#shieldsthem

he's one drop in the river. one pulse beat in the artery. quick, painful, but unyielding. until he isn't. until falling cracks the ice and what surges up from the rupture is shockingly hot. an inferno he may afford a grand berth, but doesn't avoid entirely. can't. it rings in his ears and deafens the world. jumbles a frequency of objectives into a rash decision what's landed him here. sharp eyes through crooked slats in a safehouse's upper floor window. a survey of the road beneath, devoid of activity, though the city beyond its wire-strung skyline is a'buzz with sirens and an armada's influx. racket enough to dull the air with it's ring, maybe, but miles away. searching the water for a body. or two.

they wouldn't find any.

hydraulics hum when the blinds are abandoned, and there, across the toppled insides of a decade's untouched room, still laying in the puddle that'd leaked from his body, is a failed mission. a relic he's slowly realizing the worth of, perhaps, but not one he's quick to broach that subject for. not when his weary body moves a sluggish line, back behind a half-crumpled kitchen countertop. somewhere for his boots to shuffle. an about-face and he's peering, again, into a setting sunlight that reminds him he's been in the field, now, long enough to've seen that twice. long enough to feel the pit in his stomach shrinking in around itself.

pacing might've had longer life were he not tuned in on the quiet creak of soggy floorboards and how they whined beneath the waking shift of unknowing weight. where the pungent stink of blood permeates outside of his own, still rust-crusted, in the plates of his fingers. in the length of his hair, bobbed into his vision. what half-obscures a body more red than white or blue. blond hair stained.

blond hair, a wide smile around the lip of a glass that smells sweet of strawberries and whipped cream. music in the background, he doesn't recognize the tune. at peripherals he knows people are moving, but his attention is on blue eyes. blond hair, a wide smile..

hot breath on his neck, he doesn't have to look to see who it belongs to. there's a nose nudged up behind his ear.. a strong arm insistent where it sinches his waist. steve's always slept like this. size hadn't mattered, spindly muscles or what presses hard and firm against his back, he functioned like a furnace. warmth that doesn't burn out. if anything, it flared with new life, sun peeked through the curtains.

" you gonna stop me if i try an' move ? " yes. it was always yes. an unspoken promise when he squeezes tighter. puffs a huff against the fine hairs of bucky's nape. he's the one with a schedule. places to be, people to impress. if steve's day was cleared for this, who was he to argue ?

he watches him when he's like this. roaming through the intestines of his home. james watches from where he's idled in the living room, eyes sharp and his breathing steady. steve moves from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway closet and never once pauses long enough to say he'd stood still. it's reminiscent a time when the frame followed was slighter and the echo of a cough bound off choking walls the further he pushed himself. a foggy memory, but a memory. nothing so glamorous he ought have written it down, but bucky did. many times. until he'd dog-eared a section in a nearly filled notebook for each occasion it'd popped up.

the knowing why was second-hand. a happenstance he didn't need, at first. because it didn't matter why steve did it. if his arms were full or his gait broad. he'd watched for the sake of memorizing the width of his shoulders. how he preferred his slacks to jeans. always wore a belt, even when it wasn't needed. and, sometimes, he'd been stripped of it all, mostly. down to briefs he'd seen a million times over and a million more before that.

so why was today different ?

palm was itching, bitten nails scratching skin that didn't appreciate the effort any more than his tilted head made his neck appreciate the crack it made. all the sudden the room was too small. his boots were too tight. a ringing in his ears had been going on for hours and bucky, for all his struggle to ignore it, kept testing a jaw that couldn't force it out. something was wrong.

the apartment was too big. the distance, too far. no comfortable recliner could undo what was seated in his bones, then. nor how he forced himself upright because of it. shook free from the grip of a blanket he hadn't grabbed on his own, padded steps near silent, save for wood creaking in betrayal under his weight. it didn't stop how steve was focused, however. nothing could rein him in when he was like this. determination the knit of his brows. treating chores like a war plan.

" steve ? " quiet and hoarse, he's not certain he'd wanted to be heard. even in the presence of years, his tongue feels wrong when speaking. like the language he'd been born with didn't belong in his mouth and it would be better pressed towards his molars. " steve. "

plain, white, nothing special, the hem of his tee-shirt is snagged. caught in the vice of steel fingers that twist the fabric tight. again and he's reeling. refusing that march the forward momentum it sought.

" stop. " acting like this was normal. acting like he'd not been gone for weeks, showed up at a door he'd had the key to for nearly a year, and knocked. like there wasn't blood in his nail beds and knots in his hair. stop acting like this was simple. mundane. domestic. james was anything but that, these days. proof ; dark flecks in pale eyes that fractured and grew, pupils shuffling out the blue in exchange for what's pitch and bottomless. he feels like he's sinking.

maybe he is.

it's the only explanation he can claw out of the rubble once his step inward has been taken, the space between them covered, and the clip of teeth against teeth finally silences his thoughts. not a kiss, not really. his mouth moves with an old hunger. staring through the fog of perceived romance, he seeks a response he realizes all too soon, he doesn't care to find. greediness.. to take and take and take — no pawing scientists or soldiers at his back to pull him off. there's no name for what stirs in his chest, but the ache is real and it pushes him, again, inward. forces the pair of them into a wall that shudders on impact. he wants to tear clothes. tear flesh. he wants to feel warmer than he does and, when the pause comes, finally, to gauge the situation, bucky's not so surprised to find the fisted material gone tattered in his grip.

" <перестань уходить от меня.> "

it's on the fourth pass that those tentative fingers stall. a thumb catches below his bottom lip, their attention a purposeful drag that thinks to bare teeth only briefly.

" how did you get this scar ? "

bucky's tongue flicks.. it seeks in the direction acknowledged but stops short when the memory meets the surface. steve wouldn't want to know that. even in his asking, there's a hesitation that whispers of some far off idea that it could somehow be fixed. righted. that under the proper care, his skin would forget the butt of a rifle that'd knocked loose three teeth and kept him swallowing blood for an hour. steve doesn't want to know, but he asked.

two weeks. maybe three. but he doesn't tell him that. steve asks the question and bucky's attention stays where his hands work, busied with the disassembly of a gun he'd been told he didn't need. allowed to keep it for the sake of warding off his pacing. so there'd be less knives stashed around the apartment. because the promise that no one would get through that door without steve knowing about it had only worked until the wrong person knocked at the wrong time.

he knows why he's asking him that. three trips through the kitchen, each time with a new chore that had nothing to do with rest or food, and it'd only ever been a matter of time before he pulled his attention. felt the cut of his stare when it'd started several minutes ago. too polite to pry, steve made it longer than most did.

" i don't know, " hoarse, but honest, the answer comes without pause. he owed him that much. no skirting around the subject once he'd lowered the rag, slick with oil, and turned blue eyes on the face that watched him. concerned, but not pitying. of course he'd know how to wear that.

" Typical, " the words are spoken at a soft grumble as lightning outside the window illuminates his features. there was no going anywhere now. this storm was unleashing hell upon the streets, surely flooding those with less-than-ideal drainage systems. it's frustrating to clint because he hadn't planned on crashing in this safe house. it wasn't the worst-looking one. this one came with a kitchenette and an actual decent couch and bed in the bedroom. it didn't compare to his own loft though, and clint was a creature of habit. besides, spending the night in this place while the storm raged on outside didn't sound appealing in the slightest. he wonders if this place has any cable because he's going to start crawling out of his skin soon if steve keeps sitting there scribbling in the little black notebook that was resting on the table.

" You know if I'm quick enough I can probably actually make it home before this storm picks up so I'm just going to. . ." even as he says it, the safe house shudders as another round of thunder rolls through, ". . .nevermind. "