#connect 4 au

[drabbles-mc]

Turn of the Tide (1/2)

Pirate!Stucky AU

Summary: After years apart thinking that they would never see each other again, Steve and Bucky come face to face under circumstances neither of them ever would have dreamed of.

Warnings: 18+, minor blood/injury, angst (with a happy ending), pining, alcohol

For the Alternate June-iverse prompt: Pirates

Part 2 can be found HERE

Word Count: 9.3k (oops)

A/N: First of all, thank you for @buckybarnesevents and @rookthorne for putting this event together again! Without y'all and your amazing cards/prompts, I never would've tried to tackle something like this and I had SOOO much fun doing it. So thank you so much. Kisses to you both 💕 I'll be posting part 2 sometime within the next week!

MCU Taglist: @artemiseamoon @garbinge (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

They were hardly more than boys when Steve had lost him. No matter how many years went by, no matter how many times people told Steve that what happened wasn’t his fault, he never believed it. He’d long since lost count of the number of times that he had set foot on a ship since then, but it didn’t matter—every time it happened there was a pang of guilt that went through him.

It had been the perfect mess of circumstances. They were young. Strong, but still young and there was a certain type of control that even the strongest boys would only garner with age and they hadn’t yet. That wasn’t something they ever considered, though, their confidence bolstered from knowing the ships like the backs of their hands. Whether it was calm waters or riveting storms, they always moved with the assurance of men who had it all under control. Most of the time they had someone looking over their shoulders to make sure that things didn’t get out of hand. It was usually Steve’s dad—the ships were his after all. The man had a sixth sense for when the two of them were getting out of control or close to it and he always showed up to reel them back in just in time.

He had tried, too, the night that they lost James. The winds were picking up, the waters were getting rougher. He knew that it was spelling out bad news, but he could still hear the chatter and laughter between the two boys out on the deck. He warned them, telling them to get inside, telling them to leave the storm prep to the men who had been doing this with him since before either of them was born.

Steve nodded, immediately ready to follow the direction. More often than not that was how it went. James had nodded as well, but there was also a look in his eyes that betrayed the fact that he wasn’t prepared to just sit back and let everyone else get to have all the fun. He was young enough and inexperienced enough to still consider it fun.

James had always had that little bit of an edge to him. From the moment Steve turned up with him at home one evening when they were small. Steve’s parents didn’t have to ask James many questions to quickly pull together that he was a boy in need of some stability, a place to be that might help keep him out of trouble. They took him in as much as they could, as much as James would let them. It worked—he brought Steve out of his shell as they got older, and Steve kept him from getting too carried away a lot of the time. There were some times, though, like the night of the storm, that Steve’s starry-eyed admiration and love for the boy he’d grown up alongside of got the better of him. James would give him that little smirk, would make a little bit of a coaxing motion with his hand, and Steve would give right into him.

It'd been years and not a day had gone by that Steve didn’t kick himself for giving into it that night. He was just a kid, and there wasn’t anything that he really could’ve done, but he knew that it was always going to haunt him. He could still hear the thunder, feel the intense rocking of the ship. If he shut his eyes for too long when he thought about it, he swore he could feel the rain pelting against his skin, wind beating against his face. He felt the way that he reached for James’s hand, the way their fingertips just barely grazed but it wasn’t enough. He heard the scream that he let out as he fell, hated the way it was the last thing he ever heard of him.

Steve always inevitably thought about the way that if his father had just been a few seconds later, if he hadn’t gotten there in time, Steve would’ve leapt right over the edge in after James. It would’ve been futile in the darkness and the rough waters, but Steve had still been ready to do it. A couple second’s worth of a difference and Steve wouldn’t be standing on the deck of that same ship all those years later, still taking orders from his father, still carrying the guilt on his shoulders along with everything else.

He stood there staring at the edge of the deck, knowing exactly where he’d been standing that night, one rock of the ship away from going over the edge just like James had. There were no prints left behind from his boots but he could still see them plain as day.

He was dragged out of his waking nightmare by the feeling of someone’s hand coming and clamping down on his shoulder. He turned to see who it was, a tight smile coming across his face when he saw it was Sam. Sam had come along a couple years after they lost James, back when Steve still thought there was a possibility of his best friend showing up again. Sam was kind, helpful. He didn’t have that same type of defiant streak that James had had which was a relief to Steve’s father and the rest of the men running the crew. As time went on, he and Sam got along well enough, but he never let anyone in like he had with James. How could he?

Sam knew it all, and never seemed to take anything to heart. He didn’t let the distance faze him. “Think they might be leaving you in charge.”

Confusion flooded Steve’s features. “What?”

Sam nodded towards the ramp that led down to the dock. “Captain Rogers wasn’t feeling well, they said. But we still have to make the run.”

Steve gestured towards the cabin. “What about—”

“They said it was gonna be you.” Sam took his hand from Steve’s shoulder and let it fall back to his side. “Next Captain Rogers. Was always going to happen, wasn’t it?”

Steve chuckled good-naturedly. “It’s one trip my father isn’t well enough to come on himself. Hardly me taking over.”

“Gotta start somewhere. Maybe if this goes well…” he trailed off, knowing that Steve would fill in the blanks.

“You still want to go, Wilson?”

Sam’s smile was bright, genuine. “Gonna need a right hand—of course I still want to come.”

Steve left Sam and the rest of the crew to continue with their preparations for departure while he slipped off to have a conversation with his father, confirm that what Sam had told him was actually the truth and not just a misunderstanding. It didn’t take much, though. The moment that he walked into his father’s bedroom, he could tell by just taking one look at the man that he was too sick to be on the ship for the next trip they had planned, no matter how straight-forward or brief. Steve didn’t stay and talk for very long. He knew the route—it was their usual trade run. Very rarely did they have any issues with the traveling itself, and the crew was steady and consistent. As long as their usual vendors were there when they arrived, everything should go perfectly according to plan even if Steve was the one at the helm instead of his father.

The little pangs of guilt that went through him whenever he went onto the ship went away faster than usual this time around. He had more to preoccupy his mind this time, able to stay busy. He’d been watching his father do this his whole life, could recite it all from memory at any given point if someone asked, but it was different when he was the one who actually had to do it. It felt good.

The first day of sailing had gone by without incident. The waters were calm and it looked like it might even stay that way. The crew hardly batted an eye when Steve was the one who started giving out orders. There were a few jokes made, all in jest with no malice to be found, but other than that everyone went along like it was business as usual. Steve supposed that in a way, it was.

The sun was starting to set on the second night. Steve could see it in the clouds that there was the potential of inclement weather, and possibly rough waters. They had planned ahead enough that anchoring for one night wasn’t going to set them terribly behind. It would be safer to do that rather than trying to sail through a storm and losing everything. Even if he hadn’t been heading things up on his own for the first time, he would’ve suggested airing on the side of caution. It was his default now, and most of the crew knew it. They also knew better than to try and argue or convince him otherwise.

It was late, the sun completely gone. The stars shone overhead but before long the wind would be blowing in clouds that would cover them up. The breeze was already strong enough to begin roughing up the water. It wasn’t terrible yet, but as he felt the ship start to sway, he wondered how bad it was going to get.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard Sam coming up behind him. It wasn’t until Sam’s boots hit the wood of the stair that Steve was sitting on that he realized it all. Steve snapped his head to look at him, and Sam was just staring down at him with a smile on his face. There was no denying the exhaustion in Sam’s expression, and Steve was sure that he looked much the same. It was a good day but even good days were tiring.

Steve wasn’t expecting Sam to plop down on the step next to him, but he did. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Rather than offering a verbal ice breaker, Sam held out the bottle in his hand, offering it to Steve. He accepted it, fingers curling around the neck of it. He brought it up to his lips and took a sip, letting the liquor scorch its way down the column of his throat.

He brought it back to his lips to take a second sip and all he could think about in that moment was James. He thought about the nights the two of them spent up on the neck, thinking that they had been so sneaky pilfering liquor from his father. There was no way that the man hadn’t known, but he hadn’t said anything about it. Part of kids growing up, teenagers stealing from their parents’ liquor cabinets. Steve had hated the taste of it back then, and really didn’t much care for it now either. James had never seemed bothered by it, though. He would take a swig from the bottle and he wouldn’t cough or cringe the way that Steve always seemed to. It went down like water for him. And, while the years that passed made it so Steve didn’t cough with every sip anymore, he still always felt himself wincing at least a little bit each time. All those years had passed and he still wasn’t who James had been.

“Is it strange?” Sam asked.

For a moment Steve irrationally thought that Sam was asking the question in relation to all of the thoughts that had just been flying through Steve’s head. But then the logical part of his brain took over once more. Steve shook his head as he handed the bottle back to Sam. “Not that strange. I’ve watched him do this for years—it’s not new.”

“You guys ever run into problems out here?”

Steve shrugged. “Not on this run, usually. I remember my dad had come home once or twice with stories of fights and pirates. I never knew how much of it was just him trying to scare me into listening to him and my mother.” The comment got a chuckle out of Sam and Steve found himself smiling too. “But I know it’s been getting more dangerous out here.” A strong gust of wind blew and rocked the ship, causing both men to brace themselves to keep from toppling over. “Haven’t heard about anything but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. If trouble comes,” Steve’s hand subconsciously strayed to the gun at his hip, “we’ll be ready.”

He hoped he would be, at least. He wasn’t worried about the rest of the crew. They were seasoned sailors, most of them doing this since Steve was a baby if not longer, though they were younger men back then. But still, they’d run across thieves and pirates in their time and lived to tell the tale. Steve had never had the misfortune, however, to be on-board a ship with his father when there were unwelcome guests. He’d never had to use his gun on someone, or his sword. All he’d ever used them for was practice. He was hoping to keep it that way for as long as possible.

He turned to Sam. “You should get some sleep. Everything’s battened down out here just in case. We’ll be all set.”

“You gonna get some sleep, Cap?”

Steve chuckled at the moniker. “Yeah, I’m gonna get some sleep.”

He had no real clue how long he had actually been asleep for, but when he was yanked back into consciousness, it felt like he’d just barely shut his eyes. He wasn’t woken by a sound, but rather a feeling. The sensation of cold, sharp steel pressed against his throat. His eyes popped open instantly, and luckily enough his body fought the impulse to shoot upright at the disturbance. If he’d moved much more, he would’ve had yet another pressing issue to deal with on top of everything else that was happening.

He blinked the last of the blurriness out of his eyes. When the room came into focus, a fresh jolt of fear shot down his spine. His eyes traveled up the blade that was pressed against his throat, crawling their way up the arm of the person holding it until they reached the other’s face.

With only one candle in his room still left burning, Steve couldn’t make out the details of the man who was currently one flick of his wrist away from ending his entire life. He had long, dark, shaggy hair. It was covering just as much of his face as the shadows in the room were. With the hand that wasn’t keeping the short blade pressed firmly against Steve’s throat, he brought one finger up and pressed it to his own lips.

“Let’s stay quiet,” the man spoke, his whisper deep and raspy. “Would hate to bring the rest of your crew into this.”

The more that Steve’s eyes adjusted to the dark, the more details he could start to pick out about the person who had allowed himself onto their ship. He saw the myriad of jewelry draped around the man’s neck, around the wrist nearest his throat. The loose shirt left a fair amount of the man’s collarbone exposed, but that was hardly a blip on Steve’s radar when he noticed the way the sleeves of the man’s shirt were pushed up. His left arm, the one not holding the blade to him, was covered in scarring. It was too dark still for Steve to be able to try and guess what the cause of it might’ve been, but he had to assume that it wasn’t unrelated to the fact that this man was sneaking aboard ships in the middle of the night like this.

“I have a feeling,” Steve finally said, gathering his wits about him, “that you already did.”

Even in the dark the man’s smile was impossible to miss. “I’d say no one can get past you but,” he nodded towards the blade currently pressed against Steve’s throat, “apparently they can.”

Steve exhaled harshly through his nose, his patience wearing thin despite not knowing what he wanted his next move to be. “What do you want?”

“Whatever you’ve got.” The man looked around the tiny cabin space that they were currently in. “Merchant ship this size?” He nodded approvingly. “I think you might have a few things my crew could make use of.”

Steve shook his head as much as he was able, feeling the slight pull of the blade against his throat as he did so. “We don’t have—”

“Don’t lie to me,” the man’s whisper was as sharp as the steel in his hand.

He exhaled again, this time the breath came out unsteady. He didn’t want to take his eyes off the man in front of him, but he needed to look and see just how far away his gun was, or even his own blade. Was it close enough to reach for? Would he be able to move quickly enough to grab it before it was too late? If he did get it and manage to stay in one piece in the process, would he be able to take out the man in front of him before he could alert the rest of his own crew? He didn’t hear them moving around the ship but if they weren’t aboard yet, it wouldn’t be long until they were. The longer that Steve kept this man trapped in the room with him, the more likely it was that his men would become restless and come looking for him.

Steve held the man’s gaze for a moment longer before settling on a plan of action. Anything was better than sitting there and doing nothing. Not letting his eye contact waver, Steve swiftly drove his foot into the man’s sternum and pushed him backwards. It didn’t knock him completely down, but it put enough distance between them for Steve to twist and grab his own blade from beside his bed. He felt the burn on his throat where the other man’s blade had broken the skin, but he knew from the feeling of it that it wasn’t enough of an injury to cause a problem right now. There were much more important things at hand anyway.

He leapt out of bed, sword at the ready. In the limited space at their disposal in Steve’s quarters, they paced a circle around each other, sizing each other up. They were quite the pair against each other, Steve in his thin white sleepwear while the man was standing there fully dressed and ready for whatever was coming his way. There was something about the man that felt familiar to Steve, but he couldn’t for the life of him fathom what it was. He didn’t make a point of consorting with pirates, so he didn’t know what the draw was. He could barely make out the features of the man’s face, but there was something. Maybe it was just the panic in his system, looking to make sense out of something that was random and senseless. Wrong place, wrong time. If he lived to tell the tale, he was never going to hear the end of it from his father.

Time for calculation was over. Steve stepped, lunging with his sword. It was a blade that was longer than that of the other man’s, and he was hoping that would prove to be an advantage. The move wasn’t effective, the man blocking it with ease. The edges of the blades glided along each other as they each tried to push through and get closer.

Steve regained control of his blade and created an opportunity for himself to make another attempt. The sweeping gesture he made was mildly more effective than his first move—he felt the difference in pull as the sword cut along the skin of the man’s chest. He hissed in pain, turning away from the blade as best he could. It was surface-level damage, not all that much worse than the nick on Steve’s neck all things being considered. The thin slash was enough to cause blood to start seeping into the loose white fabric of the man’s shirt, making it start to stick to his chest.

Steve did his best to take advantage of the split-second of surprise, that brief moment the man spent recognizing that Steve had made contact. He stepped in and made another short, sharp motion and knocked the sword from the man’s hand. It clattered to the floor, sounding impossibly loud. Steve knew that this was the moment. If he was going to put a stop to this man, this was the time to do it. It would only take him another second, after all, to lunge and sweep his blade back up off the floor. Steve knew that he should send his sword right through the man’s chest, or slash the blade harshly across his throat. It was no better or worse than what they would do to him on-shore—pirates weren’t ever punished with anything less than a public hanging. It wasn’t as though Steve would be changing the outcome for this man. This was the only type of end he was going to meet. He must’ve known that when he decided to become a pirate. It wasn’t a lifestyle that was known for staving off a man’s expiration.

He brought his hand up to do exactly what he had practiced, what countless lessons over the years had trained him to do. One more sweep of his arm and it was all over. But he couldn’t. The blade stopped mere centimeters away from the man’s throat. Instead, he closed his first that wasn’t holding onto his sword, and struck a harsh blow to the man’s jaw, one that did knock him down to the ground.

It didn’t take much after that for Steve to get the man pinned down onto the floor. The man was lying on his stomach, one side of his face flattened against the wood floor beneath them. Steve was wrangling the man’s arms behind his back, ready to tie them into place when he heard a cacophony of footsteps and shouting out on the deck. Even with Steve’s knee digging into the man’s back, he still managed to get a laugh out.

Steve ignored the way that the man’s laugh made his nerves spike. He busied himself with the knot he’s started in the rope around the man’s wrists. The voices were clearer now, and Steve could also hear those of his crew as well. The mess was growing worse by the second and he still wasn’t sure what each step of the plan was going to be yet, he only knew the outcome that he wanted, no, needed.

He heard the man’s crew calling out for him, multiple men shouting out, “Captain!” What caught Steve’s attention, however, was the fact that at least one member of the man’s crew was calling out, “Bucky!”

Steve yanked as hard as he could as he finished the knot, noticing the sharp breath of pain the man let out beneath him. “Bucky, huh? That’s what they call you?”

He chuckled, like the position he was in hardly registered as an inconvenience. “Only my friends.” He turned his head to look at Steve. “That what we are now, Captain?”

Steve pressed his knee harder into the space between the man’s shoulder blades. “Hardly.”

Shifting his weight, Steve brought himself to a crouching position for a moment, feet planted just to the side of the man’s, Bucky apparently, body. Before Bucky could get so much as another snide comment out, Steve wrapped his hand around Bucky’s bicep as much as he could before heaving him up off the floor. Bucky was nearly stumbling to keep up with the force that he had been lifted with. Under different circumstances he would’ve been impressed, as he hadn’t expected the captain to have such an easy time of it. Bucky didn’t put up as much of a fight as he could have, and probably should have, as Steve grabbed hold of his sword again now that they were both upright.

It was impossible to miss, as Steve dragged Bucky towards the door, that the noise outside had reached its crescendo and died down considerably. No more firing guns and clanging swords. There were still the shouts and grumblings of disgruntled men, and all Steve could do was hope that most of the men still able to talk, still up and about, were his own.

He was just about to reach for the doorknob when someone on the other side yanked it open. The surprise that shot through Steve, that made him brandish his sword, quickly melted away into relief when he saw that Sam was the one who had pulled the door open. If Sam was coming to get him, he just had to hope that that meant his men had ended up with the upper hand. A success not unlike what Steve had managed against Bucky.

Sam’s eyes were wide with shock as he looked back and forth between Steve and the man that he had a vice grip on. “C-Captain,” he finally stammered out.

Steve could see, even in the low light, the blood smeared on Sam’s clothing. He hoped that most of it wasn’t his own. Sam was still upright, and aside from the panic and shock he seemed to be doing alright. “Wilson,” Steve said, trying his best to sound reassured, like he wasn’t just as panicked and just as out of breath as the man in front of him, “how’s the crew?”

Sam nodded but the worry was still thick in his expression. “We, they, um.” He couldn’t find it in himself to ignore the glare that Bucky was giving him. “Come and see.”

The confidence that Steve had been starting to garner began to slip away as he followed Sam’s instructions. He watched as Sam turned on his heel and headed back to the deck. Steve shifted his grip on Bucky’s arm, keeping a tight hold on the thick cord of muscle that ran up the back of his bicep, fingers digging as he pushed Bucky forward through the doorway first. The action was rough enough to nearly make the man stumble, but he managed to catch himself.

The deck was a mess, but as Steve took quick stock of the situation at hand, he was relieved to see that all the members of his crew were, more or less, in one piece. Some had injuries that would need more attending to in the daylight, and more still once they reached shore or returned home, but it didn’t seem as though anyone was at risk of slipping away from them just yet.

The same could not be said for all the members of Bucky’s crew. Some of them were bound much like their captain, left incapacitated against the mast. Others weren’t so lucky, their blood staining the wood more and more as each second ticked by. Bucky felt his anger renew, and he struggled against Steve’s grasp knowing it wasn’t going to get him anywhere, wasn’t going to change anything. It was a risk they all ran, living the life that they did, and Bucky knew that as well as any of them. Still, though, he felt responsible for them—he was still their captain after all.

Steve and Bucky’s crews had been matched well in terms of numbers. From the looks of it, Steve might’ve only had two or three men more. But Bucky’s crew was much greener than Steve’s. Most of that was chalked up to age. After all, while there were many benefits to youth, not many things could match experience. A majority of Steve’s crew were still young enough to be able to fight if they had too, but they were also old enough to know a lot of the tricks others had up their sleeves. It was why they were able to come out on top, even if they didn’t come out of it unscathed.

Steve felt Bucky pull against him again and he brought the sword up so that it was pressed against Bucky’s throat. Perhaps it was a bit of an empty threat after how things had played out the first time, but it still made a point.

“If you don’t want this blade to go any deeper,” Steve said as he adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword, “I would stop fighting.”

“Why?” Bucky grit out. “So you can bring us in and hand us off to someone else who will do the same? Hang us in—”

“You knew the risks when you decided to become pirates,” Steve cut him off, confidence back in his voice again.

He pushed Bucky towards where the rest of his crew was tied, impressed with how little pushback there was. He was tempted to make a comment about honor among thieves, but he knew as well as anyone the loyalty between a captain and his crew. There was a little gnawing at the back of his brain knowing that it carried over to pirates as well.

Sam stepped up so that he was beside Steve. “What do you want us to do?”

Steve nodded towards the mast. “Put him with the rest. We’ll keep them there for now.” He let out a deep sigh as he relaxed his arm, his sword lowering until the tip of it just barely touched the paneling of the deck. “We’ll move on now—reach port by the afternoon.”

One of the men tried to speak up, clearly exhausted from everything. “Cap—"

“I’ll take it from here,” Steve reassured, already knowing where the sentence was going. He was as exhausted as any of them, but he knew that there would be no going back to sleep for him now. He wouldn’t be able to rest until they returned back home. Maybe not even then. “One of you can relieve me in the morning.”

There was a tense silence, but no one spoke up to argue. The sense of unease about the plan was outweighed by people’s need to rest and lick their wounds. Steve watched as one of his men finished tying Bucky down. In the daylight he would be able to get a better look at him, at all of them. He wondered if he would feel any different afterwards.

Steve’s men slowly started to head back to their barracks, one by one. The deck slowly started to empty. The ship rocked slightly, and it wasn’t until that moment that Steve realized the storm he had been expecting never came. There had been some wind, a few smatterings of rain, but nothing like what it could’ve been. They could start carrying on right then with no issue, and now that was exactly what Steve was planning to do.

“Captain,” Sam spoke up, trying to sound certain but not quite hitting the correct note.

Steve hadn’t even noticed that Sam didn’t return to his quarters like the rest of the men on board had. Steve tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible as he turned to face Sam. Steve knew that he must’ve been just as rattled as he was, if not more-so. He wondered briefly how Sam had held up when the fight itself was happening. He had some wounds to show for it, so he had at least shown up, hadn’t stowed himself away. Steve had a feeling that Sam would be the type to stick by the crew, but that was one of those things that you never really knew about a man until they were thrown into the thick of it.

“Wilson,” Steve said in response, his tone more convincing than his counterpart’s. “You can head off too. If I need—”

“I’d rather stay,” Sam spit out before he lost the nerve. “If that’s alright. I don’t,” he shook his head, “I don’t think that I’m going to be going back to sleep anytime soon.”

Steve nodded understandingly. “Okay.”

The relief cascaded across Sam’s face. “Okay.” He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure as much for his captain in front of him as for the men who were tied up to the mast behind him. They didn’t need to be seeing any weakness from him. “Besides,” some of his charm returned to his voice, even if it was a little more deflated than usual, “you’ll need a hand getting everything loosed to sail.”

The smile on Steve’s face actually felt like a genuine one, even through the exhaustion and the stress. “That’s true.” He nodded towards the ropes tied off on the side of the ship. “You know what to do, then.”

Sam gave a nod and headed right off, knowing the routine by heart, as close to matching Steve’s knowledge and comfort as he could. He moved with calculated ease, and after watching him for a minute, Steve headed off to handle the rest. Even with just the two of them working, they would be ready to go rather quickly.

Sam was climbing down the netting, calling out to Steve as he did. “Captain Rogers!” he exclaimed. “We’re ready!”

Steve nodded. “Pull anchor!”

Bucky had been watching both of the men intently from where he was strapped down on the deck. The longer he’d been sitting there, the more he had a strange feeling pulling at the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t just the feeling of being captured, the dread of what was going to come next. There was something else, something that he couldn’t quite put a name to.

It all came crashing down the second he heard Sam call the man in charge Captain Rogers. Bucky was sure that more words had been exchanged after the fact but he hadn’t heard them. Everything else fell away, the waves crashing around the ship, the groans and words of anger and discomfort coming from his men around him. The darkness seemed to get thicker as the reality of the situation started to rip through him.

All he could do was look at the man who had put him there. It’d been too dark, too chaotic to see it before. But now? With nothing else left for him to do but look? He could see it. As soon as the words had left Sam’s mouth, Bucky could see it. The years that had passed since they last saw each other had aged them both, Bucky more-so due to the hardships that he’d faced, things that Steve wouldn’t have had to worry about even in his wildest dreams. They were both grown now, and yet they were still just boys messing around on the deck of his father’s ship after dark. The stakes were higher now, but at the core of it, they were the same as they’d ever been. Bucky too far out over the ledge, Steve not quite out on the ledge with him.

Bucky thought that his heart was going to explode, splatter within the confines of his chest as each small thought and realization hit him one after the other after the other. His eyes were wide as he continued to stare at Steve, willing himself to say or do something, anything at all.

Sucking in a shaky breath, Bucky was finally able to force out one word. “Steve?” All the previous anger and snark in his voice was gone. He hadn’t spoken quite in a whisper, but it wasn’t loud enough to carry across the deck, especially not when the man in question was most likely trying to tune him out, along with all of his men. He cleared his throat, trying to say it with a little more force this time. “Steve?”

That time it reached the captain’s ears. Steve’s head snapped in Bucky’s direction, confusion etched so deep into his features that Bucky could see it despite the darkness around them. Steve’s eyes narrowed, trying to figure out where he got that information from. None of the men had called him by his first name in front of Bucky. Maybe they’d mentioned something in front of the rest of the crew, in the heat of everything else that was going on maybe that was simply a piece of information that had slipped out. Not the end of the world, really. But if that was the case, why was Bucky saying it like that? Why did he seem surprised? Maybe even a little sad? More than that, why did Steve feel like there was something intimately familiar about the way that Bucky said it?

The longer that they stared at each other from across the deck, the more Bucky could feel his emotions continuing to well in his chest. His limbs felt heavy, and suddenly his physical wounds were the least of his worries—they paled in comparison to the way that the years of hardship and being apart from everything he’d ever known, everyone he’d ever known, were crushing him from the inside out. He wanted to have more to say, but what was there? What was he supposed to say now that they had ended up like this? They hadn’t recognized each other, after all. He didn’t know if it made it more or less heartbreaking that it was mutual.

“Steve,” he repeated himself, this time not as a question.

Steve didn’t want to believe it. His grip tightened on the helm, blunted fingernails digging into the finish of the wood. The longer that he stared down at Bucky, however, the harder it was to try and lie to himself. He couldn’t try and ignore him and pretend all the way until they reached port. His resolve wouldn’t last that long, not if Bucky really was who he was about to claim to be.

He didn’t take his eyes off of the man as he called out to Sam. “Wilson!” In his peripheral he could see the way that Sam was listening, waiting. “Man the helm for me for a moment, will you?”

Sam nodded as he strode over, immediately ready to oblige. He placed his hands right where Steve’s had been, ready to keep the course. He had watched the entire scene unfold and while he couldn’t say that he had a full grip on the situation, he could feel the tension in the air that this was now about much more than a rag-tag group of pirates who had tried and failed to rob and possibly commandeer their ship. He wasn’t sure the depths of what it was about now, but it felt precarious. And precarious was dangerous when they were out in open water in the middle of the night the way that they were.

“Cap, I don’t know what happened with Bucky, but—”

“I’ve got it under control, Sam,” Steve said, his reassurance sounding surprisingly real despite the fact that Steve had no idea what was about to unfold. Maybe that was what it was like to be a captain, just making sure that everyone else felt reassured even if he didn’t feel very certain himself. He gave Sam’s shoulder an affectionate clap. “Stay the course.”

Sam got half a word out but before he could finish, Steve was already descending back towards the main deck, and Sam was left unable to do anything but watch him. There would just have to be time for the questions later.

Bucky had been watching the entire interaction unfold between them. He couldn’t hear for sure what they had been saying, but he could see the way that Steve had hardly taken his eyes off of him even though he had been speaking to Sam the entire time. Bucky hoped that boded well for him, that this wasn’t just some hopeless dream or delusion of his. He hoped that whatever there was between them way back when, that loyalty and whatever else existed unspoken there, had kept after all these years. Even if the stakes had changed drastically.

He watched as Steve made his way closer to him. The last mental image he had of Steve was when they’d been so young. Steve had been shorter, so much skinnier. He’d been strong enough when they were teenagers, but he’d always been slimmer and wirier than Bucky ever had been. It’d been a sore spot for a little while there. Clearly it wasn’t a problem anymore, if the way that Steve had been dragging him around with ease said anything.

Bucky felt like he blinked and suddenly Steve was standing in front of him. He tilted his head back, feeling the way it tapped against the mast when he’d tilted back as far as he could. He couldn’t remember a time before when he had to look up at Steve that way. All of the words he’d ever learned were stuck at the base of his throat as he watched Steve study him more closely, a deeper intent there now that recognition, and acceptance were nipping at his heels.

Steve had grabbed a lantern on his way, wanting to give himself as good of a view as possible of the man who was claiming, without saying it in so many words, to be the friend he’d lost at sea nearly two decades ago at that point. Time was so cruel the way it just kept slipping by.

Ignoring the attempted thrashing and angry commentary of the men who were left of Bucky’s crew, Steve finally lowered himself down so that he was face level with the man tied to the mast. He studied Bucky’s face closely in the lamplight now, the tan and smattering of freckles left behind after years out underneath the sun. He tried to see past the beard he had now, tried to see the boy he remembered, like if he couldn’t peel back the layers and find James somewhere underneath all of the Bucky, he simply just wasn’t going to believe it.

Bucky was helpless to do anything besides sit there and watch him. He saw the way that Steve’s pensive frown pulled his lips downward. Suddenly Bucky could see it clear as day. Even though the circumstances couldn’t be more different, when he looked at the thoughtful downturn of Steve’s lips, the slight pull of his brows towards each other, all he could see was the two of them sitting on the edge of the docks as teenagers, trying to figure out the intricate workings of all the knots that Steve’s father told them they needed to learn. It always took Steve a little longer to learn them, it was harder for him to pick them up and keep them committed to memory. He’d get three-fourths of the way there and then lose track, and he would make that same face that he was making now. Always trying to figure out which pieces of the puzzle he was missing.

Steve was fighting the urge to reach out and touch Bucky’s face. He hadn’t been brave enough to do it back then, and he certainly didn’t feel like he had any right to do so now. But it also felt like it wouldn’t be real until he did. Bucky’s eyes looked up at him, so earnest in comparison to how he’d looked at Steve when he’d first woken him up in his sleeping quarters. Two completely different men wrapped into one. Steve couldn’t help but wonder if either of those men still wanted anything to do with him.

The amount of time that they’d spent in silence, Steve crouched just inches from him, finally sank in. Steve cleared his throat, finally getting himself together enough to speak. “James?”

The relief that Steve felt at Bucky’s reaction was a visual, tangible thing. His shoulders went slack as he exhaled a breath he’d been holding for longer than he should’ve been. The creases across his forehead that had been born of worry instantly smoothed away. He felt himself wanting to smile but he knew that he couldn’t get too far ahead of himself now. They knew each other back then, and there was a brand of comfort in that, but they were different men now, or at least James was. He didn’t even go by the same name any longer. He didn’t know how much that history would hold, if it would be enough to save him.

Regardless of the conflicting feelings rushing through both of them, even though Bucky knew that it was too early on to have any assurance that he was actually safe, he still felt a thought, a feeling blooming at the back of his mind that was telling him that things were going to work out somehow.

He needed to come up with something more, something better to say, but with the shock that was still making its way through the marrow of his bones, all Bucky could do to answer Steve’s single-word question was repeat the same thing that he’d been saying all along. This time, he said it with a tinge of hopefulness that he hadn’t allowed himself to have in a long time. “Steve.”

Steve felt like he had just gotten punched in the chest. There was no more denying any of it. The reality of it all pushed the air clean out of his lungs. The urge to reach forward and pull Bucky into an embrace was immediately fought off by the part of his brain still steeped in reality, the part that recognized the fact that Steve had commanded to have Bucky restrained against the mast. There had to be a first step somewhere. Something between a constant repetition of names and cutting the ropes loose so that Steve could ball his fists in the fabric of Bucky’s shirt as he hugged him.

“How?” Steve finally managed to force out, the light of the lantern throwing shadows that further intensified an already heavy moment between them. “You were dead. I, I saw it…” he trailed off, emotions choking him up as he thought back to that night, to all of the nights since that it had been haunting him. “You went over the edge. Right,” Steve’s eyes darted to the railing where it’d happened, “right there. I tried to go after you but my father—”

“I know,” Bucky stopped him short. There were a million conflicting emotions on his face, behind his eyes, things that he had been shoving as far down inside his chest as possible for as long as he could remember.

That night might have been haunting Steve ever since it happened, but Bucky remembered it just as clearly—no matter how hard he tried to forget. He remembered the sting of the water, the burn of the impact of it. He remembered how with each breath he tried to take in, he also got a mouthful of seawater. But there hadn’t been any use in trying to spit it out, each sputter only allowing more water in. His body got tossed around by waves in a way that he couldn’t ever remember happening before or since. The ocean was cruel and unrelenting, and painfully egalitarian. It didn’t matter that Bucky hadn’t even truly been a man yet—the waves tossed him around like one anyway.

For as chaotic and overloading as it had all been, one other thing about that night was something that Bucky couldn’t forget about no matter how much he tried. All the sensations that popped up uninvited in his nightmares, things that yanked him from his sleep sweating and gasping for air that he no longer had to fight to get, and the one thing that made him awake with tears on his face was the sound. There had been wind, and rain, and waves, but above and through all of that he had heard the sounds of Steve’s screams. The screams, the cries. It was too dark and he was too incapacitated to see Steve trying to jump in after him, but even so he could hear the way that Steve had been screaming at his father, begging in a way that Bucky hadn’t ever heard before. At the time he thought that it was going to be the last thing he ever heard.

All the years that had gone by had Bucky certain that it was the last thing that he was ever going to hear from Steve. There had been points as time went on when he thought about heading off to find him. But when he was young he didn’t have the means. He was pulled in by a crew and he didn’t have the sway to be able to ask them to do such a thing. Why would anyone do something like that? Pirates had enough to contend with without putting themselves in situations like that. And the crew that had taken Bucky in, while they’d kept him alive and shown him the ropes, they were rough. They were brutal in ways that Bucky hadn’t known were possible outside the stories that he heard from sailors back home. He learned it all, too—how to keep himself safe no matter the cost. He tried his hardest to make sure it never came to that. But the more time that went by, the more that he learned, the more senseless it became to think about returning back home. He didn’t even know if he would be wanted there, if anyone would still remember him.

With each venture and every crime, Bucky had also become keenly aware of the fact that he was drifting farther and farther away from being James, from being the person that Steve would remember, the person that Steve would want. He didn’t know how long it took for him to stop letting that be a deterrent. At some point, the thought of seeing Steve again and still wanting to be something like the person his best friend would remember, stopped lingering at the forefront of his mind. He let go of the hope of that, let go of the last few shreds of that boyhood, the innocence that he associated with Steve for so long.

Bucky was pulled from the painful montage in his head by the grumbling of the man who was tied to the mast to the left of him. He didn’t quite catch the words themselves but he didn’t have to, the man’s frustrated tone and the way he was fighting against the binds was an abrupt reminder that Bucky had well and truly made his bed years ago. Now he had to lay in it, him and all of the men that made up his crew. After what had just happened it wasn’t going to be so simple as, “Cut us loose and we’ll just pretend this didn’t happen.” Bucky was the only one who would’ve possibly been capable of that, and even then it wasn’t a sure thing. They’d lost men to this, after all.

He studied Steve’s face for a moment, trying to figure out what the man was planning on doing next. There had been a time when he would’ve been able to tell without having to look—they knew each other that well. Bucky always knew the next three steps that Steve was going to take. It’d been too long now, though.

After another moment, Steve revealed a small knife. He leaned forward, about to make his way to cut the ropes that bound Bucky’s wrists. The child that still ran around the deepest parts of his brain couldn’t simply just let his friend sit there tied to the mast, no matter how long it’d been. It was impulsive, something that if his father, or Sam, or anyone had been there beside him, they would’ve stopped him.

As it stood, the person who tried to get him to stop was the man that he was trying to free. “Steve,” he said, voice quiet and sharp all at once, “don’t.”

He looked like a hurt puppy at the rejection. “But—”

“I stay with my crew,” he said, the sureness of his tone betrayed by the conflict in his eyes.

“James…” Steve was nearly begging, such a swift turning of the tables.

Bucky managed a shrug. “Different world now, Stevie.” He paused, waiting for his long-lost friend to say something more. When he didn’t, Bucky continued, “All of us, or none of us.”

“I can’t just—”

“Then don’t,” Bucky cut him off again. He knew that that was going to be the answer. The same way that Steve knew Bucky wasn’t going to turn his back on his crew, Bucky knew just as well that Steve wasn’t going to just cut them all loose like that.

With a sigh of disappointment, Steve looked one more time at the knife in his hand before tucking it back into its sheath. His hand stayed wrapped around the handle of it for a few moments longer anyway, like he was giving Bucky one last chance to change his mind, but he didn’t. Stubborn as he’d ever been.

“Alright then,” Steve finally said. He braced his hands on his knees so that he could get himself upright again. He hesitated to walk away, staring down at Bucky who was helpless to do anything besides stare back up at him.

Bucky sat and watched as Steve turned and walked away. There were so many things that he wanted so say, but what good would it really do him? Or any of his men, for that matter? Each one of Steve’s receding footsteps rung right through his skull even though the sound of them was softening with the distance.

“Should’ve gotten out,” the man beside him said.

Bucky turned to him. “What?”

“Should’ve gotten out. No point in all of us—”

“Like I said,” Bucky fixed him with a stare, “all of us, or none of us.”

The man let out a deep grumble of a laugh. It wasn’t loud, per se, but Bucky could see that he felt it genuinely regardless. In that moment Bucky was trying to remember just how long the man had been part of his crew. He had at least a decade on Bucky, the oldest member of their crew. He remembered him coming aboard, joining Bucky after his last crew had gotten captured. He’d lost track of how long ago that was exactly. Time tended to blur together, the number of days losing their meaning.

When the man stopped laughing, he said, “You still have that goin’ for you, then.”

Confusion drew Bucky’s brows together. “What?”

“The sea hasn’t beaten the ideals out of you yet.” He shook his head before letting it rest back against the mast once more. “Most men would’ve taken the chance to get out.” He chuckled one more time for good measure. “You probably should have.”

Something about the man’s smile got one out of Bucky as well. If he made it another ten years he wondered if he would be just as amused when faced with these types of situations. “Too late now, huh?”

The man looked over at the helm where Steve was standing, eyes never staying on one target for long. He looked at Sam, who he was talking to, around the ship and the sea surrounding it, but his gaze also kept going back to Bucky. Not any of the men beside him. Bucky might have been willfully ignoring that but his shipmate most definitely wasn’t.

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

The knowing look that was on the man’s face got a hint of a smile out of Bucky. He didn’t say anything to confirm or dispute what the man had said to him, though. He just sat and tried to think of how he was supposed to get everyone who was left out of this mess in one piece.

[rapidhighway]

HI, i'm just gonna drop this in your lap and run actually, a future AU

Part 2

[luuxxart]

evil win! the ones plotting for your mysterious death are uncle and nephew!

[sillyfairygarden]

finally can reveal my part of a secret exchange, gifted to my dear friend @definitelynotshouting for their fic lost in the dark (he’s got a heavy heart). this was a wonderful tribute to an amazing fic 🫶

[purplebass]

adsom and some parallels with disney's the little mermaid? yeah. because this is also a story about people coming from different worlds and the dangers of magic just like adsom is

Kell is such an Ariel. Like the mermaid who keeps the artifacts in a grotto, he keeps the treasures from different Londons at his room in the Ruby Fields. King Triton later destroys Ariel's stash of objects just like Holland burns down the Ruby Fields. Ariel later turns human and saves prince Eric (who is also the captain of a ship) and falls in love with him. In adsom, it's Lila (our Eric) who saves Kell the night they met and later discovers she isn't a mere human but an antari magician who can travel between worlds (and ofc, they fall for each other)

[tempestmothstorm]

Ok since Monika still has her admin powers in the side stories you think she could just discover them accidentally or use them without realizing

Anyways au where Monika and friends discover her admin powers but dont know about the wider context of what it means. So they just go around thinking Monika has magic and try practicing with a bunch of silly fun shenanigans because they figure it’s some chosen one bloodline stuff and not like. A product of their reality being a constricted digital science experiment.

This au will not end well

[kitfizzo]

The "this number is.." is a reference to idksterling.. theres nothing nsfw on here its all just innocent kissies and cuddles i promise 🙏

Ughhhh I'm waaayyy too autistic and depressed rn to say anythingg... ive got choir district on Saturday and its really stressing me out so im bringing my X plush for an extra friend to support me... autism who?

Also a stupid vent under the more lolol its funny if you need a laugh i guess

Someone on Pinterest saw my gore art and was like.. "dni" I GAVE A TRIGGER WARNING WHY DID YOU GO TO THE COMMENTS- and then on the htwins discord server i posted some adorable 4x art i got eight 🔥 reactions BUT SOME KID PUT A ROLLING EYES EMOJI- BROOOOOOOO THEY WERE JUST GIVING EACH OTHER A FLOWER WHY U HATTING 😭😭😭☹️😨❤️😭⁉️❤️☹️❤️🔥🤭🗣️❤️✌️🩸🙏❤️🗣️❤️❤️🤭 I SWEAR OSC KIDS ARE SO MEAN FR ☹️

[sirwow]

Drawing all my au versions of characters would explode me but heres at least some lucias for your time

[riacte]

so hey guys i finished dungeon meshi yesterday and i'm still thinking about it

[drabbles-mc]

Turn of the Tide (2/2)

Pirate!Stucky AU

Summary: After years apart thinking that they would never see each other again, Steve and Bucky come face to face under circumstances neither of them ever would have dreamed of.

Warnings: 18+, minor blood/injury, angst (with a happy ending), pining, alcohol

For the Alternate June-iverse prompt: Pirates

Part 1 can be found HERE

Word Count: 8.4k (oops)

A/N: It took me forever to find time to go back and edit this part but we got it done! I love this little au and I will be thinking about Pirate Stucky for a long time.

MCU Taglist: @artemiseamoon @garbinge @late-to-the-party-81 (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

The sky was slowly changing from black to grey as they got closer to sunrise. Bucky had faded in and out of sleep, the rest of his crew in much the same situation. He had a feeling that over the next couple of hours exhaustion would completely take over them regardless of the rising sun. Sam had gone and traded off with someone a little while before. Steve had turned away a few of his men offering to take up the helm. The shift in the sky clued him in to just how long he had been awake, though, so the next time someone offered he allowed them to take it.

The smart thing to do would’ve been to scamper off to his quarters, try and get some rest while he still could especially now that their typical merchant run had the potential to turn into something else entirely. There was the possibility of having much more to answer for once they reached their destination, and Steve had no idea what to do about any of it.

Rather than doing the smart thing and getting whatever sleep he could, Steve made his way back across the deck. His steps were quiet as he strode up to the mast where they had all the men tied. Bucky was the only one awake at the moment, and he had been staring, watching Steve the entire time. He looked up as Steve stopped in front of him, not saying anything until the captain spoke up and said something first.

“We need to talk,” Steve finally said, trying to sound serious but just sounding tired instead.

“We can talk here.” Bucky matched his tone, every ounce of exhaustion being reflected.

Steve sighed, not wanting to argue but not willing to back down this time. “C’mon.”

“Can’t say it here?” he asked, a challenge in his tone. Despite that he was still keeping his voice low, a pointed effort to make sure that none of his men woke up.

“James.” He let it serve as its own sentence, exasperation coming through even with so few words being spoken.

“I’m not—”

“We need to talk.” He saw the look in Bucky’s eyes that he was going to come back with another argument, some thinly veiled reason why they had to talk here or they wouldn’t talk about it at all. “Keep the ropes on, if that makes you feel better,” Steve said, almost like a joke but he was perfectly serious, and he knew that Bucky would be too.

Bucky almost gave into it but then shook his head. “I’m not—”

He stopped short when Steve leaned down, expertly slicing through the rope that was keeping him pinned to the mast but not the one that was keeping his wrists tied together. Seconds later Steve’s hand was wrapping around his bicep all over again, yanking him up off the ground. He meant to fight against it but he was still having trouble wrapping his head around how much things had changed. Never in a million years did he think that Steve would be able to yoke him up off the deck with such ease.

“And I’m not asking,” was all Steve said as he started to drag Bucky back towards his sleeping quarters, one of the only places where they could get anything resembling privacy.

Steve pushed the door open, dragging Bucky inside with him. He’d been prepared for more resistance, but once he got Bucky to his feet it was like all the fight drained out of him. Steve had brought him along like an unruly dog on a leash, going along because there was only so far he could get if he didn’t.

“Steve, I told you—”

“Listen to me,” Steve spoke up, his voice still firm, still quiet, “this is about your crew. And you. What,” he shook his head, “what am I supposed to do when we reach port?”

It wasn’t funny but Bucky was still smiling anyway. The inevitability of it all was something that he had been wrestling with for years, on and off acceptance levels with it all. Clearly Steve hadn’t ever given it much thought, never really had to. His perspective of it was always going to be different anyway—he was never going to be the one getting handed over to authorities, thrown in jail or strung up in a noose in the public square. Steve was safely outside all of that, always had been. However, Bucky could tell by the look on his friend’s face, if he could still call him that, that Steve hadn’t ever given much thought to having to be the man who handed others over for that type of fate. It wasn’t sitting well, clearly. Bucky wondered if he would’ve had the same crisis of faith if it had been anyone else who stormed his ship. Would there be the same hesitation if Steve wasn’t looking at him and seeing James?

“Think you know the answer to that,” Bucky finally answered.

“Don’t,” Steve said softly, wearily.

“What else is there?” He shrugged as best he could with his hands still bound behind his back. “You let us go, or you turn us over.”

“I can’t just…” he trailed off, not sure what he wanted to end the sentence with.

He couldn’t just let them go—his own crew would never allow that after everything. But he didn’t think that he could just hand them over when they got there, either. Steve went years blaming himself for what happened to Bucky before and it wasn’t really his fault at the core of it. This, though? There would be no way to deny that the fallout would rest squarely on Steve’s shoulders. He didn’t want to lose him again. Last time he lost him as James and he came back as Bucky, but there would be no coming back a few years down the road with a different name if he followed through with this. The fact that it happened once was an astronomical stroke of luck.

“You have to,” Bucky said simply. “Make the call and stay with it. Live with it.”

Steve ran his hands back through his hair as he started to pace the room. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Bucky took the opportunity sit on the edge of Steve’s bed. There were so many things swirling around the inside of his head that he couldn’t slow down and pick one. The sun just kept rising, taking away more time that Steve didn’t have to figure everything out. So many pressing issues and yet when he was finally able to focus on one thought long enough to ask it, he didn’t say anything having to do with the future.

“Why didn’t you ever come home?” Steve asked. “All these years. Never came, never even…” he trailed off, suddenly unsure of what he really expected of James now that he knew the circumstances of it all. “All this time I thought—”

“It wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t just,” he shook his head, a fresh sense of awareness of the ridges and divots of scarring on his arm even through the fabric of his shirt. “It wasn’t that easy.”

There were more questions that Steve wanted to ask, conversations that he wanted to have, but there just wasn’t the time. If he didn’t figure out a plan soon there wasn’t ever going to be time. Walking over, he sat down on the edge of the bed beside Bucky.

“I know,” he finally admitted, although there was no way that he knew the half of it. With a sigh, he pulled his knife out and sliced through the ropes on Bucky’s wrists. Steve was expecting him to pull away, fight him on it, but he didn’t. Instead, he let out a small huff of relief at no longer having the ropes pulling at his skin.

Bucky ran his hands over the indentations left behind by the ropes. “If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else.” He let out a deep sigh. “Time always runs out.”

“It doesn’t have—”

“What, then?” he asked, the anger in his tone not really directed at Steve, but he was long past wanting any sort of false hope. “You said it yourself, you can’t—”

“I don’t know what.” While Steve could appreciate the difference in their positions, he didn’t need Bucky to sit there and reiterate back to him the circumstances that they were in. He knew full-well. “But there has to be something. I can’t,” he paused to hide the crack threatening to slice its way through his voice, “I won’t just hand you over like that.”

“Your men won’t allow otherwise.”

“They don’t have a say—”

“They do,” Bucky’s voice was firm. “They do and you know that. Besides, I told you, I won’t weasel out of this and eave the rest of my crew to hang.”

The sadness in Steve’s eyes was almost too much to bear. “James…”

“What I said, I didn’t say it just because they were sitting next to me. I meant it. If there isn’t a solution for all of us, then you will just have to find it in yourself to hand me over with them.”

“I won’t do it,” Steve said, trying to remain adamant despite the weight accumulating inside his chest. “I’ll figure something out. I’ll…I’ll get my men on-board.”

Bucky laughed quietly. Still stubborn, still unconcerned in the face of impossible odds. How Steve had changed so much and yet so little over the years was almost admirable. Bucky wished that he’d had the means to remain so steadfast. He looked at Steve and then at the small window that looked out onto the deck, the thin strip of sky and ocean just visible beyond.

“Better figure something out quick, Stevie.” There was still a tiny grin on his face despite it all as he nodded towards the window, hands no longer rubbing at his wrists. “Sun’s up now. Time’s running out.”

The gears were visibly turning in Steve’s head. “Will you wait here, at least? While I figure it out?”

He sighed as he shook his head, tracing his fingers along his wrists once more, savoring a few more seconds without the restraint and the residual pain from it. “I can’t.”

“You could,” Steve argued, a lightness to his tone that hadn’t been there before, like there was humor to it all. Ridiculousness if nothing else.

He could, but he didn’t. In no time at all Bucky found himself right back alongside his men. He was met with a peppering of questions from members of his crew, rightfully so, about what had transpired when Steve pulled him away. He answered them honestly, not that the honest answers really provided anyone with any type of certainty. There was none to be had given their current circumstances. Their fate now rested in Steve’s hands, and his ability to persuade his crew to do something that they undoubtedly had no interest in doing.

The conversation was taking place just too far away to make out the exact words that were being said, regardless of how hard Bucky tried. But even if he couldn’t make out each word, he could hear the rise and fall of the volume, the anger in men’s tones as they argued about it all. He wished that he could’ve heard what Steve was saying, never mind the rest of them. Whatever the fallout, Bucky hoped that he would get a chance to ask him about it.

“I never asked,” the same man from before spoke up, once more drawing Bucky’s attention away from everything else, “what your life was before all this. Was never my business then. But now?” He looked over at Steve and his crew. “Now it feels like our business.”

Bucky shook his head. “We were just kids. It’s been too long to assume that it all still matters.”

He chuckled. “Seems like it matters to him.”

The weary smile crept back onto his face again. “Won’t matter to the rest of them. That’s what this is all hinging on.”

“Didn’t think I’d find myself in the position of rooting for him,” he admitted with another laugh, “and yet here I am.”

Bucky let his gaze drift back over to Steve and his crew. “Yeah, here we are.”

He and the rest of his crew were already prepared for whatever was coming their way. They’d abandoned the idea of any other outcome besides the worst the moment Steve’s crew congregated to decide their fate. The longer the conversation went on, the more likely it seemed that hanging was going to be the only out.

Bucky had allowed his eyes a minute to rest, and when he opened them again to the sound of footsteps, he was surprised to see that it wasn’t Steve standing in front of him, but a member of the crew instead. The same man who had stayed up almost the entire night right alongside Steve.

“The captain wouldn’t ever say it,” Sam said as he crouched down so he was on the same level as the rest of the men, but most importantly Bucky, “but I will—you all should be grateful to him for this.”

One of the men in Bucky’s crew spoke up before he could. “Grateful for what, exactly?”

Sam leaned to try and get a better look at whoever it was that had said that. “Grateful that he’s willing to cut you all loose and save you from hanging in the center of the square once we make port.”

Bucky was fighting to feel some sense of relief but there was no way that it was going to be so simple. “At what cost?”

“Give it all up,” Sam said, toying with the knife in his hand, one that was only inches away from cutting the lot of them free if they agreed to the short and simple list of terms. “The lives you’ve had up until now, piracy and prizes. Leave it all behind, join our crew, then we can cut you loose. Forget,” he sighed, notes of bitterness underlying it all, “that all of this ever happened.”

“That simple, eh?” the man beside him spoke up and Bucky wondered when he lost the title of the man with the quickest wit of his own crew.

“Simple doesn’t mean easy,” Sam replied, and something about the look in his eyes told Bucky that that sentence was something Steve said at some point during their discussion. Sam looked around at all of them. “Leave you to discuss—”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Bucky said, determined to be the first one to speak up this time, determined not to let his men cost themselves their only shot at something resembling freedom. “We’ll do it.” He nodded. “Cut us loose and we’ll do it.”

There were instant murmurs of dissent, mutterings of Captain, and Bucky, as men tried to make their case. Bucky wasn’t having any of it.

“There is no other option,” he said firmly. “If you don’t want to hang, this is what we’re going to do.” He took a deep breath. “We’re no strangers to being part of a crew.”

Sam let another moment pass, like he was waiting for a real issue or argument to arise. He wasn’t just going to start cutting everyone loose if it was immediately going to backfire onto them. The silence that followed was undoubtedly tense, but it was also telling. For as much as they might not have thought of it as a favorable thing, it was the only option that kept them alive to see the next sunrise.

When he was convinced enough, Sam reached and sliced through the ropes that were keeping Bucky bound in place. His wrists were unbound from each other and he was unbound from the mast all within the same expert swipe of Sam’s wrist. Bucky let out a short, quiet sigh of relief. There were still plenty of questions to answer but at least they managed to make it to the next step. One at a time would have to do for now.

The two of them stood facing each other in silence for a moment. They were almost completely eye-to-eye, each sizing the other up to a degree. Bucky knew that he didn’t have much footing to stand on, that he was in a lot of ways at the mercy of Sam and the rest of the crew, but old habits die hard and he wasn’t going to set himself to be walked over, either. There was a tightness in Sam’s jaw and for a moment he thought that it would be nothing short of a miracle if it ever went away if things continued to play out the way that they were.

Another long second ticked by and then Sam reached and pulled a knife from the back of his belt. He twirled it expertly in his hand before carefully holding the handle end out to Bucky for him to take. “Guess you can have this back.”

Something about the action, about Sam’s tone, brought the signature smirk back to Bucky’s face. Maybe one day they’d learn to get along, maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, Bucky had the feeling that there was something about Sam he’d grow to like even if the feeling was never mutual.

He deftly plucked the knife out of Sam’s hand. “Thank you.”

Sam didn’t grant him the courtesy of saying you’re welcome. Instead, he nodded towards the rest of Bucky’s crew, wondering when or if he would ever stop thinking of them that way. “I’ll leave you to this, then.”

It became apparent within a few seconds that Sam might have excused himself from the action of cutting the men loose, but he certainly wasn’t going to just turn his back and walk away. As Bucky set about the task of freeing everyone from their binds, he realized that it was, most likely, going to be a very long time before any of them were capable of doing anything without someone looking over their shoulders. Understandable, of course, but that would be an adjustment all its own for his men. He briefly wondered if they would be able to accept it.

As everyone was getting the blood back into their limbs and attempting to rub away the irritation left behind by the ropes that were around their wrists and ankles, they couldn’t help but to try and chatter quietly amongst themselves. The solution given to them posed far more questions than it did answers, and everyone involved was aware of that. Bucky could learn to live with it, as could his men, if the looming questions overhead meant that they wouldn’t be thrown to the gallows. He did wonder, though, how Steve convinced his own men to be alright with so little certainty.

“Now what?” one of the men finally spoke up, not a yell, but louder than the hushed tones they’d been using. “We just…pretend?”

Bucky shook his head. “There is no pretending. This is our crew, now.”

“Bucky—”

“Or we can let them tie you back up and you can be the port authority’s problem. That sound better to you?” He took a breath, trying not to let his own frustrations and confusion boil over. “Ste—Captain Rogers,” he corrected himself for the sake of the men in front of him, “is more than fair. We will figure this out. We have to, because the only alternative would be to take our chances trying to escape once we reached port. And those chances didn’t look good since we were all bound to the mast.”

“Why do you trust him so much?”

It was a fair question, one with an answer so loaded Bucky didn’t think that he could even try chipping away at it given the current state of things. Rather than attempt to get into all of that, he simply replied, “What other choice do we have?” Turning from his men back to Sam, he said, “I take it you’re the person we should be going to?”

Sam took all the time that he could to collect himself, staring down at the wooden planks of the deck beneath his feet before finally meeting the gazes of the men in front of him. “Seems that way, yeah.”

Bucky made a point to put his knife back in its rightful spot on his belt. Then, he held his hand out. “Don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m—”

“I know,” Sam cut him off but still returned the gesture, clasping Bucky’s hand tightly with his own.

He nodded understandingly, not bothered by a little bit of harshness. It was par for the course when they carried out the lives they were thrown into. All things being equal, the way that Sam was handling things was fairly civil.

“Wilson, right?”

Sam nodded. “That’s right.”

Bucky let his hand drop back to his side, noting how when Sam pulled his hand back it immediately went to the hilt of his sword. “Tell us what you need.”

He gestured with his chin towards the opposite end of the deck. “Captain wants to talk to you, specifically. I’ll get the rest of your crew…reacquainted.”

In some ways, Bucky knew that the hardest part was over. In terms of ensuring that his crew didn’t face immediate death, the hardest part was over. The long road ahead was going to be figuring out what to do now. And that didn’t even begin to touch upon him and Steve—that was a mess to uncoil all on its own.

He set off across the deck, not having much of another option. His fingers toyed with the handle of his knife. He tried to just keep his eyes fixed forward, tried not to pay too much mind to the eyes that he felt following his every step. Of all the things that he could think about in that moment, could focus on, he tried to center all of his thoughts around Steve. He was the closest thing to a constant in all of this as he could try and get. Plenty of things had changed over the years, but apparently one thing that still rang true was the fact that Steve was determined to take Bucky in like a stray. Another thing that hadn’t changed was the fact that Bucky was content to let him do so.

He could see the way that Steve’s hands were gripping tightly to the helm, unnecessarily so given the smoothness of the water they were currently experiencing. There was so much to talk about that it seemed futile to try and pick a starting point. In an attempt to steady is mounting nerves, Bucky idly toyed with the pendant at the base of one of his necklaces.

Steve’s eyes diverted over to Bucky a couple times, although they were mostly trained on the water ahead. The lack of sleep had stopped affecting him about halfway through the discussion with his men. He had a feeling now that he wouldn’t be able to rest until the day was done and the sun went back down. And even then, it would only be because his body shut down of its own volition.

“Your men are okay with this?” Steve finally said, still looking forward.

“Are yours?” Bucky retorted, sounding a little more amused than maybe he should have.

That got Steve to cut his gaze over towards him. “No. But…”

“They trust you,” he filled in the end of the sentence for him, “even if they don’t trust us.” He watched as Steve silently nodded in agreement. “My men won’t cost you that. I’ll make sure of it.”

An ounce of the tension dropped out of Steve’s shoulders. “Thank you.”

“What did you say to them?” Bucky asked. It wasn’t the most pressing issue, but it was something that he was going to be thinking about until he got an answer for it.

Steve shook his head. “What I had to. I,” he sucked in a deep breath, “I said what I had to, to make sure that they wouldn’t let you hang.”

To say thank you just didn’t seem like enough. The amount of trust that Steve was still placing in him after all the years apart, despite how the universe brought them back together, two small words just didn’t seem like enough to offset it.

Bucky realized that his silence must have lasted a couple beats too long because Steve spoke up again. “We have to talk.”

Bucky nodded. “I know. We need to figure out—”

The exhaustion washed over Steve’s face again, rough waves in the ocean of his expression. “Not that,” Steve stopped him, knowing that Bucky was thinking far too practically in that moment to be on the same page as him. “Making port will be simple. They know my father, and me. They trust me.”

“Everyone does,” Bucky said, a dash of humor in his voice.

“Lucky for your men,” Steve said, wearier than he meant to. He saw the way that Bucky’s expression immediately sobered and he almost apologized. He stopped himself before it slipped out, not wanting to take away from the very real gravity of the situation. “I mean we need to talk about the rest of it. All of it.”

Bucky knew that Steve was right, but he didn’t know how or where to start. “One thing at a time,” he finally said.

Steve nodded slowly. “One thing at a time.”

Their travels were swift, although it didn’t quite feel like it for most of the men aboard the ship. The thick tension seemed to make time go slower even with the wind and the sea on their side. It wasn’t until land was actually in sight that any of them started to discuss what they were going to say and, more importantly, what they were not going to say.

There was no doubt that the man Steve was speaking to was casting dubious looks over at the lot of them. Everyone was doing their best to remain as calm and casual as possible, but even with that there was still a bit of a noticeable divide among the men on the ship.

Still, the man was giving Steve the benefit of the doubt. Neither him nor his father had ever given any of them reason to suspect foul play. Steve had never been as thankful as he was in that moment. “Expanded the crew since our last trip.”

The man nodded thoughtfully as he took the silver being handed to him. He didn’t say anything as he counted the money out. There was a brief moment that had Steve wondering if he should have put a few extra pieces in there like Bucky had said. Steve’s argument against it had been that if there was extra money, it would be like an automatic admission of guilt. It was sound logic, but the unreadable look on the man’s face made Steve, for a moment, buy into Bucky’s mentality of anyone can be swayed for the right price.

After a few more agonizing seconds, the man slid the coins back into the pouch that Steve had handed them over in. He tightened the string and looked at Steve, his face finally showing an emotion as he smiled. “Father thought you’d need extra reinforcements without him?”

Steve wouldn’t have been able to describe his immense relief if someone had asked, and because of that he was fighting extremely hard to not let it show on his face. He chuckled and nodded, the actions a genuine outlet for the emotions inside of him. “He’s always been cautious that way.”

The man gestured towards the ship. “They don’t seem nearly as enthused about it as you are.”

The smile on Steve’s face was as charming as it had ever been. “No one is ever as enthused about anything as I am.”

The man laughed. “That’s fair.”

And just like that, they were safe. At least for the time being. It hadn’t ever been in Steve’s plans to linger, but with the change in circumstances, now he was more determined than ever to get in and out as quickly as possible. This was the part that he was familiar with, after all. He knew the merchants, he knew the metaphorical dances that needed to be done in order to get the money he wanted for the goods that they had. It would be a quick trip. He just had to hope that it would be quick enough for all the men with him to avoid suspicion.

It was impossible not to notice some of the looks that were getting thrown their way. Steve noticed it but managed to not let it show on his face—the more confidently he could carry himself, act like it was all simply business as usual, the less likely it was that anyone else would try and cause any problems with them. He did his best not to let it rattle him too much.

Bucky hadn’t been more than an arm’s length away since they made port. A few of his men had elected to stay back with the ship, not wanting any undue risk of someone trying to cause trouble with them or someone realizing who they were. While their crew might not have been as notorious as some, they’d still managed to leave some enemies scattered along the way. Bucky didn’t have the same lingering sense of dread about it as they did, so he followed right alongside Steve.

He wondered if Steve refusing to look over at him too long was on purpose in that he didn’t want to draw any attention, or if it was because of something much deeper and messier than that. Again, Bucky didn’t share the restraint. Every few strides, if he wasn’t looking to take stock of their surroundings, his eyes were on Steve. He was studying everything about him while he had the chance—the way he spoke, the way he carried himself. Bucky was trying hard to reconcile that with the mental imagery of Steve that he’d been carrying with him all these years. The thought crossed his mind frequently, even as the years continued to tick on, and he always wondered what Steve looked like and acted like now. But now that he was right there in front of him, whatever thoughts and conjurings had been in Bucky’s head all that time immediately evaporated out of existence. It was just this Steve now, just the one walking beside him. He wondered if Steve would soon be doing the same thing in return.

“You’re going to trip,” Steve said, eyes still fixed forward as they made their way farther and farther from the docks.

His statement caused Bucky to look down at the ground for a moment and then back up at him. “I’m not—”

“If you don’t stop staring at me,” he elaborated, finally turning to give a split-second glance to the man beside him, “you’re going to trip.”

The look was brief, but it was just long enough for Bucky to see the slight up-turn of Steve’s lips as he looked away again. There was comfort in that, the fact that Steve could still look at him and smile. There were so many things ahead of them that there was no certainty about, but things like that made Bucky feel that even if he didn’t have anything else when this all shook out, he might still have Steve.

“You should let me do the talking,” Bucky said, the palpable humor in his voice letting Steve know that he wasn’t seriously requesting it.

Still, Steve shook his head. “I don’t that’s the type of haggling we’re looking to do here.”

He could hear it in Steve’s voice, the way that he was trying not to sound amused by any of it. He nettled him a little more, hand coming to rest casually on the hilt of his sword. “Would bring it all to an end a lot quicker, though.”

Steve faced him, managing not to let his steps falter. “James.”

He said it like a parent preemptively scolding a child, just enough firmness to his tone so that the situation wouldn’t escalate to the point of needing to yell in earnest. Steve’s chastising tone hadn’t changed all that much over the years—his voice was just a little deeper now.

Bucky turned and looked at him, eyebrows raised, everything about his posture communicating just how unbothered he was. “Steve.” He took his hand off his sword, letting a smile crack across his face like a sign of surrender. “Only if they give you a hard time, then.”

Steve meant to huff out a sigh but it turned into a chuckle at the tail-end of it. “Thank you.”

True to his word, Bucky kept his mouth shut. He was even kind, or rather, level-headed enough to not say anything to Steve’s other men who were giving him more questioning looks than anyone else in the myriad of shops and streets they found themselves all walking through. He understood it, of course, but it didn’t mean that he particularly enjoyed it. It hadn’t even been a day yet but Bucky already found himself wondering just how long it was going to take for those looks to fade away.

“See?” Bucky said, his voice more triumphant than it had any right to be as they started making their way back towards the ship. “I’m a man of my word.”

The sky was getting darker by the second, and Steve was thankful for it as it hid the amused look on his face. He was just about to come back with something equally light-hearted when one of his men let out a scoff behind them. Steve felt his entire body tense at the sound, knowing exactly what it was about, and having a relatively good idea of how Bucky was going to respond to it.

He tried to keep his voice low and even. He reached and placed his hand on Bucky’s arm. “James, don’t—”

Bucky knew he should heed the warning but he was already turning around to face the man standing behind them. Bucky had heard someone else from the crew say his name but it hadn’t stuck. He supposed that didn’t really matter given the circumstances. “Something you’d like to say?” Bucky offered, the apparent nonchalance in his voice only fooling any passerby’s.

The man gave a tight shake of his head as he stepped in closer to Bucky, keeping his voice low which was an odd act of kindness given the circumstances. “The things I’d like to say would get you strung up in the square.”

Bucky’s jaw twitched, the indignant and hurt part of him wanted to lash out, make the situation worse. It was a skillset he’d spent a lifetime honing. “If that’s what you want, go ahead and say whatever it is that you’re thinking. See how it—”

Steve wedged himself between the two of them, trying to keep a close eye not just on the two of them, but on the people who were weaving their ways around them as well. “That’s enough.” He subtly pushed each of them farther apart. “We can resolve this back on the ship.”

There were a few seconds of tension, but they ended up passing without incident as the man turned and continued on his way to the ship, brushing by Bucky and Steve angrily. The other men followed swiftly behind him, leaving the two of them standing there, still practically chest to chest from when Steve had pushed the men apart using his own body.

“There will be nothing to resolve by the time we get back to the ship,” Steve tried to reassure. “The walk back will calm—”

“Until one of them gets angry again,” Bucky countered.

“And I’ll deal with it then,” Steve told him, voice steady.

His tone left no room for argument, and Bucky was impressed by that. Maybe he’d get around to voicing that later. For now, he managed to create an argument that Steve was desperately trying to extinguish before it even got started. “If you end up regretting this, you—”

“Don’t do that,” Steve cut him off, shaking his head as he took a small step back to create a little bit of space between them.

It wasn’t until Steve removed himself that Bucky realized how close he’d still been. “What?”

“You know what.”

And he did. Many things were different now but in spite of all that, there were certain looks and certain tones that meant the same thing now as they had years ago. Bucky nodded. “Okay.”

That seemed to be the end of it as the two of them also continued their trip back to the ship. There was clamor and scattered conversations happening around them, the occasional tune being sung off-key by someone in the pub. They let that take place of the conversation, a palette cleanser after everything that had just transpired.

“We’ll head back first thing in the morning,” Steve said when the ship was in sight.

Bucky nodded, knowing that even if he had an opinion on any of it, it wouldn’t have changed anything. “Alright.” He paused, allowing himself a chuckle. “Long as your crew doesn’t slit my throat while I’m sleeping.”

Steve knew that he shouldn’t laugh at that but he couldn’t quite stop himself. “They won’t.”

Bucky almost made a joke about the men tossing him overboard instead, but he thought better of it. Too soon. Decades later but still too soon. Instead he let the conversation fade once more as the two of them walked back up and onto the ship. The conversations taking place on the ship soon filled the space between them. They both looked around, impressed to see that a few of the men from each crew had started trying to mingle. It wasn’t everyone, and there was still tension in the air, but it was a start.

Sam popped up practically as soon as the two of them were fully on the deck. He looked eager, not quite as exhausted as he had looked at the start of the day. “How’d it go?”

Steve nodded approvingly. “Everything’s fine. We’ll be set to leave at sunrise.”

Confusion crossed Sam’s face for a moment. “Sunrise? I thought—”

“I’m in no condition to man the helm, Wilson,” Steve spoke firmly but still kindly. “It’s been a long eventful time since I last slept well, so I would rather do that and take off in the morning. If that’s alright.”

Sam nodded as Steve spoke. He wasn’t looking to disagree, he just hadn’t thought of it that way. He told Steve as much before saying, “There’s food in your quarters,” his eyes darted over to Bucky for a fraction of a second, “when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.”

When Sam had strode far enough away to be out of earshot, Bucky spoke up. “Good kid.”

Even though he hadn’t said it like a question, Steve still responded as though he had. “Yeah, he is.” He looked over at Bucky. “That one’s gonna take awhile.”

The exhaustion was starting to wash over him now that the most fast-paced of it was over, but he still manufactured a genuine chuckle. “I figured.”

Steve saw the tiredness on his face and for some reason it made him feel a little heavier as well. He rested his hand on Bucky’s shoulder for a moment. “Go. Rest. We can talk tomorrow.”

Bucky didn’t necessarily want to pull himself away, but he knew that he had to. With nothing more than a nod, he slipped away and went off to get back with the rest of his crew. Steve watched him for a few moments, unable to look away until Bucky was sitting and apparently comfortable with some of his men. Only then did he finally turn to head towards his own quarters.

Steve didn’t remember falling asleep. He remembered going back to his quarters, he remembered scarfing down the food that Sam had left there for him. He even vaguely remembered removing his boots as he sat on the edge of his bed. He did not, however, remember succumbing to his exhaustion in such a way that he was sprawled completely out across his bed, one arm dangling off the edge of it, body contorted in ways that certainly wouldn’t be comfortable to anyone who was at all conscious.

Pulling himself into a somewhat normal and upright position, like a marionette being pulled up by its strings, Steve swung his legs so that they were off the edge of the bed, feet planted firmly on the floor. He propped his elbows on his knees so that he could drop his head into his hands for a moment, rubbing the sleep from the corners of his eyes. He could see that it was pitch black out, that he hadn’t slept clean through until morning. But he felt leagues better than he had before he fell asleep so he would take the win regardless.

After sitting still for a few moments, he put his boots back on and made his way for the door, leading himself back out to the deck. Looking seaward, it was dark save for the stars and what little light carried far enough from the docks and town behind. Steve chose to keep his eyes trained that way, enjoying the peace of it all. The chaos of the shore had quieted, almost nonexistent now and nearly impossible to hear over the waves lapping against the docks and the ships.

The wood of the deck creaked beneath his feet as he walked. His eyes adjusted quickly to the lack of light with each step that he took, and it was only when that happened that he saw that he wasn’t alone out on the deck. A silhouette that was old and new to him at the same time lingered at the far side, leaning against the rail, staring out at the seemingly endless sea. Steve felt the nerves creeping up his spine and tried to ignore them as he continued to walk over.

He leaned against the railing beside Bucky, not looking at him as he asked, “Couldn’t sleep?”

Bucky shook his head. “Not for very long.”

That was all either of them said. Bucky looked out at the ocean waves for a little while longer before he let his gaze drop to the wooden railing that they were each leaning on. His stomach tightened, old memories rearing their ugly heads—a past life that he didn’t feel he had any right to anymore.

Steve watched the way that Bucky’s hands moved tentatively along the wood. He had a fairly good idea of what Bucky was thinking about, because he was thinking about the same exact thing. There was so much that Steve had planned to say, spent years thinking it all through, but now that they were standing there next to each other the words died before they even made it up the column of his throat. None of them would change what happened.

With each movement of Bucky’s hand and arm, the sleeve of his shirt pulled up higher and higher. Bucky didn’t seem to notice, or if he noticed he didn’t seem to care, but Steve couldn’t help but to look at the scarring that ran up his left arm.

“What happened?” the question tumbled from his lips before he could stop it.

Bucky looked at him, confused at the vagueness of his question until he saw where Steve was looking. He gave a small shake of his head. “That night…” he trailed off, not needing to spell it all out.

The sad expression that took over Steve’s face in that moment was enough to break just about anyone’s heart. He knew that he should have something elegant or meaningful to say, but all that came out was a quiet, sad, “Oh.” If he was simply being nosey, he would’ve followed it up with more specific questions, but once he heard that it was all the answer he felt he needed.

Bucky stared down at his arm. The scars were so much a part of him now that he hardly noticed them anymore. Some days his arm still ached, pains that he was almost certain were all in his head but he couldn’t prove it. So many horrid things packed into one night so long ago.

“The waves weren’t the only thing that I had to worry about,” he finally said.

Steve’s heart was getting heavier by the second. “I’m sorr—”

“Don’t,” Bucky cut him off. He pried his eyes up off his arm and looked at Steve. “What could you have done? Either of us?”

Bucky could see it on Steve’s face that he was fighting the urge to argue. He never argued just for the sake of it, something that Bucky found himself doing more than once or twice over the years, but Steve still sometimes couldn’t help but land himself in a debate. He always meant well by it. Any argument with him usually, as much as Bucky could remember, ensued because Steve just couldn’t stop himself from sticking up for someone, for something. A good trait to have most times, but not all. Bucky marveled at that about him now just as much as he had back then, maybe even a little more-so. It was easier to appreciate things with more years and experience.

Steve sighed, shoulders deflating as he nodded. “I know.”

Something about those two small words made it seem like a world of tension had been taken off their shoulders. Both of them had spent so long carrying around so much hurt, so much guilt. They’d been living with countless question marks hovering just above their heads. The burden of things far beyond one’s own control was a heavy one to carry, and they’d been doing it for years. But the admission that there was nothing they could have done then? Or in the interim since? There was comfort in that. It didn’t absolve them of all the grief, but it was a start. And that was more than they ever thought they were going to get.

Bucky’s eyes stayed fixed on the water in front of them then. He watched the waves as they gently came lapping at the sides of their ship and the others that had anchored around them. It was so calm, so unlike the night they were both thinking about in that moment.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky could see Steve shifting nervously. There was something more that he wanted to say. Bucky briefly wondered if there had ever been a time when Steve didn’t have something more to say. He didn’t try to rush it out of him, though. He’d get to it when he was ready.

All of the shifting and fussing with his hands landed Steve closer to Bucky than he already had been. They were shoulder to shoulder now. The outside of Steve’s arm was pressed flush against Bucky’s, from his bicep all the way down to their wrists. Bucky waited for Steve to realize it, to pull away and put the distance between them again, but it never happened.

“I don’t care what happens now,” Steve finally said.

Bucky’s face scrunched in confusion for a moment. “What?”

Steve wanted to look him in the eyes but for the moment he couldn’t manage it. He settled for staring intently at Bucky’s hand instead as it rested dangerously close to his own. “I know it matters, but I just,” he shook his head, “I don’t care what happens next.”

Bucky didn’t know what to make of the relief in Steve’s voice. “Steve…”

He did his best to fill in the gaps between what he was saying and what he actually meant. “We’ll figure it out. Whatever happens next isn’t going to matter,” Steve felt his courage surging with each word he spoke, finding it in himself to finally take Bucky’s hand in his as he continued, “because we’re going to handle it. No matter what.”

He matched Steve’s grip, each of them holding the hand of the other like they were the only thing keeping them from slipping away again. In a way they were. He felt the warmth, the softness of the skin of Steve’s forearm against his own scars and for the first time in a long time he didn’t feel the want to pull away from the touch. It was Steve, after all.

Bucky’s eyes were glued to their entwined hands, watching the way Steve’s thumb traced back and forth over his. The only thing that got him to look up was the sound of Steve’s voice as he spoke up again.

“Remember what we always used to say?”

The ends of his lips began to curl upwards, warmth in the small gesture. He remembered. Of course, he remembered. “Yeah.”

Steve’s sigh of relief was quiet, but not quite silent as he allowed himself to lean a little more against Bucky’s side. There was something familiar about the gesture. Suddenly they were teenagers staying up past curfew again—staying out a little too late, drinking a little too much, sitting a little too close. But it didn’t feel like a secret anymore.

“I still mean it,” Steve said with a small nod.

Bucky gave his hand a light squeeze. “Yeah.” His breathing hitched for a moment as Steve’s head dropped onto his shoulder. “Me too.” He let a beat of silence pass, allowed himself to soak up the closeness. “It’s not gonna be easy.”

Steve chuckled softly, not lifting his head from Bucky’s shoulder. “It never was.”

“No?” Bucky joked.

Steve laughed a little harder at that, still quiet as his shoulders shook with the laughter, the recognition that he had the opportunity for this when he thought he never would again. “No.”

“Least that didn’t change.”

Steve felt the slight pressure of Bucky leaning his head down against his own, felt the way his heartrate spiked at the realization of it. New and familiar all at once. Steve tried to breathe into it, allow himself to enjoy it. A tether in the midst of so much upcoming uncertainty.

He ran his thumb across Bucky’s knuckles. “A lot of things didn’t change.”

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 251

so like remember when i said i was gonna be mentally ill about utena

[late-to-the-party-81]

The best laid plans

AN: It’s so fluffy!!!! This is my first fill for this year’s ‘Into an alternate Juni-verse” and when I got Surgeon AU on my card I knew I had to revisit this pairing from last year's event…You don’t need to read it to understand this fic, but it will give you more context.

A big thanks to @metalbvcky for spitballing and cheerleading

Beta’d by the wonderful @drabbles-mc

Likes are loved, reblogs are golden

Mood board by me and dividers by @firefly-graphics

Bingo Fills - 

@stuckybingo G3: Migraines

@steverogersbingo D2: Monica Rambeau

Build a Bucky Bingo by @buckybarnesevents: Feb: Forehead kisses

Into an Alternate Juni-verse by @buckybarnesevents : AU: Surgeon

@caplanbuckybarnes Weekly Writing Challenge Week 1; “Holding you like this is where I’m happiest.”

Master list | Alternate Juni-verse Master list | Stucky Bingo Master List | SRB Master list | BaBB Master List

Summary: With Steve’s hectic work schedule, their relationship was never going to be plain-sailing, but they have an uninterrupted 48 hours coming up. Surely nothing will go wrong?

Relationship: Small Doctor Steve Rogers x Bookstore Owner Bucky Barnes

Word count: 3.8k

CW: Modern AU, Fluff, Insinuation of spicy time, Bucky and Nat friendship, Teasing, descriptions of migraine, caring Bucky, Hurt/Comfort, suggestive and happy ending, implied bottom Bucky.

Steve was well aware of how his life was currently a study in contrasts. On the one hand there was the hustle and bustle and bright lights of the hospital and on the other, the cosy warmth of the bookshop where Bucky worked and Steve spent a lot of his off hours. There was the inherent stress involved in working in the ER, with the requirement he always be ‘switched on’, but then there was the gentle pace that life with Bucky forced him into.

Bucky.

He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed since those two chance encounters nine months ago, one in a bar and the other right here in the ER.

Steve hadn’t been looking for anything, heart still raw from a break-up that had seen him upsticks and relocate from Los Angeles to New York, but something about Bucky had gotten under his guard. After their unexpected reunion in the hospital following a very memorable one-night stand, Steve had known there was no way he could go on without the young bookstore owner in his life.

They were taking it one step at a time though. Steve’s job was obviously full-on, especially so as he’d decided to continue working towards becoming a surgeon, something he’d done most of the work for out in California. Between his ER shifts, and the work for his qualification, both practical and theoretical, they sometimes went days without seeing each other and Steve didn’t want to force Bucky into something he wasn’t able to cope with - there was a reason why a large number of people in the medical field struggled to maintain relationships.

Therefore he maintained his apartment, and Bucky still had his own over his shop. Admittedly that warm, lived-in space, as small and covered in white cat fur as it was, felt more like home to Steve than his larger, pristine loft that still looked like something out of a brochure. Also, Bucky’s place was a lot closer to the hospital than his. It made sense, really, to spend most of his time there. He kept thinking about ‘taking the next step’, but something was stopping him.

Steve let out a sigh. He hadn’t seen Bucky in a full 48 hours now, and there was still another six to go until he could leave.

Today was an observation day, where Steve would be watching his mentor while she performed a heart by-pass and she would ask him questions as she did so. He was excited for it, but even that couldn’t dull the ache within him which he knew would only be soothed by a Bucky-hug ™.

He watched Doctor Rambeau - Monica - scrub up, dexterously turning off the tap with her elbow, and then waited for her to move out of the space so he could do the same. He might not be performing the operation, but he still had to follow all the protocols. He knew what an honour this was, having her as his mentor. She was one of the best in her field, and under her tutelage he knew he would be able to make a difference to so many people. With his own history of health issues, he knew what it was like to have his life saved and was ready to pay it forwards. 

“You ready, Doctor Rogers?” He turned to see one perfectly shaped eyebrow rise at him from behind an eye-shield.

“Absolutely. Lead on, Doctor Rambeau.” He knew his smile was hidden behind his mask, but hopefully she would hear it in his voice and see it in the crinkles around his eyes. He suspected not much got past her. The junior doctors were always making remarks about how Doctor Rambeau could see things that other mere mortals couldn’t.

“Soooo,” Nat drawled out and Bucky got ready for another round of being teased. “You’re seeing him tonight?”

“Yes,” replied Bucky. “He’s coming over after his observation shift and then he’s off for the next two days. Don’t expect to see much of me outside of work hours.” He waggled his eyebrows at his best friend and grinned as she rolled her eyes in return.

“Don’t I know it. If it wasn’t for his shifts I doubt I’d see you at all.” Despite her words, Bucky could hear the joking affection in her voice. However, what was the point in being best friends if you didn’t wind each other up at every available opportunity?

“You’re one to talk? How are you and Doctor Wilson going? I know he knows his way around….” Bucky’s dig at Sam’s field of specialisation was cut off by Nat placing her finger over his lips.

“Shush, you. We’re going just fine. Keeping it casual. He’s busy. I’m busy. Who wants to put labels on things?”

Bucky’s lips twitched. “Whatever you say, Natty-Nat-Nat. I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and then grabbed another armful of books to reshelve. “So apart from fucking, what have you got planned?”

Bucky shrugged. “Not a lot. Depends on how wiped out he is. Dinner tonight - I’m making lasagne - and a film. Probably far too much wine. Tomorrow? Maybe the Brooklyn Museum, and lunch. I know he wants me to test him on some theory, so I need to limber up my tongue so I can say complicated words I don’t understand.”

“Please don’t tell me how you’re going to limber it up,” Nat said with a snort, and Bucky squashed down the urge to throw a book at her. He knew from his own painful experience what it felt like to have a hardback, or several, bounce off his face. The only upside of that situation had been that he’d seen Steve again and gotten his number, even if it had been mortifying at the time.

“Things are still going well, then?” Nat questioned more softly.

“Absolutely.” Bucky let out a sigh as he thought about his diminutive blond boyfriend. Even before their eyes had met across the bar he’d been intrigued. There had been something in Steve’s movements, the way his fingers had held - near caressed - his beer bottle, that had filled Bucky with want.

That feeling hadn’t waned over the past months, and while he inevitably got frustrated when Steve’s shifts kept them apart, he also had an inkling that the periods of separation were also what had kept them in the ‘honeymoon’ phase so long. It heightened the anticipation, and when they did get to spend time together? Well it was a good thing that Bucky had no neighbours and Steve’s apartment had thick walls.

Bucky had always had voracious… appetites… but had been more than pleasantly surprised when Steve proved that he could, most of the time at least, keep up with him. He also hadn’t thought that such an outwardly respectable doctor could be so kinky, but….

“Earth to Barnes!” Nat snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Stop thinking about Steve’s dick on work time.” 

He pouted at her. “Spoilsport. And anyway, it wasn’t his dick I was thinking about, it was his fing–”

Nat threw her hands up over her ears. “LA-LA-LA,” she shouted before walking back towards the front desk and the customers who had just walked through the door. Bucky giggled and continued to restack books while indulging in his daydreams.

Steve slowly pushed the surgical gown down his arms with a sigh and winced at the bright lights in the scrub room. He hadn’t even been doing any of the heavy lifting during that op, but he still felt absolutely wrung out. However, it had been the most wonderful experience, getting to see Monica performing the by-pass so assuredly and asking her questions as she did so. He was also proud of the fact that he’d been able to answer her questions too, although those had been more inquisitorial than plain curious like his. But it was the end of his shift now - more or less on time too, for a change - and he couldn’t wait to get to Bucky’s apartment and relax in the arms of his boyfriend for two whole days.

He washed up and said good-bye to Monica and the rest of the surgical team and headed towards the staff room and the locker containing his street clothes, keys, and wallet - he hadn’t spent this much time in scrubs since medical school. As he made his way along the white walled corridors, the sounds of a hospital at work swirled around him - the beeping of machines, pained cries of the young and old, the urgent, hushed conversations of other medical professionals, the weeping of family members and loved ones. He liked to think that he was partially immune to these noises - they were the soundtrack to his daily life after all, but for some reason, they felt rawer than usual, scraping across his bones like nails down a chalkboard, and Steve couldn’t hold back an involuntary shudder. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling appeared to be taunting him too, their beams piercing his eyeballs and the almost inaudible humming making his teeth itch.

“Bucky,” he muttered to himself. “I just need to get home to Bucky, then I’ll feel better.”

When Steve finally made his way outside the sky was dark, but the streets were lit up with street lamps and car headlights. Each shaft of light felt like a needle sliding into his brain via his temples and he took a deep breath in through his nose to stave off a wave of dizziness. 

There was a light drizzle in the air, making it blessedly cool, and despite the damp Steve decided to walk to Bucky’s apartment instead of schlepping it on the much dryer, but ultimately more cramped and warm, subway. It took him longer than anticipated though, his shoes feeling like lead weights upon his feet, getting heavier and heavier with every step.

Finally, he reached the bookstore, the interior shrouded in darkness, but with lights shining from the windows above. Steve walked, half staggered, down the alley at the side and let himself in through the door that would lead him up the stairs and to Bucky. He was glad that Bucky had given him a key a few months back, otherwise he would have had to wait in the rain while Bucky came downstairs to let him in. That had happened enough times at the beginning that Steve was now very much over that part of their relationship. Having keys felt good. What didn’t feel good though were his sodden socks, or his throbbing eyeballs.

He trudged up the stairs, each step harder than the last, until he reached the top and all but fell through the interior door. Bucky must have heard him because Steve’s name was called out joyfully, a sound that normally made his heart leap in his chest, but in this moment, all he could do was let out a pained whimper as Bucky’s voice cut through his brain like a chainsaw.

He heard Bucky’s footsteps get closer and he squinted against the brightness of the room.

“Hey, Stevie!”

Bucky pulled him into a rough hug, squishing Steve’s face against the ubiquitous black t-shirt he always seemed to wear on days he was working. The smell of Bucky’s cologne, normally one of his favourite scents, assailed his nose, combining with the smell of garlic that permeated the apartment and Steve felt his stomach roll.

“Buck… please,” he slurred as he uncharacteristically pushed himself away from his boyfriend’s embrace. Everything around him just felt like too much and he felt himself tip backwards against the wall.

“Oh, Steve. You don’t look too hot.” Bucky’s voice was full of concern, and Steve was sure that if he could manage to focus properly, he’d be able to see Bucky’s dark brows pulled together in a frown. 

“Jeez, thanks,” he managed to push out with a small upturn to his lips. “Just what I wanted to hear after not seeing you for two days.” He closed his eyes, intending to do so for just a moment, and felt the ringing pain in his head lessen minutely.

Bucky’s body brushed against him as his holdall was taken from him by gentle hands and his coat was slipped from his shoulders.

“Is it a migraine?” Bucky had modulated his voice to a whisper and Steve decided that he hadn’t ever been so glad for anything in his life.

Eyes still closed, he nodded and let out a noise of confirmation from his lips. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Okay. Let’s get you to bed then. I’m prescribing Advil, earplugs, an eye-mask and an early night.”

Steve snorted and instantly regretted it. “I thought I was the doctor here?” he quipped, his voice low and gravelly.

“You are,” Bucky replied, his lips brushing Steve’s temple. “But I’m the boyfriend, so what I say, goes.”

“Is that so?” Steve queried, a note of amusement in his voice.

“Very much so,” Bucky confirmed. “Now you keep your eyes closed if you want, I’ll guide you.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but still kept his lids closed. He had a feeling it was the only reason he wasn’t throwing up right now.

“Such a mother hen,” he chastised without any real bite and allowed Bucky to steer him, arms looped together, through the small apartment. A soft bump against his ankle let him know that Alpine was now part of the proceedings.

“It’s why you love me. Right, you just sit down here…” Steve felt his shoulders clasped by Bucky’s hands and he sat down, completely trusting that he wouldn’t fall on his ass. “Can you manage to get undressed while I go find the pills?”

Steve cracked one eye open. “Sure. I love you, you know that?” Bucky shot him a soft smile, pressed another kiss to his forehead and then went through to the small bathroom, rattling around inside the cupboards.

Steve kicked off his shoes, glad he had on loafers that came off easily, and struggled out of his shirt. It felt like an octopus trying to envelope and suffocate him. He flopped down onto the mattress and squeezed his eyes shut again, feeling the bile begin to rise in his throat. Not only did this suck, big time, but he also felt so guilty, a feeling he vocalised when he felt the bed dip on Bucky’s return.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I know that this wasn’t what we had planned. What were you making for dinner?” He felt Bucky’s hands on the waistband of his slacks, deftly pulling them from his body in the most un-lust-filled, and therefore strangest, way possible.

“Lasagne, but it will keep until tomorrow. And you don’t need to apologise. These things happen and you have been working really hard. I’m actually surprised you didn’t have one of these sooner.”

Steve shuffled under the coverlet, letting out a sigh at the coolness of the sheets against his skin. Bucky pressed two tablets into his hand, and he propped himself upon his other elbow so he could pop them in his mouth, swallowing them down with a drink from the glass of water Bucky proffered him.

“I’ll make it up to you, Buck. I promise.”

“I know you will, you lug. But for now here’s the eye mask.” Soft satin was placed over his head, settling over his eyes and helping to black out the last of the light making it through his eyelids. “And here are the ear plugs.” Bucky dropped them into Steve’s palm and curled his fingers shut over them. “Now don’t worry about me,” he placated. “I have a whole garlic bread and a salad to make my way through, plus a date at Stars Hollow with Lorelai. I’ll be fine. We’ll pick this up tomorrow if you’re feeling better, and if you’re not I’ll just pump you full of drugs until you are.”

Steve smiled into the darkness. “You know that’s not how that works?”

Bucky placed his finger over Steve’s lips. “Ssh, sexy Doctor Boyfriend has spoken. Sleep now.” He moved his finger and replaced it with his lips, kissing Steve softly.

“Sir, yes Sir,” Steve replied, bringing his hand up in salute.

“Punk. Sleep well. I’ll come cuddle you later.”

“I will, jerk. And thank you.”

He heard Bucky mumble under his breath and then pad across the room before he pushed the earplugs into his ears, cocooning himself in silence to go along with the darkness, and snuggled down into the sheets to pass out.

Bucky closed the bedroom door with a soft ‘click’ and padded back through to the living room, trying to quell the disappointment. It wasn’t Steve’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Migraines happened, and he hadn’t been lying when he’d said it was a surprise that Steve hadn’t had one already - he really had been pushing himself to the limit. But, Bucky supposed, that was one of the things that made him love Steve. His tenaciousness, bordering on stubbornness, was endearing, and was probably one of the main reasons they were still together. He wasn’t going to lie - those early days had been tough, but Steve had found every spare moment he could and made it available to Bucky, whether that was hanging out at the bookshop during the day in the middle of a split shift, or rolling into the apartment just to curl up beside him in bed for the eight hours between the end of a late shift and the start of an early one. There were the surprise DoorDash deliveries when a shift had run over and dinner plans had had to be cancelled and Steve knew Bucky wouldn’t have anything in. There were the long nights of loving and the frantic, heated quickies and everything in between. And he couldn’t be prouder of what Steve was achieving right now. Once he’d passed his surgeon’s qualification things should get better for them - less double shifts, although probably more that would run over. Swings and roundabouts he supposed.

Crossing to the small kitchenette, Bucky pulled out the lasagne, watching the cheese and white sauce bubble on the top as he placed it on a trivet to cool. He was glad he’d cooked something that wouldn’t spoil from not being eaten right now. He then picked up the bowl of salad, and the garlic bread that had been keeping warm in the toaster oven, and meandered over to the couch. As he ate and watched the residents of Star Hollow navigate complex family relationships, Bucky realised that even though he was in this room and Steve was asleep in the bedroom, he didn’t feel alone. He could feel Steve’s presence in his home and it just felt so right.

A couple of hours later he snuck quietly into the bedroom, the only sound the soft snores emanating from Steve’s mouth. He brushed his teeth in the bathroom, careful to only turn the light on after he’d entered and turn it off before he exited, and then tip-toed over to the bed with only the light from the street outside to illuminate his way.  He slipped in behind Steve and gently tugged him into a hug. Steve mumbled in his sleep, but didn’t wake.

Bucky reached up to lightly stroke over the top of Steve’s head and pressed a kiss to his bony shoulder blade.

“I love you, Stevie,” he whispered. “Holding you like this is where I’m happiest.”

Maybe tomorrow would be the day he took a leap of faith and asked Steve to move in with him?

When Steve woke he felt entirely disorientated. It took him a moment to remember what had happened the night before, and when he pulled out the earplugs and lifted the eye-mask he was happy to note that the stabbing pain in his head had reduced to a dull throb. He blinked a few times to get the sleep from his eyes and then focused on the clock next to the bed. 

12:37pm

He’d been asleep for almost eighteen hours!

The bed beside him was cold, indicating that even his slug-abed boyfriend had gotten bored with sleeping at some point and decided to get up. He had vague recollections of being pulled against Bucky’s front in the night, but that was it. He frowned to himself - he’d gone far too long without consciously touching him, something that he needed to rectify immediately.

He pushed himself upright, and took a long drink from the water glass next to the clock. He still remembered the first time he’d woken up in this bed, in the middle of the night and getting ready to make a hasty exit after an alcohol fueled hook-up. Now he didn’t think there was anywhere he’d rather be than right here. 

From the end of the bed, Alpine lifted her head and narrowly opened her eyes, obviously not happy to be disturbed from her slumber. Steve reached out and scratched her under her chin in apology.

When he stood, it was on slightly wobbly legs, and he took a moment to grab a pair of sweats from Bucky’s drawer, taking care to pull the drawstring tight and roll the waistband over. Steve then walked quietly through to the living room, stopping to lean on the back of the sofa as he watched an oblivious Bucky, also only in sweats, singing along to the radio, a spatula in hand acting like a microphone, as he made a grilled cheese sandwich. It was the cutest thing Steve thought he’d ever seen and it just made him want Bucky more.

Steve padded closer, and when he reached out to touch Bucky’s shoulder, Bucky jumped with a shriek.

“Jeez, Steve. You scared me.”

Steve grinned at him and looped his arms around Bucky’s waist, drawing him closer and nuzzling at his neck.

“I’m sorry, baby. Maybe I can make it up to you?”

Bucky let out an amused chuckle. “So you owe me twice, that’s what I’m hearing. You feeling better then?”

Steve fastened his mouth to Bucky’s throat and gave it a suck, creating a dark pink patch on Bucky’s already flushed skin. “Absolutely. Although I can think of something else that will make me feel even better.”

“I bet you can,” replied Bucky with another giggle. “Do I have enough time to eat my grilled cheese, or…” he trailed off as Steve pushed his hand under Bucky’s waistband. “Oh! L-let me just turn this off…” Steve smiled into Bucky’s skin as he leant across to turn the stove dial and move his pan onto a cold ring. “Okay - you were saying?”

God, how Steve loved this man. The hand he had down Bucky’s sweats and shorts moved - encompassed -  and Steve watched as Bucky’s eyelids fluttered, his dark lashes fanning his cheeks, and how his mouth dropped open into an “O” shape. First he was going to do what he hadn’t been able to last night and then he was definitely going to ask Bucky if they could move in together.

Tag list: @christywrites, @alexakeyloveloki, @doasyoudesireandlive, @galactusdevourerofworlds, @crayongirl-linz, @km-ffluv, @wheezy-stucky, @kmc1989

[amimuu]

I know that Narilamb will be end game in your au (I hope🥲). But I was wondering: will there be someone who can get into the middle of their relationship? As much as romantically or just someone who really doesn't want them to be together. (I know this question is a little strange- but I was seeing some types of relationship dynamics and I found this interesting). I hope you are doing ok!! :D

OHOH

first, thanks, im doing fine!!!

And second--Boy imma just put it like this--AT LEAST 60% OF THE CAST DOES NOT APPROVE OF NARILAMB--

the disciples (both Lamb's and Nari's)? Nope. Ratau? Nuh-uh. Most of Lamb's close circle? Never. The bishops? even LESS. Yeah, they eventually sigh and go "whatever, they're happy" but does that take a while.

However....actively like, getting on the way...NNNNnnnot really, unless you count the Lamb's absolute rejection towards receiving affection. And dead characters that haunt the narrative uhm.

[triglycercule]

alright i finished this so i need to celebrate my accomplishment (???) by sharing it to the world

BETTER versions of my trio designs. because boo boo the other old ones were BORING and TOO SIMPLE and lowhighkey UGLY. i had no idea what i was thinking when i made this but i guess design notes before to see if i can figure out what the fuck these mean 💀

killer🔪:3

he got a GLOW UP!!! when i was figuring him out i was thinking like. this man needs to look combat ready he CANNOT look chill and relaxed he MUST look good to fight. killer can't catch a break 💀 anyways. it's ALSO not revealing (⁎˃ᴗ˂⁎) because i feel he would NOT wear that stuff cmon flirty =/= revealing. his charms are found through his words and actions (stabbing someone through the heart) (speaking of the heart i couldn't be bothered to draw his soul mb)

the gloves/shirt/leggings under his clothes may LOOK seperate. but its actually all one big piece!!! because i thought it would be silly and funny :3 but like on a serious note i like this because it provides an extra layer of protection (both in a fight and not) and like. a sense of anonymity i guess??? like you can't see killer's natural body you cant SEE who he was before because hes changed that much (or i guess HE cant see who he was b4 wtvr)

actually a lot of killer's outfit has meaning behind it. knee pads = unnatural body imitation killer is a whole new being now not monster (also adding 2 the combat look :3) belts = restraint killer needs to stay in line and do as he's ordered (i needed some visual interest 💀) zippers on shoes?? actually no meaning i just thought it would be cute. somehow i managed to find meanings 4 all of the trio's zippers. killer's is jammed in that spot. show like idk he is irreversibly changed to what he is now (a lot of this makes no sense)

horror 🪓 :3

if you remove all the rips in the clothes he'd be the most basic out of all of them. but theyre there so he's NOT the most basic! 4 horror i was thinking like "you can see he's fucked up but you can also see he's desperately trying to keep it together" type feel. i totally didnt steal those under socket lines (thank you mania and paranoia for donating to your og versions :3) to make horror look more 🌀🌀🌀 (cannot describe it)

the cloak was stolen from undyne trust. he wears it as a power move FUCK YOU!!! to her :3 also it looks royal and regal which could kinda show like horror's power and sway over snowdin. he's DEFINITELY not a king but he is a provider and a lot of what he says goes around those parts. a lot of ppl look to him as like world's shittiest leader(ish). also i just wanted him to have something unique!

underneath horror's jacket his shirt is reaaaally torn he should probably replace it. there are some holes from when he was pinned down with spears during the core incident and then the whole lower half is just totally torn off from that one comic 💀 but thats why the jacket is zipped up! however the zipper broke and now the jacket can't unzip! (because horror struggles with the fact that horrortale ISNT gonna be perpetually shitty (everyone say thanks aliza) and would rather nobody see him vulnerable)

dust🧣:3

i didn't change much about him lowkey he's pretty much wearing the same CLOTHES. just that the style and way he's wearing them changed. wanted him to give like,,,,, comfy (because bro did not change out of his sansish clothes) but also like FOCUSED o(≧口≦)o like horror he has the under socket line but thats just to make him look more stressed and tired

i moved around the scarf to NOT be around his neck bc it was sooo annoying drawing the hood and then having to account for the scarf. it kind gave him a baby face vibe which i did NOT like. also i think dust would wear the scarf however. very versatile as long as the scarf remains intact. so it COULD go around waist COULD be around neck COULD be around limbs

i didn't mean to do this but the black thingy around his shoulders (was originally there just to fill in the empty space without the scarf there 💀) could be seen as like mourning wear. again with the silly zipper symbolism but dust's zipper is fine its not broken like horror or killer's are because he chose to go down this path. dust CHOSE to zip it up and now its too late to go back now (so bro MUST power through ‼️‼️ he cant unzip the zipper now!!!!)

overall i like these. usually i like coming up with cool unique character designs its so fun but my trio was hard (im hard). probably bc i didnt wanna make then wear anything too weird Dx BUT NOW AT LEAST THEY ALL LOOK LESS BABY!!!! i think i depicted how i see them though like ughhh cannot explain but now they look like how i want them to sound

[antianakin]

A question, if I may? Do you think Anakin, as he was when he first joined the Jedi Order in TPM, was doomed to fail as a Jedi, so to speak? In-universe, not out-of-universe meta. At that point, do you think it could have gone either way for him, in that he was still capable of becoming a Jedi? And may I be cheeky and ask for full details of why you think that, one way or another?

I've written a post about this before because my answer to this kind-of encapsulates my primary interpretation of Anakin as a character.

In case people don't want to click the link, I'll rehash it a little below.

I think Anakin never would've been a good Jedi because by the time you reach him in TPM, he's already the kind of person whose values and desires don't match up with the Jedi lifestyle. This doesn't make him a bad PERSON, at all, and he's entirely capable of getting a lot of good out of the Jedi's teachings. I think that Anakin was capable of really being able to HEAL through Jedi training, but that if he had been able to really learn from them the way he should've, he would've left the Order voluntarily eventually out of recognition that this life ISN'T WHAT HE REALLY WANTS. Anakin doesn't WANT to be as limited as the Jedi are forced to be by making themselves answer to the Senate and the Chancellor. Anakin DOES want to be able to prioritize the people he personally cares about (in the more normal way that people tend to do, not the genocidal way he does in canon).

And all of this is FINE. Honestly, I think this is the ultimate good outcome for Anakin, to spend enough time with the Jedi to allow their teachings to heal him from his past and give him control over himself to the point that he can pursue the life he really wants in a healthy way. I think Anakin was always capable of being an incredible person and the character we see in TPM is entirely capable of going either way on that, but no, he'd never make a good Jedi.

I also think that if Anakin had been found a much YOUNGER age, like 3 or younger, he'd have been perfectly capable of being a good Jedi. It would remove his attachment to Shmi and the way they had to live their lives, it would allow him to have a better foundation of Jedi philosophies, and it would help him to really see the JEDI as his family rather than constantly searching for a "real" family beyond them. This interpretation comes straight from Lucas himself, who has said that if Anakin had been found at a much younger age, he'd have been fine with being a Jedi, but that being found late was, in many ways, his first stumbling block towards darkness. And that's no one's FAULT, obviously (aside from perhaps the slavers who took Shmi), but it doesn't make it any less true.

Let me know if you want more details on my personal interpretation of this!

[banancrumbs]

tell me you’re down and you can bet no one is above you