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Tweak says, "turtles don't bounce."

mr. bucket; buckets of fun (sgt_barnesjb) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-05-21 09:31:00

Entry tags:

!partner thread, bucky barnes (mcu), natasha romanoff (mcu)

WHO: Bucky Barnes (MCU) and Natasha Romanoff (MCU)
WHAT: In depth talking about difficult things
WHERE: By the lake
WHEN: Evening, around sunset
RATING: TBD but probably not high?

Venturing out after being a shut in for so many days was still a daunting task. The ache in his chest was still very prominent; emotional healing wasn't something the serum helped to speed up. Bucky didn't do well with that and as a result all he'd wanted to do was stay hidden away in his house. Natasha and Clint had sort of put a stop to that when they came over with cake, and that had gotten him moving and functioning again. He was showering, eating, keeping up with his clothing. In other words, going through the motions. He was in survival mode, which was better than no mode at all as he'd been before they came to check on him. But it wasn't really living. Bucky wasn't going to be able to do that until he really faced what happened with Steve so he could put it behind him and move forward. That was what he'd said he needed to do, and what he knew he needed to do, but it was hard.

Hard, but maybe not impossible. One of the reasons he and Steve had finally faced each other with the truth of what was going on in their hearts was because they both had developed feelings for other people. In Bucky's case, two people. To complicate it a little more, Bucky knew that Natasha and Clint had feelings for each other too. It was what it was. None of them had really kept it a secret from each other. He and Clint were still kind of feeling each other out, and Bucky was really wanting to keep that going and see what happened. But he also knew that his feelings for Natasha were already there, left over from years ago, and he wanted her to know that. But to do that, she needed to know everything and that wasn't an easy conversation to have. He didn't put any expectations on what would come of it. In fact, he didn't think anything would. She cared about him, they shared a pretty intense past, but he also knew that she'd found Clint here, and if that was what she wanted and what he wanted, then he wanted he wanted it for them both. He just thought that, after spending so much time not talking about his feelings with Steve and how that ended up, that he needed to not let history repeat itself.

They'd agreed to meet by the lake, so Bucky left his house and walked to the lake. She was already there, near the water, and for a moment he just stood there and looked at her. It was so different, seeing her this way, outside. She took his breath away. His heart was still broken, not yet mended but that didn't mean a good part of it didn't belong to her. Bucky approached her then, and tucked a bit of his hair behind his ear.

"It's still weird," he said. "To talk to you outside."

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-22 06:30 pm UTC (link)

What Bucky wanted to make sure he expressed to her that day -- among many other things -- was that during his time of hiding away before she and Clint came to find him, was that he was thinking about a lot. He figured she probably knew he'd been thinking about Steve, and she wasn't entirely wrong. Yes, he'd thought a lot about Steve, but probably not in the way anyone who knew their history would think. He wasn't just depressed over them not being together. It went far deeper than that and that was why he needed to figure out how to explain to her, because that would lead into everything else he'd been thinking and feeling as a result.

Bucky let his hand slid down her arm and laced their fingers, which he hoped was okay. "Let's take a walk," he said. The movement might make it easier to talk. Moving forward, not standing still, wasn't that what he was trying to do anyway? Why not do it literally, too?

"Steve came over, as you know, after he saw us talking on the net," he said after they'd taken a few paces. "And he was angry, about us, about why I didn't tell him immediately once I remembered our relationship. I told him I was still trying to sort through it myself, and that I'd wanted to talk to you first but it hadn't felt like there was time given the circumstances we were in. I'm not saying I was right, because the more I've been thinking about it I should have told you soon after I remembered regardless of the outcome. I'm sorry for that." He paused, not wanting to get of the line of thought he had going because it was hard enough as it was to talk about it.

"I told him about us, about how we met," he went on to say. "About how we awakened things in each other and how we fell in love. And what it cost us in the end, how they programmed me specifically to try to kill you whenever I saw you. All of it. I don't think he received it very well." That was putting it lightly. They'd gotten into a shouting match neither man had ever engaged in with each other before. They'd both said things out of anger, though Bucky really was mostly trying to convey to Steve that he couldn't have it both ways -- he couldn't yell at Bucky for keeping his past relationship with Natalia private and then continue to not explain to him what was going on with him and Stark -- which, honestly, he never did get any clarification about when all was said and done. It just didn't work that way.

"It brought up a lot of feelings to the surface we've purposely avoided for reasons that shouldn't have been important and were really just excuses out of being afraid," he said. "Steve kissed me, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't kiss him back." He set his jaw; even if he knew this was how things had to be, it didn't make it easy. "I've loved him since we were kids. It started off as me loving him as someone I wanted to protect, and then more like a brother. But when we got older, it changed. I was in love with him; unconditionally, romantically, with everything in me. And I need you to know that, because it was a huge part of me and my life."

Bucky looked out at the water for a moment. He'd never said it out loud before, that he was in love with Steve. He and Steve, ironically during an argument that was rooted in the fact that they'd been in love with each other, still never actually said it. "It's always going to be part of me, but I know that I have to let it go. I'm not in love with him anymore and that was a painful, difficult realization to have, but I've accepted it, and I know it's the truth. I still love Steve. I'm always going to love Steve. It's just changed. I'm not in love with him anymore. I don't know when it changed, but it did. I just didn't know how to understand that because let's face it, I'm still a work in progress after everything."

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