#interactions ft. steve & loyaltyworn.

[entrepy]

🪀 Steve doesn’t have to try very hard to imagine Bucky’s words as he speaks them. There are plenty of memories of himself on a hospital bed with doctors and nurses hovering around him, his mother and Bucky somewhere in the background, always. He remembers one bout of pneumonia, the winter after his mother died. It was the only time he’d been to the hospital without her. He’d stayed there for two weeks while the doctors tried to clear his lungs, bring him out of a critical state, and he still, to this day, doesn’t know how Bucky managed to pay off the bill after he finally managed to kick the virus. The doctors had said something about a miracle when he’d tried to thank them, brushing off their own efforts as if it wasn’t medicine and skilled work but an act of God that had finally helped Steve pull through. After his mother’s death, Steve’s visits to church had slowly dropped off. His faith along with it. His faith had always been in his mother’s preachings anyway, rather than the pastor’s. Steve hadn’t believed a miracle was possible . . . but now, he’s not so sure. 

Steve had died. The Steve in this time, and in this universe had died. Which means that the portal that Steve had stepped into on Bleecker Street had done more than send him through time — it had taken him into a different reality. One where he had died before he’d even got to the war. Perhaps, when he was meant to. 

‘ I — I didn’t know. ’ He doesn’t know what to say. Bucky is hurting and there wasn’t anything Steve could do to take it away. That’s how he’s always viewed problems — facing them head on, finding the solution, erasing them. He’s never been able to help Bucky in the same way. Not when he fell from the train, not when he was taken by Hydra, not when Thanos came after him and half the people in the universe. Steve feels equally helpless now. In their youth, it had almost always been Bucky who had come to save the day. Pick Steve up after a street fight or send his attackers packing. Comforted him when the burdens of his illness got to be too much, despite Steve never vocalising it. Looked after him after his mother passed away. Even during the war — Bucky was the first person to call him Captain America as the symbol that actual soldiers would believe in, instead of the dancing monkey he’d been painted as up until that point. 

‘ I know you would have done everything you could, ’ Steve finally says quietly. ‘ You always do, even though it wasn’t up to you. ’ Everyone’s got a lease on life, but Steve had felt it more than most people. Despite that, and despite being difficult to love, Bucky had always been there. Bucky had never let Steve down — not the way that Steve was constantly letting him down. ‘ I’m sorry that I — he . . . died, ’ and winces because of how awful that sounded. ‘ I mean — I’m sorry that it happened. That you didn’t get . . . even half the life you could have had together. That, sorry, that sounds terrible. I’m just — I have a lot to tell you, Bucky, if you’re willing to hear me out. Maybe we can sit down ? And, and I could make you a cup of tea? Or cocoa ? ’ 

&& maavel // steve.

He feels big in the apartment, big in Bucky’s space. The last time he’d been here he’d been a foot shorter and probably half as wide. He’d never thought he’d be back here.

Bucky looks alive up close. It’s dim in the apartment, lights a homey gold. Cold but that makes it even more normal. Like he’d never left. Except he had. Handed the keys back over to his landlord the day he’d set off for basic training and never looked back. Hadn’t ever needed to look back until he got to the war and everyone else, including Bucky, started talking about what they were going to do once the war was over. After he’d woken up from the ice, it seemed like the only thing he ever did was look back. Relying on memories to dream of a future, unable to let go of something he could never have. There had been a brief moment, in the new century, when he’d stopped looking back, started looking forward. When he’d found Bucky, when Shuri woke him up from yet another deep sleep and made him free. The world had been filled with possibility in that moment, in the way that it hadn’t been for Steve in a long, long time … But of course, that, too, was short lived.

He doesn’t blame Bucky for being nervous. Afraid, even. Stumbling over his words in a way that he’d rarely seen. There was something … unexpected about Bucky. It’s been a long time since Steve has remembered Bucky from this time, but those memories were still visited frequently enough for Steve know that Bucky was still different. Tired. Lost. Defeated.

‘ Bucky, no, I’m — ’ By all accounts, Steve — or at least Bucky’s Steve — should be somewhere in this apartment. In the bedroom asleep or hunched over a book. Steve casts a glance down the hall. It’s all dark apart from the living area where they stand. Quiet, except for a few cars Steve can hear on the street below, and the occasional creaking of the old building. Steve swallows past the lump of concern growing in his throat. The tears down Bucky’s cheeks cut into him like glass piercing skin, and every fibre of his being, every instinct yearns to reach out to him and comfort him. But he couldn’t — not yet. He hasn’t earned the right, nor the trust yet and the last thing he wants to do is make Bucky even more afraid. ‘ What do you mean, Bucky? What do you mean, I’m dead ? ’

Guilt swallows him up as he says the words to this..whatever it is..of Steve standing in front of him. Bigger. Healthy. Alive. Maybe it’s some sorta ghost. Some figment of his imagination. One he dreamt up out of some kinda sleep deprived haze to talk to and say he was sorry to for another dozenth time since they lost the war that was for Steve’s life. Again, he looks him over. Can’t help it. Steve’s even taller than him and he’s gotta look up and he’d find that so damn funny if he could feel anything other than remorse. Remorse so fucking deep that he can barely breathe. 

His brows slowly raise. Questioning as he pulls on the tattered sleeve of a threadbare sweater he’s wearing. Small details. His clothing isn’t as pristine as he used to keep it in spite of how little they had. He doesn’t really care to make sure it’s mended by the sweet older lady down the hall that he pays in money, food or chores for hems and stitches and presses. Still brings her things she needs, though. Doesn’t need her going without simply because he’s this way (as he puts it.). Covering his knuckles, he uses the wool to wipe his cheeks dry, flashes a smile that means nothing other than a means of showing he’s okay when he’s far from it and licks his lips like he’s attempting to taste the words he’s mixing together in hopes they make sense. Or won’t be a mess. He’ll take that.

“What do you mean..what do I mean?” His hand doesn’t go far, fingers find his neck and scratch at his Adam’s apple then wrap around to cup the back of it. Self-soothing. Or attempts at it. “Your heart, your lungs. Docs said pneumonia. Did a hell of a job on you. Your body started giving out.. I told ‘em to fix you. That you’d pull through and if they gave up, they were being stupid.. Said they were doing all they could. I don’t know,” slender shoulders hitch and he palms over his face (fingers trembling) before his hand falls then corrects itself as if he sensed the quaking and both arms wrapped around his chest tight enough that his hands weren’t seen.

“Didn’t feel like they were..”

There’s a damn near pleading tone in his voice. “I wouldn’t let them stop until they carried me outta there, you gotta believe me. Told me they were gonna put me in jail. They didn’t but it was only cause Becky stood up and said not to,” frustration drips in his tone and he swallows rough.

“That’s what I mean..”