AO3 | BuckyMel Community Ted Lasso, BuckyMel, Shrinking… and occasionally, existential crisis. Any ads you see on the blog are not supported and/or promoted by me :)
Summary: Mel’s just trying to survive another "New Avengers" meeting. Bucky’s just trying to get under her skin. They argue, they bicker, they definitely don’t care.
Except she still has his business card.
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Mel Gold (Thunderbolts, 2025)
Word Count: 730 words
Warnings: None
GIF by: @calisverse (Thank you!)
“Okay. Any questions?”
“Yes. Why does he get a new suit—" Walker jabbed a finger toward Bucky. “—and I still have to wear this, Mel?”
“Questions related to the press conference.”
Walker opened his mouth. Then quickly shut it.
“I have one.”
“Yes, Yelena.”
“How do you and Bucky know each other?”
Mel inhaled and stole a quick glance at Bucky. “Ask him.”
“Bucky, why—"
“Not right now,” Mel interrupted Yelena, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Again, any questions about the press conference.”
Mel scanned the room as everyone shook their heads.
“Yes.” Except Bucky. Of course.
“What do I tell them when they ask me how I went from trying to impeach Valentina to working for her?”
“Tell them you changed your mind,” Mel offered.
“I didn’t.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “You were bored of being a congressman?”
“Yes. But I’m not saying that.”
She resisted the urge to groan. Even as she heard chairs scraping and footsteps leaving.
“How about you ‘found a better way to help people’?”
“No.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. “Is there any chance you’ll say yes?”
“If you ask me if I can skip this conference.”
She sighed. “That’s not happening.” Then got up, accidentally kicking her bag in the process. “Shit.”
She kneeled over, trying to grab onto the rolling lipstick when she saw his metal hand snag a piece of paper that had fallen from her bag. “Hey, that’s mine!”
“No. It’s actually mine.” He flipped the paper in his hand. “My business card. You kept it.”
“Well, you gave it to me.” She got up, flinging her bag onto the table with a thud, as she threw her lipstick in it.
“That was two months ago.”
“What, it’s got an expiration date on it?”
He pulled the card away as she tried to reach it. “No. But I’m sure you got a phone to save the number in.”
“What do you want?” She tried to reach for the card again. “Give me that!”
“Skip the conference.”
She huffed. “No. And just trash that card. I don’t need it.”
“You did call it trash. Hurt my feeling. But you still kept it. So it seems you do need it.”
“Feeling? Singular?” She tightly shut her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“To annoy you.” He smirked.
“Okay. I get it. You hate me.” She exhaled slowly. “But let me do my job!”
“I don’t hate you.” He shook his head, settling further into the chair. “And you are doing your job. Convincing me proves you’re competent. I’m very stubborn.”
“I really hate my life.”
“Yeah, so do all of us on this team.”
She pursed her lips and sat back down. “Okay. What do you want, Bucky?”
“For you to realize you’re working for the wrong person.”
“You think I’m an idiot? You do, don’t you?” Her elbows came to rest on the table. “Set your nobility aside for one second and you’ll see that maybe this is exactly what I wanted.”
“To work for the bad guy?”
“We’re all bad guys. The entire team is made up of bad guys.” She glared at him. “But you’re still doing good. While, wait for it… working for the bad guy!”
“Oh. Right.”
“Yeah. Oh. Bucky, I know you don’t trust Val. Or me. But, I know, as well as you, that you now get to do good, much quicker, because you’re working for Val.”
“But we don’t—”
“I know. I know you don’t listen to her. Or do what she says. But you have the monetary backing, the connections now. Maybe that’s why I’m still here. Working for her. Why is it so hard for you to believe?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Yeah.” Mel let out a long breath. “As for why I still have your card. It was nice to have someone show up when I needed them. Guess I just wanted to remember that.”
Bucky stilled at that. “Huh.”
He slid the card back toward her.
She took the card back. Didn’t look at him when she slipped it into her bag. “Surely you understand what that feels like.”
He didn’t look away from her, but his eyes did widen a fraction. “You know you can still call me. Anytime.”
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bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.
Stop hunting like it's 1692. You're not going to find Goody Proctor at the ChatGPT sacrament. What you're going to do is exactly what happened back then: harming people who've done nothing wrong.
That ‘comment on your a03 work’ email hits like a line of cocaine every time. unmatched dopamine increase. shoutout to everyone who leaves a comment on fics. you deserve the world
Bucky and Mel find themselves on the road after a mission. Mel sneakily gets a blue slushie during a rest stop, and Bucky's ability to resist her is put to the test.
Content: romcom antics, Mel knows what she's doing but then so does Bucky, Bucky is down bad, flirting, kissing.
For @fluffyjuly Day 11 - Slushie | “Try it”
And @juniebjonesin picnic prompts “You cut the crusts off.” - “You hate them.” / “You remembered that?” / “I always do.
Masterlist | Marvel | Bucky Barnes
The SUV rolled to a stop on the crunching gravel of the parking lot, if you could call the dirt off the side of the road a lot.
Mel could see a square wooden building to one side, a single gas pump and — was that — oh my god, a slushie machine!
"I'm going to the bathroom, be back in five." Mel unclipped her seatbelt and was halfway out of the car when Bucky spoke up, his hand covering hers on the dashboard.
"Be careful, okay, in and out, we're laying low, remember?"
"Yes, yes I know, very secret spy stuff. Sure. You want snacks?"
"Mel, we're laying low, no buying snacks. We have food."
Bucky pointed to the cool box he'd packed and stowed in the footwell of the backseats and Mel rolled her eyes.
"Fine."
It was not fine, she was getting a slushie whether Bucky said she could or not. He wasn't the boss of her.
They'd been on the road for hours and hours, she needed the sugar to keep her awake and, more than that, she needed to remember that there were fun treats in the world and not just Valentina breathing down her neck or superheroes telling her she had to be quick.
She returned to find Bucky sat in the open trunk of the SUV, the door providing some shade from the afternoon sun.
And Bucky found her drinking from an enormous cup of what looked like anti-freeze.
"Melissa."
"James."
"We agreed no snacks."
"It's not a snack, it's a drink."
"Is that wiper fluid? Do I need to call poison control, we don't have time for the emergency room so you'll have to just die quietly in the back."
"Noted." She took another slurp, closing her eyes and she sucked around the wide straw, and Bucky pointedly looked away.
He was struggling to look at her as it was. The way her long lean legs stretched out in the car, the narrow curve of her waist when he'd helped her after the attack, the lacey little cami she revealed when she took off the serious black sweater she always wore. And now, this oversized shirt hanging from her shoulders and her lips tight around the straw.
It was entirely too much.
"Do I need to sort something out in there? Did they have CCTV?"
Mel shivered, playing it off as brain freeze, but god did she love his tough-guy Thunderbolts voice.
"Nah, it's some mom and pop outfit, guy was in the back watching football anyway."
"Good."
Bucky opened the cooler and pulled out two neatly wrapped foil packages, one with an 'M' on in Sharpie.
Mel opened it suspiciously to find her favourite club sandwich inside, just how she liked it.
“You cut the crusts off," she said, slightly confused.
“You hate them," Bucky mumbled around a bite of his own, large, sandwich. As if that explained anything.
"I do…but how do you know that." She took her own bite, it was delicious, her eyes closing as she moaned at the taste of real food. She'd never admit it, but Bucky was right, she was sick of mediocre fries and cheap gas station burgers, this was heaven.
Bucky watched her, pupils wide, and hoped she hadn't sensed his fascination with the way she made that happy noise while she ate.
"We had that interview a few months back, they brought catering and you only ate the middle of the finger sandwiches, so I made a guess."
"Wow…you remembered that?"
"Considering I had my mind wiped and that I'm an old man, as you like to tell me, I have a fairly good memory."
He did, didn't he. Mel had noticed he was very thoughtful when it came to her and it gave her butterflies as if she was a teenager with a crush.
"What's this blue thing you were so desperate for anyway?" He asked, eyeing the now melting drink out of the corner of his eye.
"Slushie! Have you never had one?"
This was why Bucky liked Mel, she always seemed excited about sharing something new with him. The gentle mocking that followed was acceptable, mostly because she had such interesting and varied tastes.
"It's like crushed ice and syrup, do you want to try some?" She offered him the cup and wiggled it around, "it won't bite."
"Not sure I need anymore anti-freeze in me." He joked and Mel stuck her tongue out, now blue from the food colouring.
"Your tongue is blue."
She kept her tongue out and tried to look down at the same time, Bucky held back a laugh.
Mel glared back, "and I was going to share my slushie with you as well," she pouted.
"Yes, very scary, eat up we need to get going."
"I'm terrifying, actually." Mel took another bite of her sandwich, watching Bucky tidy up around her. He looked up and gave her that soft smile that had been appearing more and more lately.
"Terrifying." He agreed, "you ready to get go?"
"Sure." Mel balled up her sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the trash like a basketball. "Score!"
Bucky was still looking at her, soft eyes and gentle smile — the butterflies were back.
They both settled back into the comfortable seats of the Thunderbolt's SUV.
"Do you have any slushie left, I wanna try it." Bucky asked, checking the paper road map he'd insisted on bringing.
"Nope, it was too delicious."
"Hmm," he looked at her again, and his eyes flicked down to her blue tongue, the tip sticking out from between her lips as she concentrated on tidying up her.
"What?"
"Just —" he lent across the centre console, cupping the back of her head and pulling her closer. His lips met hers and she gasped, his tongue sliding along hers. It felt hot compared to the ice she'd just chugged and she shivered, leaning into his touch.
When he pulled back he was smiling thoughtfully, "you're right, it is nice," and then he pulled out of the lot as if nothing had happened.
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need y'all to know that most academics have publicly searchable email addresses and this not only makes their day but they can put nice emails in their giant packets for applying for jobs or tenure. "hi i read your paper for a class and it was very helpful, im at xyz college and the class is blah with professor blah" is sufficient and ENORMOUSLY helpful
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quick tip from someone who has been in fan spaces for 20 years: being enthusiastic about your rarepair and making your own stuff/engaging your fellow rarepair shippers will ALWAYS work better than yelling at people who enjoy a more popular ship about how bland their ship is
i know most things in the pitt are very intentional, but naming the chill, unflappable, and musculoskeletal-ultrasound-proficient resident crus henderson is so clever!!
crus is the literal medical term for leg or pillar-like anatomical structures
and then having this man use ultrasound to identify limb injuries just makes it so much better
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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