Two Boys from Brooklyn

December 6th, 1941.

“Steve, if you’re dead, I’m gonna kill you,” Steve could hear what he knew to be Bucky’s voice, but it was faint, dreamy. It warbled through the air like it had come down the telephone wire, stretched all thin by space and time, edited by the channel that transmitted the waves. Regardless of its source, it instantly made Steve feel safe. “Who the hell leaves a goddamn window open in the dead of winter?”

“Bucky?” Steve asked, his voice muffled as he pulled away from his pillow. He sniffled and brought a clumsy hand to wipe at his eyes before opening them, only then realizing they had been closed before. Upon opening his eyes, he found his usually dim bedroom brimming with wintery light, which had expelled all shadow and dug into seams and corners, flattening the image. It was an uncomfortable sight, so he closed his eyes again. “Buck, s’chilly.”

“Yeah? You don’t say, punk,” Bucky said, pressing his knee into the space beside Steve as he reached for the window, his weight causing the hard old mattress to creak and dip. Steve moved, disoriented and with muted inhibitions, the same clumsy hand that had cleared his eyes to now grip Bucky’s thigh. Bucky didn’t fall away like a hallucination would; he didn’t even flinch, “It’s almost like you left the window open in December.”

Steve blinked through blurred vision as he opened his eyes again, looking at Bucky above him, who was fiddling with the stuck mechanism of the open window. Having confirmed that Bucky was flesh and blood, not just a dream, he groggily asked,  “How’d ya get in here?” 

“I had the key you left at my folks’ house,” Bucky explained, jaw set tightly as he tugged at the window, “I was comin’ by to ask you to come to the movies with me. I heard your radio playin', but you didn’t answer the door. Now I know it’s ‘cause you were too busy freezin’ your damn ass off,” Abruptly, Bucky reared back, shaking his hand, “Shit.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky answered, looking at his fingertip before bringing it to his mouth, sucking away a dot of blood. “Damn thing pinched me. How do you close it?”

“The left side’s broken; push it up before you pull,” Steve answered, squinting as he watched Bucky’s gaze lock back onto the window. Bucky yanked the mechanism down again, so Steve reiterated, “Push, then pull.”

“Stupid goddamn apartment,” Bucky muttered under his breath. He pushed, pulled, and finally, with one sneeze of cold wind, the window snapped shut. The sudden absence of street sounds made the room shrink, and then Bucky was soreal and close. He sighed as he dropped to sit on the mattress, pressing the pad of his bleeding finger into his opposite palm. “Can you please let me talk to your landlord?”

“No, Buck,” Steve answered; he would rather talk about anything else. He sniffled again as he moved his legs to make room for Bucky.

Bucky scooted in, accepting the invitation to move closer. “Why not?”

“‘Cause I’m two months behind on rent,” Steve answered plainly. He wouldn’t have given up the information so easily if not for being sick, but as it was, he didn’t care to keep it a secret. “So, it’s probably not the best idea to poke that bear.”

“Jesus,” Bucky exclaimed, turning his head as if the words had been a blow. “Two months?”

“Yep.”

“Steve,” Bucky exhaled, eyebrows drawn in. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“There was no reason to tell you.” What Steve didn’t say, what he didn’t care to admit, was that he didn’t tell Bucky because he knew Bucky wouldn’t understand. Empathy could only go so far, and Bucky had never felt the shame of circumstance stripping his dignity. Steve was intimately familiar with that feeling, though. Pride was his only defense.

“There was no reason to tell me?” Predictably not getting it, Bucky laughed in disbelief. “Steve, I coulda been helpin’ you. You stubborn bastard. Look, we’ll talk to your landlord, and if we start payin’ it off slowly, I bet—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Buck,” Steve interjected, turning away from Bucky. Bucky bulldozed the comment, continuing to spout whatever lightbulb idea he had that would surely fix everything. Steve didn’t want Bucky trying to fix this, though. He effectively shut Bucky up when he snapped, “We aren’t talking about this.” Once the quiet seemed to suck the air out of the room, Steve added, “I’m tired.”

Bucky stayed silent for an uncharacteristically long beat. Meanwhile, Steve’s headache rushed between his ears, like water between the rocks and eddies of the East River, squeezing his thoughts and amplifying his embarrassment. He hated how Bucky must see him—sick as a dog, falling further into debt, feverish, mired in precarity. Finally, Bucky asked, “How long have you been sick?”

“Bout’a week.”

“Steve,” Bucky whispered, the name sounding like a swear. The mattress creaked again as Bucky shifted, putting his face into his hands and pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes. Bucky’s voice softened, “You’re gonna catch pneumonia again if you keep pullin’ stunts like this. Openin’ the window, come on. You know better.”

Steve didn’t want to argue with Bucky; more than that, begrudgingly, he knew Bucky was right. He couldn’t blame Bucky for wanting to look out for him. He finally looked at Bucky again, “It was hot. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Still,” Bucky said, his sad blue eyes falling on Steve’s thin hand. In a movement perfected through years of practice, Bucky moved his own hand, his strong but similarly thin hand, to Steve’s forehead. Steve closed his eyes as he leaned into the gentle touch, mind wandering to old images of childhood: woven rags dipped in cool water and colorful glassware warmed by tea, his mother's knuckles knotted in prayer. “Shit, Steve. You’re hot.”

“Mm,” Steve hummed, slipping, “Next time you make a pass at me, take me out to dinner first.”

Bucky’s concern dropped for a second, and he laughed. “You’re the worst. Did you know that, sweetheart?”

Lost to the pictures flowing through his head, Steve grumbled something completely unintelligible in response. 

“Listen,” Bucky said. The word instantly brought Steve’s attention back to him, “I want you feelin’ better. No more open-window nonsense, alright? When’s the last time you ate?”

“Uh, a day or two ago.”

“You’re killin’ me, man.”

Then, Bucky was gone again. Steve thrashed around in his tiny twin bed, eyes clamped shut, desperately attempting to fall back asleep. His chest was cold, but his legs felt burning hot. Half awake, he dreamed of the lake upstate, the summer sun overhead, and the coolness of walking through water. He felt as though he’d toppled over the memory and spun it around, his upper body submerged now, his legs warm in the sun. His senses were swimming, and he desperately wished for Bucky to return and pull him back to shore.

“Hey,” Bucky’s voice again, Bucky’s hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently, “I made you food.”

Steve opened one eye to peek at Bucky. Time was off the table; he had no idea how long he had been consumed by the performance of attempting sleep. He remembered Bucky closing the window, the dot of blood on his finger, only in memory that blood was running through the lines of his palm like water, spilling. But Steve couldn’t remember if he’d looked at Bucky’s face—if he’d really looked at Bucky’s face, looked at it how he liked to. 

The unrelenting clouds of winter had finally managed to make Bucky’s olive skin significantly paler, which, in turn, highlighted all the striking colors of his face and hair. His pink lips, his blue eyes. Steve’s gaze traced the cool tint of shadow that sculpted Bucky’s nose and cheeks, the little line in his chin. He looked so young, Steve thought, though he knew the thought to be silly and fever-addled as he was even younger. But beside himself, Steve looked at Bucky and wondered what their lives had become, how they’d grown up but not yet entirely, each living alone but struggling to turn days into weeks and weeks into months. 

The world was so large and demanding, but existing with Bucky remained wonderfully simple, like the work shared between muscle and bone, skin and sinew. Bucky’s mere presence, the sound of his breathing, the sight of his body in motion, and even the void lingering in spaces he left felt more like home to Steve than any four walls could. Still, below the level of conscious thought, that strange yearning. Steve’s memory again crawled toward Halloween, that animal urge for something unnamed. He wanted symbiosis, fusion, a new and perilous plane of connection. To live in tandem. 

“I thought you left.”

“You’re sick. I won’t go anywhere.”

It was a promise. Though fever may have been responsible for the next moment, Steve could’ve sworn the sky shifted at these words. He could visualize the sun's path dipping toward his window, pulled into Bucky’s orbit, allowing the already bright room to swell with light. “Thanks, Buck.”

“‘Course, punk,” Bucky replied, pressing his thumb into the small muscle of Steve’s shoulder, mindlessly massaging the spot. Steve closed his eyes and listened for the click of Bucky’s joint. “Okay, now,” Bucky removed his hand, and Steve opened his eyes, “You ain’t gonna love this, but I made tomato and carrot soup and ceai de ceapă.”

“Is that the onion tea?” Steve whined, screwing up his face in preemptive disgust.

“Yeah,” Bucky grinned, a little bit of laughter on the edge of the word, “It’s got garlic in it, too.”

“That stuff’s disgusting.”

“You ain’t wrong,” Bucky agreed, carefully picking up the steaming mug of tea, “You gotta drink it, though. S’good for you.”

“You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Stevie. Now, come on, sit up. It’s gonna make you feel better.”

Bucky quietly busied himself by cleaning the bedroom, which was strewn with clothes taken off in the heat of fever, while Steve ate. Fortunately for Steve, congestion had damped his sense of smell and, therefore, his sense of taste, so the usually unpalatable onion tea was delightfully insipid. 

Steve was nearing the bottom of the mug when Bucky held up one of the shirts he was about to fold. “Hey,” Bucky said, looking at the shirt, then at Steve, “Is this my shirt?”

Suddenly, fever wasn’t the only thing making Steve’s face hot. It was Bucky’s shirt; he’d had it since Halloween, he’d had it since Bucky had changed him.

“Maybe,” Steve answered. He’d been wearing the unwashed-since-October shirt all week. Still, he dully said, “Doesn’t look like somethin’ I’d wear.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, his voice trailing off as he smiled and checked the tag's size. “Yeah, it is mine. S’a medium. I think it’s the one I gave you for your Halloween costume.”

“Oh,” Steve replied dumbly. He wasn’t sure why wearing his friend’s shirt had to be so embarrassing, but his nervous system seemed to insist on it. “You can have it back.”

“No,” Bucky replied, still smiling. Then, to Steve’s shock and horror, Bucky lifted the shirt to his face and sniffed. “It smells like you now. I’d say it’s yours.”

“That’s gross, Buck.”

Bucky shrugged, “I like the way you smell.”

Steve blushed, thinking of all the times he’d caught and quietly reveled in Bucky’s scent. “Still gross, Buck.” His deflection only earned another shrug from Bucky in return. 

Steve’s congestion yielded to the soup and tea long enough to get a few good inhales through his nose. As he focused on breathing, in and out, and in and out, he got an earful from Bucky, who was speechifying on the ‘magical healing powers’ of onion and garlic. Steve didn’t mind the lecture, though. He welcomed the sound of Bucky’s voice, though it began to sound more rumble-y and less coherent as sleep reproached him. Steve caught a few words that weren’t English—ceapa și usturoiul, un remediu acasă—adding to the sense of incantation. When he finally decided to give in to rest, Bucky’s speaking voice, filtering through the fog, played like a lullaby. 

Steve’s sleep was dreamless and flat. There was buzzing darkness around him—some knowledge of movement, of a watchful body near him, but nothing narrative. Consciousness was far out of reach until it wasn’t again, and then, as sudden as a curtain dropping, he was awake. 

“What?” The word fell out of Steve’s mouth, slurred and prompted by vague sensory input. The world was on its side; the bedroom was dim and blue now, and Bucky was close. Sleepily, Steve realized what he’d felt was Bucky’s hand in his hair, “You ‘kay, Buck?”

“Mhm,” Bucky whispered, pushing Steve’s hair back from his forehead, “Just checkin’ on you. You’re still warm. Keep sleepin’.”

Steve nodded, pressing his forehead into Bucky’s open hand. Then, as he felt Bucky’s fingers twitch and begin to pull away, he reached up and intercepted the motion. 

“Yeah?” Bucky asked softly, letting Steve hold his hand.

“Yeah,” Steve hummed in response, hardly aware of his actions and sure to forget them later.

“Alright,” Bucky replied, leaning against the bed and pushing his palm to Steve’s. “Keep sleepin’, Steve, keep sleepin’.”

A pair of hands around the silver crank, a spot of light reflecting, and, at once, shooting right through him. Hands drawn to cover his face, sneaky fingers leaving spaces to let the light in. The curve of Bucky’s back leaned over the old red Ford, the crank in Bucky’s hands. He’s bleeding from the scar buried in the hair of his brow, the tool in his right hand, not listening to any tricks, not following any rules. He knows the scene is private; he feels like an intruder. Still, he watches. 

The movement is perfect and has obviously been practiced; it doesn’t require viewing. Instead, he looks at Bucky’s face, where his jaw is the slightest bit slack, his mouth parted. The colors are bright and shining, taunting, unlike any he has ever seen. Emotion persuades him to drop his hands, his shield. The car starts. 

Steve jolted awake, breathing fast and shallow, chest tight. Static, which he could only assume came from the radio, pressed to his ears and rang like a reprimand. Bucky’s name was on his lips, though he wasn’t sure why, and he didn’t dare speak it. He felt horribly cold, and when his eyes adjusted to the dark, he looked up to greet the wind as it whistled through the popped-open window.

He shuffled upward, pulling his blanket over his shoulders as he reached his knees. Outside, life sat impossibly still, the colors of the building across from his dulled by total darkness. He closed the window with one rough push and a quick pull. 

Without thinking, Steve staggered to his feet. Although he was only minimally aware of the strip of light at the base of his door, it beckoned him. He pushed forward, watching his hands press him into the next room. When he was met with a wall of light, he could not help but recoil. 

Bucky was sound asleep, upright on the couch, with an open book on his chest. Despite the light and the noise, his state was surprisingly serene. His strong arms were slack and still, and his right hand, which must’ve been holding the book, was limp on his stomach, moving up and down with his breathing. The longer Steve stood in the doorway, a quiet observer, the more the scene evened out, and the once wall of light reduced to a soft glow; the arresting drone of static shrank to a calming white noise.

Cold air stinging his back, Steve stepped into the living room, holding his breath so as not to disrupt the comfortable space Bucky’s existence created.

But the cold traveled with Steve like a curse, and Bucky began to stir, shaking himself awake. “Stevie?” Bucky asked drowsily, “What’s goin’ on? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve answered, “Just cold.”

“Oh,” Bucky yawned, “Sorry.”

A stray shot of untraceable fear hit Steve as he watched Bucky open his eyes, so he hurried over to shut off the light. Tossed into darkness, Bucky, with no sense of urgency, leaned over and slapped his hand on the radio. The cold house went quiet.

“Do you need a blanket?” Bucky whispered, pushing to his feet.

“No, I’ve got one,” Steve whispered back, staring at the shadow of Bucky’s outline. Oddly, in the darkness, he felt like he could see anything. A film reel running, the glimmer of a projector. The sensational colors of his dream blinking. “Come to bed.”

Bucky, breathless, replied, “Okay.”

They crawled into Steve’s bed. The act of sharing in this way wasn’t a first by any stretch of the imagination. As he lay in bed, Steve’s sleepy mind supplied him with fragmented childhood memories: impromptu sleepovers with couch cushions and shared blankets, Bucky’s hands inches away from his own as he lay asleep. He briefly cared to tell himself that sharing was common, reasoning that they’d even slept in Bucky’s bed on Halloween.

But, unavoidably, tonight, Steve felt different. Reason had no horse in this race. Disorientingly tired and burning with leftover emotion from his feverish dream, he couldn’t think of a word for it, but he knew this to be something more than simple sharing. And, somehow, he knew Bucky felt the same.

“Please don’t go,” Steve whispered desperately, unaware of what he was saying or why he needed to say it. 

Obliteratingly earnest, Bucky replied, “I never will.”

Steve nodded, a gesture lost to the perfect dark of the bedroom. Half-asleep, he turned just enough to free an arm and grab Bucky’s. Bucky’s body was quick to answer the call; he’d heard it ringing for years, after all. 

Sheltered in the sheets of the twin bed, Bucky slipped an arm under Steve’s head, cradling it as he lost his fingers in fine hair. Steve pressed to Bucky, imagining two as one. They slept. 

December 7th, 1941.

In the morning, Steve woke up with the sunrise. He detangled from Bucky, who was still asleep, and watched as Bucky stretched to steal the space he had conceded in standing. He returned to the living room, half-expecting Bucky to magically be there, two places at once, asleep on the couch with a book on his chest and simultaneously asleep in the bedroom. But, of course, Bucky was not there, and Steve moved on, opening the front door to stand in the cold air on his landing. 

Steve watched the sunrise, orange light rushing through the cool blue sky of dawn, transforming night into day. His fever was waning. He knew this not because he felt better, although he did feel better, but because he could finally think clearly. He used this clarity to think about a myriad of things: of home, of grief, of art, of words, of Bucky. Many more. It wasn’t distinctly pleasant or unpleasant to think about these things; he just thought about them. In time, the sun rose, and Steve felt his fingers and nose had grown cold, so he went back inside. 

Bucky was in the kitchen, his hair a mess and one sleeve of his wrinkled T-shirt pushed to his shoulder. Steve watched as Bucky took a spoon to a pile of coffee grounds and carefully moved it to a pot. Then, he must’ve noticed he was being watched because he looked up at Steve and smiled, one hand still moving to gather the grounds, the other giving Steve a small wave.

“Good mornin’,” Steve said softly, returning the wave as he walked toward the kitchen.

“Mornin’. How’re you feeling?”

“A lot better,” Steve answered, inhaling deeply and steadily as if to prove it. “I think my fever broke.”

“Thank God,” Bucky said, his attention back on the coffee. "I was worried about you.”

“M’sorry about ruining your day yesterday. You didn’t have to stay.”

Bucky looked at Steve, raising an eyebrow, “Yeah? You didn’t give off that impression yesterday, punk.”

Steve blushed, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright, I’m just messin’ with you. I’m sorry for passin’ out in your bed.”

Unspoken truth ran between them; it didn’t need validation. Steve simply said, “Don’t be. It was getting cold. I couldn’t let you freeze.”

“You definitely coulda,” Bucky replied, a little smile forming at one corner of his mouth.

Steve just smiled and shook his head a little.

After coffee, reheated leftover tomato soup, and then more coffee, Steve and Bucky settled into a slow Sunday. Hours slid by as Steve lay on his shoddy couch, sketching images of Bucky, who was too entranced by the book he was reading to notice he was the subject of Steve’s work. It was domestic and sweet, and Steve took it as it was. He breathed easy.

“Mhm,” Bucky hummed, breaking the trance-like silence they had fallen into. He closed his book and let it rest at his side, his brow furrowed. “I didn’t like the ending.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, only half paying attention as he sketched.

“Yeah. Could’ve done without the whole orgy thing and the suicide.” Bucky stood up, stretching as he grabbed the mugs they’d been using for coffee.“Anyway, I’m gonna do the dishes. You done with your cup?”

“Yeah,” Steve responded, still distracted. Bucky was already walking around the couch when Steve remembered to ask, “You need a hand?”

“No, I’m alright,” Bucky replied, nearing the kitchen. “You care if I put the radio on?”

“Go for it, pal.”

Earlier that morning, Bucky had taken the time to move the radio to its usual spot, propped up in the kitchen window. Now, it exploded to life at full volume; Steve could hear Bucky’s little ‘whoa’ in response and looked over to see Bucky’s hand on the dial, turning it down.

“What’s on?” 

“Football,” Bucky called over his shoulder, “Dodgers are playin’ the Giants.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, Dodgers are up.”

Steve didn’t care to listen to the game. Coupled with the constant sputtering of his kitchen sink, the radio was simply background noise, so he didn’t notice when the broadcast cut. It wasn’t until Bucky shut off the water that he listened in.

“—Flash. Washington—”

Steve looked over at Bucky, “Did the game end?”

Bucky didn’t look back; he just shook his head.

“—The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Stay tuned for future developments—”

Much later, while recounting the events of that day, Steve would realize he couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking about in the moments before the shoe dropped. Frustratingly, he wouldn’t be able to conjure any sense of the peace he’d felt that Sunday morning. But what he would remember, what would last, was the image of Bucky’s outline over the sink, the way he’d stiffened at the news, the curve of his spine straightening as if called to command. 

In accordance with the unrelenting tide of history, with the peculiar way time erodes, Steve, like anyone, would blanket that day as the day America joined the war. But more personally, in the bleary yet private picture of hindsight, he would see that day as the one where Bucky’s luck finally ran out.