"So the train, it was a trap." Steph was muttering to herself now, piecing together a conclusion from the story she thought she knew. "That explains how readily Zola surrendered. Their knock off serum was already working, but HYDRA was losing. The work had to continue elsewhere. In SHIELD."
Her free hand clenched into a fist at her side. "I always wondered how they managed to find you. HYDRA had to have scoured the entire mountain... unless they had a tracker or something in you." Was it preposterous? It was probably more likely than they thought. "And I couldn't see it because you were dead, and that was all I could think about. They put me on time out in London because they worried I might throw myself off a mountain too."
Zola was already dead. She'd blown his brain out herself. But she remembered what he'd told her about HYDRA when he had been a program in a computer in Camp Lehigh: Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.
Bucky groaned with frustration. "Guess I need to finally tell Howard about it. Get him to check me over for trackers or... whatever." At least he knew Howard well enough by then that he didn't think he'd be turned into some sort of test subject. "I still haven't mentioned the changes to anyone."
As they walked, he turned to look up at her again, watching her carefully. "You really didn't know I was like this?" In her world, she'd been by his side after the rescue. But the war was a lot. They were on the go pretty much all the time, and had to stay alert constantly. "Guess he didn't want to worry you."
"N-No." But Steph should have seen it. Bucky was her best friend, how could she not have noticed? It was another item to add to the long list of the times she had failed him. "You—" She caught herself and quickly amended, "He... He never wanted to talk about what happened at the factory."
Her shoulders sagged as her anger dissipated, replaced by guilt and shame. Some best friend she was. Now with the bitter gift of hindsight, she realized that she'd always made it about her, and she never truly saw just how much he had sacrificed for her.
She stopped in her tracks. The heavy weight in her chest aside, Bucky had somehow maneuvered them to the boardwalk and she only just realized where they were. For privacy, she supposed, but her heart hammered in her chest all the same. Despite the many decades that had passed, she could still remember what happened that night she turned 17.
What a fool she had been.
"Why did we never talk about the things that really mattered?" she asked, looking toward the water as she blinked back tears. "I should have... fuck, I should have—"
"Yeah, I never mentioned it to anyone until now, either."
Bucky stopped when she did, then led her to a bench by the railing, facing the ocean. No point in just standing in the middle of the walkway. Bucky urged her to sit down, then he took the seat beside her, still keeping his arm wrapped around hers. There was no real reason for it any more, but it stayed none the less. "You should have, what, read his mind?"
Shaking his head, he looked out over the water as well. "I was scared." It was a simple statement, with no context around it yet, but it was honest. "Before the war, I was scared that if I told you how I felt and you didn't feel the same I'd lose you. So I never did. I was happy to stay your best friend as long as it didn't mean running you off. At least, I was until I made up my mind to tell you. And to propose."
Steph should probably pull her arm away, but she didn't want to. Maybe it was selfish. This Bucky wasn't hers, after all. But she'd already lost any chance she might've had with hers when she decided it was more important to attempt an impossible mission than to just stay by his side, because she hadn't known he wanted her to just stay by his side. She could stay, now. For a while longer anyway.
"I thought you only liked me as a friend, or worse, a sister. Sometimes it seemed like I might have a shot, but then you'd go off to date some really pretty girls. I never had much confidence in how I looked to begin with, so..." She shrugged. "And people kept saying I wasn't good for you. With my poor health I would only be a burden, and you would be unhappy. So I tried to keep some distance. Didn't say anything about how much it hurt when you went out with someone else. They always made sure to tell me you had a great time." Could he blame her? They had been so young.
"Then the war came. You were mad that I didn't just stay home, that I let myself get roped into some fucked up science experiment." She sighed. "So much for grand gestures. You didn't even care I got pretty." It would've hurt if he did suddenly show more interest in her, but she had been so desperate for his affections that she'd have swallowed her pride and accepted it. "But we were together again, and that was more important."
As it was important now, yet she'd gone and ruined two timelines. And for what, peace of mind? To assuage her guilt?
"For what it's worth, I really am sorry." Her face took on that tired, defeated look again. "I thought I knew what would make you happy. I only ever wanted you to be happy."
Bucky laughed then. It was sudden and surprised even him because it was probably the first time he'd laughed at all since he got back to Brooklyn. Probably before then. "Christ, we're stupid," he said once it petered out, then tilted his head back to stare skyward for a moment.
Eventually, he decided he should probably explain what, exactly, was so funny. So, with a sad smile on his face, he looked out towards the water again. "I kept waiting for you to start acting different towards me or something, like your feelings changed, but you never did. Guess I never did, either, since my feelings never had to change." He shook his head. "Some of those girls I went on dates with were lezzies who had people starting to get on their cases. Usually the ones I went on multiple dates with. Wouldn't have been fair for me to tell their business." He had his own secret feelings, after all. Why should he spread theirs?
"Others were usually either cause of their moms wanting to set them up with a gentleman, or sometimes it was girls that bugged me until I finally agreed to a date. Those would usually get all twisted up when I didn't wanna fool around. Some of them started rumors that I did, but they were just lies." Those were the worst out of all of them.
But for the last point, Bucky turned to look at her again. "He probably didn't seem to care that you got pretty cause he always thought you were pretty. I know I did."
"What had to change? I knew I was in love with you since..." Steph gestured with her free hand toward the general direction of the spot they'd ended up dancing on all those years ago. "I mean, I felt that way for much longer, but I realized it in that moment." She sighed. "Should've acted on it while I had your attention. But you scared me. I... I didn't want to lose you."
It was strange, but finally talking about this left Steph feeling a bit lighter. This wasn't her Bucky, but it was perhaps for the best. They could laugh at how stupid they both were.
"Oh, I know. They made sure the rumors reached me. You're alright with this, right, Stephanie? I know you're like a sister to him," she mock parrotted in a high-pitched, exaggerated Brooklyn accent. "Only didn't punch them because you might get mad. It wasn't my business who you kissed or took to bed, but I really wished it was me."
Wishing never got her anywhere though. So did praying. At some point she just stopped bothering with either and decided to take matters into her own hands. Not that that worked out great for her either.
She sighed again. "I guess I wouldn't have believed you if you told me." She turned to give him a look. "You don't always put your money where your mouth is," she teased, a little more like the Steph he knew now than just some woman wearing her face.
"That's the problem, I kept waiting for something to shift but apparently you already loved me so there was no shift. Just like I loved you forever so there was no shift. You were never like a sister to me." Besides, Bucky already had a sister. He didn't need more of those. Becca was enough of a pain when they were growing up.
Bucky sighed as he watched her. She was right, she really was beautiful. But he hadn't lied. Bucky had always thought Steph was beautiful. "I hated those rumors, but I couldn't exactly do anything about them. I knew I barely kissed any of them, and the few times I did it didn't feel right. And definitely didn't sleep with any of them."
He wasn't entirely sure how they got so deep into the topic of how in love with each other they'd always been, but it felt good to at least get it out there. Sure, Bucky was sure his family had figured it out years earlier, it was a large part of why they didn't tell him about her disappearance when he was overseas, but telling Steph--even this different version of Steph--was different.
There was no point dwelling on the past. It was a lesson she'd had to learn the hard way. She wouldn't have realized it for herself if things hadn't come to this. She hated it, hated the damage she'd caused, but now she knew better.
What she didn't know was what to do with herself after she finished getting this Bucky and his Steph back together, and making sure the Bucky of her timeline wouldn't get locked up so he had the chance to finally live his life. How could she tell him how she felt after she'd already broken his heart by leaving? Would his anger hurt more, or would the fact that he might choose to stay with her anyway, because it made her happy?
He looked away again then, the frown forming on his face. It was his near permanent expression, so it was natural for it to come back. "Yeah. I'll tell her." But then he paused. "If she wants to come back. She might not want to." Just a little while ago Steph had been telling him about the medical advances that could help her.
Plus, what if she just flat out liked the other Bucky better?
"I'm not going to try to force her to come back here with me, though. Not if she wants to stay there." It wasn't like Bucky never forced Steph to do things, but it was mostly things like carrying her out of fights that she Definitely Didn't Start, or making her get back in the bed when she was sick. Things that were for her own good.
"So you're coming?" Bucky did say come back here with me. "And you might wanna stay in the future for a while. It's not like the world is gonna implode if there's two of you." Or at least it hadn't so far, in the times Steph had traveled back. "We can tell you apart anyway." She tapped his left forearm. "You still got this."
Okay, so maybe she shouldn't have touched him more than this weird linked arms thing they'd been doing for a while now. But they had lapsed back into something comfortable, like the old friends that they were, and it just... happened. She couldn't even pull away, letting her fingers rest there.
"I dunno if I can tell him," she admitted quietly. "I mean, what for? I left him, when he wanted me to stay." That she hadn't known what he really wanted was a shitty excuse, so she didn't make it to absolve herself. She had no right to do that.
"I guess I am," Bucky said with a sigh. If nothing else, he'd at least like the chance to say goodbye to her. Sure, there was the possibility that she would want to come back with him, but for what? To go back to having little to no treatments for her ailments? And, from the sound of it, she wasn't alone there. That other version of him was likely with her anyway.
The tap on his arm and the comment about it surprised him slightly, though. "What do you mean? Did something happen to his arm?" It wasn't likely she was talking about his coat, after all. Bucky reached over with his right hand to let it rest on top of Steph's. It was crazy how, even though she was so much bigger than she used to be and it physically didn't feel the same to have her sitting against his side that way, something about it still felt the same in other ways. Comforting, almost, knowing it was Steph beside him, even if she was so drastically changed from how he knew her before.
But he could still be mad at her and comforted by her at the same time. That was a fact he had been well aware of since they were young.
"I don't know, Steph. Maybe explain why you left him? Because he probably doesn't see it the way you do. If he's anything like me, he probably just sees that the best friend he's ever had, not to mention the woman he loves, is just... gone." In this entire conversation, Bucky hadn't even considered that the other version of himself might have found someone else during or after the war. That just didn't seem possible to him.
Steph pursed her lips for a moment before answering, "He lost his left arm when he fell. He has a metal prosthetic now."
She paused, like she was considering how much more to tell him, but it wasn't that. She was simply distracted by Bucky's hand on top of hers. This was a lot more contact than she expected from someone who was mad at her and who was pining for the girl she once had been. However, instead of pulling away, she welcomed it, so touch-starved as she was between the five years after the Snap and the years she'd been in the past.
She closed her eyes as she considered his advice. "Probably too late for a love confession though," she said quietly after a stretch of silence. "But I guess it's for the best. I'm so tired, Buck." She hadn't planned on saying anything, but she supposed it was fine since he likely had no idea the sort of tired she meant.
"Oh." What else could he say to that? Bucky was pretty sure she meant when he fell of the train--which Peggy had saved him from thanks to changes Steph apparently made. So, by that logic, he had been moments away from losing his own arm.
The next thing made him chuckle slightly, though. "What makes you think it's too late?" he asked, shaking his head. "I don't know his life since things split or anything, so I'm going out on a limb here. But how many dames have you seen him with since the war?" Bucky was going to guess zero, cause that's how he would be. Hell, it's how he was, even without the added traumas Steph had mentioned.
"You don't think he ain't pissed or hurt that I left? And that's on top of all the... other things." Steph shouldn't, she really shouldn't, but she leaned in and tentatively rested her head on Bucky's shoulder. "He's already been through so much shit, he doesn't need to deal with mine."
She wanted to be with him more than anything, but she didn't think she deserved to be — for entirely different reasons now than when they were younger. It was stupid, yet it was hard to shake. Grief and guilt probably just worked that way.
"He died, you know. For real. Was gone for five years, until we figured out a way to travel through time and reverse shit. There was this... alien warlord, and he wiped out half the universe. We couldn't defeat him the first time." She closed her eyes. "Bucky was in Wakanda, recovering, and I had to ask him to fight again. I bring him nothing but suffering..."
Bucky was about to snap back at Steph, but when her head came to a rest on his shoulder, he just... didn't. Instead, he let her finish what she was saying and let himself get his thoughts in order.
She had already told him so much about her time, even if it was just in snippets. But it was crazy. He'd have to come up with actual questions for her at some point, but instead of doing it then he decided he just wanted to focus on one thing at a time, and that one thing was that she was clearly hurting.
"You don't really think that him being mad or hurt would make his feelings change, do you?" he asked, voice soft as he squeezed her hand under his. Bucky knew his own feelings were far too deeply ingrained in himself for that to be the case for him, so the other version was probably the same, or similar.
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Her free hand clenched into a fist at her side. "I always wondered how they managed to find you. HYDRA had to have scoured the entire mountain... unless they had a tracker or something in you." Was it preposterous? It was probably more likely than they thought. "And I couldn't see it because you were dead, and that was all I could think about. They put me on time out in London because they worried I might throw myself off a mountain too."
Zola was already dead. She'd blown his brain out herself. But she remembered what he'd told her about HYDRA when he had been a program in a computer in Camp Lehigh: Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.
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As they walked, he turned to look up at her again, watching her carefully. "You really didn't know I was like this?" In her world, she'd been by his side after the rescue. But the war was a lot. They were on the go pretty much all the time, and had to stay alert constantly. "Guess he didn't want to worry you."
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Her shoulders sagged as her anger dissipated, replaced by guilt and shame. Some best friend she was. Now with the bitter gift of hindsight, she realized that she'd always made it about her, and she never truly saw just how much he had sacrificed for her.
She stopped in her tracks. The heavy weight in her chest aside, Bucky had somehow maneuvered them to the boardwalk and she only just realized where they were. For privacy, she supposed, but her heart hammered in her chest all the same. Despite the many decades that had passed, she could still remember what happened that night she turned 17.
What a fool she had been.
"Why did we never talk about the things that really mattered?" she asked, looking toward the water as she blinked back tears. "I should have... fuck, I should have—"
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Bucky stopped when she did, then led her to a bench by the railing, facing the ocean. No point in just standing in the middle of the walkway. Bucky urged her to sit down, then he took the seat beside her, still keeping his arm wrapped around hers. There was no real reason for it any more, but it stayed none the less. "You should have, what, read his mind?"
Shaking his head, he looked out over the water as well. "I was scared." It was a simple statement, with no context around it yet, but it was honest. "Before the war, I was scared that if I told you how I felt and you didn't feel the same I'd lose you. So I never did. I was happy to stay your best friend as long as it didn't mean running you off. At least, I was until I made up my mind to tell you. And to propose."
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"I thought you only liked me as a friend, or worse, a sister. Sometimes it seemed like I might have a shot, but then you'd go off to date some really pretty girls. I never had much confidence in how I looked to begin with, so..." She shrugged. "And people kept saying I wasn't good for you. With my poor health I would only be a burden, and you would be unhappy. So I tried to keep some distance. Didn't say anything about how much it hurt when you went out with someone else. They always made sure to tell me you had a great time." Could he blame her? They had been so young.
"Then the war came. You were mad that I didn't just stay home, that I let myself get roped into some fucked up science experiment." She sighed. "So much for grand gestures. You didn't even care I got pretty." It would've hurt if he did suddenly show more interest in her, but she had been so desperate for his affections that she'd have swallowed her pride and accepted it. "But we were together again, and that was more important."
As it was important now, yet she'd gone and ruined two timelines. And for what, peace of mind? To assuage her guilt?
"For what it's worth, I really am sorry." Her face took on that tired, defeated look again. "I thought I knew what would make you happy. I only ever wanted you to be happy."
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Eventually, he decided he should probably explain what, exactly, was so funny. So, with a sad smile on his face, he looked out towards the water again. "I kept waiting for you to start acting different towards me or something, like your feelings changed, but you never did. Guess I never did, either, since my feelings never had to change." He shook his head. "Some of those girls I went on dates with were lezzies who had people starting to get on their cases. Usually the ones I went on multiple dates with. Wouldn't have been fair for me to tell their business." He had his own secret feelings, after all. Why should he spread theirs?
"Others were usually either cause of their moms wanting to set them up with a gentleman, or sometimes it was girls that bugged me until I finally agreed to a date. Those would usually get all twisted up when I didn't wanna fool around. Some of them started rumors that I did, but they were just lies." Those were the worst out of all of them.
But for the last point, Bucky turned to look at her again. "He probably didn't seem to care that you got pretty cause he always thought you were pretty. I know I did."
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It was strange, but finally talking about this left Steph feeling a bit lighter. This wasn't her Bucky, but it was perhaps for the best. They could laugh at how stupid they both were.
"Oh, I know. They made sure the rumors reached me. You're alright with this, right, Stephanie? I know you're like a sister to him," she mock parrotted in a high-pitched, exaggerated Brooklyn accent. "Only didn't punch them because you might get mad. It wasn't my business who you kissed or took to bed, but I really wished it was me."
Wishing never got her anywhere though. So did praying. At some point she just stopped bothering with either and decided to take matters into her own hands. Not that that worked out great for her either.
She sighed again. "I guess I wouldn't have believed you if you told me." She turned to give him a look. "You don't always put your money where your mouth is," she teased, a little more like the Steph he knew now than just some woman wearing her face.
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Bucky sighed as he watched her. She was right, she really was beautiful. But he hadn't lied. Bucky had always thought Steph was beautiful. "I hated those rumors, but I couldn't exactly do anything about them. I knew I barely kissed any of them, and the few times I did it didn't feel right. And definitely didn't sleep with any of them."
He wasn't entirely sure how they got so deep into the topic of how in love with each other they'd always been, but it felt good to at least get it out there. Sure, Bucky was sure his family had figured it out years earlier, it was a large part of why they didn't tell him about her disappearance when he was overseas, but telling Steph--even this different version of Steph--was different.
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There was no point dwelling on the past. It was a lesson she'd had to learn the hard way. She wouldn't have realized it for herself if things hadn't come to this. She hated it, hated the damage she'd caused, but now she knew better.
What she didn't know was what to do with herself after she finished getting this Bucky and his Steph back together, and making sure the Bucky of her timeline wouldn't get locked up so he had the chance to finally live his life. How could she tell him how she felt after she'd already broken his heart by leaving? Would his anger hurt more, or would the fact that he might choose to stay with her anyway, because it made her happy?
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Plus, what if she just flat out liked the other Bucky better?
"I'm not going to try to force her to come back here with me, though. Not if she wants to stay there." It wasn't like Bucky never forced Steph to do things, but it was mostly things like carrying her out of fights that she Definitely Didn't Start, or making her get back in the bed when she was sick. Things that were for her own good.
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Okay, so maybe she shouldn't have touched him more than this weird linked arms thing they'd been doing for a while now. But they had lapsed back into something comfortable, like the old friends that they were, and it just... happened. She couldn't even pull away, letting her fingers rest there.
"I dunno if I can tell him," she admitted quietly. "I mean, what for? I left him, when he wanted me to stay." That she hadn't known what he really wanted was a shitty excuse, so she didn't make it to absolve herself. She had no right to do that.
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The tap on his arm and the comment about it surprised him slightly, though. "What do you mean? Did something happen to his arm?" It wasn't likely she was talking about his coat, after all. Bucky reached over with his right hand to let it rest on top of Steph's. It was crazy how, even though she was so much bigger than she used to be and it physically didn't feel the same to have her sitting against his side that way, something about it still felt the same in other ways. Comforting, almost, knowing it was Steph beside him, even if she was so drastically changed from how he knew her before.
But he could still be mad at her and comforted by her at the same time. That was a fact he had been well aware of since they were young.
"I don't know, Steph. Maybe explain why you left him? Because he probably doesn't see it the way you do. If he's anything like me, he probably just sees that the best friend he's ever had, not to mention the woman he loves, is just... gone." In this entire conversation, Bucky hadn't even considered that the other version of himself might have found someone else during or after the war. That just didn't seem possible to him.
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She paused, like she was considering how much more to tell him, but it wasn't that. She was simply distracted by Bucky's hand on top of hers. This was a lot more contact than she expected from someone who was mad at her and who was pining for the girl she once had been. However, instead of pulling away, she welcomed it, so touch-starved as she was between the five years after the Snap and the years she'd been in the past.
She closed her eyes as she considered his advice. "Probably too late for a love confession though," she said quietly after a stretch of silence. "But I guess it's for the best. I'm so tired, Buck." She hadn't planned on saying anything, but she supposed it was fine since he likely had no idea the sort of tired she meant.
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The next thing made him chuckle slightly, though. "What makes you think it's too late?" he asked, shaking his head. "I don't know his life since things split or anything, so I'm going out on a limb here. But how many dames have you seen him with since the war?" Bucky was going to guess zero, cause that's how he would be. Hell, it's how he was, even without the added traumas Steph had mentioned.
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She wanted to be with him more than anything, but she didn't think she deserved to be — for entirely different reasons now than when they were younger. It was stupid, yet it was hard to shake. Grief and guilt probably just worked that way.
"He died, you know. For real. Was gone for five years, until we figured out a way to travel through time and reverse shit. There was this... alien warlord, and he wiped out half the universe. We couldn't defeat him the first time." She closed her eyes. "Bucky was in Wakanda, recovering, and I had to ask him to fight again. I bring him nothing but suffering..."
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She had already told him so much about her time, even if it was just in snippets. But it was crazy. He'd have to come up with actual questions for her at some point, but instead of doing it then he decided he just wanted to focus on one thing at a time, and that one thing was that she was clearly hurting.
"You don't really think that him being mad or hurt would make his feelings change, do you?" he asked, voice soft as he squeezed her hand under his. Bucky knew his own feelings were far too deeply ingrained in himself for that to be the case for him, so the other version was probably the same, or similar.
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