Gen fic recs
Ooooh @genuaryficrecs is asking for gen fics recs! rolls up sleeves, hits up bookmarks I am so ready.
If I Knew You Were Coming I'd've Baked a Cake, by OddityBoddity ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/2227905 ) 19/19 chapters, 27,271 words T, Chose not to use archive warnings (I can't see anything other than canon-typical violence than would need to be warned for, but take care of yourselves and read the tags, I guess?)
Fandom: Marvel, Avengers, Hawkeye comic
Main Characters: Bucky Barnes, Clint Barton
Type of gen relationship: Two unrelated human beings forced to cooperate.
Official summary: They’re the broken ones. That’s what Clint figures the rest think about him and Barnes. Clint with his eardrums trashed, Barnes with a regiment’s worth of trauma and a psychotic cybernetic arm, put in the same room and told to make nice while the others get to go on missions and do important things and save the world. Well they're not broken. So of course they got bored and tired of being sidelined and decided to entertain themselves. And of course they ended up wanted, running through the streets of Paris with bananas down their pants and gendarmes in pursuit. Of course they did.
Why I love it: It's just… well-written and with very good relationship development. Objectively hilarious. Contains way over-the-top competitiveness, which is the best kind of competitiveness. Sometimes rips your heart out for balance. (technically canon-compliant if you choose the right bit of canon, don't listen to what the tags say they're just cowards) Also (gen rant on): Okay, so I think this is my fave gen fic. As a gen fic. Because, look: there is no reason for this fic to not be romantic. It is heavily focused on two specific characters and their interaction and how it develops and changes, those characters' sexual orientation are compatible (they're both gay men), there's no widely-spread squick associated with their relationship if it were a romantic one (not the same family, no unbalanced power dynamics, etc.) and still! I get 30k words of relationship development that don't end in a kiss, and you have no idea how much that means to me and how rare it is (I mean… if you follow gen fic recs lists blogs you might know). Because relationships don't need to turn romantic to be important! Because any relationship that could turn romantic doesn't have to. Also: they're both in a relationship with someone else. It 1) means you know from the start they won't end up together so you can relax in how you read their interactions and 2) is mentioned and treated as unimportant. In the space/time/context of this fic, their romantic relationships with their respective boyfriends are less important than the gen relationship between them. (okay, rant over)
Excerpt: So he’s lying on his belly. Lying on his belly in an air duct that, let’s face it, was too small for him when he wasn’t in the radiation suit. And he’s lying on his belly in the air duct in a radiation suit and there’s a weight on his back, and there’s a metal arm around his neck and Clint Barton knows that there are times there’s just nothing you can do about the way things go, that there are, well, there are just some times you lose. There are those times when you find yourself with a super-soldier sitting on your back with his arm around your neck and your favourite paring knife poised to cut open your radiation suit and you know you’ve been had and you, well you find yourself thinking, Okay but seriously, seriously this was not how it was supposed to go.
