#fae steve

Finally, nearing midnight, Steve predictably starts to shiver and Bucky knows it’s only a matter of time until he abandons his dramatic huffing and comes to join Bucky on the sofa. Bucky makes sure there are several blankets draped over his usual throw in anticipation because, if there’s one constant in Bucky’s life at this point, it’s that Steve is always freezing.

Bucky just has to wait him out like he’s been doing for the past six hours.

Prior to this afternoon, Bucky hadn’t seen Steve in weeks which was unusual but not necessarily worrying. After all, he had returned home with a particularly nasty chill so Bucky had expected him to stay away longer. However, when Bucky had gotten back from an endless day of meetings at the compound and returned to find Steve pacing the living room and muttering furiously under his breath in Gaelic, Bucky had grown somewhat concerned.

Now, having exhausted all attempts to get Steve to talk, Bucky has resolved to let Steve come around on his own. All the same, Bucky is starting to fear for the spot on his wall where Steve has been glaring daggers all evening in furious silence. 

Steve’s shivering awakens a protective beast in Bucky’s chest but he steadfastly ignores it. He’s never seen Steve this worked up before but something tells him that his usual fussy boyfriend approach isn’t going to cut it. 

So he waits. 

And he waits. 

Until, finally, Steve stands without a word and settles himself on the couch next to Bucky, instantly curling his thin body into the space at Bucky’s side. Bucky tugs the blankets down from the back of the couch, pulling them tight around Steve’s body in the way he knows Steve likes. As usual, Steve tucks the end of the biggest blanket under his toes where they’re nestled next to Bucky’s knee and presses his face into Bucky’s neck.

“Hi there,” Bucky teases, rubbing his cheek fondly against Steve’s golden hair.

Steve merely grunts in response and Bucky has to bite back a laugh.

“What’s up?” He asks.

“The sky,” Steve grumbles back and, this time, Bucky really does laugh. Steve lifts his head to glare at him but it’s half-hearted and somewhat weary.

“I guess I walked into that, huh?” Bucky says with a grin. “Come on, Stevie. It’s me. What’s wrong?”

Steve is apparently in no mood to talk about it because he shoves his face back into Bucky’s neck and says, “Opposite of right.”

Bucky sighs. “Okay, well, when you’re ready to tell me, let me know.”

So much of Bucky wants to ask again, wants to coax it out of him until he knows everything. But that’s not how Steve and Bucky work. Steve doesn’t trick Bucky into eating food in faerieland and Bucky doesn’t force Steve into corners he can’t talk his way out of. It’s a strange system but it works. So, despite Bucky’s desperate desire to destroy whatever is making Steve so upset, he holds his tongue and let’s his boyfriend fume in silence until he’s ready.

Steve is ready when Bucky has read three chapters of The Night Circus on his kindle app and he signals this by quite suddenly removing his face from Bucky’s neck, face twisted into a frown.

“I’ve told you about the war before,” he says. It’s not a question, so Bucky doesn’t say anything. “It’s been raging for ten seasons now with no end in sight. It’s only getting worse. My queen is gathering an army but...they won’t take me.”

For a moment, Bucky isn’t sure he’s heard Steve correctly. “But you said the war was oceans away.”

Steve nods. “It was.”

Was. Bucky’s heartbeat picks up.

“There was an attack and a knight of the court was killed,” Steve continues and Bucky tries to recall everything Steve had told him about how the fae courts worked. He knows that knights are high ranking, usually incredibly gifted in combat magic. He thinks he remembers Steve telling him that they were handpicked by the queen herself. Steve goes on, “She was killed on fae soil which shouldn’t even be possible. There are enchantments which should have protected her. She should have been safe.”

Bucky remembers Steve telling him that he had a friend in the court and he hopes desperately that Steve hasn’t just lost her but he doesn’t know how to ask, not when Steve looks so furious and devastated all at once. And then, as Steve tells him about how the enchantments work, Bucky’s mind wanders back to what Steve has said before and he practically feels the blood drain out of his face.

“Wait,” he says, interrupting Steve in the middle of a very long word which Bucky doesn’t even want to think about trying to spell. “What do you mean they wouldn’t take you?”

The fear in Bucky’s voice apparently registers with Steve as incredulity because he throws his hands up in the air, dislodging the blankets and exposing his delicate shoulders. 

“Exactly!” Steve gripes with a roll of his eyes. “We’ve been attacked on our own soil! I know I’m not exactly experienced in combat but-”

“No,” Bucky breathes, feeling horribly lightheaded. “No, you- you can’t.”

The force of Steve’s glare almost makes Bucky want to shy away but he doesn’t get a chance because Steve is on his feet again, hands clenched into fists but whether in anger or to stem his shivers Bucky isn’t sure. There are spots of scarlet high on his cheeks and over the tips of his ears but Bucky knows he isn’t sick. No, this is something else. This is geuine fury. 

“I can,” Steve spits, voice colder than Bucky has ever heard it. “I can and I will. Just you watch me.”

Bucky can hardly breathe. “No, Steve,” he says desperately, jumping up after him and Steve begins storming down the hall towards the front door. “Please wait!”

Steve whirls around, all sharp corners and angles, and Bucky can feel his magic pulsing in the space between them like static. It feels angry and violent - but there’s something else, something more vulnerable and it forces Bucky so off balance that he has to take a step back. There’s betrayal, sadness. Pain. 

Bucky forces the panic back down into his stomach. Steve is in pain and nothing else matters.

“Stevie, please,” he whispers. “Please, don’t go. I didn’t mean it like that.”

From where he’s standing by the living room door, Bucky sees Steve take several deep breaths and feels some of the power in the air begin to settle.

“What did you mean?” Steve asks.

He sounds frighteningly calm, and Bucky recognises the moment for what it is: a turning point. He has to get these words right or this might be the last time he ever sees Steve. Bucky can’t bear the thought of it, having his last image of Steve - and Steve’s last image of him - be this. 

“I didn’t mean that you couldn’t fight. I know you could if you put your mind to it,” Bucky says carefully. “I meant to say that I’m scared.”

Now that forces a noticeable shift not only in Steve’s leaking magic but also in his body. His entire being seems to shrink as the anger dissipates, and Bucky is left feeling the echo of Steve’s unbearable sadness. He wants to cry.

“Stevie, I- I’ve been to war and everyday I wish I hadn’t,” he says, swallowing around the tears threatening to spill out. “It was awful. Even after everything Hydra did to me, some of my worst memories are still from that war. I saw my friends die. I was captured, experiemented on, and rescued only to be thrown back into the middle of a fucking massacre.”

Limbs shaking, Bucky approaches Steve slowly but without wavering, the desire to hold him so strong it makes his fingertips itch. 

“I’m scared, Steve, because I don’t think I could stand it if you turned out like me.”

In movies, Bucky thinks, this would be the moment where they fall into each other’s arms and cry until they can’t anymore. But movies are about humans; they don’t account for the mindset of an impossibly stubborn fae boy who feels like he has something to prove. Steve’s composure is wavering but it’s still there, held together by fraying silver threads. 

“I have to,” Steve says, refusing to meet Bucky’s eye. “My friends are laying down their lives for this fight. I got no right to do any less than them.”

Bucky understands. Hadn’t he felt the same way when he’d enlisted?