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Tweak says, "You give me pale shelter..."

Steve Rogers (captainhandsome) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-05-09 14:00:00

Entry tags:

bucky barnes (mcu), steve rogers (mcu)

Who: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes
What: A Talk.
When: Evening
Where: Bucky's
Rating: Look. I don't know what's happening up in here, hold onto your butts.

It could never be said that Steve Rogers was a fool. He was good at people, he was quick to understand them. But with the people he knew? Well Steve might have been an expert. He spoke fluent Natasha and could speak Bucky's facial expressions near flawlessly. Tony was- well that was more complicated. But he knew when something was happening with his makeshift wayward family and he knew when there was something he wasn't being told. It wasn't anyone's responsibility to fill him in, mind you, people were entitled to their lives and their secrets. But Bucky was. Well. Bucky was different and he was Steve's business.

Natasha's arrival had rocked them all. But what he hadn't expected was for it to rock Bucky. Because they didn't know each other that well. Or so he'd thought. But Steve was wrong, she'd called him James and thought he hadn't noticed. Steve always noticed. Maybe not having a life made you more aware of everyone elses, or something.

That night in the bar he'd watched Tony and Bucky argue and he'd let it go, let them figure it out for themselves and in time, well they'd talk in time. Steve had been telling himself that since they were fourteen years old. Because it was easy, it meant keeping him and them as it was and it meant not losing him, not any part of him.

You couldnm't lose something that wasn't yours.

It was dark when Steve finished his run, because he was at the point where he was running three times a day to burn off all that nervous energy. He showered quick and then changed, his feet already carrying him before his head caught up. Steve knocked on Bucky's doorframe, leaning against it as he crossed his arms. "Hey you."

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They say Steve lives for his work and Steve's in love with his work. Steve hides in his work.

sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-09 12:50 pm UTC (link)

Natasha's arrival really had turned quite a bit upside down in Starklandia, but if Bucky was being honest with himself he'd say that a lot of the contributing factors were already there. It was no secret that there was still a great deal of tension and unresolved emotions shifting between himself, Steve, and Stark. None of the three of them were exactly great or even subpar at expression emotions in a healthy way. Bottling everything up hoping it would just go away or stubbornly sticking to the mindset that it could be dealt with later because it was easier to just think or talk about something else kind of seemed to be the trend. Deflection, distraction, both ran rampant and for Steve and Bucky that had always been the easy way out. It kept them from having to have that talk that they should've had a hundred years ago.

Insert Natalia Romanova and more of those complications that added fuel to their avoidance habits came into play. Bucky knew he needed to have a conversation with Steve about it. He'd known for a while, and maybe that was why he hadn't been quite as guarded with his exchanges with her as he needed to be. But they'd found a new sense of freedom where they could talk openly and now that they had that, neither was too keen to go back into hiding. His relationship with her was something he'd never told Steve about, but it wasn't intentional. At least, not at first, or so he told himself. But it kind of felt like that talk that never happened, only he knew that if he didn't tell Steve about it that the weight of it would fall on Natalia, and she was under enough stress as it was. Especially after that kind of beautiful disaster that was the conversation between himself, her, and Clint.

That talk, involved something that both men knew had always been there but they didn't dare go there for so many reasons that shouldn't have mattered but ultimately had and kept them in a comfortable state of familiarity that they both treasured and fought with their lives to maintain. Each was too important to the other to ever lose what was there, and the fear of that happening had always held them back from ever going there. The only time Bucky almost had was during World War II, after that burning building explosion when Steve got him away from Zola, but even then they'd kind of both put a stop to it before he could say too much.

Somehow he knew, when he heard Steve's voice after the knocking, that this was going to be that talk, or at least, some variation of it. He was going to have to tell Steve about Natasha, he was going to have to tell him about a lot of things he'd rather keep avoiding. When Steve had said they needed to talk, he knew it wasn't going to just be about the bar fight.

Having been on the floor trying to sort of fix a wobbly table leg using his fist as a hammer, he stood up and brushed his jeans off with his hands. "Hey, Steve," he said. He'd pulled his hair back out of his face while he was working, and wished he hadn't because he couldn't run his hand through it like he so often did when he was nervous. Nervous; that was such a foreign feeling that he rarely if ever had associated with his relationship with Steve. But today he was. "I'd offer you a seat but I'm still kind of working on that."

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From facing his failue, facing his lonliness, facing the fact he lives a lie.

captainhandsome
2019-05-09 01:31 pm UTC (link)

It was all off. In all their years, in all their awkward moments and intense feelings that they couldn't quite handle, they'd still been them and it hadn't been like this. But pretending was second nature to him, so he smiled and shrugged it off. For a moment he thought about just forgetting it, going with the avoidance because it was so easy and came so naturally. But they'd reached the end of that, Steve could feel it and he lot out a slow breath.

They couldn't just hover around there though, Steve didn't think he could stand it. "Come on, let's sit out here," he said with a nod toward the porch area. There wasn't anyone around and the moon in the sky was comforting and bright. It reminded him of nights spent beside the fire, boots in the dirt as they made their way around. Looking back now, those times were some of the best of his life, them and the others. Them, side by side.

He sat on the top step, elbows braced on his knees for a long moment before he forced himself to look at him. "I got that feeling, like maybe I'm missing something. Like why my partner calls you James? Why you're so comfortable talking with her? Want to fill me in on that?" Steve asked. It was what needed to happen, if he got right into it there would be no coming back, no shrugging it off.

No escaping the truth of it, the pinpricks of jealousy in his spine and that heavy feeling in his gut that he wasn't going to like it that he got just thinking about it.