Chapter Text
Fighting was happening. Of course fighting was happening, Bucky Barnes thought, because Steve Rogers was around; and he knocked out a crazed blue-robed cultist as gently as possible and yelled words to this effect. The words ended with, “—and you didn’t say anything about goddamn interdimensional portals, Steven Grant Fucking Rogers!”
“Um,” Steve said, over the comm, “I didn’t know? They weren’t supposed to be that close to—Bucky, look out—”
“I got it!” Bucky said, at the same time someone else said so above his position; the someone else swooped in and kicked a cultist in the head before the blue-tinged energy weapon could go off. Sam Wilson tossed in, “You’re welcome,” taking off; Bucky yelled, “I had that one!” and threw him a very rude gesture learned by the Winter Soldier in Berlin in the mid-eighties.
Sam Wilson laughed. Bucky went back to ignoring him, equally ignoring the cultists swarming up his own parking structure, and strategically picking off, with nonlethal sleeper rounds, the men babbling in tongues and pointing weapons at Steve’s head. He did spare the time to lob a grenade into the air; one of the cultists had thrown something round and shiny at Sam. Bucky did not know what the shiny thing would do, but in this case it met his grenade and exploded, so that was that.
“I can dodge things,” Sam said. “Just so you know. I know it’s hard for you to see down there on the ground and all.”
“Some species of dung beetle can fly,” Bucky said. “Just a random fact. Trivia. Something I picked up. No, go back, Steve needs you over the entrance to the whatever the fuck that is, I’m good.”
“Steve is doing fine!” Steve said, keeping multiple cultists out of the gateway to the temple at street level, with effective arms. “They’re only human. Coulson—”
Bucky was secretly of the opinion that maybe men with protruding eyes, water-pale skin, gibbering voices, and eldritch weaponry were not exactly human. Several of them were yelling words that sounded like gibberish, Cthulhu fhtagn or something like that, unless that was a sneeze.
But then again the Winter Soldier was arguably not precisely a normal human either, so what did he know? And Steve wanted them disabled, not killed, so the Winter Soldier would listen.
He tenderly incapacitated another froglike specimen of humanity. This one’d run at him with a knife.
The Winter Soldier listened well to directives. He’d learned that. Bucky Barnes trusted Steve Rogers. He knew that.
He was no longer quite sure he knew how to be human. He had not told Steve Rogers that.
Since waking up, since Shuri and Wakandan science had straightened out at least half the mess in his head, he’d been doing what he thought he should do, what his emotions wanted him to do, day by day. Steve seemed to like that. Steve’s eyes got less sad and more proud and excited when Bucky wanted things.
Bucky did want things. Bucky liked plums and gelato and all the books he had time to read and feeling warm under the heavy knitted blanket Sam’s sister had managed to make and ship to him through mysterious means, when no one was technically supposed to know where he and Steve were living.
Bucky liked Steve’s eyes all lit up and happy, setting down weight and transported into pure joy just for a second: at the mention of a retrieved memory of summer lemonade, at one of Sam’s jokes, at the time Bucky’d said come outside with me after first waking.
They’d stepped onto a Wakandan balcony, a small curve outside the infirmary, barely enough for two. The world had glowed lush and rich and colorful, a tapestry of stories. Steve had been worried, asking what he needed, asking how he felt. When he’d first opened his eyes Steve’s face had been tight and worried too, that stubborn heroic repression of fear and pain.
Bucky’d said, the air feels nice here, Steve, and leaned his one good arm on stone, the railing curled warm and lazy as a cat beneath his touch. Steve had stared at him for a second or two, and then said oh, and taken a shy step to stand with him. They’d watched the world, and felt the air on bare skin, and breathed in weightless sunlight side by side; and the crinkle on Steve’s forehead had slowly for a moment gone away.
In the present he disarmed a few cultists—how many were there?—climbing onto his parking structure, which sat next to the temple, which hulked in summer heat in the middle of downtown Atlanta, because the Southern United States apparently had a pretty damn extensive occult population with the unfortunate tendency to chant spells that kind of sort of worked, at least when combined with some left-behind scraps of alien technology.
Coulson’s people were shutting down the gateway, inside the temple. Matters of physics, energy balances, beings with lots of tentacles trying to come through, and something about dead palaces and seawater. Bucky was busy. Protecting Steve. Who was protecting people, because anyone who came near the gateway got sucked in, and Steve Rogers would under no circumstances allow people to get sucked up by an interdimensional portal and fed to eerie ancient beings with lots of tentacles.
A throng of civilians had emerged from the shopping mall across the street. They were taking pictures of Steve. Bucky sighed internally. He’d take pictures of Steve Rogers too, especially in that clinging dark blue version of the suit, the one that outlined the fighting muscles and the amazing ass equally attractively. But the civilians needed protecting.
Steve was already sending Wanda that way. Good.
Less good: a knot of cultists in extra-elaborate robes, never an encouraging sign, raising voices and arms as a blue orb spun in the air above them, behind Steve’s back.
“Steve—” Dead air. A hiss. Something’d taken out communications.
Bucky paused. The Winter Soldier assessed. Sergeant James Barnes cracked a joke about the military and technology and where you could shove antique semaphore flags.
Bucky, at the edge of the parking structure, glared at cultists. “Steve!”
Nope. Nothing. Not even when he threw another grenade for attention-getting purposes. Steve turned to look at him, lips moving, no doubt shouting something about nonlethals, remember, Buck, they’re human!
Bucky rolled his eyes—he’d aimed for the building’s corner, Steve must’ve seen that—and yelled back, “I know, punk, would you just goddamn listen to me?”
Didn’t work. Never had. Felt good anyway.
Behind Steve the Blue Orb of Doom rose up, throbbing in an unpleasant way, blue and sparkly and shiny as seasick sapphires in the summer sun. Bucky said something very, very nasty in Russian, because he could, and all of his minds wholeheartedly agreed.
He got distracted by three elderly batrachian fanatics with blue glowy handguns. The no-kill order made this marginally more difficult. One shot nicked his hip, through armor. He kicked that cultist extra-hard.
Blood on his skin. On his fingertips when he touched the wound. Not much. Functional. Not a concern.
Steve was his concern. Always had been.
While he’d let himself get sidetracked, Steve was in danger. The Sparkly Orb of Ominous Anger had shot outward: right at those broad shoulders, which were preoccupied with guarding Natasha, who’d arrived with a book borrowed from some university library that’d supposedly help Coulson’s people stop the incursion. She ran through the doorway and out of sight.
No time, no time, and Steve wouldn’t hear him—
Bucky threw himself off the parking structure. Let himself fall. Sunlight skittered off his arm as he dove. Like wings.
He caught the flying blue orb just before it would’ve collided with Steve’s ridiculous rippling back. It landed squarely in the palm of his human hand; he himself landed in a breathless bruised-rib heap at Steve’s feet, and then took out a nearby gun-wielding cultist with one low deflected shot from the metal hand. Not a kill, either.
Steve spun around. “Buck—where’d you even—oh shit, Bucky, you’re hurt, your leg—”
Hadn’t noticed. Pain not so much registering. Not a Hydra remnant, just the simple plain truth that Bucky Barnes would run on a broken femur to make himself into a human shield for Steve Rogers, who never watched his own damn back.
“Givin’ you a leg up,” he said, “letting you win, Steve, how many crazed occult minions are you up to now—” and then he stopped, because his palm was tingling. Blue jewel somehow sunk into his skin. Spreading. Sapphire racing merrily along veins under his skin.
He shook his hand. The blue refused to dislodge.
“Bucky—!” Steve absentmindedly knocked a thrown dagger away with the shield, landed on knees beside him, grabbed his shoulders. “Tony, we need evac—”
“Comms’re dead, Steve—” Plainly Steve had also realized this; his face went tense and serious and field-commander. Bucky’d always found this disturbingly erotic, and discovered that this was still true even when he was slowly being eaten alive by glittery blue opals. Steve Rogers taking charge, made of fire and justice and compassion, went straight to his libido, and stayed there happily.
“I’m gonna get you out of here,” Steve said, all serious touching reliability, eyes like the world’s best search-and-rescue puppy, “Bucky, you’re gonna be fine, I promise, we can take care of this, I’m not gonna leave your side, okay, I’m right here, I’ll be here if you’re awake or if you’re asleep, I’ll be here when you wake up—”
Steve knew he hated hospitals. Of course Steve knew.
Steve knew part of why. The part everybody knew. The fist of Hydra, torture, trauma, modifications, yeah. Fair enough, Bucky thought dizzily, aware that those thoughts were turning fuzzy, disconnected. Mocking sapphire’d spread up his arm and across his chest; he could feel his heart pounding. Could see the fear Steve was trying to conceal behind heroic walls.
Bucky Barnes’d hated hospitals because they never did skinny sickly breathless Steve Rogers any good, or because they might’ve done some good but neither of them could afford the fees, or because they couldn’t take Bucky’s stupid dumb strength and pour it into Steve’s little lion body somehow.
He’d always loved Steve Rogers. Every version of himself agreed on that. They didn’t always agree on much, tiny peanut-gallery choruses of yes you like spinach or no we’re not going to kill anyone today or it’s probably okay to sneak into Sam Wilson’s kitchen and replace his orange juice with food coloring and water but not okay to put booby traps under the floorboards, but they knew this one.
James Buchanan Barnes adored the ridiculous scrappy stubborn punk kid who’d stand up to bullies of all shapes and sizes and in the next breath turn around and draw a stray weedy dandelion like an angel might’ve. The Winter Soldier loved the man who’d seen him, who’d known him, who’d called his name and brought him out of the dark, who could spar twenty rounds with him and keep up effortlessly, who had never looked at him with fear at a ghost story but only sorrow at the haunting.
Bucky sat on the ground in Atlanta rubble, broken femur knitting itself back together, ribs twinging—not just bruised, then, probably snapped—and fingertips tingling; whole body tingling as if falling asleep, pins and needles. He said, “Don’t touch me, Steve—no, Stevie, seriously, don’t, I don’t know if this shit is contagious, if I’m turning into a sparkly blue rock I’m not going to watch you do it too—” and watched Steve shake his head ferociously.
“I can pick you up, I can get you out of here—” Three more mad cultists appeared. One of them yelled something indistinct about monsters from other dimensions, human flesh, a bargain or a trade. One of them tried to attack Captain America with a ritual blade. Steve elbowed him in the stomach and sent him flying across the square. “Bucky, you can’t just give up—I can’t—”
Those big hands hovered over him, ready to grab. Ready to take any risk, throw themselves between Bucky Barnes and any danger.
Guilt, Bucky thought. Guilt and leadership and loyalty. That was Steve all over: built of strength he’d give to everybody else, none kept on his own behalf.
Steve Rogers deserved better than him. James Barnes had known that all along; the Winter Soldier didn’t have the vocabulary for that, but knew enough to not ask for more than was freely given, more than Steve himself offered. Lucky enough to have that much.
Bucky could do what Steve couldn’t, sometimes. Not because he was a better man. Hell, the exact opposite. But what Steve couldn’t or wouldn’t do was protect Steve Rogers.
Bucky could and would protect Steve. From snipers on cold battlefields he’d never wanted to go back to, or flying maniac cultists in the present day, or twisted Hydra plots and plans, or the pain of knowing someone loved him when Steve couldn’t love that person back. Or bizarre twinkly blue orbs with unknown side-effects.
Anyway it’d just eat Steve up inside, knowing he couldn’t give someone so unworthy his love, knowing Bucky loved him. No point to telling him. No need to wound that big Captain America heart.
Steve’d probably even try for a while, would convince himself he could be happy with Bucky, would pretend not to want someone more in tune with his idiotic boundless courage and compassion and selflessness and unfairly gorgeous square jawline. Someone like pretty shining Peggy, or Sam Wilson, at whom Steve smiled, with whom Steve talked sometimes late at night when he thought Bucky was sleeping without dreams.
So. No words, not for this wanting. No point. Nothing but pain.
Bucky used the metal arm. Shoved Steve away hard. “Move, Rogers. The world needs you.” Something felt odd. He couldn’t see right. Blue stealing over his vision. Sparkles creeping in.
Wanda was running their way in a swirl of scarlet telekinetic ribbons, Sam Wilson was landing hard and heading right for Steve, the comms popped back up with a crackle of static and a flurry of apologies from Coulson’s team, and Bucky said, “Stevie, don’t worry about it, okay, I’m gonna go out knowing I saved your dumb ass one more time, you’re gonna have to think about that forever—”
“No—” Steve stumbled up from the rubble-heap where Bucky’d shoved him, ran forward, flung out hands. “No, Buck, I’m not going to lose you again, I’m not—why the hell did you do that, you—you jerk—” Battle-dust painted his cheek, bisected an eyebrow like a misplaced tear-streak. Red and white and blue and scuff-marks, Steve Rogers versus the world. Bucky wanted to laugh, or to cry; Bucky loved him.
Steve dove in to grab him, though what the hell that’d accomplish Bucky didn’t know, but then it didn’t matter anyway because the world glittered and faded out like firecrackers, blue, blue, so much blue, and Steve never got to touch him, though that voice rang in his ears, pleading, shouting his name.
Fighting was not happening. More accurately, the fight scene of the day was not happening, because of complicated negotiations involving a local Atlanta landmark building that someone’d thought was okay to film, and then it wasn’t, and then the lighting wasn’t right, and something odd kept happening with the weather. The air hung heavy and dense as molten glass, hot and poised and suffocating. Clouds should’ve been present but weren’t. A few of the crew, the ones from California, muttered dire warnings about earthquakes. “In Atlanta?” said a Russo brother incredulously, and they went off into a worried huddle regarding possible apocalyptic events and their potential effects on film schedules.
Sebastian, in the face of this rescheduling flurry, found himself instructed to change out of Winter Soldier costume armor, to drink a lot of water because he was looking dehydrated, and to go back to the hotel until tomorrow.
He sighed. Changed. Dutifully took the bottle the personal assistant brought over. Stared at it.
If they weren’t filming he wouldn’t see Chris Evans. If he didn’t see Chris Evans—
He did not know what to do. How to feel. What to say.
Everything hurt around Chris, and that wasn’t just his hangover. Everything hurt in a way that felt bewildering, billowing, bright and certain and clearer somehow, like sunshine that broke his heart in two. He’d thought, over time, he’d get used to the breaking.
So wrong. Every day kept on kicking open that cracked old sunbeam. Every time Chris smiled at him he bled more light, invisibly, inside his chest. Since that first day, that first table read, that first clumsy shy handshake that’d become a hug because Chris Evans hugged friends even when they were friends he’d met two seconds before.
Chris Evans was a walking hug, Sebastian’s aching heart concluded. Big and warm and vibrant. And his own body kept on turning that way, helplessly seeking the warmth.
Chris Evans probably wanted someone who could come up with better metaphors. Could a person be a hug?
And he’d just compared his own love to plants and phototropism. He sighed again. The water bottle shrugged at him, not without sympathy.
Bits and pieces of the night before nudged his brain as he got into the car. He’d been trying not to recall. Not to think about the hotel bar, terrifyingly strong blueberry-infused spirits, and—
No.
The car took him back to the hotel. The driver, perhaps sensing his mood, stayed quiet, though she did smile at him gently as he hopped out. He smiled back, because he wanted her to be happy too.
He got into the elevator. He got out of the elevator. He stared at the walls and the carpet and the hallway. His head reminded him that he shouldn’t hope for anything ever; he hoped that Chris was happy, enjoying an unplanned afternoon off, playing with puppies in sunshine or reading a book of philosophy or going to an art museum and smiling at an abstract splash of color.
Anthony Mackie, one shoulder propped on the wall next to his door, said, “So, how hung over are you, exactly, and how much do you remember?”
“I remember you drinking tequila and trying to explain why birds are objectively superior to cats as pets. I’ve got video.” He fished around for his room key. Not in the pocket where he’d thought. Hmm.
“They are, and that’s not why I’m asking. Have you seen Chris today?”
Sebastian froze. Hand in pocket. Getting stuck on a thread.
Anthony laughed. “You probably should.”
“If you’re saying that I absolutely should not. Why are you saying that?”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
Some, but he’d been hoping to write it off as a vodka-fueled bad dream. “Tell me how bad it was.”
“Nah, it was, like, precious romantic comedy levels of drunk. And he didn’t seem to mind.”
“What did I say?”
“More like what you did. And said, I guess. I mean, first you sat on his lap.”
“No.” He did remember that, actually. The denial was more of a protest against reality.
“Yep. We ran out of space after Don showed up, and you said, oh, that’s fine, he can have my chair, I’ll sit on Chris, and then you did.”
“Oh fuck me,” Sebastian said, in Romanian and then again in English, just for emphasis.
“As far as I know that didn’t happen, not that he minded when you sat on him. I saw his face. Hey, you know how we all used to think you were shy and sweet? What happened?”
“I got to know you all and decided I could trust you with the version of me that likes blueberry vodka and once spent a night getting fucked by three actual astronauts. Oh, god, I didn’t tell Chris that story, did I?”
“Nope. Though I want to see his reaction when you do. He loves space almost as much as you do. Not sure which way he’d be jealous.”
“Oh god,” Sebastian said again, slumping against the wall next to Anthony. “That’s not even funny. Chris is…Chris isn’t…” Isn’t what, he thought. Chris was everything. “He doesn’t think of me like that. He’s a friend. He used to try to answer questions for me in press conferences. To help me out.”
“He looked like he wanted to help you out, you know what I’m saying?”
“I hate you so much,” Sebastian said. The hallway listened avidly. He should find his room key. He should stop talking to Anthony. He should hide forever. “He doesn’t…no. He’s not. We’re not. It’s not. Whatever the fuck you just meant.”
“It could be. You were pretty clear about it.”
“I was…what?”
“Well, you were sitting on his lap, and you asked him if he knew how many guys you’d hooked up with on camera, and then off camera…”
“Oh no,” Sebastian said. “No. Tell me I stopped there. No.”
“And—and this is kind of adorable—he did that stupid attractive embarrassed pink-cheeked thing and sort of laughed…”
Sebastian put an arm over his eyes, leaning against the wall. The wall did nothing to help, so he slid down it and sprawled theatrically on his face on the floor. Chris Evans had laughed. Had been embarrassed for him. “I’m a horrible person.”
“Totally. Completely unlovable. We all hate you.” Anthony sat down beside him, poked him in the shoulder. “Don’t think I mean that, kid.”
Anthony knew—most of them knew, he’d been open about it—about his struggle to like himself. Better these days. A therapist, friends, the growing awareness that maybe he did have something to offer: to fans, to stories, to the world around him. He knew he was better; he knew he was also off-balance and, deep down, occasionally convinced that words like those were true.
Anthony poked him again. “Seriously, don’t even. Or I’ll have to buy you another stupidly expensive book, who the fuck still buys hardcovers, anyway my point is I will totally make a grand gesture and embarrass the hell out of you just to show you how much I love you. And also you should know something else extremely interesting, which is how he didn’t try to kick you off his lap or anything. He kinda smiled at you. Like he thought it was cute how drunk you thought that was a good line. Which has to mean, I don’t know, you tell me what it means, you have literally twelve times more experience with dudes than I have.”
Sebastian contemplated possible penalties for maiming one’s co-star, if one’s co-star kept recounting one’s sexual expertise in any further detail. How much would the fine be for a leg? A toe? “Forty,” he said aloud. Forty dollars. Cash. In his wallet.
“You offering to pay me to stop talking? I’m not at the good part yet.”
“No.” He sat up, pulling knees to his chest. Sighed. Tipped his head back against the wall. Thud. Sounded about right. “You might as well tell me the rest.”
“After all the adorable blushing, you said, and I quote, want to make it one more?”
“Oh god,” Sebastian said, and very slowly bit his closest kneecap. Maybe he could choke on his own leg.
Anthony smirked. “He still didn’t say no. Just got all concerned and protective, especially after you tried to lean in and almost fell off his lap, and then he picked you up and carried you off to bed. Impressive. Like watching Cap in real life, if Cap hung out in hotel bars and rescued drunk-ass morons.”
Sebastian whimpered. Not much. But a little. He’d admit it: definitely a whimper.
“Guess what else,” Anthony said.
“No.”
“He just got out of the elevator.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t want to see me. I don’t want to see me.”
“He’s here.”
“No he isn’t.”
“Hi,” Chris Evans said.
Sebastian jerked upwards from his face-in-knees snail-shell, banged his head against the wall, yelped, and fell over.
Because he was sitting down, the floor caught him handily. So did Chris Evans, who got right down there and slid an arm around his back, easy as anything. “Hey. Sorry, I thought you heard me, didn’t mean to scare you. How’re you feeling?”
Sebastian opened his mouth. No words magically presented themselves as the exact right reply, which meant he ended up sitting there open-mouthed and speechless for what felt like his entire life. Chris’s arm shaped heroic compassion around him; Chris’s eyes were right there, blue as summer skies and concerned for his well-being. Sebastian couldn’t think.
He managed, “I’m,” which wasn’t an answer.
“Oh, you two’re perfect for each other,” Anthony said, “I need popcorn,” and got comfortable, watching.
Chris was blushing again. “That’s not fucking helpful. Seb—about last night—”
“Last night when I drank all the vodka in the fucking universe and I remember absolutely nothing and nothing happened at all ever,” Sebastian said, tripping over words and breath and his own heartbeat, which had sped up at Chris’s touch, which never wanted to slow down.
“Oh.” Chris bit a lip, sat back, shifted away. “You—guess I should’ve known, you wouldn’t—you’ve never seriously looked at me like—and you had to be that drunk to even flirt with—never mind. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And—and maybe run lines or something, since we’ve got the afternoon, but—no, you’re busy, you’ve probably got plans with Mackie, I’ll just—”
“He has zero plans,” Anthony said. “None. At all. I’m already leaving. Have fun.”
“No, it’s fine, I’ll—” Chris was getting up, taking a step. He was not quite looking at Sebastian. “Maybe I’ll meet you guys for dinner later, or something?”
“Wait—” Sebastian scrambled to his feet. Nearly fell over again. No clue what he was saying. But Chris’s shoulders seemed sad and that had to be fixed. That had to be fixed by any means he could find, any words he could offer, any pieces of himself he could give, always and always. “Chris, I—I mean, I—”
Chris stopped. Head coming back up. “Seb—”
“If you want we could—” Dizziness. Abrupt and blinding. Hallway dissolving into dull washed-out streaks and swirls. His head didn’t hurt exactly but became clouds, white and blurry.
He put a hand up—he thought he did—to touch his temple. His legs gave way. His hand fell back down, limp.
Someone shouted his name. Someone—Chris, that felt like Chris, Chris’s arms and Chris’s strength and Chris’s care—took his weight. Cradled him. Said his name again, frantic. “Seb—what happened, what’s wrong, what—”
He couldn’t talk. He tried but couldn’t form words. His eyelids were heavy. He was heavy, but paradoxically sparkly and oddly effervescent, tingling all over, as if turning not to stone but to sapphires.
“Sebastian—!” Chris’s voice sounded wrong. Frightened. Cracking. “Seb, no—no, stay with me, stay awake, look at me, please—fucking stay with me—Anthony, where are the fucking doctors, someone should be—”
“They’re on the way, they said—” Anthony must be on the phone, must have called someone; he was answering questions. “Yeah, what was that, no, he was fine a second ago, we were talking, he just collapsed—”
“Seb,” Chris pleaded. “Seb, no—oh, god, no—no, you’re fine, you’re gonna be fine, just—just don’t fucking leave me, hang on, you have to hang on—Anthony, fuck, I don’t think he’s breathing, I can’t feel—”
Sebastian wasn’t sure he was breathing either. Awfully difficult all of a sudden. Like being pushed through water, blue and thick and relentless, pressing down atop him.
Something hot and wet hit his face. More water. A drop. Chris was crying. That wasn’t right. Chris shouldn’t be crying. He had to wake up. He had to help Chris.
He couldn’t seem to do anything. He could barely feel Chris’s touch anymore.
I can’t be dying, he wanted to shout, I’m not, I can’t be, I have to make sure Chris is okay, I need to wake up now!
He couldn’t. He was scared and he couldn’t wake up and he wanted to touch Chris’s cheek, to whisper that everything’d be okay, to say the words he hadn’t had the courage for: yes I meant everything I said in the bar, I want you, I don’t want to have never told you, you sounded like you might maybe be interested too and I don’t know how I could’ve been so lucky but if you would then I would, I love you, I love seeing you smile—
Darkness, a kind of silent final velvet smothering, descended. It held a tint of that strange sparkling blue. Sebastian wouldn’t’ve guessed that. Made sense, though. Blue should be the last color he saw; it meant Chris’s eyes, after all, like oceans, like gemstones, like love.