fossilised | For Steve

For Steve

[This is a bad idea.

Bucky knows it as soon as he stops outside the little community centre where these classes run and he sees the other students milling about, chatting to each other in their own little cliques. The thing has been running for a while, it's an art group for anyone with any sort of mental health issue - depression, anxiety, psychosis. He's here for PTSD, practically bullied into it by his therapist at the VA, under the instructions that he needs to get out and start socialising more.

There are only six other people, four women and two men, and it already feels like too large a crowd. He makes sure his prosthetic is properly covered by a glove and long sleeve, stuffed into his pocket so nobody can tell it hangs strangely, and slouches in at the back. From the conversations he can overhear, blonde woman and redhead woman have anxiety issues, brunette #1 and the two men all have depression, and brunette #2 has psychosis. They're all so open with each other, chatting about medications and coping techniques and the work they've been doing in class already.

One of them approaches him and asks his name, and what he's there for, but he just glowers at her until she retreats again. He doesn't want anyone to know why he's here, and he's only here so Wilson will stop goddamn riding him about it.

He slumps into the seat nearest the back and waits for the teacher to arrive, already sure this is going to be a waste of time...]

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Yeah.

[His tears are at least slowing, even if they haven't stopped yet.]

I don't know when it happened, but you being happy is pretty much the most important thing to me now... and I'm kinda glad you're high, so you probably won't remember what a sap I'm being tomorrow.

That's not fair.

[Steve pouted slightly, though the glare he tries to fix Bucky with manages to be about as intimidating as a growl from a kitten.]

I feel like... like I've been waiting for you to come along my whole life. I'm so happy when you're with me.

[He's not even slightly intimidated, but his heart does ache a bit. Little by little, Steve is wearing down his guilt, though Sam giving his permission to stay has taken a big chunk out of it too.]

What's not fair about wanting you to be happy, Steve?

It's not fair that you're being so sweet and I might not remember it because I'm high.

[His lips finally curl up a bit into an involuntary smile and he returns to stroking fingers through Steve's hair.]

You'll hear me be a sap again sometime, Steve. Remember? I'm gonna teach you to box so that this doesn't happen again, and-- and I'm gonna listen to what Sam says to me. We'll work it out.

[There's the smile back on Steve's face again as he resumes cuddling against Bucky.]

I think I'll like seeing you box. Bet it's sexy. Sam can have cold pizza if he wants some.

I'm not exactly good any more, you need two arms to be a boxer, but I can teach you the basics.

[Enough to hopefully take him down if necessary.]

...so, c'mon, I feel like I'm wasting this opportunity of you being high. Should I be asking about your embarrassing secrets?

I'd tell you them all even if I wasn't on painkillers.

[He would too. Maybe a little more evasively than this way, but he is an open book.]

What do you want to know?

Everything.

[It's said completely sincerely, maybe he isn't quite done being a sap for the night.]

I want to know everything about you, and then when I forget I want to know it all over again. So you better get talking.

[Bucky said everything, so everything he'll get. Steve is happy enough to talk, curled up against Bucky like this. He talks about when he was young - the father he only knew from stories because he'd died overseas when Steve was too young to truly remember him. How for so many years it was basically just him and his mother, moving from base to base where she was needed and where there were more doctors to keep an eye on Steve when he was mostly a collection of symptoms and no solid answers.

How she died when he was sixteen because of some idiot ignoring quarantine procedures, how Steve had to be in quarantine for a time after that just to make sure he wasn't a carrier as well. How he had no living family at that point so it was a colleague of his mother's who ended up taking him, the kindly doctor Erskine. He found out what was wrong and kept Steve from dying before he hit eighteen.

How Doctor Erskine had died when Steve was nineteen killed by a domestic terrorist attack on the clinic he was working at.

He doesn't try to focus on the sad things, he truly doesn't, he's got a lot of happy memories mixed in as well. Cooking with his mom, the stories she'd tell about his dad, briefly meeting his later college friend Tony when they were both young because Doctor Erskine worked on a few projects with Tony's father and they hated each other at first. It's not intentional, all the sad memories, but Steve's life seems to be a series of losses. A very small number of people he could call close made smaller and smaller by each passing year until college and a group project brought his current friends group together and they just kind of stuck around.

About how he always worries that he's going to lose them too.]

[Bucky had asked for everything, but hadn't expected everything, not that he turned it down when it came. He just listened in silence to the whole story, eventually shifting to pull Steve properly against his side as he spoke. It took a long time, and by the end of it his heart was aching and he felt like a selfish bastard.

Sure, his dad wasn't exactly a good guy, but his Ma had been great and his sisters were always there for him. He had lived a pretty sheltered life until he joined the army, and he was a cynical and kind of bitter guy; while Steve, who had suffered from pretty much every piece of bad luck going, still looked at the world with hope and kindness.]

I would'a liked to meet your Ma.

[It's quiet, after Steve is done talking.]

So I could tell her how proud she should be of you, and how much the people around you care. You might not believe it, Steve, but I've seen how your friends look at you... you're not gonna be alone again.

[They can't replace family, he knows that, but maybe be a new kind of family.]

Mom would'a liked you.

[The words are faintly muffled against Bucky's skin, because when given half the chance Steve is a particularly affectionate barnacle. He never knew the Bucky of before, just the one he is now, but he thinks his mom would understand. Would care, would see why Steve cares.

It's better to think about than the idea that he could lose his friends. It hand't been a choice for everyone he'd lost so far, to stay or go.]

Yeah?

[He'd like to believe that's true, but he's pretty sure that Mama Rogers would not have approved of some jerk who beat her baby boy's face in black and blue.]

I think my Ma would'a liked you too, probably enough to want to adopt you and replace me, she always wanted me to be more polite.

I'm a hellion. [Steve's lips form a smile against Bucky's shoulder as he looks up to him - still just as dopey and adoring.] I just pass as polite. 'Sides, I wouldn't go nowhere without you.

Sure, a hellion who saves cats from trees and helps old ladies when they're being mugged.

[He doesn't forget. Or, he does, but weirdly the things Steve tells him seem to lodge more clearly in his mind than most things.]

So-- tell me honestly, how fucked am I when Natasha sees your face?

[Steve goes quiet and thoughtful for a long moment at Bucky's question. There's the real one that's worthwhile, Steve doesn't have the forethought to play it down.]

... Don't let her be behind you when you're about to go down a staircase for a little while?

[His smile turns a little bitter.]

Right. Good. I'm glad someone's smart when it comes to looking out for you.

You don't have to worry though. I'll protect you.

[Steve sounds VERY determined about that. Even if he's starting to nod off again a little.]

Yeah, Steve, I bet you will.

[He goes quiet after that and just watches Steve sleep for a while, before he steals Steve's phone and texts Natasha to let her know what happened. It's a short, but very honest account of how Steve got hurt and how sorry he is, but he leaves it at that.

Only then does he head back out to the couch to doze himself, not trusting himself to sleep next to Steve, and he's still out cold when Steve's phone starts to ring about an hour later right next to his poor damaged head.]

[Steve is tempted to leave it, honestly, but the painkillers are finally wearing off and the piercing sound doesn't help anything. It's practically in self-defense then that he answers the phone without even checking to see who it is and replies,] Hello?

Steven. Grant. Rogers.

[Natasha's voice is low and deadly, her Russian accent stronger in the way it always is when she's genuinely upset or annoyed.]

James sent you to the urgent care room?

[Uh oh.]

[Steve sits up pretty quickly, winces at the second stabbing of pain from the quick movement, and tries as quietly as possible to look for where the painkillers were left.]

It sounds worse than it is? It was an accident, Nat.

Oh, really?

[She sounds utterly unimpressed.

Steve won't see the painkillers, as Bucky's got them with him out in the lounge. He's taking what the nurse said about monitoring dosages seriously, so Steve only gets pills through Bucky.]

From what I have been told, it sounds as though he punched you in the face. A punch is not an accident, Steven, a fall from a ladder is an accident.

[And Bucky is currently dozing.

Well, the pain isn't debilitating, he can wait longer. He doesn't want to wake Bucky if Bucky's managing to get some shut-eye.]

It's an accident when you're in the middle of a PTSD flashback and don't know where you are or recognize who you're with.

[Bucky didn't fully explain that, but it does explain why Steve is so eager to stick with him. Her voice softens a little, but is no less concerned.]

Perhaps more of an accident. Still, it is not a safe situation to be in, hm?

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