freightcars | ic contact; duplicity

❰ bucky moves in closer and it's like a curtain is drawn around the two of them, shielding them from the rest of the world. noise muffles, the lights dim, and the world becomes steve and bucky, alone in their safe little bubble. did it always used to feel like this when they were together? steve thinks it did. it must have. he just didn't notice because he had it so often he didn't need to ever miss it.

arms wind around his shoulders and steve drops his hand to bucky's waist instead, grip loose in the fabric of his shirt.

they're trees, he thinks. planted next to each other young, grew up with their roots all entangled. separating them meant cutting out something vital from each of them, nearly killing them, and even then they couldn't be completely disentangled. their deepest roots are still intertwined, coiled around each other like snakes. nothing could truly break them apart.

but time and hydra had tried, and they would always bear those scars. those roots are gone for good. ❱

You gotta boil 'em to mash 'em, I keep tellin' you. 'S not my fault watchin' potatoes boil's as interestin' as watchin' paint dry.

❰ brooklyn creeps back in steve's voice, dropping gs and going just a touch nasal. they've had this talk before. if steve has anything to say about it, they'll have it again.

he huffs a little bit of a laugh, nudging his nose against bucky's. ❱

Wanna know somethin' that's gonna piss you off?

[ On a better day, with a better mind, Barnes might have something smart to say back to the question. He might list of a dozen teasing things Steve does to piss him off all the time, but not now. If he had a better mind, or it were a better day, he wouldn't be standing here like this in the first place.

Instead, he just pulls back a hair, nodding loosely, head dipping still even so, shoulders slumped, a gentle knit to his brow.

Yeah. Tell him something that's gonna piss him off, Steve. Tell him anything. ]

❰ even after bucky nods steve's quiet for a second — building suspense, see, letting bucky want the answer before he gives it to him. when he finally does speak, his voice is low, quieter even than it had been already, like this is some terrible secret.

it sort of is. ❱

Sometimes I miss being smaller.

❰ after all the grief he gave everybody about it. after all the effort he went to to change himself. all the arguments he got into with bucky, all the people he started fights with for having something to say about his size. he misses it.

if that ain't the most ungrateful thing. ❱

[ A silent beat resonates after Steve's announcement, because it takes Bucky a few seconds to process it. When it does, the impact hits him all at once and a choked noise comes out that might sound worryingly like a sob for a second, until he pulls back just far enough that Steve can see his lips pulling up over sharp canine teeth. It gives away the truth of a laugh, cracked and incredulous and disbelieving.

He gets why Steve would think that would piss him off. All that good grief Steve put him through, all that championing, the bitching, the complaints. All that bravado and the attitude of a guy who wanted to be the size Steve is right now and he wants to go back? It's the damndest thing, the most ridiculous thing, the saddest notion, and he's got to shake his head a little over it.

But you know what? ]

Me too, Stevie.

[ He misses you that way sometimes. Throwing an arm over your shoulder and tugging you in close like you weigh nothing. Hoisting you around like the easiest thing in the world. The sharp cut of cheek bones, the way Steve's collar bone always stood out so pronounced against the rest of him. Lines of ribs. Jutting hips. Elbows sharp enough to cut glass.

He presses his lips to Steve's cheek.

Me too. ]

Edited 2018-11-26 04:07 (UTC)

❰ yeah, that's not surprising. steve laughs too, his chest weirdly light and weighted at the same time — admitting it feels good, bucky's acceptance feels better, and he can almost ignore the way this whole night started. the whole long line of events that brought them to this moment.

it'd be nice to feel like himself again. sometimes it's so disorienting, being this size, that he can hardly believe the world around him is real. like he'll wake up at some point, normal and small and more appreciative of his body, because gosh, couldn't it always be worse? he isn't supposed to look down at bucky. ❱

Grass is always greener, I guess, ❰ steve murmurs, tilting his head into the press of bucky's lips to his cheek. his lips are warm where they touch steve's skin, all of bucky is warm, and it's so nice to have him here like this, when he's been so distant for so long. it reminds steve of something he'd said before, something he wants bucky to hear again now that it seems like he might appreciate it a little more.

he pulls back from bucky just enough to look him in the eye, brings one hand up from his waist to cup his cheek. ❱

I love you, Buck.

[ Grass is always greener. He hums out a soft, sticky agreement. Gravelly and catching on threads in his throat like somehow the serum never fully cleared out the cigarette smoke. That isn't the case, it's just that he goes so often without talking now it takes some warming up when he speaks.

Steve pulls back to peg him with a look, head on, blue eyes to blue eyes with no avoiding the gaze

and then cracks Bucky's ribs open with a Finochietto retractor. Seizes him by the heart so hard and so fast that he can't breathe, he can feel it stalling in his chest, the pressure, the ache, the heat. His face freezes there like a deer in the headlights, with lips parted and eyes wide, trapped under the weight of waves he can't swim through.

It's not the first time he's said it.

No, he knows, he remembers.

His mouth moves, not to speak but fighting against an involuntary muscle response. Fighting back expression, fighting to reign in control. It hurts, it hurts so god damn bad because feelings are a two way road, the heat and the warmth of this is a gateway for the pain and the guilt to escape through.

Doesn't deserve
Has broken so much
Is so tired
It's unfair

He can pull it together now, though. It's been weeks, he's had time, he's gotten used to bricking things away all over again, and it only takes three or four swallows before he seems to resolve the brief flurry of feeling. One more until he finds his voice to hoarsely say: ]

You know I do, Steve —

[ Desperately, and urgently, a plea. Because he can't say the word, that's one breeze too strong on his precarious house of cards. If he lets the word slip past his lips everything will tumble down after it and he'll be a god damn wreck in this kitchen, and he can't.

But Steve's gotta know. He's got to, right, after all this time? And he's so god damn sorry that he isn't strong enough to just say it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it.

With

everything

in him. ]

❰ still too soon. steve would feel bad — does feel bad, feels like an asshole, putting this on bucky again — but what good would it do? it wouldn't make bucky feel any better, it'd just make it worse. so he folds that guilt up, tucks it under his ribs where he can find it again later, and closes his eyes, leaning forward to press their foreheads together again. ❱

I do. I know.

❰ bucky's always been the only sure thing steve's ever had. of course he knows. ❱

I'm not saying you have to. And I know you know how bad I am at dealing with crying.

❰ it makes him awkward, unsure, it's never something he can fix so steve doesn't know what to do when people start crying — ❱

But I can take it if you do. You know that, right?

❰ because maybe this is like tumenalia, or like jack. maybe bucky doesn't want to fall apart but he needs, the way steve needed to scream and jack needed to cry. steve's not going to push him into it, god knows he'd manage to fuck it up somehow if he tried, but. the option's there. he can take it, whatever bucky needs, whatever he wants. ❱

[ He can't let himself cry, he can't let himself scream. Can't let himself break down, because he's convinced that if he opens his mouth and starts, he'll never be able to stop again. He will break his teeth and split his lips and tear his own throat and never stop screaming.

He's always been more the quiet type anyway. The internal kind.

Back before the war, some girls called him moody. He'd brood sometimes, get into a certain headspace and disappear for a while with his thoughts, withdraw even if he was around people. Go dark. Seventy years of going dark and building walls to hide and segregate bits of himself to be summoned out and used at will mean it's the only coping mechanism he relies on anymore. It's his only crutch.

So he exhales, a soft shake of his head against Steve's, foreheads rolling, bone to bone, skin to skin. ]

M'okay.

[ He says instead, emptily, tonelessly. He's okay. He always is, even when he's not. He'll get back. He'll say it, he swears he will, just as soon as he can.

But not now.

Now, he's tired and his mind howls because it's ten stories up and there's a hole in the wall where the wind is whipping.

He draws back from Steve finally, hands dropping, eyes to the floor, and murmurs: ]

I'm gonna go sit down.

[ Back where he'd been, with his pack of cigarettes and his bottle of whiskey, to neatly repackage and to close the hole in his mind a little more strongly this time. ]

❰ yeah, bucky's always been moody. brooding, some might say, like some byronic hero. but this isn't something you can repackage, it's not something that just goes away because you take enough time to shove it down. it's going to come back eventually, and steve isn't willing to lose bucky for days the next time it happens.

when bucky begins to pull away, steve holds on, gentle but implacable. ❱

You're not okay, Bucky.

❰ his words are still soft, even if they also brook no argument. "okay", what does that even mean for the two of them, anyway? lying to everyone about how goddamn much everything hurts all the time? maybe steve's a hypocrite, but he won't let bucky walk away on a lie. ❱

You don't gotta pretend you are. You hold me up, you hold Jack up. You take care of us, but no one takes care of you. Let me take care of you, this time. I know how to put you back together.

❰ he's read the file now. he's accepted that the winter soldier is always going to be part of who bucky is, and that that person isn't the same person he was in 1944. but he wasn't the same then as he was in 1939, either, and steve relearned him then. bucky can never change so much that he could become unrecognizable to steve, that steve wouldn't want to figure out how to put the pieces of him back together.

give him a chance to prove that he can. ❱

[ If he were expecting a fight from Steve, he wouldn't imagine it to go like this. He'd expected vehemence, a bull in a china shop, Steve's attitude for miles wearing him down like steel on a whetstone when he doesn't have the energy or capacity to fight back. He's expecting enthusiasm and vigor, and he's expecting to meet it with emptiness and nothing.

What he gets instead is a gentle appeal and an assertion that he knows, that he has ideas, a plan, and the curiosity is just enough to keep Buck from slipping back into himself like a shell. Just enough to tempt him out, like the smell of food to a starving stray.

Eyebrows knit.

Eyes narrow just a little, and he hesitates where he's gripped, not fighting but neither returning.

Wariness saturates his posture and his voice as he reluctantly asks: ]

How?

I heard what happened and wanted to see if you're okay.

not really me you should be worried about
it's the people trying to live with what I did to them

Yeah, and don't you have to live with it?

It's not the same

No but it doesn't mean you aren't allowed to be hurt.

[ ooc: date change to 11/27 ]

I'm not doing great
If you want the truth of it
Better than I was but
Not so good

I do want the truth.
What can I do?

[ Was the turkey alive, Jack asks, and Bucky pins him with the most incredulous how dare you even ask that look he can muster. ]

No, the damn Turkey wasn't alive, first of all, and second- that's Turkey with a capital T. I'm not hearin' the appropriate amount of reverence in your voice, pal, you gotta capitalize that with your words.

[ S c o l d e d. All revere the Turkey. Praise the Turkey. The Turkey is a blessing, the Turkey is the gift of God, Jack. Come on. Get with the program.

He stirs the sauce. Lids the pot. Waits for the water to boil. Presses his back to the counter, curls his fingers around it, lets his elbows jut over the sink behind him. ]

You gotta be religious to play T-Ball. Never really bought into it myself. Mostly it's just kids these days on T-Ball leagues, but you get a few adults that coach it.

at this point I don't know if there's anything anyone can do

[ what?? don't farmers play games where you catch live pigs or something? maybe he should ask david. no, he should absolutely not ask david. whatever, don't look at him like that, buchanan. ]

My sincerest apologies, Ambassador of America, I had no intention of disrespecting your pheasant-obsessed jock culture.

[ said in a voice that clearly does not sound sincere, because oh my god, you fucking nerd, he already knows you aren't religious, don't even try it with the Holy Turkey crap.

but jack's still smirking at him, one foot still idly swinging, relaxed and at ease in the kitchen with him. he'd missed this. menial chores, bucky working, jack following him around bitching, or prodding with questions, or babbling about irrelevant crap, because he just likes being near him. jack's well aware bucky's far from completely healed, but at least it doesn't seem to hurt him quite so much just to exist. ]

And what kind of religious was that? Like Steve's religion?

[ whatever the shit it's called. bible-followers. ]

❰ it's been a few weeks since the asset's victims appeared back in duplicity, and a few days since their memories began to return. bucky's... he's piecing himself together, slowly but surely. steve's been staying for full shifts at work and coming back home to bucky behaving like a real person and noy a living room fixture, anyway. it's progress.

progress enough steve can tell him about his trip to lies headquarters while bucky was catatonic. he'd been holding off telling bucky, not wanting to pile more stress on him than he could handle.

steve's washing dishes in the kitchen while bucky folds laundry in the living room. it's almost disgustingly domestic, a dark mirror of their late teens and early twenties. if it weren't for where they are, steve would love it. as it is, he just does the washing up in companionable silence for a few minutes before speaking up. ❱

I went to LIES headquarters the other day, ❰ he says, nonchalant. ❱ I wanted to ask about taking Jack with us when our year in the program is up.

If you change your mind about that you know where I am.

[ jack benjamin would never have called himself a snuggler, of course, jack benjamin is also well aware he's a fucking liar. it'd been less a preference issue as an opportunity one. or, more so, lack of candidates he really felt the urge to be so close to. he'd felt peaceful curled up to joseph, running fingers through his hair, or a hand down his back. it'd felt something like honesty, comfortable vulnerability, and worthiness. he isn't typically the needy one of the equation, finds it's more in his comfort zone to be the stable structure that the other's clung to, because jack's never been able to admit to needing anything easily. when he does, when it's crawled too far up his throat that he can hardly breathe, when he can't shut his eyes without jerking awake moments later, as if his mind is afraid to go completely quiet, there's very, very few people he feels like he can go to.

two, maybe, in total. fortunately, they live in the same place now, one jack's been given a key for.

after three hours of trying to force himself to sleep, after alcohol and sleep aids and counting sheep and clenching his jaw to the point it gives him a headache, jack gives in and heads for the elevator in loose sleep pants, a plain, soft long-sleeved undershirt, and socks. expression slack and lifeless, he stares at the lit up keys on the floor selection panel, swaying slightly side to side, body feeling exhausted but mind refusing to go still.

there's no stopping to knock, no attention paid to any other part of the apartment when jack shuffles in, only making a line straight to bucky and steve's bedroom. only one of the figures is curled up under the covers, on the side that tells him it's most likely bucky, steve likely at work or otherwise engaged. it has to be bucky, because he's greeted the same way each time he ends up in this spot, standing just inside the bedroom, the door pulled quietly shut behind him, as if keeping the noise down even matters at all when bucky'd clearly already heard him from the front door, maybe even before. super soldier senses. he knows, because the covers are already tugged back, pulled down at a corner to invite jack in, bucky shuffled a little back, pillow left half unoccupied.

this is why he's at the top of this list. there's so little jack has to say, not only because bucky knows him by now, but because it doesn't matter. he can keep his silence, hold onto his twisting mess of thoughts, anxieties and fears and pain, and simply seek peace in being a fucking wreck. without a word said, jack crawls himself onto the mattress to take the silent invitation, slipping in against bucky's chest, no shyness in the space he takes up, socked feet hooking his ankles around the other's. it takes some squirming to find the most comfortable position, but they've done this often enough it's easy to get to by now, and soon, jack sighs out a long exhale, like draining out the tension with it, bumping his nose against bucky's in the dark of the room. hey, friend. he needs to very quietly be weak for a little bit. that, and, he missed you. and you smell nice. ]

[ Sleep has become a semi-regular affair, gradually throughout the course of this. He still doesn't get quite as much, it isn't quite as often, and the nightmares still come frequently, but it feels like a more contained chaos. A survivable mess. Sustainable.

For once, he's actually asleep when Jack hits the front door. It takes him a stiff second or two to place what woke him up, until a familiar gate and familiar footfalls pad quietly toward the bedroom like they've done often enough now to be a sort of habit. Not every night, of course, but with enough regularity that his muscles start to relax befor his brain fully draws the conclusion.

The blankets go back to make room, his eyes close again, and when the bed dips an arm snakes around Jack's middle to pull him in tight and close.

Hard to say who gets more out of it, really. It's like a flood of calm, a sigh of relief, a breath. He nudges the nose back, nestles forehead against forehead, exhales quietly.

Hey. ]

ic contact; duplicity

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text; un: dickipedia | after hank's post

text; un: Barnes.

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addendum to above: date

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»»» action; 12/05

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idefk wherever the fuck it fits on the timeline, fight me

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