#stevebuckyangst

there’s no way he didn’t. he kept it hidden, in a small navy box tucked away behind letters from his sisters. he bought it somewhere in london — some pawn shop he didn’t remember the name of. he knew steve would say yes, even if no one else would ever know he did. in fact, he’d probably be mad bucky hadn’t got the guts to ask sooner. but bucky wanted away from all this — the blood matted into their hair, the gunpowder on their faces, the dirt in their fingernails, their ever-wet socks.

the last thing he thought of as he lay in the cold and unforgiving austrian snow, was that shiny silver band tucked away in the back of his bag back at base.

now imagine steve.

it’s 2011. everyone you’ve ever loved is dead or geriatric. you’re a national icon.

so you go to see your exhibit in the smithsonian because someone deemed a suicidal gay man dressed in stars and stripes worthy of an exhibit. you see your best friend the love of your life has his own part of it. he should be the whole damn exhibit.

then an automated voice directs you to a small glass display case in the corner. the last of sergeant barnes’ personal belongings, collected from his tent at base camp. february, 1944.

there’s a navy box with a plain, silver band to the very far left.

the notecard says something about the possibly barnes got married before he shipped out, but there was no record of it. maybe it wasn’t official.

but steve knew.

and his heart shatters.

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steve had no idea, but the gentle way he cradled bucky’s face after his first fight with patrick brown in third grade sure made it seem like he did. like he was made of something special. one narrow, boney finger tracing the blossoms of purplish blues and the new crook in his already too-big nose like bucky was one of those ancient greek statues, like he was achilles. the gap in his front two teeth showed when steve sucked in a quick breath before running off to get miss sarah. bucky felt the very last bit of him slither into that space.

not much had changed by the night before he shipped out. drunk off a heady whiskey from the shit bar down the bend, flushed and sore from head to toe after one last night dancing with rebecca and the twins, steve a mere few inches from his twitching fingers in the bed. he took everything in him, reaching deep down in his being despite the creaking protesting hums of his bones, and poured it out onto steve’s skin as he slept. the slightly hardened and shapely organ rolling easily into his palm, warm and wet. he tucked it under steve’s arms for safe keeping. there was no room for it where he was headed. he briefly wondered if those bible stories steve was always telling him had any actual weight, because if he was made of anything true it was the bone of steve’s rib.

it was common, a daily ritual at this point. after all, bucky barnes started and ended with steve rogers. spindly artist’s fingers locked around thick callused knuckles, deep ocean blue meeting crystalline gray, two twin broken noses, crumpled newspapers in the toes of boots matching folded sketches in the pocket of an old jacket, the dandelion blonde against mahogany brunette. flimsy wings made for boyish love melting in the heat as he yearned to be filled again with the light of his own personal sun.

bucky often wished he could draw like steve, capture some of that wretched goodness on a page for safe keeping. he didn’t know whether it was good or bad that steve slept through the ghostly press of his lips over his mouth.

when bucky walked up the wooden plank to that army boat the next morning before the pink of the dawn, he swore he felt a singular thin finger trace down his nose; as his heart beat a few miles away clutched tight in red covered sticky arms, in a rundown apartment with a leaky window and a sunshine boy.

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