#plotbunny wednesday

Despite the story concocted by the media right after his defrosting, Steve Rogers hasn’t set foot in Brooklyn since 1942. The rest of New York was changed enough — he couldn’t imagine walking would-be familiar streets and recognizing nothing of the neighborhood he grew up in. Add to the fact that he’s sure he left his soulmate behind when he put the Valkyrie into the ice, and he’s had every reason to keep himself as far away from Brooklyn as possible. But now it’s 2019 and, following a few harried years on the run, he and the remnants of his team have finally been granted pardons, and all anyone wants is to go home. Steve finds himself back in New York for the first time in years, and he’s desperate enough for something to ground him that he’s willing to brave Brooklyn. It’s there he meets Bucky Barnes, the charming owner of Cool Beans, a quaint little coffeeshop that doubles as an adoption center one Saturday out of every month. Bucky is the whole package — brilliant, witty, a lover of dogs, and, yeah, he’s definitely Steve’s soulmate, if the star-shaped mark unabashedly peaking out of his deep v-necks is any indication. Now Steve just has to pluck up the courage to tell him, and maybe find a reason to fall in love with Brooklyn all over again.

In 1942, Erskine’s experiments were not intended to merely create the perfect soldier -- they dabbled in the occult, as well. When Steve Rogers volunteered for the procedure that would result in him becoming Captain America, he died... only to become one of the undead. A vampire. He gained enhanced speed, strength, sharper senses, and a body fit to hold the righteous heart he’d always possessed. The only real downside was his new thirst for blood. But it was war, and Captain America had plenty of enemies he didn’t feel too guilty about draining. His fight with Schmidt (more demonic than vampiric, Steve would say) ended with Steve fatally wounded, and when the Valkyrie went down he fell into a stasis of sorts, with no fresh blood to heal his wounds or sate his hunger. But he’s just been found in 2012 and reanimated, told to keep his vampirism to himself because the public can’t be allowed to know their beloved Captain America is a monster. No one tells him to keep his distance from Bucky Barnes, though, a historian who wants to tell the real story behind Captain America... and who might be more willing than anyone to accept exactly who Steve Rogers is.