Post the second! Fic - Marvel - 'Uncle Sam's Daughters and Sons' - Gen
*waves*
And here we go! A second part (not linear chapters) to my first Marvel/Avengers/Winter Soldier fic, This Solitude Through Which We Go.
It's the little things, really, that seem to cause the biggest problems in Bucky's recovery....
Also at AO3.
Thanks again, darkhavens for the beta!
We're the lunatic fringe who rusted the hinge
On Uncle Sam's daughters and sons….
Alice Cooper - 'Inmates'
The worst, in Bucky’s mind, were the little things, stupid things, that just set him off. Sam called them ‘triggers’. Bucky thought that was pretty damn accurate, because it felt like being shot; like the thud and numbness and spreading, aching fire of lead hitting flesh at 1700 miles an hour. Such a tiny thing, with such devastating consequences. And it just really pissed him off, because Jesus, he should be able to deal with a crummy, totally inaccurate moment in a war movie, or someone accidentally brushing by him on the left, or that dry, cold soda smell from the freezer….
It just pissed him off. And made him feel so, so ashamed. For not doing better; for not fighting it harder; for not winning, the one time it had mattered so damn much.
He was standing in the kitchen - the one on the common room floor - because Tony wanted to update them on something, and that always meant heaps of food. A sudden storm was blowing up outside, swift spring rain, and between one blink and the next, the sun vanished, throwing the kitchen into shadow.
Bucky was watching Steve as he turned from the icebox, carton in one hand, glass in the other. His wheat-blond hair was ashen in the storm-light, his blue eyes shadowed. He was looking across at Bucky, and Natasha said something, her voice light, laughing a question to Tony, Clint, somebody. And Steve-
“Want some milk?” he asked, and clickboomthud, trigger pulled, and Bucky was gone. Shadows and gleaming chrome, that voice, low and steady and calm. The stink of gunpowder, of blood and piss, the reek of a body at death, the tiny noises they make. That voice, that voice, droning on, cold eyes like pebbles, wipe him wipe him wipe him start again and it hurt so fucking bad, it hurt so fucking bad, but he didn’t, he couldn’t...there was no he, no I.... There was no no, just…. Void.
He came back to himself with a jerk, his head coming up off his knees and back so fast he drove it, crack, into the wall behind him. The wall behind, the wall on his right, was faintly cool through the layers of his shirts.
“What?” he said. His throat hurt, and his heart was pounding, hard and fast.
“Hey, Buck,” Steve said, his voice soft and mostly steady.
Bucky lifted his hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. They came away wet. He blinked down at the damp streaks, then up at Steve.
Steve’s shirt was torn at the neck, he had a pretty good scuff on his jaw, and a mouse coming up under his left eye. That...hadn’t been there before.
“Steve, what…?”
“Nothin', Bucky. You just...got a little confused, is all,” Steve said. Someone made a snorting noise and Steve’s mouth went tight, and Bucky lifted his chin, craning around Steve’s bulk to see. The windows were dark, now, the sky beyond a murky grey-green, and rain poured in rivulets down the glass.
“Is it...it’s raining?”
“Yeah. April showers,” Steve said with a little lift of the corner of his mouth, and Bucky echoed it back uncertainly, his heart still thumping too fast, too hard. “You wanna get up?”
Bucky realized with a little start that he was crammed into a corner, his sneakered feet tucked up tight against his ass, his legs crushed against his chest. His whole body ached, muscles rigid with strain, a faint tremor in his belly and his thighs.
“Yeah,” Bucky said, but he wasn’t entirely sure he could.
“Come on, then.” Steve - who was, Bucky saw, kneeling on the floor - unfolded himself upward, one hand held out to Bucky. Bucky hesitated for a moment, and then he reached up hand cramped in a fist, let it go, open up and took Steve’s hand. Bucky pushed and Steve pulled and Bucky came to his feet with a little huff of effort, his knees popping. His head swam for a moment and then settled, and Steve’s hand let go and moved to close over Bucky’s shoulder, giving it a little squeeze.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I...guess, I-” Bucky looked down at his hand that was still aching, and saw the smear of blood across his knuckles. He looked up, bewildered and a little panicked, now, and saw, in the wall near the pass-through to the kitchen, a circular dent with smudge of red-brown in the center, plaster dust on the floor beneath. “Shit, Steve, what did I-? Is anybody hurt? Did I hurt anybody?”
“You’re not that tough,” Clint said, and Bucky looked at him, then turned and looked at them all: Natasha and Clint, Sam and Tony, all sitting in various attitudes on the floor, because the big davenport - no, they called it a couch, now - was overturned, cushions scattered. The armchairs were toppled, as well, with snapped arms and missing legs, torn upholstery. A scattering of fluff - stuffing, Bucky guessed - lay over the silver-grey carpet. Everybody had at least two of those ubiquitous red and white cartons that Chinese food came in now.
But Clint- Clint had one of those butterfly bandages on his eyebrow, and Natasha’s hair was ruffled, her lip bruised. Sam was cradling his arm in a funny way, and Tony’s shirt was torn, too, showing the scars on his chest, the place where his Tin Man heart had been taken out. He had an ice pack pressed to the side of his neck.
And none of this - none of this - had been like this before, before….
Want some milk?
Bucky sucked in a sharp breath and Steve’s hand, that still rested on his shoulder, clamped down hard.
“Buck? Bucky, hey-”
“God, I...I went crazy, didn’t I?”
“No, you just- You didn’t know where you were, that’s all. It’s okay, nobody’s hurt-”
“Speak for yourself,” Tony interrupted, and Steve shot him a glare, jaw clenched, then looked deliberately back at Bucky.
“Nobody’s badly hurt.”
“Damnit, Steve,” Bucky said, flinging his hand wide and dislodging Steve’s, taking in the room, the others, Steve, with his rent-open collar and bruised face.
“I got worse than this making Dougie Jenks give me back my ball glove, and you know it.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Bucky snarled. He shoved past Steve and strode shakily away, across the room, headed for the elevator and some other floor; maybe the gym, maybe his room, anywhere but there. But he was brought up short by Tony, who’d stood and was now lounging slightly stiffly against one of the overturned armchairs. He’d let the ice pack down, and Bucky could see the livid bruise that was already coming up on the side of his throat.
“Mary, Mother of God,” Bucky said, staring, and Tony smirked.
“It’s not too bad,” Tony said - croaked, really - and Bucky felt that familiar rush of shame and fury - was choking on it - clenched fist shaking, his legs trembling and his heart racing again. A humiliated flush heated his cheeks and made his eyes burn.
“It happens, you know? And then you get tacos,” Tony said, and Bucky coughed out an ugly little laugh. But he remembered, too. And the memory tethered him to the spot.
”Fuck, don’t be such a damn creeper,” Tony said, hands white-knuckled on the fancy steel rail of the balcony. “This is a private- a private b-balcony, you’re not- You know what private means? Means don’t fucking...creep up on p-people.”
Tony was breathing hard, his eyes wild, face pale under its olive cast.
“Yeah, I know what private means.” Bucky moved up to the rail as well, a good distance from Tony, not crowding him. “Didn’t think anybody’d be out here, this time of night.”
“Well, that was- You were...wrong, you were so- You have your own- your own balcony to be a creeper on, why don’t you just...shimmy up the facade, there, and...and be a...retro Cold War gargoyle somewhere else.” Tony was mumbling now, his voice coming out all jerky with his uneven breaths. It made Bucky think - abruptly and painfully - of Steve at eight, thirteen, nineteen, dragging air into reluctant lungs.
“Hey, Tony, c’mon, deep breaths,” Bucky said, and Tony shot him a panicked, poisonous glare. “It’s either that or I do that- that mouth to mouth thing.” Bucky puckered up and made kissy noises. “And just so you know, I ate an onion before.”
Tony stared, frozen, for a long moment and then something in him seemed to snap like an overtaxed rubber band and he sagged, hands relaxing, shoulders rounding as the strain bled out of him. He wheezed out a harsh burst of laughter and then breathed in, lungs expanding, and looked over at Bucky, little curl of a grin lifting his mouth, now, his gaze only lively instead of frantic.
“Jesus, Barnes. That’s a mental image I didn’t need.” Tony rasped his fingernails through the hair on his chin. “So, is this your therapy? Some kind of one-armed Angel, lurking in the shadows?”
“What angel lurks?” Bucky laughed softly, puzzled, unconcerned. “I...guess. Steve’d get up with me if I asked him, but...sometimes….” Bucky shrugged, tapping his fingers on the rail, onetwothreefour, onetwothreefour.
“Sometimes Dudley Do-Right just isn’t what you need.”
Bucky sighed, hating that Tony was right. It felt...selfish. Disloyal. But then, so did dragging Steve into every twitch and mood and...and funny turn, as his Ma might have said. Steve had enough of his own, he didn't need Bucky's, too. Bucky looked up sharply as a helicopter lifted from some rooftop pad, a mile or so from the Tower, clattering away into the indigo East. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Tony echoed, and they both stood there in silence for a moment. And then Tony slapped his hands together, sharp clap, and Bucky startled, jerking around and baring his teeth. Tony completely ignored the entire display.
“So, that’s enough of that. I’ve got some mind-boggling upgrades for your arm that you’d fucking love, if you’d just try the damn thing, and a screener copy of that thing, comes out next week and a twenty-four hour taco place on speed dial. You game?”
Bucky huffed, relaxing, watching as Tony stepped over to pick up an abandoned tumbler from a decorative bit of architecture and gulp the last half-inch of amber liquid inside it. “Yeah, I’m game.”
“Excellent. JARVIS, we’re gonna need two dozen-” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Four dozen tacos from the place.”
“Certainly, sir. What kind would you prefer?”
“Surprise us. Oh, and make sure there’s dulce de leche. And some of those rice pudding things. And mole sauce and roasted corn.”
“If Sir is finished?” JARVIS said, after a pause.
“Yes, done, go, chop chop! Time is money and you’ve already cost me, what, forty, fifty thousand just standing here. Let’s go, Rick Allen. You’re gonna love this.”
Bucky just laughed softly, Tony’s patter leeching away the lingering tension, filling up the silence that too often
was unbearable, filled with the snake-hiss of the past. Going inside, Bucky saw Steve just turning away, fading back into the shadows, little smile on his face.
Turned out, fish tacos with pipián mole were really, really good.
Bucky felt his body unlocking, joint by joint, as the memory unspooled, and he took in a hard, deep breath, his gaze focusing on Tony, who had a faint smile on his face, one eyebrow raised.
"Speed. Dial," Tony said, and Bucky nodded.
"Yeah, okay. The...the pipián mole. And rice pudding."
"You got it. JARVIS?"
"At your command, sir."
Tony pushed away from the wreck of the chair he was leaning against and sauntered back toward the others, saying something about 'killer tortilla soup', and Bucky closed his eyes. He could hear Steve moving around him, not touching, just circling, until he was just a few feet away, in front, and Bucky opened his eyes again. Steve looked...kind of helpless, his gaze searching, his hands opening and closing at his sides, and Bucky breathed, stretched his neck out and sighed.
"Sorry about-" He gestured with his hand, the words not coming, and Steve shook his head.
"Don't be. I...it was me that...triggered you. Natasha had JARVIS play back what he recorded. It was me."
Bucky dragged his hand back through his hair, wincing at tangles and the way the strands snagged on his battered knuckles. It felt kind of gross, tacky from old sweat. "But it wasn't you, okay? It wasn't you. It was just...shadows and...and my brain mixing stuff up and…." Bucky looked up at Steve in quiet desperation. "It wasn't you, Steve, it was me, okay? Just my fucking stupid brain."
"Not stupid," Steve said, and then he sighed too, looking over Bucky's shoulder at the others, the lively chatter, the laughter. It might even just be a put-on, to give them some privacy, but it was good. Steve's friends...were good people. "I need a new shirt, and you've got, um...stuffing in your hair."
"What? Fuck. Probably look like an idiot," Bucky said, reaching up to feel, and Steve took a couple of steps closer, a question in his gaze. Bucky nodded, and Steve reached out and tugged, then showed Bucky the bit of fluff he'd pulled out, a little grin curling his lips up.
"Not any more idiotic than usual, Buck," Steve said softly, and Bucky huffed out a shaky laugh.
"Aw, run up an alley and holler 'fish'," Bucky retorted, and Steve snorted.
"Says you," he snapped back, and Bucky rolled his eyes.
"That'll never play in Peoria, Skeezix," Bucky said, and Steve laughed out loud, finally letting his hand come up to rest on Bucky's shoulder, giving him the tiniest of shakes.
"Let's go get cleaned up. There's still dumplings and stuff, and the tacos’re coming."
"Yeah. I kinda want a shower," Bucky agreed. His shirts were sticking to him, and he could feel the tackiness of drying sweat along his ribs. Steve smiled and squeezed Bucky's shoulder before heading toward the elevator and their floor. Bucky followed, turning just a little, looking back. Natasha and Sam were slurping noodles like it was a competition, and Clint was...was juggling fortune cookies? Bucky shook his head, smiling. Tony said something that made Sam snort-choke on noodles, and while Clint was whacking him on the back, and Natasha was stealing his noodles with a deft snatch of chopsticks, Tony glanced up and caught Bucky's gaze.
Thank you, Bucky mouthed, and Tony lifted his chin, little shrug.
You're welcome..
Then Bucky turned back and followed Steve. Just like always.
'Skeezix' is a character from the cartoon strip 'Gasoline Alley'.
Originally entered at http://tabaqui.dreamwidth.org/186601.html - comment where you please!
And here we go! A second part (not linear chapters) to my first Marvel/Avengers/Winter Soldier fic, This Solitude Through Which We Go.
It's the little things, really, that seem to cause the biggest problems in Bucky's recovery....
Also at AO3.
Thanks again, darkhavens for the beta!
We're the lunatic fringe who rusted the hinge
On Uncle Sam's daughters and sons….
Alice Cooper - 'Inmates'
The worst, in Bucky’s mind, were the little things, stupid things, that just set him off. Sam called them ‘triggers’. Bucky thought that was pretty damn accurate, because it felt like being shot; like the thud and numbness and spreading, aching fire of lead hitting flesh at 1700 miles an hour. Such a tiny thing, with such devastating consequences. And it just really pissed him off, because Jesus, he should be able to deal with a crummy, totally inaccurate moment in a war movie, or someone accidentally brushing by him on the left, or that dry, cold soda smell from the freezer….
It just pissed him off. And made him feel so, so ashamed. For not doing better; for not fighting it harder; for not winning, the one time it had mattered so damn much.
He was standing in the kitchen - the one on the common room floor - because Tony wanted to update them on something, and that always meant heaps of food. A sudden storm was blowing up outside, swift spring rain, and between one blink and the next, the sun vanished, throwing the kitchen into shadow.
Bucky was watching Steve as he turned from the icebox, carton in one hand, glass in the other. His wheat-blond hair was ashen in the storm-light, his blue eyes shadowed. He was looking across at Bucky, and Natasha said something, her voice light, laughing a question to Tony, Clint, somebody. And Steve-
“Want some milk?” he asked, and clickboomthud, trigger pulled, and Bucky was gone. Shadows and gleaming chrome, that voice, low and steady and calm. The stink of gunpowder, of blood and piss, the reek of a body at death, the tiny noises they make. That voice, that voice, droning on, cold eyes like pebbles, wipe him wipe him wipe him start again and it hurt so fucking bad, it hurt so fucking bad, but he didn’t, he couldn’t...there was no he, no I.... There was no no, just…. Void.
He came back to himself with a jerk, his head coming up off his knees and back so fast he drove it, crack, into the wall behind him. The wall behind, the wall on his right, was faintly cool through the layers of his shirts.
“What?” he said. His throat hurt, and his heart was pounding, hard and fast.
“Hey, Buck,” Steve said, his voice soft and mostly steady.
Bucky lifted his hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. They came away wet. He blinked down at the damp streaks, then up at Steve.
Steve’s shirt was torn at the neck, he had a pretty good scuff on his jaw, and a mouse coming up under his left eye. That...hadn’t been there before.
“Steve, what…?”
“Nothin', Bucky. You just...got a little confused, is all,” Steve said. Someone made a snorting noise and Steve’s mouth went tight, and Bucky lifted his chin, craning around Steve’s bulk to see. The windows were dark, now, the sky beyond a murky grey-green, and rain poured in rivulets down the glass.
“Is it...it’s raining?”
“Yeah. April showers,” Steve said with a little lift of the corner of his mouth, and Bucky echoed it back uncertainly, his heart still thumping too fast, too hard. “You wanna get up?”
Bucky realized with a little start that he was crammed into a corner, his sneakered feet tucked up tight against his ass, his legs crushed against his chest. His whole body ached, muscles rigid with strain, a faint tremor in his belly and his thighs.
“Yeah,” Bucky said, but he wasn’t entirely sure he could.
“Come on, then.” Steve - who was, Bucky saw, kneeling on the floor - unfolded himself upward, one hand held out to Bucky. Bucky hesitated for a moment, and then he reached up hand cramped in a fist, let it go, open up and took Steve’s hand. Bucky pushed and Steve pulled and Bucky came to his feet with a little huff of effort, his knees popping. His head swam for a moment and then settled, and Steve’s hand let go and moved to close over Bucky’s shoulder, giving it a little squeeze.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I...guess, I-” Bucky looked down at his hand that was still aching, and saw the smear of blood across his knuckles. He looked up, bewildered and a little panicked, now, and saw, in the wall near the pass-through to the kitchen, a circular dent with smudge of red-brown in the center, plaster dust on the floor beneath. “Shit, Steve, what did I-? Is anybody hurt? Did I hurt anybody?”
“You’re not that tough,” Clint said, and Bucky looked at him, then turned and looked at them all: Natasha and Clint, Sam and Tony, all sitting in various attitudes on the floor, because the big davenport - no, they called it a couch, now - was overturned, cushions scattered. The armchairs were toppled, as well, with snapped arms and missing legs, torn upholstery. A scattering of fluff - stuffing, Bucky guessed - lay over the silver-grey carpet. Everybody had at least two of those ubiquitous red and white cartons that Chinese food came in now.
But Clint- Clint had one of those butterfly bandages on his eyebrow, and Natasha’s hair was ruffled, her lip bruised. Sam was cradling his arm in a funny way, and Tony’s shirt was torn, too, showing the scars on his chest, the place where his Tin Man heart had been taken out. He had an ice pack pressed to the side of his neck.
And none of this - none of this - had been like this before, before….
Want some milk?
Bucky sucked in a sharp breath and Steve’s hand, that still rested on his shoulder, clamped down hard.
“Buck? Bucky, hey-”
“God, I...I went crazy, didn’t I?”
“No, you just- You didn’t know where you were, that’s all. It’s okay, nobody’s hurt-”
“Speak for yourself,” Tony interrupted, and Steve shot him a glare, jaw clenched, then looked deliberately back at Bucky.
“Nobody’s badly hurt.”
“Damnit, Steve,” Bucky said, flinging his hand wide and dislodging Steve’s, taking in the room, the others, Steve, with his rent-open collar and bruised face.
“I got worse than this making Dougie Jenks give me back my ball glove, and you know it.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Bucky snarled. He shoved past Steve and strode shakily away, across the room, headed for the elevator and some other floor; maybe the gym, maybe his room, anywhere but there. But he was brought up short by Tony, who’d stood and was now lounging slightly stiffly against one of the overturned armchairs. He’d let the ice pack down, and Bucky could see the livid bruise that was already coming up on the side of his throat.
“Mary, Mother of God,” Bucky said, staring, and Tony smirked.
“It’s not too bad,” Tony said - croaked, really - and Bucky felt that familiar rush of shame and fury - was choking on it - clenched fist shaking, his legs trembling and his heart racing again. A humiliated flush heated his cheeks and made his eyes burn.
“It happens, you know? And then you get tacos,” Tony said, and Bucky coughed out an ugly little laugh. But he remembered, too. And the memory tethered him to the spot.
”Fuck, don’t be such a damn creeper,” Tony said, hands white-knuckled on the fancy steel rail of the balcony. “This is a private- a private b-balcony, you’re not- You know what private means? Means don’t fucking...creep up on p-people.”
Tony was breathing hard, his eyes wild, face pale under its olive cast.
“Yeah, I know what private means.” Bucky moved up to the rail as well, a good distance from Tony, not crowding him. “Didn’t think anybody’d be out here, this time of night.”
“Well, that was- You were...wrong, you were so- You have your own- your own balcony to be a creeper on, why don’t you just...shimmy up the facade, there, and...and be a...retro Cold War gargoyle somewhere else.” Tony was mumbling now, his voice coming out all jerky with his uneven breaths. It made Bucky think - abruptly and painfully - of Steve at eight, thirteen, nineteen, dragging air into reluctant lungs.
“Hey, Tony, c’mon, deep breaths,” Bucky said, and Tony shot him a panicked, poisonous glare. “It’s either that or I do that- that mouth to mouth thing.” Bucky puckered up and made kissy noises. “And just so you know, I ate an onion before.”
Tony stared, frozen, for a long moment and then something in him seemed to snap like an overtaxed rubber band and he sagged, hands relaxing, shoulders rounding as the strain bled out of him. He wheezed out a harsh burst of laughter and then breathed in, lungs expanding, and looked over at Bucky, little curl of a grin lifting his mouth, now, his gaze only lively instead of frantic.
“Jesus, Barnes. That’s a mental image I didn’t need.” Tony rasped his fingernails through the hair on his chin. “So, is this your therapy? Some kind of one-armed Angel, lurking in the shadows?”
“What angel lurks?” Bucky laughed softly, puzzled, unconcerned. “I...guess. Steve’d get up with me if I asked him, but...sometimes….” Bucky shrugged, tapping his fingers on the rail, onetwothreefour, onetwothreefour.
“Sometimes Dudley Do-Right just isn’t what you need.”
Bucky sighed, hating that Tony was right. It felt...selfish. Disloyal. But then, so did dragging Steve into every twitch and mood and...and funny turn, as his Ma might have said. Steve had enough of his own, he didn't need Bucky's, too. Bucky looked up sharply as a helicopter lifted from some rooftop pad, a mile or so from the Tower, clattering away into the indigo East. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Tony echoed, and they both stood there in silence for a moment. And then Tony slapped his hands together, sharp clap, and Bucky startled, jerking around and baring his teeth. Tony completely ignored the entire display.
“So, that’s enough of that. I’ve got some mind-boggling upgrades for your arm that you’d fucking love, if you’d just try the damn thing, and a screener copy of that thing, comes out next week and a twenty-four hour taco place on speed dial. You game?”
Bucky huffed, relaxing, watching as Tony stepped over to pick up an abandoned tumbler from a decorative bit of architecture and gulp the last half-inch of amber liquid inside it. “Yeah, I’m game.”
“Excellent. JARVIS, we’re gonna need two dozen-” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Four dozen tacos from the place.”
“Certainly, sir. What kind would you prefer?”
“Surprise us. Oh, and make sure there’s dulce de leche. And some of those rice pudding things. And mole sauce and roasted corn.”
“If Sir is finished?” JARVIS said, after a pause.
“Yes, done, go, chop chop! Time is money and you’ve already cost me, what, forty, fifty thousand just standing here. Let’s go, Rick Allen. You’re gonna love this.”
Bucky just laughed softly, Tony’s patter leeching away the lingering tension, filling up the silence that too often
was unbearable, filled with the snake-hiss of the past. Going inside, Bucky saw Steve just turning away, fading back into the shadows, little smile on his face.
Turned out, fish tacos with pipián mole were really, really good.
Bucky felt his body unlocking, joint by joint, as the memory unspooled, and he took in a hard, deep breath, his gaze focusing on Tony, who had a faint smile on his face, one eyebrow raised.
"Speed. Dial," Tony said, and Bucky nodded.
"Yeah, okay. The...the pipián mole. And rice pudding."
"You got it. JARVIS?"
"At your command, sir."
Tony pushed away from the wreck of the chair he was leaning against and sauntered back toward the others, saying something about 'killer tortilla soup', and Bucky closed his eyes. He could hear Steve moving around him, not touching, just circling, until he was just a few feet away, in front, and Bucky opened his eyes again. Steve looked...kind of helpless, his gaze searching, his hands opening and closing at his sides, and Bucky breathed, stretched his neck out and sighed.
"Sorry about-" He gestured with his hand, the words not coming, and Steve shook his head.
"Don't be. I...it was me that...triggered you. Natasha had JARVIS play back what he recorded. It was me."
Bucky dragged his hand back through his hair, wincing at tangles and the way the strands snagged on his battered knuckles. It felt kind of gross, tacky from old sweat. "But it wasn't you, okay? It wasn't you. It was just...shadows and...and my brain mixing stuff up and…." Bucky looked up at Steve in quiet desperation. "It wasn't you, Steve, it was me, okay? Just my fucking stupid brain."
"Not stupid," Steve said, and then he sighed too, looking over Bucky's shoulder at the others, the lively chatter, the laughter. It might even just be a put-on, to give them some privacy, but it was good. Steve's friends...were good people. "I need a new shirt, and you've got, um...stuffing in your hair."
"What? Fuck. Probably look like an idiot," Bucky said, reaching up to feel, and Steve took a couple of steps closer, a question in his gaze. Bucky nodded, and Steve reached out and tugged, then showed Bucky the bit of fluff he'd pulled out, a little grin curling his lips up.
"Not any more idiotic than usual, Buck," Steve said softly, and Bucky huffed out a shaky laugh.
"Aw, run up an alley and holler 'fish'," Bucky retorted, and Steve snorted.
"Says you," he snapped back, and Bucky rolled his eyes.
"That'll never play in Peoria, Skeezix," Bucky said, and Steve laughed out loud, finally letting his hand come up to rest on Bucky's shoulder, giving him the tiniest of shakes.
"Let's go get cleaned up. There's still dumplings and stuff, and the tacos’re coming."
"Yeah. I kinda want a shower," Bucky agreed. His shirts were sticking to him, and he could feel the tackiness of drying sweat along his ribs. Steve smiled and squeezed Bucky's shoulder before heading toward the elevator and their floor. Bucky followed, turning just a little, looking back. Natasha and Sam were slurping noodles like it was a competition, and Clint was...was juggling fortune cookies? Bucky shook his head, smiling. Tony said something that made Sam snort-choke on noodles, and while Clint was whacking him on the back, and Natasha was stealing his noodles with a deft snatch of chopsticks, Tony glanced up and caught Bucky's gaze.
Thank you, Bucky mouthed, and Tony lifted his chin, little shrug.
You're welcome..
Then Bucky turned back and followed Steve. Just like always.
'Skeezix' is a character from the cartoon strip 'Gasoline Alley'.
Originally entered at http://tabaqui.dreamwidth.org/186601.html - comment where you please!