recs and links

When Bucky shows up in Sam's kitchen, Sam rolls with it. He's not sure how this is his life now, though. This story is adorable when it's not sad.

CA:TWS vid

Sherlock knows that had Project Insight worked as HYDRA intended, he and Joan would both be dead. The knowledge does not sit well with him. Sherlock ferrets out some HYDRA agents and he and Joan have to figure out what to do about them. Ah, this crossover is quite satisfying

“You came pretty close to getting yourself killed, you know,” said Steve, sounding all wobbly and small. “Forgot I wasn’t wearing armor,” Bucky said sleepily. “That is the stupidest thing I ever—“ said Steve, and then, low, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” “You’d be fine, Stevie,” Bucky said. “You haven’t needed me around in a long time.” So much excellent mutually oblivious pining. *happy sigh*

Bucky + kids = GROSS SOBBING. I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face. Also contains some interesting team interactions.

Kamala Khan meets America Chavez. Sweet!

The first day, he hatches a mark in his arm, walks 50 klicks, and eats three more times. There’s something in his gut that churns in disgust at how much food he finds thrown away - a whole box of strawberries, only one moldy, a carton of milk two days past its expiration date, still cold from the fridge - something older than his programming, maybe, but it passes. There’s a remote trigger, he knows, some pop in his brain they can activate by distant satellite. He imagines the deep black sleep of the freeze they put him in, stretching on forever. He waits for death, welcomes it, but it doesn’t come. Really interesting post-movie take on how Bucky recovers. Lovely and melancholy.

How Sam got Steve's shield back while Steve was out of commission.

Sharon needed a badge, something to tie her heart to, to name herself protector. She had had her heart shattered and now she had to rebuild. Fury made it a rebirth, a branding, a phoenix's return, and he headed east to enact his justice. Maria had always been a wolf anyway. This had always been about her. She woke up the day after SHIELD fell and put on her newest uniform— a sensible blouse and neatly creased dress pants. She didn't have a badge but she did have a handgun tucked into her purse. Excellent look at Maria Hill.

"Wow," Natasha says afterwards, dripping in sarcasm. "Looks like they had making out in the forties after all." "Sure did," Bucky says, although it was actually -- "Nineteen thirty-five, even," Steve says easily. He's grinning at her like he won't at Bucky. "But it'd probably only just been invented." Lovely, heartclenchy Steve/Bucky

sam wilson vid

Rolling your eyes is an instinctive reaction but Steve doesn’t look very wounded in the face of the dawning realization that you’re reacting to every memory that tells you Steve has rarely cooked anything even passable. "Always were my biggest critic," he says good-naturedly, and even though it’s just a joke you feel dissonance in your soul because what you know better than most anything is that you have always actually been Steve’s biggest fan. The way he nudges your foot tells you that he knows. Sweet story of Steve showing Bucky Brooklyn and Bucky starting to remember.

Somehow, his flesh still hurt. It wasn’t the pain of the broken pieces or the dull ache in the metal arm. It was something...bigger. Something that hurt in a way not localized to his flesh but associated with it. His thoughts turned to Captain America suddenly--but not him, a miniaturized version of him, covered in a sheen of sweat and a sickly pale color but blinking and happy, a grip on the hand that had settled on top of his on the bed--and the pain eased. It was like a tightening ache escaped on the air as he breathed out. He’d found a way to fix the broken flesh, he could fix this hurt too. The Winter Soldier tries to fix himself and his memories.

Excellent look at Natasha through the movies.

Someone keeps leaving apple cake for Captain America. This is lovely and wistful.

These are the moments that Steve wants to forget: Bucky's face silhouetted in the morning sun, Bucky's smirk around the cigarettes he tried his best not to smoke, Bucky's arm around his neck, their heads bent together, five thousand iterations of Steve's name in Bucky's voice. Because it hurts more than it ever made him happy. Because if he went back in time he would follow Bucky down all the same paths, make all the same stupid decisions until they were face to face in a falling airplane, Steve dropping his shield and calling out Bucky's name. Melancholy follow up to the movie. Oh Steve. Oh Bucky.

The Winter Soldier goes back in time to protect pre-serum Steve Rogers. Oh heart.

Missing scene from CA:TFA, exploring what happened after Steve rescued Bucky and the prisoners but before they make it back to camp. Steve deals with the supersoldier learning curve. Oh, Steve.

Steve/Bucky

Ridiculously hot and lovely Steve/Bucky porn.

The Winter Soldier goes to Captain America to complete his mission. It doesn't turn out exactly the way he planned. Oh Bucky.

Bucky accidentally becomes a surrogate brother to half the neighborhood, purely via the power of PBS. I would watch hours and hours of Bucky being big brother to a bunch of neighborhood kids in Cap 3. Just saying.

Sharp look at Natasha during Cap 2.

In between, Rogers looks in love. He studies the way Rogers leans against Barnes, the way his eyes linger on him, the way his slightly greater height lets him curl protectively around Barnes. None of the official documents say anything to support it. One of the interviews with Peggy implies she and Rogers had something going on, but she’s quite emphatic that Rogers brought her and her future husband together. The official stories seem to let that lie as well. Rogers, they imply, loved America and Truth and Justice and no one else. Unofficially, he is not the only one to think the photographs tell another story. Rogers is not the only one with adoration in his eyes and hands that cling too hard and too long for propriety. He goes back to the exhibit, looks again. He thinks, maybe, he can see a little space, a lacuna where the official story doesn't quite meet the truth on the screen. He thinks, in that space, he can maybe see room for himself to be James Buchanan Barnes. Because Barnes loved Rogers and went to his death to prove it. Now, Barnes will come back to life for him. Really lovely, post-movie recovery for Steve and Bucky both.

The truth is that in the Red Room, there was no part of Natasha her that truly belonged to herself, so it had never bothered her to seduce men, to sleep with them. She had hurt herself, cut and burned her own flesh in pursuit of her missions. Her mind was the last fortress, and by the end, she had given over that as well. It was difficult to explain to the woefully unprepared psychologists trotted out before her that it hadn't hurt her in the least to sacrifice these things at the time, and even now, on the other side, she still carries few regrets. They are prices for war and survival. Natasha is only learning now how to make choices for herself, how to claim ownership over herself, her body, her desires. It is as foreign as first learning to walk or speak, stumbling along the way. The first time Natasha sleeps with Steve, it is a choice she makes for herself. Steve's not the only one whose past rises up to haunt them. Sharp, merciless look at Natasha's relationships in the Red Room and after it.

"I'm going to sleep," Barnes says. He's been doing that lately, started it up a couple of weeks ago, not too long after he finally started answering to his name. He announces simple actions before he does them: I'm going to sleep. I'm getting a sandwich. I'm taking a shower. I'm going to shoot that guy. I'm getting some air. It breaks Sam's heart a little more every time, because Barnes doesn't say it like he's giving them warning, like he's waiting for them to flinch. That would be bad enough, but it would be understandable. Instead he says it defiantly, uncertainly, like he's daring them to say no. No, you can't sleep. You don't need a sandwich. You don't get to shower. You don't need any of that. "Me too," Sam says, a beat too late. "Good night." Sam's POV on his weird yet burgeoning friendship with Bucky Barnes.

The irony of asking a woman with a ruined memory for answers is not lost on him, but he's already here. He should at least try. The Winter Soldier visits Peggy for some answers. Lovely.

Steve has always thought Bucky was more than he really is. Has always looked at Bucky with searching eyes and a small smile, like he knew secrets that he wasn’t telling. Steve’s always— When Steve looks at Bucky, he doesn’t see the wreckage. But that’s what Bucky is. What he has been since he was a kid, aimless and angry, mercurial as a New York summer. He’s not the Winter Soldier, the clean, clinical, contained force of a bomb. He’s James Buchanan Barnes, the burnt-out husk of the building it hits. Really lovely look at Bucky putting himself back together.

Adorable Carol/Rhodey set during Tony and Pepper's wedding.