#mod!chicklette

Title: Just Stay Alive (series)

Author: Dira Sudis (dsudis) @dsudis

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/series/99032 (AO3)

Ship: Bucky/Sam, Steve/Sam, Sam/Steve, Bucky/Steve, Bucky/Sam/Steve

Rating: Explicit

Major Tags:  Polyamory, Threesome, Dissociation, Amnesia, PTSD, Bucky Barnes has Issues, First Kiss, Cuddling & Snuggling

Summary: 

Pt 1: He could learn to be Sam’s friend, even if he hadn’t figured out yet how to be Steve’s.

Pt. 2: Today, on this morning, while Sam stood here in his PJs, his boyfriend Captain America was in his kitchen eating yogurt, and Sam had to figure out how to tell him that he’d kind of arguably cheated on him with the Winter Soldier who was also, incidentally, Bucky Barnes, the other half of the thus-far-tragic love story of Steve Rogers’ epic life.

Pt. 3: “I’ll keep watch,” Bucky said, and Steve jumped. Sam could only manage a twitch, but he meant it with every fiber of his where the hell did you come from being. Bucky was just there somehow, standing in the slice of shadow to one side of the room’s window. “Sleep, both of you,” Bucky repeated. “I’ve got this watch.”

Review’s name: chicklette

Review:  So, here I am, a lost little chicklette fresh into the MCU, and I stumble onto this fic.  This fucking fic.

This fic, where I read the tags and said, oh, yeah.  Oh yeah, of course Sam is part of the love affair that is Steve and Bucky and Sam.  Of course.  Duh!

This series begins sometime after the Triskelion falls.  Bucky is trying to figure out who he is, who Bucky is so that he can get back to Steve, because Steve is still his mission.  Only the mission now is assist and protect, and so Bucky sets out trying to do that. 

And so he begins first by creeping on Sam and Steve, trying to figure out who they are to one another so that he can figure out who he might be to them.  The story is told with perspective from Sam and Bucky, and it is heartbreaking, heart aching, and, by the time it’s over, just beautiful. 

It’s told in three parts, and each leads beautifully into the next, and you keep reading and reading, and next thing you know, boom! You’ve spent another whole day wrapped up in a beautiful, beautiful fic.

Sometimes I’m almost mad that this is one of the first fics I read in this fandom.  I immediately sought out all manner of OT3fic, and found startling little available.  What’s worse, is that damn few OT3 fics render each of these men as beautifully as dsudis does with this tale.  It’s an absolutely beautiful story, from beginning to end, and all of it feels very much in character to me.

Title: Toaster Ovens Make Terrible Gifts, Steve

Author: monroesherlock @bittlebarnes

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/8872948

Ship: Steve/Bucky/Sam

Rating: Teen and Up

Major Tags: Sam Wilson Feels, Steve loves Christmas

 Summary: 

While Steve figures out the perfect gift, Sam figures out how to navigate his family during the holidays.

Bucky just wants to enjoy the cheese plate.

Review’s name: chicklette

Review: 

Here’s what I love about this fic. 

For some people?  The holidays fucking blow.  They’re filled with landmines that are our families.  (When are you going to settle down?  When are you going to get a job?  Why on earth are you majoring in that? When are you having kids?)

Honestly, it’s a nightmare.

And Sam, well, Sam has a fucking awesome family.  Except for that one guy.  You know that guy – the one who is always making you uncomfortable.  The one who said that one thing that one time that…you really just can’t forgive.  You know you *should.*  But you *can’t.*

That’s where Sam’s at.

Meanwhile, boyfriend Steve is hovering, wanting Sam to find his peace and wanting to find the perfect gift for Sam.  Because Sam is fucking awesome.

And boyfriend Bucky, well, he has opinions about damned near everything (see the title).

Between the three of them, they work pretty damned hard at a merry little ALL CAPS Christmas. 

Title: Ice Breaker

Author: alby_mangroves, roe87 @artgroves @jro616

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/12690783

Ship: Steve/Bucky

Rating: General Audiences

Major Tags: Shrunkyclunks, Meet-cute, Ice Skating, Fluff

 Summary: 

Can Captain America learn how to ice skate?

Maybe if the cute skater with the long hair helps him out…

Review’s name: chicklette

Review: 

Guh!  So in this fic, we get Captain America Steve Rogers, totally adorable with long gorgeous hair Bucky Barnes, an ice skating rink, an inflatable donut (lol forever) and alby’s gorgeous art.

Now, ya’ll know I am a sucker for alby’s art.  It was literally the first account I followed when I got to this fandom and found Alby was already here.  I smashed that follow button so hard.  So hard.

Anyway – this fic has ice, and skates, and Bucky with some gorgeous long hair, and a Steve who is so damn cute in his nervousness that I want to pull him aside and make him some cocoa and give him a lecture on self-confidence.

Title: This Simple Phrase

Author: Unclesteeb @unclesteeb

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/7654660 (Ao3)

Ship: Steve/Sam

Rating: Explicit

Major Tags: Fluff, Christmas, Shower Sex, Skinny!Steve, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts

 Summary: Steve’s standing in the living room with his arms crossed, glaring at the TV so hard Sam’s surprised it hasn’t burst into flames yet.

Sam sighs from his place on the couch, “Steve, if you stare at that thing any harder one of two things is going to happen: you’ll go even more blind, or you’ll manage to break the TV. Please don’t do either of them. Come sit down.”

Steve’s arms fall to his sides, but all he does is whip himself around long enough to grumble, “I’m not blind!” before he’s back watching the TV again.

It’s three days before Christmas and there’s a blizzard outside.

Review’s name: chicklette

Review: 

Look, every idiot knows I love Unclesteeb’s writing.  And every idiot knows I love Sam Wilson.  So give me Unclesteeb writing Sam Wilson AND Christmas?  Fuck to the yes.

I was thrilled when this fic came up on my tag search for both Sam/Steve AND Christmas.  That it also has smuff (smuttyfluff – I know, I’m the woooooorst), was seriously a bonus.  Give me fic with soft Sam Wilson getting to have a happy Christmas with Steve or Bucky or both and I am going to be the happiest little chicklette ever.

The story is short and sweet:  Steve. Sam. Snow. (Too much snow, as it turns out, and it threatens to ruin their Christmas!)

Except…how can it be ruined if it’s just the two of them?

Answer:  It canNOT. 

This isn’t a long plotty fic.  This is a scene from a romance, a glimpse into true love, and it lacks absolutely nothing. 

Title: All Those Things You’ve Always Pined For

Author: LavenderProse @lavenderprose

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/3256787/chapters/7100279 (Ao3)

Ship: Steve/Bucky

Rating: Explicit

Major Tags: AU – No Powers, AU – Domestic, Kid Fic, Inspired by a Movie

 Summary: 

“Steve Rogers. I haven’t thought about him in…God, at least ten years. Probably longer.“ “Who is he?” Sharon asks, and perches on the corner of his desk, hands folded in her lap. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Bucky clears his throat, tosses the sticky note onto the desk. “Steve was…my college boyfriend. We almost got married.”

It’s been fifteen years since Bucky Barnes left Steve Rogers standing in a New York airport and never saw him again. Those fifteen years have brought him wealth and stability; everything his lower middle class Brooklyn upbringing had not provided. He is happy. He doesn’t want for anything.

He doesn’t need anything.

That’s about to change.

Review’s name: chicklette

Review: 

You guys!  You guys!  You guys!

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking hey, chick – I love all the fluffy, smuffy fic you’ve been recing, but they’re so short and quick – they’re like popcorn!  I need something long and plotty!

I know, friend.  I know.

And I’ve got you.

This fic fits that bill to a T.  It takes the plot of “The Family Man,” a movie starring Nic Cage  as a man who gets the opportunity to find out what his life might have been like, if he’d made one big change when he was younger.

In this fic, we see Bucky as he is today:  wildly successful, wealthy and powerful, an absolutely, positively not lonely in the least.  Nuh-uh.

Cue the angel (I will give you exactly one guess as to which winged Avenger is recognized in this fic for the ActualAngel ™ that he is.  One.) who shows up and gives Bucky a glimpse into the life he might have had.

In another life, Bucky is a husband, and a father, and a friend.  He’s a man who ties shoelaces and solves problems, a man who makes a difference.

Bucky hates it.  Hates it.

Until he doesn’t.

Until he sees the simple beauty that is having a husband and a dog and some kids and some friends.

Once he sees all that, how could he go back? 

Of course, just when he starts to relax, well…

Oops!  Almost spoiled it!

Title: Peppermint Hot Chocolate

Author: Haepherion

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/1102684 (AO3)

Ship: James “Bucky” Barnes and Steve Rogers (Stucky)

Rating: G

Major Tags: Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, With a little Angst, Little Spoon Bucky, Christmas

 Summary: “It’ll be worth the money, he mentally repeats to himself as he walks home with two peppermint canes and two bars of chocolate tucked into his coat, arranged carefully so that they don’t melt or break on the walk back.”

(Or, the one where Steve spends his emergency money on hot chocolate and candy canes, because it’s an emergency.)

 Review’s name: chicklette

Review:

This fic takes place both pre- and post-war, pre- and post-serum.  There’s smol Steve, trying so hard to take care of his best guy, and then there’s big Steve, doing the same.

And how do you take care of the person who takes care of you?  Sometimes it’s braving the wind and cold with the last of your pennies to make something warm and sweet when they come home.  Sometimes it’s simply being there, letting them come back to themselves on their own.  And sometimes it’s with a taste of the past, all wrapped up in a toasty warm mug.

This is a sweet, simple fic, made of cleverly drawn words that become scenery and emotion. 

Title: Not the Same River at my Fingertips

Author: giselleslash@gigi-gigi

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/9204176 (Ao3)

Ship: Steve/Bucky

Rating: Explicit

Major Tags: One-night stands, Misunderstandings, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff, Blow Jobs,  AU- College/University, AU – No Powers, Drunk Sex, BED SHARING, Snowed In, FOREST LEVELS OF PINING

 Summary: Steve desperately needs a ride home for Christmas but the last person he wants to take help from is Bucky Barnes. There’s a one night stand gone badly and four years of hurt feelings and misunderstandings between them.

Of course there’s a road trip home that goes perfectly smoothly.

Review’s name: chicklette

Review: 

So, Giselleslash wrote my all-time favorite Stucky fic (Put it on Repeat).  She has a way with words that just knocks me out.

This fic absolutely lives up to that standard.

And this fic hits damn near all my favorite holiday tropes:  warm beverages, bed sharing, forced proximity, SNOW (remember kids, Snow is one of the good guys in a winter fic.  Snow is the fairy godfather of winter fic.  It just is, and we all know it).  

Steve needs a ride (!) and Bucky’s got one (!!) and so hi-ho, off they go. 

Until our fairy godfather Snow steps in (yes, I’ve capitalized Snow.  Fight me.).  Now our boys are stuck in a crappy motel with a single bed and a day or more to kill. 

Lucky, Bucky finds a bottle of tequila and summons the nerve to request a Christmas Truce.

There is drunkenness and pining and trucedom and just…*sigh*

*happiest of sighs*

Oh!  And I should warn you - the sexing in this fic is…well, I can’t even tell you how stupid hot it is. 

Honestly, my joy for this fic cannot be contained. 

Title: Claw My Way Into Your Heart

Author: wearing_tearing (@hawkguyz)       

Link:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/8977168 (Ao3)

Ship: Steve/Bucky

Rating: Teen and Up

Major Tags: AU – No Powers, War Veteran Bucky, Veterinarian Steve, Christmas

 Summary: “You didn’t name your pet?” Dr. Rogers raises an eyebrow at him, obviously amused.

“She’s not my pet,” Bucky argues, and the look Dr. Rogers gives him makes it clear he knows Bucky is lying.

Review’s name: chicklette

Review: 

Okay, so mayyybe I over identified with Bucky a little too much in this fic.  I mean, just because I’ve found a kitten or twenty in my lifetime, and just because, like Bucky, I think Steve is unfairly hot, that doesn’t have to mean anything, right?

So.  Bucky is minding his own business and boom! A kitten shows up.  He worries overher, because let’s be honest, she’s not in great shape.  He finally gets his hands on her and gets her to the doc.

The doc who happens to be tall and handsome and built and guh.

GUH!

(It helps there is also some gratuitous baking happening in this fic.  Honestly, it’s like the author is in my brain.)

The cuteness of the kitten is entirely incidental to the flufftasticness that is this fic. Honestly, it’s a bonus.