recs and links

Steve helps Bucky get up to speed on the 21st century. Adorable.

In which captain's clerk Steve Rogers, rescues the dread pirate Winter's Captain.

He is eighteen and more alone than he has ever been when Bucky tells him that he’s not. Bucky grips Steve’s slender shoulder, and looks into his eyes, and swears he’ll be in it ‘til the end of the line. Many of their classmates are getting engaged or flat-out married. They have this exchange instead. Steve remembers his life with Bucky as he falls.

Natasha runs the tip of her middle finger back and forth along the arrow where it sits in the hollow of her throat. She looks at him, steady, and says, "Everything I need is in this room." Lovely Clint/Natasha in the aftermath of Cap 2.

Steve Rogers has always known that the supersoldier serum was a gift, and he's never been afraid to do what's right. When Uncle Sam asks him to unite the two sides of the Cold War by taking part in a symbolic union with a fabled Russian assassin, Captain America doesn't hesitate to do his duty. Little does he know how thoroughly his world is going to be turned upside down. Absolutely delightful Steve/Bucky arranged marriage AU with amnesia and FEELS.

Kitty and Erik host a seder at the Xavier School. Lovely.

Pepper deals with the aftermath of Cap 2 in the best way she knows how.

Soft, lovely look at the beginning of Bucky's recovery.

Piecing himself back together is the most difficult thing he’s ever done. It’s messy. It’s awful. The first night, he falls asleep with Steve sitting on the edge of the bed, exhausted, and he gets ripped into consciousness by a nightmare so vivid that it takes him minutes to reconnect his body to his brain once he realizes that he’s trying to kill Steve, trying to keep following that last, hard-wired order. Steve’s hesitation to reach out and touch him once he’s finally forced himself still is understandable, but he hates himself for it anyways. Bucky slowly pieces himself back together.

Bucky discovers something different about the future. ADORABLE.

The first time it happens -- or, Steve realizes later, the first time he knows it's happened -- is after one of Sam's VA meetings. Steve is usually out late on those nights, sticking around after the meeting to get a cup of coffee or a drink with Sam, and it's after ten when he unlocks the door of his DC apartment. He flicks on the lights and pours himself a glass of water, and that's when it hits him that something is ... off. Slowly, slowly, Bucky starts to come back to Steve. Lovely.

"You want to save Bucky Barnes? You are going to have to put your own house in order first because he is going to need a rock to cling to. You are not ready to be that rock for him. You owe it to him -- and more importantly, you owe it to yourself -- to figure things out, figure out how you can be happy in this time and place, whether or not Barnes is with you." Sam lays down some real talk on Steve before they go searching for Bucky.

Natasha finds the Winter Soldier. Yes, good. Takes what the movie told us about her and finds a way to mesh it with comics canon.

Sam sagged back against the couch, rubbed a hand over his face. Man, he needed a shower and a whole other pot of coffee. "What I don't get is why none of the history books ever said Captain America was a goddamn smartass." "Congratulations," Darcy said solemnly, "you have officially reached the appropriate level of jadedness for living here." Adorable Darcy/Sam.

The Winter Soldier remembers. Lovely.

Excellent look at Bucky coming back to himself, and finally, to Steve. Oh heart.

Lovely, melancholy look at Steve dealing with his feelings for Bucky and Peggy over the years, and then SAM being AWESOME at the end.

Fury would tell the rest in his own time. Romanov was off discovering herself; Rogers was chasing his ghosts. Someone has to keep the pieces together, and it sure as hell wasn’t Stark. She wasn’t Fury, not yet. But she was learning to be. Maria Hill, in the aftermath.

Captain America had chosen to go down without a fight. The most tenacious mark the Winter Soldier has ever faced, who made it out of a dozen situations that should have killed him against all reason, had let his shield fall from his hands. Had been willing to let the Winter Soldier do anything to him as long as it meant he didn’t have to hurt the man he believed to be his friend. ‘Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line. It had been incomprehensible. World-ending. It had almost been enough to make him want to be the person that Steve Rogers sees when he looks at him. Lovely Bucky POV coda to the movie.

“Be careful, or else you’re going to end up married to this guy, Fel.” That is literally the last thing Felicity can imagine happening in this scenario. She’s probably going to be dead in six months, or Oliver is going to be dead and Felicity will go back to having lots of time free at night for plunging to the depths of Reddit. Felicity wants to get married to somebody like Oliver—he’s basically got “really fucking bad idea” stamped across his forehead, along with “commitment issues” and “could give you that triple orgasm you faked during The Vagina Monologues”—like she wants to stab herself in the eye with a tablet stylus. “Ha,” Felicity says, and it comes across as mostly bitter. “That’s not going to be an issue, Guy Won.” Felicity's first year on Team Arrow. Adorable.

Vidder: Loki Title: The River, The Woods Song: The River, The Woods Artist: Astronautalis Warnings: spoilers for Winter Soldier Category: general Characters/Pairings: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes | Captain America/Winter Soldier Summary: "Hold still, and listen, your hand on my heart, if you need…

Steve was the first to move, but in the end, it was Bucky who lunged into the embrace. Trembling, lungs working like bellows, a sound like a wounded animal in his throat, Bucky clutched Steve with all the strength he had now, and Steve – who had been hesitant, who had meant to go slow, gentle, unthreatening – found himself clutching back like he could pull Bucky into his chest and keep him there forever, safe and loved and whole. He could smell his own shampoo and cologne on Bucky before tears flooded his eyes and his nose closed up. Adorable story with Steve/Bucky reunionating hugs.

Two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead. Peggy learned the truth of that a long, long time ago. She’s been left with a lot of secrets to keep, down the years. Like: Peggy Carter doesn’t age, not like a normal woman. Peggy Carter faked her death, with a little help from Howard Stark. Peggy Carter found out there was a cancer at the heart of SHIELD, and she’s been trying to stop the rot for a long, long time. AU where Peggy also got the serum. Lovely.

You’ve known me your whole life, he said on that Helicarrier as it blew apart, fragment by fragment. He is right. Born 1917 in a hospital to a mother and father, or 1944 in a research facility to a murderous political faction, or 2014 within the belly of a flying, crashing war machine. Each time, each life, each person you have been. Every single one of them knows Steve. He is the root and you are the ground. He is embedded in you inextricably. You might not know yourself. But you know him. That is something of a start. Bucky, trying to find himself in the aftermath. Lovely.

Steve thought if he could just get Bucky face to face again, he could break through. Sam wasn't Steve. He'd led enough therapy sessions to know that pressing too hard didn't fix people, it broke them. But this wasn't PTSD, wasn't anything he was used to dealing with. Bucky keeps appearing when Sam goes for coffee. Aw.

Natasha, starting to find herself in the aftermath. Lovely.

Natasha holes up with Clint after the events of Cap 2.

Some Sam backstory and a key missing scene from the movie.

11k words of post-movie Steve/Bucky. *happy sigh*

Sam's not Steve's only visitor in the hospital. *sobs*