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Steve was born Named, like almost everyone else. He’s never met an Un-Named, though it’s a popular boogeyman story. The Un-Named hiding under the bed, in the darkest shadows, waiting for the chance to snatch an unappreciated boy or girl away. Stealing your chance at happiness forever, if you don't behave right and respect your Soul Carrier. Least, that’s what Mama always says when she sees Mary Green from across the street, with her usual flock of admirers. Mama tuts, the censure on her face invoking a sympathetic squirm in Steve’s tummy. He doesn’t ever want Mama to look at him that way.
“She’ll lose her Soul if she’s not more careful.” Mama insists, despite the fact that everyone knows your Mark only goes grey if your soulmate is really, really sick - or dead.
Steve can’t imagine anything more awful than losing his Soul. He presses his fingers against the deep cut scar on his left wrist, focusing on the familiar black letters whenever his vision gets spotty and his breath comes in wheezes. Maybe his Soul is the one part of him that must be truly healthy; because it lives in someone else.
His deepest fear is that he will die before he finds his Soul Carrier, and they will be alone.
But Steve is one of the lucky ones. One day a boy pulls Billy Thompson off him, tells the bully to take a hike and then offers him a hand up, with a wrist that reads Steven Grant Rogers in delicately carved gouges. It blossoms, beautifully red, the moment their skin touches.
Mama cries when he tells her, and cuddles Steve close. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispers, running her fingers through his fine hair, and there is a quiet part of Steve that wonders why.
-
Steve marries Bucky when he’s sixteen, because Ma is sick; really sick, and she might not get to be there otherwise. Bucky isn’t fussed about rushing into it; they were always going to get there eventually. Ma has to give written permission, and so do Bucky’s parents, because he’s still only seventeen - but they love Steve and are enthusiastic about welcoming him into the family.
It’s a glorious summer day, Steve feeling strong and Bucky’s arms make him even more so. Ma bought a new hat, and Bucky’s sisters have ribbons in their hair. Cotton clouds roll across the bright blue sky overhead when Bucky kisses him deeply, church bells ringing in his ears.
The best part of it is that they don’t need to worry about sneaking around after that; no one cares if you fool around with your husband.
-
The sick, sallow colour is so alien on Steve’s skin. He can’t tear his eyes from it, even when he registers the awful noise surrounding him is his own screams.
He disregards orders; ignores anything that doesn’t actively help him find his Soul Carrier; desperation licking at his heels. He doesn’t expect to find Bucky still breathing in Zola’s lab. Maybe it would have been better to have found him already gone, than have to watch him plummet to his death.
The letters burn ash white.
-
His new team-mates take turns explaining new concepts about the future to Steve, making it a game of sorts. But after several months, Steve still can’t get used to the noise. Alarms, televisions, phones, computers. Everything rings and beeps and shrieks, incessantly. He prefers the quiet of his apartment, tracing the faded letters on his wrist with his eyes closed, visualising them as the bold script they once were.
It becomes a nervous habit, which more than one person catches him at. Steve knows how things have changed; it’s legal to marry someone who doesn’t bear your Name now. Most people cover their Marks at all times. Steve finds it disturbing, to say the least.
When Natasha suggests Steve starts dating, he scoffs, and doesn’t bother to hide the pity in his eyes. Sorrow for his friends, who will never understand what it feels like to be whole. He usually keeps his more judgemental thoughts pressed down deep, in a part of him he doesn’t acknowledge. It’s not his place to condemn this new way of life.
But that doesn’t mean he has to embrace it.
He knows he's failed to keep the naked disdain at the idea off his face. He could never betray Bucky in such a way, and he needs her to respect that.
She doesn’t ask again.
-
Bucky’s flesh hand closes on his neck, and they both watch as red floods back into Steve’s Mark, exposed by a tear in his costume. Supporting his earlier words, when he insisted they were Soul Bonded, regardless of what the Winter Soldier remembers.
“You’re my mission.” Bucky states, hollow and unwavering.
“Then finish it,” Steve replies, caught between a challenge and a plea.
The darkness swallows him whole, but he wakes in a hospital bed. Sam’s smile does nothing to mask his concern.
-
SHIELD is dismantled and restarted, but Steve remains wary. He doesn’t sign up to be their poster boy because he knows his personal mission might conflict with their goals, and he wouldn’t care less about disobeying orders. The judgement of his countrymen means little in comparison to his Immortal Soul.
He’s grateful to Sam, Natasha and Clint for offering their considerable expertise, especially because he knows they don’t really think Bucky can be saved. They didn’t grow up believing in the Soul, didn’t embrace the path the Universe carved out for them. Steve has come to admire and respect how they draw satisfaction from determining the course of their own destinies.
But the appeal of that way of life doesn’t even register on the same scale of comparison to the complete and utter joy he feels when Bucky drags him into a kiss, calloused fingers painfully hesitant on Steve's skin. When he pulls away with a hiss of discomfort, Steve sees a bloody mess on Bucky’s right wrist. It wipes clean to show perfectly formed red letters.
Much later, they will learn that Bucky Barnes is the only person in recorded history to have a his Mark grow back.
Today, Steve simply embraces his husband, holding him close as the sky darkens, tracing the strength of his muscles with soft fingers, following the trail of sweat on his skin with curious lips. Taking no more than Bucky is ready to give.
They have been gifted another lifetime to learn how to love one another again, and beneath the silent stars, they are ameliorated.