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jesperwolf · 1 day ago

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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)

#yesss #stucky #ficlet #i love bucky being defrosted before steve

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