Hey. I'm alive. My new job just doesn't let me write while working. Also, I'm woefully behind on this project, and I've only just finished January.
Originally posted to tumblr 2016-01-18.
/ Day 12 (2016.01.12)
/ adjective
/ 1. walking or traveling about; itinerant.
/ 2. (initial capital letter) of or relating to Aristotle, who taught philosophy while walking in the Lyceum of ancient Athens.
/ 3. (initial capital letter) of or relating to the Aristotelian school of philosophy.
/ noun
/ 4. a person who walks or travels about.
/ 5. (initial capital letter) a member of the Aristotelian school.
FWAP
Bucky tensed and then relaxed at the sight of the thick dossier that had been dropped in front of him. He was getting better though. Two weeks ago, he would have had a knife through the papers before he could blink.
"Go on, take a look."
Bucky looked up at Steve who was standing on the other side of the table with a sheepish but hopeful expression. After a moment, he did as bid, flipping open the folder and scanned the page inside.
It was an itinerary.
As Bucky kept flipping through the pages, something kept niggling at his mind until he got to New York City.
"You… want us to revisit everywhere I've had a mission?" he asked slowly, not comprehending what he was fairly sure was being proposed.
Steve knew he had nightmares, more of the Chair variety, but every once in a while, he had flashes of past missions, just bits and pieces of audio and video through his mind, accompanied by feelings he didn't understand that he suspected came from who he used to be.
"It was actually Tony's suggestion. To go where the bad memories came from and create good ones."
Bucky blinked in surprise. By now, they were all well aware of Stark's PTSD, but he'd never considered the man could be helpful with his own. Then again, they weren't the only ones with it either. Sometimes Steve would wake gasping in the night, clutching onto Bucky so tightly that he would have broken under the strength if he hadn't been enhanced as well.
When those nights happened, it could take hours of Bucky petting through the short blond hair with both hands to calm the shakes and the tears. Sometimes there was no other choice than to end it with sex either, to make Steve feel to help him remember that Bucky had come back, that he was still there, and that he was never leaving again.
Secretly, Bucky loved those nights because it made him feel so loved and wanted. Logically, he knew he was, because Steve was never one to skimp on anything, including affection, but he was careful with himself at all times, especially in public. At night, in the dark of their bedroom, he let himself free of the expectations that made his shoulders so strong and let Bucky take care of him, just like back in the old ways.
"If you think it'll help, I'll try it. But I can't guarantee anything," Bucky finally acquiesced, voice quiet as he flipped the itinerary closed.
"If it doesn't help, then we'll find something else," Steve replied confidently, that Captain American Can Do! face firmly in place. (It still made him laugh that people thought it was a persona because Steve had been wearing that face since a kitten could take him down.)
"You always do, Stevie."
FINIS
2016 10M WotD Master Post (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, /10M-WotD-2016).
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