@sonatine said something about an uber driver AU and then i accidentally a thing, soooo i’m just gonna leave this here
buckysam, stevesam, eventual stevebuckysam, 4.3k
“I didn’t call for an Uber,” says Sam.
He called for a lot of other things. Help, for instance. Because, one, there happens to be an angry pterodactyl-like thing gliding across the sky above Brooklyn, knocking off the top of every building it passes, and two, he left his own wings at home. All he wanted was to go to the store in his sweatpants and buy some yogurt for his superhero boyfriend, but apparently being a normal guy just isn’t an option any more.
Bucky keeps his gun trained on the guy, now he’s managed to throw him far enough away to use the damn thing. He shakes his head impatiently, flicking sweaty hair away from his eyes, blowing impatiently at the strands that won’t shift.
“There’s your problem, right there,” he’s told, the man’s palms held high and facing him like surrender, like some kind of weird blessing. His voice is all soft Southern vowels pulled somehow tight and angry and out of place, like he’d sound better singing. It reminds him of the archer, and Bucky has to flex his fingers around the weapon in an effort not to lower it.
“I’ve got no problems, buddy,” he says, first time he’s spoken, and he’s met with a snort.
“I don’t even know you and I know that’s a lie.” He steps closer and Bucky makes no movement – he’s watched enough of this century’s television to know that taking the safety off is always used like a threat, here, but Bucky’s not stupid enough to pull his gun on anything he’s not willing to shoot at. The man stops, in any case, like the stillness tells him more than it doesn’t.
“Look, I don’t want to fight you,” he says. “You’ve got the look of a man only killing’d keep down, and I don’t do shit like that any more.”
Stand down, Steve says in his ear. They’re friendlies.
Really,really, overly friendly, Sam adds.
Redwing? an unfamiliar voice says, high with excitement, Can I take him apart? Can I pet him?
When Bucky lowers his weapon the guy releases tension that looked enough a part of him that his smile is a gut-punch surprise.
“Eliot,” he says, holding out a hand.
“What’s my problem?” Bucky asks him, squinting, suspicious, as he holsters his gun.
Eliot shrugs and drops his hand, mutters, “it’s like another goddamn Parker, I swear. Here.” He fumbles something from around his wrist – a loop of elastic that’s wrapped in black cotton. Bucky takes it, regards it, absently pushes his hair behind his ear.
“That and conditioner, man,” Eliot tells him. “I swear it’ll change your life.”
please please someone write me 10k of hacker!Nana.
Heeheehee, YAHS.
Not 10k, but hope you like it:
There was one thing Hardison never told anyone. Not Nate, not Sophie, not Parker or Elliot. Hardison had a teacher. The way Parker had Archie, Hardison had her. She used to work for NASA, wrote out the flight codes by hand. She helped launch the shuttle that put Armstrong on the Moon. And she taught him everything. At ten he was writing his own computer codes in spiral notebooks during math classes he could have passed in his sleep, taking them home and showing them to her.
“Look, Nana! This one draws butterflies on the screen.”
“That’s good, Alec. But you switched from COBALT to C++ in the middle here. That’s not gonna do you any good baby. Here’s how you fix it…”
Her pension from the government helped pay for all of Nana’s kids, but when she got sick, it wouldn’t quite cover her medicine or doctor. She wasn’t going to short the kids any, and Alec knew that. He also knew that they’d look at her first if he took money out of an account linked to her job. He knew this because she told him, because she knew how his mind worked. That’s how he wound up hacking an overseas bank that had lent money to her old boss, the one who denied her request for government healthcare. And if he left behind some breadcrumbs for the authorities to find that led to that jerk, well, there are worse things to do on Prom night.
YAAAAAAAHHHHHHS!!!!
OH MY GOD NANA IS ONE OF NASA’S HUMAN CALCULATORS. (Maybe even Katherine Johnson?)
THIS WAS SHORT BUT OH SO SATISFYING. SERIOUSLY, WHEN I REALIZED WHAT WAS HAPPENING, I KICKED MY FEET AND WHOOPED.
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.)
All burning questions merit consideration! However, I think things go slightly differently than you are expecting.
First of all: Marisol and Julianna Flores (aka Mary and Julie-Anne Jones, aka Marcella Rodriguez and Jenny Smith, aka Michelle and Jill Garcia and, aka ‘Where the hell are two teenagers getting all of these fake IDs?’ (that last one per Hardison) disappear.
They’re wanted for questioning in connection with all of the shit that went down with Julianna’s foster/adoptive dad, and that’s a hornet’s nest that’s not worth kicking. Luckily, Marisol and Julianna Flores are part of the Washington State foster care system. Portland is a whole new ball game.
When Rey gets back (with LUKE FRIKKIN SKYWALKER HOLY SHIT), they put her in Finn and Poe’s room. Technically it’s supposed to be four to a room (the Resistance doesn’t have a lot of space, especially with the new recruits coming in, all of the Republic’s bereaved out for revenge), but they’re all heros and also, though no one says it, kind of weird. Lieutenant T’Sol, in charge of bunk assignments, throws them all together and calls it a day.
Finn has been out of intensive physical therapy for about a month at that point. He can stand, sit, walk, and even bend.
He can also, Rey discovers two days into living with him, be a massive pain in the ass.
She comes back from training with Luke–yep, Luke Skywalker, training as a Jedi under Luke Skywalker, no big deal–to find that her stuff has been moved. The jacket she left on the floor next to her bed, the repairs for the communications unit she was working on, they’re in different places. She drops her staff n the doorway, horrified, and proceeds to tear up her bunk. The extra food, emergency kit, and extra tools she stashed under the mattress are undisturbed, as is the secret compartment she built into her trunk. Dumping everything she owns on the floor and spreading it out to take inventory reveals that nothing has been taken..but has it been poked through? She doesn’t know. How and why did someone get in here?
When Poe comes back from training runs he finds her in the doorway, furiously upgrading the security locks.
“Uh,” he says. “Hey.”
“Hey.” It comes out a little muffled through the spot-welder in her mouth, but she’s sure he gets the sentiment. “Check your stuff. Security breach.”
“Shit.” He doesn’t do nearly a good enough job of checking, in Rey’s opinion, though maybe he can’t get at his hiding spots with her there. He comes back over to her just as she’s fitting the panel back over their improved lock system. “What of yours is missing? Should I call someone? I’ll call the Lieutenant.”
“No!“
“No?” She wants to be annoyed with how Poe reacts to things that surprise him. He never gets mad, just gives you this look like ‘everything’s okay, just explain to me.’ It’s…annoyingly perfect.
“No. Nothing’s missing.” And it’s not like whoever it is will be getting in again. The door now requires voice, retinal and thumbprint activation. She’ll ask Luke tomorrow how to make sure no one can use the Force to get it open, too.
“Okay.” Poe goes back to his bunk and takes out a holo disk; he does flight simulations a lot during his breaks, and often will invite Rey to join him. Usually she does, but today she has to take care of her stuff. She spreads it out even further, all across the floor, and behinds going over each and every thing she owns, making sure it’s clean and not broken. They’re not much, little pieces of equipment she’s scavenged and the clothes given to her and a couple things she’s bartered for, but it’s the most she’s ever owned in her life.
Finn comes back in about an hour later, and freezes, his face distressed.
“Uh, what’s going on???”
“What?” She doesn’t understand what his problem is.
“This? The floor, covered in stuff?”
“Oh. Inventory.” Duh.
“Oh…kay. Well can it just…stay on your side of the…” He reaches down to pick up her jacket, which is spread out by his bunk.
Rey tackles him. His yell of surprise is answered by Poe’s cry of “Careful!“ Rey remembers just in time about his injury, and adjusts their trajectory so that she knocks him back onto his bunk for a soft landing.
“What the hell!“ he yells as she pins him down with a knee on his stomach and an arm across his shoulders.
“Why did you touch my jacket? What makes you think you can touch my jacket? Did you touch my things before too? Was that you???” She’s possibly never been this outraged in her life. Who does something like that?
“What? I…what??? Yes, I did! Your things were on the floor, I cleaned them up! Like a normal unit member! Instead of spreading them all over, who does that?“
What. Rey lets go of his shoulders, stymied. How is she supposed to talk to someone who doesn’t understand the inherent wrongness of touching another person’s possessions?
“Wow, okay. Hey, guys? Guys.” Poe sticks his head in between Rey and Finn’s locked glares. Now instead of conflict Rey has a faceful of upsettingly shiny hair. His shampoo smells like night flowers. “Let’s try something, okay? Rey. What does Finn need to understand?”
“You can’t touch my things. They’re my things.” She can’t believe she has to explain this.
“And Finn. What does Rey need to understand?”
Rey can’t actually see Finn through Poe’s head, but his voice when it comes is less angry than hers, more worried.
“You can’t leave a mess. You’ll get us in trouble.”
Abruptly, Rey realizes that Finn’s bunk is always perfectly, almost eerily neat. She has never seen any of his possessions left out on the table, never seen the blankets have a single wrinkle in their folds. If she didn’t see him take things with him when he left the room, she wouldn’t even know Finn had possessions.
“Right. Okay. So, Rey, do you promise not to leave any mess on Finn’s part of the room?”
“…yeah.” She knows Finn knows that they’re not in the First Order and Rey isn’t going to get them in trouble for having a messy room. She gets that him knowing that doesn’t really matter. “No mess on Finn’s part of the room.”
“And Finn, do you promise not to touch anything of Rey’s?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t know it would bother you. I clean up after Poe all the time.”
“…you do? Huh. That explains why I never remember making my bed.”
Poe’s head recedes and Rey can see Finn again. He looks grumpy and ashamed of himself, and that makes her forgive him, all in a rush.
“Good. Well done navigating conflict, everyone.” Poe claps a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “Now kiss and make up.”
Huh. Okay? Rey thinks that’s weird, but Poe handled the situation pretty well so far. She’s still sitting on Finn, so she bends down and kisses him.
“Whoops,” Poe says above her.
“Mmhm,” Finn says, which is definitely an encouraging noise, and his mouth is nice and he’s very warm. Rey takes back her thinking this was weird, this was a great idea.
She stops kissing Finn once he starts making little ‘I can’t breathe’ noises, and flicks her hair out of her face so she can look up at Poe.
“You too?” she offers, not sure how this custom works but definitely sure she’d like to kiss him.
“It wasn’t meant to be literal…oh, screw it.” He bends down so Rey can slide a hand behind his jaw. She and Finn just kind of smooshed their faces together, but Poe does it differently, he tilts his head a little and brushes his mouth over hers a couple of times. It’s good in a tingly, shivery way.
“Hey, my turn,” Finn whines, and Rey breaks off to laugh while Poe obliges. He kisses Finn differently too, he tilts his head back on the pillow and uses his tongue. Rey is so interested by, and so happy about, all of this. Different kinds of ways to kiss and live and be together.
Basically, she thinks they’re doing great at this. As long as no one touches her things ever again.
Having grown up in DC, statues of various dead guys on horses are basically background radiation, or they were before I became Hamilton trash and started noticing them again. Now it’s like every time I turn around there’s a Founding Father looking at me like I personally disappointed him, and it’s getting a little unnerving.
Although: as a result, I sort of want to write a magical realism thing where that can really happen. Where if you do something they would have disagreed with strongly enough, the statues climb down off their columns and lumber down Mass Ave to the Russell Building or the Capitol, where they stand on the sidewalk, arms crossed, glaring into the window of whoever’s just introduced legislation that offended them. They don’t speak, or attack anyone, or damage anything– well, they do tend to bump their heads on low-handing streetlights, sometimes, but that doesn’t count. Mostly they just stand there, mournful, accusing, for everyone to see.
Sometimes lawmakers can talk them around, convince them they’re not actually betraying the political ideals of their predecessors. Politicians who are good at this tend to have much, much longer careers than the ones who aren’t. Politicians who piss off the wrong statues seldom get reelected.
George Washington rarely budges, and when he does it’s front-page news, nationwide. Madison’s always been easier to talk around than most. Hamilton spend more time off his plinth than on it, but he cools off fast. Jefferson holds grudges, to the point that hardly anyone worries too much about making him mad.
It’s not just politicians, either, and they don’t always come to life in anger. Joan of Arc’s bronze horse will shiver to life in Malcolm X Park, sometimes, and carry her off to join protest marches, when she thinks their cause is just. Gandhi walked with Iraq War protestors. The Spirit of American Womanhood, outside Constitution Hall, danced on the day that Roe v. Wade was decided, and when Obergefell vs. Hodge went through, Eleanor Roosevelt taught a clumsy Lindy to Baron von Steuben.
Lincoln has only risen from his seat once since he was put there in 1922, and that was to nod in solemn approval at LBJ from the White House lawn.
Some cities rarely put up statues, and many have taken theirs down. Paris has a great many artists and writers memorialized, and curiously few politicians. In London, during the Blitz, Nelson shinned down his column to help dig people out of collapsed buildings, until he was broken to pieces himself; he stands atop the column again today, reassembled, but has never moved since. In the last moths of the Soviet Union, a desperate Communist Party had the statues of Moscow chained in place. These days, Monument Avenue in Richmond is punctuated with a long series of empty plinths and bare columns.
But DC keeps theirs, and keeps building more.
now i want a story about what precipitated the removal of the Richmond statues. ‘Cause don’t get me wrong, those guys were pretty much all flaming bags of dicks, but this is Richmond after all. Was watching them disapprove of civil rights legislation in front of God and journalists and everybody finally too much for the governor?
I’m reading up on chocolate frog cards in the Harry Potter universe, for reasons, and-
“Came up with the ever changing floor plan.”
Really, Ravenclaw? Really?
“You know what this school needs? To not make any sense-”
“Rowena, I don’t think-”
“Exactly, you don’t think. I’m brilliant and this is perfect. Moving staircases, walls that think they’re doors-”
“But how will the students get to class?”
“They’ll have to figure it out.”
“…”
“Everyday. They will figure it out everyday. My students will live in a tower and navigate these stairs every time.”
“The stairs move! This doesn’t seem safe…I think I’ll put my common room in the basement, Rowena.”
“Ditto. I think the dungeons would be safer…”
“…My kids will brave these stairs. I’ll take the other tower.”
The secret is, there’s a pattern to the moving staircases. If you know the variables, they’re totally predictable.
The formulae have been passed down from Ravenclaw Head Girl/Boy to their successor, one to the next. Of course every year a good chunk of Ravenclaw students figure it out for themselves, but the rule is you keep it to yourself.
They are not technically keeping this secret from the other students. There’s a directive straight from Rowena herself that they should absolutely tell everyone of any house …
Kimchi and Justice 