fossilised | werewolves

werewolves

Pumpkin Spice.

It hits the shelves the moment the temperature dips below eighty, before the summer officially ends and the leaves give hint at changing color. It's become an American way of life. Lattes might claim it to be proof of their success and staying power but it's expanded into hand soap and e-cigarettes now. You can't find anything, really, that hasn't been pumpkin spiced these days. Pumpkin pie is too humble to try and reclaim it anyway, and has quietly retreated to Thanksgiving where it waits to mark the end of the most beloved season in New York among straight white girls.

Steve Rogers, while neither straight nor a girl, has whole heartedly embraced the trend and the moment Starbucks announced that it had come back out for a Limited Time Only, Steve had rummaged in his sock drawer for a gift card he was sure had money left on it and stood in line with the masses to claim his holy grail.

It's a comfort. It's a promise that there's going to be something else to look forward to in the coming months when holidays rear their ugly and beautiful heads to remind you that your family is dead and most of the kids you lived with in foster care and group homes have disappeared out of your life. It makes Steve's day and he's already day dreaming about boots and puffy vests the moment he takes his first, iced sip. Steve isn't really a day dreamer, but his head can get stuck in the clouds on the best days and distraction comes easily in a city where you're never and always alone at the same time.

There's charcoal under his nails and a moment of joy in his heart from the iced latte he grasps so fiercely the day he sees Bucky across the street. He'd know him anywhere, even with that long fringe of hair he hasn't seen since before he went off to basic training. The light to cross the street between them is red but Steve ignores the risks. There are two lanes each direction, and all four are packed with yellow cabs and black Uber cars. No one can go fast enough to do him any damage.

The latte gets dropped along the way and Steve doesn't care. It's been over a year and a half since he's seen Bucky. It's been six months since he last heard anything from him actually. He hadn't even gotten a birthday card this year.

"Buck!" Steve is just a skinny guy, five foot four, maybe 100 pounds if he's got art supplies and an easel on him. He has fallen arches and a heart arrhythmia, but they aren't keeping him from shimmying between cars and nearly getting run over. He's out of breath when he makes it across the street and though he's lost his drink, he needs to bend over and cup his hands on his knees to steady himself anyway so it all works out. "Hey." It's smooth and followed by a smile. Something bright and cheery and all too Steve Rogers hopped up on artificial sugar and flavorings.

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There's too much going on in Steve's changing brain chemistry to register much. The human brain is a strange thing, it fills in gaps to avoid having blank spaces and so what Steve smells might be Bucky, but his mind is desperate enough to supply that with a better, more palatable reason: aftershave. It feels less strange to find comfort in that than in what is actually triggering parts of him that he'd never noticed he'd had before.

Humanity would slip from him all too quickly in the coming days. The change is not as slow as one might think, but also not completely instantaneous. That said, the way Steve looks when Bucky finds him sitting in his closet is more or less the way he'd left him.

With one small difference.

Steve's chest has been concave for as long as they've known each other. Heart surgeries tend to do that. They also tend to leave very long scars.

But when Steve stands up and hides Bucky's hoodie behind his back (like he'd been caught doing something wrong), he looks fine. He looks healthy. There are no scars. His chest his flat, almost broad. It's odd.

For a moment Bucky feels a pitch of vertigo and the all consuming panic that he's back overseas. Because it's not like he never had hallucinations of Steve brought on by various factors, and sometimes those hallucinations warped and shifted from what he remembered, making him more or less sick, depressed or happy, or--

But the feel of Penny's nose against his hand grounds him, and forces him to look more closely at this very odd reality.

"Steve, you-- how the hell did you bulk out that much? Did you start taking something while I was away?"

Surely this had to have happened slowly over the time he was overseas, some new skin treatment for the scars or steroids to bulk his muscles? But even that makes no sense, it's just his mind desperately grafting towards something that might make some sort of sense.

Steve gives Bucky a look. It's one he's often given him, when he's seen through a rouse. There's no way in hell that Bucky is going to get anything over on him right now, though it's a pretty cruel joke. "Bulk out? What are you even talking about?" he dismisses, feeling ridiculous for trying to hide the hoodie. He steps partially out from the closet to pull it on over his head, which really doesn't help Bucky's feeling of delusion.

It's no shift of light, no play of shadows across his skin. Steve isn't pale, or sickly. His skin looks almost pristine. His collarbone and ribs don't stick out.

Bucky's seen him completely nude not too long ago, too, in that art class. Even if Steve had bulked up while he was gone, how could he possibly have either hidden it, or somehow only ballooned up in the last few days?

Bucky is torn between pushing the issue because he's so sure now that he's looking that Steve is different, and pretending he hadn't said anything out of terror that his already tenuous grasp on reality is slipping. Surely Steve would have noticed his body changing, right?

"Steve-- just..."

He hesitates and there's something dreadful and pained about the muted look of terror behind his eyes. He's scared of losing himself, genuinely not playing a joke on Steve.

"...just go into the bathroom for me, take off the hoodie and look at yourself in the mirror. Please."

Steve hesitates. He looks at Bucky, sees the fear in his eyes, and decides to just do as he's told. There's likely no one hiding in the shadows right now, no one ready to pop out at him, no camera set up to catch his reaction to plastic insects or a shower cap full of water balanced on the edge of the door to spill all over him.

Steve removes the hoodie with a flourish, sassy as always, and tosses it back at Bucky (because he can't help himself but be a brat). The dramatic curve of his spine is gone. Bucky can still see the knobs of vertebrae, but they don't make Steve look somehow monstrous. or crooked. The scoliosis surgery marks are gone.

The blond doesn't stop until he gets to the bathroom and, boldly, throws open the door. There's nothing to jump out or drop on him, just a dark reflection in the mirror. A flick of the lights actually draws Steve back, mostly because of the abrupt change in light that makes him squint away.

"Okay...so what am I looking-- JESUS!"

Thank fuck.

Even though whatever is happening is bizarre and unreal, the fact that it's not either his eyes or his head going wonky is the most wonderful thing ever. He already has such a difficult time with his sense of reality, knowing that it's not more on the fritz can only be a relief.

"You look-- this isn't a swelling, Steve. Hell, I think you might even be a couple of inches taller. But that's impossible. You're way past your puberty stage, you shouldn't be able to grow any more."

And that's not even taking into account how much healthier he looks, almost like he's never been sick a day in his life.

There's nothing that Bucky could have done to make him look this way, but like any human being, Steve seeks out an explanation that doesn't have to do with some sort of magical voodoo first. "Did you paint abs on me when I was asleep yesterday?" What else can be the explanation?! He rubs a hand down his abdomen and looks at his fingers, honestly expecting to find a smudge of charcoal or eyeshadow powder on them.

He twists, looking down at himself, and nearly falls over the toilet in the process. A catch of himself on the tiled wall with one outstretched arm details muscles just under the skin.

He's never had muscles. Most kids growing up doubted he even had them.

"This isn't funny."

"I ain't laughing."

Despite the relief of this not being in his head, there was now the utterly baffling reality that there was no rational explanation for what was happening. Maybe if Steve just looked a little healthier they could attribute it to something in the rabies shot acting like a steroid for a while, but this went beyond merely looking a bit healthier.

He was taller, broader, and some of his goddamn scars were missing.

"I think we've gotta go back to the hospital, Steve, this is-- I don't know what the hell this is."

“You want me to go to the hospital looking this this?!” Steve asks, worked up enough that his lips pull back from his teeth. “Are you crazy? They’ll probably cut me open!”

Maybe that’s not true. He isn’t an alien or anything. He isn’t some sort of monster. He’s just healthy. Then again, it might make sense for the government to have him vivisected so they can find out how to help all sorts of diseases. It would be like that lady with the cancer cells that refuse to die. He doesn’t want to be like that. Helping people is in his nature, but he wants to be alive to do it!

He makes a low whine under his breath and from the other room, Penny does so too. It makes him want to howl, which in turn makes Bucky, blocking his way out of the small bathroom, feel almost dangerous. Or threatening. Steve dashes that thought all together. No way. Not his Buck.

He pulls back instead, posture straight and chin up, defiant in the face of fear.

“I’m not sick. For once in my life— Maybe it’s just a miracle?”

Bucky can understand Steve's fear, though he only understands it now after he had gained a horrible experience with doctors that had left him wary of hospitals in general. But this couldn't be ignored, it wasn't normal, and who knew if this would turn out to be somehow dangerous?

He scrubbed his hand over his forehead and looked supremely uncomfortable.

"I real hope so, Steve, you deserve this kind of miracle. But we still have to try and figure out what it is, and if it's safe. I have-- there's someone I know who could help test this without it getting out."

Urgh, he really didn't want to call in this favour. He had worked quite hard to drop off the radar where this particular "friend" was concerned. But for Steve... he'd always done whatever it took for Steve and he always would.

The hope in Steve’s eyes hadn’t changed with the rest of his body. If anything, it just makes his eyes sparkle more as he looks up at Bucky. “Yeah...?” Bucky is messed up, broken, dealing with his own shit, but Steve still trusts him with his life. Obviously. You don’t get that particular look on your face any other way. “Thanks, Buck.”

They leave the bathroom and Steve gets dressed in Bucky’s now much better fitting clothes before he curls up on the couch, on the side Bucky obviously prefers to sit given the way it smells. He presses his cheek to the arm rest. It’s a comfort, too, scent and softness and a little bit of of a rough patch where maybe something had spilled before or rubbed off from Bucky’s remaining hand.

Bucky is allowed to make his phone call and Penny follows him loyally as she watches Steve. The guy isn’t right, she’s still got an eye on him, that’s for sure. But he’s not making any false moves. Not yet.

There had been a man briefly trapped with him overseas, though he had been transferred out to another prisoner of war camp to work on some sort of project, but in the time they had spent together they had struck up a friendship and Bucky had helped to keep him from getting hurt any further than he had already been.

It had only been after getting out and back that he had found out that man was the Tony Stark, of Stark Enterprises, who had decided that Bucky was one of his absolute bestest buddies thanks to the experiences they had gone through together. But Bucky hadn't wanted the lavish gifts and the way Stark had set his entire R & D department to work on artificial limbs. It had felt stifling.

So he skipped out.

Stark, though, he'd have the ability to get stuff done for Steve, right? So it was with some measure of trepidation that he grabbed Steve's cell (not having one of his own to keep from being tracked), and called the number that was indelibly etched into his brain.

"--hello, Stark Enterprises front desk, how may I direct your call?"

"Uh, this is Bucky Barnes, I need to talk to Tony. Um, Tony Stark."

"Do you have an appointment Mr. Barnes?"

"No, but--"

Damn it, this was not going to plan. Maybe he wouldn't be able to help out Steve at all.

“On moment.”

The name and register of the voice had pinged something in the automated system, something that caused an alert to go to Tony’s phone from the AI he had programmed to take the place of an annoying human secretary. He has a personal assistant and she’s too busy to screen his calls. Dealing with one person on that front is enough. Between Pepper, his driver and bodyguard Happy, and a few other contacts here and there, Tony thinks his life is enriched enough as it is. He doesn’t need someone acting as gatekeeper for him when he can write a program to do it.

Besides, it really helps to take the infallibility to the extreme when it comes to people contacting him. This is just more proof that Pepper is wrong about having programs answer phones for you. A glance at the name on the phone makes him grin and he sets a mental note to tell her all about it when she returns from filling in for him at some sort of function or award ceremony or whatever.

Tony drops his tool and peels off his gloves before he punches the speaker option on the cell phone.

“And here I thought that you lost my number.” He’s as arrogant as ever, and the gloating comes right through the phone.

Just hearing how smug Tony was to be contacted almost made him hang up the phone in a fit of pique, but it also made a tiny smile pull at his lips. As annoying as the guy could be, he was a friend, even if a friend that Bucky had run away from. He was a bit better now than he had been, but he still doesn't think he can handle the excessive overwhelming nature of Tony's friendship in full force.

"I don't have a phone, you know that."

His voice would be as familiar to Tony, that quiet rasp that's as understated as he is overstated.

"Listen-- I need your help."

He wanted to lay it out there immediately because to do otherwise felt dishonest, and he knew Tony would know him well enough to know he wasn't the sort of person to just tap a rich friend for any favour unless it was necessary. Otherwise he would have stayed in the fancy part of New York and accepted a floor in Tony's tower as offered when he got discharged.

"You remember me telling you about Steve?" Dark nights amongst the smell of human waste and the screech of pain, telling one another about people left behind. "Something medical is-- different, but we need to be discrete in working out what it is."

Ah. Steve. The love interest. The only person Barnes ever spoke about like that. Tony isn’t one to judge. Well, he is, but usually based on intelligence, not on what someone wants to do with their life. “Still not a doctor,” Tony says.

He’d only spent a few weeks with Barnes before they had moved him to a supposedly better kept, more secure area where their captors attempted to get him to do for them what he did for the American Army. Tony had gotten really good at bullshitting them all, so well that he’d had no idea Barnes escaped and dragged those compatriots he’d been captured with to safety until after he himself had escaped and found their cell empty.

Not that he’s bitter. They had no idea what happened to him, and honestly, he’d been treated a lot better than they had after his accommodations had been upgraded.

“I mean, I’ve been dabbling with this sort of bone regeneration machine so we can live in a world where Star Trek and Harry Potter are real— Still in Brooklyn?”

Maybe he’s been checking up.

“Because I’ve got a present for you.” Dark eyes drift up and across the seamless prosthetic he’s been obsessed with. “I can come out tomorrow?”

Goddammit.

He had thought that he'd managed his move to Brooklyn in relative secrecy and managed to stay under the radar so that Tony hadn't tracked him. So much for that idea. But it does mean he's grateful that his friend allowed him the illusion of privacy for the sake of his comfort, even if he didn't have to. It was those moments of sensitivity and kindness that made the rest of the arrogance worth putting up with.

"I don't need a present, Tony, but I know you have doctors working for you. Ones that can be kept private, so Steve isn't paraded about like some sort of lab rat."

Come on, friend.

"You can come over tomorrow, I guess you don't need my address, but I really do need your help for this. Please."

“No need to beg.” Tony doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want some guy who he knows has had a bad run of things having to ask like he is. “I’ll bring my party tricks and we’ll see what we can do. I think I have the perfect guy for the job anyway. I just have to go and blackmail him.”

It takes exactly ten minutes once Tony’s hung up with Bucky to locate and get actually get Bruce Banner on the phone. He’s persistent. Bruce knows that. And if he wants some peace and quiet, he’s going to be agreeable to a little private jet flight up to New York.

Tony will be waiting for him, annoying grin and all.

Steve just had to wait for them to arrive the next afternoon. By then, however, he’s two inches taller still and filling out Bucky’s clothes like they were made for him.

Bruce was generally a beleaguered sort of guy, especially when he had to keep explaining to Tony that he wasn't that sort of doctor, but the man had helped him keep his identity under wraps and the story of the Hulk from spreading much outside of Harlem. He had even given him funding to check out other stories and potential incidents of people who might have gained abilities outside the norm from various reasons.

There was one potentially interesting kid in Brooklyn who might have changed from being bitten by a spider, and references to an abnormally large dog in the area, but that was it. Still, he did as he was told and came along.

When Bucky got off the phone, he had to explain to Steve what was happening, and he really hoped his friend wouldn't make a big deal of it.

"So, uh, my friend and a doctor are coming over tomorrow. Don't freak out, but it's Tony Stark."

“You’re joking.” Steve is probably the best deadpanner that has ever existed and he does it now with the most amazing of scowls. “No seriously. You’ve got to be joking. Tony Stark? That guy that makes bombs and smart phones?” Tony might cringe to know that it’s pretty much the only two things he’s really known for, even if he’s pretty much gotten away from the weapons briskness since he managed to free himself from terrorists. “How do you even know Tony— Oh my god, shut up!” Steve exclaims, sitting on the couch now only because he knows Penny wants him to stay still. “The camp in Afghanistan... you guys were together...?”

Only Steve, currently on some weird growth hormone that is making him have some sort of latent puberty spike, could still have the most innocent and awestruck look on his face.

“Buck, that’s so cool!”

Steve knows as much about Stark as most people... which is basically nothing other than he’s rich and smart. And sometimes he’s on the news or magazine covers. No biggie, right? Not until he’s about to come and visit you, of course.

“Wait. Wait a second. Uh. Why...is he coming here?”

"Believe me, it's way less cool when you've actually met him."

There's a tiny tweak of fondness to his expression, though, so Steve would be able to tell that Bucky does actually like Tony. Not as much as he likes Steve, but definitely someone that he considers a friend.

"He's a whole lot of-- everything. It's like being hit with a tsunami to meet Tony, but he has contacts to check out whatever's happening to you in a discrete way. No lab experiments, no press coverage."

It’s just after eleven when a knock comes to Bucky’s door. Penny barks to alert him, but it’s Steve that does the answering. He and Tony are the same height, though Tony is grinning in a three piece suit, arms out, and Steve looks a little like a hobo. It takes Tony aback. “Uh. Wrong unit? Banner, knock next door.”

It takes a second for Bucky to appear over his shoulder and Tony’s wilted grin grows again. He doesn’t go for a hug, nor a handshake. He just seems genuinely pleased to see an ‘old friend.’

“Oh. Is this our patient?” Tony leans close to Steve, who actually does the same before sniffing at him, as if that’s a perfectly normal way to say hello. “Uh. Okay. So. Weird. But he looks fine to me.” Healthy even. He’s almost radiating health.

“He’s standing right here you know?” Steve mentions, leaning against the door while his eyes settle on Bruce. There’s something almost kindred about that one.

Edited 2018-10-18 11:13 (UTC)

Tony would get a tiny half smile in return, which was still more emotion than he used to show. Having some time alone and then seeing Steve again had already helped him progress from what he had been when he’d first got back Stateside. He shrugged and stepped back to allow the two men in, his fingers curled into Penny’s fur to keep him grounded while his apartment was filling up .

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point. Steve’s has a lot of incurable health issues since he was born, but his spine has straightened and he’s put on about 20 pounds in the last day.”

Bruce returned Steve’s look blandly and when he spoke it was in a deceptively calm and mild voice.

“Tony, my instinct says all is not right here.” Which meant the Other Guy was stirring in his head, aware of another predator in the room. “But it is nice to meet you both, I’m Dr. Bruce Banner. You must be the famous Bucky and his friend Steve.”

Tony sets down the clarinet sized case he’s been carrying on the coffee table but he doesn’t immediately make himself at home. The place smells like dog and while some people might not hate that smell, it makes Tony think of lack of cleanliness and he’d just rather keep on standing. Thank you very much. He even slips his hands into his pockets. Just in case. Besides, he’s not the star of this show.

Mild mannered, instinct-laden Bruce Banner is the guy with the headlines here, even if Steve seems equally torn between staring them both down.

“Buffet yesterday?” Tony jokes, but no one laughs. Banner just gives him a little look.

“You don’t believe us?” Steve counters, only to have Tony pull out his phone and somehow make whatever is on the screen suddenly appear on the television. Steve isn’t going to question it. Apple has those sorts of capabilities. He just didn’t know that Tony could do those things without all of the run arounds Apple products have. On the screen is a photo of an X-ray of his spine. Twisted. He’d know it anywhere and it makes him feel like he’s on the verge of growling. “How’d you get my medical records?”

Tony’s answer is a wink and that really does make Steve growl.

Bucky sets his hand on Steve's shoulder, even though he's surprised to hear the growl. Even when Steve is being confrontational, which happens more than most people would think to look at him, he's never overly violent or vicious with it. He feels oddly like he's holding back Penny and calming her, rather than setting a hand on the shoulder of his oldest friend.

"I told you, Steve, Tony is kind of overwhelming and he always knows what he's doing."

He steps up close to Steve and turns deep blue eyes from Tony to Bruce, who also feels the wariness that comes from another dangerous person. But nothing like Steve, the Other Guy is actually murmuring about that one, and that very rarely happens.

"Tony, can you guys help us? Steve got bit by a dog, got a rabies shot, and then-- this."

“Oooh! Werewolves? Please be werewolves!” The guy is in his forties, twice the age of the two young men who were born and raised in Brooklyn, but he’s acting like the youngest of them all. “Banner, I will fund whatever your next research project is in it’s fullest if you can tell me we have a real life werewolf here.” It won’t even be the strangest thing he’s heard, either. He’s pumped a few million dollars into rebuilding Harlem the first time he and Bruce met. And that was almost seven years ago. Tony’s relationships don’t usually last that long, though it probably helps that Bruce vanishes for a year or two stretch of time between their encounters and Tony is strangely respectful about that.

Standing next to Bucky now, Steve is only two inches shorter than his friend. For Bucky to put his hand on his shoulder is probably an odd sensation for him. It certainly is for Steve too, glancing furtively at Bucky. He barely even needs to look up, which makes this whole situation that much more surreal.

“Do you…could it be some sort of latent gigantism?” Steve asks, after apologizing under his breath for the growling.

Tony scratches his beard, and Bruce sets his case beside Tony’s. “I’ll need your blood. I can run a few tests here and give you an exam.”

Steve isn’t eager about that but he’ll do as he’s told.

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