𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨 ; steve rogers.
❛ i’m not asking you to be that man. ❜ he continues, careful, words like a battle plan. ❛ but you’re someone. you’re gonna want, and love, and hate, and all the other bullshit that comes with being a person. you get to experience all of it. i just — ❜ he stops, here. cuts himself off swift, because there’s desperation dripping into tone and steve won’t let it. none of this is about him. he’s been told before in varying levels of kindness, that being around him isn’t always easy. it means pressure. it means unreachable expectations. his mouth only opens when he knows what comes out will be level.
❛ i’m sorry i keep tryin’ to tell you who you are. i’ll work on it. ❜ he’s terrible at letting go. always has been, but he knows how to adjust. if he can get his footing in a whole new century he can sure as hell do it again for his best friend. ❛ i’m not gonna pretend i don’t remember the bucky barnes i grew up with, or that those memories don’t mean somethin’ to me, but i don’t need you to be him. ❜ he’d loved him back then, smaller and fragile. loved him when steve was doing high kicks across a stage. loved him when he thought it might be the last thing he did, glass shattering under his feet and slamming into concrete water. it’s one of very few certainties in steve’s life, but there are things he just doesn’t think bucky’s ready to hear. ❛ i’d just like the chance to get to know this you. ❜
as steve talks, there’s a clench unclench of his metal hand, soft creaking with fluctating tension. he can’t bring himself to meet his gaze again, not when the words sink inside him like lead. pressing on his chest, numbness seeping through like lying in two feet on snow, pain steadily overwhelming every nerve. he has always existed on the precipice of life and death, light and dark, a balancing act between then and now. it is easy to slink away back into the dark — as much as he may vocally loathe it, he was shaped by it. now he stands before the light, his second chance offered out, and finds himself feeling something from another life: he is scared.
❝ ... fuck. ❞ he finally exhales, a small hitch in his tone that almost betrays his true feelings. quickly, he scrubs at his eyes, lips twisting into a half smile. bucky stops himself, shakes his head, before finally speaking, ❝ i’d... i’d like having you around. ❞ it’s the closest to a yes that steve will get at this stage. uncertain breaths morph into a small chuckle, just to himself. ❝ ‘was gonna scare you off, woulda done so by now. ❞ both of them have been running towards the future, towards each other (the long way round). it’s only now that he’s allowing himself to stop.