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🌱 alt. universe 🌻 fluff 🍁 mature ❄️ angst
steve rogers / marvel
𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 : blossom & bloom 〡 🌻 〡 (in progress) Steve is tired of his friends scheming about his love life, or lack thereof, so he decides to do a little scheming of his own. Now all he has to do is get through the next few months, his schedule full with carefully planned special occasions, all the while pretending to be madly in love with his only friend outside of the Avengers… how hard could it possibly be? Well, as it turns out, not that hard at all.
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steve rogers x florist!reader ⎯⟢ [2.5k] Steve messed up, and his long suffering best friend giving him shit about it does not help.
chapter tags/warnings ⎯⟢ coarse language, but that’s pretty much it? it’s been ages since i’ve posted anything and i’m actually scared lmao 🙃 anyway, let’s hope i can keep this going...
PROLOGUE. The Florist and Me
WAKANDA, Golden City
Exact Location Classified — present day
Bucky Barnes always knew his best friend was an impulsive idiot.
He knew from the very moment they’d met back in 1923, when Bucky was six and the dumbass in question was only five but looked younger still.
Bucky had been walking to school, innocently clutching the straps of his bookbag on his shoulders, when he’d passed an alleyway and happened to see a group of boys gathered at the end of it.
He would’ve kept walking, but something had compelled him to stop, to squint into the relative darkness of the alley, and it was only after a few more seconds had passed that he realized what it was.
There were four boys standing shoulder to shoulder, towering over another boy who was sprawled out across the ground. One of them snickered, the next kicked halfheartedly at the smaller boy’s shoe, the third stepped forward when the boy tried to get up to push him back down, and yet another shouted, “Come on, Rogers! Is that all you got?”
Huh. Four against one.
And even at six years old, Bucky couldn’t stand for that, especially when he saw the younger boy struggling to his feet, already purple and bruised and bleeding from his skinned knees, but still stubbornly raising a pair of small fists in utter defiance.
So, with a small sigh because he knew he’d get in so much trouble with his Ma later, Bucky tossed his backpack to the side and ran down the alleyway.
Later, when the fight was over, the pair of them all scratched up but ultimately victorious, Bucky asked the kid over some ice cream cones what had happened to start the fight in the first place. They were already late for school, anyway.
“They pushed a girl into the mud, so I told them to apologize,” the boy had said, vanilla soft serve and rainbow sprinkles smeared across his mouth, soft blue eyes big and wide like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She was crying… and I don’t like bullies.”
Bucky had just stared incredulously at his new friend for a bit, before he blinked and decided, well, yeah—there really was no better reason.
“Alright, well… maybe call for backup next time,” because even then, he’d already known this wouldn’t be the last time.
But he hadn’t known that Steve was this stupid.
Now fully grown (and then some), the two sit side by side at the edge of an open pasture just outside a small cozy little hut—where they always sit whenever Steve comes to visit him in Wakanda.
Their figures are partially hidden by tall blades of grass, their palms pressed into the soft, slightly damp earth, the heat of the beaming Africa sun not yet uncomfortable as they stare out over the gently rippling waters of a sparkling pond.
Once again, Bucky is forced away from any moment’s peace, turning away from the stunning view to glower at his friend.
“Tell me you didn’t,” he growls as their shoulders bump, just like they did when they were just boys, all tuckered out after spending an afternoon horsing around.
And just like when they were boys and Steve did something stupid, when the latter doesn’t say anything, his shoulders slightly raised and the tips of his ears pink with shame, Bucky smacks him up the back of his head.
“I’m not proud, okay?” Steve grimaces, but accepts the blow without resistance because he knows he deserves it. Bucky groans, wishing he still had the metal arm so he could really whack some sense into him.
“You—imbecile!”
“Hey.”
“You had to know I was kidding. You remember what jokes are, right?”
“Alright, I get it—”
“And the nerve—‘damn, they must’ve fried more of your brain cells than I thought’—” Okay, he can’t help it. Steve lets out a tiny snicker at this, even though he really shouldn’t. “Oh yeah? You think that’s funny?”
“No,” Steve lies, still smirking.
“That’s a fucked up thing to say to me.”
“I know, ‘m sorry,” but he doesn’t look very sorry at all, grinning like a maniac the way he is. Honestly though, Bucky’s been waiting for the day Steve can joke about all of this—otherwise they’d just sit here and weep, which wouldn’t be very productive, would it?
“What the hell happened to ‘that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’?”
Steve really has nothing to say in his defence. At the time, it really had been absolutely ridiculous, Bucky’s offhand little joke when Steve fled New York for the safety and peace of Wakanda, complaining for the nth time about the parade of women his team insisted on setting him up with.
“Oh, no, how terrible. All those beautiful women, how will you ever cope? It must be so hard being you,” Bucky had deadpanned, rolling his eyes, used to all the venting and ranting by now. It was all Steve ever talked about now that the Accords fiasco had finally blown over, and everyone had forced him and Tony into a room and refused to let them out until they’d worked through their issues.
Which really just meant Steve standing there, all contrite with sad, puppy dog eyes, and letting Tony punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Apparently, that was going to be his plan for everything now. It had worked so well the first time, after all.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that Bucky had been watching way too many movies with Shuri lately. She’d gotten fed up one day, because “you never understand my pop culture references, it’s an absolute tragedy that you don’t know just how hilarious I am”, so she put together a line-up of films she insisted he had to watch before his hundredth birthday.
Just the week before, she’d sat him down for a night of romantic comedies that he would never admit out loud that he actually enjoyed.
“The Proposal?” He’d asked sardonically when the title came up on the screen in Shuri’s lab, raising a skeptical eyebrow, only to be shushed into silence by Okoye and Ayo. He shrank back into his spot and picked at his popcorn.
The films were silly, cheesy, and sometimes just plain juvenile—two very different people coming together because they needed partners for various reasons—her, because she needed a green card, and him, because he didn’t want to lose his job. Nobody talks about the problematic power imbalances, or how some of these side characters are such terrible people that the audience ends up rooting for the protagonists even though they aren’t really any better.
But damn it, if he wasn’t entertained. And damn it if it didn’t work every single time.
Even if it’s a florist—because her parents are colossal, gaping assholes from what Steve tells him. Apparently they don’t believe a single woman, whose sole focus prior to the sudden and tragic accident that left her niece orphaned at only eight months old, was her struggling flower shop, had any business raising a child on her own.
And even if it’s an emotionally traumatized supersoldier—who can easily command a room full of hardened agents but can’t ever seem to find the heart to tell his team to shut the hell up and mind their damned business.
“But hey, it would buy you—and me—some peace and quiet for once,” Bucky had chortled one day during one of Steve’s regular visits, using his one arm to toss a bale of hay to the side, sidestepping a particularly clingy goat that just wouldn’t leave his side whenever they decided to hang around the farm.
And Steve had rolled his eyes, said everything Bucky had remembered him saying in retaliation, but there was this little voice in his head. The proverbial devil on his shoulder, whispering more ideas into his ear.
Think about it: sweet, sweet silence.
Maybe even months of it, if you play your cards right.
He hated that tug of temptation he felt at the mere thought, because, god, when was the last time Steve had woken up in the Tower without Natasha sitting crosslegged at the foot of his bed—“Stop flailing, for Christ’s sake, it’s just me”—equipped with a laptop and a PowerPoint filled with the pictures and biographies (with more detail than anyone should really know about their coworkers) of women he thought he should try asking out?
“You done freaking out? Cool—” and then she’d command FRIDAY to shut the blinds so she could start the slideshow, projected onto the wall opposite his bed. Steve would just sit there, eyelids still heavy from sleep. “Alright, I know what you said last time, but I’m not ready to write Lillian off just yet…”
Without Tony badgering him about what his type was, because he had an entire Rolodex of women just dying to know exactly what Captain America was into in private?
“Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Or do you wanna get freaky? We’ve got all sorts,” and he’d only backtrack when Pepper shot him an unimpressed look from across the room, which thankfully meant Tony would soon be too busy grovelling to continue.
Without Sam going on and on about some cute girl at the VA who’d be “perfect” for him, having turned this whole thing into a strange kind of competition because he couldn’t possibly lose to Nat or Stark?
Without Clint snickering in the vents because even though he wasn’t particularly eager to play matchmaker, he very much enjoyed watching Steve squirm?
Without Thor launching into an impassioned tirade about how love could only make life so much more worth living—“take Jane and I, for example…” and cue the chorus of irritated groans.
Without Wanda shooting him a sympathetic look, but then also cackling to herself whenever the others made a joke about not wanting him to die a virgin?
(For the record, he’s not.)
Too long. It’s been too long. This was the downside of having friends, Steve discovered.
“What is wrong with you?” Bucky asks, bringing Steve back to the present, and back to his colossal fuck-up. “When I said it works every time, I meant—haa, have you ever even seen a romcom? The two leads always fall in love at the end.”
And there is the crux of his problem. Now, normally, for literally any other person on the planet, there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love. Given his circumstances, however, it complicated things. And if he were being honest, he genuinely didn’t think it would happen.
Not that you weren’t perfectly loveable. You are…
His lips automatically curve up into a smile.
Well, gosh, what’s there not to like?
While the rest of the world seems intent on rushing him, you just smile and tell him to take his time. Don’t shut people out though, or the possibility that you might meet someone special one day. And if you do go out for a coffee date, you don’t owe anyone anything—it can be just that.
The others tease him now that the Tower has been practically turned into a conservatory, what with how many flowers he buys from you every week. But you always bring him something a bit extra, dried flowers tucked into his bag when he isn’t looking.
He’d be halfway across the world, reaching into his duffle with a weary sigh, about to clean off the dirt and grime of that day’s mission, only to find that his clothes smelled like lavender or lilac. He’d fall asleep in some dingy motel somewhere, but with the smell of air-detoxing gerberas in his nostrils, the flowers placed on the nightstand by the bed.
Rather than looking at him with pity because, for a long time, he’d been hung up on a version of Peggy Carter—and himself—that no longer existed, you urged him to look up and smell the roses, to appreciate the future he was never supposed to see. Maybe, one day, he’d be able to look at this new life as a blessing and not a curse.
Pair all of that with a sense of humour and a kind heart, and Steve really had no other choice but to call himself your friend. But he swears, up until recently, all of it had always been platonic.
Sure, one or twice, or maybe a few more than that, he’d glance over and think to himself that you made quite the picture in that lighting, warm golden sunshine spilling through the front window of your shop as you held an arrangement of flowers in that particular colour combination that made you look soft and sweet.
It hadn’t been more than that. He couldn’t allow it.
Nevermind the fact that you had an agreement, chock full of boundaries and lines neither of you were allowed to cross, the nature of his job meant that he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t ever need to leave at the drop of a hat because the next mission, the next global threat, the next existential crisis, would always take precedence over date night or meeting the parents.
While the two of you had managed to convince your parents otherwise, it wasn’t something he wanted for you. He wanted you to have more stability in your life, to be able to pick up the phone and call someone whenever you missed them (and have them actually answer), and without having to worry about whether they would ever come back.
He pictures it the other way around—what if he were the one left behind, not knowing whether someone he loved was even alive, let alone safe?—and remembers what it was like for him to say goodbye to Bucky before he went off to the front lines.
He’d felt helpless, frustrated, and just terribly sad at all once. How unfair it would be to subject anyone to that, let alone someone he was supposed to care about. Let alone you.
Steve wouldn’t do that to you, and the both of you were very aware of what the stakes were.
Violet. Your niece was at stake, and there was no way either of you were going to mess that up, not for anything or anyone. Not even for each other.
And that’s the part that gets him the most, because that kid is easily the best person he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting, no contest. Now, he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever see her again. He doesn’t know if he’s messed this whole thing up for you, whether it will affect the custody battle with your parents.
The thought, along with the one that reminds him he might never get to see you again either, makes his nose burn and his eyes watery.
Bucky seems to notice the shift in Steve’s mood, because he softens a little. He turns to face forward again, towards the horizon, and sighs.
“Alright, fine… just tell me what happened.”
Steve looks up from where his hands are fidgeting in his lap, squinting against the bright orange of the setting sun. He sighs too.
steve rogers x florist!reader ⎯⟢ [2.5k] Steve messed up, and his long suffering best friend giving him shit about it does not help.
chapter tags/warnings ⎯⟢ coarse language, but that’s pretty much it? it’s been ages since i’ve posted anything and i’m actually scared lmao 🙃 anyway, let’s hope i can keep this going...
PROLOGUE. The Florist and Me
WAKANDA, Golden City
Exact Location Classified — present day
Bucky Barnes always knew his best friend was an impulsive idiot.
He knew from the very moment they’d met back in 1923, when Bucky was six and the dumbass in question was only five but looked younger still.
Bucky had been walking to school, innocently clutching the straps of his bookbag on his shoulders, when he’d passed an alleyway and happened to see a group of boys gathered at the end of it.
He would’ve kept walking, but something had compelled him to stop, to squint into the relative darkness of the alley, and it was only after a few more seconds had passed that he realized what it was.
There were four boys standing shoulder to shoulder, towering over another boy who was sprawled out across the ground. One of them snickered, the next kicked halfheartedly at the smaller boy’s shoe, the third stepped forward when the boy tried to get up to push him back down, and yet another shouted, “Come on, Rogers! Is that all you got?”
Huh. Four against one.
And even at six years old, Bucky couldn’t stand for that, especially when he saw the younger boy struggling to his feet, already purple and bruised and bleeding from his skinned knees, but still stubbornly raising a pair of small fists in utter defiance.
So, with a small sigh because he knew he’d get in so much trouble with his Ma later, Bucky tossed his backpack to the side and ran down the alleyway.
Later, when the fight was over, the pair of them all scratched up but ultimately victorious, Bucky asked the kid over some ice cream cones what had happened to start the fight in the first place. They were already late for school, anyway.
“They pushed a girl into the mud, so I told them to apologize,” the boy had said, vanilla soft serve and rainbow sprinkles smeared across his mouth, soft blue eyes big and wide like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She was crying… and I don’t like bullies.”
Bucky had just stared incredulously at his new friend for a bit, before he blinked and decided, well, yeah—there really was no better reason.
“Alright, well… maybe call for backup next time,” because even then, he’d already known this wouldn’t be the last time.
But he hadn’t known that Steve was this stupid.
Now fully grown (and then some), the two sit side by side at the edge of an open pasture just outside a small cozy little hut—where they always sit whenever Steve comes to visit him in Wakanda.
Their figures are partially hidden by tall blades of grass, their palms pressed into the soft, slightly damp earth, the heat of the beaming Africa sun not yet uncomfortable as they stare out over the gently rippling waters of a sparkling pond.
Once again, Bucky is forced away from any moment’s peace, turning away from the stunning view to glower at his friend.
“Tell me you didn’t,” he growls as their shoulders bump, just like they did when they were just boys, all tuckered out after spending an afternoon horsing around.
And just like when they were boys and Steve did something stupid, when the latter doesn’t say anything, his shoulders slightly raised and the tips of his ears pink with shame, Bucky smacks him up the back of his head.
“I’m not proud, okay?” Steve grimaces, but accepts the blow without resistance because he knows he deserves it. Bucky groans, wishing he still had the metal arm so he could really whack some sense into him.
“You—imbecile!”
“Hey.”
“You had to know I was kidding. You remember what jokes are, right?”
“Alright, I get it—”
“And the nerve—‘damn, they must’ve fried more of your brain cells than I thought’—” Okay, he can’t help it. Steve lets out a tiny snicker at this, even though he really shouldn’t. “Oh yeah? You think that’s funny?”
“No,” Steve lies, still smirking.
“That’s a fucked up thing to say to me.”
“I know, ‘m sorry,” but he doesn’t look very sorry at all, grinning like a maniac the way he is. Honestly though, Bucky’s been waiting for the day Steve can joke about all of this—otherwise they’d just sit here and weep, which wouldn’t be very productive, would it?
“What the hell happened to ‘that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’?”
Steve really has nothing to say in his defence. At the time, it really had been absolutely ridiculous, Bucky’s offhand little joke when Steve fled New York for the safety and peace of Wakanda, complaining for the nth time about the parade of women his team insisted on setting him up with.
“Oh, no, how terrible. All those beautiful women, how will you ever cope? It must be so hard being you,” Bucky had deadpanned, rolling his eyes, used to all the venting and ranting by now. It was all Steve ever talked about now that the Accords fiasco had finally blown over, and everyone had forced him and Tony into a room and refused to let them out until they’d worked through their issues.
Which really just meant Steve standing there, all contrite with sad, puppy dog eyes, and letting Tony punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Apparently, that was going to be his plan for everything now. It had worked so well the first time, after all.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that Bucky had been watching way too many movies with Shuri lately. She’d gotten fed up one day, because “you never understand my pop culture references, it’s an absolute tragedy that you don’t know just how hilarious I am”, so she put together a line-up of films she insisted he had to watch before his hundredth birthday.
Just the week before, she’d sat him down for a night of romantic comedies that he would never admit out loud that he actually enjoyed.
“The Proposal?” He’d asked sardonically when the title came up on the screen in Shuri’s lab, raising a skeptical eyebrow, only to be shushed into silence by Okoye and Ayo. He shrank back into his spot and picked at his popcorn.
The films were silly, cheesy, and sometimes just plain juvenile—two very different people coming together because they needed partners for various reasons—her, because she needed a green card, and him, because he didn’t want to lose his job. Nobody talks about the problematic power imbalances, or how some of these side characters are such terrible people that the audience ends up rooting for the protagonists even though they aren’t really any better.
But damn it, if he wasn’t entertained. And damn it if it didn’t work every single time.
Even if it’s a florist—because her parents are colossal, gaping assholes from what Steve tells him. Apparently they don’t believe a single woman, whose sole focus prior to the sudden and tragic accident that left her niece orphaned at only eight months old, was her struggling flower shop, had any business raising a child on her own.
And even if it’s an emotionally traumatized supersoldier—who can easily command a room full of hardened agents but can’t ever seem to find the heart to tell his team to shut the hell up and mind their damned business.
“But hey, it would buy you—and me—some peace and quiet for once,” Bucky had chortled one day during one of Steve’s regular visits, using his one arm to toss a bale of hay to the side, sidestepping a particularly clingy goat that just wouldn’t leave his side whenever they decided to hang around the farm.
And Steve had rolled his eyes, said everything Bucky had remembered him saying in retaliation, but there was this little voice in his head. The proverbial devil on his shoulder, whispering more ideas into his ear.
Think about it: sweet, sweet silence.
Maybe even months of it, if you play your cards right.
He hated that tug of temptation he felt at the mere thought, because, god, when was the last time Steve had woken up in the Tower without Natasha sitting crosslegged at the foot of his bed—“Stop flailing, for Christ’s sake, it’s just me”—equipped with a laptop and a PowerPoint filled with the pictures and biographies (with more detail than anyone should really know about their coworkers) of women he thought he should try asking out?
“You done freaking out? Cool—” and then she’d command FRIDAY to shut the blinds so she could start the slideshow, projected onto the wall opposite his bed. Steve would just sit there, eyelids still heavy from sleep. “Alright, I know what you said last time, but I’m not ready to write Lillian off just yet…”
Without Tony badgering him about what his type was, because he had an entire Rolodex of women just dying to know exactly what Captain America was into in private?
“Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Or do you wanna get freaky? We’ve got all sorts,” and he’d only backtrack when Pepper shot him an unimpressed look from across the room, which thankfully meant Tony would soon be too busy grovelling to continue.
Without Sam going on and on about some cute girl at the VA who’d be “perfect” for him, having turned this whole thing into a strange kind of competition because he couldn’t possibly lose to Nat or Stark?
Without Clint snickering in the vents because even though he wasn’t particularly eager to play matchmaker, he very much enjoyed watching Steve squirm?
Without Thor launching into an impassioned tirade about how love could only make life so much more worth living—“take Jane and I, for example…” and cue the chorus of irritated groans.
Without Wanda shooting him a sympathetic look, but then also cackling to herself whenever the others made a joke about not wanting him to die a virgin?
(For the record, he’s not.)
Too long. It’s been too long. This was the downside of having friends, Steve discovered.
“What is wrong with you?” Bucky asks, bringing Steve back to the present, and back to his colossal fuck-up. “When I said it works every time, I meant—haa, have you ever even seen a romcom? The two leads always fall in love at the end.”
And there is the crux of his problem. Now, normally, for literally any other person on the planet, there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love. Given his circumstances, however, it complicated things. And if he were being honest, he genuinely didn’t think it would happen.
Not that you weren’t perfectly loveable. You are…
His lips automatically curve up into a smile.
Well, gosh, what’s there not to like?
While the rest of the world seems intent on rushing him, you just smile and tell him to take his time. Don’t shut people out though, or the possibility that you might meet someone special one day. And if you do go out for a coffee date, you don’t owe anyone anything—it can be just that.
The others tease him now that the Tower has been practically turned into a conservatory, what with how many flowers he buys from you every week. But you always bring him something a bit extra, dried flowers tucked into his bag when he isn’t looking.
He’d be halfway across the world, reaching into his duffle with a weary sigh, about to clean off the dirt and grime of that day’s mission, only to find that his clothes smelled like lavender or lilac. He’d fall asleep in some dingy motel somewhere, but with the smell of air-detoxing gerberas in his nostrils, the flowers placed on the nightstand by the bed.
Rather than looking at him with pity because, for a long time, he’d been hung up on a version of Peggy Carter—and himself—that no longer existed, you urged him to look up and smell the roses, to appreciate the future he was never supposed to see. Maybe, one day, he’d be able to look at this new life as a blessing and not a curse.
Pair all of that with a sense of humour and a kind heart, and Steve really had no other choice but to call himself your friend. But he swears, up until recently, all of it had always been platonic.
Sure, one or twice, or maybe a few more than that, he’d glance over and think to himself that you made quite the picture in that lighting, warm golden sunshine spilling through the front window of your shop as you held an arrangement of flowers in that particular colour combination that made you look soft and sweet.
It hadn’t been more than that. He couldn’t allow it.
Nevermind the fact that you had an agreement, chock full of boundaries and lines neither of you were allowed to cross, the nature of his job meant that he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t ever need to leave at the drop of a hat because the next mission, the next global threat, the next existential crisis, would always take precedence over date night or meeting the parents.
While the two of you had managed to convince your parents otherwise, it wasn’t something he wanted for you. He wanted you to have more stability in your life, to be able to pick up the phone and call someone whenever you missed them (and have them actually answer), and without having to worry about whether they would ever come back.
He pictures it the other way around—what if he were the one left behind, not knowing whether someone he loved was even alive, let alone safe?—and remembers what it was like for him to say goodbye to Bucky before he went off to the front lines.
He’d felt helpless, frustrated, and just terribly sad at all once. How unfair it would be to subject anyone to that, let alone someone he was supposed to care about. Let alone you.
Steve wouldn’t do that to you, and the both of you were very aware of what the stakes were.
Violet. Your niece was at stake, and there was no way either of you were going to mess that up, not for anything or anyone. Not even for each other.
And that’s the part that gets him the most, because that kid is easily the best person he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting, no contest. Now, he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever see her again. He doesn’t know if he’s messed this whole thing up for you, whether it will affect the custody battle with your parents.
The thought, along with the one that reminds him he might never get to see you again either, makes his nose burn and his eyes watery.
Bucky seems to notice the shift in Steve’s mood, because he softens a little. He turns to face forward again, towards the horizon, and sighs.
“Alright, fine… just tell me what happened.”
Steve looks up from where his hands are fidgeting in his lap, squinting against the bright orange of the setting sun. He sighs too.
steve rogers x florist!reader ⎯⟢ [2.5k] Steve messed up, and his long suffering best friend giving him shit about it does not help.
chapter tags/warnings ⎯⟢ coarse language, but that’s pretty much it? it’s been ages since i’ve posted anything and i’m actually scared lmao 🙃 anyway, let’s hope i can keep this going...
PROLOGUE. The Florist and Me
WAKANDA, Golden City
Exact Location Classified — present day
Bucky Barnes always knew his best friend was an impulsive idiot.
He knew from the very moment they’d met back in 1923, when Bucky was six and the dumbass in question was only five but looked younger still.
Bucky had been walking to school, innocently clutching the straps of his bookbag on his shoulders, when he’d passed an alleyway and happened to see a group of boys gathered at the end of it.
He would’ve kept walking, but something had compelled him to stop, to squint into the relative darkness of the alley, and it was only after a few more seconds had passed that he realized what it was.
There were four boys standing shoulder to shoulder, towering over another boy who was sprawled out across the ground. One of them snickered, the next kicked halfheartedly at the smaller boy’s shoe, the third stepped forward when the boy tried to get up to push him back down, and yet another shouted, “Come on, Rogers! Is that all you got?”
Huh. Four against one.
And even at six years old, Bucky couldn’t stand for that, especially when he saw the younger boy struggling to his feet, already purple and bruised and bleeding from his skinned knees, but still stubbornly raising a pair of small fists in utter defiance.
So, with a small sigh because he knew he’d get in so much trouble with his Ma later, Bucky tossed his backpack to the side and ran down the alleyway.
Later, when the fight was over, the pair of them all scratched up but ultimately victorious, Bucky asked the kid over some ice cream cones what had happened to start the fight in the first place. They were already late for school, anyway.
“They pushed a girl into the mud, so I told them to apologize,” the boy had said, vanilla soft serve and rainbow sprinkles smeared across his mouth, soft blue eyes big and wide like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She was crying… and I don’t like bullies.”
Bucky had just stared incredulously at his new friend for a bit, before he blinked and decided, well, yeah—there really was no better reason.
“Alright, well… maybe call for backup next time,” because even then, he’d already known this wouldn’t be the last time.
But he hadn’t known that Steve was this stupid.
Now fully grown (and then some), the two sit side by side at the edge of an open pasture just outside a small cozy little hut—where they always sit whenever Steve comes to visit him in Wakanda.
Their figures are partially hidden by tall blades of grass, their palms pressed into the soft, slightly damp earth, the heat of the beaming Africa sun not yet uncomfortable as they stare out over the gently rippling waters of a sparkling pond.
Once again, Bucky is forced away from any moment’s peace, turning away from the stunning view to glower at his friend.
“Tell me you didn’t,” he growls as their shoulders bump, just like they did when they were just boys, all tuckered out after spending an afternoon horsing around.
And just like when they were boys and Steve did something stupid, when the latter doesn’t say anything, his shoulders slightly raised and the tips of his ears pink with shame, Bucky smacks him up the back of his head.
“I’m not proud, okay?” Steve grimaces, but accepts the blow without resistance because he knows he deserves it. Bucky groans, wishing he still had the metal arm so he could really whack some sense into him.
“You—imbecile!”
“Hey.”
“You had to know I was kidding. You remember what jokes are, right?”
“Alright, I get it—”
“And the nerve—‘damn, they must’ve fried more of your brain cells than I thought’—” Okay, he can’t help it. Steve lets out a tiny snicker at this, even though he really shouldn’t. “Oh yeah? You think that’s funny?”
“No,” Steve lies, still smirking.
“That’s a fucked up thing to say to me.”
“I know, ‘m sorry,” but he doesn’t look very sorry at all, grinning like a maniac the way he is. Honestly though, Bucky’s been waiting for the day Steve can joke about all of this—otherwise they’d just sit here and weep, which wouldn’t be very productive, would it?
“What the hell happened to ‘that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’?”
Steve really has nothing to say in his defence. At the time, it really had been absolutely ridiculous, Bucky’s offhand little joke when Steve fled New York for the safety and peace of Wakanda, complaining for the nth time about the parade of women his team insisted on setting him up with.
“Oh, no, how terrible. All those beautiful women, how will you ever cope? It must be so hard being you,” Bucky had deadpanned, rolling his eyes, used to all the venting and ranting by now. It was all Steve ever talked about now that the Accords fiasco had finally blown over, and everyone had forced him and Tony into a room and refused to let them out until they’d worked through their issues.
Which really just meant Steve standing there, all contrite with sad, puppy dog eyes, and letting Tony punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Apparently, that was going to be his plan for everything now. It had worked so well the first time, after all.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that Bucky had been watching way too many movies with Shuri lately. She’d gotten fed up one day, because “you never understand my pop culture references, it’s an absolute tragedy that you don’t know just how hilarious I am”, so she put together a line-up of films she insisted he had to watch before his hundredth birthday.
Just the week before, she’d sat him down for a night of romantic comedies that he would never admit out loud that he actually enjoyed.
“The Proposal?” He’d asked sardonically when the title came up on the screen in Shuri’s lab, raising a skeptical eyebrow, only to be shushed into silence by Okoye and Ayo. He shrank back into his spot and picked at his popcorn.
The films were silly, cheesy, and sometimes just plain juvenile—two very different people coming together because they needed partners for various reasons—her, because she needed a green card, and him, because he didn’t want to lose his job. Nobody talks about the problematic power imbalances, or how some of these side characters are such terrible people that the audience ends up rooting for the protagonists even though they aren’t really any better.
But damn it, if he wasn’t entertained. And damn it if it didn’t work every single time.
Even if it’s a florist—because her parents are colossal, gaping assholes from what Steve tells him. Apparently they don’t believe a single woman, whose sole focus prior to the sudden and tragic accident that left her niece orphaned at only eight months old, was her struggling flower shop, had any business raising a child on her own.
And even if it’s an emotionally traumatized supersoldier—who can easily command a room full of hardened agents but can’t ever seem to find the heart to tell his team to shut the hell up and mind their damned business.
“But hey, it would buy you—and me—some peace and quiet for once,” Bucky had chortled one day during one of Steve’s regular visits, using his one arm to toss a bale of hay to the side, sidestepping a particularly clingy goat that just wouldn’t leave his side whenever they decided to hang around the farm.
And Steve had rolled his eyes, said everything Bucky had remembered him saying in retaliation, but there was this little voice in his head. The proverbial devil on his shoulder, whispering more ideas into his ear.
Think about it: sweet, sweet silence.
Maybe even months of it, if you play your cards right.
He hated that tug of temptation he felt at the mere thought, because, god, when was the last time Steve had woken up in the Tower without Natasha sitting crosslegged at the foot of his bed—“Stop flailing, for Christ’s sake, it’s just me”—equipped with a laptop and a PowerPoint filled with the pictures and biographies (with more detail than anyone should really know about their coworkers) of women he thought he should try asking out?
“You done freaking out? Cool—” and then she’d command FRIDAY to shut the blinds so she could start the slideshow, projected onto the wall opposite his bed. Steve would just sit there, eyelids still heavy from sleep. “Alright, I know what you said last time, but I’m not ready to write Lillian off just yet…”
Without Tony badgering him about what his type was, because he had an entire Rolodex of women just dying to know exactly what Captain America was into in private?
“Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Or do you wanna get freaky? We’ve got all sorts,” and he’d only backtrack when Pepper shot him an unimpressed look from across the room, which thankfully meant Tony would soon be too busy grovelling to continue.
Without Sam going on and on about some cute girl at the VA who’d be “perfect” for him, having turned this whole thing into a strange kind of competition because he couldn’t possibly lose to Nat or Stark?
Without Clint snickering in the vents because even though he wasn’t particularly eager to play matchmaker, he very much enjoyed watching Steve squirm?
Without Thor launching into an impassioned tirade about how love could only make life so much more worth living—“take Jane and I, for example…” and cue the chorus of irritated groans.
Without Wanda shooting him a sympathetic look, but then also cackling to herself whenever the others made a joke about not wanting him to die a virgin?
(For the record, he’s not.)
Too long. It’s been too long. This was the downside of having friends, Steve discovered.
“What is wrong with you?” Bucky asks, bringing Steve back to the present, and back to his colossal fuck-up. “When I said it works every time, I meant—haa, have you ever even seen a romcom? The two leads always fall in love at the end.”
And there is the crux of his problem. Now, normally, for literally any other person on the planet, there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love. Given his circumstances, however, it complicated things. And if he were being honest, he genuinely didn’t think it would happen.
Not that you weren’t perfectly loveable. You are…
His lips automatically curve up into a smile.
Well, gosh, what’s there not to like?
While the rest of the world seems intent on rushing him, you just smile and tell him to take his time. Don’t shut people out though, or the possibility that you might meet someone special one day. And if you do go out for a coffee date, you don’t owe anyone anything—it can be just that.
The others tease him now that the Tower has been practically turned into a conservatory, what with how many flowers he buys from you every week. But you always bring him something a bit extra, dried flowers tucked into his bag when he isn’t looking.
He’d be halfway across the world, reaching into his duffle with a weary sigh, about to clean off the dirt and grime of that day’s mission, only to find that his clothes smelled like lavender or lilac. He’d fall asleep in some dingy motel somewhere, but with the smell of air-detoxing gerberas in his nostrils, the flowers placed on the nightstand by the bed.
Rather than looking at him with pity because, for a long time, he’d been hung up on a version of Peggy Carter—and himself—that no longer existed, you urged him to look up and smell the roses, to appreciate the future he was never supposed to see. Maybe, one day, he’d be able to look at this new life as a blessing and not a curse.
Pair all of that with a sense of humour and a kind heart, and Steve really had no other choice but to call himself your friend. But he swears, up until recently, all of it had always been platonic.
Sure, one or twice, or maybe a few more than that, he’d glance over and think to himself that you made quite the picture in that lighting, warm golden sunshine spilling through the front window of your shop as you held an arrangement of flowers in that particular colour combination that made you look soft and sweet.
It hadn’t been more than that. He couldn’t allow it.
Nevermind the fact that you had an agreement, chock full of boundaries and lines neither of you were allowed to cross, the nature of his job meant that he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t ever need to leave at the drop of a hat because the next mission, the next global threat, the next existential crisis, would always take precedence over date night or meeting the parents.
While the two of you had managed to convince your parents otherwise, it wasn’t something he wanted for you. He wanted you to have more stability in your life, to be able to pick up the phone and call someone whenever you missed them (and have them actually answer), and without having to worry about whether they would ever come back.
He pictures it the other way around—what if he were the one left behind, not knowing whether someone he loved was even alive, let alone safe?—and remembers what it was like for him to say goodbye to Bucky before he went off to the front lines.
He’d felt helpless, frustrated, and just terribly sad at all once. How unfair it would be to subject anyone to that, let alone someone he was supposed to care about. Let alone you.
Steve wouldn’t do that to you, and the both of you were very aware of what the stakes were.
Violet. Your niece was at stake, and there was no way either of you were going to mess that up, not for anything or anyone. Not even for each other.
And that’s the part that gets him the most, because that kid is easily the best person he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting, no contest. Now, he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever see her again. He doesn’t know if he’s messed this whole thing up for you, whether it will affect the custody battle with your parents.
The thought, along with the one that reminds him he might never get to see you again either, makes his nose burn and his eyes watery.
Bucky seems to notice the shift in Steve’s mood, because he softens a little. He turns to face forward again, towards the horizon, and sighs.
“Alright, fine… just tell me what happened.”
Steve looks up from where his hands are fidgeting in his lap, squinting against the bright orange of the setting sun. He sighs too.
steve rogers x florist!reader ⎯⟢ [2.5k] Steve messed up, and his long suffering best friend giving him shit about it does not help.
chapter tags/warnings ⎯⟢ coarse language, but that’s pretty much it? it’s been ages since i’ve posted anything and i’m actually scared lmao 🙃 anyway, let’s hope i can keep this going...
PROLOGUE. The Florist and Me
WAKANDA, Golden City
Exact Location Classified — present day
Bucky Barnes always knew his best friend was an impulsive idiot.
He knew from the very moment they’d met back in 1923, when Bucky was six and the dumbass in question was only five but looked younger still.
Bucky had been walking to school, innocently clutching the straps of his bookbag on his shoulders, when he’d passed an alleyway and happened to see a group of boys gathered at the end of it.
He would’ve kept walking, but something had compelled him to stop, to squint into the relative darkness of the alley, and it was only after a few more seconds had passed that he realized what it was.
There were four boys standing shoulder to shoulder, towering over another boy who was sprawled out across the ground. One of them snickered, the next kicked halfheartedly at the smaller boy’s shoe, the third stepped forward when the boy tried to get up to push him back down, and yet another shouted, “Come on, Rogers! Is that all you got?”
Huh. Four against one.
And even at six years old, Bucky couldn’t stand for that, especially when he saw the younger boy struggling to his feet, already purple and bruised and bleeding from his skinned knees, but still stubbornly raising a pair of small fists in utter defiance.
So, with a small sigh because he knew he’d get in so much trouble with his Ma later, Bucky tossed his backpack to the side and ran down the alleyway.
Later, when the fight was over, the pair of them all scratched up but ultimately victorious, Bucky asked the kid over some ice cream cones what had happened to start the fight in the first place. They were already late for school, anyway.
“They pushed a girl into the mud, so I told them to apologize,” the boy had said, vanilla soft serve and rainbow sprinkles smeared across his mouth, soft blue eyes big and wide like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She was crying… and I don’t like bullies.”
Bucky had just stared incredulously at his new friend for a bit, before he blinked and decided, well, yeah—there really was no better reason.
“Alright, well… maybe call for backup next time,” because even then, he’d already known this wouldn’t be the last time.
But he hadn’t known that Steve was this stupid.
Now fully grown (and then some), the two sit side by side at the edge of an open pasture just outside a small cozy little hut—where they always sit whenever Steve comes to visit him in Wakanda.
Their figures are partially hidden by tall blades of grass, their palms pressed into the soft, slightly damp earth, the heat of the beaming Africa sun not yet uncomfortable as they stare out over the gently rippling waters of a sparkling pond.
Once again, Bucky is forced away from any moment’s peace, turning away from the stunning view to glower at his friend.
“Tell me you didn’t,” he growls as their shoulders bump, just like they did when they were just boys, all tuckered out after spending an afternoon horsing around.
And just like when they were boys and Steve did something stupid, when the latter doesn’t say anything, his shoulders slightly raised and the tips of his ears pink with shame, Bucky smacks him up the back of his head.
“I’m not proud, okay?” Steve grimaces, but accepts the blow without resistance because he knows he deserves it. Bucky groans, wishing he still had the metal arm so he could really whack some sense into him.
“You—imbecile!”
“Hey.”
“You had to know I was kidding. You remember what jokes are, right?”
“Alright, I get it—”
“And the nerve—‘damn, they must’ve fried more of your brain cells than I thought’—” Okay, he can’t help it. Steve lets out a tiny snicker at this, even though he really shouldn’t. “Oh yeah? You think that’s funny?”
“No,” Steve lies, still smirking.
“That’s a fucked up thing to say to me.”
“I know, ‘m sorry,” but he doesn’t look very sorry at all, grinning like a maniac the way he is. Honestly though, Bucky’s been waiting for the day Steve can joke about all of this—otherwise they’d just sit here and weep, which wouldn’t be very productive, would it?
“What the hell happened to ‘that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’?”
Steve really has nothing to say in his defence. At the time, it really had been absolutely ridiculous, Bucky’s offhand little joke when Steve fled New York for the safety and peace of Wakanda, complaining for the nth time about the parade of women his team insisted on setting him up with.
“Oh, no, how terrible. All those beautiful women, how will you ever cope? It must be so hard being you,” Bucky had deadpanned, rolling his eyes, used to all the venting and ranting by now. It was all Steve ever talked about now that the Accords fiasco had finally blown over, and everyone had forced him and Tony into a room and refused to let them out until they’d worked through their issues.
Which really just meant Steve standing there, all contrite with sad, puppy dog eyes, and letting Tony punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Apparently, that was going to be his plan for everything now. It had worked so well the first time, after all.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that Bucky had been watching way too many movies with Shuri lately. She’d gotten fed up one day, because “you never understand my pop culture references, it’s an absolute tragedy that you don’t know just how hilarious I am”, so she put together a line-up of films she insisted he had to watch before his hundredth birthday.
Just the week before, she’d sat him down for a night of romantic comedies that he would never admit out loud that he actually enjoyed.
“The Proposal?” He’d asked sardonically when the title came up on the screen in Shuri’s lab, raising a skeptical eyebrow, only to be shushed into silence by Okoye and Ayo. He shrank back into his spot and picked at his popcorn.
The films were silly, cheesy, and sometimes just plain juvenile—two very different people coming together because they needed partners for various reasons—her, because she needed a green card, and him, because he didn’t want to lose his job. Nobody talks about the problematic power imbalances, or how some of these side characters are such terrible people that the audience ends up rooting for the protagonists even though they aren’t really any better.
But damn it, if he wasn’t entertained. And damn it if it didn’t work every single time.
Even if it’s a florist—because her parents are colossal, gaping assholes from what Steve tells him. Apparently they don’t believe a single woman, whose sole focus prior to the sudden and tragic accident that left her niece orphaned at only eight months old, was her struggling flower shop, had any business raising a child on her own.
And even if it’s an emotionally traumatized supersoldier—who can easily command a room full of hardened agents but can’t ever seem to find the heart to tell his team to shut the hell up and mind their damned business.
“But hey, it would buy you—and me—some peace and quiet for once,” Bucky had chortled one day during one of Steve’s regular visits, using his one arm to toss a bale of hay to the side, sidestepping a particularly clingy goat that just wouldn’t leave his side whenever they decided to hang around the farm.
And Steve had rolled his eyes, said everything Bucky had remembered him saying in retaliation, but there was this little voice in his head. The proverbial devil on his shoulder, whispering more ideas into his ear.
Think about it: sweet, sweet silence.
Maybe even months of it, if you play your cards right.
He hated that tug of temptation he felt at the mere thought, because, god, when was the last time Steve had woken up in the Tower without Natasha sitting crosslegged at the foot of his bed—“Stop flailing, for Christ’s sake, it’s just me”—equipped with a laptop and a PowerPoint filled with the pictures and biographies (with more detail than anyone should really know about their coworkers) of women he thought he should try asking out?
“You done freaking out? Cool—” and then she’d command FRIDAY to shut the blinds so she could start the slideshow, projected onto the wall opposite his bed. Steve would just sit there, eyelids still heavy from sleep. “Alright, I know what you said last time, but I’m not ready to write Lillian off just yet…”
Without Tony badgering him about what his type was, because he had an entire Rolodex of women just dying to know exactly what Captain America was into in private?
“Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Or do you wanna get freaky? We’ve got all sorts,” and he’d only backtrack when Pepper shot him an unimpressed look from across the room, which thankfully meant Tony would soon be too busy grovelling to continue.
Without Sam going on and on about some cute girl at the VA who’d be “perfect” for him, having turned this whole thing into a strange kind of competition because he couldn’t possibly lose to Nat or Stark?
Without Clint snickering in the vents because even though he wasn’t particularly eager to play matchmaker, he very much enjoyed watching Steve squirm?
Without Thor launching into an impassioned tirade about how love could only make life so much more worth living—“take Jane and I, for example…” and cue the chorus of irritated groans.
Without Wanda shooting him a sympathetic look, but then also cackling to herself whenever the others made a joke about not wanting him to die a virgin?
(For the record, he’s not.)
Too long. It’s been too long. This was the downside of having friends, Steve discovered.
“What is wrong with you?” Bucky asks, bringing Steve back to the present, and back to his colossal fuck-up. “When I said it works every time, I meant—haa, have you ever even seen a romcom? The two leads always fall in love at the end.”
And there is the crux of his problem. Now, normally, for literally any other person on the planet, there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love. Given his circumstances, however, it complicated things. And if he were being honest, he genuinely didn’t think it would happen.
Not that you weren’t perfectly loveable. You are…
His lips automatically curve up into a smile.
Well, gosh, what’s there not to like?
While the rest of the world seems intent on rushing him, you just smile and tell him to take his time. Don’t shut people out though, or the possibility that you might meet someone special one day. And if you do go out for a coffee date, you don’t owe anyone anything—it can be just that.
The others tease him now that the Tower has been practically turned into a conservatory, what with how many flowers he buys from you every week. But you always bring him something a bit extra, dried flowers tucked into his bag when he isn’t looking.
He’d be halfway across the world, reaching into his duffle with a weary sigh, about to clean off the dirt and grime of that day’s mission, only to find that his clothes smelled like lavender or lilac. He’d fall asleep in some dingy motel somewhere, but with the smell of air-detoxing gerberas in his nostrils, the flowers placed on the nightstand by the bed.
Rather than looking at him with pity because, for a long time, he’d been hung up on a version of Peggy Carter—and himself—that no longer existed, you urged him to look up and smell the roses, to appreciate the future he was never supposed to see. Maybe, one day, he’d be able to look at this new life as a blessing and not a curse.
Pair all of that with a sense of humour and a kind heart, and Steve really had no other choice but to call himself your friend. But he swears, up until recently, all of it had always been platonic.
Sure, one or twice, or maybe a few more than that, he’d glance over and think to himself that you made quite the picture in that lighting, warm golden sunshine spilling through the front window of your shop as you held an arrangement of flowers in that particular colour combination that made you look soft and sweet.
It hadn’t been more than that. He couldn’t allow it.
Nevermind the fact that you had an agreement, chock full of boundaries and lines neither of you were allowed to cross, the nature of his job meant that he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t ever need to leave at the drop of a hat because the next mission, the next global threat, the next existential crisis, would always take precedence over date night or meeting the parents.
While the two of you had managed to convince your parents otherwise, it wasn’t something he wanted for you. He wanted you to have more stability in your life, to be able to pick up the phone and call someone whenever you missed them (and have them actually answer), and without having to worry about whether they would ever come back.
He pictures it the other way around—what if he were the one left behind, not knowing whether someone he loved was even alive, let alone safe?—and remembers what it was like for him to say goodbye to Bucky before he went off to the front lines.
He’d felt helpless, frustrated, and just terribly sad at all once. How unfair it would be to subject anyone to that, let alone someone he was supposed to care about. Let alone you.
Steve wouldn’t do that to you, and the both of you were very aware of what the stakes were.
Violet. Your niece was at stake, and there was no way either of you were going to mess that up, not for anything or anyone. Not even for each other.
And that’s the part that gets him the most, because that kid is easily the best person he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting, no contest. Now, he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever see her again. He doesn’t know if he’s messed this whole thing up for you, whether it will affect the custody battle with your parents.
The thought, along with the one that reminds him he might never get to see you again either, makes his nose burn and his eyes watery.
Bucky seems to notice the shift in Steve’s mood, because he softens a little. He turns to face forward again, towards the horizon, and sighs.
“Alright, fine… just tell me what happened.”
Steve looks up from where his hands are fidgeting in his lap, squinting against the bright orange of the setting sun. He sighs too.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Ransom Drysdale x rich!Reader (enemies-to-lovers) ⛈🔥🦆
Ransom hates you, that one, self-made, rich bitch who wins all the philanthropy awards, but he finds a way to use you to anger his mother, Linda. Bonus that he can get some ass in the process. What could possibly go wrong? Money is the only thing he loves, right?
Angst, romance, and smut; each chapter has its own warnings. Please read them carefully. MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY You will find all-age friendly fic on my Light Masterlist, but not here!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Mini One-shots:
Gifts Given -- set between pt. 4 and 5
Gifts Received -- set during or anytime after pt. 4
Love of My Life -- set days after pt. 6
A Fluffy Blanket -- set after pt. 6
Beck and Call -- set anytime after pt. 4
Help with A Basic Task -- set after pt. 6
Ski Resort -- teeny tiny drabble after pt. 7
Fire & Ice -- between pt. 7 and 8
Is that a 'yes?' -- kinda anywhere after pt. 6
The Ransomizer -- idk but you're dating...
Out of Spite -- after pt. 7
(Dirty Headcanon; Another)
Shipper asks: 1, 2, 3
The Stoop -- between pt. 7 & 8
The Sequel:
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
***Ransom Demands parts will be labeled 1-6 in their stand-alone posts but 7-12 here for chronology and specifics of where mini-tales are in between.
He’s an amoeba of a man staring evolution in the face.
From The Root of All Ransom
and
His face cracked, an avalanche unmoored from a stable mountain.
From Your Dog, His Tricks
and I remember these off the top of my head because, like, oh shit, gurl, you should write or something…
Npt @thezombieprostitute @peyton-warren @ellethespaceunicorn @indigo-jungle @real-jane @foxgloveprincess @holylulusworld @tuiccim @buckets-and-trees @nekoannie-chan and anyone else who has a beloved line!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anya is LIVE right now
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
So we're all pissed at the new update as we should be and I've been seeing many people proposing blackouts, which is amazing! But all the dates are different and people might get confused at what's happening when, so I just want to organize every blackout (at least that I saw) in one place.
So far I saw six people with dates.
The earliest one, organized by @yourlocalfandomfriendo begins on March 18th and will last 48 hours.
This overlaps with a second proposed blackout by @veejiez for March 19th.
There is also one on the 20th proposed by @daysleftofsecondterm and another one on the same day from 6AM UTC to 6AM UTC on the 21st by @everythingwsnormalhere.
These three days are all very soon so not everyone may see them in time to participate, but if you are able to participate for any or all of these days, I highly encourage you do. Otherwise there are two more blackouts coming up:
The next one after these will be on March 24th as organized by @aroacesafeplaceforall who suggested doing 12 hours.
And the last one, which I personally have a lot of hope for as it's a major day for activity on Tumblr and a blackout then could be especially impactful: April 1st, as proposed by @darkwood-sleddog
There is also a discord set up by @yourlocalfandomfriendo and @aroacesafeplaceforall for anyone interested in joining in!
SO OVERALL, it may sound like a lot, but no one expects everyone to participate to every date here. But PLEASE try to participate in at least one or two of these, even if you feel it may not do much.
Typical strikes, the ones we hear about all the time, win by withholding their labour for consistent periods of time; that's the power people have at work because that's what's exploited.
For blackout strikes, we need to withhold our attention; the resource we own which is exploited through the selling of both advertisements and data.
My comparison of blackout strikes with regular strikes will be for a whole other post, but for the time being, just know that
withholding our attention is our digital bargaining weapon
Tumblr literally lost 63% of its monthly traffic from 2024 to 2025; they are not in a position to play around with those of us still here.
So PLEASE try participating. We cannot let every decent online space get enshittified with no care or consideration for the communities using those spaces.
And where labour strikers risk losing incomes and jobs, all blackout strikers risk is... gaining some of their attention back for a little bit.
The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve.
Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.
If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.
Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.
This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!
It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things that makes this place special.
As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.
Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.
If you’d like to talk directly beyond the comments, leave a reply and we’ll follow up with as many of you as we can. We want to work with you to make Tumblr better.
First and foremost, ET TU, @tumblr? (Sorry, I needed to do that.)
Okay, so I've seen the new proposed changes as to how the notes work, and I know how strongly we disagree and how heartbreaking and overwhelming they feel.
If I may, I have a workaround @tumblr @changes @staff
Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.
When I read about these changes, like every other creator, I was devastated, as the engagement is already too low, and this would shatter everything we adore about reblogs. It ultimately got me thinking.
How about this instead: Reblogging an original post yields double the notes for the creator, while the reblogger's reblog yields them a note too (or some weighted scoring based on development feasibility), but the original creator will be able to see the reblogs and the engagement on their post. This way, engagement increases (which has been a primary concern for most of us creators). Original creators will be ecstatic, and everyone will give importance to reblogging, if they want engagement, and this beautiful abode we escape to becomes invincible and a haven.
If this could be developed, it would be a fairytale ending for all of us.
You happy. We happy. Reblogger happy. Everyone happy.
What do you guys think? Please feel free to share your ideas.
I'm curious. Indulge me, if you will. What do you think?
I get where this is coming from, sweetie! 🩷 And it is a fine alternative—that is, if they really must roll out an update. But my question is, what is the point of changing it now? What is this supposed to even accomplish?
I like seeing what others have to add to a chain, and it’s nice to be able to see your post/work spread across the site. I just don’t see how the update is supposed to change anything for the better.
And of course, with this new system, @staff won’t even see all the discourse happening in the reblogs or comments of those reblogs!! So it’s actually wild and they are just further alienating themselves from their userbase?!?!?
*sigh* Nothing about these new @changes makes any sense 🙃
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The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve.
Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.
If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.
Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.
This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!
It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things that makes this place special.
As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.
Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.
If you’d like to talk directly beyond the comments, leave a reply and we’ll follow up with as many of you as we can. We want to work with you to make Tumblr better.
Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.
Umm... that’s exactly what it’s going to do, though?
It’s actually crazy that @staff’s response to this whole saga is pretty much:
Hey, we’ve heard you loud and clear: you hate these changes—BUT! We’re going to go forward with them regardless because we lowkey don’t care about your opinion, but feel free to share them anyway! 😃
Honestly, if you’re just going to turn into another Instagram or TikTok where nothing else matters except the amount of clicks/likes each post gets, then why should I bother with Tumblr at all? Why don’t I just move over there and let this site die its timely death?
I have yet to hear anything about what these changes are supposed to even achieve? Why was it even necessary? Are you guys just bored at HQ, or what?
JFC of all the things you could have addressed, you instead chose to hit the creatives where it hurts—which is a majority of your userbase and why a lot of people are even here.
I’ve said it in the comments and I’ll say it again—community engagement and user interaction are already at an all-time low. This is only going to make it worse, and quite honestly, makes me wonder why I’m even still here.
Snap out of whatever trance you’re in and get your shit together, @staff @changes @tumblr
summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.
pairing: bucky barnes x time witch!reader
series word count: 130.7k (136.3k+ including bonus chapters)
warnings: f!reader; more or less canon compliant; time loops, canon typical violence, repeated major character death (in a russian doll/supernatural's mystery spot sort of way); slow burn, mutual annoyance to reluctant friends to lovers; negative self-talk; just a lot of angst (but with an eventual happy ending i promise!!); lots of banter; hella self-indulgent 💚
this series is set after the events of the falcon and the winter soldier and will include spoilers for marvel projects up to and including multiverse of madness
please mind that my blog is 18+ only, minors and ageless accounts will be blocked
a/n: welcome to the fic i've been thinking about for almost a year!! i am beyond excited and terrified to finally start sharing this. if you want to get notified whenever i post a new chapter, you can follow @intrepidacious-fics and turn on notifications or follow along on my ao3 💚
✨ this series is finished as of 12 july 2025
my chapters are on the long side so they will also be posted in parts for easier reading in the app; the parts and the full chapters are identical contentwise
one: turn back the clock
↳ Bucky gets killed during a mission and you accidentally start a time loop | 6.0k
part one
part two
two: twice upon a time
↳ You struggle to cope with your new situation and meet a sorcerer | 8.2k
part one
part two
three: every day’s a holiday
↳ Ten days into the loop, you finally decide to ask for help | 10.1k
part one
part two
part three
four: groundhog day
↳ Library heists, bad ideas, and a decision | 9.2k
part one
part two
five: carousel
↳ Bucky has a secret and you have a revelation | 10.9k
part one
part two
part three
six: butterfly effect
↳ You go back to the start, and something changes | 12.8k
part one
part two
part three
part four
seven: spellbound
↳ There's a problem with this day | 11.1k
part one
part two
part three
eight: edge of tomorrow
↳ The truth comes out, and you scramble to fix things | 12.3k
part one
part two
part three
nine: out of the past
↳ Some ill-advised choices and a road trip | 12.9k
part one
part two
part three
part four
ten: about time
↳ The fallout, some truths, and time being really weird | 12.2k
part one
part two
part three
eleven: tomorrow we live
↳ How to end a time loop | 9.8k
part one
part two
part three
twelve: serendipity
↳ Something's weird about today | 11.2k
part one
part two
part three
epilogue
↳ Saturday: what a concept | 3.5k
bonus chapters
these are mostly set outside of the time loop; not required reading, but there will be some nods to these in the main story. bonus chapters can be read in any order and without knowing the main story
frequently asked questions about time travel
↳ Five times people asked you something about time travel, and one time you’re desperate for an answer yourself
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
↳ One day in Bucky's time loop
57 seconds
↳ How Bucky met Twelve
somewhere in time
↳ a bantery little snippet that was cut for time from the main story
cause and effect
↳ How Bucky fell in love with Twelve: Slowly, and then all at once.
