Glory to the Ponystate

Thinking about Steve taking in the books, the bowls and mugs and dishcloths, the colorful snacks piled on top of the fridge, and seeing Bucky in all of it - and wanting to laugh and cry in relief, because this isn't the hiding place of a machine, or an assassin's headquarters. This is a home. Humble as it may be, this is a place someone has been living in and made theirs; and there's a warmth to it, in the little comforts it offers, in the modest everyday luxuries collected there, each of them well-worn and cared for.

This isn't the Winter Soldier's base: this is Bucky's home. And Steve wants to wrap himself in it, wants to curl up in that frameless bed and drink from those cups and sit at that table and run his fingertips along the spine of those books, and feel Bucky's presence in every inch of this space.

Thinking about Steve opening that journal and finding the Cap Retrospective brochure, and realizing that while he was in the hospital, after the helicarrier, Bucky was (so close, so much closer than Steve could have imagined) wandering in the museum, looking for answers and walking away with more questions.

Discovering that Bucky picked up this piece of paper with Steve's face on it, and took it with him to the other side of the world, and held on to it for two years. That whether it serves him as a comfort or as a means to torture himself, Bucky keeps it in his current journal, where he can look at it every day. That Steve has been on Bucky’s mind, and Bucky chose to keep a tangible memento of him, and he wanted it close at hand. And Steve's heart pounds in his chest, because Bucky remembers - enough to recognize Steve's face as familiar, enough to want it around where he can easily reach for it.

Thinking of Steve turning around and seeing Bucky again for the first time, and drinking him in (and good lord look up that scene, grab a gif idk something, because that once-over he gives Bucky, the way his eyes sweep over Bucky's body from head to toe, it's so obvious and it drives me insane)

and the last time Steve saw him, Bucky was thin and in pain and in shock and all clad in leather, all sharp angles and jagged edges, and an animal's instinct to hurt Steve before Steve could hurt him.

But now Bucky's standing here before him, wrapped in comfy clothes, his chest broader, his face fuller; all of him soft, softer than Steve has seen him since Bucky first shipped out to fight in a war he wanted no part of. And when Steve looks in his eyes, it's not the Soldier looking back: it's Bucky. His Bucky.

He's wary, and tired, and bracing himself for something neither of them dare say out loud, and he's the most beautiful thing Steve has seen in his entire life. He utters Steve's name, and Steve isn't in Bucharest anymore - he's in Brooklyn, he's sixteen, standing on his tiptoes, tasting Bucky's lips for the first time.

He wonders if Bucky feels the same way.

When your blacksmith buddy says “hey man do you want a bardiche?”, the answer is always yes!

I was gonna send this to one of you but actually Everyone needs to see it, whether you know anything about shakespeare or otherwise*

ppl say "this is what shakespeare would have wanted" a lot but this time it's actually true i busted out the ouija board

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