winter pollen
"i think it was milosz, the polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually die. but some is."
― ted hughes, winter pollen: occasional prose
16.
"Stark," Barnes repeats, sounding horrified.
Gasping, Tony stumbles back, grabbing his shirt off the counter and pressing it to his body like it'll somehow erase everything Barnes has just seen. His mind is pounding, frantic, and Barnes is just standing there, frozen, not doing anything or saying anything -
"Hey, hey," Barnes is saying, still wide-eyed but more composed now, and fumbles to shut the door with his gaze still fixed on Tony. "Stark. It's okay."
"You saw - but you saw - " Tony can't get the words out properly. They're falling from his mouth all wrong, jumbled and thick. Oh God, this is it, isn't it, he's finally done it, he's ruined everything, everything. Yesterday was bad? What a joke. This is so much worse, so much worse, everything just keeps on getting worse.
"Shh, calm down," Barnes says slowly, and inches towards Tony, hands out in front of him. Tony notes distantly that Barnes isn't looking at his chest at all but his face. "'M not gonna - it's just scarring. 'M not gonna judge you for it, if that's what you're wonderin'."
Tony flinches back when Barnes draws nearer, and the other boy immediately steps away, hands still raised - almost like a gesture of surrender. "Don't - don't come closer," Tony manages to get out, breath rasping. "I - can't - "
"Okay," Barnes murmurs lowly. His eyes seem shaded in, dark now; it is strangely different from the color his eyes had been outside - the way they had reflected the pale grey-blue of the winter sky. "I'll stay over here, okay?"
"Yeah." Tony cringes at the dry, raspy quality of his voice. "You can leave. I'm okay." His voice cracks and splinters off at the end.
Barnes quirks his mouth like he knows something Tony doesn't. "No, you're not," he counters. Then he seems to realize that Tony's still half-naked in front of him, trembling with the cold and trying to burrow in the sweatshirt as much as possible. "You should probably - "
"I need to shower," Tony says, lamely. He feels about two inches away from tears, and the heat inside his throat is wriggling around, clinging to the hollows of his larynx like mucus. His hands are shaking so hard that he probably looks like an addict overdosed on crack.
"Stark," Barnes says, "I'm sorry."
Tony shakes his head jerkily. "Nothing to be sorry for."
Suddenly, Barnes is in front of him and he's crouched down, holding out a wad of toilet paper. "Here," he's murmuring, and Tony blinks and he's sitting on the floor and Barnes's face is all blurry like he's looking through a foggy window pane.
"Fuck," Tony says. He blinks again, mumbles almost surprisedly, "I'm c-crying."
Barnes laughs a little; it's a quiet huff of sound. "Yeah." He pauses for a second before slipping off his jacket, gently easing Tony's damp sweatshirt from the other boy's grip as he drapes his own over Tony's shoulders. "Thor was right, y'know - you're gonna catch a cold at this rate."
Tony tips his head back against the cabinets. "N-no p-p-point in being sick if it's n-not during a school week."
Barnes glances at him, unimpressed. "D'you even realize how hard you're shiverin' right now, Stark?" When Tony just looks at him, the other boy sighs. "Stay here. I'll go get a blanket or somethin'. Just don't move."
"Wait," Tony says, genuinely confused and cursing the way his breath hitches. Absentmindedly he runs a finger over his scarred chest, feeling the winding bumps and ridges, the rough, gross texture of the ruined skin. All his cards are down now - it's just him, his history, and Barnes, who hates him. "Why are you d-doing this for me? I'm f-fine." There's something so surreal about this scene - the tile cold through the damp seat of his jeans, the yellowing bathroom lights, like he's not even here - could float away, spin through the air as fine as film and disappear forever into some other otherworldly place.
Barnes frowns down at him, an indecipherable expression flickering in his eyes. His metal hand twitches a little, almost unconsciously. "I'm missing an arm, Stark," he says in the end, mouth quirking up wryly. "You're not the only one who struggles with...body image issues."
-
As soon as Bucky leaves the restroom, he has to close his eyes and calm himself. With all of the commotion, he'd completely forgotten about his pain meds, and now the stinging in his stump of a left shoulder springs back full force. Don't worry, it's typical for amputees to experience this kind of sensation after the accident, the doctor had told him when Bucky had complained during a check-up in those earlier days. We call it phantom pains - your nerves are still firing because they remember losing the arm, even if the limb is no longer there.
Thanks for the reminder, Doc.
In any case, his nerves still haven't gotten the memo that Bucky's arm has been missing for years, and his shoulder still occasionally hurts. Like now, when he'd been going to get something to ease the pain and had stupidly, stupidly walked into the bathroom instead of his and Steve's room because he hadn't been paying any attention -
And Stark. Bucky's just surprised that he hadn't reacted more vocally, because honestly? Stark's chest is probably the worst case of scarring he's ever seen, at least in person. The guy's upper torso is utterly riddled with scars - caused by what though, he isn't sure -
Jesus. What had happened to the guy?
It's almost like Stark's body is seared into his mind now. It's not like Stark is bad looking - the SI heir is actually pretty toned and tan beneath those clothes - but the scarring.
Bucky can't get those fucking scars out of his head.
Maybe Stark's been in a fire? he thinks, but then frowns. Something that bad would've been on the news, right? Maybe he poured something hot down his shirt as a child? He supposes that alone would explain the flinching, in any case; nobody wants other people to see their physical "imperfections", after all.
As he enters the bedroom, he shouts down the stairs that he's going to be showering after Stark and that he'll be awhile. Nobody says anything back, except for Steve's hollered "Don't take too long, jerk!" But for the first time, Bucky's grateful that he's missing an arm - everyone knows he has to take it off whenever he showers, and that'll hopefully afford him enough time to do something about the Stark situation in his bathroom.
Speaking of which…
After Bucky's dry-swallowed two pain pills, he heads back down to the restroom with a blanket he's snagged from the closet. It's a little worn and threadbare, but it's warm and should keep Stark from catching a cold (if he hasn't caught one already). When he re-enters, Stark's still in the same spot on the floor, trembling violently and huddling into his knees and Bucky's jacket.
Bucky clears his throat awkwardly and Stark jolts back against the cabinets with a smack that has got to hurt. "Uh - here," he says, forcing the blanket forward. "So you can at least stay warm while you calm down."
Apparently the wrong choice of words, because Stark's face contorts into a grimace. "'M fine," he insists, even though he really isn't. While he's busy glaring at the floor, he wraps the blanket around his narrow frame.
Bucky doesn't know what to do, so he settles for leaning against the door and studying the lines of the tiles. After a while, though, Stark's voice - now devoid of shivering for the most part - filters through his thoughts. "Uh - thank you." Bucky looks up to see the other boy swallowing hard, hands clenching the blanket. "I'm sorry. Sorry."
Without even anticipating it, Bucky feels a hot course of pity and - is that empathy? - flashing through him. He can only imagine how awful it must feel to first have a panic attack in front of a bunch of peers, and then another one in front of an almost-stranger. He doesn't know Stark is feeling now, but based on the slight tremors running through the other boy's hands and the haunted look in his eyes, Bucky can guess that the weight of the past two days has been taking a pretty heavy toll.
Slowly, so that Stark can see what he's doing, Bucky kneels on the ground and sits cross-legged in front of the billionaire son. "Hey," he murmurs lowly. "Breathe with me, okay? Close your eyes and I'll count."
Stark eyes him with heavy suspicion but does it anyway. Bucky can see how his eyes move around under his eyelids and his breath hitches. "Okay," Bucky says. He's never been good at this - good at comfort - and he's sure as hell never been good like Steve or even Thor, but he remembers vividly all the months post losing his arm. He remembers all of that shit. And Stark - it might not be the same, and not everyone deals with trauma the same way, but he remembers the way the only kind social worker he ever had breathed with him. It's okay, James, breathe with me. Feel my chest? Feel my heartbeat? Breathe with me. "I can just count, or - there's this thing I used t' do. Can I - touch you for a second?"
Stark stiffens against the cupboards and his eyes open, a piercing, startling chocolate color. "So that's what this is about?"
It's such a shift from the nervous, fumbling tone of earlier that for a second Bucky just sits there, staring. "What? About what?"
"You just want - " Stark motions violently, eyebrows settling low. "You just want a quick fuck or something then, huh? That's what you wanted all this time? Coulda spared the blanket and everything, Barnes."
"What? No," Bucky says sharply. "I would never - " And then he realizes how wrong that's going to sound, especially when Stark's hand twitches over his scarred chest and a flash of something raw and wounded crosses his face for a second.
"I didn't mean it like that, Stark." Bucky sighs. "I meant - here." Lightly, slowly, he guides Tony's other hand - the one that's clenched in the folds of the blanket - to his flesh wrist, and presses Tony's thumb over his pulse. "Heartbeats calm me. I dunno if it'd work for you - but it helps me."
Stark watches him, still wary. "So you're not going to - to try anything?" he mutters finally, his voice thin.
"No," Bucky says clearly. "That came out the wrong way. I won't, Stark. You have my word." Stark looks like he doesn't really think Bucky's word is worth much, but then the teen tips his head back against the cabinets again and screws his eyes shut, thumb firm on Bucky's pulse.
"Okay," Bucky says lowly after a moment, trying not to watch the other boy. Stark's lashes are long and dark against his flushed cheeks. "You can feel my heartbeat, right?"
Stark's next breath shudders out of his chest as he nods his head.
"Okay, good." Awkwardly, Bucky settles down next to Stark so that their backs are both up against the cabinets, side by side. "I'm just going to...we're just gonna breathe now, yeah? In, out, in, out, like that."
Another shuddering breath, except this time the exhale is huffed out, almost as if in amusement. "Just...get on with it, Barnes."
Bucky doesn't need to be told twice; "in, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three," he instructs, quietly so as not to startle the genius. He watches as Stark's chest rises and falls alongside Bucky's words, at first jerky but then slowly evening out. "There we go," he finds himself murmuring, which startles even himself. Just yesterday morning, he was busy seething at Stark like normal. Even last night, he'd been...wary. But now, it's like...a lot of his anger's loosened in his chest and has unraveled, like ribbons turning limp when you flatten them out. He feels weary, now, and old, and for some reason it feels almost like a big act of trust, letting Stark feel the blood pulsing underneath the thin skin of his wrist.
Wrists are so delicate, Bucky mulls, his counting eventually giving way to silence. His metal one flashes under the bathroom light. Stark's wrists - his hands and fingers and wrists - are delicate, for sure. The other boy doesn't look shrimpy or anything, but those fingers look they'd be fragile enough to break if someone squeezed them hard enough.
Stark cracks an eye open before Bucky can react, and tenses a little. "See something particularly interesting?" he says warily.
"Sorry," Bucky mutters. Funny, how he's the one apologizing now. "Nothin'. Want me to keep counting?"
"'M good," Stark says. And it seems true - the color's returned to his face, and his hands are no longer shaking vigorously. "Uh." The teenage playboy suddenly looks horribly shy and embarrassed. "Thanks. Barnes."
Bucky isn't sure, really, what he's going to say till he says it. It's not like they're friends - hell, it's not even like they're acquaintances. But it feels like something's changed, somehow, in this small bathroom scene, in the half hour since he walked into the wrong room by accident and caught Stark shirtless and more than a little sad and covered in scars. "We're all a little bit broken," he ends up with, his voice gruff. "So it would be kinda stupid if I judged you for this, wouldn't it?"
Stark's gaze is downcast. "I guess."
Bucky sighs. "Stark," he says. Might as well get anything he wants to say out now. "I don't...it's hard. To forgive you."
Stark swallows and shifts back against the cabinet doors a bit. "Yeah. Yeah. I - I know. I get it."
"But I guess you're kinda...dealin' with some things." Shit, Barnes, you're terrible at this. "What I'm tryin' t' say is - we've been shit. And I know we said we're gonna stop, but I figured - you should probably hear it from me. Since everything's between us, in a way." Bucky huffs a laugh ruefully. "I'm an asshole, which you've probably already realized. But I'm tryin'. My arm's sorta a sensitive area for me. And I guess I've been overreactin' about some things, because every time I look at you I think of my arm. But I want to apologize for real."
Stark looks up at him; it's really weird, actually, how bright Stark's eyes are. They're a real dark brown, but they sort of...gleam. Not in a creepy glint-y evil way, or in a wet, tearful way, but it's… Bucky doesn't know how to describe it. He sure as hell didn't notice this before, but he guesses he hasn't really ever looked at Stark before either, really looked at him.
"Why now?" Stark's voice is so soft that even with Bucky's unusually sharp hearing, he has to strain to make out the other boy's words.
Bucky looks at his hands. And answers, honestly, "I don't know."
There's a beat of silence, and then Stark twists his hands in his lap. "I should probably, uh. Shower."
Bucky nods once, twice, and then stands, taking the proffered jacket and blanket. Stark clears his throat and it looks almost painful. "I, um. Thank you."
"Yeah," Bucky says simply, turning to leave. He suddenly doesn't know where to look without making it look like blatant avoidance of othe other boy's chest, so his eyes connect with Stark's instead. It's almost surprising how intense Stark's gaze is. "Still...can't really...see you without seein' our fight." He quirks a wry smile. "But I'm not without fault, and you're kinda stuck with all of my friends, who honestly tend to be incredibly protective."
"Thanks," Stark mumbles, and almost as an afterthought, adds in a whisper, "Sorry."
Bucky would tell him, would tell him don't apologize, but the thing is, he's a coward and Stark's still a stranger to him. Sure, a kid who broke his arm and moved into his house (even if just for winter break) and broke down in front of him more times than most people have, but at the end of the day, still a stranger.
So he just says, "I'll shower after you," and walks out.