( closed ) | nothing but trouble

[abide]

Who: bucky (dislocked) & steve (abide)
When: 08/08, late morning
Where: training sim room / hallways
What: just a general check-in since there are some Bad Men on board
Warnings: to be updated.

[ He hasn't been a good friend.

It's really the only thing Steve can think as he wanders the length of the ship, idly searching for the one person he wants to see now. More than anything, it's about his safety, about the potential risk that may come of news that Alexander Pierce is currently a member of the crew of the Moira, and Steve can't even fathom something like that right now. Not with the way things had panned out a little over a year ago, and it's not as if they've taken the time to discuss what it is Bucky's been doing since then. (Time is a strange commodity like that.) And Steve faults himself for not bringing it up sooner, for not pushing the threshold of their friendship and testing the limits of what is allowed and what needs to be worked on. All he knows is that Bucky has probably been struggling just as much, and why would he have said anything to him about it? What real trust has Steve garnered to earn it? Why can't he stop blaming himself for things that will always be and never unravel to anything better?

He carries it like a heavy stone in his heart even as he finally approaches the training simulation room, familiar with the layout of this particular area of the ship, and having been unable to find his friend anywhere else, he figures he has to be here. It's occupied, of course, and by the time the doors open, he's waited a solid fifteen minutes with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and lost in several scenarios of how this might work itself out. There are too many thoughts to piece through in such a short amount of time, but he sees Bucky and smiles, an old habit that doesn't quite reach his eyes these days. Still, his expression is incredibly soft, worried and full of a thousand other emotions—some that have no name. Steve slips his hands into the pockets of his uniform pants, rocking forward just a little as if this is something they make a habit of. (He could only be so lucky if they ever got to this point now.) ]

Hey. [ And he steps closer as if to subtly urge him back inside despite the fact Bucky's just leaving the sim room. ] I thought we could talk. If you're free. [ He doesn't want him to think he doesn't have a choice, so he stops a few inches short of the door and just looks at him. ]

Comments

[dislocked]

[ Bucky doesn't hold anything against Steve; not for his fall, not for everything else that has come after that, and not for anything else after that. None of it is his fault -- Steve, for one, has been actively working to help people ever since he'd set foot on this ship because that's the kind of person that he is. Bucky knows this; it's one of the perks that come when one is more predisposed to listen and observe than to talk.

Steve runs himself to the ground sometimes, and Bucky's always wondered -- with all the people that he helps, who helps him? The others are too wrapped up in themselves to see that Steve's suffering, too, and how his smile has never quite reached his eyes. Bucky remembers what it looks like, the line of his laughter and the brightness of his eyes; even through the sepia-toned video loop at the Smithsonian.

Oh, how he had watched it over and over; how he hasn't found it in Steve since.

Bucky knows he's not much help to Steve either, not in the state that he's in, broken and unmade and struggling to build himself up again, working hard to become a person. It's a long, agonising process, an isolating and lonely one that has as many setbacks as it has minor victories, but Bucky can never ask from Steve what others have long asked from him, not when he can see that he's struggling to stay afloat, too.

How does he even begin to ask for help? Where can he possibly start? Isolation and loneliness are not new to him -- and it's tempting to stay there; old habits tend to die hard, no matter how bad they are for a person. ]

Hey.

[ Bucky's brows are raised when he sees Steve outside of the door. Ever since Pierce's presence on the ship, Bucky's been devoting more and more hours to the training room, sharpening his skills and learning new ones, absorbing everything that he can in a bid to protect himself -- to make sure what happened before doesn't happen again. His last encounter with Pierce weighs heavily in his mind, and Bucky's aware that it's not his physical skills that needs polishing, it's everything else.

He catches the look in Steve's eyes, the worry, guilt and the thousand other emotions that's written all over his face -- does Steve know that he wears his heart on his sleeve for all the world to see? Do the others? He steps back towards the room, understanding that their talk needs as few prying ears as possible. ]

What's wrong?

[abide]

[ It might not be the safest place to talk, but at least, with the door shut and the room occupied, they would have some privacy. Steve doesn't know when the last time they'd actually spoken really was—if ever. Of course, there are always those subtle nuances exchanged between them, the careful overtures of two people still healing and trying to learn to be with each other again after being separated for so long, but it's not as if he's ever been completely open with him. Bucky hasn't, and Steve hasn't. He misses those nights they used to lie side-by-side - in a bed too narrow for even as thin as he'd been or on the cold European ground - and whisper together, sharing secrets and fears and things only a fella would be comfortable enough telling his best friend. Now, all they have are these stilted meetings and the shared memories of nightmares and bruises.

Steve only manages to relax once they're inside the training room, tucked away as privately as they can be, but it's not by much. He looks Bucky over as casually as he can too, noting that nothing really seems physically out of the ordinary. That, too, offers some relief. He doesn't want to pretend everything is fine when he knows it might not be, and he almost feels as if he's standing back on that bridge without a clue. If he gets to the point, maybe it wouldn't be so bad in the long run. ]

I know you've probably seen it by now. [ That name on the directory. Why bother assuming anything else? And Steve crosses his arms, feeling somewhat uncomfortable and unsure. ] Has Pierce tried to contact you?

[ It feels like one of the worst things he could ever say to him. ]

[dislocked]

I went to him.

[ Bucky doesn't lie. Why would he, when Steve is just about the most important person to him? They might not have told each other everything, but they're still learning how to be with each other again; how they fit together now that everything's changed.

They've made progress, and every ground they've reclaimed is hard-won; every inch they've lost is bittersweet. He's expected this question, because Steve has always had a habit of cutting right to the chase when it comes to things that matter. Decades on, and Bucky still knows him better than anyone else here; this man who bleeds quietly on the inside and tends privately to his own pain, helping the others who broadcast theirs so openly.

He grimaces at those words, realising how it sounds hanging in the air between them. He looks away, quietly conflicted. ] He would have come to me eventually. I wanted this to be on my terms.

[ He had made a choice, acted on it; for better or worse, he doesn't know. But he's observing Steve closely for a reaction -- how would he take it? Would he understand why? ]

[abide]

[ He doesn't know what to feel.

Four small words, and everything is instantly numb, an outcome he had only briefly entertained before moving on to something he would have preferred Bucky to do that hadn't been that. His own terms. Of course. Steve would never deny him the freedom of choice, not after everything that's been done to him, but it's still a difficult truth to swallow when he had hoped-- what? That Bucky would not have been curious? That he would have continued to follow Steve so blindly without questioning the times he'd been awake and ordered and used? He had read those files on the Winter Soldier. He had found more and learned so much he wishes he could forget for the sake of moving on, but that is not how acceptance works. It's not how fate deems itself kind, and Steve shifts back a step, making an effort to gauge and understand.

Bucky is watching him, and even if the hurt is deep, it only reflects in that quiet look Steve gives him before dropping his eyes somewhere else on his person. His shoulder, his arm. The metal of his fingers. ] And? [ The word is soft, betraying his curiosity and the ache in his chest. All he wants is to know, and then, only then, can he fight for him like nothing else could ever be as important. ]

[dislocked]

[ Steve looks like Bucky had just reached in and ripped his heart out of his chest. The heartache and hurt in his eyes (so blue, so damn blue) shines so clearly before he's looking away, and Bucky can't help his own reaction, viscerally protective laced with a lurch of dread -- he's done something wrong.

But this is not HYDRA, where failure comes at an excruciating price. This is his best friend, the one person who matters more than anyone else. What does he say to that? What can he say?

His jaw sets, clenches, and he refuses to look away from him. ] I was never HYDRA's. You know that, right?

[ That thing that he was forced into was, the overrides -- when he wasn't in the driver's seat. He was there, he'd done all the things, but where it really counted he'd fought back. He would lose, every time; until the one time he didn't, and Steve had everything to do with it. He's silent for a long moment, staring down at his metal hand. Bucky swallows hard, wonders if he should tell him; it would be so easy to leave it as that -- but then Steve won't be able to understand. Bucky knows he's trying. Oh, he's trying, and Bucky is tired of being alone with all his demons. ]

He was better than the others. Just slightly.

[abide]

[ It still doesn't explain anything, but he takes it for what it is and leaves it to be pulled apart at another time. He can't do that now, can't afford the luxury of it, and Steve drags his gaze up just long enough to catch Bucky's eyes before the weight in his chest collapses in on itself and affords him a sigh. A quiet little breath that barely fills the gaps between them and inside them, something Steve is desperate to erase now. Reach out and grasp for him, stretch out a bit farther and bring him back to the safety he'd been unable to pull him to hanging over all that empty space, and there's a hard set to his mouth, hating this. He hates it so much, and he can't fix it. He can't save him or repay him or ask those things that keep him so vividly awake at night.

How could he ask Bucky to forgive him when he would never offer himself the same vindication? How could he think Bucky might ever be anything close to his ever again? ]

Just slightly won't make a difference when he tries to do the same things here that he's done back home. [ Only a slight pause, and the floodgate is bowing. ] He's not a good man, Buck, and even with the ship's protocols, I doubt it'd really mean anything to him. I'm-- [ And that's where his tongue fails him, dividing the space between them enough to step close and rest his hand on his right shoulder. Steve's fingers curl and grip firmly. ]

I care about whatever it is you might want, but I'm worried. [ It's a quiet admission, the softest he's spoken in quite some time. ]

[dislocked]

I know.

[ He knows -- how can he not? Bucky had almost helped to condemn the enslave the world to HYDRA's narrow ideals, and Pierce had been the architect of it all. But it haunts him, the way HYDRA's poison runs deep, Pierce's rhetoric echoing in his memories. Pretty lies that were a means to an end, and in the grand scheme of things he was only property. The ghost, the asset, the weapon, all of it with a common thread: that what he had been to them was a thing.

Pierce had once treated him just a touch better; his sins were no less forgivable than the others, and yet a traitorous part of his mind lingers on how the man had employed rhetoric rather than brute force -- and how Bucky had kept pushing boundaries even when he was forced to comply. There is too much that crowds in his mind, but it is Steve's voice that provides clarity and calls him back, the open concern and worry that shines bright; and he imagines there's no other way Steve Rogers can be.

There is nothing to forgive, with Steve -- Bucky's only sorry that they can never go back to what they were before. The only way is forward, and even in that there were no promises. He pauses when Steve's hand, warm and deliberate, rests on his shoulder for the very first time.

Up until now, the man had refrained from encroaching in his personal space. Even when they had slept in the same back in the resort hotel, they hadn't so much as touched -- Bucky's last contact with him had been in the cryotubes, and he doubts Steve remembers; the man had been so out of it. He swallows, this is more than Steve has never confided in him, this is probably the very first time they have genuinely talked instead of skirting around issues like they've always had. The warmth of his hand is stirring, surprising -- he doesn't remember that Steve's hands had been nearly this big. ]

Are you worried I'd go back to HYDRA?