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

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?"

"I am, just—" Her back turned from him, Steph raked her hands through her hair. "Just gimme a minute, okay?"

She at least didn't go anywhere. She wanted to, now embarrassed by her breakdown — and how much she had liked being touched and held and sat on his lap; did he notice? — but he'd called for her and, as she'd asked him not to go, she had to stay. She just needed to calm down and gather her wits about her.

She also needed to stop thinking about how much she'd wanted to kiss up his neck to his mouth, and ask him to stay the night too.

Finally, she took off her coat again, went to fix herself up two plates and sat down across from him. No chocolate for her, that had been her last bar, but it was fine. "Sorry. I... I don't normally cry before dinner," she joked with a weak chuckle, hoping it would ease him. "Well, dig in? I hope you like it."

"Take your time." Bucky watched Steph out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to stare, but also worried at the same time, then felt some of his tension release when she pulled her coat back off. She wasn't trying to leave anymore, and that was good. But he still didn't even remotely settle until she was settling into the other chair with her own plates.

"It's fine, Steph," he told her, his voice soft. "I get it. Tonight's been... a lot." And that was a hell of an understatement, wasn't it?

Bucky finally took a bite of his stew then, and his eyes immediately went wide. "Holy shit," he said around his mouthful of food as he looked down at it. It didn't look any different from normal stews, but it sure tasted different. Then, once he finished his bite, he added, "Steph, this is amazing."

"Right? That was my reaction too." Steph's laugh was genuine this time. "You know they call the years we grew up in The Great Depression? And the war World War 2? Awful names, but that pretty much explains why our food's so bland."

Bucky's enjoyment was contagious, and she felt a bit lighter as she ate. She stood up for a moment again, but only to grab fresh glasses for their wine; just the regular ones though, since she never expected to ever host anyone. "Dernier said this is one of the good ones," she said as she looked at the label once more. "I know where to get some really potent alcohol in the future though. You can try some when we go."

She knew just how potent Asgardian booze was because she'd drunk herself blind after Bucky had been Snapped.

The sound of Steph laugh made Bucky look back over at her with a smile on his face. God, that had always been one of his favorite sounds.

But he took the glass of wine from her and took a sip, then set it down on the table. It was fine. It was wine, that was about all he could say about it. He didn't exactly have a fancy pallet when it came to wines and whatnot. Plus, it wasn't like alcohol had done anything for him in years anyway. "What, strong enough that I'd actually be able to feel it?" he asked, one brow raising. "Cause I haven't been so much as tipsy since '43."

It was probably a good thing he couldn't get drunk, though, because Bucky would have probably fallen deep into that after getting back to New York to find Steph missing.

Edited (NOTHING TO SEE HERE) 2026-01-08 13:27 (UTC)

"Oh yeah. Knocked me out cold many nights." Steph was smiling and about to shove another spoonful of food into her mouth, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. She wasn't proud of that time. She'd turned her back on the world, on her friends, when someone was desperately needed to lead the survivors on.

The despair she felt these days was even darker than back then, though. And she was getting really, really tired of fighting it.

"Want some more? I need another plate." In this era, at least, everything was cheaper. Her cash would last her a while yet despite her voracious appetite.

If it could knock out someone with a full dose of the serum, like Steph, then Bucky would have probably leaned heavily on it. Especially when he first got back.

Alright, not only when he first got back. But at least he had an idea of where his tiny Steph was at that point, so he probably wouldn't have leaned so heavily on it anymore. Or something. Maybe.

Either way, at Steph's question, Bucky shook his head. After all those years in what was, apparently, called the Great Depression, and the years at war, Bucky still wasn't entirely used to being able to stuff himself full of food. Plus, he knew that Steph needed more than he did with her abilities.

"I'm still working on this plate," he told her with a soft grin. "It's so good, though, Steph. What's different about it?"

"You know what? I don't think I'll tell you," Steph teased before disappearing into the kitchen to refill her plate. It was hardly the biggest secret in the world, but... okay, maybe she just wanted an excuse to invite Bucky over for dinner again.

She missed him so much, and she'd been incredibly lonely over the last couple of years. The first time she went to the front, she at least had a team, and more importantly she had Bucky; this time she'd been an outsider, operating on the fringes alone. It was cold and lonely in Europe and it was cold and lonely still when she returned to New York, and maybe she could have returned to 2023 like she'd never left... but she was a coward, like she had been in the past. In fact, this meeting only happened because this Bucky forced her hand.

She didn't realize she had zoned out and was staring forlornly at the pot of stew until Bucky calling her name jolted her out of her thoughts. "I'm okay. Just..." She decided not to finish that, moving to the sink to turn on the tap then turn it off again, just to pretend she was doing something.

Frowning, Bucky got up and followed Steph. Even if the woman hadn't been his best friend, if she hadn't been someone he'd known since they were kids, it would have been obvious that something was bothering her again. It seemed it didn't matter if she was bigger or smaller than him, or if she had made some really stupid decisions in the last couple of years, Bucky didn't like to see anything bothering her.

"Hey," he started, walking up and placing a hand on her back to get her attention, and maybe get her to stop turning the water on and off. She wasn't fooling anyone with that. "What's going on in that thick skull of yours?"

Steph sighed and set down her empty plate before resting her hands on the edge of the sink. She didn't say anything for a while, not really knowing where to start or what to even tell him, but sure that Bucky wouldn't leave her alone until she caved.

Eventually, she settled with, "You ever feel like you're just a walking corpse, or a ghost, and that maybe you died a long time ago?" He fought in the war, survived it this time around. Did he feel the numbness, the soul-crushing despair, when he returned to normal life in New York and found himself without the most important person in his life?

"I don't think I remember how it feels to be alive," she admitted quietly, still refusing to turn around and look at him.

Well that was a bit of a loaded question, wasn't it? He knew it wasn't intentionally so, but still. There was no good way to answer it.

So, Bucky sighed and hesitated for a few seconds before answering honestly. "That's how I feel every day, Steph." Sure, there were people around him who talked to him, but he didn't pay them as much attention as he would have three years earlier. Hell, he'd heard some of the people at the SSR talking about how they were pretty sure Sergeant Barnes didn't know what a joke was.

He never let on to them that he heard, but that comment alone went to show just how much he'd changed over the years. Bucky was sure he'd smiled more since meeting up with Steph that afternoon than he had in a long, long time, and he hadn't even spent much of their evening smiling.

Steph finally turned to meet Bucky's eyes, her expression sad and resigned. "Me too. Since the day you fell off that train."

She could still remember the moment in vivid detail: Bucky hanging from a rail on the side of the train car, Steph straining to reach him. "Grab my hand," she begged—

Maybe that was the moment she died.

"And now you're here, and I... I feel things." She hung her head and, very quietly, said, "I miss you. I love you. And it's not fair to you."

Edited (word choice) 2026-01-08 17:39 (UTC)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

⬅️ pretend there's a shirt in that icon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

at least it wasn't the smut tag 😂

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject