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[bottledblond]

Not every universe in the far and wide cosmos is as lucky (however unlucky itself that seems) to encounter Thanos during a time where people live who can do something about it. Steve Rogers, a particular version of Steve Rogers who had only just suffered through his first night of basic training in New Jersey as part of the Army’s Project Rebirth and thus had not yet become Captain America, bent to untie his shoes and saw his hands begin to disintegrate. He doesn’t panic, panicking is for people who do not live like every breath is their last. Instead, he blinks in surprise as the barracks fill with shouting. He has time to contemplate two things. One, he wishes he’d done more with his life. And two, he hopes Bucky will do all right.

He’s still thinking about that last issue when he exhales his last in a universe where Captain America never existed and finishes it bent over in the ruins of the barracks, roof half open to the sky and walls a burnt and ashy gray.

It takes him an hour to get to the road and by then, his asthma is already getting the best of him. He blacks out for the second time ‘that day’ and wakes up staring at the ceiling of what is obviously a hospital.

It just doesn’t sound or smell like a hospital. Sure. People are running around and yelling, but it smells painfully clean, artificially so, and there are machines he’s never seen before connected by wires to his body. He does the thing people should never do and yanks them loose. The machines squawk strangely and frantically and Steve is almost out of bed when two large men in green pajamas force him back.

Nothing makes sense to him for days. People come to talk to him, to find out who he is and who his family is. Evidently Steve Rogers is a popular name, because they bring in more people to talk to him, to ask him questions about his life, but no one has any answers.

He explodes, as he’s wont to do when frustrated, demands answers, but nothing they say makes sense.

By then, the war is over. Not World War II, which has evidently been over for over half a century, but this new war. And Bucky Barnes had been told of his presence. Steve is in bed, arms crossed, looking dour and getting an infusion of something that honestly is helping him breathe better when Bucky bursts into his now private room. It’s been two months

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[bottledblond]

He can’t keep up. He can’t compete. Bucky will bend over backwards to protect him. This isn’t a good thing to agree to.

And yet, he’s going to agree to it because he can’t sit at home and wait. Steve sighs and gets off of the couch to pick up a tank top from the discard pile.

“Guess I’ll be needing this then.”

[woundedwinter]

Bucky will sacrifice everything to keep Steve safe. That's how he lived most of his life before the war.

"Hey, if you wanna learn I can teach you." The rich food of this time will help fill Steve out in ways that they never could quite manage in the past.

"You tell me what you want to do and we can make it happen."

[bottledblond]

“Maybe... teach me how to break out of someone’s hood?” That’s not boxing but it’s something he needs to learn most. Luckily, defensive classes have become a thing on trend of late and Bucky already knows hundreds of way to hurt and disable when at a disadvantage.

Steve will approach all of this as carefully as always. He’d never been a powerhouse but as long as his lungs held out, he’d been able to retain everything Bucky had shown him.

They’ve had a long day but Steve is ready to go now.

“Get up,” he says, mouthy and demanding. “No time like the present.”

[woundedwinter]

And when Steve is at his most determined he's never been able to refuse him. So Bucky tells Sam they'll talk later and hangs up before he resigns himself to a long night.

"Okay. You wanna learn I'll teach you, but you know I'm not gonna make it easy."

He's a liar and he knows it. There's no way Steve can contend with his weight or ability or his strength, but he won't be easy on Steve for the sake of being easy.

So he's going to wind up on the floor a lot, but Bucky will teach him every dirty trick he's ever learned to stay in the fight.

[bottledblond]

Steve is very glad he’d taken some pain medication before they’d eaten. Bucky has something labeled rapid release that does kick in within minutes. It’s amazing. Even with being dropped on his back a few times, Steve isn’t in agony.

Out of breath and sweaty? Sure. But he’s not about to pass out.

The younger man gets to his feet for the fifth time. The guy doesn’t know when to quit, which is why to protect him, Bucky is going to have to learn to say no eventually.

“I almost got that last one.” He’s gotten a hang of breaking out of a grip by going against the thumb but being pulled by his elbow is still elusive. “Show me again.”

[woundedwinter]

Sure he can teach Steve, but it also shifts his awareness into a not quite good place and he steps back at his insistence.

"Tomorrow morning we can try again. I.. I need a break." Not really but he needs time to get away from the mindset of trying to disable or harm a target.

"Just until tomorrow, okay?"

[bottledblond]

Steve is pretty sure that Bucky is just trying to take it easy on him. He’s about to protest, hands on his hips, when he gazes up at his friend. There’s a darkness there, a fear of that darkness, and a mental stretch towards exhaustion.

He leans forward, taking a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I need that break too,” Steve says with his hair flattened against his forehead. He tries to stretch but winces openly before he drops onto the couch.

“Hey— I wanted to ask about your arm.... I saw you crush metal. How can you go from that to making sure you don’t snap my bones? It’s amazing.”

[woundedwinter]

He can't help his fond smile as Steve drops towards the couch. It doesn't matter what they're doing, Steve can always help him unwind with only a look or a sound.

"It's more the serum than the arm," he answers after a beat. "My arm is made of the strongest metal on the planet thanks to Shuri but a lot of it is what they pumped me with in Azzano during the war."

[bottledblond]

Sitting up a little so he’s not taking over the whole couch, Steve waits for Bucky to get the hint and sit before he props his feet up on the other man’s lap. The act is meant to be more humorous than anything, like a cat laying claim to a piece of paper.

“So you can do it with the other hand too?” He’s amazed at Bucky’s control. At least, talking about doesn’t make him instantly hard. Thank Gos.

[woundedwinter]

He can still take a hint when it's important, sitting down and curling his fingers around Steve's ankle when they sit together.

"It's easier with the left hand, I can do it without taking any damage," he answers after a moment. "I can do it with the other hand but I can risk screwing it up in the process."

[bottledblond]

“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” he asks, obviously looking for something crazy, like a garbage truck or a a set of hand weights.

It might not be the best sort of question to ask a traumatized man, but Steve can’t help himself. He’s just so curious. And maybe he wants to keep the conversation going.

Bucky’s hand on his ankle is comforting.

[woundedwinter]

Steve isn't looking for anything terrible from his past and with his hand curled around warm skin, Bucky tries to keep his thoughts from straying too far into darkness.

"Crazy huh? I mean I've punched my way through a car, fallen out of a plane after someone and spent a few months in Africa with a little herd of goats so you're gonna have to be more specific than that," he offers with a faint grin.

[bottledblond]

“I missed so much,” Steve says. “So much of your life is a mystery to me and I— This is the second time you’ve told me that you had a bunch of goats, so how about you tell me about them?”

What Steve really wants to hear about is tales of strength and brute force, he wants the adrenaline to have somewhere to go as it careens around his body.

Any story about Bucky is worth it though.

[woundedwinter]

"Heh," Bucky could get his phone and show Steve pictures but he'd much rather stay right where he is at the moment. So he tells Steve about the border tribe in Wakanda, how they opened their arms for him and gave him a sense of peace and a sense of purpose.

He talks about training. About some of the lighter missions with the Avengers. Shark men and robots. Nothing that would have him startling awake later.

A hundred years is a long damn time to live and not all of it was choked in horror and death.

[bottledblond]

Over the course of the adventure tales, Steve crept a little closer, knees bending for awhile until he had to cross them like a school kid to get as close to Bucky as he wanted. His shins touched the other man’s thigh, though, and for a moment, he was transported back to their childhood where Bucky would read him fantastic stories out of penny and dime novels because his eyes couldn't take the strain after dark.

“And then what happened after Stark drank the Asgardian ale?” he prompts, yawning and still excited. The clock tells the time as just after two in the morning.

[woundedwinter]

It feels familiar, telling stories in the dark as Steve listens and asks questions along the way. The stories are fun to tell and serve to remind them both that not all of his life has been horror and torture.

He laughs, "He took off to his workshop for three straight days and built some pretty incredible and terrifying stuff. Thor was impressed. He came out after an explosion and his shirt had been dyed pink."

"I don't think I'd ever seen Bruce laugh so hard."

[bottledblond]

Ah. Bruce Banner. The guy that got mad and turned to a big green creature called the Hulk whom had loved the rich, eccentric inventor until he died while they all saved the world.

He’s seen photos of the pair, heard their stories, and is pretty sad that he’ll never get to meet one of them.

Steve doesn’t say anything that might make the moment sad, though he’s thinking about what he might do if the person he loved died on him. He does let his smile cool, but it’s a soft transition back to his resting face.

“I hope I get to have stories like these with you one day,” he says, eyes big and bright despite the hour. He knows that he’s speaking innocuously but he can’t help but wonder what it might be like if he and Bucky were like Tony and Bruce.

[woundedwinter]

His heart had ached for Bruce when Stark fell, sacrificing his life to save them all. They lost so much in the fight, but he'd been able to make his peace with the man before he died. So that was something.

A fond smile, "We got the rest of our lives for stories like that, you'll see."

He blinks, looking outside. When the hell did it get so late? "But we should probably turn in, it's late."

[bottledblond]

“Is tonight a bed night or a floor night?” They’re going to have to talk about actual sleeping arrangements soon. It’s obvious that Bucky considers them a package deal but this place is so Spartan and so cold and so filled with things that Steve doesn’t understand that he feels like an outsider here.

Bucky will likely want his own place, or Steve will start to get on his nerves before too long but he’s got no idea where to even start to look for a place.

And when he does, he’s probably going to be able to afford only a few newspapers in an alley somewhere.

[woundedwinter]

He rubs the back of his neck. "Bed should be okay. If I need to move, I'll sneak out later."

Maybe with Steve getting settled he can help make the place feel more like a home. He's already buying more food and ordering clothes, next they can try and focus on things to make his apartment nicer. Welcoming.

"I'll make flapjacks in the morning too."

[bottledblond]

“I’m not sure if that’s a threat,” Steve says, yawning behind his hand as he unfolds his legs to hobble off towards the bathroom. The pain killers are wearing off and his whole body is annoyed by the fact that he’d overdone it for the day. No matter, a little sleep should help.

He gets himself ready for bed, wearing one of the plain tees that Bucky had bought for him. He looks great in blue but the dark purple brings out the color of his eyes even more, though he only flashes his now blurry gaze at Bucky briefly as he heads across the hall to the bedroom.

Steve claims his side of the bed, light out, as he listens to Bucky get himself ready. The depression of the mattress beside him causes Steve to smile into his upper arm.

He’s allowed his fantasies, he thinks, though having them with the image of Bucky in the shower ends up being more of a curse than a blessing.

[woundedwinter]

Dark purple is amazing on Steve and he'll have to introduce him to Barton at some point. Bucky cleans up quickly and crawls into bed with Steve. He wishes he could gather him close, hold him in his arms to ward off the nightmares.

But that's probably asking too much of Steve.

He closes his eyes and breathes out.

"G'night Stevie."

[bottledblond]

Bucky would be surprised, though they both would have that honor if either one dared make a move.

As usual, Steve shimmies back towards Bucky in his sleep and while it’s certainly not as good as being held, the feel of the other’s arm against his back is a solid and stabilizing presence that keeps Steve asleep long past morning.

Wherever Bucky ends up being in the morning, his phone will go off nice and early.

It’s Sam again.

“Woo and Doctor Lewis said that this group has hit up at least two more artifact sights. They’re all super soldiers, Buck. All of them. We’re clocking at least ten.”

[woundedwinter]

With Steve close and having spent the evening talking about better days, he sleeps until almost dawn, blinking in surprise when he looks at his watch.

Huh.

Breakfast is cooking and coffee brewing when he gets the call.

"Ten supersoldiers. How in the hell are there ten when for eighty years there were only two?"

He swears under his breath, fixing coffee for them both.

[bottledblond]

“That’s what I want to know,” Sam says, frowning hard into the phone. “There were those five test subjects in Siberia, right? But it failed. It failed so who figured out the right mix of chemicals and heavy machinery?”

Sam doesn’t really doubt that it isn’t possible for someone else to figure it out but it does seem pretty unlikely without all of the proceeding research.

“Do you think HYDRA is still up to their old games?”