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He makes the first video mostly out of boredom. It’s late. Steve, Sam, and Nat are puppy piled in the bed. Bucky had slept fitfully for a couple hours, before giving up and getting up. He wanders the house, checks the locks on every door and window, opens and closes the fridge, watches muted late night television, before getting up and repeating it all again. He checks on the three sleeping in the other room multiple times. Once, Natasha wakes and looks at him standing there in the doorway, she gives a single nod of understanding, then closes her eyes and snuggles back up against Sam. They all have their sleepless nights.
Bored of the television, Bucky grabs his laptop and opens his favorite game. By time his saved game loads, he decides he doesn’t actually feel like playing. He closes the game and opens a Let’s Play on YouTube instead. He gets bored with that pretty fast and ends up link hopping. After watching twenty videos by a single vlogger, he gets up and repeats his rotation around the house. While opening and closing the fridge yet again, he decides he feels like baking. Nothing too complicated. Just simple peanut-butter cookies.
While gathering the ingredients, Bucky realizes he’s talking to himself and pretending he’s on a cooking show. Remembering the YouTube videos he’s just spent the last however-long watching, the idea is born. He knows Sam has a camera and tripod stashed away in the closet of the guest room. Just because he records the video doesn’t mean he’ll have to upload it and it would be an, if not fun then, less boring way to pass the time.
He gets the camera and sets it up in the kitchen. He just stands there awkwardly for a few minutes after pressing record. He briefly thinks this was a bad idea. Then the takes a deep breath and starts talking. “Hey, I’m Bucky…” he pause, and then adds, “Some of you may recognize me as The Winter Soldier. It is… some ungodly hour of the night and I can’t sleep, so I’m going to bake peanut-butter kisses.” And it gets easier after that. “These are the simplest cookies in the world to make. All you need is a jar of peanut-butter, one egg, and one cup of sugar. And the ‘kisses’ part are, of course, Hershey’s Kisses. We always have a couple of bags of them around, because Sam and Nat are sugar addicts.” He keeps a steady monologue going as he preheats the oven and mixes his ingredients, works in a few jokes and just a little personal information.
By time the cookies go into the oven, he’s yawning hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. He keeps himself awake by cleaning up the small mess he made, figures if he decided to upload the video he’d do a cut scene here.
He doesn’t bother with an oven mitt when he pulls the cookies out, just uses the metal fingers of his left hand without a care. “Right, so I’m kinda exhausted now. The cookies need to cool before we can eat them anyway. So, I’m gonna to head to bed now and try the fruits of my labor in the morning.” He leaves the cookies on the counter, turns off the camera but leaves it where it is, and heads to bed. He curls up around Steve and is soon dead to the world.
-
Bucky is, unsurprisingly, the last to wake in the morning. What is surprising is finding Sam, Steve, Clint, and Natasha in the kitchen (all still in their pajamas) making noises of delight around mouthfuls of his cookies. Bucky is not surprised by Clint’s presences. Clint didn’t live with them, but he did eat all his meals with them. Mostly because he couldn’t be trusted to eat properly on his own.
The record light on the camera is on and Sam is talking to it about how xe’d taught Bucky everything he knew about baking. Bucky huffs and crosses the kitchen. He hip checks Sam, causing xem to let out a noise of protest, and takes xyr place in front of the camera. “Judging by this response, looks like 3am peanut-butter kisses were a success.”
“A big success!” Clint says, he comes over and throws an arm around Bucky’s shoulder and tries to stuff a cookie into Bucky’s mouth with the other hand.
Bucky lets out an amused noise and opens his mouth to let Clint feed him the cookie. In Bucky’s opinion, they’re a bit dry, but he doesn’t say that. Steve passes him a cup of coffee and Bucky takes a careful sip before turning back to the camera and smiling. “Alright then, until next time, or whatever.”
After the camera is shut off, it takes less than five minutes for everyone to convince Bucky that he should most definitely upload the video. Steve helps him edit it and Natasha makes his YouTube account. Sam suggests “Peanut-Bucky-Kisses” as the title. The video is online within an hour and that’s that.
-
It doesn’t go viral or anything, but it definitely gets more views and comments than Bucky had expected (considering his expectation had been set at around ten maybe, that’s not saying much.) So, a couple of weeks later, when Bucky wakes up from nightmares and decides to bake to clear his mind, he doesn’t have to think too hard about making another video.
“Hello ladies, gents, and celestial beings,” Bucky greets, “Bucky here. It is once more some ungodly hour of the night and we’re gonna bake… actually I don’t know what we’re gonna make, let’s see what we got…” He has to walk off camera to check the pantry, calls an “ah ha” when he finds a package of Oreo cookies. He crosses in front of the camera to check the fridge and returns with cream cheese. “We’re making Oreo cheesecake,” he tells the camera. Then he just stands there for a long moment trying to remember what all he needed for said cheesecake. “Recipe,” he declares, then once more walks off camera to grab the laptop from the living room.
He comes back, finds a simple recipe online and starts gathering the needed supplies from the cabinets. “I hope you guys have silent mixers, because you probably don’t want to wake anyone who may or may not be sleeping in other rooms of the house by making a lot of noise in the kitchen at… not quite 4am. I, hashtag, ‘can’t sleep because’ of nightmares. We get plenty of those in this house… Try to let everyone rest when they can.”
There’s a long moment of silence as Bucky concentrates on crushing the Oreos in a bag, using the heel of his metal hand instead of a rolling pin to do so, and tries to pretend he’s in complete control of his emotions at the moment. “These are actually Falcon’s Oreos,” he says once the lump in his throat is gone. “So I better make the cheesecake extra delicious so xe doesn’t kill me over using xyr cookies.” He once more falls into a steady monologue intermixed with jokes and casual comments about himself and his teammates cum roommates. The cheesecake goes into the oven and he cleans his mess, then sits at the counter dicking around on the laptop until it’s done baking.
“It needs to cool for in the fridge for like an impossible amount of time, so I guess now would be a good time to try that sleeping thing again. See you all in the morning.”
Sam and Steve are completely wrapped around each other in the big bed when Bucky reaches the room but Natasha had decided to sleep in her own bed that night. Bucky waffles for a second, then shrugs and crawls into bed on Sam’s other side. He doesn’t fall asleep right away, but he is eventually lulled by the sounds of the other’s breathing.
-
The scene in the kitchen the next morning is similar to how it been the morning after he’d made the cookies: Sam, Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Wanda too, making exclamations of joy as they ate the dessert Bucky had made the night before, the camera on recording their reactions.
“I have never had this before,” Wanda is saying in her thick accent, “It is very good.” She’s taking small bites as if to savor the treat and Bucky can’t help but smile as he walks into the kitchen proper.
“None for you,” Sam declares when Bucky makes his way over to the counter. “My cookies, my cheesecake. I’m not sharing.” Xe drags the cheesecake dish towards xem and huddles over it like a bird guarding its nest.
“I slaved all night over that cheesecake and I don’t get a piece? I’m hurt.”
“I don’t care,” Sam says. “This cake tastes like heaven and I’m not sharing.”
“Everyone else got some,” Bucky pouts.
“Only because they beat me to it.”
Bucky sighed and looked at the camera, “For all you Falcon fans out there, know this: xe’s an asshole.”
Sam sticks on xyr tongue. “Call me names all you want, but that’s not gonna get you any of this.” Xe shovels a large bite of cheesecake into xyr mouth and lets out an over the top moan of appreciation.
“I nabbed you a piece, Buck,” Steve says with a roll of his eyes. He holds out a saucer with a small slice of the cake on it and Bucky takes it with glee. He sticks out his tongue at Sam before taking a bite. Sam rolls xyr eyes in return, and while xyr attention is on Bucky, Wanda uses her powers to float another piece of cake over to herself.
“Whoa, this really does taste like heaven,” Bucky says to the camera. He takes another bite. “4am cheesecake was a really big success. I might have to fight Sam over getting another piece. Until next time, peeps.”
Clint turns off the camera while Bucky scoops another bite of cheesecake into his mouth. There’s no question of rather or not he will upload this video, except Steve doesn’t have time to help him edit it right away because there’s a training exercise they’re meant to be at. Sam quickly takes over the kitchen to make a proper breakfast while everyone else gets ready for the day. They’re all running just a bit behind schedule and Sam makes them griddle sandwiches and coffee in travel mugs that they can just grab and walk out the door with.
-
By time they all make it home, Bucky’s too tired to bother with editing the video. It’s Steve’s turn to make dinner and he throws together a quick soup and garlic bread. Bucky eats only half a bowl, before falling face first into the big bed and sleeping until morning. He doesn’t even stir when Sam and Steve joins him in bed, and wakes only for a second when Clint joins them much later.
-
Bucky’s the first up the next morning. On a whim, he sets up the camera in the corner of the living room at an angle that’ll let it capture anyone in the entrance of the hallway, the kitchen, and the main section of the living room. “Good morning, ladies, gents, and celestial beings,” he greets then turns around and ignores the camera. He makes waffles and bacon for everyone, and puts it in the oven to keep warm until they all wake. It’s a weekend so they don’t have any scheduled Avengers tasks, but that doesn’t mean anyone is going to sleep in.
He makes himself a cup of tea and grabs his laptop and throws himself down on the couch. He doesn’t have anything planned for the day and figures he can spend the morning editing the cheesecake video. He’s only mildly surprised to find that Steve had already began editing it for him. By time Bucky finishes the editing, everyone has gotten out of bed.
Natasha wakes first. She’d slept in her own bed once again and Bucky assumes she’s on her period, because that was the only time of the month that she demanded personal space and went more than one night in a row without joining them in the big bed.
They all had their own bedrooms and there was a “closed door” rule in the house that insured their privacy if they chose to sleep in their rooms. The room where they all slept together (usually just called the “big bed”) was a communal room like the living room and kitchen. Another rule of the house was that if anyone chose to sleep in the big bed, someone had to join them. No one ever slept alone in the big bed.
Nat comes down the hall wearing Falcon themed pajamas, glances around the room, nods at Bucky on the couch, waves at the recording camera, and heads for the kitchen. Bucky hears her opening the oven and helping herself to the food, but she stays in the kitchen to eat. She finishes eating pretty quickly and takes the long way around in order to be able to ruffle Bucky’s hair as she passes and heads back down the hall.
A minute later, Clint comes out of the room, completely cocooned in a blanket. He bypasses the kitchen in favor of rolling over the back of the couch to sprawl on the other end with his feet in Bucky’s lap. Bucky lets out an amused noise, but doesn’t bother him. Chances are, he wasn’t wearing his hearing aids anyway, so anything Bucky had to say would literally fall on deaf ears. Bucky knows Clint has nothing to do that morning as well, because he never actually made plans for this downtime.
Steve and Sam come out, both calling a greeting to Bucky and shooting glances at the camera Natasha had obviously warned them was there. They help themselves to the food in the kitchen and Steve brings his plate with him to the living room. He leans over the back of the sofa, not directly behind Bucky because he hates that, and watches what Bucky’s doing on the computer.
By time Steve finished his waffles, Bucky has the cheesecake video uploaded. Sam grabs Steve and drags him down the hall to get ready. Sam spends xyr Avenger’s off days volunteering at the VA. Xe loves being a hero and saving the world, but xe loves helping veterans as well. Sam says xe knows how hard it is to come home, but still be at war and it’s xyr duty to help others the way xe had been helped. Steve often tagged along to help any way he could. Bucky had gone with them once, but never felt up to going again.
Bucky sits aside the laptop and heads to the kitchen to pour coffee into travel mugs. Natasha comes out dressed for the day in civilian clothes. She grabs her mug with a grateful smile and kisses Bucky’s cheek. Before she heads out the door, she pauses in front of the camera and says “Good morning, Bucky’s Bears. Get out there and kick the world’s ass today.” She ruffles Clint’s hair as she passes and leaves.
Steve’s next out. Just like Nat, he grabs his coffee cup, kisses Bucky’s cheek, and turns to the camera. “Hello, Bucky’s Bears. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Remember, people only have as much power over you as you allow them. Do no harm, but take no shit.” He squeezes Clint’s shoulder and goes to wait by the door for Sam.
Sam is still tucking in xyr shirt when xe makes xyr way to the kitchen. “Thanks, Bucky,” xe says as xe takes the cup extended towards xem. Xe kisses Bucky’s cheek as well leaving a smudge of lipstick on Bucky’s cheek. Xe rounds the couch and kneels down in front of Clint, getting the man’s attention with a hand on his shoulder. They have a quick conversation in sign language that Bucky can’t follow from his angle. Once done talking to Clint, Sam turns to the camera. “Morning Bears,” xe says, “Here’s wishing you all a great day. The sky is the limit for all that you can achieve, and even then don’t stop there. Break right through the atmosphere until you’ve done all you can do and achieved all you can achieve and became the best you that you can be.”
Once Sam and Steve are gone, Bucky checks that the door is locked, then makes his habitual circuit around the apartment, checking the rest of the doors and windows. Once satisfied that everything is closed up properly, he goes to the kitchen and piles the rest of the waffles and bacon onto a plate and drowns the entire thing in syrup. Grabbing two forks and a mug of coffee, he makes his way back to the living and nudges Clint until he sits up.
Clint grabs the coffee cup and downs half of it in one go. He makes a noise that would be considered obscene in some circles. He grabs a syrupy slice of bacon from the plate and stuffs the entire thing in his mouth, and then washes it down with more coffee. He eventually looks at the camera and says, “Morning Bucky’s Bears. I’m still two cups of coffee short of being able to offer anything that may be considered good advice. So, I don’t know. Do whatever. Just don’t die doing it.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “See you all next time,” he declares, then gets up and shuts off the camera. He and Clint polishes off their plate of food and then spend the morning watching trashy daytime television and trying to figure out how to turn the latest recording into one of those fast-forward-y (“I think they’re called time lapse” “whatever”) style videos.
-
Bucky waits a week before uploading the good morning video. In that time, the cheesecake and cookie videos get even more views and comments. It seemed that word had gotten around that the Winter Soldier had a YouTube channel, because he gets half a million subscribers in the span of three days.
There are many comments from girls exclaiming how cute Bucky is. A few guys comment saying the perverse things they’d like to do to Black Widow. There’s a debate over rather Natasha or Wanda is hotter. Bucky think those guys must have death wishes. A lot of people demand to know if it was really Bucky in the video, or was someone just really good at cosplaying. Even more people share anecdotes about the time they saw the Avengers in person or were saved by them. There are quite a few comments asking about the pronouns Bucky used for Sam.
Offline, Bucky’s life continues as usual save the fact that he sleeps a lot better. There’s a lot of training exercises with the team. A few disasters that they have to face. Pietro finally heals up enough to start training, but not enough to join them on assignments.
On days he doesn’t work, he busies himself in different ways, sometimes staying in, sometimes wandering the city. You can always find something to do in New York City. The thought of making another video is always in the back of his mind, but he doesn’t do so until one afternoon he’s alone in the apartment and has the sudden urge talk to someone.
“Hello ladies, gents, and celestial beings. Or do you prefer to be called Bucky Bears? I don’t know which of the team decided to dub you all that, but I’m afraid it’s probably going to stick for a while. Anyway, you might have noticed all the sunlight streaming in from the windows, so obviously this is not another 3am baking video. It’s not a baking video at all. It’s just a plain old vlog. I just feel like talking, and I’ll feel less crazy talking to a camera than to myself.” He pauses. And then he talks. Nothing too heavy or important, just little anecdotes about the Avengers and the crazy things he’s seen people do on the streets of New York.
He keeps it short because people lose interest in vlogs when they’re longer than ten minutes, but he enjoys making it. It’s somehow cathartic. Just being able to talk about whatever he wants with only people too far away to affect his life able to judge him. He has the video recorded, edited, and uploaded in about an hour and a half.
-
It’s Natasha’s turn to cook their traditional “everyone must sit at the table together and talk to each other” Friday night dinner. She comes home and heads straight for the kitchen to get started with only a mumbled greeting to Bucky. The way she’s banging pans and slamming cupboards tells Bucky she’d not had a good day.
When Bucky enters the kitchen, Natasha is angrily pounding meat with a mallet. Bucky stands on the other side of the kitchen, but doesn’t say a word. He knows she knows he’s there. He waits for her to speak first.
Nat continues beating the meat and mumbling Russian curses under her breath. Finally she says, “One of my students died.” On her downtime, Natasha led women’s and children's self-defense classes at different places around the city. “Zophie. Really nice lady. Very shy and skittish, because her no-good husband had been beating on her for years. Bobbi sent her to me, thought I could help her. She attended my classes for two and a half months, she was there just two days ago.” She drops the meat mallet and doubles over, supporting herself with her hands on the counter as she fights with her emotions.
Bucky makes a decision, crosses the room and pulls Nat into his arms, holds her close as he steers them down the hall. She lays down in the big bed without comment and Bucky hesitates to leave her, but he goes back to the kitchen and puts away all the food she’d taken out. Meat in fridge, dishes in sink, stove turned off, and then the grabs the stack of takeout menus from the drawer and throws them on the counter. Whoever comes home next will know to order them all something.
That taken care of, Bucky joins Nat in the big bed. She snuggles up against him and buries her face against his chest. Bucky wraps his left arm around her waist and cards his flesh fingers through her hair. She’s not crying, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t an emotional breakdown for her.
-
They end up falling asleep like that, waking only when forced to by the jostling of seven other people joining them in the bed and the smell of pizza. Bucky, Nat, Steve, Sam, Rhodey, Wanda, Pietro and Clint slowly devour fifteen boxes of pizza (with the Vision watching them) while piled together in the big bed and talking about their week. Natasha repeats what she’d told Bucky about her student and everyone offered their own version of comfort, but it was obvious Nat didn’t want to talk about it, so they didn’t linger on the topic.
Eventually, Clint gathers up all the leftover pizza to feed to his dog and leaves for the night, Pietro going with him. Rhodey, Vision, and Wanda follow shortly after. And everyone else starts getting ready for bed. Steve and Natasha both decide they want to sleep in their own rooms that night, but Sam gives Bucky a look that has him following xem to xyr bed. There’s no rule against sex in the big bed, it was just a not-done thing.
Their relationship is… interesting. Despite what Tony Stark may think, they did not in fact have “team bonding orgies” but it wasn’t too far from the truth. Sam, Steve, Bucky, and Natasha were in an exclusive polyamory relationship.
Clint had once been a part of that relationship, but he’d managed to fall heels over arse for Pietro and the speedster was not down for sharing. Which was fine with Bucky, because the “exclusive” part of their polyamory meant that Clint couldn’t date Pietro unless they were all up for dating Pietro and Bucky was demi-panromantic and demi-pansexual and finding himself comfortable enough to want a relationship Sam, Nat, Steve, and Clint had shook him enough. He was not okay with trying to add someone else to the mix. So, Clint had left them to be with Pietro, but there was no hard feelings about it.
Sam and Rhodey apparently had had a fling long before the Avengers were first assembled. It hadn’t lasted and they’d already been broken up for over a year by the time Sam met Steve in DC. Rhodey was now unattached, though there were rumors about him and Maria Hill for a while. Technically, Wanda’s also unattached, but everyone knew she had her eyes on Vision.
Natasha’s sex-repulsed asexual. With the way she wielded her sex-appeal as a weapon, one would hardly believe sexual intercourse made her queasy. She says there’s a certain mindset she gets in when working that enables her to disregard her discomfort and get the job done, but it was actually the fact that she’s been train to use sex as a tool that caused her all the discomfort in the first place. She’s panromantic, though, and actually craves affection. Affection they were all more than willing to dote on her. And she offered just as much affection to them in turn. Natasha’s a romantic at heart. She’s okay with kisses as well. They kiss a lot.
Steve had some kinks that Bucky was uncomfortable with (mostly of the BDSM variety), but Sam’s more than capable of giving him what he needed. Steve identifies as bisexual, but he admits an argument could be made that he’s actually pans given that Sam’s nonbinary and Steve loves xem all the same.
So, Bucky, Sam, Steve, and Nat are all together and did all those “together” things people do with a few limits based on individual people. Steve is Bucky’s boyfriend, Natasha’s his girlfriend, and Sam is his partner or enbyfriend depending on which word comes out first. (Xe’s also the reason Bucky says “ladies, gents, and celestial beings” because angels are neither male nor female and the same went for Sam, thus Sam must be an angel.) Of course, all of this is a secret from the media and the world as a whole. Because there are just some things the world is not ready to know, and even if the world was ready, it’s none of their damn business.
-
Sex with Sam is great and it leaves Bucky feeling both sated and drowsy. Unfortunately, he only sleeps for about an hour or so before he wakes and can’t doze back off. He carefully extracts himself from the bed so as to not wake Sam, and pulls on his pajama pants and a tank top before heading towards the living room. A light on in the kitchen draws his attention and Bucky turns to see Natasha sitting on the countertop eating Hershey Kisses.
Bucky goes to the living room and grabs the camera from where he’d left it. “Do you mind?” He asks Natasha once he returns to the kitchen. She shakes her head and that’s all the permission need to set up the camera on the tripod. “Hello ladies, gents, and celestial beings. It is 2am and we’re going to bake brownies… well, I’m going to bake brownies, The Widow's just gonna sit there and look pretty.”
“И лизать миску.” Natasha says in Russian.
Bucky smiles and dutifully translate, “And lick the bowl.”
“И есть Kisses.”
“And eat Kisses,” Bucky adds with a roll of his eyes. Something hits his cheek and Bucky looks down to find a small ball of rolled foil from one of the Kisses sitting innocently on the floor. He shoots Nat a look and all she does is pops another piece of chocolate into her mouth.
Bucky rolls his eyes again and turns back to the camera. “Now, we could be cool and make the brownies from scratch, but why would we want to do that when there’s perfectly good boxed mix right here…”
Natasha calls him lazy in Russian. Bucky purposely bumps into her legs as he walks to the pantry. The whole video becomes them picking at each other and goofing around. By time the brownies go into the oven, Natasha has a smudge of batter down the side of her face and Bucky has no less than five foil balls in his hair. If the chocolate isn’t the only kind of kisses they share between their bickering, well those parts would be edited out of the video before it went online.
Bucky’s not the least bit tired when the brownies come out the oven, but Nat’s practically falling asleep where she sits, so Bucky turns off the camera and gives her a piggyback ride to the big bed. He grabs his laptop and watches old gymnastic competition videos on YouTube while Nat sleeps next to him.
-
It just becomes a thing that he does, the YouTube videos. And it’s not just limited to the late night baking and traditional style vlogs. Sometimes he records Nat and Clint sparring. There was a video of Sam, Rhodey, and Vision practicing their evasive flying. He makes a video with Wanda where they cook a traditional Sokovian dish. He and Pietro prank Clint and Steve in another video. Then Sam helps them prank Tony when he stops by. Nat records the arm wrestling match between Bucky with his metal arm and Rhodey wearing his War Machine armor. He even does a series of “Day in the Life” videos where he follows one of the teammates around with the camera all day.
-
One day, while they're having their usual Friday night dinner, Stark calls. “You might want to turn on the TV,” he says. “But don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.” He tells them the channel to turn to and they find a popular talk show hosts speaking:
“We’ve seen them fighting in New York and DC and all over the world, working hard to keep us all safe. We know their names, wear their brands, love them or hate them. And, hard as it may be to admit sometimes, we really do need them. But, with all the costumes and glory, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the Avengers are people just like you and me.
“They are people who face normal people problems, like insomnia and nightmares and the occasional really bad case of bed-head. They watch television and eat things that are really not at all healthy for them. They go shopping and pull pranks on their coworkers and just do everything you and I do.
“Bucky Barnes, the Avenger we all know as The Winter Soldier, shocked the entire world when he revealed exactly how normal Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are through his YouTube channel. A YouTube channel where, in the very first video, we see Barnes baking cookies in his pajamas and then Captain America, Falcon, Black Widow, and Hawkeye show up to eat cookies, in their pajamas.
“Through Barnes’ videos, we get little inside peeks into the everyday lives of the Avengers. We see Captain America painting, and Black Widow teaching young girls self-defense, and learn how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are adjusting to life in America, and get makeup tips from both Hawkeye and Falcon.
“It is actually from Barnes YouTube that we learn Falcon identifies as a gender other than male. We first see hints of this in the channel’s second video when Barnes uses the pronouns ‘xe’ and ‘xyr’ to refer to his teammate and then in his ‘Day in the Life of the Falcon’ video, Falcon comes out and admits that xe is nonbinary. In the ‘Day in the Life of Hawkeye’ video, we also learn that Hawkeye and Quicksilver are a couple.
“And this is a big deal! A very big deal! Because these are heroes that we all look up to. Everyone knows the Avengers! Almost everyone loves the Avengers. And somewhere out there, there’re little kids watching these videos. And you know what they’re learning? They’re learning that they are not alone. There’s someone else who doesn’t fit into the mold of the gender-binary. There’s another man who is attracted to other men. And not only are there other people like this, there are loved people like this. They are not treated like less of a person for not being quote-unquote normal. The Falcon isn’t any less of a hero because xe is not within the binary. Hawkeye’s heroic feats does not become less amazing because of who he loves.
“What I’m trying to say is, the Avengers have always seemed like these larger than life, untouchable beings, set on a pedestal of perfection. But they are not perfect. They’re human. It’s almost harrowing how human they are. Because we’ve come to expect them to do all these great things that you and I can’t do. But if they’re human like us, does that mean we can be heroes like them? The next time aliens attack Manhattan, are we capable of going out there and fighting for ourselves? It’s terrifying to think about. It’s so much easier to hide behind seemingly perfect costumed heroes. How do we deal with this shattering of our beliefs?
“Me, myself, and my child who is both my son and my daughter, are grateful to The Winter Soldier ,The Falcon, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and all of the Avengers for being exactly what we need our heroes to be without taking from us the possibility of being our own heroes.”