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 Okay, there are a LOT of Recovering Bucky stories. I recc'd Owlet's "Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail" series earlier, and on the other end of the spectrum (though it's no less a favorite) is Feather's "Your Blue Eyed Boys."

This is the story that spawned no fewer than three other series, with complex, fallible and believable OCs; highly competent women; a Bucky who is damaged, but who also realistically recovers in fits and starts, with backsliding and surprising leaps forward (and backward); and a Sam Wilson who (as one of the author's tags puts it) has Steve's back but also has his own life. And a Steve who is also dealing with his own issues while he's trying to help Bucky with his...and is called out on it too.

One of the things I appreciate most about this series is that the author has put a LOT of time into patching holes in canon that we as readers might not even have considered. For instance, this story is canon divergent after TWS---so, in a scenario where Bucky comes to live with Steve in a condo in Brooklyn, exactly how was the CIA, FBI, etc persuaded NOT to go after him? The answer may surprise you---and the real effect of all of this is to ground the events of TWS and post-TWS in a more realistic universe. I thought often when I was reading (and re-reading) that if the MCU existed in the real world, I could see it happening like this. 

So, you know. Go and read the thing. It can be sad in places (and there's the canon-typical Winter Soldier trauma umbrella) but it's worth the read. 
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Yesterday I reread Owlet's Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail which has become---for me, and probably for a few other folks---one of the introductory Stucky fics that everyone recommends to new fans (the more so because it isn't Stucky until pretty late in the series---the main focus is on Bucky's recovery, from his POV.) I laughed (and cried, because there are plenty of those moments too) as GrumpyBucky discovered coffee, then grilled cheese sandwiches and along the way, learned what it was like to be a person again, to have friends, and know that he was valued and loved.

The thing about the series, and one of the things I appreciate the most, is that it's the kind of storytelling that's hard. You can write a Recovery Bucky story that's all pathos, all torture and mayhem, and those have their place too (I'm not knocking them!) But it's harder (IMO) to write one that has humor, where our heroes also make mistakes and grow and change and learn from their mistakes. Steve screws up, fairly epically, out of the best of intentions. He learns. So does Tony. So does Maria Hill. And so on. 

So, yeah, if you haven't read this series---what are you doing? Go read it! 

(And have a grilled cheese sandwich. I did, last night.)

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