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

[dysmorphics]

 

 

 

 

I don't need a parachute, baby if I've got you
Baby if I've got you, I don't need a parachute
You're gonna catch me,
You're gonna catch if I fall
( 🎶 )

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[hadagreatpast]

"Yeah, she did us both a real favor when she snagged your stuff," Bucky said, his smile turning sad. "Then I went and repaid her by not talking to her for months after I got home. Her or my parents."

He had just been so angry that they hadn't mentioned Steph disappeared. Bucky had spent so long hanging onto that idea of getting home and finally telling Steph exactly how he felt and, if she'd have him, asking her to marry him. Instead he got home to discover his parents kept her disappearance a secret for years.

But at the mention of colors his smile became a bit more genuine again. "Yeah, we can do that if you want. I feel like we're gonna have plenty of time to fill while those two are getting ready for the trial."

★☆✪☆★
"Take as much as you want, it's literally yours," Bucky said with another shrug. "I wouldn't mind knowing how to get more, though, so you can definitely leave me that info." He hadn't had so much as a buzz since 1943, so that would be nice. Probably.

It was good he didn't have access to that stuff when he was at his worst, though. When he was struggling to get his mind back together. Might have been a problem back then.

"You can leave that, too, if you want. As long as you don't expect me to use it." After all, Bucky had zero interest in taking up Steph's shield. Did he know how to use it? Yes. Did he want to use it? Not even slightly. He wanted to retire. Maybe live quietly with his girl. Carrying the shield and living quietly did not go hand in hand.

[dysmorphics]

Steph moved, wrapping her tiny arms around her best friend. "You were angry, and hurting." They all did stupid things when they were angry and hurting, didn't they? Heck they still did, even when they weren't. "But you can make it up to them now," she told Bucky, squeezing him a little tighter. He was alive, and free, and she knew Cap would fight the universe to keep it that way. "You can do everything you've always wanted."

It took her a moment to realize she was blinking back tears. Not of sadness though, but joy, and relief. He made home from the war, and while it hadn't been to her arms, per se, it was still to someone he loved and loved him just as much. She only ever wanted him to be happy. He would be now.

★☆✪☆★
"And yours," Steph reminded. It wasn't just her bank account she'd intended to leave him; everything she owned, in this timeline at least, Bucky now shared. It was the least she could do.

At his outright refusal of the shield, she laughed. "Only if you wanted to. I thought you liked the uniform," she teased, calling back to that time he teased her about hers. She had no idea if he remembered that exchange though, with how fragmented his memory had been.

She'd considered him, of course. Despite what he thought of himself and what HYDRA had made him do, she believed he best embodied what the shield stood for. And, well, if anything it would be good optics, especially with his trial coming up. But she was through making him unhappy and making decisions for him; what was really fucked up about what she did, she realized now, was once more putting him in a position where he had no choice, after all the decades under HYDRA's control. Never again.

She looked at the picture in the frame again, her expression turning wistful. "But I think it's time you came home, Sarge." Tears welled in her eyes and she swiped at them with the back of her free hand. She only ever wanted him to be happy. He would be now.

[hadagreatpast]

"Can you blame me?" Bucky asked with a sad laugh, hugging her back just as tightly. "They didn't tell me until after I got home that you were gone, Steph." Sure, he knew now that there was nothing he could have done to find her, but he still would have done anything he could have to get back to search for her. Steph--any and all versions of Steph--was more important to Bucky than any wars.

"But we're getting better now. Even before she showed up, I'd at least started going to Sunday dinners again." For a long time the dinners ranged between awkward and awful, more recently with his Ma encouraging him to get out there and meet someone, like he was just going to get over his loss. The only reason that stopped was literally because he showed up married to a taller version of his best friend.

★☆✪☆★
"Legally it is, sure," he said, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looked over at his best friend. "I don't need a lot, though." He'd lived off of nothing but what he found in HYDRA safe houses when he was on the run, then after his cryo in Wakanda he lived in a literal hut on a goat farm. The apartment was the nicest place he'd lived in eighty years.

"Honestly? I mostly spend it on her," Bucky added with a shrug. "Clothes and doctors and all that. Got her some inhalers, some glasses, even a thing for her glasses that lets her see blues." Looking towards the kitchen, his smile widened a bit at the memory of the first time she used the clip-on with her glasses, and how taken was with how much blue there was. "Next week we're supposed to get her fitted for a hearing aid."

He was well aware that wasn't the extent of Steph's medical issues, but they had other appointments set up for other things. Bucky was determined to take the best care of her possible.

[dysmorphics]

"You're the best friend one could ever have." Steph gave Bucky another hug, though this time there was no crying, just more of a goodbye for the night. They could talk some more another time, when he wasn't in the middle of something. But she was truly grateful for everything he'd done to take care of her, and now her counterpart.

Releasing him, she said, "We should probably go. Lemme just grab a bottle, and him on the way back." She felt like a guest in her former apartment now, and she didn't feel comfortable moving around without his permission. So when she did, it was simply to go to the guest room — now an art room, which she was glad to see — to pull out a bottle of Asgardian mead from a secret compartment in the dresser, then to the kitchen to collect her husband.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said as she peeked in, her eyes not yet quite back to normal after all that crying. She cradled the bottle in the crook of her arm. "We've finished our, um, business. But if you need more time..."

[hadagreatpast]

"Nah, it's alright," the younger Bucky said with a soft chuckle when his wife stuck her head in. He then pressed a friendly kiss to the top of his best friend's head before pulling away, then turned and picked up the box of sketchbooks and notebooks she had set on the counter. "You're still gonna see me plenty while we're here, don't you worry about that."

With that, he said his goodbyes and headed out the door with his wife, even giving the other Bucky a nod as the older one showed up to walk them to the door.

After telling them to be careful (a pointless thing to say, he knew), the older Bucky closed the door behind him and moved to his Steph. "You alright?"

[dysmorphics]

Steph was already moving in to hug Bucky right after he shut the door. "Yeah. It was good to see him. He brought some of my stuff." A lot of her stuff, by the looks of those two suitcases. She might be offended if she hadn't actually wanted to stay, since it was almost like they were kicking her out. "And I showed him all the cool modern things." The same ones she'd been amazed with.

Her arms tightened around him as she squeezed, not that she could ever fully wrap them around his body. "You wanna talk about what happened, or should we just get back in bed?" She had never pried or pushed him to talk about things; she knew he would, if he felt he needed to. But the offer was there, for whatever he might need.

★☆✪☆★
"Well, I got us booze," Steph said once they were outside, holding up the bottle. It didn't look like anything special, but she'd had it before and knew what kind of punch it packed.

Her eyes were still red-rimmed, which she tried to hide from him by pulling out her phone and typing something on it. "Lemme just book us a hotel." By herself she'd have gone straight to a motel, she wasn't fussed — especially after all those years on the run and out the front lines of the war, again. But he deserved a little pampering after everything, and they hadn't exactly had a proper honeymoon yet. So she made some calls and booked a penthouse suite on the fanciest available hotel in Manhattan that weekend.

Not that it was clear until they got in a cab and she told the driver their destination. The cabbie had a strange look on his face, which eventually turned out to be barely held excitement, for as they started the ride he couldn't help but ask, "You're her, right? Captain America?"

Right. Steph forgot she was famous in this timeline.

not me deciding to split this into two threads lol

[hadagreatpast]

Bucky immediately wrapped his arms around Steph in return, content to hold her close. Hell, just holding her there was enough to ease some of the muscles in his neck and shoulders that had tensed up during his exchange with his best friend.

But a lot of the air had been cleared, so Bucky thought they'd be okay.

"I'm not gonna fall asleep any time soon," he told her with a sigh. "But we can lie down if you want. Or see what stuff they brought you. I'm fine with either." And if he felt like talking, he could do it in bed or while they looked at things.

all good to me XD

[dysmorphics]

Steph smiled as she felt Bucky relax. They hadn't been together all that long, really, but they'd spent nearly every waking moment together (and in each other's arms while asleep) that she felt like she knew him in a far deeper way than before. "I'm just gonna look for something they brought me," she told him, pulling back then tugging him down for a quick, soft kiss. "I'll be in bed in a minute."

She went for the suitcases them, lifting the weird hammer paperweight off one of them to open it. (Did it really fly? It looked like it did, but how did that even work?) Anyway, she hit jackpot: her sketchpads were there, wrapped in one of her skirts. She pulled them out carefully, grinning at how Cap had marked the ones Becca kept out of Bucky's hands by a scarf.

Finding the one she wanted shortly after, she headed back to their bedroom. "Don't laugh, okay?" She handed it to him, blushing all the way to her neck. "So, um, I kinda did all these because, you know."

The first few pages were portraits of him, but seemingly from every year as there was a clear progression from the boy who just moved into town to the man who left to fight in the war, all sharp in his Army uniform. Then the sketches got interesting. There was a bunch of him shirtless; at the beach, in her kitchen, then in what had to be the doorway to her bedroom, framed by shadows that indicated evening. After which the drawings evolved to scenes that never happened — or at least not until she landed in the future and in his bed.

[hadagreatpast]

Once Bucky got back to their bedroom, he stripped back down to just his underwear before climbing back into the bed. It wasn't that he was trying to start anything after the emotional roller coaster he'd just been through, Bucky had simply gotten in the habit of sleeping in his underwear (or less) beside Steph at night.

When Steph climbed onto the bed with him, offering a sketchbook, he tugged her into his side before taking it, just wanting her close.

"Is this all me?" he asked, one brow perked once he realized the first few pages were, in fact, all portraits of him. But he was smiling softly as he looked at them, not just from seeing the pictures but from seeing a timeline of her art getting steadily better and better.

There was a part of him that wanted to ask if she was disappointed she didn't get the young, whole man she'd imagined, but he decided against voicing that particular question. She seemed happy with him so far, at least, so he was going to leave it at that for the time being.

Instead, he paused on one of her later drawings, smirking at the scene they'd definitely recreated since her arrival. "I didn't know you could draw the future, sweetheart," he teased.

[dysmorphics]

Steph hadn't wanted Bucky to think she was trying to start anything, but if he was going to settle in bed with just his underwear on, well, she was too. She slipped his shirt over her head, leaving her back in her nightie, before she joined him, snuggling close with a contented sigh when he tucked her into his side.

She sat up a bit straighter to see which one he was referring to, her blush darkening when she did. "Wait, I gotta—" She grabbed the pad from him, then the bag of pencils she kept on the nightstand on her side of the bed. Picking out a blue one along with a regular pencil, she colored his eyes, then shaded his left arm. It was a quick job, but she even managed to show the little grooves in his metal arm, in a way.

"There we go," she said, satisfied. She handed it back to him. "I'll do the others later."

[hadagreatpast]

"Hey, you don't have to go and edit your old drawings," Bucky told her with his brow raised. That wasn't how he looked when she first made the images, so he didn't think she had to change them.

Still, he couldn't help thinking it was sweet, though. Grinning, he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "But if you were drawing things like this, it's no wonder sometimes I'd come by and you wouldn't let me see what you were working on."

If Bucky had wanted, he could have easily gotten the sketchbooks away from his tiny best friend, but instead, he always chose to let her have her privacy when she wanted it.

"So, which of these drawings is your favorite?"

[dysmorphics]

"I know. But I look at these and you're who I see. It doesn't feel right otherwise." The distinction felt especially important now that Steph knew her best friend survived the war. They might've been the same people at some point, but they were their own person now, and she wasn't going to trade Bucky for any other version of him.

She snuggled closer at the kiss. "Yeah, no, it was too embarrassing. Especially because I thought it was one-sided." Nevermind that there seemed to be something almost wrong with pining for your best friend. They worked out, but what if they didn't and trying ruined everything? Their fears had been for good reason.

Taking the sketchpad from him, she flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn't anything sexual, rather it was just them kissing on the Coney Island boardwalk. But it was all in the details: her mussed up hair from riding the Cyclone, the stain on his shirt from when she nearly emptied her stomach on him, the end of a ribbon sticking out of his pocket because he'd stashed his present for her there.

It was July 4, 1935, with every excruciating detail she remembered, but one in which they'd kissed and had a whole other life together. Sometimes she wondered if they did, in another timeline.

[hadagreatpast]

Smiling, Bucky examined the picture she turned to. He was pretty sure it was her birthday, the one they'd talked about the very first night she showed up in the future with him, except they hadn't kissed on her birthday.

He'd definitely wanted to, and he almost got up the guts to do it, but he'd chickened out and just danced with her instead, singing badly in her ear.

"Might not be the same now," he started after looking at it for a long moment, "with all the new lights and me being old as hell now. But I can kiss you on the boardwalk one of these days."

[dysmorphics]

Laughing, Steph teased, "You can do better than just kiss me, old man." She put the sketchbook and pencils away and climbed into his lap, because of course she would. Besides, they'd been interrupted. She had barely put her nightie to use.

She pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I like that one because it's when I knew for sure that I loved you." Up until then she couldn't quite own up to what she'd been feeling. "And I drew that feeling every bit of that love, I even gave us a happy ending. A world where I got better, and you chose me."

They lived in that world now, she thought. Sure, they still had plenty of doctor's appointments to get to, but she'd been feeling so much better since her last day in the 1940s. More importantly, he'd chosen her. He could've had the better version of her, but still he went with sickly, tiny her, and that meant all the world to her.

[hadagreatpast]

Bucky reached up with his good hand to tuck Steph's hair behind her ear before sliding his arms around her waist. "For the record, I'd already picked you by that point," he started, chuckling softly before leaning in to give her a soft, quick kiss. "I was just waiting for some kind of sign that you wanted me back."

Problem was, he apparently didn't know how to read any of the signs she gave him. Because they were definitely there. Looking back, he could tell. But Bucky was a dumbass teenager, then he grew into a dumbass twenty-something who still couldn't read her hints.

"I'm always gonna want you, sweetheart. And I'm always gonna choose you."

[dysmorphics]

"I'm glad you're old and wise now," Steph teased, not even bothering to hide her grin. She wasn't going to tease Bucky too much though, because she'd been as blind to the signs as he was. Becca had to be laughing at them for being such idiots. Steph was willing to bet Becca had always known, had always seen.

She pushed him back into the pillows and leaned in to kiss him. "Me too, darling. And I mean you you. Not any other version of you." Which, again, seemed like a necessary distinction to make, especially after that unexpected reunion with her best friend. And she hoped he meant what he said in the same way.

[hadagreatpast]

Tucking the box tiny Steph had given him under his arm, Bucky slid his free arm around his wife's waist with a smile. "Sweetheart, I don't know if you remember this, but neither of us can get drunk," he teased her. But, of course, he would drink it with her anyway. Why wouldn't he?

The smile was still on his face when he slid into the cab, but it shifted to a look of surprise when she said where they were going. "Hey, you didn't need to shell out for all that," he told her, just before the driver asked if she was Captain America.

That definitely brought his amused smile back, glad to see her being the one to get all the attention in this world. She deserved it, she could have it. Even back home he didn't really want it in the first place.

[dysmorphics]

"Oh, we can now," Steph returned with a knowing grin. She just hoped that with Bucky for company, and because she wasn't trying to drown her sorrows with booze, she'd be a more interesting drunk than she was during her alcoholic phase after the Snap.

She waved off his protest about their hotel, though she was unable to verbalize it because the cabbie engaged her in conversation. As she responded to the driver, she reached out and squeezed Bucky's leg to let him know they'll resume later. It was strange, to be dealing with the spotlight again after years of being a ghost, but old habits died hard and she navigated the conversation with Cap's renowned charm. She was always nice and friendly to the ordinary people, to the oppressed, to the underdogs, to the youth and children. The cabbie dropped them off with a generous tip and a selfie.

Similar interactions took place with the lady on the front desk, the bellboy who showed them to their suite, and the housekeeping personnel who wheeled in a fruit basket, some cakes and welcome drinks. When she closed the door to some privacy at last, she found Bucky looking at her with amusement.

"What?" she asked, blushing. Okay, so she was famous. Big deal. As if he wasn't in his timeline. He even still received marriage proposals in the mail and everything.

[hadagreatpast]

Bucky set down the box of notebooks and sketchbooks before moving to the couch sitting in the room, tugging Steph along with him as he moved. Chuckling softly, he dropped onto the couch and pulled her over to stand in front of him as he looked up at her.

"I like seeing you get the recognition you deserve," he said with a smile. "Plus, I think you're more famous here than I am back home. It's nice."

It wasn't like he could be surprised she was as famous as she was. Steph was, after all, a knockout of a woman who had made history and saved the world multiple times.

[dysmorphics]

Steph set down the bottle and what little else they brought with them — she figured they'd just shop for new clothes anyway — and let Bucky pull her over to the couch. She rested her hands on his shoulders as he spoke, after which she shook her head with a small smile and moved to straddle his lap. "It still feels weird," she confessed, pushing the hair out of his eyes. She never warmed up to fame like Tony or Thor did. "Maybe because it's... not really me. I mean, I couldn't have done any of those things people love me for without the serum."

All she really had was her art, and her love for him. It was probably why she had a soft spot for those silly romance novels about them, and she didn't mind being painted as someone who did all that for love. Because she did.

Enough about her though. "You okay?" Clearly, tiny Steph had refused to go back with him, and she wasn't really sure how he was taking that. Sure, they were married, but this was... weird territory. She wouldn't at all be surprised if he was heartbroken by it, or if he still had feelings for the girl he grew up with. That was why she grabbed the mead, in case he needed it. She might need it too, after all that.

[hadagreatpast]

"So what if the serum helped you?" he asked with a grin, moving his hands to rest on her waist. "I wouldn't have made it outta the war without my guardian angel, and you wouldn't have been able to be that for me without the serum." Without it things wouldn't have been able to line up just so, and it wouldn't have led to her getting her hands on that green rock they were using to visit the future. The same one that took her back in time to him.

"Believe it or not, it is you. You've got that good, mile wide stubborn streak, and you had that since I met you." She was the tiniest little punk he'd ever met when they were kids, willing to tell people off as needed. Bucky had immediately decided the adorable little girl was going to be his best friend.

He nodded at her question. "I'm good, yeah," he said simply. "Glad to see her happy. She was real excited to show me her glasses and her inhaler, plus all those kitchen gadgets. We might need to stock up on some of that instant hot chocolate powder before we go home."

[dysmorphics]

Bucky had a point. Hell, he even made it sound like Steph's stupid, fucked up decisions had been worth it, for they wouldn't have gotten here without them. Feeling tears spring to her eyes, she decided to fend them off by kissing him. She owed him one anyway, for everything he'd said just now. For believing in her.

She only pulled back when she had a measure of control over her emotions, and before anything really started. He might want to just talk, though that would be a waste of all the fun things they could get up to in their fancy suite. She couldn't help laughing at his request though. "Some even come with little marshmallows," she told him with a grin. "We better make a grocery list later." There was still so much he should sample.

"So... what do you think of the future?" If he wanted to live here too they could probably find a way to do that without giving their counterparts any trouble, but she hadn't really thought about how to do that yet. He seemed excited by what he'd seen so far though.

[hadagreatpast]

Bucky was more than happy to kiss his wife for as long as she wanted, then continued to grin up at her when she pulled back. "It's not too bad so far," he answered her. "The tech is nuts, and I like seeing you get all the attention instead of me."

He'd never liked the attention he'd gotten since he got back from Europe. Some of the guys seemed to revel in it, but it just wasn't his thing. Instead of fame, all Bucky had wanted was to get home to Steph.

It might have taken longer than he expected, and it might not look exactly like he pictured, but he'd finally made it home to her. Even married her. And that was good enough for him. "What about you, though? You're the one that left it behind."

[dysmorphics]

Steph shrugged. "I... never really felt like I belonged here anyway." Oh, she'd coped. Soldiered on like a ghost trapped in someone else's body. She'd had no choice. "I'll miss some of these modern comforts, and my friends, but..." She ran her hand through Bucky's hair then rested it on his cheek. "Home is where you are, and I wanna go home. I'm tired, Buck. Of fighting, of just... existing."

There were still wars to come in his timeline, sure. But they would be together, and that was the most important part. She could survive everything else, keep fighting if she had to. Hell, she was already growing comfortable in her body, because he made her feel loved and wanted, not a freak science experiment or a weapon or just a pretty upgrade.

Since their wedding, she'd been thinking about what else she wanted to do with her new life. She didn't have to be an Avenger anymore, and since Stephanie Grace Rogers never actually joined the Army in that timeline, she wasn't obliged to do anything at all, as long as nobody found out she got the serum. Which left her free to pursue a career in art or something of that sort, or at least whatever their time period allowed.

[hadagreatpast]

Smiling, Bucky grabbed the hand she placed on his cheek, then turned his head to press a kiss to her palm. "You're my home, too, Steph," he said simply. "I got back from the war, sure. But I wasn't really home until you showed up."

He'd been miserable until that night at the ferris wheel. Bucky was just dragging through his days, tracking down any possible lead on where his best friend went wherever he could find some. Then Steph had shown up, told him what happened, and after being mad at her for about half an hour he'd decided he was going to marry her the next day. So, he did.

And ever since then, he'd been home. "I love you, sweetheart. And I wouldn't trade you for anyone."