Storming
In the wake of the explosion and the fire and every unspeakable thing that came before, Bucky had a hard time stitching reality back together. He’d gotten out - he’d thought he was going to die but he’d gotten out - and now he felt wrong and out-of-place somehow, like he belonged more with the shadows that only he could see than he did with the other men, or with the stranger that was somehow here wearing Steve’s face.
Steve. Even as Bucky came back to himself, he couldn’t quite believe anything he was seeing - not with Steve here, suddenly tall and healthy and looking at Bucky like he might fall apart any second. Steve was there when Bucky finally got his feet under himself enough to stumble out of the compound and reunite with his men. Steve hovered in the background while Dugan and Morita and Jones patted him on the back, told him they were glad to see him on his feet. Steve was there, leading them all away, then stopping to fall behind when Bucky fell hard onto the dirt path, having reached the very end of his rope. He was there, slinging one of Bucky’s arms around his own shoulders and pulling him along, practically carrying him. He was there with his unusually strong hand resting on Bucky’s back when the dizziness got to be too much and Bucky had to trip to the side of the road and get sick into the weeds. The shadows at the edges of Bucky’s vision were steadily dissipating, but Steve was still here, refusing to leave his side. Slowly, slowly, Bucky was forced to realize that, no matter how little sense it all made, this was real.
“Is this… am I dead?” Bucky had managed to ask, once they’d walked all night and the sun started to light up the sky beyond the clouds. Steve had just looked at him, and his eyes were the same as they’d always been, but there was something in them so soft it made him ache. Bucky couldn’t stand to look at him after that.
That new version of Steve stayed with him, hovering at his side like his own personal ghost, all the way back to camp. Bucky knew he would have stayed longer if he could have, but as soon as they made it back and someone in charge caught sight of Steve and the line of men behind him the whole camp erupted in chaos. Someone grabbed Steve by the arm and marched him away, leaving Bucky unmoored and lost in the sea of people marveling at how they were really back, really alive. Bucky hadn’t quite finished marveling about that, himself.
“You’re looking pretty rough, man,” someone said, the words slow to reach Bucky through his exhaustion. “You oughta go get checked out.”
Bucky didn’t bother looking at the speaker, didn’t even really bother moving of his own accord. He just let himself get swept up in the crowd of men making their way over to the medic’s tent, more tired than he could ever remember being but somehow still moving forward. He thought, for a moment, that he might be okay. He’d made it out, and he was still pushing on. Maybe he could push right on past it all, pretend it never happened and go back to the way things had been. But then the medic’s tent came into view and Bucky smelled antiseptic in the air, heard someone groaning inside like he might be dying, and everything he’d been through flooded back through him with sickening clarity. Breath coming too fast, Bucky stumbled past the entrance of the makeshift hospital, just making it to an awning on the side of the tent before his knees buckled and he went down hard on the damp earth.
It was cold, cold like metal tables and gloved hands and hospital smells and suddenly he was back there - scream all you want, soldier. No one is coming, not for you. Not when they see what you are becoming...
“...looking for Bu- for Sergeant Barnes, where is he?”
Bucky wasn’t sure how long he’d been drifting, but the sound of a familiar voice somewhere inside the medic’s tent snapped him back to the present. He tried to listen, but the sound of his own ragged breath and the uncontrollable ringing in his ears drowned out the murmured reply. It wasn’t until someone tore open the flap of the tent and came running out towards him that Bucky managed to calm down enough to put the pieces together.
“Buck!” It was Steve, of course it was. His body was so completely different, but Bucky would know that voice anywhere. “Bucky, what the hell are you doing sitting out here?”
Steve’s newly huge body towering over him made Bucky feel incredibly small. He felt his shoulders hunch in on themselves under the bulk of his old jacket, and he found he couldn’t bring himself to look Steve in the eye. Evidently sensing Bucky’s discomfort, Steve slowly lowered himself to the ground until he and Bucky were sitting shoulder to shoulder.
“They see you already?” Steve asked after a moment, almost tentatively. Even with his own eyes pointed firmly at his boots, Bucky could feel Steve looking at him like he could see all the way through him. Bucky was suddenly especially grateful for the coat Steve had somehow dragged halfway across the world for him. Its sleeves hid the points where the needle had pricked his elbow, still latently burning under the layers of fabric, and its collar hid the bruises that started on his torso and marched all the way up his neck. Under Steve’s gaze, Bucky wrestled the sleeves further down his bony wrists, trying in vain to cover the spots where the restraints of the table had rubbed him raw and bloody.
“Nah,” he said with as much conviction as possible, uncomfortably aware of the tremor in his voice. “Not going in.”
“Not…” Steve sounded so exasperated that Bucky finally had to look at him. He regretted it when Steve didn’t meet his eyes, just kept staring at the place where his jacket was now barely covering the wounds on his arms. “Whaddaya mean you’re not going in?”
As though Bucky could have ever hoped to hide it. As though Steve hadn’t seen the evidence of what they’d done to him before he’d put on that jacket. As though the ugly marks they’d beaten into his face weren’t still on full display. It was written all over him, everything that had happened.
“I mean , I’m not going in,” Bucky bit out with a frustration that surprised even him. “Just drop it, okay?”
Bucky felt guilty as soon as the words left his mouth. He wasn’t angry with Steve - at least, not about this. “Sorry,” he muttered, returning his gaze to his shoes. Somewhere in the distance, thunder was rolling.
Steve shook his head. “You know I can’t drop this, don’t you?” His voice was hovering somewhere between gentle and sharp, like he couldn’t tell which one he needed to be. “I mean, come on, Buck. Not two days ago you were strapped to a table in some godforsaken Nazi prison camp! You’re going in, no two ways about it.”
Bucky winced, Steve’s casual analysis of the situation making him feel like he was laid out and vulnerable on that table all over again. “Well, not two days ago I still thought you were safe back at home in the States,” he shot back, fighting to bury the mental image of the prison camp in question and keep it deeply interred. “What, are we just not gonna talk about that?”
Steve took a deep breath beside him, and Bucky had a brief moment of vindictive pleasure at having disarmed Steve and his blustering confidence even a little. He was so tired he hardly felt guilty about it.
“I mean, I was safe. At least, ‘til I left for Krieschberg.” Steve was smiling sheepishly, like it was all some kind of joke, and Bucky felt something buried deep inside him start to smolder. “I wasn’t fighting or anything. At least, not officially.”
“So what the hell happened? How did you get here?” Bucky forced himself to look over at his best friend’s face, now inexplicably fastened to a body he didn’t recognize. All those years he’d spent aching for Steve, memorizing every tiny detail of his delicate frame, every look and gesture and characteristic that made him Steve, now obliterated by this too-perfect soldier’s physique. Overcome with something almost like grief, Bucky’s next words drifted out in a half-formed whisper. “What did they do to you, Stevie?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Steve’s voice was measured and clear in a way that Bucky, running on less than fumes, couldn’t even hope to emulate. “What the hell happened to you ?”
Like Bucky was the one who was different. Like the guards and the doctor and the war and everything else had really taken him and made him into something else. Like Steve could see straight through him and knew it. Bucky saw red.
“Goddammit, Steve!” Bucky jerked forward, suddenly needing to get as far away from Steve as possible, but was far too drained to climb to his feet. He settled for clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut, like he could make this parody of Steve disappear through sheer willpower. “What do you care, anyway? You oughta be back stateside drawing pictures right now, not over here prying into my damn life, but somehow this is all still happening and you gotta at least tell me how!”
Bucky hazarded a glance at Steve. He’d shifted away from Bucky during his outburst and now sat several feet away from him, but still close enough for Bucky to see the hurt written all over his face. Bucky’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. Maybe the doctor had been right about him after all.
“It was nothing I didn’t ask for,” Steve said quietly, still looking at Bucky like he didn’t fully know him anymore. And wasn’t that messed up, that Steve could turn up in the middle of a war zone wearing a brand new body and still look at Bucky like he was the stranger.
Maybe they were both strangers, now. Thinking about what the doctor had told him about the effects of the “serum” they’d been giving him, Bucky had the sneaking suspicion that he might be more familiar with what Steve had gone through than he’d ever be willing to admit. He wrapped his arms around his middle, his right hand clutching at the crook of his elbow, the place where the doctor’s machines had dug into his skin. He cringed as pain shot down his arm. It felt like getting run through by an electric current. It felt like nothing he’d ever wanted for Steve.
“Did it hurt?” he forced himself to ask, despite the voice in his head telling him that he really didn’t want to know.
“A little.” Steve ran one of his sturdy hands over his mouth as he spoke, the gesture catching Bucky’s attention in spite of his still-tenuous relationship with his surroundings. It was Steve’s nervous tell, one that had always accompanied his insistences of yeah, I’ve been resting and I’m not cold and the other guy started it . The gesture would have been placatingly familiar in any other context, but the realization that Steve was now lying to him, on top of everything else, just served as kindling for the frustration already burning through him.
“Bullshit,” Bucky snapped. An image of Steve, strapped to a table and screaming, floated, unbidden, to the top of his mind. Bucky felt his breathing picking up its pace again, some deeply ingrained panic response to the idea of Steve, hurt and needing help. But Bucky hadn’t been there to help him, and now Steve was different and Bucky was different and -
“Is it… is it permanent?” Bucky asked, hoping against hope that maybe it wasn’t, that maybe things - that maybe Steve - would go back to normal and one day this would all feel like a bad dream.
(He hoped that, maybe, the same could be said for whatever they’d done to him on that table. They’d said they’d made him a soldier, made the war a part of him. Maybe none of that would be permanent either.)
Steve just smiled, a little proud and a little sad. “So far.”
Outside the shadow of the tent, a few raindrops began splattering against the dirty ground. Bucky curled his knees into his chest, suddenly cold.
“What’d they want you for, anyway?” Bucky asked, fear continually ratcheting up and tightening his chest. “They really pumped you full of serum - or, I mean, whatever - just to sell some war bonds?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that. Not at first. I was supposed to be…” Steve looked about as scared as Bucky felt. “… a soldier. The - the first of many.”
“Dammit!” Bucky was panicking now, couldn’t control it. “You really just let them - and you were gonna -”
“You’re not hearing me, Buck!” He was right, Bucky was having a hard time hearing anything over the blood pounding in his ears. “It was my choice to make. Maybe it was dumb, but what else was I supposed to do? I was sick, and you were gone, and I just - I had to do something about it!”
“ Fuck .” Bucky hadn’t had this much trouble breathing since he’d been dragged away to that godforsaken infirmary in the first place. “Fuck, I don’t know. I just… I can’t believe you, Steve!”
For a few minutes, Bucky wasn’t capable of much other than hanging his head between his knees and trying to catch his breath. He thought surely Steve would get up and leave, go find more important things to do while Bucky sorted himself out enough to fill his lungs without hyperventilating. (Not like Bucky could be of any help to him anymore, anyway.) He was so convinced Steve had left him alone that he was surprised, after a few minutes had passed, to feel Steve’s broad shoulder brushing up against his own. Rather than increasing their distance, Steve had bridged the gap between them until they were shoulder to shoulder again, not even inches apart. He just sat there, waiting, while Bucky wound down.
“I can hardly believe myself some days,” Steve said eventually. Bucky unglued his head from his knees to see Steve examining his own hands with something akin to awe. “But I can breathe now, Buck. I never knew it could be this easy. And I don’t get aches and pains. Hell, I can walk all the way from Austria to Italy and hardly feel a damn thing. And - and I can see you again, now. So that’s gotta be something.”
Bucky shook his head in disbelief. Steve wasn’t going to convince him of anything, not when it sounded like he could hardly convince himself. Still, Bucky found that he didn’t even have the energy to fight him about it - he just let his eyes close and wound his arms around his knees, thinking he could probably fall asleep right there on the muddy ground. He might have, too, if his hand hadn’t brushed against the top of his boot in the process. There was something poking out of it - the folded piece of paper that had once meant everything to him, onto which he’d poured out his heart, now sitting and collecting grime between his shoe and his sock. Suddenly he had to know.
“So all those letters you wrote me. Was any of that… was that all just made up?”
He felt Steve tense up beside him. “Well, not - all of it,” Steve said defensively. “Some of it was true. I went to all those cities, and I was some kind of artist. Even drew a couple of the posters myself. And the hotels really did have hot water all the time, and I had to hold all those babies, and…” Bucky didn’t even bother lifting his head, just let Steve talk until he trailed off.
“And the…” Bucky finally whispered into the space between his knees. “And the Grand Canyon?”
Steve let out a long sigh, sounding as defeated as Bucky felt. “I really went there. Wish I hadn’t, really, I just wasn’t sure we could - wasn’t sure if you’d ever - well.” Steve paused to take a steadying breath. In the absence of his stammering Bucky could hear the rain, pouring down in steady and unrelenting sheets.
“It did look like fall, though.” Steve murmured, barely audible over the downpour. “Just like the picture.”
That damn Grand Canyon picture. Bucky wondered for a moment where it was. Probably buried in the mud somewhere up north, or in the pocket of some enterprising soldier from the other side who’d gone looking for a dry cigarette or a bit of food. Everything Steve had sent him throughout his deployment, save the paper currently stuffed in his boot, was gone, surely lost to looters or to the relentless weather. He lifted his head, wondering if Steve had somehow seen those remnants of the apartment sketch currently taking up residence in his shoe, but Steve wasn’t even looking at him. His eyes were fixated on the rain.
The way the gray morning light framed his face made him look smaller, softer, sadder. Looking at his profile, Bucky almost felt like he was seeing the same Steve he’d written out his dying confession to, but when Steve turned his head to look at Bucky and his newly broad torso came into focus, the illusion vanished. Bucky felt sick.
“You know I used to keep that drawing you did, the one of the apartment, on me all the time?” he said. Some part of Bucky wanted Steve to hurt, wanted him to feel that same sense of loss Bucky did now that everything had changed and Steve had changed along with it. “Always held it in my pocket. Whenever I was in a tough spot I’d pull it out and look at it. Made me think about you back home and safe in New York. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? That whole time, it wasn’t even you doing the lying. I was the one over here lying to myself.” He knew he needed to stop, that he wasn’t thinking straight, but the words just kept falling out, faster than he could think them through.
“What’re you saying here, Buck?” Steve’s voice was suddenly icy, colder than the rain leaking through the awning of the tent.
“I don’t - I don’t know anymore!” Bucky was spiralling and he knew it, but found himself utterly powerless to make it stop. Everything just felt wrong , like being in that factory had broken something inside him and now all the jagged pieces were trying to claw their way out. “I just - I wish you hadn’t done it. I wish things could just… go back to the way they were.”
“Really? You really wish I hadn’t done it?” Bucky had never heard Steve talk like that before. Steve was always explosive in his anger, never far from picking an argument or jumping into a fight. This quiet, focused rage was something unique to the new version of Steve, and it was a part of him Bucky firmly decided he didn’t like. “What was so great about the way things were, Bucky? You mean the two of us, barely scraping together enough to eat, wearing shoes we got from friends of friends of people who used to know my Ma? You mean working yourself to the bone while I sat staring into the fire and wondering if I was going to live to see one more day?”
Some part of Bucky knew Steve was right, their life before the war hadn’t exactly been easy, but that knowledge only served to make him angrier. All he’d really been fighting for was the chance to return to that life, and now Steve was telling him he’d never really wanted it?
Steve was still speaking, his voice getting deadlier with every word. “Or do you mean me, sitting in our apartment all by myself, wondering if I should call the crazy doctor who told me he could fix all of me or kill me trying, and getting in touch with him because God only knew if you were coming home ever again - and even if you were I might not have be there to see it? All that, and you're really gonna sit there and tell me I shouldn't have done it, Buck?"
That sweet shortened nickname that only Steve ever called him, tacked so casually onto the end of the onslaught, was the final straw.
“Fuck! Fuck off, Steve, I don’t need this!” Bucky tried to stand up but he couldn’t breathe and his head was spinning and he was so mad he could hardly see. He fell back miserably, feeling frigid rainwater start to bleed through his uniform pants. “I read your damn letters over and over, you know? You were always telling me that I was gonna be fine, that you knew I was gonna make it back. Hell, almost sounded like you missed me, missed being poor and miserable in that crap apartment together. Didn’t realize you were just dying for me to leave so you could get away from it!” Bucky’s voice fractured on the last syllable, and he turned his face away in an effort to keep Steve from noticing. He wished, not for the first time, that he had even a fraction of Steve’s nerve. He may have been labelled a fighter now, but before that he’d always been soft.
Steve was quiet for a moment, taking deep and measured breaths while Bucky’s shoulders shook. “I did miss you, Bucky,” he said finally, his voice unreadable. “I missed you and it drove me crazy, but you can’t just sit here and - and act like this. Just think about this for a second. We’re together , and I can actually see you and you’re alive and all you wanna do is sit here and tell me you wish things were back ‘the way they were.’ I’m right in front of you, right now! Isn’t that what you wanted? What do you have to reminisce about, now?”
“Dammit, just - shut up , Steve, I don’t know! Okay?” Bucky was crying, hardly feeling it as tears mixed with rainwater flowing down his cheeks. “I just - everything’s different and I don’t know where I fit and I don’t know what to think and I -” It was too much, all of it. “I’m just so fucking tired! ”
Bucky buried his face in his hands despite knowing it was useless, despite knowing that Steve could probably see the tears streaking through the grime on his face. A bitter voice inside him told him it was about time Steve realized he was weak.
Steve’s shoulder moved away from Bucky’s, leaving cold air in its wake, and Bucky, still curled into himself with his face in his hands, couldn’t stop himself from listing sideways toward the void it left. He didn’t think he’d ever craved comfort so much.
“Well then, for God’s sake, lemme help you.”
Bucky glanced up to see Steve kneeling in front of him, outside the protective shadow of the tent, seemingly not caring about the rain flattening his hair or the mud that was probably getting all over the knees of his stupid Captain America suit. He was focused all on Bucky, his wide blue eyes still so familiar they hurt to look at.
“It ain’t a question of where you fit ,” Steve continued, some of the edge finally bleeding out of his voice. “You fit where you always have, and that’s right here with me. I mean, if you still want to. I won’t make you. I - I know I’m - different, but it’s really just my looks, that’s all.”
Steve was leaning in closer, his new bulk practically radiating warmth, and Bucky’s misplaced anger hardly felt significant anymore. All he wanted in the world was wrap his shivering arms around Steve and never let him go. Before the factory, he thought, maybe he could have gotten away with it, pulling Steve close and holding him and maybe, just maybe, finally saying something stupid like I love you. As it was now, Steve was the one that moved, reaching out and brushing his fingers, just slightly, over the curve of Bucky’s bruised jaw, tilting his head up so they were looking eye to eye.
“I swear, I’m still the same dumb kid,” Steve said earnestly. “I’ve just got some actual bite now. But - that’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m just saying, you don’t have to wonder where you fit. Not now, not ever. There’s always a spot right here if you want it.”
Staring into Steve’s eyes, with Steve staring unflinchingly back, Bucky almost started to believe him. Bucky felt himself leaning forward, not knowing what he wanted exactly, just knowing that, in that moment, he needed Steve more than anything else in the world. For a second he really thought Steve felt the same way, his fingers still playing on the line of Bucky’s jaw like he couldn’t quite bear to let go - but then a shout ringing out from behind Steve’s broad silhouette shattered the moment. Bucky leaned away.
“Captain! Captain - America, sir?”
Steve was on his feet in an instant, positioning himself in front of Bucky’s trembling form so as to shield him from whoever was asking.
“Mr. Keller,” Steve said, sounding strained. “They need me back in the doghouse?”
“Something like that,” the man - Keller, Bucky supposed - replied brightly. Bucky would have rolled his eyes if he’d had the energy. “They want you in the Colonel’s tent. Spitting mad, don’t know how you’ll get yourself out of this one!”
“I’m sure I’ll manage just fine,” Steve said. Even from his cramped position on the ground, Bucky could see him running a hand sheepishly over the back of his neck. Bucky sighed. Only Steve would be this nonchalant in the face of being court martialed.
It went quiet for a moment, like Steve was just waiting for the other guy to leave, then-
“...sir, do you mind if I ask? Did you really save all those men with nothing but a wooden shield?”
Of course he did.
“Something like that,” Steve said, clearly proud in spite of himself. “Tell you about it later, if you like.”
Evidently finally taking Steve’s words as the dismissal they were, Keller started retracing his steps, boots splashing through the mud as he went. Steve turned back to Bucky, smiling nervously, like he knew the colonel wouldn’t be the only one issuing a reprimand. Bucky just gritted his teeth, electing to save his for later, sometime when he’d be able to control his voice enough to really let Steve have it.
“Fucking hell, Steve. Just go.”
“You sure?” Steve asked softly, clearly still a bit taken aback by the tears on Bucky’s hollow cheeks. “I mean, I’m already in big trouble - what’s a little more? Could maybe stay for a couple minutes.”
Bucky laughed emptily, warm fondness in his chest still warring with a feeling of betrayal he couldn’t shake. “God. You’ve never had an ounce of self-preservation.”
“Not near an ounce, no.” Steve moved like he wanted to kneel next to Bucky again, half-reaching a hand in his direction, but shifted at the last second and shoved the hand into the pocket of his coat instead. Bucky tried not to let his disappointment show. “We ain’t done talking about this, are we?”
Bucky swiped a little too hard at the moisture under his eyes. “Guess not,” he said.
“Right,” Steve sighed. “Look, I dunno when they’re gonna let me loose, but when they do, I’m gonna come find you. Would you be willing to talk to me then?”
Bucky nodded wearily in response. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Steve turned to go, but didn’t seem able to make himself do it. He looked over his shoulder at Bucky, hunched on the ground, and his steps faltered. “We’re gonna be just fine, you know?”
“Sure,” Bucky muttered.
Steve let out a long-suffering sigh, his whole body tense like it always got when he was upset about something and didn’t want to let it show. When he was smaller, that posture had usually led straight into him throwing punches. Now, all it translated to was a frustrated hand raked through his wet hair, showering tiny droplets over the expanse of his broad shoulders.
“You had better go in,” he said finally, nodding toward the medical tent. “Let ‘em look you over. I’ll know if you don’t.”
Bucky opened his mouth to say something, but he got stuck somewhere between screw you and god, please don’t go. It was too late, anyway; Steve had already left, his straight posture and purposeful stride helping him blend in perfectly with the environment of the camp as he walked away.
Bucky didn’t go get checked out.
He sat with his back to the canvas outer wall of the tent for what felt like forever, until his hands were numb and his hair was soaked through. He figured someone out there was probably looking for him, aiming to take inventory of everyone who’d made it out of the factory alive, but he vowed to deal with it later. He was so beyond tired he didn’t think he could have managed it.
Eventually the rain slowed to a mere trickle, leaving a wintry chill in its wake. Faced with the prospects of either getting up or ending up frozen solid in the mud, Bucky finally found the willpower to haul himself to his feet, swaying a little as he went. He staggered off in the vague direction of the barracks before realizing he probably didn’t have an assigned cot there anymore. He was a little unsure of how long they’d been gone, but he was certain it had been long enough for the beds to be reallocated to soldiers who were still here, soldiers lucky enough to still have some use for them.
He managed to waylay a group of uniformed men on his way toward the barracks. They, too, were dirty and too-thin, but clean-cut enough to convey that they hadn’t been among those just now returning to the camp.
“I’m - I’m looking for -” Bucky started, exhaustion slurring his words together.
“You looking for medical, son? You look just about dead on your feet.”
“No, just - looking for a bed.”
The soldiers shared a look. Bucky half-expected them to turn him around and point him back in the direction of the medical tent, but when they turned their attention back to him it was with an air of sympathetic understanding.
“Yeah, you ought to get some rest,” one of the men said. “Heard they’re putting all the new arrivals up in section 1B. Ought to be a bed for you there.”
Bucky muttered his thanks before pressing on, feeling the soldiers’ eyes on his back as he went. The version of him that had existed before the factory might have turned around to gripe at them for it, good-naturedly shooting back that they ought to take a picture, it would last longer. As it was, the frustration he felt over the constant scrutiny, first from Steve and now from seemingly everyone else, was at least tempered by his all-encompassing exhaustion. He kept his head down and avoided everyone’s eyes, pretending he couldn’t see them looking at him, trying to piece together everything he’d been through.
It was only midday, so the barracks were blessedly empty when Bucky stumbled inside. The cots lined up side by side in 1B were stripped bare with the expectation that the soldiers would supply the blankets they’d been individually issued, but every one of Bucky’s possessions, army-issued or otherwise, was currently buried in a trench god knew how many miles away, and finding someone to mark him down as accounted for and assign him new gear was far more than Bucky felt he could handle. He collapsed on the nearest bare cot without even bothering to remove his boots, pulling his arms out of the sleeves of his wet coat in order to burrow under it in the absence of a real blanket. As he buried his nose in the collar of the coat, Bucky caught a whiff of something familiar; a tang of sweat undercut by something fresh, like the ridiculous citrusy aftershave Steve had always used despite the fact that he’d never been able to grow more than a hint of peach fuzz.
Bucky had a sudden recollection of his own much-younger self standing with a much-smaller Steve in front of his ma’s bathroom mirror, watching Steve’s usually steady artist’s hands struggle to guide a razor over his sharp cheekbones. Bucky had stepped in to help despite Steve’s protestations, gently cupping his face as he showed Steve how to shave along the grain, working carefully in order to avoid nicks and razor burn. When they’d finished, Bucky had rummaged through the Rogers’ cabinets until he found that lemon aftershave, buried near the back. Steve’s dad’s. He still remembered how soft Steve’s skin had felt as he’d gently worked the gel into his face, the smell of lemon wafting up to fill the bathroom. Steve had smiled a little at Bucky, then, and Bucky still remembered the way his heart had leapt in response.
The memory was so vivid Bucky felt lost inside it, all the sharp edges of his current reality softening as the world narrowed to that moment, what felt like a lifetime ago. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the feeling of his hand on Steve’s face, leaving him with fresh tears in his eyes and a tiny, wistful, yearning reflection of the smile Steve had offered him that day playing at the corners of his own mouth as he fell asleep.