ATLAS

independent, mcu-based bucky barnes, some comic influences, written by ronnie. 25+

[markofwinter]

i think thunderbolts fixed something inside me

[moltolavoro]

normally peter would tell bucky that the cupcake is for him, but the whole point of a birthday cake is you share it. so peter takes the half he's given and stars from the bottom - gotta save the icing for last, obviously. his eyebrows furrow behind it, though, because that's - what? ❛ it - you don't have to do that. ❜ peter loves bucky, okay? even after he promised himself he wouldn't let people back in like that, he does. and bucky's the only one that remembered him, really remembered him, after everyone else didn't, and that's huge. but it's not - he's not bucky's kid, or anything. not his brother, or...there's no reason for bucky to do any of this. hell, peter's still halfway ready to move out when they get tired of him. ❛ i'm not - i'm making friends again, kind of. if you're worried about...about me being a loner loser, or whatever. you don't have to do that for...for me. ❜

[markofwinter]

"I don't have to do a lot of things," Bucky points out. "There's actually a ton of things I choose not to do on a daily basis. Some of those things are even a bit violent, even by my reformed status." Which is to say that Bucky takes a lot of care in doing things that he actually wants to do, and there's a lot of want that comes back with time.

Funny, when he lost so many decades of it.

"I never said you can't do anything with your friends for your birthday. But you're allowed to do multiple things. You can even do those things on days that aren't your birthday, but are still meant for your birthday. Ain't that a neat thing? Time is a social construct—birthdays are too, I guess, when you think about it."

[markofwinter]

hi stinky

hi smelly

[markofwinter]

Bucky makes a face that clearly reads yeah, but maybe you shouldn’t try to think about everything at once.

“Well, I appreciate it.” He’s not going to rain on Peter’s parade, because he does appreciate it. Leave it up to him, and time will simply pass and he’ll course through it. He and Steve had to sit down a while ago and really try to do some math, not because it was difficult, but because Steve skipped entire decades, and he was in and out intermittently whenever HYDRA wanted him, so… how old were they really? How many years did they truly live?

He passes a hand over the top of Peter’s head, the way he might for Alpine, quiet passing affection, and carefully starts picking the candles out of what’s left of the cupcake. “…Have you ever told me when yours is, or do I just not remember?”

[moltolavoro]

peter all but glows about that, because his end goal was just to do something nice. if bucky appreciates this, then it probably means it's nice, so mission accomplished. he also lets bucky pick candles out for about six seconds before he pulls out the bag and produces a second cupcake, sliding it over. seriously, there's a lot of wax on there.

❛ it's in october, ❜ so not something to worry about right now. and sort of not something peter's particularly keen to think about. he was alone, on his last birthday, for the first time ever. there was something so deeply sad about it that peter's tried to block it from his mind entirely. ❛ forever away. ❜

[markofwinter]

“Not that forever away.”

Bucky breaks the cupcake in half, the second half quietly left out for Peter, and chews on it thoughtfully. “…Long enough away at least that you can think about what you want to do this year. We can take a trip out somewhere, make a whole thing of it. I’m sure you don’t have to strong-arm Steve about it if you want him to come too, but we can go somewhere and do something, just the two of us.” Bucky knows Peter loves them both, but he’s pretty sure the last thing he needs is to play third wheel to them on his own birthday. “Think about it, yeah? You have plenty of time to figure something out.”

[markofwinter]

It’s the smell of burning wax and cotton wicks that give Peter away. It’s not even that Bucky has that strong sense of a smell, even if the serum did sharpen that sense too, it’s just… there’s about two fistfuls of burning candles stuck into a cupcake the size of Alpine’s head.

Bucky finds himself mildly thrown, embarrassingly confused—he’s pretty sure his birthday was a while ago, but—oh, that would explain the “late” part, yeah. He’s not just quietly losing his mind when no one is looking, so that’s a relief.

He strides into the kitchen and blows on the candles with a single, purposeful breath, and then draws himself up to full height to look at Peter with fond exasperation.

“You were in the middle of midterms, Peter.”

[moltolavoro]

...'kay that was kind of impressive, actually. peter's pretty sure that would take most people like two goes at the very least. course the candles being blown out reveals the kind of devestation of wax happening underneath them, but that's neither here nor there. the cupcake came in a pack of four, peter can just give him another one.

❛ yeah but i can think about more than one thing at once, ❜ like all of his midterms, apparently. peter's not even sure he realised that's when it was. time is kind of a weird thing for him right now, in that there never seems to be enough of it. or maybe there's just too much to do. ❛ and birthdays are important! so, y'know. happy late one! ❜

[markofwinter]

Bucky makes a face that clearly reads yeah, but maybe you shouldn’t try to think about everything at once.

“Well, I appreciate it.” He’s not going to rain on Peter’s parade, because he does appreciate it. Leave it up to him, and time will simply pass and he’ll course through it. He and Steve had to sit down a while ago and really try to do some math, not because it was difficult, but because Steve skipped entire decades, and he was in and out intermittently whenever HYDRA wanted him, so… how old were they really? How many years did they truly live?

He passes a hand over the top of Peter’s head, the way he might for Alpine, quiet passing affection, and carefully starts picking the candles out of what’s left of the cupcake. “…Have you ever told me when yours is, or do I just not remember?”

[moltolavoro]

@markofwinter

aw man, peter sucks. here he is, living with captain america and bucky barnes, and what does he do? totally forgets one of their birthdays. he's the worst, he's the absolute worst. and it was like three weeks ago and bucky didn't even say anything!

and peter just thinks birthdays are important. they are, even if technically you don't know how old you are anymore. like they have the year bucky was born, but it's complicated, alright? so he panics in the store for like twenty full minutes, and then just ends up buying a whole pack of candles. all of which he manages to fit into a cupcake, which was the only thing he could realistically afford. what that means is that even though peter times it pretty well, by the time bucky's actually in the kitchen they're working their way up to a full blown fire hazard.

❛ happy late birthday! sorry i forgot, dude. ❜

[markofwinter]

It’s the smell of burning wax and cotton wicks that give Peter away. It’s not even that Bucky has that strong sense of a smell, even if the serum did sharpen that sense too, it’s just… there’s about two fistfuls of burning candles stuck into a cupcake the size of Alpine’s head.

Bucky finds himself mildly thrown, embarrassingly confused—he’s pretty sure his birthday was a while ago, but—oh, that would explain the “late” part, yeah. He’s not just quietly losing his mind when no one is looking, so that’s a relief.

He strides into the kitchen and blows on the candles with a single, purposeful breath, and then draws himself up to full height to look at Peter with fond exasperation.

“You were in the middle of midterms, Peter.”

[moltolavoro]

steve doen't protest. if anything, he welcomes the shift, the push, the pinning. he slides his hands up bucky's legs until they come to rest on his thighs, and watches with a sort of quiet appreciation. god he's so fucking lucky. ❛ dunno. thought i'd let you decide that part. ❜

[markofwinter]

"Me?" Bucky laughs, low, raspy, sleepy, and shifts forward to set the sketchbook on the nightstand. He stares at it, committing the shape to memory even though it's already been imprinted in his mind, before returning his attention back to Steve. He smooths his hands where his shirt meets the waistband of his sweats and tucks his fingertips under the hem, sliding up to his chest with no preamble. "Interesting. Feels like there might be, I'm just spit-ballin' here, some ulterior motive here what with you lettin' me choose."

[moltolavoro]

❛ you shouldn't. i wouldn't say it if i didn't love you, ❜ steve smiles, and watches bucky examine the drawing. when it comes to his art, in his head bucky always has final say. and especially in one like this...well, it's important to him that bucky likes it.

he doesn't get much from the question, but shrugs. ❛ yeah. cheesy, i guess, but it's another way to keep them all close. to show that they're remembered, because we're still here to do it. although i'm sure my ma would have a fit if she knew i'd got a tattoo. ❜

[markofwinter]

Bucky smiles, slow and syrupy like the sunlight poring into their room, and shifts his weight sideways, forcing Steve to fall flat on his back and hiking himself up onto his lap, sketchbook propped up on Steve's stomach. He observes the drawing for a moment longer—it's clear that he likes it, his expression is warm and soft, his eyes intense—and then maps out the planes and curves of Steve's body beneath his, curiously.

"Where do you think you want to put it?"

[moltolavoro]

❛ yeah well your ma said you were always a better door than a window and i figure a door on the ground is as good as a table, ❜ he grabs the sketchbook again. tilts up the final draft for bucky to take a look at. ❛ got the idea of a tattoo into my head. doesn’t have to be serious. ❜

[markofwinter]

"I take offense to that," Bucky grumbles, carding his hair off his forehead with one hand while the other takes the sketchbook and balances it against knees. By all accounts, he didn't actually sleep for that long—couple of hours, three at most, but the amount of work Steve can do when he's focused on a single task is rather... amazing.

It takes him a moment to see the deeper details within the spreading sunflowers, the shapes of letters so congruous with the details of the leaves and petals. He traces over the design, careful even with a vibranium thumb. Something simultaneously cracks and loosens in his chest, unmooring itself from something it never wanted to be attached to.

"...Tattoo, huh?" he asks quietly, hoping it prompts more out Steve.

[moltolavoro]

❛ yeah, you look like you're in a real hurry to get out, ❜ steve's voice is laden with affection, practically woven through the threads of it, and when he presses into bucky it's with love. ❛ sure, you make the rules, ❜ and it's teasing but that affection hasn't wavered in the slightest. ❛ hey, i wanna show you something. ❜

[markofwinter]

This is his favorite place to be. He'll get out tomorrow. Later this evening, at the earliest.

"Mm?" It means he has to untangle himself from Steve, reluctant as anything, so that Steve can reach back to the nightstand, and has to sit himself up, rubbing at his bleary eyes with one hand. "Were you usin' me as a drawin' table again in my sleep?"

[moltolavoro]

❛ you thank me for the stupidest things, ❜ because what was steve gonna do, leave? come on. being on top of bucky is one of steve's top five favourite places to be. the other four also involve bucky, but that's not important right now. he does grimace a little bit, and he'd tilt away if bucky wasn't holding him in place. ❛ can't help that. never gonna get it right, huh? used to freeze in the summer now i'm sweatin' you out in the winter. ❜

[markofwinter]

"Don't mind a little sweat, 'specially when you're the one sweatin' me out." Despite Bucky's comment, he manages to somehow press himself even closer, hands finding their way under Steve's shirt to splay across his bare back. Now that he's away, he finds himself tucked under Steve's chin instead of the other way around and gets his face right into his neck, pressing a small kiss to his skin. "I'll thank you for whatever stupid shit I want, because I love you, and because I can."

[moltolavoro]

he feels bucky coming awake and doesn't move, yet. lets him come back into himself slowly, instead of shocked into it like he sometimes is if steve moves before he's ready. it's only when bucky speaks that steve moves, pushes the sketchbook to the bedside table and shifts his weight off bucky a little. ❛ dunno. late afternoon. sun's past the middle, ❜ he can tell by the shadows on the wall, because they didn't close the curtains before bucky crashed.

he leans over and presses a kiss to bucky's temple and says ❛ feel better? ❜

[markofwinter]

"Feel somethin'," Bucky mumbles, turning into Steve when he feels him shift so that they meet in the middle. He slings a leg over his, prosthetic arm cinching around Steve's waist so that he has nowhere else to go but where Bucky wants him. "Thanks for stayin'." He's hardly going to apologize for that. If something came up, Steve would have left, but he's pretty good at occupying himself quietly when he's playing body pillow to an assassin with the mental integrity of wet tissue paper. "You run so goddamn hot."

[moltolavoro]

there's a clear difference when bucky falls asleep - there always has been. he goes slow, and then all at once, in a way that steve's been familiar with all his life. and he waits until bucky's at the point where a little movement won't wake him up to readjust. he leans over to the bedside table and pulls out his sketchbook, and figures out how to lie down and draw at the same time without messing up bucky's sleep.

he cycles through sunflowers, for a while. and then slowly it shifts. initials woven gently through the leaves - made to look like petals. his ma, his dad. then bucky's parents, his sisters. all of them worked through it gently, subtle enough that it's really only them that would know.

he likes it. it's good. he hopes bucky likes it too.

[markofwinter]

Waking up from his own head is always the hardest. Between the two of them, they're both light sleepers, but when Bucky crashes, he's out like a light, whether it's for thirty minutes or an hour. Coming back out of it always feels like dragging himself out of the mud, everything slow and cottony. He wakes up because he's hot, his flank burning up like a furnace, and it takes him far too long to figure out it's because of Steve. There's hair stuck to the side of his face, but then he remembers it's probably Sasha's or Alpine's fur and that he cut his hair short a couple of months ago.

Soup. Stew. He feels like stew. Thick and syrupy and a little overcooked. Better, he thinks, but it's still too early to tell.

He can't figure out where Steve is in relation to him without opening is eyes, so he stretches and waits for Steve to move beside him so he can figure it out. "Mm... time...?"

[moltolavoro]

soup is a good idea. traditions of their own are good. they're starting to build some already, which steve kind of revels in. little things, like the little trinkets they buy for around the house, or the way they're slowly building a collection of first editions not to display them but to read them. it's their thing.

food comes next, maybe. ❛ sweet potato soup. they sell one at the store that's good, but i think we could make it better, ❜ he has nothing to base that on besides gut instinct, which is sometimes all he needs.

he runs his thumb across bucky's side gently, and smiles. it's a sad, soft kind of smile, because it's a reminder that they've had to fight through hell to get herre, but he can't disagree. how could he? ❛ i'm glad to be anywhere with you, ❜ and he's never meant anything more than that. ❛ even if everyone still thinks we don't know how emails work. ❜

[markofwinter]

I miss him. The Bucky I was.

He doesn't say, though. They've gotten so far to accept each other as they are now, and they are who they are, just... different. Shaped a little wrong, with echoes of how they were supposed to be. Bucky wouldn't trade anything to have Steve any differently than he has now—he's lucky to have him period.

Bucky snorts softly at the joke, thinks about Steve's texting habits and how he's definitely going to say something about it, but never manages to get it out. Everything goes soft and fuzzy at the edges, the picture of a sunflower imprinting into his mind over and over again until he's sure he'll never forget.

[moltolavoro]

❛ i was always wearin' your coats, ❜ because bucky's hand-me-downs had to go somewhere, and there were only so many boys coats his sisters would put up with, so who else was gonna get 'em? and steve's ma always made up for it by fixing all the holes in every the shirts and trousers of every barnes kid that she came across. they were good like that, always had been.

he laughs a little, nodding about it. ❛ couldn't get hired for shit when i tried, but sure could work for a couple of potatoes to get out of the police bustin' my ass. ❜ and bucky's ma hadn't told steve's either, so that was something as well.

steve loops his arm over bucky's waist, lets his eyes close. bucky's playing ball with this, giving him a couple pieces back, and that's kind of the whole point. ❛ i'm not gonna lie to you, when i feel like shit i always dream about my ma's potato soup. and i never ask you to make it and it's not cause you're not a good cook, but it's cause i know neither of us would ever be able to make it like she did. god there's some days i think i'd do anything to taste that soup again. ❜ because this is sort of the point too. things go away -- and steve didn't lose things in the same visceral, traumatic way bucky did but steve misses things, and if bucky knows that then maybe it doesn't feel so bad that he's missing things too.

[markofwinter]

Bucky makes another noise, softer and quieter this time. It's so easy to lull him to sleep like this, enveloping him in a sense of warmth and safety, listening to Steve talk to him, and he feels himself going even though he never intended to sleep.

"...Should make our own soup." They're allowed to have their own things too, right? To comfort each other? Because nothing's the same like it was fifty, sixty, seventy years ago. They are still living strange lives. Strangers' lives. They'll never be able to recreate Sarah's potato soup or Winny's pies or the exact way George fried the breakfast potatoes.

A few moments pass, and Bucky's breathing evens out. He turns his face into Steve's hair and inhales the smell of his shampoo. "...'member the day of the Stark Expo? You asked me where we're goin', an' I said the future. 'M glad I was right. 'M glad I was right even though it hurt so fucking much."

[moltolavoro]

bucky goes, steve follows. it's a reversal of their usual dynamic, but steve's pretty capable of keeping up with things like this, so he does. he follows bucky upstairs and watches him sprawl out. doesn't let a single thing show on his face at the two words that should unravel him, really. instead, he climbs onto the bed, stretches himself out over bucky's body. he used to worry about overwhelming bucky, making him feel pinned down, but bucky's strong enough and capable enough to get him off if he needs to.

so steve still worries, he just does it a little quieter.

❛ y'know what i was thinking about? ❜ it's not responding to bucky's comment at all, but steve figures if he really wants to talk about it he will. ❛ that time we almost got busted lifting potatoes from across town. ❜ steve never liked stealing, but when the money was non-existent and times were, hard, they had no choice. they'd just made a pact to hit the more expensive side, where people could afford the losses.

❛ i think we were sixteen, probably, and you were tryna charm us out of it while i was tryna make sure all the potatoes stayed in my coat. 'cept i lost hold of one of 'em and they all just tumbled out like an avalanche of potatoes. and you, me, and the shop guy were all just staring at those potatoes before we just took off, ❜ he's smiling about it, and bucky can probably feel it against his shoulder. ❛ and when we got home your ma could tell we'd done somethin' wrong but couldn't get it outta either of us, 'cept i told becca and she ratted us out. cried while she did it too, so we couldn't even be mad at her. ❜

[markofwinter]

Bucky makes an affirmative noise to the question just to let Steve know he's still here, that he hasn't drifted, that he still has some sense of what's going on. Steve's weight over him, the way he blocks the light coming in from the half-closed window, it helps, as does Steve's low, rumbling voice in his ear. That's all part of the exercise too, isn't it? Reminding Bucky that he's here, and that most importantly, Steve's here with him, tethering him to the ground.

The memory opens up around Steve's words, a blurry watercolor that takes a half-shape. He remembers it, distantly, some pieces clearer than others. "...You were wearin' one of my coats too, so it was big on you," he mutters with a soft snort. "But your hands were cold." And with his shitty circulation, that means that Steve's hands had probably gone numb. "And in the end it didn't matter much 'cause my ma made us go and work it off and the owner felt so bad for us that he just gave us a bag of potatoes each after a couple of weeks." He doesn't remember the guy's name, but he remembers sort of what he looked like. Receding hairline, soft, whispy, grey hair.

[moltolavoro]

sunflowers it is, then. anything - everything. steve sort of made a promise to himself a while ago that bucky could have anything if steve could make it happen. and if steve couldn't make it happen he'd pull the world apart to figure out how. it's not that much to promise - it's everything bucky deserves.

so he finishes the sandwich and watches bucky's face carefully, and says ❛ course i will, ❜ because it's the easiest request in the world. and steve's well and truly worried now, because they're very much in out of character territory now, but christ, if it isn's something he's willing to work through. ❛ sasha too, or no? ❜

[markofwinter]

That seems like a silly question and Bucky realises belatedly it's just to ask if he wants Sasha in bed too, but she's currently splayed out in her dog bed after that run and Bucky doesn't have the heart to tell her to move. "She'll come up if she wants to." That's an easy middle ground, and Bucky hardly waits for Steve to put his plate in the sink before taking him by the hand and walking them upstairs.

The thing about episodes is that Bucky can almost never tell if they're a big or small one until a couple of days later, once he's had time to marinate it and dissect what set him off. In some cases it feels like following a clear path, while in others, everything feels brambled, overgrown. He couldn't remember one small thing about Steve, and now he needs to lie down and stare at the ceiling until the choppy sea in his head calms down.

He wants to say I'm sorry I'm exhausting, but Steve won't let him get away with saying something like that, even if he'll be really sweet about it, and Bucky for some reason doesn't feel like being placated.

So instead he starfishes out on the bed first and says, "I'm exhausted," in the way that implies his brain is going a mile a minute and he can't keep up, not that he's physically tired.