Dear Steve,
I miss you something awful, I know I never said it, but we both knew that I was damn scared to be here. It’s the fucking pits pal, it's mud and shit and death like you’ve never seen it. God, what I wouldn’t give to be in the apartment, with your fucking socks everywhere, and your artbooks strewn all over the kitchen table, kid you’re a fucking slob, don’t even try and deny it.
I’m glad as all hell that you aren’t here though, happy to high heaven that you’re safe and warm in that rickety tenement. Picturing you out here makes my heart hurt, makes my jaw ache, feels like spiders are crawling down my spine. Cause the kick of it is, you’re all violence and bloodshed, bony elbows and split lips, you would fucking love it here, you little freak. But I’m selfish, if one of us has gotta get our hands dirty, I want it to be me honey.
And I know I promised no more love letters (I have a real laugh to myself that you’re the paranoid one now; death at my ankles really made me reevaluate my priorities) but here’s the last one, I’m not making it home, I know it like I know the Our Father; but the truth is, I’d kill myself out here if I knew it meant I got to hold you one more time.
Tell Becca that I am getting her letters, but my replies are slow, it’s tough as all hell to fill a whole letter with nice things when all I can smell and touch and taste is death.
I know I shouldn’t talk like that, but it’s a cold day in hell that I’m not gonna be honest with you.
I know what you’re probably thinking: what about that time I didn’t tell you about O’Malley’s, or when I was working with the mob or that time in ‘34? But you know I only kept those secrets cause I was scared, except now I’m scared every damn day out here, real fear, the kind that makes good men piss themselves, and I figure I don’t have much to be scared of when it comes to us.
Because you’re good, and true, like the first star that shines in the sky, and I just can’t bear lying to you anymore, not when I could go to my grave carrying these secrets.
God, honey, I’m real sorry this is so fuckin’ melancholy, must be all the bleeding-heart Frenchmen around me who keep waxing poetic about their wives and girlfriends (I know you ain’t my little wife or nothing Stevie, stop getting all righteous as you read this). There’s a fat chance in hell this is gonna get through the censors, but you gotta know if they haven’t blacked this all out I figure it’s worth a shot: I love you bad kid, I’ll try my damndest to get back to you, and that’s a promise.
Yours,
Bucky
Italy, 1943
The walk back to camp was, fuck, it was long and painful, and it didn’t feel real; but Bucky could feel the cold dampness of the air on his skin, and he could smell the stench of manure, so sure he would never smell it again that he could have cried with relief. Steve was there, strong and sure, and the size of a fucking house, stupid fuck, making himself a permanent target; he was giving Bucky a goddamn hernia.
The man in question kept looking at him, glancing sideways, his eyes roving over Bucky’s pallid skin and dark eyes, eyes following the track marks along his arms, which were already healing. Steve held eye contact with him then, his eyes holding a question: do you want to stop? Slow down? Bucky shook his head, firm, even as his vision swam and his feet stumbled.
Steve the stubborn bastard, fucking it all to hell, yelled out “We’re stopping for the night, get some rest soldiers.” The surrounding men tried and failed not to look relieved at that.
“I’ll take first watch.” Bucky’s tone brokered no room for argument, and yet Steve the contrite little shit turned to face him, lips pursed and chest puffed up, ready for an argument that had been brewing since Bucky was coherent enough to be angry. Steve opened his mouth, before Bucky cut in, “Steve, don’t you dare argue with me on this.” Bucky’s thinly veiled anger was met with a defiant fire in Steve’s eyes.
“You’re angry at me,” Steve said, his voice surprisingly level for how aggrieved he had seemed not even a minute ago.
“Angry? Angry? Kid I’m fuckin’ furious with you, you stupid little shit, what the fuck were you thinking? Huh?” Steve smiled then, a little twist of his mouth as he leaned in close to Bucky’s ear.
“I love you, y’know” Bucky’s mouth dropped open as Steve pulled back, a self-satisfied smirk on his handsome face. He cast a look around, but no one was paying them any attention, they were in their own world and the look on Steve’s face said he didn’t care even if someone had heard.
Bucky sighed, unable to do anything in the face of Steve’s unwavering stubbornness, “Yeah, I– same to you punk.”
“Come sit down, I’ll take first watch, promise it’ll be ok,” and fuck Steve for knowing exactly why Bucky had wanted to take the first watch, fuck him for looking at Bucky– who felt flayed alive and impossibly different– and still knowing exactly what the problem was.
“Sarge!” Bucky turned then, the rough voice of Dugan pulling him from his reverie, “kept some of your stuff kid, thought you might want it back” Bucky nodded his thanks, too choked up with memories and gratitude at this small act to respond, Dum Dum understood anyway.
Bucky looked at the rucksack, it didn’t have much in it: letters from Steve, his notebook, and his knife with its worn handle and sharp blade. It didn’t matter though, because it was all his, his alone and untouched by Zola, untouched by the newfound fear he had seen in the dark underbelly of the war.
Bucky propped himself against a tree, stomach churning now that he was alone, a dull throb of pain along his torso where they had– where they’d… it didn’t matter he told himself, pinching his thigh as he reminded himself where he was. Now Steve was gone, and where his presence had staved off the worst of it, now Bucky was reminded that he had a head full of landmines, and red and raw wrists from where the straps had been not even 7 hours ago.
He shut his eyes and all he saw was the snivelling little Swiss doctor, stooped over his book and talking at Bucky, never to him, that would have meant it was a conversation. And Zola had never once thought of Bucky as something capable of chatter, as something human; no, Bucky was an experiment to that little creep. He felt ants crawling up his skin, his throat spasming as bile crawled up, making him gag. He rolled onto his front, arms shaking with the effort of holding himself up as he heaved, emptying the meagre contents of his stomach onto the damp ground, and still heaving, even after the fact. Chest rising and falling spasmodically as he fought to breathe.
“Buck? Bucky!” He felt someone, Steve, behind him, his big overgrown hand spanning across his back. “Breathe, just breathe in for me, Bucky.” His hand was shaking, but his voice was steady, repeating the platitudes that Bucky had whispered like a prayer when Steve got pneumonia back in ‘38.
But he couldn’t– he couldn’t fucking breathe, his vision was swimming with black spots, and he was gonna fucking pass out. “Ste– Steve I can’t fucking–” he was clawing at Steve’s front, gulping in great big heaving breaths as though that would make him feel any better. He felt his vision going dark, slumping forward onto the rough material of the person holding him up.
When he woke, it was against a firm chest, a heavy arm slung around his shoulders, warming him up, weighing him down, he knew without looking that it was Steve. He gagged at the taste in his mouth, the dry sweat on his body making him feel dirty and used up like a dishrag.
“Steve, what–” He had too many questions: what time is it? What’s going on? What happened? He couldn’t make his mouth form the words, but Steve knew what he meant.
“Buck, It’s been a couple’a hours, you gave us a real scare you jerk. Some guys figured we aren’t too far, ‘bout half-a-day journey from camp, if you wanna sit on the tank… or walk with me just say the word.”
He nodded, both him and Steve already knowing that he would walk with Steve to the end of the goddamn Earth, what was 5 hours against a lifetime of following him?
Bucky moved then, quickly reaching out for his rucksack, urgency creeping into his voice as he said “I’ve gotta give you a– a letter. Meant to send it ages ago, forgot though.” He rifled through the bag, finding the letter he had written so long ago; it was a different man who had put pen to paper, but it felt important that Steve knew he still meant every word he had written.
“Buck, whaddya–” He looked down, eyes scanning over the neat blocky letters. His hand shook slightly where it was holding the letter.
“I know I didn’t say it back before, that I, y’know, but I still feel it, still mean it.” Bucky’s eyes darted nervously across Steve’s features, despite what the letter said, it was too honest, too much.
“Buck you fuckin’ idiot, course I know you still mean it, wouldn’t care if you could never say it again, I feel it, honey.” Steve cuffed him then, against the side of the head, a harsh gesture that was impossibly gentle; saying to Bucky, I don’t care if you think you’re damaged goods now, you’re still the same jerk from before, still gotta head full o’ rocks and God help me, I love you.
“Well Sergeant, I think we ought to get moving now,” and that was Captain America, stretching up to his full height and taking up space, Bucky didn’t even notice, because that was his Steve, there in the blue of the Captain’s eyes, that was his.
London, 1943
The SSR had put them up in small rooms above a pub while they figured out what to do next, it’s not everyday that an entire POW camp gets liberated.
They wanted a unit and they wanted Steve to run it. Bucky already knew that Steve was going to say yes, and when the time came, when Stave came to him worrying his cap between his hands, shoulders hunched and his eyes so big and blue and earnest, asking Bucky for his help, for his marksmanship; Bucky was going to say yes, no fucking question about it.
But that time hadn’t come yet, the peace, the lull in fighting was now, in this pub with men who called Bucky ‘Sargeant’, and with Magaret Carter in a red dress, turning heads and hungry eyes on to her, and the secret? None of them mattered cause she was doing it all for Steve. And the big idiot with rocks for brains was sitting here, with Bucky, smiling like there was nowhere else he’d rather be.
“Big guy aren’t you gonna…” He trailed off, looking pointedly at Peggy who was talking to an officer, serious looks on both their faces.
Steve’s eyes bored into Bucky, serious and dark, “Nah, say you wanna go for a walk? Need some air” And then Steve was getting off the stool, sliding some money onto the bar next to his empty beer.
Bucky knew deflection when he saw it, if Steve was gonna be the idiot to pass up a woman like that, a woman who wanted something and knew that only Steve was gonna give it to her; well that wasn’t Bucky’s problem. “Sure pal.”
The gust of cool air that followed after they opened the door was a welcome change from the damp humidity of the bar. They walked in silence down the cobbled streets, it was late enough that the only people out were some stray soldiers with tipsy girls under their arms. No one paid them much mind, and it was dark enough that they could pass off the brushing of their knuckles as an accident.
Not willing to let sleeping dogs lie, and perfectly aware that Steve was dodging something, Bucky bit the bullet, “Kid what are you doing? That’s a dame who wants you, you’d be a fucking idiot to pass that up,” of course when Bucky said ‘that’, they both knew it was more than a good lay that he was giving up, it was a full life, kids and the house and the dog; not the half-life that a future with Bucky promised.
“God, when will you let it go Buck? I’m so fucking sick of you pushing me away, of you deciding when to give and when to take, it’s you, okay? It’s always you, Peggy’s good, great even, but she ain’t you, you’re– fuck, Bucky, you’re–” Steve didn’t finish, but he knew anyway, knew it the same way he knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
“Yeah Steve, I’ll stop, I’ll let it go” Bucky figured that if he could die at any time, he wanted to die loving Steve Rogers, loving him wholly.
Pushing him away was a reflex, an old and well-worn hurt, a pain that had grown around them like a twisting vine over the years; he had pushed Steve away when they were young, convinced he was staining him, damning him to an eternity in hell. As they’d grown together and up Bucky had always been so sure Steve was gonna find someone. Someone who was good, a woman who could– who could fix this thing between them. But now in this cold clear darkness, Bucky was realising that it had only been a fantasy, weak and liable to shatter, because the all-consuming love, that choked him up and hurt his heart a little, Steve felt it as well, Steve loved him like Bucky loved Steve, maybe– maybe he was Steve’s whole world too.
“Promise?” Steve had stopped walking, standing sentry in the middle of the street, staring Bucky down, his eyes wide like when they were children.
“Promise.”
You don’t know when to quit, kid, you got so much fight in you it could power Manhattan. And the worst part is you’re excited, you wanna go out there, make a difference, and fuck, you will, I know it deep in between the gaps of my ribs and in the ventricles of my heart that you’re gonna make a difference. Doesn’t mean I ain’t still foaming at the mouth in anger, fuck d’you think you’re doing getting shot up full of chemicals like that, you could’a died, and where would that have left me? Dead, probably.
But sometimes I really wish you could leave well enough alone, you keep looking at me all worried, as though there’s this big old crack that’s threatening to break and separate us. You’re walking on eggshells, and fuck, so am I. And even though we’re about to go down to the depths of goddamn Tartarus together, I ain’t ever loved you as much as I do now; with your big dumb shoulders and your hair like spun gold. Feels like all the archangels and principalities of the High Kingdom bothered with a chump like me when I remember that apparently, I’m the love of your godforsaken life, you little runt.
Bucky was writing furiously in his notebook, a white knuckle grip on the pen that was scratching harshly against the paper. He and Steve were sharing a room, with Bucky propped up against the pillows on his bed, shoes and shirt off, lazing in his dirty y-back with his belt undone, beautiful and effortless even with the pinking scars across his arms and the bruising under his eyes. Steve’s fingers itched to draw him, instead, he spoke “Yer writing and writing, c’mon Buck ain’t you gonna talk to me, startin’ ta think you like the damn book more’an me.”
Bucky glanced up then, smile dancing across his lips, “Can tell you’re fuckin’ tired to all hell Stevie, listen to the sound of ya, got an accent so thick not even ya mother could understand it.” He put the book down though and made his way over to Steve, “Whatsa matter Stevie? Y’keep lookin’ at me all sad-like” He knelt down on the bed next to Steve’s leg, leering down at him as he spoke.
“D’you still…uh–” He was blushing something fierce, “It’s just, I know I must look diff’rent to you, and–” Steve was stammering, a nervous tick that only happened when he was real worried about the answer he was gonna get given.
“Christ look at you, asking if I still fancy you honey? Let me ask you, are you happy, you like this body?”
Steve nodded, “It’s better, can breathe, it don’t hurt if I sleep on my side no more. But– I’d…I’d give it up in a heartbeat, you gotta know, I’d return it if I could, if you didn’t like it.”
Bucky felt his heart twinge painfully then, that Steve would take back his aches and pains, the crooked spine and the weak heart, the whole rotten package if Bucky just said the word; God he fucking loved this man.
“Honey, course I like it, don’t get it twisted, I’m still mad as all hell at ya, ain’t forgetting it anytime soon, but I like you, don’t matter if yer a slip of a thing or big as a house Stevie-boy.” Steve relaxed then, hands coming up to Bucky’s flanks, big hands circling his waist nearly.
He let out a soft sigh, one hand travelling up Bucky’s back to grip the scruff of his neck, blue eyes meeting slate grey as Bucky leaned down and Steve pushed up, their lips meeting in the middle with a clacking of teeth and a bump of noses. The kiss was heated, slick and hot, tongues pressing into mouths and hands grasping at skin. It was all Bucky could do to hold on as Steve pressed searing kisses down his jaw, working at his neck and collarbones.
Steve was pressing insistently against his thigh, hot and hard even through the pants they were both wearing. Bucky chuckled then, “Hey Soldier” his eyes cast downwards to where Steve was hard in his pants. Steve was blushing, cheeks red as he mumbled, “It don’t take as much now, to get…well y’know.”
Bucky laughed, a breathy sound from his mouth, hands reaching down to Steve’s buckle, swift as ever, reaching into his pants and jerking him root to tip. Steve responded with an airy groan as he continued pawing and kissing at Bucky, their mouths meeting again in a desperate kiss, tongues sliding together as Steve reached for Bucky’s pants, already open, the fly unzipped and brought his cock out, taking both of them in his big hand.
Bucky pressed his forehead to Steve’s then, breaking the kiss as he looked down at their bodies, he could feel Steve’s cock against his and Steve’s hand around him, his hips jerked up, fucking himself into Steve’s fist as he felt himself getting closer. Steve knew how to hit his buttons, fuck, he pretty much installed the damn things, and now his orgasm was building and spilling all over Steve’s fist as he let out a low punched-out sound. Steve followed soon after, his cock jerking against where he still had Bucky in his hand.
Steve met his lips again, biting down on Bucky’s bottom lip before pulling back, his own lips red and swollen, his eyes soft, “Fuck doll, yer so sweet, could just eat ya up.” He was slurring his words together, tired, like always, after he came, and Bucky helpless in the face of Steve Rogers’ love, just grinned, wide and stupid and blindingly happy.
After he cleaned them up he came back to Steve’s bed, naked and happy. He lifted Steve’s arm where he was lying on his back, he slid under on his front and put his own arm over Steve’s torso. “G’night”
Austria, 1944
Becca,
Tell Ma and Pa that I got their letter, I can’t respond just yet, paper’s in high demand and I’m running low. I know you saw Steve before he left (how could you miss him, big as he is), and the news has probably made its way all the way over to you, but he really is here, and I’m okay, promise.
It’s cold as all hell out here, can’t believe I’m saying this but I almost (almost!) miss the desert, at least there you weren’t liable to waking up wet like you’d just been swimming, get’s so dewy in the morning it ain’t even funny. I’d probably fight Steve, gladiator style if I thought it meant I might get to see the inside of a building again; camping really ain’t for me.
The guys in the unit are good, they respect me ‘n I respect Steve so it’s working well so far. There really ain’t much to tell that won’t get blacked out, I saw a butterfly the other day (stop rolling your eyes, I know you're grown now, doesn’t mean you can’t still like ‘em) it was one of them big blue ones, I forgot the name, I remember the book you had said they were only found in Europe, you’d have lost your head, so damn blue I thought I’d finally cracked. Couldn’t believe my eyes, pointed it out to Steve, and he said you would’ve loved it; great minds think alike.
Enough about me Becca-girl, Steve told me that last time he saw you, you were going steady with Connor O’Mara, I know Ma’s real pleased you’re going round with a Catholic (never mind that he’s a mick, no one’s perfect.) Make sure he’s treating you well, I don’t wanna have to be making no house calls when I get back kid.
Write back sharing all the neighbourhood gossip, drama is dry as anything out in the forest, please also, if you can, send a copy of that new book: A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, I’m bored out of my mind with Moby Dick. And I can’t even bother Steve because the big idiot is having too much fun traipsing through the forest to notice that I’m just about going out of my head rereading Melville.
All my love,
Bucky
He closed the notebook, knowing he wouldn’t be able to send the letter yet anyhow, with how far into the forest they were it was a wonder anything was even alive out here, and the letter would get ruined in all the mud before he could even send it. Steve was on his side of the tent, Bucky wasn’t close enough to feel it but he knew that he was warm. Steve was his own damn heat source, like the sun his boy was, and Bucky yearned for him; for the quiet mornings in Brooklyn, and the sound of graphite on cheap paper. And yet, all he had was the cold, the dull and persistent chill that settled deep in your bones, that no amount of warm tea or hand-rolled cigarettes could burn out. And despite the chilblains on his feet and his numb fingers, he was with Steve, when he thought he’d never get out of that damn factory, and now Steve was bright and strong and here.
They’d been out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, Bucky’s best guess was near the German border, they were meant to be closing in on a HYDRA factory, sometime tomorrow, and fuck, Bucky was real jittery about it.
“Shut up Buck, yer thinkin’ loud enough I can hear it from over here.” Steve turned over then, his dark eyebrows pulled down over his eyes, mouth pulled into a frown as he stared over at Bucky. Bucky looked back, eyes burning into Steve, urging him to hear what he wasn’t saying, to look at his face and know what was wrong without Bucky having to say anything.
Steve sighed, a great big heaving thing that shook his shoulders, put upon and tired but still willing to catch and cradle anything Bucky threw at him. “Y’wanna c’mere honey?” Steve’s soft drawling voice pulled Bucky from his reverie, Bucky nodded, his bottom lip pouting in a look he would deny to high heaven if ever questioned. He shuffled over to Steve, making himself small in the cradle of Steve’s big arms.
“I don’t…’m not sure why I–” Bucky huffed, a frustrated sound leaving his mouth, he wanted to say I don’t know why I care so much, i’m not sure why this mission is botherin’ me so damn much, but in the quiet honesty of the tent it was all too much, to bare his soul to the empty darkness, and he couldn’t, all his words were on that damn fucking table, strapped down against the cold metal.
“S’okay,” Steve replied, his breath ghosting over Bucky’s neck, knowing what Bucky wasn’t saying. “S’all gonna be okay, when this’ all over where g’nna get a big ol’ house, big ol’ brownstone, ‘nd a dog for me, cat for you, it’ll be ornery as hell, you’ll love it more’an me.” Bucky felt the curve of Steve’s smile against his neck, and heard it in the slow rounded syllables spilling out of his mouth.
“Oh yeah, big guy? What’ll the neighbours think of our life’a sin?” He was only joking, the fantasy was nice, that was really all it was though.
“It don’t matter, I’m Captain ‘Merica, it’s against the constitution to slander m’name,” Bucky did laugh then, a quiet acquiescence as he deflated against Steve’s chest.
A couple days later Bucky was sitting amongst the tents in their makeshift camp, the Howlies were still asleep in the early morning light, dawn just cracking over the treeline when he heard the sound of someone walking in to camp. He put out his cigarette, flicking the butt onto the damp ground as he looked up at Steve’s looming figure.
As Steve got closer, Bucky could see a sheepish expression on his face, his hands behind his back looking for all the world like his eight year old self, ready to be reprimanded. As Steve stopped in front of him, Bucky realised why, he had cut his hair, or– well, he had tried. Steve’s blond hair was lopsided, choppy and messy like he had been running his hands through it.
“Oh Christ Steve, not even your own mother could recognise you under this mop!” Bucky was laughing, bent near in half as he felt tears beading at his eyeline. Steve was glaring, his hair sticking up at all angles, lopsided and scruffy. “Lordy, did you get mauled? Fall into a pile of sticks?” Bucky was grabbing Steve by the scruff of his hair, shaking his head like a dog that was being reprimanded. Harsh and aggressive but loving, balanced on a razor's edge.
That was how they had always been, Steve with a bone to pick and everything to prove, Bucky weighed down by everyone’s expectations, crashing into each other with a cataclysmic force. It was an image that had occurred a thousand times in a thousand universes, Steve perched on the edge of the bathtub, bleeding like a stuck pig and Bucky, Steve’s damn guard dog, foaming at the bit and angry like all hell when he was backed into a corner; gripping Steve’s chin, turning his face this way and that, nervous hands flitting over Steve’s ribs, and a mouth stained pink and searching for Steve’s amidst all the violence and anger.
“Oh fuck right off Barnes, my hairdresser’s gone and got a nervous habit of shaky hands, wouldn’t let him near this hair with a seven-foot pole.” Bucky smiled at that, a dirty grin, one half of his mouth tugging up in a knowing smile as he lowered his voice.
“Sure let him near other parts a’you huh Stevie-boy?”
Flushing bright red and looking around Steve replied, “Oh go fuck yourself Bucky, y’gonna cut my hair or not pal?”
Brandishing a knife that he had liberated from a HYDRA soldier on their last mission, Bucky gripped Steve’s chin, his rough callouses and rougher grasp turning Steve’s head left and right, “It ain’t gonna be too pretty, til I can get some damn scissors.”
Nowhere, 1945-2014
The Soldier does not know words. They are frivolous and only afforded to people. The Soldier is not people, he is not even a dog, dogs at least are loved by their owners, fed and bathed and walked. The Soldier is a weapon, and weapons do not need words.
Those in charge of the Soldier have words, they throw them around and hurl them at his face, and still he does not blink. They whisper them harshly at him as the electricity pulses bright and painful through his skull. And they spit them at him as they hose him down, the cold spray against his cold skin. Everything cold, cold, cold.
There are 13 words the Soldier both does and doesn’t know. They are etched into the marrow of his skull, worn and faint but there. They are burnt into his retinas and still, he could not recall them if asked. They echo faintly in his head at night in the cell, next to words and sounds that mean nothing. Children laughing, blood dripping from a nose, the faded and harsh Russian consonants.
None of these words concern the Soldier.
He knows 12 languages, he knows the name of every bone and major artery in the human body, and he knows how to give mission reports and status updates. But none of these words are his, Soldier’s do not own things, not even theweapon, the one that is attached to him, is his. He thinks maybe once he talked and wrote things down for the sake of it, because he wanted to. The Soldier no longer knows want, it is an alien concept to him, but when he has been out of cryofreeze too long, and the mission is slow, he thinks that maybe want is not such a bad thing, that maybe one day it could be his word, a word he chooses for himself.
Washington D.C. 2015
“Steve, I’m thinking of taking her to that new place past West End? It’s close to Capitol Hill so it shouldn’t be too far away… Steve are you even listening?”
“Sorry, your date with Maria, yeah? I think West End’ll be good, she’s not that scary once you get to know her”
“Man, you’re getting better at pretending to listen.”
Steve laughed then, “I ain’t pretending, fuck you Wilson, I am extremely interested in your dating life, and actually do enjoy hearing you rehash the details of this date for the eight millionth time.”
“Okay, once you get a date I’d like to see you be so suave and nonchalant.” Sam was grinning over his, frankly overpriced, cappuccino, as Steve shrugged, taking a sip of his (in Sam’s opinion: disgusting) long black with no sugar.
They came to the cafe, despite its absurd pricing, once a week after their run. Where once Steve had been in pursuit of the elusive Winter Soldier, Sam had suggested– only after blowing all the remaining HYDRA cells in Europe to smithereens– that they maybe, localise, come back to DC, work from there.
So now, every other month, Steve, Sam and sometimes Natasha, when she was in, would focus on the HYDRA facilities within the US. And while it wasn’t perfect, it left Steve antsy and worried, Sam secretly suspected that whatever was left of Barnes within the Soldier, needed the space, the time away.
So instead Steve had turned his energy inwards, requesting some of things from the museum, reading a frankly terrifying number of history books, and making a steady dent in his Netflix watchlist. It was painfully and boringly mundane, and Sam suspected, a very fragile ruse.
They paid, with Sam heading to the VA with a promise to let Steve know how his date goes and with Steve back to his place in Dupont Circle.
When Steve got to his apartment he went for the shower, his running clothes stiff from sweat, he was toeing off his sneakers, socks thrown towards the direction of the laundry basket, before he realised something was wrong. The door to his bedroom was ajar, the lights on.
He crept forward, the Colt 1911 in his hallway side table secure in his right hand. He pushed the door further open, to see a man, or– no, Bucky the Winter Soldier was on his bedroom floor. He dropped the gun, onto the dresser, he knew that the man in front of him knew he was there, his entry hadn’t been subtle, not by a long shot
“Bucky,” the man in question turned towards him, away from the bookshelf, crooked smile and dead eyes.
“Hiya Stevie,” it was forced, sounding like sandpaper as the words left his mouth. It was the best four syllables Steve had heard since waking up. He smiled, a watery fragile thing, and gestured towards the kitchen.
“You wanna stay, just for a bit? I could make you a sandwich?”
Bucky shook his head, and Steve felt a tidal wave of disappointment flow through him, that Bucky could undo him like this, with a shake of his head, was a fatal flaw a mile wide; it would give Natasha a hernia. “You already ate,” he said instead. Rather than ask how Bucky knew that, Steve just cleared his throat, “I can still make you something jerk, ain’t no skin off my back.”
So Bucky nodded, walking over to the island bench, his footfalls silent against the wood. While Steve walked to the fridge. “You don’t– If you’re not ready you don’t have to…tell me or anything but how– do you –?” He was stumbling over his words, nervous like he hadn’t been since 1943, when he thought Bucky wasn’t gonna like him like that anymore with his new body.
“How much do I remember? I remember a small boy, blond and angry. I– I know that he’s you… Not much else, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? God I don’t– I couldn’t care less if you never remembered, I just– I want to see you… happy, maybe?”
“Happy…I don’t know if that’s for me anymore.”
“It could be, God Bucky, it could be.”
Bucky shrugged then, taking the finished sandwich and wolfing it down like he hadn’t seen food in weeks, maybe he hadn’t.
Steve looked at the man before him, his body so different from the boy he had fallen in love with a lifetime ago, he knew that his face betrayed him; a pained expression darkening his features. Steve cleared his throat, “You’re welcome to stay, there's a spare bedroom with your name written on it.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt, painstakingly aware that Bucky probably wouldn’t stay, that this visit was an anomaly.
Bucky shrugged, Steve wasn’t sure if it was in agreement, he hoped it was in agreement. “I can grab some towels, if you need anything else let me know.”
And so it was decided in a way, that Bucky would stay for as long as he pleased (Steve wanted him to stay forever).
That night Steve could barely sleep, achingly aware of the man in the room next to him, closer than he had been in centuries; but still not close enough. The clock on the table read 12:14 in little red numbers, and still Steve could hear the rustling of clothes and the dull thud of Bucky’s socked feet pacing back and forth across the room like a caged animal. He was so still during the day but the furious pacing reminded Steve that Bucky was not who he used to be. The boy Steve had grown up with, whose history curled around his own like a twirling vine; that carefree boy no longer existed except for in Steve’s memory. Bucky had been the kind of person who was asleep before his head hit the pillow, exhausted by the backbreaking work at the docks, and now he was rabid and unknowable. Pacing like a lion in its enclosure, and Steve couldn’t save him, not from the past and not from the memories.
The following days passed much the same, quietly, a little stilted, and yet Steve didn’t mind much. It was nice, just to have someone there sharing his space. He talked to Sam, whose date went well, well enough for a second. He got a cryptic message comprised purely of emojis from Natasha and a blurry photo of her cat Liho, he assumed it meant she was well.
And Bucky was there, on the couch, at the breakfast bar, on the fire escape, he was there. His quiet presence was steadfast and comforting, Steve didn’t know how he was supposed to continue on when Bucky left, because Bucky would leave, suddenly and without warning, and the thought of it winded Steve, rendered him 5’4 again and wheezing as he clutched his chest.
But still, life had to continue, Steve’s world had ended in 1945 and again in 2014 and in a cruel act of fate the world continued spinning. And so he lived, he went on his run with Sam and visited Peggy, and at the end of it he came home and Bucky was there, silent and brooding, but there.
Arriving back from the grocery store on the fourth day of what he tentatively referred to as Bucky’s return, he felt something wrong, an infinitesimal shift. Approaching his bedroom door he saw it already open, a mirror image of how it had been just four days ago, and again it was Bucky, this time curled over himself, mouth agape in a silent scream. His body was scarred and wracked with tremors, that seemed to come from his chest and ripple outwards leaving him shaking like a leaf. His hair was lank and stringy and shrouding his face, but his words were clear.
“They took this from me.”
He had whispered it, the words forcing themselves out from behind gritted teeth, carving a place for themselves in the oppressive silence of the bedroom. Steve noticed the book, Bucky’s notebook clutched in his flesh hand.
“They fucking stole– All of this. My– my fucking life. And yeah it was shitty, I was poor, and starving, but it was mine. I was– I was loved. I had family and fucking friends and those fuckers took it from me.” His chest was heaving, Bucky’s voice raising as he talked, the anger and the pain and grief, of the life he should of had, all spilling out from his chapped lips.
Bucky turned to Steve then, his grey eyes piercing into Steve, fever bright and burning with something Steve had never seen before. He licked his lips, tongue darting out reflexively, an old habit.
“I never cared before, before this” He waved the notebook around manically. “I mean fuck, I was a weapon, weapons didn’t have words, or– or family, friends, hobbies. And the thing is, I wasn’t just any weapon I was– I was The Soldier. And everything was taken from me, my fucking arms and legs weren’t even mine, let alone the words to describe them, with their sinew and their bones. I wasn’t afforded that goddamn luxury.”
“Buck–”
“No shut up, let me finish. When there’s no language given to you, to– to describe what happens to your body there's just this gaping fucking silence. And it wasn’t the torture or the chair or any of that other bullshit that broke me, it was the silence. That was the real terror of it, that my words weren’t mine anymore.” His hand was still gripping the notebook, worn and water-damaged in places. It was creasing under the force of his grasp, the vice-like grip choking the words written onto those pages, stressing the glue of the spine. Steve could hear the creaking of the spine in the silence of the room. And then Bucky spoke again, his own gaze focused on the book in his hand.
“I want them back now. My words, my fucking memories, I want them back.”
Later, they’re sitting on the couch, and Steve has called Natasha, told her the plan, asked her, selfishly, if she will help; as though anyone in the face of Steve Rogers’ earnestness could say no. She organised the plane and the accommodation, and so, Steve and Bucky were going to London, to France, to Brooklyn, to find the scattered pieces of Bucky Barnes that had been carelessly dropped and forcefully removed, and they were going to piece them together; and Bucky was praying like hell that they would make the shape of a man he could one day become, and Steve? He meant what he said before, he wanted Bucky happy, if this is what he wanted, well Steve Rogers was never a strong man, unable to say ‘no’ when Bucky asked so pretty.
Jersey, 2015
“I know you’re probably wondering what the fuck we’re doing in Jersey, of all places,’ Steve was chuckling to himself. Casting a look over at Bucky, who had spent the better part of the bus trip on the greyhound squashed to the window, breath fogging the glass, looked at him with a withering glare.
“You used to come here for two weeks every summer, it was the longest we were ever away from each other and I used to dread it every year. But you would come back every summer, and make it seem like the best place on Earth. Imagine my surprise when I get here for the USO tour and it’s fucking shithole, I think, secretly, I knew you were always lying but I still liked to believe you.
You’d come down here sometimes when you were running deliveries for the mob, which used to piss me off to no end. You’d get back late as hell with some piss-weak excuse about a date. We both knew you were lying, but you could be a real coward when you were scared.”
“Not scared…worried. About you. Ab– about your…reaction.” The words were slow, the ancient and old feelings seemingly painful to recall.
“Aw hell Buck,” Steve scratched the back of his neck, knowing that Bucky was right, Steve had been righteous as all hell back then, embarrassed to admit it, even now. He’d been a judgemental sonofabitch, and Bucky, he’d just been trying to get some extra cash. “I’m real sorry, that I was such a queen about it all, and the boxing, shoulda just let you help, had a chip on my shoulder y’know.”
Bucky snorted then, mumbling, “A chip? Ladies and gentlemen, he thought it was a chip? Damn dent the size of fucking Manhattan. Don’t try telling me otherwise, else I’ll call up Fox News tell ‘em Captain America’s trying to lie to a tortured veteran. If your Ma could see you now.” Steve’s mouth fell open then as Bucky cracked up, folding over himself and laughing throatily. Steve, unable to keep it together in the face of Bucky’s joy, smiles as well.
“Okay, okay, yuck it up you fuckin’ weasel.”
“Aww Steve c’mon. He– I know you’re sorry, ‘sides it don’t matter so much now.” He said it softly, and Steve supposed it was true. He looked over to where Bucky was sitting on the bench, resisting the urge to reach out, to touch his hair, remind himself that this was real, that Bucky was real. His hand twitched with the effort, Bucky noticed, he always noticed things like that, even if he wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Steve.” The man in question looked over, worried that his longing, which felt as old as the very earth itself, was written plain as day across his face. “I’m ready to leave.” Bucky smirked then, a barely there smile, and Steve knew what he was saying; these old memories, from when we were just babies are eatin’ us alive we need’ta go. Steve agreed, they weren’t who they used to be, and neither was Jersey, it was all a little bit painful, like pressing on an old bruise.
North Africa, 2015
It was relatively warm in Cairo, considering it was nearly December. They’d hired a Jeep, stacking it full of MREs and electrolyte water, retrofitting the back seats to convert into, lumpy, but usable beds. Neither of them were too bothered by comfort, after everything.
They had decided to drive from Cairo across the coast to Rabat, through Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, Natasha sourcing them IDs good enough to bypass the borders.
They had stopped at a Cafe in Zliten, Bucky ordering in perfect Arabic to the cashier, who looked bored and hadn’t clued together that the men in front of him were the two projected on the small television. It had been a year, to date, since Natasha had been seen on Capitol Hill after Project Insight, the news anchor speaking with Arabic subtitles about what had happened in the year following.
They took their food, leaning against the hood of the car as they ate, stretching their legs after days of driving along the coast. It had been beautiful, and quiet. Neither of them really minded.
“You’d been deployed in Libya, for the Desert War in ‘42. You got there along with the eighth army, you swore the Australians were speaking a different language, kept telling me their accents were so thick you thought you’d hit your head and they were all speaking gibberish, I told you: pot meet kettle, you didn’t like that much. The letters took so fucking long, coming all the way from Tobruk, I kept all of them like a damn hoarder, ridiculously happy that you would write me pages and pages. I realised eventually that it was your way of keeping sane, writing and writing, telling stories; making it all seem a far cry better than it was.
I remember you’d complain endlessly in the letters, that you had sand in places the sun don’t shine, in your shoes, and your hair. Had no choice but to believe you when the letters came in envelopes half-filled with sand. It was a fucking fruitless battle, I ended up reading up on it when I came out of the ice, you didn’t talk much about it, but it was real stop-start. You were deployed when the troops were still at El Aghelia, and by the time you left in June you were almost back in Alexandria. You kept real quiet about alla it, that’s all I really know anyhow”
Bucky hummed then, a low quiet sound in his throat, eyes far away, long hair moving in the late afternoon wind. “We can probably make it to Tripoli before sundown if we leave now, can get a room and everything.” Steve nodded, he knew Bucky had been listening, he was quieter now, he’d talk when he wanted to.
The motel had been next to a mosque, the first prayers beginning before dawn, the quiet dulcet sounds of people coming together drifting into the room and waking them both up; they were light sleepers now, the both of them, and the rhythmic, lulling sounds coming from down the street had been nice. They’d ended up leaving at around half-six, Bucky behind the wheel and Steve fiddling with the radio, before Bucky batted his hand away, mumbling under his breath, in Russian.
Steve ended up finding a CD stuffed into the bottom of the glove box; an old, scratched-up Simon & Garfunkel disc becoming their new companion.
Humming along to the song, America, he thought; he’d become familiar with it after three runs through the entire CD, Bucky spoke. “You were right, about– I didn’t like talking about it…Tobruk, I mean. It was— I mean, the furthest I’d been from home was Jersey. And now I was in the goddamn desert, at least Europe y’know was more like home, in a way. But the desert, it’s so… expansive, you look up and it’s all just sky, I’d never felt smaller.
The Australians and New Zealand boys, they didn’t mind so much, half of ‘em were from the country, and they loved their open skies, loved the stars, knew all about celestial navigation. I hated ‘em just a little bit, till I realised we were all heartsick, missing home like a damn limb.
I didn’t talk about it cause it was– fuck, it was hell, the middle of June, in the desert. I’d never smelt a rotting corpse, spewed my entire lunch up the first time. And, I guess– It hadn’t felt real, nothing had really felt real till you in Azzano. Why would I bother to recount nightmares, y’know? Pointless task.
And it had all been– for nothing, after Gazala. I realised then, how much it didn’t matter, like my place in all of this was nothing. I was canon fodder to the brass. God, I– I couldn’t tell you that, you wanted to make a difference, and this was all just bloodshed in the name of ego.” Bucky was white knuckling the steering wheel, nothing else on his face giving him away, a muscle in his handsome jaw ticked then and he sighed, deflating; something in him had freed itself a little bit, an ancient hurt.
“You want me to drive the rest of the way to Tunis?” Bucky nodded, seeing it for the peace offering that it was, saying: you’ve suffered enough, rest, please let me hold the burden, I’d shoulder it a hundred a thousand times before I let you take it back.
They stopped the Jeep up past Tunis, near Bizerte, along the coast looking out at the ocean, the waves breaking against the coastline. They were curled up in the back, bodies fitted together like commas, breath mingling, an intimacy that was older than entire countries and democracies, that had been with them since they were runts with dirty hair and not even two pennies to rub together.
From Tunis they drove to Algiers, heading inland and swapping drivers every couple of hours, it wasn’t anything special. It was everything, it was Bucky’s quiet presence; lost in the memories of something Steve hadn’t been able to save him from. And it was peaceful, in the monotonous way that only driving a car can be. Algeria had been quieter than the last time Steve was here in 2012, he’d been running special ops across most of North Africa, mainly Tunis after the Arab Spring. He found himself preferring this, the quiet, learning the world from the roads, meeting people who didn’t see him as Captain America.
From Algiers, they drove to Rabat, a relief when they finally arrived after 12 hours of driving. They were both sore, and in need of a warm shower, but they were happy in the strange way one can be when doing the worst, most boring thing in the world with the person you love most. The driving and the talking had done Bucky good, he had some colour back, from the time in the sun along the coast, and he was lighter; something he’d been carrying with him, lost to the roads.
Italy, 2015
They had promised not to venture outside of Rome, the history of Azzano still too raw for them, Steve, properly humbled when he remembered Bucky; the strongest man he knew strapped to the table, bleary-eyed. And Bucky, who couldn’t bear to face the place that had broken his spirit, more than Africa ever had.
Italy was almost an exact reflection of how it had been in 1943, cold and grey and unforgiving. The type of cold that sunk deep into Bucky’s bones, making a home for itself in the cold hollow space that had been carved out of him while he had sat on that table. The air still smelt of electric petrichor, reminding him of that first breath he had taken as they escaped Azzano, Steve beside him was a furnace, physically so unchanged from the man who had saved him all that time ago, and yet, neither of them were the same; corrupted by their time apart, clinging to fragile memories that would break and crumble if held up to the light.
Neither of them had much sentimental attachment to Rome, not the way they did to London or New York, and still, the ghosts that roamed the cobbled streets of Rome, the whisperings of an empire that had burned to ash was an aching familiarity to both Steve and Bucky, men out of time in a city that had seen entire civilisations razed to rubble. It was a twisted comfort to both of them to know that as old as they were, they weren’t more than a blip in this place, rendered mortal as they ventured through ruins.
They had woken on the second morning, having spent the previous day the kind of typical tourist, a disguise so good that even Natasha would have been impressed.
“D’you want to go to the Vatican today? It’s the smallest state in the world.”
Bucky looked up then from where he had been reading the newspaper, “You want to go.” It was an observation, a truthful one, for all Bucky’s posturing he could still read Steve like an open book, all these weeks spent together inevitably bringing up old history. Because despite it all, Bucky knew Steve, knew his desire to see the art and to beg for absolution in one of the most divine places on Earth.
It wasn’t even a question really, of course they would be going.
And so they found themselves in St Peter’s Basilica, as they walked in Bucky’d heard Steve inhale, a sharp gasp as he’d looked up, the mosaic ceilings and gold trimming breathtaking enough to make the strongest non believer fall to their knees.
But Bucky had forsaken religion a long time ago, nothing was holier to him than the night sky lit up a brilliant orange from the onslaught of enemy fire. It was divine in the mayhem of death, but in the quiet aftermath, the carnage of warfare with the metallic scent of blood seeping into his pores; Bucky had lost hope, lost belief, as he held the body of a boy crying for his mama. What good and just God would let innocent boys die in such a pointless battle? Bucky had never put much merit in religion after that, but Steve, his Holy Ghost, his absolution, was a devout Catholic.
Bucky remembered then, Steve after each battle, his thumb worrying over the crucifix on his rosemary, lips parting around a silent Hail Mary. Sarah Rogers had raised a good little god-fearing Catholic, and Bucky had wondered how he could have ever forgotten as he watched Steve, eyes wide like dinner plates as he took in the archways and altar.
For a second he almost understood, the fear that had unmade him and built him into the Winter Soldier was not unlike the fear that made honest men erect churches like this for a God who was alive only through faith. And it was beautiful, Bucky’s gaze falling on his boy, who was shaking like a leaf.
“Bucky…” He had whispered it, to speak louder felt blasphemous as he tugged on Bucky’s right arm pulling him toward the pews. Steve sat heavy on the unforgiving wooden pew, a white knuckle grip on Bucky’s hand as he inhaled, a war in his mind that Bucky could not save him from or begin to understand. But how he wanted to.
They sat in silence, tourists coming in and out, strangers lighting candles and saying mumbled prayers for people they too had lost. Despite his agnostic status, Bucky had found his own sort of peace, the tranquility of existing in a space with people who too were humbled in the quiet safety of a building that had been alive longer than entire countries.
From St Peter’s they ventured into the museum, towards the Sistine Chapel. The paintings on the walls and ceiling incapable of description, reminding Bucky of days spent in Sunday school. Images of him and Steve, restless and impossibly young hearing stories of Cain and Abel, of David and Jonathan flashed across his mind. The brush strokes a reminder that despite the time, he could never outrun his childhood, the memories came back to him unbidden as he stared at the Last Judgment. A tour guide near them explaining to the eager tourists that Michelangelo had painted himself in the flayed skin held in St Bartholomew's left-hand.
The ghoulish face staring back at Bucky felt like a mirror, the fleshy prison laying limp. Before him was man in his basest form ignoble before Christ. A sick joke that he was carried in the hand that Bucky no longer had, his own left hand lost to the ravine.
But above it all was the impossible blue backdrop, the same colour as Steve’s eyes. Steve who still loved Bucky despite the fact that Bucky felt flayed alive, no better than the skin painted onto the wall, Steve who was beside him in this century, where he could grip Bucky’s hand without a second thought. Steve with his shoulders that carried the weight of the world, his very own Atlas.
“Steve,” and that was all it took really, one word to communicate everything; that he was tired, that he wanted to rest. He gazed at Steve, whose own mouth was forming into a silent acknowledgement, his lips coming together to form the ‘B’ of Bucky’s name. How wonderful it was to be known like this, to have his name returned to him, to hear it from this boy who had seen every iteration of him. To be known is to be divine, he thought.
London, 2015
London is colder than Steve remembers, the blistering winds and icy chill that feel pervasive, haunting, even when you get inside. During the war they spent so much time underground, in bomb shelters, and crowded bars that were humid and warm with other people's body heat: you hardly noticed the cold when you weren’t in the trenches. But now it’s just him and Bucky, and London seems colder than ever.
He glances at Bucky as they make their way out of the tube; Bucky, all bundled up in a beanie and thick woolen scarf, his jacket heavy and durable, hiding the bulk of his body. The only part of his face that Steve can even really see is his watery eyes and his nose, pink from the cold.
He grabs Bucky’s mittened hand before he can think better of it, the street is empty, the dim light from the street lamps scattering across the freshly fallen snow. Steve isn’t even sure what time it is exactly, but right now they are the only two people in the whole of England, and he hasn’t been this happy since before the ice, since before Bucky fell. They are a million miles away from the people they once were, the young men who wandered these streets; searching for a place to hide, aching to escape the claustrophobia of the bar, to leave behind the men who looked at Steve and only saw Captain America. And even through all the distance and time and grief, Bucky is still Steve’s favourite hiding place.
Bucky looks over at him, down at their hands, a question in his eyes. “Sorry, I don’t– I’m not sure why I did that,” Steve says, breaking the calm silence, moving to disentangle his hand from Bucky’s.
“No– I mean, it’s okay, I like it.” Bucky squeezes his hand, grabbing it and holding it and not letting go as they continue to walk back to their hotel. Steve smiled into his scarf and Bucky under the windswept red of skin was blushing ever-so-slightly on the high points of his cheekbones.
It was Christmas time and as they turned onto one of the busier streets, Steve heard the faint sound of carol singers, the tune of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ drifting past them.
“We were in London for Christmas in 1943, you know. England had been fighting longer than the States had and it was obvious back then, the buildings, even the real old ones with the nice architecture were bombed out. Everyone alive today has forgotten, that it used to be this graveyard of a city…” Steve had never been a good story-teller, not like Bucky had been, and war stories never had happy endings, that Steve knew personally. But Bucky hadn’t objected and it was a pleasant way of passing the time; mindless chatter. “Well anyway, we would come back to London every two or three months, we got pretty good at dealing with the Blitz, and I even managed to learn the steps to a foxtrot, something that for all your teaching, I only managed to pick up from Falsworth when he was drunk in his hometown.
But this time, it was Christmas, and people had put up decorations on the buildings that were still standing, and this one day, it was fucking freezing, colder than the goddamn arctic ocean, I can tell you that with confidence. And you’d begged me to shirk my very important Captainly duties, and come with you to Knightsbridge. Vainer than anything you were Buck, even after months trekking it through the forest, and you wanted to window shop for some goddamn cologne of all things.
So we walked, in the cold mind, Oh! And they had us in the Ritz, can you fucking believe it? We were fucking shocked all to hell when we got in the foyer, in our dirty army clothes, tracking in shit and Nazi blood, two poor as dirt boys from Brooklyn in The fucking Ritz. God if our Ma’s could have seen us, they’d be beside themselves. Anyway, we went in to Harrods, and you didn’t even end up buying anything you jerk, you just wanted to drag me around to look at all the shiny things, you were such a little magpie, you honestly still are, the way you covet those damn guns” Bucky elbowed him then, dull through the layers of clothes, and Steve huffed a laugh, his breath fogging in the night air.
“Keep going” Bucky mumbled quietly, lost in the memories of the story.
“Well, we went back to the hotel– they had us there cause it was a real diplomatic visit, and the usual pubs had all been bombed to shit– and you insisted we go to the bar, you were so adamant about it, thought you were gonna give yourself an ulcer trying to talk me into it. And you bypassed the upstairs one, taking me downstairs. I was real worried that you’d finally lost it, and turns out the downstairs bar was a queer one! Not a clue how you figured that one out, but we got down there, and it was full of men dancing with other men, and dames with their hands all up and down each other's legs. My eyes were bugging out of my head, I mean this was the Ritz, and here were these people, our people.
And you smiled at me, cuffed me over the head and told me to relax, you knew that I was about jumping out my skin at the thought that someone would recognise me. And you pulled me over to this dark corner, and of-fucking-course there was mistletoe you conniving minx, and you kissed me in front of all these strangers, in this richest building we’d ever stepped foot in. God I loved you so much in that moment, would have married you then and there.”
Steve lowered his gaze, looking at the floor, slightly embarrassed; never meaning to make the man in front of him feel like he loved a ghost more than the solid figure beside him. But Bucky just hummed thoughtfully. Before speaking; “you fucked me that night, in the room, I remember cause it was the last time we really– really made love, all slow, with the proper expensive slick and time on our hands. I loved it, and felt it every time I sat down for two days after. Loved it cause…I was yours, reminder that your name was the one on my heart.” Bucky looked over at him then, his eyes open and honest, looking like a goddamn Caravaggio painting. And maybe it was 2015, maybe it was 1943, it didn’t matter because through it all; Steve Rogers was in love with Bucky Barnes.
France, 2016
They herald in the new year in some brick farmhouse in the middle of fucking nowhere. They had gone to Paris between Christmas and January, walking along the Seine, going to the Louvre, eating their weight in baked goods. It had been nice, Steve andBucky recalling the one time they had been in France, where Dernier had fucked off to a French whorehouse, and Gabe had gotten so sick of translating that he refused to talk, and the rest of them were left trying to ask directions to Dernier’s whore house. When finally a young Frenchwoman had burst out laughing in the face of Bucky asking “es-tu la pute?” and had offered them a translation handbook.
Now in the farmhouse, it is warm from the fire that Steve built and they each are drinking an Irish coffee, Steve with a book, philosophy of all things, and Bucky with his knives, sharpening them. Bucky is full up on good food, a roast made with Sarah Rogers recipe and the warmth of the spiked drink mingling pleasantly. He looks over at Steve, sticking his foot out of the blanket and wriggling his feet under Steve’s leg. “Whaddya want?” Steve’s drawling Brooklyn accent that reminded him of back alley brawls and egg creams in Coney Island diners; it made him shiver, his spine-tingling with an ancient feeling.
Bucky just looks imploringly at him, the words lodged in his throat, instead, he moves closer, butting his head against Steve’s arm forcing himself into Steve’s space, making himself small and holdable as he turns his face into Steve’s chest; the couch they are sitting on is much too small but Bucky doesn’t care, and so Steve doesn’t either.
What Bucky wants to say, lying curled up under Steve’s arm is this; you were mine, longer than anything else in this world has been mine. I belonged to you first, and I will belong to you even when we are old and buried. He wants to tell Steve that his name is carved into the sinew of Bucky’s muscles, that the marrow of his spine-bones are clutched in Steve’s oversized paws. But he doesn’t have the fucking words, can’t make them claw out from the prison of his teeth, which are clenched shut, his jaw creaking with the effort it takes to not fall down at the altar of Steve Rogers and beg for absolution from the only divine body he has ever known.
Instead, he says this: “I want– I want you, Stevie, please.” Steve breathes in harshly then, tensing up.
“Bucky… I–” He doesn’t finish but Bucky knows what he is saying; I’m worried, are you sure? I love you (he is always saying that).
“Yeah, m’sure honey, ‘m always sure about you.” Bucky tilts his head up then, lips meeting Steve’s in the sweetest homecoming, a kiss 71 years in the making, and all the more sweeter for it. It stays soft and languid, the warmth of the fire transposed in the warmth of their mouths, so close that they aren’t sure where one begins and one starts. Their hands wander aimlessly, passing over muscle and scar alike, never dwelling.
It doesn’t turn sharp and frantic, it is the kindest intimacy they have ever known, to kiss and be kissed, nothing more.
They move from the couch, losing shirts and pants, until they are naked before each other, knees meeting bedsheets and hands in hair. They get under the covers, never not touching each other; Bucky curled into Steve’s warm embrace, with Steve peppering soft barely-there kisses to Bucky’s hairline.
“I didn’t– I wasn’t sure if you still wanted…If you still felt.” Bucky huffs quietly, frustrated as he struggles to speak, even in the quiet, undemanding space between their bare skin.
“Bucky…I– I love you, God, as if I could ever have stopped,” Steve whispers into his hair, the hand against the sheets holding Bucky’s head, a confession ripped out of him, leaving him bare and flayed open in front of this man, this boy.
Steve has always thought that no matter the oceans and the decades between them part of them would always be frozen, at 8, at 12, at 17. Only ever looking at each other and transposed over them was every iteration of themselves; as boys with knobbly knees and torn pants, teenagers who were eaten up with the guilt of their love for each other, young men in war who loved each other with an unashamed animal ferocity.
He hears Bucky’s breath stutter, a gasp that sounds like it has been punched out of him, “Steve, you know…” his words trail off, but the meaning is clear; you know I can’t say it back, not yet. You know I still love you despite the words being stolen from me.
“I know, of course, I know.” His hand spasmed then, folded over Bucky’s hip bone, gripping tight and anchoring himself to the moment, to this bed, to this man. He moves the hand on Bucky’s hip up, ghosting over Bucky’s face, scratching at his scalp, his pinky finger on the underside of Bucky’s jaw. He searches Bucky’s face then, and in the piercing grey of his eyes, he finds only contentment.
“Go to sleep Stevie, it’s late now.”
Steve curls further into Bucky then, his head finding the hollow space at the juncture between his neck and chest, he snuffles like a puppy as his eyes slide closed, mumbling a half-hearted ‘’Night Buck’.
“Steve. Stevieee.” Bucky is poking him gently in the waist, his voice soft next to Steve’s ear.
“Mmm, Bucky? What is it?” He’s sleepy and sluggish and the words blend into one, sounding like whaizit? And Bucky smiles at this man who he loves, and who loves him back.
“I think I’m ready to go home.” His memories may not be all the way back, may never come back in their entirety. The words that he used to doll out without a second thought are far and few between now; but he has Steve who loves him, regardless, Steve who makes dinners and glows like an angel in the fresh snow. And love won’t save him, it didn’t save him when he was 27 and falling off a train, but it gives him hope.
Brooklyn, 2016
Bucky heard the front door open, squeaking painfully on its hinges. Which did need to be oiled, but which Bucky refused to do, he liked knowing when someone was coming, liked knowing they couldn’t hide. Despite his progress, parts of the Winter Soldier were unshakeable, he was slowly making peace with the fact that that was okay.
“Honey, I’m home.” Steve’s lilting voice carried through to the lounge and Bucky smiled. The domesticity of it all was sickening, Bucky loved it. This little island of safety they had built, brick by brick was everything he had wanted as a young man. Knowing that he could have it now, that he could go down to the courthouse and marry Steve if he so wanted, was enough to make his head spin, giddy and drunk on possibility.
He heard something thud next to him on the couch, a small brown leather bound book, achingly familiar.
“What’s this?” He looked up at Steve who was rubbing the back of his neck, a sheepish expression on his face.
“It’s a notebook.”
“Well I realised that, why’s it here though?”
Steve cleared his throat then, red blossoming on his cheeks, “It’s just an idea, and you can throw it in the bin and I won’t ask a single question, but… Well you used to write, God Buck, you used to write on anything you could get your hands on. You were a storyteller, Buck.” He paused then, where once the weight of who Bucky used to be made him twitchy, any mention of his old self felt like an impossible reminder of everything he could never be, now he had made peace with this new self, who still had an insatiable sweet tooth, but was quieter less quick to laugh. He gestured for Steve to continue.
“Well, I just thought, I don’t know. It feels silly now that I’m telling you, but, I thought if you wanted to, you could write again, you don’t have to show me or anything, but if you want, you have a whole book to put your words in again.”
Bucky smiled then, a slow grin that made his eyes crinkle. His words, a notebook that was all his, for every thought, and it was for him, to keep and cherish. To covet every mundane idea, never to be taken from him again.
“It’s perfect, thank you.” He pushed up from the couch then, crossing the distance to Steve, mismatched arms reaching for Steve.
“I love you.” He kissed Steve then, mouths meeting in a chaste kiss, it was nothing, ordinary, not dissimilar from any other kiss they had shared since coming home. It was everything.