That’s My Happy Ending

Kind of amazing that Sam has canonically lost:

-his mother, when he was very young

-the titi/aunt who acted as a mother figure to him and Sarah

-his father, probably around the time he was a senior in high school

-his and Sarah's TFATWS-canon missing elder brother whose death must have been so devastating to them that they don't even mention him with one another that we've seen so far

-fellow soldiers he fought alongside and was friends with in Afghanistan

-his close friend and possibly more wingman, Riley

-his Avengers friend, Natasha

-his brother-in-law (Sarah's husband)

and yet, it feels like every single post-Endgame story is about how Bucky is just sobbing and pining for the man whose friendship helped Sam to get out of a depression rut but then became the *eighth canonical character* whose loss wounded Sam and the only one who actually made the conscious *choice* to do that...

Bucky is not okay with that.

No one is saying Steve shouldn't have his happiness or that Sam and Bucky don't want him to go pursue what he wants but there's nary a whisper of a mention in some of these fics about what losing someone else is doing to Sam. Especially losing *this* friend in Steve who had meant so much to him at the right time and then just walks out of Sam's life without really thinking about how that would impact him... and dumped his whole complicated legacy in Sam's lap in the process... There's not a lot of discussion about how it's then perfectly reasonable that Sam retreats into himself for the next six months and tries to work through guilt over having been away from what family he still has left while he was on the run with the friend in Steve who just left him like everyone eventually does, as he struggles with missing him and also being angry that he was saddled with all his shield-related baggage on the way out the door, even if he knows his friend meant well.

If you're writing Bucky and he's never upset about Sam being forced to go through a sense of abandonment yet *again* then I'm not sure you're writing the Bucky that is on the screen, who would and has literally throw his body between Sam and danger and would do anything to protect him, physically *and* emotionally.

Both Bucky and Sam care about Steve and miss him but they're also both angry in different ways. Why is Bucky never pissed off in these fics? Why is he just desperate for Steve to come back? Steve hasn't looked at him like he's a whole person in this entire modern era. Steve treats him like he's fragile, like he thinks he's weak to have ever broken into The Winter Soldier in the first place. Steve cared about Bucky but it also held a tone of a life debt in there as well-- he felt like he owed Bucky for all those times Bucky bailed him out of trouble when they were kids but absolutely could not handle a Bucky who might be the vulnerable one in this new era.

*Sam*, on the other hand? Sam treats Bucky like a whole person. He gives him shit, like he would any other friend. He's sweet to and protective over him. He's the one here, looking after Bucky and letting Bucky look after him.

The canon you're writing about has Bucky fully aware that Steve was going back in time and he *stayed right here* in the modern world.

With. Sam.

Bucky has a lot of reasons for preferring to live in this era but not leaving Sam alone is *absolutely* one of those reasons.

We need more about how Sam and Bucky are choosing each other over everything already and have been for awhile now and less Bucky still pining over his childhood best friend that his gay ass didn't even think about sexually until he showed up jacked and rescued him from the Nazis.

Steve chose to leave Sam. Bucky chose to stay with Sam and coupled with the heart eyes he gives him, it's obvious which one of them has Bucky's heart right now and it's not the one who bounced to marry a woman in the 1940s. Please stop writing Sam as a consolation prize. He's not. He's the damn endgame love of Bucky's life. Bucky and Steve are a story that leads to Bucky and Sam.

Please center Sam in your stories the way that Bucky has centered Sam in his life. Please make Bucky think about Sam as more than someone to cry to about Steve. Please stop making an actual total badass of a man who has survived every kind of shit incapable of moving off the couch without his Stevie. Who is that guy? I don't know that guy. I know the one throwing heart eyes aplenty at the love of his life, not at their mutual friend who left.

Mike: I think I know you from somewhere very distant…

Amzet: Yeah, you know who I am? I do know who you are.

Mike: Bobby! Bobby!!! How are you, how are you Bobby? How long has it been?

Mike reunites with an old friend (in another universe)! :')

rest in peace to the best ship dynamic of any characters in any series ever

404+ Palestinians MURDERED in less than a day.

I said it once and now I can't stop thinking about everyone in Limited Life just being kids on a playground

They all have different curfews, and their clock runs out when they need to go home

Scott found a puddle and is making a very pretty mud-castle

Pearl and BigB are playing spies, sneaking up on everyone and watching them through the bushes. Pearl brought her cat from home, and BigB keeps finding and carrying around frogs

The TIES are trying to make a shelter for some bugs they found (probably slugs or caterpillars or smth). They have lost track of every bug they found (except for one, which Joel stomped on), and are constantly searching for more

Entertainment mountain is a giant boulder that the Clockers are playing house on. Cleo was declared Mom because she is the tallest out of the entertainers, and because she keeps yelling at Scar to put his shirt back on

Scar has a bunch of erasers and bracelets and stuff from the school store that he keeps trying to trade with everyone

The Bad Boys claimed the playground as their territory. They all have kiddie sunglasses. Joel's are too big for him and slip down his nose.

Cleo declares a game of The Floor is Lava every time the Bad Boys annoy her.

Boogeyman curse is a game of tag

The Bad Boys made Bad Boys Bread Bridge out of everyone's lunchboxes. They hopped on the lunchboxes during The Floor is Lava so Joel could tag one of the Clockers

Skizz and Bdubs' fight was an actual fistfight. Skizz tapped Bdubs once and was declared winner

my friends after hearing about the silly little minecraft men a little too much

its all 'be gay do crime' until a black person starts making allusions to drugs or sex or god forbid VIOLENCE and then it turns out nobody can handle anything more hardcore than downloading illegal torrents of hamilton

Bagi almost begging Tina to stay.

Bagi: Don’t you want to stay with us? Women making me suffer again.

shaking six year old me by the shoulders YOU WERE RIGHT. YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT LOVE AND ABOUT FAIRNESS AND ABOUT SHARING IS CARING. YOU WERE RIGHT. THE ADULTS DON’T KNOW ANY MORE ABOUT TRUTH THAN YOU DO. KEEP BELIEVING IN THE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN. NOTHING IS “JUST THE WAY IT IS”. I AM SORRY THEY EVER CONVINCED YOU TO FEEL SHAME. YOU ARE REAL AND A PART OF THIS WORLD. YOU WERE RIGHT.