Steph had no idea why Bucky was so spooked about a notebook, but he didn't have to tell her twice. She picked it up and tucked it under her arm, then slid off the stool and headed to her bedroom. Curiosity made her scan the pages before putting it away, but everything was in a foreign language. Russian, maybe?
When she returned, she pushed her stool closer to his so when she sat back down she was closer too. Asking him if he was okay would be dumb, so she simply leaned in to kiss him on the cheek again. He hadn't told her off the last time she did it, so she figured it was alright.
The last item in the pile was a letter.
Dear Bucky,
I'm sorry I couldn't tell you about any of this, but you wouldn't have agreed to it. None of you would have.
But please understand that I owe it to you to try. You saved me long before the war, you know? I couldn't have survived all those years without you. But thanks to you, I lived, and I was happy.
I just want you to be happy, Buck. That's all I ever really wanted.
I don't wish to undo the years of our youth. It was hard, but you made it worthwhile. But the war and its aftermath we can both live without, especially you. It's selfish to sacrifice the Stephanie of that timeline, but I know she'll understand. I know she loves you just as much as I do, and she'll make you happier than I ever could.
Don't come after me. Don't let the others come after me. There's probably some cosmic consequence for using the Time Stone unsanctioned anyway, and I've already lived longer than I deserve. But if this plan works, in one timeline you will never have been captured, HYDRA will never have taken over SHIELD, and Stephanie Rogers will never have been Captain America. You'll think her dead, but you'll be alive, and you'll move on.
Bucky couldn't believe what he was reading as he took in the letter. Yeah, it was pretty much what he'd suspected, wasn't it? But it was still stupid. It pissed him off, he wanted to throw something, or break something, or scream. But he didn't.
Instead he let his head hang down, his hands in his hair as he tried to hold back the tears. Was she really doing it for him, or was she doing it for her?
"He won't be happy," Bucky said out loud, shaking his head. "Even if she pulls this stupid shit off, he won't be happy." He turned to look at the Steph beside him then, so small and pretty and out of her time. But he still loved her, just like he'd loved the idiot who came up with the whole plan. Just like he had loved her when he was first captured, and for so many years before that. "If he thinks you're dead, he'll never be happy, and if he thinks you went missing, he'll never stop looking. Either way, he'll never move on. So he's still screwed over."
Bucky hadn't said she couldn't, so Steph rested her chin on his arm and quietly read the letter along with him. She felt him tense, and she'd expected him to walk off or something. Even if she understood Cap's motivations, she thought the whole thing was stupid. Maybe because, unlike Cap, she knew Bucky loved her.
But then he just... deflated, and it broke her heart more than she expected it to. Made her angry, too. They should've talked about this. Cap should've asked him if he wanted this in the first place.
"You would rather get captured and frozen and lose an arm than lose her?" Her voice was small and tight, laced with anger and heartbreak all at once. It was stupid of him to think that way. Cap was just a woman. Steph, too. They were replaceable, and there were so many other, better options.
"Of course," Bucky answered immediately, giving her a look like that was possibly one of the dumbest questions she'd ever heard in her life. And he meant that, too. He would be absolutely lost without Steph, at any age. "That means you, too, you know. It didn't just happen after she got that serum. Plus, he'll spend his whole life wondering if maybe she wouldn't have gone missing if he didn't get drafted." Sighing, he looked back at his mismatched hands, resting together on the counter by that point. "He'll also regret deciding to wait until he gets home to ask you to marry him."
Pretty much since the day they met as kids, not even in the double digits yet, Bucky knew he wanted to be beside Steph. Everyone else paled in comparison. They still paled in comparison.
"I was brainwashed for going on seventy years, and you were the only thing that ever broke through it. Ever."
Bucky's answer made Steph's expression twist into a mirroring one of incredulity and exasperation. "You really took all the stupid with you, huh," she remarked, though of course they both knew that they shared the stupid. Was this the curse of every iteration of them? God, she hoped not, but she wouldn't be surprised.
She reached for one of his hands, resting her palm over the top of his. She'd always had smaller hands but now it seemed even smaller.
"Hey, we'll get her back." If Cap could come up with a plan like that, so could she. "We'll get her friends to send me back, and you'll come with me. You lived that life, so you'll know which parts she'll try to stop or change, right?" She squeezed his hand. "But you gotta tell her, Buck. You gotta tell her how you really feel."
"Hey, she kept plenty of it for herself. Clearly," Bucky said, gesturing at the letter with his metal hand, while moving his natural one so he could link his fingers with hers.
He sighed though, most of the fight draining out of him. "She'd stop you from trying to enlist again first," he said simply. "Then she'd stop my unit from getting captured. After that, there's no telling what would change."
After watching her quietly for a moment, Bucky let go of her hand to let it rest gently against Steph's cheek instead. "Hey, don't think this means I don't want you here. Whatever happens, we'll work with it, alright? Besides, this time could be good for you. You already saw how well that inhaler worked."
And Bucky had already taken a closer look at that inhaler. It had an expiration date on it, which meant he couldn't just send her back to the past with a lifetime supply of them.
Steph lifted a hand to her cheek, over Bucky's own, and gave a gentle squeeze. "I know," she said sadly. "But I'm not her."
He could love her, that's true, but she wasn't the one he wanted. The distinction probably didn't make sense to anyone else, but it made sense to her. Strangely enough, however, she found herself drawn to him more than the Bucky of her time. Had distance dulled what they'd shared, despite the many letters they'd exchanged? Was she thrilled to discover these new, unfamiliar parts of him after years of knowing him like the back of her hand? Or did misery truly just love company?
She let go and turned away to file the papers, stacking them in the order she remembered them originally in. "Should we start making dinner?" She wasn't upset, or she didn't think she was. Actually, she didn't know what to think about the developments, but like most of her life, she just had to keep going.
Bucky sighed. It wasn't that he could love her, it was that he did. She was her. Sort of. The Steph that left him there had been through everything this Steph had been through, but also some other things on top of that. They weren't different people; they were the exact same person at two different points in her life. And Bucky had loved her at both points in life.
But he decided to take the subject change. "I thought you wanted me to order Christmas dinner for you?" he asked, schooling his expression a bit while perking one brow at her. "Roast and mashed potatoes and chocolate soufflé?" Yes, of course, he remembered the thing she'd said so much earlier in the day. "Unless you changed your mind. We can do something else if you'd rather."
"Oh! You can do that tonight?" Steph didn't actually think the food delivery would be immediate. But she supposed, after seeing all the cool gadgets in the apartment, that it would be faster too. "Yeah, if we can. We can pretend it's Christmas. Does she have a record player?"
She liked Christmas. It was one of the few times in the year that people were happy and not just surviving. She also really liked spending Christmas dinner with Bucky and his family. They were nice.
She gathered up the folder with the papers and lifted the paperweight by its handle. "I can put this away while you take care of that?"
Bucky couldn't help it, Steph's reaction brought a smile back to his face. "I think she does in the living room... somewhere. I'm not entirely sure where. But if we can't find one, there's other ways to play music now, too," he answered, watching her move around. He could swear that big hammer looked familiar, but it wasn't important.
He pulled up the delivery app on his phone and found somewhere with roast beef dinners, and placed the order before going to look around the living room. "They didn't have chocolate souffle," he called out, as he started opening cabinets to see if there was a record player (or records) hiding, and it felt a bit weird to be going through the other Steph's cabinets, almost like snooping, but... she was gone. So. "They had this chocolate lava cake thing that sounded good, though, so I got that instead."
Checking a random suitcase sitting in a corner, Bucky found what seemed to be a portable record player. Grinning, he moved it to the coffee table. "Found one."
"You like anything chocolate," Steph retorted from the bedroom with a laugh.
After a few minutes, she emerged holding a record and joined Bucky to help set things up. She was blushing when she handed him the record. It was a collection of Fred Astaire's greatest hits, the first track of which was Cheek to Cheek, one of the most popular songs of 1935 — the year she turned 17. More importantly, it was the song Bucky tried to sing (poorly) while he spun her around on the boardwalk as his apology for the disastrous rollercoaster ride. Nobody else had been around to witness their little dance, but Steph had blushed so hard anyway, even as they laughed because it was so corny.
They should have kissed. Maybe they could have avoided all this time travel insanity if they only kissed.
"It's the only one I recognize," she said, hoping he was indeed old enough to no longer remember that incident.
Bucky's smile turned slightly bashful when he took the record and saw what the first song listed was. Yes, he remembered it. Just like he remembered spinning her around to it and trying, and failing, to get up the guts to kiss her that night. But, as always, he didn't, too scared of her not feeling the same and ruining their friendship. Because Bucky would rather be stuck as her friend than lose her.
But Bucky also remembered how light he used to be. He would laugh and joke easily, and he would do anything to see his best friend's smile, like singing a song terribly while spinning her on the boardwalk. He knew he was a terrible singer, but he also knew he meant the words he sang that night.
Crouching beside the record player, Bucky carefully pulled the disc from the sleeve and placed it on the turntable. After placing the needle on the record, Bucky stood up and held a hand out to Steph. "Wanna be my first dance in seventy years?"
Steph's blush grew just a tad darker at Bucky's invitation. She reached down to smooth the folds of her skirt only to realize she was wearing a large shirt for a dress, which did not help tame her blush.
"I'm still no good at it," she mumbled, but of course she took his hand. He'd always been the better dancer. He had women asking him whenever he took her to the dancehalls, which made her huff and grumble because rude, even if he never took up any of the offers. Most days she'd thought he was just being a good friend. Most days she'd thought she was holding him back from finding the woman who would truly make him happy.
As he pulled her close, she realized her line of sight in relation to his body had shifted. Frowning slightly, she looked up at him. "Did you grow taller?"
Bucky wasn't exactly dressed to the nines either. He thought she looked adorable in her makeshift shirt dress, while he was in some pajama pants and a Henley shirt.
"I never cared if you were good or not, did I?" he asked as he pulled her close and looked down at her. "I just wanted to dance with you was all." Especially the slow dances, the ones that made it easier to stay as close as he could to her. "Besides, I'm probably not any good anymore anyway."
But he chuckled softly when she asked if he had grown, his own cheeks going a bit red. "Uh, yeah. The serum pushed me up to an even 6'," he answered with the shrug of one shoulder. Honestly, he'd never been around Steph when he had a serum, and she didn't, but he had already noticed just how extra small she seemed beside him.
He liked Steph small, though. He also liked her tall and curvy, but he often still found himself thinking of Steph as the tiny but fiery girl from Brooklyn who took no shit from anyone.
"I never cared if you were good or not. I just wanted to dance with you was all," Steph parrotted with a cheeky grin. Which was true. She liked the slow dances especially, because she could close her eyes and pretend they had a happy ending in their cards. At 17, she'd been convinced that Bucky had just yet to meet the love of his life, and that there were far better women outside of their high school and their little corner of New York.
At 23, she had begun to hope that she had a chance, unless her illnesses took a turn for the worse; she was not going to subject him to a lifetime of caretaking and rob him of his happiness and his dreams. But it was 1941, and in December the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. She was there when he tore open the envelope that held his draft notice. She was there when he boarded the ship that would take him to England, and then to the front lines. She realized then that they would never be together. He hadn't asked her to marry him or made any mention of having any feelings for her. But she'd promised she would be there for him, and if the end of the line was a warzone, then so be it.
Now it looked like the end of the line was the 21st century.
"Oh, good. You can get the stuff from the top shelves and cupboards for me now," she teased, only to realize a moment later that they were going to be living together. Even if it would only be temporary, it was something she'd always liked imagining.
"What? I did!" Bucky rolled his eyes, but he was chuckling softly anyway as he swayed with her. "I didn't think you saw me that way, so it was an excuse to... you know. Hold you close like this." He was always finding excuses to touch her. Whether it was giving her his hand to help her up, draping an arm around her shoulders, placing a hand on her back, or anything he could justify. And it seemed he was still that way.
"I know, I know. Reaching things is the real reason you kept me around. Maybe instead of getting it for you, I'll just hold you up to it to get it yourself," he teased a bit as he moved his hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear again. Yeah, he was definitely still taking excuses to do things like that. "I could always pick you up before, but the serum made me stronger, too. And faster." Among other things. He healed faster, didn't get tired as easily, and had better reflexes. If it weren't for the torture and mind control, he might not mind it. But he still didn't think it was a fair trade.
"It was for me too," Steph admitted quietly, for a moment leaning in even closer to bury her reddening face into Bucky's chest. Which she somehow thought was less embarrassing until she did it, so she pulled back again just as he teased her about holding her up to get things. She made a face, but she wasn't really upset by it. She secretly liked all that touching.
"This is all you, though," she complimented earnestly. "Dancing." A beat, and then: "Just stick to that though. You can't draw shit." As his best and oldest friend, she was obligated to still be a little punk every now and then.
Then something in the song took hold of her and she was serious again. "I really missed you, Buck. I wrote you so many letters..." So, so many, even if it hadn't been all that long since he left for England. Her letters might not even have made it to him yet. "The girls back home keep saying awful things about the war, and I've been so worried—" Worried that he would get captured and tortured for information. Worried that he would die. Worried that he would find someone else. Worried that he would forget her.
"Yeah, I was never good at art," was well aware of that fact. He had many flaws, but didn't have many skills that didn't involve violence. "Or singing. Or music." He used to be able to dance, but anything else considered somewhat artistic was beyond him. Maybe writing, but he was only so-so at that.
"God, I missed you, too," he responded simply and honestly, the smile slipping from his face as he looked down into her pretty blue eyes. "I read your letters over and over, and wrote you letters every chance I could get." Hell, he wrote his first letter when he was on the ship, the day after he left New York. Sometimes he would write multiple letters before the mail was sent out again, so he would just fold them up inside the same envelope, each one dated so she could tell which one came first. Sometimes he would write a letter telling her how he felt about her, only to toss it and write it again without that part.
That was something he had wanted to tell her in person.
"I'm pretty sure the guys got sick of hearing me talk about this amazing girl back home. They probably just wanted the war to end so I'd be able to go home and propose already, that way I'd shut up about it." It was only a partial exaggeration. They had to be sick of hearing about her--at least until she showed up over a foot taller and stronger than he ever described. "But, hey, I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere until you're the one that's sick of me, alright? I promise."
"You're good at taking care of me." And it felt nice to have someone who did, even if Steph loathed being a burden and often refused any form of help. That never deterred Bucky though. He would show up in her apartment on a freezing winter night and make her something to help with her cold, then climb into bed to keep her warm. She'd pretended to huff and wave him off, saying she was fine, but she would sleep better than she had in days. And that was only one of the many things he'd done for her.
It was easy to forget this Bucky had been through so much more than the one she'd sent off to war not too long ago. At least while in his arms, it didn't make much of a difference. His perspective reminded her of it, though. He'd gotten her letters. More importantly, he wrote back.
"What did they think when she showed up and saved your asses?" she genuinely wondered. "Did they know it was her?" Cap was tall and curvy and impressive, Steph wasn't sure how people other than Bucky would have been able to recognize that she and Steph were the same person.
The wording of his promise made her frown. That... was probably how he saw it, huh. That Cap had grown weary and abandoned him. Steph felt her anger rise again, though it was not directed at him. "I would never—" she started, before realizing words were moot; from his point of view, she had. She just squeezed his hand and shoulder, and buried her face into his chest again. "I never wanted you to leave. I never want you to again." Her lip quivered and she bit down on it, willing herself not to cry. "Stay with me this time, Buck. Please."
"I don't know, Steph. Between being out of practice and the... It's called PTSD now, but it used to be shellshock, between those, I might not be good at it anymore." Bucky had always been somewhat natural when it came to taking care of Steph, but there was a chance that it was a skill that had faded over time. Especially since she hadn't needed him to take care of her in years. Instead, he'd been the one who had become a burden. "But I'll try, alright?"
Bucky thought back to the day Steph had shown up and pulled him and the rest of the 107th out of the proverbial fire. He'd been half delirious when she came barging into that room and dragged him off the table, so of course he thought she was a hallucination at first. Maybe one final sight of the woman he loved before whatever they'd injected him with killed him. It wasn't until he understood that she was real that he even realized she'd gotten taller. Bucky just knew it was her, and that was all that mattered.
"They were just happy to get out of there," Bucky said with a sad grin. "Then they gave me hell about how I'd always talk about how adorable you were, all tiny and beautiful, then she went and showed up taller than me. Not everyone knew about the experiment at first. But they kept getting on me about asking her already, but I thought she was interested in... someone else. So I didn't. Then it was too late."
Frowning then, Bucky stopped dancing and pulled Steph over to the couch. Sitting down, he tugged the small woman down into his lap and held her tightly. "Till the end of the line, Steph. You're stuck with me."
That Bucky would try was good enough for her. Steph knew he could do it. She'd believe enough for the both of them.
She snorted when he mentioned that he thought she was interested in someone else. "Like hell I would be." Unless it was him from the future, apparently. Which wouldn't have been all that different if he managed to come home, right? Like it or not, the Bucky she knew had already been taken by the war. She didn't know anyone who came home from the last one unscathed. Even books said so.
That was why she didn't protest when he pulled her to the couch and into his lap. She didn't straddle him, just perched on one leg — he was so much bigger than her that it was enough room — then she drew her legs up and curled into him. Cupping his cheek, she smiled. That promise was good enough for her, too. "Good. Or else I'll keep coming back to today—" She meant via time travel. "—until you stop being a dumbass." It wasn't an empty threat. She had no idea of the logistics yet, but she would figure it out if she had to.
She stared at his face for a moment longer, taking in how much had changed — and how much hadn't. In a way, he had come home. It just took him several decades.
Then, because only an idiot would waste a second chance, she leaned in and pressed her lips softly to his mouth, and hoped he wouldn't push her away. She wasn't his Steph, but she loved him just as much, and if he wanted to pretend anyway, then she would let him.
Bucky couldn't help the weak laugh that came out. "Hate to break it to you, Steph, but I think I'm always gonna be a dumbass when it comes to you." Not just in the not-taking-a-chance-when-he-should way, either. He'd always throw himself in the line of fire for her, even when she was more than strong enough to handle herself. Hell, if she hadn't made that first jump during his original rescue, he would have literally jumped off that walkway and into the flames after her. That's what he was prepared to do.
But, thankfully, she made the jump so he didn't have to do that.
Oh, but then she was kissing him for the first time, and while he didn't push her away, he did hesitate out of pure surprise for a second. That didn't last long, however, as the arm around her waist tightened and he leaned into the kiss, his own eyes sliding closed. It was soft and sweet, the first kiss in his life that ever mattered to him, and Bucky loved it just like he loved her. Every version of her.
Steph had longed for that kiss for years. It was as incredible as she'd imagined it would be — or would have been, as she'd always looked back to that dance on the boardwalk and wished they had kissed. Now she was done wishing.
Eyes still closed, she rested her forehead against his. "I'm sorry she left." It had to be said. She knew Bucky had been hurt by Cap's disappearance into the past, even if he didn't allow himself to feel it. Or maybe just not while Steph was around. But she knew him, and they'd already spent way too long leaving things unsaid. "But I'm not going anywhere, okay? Not without you."
She had no idea how this was going to work. Or if Cap wouldn't just return one day; she'd said in her note that she only wouldn't if she succeeded. What if she failed? What if Bucky was doomed to the same fate during the war no matter how many times Cap tried to change it? Would Steph have to fight herself for him?
... actually, she would. Being the smaller girl had never stopped her before.
Sighing, Bucky kept his own eyes closed as he sat there, as relaxed as he could be with Steph in his lap and his arms around her.
"She thought she was doing the right thing," was how he responded. He almost said the typical, 'It's okay', but that would have been a lie. But maybe in the back of the other Steph's mind, she knew that just leaving him would kill him, and that's why she sent her? Or maybe Bucky was just looking for ways to justify what she did. Ways to make it less awful.
Either way, this Steph was there with him, and she was promising not to abandon him like the other had, even though she didn't know everything he'd been through. It was on the complicated side of things, of course, but Bucky did love her just as much as he loved the other one.
"You sure you wanna stick with me?" he started, pulling back to open his eyes and look at her almost longingly. "I'm old as hell and pretty broken now. I'm not the cheerful young guy you used to know."
"Did you expect us to be young and cheerful forever?" Steph wasn't even someone they called cheerful. She was often angry and had self-deprecating humor; it was only around Bucky that she had any sort of cheer, because with him she could forget how broken she was, even for a little while. "You were fighting in a war, Buck. Something awful like that, it would break anyone."
At least he survived. Her father hadn't.
She let her fingers trail down his cheek to his left shoulder and arm. She couldn't see the metal under the sleeve of his shirt, but it was cold and hard beneath her fingertips. "I love all of you, Buck," she confessed quietly. "And I will love all that you will become. For better or for worse, that's what they say, right?" She blushed again at that, aware that she was quoting wedding vows, but she needed to get her point across.
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When she returned, she pushed her stool closer to his so when she sat back down she was closer too. Asking him if he was okay would be dumb, so she simply leaned in to kiss him on the cheek again. He hadn't told her off the last time she did it, so she figured it was alright.
The last item in the pile was a letter.
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Instead he let his head hang down, his hands in his hair as he tried to hold back the tears. Was she really doing it for him, or was she doing it for her?
"He won't be happy," Bucky said out loud, shaking his head. "Even if she pulls this stupid shit off, he won't be happy." He turned to look at the Steph beside him then, so small and pretty and out of her time. But he still loved her, just like he'd loved the idiot who came up with the whole plan. Just like he had loved her when he was first captured, and for so many years before that. "If he thinks you're dead, he'll never be happy, and if he thinks you went missing, he'll never stop looking. Either way, he'll never move on. So he's still screwed over."
In Bucky's mind, she abandoned him for nothing.
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But then he just... deflated, and it broke her heart more than she expected it to. Made her angry, too. They should've talked about this. Cap should've asked him if he wanted this in the first place.
"You would rather get captured and frozen and lose an arm than lose her?" Her voice was small and tight, laced with anger and heartbreak all at once. It was stupid of him to think that way. Cap was just a woman. Steph, too. They were replaceable, and there were so many other, better options.
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Pretty much since the day they met as kids, not even in the double digits yet, Bucky knew he wanted to be beside Steph. Everyone else paled in comparison. They still paled in comparison.
"I was brainwashed for going on seventy years, and you were the only thing that ever broke through it. Ever."
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She reached for one of his hands, resting her palm over the top of his. She'd always had smaller hands but now it seemed even smaller.
"Hey, we'll get her back." If Cap could come up with a plan like that, so could she. "We'll get her friends to send me back, and you'll come with me. You lived that life, so you'll know which parts she'll try to stop or change, right?" She squeezed his hand. "But you gotta tell her, Buck. You gotta tell her how you really feel."
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He sighed though, most of the fight draining out of him. "She'd stop you from trying to enlist again first," he said simply. "Then she'd stop my unit from getting captured. After that, there's no telling what would change."
After watching her quietly for a moment, Bucky let go of her hand to let it rest gently against Steph's cheek instead. "Hey, don't think this means I don't want you here. Whatever happens, we'll work with it, alright? Besides, this time could be good for you. You already saw how well that inhaler worked."
And Bucky had already taken a closer look at that inhaler. It had an expiration date on it, which meant he couldn't just send her back to the past with a lifetime supply of them.
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He could love her, that's true, but she wasn't the one he wanted. The distinction probably didn't make sense to anyone else, but it made sense to her. Strangely enough, however, she found herself drawn to him more than the Bucky of her time. Had distance dulled what they'd shared, despite the many letters they'd exchanged? Was she thrilled to discover these new, unfamiliar parts of him after years of knowing him like the back of her hand? Or did misery truly just love company?
She let go and turned away to file the papers, stacking them in the order she remembered them originally in. "Should we start making dinner?" She wasn't upset, or she didn't think she was. Actually, she didn't know what to think about the developments, but like most of her life, she just had to keep going.
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But he decided to take the subject change. "I thought you wanted me to order Christmas dinner for you?" he asked, schooling his expression a bit while perking one brow at her. "Roast and mashed potatoes and chocolate soufflé?" Yes, of course, he remembered the thing she'd said so much earlier in the day. "Unless you changed your mind. We can do something else if you'd rather."
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She liked Christmas. It was one of the few times in the year that people were happy and not just surviving. She also really liked spending Christmas dinner with Bucky and his family. They were nice.
She gathered up the folder with the papers and lifted the paperweight by its handle. "I can put this away while you take care of that?"
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He pulled up the delivery app on his phone and found somewhere with roast beef dinners, and placed the order before going to look around the living room. "They didn't have chocolate souffle," he called out, as he started opening cabinets to see if there was a record player (or records) hiding, and it felt a bit weird to be going through the other Steph's cabinets, almost like snooping, but... she was gone. So. "They had this chocolate lava cake thing that sounded good, though, so I got that instead."
Checking a random suitcase sitting in a corner, Bucky found what seemed to be a portable record player. Grinning, he moved it to the coffee table. "Found one."
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After a few minutes, she emerged holding a record and joined Bucky to help set things up. She was blushing when she handed him the record. It was a collection of Fred Astaire's greatest hits, the first track of which was Cheek to Cheek, one of the most popular songs of 1935 — the year she turned 17. More importantly, it was the song Bucky tried to sing (poorly) while he spun her around on the boardwalk as his apology for the disastrous rollercoaster ride. Nobody else had been around to witness their little dance, but Steph had blushed so hard anyway, even as they laughed because it was so corny.
They should have kissed. Maybe they could have avoided all this time travel insanity if they only kissed.
"It's the only one I recognize," she said, hoping he was indeed old enough to no longer remember that incident.
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But Bucky also remembered how light he used to be. He would laugh and joke easily, and he would do anything to see his best friend's smile, like singing a song terribly while spinning her on the boardwalk. He knew he was a terrible singer, but he also knew he meant the words he sang that night.
Crouching beside the record player, Bucky carefully pulled the disc from the sleeve and placed it on the turntable. After placing the needle on the record, Bucky stood up and held a hand out to Steph. "Wanna be my first dance in seventy years?"
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"I'm still no good at it," she mumbled, but of course she took his hand. He'd always been the better dancer. He had women asking him whenever he took her to the dancehalls, which made her huff and grumble because rude, even if he never took up any of the offers. Most days she'd thought he was just being a good friend. Most days she'd thought she was holding him back from finding the woman who would truly make him happy.
As he pulled her close, she realized her line of sight in relation to his body had shifted. Frowning slightly, she looked up at him. "Did you grow taller?"
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"I never cared if you were good or not, did I?" he asked as he pulled her close and looked down at her. "I just wanted to dance with you was all." Especially the slow dances, the ones that made it easier to stay as close as he could to her. "Besides, I'm probably not any good anymore anyway."
But he chuckled softly when she asked if he had grown, his own cheeks going a bit red.
"Uh, yeah. The serum pushed me up to an even 6'," he answered with the shrug of one shoulder. Honestly, he'd never been around Steph when he had a serum, and she didn't, but he had already noticed just how extra small she seemed beside him.
He liked Steph small, though. He also liked her tall and curvy, but he often still found himself thinking of Steph as the tiny but fiery girl from Brooklyn who took no shit from anyone.
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At 23, she had begun to hope that she had a chance, unless her illnesses took a turn for the worse; she was not going to subject him to a lifetime of caretaking and rob him of his happiness and his dreams. But it was 1941, and in December the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. She was there when he tore open the envelope that held his draft notice. She was there when he boarded the ship that would take him to England, and then to the front lines. She realized then that they would never be together. He hadn't asked her to marry him or made any mention of having any feelings for her. But she'd promised she would be there for him, and if the end of the line was a warzone, then so be it.
Now it looked like the end of the line was the 21st century.
"Oh, good. You can get the stuff from the top shelves and cupboards for me now," she teased, only to realize a moment later that they were going to be living together. Even if it would only be temporary, it was something she'd always liked imagining.
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"I know, I know. Reaching things is the real reason you kept me around. Maybe instead of getting it for you, I'll just hold you up to it to get it yourself," he teased a bit as he moved his hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear again. Yeah, he was definitely still taking excuses to do things like that. "I could always pick you up before, but the serum made me stronger, too. And faster." Among other things. He healed faster, didn't get tired as easily, and had better reflexes. If it weren't for the torture and mind control, he might not mind it. But he still didn't think it was a fair trade.
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"This is all you, though," she complimented earnestly. "Dancing." A beat, and then: "Just stick to that though. You can't draw shit." As his best and oldest friend, she was obligated to still be a little punk every now and then.
Then something in the song took hold of her and she was serious again. "I really missed you, Buck. I wrote you so many letters..." So, so many, even if it hadn't been all that long since he left for England. Her letters might not even have made it to him yet. "The girls back home keep saying awful things about the war, and I've been so worried—" Worried that he would get captured and tortured for information. Worried that he would die. Worried that he would find someone else. Worried that he would forget her.
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"God, I missed you, too," he responded simply and honestly, the smile slipping from his face as he looked down into her pretty blue eyes. "I read your letters over and over, and wrote you letters every chance I could get." Hell, he wrote his first letter when he was on the ship, the day after he left New York. Sometimes he would write multiple letters before the mail was sent out again, so he would just fold them up inside the same envelope, each one dated so she could tell which one came first. Sometimes he would write a letter telling her how he felt about her, only to toss it and write it again without that part.
That was something he had wanted to tell her in person.
"I'm pretty sure the guys got sick of hearing me talk about this amazing girl back home. They probably just wanted the war to end so I'd be able to go home and propose already, that way I'd shut up about it." It was only a partial exaggeration. They had to be sick of hearing about her--at least until she showed up over a foot taller and stronger than he ever described. "But, hey, I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere until you're the one that's sick of me, alright? I promise."
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It was easy to forget this Bucky had been through so much more than the one she'd sent off to war not too long ago. At least while in his arms, it didn't make much of a difference. His perspective reminded her of it, though. He'd gotten her letters. More importantly, he wrote back.
"What did they think when she showed up and saved your asses?" she genuinely wondered. "Did they know it was her?" Cap was tall and curvy and impressive, Steph wasn't sure how people other than Bucky would have been able to recognize that she and Steph were the same person.
The wording of his promise made her frown. That... was probably how he saw it, huh. That Cap had grown weary and abandoned him. Steph felt her anger rise again, though it was not directed at him. "I would never—" she started, before realizing words were moot; from his point of view, she had. She just squeezed his hand and shoulder, and buried her face into his chest again. "I never wanted you to leave. I never want you to again." Her lip quivered and she bit down on it, willing herself not to cry. "Stay with me this time, Buck. Please."
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Bucky thought back to the day Steph had shown up and pulled him and the rest of the 107th out of the proverbial fire. He'd been half delirious when she came barging into that room and dragged him off the table, so of course he thought she was a hallucination at first. Maybe one final sight of the woman he loved before whatever they'd injected him with killed him. It wasn't until he understood that she was real that he even realized she'd gotten taller. Bucky just knew it was her, and that was all that mattered.
"They were just happy to get out of there," Bucky said with a sad grin. "Then they gave me hell about how I'd always talk about how adorable you were, all tiny and beautiful, then she went and showed up taller than me. Not everyone knew about the experiment at first. But they kept getting on me about asking her already, but I thought she was interested in... someone else. So I didn't. Then it was too late."
Frowning then, Bucky stopped dancing and pulled Steph over to the couch. Sitting down, he tugged the small woman down into his lap and held her tightly. "Till the end of the line, Steph. You're stuck with me."
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She snorted when he mentioned that he thought she was interested in someone else. "Like hell I would be." Unless it was him from the future, apparently. Which wouldn't have been all that different if he managed to come home, right? Like it or not, the Bucky she knew had already been taken by the war. She didn't know anyone who came home from the last one unscathed. Even books said so.
That was why she didn't protest when he pulled her to the couch and into his lap. She didn't straddle him, just perched on one leg — he was so much bigger than her that it was enough room — then she drew her legs up and curled into him. Cupping his cheek, she smiled. That promise was good enough for her, too. "Good. Or else I'll keep coming back to today—" She meant via time travel. "—until you stop being a dumbass." It wasn't an empty threat. She had no idea of the logistics yet, but she would figure it out if she had to.
She stared at his face for a moment longer, taking in how much had changed — and how much hadn't. In a way, he had come home. It just took him several decades.
Then, because only an idiot would waste a second chance, she leaned in and pressed her lips softly to his mouth, and hoped he wouldn't push her away. She wasn't his Steph, but she loved him just as much, and if he wanted to pretend anyway, then she would let him.
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But, thankfully, she made the jump so he didn't have to do that.
Oh, but then she was kissing him for the first time, and while he didn't push her away, he did hesitate out of pure surprise for a second. That didn't last long, however, as the arm around her waist tightened and he leaned into the kiss, his own eyes sliding closed. It was soft and sweet, the first kiss in his life that ever mattered to him, and Bucky loved it just like he loved her. Every version of her.
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Eyes still closed, she rested her forehead against his. "I'm sorry she left." It had to be said. She knew Bucky had been hurt by Cap's disappearance into the past, even if he didn't allow himself to feel it. Or maybe just not while Steph was around. But she knew him, and they'd already spent way too long leaving things unsaid. "But I'm not going anywhere, okay? Not without you."
She had no idea how this was going to work. Or if Cap wouldn't just return one day; she'd said in her note that she only wouldn't if she succeeded. What if she failed? What if Bucky was doomed to the same fate during the war no matter how many times Cap tried to change it? Would Steph have to fight herself for him?
... actually, she would. Being the smaller girl had never stopped her before.
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"She thought she was doing the right thing," was how he responded. He almost said the typical, 'It's okay', but that would have been a lie. But maybe in the back of the other Steph's mind, she knew that just leaving him would kill him, and that's why she sent her? Or maybe Bucky was just looking for ways to justify what she did. Ways to make it less awful.
Either way, this Steph was there with him, and she was promising not to abandon him like the other had, even though she didn't know everything he'd been through. It was on the complicated side of things, of course, but Bucky did love her just as much as he loved the other one.
"You sure you wanna stick with me?" he started, pulling back to open his eyes and look at her almost longingly. "I'm old as hell and pretty broken now. I'm not the cheerful young guy you used to know."
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At least he survived. Her father hadn't.
She let her fingers trail down his cheek to his left shoulder and arm. She couldn't see the metal under the sleeve of his shirt, but it was cold and hard beneath her fingertips. "I love all of you, Buck," she confessed quietly. "And I will love all that you will become. For better or for worse, that's what they say, right?" She blushed again at that, aware that she was quoting wedding vows, but she needed to get her point across.
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