I'M SO--!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats Mikey 🎉 I'm so proud of you ^_^ also tho yes for the prompt please! stars, bridge, bruises! 💜
!!!!!!! HI PAL!!! ily sm fr you're my ultimate writing pal
i wrote a little post-ws blurb! i hope you like it!!!
He catches up with him in Brooklyn.
He’s sitting underneath the bridge, against the wall and near some nondescript construction. His knees are propped up, arms wrapped loosely around them, and Steve needs to blink a few times, suddenly caught between a memory and the present. The tilt of Bucky’s jaw is the same as he looks up at the scaffolding.
Bucky must sense him, because he looks over, lips quirking up in a soft smile that Steve can see from afar. His cheeks are sunken in, eyes drawn and tight. There’s a certain malnourishment to him-- he looks fed, but only just, and the clothes he’s wearing are baggy on him. Steve smiles back.
He’s grateful for the blanket of night as he approaches Bucky, hands tucked in his pockets and pace steady, even though his legs itch to break into a run. To get to Bucky, get close enough to take him into his arms and bleed some of the warmth he’s finally started to feel into his bones. But they aren’t there right now. Not yet. And even if they never are again, that will be okay. Bucky is alive, and he’s safe. That’s all Steve needs to know.
“Hi,” Bucky says, and that voice. God, that voice-- soft and blessedly alive. Pitched into a tone that isn’t born from a suffocating hand that grips Bucky from the inside out. It’s friendly. Familiar. Something in Steve’s chest clicks into place for the first time in a century.
They watch each other as Steve sinks down in front of him, and he mirrors Bucky’s position, pulling his knees to his chest. For a moment, they could be the boys they once were, hidden underneath the same stars that shine above them now, awake in the dead of night. Sharing secrets and gossip, toes barely brushing underneath Bucky’s bed covers.
But they aren’t. They’ll never be those boys again. Time has mangled them beyond what they were, but wouldn’t that have happened anyway?
They were always meant to learn the ever changing versions of each other, and they are meant to now.
“Hey,” Steve says back. “How are you?”
Bucky cocks his head, considers. “I’ve been better,” he decides, then snorts. “I’ve also been worse.”
Steve laughs and ducks his head. “I’ll take it.”
Bucky raises an eyebrow. “And you?”
Bucky rolls his eyes, extending a leg to lightly kick Steve’s shin.
“How are you, punk? That’s how conversation works, isn’t it?”
And Steve could fucking cry. He’s overcome for a moment, leg tingling from where Bucky kicked him; teased him. The normalcy suffocates him.
“I’ve been better,” he echoes. “But I’ve also been worse.”
“Unbelievable,” Bucky mutters, shaking his head. “Still a little shit, huh?”
“And you’re still an asshole.”
They fall into silence, and that’s fine, Steve finds. There’s too much between them-- too much to be said and done. Sorted through and weathered. Banter might be easy enough to emulate, but that bone deep ease won’t come so naturally. That’s okay.
“I don’t really want to do this now.” Steve looks at Bucky when he speaks. He’s still looking up at the belly of the bridge. Steve notices the bruises on his knuckles now, and flexes his own hands. There are matching bruises on his own from a hard night and a brick wall, and he wonders briefly if they got them in a similar manner. “But I’m sorry.”
Steve shakes his head, about to tell Bucky that he has no reason to be sorry. But the words die on his tongue. That feels dismissive, and he wants him to feel heard. Needs him to feel heard.
Bucky’s jaw clenches. Steve waits.
“Everything. Leaving you.”
Steve frowns. “After DC?”
Steve nods, digesting that for a moment. Formulating what he means to say.
“I was proud,” he decides. “I still am, Buck.” The nickname rolls off his tongue like smoke from an old Chesterfield cigarette. “You needed that time and you needed space, and you goddamn took it. I couldn’t be more happy that you left, and I’m glad you felt safe enough to reach out to me when you were ready. I would have hated for you to come in before then. I’m just real glad you’re safe.”
He meets Bucky’s gaze then, and finds him watching him with wide, wet eyes. Bucky huffs out a watery laugh, kicking Steve in the shin again. For a while, he doesn’t say anything, obviously composing himself.
“I don’t know if I’m ready yet,” he admits after a while. “I think I still might need a little more time.”
Steve tentatively rests his hand on Bucky’s ankle. When Bucky doesn’t pull away, Steve squeezes. “That’s alright. You don’t ever have to be ready, if you’re not.”
Bucky nods. “Thank you,” he whispers, then peeks up at Steve. “But I think I might be ready to-- to try? Or… start trying. I, um, I have a place over in Bushwick. Maybe we could just… start small. Start from scratch?”
Steve smiles, and feels the last tendrils of ice in his soul melt away.
“Yeah, Buck. I’d love that.”
thanks for reading, y'all!
