steve rogers (combatable) wrote in zombielandlogs, @ 2019-02-27 20:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | marvel: bucky barnes, marvel: steve rogers |
Who: Steve and Bucky
Where: The woods
When: Bendy around the love plot
What: Bucky is hit by cupid's arrow...OR IS HE? Who knows
Warnings: Nope
After sending his last message to Bucky, Steve dressed into his suit that he was thankful to still have after everything. While wearing it out in the open might have looked ridiculous it was useful in a lot of ways to him by being durable and easy to maneuver in. The one thing his suit was missing was his shield but that wasn’t something he could replace just yet. For now Steve decided to rely on his hands and feet to get the job done. After all, he didn’t need a shield to do his fighting for him.
Steve didn’t think he needed to wait long either. He thought it was best that the two of them traveled on foot instead of taking a ride. If the two of them were planning on clearing their heads together then a simple walk through the woods and back felt sufficing enough. At least then they didn’t have to worry about picking a destination to drive to.
Lifting his head, Steve nodded when he saw Bucky approach, dressed in similar gear that he seemed to arrive in. Steve was glad that the two of them could still express what the other needed without having to actually use words. It was this silent gesture that they seemed to have as Steve nodded to the gates so that the two of them could begin their walk.
“How are you holding up with everything? Has Wanda helped you?” Steve didn’t forget that Wanda had offered to look into Bucky’s mind to get a feeling for how broken it was or wasn’t. Steve trusted the Scarlet Witch so he was relying on her to help his best friend however she could.
Despite the help Steve was still worried. Anything could set Bucky off and if that personality took over it was going to take more than just himself to stop a rampaging assassin.
Bucky didn’t take much time getting himself ready. He was always dressed in his gear, even having learned to use the washer and dryer system in housekeeping in order to wash his gear himself. Bucky didn’t have a lot of material items, in fact, his bunk was nearly empty. In the recent years and even ones before that he could remember, he always travelled light. There was no way in knowing what could happen or if he could lose everything or himself.
Right now, Bucky didn’t think he was losing himself. Bucky thought he had just been enlightened one morning when he looked at Steve and it was like everything made sense. No, he didn’t remember a lot from his past, especially where it had to do with Steve. He was still learning that part, but the truth was, just what his best friend had done for him recently, it meant a lot. And he was beginning to find that it meant even more.
He loved him. For everything he was and everything he wanted to be. For who he used to be. The thought made him smile and honestly, Bucky took their saying ‘Til the end of the line,’ to mean more. Because it was true. In every way possible.
But, Bucky didn’t know what to do with this information. The realization that everything could change or not change. Bucky didn’t know what to say to him or how to say it. He wasn’t exactly good at this part. Sure, he used to get the girls back when he was younger but so much had happened. He wasn’t the same guy he used to be. He was seasoned in more ways than one and love wasn’t something that was important to him. Not until now. Didn’t he deserve it too?
When he saw Steve, his eyes lit up in its own smile as his lips kept the same expression. Seeing Steve made him feel safe and he hoped that Steve felt safe as well.
They began to walk and Bucky shrugged.
“I’m doing alright. Wanda’s helping a lot.” Wanda took it all very seriously which was good for obvious reasons. She also took things slow. Bucky wanted to be so impulsive, but it was dangerous, he knew that.
“She says we need to take things slow,” he smiled a little and shook his head. “I guess I’m just a little too eager to remember things that I want to, but then on the flip side, there’s things that I would probably never want to think about again.” Being an assassin, he saw a lot. Too much and he had done too much. Those were the moments he didn’t want to remember but it was important that he did. It was important that he owned what he had done, worked through it and moved on.
It was easy to say it wasn’t him, especially where Tony’s parents were concerned, but in the end, it was still him. There was nothing that would change that.
When he saw the smile on Bucky’s face Steve couldn’t stop the smile on his own. It felt good to see his friend look like he was glad to be here. Glad to be alive despite their situation and how hopeless everything seemed. Most days Steve felt like he was trying too hard but what else was he supposed to do? There was no way out of this mess so living day by day was what mattered to him, keeping the people inside of the prison became his responsibility when Faith offered him a job and he took it seriously.
“Wanda probably wants to make sure you take it easy. She doesn’t want to do something to you that might have a negative backlash.” Steve didn’t know how they were going to help Bucky but he assumed it was going to be through therapy and helping Bucky’s mind heal so that way he couldn’t expose himself to that other part of him.
“And I want to make sure nothing happens to you,” Steve added, reaching out so that he could touch his hand to Bucky’s shoulder, giving his best friend a small squeeze. Steve just wanted to reassure him that everything was going to be alright. It was the least Steve could do.
“I figured we could go out for a bit. Let off some steam.” Steve needed to stretch his legs which meant he wanted to run but today he thought they could scout the area and take out any lingering groups of zombies that were getting too close to the fencing area.
“So far, so good, Cap,” Bucky told him, his stare lasting a little bit too long when Steve touched his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. It wasn’t patronizing or anything like that. It was just a friend comforting another and Bucky appreciated that. “Stretching our legs is probably a good idea. Getting out of the prison is ever better regardless. Sometimes it feels as though the walls are closing in. You ever get that feeling?” He asked. “Being boxed in. Caged. It’s not a feeling that I take well,” Bucky admitted as they walked.
But being with Steve made feel better. It even felt like home a little bit. It was just amazing how Bucky could look at him and see something that felt so right. Telling him on the other hand, well - he didn’t know if he could do that but something inside of him told him that he needed to. There was this ache of just wanting to be wanted but being wanted by the person who he wanted most was what made it worth it.
He smiled to himself and shook his head.
“What if I told you something did happen to me?” Bucky asked and glanced over at him as they walked. Alright, so Bucky just went with that approach because the need to express how he felt was just a little too strong. He could normally keep what he felt inside, he could show no emotion easily but with Steve it was hard.
“I’ve felt like that. Like nothing I could do could fix or change how I felt. That everything was just closing in on me. That’s what it was like for me when the accords happened. When the country I worked for wanted to take away my rights to do what I thought was right.” Steve didn’t think it was fair. He had sacrificed his life. He had done everything for his home and the people he loved and now people of a single covenant wanted to vote on using Steve and the Avengers for missions when they were needed.
“Which was why I couldn’t let them take you.” Because that meant giving up his beliefs. Steve knew right from wrong. He knew that there was always this invisible line painted right down the middle of his own morality but what could someone do to save a person who was innocent but the law thought otherwise?
Steve sighed because thinking about it made him angry. It wasn’t that long ago for him although it did feel that way. It felt almost impossible to believe that other things had happened that he couldn’t remember.
“What changed?” Steve asked, his head turning to look at Bucky as they walked, their pace slow despite their intentions of finding something to occupy their time.
Bucky could hear it in his voice and it was something that Bucky remembered like it was yesterday. He was brought here during the fight with Tony and Steve … he wasn’t on Tony’s side. He was helping to protect Bucky and ultimately going against Tony. It was something that mattered. And Bucky knew that he and Tony might have talked and Tony voiced that he knew it wasn’t Bucky and that he was brainwashed, but it didn’t mean that things were that simple. Even Bucky knew that.
“If there’s one thing about you, Steve, it’s your integrity.” He met his eyes. And it was something that Bucky would forever be grateful for. There was alot more that Bucky could say about just what kind of man Steve was but he was pretty sure he didn’t have enough hours in the day to go through that long list. At the question of what changed though, Bucky raised his eyebrows and chewed on the inside of his cheek.
“I don’t know, I guess this morning I just feel a little more awake. It’s hard to explain. Like something that’s been there the whole time is finally coming to my attention,” he said, watching Steve as they walked.
“You ever felt that way before?”
Steve thought about it. He knew the answer but it was painful to talk about. Steve didn’t want to talk about Peggy and he wasn’t entirely sure where his relationship with Sharon was going. It was nice but he wasn’t sure if it was love. Steve didn’t know if he was capable of loving someone like that again. Steve felt that Bucky maybe already knew that. It wasn’t like his feelings for Peggy were hidden as Steve showed his affection right until the very end.
“Once,” he said, saying that as a reminder to Bucky who he knew would pick up on it. Steve was a little curious as to what Bucky was talking about as they entered an open field where the weeds were high and it was like looking down across a valley. The winter had made everything so wet and cold but the sight was still a little beautiful.
“Did something happen, Buck?” he asked, turning to look at his friend a little more seriously. He wondered if something changed or if Bucky had met someone to help him feel this way. Whatever it was Steve was glad because he thought Bucky needed things to ground him.
Bucky looked from Steve to the scene in front of him. Peggy. The thought of her made him smile a little and even Bucky knew how much Steve still cared about her. She was one who made an impact, probably more than she would ever know. He swallowed at that and shrugged.
“Yeah,” he replied to Steve’s one word explanation of what he had felt. Bucky got it. And now he felt it. And he didn’t know how to tell Steve. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Not when it was real. Not when it was something that wouldn’t just go away after the night that he knew of. He knew that this was something that lasted forever. It sounded a bit silly, but Bucky wasn’t the type to take this all lightly.
“You did,” Bucky told him, not looking at him. He squinted a little at the sky as they walked. The open space around them with just weeks and other wild plantation that was ungroomed and free.
“It’s you.” It wasn’t as hard as Bucky thought it would be, but it was simple enough. He wasn’t one to give a big declaration. That was about as big as it got for him. “You can take that as you want, but what I’m feeling is the realest I’ve ever felt in a long time. And you don’t have to say anything back. What I feel for you is what I feel. Nothing that can be said will change that.”
He finally looked at Steve then and the words were on the tip of his tongue. The words that he wanted to say but instead of saying them, he closed his mouth, his gaze returning to the area ahead of him.
For whatever reason Steve didn’t expect that. He didn’t expect for Bucky to tell him something so surprising and for a second there Steve believed it. He thought it was genuine until he remembered that people all over were expressing feelings for other people, feelings that somehow came out of nowhere and Steve, for a brief moment, felt his heart sink because what Bucky said wasn’t real. None of it was and it angered him. It made Steve hate what was going on.
“Bucky,” Steve began, stopping as he didn’t know what to say or how to go about this. He knew whatever he said would only push Bucky to believe it. Bucky would refuse to admit that what he felt was wrong and Steve didn’t want to fight with him. He didn’t want to disrupt Bucky’s already fragile mind by saying what he felt were lies.
“Thank you,” he said, not sure if it was the right thing to say but he had to say something in order to diffuse the massive amount of tension that was building on top of Steve’s shoulders. It wasn’t saying that he felt it back and it wasn’t denying Bucky of his feelings. Steve thought a neutral approach would allow Bucky to sit with what he felt.
Bucky waited for it. Waited for anything. It felt like the longest moment of his life just waiting for Steve to say something. For a second Bucky could almost pretend that Steve felt the same way. That he put Bucky in this high regard but it never came and Bucky felt devastated. He did tell the Captain that he could take it how he wanted to and Steve did.
“Yeah, no problem.” Was his quick reply but it was more laced with a bit of sarcasm more than anything. Suddenly the air around them grew thick and for a second, Bucky could feel like he couldn’t breathe. That everything he said had been wasted and that wasn’t exactly a good feeling to have.
The sound of zombies in the distance was a great distraction from it. A way to not talk about what happened and Bucky nodded, gesturing ahead.
“Looks like it’s our lucky day,” he said, noticing the zombies coming out of the woodwork. There was a horde of them and it had been awhile since Bucky had fought anything that a fight, even if it was against zombies was what he needed right now. He walked a little faster, putting a distance between them as he headed straight for it.
Steve opened his mouth to say something else, maybe words of reassurance, something along of the lines of this would be over soon and that maybe those feelings would be gone. He thought that it would help his friend some way but Steve didn’t say anything. He swallowed his words and he pulled down the uncertainty of it all. Wasn’t Bucky supposed to be hellbent on his affections? The things that Steve read, the insanity of it, he thought that there would be more but there wasn’t. It all felt so…
Genuine.
But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Steve didn’t have time to even question it because the groan of a zombie cut through the former soldier’s thoughts as he turned, a small horde approaching them with every single intention of feeding. For now, because of the zombies, the two of them didn’t have to talk about any of this.
It was just the later part that Steve was worried about.
“Let’s get to work,” Steve said, a knife drawn from its leather sheath as he followed alongside, his mind returning to a familiar place where the fight was all that mattered.