#it's late can you tell????;sdfl

[somanywords]

okay so stick with me here: bucky has a teddy bear

it’s a raggedy old thing— the first thing gifted to him when he was born. like most people with their prized lovey, he cherishes that thing for his entire life. it loses an eye, the fur gets matted in some places, and winnie has had to patch it up a good many times.

he sneaks it with him to the war and the only one who knows about it is steve. after bucky falls, steve finds the bear in bucky’s things. and fuck— it still smells like bucky. like home. like the berneses house, and a little like mothballs. he sleeps it with every night, hugging it to his face and trying not to let it get stained with his tears

when he dies too, the bear stays behind, but when steve sees it in the smithsonian a lifetime later, it’s the first thing he steals back😌

BUCKY HAS A TEDDY BEAR OF COURSE HE DOES this is so funny i literally have a WIP right now where bucky's dad calls him teddy bear as a nickname...just a lil fact to start us off lmao

i love it. he hauls that poor thing everywhere, and when steve first comes over to his house, it's the first toy bucky introduces him too, and as the years pass, steve gets used to seeing it around--bucky brings it on sleepovers, lets becca borrow it when she's cranky, even leaves it in steve's bed one of the days they thought he wouldn't make it to the next dawn

and then he's much too old for a teddy bear, so it stays under the radar mostly, and steve only sees it once, during another of his bad days in the winter--while bucky had gone out briefly, steve spotted a worn ear poking out from the bottom of his blankets, like bucky had needed the company. and then the war--OH NO YOU DIDN'T steve doesn't tell anyone, just clutches it close and keeps it safe and nearly loses it when morita throws it in with the extra gear at one point and it doesn't show up for a little

and then it's in a case in a museum, next to a vintage and pristine "bucky bear" and the sign wonders loudly if this worn old thing was the inspiration or the very first of the iconic toys, and it's just so wrong that steve feels no guilt in breaking in and stealing it one day--it's not theirs, it's not some generic toy, it's bucky's, and now it's steve's to look after for him