The gang will regret the day they taught Bucky how to use the internet. He started a blog.
Concept: Some jackass shows Bucky how to make a blog and it becomes really popular. Not because it’s the blog of James Buchanan Barnes, American Legend, War Hero, Infamous Assassin, Alleged Terrorist. Nobody even knows it’s his blog. It gets really popular because people think it’s a really great shitpost generator or something. Because Bucky is just a Weird Fucking Person and everything he posts on his fucking personal blog comes off as somewhere between dril and Jaden Smith and people are like “this is some quality garbage right here” and thus Accidental Memelord Bucky is born.
Bucky posts things like
“What is wrong with bananas. I ate a banana today and it was Wrong. America why”
“Every time I put on my eye makeup it gets bigger. My whole face is eyeliner now.”
“Why does friendship feel so much like punching”
“When I wake up in the middle of the night I am either thinking ‘who am I? does my life have meaning?’ or “did I already eat all of the plums?’”
“Why are you so grumpy” they ask me. they do not realize this is just my Face.”
“I know i said i would give my left arm for a cup of coffee but i am more awake now and i would like my arm back please”
“I guess I must have done something horrible in a past life. I mean. I definitely did something horrible in this life, so. “
But when Sam becomes the new Captain America and Bucky's lover, things get really out of hand. It's like all Bucky's TMI filters short-circuit and he feels compelled to tell everyone everything . . . .
Concept: Some jackass shows Bucky how to make a blog and it becomes really popular. Not because it’s the blog of James Buchanan Barnes, American Legend, War Hero, Infamous Assassin, Alleged Terrorist. Nobody even knows it’s his blog. It gets really popular because people think it’s a really great shitpost generator or something. Because Bucky is just a Weird Fucking Person and everything he posts on his fucking personal blog comes off as somewhere between dril and Jaden Smith and people are like “this is some quality garbage right here” and thus Accidental Memelord Bucky is born.
LIKEEE
He’ll post weird fragmented shit like:
why the hell are subway turnstiles like that now
and he’ll be like “there’s 30K notes on this but nobody answered my question what the hell” and he’ll be genuinely confused, or he’ll post something like:
cats are way too pointy they need to stop
and there’s like all this Discourse on that post about declawing and Bucky is like “what is that do they mean there’s a way to make t’challa less terrifying” and then he’ll post shit that’s way too personal like:
captain america just choked me with his cock for an hour it was great
and it gets analyzed to death because people are like “WHAT POLITICAL STATEMENT IS THIS SHITPOSING BLOG TRYING TO MAKE” and Bucky is like “no that’s just what happened it was really good” and Sam (current Cap) is like BUCKY YOU CAN’T JUST SAY THAT SHIT ON THE INTERNET IT’S NOT THEIR BUSINESS
(originally a reply to @oharecassidy but it needs to be on the main post!)
Then imagine Bucky just doubles down on everything that Sam tells him is too private.
-captain America likes when I jerk him off with my metal arm
-captain America let me give him a blow job at avengers tower last night in iron man’s lab (“Bucky I can’t believe you put that on your dumbass blog! I had to listen to Tony complain for like, an hour!”)
-“where can I buy red lingerie for my boyfriend before he gets home from his next mission?”
-“how should I tell my boyfriend that I spent $500 on lingerie for him?”
-I decided I’d eat him out for a while then tell him. I think it helped soften the blow.
-captain americas ass is so fuckign sweet in red lace you poor saps dont even KNOW “BUCKY STOP TELLING THE INTERNET ABOUT MY ASS THAT’S CREEPY”
ADDITION:
will commit further war crimes in exchange for fresh produce
And people are like “what do you mean further” or “didn’t this blog literally just reblog 50 photosets of puppies what the fuck” or “if this is a shitpost generator i think we have an I, Robot situation on our hands, y’all”
Even once he's back with Steve, Bucky still relies on his notebook diaries to help him cope with his brainwashing, PTSD and damaged memory. He doesn't want to burden Steve with his struggles and Steve has learned to wait for permission to assist him. So they often find themselves in a Catch-22 situation. Bucky's notebook diaries remain his own private battleground, as portrayed in this wonderful short graphic story by kisekiryo --
Oh, we all know that scene in CA:CW when Steve finds Bucky's memory-aid diary in Bucharest. The way Bucky has placed the rubber band means that the book will always fall open first to the photo of Captain America. Clearly he's the most important thing Bucky does not want to forget.
Why does everyone in the 107th think Bucky is queer, even before Captain America shows up? The excellent fanfic "Tete-a-tete" by Odsbodkins explores why. It also describes the real backstory behind that black-and-white newsreel footage of Steve and Bucky laughing together. You'll never look at that moment in the movie the same way again, LOL!
Excerpt:
They got Bucky and Steve lined up, camera rolling, and Joe said, “It must be strange for a couple of boys from Brooklyn to end up sleeping in a French chateau.”
And fuck, it wasn’t fair, it was less than half an hour since Steve had been fucking him through the mattress of the biggest bed he’d been in in his life, and this was all too fucking ridiculous. He couldn’t help his smile, and then made the mistake of turning to Steve as he started to try and answer, and saw Steve’s bright, shining grin. That was when he lost it, and started to laugh and couldn’t stop.
The sun was shining, the air smelled of honeysuckle, he was in love, they were outside a fucking country palace, and now some guy was filming him to be on the newsreels that everyone on their block back home was going to watch.
Every time the guy tried to ask a question, he just cracked up again, until eventually the director said, “You know, we’ll overdub it with something about childhood friends sharing a joke. At least you look actually happy, not like some of the miserable bastards we’ve got to film. Right, let’s get some shots of the bunch of you looking impressed at architecture.”
As they were rounded up, Steve whispered in Bucky’s ear, “Never been so glad I didn’t give you a hickey.”
In "Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down)," the author spitandvinegar presents Steve Rogers as a devout Catholic who attends mass several times a week and is devoted to praying and reading his Bible. [NB: My main review of this fanfic is found here].
Excerpts:
[Chapter 1] He's kneeling in the little Catholic church that's the closest there is to his apartment. It's an ugly, modern building, and he hates it, and he feels guilty for hating it. He's on his fourth rosary.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus – ” he breaks off when he notices the priest sitting in the pew next to him. He's not sure how long he's been there for. He ducks his head a little, which sends a rush of dizziness through him. “Father.”
“No, please, don't let me disturb you,” says the priest.
“I think I should probably sit down,” Steve says, and does, wincing at another wave of lightheadedness. It occurs to him that he hasn't eaten all day, and the sun has long since set.
“You're been here for a long time,” the priest says. “I don't think He'll mind if you rest a little. You know, I don't often see people your age praying the rosary, especially not in Latin.”
“I'm older than I look, Father,” Steve says, and the priest takes a look at him and gives a very small double-take. Then he smiles.
“I suppose that you are.” He pauses. “Is there anything in particular that's troubling you?”
“Yes,” Steve says. “I've already confessed about it. But it's the same thing again and again, and I don't think – I don't think I can stop. I don't think I want to.”
The priest's smile widens. “I don't imagine it could be anything too terrible, from you.”
“I'm in love with another man,” Steve says.
There's a silence.
. . . .
[Chapter 5]
After dinner Steve badgers Buck into stepping on the bathroom scale for him. 184.
Steve frowns. “How is that possible?”
“The arm,” Bucky says. “And. The bones. T-t-t-t-titanium reinforcements. Approximate weight 25 kilos.”
“Oh, Buck,” he says. Bucky doesn't say anything at all.
That night Steve orders a case of high-calorie soy-based protein shakes from the internet. They come highly recommended on a forum for vegan bodybuilders.
Then he gets down on his knees.
“Good Saint Dymphna, great wonder-worker in every affliction of mind and body, I humbly implore your powerful intercession with Jesus through Mary, the Health of the Sick, in the present need of James Buchanan Barnes for the relief of his illness. Saint Dymphna, martyr of purity, patroness of those who suffer with nervous and mental afflictions, beloved child of Jesus and Mary, pray to Them for me and obtain my request.” He takes a deep breath. Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum...”
The prayer for intercession. Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
The prayer for intercession. Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
Again.
Again.
Again –
He falls asleep on the floor next to his bed.
. . . .
[Chapter 6]
"Afternoon, good lookin'. Glad to see you've decided to join the living."
Buck glances at the clock on the bedside table, then flops backwards with a groan. "It's s-s-seven in the goddamn AM."
"I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that's when regular people wake up," Steve says. "To go to work. You know, at a job?"
"I ain't the unemployed one in this relationship, d-d-dollface. Heading off to haul crates every day, busting my ass so you can sit around on yours eating b-bon-bons and reading Ladies Home Journal."
Steve sniggers. Buck winks, then says, "So where are you t-taking that cute unemployed ass, anyhow?" He tics a little.
"Mass, Buck," Steve says. "It's Sunday. I woulda thought a working man such as yourself would know what day of the week it is."
"Oh, I know what day of the week it is, I just can't think about church without b-bleeding out the ears and screaming in Greek," Buck says and tics again, harder; the head one and a new one from this week where he shrugs his shoulders really fast. He hasn't been grunting so much for the past few days, which is a relief: Steve hates that one. Bucky says, "That was a joke, don't get all worked up."
"Well thank the Lord for that, I was about to call up Father Gary for an exorcism," Steve says and grabs his wallet off of the bedside table. "You can come with me, if you want."
"What, are you trying to get me to b-burst into flames?" Then, with a hint of warning in his voice, "You ain't getting me into the fold, Rogers. Don't bother."
Steve pauses halfway through getting his wallet into his pocket, stricken.
Steve's faith has only ever become an issue between them once, before this. It was when Steve was twelve, right before his confirmation. He was excited about it, wanted to talk about it all the time, and something he said – neither of them could remember exactly what it was, afterwards – must have sounded to Buck like “You're a dirty rotten sinner for not believing like I do.” He refused to talk to Steve for almost a week, and Steve practically went nuts trying to figure out what was wrong, until Buck came climbing up Steve's fire escape and wailed, “You're my best friend and you think I'm gonna burn.”
So they hugged and cried all over each other, even though they were old enough to know that a couple of guys shouldn't be acting like that. Steve promised that he thought Buck was the swellest guy in the world no matter what he believed in, that he didn't give a darn what Father Michael said, and that he'd never, ever say anything to make Bucky think otherwise. Buck promised Steve that he'd never up and leave Steve all alone like that again, even if they had him locked in a jail. In hindsight, Steve kind of wonders if that day – two skinny kids way too wrapped up in each other, promising to love each other more than they loved the laws of man or God – was the first step on a path that ended with them sharing a bed in 2015.
It stings, now, to know that Buck's forgotten it. That he could lose something that Steve carries so close to the bone.
"You know I wouldn't, Buck, you know I promised that I'd never push you about it, you know I don't care that you're not –"
"Hey," Bucky says. "Hey. I didn't know. I don't remember us t-talking about this before. I should've figured you'd be a fucking s-s-saint about it. Catholic pun intended, b-by the way." His accent's drifting, getting a little British or something.
. . . .
[Chapter 8]
Buck takes the cuffs off of Steve, who jerks off while Buck kisses on him and talks a lot of really filthy bullshit. Then they sponge themselves down and drag their tired old asses to bed. Steve climbs in with a book, and Buck does a double-take when he realizes what it is. “Christ, Stevie, I know you g-got some weird shit going on in that head of yours, but sucking my dick and then bringing a B-b-bible to bed is fucked up even for you.”
“Shut up,” Steve says. “It ain't like that. I just.” He grabs Buck's hand. The metal one. Buck can never figure out what the hell he gets out of holding that thing like it's an actual part of a real person. “When you were missing it was really hard to pray. I was – I was real mad at God, Buck. For bringing you to me and then taking you away again. And I tried reading the Bible to find some – some comfort, I guess. Or some kind of explanation. And I found this. And I remembered how that night when you choked me you were quoting from the Book of Job, and how you helped me memorize that when we were kids, so really it was kinda my fault that you had that stuff in your head. No, come on, don't argue, I'm not finished yet. I just wanted to read this to you. So you could have something better in your head. Because it made me feel better, and maybe it will make you feel better too, especially since you wrote me that note, and I can't – I can't put words together about that kinda thing like you can, Buck. I get really dumb about it. So, uh. Can I? Read it to you?”
This big goddamn meatball. Buck wouldn't be able to say no even if he wanted to.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says. “G-go ahead.”
Steve clears his throat, and starts to read, that big deep voice of his soft and gentle on the words.
“By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go.” [*]
Not too many fanfics deal with Steve's religion in much more than a superficial way. This one, however, deals seriously and brilliantly with his struggles concerning faith in God.
This is a wonderfully written, lengthy, full life epic of Steve 'n Bucky. It's especially interesting in its depiction of socialist and free thought in Depression-era Brooklyn, which Steve really gets into while dragging Bucky along with him. Steve's lost faith reasserts itself, however, when he is convinced that God performed a miracle by turning him into a supersoldier and allowing him to rescue Bucky. But later he turns his back on God once again when he learns of the inhumane suffering that Bucky has endured during his years as the Winter Soldier.
I'm quoting a few more excerpts than usual, just to give a sense of the author's command of Steve's spiritual progression and regression.
Excerpts:
[1934]
"You're driving me crazy with this bullshit!" Bucky shouted, slamming down a box of tinned pears in the alley behind Mr. G's grocery store.
"No, wait, listen, just listen, will you?" Steve was perched on top of a stack of crates clutching his copy of Bertrand Russell in both hands. "He says—listen—'There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in Hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.'" He looked up. "What do you think of that?"
Bucky sighed and leaned against the wall, wiping sweat from his brow with his forearm. "I don't get you, I really don't. The truth is that nobody knows anything, okay? So if nobody knows anything, why not know the best possible thing? That there's a God and we're in?"
"Because it's passive," Steve shot back. "Because everything that's ever been accomplished has been accomplished by people coming together and putting themselves out there, not just standing around waiting for some miracle to—"
. . . .
[1943]
It was one thing to pray – Steve had been praying hard ever since Bucky was drafted – but it was something else to have God answer back. Steve was terrified, ecstatic: his life had become one miracle after another. His every prayer had been answered: he'd been taken into the Army, he'd been given strength, health, purpose; the means to fight evil on earth. Even Agent Carter – he had never even imagined a woman like her, and yet here she was, like God had picked her for him—or more likely, had made him for her.
He felt the hand of God in everything, now, moving him like a chess piece on a board–-all across the United States, and then to Europe--so he was hardly even surprised when his U.S.O. show turned up at the 107th just after their defeat at Bolzano. He knew why he was there: what God had put him there to do.
. . . .
[1944]
"The whole point of faith," Bucky said, returning to his first topic, "is that there's no proof. If there's proof, then you don't need faith. If there was a God, which there's not, he wouldn't do that, which he didn't."
"I'm not going to argue with you. I was there, I know what God did. Besides," Steve added, "what about the burning bush?" and Bucky burst out laughing and said, "Who are you, Moses? You think you're Abraham, or-- I just, I can't even, the ego on you. You know, now I know there's no God, because if there was, you would burst into flame. God doesn't work like that: he doesn't make deals, and if he did, he wouldn't just make 'em with you. People are losing brothers, lovers, sons - millions are going to die in this goddamned war and you know what, Steve? They all prayed just as hard as you," and later, when Bucky died--
When Bucky died
When Bucky died, Steve remembered how he'd said that God doesn't work like that. And Bucky was right, of course: you couldn't bargain with God, there was no deal to be made. Man proposes, God disposes. God had given him Bucky, and God had taken him back. Steve understood now: if God had given him this body, this mission, it was for God's own unknowable purpose. Steve's only duty was to be humble, and to serve.
Steve went to church, and then he went to the pub and sat in the ruins and drank a bottle of whisky that he couldn't feel until Peggy came and got him. And then there was only the mission: going after Schmidt, fighting until every member of Hydra was dead or captured. And it wasn't until he was on the plane, nose-diving into the Arctic with enough atomic bombs to blow up the entire eastern seaboard, that Steve realized that God had given him a last gift and answered his final prayer: just please, don't let Bucky get killed, or let me go with him, let me get killed, too. He'd only had to survive ten days without Bucky.
God had given Steve everything he'd ever asked for. He died grateful.
....
[2014]
Steve read the file Natasha got for him: read about the surgeries, the mechanical arm, the cryo-freeze, the mind-wipes and electroshocks. He read coldly written mission reports about the asset: what the asset had accomplished; what damage the asset had sustained; where the asset should next be deployed. Then Steve went down to the S.H.I.E.L.D. gymnasium to go a few rounds with the heavy bag, and when it split open he just kept going, and when the reinforcements snapped he just kept going, and he kept going until he heard Sam whistle and say, in that calm, lazy way he had: "Man, your arms are too short to box with God."
Steve looked up, hair and clothes drenched with sweat, and saw that he'd destroyed that whole corner of the gymnasium: there was broken glass and wrenched metal everywhere. Through a fragment of broken mirror, he saw a number of S.H.I.E.L.D. and C.I.A. agents huddled nervously together in the hallway; he later learned that one of them had called Natasha, and Natasha had taken one look into the gymnasium and told Sam Wilson to get his ass over here, stat. He looked over at them and they scuttled away, frightened.
"Fuck God," Steve said, ripping the tape off his boxing gloves with his teeth. "They beat him like a dog, Sam. Did you read it? What they did to him? Everything they--they beat him like a dog, Sam." I’m not a good dog, Bucky'd written to him, five minutes ago, a million years ago. But they'd made him one anyway.
"God didn't do it," Sam said.
"God didn't stop it," Steve snarled. "What kind of God wouldn't stop it? Is it a joke? Is this a reward or a punishment – give me what I've prayed for, but it's this? What am I supposed to take away from this?"
"Why the hell is this about you?" Sam asked him. "I thought it happened to him," and Steve lost it then, pressed his shoulder against the cracked mirror and sobbed silently until he could get control of himself.
. . . .
"Bucky," Steve said, agonized.
"Shut up," Bucky said. "Please just fucking shut up. Don't tell me we're going tomake this right. Or that thingshappen for a reason. And don't you dare tell me that God made you Captain America to save me, because then I have to believe that you think God threw me down the shitter just to teach you a lesson about—about--"
"Humility," Steve croaked.
"Humility!" Bucky shouted, outraged, furious, and then he was laughing. "The nerve of you—I could beat you to death with your own shield.Humility, he says. You fucking— You think God loves you more than me? Or Dr. Wilkinson, who bled out onto the sidewalk, who I can't fix, who nobody can fix?" His head dropped into his hands. "Fuck, I miss Steve. Goddammit! Goddamn you!—you took him from me and he was all I had!" Bucky's face was twisted in pain. "I want Steve back. What would Steve tell me?"
Steve heard himself answering. "He'd tell you there's no meaning in this. No lesson. It's just what happened to us." He had Bucky's full attention now; Bucky was nodding at him. "And that life's hard enough--"
"-- without lies on top of it," Bucky said distantly.
One of the best and most accomplished fanfics that I have read to date is the 3-part series by spitandvinegar called "Ain't No Grave." The work is open to AO3 members only. Part 2 of the series contains the main story in 10 chapters and is the one discussed in this post.
"Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down)" by spitandvinegar -- Bucky is in rough, rough shape after he escapes from Hydra. Brain injured, plagued by physical tics, stammering and inexplicable outbursts of Russian or other foreign languages, he's also hooked on heroin as he self-medicates his unendurable pain. He makes tentative contact with Steve and begins a long and chaotic healing process.
The author is a skilled and talented writer, with an amazing ear for snappy dialogue. She expertly contrasts the different characteristics of Bucky as he oscillates between his various identities. Despite all the pain in the story, there are also moments of great levity, humour and some charming secondary characters, like the Goddamn Kids and Huang Fumei, the old Chinese woman who owns the dollar store where Bucky works doing odd jobs.
Excerpts:
[Chapter 1] It's six in the morning, and Steve is heading out on a run when he nearly trips over a bouquet of sunflowers on the front steps of his brownstone.
For a second paranoia takes over, and he kicks the flowers a little, waiting for them to explode. They don't. They also came with a card, which he picks up. The front of the card has a tasteful picture of the Brooklyn bridge at sunset. It's very nice and sedate, like the kind of card you would buy to give to your boss. On the inside someone has written a short message in big, shaky block letters.
I AM SORRY FOR SHOOTING YOU.
Steve sits down hard on the steps.
. . . .
[Chaper 5]
John is a good employee. He works hard with no breaks, and he doesn't steal cigarettes or cough medicine from behind the counter, and he doesn't do any dope in the dollar store. He does get upset and go in the back room to shake for a while sometimes, or forget how to speak any language but Russian other times, but that's ok. No customers can see him in the back room, and he doesn't need to talk to put things onto the shelves. He does need to eat, though, so she makes extra zhou in the crockpot in the back room every morning so that they can have it for lunch. They understand each other, because both of them have bad teeth.
Then one day a cop comes looking for him.
He's not in uniform, but she can tell that he's a cop. He stands like a cop and walks like a cop, and he looks around the dollar store with sharp eyes like he's looking for someone to arrest. He's a big good-looking blond-haired man, like the kind of cop that they put in posters with a black cop and a woman cop with words saying that they're your friends and won't shoot you.
Huang Fumei doesn't like cops. They're always arresting her customers, and that's bad for business.
He pretends that he is looking at shampoo. She says, “Today is special offer on Suave brand, buy one get one free.”
He looks interested.
Then he says, “I, um, I'm looking for a guy who works here. John? Is he here?”
She says, “Are you here to arrest him, or is he a snitch?”
He blinks. “I was planning on taking him out for lunch. He said he has a break at two.”
He's a snitch.
“He never takes it,” she says. “He's a good employee.” Then she shouts toward the back room in Chinese. “John! There's a man here who says he is taking you to lunch and won't arrest you!”
John comes out of the back room. He says, “Hey.”
The cop smiles at him. It's a big, happy smile. He says, “Hey, Buck. Ready to go?”
This cop is gay for his snitch. That's no good for him at all. He could lose his job. Then they would have to find a new cop to put on the posters.
John smiles back at him. He says, “Yeah, just l-l-l-let me get my jacket, champ.”
This cop and this junkie are gay for each other.
When John gets back from his date she says, “You are gay for that cop. That's ok. Huang Ayi is a modern person. I don't care if my employees are gays. But when his other cop friends come to arrest you, make sure they don't arrest you in the dollar store. That's bad for business.”
. . . .
[Chapter 6] Steve says, “Don't apologize,” and cards his fingers into Bucky's hair. Buck gives a surprised little groan of pleasure, then wraps his metal hand around the back of Steve's neck to haul him in for a kiss. He's touching himself too, now, jerking himself off with his human hand, and the sight and sound of it sends dizzy shocks through Steve's whole body. Bucky breaks the kiss, presses their foreheads together.
“Sweetheart,” he says. “My guy, my gorgeous little guy with his smart f-fucking mouth, Christ, such a fucking idiot I was, saying no to you. Used to think about c-coming home and pulling you into my lap, such a p-perfect fucking armful you were, tough as fucking nails, would have taken it so good for me, honey, would've been so good to you, taken such good care of you, fucked you so sweet, given you what you needed, would've made you moan for me, sweetheart. You haven't fucking changed, haven't changed a goddamn b-b-bit where it counts, babydoll. You know who takes care of you, sweetheart?”
“You,” Steve says, and when he talks it's 1939. “You do, Buck, ain't no one else, swear to God, never been no one else I wanted for a minute like I want you, never a minute, I'll do whatever you want, Buck, cook and sew for you, shine your shoes, be on my knees for you when you get home, just tell me, tell me you want me and you got me – ”
“Jesus Christ,” Buck says and then they're kissing again, sloppy and desperate, and Steve comes, and Bucky follows not long after.
