fossilised | I come from a land of ice and snow

I come from a land of ice and snow

Asgard sat atop the branches of Yggdrasil since time began, and little had changed in their society in the years since. Each Asgardian was long-lived into the millennia, their lands were fertile, their people brave and strong. They had their vassals, their allies, and their enemies. Yet even those who opposed them respected the might of the Golden Dias, and the royalty who sat upon it. Currently that was Odin Borson, though he grew weary more easily now and had begun to consider passing the throne to his eldest son.

He had been blessed with many children, but only two that he considered worthy of his lineage and status. His firstborn, Thor, strong and honourable and everything an Asgardian warrior should be. His second son, Loki, was not natural born, though none knew that but his wife. He was different, a creature of magic and mayhem, of sharp intelligence. Both were worthy, but together they would take Asgard to a new prosperity, he was certain of it.

Midgard, where the mortals dwelt, was a land raided every few centuries for stock. It was seen as a breeding ground, much like a corral for cattle. Mortals were lesser, short-lived and weak, they were fit only as slaves. The last raid had taken place when Loki had been but a baby, nearly a thousand years ago, but the mortals that had been taken had been bred and cared for so that a healthy slave population still thrived. Slaves were given a weakened mixture of Idunn's crop with their food, to extend their natural lives to at least a few centuries in order to make them worth the effort to train. They had no rights, but they were taught well that this was their natural position.

All slave children were raised in a central pen and taught the same when small, those that then displayed talent at cooking, riding, hunting, housework, artisan skills, or singing were then measured off to be specially trained for higher masters. Every five years those who could afford to buy a slave, or those of high enough status to simply demand them, came to the corral and chose. Those who were chosen were special, were envied, and those who were not ended up working the fields out in the far reaches of Asgard, the most menial of work.

Anthony and Steven had been friends since they were little and being raised in the large pens together. Both had excelled, Anthony at crafting and Steven at warrior's skills, but neither were chosen when they were five, nor ten, nor even fifteen. Now, at twenty, it was their final chance to be chosen before they would be assigned to one of the meanest farmers beyond the borders of the great capital. Steven woke Anthony as the dawn rose, mingled excitement and nerves on his face.

"Anthony! Wake up, I've got news! I heard the overseer talking to one of the passing guards, and Princes Thor and Loki are coming to the corral today."

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Though he'd been expecting Banner, or maybe that soft spoken English accented Indian man to come and talk to him, he hadn't really expected those opening lines. Tony stiffened, the thought of what Bruce lived through clawing at the inside of his head. His own father was abusive, mostly neglectful, and Tony understood what it was like to see other families that seemed to genuinely love one another and be jealous.

But the specifics of Bruce's trauma eventually had Tony sagging. Bruce had admonished him for saying that Steve had it easy in captivity. And no one saw Barton moping around even if he'd gone through exactly what Tony had. So trying to explain it all without going into detail himself was going to be impossible.

He opted not to say anything to Bruce for a long while. Not about the other man's ordeal. Instead, he decided to tell him about the training moon. Just shallowly at first.

"There's a version of you working for the Asgardians. Evidently that Banner is concerned with sorting out slaves and helping the Asgardians get some new blood for their stock. The invasion? That was just a way to inject some new DNA into their herd. I guess their Banner was supposed to do the math. Like how dog breeders and horse breeders run the numbers to figure out which animals will produce the best offspring. Human beings just don't go at it when they're locked in a pen together though. So they force you to drink this stuff, and okay, in all fairness, it doesn't taste half bad. It's what it makes you need after that-- that's the problem. It's five on one after that. Whatever is in that drink, and I don't know exactly, it's like you're just mindless."

He kept using that othering word. You. Not me.

"You're mindless. And the women they bring in are mindless. A bunch of people just stand and and watch and if one woman is getting too much attention, they pull her out. Or another woman shoved her aside and-- Well what can you do, right? You want and they want it and it should be just fine in the end. But it's not fine, Banner, because it happens every few days. And then sometimes a smiling face of the only person you know shows up congratulating you on getting some poor woman pregnant and how lucky the kid is gonna be because they'll be trained right and sold to a good home."

Disassociating was just making he feel even angrier, though.

"Guess I'm a good stud. I've got at least seven buns in various ovens up there."

Bruce let Tony tell him everything that he needed to. He understood, their experiences were different, but the sort of trauma left behind was much the same, and he knew how tempting it was to disassociate from it all. Not that it was possible, not when he had to work around everyone else and their issues too.

"I'm sorry that happened to you."

Simple, but true.

"Nothing I say will make it any easier, and I know that when we get to the moon to rescue the others, it'll be hard. For you, for them, for everyone."

He had said all he had to say about blaming others for what wasn't their fault and he wasn't going to hammer it home. Tony had to come to that himself, and he either would or he'd finish the implosion he'd started and go down in flames.

"But you're not alone, everyone here has been through their own issues."

“You think I’m selfish.” Tony hadn’t looked at Bruce since he’d come in. “People have it worse than I do, right? Whatever happened isn’t going to effect me at all, not like it will those women, right? I should be happy that Rogers didn’t have to do it. And Barton…it’s not ruining his whole life so what’s the big deal? It’s nothing like the trauma you went through. Or what each one of these people suffered through. I know I’m being irrational, and that pisses me off too. I just want Rogers to fall down a peg for once. For once. He’s the only thing dad ever spoke about. He collected all of his stuff and told war stories and spent his whole life developing new ways to make him all over again, or to find him because he was sure that Steve was still alive somewhere.”

Once he’d started to talk, it just seemed to keep going.

“I get it, I really do. The rich kid who had everything is complaining now that he doesn’t have anything. I spent forty years happily getting my way on almost everything so boo-hoo to me, pal, right? Just go. I don’t feel the need to whip out pints of ice cream or hug it out, Banner.”

Except he did. He really wanted to hug it out and be told that he wasn’t the monster he really felt like he was. Rogers bit his own tongue off to keep from being forced to harm anyone. And Tony? Tony didn’t put up a fuss at all. His dad would have thought that typical. Once again, his unwanted son was a disappointment. It didn’t matter what that video reel said.

"Thank you, for telling me what I think," he said, tone just slightly dry. "But it's not right, because that's not what I think at all. Sure, you can be selfish in some ways, but this isn't one of them. There is no worse or better, what happened to me doesn't negate what happened to you... it's not a competition, Tony, there's not a finite amount of compassion to go around, it's infinite."

He spread his hands and remained right where he was, not giving Tony his space despite being basically asked to go.

"This kind of trauma, any kind of trauma, effects people differently. It doesn't matter how Barton is handling it, it doesn't matter how anyone else is handling it, that doesn't make your feelings less valid. Just like some of the women will cope by focusing on their kids, some will be angry, some will be scared, some will campaign for the safety of others, some will retreat. None of those are the wrong way to cope."

He hesitated a moment, before pushing on.

"But yeah, if you want my opinion, I think you owe Steve and Bucky an apology. Steve doesn't deserve your hate for not being raped or for being the guy your Dad was obsessed with, none of that was his doing, and I sure as hell think you wouldn't appreciate him judging you based on Howard. I don't know what happened with Bucky other than you argued, but he also didn't do those things to you. What I'm telling you is that anger is normal and valid, but you have to find a way to not unleash that on people who don't deserve it, or you become the bad guy. You're not the bad guy now, Tony, and I know you don't want to go down that route."

Slipping further down into the chair so that only his shoulder and a tuft of hair was visible over the edges, Tony found himself rubbing at the sleep in his eyes. “This is exhausting,” Tony admitted. Hating someone was really tiring, it tore at the inside of your skin, it nibbled on your bones and it made you just want to sleep. He knew Steve didn’t deserve the hatred, but he was the only person Tony had in front of him to hate and there was little else he could do about his feelings other that tough it out, swallow it, and figure out a way to move passed it.

He wanted to tell Bruce off, to mind his own business, and he wanted to reiterate that he needed to be alone, but that was exactly what Tony did not need and all of this acting out was a sure sign of that.

“Can you just tell him to back off me for awhile? I don’t want… Those grand gestures, the desire to make up… I just don’t want that. I shouldn’t have to move at anyone else’s pace, Jesus, Banner. And I don’t need someone telling me what to do. I just—“

Tony reached over and pushed the other chair out.

“Can you just sit here with me. And not talk?”

Whether or not Tony manages to learn how to funnel his anger into something productive and stop taking it out on people who don't deserve it, he will have to learn how to take orders. Especially from Steve, who had already become the unofficial leader among the survivors and would no doubt be officially voted as such before long.

Bruce sighed, but he sat in the chair obligingly in silence.

If this was what Tony needed in order to get his head together then he would be here for him for as long as it took. He meant what he said about everyone's trauma being valid, but he hadn't quite got around to the second part of that, which he was sure Tony would see as an attack again. That trauma didn't give you a pass to be a dick, you still had to take responsibility for your own actions.

That was what had made Bruce finally change his world view. He suddenly realised that he was becoming a bad guy, making the lives of others miserable, and he didn't want to perpetuate that cycle.

It was going to take Tony a little time to come to the same conclusion. It wasn't a good idea for him to be alone while he came to it, but he needed a little more space than this skiff. He turned his chair just a little towards Banner before he reached out to take his hand and pull it back into his own lap. He just wanted to hold it. And honestly, that was a really big step for him right now.

Given that Tony and Bruce had locked themselves away, and since a particular someone who was going to be so mad at him when he woke up was asleep, Steve requested Barton for backup on the last group of people they could bring back with them on this trip. While they had estimated about five thousand souls to the skiff, that really was just if they were all expected to stand side by side. They were rapidly losing space on board and though Steve was planning on returning to search for more people, there was very little liveable places left on this planet.

After he returned from a harrowing mission to Montreal, where the radiation had spiked drastically at the tail end of their loading mission and he had to send Clint back inside and carry a few kids at top speed back to the skiff due to the oncoming storms, Steve showered down and put on a fresh t-shirt before he stopped by the infirmary--

Only to be met with accusatory eyes.

"I'm sorry, pal. We had to move. The storms are bringing the radiation in from the East, Clint came with since Tony tried to knock my teeth out. How're you feeling...?"

Bucky had woken up about an hour since and been told by one of the volunteer medics that Steve had completely ignored their conversation and gone down onto the planet anyway. She had had to call in four other people to stop him getting up, suiting up, and going after them. He had only stopped struggling when Steve had been confirmed for back on board, then it was just a case of waiting.

He had obvious fresh bandages around his torso, and his entire expression was one big glower.

"Like I want to knock your teeth out too," he said. He understood why Steve had done it, but that didn't mean that he had to be happy about it. At all.

The guilt Steve felt was intense. He knew what new bandages meant. And he knew that blank expression meant that he'd just cut apart the trust of a person who needed to be able to trust him more than anything else. But Bucky's happiness and his pain for a few minutes really had to take a backseat to saving people that they already knew they could save. The broadcasting had worked. There was no struggle save for baggage and people with mobility issues.

Letting them die would have been wrong. And he couldn't just lock himself away like Stark evidently could.

Steve pulled up a chair and leaned his elbows on Bucky's mattress before he lightly tapped himself on the jaw. There wasn't a mark there from Tony at all. "Here's your chance. I'll even sit still for it. And then I'll work on regaining your trust back."

"You already have my trust, you idiot, you always have."

That was what made things like this more annoying, because he would never lose trust in Steve and he knew that the only thing that ever made Steve break his word was a greater need. He knew that his happiness didn't weigh against hundreds of lives, even if a part of him did value Steve's life above all of those.

He reached out, though, and tapped Steve very lightly on the jaw.

"I get it, but I'm mad at you. You're all I have Steve, if you're gone, I have nothing. I don't care about myself, about the new world, I just care about you."

Maybe that would change one day and he'd be able to find happiness in other things, but Steve was his lifeline at the moment.

Steve understood Bucky's selfishness, but he didn't want to give into it. He could just put himself in a glass case of on a self to be taken down when the all clear was sounded. Steve sighed and looked at his friend, at his....more then friend. He set one large hand on Bucky's thigh, respectfully over the blankets. It was s comfort, nothing romantically inclined.

"I'm going to work on that. But you're in luck. I'm pretty indestructible already. So you can let your guard down just a little. I'm not going anywhere without you again." There were people milling around all over the place now but Mohinder had assigned s good number of them to various odd jobs. "We're on our way back to our new home. And it's gonna be a whole lot of work once we get there but you have a few days for those holes in your chest to close. Maybe tonight-- if you don't go getting them pulled all out of whack, you can come back to the room tonight? It'll be weird sleeping without you in the cot beside mine."

Bucky wanted to sleep in the same damn cot. Not even for anything sexual, but because when Steve was close and he could feel his heart beat, that's when he could relax enough to actually sleep and maybe avoid the nightmares that always seemed to stalk him through each night.

"Help me up now, I'm ready to get outta here."

He had been ready to be out of the medical bay as soon as he had woken up, he hated places like this. Even the Soldier had been wary of medical procedures, that's where the deepest pain was often caused.

"You're impossible. And stubborn. I want you to know that." But after he'd gone against his word to stay on the ship, Steve wasn't about to tell Bucky to lay back down again. So he stood and instead of helping his friend to his feet, Steve swept him up in one fell swoop and cradled him close.

Was is strange to feel so good like this? Because right now, Steve felt amazing. He had no right to considering what he put Bucky through, but this was one of this moments that never happened outside of a fantasy or two. In the last few days, a lot of those daydreams kept becoming reality and though he felt a little guilty being so happy, he couldn't stop that happiness.

"I thought you might be the one carrying me for the rest of my life," Steve joked so he didn't get too wrapped up in his emotions at the moment. "I think I'm finally getting to like this role reversal."

Bucky could remember all the times that he had lifted and carried Steve back in their younger days, when the guy's lungs just flat out failed to work and left him a wheezing mess on the stairwell, or when he had pneumonia and couldn't even get out of bed to wash himself or use the bathroom. He had never seen Steve as lesser because he needed that help, so he didn't fight it now.

He just laid his head against Steve's chest to listen to his heart beating a solid and comfortable rhythm. A few of the people they passed looked at them in interest, and one young lady in her mid twenties waylaid them before the quarters they'd claimed for themselves.

"Um, excuse me, Captain America? My name is Chelsea Lane and I'm a-- I was a student of LGBTQ+ History, we studied, uh-- I just want to ask... are you two a couple?"

Bucky was a solid and oh so welcome weight in his arms. This was just as good as those hallway kisses, the kind that still surprised Steve thst he was allowed to have now. And it was as good as the way Bucky looked at him sometimes, a look he had gotten for years without knowing the meaning of, thst filled him up with warmth.

He was careful with his friend, though Bucky was pretty resilient, standing aside to let people move opposite them at a junction in the hall. He smiled back and gave little nods since he was a polite young man, even if he wanted to ignore the world and maybe keep right on holding Bucky like this once they were alone. Was that too forward? People slept together without knowing each others' names these days but Steve was worried if holding his friend as he slept would be inappropriate.

Bucky could laugh at him later for that.

At the moment, the blond was dumbstruck. He blinked at the girl who was barring the way with her slight body and well defined arm muscles. Steve liked that women worked out and grew strong these days. Everyone should be allowed to be whomever they wanted and this was proof that women weren't regulated to wives and mothers for a profession any more.

"Uh... Well first, nice to meet you, Chelsea. You can call me Steve and.. Are we... Yeah. Yeah you can say that--" Steve was surprised by the question... And the implication that his relationship with Bucky and not just his missions during the war had been a topic of discussion in class.

Bucky still wasn't up on the new terms and LGBTQ could mean anything, though he could gather from the way that Steve looked slightly startled and embarrassed that it probably wasn't anything to do with his career. He might have guessed artwork if the girl hadn't questioned if they were a couple... people had been debating if they were a couple?

He looked confused, but Chelsea looked about as happy as it could be for someone to look, beaming all over her face.

"I knew it! We studied the letters that Sergeant Barnes sent home to you, and the photographs of you together, and-- well, everything. There's always been a lot of controversy about these things, because of how it was illegal back then. And can I just say that I'm so happy for you both to be able to be out and proud now!"

The whole exchange was so strange. Steve wasn't really sure that he liked the idea that his private letters had been passed around for people to read and read into. He was uncomfortable knowing that the private sketches he had drawn of Bucky added fuel to the debate. And he was confused by what out and proud meant. He hadn't lived through the Civil Rights movement, not any of them, and so this was new and strange to him.

Especially since there was now even more reason for people to talk about him once Chelsea told everyone.

Steve had wanted to keep all of this to himself, to be just his and just Bucky's. He wanted to figure things out at their own pace without expectations or judgements, one way or another.

Once Chelsea left them, Steve continued his walk to their room without the bright smile he had been wearing, lost in thought.

He was dead. Bucky was dead. He'd become a public figure. His things had been passed around and sold and donated. That included his collection of letters. And his sketchbooks. He couldn't be mad at that and he shouldn't feel so violated either but not too long ago, he was living in a world that would have punished him for loving Bucky and old habits and feelings on why those habits were in place died hard.

Steve kicked the door shut and carefully set Bucky on the cot before he crouched down next to him. "You know... I got those letters when I was halfway through basic training. And I was always so tired-- I don't remember what any of them say. That girl knows what you wrote to me better than I do." And that bothered him.

Bucky was actually kind of tickled about the idea of other people studying something like this about them. It was a better legacy to leave behind than the Soldier, love, and he had no shame over what he felt for Steve. Honestly, having kissed him properly now, he didn't even think he would feel shame even if he were back in the time when this sort of relationship was forbidden.

He leaned his head closer in to Steve's chest until he had been laid down on the cot, then he could look up into his eyes properly and see the confusion in them. He smiled up, not at all bothered.

"I'll bet she remembers them better than me too, pal." He honestly doesn't remember sending most of them. "It doesn't matter, they were just a few letters, who cares if she remembers them better than us?"

Steve Rogers was rarely, if ever, selfish, but this was just scratching at him. He put his hand on Bucky's and let their fingers slide together. Rough to soft. By the time Steve was given the serum, he hadn't had any calluses form. His touch was as gentle as it had always been, when the most he did was wash dishes or hold charcoal. He liked to look at their hands together, though. It was calming and unpretentious. Bucky already knew him and there wasn't any need to try to be something else. When he didn't feel like being strong, he didn't have to be.

"They're my letters," Steve said, still looking down at their joined hands. "It's just-- Well jeez, Buck, everyone knew it before we did. And what's worse, I wasted just so much of our time. My head was all about the war. I missed you shipping out. I missed your letters. I never even asked when we met up again if you'd gotten any I sent you and..."

Steve was really upset. It had a lot to do with Tony's emotions towards him and Bucky nearly dying more than anything else, but he felt foolish for getting all teared up over this. He was a man. He needed to pull it together.

"Just always late to the party. Without anything decent to wear. And empty handed."

Bucky let their fingers slide together and then he pulled Steve down so that he could use his metal hand to card through his hair again. He couldn't really feel it, not properly, the arm could sense strong sensation like pressure or pain, hot and cold, not something subtle like the softness of Steve's hair.

"Maybe-- maybe it's dumb, but I don't care if the whole world knew before us, and I don't care if we wasted seven years or seventy years, I just don't. Because I've got it now, and it was worth the wait. They can have the letters and the photos and the history, it doesn't matter, we've got the future and everything better."

He pressed a light kiss to Steve's temple, not about to let him up now that he'd got him down.

"And if it bothers you that much, I'll write you new letters. Dear Steve, your feet are still damn cold in the bed. Yours, Buck."

"They are not," Steve complained, and though Bucky didn't want to let him up (hands in his hair non-withstanding), Steve pulled himse cup from that hunched over crouch by the cot anyway. He had been worried about propriety. He'd been worried about how it might look or if it would be disrespectful to Bucky to want to sleep close to him now that they knew about their feelings and weren't just good pals who needed to sleep against one another because Steve would freeze otherwise. But after everything that Bucky said, the romance of it and the remarks about his feet, Steve didn't care.

If Bucky didn't protest it, why should he?

"I'm going to prove it. But first... I need to steal some cushions."

Most of the mattresses and settees had been removed when they cleared the ship out but there was a supply room nearby. What Steve did was put together more of a nest than a bed for them, though he thought about trying to rig a tent without much luck (and Bucky laughing at him).

"Now listen," he said, fetching Bucky from the cot, gentle and affectionate, before depositing him in the pile of Asgardian furs. "If you just keep on saying really sweet things to me, I'm going to have to fall completely for you. And I don't think you want that. I haven't had any practice." Steve climbed in after Bucky, removing his shoes and socks to stick surprisingly still cold toes against Bucky's warm thigh.

Even super serum and better circulation couldn't change everything.

Maybe Steve thought that was romantic, but to Bucky it was just the truth. What did he care about pieces of paper or old photographs when he had the live version right in front of him to touch and talk to and kiss? He didn't need anything to remember Steve because he wasn't going to lose him and, if one day Steve died before him, Bucky wouldn't last long enough to need memories to look back on.

He flinched when Steve pressed his cold feet up against his thigh, before breaking into a soft and slightly snuffly laughter.

"You're kidding? Your feet are still freezing, you haven't proved anything. Geez, Steve, you need some thermal socks or something, because that ain't right."

He wound his arms around Steve without even thinking about it, melding their bodies together as if they had always meant to sleep like this.

Steve used his arm as a pillow for Bucky's head, laughing all the while as he was griped at. He didn't notice the chill anymore but that didn't mean that it wasn't still there. "Hang on, hang on..." He dug his feet into the furs and nudged the edge of one of the sheets he'd gotten up to cover them both with.

He'd never slept like this with anyone. Yes, sometimes Bucky stayed in bed with him instead of on the floor, and they had pressed their backs together mostly, or Bucky held him to stop the shivering, but that was survival. And Steve never let himself enjoy it the way he wanted to.

But this?

This he was never going to let himself do anything but enjoy. "How about you just shut up and go to sleep now? You have some mending to do because I'm not going to carry you around the jungle or let you get out of some honest work just because you were shot a few dozen times," he teased.

"How about you shut up and go to sleep, punk? You might be the boss outside of this room, but I ain't taking orders from you when I don't have to."

He was pretty tired though, it turned out that being shot was surprisingly draining, especially when he didn't actually have to get out and do missions again. His eyes were already leaden, but he was determined to stay awake past Steve sleeping because he had a plan, something to make Steve smile.

Whenever Steve finally got to sleep, Bucky would carefully get out of the bed and stagger to one of the drawers where a pen and paper could be found. It hurt like hell to move and he nearly fell about four times, but he managed it. So when Steve woke up a few hours from then, with Bucky back in his arms fast asleep, he would see about half a dozen folded pieces of paper scattered about the room with "Dear Steve..." on the folded side.

It was official. Bucky Barnes was by far the most idiotic and sweetest person ever to grace this planet. Uh. The planet that they left a few hours before. Whatever. Steve read and reread the partially charming and partially heart wrenching and partially ridiculous letters several times over, sitting on the floor outside of the nest where Bucky light snored his way to better shape. He had to keep covering his mouth with his palm to keep from giggling or sighing or making little choking noses at inappropriate sections of the letters.

Each one was tucked away in clothing they had picked up at one of the unlooted cities, a pair of jeans that fit him far too well, and while he ought to get back out there and make some rousing speach to the people on this ship about the better life they were going to... Well, he decided that rousing speeches could surely wait another hour or so.

Because Steve wanted Bucky to wake up with something too.

It would just be a little thing, half a page really, done in pencil smudges. Steve managed to capture the curve of Bucky's neck and shoulder perfectly, and though it was just neck and a shoulder, it was almost entirely too sensual.

"This has always been my favorite part of you," he jotted down in his neat handwriting. "The rest is OK too."

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