Chapter Text
Steve knows from day one that Bucky isn’t his soulmate. The bright red handprint on the back of his neck has always been too big to be Steve’s; it covered his whole back when he was born, or so Steve overheard Bucky’s ma saying to his own. Bucky was born when Steve’d just barely been conceived and he belongs to someone bigger and older and stronger than Steve will ever live to be.
It’s better that Bucky isn’t his soulmate, Steve reminds himself when he thinks about that, not letting himself look at the back of the other’s neck where the long stretch of broad fingers shows. Bucky’s mark has never grown or changed, not all his life, so his soulmate’s probably a good twenty years older than him; probably went all that time thinking they’d never get a mark at all until Bucky’s newborn soul reached out and touched them.
They’ll appreciate him, Steve tells himself. Of course they will, after waiting twenty years to even know he existed. And it’s a man’s handprint, so he’ll have a job and a place all set up, he’ll have years to save money and build a life for Bucky to slip right into, and Bucky’ll meet him and--and get swept right off his feet in a whirlwind romance and married the next June in a picture-perfect ceremony with flowers and tears and everything Bucky wants, probably. That’s what everyone says when they talk about everyone else’s soulmarks. More’n a few of their classmates are jealous of Bucky’s big and brilliant mark, of the confidence and certainty so obvious in it.
None of them are jealous of Steve’s, because Steve doesn’t have one.
Of course he doesn’t. He won’t live long enough for it to matter.
Their classmates all dream about the hands that will touch their necks, the necks their hands will touch, and Steve dreams that Bucky’s mark is small and skinny-fingered and would respond to him. He dreams that if he laid a hand on it that bold red would bleed silver or blue or something iridescent and Bucky would go pliant and soft at the change, would let him take care of him for once.
Then he hates himself, because of course that isn’t what’s going to happen. Bucky’s soulmate will show up with the perfect life all arranged and kiss him sweet and romantic like in the pictures and not die on him and Bucky will--and Bucky will--
And Bucky will forget whispering, “I don’t want him, Stevie,” that one late night when Steve’s ma was on shift and they were alone in the dark in the living room.
Will forget Steve’s first kiss.
It’d hurt so bad to keep his hands off Bucky’s mark that night. Steve’s been punched in the face and kicked in the ribs and broken bones and boiled in fever and coughed until his throat bled and still can’t think of anything that’s hurt as bad as that had. He’s not sure anything could.
Except for the idea of touching Bucky's mark and not getting a response. That . . . that would have hurt worse.
So he hadn’t.