Chapter Text
Bucky stared at the spot where the temple should’ve been. A parking lot stared back blandly. Stormy late-afternoon Atlanta heat coiled in the air and slid down his back. Black asphalt and white lines shrugged his direction.
Okay. A minor setback. Clearly this Atlanta did not possess the same amount of insane cultists, at least not publicly.
He glared at the closest Honda Civic just because. It took no notice.
He looked at his hand for a second. No sign of any blue glowy rock. The universe was not on his side.
The universe never had been. But he could handle that; him and Steve against everything, always. Like home.
Steve would probably know what to do. Or wouldn’t let not knowing stop him. Steve would make a strategic call based on the slim available evidence and charge forward. With passion.
No version of Bucky Barnes was Steve Rogers. They collectively thought about this for a minute, and then considered their own skill sets.
Blending in. Reconnaissance. Infiltration. Assassination. No, not that last one. Most likely not, anyway, though Bucky’s knives were going to have some words with a head cultist as soon as possible. Steve needed him.
He glanced across the lot at the small but busy shopping mall.
Several moments later, he’d acquired a leather jacket and gloves from a store with a display conveniently located near an exit. The store’s staff hadn’t been looking; the alarm system hadn’t been a challenge. He felt a bit bad about not paying, but this was an emergency; he’d be instantly recognizable, not necessarily as himself but possibly as the now-vanished Sebastian.
Sebastian, he thought. And Chris. Who looked like Steve.
With the aid of one or two polite inquiries—shy, soft-spoken, playing up the harmless lost tourist persona—and a group of kind young women who looked up directions on a phone, he found the local library, and computers.
Several moments after that, he leaned back in his chair, no military precision, and ran his human hand through his hair. The librarian looked over, decided he did not need assistance, and offered a polite smile. Bucky nodded back because that was what people did, and rifled through mission data in his head.
An alternate universe. Not a surprise. An alternate universe in which superheroes and villains were fictional and famous actors named Sebastian Stan and Christopher Evans played movie versions of himself and Steve. A little weirder, but okay.
An alternate universe without magic or interdimensional technology. Might be a problem.
One of the sites he’d been checking covered local news. He’d wondered whether any metaphysical disturbances had been noted. None had. And someone must’ve decided to keep Sebastian Stan’s disappearance quiet; no news about that either, though Bucky imagined it should’ve been a story. Someone trying to protect a friend’s reputation, maybe.
Chris Evans, though, had made a social media post an hour ago. Twitter. Relatively cryptic. At least, if the reader didn’t believe in cross-dimensional location-hopping.
Bucky read the post again. I believe you. Tell me how I can help. I’ll be here.
Fans and commenters had jumped on the tweet. Lots of speculation. Inquiries about the identity of the “you” in question. Replies. Asking what Chris meant, what Chris needed.
Bucky Barnes knew exactly what Chris meant.
He drummed metal fingertips on the table. Outside the sticky afternoon’d given way to a thundercloud evening, cloying and slow as syrup.
Chris Evans, celebrity actor, had Steve Rogers’ face and gaze, without the memories of battlefields and killer robots but with a deep sincerity that knew about other kinds of war. Internal, maybe: anxiety, mourning, loss.
Chris Evans believed him. And was the sort of person who’d reach out to help.
Chris Evans, according to the internet, was Steve Rogers in many self-sacrificing passionate champion-of-justice ways. Bucky smiled at this, briefly.
He did not have any better ideas. He could, the Winter Soldier thought, use an ally. Tactically speaking.
And Chris Evans needed his Sebastian back. The pain in that familiar-unfamiliar voice’d hurt. Bucky did not know whether Chris and Sebastian were lovers, in this universe, but he knew about love. The same spear twisted in his heart, an injury no healing factor could tackle.
He could try to make this easier for Chris, at least. For someone who wore Steve’s face and had Steve’s devotion.
He left the library noiselessly, in the oncoming night. He headed for Chris Evans’ hotel.
He was not entirely certain which room, but that did not matter; he knew which floor they’d been on earlier, and Chris was in fact standing by the window, curtains open, light folding around his shape like a cloak. Bucky knew that shape. Better than he knew his own.
He ducked casually through the hotel’s side entrance. He avoided luxurious decorative plant life. He also avoided a few people who looked like the ones he’d seen earlier and in internet articles: the film directors, the man who resembled Sam Wilson, the woman who resembled the Widow, some people he did not recognize wearing various suits and uniforms and serious expressions. He overheard bits of conversation: search plans, local authorities, hotel security, press and media management.
Hotel security would not be a problem. Search parties would not find Sebastian Stan.
Bucky Barnes was absolutely certain he knew where Sebastian Stan was. Since solving that would solve both their problems, and since Chris Evans clearly had an interest in doing exactly that, Chris Evans could damn well help.
He took the stairs up. In motion. Swift and powerful. He was a legend, a ghost, a myth, and he’d use any and all of the pieces of himself, the dangerous pieces or the jagged ones, the ones that cut like shards of glass as he tried to gather them, if that meant getting back to Steve—
And if none of that could help him—
No. He’d make it back. Not for himself, but for Steve, who shouldn’t take one more heart-spear, one more heaping of guilt, if Bucky could prevent it.
Steve would feel guilty. Massive selfless martyr. Ridiculous punk.
He scowled at the door he’d ascertained to be his target’s. Outside the storm did not break but hung heavy and thick as an omen.
He thought about kicking the door open—at least one of the suggestions in his head contemplated it—but in the end only tapped lightly. Chris Evans, missing his Sebastian, did not need a broken hotel-room door.
And yanked the door in question open almost instantly, eyes wide and astounded and worried and grateful all at once. Bucky had seen Steve look that way, once or twice, on the way back from a first rescue, on a road where Bucky’d both apparently miraculously recovered and not ever recovered at all, after a nightmare of operating tables and experiments and captivity.
“Bucky,” Chris breathed, and the word settled into the night and somehow became more true. Chris Evans recognized him as Bucky Barnes. As himself, whoever that was. “Come in, come in, oh thank god, you saw my message—I didn’t fuckin’ know how else to—but you came.”
This obvious statement of fact did not require a response. Bucky paused, evaluating. The door shut behind him.
Chris wore jeans and a soft-looking red shirt and desperation like chains, making shoulders slump with brutal weight. Chris must have been standing or pacing for some time; none of the furniture held impressions of occupancy.
That furniture was also poorly arranged. In the way. Flimsy. Likely to break in a fight. The Winter Soldier fleetingly estimated the usefulness, in order, of the mini-bar and the small table and the script pages scattered over the bed.
He said, “You said you could help.”
“I said I’d try. I don’t know how any of this fuckin’ works, I don’t know what I’m doing, but tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” Chris’s hands opened, spread: begging for instructions. Hoping Bucky had answers. “I believe you. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I believe you. Does that matter?”
“It depends.” He moved to Chris’s window, gazed out at the city. Lights and dazzle and indigo skies. A film crew and a fantastical production. A story. “What’s the situation?”
“The—oh. Um, they’re keepin’ it quiet for now. It’s only been a couple hours, and…” Chris hesitated. “And most people who were there—the Russos, Mackie—that’s our directors and Anthony Mackie, who—”
“Who plays the Falcon. I looked you up.”
“Oh…guess you would’ve…”
“I’m not planning to assassinate you. Bucky Barnes, ancient science nerd, actually likes research.”
Chris started to say something, stopped, shook his head. “You make jokes.”
“I’m a hundred years old and stuck in an alternate universe. What else would I do?” He put a hand on the window-glass; through gloves, the sensors of the arm, the hand, his fingertips, were active but dulled. He lifted the hand. “Do I have to shoot anyone?”
“Do you what—”
“Still a joke.”
Chris actually crossed arms at him, though one corner of that mouth tipped up. “That’s not fuckin’ funny.” And in that instant, faced with that ghost of Steve Rogers, Bucky’s heart turned over. Metaphoric, but still. Arrow to the chest. Bleeding out.
This time he said, “What are they saying? The people who were there.”
Chris sighed. Sank down into the chair closest to the window, one of two. “Nothin’ much, yet. Nobody’s sure what to think. We know what we all saw, you’re not Seb, you don’t move like Seb, you don’t sound like him—I mean you do, of course you do, but…”
“I’m not him. I know.” One more person he was not. Shouldn’t be a surprise. “So they believe it? They understand what happened?”
“No one knows what happened.” Chris scrubbed a hand over his face. That face, that beard, that jawline, said Captain America. The accent, not Brooklyn but Boston, gave it away. Not Steve. Chris. Chris, whose voice took on the emphasis of anguish. “The unofficial-official story is that no one’s seen Seb for a couple hours and we know he wasn’t feeling great, so if anyone sees or hears from him, let us know. But it’s not being broadcast or anything. We didn’t want to scare Seb’s mom, for one. We told the doctors—you remember, they were there—”
Bucky nodded.
“—that there must be some explanation. Some prank or stunt. Which isn’t like Seb, and we all said that too, after the police left, after we gave them that story. And we saw what we saw. Which means Seb’s gone and we have you, and we don’t know how the fuck to explain that one, so we were hoping that if anyone saw you they’d call.”
“Well,” Bucky said. “I’m here.”
“You’re here,” Chris Evans said. “You came.”
In another universe, in a former life, Bucky Barnes would’ve made the off-color joke, given that phrasing. He nearly did. “Problem is, I don’t know any more than you do. Well, some, I guess. I know what we were up against, on my side. So I can tell you what it looked like on my end, and you can tell me yours.”
Chris nodded back, and they did.
Chris’s side of the story, not involving insane cultists or a magical battle, did not take long. But it snuck down Bucky’s spine and twined its way into his gut like briars of gold. Chris’s voice cracked when describing the scene; Chris squared broad shoulders and forged on with the story, the way a hero would.
“…and then he was—was gone.” Chris stared down. At both big hands, clenched. “He was gone. God. I’m so fucking useless—I couldn’t even—he’d asked me something, something important—well, maybe not, I don’t know, just dinner, but the way he asked—and I wanted to—but I didn’t have the words, and then he was…”
“Not there,” Bucky said. “And I was. There.”
“I thought he was dead,” Chris whispered. “He stopped breathing. In my arms. And then he—you—took a breath, and it was okay after all, I could breathe too, everything was gonna be okay, I was holding onto him—and then you weren’t him and he was still gone…fuck. Sorry.”
“We’ll figure this out,” Bucky said. “I’ll…I’ll find him. For you.”
“You will, won’t you?” Chris leaned forward. Elbows on knees. Eyes on Bucky’s face. So much attention, so fierce and committed. Believing that Bucky Barnes could be a hero. “You’re not gonna stop trying.”
“A mission,” Bucky said, and stopped. Too many layers. And what the fuck was wrong with him, talking to Chris Evans—not Steve, not Steve—as if Chris wasn’t a stranger, as if—
Potentially Chris had superpowers after all. Confession-related. Emotional. He ran the odds in his head. Low, but not impossible, maybe. He did not know enough about this universe to confirm.
“Steve Rogers,” Chris said. “Your mission. Huh. Seb was right. I mean, I knew he was right, of course he was, he’s usually fucking right about character and emotion, and we even played it like that, as much as we could, but—he was right. He’d love that.” That Boston accent swooped and ran and hid like lonely gulls: melancholy, hurting, drowned in wistfulness that was not quite envy.
“The fuck,” Bucky said, all pieces of his head in complete agreement on this. “Right about what?” He should be gathering intel, making plans, finding weaponry; he needed to hear this answer. He did not move.
“About you,” Chris said. “You’re in love with Steve.”
Always had been. Always would be. From back alleyways to alien planets, and beyond.
“Yeah,” Bucky said, because the person he was, whoever he was, wherever he was, would not deny that truth any more than he would ever tell it to Steve; but Chris Evans was not Steve Rogers. “Always have been, always gonna be.”
Chris’s next breath sounded like it hurt. “Does he know?”
He only needed a heartbeat to know why Chris would ask. “No.”
“Why not?” It was an honest question, not a critique.
“Because…” Bucky sighed, gave up, took the other chair. Dangled a leg insouciantly over one armrest because he could, because no one told him how to sit in furniture anymore, because Bucky Barnes would’ve, all provocative and lounging, with Steve Rogers intently gazing at him and asking him questions.
Despite himself, he was a little intrigued, if not exactly turned on. Maybe some. Steve and not Steve, softer, less scarred but equally stubborn, equally generous. Bucky’s heart belonged to Steve, though, and Steve was in another universe and not here to join in or approve, so that was that. Anyway, he was damn tired. Interdimensional portals and near-death experiences and all.
“Because,” he said finally, “Steve carries too much already.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Thought so.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
“Steve loves you.” Chris’s eyelashes caught the room’s light, outlined in gold. “At least my version does. Seb says it’s important. Playing it like that. We joke about it, about bringing down helicopters and waking up when someone says your name, fairytale shit, but it is a love story. And if you’re here then it’s real. And Steve loves Bucky.”
“Fuck you,” Bucky said, sharp and defensive as one of his own knives. “He doesn’t. I’d know.”
“Would you? If you’re trying so hard not to tell him? ’Cause on this side, Steve’s trying like hell not to put any extra pressure on you.”
“No,” Bucky said. “No. Steve’s not—Steve’s too good for what I—and what about you? You and your Sebastian. You said you didn’t have the fucking words. You didn’t tell him.”
Chris went white behind the beard, behind the freckles. Shot absolutely gone home. Right to the center. But, like Steve Rogers, he took the pain and made it into strength. “You’re right. I should’ve. I love him. I love Sebastian Stan. And if—when—we get him back—I’ll say it.”
Bucky found himself silenced by this.
“I never thought he’d want me,” Chris said. “I never thought—he’s beautiful and brilliant and he’s been places and been through things that I can’t even—he loves Shakespeare and he reads books on the philosophy of pleasure. He takes creative writing courses. And then he’s not afraid to look ridiculous on camera. To post videos of himself singing or working out or what the fuck ever. He talks to people because he’s genuinely interested in them. He cares. And I’m a fucking meatball from Boston with anxiety issues who cries at Disney movies. I couldn’t.”
“But you can now.”
“I can’t not say it.” Chris glanced down, but then back up: meeting Bucky’s eyes again. “Seeing him, feeling him stop breathing, in my arms…and then again, just now, saying it to you. I heard what I just told you, about trying too hard not to say something. If it’s a no then it’s a no, but…”
“But you think he was asking you out to dinner. Before.”
“I hope,” Chris Evans said. “I hope. Thanks, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For listening. For makin’ me hear it.” Chris, legs crossed, swung a foot; his shoe nearly tapped Bucky’s boot. “Thanks.”
“Oh,” Bucky said. The Winter Soldier had not been thanked by anyone; Bucky Barnes had tended to dismiss the words. That the last chocolate-chip cookie, Sarge? Oh, hey, no, you should, you didn’t have any of the last package—oh, well, thanks!, when his men had deserved it ten times more than he had, and he wished he’d had ten more to toss over across the fire. A sideways conflicted thanks, Buck, when Steve’s pride hadn’t wanted to accept more than Bucky’s fair share of the rent, when money got tight and Steve’s drawing commissions dried up. He’d known Steve hadn’t wanted to have to say it. He hadn’t felt right accepting it. “Sure.”
This felt insufficient. And Chris Evans looked far too much like Steve. And the rain broke free at last and exploded onto the world, noisy, clamoring, rattling down the windowpane, falling to the ground below.
He glanced over at Chris, at that puddle of unhappiness, again.
He said, “Tell me more about him. Your Sebastian.”
“He’s not my Sebastian,” Chris said, but in a way that meant he’d like it if so. “Shouldn’t we be…I don’t know, calling astrophysicists for help or something?”
“Do you know any?”
“I could ask some on Twitter. I can make it sound hypothetical.” Chris grabbed his phone. Typed. Did not look up. “About Sebastian…”
“It might be helpful.” For Chris, anyway. Bucky Barnes did know about love, and the Winter Soldier was good at listening, and they all wanted Chris Evans to be happy.
Not only because he looked like Steve. Because Chris Evans, Bucky decided, watching that bent head, was a good man. And deserved whatever help one out-of-place inadequate Bucky Barnes could give.
He added, “Tell me what your astrophysicists say. But while we’re waiting tell me about Sebastian. Go ahead.”
Chris bit a lip. “Seb’s…he’s…”
“Look,” Bucky said, “if you’re gonna talk to him, you have to at least be able to talk about him.” He thought he’d found the right tone. Not quite as sarcastic as he’d’ve used with his Steve, but just about there. Little bit of sass, the way the voice of Bucky Barnes advised in his head, and tempered with encouragement.
Chris Evans laughed, said, “Oh fuck you very much,” in the same way Steve would’ve, and then got softer and more contemplative and said, “Thanks.”
Bucky shrugged, and waited. The rain cried, tumbling and falling down, and was caught and comforted by the world. This world, anyway. A world.
“He can bench-press, like, somebody the size of me. He works out. He’s got, y’know, knife training and fight training…” Chris Evans looked away: out into the night. “But he’s not an Avenger. Not like—like you. He’s the sweetest guy I know. He won’t even kill a spider. He picks them up and says hi to them.”
Bucky tried to visualize himself doing this. He failed. The fate of spiders had not occurred to him since waking up. But he thought that perhaps the next time he met a spider, he might try it. He might try gently, like Sebastian Stan, carrying it outside. He nudged Chris’s foot with his, hopefully companionably. Felt like the thing to do. “Sounds kinda too good to be true.”
“He’s not a saint or anything, don’t get me wrong.” Chris’s smile was fond and sad and scared at once, like wounded stars. “Seb swears at himself in Romanian when he thinks he’s not getting a line delivered right, he adores his Instagram account, and I once saw him drink four giant iced coffees in, like, an hour. And if you tell him someone’ll be happy if he does something, he’ll half kill himself doing it for them, showing up when he’s exhausted or hungry or running a fever…”
“That one sounds familiar.” Bucky sighed. “You bought him one of those four iced coffees, didn’t you.”
“Yeah.” Chris laughed, though the sound echoed hollow as an empty room. “Should’ve guessed like three other people’d have the same idea. Everyone fucking loves Seb. Even if they barely know him. He smiles, and, like…the world lights up around him, y’know?”
“Yes.” He pulled a leg up, hugged it with both arms, chin on knee; metal whirred, and Chris Evans laughed again, startled. Bucky eyed him. “What?”
“Oh…Seb does that. Flexible. Weird poses. Like a cat. I should’ve said—I always want to kiss him. Anything he does, really.”
“We’ll get him back for you. What?”
“You know,” Chris Evans said, regarding him in rainlight, “I get the casting. I mean, I always did, but I totally do now.”
“Because we’re both flexible? Like cats? Which’re awesome, so thank you for that.”
“Nope.”
“Then what?”
“You really don’t see it, do you?”
“I have knives, Evans.”
“You’re not gonna hurt me. You—”
“The Winter Soldier’s the world’s scariest nightmare,” Bucky grumbled.
“You’ve heard me talk about Sebastian,” Chris said. “They cast him, all of that, everything I just said, to play you.”
Bucky could not answer this for a minute; and then, wounded and scared and furious at how badly he wished it could be true, he said, “Fuck you.”
“I’m serious,” Chris said. “Though if you are too…no. I don’t know. I would, but I’m thinking about Seb and you’re in love with Steve. Plus you’d probably break me in half with your giant super-soldier dick, not that that’s not an awesome way to go, and, I mean, I would. Like I said. You’re you, and it’s confusing as hell, because you look like Seb but you’re not Seb but you’re a good guy, the kind of guy I would—and also I keep thinking about how you’d feel fuckin’ amazing on top of me or under me but it’s also fuckin’ weird. Shit. Sorry. My point is, about you…don’t just decide I’m wrong. Think about it. If we see it, if people in another dimension see it…”
“Then you’re all fucking interdimensionally wrong,” Bucky said, “and you don’t deserve my giant super-soldier dick,” which was something at least one of his selves would’ve said to Steve, once or twice upon a time. Here and now it made Chris Evans laugh, which worked for the intended external deflection.
That deflection did not work on Bucky’s chest, which felt odd. Tight and sore and empty, like somebody’d been playing around with his heart. His heart knew what it was for: it was for loving Steve Rogers and keeping that love locked up tight so as not to be a burden. Chris Evans had put a key into that lock and turned it, and the teeth caught and tore at edges of possibility.
If someone, somewhere, looked at Sebastian Stan—the sweetest guy on the planet, with a smile that could light up the world, according to one very biased account—and saw even a glimpse of some impossible Bucky Barnes, that meant—
He did not know what that meant.
The rain chattered and sang, as if offering an answer. Bucky spoke a lot of languages these days, but raindrop code had not been required.
He closed both eyes for a moment; he opened them to find Chris’s gaze steady on his.
Chris said, “Bucky—”
That half-forgotten phone made a sound. A few more sounds.
They both sat up in time with the roll of thunder.
Chris was getting replies. Some people thought it was a joke; some people thought it was for a new superhero film; some of them took his questions about interdimensional portals and ritual linguistics—Bucky’d explained about the batrachian chanting—seriously. The science and philology and history and literature and Star Trek fan denizens of twitter and other social media chimed in. Loudly.
“Huh,” Bucky said, reading over Chris’s shoulder. “They have ideas.”
“They do.” Chris looked up. “I don’t know if it’ll work. We’d need specialized equipment for some of these suggestions. But we could do some of it. I think we really could. We could try.”
“Stark has the tech for some of this,” Bucky said, reading ahead. “Wakanda has even more. Shuri could handle that…oh, or that…maybe, yeah.” He looked at Chris; found Chris looking at him. “Maybe.”
“We’ll need a couple things. This book, in case the author actually got a phrase right by accident and the sound does fuckin’ resonate with the hyperstrings of the multiverse…getting you back to the exact spot, as close to the exact same time of day, and hoping they’re trying too, over there…”
Bucky said, “Where do I get this book? Lovecraft, H.P.” The Winter Soldier could liberate a book from anywhere. Even if there were armed guards. Maybe especially if the guards were armed.
“You know there’s a simple answer to things,” Chris Evans said. “The internet. Looking it up right now.”
“I know about the internet,” Bucky said. “I was there when it was invented. By the way, Steve only pretends not to know about technology because he can’t resist making fun of people who assume he’s a fossil, so I hope you’re playing him in the movies as the goddamn punk asshole he is.”
“And you love him.” Chris waved the phone vaguely. “Collected works of H.P. Lovecraft. On my laptop, and on here. You’ll have to find the phrase that sounds right. How fast do you read?”
“Pretty fucking fast,” Bucky said.
“Figured.” Chris got up, stretched, went over too-casually to the laptop on the bed. “Sounds like the best chance might be tomorrow afternoon. Getting you into the same spot and hoping they’ve figured out a way to tap into temporal resonances, or that’s what this person says, on the other side. You staying here tonight?”
Bucky Barnes looked at Chris Evans. At the rain cascading like silk down hotel windowpanes; at the warm gold light and rumpled white counterpane of the bed, and the aching brittle valiant stitches holding Chris together.
Bucky Barnes knew those stitches intimately. Made of every single casual touch, every joke, every gift of iced coffee in one universe and every hurtling weapon deflected from Steve’s back in the other. A pain like kindness, cruel as affection.
He did not especially want to go out into the rain. It was unnecessary, given the digital acquisition of books, and might interfere with optimum functionality.
He liked the chair he’d been sitting in. He liked cozy thick mattresses and blankets; he’d learned that about this version of himself, that he did like those things.
He did not want Chris Evans to be alone. This was not about sex, and it was not about Steve, though both those ideas were loosely jumbled up and present but not at the forefront.
He had a headache, not a bad one, but persistent. None of his selves had ever been a physicist or a physician, and he wondered whether being in the wrong universe could physically weaken him. If it could cause harm.
If that harm would then in turn harm Sebastian Stan.
He said nothing about the headache to Chris Evans. No point. Nothing that could be repaired, if his guess was right, and if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. Either way, no need to cause further distress.
Chris Evans was kind, and was trying to help, and needed help in turn. They could face this together. Shoulder to shoulder. Metaphorically speaking.
Chris had not once, all evening, flinched from the whirr and motion of Bucky’s arm; even concealed under clothing, it was present.
“Yeah,” Bucky said, half-matching Chris’s determinedly accepting tone, casual and resolute. “As tactically sound as anyplace, I guess. Especially if there’s pizza.”
“Pizza,” Chris said.
“I like pepperoni,” Bucky said, kicking off boots, stepping out of socks. The carpet felt as luxurious as it promised to be. The Winter Soldier registered the sensation but found the desire for it perplexing.
Bucky Barnes grinned and peeled off his jacket, kept knives in easy reach, swooped in and grabbed Chris’s laptop and blew a kiss that direction—after all, that Boston accent’d been the one to say it, even if right about the weirdness, and Bucky Barnes could still appreciate an appreciation-worthy man—when Chris made a startled but amused sound.
He flopped back into his overstuffed chair, which had an excellent vantage point for both window and door as well as nicely cushioned armrests. “And I got a lot of reading to do.”
“Good thing you read fast,” Chris agreed. “I’ll get us pepperoni.”
The Avengers liked pizza, it turned out. Sebastian also liked pizza, so that worked well for everyone involved. Tony Stark had a favorite place that delivered enough for superhero appetites, no questions asked; in fact, Tony said, they had multiple favorite places, one near each of the bases, and then took the last piece with artichokes on it, and waved the piece while talking. “How’s your room? How’s your head? It's a very nice head and also we need it to get Cap’s boyfriend back, so that’s both aesthetic and professional concern. Garlic bread?”
Sebastian took the garlic bread both out of self-defense—it was in his face—and also because he did indeed like garlic, and wanted it. “My head is trying to process having the actual Tony Stark call it nice. No, seriously, I’ve still got that headache, but it’s not bad. Whatever you gave me took the edge off.” He was sitting on the lab’s diagnostic bed because that’d been where the pizza’d turned up. Both Tony and Bruce Banner, plus a virtual version of Princess Shuri waving from Wakanda, kept poking readouts and projections.
He’d been given—within limits—the freedom of the tower. Little glowing guide-lights and a helpful elevator had shown him to his room, which had a dazzling ocean view and technology that put Sebastian’s own Apple-related love affair into tiny perspective. He’d been allowed to access any media he wanted, and he’d done that for a while, diving headlong into this world, the world that’d previously been a wild fantasy. He’d lost himself in stories, details, attempts to comprehend this place and the larger-than-life figures and tales, the super and the terrible and the extraordinary.
He loved this world, both his and not; he’d always loved these characters, the sacrifices and complexities and choices. His inner science-fiction and philosophy geek was jumping up and down and shrieking in joy.
He’d even found the gym. The actual Avengers Tower—this secret backup base, anyway—gym. Where the actual Avengers actually worked out, or some of them, sometimes. When not in the much scarier and better equipped training room. Sebastian, being human, was perfectly fine with equipment he could recognize.
That sneaky little thrill bolted down his spine again. He’d used the Avengers’ gym equipment. Amazing. Incredible. Best thing ever.
As he’d stepped out of the equally impressive shower he’d gotten a call to come down to the lab if he wanted dinner. He did, so he’d thrown on one set of the comfortable spare lounge pants and t-shirts that he’d found in the closet—in his size, too, which was a bit unnerving in the case of the underwear—and followed the helpful lights that way.
And now he was eating pizza. With the Avengers. Answering Tony Stark. Just a normal weeknight, really.
“Let me know if it gets worse,” Doctor Banner said. “We’ll see what we can do. Shuri, is that hyperstring knitter out of the theoretical stages yet, or—”
“It’s not easy to transport.” Her hands moved, checking a calculation. “And you’d need it in Atlanta. But if I send you these figures, and the dimensions, you should be able to fabricate these parts—here, these ones, that’s the central section—for yourselves, assuming Stark doesn’t decide to enhance it with any unnecessary modifications…”
“Hey,” Tony said. “Was that a comment about the last time we built a quantum artifact locator? That was a comment about the last time we built a quantum artifact locator. And it needed a fedora. You can’t build a quantum Indiana Jones without a fedora.”
“Some of that Asgardian tech might be helpful for the dimensional bridging,” Bruce said. “And, for the record, I was opposed to the fedora.”
“Yeah, you wanted to go with a bullwhip instead.” Tony pointed more garlic bread in Sebastian’s direction. “Fedora. Yes? No?”
“On Harrison Ford,” Sebastian decided, “yes. Did your quantum artifact locator look like Harrison Ford?”
Tony stared at him for a second. “I knew I liked you. Guys, we’re making Mark Two look like Harrison Ford.”
“No we’re not,” said Doctor Banner and Shuri in unison, and went back to amiably debating bridge-structures and dark matter and the proper architecture of temporality-twisting weaving-looms. Tony, about to argue, said instead, “You’re inventing two new elements there, look at that, you’ll need something with twice the density of—” and jumped in with enthusiasm and stray Wizard of Oz references.
Sebastian looked at the last pepperoni pizza. One slice missing, it looked back; neither of them happened to be a genius scientist, and the conversation carried on without them.
“That’s not two new elements, that one already exists—well, I’m fairly sure it does—”
“How are your seven PhDs only fairly sure about the existence of something—?”
“That’s how having a PhD works! You get less sure about everything!”
Steve Rogers had not come down to the lab for dinner and genteel scientific bickering and human presence. Sebastian considered the almost-full pizza box again, and said softly, “Friday? Do you know where Captain America is? Only tell me if it’s okay that I’m asking. And if he’s somewhere that’s…not personal. Or private.”
Tony’s house and assistant and brilliant artificial intelligence hummed quietly for a moment—unnecessary, but she’d picked up that humanity appreciated some interaction—and then said, “Captain Rogers is in the kitchen. He is alone, but I suspect he could use some company. He has been staring at the refrigerator for eight minutes and fifteen seconds.”
“Thanks,” Sebastian said, and picked up the pizza and went out. If the firework-eruption of scientists behind him noticed later, Friday could tell them; he wasn’t worried.
Steve Rogers was indeed in the kitchen. He had made coffee and was staring at it instead of the refrigerator now, standing by a tall wide window and not taking a sip; he turned at Sebastian’s footsteps. His shoulders stopped being soundlessly tired and straightened up; his eyes were heroically blue and determined to be of use. “What did you need? How can I help? I thought they had everything handled in the lab, we’ll get you over to Atlanta tomorrow for the temporal concurrence, and Nat and Sam will be back with that Asgardian matter stabilizer in two hours—”
“I just brought pizza,” Sebastian said, shoving the box in Captain America’s direction, nearly dropping it, silently swearing at his own habitual clumsiness, and managing to rescue the pie and land it safely on the counter. “I thought you might be hungry. Um. Not because you need someone reminding you to eat. Because maybe you like pizza. Or, um, food in general. I don’t need help, I’m okay, really.”
“How’s your head? How’re you feeling?” Steve’s voice was concerned, a soldier caring for one of his men; Steve’s hand was white-knuckled around the coffee-mug. Bucky Barnes, somewhere, would be hurting too. “Did you have a question or somethin’?”
The hint of Brooklyn flared and faded like heartbreak, like memory, like ink on a love-letter; beyond the window, night hung like a broken shield over the ocean.
Steve Rogers deserved the truth. Sebastian flipped the pizza box open and threw a smile toward all that stubborn self-sacrificing pain. “Little bit of a headache. Not any worse. They said we’ve got time. And I trust you guys.”
“The Avengers,” Steve said, low and almost bitter: sharpness like the bite of snow, the glint of metal from an arm or a knife or a cruel painful chair. “Earth’s mightiest heroes. And I keep losing him—”
He stopped, very quickly, and set his coffee down as if afraid the mug—or something else—might crack.
“About that,” Sebastian said, and came over to Captain America’s side. “First, is there more coffee? Thanks. I practically live on caffeine. Especially in the mornings. Chris makes fun of me, and then brings me more.” He had to stop there, because the pain stabbed at his chest like espresso-hot claws.
Chris had sounded so afraid for him. And would be in such pain, that big generous beautiful heart bewildered and devastated and scoured by inexplicable loss, that heart that always felt so much, cared so much for the world…
Sebastian wasn’t about to assume Chris’s heart cared in any special way about him, but even for a friend the wounds would be real. And if, just maybe—if Chris had been going to say yes to Sebastian’s question about dinner—if Mackie’d been right about the blushing and teasing and flirting—if there’d been even the smallest most infinitesimal chance—
Probably there wasn’t. Probably that’d been Chris being kind, being a friend. But either way Chris was presently in another universe, and could not bring over a mid-morning iced coffee with a laughing, just makin’ sure you got your caffeine fix for the day, I’ve seen you without it…
Steve Rogers said, “Chris?”
“Oh—Chris Evans. He, um, he’s you. In the movies.” He gazed down into his newly acquired mug for a moment. Sympathetic steam kissed his face. “Like I play Bucky Barnes. Which is what I was going to say.”
“That you play Bucky? You told us. And I know what movies are. I’m a hundred years old, not dead.”
“Gee, thanks, Captain America.” Sebastian briefly forgot about world-saving iconic status, gave Steve Rogers the same exact look he’d’ve given Chris or Mackie, panicked because holy shit I’m being sarcastic at the honest-to-god Captain America, and then decided that Steve’d started it. “And here over on our Earth we thought you were innocent and wholesome. Seriously, though, you and Chris are a lot alike. Ready to go out and punch bullies and protect people and take on the world, and then you make jokes about being nothing special…”
“I’m not.” Steve Rogers shut those eyes for a moment, a glimpse of vulnerability that got scooped back up and stuffed behind stubborn walls. A muscle moved in his jaw. “I never was. Just a kid from Brooklyn, someone who wanted to do some good.”
“You are. You do.”
“I can never save him—every damn time—I can never be enough for him—”
“For Bucky.” Sebastian leaned against the wall beside the window, letting it take some weight, cradling heat between palms. His head did hurt, but in a distant far-off way, and he thought that was partly from emotion. “I don’t know how much about how this works, but the Science Bros in the lab did talk about dimensional bleed and ripples, so maybe it’ll mean something. You’ve always been enough. For him. Bucky Barnes.”
Steve stared at him. Turned to face the night, a flinch of battle-honed muscle; turned back. “…Science Bros. That’s perfect. You don’t need to make me feel better. You got enough to worry about.”
“Yeah, I do, and so do you, so let me try to help. Sorry. But it’s true.”
A ghost of a smile flickered around Steve’s lips, eyes, posture. “You do sound like him.”
“Good?”
“You’re him and you’re not him.” Steve breathed the words as if they were a confession: intimate, bruised to the core, holy. “I look at you and I see him—but not him, more like someone he could’ve been, or used to be…he used to smile. He used to laugh. When we were kids, when he bought a new science-fiction magazine or read about someone’s idea for a rocket that could go to the Moon…when the radio played a song that he liked, and he’d jump in and start dancing along without thinking twice about it, and he’d make me dance even though I was all elbows and black eyes from fighting, and I’d say no, Buck, you know I can’t do that, not like you can, but somehow he’d make me want to anyway, stupid and clumsy and holding onto him in the kitchen where he’d just been doin’ dishes because I forgot again…”
“He’s a good man.” Sebastian dared, very lightly, to put a hand on Captain America’s shoulder. “He’s been hurt and he’s finding a way—not back, I think, but forward. He’s a hero. I hope I’m doing him justice.”
“I’d say,” Steve Rogers said, half under his breath, possibly unconsciously leaning into Sebastian’s touch, “you are.”
“Thanks. But my point is…look, I’m not him. I know. I’m me. I get quiet around people I want to impress and I once walked into a refrigerator while staring at Robert Redford—um, a famous actor I had to work with. I drink way too much coffee and accidentally tell people that I like being told what to do. Um. Like I sort of told you just now. But anyway if I am him, sometimes, a little, then at least maybe I can tell you what my version thinks. About you.”
Steve’s lips parted, but no words came out; might’ve been processing all of Sebastian’s flailing words, or finding hope in them, or waiting for more.
Sebastian gulped down some coffee. Fortified, went on, “He’s always loved you. He loves you. Bucky. My Bucky. You’ve always been…you’re Steve Rogers. The kid who’ll stand up for people who need it, who’ll jump in and take a stand, who makes the world better and brighter and sort of shinier, more the way it ought to be. Bucky’d follow that kid anywhere. Shield or no shield.”
“But I let him down.” Steve’s shoulders tensed. “I let him get hurt saving me, again—I’m here and he’s gone because he had my back, again—”
“Because he wants to,” Sebastian said. “Because that’s his choice. Because he’s choosing that. And don’t tell me you don’t do that, too. Trying to save him. You do try. You do save him. Seeing you, knowing you, wanting to come back to you—that’s an anchor. And just that—that can be enough.”
Steve Rogers whispered to Sebastian, to the night, to the silent kitchen, “You said he loves me.”
“My version does. And Chris—Chris plays it that way too. As you. We can’t make it too obvious—studios, audiences, all of that—but we’ve talked about it.” He slid the hand to Steve’s back, offered a rub: the way he might with a friend, a lonely fan, someone in need of comfort. Sebastian knew about comfort and loneliness and the need for touch; he’d been there too often to not give whatever he could in turn. “I don’t know if all that means anything, but I thought you should know.”
One corner of Steve’s mouth tilted upward. “And you brought pizza.”
Sebastian shrugged. “I like pizza.”
“Your Chris,” Steve said, “is—is a lucky man. To have you. We’ll get you back to him.”
“Oh. Well.” Faced with this earnestness, Sebastian lifted the hand away. Hid behind coffee. “He doesn’t…we’re not…it’s not like that. Him and me.”
“Oh.” Steve blushed. “Sorry. I assumed—when you said you’ve talked about it, about us—the way you said his name, I thought—”
“I know.” He put one hand up, rubbed a temple. Head pounding more. “You’re not wrong. At least, not about how I feel.”
“Oh,” Steve said again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m used to it. Being his friend.”
Steve hesitated. Then stretched out a hand, big and careful and almost shy. Brushed fingers over Sebastian’s temple as well, unerringly finding the location of the dull throb. “Getting worse? And…is this okay? If I touch you.”
Sebastian looked across into those weary honest blue eyes. Felt the warmth through every atom of self: not sexual, or mostly not, but here and real and present, offered and shared. He needed that; they both needed that. “Absolutely yes. Please.”
Steve did that almost-smile again and tugged him closer, endearingly bashful and firm at once. “You said you like following orders.”
“Oh, fuck, no,” Sebastian protested halfheartedly. He’d been pretending he hadn’t. In front of Captain America. “What even are words. I’m a walking internet joke.”
“It’s not about that,” Steve said. “I just—I just want to—can I hold onto you? And feed you your pizza.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said, “please—if I get to feed you too, that’s why I brought it, remember, you’re not getting out of it,” and Steve Rogers, astonishedly and almost happily, laughed.
They ended up on the sofa in the common room, Sebastian tucked under one of Steve’s solid proprietary arms. Steve Rogers smelled really excellent, some small piece of Sebastian’s brain—and other places—noted: clean and woodsy and masculine. And Steve was adorably awkwardly good at cuddling, as if having always wanted to use the new large body to do that for someone: for someone in particular, named Bucky Barnes.
Steve held him and held onto him and fed him another piece of pizza while inhaling the rest of it; those blue eyes looked mildly guilty halfway through. Sebastian waved a hand and said, “It was for you anyway, I already had some, and I’ll feel better if you eat it.”
Steve Rogers gave him an unimpressed eye-roll and said, “I know what you’re doing, you know,” and then ate the pizza. Sebastian permitted himself a grin, and curled more closely into Captain America’s height and bulk and heat, because that felt nice.
Bucky Barnes would like that too, he thought. And he knew without asking that Steve was thinking that, hoping that, as well. Not something to try if they got Bucky back, if they succeeded tomorrow.
When they did.
Sebastian had to believe that. They both had to.
Steve ran a hand over him, someplace between a caress and a clinging. After a minute, asked for the lights to be lowered, as if hoping that’d be good for Sebastian’s headache, and guided Sebastian’s head to rest against him, and began to rub Sebastian’s neck, the spot at the base of his skull, the places craving attention: kneading sorenesses and strain into less of each, careful with strength.
Stars glittered like promises peeking through indigo satin, beckoning through clear tall glass. In another universe, Bucky Barnes and Chris Evans would be finding their own answers; neither of them, Sebastian thought, would simply sit back and accept what’d happened without at least trying to understand. Like heroes.
He wished he could lean into Chris’s strength, so much like Steve’s and so much not, just like this. He wished he could make whatever hurt Chris might be feeling go away or at least get easier to bear, and maybe Chris could do that for him sometimes, if Chris wanted to, once in a while; they could do that for each other, forever. He’d be happy with that.
He let Steve Rogers guard him and keep him safe, for now, for tonight; and they both watched the stars.