Chapter Text
The patch of silver-metal-flash on the dresser is hard to miss.
For him.
He has . . . habits. Patterns. Things that matter. Bucky knows that, about himself. He also knows (as much as he knows anything like this) that he didn't used to, that once upon a time his sense of tidiness was limited to "do I know where all my stuff is?" - and since he didn't have much stuff, that wasn't hard. Anything more than that depended on who'd start nagging him about it and whether he cared and whether cleaning it up or telling them to fuck off would end up with more work or trouble in the long run.
Once upon a time he looked for every way to do the least he could, to get what he wanted. Sometimes that was still a lot, because he was better than most at looking hours, weeks, even years ahead and figuring out that a little effort now'd save a lot later, but that's still how he thought. That used to be him and he used to be happy with it.
And that's the start of a long, slow slide into ugly thoughts. So he tries not to think about how now is . . . different.
He can't stand leaving things a mess. Or - in disorder, because fuck, if you looked at it in some ways stacked flats of food or boxes of it's still a mess even if it's on the counter, but he can forget stuff goes somewhere else and at least it's in order. It's the disorder he can't take. Stuff just . . .out, or askew, or what the fuck ever: can't handle it.
Not for very long, anyway, not without it scratching at the back of his skull like a dog trying to get in out of a fucking blizzard. If there's a place something goes, it should fucking go there, assuming he fucking remembers. There's a way things are supposed to be. If they're not like that, bad shit happens. Fuck sometimes he knows that even when he can't remember where something goes and just . . . something about where it is, is wrong. And he doesn't want the fucking consequences. Not of that.
That knowledge lives down in the base of his spine, along with shit like "if you touch that red hot stove you are going to burn your hand", way, way below thought. Stuff you had to learn just like you have to learn every fucking thing, but once you know it goes into every fucking nerve and you can't stop knowing.
On the one hand, it's kind of fucking humiliating to get stressed out over whether or not the fucking shirts are folded right and in the right piles inside the drawers; on the other, it's also really fucking easy to fix and there is only so much God-damned energy he has to fight with this shit. He doesn't fucking like it, but given everything, not being a fucking shit-show about stuff being untidy is low on his list of habitual emotional patterns to fix.
Maybe he'll start thinking about it when have the basic ability to ask for something without acting like a whipped dog manages to get some traction, and that's still not going to be any time soon.
So things go places, get put away places - and nothing goes on the top of the bureau at the foot of the bed, except sometimes wallets overnight. And it's not night and wallets aren't flashing silver. So right now, what's there might as well be neon fucking orange with fucking lights pointed at it saying ATTENTION GOES HERE.
He's been agitated all fucking morning. Thinks he dreamed about something last night, but can't remember what, just that it's sticking to the inside of his skin. He keeps starting to do shit and then getting distracted, realizing an hour later that whatever he started's half-done and then not being able to clean it up, which isn't fucking helping.
He pulled his shirt and undershirt over his head as he came into the room, because while he stared at the fucking half-folded paper on the table and tried to figure out what to do with it (because somehow when he's looking at it he forgets pick it up, put it back in the fucking folder, put it in the closet and the whole thing turns into fucking rocket science), he'd idly picked at the stitches near his collar-bone enough to draw blood, and only noticed when the collar of his shirt started sticking to his skin. The motion and seeing the silver happen at the same time, so he has to either finish the one or undo it before he can take a second look at the other.
Bucky finishes pulling the fucking bloodied clothes off, throws them in the laundry hamper and goes to look at what the fuck is on the dresser.
And all of it happens in a handful of seconds: coming in, catching the glimpse of silver as he goes to take the shirts off, wondering what the fuck it is, throwing the shirts aside, all of it. Not enough time for real thought. Not enough to make the shape of a thought, to fill in the shape of wondering-what-it-is with an idea. Just a litany of no: Steve doesn't wear watches; himself, he doesn't wear anything; it's not keys; isn't - . . .and so on. It's a handful of seconds, not enough time to do much. And if that only takes a handful of seconds, it shouldn't take another handful to understand what he's looking at, but it . . . does.
It takes . . . more than that, more than a handful. More than two. It takes a lot of seconds before he can see what's there and understand.
Minutes, maybe.
And they're not -
They're.
They aren't his dogtags.
That's the first thing he knows, and he knows that because he was fucking wearing his when he hit the rocks beside the river, and like his fucking coat and maybe his fucking soul they were fed to some HYDRA incinerator decades ago. So they're not. There's no fucking way.
But they're scratched and battered and the letters are stamped in instead of pushed out and they . . . read what they used to? He thinks. The shape is . . . right?
Except that there's something just not. Just . . .off.
It takes a few seconds longer before he can see. Before he can recognize what's off.
Take in that the line for serial number, tetanus shot and toxoid, and blood-type is missing. (Used to be A, now . . .who the fuck knows? He's not exactly inclined to let anybody fucking find out.) And that the next-of-kin reads has Steve Rogers, not Sarah (two years dead by the time the question was asked but fucked if he was going to list any of his kin and listing Steve would mean questions he didn't want to deal with and it's not like the Army fucking knew anyway and that way it'd still get to Steve - ), and the address is here, the here of now, home, not the tenement of -
The thing that it takes even longer to understand, even though he's staring at it the whole time, is the line of Cyrillic letters where serial number would be. Until it swims into focus like a hidden fucking picture and he knows that it's just transliteration of letters, characters, that ТТЕОTЛ is only TTEOTL (and there's almost hysterical laughter at how close, how close they are, Latin and Cyrillic and how you could make that a fucking metaphor and write it in blood) and he knows what that's for. What it means.
Stupid fucking sentimental bullshit.
He'll always know what that means. Fuck (and the laughter gets caught around this, too) there's pretty hard fucking evidence it's down there in the tiny fucking handful of things he always has.
(In his head, maybe, there's two boys yelling at each other. Ten or eleven years old, second-hand clothes, worn out shoes. Two boys mad at each other, shouting beside railroad tracks, one of them angry because he thinks he's being forgotten and the other one furious because the first one thinks that. And in his head he can only guess how scared one is, but the other one, he knows, he fucking knows how scared that one is, right then.)
And then he can see the other thing, the last thing, that the second tag isn't his either. A different kind of not-his. Not for any of those reasons. Not because of that. For a different reason.
(The smaller one yells, fists down by his side - 'course it is, 'course you are, s'what always happens, I never keep up, people always get tired of waiting, I always get left behind! It just took you longer!)
(The bigger one throws his hat at the smaller one and tells him he's a jackass and he's stupid and he's a punk and he's fucking stupid too - not me, not by me, I'm not going anywhere without you, stupid! Shouts that it's just a girl, just girls, don't be so fucking stupid - !)
The second tag isn't his because it's Steve's. The same shape. The same changes, except - where it makes a difference - the other way around.
(I'm not going anywhere, you're stuck with me, forever, till we're dead! You hear me? I'm not everyone else you stupid punk! So don't you fucking say that! I chased you all the fucking way out here! I'm not with them I'm here with you, I'm always with you! You should fucking know that!)
And Steve is a fucking sentimental idiot.
(Maybe the smaller one stands there, fists tight and jaw tight and eyes watery, glaring; the other one wears a face that looks almost like a glare, but not, and shoves his friend's shoulder, half-hearted.)
And right now Bucky can't breathe.
(I'm always with you. Forever. I'm with you to the end of the line. And Judgement Day and . . . and Kingdom Come, and all the ages, and . . . whatever that stupid verse is. World without end, amen. You're stuck with me. Always.)
(Maybe after a second, the smaller boy says, S''in omnes generationes saeculi saeculorum, amen'. You don't stop cheating with the King James you're never gonna pass Religion. And the other boy says, Shut up and come back, Steve, it's cold out here, and maybe no one but him knows how scared he was right up till then.)
And there's so fucking much -
There's too.
He can't think past -
His head's full of . . . noise. Grinding, roaring like the fucking ocean against a cliff, just endless fucking waves of noise, never ebbing enough to let him think. Where he can't look, there are the shapes of thoughts, and ideas. The noise is almost like laughing, but nothing's fucking funny, just painful: at this, at the two fucking idiot children out of memory, at Steve's nervous way of trying to dodge an awkward moment, at himself for how unsteady he is, how this knocks him askew, at himself for everything, how fucking angry he is with himself - a lot of things, too many things.
Fuck.
But right now he can't breathe. Can't actually breathe. Not right. Something locked around his fucking chest can't get more than the shallowest fractions, and just -
It's just a thing. They're just things. Cheap metal punched into shapes. Forced into spheres, strung together with more, holding - they're just things.
Letters are just shapes.
His fingers are on the metal, the edges of the top tag. And he stands there for a while. A long time. Long enough for the idiot kitten to come in, jump up on the dresser, rub her face against his fingers and meow.
Then he picks them up.
And he picks her up, and he sits on the bed. And the thing is -
And the thing is.
Here's the thing.
He knows what Steve's doing. Knows how Steve's head works, isn't stupid. Knows why he left them here, the shape of the thoughts that would tell Steve this way's easier, this way dodges . . . things, things that would make it hard, when it shouldn't be hard because there's nothing he hasn't already -
Knows the thought, that it's not even . . . it's not (fuck, fuck, fuck you he can think it he can finish the fucking thought - ) . . . wrong. Steve's thought. Not wrong.
And he knows why it's made it so he can't breathe. Knows what so much, so much fucking shit is telling him he's not allowed, while all the other shit tells him he has to -
Letters are shapes but words are noise and Steve can say, and say, but this is a thing, these are -
He can hold them in his hand. He can touch them. Words are noise, breath and they're gone; these don't go, don't go away, stay. And whatever he does with them is an answer. Back to the answer, the only answer, how many fucking times is he going to have to answer, God, how many: what's real and what isn't, believe this or don't, accept this or don't, whatever, whatever he fucking does is an answer and there are only two answers and anything he does will be one of them because the fucking question is his -
All the shit says he fucking can't, all the shit says he fucking must, and they scream at each other and neither of them gives a fuck what he actually wants, doesn't think it matters, doesn't think it's real - no him nothing else just two, those two screaming. Until it's all he can do to keep from being torn up.
Steve couldn't give him this, couldn't stay here for him to find it and (it's fucking funny, too fucking funny) good fucking thing, because. Because then all of it would rip him apart. If Steve were here. Couldn't wait, if Steve were here, sit here like a child with his hands over his ears not listening. He'd just, they'd fucking tear him apart. Between commanded and forbidden coiling so fucking hard in knots something would fucking give and the weakest point is his fucking mind, the part that thinks, and it'd be too much.
Even now -
Alone, still. Still. Even without that it's a long time caught. Still, and here, metaphorical hands over metaphorical ears and real body just . . . still. Clutching at breath and the stupid fucking little animal walking around him yowling and upset. The fucking object of all of it sitting in his hand, the one that can feel. A long fucking time of all of that before he can even find the shape of what he fucking wants. He wants. Not them not the fucking screaming either part, no. No fuck you, not that, not them.
He wants. What he wants.
(I want - )
If Steve were here, the screaming would rip him in half, couldn't've even fucking found anything else before they did. Not what he wants.
He wants.
(Fuck, God, Christ and Mother of God, so much, please, please - )
Shape of what he wants. The shape he can't look at for very long. Because he will fucking lose it. Because he will fucking lose, lose his balance, lose footing, lose -
What he wants isn't supposed to fucking matter.
But the answer hasn't fucking changed since he fucking broke everything by remembering the question. He makes himself move.
When the chain settles on his neck for a second it feels like acid, eating in, or like fucking burning needles sliding under his skin. Like the chain and what's on it are like that. They're not; they're just steel. Just metal, just cheap fucking stuff. They're cold from the air. That's all.
And he sits there, for a minute, right palm pressing the tags against his sternum until they warm to the same temperature as his skin, and the eating, burning, stops. Maybe. For now.
Then he digs in the bedside table drawer for the treat-ball and fills it, drops it on the floor for the kitten, and goes to find Steve.
The first time they met, really met, Steve already had a black eye. It was a couple days old.
Back then the world was about neighbourhoods. You knew everyone in the neighbourhood. More or less. Knew of them. Knew about them. Bucky knew this was Steve Rogers, year younger than him, no dad, mom working as a nurse, poor even by the standards of the neighbourhood, and then poorer because Steve was always getting sick, always needed something else.
Never paid attention to the kid besides that. Bucky's mom would sniff about Sarah Rogers, who tacked an old sheet up over the window for a curtain and didn't care. But Bucky's mom would sniff about anyone given half the chance. It was how she passed her time, judging everyone else for what they did or didn't show the rest of the world. How she built her own tower to look down from.
She stopped sniffing out loud about Sarah Rogers when Bucky started bringing Steve around all the time, though. At least she was better than that. But before, nobody cared.
But that day Steve had a black eye already. And Robbie Brandon and his gang were bullies, abd Bucky didn't like them anyway, and he'd left home because his mom and dad were shouting at each other. He hated listening to them shouting. Always hurt. Trying to make it stop just got him in trouble, though, and then what hurt was whatever part of him got smacked for talking back. It made him edgy and angry. Ready to punch something.
And three against one wasn't fair anyway anyhow and when the one was so small, that was worse. Bucky didn't like things that weren't fair, and there were sure as Hell a lot of them not to like, but most of them he couldn't do anything about. They were too big. Robbie Brandon and his lackeys - not so much.
He jumped in without bothering to find out what the fight was about: at least he wasn't related to a damn one of them, so it wouldn't be family complaining at his mother later if he blacked their eyes, either. Probably still get in trouble with his mom, but his dad'd tell him good job where she couldn't see. Or maybe where she could but they were already yelling today anyway.
Turned out Robbie'd stolen penny-candy from another even littler kid, littler-young and not just littler-small, which was the kind of thing Robbie Brandon did, and Steve'd jumped in to get it back. And when Steve told him that, Bucky asked him if he was stupid.
When Steve didn't answer Bucky told him if he kept doing that he'd just get beaten black and blue every time - and Steve demanded, So?
Bucky's nose was bleeding and he stared at the kid but he didn't really have an answer. He shook his head, wiped the blood away from his own nose with his sleeve exactly the way his mom never wanted him to, and said, C'mon. I want something to drink.
Sometimes he wonders why Steve followed - it wasn't like Steve'd been happy about being rescued, or liked being asked if he was stupid, or was much impressed with being told he was always going to get his ass kicked up the street and around the corner. Other times he thinks maybe, maybe it had something to do with Steve never having anyone to tell him c'mon before, to step in and keep him from getting beat up, to care about what happened afterwards. How even if that first stuff pissed him off, this other part meant something. He didn't have anyone. Just his mom, and moms did things differently. Back then, at least.
After that, Bucky found Steve at school, at church if he could, afterwards. Looked for him on the weekends so they could go find something to do. Steve was better company than Bucky's cousins and their friends, anyway. He thought about things, which they didn't do much, and liked stories, and always had something new he was chasing off after, even if he had to stop halfway through the chase to cough himself blue. He missed a lot of school because of being sick, but he was so smart it almost didn't matter. Had better ideas of things to do for fun than scaring a mutt by tying cans to its tail, or throwing rocks at a cat.
And things were just . . . better, when Steve was around. Memory wants to say that somehow when Steve was around everyone was less stupid, and fewer stupid and upsetting things happened, and all of that, but with the hindsight of years and knowing way, way too fucking much about how the human mind works now, Bucky's pretty sure he himself just didn't care as much. That the stupid things people said didn't bug him as much, that he could pay attention to Steve talking about Alexander the Great instead of thinking about the ways people were awful to each other.
(God, there were a lot of those.)
It's just Steve was, is, the bright point of light that makes everything at least a little better, even when they were idiot fucking kids, so Bucky let his orbit swing wide and then settle into an endless circle around the idiot who kept getting himself beaten up in alleys because he couldn't stand the fact some fucking yahoo was mouthing off in a theatre and upsetting the girls sitting a few seats away. Because that's who Steve was. Is.
For all he'd been mostly happy for Steve (barring the part cursing him and God and especially fucking Erskine and Stark for the fact that now Steve'd just go run off and pick bigger fights with worse people and Bucky just wanted to go home), there'd been a sour taste in Bucky's mouth, more than a little. Watching the rest of the world figure out what he already knew, turn from throwing stuff when it could be bothered to even notice Steve to praising him to the sky and staking any kind of claim, tie. Because now the package was enough of the right kind of pretty for them to see.
Now they cared, when they couldn't be bothered to give a fuck and see what was in front of them before. That part'd been bitter.
And that part's never really left. Not all of it. Maybe not even a lot. It's not their fault anymore, maybe, just about nobody alive now could've been otherwise, but it . . . sticks. Enough to matter.
(I was here first.)
Maybe, if he thinks about it, that's part of the burnt-out house in Breitenau too.
Used to be a pretty simple trick to finding Steve: if he wasn't where he was supposed to be (be it home, school, a part time job, or wherever they were set to meet), you just had to look around for the nearest place guys would take a fight to get it out of the street where the cops might break it up. You didn't want to get the fucking cops involved in anything, ever: one cop, on his own, yeah, maybe he could be a person, maybe used to be your friend, maybe your relative, maybe you grew up with him. Maybe wasn't bad. But cops, plural, were bad news. Get more than one, and all they remembered how to be was cops.
Then everyone else was fucked. At least anyone who lived anywhere near they did.
It's probably still the same. Bucky can't think of any reason it'd be different. But it's old memory, old knowledge, wrapped around knowing it used to be that how you find Steve if he's missing is just look for the place someone'd take a fight.
Steve doesn't pick fights that way anymore. Has a lot less to prove. Or maybe more to prove, because now when he picks fights it's too big for a fucking alleyway or parking lot. Alleyways and parking lots don't prove anything anymore and he has to go for fucking tanks and who knows what. But finding someone's still mostly a matter of looking where you know they'll be, and Steve left this morning with nothing particular planned, so he'd wander, and Steve's wandering pulls him some places like a planet hits points in its orbit.
And Peggy Carter's in Minnesota for the start of trials for the new treatment, which narrows down the orbit even further. Steve might go somewhere else first, but by afternoon, he'll end up at the Tower.
You find someone by going where you know they will be and waiting till they are, so that's where Bucky goes.
There's something completely fucking unreal about the Tower and Steve's floor.
It's in the way you can trace every fucking step it took to get here: every step from the tenement Steve shared with his mom, to this. And every single step makes sense, by itself, and side by side with the ones just around it. As much sense as anything. And then you stop and look back at the whole trail and it's a fucking . . . not even a fairy-tale, it's too weird for a fairy-tale, fairy-tales have their own fucking internal logic: this is just something you know should be a fucking lie. A story. And isn't.
And if there's any fucking part of it more like that than him, Bucky can't think of it.
All of it's unreal.
But he knows why he's thinking about that, right now. Knows why he's noticing. He could try to make himself stop, but it won't work: it can't.
He never wanted things. Hadn't ever been that fucking complicated, it wasn't a thought. It was impulse, reaction: pain or approval, move to the right one. Fucking amoebas do that much, fucking viruses. There's pieces of knowing, of memory: watching them cut a broken fragment of a knife-blade out of his leg, watching a woman walk into a room and watching someone else kill her, feeling his own bone snap under his left hand.
The old one. The one that's gone.
Remembers these and more of these and feeling . . . nothing. No impulse to do anything or stop anything: without orders there was no purpose and without a purpose who the fuck cared what happened, to him or anyone else, and that was fucking everything. Always. Wanting didn't happen, wasn't part of how the fucking world worked, you can't want things when there isn't even a fucking "you" there anymore -
Except that you fucking can, and you fucking do, you just don't know what it fucking means, what it's called, it can't make you do anything, you can't touch it, there's just -
There's listening to a man tell you what you are, what you're for, knowing it's true because this man says it. Then there's how everything fucking falls apart like a bullet through a window and you still don't want anything, you don't even fucking know that that means, you need, need like fucking air to know what happened, to make it make sense.
A voice, and a name, and a face, and you need.
There's no fucking words for it. For that. Words belong to people, they're a fucking people thing and that, that place is below people. Below most fucking animals, even. Under. Beneath it. So there's no fucking words there's just a fucking hook buried in your chest and your gut and your head that won't ever stop pulling, that hurts so much your head is one single scream and it doesn't stop.
And you need.
There is no word for the person you're still looking for when there isn't even a fucking you anymore.
Maybe most people don't need one. Maybe you can't drag most people down to where they would.
Earlier, he thought about finding Steve, out there. He probably could.
(Fuck, who the fuck does he think he's kidding: of course he fucking could. Even fucking thinking it starts the shape in his head, the pattern where every-fucking-thing known about a target spreads itself out and turns itself into a fucking map he can follow and he knows everything about Steve. Things Steve doesn't even fucking know. He could've found him. Followed him.)
Came here instead to wait. Didn't want to, but didn't want the risk of being out there, right now. Didn't want that more.
Fuck, he is such a fucking God-damned mess. (Fuck, Steve, what the fuck do you think you -)
The agitation that means he doesn't want to be out there makes it hard not to break things. Push them over, tear them up, just - and maybe, maybe he's been wrong. He thought something was true but maybe he's been wrong, or, or whatever you fucking call it when you're right but only as far as it goes, only so far, and so you might as well be fucking wrong.
The thought stabs into his head, silver-flash, unblackened knife-blade: that it's not just about getting the screaming out of his head and his body being too fucking stupid to know there's nothing he can do, and maybe it's because once something's broken it fucking stays that way and he knows he broke it.
The thought stabs him because when he turns back towards the kitchen counter, his phone's not where he thought he put it. And fuck, it's nothing, it's a slip, it's normal the fucking thing's just on the other side, normal people do the same fucking thing everyone does -
But for a fucking second something he thought he'd done, something he remembered, it's gone and wiped out like he doesn't even fucking exist. But if he tore the cupboard door free, smashed the countertop, did enough damage his head wouldn't fucking be able to do that. Maybe that's part of it.
Probably is.
He could do without any more fucking revelations about himself but he knows he's going to get them because there, in his head, what he wants still doesn't fucking matter. He knows that.
And he knows it'll get better, when Steve gets here. Be easier.
Fuck, he hates that he knows that, God, and what it means.
But he knows, because if Steve's here he can make himself know that Steve's real, get it out of his fucking head and into the rest of him, skin and bone and fucking all. One person. One thing. One thing he knows is real, and he can start there, he can. One real thing becomes frame of reference. The thing he can test other things by.
He can make himself know Steve's real.
(And if none of it's real then fuck real, he doesn't - fucking - want - 'real', and they will fucking drag him out of this fucking delusion over their fucking dead bodies and all they'll fucking get is his.)
He doesn't want to be like this. Never wanted it, never wanted what it does, the way it fucking loads Steve down worse than Atlas, that was never what he wanted, never what he meant. Just, he can't - just.
Just if he wants to be anything, he's stuck being this. Like this. Not enough of him left to be anything, without it.
If what I remembered was real, I wanted it. All of it. He'd said that. He told Steve that. Didn't he? Steve asked, what changed, wanted to know why Bucky chose that instead of nothing. Why he started letting Steve . . . tell him things, tell him what real was and what it wasn't - and Bucky told him, he remembers that. Pretty sure he remembers that.
If it was real I wanted it. He'd sat on a fucking roof and known that and come home to a fucking . . . reading lamp in the closet where he had to crawl to sleep and known everything it meant. If it was real. If what he remembered was real, he knew every fucking thing it meant and Jesus, God, it didn't make wanting less.
Except it took weeks, months, a summer after he chose before he got, before he could have -
Before he could even try to find out if the last thing was real, last thing he wanted, because he'd been so fucking afraid.
Afraid of the last answer that mattered. That those memories weren't real and were his own fucking fault too. That it was a lie he told himself. That he'd never done it, that Steve never let him, that Steve never wanted him, wanted him to. Didn't go from distracted to lust-drunk in a handful of heartbeats, didn't throw himself at it, didn't throw himself at being as fucking stupid as Bucky was and both of them pretending they didn't have to think about it, about consequences, about implications, about anything.
That all of it was something he'd made up in the dark, knowing Steve was dead anyway so it didn't, couldn't fucking matter. That he'd lied to himself so he could have something to fucking remember that he wanted to, and then wrapped himself in it until he believed it because he didn't fucking have anything else.
It hadn't been what most people would think. Them, they weren't. The two of them. And that's funny because it'd make it easier - the world, people, they have stories for that, stories that fit in the mould. Secret pining that ends in I-love-yous, heart-break and choices, lies and being torn in half, all that shit, like everyone expects. People understand that. Everyone fucking understands that.
Hadn't been it, never had. That would've been easier, simpler, cleaner. Fuck, he'd've known what the fuck to do with that. Probably wouldn't've done what he did, figured out how to poison it all with alcohol and the shit inside his head. He'd been in love, before - he just hated it, so he'd fucking ignore it until it stopped. He remembers that.
It wasn't that. Isn't that. More complicated than that. More of a huge tangled fucking mess.
It was the crawling under his skin he couldn't get rid of. It was nothing else fucking working. It was relief turning the more he understood, getting fucking angry because Steve shouldn't be there, shouldn't have to be there and then stepping on that, strangling it down because the idiot finally had everything he fucking wanted.
It was finding out he was a lot fucking weaker than he thought.
It was the girl at the pub before Steve came in, pretty and flirting, distracting and good (fuck the sliver of relief that spoke too soon) for a handful of minutes, who was everything he wanted right then - until she touched him, until she reached over and playfully shoved his shoulder, and the world heaved and nausea prickled in through his skin and he'd left the others and the girl at the table, looking for hard liquor while they drank beer. Watched her flirt with Dugan and Monty instead. And then it was how Steve doing the same thing to him later didn't . . . do that.
It was all he wanted being to go home except he couldn't because that home wouldn't be there, because even if the War ended and they both lived, everything was different.
It was two fucking mad scientists taking his best friend and remaking him, sculpting him like he was fucking clay. It was all the fucking people who couldn't be bothered to fucking look at Steve until he matched a pretty picture in their fucking heads, and how even if Steve lived through this he was going to end up dealing out little pieces of his soul to them, one by one, and never fucking know he did it until it was gone. It was knowing every fucking thing about Steve while all they saw was the fucking shine and how most of them didn't even fucking deserve that.
And I was here first - that, too. Maybe.
And knowing that after this shit was done, if he got Steve through the War that . . . was it. There wasn't anything else, Steve had everything he wanted and there was nothing Bucky could do he couldn't do better himself now, it was done, there wasn't anything left. It'd almost felt like relief.
The relief of staring off the cliff. Nothing else left - so here, have everything.
Then moments clawed out of the War, moments with Steve, were the one time - the only time - he felt like he might still be alive. And everywhere else he knew he was dead, and just too fucking stubborn to lie down and admit it.
All of it tangled up and knotted and snarled and unravelled way beyond what people would think. And he remembered it, remembered knowing he couldn't keep anything, would end up with nothing, so for now he wanted everything.
Remembered getting it, more or less, in the fucked up way the sharp edge of a war gives most things. And then for way too fucking long nothing could tell him if he made it up, except asking. Asking if he he'd lied to himself. Asking if he'd fucking dreamed it all, desperate and beyond pride down in the fucking dark.
Taking the risk of hearing yes and seeing every single fucking thought that would have to come written all across Steve's face.
Been weeks, months with that. He fucking hated it.
It'd felt a lot like this. The ache and mindless fear and inability to be fucking still - it all feels familiar. Like he does now.
Except then it was clinging to the rock halfway down the fucking metaphorical cliff instead of standing at the edge. Too fucking close to the edge, Jesus fucking Christ, but still at the edge, not over.
Knowing (maybe) how it ends this time. That it'll get better. Be better. He already knows the fucking answer this time (maybe), he's the fucking one who needed to give it, he knows, fuck he should know if he had anything like fucking sanity he'd know there's no reason for this. The only one putting him so close to the fucking edge is himself. But he doesn't, so he has to . . . check.
Make sure.
It's like touching something, just to make sure it's still there. Exactly like it. The same. Is that. That's what he's doing. Waiting to do. Wanting. Because he can't fucking cut out the part of him that knows it might not be. That there might be nothing.
Trap, trick, lie, test.
Can't trust he's not failing.
He's not sure why. He's not sure what about this, about right now, about the stupid tags, about Steve getting them, that's making him want this. Need to look, need to check, make sure. He doesn't - it isn't -
Maybe because they're a thing. Concrete. An object. He thought that before? He thinks he was thinking about this before.
This isn't new. It isn't news. Not a fucking revelation, this isn't even a new . . .
It's not like he's not used to this, the fight in his head, about what can't be real and still is. It started before he could even fucking put shapes to what's real, before he could even conceive it, let alone wrap his fucking head around it (let alone name it). He doesn't know why a thing, an object, this thing, is throwing it into -
It's almost fucking - no, it's fucking ridiculous. It's exasperating. It's stupid.
(And that's a lie. He knows it's a lie. Or most of a lie. He's a liar, he knows the reason.)
(The reason is you wanted this. The reason is you wanted this and you got it and just like the fucking broken cabinet doors and shattered counter you can't pretend you didn't because you can see it and every time you look at the fucking things you know they're real, you can see them. You wanted this and you don't get what you want so if you did you're making it up and you're going to fucking pay, and pay, and - and that, that he does know, has known for a fucking long time: it goes, you wanted this and you got it so now you have to run, and now you have to hide, because you have to pay - )
(He always knows the fucking reason it's always the same fucking reason it was the answer when it was the first fractured fucking memory of the fall; when it was Steve listening to him clawing at them and not doing what he didn't, didn't want, when what he didn't want was for Steve to tell; when it was Carter, telling him why Steve fucking crashed that stupid fucking plane; and then Steve's face, in the hall, hearing Breitenau - fucking all of them, same fucking answer. He wanted it. Wanted, desperately, fuck, oh Mother of God, wanted. And got, and fell into this. And maybe he should be fucking grateful it's just this now, it's not, he can, he doesn't have to run - if he can throw himself at this fast enough, hard enough, he doesn't have to go, maybe he is fucking grateful - )
(He knows all of. It's just.)
(Why he wanted this.)
(That's what he doesn't know. Can't see. Can't look at.)
He realizes he's pacing, his version of pacing, moving through the rooms. He tries to make himself stop. Realizes strands of his hair are touching his face, his neck; there's an internal snarl when he pulls the elastic out and then puts it back in, raking his hair back from his face. Too long - no, too short, he was angry when he cut it last, cut too much, and fuck he'd get rid of it except for the way thinking about what, who he'd see in the mirror makes his stomach turn just fucking thinking about.
He scrubs his hands over his face trying to get rid of the thought. The feeling of wearing long-dead skin as it rots away. Gets hit, gets sideswiped, ends up acutely fucking aware of the difference between skin and metal, muscle-nerve-vein over bone versus the shell over wire and frame and Christ this is probably fucking funny.
Is it funny?
It might be funny.
He's pacing again. He tries to make himself stop.
Coffee's not something he wants right now, but it's something to do, especially if he's really fucking finicky about it. Starts with the reverse-fucking-osmosis water that makes him shake his fucking head but ends up here in its dispenser anyway the same way the place gets vacuumed and cleaned when they're not here. Which is fucking crazy.
You can trace the line from here to there, from storing everything in fucking tins so the mice didn't get it (and you just hoped they were only mice) to invisible fucking staff in this fucking tower on fucking Park Avenue, tower that's a fortress and a palace and its own fucking city in miniature and a host who'd throw more fucking money, stuff, if he thought he could get away with it - you can trace the fucking line, but that won't make it make any more fucking sense.
He forces himself to measure water. Time it to fucking boil. Measure the coffee mix.
Thinks about all the shit built into stoves now to keep them from turning your home into a death-trap you can't see or smell or stop.
Finds a mug and sugar.
His phone vibrates against the counter, buzzing loud and abrupt on against the surface and it makes him start and his right hand reach for the knife he doesn't fucking have on him, because he made himself take it off and put it on the bureau in the main bedroom where it lives because this is, should be, home, a home, a kind of home, and he fucking refuses to need to be armed at home.
So there's nothing where his right hand goes except cloth anyway.
(Paltry fucking pittance, he knows, that distinction; not much fucking difference when there's always something he could use to kill within arm's reach. He makes it anyway.)
The line of text on his screen reads Captain Rogers has arrived, and the number-of-origin is the one that calls to here - not to anyone, any person here, but here, the building, the thing Tony Stark's accidental fucking child wears like a much, much fucking bigger suit of armour than Stark's ever thought of making.
(And it's funny. Fucking hilarious. He never fucking asked JARVIS to use text, use the phone and its screen and the text it shows. Instead of sound. Voice. Out-loud and un-sourced. Because he never fucking had to. He couldn't tell you why it helps, either, why it's a step back from the shit that twists through the whole fucking concept - banks and banks and banks of fucking tape spooling and unspooling and then the voice, voice that wasn't a fucking recording, that was fucking supposed to be dead - )
(He never fucking asked. JARVIS just did it. With Steve, too, when Steve's here. Anyone, here. Nobody, anywhere else, except him when he's alone.)
For a second he can't remember if he asked for warning, until he opens the app and sees his text one above. JARVIS doesn't do things, not here, on this floor, or for him, around him, without being asked. Except for that. Except for not doing things, and not talking, except through this.
Pretty good fucking intuition for someone who has to learn everything about humans from the outside.
That day months ago, in the hall, Bucky'd pinned Steve against the wall. Shoved him up against it, harder than he'd meant to, because he needed to make Steve stop. To make him shut up, stop trying to talk, stop trying to explain and ask questions and say things that did not fucking matter because Bucky'd thrown himself off the fucking edge and all that mattered was how badly it was gonna hurt to hit the ground.
It'd been free-fall. Like everything holding him, tying him up, finally fucking snapped - just for a second, the whole world fucking narrowed to one choice, one thing and that time fucking wasn't even his so he didn't know if he was going to walk away from the fall or it was going to just finish fucking breaking him.
The world narrowed to yes or no and then almost fucking dropping like a fucking doll when the one he wanted was the one he got.
This time -
He has no fucking idea what Steve can see. See in him. From him. What's there, as Steve steps out of the elevator into the little half-hallway and then into the kitchen. To where he can see, where Bucky's in his line of sight. Bucky has no fucking idea what he looks like or what's written on his face. He leans on the corner of the wall where kitchen-dining-what-the-fuck-ever gives way to the living-room and he waits, because he has to.
And there's something to see, to read. He's fucking showing something, probably a lot, because Steve puts the little paper bag he's carrying down on the counter, shrugs off his jacket and leaves it there too, all without even looking at them, looking anywhere but Bucky's face.
And there's the lines on Steve's forehead, drawing themselves. And the ball-chain, disappearing under his shirt, and the outline of the metal tabs hanging from it.
Fuck.
It's like a switch in his fucking head, what hits Bucky now. Like the fucking opposite of light-headed, somehow, whatever the fuck that even means. Everything pulling in and contracting to twist and spin around some imagined point in his head. The knot collapsing into its fucking self and erasing the walls, crossing wires between things like love and things like anger and shaking them back together and it all turns into something else. Something different.
Something heavy and choking. Something that settles like pain in your chest and you have to drag in every breath around it and you know how fucking hard that is. Something you crave anyway, every fucking suffocating breath and stab and all the ache of it, something you want more than you want to fucking be alive - something.
And then all you can see, the only thing, is how much of it, the something, this thing -
- how much of whatever the fuck it is . . .how it all fucking leads to, fucking belongs to the fucking yellow-haired idiot standing in front of you. Alive and breathing and standing in fucking front of you, looking worried. Right fucking there, this son of a bitch.
This stupid mouthy reckless punk, the fucking proud stubborn precious stiff-necked self-righteous self-sacrificing naive perfect thoughtless selfless son of a bitch.
And it sits on you, the something, whatever the fuck this is, so much fucking heavier than lead. Than gold. Than the fucking world. It sits on you, and you want it to.
Right now it sits on him, too fucking heavy, and it means he has to wait. He'll die to fucking keep it but it's too fucking much and he's too fucking weak, so he can't move, can't start this and he has to wait.
Wait for Steve to be the one to move. Wait for Steve to cross the tiny fucking God-damn distance between them, a few fucking feet of tile, worry-lines drawn on his face. Wait for him to close it enough to reach across.
Steve has to do that. Bucky can't. And that's the whole fucking story, isn't it - I can't, I can't, I'm sorry, you have to -
But it doesn't fucking matter, really, because Steve does move and now he's close enough. Finally. Arms' reach. Close enough, worried face and words starting with, "Bucky, are you - "
Bucky catches Steve's left arm. Pulls Steve towards him, hard, enough to catch Steve off-balance for half a second, so he almost falls into Bucky and sends them both to the fucking floor. Bucky lets go of Steve's arm to pull him close, with that hand on the back of his neck. That same hand. Right hand. He doesn't fucking trust the other one right now, what it'll do, how tight it'd let him cling, what he might break. All the limits it doesn't fucking have, that the rest of him does. Safeguards built into tissue that can only take so fucking much.
Bucky hauls Steve forward and catches him, cradles the back of his neck. Says, "Fucking shut up, Steve," and then makes sure Steve does. Needs him to, even if it's not so much that Steve shouldn't fucking talk as that Bucky fucking can't, not more than that, this, scatter of words. So Steve needs to not fucking ask stupid fucking questions so the answers won't tangle in Bucky's throat and choke him. Not right now.
It's not fucking important anyway, the answers fucking meaningless - no he's not fucking okay, but it doesn't matter, he doesn't fucking care he doesn't fucking need to be okay, right now. Needs this, so fucking much more: needs Steve to be here, and real, and proving every fucking thing else that matters might be. Starting here.
Everything starts here.
His shoulders hitting the wall is what tells Bucky he's half-turned, pulling Steve stumbling steps with him until the wall stops them both, solid and abrupt. Not hard enough to knock Bucky breathless but enough that he feels how it's different, the way impact echoes through bone, skin, fluid compared to how it rattles through metal and wire. Doesn't matter, anyway: he feels it but doesn't care, cares more that he can make the wall take his weight and that means he can pull Steve closer.
Steve's mouth tastes of coffee and something with sugar Bucky doesn't care enough to think about. His skin is warm against Bucky's right hand to start and then Bucky slides his hand up, feels the way Steve's hair shifts under his fingers and his palm and how it's cool to the touch but the head from the skin comes through if you stop, if you hold still if you keep your hand in one place but you have to stop, for a second, and he can, and it does.
Fuck.
Everything is loud and bright and hurts like too many fucking sparks hitting your skin and he feels that, wants it, fingers in Steve's hair, and Steve's mouth against his. Feels Steve's hands at his hips and then sliding together over his back, up either side of his spine under his shirt - and the cool of the wall where Steve's hands aren't -
Now, now he's light-headed. Without the wall or the pressure of Steve's hands just below his ribs he might actually fucking end up on the ground because he's not fucking sure he knows which way is up or if it fucking matters.
Steve pulls his mouth away, a little. He starts to say, "Bucky," and Bucky cuts him off, "Shut up - " because he still can't -
But Steve catches the side of Bucky's face with one hand and says, "No, shh, I know, just c'mere - " and his other arm's wrapped around Bucky's waist so he can pull Bucky with him, this time, a few unsteady steps at a time.
When Steve pulls him down onto the couch, his head's still light and his knee ends up driving hard into Steve's hip. Bucky knows it, feels it happen and knows what it means; the thought even gets started, the one that says he should find a breath, say something.
He just loses that, all of that, to the feeling of Steve's hands tangling in his hair and guiding his head back, and then the heat and wet of Steve's mouth pressed against his neck, his throat, his collarbone and back, and again but now with the edge of teeth. Teeth pressing into his skin hard enough to burn, ache, and he cradles Steve's head to hold him there while Steve's hands go to his hips to pull him down, close, Steve's left hand sliding from there up under his shirt to the small of his back to hold him there.
Bucky's knees are on either side of Steve's waist, the heat of Steve's body and skin against the inside of Bucky's thighs and it feels like he can feel every fucking thread of every fucking piece of cloth he's wearing. He shifts his weight back, bends down to kiss Steve's mouth once hard before he pulls far enough away to run both hands under Steve's shirt and help him get it the fuck off, and get rid of his own fucking shirt and the tank-top under it. Chuck them away, without caring where they go and settling back where he was.
The look on Steve's face stops him for a minute. Stops everything for a minute. Bucky's head and heart and lungs, all of them, all arrested by the way Steve looks at him right now.
Steve's hands rest where they fell, one on Bucky's hip and one on his thigh. Both holding onto him the way you hold something you don't want to break but can't stand to lose. The tags he wears fell askew at his collar after getting his shirt over his head, a line and pool of silver that tugs at Bucky's head but loses to watching Steve's face. And Steve just looks at him, eyes fucking shining-wide, and Bucky can't fucking breathe. Can't read Steve's face or wrap his fucking head around what it means or says except he wants it, this, what he sees, whatever the fuck it is, fucking Christ -
Steve brushes Bucky's face with the tips of his fingers - forehead, temple, thumb brushing his cheek and palm curving at his jaw, and breathes, "Jesus Christ you're beautiful," and the ache of everything contracts into a bright fucking core and it hurts and he doesn't fucking care: it's like pulling a knife out of your chest, knowing it might kill you but not fucking caring because something that shouldn't be there is gone and you'd fucking rather bleed out than feel it anymore.
He catches Steve's hand, can't even tell if he's kissing Steve's palm and wrist or just trying to breathe his skin instead of the air that hurts every time he drags it in. Steve pulls him down, pulls Bucky's mouth to his again. He wraps his arms around Bucky's back, and his fingers dig into skin and metal. Bucky's hand falls to Steve's chest, his ribs; he can feel the gasping breaths like Steve can't breathe any better than Bucky can, and the sweat starting on Steve's skin.
It pulls the white hot brightness out of Bucky's lungs and his bones, out of his chest into his gut and the base of his spine and Jesus, God, he wants. So much, so fucking much.
(God, Jesus, merciful Christ please -)
He braces his right arm against the place where the arm of the couch meets the back, so he can bend his head and bite the side of Steve's neck hard, just above the silver flicker of the chain, while he holds the other side of it with his left hand, thumb at Steve's throat. Steve clutches at him, cradles the back of his head, bites out Fuck and then, oh God, fuck, Bucky - as Bucky sucks hard against his skin and drags up the mark he wants, lurid and purple-red, pulling blood out under Steve's skin.
Does it again, while Steve's fingers dig into the skin at his waist and then flatten, Steve stroking from the edge of metal down to Bucky's waist. And every mark, he wants, touches, stays where he can see them, where they tell him what he did and that he did it. Like he's mapping himself out on Steve's skin, with his blood, marking and never breaking the skin and something in that is -
Steve's hand moves and he loses the thought and he doesn't fucking care. He tastes salt-sweat and breathes in that and the smell of Steve's skin as he drags his mouth down to the hollow of Steve's throat. He trails his left hand down Steve's collarbone and chest as he moves, sliding his hips back and moving himself between Steve's legs.
And there are places in your body that break, that tear, so much easier than others, and he knows, can't not know what every single fucking one of them is and can't forget, not even now. He presses his mouth to the space below Steve's breast-bone, the place where the ribcage splits and uncovers the last piece of the heart, so that Bucky can feel it beat against his tongue. He kisses along the bottom curve of Steve's ribs, and then he marks the skin over all the scattered fucking fragile organs it barely protects, and then fucking didn't.
He can't forget that. Not really. Pretends he can, but he's lying, fucking lying to himself first and anyone else after. There's no more signs, the scars are gone because the surgeons were good and it's hard to make anything stay on either of them, but there were bullets that tore through skin and muscle and tissue. One, two, hit and ripped through every fucking soft place in a human corpse, and he fucking shot them.
That won't go away. Won't let go. Doesn't. Won't. The moment's burned into his head like a fucking brand.
He wishes it wasn't. Tries to forget about it, lock it away, and sometimes it works for a while - but it's always there, ready to fall back out and catch him. Hit him with how close he got, how close to doing what he was fucking told, and the obscenity of the relief - fucking Christ, the relief, that the target would die, the confusion would go.
The screaming would stop.
(It wouldn't have. It didn't even when he thought the target must be dead. Would never fucking stop.)
Bucky spreads the fingers of his right hand over Steve's stomach. He just barely presses his palm down and rests his face against Steve's skin for a second to get rid of all of that, all of it, make it go away, bury it in the proof of here and now and nothing left to show what he almost fucking did. Bury it in every single fucking sense telling him Steve's alive, here, his fingers in Bucky's hair and heart still beating, pushing the blood through veins swollen to shed heat. Alive. Always has been. Never dead.
Never lost.
God, God Steve I wanted you and I didn't know what wanting was.
Steve's breath catches when Bucky snaps the button on his jeans, hitches as Bucky pulls them down. Each gasp after that shudders through Steve's skin against Bucky's mouth, while he traces the line of Steve's hip with his teeth and his tongue. Steve's fingers thread through Bucky's hair and stroke it back from his face; Bucky shifts his weight to his left hand and he can feel the way Steve's spine moves when he tries to keep from arching his back, as Bucky's right hand strokes up his stomach and back - no pattern, no goal, just so he can touch muscle and bone and how skin follows them, wrap himself in how Steve's body feels against his hand and how his hand fits against it, lines and curves and solid space.
And nothing's gone, it's all still fucking there, the noise and everything that drags at him and tries to pull him under - that's never fucking gone, never and he doesn't know how to get away, not for long. But Steve's hand is in his hair and Steve's skin is against his mouth; the inside of Steve's thigh presses against his ribs and even Steve's waist fits against Bucky's inner left arm, pressure and heat and shape, dull but real, so he doesn't fucking care.
And this, he wants this, and Steve wants this and wants him, from him, wants him to do this - his fingers on Bucky's skull, other hand clutching Bucky's left shoulder, voice and mouth making words like yes and please - and every fucking second and piece of that ties him here, lets him stay, and the rest can fucking batter him bloody against the rocks but it can't take him away.
All of this.
Bucky moves both hands to Steve's hips when he runs parted lips up Steve's cock, the space between thumb and forefinger fitting against the crease where thigh meets hip to hold them still and pin Steve down while he teases. And he does, because he can. Can now. (Couldn't once and this time maybe the laughter that flickers across his mind is real and echoes memory of laughing.) He can keep Steve still, keep him where Bucky wants him. And Bucky knows what every single press of lips and tongue will do, knows and right now revels in knowing. That mouthing at the base of Steve's cock will make his back arch and push hard against anything holding him down, that dragging your tongue up the underside makes Steve groan the way that steals all his breath - all of it, he knows. Knows. Wanted. Wanted to know.
(I was here first.)
Steve's voice catches on Jesus, Jesus - Bucky, and breaks on please and something hooks into Bucky's brain, different want, different like the world changed ways and it's . . .
And when Bucky pushes himself on his right hand just enough to look, Steve's watching him, flush spread across his cheeks and the top of his chest, the red feathering out where the cheap steel tags lie against his skin. His eyes are still the same kind of bright that Bucky wants to keep on him for fucking ever, lips just parted.
And there's something Bucky could say and a long time ago he'd've known what the fuck it was, but not anymore - just scattered formulas, bullshit, facile and shallow and false. Or too much, too fucking long, meaning bleeding out into anemic rote fucking trash. He'd've known what to fucking say but what he'd've said isn't right now because everything's fucking changed except the thing that never does.
I was lost and fucked up and out of my fucking mind, I didn't know who I was, I didn't know who you were, and I was still looking for you.
He can feel his throat close, but his eyes don't burn. He's lost that, body forgotten how it works. And when he says, "I missed you," he can hear his own voice like it's someone else's, low and scraping and rough.
Steve's hand twists out of his and curves around Bucky's upper arm, closes enough for Steve to half pull himself forward, half drag back Bucky to up to meet him. He holds Bucky's face in his hands long enough to kiss him hard, hard and Bucky lets him; then Steve's hands go to Bucky's knees, slide under them and pull Bucky to him, over him as Steve lets himself fall back to rest against the arm of the couch.
Bucky lets him. Catches his balance with his left hand, on the arm of the couch by Steve's shoulder. He kisses Steve again and strokes down Steve's cheek with his right hand, knuckles loosely curled and then fingers spreading to touch the curve of Steve's neck. He flattens his hand, and drags it down until he rests his palm against the hollow of Steve's throat, thumb and fingers either side in a curve.
Here, here something catches, something caught. Something slows. It's like he forgot how to think: his mind stutters and stumbles. His head is empty, nothing moves, just hollow and stuck, and it's not . . .bad it's just there's nothing to, there's, he doesn't know, he can't think, he can only know his hand palm-flat against Steve's chest and Steve's mouth against his -
Steve's hands are at the front of his waist, busy and moving; he gets Bucky's jeans undone and slides his hands around, fingertips working under the waist-band to push them down from Bucky's hips. And the stilted moment inside Bucky's head drops, like a wrong step off into empty air. The empty and the still shrivel tight to a tangle that contracts sharp before it goes, before it lets go and drops him and he's here, again, and fuck - yes, jeans off, clothes gone: his, Steve's, there's the moment of kicking them away and they're gone.
And if there's still some, if there's still . . . everything, the static, the moment of stumble and fall and the rest of the world leering over his metaphorical fucking shoulder, he doesn't care - it can fucking go, it can stay, he doesn't care. It doesn't matter.
All he fucking has to think about is here, all he has to know or see or fucking feel is here. Is this. Is how Steve's fingers press into his back as he pushes them up from Bucky's waist to his right shoulder and the left-side scar. Is his own palm where it stays flat against Steve's skin and bone underneath, the inside of his thighs against Steve's hips and how fucking good his cock sliding against Steve's skin feels.
Better, more, the closer Steve pulls him.
Bucky keeps his left hand against the couch, not trusting it again, not trusting himself to remember where to stop, to let go. There's only so much muscle and bone can break, even his, but metal and wire -
Steve buries his face in the curve of Bucky's neck. He's breathing hard enough that each exhale's cool against Bucky's skin just from how fast the air moves. He rocks his hips up against Bucky's and Bucky closes his eyes, right hand holding Steve's head. Steve nuzzles the skin beside his ear and says, "I need you," and it's like something white-hot pushing under Bucky's skin angled down to his spine except he wants it, God, please, so fucking much.
He manages to say, "Dunno if you noticed," and he can hear the fucking rasp in his throat, "but I'm right fucking here." Just. Just manages it, but it's important. He needs that, too, needs to say that, something like that, close e-fucking-nough, and get the ragged breath of Steve's laughter against his skin before Steve leans back a little, reaching for the drawer in the side-table.
The flood of exasperation feels one step away from him, there but on the other side of a fucking wall, and his own voice saying, "Christ sake, Steve - " doesn't feel like something real, feels like a memory because what's real is Steve kissing him again, and Steve dragging his free hand down the front rough-half-circle of scar and the bright, the fucking bright in his head.
He barely hears Steve's Shhh and, "I know," and "just let me?" Barely remembers what the fuck Steve is even talking about and honestly doesn't fucking care.
Or -
Maybe that's wrong. Maybe he cares, the exasperation far away but impatience right the fuck here, except that arguing's going to take more time that just fucking letting Steve do what he wants, thinks is so damn important, so Bucky doesn't fucking argue. And after Steve gets him to roll half onto his side, left leg bending up across Steve's lower body so that Steve can work slick fingers into him, Bucky takes out his impatience by cradling Steve's throat in his left hand and mouthing at the pulse-point at the near side of Steve's neck. Teases with tongue and faint scrape of his teeth and then breathing over the wetness on Steve's skin - never as hard, never as much as he fucking knows Steve wants, wiring an echo of his own fucking impatience into every fucking one of Steve's nerves.
He smirks at how it makes Steve's breathing unsteady, hands unsteady, while Steve half-hisses or bites down the start of curses. Until he tugs Bucky back over him, breathing fast again and looks up at him to say, "Jesus Christ you're such a pushy, impatient jerk," and push Bucky's hair back out of his face with a hand that shakes and doesn't match the tone he can't quite get to anyway.
"Nanny," Bucky retorts, because it's what comes next; he catches Steve's hand and bites the inside of Steve's wrist because he can and because it makes Steve gasp oh God before he pulls Bucky down so Bucky can kiss him, hard, and brace his left arm against the couch again.
And he wants, he wants, wants this all of this - Steve has both hands cradling his head, kissing his mouth and his temple and his closed eyes as Bucky lowers himself onto Steve's cock, sliding down and taking him in and fuck he wants this, wanted this, his head's light and it's hard to breathe again. Like if he breathes he'll lose something, like if he breathes time passes and he won't be here and this won't be. Except he has to fucking breathe and he does and it stays.
Now Steve has one hand tangled in his hair, holding Bucky's forehead against his, and the other pressed to the middle of Bucky's back to pull him close as he can and there's something silver-white-hot under every fucking inch of Bucky's skin and turning the inside of his head into too-bright empty nothing, everything fucking gone everything quiet, nothing.
Except.
Except Steve, alive. Except Steve's body against his, in his. Steve rocking with him, up into him, and Steve's fingers digging into his skin; Steve's mouth pressed to his temple, against the skin by his ear, and Steve's voice barely-breathing words, mostly-babbling - missed you, need you, God I need you, like my lungs, like my blood, always need you, please - and Bucky wants all of that, this, every fucking word every motion, feeling, all of it, so fucking much, and he wants more, and he will always, always take anything, anything Steve's willing to give him, God, please.
(Can't fucking see why it's this - no fucking way it should be this, nothing he can pay, nothing he has nothing in him worth this. Shouldn't be this. But it doesn't matter, he doesn't - selfish fucking coward but he can't, he doesn't fucking care, he can't, he wants this, God, Christ, Steve please he wants this.)
(Please.)
Here, now, Steve pulls his hand down across Bucky's neck and chest. He digs the fingers of his other hand into the side of Bucky's left thigh and the pressure makes points of heat contract and flare in Bucky's head - for a few seconds, a handful, until Steve seems to notice what he's doing and flattens his hand out, smooths his palm over the places and strokes long circles up Bucky's hip to his lower back. And now his left hand slides up Bucky's right shoulder, and it's like Steve can't decide where to let either hand rest, like he wants to touch everywhere, every place Bucky can feel.
And Bucky's fine with that. God yes. He keeps his left hand braced against the arm of the couch; his right strokes the back of Steve's neck, fingers moving through sweat damp hair and then down to the ridges of his spine, holding close, the side of Steve's head against the side of his. He closes his eyes, and the world turns into touch and sound and smell and it's everything he fucking wants.
Steve lets his right hand fall to Bucky's waist, just above the point of his hip, grip tight enough to feel; his left arm wraps around, from Bucky's rib-cage across his back to his left shoulder. He rests his head against the front of Bucky's right shoulder and Bucky lets Steve pull him down, further, more. Lets his body move to fit against Steve and he can't remember how to make his voice work but his breath hisses out at how fucking good it feels.
Steve lets go of Bucky's shoulder to stroke his hand down over Bucky's hair and rest it on the back of his neck, his other hand still at Bucky's waist pulling Bucky hard against him, and fuck -
When the arm of the couch gives, there's no warning, or at least none that Bucky hears or remembers. Just the crack of snapping wood and a lurch forward that throws Bucky's thoughts skidding out from under him like hitting a fucking patch of ice at a hundred miles an hour, and the sound of cloth under stress.
Steve managed to grab the back of the couch so they don't fall and besides the fucking upholstery's sturdy enough for now that the arm's only weird and askew, not snapped back or torn off. Bucky takes that in, registers it, less than a second - but then it hits the blank, the skid, doesn't know what to do with knowing, doesn't know what it means. Hears Steve's startled half-incredulous laugh, or noise that gets close.
Bucky tries to shake something from blankness; the thought that falls out is, "That's pathetic," and he means the couch and he also thinks it came out in Russian, not English. Steve half-laughs again, easing his grip on the back of the couch. His other hand's pressed to the middle of Bucky's back. It stands out from the sudden mental static, Bucky's skin feeling more heat from Steve's fingertips than can possibly be fucking real.
Then Steve's kissing him again and the blankness lurches and crumples; Steve murmurs, "Doesn't matter," against Bucky's mouth and now he's pushing Bucky back. Pushes Bucky down onto the couch to lie on his back, stretch out on the cushions while Steve moves over him and kisses his jaw and the hollow of his throat.
Bucky's head tilts back, just, as Steve slides back into him; Bucky pushes up against him, pulling him down. Wants more, deeper, and Steve's weight on him, pushing him down so the cushions have to give. And the empty moment's gone, the stall gone and he pushes them away further, throws himself at this instead. Manages to breath fuck yes as Steve's hand slides up under Bucky's thigh and Steve settles over him, onto him, pushing as deep into Bucky as he can.
Bucky's fingers dig into Steve's left thigh as Steve starts to move, leaning on his left forearm and running his right hand over Bucky's stomach and chest.
And for a moment, a second, Bucky catches Steve watching his face and there's something, a look he can't get a handle on, like Steve's looking for something and Bucky's not sure what - but then Steve shifts his weight, a little, and it changes the angle of his hips and Bucky doesn't fucking care anymore. Clutches at the thought that, yes, that and maybe manages to get ghosts of the words out, or not, he tries but he doesn't know. Either way Steve works the arm he's leaning on under Bucky's, under his shoulder and raises the other to the side of Bucky's neck to tilt his head back farther while Steve kisses and sucks marks into his neck.
Bucky's right hand goes to the back of Steve's neck again and he just, just catches himself in time to curve his left over his head instead of letting it fall to Steve's shoulder. Braces it against the other fucking arm, more so that he doesn't fucking forget than anything else and for a second there's this fucking hysterically laughing thought, like paper in a hurricane, that drags across his mind, thinks might as well break the other one and then dissolves into the heat and want that's eating everything else - finally, fuck, Christ.
Steve's breath moves against his ear, and Steve's hand stays curved around Bucky's neck. His thumb strokes the front of Bucky's throat, down and back up and over again, lighting up every fucking nerve Bucky has and fuck that's new, is that new? Bucky doesn't care, manages - maybe - to get out don't stop into words, into something Steve can hear. For a second he brings his left hand down to cover Steve's, in case the words caught, to make sure: this, do this, more.
(Puts his hand back because he knows the fingers of his right are already digging too hard into Steve's skin, he just can't - )
And then Steve moves. Keeps that hand where it is but pushes himself up on the other, shifts his weight so each thrust goes deeper and it's enough, almost enough to push Bucky over itself. When Steve bends to kiss him and moves his hand to Bucky's cock instead, Bucky clutches at Steve's upper arm and arches up against him to come and feel every-fucking-thing else in his head burn away, just for now, with this.
He can feel Steve's breath hitch; Steve pulls away from the kiss to gasp out half-words, fuck and Bucky and Christ before he groans, buries his face in Bucky's neck, and comes.
Bucky cradles the back of Steve's head with his right hand and now he lets his left hand settle on Steve's shoulder. Steve doesn't move, works both arms under Bucky's ribs instead, because the trick is if Steve's on him like this, the part of Bucky that thinks he should pull away, thinks that the fucking shape of his life is to serve a fucking purpose and be put away when it's done, can't do a single fucking thing. Can't even get the thought far enough to try.
Can't try to make him do what he never, never fucking wants to, which is try to drag himself away from this. He never fucking knows how long he gets, how long before all the noise starts to empty back into his skull, but whatever snatched handful of time he gets he wants it and if Steve doesn't stop him that part will always, always try to make him give it up, to fucking drag him away.
He fucking hates it.
The thought gets cut off because the couch lurches a little, and the side under Bucky's upper body drops a couple inches. It startles the fuck out of him, and out of Steve; Bucky hadn't heard anything else break - but to be fair, he really hadn't been fucking listening.
After a beat, Steve starts laughing, the laugh that has a giddy edge to it. He pushes himself up and says, "C'mere, before this thing falls apart and stabs one of us with a nail or broken wood or something while it's at it."
And the aggravation almost starts to settle into the base of Bucky's skull, except that instead of trying to get him to get up, Steve pulls Bucky down beside him on the floor. He pulls Bucky's right arm across his ribs, settling Bucky with his head on the front of Steve's shoulder. And the rug's stupidly thick pile and soft and made of God only knows what, so Bucky can handle that.
Bucky can feel Steve's pulse in the skin against his ear, the side of his face. He shoves away the last of the impulse to go (fucking tidy himself away like a fucking toy) and makes everything that tried to tense up release again, fit his body against Steve's. Wants this.
Always wants this.