I think that Frank ‘n James figuring their shit out would take an actual story, but HERE ARE SOME OF MY TREASURED PADRE AND BARNES CONCEPTS.
– Steve actually had been about to start pursuing becoming a priest before the war broke out. So when he got unfrozen and Fury’s all, YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU AGAIN Steve’s just like sorry, got a date with God, and heads off to get his BA, followed by seminary, so by 2025-ish when Abide takes place he’s been ordained for a few years.
– he does do the Cap thing when he’s needed so a few times he’s come tearing into mass a minute late covered in dust and blood and his congregation will be like FATHER STEVE WE SAW YOU ON THE NEWS
– He LOVES his job, he genuinely loves it, even the hard parts like all of the time he spends sitting with really old and dying people. He’s extremely good at comforting the elderly because he’s such a soothing presence, and he’ll engage them and calm them down by talking about happy stuff they both remember from the ‘30s and ‘40s.
– His Bucky (Barnes) is incredibly anxious, fights bad guys around the clock as a way of dealing with his guilt, and has a lot of trouble interacting positively with people who aren’t Steve because he’s so goddamn stressed out all the time. So Steve suggests him getting a dog so he can have physical contact and affection sans the whole people factor, and after some arguing Barnes ends up adopting Princess from a pitbull rescue. She’s officially Barnes’ emotional support animal, and is a very Good Dog.
– Barnes is totally obsessed with Princess, and though he generally is not a very chatty guy he can often be caught talking to her as if she’s his equally hostile cyborg assassin roommate. Like “Yeah, fuck that guy, huh? We oughtta pull his spine out through his ass. Say, are we out of milk?”
– Barnes tends to not eat while he’s working and then gorges like a grizzly bear the minute that the immediate danger has passed. After a tough mission Barnes will temporarily move into Padre’s apartment and just sit on the couch and watch bad TV and eat massive piles of food that Padre cooks for him and sometimes let Padre rub his back a little. He’ll also sleep on the floor with Princess next to Padre’s bed when his anxiety really ramps up. After a few days of this he’ll feel better and start getting self-conscious and spend a few days doing nothing but working out, drinking protein shakes, and avoiding eye contact.
– Barnes has a bunch of really intense piercings that are only visible when he’s naked and that he and Padre have a silent agreement that they will never, ever discusss.
– Padre is cheerfully oblivious re: how attractive he is, and is constantly missing people making innuendos about having sins to confess, kneeling, etc. Barnes catches the innuendos and gets really scary about it real quick, like touch my precious virgin angel and puLL BACK A S T U M P
– Barnes and Padre are BOTH completely oblivious re: what a massive hunk of grade A American beef Barnes is. Stepanya develops this massive crush on him and all of the other Steves are, like, watching through their fingers because it’s so hard to have to witness this kind of next-level pining but they can’t look away, and Barnes is just like, “why does the Russian one always give me his Skittles” until James sits him down and is like, BRO, HE LIKE-LIKES YOU
– Once it’s spelled out for him and Barnes has had his little mind blown out his ears he approaches Stepanya and is like, “… I don’t really remember how human relationships work and also touching makes me nervous” and Stepanya is like SAME and they take their relationship to the next level, the next level being: they sit together at lunch time and let their shoulders brush together sometimes. Also they share snacks/socks/knives/bullets and spend a lot of time sitting around together in blessed, blessed silence. Sometimes Barnes gets really stressed out and wants to cuddle a little and Stepanya a s c en d s
But what about ELOISE? Is that in addition to the shield? When did he pick her up?
– @mukani Unforch I think that Barnes and Stepanya will decide to say goodbye and go home eventually: VERY FORCH Stepanya’s Bucky is a total sweetheart who never fell off the train and makes a very dashing and handsome Captain America who spends a lot of time volunteering at children’s hospitals. So Stepanya will get to go home and immediately be fussed over and loved on by stable and together!Bucky, who misses him very, very much. Barnes will go home and probablymaybepossibly actually say yes the next time that Natasha asks him out, which she does about every six months or so, like “The offer to buy you a coffee is still on the table, big guy.” ALSO having practiced touching and communicating with Stepanya makes him much better at asking Padre for hugs and stuff, which is basically as far as Barnes goes at this point in terms of interest in touching. (Eventually after months of very patient wooing from Natasha he’ll work his way up to second base, and then wake Padre up in the middle of the night to report back, like STEVE I KISSED A GIRL AND TOUCHED A BOOB and Padre all “Buddy I’m so happy for you, say two Hail Marys and tell me all the details in the morning.”
– @summercomfort ELOISE OH HECK. Ok something to know about Padre: he has excellent self esteem and is much better at using his words to express what he wants and needs than most of the Steves (cue “I’m a priest, not a martyr” joke). During the Loki alien invasion thing Padre saw that ridiculous getup they put together for him and was immediately like, what the heck, where are the holsters, where is my gun, my shield is great but I’m not fighting the War of the Worlds with nothing but my charming smile and an oversized dinner plate.” And of course because he was entering the priesthood everyone initially underestimated him and condescended to him even more than they did most Steves, so someone gave him this giant machine gun thinking he’d be intimidated by it and give it back. But instead he’s like OH GEEZ THIS IS SWELL THANKS A BUNCH JUST WHAT I WANTED and keeps it. Fast-forward a bit: just as MCU Steve often ends up fighting in khakis or a hoodie or whatever, Padre often ends up fighting in HIS version of civvies: ie, clerical black and collar. And the Avengers quickly discover that while Captain America is extremely intimidating, being attacked by a superpowered priest with a giant fucking machine gun is just Too Much for a certain kind of (read: raised Catholic) bad guy, like they’ll see Padre coming and just … give up. A few times he’s shown up and just ended up immediately taking some would-be evildoer’s confession. So he always has Eloise with him even though he actually prefers the shield when he’s fighting humans and not aliens/monsters/Hydra (it’s his personal belief that theres a special place in Hell for Hydra agents, and it’s his job to get them there a little faster).
See, now I want Padre and ANG Bucky to meet. SO MUCH. Because can you imagine? The Revelator and Padre sitting down for tea and discussing things. Padre seeing ANG Steve’s paintings. The mind wants to know.
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