recs and links

Bucky gets some terrible advice about dating in the future. Also, there's a prank war. This is totally adorable.

Companion story to Oasis, in which Bucky gets heat stroke. Aw, Bucky.

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Bucky comes back to himself - and to Steve - via the sacrament of reconciliation. SO PERFECT. I haven't been inside a confessional since 1988 and this brought it all back perfectly. Highly recommended, even if you're not Catholic.

please watch in HD Fandom: Captain America inspired by part 1 of "2013 Movie Trailer Mashup" by The Sleepy Skunk I own nothing

Bucky realizes he wants to have sex with Steve even if he can't quite find the words to say it. This is lovely and hot.

Lovely au where Steve's an art student and Bucky is a life drawing model and Steve pines a lot.

“It’s funny. Here I am, afraid that I’m selfish for keeping you cooped up here just because I want you around, and there you are, afraid that I’m gonna kick you out the first chance I get. That’s funny, right?” “Not really.” “Yeah,” Steve says. “Guess not.” [...] “It’s not even funny in an O. Henry short-story twist kind of way?” Steve asks after a minute. Lovely post-Winter Soldier Steve/Bucky.

Bucky emailed her a price estimate with an incredibly detailed spreadsheet attached. He'd included everything from the websites where he'd done his virtual plant shopping to the approximate lengths of time it would take to get various aspects of the project delivered and installed. His singlemindedness was either impressive or terrifying. On the other hand, what did he really have to do all day? Unlike some of the Avengers -- Bruce, say -- he didn't have specific projects to keep him busy, at least none that she knew about. Pepper wondered if he had anything to do other than work out and watch Netflix. For someone whose life, as she understood it, had been entirely goal-focused with absolutely no free time for a very long while, that must be a strange adjustment. Maybe he'd been craving someone to give him a mission, even if the mission was "gardening". Pepper gets Bucky involved in creating a rooftop garden. Oh heart.

Steve gets Bucky a dog. Bucky is a troll. Sam finds the whole thing hilarious. This is adorable.

“What do you want to do?” Steve asked him on the morning of the third day. Bucky’s mind went horribly blank. “What’d I used to do?” “Um.” Steve seemed taken aback by the question. He frowned thoughtfully and scratched his head. “Go dancing. Go to the pictures. Work. Play cards. Listen to radio shows. Play darts with some guys from the neighbourhood. Go on adventures—” “Adventures?” Bucky interrupted. “That’s what you called them.” “What’d you call them?” “Getting me into trouble,” Steve said wryly. Bucky makes his way back to himself, and to Steve.

Bucky deals with his recovery. Heartbreaking but not without hope.

lists of tag ID numbers on AO3 for filtering purposes.

Enjoyably schmoopy recovery for Bucky, with nice interactions between the rest of the Avengers as well.

Adorable story in which Bucky teaches Steve how to dance.

When Bucky and Natasha get together, they try to find Steve the same kind of happiness, but it doesn't seem to work. Steve tries not to feel left out. For two master spy-assassins, they are pretty oblivious. They get clued in eventually, though. Adorable.

Pepper hires Bucky as her new PA/Bodyguard. Oh heart.

Don't be sore with me, Steve. I thought about nothing but this for the past two weeks, ever since we got the news out of Pearl Harbor. I kept my mouth shut while you went down to the recruitment office over and over, but the fact of the matter is, you're not built for the army. That don't make you less than me, though. They need you here too. Who else is going to make all the posters that'll get the boys to sign up? You're going to get a thousand guys into the Army with those drawings of yours, I would bet on it. You got to keep making beautiful things, Steve. Or else what the hell is it all for? really lovely epistolary fic featuring Steve and Bucky's letters to each other from childhood through the war. *sniffle*

Bucky knows it's going to be a bad one when Steve wakes up again, lifts his head up from the side of Bucky's fancy electric hospital bed, and says, "Now don't get mad until I explain." Steve tells the nurses he and Bucky are married so they'll release medical information to him. Then he has to tell Bucky when he wakes up. Aw, this is adorable.

Steve is the head speechwriter and Peggy's the campaign director on the Potts/Wilson campaign. Oh yes.

Bucky likes a lot of things about the future. Aw, Buck.

Steve and Bucky reunite with the younger Barnes siblings. Oh my heart. *sniffle*

Bucky and Natasha have a thing and Steve is totally okay with that and not feeling left out at all. This is darling and hilarious. Oh Steve.

During a fight against prehistoric creatures, Steve gets flung back in time to WWII. Now that he knows how things turn out, he's determined to save Bucky from becoming the Winter Soldier, and to take his chances with Peggy. Long, twisty, enjoyable story.

It happens at the Smithsonian, of course. That’s where all the fossils are. Steve goes to the exhibit after he leaves the hospital. He was prepared for it to be bad from the phone call, and it was. Bucky's still out there alone somewhere, Steve had to put the search on hold to come back, but right now Steve really needs to see pictures of Peggy Carter smirking in her uniform and red lipstick: he knows it's red, and it feels like a secret. The blurry gray photographs are crisper than her memories of him. For him, of course, this all happened yesterday. He's not sure who he will be if – when – she forgets him. Who he'll be when she's finally gone. Really lovely Steve/Bucky with excellent Brooklyn details.

This is what Bucky thinks he remembers: crossing national lines and military lines with the Commandos, the long night’s moon, their shadows making ghosts behind them on the ground. Steve’s eyes in the dark. Hushed, harsh laughter, stifled. Dead leaves beneath the snow. Breathing out and seeing his breath in the air, the color in Steve’s cheeks from the cold. The quiet of the moon. The stock of his rifle, put to his shoulder, reload, the movements of his hands, catching bullet shells before they can hit the ground. Kicking snow over the ashes of a dying fire. Hiss-spit of the flames. Birds in the underbrush even in the dead of winter. Holding his breath. The weight in his chest, the weight of his flesh. Steve drawing tactics in the dirt with gloved hands, his artist’s hands turned weapons. The way hot blood makes steam of the snow. Mud in his boots, mud under his nails, mud in his mouth when a Hydra soldier holds his face to the ground and presses the barrel of a gun to the back of his head. Counting bullets in the trenches and Steve with blood on his teeth, on his lips, all along the line of his mouth. Melancholy and heartbreaking and just a little bit hopeful. Oh Bucky. Oh Steve.

Bucky puts in an effort to meet all of Steve's new friends. Sweet and funny and wistful all at once. I especially liked his interaction with Thor.

It's 2013, and Steve is both twenty-six and ninety-five years old, and here is Bucky standing right across from him in the Helicarrier, Bucky, who laid out the couch cushions for him when they were nine and chased away the biggest bully in school when they were eleven and shared stolen moonshine with him when they were fourteen and fought off Jack McGinnis when they were fifteen and told Steve all about getting up Patty Akers's shirt when they were sixteen and cleaned the blood off Steve's knees and black eye when they were eighteen, so goddamn gentle, and went to Steve's ma's funeral and offered him a place to stay after and always told Steve to go to art school and got him drunk, laughed at his jokes, patched up his bruises, fought off countless bullies, slept next to him in the dark in Brooklyn and in a dozen camps all through Europe, let Steve sleep in his bed when he was sick, stayed home from work until he was better, hugged him and patted his face and slung one arm across his shoulders and grinned at Steve a thousand times in a thousand different ways, held Steve in that misty forest in Italy like there was nothing else worth holding onto, and Steve cannot fight Bucky. He'd rather die. Really lovely Steve/Bucky with lots of delicious pining.

Clint takes in a guy who's clearly some kind of operative and needs to get his feet under him after the whole SHIELD/HYDRA thing. He doesn't know it's the Winter Soldier until later. Aw Clint. Aw Bucky.

Long, slow recovery for Bucky while Steve hopes he's not screwing up too badly. Lovely.