#ditenean

Storytime!

I started playing on tumblr about 4 years ago and shortly after, I stumbled over a blog with an OC that I really liked. A quirky little thing of a muse that was so well written and researched and developed. I fell in love with that muse, but it took me over a year and a half and following that blog on at least four or five of my blogs to find my balls and send a message.

It took Bucky Barnes as my muse to finally approach that blog. The mun of that blog and I agreed to start with a thread in the past, when Bucky was still active as the Winter Soldier and somehow, that mun and I just hit it off. Our writing flowed perfectly, our ideas for the plot meshed like nothing before and we started talking.

For half a year, we watched our muses snark at and finally fall for each other and that mun and I became friends. To the point where we were talking daily, as much as our opposite schedules would allow, because he was in the US and I was in Germany.

When asked, I denied that it was anything but a really wonderful friendship. Which a certain someone ( @immcrtalinstrument *cough* ) called bullshit on.

Okay, yes, maybe I have the crush on my life on my roleplaying partner, but hey, it’s not like it’s going to go anywhere, right? There is this whole thing about his story and my commitment issues and he’s got a kid and we’re quite literally on opposite sides of the earth and holy shit I got it bad.

It took me another month and then some to get my shit together to finally admit it to him. All the while, we were, probably, living vicariously through our muses. 

Well, fast forward to now:

I’m a bit biased there, because @immcrtalinstrument is my real life parabatai, partner in crime and has been my roleplay partner for uhm … LET??? HOW LONG???? Four years now? I think? 

And then there is @drarialynn who I’ve interacted with on nearly every fucking blog I’ve had since starting out in the Bond fandom here on tumblr. 

 rarestsilver ✄wtf your handwriting is beautiful...

[[Can state for a fact that T writes almost every reply out by hand before actually typing it up. They also have a tendency to write in mirror image when they’re working on non-RP-related works, so they get a lot of practice!]]

Kushiel glowed faintly in Jace’s hand, the long, curved blade like a beacon in the strange, dense shadows between the shipping containers. The tops of them were painted with silver from the almost full moon, but stacked high as they were, the light didn’t reach all the way down.

When Jace looked up, he could see the dark shape of Alec following swiftly and quietly along with him, one hand gripping his bow tightly, the other holding an arrow notched.

The containers made navigation hard and the metal corridors they created distorted sound oddly. Still, the shout that rang through the night was clear as day.

As one, Alec and Jace started a race down the long path, one above, one below. Alec vaulting from container to container with angelic grace. 

“Over there!”, Alec’s voice rang out and Jace followed the path he pointed out without question.

The moment Jace shot out of the shadow of the containers and into the open space created, almost like an arena, the first arrow hissed through the air at one of the Ravener demons advancing on a small, human form in a corner.

I don’t think I can be fair here. You know, considering that Bran’s mun is sitting right beside me right now and is carrying my engagement ring.

//I assume you meant Bran? Because .... no one here is into gore ....?

It was well written, definitely. And at least physically not far off the mark. Somebody definitely had taken a good long look at both of them. Potentially during medical exams. 

But ...

“No way Red’s just taking it without mouthing off. Kid may be skinny, but he’s definitely not meek.”

It didn’t change the fact that reading this had made his trousers feel uncomfortably tight. 

HYDRA has been taken down. At least that was the general consensus. The severely crippled SHIELD was slowly making it's way back into the good graces of the general public and the Avengers ....

Well, the Avengers were divided, to put it mildly.

With the first rather spectacularly failed attempt at the Sokovia Accords, the United Nations were working on something new. But Captain Steve Rogers had other problems.

One of them was currently on ice in the depth of the Wakandan jungle.

Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. His best friend. All true, all ... not quite enough.

It was hard thinking about all of it. He could see the change in Bucky, not only physically, but it didn't change the fact that he was his best friend and that Steve (selfishly, he admitted freely to himself) wanted that best friend back.

And there was only way to get that: Fix Bucky's head.

"Are you sure you want to do this?", Nat's voice was calm, reassuring despite her question, from where she stood by the entry of the room. The cryogenic containment unit in front of Steve was humming quietly. He was watching the face, still and pale, behind the glass and wondered why Nat seemed so hesitant to enter the room.

He'd noticed it before. Her strange reluctance to even look at the unit.

"Very sure.", he said, his eyes focusing on her reflection in the glass. "Are you?"

"Why wouldn't I?", she said and in that moment he realised that something was up. He didn't pry. She would tell him when she was ready.

"Good.", he said instead.

"There is no guarantee.", she warned and he could hear her shift. She still wasn't coming closer, her head turned to the side, looking out the large bay windows.

"No, but there's a chance."

---

The flight back to the US was strangely hassle free. Steve noticed only when he stepped out of the plane, courtesy of T'Challa, that he had been tense ever since they had left the facility. He still was, a little, despite the fact that he had SHIELD backup here.

Not officially, of course. But ... well, let's just say that Phil Coulson owed him a favour or two. On top of a long, long explanation that Steve was yet to receive.

The relationship between SHIELD and the SCP Foundation had always been one of grudging respect and the mutual realisation that they wanted the same thing. As long as they stayed out of each other's business, the two organisations had worked reasonably well together whenever the circumstances had thrown them in each other's way. Favours had been exchanged before and from what Steve had heard, this one had been granted rather easily as well.

Still, he felt uneasy with the whole situation.

It might be the sterile room they had brought the containment unit into or the mass of doctors already bustling about, poking and prodding at charts on their tablets, taking vitals and reading reports.

They were talking about Bucky like a thing. Like their new science project and it was grating on his nerves, but he stood in the corner, arms folded and watched quietly, with Sam perched close by. Nat was back to navigating the politics of the current situation and Sam had refused to let Steve go alone.

It felt like days when one of the lab coat wearing SCP personnel stepped up to them, adjusting her glasses and glancing down at something on the smooth glass screen of her device. The glow gave her a strange appearance and when it reflected in the lenses, Steve clenched his teeth subconsciously. Doctors made him nervous.

"Everything is stable and from what we can see on the preliminary tests there is only minor physical brain damage.", she adjusted her glasses again and looked up. "For now, we will begin the gradual process of waking him up."

"How long will it take?", Sam jumped in, suddenly and quietly appearing at Steve's elbow.

"Twelve to fifteen hours, depending on how he reacts to stage one. I would suggest you come back in the morning."

The suggestion turned out to be more of an order and in the name of continued good relations, a short call from Director Coulson convinced them to leave the facility for the time being. It took Steve a moment and one of the strangely insightful little jabs from Sam to realise that the cold pit in his stomach was fear.

He didn't feel comfortable leaving Bucky in this place.

---

The SCP Foundation sites were some of the most secure places on earth. Steve knew that. There was no reason to fear that someone would come and steal Bucky away again.

But trouble did not come from the outside.

Trouble came in the form of a young researcher, who had wandered into the quiet and almost deserted medical wing in search of a bandage for the cut across the palm of his hand. The result of someone being careless on not cleaning up a broken glass ... something in one of the research labs.

Usually, the young man could have simply stepped into the medical wing through the main doors and asked one of the people on staff for aid, but being the person that he was, he would rather avoid any contact with the people of the medical profession and instead had decided to sneak in through the back door and pilfer whatever medical supplies he could find, preferably before he bled out enough to loose consciousness or trigger any of the blood-conscious SCPs around.