Who is This? - Bucky x Reader
Pairings: Bucky Barnes x reader
Summary: Bucky had a wife during the 40s, she was left heartbroken after the telegram arrived (missing, presumed dead). It's surprising when 80 years later, she was working behind a bar in Madripoor of all places!
Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Part 2
Bucky followed Sam and Zemo into a loud bar, he immediately wanted to turn around and go home, why had Zemo demanded he go back to being the Winter Soldier (even if it was one night)?
The sound of heavy drums and guitars also deafened his hearing, a song he had come to learn was The Wild Boy by a band called Duran Duran. A few bartenders and waitresses were walking around, there was only one who stuck out to him - a dark-haired young woman who reminded him too much of his departed wife.
His heart breaks even more, thinking of the woman he had left behind, his girl. The love of his life. Bucky doesn't think he will ever 'get over' her.
The way the young woman walked, carrying a tray of empty glasses (before being tossed an empty bottle by a patron), was so similar to the way his girl walked in the hole-in-the-wall diner she worked in.
She wasn't quick enough to duck under the bar before they got to the door leading upstairs (which was coincidentally next to the bar), Zemo was talking to the bouncer. "Excuse me, gentlemen," the young woman said, squeezing between the back of Zemo and the front of Bucky. Which is when he got a good look at her face.
There she was.
His girl. His wife.
He couldn't even say anything to her, as he was taken upstairs and away from his girl. He could only hope he would be allowed back in at the end of the night to see her.
Y/N Barnes made her way behind the bar, glancing up at the TV where the Kansas City Chiefs were currently playing the Buffalo Bills at Arrowhead Stadium, then down at her phone which showed the live score of the Dodgers game against the San Francisco Giants.
She had been a long-time Dodgers girl, even after she found out they had moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
"Did you see the way he was looking at you?" Yasmine asked, pushing a dry Martini in front of a 26-year-old woman.
Y/N looked up from the glasses she was putting in the dishwasher. "Huh? What are you talking about?"
"One of the men who went upstairs. The way he was looking at you," Yasmine fans her hand for dramatic effect. "I would drop my panties for him in a millisecond."
"Like you don't do that every night."
Yasmine rolled her eyes and served the next half-drunk who had come to the bar.
"Don't listen to her," Anastasia told her, rolling her eyes as Yasmine flirted with her current flavour of the week.
"It's not often I do, darling," Y/N replied, fiddling with Anastasia's curls for a second, before spotting a patron. "What can I get for you, darling?"
He hung off the bar, obviously far too drunk to understand what was going on. "Another beer and your phone number," he slurred.
She shook her head, reaching over and grabbing him another beer. As far as the boss of the bar (whoever that was) was concerned unless they were unconscious- why should you stop serving them? Y/N thought it wasn't right, but no matter how often she voiced this - she was shut down.
She set the beer in front of him and then went to the register to add it to his bill (good thing she currently has his credit card behind the bar).
"Oi, sweet cheeks!" He calls, but Y/N doesn't pay attention looking over at Yasmine and Anastasia with a raised eyebrow. "Sweet cheeks! I asked for your number."
Y/N replied by simply raising her hand proudly displaying her engagement and wedding rings to the drunk. It was only a small diamond (given Bucky worked on the docks before he was deployed), and the plain band she inherited from her great-grandmother.
"What's the matter with that 'un?" He hiccups. "He got you costume jewellery or somethin'?"
Y/N shook her head. "I'm going into the back for a moment," she tells Aidan.
Little did the drunk patron know, all those years ago, this was the date she was handed the telegraph - putting in such blunt words. Her James was missing, they presumed him to be dead. It breaks her heart that they never got to have a proper funeral.
"You alright, honey?" Elizabeth (another one of the waitresses) asked, she had been outside on her break. Elizabeth was the only one who knew her true age and about her James.
"It's the day I found out James was missing," Y/N said, before bursting into more tears.
Elizabeth wrapped Y/N up in a hug, everyone oblivious to the fact that Y/N's presumed dead husband was now running through the bar, flocked by Sam and Zemo, and into the alley behind the bar.
When Bucky was sure Zemo, Sam and Sharon were asleep, he slipped out of the safe house and into the night - determined to find out if the woman he saw in the bar was that of his (presumably? should be?) dead wife.
He eventually made his way to the front door of the bar, the bouncers had long since gone home. He could see lights on in the building and just about make out words being spoken thanks to the Super Soldier serum running through his veins.
He grasped the handle and gave it a push, the door hadn't been locked, as it gave beneath the slight push.
He could see three young women sitting on the bar, a man who was counting the money from the register and another man who was dancing.
The young woman sitting closest to the bar, had golden curls hanging around her head. "Mark, you didn't lock the door!"
The man dancing, Mark, looked over at Bucky, eyes widening when he saw the size of Bucky. "I say we just serve him, then lock the door behind him."
As the bartenders and waitress argued amongst themselves, Bucky's eyes never left the woman in the middle. It looked as if she had been crying. "Babydoll?"
The woman stopped giggling, tipping her head back to normal and looked at him, before dropping her glass as tears welled up in her eyes. "James?"
The curly-haired woman gasped, setting her glass down and giving Y/N a push off the bar.
Bucky held his arms out to catch her as her feet landed on the floor. He couldn't stop looking at her big eyes, he'd always loved her big expressive eyes. He always knew how she was feeling by just a look in her eyes.
"James? Is that you?" Her hand came out slowly, and shakily, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing in front of her.
"Hi, babydoll," Bucky smiled, tears starting to fall down his cheeks, a heavy sob held tightly in his chest at the moment in time. As soon as her fingers met his skin, Bucky let out a heavy sigh of relief, reaching over and pulling her into his arms. Y/N's arms dug themselves away from his chest and up around his neck before her hand soon started fiddling with his hair.
The couple stood there for a moment, finally finding their slice of peace. Some came barging into the bar, and the dark-haired woman who had been sitting on the other side of Y/N practically demanded Mark lock the door before the Hounds of Baskerville came in.
Y/N was so happy to finally have her James back in her arms, but there was a whirling sound she couldn't let go. "What's that noise?"
Bucky looked from his wife to his arm and back to his bride. "I'll explain everything to you later, but... I lost my arm, and I now have a prosthetic one," he tells her, letting go of her for a moment so he could take his glove off and show her the black and gold Vibranium one he had made.
"Ok, James. It's a good thing you gave me this," she reached beneath her top and pulled a ring out from beneath, hanging from a chain. "Before you were deployed."
Bucky smiled, cupping her face so he could kiss her. Bucky pulled away chuckling a little. "Babydoll, will you please put my ring back on?"
She reached behind her to unclasp the chain, and slid Bucky's band off, "if it doesn't fit we'll get it resized."
"I don't care what size it is, as long as you put my ring back where it belongs," Bucky almost growled, a piece of him falling back into place with the ring back on his finger.
The next morning - Sam, Zemo and Sharon came into the living room, seeing Bucky sleeping on the sofa (Sam was expecting this, after being told by Steve), however, there was a lump lying next to Bucky they didn't recognise.
Sam slowly makes his way over, gently easing down the thick blanket lying over Bucky and the lump.
Lying there, practically on top of the 'bionic staring machine' was a young woman.
"Did he somehow pick up a girl?" Sam whispered. Sam and Sharon were trying to be quiet - however, Zemo (who didn't care) started clattering around the kitchen, causing Bucky to wake up in a start, which then caused the young woman to look up with tired owl-like eyes.
"What the hell is going on?" Bucky nearly demanded, keeping his arms wrapped around his companion.
Sam raised his eyebrow. "I could ask you the same question, Barnes?" Sam looked at the young woman in Bucky's arms. "Who is this?"
Bucky looked down at her, Sam watched as a smile grew on his face. "This is Y/N. Y/N Barnes. My wife."
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picking up the funny little guys like they’re miis in the plaza and dropping them into the fair au
extra doodles and notes etc
- josh and katrina have matching earrings designed to look like gyrfalcon feathers (they’re tiny but they’re there i swear)
- rachel of course has a wolf pendant for her hacker besties 🌙🐺
- janices necklaces are a hammer and artisanal ice
- janices “sword” is just a big handsaw (couldn’t find a way to reconcile medieval sword with coping saw in any realistic way so handsaw it is)
(B is the one i used, you could kinda pretend it’s a sword if you unfocus your eyes)
thank you to all the beautiful people in the discord and everyone who gave me ideas for the outfits!!! 💖💖💖💖 @wheelsupin-azarathmetrionzinthos @fatestitcherr @vexillologyisenjoyable @spacetime-storytime (let me know if i missed anybody who gave design ideas!)
(I drew the above one a few days before the discord chat about the renfaire au designs started so that’s why Josh’s outfit is weird)
couldn’t get this out of my head, wanted to draw jester josh so bad... didn’t know what to do for lorenzo and d’artanio so i just used my old design but slightly fancier lol
and jacques and felipe from flow of the rings can be there too
other potential ideas
- polypalooza came down dressed as their dnd characters and did some photoshoots
- brendan and his friends are of course also at the fair
zekes character is having the time of his life hanging out and taking selfies with all the Star Wars cosplayers
Jess’s character found a bunch of people to play tag with (and another group of people to act out the movie Tag while they do it)
zachs simultaneous karaoke guy maybe got into doing chants and tavern renditions of his favorite songs. and also considering the fact that the man accidentally sexted brendan in the opening number i think he probably already has the falconers contact info and is hoping to see them at the fair (lorenzo and d’artanio don’t own phones but luckily he happens to know a guy who trains carrier pigeons) (and his wife who sells stationery)
idk if byler made it to the fair, he may have been preoccupied trying to solve the mystery of how a mourning dove got mixed in with his pigeons and why it had a scrap of paper tied to its leg with “whoops wops widdly wops” scrawled on it
that evening there’s some musical acts down at the lake, including some boy band called Plato Could Never. no one’s super sure who they are but they’re local and apparently they’ve got killer harmonies
that’s all for now, thanks for reading my strange ramblings trying to connect everything for no reason at all
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Stumbled upon an old post about what awful lines were said about Bucky in TFATWS and holy fuck it is horrific.
"Your overextented life"
"Before you were his pet psychopat"
"Big cyborg brain of yours"
"They cleared the bionic staring machine and he killed almost everybody he's met".
Don't get me started on removing Bucky's arm without his consent. You DON'T take away someone's limb, especially not as a punishment for "bad behavior."
And people honestly wonder why some of us had issues with how Bucky was treated in that show. I remember people accusing us of not liking Bucky's story because "we don't want trauma survivors to find happiness and healing". Like I'm sorry but just because he's smiling at the end of the show doesn't mean his arc was written well. As a trauma survivor myself I don't have high expectations when it comes to Hollywood but Bucky's recovery arc (if you can even call it that) has been among the worst depictions of trauma and healing from it I've seen in recent years.
(I'd appreciate a link to that post so I can reblog it please, Anon! I was wondering the other day how many horrible lines there would be, if you put them all together. 😬 Yikes.)
.
*warning: this is gunna be salty af cuz I've been binge-watching House and have his acerbic voice in my head.
You're right not to call it a recovery arc, Anon. Bucky has never had a recovery arc, because that requires acknowledging he has something to recover from.
TPTB refuse to, because they want to paint Bucky as generic Crossbones dudebro villain, who needs to 'do better' after being a mind-controlled slave, and deserves to be verbally and physically abused.
As demonstrated by supposedly 'good' character X treating him like crap (ha! so hilarious! boys will be boys!) and/or not standing up for him when other character Y treats him like crap in front of them. (And yes I have to include Steve in this writing, too.)
Bucky in TFATWS is spoken of literally as Secretary Ross talked about Bruce et al in CACW. Comparing them to weapons. Things... not people. Just how a villain would talk about human beings. (And even badly-written!Steve was appalled by that, remember?) No alarm bells ringing in the TFATWS writer's room, tho? Hmm. Guess they were too lazy to watch the movies.
Although Disney skipped the actual arc towards happiness, to relegate SebStan to cheaper cut scenes, Bucky did have happiness and healing in the movies (thanks to Ryan Coogler, not the Russos. Thanks Ryan.)
But TFATWS had to shit on that, via the VA's Second-Worst Counselor. They wanted to take credit for what Coogler did -- by limp-dickedly retreading the exact same story beats (too lazy to come up with something original? too dumb? too reluctant to include Bucky in the first place?) Only with a different set of black people swapped in to replace T'Challa, Shuri, and the village people kids (because they're interchangeable? or because only black Westerners count, now? Ah but I'm forgetting that Arabic guy who came up to- uhh- thank the American Air Force? 😬 Genuinely jaw dropping. Gotta love those good clean Iron Man values.)
"I remember people accusing us of not liking Bucky's story because "we don't want trauma survivors to find happiness and healing."
I can't stand people who hijack that kind of therapy-speak to bullshit that that's why they like something.
IMO the truth is that fans don't want to admit that the writing sucks, that the writing of Sam has been sucking since CACW, because they like Sam and see TFATWS as his show -- when, jesus, is it really tho? Just because his name's on it?
Zemo and Walker got more attention and arc than Sam. Even Izaiah got the better speech. Steve got to demolish an American alphabet agency, what did Sam get to do in his show? Introduce the Flagsmashers when Sam is reluctant to dress in the flag, and he doesn't even get to lead them He gets stuck protecting the status quo?
That's the danger of 'media consumption' with Disney these days. Woke-washing.
It's... kind of like how fast fashion chains will greenwash their products, to pass off plastic fabric as organic material.
People who think of themselves as X-leaning, (or want to be seen as X), also want to believe they would recognise Y-leaning portrayals... but they lack critical thinking skills when it comes to media analysis.
So corps like Disney know they don't actually have to be left-leaning in their portrayals, because they can pass off any right-wing thing as a genuine progressive doodad just by cloaking it in the correct language or aesthetics.
(Hey, right wing writers! Want to make a dehumanizing ableist gag? Make a black woman do it! Ever wish sexual assault in the office could be shrugged at again? Make a white woman do it! (Make sure she's Upper Class and English, too!) Want to to make sure your protags can't be read as queer? Want to get away with basic locker-room homophobia without being nagged about it? Just play on the nostalgia of interracial 'buddy cop' movies, and - as usual - make a black guy do it! Want to portray the USAF as an heroic force in the Middle East? Make an Arab say thanks to a black American Airman! Wokewashing -- it covers all ills!)
Time was, Disney would only do this with their villains -- and you do get a hint of that Classic Disney long-coated predatory gay villain with Zemo.
Only now, instead of getting away with it because of widespread homophobia, Disney and fans can get away with it by accusing anyone who criticises of it being a homophobe.
But they're still writing the creepy gay scene-stealing villains. 🤔
Same with a shitty victim-blaming portrayal of a therapeutic 'arc'. The people who don't give a shit about that won't criticise it, and those that do- well, they must just hate trauma victims IRL, uwu. 😥
Insidious, isn't it?
Disney may be virulently allergic to giving SebStan anything significant to do these days, for fear of getting more gay cooties on Captain Comphet, or distracting from Captain Coloniser: Creator's Pet... but you cannot deny even those idiots M&M wrote a better arc for Steve and Bucky than the idiots that had a whole show arc to accomplish that for Sam and Bucky.
(Seriously, how do you fuck up in six attempts a thing you've already seen someone else manage in two? Oh- wait. Right. They haven't seen them manage it in two. They didn't watch the movies. 🤦♀️)
As far as friendship goes, I would have preferred Sam and Bucky ended as mutually-respectful frenemies (or even - imagine! both apologising for things they've actually voluntarily done to each other!)
Rather than just slapping some schmaltz onto a turd at the last second and calling it a rose. As you said: one instance of Mackie & Stan breaking character to smile at the end of a lazy montage does not equal a written arc. Let alone a well written one.
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