#crinklefries
Everybody wants to rule the world. In fic, Loki can always be counted on to help Steve and Bucky get together or stay together. Below are my Top 5 Favorite stories:
“Space Oddity” (M, 147k) by crinklefries,cyclamental art (cyclamental),nalonzoo
After the world ends, things happen to Bucky in this specific order: he helps defeat Thanos, he rejects Steve’s attempt to address Feelings, he watches Steve volunteer to put the Infinity Stones back in time, he waits for Steve to come back, he is sad when Steve does not come back, he realizes that everyone thinks Steve disappeared in 2012 (???), he gets taken to space by Carol Danvers (!!!), he meets up with a depressed literal alien Norse God, he and the depressed literal alien Norse God travel through space, he and the depressed literal alien Norse God hit a wormhole and fall into the–Multiverse.
What the fuck.
This is the story of how Bucky and Thor pick up the pieces of their lives, find their own worth, find their own person, and find their way out of a multiverse of 100 realities stitched together with 100 tropes. There’s love, there’s friendship, there’s an extreme amount of Tesseract fuckery, but most importantly there are sexy vampires. Bon Appetit.
+ Endgame Fix-It. Loki and Steve shatter the tesseract in 2012; Bucky and Thor go on a multiverse road trip to find them. Found family, self-acceptance, and the happiest ending.
-☆-
“Shake It Up” (T, 13k) by aurilly
Steve knows he shouldn’t try to change anything while returning the Stones, but he can’t help himself. A certain God of Chaos is willing to help.
Loki’s in for a wild ride.
+ Endgame Fix-It. Steve and Bucky return the stones together. Along the way, they each end up enlisting Loki to help their 2012 versions
-☆-
“Not Another Alien Green Card Marriage” (T, 14k) by crinklefries
“Dearly beloved,” the tired-looking court magistrate said. “We are gathered here today to join this man and this, uh, Norse God in holy…matrimony.”
*
The bifrost is broken and Thor is stranded on Earth, working for SHIELD without any authorized documents. Loki gets way too drunk and regrettably horny one night and offers to marry the big, dumb superhero for a green card.This turns out to be a mistake, because even though Thor is smoking hot, the Avengers keep breaking Manhattan, Loki’s apartment suffers an unfortunate setback, and the U.S. government requires way too much paperwork. Also, Loki hates his job and his best friend is in love with Captain America.
This would only happen to him. Loki would take a nap, if anyone would goddamn let him. Instead, he gets bangs.
+ Shrunkyclunks. Modern Bucky and Loki run into the Avengers over and over again. Madcap courting ensues
-☆-
“Bop, Bop, Bop: Bop To The Top” (T, 10k) by attackofthezee (noxlunate)
When Odinson shows up it’s with half the basketball team and a lot of noise that Loki absolutely did not consent to have in his creative space.
His senses are being assaulted.
“This is a sacred space,” He says and he can practically feel Bucky rolling his eyes behind him, but there are points to be made and Bucky’s judgement is not welcome here.
“It’s an auditorium,” Thor says like he doesn’t comprehend Loki’s point, which is fair, because he is, after all, very very dumb. All those hits to the head doing jock things like football and smashing beer cans against his skull really can’t be helping.
Aka a vaguely a High School Musical AU
+ Modern AU. Blonde jocks have been assigned to help with the spring play and theater kid Loki despairs. Bucky however, is delighted, and gets a date to the prom.
-☆-
“Big in Japan” (T, 6k) by gunboots
Steve hesitantly reaches out and takes the object in Tony’s arms to survey it. ‘It’ being a pillow upon which was an almost frighteningly accurate illustration of Loki, their on-and-off again nemesis. "I don’t–how did you even get this? Who would MAKE this?”
Clearly Steve doesn’t find the attention-to-detail on Loki’s costume as hilarious as Tony does, which whatever. Like he said. Killjoy.
A.K.A The one time Tony buys Thor the world’s worst souvenir and it somehow worked out in the end anyway.
+ Post WS. Dakimakura! Thor starts carrying around a body pillow with fanart printed on it. Loki founds out, and Bucky keeps the Steve pillows
-☆-
+ More Loki fics in the Spacelist
I just wanna be by your side (if these wings could fly) for the rest of our lives. Magical Realism! Below are my Top 5 Favorite stories:
“Sunshine’s Gifts” (E, 52k) by Quarra,wearing_tearing
“Who are you?” Steve asks, eyes bright with anger and cheeks flushed with heat.
Bucky laughs.
His warrior, his Steve, is as brave and as incredible as Bucky thought him to be.
“Is this how you offer me thanks for saving your life?” Bucky grins, delight making him giddy and playful. “Pinning me to the ground without even a proper courtship first?”
*
Or: Bucky is Horny. Steve likes his big rack.
+ Alt Avengers. Fae Bucky leads the Wild Hunt and gets a crush on Captain America. Courting, flying horses, space dogs, and everyone is happy
-☆-
“The Leshy’s Prey” (E, 5k) by DeamonSlayer576,exclamation
Steve is just a small woodland fairy, but when he hears that the Leshy, a powerful forest spirit, has stolen a child, he can’t let this injustice stand. He takes it upon himself to confront the Leshy. The confrontation… doesn’t go as planned.
When the confrontation goes in a more sexual direction than Steve had intended, he’s not certain he minds, and maybe the Leshy isn’t as bad as he’d first thought.
+ Fantasy AU. Fairy Steve helps the local village find lost items, and gets more than he bargained for when he looks for a lost child.
-☆-
“Runaways” (T, 4k) by crinklefries
“Do you believe in magic?” Bucky asks, sitting back on his haunches.
Bucky’s too old to believe in that kind of thing. He graduates in a year with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the Columbia University. He believes in what he can see, in what he can touch and feel.
He can’t believe in magic.
But.
+ Modern AU. Bucky finds interesting trinkets all around New York and falls in love with Steve along the way
-☆-
“Going Through” (G, 2k) by Taste_is_Sweet
Bucky wasn’t quite sure what to do with the extremely angry fairy he rescued from the group of Make Humanity Great Again! assholes who’d been trying to suffocate him in a jar.
+ Fantasy AU. Steve gets saved, nursed back to heath, and gets a crush.
-☆-
“Under the Hawthorn Tree” (E, 57k) by odetteandodile
There is a faerie tale of sorts, though it’s one known only by the Fair Folk themselves and a few others who know that they can’t tell it.
It goes like this.
A young man wanders into the woods one night, and wanders until he isn’t a young man anymore—but something else.
Seventy years later, another man follows him. Inside of a magic ring, they meet.
(or, Bucky is a faerie—amongst other things—and Steve Rogers, as always, is helpless but to love him from the start)
+ Modern AU. Environmental Consultant Steve gets sent to check out a forest before it gets bulldozed. He finds a mushroom circle, Bucky, and the fae court.
-☆-
-☆- And a freebie where fae are involved! -☆-
“Thyme and Tide” (T, 21k) by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen),seleneheart
Bucky might be only a one-armed ex-mercenary who’d washed up, half-drowned, on the shores of Sciatha with nothing and nowhere—never mind how hard Captain Rogers, head of Sciatha’s Royal Guard, was trying to change that—but even he knew better than to get involved with the fae.
Unfortunately, that wisdom had somehow bypassed Sciatha’s ancient kings…and fae bargains always came due.
+ Fantasy AU. The kingdom has a deal with the fae, and they’ve taken Steve. Bucky holds faith that Steve will return.
-☆-
+ More fic recs here
I tried to go and leave you behind, what did I find? I took a trip on a train and I thought about you. If these two break up, they’ll get back together eventually. Below are my Top 5 Favorite stories:
“Come Home to Roost” (M, 4k) by Nejinee
Seeing your ex at a party is bound to be awkward. Seeing your ex, whom you’re still deeply, desperately in love with, at a party, is a whole other level of awkward.
+ Modern AU. Two years after they break up, Bucky gets high and waxes rhapsodic about Steve’s dick to anyone that’ll listen.
-☆-
“Runaways” (T, 4k) by crinklefries
He is inconsolably, terribly, horribly hung up over his ex.
It doesn’t help that his ex is his co-worker.
It doesn’t help that his ex is Captain Fucking America.
+ Shrunkyclunks. Shield Agent Bucky runs into his exes at a midnight grocery run. Hilarious, with an assist from the bodega man
-☆-
“Keep it together” (T, 4k) by Nejinee
“Is this the Bucky who stomped all over your precious star-spangled heart and left it for dead by the side of the highway?”
What do you do when your (clearly traitorous) friend invites your ex to dinner? You fake it, that’s what. You pretend to totally have your shit together. You pretend to not stare, to not notice how your ex hasn’t gotten decrepit and gross with age. No, you instead focus on how mature and cool you are now without them. You also realize you haven’t gotten over them, not even a little and that seeing Bucky Barnes again is probably the sickest joke the universe has ever played on you. Your life, Steve Rogers, is a shitshow.
+ Modern AU. Another one by Nejinee!! A double date with Sam and Nat goes off track. Protective friends, fancy food, alley sex, and getting back together.
-☆-
“For the Summer” (E, 44k) by CoraRochester,fadefilter,steebadore
Fifteen years ago, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes had been two teenagers in love, spending sweltering summers in Eagle Inlet, Steve’s sleepy lakeside hometown way up in the Adirondacks. Sure, Bucky’s rich family only came up in summertime, but they were off to college soon and they’d be together forever, right?
Not quite.
These days, Bucky’s back in town for the summer and it turns out, some hurts—and firsts—are hard to get over.
…
There was something venomous and fiery chasing itself through Steve’s veins, choking the life out of his common sense. He put a hand on Bucky’s waist, small and tight, shifting with Bucky’s quick breathing and he squeezed, trying to ground himself. It didn’t work.
There was hardly any space left between them. Bucky’s hair brushed the tip of his nose. It was citrus and sweat and like a gut punch of memory. “We could see if I’m any better now,” Steve said. “I’ve had a little more practice since then.”
+ Modern AU. Bucky is on track to take over the family business when he runs into his ex from 15 years ago. Steve and Bucky still yearn for each other and want to make it work this time around.
-☆-
“Exes and Doughs” (T, 11k) by maximoffs
Captain America could have decided to walk into any donut shop on that Tuesday afternoon, but he had to walk into Bucky’s.
“Your life isn’t Casablanca,” Bucky said to himself, out loud, counting out the drawer in the back.
OR (to the tune of Taylor Swift’s "You Belong With Me”): He’s a donut-maker and Steve’s on the Avengers ♬
OR: Bucky Barnes, ex-assassin-turned-donut-chef, gets a visit from his ex-boyfriend-turned-protector-of-the-People, Captain America.
+ Canon divergence. Childhood lovers before the war, but Shield took Steve and the CIA took Bucky and used them in and out of cryo. Steve still loves him even after they went their separate ways.
-☆-
+ More Exes to Lovers in the High School Reunions,Apocalypse, Fake Dating, and Doctorslists
I’ll put a spell on you, you’ll fall asleep. I’ll be the first thing you see and you’ll realize that you love me. Witch-Specific fics! Below are my Top 5 Favorite stories:
“If You Ever Did Believe” (M, 33k) by wearing_tearing
Bucky Barnes will never die of a broken heart. The spell he cast at thirteen, in between white petals and whispered words of magic, makes sure of that.
But then Bucky murders someone, conspires with his sister to hide the body, and meets Steve Rogers.
+ Modern AU. A Practical Magic AU. Steve investigates a small town when Rumlow goes missing, falls in love with the main suspect, and participates in an exorcism
-☆-
“60 Beans and a Cup of Magic” (T, 28k) by crinklefries
In a little corner of Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes is a baker, Steve Rogers is a witch, and over the course of a year, they bake some goods, drink a lot of coffee, and discover, between them, a little magic.
or;
steve rogers–once a disaster bi always a disaster bi; and now a disaster bi with magic
+ Modern AU. A hilarious and adorable fic where Bucky doesn’t realize Steve is magic and falls in love with him. Featuring an incredible amount of desserts and Steve’s sweet tooth
-☆-
“A Soft Place To Land” (E, 10k) by anoneknewmoose,Livelylute,mwestbelle
Plant witch Steve spends his days with his tight-knit coven, gardening and loving on plants of all kinds. Bucky has a gloved hand and dark energy he can’t quite hide. This is the low-fi magical realism story of their love.
+ Magic AU. Bucky breaks away from his coven and moves into Steve’s apartment building. He wants to do good and be better, and Steve loves and accepts him
-☆-
“Northern Sky” (M, 50k) by littleblackfox,WarlockInTraining
Bucky casts around the field, the light rapidly fading as the storm clouds grow denser, swallowing up the weak winter sun. The spirits are here, he can feel them, their amorphous thoughts, panicked and trembling. They can feel his own fear, rising in the back of his throat, fuelling their own terror.
Bucky reaches for the chain around his neck, fumbling for his amulets. His fingers close around the two pieces of silver, fine and bright as the scars on his arm.
Please. Please keep me safe.
+ Fantasy AU. Bucky is the village witch with an affinity for spirits, and Steve is an artist that can’t stay away. Mutual pining, a lot of rain, and Studio Ghibli feels
-☆-
“Something So Familiar” (G, 6k) by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)
When Bucky was seven the Training Masters told him he had no magic, no potential, that he’d never be a witch. It wasn’t a surprise. Witches came from certain families and a certain class, just like magic was sterile and ordered and familiars were obedient and servile. That was simply the way the world worked.
Bucky grew up and got on with living his mundane life, knowing he was one hundred percent magic free. Which meant it came as something of a shock when the familiar appeared in his living room, claiming Bucky was his witch. It meant the Masters had been wrong. It meant Bucky had magic.
It meant, just maybe, that wasn’t the way the world had to work after all.
+ Fantasy AU. Witch Bucky finds out he has magic, gets trained by his familiar, and starts a quiet revolution
-☆-
