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

Steph let Bucky lead her back into their bedroom, where she quietly put on one of his shirts. It was probably not appropriate for any sort of meeting, but they were in their apartment, weren't they? Or perhaps she just felt the need to assert herself, that all this was hers now, that they couldn't just barge in and take any of it away.

She watched his face as they got dressed, searching for hints about how he was feeling. They'd never really talked about it — she still thought it was too soon to breach the subject — but she had been there, in the aftermath of Cap's departure. He had been mad, and hurt. Maybe he still was.

She pulled her hair up into a quick ponytail, then moved closer to touch his arm. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? You're stuck with me." He might not want to talk about his feelings, but she'd already squandered her chance once and she wasn't keen on doing it again.

★☆✪☆★
Steph noticed the claw marks too, which made her blush a little more. Thankfully Bucky said nothing to it and just put the shield away. She reached over to momentarily place Mjolnir on the nearest flat surface — which happened to be the top of the suitcase he had lugged in — while she fixed her hair as it had gotten mussed from the skirmish.

"He hates me," she said with a sigh. She'd been expecting it, but it still stung. "Her, too. I know that look." Even when she hadn't been in the position to do any protecting, she'd been awfully protective of him in the way people in love with their best friends were.

Bucky was frowning as he picked up and pulled on a random shirt and a pair of his lounge pants, then he sat on the foot of their bed and tugged Steph over to stand between his knees. He wrapped his arms around her waist loosely as he looked up at her. "I don't know why they're here, but you're not going anywhere." As long as she wanted to stay with him, at least.

He brought his natural hand up to rest on her cheek, letting his thumb drift over her cheekbone as he looked at her. "I'm with you, Steph. Not her. I love you."

★☆✪☆★
"We knew seeing them wasn't gonna be a cakewalk, sweetheart," Bucky told his wife with his own frown. While he had forgiven Steph for taking the smaller version of her away, making him live for over a year not sure if she was alive or dead. He had been so glad to have any version of her back in his life that his forgiveness came easy, but that didn't mean the older version of him had forgiven her for making the choice to leave in the first place.

"Talk to him. You guys can probably come to some sort of an understanding."

Trying to distract her a bit, Bucky walked over to what looked like a big black rectangle on the wall. He probably would have thought it was some sort of mirror, but it was dull and, well, black. "Tell me about some of this stuff?"

That was all Steph needed to hear. She threw her arms around Bucky and hugged him as tightly as her small frame would allow, all while trying not to cry. "I love you, too. I'm with you, not him."

Oh, there was no doubt she loved that Bucky who just arrived. He was the one she had grown up with, after all. But things had long since changed. Timelines split, and they had become different people. It was confusing, sure. But her feelings weren't. She knew who she loved and wanted to be with now.

Steph wasn't sure who initiated the kiss. They probably reached for each other at the same time. It didn't matter, and she took her time, kissing Bucky nice and slow. Let them wait.

★☆✪☆★
"That's a TV." Steph was grateful for the distraction, as she had already begun catastrophizing how this visit could go all wrong. It wasn't like she didn't have a track record for fucking things up. In fact, a part of her was surprised they made it to the future in one piece; Bucky always seemed to get in some sort of trouble when she was around.

Well, he did just get shoved or punched by his future counterpart, so she wasn't entirely wrong to think they wouldn't get here unscathed.

She slipped an arm around his and rested her head on his shoulder as she told him about the TV, and whatever else he ended up pointing out. She had thought to show him the pictures she'd had in the living room, but some of them had been replaced, or at least tucked away. Most of the pictures were of the happy couple now, Steph in a ponytail and glasses and clearly healthy and happy.

She gave her husband a sideways glance. "You ready to talk to her?"

Bucky kissed her back for a long moment, as much to assure himself as her. It didn't matter what the others were there for; nothing was going to come between the two of them.

Eventually, he pulled back slightly. "You ready to go see what the hell they're here for? And why they brought luggage? Maybe we'll even tell them you're not going anywhere," he teased a bit before running his thumb over her lip, even if he meant it to his very core. They weren't taking her back. She was staying with him. "Get your slippers, we don't need your feet to get too cold."

★☆✪☆★
Bucky nodded along as Steph explained various things in the room, making some mental notes. He might have to see about giving Stark an idea or two when they got back to their time.

He noticed the photos as he looked around, too, of course. Even took note of how, in most of them, Bucky was looking at tiny Steph like she hung the moon. Good. She deserved it. Out of the four of them, he was fairly certain she was the only one of them who didn't have as much trauma and baggage weighing her down.

When his wife's head landed on his shoulder, however, he turned his own so he could press a kiss to her forehead. "Ready as I'll ever be," he told her simply, wrapping his own arm around her waist in return.

Steph fetched her slippers. Then, with her tiny hand encased in Bucky's large one, they returned to the living room to see what their guests wanted.

She was both surprised and not to find their counterparts standing so closely together. The surprise mostly stemmed from how small Cap seemed, compared to the photos and videos Steph had seen of her. No, not her stature; the serum had even made her taller than the younger Bucky. But she looked almost ordinary, and, somehow... defeated.

That made her think back to the journals and sketchpads she'd found. She read them all, of course — she even tried to read Bucky's spooky red book, which she'd learned, thanks to the Google, was written in Russian — in the hope of understanding how this version of her got the dumb idea to leave. She still didn't entirely get it, but her heart ached for Cap nonetheless.

Which was why she was the first to offer, "Hi. Can I get you two anything to drink?" As long as neither of them tried to separate her and Bucky, they were going to be fine. Besides, she should probably pull her best friend aside and tell him she wasn't going anywhere, and give Bucky and his best friend some space to talk.

When the other two came back into the room, the younger Bucky gave his wife's waist a squeeze before pulling away to face his best friend. "Why don't I give you a hand?" he offered simply before following her to the kitchen. "You can show me some of this fancy tech you've got in the next century."

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That left the older two standing in the living room.

Bucky loved the woman standing across the room, but she had hurt him something awful. That, mixed with the fact that he wasn't sure why the two of them were there, had Bucky on the defensive. Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the wall as he watched her carefully.

"Looks like you found a whole Bucky," he said without thinking, then winced at his own words. Bucky wasn't used to being harsh with Steph. It didn't come naturally to him and he didn't like it, but at the same time he meant them, mean as they were.

Steph had been about to apologize. She'd thought long and hard about what to say, and rehearsed the words in her head over and over since they'd decided to make this trip. Bucky threw a wrench into all that, though. And while she expected him to be angry, she didn't think he would ever be so mean and thoughtless. For a moment she just stood there like he'd physically struck her, hurt written across her face. Maybe it would've been better if he did hit her.

"Fuck you," she eventually managed, her voice soft and shaking. "I did not—" Her throat felt like closing up on her as she furiously blinked back her tears. "I did not live through the fucking war all over again for you to just say that. You don't know shit."

She held her hands against her stomach in an attempt to keep it all in — her own anger, her pain, her despair. Her left hand was balled into a fist and her right covered it, fingers desperately feeling for her wedding ring, if only to remind herself that there was one person in the universe who thought she mattered enough to ask her to stay.

Groaning, Bucky reached up and pushed his hair out of his face. It was almost like he deflated as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, I don't know shit," he agreed.

Walking over, Bucky dropped onto the couch and sat hunched forward, eyes on the ground, and his elbows resting on his knees. "Steph, I don't know what I woulda done if you hadn't sent her here. I get you had five years to get used to me not being around, but for me it was literal days after we met up in Wakanda."

Shaking his head, Bucky decided just to lay it all out there. "I'm guessing by now you know I've always been in love with you, but even if it wasn't about that, my best friend--the only person on this planet that has any idea about what I've been through--took off right when I was starting to feel like a fucking person again. And it seemed like she did it to make a less broken version of me."

Steph had been prepared to stay angry and put up a fight, but when Bucky practically deflated, so did she. She sank into the couch next to him. A conciliatory distance — far enough to not invade his space, but close enough that he could reach out and grip the hands on her lap just fine, or even scoot a little closer for their knees to touch. An apology and an olive branch, but this time it was his call to make.

"I'm sorry," she began. "I don't know shit either."

She sighed. If he was laying it all out there, perhaps she should, too. "I thought you were better off without me. All I ever seemed to bring you was trouble or pain, and I... I didn't think you really wanted me around." She had felt that long before Wakanda, when he believed he was a danger to everyone. She felt that during the war, when he berated her for being the government's science experiment and coming out to the front. She felt that when he went out on dates while she mended his clothes and scoured the shops for the books he liked.

"So when they assigned me to the Stones mission, I thought... I thought I could finally do right by you and get outta your hair." She hadn't meant to come back from it even if she hadn't fucked things up, just watching over the timeline like some sad old hermit and making sure HYDRA never reared its ugly heads again. "I watched you die twice, Buck. Watched you nearly get killed many times more. Saw what HYDRA did to you. None of which would've happened if you didn't stick around for me."

Her husband had insisted none of it had been her fault, but the guilt remained anyway.

"I had to try. I love you too much not to." Love, not loved; she would always love him, that she knew at least. "What was the point of having all this... power... if I couldn't save the one who mattered? Might as well crash a plane with bombs into the ice and end it all."

Bucky sat quietly as she spoke, listening and trying to understand. But all her decisions seemed to be based on assumptions about him and how he felt, and it seemed like they were all wrong.

"The only times I didn't want you around were times when being around meant you were in danger. I wanted you safe, not around me when I could snap at any time, or fighting in wars or battles or any of that shit." Shaking his head, Bucky leaned back so he was slouched against the back of the couch. "I didn't want you out of my hair. I wanted you out of danger."

He actually turned his head to look at her for the next part. "Do you not realize that shit was going to happen to me anyway? HYDRA already had me once. If you hadn't pulled me out of there they would have always had me. They were sending letters back to the States, not putting together a rescue mission, Steph." Bucky paused for a moment, hoping that might sink into her thick skull. "And if I was still alive by the time that giant grape got here, I still woulda been blipped. But I still would have been the Winter Soldier anyway, because the only thing that pulled me out of their mind control was your dumb ass."

They really were the same person. Even if their lives had taken different turns, Steph had gotten the same earful from both versions of Bucky. The thought made her smile through the tears she hadn't been able to stop from falling, even as she admitted to her hubris, "I thought I could find a way anyway. It couldn't have been harder than bringing back half the universe."

It was. She actually hated the implication that there were just things you couldn't change, that maybe all the shit that they had been through was preordained. It still worried her most nights. That even after everything she'd done and the precautions she had taken and the rules she'd broken, HYDRA would still take Bucky away from her.

She sighed, then leaned back too and closed her eyes. "I really am sorry, Buck." She could blame him for not speaking up and letting her make all the wrong assumptions and therefore all the wrong decisions, but it wouldn't be fair. He wasn't responsible for her dumbassery. "I don't expect you to forgive me for fucking everything up so badly, but I just wanted you to know that. And that I've always loved you, even if I thought you didn't feel the same."

That was all she had come for. And to say goodbye, in a way, though she wouldn't be entirely gone until after the trial.

Bucky hesitated for a moment before reaching out and placing a hand on Steph's shoulder. "I know," he started, his voice quiet. "You're a lot of things, but you're not cruel. You thought you were doing the right thing." She always thought she was doing the right thing, even when she was doing stupid things.

"I'll get past it eventually. She helps, but it still felt like I got abandoned for something better when I just needed my best friend. You were the one with all the friends, Steph. I didn't have anybody else."

He looked towards the kitchen where the younger versions of them were. Bucky couldn't see them, but knowing she was nearby helped. "I've always been in love with you, you know. I never said anything cause I didn't think you felt the same. At least you and him seem to have worked that out," he looked back at her with a small, tired smile. "Like she and I have."

"I would never—" Steph had already been on the verge of breaking down when Bucky touched her shoulder, but learning that he felt abandoned for something better was the straw that broke the camel's back. She barely heard what he said next as she started sobbing, loud and ugly, hunching forward on the couch with her face buried in her hands.

"How... how could you think that?" She didn't really expect an answer to that though, already spiraling at the damage she'd done. My fault, my fault, my fault, everything is my fucking fault—

All those years, all her efforts, attempting the impossible and going through hell and back, and for what? Nothing. She tried to do something good, but all it did was fuck everyone else up. What was the point?

She stood up suddenly. "S-Sorry, I—" She couldn't breathe. She needed to leave.

Shit. It was like every time he tried to explain a little he kept making it worse. Because sure, he was mad at her. But he didn't want her hurting, and he didn't want her in tears.

He frowned as he stood and circled around so he was standing in front of her, then wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. "I know that's not what you meant, Steph. Logically, I know that, and she reminds me a lot, too."

But Bucky still saw himself as a broken person most of the time, but he was at least trying to be better. Maybe he was selfish on top of that, though, because he couldn't help thinking that going and making life better for another Bucky sure didn't help him any. And he sure as hell needed help.

Steph wasn't trying to shut Bucky out or invalidate his feelings or make the situation about her or anything. She just happened to be broken, too. It hadn't been all that long since that night she had come so close to unraveling, saved only by another Bucky's selfish plea, and it wasn't like she believed in therapy.

"What do you want me to do, Buck?" She didn't push him away, but she didn't hug him back either. It was already taking every ounce of her strength and willpower to keep herself together. "I would've stayed if I'd known that was what you wanted. But it's too late for that now. I fucked up. And I don't wanna fuck up anything else."

She still had the Time Stone. She could undo it all... but that wasn't her decision to make. That stupid thing was what even brought about this mess in the first place.

★☆✪☆★
Steph had finished giving Bucky a tour of the kitchen and was just making him a cup of hot chocolate by way of a sachet of instant cocoa and boiling water in the microwave. She was wondering how her Bucky was doing, but with her poor hearing eavesdropping wasn't an option.

She kept glancing at his left arm as she stirred his drink, which also meant his wedding ring did not go unnoticed. She was happy for him, but more than that, she was relieved that he wasn't going to ask her to come back with him to their time. Or was he?

"So, um. How are you?"

"I want you to hug me back," he told her simply, letting his chin rest on her shoulder while he continued to not let her go. "What's done is done, alright? It sucked, but I don't know. Guess it worked out. I got her, and it looked like you got him?" Bucky was pretty sure they were together, at least, if only based on the way they had their arms around each other when he and Steph came back from getting changed.

But that made him think of something. "How'd he take you switching places with her, anyway? Doesn't seem like he stayed too mad."

★☆✪☆★
The younger Bucky, meanwhile, had been fascinated by the microwave. And the dishwasher. The ice maker. All of it. Hell, even the idea of instant hot chocolate was novel to him. He'd only ever had it when his mom made it on the stovetop, and even then it was only an occasional treat.

Leaning against the opposite counter, legs crossed at his ankles, he watched as she fixed up the mug, moving around the kitchen like it was her own. Which, he supposed it was.

For some reason her question surprised him, though. It wasn't a deep question, most people would think it was really surface level, but technically they hadn't seen each other since the night before he left for war. So, he actually thought about it for a moment before answering with, "I'm... I'm good now. Had a few rough years, but the war's over and things are alright for now." Nevermind a chunk of the rough years were because he didn't know where she was. He could leave that part out.

"What about you? You like it here?"

Steph hesitated, but eventually she brought her arms up to hug Bucky back. Once she did, though, the hug immediately tightened and she started crying again. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "I was wrong. I was wrong. And so, so stupid."

It hadn't been all that long for him, but she'd been gone for five, maybe even six years. Most of that she'd spent alone, returning the Stones across the universe and keeping an eye out for the other Bucky from a distance. The isolation, the loneliness, it had been too much even for her, and though she'd recently found some measure of peace, she still missed her best friend.

They could talk about their relationships later. Right now she just wanted to disappear in his arms and remember what it was like before the war — before she — fucked things up.

★☆✪☆★
Meanwhile, it hadn't been all that long for the younger Steph since she'd seen this Bucky last. Being in love with him had made their days apart feel longer, but then she was in the future, and things progressed like lightning. She still loved him, but it was different now.

"Yeah, I... I'm good, too." She removed her glasses and offered them for him to examine. She pointed to the clip ons. "Those let me see color properly, it's so cool. I didn't know what blue really looked like until he got me those, or how pretty his — your — eyes are."

She sobered after a moment. "I'm glad you made it outta the war." Cap's idea might've been dumb, but Steph was no longer entirely opposed now that she had a better understanding of the alternative. Let him live. Let him love. She wanted that for him, too.

Bucky took the glasses from Steph and examined them with a small grin on his face. To him, they just looked like they had a slight tint to them, but if they could make her see color properly, they might as well be magic. "She told me medicine and everything was better in the future, but they can even fix this?" his smile widened as he handed the glasses back to her.

His grin softened a bit at the mention of the war, though. "Yeah. Me, too. I, uh. I didn't know until well after I got home that it was cause she was looking out for me. I just hate how she had to go about it." Bucky had definitely given his wife an earful about leaving the other one behind the way she had, because he knew how he would have felt. But, he was still selfish enough to keep her for himself.

"Yeah," Steph answered, still sounding impressed even if it had been a while since she got her glasses. "He's taking me to a bunch of other doctors too. If they can't fix something they can give me something to manage it. Oh!"

Remembering her inhaler, she patted herself for it, but because she hadn't bothered to put on shorts, she just rummaged around the kitchen for the spare Bucky had stashed in one of the drawers. An inhaler wasn't the only spare around though, but she was too excited to show her best friend the modern marvel that it had slipped her mind she'd unearthed several packets of condoms on the counter too.

"So much better than the cigs," she told him as she produced the inhaler. "Could you believe how backwards things were? The cigs were making my asthma worse."

As he examined the inhaler, she prepared some glasses of cold water for the lot of them. So far there hadn't been any more fighting — Bucky would've left the room so fast, she'd figured — so it was more likely there was crying instead and their counterparts were going to need some water. "She's been through a really rough time," she found herself saying, surprising herself that she was coming to Cap's defense despite her own anger at the dumb way she'd gone about the whole redemption mission. "And she blames herself for a lot of things. I... do you want her stuff? I have her journals and sketchpads in the art room."

Bucky smiled at Steph's excitement as she rummaged around, not particularly bothered by the condoms. He and his Steph had protection stashed all over their own apartment, too, so he got it. But when she held out the little device he took it and looked it over closely. "This little thing helps with your asthma that much?" he asked, perking a brow as he handed it back to her. "See, that's the sorta thing I wouldn't mind smuggling back to get Howard to try to recreate. Could help a lotta people." Plus, it was clear that things that happened in his time didn't effect her future.

"She'd probably like those, yeah," he answered, holding the inhaler back out to his friend. Just because he'd like to take one with him didn't mean he'd steal hers from her. "We actually brought a bunch of your stuff with us. That's most of what's in the suitcases. Becca went and got everything she could after you went missing, just in case." It had been partly in hopes of Steph showing back up, and partly because she knew Bucky would want it if she didn't.

Steph pursed her lips together as she thought about it. "I think the Google would have something about how it works." There were videos and how-to articles of practically everything, so it probably wasn't far off that there would be something for the inhaler. That way they wouldn't have to recreate it exactly. "Not sure what that would mean for the inventor though. You wouldn't wanna put him or her out of a job."

She took the inhaler back but left it sitting on the countertop, especially after Bucky told her about her stuff. "Really?" Her surprise was clear on her face. "You're not here to talk me into going back?"

There it was, the elephant in the room. While she suspected that probably wasn't the case anymore — who else would he be married to? — she was waiting for the opportunity to breach the subject and get some clarity. Look at what not talking and just assuming things had brought them. She was not making that mistake again.

"Guess you'll have to show me the Google, too, since I don't know what that is," Bucky said with a chuckle and a shrug. "Maybe I can find out who the inventor is and get Stark to hire him for his company or something. I don't know."

He took a couple steps across the room to grab the mug of hot chocolate, mostly just to do something with his hands. Sure, when Steph--the one he married--first told him she had dropped his best friend off in the future, Bucky's knee-jerk reaction had been wanting to bring her back. But the more she told him about how much more advanced medicine had gotten, and the fact that she was with a version of himself, not just on her own, made him think that maybe it was a good place for her.

More than anything, Bucky thought it should be her decision, though.

"Don't get me wrong," he began, looking back at her with a gentle smile. "The offer's there if you want it. You could come back with us and we'd figure things out. But you seem happy here. And healthy."

"I'll show you later," Steph promised. "It's so cool. You can play music on it too. And read books." She might be conflating the Internet and phone apps, but hey.

She picked up one of the glasses of water she prepared and took a drink as she waited for Bucky's answer. And while it wasn't an unequivocal no, she could read the intent behind it. How could she and any version of herself have mistaken Bucky's kindness and affection for something else? They really were so dumb.

"How's that gonna work with two of us?" She couldn't resist teasing, and the way she smiled behind her glass, well.

"Like I said, we'd figure something out," he said, teasing her just as much as she teased him. "She goes by Gracie in public these days, so people don't ask so many questions about how she got big. With one of you on each arm, the papers would havea field day."

Wouldn't that be something, though? Hey, Ma, I know you just got used to Steph being all big and strong now, but here's a second Steph that's the size you remember. Still classified stuff, of course. Might even give one of his parents a heart attack, sending them to an early grave.

Something about the way she was smiling behind that glass, though, made him think she wasn't really thinking about it. Which was good, considering what he heard and what he knew about himself? He figured the Bucky that was in the other room needed her.

Steph had done enough reading by now that she could take a guess at what would've been written about a Bucky who survived the war. "Look at you, all famous. How many marriage proposals did you get in the mail? Must be rough, having to choose from so many." She feigned innocence as she gestured to his hand, where his ring rested.

Before arriving in the future, that would've been a depressing thought. How could she hope to compete? She was nobody; hell, even after Cap got enhanced by the serum she still thought he wasn't interested in her. Steph knew better now though, and there was no undercurrent of sadness in her teasing. As crazy and dumb as it sounded, Bucky would choose her every time. She could bet on that.

She set her glass aside. "Buck, you're my best friend, and I'll always love you." It used to be so weird, to know two of them, to love two of them, but she'd already had enough time to get used to the idea. "But I'm with him, and I'm not going anywhere he isn't. I'm sorry."

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