disclaimer: I do not own anything Marvel and do not profit from this work.
Bucky Barnes hated his life, and he hated that it was taking so long to be over.
Pop-culture media made cancer out to be romantic, a slow-moving death that either faded away in time to save the final breath, or swept over its victim like a dark, comforting blanket of quiet oblivion, with enough time for tender goodbyes and sweet kisses and to be finished with the world by the time it was over.
At thirty-one, Bucky was nowhere near finished with the world. But he sat on the bed the hospital staff had banished him to, the blinds of his window perpetually closed, his arm perpetually missing, and his mother perpetually absent. Because last month he had screamed in her face, his voice and words nothing but uninhibited rage as he venomously informed her of how much he hated her, how utterly useless she was and had always been, how horrible of a mother she had turned out to be, to just get the fuck out because he had never wanted her there and didn't want her there now.
And the last thing he had seen of her was her face wrenched in sorrow and rejection, eyes struggling with tears she hadn't let fall, and the back her blonde head as she did as he said and disappeared through the door.
"Knock, knock!" A cheerful voice called out. The scowl was already in place as his nurse, happy as always, peaked through the door. Sharon – she was nice enough, as nurses went, but he was so damn tired of nice already. "Good morning, James! I'm glad you're up. I have your roommate here." Roommate. And wasn't that the final nail in the coffin? "He's eager to get settled in and meet you. You wanna come in, sweetheart?" The last part was aimed behind her, and Bucky snorted as she turned. Sweetheart? They had said the guy was twenty-seven, a little old to be called sweetheart by a nurse younger than that. What was he, crippled? Close to death? She never called Bucky sweetheart, though.
When the guy walked through the door, however, Bucky immediately understood, because Lord strike him down if the person shuffling nervously in front of him was a day over seventeen, let alone nearing thirty.
The kid (because that was what he was, honestly) was small, at least half-a-foot shorter than Bucky, if not more. He was skinny as fuck, skin clinging tight to his bones in the shade of white that only came from being out of the sun and on medications for too long. His head was utterly bare, not even a scratch of growing stubble, his blue eyes childishly huge on his sunken face.
"Hey," he greeted, soft and warm, and Sharon's tinkling laughter covered Bucky's scoff as she lightly pressed the kid's shoulders, aiming him toward the second bed.
"Adorable," she proclaimed. "Why don't you get settled, honey, while I go get your IV and meds straightened out? James here won't bite you, much as he looks it. Will you, James?" She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, half-teasing and half-warning, but skipped out the door before he could snap at her, smart one that she was (had learned to be, he was proud of that), shutting the door quietly behind her and leaving them to the beeping of Bucky's heart monitor.
"Adorable," Bucky mocked immediately, a hard sneer to his tone as he leveled the kid with a look of his own. He hadn't asked for a roommate, hadn't wanted and still didn't want one, but when you were one arm short, living off of government aid, and fucking dying, no one gave a damn about your need for privacy. A bed was a bed and a room was a room and tough shit.
He expected the kid to flush, or to stammer, or to get the hint and just stop looking at him already, but instead smirk pulled across the other's lips, snappy and hard, his eyes lighting with something that was familiar to look at.
"Life sucks, yeah? I get it." He chuckled harshly as he shed his jacket to the bed. His arms were stick-thin, Jesus, but he thrust one out anyway, what was left of its muscle straining against gravity to keep it in the air as he approached the bed. "Steve Rogers, transfer from SHIELD Medical, normally blonde, leukemia relapse. It's a bitch. You?"
The kid's – Steve's – hand hovered pointedly in front of Bucky's face, shaking but unrelenting in its goal to stay up. He could see it was an effort, the way Steve's jaw was clenching, the tightening around his eyes. He reminded Bucky of his comrades overseas, all guts eve if there was nothing to back it. Steve was smaller than any of them, but he stood in such a fashion that Bucky reached out for his hand without a snarky retort.
"Ja-"
Their hands clasped and it hit.
It was nothing like his mother had told him and everything like his buddies in the war had described. A searing ache of fire across his lacking shoulder like a bullet from an enemy gun through the meat of his muscle. He could feel every inch of the name being burned into his skin like a signature and it hurt worse than death but it soft, too. His mind was racing with a jumbled mess of reactions he couldn't sort, because over it he could hear Steve's startled, pained hiss as the action echoed on him, and Bucky looked up just in time to see Steve falter under the sensation, stumbling forward into the railing of Bucky's bed, and he didn't stop to think before he reached out, catching him with his one good arm.
His throat clenched suffocatingly tight at realization of how easily the smaller man fit against him.
His soulmate.
"Fate's a fucking whore," he muttered in wonderment.
"Wha-what does it say?" Steve demanded, sucking in hurried, shallow breaths as he chased after enough oxygen to settle himself, burrowed tight and desperate into his chest. "What does it say? What does it say?"
"I'm James," he answered immediately, running the fingers of his one good hand directly under where he knew Steve bore his name. God, why now? He wanted to scream, push Steve off, but he couldn't let go. Why now? Why not before? Christ, he could have had years of this, they could have had years of this. "Call me Bucky."