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

"People don't care as much in the future." Steph glanced down at her own clothes. "I wear these for my morning runs. They're very comfy."

Which was where she thought Bucky's compliment was coming from. These yoga pants were very flattering to her ass, and while she hated the attention people gave to her appearance, she did like how comfortable sportswear had become. Wearing shorts would probably be worse; she just might as well run in a bikini.

So she was surprised when he said he always thought she looked good. Laughing in disbelief, she reminded him, "I was all elbows and knees, Buck. Sharp edges and no curves." She frowned after a moment and looked down at her body again. "I dunno if Pegs feels the same, but maybe not, she was healthy in my timeline. But I... it's weird, Buck. Being in this body. I don't... I don't feel like myself. Instead I feel like I'm only wearing it and it doesn't even fit."

Then she shrugged and stood to rinse her plate. "You know what they made me do after they shot me up with the serum? The goddamn USO shows." She knew it was different here, that Peggy never had to be Lady Liberty. "It wasn't until after we took out that HYDRA factory that they made me part of the Army, and only because they had no choice. The soldiers talked. 'America's favorite pin up girl saves the day' was too good an opportunity to pass up."

"I'm well aware of what you looked like before, Steph," Bucky said with a roll of his eyes as he turned on the hot water tap to start warming up so he could wash their dishes, then stepped back to the stove to test the temperature of the food still sitting on the stove. If nothing else, he knew he wasn't supposed to put it in the fridge when it was still hot--it'd warm everything else in there up. "Not only do I just remember what you looked like, but I also have all your photos at my place."

Shrugging, he decided the food was still too hot and moved back to the sink. "I liked your sharp edges, though. They matched that sharp tongue of yours." The rest of what she said was on the more serious side of things, so he turned the water back off and turned to her, frowning.

"Hey," he started, looking at her seriously as he reached up to place a hand on the side of her head. "I know it doesn't fix anything for you, but I still knew exactly who you were as soon as you said, 'Hey, Buck' on that ferris wheel, didn't I? All the important parts of you are still there. Doesn't matter what the outside looks like, you're still you."

But he was Bucky, and she was Steph, so he had to tease her a little. "I do wish I got to see you as a USO girl though. You woulda definitely been my favorite of the bunch."

Bucky's openness continued to surprise Steph. Sure, they told each other things all the time — what sort of friends were they otherwise? — but this open affection was new. Or had it always been there and she just hadn't noticed?

She leaned into his touch and closed her eyes. Dammit, if he kept doing this, their situation might... escalate. She'd already asked if he would stay, after all.

"You're the only one who's really seen me since." For all she pouted about his teasing, he had been right; for all that HYDRA fucked up his head in Steph's world, he still couldn't forget her. Most else knew of her and already had some opinion or perceived image of her when they met, one that would never really go away even as they later got to know each other better.

Do you see me now? she ached to ask, but was also afraid to. Did she really want him to see how badly she wanted him, how she wished to fill the void inside of her with him — even if it was wrong, even if she did not deserve it? So she was glad for the teasing, which allowed her to deflect her own dangerously building desires.

"Stick around and I might just show you," she teased back, entirely aware there were two ways they could go about that and how she could give him either of it.

God, Bucky had missed Steph. Not only since getting home to New York, but also for the two years he spent in Europe before that. Up until Bucky's weeks in boot camp, and then when he later shipped out to Europe, the man had rarely gone more than a day or two without seeing his best friend, and then suddenly it had been years since he'd last been near her.

It was really no surprise that Bucky was borderline touch-starved when it came to her. Not that a man from the 40s would know terms like "touch-starved," but still.

"I wish you didn't wait so long before letting me see you," he said, voice soft as he let his thumb drift across her cheekbone. Sure, he'd seen flashes of her here and there as he searched for the Winter Soldier, some glimpses of a woman saving his ass in the war more than once. But it wasn't the same.

But that last comment made him laugh a little. "What, you bring the outfit with you?"

[ ooc: i suspect bucky was always a LITTLE open with his affection with her before the war, but he tried to keep it to things that could be passed off as friend touches ]

"I thought you'd be happier without me," Steph said regretfully, her eyes sliding closed as she echoed one of the very first things she told him when they finally came face to face. "And I'm not the one you want. I'm not her."

She didn't want to move, afraid to break whatever this was that was unfolding between them. Maybe it was nothing. She did fuck up his life and ruin his chances of having a future with his Steph. But even if this was entirely platonic, she still wanted it. She just wanted to feel something again.

"No," she answered with a soft laugh, "but I can get us tickets." To a show in 1943. If they were going to travel through time anyway they might as well do a little sightseeing. Maybe it'll cheer him up some.

"You thought I'd-- Steph that's gotta be the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Bucky's brow furrowed yet again as he looked up at her. Having to look up at Steph was something he was willing to adjust to. Being without her wasn't. And if she'd been following him or anything like she sort of implied, she had to have seen how wrong she was. He'd been miserable every day since he got back.

And he wasn't even going to acknowledge the not the one you want piece of trash.

"You've seen for yourself how dumb that line of thinking was now, haven't you?"

The suggestion of tickets caught him a little off guard, though. "I don't know about that. Might piss me off seein' other fellas makin' eyes at you."

"Y-Yeah. Didn't think you were that dumb, but alas." It was all in jest as usual though, and so that Bucky knew that was what it was, Steph brought her hand up and over his own, lacing their fingers together. Then she opened her eyes again and quietly promised, "I'm here now though."

It was still crazy to think that he would rather have the life her Bucky had than be without her, that he still wanted her around even after she had wronged him. She didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve him. But he needed her like she needed him, and she couldn't begrudge him that now that she understood.

She leaned in to rest her forehead against his. He was shorter than she remembered; not that she cared, only taking note so that she could someday give him shit about it. But that was for later. "Guess you gotta make do with the next best thing then," she said, a smile in her voice. (Good Lord, was this flirting? Were they flirting?)

"I don't know how you didn't already know that," he started, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. "You were the one that was always telling me how much of a dumbass I was. Am." Bucky was pretty sure that Steph told him that even more than Becca did, and that was saying something.

But like she said, she was there. And, god, Bucky hoped she would stay. She'd hinted at leaving, but he didn't know what he'd do if she disappeared on him again. Hell, he'd barely survived the first time.

"Just the next best thing, huh?" Bucky asked with a slight grin tugging at his own lips. It... honestly wasn't the first time he'd done any sort of flirting with Steph, but she just never seemed to pick up on it in the past. It wasn't that big of a deal, though, considering he hadn't had any practice with flirting in any way in the last few years. And he'd never actually been overt about it with her in the past.

"I don't exactly wear the flag under my clothes, you know," Steph somehow managed to quip, though she figured she was probably blushing with how hot her cheeks felt.

She had no idea how to navigate these waters. He said he loved her, and she admitted feeling the same, so now what? It didn't make it easier that they weren't who they grew up with, not really, and on top of that there was the whole... time travel situation. Fuck, why did things have to be so complicated? It was difficult enough being in love with your best friend and not wanting to screw up any more than you already had. Maybe this was why most people dated strangers. There was far less to lose that way.

Oh. Bucky felt his own face flush a bit at that thought. "Under your clothes, huh?" It was entirely possible that Steph didn't mean to distract Bucky with thoughts of what she had under that... exceptionally tight outfit she had on. He'd already been struggling not to focus on it, dammit.

But dammit, now he was thinking about how tight those so-called pants she had on were. "Are you trying to tell me that compared to your little USO skirt, I'm gonna be disappointed by what's under there? Cause I don't think that can happen."

Well. Apparently flirting was a lot like fighting, just more... dangerous. It wasn't helping that Bucky seemed to be playing along. Steph felt like she was sparring with him with a blindfold on. What now?

"Only one way to find out, yeah?" Dammit, here she was again, running her mouth and making herself deal with the consequences later. But hey, look at where thinking and plotting had gotten her; sure, he was alive, and HYDRA was gone for the most part, but she'd never seen him so unhappy. Something had to change.

She gave his fingers a soft, hopefully reassuring squeeze, her way of granting him permission to act on it if he wanted. But they could just snuggle on the couch and hold each other if that was all he yearned for. Anything for him.

Bucky watched her for a few seconds, his mind feeling like it was running through about fifty different thoughts at once while being pulled in just as many different directions. But there was one thought and one direction that was louder than any of the others.

"I want to kiss you," he admitted, face going more red as he brought his left hand up to rest gently on Steph's waist. As much as he had always wanted to kiss her, it wasn't exactly something he'd admitted out loud before. Maybe in passing, when he was telling the Howlies how much he needed to get home to propose to his best friend, but even then the kissing was more implied than stated. "But, Steph, I need you to promise not to up and disappear on me again. Not if you can help it."

Bucky genuinely didn't think he'd be able to handle losing her again. He'd barely survived the first time.

Steph suddenly felt light-headed and weak in the knees, as if Bucky's hand on her waist was the only thing holding her up. She hadn't realized just how much she needed this. Maybe it was the loneliness. Maybe it was suppressing all those big feelings. Or maybe because she'd been at the verge of once again giving up on everything, and he came just in time to save her.

"I was gonna end it all," she admitted with a sob, practically collapsing in his arms. It wasn't an appropriate response by any means, but he had to know. She owed him the truth, no matter how ugly it was. He had to know what he was getting into with her. "After tonight. After I took you to see her." She didn't know how, but that had been the plan. There was no point living in a world without him — or in one where she had failed him.

"But you... you stayed." Even after she fucked things up. He stayed, and he held her, and he didn't hate her, and that meant more than he could ever know.

Steph's admission made Bucky's eyes widen in a mix of shock and fear. Shock that she would go that far for any reason, and fear of losing her for good. But that only lasted for a second before he moved, one arm wrapping tightly around her waist and the other wrapping around her shoulders in a tight hug, holding her close.

"You can't- You can't do that, Steph. To you or to me," he said as he clung to her, his chin on her shoulder. Even then, he knew it was stupid to make it about him even slightly, but he'd say absolutely anything to convince her not to do anything that stupid.

Plus, if he knew for sure she was gone for good--not just some stupid rumors that people were trying to link to his missing best friend--Bucky couldn't be sure he wouldn't be right on her heels.

Men weren't supposed to cry. That had been drilled into Bucky's head since he could remember. But that didn't stop him from feeling his eyes well up as he squeezed them closed.

"Of course I stayed, punk. Since you pulled that stupid scarf off your face, I've taken every chance to stay with you. I spent too much time trying to find you to just... leave."

Steph was quiet for a moment, but she held on to Bucky as tightly as she could without hurting him. He was alive and whole, and now with the chance to live out the life he never had, yet he was saddling himself with the broken, damaged version of his best friend. He deserved better than her, anyone but her, yet he wanted her anyway.

"I don't deserve you," she said eventually, no longer sobbing but voice still thick with emotion. "But I'll stay for as long as you want me to." That had been one of his assertions earlier, that her mission should have been his call, not hers. He didn't want to be saved if it meant being parted from her. If she had known — if she had asked — then it wouldn't have come to this.

She hoped Bucky was fine in their timeline. Mad at her, probably, but she could live with that. Hopefully having the younger, sweeter, less jaded version of herself around would be good for him. He deserved to be happy, after everything.

"You don't deserve me?" Bucky asked with an incredulous laugh as he pulled back just far enough to look up at her again. His smile was definitely weak, as he hadn't felt like he was worth much of anything in quite a long time, but at least it was there. A little. "Steph, you could go live at any point in time, but I'm the selfish bastard that's askin' you to stay here in the 40s with me instead of going to some better time. Or even just... going to be with that other version of me."

Was he ignoring the whole thing about how she planned to go off herself after he left? Absolutely, he was. Bucky didn't think he had it in himself to really address that just yet, but he'd get there at some point.

"Hell, Steph, I'm greedy enough that I'm already trying to think of how to keep this from Becca since you said I can't tell anyone about you."

"Buck, if I hadn't been so dumb and fucked things up, you wouldn't have had to ask," Steph retorted with a mirroring weak self-deprecating laugh. She could've done anything else really and it would've been better than this. She could've brought the other Steph back so she was here when Bucky returned from the war, and he could've had the happy ending he deserved. But she didn't. Who was the selfish bastard now?

She cupped his cheek then, running her thumb over his lower lip. There probably wasn't any version of him that she wouldn't love and want. But he was the only one who asked, after a lifetime of waiting.

"We'll figure out what to tell Becca. And your friends." She'd already had her fill of being a science project and government property, and she'd like to avoid the same fate for him. Being one of the founders of SHIELD in this universe should at least help his case. She wasn't sure about hers. If anything they might think she was a HYDRA asset, their answer to Captain Carter.

But there were far more important things they had to deal with first. "I ain't going anywhere without you, alright? I promise." She let go of his face to fish out her tags (and locket) from under her shirt and place them into his hand. They were the only truly personal effects she had, having left everything else behind.

Not in the mood to argue about which of them was more selfish, at least for the time being, Bucky just ignored her comment and let his eyes close while he felt Steph touch his lip, then looked up at her again. Another timeline or not, Bucky sure did love this woman.

Besides, their divergent timelines meant that for the first time since they were little kids getting to know each other, they would actually have things to learn about one another, instead of just knowing everything.

"We don't need to tell anyone everything, but I don't want to just keep you hidden away forever. And my family is gonna recognize this face of yours the second they see it." At least Becca and his Ma would. His dad... could go either way, really.

It probably said something about how Bucky had been living that it actually took him a moment to figure out what friends Steph was referencing, though. "The folks at the office are gonna know something's going on if I'm not in as foul of a mood as I usually am, though."

But he took her tags in hand and examined them, running his thumb over the raised lettering. "It's weird as hell seein' your name on tags like this, Steph." He had his own, of course, and if she was giving him hers then he would give her his in return, but it was still odd to think of her being in the Army.

"Yeah, but we gotta think of something to explain this," Steph said, gesturing vaguely to her body, "without the government wanting to lock me up and stick things into me." There were still people in Brooklyn who would recognize her. Could they get away with saying she was a relative, Steph's cousin maybe? Becca would call bullshit, probably Bucky's Ma too, but they could at least be sworn to secrecy. Maybe. Hopefully. She hadn't had to think about this, as she hadn't intended to stay.

His friends would be another story. They couldn't know she had the serum. But she should be able to figure something out. She knew them — Peggy and Howard and the Howlies, even Colonel Phillips — so she should at least have an idea what they might think. She just needed more time. And less distractions.

As Bucky looked her tags over, Steph ran her fingertips up along his left arm in turn — still flesh and bone, which was weird as hell after everything. "It was the only way I could get to you," she told him. "I didn't wanna just... stay in Brooklyn and garden and wait for Becca to tell me you've been killed." Then she glanced at him with a teasing grin. "Must be weird that I outrank you, Sarge."

Edited 2026-01-17 04:46 (UTC)

"Hey, no matter what happens, nobody's gonna go poking and prodding at you, you got that?" Bucky would shoot his so-called friends himself if he had to when it came to protecting Steph. "But we'll have to figure something out, cause they've been seeing your face for years now."

Bucky pressed her tags back into her hand before pulling out the pocket watch she'd gotten a quick glimpse of earlier. He flicked it open and handed it to her, letting Steph really take a look at the photo of her--happy and amused at something Becca had said to her off camera--tucked inside the cover. "I've got another photo of you on my desk at the office, too." So they knew her face, just not as well as he and his family did. And especially with the larger picture on his desk, it was easier to tell she was supposed to be small and skinny, not tall and curvy.

While she looked at the pocket watch, Bucky grinned slightly. "You outranking me isn't the surprising part, sweetheart. I usually ended up letting you boss me around anyway." Did Bucky mean to call her sweetheart just then? No, he did not. But he wasn't going to take it back, either.

"We can trust Pegs, and Howard, but I ain't sure how things work now that the war's over." Steph worried for Bucky, too; they never did find out just how the serum affected him. She had hoped to talk to the Wakandans about it at some point, but she'd ended up spending nearly all of her time with him whenever she visited. She would let Howard run some tests on them both for their peace of mind, but not until they were sure that wouldn't reach anyone else. Even if they'd destroyed all that they knew of HYDRA by now, she didn't want to take any chances. There could still be other moles and sleeper agents.

She touched her fingertips to her picture in his pocket watch. "I don't remember ever being this happy since you told me you enlisted." She'd been so mad at him that she wouldn't speak to him for a whole day, then she was morose and moody in all those weeks after that. She understood doing one's duty, but why did he have to leave? Why did he have to leave her? It wasn't fair.

If she'd known then that he loved her too, she would've begged him to run away with her. She instead tried for the next best thing: that if he must die, then at least they could die together.

She glanced back at him in surprise, expecting him to take back the endearment. When he didn't, she felt her stomach twist — in a good way — and she had to grin. "Too bad we were so dumb. I could've given you a proper dressing down while we made our way through Europe. What a wasted opportunity." Did he catch the innuendo? She'd never really flirted before.

"Yeah, guess I wasn't exactly someone that could call some shots with them after your war, was I?" Not if he was off being a POW with a missing arm. "But we'll be careful about what we tell people, and who we tell it to, alright?"

Oh. That was right. Oops. "Yeah, I sorta lied about that," Bucky started with a frown. "I didn't enlist. I was trying to stay here in the city with you, and had even uh... convinced myself I needed to actually tell you how I felt, but then I got my draft letter and decided to wait and tell you when I got home." It would give him a reason to make it home, after all.

Bucky looked down at the picture in his watch. He didn't have to see it, he had every single part of it burned into his mind, and he had for a long time. "I don't remember what she said, but Becca said something you thought was funny. Then I took your photo." And while he had many photos of Steph, that one was one of his favorites. It's why he took it with him.

"I don't know if it woulda been better or worse if you had been over there with me," Bucky said, grinning as he looked back up at Steph. "I mighta gotten distracted with the dressing downs, or with just wanting to protect you. But I would have at least been with you instead of half a world away."

"You were drafted?" That was news to Steph. All this time, she'd believed Bucky had chosen to go off to war on his own accord.

But that also had a new implication: "You could've gone home. After Azzano, they offered you and the others an honorable discharge." At Steph's insistence, actually. She'd strong-armed Colonel Phillips into convincing top brass to send their captured boys home in exchange for her going into service, since she was worth a hundred men in battle anyway. "You didn't take it. You said I needed a second-in-command and you didn't trust anyone else to watch my back." The gesture had moved her, and she'd selfishly accepted, because she had been so afraid. But to now realize that he'd stuck around because of her, which then led to the train and all the tragedy that followed...

She suddenly grabbed him in a fierce hug, mumbling into his hair, "You absolute moron," with a sob. He wasn't the Bucky who made that choice, that was true, but she knew now that he would've done the same. That, and to keep his being drafted from her was such a dumb move. "We could've gotten married and run far away. Lived in a farm on the mountains and tended to goats or something." People made such a big deal about how honorable and heroic it was to be a soldier, but having been there, they knew of war's true horrors and now had to live with what's left of themselves after it had destroyed them both.

Bucky wrapped his arms around her in return, hugging her back tightly as he sighed. "Can't blame him for sticking around for you," he said, his voice soft. "But I wasn't given the discharge option. I'd been captured, but clearly I wasn't injured enough to get sent home." What they didn't realize was that it was because most of his injuries had healed already, because of what they did to him.

"I thought about grabbing you and running, you know," he said with a sad laugh. "Woulda been a shit life for you, though. And if I got caught and sent to jail, where would that have left you? Alone in a place you didn't know that well?" Steph didn't have any remaining family (even though everyone always insisted she was an unofficial Barnes), and with her health? He couldn't risk leaving her abandoned and alone somewhere.

"Better a shit life with you than one without you." Which wasn't all that different from Bucky's declaration that he would rather live through everything HYDRA put the other version of him through than lose her. They clearly were peas in a pod.

Steph pulled back to look at Bucky again. Yeah, this wasn't the best time period. The food was bland, healthcare sucked, and there were still more wars to come. But she meant it, that she would rather be with him through all that shit than be alone once more. "Need me to put my promise in writing, or can we kiss now?"

They could spend all night being hung up on their pasts and all the what-could-have-beens. Or they could try to move forward. In any case, they were together now at least. That was the most important part.

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guess who has spotty plane wifi but can't open discord

hey, feel free to just pm me or whatever if you want/need to lol. THERE ARE WAYS.

♡

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Hey lets just pretend that's not clearly Chris Evans in this icon

what chris evans 🤪

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