Colorblind
Pairing: Stucky x F!Reader 🌈Summary: Bucky and Steve have a beautiful relationship but something is missing. When they touched all those years ago, only half the visible light spectrum opened up to them. What does that mean?
Word count: 2,203 🌈Contents: Blood drawing (so needle), alcohol mention
A/N: This is the fourth day in a row I’ve managed to post work! Hopefully this means I can shift my posting schedule up and get more of my bingos done before the year is out. Anywho, enjoy this one! It’s for MarvelCapsicle’s Writing Challenge. P.S. Sorry I’m bad at ending things.
As usual, I will reblog with links to my masterlist, tagging my permanent taglist (which is open!), tagging MarvelCapsicle, and citing the header photo.
Bucky and Steve were an unusual pair of soulmates. They met when they were young children, which isn’t so uncommon, but it quickly became clear that the colors they could suddenly see when they first made contact with each other were wrong. Upon meeting one’s soulmate, one’s world turns from black and white to color, but for some reason, there were some colors that Bucky and Steve just couldn’t see. The whole first half of the visible light spectrum, from red through yellow, was invisible, making anything that contained those colors… off. It took them a little while to realize this, as they were so close to one another and their lives were so intertwined. But when Steve couldn’t see one of the main colors of his shield and uniform, one of the main colors on the flag he was meant to represent… that was weird. And Bucky couldn’t see the hue of the star emblazoned on his metal arm, or either of the colors of the Soviet flag under which he served as the Winter Soldier, which was honestly somewhat of a blessing. But nobody knew why until they joined the Avengers.
Everyone had been chatting and having a wonderful time at a party, when it suddenly became obvious to everyone that something about Steve’s vision was wrong. Bucky’s too. Neither of them could see the color of Thor’s cape, or Tony’s suits. They were definitely soulmates; when they had touched, color came into their lives. That is precisely what’s supposed to happen, but it didn’t happen quite right.
Bruce began to formulate a theory and asked Steve to stop by his lab later, when they were both sober. Bucky too if he wanted, but the former assassin was reticent. He rarely interacted with the others that weren’t Steve unless absolutely necessary.
So the next day, Steve went to Bruce’s lab, where he was orientating someone in deep maroon scrubs that to Steve appeared a dark gray. It happened to be you, Bruce’s new lab assistant.
Bruce explained his theory to Steve, that he couldn’t see the first half of the visible light spectrum because only some of his cones had been activated. What happened when people touched their soulmates for the first time was that the cones in their eyes became activated to perceive color, whereas before only the rods worked and could perceive shape, form, distance, etc. Bruce ran several vision tests, and his theory proved correct. What he still didn’t understand was why?
“It’s nothing to do with your eye. Everything about your eye function is normal.” Bruce was pacing the length of the lab, frustrated and intrigued by this challenge.
“If I may, Dr. Banner,” you spoke up. You had been dutifully filling out paperwork concerning your hiring in the corner the whole morning, and when you were done, you had sat and waited for instruction that never came. So you took this moment to interject. “Might my dissertation research help in this scenario?”
Bruce’s eyes widened in realization. “Yes! Yes, possibly. Please, draw some blood.”
You had written your masters dissertation on the existence of a string of genetic code that you called the soulmate gene. The gene coded to tell the eye when to activate the cones. The biology of soulmates fascinated you, especially since you hadn’t met yours yet. Your theories were groundbreaking, but you still hadn’t pinpointed what about contact with one’s soulmate managed to activate the gene. All your thesis did was transfer responsibility of the mystery from one part of the body to another; from the cones directly, as had been the prevailing theory, to the genetic sequence you discovered.
You could analyze DNA from any type of sample, but blood was the purest and least likely to break down under your equipment. So you began to pull out the materials to extract a few vials of Steve’s blood.
“I’m just fascinated by your case, Captain Rogers,” you said cheerfully as you slipped on your latex gloves. “Perhaps your situation will provide insight to my research.”
“Please, call me Steve,” he insisted warmly. “What’s your research on?”
You began to explain, partly as distraction for Steve from the pain of the needle and the extraction. As you told your story, he couldn’t help thinking that you were the most brilliant and well-spoken woman he had ever met. He found you absolutely beautiful too, with the voice of an angel. He blushed, admonishing himself for this line of thinking. He was gay, in a relationship with Bucky, and happily so.
When he and Bucky were kids, there was a pushback against gay soulmate couples. It was commonly accepted that those couples were all platonic soulmates, and all heterosexual soulmate pairs were romantic. This was simply not the case and never has been. There are platonic and romantic soulmate pairs of every combination, especially since gender isn’t binary. Steve and Bucky always danced around the sexual and romantic attraction as kids, publicly subscribing to the narrative that they were platonic soulmates and nothing more. But when they both found themselves in the 21st century in the United States, where gay marriage had very recently been legalized, they finally got to live the life they never dared to dream of as kids. One where they could touch each other and be together in every sense of the word.
Back in the day, it was easy for both Steve and Bucky to accept that they would each marry a woman and remain platonic soulmates forever. They were both attracted to women, after all. At least they thought they were. They were able to convince themselves that they weren’t attracted to men, and when they admitted their feelings to each other, they then convinced themselves the reverse— that they had only thought they were attracted to women due to compulsory heteronormativity and all that. But neither could help the nagging feeling that they really did find women quite… appealing.
“All done!” you chirped, and Steve was pulled out of his reverie. You placed the last vial in the holding rack, pulled the needle from Steve’s skin, wiped an alcohol swab over the injection site, and then covered it with an Iron Man band-aid. Steve couldn’t help but notice how gentle and pleasant your touch was, even through the latex gloves.
Behind you, Bruce was already setting to work putting the samples into the equipment and isolating the genetic sequence responsible for activating the cones. Bruce squinted at the screen. “How curious. You seem to have the sequence duplicated. One copy of the sequence has been activated, the other hasn’t.”
“Curious indeed…” you agreed, glancing over Bruce’s shoulder as you pulled your gloves off.
As Steve rolled down his sleeve and Bruce continued staring at the projection on the screen, you admonished yourself. “I’m sorry, Steve, I’ve been so rude! I’m Dr. Y/N Y/L/N. I know who you are, obviously.” You reached out your hand cordially, and he accepted it.
A trio of gasps echoed through the lab.
“Your scrubs!” Steve exclaimed. His eyes darted around the room. Everything was brighter, and nothing was in grayscale anymore. Except, of course, things that were actually black or white or gray.
“My scrubs!” you repeated his astonished exclamation in an equally astonished tone. “And your hair!” It seemed that while before, Steve and Bucky couldn’t see red, orange and yellow, you could now only see red, orange and yellow or variations thereupon. Most things, including Steve’s eyes, remained in shades of gray.
“The DNA!” Bruce shouted, pointing at the screen. You dashed over to see what he was looking at. “It changed! The second sequence got activated!”
Your face scrunched up in concentration that Steve found remarkably endearing. “Fascinating! The DNA was disconnected from the body and yet it still changed upon contact! What must that mean about its make-up?”
You and Bruce were focused on the screen, but Steve couldn’t tear his eyes away from you. He could finally see you in all your glory, in full technicolor, and that rendered you even more stunning than before in his view.
“So I have two soulmates?” Steve came up behind the pair of you scientists and placed his hand on your back. Even through your scrubs, a shiver ran down your spine at the contact and proximity.
“I guess so,” Bruce responded.
Steve looked down at you adoringly, then his brow furrowed as a thought came to him. “Can you see all the colors, Y/n?”
You shook your head. “Inverse to you, I think. I can only see the first half of the visible spectrum.”
Steve’s expression lit up as something clicked in his head. He grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the door, shouting, “Come on!”
You glanced back at Bruce apologetically, but he just chuckled and shrugged at you. “Guess you’re taking your lunch break a little early.”
Steve dragged you down the hall and up two flights of stairs. By the time you stopped in front of one of the doors on the residence floor, you were out of breath. “Steve, what’s going on?”
Instead of responding, he pounded furiously on the door and yelled, “Open up, punk!”
You heard lethargic groaning and the shuffling of slippers across hardwood. Bucky opened the door, clearly miffed at being disturbed in the middle of a nap and snapped, “What?” When he noticed you, he straightened up and tried to smooth down his hair a little, not quite sure why he should care about his appearance in front of this random, admittedly very pretty stranger, but absolutely, definitely caring.
You were too transfixed by the magnificent streaks of gold running down his left arm, the Wakandan prosthetic replacement for his original Hydra-issued limb. You reached out to trace the shimmering veins with your fingertips, absolutely hypnotized at the dazzling hue that was completely novel to you.
While Bucky would normally jerk away from physical contact with anyone but Steve, especially with his fake arm, he found himself leaning into your touch. While not his own skin and not containing any of his DNA, the arm was programmed with artificial nerve endings his brain couldn’t differentiate from real ones, and he shivered at your feather-light touches.
Steve was watching the interaction with pride blooming in his chest. How Bucky wasn’t shying away from you but was in fact relaxing in your presence, how the infectious curiosity he had already come to love in you was painting an expression on your face he could only describe as ethereal.
Bucky met the gaze of his best friend and lover with a million questions in his eyes. “Touch her,” Steve whispered, reaching for his partner’s right hand and placing it for him over your cheek.
You closed your eyes and hummed at the pleasant sensation that rippled through your being as his callused palm met your cheek. It was the same rush of euphoria through your veins as occurred when you shook Steve’s hand, only somehow even more… satisfying.
You heard a gasp above you, and Bucky’s deep voice murmuring, “Your hair…” His vibranium arm extracted itself from where your fingers were still grazing over his biceps and he ran his metal fingers through Steve’s golden locks.
You opened your eyes and gave a gasp yourself, reaching up to cradle Bucky’s stubbly cheek. “Your eyes…” They were a brilliant light blue dappled with the gray you were so used to painting your entire world. It had signified loneliness for so long, but rippling through the dazzling cerulean in Bucky’s irises, the gray took on a new meaning: completeness.
Bucky chuckled and leaned into your palm. “You think my eyes are pretty, try Stevie’s.” He spun you around, resting both hands on your hips. The cool of the metal on one side and the warmth of his skin on the other seeped through your thin scrubs deliciously.
Steve’s eyes were indeed glorious, equally to Bucky’s but no more so in your opinion. They were also bright blue, though slightly darker, and instead of streaks of gray, they were speckled with bits of green.
When you twisted your head to look back at Bucky, tears were spilling from his eyes but his smile was wide as he gazed in adoration at his boyfriend. “We found our missing piece,” he whispered.
Steve nodded, placing his hands over Bucky’s on your hips. “It’s us three now. Together.” Steve looked down at you with concern and worry tainting the beauty of his face. “If that’s what you want?”
Instead of answering, you reached up on your tippy toes to place a soft kiss on his lips, then turned to bestow the same honor upon Bucky. A blissful smile spread across each of their lips as you pulled away from them.
“I’m Y/n, by the way,” you directed at Bucky, giggling.
He blushed, realizing he was totally ready to get down on his knees and profess his undying love for you, but he hadn’t even considered asking your name.
“James. Bucky,” he responded.
You giggled again. “I know.”
And from then on it was you three against the world.
