Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It happens sometimes.

They’re leaning over to pick something up, the wind happens to tug their clothing away at the perfect angle, some desperate fan grabs at them, a former lover comes forward with a clandestinely taken photo. Some asshole pap manages to snap a lucky shot of the flavor-of-the-moment celebrity at just the right time.

It used to be that such incidents were rare. It used to be the scandal of the decade when a celebrity’s soul mark got leaked. Now it’s tabloid fodder, and not even particularly interesting tabloid fodder at that.

It’s such a fact of life now that every public relations manager worth their salt has the damage control protocols for navigating the aftermath of a mark leak memorized. The paps have refined sniffing out celebrity marks to such a perfect predatory degree that most B-list celebrities and above invest in patches that can’t be removed without a special solvent. Though, some celebrities straight up leak those photos on purpose as a publicity stunt to get their names back into the mainstream conversation.

Still, it’s a shitty shitty thing to do to a person. It’s one in a long list of indignities public figures suffer, a reminder that people treat their privacy and bodily autonomy as inconveniences at best. Bucky never understood the cultural obsession with celebrity marks. Well, he could understand the fascination from an intellectual standpoint. It’s like winning the lottery. Statistically speaking, the chances of your soulmate being anyone remotely famous is slim to none. Hell, the chances of you even actually meeting your soulmate is dubious at best. But even the slightest probability that you could win, and win big, is enough to drive people to do crazy things.

Bucky mostly just ignored it every time someone’s soul mark made the news. He even started blocking all mark-related keywords on his social media feed. And sure, that means he doesn’t ever see any mentions of Mark Wahlberg or Mark Zuckerberg, but if he’s being honest, that’s more of a pro than anything else. It’s a shame about Mark Hamill though. And if he does ever manage to hear about any celebrity soul mark leaks, he’s usually the last to know, which he’s more than fine with.

But that also means there’s absolutely nothing preparing him for the moment he walks into Stark Tower and sees at least a dozen people loitering in the lobby with his soul mark proudly emblazoned on their skin.

He really regrets not keeping up to date then. Because he would’ve loved to have time to brace himself for a sight like this. It hits him like a physical blow. He feels sick to the pit of his stomach, a bone-deep nausea. And it’s like all the air in his lungs got sucked out, leaving him gasping and wheezing. Every ounce of strength in him leeching out in a single dizzying moment until he’s almost certain he’s going to wind up on the ground. Yeah, Bucky knows what a panic attack feels like by now. It’s an old fucking friend at this point.

But somehow, this one’s worse. Worse than the moment he looked up and saw a dark shadow pass over him as rubble fell from above. Worse than the first time he tried to walk and ended up falling over because he was eight pounds lighter on one side.

Because Bucky hasn’t seen his own goddamn soul mark in seven years.

Not since a doctor sawed his left arm off to save his life.

And God, he’d imagined what it might be like to see it again. A quiet moment. A private moment. His soulmate slowly lifting their shirt, their trouser leg up—stepping out of the shower maybe—so he can finally catch a glimpse of it on their chest, their ankle, their back. It would be after years of knowing them and yet not knowing, and then it would all click into place. The world making sense in a way it never has before as he looks at the profile of a mastiff standing proud silent vigil on their skin.

He misses his mark. He never thought that this would be one of the hardest parts of relearning how to live a normal life. He never realized how much it grounded him to be able to look at his left wrist and know there would be a jowly dog looking stolidly into the distance hidden beneath his wristband.

He’s starting to attract attention, drawing concerned and annoyed looks, and really, that just makes it worse. It brings him back to that dark headspace when he was convinced everyone who looked at him was staring at the empty gap where his arm should be. Like he’s wrong in his own body. It’s in moments like these that all the self-affirmation exercises and conversations with his therapist just fly out the window. And he’s right back to those first months when he was still waiting to wake up from this like it was all just a horrible dream.

And then there’s a pair of hands cupping his cheeks, cool and soothing against his heated skin. He doesn’t even have to look to know who it is. He’d know her steady presence anywhere.

“Nat,” Bucky croaks out.

“You idiot,” Natasha says, filled with such exasperated affection that he starts to feel a little bit better. She’s magic like that sometimes. “This is why you actually need to answer your phone when people call you.”

“Forgot to charge it.”

Nat rolls her eyes and starts to steer him away from the gawking bystanders. “I don’t even know why I put up with you.”

“Your life would be empty without me.”

“It would, which is why I can’t have you dying dramatically in my boss’s lobby.”

She’s taking him down the bright clean hallways of Stark Tower. A couple of official-looking employees pass by and send Bucky curious looks, but everyone else for the most part ignores them. It’s a blessing, considering Bucky’s pretty sure he looks like utter shit. Nat swipes through a couple of very high-tech doors with the keycard hooked onto her lanyard, and after a few more twists and turns, she pushes them both into what looks like a handicap bathroom.

Bucky sinks gratefully to the tiled floor and puts his head between his knees to try to get his breathing back under control. He still feels light-headed and shaky from the nasty surprise in the lobby. The sound of Nat flipping the lock on the door is startlingly loud. After a moment, she sits next to him, leaning her weight into his side.

“I used to wonder,” Bucky says, conscious of how his voice echoes in the small bathroom, “if I would even recognize it if I saw it again.”

“Bucky…”

“It’s been seven years, Nat. And memory isn’t—it’s not the most reliable. I was so scared that I would think the wrong person was my soulmate because I’d forgotten what my mark was supposed to look like.” He laughs. “I guess I had nothing to worry about.”

Standing in a roomful of people with mastiffs hastily drawn onto their shoulders, biceps, collarbones at least showed he still hadn’t forgotten his soul mark. There’s absolutely no way to doubt it with how his gut roiled at the sight of a dozen forgeries on sordid, obscene display. One particularly enterprising woman even had it displayed on her cleavage. Bucky wanted to be sick all over the carpet.

“It’s not something anyone can forget.”

“I kinda wish I did. This is so fucked up. I haven’t felt this shitty since, since—”

“I know.”

They sit in silence until Bucky’s breathing sounds a little bit less like he’s drowning. His heart rate is slower to settle down, but eventually it does too. He lifts his head, resting his cheek on his knee as he looks at Nat. “Thanks for sitting with me. You didn’t have to.”

“I never have to, but I do anyway.”

Bucky snorts. “Normally, people would say you’re welcome here.”

Nat smirks back at him. “If either of us were normal, we wouldn’t be friends.”

“Touche.”

“I am sorry though,” she says quietly. “I’ve been calling you all morning, trying to give you a heads up. The stills got published in the UK papers, so they had about five hours to spread online before they got picked up by the morning talk shows in the States.”

Bucky sighs and closes his eyes. “So who is it?”

Nat hesitates.

“Oh god, please tell me it’s not Stark. That would just be the worst.”

Not that there’s anything wrong specifically with Tony Stark. There’s a lot of issues he has with Stark Industries, certainly, but what does he know about the man himself? Sure, he comes off as a bit smarmy and self-important in all his press, but there’s no telling what the guy’s really like underneath all the PR filters. But Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are one of the few celebrity couples that’re actually public about the fact that they’re each other’s soulmates. And Bucky does not want to be the bomb that blows that particular dream couple apart. A messy highly publicized break-up between two very prominent figures is the last thing he needs.

“It’s not Tony.”

Bucky tries not to make his sigh of relief obvious, but Nat probably notices anyway. “Is it Banner then? That wouldn’t be so bad. He seems like a decent guy. Or Thor—do Asgardians even have soul marks?”

“It’s—well, I think it’s better if I just show you.” Nat pulls her phone out and quickly flips to a photo she clearly already had opened in her gallery. Bucky has no idea how he feels about the fact that his best friend apparently has a photo of his soulmate’s mark saved. “Here,” she says, holding it out to him.

Bucky takes it from her and looks.

It’s a video as it turns out, clearly taken on someone’s cell phone. The scene shakes and jumps, and the sound is a bit tinny and hard to understand. There’s the background noise of people shouting and talking, an explosion in the distance. Some portions of the video are just the camera pointing at the ground as the person is shuffled along with the crowd. Clearly someone was filming as they were being evacuated.

Then the person holding the phone starts to speak excitedly, too rapidly for Bucky to identify the language. The camera swings up, and there’s an arm taking up almost the entire frame as if someone is shielding the camera person with their body. The person seems to see something because their voice starts to get louder and faster. Then the arm moves back to reveal a broad chest covered with the stiff fabric of a military tac suit, scuffed and grimy from earlier fighting. It looks like claws had torn into the reinforced suit, shredding large sections of cloth away. The man’s skin is partially exposed, but there’s nothing resembling a soul mark in sight.

Bucky shoots a questioning glance at Nat. She just nods back to the phone.

There’s a roar somewhere in the distance, and the man whips around to look to the source of the sound, turning his back to the camera person. The armored suit on his back is in just as bad a state as it is on his front.

And there, clear as day, is Bucky’s soul mark.

Some emotion starts to coil tight in the pit of his stomach, and he can’t even begin to tell if it’s a good or a bad feeling. The mark’s not in frame for long, but the shot is clear and steady enough for the shape of his mastiff to be unmistakable.

The mark passes out of view as the man turns back around, and he says in English, “You need to evacuate the area now,” then clumsily rattles off something in the camera person’s language.

The man’s face never passes into frame, not even when he runs off in the direction of the monster’s roar. The camera follows him as he leaves. It’d been impossible to tell who he was when he was standing so close to the camera, but once he moves further away, it quickly becomes obvious that he’s holding a red and white striped shield.

Bucky numbly hands the phone back to Nat. It’s not until she doesn’t immediately take it from him that he realizes that his hand is shaking. “Do we—” he clears his throat, “Are we even sure it’s him? It could just be someone holding his shield. You never see his face. You can’t even tell if the suit he’s wearing is,” he stumbles, “is Captain America’s uniform.”

“Does it matter?” Nat says gently. “The world believes this is his soul mark. It doesn’t even matter at this point whether that’s actually true or not because the only way for him to definitively prove otherwise is to—”

“—is to show everyone what his mark really looks like,” Bucky finishes wearily.

“They’ll never believe him otherwise.”

People have tried before. Considering the lengths public figures go to in order to keep their soul marks hidden, mark leaks are rarely clean shots where the person’s identity is immediately obvious. So it’s very easy for celebrities to simply claim that the person in the photo isn’t them. It’s usually impossible to tell one way or the other, but in the end, the narratives constructed by tabloids are always more compelling and powerful than the ones constructed by someone’s public relations manager. As long as there’s that uncertainty, people just prefer to believe the more scandalous sensationalist version.

“So we don’t know if this is Captain America’s actual soul mark, or if it belongs to some hapless field agent who happened to pick up the shield and got caught at the wrong place and the wrong time. And even if it was Cap’s soul mark, there’s no way in hell he’ll know I’m telling the truth. It’s not like I can ever actually prove we’re soulmates considering my fucking arm’s been lopped off.”

“Bucky,” Nat says sharply.

He shuts up, his chest heaving because apparently he’d been on the verge of tipping himself into his second panic attack in under an hour. Nat rests her hand on his shoulder, and for long minutes, Bucky grounds himself in that single point of contact.

“SHIELD will verify if Rogers is the man in the video when he returns for debriefing,” she says after he’s calmed down.

“It’s probably not even really him.” He kind of hopes this whole thing was a mistake. It would be so much less complicated if his soulmate was just a random SHIELD agent.

“It seems…likely that it really is him. He’d been deployed on a mission in Eastern Europe at the time the footage was taken, and the video was originally posted in the forums of a Romanian news site.”

“I dunno, Nat.” Bucky sighs and tips his head back against the wall. “He was born a century ago. His real soulmate’s probably been dead for a long time.”

Chapter Text

After all the drama of the morning, Bucky honestly forgot the actual reason why he was in Stark Tower in the first place. That is until after his phone buzzed in his pocket cheerfully telling him he’s extremely late for his meeting with the Stark Industries prosthetist.

He groans. “Well, fuck.”

“No one’s going to give you shit about getting tied up in the lobby,” Nat tells him. She’s currently bundling him out of the handicap bathroom and back towards the elevator.

“I don’t even have a visitor pass.”

“I’ll just swipe you in.” And she does just that. The elevator doors hiss smoothly open, and she punches one of the buttons for the upper floors. “They trust me not to slip groupies or security threats into the building.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “They better trust you. You’re wasted on this job.”

“Being very excellent at what I do has its perks.”

“I mean, c’mon, at least you could’ve stayed in Legal and spent the rest of your life whipping this company into shape. Instead, you’re playing babysitter to an egomaniacal billionaire—”

“—Tony’s personal assistant—” Nat interjects.

“—You can’t possibly claim you find this job particularly fulfilling or engaging.”

Nat smiles fondly at him. “You’d be surprised. It has its twists and turns.”

“You’re overqualified, you’re basically slumming it—”

“Any PA to Tony has to be vastly more skilled than what the position typically requires, if they’re even to begin to keep up with him. His last assistant was directly promoted to CEO of the whole company, she was that overqualified.”

Bucky scowls mulishly. “That doesn’t count. They were already fuc—” The elevator door slides open to reveal a lab occupied by one Tony Stark, “—king.”

Nat sighs.

“Sir, Ms. Rushman has arrived with Mr. Barnes for the 10 AM prosthetics consultation,” says a disembodied, vaguely British voice. Bucky tries not to jump at the sound of it despite the fact that Nat already warned him about JARVIS.

Stark’s back is to the both of them as he fiddles with some sort of holographic interface. He waves his hand haphazardly and says, “Can’t do that right now, JARVIS. I have to drag Capsicle’s ass back here before the vultures get him.”

“SHIELD has already extracted him from Bucharest. He’s en route to Stark Tower now.”

“Cancel it anyway, I don’t have time to deal with—”

“They’re already here, sir.”

And it’s only then that Tony Stark turns to them. He looks Bucky up and down, taking in his disheveled hair, the haggard exhaustion on his face, his bloodshot eyes. Bucky looks like shit. Sitting on a bathroom floor hyperventilating does that to a guy.

Stark arches an eyebrow and turns to Nat. “Really? He’s the best you can do?”

And as far as first impressions go, it’s not the worst Bucky’s ever encountered. Still, it’s definitely one of the shittier ones he’s had, and his nerves are already pretty fucking frayed from the shitshow in the lobby. Going from that to Stark’s thoughtless dismissal, well, Bucky’s had more than fucking enough.

“I’m sorry, did you want a prettier amputee?” he snaps. “Some blonde bombshell who can smile for the cameras? Maybe an eight-year-old with a tragic backstory that plays well with the focus groups. Why don’t I just go to the back of the line while you find a more marketable charity case.”

“Touchy, too.”

“Please shut up, sir. You’re being an asshole,” Nat says flatly.

“Pepper never says these things to me,” Stark says, his voice dipping into a whine. “And I didn’t mean it like that. Just—couldn’t you have taken a shower before coming here or something? You look like the Missing Link’s grumpier cousin.”

“Yeah, no. I don’t have to put up with this.” Bucky turns on his heel to leave.

Nat casts another frown in Stark’s direction before touching Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry, he’s normally not this much of a—”

“Absolute jackass?”

Her mouth quirks a bit. “Yeah.”

“Is there some sort of back entrance here? I really don’t want to—”

“I know,” Nat says quietly. “We can leave through the fire door.”

Bucky smiles gratefully at her. “Thanks.”

They’re already back in the elevator with the door sliding closed when Stark’s voice calls out, “JARVIS, stop the elevator.” The door smoothly reopens, and Stark comes to a stop in front of them. “Look, I admit I was being somewhat insensitive there.” Bucky snorts. “But I did create this program to help people, and I can help you. It’s not easy for people to get prosthetics, let alone sophisticated ones, and I do want to change that.”

“People typically apologize here,” Nat interjects before belatedly tacking on, “sir.”

“Right,” Stark says.

There’s a long pause.

Bucky stares incredulously at him as he continues to say nothing.

“Maybe I should’ve been more blunt,” Nat finally says. “Mr. Stark, you should apologize to Bucky, or he will leave. And if he leaves, I’m refusing to help you find any other candidates for this program.”

“I could always fire you and have JARVIS do it.” But it’s half-hearted even to Bucky’s ear.

“You could. And I could also leave a letter on Ms. Potts’s desk detailing exactly how you managed to alienate the first and only applicant to Stark Industries’s very new, very expensive, very PR sensitive prosthetics department. As well as how you lost the PA you hired solely because of her background as a lingerie model.”

Bucky sputters and whips around to stare at Nat. “He hired you because of what?”

“Actually, it was because she beat the shit out of Happy,” Stark says. Nat stares him down for a moment longer. “Fine.” He grimaces and sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Seriously, why are you still working for this guy,” Bucky mutters.

“I wonder that too sometimes,” Nat says.

Stark impatiently herds them deeper into his workshop, gesturing to Bucky to sit at one of the stools haphazardly scattered around the room. It’s not much better than his earlier behavior, but now that he knows to expect it, it grates a little bit less.

“Alright, let’s see it.”

Bucky blinks and looks at Tony warily, who just stares back at him with a put-upon expression on his face.

“Or we could just stand here. That’ll get you a new arm faster.”

“Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to let you talk to people.” Still, he reaches over to undo the knot on his left sleeve and roll it up enough for his shoulder to be visible. Might as well get it over with.

Stark pushes closer to inspect the area. “Shoulder disarticulation, huh? Must’ve been a helluva injury for the surgeon to cut this high. It’s at least a few years old, too.”

“Sir—” Nat starts to say.

“Yeah, seven years actually,” Bucky interrupts her with a smile just this side of too sharp. “It was a nice sunny May afternoon in Manhattan.”

He watches Stark’s eyes flicker as he does the math. There’s something deeply satisfying about finally getting the guy to shut up. “May 2012, huh.”

“Not everyone could evacuate.”

“We never really can get everyone out in time.” He suddenly looks very old and tired. He glances at Nat, standing quietly next to them. “What was it you always go on about?”

“Wiping out the red in your ledger.”

On any other day, Bucky might’ve been sympathetic. He might’ve even felt bad for the guy. But he’s long past the point where he could be even close to that charitable. “Considering how the first thing you did after you inherited dear old daddy’s company,” he snarls, “was make billions war profiteering in Afghanistan, you’ve got a long fucking way to go, my friend.”

“Seriously, why this guy?” Stark mutters to Nat.

“Purely for my own amusement, sir,” Nat says dryly. Her shoulders are tense, and Bucky dimly registers that this is probably not at all how she planned this visit to go. “We can’t exactly set a precedent of denying prosthetics to people who take issue with the company’s dirty laundry.”

“I doubt they’d want anything to do with us in the first place.” Then he rounds on Bucky with narrowed eyes. “Speaking of which, if you hate me so much, why’re you even here?”

“A free arm is a free arm. Not everyone can afford to be picky, especially when it’s revolutionary prosthetics technology on the line.”

Stark’s eyebrows rise. “Wow, that was almost a compliment.”

“I never said you didn’t know what you were doing. I just wish your primary hobby wasn’t figuring out new ways to shoot people a little bit better.”

That gets Stark’s hackles up, he can tell. He straightens himself up, all defensive sarcasm, when he replies, “The shooting people thing is a bit crucial for the whole healthcare part to continue. We’re averaging one new almost global catastrophe every other year. Healthcare becomes a non-issue if everyone’s dead.”

And they probably would’ve come to blows if Nat hadn’t smoothly inserted herself between the two of them at that moment. “As entertaining as it is to watch you two antagonize each other,” she says, the barest edge to her voice conveying just how unamused she was. “We are on something of a fixed schedule here. Bucky, I know you’ve had a hard morning, but do remember that you will be benefiting a lot from Mr. Stark’s generosity. This program is one step among many to remedy the company’s…misplaced priorities. And he is putting in a good faith effort to give you a new prosthetic, so it’s perhaps not the most appropriate thing to repay that kindness with a list of all of your grievances.”

She meets Bucky’s gaze and holds it until he wilts a little, flushing with embarrassment. He had gotten carried away. And much as he didn’t like Stark or his company, he’d put Nat in a very awkward position. She’d personally vetted Bucky and recommended him as the first candidate for what could very well be a program she fought tooth-and-nail to push through. And then he went and insulted her boss to his face, forcing her to play referee.

Satisfied that Bucky had been suitably chastised, she turned to Stark. “And sir, I do want to remind you that Stark Industries is controversial for good reason. This is not the first nor will it be the last time you’ll hear criticism in this vein. As important as your role has been in averting previous catastrophes, many have noticed that Stark Industries has consolidated a great deal of political, financial, and martial power as a direct result of your involvement. Many believe that you have not in fact reformed the company from its past as a war profiteer, but that you’ve instead turned your attention to taking advantage of opportunities on a significantly grander scale. So I will not say this again, shut up.” She straightens her jacket in brusque angry movements. “Sir.”

Stark’s expression sours at that, but he doesn’t argue further.

And after that, the consultation is almost peaceful. Stark asks questions without a hint of snark or sarcasm, and Bucky answers almost robotically, in a voice devoid of emotion. The adrenaline and anger is leaving him, leaving him feeling completely drained. After all the drama of the day, he just wants to get this over and done with so he can go home.

He even almost manages to see his wish fulfilled until JARVIS speaks up. “Sir, the Captain has arrived safely. Shall I direct him to medical?”

Stark looks up from taking notes and snorts. “If you can pin the guy down long enough for an actual medical exam, sure.”

“I tried to warn him, but he’s—”

And that’s when Captain America all but bursts into the room. It’s all in all an impressive entrance. If Bucky was still holding out any hope that maybe this was all a big misunderstanding, it’s gone now. The shreds and claw marks on the man’s tac suit are identical to the video. His soul mark is at least hidden from view by a military jacket and some bandages haphazardly patching up his various injuries. His shield is slung over his back, and he’s carrying a smashed mess of metal an wires. There’s mud splattering him from head to toe, and there’s dark smudges under his eyes. He looks like—well, he looks like shit.

Bucky feels a bolt of electricity drive through him just at the sight of him. His mouth opens almost of its own accord, as if he could actually say something. The moment he realizes what he’s doing, he immediately snaps it shut.

The Captain dumps the destroyed machine on top of a nearby table. “Tech didn’t work,” he says. “Got a little banged up in the process.”

“That is not a little banged up,” Stark says as he walks over to inspect the damage, promptly forgetting that Bucky even exists. There’s an edge to his voice when he addresses the other man, harder than any tone he took on when talking to Bucky.

The Captain shrugs. “Did the best I could. The thing had a lot more teeth than the intel said it did.”

“I’m not sharing my toys next time.”

“Too bad.” He stifles a yawn, his eyes fluttering closed then back open. Bucky sees a flash of blue when the Captain opens them again. He startles at the sudden eye contact. For a moment, the Captain gives Bucky an odd look, his brow slightly furrowed, something bordering on recognition in his expression. Then he seems to shrug it off and turns backs to the elevator. “Well, I’m beat,” he announces to the room. “I debriefed on the ride over, but if you need anything else I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’m going home.”

“Want a lift?” Stark says. “Your motorcycle’s in the visitor lot.”

“Nah, don’t need it.”

And there’s a moment where Bucky can see it in both Stark’s and Nat’s faces. That they all have the same realization at the same time.

He doesn’t know.

“Ahh, Cap?” Stark says.

The Captain’s already walking back to the elevator. He waves a hand lazily. “Save it for tomorrow, Tony. It can wait.”

Stark rushes forward to intercept him. “No, it really can’t.” He steps in between the Captain and the elevator. “Did you watch the news on the way home?” He hesitates. “Did anyone say anything?”

The Captain stops and looks at Stark. The line of his back straightens, and his entire stance tenses. “No, I slept most of the way home after I finished the debrief. Why?”

In a rare show of thoughtfulness, Stark says, “You might want to sit down for this,” and shuffles the Captain onto a nearby stool. It puts him at an angle where Bucky can see the deepening line of worry in his forehead. There’s a rushing sound in his head, and he’s filled with numb dread, like watching a car crash in slow motion.

“Your soul mark. Someone took a picture of it, and it—well, the image spread. Ironically, you’ll probably be the last person to see it.”

It’s a feeling that few people will ever have the misfortune of experiencing—learning that the entire world knows what your soul mark looks like. That the most intimate expression of your inner self has been bared for all to see and judge when it has always been reserved for those you trust the most. A part of Bucky aches for the emotions he sees mirrored in the other man’s face. The blank incomprehension from being confronted by something so absurd, so beyond comprehension. Then the way his expression just barely manages to keep from crumpling in on itself as the truth of it sinks in.

Bucky wants nothing more than to look away, but a part of him feels obligated to witness this moment. Share it and bear the queasy horror of it with him. He almost wishes the Captain would look up again, look him in the eye, so that he could see how much Bucky understands what’s going through his head and how he aches for him. To let the other man know that he’s not alone in this.

But instead, the Captain takes a shuddering breath and then another. “I could,” he says, his voice shaking only slightly, “I could probably use a ride home, yeah.”

Chapter Text

Nat turns to him the moment she drives him home.

“I am sorry for what happened today,” she says, her voice genuine. “I should’ve insisted that we reschedule the appointment, and gotten you out of there. I should’ve known that Stark would’ve been…himself, and you were nowhere near the right headspace to deal with that.”

Bucky slings his arm around her shoulder in a quick hug. He feels…well, he doesn’t really know how he feels. But everything seems a little bit more settled somehow, the frenetic rushing in his head gone quiet.

Ironically, it was seeing the way the Captain took the news that helped a lot to calm him down. The reminder that he’s not the only one enduring this, that there’s another poor sonuvabitch who’s day was just as bad if not worse than his. Whatever sense of anxiety that might’ve remained has now been overtaken by that strange urge to reach out to the other man. Offer whatever comfort his presence brings. It’s…odd. He doesn’t know why it’s so surprising to him.

“And I should’ve known to get the hell out of dodge the moment I saw that someone drew my soul mark on their tits,” Bucky replies.

Nat lets out a surprised bark of laughter. “Did they really?”

“I think she used a Sharpie. It was extremely unfortunate,” Bucky says deadpan.

“That’s awful,” Nat manages to say between snickers.

“She really wasn’t much of an artist. I almost felt bad.”

In hindsight, it really is kind of hilarious.

When they can talk without chuckling every few seconds, Nat asks, “Are you really not going to say anything to him?”

Bucky shrugs. “What the hell could I have said? You saw his face. It would’ve seemed opportunistic at best, self-servingly malicious at worst.”

“I just want to make sure you really understand what that means. You’d be letting him pass you by. For good most likely. It’s not like you can suddenly decide to change your mind months, years down the line without consequences. The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to even have this conversation with him. The more you wait, the more he’ll wonder why you never said anything. It would certainly put a strain on any relationship you may want to have with him. It’s going to be…complicated.”

He snorts. “It’s already complicated. I have little to no proof.”

“I could always vouch for you. I know you wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

“Nat, you’ve never even seen my soul mark.”

“I know you.”

“It’s not enough. You met me after I lost it. And besides, I’ve known you for seven years, and I’ve never seen yours.”

Nat frowns at him, and for a moment, he thinks she’s going to drop the subject. But then, she begins to deliberately lift the hem of her shirt and peel off the cover-up patch on her left hip, just above the jut of her pelvis. Bucky goes very still and stares. There’s a part of him that had half-expected to see a mastiff there, just like what his used to look like. Even though he’s already seen his mastiff on someone else, he can’t quite stifle the part of his brain that had looked at Nat for years and quietly wondered.

But no, of course, it’s not a mastiff. It looks something like a bursting star, or a thin-petaled flower. It’s the kind of soul mark that if you didn’t look closely, you’d think it was an old scar. A bullet wound maybe.

He has to swallow several times before he manages to joke, “At least buy me dinner first. I’m not that kind of girl.”

Nat laughs and playfully swats him, letting the hem of her shirt drop. “You’re such an ass. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how much you acted up around my boss.”

“He deserved it.”

“He did, and I expect you to be the adult in the relationship.”

Bucky rolls his eyes before sobering. He reaches out to touch Nat’s hip, stopping just short of actually making contact. “Thank you. Seriously,” he says. “You didn’t have to.”

“I never have to, but I do anyway.”

“You always say that.”

“I always mean it. I trust you,” Nat says. “My word and whatever documentation you can scrounge up. It should be enough. Pictures. Birth certificates. Even medical records. It’s standard procedure to document soul marks before amputating a limb.”

“My circumstances aren’t exactly standard,” Bucky reminds her gently. “I lost a lot of things when I lost this. Nearly my entire life. I definitely don’t have my birth certificate lying around anymore.”

There’s a stricken look on Nat’s face as she subsides. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know.”

“It’s fine. Pictures can be doctored. Documents can be forged. The only certain thing is actually having it, and I don’t. Never will again.” Bucky pauses and looks contemplatively at where his left hand should be, can almost feel the flex of muscles and tendons as he opens and closes it. “Besides, it might not even be the same. Traumatic events leave scars on the soul. It could’ve changed it. I’m a different person than I was before I lost my arm.”

“You’re a different person now than you were right after you lost it too. Souls don’t necessarily change even when you feel like you’re different from what you were.”

Bucky looks at her with bemusement before nodding.

He forgets sometimes. That she’d been there too. That when buildings started to fall, when blasts of energies were flying all around, and monsters the size of whales came crashing to the ground—she’d been in the middle of it all. A bystander, a civilian, a lowly associate in her firm, untried, barely a year out of law school, armed with nothing but a .22 against what looked like the end of the world. And when the dust cleared, she’d picked her way out of the rubble and dove right in the middle of sorting out the legal messes of a disaster on a scale barely a step down from apocalyptic.

It’s how the two of them met.

At the time, Bucky had been lying on a cot in the middle of the already over-crowded hallways of a hospital, one of the few still running thanks to its intact generators and mostly surviving staff. All of the injured in the surrounding area had been directed their way. Even with the help of public-spirited volunteers—the unharmed and some of the more lightly injured—the doctors and nurses and PAs and EMPs were utterly swamped. It was a miracle that they’d manage to muster the resources and manpower to save Bucky at all. There certainly hadn’t been any time for snapping a picture of his soul mark while he bled out on the operating table, barely minutes away from death.

The first time he’d seen Nat was as she carefully navigated the sea of patients cramming the halls. It’d been an almost absurd sight. This bedraggled woman armed with a ballpoint pen and a legal pad, sweat shining on her forehead, hair falling out of its bun, clad in a soot-stained and singed blazer-pencil-skirt set and a worn-out pair of sneakers. She’d talked to everyone, the recuperating and the dying alike, writing down their names, their contact information, the names and contact information of their next of kin. Then she would write her name and information down for them, giving them slips of paper, or writing it on their clothes.

By the time she reached Bucky, she’d run out of room on her legal pad and was scrawling names up and down her forearms. It was all in a Hail Mary attempt to make sure that everyone who had insurance would be properly compensated under their healthcare plans. It should’ve been guaranteed, but the legal status of the Battle was just grey enough that nearly every insurance company in the country was using it as an excuse to not pay anything.

It was not quite a military invasion, not quite a natural disaster, not quite a humanitarian crisis. The judicial system was not in any way prepared to handle fucking aliens, least of all a full-scale attack demolishing a large chunk of the most densely populated city in the country. So Nat waded in and fought to ensure that whatever the courts decided to the Battle was, the definition would fall in favor of providing the most monetary support to its victims. Bucky had ended up joining her in the fight, doing what little office work he could still do to help her win her battles.

He’d always considered the Battle of New York to be one of the defining moments of her life. If anything would’ve shifted something in her soul, it would’ve been that. But there’d been an odd surety in the way she said what she did. “Yours didn’t change,” Bucky says.

Nat looks at him, and then down at her hip. “No, it didn’t.”

It’s not uncommon. He’s sat in on a few group sessions post-battle when he could stomach it, and that had been one of many running themes. People’s soul marks changing after the dust settled. Sometimes it happened to those who’d already been married to their soulmates, now no longer perfect matches. It’d helped some people. It’d ruined others. All it did was make Bucky wonder—what his soul must look like now.

“How’re you so sure that mine hasn’t?”

There’s a flicker in her eyes before she looks off and away. “Honestly? I don’t. But I think if you let yourself believe otherwise, you’ll go crazy wondering. It’s better to just focus on what you can know. And what you do know is that the Captain is or at least had been your soulmate, and that’s not insignificant. Maybe you’ve changed, but he’s still important somehow.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to talk to him.”

“You don’t, but it’s always going to be a what-if. Not unless you actually sort out whatever it is you want from him.”

“I know what I want from him,” Bucky says.

Nat smiles and shakes her head. “No, you don’t. You know what you don’t want. You know what you’re afraid of if you actually talk to him. You don’t know what you actually do want.”

That hits a little too close to the mark, and something must show in his expression because Nat winces and softens her voice. “I’m sorry. I just want you to talk to him. Get to know him maybe. You don’t have to tell him anything. But you need some sort of closure out of this guy, even if it’s just knowing for sure that you want nothing to do with him.”

Bucky sighs. “It’s not like I have tons of opportunities to chat him up. He’s a public figure and a busy one at that. I’m just some random guy.”

“You’re going to be in and around Stark Tower for the next few months. I’m sure the chance will come up.”

“If you say so.” And because he really wants this conversation to be over, he tacks on. “Your name’s not Natalie Rushman.”

Thankfully, she lets him drop the subject and laughs a little. “Funny story that. There was a glitch during the on-boarding process, and my employee records got mixed up with some intern in Acquisitions who left years ago. Stark thinks the inconsistency between my legal name and my file is because I’m secretly a SHIELD plant sent to monitor him. He thinks he’s being very clever by making me his PA to spy on me right back.”

Bucky snorts. “Wait, you’re telling me you aren’t an undercover secret agent?”

“Well, if I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

“You’d be doing me a favor. It’d save me the trouble of having to talk to my maybe-soulmate.”

Chapter Text

The moment of truth comes a lot sooner than Bucky ever expected, whether through the machinations of Fate or a determined Natasha Romanoff. Regardless, when he arrived at his next appointment with Stark, he discovered that he’d come a little too early. He’d been overly eager to avoid the crowds of people congregating outside the building hoping to accost Captain America. Unfortunately, it seems that he’s not the only one who had this idea.

When he walks into the workroom, he finds that the only person there is the Captain himself, sitting on a bench with his feet propped up to give himself leverage to carefully touch up the paint on his shield. It’s a bizarrely casual scene. He’s in a plaid button up, the collar loose and slightly askew, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His shoes had been kicked off, the cuffs of his pants rolled up.

Bucky stops just outside the elevator and considers sneaking back out and hiding in a supply closet or something.

But before he can come to a decision, the Captain looks up at him and says, “Oh, hi. Didn’t think anyone else would be in here this early.”

“Sorry, yeah, I can just,” Bucky gestures awkwardly back at the elevator, now helpfully whisked away by JARVIS, who’s probably conspiring with Nat in some way, “I’ll leave,” he finishes lamely.

“No, no, stay,” the Captain says. “You have an appointment with Tony, right?”

“Yeah, for my uh,” Bucky stops and just kinda gestures vaguely. “I’ll just go.”

“Please do stay. It’s not a problem. I’m Steve, by the way. Steve Rogers.”

“Yeah, uh, I know.” And there’s a weird look on Steve’s face, almost like he’s suddenly reminded again that he’s one of the most recognizable people in the world. He hurries over that patch of weirdness by blurting out, “And I’m Bucky. Barnes would be my last name. Bucky Barnes, here for my appointment.” He can barely keep from cringing at the awkwardness. “Four hours early. I kinda got tangled up in the lobby last time I was here, and y’know, I didn’t want to deal with that again. So, yeah.”

A sort of grimace crosses Steve’s face. “Right, you were here for that…debacle.”

“Yeah, it was umm, I’m sorry? I shouldn’t have intruded on that or watched like a creep. I just didn’t expect you to be there at all.”

“No, it’s okay. Believe me, none of us were expecting that.” Steve smiles a little. “It’s nice to meet you, Bucky Barnes.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Steve Rogers.”

They shake hands. It’s a normal sort of handshake, no shock of static electricity or any other bullshit. Bucky lets his hand drop to the side and pretends he’s not disappointed that there isn’t even a flicker of recognition.

Except, well, there’s a period of silence where if he didn’t know any better, he’d swear that Steve was looking at his face a little more closely than he would with any other stranger. Like he’s studying his features, maybe grasping at something? Bucky ruthlessly stifles any sort of wishful thinking because that’s only going to make things worse.

“I have to admit,” Steve says eventually, “It wasn’t something I was prepared for about the 21^st century. This…fixation on other people’s soul marks. It used to be a lot more private, so it’s not something I’m used to yet.”

“I mean, it’s not really like that? It’s still a very private thing. I guess people are a little bit more open about it now? But not really. It’s just—people are weird about celebrities. And you’re uhh, kind of very famous now.”

“I never did get into this for the fame.”

It really really shouldn’t but it kills Bucky to see the way that Steve’s brow puckers just a little bit. That same odd feeling from the other day, the need to smooth it all over, somehow make things right for the other man—it rises up in the back of his throat again.

So he blurts out, “If it makes you feel any better, I get what you’re going through right now?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You do?”

And then, what he just said catches up to him, and he scrambles to cover it up. “Well, not really. I just know how weird people get about soul marks. Hard not to notice how fucking bizarre it is when,” he stumbles a little, “well, when they react to you not having it anymore.” He gestures with his remaining arm. “It used to be here, and now it’s not. And people don’t know what to do with that.”

Steve pauses, his eyes tracking to where Bucky had pointed, at the lack of it. He doesn’t linger on it, but he doesn’t shy away from it either. Then he turns his gaze back to Bucky’s face and looks at him. Really looks at him. The way you wish everyone looked at you, like they’re taking the time to really see you, not the bits and pieces that make all of that up, but the whole you. Or maybe Bucky’s a sappy sonuvabitch, and Steve’s just making proper eye contact.

Then Steve says simply but with gravitas, “I’m sorry.” And nothing else.

It’s not pity. And it’s not a platitude either. It’s something like solidarity. Maybe something like empathy. And Bucky doesn’t want to admit it, but he almost kinda feels like crying. It’s stupid to feel this worked up over such a small gesture, but somehow, it was exactly the right thing.

“Thanks,” he manages to say, his voice cracking only a little bit.

They sit with that weird little moment of—what? Connection? Brotherhood? Mutual appreciation of how much their lives fucking suck? He’s not ready to believe that this—whatever this is—is somehow a magical moment of soulmate resonance. They’re just commiserating. Bonding maybe. Nothing special about it.

Steve clears his throat a little, breaking the quiet. “I’ve been ahh, meaning to ask. And I completely understand if you would prefer not to talk about it.” Bucky stiffens, whipping his head up to stare at him. There’s that wild improbable thought that somehow Steve knows. But then, all he says is, “You were at the Battle of New York?”

Bucky sags. He’s not disappointed, he tells himself. He’s just relieved. Christ, he’s a mess. He doesn’t know if he can take much more of this without completely losing his goddamn mind. The back and forth of him caring too much and convincing himself that he shouldn’t at all. “So Stark spilled the beans, huh?” he says, letting out a sigh.

That seems to take Steve aback for a moment, and Bucky regrets the cynicism he let creep into his voice. “No,” Steve says. “Tony, he’s—he can be a lot. But he doesn’t treat information like that lightly. He’s rough around the edges, but he does care. More than you ever think he would.”

Bucky snorts but doesn’t say anything. Steve probably is right, he knows. It’s unreasonable to expect one man, no matter how influential, to have total control over everything in a corporation as large as Stark Industries. And Stark does seem to be making a genuine effort to do right by the world, even if Bucky has a lot of opinions about the actual effectiveness of these efforts. Still, he knows himself well enough to understand that the animosity he holds towards Stark has a lot more to do with his bruised pride and the fact that they met during what was likely a shitty day for the both of them.

“So how did you know I was there?” he asks instead.

“Well, that’s ahh—” For the first time, Steve looks like he’s genuinely at a loss for words. His mouth opens and shuts as he flounders, and Bucky can only watch with fascination at how utterly normal and familiar this is. This almost painfully awkward conversation. Somehow, it helps his nerves, knowing that Steve doesn’t quite know how to talk to him either. “I saw you?”

“You…saw me.”

“I did. You were in Lower Manhattan.”

“Oh.”

Bucky can feel his back going stiff again, any ease he might’ve gained quickly disappearing. That’s not something he expected to hear. Nor did he particularly want to hear it, least of all from his soulmate. He’s not—some people came out of the Battle as heroes. In the face of all that chaos and destruction, they rose to the occasion. They stood their ground. They saved lives. They ran into the thick of danger to pull someone else out of the line of fire.

Bucky did none of these things during the Battle. Instead, he ran away.

And as far as he knows, Steve Rogers has never run away from anything his whole goddamn life.

Maybe if Steve had been a regular guy, he wouldn’t have minded so much. But he knows what Steve was doing in the Battle of New York. He fought in World War Fucking Two. He enlisted in World War Fucking Two, and subjected himself to shady, still kinda classified human experiments to fight in World War Fucking Two. He got thawed out of the side of a fucking glacier and got right back up to punch a bunch of aliens in the face.

It’s like something out of a terrible joke. Captain America in the middle of the fighting, laying his life on the line, while his own goddamn soulmate played the selfish sonuvabitch. That one guy in every movie who was only out for his skin, and everyone hated him for it. To a man like Steve, a man like Bucky would look a lot like a coward. And that’s not a thought he likes at all.

“You remembered me?” Bucky asks hoarsely. “When was that?”

And that’s the worst part, isn’t it? It’s not just that Steve saw him fucking running away. It’s the fact that the act had been significant enough for him to specifically remember Bucky. That his cowardice had been unique enough to stick in Steve’s mind for seven years.

“It was one of the Leviathans,” Steve says, oblivious to Bucky’s internal freakout, “a Chitauri warship, it crashed into a building. When the whole thing came down, it—it wasn’t pretty. We were picking through the rubble, trying to find anyone who’d survived. And I found you. I was so sick and desperate just to save one person from that whole mess. You were wedged under a huge chunk of cement. We pried you out, me and half a dozen people lifting that goddamn rock. We didn’t even have a proper gurney. The closest hospital with running generators was almost four miles out.”

Bucky stares at Steve. He had wondered what had happened between when he was knocked out and when he woke up in the hospital, down a limb but miraculously still breathing. When he saw the dark shadow of the collapsing building over his head, he’d thought it was the end of him. He’d never known who it was who saved him. Who pulled him out. How they’d managed to get him to the hospital.

“So I ahh—I carried you. The whole way. We bandaged you up as best we could, but you were bleeding out in my arms, slipping further and further away with every step. I kept staring at your face, just to make sure you were still breathing—still alive. I wanted you to live so much because God, so many people died that day. You have no idea how bad it got. I was so sick of people dying on me, and I didn’t want to have to watch someone else die on my watch.”

“I get that,” Bucky says, and that at least, he does. Down to his very bones he knows what it’s like to feel like no matter what you do, no matter how much you sweat and cry, it doesn’t make a lick of difference.

“I got you to the hospital, but even then, it was always going to be a long shot that you would make it. I couldn’t even stick around to see if you’d pull through. By the time, I made it back to that hospital, you were gone. I’d always wondered what happened to you. The doctors were so overworked, they could barely remember the last patient they operated on, let alone one weeks ago. I didn’t know your name, didn’t even know whether you lived or died.”

“So uhh,” Steve ducks his head a little and then looks back up at Bucky, “I just wanted to say that I’m so glad you’re alive. That you’re standing here, that you’re healthy. You have no idea what that means. Maybe there were people I couldn’t save that day, but God, you’re alive.”

And Bucky is speechless with it. He can’t even begin to describe that swelling feeling inside his chest, his throat. The way Steve is looking at him, overflowing with this strange thankfulness at Bucky’s mere existence. It’s wrong. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Steve that if it’d been someone else trapped under the rubble, Bucky doesn’t know if he’d stop running long enough to actually help them. That Steve and all those other people had wasted their time saving the wrong guy.

And yet, even though, he knows he doesn’t deserve it, that Steve would be better served if literally anyone else had been in Bucky’s place—he also can’t help but crave it. He just stares greedily, helplessly at Steve’s face, soaking in the pleasure the other man takes simply knowing Bucky’s alive. Whatever it is he wants from Steve, that shifting vague pull of something—this is so close to that amorphous want that Bucky finds himself overwhelmed. It’s too much. It’s not enough. He just wants.

After a while, Bucky realizes he let the silence sit too long. So he smiles and half-jokingly says, “Most of me, at least.”

Steve blinks at him for a moment before chuckling. “Most of the important bits are there. I’d say it’s a job well done.”

“I mean, it’s not like—I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful,” Bucky says. “You did save my life. So, thank you. Seriously. You’re really the only reason I’m alive right now.”

“I am sorry about the soul mark though. I knew there was a chance they wouldn’t be able to save your arm. I ahh, your wristband was damaged, so I had to take it off.”

And Steve does look genuinely apologetic about that. Like he hadn’t done enough already by saving his goddamn life.

Maybe this is what the soul mark was supposed to mean. That Steve was meant to save Bucky, and this act would in turn, at least in some small way, help save Steve. Sometimes that’s all a soul mark means, he knows. A sign of someone significant who was coming. Really, more like a harbinger of change to come than a promise of eternal romantic and sexual fulfillment. All the rest, the stories of fated lovers is just the glamorized Hollywood version. And as much as he wants that John Hughes movie ending, as many couples as he knows who got together because of their soul marks, he knows that that’s not always the reality.

Maybe your soulmate stays. Maybe they don’t. Maybe you won’t even remember them. But if you do meet them, they’re always instrumental in nudging you down a certain predestined path. Maybe Bucky’s soul mark had fulfilled its purpose seven years ago, when the pull of Fate or whatever else tugged on Steve long enough for him to look for Bucky and drag him from the rubble. Maybe that’s all it was meant to be.

Still, Bucky pauses to search the other man’s expression for an indication of well, anything else. Because he had taken Bucky’s wristband off, he could’ve seen—but no, he didn’t see anything. Bucky can already tell. The only thing he can find in Steve’s gaze is just that. Remorse. Regret that he couldn’t do more. Nothing like the jumble of emotions roiling inside Bucky’s stomach.

Still, he can’t stop himself from asking. “Was it...did you see my—?”

Steve shakes his head vigorously before he can even finish saying it. “No. I made sure I didn’t look. You have to know, I would never breach a stranger’s privacy like that, especially not when you were incapacitated.” He looks horrified that Bucky would even consider the prospect of Steve doing such a thing.

And he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. The fact that even when it would’ve been perfectly understandable for Steve to accidentally catch a glimpse of Bucky’s soul mark, he was still scrupulously careful in respecting his privacy. On the other hand, they had been so close to avoiding this entire disaster. If it had gone just a little bit differently, Bucky would’ve never had to worry about proving himself to Steve. He would’ve already known. And Bucky would’ve never had to doubt himself like he is now.

He smiles weakly. “You’re a good man, Rogers.”

Then the elevator slides open and Stark breezes in, cutting off anything else they might’ve said to each other. Steve lingers for a while longer. Bucky does his best to keep his eyes from flicking over to the other man, overly conscious of the weight of Steve’s gaze on him, an almost perplexed expression on his face. That same odd feeling of mingled disappointment and relief follows Bucky throughout the rest of the appointment and the day, sticking in his gut long after Steve quietly takes his leave.

Chapter Text

At the very least, the prosthetic visits are going smoothly. As caustic as Stark was on the first day, he’s mellowed out since then. The next few appointments after have a sort of air of begrudging reconciliation. They’d both said a lot of shit. Stark isn’t the type to apologize, and Bucky is too prideful to really back down, so they carry on in a silent truce. Stark still does occasionally direct snipes and barbs at Bucky, but they’re much easier to shrug off when he actually has the presence of mind to remain calm. Still, he has no qualms against snarking right back. Oddly enough, that seems to make Stark actually like him more.

And say what you will, Tony Stark is damn good at his job when he puts his mind to it. It’s clear that he genuinely cares about seeing the prosthetics program’s success. There’s nothing begrudging about the way he talks through the mechanics or the practical necessities of what they would need the prosthetic arm to accomplish. He listens carefully when Bucky describes his needs and his experiences living without a left hand.

Throughout all of this, Steve hovers in the peripheries. He manages to find all manner of excuses to be in and around Stark Tower whenever Bucky has an appointment. They don’t always speak. Sometimes it’s as small as Bucky catching a glimpse of a flash of blond hair disappearing around a corner. He’s not even sure if he actually notices every time Steve’s there. Or maybe, he’s just hyperaware of Steve, and the guy spends a lot of time in Stark Tower regardless of Bucky’s schedule.

Still, he’s becoming increasingly aware of the fact that Nat really had been right. Bucky doesn’t know what he wants from Steve. That much is clear from the nauseous clenching in his stomach every time he sees the other man. That ever-present vague pull to do something. Bucky can never quite pin it down long enough to figure out what that pull even is. He sure as hell can’t figure out whether it’s his soul mark tugging at him, or whether it’s just plain old neediness. He doubts he’s going to be able to sort it out anytime soon.

One mystery does get resolved, however.

Bucky meets Col. James Rhodes just as Stark starts putting together prototypes for him to try. It’s midway through this particular appointment while Stark is not-so-subtly trying to interrogate Bucky about Nat’s status as a SHIELD plant while Bucky unconvincingly ‘pretends’ to know nothing about it.

“—I’m telling you,” he’s saying, all wide-eyed innocence, “Nat got her JD at Columbia, but I don’t know where she went to work after that. The firm got shut down after the Battle anyway.”

Stark harrumphs, his eyes narrowing just a little bit. It’s clear he isn’t buying a word Bucky’s saying. “Convenient.”

“Not really. Lots of businesses stopped operating then.”

“And it just so happens that there’s a gap in her employment history because the firm disappeared, taking all of its employee records with it.”

Bucky shrugs, repressing the urge to do something incriminating, like start laughing. “I dunno what to say, man. You should’ve been looking into this when you were verifying her references ages ago. I mean, you just so happened to find the stills from her old modeling shoots, but you somehow didn’t double-check one of the most recent entries in her resume? C’mon, priorities.”

Stark grumbles something too quiet to be comprehensible, but Bucky imagines it’s something along the lines of, My God, you’re right. I am kind of an asshole. If nothing else, it’s deeply entertaining to fuck with the guy. “Her references did check out. But—”

But I didn’t pay attention to either Natalie Rushman or Natasha Romanoff during the hiring process, so it didn’t matter then. And now I think she’s a highly trained super spy, which makes me suspect her entire history.

Then there’s a faint chime, and a tall man enters the room. It’s not a dramatic entrance, but still, there’s something about his presence that commands attention. Maybe it’s the fact that everything from his straight spine to the tilt of his chin practically shouts that this guy’s career military. Definitely someone who’s used to being obeyed. And even though Bucky’s never set foot in anything resembling chain of command, he feels the sudden bizarre urge to stand at parade rest.

Stark stops what he’s doing and looks up, his face actually lights up at the sight of the other man. He walks over, and they immediately start talking. They make an odd pair.  Stark’s all frenetic energy juxtaposed against the man’s calm. It’s clear that the newcomer is a steady sort—rock-solid stance, confident gaze, no bullshit attitude. Honestly, he’s not the kind of friend Bucky expected Stark to have. But he does have to admit, knowing that this is someone Stark genuinely seems to enjoy spending his time around makes Bucky’s estimation of the other man rise.

Bucky starts tuning into their conversation after he notices that their voices are coming closer. Stark is walking backwards as he directs a constant rambling stream at his friend while the man carefully maneuvers him around the various detritus strewn around the workroom.

“—still needs an acronym. I was thinking Physiologically Obligate Robotic Neurolinkage or Direct Integration Cranial Kinematics.”

There’s a moment where an expression of utter exhaustion passes over the man’s face, mirroring the exact emotions Bucky feels upon hearing Stark’s acronym suggestions.

“Tony,” he says patiently, interrupting the flow of ‘helpful’ suggestions, “why don’t you introduce us?”

“Oh,” Stark says. He looks over at Bucky, having obviously forgotten his existence, as is his habit the moment a shinier distraction presents itself. It’s not particularly surprising at this point. It’s honestly kind of a relief. Having the uninterrupted attention of Tony Stark is an intense and exhausting experience. “Rhodey, this is Bucky. Bucky, this is Rhodey,” he says before jumping right back to, “Anyway, I was also thinking that Prosthetic-Enabling Neuro-Interfaced Systems could work, or maybe—”

They turn as one to blink incredulously at Stark.

‘Rhodey’ sighs and takes a step forward to extend a hand for Bucky to shake. “I’m James Rhodes. Col. James Rhodes, but we don’t exactly stand on ceremony here. Tony likes to call me Rhodey.”

Bucky smiles and knows he’s never going to work up the guts to actually call this guy a nickname like ‘Rhodey’ to his face. “I’m James Barnes.” The colonel catches the coincidence and lets the corner of his mouth quirk up. “I usually go by Bucky.”

“It’s good to meet you, Bucky. I’ve heard tell that you’re the first participant of Stark’s new program.” They’re both very careful not to think of what said program might actually end up being called. “And I just thought I’d swing by to introduce myself.”

But Bucky isn’t the first, now is he?

That much became clear the moment Col. Rhodes walked in the room. Stark had done an excellent job, and in a couple months, it would be impossible to tell at a glance—but it’s clear that Col. Rhodes is still in the process of getting used to his new legs.

Bucky doesn’t know how he can even tell, considering the prosthetics themselves are far more advanced than anything he’s ever even seen in his life. He can see every ounce of Stark’s fanatical perfectionism in them. And maybe it’s just that. There’s something about his gait that’s too even, too smooth, too precise. It’s like watching an artificially generated walking simulation. Col. Rhodes already has a pretty disciplined walk, judging by the movement of his shoulders, his hips, his scrupulously correct posture—but even he seems to be having trouble adjusting to his legs’ movements.

There’s a gleam in Stark’s eyes as he watches the colonel move, and Bucky can tell he’s cataloguing all of these little faults too. The guy’s still mumbling things like ‘Mechanical Extraccorporeal Assisted Traction,’ but Bucky doubts that’s doing anything to distract Stark from noticing every minute flaw in the legs’ movements. With a few more rounds of fine-tuning patches, you’d probably never know the colonel was wearing prosthetics if you saw him walking down the street.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “That’s me. It’s all a bit crazy, I gotta admit.”

“I can imagine. Tony sprung these on me pretty much the moment I was wheeled out of the hospital. You’re getting a prosthetic after, what, five years?”

“Seven. I’m pretty sure my body forgot what it’d even do with another arm again.”

Bucky says it half as a joke, but it’s not altogether true. Sure, he spent a lot of time retraining his muscle memory, and he was helped a lot by the fact that it hadn’t been his dominant hand. But twenty-eight years of having a left hand doesn’t go away easily. If he’s distracted, he still finds himself instinctively reaching for something, idly wondering why he can’t feel anything. Only to look over and have that cold realization wash through him all over again.

“It’s going to be an adjustment either way. I’m not saying any of this is going to be easy. Tony does damn good work, but he’s not a god. It’s going to be PT again and a period of adjustment after that.” Col. Rhodes pauses and settles on the stool next to Bucky. He leans forward, placing his hands on his knees, carefully lifting the hem of one pants leg until Bucky can see underneath. “I have paraplegia, lower spinal paralysis from a hard fall. My legs are still there, they just need some external input to convince them to move. Our circumstances are pretty different, but I do want you to know that if you want someone to talk to, I’m happy to be a sympathetic ear for you.”

Bucky nods, distantly noting how Stark stopped talking and went sheet-white at the matter of fact way Rhodes described his disability. He silently resolves that if he’s ever going to ask the other man about the circumstances of this fall, he’s not going to do it in earshot of Stark.

“Thank you, Colonel,” he says, pouring as much of his gratitude as he can into the statement. It really is a very generous gesture. “You have no idea how much I appreciate that offer. I may just take you up on that one day.”

“Please, call me James.”

Bucky smiles. “Well, then, James. I look forward to seeing you around.”

Col. Rhodes gives him a short nod before standing to leave. His upper body slightly overcorrects at the sudden motion, but it’s so subtle, Bucky wouldn’t have caught it if he hadn’t already been looking.

Stark also watches him go with a complicated expression on his face. With what little he’s already seen of the way the other man wears his guilt, he can take a stab at what must’ve happened to Col. Rhodes. Something that would key into every obsessive neurosis inside him. Something that he blames himself completely for. And with the way the colonel had carefully navigated around the specifics, he knows this too.

When he turns back around to Bucky, it takes a couple more minutes before he seemingly regains his equilibrium. It paints a clearer picture of Stark, Bucky thinks. A complicated one perhaps, but also a more sympathetic one. Still, he has to groan when Stark says, “Mechanical Omohyoid-Integrative Sensory Technology.”

Chapter Text

There are hard days.

The process of testing prototypes and describing his life both pre- and post-amputation has an ugly tendency to dig up a lot of insecurities and emotions better left untouched. Bucky knows that Stark is genuinely trying his best in his own awkward way, but this is clearly not the other man’s forte. Still, it doesn’t stop him from storming out of the most recent session into the stairwell to have a good long panic.

A few minutes later, he hears the fire door above him creak open.

“Just take the goddamn elevator,” Bucky snarls at whoever comes out.

And for a moment, he thinks the other person is going to turn around and leave him alone to break down in peace. That is until he hears footsteps slowly make their way down to the landing he’d huddled himself on. Then the idiot has the gall to sit next to him.

Bucky whips around to snap at the intruder. “Look, you fucker. I said—” His tirade chokes off when he actually sees who it is.

Steve blinks at him, seemingly unruffled by the sight of Bucky being an absolute fucking disaster.

And that’s just great. Not only did Bucky have to go and have a complete meltdown, he has to do it with his fucking soulmate watching.

“Sorry,” he manages to croak out. “Could you please give me a minute? I just need some air.”

Steve Rogers—Decorated War Hero, Part-Time Jesus Allegory, Symbol of All Things Good and American and Patriotic—doesn’t budge a single goddamn inch. Bucky is unspeakably close to throttling the guy.

For a while, they sit in tense silence. The only sound is Bucky’s masterful impression of a fish on dry land, which is absolutely not fucking helped by the inescapable presence and scrutiny of Captain America right beside him. God, he just wants to be alone. He wants Nat to press her hand into his shoulder like she always does. He wants to be home with his warm bed and its distinct lack of possibly judgmental soulmates.

He wants to be anywhere but here.

“Excuse me,” Bucky mumbles and stands up, swaying a little at the rush of lightheadedness from the sudden movement.

And of course, Steve is immediately by his side, steadying him with a gentle touch to his elbow. It makes Bucky want to claw his skin off. Or melt into a hysterical puddle all over Steve.

He does neither.

Bucky brushes the other man off and starts determinedly making his way down the stairwell. If he has to walk down fifty flights of stairs to avoid being trapped in an enclosed elevator with his soulmate, he absolutely goddamn will.

But because he’s a genetically enhanced super soldier with not a shred of decency, Steve follows him and has no trouble keeping up. Bucky barely reaches the next landing before he trips over his own feet, and Steve catches him before he can brain himself on the railing.

“Careful,” Steve says quietly, his mouth way too fucking close to his ear.

Bucky shoves him off, too keyed up to tolerate even that amount of contact with someone he doesn’t trust. And the thing is, he doesn’t fucking trust Steve. He doesn’t know a single goddamn thing about the guy other than what’s public record. He doesn’t fucking care that they’re supposed to be soulmates. In this, Steve is nothing more than a stranger with no fucking respect for Bucky’s boundaries.

“Get. Off. Of. Me,” he grits out.

“Bucky.”

“Don’t touch me.”

Steve stops short. On some distant level, Bucky registers that Steve had only arrived at the tail-end of that awful first day. That he has no way of knowing what Bucky’s like or what he needs when he’s on the verge of a breakdown. That he’s honestly just trying to help right now. That when Bucky finally manages to calm the fuck down, he’s going to be humiliated at the way he acted here, at the way he lashed out at Steve. But also Bucky doesn’t care because Steve is making everything worse.

“You should’ve left me under that goddamn rock,” he snaps, ashamed of the shake in his voice, of the dampness on his cheeks, of the redness of his face, of the total trainwreck of his life. “Would’ve saved us all the trouble.”

He heaves in a breath and backs up until his spine is pressed into the opposite wall, as far as he can get from the other man. “Just—” he manages to say. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me.” He lets it out, shaky. “Really, it’d be best if you left.”

Steve looks at him with that furrow in his brow, clearly very worried about what Bucky might do if he’s left by himself in this state. Which is a completely valid concern. Normally, when Bucky gets like this, he calls Nat. Sam works in a pinch. Hell, he’d even consider taking Col. Rhodes up on his offer. But his phone’s dead, and there’s no way in hell he’s in the right state of mind to actually ask to borrow someone else’s.

Besides, he’s ridden these episodes out alone before. It’s not always pretty, but—he’ll deal with it. He’s made it to the other side alright. Most of the time.

“Okay,” Steve says carefully. “I’m going to go up to the next landing up. And I’m going to face the wall there. I won’t watch you, don’t worry. But I’m not leaving you alone either.” And then he does just that.

It’s—it’s not the best. Bucky is still too hyperaware of Steve’s breathing above him, even if he can’t see him. His insecurities about all of this soulmate bullshit makes the guy’s presence that much more intolerable when it’s added to the cacophony of every other ugly anxiety in his head.

But also, bizarrely, it kinda helps.

The knowledge that he’s not by himself. That he’s not abandoned. That Steve didn’t just walk away. That he listened to what Bucky needed and found a compromise that gave him his space while also ensuring that someone’s there to do something if Bucky does anything stupid in a blind fit of panic.

And slowly, ever so fucking slowly, he starts to calm down. It comes in spurts, and he backslides a lot, but Bucky’s used to that. At this point, he’s old fucking hat at deciphering the ebbs and flows of his own panic attacks. And eventually, there comes that moment when he can feel himself crest the wave back into something like sanity, when he can actually breathe again.

And Steve probably noticed the lack of panicked wheezing because this is when he decides to speak up.

“I had asthma,” he says, like it’s a completely normal thing to say after watching a stranger lose his goddamn mind. “And whatever damage rheumatic fever and scarlet fever did. Had anemia too. The early stages of tuberculosis, probably. My back was crooked. My heart never pumped quite right. You could hear a whistle when I breathed in. I once heard a doctor tell a nurse my life was a practical joke God played on me. I won’t pretend to understand everything, but I think I have at least some small idea.”

“Thought you were always,” Bucky rasps, “always fucking perfect.”

“If I hadn’t gotten the serum, I would’ve dropped dead before I turned thirty.”

“And here you are, rounding out an even hundred. Good for you.”

“What I’m trying to tell you is,” Steve says, “I know what it’s like to hate the fact that there are things I’ll never be able to do no matter how hard I try.”

“You mean you used to know what it’s like. Over seventy years ago,” Bucky snaps. “I don’t need the pinnacle of physical human achievement to pretend that he understands.”

“You’re right. I don’t. It’s probably pretty damn hypocritical of me. But you need someone here, and unfortunately, I’m all you got right now. We’ll make do.”

He doesn’t know what the expression is on Steve’s face because he can’t see him. The other man’s still on the floor above, and judging by the way his voice echos, still probably facing the goddamn wall. Just like he promised.

Bucky sighs. He’s an asshole, but he’s a self-aware enough asshole to know when he’s being especially asshole-ish. And at the end of the day, Steve is trying his best to help him. The least the guy deserves is some sort of olive branch for his troubles.

So Bucky sits down on the top step and leans over to rest his cheek against the cool concrete of the wall. “It’s stupid,” he says. “It’s so fucking stupid.”

He imagines there’s a listening quality to Steve’s silence.

“It was my hair,” Bucky presses on. “Got tangled in Stark’s shiny new prototype. Long hair and articulated joints don’t play nicely, and he, well, he asked if I’d considered cutting it. And I lost my shit.” He presses his cheek harder into the wall, imagining how nice it would be if he could somehow sink into it and not have to work through his emotions like an actual goddamn adult. “Like I said,” he mumbles. “Stupid.”

There’s a pause as Steve digests this. It’s so much more embarrassing when he says out loud that he had a hissy fit over something as dumb as his goddamn hair. Stark clearly didn’t know what the big deal was. Hence, Bucky sitting here. In a stairwell. Talking about his feelings. With Captain America. God, his life.

“Why don’t you want to cut your hair, Bucky?”

“Because I’m a shallow fucking human being who can’t deal with anything normally.”

“Bucky,” Steve says again, because the man’s a saint who somehow got it in his head to put up with Bucky’s shit. “Why don’t you want to cut your hair?”

He sighs and tips forward until his head is between his knees. There’s a part of him that’s glad that Steve can’t see the utterly pathetic picture he paints, even if everything he’s saying is probably giving the other man a pretty damn good idea of it. “It used to be shorter,” he says. “I had it coiffed like, I dunno, a fifties greaser or something. Pomade and everything. Thought it looked cool.”

“I remember.”

Bucky startles for a moment. He’d honestly forgotten that Steve had actually seen him before. That he would know what Bucky used to look like.

He pushes past that. “I can’t really style it like that anymore. After the—after, it was just easier to let it grow long enough so that I could reach it without having to wrap my arm around my head. It’s easier for me to trim it and get it even if it’s longer. Don’t have to cut it as often too.” He tugs at a couple strands that had fallen in front of his face. “I’ve never let anyone else cut my hair. Not before, not after, not now, and I’m sure as hell not starting anytime soon. Always did it myself, anyway. ”

He doesn’t tell Steve about the time he sat on his bathroom floor, blood trickling down his neck after he’d almost chopped off his own fucking ear trying to cut his hair. In hindsight, it’d been the awkward angle. He’d been too focused on getting it perfect, trying to prove some sort of fucked up point to himself. And his hand slipped. He probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it if he’d nicked himself before the Battle. But it felt like the biggest goddamn deal at the time.

He also doesn’t say anything about how he’d just stayed there, staring at the uneven spackling of the wall behind the toilet. How he would’ve kept sitting and staring if Nat hadn’t kicked the door of his apartment in and pulled him to his feet when she found him bleeding all over the linoleum.

After that, he just let his hair grow out. It helped hide the scar too.

“Bucky,” Steve says after a while, “Would you be okay if I came down there?”

No, he thinks. “Sure, yeah.”

Steve walks down to Bucky’s landing and sits down in the far corner, away from Bucky’s spot on the top step. Now, he can see what the other man’s face is doing. And it’s a relief, seeing that there isn’t any disdain or mockery or pity. Even knowing that Steve’s too decent to actually do that, a part of Bucky unclenches at the sight anyway.

“I can still do things,” he says, maybe a touch too defensive. So sue him, he still has his pride, and old habits die hard. “It’s not that I can’t do things. I can take care of myself just fucking fine.”

“I never doubted that.”

“It’s just, it’s all a little bit harder. Things I didn’t need to think about before, I gotta plan for now. I always gotta be a little more careful, pay a little more attention, take a little more time. And it all adds up. It’s exhausting.” He heaves out a breath, a lot more watery than he’d ever like to admit. “Y’know, sometimes I just wanna pick up a box without having to do fucking trigonometry in my head to make sure I can actually do it without knocking myself onto my ass. Is that really too much to ask?”

“Well, the thing is,” Steve says, “there may come a day when you won’t ever have to again. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

Bucky slumps, letting himself tip over the other way until he’s lying on his side, his legs still splayed over the first few steps. “Yeah,” he mumbles into the floor. “I guess it is.”

“Then it’s not too much to ask.”

And there’s such a calm surety to his voice that Bucky’s stricken with a sudden bizarre desire to have Steve hug him. Even though less than twenty minutes ago, he would’ve sooner crawled out of his skin than let Steve even come near him. Not that he’s ever going to admit it.

He just kinda stares at Steve for a long time before the other guy shifts a little and asks, “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Bucky.”

He sighs. “It’s really out of left field. But I kinda wanted to ask you something.”

“Hit me.”

“Could you, uhh,” Bucky stumbles to a halt, not even sure how to begin to ask. “I mean, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to. I really don’t—”

“Bucky.”

“Right.” He looks at Steve, at the level way he returns his gaze. And that helps settle him gather his courage. “Would you mind uhh, if I hugged you?”

Steve doesn’t even bat an eyelid at that. And there’s something significant about how he doesn’t hesitate at all. He just scoots forward until he’s within reach and lets Bucky fold himself into his arms. It’d be excruciatingly awkward if it weren’t for the fact that Steve was apparently one of those people who gave really good hugs. It probably shouldn’t be surprising if you just thought about it while looking at the guy. He’s kinda big and warm, and abnormally nonjudgmental.

Steve squeezes Bucky, and that does horrible things to his composure. He burrows his face into Steve’s shoulder and takes deep gulping breaths, focusing very hard on not crying. He thinks he’s doing an admirable job of it, all things considered.

“I like my hair,” Bucky eventually mumbles into his shirt.

Steve just wraps his arms a little tighter around him. “You don’t have to cut it if you don’t want to.”

Later, when Bucky goes home and lies on his bed, when he’s going about his day in the week since, when he’s eating his cereal or riding the subway, he tries very hard not to think of the sensation of warm skin, of a firm chest, of a large pair of arms wrapped around him—of the kind of hug that convinces you, if only for a moment, that everything is going to be just fine.

The next time Bucky comes in for an appointment, Stark fits him with a prosthetic arm with joint seams so fine, it doesn’t catch on his hair at all. He tries not to think too much about that too.

Chapter Text

Sometimes it’s easy to not think too deeply about things in the whirlwind of appointments, of rejected prototypes and Tony Stark jabbering in his ear. Bucky’s not entirely clear what timeline they’re even working on when sometimes his day just involves Stark bombarding him with questions about which hand he used to prefer jerking off with, and sometimes it’s Stark magically producing a telepathically controlled cyborg arm. Which is also partially sentient. It wasn’t even a usable prototype. Bucky doesn’t have the heart to subject poor SAL (Semi-Autonomous Limb) to a life of servitude wiping his ass. So now SAL sits in the corner, observing them all with extreme judgmental disdain.

Honestly, Bucky’s just hoping that he’s actually going to get an actual prosthetic out of all this eventually.

But then, there’s also Steve finding more and more excuses to accost Bucky and spend time with him. At least, he started to after Bucky worked up the courage to approach him and quietly thank him for the other day. There’s something significant in the fact that Steve saw Bucky at quite literally his worst, and still stuck around. He doesn’t quite obsess over it, but it’s close.

At some point, a notion occurs to him as he’s lying on his bedroom floor with his feet propped up against the side of his mattress, counting the water stains on his ceiling. But it’s such an absurd idea that he almost immediately dismisses it.

Bucky very pointedly doesn’t think about it when he’s hanging out with Steve. Honestly, the last thing they need is for him to get any more freaked out about whatever it is he’s supposed to be doing with Steve. So Bucky shuts up and eats his popcorn. Steve’s apparently been on a one-man mission to experience literally every significant pop culture property of the past seventy-odd years.

Which, while an admirable effort, is also kind of insane.

It does help a lot that Bucky has also not seen many of these Seminal Films either, much to the consternation and horror of his friends. Not that he has much of a problem with it. He’s uncultured swine, and dammit, he’s not ashamed of that fact.

Nevertheless, when he has a Friday night free—which is most of them—he sits his ass down in an abandoned Stark Industries employee break room to watch The Matrix or The Godfather or Jaws with Steve. It doesn’t stop him from spending most of the runtime commenting on how very not-shark-like the shark acts. Which is why he’s never actually seen most of these movies in the first place. No one can put up with sitting him long enough to actually endure a two-hour film. Except, well—except Steve for some reason.

“—Aww c’mon, fuck you, Timmy.”

“He’s eleven, Bucky.”

“He’s an idiotic eleven-year-old.”

“Most of them are. Being eleven and all.”

“I hope a velociraptor eats him.”

It at least makes for an interesting viewing experience, combining Steve’s total lack of context with Bucky’s vague understanding via cultural osmosis. They’re something like friends now, he thinks. Or acquaintances well on their way to friends. It’s easy to forget about all of the bullshit when he’s with Steve, trying very hard to stifle the urge to spoil Empire before they’re even halfway through A New Hope. He just kinda likes being around the guy.

So in hindsight, it’s understandable how Bucky let it all sneak up on him.

He doesn’t really think a lot about how sometimes, he finds himself casting looks at Steve’s back, where he knows a mastiff’s profile sits on his skin. He knows exactly where it is too. Just off-center from his spine, a little to the left. It’s engraved in his head—the way it looked, slightly distorted by a cellphone’s camera resolution and the natural contours of Steve’s muscles.

He doesn’t think about how much space the other man takes up in his head.

Or how often he thinks of touching and being touched by Steve. Not even anything particularly sexual. Just simple contact. A press of a hand on his arm. The way their sides brush against each other on the too-small break room couch. How their feet jostle against each other when they grab a meal together.

Sometimes when Stark is talking about tweaking the calibrations for pressure and heat and sensation, all Bucky can think about is what it would feel like to touch Steve with his new hand.

He also doesn’t spend much time wondering what Steve would be doing if Bucky hadn’t devoted his Friday evenings to the cause of educating the both of them on 20^th Century Classic Cinema. If Steve would just watch those movies by himself. If he would even be able to find something else to do with his time that wasn’t saving the world.

It’s a thought that has a habit of sneaking up on him at inopportune moments. Like when he’s crossing the street or when Stark’s testing his reflexes by giving SAL control over a tennis ball machine. And when Bucky’s lying sprawled on the floor again—this time because SAL managed to nail him in the groin—he’s finally forced to admit that there’s maybe the teensiest possibility that Steve Rogers is a deeply lonely human being.

And that Bucky is just as lonely as him.

And that maybe he kinda really wants them to be less lonely together.

He doesn’t actually say this out loud. Nor does he consider the possibility that maybe he’d known this all along, but just refused to acknowledge it because he has the EQ of a sea slug. Also, he’s never been a particularly brave person. Because really, there are only so many uncomfortable realizations he can have with a tennis-ball-shaped bruise right next to his dick, the sound of Stark contemplatively saying, “Limb Undulate Bracciating Extrasensories,” in the background.

You can’t unthink some things once they’re in your head. And it’s only a matter of time before Bucky’s forced to acknowledge that maybe he really really wants Steve to know that at some point, seven years ago, they had been soulmates. And also, they might still be soulmates. Or at least, Bucky really wishes they still are.

Chapter Text

They’re late enough in Bucky’s prosthetic trials now that there’s not much that Stark can do to fuck up and derail the whole thing. A lot of what’s left is finalizing the prototype they settled on and then physical therapy. The prosthetics program, newly christened with an official acronym, has now started to draw applicants from the general public.

He doesn’t know how Pepper Potts, or Col. Rhodes, or JARVIS, or some combination of the three, managed to talk Stark out of Cognitive Orthopedic Corrective Kinematics—but the universe is grateful for their valiant efforts. Even if Prosthetic Limb Utility Generation isn’t much of an improvement, Bucky takes the small victories where he can.

Nat approaches him later, asking if he would like to be present when they bring in the first applicant to demonstrate the functionality of the prosthetic as well as help make her more comfortable.

Said applicant, Abby is a lot of what Bucky isn’t, which makes him wonder why they chose him to be the first guinea pig in the first place. She’s all of fifteen, looks fresh off the cover of some lifestyle magazine, and has the kind of shy genuine smile that melted even Bucky’s stone-cold bastard heart. Just a little. She’s a good kid, and he can’t help but be glad that one of Stark’s prosthetics is going to her. And it has absolutely nothing to do with his nonexistent soft spot for blonde hair and blue eyes.

Bucky’s glad he agreed to be here and try to set Abby at ease because it’s clear since the start that she’s preoccupied. She does seem to be trying to pay attention as Nat walks her through the process, but there are clearly other worries looming large in her mind.

Lorraine is her older sister. She has perfectly curled hair, a red-lipped smirk, and has not once taken her gaze off of Steve since walking into the workroom.

Bucky doesn’t like her.

“—really only a formality,” Nat is saying. “You’re pretty much all set. But we wanted to get to know you better as well as give you an idea of what the next months will look like for you.” She takes a pause to give Abby time to look around the workroom. “Bucky has been working with Mr. Stark for a while now, so he can show you what to expect.”

He steps forward, shaking off the weird vibe he got from Abby’s sister. There’s nothing unusual about someone acting kinda funny around Steve, he reminds himself. Steve’s a celebrity. Steve’s Captain fucking America. Of course, Lorraine wouldn’t know how to act around him.

“It’s pretty cool,” Abby says, polite but guarded. Maybe she suspects this is some sort of scam. It wouldn’t be the first time organizations preyed on disabled populations for a cash grab. Abby’s eyes flick over to her sister in the back of the room, hovering. Maybe looking to her for support. There’s a part of Bucky that wishes the woman wasn’t standing quite so close to where Steve is watching the proceedings.

Bucky smiles at her and flexes his arm, showing her how his fingers move and the rippling patterns the interlocking plates make. “Yeah,” he says, “it’s pretty damn cool.”

“How much can you feel with it?”

“You’d be surprised. I can tell when something’s hot or cold, rough or smooth, hard or soft. It’s definitely not as sensitive as my right hand. There’s certain textures that I won’t be able to differentiate. But it’s a helluva lot more than I ever expected to get.”

He lets Abby poke at his prosthetic’s forearm. Her eyes widen when she feels the slight give the surface has, not quite as solid metal as it first appears. Bucky chuckles.

“Is this what Mr. Stark would make for me?”

“It depends. I got this particular prototype after a lot of long talks with Stark about what I need out of a prosthetic. What my daily life is like. Things I’d like to be able to do and things I’m fine doing without. Things I don’t want to deal with. It’s not like a regular arm, it can’t do all the same things, and you gotta think more about how you design it to meet the specific needs of the person.”

And Abby’s situation would be different from his. For one, she’s also still growing, which means it would be best if the arm was adjustable in some way. She wouldn’t have to worry about something like phantom limb pain because her condition is congenital. She may also be more open to permanent hardware than Bucky. She may care more about the arm’s aesthetics than Bucky, who’s content to being more or less a crotchety recluse. There’s going to be a lot of options available to her.

That’s one of the things that Bucky can tell Stark was careful about building into PLUG. Constructing the whole program around customizing its prosthetics to each person’s unique set of needs, circumstances, and limitations. Not that this goal is particularly new, but Stark’s doing it now on a scale and with resources that was previously out of reach for most people. Bringing top-of-the-line prosthetics, the kind you could only fantasize about, to the street level.

And seeing Abby, her face pushed so close to Bucky’s prosthetic, running her fingers carefully over the seams and curves of it. The craftsmanship and care put into it. The intricacies and specificities of the design. She’s clearly mulling it over.

“Would it really be like this one?” Abby asks again.

Something in Bucky recognizes the emotion in her voice. It’s slow to build. Hesitant. How Abby shies away from really letting herself believe it’s happening. The fear that there’s gotta be something wrong with all this. That good things don’t happen to someone like her. The part of your brain that says it’s better to guard yourself from hoping, better to shield yourself from disappointment. He knows that feeling all too well.

He nods and isn’t surprised when the next thing she asks, “Does it hurt?” in the same quiet wary way she’d probably ask, What’s the catch?

Bucky takes a moment to consider his answer.

He could tell her it was effortless. That everything had gone smoother then he’d ever imagined. That there’s nothing for her to be afraid of. It’s an easy answer to give. It would also be a dishonest one.

And he doubts saying so would be much comfort to Abby, who will likely face her own difficulties. Being a congenital amputee complicates the process a lot, especially one who’s apparently getting her first prosthetic this late in life. A lot of the groundwork she should’ve had since childhood is going to have to be laid out now. And that’s hard.

Abby’s prosthetic would be a lighter weight adjustment than his, being from the elbow down. But it would also be a weight her body has never accommodated before, unlike Bucky’s who’d spent most of his life with that weight. She may even need surgery for the fitting, and that’s on top of the physical therapy for both post-op recovery and adjusting to the new limb.

The whole process is going to be a new uncomfortable thing for Abby, whereas at least Bucky himself had the benefit of knowing what to expect. It’s easier in a lot of ways for him.

“It’s an adjustment at the start,” Bucky says, finally. “And it does hurt. My body isn’t really used to the strain, so it aches. I get tired a lot faster when I wear it. In general, it’s going to take a lot of PT for this,” he waves his hand at her, “to start feeling completely natural. It isn’t easy. I won’t pretend that it is.”

Then he tells her what he wishes people said to him after he got discharged from the hospital seven years ago. That there are going to be days when it feels endless, when it feels like nothing could ever be worth this. That even when he reaches something like the destination promised at the start of PT, there are still going to be a lot of times when it doesn’t feel worth it, when he wishes he could’ve just let himself sink and saved himself the trouble of actually making an effort.

But then there are other days when he goes about his day on autopilot, does a lot of the things he used to, and he looks back and realizes that this would’ve been impossible when he started. That he’s better than he used to be. That he’s come farther than he ever imagined he could. He doesn’t know how that balances in the grand scheme of things.

But he likes those days enough to keep trying.

“I can’t tell you if this is going to be right decision for you. I can’t even say for sure if it’s worth it. It all depends on how you feel about your life and what you want out of a new prosthetic. But you have options now. A lot more options than you did. You can take your time exploring them. And if at the end of all this, you decide that maybe you’d rather go without, that’s fine too.”

Abby nods, taking a deep breath in, some of the tension draining out of her shoulders. “I’ll think about it,” she says.

And maybe Bucky was not, is not, will never be much of a hero in the way an Avengers is—but something in his soul settles a little at the sight of Abby steeling her spine.

There’s a burst of loud laughter from the back of the room, breaking the small moment. Bucky looks up to see Lorraine, standing closer to Steve than before, her head tipped up to look at him, her smile stretched just a touch too wide to be genuine. Bucky isn’t imagining it when he notices how Steve tucks his arms into his body, his whole demeanor polite but strained. Nat hovers near them, watching to see if intervention is necessary.

When Bucky turns back to Abby, her expression is closed off.

“—so funny,” Lorraine is saying. “I had no idea.”

Steve nods and doesn’t offer anything more. His eyes seek out Bucky, meeting his gaze. Steve smiles a bit tightly at him, and that’s it, Bucky can’t take this anymore. He says, “Sorry, could you excuse me for a moment? I just want to—get your sister up to speed.” Because clearly she hadn’t been paying attention to anything that was being said today, he doesn’t add.

“Sure, I guess.”

Bucky doesn’t wince, but it’s close. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Abby and Lorraine, but there’s definitely something weird there.

He makes his way over to Steve’s corner of the room, inserting himself close enough to be impossible to ignore. It surprised her, he can tell. She’d been too fixated on Steve to notice Bucky.

He watches her as she takes him in—his arm, the scarring at his shoulder where his sleeve had been rolled up. You can get the measure of a person by the way they look at you, especially when you’re noticeably not able-bodied. From what Bucky sees now, he finds that he has even less reason to like Lorraine.

“Hey,” he says, mostly to Steve, “just checking up on you guys here. How are things?”

“We’re doing good,” Lorraine says. “Just getting to know each other while you two do your thing.”

And Bucky definitely doesn’t miss the odd emphasis she places on ‘you two.’ You as opposed to us normal people. There’s an unpleasant taste in his mouth. And Bucky has to wonder how he manages to be off-putting to Lorraine when she must’ve spent the better part of fifteen years around Abby.

“I was really just dropping by to make sure things are going smoothly with Tony out of town,” Steve says, taking the out Bucky’s offering. “But it seems like Bucky and Natalie have it well in hand.” He turns back to Lorraine. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss ahh—?”

“Please, just call me Lorraine.”

“Ma’am,” Steve says instead. “I should be going now. If you have any further questions, Ms. Rushman is more than equipped to answer them.”

Lorraine smiles, casting a narrow look at Nat. “I’m sure she is. And no offense, but she doesn’t understand things the way you do, Steve.” Bucky’s eyebrows rise at the familiarity in her tone. “You know how hard it can be, having to deal with—”

“I don’t actually,” Steve says firmly. “And I really can’t stay any longer. I assure you, I’m leaving you and Abby in capable hands.”

“Let me walk with you at least. I’m sure Abby would like to have some time alone with someone who…she can relate to.”

“I would advise you to stay here with her,” Nat says, cutting in. “Abigail is a minor, and you’re acting as her chaperone. Don’t you think it’s a bit reckless to leave her alone while she’s in the process of making such an important decision?”

Lorraine waves her hand dismissively, just short of actually rolling her eyes. “Abby can take care of herself.”

“Maybe she can,” Bucky says. “But that doesn’t mean she should go without having the support of her sister. This is a big step for her, something that could very well become a large part of her life for years to come.”

That gets Lorraine’s hackles up, clearly losing the last of her patience. “Seriously, what’s your freaking problem? It’s not like I’m ditching her! I’m just stepping out for a few minutes. You’re treating Abby like she’s a defenseless child. She’ll be fine. Right, Abby?”

They all turn back to the girl standing alone on the other side of the room. The change in Abby’s demeanor is jarring, now that Bucky knows what she looks like with her walls starting to come down. She’d never really been open. There’s no way Bucky could earn that kind of trust in such a short amount of time, but she’d been listening to him. Abby was at least taking what he had to say seriously.

Now her expression is scrupulously blank, and there’s an odd sort of look in her eyes, like she’s deliberately distancing herself from whatever it is she’s really feeling. “Yeah,” Abby says. “I’ll be fine.”

“See?” Lorraine says, then reaches out to wrap a hand around Steve’s bicep, ignoring how he stiffens a little at the unsolicited contact. “Now why don’t we—”

“I strongly urge you not to,” Nat says. “It would open Stark Industries up to a lot of legal liability if you were to leave Abigail alone here and she were to somehow come to harm.”

“Jesus Christ, what is up with you people? Can’t you just give me a moment?” Lorraine snaps.

“No,” Nat replies, her tone steely. “Whatever it is that you insist on discussing alone with the Captain, I suggest you wait for a more appropriate time. It is not the purpose of your visit today. If the matter is really so important to you, please make arrangements to return at a later date to discuss it with him.”

“I doubt I’d actually be able to with you here.” Lorraine glares venomously at Nat before turning back to Steve, composing herself and pasting a smile back onto her face. “I’m so sorry for all this. I really wanted to tell you when we were alone, but I guess it can’t be helped.”

Steve looks at her warily. “Tell me what?”

Lorraine—and Bucky really can’t think of a better word for it—she titters. “Well,” she says and slides her hand down to grasp Steve’s wrist. “I’m surprised you haven’t already noticed. Don’t you think it’s lucky that the two of us are here at the same time? Abby joining this new program, me coming with her, meeting you?” She leans closer, too close. “Can’t you feel it, Steve? You could almost say it’s destiny.”

There’s a sudden leaden weight in the pit of Bucky’s stomach as he realizes exactly where she’s going with this.

“I really don’t—” Steve starts to say, then cuts off when Lorraine starts to fucking unbutton her blouse.

“You need to stop,” Nat interjects. “This is highly inappropr—”

“Well, if you gave me the chance to talk to him alone, I wouldn’t have to do it like this, now would I?” Lorraine snaps out, already two buttons down.

“Ma’am, please,” Steve says. “Can’t this wait for another time?”

“I’m sorry, Steve. This is too important. They’re going to try to stop me, but you deserve to know the truth.” Then before Nat can stop her, Lorraine pushes the collar of her shirt down.

And there on her collarbone is the unmistakable shape of a mastiff.

Bucky really should be used to it by now, but he’s not. He’s really fucking not.

There’s a hysterical part of his mind that can’t help but marvel at how carefully she’d planned all of this. It isn’t by any means a shoddy forgery, the way some of the rushed jobs had been in the first couple of months. And Bucky would bet serious money that if you searched every inch of her, you’d never find even a hint of her real soul mark. She had likely gone the extra mile to find someone to laser it off.

If you look closely enough, you can more often than not tell the difference between a fake and a real soul mark. The real things aren’t flat like you’d get if someone just drew it or tattooed it on. They’re a little bit raised, like a birthmark. There’s also a certain luminous sheen to soul marks that distinguishes them from other natural skin features.

Lorraine had probably gone to some sort of tattoo specialist. The kind with special inks and needles to get a forgery as close to perfect as possible. With how excruciatingly exact it is, whoever did it must’ve spent hours studying the still of Steve’s soul mark. Even the placement is calculated. The askew angle mimics a real soul mark’s imperfection. And the location is an almost tasteful way of drawing attention to her neck, her chest, her jaw.

Any sort of telltale swelling or redness is long gone, which means that Lorraine had waited at least a month before coming here. Probably longer considering it’s been a good while since crowds of hopefuls have stopped gathering in the Tower lobby every day. She probably knew better than to try her luck during the initial rush—instead, waiting for the dust to settle, for everyone to lower their guard.

It leaves very little doubt in Bucky’s mind as to whether Lorraine being here with Abby today was in any way coincidental. And from the look on Abby’s face, she realizes this too.

“You need to leave,” Nat is saying.

“Would you really stop me from meeting my own soulmate?” Lorraine snarls, clinging onto Steve’s arm with her shirt still pulled down. She even wore a pretty white lace bra for the fucking occasion. Bucky feels sick.

“I would.”

“The law says that I’m allowed to—”

“Soulmate protection laws don’t apply to your case,” Bucky cuts in.

Lorraine rounds on him, a smug curl to her lip as she says, “Can you really look at me, at this, and tell me it doesn’t?”

Bucky hesitates, almost stumbles. Across from him, Nat also goes still. She very deliberately doesn’t so much as glance in Bucky’s direction, too careful to even allow that small slip to expose a secret she promised to keep for him.

Because goddammit, Lorraine’s right. It’s truly a remarkable fake. You’d never even suspect it was forged unless you already knew the truth. And there’s a certain irony to it, isn’t there? With the expense and time it takes to get a tattoo like this, there’s a not insignificant chance that Loraine is the only one in the world who went this far. Hers is likely the only twin to Steve’s soul mark that exists in the world right now.

There’s no way to call her bluff without exposing himself. And Bucky can’t just let Steve believe Lorraine. He can’t let him accept her into his life, maybe one day love her. Not when it’s all based on a lie. So Bucky screws up his courage and opens his mouth.

“It doesn’t.”

But it’s not Bucky or Nat who says this. It’s Steve.

Everyone else falls silent.

“I’m ahh, flattered by the attention,” Steve continues, prying himself from Lorraine’s grip. “But I agree with Ms. Rushman. It would be best if you leave now. We should also reschedule the appointment with Abby and find a more appropriate chaperone to accompany her from here on out.”

“But—”

“I’ve already met my soulmate over seventy years ago.” Something like icy water washes down Bucky’s spine at that. “I would ask that you not dishonor her memory by continuing with this.”

It’s only then that it seems to dawn on Lorraine that her plans have completely fallen through. Slowly, she pulls her blouse back up.

Nat firmly grabs the other woman’s arm. “If you continue to be uncooperative, don’t think for a moment I won’t hesitate to call security.” Before Lorraine can even protest, she starts to steer her out of the room.

Bucky sags the moment they’re out of sight, belatedly realizing that his right hand is shaking. The left hand is completely steady, probably not designed to register that kind of input from his brain. There’s something like static filling up his head. It’s going to be a good long while before the nausea leaves him.

Steve lets out a long slow breath, a strange haunted look in his eyes. He meets Bucky’s gaze for a moment before quietly slipping out into the stairwell, likely eager to avoid encountering Lorraine again near the elevator.

There’s a moment where Bucky hesitates, uncertain about what he should do next.

Because it’s clear that underneath it all, Steve was shaken up by this whole encounter. He was caught completely off guard, being confronted with just how far a person can go if it meant getting close to him. That to someone like Lorraine, nothing’s off limits. There’s no respect, no line that can’t be crossed, nothing too sacred to be exploited.

But Abby’s still in the room, stock still, stiff-backed, hand clenched at her side. Her face is pale, two spots of color on her cheeks, eyes fixed on some distant point. And looking at her now, Bucky can’t in good conscience leave her alone. He sends a silent apology to Steve before walking over to Abby.

“I didn’t even really want the arm,” she says when Bucky comes to a stop next to her.

That doesn’t really come as a surprise, he realizes. There’d been something off about Abby’s demeanor since the beginning. She was obviously distracted. And there hadn’t really been any point when she seemed genuinely interested in Bucky’s prosthetic. She mostly seemed to respond out of politeness.

The only time Bucky really felt that he was getting through to her was when he said it was up to her to decide whether she wanted this or not, when he made it clear that it’d be fine if she chose to walk away.

“Why did you decide to come here?” Bucky asks.

Abby shrugs. “Lo was excited. She wanted me to come, and that was probably,” she lets out a short bitter laugh, “—that was the first time she ever seemed to give a shit about me.”

There’s nothing more that Bucky wants to do then reach out and hug this girl right now. He’s not sure if that’s welcome, so he just scoots a little closer. “I’m sorry.”

“And I know better. That’s the worst part. I know what Lo’s like. I know that she never really cared. She was always prettier, and boys liked her, and she always got what she wanted. And she never wanted to have anything to do with me. I should’ve known.”

“There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best. For believing in someone you care about.”

“I don’t care about her,” Abby says, vicious, eyes bright. “Lo’s a self-centered bitch who never cared about anyone but herself. I hate her.”

Bucky coughs. “Well, you’re probably not wrong.”

Abby just glares at the wall, then at her feet. Then she shrinks a little, crossing her arms like she’s holding herself. “I just thought that y’know, maybe she did change. Maybe she really wanted to start over. Maybe her taking me to this stupid prosthetic thing was her way of making it up to me. I never really wanted a new arm, I just wanted—” Abby sighs, her breathing just a little bit shaky. “I’m such an idiot.”

“It’s not your fault. She took your trust, the faith you put in her, and she broke it. This is all on your sister.”

“I never should’ve given it to her in the first place.”

“Maybe. But you gave her that second chance because you’re a good person and you cared about her. You opened the door for your sister making amends if she’d been truly genuine. That would’ve been impossible if you refused. I’m not saying you should always be giving her another chance, but letting her in—it’s not because you’re stupid. It’s because you care. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t be afraid of caring just because it might mean you’ll get hurt.”

“It still hurts.”

“I know. And I wish that your sister hadn’t abused your trust.”

Abby sighs. “Yeah, me too.”

They let that moment sit for a while. Bucky notices when Abby ever so slightly starts to lean into his side, drawing comfort from his presence, but he doesn’t comment. Eventually, she starts to calm down again.

It’s then that Bucky asks, “You don’t have to make any particular decision now, but I do want to know where we’re at. Do you want to continue with this? Do you want Stark to make you a prosthetic?”

Abby starts to gnaw on her lower lip as she thinks. “I don’t know,” she says after a while. “The thing is, I like me. I’m fine just the way I am. I don’t need to be fixed or something. I’ve lived my whole life without a prosthetic, and there hasn’t really been anything that made me think I would really need one.”

Bucky smiles at her. “I think that does answer the question.”

“I guess so.”

“And just know, you’re always welcome here,” Nat says from the front of the room, startling both of them. “If you ever do decide to return in the future, you certainly can.”

Abby finally, finally smiles. “Okay.”

“I’ve contacted your grandmother, and she’ll be here to pick you up shortly. I can take you down to the lobby.”

Abby nods, takes a step forward to follow Nat before stopping then coming back to give Bucky a quick hug. He stares down at her, stunned, but she pulls back too fast for him to return it. “Thanks,” she says before turning to head for the elevator.

Nat lingers behind, making eye contact with Bucky.

“How long were you standing there?” he asks.

“Long enough to know that you should take your own advice.” And with that, Nat follows Abby out.

Bucky snorts and scrubs a hand over his face. Right. Then he starts to make his way to the stairwell door.

Chapter Text

Standing at the top of the stairwell, Bucky’s suddenly filled with a strange sense of vertigo. The last time he was here, their positions had been reversed. He can see Steve’s back, rising and falling steadily. Deep even breaths. You could time them on a metronome.

They just exited a scene where a woman took advantage of her underage sister who’s a congenital amputee, manipulated her into applying to a prosthetics program she didn’t particularly want to, just so this woman could engineer an encounter with Steve and attempt to trick him into believing they’re soulmates. It’s the kind of thing that fucks a person up on a deep level. The kind of thing that makes them doubt that they can even trust in others. So it kinda fucking bothers Bucky that Steve isn’t freaking out more.

“Hi,” Bucky says.

Steve turns around and looks up at him. Smiles. Visibly calm. “Bucky,” he says. “How’s Abby doing?” It doesn’t surprise him that this is what Steve chooses to ask about.

“She was a little shaken up, but she’ll be alright. I talked things through with her, and Nat’s taking her to her grandma now.”

Steve nods. “That’s good. I was worried about how this would affect her.”

They fall silent. And Bucky just keeps watching the other guy, still feeling off-balance. It’s just very normal, isn’t it? Steve projects this mildness—this steadiness that makes you want to believe that everything’s okay. Steve’s got it all well in hand. Don’t worry about it. Just trust him. There are other people that need help more, so why don’t you go make sure they’re alright?

It probably works for Steve most of the time, he thinks. And it already has worked on Bucky before, hasn’t it? Maybe that’s what gets to him about all this. The fact that he recognizes this—the way Steve holds himself, how he’s keeping his breath steady, this preternatural calm.

Bucky’s seen it before, and he didn’t realize what it meant. Steve talking about all the interesting new things he wants to experience, and not once mentioning the things he misses from his old life. Steve telling Bucky that he’s happy he’s alive, but doesn’t talk nearly as much about how often he thinks about those he couldn’t save. Steve inviting Bucky to movie nights as a friendly gesture, like it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s lonely.

It’s frustrating how much Bucky hadn’t been seeing.

Steve looks small on the landing below.

Bucky makes his way down, marveling at how he can steady himself with his left hand on the railing. The quiet whirring of its internal mechanisms is the only sound.

“I’m sorry,” Steve finally says. He’s very deliberate about looking up and meeting Bucky’s gaze. Almost to prove that he’s just fine. “I shouldn’t have lied.”

Bucky blinks. “Lied?”

“I don’t like to make light of these things. Soul marks, I mean. They’re too—important. But I couldn’t see any other way to defuse the situation.”

“What—”

“I’ve never met my soulmate, Bucky,” Steve says.

It’s enough to distract him for a moment. The part of him that had shriveled and curled up tight the moment Steve said what he’d been afraid of since the beginning—it loosens. He, well, he didn’t know what he thought. Bucky’d shoved the feeling away the moment he felt it welling up at Steve’s words. Yeah, there are many people in your life who could be your soulmate, many people who you may consider even more important than your soulmate ever could be. Soulmarks can change, people can change, but you only ever really get one soulmate.

And maybe Bucky could’ve been happy knowing he could still be someone important to Steve, but there’s something about knowing there wasn’t even the smallest possibility, knowing he was playing a losing game since before this all started, since before he was fucking born—it hurt. It hurt a lot.

But that’s not the point. He can deal with these hurts later, but Steve—Steve is what matters right now.

“How did you know she was lying?”

“I didn’t,” Steve says simply.

“Oh.”

“You can’t look at someone and just know that they’re telling the truth or not,” Steve continues. And Bucky knows that. He does. But it would’ve made things easier. “There’s no magical metaphysical sense of rightness. But I don’t think you really need that.”

“I gotta admit, you lost me there.”

“There used to be someone I thought was my soulmate. But she wasn’t. And if it couldn’t be her, someone like Lorraine could never be it.” Bucky stifles a flinch. What could he possibly say to that? Steve doesn’t notice his reaction and continues on, “Even if she was, I didn’t want to stick around long enough to figure out why it would be her.”

“Well, I can’t blame you.”

There’s an easing in Steve’s shoulders now. The whole thing was well thought-out, well articulated, well spoken in that even deep voice of his. Just enough to satisfy the curiosity, to stall further questions. It’s enough that Bucky could let it drop here. Like every other time he didn’t pick up on when something was a little bit off with Steve.

But he doesn’t want to.

Bucky turns the prosthetic arm over again, runs the pad of his right thumb on the metal wrist, says, “It’s fucked up what Lorraine did to you.”

Steve straightens up, smiles, going on guard just a little more, and Bucky hates it. He’s already poured his heart and soul out to the other guy, and still he has to watch him put his walls up. Become the Steve who’s too good to be true, knows all the right ways to respond, the right things to do or say. A Steve who’s more Captain America than anything else. At one point in time, Bucky thought that was what he needed. Now, he just wants Steve to let himself be human around him.

“No harm was done, so—”

“Bullshit,” Bucky says. “It’s fucked up. It was wrong. She tried to take advantage of you when she never had the right.”

“She won’t be able to do it again.”

“It was wrong, Steve.”

There’s a sort of lost expression on the other man’s face. “I don’t know what you want from me, Bucky.”

“I just—” Bucky huffs out an exasperated breath, running his hands through his hair. “Aren’t you pissed, Steve? What Lorraine tried to pull on you? Hell, any of this! Being stuck in the future. Not getting to go back home. Losing the woman you loved. Having your soul mark leaked to the goddamn world—”

“Bucky.”

He shuts his mouth.

It’s—God, Bucky just wishes Steve trusted him a little more. That’s the thing that gets to him in the end. Trust can be built, but they’re not there yet. Maybe he shouldn’t have expected them to be there. Maybe it was selfish of him to ever hope he could be someone Steve could rely on. Then again, it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else stepping up to the plate either.

“What would that even be the point?” Steve finally says. “It happened. It happened to me. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”

“That doesn’t mean—” Bucky makes an exasperated noise. “Would you expect that of anyone else? Of me?”

“You know I wouldn’t—”

“Yeah, I do. You stuck around while I had a mental breakdown about my fucking hair. You’re allowed to be messed up about someone taking advantage of their own fucking sister to ambush you with a fake soul mark. If I saw that—” Bucky thinks back to the bone-deep nausea he felt when Lorraine pulled her shirt down, on that first awful day in the Stark Tower lobby, every time he scrolls through his timeline and someone tags @CaptainAmerica with a forgery. “I probably would’ve thrown up. It’s not something you can just shrug off.”

“You know, I couldn’t afford to be affected like that. The situation was too delicate to—”

“We’re not in it anymore, Steve. Lorraine’s gone. Abby’s going to be okay. There’s no one else here but me.”

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know why you’re pushing so hard on this. I’m really fine. Maybe a little shaken up, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“See, I don’t believe you. I don’t think you’re handling any of this. I’m fucking scared for you, Steve. Because I’m starting to think that you haven’t let yourself really feel anything about any of the shit that happened to you. I’m starting to think that one day your world ended and you woke up in a place you barely recognized, and the next, you just stood up and started punching baddies like nothing even happened.” He drags in a breath. “But it did. And it’s not gonna go away just ‘cause you want it to.”

“Bucky, it’s really not—I don’t—”

There’s a loud metallic screech as the railing Steve’s standing next to gives way. Bucky stares at the imprint of fingers Steve leaves as he slowly forces himself to release his grip. His breathing’s still forcibly steady, but he’s gone a little red in the face.

There’s an almost wild look in Steve’s eyes. Something like the expression Bucky imagines a cornered animal would have. His shoulders have gone all hunched, and his hands are curling into fists. It’s enough to force Bucky to take a step back. Reevaluate his approach. He’s pushing too hard. No matter how much he wants it, the trust just isn’t there.

Bucky lets out a sigh. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—sorry. I’m not good at this. Knowing when I shouldn’t push.”

He ducks his head to look down at his hands, how the metallic fingers of his left hand fold in and around his right. And when he looks up again, Steve’s not quite calm. But he’s steadier. And now that he’s been given a little more space, he’s studying Bucky carefully.

“Why is this so important to you?” Steve asks.

Because I’m starting to realize why I’m your soulmate, Bucky doesn’t say. Why I’m here. Why our paths were supposed to intersect at this exact point in time.

Instead, Bucky just says, “It’s important to me because I was you.”

“After the Battle, after I lost my arm, when it felt like I had nothing else I could hold onto but what I’d lost—I was you. I just shut down. I was working with Nat when she was fighting for monetary aid for the victims, and it felt like—that was the only time I felt like I was even alive, like I had any meaning at all in my life.”

“And when I wasn’t in her office, it was just blank. I just locked it all down, didn’t even let myself think about how much of a mess I was. I thought was what recovery was supposed to mean. I thought I was coping, but really, I was just fooling myself. All those ugly emotions build up. And they’ll always come out one way or another. If you’re not giving yourself healthy outlets, it’s just going to explode in your face at the worst possible time.”

“And yeah, I’m still a huge mess. But I’m a mess that actually tries to acknowledge and work through my own emotions like a goddamn semi-functional human being. I freak out and scream and cry my fucking eyes out, let myself be an absolute disaster. And once it’s over, I pick myself up and feel a little bit better. I forgive myself for actually feeling things. I’m not great at it, but y’know, I’m trying.”

“So you’re allowed to say it fucking sucked. You’re allowed to get pissed as hell about it, to grieve for what you lost, to not be ashamed of your honest emotional reactions. You’re allowed to feel things, you idiot.”

And Steve just—stares at him for a long time. There’s the barest tremor in his hand, his eyes have gone kinda wide, and there’s something like a flush in his cheeks. But other than that, it’s impossible for Bucky to read his expression.

He looks down again. Tries to keep from fidgeting, conscious of the smooth stretch of blank space on the prosthetic’s wrist. It’s jarring to have an arm again and not be able to see his own soul mark. It somehow feels like the prosthetic isn’t really his. Like it’s just something he’s borrowing for a while.

Bucky doesn’t know if what he said was the right thing. Maybe he fucked it up. Maybe Bucky isn’t the person who should be saying this. But it needed to be said anyway. As Steve had once so aptly put it in this very stairwell, You need someone here, and unfortunately, I’m all you got right now. We’ll make do.

“I think,” Steve says eventually, “something finally makes sense to me.”

Bucky blinks. “What?”

“Something she—Peggy—said to me. When I told her I thought we might be soulmates.”

“I see,” Bucky says. And that’s never going to not sting.

This time, Steve’s watching him closely. And it’s clear that he sees the flash of hurt in Bucky. The guy is way too fucking perceptive at the worst times. Steve reaches forward and gently grips Bucky’s arms, pulling him a little closer to himself.

“She told me we weren’t right for each other,” he continues. “Said that soulmates were different from what we could be to each other. You can love a person, maybe love them with everything you have, but that doesn’t mean they’re what you need. That’s what soulmates are in the end. The right person at the right time pushing you to the right thing. Maybe it’s not something you want, maybe it hurts, but at the end of it, you find they’ve nudged you on a better path.”

“I didn’t understand what she meant then. It made no sense to me. I crashed into the ice still not knowing what the hell she was trying to get at.” Steve laughs a little, and Bucky still doesn’t know what to make of any of this. There's something weird about it. It's like the guy's almost giddy. “But I get it now. Why it wasn’t her. Why it couldn't be then.”

He shakes his head, still smiling, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Bucky just shrugs helplessly. “I really don’t know—”

“It’s you,” Steve says, gazing down at him, still holding onto him, “isn’t it?”

Bucky goes still.

“It was always supposed to be you.”

And it’s one thing to admit it in the safety of his own head, to maybe resolve to tell the other man. It’s quite another to have Steve spring it onto him seemingly completely out of nowhere.

“You—what?” Bucky says, sputters even. “I don’t have a  soul mark.”

“That's the thing. I don’t know.” He laughs again. Still filled with that strange sense of incredulous disbelief. At himself, at the whole situation. “I don’t, but how could I not?”

“That makes no fucking sense.”

“It doesn’t. When has anything ever made sense? You’re right. Maybe my life is a mess, but you know, I think you’re the first person in this century to tell me to get my head out of my ass.”

“Well, you needed it,” Bucky grumbles, still kinda reeling. “It was stuck pretty far up there.”

“I guess it was. But Bucky, I got it. The right person at the right time pushing you to the right thing. It’s easy to get lost here, y’know? To lose track of what I’m supposed to do or be. I didn’t need a soulmate then like I do now.”

And that's—Bucky lets out a breath, too conscious of the weight of Steve’s hands on him, of the weird infectiousness of Steve's stupid goofy smile, like it all actually makes a lick of goddamn sense. Not like this magically changes much of anything, not like this makes either of them any less fucked up, but, well—

“Yeah, we’re soulmates,” Bucky says.

Steve grins at him.

It's all kinda overwhelming.

"This doesn't—" Bucky blurts out. "It doesn't mean things are just gonna fix themselves. I'm not a cure. I'm just, I guess, the messenger. You still gotta, y'know, deal with this. With all of this. Probably get a fuck ton of therapy. And healthy outlets that don't involve punching things. And—"

"Bucky, I know," Steve says. "I'm not pretending it's not there, and I'm not—I really don't want you to think I'm trying to act like this is all better now. It's like I said. Right person, right time, right path. It makes sense. And," he heaves in a big breath, lets it out, "yeah, I'm not okay. I don't think I've been okay for a long time. I kinda forgot that I could ever be okay, and I don't even know if I can be anymore. I haven't felt human in years, Bucky. But I needed that reminder that I'm allowed to not be okay with any of this. It fucking hurts, and I'd rather suffer moderate bodily injury than think too deeply about this, but even I know it's something I probably need to hear."

His face is screwed up a little, and considering how much the guy seems to bottle everything up, it probably really was like pulling teeth to him. It's kinda surprising he acknowledged this much. But maybe Bucky's policy of baring his soul to Steve got through to him long enough for a little painful honesty.

"Well, I—guess I'm glad you know now. It doesn't get any easier until it does. And it only gets easier because you realize you're happier now than you were."

Steve winces. "That doesn't really make me feel any better about this."

Bucky shrugs helplessly. "I'm not great at this. And I feel like it's worse in the long run if you expect it to not be messy or painful. It's like stitching up an injury. A little bit of pain to make sure things heal right."

"Right, yeah." He nods somewhat jerkily. "I can do that."

"And y'know, I'll stick around," Bucky says. "I'm your soulmate. It's not like I'm dropping all this on your head, dragging it all into the open just so I could leave you to deal with it alone. We'll figure this out."

And some of that earlier happiness, not all of it but enough, returns. Steve smiles again, smaller but sincere. "Yeah, we'll figure it out."

Bucky lets his answering smile tug at his own mouth. They'll find their way eventually, he thinks, hopes, prays.

“And just so you know, I was going to tell you,” he adds. “Had this whole thing in my head about taking my own goddamn advice. But it didn’t feel right with this whole Lorraine disaster. That’s really not something you wanna spring on a guy right after someone thrust a fake in his face.” He rolls his eyes. “And then you just had to beat me to the punch.”

Steve snorts and begins to make his way back up the stairs to the workroom. “I am not going to apologize for that.”

“It was gonna be a big culminating moment of my character development or some shit. I’ve been robbed, Steve.”

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to show off your growth.”

“Robbed, I tell you.”

Bucky follows him up. And because he can, he reaches forward to poke at Steve’s back. Right where he knows his soul mark is. It’s satisfying somehow to watch the way his muscles respond to the touch, the shiver that runs through the other man. And because he’s watching, he sees the way Steve’s back tightens when he reenters the empty workroom.

For a while, Steve stands just past the threshold of the fire door, doing his panicked forced slow breathing thing. That is until Bucky steps forward to stand next to him. He lets their sides brush together a little, still not sure how he’s supposed to be helping Steve navigate through all this, but determined to try anyway.

It takes a moment. Like Steve has to remind himself. But slowly, subtly, he lets himself lean into Bucky’s side. Presses their shoulders together. Close enough that he can feel Steve’s body heat through his shirt. It’s a solid weight. Comforting even as he seems to draw comfort from Bucky.

The only thing Steve says is, “It smells like her perfume in here,” and then leans a little harder into Bucky’s side.

Even if it’s a small thing, even if it’s barely a step, it’s something. A start maybe.

Chapter Text

There are a few things Bucky learns in the months since then.

He can wear his prosthetic in the shower and use both hands to shampoo his hair without worrying about shorting out the wiring.

The second foray into PT is less stressful than the first, but still a pain in the fucking ass. His body has long adjusted to the lack of weight on his left side, and it’s a trial and a half to teach his muscles to accommodate that burden again. He still misjudges the right inputs sometimes, messes basic tasks up. Sometimes, he wishes he could tear the stupid thing off and go back to his life before.

Steve lives alone in a shoe-box apartment in Flatbush, a recent-ish renovation in a prewar building. Bucky can’t tell if it’s because it reminds him somehow of where he used to live, or if that’s only what he can actually afford. SHIELD may pay Captain America well, but price of rent is still ridiculous.

Steve likes the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and Bucky may have to disown him for that.

Steve is at his most honest when it’s four in the morning with his eighth beer in hand. It’s not like the guy can actually get drunk anymore. Super soldier metabolisms and all that. But there’s something psychosomatic about it, Bucky learned at some point. A memory of what it used to feel like, that warm blurry haze, the comfortable feeling of not having to think quite so hard all the time. Bucky doesn’t know what it is that Steve’s remembering when he stares into his bottle. But it gets him talking.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says once.

Bucky’s rolling the neck of his cream soda between his fingers. Because another thing he learned a long while ago is it’s better to be sober for these conversations. “For what?”

“It wasn’t just me. Who had to deal with all that crap. It was your soul mark too.”

“Oh,” Bucky says. “That.”

“Yeah.” Steve takes a sip. “The first time I saw someone with a fake, Tony had already warned me. So I could brace myself. It still—I can’t wrap my head around someone actually doing that. Even now. But I could at least prepare myself before being confronted with it.” Steve is looking at him, his gaze steady. “But you didn’t get any warning. It just, you got ambushed by it.”

“It wasn’t fun. I was a fucking mess right after.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Steve says dryly.

“It’s weird though.” Bucky drags his finger through the ring of condensation left on the table by his soda. “I really couldn’t remember my soul mark very well before that day. Told Nat that I was scared I wouldn’t know it if I ever saw it. It’d been a long ass time, and human memory’s kinda shit. If you asked me to sit down and draw a picture of it, I would’ve gotten it all wrong. I forgot the way the nose sticks out, the way the ear curves in a little, the neck ruff.”

He lifts his hand away, and they both look at the rough mastiff profile he’d sketched out with his finger. “But I still recognized it when I saw it again. Even drawn all shitty with someone’s left hand. When I saw it on you. When it really mattered. I recognized it. And as fucking terrible the whole thing was, it was also a relief. To know that I hadn’t forgotten. Not when it counted.”

Steve nods, letting that sink in. The weird drama of their lives. The good and the bad that came with it.

Eventually, he says, “I thought God was screwing with me. When I crashed. I knew I was gonna die. Watched the ocean rush up to me, listened to Peggy’s voice, looked at her picture, thought only of her in my last moments, and all I could do was wonder how my life could end with her looming so large in it, and yet we still weren’t soulmates.”

“And when I woke up, I was just—angry. That it all had to keep going when I was supposed to be dead, supposed to be at peace. And this time, I was alone. Nearly everyone I had known and fought beside was dead. That I was supposed to keep on going, even though I never wanted this. Then I was really convinced someone somewhere was fucking around with my life just for the hell of it.”

“Do you still want that?” Bucky murmurs. “To be dead?”

“No,” Steve says, then pauses, sighs. “I don’t know. I’m tired. I want to rest. But also, I have more to live for now than I did then. And that matters. It makes me want to keep trying.”

Steve has a therapist now. An ex-pilot working with Veteran Affairs. His name is Sam Wilson. Bucky doesn’t know what they talk about, but every time Steve comes home, he seems to be breathing a little bit easier.

Bucky makes it a point to watch Steve often. It’s very easy to miss that anything’s wrong if you don’t make that sort of thing a habit. Steve’s still not great at asking for help. And Bucky’s still not great at picking up on when something’s wrong. So he can’t help but be a little bit proud when he manages to catch Steve freaking out before he himself even seems to notice it’s happening.

He’s also realizing that people don’t often spend their time Steve-watching. You’d never think you’d have reason to. Not with Captain America.

Steve pours his milk into the bowl before the cereal, the absolute heathen.

Peggy Carter’s grave is in London. She died three years ago.

There are other times when Steve just looks at him. Watching. Maybe puzzling him out. Or like he wants to ask something. He doesn’t get around to saying it aloud, even though Bucky knows he one day will.

Why didn’t you say anything? goes unasked.

And the only answer he can offer is, Because I was afraid. I was afraid that you’d never believe me.

And maybe that’s why Steve never asked.

Maybe he already knows why.

Now that they’ve started to dig themselves into each other’s lives, their conversations vary wildly.

Sometimes, it’s something like Bucky staring at the ceiling at fuck o’clock in the morning, saying shit like, “It’s quantum physics or something. I’m pretty sure some scientist dude won the Nobel Prize for it. Why we only get one soulmate, even though soul marks change. Something about the universe and quantum superposition, and some other bullshit. You ever heard of Schrödinger's cat? I’m pretty sure he came up with it in like the thirties.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of the cat. No, I wasn’t really up to date on cutting-edge Austrian thought exercises on quantum mechanics while I was a teenager in the Depression.”

“Touche. But okay, see, there was this theory that like atoms and protons could exist in multiple states at once, but just observing it would alter their state and make them become one or the other. So as long as the box is closed, the cat is both alive and dead, existing suspended between both states, but it becomes either alive or dead the moment you open the box to take a look. That’s soulmates. When you haven’t met your soulmate yet, the probabilities shift around so it could be anyone and no one. But the moment you meet them and know, you’ve opened the box, and they’re it. The cat’s alive. I think they got the proof for light protons being both particles and waves simultaneously a couple years back, so someone somewhere right now is probably doing their PhD on getting the soulmate proofs. I read a Wikipedia article, I totally know my shit.”

“I’m starting to doubt your credentials.”

And sometimes, their conversations are more like:

“—just saying, do you know how Howard Stark got it?”

“No, he only got a small amount of ore. He thought it was all the vibranium there was.”

“And he used up all of it turn it into a metal frisbee?”

“It’s a useful metal frisbee.”

“Were you not reading the pamphlets. Wakanda published pamphlets after they went public—”

“No, I haven’t had time to read th—”

“—did you know the Wakandans turned it into a sustainable energy source. They literally solved global climate change, and you got a dinner plate—”

“Global climate change wasn’t exactly a problem in the forties.”

“Yeah, but colonialist dickwad robbery totally was. C’mon, dude, there’s no way Daddy Stark—”

“Please never say that to me ever again.”

“—Stark Senior, fine—no fucking way he got his hands on that ore legitimately. Plus, the Wakandans call it isipho, and really, I feel like at the very least we could respect that moniker, considering how deeply significant the resource is to their culture…”

“I will ask if they would like the shield back.”

“It’s really the polite thing to do, considering it was never really—”

“Bucky.”

“Fine, thank you for doing the right thing. I’ll shut up now.”

“I love you.”

Steve has this one song he hums a lot. He does it while he’s ironing his shirts or when he’s bending over the stove to peer into a bubbling stock pot. Sometimes he mumbles the lyrics. Sometimes it’s loud enough for Bucky to catch bits and pieces here and there. It’s been a long, long time, and never thought, and words can wait till some other day.

The music buzzes in the back of Bucky’s head as Steve idly turns the prosthetic over with careful hands, drawing his fingertips over the dips and contours. His eyebrows draw down a little as he concentrates.

Sometimes Steve springs things onto Bucky. Like how the last of his comrades still alive from the war didn’t recognize him when he visited. Or the fact that it bothers him that some people make a living out of speculating about the minutia of his life. And Bucky listens. Sometimes he doesn’t know what to say. Sometimes he does.

Bucky thinks it helps Steve at least a little bit that he always listens.

He didn’t realize just how much he missed wrapping both arms around someone and really squeezing until he hugs Steve again.

The first time Bucky sees Steve’s soul mark in the flesh is on a Wednesday. It’s late in the summer and humid enough that they’re dripping sweat despite how overcast it is. There was a surprise storm in the afternoon, catching pretty much everyone off guard. Bucky ends up running home from the station, soaked down to the bone by the time he reaches the door. All he can fucking think about is the wetness squishing in his boots. So he plunks himself on the welcome mat the moment he gets inside to yank them off and dump the water out. When he looks up, he stops short.

Steve’s sitting at the dining table, wringing the damp out of his socks. He hasn’t changed pants yet. They still cling to his legs. There’s water dripping down the side of his chair. His shirt is spread out on the coffee table to dry, the white fabric still translucent. And all Bucky can do is look at the wide expanse of Steve’s back. His mastiff is there.

Bucky abandons his soggy shoes by the door, walks over, and reaches out to press his palm against the soul mark. He can feel how Steve shifts with his steady breathing, the warmth of him under his hand.

“You should get these in the dryer,” he says.

Steve looks up at him, a little hint of a smile curling the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.”

The sun is starting to get low in the sky, casting the apartment in shadow. At some point, Steve gets up and wanders away, and Bucky collects his cast-off clothes to put in the dryer. He strips off his own shirt and pants to add to the load. He comes back to the living room to look out the window at the water streaming down the glass. The rumble of the machine is just loud enough to drown out the sound of pattering rain.

It’s not much longer after that Steve joins him, grabbing ahold of Bucky’s left wrist, tugging it closer to himself. Bucky goes easily, letting Steve maneuver him where he wants. They end up toe-to-toe, too close, their noses a bare few inches from each other.

“What?” Bucky says.

“Nothing.”

Steve’s still got Bucky’s arm in his hands, idly rubbing his thumb in small circles at the base of his palm. There’s a part of Bucky that still thrills at the fact that he can feel it, the heat of the other man’s skin, the soothing pressure. He can’t feel the texture of Steve’s hands, can’t really pick up on where it’s callused and where it’s smooth. But it’s more than he ever thought he’d get.

And then, Steve lets go with his right hand, still holding onto Bucky with his left, reaches down into his pocket and produces a Sharpie. He tilts Bucky’s wrist towards himself, sticks the pen into his mouth, and takes the cap off with his teeth. Then he brings Bucky’s arm close to himself and starts to scribble on the underside of his wrist.

Bucky just watches him. He’s so close, he can only really see the top of Steve’s head as he leans over to look at what he’s doing. He can’t even see what Steve’s doing, his nose is practically to Bucky’s wrist. But then again, he doesn’t really need to see to know.

Eventually, Steve straightens up and takes a step back, giving Bucky enough room to look at his handiwork. The pen nib was too fat to get all the fine details quite right, but it’s unmistakable. There on Bucky’s left wrist, right where it should be, as if it had never truly left—is his mastiff.

A part of Bucky that had felt unsettled, that had never quite accepted the prosthetic arm as his own, it eases. To see his soul mark there, just above where Steve is interlocking their fingers together.

It’s something gone right in his life. Like every moment of doubt and pain he felt before this moment is fading away, even if only for a little while. Like he doesn’t have to worry so much anymore. Like he can reach back into the past, to a younger him, the one who woke up alone and in pain in a strange hospital at the end of the world, and tell him that it’s going to get better. It’s going to turn out alright.

And Bucky feels something a lot like peace.