Some people just didn’t know how to fight fair, Curt thought as he rinsed the last shards of glass out of Bucky’s scalp. 

and we know in their relationship that Bucky is the sub (which I 100% approve of, that big man needs to be told what to do sometimes with a firm but loving hand). and having Curt do that for him makes it even better, the height difference between them is there but Curt doesn’t need it to get Bucky to submit to him.

I’m not sure if in your universe for them, it does end up that Curt dies (excuse me while I cry), but how does Bucky cope with that? obviously he’s going to be devastated and wrecked by it.

but is Buck going to step in and be that Dom for him without even realizing it? especially when they’re in the stallag, does he have to reign Bucky in because that’s why he’s wilding out? that’s why he’s spiraling, he lost his Dom, his lover, the man he trusted. he thought he lost Buck, his best friend, another man that he may or may not love.

I just picture Buck not knowing entirely what to do, but knowing that Bucky needs something to screw his head back on straight. because he refuses to see Bucky get shot, he refuses to have to watch his best friend die.

I’m so sorry for the rambling, I was just thinking about it since I binged your CurtxBucky pieces

-🪷

xx

ahhh hello! welcome to curtbucky hell, population: 12. maximum. credit where it’s due, i’m definitely not the first or only curtbucky writer! i’m just very loud 😅 but i love hearing thoughts about them so i am Seated! ngl shorter dom/taller sub is basically My Brand at this point, trust me when i say height is NOT everything. i think curt especially likes it, honestly, because people see him and think certain things, and he's sharp enough to know what those things are and when subverting those expectations will benefit him. he does it in the RAF fight to great effect!

i definitely prefer universes where curt lives because he’s my favorite and curtbucky is my main ship—gale can join in or not, but i’m less Moved by clegan on its own than i am by any combo involving curt. that said, in a more canon-adherent universe where curt DOES die [or everyone THINKS he does, which is more doable than it sounds at first blush, but that’s a different post] i do think gale eventually steps into the role of grounding bucky, especially in the stalag where it’s a lot more dangerous for everyone around them for bucky to be spiralling.

but! i don’t think he’s good at it! not at first. his first attempt at grounding bucky after curt’s gone is, textually and canonically, Bad: bucky tries to talk to him about no one remembering them if they go down either [pretty clearly referencing curt, who’s the only character both bucky AND the audience are attached to that dies in ep 3 and who never gets mentioned again] and gale—intentionally or not—brushes him off and sends him to london alone, instead of sitting with him through the pain the way curt does in the wing scene. so imo gale’s bucky-in-crisis instincts aren’t… very good, not when bucky is dealing with something bigger than, like. a hangover. but in the stalag someone has to do SOMETHING, because bucky IS putting himself in danger acting out, and gale does love him. so i think he tries!

the issue is that i think gale… tends towards disapproval, in a way that i think is reeeally bad for bucky, especially in combination with the way bucky has him on a pedestal. It’s not something i think is insurmountable for either of them, but there is absolutely NO WAY they are sorting through the highly combustible combo of:

gale’s DEEP fear of the intimacy and vulnerability that comes not only with admitting he wants bucky but with being a good dom and responding to what your sub wants AND needs, and his tendency towards Mean Dom behavior with ZERO concept of aftercare, vs

bucky’s inferiority complex, HUGELY exacerbated instinct towards self-punishment, his tendency to push people past their limits to GET that punishment, and the way he lets gale get away with treating him less than kindly because it means he’s getting attention from gale at all, AND

both of their complete inabilities to articulate any of this in a way the other is going to hear

in the middle of the shit going on in the stalag. it’s just not going to happen. so to me, any dynamics they fall into in the stalag are very much bandaids on bullet holes; it might work to keep bucky grounded while they’re there, it might yank him back from the edge, but it’s going to need to be sorted out after the fact in a big way. if gale has some of curt’s behavior to model his on, whether from bucky opening up about what he and curt had/have OR because he’s in the room watching it happen in an ot3 kinda scenario, i think they’d be better off and have less collateral damage to handle afterwards.

[in the couple of AUs i have spinning in my head where curt goes down and either gets stalag’d himself OR makes it through the evasion lines back to england after the buckies go down, curt and gale absolutely butt heads over the damage gale’s handling of bucky causes. if he’s DEAD dead, though, the buckies have to reckon with it themselves, and i don’t think it’s pretty when they do.]

Motaversary what if game

(Read the whole fic on AO3)