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#zemo reader bucky smut that turned into THERE MUST BE PLOT AND ANGST DARN IT
lettalady · 1 year
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 29: We convince ourselves we deserve even our worst moments
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It takes a good memory to accumulate languages. There’s a question buried in the compliment that Bucky’s trying to offer: how many languages do you have? How many might you share? You’ve wondered that same thing. You can’t blame Bucky his curiosity about that history you’ve guarded so closely, the past you’ve only started to share with him in bits and pieces. It was the point of the game of languages you started with him, yes? Or maybe the point was to distract him from other places his mind might go and attempt to lure out that bright smile that warms his features and somehow find a way to hold it in place. 
“You know, you don’t owe Sam any money if he doesn’t know I speak Russian.” You can pretend, or try to. It is a double edged sword, your languages. In every place you were from the day you left Sokovia to the day your world shifted again in that bar in Madripoor, every day was a game of chance. Was it better to pretend you didn’t know what was being said, that you couldn’t piecemeal the conversation by leaning on languages you did have? And context clues. There are some gestures that translate universally.
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lettalady · 1 year
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 30 : We hide our feelings, forgetting our eyes speak
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     Peace. Mier. Frieden. Paix. Mír. Ειρήνη. It’s all you want and it remains elusive. How many words do you have to try to call it from the darkness that has you in its grip? You have so many languages and each is just as ineffective at summoning a reprieve as the next.
    At least the sugar from the stovetop hot chocolate, along with endless summoning of words, keeps you awake until dawn breaks and others in the house start to stir. It is the signal that you can start moving around the room again without fear of drawing Bucky’s attention – since you know doors have little dampening effect on his hearing, and you also know how well the sounds of the household travel through the dwelling.
    Making the bed may be pointless for the need to wash the sheets but you do it anyway. As you smooth the covers out once more you do your best to ignore thoughts of other early mornings spent packing up, of forcing yourself out of the thing that brings the closest thing resembling rest and into motion because one man in particular willed it. Thinking of The Baron leads you to the words he wished to hear spill out of you, and the many many ways he went about ensuring it would happen.
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home
[ cause everything needs a comp page ]
E • warnings: canon typical violence, references to past trauma, PTSD, unprotected sex, explicit sex, semi-public sex, exhibitionism, breeding kink, angst, relationship drama
     Your home in Sokovia was destroyed when Ultron decided to make it ground zero for his attempted coup of the world. Everyone had lost someone – some more than most. You? The family you’d worked for had perished – save one. The rumors were that he’d been locked up for war crimes – that he’d used his family’s reach, and fortune, and found a way to wield the assassin known as The Winter Soldier.
    How is it that they happen to turn up in the same city at the same time, just when you’re starting to get your feet under you again? Madripoor is dangerous enough without the scent of blood in the water, seeping from old wounds that you’d thought had healed.
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[ Chapter 1: We carry the past with us, always ] [ Chapter 2: We chase after moments, and are caught by them too ] [ Chapter 3: We can’t drown our demons when they know how to swim ] [ Chapter 4: We might never ‘get over’, only ‘get through’ ] [ Chapter 5: We are all in hell facing different devils ] [ Chapter 6: We are all collateral damage in someone else’s war ] [ Chapter 7: We who have lost everything don’t fear death, we remember it ] [ Chapter 8: We are the result of every choice we make ] [ Chapter 9: We can’t go back and change the beginning ] [ Chapter 10: We build walls against all others ] [ Chapter 11: We don’t always get to say goodbye ] [ Chapter 12: We die so many times before our final breath ] [ Chapter 13: We are free to choose but not free of consequence ] [ Chapter 14: We are all in darkness looking for the light ] [ Chapter 15: We repeat what we don’t repair ] [ Chapter 16: We fight to hold on and we fight to let go ] [ Chapter 17: We exist in moments, nothing more ] [ Chapter 18: We cry mercy and listen for the echo in the silence ] [ Chapter 19: We are made of every moment that tried to break us ] [ Chapter 20: We don’t choose what stays with us, only how we carry it ] [ Chapter 21: We are full of wounds but still standing ] [ Chapter 22: We don’t believe, we only fear ] [ Chapter 23: We are, all of us, ghosts ] [ Chapter 24: We break, we fail, we relearn what we already knew ] [ Chapter 25: We destroy ourselves so others can’t ] [ Chapter 26: We live out our fears or learn to tame our demons ] [ Chapter 27: We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry ] [ Chapter 28: We stop looking for the monsters under our beds when we realize they’re living inside our heads ] [ Chapter 29: We convince ourselves we deserve even our worst moments ] [ Chapter 30: We hide our feelings, forgetting our eyes speak ]
As always -  [ find the story on   AO3  ||  Wattpad ]
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Every comp page needs to have a few AUs and oneshots, right? 
[ What If: The Good Doctor ]      ~1k words, complete [ What If: The die cast, a deal struck ]          ~2k words, complete [ What If: Goodbye ] ~280 words, complete [ What If: Return to Me ] ~1.3k words, complete [ What If: A Hidden Shard ] ~300 words, complete [ What If: Walker gets his way ] ~1.2k words, complete [ What If: The House of Zemo ] ~1.3k words, complete [ What If: Unexpected, My Heart ] ~2.3k words, complete [ What If: 505 ] ~1.4k words, complete [ What If: Broken Fingers, Broken Heart ] ~1.1k words, complete [ What If: All gods die ] ~690 words, complete [ What If: Auction ] ~730 words, complete [ What If: How about a drink ] ~560 words, complete [ What If: Counterspy ] ~200 words, complete [ What If: When I Go (I'm never coming back) ] ~670 words, complete [ What If: Fly fly little bird ] ~1180 words, complete [ What If: I Walk In Shadow ] ~2k words, complete [What If: Leap of faith ] ~1k words, complete [ What If* explicit edition*: Auction ] ~14k words, complete [ Heida Hatches a Plan ]     ~400 words, complete [ LJH: Who We Were Before ]    prequel     ~26k words, complete [ LJH: The Baron & The Dove ]  AU      ~47k words, complete [ LJH: Ghosts in the Mirror ]   AU oneshot - sequel to B&D     ~2.5k words, complete [ LJH: Sins of the Father ]   * upcoming AU sequel [ LJH: Privileges ]   * upcoming sequel
silk - 🔥 - nsfw headcanons prompt (a moment from the au - LJH:B&D)  ice  - 🔥 - nsfw headcanons prompt (a moment from LJH proper)  6 secrets - LJH edition Six (more) secrets - LJH edition birthday - word prompt challenge 2024 (a moment from LJH proper celebrating Bucky's 108th birthday)
Jonathan F Walker knows how to find trouble
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In case there were questions about the related LJH stories, sequels, prequels, and various branches...
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lettalady · 2 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 25: We destroy ourselves so others can’t
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     They’re your friends and believe in you. They want to be there for you, even if it’s impractical. Friends. Acquaintances. New people in your life that care. However you want to frame it, they're also Avengers. They have a job that demands their attention – battles to fight, people to save. Not that you’ve voiced those thoughts, not so soon after their offer to hang around the building if you want company. It helps to know that they want to be around, demands of the job be damned.
    Sam stays long enough to help with kitchen cleanup after breakfast. The obligations of the new mantle beckon, persistently buzzing as bacon and sausages sizzled. He claimed he wanted to be home by the end of the day, too, sleep in his own bed, but if the activity on his phone was any indication The Powers That Be had other plans. You don’t get the chance to ask where he’s staying, but then it’s not like Bucky’s got any additional space to put Sam up. That question sidles up to the queue and slides into place alongside why Sam’s phone was buzzing pretty much from the moment he walked in the door, but Bucky’s remained silent.
    And then Bucky is headed for the door as well – things to take care of . It’s code, swinging the pair of you back to the way things were in Riga just that quickly, a code used rather than speaking plainly. Things to do. Avenger things. Work things. Faith in you can go a long way but there are still things that can’t or won’t be shared. Considering your reaction to the things you saw on the news yesterday, the things stirred within – it stings but maybe you understand it, too.
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lettalady · 2 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 26: We live out our fears or learn to tame our demons
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     That deep scowl has lessened a little but Bucky remains a little distant, a little preoccupied, as the pair of you explore the areas nearby the amusement park that are linked by the boardwalk. He’s likely thinking of the promise he made to train you and how he’s going to go about it. Disarming him. The need for it. The fact that he’s worried that something could happen to make the training necessary is definitely something to discuss. Later. As tempting as it is to point out it might not matter, that it all depends on how long you stay at his apartment – stay in New York – you leave those things unspoken. 
     You end up with a little striped bag of items, mostly postcards gathered to start sending to your family. Bucky surprises you, picking a few out to purchase as well. Was it an act of solidarity so you wouldn’t be the only one shopping or does he have someone in mind to send them to?
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 23: We are, all of us, ghosts
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     The building is barricaded and brightly lit in the images that you’re presented with on Bucky’s wall mounted flatscreen, or the structure is bathed in strobing lights. It’s night now but they’re trying to pretend that it's not with the massive lights set up to battle with the flashing lights of various emergency services teams. Lucky you, you’re getting to put eyes on the Manhattan headquarters for the GRC after all.
         You try keeping your attention fixed on the scrollbar at the bottom of the screen. Every channel is set up with similar shots, so you settle on one and settle in and try to remember how to breathe as you watch. Dynamic shots, Bucky might say -- if he were in his spot on the sofa, here, and not there in the middle of The Event unfolding. Please , let this night move forward, out of this moment. Let Sam and Bucky succeed. Let those in the radius of the clash between the super soldiers and those standing against them survive. Let this not be another Event to memorialize in the years to come.
         The respective reporters stand in the foreground with the building and barricades and various security presences framed behind. They motion, they nod and cast what are likely meant to be meaningful glances this way, or that. Every channel has nothing to say, nothing to add, while constantly saying something. The conflict. The super soldiers. Riga. Walker. The GRC. The Patch Act. What it’s like, this news being broadcast live, on scene, like every other network isn’t also there a few paces away delivering close to the same spiel.
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lettalady · 2 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 24: We break, we fail, we relearn what we already knew
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          After an evening listening to strangers speculate about refugees and sending them home, an evening spent staring at the Manhattan headquarters for the GRC, you know what waits once you stop listening to the sounds of the city, once you stop trying to memorize the bedroom ceiling. It won’t be the deep dark black that you always hope for and rarely get, an empty sleep allowed by exhaustion -- even though you are. Exhausted. Exhausted from sitting on the edge of the sofa, tense for any new bit of information the newscast might bring. Exhausted trying to fight the inevitable, trying to fight the bad that just keeps coming, returning to you again and again as though drawn back by a homing beacon you can’t find to turn off.
         Maybe the scarred landscape of your former home and the events that drove you from it are etched deep enough in your psyche that there is no escape. Regardless as to what is decided, if The Patch Act is enacted as is or amended, it doesn’t matter. You return, time and again, to your home country. The fact that you finally got to see the site of the headquarters? The place where the decision makers made those calls that could have helped, but didn’t…
          You could have tried insisting that the pair of you stay up longer. Talk longer. About anything. Pretend a little longer that it was normal that he’s sleeping on the sofa rather than in his own bed. That you’re here, living with him -- however much longer your refugee status allows it. You could have pushed to hear a little more about the events that went down in lower Manhattan, insisted on getting some sort of confirmation that Sam would stop by, that he, too, was ok. Whatever ok means these days.
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lettalady · 2 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 27: We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry
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     It was how much you missed Helmut and the things stirred by the letter. That’s all it was, right? That warmth that flooded through you that told you to take a breath and tip your head. Kiss Bucky. It was an urge brought into being by the suddenness of what had happened and the worn down state of your patience. It was something you hadn’t followed through on. You hadn’t had the chance to so much as think of tilting your head in that lack of space provided to attempt to draw Bucky’s mouth towards yours. He had blinked and stepped away, removed himself from the way his body framed yours – reacted before you’d really had time to process anything more than the collision that had slammed you into the kitchen appliance.
    That sudden breathless moment. You challenged him to stop holding back, to stop hiding the truth of those attributes he was trying to teach you about. Without actually seeing him in action there was no benefit to learning that simple sequence. Right?
    Now you know and… is there a benefit? If he’s right – if it’s a when and not if scenario – he’ll be close enough to do damage before you realize what’s happening. Knowing how to disarm him is a false comfort. It’s unlikely you’ll get the chance to attempt it.
    But he was trying to teach you anyway.
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 22: We don’t believe, we only fear
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     Trouble is here now, in New York. It followed from Riga -- and Madripoor, before that. At this point it’s hard to say if trouble follows in your wake, or if you are following it. It’s wound around you just like that thistle that is twisted up within the darkness that dominates your internal landscape. 
     Bucky’s going to meet Sam. This is what they do. He’s a super soldier and Sam can fly. That knowledge does nothing to stop you from worrying. 
     Something’s going down. I’m meeting Sam. Stay here. Stay safe. 
     Safe. That word again that everyone around you seemed to like to say so much. That promise nobody is capable of keeping.
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 17: We exist in moments, nothing more
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     Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. On your back. On your side. Buried under blankets or only using the sheet. You can’t get comfortable. It’s not simply the bedroom door being shut, or having someone else in the apartment. Shutting the door made the most sense in terms of allowing privacy, and who manages to sleep soundly with the door open anyway? Not that you’re sleeping. Bucky’s already been subjected to being startled from sleep by your reactions to your nightmares. You’d rather not have a repeat of that night in Riga, particularly so soon after the tentative decision to accept his offer of sharing the space. He’ll be called away for Avenging sooner or later. The only question is if it will happen before you collapse into the empty sleep of exhaustion, or have another rude awakening in response to your dreams. 
     It’s early when you give up, and get up. You don’t bother checking the time because what does it really matter? It’s not like you have a schedule to keep. Whatever odd routine you’ve got in place with Heida doesn’t count. You don’t have a job -- because, well, that job in Madripoor probably was contingent upon living in Madripoor -- and at this point, not hearing from them is a pretty clear sign that being shuffled off on your former employer was the voiding of whatever loose contract that had been established. No job means no income, no income means no way to pay Bucky back, not that he’s asking. But there’s a continued demand regarding the cost of living. You need to find a solution. Eventually. 
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 21: We are full of wounds but still standing
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    Through the years you’ve tried just about every method you could think of to try to successfully find, or avoid, sleep. Somehow distraction by way of movie-marathon had never occurred to you. As dawn arrives you realize -- you’re hooked. Groaning over horrible scene cuts, hiding your face and peering through your fingers at the ick that is over-the-top or so incredibly fake you can’t keep watching for fear it’ll send you to fits of laughter, laughing right along with the man pointing out plot holes large enough for a tank to roll through. It’s fantastic. When the scenery stirs something dark within you he’s just as quick to offer up a random bit of trivia to pull you out of the moment.
    And then you realize: Enhanced. Better than average. Better than most.
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home
Chapter 4: We might never ‘get over’, only ‘get through’
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     There is a peace that comes in the early hours of the morning that rarely occurs any other time of day – when most of the world is sleeping, though few are always up going about their business. It was early when you were left alone in the room you’d been escorted to, when you struggled out of your slacks and tucked into the strange bed to attempt something akin to sleep. Something told you not to fully undress, but to keep the slacks and the shoes you’d traded for your own close at hand. It’s better to be prepared in case you need to be up and ready to move quickly.
      Moving from place to place, from refugee camps to the hole in the wall you’re trying to call home here in Madripoor, you’ve gotten used to laying awake staring at whatever qualified as a roof over your head and calling that ‘rest’. You’ve reasoned it’s the better choice than waking anyone within earshot with your reactions to the nightmares trapped in your head.
     The painkillers Sami the medic gave you have made the room hazy, blending the shadows springing from the corners with the memories of Before pushing for acknowledgement. At one point you’re sure you see your former employer standing in the half-opened doorway, soft light from the hallway beyond framing his features. It’s the first dream from Before that hasn’t instantly woken you to sob quietly or shake in a bed drenched with sweat.
As always -  [ find the story on   AO3  ||  Wattpad ]
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lettalady · 3 years
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Ask game: 😂 💔
Hello and good morning darling! Happy Sunday! And ooh another two prompt question for the WIP Excerpts from The Long Journey Home (yes, this is me refusing to surface quite yet).
😂 Share your funniest line (or dialogue exchange).
Ok this one makes me laugh every time I try to read through (for extra clarity till we get to see the story posted, note that there are three men the reader is looking at in the moment)
It takes you a minute to realize that Sam is standing between Zemo and the All-American-Ass, Zemo held in place by Sam’s death grip on your former employer’s shoulder.
💔 Share your most heartbreaking line.
This one was difficult! But let's see if this one hurts the way it does within the context of the chapter:
If you open your mouth you’ll voice that desire, or something else that will be met with a worse reaction. Instead you swallow, offering him a half smile and gentle nod. A silent promise you have doubts as to your ability to keep. The pair of you are good at those.
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lettalady · 3 years
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Ask Games: WIP Excerpts
🤨🗣
Hello my darling! Thank you for the ask this Sunday morning and oh - let's see. Two prompts to look through the WIP and see if we can't answer. Hmmm. Shall we dive into The Long Journey Home and see what we can come up with? (By the way if someone prefers I surface from this new WIP and answer from a different project I'm open to requests!)
WIP Excerpts:
🤨 Share a line that makes no sense out of context.
"Don't forget your toes."
🗣 Share your favorite dialogue exchange.
“I’m fine.”
“See, he says he’s fine.”
“You drop him again we’ll see who’s fine.”
“You said you had him.”
“I asked if you had him.”
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lettalady · 3 years
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🏝 Share your favorite description of a setting for the ask game!
Hello there darling - thank you for the ask! I'm excited to post a little something regarding this new WIP that has sucked me in - and actually it took me a minute to figure out a description of a setting as the narrator doesn't focus all that often on her environment (there's a reason there, but we will dive more into that once the story is ready to be posted). At any rate... here's a bit from early on in the new work that has consumed me: The Long Journey Home
WIP Excerpts: 🏝 Share your favorite description of a setting
Madripoor was different in so many ways, but the same in some ways, too. It was a waypoint – a place to meet, to stop and quickly accomplish goals and leave even faster. To others it held promise. A percentage chose to live there, flocked to and thrived where the rules were made – and enforced – by the rulebreakers. Criminals of all kinds. Others, still, found their way because there were no other options left. Displacement made people consider things they never dreamed they’d have to. There was a desperation to claim a place, any place, in the world that promised a bed and warm meal and roof over your head. That lure brought you, like so many others, to reside within the boundaries of the neon city.
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lettalady · 3 years
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The Long Journey Home Chapter 19: We are made of every moment that tried to break us
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    In Riga it hadn’t seemed to matter to him if his metal arm was visible or covered. Maybe, though, that was a byproduct of his attention being focused on the next argument with Sam and trying not to cave to Helmut’s continued attempts to provoke him.
    As soon as the thought occurs, you backtrack. Your first encounter with Bucky in Madripoor was an instance of having his metal arm on full display. But then on the flight out… even as preoccupied as you were at the time you clearly remember him acting much the same way he has been all day walking around Brooklyn: very carefully keeping the dark metal hidden from view. Now that you’re trying to focus on it you can’t quite settle on a memory, one way or the other, from the series of days spent in Riga. In the residence you half-remember moments of him having his arm uncovered, but then you also might remember times when he was dressed much the same way he is now with a sleeve keeping his arm hidden. Much like Helmut, didn’t he sometimes wear gloves?
    Why would it matter one location and not another? Why would it matter one moment and not the next?
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