#soft pining

[sulkybender-retired04042026]

hands and how to fill them

[heretherebedork]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 새빛남고 학생회 | Light On Me (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Namgoong/Daon (one-sided) Characters: Namgoong Shiwoon, Shin Daon Additional Tags: Introspection, Pining, namgoong is still pining, forever pining, very little angst, fluffy and soft, Soft Pining, gentle pining Summary:

Namgoong knows why he can't ever tell Daon about his crush. Sohee taught him that. And he doesn't mind. Why would he? Loving Daon is a solitary endeavor for him and that's just fine, as long as he can keep his priorities. Entirely introspective, just some Namgoong POV about loving Daon and the future and the past.

[cosmicclownboy]

Some people:  Malex 😢 aren’t 🥺 together 😩 in 😫 the 😔 first 😭 five episodes  😤

Me: Malex 🤗 aren’t 🥳 together 😍 in 🥰 the 😋 first 🤩 five 💃 episodes 📢

[spicedrobot]

JUSTICE FOR SEXBOT MONDATTA. i'm so sad that the sexbot mondatta prompt is so low in the poll! i thought it would be popular but IM CRYING it's dead last RIP THE SEXBOT DREAM LADS

The first time he sees Hanzo, he stands at mid-thigh. The little lord bursts into his father’s quarters, the only room the omnic has ever known. Lord Shimada is gone, and the omnic sits, his life of two states: Lord Shimada: present. Lord Shimada: absent. 

The little lord sniffles, and the omnic watches him. Long, silken hair, like the late Lady Shimada, and deep brown eyes, like his father. Clear droplets collect at the edges of his eyes. Crying, his database returns. Another finding: the little lord is sad.

Seated as he is on a low couch at the edge of the vast room, adorned with fine robes, he wonders if the little lord even notices him. He is just another bauble, a piece of scenery. He remains still, so still, but he cannot turn away. He feels…something. A fluttering of his processors. A hiccup in his code.

Interested. He is curious. 

So lost in this, new, frightening realization, he does not notice the patter of footfalls. Only when Hanzo’s arms close around his waist, his face buried in the warm chrome and silk at his chest, does he realize he’s been discovered.

The little one sobs against him, and the omnic knows not what to do. Lord Shimada never cried. Yet again, a newly familiar sensation of feeling.

His servos tremble as he wraps his arms around the tiny human, holding him softer than Lord Shimada ever deigned to hold the omnic in turn, and why should he? He is nothing. A thing.

The little lord burrows closer, crumpling into him when he feels hands at his back.

“I miss him.” Hanzo whimpers twenty three minutes and thirty nine seconds after the omnic began holding him.

Hanzo leans back, his chin balanced on the hexagon in the center of his chest. His tiny face is puffy, angry red from his tears. 

The omnic says nothing. He knows not what to say.

“Who are you?” Hanzo asks, in a whisper.

Something whirs inside him. Accessing decades old information. He knows it is not necessary, yet he cannot deny this small being.

“Mondatta.”

[heldbybarnes]

I can't get the image of 40s untraumatised bucky out of my mind where he's exploring brooklyn with Steve and his sister, trying super hard to not show he has a crush on her ☺️.

And hear me out, he actually gets to love her and live his white picket fence dreams, wife and kids, all of it.....

Fuck Hydra

in my delusion bucky never gets taken by hydra and he lives happily ever after. i will not be accepting other scenarios at this time

---------

Brooklyn in the 1940s is loud—cars honking, vendors shouting, kids running in the street, radios buzzing out big-band tunes—but somehow, somehow, when you’re around, Bucky can’t hear a damn thing.

He’s walking between you and Steve, hands in his pockets, trying to act normal. Trying being the key word, because every time you laugh at something your brother says, Bucky’s heart does a swan dive straight into his stomach.

Not that he’ll ever admit it. He’s been hiding this crush since the first time Steve dragged him home for dinner and you smiled at him like he was worth looking at. That alone nearly killed him.

And tonight? Tonight’s even worse, because you’re wearing that little summer dress that swishes around your legs like it’s teasing him on purpose.

“So,” you say, nudging him lightly with your shoulder, “either of you boys hungry? Ma said there’s pie at home.”

“Pie?” Steve pipes up. “I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving, pal,” Bucky says, bumping Steve back, hoping to God you don’t notice how he leans a little closer to you while he does it.

You notice.

You always do.

But you don’t call him out. You just smile down at the sidewalk as if trying to hide your own blush.

God, he’s a goner.

Bucky tries. He really does. He keeps his hands to himself. He keeps his thoughts pure. He tells himself not to stare at your mouth when you talk and definitely not to imagine kissing you senseless in some quiet hallway where Steve can’t murder him.

But temptation is a stubborn thing. Especially when it walks beside him carrying a cherry cola and humming the Andrews Sisters under its breath.

“Cold?” he asks when he sees you rub your arms.

“A little.”

He shouldn’t offer his jacket. He shouldn’t. That’s too obvious, too revealing, too everything.

But you shiver again and… well… he’s weak.

He shrugs out of his jacket, drapes it over your shoulders, and tries not to combust when your fingers brush his wrist.

“Thank you,” you murmur, soft as the dusk around them.

Steve eyes him knowingly. Bucky avoids looking back.

They walk the rest of the block like that. You in his jacket. Him pretending his entire world hasn’t just shifted one inch closer to perfection.

When they reach your stoop, Steve announces, “I’m gonna run to the store real quick—Ma wanted milk.”

“Now?” Bucky asks, face heating. Now? Really?

“Yeah.” Steve grins far too wide. “You two go on in. I’ll be back.”

You flick your brother’s ear as he passes, muttering something about him being a menace. Bucky’s trying not to choke. Because now he’s alone with you. On your stoop. Under your porch light. And that damn porch light makes your eyes look like warm honey.

He clears his throat. “You know he’s doing that on purpose, right?”

“Oh, I know.” You laugh—soft, conspiratorial. “He’s not as subtle as he thinks.”

A comfortable quiet settles. Streetlights glow. Somewhere down the block, someone’s radio plays “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

You hold his jacket a little tighter around you.

“Bucky?” you say quietly.

He swallows. “Yeah, doll?”

Your voice dips, earnest. “You don’t have to pretend.”

His breath stutters. “Pretend what?”

“That you don’t like me.”

And there it is. Spoken like sunlight through a window. Warm. Undeniable.

He should deny it. Respectfully. For Steve’s sake. For propriety’s sake. For the sake of the pounding in his chest.

Instead, he steps one inch closer.

Then another.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, “I’ve been trying real hard to hide it.”

Your eyes flicker down to his lips, then back up. “You don’t have to.”

His self-control snaps like a twig underfoot.

He cups your cheek with the gentlest hand, thumb tracing your cheekbone like he’s afraid you’ll vanish. You lean into his touch like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers.

You shake your head. “Don’t.”

So he kisses you.

Slow at first, careful, savoring. Then deeper, when your fingers curl into the front of his shirt and pull him closer. He’s kissing you like a promise, like a prayer, like he’s been waiting his whole damn life for this moment.

Because he has.

Because he’s already imagining a future with you. Something quiet, safe, warm—white picket fence, kids running barefoot on the grass, you kissing him on the cheek before he leaves for work. A life he never thought he deserved until you looked at him like he might.

When he finally pulls back, foreheads touching, he’s breathless.

“You have no idea,” he murmurs, “how much I want all of it with you.”

Your fingers slide down to his chest, resting over his heart. “Then you can have it.”

The world seems to still. Brooklyn fades. All he hears is the promise in your voice.

He kisses you again, softer, smiling into it. “Gonna marry you one day,” he says before he can think better of it.

Instead of freezing, you glow.

“Then you’d better ask nicely,” you tease.

“Oh, I will, doll. I’ll get you a ring so shiny Steve’ll need sunglasses.”

You laugh—bright, beautiful—and he falls in love all over again.

----

Years later, there is a white picket fence. And two kids racing across the yard while Bucky grills on the porch. Steve visits every Sunday and complains loudly about how much your kids look like Bucky.

You kiss Bucky’s cheek, dusted with early-morning whiskers, and hand him a glass of lemonade.

He smiles at you with that same boyish awe he wore on your stoop the night everything changed.

“Told you I’d get that shiny ring,” he says, wiggling his fingers where his wedding band sits proud.

You raise your hand, showing off your own ring. “Told you I’d say yes.”

He kisses you again—slow, warm, grateful.

His Brooklyn dream.

His forever.

His girl.