby, you didn’t ruin anything.”

Steve hiccups. He pauses. Bucky doesn’t lie to him. “I didn’t?”

“No! Aw baby. The only part of this wedding that I was really looking forward to was the part where I got to put a ring on you and let the whole world know that I have loved you since I knew what love was and that I was never going to stop. The rest was just extra, formalities.” Bucky looks so adoring, so soft and sweet that Steve can’t help but kiss him, chaste but loving.

Steve wipes his eyes. “I liked the ceremony,” he does say, stroking a hand over Bucky’s shoulder, fingering his suit idly. “I liked that I could profess my love to you and cry all I wanted and nobody would think it was ever anything but cute.”

Bucky snorts and runs his thumbs purposefully over Steve’s scent glands. “I liked that too. You looked beautiful.” Bucky has an expression of far-away, though it happened not hours ago. “The most beautiful person I have ever seen.”

Bucky’s fingers curl teasingly against the most sensitive part of his anatomy, and Steve can’t decide whether or not he wants to press closer to Bucky’s fingers on his neck or away, thoroughly distracted. Steve whimpers, glaring weakly, albeit thorough half-lidded eyes. “Stop,” he whines. “You’re gonna make me drop to my knees in front of my mom. Jerk.”

Bucky reluctantly drops his hand, curling it around Steve’s thin waist. “But it’s okay if you’re miserable here, sweetie. The ceremony was the only important thing, and even then it was more a legal, formal thing, ain’t it? You and I are mates. You have my mark on you, and I have yours on me. We got nothing to prove to anyone else about us, you understand?”

“Yeah, but...I don’t want to be miserable now,” Steve says quietly. And honestly, that upsets him more than anything. “It’s supposed to be the happiest day in my life and I’m crying in a corner.”

Bucky shrugs. “Sure. Things don’t always turn out the way we expect.”

Steve hates that it helps.

“Why don’t we go?”

Steve blinks. “We can’t just leave.”

“Why not? Everyone else’ll probably think we’re going to go fuck in our marriage bed, and they won’t question it.”

Steve frowns. “I said-“

“I know, and frankly I’m tired too. I want you in my arms and nothin else, baby.” Bucky’s smile could light up a room, but Steve is glad that it’s just lighting up for him. He’s a selfish man, but he doesn’t mind.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright, I’ll call Tony and Pep to cover and let ‘em know we’re leavin’.”

Tony’s a little tipsy, but Steve relishes the usual scent of expensive perfume and the feeling of expensive silk against his skinny arms like always. “Hi man of honor,” he mumbles into Tony’s shoulder. Tony grips him back just as tight.

“Leaving early?” Tony quips, rolling his eyes when Bucky growls softly. “Soul mates before bone mates, Bucko. I’m hugging my best friend.”

“Tony,” Pepper chides. “Be nice. It’s sweet.”

Steve grins, leaning against Tony’s shoulder when Bucky flushes red like a schoolboy being completed by his crush.

“Of course you think it’s sweet,” Tony mumbles. Steve laughs. “You growled at people for weeks after we bonded.”

Bucky gives him a Look, with capital letters.

“Um, Tony,” Steve says hurriedly. Tony will talk for hours if someone lets him, and Pepper, despite how tough she looked and sounded, was always down to let him; no matter what it was. “Bucky and I are leaving early.”

“What?” Tony looks confused, but when Steve glances over, Pepper looks understanding.

“Got to be too much?” she asks quietly.

Steve nods silently. He’s lucky to have such great friends.

Tony presses a kiss to his cheek softly. “Goodnight, I guess,” he murmurs, and though Tony is the very best friend Steve could ask for, his understanding surprises him in the best way. Tony winks and there goes the surprise, even if he’s completely wrong. “Sleep well.”

Steve rolls his eyes and hooks his hand with Bucky’s. He’ll explain to Winifred and Sarah in the morning. For now, he’s got several episodes of Forensic Files calling his name.