fossilised | it's a new plot!

There was a tension to Bucky that had never been there in the past when they embraced, but he would never wholly be the man he was before. He still hugged Steve back, tight and secure, and then raised his flesh hand to tousle his hair a bit.

"C'mon, punk, don't embarrass us both by turning on the waterworks. I know it hurts that the Dodgers left, but you don't need to cry over them like they're a dame that broke your heart."

He was a little misty-eyed himself, if he were honest, he knew what a huge step this was for them both. It was like he had found home again after being lost for a lifetime and, though he loved Tony in a different way, Steve would always be that home. He was his best friend, his soulmate in a platonic sense, his brother.

If Bucky was hoping for a manly drying up of tears and a blame on allergies, he wasn’t going to get it. Steve had lived too long in this world and while it wasn’t completely all right for men to cry, he’d seen and lived through enough not to care. Cornflower blue eyes remained soaked, tears collected in his eyelashes, but he didn’t hold onto Bucky the way he wanted to. He’d felt the way Bucky had stiffened up, and he didn’t want, in any way, to hurt the man. He did sort of wish, for a moment, that they were women and could get away with some handholding right now as they caught up on literally decades.

“I’ve been living for so long with no one who understands how awful it is to have a team up and leave… It’s just good to know that someone else is as outraged as I am.”

Tony passed by the upstairs hallway, just briefly, on his way to his lab and caught the tail end of that comment. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Men from the 40s were weird.

“It’s just real good to have you back, pal. Real good. You have so many movies to get caught up on. It’s going to be a long, difficult process. They’ve ruined Godzilla and King Kong.” Steve rubbed at his cheeks and laughed.

"There's a lot I'm still missing, Steve."

Bucky didn't want to put a dampener on this conversation or make Steve upset, but it was important to set those boundaries and make this a relationship that could go forward properly. Without things going horribly wrong. Though perhaps that was just hope speaking and they lived in a world where everything would inevitably one day implode.

"But I remember enough to know that I'm Bucky, and that you're my best friend, and that I'm really mad about bananas and the Dodgers."

His lips quirked up a bit.

"'Til the end of the line, right?"

“Til the end of the line.”

No truer words were ever spoken.

“I was hoping you’d never find out about the bananas,” Steve said, cheering up. Bucky wasn’t a blank, impossible thing. He wasn’t this looking memory of his own guilt. He was and could still get better. “But there’s a support group for that too. Sam used to run a lot of them. You’ll like Sam. He’s less of a punk than you, though.”

Steve, in true men’s affection, gave Bucky a little shove and sniffled back whatever remained of his tears. He did not want Stark happening upon them like this. He’d be called a cry baby for sure.

Steve cleared his throat and squared his shoulders before smiling at Bucky. “You know, I’m always happy to fill in the blank spots. Like where I was always saying your butt when you got in fights? And how I was the star of the boxing club and you used to go to my practices. Always felt sorry for you.” He gave Bucky a little shove again and headed towards the kitchen. “I still box, you know? Just how you showed me. There’s less asthma attacks now.”

"I'm sorry, you were the star of the boxing club? I thought I was supposed to be the one with memory issues, not you."

He didn't think that it would be a good idea for Steve to show him how much he had improved as a boxer now that the asthma had gone, he had a fear that any type of fighting would snap him back into that state that he had been in before, and maybe he would go in for the kill instead of just a harmless bout of punching.

"I think I'll pass on the support groups, pretty sure nobody is qualified to deal with the mess that's my head. I just need some time, some peace."

It was a shame that peace wasn't exactly something that they got much of these days.

"...look, there's something I have to talk to you about before this goes any further, okay? So-- why don't you sit down?"

Steve more or less radiated confusion, and with it, the edge of fear. He was absolutely certain that Bucky was going to come out and say that they couldn’t be friends (though that wasn’t logically accurate given what Bucky had just told him). Maybe he was dying? Stark mentioned there were wires, of all things, in his brain. That scared him too. To regain and then immediately lose the man?

He tried not to let these preconceived notions bore into his brain. Bucky might just want to sort some things out, but he couldn’t shake the dread.

“You can talk to me about anything,” Steve promised, and sat as directed. This was a night and day Bucky and he wanted to cultivate keeping the guy that didn’t look like a wounded animal in his life. “What is it, pal?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, Steve's concerned expression not helping with the nerves riding up inside him now. He wondered, briefly, if Tony was still watching them and whether he'd be mad that Bucky was about to out them both. Maybe he would, but Bucky couldn't go around hugging Steve and joking with him, all while he had this horrible secret buried under his skin.

If he did, he's always be waiting for the hammer to drop and everything to be ruined. If it were going to be ruined, better to have it ruined now.

"Remember Jimmy Folke from down the block, and that rumour that went around that he was seen with some guys who gave favours? I'm pretty sure I'm like Jimmy Folke, if you know what I mean, and I'm pretty sure that I'm stepping out with Tony."

So-- there it was.

Jimmy Folke was not the kind of guy you wanted to be like. Jimmy got the tar beat out of him at almost every turn and he made it really hard for Steve to be Steve, growing up. Not only was Steve slight, unmanly, and sensitive, but he also constantly stood up for Jimmy Folke. Many times, they’d get beaten up together when Bucky wasn’t around to stop it. Or to tell him that what he was doing was way too dangerous a move. He was all for Steve needing to stand up for the little guy, but Jimmy Folke was not the little guy you wanted to be in your circle of friends.

Steve’s eyes widened and then he glanced up towards the ceiling as if Stark would magically descend from it, yelling something about him being on candid camera.

The blond’s whole face flushed and he tried to hide his irritation. “It’s a bad joke, Buck,” he said at once, defensive and feeling his whole chest clog up before he tried to offer a less than delicate smile that all but trembled right off of his face. “Almost had me believing it too until you said you were trying to date Tony.” His laugh was nervous, as though he was trying not to judge, trying not to hurt anyone’s feelings here, but also not liking the direction that this was going. “It’s not… It’s not right to joke about this sort of thing. Did Tony put you up to this?”

This? This was the kind of reaction that Bucky had expected when he first told Tony, this was the sort of thing that made him wonder in filthy whispers if what HYDRA had done to him was just divine punishment for that sort of sin. They had been brought up to think those sort of men were just as bad as rapists or kiddie touchers, people engaging in something really sick and wrong.

"--No."

It was a short answer, expression brittle as he took a half step back.

"It ain't a joke, it's the truth. I had to tell you before we just-- you had to know what I was, it's not fair otherwise. You'd find out one day, so maybe it's better it's now and you can go."

“No.” Steve wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t just go, there was no where to go. What he had to do was find Stark and... What? Threaten him? Steve had never been more embarrassed in his life, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this Bucky, now, was still Tony pushing his buttons. He’d commanded Bucky to behave this way—

That simple thought alone turned Steve’s stomach and he dismissed it. Tony was a lot of things but he wasn’t like that. The blond was up and pacing across the wide window with that beautiful, if violent view.

He put his hand to his face again and then he stood, still, in profile to Bucky.

It would come out eventually.

“It’s not you. You’re not remembering it right,” Steve said, chin dropping to his chest as he put his hands in his pockets. The gesture was non-threatening. “It was me. I didn’t think you knew. You never made out that you knew— I was never interested in those girls. I had to be— Well, I tried to be. And I tried real hard with Peggy too. And I’ve been trying a little with Sharon—“

He wanted to vomit right on his shoes.

“Jimmy hung out with us sometimes around the block because of me, Buck. You? You’re not like us. You shouldn’t have to think— Tony told me you were his bodyguard when he was kid. That’s all. That’s where you’re getting the confusion from. I’m just so sorry that I never told you. I figured you’d hate me forever. Or you’d think I wanted... with you.”

And that was actually true. But that was because everyone wanted Bucky. Even the guys that didn’t lean his way.

Steve... Steve was that kind of guy?

Bucky felt as if he had been punched in the gut, literally all of the air shooting out of him at once, and a part of him wondered in a traitorous little voice how it would feel to kiss him. He loved Tony, sure, but he loved Steve too. Not that he did, he just stood there with his fingers opening and closing into fists at his side as if he weren't sure what else to do.

"That's not it."

His voice was a quiet rasp. Not angry, not really anything, just... there.

"I know what I am and I am that, and I had no idea you were too. I wish you'd told me, Steve, ain't nothing that would've made me stop being your friend. But you-- you liked Jimmy Folke? He and you were stepping out? I would'a been nicer to him if I knew that."

Bucky hadn't been mean to Jimmy, not in the way a lot of people were, but he had still warned him off once or twice. Steve had enough problems without adding Jimmy to the mix.

“Step out-- Geez, Buck, I didn’t have a death wish,” Steve said, fingers wrapped around the lining of his pockets to keep his hands there. He was so angry with himself that he could scream. He’d tried so hard to be normal, to be the guy that everyone expected him to be. He really liked Peggy. He could have married her and been happy. He wasn’t the sort to cheat and his…tendencies…would never have been known. And Sharon was a great girl too, but they’d been apart for so long that it didn’t feel like anything. A few kisses? Two whole dates? She told him it was nice to be with a guy that could accept a good night without anything else, and Steve had spent the next ten minutes hyperventilating into a pillow because one day there was going to have to be something else. “Jimmy used to let me draw him.”

Among other things. But Jimmy had his whole side hustle. He wasn’t the kind of person that wanted to just be with one guy. He used to make fun of Steve for that. If you want monogamy, you get a girl. If you want to have a little fun? Then you don’t tie yourself to just one guy. That was the whole point, Jimmy said, of not getting a skirt.

But Steve hadn’t been so sure.

“But I’m… If you-- And Tony. That’s great. That’s real great, pal.” It wasn’t. It felt like betrayal, it felt like he’d finally come clean to someone and it didn’t matter anymore because the one guy he wanted-- Wow, today couldn’t have gone better or worse. “Guess that clears a lot up, huh? And at least we don’t have to worry about jail time anymore?” His smile was genuine. Steve was a good guy. “It’s just funny, right? Both of us-- How many times did we even share a bed? Life is strange.”

"You've been living in this future for a few years now, Steve, why didn't you--? You've never been afraid to be who you are, not even back when who you were was an artist and not a boxer. You must'a known it was okay now, so why?"

Why hide it?

He didn't like that look in Steve's eyes, as if Bucky had just shown him a whole feast of his favourite food and then locked it away so that he couldn't have a taste. Part of him might have thought he was jealous of Bucky stepping out with Tony, but that couldn't be it, he couldn't be so egotistical as to think two men might want him.

Tony might see differently, if he were still watching. The way they were looking at each other wasn't just the stare of best friends that had been apart too long, even if both of them were too stupid to admit it.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Buck, but it’s not that easy. It’s legal, half of this country says that they don’t mind but it’s not ease. And I’ve been pretty much in one form of trouble with the law or another. And not getting any of the references—” It made Steve laugh as he relaxed, eyes softly taking in everything that stood in front of him. Everything had changed between them, Steve felt like he actually had the right to look now. And that was a dangerous thing, but he was no stranger to heartache. “It’s not like I have a lot of time to date when I’ve been looking for you since I found out that you were alive.”

He shrugged. Steve might have never been ashamed of himself for most things, but when God came into the picture and he’d learned from a young age that what he wanted went against God?

Well a young patriot did his best not to sin.

“No one knows. Well, outside of liberal art schools, no one even guesses. They got ahold of some of my sketch books when I went into the ice.” Sketchbooks that the internet had digitally cached if Bucky wanted to go looking.

"It's not?"

Bucky's brows drew together in concern, and the fragile state of his smiling self became all too evident. The blank mask was quick to take control, the shadows in his eyes that never fully disappeared because more prevalent again. Had Tony lied to him? Why would he do that?

"Tony told me that everyone was okay with it now, that it wasn't a sin any more. He laughed at me when I said it was something to hide."

But had that been a lie? Steve seemed to think that the world still wasn't too accepting about it, and he felt a pit in his stomach at the idea that he might just have forced Steve into revealing something he really wasn't comfortable with.

“Maybe it’s easier when you’re rich and no one cares what you do and who you are…or when they expect it of you.” Steve shrugged. “It’s better than it was. Men can marry men and women can marry women. Legally. It’s… It’s still hard for me to accept it. Church did a number on us, pal. I don’t know what to believe. Not all sins are crimes. Not all crimes are sins. You just have to follow your own truth.”

Steve was never this esoteric but he couldn’t not try to explain where he stood versus what Bucky needed in his life right now.

He saw Bucky shut down and he moved immediately to grip the man’s arm. “It’s never, never a sin to love who you love, or to show your love to that person. I’ve never felt that way. I never will.” He squeezed a little to tightly, but he didn’t do it to hurt the man. He just wanted him to really look at him when he said this. “Tony didn’t grow up how we grew up, Buck. He’s lucky like that. He doesn’t have the hangups we do. Don’t let me ruin anything for you.”

"What if it is, Steve?"

Hearing that the world wasn't actually as okay with it as Tony had made out did a number on him, though the pressure of Steve's grip kept him somewhat grounded. It was all that he could do to keep himself anchored to this precarious sense of self, he didn't have enough left to vet what he was saying before it tumbled out of his lips, and so it all just came.

"What if it's still a sin, I don't feel like a good guy like this. I love Tony, he makes me feel safe and my stomach has butterflies when we touch. But I want to kiss you too. Doesn't that make me the kind of deviant the priests always said guys like me are? That's what they said in Russia. They found out what I liked, they said-- fuck, Steve. Fuck."

He was spiralling just a little bit now, a little ashamed with how easy it was for him to slide backwards, but mostly just sick to his stomach and scared with the sort of disgusting creature he was turning out to be. A guy didn't have two people he loved, that wasn't right.

I want to kiss you too.

Steve couldn’t let that cloud him right now. He couldn’t when he felt Bucky spirally out of control and it scared him. “Hey-- It’s not. Just because not everyone agrees with you-- Well that’s like saying everyone has to agree with everything you think or you feel and that’s just not gonna happen, pal. What happened in Russia— That was evil. That had nothing to do with love. It’s about power and control and that is a sin. Forcing anyone to do anything is a sin. But you just told me he makes you feel safe.”

He felt like crying, he felt like shouting at Bucky that he could make him feel safe too, but he didn’t. He wasn’t going to ruin such a good thing Bucky had.

“And you love him-- And you love me too, right, but that’s because we’re brothers. We’re still brothers. Always will be, forever. And nothing that you’re feeling right now is a sin. I swear to you, Bucky. I swear that you’re a good guy, you’re the best damned guy I know. You’re not any more of a deviant than I am, and I don’t think I am at all.”

Brothers. God that just made everything worse, because he did want to kiss Steve and only a monster would want to kiss their own brother that way. That was something that definitely wouldn't have changed in the past few decades, and nor should it, familial love shouldn't be sexual at all.

He looked back at Steve out of wide eyes that were full of fear and vulnerability, confused as to the best course of action with no way of figuring out what to do for the best. He didn't want to run, but every moment of standing here was making him feel worse.

"You're wrong, god, Steve, you're wrong. I'm nothing like you, I'm-- I'm evil. Let go, let go of me."

He didn't want this to turn into a fight, but he could feel it heading that way. Steve was the good guy, he loved one person at a time and tried to love women, Bucky was a deviant who wanted to kiss his own damn brother even while he was stepping out with someone else that he loved.

Up where Tony was working on creating the old strain of extinct bananas, FRIDAY pulled up screens to show this last bit of the argument as a silent suggestion that maybe now might be the right time to get involved.

FRIDAY didn’t need to do that. Tony had been listening, and watching, because he was a horrible human being, curious about what they were talking about, and because he wanted to keep tabs on Bucky even while he was trying to learn biochemistry. The guy was fragile. So yes. He’d been listening, and his heart was breaking but there was nothing to be done about it. He’d never stand in James’ way for anything he could have, but he wasn’t going to let him sink into this particular blackness either.

He didn’t exactly hurry down the stairs, but he didn’t take his time either. Steve had, by then, already released his hold on Bucky, eyes wide as he did his best to smooth over whatever he’d said. Tony cleared his throat. “Wow, ten minutes and you’re already at each other’s throats,” he said, hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t touch Bucky on purpose or accidentally. “Might be time for you to take a breather in another room, Rogers.”

He’d worked so hard with Bucky, he’d been so patient, and all it took was this guy who had way more of a history than he’d ever have confessing his deepest and darkest secret to turn that upside down.

Steve noded, swallowing. “Yeah-- Yeah, I’m sorry… I’ll—”

“Just down that way. Bathroom. Kitchen. Enjoy yourself,” Tony said quickly before he glanced at James and tilted his head. “You all right?”

Steve looked more than a little desperate and heartbroken as he turned and left for the kitchen, his back ramrod straight with guilt. He felt like he got his best friend back for all of ten minutes and then managed to ruin it, he was a total mess and he wanted to cry in a corner somewhere.

Bucky watched him leave and then snapped his gaze to Tony, a part of his hindbrain really appreciating that he kept his hands in his pockets to not spook him and didn't seem to be looking at him with any judgement despite what he must have been hearing.

"No." No. No. How could he be alright? "I made a mistake, I can't do this. I love you, and I love Steve, I didn't realise it until right now, I swear. But that's like wanting to kiss your brother, and wanting to kiss two people at the same time, it ain't right. You're better than that, and I'm--"

Wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

“You’re not related,” Tony said with a softness no one would ever believe could come from him except maybe Pepper and his AIs. “Pretty sure you’re taking his words out of context. I mean jeez, you’re really not perceptive are you?” He had to joke to downplay how hurt he felt. There was exactly zero choice in the matter as it was. Love was a stupid thing. Love made you put other people before yourself. Tony hated it. “God’s gift to humanity stood there looking at you like you were the answer to everything in his life. He called you a brother because he wants you. Obviously he doesn’t want to split what you’ve got, right? So what’s the best way to let s guy down? You tell him you think of him as family. Oldest trick in the book. And you should know that book. You probably wrote it.”

Tony leaned on the opposite side of the window from where Steve had been leaning, body turned towards Bucky instead of away from it.

“Listen to me, okay? I love you. And if you want to kiss someone else, I’m all right with it. There’s no reason we have to be exclusive. Rogers has his own hang ups and I can appreciate them but don’t take any of them at face value. Nothing is ever black and white.”

Tony might be trying to hide that he was hurt, but Bucky wasn't a damn moron, he could tell when someone was hurting, usually because he was the one who made it happen. And he was doing it again, what made him think that it was okay to spout off to the guy that he was tentatively with, about being in love with another guy? He didn't know a single person that wouldn't kick off about that, and they'd be in their rights to.

Not exclusive... not exclusive. He barked a sudden and not at all amused laugh, brittle and vicious, as he took a step back.

"That's not right, Tony. Maybe the world lets a man be with a man now, but love is still one person with one person. It's cheating otherwise, it's everything that they always taught us about being queer. That's it's immoral and people who go down that path become immoral too."

He stepped up close to Tony all at once, right into his personal space, eyes the same colour as the ocean below fixing on deep brown ones with fervent earnestness.

"I'm so sorry."

“Stop thinking you’re back in the 40s.” Tony couldn’t stop himself from lightly touching Bucky’s cheek. He was in his space after all. He was allowed to touch what was so close to him. He found that smooth cheek so strange. No whiskers at all. He knew that was part of what one of those assholes had done to him. His follicles had been removed.

“I think we need to have a Netflix night,” he murmured. “You have a lot of documentaries to watch about gay rights and culture.”

He refrained from kissing him right now. He was still too hurt that the moment Rogers became available, he wanted him more. Story of his life. He tucked some hair behind Bucky’s ear and then dropped his hand.

“But first I think you have to make sure Cap isn’t blaming himself for this. Guy was just trying to do his best. Talk him down from that ledge and then I’ll talk you down from yours.”

Edited 2017-12-05 22:10 (UTC)

"I can't."

He had no idea what he would say because this was all too bogged up in his mind. He loved Tony and he loved Steve, they both filled different places in his heart and different things that helped him feel safe and whole. But that was selfish and weird and so very sinful, so he took a half step back from Tony.

...and then all of a sudden wasn't there any more, just a blur of hoodie and jeans as he fled the room and up to his bedroom, leaving Tony to deal with Steve if he were feeling generous enough to do so.

The blond man was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of hot water that he'd totally forgotten to add a tea bag to and hadn't noticed yet, brow furrowed in heartache and guilt.

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/gifts you an ot3 instead of a pairing? everyone with everyone?

Why must you love me so? <3

huhu <3

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