(op) OH MY GOSH, this is excellent! I love the way we see James's understanding of his situation evolve: from confusingly painless - and god, his surprise when Steve doesn't put him on his knees, doesn't restrain him, his puzzlement over the strange sensation of relaxing muscles, it's glorious - to probably a step up from being an Asset, to it was mostly safe to be James, to excited and aroused at the thought of sex with Steve. This is everything I wanted! (This was my first prompt ever, a!a, so if I sound a little overwhelmed, it's because I am. <3 You'll have to excuse me while I flail all over you.) Bucky/James/the Asset putting together a fucking LIFE for himself post-CA:TWS is everything to me, and I love how you show us his small, genuine pleasures, his human connections: tai chi, Russian tea time complete with arguments about literature, time spent with Clint and Pepper and Tony. And then it's all the more devastating when he lies in bed at night and really thinks it over and decides that he's willing to sacrifice these things, to give up the self he's becoming, for Steve.
It's such a great, fresh take on James's relationship to Bucky. Bucky. Ugh. This person who prefers coffee to tea and baseball to Russian literature and didn't appreciate reciprocal pleasure, because he hadn't had the years of pain that James experienced. I love that, instead of seeing himself as somehow less than the person he used to be, James sees himself as having a greater capacity for pleasure. And that he accepts and acknowledges and seems to basically like who he is, even as he prepares to erase that person because Steve misses his friend.
AND THEN the way that Steve hurts James - not by responding to him sexually, or taking advantage, but by continuing to think of him as someone he's not. The way that James is always Bucky when it's Steve's perspective is simultaneously brilliant and heartbreaking. YAY NAT for telling Steve to get his head out of his ass. (The way you write her is just perfect - the performance of it, the distance, the cool and calculated selection of anger as opposed to exasperation or worry because it will be the most effective. The way she allows herself to be vulnerable and honest because it works - while at the same time, the conversation really does get to her.) She gets right to the heart of the matter: when you've been taken apart and pieced back together that many times, you don't really see bodies and consent in the same way. And that's okay! Or, it's not okay, possibly it will never be okay, but it's the truth.
Steve's acceptance of James at the end, his willingness to let Bucky go, just slayed me. You're the best asset a handler could have. MY HEART. And James's happiness to be loved, to be kept, to be understood. <333 Thank you so much!
Re: Mini-fill [2/2] Re: The Asset is genuinely thrilled with his new handler
It's such a great, fresh take on James's relationship to Bucky. Bucky. Ugh. This person who prefers coffee to tea and baseball to Russian literature and didn't appreciate reciprocal pleasure, because he hadn't had the years of pain that James experienced. I love that, instead of seeing himself as somehow less than the person he used to be, James sees himself as having a greater capacity for pleasure. And that he accepts and acknowledges and seems to basically like who he is, even as he prepares to erase that person because Steve misses his friend.
AND THEN the way that Steve hurts James - not by responding to him sexually, or taking advantage, but by continuing to think of him as someone he's not. The way that James is always Bucky when it's Steve's perspective is simultaneously brilliant and heartbreaking. YAY NAT for telling Steve to get his head out of his ass. (The way you write her is just perfect - the performance of it, the distance, the cool and calculated selection of anger as opposed to exasperation or worry because it will be the most effective. The way she allows herself to be vulnerable and honest because it works - while at the same time, the conversation really does get to her.) She gets right to the heart of the matter: when you've been taken apart and pieced back together that many times, you don't really see bodies and consent in the same way. And that's okay! Or, it's not okay, possibly it will never be okay, but it's the truth.
Steve's acceptance of James at the end, his willingness to let Bucky go, just slayed me. You're the best asset a handler could have. MY HEART. And James's happiness to be loved, to be kept, to be understood. <333 Thank you so much!