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claviii · 15 days ago

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Aeon isn't what you could call a slob, but he's also not a neat freak.

He may not leave actual garbage around, but he never gets his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper or puts away his clean ones. Every t-shirt he owns is perpetually wrinkled from sitting in a pile on his dresser, every sock missing its partner, shoes littered about the place for the others to trip over.

If he's reading a book, it sits open, pages facing down, on his nightstand and the cover will frequently be used as a coaster or ashtray/bong holder. Water glasses accumulate day by day, seeming to multiply on their own.

His bed is always a rumpled mess of sheets, blankets, pillows and the one oversized bat plush that Swiss snatched from a claw machine in some seedy little seaside arcade on tour. What's the point in making it every morning when he's just gonna get right back in it at night?

His bathroom counter holds an unorganized slew of products, most borrowed (read: stolen) from Rain and Aurora. The counter itself is stained with hair dye and nail polish, the mirror speckled with toothpaste residue, the sink constantly holding remnants of the one day a week he has to take an electric razor to his face.

Some of the others may turn up their noses at the state of his quarters - like Dew, whose orderly, regimented lifestyle is something Aeon truly admires - but most don't mention it. They may glance around if he invites someone to spend the night, but they never say anything. He's a grown-ass ghoul, he can live how he pleases.

Aeon never talks about how much it bothers him.

He doesn't want to be this way, he just...is. Ever since he was summoned, since he was told to gather his vessel's personal belongings and told to move to the ghoul dorms, he's just sort of...existed there.

Things started out okay. Clothes folded in the dresser and hung in the closet, shoes stowed in the low cupboard beside the door. Shelves lined with trinkets and baubles and all sorts of interesting books on things this particular sibling whose skin he now lives in was into. Music, history, astronomy, tarot, tattoos - everything from dog-eared magazines to leather-bound tomes sat on those dust-free shelves. The bed had already been made for him, in sleek gray sheets and a plush purple duvet that he'd sunk into with the deepest sigh.

It started off so well, but then his life began. Abbey duties, band duties, taking care of this new, earthly body...all of it took precedence over his surroundings.

Laundry day? Well, rehearsal starts in 10, so he might as well just dump these clothes somewhere and deal with them later.

Swiss wants to visit the bathing rooms? He'll just drop his jeans and tee wherever, rifling through one of many disorganized drawers for his trunks and a towel that maybe doesn't smell like mildew. (He doesn't always have the patience for the dryer to finish. He'll wash it properly later.)

Copia wants them up early for a sunrise practice session? Well, no point in showering or brushing his teeth since he's gonna end up a sweaty mess afterwards anyway. He'll take care of those things later.

Later.

But later never seems to come. Only more chaos, more disarray, and some nights Aeon doesn't even turn on the light when he stumbles over to his forever unmade bed. Shedding his clothes wherever they fall and climbing into the one little hole he feels comfortable enough to exist in. Curled up around that stupid plush with the lopsided eyes and one fraying wing, wishing more than anything that he wasn't like this. That maybe, just maybe, the others wouldn't hate him if he asked for help.

Maybe one day he'll find out.

Later.

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claviii · 18 days ago

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Three Halves of a Whole

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Male!Reader x Steve Rogers

Requested: No

Summary: You’re not supposed to remember either of them, but the Winter Soldier has a way of sticking in your mind and Captain America is pretty hard to forget.

-----

You don’t think you’re supposed to remember him when you wake up. The cryosleep is supposed to be a reset - a complete wipe between missions to keep you from getting too attached to anyone or anything and prevent you from completing your missions, but you’re being haunted by memories of brilliant blue eyes boring into you. Of your fingers twisted into soft brown hair, the heat of a body pressed close to your chest and another at your back. You know why he looks familiar, at least - his cryopod is the one across from yours. You’ve seen the Winter Soldier enough times to know his face, worked with him enough times to recognize the way he stands, the slope of his shoulders, and the way he sometimes flinches when he moves his metal prosthetic, like he almost forgot it was there.

And then there’s the other one. You don’t know him - you might have once, but you don’t now. Sometimes you think he’s tall, but then other times you remember him smaller? His eyes are blue, too, but darker than the Winter Soldier’s. He’s blond, and you can almost remember what his hair looked like when he woke up in the mornings, though you don’t know why.

You’re curious, of course, but you’re smart enough to know better than to ask any of the HYDRA agents why you know them. You know that digging for more information is just asking to get yourself tortured into a mind break like the one you’d seen one of the other assets go through years ago. No, you were on your own to figure out who you used to be.

At least, you’d been on your own until Captain America himself told you. It’d been a standard op, just a simple hit, though the target was high profile enough for both you and the Winter Soldier to be sent in. Some government official too close to uncovering HYDRA details. Based on your briefing, he’d already escaped the Soldier once. He would not escape the both of you.

It was easy enough to tail him to some plain apartment building downtown and train the sight of your sniper rifle on him through the window of the unit he hid out in, though your aim was slightly thrown off when the big blond super soldier you’d been thinking about entered the apartment, surprised but not off put by your target’s presence. For the first time in your career, you hesitated. The Winter Soldier doesn’t - he pulls the trigger without hesitation, bullet easily smashing through the drywall and slamming home, your target dropping easily. You fire off your own round for good measure and follow him quickly as he starts toward the evac point, though your pace increases as you hear the super soldier - Captain America, your mind unhelpfully supplies - pursues you.

You make it to the rooftop where you’re meant to be retrieved just as he emerges behind you and launches a shield at you and your partner. The Winter Soldier turns at the eave, metal arm snapping up to catch the razor edge of the shield before it can slice into your back.

The Captain’s eyes are intent on you - shocked, maybe awed? - where he sees the distinct scar running from your temple down the side of your neck, not quite covered by the mask over your mouth and nose, and a name escapes him in a pained whisper. It’s familiar - like coming home after a long day to the smell of food, of warmth and safety and something like love.

You can feel the heat of The Soldier’s furious gaze over your shoulder as he stares at the blond, the wind whipping off the surface of the shield as he launches it back, and then the bite of his cold metal fingers against your bicep as he ushers you over the lip of the roof and into the city below, unaware of the questions building in your mind or the sense of self beginning to creep back to you.

-----

It’s not safe to go back to the evac point yet, not with one of the world’s most famous superheroes on your tail, so you and the Winter Soldier hunker down in one of the HYDRA outposts outside of Scarsdale, New York. Not far from the mission in case you have to go back and finish the job, but enough to give it time for everything to cool off.

He’s silent, where he sits across the room from you, though you can feel those ice blue eyes on you. You can see why they would dub him the Winter Soldier, with eyes like that. He’s clearly thinking, though you couldn’t even begin to guess what about.

You’re distracted enough by your own thoughts that you almost don’t hear him speak.

“Why did he call you that, Null?” The Winter Soldier’s voice comes as a growl, though it’s missing the malice he’d normally direct at a target, just rough with disuse. He repeats the name that the Captain had used. Soft, slow - like he’s testing the weight of it. He says it a second time, like he’s decided he doesn’t mind the feel of it in his mouth.

“I think that’s who I was…” you start, turning the name over in your mind. You can almost hear it - a voice sort of like the Soldier’s and another like Captain America’s, but there’s something missing, a fondness that doesn’t feel like it should be directed at you. “Before HYDRA.” Your brows furrow against the sharp stab of pain that always accompanies thinking about your past, but you force yourself on. “It feels familiar, but not quite mine. Not anymore, anyway.”

The Winter Soldier nods, like he understands, and you almost wonder if he feels the same. If there are memories that haunt him too.

The name strikes you suddenly, like it had been waiting to bring itself back to the surface. “Steve,” you say, and the word feels familiar on your tongue. “That’s his name, isn’t it?” A huff escapes you, a feeling of victory at claiming something from your past back to yourself. “It is! Why do I know it?”

“He mattered to you,” The Winter Soldier says, not a question or an assumption. A fact. “He knew you - recognized you. Back on the rooftop.” You can see the way he swallows, the sharp dip of his Adam’s apple between the top of his collar and bottom of his mask, “It was familiar to me too, but I don’t understand why.”

You hesitate, the both of you are in very dangerous territory. If HYDRA found out the two of you were talking about this - about who you might’ve been before…

“Do you- do you think we knew each other?” you ask, shifting slightly, back pressed firmly against the wall behind you. “You and I? And maybe him?”

He shrugs, eyes not wavering from where they are fixed on you. “How are we to know? After so long? So many wipes?” He shakes his head, “I don’t know that we possibly could.”

The call comes before you can respond and the two of you are moving again.

-----

There are two targets this time, that same blond - Steve, you think - and a woman, both in a vehicle headed south on a highway out of Washington DC. There’s a few other people in the car, but the handlers had said they were unnecessary so you weren’t too worried if they lived or died. The Soldier had been on intercept, dragging the traitor out of the moving car and tossing him into incoming traffic without a second thought while you waited at the next overpass, rifle prepped and sights set.

The driver must have thrown the car into park since it came to a screeching halt, throwing your partner off. He skids to a stop and you leap from the overpass to meet him as the targets pile out of the ruined car. Other HYDRA agents pour onto the scene as backup, but your focus does not waver from the blond that’d known you, even as the Winter Soldier begins to close in on the redheaded woman.

You find him in an overturned bus, still brandishing that stupid shield. “Why do you know that name, маленький герой?” you call out, flipping a knife between your fingers idly, having long since abandoned your rifle. You can hear the other HYDRA operatives swarming outside, but you bark at them in Russian to leave your new little pet to you. That you will take care of this one personally.

He looks gutted by the sound of your voice, so taken off guard that he doesn’t even flinch as you approach him, despite your devastating reputation and the weapon flickering between your fingers. “Oh God,” he breathes as he gets a better look at you, taking a thoughtless step forward, “It is you-”

You snarl and your temper flares, hand moving before you can think. Your knife strikes deep into the wall beside his head with a sharp sound, sticking in place. There’s a new knife in your hand in less than a second.

“Why do you know that name?” you growl again, frustration taking hold of you. You lunge at him, striking again and again as he continues to block you, never striking back though you leave him plenty of openings.

Your barrage forces him back into the open, where his partner seems to have vanished and yours has made his way in, falling into step beside you seamlessly. Your torrent increases, buffeted by The Winter Soldier’s might, until Steve manages to get a hold on The Soldier and flips him, his mask dropping and revealing his face in the process.

The name comes to mind just as Steve says it, voice thick - disbelieving. Like his world had just been upended.

“Bucky?” Steve gasps, and you’re frozen - awash in a wave of memories of the three of you, caught up together in a tangle in the bed of a tiny Brooklyn apartment and then saying goodbye when you and Bucky are drafted. The reunion when Steve is finally allowed to enlist. His first emergence as Captain America. The train. And now - now this.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” The Winter Soldier growls, moves to attack-

You stop him with a hand to his shoulder. “держись, солдат,” you say, and he nods, stowing his weapon as other HYDRA agents swarm in around the three of you. You have only a matter of seconds before your window of opportunity closes, you press in close to the Captain, making a show of forcing him to his knees to disguise the way you whisper an address into his ear. “You have two days to meet us there and tell us everything. Only you. Be there or don’t.” You push away, moving back towards Bucky. “See you soon, маленький герой,” you call back over your shoulder, Bucky following easily after you as you walk away from Steve.

-----

Sure enough, Steve arrives at the safe house with the dawn the following morning, having escaped capture one way or another. He’s cautious as he enters the building, and with the way The Winter Soldier - Bucky, you correct yourself - is glaring at him from his seat against the far wall, he's probably right to feel that way.

He’s been protective in the past, blocking bullets from hitting you and intercepting opponents that’ve targeted you, but Bucky’s protective streak seems to have been dialed up to eleven in the last few days. His metal hand flexes and his free hand slips to one of the knives at his belt as Steve enters the room behind you, like he’s ready to throw himself across the room to put himself between you and the perceived danger.

“I wasn’t sure if you would come,” you said, tipping your head as you examine him. “There’s been some developments since we were last on good terms.”

Steve chuckles, a faint flush coloring his cheeks. It’s… cute, though you find yourself surprised by the thought. “Yeah, I suppose there has been.” He clears his throat, bashful under your gaze, “I spent the last seventy years thinking you were both dead.”

“No,” Bucky says, voice still cold as he watches the Captain, “We just wished we were.”

You hum, moving to stand next to Bucky and threading your fingers through his hair. He eases slightly at your touch, “We spent most of it virtually unaware. Mind wipe after mind wipe. But things… lingered. At least, for me they did. You were there, sometimes, in my memories. The both of you were.” You swallow slightly and one of Bucky’s hands comes up to curl around your leg, an absent-minded soothing gesture. “I remember some of it, but the pieces don’t fit together quite right. What-” you have to force yourself to continue, “What were we?”

A broken laugh escapes Steve, like the distance between him and the two of you physically pained him. “We were in love. The three of us.” He nods toward Bucky, “Just Buck and I, at first, but we both fell for you fast when we met you. It, um, it wasn’t really an accepted thing, back then, but we made it work. And then I lost you both and it almost broke me.” He took a shuddery sigh, but pressed on, “I kept going because I knew that’s what you’d have wanted for me, but if I’d have known you were alive-”

“You wouldn’t have stopped until you found us,” you finished, smiling lightly. It was an odd sensation, after so long, but it was good to have him here. Making you feel like this. “I’m glad to remember you.”

Bucky seems more hesitant, though you know the pieces are starting to fall back into place for him too. You can feel his fingers digging into your leg where he clutches at you, but it’s more desperate now than possessive - like he needs an anchor to keep him in place.

Steve smiles at you and you remember that scrawny kid from Brooklyn that you’d fallen in love with all those years ago. He fills you in on SHIELD’s betrayal, on the truth of Project Insight, and you tell him that you’ll help him stop them. And that you’ll have to disappear after that, until HYDRA is wiped out and the trigger phrase eliminated so they can’t use you or Bucky ever again.

He nods, “I’m glad you’re alive. And I’m with you until the end of the line if you’ll have me. However you want me to be.”

Bucky stands next to you, arm slipping up from your leg until he could lace his fingers with yours. “You’re not getting rid of me,” he tells you, and it sounds almost like a threat until you catch the fond twinkle in his eye. Almost a perfect mirror of the way it had been back in the day.

“Together then,” you said, looking from one of your boys to the other. “Three halves of a whole again.”

And yes, there was a long road ahead of the three of you to root out the source of HYDRA to ensure you and Bucky’s freedom, but it would be okay because the three of you were together again. The way you were always meant to be.

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