#Bucky makes me cry

[rambleonwaywardson]

Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 14

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: I've been absolutely blown away by some of your comments, especially on chapter 13. Not lying when I say they make my day. We are slightly shorter this week, just over 10k. There's a few new technical terms in the Mission Control transcript dialogue that I'll include at the end of the chapter.

---

We’re all made of stardust, Gale likes to say.

The human body is nothing but a fascinating and precisely messy, messily precise combination of the very elements that build up everything around us. Everything that has ever lived, everything that has ever been, came from the stars.

It’s hard not to be romantic about space. It’s the very star stuff, after all, that poets and philosophers and physicists alike have wondered and wandered about for as long as human thought has been able to comprehend the idea of an unknown. Our ancient ancestors stared up at the sky and, even without a concept of what it was or where it led to, they looked at the stars, and the stars looked back.

The stars from which we came, and the stars to which we will one day return, when the little miracle of a world on which our kind was born is swallowed by the sun that gave us life. Some may say that the vastness of an infinite universe renders a life lived, no matter how large, insignificant. Nothing but a speck in the cosmos, a blip on the timeline of something grander than we can ever comprehend. 

But why can’t it be the other way around?

For life to come forth from the building blocks of a largely uninhabitable infinity feels like impossible odds, because the odds should be mathematically impossible. One in infinity. And yet, billions of years of chance and circumstance, and it resulted in you.

Who’s to say that a life lived, no matter how small, isn’t, by virtue of its very existence, the most significant thing imaginable? Perhaps it’s made even more so by the reality of a forever that we can’t comprehend. Because, of all the infinite possibilities in the universe, you are here. You are breathing. You exist. You are alive.

Our universe is a masterpiece with no artist to claim it, the most complex melody to ever be played. A human life, a human breath, may be but a moment on a vast canvas of reality that we can never touch. 

But what a moment.  

How special is it that such a thing is even possible. To one person, a life is everything. To the universe, many think it’s nothing. But in a sky of a million stars, every little thing is a puzzle piece, one stroke of a brush that fills in the gaps in this work of art. Where life seems impossible, every improbable life that beats those odds is nothing short of a miracle.

So. How lucky are we that this beautiful, complicated universe aligned so perfectly, that the laws of physics have permitted us to exist as we do, together, in this minute span of space and time?

We’re all made of stardust.

That thought has always made Bucky smile. 

One day he’ll return to the stars that created him from nothing, but until then, he exists in a universe that gave him everything. A reality that, among improbable odds, gave him Gale. 

—

November 22 Lunar South Pole, Starship

When Curt opens his eyes, he doesn’t recall closing them. He must have fallen asleep at some point in the night that, on this side of the moon’s south pole, is never actually night. Just a stone’s throw away, and he would be in total darkness all the time. But not here. Not where his ship sits, lonely in an ocean of glass and dust. Oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron. The same oxygen that fills his lungs. The same iron that courses through his blood.

He’s spent too long listening to Gale Cleven wax poetic about the universe.

When he blinks his eyes open, he can’t explain the vague feeling of dread pulling the walls of his chest inwards like a perpetually collapsing tower of cards. Perhaps that’s just the state in which he’s been living the past few days. Never sure what comes next, up here on this nowhere neverland. Unstable, ready to topple at the slightest breeze.

Maybe it’s a good thing, then, that there is no wind on the moon.

Music is playing. He must have forgotten to turn it off. Mournful notes surround him on all sides, washing over him in a surreal tide of sound.

One More Light, by Linkin Park. Who cares if one more light goes out in the sky of a million stars?

The dread in Curt’s gut quivers, spreading through him like a disease. He glances over at Bucky’s still form across the cabin, but he can’t see the rise and fall of his chest in the dimness of the lander’s simulated night. He swallows, feeling the painful lump of anxiety stuck in his dry throat. The song, no doubt, doesn’t help.

It plays on, though, as he rolls sloppily out of his hammock and wanders over to Bucky’s cot. Slowly, slowly, almost like he doesn’t want to know. As if his actions right this very second, this fraction of a second, could change an outcome that he’s fought tooth and nail to have any say in. He hears his own heartbeat, pumping blood that carries within it the same iron that courses through the veins of their solar system. He feels it pounding in his chest as he wades through this small ocean of a no man’s land. Schrodinger’s cat – alive or dead? 

He looks. Slowly, slowly. And he swears he feels the moment his soul is crushed beneath a weight that it wasn’t designed to bear.

For a moment, he is consumed by all of his worst fears. A heart stopped. Chest still. Face pale. Fingers cold. Unmoving. Like a light gone out, the blink of a supernova that can’t be observed with the naked eye, nothing but the sudden absence of light to tell the universe that it’s moved on from this life.

Not even a flicker.

Bucky. 

Just gone in the night. 

Who cares when someone’s time runs out if a moment is all we are?

Curt wakes with a gasp, a ball of anxiety dislodging from his throat in a scream that he has to forcefully shove back down into his chest so it doesn’t ring out at a deafening pitch. His eyes snap open, his hands gripping the fabric of his hammock so tight his fingers hurt. 

Alone. He’s alone. 

The only living being on the surface of this whole desert-island world. 

He can’t breathe. 

He glances over at Bucky’s still form, squinting through the darkness of the cabin. He can’t see well enough. His fingers frantically search for the PTT button on his coms.

Curt: “Benny? Benny??”

Benny: “You okay, Curt?”

Curt: “Is he alive?” He can’t push the words out fast enough, desperate enough. Not a single person on shift misses the way his voice breaks on the third word.

Silence.

Curt can feel the panic rising up through his body, tears threatening to spill over. His heart is beating too fast in a chest that feels hollow and hopeless, and his head spins. He waits for Benny to tell him no, don’t you remember… Waits for the confirmation that he’s lost perhaps the most important person in his life. Nervously, though, he looks at the time displayed on the console across from him. It’s the same day as it was before, when he last remembers being awake.

The same day. 

A dream. 

But. It’s 5:30am GMT. He’s been asleep for at least four hours, the longest he’s dared to close his eyes in the past few days. Bucky’s progress gave him a sense of complacency, and now he worries it’ll cost him everything.

A lot can happen in four hours. But it doesn’t take a lot for a light to go out.

He swallows thickly. His whole face burns, his eyes stinging with the fear that is threatening to eat him alive if his CAPCOM doesn’t say something.

Curt: “Benny?”

Benny: “He’s fine, Curt. Did something happen? His vitals look as stable as can be expected.”

Curt shakes his head, as if he isn’t alone in the dark. He flexes his fingers against the side of the hammock, gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing. His eyes squeeze shut against unshed tears.

Curt: “No. Bad dream.” He tries to make his lungs work properly. Tries to force his body to stop shaking. He’s okay. He’s okay. “Forgot to turn the music off.”

Who cares if one more light goes out?Well I do.

Okay. Well. That’s certainly enough of that.

Curt throws himself out of the hammock with abandon, stumbling as his socked feet slide on the floor. He grabs his tablet, pauses the music, and he stares down at the screen long after it fades to black again, unblinking as the quiet descends around him. 

Benny: “I told you we were concerned about the sad boy hours playlist.”

Curt: “Oh shut it, Benny.”

He hears Benny snicker.

Benny: “You okay, Curt?”

His heart is still pounding. The dread is still making a home deep in his chest. All he feels is a gripping fear that isn’t quite like anything he’s ever felt before. But he nods.

Curt: “Yeah. Thanks, Benny.”

He turns on the lights. And he wanders, slowly, slowly, over to Bucky’s cot. Relief washes over him when he sees the way Bucky’s hand twitches. The way it moves slowly, slowly, up from Bucky’s side to his chest. Blue eyes blink up at Curt, brow scrunched. The hint of a smile plays at the corner of Bucky’s mouth.

“Scream?” he says quietly, fighting to scrape the words out of a dry throat through lips that fumble across the messy syllable.

Curt huffs and rubs a hand over his face. He nods. “Yeah. I did.”

The expression on Bucky’s face changes, the quirk of his lips dropping as he squints up at Curt in concern, but it returns a second later. “The fuck?”

That makes Curt laugh, and he feels some of the nerves recede. A tide going out as the world continues to turn. “You’re just full of sass, aren’t you.”

Bucky makes a vague, minute motion with his shoulders that might be a shrug. Curt watches as Bucky’s left hand drifts in stiff, labored movements up to his chest to meet his right. His fingers brush over his wedding band, and Curt can visibly see some of the tension leave Bucky’s body.

“You remember him talkin’ to ya last night?” Curt asks. He reaches a hand out to rest on Bucky’s good leg and shakes it gently. 

Bucky’s eyes flick back up to him even as his thumb continues to rub over the ring. “Buck,” he breathes out. His eyes, already glassy, take on a wet look and drift away from Curt’s. The corners of his mouth drop into a frown. “Don’t… cry.”

Curt doesn’t know who he’s saying it to, exactly. Himself or Gale. Belated words that he couldn’t force out hours ago. But the words, the look on Bucky’s face, make Curt feel like crying anyways.

And then Bucky’s out again. 

—

Houston, TX

Marge is exhausted. She won’t complain, but she’s barely getting any more sleep than Gale is. She loves her job as Artemis PAO, she really does. But it was running her ragged even before catastrophe struck home. She’s dedicating all of her work hours and then some to keeping this mess controlled in the media. She’s been constantly communicating with the public about the mission status, monitoring media coverage, negotiating with media outlets about what to release when, and trying her best to keep the whole damn world off Gale’s back. She fights like a mother cat, baring her teeth and showing her claws as she pulls out every trick in the book to keep the ugliness of the press from descending on her best friend. Her brother. 

She spends her entire ten hour work day between Mission Control and her office, trying to put out fires and keep up with the shit storm swirling around her, and she is never, ever done. She’s working before she gets to the office and she’s working after she leaves. She’s working in the middle of the night while she lies awake in Gale’s guest bedroom. 

And when she’s not doing any of that, she’s keeping a sharp eye on Gale. 

Gale, her best friend since they were just little kids in grade school, playing make believe in her bedroom or throwing sticks for the dog. Wandering through the countryside under a setting sun, Gale telling her all about the stars above, the stars he has always loved so much. Camping in her backyard, making pillow forts to watch movies and share secrets in, making up stupid handshakes that they could never quite remember. 

Gale, who, at only eight years old, came to her house with tears staining his cheeks but trying so, so hard to hide how much he’d been crying after his dad hit him for the first time. Gale, who bit his lip until it bled because he was scared to go home but just as scared to tell Marge why. Gale, who learned too early that life can suck, but tried so hard to break free anyways.

Gale, who she grew up with, who she has watched become the incredible man he is. Who she loves so deeply. Her platonic soulmate, she likes to say, making him laugh as he hugs her tight. They’d go to the ends of the Earth for each other. Hell, they showed up on NASA’s doorstep together, prepared to do just that in their own ways. 

She has seen him succeed. She has seen him on top of the world in every sense of the word. And she has seen him hurt. She has seen him cry. She has seen him seething with rage. But she has very rarely seen him scared. Not since he was that wide-eyed little boy watching bruises bloom on his arms and chest for the very first time.

Gale Cleven and scared are not words that feel right together, but they are words that, from time to time, do coexist. Marge is one of only two people in the whole world who ever sees what that intersection looks like. Her. And John.

Gale is scared, now. He’s angry. He’s grieving. He’s lost and confused and hurting and hesitantly hopeful but trying not to crumble, trying not to get caught beneath a landslide. He’s scared. Because John almost died. Could still, perhaps. He could come home, or he could not. He could come home, but if he does, he could be totally different. He could be fine. Or he could not. And no one knows. No one will know until he’s safe and sound with his feet on dry land, wrapped in Gale’s arms with a beating heart. It could happen. Or it could not. And now Marge has to hold the pieces of his husband together.

She’s trying her best, she really is. She’s terrified to take her eyes off of Gale, though. Everyone sees him as this stoic pillar of strength that can always be relied upon, because he is. She knows that he isn’t prone to dramatics or drastic measures. He’s level-headed, ready for anything, indomitable. He’s unbreakable, when it comes to everything except for John.

John, who has spent nearly two decades chipping away at Gale’s walls of stone. John, who calms the internal storm that Gale won’t let the world see. John, who takes care of Gale when no one else notices that he needs to be taken care of. 

Buck and Bucky. One cannot exist without the other.

One half in limbo, and so the other won’t sleep. Gale barely even eats. It doesn’t seem to occur to him. Marge is worried that if he keeps going like this, he’ll simply keel over or get into an accident or simply vanish from this plane of existence. And if the absolute worst happens, yeah, she’s worried about that unbreakable will in him breaking.

Gale, who she has known as long as she’s known herself. Gale, who has always been there for her through the highs and the lows and the zigzags of this crazy life. Gale, who has always been the strongest person she knows. She doesn’t think she needs to worry, but she isn’t taking the chance.

Gale, who has always been just fine on his own. Gale, who never falters under pressure. Gale, who has never been afraid of anything.

Other than losing John.

Gale, who fell asleep in her bed last night because he was afraid to be alone. She held him close, and she let him sleep right there beside her like they were kids again, hiding from the monsters that he refused to talk about. She’ll call it a win that he slept for four whole hours before he woke around 3am and wandered out of the guest room. She found him sitting on the floor, his back against the door to his master bedroom, the dogs laying beside him. He was looking through the wedding photos, biting too hard on his lip. He’d finally made it to their first look, but he couldn’t bring himself to go further. He just sat there, staring at the emotional and ecstatic look on John’s face as he took in the sight of his fiancé dressed in white, lit up by the sun streaming through the windows. Gale smiled, and he frowned, grimaced at the blood on his lip, ran a hand through his messy hair. And then he smiled again.

“He’s gonna be okay,” he said, not even looking up. His voice was weak but carried a sense of certainty that Marge hadn’t heard since before the accident. “He has to be.”

It breaks her heart, seeing him like this. She wants so badly to make the world right, to bring John home safe, to personally guarantee that Gale doesn’t have to worry about a thing. 

But she can’t.

So she’ll stay with him. She’ll keep an eye on him. She’ll make sure he eats and she’ll hold him up when he falls and she’ll get him through this if it kills her. No matter what happens.

But goddamn is she tired. And scared. 

She’ll protect Gale with everything she has from the cruelty of this world, and she will stand by him in the aftermath. He’s her best friend. Her family.

But John is, too. John is her friend, too. He’s her family, too. Has been since the moment Gale introduced them so many years ago.

So here she is. She’s alone in her office bright and early the morning of November 22nd. Today, Starship leaves the lunar surface, whether John is ready or not. She and Gale arrived at JSC earlier than usual so she could get some extra work done. Normally, she’d stay in Mission Control for the entirety of Red Shift, but she has to moderate a press conference this afternoon. Time that she simply does not have to spare.

When they arrived, Gale went off in search of better coffee than Mission Control has to offer. He’s with Sandra, so they can discuss Artemis 4, though it’ll likely devolve into office gossip anyways. It was difficult for Marge to let him go off without her, somewhere where she can’t watch him, remind him to breathe, hold the broken pieces of him in place. But she thinks some time with one of his colleagues, talking about something that isn’t Artemis 3, will be good for him.

As for her, she’s supposed to be getting work done. Sending emails. Drafting press releases. Checking schedules. But she isn’t doing any of those things. All she’s managed to do since she got here is stare silently at the wall.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath and rubs a hand over her eyes. Fingers poised over her keyboard, she stares at her computer screen, willing herself to get to work on this statement about Major John Egan’s condition and the plans for getting him home. But every time she tries to type his name, she freezes.

Her eyes wander to a photograph on her desk. It’s her, Benny, Gale, John, and Curt standing in front of the SLS in KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building. They’re all grinning from ear to ear, all of them, even her, in NASA flight suits. She reaches a hand out to touch it, her finger landing gently on John’s face, and all of a sudden there’s tears streaming down her cheeks.

She takes one gasping breath, a little sob that tries its hardest to release every awful thing she’s feeling but can’t even come close. She hides her face in her hands, bites her lip like she’s always telling Gale not to do, and she breathes. Slowly. In. Out.

She’s startled out of it by a knock on her door, and she rushes to brush her hair back out of her face. She wipes below her waterline, taking care not to smear her makeup, and she sits up tall, shoulders back. She plasters a smile to her face even though it will never reach her eyes.

“Come in,” she calls, forcing a steadiness into her voice and hoping it doesn’t betray her.

The door opens, and Benny walks in. Surprised, Marge checks the time. Not quite 8:00.

“Gale’s on console already?” she asks. They’d gotten to JSC around 6:30, but she didn’t expect Benny to leave Mission Control until at least 8am sharp.

He nods. “He wanted me to check on you. He’s concerned.”

Marge laughs wetly, letting her guard down just the littlest bit. It’s just Benny. “He’s concerned about me?”

Benny nods again and sits in the chair on the other side of her desk. He slides a cup of coffee across to her. “Says you’re wearing yourself out looking after him all the time.”

Marge frowns as she grabs the hot cup and inhales the scent of the caffeine she so desperately needs. “I don’t have a choice, Benny. He’s… not okay.”

“I know,” Benny agrees. “But you’re allowed to hurt, too. You love John nearly as much as he does.”

“I don’t think that’s even possible.”

Benny laughs halfheartedly. Marge loves her friends fiercely. But Gale loves John with a power that outshines every star in this universe. “Maybe not,” he says. “But this is hard for all of us. It’s allowed to be hard for you.”

She sips her coffee to keep her voice from trembling. “I know. But he needs me to be the strong one right now. I can’t afford to break.”

Benny nods in understanding and offers a sad smile, because he knows. He feels it, too. This pressing need to keep it together because there is simply no other choice. He can go home and throw things at the walls on his own time if he needs, but Marge can hardly even do that, since she’s basically on 24/7 Gale watch. 

“How’s John doing today?” she asks. They’re getting dangerously close to their Starship launch window.

Benny runs a hand through his hair and sighs deeply. “He’s… improving. We’re seeing more and more signs of him. Just not as quickly as we’d like.” He smiles weakly and tells her about the last six or so hours. Bucky has woken up a few times, totaling about three hours of being conscious. His speech capabilities are returning. Mostly single words like “fuck,” “Gale,” “Curt,” and “shit.” He seems aware of his surroundings. He can answer yes/no questions, and most of the time he seems to remember what happened on the surface. 

He can swallow, and has asked for water twice but is not eating on his own. Curt has had to help him with sitting up and holding his water packet. Sometimes he wakes up confused, startled, anxious, doesn’t seem to know where he is or why. Even awake, he drifts in and out of awareness. He keeps trying to pick at his IV or reach down to his leg, and he seems to be in considerable pain. He has not had another seizure, but his heart rate spikes every once in a while, or his breathing will become erratic, too slow or too fast. 

Perhaps the most promising development is that, as long as Curt helps him get his comcap on, he’s able to speak to Mission Control well enough to convey basic needs. Sort of. Almost. This means, ideally, once Curt manages to get him all set for launch, he’ll be able to communicate with Curt and Gale if he needs anything. Curt, for all intents and purposes, is in charge of all flight and docking duties on Starship. Thankfully, he spent time training on all facets of these procedures, so he isn’t going in blind.

“How’d Gale seem?” Marge asks.

Benny shrugs. “He seemed okay. But, I mean, he usually seems okay on shift, you know?” When Marge frowns, he rushes to reassure her. “I think he’s gonna be alright, Marge. As long as John keeps improving, he’ll be alright.”

“What happens if he doesn’t? Keep improving?”

Benny sighs again and reaches across the desk to take her hand. He glances at the photo on her desk, the one of them all together. He doesn’t know, is the truth. But he’s a pilot. An astronaut. He always has a sense of the worst that can happen, but he can’t afford to actively anticipate that outcome. All he can do is move forward and take it as it comes. He offers Marge a weak smile. “We’re just gonna take this one minute at a time, okay?”

They don’t count in days anymore. Minutes and seconds. It’s all they can ever count on. 

—

Bucky doesn’t like a single thing about this. No. Nope. Not at all.

He scowls at Curt in hopes that that will convey the general desire to burn this entire place to the ground and take the two of them with it.

“I know, dude,” Curt groans. “We don’t got a fuckin’ choice so work with me here.”

Bucky takes a deep breath, as controlled as he can manage, and glances out the window of Starship, which he can finally see out of again now that he’s sitting up. Even once he managed to open his eyes, he spent a long time just staring at the ugly ceiling of their little crew cabin, imagining stars above. Curt has helped him to sit up straight today, though, with his legs hanging over the side of the cot. Before Curt started helping him to dress in his first suit layer, he was finally able to see the damage done to his body – his leg hanging useless and throbbing, held together by a splint, and the faint remnants of a decompression rash mottling his skin. Curt removed the bandage from around his head, but Bucky keeps trying to reach his hand up to rub at the wound there.

Curt keeps swatting it away, saying “I didn’t stitch you up for you to break that open. So quit it or I’ll wrap you up again.”

Sitting up like this makes Bucky feel dizzy, the room tilting and blurring around him all funny, and he feels his heart rate spiking again. He tries to focus on the stars he can see through the window. Flickering lights in a dark, forever sky. He wonders if he can count them, but his brain keeps stalling after he reaches six or seven and his vision goes fuzzy.

Pain pulses in his leg with every heartbeat, and nausea keeps rising and fading, rising and fading. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe deeply, but the air chokes his lungs as his chest shakes with the effort. 

“Hey, take it easy,” Curt says. Bucky feels Curt’s warm hand on his knee as his copilot kneels in front of him. He’s securing the booties of Bucky’s cooling garment, which has to be worn beneath the OCS suit to avoid overheating. How, exactly, to get Bucky into the layers of his suit required a lot of back and forth and arguing between Curt and “the idiots in Mission Control,” while all Bucky could do was sit and wait while they determined how best to dress him up like some sort of doll.

The results were excruciating, involving removing the splint to get the cooling garment over his broken leg, and it was a harrowing taste of what’s to come between now and touching down on Earth. Benny said Smokey wanted Curt to redo the splint anyways, since the swelling in his leg has likely gone down, making it too loose. Either way, Bucky kind of wants to be unconscious again so he doesn’t have to feel so much pain. Part of him thinks if it’s between this and never waking up again, he’d choose the latter. He can’t bear the thought of abandoning Gale like that, but he desperately needs all of this to stop.

Nausea rises up as Curt jostles his leg trying to get the splint back on over the cooling layer, and it doesn’t subside like it did before. Bucky tries to reach out to tap Curt on the shoulder, tries to say something to let him know, but all that comes out is a weak “uh?” And then he’s coughing up bile that misses Curt’s head by mere centimeters. Curt looks at the spot on the floor where it landed, looks up at Bucky with a mix of disgust and pity, and Bucky kind of wants to cry.

He hates this.

He hates it.

He hates the way he can feel it sticking to his mouth and the way it’s making him choke on little coughs that rattle his brain as he tries to keep from swallowing what didn’t make it past his lips. He hates how useless and incompetent he feels, like an overgrown child who can’t take care of himself or so much as communicate what he needs. He hates that he can’t dress himself or eat or drink. He can hardly move, can hardly balance enough to sit upright. He hates that Curt is stuck here taking care of him when that is not what he signed up for. And he is in so much pain.

He feels the wetness in his eyes, but thankfully the tears don’t fall.

Curt takes a deep breath and looks Bucky in the eye. “Just a second,” he says. He finishes fastening the splint, making Bucky grunt in pain again, and then Bucky is alone, focusing too hard on staying upright on the edge of the bed.

When Curt comes back, he has one of the rags they use for cleaning. He squirts some water from his water packet onto it and gently wipes Bucky’s face, then the floor. Then he holds the water towards Bucky. Bucky takes it between his lips and sucks weakly at the straw, feeling instant relief at the way the water coats his throat and washes away the acid taste.

Curt wipes his mouth again, drying up a drop of water below his lower lip. He frowns as he considers Bucky, barely able to handle getting into the first layer of his suit before launch. “This is probably gonna get a whole lot worse,” he tells him. 

—

Gale feels sick.

If Starship liftoff and rendezvous weren’t scheduled for Red Shift, he absolutely would have been here anyways. But, even after everything, he didn’t anticipate how much being in Mission Control would hurt. How much it would physically hurt to know that his husband is confused and sick and in so much pain. How much it would hurt to sit here and bear witness to the unique torture that is launching Bucky off the moon despite all of it.

The moment Gale takes over the console, the first thing he hears is a weak voice crackling over the coms. “Gale?”

“I’m here,” he says. He wants to reach across space and time, hold Bucky to him and shelter him from everything that’s about to happen. He thinks, for the first time, that perhaps being unconscious was the most merciful thing for the Artemis 3 Commander these past few days. Perhaps he’d been selfish, wanting so badly for his husband to wake up. Because how is this any better?

The next thing he hears is a quiet sob, a voiceless scream that didn’t have the power to truly make a sound, as Curt tried to get Bucky’s bad leg into the OCS suit. Gale has to shut his eyes for a moment and take a breath, push past the bile rising in his throat at the sound of John in anguish. The completely irrational part of his brain wants to shut this whole operation down, make everyone stop what they’re doing, stop subjecting his husband to this abuse. The rest of him knows that that isn’t an option. They have to get this launch right, and they have to get it right now, excruciating pain be damned. So he holds his breath to keep the pieces of his shattered heart from overflowing right onto his console, because if he can’t deal with listening to Bucky’s suffering, then he can’t be here at all.

It’s not fair, but it’s what this job requires. As long as he is in Mission Control, he needs to put on a brave face, play Major Buck Cleven. 

When he finally opens his eyes again and looks around the room, every flight controller is looking right at him. Painted on their faces is sorrow and pity, for him and for John, two of NASA’s most unassailable forces being shoved through Hell but fighting through it for each other. He looks at each of them, and he holds his head high, even as he swallows thickly to keep the tears stinging the backs of his eyes from welling up right here and now.

“Gale?” Bucky says again, his voice weak and thick and begging for something that Gale can’t give him.

And in that moment, Gale makes a decision. The only way to get John through this is to make room for both of them – Major Buck Cleven and Gale Cleven. He’ll be as strong as he has to; he’ll get these boys through this if it kills him. But in the end, even if the mission needs Buck at the helm, Bucky needs him. His husband. 

So he tries out a watery, encouraging smile even though Bucky can’t see his face, and he softens his voice, like it’s just him and John, no one else. “I’m here,” he says again. “I know it hurts, darling. I’m sorry we’re making you do this. But it’s the only way to get you home.”

—

Curt managed, somehow, to get Bucky all set in his suit, even as Bucky cried out in agony and tried to push him away. Curt doesn’t know if it was easier or harder when Bucky started to get all disoriented, fading in and out of consciousness. He gave up fighting, but it left Curt trying to single handedly shove his body into the most complicated outfit known to man. “I’m sorry,” Curt kept saying, wincing every time Bucky gasped in pain or flinched away.

As much of an ordeal as it was to get Bucky dressed, it was nearly as difficult for Curt to dress himself. On launch day at KSC – a day that feels so terribly long ago now – they had a whole team of suit techs, specially trained to help them get into these OCS suits. They helped the astronauts put on every layer, checked the fit and positioning of every single component, triple checked every seal and zipper to make sure not a thing was out of place and everything was as comfortable as possible. Even up in space or on the moon, the astronauts are trained to help each other so no one ever has to try to get themselves into the suit without another set of hands and eyes. It is not, by any means, a task that they are meant to accomplish on their own. And Curt has quickly learned that the hard way.

He manages, though, and finally returns to the console to finish preparing for launch. Before getting himself suited up, he had to carry Bucky across the cabin bridal-style in order to settle him into one of the seats and strap him in. “Now, don’t you fuckin’ touch anything,” he instructs, pointing a finger at Bucky. “Look at me.”

Bucky tilts his head a little and his eyes slowly roam over to see Curt beside him. Curt can see it all on his face: the joke he wants to make, the stubbornness he doesn’t want to leave behind. I’m your commander, show some respect, he probably wants to say. This is my ship as much as it is yours.

But even John Egan isn’t stubborn or egoistic enough to think he can fly a spaceship when he can barely move or talk, when his brain keeps going all foggy and he can barely stay awake. The look on his face also tells Curt that he’s angry, he’s sad, he’s in pain both physically and emotionally. It says, Am I still the commander of this mission if I’m no more use than a goddamn toddler?

So Curt gives him his best reassuring smile. “You just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride, Commander.” Bucky rolls his eyes, but the expression on his face eases into something less unsettled.

Luckily, Mission Control had foreseen the difficulties in suiting up, and they scheduled plenty of time into their morning for accomplishing a task that really shouldn’t have been harder than literal rocket science and yet managed to be just that. Before taking on that endeavor, Curt spent much of the morning preparing Starship for takeoff. Another task that was not meant to be accomplished by one person alone.

He never got to do his last EVA to retrieve their plants.

He lets himself look out the window one more time before he has to strap himself in. He can see the LEAF greenhouse far in the distance, and he presses his hand to the thick glass. He’d been really, really hoping for that one last moonwalk. That last chance to bound across the peaceful emptiness of the lunar surface, to take in the views he’s dreamed about since he was a kid. He really wanted to be able to bring home their little crops, the first living things to be born and to grow on the moon. But Bucky just wasn’t in a good enough place to be left alone for so long. No one could be sure if or when another seizure would occur, like a monster lurking in the darkness. And no one was confident that Bucky would be able to communicate his needs in Curt’s absence, or that he wouldn’t get agitated and accidentally hurt himself.

Curt doesn’t feel angry anymore. He might later, when it all catches up to him again. Now he’s just a little sad. A little disappointed. He looks out at the moon, at the Earthrise on the horizon, the stars in the sky, the vast expanse of fine rock and rubble that calls to him. He knows Bucky dreamed of the exact same thing. Neither of them are alone.

When he looks back at his commander, Bucky is watching him. His voice is quiet and scratchy, slow and unsure, but Curt can hear him over the coms. “Plants?” His eyes alone say more than that one word ever could. I’m sorry.

Curt smiles sadly and shrugs. “I’ll tell your husband to get them on Four.”

Then he nods to himself, looks at the console in front of him, and asks Houston for a launch checklist.

—

Shortly before takeoff, Gale is biting at his thumbnail in anticipation as he listens to the other flight controllers give their go/no-go. Typically, Curt and Bucky would have run through their pre-launch checklist together, only referencing Houston if they needed clarification on something. With Bucky unable to do much of anything, Gale had to take Curt through the checklist himself. He scans through the hard-copy packet of instructions in front of him, triple checking that he didn’t miss anything.

He pauses, his finger pressed with too much force to a line of text that smears ink on his skin, when he hears Bucky’s small voice coming over coms again.

Bucky: “Gale?”

Gale: “I’m here, darling.”

He can hear it: Bucky sounds nervous. Gale can’t seem to decide if he should smile or frown. On one hand, Bucky is awake, coherent, thinking, talking. On the other, Gale knows he’s scared. And John Egan and scared are not words that seem like they should fit in the same sentence.

He wonders how much of this makes sense to Bucky right now. He wonders if he knows how much this is all about to hurt, even more than it already does. He wonders if knowing in advance would make it better or worse, or if the fear etched into Bucky’s voice is simply because everything happening around him is already too much.

Gale: “He okay, Curt?”

Curt: “Think so. A little agitated, but I think he just wants to know you’re there.”

Dr. Huston informs him that this situation is extremely stress-inducing for Bucky, who is still not fully aware of what’s going on and is in a lot of pain. It’s natural for him to be seeking comfort. He’s reaching out because he doesn’t feel safe. And no matter what state he’s in, he seems to associate Gale with safe.  

Gale has to fight back tears once again.

Gale: “I’m here, John. I love you.”

In the silence that follows, he can feel the words Bucky can’t actually say in his mind. I love you more, angel. Gale sips his coffee and looks across the room at Marge, who catches his eye and gives him a thumbs up.

Clark starts counting down. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.

—

Curt mutters under his breath.  “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Liftoff.”

The Starship engines shake the entire silver tower, jostling Curt in his seat. They could do as many simulations as they wanted, but nothing compares to the real thing. Even in partial gravity, the ship has a shocking amount of power. He watches moon dust kick up in a billowing cloud around them as they start to rise.

Bucky: “Gale?” 

He sounds agitated again, and Curt can see his gloved hand trying to grab onto something, searching for stability. Curt reaches his hand out and squeezes Bucky’s fingers to let him know it’s okay. He wonders how excruciating this aggressive shaking feels when you’re coping with a traumatic brain injury. He doesn’t want to know.

Gale: “I’m here.”

Curt: “We’re going! 600 feet and climbing.”

The official mission transcript will indicate that something unintelligible was said, but Curt hears when Bucky says “pitch.”

Curt: “Yeah, we have pitchover. Right on time. Hear that, Gale?”

Gale: “I heard. Thank you Major Egan.”

Typically, this is the point in the launch when Curt would say something like what a fuckin’ ride , but he’s too nervous about the potential for Bucky to simply disintegrate into dust beside him, lost to the lunar sky. Stars from which we came, stars to which we will return.

Curt: “Alex, Rosie, we’re on our way to you. Heat us up somethin’ nice to eat would ya?”

Alex: “Want me to set the table, too?”

Curt: “That’d be great, honey… Trajectory good.”

Gale: “Trajectory good. Systems nominal.”

Curt: “Copy.” 

Gale: “Alex, I want in on whatever you’re makin’.”

Alex: “I’ve got chicken ‘n rice. And wheat chex. I’d stick with whatever you have earthside, Major.”

Curt shifts his gaze back and forth between the rising trajectory displayed on the screen in front of him and the rapidly descending darkness out his window. They’re nearing 5,000 feet, velocity approaching 400 feet per second. Rate of ascent right where it should be. 

Curt: “Right on the H-dot. Goin’ up as expected. One minute.”

Gale: “Starship, you’re go at one minute. Lookin’ good.”

Curt: “AGS and PGNS agree.”

Bucky: “Gale?” 

Gale: “I’m here, John. You okay?”

There’s a garbled groan through the coms, and Curt glances over. He recognizes the weird, twisted expression on Bucky’s face immediately, the way the commander shifts uncomfortably in his seat. 

Curt: “No. No no no. Do not be sick right now.”

Another groan. Bucky doesn’t have anything in him to throw up except for bile, but either way, vomit is the absolute last thing you want in your helmet. Once they hit zero G and things start floating… well, Curt is concerned Bucky won’t have the wherewithal to keep himself from choking on it. 

Gale: “He doin’ okay, Curt?”

Curt: “Drink your water. Drink your damn water.”

Curt reaches a hand out to pat Bucky aggressively on the shoulder and then motions to the little straw sticking upwards into his helmet out of the neck ring. While they were suiting up, he even figured out a way to stick it up a little higher so Bucky doesn’t have to duck down so much to get at it. “Water,” he says again.

Bucky’s eyes follow his finger and try to see the straw, not really remembering where it is or what he’s supposed to do. Water. He doesn’t see how he’s supposed to get water out of that, but he ducks his head down and struggles to get it between his lips. He cries softly in frustration as the nausea rolls through him, but he manages, feeling cold water rush into his mouth faster than he was prepared for. He coughs a little as it dribbles down his throat, but he manages to swallow. Curt nods and pats him on the shoulder again.

Curt: “You’re gonna be alright. Just don’t fuckin’ throw up in there.”

—

“Trajectory nominal,” Croz reports. “We’re on target.”

Gale doesn’t even realize he’s standing, probably has been for a while, with one hand on his hip and the other pressed to his lips, until Croz looks up and asks him if he’s alright. Only then does Gale notice that he’s paced a few steps away from his console and is standing on Croz’s other side, behind Bubbles. With an unconvincing nod, he runs a hand through his hair and wanders back over to his own desk. He picks up his fourth cup of coffee of the day and frowns when he realizes it’s empty.

Gale: “Coming up on three. We have you at 15,000 feet per second.”

Curt: “Lookin’ damn good here. 22,000 feet and a sky full of stars out our window.”

Gale: “Targeting good. How’s-”

Bucky: “Gale.”

The twisted, pained way Bucky cries his name is another icy stab to Gale’s heart, and it stops him cold where he’s standing behind his console. He rubs his hand over his face before pressing his wedding ring to his lips and closing his eyes. Breathe. He flexes his right hand, feels the scabs tug at the skin. This morning, Dr. Huston had tried to prepare him, telling him that the pain Bucky would feel during launch would probably be excruciating. That if Bucky could communicate that, it would rip Gale apart and make him feel like the worst person in the world for forcing him through this.

But it’s no one’s fault. It’s what has to happen. Gale just needs to breathe and work through it.

Gale: “I’m here, darlin’. It’s gonna be alright. Close your eyes and breathe for me.”

Rosie, listening in from Orion, jumps in. 

Rosie: “I know it hurts, Bucky. I want you to know it’s alright if you pass out.” 

Bucky moans in response.

Gale asks Dr. Huston about John’s vitals, and the flight surgeon reports that his heart rate is high but that’s to be expected from the stress alone. He’s not concerned yet.

Bucky: “Buck.” Softer now, but the scared and defeated cry is almost harder to bear.

Gale: “I’m right here with you… Four minutes. Go at four minutes.”

Curt: “Pringles can is stayin’ strong. Hear that, John?” 

—

Liftoff from the moon is something Bucky used to dream of. He’d stand at the top of his swing set, like the little peaked canopy above him was the nose of his ship, and he’d pretend he was launching towards the stars. He’d pretend the ground below him was made of moon dust, his own footsteps visible on the surface as he ascended higher and higher and higher until the world was nothing but a speck beneath him. “We’re lookin’ good, Houston,” he’d say, mimicking his heroes of the Apollo and Shuttle eras. “Right on target. Oh man it’s beautiful.”

He keeps trying to look out the window now, at that sky full of stars. That infinity that leads to nowhere and everywhere at the same time. His vision keeps fading in and out, though. Curt’s trying to talk to him but he can’t think straight.

His leg hurts. He doesn’t quite remember why. He tries to say Gale’s name, but he can’t.

His head feels… bad. 

It’s hard to breathe.

A sky full of stars.

He pretends he’s one of them.

—

Gale: “Go at six. Doin’ okay?”

Curt: “Good here. Coming up on ascent termination. Bucky?.... Bucky?”

Silence.

Curt reaches a hand out and puts it on Bucky’s shoulder, then his chest. He shakes him gently. He leans forward as much as he can and sees Bucky’s head flopped to the side, lax against the inside of his helmet.

Curt: “He’s out, Buck.”

Gale: “Probably better for him.”

Curt frowns, even though he agrees. He’d rather Bucky be unconscious than in unbearable pain. But he misses having his commander at his side, sass and all.

He lets his hand drop away from Bucky’s body, and he listens to Gale giving him a countdown to engine shut-off over coms. A job that Bucky should be doing.

Gale: “Three. Two. One.”

Curt: “Ascent terminated.”

—

Bucky pops in and out of consciousness over the next several hours, sometimes perfectly aware and sometimes confused and agitated. Sometimes he speaks, and sometimes he stares in silence out the window, wondering where he’d end up if he just kept drifting forever. Here am I floating ‘round my tin can, far above the moon.

When they hit zero gravity, their indicator floats up in front of their faces. Beary Egan remained on Orion. On Starship they have the little Earth plush that SpaceX often uses on their spacecraft. It bumps Bucky’s helmet, and he smiles the littlest bit. It makes Curt laugh as he watches Bucky slowly reach a hand up to poke the plush toy, watching it drift away. For a moment, there’s no pain, no fear, no worries. Bucky is just John Egan again. Mission commander. That same little boy who is just excited to be in outer space.

One time he glances at the trajectory displayed on the console in front of them, and in a moment of lucidity, he says “Good.” Curt gives him a thumbs up.

One time he looks at it and notices they’re angled the littlest bit off course, and he says “Curt,” as he tries to point at the screen.

“I know, bud,” Curt tells him as he works on adjusting their position.

One time he groans as bile rises in his throat and he has to close his eyes again, force himself to swallow the acid-tasting liquid and wash it down with a small sip of water. That happens a few more times on their journey, with varying levels of concern.

Sometimes all he does is pop his eyes open, cry out Gale’s name, and wait for his husband to tell him that he’s still there.

“Leg,” he moans at one point. Curt has to reach across and smack him to get him to stop trying to reach down to mess with his leg. Rosie tells him they’ll pump him full of pain meds as soon as he’s onboard Orion.

Curt doesn’t know if it would be easier or harder to shift Bucky from the lander to Orion when he’s unconscious. But it’s not his choice to make. Soon after Curt and Alex maneuver their ships into docking position and make contact, White Shift enters Mission Control. Gale discusses with Bucky at length – a mostly one-sided conversation – that he’s going off console for the night. That he’s going to go get something to eat, get some rest, see their dogs, and he’ll talk to Bucky again in the morning. No one knows if Bucky understands. 

While Curt conducts his post-docking cabin inspection and prepares for transfer to the crew capsule, Bucky wakes up again.

“Gale?” he says. He doesn’t sound so pained anymore, but his voice carries a distinct fear and need for comfort that kills Curt to hear.

The voice that comes back isn’t his husband’s. It’s Helen, gently reminding Bucky that Gale is off shift now. 

Bucky goes quiet. Curt watches his eyes drift closed, a frown on his face. Rosie and Alex have to help maneuver his unconscious body through the hatch.

—

Even when he was just an awkward teenager in high school, still growing into the good looks that made the girls swoon, Gale knew that he would become a military man. Not only was it in his blood, but it was the only way he could afford to get to college. The only way he could afford to get out of the town that trapped him in his father’s misfortunes. 

He always imagined himself marrying some nice girl with a stable, predictable job. Someone who he could count on coming home to. Someone who he could love and who could love him just as much. Someone who could give him a family. Someone, somewhere, who he didn’t have to worry about staying safe, staying alive. 

For a long time, everyone, including him, thought that was Marge.

But well into his teenage years, during that tumultuous time when everything feels like a big deal and you’re trying so hard to figure out who you are, who you were, and who you want to be, he realized something. He didn’t love Marge like that. He didn’t particularly like girls at all. He found himself more interested in the boys around him. The hot football player with the kind smile who sat next to him in world history and made Gale, just for half a second, try to vaguely understand sports. The lead in the school musical who sometimes asked Gale for help with his homework in calculus. The cute exchange student with the adorable accent in his French class, who would compliment Gale on his pronunciation.

Okay.

So, not a girl, then. Some nice guy, perhaps. Some nice guy with a normal, stable, non-military, non-perilous job who Gale could come home to. Who he didn’t have to constantly worry about being in danger. That’s what Gale wanted.

And then he started college, and an absolute whirlwind named John Egan crashed into his life with all the subtlety of a category 4 hurricane. Gale tried his best not to fall for him, he really did. But it was absolutely hopeless from the very first time Bucky smiled at him, bright as the sun. He held out for a while, refusing John’s advances for months even as he secretly hoped the cute brown-haired boy with the broad shoulders and the irresistible smile and the wild personality wouldn’t give up.

He didn’t.

Because both of them were a little bit in love from that very first day. And Gale had to admit that his plans for someone stable, someone reliable, someone safe, had to be thrown out the window.

Because Bucky Egan was the complete opposite of everything Gale had ever hoped for.

He knew the risks. He keeps reminding himself of that. He knew the risks, but he just couldn’t stop himself from falling anyways. Just two boys – young men – who looked danger in the eye and laughed in its face, saw it as something to conquer for themselves. Two people with stars in their eyes and the sky in their hearts, trying their best to ground each other even when neither of them can seem to keep their feet on solid Earth.

He’s seen John off into danger more times than he can count. It’s gone both ways. They’ve gone months without seeing each other, weeks without knowing where the other was or if they were safe. They’ve waited with bated breath for someone to show up on their doorstep with the worst news imaginable. But it never came.

They’ve always come home to each other, because there is simply no other choice.

So Gale stands outside in his front yard as the sun sets over Nassau Bay. It physically pained him to tell Bucky that he was going off shift, especially when he couldn’t tell if Bucky understood. Or if he’d wake up again in an hour and Gale would be gone and he wouldn’t know why. Wouldn’t know why he’d left, why he’d abandoned him. Gale sat at that console with his head in his hands, wondering if he should stay. He sat there well past the end of his shift. Well past handing Helen the headset. He sat there until Harding gently pulled him up, wrapped him in his arms, and told him, “You need to go home, son. We’ll take care of him.” 

So he left, and now he’s here, still not convinced that it was the right thing to do. He ate half of the sandwich that Marge made for him but couldn’t stomach the rest. He paced his living room, fighting the urge to turn on the news, to watch the press conference that Marge had moderated earlier in the afternoon. He broke open the scabs on his hands once again because he couldn’t stop picking at them, smearing blood across his face when he rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Marge had to wipe it off. He chucked his phone across the room because he couldn’t bear the way that it taunted him, inviting him to scroll social media or stare obsessively at the wedding photos that he still hasn’t been able to look through. It scared the dogs when the phone hit the wall, and it strangled his heart in a way that made him collapse to the floor all over again, angry and frustrated and scared. 

Things are looking up, so why is he still so damn scared?  

But the dogs came back. They crawled up beside him, Pepper with her head in his lap and Meatball nudging gently at his bloody hand. And they sat there together, a family waiting for dad to come home, until Marge took his hand and insisted that he needed fresh air. 

So now they’re here, in his front yard as night falls upon them. Marge stands beside him, holding him up with her presence alone, the dogs sitting at their feet. Across the road, a door opens, and Maggie runs towards them, her red curls bouncing against her back as she skips across the road. A broad smile is on her face, but she grows somber when she sees the sadness on Gale’s.

Carefully, she takes his hand in her own, little fingers gripping his, and all of them look together towards the horizon.

“Is John coming home soon?” the girl asks.

Gale closes his eyes and holds his breath. He feels Maggie squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back. Marge wraps an arm around him, whispers the word breathe as she does.

“Yeah, Mags,” Gale finally says. “He’ll come home soon.” He has to.

As blacks and blues spread like ink over the sky, Marge points to a dim sliver of light above. The little hint of a crescent moon peeks out of the darkness, finally visible for the first time since Benny woke Gale in the night what seems like forever ago. It’s a moon that John is no longer on, just like he’s not on this Earth. Instead, he’s somewhere in between, floating in the beautiful, unpredictable void of the great infinity up above. A flicker among that sky of stars.

He’s somewhere up there, back aboard Orion once again.

Because he’s going to come home.

---

---

Part 15

Terms:

H-dot: time derivative of height (the rate of ascent) AGS: abort guidance system PGNS: primary guidance and navigation system (pronounced 'pings')

[heretoobsessstuff]

My favourite scene: Gale’s last dance

Something I noticed when rewatching this scene is how the people around Buck are all watching Gale dance with meatball but Gale only looks at John. John is the only person Gale has eyes for and seems to care about watching him. When he winks at John its as if he does it to ease John’s nerves and for John to remember him this way: dancing with meatball and being happy and John looks at him as if he wants to commit every second of this to his memory.

[earnedmagic]

saw my first northern leopard spotted dorid in the wild this weekend! also orange sea cucumber, crabs galore, and a calcareous tubeworm :’)

[lonesomecupid]

currently crying

[bucky-obsessed]

This scene!

I love how they filmed this scene and idk why but I just love it!

[johnslittlespoon]

MOTA FINALE SPOILERS

posting this scene in full here because i think it's necessary and i'm not sure how any of us are ever going to recover. i feel insane

[lucianegm]

We're not talking enough about the real war crime that was portrait in MotA, which is that John Egan, a proper sunshine once able to light up an entire base, ends up so fucked up that we see him totally break by the end of the series. I mean, I mourn the loss of that bright smile everytime I rewatch MotA.

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

zombies + text posts (pt 3)

(1 2)

[adrinktostopyourthirst]

Bucky Barnes | Rebellion Series | Caution

Part one of the Rebellion Series

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Plot: By some miracle, you get saved from the consequences of your own actions. You’re reluctant to join a supposedly good cause. What happens when the good cause is not so legal? And what - or who - is your soft spot?

Warnings: Angst, fluff (?) and mentions of sex.

Words: 34OO

You have started shaking again. With every tremble of your body, the restraints around your legs and arms seem to tighten and you shudder even more at the awful memory of that feeling. It took weeks for the shaking to stop. Weeks of being locked up into this modern dungeon until you were nothing but silence and numbness.

You knew the rebellion could end in death, knew the consequences would be catastrophic, but at least you’d stood for something, fought for something. And you would choose death any day over the endless silence of this prison. You know for a fact that you’re surrounded by an ocean, but no matter how hard you listen, you cannot hear the wild sea crash. Can only hear the low hum of the air being circulated through your metal cell.

And today, approximately three months after the start of your sentence in the most secured prison on the planet, you have started shaking again. It can hardly be because today of all days, your brain has decided to make you go completely insane. That would be too random. Which means–

Your head snaps to the window, spotting the other cells. Empty. This floor is reserved just for you alone. Because apparently you’re too dangerous to interact with anyone. They even got machines bringing you your daily sustenance. An empty floor like every other day, yet something seems different. Something’s off.

A metal door flies through the middle of the circular space connecting all of the cells and you stiffen. You look at the ground again, keeping completely still. Maybe they don’t know that you’re here. Oh God, oh God, oh God. No, they can’t get to you. Not again.

The destruction clangs through your body and you tremble violently, curling up as much as you can and staring hard at the floor. The cold metal ground blurs with images of the rebellion. The things you gave up, the energy your summoned and wasted, the people you lost. The blood, and pain, and screams and– and– and…

“She’s in there. Grab her and then we get out of here.”

“Steve, I–”

“And hurry up, we don’t have much time!”

Two combat boots step into your vision and the stomps echo in your head, booming you back to reality. But not quite. Your eyes vibrate with fear and you swallow the nails in your throat. Then a pair of knees appear in front of you and a black gloved hand reaches forward. It hesitates, then retreats. As if choosing not to touch you. Wise choice.

“Hey.” The voice is low. And smooth as liquor.

But you don’t look up, focusing on trying not to tremble more and taking the firm contraptions wrapped around your shins and forearms as the protection they now are. Maybe this is another nightmare. It’s different from the ones you usually have, but black gloves… They had black gloves, too. And those firm boots. They may have kicked you in the stomach with those boots once. You don’t remember.

“I’m here to get you out,” the voice speaks again and you can only listen to the tone of voice, the way it sends a shockwave through your body and lessens the violent trembles. “Look up for me.”

You ignore him and focus on your breathing.

“Is she coming?” That first voice. Impatient. Panting.

The male before you turns to the centre of the floor and gives a frustrated sigh, “She’s pretty out of it.”

Before waiting for the other man to respond, he turns back to you and studies you. Even though you don’t see him, his stare burns right through the flimsy clothes they put on you. He lets out a soft sigh and flips out a knife from the holster at his waist, still kneeling before you. You stiffen, preparing yourself for the sting at your throat as they finally decide to get rid of you, but he tries his best not to touch any bare skin as he saws through the materials binding you together.

The relief of pressure from your skin make you feel so uneasy, you nearly throw up, but a gentle hand covers your arm and you finally look up. Warm, dark blue eyes connect with yours. Below heavy brows and above the faintest cluster of freckles. His mouth is soft and pillowy and his bone structure is otherworldly symmetrical.

“It’s okay,” he tells you gently and offers you a smile that you can tell doesn’t come to him naturally. “Can you walk?”

He pulls you to a stand with a firm, but comfortable grip and you instantly stumble on your feet at the weight suddenly put on them. One arm flies around your waist and hoists you into his side as he catches your fall.

“Okay, okay,” he grunts with a gentle laugh. “I got you. Let’s get the fuck out of here, alright?”

Your throat feels like sandpaper as you hobble along with the wall of a male dragging you along, “Who are you?”

He spares you a brief glance and smiles once more, following ‘Steve’ out of the building and onto an air craft that is way too loud. “Bucky. We’re here to help you. Or I suppose you’re here to help us, little rebel.”

…

Steve gives Bucky a knowing glare, only breaking it by daring a glance at your bedroom door which you have been effectively hiding behind for weeks now. “You know I can’t go in there, Bucky.”

“You know I won’t let you,” Bucky answers drily with a shrug. As opposed to his best friend, Bucky hasn’t stopped staring at your door.

“You’re not even hiding your possessiveness when it comes to her,” Steve breathes through a laugh. That makes Bucky finally look at his friend.

“I’m not possessive,” he says matter-of-factly. He’s not even offended, just practical. “I’m protective. The last thing she needs is all of the nosy people in this tower swirling around her when she doesn’t trust a single soul.”

“Has she started to trust you?”

Bucky has to keep from wincing at Steve’s question, and he clears his throat. “Sure,” he lies.

If Steve caught the lie, he didn’t let on. It was as much of a dismissal as he was going to get. After watching his best friend walk off to do captain things, Bucky braces himself to step into your room. He has no hope that his interaction with you will be any different than the previous ones.

“Another day of convincing me to be your weapon?” you nearly snarl when he walks into your room.

If Bucky is entirely honest, he thought you would have turned into this damaged girl that would morph into a wild animal as you worked through what had been done to you. He didn’t really expect this perseverance and defiance from the woman he saved from that prison. But he supposes he should have seen that question coming. It wasn’t his best work; starting that day he saved you with all of the things you could be doing for them. Why they had saved you. Simply for their own gain. Or that is how you understood it, at least…

He has never been good with words. That has always been Steve’s thing. Bucky was reliable physically and he paid attention. He never had to use many words to make his point. Yet you keep asking these questions – rhetorical, he thinks – and you keep giving him this penetrating stare until he answers. Which is a sure way to make him fuck up, because how do people do that? Bring sensible thoughts into words and make it make sense?

Especially when the woman asking said questions is so damned… pretty.

“It’s time for you to get out of this room,” he tells you plainly. It seems the tactic of ignoring your questions is effective. It only took him six days to figure that one out.

He strides over to cross the room, not sparing you another glance in your chair in the corner, and rips open the curtains. The cat-like hiss coming from you has Bucky nearly biting back a smile. He turns and watches you stand from your chair, stalking over to him with your chin high and a scowl on your face. He raises an eyebrow with amused intrigue.

“And what, exactly, will I be doing outside of my room?” you ask.

He dips down slightly, but you keep the proximity. “Whatever you want. I don’t care.”

“If you don’t care, why hunt me out of my room?”

He shrugs, “Captain’s orders.” He isn’t entirely lying.

“Why isn’t the captain telling me himself?”

Bucky smirks and leans even closer, making you feel his minty breath fan over your face. “Because I’m the only one who isn’t scared of you.”

You snort at that and roll your eyes before breaking away from him. “I’ll get dressed.”

Bucky tries his hardest not to look too stunned as you retreat into the bathroom. A deep sigh leaves his lips as he paces through your room in wait for you to get ready. It takes a whole lot of effort to muster a smirk when it comes to his interactions with you.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” he asks quietly.

Just as quietly, the house responds, “Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Has she asked for anything from you? To contact friends or family, or other information?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Does she have anyone left?” he tries, chewing his lip as he dreads the answer.

“Not that we’re aware. Mr. Stark had me run a background check, but she seems alone. No sign of anyone missing or deceased. No sign of a network at all.”

Bucky doesn’t know why that feels worse in his chest and he swallows. “Alright, thank you.”

A few moments later, you step out of the shower and find Bucky lounging in the chair he found you in, leafing through one of your books. Just as you’re about to check whether he has gotten his hands on one of your smuttier books, your eyes snag on the clothes laid out for you on the bed.

You pause long enough to make Bucky look up from the book. “Did you… Did you seriously pick out this underwear for me?”

Bucky eyes the lace panties dangling from your fingers and shrugs with a smirk. A smirk had never looked so enticing, but you sharpen your stare on him. “Do you prefer the grey, cotton ones in the back of the closet?”

You grit your teeth and scowl at him again, before morphing your mouth into a vindictive smile. “Why? Don’t you?”

His eyes dance at that. “Wouldn’t make a difference to me.”

And it’s the way he said it, with so much casual amusement and… promise. Heat rises to your face and you duck your head down. Snatching the clothes from the bed, you retreat back into the bathroom to get dressed.

…

The rest of your conversations had been purely functional as Bucky lead you down into the building where Steve was waiting. Bucky rolled his eyes at his friend’s horrible attempt at hiding his surprise. Steve hadn’t seen you since the day they came to save you, he must have never expected Bucky to be successful in his retrieval.

Bucky also hadn’t missed the meaningful look Steve then gave him that indicated he tucked away some valuable information. The information being that if they ever needed to get you to do something, Bucky is the way to get you to do it. Why? Steve seemed to have his theories and Bucky didn’t like it one bit.

However, for now he doesn’t care. Instead, he sticks by you after you reluctantly agreed to join Steve on a walk.

Strolling down the path through the surrounding woods, Bucky catches himself bracing for a fight every time Steve gets a little too close to you. He doesn’t like it. The last time he was this sensitive to proximity, he had just ran from Hydra. He’s seen other traumatised people before, but this feels different. And instead of listening to your and Steve’s conversation, he tries to figure out what it is. He supposes it’s because you have no survival instinct. In the few videos he’s seen of your rebellion and the encounters he has had with you the past weeks, you see danger or conflict and run straight toward it. Nothing scared or cautious about you. It sets his nerves on edge.

Bucky is well aware of what Steve is telling you and he has to refrain from rolling his eyes at the careful way Steve tries to coax you into their plan, when earlier that week they had not been nearly as careful as they calculated how to get you involved. But even Bucky had to admit that they needed you – specifically, everyone who would follow you into the grave. When Stark had shown him the videos, he was perplexed as to how you got such a huge following when what you fought for was so terribly dangerous. But one look at those sharp eyes and one deep command from you, and Bucky had seen it. That unwavering will and that brilliant brain that was always calculating. Steve could learn a few tricks from you on being a strong leader. And considering Bucky wildly admires his old friend, that is saying something.

They need you. Bucky knows it, too. They need not just someone with great leadership skills and a loyal following, but someone that does it out of empathy for the people mistreated by the system. Because that is who they’re going to be fighting – the system.

Again.

…

“You haven’t said anything about what Steve told you,” Bucky says on your walk back to your room. The offer to escort you back to your room hadn’t been entirely selfless.

“I need to think about it,” you murmur, deep in thought.

Bucky suppresses his sigh of sympathy. They are asking you to join a cause you were so passionate about, and that after failing so miserably last time. He can barely imagine the things you must have witnessed and endured with your last upraise. How you had gotten so influential that the government decided to treat you like you were a super-human and punished you accordingly. You had been put in the same prison as Wanda. Wanda. That is how powerful you were.

“It can’t be easy to revisit everything after all that’s happened,” he resigns and you blink from your thoughts to raise your eyes to his face. You study him and it takes all of Bucky’s might not to shift under your assessing gaze.

Then you speak up, “I’ve always done the right thing. Steve knows I can’t walk away from it…”

Bucky smiles at that. “Just like him.”

Your eyes narrow at that comment, but Bucky finds no venom in the look. You continue, “Sacrificing my life for the cause was never an issue. But to lead others into that same fate again?” The guilt had eaten you alive. All those people that had gotten arrested, split up from loved ones, hurt– worse…

Bucky interrupts your thoughts before they get a hold on you by clearing his throat. “Tonight, we have dinner with everyone. You’re welcome to join if you’d like.” Your heavy stare on him makes him quickly add, “Don’t give me that look. There will be no talk of overthrowing the government. Just dress fancy.”

The snort of a laugh that comes from you feels lighter to Bucky than he’d like to admit. And to ease the tension, he forces another smirk to his face. You narrow your eyes again warily, “What.”

He shrugs, turning to leave you alone at your door. Then he winks. “Let me know if you need me to pick out some underwear for you.” And then he’s gone.

Bucky hangs onto that cockiness all the way until dinner, where the entire group has showed up. Even Thor said he’d show up for a drink. Barton flew in from his family home to join the group as well. He remembers a time when he’d felt more than uncomfortable around this group of people. But so much has changed. They all saw him as a great asset to the team and even relied on him more and more to supervise the missions. He’s at home with them now. Heart swelling with affection, he listens to his friends – his family – laugh in the kitchen while they pour the drinks.

And then all of their faces turn into one direction, some of them pulling taut, few of them giving warm, comforting smiles. Bucky follows their gaze and it is like someone punched him in the gut, air whooshing out of his body. He doesn’t really know why – other than the obvious fact that you look ravishing of course. But he looks at you and clears his throat to welcome you to the group.

Natasha beats him to it though and it has Bucky’s hackles rising. She shoots him a knowing smile and then he backs off. His pride wounded like a cat booped on the nose. Natasha is good at it, charming people until they feel comfortable. Or take their pants off. But there’s an easy smile on your face – one Bucky knows is at least slightly forced – and you blend in with the crowd easily.

Suddenly, Sam’s at his side. “I know what you’re thinking,” he grumbles with his eyes on you and Natasha, followed by a swig of his beer bottle. “Those two together can only mean trouble.”

Bucky can only grunt in agreement.

…

“What on Earth are you talking about?” Natasha drawls with a guilty smile.

Barton shakes his head. “The poor schmuck didn’t stand a chance. There is no way you could have taken him if you hadn’t slept with him the night before.”

Natasha shrugs. “Look, a girl has her needs. He met them and the next day he met his fate.”

“Really, Nat?” Steve nearly cringes and Bucky reins in his laugh. “The guy’s moral compass was straight from hell and you decided to sleep with him?”

Natasha barely manages to open her mouth before you decide to pitch in, raising a glass to her. “I get it. Terrible morals do add a little spice in the bedroom.”

Nat clinks her glass with yours and mutters a ‘she gets it’, but Bucky’s eyes are searing through your skin. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised at such outrageous claims coming out of your mouth. There is nothing innocent about you. Good, yes. Innocent? No. Yet perhaps it isn’t ‘surprise’ that is warming his body from the inside out.

Conversation flows easily between the Avengers and the food Tony had made easily beats the Brooklyn comfort food Bucky usually seeks out. Cheeks turn rosy from the drinks, voices get louder, lights get dimmer. Bucky has to really look to be sure what he’s seeing. You, relaxed and happy. Such a stark contrast to the woman he found in the prison. No wonder you’re so good with people. People make you good.

He can barely manage his smirk however, when he notices the strain in your body to keep from looking at him. Why you are so adamant to avoid him, he can’t really tell. But this is now your weak spot, so he cannot help but tuck the info away for later.

The night carries on and everyone switches places, catching up on endless memories and adventures and being surprisingly considerate to include you in most conversations. Bucky ends up at the head of the table, you on the seat closest to him, both listening to Sam. You listen closely and Bucky can only assume you have some relief from being actively distracted from him. And being the arrogant bastard he knows he can be, he ‘accidentally’ brushes a knuckle over the back of your hand that’s resting on the table. He watches you stiffen and swallow, but like a true rebel, you show no other sign that it affected you.

A few more stunts like that had Bucky pressing his knee to your thigh under the table and it takes everything not to pull away from it. So you gaslight yourself to let the touch ground you. To absorb his warmth and relax even more into the touch. And if you guess it correctly, the way you respond to Bucky’s touch is not what he expected… So you find yourself having the upper hand again.

And if you’re going to join these people in their cause, what’s a little game with your menace of a saviour?

[feelingtheaster99]

Oh my GOSH the FACE Brennan is making as Bucky struggles to come to grips with his church’s strict teachings and sense of paranoid and feeling at home with people who have vastly different beliefs and backgrounds as him

[v4lta01]

This scene is so good and horrifying at the same time- the way he remembers Steve and Bucky Barnes breaks through!

"Then finish it, Because I'm with you till the end of the line"

[rambleonwaywardson]

Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 18

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: As an update, I am eyeing another chapter after this followed by an epilogue. A nice, even 20 parts. Thank you, as always, to everyone who reads, comments, shares, and otherwise supports this fic. I love you all so much. Now for some healing!

---

December 11 Nassau Bay, TX

A house is nothing but four walls and a roof, a place to live, a place to sleep. It doesn’t have to be anything special. It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.

A home, on the other hand, tells a story. Its walls are infused with the memories of a life lived, for better or worse, within their bounds. It’s made what it is not because of its structure, but because of the people who make it their own, all the little moments etched in time.

Growing up, Gale thought a lot about the difference between a house and a home, never quite sure which one he had. The little house he grew up in was nothing special. He doesn’t remember it fondly. He doesn’t have a particular desire to remember it at all. And yet, when he thinks about the off-white walls of that old living room, he can see himself playing on the carpet in front of the worn sofa, flying a toy F/A-18 Hornet through the make-believe sky. It had been a birthday gift from his dad, who was arguably proud of his son, if absolutely nothing else, because of his interest in aircraft. 

Gale can see his father leaning against the wall by the door, watching him. Little Gale looks up at him with an excited grin as he makes whirring little engine noises, and his father gives a barely-there half smile back – Gale had to get that facial expression from somewhere, after all.

He can also remember the day he didn’t hear his dad calling his name because he was lost in the clouds, dreaming about flying a real jet someday. He remembers the way his dad stormed into that same living room, ripped the toy jet from his tiny hand. The way he sneered at the pale, vulnerable look on his child son’s face, scolded him for daydreaming when he should have been doing his chores. Maybe it was taking out the trash. Or doing the dishes. Or sweeping the porch.

Or maybe he did nothing wrong and his dad was just drunk again. 

Either way, Gale remembers the way his dad threw that F/A-18 at the wall, the way the wing snapped right off. He remembers the way his dad shoved him when he cried, called him pathetic, said he needed to start acting like a man.

Later on, his dad repaired the wing with some super glue, but it never looked quite right again.

Gale has a lot of memories like that. A little good mixed with a lot of bad. The walls of that house told a story alright. He just doesn’t think it’s a story that ever earned it the title of home.

When he remembers the kitchen – light yellow walls, gray cabinets, a gas stove – he thinks about early days of his childhood, clinging to his mom’s bright, flowery skirt as she baked cookies that tasted like heaven. He remembers her light, comforting voice saying his name. He thinks about how she let him lick the spoon, asked him what sprinkles he wanted to use, let him help put the dough on the baking sheet with small, innocent hands. 

But then he also thinks about setting the kitchen table for dinner, his dad burning his arm with a cigarette for breaking a glass. Or maybe it was a plate. He thinks about fingers wrapped tight around his teenage throat when he came back home too late one night. He can practically feel the bruises, hear the impact of being shoved unceremoniously against the door. Next time he was late, his dad threatened, he’d spend the night in the yard with the dog. 

Other than the fact that it was nearing December and night time temperatures were below freezing, Gale couldn’t decide if that would be so bad. He got smacked for that, too. 

When he thinks of the small master bedroom, he thinks of his mother. One day there, the next day gone. He remembers the smell of her perfume filling the room. Little Gale, still too young to understand why she wasn’t coming home. Why that scent would fade away, becoming nothing but a memory, something to pop up randomly here and there in his adult life and fill him with some sense of longing. He thinks about his father cleaning out all of her clothes, chastising Gale for not wanting to get rid of any of it, for trying to sneak out a shirt or a scarf that smelled like her. 

Then there were two. Hardly a family, and far from a home.

The house on Nassau Bay couldn’t be more opposite.

He stands in the middle of the living room, looking around at the life he’s built. Warm, light beige walls decorated with artwork, prints of aircraft and spacecraft, photographs of his de facto family. Framed pictures of him and John are scattered around. In the middle of the room, across from their TV, is a coffee table, two armchairs, and a well-worn gray couch, semi-permanently occupied by Pepper and sometimes Meatball. Morning sunlight fills the room, leaving patches of light on the hardwood floor.

Gale has spent the last hour adjusting the furniture layout – spreading out the coffee table and chairs to make space, shifting the couch back so it’s under the window, putting away stray dog toys and shoes, cleaning up the blankets and pillows he’d been using to sleep out here – just to make it easier for Bucky to move around in a wheelchair or on crutches. He even rolled up the rug to keep the floor even.

He’s been obsessively doing anything and everything he can to make their home a comfortable space while Bucky heals. He bought a shower chair for the master bath and a plastic cover to put over Bucky’s cast to protect it from water. He bought an assortment of loose sweatpants, flannel pants, and shorts so Bucky has more options for what to wear over his cast. The kitchen has been stocked with his favorites of late. Soup, chicken and rice, or eggs for when he’s not feeling well. Or richer things like pastas and casseroles. There’s orange juice and smoothies and jell-o. And Marge – who rested a hand on either of Gale’s shoulders and told him to take a rest – is making chocolate chip cookies. 

As Gale stands back and studies his work in the living room, trying to decide if it looks alright, his chest feels tight in a way he can’t quite explain.

As a young adult, he never bothered with buying a house, choosing instead to rent something out wherever he was stationed with the Air Force. When he and John both got selected to the astronaut training program based in Houston, they intrinsically knew that it was the right time to take that step. A sort of settling down, even though they were preparing to quite literally launch themselves off the face of the planet. Admittedly, they didn’t spend too long looking for a house, seeing maybe two or three local listings which were all perfectly fine. Then one day, Benny, who had been accepted into the program the year before, mentioned that a house down the street from him was for sale.

Gale fell in love with it the moment he saw it. And John loved it because Gale did.

It’s a one story, ranch-style house on a quiet street just a 5 or 10 minute walk from the water. A beautiful white brick and stone exterior with a sweet little front garden that they try to plant flowers in every year – an endeavor that often includes Gale trying to find plants that match the climate and sun exposure of their yard, while Bucky insists on “experimenting.” There’s also a backyard with a large patio for entertaining and enough grass space for the dogs to run around. 

Gale remembers the day they moved in, sweating from the July heat but grinning from ear to ear with the excitement of a young couple on the verge of their future. Before they even started unloading the U-Haul, he stood in the middle of the empty, echoing house, staring at the walls, the ceiling, the windows. He couldn’t believe it was theirs. A place they could really make a life together. A place that he could call home, maybe for the first time in his entire life. Bucky found him standing, wide-eyed, in the living room. He wrapped his arms around Gale from behind, kissed him on the cheek, ducked down to rest his chin on his shoulder. 

“Welcome home, angel.”

Gale remembers dragging the couch through the door, collapsing down on it that first day. They sat, leaning against one another, surrounded by shoddily labeled, mixed up cardboard boxes full of their belongings. Exhausted, Gale said something noncommittal about getting to work unpacking. But John pulled him to his feet, kissed him silly, lead him to the bedroom where their new mattress lay on the floor, bed frame yet to be constructed. 

They lived off cereal and takeout for several days in a row, but they sure did break in every piece of furniture, every surface.

He remembers hot, desperate reunions when they each returned from their respective ISS expeditions, touching each other for the first time in six months. Their hands roamed over one another’s bodies with an insatiable desire to relearn every inch of each other. Bucky would grip his waist so hard he thought it might bruise, pressing him against the wall or the bed. Gale would twist his fingers into Bucky’s hair, kiss every place he could touch. He remembers it being rough and kind, a sense of desperation driving them to claim one another all over again as if the last time they were together was a lifetime ago.

He remembers late nights with their friends, Curt crashing on the couch, Benny or Marge in the guest room, sometimes Rosie or Alex on the floor. Midnights spent drinking and laughing, dumb jokes and good people. He remembers this house being filled with more people than it was meant to hold, buzzing with life.

He remembers the day they brought Pepper home, almost a year ago now. She was nothing more than a tiny, 10 week old ball of fluff with one ear still flopped over. He remembers the way they sat on the rug in the living room with her that evening, completely enamored with their new addition. “We’re a little family now,” Bucky said, smiling at Gale as he held the puppy up to his face. Gale scrunched his nose and closed his eyes, laughing as Pepper licked his cheek. Next thing he knew, Bucky’s lips were on his, and he felt himself melt a little inside.

Family. Home. Family. Home. 

They’re not words Gale takes lightly. They’re words that he will protect. Even though they’ve only been here a handful of years, this house tells their story, memories built on memories that he holds close to his heart in a way he never knew he was allowed to before. 

When he thinks of their kitchen, he thinks about making pancakes on Christmas morning, flour everywhere, chocolate chips and blueberries and chopped bananas spilling across the counter. Bucky singing along to the Christmas songs on the radio. He’d pull Gale close, plucking the spatula from his hand, and convince him to dance with him around the island until they were both giggling like children and the pancakes were starting to burn.  

When he looks at the front door, he thinks about all the times Bucky flung it open, yelling “honey I’m home!” as he walked inside. Sometimes he’d bring flowers for the vase in the window or pastries from Gale’s favorite bakery. He thinks about stumbling through on their wedding night, eager and drunk on nothing but love for each other. 

When he thinks about their yard, still drenched in sun and warmth in the middle of December, he thinks about the day he and Bucky stood in the middle of it, holding tight to each other's hands as they held the keys to their new home. He thinks about washing their cars in the summer, chasing each other with the hose. He thinks about Pepper and Meatball running outside to greet him. He thinks about standing in the driveway and watching Bucky teach some of the neighborhood kids how to ride a bike up and down the quiet road. 

Of course, the house holds bad memories, too. Fights they’ve had, times they’ve lost their temper, raised their voices, slammed a door or walked away. Times Gale cried alone because John was in space for months on end and he missed the closeness, the warmth, the weight of John’s head resting on his chest, the soothing sound of his heartbeat. Times John got drunk for the same reason, wanting nothing more than to hold Gale tight and kiss him in the dark. Still too fresh in Gale’s mind is the memory of collapsing to the floor, Marge rocking him in her arms because he didn’t know if his husband would come home alive. 

The walls will hold onto that memory. They won’t let him forget that the life he built here with John Egan very nearly became nothing but a flash in his mind, moments to look back on fondly, with a watery smile and a choked sob, a whispered I miss you. 

That almost might never leave. It’ll be months before Gale can wake up in the morning secure in the knowledge that his husband is here with him. It’ll be months before he stops jolting awake with tears in his eyes and a scream in his throat. It’ll be months of hard work and pain and frustration to make Bucky feel whole again. 

But it’s time to start pushing forward. 

Gale has never been a particularly religious man, but he will gladly thank whatever Gods may be listening, because his prayers were answered. Starting today, two weeks after splashdown, there will be memories of John coming home to add to all the rest.  

“Buck?”

Gale looks over to see Rosie standing in the entryway to the living room. 

“Ready to go?”

Taking one last look around, Gale starts to nod, then stops short. “The mirror.”

He didn’t replace the damn mirror in the master bath. Benny was the one to clean the bathroom, dispose of the glass fragments and scrub the tile until it was free of Gale’s blood. Gale’s barely even stepped foot in there in weeks, choosing instead to use the guest bath. 

Marge appears from the kitchen. “Benny’s on his way with a new one,” she assures him. “We’ll get it set up before you’re back.”

Gale doesn’t know what to say, so he nods dumbly as he twists his wedding ring around his finger, trying to quiet the storm of worries and hopes and needs and fears buzzing around in his head. Marge steps towards him and pulls him into a hug. “Take a breath, hon. He’s coming home.”

—

It’s raining, just the littlest bit. It’ll be done by the time they walk through the hospital doors, but dark clouds gather in the sky, casting shadows over the ground and darkening the hospital room. It makes Gale’s heart constrict with an unease, a sense of foreboding. He tries to shake it off, because he’s not in his bedroom on a stormy night. He’s not being jostled awake by Benny. His world isn’t crashing down with the water falling from the sky.

He leans against the doorframe of Bucky’s hospital room, hands shoved in his pockets, and he watches his husband for a moment. Bucky is looking out the window, watching the rain fall, the cars go by. He’s dressed in the same shorts and Air Force Thunderbirds t-shirt as he was the day before. A half finished plate of scrambled eggs, potatoes, and fruit sits on the tray beside him from breakfast, seemingly pushed aside and forgotten. Gale wonders if he didn’t finish because he felt sick or because he’s protesting hospital food. 

He looks healthy, despite the whole being in a hospital thing. That damn cold lingers, making him stuffy, his face sore from the pressure. His lungs protest when he breathes too deeply, or sometimes even when he doesn’t, and the cough won’t go away. Not to mention the broken leg. But he has color back in his cheeks. His eyes are clear, his face unworried. His heart beats steadily, and he’s able to breathe well enough without the cannula.

“Hey, darlin’,” Gale says at last.

Bucky turns his head, and he stares at Gale for a good second or two, uncomprehendingly. But then a grin spreads over his face. “Hey, angel.”

Gale feels his heart swell, and he takes a deep breath before stepping into the room. As he sits on the edge of the bed, Bucky grabs his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. 

“How ya feelin’ today?”

Bucky shrugs, looking down at their intertwined hands. He coughs once, holding his breath for a second to prevent it from getting worse. “I ain’t dead.” He squints, cocking his head like something is bugging him, but then he looks up and meets Gale’s worried gaze. “Almost went down in history for the wrong reasons, huh?”

John Egan. First astronaut to die on the moon. What a headline that would be.

Gale chuckles even though the acknowledgement of that damn almost makes him feel physically ill. “Think you’re goin’ down in history?” He forces back the flashing mental image of a tri-folded flag, a three volley salute, a missing man formation. 

Bucky’s eyes have that mischievous glint back, that look of invincibility, like he’s daring the universe to take another stab at him. “Oh yeah. The world will remember John fuckin’ Egan.”

And the thing is, Gale knows they will. 

By 1pm, Major John Egan is being discharged from the hospital. Paperwork complete, Gale carefully packs up every single get-well card, along with Bucky’s clothes and medications. Beary Egan gets carefully tucked into the top of the duffel. 

Over the past few days, Nurse Clara has kindly worked with them, teaching Gale how to help Bucky with daily tasks: things like changing clothes, safely getting in and out of the wheelchair, covering the cast with plastic to take a shower, and anything else that may be hindered by his lack of mobility. She patiently answers every question Gale has, and he has a lot. 

With the IV removed, Clara and Rosie stand by as Gale, all by himself, helps Bucky slowly get to his feet. With a few curse words, one panicked moment where Bucky nearly topples over, and a lot of strained encouragement – “we’re alright, we can do this, look at me, sweetheart” – Gale manages to help Bucky change into fresh clothes. The whole ordeal – while far more pleasant than the process of getting Bucky suited up on Starship and Orion – has Bucky swearing as he grips Gale’s hand or shoulder so hard his knuckles turn white, leaving accidental bruises on Gale’s pale skin. 

It’s a bit cold out, so the outfit of the day is black and gray plaid flannel pajama pants and a black t-shirt with an astronaut on the front. Above and below the astronaut are the words “Houston, I am the problem.”

A gift from Curt and Alex.

Finally, Gale helps Bucky shrug on a black zip-up hoodie and get settled into the wheelchair. Bucky forces a smile as he sits down, even leaning forward to kiss Gale on the cheek. “I love you,” he whispers.

They leave the hospital with a detailed rehabilitation, check-in, and physical and occupational therapy schedule. They also leave with a hefty hospital bill that Harding won’t let Gale so much as see, stating that NASA will take care of it.

Bucky doesn’t speak at all on the way home, not seeming to notice when Gale tries to ask him things like “how are you feeling?” or “excited to see Pepper?” He just stares out the window and watches the dark clouds roam across the sky, his brain too tired to do anything else. Gale has found himself wondering, in the last week, if there’s a reason why the brain fog is better on some days and worse on others. Other than night vs. day, he can’t find a rhyme or reason as to why Bucky gets confused sometimes, why he seems to fade away here and there. The doctors assure him it’s normal with the injury he had. Just like the shaking hands and fine motor control, it’ll take time. Gale hopes they’re right, but he still feels a painful worry twisting in his chest when he notices it. 

When they pull into their driveway, the word “home” pops out of Bucky’s mouth, and Gale reaches over to squeeze his hand.

It’s only when they pull to a complete stop, really taking in the sight of their house, that they notice the Christmas lights newly strung up along the roof, a strand of brightly colored bulbs joined by sparkling white icicle lights. Gale certainly didn’t have time to hang them, and it’s the middle of the day, but they’re lit up anyways, welcoming Bucky back with some holiday cheer. In the back seat, Rosie says “would you look at that,” and he reaches forward to rest a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky focuses on those lights for a moment, and Gale watches the way they seem to ground him, waking up his brain a bit more as the blues and reds and greens reflect in his eyes. He squeezes Gale’s hand back. 

When his offer to help is declined, Rosie hauls the wheelchair out of the car, leaves it in the driveway, and heads inside to give the newlyweds some space. As Gale helps Bucky to step out of the car and sit down in the chair, though, he sees that not everyone got the message. He catches a glimpse of curly red hair on the porch of the house across from them, and he can’t help but smile. “Incoming,” he whispers to Bucky.

Bucky looks up as he settles into the chair, blinking away the fatigue, and his face brightens when he sees Maggie. Jane rushes out the door after her, grabbing her shoulder. “It’s alright,” Bucky says quietly, and Gale relays this information, shouting across the road.

Maggie immediately breaks away from her mom’s hold, barrels down the steps, checks both ways before crossing their quiet street, and she stops just short of colliding with Gale. Always so expressive around them, the little girl suddenly turns shy. Unsure what to do, she half hides behind Gale as she takes in the sight of Bucky in a wheelchair for the first time, his cast visible at the bottom of the pant leg.

Bucky’s smile doesn’t leave his face, though, and he tilts his head to peer around Gale’s legs until he’s looking Maggie in the eye. “There’s my favorite little astronaut.”

With a gentle hand on her shoulder, Gale nudges her forward. “Go on,” he insists. With a hesitant little stutter step, she moves out from behind him, looking up at him as she does so. 

“I told you he’d come home,” she says. Matter of fact. Like there was never a single doubt that John would survive.

Gale wishes he could have been that certain. He envies the way children view things like life and death, through a lens of naivete where the people they care for are invincible. He’s grateful, though, that Maggie was spared the worst. That she never knew the full story. 

She doesn’t notice the way he bites his lower lip to choke back a sharp, startled inhale, but Bucky does. He glances at Gale, eyebrow raised with a myriad of questions that he can’t ask, but then he looks back to Maggie. He grabs her small hand in his even though his fingers shake, and she grips back so he doesn’t have to focus on holding on.

“Sounds like you were very brave while I was gone,” he says to her. 

Maggie nods. She has this determined set to her eyes, a seriousness all over her face as she stands in front of him. Yet her voice is small and innocent, and Bucky hopes she’ll always stay this strong and kind. “I knew you wouldn’t leave us forever,” she tells him.

It’s Bucky’s turn to bite back tears, because, even though he knows, on some level, that it wasn’t really up to him, she’s right. He hides the thickness of his voice and the tightness of his throat with a cough that’s been tickling at his chest anyway. He directs it into his arm away from the little girl, then rubs a hand over his face. After he blinks a few times, willing away the wave of emotion that he’s sure will only get higher and higher throughout the day, he looks at Maggie again. 

“Learn to ride that bike yet?”

Maggie shakes her head. “I waited for you.” 

Gale remembers her words clearly, ringing in his ears. That awful day feels like years ago and like yesterday at the same time. The day he felt like his soul might disintegrate into the stars if he had to take one more breath without knowing if Bucky would survive. “He’ll come home. He has to. He promised he’d teach me how to ride a bike.”

“Might have to wait a bit longer. Until I get this thing off my leg.” Bucky pulls up his pant leg to better show the cast extending from knee to foot.

Maggie stares at it for a moment, unsure what to make of it, before she crouches down and runs a finger over the rough texture with a frown. She inspects the names written all over it – Curt and Rosie and Alex and Gale and more she doesn’t recognize. “Can I sign it?” 

Bucky tells her of course she can, and Gale digs around in the duffle until he finds a few colorful sharpies to offer. Maggie chooses the purple one. 

“Where’s a good spot?” Bucky asks her, leaning over to analyze the cast with her even though it hurts every single part of his body to do so. Maggie squints her eyes, analyzing her options, before she points to a spot above his ankle, right under Gale’s name. She looks at both of them for approval before uncapping the marker. 

She signs her name in big, slightly wobbly letters: MAGGIE with a carefully drawn heart at the end. 

“Perfect,” Bucky says, grinning at her as Gale takes the marker back. Then he adds, “by the way, that drawing of us? Museum quality.” He’s referring to the one that Jane brought to the hospital, of Maggie and Bucky on the moon together. Maggie rolls her eyes at his dramatics but looks pleased anyway. “You sure you wanna be an astronaut, not an artist?

The girl nods vigorously, her curly red hair bobbing against her shoulders. “I wanna be just like you,” she tells them, once again like she doesn’t have a single doubt in her mind. “I’m gonna go to space someday.”

Gale feels emotionally drained at this point, unsure how much more he can take even though everything about today is edged with hope and homecoming. He swallows thickly and puts a hand on Maggie’s shoulder as he glances back towards her house, where Jane is sitting on the porch. She waves to him. He looks back down at the girl, a little in awe at how he and Bucky have somehow managed to mean so much to her. How she has managed to mean so much to them.

“Well,” Bucky says. “If you’re so sure about that, I have something for you.” Gale takes his cue and rifles through the contents of the duffle bag until he finds Bucky’s PPK. Safely tucked into the bottom of it is a small, clear plastic envelope, which he lays in the palm of Bucky’s hand, face up so Maggie can see. 

Inside the plastic is a thick, heavy coin about two inches wide, engraved with braided edges and the Artemis III logo in the center, designed by the crew members themselves. A big red “A” with the middle line swooping out to the left, fading from red to blue as it loops around the moon and ends with the Orion capsule docked to Starship in front. Overlapping the right side leg of the A are the roman numerals III in dark gray. Printed around the edges are the names of the astronauts: Egan, Biddick, Rosenthal, Jefferson. 

“Do you know what this is?” Bucky asks Maggie. She shakes her head. “It’s a challenge coin,” he tells her, going on to explain that a challenge coin is carried by members of a special group, signifying their membership. Every big NASA mission gets its own challenge coin, and all of the crew members carry a few of them. 

Bucky kept one for himself and traded one with one of the Navy guys on the USS Portland, so this is the last one he took on board Orion. “This coin is very special,” he tells Maggie, urging her to take it. So carefully, she plucks it from his palm, holding it up close to her face so she can read the names. “I carried it with me on the moon.”

Maggie’s eyes go wide, shooting back to Bucky, who grins at her. He presses his palm to hers, the coin in between.  “Now it’s yours. Something that’s touched the stars. See? You’re on your way to being an astronaut.”

Maggie’s smile broadens, and, as she clutches the coin in her hand, she throws her arms around Bucky’s neck. It’s awkward over the chair as she tries to avoid jostling his leg, but she isn’t deterred, squealing an elated “thank you” as she holds on. Bucky wraps one arm around her in return.

When Maggie pulls back, Gale kneels down beside her, even though the pavement is still wet from the morning rain, and he wraps an arm around her. “Why don’t you flip it over?”

Maggie does so, and she runs a finger over the back of the coin, feeling the texture of the raised image. An astronaut on the moon, the Earthrise and the stars in the sky behind him. “Is that you?” She asks Bucky. 

He laughs. “Could be.” 

Gale points to the lettering along the bottom of the backside. “See that?”

“What does it say?” Maggie asks, rubbing her thumb over the italicized words. 

Bucky recites them to her, but his eyes are locked on Gale the entire time. He watches Gale silently mouth the phrase along with him, not only the mission motto, but a promise to one another. “Ad lunam. Ad astra. To the moon. To the stars.”

—

With Maggie safely back across the street, Gale wheels Bucky up the walk to the front door. As he turns the knob and pushes it open, Rosie appears on the other side, holding it for them. 

“Welcome home, darlin’,” Gale says as they enter the foyer.

Bucky smiles tiredly as he takes a deep breath that rattles his chest and nearly causes him to cough again, but it’s worth it to smell the scent of home. He tilts his head. “Cookies?”

Gale chuckles, but doesn’t answer, wheeling Bucky past the foyer and into the living room. The moment they’re within view, he’s met by a chorus of “Welcome home!” and the sight of his closest friends sitting around the slightly rearranged living room. 

“Astrofag!” Curt calls out from his seat in the middle of the couch. On one side of him is Marge, Benny on the other, while Alex sits in one of the armchairs. Rosie trails in behind Gale. A banner with hand-lettered words is strung across the back wall: “We’re glad you’re alive!” More space balloons float around it, and in the time that Gale and Bucky were outside, Rosie has already displayed all of the get well cards from the hospital on the side tables and tv stand.

“Did you miss me?” Bucky grins, holding his hands out to the side like a risen savior as Gale eases him to a stop in front of the coffee table, close to the empty armchair.

“Had enough of you for a lifetime,” Benny jokes, calling back to what Bucky said to him in the hospital nearly two weeks ago. He gets to his feet, though, and walks over to Bucky, leaning down to give him a side hug.

“I almost died, you have to be nice to me,” Bucky claims as he returns the hug.

“And how long does that last?”

“Until Gale quits gettin’ all nervous every time I cough or somethin’.” Every time he coughs. Every time he zones out. Every time he feels nauseous or complains about his head hurting. Every time his fingers shake and he can’t hold his own fork or move his own wheelchair.

Everyone looks at Gale, who, in the presence of his best friends, doesn’t even try to hide his blush. He secures the brake on Bucky’s wheelchair before sitting in the armchair beside him, and Benny returns to his seat while Rosie sits on the floor between the couch and the coffee table.

Bucky nods to a tray of cookies in the middle of the table. “Who made those?”

“Marge,” Alex says.

Bucky just about groans. “Thank god. They’ll be good then.”

“Hey,” Gale shoots back, offended, as Marge laughs.

Bucky waves him off. “I know you didn’t make ‘em, doll. Got my head on straight enough to know you’ve been with me all day.”

Marge gets to her feet to grab a cookie and hand one to him across the table. “I made them how you like them.”

Milk and semi-sweet chocolate chips, but not too much of either so that there’s parts of the cookie with no chocolate at all. It’s called balance, he told her once during a late night trauma-dumping/baking session.

Bucky takes the cookie, biting into it as he closes his eyes. Silently, he’s so fucking grateful that he hasn’t felt any nausea today. “Real food,” he mutters.

Gale scoffs, even though this ‘perfect cookie’ was his own recipe to begin with. “Not sure a cookie counts as real food.”

Bucky flips him off, his middle finger still not quite able to get all the way up without the others, and he takes another bite. It’s been too damn long since he had some quality snacks. It’s better than wheat chex, that’s for sure. And he’d take the wheat chex any day over the bland desserts they tried to give him in the hospital.

The guys – and Marge – stay for a bit, talking and taking comfort in being all together again, all of them alive, home, on the road to healthy. When Bucky starts to drift, going quiet as it becomes more and more difficult to focus on the conversation, everyone makes their excuses to head out, leaving the Buckies alone to rest. 

Benny returns ten minutes later with an overenthusiastic husky straining at her leash – the antithesis of rest – and he passes her off to Gale through the front door before leaving them again. The dog knows immediately, her paws tippy-tapping on the hardwood as her tail wags so hard Gale doesn’t know how it doesn’t hurt. “You’re gonna have to stay calm, baby girl,” he tells her.

“Come on, Buck,” Bucky calls from the living room. “I’ll be fine.”

When Gale finally walks Pepper into the living room, Bucky has managed to get himself turned around to face them. Gale keeps her on a tight leash as they walk forward, holding her back from flat out charging at Bucky. Her entire body is wiggling as she tries to pull away. “Easy, babe,” Gale tells her.

When they finally reach Bucky, he loosens the leash, and Pepper immediately presses her nose to Bucky’s knees, his thighs, his cast, his hands, any part of him she can as she wags her tail and pants. She looks like she’s smiling, completely overwhelmed with the excitement of her other person finally being back where he’s supposed to be. Bucky laughs and scratches behind her ears and under her chin, letting her lick and sniff and press her head against him. He grimaces when she nearly jumps on the chair, bumping his bad leg, before Gale catches her and tells her firmly to stay down. Bucky hardly cares, though, his fingers clutching weakly at her soft fur, unwilling to let go.

“Hey, Pep,” he says, his voice strained with emotion. He tilts his head as he strokes her ears, his eyes fluttering closed so that Gale can see stubborn tears clinging to his eyelashes. Bucky takes a deep, rattling breath, and he stares at the dog as she sits loyally beside his chair, watching him with the same love in her eyes. She rests her head on the armrest and licks his hand gently.

Bucky gives her a wobbly smile. “Thought I’d never see you again.” 

Gale sets a comforting hand on his shoulder, and time seems to freeze for just a moment. One perfect moment. A snapshot of their little family.

That afternoon, Pepper wolfs down all of her food, totally unprompted, for the first time in days. 

—

For the first time since the morning of November 19, Gale sleeps in their bed.

He’s hardly stepped foot in this room except for this morning, when he took a deep breath, told himself it was time to get his shit together, and set about changing the sheets, getting everything ready for John to come home. Sharing this bed feels so familiar, and yet so different. He finds himself holding his breath, like if he disturbs the moment, breathes too loudly, blinks too hard, then it’ll simply evaporate, and he’ll be stuck in the same Purgatory that he was nearly a month ago. He tries to ground himself in Bucky’s warmth, the familiar shape of his body, his scent – different than usual due to being in the hospital, but somehow still him. Smoky and sweet. 

It’s December. Even in Nassau Bay, Texas, the current night time temperature is near 40 degrees, and yet Bucky insists on sleeping shirtless while Gale tucks himself into an old NASA sweatshirt. At first, Gale worried about Bucky getting too cold, what with the pneumonia and the head cold and the TBI. But Bucky wouldn't hear it. “You’re gonna make me overheat,” he said. 

Now, Gale doesn’t mind so much that he can feel Bucky’s skin beneath his hands. Warm, not cold. Alive, not dying.

They don’t sleep at first. They lay awake in the dark, Gale curled up with his head on Bucky’s chest. His cheek and ear nestle against Bucky’s bare skin, and he listens to the beating of his heart. Their hands cling to one another, and Bucky plays mindlessly with Gale’s fingers. That same old habit that he’s had since they were in college.

Gale wonders when such little things will stop making his chest constrict in anxiety and relief.

“I know you broke the mirror,” Bucky says eventually, his voice cutting through the silence.

“Mmm.” Gale doesn’t deny it. 

“I ain’t dumb. It doesn’t even have the same frame.”

“Benny replaced it this morning,” Gale says passively, even though he’s staring dead ahead in the darkness, ublinking. 

“You punch it or what?” Bucky knows his husband. He knows how stoic everyone thinks he is, how calm and collected Major Buck Cleven tries to be. But he also knows that Buck – Gale – can snap.

“Mmm. The morning I found out.”

“Straight to the dramatics.”

“Benny woke me up,” Gale drawls, his voice steady, measured, even though Bucky doesn’t miss the nervous undertone in the way it shifts. “I thought you’d be dead by the time I got to JSC.” He says this matter-of-factly. He doesn’t tell Bucky that he imagined his entire funeral, word for word, breath for breath. “It was touch and go for a while there.”

“I was the one dying.”

“You were passed out those first few days.”

They’re quiet for a while. Slowly, slowly they’ll learn what the other went through. Someday, they’ll fall apart late one night or early one morning, and it’ll all spill out in a tidal wave that threatens to crush them under the weight of this aftermath. They’ll hold each other tight and try to hold back the sobs and remind each other to keep breathing, remind each other that they’re still breathing. 

But it’s not time. Not yet. It hurts too much, and they don’t have the words. Right now, they’re not sure that they’ll ever have the words. Right now, all they can do is hold on tight.

There was never anything that could break them, Marge said at their wedding. They may have come damn close, but here they are, unbroken.

So they sit in silence. Gale counts Bucky’s heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…

When he hits thirty-two, Bucky says, out of nowhere, “It was like I could hear you.” As if he’s been thinking over something troubling for some time now. 

Gale tenses. “Mmm?”

“W-When I was, um…” Bucky takes a deep breath. He coughs once, weakly, and it jostles Gale. But he rests his free hand on the back of Gale’s head, holding him there, not wanting to lose that reassuring weight. “I guess I was unconscious. Those first days after I… after…”

Why is it that, in the dark, it feels easier to talk about the hard things, and yet it’s harder to find the right words?

“You were in a coma,” Gale says. “Completely non reactive.” That’s what Dr. Huston told him. What Curt told him. 

“I know,” Bucky agrees. He makes a breathy, frustrated sort of sound, and Gale can imagine him squeezing his eyes shut, clenching his jaw as he tries to figure out how to say what he needs to say. Gale waits patiently.

“Everything hurt so bad,” Bucky finally explains. “I could feel it. I could hear Curt sometimes, too. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fuckin’ think. I-I was just… I couldn’t… Fuck.” It was like he was floating, not part of the world, not part of his body, but in so much goddamn pain he wanted to scream. He doesn’t know how to tell his husband that, though. 

Instead, he pushes forward to what he needs to tell Gale now. “But it was like you were in my head. I heard your voice. It made me… it made me keep breathing, y’know?”

Gale goes completely still, eyes wide, unblinking, not breathing. Bucky’s fingers try to grip his hair, but can’t seem to close around the strands. Gale grips Bucky’s hand. He bites hard at his lower lip.

Bucky’s voice gets thick and tight, and Gale can hear his chest rattling as he breathes, threatening another coughing fit. “I-I knew I had to… I had to…” Another painful pause. “I had to get back to you.”

Gale holds back the wet little gasp that wants to tear through his gritted teeth. A tear drips off of his nose and onto Bucky’s bare chest, and he wonders if Bucky feels it. He tucks his face against the warm skin, needing to be as close as possible as he curls around Bucky’s body in a way that makes it unclear if he’s trying to hide against it or protect it from the world, make sure it can’t break any more than it already has. 

“I couldn’t leave you,” Bucky chokes out. Gale can’t see his face, but his husband’s voice alone is enough to cave his chest in with a crippling kind of sorrow. “I couldn’t do th-that to you. I had to… I needed…”

Gale can hear the tears building up in Bucky’s voice now, and he wants to make them go away. Yet he knows they both need this. They both need to feel this pain, let it drown them, just for a little bit, as they grip so tightly to each other that their fingerprints become embedded into each others’ souls. They need to face it, or they’ll never be able to move forward. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers.

“I-I think I…” Bucky takes a careful, controlled breath. He thinks about the stars he could see through Starship’s window, flickering in the darkness. He thinks about the pain burning like fire through his body and his brain. He thinks about wanting to die, near begging a god he didn’t believe in to carry him away from that damned place because death must be better than whatever he was going through. 

But in the darkness, a star shines on. A heart beats. A mind dreams. The Earth turns. And even when he couldn’t wake up, when he was consumed in agony from the inside out, Bucky thought of his husband. He heard his voice, saw his face, wanted nothing more than to hold him tight and hang on forever. And even when he wanted to give up, he fought to stay.

Bucky’s breath shudders, and he feels tears dripping down his cheeks. He closes his eyes. “You’re what kept me alive, Gale.” 

You’re the reason I had to stay alive. The reason I had to come home. 

You are my home. 

Gale is quiet for a long time, listening to Bucky’s heartbeat. He presses his lips against Bucky’s chest. “Don’t tell Curt that,” he whispers.

Bucky laughs wetly. He can feel Gale’s tears against his chest, and he strokes his husband’s hair. “I know,” he says, “But. It was you, angel. It was always you.”

—

It’s 1am when Bucky asks Gale if he’s still awake.

Gale, still tucked against Bucky’s side, nods sleepily. His eyes drift open, taking their sweet time adjusting to the darkness of the room. He shifts just slightly, making Pepper huff in annoyance where she lay curled up right at his feet.

He presses his lips to Bucky’s shoulder. “You okay?”

He waits so long for an answer that he wonders if Bucky actually said anything at all. But eventually it comes: “Hurts.”

“What does?”

A pause. “Everything?”

Gale nods again in understanding. Leg, head, chest, ribs. In that order. Possibly his back as well.

“I’ll get you some pain killers,” Gale says. He reluctantly pushes himself away from Bucky and crawls out of bed, his foot getting caught on the blanket as he goes. His mind flashes back to the way he scrambled out of bed on November 19th, sheets tangled around his feet as the room tilted, Benny approaching him like a wild animal.

His heart beats faster, faster, faster.

“Thanks, hon.”

Gale takes a breath. He walks to the kitchen, flicks on the lights, reaches for the little orange bottle of prescription pills sitting on the windowsill. He stares at the tiny print, remembering the doctor’s instructions. One pill every 6 hours as needed. He does some mental math, concludes that it’s been well over 6 hours since the last dose, dumps a tablet into his hand, and fills a glass with water,

When he returns to their bedroom, he finds Bucky sitting up with a pillow behind his back, looking at a too-bright phone screen – Gale’s too-bright phone screen. Gale turns on the lamp on Bucky’s bedside table. “What’re you looking at?”

Bucky sets the phone on his thigh so he can take the pill and glass of water, swallowing both down. Gale glances down at the phone, and he finds that the saved email from their wedding photographer is pulled up, the cover photo of the digital album displayed on the screen.

Bucky sets the glass down on the table, the bottom of it rattling as his hand shakes. He looks up at Gale, who is still hovering over him. “Thought we could look at them. Together.”

Gale can’t quite bring himself to smile, his brow scrunching into something pained but full of love. “Yeah,” he whispers. He walks back around to the other side of the bed, stopping to scratch Pepper on the head, and he sits back against the headboard. Tucking his legs beneath the covers, he presses himself against Bucky’s side.

Bucky offers him the phone, too tired to focus on making his fingers work right, and Gale opens the album once again.

It’s strange, really. These are the exact same photos that Gale looked at before. Some of them – especially those of John in the groom’s suite – he’s stared at and stared at, unable to look away and unable to move forward. These photos carved a hole into his chest even as he fell in love with every image, at one time thinking that if he never got to see his husband again, at least he would be left with such perfect, life-filled photographs. 

They made him sob and they made him panic. They made him chuck his phone away because they filled him with too much everything and he was overloaded with the weight of it. They made him grieve.

But here they are. The same exact pictures, and they look completely different somehow. When the gallery opens, Bucky sinks down so his head rests on Gale’s shoulder, and Gale wraps his arm around him. He balances the phone on Bucky’s chest and turns to press his nose into his hair. 

Bucky’s lips curve into the most genuine little smile the moment he sets eyes on the photographs of Gale in the bridal suite, and it hits Gale in the weirdest of ways that, even though he’s seen these specific pictures a handful of times now, Bucky hasn’t. This is the first Bucky has seen of Gale’s pre-ceremony experience. “You’re…” Bucky huffs out a disbelieving breath. “God, Gale, look at you.”

While Gale holds the phone, Bucky uses a finger to swipe from photo to photo, pointing something out here and there – how he didn’t realize Gale was so nervous, too, or how lovely Marge looks or how much he loved that white suit – or sometimes just staring with his hand poised over the screen like he’s eager to get to the next one but reluctant to move away from the one he’s on. He stops for a long time on a candid of Gale standing in front of the mirror, looking down with a nervous smile on his face as he adjusts his cufflinks. The light coming through the windows hits just right, making his suit seem brighter and his boutonniere pop. It highlights the freckles on his cheeks that Bucky sometimes likes to kiss or poke at. 

Gale thinks he hears Bucky whisper the word “wow.”

“Sorry I ain’t that pretty all the time,” Gale jokes self-deprecatingly.

Bucky turns his head, glances up at him. “You get more and more beautiful every day, love.” He reaches a hand up to grab Gale’s chin, satisfied at the way it makes him blush. Gale feels the metal of the wedding band rub against his jaw, and he motions for Bucky to keep going through the album. 

“Ah, look at that handsome man,” Bucky says when he gets to the pictures of the groom’s suite. “Whoever gets to marry him sure is lucky.”

Gale scoffs, hiding his face in Bucky’s hair. He squeezes Bucky’s hip with the hand wrapped around him and whispers, “I am.” 

“Holy shit I was nervous,” Bucky admits as they scroll through. Gale stops him every once in a while, wanting to look at certain photos for just a little longer even though he’s drilled them into his mind already. Bucky biting his lip anxiously as Rosie fixes his cufflinks, Bucky kneeling down to pet the dog, Bucky with his head thrown back in a full body laugh, looking beautiful, carefree, happy.

They reminisce over their first look, feeling like they’re there all over again, seeing each other for the first time, reaching out to touch, at a loss for words.

And then it’s on to uncharted territory, the photos that Gale never managed to get to. He takes a deep breath, and he decides right then and there that it’s okay. After everything, right now, they get to look at their wedding photos together. Just like any love-struck young couple.

One small step on the road to normal. 

“Someday I’ll thank her for holdin’ you up while I was gone,” Bucky says when they get to a picture of Marge walking them down the aisle. Gale can only nod, because nothing he could ever do could ever repay her for, well, everything.

“Were you crying?” Gale asks as he zooms in on a picture of them at the altar, holding tight to each other’s hands. Bucky is biting gently at his lower lip as he looks at Gale, and his eyes are glistening in the light. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky laughs now. “I was so focused on gettin’ my vows right. I don’t even know.”

“Wait,” Gale smirks and leans his head down, trying to get a good look at Bucky’s face. “Are you crying now?”

Bucky shakes his head, but he also scrubs at his eyes with his hand. He presses himself even closer to Gale, if that’s possible. “I have a head injury,” he says meekly.

“Yeah, sure,” Gale drawls, kissing the top of his head.

There’s a few pictures of the ring exchange, and Gale remembers how badly Bucky’s hand was shaking that day. The irony of it claws at his throat, but neither of them say a word. He remembers how fast his own heart was racing. He remembers the feeling of that cool silver band sliding over his finger. He remembers the look in Bucky’s eyes.

They spend a long time looking at the series of photos from during and after their kiss, remembering how the entire world disappeared in that moment, just them, their own universe, the greatest love story ever told. Naturally, they’ve barely kissed since Bucky returned. 

“Tomorrow I’m gonna kiss you like that,” Bucky promises.

“Why tomorrow?”

“Cause the meds are kickin’ in and I’m too comfy to move.”

That would make Gale smile, but he finds he already is. He’s barely stopped this whole time, even when the pictures bring tears to his eyes and shove a lump into his throat. He holds Bucky tighter.

After the ceremony photos – Bucky jokingly declares that the best one is the one of Meatball and Pepper crashing their kiss – there’s plenty of staged photos of the wedding party and even more of John and Gale. And then there’s the reception.

Speeches. Curt and Marge standing on a chair. The newlyweds holding hands at their table, whispering into each others’ ears, kissing sweetly like no one was watching even though everyone was watching. People dancing and laughing. Gale dancing with Bucky, with Marge, with Chick. John having a dance off with Curt and Alex. Cutting the cake – Bucky smashing a piece into Gale’s mouth. Kissing through the icing, staining their lips blue. John and Gale on the mezzanine, John kissing him on the cheek. Gale tossing the bouquet over his shoulder. All of their Air Force friends, Benny included, scrambling over each other to catch it like it was a football and they were trying to win the Superbowl. Meatball grabbing it in the chaos and running full speed through the reception hall.

Gale laughs as he sees those photos for the first time. “I didn’t even know that happened.” When he doesn’t get a response, he looks down at Bucky. “You still with me darlin’?” 

“Mhm,” comes the reply. And Gale realizes that Bucky is struggling to keep his eyes open. But he blinks and glances up at Gale. “That was the best day of my life, you know.”

Gale’s lips part, but he doesn’t have anything to say. He wants it to have been the best day of his life, too. But after everything… 

Gale doesn’t believe in miracles. But as far as he can tell, the day Bucky splashed down in the Pacific was as close to one as he’ll ever get. So after everything, is it strange that he thinks the best day of his life isn’t the day that marked the rest of his forever, but the day that kept that forever intact? The day John came home to him. 

He can’t bear to say all that, though. So he nods as he turns the phone off, and he wraps his arms more fully around his husband, feeling the warmth of his bare skin and the reassuring weight of his upper body. He finds himself feeling comfortable, safe, secure, not afraid. He almost feels like he could just nod off right here. “It was a damn good day,” he agrees. 

Within moments, Bucky is drifting off in his arms, relaxing into his embrace. Carefully, slowly, Gale eases them both down, so they’re laying more comfortably on the mattress, but he doesn’t let go. And for the first time since early October, together, in their own bed in their own home, they sleep.

—

December 12 Nassau Bay, TX

It’s raining.

For real this time. At least, John really hopes it’s real.

He sits on the couch and stares out the window, listens carefully. The house is filled with that eerie but comforting light of an afternoon rain storm, gray and blue and green with a daylight sort of darkness that settles over everything with hardly a shadow. 

Drops of water drip down the windowpane, and Bucky watches them. He presses his finger to the glass and traces their path as they roll down. He listens to the steady beating of raindrops on their roof. He pretends he can smell the fresh earthy scent of a storm mixing with the salty air of their home on the bay. He pretends he can feel the cool water sliding over his bare skin, plastering his hair to his forehead. 

The rain has been falling for over half an hour now, and his heart reaches out to it. He has to wonder if it’s real, or if it’s only a dream. He often wonders that – was all of it a dream? Is it all a dream? Will he wake up one day, still on Starship, and find out his trip home, his successful failure, wasn’t real? Maybe the accident never happened. Or maybe it did and he never actually woke up.

Or will he wake up one day in this very house, learn that he never went to the moon at all? Will he be shipped off to quarantine to do it all again?

But his leg throbs with his heartbeat, and sometimes his head still spins. Every cough reminds him he’s alive. He holds onto Beary Egan as he sits on the couch, Pepper at his side, and while many things are blurry or missing, there’s so much that he can recall in such detail. If he closes his eyes, he can see the surface of the moon stretched out before him. Nowhere and everywhere. But he was there.

“John?”

Bucky’s brain takes far too long to understand that someone is saying his name. When he finally tunes in, for a second he thinks it must be Curt or Rosie. Checking on him, trying to get him to eat something, telling him it’s time to do this or that thing that is going to cause him pain but is necessary anyways. 

But the voice says his name again, followed by a gentle “darling?” and a smile slips over Bucky’s face. 

He turns his head to see his husband, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. His hair is unstyled, soft and messy. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweater. Bucky is once again wearing his own Yankees sweatshirt – if for no other reason than to make it smell like him again. For now, it smells like Gale, and it makes him feel safe. 

“You okay?” Gale asks. He raises an eyebrow in concern. He looks at Bucky like that a lot now – concerned.

The truth is, everything hurts. Everything feels icky. Everything about Bucky’s body feels wrong and out of control. But he nods. Because right now, he is actually okay. 

He woke up in his husband’s arms, his dog at his feet. Gale made him pancakes, and when he couldn’t quite stomach those, he cut up a bunch of fruit and let Bucky drink as much orange juice as he wanted. Gale told JSC he wouldn’t be in today, and they spent their morning watching a movie on the couch while Bucky scrolled through their wedding photos again. Lazy and domestic, just trying to heal.

Bucky reaches an arm out towards Gale, making a grabbing motion with his hand. Gale’s face softens and he walks across the room, settling on the couch beside Bucky. He wraps his husband in his arms, and together, they stare out the window at the water falling down onto the Earth.

Gale closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, holding Bucky tight. He presses his nose against the dark curls at the back of Bucky’s head, where that shaved patch is finally growing back. He tries to remind himself that John is here, in his arms, safe, not going anywhere. He tries to block out the rhythm of the rain, wills it to stop.

All he can think about is that night, a storm pouring buckets over their town, when Benny woke him in the darkness. 

One single moment can change the way you see even the most fundamental parts of the world. Something that once was beautiful, now bears nothing but pain. Fear and grief. That’s the song sung by the rain.

Gale listens to its melody, wondering if it’ll ever change its tune.

“You know,” Bucky says. He presses his whole hand against the cool window glass. His eyes flick momentarily to Gale’s, then back to the view of their backyard. “The rain is one of the things I missed the most.”

Gale blinks. “Mmm?”

Bucky nods. “The moon is so… empty,” he says, frowning. “I mean, it’s amazing. It’s beautiful. I wish I could go back. But it’s quiet. Unchanging. Dry. I missed water.”

Bucky seems to drift away again after that. One moment, he looks focused, speaking purposefully. The next, his eyes go a little hazy and the expression just drops from his face. He leans his head against Gale’s shoulder, and he stares out the window. Gale half expects him to fall asleep, but just as he’s about to ask Bucky if he’s still with him, Bucky shifts, tilting his head in thought.

“I remember wanting to feel the rain. I’d pretend I could feel it running over me, soaking my hair. I pretended I could taste it on my tongue. Like when we were kids, y’know? Playin’ in the puddles.”

Gale stares thoughtfully out the window, trying to see it in the same way. His heart beats a little too fast, though, when he can’t shove away the memory of that morning. 

He tries to smile weakly, pressing his lips to the back of Bucky’s head to hide the way he wants to cry at the memory mixed with the visual of John here, in his arms where he belongs. “Come on,” he says.

Bucky looks at him questioningly, but he doesn’t have a chance to resist because Gale is already standing up, crossing the room, retrieving the wheelchair. And then he’s lifting Bucky in his arms and settling him into it.

Bucky shifts in the chair, grimacing as he tries to get his leg positioned right. “What are you doing?” 

Gale puts a finger up and walks away again, leaving Bucky alone in the middle of the living room in a chair that he’s hardly any good at maneuvering on his own. But he returns moments later with the plastic cover for Bucky’s cast.

“We’re gonna go outside.”

Bucky blinks at him, then glances out the window again. “In the rain?”

“Mmm.” Gale kneels in front of Bucky, and Bucky watches as Gale gently lifts his bad leg, slips the cover up over the cast and secures the top of it at his knee. Then he helps Bucky get his leg in a comfortable position again. “Good?”

Bucky nods. Gale pats his good leg gently before getting back to his feet and wandering over to the coat closet. He hands Bucky one of his warmer raincoats so he can pull it on over his sweatshirt. “What?” Bucky asks when he notices Gale watching him do it. “I can get my own jacket on, Buck.”

What he doesn’t realize is that every time he does some menial task on his own, Gale’s heart is working to mend itself back together. Because Bucky doesn’t know the conversations Gale had to have with Dr. Huston and Smokey. He doesn’t know how terrified Gale was that Bucky would never be able to do these things again.

But outwardly, Gale just rolls his eyes, because Bucky doesn’t need to know all that. Not right now. He pulls on his own coat, ruffles Bucky’s curls as he steps behind him, and pushes him towards the front door. Pepper, finally convinced that they’re doing something worthwhile on this tired, rainy day, gets up from the couch to follow behind them.

The last time Gale stood in the rain, he was dressed in nothing but his work clothes. He stood frozen, drenched to the bone, unable to feel anything at all. Sandra had to save him. His mind flashes to that moment as he walks out the door, pushing Bucky out in front of him. He nearly freezes when he feels the cold raindrops hitting his face. He doesn’t bother to put his hood up.

But he notices something: he can feel it now.

As Gale wheels him out to the driveway, Bucky holds out his hands and looks up, closing his eyes as he feels the fat, heavy drops splashing onto his skin, soaking into his hair. Even on the Gulf, the rain is freezing in December, but it makes Bucky feel more alive than he has since he woke up in Starship half dead. 

Gale steps out from behind him and takes his hand. “So you didn’t have this on the moon?”

Bucky laughs. “If we did we’d have colonized it by now!”

Pepper runs in circles around them, darting from one side of the driveway to the other with her face to the sky, her thick fur slowly getting matted down. They both laugh as she gets down and rolls in the grass, staining parts of herself green. Gale knows he’ll have a hell of a time giving her a bath, but it doesn’t matter. 

He watches Bucky take in the vibrant world around them. The fresh smell of the rain and the salt of the bay. The bright colors of the Earth, the sound of the raindrops pounding the ground. Their house, their street, their dog, the trees and the grass and the water streaming down the road. All of it so alive. 

When Bucky’s eyes finally reach Gale again, he stops. He raises an eyebrow, a grin brightening his face even as his hair is soaked to his head and his flannel pajama pants have no hope of ever being dry again. “What?” He asks. 

And Gale realizes he’s been staring. He knows he must look like a wet dog, but Bucky looks at him like he’s the most beautiful thing in the world. 

“I missed you,” Gale says. Like it isn’t obvious. Like those words can possibly encapsulate what he means.

Bucky reaches out his other hand and looks at Gale expectantly. “Help me up.” 

Gale looks skeptical, but he hauls Bucky to his feet – or, foot. He keeps one arm around Bucky’s waist, keeping him steady, and Bucky grabs onto his shoulder for balance. They’re getting better at it. 

“Now what?” Gale laughs. 

Bucky doesn’t say a word. Just ducks his head down and presses his lips to Gale’s. Gale freezes in surprise, but it’s not even a second before he closes his eyes and has to remind himself that he needs to be the strong one, keep himself steady, even as he melts. They grip onto one another, holding on for dear life, and Bucky kisses his husband like it’s their wedding day. 

Gale sighs into it, and he feels Bucky smile. They’re both soaked to the bone, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters other than the two of them together, right here and now. 

Because, finally, they’re home. 

...

...

Part 19

[steakrogers]

"Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you."

[impasta-wall]

“The ocean doesn’t change though right?”

His eyes were like the ocean, deep blue, broken in places by white froth, “just like the snow or the forests or the sun or the clouds and mostly the stars.” He raised his hands up motioning to the vast array of them in the sky, twinkling in the distance, blinking in and out of existence; the world so wide and for their taking even from the back yard they both shared now—a sense of awe washing over them both as they looked beyond.

He couldn’t help it but whisper, nearly seventy years late;

“The snow changed me.”

Steve looked back at him, same eyes, same hair. His hand comes up and gives Bucky’s shoulder a squeeze. Infinite understanding and a deep, deep longing.

“But we’re still here. That hasn’t changed right?”

I think a lot about how traumatic Bucky’s life has been so far, same with Cap, and I can’t help but shed a tear. In parts they are their own hope, it’s a little bit of codependency but it’s hard when there’s only one other person out there that understands you so carnally. It’s the shared experience of hope and loss and grief and love, romantic or platonic.

[buckypascal]

A universe where Bucky got to live his life in full, with both his arms, and never be tortured by Hydra...

DO YOU HEAR ME SOBBING

[dimeurz]

i am having a blast. i hope im throwing up while reading this issue.