I wrote my very first story on Ao3 and Iām sharing it here with the request that you please please please be nice if youāre going to say something because Iām about 90% nerves right now.
Just Being
12,296 words. Tags: Intrusive thoughts, Awesome Sarah Rogers, Steve Rogersā Nervous Troubles, Protective Bucky Barnes, Hurt Bucky Barnes, 1930s, internalized homophobia, coming out, boys in love.
Summary: Sixteen year old Steve isnāt expecting to find Bucky in the kitchen one night, battered and bruised and being cleaned up by his Ma when sheās supposed to be at work. His mind spins with panic and he wishes he could understand why the world can be so cruel. The boys talk and Steve realizes his worst fear might actually be something he doesnāt need to fear at all.
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1200ish words. Steve x Bucky. After the walk from Azzano. Sweet and happy.
āāāāāāāāāāā-
āI got somethinā on my face?ā Bucky jokes when he notices Steve glancing over at him for the fourth time in about 30 seconds.
He stifles a laugh at how Steveās eyes snap away, back to the pile papers in front of him.
Theyāre finally back at base after two straight days of walking and the camp - full of 400 newly freed soldiers - is loud outside their tent.
They hadnāt been able to get a second alone since the march back to base had started but Steve had been stealing looks like this the whole time.
Bucky smirks. He likes when Steve watches him.
Itās not flirtatious the way someone might think. Instead, Steveās gaze has always been more akin to someone appreciating art at a museum.
Reverent.
In a lovable, ridiculous sort of way.
Steve sometimes sits with his sketch pad while Buckyās doing something stupidly mundane like washing dishes in their kitchen and then suddenly the man is beside him to say something all artist-like about how much he loves Buckyās back freckles or his pronunciation of a particular word in a song or some other completely sappy adorable thing that no one else could possibly see cute about Bucky.
Bucky loves it about him.
They donāt act like a couple in public lest someone get the wrong idea (or the right one) but Steve isnāt exactly shy when theyāre alone.
Which is sort of whatās odd about right now, Bucky realizes. Despite two full days of Steveās not-so-subtle stolen looks, he hasnāt said so much as a word about what he sees.
It would make Bucky nervous - considering what Steve looks like with his new fancy science experiment serum verses the fact that Buckyās spent the last week strapped to a Naziās table - but he knew Steve was still a sap when Bucky had tripped over a tree root during the walk back and Steve had squawked almost loud enough to give away their position.
The looks coming from Steve are slightly different than usual and Buckyās not sure what that difference is yet but he tugs his boot off and smirks again when he sees Steveās head tilt at the motion out of the corner of his eye.
Heās got something on his mind and if two whole days of Italian forest wasnāt enough opportunity for Steve to say it out loud he was going to need a push.
Bucky chuckles and tosses his other boot in Steveās direction. āQuit starinā at me like Iām growing antlers. You can make a guy self conscious with all that starinā you know.ā
He turns back around and listens. It only takes another thirty seconds for the papers to get shuffled to the side and for Steve to appear next to him, weight shifting on the cot.
There ya go darling.
āSorry Buck,ā Steve says, his shoulder pressed against Buckyās own. āDidnāt mean to make ya feel weird or nothinā.ā He stares at his hands in his lap and Bucky sees something Steve doesnāt often allow people to see.
Heās embarrassed.
āSteve -ā he starts at the same time Steve says āBucky -ā and they both chuckle again.
Bucky bumps his shoulder to say āgo aheadā then reaches for Steveās hand, squeezing it once and pulling it close.
āSo, uh, did you know the serum made it so Iām not colorblind anymore,ā Steve asks softly. āAnā my hearinās right again tooā¦ā
Bucky lets him trail off for a few seconds before nudging him again.
āI canā¦ā Steveās voice cracks and he twists in his seat on the cot to face Bucky more fully. āI can see you.ā
Bucky watches as Steveās eyes roam over his face and tears appear in the corners of his eyes.
āYour eyes are blue.ā Steve whispers in awe.
He grabs for Buckyās free hand so heās squeezing them both tightly between them.
āAnd I knew that, I did, but they - they werenāt the same kinda blue before. And your face wasnāt the same pink. And your voice - Buck I can hear your voice clear across a room now.ā
Buckyās heart does a cartwheel. He knew the serum did a lot - one look was enough to prove that - but he didnāt connect that Steve had been experiencing the world in stereo technicolor for the first time.
Of course Steve wanted to stare. How heād managed to walk back from Azzano without a pencil set must have been driving him crazy.
Steveās voice is getting watery and Bucky knows his would be too if he spoke at all right now. He blinks away fresh wetness and lets Steve continue to stare at his face like itās the Mona Lisa.
āYou sound the same on this ear,ā Steve says gesturing with his shoulder to his good one, hands still between them. āBut I can hear ya outta this one too now.ā
Buckyās smile deepens and his soul dances in his chest. Tears are leaking down his face with joy, full and tender.
āI - I feel like Iām really here,ā Steve continues. ā ācause youāre alive and safe and perfect Buck. And I can see every little thing about you and hear it all and Iām so lucky because youāre the same but thereās also more to everything about you and I just want to stare at you like a toy in a shop window until Iāve memorized every new wonderful thing I couldnāt know before.ā
Bucky brings Steveās palms up to rest on either side of his face and then holds them in place with his own. If this is what Steve needs heāll give it a hundred times over. Itās sweet in a way that makes him feel weightless.
āWhether the serum lasts forever or disappears Buck I donāt care,ā Steve says gently. ā ācause I got to have this now and Iāll remember it forever. I coulda lost you. But youāre here. And Iām here.ā
Bucky watches how Steve eyes are zeroing in on his hair, his mouth, his eyes. Over and over in such a beautifully innocent way that even poets would struggle for the words to capture it.
But Bucky doesnāt need a poet here. He leans forward and presses his lips to Steveās forehead.
The angle is new, but the gesture isnāt.
He leans away again and letās Steve resume his staring. Heās never felt so adored in his life.
God, he loves this man. Let it be known, Bucky Barnes is far gone on Steve Rogers.
He kisses him again.
āI love you so much Steve,ā he says and he watches the way Steveās face glows at hearing the words through both ears at the same time for the first time in his life. āI love you so much and Iāll say it again and again until you can remember how it sounds - even if the serum wears off tomorrow. I love you Steve Rogers. ātil the end of the line I love you.ā
Steve bubbles over with emotion and pulls Bucky against his newly-large chest with a fierceness that existed long before Erksineās serum.
āātil the end of the line Bucky, I love you.ā
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After the Chitari invasion Steve thinks heād feel more like himself. He is a soldier after all, his body is literally built for war. He passes out from exhaustion the first night and sleeps all the way through to the second when he startles awake in the darkness.
The dream that woke him was fueled by the remnants of the adrenaline crash and the soreness in his muscles. Heād dreamed was that heād woken up in a different time. Again. In the murky pieces he remembers heād stumbled around New York in yet another future, meeting not Howardās son but his grandson, working not with the SSR or SHIELD but a new agency altogether. Heād woken up tangled in his blanket, pressed into the corner of the apartment with his hands over his ears like he used to do when he was a kid.
Itās horrible.
The next night he forces himself to lie still on the carpet until he falls asleep. Heās sure the nightmare wonāt come again.
But it does.
Itās not murky this time. His brain isnāt addled by tiredness and the warped reality explodes into detail behind his eyelids with such excruciating realness that he wakes up sobbing. Heād broken out of the nightmare while his dream-self watched workers tear down the Brooklyn Bridge. āItās a relic,ā one sneered when Steve had asked why. āThings like that just get in the way.ā
He tries to put off sleeping after that. The serum lets him go for a long time, and itās not like he has any place to be. Short of another alien invasion no one cares about what he does or where he goes.
He stays awake for 8 days. Did you know that if you donāt sleep for long enough you can start to hallucinate? He didnāt. But one minute heās alone in his apartment and then next he sees Hydra goons in their WWII gas masks trying to hide in his peripheral vision. His shield destroys his living room furniture before he even realizes itās all in his head.
On the ninth day he pulls the blanket around him and tries again, sitting up, wedged in the corner of the apartmentās brick walls. He takes deep breathes and wills his brain to please please let him sleep without images of yet another future where New York and the rest of the world has left him behind.
By the end of the third month he packs up his bike and his books and moves to DC.
750+ words. Hurt Steve Rogers. Days after the ice.
Steve had gotten used to the sound of the woods during the war. At first it had been unnerving, the quiet. Brooklyn was never quiet. Men and women were up at all hours to work the overnight factory shifts, babiesā cries pierced the tenement walls, shopkeepers and immigrants haggled over prices. No, the woods werenāt like that at all.
But heād gotten used to the sounds of nature in the quiet times between fighting.
The soft creaking of tree branches as the Commandos played cards. The bird songs waking the men as the sun rose. The shhhhhhhh of water in small creeksā¦ It had a certain beauty to it.
Maybe it was his new hearing that made it better. Coupled with getting to see the world in technicolor, the sounds of nature practically made him feel like he was in a different dimension.
Which makes now even more ridiculous.
Staring up at the cabinās ceiling his ears seek out sound - any sound - that could offer some sense of familiarity.
But if the future is a new dimension, it seems to have left familiar comforts behind.
The soundproofed, SHEILD-approved, all-threats-neutralized cabin blocks out the whispers of nature.
No breezes, no birds, no brooks.
And there are no people out here either, on this weird monitored preserve in the middle of nowhere. What he wouldnāt give to hear people talking or laughing - that background hum of existence.
Because there isnāt silence either. The future does not grant silence. But it doesnāt hum either. Humming is natural. Itās people talking just far enough away that you canāt make out the words. Itās cart owners haggling in 1934 and squirrels tussling in Italian trees in 1945.
No, the future doesnāt hum. It buzzes. The icebox - refrigerator - has a grinding sort of buzz. The television, with its mess of cables and accessories has a low, electronic buzz. It doesnāt stop. No matter how much he tries to sing to himself or read out loud - nothing drowns it out.
He decides the walls are the worst. When heād asked about it theyād assured him that what he was hearing was the wiring, energy accessible in every room via switches and outlets. Heās not sure he believes them, but thereās no way for him to know, really, no way to test that the cabin isnāt fitted with some weird tracking system or cameras he doesnāt yet know how to identify. He doesnāt trust them, but thereās no alternative here, alone in the future. Because they may not being lying. This is his country, these are his new commanding officers. Thereās no reason for them to lie. Maybe walls in the future do buzz and the serum just lets him hear what normal people block out.
He just has try harder. Adjust, like they said.
He tells himself to ignore the way the buzzing feels like it climbs his spine, settles in his teeth. He can do this, he has to. Heāll get used to it.
He didnāt sleep the first night at the cabin. Or the second. Heād tried to nap during the third day, just to get some rest, but itās not like the buzzing is any quieter during the day. It makes him feel paranoid.
It puts him on edge.
He starts noticing other things. Like the little lights.
He stares at the router for over an hour trying to figure out if the blinking light is Morse Code. He feels so stupid after. There was no pattern, no message or emergency. Itās just a blinking light.
He moves a dresser in front of it so he doesnāt have to see.
Why are there lights on everything in the future? Glaring reds, cold bluish whites, stealing the darkness from the night.
A light to show the television is off, how cruel. A light to prove the smoke detector is still on the ceiling.
He tries unplugging everything. Switching things off and gently disabling any machine he can figure out.
He can feel himself getting desperate.
On the fourth night he pulls the blankets off the bed and wraps them around himself, head buried under a pillow, crouched in a closet. That doesnāt help much either.
He shuffles under his cocoon of fabric and tries not to cry.
Why is the future like this? With the buzzing and the flashing and the inability to have even just a moment of peace.
I donāt think we talk enough about how Steve left New York following the battle of NY in 2012. He came out of the ice and tried to go home. But by Winter Soldier four years later heās in DC in a half unpacked apartment, visiting Peggy as her body fails her and seeking comfort in the exhibit at the Smithsonian.
I keep coming back to the fact that Steve tried to live in New York when he came out of the ice. He rode the subway again. He (sort of) joined a gym. But he couldnāt connect with this place where he once lived. And whether you read it as moving on or giving up or both, Steve decides New York isnāt his home for right now. And he leaves.
