I genuinely can't wait to see what you write for this episode!
wahhhh that is so sweet!!! here is the first of the codas <33 i have more down the line but i am TIPSY and CRYING so forgive any awkwardness. have buck and eddie talking about trust, and what it means to protect someone.
(ao3)
---
"I'm sorry."
Eddie looks up from the band he's affixing around Buck's arm, brows furrowing. "What for?"
His voice comes out gruffer than he means for it to be. He knows he should be gentle with Buck right now. They all know. Because Chimney told them, together, and Eddie was sitting at the loft table with everybody else watching Buck not quite meet their eyes.
"For lying to you." Buck's eyes are wan and sorry, blue washed the grey of an ocean after a storm, too tired even for a tide to rise. Were they this color the last time they were on shift together? Eddie can't remember.
"I'm not mad about that," he says, watching the needle in the dial spin instead of Buck's face.
Buck, as always, sees right through him anyways. "But you are mad about something else."
"It's not--" Eddie's fingers clench, loosen. He wants to press them to the vulnerable pulse at Buck's wrist, where his hoodie is rolled up. He wants to remember how Buck looks right now, forever, so he knows exactly what he failed to see. "Buck," he says, a little helplessly. "It's stupid. It's-- it's not about me right now."
"Well, I know this is a shocker, but I'm kind of sick of it being all about me." Buck's voice is soft, a little raspy. There's a teasing edge to it, testing, and Eddie's mouth quirks a little in spite of himself. "Come on, Eddie. Whatever it is-- I want to hear it."
And, well, Eddie's never been good at denying Buck on a good day.
"I didn't see it."
Buck goes still under him. Eddie doesn't look at him. The space is silent for one moment, two.
Then, a touch on his arm. Buck's fingers are a little clammy, a little shaky. Eddie closes his eyes at the touch.
"Eddie."
"I said it was stupid." Eddie tries to get up, but Buck's fingers curl around his wrist, gentle and unyielding. "Buck."
"You did notice," Buck says, as firm as he is able to right now. "And I lied to you."
"I let you," Eddie snaps. Buck's touch feels like forgiveness, and Eddie has never felt more furious with it. "I knew, and I just-- I let it go. I let you go." His voice stutters, skips. "When I was breaking, you broke down my door. And you-- you had to break all alone. Because I couldn't look at you for long enough for you to finish your goddamn sentence and talk to me."
Buck inhales, small and sharp. Eddie blinks at the ground. At some point, Buck's hand migrated to his palm, their hands gripping onto each other. Eddie doesn't want to think about how loose Buck's grip is, compared to before. He holds Buck back twice as hard, to make up for it.
"You tried to tell me, didn't you? In the ambulance."
Buck doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to. Eddie has replayed that moment in his mind a million times, at a million different angles. Trucks, he'd said, watching Eddie put drugs in the inventory. The way his face had shifted when Eddie had told him that he didn't look well. The subtle, shaky inhale.
And then, Eddie had walked away. And an hour later, Chimney was talking to them over the loft dining table.
"You thought you had a call from Chris."
"I left you in there."
"Come on, Eddie." Buck sounds almost exasperated, and if it were not for the sweat on his brow or the paleness of his lips it could be an argument they were having in the engine, at Eddie's house, on another day where Buck would vacuum down a full tray of pasta instead of barely being able to touch a slice of toast. "It was Christopher. There's no world where I would've let you sit there listening to me when he might need you."
"But he didn't," Eddie says. "It was just Pepa, telling me that I left a jacket at her place." He inhales, exhales. "He didn't need me, and you did."
Buck's thumb runs a wave over his knuckles, and Eddie thinks about how close he came to never feeling his touch again. "I knew something was wrong," he repeats. "But I was too scared to look directly at it, at you. Because--"
His throat closes. Buck tilts his head at him. "...because?"
"Because I was scared to lose you," Eddie admits, the confession falling between them and shattering into star-spun pieces, each reflecting the look in Buck's eyes. "I was scared that if I looked at you, I would see-- all the ways I failed you. How late I was." He barks out a laugh, bitter. "And it didn't even fucking matter, because I almost lost you anyways."
Buck is silent for a long moment. Then-- "I almost used you."
Eddie blinks. "What?"
"The reason I almost told you in the ambulance," Buck says, with the calm and half-joking tone that he uses when he's dying or trying very hard not to. "I was almost gonna tell you that I needed pain meds. Because of New Mexico. That my doctor ghosted me, and that if you could help me just a little--" he cuts himself off, huffs out a dry not-laugh.
Eddie doesn't laugh with him. Buck looks into his eyes. "I didn't not tell you because I didn't trust you, Eddie. I didn't tell you because I didn't trust me. I didn't want to have to put you in that position."
"I wouldn't have given it to you," Eddie says, and it shouldn't feel like a betrayal but it does anyways.
Buck nods, smiling like Eddie's done something brave. "But you would've felt bad about it, and you would've wanted to tell somebody, and you would've thought that I didn't want to tell anyone. It would've put you in an impossible decision, Eddie. And I know you like to joke about chain of command, but I know it would've been hard for you to live with yourself afterwards. I didn't want to do that to you."
Something rises in Eddie's throat, pricks behind his eyes. It's anger, except it's not. It's frustration, except it makes him want to haul Buck into his arms and weep. "You wanted to protect me," he says. Of course, of course. Of fucking course that was why Buck didn't talk to him. "You fucking idiot."
Buck laughs, a startled, bright thing. His free hand touches Eddie's face, and his thumb catches the tear that rolled free from Eddie's eyes without permission. "Thank you," he says, pale and sweaty and the most beautiful thing in LA, in the world. "For waiting for me to be ready."
And Eddie almost doesn't notice as he slips his hand out from Buck's, frames his face with both his palms in turn. He wants so much, and he knows, he knows that Buck will give it to him, even now, no matter what.
Instead, he presses his lips to the pale pink mark on Buck's brow, tasting salt and skin and Buck, cool and a little sour and still Eddie's, somehow, despite everything. He lingers there for a long moment, another, before pulling back. Buck meets his gaze, grey eyes getting bluer every day, and he doesn't look surprised or upset, he just looks glad.
"Thank you," Eddie tells him. "For never giving up."
buck stopping by with lasagna because he doesn't know how to quite be there for eddie right now because things are weird but he keeps thinking about their fight post bobby so he's like determined to be there for him in this so he shows up with lasagna but eddie is out at the moment so he uses his key & he puts the lasagna in the fridge & notices the fridge's a little sparse so he instacarts groceries but then he notices the dirty dishes in the sink so he washes them while he waits & when the groceries arrive he figures maybe doing some meal prep & then he thinks maybe he'll just tidy up the kitchen while he's there & that flows into the dining room & the living room & then eddie's room & now he's doing loads of laundry & he just keeps going until the house is clean, the laundry is folded & put away, there are meals made ready to go in the fridge for both eddie & chris & its only then that buck thinks to worry that maybe he's overstepped & then ofc eddie gets home & they just kinda stare at each other until buck can't take the silence & tells him all he did & sorry if he should've checked first but he wanted to help & he knows that sometimes it's the small every day things that can be the hardest to do & easiest to miss when you're reeling from a loss & all the while eddie is walking around the house in a kind of daze, opening the fridge & looking into his dresser & everything & he just looks at buck like you did all of this? for me? and buck is like eddie of course id do anything for you I mean anything you need I mean you're my best friend & he's stumbling over his words but eddie just walks up & pulls him into a tight hug (which is good bc buck was two steps away from saying I love you) & eddie buries his face into buck's neck & then eddie starts trembling in buck's arms & buck just holds him while he breaks & when he's more settled buck suggests a nap & eddie asks buck to stay with him & they fall asleep in bed with eddie curled up in buck's arms
*hyperventilating into my own hands* LIKE. I need more people to read Shatterpoint, not just because it's a masterpiece and Matthew Stover is a genius, but because collectively as a fandom we urgently need to screw our heads on straight with regards to Mace Windu.
People love using him as the generic avatar of the big bad emotionally repressed Jedi Order, but Mace Windu is someone who can say "Depa is my daughter, I love her, and I am deeply attached to her" and BE A JEDI ANYWAY. That's what this whole book is about - him figuring out how to continue following the Light and making the right choices in difficult, unprecedented circumstances (the war, losing Depa to the Dark Side) - and THAT'S WHAT BEING A JEDI IS.
He fully believes that attachment is dangerous (as he says "holding too tightly to what we love will destroy it") and he struggles with it the whole book, because who wouldn't struggle finding their loved one lost and sick and committing war crimes? When Palpatine asks him if he will be able to kill Depa if he has to, Mace doesn't say "I will do what is necessary." He says, "I hope I won't have to find out." His literal first instinct upon finding her is to GIVE HER A HUG. He's like, "I came here for her. I couldn't care less about her war crimes or the mission or the reputation of the Jedi Order. I'm here to save her."
But none of that means he gives himself a pass to cut corners, act selfishly, compromise what he believes is right.
I think this exchange from the book is pretty illustrative:
When you are caught in an unwinnable situation, when you're questioning all your beliefs, when everything seems hopeless, when you can't explain why this is happening, when nothing is in your control - don't spin out in despair or hopeless anger or whys and what-ifs. YOU do the right thing. Even if it seems like it won't accomplish anything. In the moment you're in, in whatever choice you're presented with, no matter how small or how large, do the right thing.
Like you said in your tags, it REALLY DOES shine a different light on his and Anakin's interactions. AND it's so important because of Mace → Depa → Kanan → Ezra. There is so much love and it hurts so much, but doing the right thing is part of love and so is the hurt.
In spite of his phone buzzing for the sixth time in the space of two minutes, Sam doesn't bother to check it. He's not slacking on the job: he's flanked by other superheroes, all of whom would also be getting notifications if something world-threatening were happening, and he's got AJ and Cass and Sarah in his immediate field of view.
The frenetic buzzing of six--wait, no, make that seven--text messages in no time at all can only be the work of one person, and that person is safely ensconced at the palace in Birnin Zana, undoubtedly being as much of a nuisance to his friends there as he is to Sam.
There's not much of a question as to what the text messages say, so Sam lets them roll in undisturbed, and makes sure that all of the cameras catch him emphatically not checking his phone. Instead he brings his attention to the students in front of him, crouching down to get a better look at the device that they built in their environmental science club.
He points to the receptacle at the top--it's a water filtration system--and asks the group how it works. They're very excited to answer, and when Sam asks specific questions about the mechanisms and how hard the process was, he watches them light up. He talks to them for so long that one of the PR people has to gently nudge him along to another group. Sam's phone periodically keeps buzzing away in his pocket, but he ignores it in favor of talking to all the students, doing his best to ask relevant questions and toss around jokes to make the shy ones laugh.
The event ends with plenty of pictures and plenty of questions about his own wings and how they work, and when it's all over, he feels the same pleasant exhaustion that he feels after a good workout or a mission where things went to plan. In the car on the way back to the house, all AJ and Cass can talk about is how cool all the Stark prototypes were, and Sam promises to let them mess around in his workshop tomorrow so they can do some inventing of their own.
It's not until he's back home that he remembers to even check his phone, putting it on the charger and laughing when the screen lights up to reveal thirty-two text messages from Bucky. The last one came in just a minute ago, so Sam flops down on the cozy armchair in the corner, Bucky's favorite place to curl up on nights when sleep is hard to come by, and calls him back.
The phone barely rings once before Bucky answers, skipping a greeting entirely so he can say, "You stole my sweater!"
Sam laughs. "Hi to you, too, baby."
There's a huff on the other end of the line. "Hi, sweetheart. I miss you, and also, you stole my sweater."
"Did I?" asks Sam. "How do you know that it didn't just find its way into my side of the dresser? You're not very careful about keeping our things separate, you know."
"Yeah, I do know," says Bucky. "That's why when I was packing for Wakanda, I asked you, 'Sam, love of my overlong life, man I would do anything for, have you seen my favorite green sweater?' And when you said no, I asked if you checked your side and you said that it wasn't in your sweater drawer, either."
That's because it was strategically placed in a laundry basket under half a dozen polo shirts that Bucky would never touch, Sam doesn't explain. "Sounds like it just got misplaced, and maybe someone shouldn't wait to pack for their trips until half an hour before they leave."
"Yeah?" asks Bucky. "Is that what it sounds like, and not like someone had their eye on my sweater and waited until I was distracted to snipe it and wear it to a public event where he knew I'd see him on TV?"
"Well that's just silly, Buck. Who would do that?"
"It's impossible to say," replies Bucky, making Sam laugh. Then, after a moment of quiet, he adds, "It looks good on you."
"Thank you," says Sam, and it shouldn't still make warmth rush to his cheeks when Bucky compliments him, but here he is. "Does that mean I get to keep it?"
Bucky snorts. "Let's not get carried away, Wilson."
"That's hardly getting carried away; we just established that I wear it better than you do."
"When did we establish that?" sputters Bucky.
"Are you saying it's not true?"
"Of course not," replies Bucky, without hesitation. "I saw how your arms looked in that thing; it's a fucking revelation. That's not the point."
"Ooh, I've never been called a revelation before," teases Sam.
He expects another grouchy reply, but instead, Bucky just says, "Yes, you have."
Sam actually stops and pulls his phone away from his face to make sure he's still connected. "What was that?"
"Nothing," says Bucky. "Tell me about this science thing that was so important you had to steal my sweater for it."
"Uh-uh," says Sam. "Nope. You tell me who's going around calling me a revelation."
"Sam."
"Bucky."
"You know who it was."
And yeah, Sam's good enough at putting together evidence to get to that conclusion, but he wants to hear it from Bucky all the same. "Tell me anyway?"
"All those times when you crashed into my life in all those different cities, you brought something with you. Do you remember that?"
As if Sam could ever forget. "My folks raised me never to show up empty handed, you know that."
It had been more than that, of course. He hadn't known how else to get Bucky to trust him, sure he was still struggling to trust himself most days. The whole point had been to make sure that Bucky was safe and whole, so the first time Sam managed to cross paths with him, he'd brought a loaf of bread and some strawberries from a roadside stall. Another time, it had been flowers, other times cups of coffee or books.
"Every time you showed up and forced me to take the thing you were giving me, I had to figure out how to be a person about it. I'd forgotten what it was to be annoyed or impatient or to want someone to stay even when you knew they couldn't."
Sam's breath catches in his throat a little, but Bucky doesn't stop.
"And then you would just talk at me for a couple minutes, and then you'd get your stuff and be on your way, and I'd have to find a safe place where I could face up to the fact that you knocked me on my ass with some wilted daisies that you bought for five euros. What else do you call someone who brings you a part of you that you thought you'd never see again?"
"What the fuck, Barnes?" breathes Sam, rasping a little because of the sudden lump in his throat.
"It's the truth!" says Bucky, suddenly defensive.
"Yeah, well, you couldn't have waited to share that truth until I could hear it in person? So I could kiss the shit out of you the way you deserve?"
"Oh," Bucky says quietly. "You know, I could--"
"Absolutely not. Whatever you're thinking, absolutely not. You just managed to earn the Wakandans' trust again; you're not stealing a talon fighter for a booty call."
"It wouldn't be a booty call, Samuel."
"It would a little bit be a booty call, and Ayo would never let you hear the end of it."
Bucky huffs again. "Fine," he grouses. "But I'm coming home as soon as the last repair is done on my arm."
"Good," says Sam. "That'll give me time to steal the rest of your sweaters."
"Sam," Bucky all but whines, and Sam laughs in response.
"Fine. I'll only take most of your sweaters, and maybe one of your hoodies. Just one."
"If I say no, you're just gonna steal more, aren't you?"
"Probably," says Sam, shrugging even though Bucky can't see him.
Bucky sighs. "Fine," he says. "We'll work out a trade when I get home."
"Well, hurry back," says Sam. "I'm kind of curious about your negotiating tactics."
There's a loud laugh from Bucky's end, and Sam can still hear his smile when he speaks. "Back home as soon as possible, sweetheart," says Bucky.
"Gonna hold you to that, baby," says Sam. Then, just as Bucky's about to hang up, he tacks on, "I'm stealing your maroon sweater next!"
When he ends the call, Bucky's only halfway through indignantly crying his name.
your buddie analysis is everything like it is proof that Buck has grown & his relationship with Eddie is secure enough like !!!!!!!!! we are witnessing a beautiful thing!!!! especially because Eddie has never had this either, someone who loves him so fully, him & Chris, to put them first, to understand, to value their happiness, to value Eddie's, to say hey I'm gonna do this for you because I love you & you are worth all of it!! It's gonna hurt so bad for a while but they're gonna have each other's backs!! Because sometimes in life you gotta do these hard things for the people you love but it's not him hurting himself or anything, it's just, the growth!! the love!! the support!! it's everything!! you put it all into words!! sorry for yelling in your inbox but it was so good & I am just !!!!! about it all, thank you for posting it!!
thank you for yelling in my inbox!!!!!!! i am just like why are we completely ignoring the actually pretty astonishing character growth buck just displayed?????? it's an incredible step for him to be able to look at his own actions and take a step back and say you know what? my brain is LYING to me. Eddie is NOT abandoning me. Eddie is doing what he needs to do and while it hurts that i'm going to miss him it doesn't actually mean anything about our relationship and I am going to show him that and show him i am here for him and chris no matter what!!!!!!!
and the beautiful thing about it is that now that Buck has worked through his initial knee-jerk abandonment issues, he can actually start to examine what missing Eddie actually MEANS. The pain and loss of it is not about his long-standing trauma and feeling abandoned and feeling, once again, like he's not enough for someone to stay for.
He KNOWS it's not about him!!!! So missing Eddie can just be about....missing Eddie. Wanting to be with him because he LOVES him, and not because Buck just has to cling to whoever he can a la with Taylor, Tommy, Abby, etc.
This is the first step to Buck FINALLY working out his feelings for Eddie. yay forever for realllll!!!!!!!!
reading your tags about what you're looking forward to was such a delight, I love this for you!!
thank you sarah!!!! i’m pretty happy for me too haha :) it’s always a good thing when life reminds you that it is worth holding on through the bad stuff to get to the good things!
