Latest Posts by 22bananapudding - Page 3
I might color the second one😣😣😣
I might color the second one😣😣😣
Florence Pugh on what it was like seeing Sebastian Stan in costume as Bucky in ‘Thunderbolts*’ for the first time: “When he was on a vehicle, it was a great day. In fact, we did a take where Wyatt [Russell] turned around and went, “Bucky!!!”, ‘cause he just looks so cool.”
u guys will NOT guess what i just copped
That damn himbo (I love him <3)
I’m slowly letting sambucky devour my soul and it’s gotten to the point that I’m convinced there’s going to be hints dropped In thunderbolts
a small collection of recent sambucky doodles
bucky typically wearing multiple layers of clothing with his arm hidden vs being in a simple shirt with his arm out on display indicating his comfort and familiarity with sam is so personal to me.
and another thing i love is the symbolism in the fact that he’s wearing the same style of shirt (henley) in both of these pictures. except the red indicates an anger and conflict in his identity vs the blue symbolising strength and serenity (newfound thanks to sam).
Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
Thunderbolts One Shot
A/N: Celebrating the upcoming release of Thunderbolts, I've come up with this one shot which involves all the best things about Thunderbolts that I have seen so far from the trailers. Funny banter? Check. Chaotic fighting? Check. Life threatening situation? Check. Touching moments? Check. And maybe a little bit of ghost from the past that bothers one Bucky Barnes. (Hope you guys won't kill me for what I'm about to put him through XD)
Enjoy and please vote and comment. It would mean a lot. Thanks!
Warning : near death experience for a character, memories that can trigger PTSD
Word Count : 5.6k
Read more Bucky Barnes and Sebastian Stan one shots and fanfics here.
---
BOOM.
The floor of the Avengers training deck shook like a bomb had gone off - which, technically, it had.
Ghost phased through a smoking wall, threw a glare over her shoulder, and yelled, “Red Guardian, you absolute mammoth! You said it was a smoke grenade!”
From the other end of the room, Alexei popped out of the smoke coughing dramatically, holding what was clearly a grenade casing. “It was! But then I remembered I put a surprise in it. Like party popper, but with thermite!”
“You’re gonna ‘party pop’ us into the next dimension,” Walker muttered, deflecting a flying training drone with his shield, which pinged off a wall, ricocheted off Taskmaster’s helmet, and nearly took off Yelena’s ponytail.
“HEY,” she shouted. “That almost hit my face! This is the moneymaker!”
“You’re not getting paid,” Ghost said dryly.
“I mean for me,” Yelena shrugged. “If this team falls apart, I still want modeling options.”
“Can we focus,” Taskmaster snapped, elbowing a Stark-tech combat dummy so hard it folded in half. “We’re supposed to be training, not filming an episode of Russian Survivor: Dysfunction Edition.”
“I would watch that,” Red Guardian said, proudly slamming a second dummy through the floor. “I would star in that.”
“Guys,” Walker said as he ducked a drone programmed to kill. “Guys. I think the drones are learning. One of them tried to taunt me.”
“It said, ‘nice form, Captain Budget,’” Yelena confirmed, deadpan.
“Okay, that one’s me,” Taskmaster admitted, holding a remote. “I reprogrammed them for psychological warfare.”
“I knew it!”
Another explosion went off.
Through it all, Bucky Barnes stood in the observation booth above the chaos, arms crossed, staring through the glass like someone watching a slow-moving train crash. Except the train was on fire. And also full of fireworks. And maybe raccoons.
He sighed.
“This is fine,” he muttered to himself. “Completely fine. I lead assassins, war criminals, an actual ghost, and a Soviet linebacker with boundary issues. What could possibly go wrong.”
At that exact moment, Red Guardian punched a dummy so hard it flew into a glass wall and shattered it.
Bucky didn’t even blink.
“I swear I’m gonna start docking pay,” he muttered into his comm.
“We don’t get paid!” Yelena’s voice chimed in from the speaker with perfect comedic timing.
“Exactly.”
It had been three months since the Thunderbolts officially stepped in as the world’s patchwork heroes. They weren’t the Avengers - but they were what was left. They got the dirty jobs. The ones no one else wanted. The ones that required people who didn’t flinch at crossing a line - or coming back from one.
With Valentina gone under “mysterious but unsurprising” circumstances (Yelena said she’d disappeared into a bunker shaped like a high heel), leadership had somehow landed on Bucky Barnes. The man who never asked for it. The man who flinched every time someone said “team” like it meant family.
No one argued. Not even Walker, which was perhaps the biggest miracle of all.
With Val missing, the Avengers Tower was empty and somehow the Thunderbolts ended up occupying it.
Suddenly, the alarms in the Tower gave a soft chime, then a comm line opened.
“Hey, Buck,” came a familiar voice - calm, steady, annoyingly optimistic.
Sam Wilson.
Bucky straightened. The chaos below immediately faded to background noise.
“Sam.”
“Just checking in,” Sam said. “You still alive?”
“For now.”
“Team not trying to kill each other?”
Bucky glanced down at the training deck. Yelena was dual-wielding tasers. Walker had a bloody nose. Ghost was phasing in and out of reality to dodge Taskmaster’s flying knives. Red Guardian was trying to teach a drone Russian opera.
“They’re...bonding.”
There was a pause. “That’s the most terrifying thing you’ve ever said.”
Bucky smirked.
“Got something for you,” Sam said, tone shifting. “Secure channel. Intel just came through.”
“Serious?”
“Yeah. One of Val’s old contacts surfaced in Romania. Hydra ties. Could be big.”
Bucky’s face hardened. The humor drained from his posture.
“Send it over.”
“Already did. Good luck, Buck.”
The line clicked off.
Bucky turned to the training deck. One more explosion rattled the floor. Taskmaster calmly stepped out of the smoke, holding a sparking drone head.
“I think we need to recalibrate the definition of training,” she said.
Bucky descended the stairs, boots heavy against the metal.
“Wrap it up,” he called out. “We’ve got work.”
Yelena perked up. “Ooooh, real work?”
“Hydra-flavored,” Bucky said.
Everyone immediately stopped fighting each other and turned, alert and serious in a way only people with too many scars could manage.
Red Guardian cracked his knuckles. “Do we get matching uniforms yet?”
“No,” Bucky deadpanned.
“Please?”
“We’re not wearing spandex.”
“Coward.”
Bucky sighed again as they followed him to the mission room.
The mission room was one of the only parts of Avengers Tower that hadn’t been blown up, defaced, or turned into someone’s weird personal gym. Stark’s old table still stood - sleek, black, circular. Probably worth more than all their collective bank accounts.
Ghost leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes unreadable behind her hood.
Taskmaster stood with military precision, already analyzing the intel holo hovering over the table.
Red Guardian was sprawled in one of the chairs like it was a recliner.
Walker was flexing with absolutely no provocation.
Yelena sat cross-legged on the table itself, tossing a knife in the air, catching it by the tip every time.
Bucky walked in last, holding a datapad. His steps slowed when the location pinged across the hologram:
ROMANIA – BUZĂU MOUNTAINS
There was a pause.
No one noticed at first.
Except Yelena.
She caught the flicker of tension across his face. The sudden, sharp stillness in his shoulders. The way his jaw clenched like he’d just bitten into glass. She didn’t say anything, but she stopped spinning her knife.
Bucky blinked once. Then twice. Then exhaled.
“Alright,” he said, tossing the datapad onto the table. “It’s an old Hydra site. Remote. Cold. Underground. You know the type.”
“Creepy Nazi basement,” Yelena offered helpfully.
“Exactly.”
Red Guardian frowned at the map. “This location - very snowy. Will there be wolves? Because I have not fought wolves in a while. I miss wolves.”
“There will not be wolves,” Ghost muttered.
“Then what’s the point,” he sighed.
Walker pointed at the screen. “Wait, is this under the mountains? That’s just bad design. You don’t build evil lairs where the ceiling might avalanche.”
“That’s literally what they always do,” Taskmaster said. “It’s in the evil lair handbook.”
“I have a handbook!” Red Guardian perked up, digging into his utility vest.
“No,” said everyone at once.
“Alright. Intel confirms this site used to be a Hydra research outpost. It was believed abandoned after the fall - until now. Last week, an intercepted message revealed active transmissions bouncing from deep under the mountain. Encrypted. Old Hydra codes. Someone’s using the site.” Bucky continued.
“Could be squatters,” Walker said, shrugging. “Evil squatters, sure, but - ”
“No.” Taskmaster’s visor tilted toward the hologram. “Hydra didn’t leave trash behind. If that base is active, it’s for a reason.”
Ghost nodded from the shadows. “And we know what Hydra likes to do underground. Experimentation. Storage. Torture.”
Red Guardian raised a hand. “Question! Will there be mutants? Because I’m due for a dramatic face-off with one.”
“No mutants,” Bucky said. “We’re going in for data - there’s a drive locked in the command chamber. It’s encrypted with old Hydra biometrics. Intel believes it holds names - operatives who were planted years ago in high-level positions around the world. Government. Law enforcement. Maybe even defense.”
Everyone straightened slightly at that.
“So,” Yelena said, twirling her knife. “We’re not just kicking over a Hydra nest. We’re potentially outing every snake still hiding in the grass.”
Bucky nodded. “Exactly. If we get this list, we could cripple what’s left of the network. Cut off their reach. But we have to be quiet. Fast. In and out. We’ll need full stealth gear. We go in low, scan for surveillance, extract the data drive, and get out before anyone knows we were there.”
Yelena raised her hand. “Question.”
Bucky sighed. “This isn’t school.”
“Comment,” she corrected. “Walker in stealth is like dropping a boulder and yelling ‘surprise!’”
Walker scoffed. “I am very stealthy.”
“You wear an American flag to covert missions,” Ghost pointed out.
“Freedom is stealthy,” Walker said, absolutely unironically.
Taskmaster groaned. “Can we focus? What’s the ingress point?”
“Service hatch through the east ravine,” Bucky said. “Ghost and Taskmaster will lead the sweep. Yelena and Walker secure the data room. I’ll cover rear security with Red Guardian.”
“Yes!” Red Guardian cheered. “Partners again! I will not let you down, my winter son.”
Bucky turned to him slowly. “Please stop saying that.”
“I will never stop saying that.”
“Listen,” Bucky snapped. “This is a recon and retrieval. No pyrotechnics. No musical montages. No spray paint. And definitely no interpretive dance this time.”
“I make no promises,” Red Guardian said solemnly.
“We have to move in six hours,” Bucky continued. “Gear up, double-check comms, and - ”
“Wait wait wait,” Yelena said, waving her knife lazily. “What if the drive is booby-trapped? What if it’s bait? What if Hydra’s hiding in the walls with, I don’t know, robot snakes?”
“Do they do that?” Walker asked, now very concerned.
“No,” Taskmaster said. “But they could start.”
“I like robot snakes,” Red Guardian said.
“You would.”
“Enough,” Bucky snapped, voice cutting through the chaos like ice. “We prep. We focus. We don’t blow each other up before we get there. Can we at least agree on that?”
There was silence.
Then a collective shrug.
“That’s the closest thing to a yes I’ve ever gotten from any of you,” Bucky muttered.
Yelena slid off the table and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a great leader, Bucky. We’re just horrible people.”
He gave her a look, but his lips twitched.
“Gear up,” he repeated, heading toward the exit.
As the others scattered in their own chaotic trajectories, Yelena glanced once more at the datapad with the blinking location.
Romania.
She looked at Bucky’s retreating back.
Yeah. She’d keep an eye on him.
Something about this mission felt colder than snow.
—
The Quinjet landed near the edge of a snow-blanketed forest in Romania, the wind howling like the trees were trying to warn them. Pines stood frozen in reverent silence. Beneath them, buried under ice and time, waited a Hydra bunker.
Bucky stood at the cargo ramp, stiff as stone. Snow crunched under his boots, but he didn’t feel the cold. His breath plumed into the air, ignored. His eyes locked on the entrance - no, past it. Through it. Like he could already see the ghosts that waited inside.
“In. Grab the data. Out. No sightseeing,” he said, voice tight.
Yelena raised an eyebrow. “That almost sounded like someone’s not excited for a nostalgic field trip.”
He didn’t respond. Just walked.
Taskmaster followed silently, her visor catching the light. She watched Bucky closely - his clenched fists, the twitch of his jaw. The way his shoulders hunched in defense, not cold. She recognized the look. She’d worn it too.
Inside, the bunker came alive with flickering lights, as if it had been waiting for them. The air was sterile, metal and electricity. Too clean. Too quiet.
And then -
The hallway stretched out before them. Gray walls. Cold tile. The kind of place designed to erase people. Old bloodstains tried to hide beneath steel polish. Symbols lingered on the walls: the Hydra skull. The red star.
“Home sweet hell,” Yelena muttered.
Bucky’s steps slowed. His vision tunneled. Every breath was a weight. He wasn’t here - not fully. He was back there. Strapped down. Screaming into silence. A name that didn’t belong to him echoing in his skull.
He could smell the antiseptic. Hear the crackle of electricity. Taste the copper of blood.
His feet moved automatically. Precision over instinct. His body still remembered the route, the corners. Where to turn. Where they broke him.
Walker, forever on the worst wavelength, chose that moment to speak.
“Man, this place is creepier than my ex’s basement gym.”
Bucky stopped.
The silence snapped taut.
He turned, slowly. His face was calm, but his eyes - his eyes could have frozen fire.
“Say another word,” he said, voice low and hollow, “and I will introduce your teeth to that wall.”
Walker blinked. “Right. Yep. Copy that.”
Ghost fell back, giving Bucky space. She knew better. She knew trauma wasn’t always visible until it bled.
Yelena didn’t fall back. She moved closer. Quiet steps. Not touching, just... present. A warm shadow.
Red Guardian, always unaware at precisely the wrong time, chose that moment for heart-to-heart hour.
“I think we should talk about feelings,” he declared. “When a man carries ghosts, the best cure is a bear hug! Or interpretive dance!”
“Alexei,” Ghost warned.
“I’m just saying! We are family now. And family - ”
“Don’t,” Bucky growled.
“I was going to say ‘shares trauma,’ not barbecue ribs. Though that too!”
“I’m going to check the perimeter,” Bucky muttered, his voice barely holding together. He turned and disappeared down a side hallway.
The walls swallowed him whole.
They waited.
Then waited longer.
“Okay,” Yelena said. “He’s not checking anything. He’s probably in a hallway whispering at the walls.”
Taskmaster tilted her head. “We should go.”
“We should not split up,” Ghost said immediately.
“We should absolutely stage an intervention,” Red Guardian said. “Like the American show. Surprising Sadness of Repressed Men in Concrete Buildings.”
“That’s not a real show,” Walker muttered.
“Then we make it!”
Yelena smirked. “So what’s the plan? Flashcards? Surprise hug attack?”
“A puppet show,” Red Guardian offered solemnly.
Ghost groaned. “We are emotionally unqualified to do any of this.”
“Exactly,” Yelena grinned. “Which means we’ll be great at it. Come on. Let’s go find our trauma cryptid before he disappears into a flashback.”
The team gathered their terrible ideas and their good intentions and followed him down the hallway.
—
Somewhere in the depths of the bunker, Bucky stood alone in a room that he remembered far too well. The chair was gone, but the ghosts weren’t.
And for a moment, he wasn’t the leader.
He was just a man still trying to survive the person he used to be.
For a moment, he thought maybe, just maybe, he had finally healed. Maybe the ghosts of his past weren’t as real as they had once been. Maybe he had found a way to bury it all - to forget.
But now, being in that room, the memories hit him like a freight train. The warmth of the sun. The wind in his hair. The taste of freedom. All of it, shattered.
He wasn’t free. He never would be.
The weight of his own thoughts pressed down harder than the walls around him. He thought he was free from this. But now it felt like the walls were pressing in - like the ghosts had never left. No matter how far he ran, no matter how many battles he fought, the past always found him.
And in this place, it never really went away - and suddenly, he was back there.
The walls are too white. The lights too bright. He can’t move. Can’t speak. The pain flares again, and the words - those cursed Russian syllables - are shouted from above.
He screams into a gag. Tries to resist. Fails.
His left arm is strapped down. Then it’s not.
Because it’s gone.
The metal replacement gleams under surgical lights.
They bring out the trigger words. One by one.
"Longing. Rusted. Seventeen."
He tries to forget them. He never can.
The Winter Soldier doesn’t forget anything.
A light flickered. A hiss of steam escaped a vent. Bucky jolted, hand instinctively going for a weapon. But there was no enemy.
Just him.
Just the memories.
He turned and slipped down another hallway, footsteps eerily quiet. He found an old security chamber and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.
He slid down the wall. Sat. Stared.
On the wall across from him: pieces of his old uniform. An arm casing. A tactical vest with the red star. Dog tags that were never his real name.
He stared until the colors blurred.
And then, because the past didn’t just knock - it kicked down the door - he remembered again.
Every scream.
Every mission.
Every innocent life.
Every time he woke up in this place, a little less human.
—
Meanwhile, in a hallway not far enough away:
“Okay,” Yelena said, walking at the front. “We’ve been walking for twenty minutes and haven’t found him yet. I think he found a secret snack room and didn’t invite us.”
Ghost raised an eyebrow. “It’s this place. You feel it. It’s wrong.”
“I vote we hunt for him with empathy and snacks,” Walker offered.
“You’re not helping,” Taskmaster deadpanned.
“I could sing,” Red Guardian suggested. “Music heals trauma!”
“Unless it’s your singing,” Yelena muttered.
They moved as one. Bad decisions, good intentions, and emotionally-unqualified teamwork leading the charge.
“I’m just saying,” Walker added as they crept down a hall, “when I said we should bond more, this is not what I meant.”
“Shh,” Ghost hissed. “You’ll scare the ghosts.”
Red Guardian stopped. “Wait. There are ghosts?”
“No,” Taskmaster and Yelena said at the same time.
“Metaphorical ghosts,” Yelena added. “We’re here for a spiritual cleansing. Bucky style.”
They turned a corner.
The door to the security chamber was closed.
Inside, Bucky sat in the dark. Still. Silent.
Outside, five emotionally stunted disaster people began preparing the worst intervention in espionage history.
It was going to be fine.
Probably.
—
The walls were lined with relics of violence: black ops rifles, faded schematics, metal cases etched with Hydra insignias. In the center was a display of Winter Soldier gear, perfectly preserved like a cursed museum exhibit. His mask. His tactical vest. Restraints. Even the old muzzle, the one they used when they feared his silence more than his voice.
Bucky sat on the floor, elbows on his knees, staring at the gear. He didn’t move when the door opened. Didn’t flinch when footsteps echoed.
Walker entered first. Of course he did.
“Hey, uh... Buck.” Awkward pause. “Barnes. Sergeant. Whatever we’re calling you these days.”
Bucky didn’t blink.
Walker scratched the back of his head. “Look, I know what this looks like. But you’re not that guy anymore. I mean, you’re that guy, but... not that guy, y’know?”
Bucky turned his head an inch. Just enough to communicate If you keep talking, I’ll make you eat your own boots.
Walker backed out like someone escaping a lion enclosure.
Red Guardian burst in next, all bluster and oversized optimism.
“My snowy friend!” he announced. “Time for the healing hug.”
Before anyone could stop him, he wrapped his arms around Bucky from behind in what could only be described as a grizzly bear mating a tank.
“Alexei,” Bucky growled, voice a rasp. “If you don’t let go, I will dislocate your spine in alphabetical order.”
Alexei let go. Fast.
Yelena slid in next, quiet. She didn’t speak. Just walked over, plopped down beside Bucky, knees drawn up. They sat in silence. One heartbeat. Two.
“You know,” she muttered, “the metal arm was never the scary part.”
He glanced sideways.
“It was the haircut.”
Bucky huffed. It was almost a laugh.
Ghost entered with a wary glance. She didn’t sit. Just stood by the wall, watching the old gear.
“I don’t remember who I hurt,” she said softly. “Back when my body kept glitching. I phased through walls. Through people. Sometimes I woke up and things were... wrong. People were... gone.”
No one interrupted.
Taskmaster followed, leaning against a rusted locker.
“I don’t know who I am,” she said flatly. “I know a thousand moves and none of them are mine. I speak in borrowed languages. I move in stolen steps. I don’t know what I like. Or hate. Or want.”
The silence that followed was heavier than the air.
Yelena broke it. “I still sleep with a knife under my pillow. Not because I think someone’s coming. But because I’m not sure I won’t.”
Red Guardian sniffled. Loudly.
“I miss the Soviet Union,” he said with a quiver. “And also... my daughters. I never got to be a real papa. Not really. And now I cry during cat food commercials.”
Even Walker, now lurking near the doorway like a failed motivational speaker, cleared his throat.
“I wake up wondering if I’m the villain,” he said. “Everyone said I was. Maybe still am. Some days I agree with them.”
Bucky closed his eyes.
It wasn’t much. But it was something.
When he opened them, his stare landed back on the display. Slowly, he stood.
“I hate this place,” he said quietly.
Yelena stood with him. “Then let’s ruin it.”
The team blinked.
“Exorcise the trauma, Thunderbolt-style,” she added. “I want to break something.”
Taskmaster was already pulling out a can of red spray paint. She walked up to the Hydra logo and tagged a giant X through it. Then she drew a mustache. Then some fangs.
Ghost calmly walked into the old torture chamber and set a charge. A controlled detonation shook the walls moments later.
“Oops,” she said.
Red Guardian unzipped his pants.
“Don’t,” Bucky warned.
“I must,” Alexei said solemnly. “For dominance.”
Walker stared. "This is why we can't have nice things."
Bucky stood among them, watching this band of chaos misfits graffiti, explode, and literally mark their territory in the name of healing. And something in his chest eased. Just a little.
They didn’t fix him. But they stayed. They showed up. They didn’t flinch from the blood on the walls or the ghosts in his silence.
And maybe that was enough.
—
After the healing ceremony was over they focused back on the mission and it didn’t take long before they found what they were looking for.
The command room pulsed with cold blue light, long-abandoned screens flickering as they booted back to life for the first time in decades. The walls were lined with control panels etched with faded Hydra insignias. Dust choked the air. It felt like stepping into a tomb.
Yelena’s boots crunched across broken glass. “Well, this isn’t ominous at all.”
Taskmaster moved to the terminal, scanning the biometric lock. “This is it.”
Ghost nodded, already pulling wires from her belt. “Let me bypass the lock before it fries itself.”
“Any traps?” Bucky asked, his voice low.
“Wouldn’t be Hydra without them,” Ghost muttered.
Red Guardian loomed over a wall panel like it owed him money. “Do I get to punch something yet?”
“Punch the wall and I’ll punch you,” Bucky snapped.
The biometric pad hissed, then released with a hiss of air pressure. Inside, nestled like a treasure in an old weapons crate, sat the drive: obsidian black, sleek, still humming with power.
Yelena reached for it cautiously. “This is either a key to saving the world…”
“…or a Hydra horcrux,” Walker added.
“Either way,” Bucky said, stepping forward, “we’re getting it out of here - ”
A deep, mechanical click echoed from the ceiling.
Everyone froze.
Then the floor shook.
BOOM.
A detonation ripped through the corridor behind them. Dust fell from the ceiling. Red lights blinked on like waking eyes.
“Ambush!” Taskmaster shouted.
“MOVE!” Bucky roared, diving toward the team as enemy soldiers in faded Hydra gear burst through the smoke, rifles raised, gas hissing from canisters tossed into the room.
The team scattered.
The firefight was chaos - gunshots rang off the walls, gas filled the air, and the narrow corridors turned into kill boxes. Ghost phased through walls to flank enemies. Taskmaster moved like a blur of mirrored violence. Yelena dropped Hydra goons like flies, and Red Guardian was practically bowling through them with his shield.
But then - another explosion.
This one closer. Too close.
Bucky turned just in time to see the hallway above him collapse.
“No - ”
CRASH.
A deafening roar swallowed everything.
The mountain screamed.
The world shook.
Snow and rock and steel came down like a vengeful god, burying the corridor - and Bucky with it.
—
“BUCKY!”
Yelena’s scream cut through the chaos.
Dust and debris choked the corridor. A full section of the bunker had collapsed into itself, sealed under an avalanche of concrete and earth.
“No no no - ” Ghost rushed forward, trying to phase into the rubble, but the static from the collapsing infrastructure shorted her out. She staggered back, sparks flickering off her body.
“MOVE!” Yelena shoved debris aside with raw desperation. “He was right here - he was right here!”
Red Guardian’s face had gone pale. He lifted massive chunks of stone with bare hands, flinging them like toys. “He can’t be gone! He survived worse! He survived - he’s the Winter Soldier!”
Yelena dropped to her knees, coughing, her hands trembling as she clawed at the ice-covered metal. “Please - don’t do this. Don’t you dare - ”
Walker, unusually silent, joined her. Together, they pulled aside panels, cracked concrete, bits of torn Hydra tech. No jokes. No snark. Just quiet fear.
Minutes passed like lifetimes.
Ghost tried again, her voice shaking. “There’s no sign of movement. No heat signature. He’s - he’s not - ”
“No!” Yelena snapped. “Keep digging!”
And then -
“Wait!” Taskmaster shouted. She’d moved to another corner, brushing ice off a caved-in vent shaft.
Underneath - just barely - something glinted.
Metal.
“Over here!” she yelled.
Everyone rushed over.
More rubble was tossed aside. The team moved with a terrifying urgency, a shared desperation they’d never felt before.
And then - finally -
Bucky.
His body was half-buried, face pale, lips blue, his vibranium arm shielding his chest. His chest barely rose. Blood dripped down his temple.
Yelena fell beside him. “Oh God - he’s alive, he’s - he’s breathing - !”
“Get him out!” Ghost shouted. “NOW!”
Red Guardian and Walker hauled debris with primal force. Yelena cradled his head, brushing blood from his brow, her voice cracking. “Hey. Hey, you stubborn bastard. You don’t get to check out now. You hear me? You don’t get to leave - ”
“No pulse,” Taskmaster whispered, kneeling beside them. “It’s faint. We need to get him to medbay. Quinjet. Now.”
Yelena squeezed his hand.
“Stay with me, soldier.”
—
The Quinjet roared above the clouds, slicing through the cold Romanian night.
Inside, everything was chaos and silence at once.
The medbay smelled of antiseptic and blood. Bucky lay motionless on the table, pale and battered, hooked up to an IV, a stark gash stitched above his temple. His breathing was shallow but steady now. Machines beeped in time with his heart - a fragile rhythm that grounded the room.
Yelena hadn’t moved from his side. She sat hunched in the chair beside the bed, still covered in ash, knuckles raw. She kept her hand wrapped tightly around his. Her eyes were fixed on him like if she looked away, he might disappear again.
Red Guardian stood awkwardly in the corner, trying to make himself smaller than his massive frame allowed. “He’s fine,” he muttered, to no one in particular. “He’s a super soldier. Takes more than a mountain to kill the Winter Soldier.”
“He almost died,” Ghost said quietly from the other side of the room.
Taskmaster cleaned a wound on her arm, jaw tight. “We were seconds away from digging out a body.”
Walker paced, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean… at least we got the damn drive, right? Hydra’s little shadow network is toast. So that’s something.”
Ghost looked at him sharply. “Do you seriously think that’s what matters right now?”
He held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just saying - he didn’t go down for nothing.”
“No,” Yelena said, her voice like ice. “He didn’t. But he went down.”
The room fell quiet again, the hum of the Quinjet the only sound.
A moment later, Bucky groaned.
Everyone froze.
His eyes fluttered, squinting against the overhead lights. He blinked slowly, tried to move, and winced.
“Hey. Hey.” Yelena leaned in, her grip tightening on his hand. “Stay still, you idiot.”
Bucky’s voice was barely audible, a rasp of breath. “Did we…?”
Taskmaster stepped forward. “We got the drive. Hydra’s relay base is gone. We blew it sky-high.”
Bucky gave the faintest nod. “Good.”
Red Guardian sniffled loudly. “You gave us all heart attacks. If I had known caring about people would be so stressful, I would have raised hamsters instead.”
“Can I still vote we don’t split up again?” Ghost muttered.
Walker stepped closer, surprisingly somber. “You scared the hell out of us, man.”
Bucky glanced at Yelena, then the others.
They were banged up, bruised, exhausted - but all there. His team.
A flicker of something passed through his expression - pain, maybe. Or relief.
“…Thanks for not leaving me behind,” he muttered.
Yelena scoffed. “Please. You think I’d let you die in a trench like some dramatic war movie? Absolutely not.”
“We had to stop her from punching rocks,” Walker said.
“She bit someone,” Red Guardian added helpfully. “I was proud.”
Yelena shrugged, unapologetic. “He had a Hydra patch. I felt justified.”
Bucky coughed a laugh. It hurt. He didn’t care.
For a long moment, none of them spoke.
The sound of the Quinjet flying carried through the walls. Soft. Steady.
Just like his heartbeat.
The storm outside the jet had passed. The sky stretched out beyond them - cold, open, endless.
Yelena leaned her head gently against Bucky’s shoulder. “Don’t do that again.”
“I promise,” he mumbled.
She closed her eyes. “Good. I’d miss yelling at you.”
The Quinjet soared above the clouds, a silhouette against the rising sun.
Inside, the Thunderbolts - bruised, burned, emotionally incompetent - finally rested.
For now, they’d survived.
And somehow, impossibly, they’d done it together.
—
It had been a month since Romania.
Since snow and fire, near-death and not-so-near-death. Since a mismatched pack of emotionally constipated semi-criminals had clawed their way through bloodstained pasts and - by some miracle or mutual exhaustion - chosen to stand together instead of tearing each other apart.
Somehow, impossibly… they were still here.
On the training floor of Avengers Tower - newly rebranded as Thunderbolts HQ - they looked like they were reenacting The Purge.
Again.
“YELENA, THAT IS A REAL KNIFE!” Walker’s voice cracked as a glint of steel flashed by and buried itself in the drywall with an angry thunk.
Yelena didn’t even blink. “It’s only half a knife.”
“That doesn’t - THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS HALF A - ARE YOU INSANE?!”
“If I was trying to kill you,” she sing-songed, “you’d already be bleeding out.”
Walker gestured wildly at the blade embedded in the wall. “I AM A NATIONAL HERO.”
“No, you're a cautionary tale,” Ghost muttered from her perch in the ceiling vents.
Across the room, Red Guardian was dragging her down with a bear hug, his biceps bulging as she phased halfway out of his grip.
“You cannot just disappear from conflict! That is bad relationship model!” he grunted.
“That’s literally how I deal with everything,” she snapped back.
Taskmaster was now airborne, flinging foam batons with sniper-level precision. “I swear to God, if you children don’t start sparring like normal human beings - ”
“FOAM ISN’T A REAL WEAPON!” Walker shouted.
“You’re not a real weapon,” Taskmaster snapped.
Off to the side, Bucky leaned against the observation deck’s glass, arms folded, watching the whole glorious disaster with the weary patience of a man who’d survived seventy years of trauma and somehow found himself here.
They were loud. Deranged. Occasionally combustible.
But they were his.
And they were getting better.
Not just stronger - but more in sync. Sharper. They moved with a kind of messy precision, a beautiful chaos that somehow worked. They weren’t perfect. They’d never be. But they trusted each other in the ways that mattered.
A month ago, Bucky hadn’t been sure he’d ever breathe clean again - let alone lead a team. But now, scarred and still standing, maybe he was more than okay.
His phone buzzed.
He pulled it from his pocket and raised an eyebrow at the name on the screen.
SAM.
He answered with a wry, “If this is another ‘friendly hydration reminder,’ I already choked down half a protein shake.”
Sam snorted. “Nah, this one’s real. Intel just dropped on a Hydra remnant moving tech through the Balkans. Could be nothing. Could be another ‘secret ice bunker of nightmares’ situation.”
Bucky’s expression shifted - not to fear, but to focus.
“I’ll take the team.”
“Knew you would.” A pause. “You good?”
Bucky looked back at the madness:
Yelena was now dragging Red Guardian across the mats like a sled while Walker screamed in the background about OSHA violations. Ghost had vanished - again. Taskmaster looked two seconds from throwing herself off the balcony.
Yeah.
He was good.
“I’m good,” Bucky said, then hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket.
He stepped onto the floor. Didn’t say a word.
And immediately, like chaos sensing its creator, everything stopped.
They turned to him. Sweaty. Bruised. Slightly feral. Ready.
“We’ve got a mission,” Bucky said, calm and steady. “Wheels up in an hour.”
No whining. No complaining.
Just nods. Shared glances. Sharp grins.
Then -
“SHOTGUN ON THE QUINJET,” Yelena shouted.
“NO,” Walker said, horrified. “No, no, I call not sitting next to her!”
“You’ll be in the cargo hold if you keep screaming,” Ghost added from behind him. No one knew how she got there.
Red Guardian raised a fist in triumph. “We ride again! I bring soup!”
Taskmaster groaned. “For the last time, soup is not mission gear!”
Bucky just shook his head, that rare, crooked smile pulling at his mouth. He couldn’t help it.
Bucky turned toward the lockers, ready to gear up - - when the entire training room wall exploded.
A deafening BOOM rocked the floor as a fireball tore through the far side of the room, launching debris, foam batons, and what might have been part of a treadmill across the space.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Walker shouted, covered in drywall dust and betrayal.
Yelena hit the ground rolling and immediately burst into laughter. “See? Training complete!”
Ghost phased through a collapsing beam with a sigh. “It’s always something.”
Taskmaster popped up from behind a bench, eyes wild. “I swear to God, if this is another one of those ‘surprise bonding exercises’ - ”
Amid the smoke and sparks, Alexei emerged proudly from a corner, holding a comically large rocket launcher that was still smoking at the barrel.
“I FIXED IT!” he announced.
Everyone stared.
“…Fixed what, exactly?” Bucky asked slowly.
“The air conditioning unit,” Alexei beamed. “It was making noise. I used precise, tactical engineering.”
“You blew up a wall,” Ghost deadpanned.
“I removed obstacle,” he corrected with a shrug. “Now there is fresh air! You are welcome.”
Walker flailed an arm at the hole. “THAT’S THE OUTSIDE.”
Alexei looked genuinely pleased. “Yes. Very fresh.”
The sprinklers kicked on. Alarms continued blaring. Bucky stood in the middle of it all, soaked, singed, surrounded by chaos and still… smiling.
Because somehow - through snowstorms, knives, soup, phasing, and now unauthorized air conditioning demolition - they kept getting back up.
They were a mess.
But they were his mess.
And somehow, impossibly… he felt like he belonged here.
Nothing - not even the ghost of their past - was gonna stop them now.
Bucky: I was born in New York
Sam: What part
Bucky: All of me except my left arm
Bucky: She is russian
Sam: It's a she?
Bucky: Of course it's a she, all my weapons are women
by sleepyuncle1
It would be cute if he had a lot of hero goods
the day people stop dropping brain dead john walker (mcu) takes is the day i will finally know peace
like he’s such a morally complex and interesting character who was a perfect narrative foil to sam and the long-standing arc of what it means to pick up that shield and be captain america. he perfectly displays the sentiment we got back in the first captain america movie “not a great soldier, but a good man”. the us government picks a great soldier, the greatest one they have available. they do not understand that being captain america is so much more than that. a guy like john walker thrives in the morally grey environments of war but you make him the beacon of morality and goodness that is captain america and he crumbles. he was not made for it. the us military made him into a soldier, a weapon, and asked him to be something else. he acts the way that a soldier acts, does what a soldier would do, but captain america was never supposed to be a soldier, so he fucks up and makes the wrong decisions at almost every turn. he’s doing his best but he wasn’t built for this so it isn’t enough
his character is also such a good commentary on the us military, how the government asks terrible and life ruining things of its soldiers and then leaves them behind at its earliest convenience.
like john walker is the definition of “i am what you made me”. they made him exactly who he is, he lived his life by their mandates, he did everything they ever asked of him, and it wasn’t enough because they asked him to do something he could never do, stop being a soldier
This is the type of photo he would use as his profile picture on Facebook
This is the type of photo he would use as his profile picture on Facebook
This is the type of photo he would use as his profile picture on Facebook