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

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.

"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."

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.

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."

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.

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."

"Me too. I love you so much, baby." Steph knew she was just going to start crying again if she said more than that, so she let her lips and tongue do the talking, kissing Bucky deeply.

She still didn't think she deserved any of this, especially after her best friend reminded her of just how much she'd fucked up. But she wanted it so desperately that she would hold on for as long as Bucky would let her, and in return she would do anything and everything to protect him and take care of him and make him happy. Fortunately, he wasn't at all hard to please.

When they pulled back and rested their foreheads together, she asked with a grin, "Wanna get drunk, or do you wanna enjoy the amenities sober?" There were probably a million places to fuck in a fancy penthouse suite, and, well, they could do this all night.

Chuckling, Bucky let his eyes close as their foreheads rested against each other. "Think we can just start with a drink or two before getting fully sauced?" he started. "It's been years since I've even had a buzz and I'd hate to skip right to being too blitzed to enjoy it." Or too drunk to enjoy Steph. Whisky dick was indeed a real thing, after all.

But a buzz could be nice. Take the edge off and all, especially after the intense night they'd had--Steph more than Bucky. Thankfully, his conversation with his best friend had been fairly painless. She'd seemed happy to stay with the older version of him and they'd made plans to spend more time together before he went back to his own time. It worked out perfectly on his end.

If she had wanted to go back to the 40s with him, he would have taken her. But it would have ended up being a little complicated, what with him being completely devoted to the Steph he married, while the other one would have ended up having to just... stay his best friend.

Thank fuck none of that was happening though.

Smiling, he pulled back just far enough to look up at his wife, caught up in his thoughts of just how well everything had worked out. "You realize you're the best thing to happen to me, right?"

"I dunno about that," Steph said with a soft laugh and a shake of her head. She would remind Bucky that she had fucked up his life when she had meant to save it, but she didn't want to spoil the mood so she just left it at that. Then she gave him a quick kiss on the mouth and got off his lap to pour them some of the mead. She usually used shot glasses when she indulged, but since they had none, she made do with the champagne flutes the hotel provided.

"Jacuzzi?" she suggested, turning to him while holding the bottle with one hand and the glasses in the other. When he only blinked at her, she went, "Oh," and grinned. "It's... some kind of large bath. An indoor hot spring. Come on, I'll show you. It's in one of these rooms somewhere."

She'd actually only tried it once, at some 'girls night' Pepper had arranged while Tony wrangled the men in the Tower bar. It had been nice and relaxing. She even let Natasha's teasing slide.

Grinning, Bucky stood as well and walked over to her. "Sounds good to me," he said as he slipped one arm around his waist and stretched up to give her another quick kiss.

When he broke the kiss, he reached up to pluck at the top button of Steph's top with his free hand. "Especially if getting in the bath means you're gonna be naked." He would love Steph no matter what she looked like, of course, but he definitely loved those curves of hers. But, he knew better than to point that out specifically, since she still had a hard time seeing her body as her own.

Bucky wouldn't love them as much on anyone else, though. Just her. Having zero attraction to Peggy was evidence of that.

Steph held her arms out, giving Bucky enough room to stand in front of her and undo the rest of the buttons. "You're gonna have to take care of that since I got my hands full," she teased, as if she couldn't just set the bottle and glasses down. She liked it when he got playful, though she also liked it when they made love, serious and filled with emotion.

Tonight was definitely for playing though, especially if booze was involved. They needed to unwind anyway, after everything — the reunion with their best friends, the last how many years at the front lines. Finding the jacuzzi took a moment though, if only because the suite was ridiculously large. Then it was just a matter of getting their clothes off and settling in.

She left him to his amazement for a bit, at least long enough to pour them some mead, filling their glasses halfway. She passed him one and instructed, "Start with little sips, it's been a while like you said." And it was potent stuff. Even she sipped her drink, despite having been able to safely down that much in the past. It had been a few years for her too.

Bucky couldn't help groaning softly as he settled into the large tub beside his wife. He hadn't been sure what to expect from what was a large, bubbly tub of hot water, but holy cow, the water felt good.

After relaxing for a minute, he smiled at Steph and took the glass from her. "I don't know when these things are gonna get invented, but once they are, I want one," he told her matter-of-factly.

Hell, if they didn't live in an apartment, he might have wanted to convince Stark to build them something like it.

Draping an arm around Steph's shoulders, he pulled her into his side as he took a sip of the mead. "Oh, this shit's pretty good."

"We're gonna need a bigger apartment at this rate," Steph teased. "Or maybe even a house." Sure, houses were expensive back in the 40s, but she had 21st century money. They could afford it, unless Bucky's pride wouldn't let her pay for it, or if it would bring unwanted attention. She remembered how there had been crazy rumors about the Winter Soldier having a secret stash of Nazi gold. (Which might even come up at the trial. She would have to make sure Matt had that covered.)

She pressed into her husband's side with a contented sigh. It was kind of nice to live in luxury, even just for a few nights, after all they had been through during the war and the few years after. This was practically their honeymoon anyway, so she didn't mind shelling out.

"Yeah, it's what gives the gods their audacity," she said with a chuckle. "Trust me though, you'll wanna go slow. We're just mere mortals." He might be surprised that she meant that unironically. She'd yet to tell him about Thor and Loki and the gods of Asgard.

"I used to picture that, you know," Bucky said, his smile softening as he turned his head to press a kiss to her hair. "Us growing up, getting married, and getting a little house somewhere." There were even a few real houses in Brooklyn that he'd pictured when he thought about it.

"I always imagined just me and you, so we didn't need anywhere big." Once, when they were still teenagers, she'd mentioned that the doctors said she shouldn't try to have kids in the future, it would be too dangerous for her, and Bucky had filed that knowledge away in his mind. She'd been heartbroken about it when she told him, so he never brought it up to her again after that. But he remembered. "Just somewhere big enough so there would be plenty of room for you to work on your art and for me to keep all my books."

Bucky took another small sip of his mead before setting the flute aside, leaving it on the side of the hot tub where the built in cup holders were.

Steph closed her eyes and leaned against him, catching what Bucky wasn't saying. "I used to imagine that too, until the doctors..." She trailed off, sighing. "I thought that was why you started seeing other people. I tried to be gracious, to be the bigger person, but I was so angry. You deserved to be with someone who would make you happy, who would take care of you and give you children. But, selfishly, I wanted that to be me. It wasn't fair that it couldn't be me."

She set her flute aside then too, curling an arm around him as she rested her head on his shoulder. "You think that house we like is still on the market?" He knew which one she meant, even if neither of them had gone there in years, not since that heartbreaking conversation with the doctors. How they used to sneak in there and spend hours playing as if they owned the place. People said it was haunted by the ghost of its owner, who died in the same war that killed Steph's father, so nobody ever really noticed the pair of them trespassing.

Bucky laughed softly, reminded once again about what giant idiots the two of them were. "You were still the only one I wanted, sweetheart. I just switched to picturing a life with just us two. Kids were never a must for me. I could take 'em or leave 'em, but you were a must." He'd explained before why he'd ended up going on dates with other girls, and how it was never because he thought he'd like them. Mostly, it was just to get them or his Ma off his back.

But at the mention of the house, he grinned. "If it is it'd need a lotta work by now," he told her. It had been years since he'd seen anyone try to live there, but it'd also been years since he'd gone and checked on it. "But I don't know, maybe fixing it up would be good for us."

"That should keep us busy for a while," Steph agreed. It might just be what they need to successfully transition from constantly being in survival mode during the war to relative domesticity. That had been what she struggled to imagine when she considered retiring after returning the Stones, going from being needed by everyone to being just another person in New York. It was freedom from a life of fighting, but then what? Thankfully, Bucky helped nip her existential crisis in the bud and gave her something to live for. She would always be in his debt for that.

"We're gonna need a secret basement built anyway," she continued, only half-joking. After all, they would need to stash their haul from the future somewhere and appear as normal as possible, if they were to keep the government off their backs. "And someplace to install a jacuzzi. No idea when this got invented, so we might have to keep it quiet for a while."

She reached for her flute to take another sip of the mead, going much faster than he was. Despite that, she was in no rush to get out of the tub. The water was nice, and sitting next to her husband was even more so.

"Sounds like we're gonna go house shopping when we go back." Maybe they'd even do it without mentioning to his parents what they were doing, almost like how he'd sprung oh, I got married yesterday on them the day after he married Steph.

But he'd already married his dream woman, and they'd started to make peace with the other versions of themselves, so working towards building a genuine life with her sounded good to him. And if they got a house that needed some fixing up it would give them something to focus on, so that would be good, too. They could make it into exactly whatever sort of home they wanted.

He did want one of these Jacuzzis, though. And several other things he'd seen in the last twelve hours.

"We'll get us a house with a pretty big basement and put up some kinda hidden door so it doesn't look as big as it is. But we'll also make sure you get your own art studio."

Steph wasn't surprised that Bucky wanted her to have her own art studio; he'd always been supportive of her art, even going as far as helping her scrape enough money for art classes after high school. She proceeded to tell him that she thought about getting an art degree after she woke up in the future, but SHIELD wanted their million dollar weapon back, and when she tried to get away and relocate to D.C., the Winter Soldier showed up and blew a hole in her apartment wall. The next time she had the chance to indulge in anything artistic, half the universe was gone and she was drinking herself blind with the stuff they were imbibing on now.

"I could maybe try my hand at comics or graphic novels?" she mused as she sipped some more of her mead. Was that a buzz coming on now? She kissed his shoulder, just because she could, and stayed in that position as she continued to talk. "I have enough Howling Commandos adventure stories in me. There was one time—"

Steph, it turned out, was a talker when tipsy. And very, very touchy, though that was really only around Bucky. Even while engrossed in recounting some of their experiences together — or, well, his counterpart, who had the luck of fighting alongside her during the war — her hands and mouth wouldn't stop moving, planting kisses and tracing shapes on his skin.

"You slung the shield on your back and carried me out, and Dum Dum gave us an earful for not telling them the plan, and I said, there was no plan, you abandoned your post and just ran in there after me. Howard lost us so we had to spend the night in town, but the locals were so happy we blew up that HYDRA outpost that they threw us a party and tried to marry us in some pagan ceremony."

Bucky found himself laughing along with her stories, even as he found himself wishing he had been the one protecting her. "I swear that man's more stupid than I am," he said, referring to the other Bucky as he smiled down at her. "I like to think I woulda tried to take them up on the sudden wedding." He would have at least watched her even harder to find any sign she wanted it, too. "But hey, his loss is my gain."

He was enjoying this side of his wife. The joking, the laughter, the nonstop touching. Telling him funny stories about her past and talking about possible future opportunities, while her hands and mouth didn't stop moving over his skin.

Picking up his glass, he took another small sip before setting it back aside, then let his hands slide over Steph's side and thigh. He was getting a buzz himself, but he wasn't really chasing it, just focused on enjoying himself. And her. "I've heard that people should write what they know," he started, giving her thigh a squeeze. "And not only do you know a million war stories, but you also spent all this time in the future. You could write about some future stuff and call it science fiction. Throw in the talking raccoon you told me about and no one would ever question if it was real or not."

Tilting his head down, he pressed a couple of kisses to her shoulder. "Or, hell, you're so damn talented you could go the classical art route. Doing paintings and whatnot. Anything you want, sweetheart."

Steph laughed brightly at Bucky's suggestion of repackaging her experiences as science fiction, especially when he mentioned Rocket. "Now that's an idea," she said, kissing his jaw. "You can be a sexy war hero from space." Because of course he would be the star. He was her muse. "I think people are gonna like that. You're so famous in our time."

He heard it right. She said our, not his, and it wasn't just a slip of the tongue. She didn't even notice it, continuing to spitball random ideas for characters and stories. "He's in love with his best friend, but he doesn't know she's followed him to space until some aliens marry them to save their planet." Well, okay, she'd have to workshop her ideas some more, but she was happy enough with how much he was touching and kissing her. That hand on her thigh was dangerously closing in on her sensitive spots.

"You really think I'm that good?" She supposed she could do paintings, like Frida Kahlo, but not self-portraits. "I'm just gonna end up painting you though. You're my favorite subject." Hell, he was her favorite everything. "You have the most beautiful eyes. The loveliest blue."

"Nah, you gotta at least change my name," Bucky said with another laugh. "You can't go writing stories about a guy in space named Bucky. I bet the Buck Rogers people would be on your ass in a heartbeat." Besides, he didn't want more fame. Hell, he didn't want the fame he already had.

"But a man who has always loved the same woman, even when he thought it was one-sided? I bet people would eat that up." Just because science fiction and fantasy were Bucky's favorite genres didn't mean he didn't read other things, too. Every once in a while he liked to grab a good romance, and that was the sort of thing you'd find in those books.

When she asked if he thought she was that good, however, he let go of her thigh so he could tilt her head up to look at him. "Don't be stupid, of course you're that good," he started, smiling as he tilted his head to give her a soft kiss. "You've always been my favorite artist. You're good enough to do anything you want with it."

"I was gonna use James," Steph teased, laughing because he never went by that name, and neither did all the others she knew, from Monty to Morita to Dernier to Rhodey. She also laughed because she apparently just realized, "You know, Buck Rogers sounds like your married name, if you took my name instead." But she was too old-fashioned to want anything other than being Mrs. Barnes, so changing his name was out of the question.

Then she hummed thoughtfully. "I could do a romance." She already had experience with book covers anyway. That would just be a step further. Planting kisses up his arm, she mused further, "Maybe they find each other at different points in time, and fall in love, but shit always happens." Hey, it might even be cathartic.

His continued belief in her talent was touching, primarily because it was something she'd always had even before the serum, even before she could properly see colors. So although he went for soft and sweet, she answered his kiss with a fierce one, filled with gratitude and so much love. "You're gonna have to let me draw you." She'd been asking, but he seemed to be embarrassed by the thought of posing for her and had yet to acquiesce.

Bucky also laughed when Steph put two and two together on Buck Rogers's name. "Steph, I've always loved science fiction and you. Of course I pegged that about his name the first time I saw a strip in the paper." Even Becca had noticed it when she saw what he was reading, and she teased him about it off and on for years. "Hell, I even half considered using that as my name during the five minutes I thought about grabbing you and running after I got my draft letter." It would have been an easy name for him to remember, but a hard name for him to convince others was real.

After the kiss broke, he shifted to press a few soft kisses along his wife's jaw. "You say that like I don't catch you sketching me all the time," he pointed out, more amused than anything. "I know I've caught you doing it when I'm reading, and I've woken up and found you drawing me. I don't know how me posing would be all that much different." Somehow, in his head, he just kept picturing having to awkwardly sit still for hours, as people did for those old stiff paintings.

Steph laughed too. "I guess it never really occurred to me because I knew from the beginning that if we ever married, I would take your name." Hell, she was even already using it before they got hitched. Thankfully Bucky didn't mind and even thought it was sweet.

She tilted her head so he could kiss down her neck, closing her eyes and moaning softly when he obliged. The water was relaxing, as was their conversation, and while the booze had chipped away at her inhibitions, it also left her with some sort of edge. His touches weren't helping either. "Posing gives me a good visual reference," was the technical explanation, which wasn't a lot of fun. What she really wanted to get at was, "I have a vivid imagination and a great memory, but I'd really rather be staring at your dick when I'm sketching it. You know, for inspiration."

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