a/n: i'm back, and i hope you don't mind it. i hope you like the rest of the story as well
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steve sat at the wooden table in the center of bucky's kitchen, looking up at the man he loved. bucky was at the stove, cooking eggs in a copper pan, flipping them like he did when he and steve lived in brooklyn. pepper and everything, he did it with his orange slang. he hadn't been in brooklyn since the forties, but remembered it all like yesterday. he remembered it now, there wasn't anything to have to remember.
"scrambled." steve stated, bucky's steel turned to him, as if her were joking.
"i remember don't worry, i remember punk." he said, as if the pain wasn't there. as if it were like it was. as if the pink was the only color in the color spectrum; which lasted infinity. steve looked at him with pure pride, in awe and smilies. he did all he could to stay sat down, but eventually stood up.
"i love you jerk." he replied. bucky smiled as he turned off the stove, sliding the eggs onto the plates in front of him. he might've only had one bowl, but he had two plates. bucky knew enough to have two.
"what are we going to do?" steve asked. bucky shrugged and ate, he took a bite of his eggs, and smiled bigger than he had. steve was happy he was in a pink mood. it was almost as if he didn't wake up in the middle of the night screaming the night before at all. as if the soviet union didn't reside in his head for three hours. making the two unable to sleep fully; just as it usually hit them.
"i don't know, we milked the cows." bucky stated, steve nodded and ate his eggs. bucky ate fast, faster than usual, but steve understood why. he was trapped in another place for a month, with no food and four people he'd never met before. besides peter of course, who he'd fought in germany the other last time he saw him. so red and blue, and only those colors. very to the point, and very blatant. the webs weren't just his power, they were him. he caught himself, and strung himself together. it was in him, bucky noticed it all. symbolism always applied to everyone.
"it's weird seeing you with one arm." steve said, bucky chuckled, and looked to the air where he remembered both the regular, and metal arm being there. how light it felt, how there wasn't any feather there, just air. cold blue and white air that was there anyway. how odd it was. how he liked it so much.
"i like it better, i hated that thing." he stated, steve looked at him in an odd completion. pink, purple, green. his ocean eyes turned, trying to understand. it had saved both of them recently, and they always had standbys for bucky when he needed it.
"why?" steve asked. bucky sighed, using his right arm to hold the stump, caressing it, feeling the emptiness and letting it calm him down, even if steve was right in front of him.
"it killed... so many people. would you want your shield if you knew you used it to murder people on others' command. just for greed. not to save anyone, just for the psychotic minds of evil doers that torchered you. would you want your pain connected to your body to look at and use every day? would you steve?" bucky asked. steve looked at bucky in shock, the older of the two started to breath evenly, calming himself down. he pushed his hair out of his face, reaching his hand across the table to grab steve's in forgiveness.
"sorry i-" "no, i get it now." steve said, he was staring at the stump. it was bare, since bucky was wearing a tank top. he could see small bits of metal that bucky had been picking out for the past few days. but what he paid attention to were the faint starts of red lines, that were much faded. slits and hit like cuts. bucky looked down, realizing where steve had been looking, then looked back up at him with navy in his steel eyes.
"buck, don't tell me th-" "please. please don't talk about it." he stated, steve nodded and stood up, going to the other side of the table to bucky, hugging him and kissing his head softly. his lips clouds to the sky. a pillow to the bed.
"it's okay." steve mumbled. bucky looked up at him, in hope and fear. in sorrow and loss. as if they'd just taken over him again, but of course they didn't. they never would again. there were scars all over bucky's body. some barely there, others would never disappear, even after he was dead; they'd still be there. there to trace and see how many there were. he had lost count in 'training', mostly because they brainwashed him and he practically became an animal on their command. the crimson lions, it all rushed in and out on a blood filled stream. pain. steve leaned down and kissed him, holding him tighter.
there was banging on the door.
"hold on? alright?" steve stated, bucky nodded silently; he never talked when the lions came back for him. when it was cold and the black and blue was about to suffocate him.
steve opened the door, and tony stark walked straight in with no explanation, with a kid over his shoulder. he threw the child onto the couch, steve didn't even realize who'd walked in until bucky was up and standing over the limp body. there was a wound in the kid's stomach, he quickly threw off his tank top in instinct, quickly pushing in onto the gushing blood coming out of the boy. steve realized then that it was tony, and he brought peter in, unconscious.
"tony, h-how-" "i don't know. he just appeared. i was going to check on you, but it seems like i don't have to, do i?' he said in his usual fashion, but there was a little ice in his voice. a shiver, there was cold there. he was feeling fear. fear for peter, and he would never admit it.
"c'mon kid, wake up." bucky muttered, tony looked at him, and on instinct almost pounced, but held himself, bucky looked up at him, and steve almost held him, but he composed himself. muttering to himself words to calm down. he understood the salmon that steve felt for the past criminal, but he never forgave him; he doesn't believe he ever will either.
bucky kept leaning over the couch shirtless, keeping pressure on the wound, he would have checked for a pulse, but he couldn't. steve wasn't staring at tony, or peter, or the main focus; the blood rushing from the fifteen year old's body. he was focusing on bucky, mainly his body. he had an incredibly muscular stature; filled with mountains and valleys alike in the crevices in his skin. tainted by marks and scars, too many to count. steve was trying to count them all, tony put his hand to check for a pulse, and learned peter stopped breathing.
bucky lauded over the couch, straddling peter, leaning down for compressions with his one hand and to prepare for mouth to mouth. steve was numb to the scene, which he normally wouldn't be. especially because tony was shivering physically. steve was staring at bucky's back. he couldn't describe it.
there were white crevasses that lines gaping red marks, cuts. dents into the body, a large patch of skin that'd never grow back. slaps and cuts, bruises that never healed. purple, blue and red all danced along the back in a painting like pattern; soon yellow thrown in to the worse spots. dried crimson tears there, some of the scars looks so fresh, as if it were picked off the tree this morning. others looked as old as years worth; faded into white lines with patterns dancing across them. it could've been a piece of art in a museum, if it weren't abuse on someone's body that is. the critics would've found it beautiful with the colors. it wasn't, it was the opposite. it was the pain, it was what bucky's head really was. only it landed itself on his back. you couldn't look at it without feeling it yourself. it was horrible.
steve almost cried.
"peter, p-please." tony said quietly, steve snapped to reality, going over to tony and hugging him. tony hit him away, step understood and stood next to him. a wave of pink, white, red, and sky blue flowing through them in an alien's form. bucky went in for mouth to mouth again, as much as it pained steve to see it; he knew it was a good thing. it was pink. peter needed it. tony needed it. soon enough the blue eyes peter owned shot open, he started to cough, bucky used his arm to hold him down and seize the coughing, holding him steadily, letting peter calm down for himself. letting a sense of sky blue calm the boy.
"bucky? is that you?" he asked, bucky pushed the hair out of his face, steve went to the coffee table and grabbed a hair tie, gently pulling the shorter hair back and into a ponytail. bucky smiled at this, since the crimson didn't rush to his head. he looked down at peter, smiling in relief.
"yes, you're okay. it's all good." he stated, peter looked around, finding tony, who was in tears.
"get off him." he told bucky harshly, red orange surged through. bucky obeyed quickly, holding his short n the wound as he spun to the back of the couch once more, letting peter sit up and press it himself. tony kneeled beside him. bucky went to the bathroom for the first aid kit, steve followed him.
"when did you learn mouth to mouth?" steve asked in a rush, bucky pushed the kit against steve's stomach in annoyance.
"when did you try to avoid the elephant in the room?" he snapped back, going back to the living room, finding peter and tony hugging. the two of them crying. peter's eyes puffy and red, a right step saw on himself for too long.
"tony, let go. we need to bandage him up." bucky said sternly. there was something wrong. there was too much black there. too much dark, too much rope.
steve kneeled beside peter, taking off his suit easily and giving the kid bucky's bloody tank top, knowing bucky wouldn't want it back. he wrapped the bandages around the kid, who was crying from the pain. bucky grabbed some painkillers and gave peter water and two pills, he swallowed them through the crimson pain.
"better?" he asked, peter could only nod, he squeezed tony's hand, tony hugged him again, holding his hand back for comfort.
"okay kid, keep the shirt." bucky said, then sat in the armchair by the couch, shirtless and cold. peter smiled.
"thanks bucky." he said, bucky crossed his arms, still annoyed. only steve noticed that he winced from leaning back into the chair.
"how'd you g-get back?" tony asked, peter smiled, considering tony never really loved anyone in his life and knew he should've protected peter at all costs, but he couldn't help it. he was the father peter lost.
"strange." he said quietly. bucky nodded graciously, the ponytail dancing in the back of his head.
"that bastard, how? and where did you get this?" he asked, peter beached in slowly, bucky held out a hand to motion for tony to calm down. too red for the mood.
"he made a portal, groot grew again, he was stronger. but i came back and a rock stabbed me, i faced down. then i learned it was a spear, a trap for hunting. i rolled out of it and then here i am." he explained, bucky nodded.
"did you loose your arm somehow?" peter asked. bucky chuckled for the tone, it wasn't real.
"no, i wanted it off. killed too many people, i hated that thing anyway." he stated, peter understood right away, tony smiled. steve stayed quiet on the floor.
"you two can stay, take the guest bedroom peter, tony you can visit i'd assume." bucky stated, tony shook his head.
"no, i'll take peter with me, when he can move anyway." he stated, looking down at the boy. peter smiled up at him, in a pink gaze.
"that'll take a little bit, maybe three days? we'll have to keep him here though, you good wit that kid?" steve jumped in, bucky's head darted to him, going along with it. tony nodded, and as did peter, red blue. just as bucky knew him as.
"can i stay and talk to him" tony asked, still shivering.
"yeah yeah, go ahead. steve, can you come with me?" bucky asked, steve looked up at him, worried. yellow, blue, red.
"yeah buck, sure." he said, bucky took steve's left hand with his right and pulled him to the back bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
"i told you not to do anything about it why did you stare? your eyes were burning my back steve. they were hot glued on there, practically." he stated, steve stood there frozen in his own sorrow and forgiveness, asking for it back mentally from his lover.
"i couldn't not look buck. it's not so easy when it's staring you in the face, why didn't you tell me?!" steve asked, bucky's eyes turned to him from the side, just as they did when they were first reunited in DC, when they first fought each other. the steel blue eyes full of sorrow and pain, but controlled by the bladed, metal soap.
"i didn't want to live through it. do you think i want to feel the whip hitting me on every single scar, and the knife cutting me 'on accident' all at once? because that's what it is whenever i pay any small glance at it. i can't touch it. i can't." bucky pleaded, steve waled forward, pulling him into a safe hug. the older's head fell onto the younger's shoulder. steve held him there, kissing the brunette to comfort him. he pulled out, holding bucky's face.
"i love you, and no one is going to hurt you anymore. okay? you're not out of my sight buck." he stated, bucky nodded, wrapping his arms around steve's waist, holding him close and taking him in for a kiss. he could never let him go, it'd hurt. even if he'd ever get red at him, it would never be for long.
"i love you too, sorry." bucky said in defeat, steve pulled him tighter.
"don't be, not your fault." steve replied, bucky chuckled.
"okay." he stated simply, and pulled away, going to the small mirror atop the small dresser, taking out he ponytail steve put in and pulling the top half of hair to the back, twisting it into a bun. he looked satisfied at what he did. his completion pink and sherbet, golden in his eyes. steve smiled at him through the mirror.
"I like this." he said, bucky smiled, going over and leaning him back into a passionate kiss.
"me too steve, me too." he said, smiling against his lips. the door swung open again, tony standing there. bucky pulled steve back up, taking his lips away as the threes good there in a pink, white ,red and blue draft of awkwardness.
tony's hazel eyes were full of shock, need, and snark.