#celgan

Always clawing his way back to the top after an unceremonious fall from grace. And the media is all too happy to capitalize on it, to shove it down his throat and whisper in his ear and make him question himself at every single turn. With every routine. Every landing. Every flip. 

Is he ready? Or is being here a huge mistake?

“Is John Egan coming back too soon?”

“Comeback kid of the year: will he fly or will he fall?”

“Insider reports say John Egan’s time at the top is over.”

“Egan’s leg won’t tolerate another Olympic bid.”

“Is John Egan the GOAT or does he need to go home?”

It’s sick, really, the way they twist anything to fit their narrative. It makes him sick. Last year, his story was “inspirational.” He was the golden boy, the chosen one, the icon. They were rooting for him, even when they were waiting for him to stumble. And somehow, he managed to raise himself high and fuck it all up in one go and give every single one of them what they wanted.

A phoenix rising. And then a downfall. 

He set himself on fire, and they were all too happy to watch him burn.

So now what? Is it because he tore it all down at the end of the Games? Or is it because he’s been staying quiet ever since, working on himself and what’s best for him without giving them the satisfaction of cataloguing every choice he made? Or is it simply because they’re not talking about the Olympics anymore – they don’t need a Phoenix. They just need clicks.

Bucky tells himself that none of it matters. He’s worked damn hard, he’s looked after himself, he’s focused on who he wants to be not only as a gymnast but as a person, as a friend, as a partner. This weekend is nothing more than testing the waters and getting himself back into the grind of U.S.A. Gymnastics. It’s okay if he doesn’t go to Worlds, or if they sideline him from any other national team this year. He’s taking it slow. He doesn’t have expectations.

But it sure would be nice to prove the fuckers wrong.

It’s that exciting time of year once again – U.S. Gymnastics Championships. The best gymnasts from across the country are here in New Orleans, and despite everything, Bucky has found himself among them. 

It’s his first time back in elite competition since Paris, his first time back in such a large, brightly lit stadium with reporters standing on the sidelines and cameras hovering around every apparatus. Many of the gymnasts took time off after the Games, especially the older guys, the veterans like him and Curt, who graduated from college some time ago and don’t have the NCAA meets to keep them grinding. So it’s not just him, really. But at least everyone else had a choice. 

The last time John was under bright lights like this, the entire world watched him crumble to dust.

Somehow, though, it still feels like home. Energy is bouncing through the stadium as athletes chatter and stretch and hype themselves up for the first rotation, and he feels the thrill of it coursing through him, too. He’s always thrived on that energy, but today it clashes with anxiety in a messy bubble of fear and confidence that envelopes him whole until he doesn’t know what he’s feeling anymore. He never knew so many conflicting emotions could exist in one fraction of a moment. 

He’s John Egan. He is the top of U.S. gymnastics no matter what the media says. He thrives in competition. He was built for it, made for it, trained for it, everything about him carefully crafted for it. Perhaps dramatic, but also, perhaps, true. He loves this sport, and he’s always known that he’s great, as full of it as it might make him sound. 

But he’s also John Egan – he’s not as young as these other kids, gathered with their college teammates in competition garb splashed loudly in university logos. He’s had one should-have-been-career-ending injury, and another that should’ve been the nail in the coffin. Both happened in arenas just like this, on live television, under blinding lights with a camera zoomed right in on the pain twisting up his face.

He’s terrified to be here in the same breath that he knows he belongs here. He’s drowning in gratitude to be standing in this stadium at the same time that he feels like he’s cheated the system somehow.

But, in the end, he’s here. The whole arena is covered in blue – blue podiums, blue sponsor banners, blue mats, blue stadium seats – and people are filing into the audience to watch. The stage is set for U.S. Champs. Bucky felt good in podium training yesterday. He had to down some tylenol and beg Gale for a massage last night, but really, he felt solid. He was surprised by how at ease he was, and he hoped it would follow him into this evening. 

No such luck.

Now he’s on the floor stretching near the parallel bars, earbuds in and blasting his competition playlist. Beside him, Curt still has a jacket on over his competition shirt as he bounces from foot to foot, keeping his muscles warm ahead of the first rotation. He’ll be up on p-bars in t-minus 30 minutes. Meanwhile, Croz is using a foam roller on his calves in preparation for floor.

Curt and Croz are both competing in all-around, as usual, and Curt is the favorite to win the 2025 national title. Bucky, on the other hand, has committed to not throwing himself back into the shark pit too soon. He told his coach, his teammates, even Gale, “Don’t let me enter all-around. No matter what I do. No matter how much I beg. Do. Not. Let. Me.”

He needed that accountability. 

So, John Egan, U.S. gymnastics icon, is only entered in three events: pommel horse, p-bars, and still rings. At the tail end of his recovery, he can’t risk the strain that doing all six events would put on his knee. Floor and vault are too risky. And high bar… well, he hasn’t been too fond of that one since the first accident anyway. 

He isn’t up until the second rotation, when, of course, he’s scheduled to start on rings. Right where he left off in Paris, like the universe is trying to tell a conveniently crafted story.

Stretching forward in a straddle position, sliding his palms across the floor in front of him until he feels the burn in his hamstrings, he looks around at the apparatuses, mentally cataloguing where the crowds are gathered in the stands, where the camera crews are roaming, where the judges are seated. His eyes keep returning to the spring floor, even though it’s not on his agenda.

He would be lying straight through his teeth if he said he didn’t miss it, if he said he didn’t wish he was doing it today. 

What if he’d just said fuck it all and gone all in, rolled the dice just to see how far he could go? He imagines himself on that spring floor, tumbling through the air, landing every damn pass. He can see it. He can feel the buzz in his bones, he wants it so bad.

But then he remembers the crunching, crushing pain of landing wrong before his body was ready to handle it, and he feels his chest hollow out. 

He wonders, distantly, if he’s afraid of the pain. Or if he’s afraid of ending his career, upending his life, spiralling yet again. Is he afraid of what another failure will do to his body, or is he afraid of what it will do to his mind? 

With a knot in his stomach, he decides it’s both. Definitely both. 

It’s only been one year.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be pushing himself like this. He shouldn’t be risking his own well-being, his health, his future. He shouldn’t be risking 2028, not now, not yet, not so soon. What if he ruins everything he’s been working for? Sure, maybe he’s “taking it easy,” doing “what feels right for his body,” “not putting too much pressure on himself.” But should he really be here doing any of it? He played that game last summer, pushing the boundaries, foot on the gas. He tasted victory, even as it knocked him on his ass. 

If he screws it up again, he’s done. There’s only so many comebacks one guy can make.

He has half a mind to look around for his coach, to run to him saying this is all a huge mistake, that he needs to be scratched from the event right damn now, no matter the optics of it. He shouldn’t be here.

It’s too soon. It’s only been one year.

He’s startled out of his panic when the music playing through his earbuds gets cut off by his too-loud ring tone, causing him to flinch.

Still in a straddle position, he reaches behind him and pulls his phone out of the front pocket of his duffel. “You know I’m not supposed to answer this, right?” he says by way of greeting. But there is only one person he’s willing to break the rules for.

“I know,” Gale says. “But you look a little spooked.”

Oh good. If Gale can see it, then the cameras can, too. “Where are you?”

“Just a few rows up, by the rings.”

Bucky looks across the arena and finds a row of his best friends. Marge, Benny, and then there’s Gale. He feels the anxiety start to melt away, his shoulders falling, the tension loosening from his neck and jaw. “Hey, you.”

Gale waves shyly. “Hi.”

Bucky bites his lip, breathing in deeply through his nose. “I’m… I’m gonna be fine, right?” Everyone always thinks he’s so cocky, so sure of himself to a fault. They love it about him, and they hate it about him. If only they knew. Would they see him differently?

“You’re gonna be just fine, darlin’.” How can Gale sound so sure? “You’ve got a whole team behind you, and you wouldn’t be out there if a single one of us thought you weren’t ready.”

Bucky shrugs uncomfortably. “I guess.”

“Do you feel ready?”

Bucky swallows, and he pauses. He looks around the arena, full of that energy that he loves being a part of. He imagines the wind rushing past his ears as he flips through the air, the shock of his feet hitting the mat on a solid landing. He imagines screaming from the sidelines as Curt unveils his new vault. He can smell the chalk. He can hear the murmurings of a crowd that will be cheering for all of them soon enough. 

He breathes in deeply. “Yes.”

“Then you’re ready.”

Someone taps Bucky on the shoulder, and he turns to see Curt. “You’re gonna get in trouble,” he teases.

“Buck, I’ve been caught,” Bucky says, and even from here he can see Gale laugh.

Curt turns to see where Bucky is looking, and he waves emphatically. “Hi Buck!” he shouts, far too loudly, into the microphone on Bucky’s earbuds. Then he looks pointedly at Bucky. “Now hang up before someone who actually cares finds you.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Guess I gotta go.”

“You got this,” Gale says. “And, I love you.”

Bucky raises his hands into the air, making a heart shape, and then he blows a kiss. He knows there will be pictures of it circulating online, like always, but in this case, he couldn’t care less. He has a guy up there who loves him. “I love you, too.”

Curt pretends to gag as he snatches the phone out of Bucky’s hand and hangs up for him. “You make me sick.”

—

Their team starts off strong on the first rotation, and Bucky focuses on that. He’s here with his friends. He’s cheering them on. He tries to focus on the moments that make it fun, that remind him how much he loves being here. 

He screams his head off for Croz’s floor routine, hyping up his major passes. 

He watches Alex and Brady, competing under other teams, crush it on high bar and pommel. 

He helps Curt set the parallel bars to the proper height and chalk them up. And after Curt puts honey on his hands for grip, Bucky squirts some of it into each of their mouths for a sugar jolt, making them both laugh. 

As his first event looms, he strategizes with his coach as Croz rubs his biceps for him, helping him loosen the muscles.   

“You got this, Bucky,” Croz tells him before he heads over to the still rings. “Don’t forget you were built for this.”

Curt slaps him on the shoulder, wishing him luck as Bucky follows his coach across the gym. “Arms of the fucking gods, John,” he says, and Bucky must admit it made him laugh.

On the way over, seemingly every athlete he passes wishes him luck. Alex shoots him a thumbs up. Brady tells him he’s gonna kill it. Even guys he barely knows are calling his name, patting him on the back, telling him he’s got this.

Bucky feels like he’s not quite in his own body as he approaches the apparatus, but he’s distantly aware of a whole crowd cheering as the announcer says his name. They’re still rooting for him, after all. 

He thinks about Gale whispering, “find your line.”

Find your line. 

Find your line. 

He wonders if he can be strong enough for everyone watching him. He wonders if he can be strong enough for himself.

His eyes seek out Gale once again, and they lock on him. Gale waves, and Bucky waves back, and the way Gale mouths “je t’aime” reminds him to take a deep breath. No matter what happens tonight, Gale will be proud of him, and he’ll insist that Bucky should be proud of himself. If nothing else, he will always be strong enough for Gale.

But even as he chalks up his hands at the chalk box and adjusts his grips, Bucky doesn’t know how he feels about still rings being his first event today. It really is like he’s picking up exactly where he left off. Last time on ‘John Egan Has No Sense of Self Preservation,’ he thinks to himself as he rolls out his neck. They might as well play a recap of the last nationally competitive routine he did. Paris. Event finals. Still Rings. 

A perfect routine, followed by devastation. A hushed stadium. Curt screaming his name.

Everyone here knows. They all remember. And they all have the same exact question, the one that has haunted the headlines of his news feed all week.

This isn’t Paris, but he’s right back in the same exact spot. He needs it, desperately, not to end the same way. 

He checks the brace on his knee one last time, and then he stares up at the rings hanging above his head, 9 feet up, his heartbeat pounding in his chest. He salutes the judges, and he nods to his coach. “Let’s go.”

His coach grabs onto his waist and helps lift him up until his hands wrap around the smooth wooden rings. Bucky flexes his fingers out, then works to get a good grip before lowering down, and the world goes quiet. 

His coach lets go. He’s on his own. 

Regaining his strength after the MCL tear was no walk in the park. He did what he could to maintain his upper body, once he dragged himself out of the hole he dug for himself and started accepting help again. But the hardest part, if he’s being honest, remains learning to control the nerves that linger in the back of his mind, the voice that reminds him that last time he did this, he ended up in pain. Even when he thinks he isn’t afraid, a small part of him is. The brain is unfair like that.

He swings his legs up over his head, takes a deep breath, and he begins. He hits hold after hold, an iron cross, a maltese, a push up directly into a planche, every time counting drawn out seconds in his head. One one thousand. Two one thousand. 

He’s forgotten his nerves soon enough, throwing himself into swing elements and hand stands between the holds. His hands feel good on the rings. He feels strong, even as his muscles begin to ache. It’s familiar, and he digs into it. 

On TV, the commentators will be speculating about whether or not he’ll manage the skill everyone is waiting for. “The question is, after yet another injury, yet another recovery process, can John Egan pull off this hold that so few have done? He stunned with it in Paris, just before that second knee injury, but we don’t know if he’s planning to do it tonight.”

They’ll be reiterating how Bucky’s goal here isn’t to win, or even to place. They’ll emphasize how much time he spent away from the gym, how he’s been taking it easy, giving himself time to come back since it’s only 2025. Muscle loss happens faster than anyone ever expects, and a skill like the inverted maltese requires rarely seen strength and control. Does John Egan still have that kind of unparalleled strength after everything he’s been through? Has he had enough time, has he trained hard enough to pull it off?

But Bucky, chaotic and cocky as ever up here now that he’s gotten himself going on his best event, smiles to himself, mid-routine, because not a single person here knows what he’s capable of other than him and his teammates. They’re the only ones who know what goes on at his home gym, the only ones who know how hard he’s worked to come back in good form. The world can underestimate him, overestimate him, it doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. He’s the one up on these rings. 

Flipping himself up, he lands in an inverted cross, head facing the ground, toes pointed toward the ceiling, arms to the side. There’s a bit of a wobble in his legs that will knock his execution score down a peg, but he breathes, counting. One, two. 

“We’re watching for that inverted maltese.”

He lets himself drop, swinging himself back up with all the momentum he has. He stops once again in a perfectly immobile cross, his lead-up to what everyone is waiting for. One. Two.

“Come on, Bucky!” Curt shouts, alongside Croz’s “Get it done!” The sounds of family breaking through the barrier he’s put up. 

Find your line.

“Is he going for it?”

The quiet returns, like he’s underwater, far away from everything around him once again as his mind re-focuses on his body and nothing else. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, his breath rushing through him. His shoulders are aching. His legs are sore from keeping himself so still and in control. It’s only the first event, and he’s worried he might wipe himself out on it.

But he tilts himself back, slowly, slowly.

“Yes! He’s going for it!”

He finds himself parallel to the ground, facing the bright lights above with his legs straight out in front of him, like he’s laying on a bed. Except, the bed isn’t there; it’s just him. His arms are out to the side, near perfectly level with the rest of him, the only things keeping him in the air. He exhales all of the breath out of his body, thinking flat and still. His core fights to keep steady as he holds his breath. His grips are digging into his hands, hot from the friction. Everything burns, his whole body begging to let go.

One.

Two.

He’ll prove the fuckers wrong one routine at a time, and he’ll do it with a goddamn smile on his face.

After two excruciating seconds, he lets himself drop out of the hold, gasping in a breath with overwhelming relief. His arms feel dead, his whole body a little like Jell-O, but somehow, he keeps going. One last swing element. One last handstand. He has to fight a bit to get his legs straight up because fuck yes he’s exhausted, and honestly it doesn’t matter who knows it as long as he gets this done.

Nothing left but the dismount, the moment where it all went wrong before. He and his coach debated going easy, lowering the difficulty score for the sake of his leg. Rings are the only event he’s doing with a hard landing, since he omitted floor, high bar, and vault from his rotation. But for just this one, with the okay from his doctors, his physical therapists, and finally, his coach, he’s decided to send it, because he’s not going through all the trouble to do a fucking inverted maltese only to lose out due to a low-difficulty dismount.

So he swings himself up and around, building momentum, and then he’s flying into the air for a layout double double. Body straight, arms tucked against his chest, two full flips and two full twists and bam! His feet are on the ground, hardly even a hop.

Sound rushes back into his ears once again as he salutes the judges, and then he has nothing left to do but drop to his knees, sucking air into his lungs.

There’s no pain. None at all, other than the soreness of a hard routine, and he could cry for it. He pumps his fist in the air while his teammates go absolutely crazy on the sidelines. The crowd is on their feet for him, and it floods him with something he almost thinks is pride. Among it all, he seeks out Gale. He’s right there, so close Bucky could almost reach out and touch him, and he’s smiling so wide that Bucky knows, for once, he’s done everything right. 

He’s going to be okay.

When he finally makes his way off the rings podium, his teammates jump all over him like he’s won gold, even though it’s only his first event on day one.

“Let’s fucking GO!” Curt is yelling. “You crazy, wild man, you fucking did that!”

Bucky kind of feels like he could throw up, but his face almost hurts from how wide he’s grinning. It’s only as the huddle dissipates that he realizes that his biceps are cramping up so bad that he can’t even get the grips off his hands. “Fuck,” he mutters, as the dull pain shoots through his battered muscles when he tries to reach for the buckle on his wrist. 

“Here, man,” Curt says, grabbing one of his hands. He carefully pulls the grip over his fingers and undoes the wrist strap. 

“I can’t move my arms,” Bucky laughs. “Jesus Christ."

Curt chuckles. “That was some crazy work.”

“Sacrifices were made, I guess.” Bucky winces as he tries to flex his arm again, somewhere between holy shit that hurts and laughing at the absurdity of this visual that a camera man is very pointedly capturing for TV. Curt smacks him gently to get him to stop, and Bucky tries to relax his arm as Curt holds it up, but the muscles just will not let go. 

“You’ll be alright.” Curt grins as he tosses both grips to Croz, who stows them with Bucky’s bag, and starts working on the wraps. “Remember when my leg cramped up so bad at the end of my floor routine I couldn’t get off the floor?”

Bucky laughs, glad for the distraction. “I had to carry you off,” he remembers. It was at U.S. Champs in 2022. Curt could barely walk after his last pass, and Bucky ran up and fully lifted him off the floor. Only that time, Curt was competing in all-around, so they didn’t have the luxury of a break. He remembers frantically trying to get the tension out of Curt’s quad, having to help him put on the competition pants since he had pommel next. “I do believe you won floor that year.”

Curt glances up at him as he gathers the wraps in his hands. “No pain no gain,” he jokes, even though they both are old enough now to know it’s a terrible motto. Turns out they’re just idiots who don’t stretch or hydrate enough from time to time. Bucky wonders if all the stretching in the world could prepare him for that fucking routine, the hardest in the world right now. 

With his hands free, he collapses into one of the chairs along the wall. One of their team trainers kneels in front of him, setting to work rubbing the tension out of Bucky’s arms. “Feelin’ okay otherwise?” he asks. 

Bucky nods. “Yeah, thanks.” And how incredible is it that he’s not even lying!

Curt hands him his water bottle, and Bucky takes it gratefully as he begins to regain control of his muscles. He takes a drink before squirting it over his face, letting the cold water drip down over his hot cheeks and forehead. Then he hands it back and accepts the gatorade Curt offers.

“Thank you.” He takes a gulping sip and sighs. “Fuck.” 

“I’m up next,” Curt tells him, tilting his head toward the high bar. “You’ve got some time. Get those muscles workin’, yeah?”

Bucky nods and takes another sip of gatorade. At the very least, he’s not scheduled for pommel for another two rotations, followed by p-bars. “Go kill it, man,” he says. “I’ll be rooting for you… just, from here.”

With Curt bouncing off to his next event and the trainer still working on his arm, Bucky lets himself relax. He pulls his phone out of his bag again, and he smiles when he sees a text from Gale. “You did it, babe. I’m so proud of you.”

“We are so back,” he texts back.

“Only two more apparatuses to go.”

“And a whole second day.” God, Bucky wonders if he can pull off that ring routine a second time two days from now, or if he’ll have to scrap the inverted maltese. Selfishly, he likes the idea of having the hardest routine in the world. 

“We’ll deal with that later.”

Bucky looks at the stands again, locking onto Gale like a homing beacon. He finds Gale looking back at him, and it centers him.

He’s right. One step at a time.

—

By the end of the day Saturday, Bucky is reminded about the new depths of sore he can reach in competition, but it doesn’t matter. Unlike Thursday, he ends on rings, with just enough gas left in the tank to pull out the routine in its entirety, inverted maltese and all. Curt, no doubt, is winning all-around here in NOLA, and Croz has a chance at third depending on this last rotation. Bucky even already secured a medal in p-bars. 

Now he waits for his ring score.

“So John,” an interviewer says, standing beside him with a microphone as he unstraps the brace from his leg a few minutes after rings. “How does it feel to be back after everything that happened in Paris?”

“It’s great,” Bucky says, smiling for the camera through his exhaustion. “I’m lucky to be here, and not a day goes by that I don’t remember that.”

“You’ve said before that you’re coming back more slowly this time. What was being here at championships about for you?”

Bucky reaches out to the side and gives Croz a fist bump as he walks toward the pommel horse for his last event. “Well,” he says. “I think it was about getting my head back in the game? I felt ready to take on a few events, and I just felt like I needed to be here. Testing the waters, seeing how it felt.”

“And how did it feel?”

Bucky laughs, brushing his sweaty hair back out of his face. “It felt great!”

“Now I have to know.” The interviewer smiles, and Bucky braces for the inevitable question about his Olympic plans. That’s what everyone wants to know, after all. But, strangely, it doesn’t come. “That inverted maltese cross… wow! You are the only person competing that skill in the world right now. How does that feel?”

Another laugh bursts out of him. “It hurts!” he tells her honestly, rubbing his sore shoulder as if to prove the point. “But I mean, yeah, it’s crazy. I’ve always dreamt of being able to pull that off, and I love doing it. It’s really fun to show it off.”

He goes on answering a few more questions as he hydrates and cools himself down, and just as the interviewer thanks him for his time, his final score comes in. 

His heart slams hard in his chest, and he turns abruptly toward Curt. “I can’t look,” he tells him, eyes wide. He doesn’t know why. He’s never in his life had this reaction before, but the idea of seeing his score makes him feel nauseous. He did it, he survived, he pulled through, his leg is still in one piece. That’s all that matters. At least, he wishes that was all that mattered.

He stares at Curt, shaking his head. “You’re gonna have to look for me.”

But Curt is grinning at him. His hands are on his shoulders, shaking him as he says “Holy shit, man. Holy shit!”

“What?” Bucky asks nervously, closing his eyes. “What is it?”

“15.56.”

Bucky’s eyes shoot open so fast it makes his head spin, and his breath catches in his chest, because what the actual fuck. What the actual fuck. “What the fuck,” he breathes.

“15.56!” Curt shouts, dragging Bucky into a rough hug. 

That’s the highest he’s ever scored on rings. That puts him in first for the event by a long shot. 

Bucky blinks, standing in the middle of the competition floor with people clapping him on the shoulder, congratulating him, but before he knows what he’s doing, he’s running to the stands. He’s running to Gale.

Cameras be damned, he stands up on his toes and reaches for his boyfriend, who looks as ecstatic as he feels. Grabbing his hand, Bucky does what he’s been wanting to do all weekend and pulls him right up to the barrier for a rough kiss. Gale’s hand shoots up to the side of his face in surprise, but then he gives into it, and Bucky leans into that touch like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded. 

“I told you you were ready,” Gale tells him as he pulls away.

Bucky grins, squeezing his hand. “I couldn’t do it without you,” he says breathlessly. He hopes the cameras hear it. He hopes everyone hears it. “I love you. I love you.”

The media can say whatever the fuck they want about John Egan. About his career. About his sexuality. His relationship. His personality. His past. His future. He’s here. He’s here, with his teammates, with his boyfriend, with everyone who matters rooting for him, and he is working his way to the strongest version of himself.

They thought he was done. But he can feel it; no one is prepared for the athlete he’s about to become. He’s the fucking comeback kid.

---

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