#saccharines

“Steve Rogers Is Not Your Little Mermaid” (M, 25k) by attackofthezee (noxlunate)

“About that… This whole… gift thing? It’s you, uh, trying to date me? Right? That’s what that is?” Bucky asks and Steve can’t help it, the clench of his chest like maybe this is where Bucky politely declines, explains that he didn’t understand how this all works and he’d really rather not with Steve.

“Courtship,” Steve confirms, nodding stubbornly instead of giving into the clenching in his chest and the swimming in his head.

“Right. Okayyyy. Right,” Bucky says, and then he pauses for a moment, chewing on his lip in a way that’s definitely distracting but not quite distracting enough to erase the sudden feeling like a whole host of guppies has taken residence in Steve’s stomach. “On land we do that by going out on dates, y’know? You can pick me up at seven.”

“Wait- what?”

“I said pick me up at seven. I live above the shop, it shouldn’t exactly be hard to find.”

In which Steve is a mermaid, Bucky's a werewolf, and as always, they fall for each other.

+ Modern AU. Coffeeshop owner Bucky is confused and later reluctantly charmed by Steve 

-☆-

“Love Bites” (E, 6k) by Neonbat

Sometimes, friends lie to each other.

Steve has a secret that no one can know or else they'd never look at Captain America the same way again. How can he let anyone know that he let his best friend have his way with him on the full moon?

+ Post WS. Steve tries to hide how much he likes getting full-shift fucked. Bucky figures it out anyway

-☆-

“When Devotion has Teeth” (E, 15k) by WhoopsOK

Bucky’s sense of self as a wolf begins and ends with the smell of Steve’s blood. | Steve’s sense of self as a vampire begins and ends with the sound of Bucky’s heartbeat.

(Steve has been turned into a vampire and somehow even that is easier to deal with than being separated from Bucky for 70 years.)

+ WW2 to Post WS. No serum, just vampires. They’re still separated, but find their way back to each other. Love and devotion, blood drinking and rut

-☆-

“only one my arms will ever hold” (E, 41k) by wearing_tearing

Like most stories about Bucky Barnes and his questionable and sometimes terrible life choices, this one starts because he decides not to listen to Natasha’s cryptic and mostly annoying advice.

He decides not to listen, and he hunts down and kills a deer during that month’s full moon run with his pack and leaves its dead body on Steve Rogers’s front step.

Steve, the man Bucky kind-of-possibly-maybe-absolutely is in love with.

Bucky would try to smother himself after that one, but he’s learned that werewolves are hard to kill.

*

Or: the four stages of courting Steve Rogers.

+ Modern AU. Bucky’s flying blind with all his Steve-related werewolf instincts, but it works out in the end

-☆-

“held between heaven and hell” (G, 1k) by saccharines

While there is something wolfish about Barnes, Rogers is incredibly, irrevocably human. He’s sick six days out of seven, twenty hours out of twenty-four, and the fact that he’s still alive and kicking is rooted more in human stubbornness than supernatural biology.

+ Modern AU. Steve is sick; Bucky keeps him warm

-☆-