Work Text:
Half Baked was a series of videos Bucky did ever so often on his YouTube channel where he threw cookie dough on a saucer, microwaved it for 30 seconds, then stood at the kitchen counter and ate the resulting goopy mess while talking about whatever issue of the world was weighing on his mind at the moment.
The first ever Half Baked video was made when Bucky had come home angry after a television interview with the team, turned the camera on mostly out of habit, made his microwaved goop, and then went into a half hour long feminist rant. Because, the stupid asshole who’d given the interview had kept asking Natasha what she wore under her uniform, and asked Wanda not-so-subtle if she was sleeping with anyone of the team, and asked Steve and Bucky how they felt about working with women on their team as if Peggy Carter hadn’t been as much a part of the Howlies as any of the men. Natasha and Wanda both joined him part-way through the video and helped themselves to his cookie goop while adding their own opinions to the subject.
The second Half Baked video costarred Steve and together, the two of them had screamed VACCINATE YOUR BLEEPING KIDS, and then Steve went on to list all the ailments he may or may not have suffered from before he’d gotten the serum and how much he wished there’d been a vaccine for it all back then, while stuffing his face with underdone cookie dough.
In one Half Baked video, Bucky and Clint talked about ableism. Some asshole of a new hire at SHIELD had thought Clint needed to bend over backwards to assimilate with the “normal” hearing world and wear his aids all the time. Because, apparently it was too much effort to just turn her head slightly to accommodate Clint’s need to read her lips. They scrapped spoons against glass plates, scooping up molten hot but still mostly raw dough, while Bucky talked about how he was treated on the days where he either didn’t have his arm attached, or didn’t hide the prosthetic under long sleeves.
In another Half Baked video, Bucky sat back and listened while Rhodey talked about racism and privilege. Rhodey talked about how to this day, some people still saw him as nothing more than Tony Stark’s Token Black Friend, and how the facts that he’d gone to MIT and had rose in the ranks of the Air Force was often attributed to Affirmative Action and not his own merits. Bucky hadn’t been able to add much to the conversation, but kept popping cookie dough into the microwave for Rhodey to eat and mentioned how Gabriel Jones had spoken more languages than Bucky could remember and had had an actual college degree, while Bucky was a high school dropout good at nothing but firing a gun, but no one would ever know it from how history told the story.
Usually the most discussion that went into the recording of a video for Bucky’s YouTube channel went like this:
“Hey, I wanna do a Day in the Life video of you, mind if I follow you around with a camera for a while?”
“Um, today’s not good, how about Tuesday?”
“Okay.”
And then after the recording was done, “Hey, some of this got pretty personal, do you want me to edit this part out?” And a yes or no answer determined how he went forward.
There was usually even less discussion than that involved in the recording of a Half Baked video, almost all of them were recorded as a spur of the moment ranting secession. But this time, the entire team had been informed ahead of time what Bucky was planning to discuss in his next video and they were given a week to decide whether or not they were okay with it and if they want to be involved. At the end of that week, the whole team showed up to lean against the kitchen counter and help themselves to microwaved cookie dough and contribute to the topic of the day. They were all wearing very specific colors and carrying little flags.
Bucky turned on the camera and pushed his way between Sam and Nat and on his countdown, they all threw handfuls of rainbow confetti into the air and yelled “HAPPY PRIDE!”
“I know, I know,” Bucky said once everyone had quieted down, “Pride is long over and we’re more than a little late to show, but there’s a lot of time constraints involved in this whole super hero gig, and despite this officially being a Half-Baked video, there was actually a lot of thought put into it by all of us before recording. There was more than a few times when I thought that maybe I shouldn’t make it at all. I was actually considering it long before Pride, but I kept putting it off. And now that I’m actually recording, I mean now that we’re actually recording, I don’t really know what to say.”
He glanced around at his teammates, kind of hoping one of them would jump in, but knowing that this was his show and they would all just follow his lead. “Right,” Bucky continued, “so the official topic of this Half-Baked session is Gender and Sexuality. Ever since Clint, Pietro, and Sam came out on this channel, the whole team, but especially Steve and I, have been asked what we thought of them. And are we at all uncomfortable working so closely with them. And if the revelation had affected the team dynamics and then same-sex marriage was legalized and frankly, I’m sick of hearing about it, so let’s put this matter to rest: I, Bucky Barnes, am queer as hell.”
Clint let out a loud snort of amusement. “I’m pretty fucking queer, too.”
Sam laughed. “Y’all already know how I’m queer I am.”
“I think it’s safe to say,” Nat cut in, “that The Avengers are queer as hell.”
There were loud calls of agreement from everyone in the kitchen. “What she said,” Bucky said.
“That’s not saying we’re all gay,” Steve clarified, “it’s just that we’re not all as straight as you probably think we are.” He picks up his little pink, purple, and blue flag and waves it. “I’m bisexual, which means I’m attracted to two or more genders.”
Sam was standing beside to Steve, so xe spoke next. Xe had a flag in each hand, one pink, white, purple, black and blue and the other pink, yellow, and blue and waved them both proudly. “I’m pansexual. Pansexuality means I’m attracted to all genders, and considering I’m nonbinary, I can speak for there being more than two genders in existence.”
“Can you explain what nonbinary means?” Wanda cut in. “I know I had no knowledge of its meaning before joining the team and meeting you, so I’m sure there are many viewers just as lost as I once was.”
Sam smiled. “Nonbinary is actually just a blanket term for anyone who identifies as a gender outside of the strict male/female binary we’re taught from birth. Under the nonbinary umbrella, you’ll find a variety of genders including but not limited to transgender, agender, bigender, and genderfluid. This is keeping in mind that gender and sex are not the same thing. I identify as genderfluid, meaning some days I’m female, some days I feel more male, and sometimes I’m neither. It changes. Its fluid.”
“More on that later,” Bucky cut in. “Let’s continue going around.” He held up his pansexual flag that matched Sam’s, save a small section of it that had a broad white stripe, a narrow purple stripe, a broad grey stripe, and a black triangle on one side. “I’m demi-pansexual. Meaning that while I’m attracted to all genders, I don’t feel sexual attraction unless there’s already a strong emotional bond. I am also demi-panromantic, which means the same thing only with romantic attraction instead of sexual attraction.”
“I’m asexual,” Natasha said. Her flag was purple, black, grey, and white. “Sex-repulsed asexual to be clear, because there are variations. This means I do not feel sexual attraction at all, and I’m not willing to have sex despite my lack of attraction. But I’m also demi-panromantic.”
Clint was on Nat’s other side, more interested in eating his cookie goop than adding to the discussion. “I’ve never really thought to label it,” he said around the spoon in his mouth. “I guess pansexual would cover it though. I’m pretty sex-liberal, very few hold ups on who I’ll sleep with. I am demiromantic though. Demi-pan I guess.” He gave a careless shrug and ate another bite of his cookie dough.
Pietro grinned. “Gay as the Fourth of July,” he declared.
Everyone groaned in annoyance. “Forgive my brother,” Wanda said. “He’s been watching a lot of YouTube lately.”
“My niece introduced him to the A Very Potter Musical series,” Sam explained, “I regret everything.”
“It is very good,” Pietro said. “I have always enjoyed the Harry Potter books. I did not know so much alternative media for it existed. I quite like it all.”
Clint let out a derisive noise. “Like it? Last week, I woke up to find you crying at 3AM from reading Drarry fanfiction on your phone.”
“It was very well written,” Pietro stated as if that made the whole scenario any better.
“Back on topic,” Steve said with a long suffering sigh.
“Oh yes, as I said, I am gay.” Pietro waved his rainbow flag, then used it to poke Clint’s cheek. “Exclusively homosexual and exclusively yours.”
Clint smiled and kissed Pietro’s cheek. “And I am exclusively yours.”
Pietro grinned. “I did see that coming.”
Natasha let out a loud gagging noise. “Get a room.”
Pietro stuck out his tongue at her and she rolled her eyes.
“Moving right along,” Rhodey called out from his spot across the counter from Pietro. “I actually identify as heterosexual. That’s not saying that my relationship history is exclusively female, but that just means I can say with complete certainty where my preference lies.” He saluted the camera with his black and white flag.
The Vision took up the space next to Rhodey. “I am what Sam called agendered, at any given time considering myself neither male nor female. Sexual attraction is also something I lack, though romantic attraction… love…” Vision glanced briefly at Wanda, then looked away. “I believe that is something I do feel. As much as something like me is able to feel anyway.”
There was a long moment of silence before Wanda finally spoke. “I am still not sure. I had thought asexual, but it does not feel entirely accurate. Most certainly somewhere on the grey-sexual and grey-romantic scale, but specifics I do not know.”
“There’s a name for that too,” Sam piped in. “Let me just double check…” Xe pulled out xyr cellphone and tapped away at the screen for a few seconds. “Yep, quoisexual and/or quoiromantic; means not knowing where you fit on the spectrum or not identifying with any on the existing labels. You should have asked me earlier, I would have made you a flag too. Colors are black, white, green, and blue.” Xe passed the phone to Wanda and the Sokovian girl was immediately lost in reading whatever was written on the small screen.
“Yes,” she said, “this fits nicely.”
Bucky gave a nod of finality. “Well, there you have it. Shall we rename the team The Queer-Vengers and pray the media stops assuming Steve and I are bigots just because of when we were born?”
Steve snorted. “Like that’ll ever happen.”
“One can always hope.” Bucky sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Right, so we were gonna actually discuss gender and sexuality not just all come out and call it a day. So, Sam how about you tell us a bit more about gender and what’s under that nonbinary umbrella. Then Nat can tell us what she meant about there being variations of asexuality and we’ll just go from there.”
“Alright…”
-
It ends up being the longest video ever posted to his channel. It takes a week for him to edit it all, even with Steve’s help, and it’s still over an hour long because there wasn’t much they were willing to cut. They ended up all having a lot to say on the topic, talking about everything from how Sam decided xyr preferred pronouns, to the difference between bisexual and pansexual, and how sexual-romantic-aesthetic attraction did not have to line up.
They even talked about some of the sexualities not represented by their small group such abro, akoi/lith, and fray. They even had a small discussion on polyamory, though they did so without revealing the poly-group within the team. And Sam made sure to hammer home the point that sexuality, like gender, could be fluid.
Some people obviously had more to add to the discussion than others: Sam was basically their expert on gender, but Steve had a lot to say about sexuality, and Wanda mostly listened with rapt attention without adding much of anything, while The Vision asked tons of questions about everything. He ends the video with the usual Half Baked reminder that it is not safe to consume raw cookie dough.
When the video was finally uploaded, it was watched and shared more times than any video Bucky had ever posted and there was no keeping up with the number of comments it received.
Tony sent Bucky a text while the team were all their for their usual Friday night dinner, “The head of the Avengers PR department wants your head on a platter. Good job.”