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Marvel Trumps Hate 2019, Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020, My precious loki
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2020-10-12
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2020-12-18
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Chapter 15: Chapter Fifteen. [ fifth oddity: medical ]

Summary:

It comes to him five lifetimes too late and at the weirdest possible juncture—here, in an alternate reality, with a Steve as prickly as a fucking cactus, looking like he used to when they were younger, but better—healthier and livelier—who until 45 seconds ago had wanted nothing better than to stick a syringe in Bucky’s eyeball.

Notes:

I can't believe we're at CHAPTER FIFTEEN, which is both a large number, but also only five chapters away from finishing!! Thank you to all who have been joining us for the ride and who have taken the time to share how much they've enjoyed the ride! This is a weird and hopefully fun fic and I hope that has vibed with some of you in any way you needed for it to. ♥

cw: scene of a hospital death, scene of a panic attack

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Bucky does not get a page from Steve for the rest of that day. He has the following day off and then he has two shifts in a row this weekend, which is probably not the sign of a healthy work-life balance, but also Bucky’s kind of having fun being a physician in this world for as long as he’s in it.

He comes into the hospital after lunch on Saturday to find that Steve’s halfway through his shift already. Still, once Bucky begins checking in on the patients on his docket, Steve is in the room with him almost every time and although he doesn’t actively hiss at him this time, he does give Bucky a suspicious look every time he opens his mouth.

They make it through the afternoon without too much incident and by the time the sky starts to get dark outside, Bucky’s tired and his feet ache and, if the dark circles under Steve’s eyes are anything to go by, he’s even worse off.

Bucky buys two coffees from the hospital cafeteria and shuffles over to the nurse’s station, which is deserted except for Steve staring blankly at his computer.

Bucky leans over the counter, hand outstretched.

It takes a moment for Steve to register that there’s someone hovering over him and another moment to register who it is that is doing the hovering.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, blinking and then immediately narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“Okay, I can’t keep doing this,” Bucky says. “Can you just take the coffee? My hand is burning.”

Steve’s look of suspicion doesn’t lessen, but he does reach for the coffee after a moment.

“Why are you giving me coffee?”

“Because you’re on the eleventh hour of a twelve hour shift and look like you’re about to fall face forward into your computer monitor,” Bucky says.

Steve scowls.

“I don’t look like that.”

“Sorry, my mistake, I must have been seeing things when I saw you hit your head on the screen earlier,” Bucky says dryly.

Steve flushes.

“That was an accident!”

“Oh my god, Steve,” Bucky says with a laugh. “Can you just accept a nice gesture? I was getting coffee and I wanted to get you coffee. So now you have coffee.”

Steve grumbles unhappily, but he does lift the cup to his mouth after a moment.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice barely discernible.

“I wanted to thank you,” Bucky says, after a moment.

Steve doesn’t immediately reply. Then he says, “For what?”

“All of your work,” Bucky says. He takes a gulp of his own hot coffee. “You’ve been working your ass off and I want you to know that I’ve noticed.”

“Oh well if you’ve noticed,” Steve says waspishly. “That is what I live for, your approval. If I don’t get your validation, whatever will I do?”

Bucky stares at Steve over his coffee.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“What?” Steve asks, annoyed.

“You’re an ass,” Bucky says.

Steve’s mouth falls open and Bucky shakes his head.

“I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt because like—you’re a great fucking nurse and you obviously care about your patients and you get along well enough with Clint and Loki and the other nurses, but holy shit, you are a fucking dick.”

Steve’s face colors, his expression contorted with anger and—Bucky thinks—maybe embarrassment.

“How dare—” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off and straightens.

“I am trying my hardest here to be nice to you and to connect and you won’t give me a fucking chance,” Bucky says. “I don’t know what I did to you or why you look like you want to strangle me with an IV line every time you see me, but I don’t deserve this. Jesus. Enjoy your coffee, I’m out.”

Bucky turns around with his coffee in hand and starts to walk down the hall. He’s a bit peeved and he thinks he’ll just spend the rest of his break in the staff room watching mindless TV instead of trying to fix whatever the fuck’s wrong here.

He’s just crossed the hallway and is about to enter the staff room, when he hears his name.

“Dr. Barnes!”

Bucky slows.

“Bucky,” Steve says and he sounds a little winded, like he was running down the hallway to catch up to him.

Bucky stops and turns and Steve is pink-faced and puffing.

“Jesus, slow down, you’re going to aggravate your asthma, you little shit,” Bucky says, hand on Steve’s shoulder, immediately concerned.

Steve sucks in a breath and looks up, momentarily confused. Bucky realizes too late that he’s been too familiar, but luckily he doesn’t have to explain.

Steve just shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry.”

Bucky looks at him in surprise.

“What?”

Steve glares up at him, but then catches himself again. He sighs and shakes his head.

“You’re right,” he says, although it’s a bit through grit teeth. “I—you’re trying and I’m. I was a dick.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow and Steve rolls his eyes.

“I’m being a dick,” he says.

“Is there a reason...for it?” Bucky asks. “Why do you hate me?”

Steve looks at him strangely, almost cautiously. Almost like he doesn’t understand why Bucky’s saying what he’s saying or what angle he’s playing from.

“I—thought we hated each other,” he says. “When we—both started together. You were such a pompous dick that day, answering every question, talking over everyone. Talking over me. Your attitude toward nurses—”

Bucky stares at him.

That’s why you hate me?” he asks incredulously. “Because I made a bad first impression?”

Steve crosses his arms at his chest.

“You were a tool!” he says.

“I was nervous!” Bucky replies.

Steve’s glower doesn’t lessen. Well, initially. Then, after a moment, he looks more hesitant.

“I thought you were competing with me,” he says. Then awkwardly rolls his shoulder. “No...I thought you didn’t think I was...good enough to be your competition.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Jesus fucking Christ.

If Steve wouldn’t immediately take it the exact wrong way, Bucky would laugh because this—all of this—hating someone and rejecting them because he thinks that they think he isn’t good enough is so quintessentially Steve that Bucky feels like he’s going to pass out.

Whatever tension he had been carrying in his chest these past few days suddenly eases. It’s like a weight lifting off his shoulders, something loosening within him. No matter the world, no matter the reality, Steve will always be Steve. And the knowledge is so fucking comforting, Bucky’s nearly giddy with it.

“No, you idiot—” Bucky says and then hastily raises his hands when Steve’s expression flickers. “Sorry, force of habit. Steve, no. I’ve never thought that. I mean I don’t think we’re in competition to begin with because we work in a hospital to like, help people, and I’m not a psychopath, but if we were in competition, I wouldn’t count you out.”

Steve’s expression—stormy at first, starts to clear.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. This time he does laugh. “Steve, you are terrifyingly competent. I mean it. I wasn’t laying it on thick earlier, you are the best fucking nurse we have. Your attention to detail and your breadth of knowledge and your certainty—I can’t imagine leaving our patients with better care. You’re incredible. Your work is incredible.”

Steve’s face starts to glow pink, as it always does when he tips over into embarrassment.

“I didn’t mean—” he stumbles through his words. He stops and sighs, clearly embarrassed now, and runs his hands through his floppy blond hair. “I mean not a competition like that. I care about our patients more than anything, I didn’t think—I just meant. I wanted you to think—”

Bucky smiles.

“I know,” he says, genuinely. “And I do. Jesus, I respect the hell out of you.”

Steve looks so hilariously off-kilter and wrong-footed that Bucky nearly starts to laugh again. He doesn’t, though, which is just as well, because Steve is so cute when he’s all pink and his hair is sticking up everywhere and it would be a shame to put an early end to that.

“Well I—” Steve says and takes a breath. He’s so pink his skin color would register on the color wheel if someone held a swatch up to his face. “You too. Terrifyingly competent. And all that. Respect. And the such.”

Bucky grins. No, it’s not just a grin, it is a goofy grin. He’s so enamoured with this stupid fucking punk and his dumbass brain which is always getting in his own damn way and how of course the only reason Steve would actually be a dick to someone is if he thought they were underestimating him in some manner.

His best friend is so fucking annoying that Bucky would strangle him if he wasn’t crazy about him.

Wait.

Bucky’s easy grin suddenly freezes in place, his eyes widening.

Steve, looking terribly abashed, but also like he’s trying to keep the grin off his face, scratches his nose.

Bucky’s chest—traitorous and useless as it is—comes to life, like an engine sputtering to a start.

Wait.

It happens all at once, everything beginning together. His heart thudding in his chest, sudden nerves making him choke; the way that his brain is buzzing with something—something so simple, something so stupid.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He’s crazy about him, Bucky realizes.

Bucky Barnes, a whole idiot, is crazy about Steve Rogers.

It comes to him five lifetimes too late and at the weirdest possible juncture—here, in an alternate reality, with a Steve as prickly as a fucking cactus, looking like he used to when they were younger, but better—healthier and livelier—who until 45 seconds ago had wanted nothing better than to stick a syringe in Bucky’s eyeball.

It comes to him in the middle of a hospital in the middle of the night, with a Steve who isn’t his Steve, but is a Steve—as though they aren’t all his Steves, as though Steve, by being Steve, could ever not be his Steve—not because he looks particularly handsome or because he’s being particularly sweet, but precisely and exactly because he is so fucking exasperating that no one in any universe will ever drive Bucky half as crazy as Steve, just standing there will.

It’s stupid for this to be the thing—for that to be why the lightbulb flickers on in his head—the spark in his spine, the flame catching at the end of a matchstick—but once he thinks about it, once Bucky says to himself oh, I am crazy about Steve, it makes a home for itself in a part of himself he had mistakenly thought had rusted shut.

Of course he loves Steve Rogers, he thinks. Of course, he always has.

This Steve looks at him weirdly, maybe a bit nervously. Maybe it’s because Bucky’s eyes are bugging out of his fucking skull.

“So we’re...okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky, staring at him like a crazy person, thinking only: if he, Bucky Barnes, a whole idiot, is crazy about Steve Rogers, then why the hell had he, Bucky Barnes, a whole idiot, rejected Steve Rogers when he had tried to do something about it. Before all of this. Before he had taken the stones and disappeared.

“Dr. Barnes…” Steve says, nervously and then, “...Bucky?”

Bucky tries to reel his thoughts in. It’s a bit like trying to herd a bunch of cats back into a poorly constructed bag, but he manages. Only because Steve looks like he will either cry or sock Bucky in the jaw if he doesn’t say something in the next five seconds.

That’s comforting, in a way.

Bucky gives Steve a smile while losing what’s left of his whole mind.

“Yeah, Steve,” he says. “We’re okay.”

*

Everything about the patient is difficult.

Thor has performed coronary bypass surgery on more than one occasion, both before he’s arrived in this reality and even after he’s slotted into the life of Dr. Thor Odinson. The cases differ in difficulty depending on the patient’s profile and how severe the blockage is, but one thing remains constant no matter how difficult or easy the case—bypass surgery is technical, grueling, and almost always nervy.

Still, Thor wouldn’t have become a surgeon if he couldn’t keep his head under pressure.

The quadruple bypass surgery lasts almost six hours in this case and it isn’t easy. The patient is an older man with a medical history so colorful it could easily have been created by the National Board of Medical Examiners to torture medical students taking their board exams.

The first problem is that his blockage is so severe, the patient had been admitted to the Emergency Room after having already suffered a heart attack. He hadn’t responded particularly well to the other treatments and Thor had consulted with T’Challa quickly as the decision had been made.

The second problem is that he had high, nearly uncontrolled diabetes, which had worked to erode his liver, and his kidneys weren’t doing particularly well either, to say nothing of how often he had been admitted to the hospital in the past because of fluid build up in his lungs.

He has a doctor for each organ in his body and none of them are doing hot.

The patient is a fucking mess.

He also won’t stop bleeding during open heart surgery.

Thor is tense throughout the entire procedure and he isn’t the only one. The theater, which is by no means usually a cheerful environment during surgeries, is particularly tense today, the air thick with nerves. Thor and Okoye work quietly and meticulously together, in tandem, while the anesthesiologist, a young man named Dr. Altman-Kaplan, checks on the patient to make sure he’s properly sedated, and Loki and Wanda work in the background to hand supplies and aid the surgeons as efficiently as possible.

They have to staunch internal bleeding more than once and at least twice, the patient’s breathing seems so labored, they have to stop the procedure to make sure he isn’t having a reaction to the anesthesia.

Grueling isn’t the word for it. It’s brutal and by the time Thor and Okoye step back from the table, the graft complete, and Loki and Wanda move forward to take care of post-op clean up and move the patient back to the intensive care unit, Thor is nearly shaking from exhaustion.

“Come on,” Okoye tells him, although she herself sounds unsteady. “Let us clean up and find something to eat.”

Thor doesn’t even look back to check on Loki this time. He’s so drained and strangely anxious that he just nods.

“The report can wait until after dinner,” he says and follows her out of the theater and toward the washing room.


The thing is, the sense of unease lingers. He’s not sure what it is. Call it doctor’s intuition, but he feels discomfited by the patient and how difficult the surgery had been, even though he knows that, logically, he and his team had performed to the best of their abilities.

The feeling stays during dinner and lingers even as he’s dictating—he’s too tired to even attempt to decompress by writing out his notes this evening—each step of the surgery for his report.

It stays with him as he checks on the patient that evening and Wanda tells him that he’s stable, but that his temperature is higher than she’d like for it to be.

So when his beeper suddenly goes off and the emergency call is put out over the speakers as his patient starts to code, Thor feels the blood drain from his face, but he can’t say that he is particularly surprised. He leaves the staff room quickly, knocking his bottle of water to the ground as he goes, and by the time he’s crossed the entire ward to the patient’s room, Bucky and Steve are already in there, trying to resuscitate the dying man.

Thor’s breath catches in his throat and he feels his fingers go numb, his brain whiting out with panic. He’s rooted to place, frozen with shock, as Wanda joins them in the emergency, providing support as Steve works quickly and efficiently, helping Bucky with chest compressions, trying to get the patient’s heart back online.

He hears the hurried, firm voices from inside as Bucky and Steve try everything within their powers to save him. The machine beeping so loudly it’s nearly screaming, the raised, frantic voices inside the room, the sound of Thor’s heart thudding in his ears—roaring, thunderous—and Thor doesn’t realize he’s stopped breathing altogether until he feels a firm hand on his upper arm.

His brain is nearly blank with panic at this point, so he doesn’t resist as the person tugs on him, firmly leading him away from the coding patient, fingers curled tightly around his arm, nails digging in so hard that the pain is the only thing left to ground Thor.

He’s steered through the ward, past the staff room, and out the door. He’s shoved into a stairwell and then led down two flights of stairs until the door is pushed open and then he’s dragged out into the cool evening air. The fresh air hits him like a punch to his lungs and apparently that’s all he needed because he immediately crumples to his knees, his hands clutching his head, and then the person is down there next to him too, a hand on his back, a hand in his hair, and a familiar voice whispering, It’s okay, breathe. It’s okay, I understand. It’s going to be okay. Thor. Thor? Listen to me, can you hear me?

Mid-panic attack, Thor’s heart is racing so fast he can barely choke out the breaths, so the person wraps his fingers around Thor’s wrist and tugs one of Thor’s hands away from his head and places it on the other man’s chest.

“Thor, listen to me,” he says. “Can you feel my heartbeat? The rise and fall of my chest. Follow it. Come on.”

Thor doesn’t know what he means for a second, his mind is so white with panic, but then the other man breathes in and out exaggeratedly, his chest puffing up and falling so dramatically that it distracts Thor—just as it’s meant to.

“There you go,” the other man says. “In and out with me. Come on. Yes, that’s right. In again. And out. Once more, follow me.”

Thor inhales when the other man does and exhales when he does. The other man takes in a breath and Thor follows him. He exhales and Thor pushes air out of his lungs.

It takes a monumental amount of effort, but it works. After a few minutes of Thor following his lead and the other man murmuring quiet words of encouragement to him, Thor’s head begins to clear.

“Loki,” he gasps out and Loki nods, seeming relieved.

“Yes,” he says. “It’s me. Are you all right? Don’t stop breathing.”

“Loki,” Thor grinds out again and then—even though this isn’t his Loki and even though they’re barely more than strangers here, just two men feeling each other out, Thor pushes forward into Loki’s chest, presses his face into Loki’s neck, and after a moment, Loki wordlessly wraps his arms around Thor and strokes the back of his hair until Thor calms all the way back down.


“What happened?” Loki asks.

They sit against the wall outside of the hospital, Loki lighting up a cigarette and offering it to Thor.

Thor takes it from him gratefully and puts it to his mouth. He doesn’t like the smell of smoke or the taste of it, but he does like the act of inhaling it and then exhaling it back out. It’s soothing, which isn’t a good enough reason to develop a nicotine addiction, but he supposes that one cigarette after a panic attack isn’t going to send him to the oncologist just yet.

“I don’t know,” Thor says, his voice raspier than usual.

“You’ve lost patients before,” Loki says. He’s not mean about it. He says it gently, but straightforward: a fact, which it is.

“Yes,” Thor agrees. He leans his head back against the building.

“You did everything you could,” Loki says. “I watched you. Your procedure was unimpeachable. The patient was as difficult as one could be. It wasn’t your fault.”

It hangs strangely between them, that phrase: it wasn’t your fault.

It’s strange for Thor to hear and it’s even stranger for him to hear it from Loki.

“Sometimes, I think it is,” he says. It takes something from him to admit it out loud, his voice shaking, his heart erratic in his chest.

Loki says nothing for a moment.

“Do you think it is or is it actually?” he asks.

That startles Thor. He turns his head slightly toward Loki, who’s looking up at the trees.

“It’s easy to blame yourself for everything,” he says. “To say this entire thing was my fault and I am bad and I deserve every bad thing that happens to me as a result.”

Thor frowns.

“Do you know what’s harder? What takes more guts?” Loki asks. He tilts his head toward Thor and Thor’s breath catches in his chest. Loki, his green eyes glittering brightly in the dark.

“What?” Thor asks. He takes a breath and offers the cigarette back to Loki.

Loki gives him a lazy smile and takes it from him.

“To admit to yourself that you’ve done the best you can and sometimes that just isn’t enough,” he says.

Oh, Thor thinks.

“But that doesn’t make it your fault.”

His chest feels waterlogged, his throat thick.

“I don’t know what you’re blaming yourself for, Thor,” Loki says after a minute. “Something happened back there and it wasn’t related to Mr. Bartok.”

A ship in the sky. Bodies strewn across a deck. Bodies burning. A purple fist closing around a pale neck.

“I’m tired of losing people,” Thor says. “I’m tired of it being my fault.”

“Don’t be a coward,” Loki says. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth and inhales.

Thor watches him closely.

Was it your fault?” Loki asks.

Thor knows his answer.

A ship in the sky. Bodies strewn across a deck. Bodies burning.

A purple fist closing around a pale—

No.

Green eyes meeting his. An apology that is never said out loud.

I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again.

The thing about blaming yourself for everything is that you forget that other people make their own choices. The truth is that Thor couldn’t have stopped Thanos from finding them. The truth is he couldn’t have stopped Heimdall from charging at him.

The truth is that Loki, once his mind was made up, could not have been saved.

So what is the truth?

Was it your fault? this Loki asks.

And the answer that Thor knows; the answer that he has been afraid to admit is this:

“No,” Thor exhales. He draws his knees up to his chest and for the first time in a very long time, tells the truth. “No, Loki. It wasn’t all my fault. I just couldn’t stop it from happening.”


They sit in silence for long enough that Thor’s skin starts to grow cold. Loki finishes his cigarette and grinds it under the heel of his shoes.

He turns toward Thor, his eyes shining again, a loose smile on his lips.

“I used to be a piece of shit,” he says. “Maybe I still am, I don’t know. I got a lot of chances in life and finally, one day, I got sick of myself and took someone up on one.”

“Loki?” Thor asks, quietly.

“You’re good, Thor,” Loki says. “You are painfully, achingly good.”

Loki’s fingers on Thor’s knee, Loki leaning in close to him. Loki vibrant and alive and warm on this chilly, terrible night.

“How do you know?” Thor murmurs. He watches him closely. His eyes at Loki’s mouth.

Loki’s mouth curving up at the corners.

“If you weren’t, I wouldn’t want to ruin you,” he says.

A shiver runs down Thor’s spine. His fingers on Loki’s wrist.

They say nothing, a quiet between them that is so still it’s almost delicate. Thor, watching Loki’s bright eyes, the wrinkle between his brows, the way his lips quirk up at the corners.

Thor, losing everything and finding it all in the same moment.

Loki leans forward and Thor—his breath catching in his throat—his head buzzing—cups a hand to Loki’s face, and meets his mouth with his own.


art: Loki leaning forward and kissing Thor; art by: nalonzooo

*

It doesn’t make sense. The patient does well in surgery and is moved back to his room for what they expect will be a moderately easy recovery. Five hours after the procedure, she’s resting, but stable. It’s the sixth hour where things start to go wrong.

“She looks worse,” Bucky says, checking Mrs. Bidwell’s chart for post-op statistics and details. Her pallor is sickly, pale and waxy, her forehead sweaty, little tremors running down her arms.

“Yeah, I have eyes,” Steve leaning close to her to check her temperature, snaps at him.

“Was she awake earlier?” Bucky ignores Steve’s tone and taps on her IV line to make sure it’s administering medicine properly.

“Yeah,” Steve mutters. He pulls the thermometer away. “She doesn’t have a fever. Could it be an infection?”

“She’s on antibiotics,” Bucky murmurs, looking at her chart again.

Next to them, the heart monitor gives a sharp little beep and Bucky’s frown deepens. He doesn’t like this.

“Her heart rate is too elevated,” he says. He worries at his bottom lip.

“Is your job just to state the obvious?” Steve says waspishly. “If I’d known medical school was that easy, I would have opted for that instead.”

“Can you cool it?” Bucky says, sharply. Annoyed, he tries to wrack his brain for a possible reason. It could be a post-op infection. It could be something left inside the patient. It could be a reaction to something. Bucky won’t find an answer by standing here, dithering.

“What do you want me to do then?” Steve asks stiffly.

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“Okay,” he says. “Blood tests. CBC. PTT. Check for possible infections. We don’t want something like sepsis to take us by surprise.”

Steve grunts, but he writes down the orders.

“She was fine earlier,” he says, stopping at the doorway. He looks piqued, but Bucky thinks that’s just a mask for his worry. Steve is worried.

“It’ll be okay, Steve,” Bucky says. “We’ll monitor her and adjust.”

Steve looks at Mrs. Bidwell for a moment longer and then back at Bucky. His expression is inscrutable. Finally, he gives a short nod and shuffles out of the room to bring back what he needs to take the blood tests.

Bucky turns back to Mrs. Bidwell and frowns. There’s something about her symptoms that don’t add up to him. The problem is, he can’t seem to figure out what.


She gets worse. Bucky checks back in with her over the next few hours and despite the antibiotics, she seems to grow paler. She’s shivering, her skin is clammy. Her stats are declining.

“Do you think someone could have left something in her...during surgery?” Bucky asks, his voice tight.

He hopes it wasn’t Thor.

“Maybe,” Clint says, next to him.

They’re looking into the room through the window, where Steve is fretting by her bedside.

“It’s not out of the question,” Clint says. “You’re going to have to report it if it is. And get Natasha.”

“Natasha?” Bucky repeats.

Clint gives him a sympathetic look.

“If we’re going to get sued for malpractice, she has to know,” he says.

Bucky winces and hopes it doesn’t come to that. He looks inside and Steve is changing out one of her IV bags.

Mrs. Bidwell lets out a shaky breath. She’s awake now, but her eyes are glassy, unfocused. The signs of her deterioration are worrisome. And rapid.

He really hopes it doesn’t come to that.


He’s checking up on another patient who just has a broken femur when his beeper goes off. Bucky pulls away to check it and lets out a curse under his breath. It’s from Clint.

FURY ON ROUNDS. MRS. BIDWELL NEXT.

“Is everything all right?” the young skateboarder with the broken bone says, clearly concerned by the way Bucky’s turned a shade of purple that would rival Thanos if they were lining up for mug shots.

“No. Climate change is a bitch and I have to go,” Bucky says and puts his beeper away. “If your leg starts to hurt again, page your nurse.”


Dr. Nicholas J. Fury is just as much of a hardass bastard as his SHIELD counterpart. He’s down a secret government agency and up an entire division of the hospital, which is to say that he has been the hospital’s Chief of Medicine for nearly two decades now. It’s a position he’s earned by being one of the steadiest and most successful physicians in the hospital’s history, but also by using his single eyeball to glare anyone who defies him into submission.

That is also to say that getting reamed out by Fury is not uncommon and it’s usually for a good reason, but it’s not often pleasant.

When he’s angry, his eye narrows and his nostrils flare and he’s one stupid medical error away from breathing fire.

Mrs. Bidwell is doing so poorly that Bucky prepares for the dragon, but secretly just hopes he has the answer.

“Tell me everything you’ve done,” Fury says to Bucky and Steve as he checks the patient’s vitals and chart. His eyes narrow, his words through grit teeth. His nostrils flaring just at the edges.

Bucky takes a breath and starts to go through his notes.


It occurs to him halfway through delivering the report.

He’s looking at Mrs. Bidwell’s chart when he sees the designation: diabetic: type one.

His eyes widen as it clicks.

“What?” Fury asks, sensing he’s figured something out. “What is it?”

Steve, at Bucky’s elbow, looking over his shoulder at the chart, sees it as Bucky’s finger brushes the diagnosis. He freezes, his breathing becoming shallower.

“The patient has Type One Diabetes, sir,” Bucky says.

Fury’s eyebrow raises.

“And?”

“The patient’s vitals are declining because—” Bucky is embarrassed for them to have fucked up such a basic thing, but he wants to laugh in relief. Oh god, this is fixable. This is fixable.

“She’s been given insulin,” Steve’s voice has a slight tremor in it as he speaks. “Twice. She’s hypoglycemic.”

Fury’s nostrils flare.

“Giving a diabetic insulin twice,” he growls. “After surgery. Of all of the stupid, lazy, careless medical errors. What do we even have charts for if you idiots don’t use them?”

Both Bucky and Steve know better than to say anything.

“Why the fuck do we make you write reports? I mean it. Why don’t you just turn your brains off and watch reruns of Friends since that’s about as much medical knowledge as you have between the two of you—”

Steve flinches next to Bucky and Bucky, suddenly, feels a sharp spike of protective instinct.

“Sir—” Steve begins.

Steve, who had administered both doses of insulin.

Steve, who had been the one to fuck up.

Steve, who’s turning scarlet and nearly shaking out of distress. It’s not just that he’s getting read by the boss, it’s that they had almost lost a patient because of him.

“It was my fault,” Bucky blurts out.

Steve’s fingers close on his forearm, sharply, but Bucky ignores him.

“I got careless,” he says. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Nurse Rogers has been meticulous at each step, sir. I looked at the chart and didn’t read it all the way through.”

“Is that right, Dr. Barnes?” Fury asks, swiveling toward him.

“It is,” Bucky says. “I was tired, I don’t know.”

“Barnes,” Steve tries to whisper, but Bucky shakes him off.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It was a stupid, careless rookie mistake. It won’t happen again. I’ll get her some glucose to raise her sugar levels back up.”

Fury’s nostrils are still flaring. On a scale of 1 to sending Bucky to the coroner in a body bag of his own, Bucky will probably get chewed out later, but won’t lose his license or anything.

“Come by my office later, Dr. Barnes,” Fury says finally. He nods at Steve. “Nurse Rogers, administer the glucose and keep an eye on the patient. Make sure she remains stable and when she wakes up, get her a fruit cup.”

Steve’s mouth is open and Bucky knows—he fucking knows the idiot is about to confess, but Bucky elbows him sharply and Steve lets out a grunt of pain.

“Yes, sir,” Steve wheezes.

Fury glares at both of them and then, satisfied, turns on his heels and moves on to the next patient.

The two of them say nothing for a moment and then Bucky exhales, all of the tension draining from his body.

“Jesus,” he says.

“Barnes,” Steve starts, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Don’t,” he says. “We’re a team. I wasn’t going to throw you under the bus.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Steve says. “I fucked up.”

“Steve, I don’t care,” Bucky says. “She’s my patient too, I should have seen it and realized it like three hours ago.”

“But—”

“Stop. Let’s just—fix her.”

Steve looks like he’s still of the mind to argue and, knowing him, he probably is, but Bucky’s tired and he just wants to make sure Mrs. Bidwell is taken care of.

“You get the glucose tube and I’ll get the fruit cup,” he says.

He claps Steve on the shoulder and before Steve can say anything else, he turns too and quickly follows after Fury.


Bucky has three patients who need slight medication changes and he’s too antsy to make any of the nurses do it for him. He’s itching to do something, a restless buzzing under his skin. Maybe it was Fury glaring at him or maybe it was almost losing a patient due to stupid medical error. It’s left him feeling unsettled; almost anxious.

The truth is, they’ve been in this reality longer than they’ve been in any of the others, with no sign of any shards and no other way to force themselves into the next universe or back home. It makes him feel nervous, as though they’re stuck in a glass case with no door to let them back out.

It’s not that he minds it here, but even a happy vacation is just that: a vacation. No one is meant to stay on vacation forever.

As fucked up as their own world is and as much as they have left to fix, it’s still theirs. He’s starting to feel a little worn down around the edges, battered and bruised as they’re flung around the multiverse, like one of those tiny metal balls in a pinball machine.

They’ve been away long enough. He misses home.

He misses Steve. His Steve.

He texts Thor and tells him he’ll meet him for dinner later and adjusts his stethoscope as he unlocks the supply closet. The door closes softly behind him and he stares blankly at the different bins of medical equipment, protective gear, and medication before shaking his head and walking down the length of the room toward a row of bins at the back.

He’s written down which sachets of pills he’s looking for and it takes him a few minutes to go through the inventory to find them, but the knowledge is nestled in the back of his head.

“Ah,” he says softly as he pulls the one labeled metformin. He grabs two sachets of the pills, passes a bin of syringes and another bin of gauze, before finding a bin of the blood thinners he’s looking for.

“We’ll see if Miss Ramos likes these any better.”

It’s as he’s selecting two packets that he sees it.

“Oh,” he says, inhaling sharply.

His heart beats faster in excitement. Buried in the bin, behind a handful of packets of pills, there’s something glowing blue.

“Fuck,” Bucky says out loud and that’s when he hears the door lock behind him.

It’s like a shock to his system, a jolt of adrenaline and hyper awareness that he’s embarrassed to have recently neglected. It has been a very long time since Bucky Barnes has been so distracted that he hasn’t noticed someone sneak up on him.

His blood pulses in his ears and he assesses himself in the split second between the click of the lock and the feeling of someone’s hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t have any knives on him—stupid, Barnes, fucking stupid—but he does have a syringe in his hand and he’s ready to find a way to jam it into the person’s carotid.

The hand wheels him around and Bucky has less than a second now to aim the wrapped—stupid, Barnes, fucking stupid as shit—syringe, but he’s either too slow or Steve is too fast, because before Bucky can do anything, before he can even blink, Steve has shoved him against the rack behind him.

“Steve?” Bucky gasps, his back hitting the bins behind him and rattling the entire metal shelf.

“You drive me crazy,” Steve says, his voice low and barely controlled.

Bucky’s eyes widen. His brain is still assessing the threat, but the cognitive dissonance between the red flags going off inside his head and Steve in front of him—Steve—is too great and all he can do is gape like a fish out of water.

Steve, for his part, doesn’t seem to have any weapons on him or, for that matter, anything that can be construed as a threat.

He’s just seething. He’s heated.

His hands are curled around the lapels of Bucky’s white coat.

“You don’t listen to me,” Steve growls. “You decide things for me. You show off. You take the blame for my fuck up and make me look good in front of Fury when you have no right to do that.”

Bucky knows he’s running on like half of his usual brain capacity currently, but he doesn’t understand.

“What?” he says, dumbly.

“You couldn’t have just let me hate you?” Steve says. He’s clearly pissed. He hasn’t let go. “You had to be a good guy on top of it all?”

“Steve…” Bucky says, his eyes still wide. Breathing a little faster than he should.

“I cannot fucking stand you,” Steve says.

Bucky swallows. Steve’s so close. He’s a full head shorter than Bucky, the top of his floppy blond head grazing just past Bucky’s chin. He’s small and he’s barely contained and Bucky can feel the heat off of him and suddenly his head is ringing and his blood is simmering and his throat is dry.

Bucky’s eyes flicker down to Steve’s mouth.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Barnes,” Steve says.

Bucky’s eyes look back up, guilty.

“I hate you,” Steve says. “Bucky.”

Then his fingers slide up Bucky’s lapel to curl around the back of Bucky’s neck, and he drags him down to kiss him.


art: Steve angrily pulling Bucky in by the stethoscope and kissing him; art by: nalonzooo

Bucky’s head is full of clouds and his spine is the spark of a lighter just before it catches on fire. He gasps against Steve’s mouth and when that only makes Steve pull him closer, Bucky wraps an arm around his back and easily lifts him up, until Steve’s wrapped his legs around his middle and Bucky’s stumbling forward to hold Steve up against the nearest pillar.

They knock into some medical carts on the way, syringes and tape going scattering across the floor. Bucky ignores this and Steve pays it no attention at all, his hand scraping through Bucky’s hair, undoing the bun at the back of his head, and Bucky’s holding onto him so tightly, his fingers must be digging into Steve’s back.

Steve doesn’t complain. They adjust their mouths so their teeth aren’t knocking together, someone opening just enough for the other to work his way in and Bucky’s blood is racing and his heart is racing and his head is racing too, except for his thoughts, which are miraculously, blissfully blank.

They finally make it to a wall and Steve lets out a little puff of a grunt as Bucky slams him against it and shifts him to hold him up better.

“Shit,” Bucky says and tries to pull away to apologize, but Steve just growls and grabs his stethoscope to pull him back.

“Shut up,” Steve says. “I need you to shut up.”

Bucky’s only too happy to oblige. Steve closes the inch between them again and they kiss furiously, their mouths open and working together, tongues sliding against each other, kiss until their breaths are knocked out of them, their lungs sweetly aching for air, and Bucky’s mouth is sore, but he’s unwilling to pull away, unwilling to break this thing that is making a drunk out of him.

Bucky’s head spins and Steve pants into his mouth, their chests heaving together. Bucky holds him up and ignores the ache in his back, the slight burn in his arms, because he’s handled much worse pain and could the pain of anything be half as sweet as this?

Steve’s fingers run down the back of Bucky’s neck and Bucky shivers, until Steve is trying to push at his lab coat insistently, impatiently, and Bucky makes a little noise into his mouth.

“Stop—” he rasps, with great reluctance. “Steve, stop—”

“What?” Steve says, glaring at him. He can barely catch his breath and his eyes are bright, glassy, his cheeks flushed—a pink that’s crawling up his neck, his skin hot with it. “What?

“We can’t—” Bucky says and as Steve opens his mouth to argue, he shuts him up with a hard kiss. “No, shut up. I mean—supply closet. We can’t. Not in here.”

Steve doesn’t seem happy about this.

He distracts himself by tugging on the stethoscope again, dragging Bucky in and swallowing Bucky’s protests with his mouth.

They kiss again for a few minutes, harder this time, hungrier, with a frenetic, desperate edge, and Bucky can’t feel his head for how dizzy it is, for how hard his heart is beating in his chest, and he can tell Steve is the same, can feel how rapidly Steve’s heart is beating, actually, as pressed close together as they are.

It’s dizzy and it’s heady and it’s delicious. Bucky drinks it in, drinks Steve’s kisses in and the feel of his swollen lips and the slightly tangy smell of his skin, and Bucky does feel drunk then, on the warmth of Steve’s skin and the feel of his ribs against Bucky’s palm and the wet heat of his open mouth.

Steve’s fingers are carding through Bucky’s long, loose hair and he lets out a whine so soft that Bucky nearly loses his entire mind, right there, with Steve’s other palm against his stomach and his legs around Bucky’s hips.

When they eventually break apart this time it’s because they both do desperately need to breathe and they’re both so turned on, they’re at a tipping point they can’t cross in a fucking medical supply closet. Or, well, shouldn’t, at any rate. Steve lets his head fall back against the pillar and Bucky lets his head fall onto Steve’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” Steve rasps, his voice nearly wrecked.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky agrees.

“He has nothing to do with this,” Steve—the absolute shit—says.

Bucky has to laugh at that. God, his heart is racing again. It’s about to beat right out of his goddamned chest. There’s something else there, though—something light and expansive, bright and vibrant and horrifyingly happy.

I’m crazy about him, he thinks again.

Again, he has to laugh.

“I can’t believe this,” Steve complains. “I’m so fucking stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” Bucky says fuzzily. He nuzzles Steve’s collarbone, which forces Steve to make a noise Bucky’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have allowed otherwise.

“Shut up,” Steve says. “I hate you.”

“Gotta tell you,” Bucky says. He laughs again. He can’t stop laughing. He’s lost his mind. “It feels like you might not know what that means.”

“Shut up!” Steve says again, but this time it’s more of a whine. Bucky hears his head thud back against the pillar again. “How did I let this happen? Sam was right.”

“Sam?” Bucky says, outraged. “Sam Wilson? What’s that asshole gotta do with it?”

“Sam is the best human in the entire world, if you say a single bad thing about him I will stab you in the eyeball with a syringe,” Steve says. I knew it! Bucky thinks, somewhat deliriously. Steve’s clearly glaring again, but Bucky can’t see, so he doesn’t care.

“If you like Sam so much, why don’t you almost bone him in the medical supply closet?” Bucky says.

“Maybe I will!” Steve puffs out.

Bucky bites down on Steve’s clavicle and Steve lets out a yelp.

“Ow!”

“You deserved it,” Bucky says.

Steve curses and then, after a moment, taps Bucky’s shoulder to indicate he should be let down.

Reluctant as he is to let Steve go—especially right now—Bucky has to admit his back can’t do this much longer. He gently lets Steve slide down.

They stare at one another for a few seconds before quickly moving to adjust their scrubs and coats and their, ah, other necessary parts.

“If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have,” Steve says.

“Would have what?” Bucky says, blinking.

“Boned you,” Steve says. “Right here. With all of the medical equipment.”

Bucky groans.

“Don’t say that,” he says. “I’m starting to think I’ve made a mistake.”

Steve smirks at him, although the effect is kind of lost, what with his pink flush and rumpled hair and how red and shiny his mouth is. They’re definitely going to get caught out in the next like, sixty seconds, by the first doctor or nurse who needs medical tape, but Bucky can’t help but stare at them again. Steve’s lips.

“Make me angry again and we’ll see what I can do,” Steve says.

“Are you serious?” Bucky says, staring at him. “That’s what gets you going? Is wanting to strangle me?”

“Don’t kinkshame me, Barnes,” Steve says, matter-of-factly. He’s such a little shit that Bucky’s going to strangle him.

Someone rattles the door.

“Kiss me again,” Bucky says quickly.

“Bucky, there’s someone—” Steve says and the rattling increases.

Kiss me again, Rogers,” Bucky insists and Steve gets a hand on Bucky’s neck, reaches up on his tiptoes, and presses a hard, lingering kiss to Bucky’s mouth again.

Bucky’s head spins.

It lasts too short a time, but when Steve pulls away, his eyes are glinting, and his hand trails teasingly down Bucky’s neck before he steps back.

It’s the hint of a promise.

It’s fucking torture, is what it is.

“Watch me as I leave,” Steve instructs.

As if Bucky is currently capable of doing anything else.

Steve straightens his scrubs and runs a finger through his hair to half-heartedly comb it through, and, with a smile on his lips, turns. He walks down the length of the supply room toward the door to unlock it, scrubs clinging just right to the swell of his ass.

Bucky does watch him go. Appreciatively.

He traces the outline of him, commits it to memory. His heart beating acutely—painfully—he reaches up to touch his mouth as Steve opens the door.

Bucky hears Clint say something dumb to Steve and Steve reply in a tone that could only be accompanied by a roll of his eyes.

Bucky closes his own eyes. He can still taste Steve on his tongue, feel Steve’s fingers in his hair, on his stomach, on his neck. The endorphins are going to actually kill him. Or the serotonin. Both. Whatever. He can’t stop grinning.

It’s wonderful and it’s heady and it’s achingly terrible at the same time.

He tries to calm his heart down, the racing, piece of shit thing.

He tries not to let it get to him. He tries not to miss someone who isn’t his. Who is his, but isn’t. Can’t be, really.

Someone who he had had a chance to make his and had—fumbled. Just spectacularly fucked up.

Bucky opens his eyes.

He’ll miss this, he thinks. He’ll miss this place and he’ll miss this Steve.

It’s been a lovely interlude, but this place, this Steve, is meant for another Bucky. He hopes that Bucky will realize the truth quicker than he had. He hopes this Steve will drag this Bucky into another supply closet sometime soon.

As for him, he has his own Steve to find.

And, truthfully, he’s getting kind of tired chasing after him.

After he collects himself, Bucky turns on his heel and scans the rows of shelves again. He remembers exactly where he had seen it before he had gotten so thoroughly distracted. He approaches the bin of blood thinners and peers inside.

It twinkles at him, a bright, shining blue.

Bucky takes a breath and with resolve, reaches forward.

* * *

Notes:

IS THAT CHARACTER GROWTH I SEE?? FROM BOTH OF OUR MULTIVERSE DUMBASSES??

I LOVED writing this AU and I feel like, you can probably tell. I've wanted some kind of doctor/nurse SteveBucky AU for literal ages and I guess if you can't find one for yourself, you just have to write it! Thank you to Scrubs, specifically, for allowing me 2 live my fanfiction dreams. I will not be accepting corrections on any/all medical and/or hospital inaccuracies at this time. Thank u.

ANYWAY, thank you for the love--I can't wait for you guys to see what's up next. ;) ♥