In Retrospect (Bucky/Kate)
The moral of the following story is never offer to help Tony Stark.
Simple as that.
.
Kate thinks something along those lines as she gets flung—literally, flung—out of the glowing energy ball, skinning her knees and scraping up a palm pretty badly in an attempt to slow her momentum.
She’s pretty unsuccessful in that she winds up slamming against a wall hard enough to see stars for a minute, and her hearing gets jarred, because it takes a minute for her ears to process shouts and footsteps headed towards her, which turns into hands picking her up, which turns into someone punching her stomach, which, wow, rude.
One punch turns into several, and at least they aren’t very good at punching, which is a mark in the column for not being professionals.
And then, finally, the shouts filter through her shaken-not-stirred grey matter. It’s a trick! A dirty Kraut trick! She’s a spy!
Thankfully, her systems are coming back online, enough for her to catch the next kick aimed for her, crowding the guy and overbalancing him; one of his friends takes another shot that she almost dodges; she manages to get close enough to shove the heel of her hand into his nose.
It’s then Kate realizes she has a rescuer, or an attempted rescuer, anyway, because there is a big guy beating on a much smaller guy. There’s a part of Kate screaming to cut and run, to get out of here, but whatever portal she fell through is closed and she could use an ally.
Plus, why are you beating on a guy who is literally smaller than she is? Ohohoho no.
Big Guy isn’t even paying attention to her anymore, which makes it easy enough land a kick to the back of his knee and get a few fingers in his jugular and drag him off of the tiny guy. It’s not nice, not at all, but Kate used all of her nice reserves getting to this point and doesn’t really care.
“You okay?” she asks the guy, and someone in the back of her brain is shouting at her but Kate can’t quite make it out through the headache that’s steadily building.
“Had worse. Never seen a girl—I mean, a dame—a lady, ah, fight like that. Are you a spy?”
“A spy for who?” Kate’s missing something and she’s going to feel really dumb when she sees it.
“The Germans. Or the Japanese, I guess. The Italians.”
“What? No. I’m American.”
“What was that—ball of light thing, then?”
“I don’t know. A portal of some sort. I—“
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
The information fighting its way through Kate’s headache and potential minor concussion has arrived, screeching at a really unfortunate volume level.
Because that is Steve Rogers.
And he’s tiny.
And he asked her if she was a spy.
And—
“Mother of God,” her knees flare with pain and it takes her a minute to realize it’s because she’s cracked them on the pavement when her legs gave out. “I think I just traveled back in time.”
…
It should maybe not be so surprising that Steve Rogers is unflappable.
Maybe it’s just surprising because the really weird shit hasn’t even started happening to him, and he’s taking this all in stride. That, or he thinks she’s crazy. Or he thinks her brains were jostled out of her head in the fight. He wouldn’t exactly be wrong.
He loans her some clothes—apologizing profusely since they’re his clothes, and he gets a little red when he says he doesn’t want to think about what Bucky’s sister would say if he went and asked her for dame’s clothes, stammering through the whole statement. Kate has to struggle not to laugh, because first of all: she fits into Steve’s clothes he is so tiny now, and second of all, he’s adorable, Kate wishes there was some non-scandalous 1940s way to say I don’t even care if you wear women’s clothes you’re adorable can I carry you around in my pocket for the next three hours but there’s not, so.
She doesn’t feel like laughing when she goes to change.
Because her soulmark?
It’s gone.
She has a brief moment where she thinks she’s going to hyperventilate, where the world spins, right before she shoves out of the room she was changing in to get to better light, just to make sure, you know?
Which is a good move, because it’s still there.
Kate’s breath exits her in a whoosh.
It’s just—not colored in anymore?
Kate’s mark has always been colored in, from the day she was born. It’s never made sense. Marks are supposed to fill in when you say the words to your soulmate; nobody’s ever said Who was the idiot who said I don’t like you? to her but it has always been a nice vibrant blue.
She still has it, though, that’s the important thing, so she hasn’t altered time or wound up in an entirely different reality.
She runs her fingers over the words, doubling over and trying to fight back the panic that’s making her head throb and her lungs work incorrectly.
“Miss, are you all right?” Steve’s at her side, ushering her to a chair. “Does time-travel usually disorient you so much?”
“What? No, we don’t—um, that was accidental time travel. That was not supposed to happen. Remember this, because one day it’s going to be important: Tony Stark is a jerk.”
“I’ll do that,” he smiles at her. “My friend should be home soon, he’s a lot better at stitching people up than I am—stitches me up all the time.”
“Yeah?” Kate presses her hand to her shoulder. It’s weird that she’s thrown by her soulmark being normal, for once. “You like picking fights, then?”
“Hey, I was helping you,” he protests. “Nobody should push somebody else around like that just for being different.”
“But people do all the time, don’t they? Tell me the truth, do you go a week without getting into a fight?”
Tiny pocket-person Steve Rogers smiles at her, then frowns, and it takes Kate a moment to realize that it’s because the cut on her forehead is bleeding again, dripping down her face in what she hopes is a horror movie-worthy manner.
She’s opening her mouth to ask Steve for a towel or something, when the door swings open.
“Sorry, Stevie, didn’t realize you had company,” the newcomer says.
“Bucky, this is—I never caught your name?”
Bucky Barnes is at the door and Kate is only just now connecting friend who I live with to Bucky Barnes to Winter Soldier.
He’s standing in the doorway, looking puzzled at the tableau before him, and suddenly, quite suddenly, a number of things become clear to Kate:
First thing: this isn’t even vaguely amusing anymore, she’s traveled back in time and these two men are going to go through strange and horrible things in the next few years—war and medical experiments and brainwashing, Jesus—
Two: Does she tell them? Back to the Future marathons and reading The Sound of Thunder haven’t prepared her for this.
Three: Bucky Barnes is an adorable cocksure little shit. You can tell by the way he stands, easy and relaxed, not concerned with entrances and exits and sight lines, his jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder, tie loose and collar open; it’s something Kate has never, not once, seen from the Bucky she sort of knows. It makes points one and two more important.
Four: This explains pretty much everything about why Steve doesn’t like to talk to her, why Barnes avoids her like the plague in the future, why they share a polite but firm distaste of her—because obviously, she knew what was to come and never warned them. She understands. Honestly, she kind of doesn’t like herself right now.
“Well,” she sighs, shaking her head. “At least now I know why you hate me so much.”
Bucky looks at her like she’s hit him upside the head with a baseball bat before he finds his tongue. “Who was the idiot who said I don’t like you?”
Kate thinks her jaw might be somewhere by her knee.
“My soulmark just came in three hours ago,” his voice is low and calm and a little dangerous. “How is this possible?”
“Um. Time travel?”
Kate’s not sure what it says about Bucky that he doesn’t even bat an eye at that.
“How far in the future are you from, anyway?” Bucky asks her a few minutes later, the patchwork contents of a first-aid kid scattered across the rickety table.
“I’d rather not say,” Kate winces as he places another stitch to her temple. His large hands are surprisingly gentle and Kate has to keep reminding herself to not stare at his left hand.
She’s mostly failing.
“Where’s your time machine?”
“It’s not like that,” Kate says, then manages to process the statement. “Fan of Wells?”
“Oh, you know,” Bucky shrugs. “He’s not my favorite. I like the concept, though.”
Bucky Barnes is a sci-fi fan. Who knew?
“Man, Bradbury and Asimov are going to blow your mind. And Star Trek? Forget about it.”
His eyebrows raise a little. “I don’t think I understood half of that.”
“Authors. And—you know what, never mind.” She worries her lip between her teeth, trying to figure out what to do. What she should do. If she’s stuck here forever.
“Stop that. You’re going to split it again.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me, you’re the one that’s going to be miserable with your lip bleeding.”
“I feel like you’ve had this conversation before.”
“Once a week, with Steve,” he shrugs, smiling as he ties off the last stitch. “There you go. Good as new.” He crosses his arms and sits back in the chair, regarding her through half-closed eyes. “Could I see your mark? Don’t know what the etiquette is when you come from.”
She debates it for a minute, tilting her head and staring right back at him. “Sure,” she finally says, unbuttoning the top few buttons of her borrowed shirt, smirking when his eyes widen. “Calm down,” she chides, tugging the collar down and over so he can see the vibrant blue words that follow her collarbone from her shoulder to her sternum, Who was the idiot who said I don’t like you?
“So,” Bucky reaches forward like he wants to run his fingers across the words before pulling himself up short, his hand hovering in the air. “Who is the idiot who said I didn’t like you?”
“Honestly, it was more of an assumption.”
“I act like I don’t like you in the future?” his eyes are curious.
“Well,” Kate lets the rest of the sentence die on her tongue. Bucky stares at her for a moment before sitting back in his seat. “You have lovely penmanship,” she offers, trying to fill the silence.
“Yours is pretty awful,” he smirks at her. “Haven’t had much chance to look at it, though.”
“Could I see, then?”
“If you don’t mind me takin’ my shirt off,” he winks at her, raises his eyebrows and Kate thinks he’s half-sure she’ll say that she does mind.
Joke’s on you, Barnes.
“I can think of worse things,” she says with a shrug, and he grins at her outright, unbuttoning his dress shirt and stripping it off, laying it neatly next to the gauze.
The first thing she notices is how skinny he is. He’s a lot bigger than Steve at the moment, but he’s nowhere near the solid mass of deadly muscle that slinks through the tower. Kate has a very sharp suspicion that Bucky Barnes doesn’t eat enough, and she wonders how much of that is because he is hardwired to take care of Steve before himself, and how much of it is that they’re probably just broke.
It takes her a minute to find it, her lazy scrawl of Well, at least now I know why you dislike me so much. wrapping around the upper portion of his bicep.
On his left arm.
Kate is filled with the sudden, irrational desire to find whoever is in charge of the universe and scratch their eyes out.
“Kate?” Bucky reaches for her, grips her arm in his left hand “You all right, doll?”
Well, he thinks that’s what he says, because her ears are buzzing and it’s hard to hear.
How is she supposed to do this? If she ever gets back home she is stabbing Tony Stark right in his—
Right in his—
“Stark.” Kate stands, nodding her head. “Yeah, I need to find Howard Stark. I’m going to ask him for help, and then I’m going to punch him.”