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

Steph knew of the experiments, but she hadn't been able to keep the order of events straight. At last she had a timeline. By now, if she hadn't been pulled out of her world, he'd already have been captured. She shuddered at the thought — and the realization that, while Cap had succeeded in rescuing him and his unit, she had been too late.

"Then the train?"

It was one failure after another, wasn't it? Steph could imagine just how Cap took that. Because, in spite of everything, they were the same person. Steph only had the luck of knowing Bucky had felt the same for her; otherwise she would've made some real stupid decisions, too.

Bucky nodded sadly at that. "Yeah. Well, first I did a year and some change with a unit called the Howling Commandos. Steph was there, too. And sometimes Howard and Peggy. Then there was me, but I didn't tell any of them what'd already been done to me since I didn't know what the government would do. That I was healing and thinking too fast. Then the train. We were trying to get Zola, but that's when I fell and lost my arm."

Letting out weak chuckle, Bucky looked down at her, then grabbed the throw off the back of the couch to pull around him, the memories giving him a chill. "I'm not a big fan of heights any more, if you can believe it."

It was good he had Steph in his arms though, because her presence was a comfort for him, and he knew once he was on the stand recounting the worst parts of his past he wouldn't have that comfort.

He went on to explain how the US Government deemed him killed in action but how HYDRA found him and started their real work on him. He was vague about the details, not wanting to go into all the ways they tortured him, or all the things they prodded at him with and ways they kept experimenting on him, but he did mention that it happened, and how they even sunk so low as to taunt him with the headlines announcing his best friend's death, especially since they knew he carried her picture in his pocketwatch. They could put two and two together.

Bucky had tried to resist for so long, but eventually he still broke down.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Steph couldn't help wondering. "She got strong and fast too, right?" Which made her think Cap would have understood, even if she wouldn't have known what to do about it. It couldn't have been easy dealing with those changes alone. He could have been terrified, even though Steph couldn't imagine Bucky being scared of anything.

Did Cap fail him in that, too? Was Steph going to have to prepare for life dealing them with the worst hand? She should seriously look into those plans should the trial go south.

It wasn't easy hearing what happened after he fell. She reached for his hand to hold in her tiny one, while the other gently rubbed his back; it was as much for her as it was for him. Though that was all in the past, she was furious. She wanted to tear HYDRA apart, wanted to make every one who hurt him pay. And she wanted to keep him in her arms so that no one could ever touch him again, despite the knowledge that she was even more powerless than her counterpart.

"We can... we can stop," she said. "I'm sorry I made you do this." She was hurting him, too.

Shaking his head, Bucky squeezed the tiny hand he held in his own, then pulled it up to press a kiss to it. "She had enough going on," he said, almost like confessing to why he kept a secret. "Depending on who you asked, she was either Lady Liberty or Captain America. There was mission after mission, strategy meetings, plus all the people who just... wanted a piece of her. She'd become the face of everything and she was stressed as hell. I... didn't want to add to it, I guess." Even though logically he knew that she'd never think of him that way, Bucky didn't want to become one of the people who just needed things from her instead of one of the people who was there for her.

So, instead, he kept his mouth shut and his arms open to hold her and listen whenever it all became too much.

"You didn't make me do anything, sweetheart, it's alright," he added. "You deserve to know who you agreed to marry. And I should tell you so other people can't twist up my words. I'll broad strokes the next few decades, alright?"

"I would've wanted to know," Steph said quietly. She hugged Bucky a little tighter with that arm she had around his back. "You'll tell me if anything like that happens again, right? I... I might not be capable of much... but I'm here for you..."

Not capable of much, said the woman who would've become Captain America had the opportunity not been taken away from her. But while she might doubt her abilities, she had no doubt about her resolve. She would move heaven and earth for him, defy the universe for him — as her counterpart had, over and over, even if he was mad at her for it.

She nodded and let him continue. If it were up to her, she would want every detail, if only to list every name and tally every transgression. But she did not want him to relive his pain and suffering any more than he had to, so she didn't push it. She simply held him and listened.

"You're capable of a hell of a lot more than you realize, sweetheart," Bucky said truthfully as he held her close. "Especially when it comes to me, but I'll tell you. I promise."

He continued then, wanting to make sure he was clear about just how messed up they made his mind, how he couldn't remember anything at all most of the time, just did whatever they told him to. And how that awful book was part of that. "I had trigger words," he said. "If certain things were said in a certain order I'd stop whatever I was doing and just... comply. They don't work any more, thank god. That's one of the main reasons I spent time healing in Wakanda."

And then Bucky told her about how they would put him in cryo for months or years at a time, then take him out for missions, wipe his brain, give him his orders, then send him out for an assassination. Sometimes it was politicians, sometimes it was people they found annoying. Sometimes he was the Soldier they'd pick from their mini-army just because it amused them to have Bucky Barnes do it, like when they sent him after Howard.

Sometimes it wouldn't even be for an assassination. Those were almost preferable to the times HYDRA would just loan him out for allies to do whatever they wanted with. Bucky absolutely didn't go into details there, but the meaning was clear.

He also pointed out that his handlers were usually these tall blonde haired, blue eyed women, because it didn't take them long to realize that he resisted a bit less when they resembled his Captain America. At least they didn't realize that a tiny blonde haired, blue eyed woman would have had the same effect, so it limited the agents they could pull from.

For a moment Steph naively believed Bucky's story couldn't get much worse. And then it did. So much that she had tears silently streaming down her face, and he was far from done. What could she even say to that? What could she do? If HYDRA hadn't captured him, if he hadn't fallen off that train—

She swallowed, realizing that was exactly the path Cap had spiraled down on. Yet even that hadn't been enough. Maybe Steph's best friend was now safe from most of the horrors, but it didn't undo any of the awful, awful things that happened to the man she was going to marry.

So she didn't say anything, just continued to hold him and listen, while silently making some promises to herself. He would always have a choice. He would never have to do anything he didn't want, especially in bed.

And he would always have her. No matter the outcome of the trial, no matter what else came their way. He would be safe with her. He would be loved with her. And, hopefully, he would be happy with her.

Pulling the blanket around the two of them tighter, Bucky kissed Steph's hair again. At least he was almost done, then she would know all of it, and she would be able to run if it was too much for her. He wouldn't blame her if she did, honestly.

He might have been a hell of a lot better than he was when he escaped, but he was still a very damaged man.

"They screwed up with the last mission, though," he began, then let out a single weak, sad laugh. "After Captain America came back, they thought it'd be funny if I was the one they pulled out of cryo to send after her. But seeing her started... triggering memories. Sort of. I didn't even know my own name, but I knew I knew her somehow, but didn't know how, and they didn't like that. I still almost killed her, though, then we fell in this river, and I pulled her out instead before taking off. That's how I finally got away from them.

"For a couple years I went on the run, stayed mostly in abandoned buildings or HYDRA safe houses before burning them down, lived off the money I stole from those safe houses. I even managed to take out a couple of HYDRA bases single handed, but I kept trying to find out more about this random woman, and imagine my surprise when every time I'd find something about her, there I was, too. Then she caught up to me in Romania."

Steph let out a mirroring weak laugh as she attempted to joke, "You probably saw her face and thought, 'Hey, I know that dumbass'." Self-deprecating humor had been her specialty long before Bucky began to wield it too, and she didn't mind making a fool of herself if it got him to smile. It was a desperate attempt at levity, but she had to try.

Especially after all those awful stories and the admission that he'd almost killed her. She'd always thought being sick was a terrible way to die; one didn't only suffer in pain and with the knowledge of what and who they were leaving behind, but their loved ones would have to watch them wither and fade away, too. But it turned out there was a scenario far, far worse.

"Was that after they accused you of bombing some peace conference?" She had been reading and trying to piece things together after she learned he was going to be put on trial. The bombing was in a lot of news sites and had turned up easily when she looked up his name on the Google.

"Yeah, well, turns out when you've been in love with someone since puberty, it gets hard to completely erase them from your mind, even with mind control," Bucky told her before pressing another kiss to her head. There was no way HYDRA had expected that, not after so many decades of conditioning.

"It was immediately after. I'd just seen a paper with my face plastered on it when she tracked me down, then some kind of angents and T'Challa were right on her heels. His dad was the king of Wakanda that had been killed in the bombing. At least we were able to convince him it was a frame job." As fast as Bucky was, Black Panther had been faster. And he was scary dammit.

At least, he was scary until you actually got to see the guy regularly.

After that, Bucky went into how he and Steph had gone on the run for a very short time, they got taken in and that asshole used the book on him, the big fight at the airport, ('Tony brought a goddamn kid to the fight. He was a strong kid, but he was still a damn kid.'), how he and Steph had found their way to the Winter Soldier facility only to find the rest already dead, and how Tony found them there.

Then he mentioned how he went to Wakanda and volunteered to be put back in Cryo until they could figure out how to fix him. Fix both his mind and also replacing the arm Tony had blown off.

Edited (i also need to reread BEFORE hitting post) 2026-03-17 17:16 (UTC)

It was a lot. Steph realized it had to be more difficult for Bucky, recounting all this, but she was having trouble, too. None of it changed what she thought of and felt for him, no. But she was angry, and there wasn't anything she could do about it but hold it in until she could safely let it out. Right now, he needed her to be a safe space, and she was determined to be that.

"But they found a way, yeah? In Wakanda?" She remembered the broad strokes from there — recovering, the goat he named Rogers, the alien invasion, and dying. Or at least disappearing for years until Cap and the surviving Avengers brought half the universe back through a combination of magic and time travel. Steph didn't really get it, it was still something she'd yet to wrap her mind around, but she knew it was real. She was here, decades into the future, as a consequence of all that.

She squeezed his hand. "Why did you think knowing this would change my mind about you? About us?" Maybe it was a difficult question, especially because they had never really been used to talking about feelings and shit, but since that night they had gotten together she'd told herself they had to get better at communicating. So she was trying.

"They found a way, yeah. Those words don't work on me any more, but I still hate the sight of that book. The Wakandans even built me this new arm to replace the one Tony blew off me, so I don't even have to carry that piece of HYDRA hardware around any more. It's lighter than the old one in more ways than one." Bucky looked down at her, only to let go of her hand and bring it up to gently wipe the tears off her cheeks, unaware that he had some of his own. "I caused a lot of the scars around it, you know. Trying to get it off when HYDRA first put it on me."

Not all of them, of course. Some were from the surgery. But many of them were caused by a desperate man trying to get rid of something that didn't belong there.

Her last couple of questions made him pause, though. Bucky chewed on his lip for a moment before answering. "I spent a lot of time questioning and second-guessing myself after I got away from them. I still do sometimes, but not as much as I did before. But it sort of... bleeds into other things, too." He sighed. "Plus, I just have a lot of guilt. Logically, I know none of that was my fault, but I can still remember every face, every name, and that's what most of my nightmares are about."

Steph hesitated, but after a moment she slowly brought a hand up to Bucky's face to wipe off his tears. She didn't call attention to it though; in their time, boys grew up learning they shouldn't show emotion, shouldn't cry. While she couldn't ignore his tears, she could spare his pride.

"I don't really know what to say that wouldn't make you feel worse," she admitted. "That was... that was fucked up." Sorry felt like an empty platitude, and he already said he knew, logically, that it wasn't his fault. It wasn't her absolution that he needed.

Then she remembered something he said before, about how Cap hadn't asked him if he wanted to be saved or whatever it was she thought she was accomplishing. So Steph asked. "What do you want me to say? What do you need me to do?" For him, she would do anything.

Bucky didn't say anything about his tears, either. He just took the hand she used to wipe them away and held it up so he could press a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist, right over her pulse point.

"I don't need you to say or do anything you don't want to, sweetheart," he started with another sigh. "I just don't want to lose you."

He'd already told her before that if she ever wanted to go, she could. Bucky would never force her to stay where she didn't want to. But at the same time, he didn't know what he would do if she did decide to leave one day. Not to her, not to others, but he didn't know what he would do with--or to--himself.

But he knew he wouldn't be telling her that part.

"Hey." Steph shifted to straddle Bucky's lap, not to distract him or start anything, but so he had no choice but to face her and look at her in the eyes. She cupped his face gently. "To the end of the line, remember? Or 'till death do us part, if you'd rather. You are my husband." She didn't even seem to realize she'd already claimed it, instead of stating it as a future occurrence. "And I ain't going anywhere you aren't. Just... don't push me away, please?"

She would give him time and space if he ever needed any, or if there were things he felt he had to take care of on his own, things about his past and the nightmares that continued to haunt him. She was only asking that he not shut her out, that he talk to her — even if it was to tell her that he couldn't sleep beside her that night and he wanted to be alone for a while.

Bucky couldn't help a slight smile at that. It was small, and it was still sad, but it was there. Reaching up, he wrapped both his hands around Steph's tiny wrists just as gently as she was holding his face. "I'm your husband already, huh?" he asked, picking at her just the tiniest bit. He wouldn't mind already being her husband, after all. If he had, he wouldn't have asked her to marry him.

"I won't push you away, sweetheart. Not intentionally," he promised before leaning in to give her a soft kiss. If she wasn't running away, he wouldn't either. Not from this. "And if it ever seems like I am just, let me know, alright? You already know sometimes I just need quiet for a little while, but I always come back around to you, don't I?"

Steph blushed at Bucky's teasing, and almost immediately went into the defensive, as she tended to do when he pushed her buttons. But something in his face gave her pause. Her expression softening into a smile, she said, "All that's missing are just our signatures on some papers, right? The important part is..." She brushed a thumb over his lower lip. "I, Stephanie Grace Rogers, take you, James Buchanan Barnes, as my husband."

So what if she was a sap? Let him make fun of her; it would be worth it, to ease even a little of that pain and sorrow he carried with him all the time.

When they broke off the kiss, she rested her forehead against his. "Like when you would move to sleep on the floor sometime during the night?" Yeah, she'd noticed. She wasn't a light sleeper, not now when she was finally getting some relief from most of the symptoms that had been plaguing her, but there were times she woke up ahead of him and found herself alone on their bed.

Somehow, even after everything Bucky had told her about what he'd been through and what he'd done, Steph still wanted to marry him. That fact in itself almost felt like a miracle or a blessing and, god, he hoped he never did anything to ruin that.

Instead of making fun of her, he just said a simple, "I take you, too, Stephanie Grace Rogers," before giving her another sweet kiss. It might not have been all the words required, but it was enough to get Bucky's point across.

Letting go of her wrists, Bucky wrapped his arms around her waist again, holding her as he let his eyes close. "The floor thing, that's a mix of the nightmares and going eighty years without regularly sleeping in an actual bed." Between the war, the cryo, and the sleeping in whatever buildings he could find, beds had been few and far between for him. Sure, there had been a few here and there since his escape, but none as regular as he'd had since he came to stay with his best friend after the blip.

Actually, none as regular as since he and Steph became an item. Up until then, Bucky usually slept on the floor of the guest room.

"Trust me, if it wasn't for that, I'd stay in bed beside you all the time. It's just, I don't know. Really soft when you're used to sleeping on the ground."

"I can stay with you on the floor, if you want?" Steph offered, leaning into him and closing her eyes as well. It wasn't like she wasn't used to a difficult life. Nor was it a real hardship to be sleeping on the floor. And even if it were, she would happily make the sacrifice. Anything for Bucky, because she loved him, even after learning about what he'd been through and what he'd done.

After a while of just holding each other, she asked, "What about when you have nightmares? Should I leave you alone, or will you tell me what you need?" Maybe she was overthinking things, especially as he'd been fine with most of what they'd gotten up to, even the intimate stuff. But all that information made her start to rethink her actions. Had she been too inconsiderate? Too careless? Had he just been putting up with her so she wouldn't leave him?

Tightening his arms around her slightly, Bucky shifted, easily moving the two of them so they were lying down on the couch together, still wrapped in the soft blanket. "Nah, it's fine. I want you to be comfortable," he started as he began to rub small circles on her back with his good hand. "Besides, I don't want you getting sick or anything. I can't get sick." He was pretty sure he couldn't, at least. He hadn't had so much as a cold since 1943.

"I'll tell you if I need something, I promise," he told her simply. There was a large part of him that worried about his nightmares. Specifically, he worried that in his tossing and turning, or in how he sometimes jerked when he woke up, he'd accidentally lash out at Steph. But he already tried to sleep so she was on his right, just in case. It would be awful if he accidentally smacked her in his sleep, it would be even worse if it were with a vibranium arm. "So far you've done everything right by me."

Steph was pretty sure there was a way to get comfortable sleeping on the floor, but she would have to ask the Google for that, so she made a mental note to do it later. For now, she didn't insist on it, especially after Bucky mentioned that he didn't want her getting sick. She appreciated that he wanted to take care of her, she really did. But she wanted to take care of him, too.

"Okay," she said, tilting her head up to kiss his cheek. She didn't think so — that she did everything right — but she wasn't going to argue with him about it, just overthink things later once it was quiet and she could get lost in her own head.

"Do you wanna just rest now?" She'd planned to lure him to bed and celebrate their engagement, but that was before they opened the can of worms that was his past, and now she wasn't sure what he needed. She'd cook for him later, at least. Some of his old favorites, and maybe soup to ward off the chill in the air that seemed to have seeped into their apartment.

"Just for a little while," Bucky told her simply. They'd just had an incredibly intense conversation, after all, and he knew he kinda (definitely) ruined the good mood that came from his proposal. But Steph had wanted to know and, even more than that, she deserved to know about the man she agreed to marry. "I just like holding you."

Holding her, laughing with her, arguing with her, Bucky loved all of it, just like he always had.

"I love you, Steph. I'm always gonna pick you." He just felt like reminding her of that, since that's what she was thanking him for earlier. The statement was just as true now that she knew his whole past as it was when he asked the question earlier. And it had been just as true before he shipped out in 43, just like it was true when they were just hitting puberty. He always picked Steph, even if he got talked into dates that he knew from the start would go nowhere.

"Good. Because you ain't getting rid of me now," Steph said. Now more than ever she was determined to stay by Bucky's side, and maybe even steer him away from all this supersoldier shit. No more wars, no more fighting, just them, somewhere far away and quiet.

In a weird way, she was glad for what Cap had decided to do. Not because it had led to Steph and this Bucky getting together, but because one of them had to avenge him and set things right. Steph couldn't do that, not even with all her righteous anger. But she could stay and fight for peace — his peace — and, once she came to terms with her rage, rest knowing that one of them had at least tried. For in which world, in which timeline, did Stephanie Rogers not love Bucky Barnes? Steph was willing to bet there was none.

She kissed his cheek. "I love you, too, Buck. I always have, and I always will." She would hold him for as long as he wanted, for as long as he needed, through his nightmares and whatever else that might come their way. For now, that was for a little while longer, and she lay there, nestled in his arms, Fred Astaire crooning softly in the background.

They stayed just like that for a long time, even after the record ended and they lay there in silence. Bucky even came close to falling asleep, which was a surprise to him considering everything he'd just explained.

But maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise, considering what a comfort Steph's general presence was to him.

Eventually, he decided to break the silence. "What do you want to do for dinner tonight?" he asked, voice soft and hand rubbing circles on her back again. Sure, they'd gone to eat earlier, but since then they'd gone all the way out to the Boardwalk for a while before coming home, and Bucky hadn't paid any attention to how long it took him to tell her his story and just curl up with her. "I'm not hungry yet, but we're probably gonna need to eat again eventually."

Edited (Me hitting "post" and then noticing things while I wait for it to go through) 2026-03-19 17:05 (UTC)

Steph ended up actually dozing off for a while, long enough to wake up with a start when Bucky speaks up again. She settles back into him easily though, comforted by the feel of his body next to hers and his hand rubbing circles on her back.

"I was thinking we could order something a little fancy. You know, to celebrate," she answered, a hint of sleep still in her voice. "But only if you wanna. I can make soup if you'd prefer that instead." Soup was comforting, and they both needed comfort after everything he'd told her. Celebrating could wait, if he didn't have the energy for it.

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