Moonrise

now he does it to ground himself. letting it ring until tonys voice tells him to leave a message - he never does. and he sits against rubble, an iron pole going through his ribcage, waiting for Tony's voice. But it never comes, instead a girl picks up.

first he thinks tonys number was given to someone else, but then the girl says:

"hey, i saw you called a few times. you must have the wrong number, it was my dad's and he died."

it's only half a punch to the gut to hear Morgan's voice. he never really got to know her anyway, but it's enough that he doesn't answer, but gasps and breathes in too deep, feeling the iron pole move, making him groan in pain.

"are you okay? should I call someone?", she asks.

but there is no one to call, he only had this, the last remains of a dead man, because maybe dead people wouldn't have forgotten his name, wherever they are now.

he laughs, the pole stabs deeper through his chest. the iron goes almost through his heart, but even fate isn't that ironic.

Lotor showing up behind his generals:

instead of "Alexei eating poptarts" or "Yelena in the vents", we must come up with new headcanons and make history

Bob always does normal domestic chores, often getting in the way of important missions and spy business. "All I'm saying is Bucky is our best sniper" "It would be a much quieter assassination if I just slipped into the condo and cut his—" "Hey sorry guys, anyone have laundry? I'm doing a load"

Yelena and her guinea pig always eat meals together at the dining table. Everyone has their Chinese food or barbeque, meanwhile the rodent is loudly munching on a salad right beside them

Bucky is the mom and always keeps them on track. "Ava you have a dentist appointment in the morning, and bring Bob so they can add him to the insurance. Lena how was therapy? Alexei, I said no vodka until dinner"

Alexei is always coming up with new promotional ideas for the team. Cartoon tv show, cereal, toothpaste flavour...every day he thinks he's come up with the next big thing. Whenever they actually get put into production (Wheaties) he collects and saves it, and won't let anyone use a different product. (He threw out Yelena's frosted flakes and it took both Bucky and John to get her to stop attacking him)

Ava likes to phase and sneak attack her teammates at random. She claims it's for training but really she just thinks it's funny hearing them scream

Bob has a lot of time on his hands living in the tower but not going on missions (so there isn’t another void incident) so he’s picked up a few hobbies to pass his extra time. He started crocheting and has made a few things for the others. Yelena wears the scarf he made her basically all the time. His favorite thing to make is blankets that are super fluffy and big enough to fit at least three people comfortably. He also has a borderline WILD amount of complicated paint by numbers. He enjoys that each number feels like its own mini challenge. He also occasionally bakes a MEAN batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Yelena spends a lot of time just hanging out with her teammates. She was by herself for so long that she has come to realize she loves simple company. They don’t need to talk or do anything, just another’s presence is enough and she’s happy. She’s also very invested in an incredibly complicated mystery podcast. Everytime she thinks she has the entire story down there’s some crazy plot twist and makes her rethinks the entire thing. She loves it.

Bucky finally has the time to teach himself to cook. He’d been trying before but never really got into it. But after he made dinner for the team one night from a recipe he’d learned, which they were all EXTREMELY grateful, because it was delicious, he got more into it. So far he’s mastered a few of his own favorites but has been expanding into his teammates tastes. He also asks Bob every so often to make dessert, just for fun.

Alexei has made almost every effort to keep his things tidy after his move into the tower and is somehow completely successful and also not. His room with all the team productions is SPOTLESS. Not a single piece of dust rests on anything more than two seconds. His own room on the other hand, absolute disaster. Just don’t go in there, it’s not a good idea. He is just so proud of the team and his daughter.

Ava still sees Bill Foster (her kind of dad) and he visits occasionally. The rest of the team loves him and Yelena pushes for embarrassing stories of younger Ava so she isn’t the only one whose childhood was explained by her dad. Ava also really enjoys having a place that she can truly call her own. She has created a beautiful space for herself in her room with lots of plants and sunlight. Her room looks like it could be on a Pinterest board in the best way.

Oh yeah, two hours is daydreaming about Bucky 💭

View on Twitter

Since it came up recently, link to that therapist on twitter 👆 who was discussing Bucky’s terribile therapist in TFATWS and how they should’ve been. 

Transcript:

“As a therapist myself I’ve had a lot of feelings about Bucky’s therapist on TFatWS, and have decided I need to rant a little to let it all out. I’ve worked w/active duty, trauma survivors, and court ordered clients, so here’s some therapeutic conjecture on Bucky’s therapy:

Aesthetically her office and presentation don’t fit for someone who has been through the trauma that he’s been through. A client like this would need something non-threatening and safe- the whole vibe is overly formal and official in an office building, not at all therapeutic.

6 months working together she calls him Mr. Barnes and then James-he has identity issues and is struggling with who he is, so I think that one of the 1st things they would have done is figure out what he is comfortable being called, by whom and what that means for him.

He is still full out lying to her about pretty much everything including PTSD sx—I’m not saying clients never lie if they have good therapists, but if after 6 months he still doesn’t feel like he can be truthful at all then they haven’t built any trust/ solid therapeutic rapport

The pen and notebook thing-that’s clearly a trigger for him, there’s no reason to antagonize him and take notes in session like a punishment, it’s a power play on her part and it only emphasizes his lack of control in being forced into therapy (she should know his hx w/notebooks)

The whole little arm motion she made when she said “they need to make sure you don’t…” – that made so much light of what has happened to him, he probably feels like his arm is only good as a weapon and things like that will not help him accept it as part of his body

The rules, UGH the rules—from how they were talking about them clearly not something he actively created for himself, more like directives that he’s been ordered to adhere to—something fed to him and reinforced, feels like a way to sign off on liability only

THE AMENDS—this is probably my biggest issue. Amends are for people who need to take accountability for their actions and the repercussions of those choices. He had NO choice. He was a victim of horrific crimes against him, and framing it in a way that he needs to make up for

the crimes that others used him for is abhorrent. The lack of trauma informed care as astounding in the way it is being framed that he has to atone for sins that weren’t his. Its clearly reinforcing the idea in his head in ep 2 when he says “HYDRA were my people”.

NO, HYDRA were your captors. They were not your people. That type of thinking needs to get deconstructed and challenged. He can dedicate himself to bringing good into the world and righting wrongs that happened WITHOUT taking on the responsibility of those actions.

Her whole attitude and demeanor were condescending and demeaning. I know some people have said “I love how she calls him out on his bullshit!” That’s not what I see happening. I call my clients out on their shit all the time—this was not that.

And I can only do that with clients ONCE we’ve built the type of relationship where it’s going to be therapeutic for them to hear it, and it’s done intentionally and with purpose. She just came off shaming and mean because they don’t seem to have any form of therapeutic rapport.

She said “you have no history, no family”- there is no therapeutic reason for that, and she’s wrong. He most likely has family alive (he used current tense when talking about his sister) and he was close to Shuri and TChalla, his history is vital to understanding him

When she said “Look, I know that you have been through a lot, but you’ve got your mind back. You are being pardoned. These are good things. You’re free.”—Yeah this feels really dismissive and like toxic positivity. “I know you’ve been through a lot BUT BE HAPPY!!??”

He certainly doesn’t seem to feel like he’s free (especially having therapy mandated), and you can’t just tell someone they’re free. I felt like she was pretty much just like, “shake it off, look to the future!” which feels really shitty when you’ve experienced excessive trauma.

HELLO breach of confidentiality, just introducing herself to Sam as his therapist and confirming it to Walker and the whole police station, it doesn’t matter if they know he’s in therapy you do not break someone’s privacy like that, he still deserves some control over his tx.

Ordering Sam into a session, NO, he’s not your client and you don’t know him well enough to know if that’s appropriate or if it would be harmful to either, and you haven’t asked your client for his consent to have another person in his session

Forcing a trauma victim who was stripped of his bodily autonomy for 70 years into a physically intimate exercise with a coworker that he’s barely interacted with in the last several months? NOPE, just reinforcing to Bucky she has control over him the way his handlers used to

To me, I think she is more focused on signing off on his psychological eval that he isn’t a liability rather than any actual healing or attention to his trauma. This unfortunately isn’t unusual in the military where “mental health treatment” is focused on being mission ready.

They are making sure he’s ready to be an “asset” w/ mandated therapy, which he shouldn’t even be forced to do as part of his pardon because he shouldn’t have needed a pardon at all because he was a victim of horrific war crimes, brainwashing, and dehumanization for 70 years.

I’m just saying, if that was me he would be on my big squishy couch, bright open windows, bowl of Hershey kisses, random fidget toys, and two therapy dogs laying all over him while we work through that trauma and he builds back his identity and finds the calm he wants so badly.

And yes he would probably need someone who would see through his BS, call him out when he needs it, not be overly “touchy feely”, but only if he feels safe and there is trust, where he gets to work on what HE wants, not what others think he needs.

Anyway thanks for coming to my TEDTalk, I❤️my work and I think being a therapist on retainer for the Avengers would’ve been a fucking trip, they all needed a team of mental health professionals at their disposal 24/7 and things would’ve been so much better🤣

ps. They can be a good therapist and just not be a fit for the client, that happens regularly. We know when to make it part of the conversation and when to refer out. Nothing good is going to come out of a contemptuous therapeutic relationship, mandated or not.