Sam, this storyline needs more chapters. Probably 20 more with a solid 5 chapters of just HRC and Maria Hill being badass.
I’m not gonna lie the discussion of Bucky had me thinking last night about how he probably breaks into the White House without alerting any of the security, just so he can yell at Steve, and then I realized wait. Does the VP live in the White House? That would be the weirdest roommate situation ever, and also a huge security risk.
And I realized I have lived my entire adult life in this country without knowing where the VP lives. But we found out he lives at the US Naval Observatory in a very nice house with a turret. I hope the various VP’s children have been allowed to sleep in the turret, it looks fun.
So what actually happens is that Clint wakes up to Bucky Barnes straddling his chest, one hand around his throat, growling “Where is Steve Rogers” and Clint is like HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE WHERE IS THE SECRET SERVICE.
Bucky: …are those the guys in the suits? Yeah I ignored them. Clint: *gurgles skeptically* Bucky: Do you not know who I am? Clint: Need…oxygen…to presidential brain…. Bucky: I just want Steve Rogers. Clint: Wrong…address.
And then when Steve gets up the next morning Clint and Bucky are sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee because Clint didn’t want to miss Bucky’s EPIC YELLFEST about Steve not being able to keep his politics in his pants, he just RAN OFF and BECAME VICE PRESIDENT, and all this backfires on Clint horribly when Steve is like CLINT MADE ME, I WASN’T EVEN IN THE COUNTRY and Bucky turns on Clint and starts harassing him for being a bad influence.
And Clint is like James Buchanan Barnes, I am the President of the United States, if you’re going to talk to me like that you should at least have an official title and that’s how Bucky became the president’s new personal security secretary.
“Can he type?” “No, but he can murder you at three hundred yards using a solo cup and a rubber band.”
Bucky is like the feral cat your dad inexplicably loves and lets wander around the house. He raids the kitchens, he taunts the Secret Service, he brings strange presents for the administration staff, he sits quietly and STARES at whoever’s talking during Cabinet meetings. He is Tony’s favorite.
tchalla hacks buckys phone location so he knows where he is if and when he wants to beat his ass
he just gets bored and he’s like hmmmmmm bucky’s only two miles away frm me time for pain buck boi
forget the tony and steve man pain, i want to just see scenes of Bucky standing in the self checkout line with a loaf of bread and TP then suddenly tchalla is there throwing a shopping cart at his ass and they start fighting. bucky in the bathroom washing his hands calmly before tchalla kicks the door open and they start fighting. tchalla having a sandwich in the park until he sees bucky coming then he throws it at his face and then they start fighting.
Bucky’s about to dive in the pool, T’Challa runs up, drop kicks his ass and flips out of the splash zone.
it’s very important to me that sometimes t’challa is in a high-level but very boring cabinet meeting about grain prices or smth and his secret Danger Phone goes off and he glances down at it and then grimly says, “i must go.” and everyone’s like, wow. our strong and brave prince. off to protect Wakanda in her hour of need again. meanwhile t’challa’s just hit bucky barnes with a SPECTACULAR flying clothesline outside a Home Depot in bed-stuy
“Clown masks? Are you serious right now?” The man on the floor makes a pained sound and wriggles ineffectually; Bucky is almost inclined to laugh at him. He’s not going anywhere, not tied as he is in the line ropes, and certainly not with Bucky’s boot pinning him to the tile.
Bucky’s a lot heavier than he looks. It’s useful.
“I mean, first of all, robbing a bank. Who even does that? That’s – that’s serious movie shit, pal,” Bucky continues. “Or comics. Not ‘Tuesday morning in DC’. I am really very, very annoyed with you; I had plans.” He deigns to cast a glance down. The man’s mask has shifted just enough that Bucky can see him roll his eyes – which, seriously, bank robbers do not get to be snotty – so he presses down just a little harder, and his captive lets out a squeak. His two accomplices are silent; unconscious (those brass stanchions really pack a wallop) and helpfully wrapped in duct tape by one intrepid construction worker who had been conveniently in line waiting to cash their paycheck.
It’s so nice to see people engaging in their civic duties.
“Hey, so, I’m going to miss my lunch date because of this doofus,” Bucky says, looking up and addressing the small crowd of bank patrons. They’ve formed a loose semicircle in the lobby, tellers and patrons having crept out from under their desks and behind the counter to watch the show with wide eyes. “But I sort of broke my phone on his guy’s nose. Can I borrow one real quick?”
“I’m sorry,” Bucky interrupted, dropping the pile of dirty laundry on Jim’s bunk. “Did I sound like I was asking? Fresno, you’re on laundry. I need it done by tonight, and Monty can’t keep it in his pants around Julia the washer woman.”
“That’s not –”
“You’re headed to the commissary with Dernier and I don’t want to hear it, Lieutenant.” Bucky rolled his eyes, caught Monty’s left hook in his open palm and twisted, landing on top of Falsworth and tugging the man’s arm high enough up his back to drag out an undignified whimper. “Anything you wanted to say?” he wondered, waiting patiently for Falsworth to growl out a “no” before helping the man back onto his feet.
“But I am to get the weapons,” Dernier declared, arms folded rebelliously, face set in the same scowl he wore when Steve decided they didn’t need to blow anything up.
“Not this time,” Bucky informed him. “Jones is going to handle that. And Dugan, you’re with Carter. I want radio codes, maps, all the information she’s got for us memorized and ready to spoon feed Fresno by the time we fly out.”
Even Jones frowned at that—it was his job to work with Carter. He ran the radio, and he was the one who didn’t make her threaten to clock him on a regular basis.
“C’mon.” Barnes clapped his hands once, sharply, and then spun and headed for the door without waiting to see if the Commandos would obey. “Howard wants us in the hangar by dark, so let’s move.”
“Fucking asshole,” Dum Dum muttered, though he waited until Barnes’s footsteps stopped echoing down the corridor. “He knows Agent Carter wants to set my hat on fire.”
“I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t stop with the hat,” Gabe told him, on his fourth deep breath and his sixth slow count to ten.
“Why can’t I go collect our rations?” Morita complained, shoving the pile of dirt encrusted uniforms off his lap and onto the floor. “In fact, why don’t I? Monty, you can take the laundry—and take Julia, while you’re there—and Sarge will never even know.”
Dernier giggled, and shook his head when the others turned to stare. “He will not know? Barnes, who knew when you tripped over your feet for ze girl who drives the ambulance and she refused your kiss?” Jim blushed, stared at the ground and kicked at the small mountain of clothes. “Who knew when the Captain lied about checking his parachute? When –”
“We get it,” Monty announced with a huff. “Why don’t you tell me all about Sarge’s fucking superpowers while we’re sitting around counting stale crackers and beef paste?”
Dernier’s face fell, at the reminder that he wouldn’t be spending the next few hours devising explosives with Stark, but he sighed and followed Falsworth out the door.
“Why’d he pick today to be an asshole, huh?” Morita demanded, shoving the laundry into a bag. “We had a working system!”
“We’ve only been back ten hours,” Dugan pointed out, tugging half a cigar from behind his ear and lighting it with obvious relief. “And it was three weeks in Poland before that. He’s probably just fussy because his balls ache.”
“So why doesn’t he go see Julia?” Morita muttered, standing up and slinging the bag over his shoulder, nearly toppling over under the sudden weight. “Or at least let Monty see her, so that one of us gets some relief.”
“The last time Monty took down the laundry, he was two hours late,” Jones said, cutting his nails with his pocket knife. “You moped for a week because the medic who turned you down was in the commissary, and Jackie caught Stark on fire and delayed the mission by two days.”
“I didn’t say it was a perfect system,” Jim offered grudgingly, and staggered toward the door.
“Bucky?” Steve’s voice echoed down the stairwell and reverberated through the hall, bouncing ahead of the slap of his boots on the concrete floor. “Buck?” Evidently Cap’s uncanny hearing or eyesight must have spotted their sergeant, because the voice changed direction, growing fainter as it raced away. “Hey, jerk, wait up! I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I wonder what Barnes is doing, while we’re fetching and carrying and having our hats set on fire by ungrateful broads.”
Jones kept his gaze focused on the blade of his knife, so that Dum Dum and Jim couldn’t see the edges of his smirk. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said quietly, grinning at his hands. “I’d guess he’s getting some relief.”
(Author’s note: If Bucky is the oldest in this, Gabe is totally the middle child, Jim is the youngest, and the others shove their way in and elbow each other down the line.)
One time, because they’re wired after a fight and nobody else has a better idea, the Avengers get bored and decide to play True American.
It’s a drinking game. Except it’s also sort of like Candyland. There are stakes. The floor is lava.
When Steve first hears about it, he asks if there are actual rules. Natasha smiles at him and says, “Everything you hear in True American is a lie.” Thanks, Natasha.
There are a lot of jokes at first about how Steve is definitely going to make it through the Secret Order of the Circle beer cans and reach the King (a very nice Macallan scotch, courtesy of Tony) first, because Steve is the truest American there ever which was. This is, of course, a fabulous joke, because Steve wasn’t around for half the political imbroglios that are required knowledge just to move from one piece of furniture to another (the floor is lava, did we not mention this, Steve), and he has the loosest possible definition of a high school education. This is not going to be Steve’s game.
Several factors are not taken into account.
First is that Thor has even less of the cultural knowledge required, and it should have be assumed from the start that he would come in last. (This would of course be wrong. Not knowing anything about American history does not stop him from, during the course of play, gaining entrance through Ellis Island, finding all six hidden locations of the Union Rat, and stopping the 1911 shirtwaist factory fire. He gets third place.)
Second is that Clint’s schooling is not so much “worse” as “absent.” And as Clint’s strategy for True American is to emphasize the drinking side of it, with a healthy dose of outrageous cheating on the behalf of Natasha, his fourth place does not particularly bother him.
Third is that Natasha is a Russian ex-pat who, while admittedly well-versed in a large swath of Americana for reasons best left unmentioned, nonetheless is slightly off the mark when it comes to the key “American asshole” mental space required to be a true master of the craft. This bothers her, but she’s working on it. Add in Clint’s assistance, and what will be her easy slide into second place is completely understandable.
Bruce does not play. He sets a chair carefully away from all other pieces of furniture, declares himself a foreign nation, and eats snacks. He is designated a water hazard by the others. (There is absolutely not a rule saying that whoever’s closest to him can beg for foreign aid and get a cookie in return. Clint should shut up about that. Particularly if he ever wants another cookie.)
Really, of any of them, True American should be right up Tony’s alley. Drinking excessively while also maintaining balance and cognitive function? Check. Genius-level knowledge in a variety of subjects? Check. A deep-seated inferiority complex with an all-encompassing need to win? So thorough a check that it might as well fill itself out in cursive and add a ten buck tip for the waitress.
Tony is all about True American. It was his idea to play. Because maybe he wants to rub Steve’s nose in it. And it’s not like Steve can beat Tony at a game he’s never played before, with close to as much knowledge of the required history as Thor, and in the presence of teammates who he’ll probably feel obliged to help along in the spirit of team-captain-ness or whatever.
This will be great, Tony’s pretty sure.
…If not immediately narratively obvious, Steve beats Tony.
He beats him by a lot.
He beats him so hard it’s almost physically painful to watch, except obviously not, this is a great day in Avengers history, Bruce is recording it on Natasha’s phone and they’re going to have a play-by-play rewatch with Pepper just as soon as Steve stops chugging down the Macallan while maintaining constant, unwavering eye contact with Tony. Who isn’t anywhere close to second place, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because Steve knows who planted the idea for this game and he knows exactly what Tony was going to do if Tony won and he’d been damned if he was going to let some uptown rich kid beat him at a goddamned drinking game.
Tony comes in last. Steve is the True American. Everyone else eats cookies.
I like the idea that Parker occasionally taps him for side missions together where they go and do stuff and Eliot is like “Why did you jack a car and set a small fire on the bridge yesterday?” and Bucky’s like “I dunno, Parker asked, it seemed like fun.” and Parker’s like “I have my reasons, DON’T JUDGE OUR FRIEND DATES.”
So everyone talks about Steve being able to wield Mjolnir and that’s cool and all, but a lot of people forget that Clint, in the comics, is one of the few people who can properly use Steve’s shield.
So…yes. Steve holds his hand out and accidentally catches Mjolnir and meanwhile Clint’s out of arrows and the shield lands near him so he just kind of says “fuck it” and picks up the shield and starts throwing it. And Thor kind of shrugs and just grabs the nearest thing to use as a weapon. Maybe tosses one of the bad guys at the other bad guys. Maybe tosses Tony at the bad guys. Something.
And later they all agree that was pretty fun.
It’s always fun to use Tony as a blunt instrument.
It really is:
i love that because it implies its a legitimate strategic tactic theyve used before SEVERAL TIMES
Tony: NOT THE OLD FASHINED WAY AGAAAaaaaa-aaaªªªªªªªªªªiiiiinnnnnn-
Why is this making me want Bucky Barnes/Eliot Spencer buddy fic?
OMG, you too? It’s gotta be the hair and the shirt.
It’s a very distinctive look.
Gotta be.
Can’t you just picture it though? Hitter buddies hanging out, doing their thing, and neither of them really talking about their past, but every now and then Bucky does something in such a way that reminds Eliot of something familiar from a job or two, but… nah couldn’t be…
Title: The Cyborg Arm Job Rating: Teen and Up Summary: The Leverage crew run into a new friend, find some buried treasure, and fight some Nazis. It’s a pretty good day. (Leverage/MCU crossover) Warnings: None.
***
They found him in the middle of a bar fight. He was in the middle of the bar fight as well.
“This is a gastropub!” Eliot yelled, charging out from the kitchen. “There are no bar fights in a gastropub!”
“Man, I don’t think he cares,” Hardison said. He was watching the fight from a distance with an almost philosophical look on his face. Most of the table settings in the immediate area were already broken, so that was no longer of any concern, and he’d never liked that pattern anyway (it had been a compromise betweeen Eliot’s desire for square plates and Parker’s desire for lots of flowers, and nobody ended up satisfied).
the comments on this post make me want a civil war au in an elementary school
idk third-grade tony wants to be class president? and steve says that’s stupid. and tony’s mad at steve for not sitting with him at lunch yesterday, so they get into a fight.
tony: ‘fine, this friday at recess, we fight’ steve: ‘bring it on, let’s fight now’ tony: ‘no, i want to play basketball at recess today’
steve tells his bff bucky about it, of course, so bucky says he’ll fight tony with him. which naturally leads to tony and steve going to everyone in class and trying to get them on their side.
steve sits with clint at lunch and asks nicely, and clint signs up, because steve asks first. tony immediately goes to the new kid peter and befriends him and gets him on his side. wanda goes to steve because tony pulled on her hair last week. tony bribes the weird kid vision with a hostess cupcake, and those things are damn valuable.
it starts to affect the class. scott lang wants to switch desks because he’s surrounded by tony’s people on all sides. steve leads his team to the other side of the lunch table, far away from tony as possible. tony tries to draw a picture of steve exploding in art class.
and then friday recess comes, and it’s like something out of a western, all of tony’s team on one side of the grass and steve’s team on the other.
tony: ‘so how does this work’ steve: ‘we fight!’ tony: ‘i know that! i meant like, on the count of three? last team standing wins? team that gets in the most punches wins?’ steve: ‘fine, we fight on on count of three! one, two, three!’
unfortunately, that’s the exact moment their teacher mr. fury shows up and breaks up the party. apparently he overheard natasha and clint apologizing to each other in advance for beating each other up.
mr. fury wonders why he chose this job, and brings everyone inside and a long talk about how we don’t solve interpersonal problems with punching. and then it’s an airing of grievances and trying to figure out solutions and sharon cries for getting in trouble and everyone decides they hate steve and tony for getting them into this mess. and into detention.
it’s a long weekend, and none of the kids will look at tony and steve on monday. it kinda sucks. steve sits next to tony at lunch because they’re both alone, and steve decides he should probably apologize like a big kid. he does. tony says he’s sorry too, and then shares his bag of potato chips.
Kimchi and Justice 