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sitting with a letter in my hand (a small steve character study)

“And the stars twinkled in his eyes as he said it” it’s like im sitting home alone, with my feet tucked beneath me, and im shakily opening a letter you’ve sent me from where i couldn’t follow you (you’re so far away, and it’s been so long. it killed me in a way that can’t be described when i woke up one day and realized i couldn’t remember the shape of your smile anymore). 

i read through the words you carefully scribbled with your beautiful and unique cursive hand, and the paper is stained with dirt, and is now being stained with my tears as you tell me that even as you’re being shot at, watching your comrades die, falling asleep with nightmares behind your eyelids- you still think of me. still think of this letter that you knew you were going to write just for me. 

you still smile smally to yourself as you hear me sass you in your head, sayin’, “if you die out here you goddamned idiot, i swear i’ll kill you myself, ya hear?” and i try so hard to think of you in turn, and all i can think of is your grey blue silver eyes shining like the moon, like the stars, as you tell me that you’re leaving me behind (as you tell me you’re never coming back)

it’s like i’m curled beneath the expansive, never ending indigo blanket of the sky as nighttime consumes all that is light and all that is holy, and i’m rereading your letter for the fifth, tenth, thousandth time, and i think that if you were here, there is nothing the darkness could do to suck the life out of you - the shining goodness that makes you a beacon in the abyss, the lighthouse in a vast sea.

i think, it’ll be weeks until you’re able to send me your next letter on the breeze, floating over waters and across continents, and there is every chance that you could die tomorrow, or the day after that, or even right now, and i wouldn’t know until it’s been months since your last letter, and that could only mean one thing. 

i think, that must be the worst part, Buck. not knowing if you’re gone even now as i think of you, but feeling it deep within my chest that your heart is still beating, right next to mine, as if we were connected on a molecular level. knowing that i’d feel it if that heart stopped, even for one second. knowing that there’s nothing i could do to stop it, on my rickety, crusty, sinking old couch, or on the creaking fire escape of our shared apartment. 

knowing that, somehow, someway, i could have saved you, and i didn’t.

(and later, it truly is because of me - you can’t grab my hand, and the tears freeze on my cheeks before they could slip between my numb lips.)

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Rick Riordon accidentally made one of the most tragic and complex characters in his series.

And then proceeded to do fuck all with him and that more then anything is the true tragedy of Jason Grace.

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if steve had an obsession part 2

you can read this without reading part 1, but a few things might confuse you. read part 1 if you’d like

———————————————————————

Bucky Barnes thinks this might be the kind of thing that poets wrote about back in the day, flowery prose painting jagged, passionate lines across the canvas of their paper about feelings like this. 

About beauty like this - unprecedented, otherworldly, made of the sun’s healing light.

Steve Rogers holds him against his chest, arms tight and unrelenting in their grasp around his body, his nose buried in Bucky’s hair behind his ear and his jaw tight with tension, with feverish need. Steve practically unhinges his jaw as he slowly lets his tongue slip free from his lips, sliding against the warm skin of Bucky’s neck, his teeth closing in and clamping down like inevitability, like heavy machinery crushing a tin can between its unstoppable grip.

He bites down with an unrivaled steadiness, Bucky’s flesh soft and pliable as it gives underneath until blood spills free. A gasp wrenches from Bucky’s throat, his chest stuttering with missed breaths and pleasure and pain lighting his nerves on fire. 

“Stevie…” he breathes out, looking around them in a slight panic because they were in public. He was beginning to get uncomfortable in his jeans, the heat that Steve was trapping between their bodies beginning to seep beneath his skin and infect his every cell - sweat beading on his brow, his fingers twitching and his metal arm whirring and re-plating. 

Steve laps lazily at the thick, viscous liquid that leaks bright red from the wound he caused on Bucky’s throat, before huffing poutily and slowly untangling himself from where he so thoroughly wrapped around Bucky. He stepped back and to Bucky’s side, but not before leaning back in to suck over the bite just so he could make it bleed again - it having healed rapidly due to the serum - so he could lick some more into his mouth.

“You never let me have anything fun, Buck,” he murmured, letting his mouth hang open for a second as Bucky’s warm lifeblood pooled on his tongue and dripped onto his chin, before he swallowed obscenely and wiped away the excess. Bucky groaned loudly without meaning to, forcing himself to look away and close his eyes. 

Not that it helped - all he saw behind his eyelids was Steve on his knees, bright blue eyes wide and swimming with tears as Bucky made use of him. He ripped his eyes open again, choking on another gasp as he tried to think of something, anything else. He crossed his arms, and covered his mouth as he desperately gathered his wits.

“We’re about to go to dinner, Stevie, and you stopped us in the middle of this random ass alleyway so you could rip into me like some rabid animal,” Bucky ranted, exasperated, even though all he really wanted to do was grab Steve by the collar and shove him against one of these brick, slimy alley walls so he could sink into him over and over again.

Steve grinned ferally in the faded moonlight as they began to walk again towards the opposite end of the alley, looking every bit as obsessed as he was down to his bones. “You loved it, Bucky,” he croons, stepping close enough to Bucky to wrap an arm around his waist, his sneaky fingers shoving under Bucky’s shirt and biting into and scratching at his skin. He leans in so his lips are pressed into Bucky’s ear. “You love me.” 

Bucky shivers and moans softly under his breath, almost forgetting again where they are as he leans into Steve’s touch and imagines the man tearing him open right there - his blood spilling all over the alleyway floor, enough for any normal person to think there was a murder. God, what was wrong with him?

“‘Course I love you, punk,” he somehow manages to say, though it’s more of a whimper as Steve bites his earlobe and possessively indents his fingernails into Bucky’s stomach. “Fuck- we’re not going anywhere like this, sweetheart,” he grits out, the throbbing in his pants and all over his hot, sweaty skin reaching a crescendo. He thinks he’s going to implode - he thinks if Steve doesn’t somehow merge into him, relieving his need as he consumes him until they become one, that Bucky will melt into the ground below until there’s nothing left.

“Then let’s not,” Steve whispers, an enticing, devilish siren on Bucky’s shoulder, taunting and tempting him with the dark side. It’s a good thing that the dark side just feels so damn good, isn’t it? “Let’s not go. Let’s stay right here, until I can taste your tears- and then we can eat at home,” he finishes, stopping Bucky in his tracks with a tightening of his arm as he pulls him impossibly closer into his side.

Bucky tries to put up a fight, tries to resist- but they both know it’s halfhearted at best. He struggles against Steve’s strength - pretending like he couldn’t snap Steve like a twig with his own enhancements - and pushes weakly at Steve’s arm. “We can’t, doll, the reservation-“ 

“Fuck the reservation,” Steve interrupts, slowly stepping back into the shadows of the alley as he drags Bucky down into hell with him. “Stay with me, Buck,” he continues to whisper, laving at the nape of Bucky’s neck like he’s starved, like he’s deprived of Bucky even though he’s right there, in his arms.

“Baby-“ he whines out, and it is so ridiculously sensual despite the fact that Steve has barely even touched him. He doesn’t know why he’s so desperate, doesn’t know how Steve manages to do this to him - all that time ago in Brooklyn, in the 20’s and 30’s, when he would flirt with any woman who’d even smile in his direction - no one, not a single person, made Bucky feel like this.

He thinks maybe he was born for this. Born to live so long just so Steve could make him see the light. 

“Stay,” Steve growls out, cutting Bucky off with a hand slowly wrapping around his throat, and it’s a challenge and a plead and a knowing mock all wrapped into one. Bucky couldn’t say no even if he wanted to. 

He stays. They miss the reservation. Bucky couldn’t care less.

————————————————————————

It’s been a year since Bucky found out just how wrapped up in him his best friend was - and the both of them crossing that line was truly the best thing that ever happened to him. 

They’ve only grown more unstably in love with each other the more time has passed, and Bucky truly knows in his heart of hearts that at this point they would do anything for each other - he doesn’t even really know where he ends and Steve begins, anymore. Is that how it’s supposed to work? Intertwining your atoms with your partner’s until there is no chance of you being separated ever again? 

He thinks maybe most people would say that this is unhealthy, or something. But those people weren’t him or Steve, and they could never be as lucky as to have what they have, so who really knows best?

So, in conclusion, he knows that he and Steve are in this for the long haul. Until the end of the line Steve had murmured to him one night, saying those unforgettable words into Bucky’s skin as he made him scream until his vocal cords gave out. Now that’s their thing - ‘till the end of the line. 

He just didn’t realize what lengths Steve was willing to go to make sure that line lasted.

It’s late into the night, closer to 1 am than 12, and the both of them are drunk off their asses. Bucky because he brought a little vial of Thor’s special juice to the club and Steve because he got a bit carried away with the shots. Vodka and tequila together is- certainly a choice. 

Nonetheless, they’re stumbling through the streets on their way back home, clinging to each other and giggling in one another’s ears, temples pressed together and hands wandering over hard, clothed bodies, and they feel as though they’re on top of the world.

And then hands grab at Bucky from the shadows shrouding an alleyway, and their happy little bubble is violently broken.

“Hey there, sweetheart. Wanna have some fun?” a dark voice says as the man it belongs to emerges from his hiding place, his grin twisted and his eyes glinting with hellish delight and lust. He just manages to lean in and sloppily press his lips to Bucky’s, before Bucky immediately breaks both of the guy’s wrists and kicks his chest in to escape his grasp - not as able to sober himself up through the Asgardian mead as he would with literally any other kind of alcohol, but 50 years worth of training kicking in regardless. 

The man screams at the sudden influx of pure agony, and he stumbles away as he struggles to breathe through broken ribs and a collapsed chest, choking and coughing up blood. Bucky trips over his own feet as he latches onto Steve and attempts to haul him the hell out of there, but-

But Steve isn’t moving. Bucky pauses, concern managing to filter through the heavy, drunken fog in his head. “Stevie?” he slurs, worried enough to kind of clumsily side hug Steve. “Stevie, we gotta- gotta go! What’re you- what’re you doing?”

Steve says nothing. He looks like he’s barely breathing, barely moving. He’s so still he could be a statue. And then Bucky looks at him, really looks, and-

Steve is gone. Bucky can catch no glimpse of the bubbly, happily-giggling partner of his that was so full of life and warmth just moments ago- no. Steve’s eyes are empty of all traces of humanity. Instead, all Bucky sees is pure, animalistic rage and hunger. The void of blinding, white hot insanity has consumed Steve whole, and between one blink and the next, Bucky is no longer holding onto Steve.

Steve’s enraged, nightmare-fuel screeches echo down the street as he grabs the man’s throat and bodily shoves him into the nearest wall. The wall cracks at the force, and the man screams again as he weakly struggles in Steve’s claw-like grasp. Steve holds his face, and smashes the man’s head against the wall over and over and over again, his demonic screeches ripping from his throat as he cracks open the man’s skull like a goddamn egg with every forceful slam.

After one particularly loud snap! and the man’s shredded voice finally goes silent, his body going morbidly limp, Steve still isn’t finished. He shoves the man’s body to his knees, twists his arms around his back, and bodily pulls - crack after crack as the shoulders dislocate, and then the bones snap, and once Steve pulls sharply with a shrill cry, the arms rip off completely. Steve throws the arms in random directions, not caring where they land, and as the body drops the ground, he raises his foot and stomps the man’s pulverized flesh into the ground until he’s nothing more than a heap of blood and shattered bones.

The deafening silence that rings in the night seems to suffocate both Steve and Bucky as they stand there, Steve heaving with burning breaths as he revels in the feeling of being bathed in the man’s blood - fountains of it having sprayed from the man’s shoulders and splattered all over Steve when he had ripped the man’s arms off. 

Bucky’s jaw is surely hanging to the floor as he stares at Steve with blown eyes, his own breaths heavy and unsteady as he tries not to drunkenly think about how absolutely breathtaking Steve looks so thoroughly covered in bright red. Bucky is the most sober he’s ever been in his life, right there in that moment, every second dragging by full of so much clarity it made his head spin. 

“Stevie...” Bucky breathes out, a singular word that means the whole world. Steve slowly looks over at him, and the life that Bucky had become so fond of steadily returned to Steve’s eyes as they locked gazes. Steve is still panting, and he absently licks his lips of foreign blood as he steps over the body at his feet, already discarding it of importance. Already forgetting about it as he slowly walks closer to Bucky, his gait stuttered and unnatural - like he was having to relearn how to be human again. 

“Steve,” Bucky mumbles more than says, and Steve grins at the sound of his name - the smile too wide and creepy and full of blood to be anything gentle or nice. Bucky couldn’t look away from it, couldn’t look away from Steve. Couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t stop smelling the blood mingling with Steve’s natural scent and inoffensive, subtle cologne, couldn’t stop himself from getting drunk again at Steve’s proximity.

“I did it for you, Buck,” Steve murmurs, looking up at Bucky from under his lashes like a proud puppy. “I’d do it again if you asked me to. Do you want me to? Anyone, anything, I’ll rip them apart, just ask.” Steve paws at Bucky, dirtying Bucky’s skimpy club clothes with drying, dark blood. Bucky doesn’t even notice.

He’s so fucking high. Can a boyfriend do that? Make you high without giving you anything? “Fuck- yeah. Yeah. I’d tell you to do it in a heartbeat. You look so good like this, doll,” Bucky rasps out, tugging Steve along with him by the back of his neck as they walked away from the body. Bucky will clean up the evidence later - he’s an assassin. No one will know unless he wants them to. But for now, they walk away, and Bucky pulls Steve into a searing kiss.

He groans at the taste of the copper, at the overwhelming flavor of death and destruction on Steve’s plump, sweet lips. Bucky can’t get enough- won’t ever get enough. “You’re so good. So good to me. Always treat me so well, baby,” Bucky praises, preening and appreciative because Steve did it for him. Him. And he’d do it again.

Steve Rogers, as they practically walk backwards in their resumation of heading back to their home, rests his chin on Bucky’s chest, and smiles proudly. “I’d do it again,” he whispers with a wink, and Bucky Barnes doesn’t doubt it for a second. 

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I love them so much it hurts

[matrixx-level]

I love an idiot x idiot trope ^_^

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i miss them

based off this pic from the show

[matrixx-level]

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what's he thinking about?

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rescue mission

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if steve had an obsession

He gets up every morning the same way. Routine - it’s a lifeline in this cruel and relentless world.

He blinks, or stiffens, or screams awake, sweaty or paranoid or exhausted from nightmares, and he goes to the bathroom to take a scalding hot shower that chases away the leaching, reaches of sleep and the demons that had pervaded his mind.

He’d brush through his hair, and scrunch in the product Natasha had recommended to him, and he’d stand there, gripping the sides of his sink, staring into his reflection. Maybe wondering why he was still here, after all this time, and for what? He’ll hold his own gaze, and the void will look back at him with something like a vicious sneer - a you’ll never be human ever again scowl that he’ll copy, his lips twisting and his eyes looking away as he goes back to doing his hygiene.

He’ll put on deodorant, and brush his teeth, and wake himself up with a splash of cold water. He probably should have done that before the shower, but who cares? There’s nobody there but him to police him on his habits.

He’ll finally leave the bathroom and throw on some clothes, soft, dark sweats and a matching shirt, so he can leave his room and start making breakfast for himself. Maybe Natasha will call, maybe Sam, and he won’t smile, but a warmth will most likely fill his chest as he speaks to the people most important in his life.

He’ll spend some time lounging around, watching TV or listening to the radio or looking out his windows to just quietly observe the city - so changed after 70 years, but the foundation of it all the same. He’ll never admit how much of a comfort it is to be able to see Brooklyn’s skyline, when it’s only ever been other horizons around the globe on missions he was forced to do.

Maybe he’ll change and leave the apartment to go on a walk, or grab some coffee from his two favorite coffeeshops, or eat some lunch in a corner booth at a rundown diner, or sit on a bench at the park and just exist.

He’ll head back home, and maybe he’ll throw his long, dark hair in a bun, and do some exercise, or some warm, wind-down stretches, going and going until his muscles stretch and burn.

Maybe he’ll collapse back on his couch, tired and relaxed, the TV back on or the silence filling the room. Maybe he’ll feel pent up and itching beneath his skin, and he’ll lean his head back against the couch and shove a hand down his pants, searching for release.

And Steve Rogers will slowly lower his binoculars from his eyes, his breath heaving in his chest as the hot, heady thing that turns and twists in his stomach will drop down to his toes, warming him from the inside out as he imagines the man on the couch on top of him, inside of him, wrapped around him with his strong arms and cold, metal fingers. 

Bucky Barnes will writhe in place, chasing his peak as it climbs higher and higher and he gets sweatier and sweatier, and Steve will bring the binoculars back up to his eyes to continue watching, his own pants getting tight and his fingers twitching with the insurmountable urge to touch.

Bucky wouldn’t mind, Steve is sure, because Bucky loves him, even if he doesn’t know it yet. Steve will make him know, he will he will he will he will he will hewillhewillhewillhewill-

“Oh hey Stevie. How are you doing today? Mind if I sit?” Bucky asks, looking down at Steve with a smile as he points at the empty place across from Steve where he sits at a two-seater, small table.

Steve smiles, bright and genuine, and shakes his head no as he gestures for Bucky to sit. “Please! I’m doing good, thank you. It’s been a couple weeks, how’ve you been, Buck?”

It’s the next day, and Steve is sitting in one of Bucky’s favorite coffee shops. He knew Bucky would be here, because Bucky loves coming to this one instead of the other one on Tuesday’s like these. Steve knows everything about Bucky. Steve knows Bucky, inside and out. Steve can’t wait for Bucky to know him just the same.

“Oh y’know, I’ve been leagues better than you, punk,” Bucky teases, sitting down with his coffee in hand and sipping it with a grinning glint in his eye. Steve chokes on his tea.

“Jerk!”

Bucky laughs.

Steve wants to swallow him whole.

They talk and sip their drinks, just like that, for hours. Steve loves it. Steve loves Bucky.

They agree to meet up for lunch later that day, and go their separate ways for a few hours.

They had met only weeks after Bucky had had his name cleared after a long and tedious trial where he was tried for his crimes as the Winter Soldier. He was declared innocent after the public outcry had reached deafening levels - Natasha having released everything about SHIELD and HYDRA to the internet, including how HYDRA had been controlling and brainwashing and beating and starving Bucky for over 70 years. 

Tony Stark had helped as well - it had taken him a minute, presumably because the Winter Soldier had killed his parents, but he and Bucky were publicly close friends, so Steve assumed they made their amends.

Steve had been seeking shelter from the rain and had stumbled into a seedy dive bar, where he had accidentally slid into an already occupied booth. It was dark, and packed, and Steve had seen the empty space without registering the unnaturally still figure crammed in the corner.

Steve had been soaked to the bone, shivering from the cold (he hated the fucking cold), and so he had quite literally, jumped into the goddamn air when a voice suddenly spoke up next to him, asking him what he thought he was doing.

Steve had turned, and startling, piercing, grey-blue eyes had stared at him, right in the eye. Bucky had been intimidating, but Steve wasn’t scared. No. He was infatuated. Sharp jawline, full lips, long hair, Steve had been captured, instantly, and he hadn’t meant to, but the words came tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Sorry, beautiful. I hadn’t seen you there. I should have, considering you’re the prettiest thing in here.”

And Bucky had blinked at him, and then laughed so hard tears swam in his eyes and wheezes rattled his lungs. Steve had laughed right along with him, and as their shoulders pressed together and they laughed in each other’s faces, Steve’s blonde hair made dark by the water dampening it and plastered to his forehead, he had known right then that Bucky was his other half, his soulmate, and he was never going to let him go.

It’s been three years since then, and Bucky and Steve were good friends, best friends even. Bucky texted and called him all the time, and Steve was never more full of pride than when Bucky wanted to occupy his time. When Steve wasn’t working or exercising, he was following Bucky around, memorizing his schedule, imagining his heartbeat and feeling his own so he could pretend it was Bucky’s, writing down notes and pinning them to a board, and drawing him, excessively, all the time, in every possible situation and position.

Steve’s bedroom walls were covered with drawings of Bucky. That’s why, in all the three years they’ve known each other, Steve has never once invited Bucky over to his place. Steve had been invading every part of Bucky’s life for three years now, there was no way he was going to ruin it now by scaring Bucky away. He’ll ease him into it, consume every single piece of Bucky until they’re BuckyandSteve and Bucky wouldn’t be able to escape even if he was scared.

Which he wouldn’t be. Steve wouldn’t want him to be scared. Steve wants Bucky to be happy, and happy with Steve. He’ll make it happen. Bucky loves him loves him loves him loves him loveshimloveshimloveshim-

He calls me Stevie.

They get lunch, and then dinner, and as they go their separate ways, Steve can tell Bucky is reluctant to let him go. They had fun together, like they always do, and Steve enjoys seeing that light in Bucky’s eye - the warmth and the fondness and the familiarity. Like they grew up in Brooklyn together, with newspaper in their shoes.

Steve wishes he could just wrap Bucky up in his arms and never let him go, but normal people don’t do that, and he doesn’t think he and Bucky are there yet - outside of the normal people conventions. So he doesn’t do it, even though every atom and every particle of him is begging for him to do so. To just reach out, and cup Bucky’s cheeks gently, and dig his fingers in until Bucky bleeds if he tries to escape.

Steve gets home, toeing off his shoes and shrugging his jacket off his broad shoulders as he runs his fingers through his hair. He yawns and scratches his belly as he ambles through his apartment, heading for his bedroom so he can get ready for bed and conk out - he’ll need the sleep if he’s going to wake up early enough to follow Bucky around tomorrow.

He opens his door, eyes half closed and another yawn making his jaw crack, when he suddenly chokes on it, freezing in place and his eyes widening with terror.

Bucky stands in the middle of his room, looking down at two drawings he had obviously taken from Steve’s walls. Steve has stopped breathing, his heart has stopped beating, a rushing crescendo is racing through his ears and muffling the sound of screeching fear inside his head.

Bucky turns to look at Steve slowly, and suddenly everything stops as their gazes lock. Steve can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He’s never seen that look in Bucky’s eyes before - he can’t really tell what it is. It looks something like the Winter Soldier’s gaze from the tapes Steve had obsessively watched - except they’re not empty, like he’s just a machine that does what he’s told.

No. He looks like a predator that has his prey in sight, and he’s salivating at the chance to rip it apart.

“Stevie,” Bucky singsongs, drawing Steve’s name out so it sounds lyrical. It makes Steve shiver, makes the hair on the back of his neck raise. It sounds so creepy. “Is this how you see me?” Bucky continues, his voice a low whisper comprised of dark and twisted things.

He holds up the drawings, and one is of Bucky nude and tied up, head to toe, in rope, looking up at Steve with that warm, fond gaze he always looks at Steve with. The other is of Bucky in his apartment from afar, just like when Steve looks at him through his binoculars, and he’s spread out on the couch, loose and relaxed.

Bucky tilts his head, and a feral version of his usual smile curls his lips like a thing possessed. “I mean, I knew you were obsessed with me. But I didn’t realize it was to this degree.”

Steve chokes on air again, tensing impossibly more. He knew?

“Of course I knew, doll. I’m a super soldier with enhanced senses, and I’m the greatest assassin that ever lived. I know you know everything about me, sweetheart,” Bucky says sweetly, like he’s talking about something inconsequential with affection for Steve coloring his tone, instead of…whatever this is. 

Steve is shaking, he realizes. He’s backing away in fear. Not fear of Bucky, no never. Bucky has never scared him, not before and not now. No, he’s afraid Bucky hates him now. That he’ll tell Steve he’s a disgusting pervert, and he never wants to see him again. Maybe if Steve leaves, Bucky will leave, and they can go back to the way things were. Pretend this never happened.

Please. Please, don’t leave me. Don’t hate me. Please. I love you. I love you. I love you. I loveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou-

“It’s okay, doll, you’re okay,” Bucky murmurs, suddenly standing right in front of him. Steve didn’t even see him move. He was just there, like a ghost.

Like a 70 year ghost story.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I love you too,” Bucky is saying, and Steve. Stops. And stares. His heart is in his throat, and it’s dropping through the floor, and he doesn’t dare to hope.

“You…what?” he asks, tentative and quiet. He’s never tentative, or quiet. He’s Steve Rogers, and one thing about Steve Rogers is he never backs down from a fight. I can do this all day. 

Maybe Bucky Barnes has changed him irreparably, and he’ll only ever be things he’s never been for this man that has taken over his life completely. 

Bucky smiles. It’s so full of teeth Steve doesn’t think it actually counts as a smile anymore.

“If I hadn’t wanted you to obsessively stalk me, I would’ve killed you right at the start. I always know exactly where you are,” Bucky whispers, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind Steve’s ear. Goosebumps travel down his arms and a shiver goes down his spine that he tries to suppress. He knows that Bucky saw it anyway.

Steve feels like he’s about to burst, flushing to his ears as he catches Bucky’s wrist before he takes his hand back. He can’t take in a full breath. He thinks he’s going deaf, he’s so delirious. “You…you wanted it? You want..me?” Steve asks, disbelieving.

Bucky smiles again, and when he laughs, eyes squinting and nose scrunched and chest rumbling, Steve swears he sees heaven.

“Of course I do, doll. You’re mine, aren’t you?” He says it so simply, like it really is that easy.

And maybe it is. Maybe it always has been, and Steve should have just taken what he wanted as soon as he knew that he wanted it. Bucky can see Steve having that realization, and his grin only grows. He looks unhinged, and Steve wonders if maybe he doesn’t know Bucky Barnes at all.

“It’s okay, doll,” Bucky repeats. He’s said it so many times now, Steve almost believes him. Bucky leans in close, their noses almost touching, and his warm breath brushes against Steve’s lips. Steve is ascending, he’s sure. “I’ll tell you everything. You jus’ gotta let me in. Will you let me in, Stevie?” he asks, pleads, his big blue eyes so distracting Steve can barely understand what he’s saying.

Steve thinks he might stutter when he opens his mouth, but his voice is steady as he asks, “What- what do you want from me?”

And Bucky laughs again. “You already know that, sweetheart.”

And Steve does. He knows. He knows.

Bucky kisses him then, captures his mouth and claims it as his, eats him whole, drops Steve’s drawings on the floor so he can scoop him into his arms. “Mine mine mine,” he chants under his breath, kissing Steve again and again, and Steve wonders who was stalking who all this time?

And then he stops thinking when Bucky Barnes picks him up, holding Steve as if he weighed nothing, as if he wasn’t 200 pounds of pure muscle, and even as he lays Steve on the bed, gentle and possessive (he’ll never let me go), Steve Rogers knows he won’t ever come back down from this high.

“Mine mine mine,” Bucky chants, and it is the truest thing that’s ever been said.

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I guess this is a way to prove bromance

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★ Survivor

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if steve came out of the ice different (part 1?)

Bucky almost crushes his phone in his grip when he gets the call.

It takes him twenty minutes total to get the rest of the necessary information he needs from the phone call, hang up, call everyone else as he flies out of the building, hop on his bike, and drive all the way to SHIELD headquarters. 

He runs through floors, flies up stairs, pushes people aside, crashes through glass windows, and breaks down doors until he finally finds the area he’s being kept in.

70 years, it’s been. 70 years, and they finally found the love of his life.

“Mr. Barnes! Wait! Let us explain to you first- he’s not the man you knew-“ someone in a white lab coat hurriedly tries to tell him, grabbing his wrist as he’s about to break into the labs where they’ve apparently defrosted him (they waited only until after he was defrosted to call Bucky. They waited this long- God- Bucky could kill them all for hiding Steve from him-)

“Let. Go. Of. Me,” Bucky grits out under his breath, his voice a dark, ugly thing full of bitter rage and unimaginable disappointment. The lab coat immediately releases him, taking a fearful step back before they catch themselves and take back their composure. Bucky doesn’t wait around to see it happen - he slams his metal shoulder into the doors holding him back from seeing his other half and-

Bucky has been recovering from being the Winter Soldier for years now, two decades at least, and even though he has been healing and re-finding himself and making Bucky Barnes anew, making new friends and mourning the old, moving on with his life and not taking this second chance for granted - there was always something missing.

And that something, was Steve Rogers.

They told him how Steve had been lost in the Arctic, and that Howard had been looking for him ever since - and while he hadn’t believed Steve to still be alive (hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up only to find the dead body of his best friend), he hadn’t discouraged Howard from his searches. He’d comforted his old friend, and they had grown close, and Bucky hadn’t turned away whenever Howard had begun to rant about the expeditions to recover Steve - how they had covered a lot of ground and still had a lot left to go, how he theorized this or that, how he could feel that he was getting closer I’m tellin’ ya Bucky, he’s right around the corner, I can taste it.

Bucky was afraid they’d find him, and all that would be left would be an ice cold, frozen skeleton.

But as Bucky physically screeched to a stop in front of a thick, glass-looking wall (though Bucky doubted it was measly glass - SHIELD doesn’t slack on security), the wide open, empty room on the other side holding only one thing, he could officially say his fears were unfounded.

“Stevie?” he breathes out, his breath stuttering in his chest and his heart skipping a beat before giving out. 

Steve. He was right there. He was right there.

Steve stands in the middle of the room, back facing the glass and Bucky, and he’s completely, unnaturally still. Like, Winter Soldier level still. He’s wearing his banged up, singed suit from the war, because of course he is, and not a single blonde hair is out of place on his head. His fingers don’t even twitch at the sound of Bucky’s voice.

Bucky moves closer to the glass until he’s pressed up against it, his hands flat on either side of his face as his eyebrows pinch, calling, begging, “Steve? Stevie, it’s me, it’s Bucky! It’s me, sweetheart. Could you please turn around, doll? Please Stevie, let me look at you.”

A long, drawn out moment passes, no response coming from Steve as the tension slowly begins ratchet up higher and higher, Bucky tensing as the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. An uncanny, uneasy feeling shoots through his stomach, and he swallows, uncertain and a little scared.

“Stevie? Baby, please-“

Bucky suddenly cuts himself off as Steve turns around lightning quick, and a loud gasp rips out of his throat as Steve’s eyes light up with a bright blue glow, his body beginning to glow just the same - blue steam seeming to raise off of his suit and swirl through his hair, making it flutter as if in a breeze.

Between one blink and the next, Steve winks out of existence, and reappears right in front of Bucky’s face. He slams his fists against the glass, and Bucky startles so hard he takes a stumbling step back, almost falling on his ass.

“Bucky! Buck…” Steve shouts, drawing out the ‘u’ of Bucky’s name as he bangs against the glass again. His head twitches wildly, the blue energy appearing to emanate from him pulsing in his veins, his eyes, and lighting up the whole space with bright light. He seems to glitch in place, winking out of place and showing up someplace else. 

“Buck…” he calls from the middle of the room again, blinking up at the ceiling as he paces back and forth, restless and twitching and glitching. 

Bucky gapes, his heart racing and the blood rushing in his ears as he just stares at Steve, not understanding what the fuck was happening.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you..” the lab coat from earlier whispers from behind him, cautiously entering the room as they studiously ignore looking at Steve. Bucky wonders if they’re afraid of Steve, and then shakes the thought away when it fills him with rage.

He looks at them over his shoulder, a scowl twisting his lips. “What did you do to him?” he accuses, his jaw clenched so tight it was a wonder it didn’t creak or groan.

The lab coat frowns and huffs out an offended breath, immediately saying, “We didn’t do anything to him!” in response. They quickly lost their bravado, though, as they stole a quick, fearful glance over at Steve before looking back at Bucky. “Not us, anyway.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

The lab coat gulps, shrinking back a little. “It- I- um-“ they look over at Steve again before sighing, and looking down at the ground. They clear their throat. “Do you remember the tesseract? The blue glowy cube that powered Hydra’s weapons back in your day?”

Bucky frowned, nodding in a bid to get them to continue.

They sigh again. “Well, after the mission where you were…lost on the train, Steve went on his own mission to stop Schmidt. While they fought on the Valkyrie - the plane that Steve had crashed - Schmidt had presumably died from the fight and got kicked off the plane, or whatever else theory exists. But the tesseract had stayed on the plane, and when Steve had put it in the water…” 

The lab coat winced, swallowing, stealing another small glance at Steve before looking up at Bucky with big, soulful eyes. “We believe it changed him. It stayed in close proximity with him for over 70 years, assumedly morphing him down to his very cells with just its energy. When we defrosted him, it refused to be taken by us and-“

They winced again, though this time it was closer to a flinch, and Bucky’s scowl only deepened as he barked out, “And what?”

They gulped. “And it…fused with him. Poof. No more tesseract. Only Steve - or, well, whatever’s left of him now that he’s been…possessed? Restructured? By the tesseract.”

Bucky reared back as if he’d been slapped, blinking rapidly and swallowing uncomfortably as he tried to make sense of it all, as he tried to process everything the lab coat had said.

A loud thump behind him made Bucky spin around, and he didn’t know what to feel as Steve stared right at him, his head tilted and his hair floating and his skin pale and lit up blue.

“Bucky…” Steve whispered, and Bucky let himself feel just pure and utter relief.

Why should he care that Steve was different now? That he was more space energy cube than person? Bucky had changed - fundamentally - and now he was navigating the world as best he could. If an ex brainwashed assassin could do it, why not Steve?

He walked back over to the glass, and pressed himself completely against it right where Steve was,  his hands aligning with Steve’s. He sighed out deeply, more relieved than he could ever say, and tears steadily filled his eyes and spilled onto his cheeks.

“Hi baby. I missed you,” he whispered.

And he swore. He swore, that Steve smiled in response before it was gone just as fast. Steve shook his head harshly, hitting himself in the head, and Bucky flinched and tapped against the glass. “No, no sweetheart, please don’t hurt yourself,” he pleaded, wishing he could gently hold Steve’s hands to prevent it himself.

And then he realized. Why was he just standing there, staring at Steve, instead of breaking him out? Jesus, he was off his game today.

“Let him out,” Bucky murmured, not turning to look at the lab coat that he could smell was still there. He was back to gritting all his words out between his clenched teeth, his voice more of a poison than a manner of speech. “Or I will break him out myself.”

Steve held his gaze with something like amusement in his eyes, his expression full of the most awareness Bucky had seen from him so far. Steve tapped against the glass in a merry little tune, bopping his head to it, and he smiled a little, like Bucky was the most marveling thing he had ever seen. “Bucky,” he whispered. “Bucky…I’m with ya ‘til the end of the line, pal…”

Bucky almost choked at those words, at finally hearing those words for the first time in 70 years, but before he could respond, the lab coat shakily replies to his threat, “Sir, we can’t do that, he’s dangerous and completely unprecedented with whatever powers he has now-“

Bucky listens to Steve hum under his breath, and sees him twitch and listen to things no one else can hear and seem to move through space like an anomaly, sees his best friend in the whole world, alive and here in the future with him, and he knows there’s nothing he won’t do to protect him. 

“Let him out…or so help me God, you will meet your maker today,” he spits out, and he means it more than he’s ever meant anything else.

Needless to say, Steve Rogers was released from his SHIELD imprisonment, and Bucky Barnes had never been happier.

(inspired by cascades. by orange_crushed on ao3)

[matrixx-level]

listen. i know it's not 2014 anymore and i know it's just a throwaway line and that the russo brothers didnt intend for marvel action blockbuster captain america the winter soldier to become the tragic gay love story that never was but man. having steve say "it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience" in a conversation about romantic relationships right before the bucky reveal is so cruel. it's not just about steve and bucky obviously having the shared experience of being "out of time," it's the fact that they've both been stripped of their humanity in opposite directions. steve is a legend, he is an american hero and a national icon before he is a human being the same way that bucky is a weapon and a killing machine before he is a human being. steve knows that anyone who falls in love with him in the 21st century fell in love with captain america first, and that's just not him. but then the one person who knew him first and knew him best and loved him (not captain america, that little guy from brooklyn) so much he died for it is alive, impossibly. and it's a miracle because he's back and it's horrific because he's back under the worst possible circumstances. but to steve, the winter soldier is worth tearing the world apart for because he's always been bucky first. they find each other and suddenly they're human again. and maybe, despite it all, being "out of time" becomes a blessing, because in this century they'd finally be allowed to love each other the way they've always wanted to. like real people do.

like. no. the captain america trilogy isn't about two queer men traumatized and alienated by war and modern life rediscovering and reclaiming their humanity through their love for each other. but. i mean. it couldve been

[matrixx-level]

the plot of civil war in one image

[matrixx-level]

has anyone else ever felt so strongly about a ship that when you try to talk about it your heart starts to hurt and you just

[matrixx-level]

No you don't understand how important the gay people in my phone are to me