I am currently hard at work developing Beyond Gravesen. It just hit 50k words and I am so, so excited about where it's going. Expect lots of angst, fluff, and surprises! The story picks up right where this one ends, goes to the epilogue of After Gravesen, and beyond. At this rate, I don't think it will be ready to begin posting when this story ends, but Without Gravesen is finished and there to help bridge that gap. If there's questions you want answered about anything or anyone between this and the epilogue, let me know so I can try to include it in the story.
Chapter 33: Life with an Expiration Date
How do you live a life with an expiration date?
Steve had done it before, but back then he'd been of an age where life had a more predictable trajectory. He'd wanted to finish high school and go to college, and if he died somewhere along the way at least he did so knowing he'd been working towards that goal. But now he'd accomplished all that. So what was left to do?
In all the movies and stories featuring terminal illness, there was always some big dream or destination. But he didn't have that. His 'big dream' had been to pay it forward to help other sick kids, and he was already completely immersed in that career, with the Gravesen videos to ensure he could continue even after he died. Seeing the world had never been anywhere on his priority list, much less very high up. All of Steve's passion revolved around people. Helping people, drawing people, drawing for people, or even just being with people. That's all he really wanted for the rest of his life. To be with the people he loved.
In the months following the announcement of his prognosis, he learned that's exactly what they wanted too.
During his school years, Steve had never been particularly popular. He spent time with his small group of friends and didn't care to branch out from that. His chronic cough and eventual reliance on oxygen also hadn't helped make him particularly approachable for people seeking new friends. In the past years, his friend group had exploded to a size he never dared imagine. And now that they knew of his future, they all wanted to do things with him.
Almost every weekend, he (and usually also Bucky) got invited to go do something with somebody they knew. Visit the Natural History Museum with Bruce, double date with Parker and MJ, check out Nick's boxing gym, go hiking in the Catskills with Thor, watch a baseball game with Gabe, Timmy, and Jim, hang out at Tony's penthouse in Manhattan, see some new James Bond movie with Natasha, stop by their parents' places just to say hi. Even the soccer team invited him to things usually reserved for players only. And on his fifth Breatheday, which fell on a Sunday, he and Bucky threw another party almost as big as the July Fourth one a month earlier. Steve nearly exhausted himself doing as much as possible because he didn't know how long his lung function would last, and at some point he wouldn't be able to do any of these things. He rarely let a weekend go to waste.
The best weekends of all were the two he spent in Los Angeles for the Paralympics. Once again, they summoned the Avengers from all corners of the globe to gather and cheer on their friend. This time, they amassed even greater numbers than four years ago, though most of them had jobs to return to and could only come for the first match. Steve ended up spending the majority of that time with Natasha. The Paralympics happened to line up perfectly between the end of her visiting Russia and the beginning of her next semester.
Every time he saw her, he marveled at how much she'd grown since their time together at Gravesen. Not just in stature, but in personality. In the years after Clint's death, she'd withdrawn somewhat, and he'd been too preoccupied with not dying himself to reach out to her the way he'd wanted to. Nowadays, she was just as coy and sarcastic as ever, with the confidence and intelligence to back it up. She told him all about her adventures in college, most of which sounded like the kinds of things that cause incredibly specific laws to be enacted.
"We filled his room with potatoes," she said of a mutual frenemy she and her pre-nursing friends shared. He intended to go to med school and they often couldn't tell if he was joking or not when he made comments about the relative value of doctors and nurses.
"Why potatoes?"
"Because he once kidnapped Kartofel."
"And Kartofel is?"
"My roommate's potato man."
"Why does your roommate have a potato man?"
"She found him at thrift shop. He is cute." She showed him a picture of an anthropomorphic potato statue, which Steve had to admit was pretty cute. It was wearing a knit hat and scarf. "I made these," she explained.
"Why is his name Kartofel?"
"It's Russian."
"For what?"
"Potato, duh."
"Ah, right."
"Anyway, we fill his room with potatoes."
"Real potatoes?"
"Some real. Some paper cutouts. Some made of clay."
"Where did you get real potatoes?"
"We have friend who works at potato farm. They must discard flawed potatoes."
"You filled this guy's room with flawed potatoes?"
"Not all flawed. We bought some good ones too. Put them everywhere. Under his mattress, potatoes. In his drawers, potatoes. In his fridge, potatoes. Behind paintings, paper potatoes. On his desk, clay potatoes."
"Wow. Sounds…elaborate."
"Yes it was. And we numbered all the paper potatoes, one to thirty-four. Except we skipped numbers so he always thinks there are more even when there is not."
Steve reminded himself never to mess with Kartofel the potato man statue.
On a day when the US wasn't playing any matches, she dragged him on an "adventure" around the city. She wanted to find the Hollywood Walk of Fame stars of all her favorite James Bond actors. They found all four: Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Barry Nelson, and David Niven. Also tagging along was Kate Bishop. Starting this fall, she'd be going to the same school as Natasha, also in pre-nursing. Throughout the star search, they often spoke in ASL to each other, with almost every conversation punctuated by giggles. Steve hoped they weren't making fun of him.
"You knew Clint when he was really little, right?" Kate asked him over dinner that night.
"Yeah. I met him the day he started treatment. He was four."
"What was he like?" Nat asked.
Steve smiled. "He and Scott were like most little boys, I think. They were just full of energy…until chemo took a lot of it out of them. But little Clint especially, he was such a sweetheart. While we were in the hospital together, he wanted me to read him bedtime stories a lot. I'm still not even sure why. I guess just because I was an older boy and little kids always think big kids are cool. He used to curl up next to me and point out all the words he knew as I read through the book. Half of them were wrong, though," he finished with a laugh. Natasha and Kate both chuckled.
"He once hid in vents during game of hide and seek," Natasha told him.
This was news to Steve. "He did what?"
"Yeah. Carol helped him up. And when he hopped out she caught him. It was crazy."
"Who knows about this?"
"Just us kids who were there. Me, Nick, Carol, Parker. We never told any grown-ups."
"I can't believe you got away with that."
"I get away with many things," she remarked.
Kate signed something to her that made them both crack up. Steve only rolled his eyes, glad that Natasha had a friend like Kate, even if they ganged up on him.
The US amputee soccer team didn't medal that year. Bucky blamed his three-month absence after surgery. He'd been back on the field barely two months, but he'd spent those training harder than ever. Still, he and his coach agreed that he wasn't in Olympic shape and Lemar played goalkeeper for most of the matches. Bucky got to play the second half of their match against Argentina, and he did well, but he said all the action and stress made his phantom pain flare up worse than it had in weeks. Later, he described it to Steve as feeling like, "Someone grabbed every tendon in my hand with tweezers and yanked them all at the same time over and over again." In the week after the Paralympics, his pain levels stayed higher than they'd been all of August, and his six-month surgical follow-up showed that his level of reinnervation wasn't quite where they expected it to be this far out. They adjusted his nerve pain meds once again, but beyond that could do nothing more than prescribe patience and continued physical therapy. Bucky took it in stride. Steve couldn't help but wonder if he refrained from complaining solely because he knew the emotional pain on the distant horizon would render all of this physical agony inconsequential.
~0~
While enjoying the present, Steve also began planning for the future. It was a strange thing, to plan for a future he wouldn't be around to see, but there were things that needed to be done to protect Bucky and the rest of his family and friends. He updated his advance directive, changing his primary medical proxy from his parents to Bucky. On top of that, he started planning his funeral. Yes, it was early, but he wanted to be prepared in case things took a sudden turn for the worse. When he first discussed this with his parents all those years ago, he hadn't been very specific because he knew they'd fill in all the details he didn't provide. This time, he left nothing unwritten. The only thing he saved for later was actually purchasing a plot to be buried in. That was a little too real for him to consider when he still had so much time.
Most importantly, he set more gears in motion for the secret project he'd begun. Well, really just one. As soon as Steve Danvers heard the plan, he burst into tears and emphatically agreed to do his part. "Thank you," Steve told him earnestly. "This is the one thing I could think to do that might make this easier in the long run."
"It's going to be beautiful."
"I wish I could be around to see the look on his face when he sees them."
"You never know. Maybe you will be able to see."
"Maybe." Steve could only hope, but for now he contented himself knowing that Steve Danvers would make sure they arrived at the right time.
While his weekends were a seemingly never-ending series of adventures, weekdays were for the simple things. Weekdays were for him and Bucky. Steve treasured every morning workout, every kiss goodbye, every meal made for two, every shared conversation or companionable silence during dish washing duty, every quiet evening in the living room, and every night together. He laughed harder, loved deeper, and let no opportunity pass him by. Life with an expiration date was actually rather magical.
~0~
Bucky's phantom pain finally began to steadily fade around the eight-month mark, just in time for the holidays. Thinking back to last year, he could definitively say that he'd finally dropped below his pre-surgery pain threshold. Which was great and all, but it was more difficult to appreciate beneath the slew of things he had to worry about. Steve had been diagnosed with osteopenia from long-term steroid use on top of BOS, and Bucky constantly worried about him breaking something, despite Steve's assurances that his bone density wasn't low enough yet to make fractures more likely. They only had seven functional limbs in the household, the last thing they needed was to lose another. Wednesday mornings, he ran alone now, because Steve switched to weights to help his bone density. Bucky wanted to switch too so they could still be together, but he couldn't disrupt his soccer training regimen like that. Just as he had when Steve's CF first started to truly threaten his life, Bucky found himself wanting to spend every possible moment with him.
Fortunately, this time, Steve reciprocated that desire.
Other than work, they spent nearly every moment together. Exercising, cooking, relaxing, cleaning, they were rarely apart. While Bucky worked on typing up the manuscript of his autobiography, Steve sat on the other end of the sofa and sketched. No matter how many times Bucky asked, he'd never reveal what he was working on. Bucky reached out to their team from the Barnes and Rogers book to learn how to go about getting a non-children's, non-illustrated book published. He'd already sent a few complete chapters to an editor and they liked what they read, so he hoped there wouldn't be too much back-and-forth before they finalized and published the book. He wanted Steve to see it on a shelf in a bookstore. That was the most daunting deadline a person could have.
The expectation of a physical decline hung over them like a distant thunderstorm. Beyond the rough estimate of three to five years, they were given no timeline. Bucky didn't know how many of those three to five years would be good ones, and it terrified him. He'd watched Steve's decline once before, and he positively dreaded having to watch again as his husband's lungs closed off little by little and his every breath looked more taxing than the one before. If Steve shared this fear, he didn't mention it. He focused on the good things, like reaching a new deadlift PR. After switching out running for weights once a week, he actually got bigger. A casual observer would never know he was terminally ill; they'd probably think quite the opposite. Looking at him, Bucky couldn't believe it either. How could someone so strong be dying inside?
One evening in January, Bucky got home before Steve, which rarely happened. He showered and got started on dinner, wondering what could have kept him at work late. Just as the oven finished preheating, he heard the car pull into the driveway. Steve stormed into the house, slammed the door, and threw his work bag onto the floor with a completely unnecessary amount of force. Bucky took an involuntary step back, unused to seeing his husband so outwardly wrathful.
"Everything okay?" he asked cautiously, bracing himself for a horrible announcement. Steve just had his transplant clinic appointment the week before, did his labs come back with some terrifying new development?
"They just announced the candidates for the House seats up for election this year." Steve began pacing back and forth, one hand at his temples. Bucky waited for him to continue, but he said nothing, just silently seethed.
Confused and concerned, Bucky asked, "Who is it?"
"Alexander Pierce."
"You've gotta be shitting me."
"I can't—" Steve continued pacing. "I can't let that bastard wheedle his way into a position of power."
Bucky failed to find any words to say. He thought they'd left Alex's torment long behind them.
Steve suddenly stopped his pacing and stared harrowingly at Bucky. "Do you know what it took to get rid of him the first time?"
"Yeah, I do," he said numbly. It took his cancer diagnosis and a complete mental breakdown on Steve's part. Neither of which they were willing to repeat.
"I just…I can't sit idle and watch this happen."
"You think he might win?"
"His father has been in the Senate for almost twenty years. The Pierce name is working in his favor, for sure."
"Any idea what his goals are? Has he issued a specific campaign statement yet?"
"I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. There is no way I will ever feel fairly represented with that monster in the Capitol building."
"Is there anything we can do? Besides not vote for him, obviously?"
"I'm sure there is. And I fully intend to do it," Steve growled. He stomped off into the spare bedroom which they occasionally used as an office. Bucky glanced at the chicken he was just about to put in the oven and cautiously called out, "Steve! You maybe wanna eat dinner first?"
He marched back into the kitchen and sullenly set the table. The name Pierce was not spoken again that night.
~0~
There had to be something. Alex had probably found new victims after switching out of Steve and Bucky's school, or maybe even committed worse atrocities than bullying the chronically ill. Steve was determined to identify evidence of just that.
He started with what he knew, tracking down the incident report that had been filed at Hudson Creek after his confession to the school nurse. It was surprisingly easy to get a hold of. From there, Steve probably took it too far, finding Alex's every social media, official and unofficial, and using his spare time to browse it for incriminating posts or comments. He found exactly what he was looking for in the unlikeliest of places: the early days of Amputeam.
Steve first grew suspicious when he saw that Alex followed them. He searched post after post until he eventually found some that he'd commented on. Bucky and Josiah deleted most negative comments, but these were always posted in the middle of the rush and were passive enough to pass for misinformed or ignorant instead of intentionally cruel. However, as they got closer to the elections and the candidates started doing debates and interviews, Steve learned something almost funny in its irony. Alex's personal account, which he hadn't used in years, followed Amputeam, but so did his official campaign account. The comments from that account were more recent and so overtly positive it made Steve's stomach churn. A little more digging revealed that Alex took a special interest in the disability community. He was campaigning under a promise to improve accessibility and disability rights. In an interview, he even stated, "I've known Bucky Barnes, of Paralympic soccer fame, since we were young children, and if I can do my part to ensure that people like him have laws protecting them, I consider it an obligation."
Steve almost punched out the screen of his laptop after watching that.
"What are you doing?" Bucky asked. He stood in the doorway to the second bedroom, phone held aloft and trained on Steve. In the past months, Bucky had taken to recording things more often. Steve hated to be on camera, but he allowed his husband to document as he pleased because he knew how important these innocent little clips would become in the future.
"I'm about to sabotage a political campaign," he announced. Steve turned back to his laptop, closed the page with the despicable interview video, and set about creating a Twitter account. Bucky walked over and stood behind him, watching his every move.
"Your Twitter handle is going to be Wheezy_Smurf?"
"Yes. I want Alex to know exactly who's outing him."
"You know, you're really hot when you're plotting to overthrow our old playground bully," Bucky remarked. Steve snatched the phone out of his hand and tossed it onto the bed.
