#apshds

Hi, all! (or all ten of you who follow this blog, lol.)

The wonderful @lauralot89 recently posted about her difficulties in continuing this truly incredible fic series because of idiots in the comments on her last work.

I know that many people who've been in this fandom for quite some time have read Lauralot's works and may have even been following this series. If you want any more of it, make sure you support your author by going and telling her what this series means to you in her inbox! (Or leave comments and kudos on her works - or all three.)

For those of you who have not yet happened upon this series, I highly recommend you go read it, even if some of the tropes and elements are not usually in your wheelhouse (but mind the tags!) It features character development through found family, abuse recovery, and mental health awareness. And stuffed animals. And it is a major fuck-you to Endgame in that it was written in the time of "and they all live in the tower and have their own floors" and maintains that into the present day.

Usually, sleepiness leads to regression, so Bucky’s bedtime routine involves Steve putting him to bed as a child. Steve asks if he needs help getting changed, and Bucky says no every time, but Steve still asks, largely because of that flare of confidence Bucky gets when he says no, that he doesn’t want Steve to take his clothes off of him or see him naked, and Steve listens. When Bucky comes out of the bathroom in his padding and his PJs, Steve scoops him up and cuddles him, kisses him, carries him to the bed. Steve plops him down and tucks him under the covers, then pulls a book off the shelf to read to him. Bucky doesn’t have to choose. After a whole day of working hard to recover, to “reclaim his agency” as the doctors say, at night when he’s tired, Daddy chooses, and Daddy always chooses right.

Steve sits on the bed next to Bucky, and Bucky snuggles closer so his head is pressed against Steve’s outer thigh. Then Steve reads to him, slowly, evenly, in that deep, rumbling voice that makes all of Bucky’s nerves settle down and be still. Sometimes they read a second book; sometimes Bucky can barely keep his eyes open by the end of the first. Either way, Steve shelves the book, kisses Bucky on the forehead, and says, “I love you,” before turning out the light and leaving the room.

Commission for @lauralot89, who asked for Bucky Bear and Ameribear walking in the woods and encountering stuffed squid (up to no good)

My boys say hi!