@sovietstrings ▐ p. ⊰ ❝ a kiss shared between enemies during combat, a kiss that smears blood everywhere & kissing your lover after believing you’d lost them.
he's going to die here. steve rogers is going to willingly stand down from a fight &* die – &* it'll be at bucky barnes hand. a million different memories flash through his enhanced brain at lightening speed as each hit connects – 19 years worth of them. all with the same blue eyes looking at him now , but never with such ice. he knows the lines at the edges of those eyes are from laughter. knows the tiny cut in his brow is from a swing seat hitting in when steve jumped too early. knows a chip in his tooth is from steve's bony elbow during a roughhousing match. knows his favorite colors &* his social security number &* what it felt like to stand on his damn toes to learn to dance -------- he knows all of that &* more , but bucky does not know him.
it settles under steve's skin &* makes him itch to rip – to pull &* tear until he is just the skin &* bones of that kid in brooklyn that bucky knew his entire life. steve would rip away every trace of captain america if the exchange brought bucky out of this. everything he ever fought against in the war had been for nothing. his attempt to join bucky in the ice hadn't been completely failed in that light – just took seventy years before they'd meet again. but this is not what he wanted. steve would never forgive himself for this.
he pleads. not for himself – for bucky to know him. YOU KNOW ME. YOU'RE MY FRIEND. steve will do nothing but look at him – let him land his hits on a body that bends under bucky's hands as it always has. those hands have never treated steve with anything crueler than play-fighting. here they break &* bruise &* claw. metal &* machine whir in a way that makes steve want to vomit. the winter soldier will find no resistance – steve is not a hard man to kill like this.
steve's dreaming. he has to be dreaming. or this is hell. he died &* went to hell &* this is his torture for failing. there is nothing that god could dream up that would torture him more than this. to know his failure during the war would lead to this ? he'd die a hundred times over to spare bucky this. either he will die here or he will get bucky back. those are the only two options he presents reality.
the hits don't stop coming. but bucky's voice … he sounds frantic. there is panic there. he is pleading for steve to shut up – to stop pressing. why ? there is a look in those pretty blues that does not hold the hollow quality he's seen of the winter soldier. steve is getting through a barrier. so steve does what steve has always done best with bucky – he taunts. FINISH IT. no killer assassin would hesitate. they'd slit his throat &* be done with this one sided fight. but bucky stays his fist. seems to struggle to take the final blow. there. the nerve. exposed &* raw &* undeniably showing bucky breaking through hydra's conditioning. he just needs something stronger to bring him home.
everything hurts. mind &* body. for a second , he feels sixteen again. broken &* bleeding in an alley , unable to breathe properly with a collapsed lung &* a broken shoulder. he wonders if he looks the same now as bucky had found him all those years ago. he'd seen him shattered on the ground so many times – gotten better at getting to steve before hospital visits were necessary. steve's not needed a hospital since getting this body – but he does now. his body will not recover properly without treatment now. steve in this state would have crumpled bucky to the ground in worry in 1938. maybe that is why he hesitates. will bucky let the winter soldier send steve rogers to the morgue when he'd worked tirelessly for 19 years to keep him safe ? what was enough to drag bucky out , if not steve's mortal peril ?
a memory flashes. steve's eighteen ; just lost his mother. buried her next to his shitty father in the joint plot the military paid for. neither boys are quite adults yet ; bucky still wants to cling to youth – an offer of a sleepover to stave off the quiet of steve's now empty apartment. it will extend indefinitely when bucky moves in. but for now , in this moment , it is just a reminder that steve is not alone. he will never be alone , as long as bucky barnes is alive. because ----
THEN FINISH IT … CAUSE I'M WITH YOU ‘TIL THE END OF THE LINE. the words leave him in the sweetest , saddest croon. it reflects the sweetness &* the love that his expression can barely manage in it’s bloodied state. his eyes show it – how he would never hold bucky accountable for killing him if that line ends here. how steve would forgive him in a heartbeat.
but he doesn't want to die. not when recognition flares in bucky's eyes – along with love &* abject horror , all wrapped in one. that is not the winter soldier looking at him. that is bucky barnes , hovering over him as he has many , many times in their lives. never like this. bucky would never hurt him. bucky —
he doesn't know why he does it. he didn't even know he could move. the bullets in his body nor the broken bones seemed to be enough to keep steve rogers from leaning up &* pressing a kiss to the trembling lips above him. it's like a magnet drew him there the second bucky showed his face. they'd go down with this burning helicarrier , but not without this. not without bucky knowing steve would meet him even now with the same love he always had. not without knowing steve can see bucky there , behind all of hydra's shaping.
&* then he is falling. it feels like it's happening in slow motion – he sees bucky's metal arm keeping him attached to the helicarrier. steve is the only one falling. in his state , he won't be able to swim back to the surface. he will not be frozen here – he will drown. he's not thinking of any of that ------- his only thought now is simply THANK GOD IT'S ME THIS TIME.
