I know plenty of peoples who struggle with writing fight scenes. They struggle with that fast paced, one right after another, clipped with no breathing room but still descriptive enough. But I struggle with the aftermath. I’ve never been able to describe pain well. I rarely feel it intensely but when I do I don’t know how one would classify each symptom. This makes a lot of my characters injury description kinda poetic. For example I recently described an injury as a ripple because it started in one pinpoint spot and sort of went pushed outward but as it got further from the pinpoint it got like ?softer?. Idk man pain’s weird
I am not really sure how to write the action sequences in my book. I know I have to write down what the aggressor did, but do I also need to write down how the receiver experienced the violence?
It depends on whether the receiver has a point of view in the story and whether this scene is being witnessed from their perspective. You perhaps don’t need to do it if your character is committing violence against a nameless henchman, but if it’s someone with lines and a somewhat important role, you should check to see if their experience of receiving the violence needs to be shown. There isn’t a single answer to this. A lot depends on the nature of your story. I recommend reading more action scenes.
Funny Fic. A short sequel to my Valentine Fic, but can be read as a one-shot.
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x you, but you're not actually in it.
Word Count: 1.8k
Summary: A few months after you asked Bucky to be your Valentine, he and Sam are mid-mission and he still can’t stop talking about the knife you gave him.
Trigger Warnings: Marvel-level violence; Knife throwing; Stabbing/slashing; Bullets being deflected by Sam’s wings and sorta by Bucky’s arm; Bucky’s in love. Sam approves, though he kinds wishes he’d shut up about the knife a little. 😆
Author’s Note: Requested (kinda) by @emmathefanficgal, and inspired by some commentary I read about Bucky’s knife fighting in FATWS, how he uses the flat and back of the blade instead of the edge, showing his prowess and hesitation to do harm, as per his therapy and pardon guidelines. He’s not quite as hesitant to do harm here; he’s a Thunderbolt now, after all.
Masterlist
The guy came at him wild, swung from his elbow, not his shoulder.
Bucky sidestepped naturally, boots scraping over concrete dust, and caught the man’s wrist before the punch could land. The impact still rattled up his vibranium arm like a dull bell.
“You telegraph,” Bucky muttered, twisting.
There was a sharp crack and the thug wheezed as Bucky pivoted behind him, drove a knee into the back of his thigh, and shoved him face-first into a stack of plastic-wrapped crates. The warehouse air smelled like oil and old rain. Somewhere behind him, Sam’s wings slammed into something metallic with a resonant gong.
“On your left!” Sam shouted.
“Always on my freaking left,” Bucky replied automatically.
Another attacker rushed him, this one with a pipe. Bucky ducked the first swing; it cut the wind over his hair. The second swing he caught mid-arc with his metal hand. The pipe shrieked as it crumpled under his grip.
The guy’s eyes went wide.
Bucky reached into the sheath at his hip and drew his knife.
Even in the warehouse’s jaundiced light, the Damascus steel glinting as he moved. The red resin handle caught the overhead flicker and rippled like watered silk, deep and glossy. The small heart cut clean through the base of the blade flashed as he turned it.
He couldn’t help his smile.
“My girlfriend got me this for Valentine’s Day,” he told the man conversationally.
The thug blinked. “What?”
The man lunged anyway, as brave as he was stupid.
Bucky stepped in close and dragged the blade in a controlled, precise slash across the guy’s upper arm, shallow enough to avoid anything vital, deep enough to make a point. Fabric split and blood welled.
“Isn’t she great?” Bucky continued calmly, pivoting behind him and nudging him forward with the flat of the blade. “Look at that pattern. Damascus steel. It’s got this perfect balance—”
The thug howled and tried to spin away. Bucky adjusted his grip without looking.
“—weight distribution’s unreal,” he finished, slicing cleanly through the man’s grip on the crushed pipe and sending it clattering across the concrete. “Feels like it wants to land exactly where I put it.”
The guy staggered backward, clutching his arm, staring at the knife instead of the man holding it.
Behind Bucky, Sam landed hard, boots skidding.
“Why are there so many of them?” Sam demanded, breathless.
“Probably a convention,” Bucky said dryly.
The wounded thug made a stupid decision and bolted toward the loading bay door.
Bucky tilted his head slightly as he watched him go.
“Oh,” he told Sam. “You should see how this does at range.”
And he shifted his weight, arm already moving.
The throw wasn’t dramatic, just a smooth extension from the shoulder, a controlled release from his fingers.
The blade spun once, end over end, the warehouse lights flashing along the layered steel, and it hit with a thick, meaty thud.
The thug shrieked mid-stride as the knife buried itself in the back of his shoulder, just below the scapula. Momentum carried him forward another step before he stumbled, crashed into a pallet of boxed auto parts, and collapsed, swearing, in a clatter of cardboard.
Bucky exhaled softly.
“See?” he said, mostly to himself.
Behind him, someone grabbed at his jacket. Bucky pivoted without looking and drove his elbow backward into a sternum. Air whooshed out of lungs. He hooked his boot behind the man’s ankle and dropped him hard to the floor.
Sam flew past in a blur of red and silver, wings snapping out to clothesline two attackers at once. One of them ricocheted into a stack of crates that burst open in a spill of packing foam.
“Focus!” Sam barked.
“I am focused,” Bucky replied evenly.
He stepped over the groaning man at his feet and walked toward the downed runner.
The thug was on his side, clawing uselessly at the knife lodged in his shoulder. Blood seeped around the red resin handle, darkening the shine. The heart-shaped cutout near the base of the blade was visible against his torn jacket.
Bucky crouched beside him.
Up close, he smiled at the precision of the placement. Clean entry, with no unnecessary damage. He felt a quiet, satisfied warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with combat.
“And it works really well as a throwing knife,” he informed the man.
The thug stared at him over his shoulder like he’d lost his mind.
“You—you’re a psycho—”
Bucky wrapped his flesh hand around the handle.
“You know what I love?” he continued, voice calm, almost reflective. “She didn’t even hesitate. Saw it. Said, ‘That’s a Bucky knife, and gave it to me for Valentine’s Day.’”
He braced a hand against the man’s shoulder. The thug made a panicked noise and Bucky pulled the blade free in one smooth motion. The man screamed.
Bucky inspected the steel briefly. The Damascus pattern was unmarred. The edge still clean. He wiped it carefully on the thug’s jacket with deliberate, almost tender attention.
“My girl knows me so well,” he said with pride.
Something whistled past his ear.
Bucky leaned sideways as a crowbar narrowly missed his head and sparked against concrete. He rose fluidly from his crouch, pivoting into the new attacker’s space.
Behind him, Sam groaned.
“Dude,” Sam called out, wing snapping open to deflect a flying wrench. “Again with that knife?”
Bucky didn’t look away from the man advancing on him.
“Of course with this knife,” he said with a smile.
The crowbar came down again.
Bucky stepped inside the swing, too close for leverage, and drove his metal fist into the man’s ribs. He felt something give under the impact. The guy folded with a choked gasp.
Bucky caught him by the collar before he hit the ground and, almost absentmindedly, hooked the blade through the man’s jacket sleeve, slicing fabric to tangle his arms.
“You’re making it weird,” Sam said.
Sam landed beside him hard enough to crack concrete, wings flaring out to shield them both as two men opened fire from the catwalk above. Bullets pinged and screamed against vibranium.
Bucky leaned slightly to peer around one wing.
“It’s not weird,” he replied. “It’s a thoughtful gift.”
He flicked his wrist and sent the knife spinning once in his palm, not flashy, just habit, then lunged forward as Sam retracted his wing.
They moved in a practiced rhythm. Sam vaulted upward, wings out gaining height, while Bucky charged the base of the metal stairs.
A thug tried to block him.
Bucky slashed across the man’s thigh just enough to drop him.
“I’m just saying,” Sam continued from above, voice strained as he grappled with someone on the railing, “you’ve brought it up every single mission since February.”
Bucky mounted the steps two at a time. Another attacker swung a chain at his head. He caught it with his metal hand, yanked the man forward, and drove his forehead into the guy’s nose. Cartilage crunched.
“That’s because,” Bucky said evenly, shoving the reeling man into the stairwell wall, “it continues to be relevant.”
He reached the catwalk level just as Sam kicked one gunman backward over the railing. The man crashed into a stack of crates below in a splintering roar.
Sam stopped for a second, staring at Bucky.
“You stabbed a guy and gave him a product review.”
Bucky advanced on the last shooter. The man’s hands shook. The muzzle wavered.
“It has excellent balance,” Bucky said over his shoulder, stepping closer.
The man fired.
Bucky deflected the gun upward with his metal hand. The shot burst into the ceiling. In the same motion, Bucky drove the knife hand forward and pinned the man’s sleeve to the wooden support beam behind him.
The blade sank deep into the timber.
The shooter froze, breath stuttering, arm trapped.
Bucky leaned in slightly.
“And the grip,” he added, looking at the red resin handle, “is ergonomic.”
Below them, Sam made a strangled noise that was both laugh and despair.
“Dude.”
Bucky twisted the knife free from the wood and stepped back as the man slumped, defeated more by terror than injury.
Sam landed beside him, wings folding in with a metallic shudder.
“Again?” Sam demanded. “We’re doing this again?”
Bucky wiped a smear of blood from the flat of the blade with his thumb, inspecting the steel like a man checking the alignment on a watch.
“Yes,” he said simply.
And across the warehouse floor, two more men hesitated, clearly reconsidering their life choices. One of them charged anyway.
Bucky stepped off the catwalk railing and dropped the ten feet to the concrete below. He landed in a crouch, heels up and knees bending to absorb the impact.
The charging man swung a desperate hook.
Bucky caught the wrist mid-air and twisted, turning the momentum into a sharp pivot. The man yelped as Bucky guided him past, then nudged him down with the heel of his palm between the shoulder blades. The guy sprawled face-first with a slap of skin on concrete.
Behind him, Sam descended in a controlled glide and slammed into the final attacker, driving him back into a stack of barrels. One burst open, rolling across the floor with a hollow clang.
“Listen,” Sam said, grappling the man’s arm behind his back, “I’m happy for you. I am. I like her. She’s great for you. But—”
He grunted as he picked the guy up.
Bucky hauled his own opponent upright by the collar and pressed the flat of the Damascus blade against the man’s throat, not cutting, just in threat. The heart-shaped cutout hovered inches from his skin.
“But what?” Bucky asked.
Sam wrenched his thug’s arm a little higher and the man squealed.
“But this is a tactical operation,” Sam continued. “Not a couples’ showcase.”
Bucky’s brows furrowed in disagreement. “It can be both.”
The man in front of him swallowed hard, mystified, not quite understanding what kind of men would have a conversation like this during a knife-and-gun fight.
Bucky didn’t look away from the knife as he spoke again. “I might not use another knife until I die.”
Sam just stared at him. “That is not normal,” he said flatly.
Bucky considered that for exactly half a second.
“Unless,” he added, casually shifting his grip as the thug tried to inch away, “she gets me another one.”
He tapped the red handle lightly against the man’s collarbone.
“Ooh,” he said, a spark of genuine interest lighting his tone, “if she gets me another, I could have one in each hand.”
There was a pause. Sam looked at him, then at the knife, then back at him.
“You are insufferable,” he declared.
But his mouth betrayed him, the corner twitching upward before he caught it.
Bucky inspected the edge once more, thumb brushing over the Damascus ripples.
“Still sharp,” he smiled, satisfied.
Sam folded his wings with a metallic snap.
“You’re texting her about this later, aren’t you?”
Bucky slid the knife back into its sheath at his hip. “Already drafted it in my head,” he said.
Sam stared at him as Bucky stepped over a groaning thug toward the exit. “You mentally drafted a text mid-fight?”
Bucky adjusted his jacket, expression perfectly calm. “What, you never multitasked before?”
