The LGBT+ Avengers Stucky Fanfiction

It's Okay

 They were watching television. Bucky, sitting on Steve's right on the couch, never moved his new prosthetic hand once during an hour of watching tv. Though he really likes it, and it's definitely a lot better than the old one he had, he misses having an actual arm there. He misses feeling things on his arm: feeling Steve's warmth as Bucky's arm was around his waist, feeling soft grass, or wet mud, or even dog poop. He just wanted to feel something. So, while they were watching tv, he let it sit still by his side, trying not to let it touch Steve too much, because he just couldn't feel anything. He despised the lack of feeling.

Steve noticed that Bucky wasn't moving his prosthetic. He noticed that whenever Bucky noticed it was touching Steve, he'd change position so that it wouldn't. But Steve loved Bucky. He cared about him. He wanted Bucky to know that it was okay that he had a metal arm, that they could still be normal with it. He paused the tv. Bucky looked over at him questioningly. Steve reached his hand towards the line where skin becomes metal.

"May I?" Steve asked before he made contact with it. Bucky nodded slowly, but his metal hand balled into a fist while he did that. Steve touched the line where the metal began, tracing his finger along it, then going down and tracing his fingers down the shiny silver colored plates running down the metal arm. Feeling each ridge and bump individually, Steve made his way down Bucky's arm until he saw at the edge of Bucky's closed fist. Steve picked up Bucky's hand.

Bucky watched, dead-eyed, as Steve opened the rigid joints of Bucky's metal hand with his warm flesh ones. He brings Bucky's hand up and kisses the tip of Bucky's pinky finger. Then he kisses the tips of all the other fingers in order, including the thumb.

"Can you feel that?" Steve asked, still holding Bucky's hand near his face.

"No." Bucky said, so flatly, dispassionately, dead of all emotion that Steve almost let go of his hand and gave up. But then Bucky added: "That doesn't mean you should stop." and so Steve went back across Bucky's fingertips in the other direction. Next he closed Bucky's fingers gently around his and kissed each of Bucky's knuckles, before wrapping his hand around Bucky's and placing them, clasped, onto the couch and turning the tv back on. They held hands the rest of the night.

* * *

"Hey, Tony?" Steve asked the next morning after he and Bucky had finished breakfast.

"What is it, Rogers, you woke me up." Tony complained. It was ten fifteen in the morning.

"I was wondering if it was okay to paint the metal arm?" Steve asked,

"Oh, yeah, that should be fine. Is that what you woke me up for?" Tony asked.

"Maybe?" Steve said apologetically. Tony hung up. Steve walked back into The small living room area where Bucky sat on the couch reading a book, looking completely natural with his metal arm. Natural and beautiful. "Hey, Bucky?" Steve said. Bucky looked up from his book cheerfully.

"Yeah, Steve?" He asked,

"Well, I had an idea." he stated, making Bucky's eyebrows raise ever so slightly, "I was wondering if you maybe would like it if I painted something on your new prosthetic." Bucky smiled.

"You know I'd love that, Steve. What did you have in mind?" Bucky asked, closing his book on its bookmark and putting it down.

"Well, I probably want to go with something small yet bold. Like a single symbol. A heart would probably look a bit silly, but what about a star?" he asked, brainstorming out loud. Bucky smiled a toothy grin.

"A star sounds great, Steve. How about red?" Bucky asked. Steve pulled out a paintbrush and some red paint and got to work.