Title: Nothing But Death
Pairing: Steve/Bucky
Rating: M
Warnings: canon-typical violence, war
Spoilers: loosely for CA:TFA.
Wordcount: 2820
Summary: Steve can't escape the war. [Time loop AU.]
A/N: Love to Sara for commandos feelings & Neruda for the title. This is not a happy fic, I'm sorry.
1944 comes in cold, brutal. The guys call themselves the "Howling Commandos"; Steve, watching them storm a HYDRA camp with nothing but their rifles and their own bodies, thinks nothing else could've fit them so well.
They're good men. At nights around the campfire, Steve looks at their faces: Dernier telling a joke in rapid-fire French, Gabe only a step behind in English, until they all burst into raucous laughter, heads tossed high and back; Dum Dum and Falsworth talking about business, politics, anything they can wrangle into a mock-argument until one of them cracks a smile; Morita and Bucky stealing smokes off each other, more for the game of it than actual need.
They've seen the war at its worst, yet they're still talking, smiling like their bodies are unscarred. Steve draws them all, hundreds of times, small and scribbled sketches into the notebook tucked into his breast pocket. They deserve to be seen and remembered like this, fiercely alive.
— — —
Gabe takes a bullet to the shoulder during a raid.
"It could've been worse," Morita says, squinting into the wound in the wavering lamp-light. He's doused everything in the tent with alcohol but that doesn't entirely cover up the smell of blood and heated metal. "It's just lodged into muscle, didn't hit anything important."
"Anything important?" Gabe says, pretending offense. "Thanks a lot."
Gabe's laugh is cut off abruptly by a hiss of pain when Morita finally digs out the bullet. "There it is." He flourishes the bloody lump of lead held between his tweezers. "You can keep that. A souvenir."
Gabe holds the bullet tight in his hand while Morita bandages him up. "You'd better believe I'm keeping it," Gabe declares. "There's gonna be one less bullet out there with my name on it."
— — —
Some nights, they talk about home, but quietly, like their memories might all shatter if said more clearly. Home is an armchair with the smell of shepherd's pie sunk deeply into it; it's the screech of traffic and familiar voices shouting; it's the light of the sun slanting through a window to throw up the same shadows each morning.
Home is a girl who said yes.
When Bucky talks about home his vowels broaden and he lies back, settles in more deeply to talk about Brooklyn — their Brooklyn, his and Steve's. His eyes are bright in the fire-light and his shoulders are rounded, relaxed; and Steve looks at him and thinks about going home, the two of them together.
It's almost possible, those nights, to think that that could happen — that having fought once to get to Bucky was enough, and he's not going to lose Bucky again.
It wouldn't matter if he couldn't touch Bucky like he wanted to, then. If Bucky could be happy and alive and home, Steve would gladly swallow down his own wants and live off Bucky's happiness for the rest of his days.
— — —
Arnim Zola is on a train.
Steve slides into his bedroll, tries to get some sleep before the mission tomorrow. He closes his eyes and he can almost see the end of the war.
— — —
Bucky falls. The train keeps on going, carrying Steve along with it.
— — —
It's 1943, winter, and Bucky is at the bar.
"But you're keeping the uniform, right?" he says, and Steve looks at him, thinks, briefly, about Bucky dressed in blue, falling away.
"What?" Bucky says. He downs his drink and when he puts his glass down his upper lip is faintly wet.
Steve doesn't know where that image came from. He shakes it away and starts, "You know what?" just to see Bucky grin.
— — —
The guys call themselves the "Howling Commandos". Teamwork comes to them easily; they go out into the field and it's as if they've been working together for months.
It's tiring work all the same, chasing HYDRA across Europe. At nights, the men huddle close to the fire, trying to chase away the winter cold. The conversation comes in muted bursts: Morita picking up a thread of conversation after Dum Dum's gone silent; Dernier responding to Gabe through chattering teeth, picking out words half in French and half in English. Steve looks at the weariness on their faces and wonders if he should've brought them here at all.
But Bucky tells him, "Don't be stupid," when he's fretting too hard. "We would've followed you anyway."
Bucky grips Steve's shoulder, tight enough that Steve can feel warmth bleeding through his uniform. "Thanks, Buck," Steve smiles, but he has to look away before the sincerity in Bucky's face gets to be too much.
— — —
They're back at base for the first time in weeks. Steve sets the commandos loose and does the reports by himself, and at the end of it he's ready to fall asleep on his feet.
He forces himself to stay awake a while longer so he can have a blessedly hot shower.
When he stumbles into the showers someone else is there, but they've all grown out of self-consciousness a long time ago. He walks past, eyes sliding past the pale figure, and then his attention snaps back and he's looking at water dripping down the muscles of Bucky's back.
"Hey," Bucky says, carelessly. Steve swallows and mumbles something back, keeps walking.
There's a lot of things Steve wants, but he knows he's not allowed to want this: to touch all the scars shining white on Bucky's skin; to press his mouth to Bucky's and take; to curl around Bucky's warmth and let it fill the aching places in his chest. So he lets the water fall onto his shoulders and presses his forehead to the wall, and tries to forget the sight of Bucky, wet and slick under the spray.
It's hard; he's been trying not to want for years, but it never gets any easier.
— — —
What's supposed to be a quick mission ends with Falsworth utterly white, hands clutched to his side. Steve can see the darkness seeping out from under his fingers, smell the blood in the air.
"I'll be fine," he grunts. "Although — a drink, possibly."
Morita lays him down on the cot and hisses through his teeth at the wound. Dum Dum tips his flask to Falsworth's mouth and refuses to let him twist his head and look.
Steve paces outside, staring at where the blood's dripped and frozen in the snow. He'd taken a knife to his arm but the cut's already scabbed over. In a few hours, it'll just be a stripe of shiny pink skin, and then — nothing, as if he hadn't been injured at all.
When Morita finally comes out of the tent his fingers are shaking as he taps out a cigarette. "He'll live," he says through a cloud of smoke. "A hell of a scar to show the girls."
"Right," Steve sighs. "Thank you."
For all their bravado, Steve can't ever forget that the commandos are just men — the bravest men he knows, but still so much closer to death than he is. Their bodies are knitted together with scar tissue while he looks like he's never been through a war.
He wonders if this is how Bucky had felt before, picking him up off Brooklyn streets and patching him up with patient hands. Suddenly he can see why Bucky never wanted him here.
— — —
The fire's not enough to chase away the cold anymore; they've been out here for so long, it's like they're frozen right down to their bones. They huddle around the fire and look at its weak, flickering light like it's promising something that they can't quite have.
"When's it gonna be spring on this goddamn continent," Bucky says. He rubs his hands together, chapped and red, and tucks them under his arms.
"Spring?" Dernier laughs. "I believe that's the season of mud and rain. It gets here, you won't like it any better."
Steve looks at Bucky's shoulders, hunched and sharp like a bird's. He thinks about spring in Brooklyn: flowers blooming small and delicate on the trees lining the sidewalks, splashing barefoot through the streets as the rain beats down on their shoulders.
They've all changed so much, Steve's not sure if they fit the picture in his head anymore. But here's the thing: he wants this war to end, so he can take Bucky home and try, at least.
— — —
Bucky falls. Steve shouts into the wind.
— — —
It's 1943, and there are four hundred men looking to Steve to get them to safety. he's ready to drop on his feet but Bucky's at his elbow, face gray but hands steady on a rifle, and he shouldn't be this tired — he's not allowed to be.
He breathes for a moment with his hands on his knees, long, deep pulls of air that smells of fire, and then straightens up, squares his shoulders. "All right," he shouts over the murmur of men. "Let's get going."
— — —
The men say yes. The Howling Commandos, Steve thinks, and he's not sure why.
It's not even accurate. They down their drinks silently, leaning on each other's shoulders, and when they call for more their voices are low, weary.
— — —
Sometimes when Bucky's cleaning his rifle, Steve can't help but to watch. Bucky takes apart the rifle with sure, careful hands, and there's an intensity to his gaze that makes Steve wonder what it'd be like, to lie stripped apart under that single-minded focus.
Steve would let Bucky do it, if he could.
Steve would let Bucky do it, even if he never put Steve back together.
— — —
Dum Dum gets shot in the gut. He bleeds out slowly, talking the whole time even as he turns pale and shaky, and when it's over Morita stumbles out of the tent and throws up.
They take turns digging the grave, chipping out the frozen soil bit by bit. Gabe works slowly — sometimes stopping with the shovel planted in the ground, head bent over the handle and swallowing hard. Falsworth is the opposite, attacking the ground furiously, until Steve has to unwrap his fingers from the shovel and send him away before he ruins his hands entirely.
They bury him with wavering words and a parting salute, and it's not enough, not nearly enough.
— — —
That night Steve lies awake in his bedroll for a very long time, and then finally gives up and makes his way out to where Bucky's keeping watch. Bucky turns his head to watch him coming but doesn't say a word until Steve's right next to him.
"Christ, Steve," he says then, pulling him close to bury his face in Steve's shoulder. And Bucky's not crying — Steve's never seen Bucky cry — but Bucky's shoulders are shaking and his words are grinding together. "I just wish something good would come out of this war."
Steve says, "I know, Buck," helplessly. He wraps his arms around Bucky, his hands against the nocks of Bucky's spine, and Bucky's breaths are wet on Steve's neck before he turns his head and presses his mouth, lopsidedly, against Steve's.
Steve pulls back a bit, licks his lips and says, "Bucky," tight.
"I need," Bucky says, "just. I need to stop thinking, I can't do this, Steve—"
And Steve says, "okay." He carefully presses Bucky back against a tree and slides down to the ground. He settles on the balls of his feet and puts his hands against Bucky's thighs — they're shaking, a little — and says, "okay," again.
Bucky doesn't say anything when Steve undoes his pants, just draws in a short breath. He's not hard but Steve strokes him through his underwear, and Bucky makes a broken sound as his cock starts to stiffen.
"Shh," Steve says, brushing the crease of Bucky's thigh with a thumb, "stop thinking, Buck," and then he leans forward to take Bucky's cock into his mouth.
Bucky's hot and heavy in his mouth. Steve breathes through his nose and sucks, steadily, and all the while he's got a hand on the back of Bucky's thigh and he can feel the trembling right through him.
When Bucky comes he says, "Steve," short and soft, and Steve hears the scrape of his fingers against the bark. He swallows, hot and bitter, and then carefully buttons Bucky back up into his uniform.
"About time to change watch," he says, getting to his feet. His words come out roughened and he clears his throat. "Get some sleep, Buck."
Bucky looks at him, his shoulders tight. "Steve—"
"Don't," Steve says, looking away. "Just don't think about any of it."
After a long moment, Bucky says, quiet, "okay."
— — —
Bucky falls. Steve looks at his hands clutched tight to the railing and thinks about letting go.
— — —
It's 1943. Dum Dum says, "Hell, I'll always fight," thickly, like the words are being pulled out of him. Steve looks at him and thinks, nonsensically, about blood — about a bleakly cold day and a rough-hewn cross.
He doesn't say anything, just gets the guys another round and goes to find Bucky.
"Told you," Bucky says over his own glass. "They're all idiots."
Steve puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder. Bucky smiles at Steve and he's sitting very still, but for some reason Steve thinks he can feel trembling against his palm.
— — —
Bucky takes down the sniper, but not before he gets shot at, the juncture of neck and shoulder.
"It's nothing," he says, even as Steve shoves him into the tent and makes him take his shirt off, nearly does it himself.
"Graze," Morita proclaims after taking a look. "Gonna need a couple of stitches." He makes Bucky lie down on his stomach on the cot, one hand on Bucky's shoulder and the other in the middle of his back.
"See?" Bucky tells Steve, head raised up. "It's nothing, stop looking at me like that."
Then Bucky's letting out a low hiss as the needle slides into his skin, but that's not what scares Steve. He'd thought he'd known Bucky's body, had shared its history; but here in the lamplight, there are too many scars on Bucky's skin without a place in Steve's memory.
— — —
It's 1943, and Steve's heart's in his throat even before Peggy tells him, "The 107th."
— — —
1944. A HYDRA bomb, and Dernier's screaming. Gabe has blood on his face and blood on his hands, is grey as he grasps at the ruined stump of Dernier's leg, but the blood won't stop and Dernier keeps screaming.
"It's okay," Morita tells him, a hand on his forehead, but Dernier's beyond comfort, beyond anything. He screams even after his lungs give out and there are only thin whispers rasping out of his throat.
When they bury him, Steve can still hear the screaming.
— — —
Bucky falls.
— — —
1943, and Steve's in a lab tearing straps away from Bucky's body. Bucky wobbles to his feet and clutches at Steve with frantic hands, and he doesn't even look surprised at the way Steve's taller, broader, nothing like himself.
— — —
The men say yes, their faces drawn tight. Steve looks at them and wants to take it back, tell them they've done enough.
They're all tired. They're so tired.
— — —
Sometimes, Steve wonders if maybe they're already dead. If maybe they're just going on out of habit.
— — —
Arnim Zola is on a train. Steve ought to feel something but all he feels is empty.
His dreams are full of screaming and he wakes up too early. He gets up anyway and finds Bucky doing the same.
They sit on the cold ground and watch the sun rise. The early morning light pools over Bucky's sleeves and Steve looks at them, very blue — thinks, briefly, about reaching for them, and failing.
"Bucky," he starts, shaking his head. "Today. If—"
"Don't tell me Captain America is scared," Bucky says, like a joke, but he's not smiling.
Steve looks at Bucky, the downward slant of his mouth. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I think I am."
Bucky shakes his head suddenly, leans forward and touches his forehead to Steve's. "Nothing's gonna happen," he says, like he's trying to convince the both of them. "Do you hear me?"
Bucky's hands are on Steve's shoulders and they're large, warm. Steve looks at Bucky and Bucky looks back, and his grip tightens.
It's not hard to lean in and press his mouth on top of Bucky's. Bucky meets him halfway, his mouth soft and opening up under Steve's when Steve licks at his lips. Steve can feel the brush of Bucky's eyelashes on his cheek when Bucky closes his eyes, briefly — can feel Bucky's breaths coming short.
When they break apart it's like falling out of sleep. Steve looks at Bucky, the wet sheen of his lips, and trembles.
"We should—" he looks away. "Get ready."
Bucky looks at him, not blinking. "Steve," he says suddenly — quietly, like admitting a weakness. "I'm so sick of this damn war."
Steve reaches out to take Bucky's hand. "Yeah," he says. "Me too."
— — —
(Bucky falls.)