dysmorphics | it's you and me up against the world, it's you and me

Bucky couldn't help rolling his eyes. "I was looking for you, Steph. Since the day I got home," he called out to her, trying not to pay attention to the shadows on her curtain.

When she came back out of her room, he turned to look at her, eyes widening and face reddening a bit when he saw her outfit, if it could even be called that. She was basically in long, extra-tight underwear and an undershirt, all her generous curves visible.

He took the book that was offered to him and examined the cover, taking the distraction so he wouldn't just... ogle her. "So you became an artist after all?" God, he was glad to hear it. He'd always thought she was an amazing artist, ever since they were kids, and he'd actively encouraged her to pursue some sort of career in art every chance he got.

But when he took a closer look at the book a couple of things struck him. First was the fact that it looked just like the two of them. Unmistakably them, in fact, to anyone who had seen them before.

But the second, and even more shocking thing, was the fact that, "It's in color?" Eyes wide, he looked back over at her. His eyes locked on hers, but he couldn't see anything even slightly different about them from before, and if anyone knew what Stephanie Rogers's eyes looked like, it was Bucky Barnes. "Did the serum even fix your colorblindness?"

"Not me," Steph had called out from behind the curtain, a deliberate echo to Bucky's earlier, "Not mine."

She probably should have realized he'd be shocked by her attire, but she had several other things on her mind, and, well, she was just that comfortable with him, even if he wasn't the Bucky of her timeline. As he looked the cover over, she started to organize the ingredients for their dinner, continuing to talk to him as she worked. "I took art commissions during my downtime, yeah. When there weren't aliens to fight or HYDRA bases to raid."

She turned away to rinse and cut up the vegetables, so she missed seeing his surprise. She did look over her shoulder back at him. "Yeah, it did." The smile that bloomed on her face was soft and a little sad. "I have a lot of misgivings about the serum, but I can at least finally see how pretty your eyes are."

There was no hiding the genuine smile on his face at that news. Bucky knew that her colorblindness was a large part of what kept Steph from really expanding on her art (that, and the cost of supplies), so the fact that she could see colors properly was amazing. But at the comment about his eyes, he shook his head. "Mine are nothin' special, Steph. Becca's got the same ones."

He'd always liked her brighter blue eyes a hell of a lot more than his gray blue, dammit. But that probably wouldn't surprise anyone.

Still smiling, he looked back down at the book in his hands. Even if he hadn't known Steph was the person who did the painting, he would think it was fantastic. "I can't believe you painted us like this. Why-" but he got his answer quick enough when he flipped over to the back of the book and Sergeant Barnes jumped out at him, along with Lady Liberty and something about one of the twentieth century's greatest love stories. "Huh. Well, that's different."

There were books about them in the future? Seriously?

Of course Bucky would insist his eyes weren't special. Or anything about him, for that matter. He really was blind, wasn't he? How could he not have seen he was everything to Steph, or that she looked at him like he hung the moon and stars?

She just continued with her preparations, leaving him with the book until he piped up again. Well, that took him a while to notice. She laughed from where she stood by the sink, but didn't turn to look at him. "Yeah, people assumed we were together from the newsreels and photos during the war, and made up all sorts of shit from that. Novels, some films. Even a TV series at one point, but they fished me out of the ice, then you were back too, and they were afraid we'd sue." Not that that stopped the shippers from doing what they wanted online. Tumblr and AO3 had LibertySarge tags and all that.

She took a moment from what she was doing to pour him a glass of water and set it down on the table in front of him.

"Jesus, that's nuts." Bucky said, then thanked her for his water before taking a drink of it. Hell, even the general public could see what they couldn't, apparently. He thought he hid the way he looked at her well, but apparently not.

Shaking his head, he flipped the book back to it's cover. She really was talented, but he'd always known that. But to see her be able to work with colors--and be so damn good at it--was amazing. "Even if it was just on the side, I'm glad you did something with your art," he started, setting the book aside so he could watch her. He tried (and mostly succeeded) to focus on her back, head, and arms, and not look at her ass. "I always thought you were too good to just hide your drawings in your sketchbooks."

"Some of our letters ended up in the museum." Steph picked up her phone then and scrolled through her photos, stopping to show Bucky one of her letters that had been on display at the exhibit in the Smithsonian. She taught him to swipe left or right to view the next ones; she'd taken a lot of photos of the exhibit after the Winter Soldier disappeared on her, in case showing him the photos one day might jog his memory. "Can't blame them for assuming stuff from those. I did write you love letters, just without saying the love part out loud."

How had it been so hard to tell Bucky how she felt when it spilled so easily out of her now?

She returned to her cooking, leaving her phone with him. If he accidentally scrolled further back or forward, or figured how to navigate the screen, he would also see pictures of the photos she had on display in her apartment, pages from her sketchpads, renders of her digital art, Bucky in Wakanda, and the Avengers. She had a chronicle of her life right there after she woke up in the future, mostly missing one thing: her face. She never liked sketching or taking photos of herself, even moreso after the whole world glorified her as Lady Liberty. The only ones that included her where the old photos she'd recovered from Becca or downloaded from history websites, and some unavoidable group shots with the Avengers.

"The future had more opportunities for women artists than just war propaganda materials," she said as she cooked. "I also needed money. It's expensive in the future, and I didn't want to rely on my government paycheck because I hoped to get out of being their toy soldier." She did, or at least when SHIELD fell and the Avengers pretty much went private, but it was still a life of fighting. "There was always something to fight though. Even after I had to give up the shield."

"Holy cow," Bucky whispered to himself as he ran his finger back and forth across the small screen in his hand, momentarily distracted from what Steph wanted to show him. He couldn't help it, even after all the shit he'd been through and all he'd seen, he was still a nerd who got excited over technological advances deep down. And the thing in his hands was highly advanced. "What is this thing?" he asked idly.

But eventually he began actually paying attention to the contents of the photos themselves. It was absolutely insane that anything of his would be worth anything to a museum, especially his clothes and love letters. Cause that's what his had been, too.

Once the museum exhibits stopped, Bucky kept going, taking in the people he didn't know (even though one man reminded him of someone, but he couldn't place who) and the places, some of which were clearly in New York. The clothes were so different, the cars in the background were different, everything. He was paying attention to more than just the focus of each picture, but the whole thing. Including the things in the backgrounds that other people would likely have ignored entirely.

And there was art that didn't quite look like photographs of art, more like prints, almost? But he would recognize Steph's style anywhere, and they were stunning.

The picture that made him stop, however, was a lot simpler. It was out in a field instead of a city, and it looked like some long-haired guy in a robe or something fussing at a goat. Bucky almost went past it since there was nothing futuristic to look at, but then he noticed the guy had only one arm, and then he took a closer look at the man's face. He was scruffy, but he could see himself in it. "Is this him?" Bucky asked, looking up at Steph again as he turned the box to face her.

Steph loved Bucky's excitement over her phone. She'd figured he would be thrilled, which was part of why she decided to show it to him. "We call it a smartphone, or just a phone. You can use it for calls, texts — they're like instant letters or telegrams. Pictures, videos. All sorts of things, really." She didn't have a network connection here in the past though, so it was mostly a keepsake now.

He got so engrossed with the pictures that she managed to progress with her cooking mostly uninterrupted. Until he showed her one particular photo anyway, and the pang in her chest returned. She stirred what she was cooking then placed the lid on and left it to simmer, moving to stand next to him. "Yeah, that's him. From about five years ago. That's Wakanda, in Africa. He was being rehabilitated there."

"This is a phone? You're kidding, right?" It was nothing like the heavy things they had. One good smack with the headset from one of the phones from the 1940s could take someone out, even if you were swinging it without superstrength. "And you can just take it with you?"

He turned the phone back around to take another look at the picture. "Why Wakanda?" he asked. As far as he knew, it was a rural country without anything special. Just... small villages scattered about. He was pretty sure they had some sort of royal family, but that was pretty much all he knew about it. "And is that a goat that he's chewing out?"

Bucky's surprise wasn't unfamiliar. "Yeah, I was amazed too," Steph admitted with a laugh. "Some of the slightly older models were even smaller, but the screens weren't in color or touch-responsive yet." Then she sighed softly. "No flying cars though. Howard got too busy with SHIELD to make 'em, I guess."

She left his side to stir the stew. "Well, because Wakanda—" She trailed off abruptly, frowning, and considered whether or not she could tell him.

It took two seconds for her to decide. "Don't tell anyone, okay?" What? He was her best friend. She told him everything — except how she felt about him. "But Wakanda, they're actually really technologically advanced. Just hid what they got from the Nazis and anyone who might wanna take advantage."

She peered closer at the picture. "Ah, yeah, Rogers, the small fighty one." She snorted. "Should I have taken that as a hint? Actually Steph I like you, here's a goat I named after you."

"Yeah, I thought the cars looked awfully grounded in the background of a lot of those pictures," Bucky said with a grin. "Guess I'll have to start bugging him every so often. Bet if I start telling him he'll never get one that works without crashing he'll do it."

"Secret's safe with me." He'd kept other secrets for her in the past, but they'd never been ones that could potentially change how the world saw a whole country before. Still, he'd keep it quiet. Wouldn't even tell the others at the office. "Can't say I blame them though, considering I never even told the others that HYDRA managed to do something to me."

He looked back at the picture, amused by the image of this long haired version of himself fussing at a goat. Rogers, huh? If it was small and fighty then yeah, he woulda named a goat after her. "Probably should have taken most things I did as a sign I liked you."

Steph laughed. "Maybe he just needs you to pester him until it happens. While you're at it, when he finally has a kid, can you tell him to stop being such a workaholic and spend some time at home?" Okay, so they'd already established that messing with other people's lives was a bad idea, but maybe Tony wouldn't have had all those issues had Howard just paid him some attention? She was only going for a little nudge.

She washed her hands, brought a loaf of bread to the table, sliced it up and started snacking on it. "Sorry, the serum makes me really hungry," she said as she invited Bucky to help himself to some. "I've got more so take as much as you like." It wasn't 2020s bread, unfortunately — cooking and baking were apparently two different disciplines, and she didn't have the aptitude for the latter — but it was at least nutritious and filling.

"You can't tell anyone about me either," she reminded, steering them back to their earlier conversation. He probably knew that, but she had to say it.

Grabbing another slice of bread, she went back to her cooking. "Buck, you dated other women but never even asked me. How was I supposed to take that other than 'not interested' or 'saw me only as a sister'?" He'd already explained why he did that, but still. "If you were trying to make me jealous though, it fucking worked."

"Howard's gonna have a kid? He's gonna actually find a woman to settle his ass down?" That in itself sounded like one of the more surprising things he'd heard since he got to her apartment. Bucky almost pointed out to Steph that he could tell him that herself, but then he remembered she'd been... insinuating she wouldn't be sticking around. "But yeah. I'll tell him. Can't have too many workaholics hanging around the office all the time." Because he was well aware that if he ended up alone, that's where he'd be.

He shrugged at the bread, though. "It's fine. She plays Miss Proper a lot, but Peggy couldn't hide how much she can eat during the war."

"I won't tell them. Don't worry." Bucky frowned a little as he took a piece of bread and picked at it, and tore it into little pieces more than he ate it. "Steph, I already told you. It was either girls that I was set up with, girls that wouldn't let up, or ones I was helping. And I would have turned down every single one of them if I thought you even might have been interested in me. But I didn't think you were and I didn't wanna risk our friendship by saying something and... I don't know. Making things awkward."

"I know, right? I was surprised too." Despite her words, Steph's tone held fondness for Howard.

She asked permission to take the phone back, but kept it lying on the table as she scrolled for a photo. She found one of them in the Avengers Tower the night the Ultron fiasco started, just before they'd had a go at trying to lift Mjolnir. Tony was up front, taking the shot with his phone's front camera. Steph was at the back, by the pool table, with Sam.

"That's him," she pointed. "Tony Stark. Tech wiz like his father. Also had his drinking and womanizing habits, but he sobered up eventually." They didn't always see eye to eye, but Tony had been her friend and among the first ones after she woke up in the future.

The rest of their conversation happened as she finished preparing their meal. "Not talking to you after your dates wasn't hint enough?" They really were idiots. She didn't hold that against Bucky though, since it went both ways. "But, yeah, I get it. I hadn't wanted to risk it either. Would've kissed you on that boardwalk if I'd been braver. Maybe even before that."

"Oh, that's the one I thought reminded me of someone, but I wasn't sure who. Now I can see it," he said, looking at the picture. "But please tell me that's not how many guys wear their beards in the future." It looked ridiculous.

But, finally, he set the phone down and turned his full attention back to the woman cooking dinner for him. The frown was still firmly on his face, but that had been pretty standard for the last... well, since he shipped out of New York in the first place, really. And it had only gotten worse since he got back.

Instead of small and skinny and sometimes standing on a stool while she cooked, the Stephanie Rogers in front of him was tall and strong. Just as beautiful, if in a different way, but possibly more stupid than the skinny version had been. At least the small version of her never ditched him to go try to make a better version exist. Too bad it didn't seem to work.

"I almost convinced myself to say something I don't know how many times, Steph," he admitted as he let his hand rest on his chin while he watched her. "But, you're the most important person to me, so I'd chicken out cause, like I said. I didn't wanna scare you off."

Steph didn't abruptly stop her stirring, but she slowed, the ache in her chest back at Bucky's words, along with her regret and longing and so much else. She sniffed, then quickly swiped at her nose and eyes with the back of her hand not holding the ladle, and hoped he wasn't watching her and thus failed to notice.

They could've had a life together, eventually. After all the fighting and the pain and the suffering. But no, she'd thought she could save him too, as she'd helped save the world and half the universe before. Now she was left with nothing and he was deeply unhappy, not to mention the Bucky she'd left behind—

Maybe she should go back to '45, hijack a plane with bombs, and crash it. Not under some misguided illusion that she could change anything or save anyone, but just to put an end to it all.

"Hey." She replaced the lid and set the ladle down. "Can you watch this for a minute? Just gotta run to the shop in the corner, I forgot something."

The bathroom was too close, too small. She needed some air, just a quick lap around the block to calm her thoughts. Without bothering to change, she just grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and started putting it on, desperately blinking back tears. Not now, dammit.

Unfortunately for Steph, Bucky had been watching. And even if he hadn't, he would have heard her sniffle. So, when she moved towards the door and started to pull on her coat Bucky was out of his chair in no time.

He crossed the small room and stopped her with a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, even though he wasn't sure what he said could have upset her so badly that she would try to leave her own apartment; he felt guilty anyway. "Do you want me to- I can go if you want, alright? I'll leave if that's what you need."

Was Bucky angry with her? Of course he was. But he still cared, dammit. He was always going to care about her. Hell, it wasn't even the first time in his life that he'd been mad as hell at her but stuck around anyway, that's just what he tended to do.

He was mad, but he had missed her so much and for so long that even with literal decades and a whole different life between them, he still didn't want to leave unless she wanted him to. Bucky knew it was weird, and he'd always been on the clingy side of things with her. Apparently, that hadn't changed.

"No," Steph answered quickly — too quickly — and against all sense she turned toward Bucky, grabbing the front of his shirt with both hands before burying her face into the crook of his neck. "Don't go."

If this felt familiar, it was because this was almost a repeat of the morning he shipped out. Only back then he had been the one pulling on a coat, and Steph, small and scrawny without the serum, had only come up to his chest. "Don't go," she'd also said, though she'd quickly amended it to, "Don't go yet," and said she wanted to hug him a little longer.

Tonight she didn't add anything more to it. "Don't go," she repeated, even, sounding small and scared and so heartbroken. "I screwed up, I know I did, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." The more her words came out in a rush, the more her Brooklyn accent returned.

When Steph grabbed Bucky and buried her face in his neck, Bucky didn't hesitate before wrapping his arms tightly around her, holding her close. "Then I'm not going anywhere." It was that simple. If she wanted him there, Bucky would stay. As always, he wanted to be where Steph was. It was as simple as that, even if it was also as complicated as hell at the same time.

"I know you are, Steph. But I'm here, alright?" Bucky tried to keep his voice low and comforting as he hugged her close, one hand coming up to stroke her hair. "I'll stay as long as you want me to."

He'd been without Steph for too goddamn long and, even if the one in his arms had so many different experiences from the one he'd last seen, and even if she had absolutely screwed up, she was still his best friend if nothing else.

And if Bucky stopped to think about it? If their situations were reversed, he couldn't be sure he wouldn't have done the same thing. Risking absolutely everything to save Steph.

"I never wanted to leave." Steph was sobbing now, completely undone the moment Bucky wrapped his arms around her. "But they were sending me back, and I thought... I thought... how could I not try, after everything they did to you?"

He wasn't the Bucky who had suffered in HYDRA's hands — her meddling had been to ensure that — but it was an apology to him too.

"And how could you ever love me, when I caused you all that suffering? I should never have tried to follow you to the front. I should have just stayed home and and waited." Her life had been about waiting — waiting to get better, waiting to die, waiting to be loved, waiting for things to change. She should've taken the hint.

Bucky only pulled back enough to sit down in the closest chair--the one their coats were draped over the back of--and then urged Steph down into his lap, where he once more wrapped his arms tightly around her. The way the two of them fit together with her curled up in his lap was entirely different from how it had been when Steph was small, but that didn't matter. Bigger or not, she was Steph and she was crying, so Bucky was going to hold her.

"How could I not love you?" Bucky asked, his voice low but steady, doing his best to calm her down by speaking the truth. "I bet there's not a timeline out there where I don't love you, Steph." But it also sounded like there might not be a timeline out there where they just got to be... content from the start. From what she'd told him, if she hadn't kept saving his ass, HYDRA would have still gotten him, and then what? If she had stayed home and waited, he would have still been captured. If she hadn't been an idiot and gotten herself experimented on, how would he have ever gotten free of them?

And even if he did, would it have been worth it to be trapped in a future without her?

Edited (wrong word) 2026-01-07 19:28 (UTC)

This shouldn't feel right. His Steph was somewhere in 2023, waiting for him to tell her he loved her. (There it was again, waiting.) But she couldn't bring herself to pull away and get off from Bucky's lap, instead she even curled tighter into him, as if she was still the scrawny woman he'd said goodbye to in 1943.

"But is there one where we get to be together?" All the fight seemed to have gone out of her now. There was no longer that undercurrent of that righteous anger in her voice, just... despair. Perhaps he knew what that sounded like, having been to war and made to face impossible odds.

"There better be," Bucky started, then turned his head to press a soft kiss to her hair before letting his eyes close and just breathing in the scent of her. "Otherwise, what's the point of all this?"

He wasn't a particularly religious person. Hell, Bucky wasn't sure if he believed in much of anything, especially after all he'd seen and done in the war. But even he had to believe that somewhere there was a version of the two of them that was just... happy together. Because, as shitty as the world was, how could it only exist to keep the two of them apart and miserable? The idea of that was beyond cruel. It sounded like actual Hell.

"Maybe it's this one," Steph murmured, closing her eyes as well. She wanted to believe it, that there was still a chance that she could fix things for this Bucky, but with the universe's history of repeatedly screwed her over, she could no longer find it in her to be optimistic.

As luck would have it, a hissing sound cut through their... whatever it was they were doing. "Shit, the stew." She stumbled away and was by the stove in record time, trying to save their dinner. Fortunately, she still seemed to have that ability. She put on the finishing touches, then prepared a plate for him: roasted potatoes (seasoned), beef stew with vegetables (seasoned), leftover meatloaf prepared the Sarah Rogers way (but with seasoning), and a chocolate bar for dessert (smuggled from the future).

"Here. Sorry." Her eyes were still red-rimmed, but dinner was at least here to distract her. "Help yourself to seconds anytime." Instead of getting her own plate, she busied herself with putting away her phone and book and coat and anything else that could be put away.

Edited 2026-01-07 21:47 (UTC)

"Maybe." With the advancements he'd already found out about in the future, and the fact that this Steph didn't seem like she planned on sticking around, he doubted it though.

Bucky followed her back into the kitchen area when she took off running, but at a more normal speed. "It all looks and smells great, Steph," he told her honestly. Really, it smelled even better than her cooking back before the war, but he wasn't sure what was different about it.

He took his plate from her and set it down, expecting her to make her own plate and join him, then frowned when he saw her doing... pretty much anything but that. "You're not going to eat?"

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