Melting
After three full days of meetings, it was difficult not to let his attention wander. Currently he was engrossed with the mud caked on the bottoms of Phillips’s shoes—he was certain they hadn’t been cleaned since the day Steve marched back into camp with four hundred odd soldiers stumbling behind him. It had rained that day while he was sitting outside the medical tents with Bucky, and it had only let up in short bursts, and then always while Steve was in the middle of another yelling match with some officer or another. It felt like he hadn’t seen the sun in days, no matter how hard he tried to find it. With Phillips having his food brought in and a cot set up in his own tent so that Steve could be at the beck and call of everyone who wanted him to explain one more time just who he thought he was and how he managed to do it, he had hardly been able to go out into the camp at all. He managed to find Bucky once that first night, curled up in a cot in the corner of the temporary barracks looking dead to the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to do more than sit on the edge of the bed and stare until the sun came up again. The few times he had managed to make an escape after that it was pouring sheets and he always lost sight of whatever brunet mop of hair he thought he spotted.
His own boots showed the dismal fruits of his labors, army green scaled over with a much less pleasant shade of brown than the one he sought. Glancing back at Phillips’s boots, he wondered how they had possibly ended up in a worse state than his own. Shameful really, a Colonel who didn’t clean his boots.
The near constant grating of Phillips’s voice ceased suddenly, and Steve lifted his eyes and hoped that he wasn’t expected to provide some sort of response. He was met with the sight of Keller, smiling nervously and passing Phillips a small stack of papers. The furrow in the Colonel’s brow dropped down to his mouth at whatever was on the paper, and a short huff escaped his mouth. Keller just stood there at his side and wiggled his fingers in Steve’s direction in what he assumed was a greeting. His responding smile and nod were cut short when Phillips laid the papers on his desk and leaned back in his chair in a way that was not unlike the position he took when denying Steve’s request for a rescue mission.
“Well, Rogers, congratulations.”
Congratulations were, in a word, unexpected. “Sir?”
“It looks like you’re getting what you wanted.”
Steve wracked his brain—he had gotten the rescue mission, he had gotten Bucky. “What I wanted? You mean—”
“Yes. We’ve been trying to figure out what to do with you, how the hell we can discipline Captain America when you waltz in here a hero, and we’ve finally come up with something. You’re going to be assigned to a special unit—you can take who you want, but you’re going to run the missions we tell you to, and you’re going to do it far away from here.”
“Doesn’t sound much like a punishment, sir.”
The line of Phillips’s mouth slanted violently in obvious displeasure. “No, it doesn’t.”
Steve fought back a grin, certain that it wouldn’t go over well as long as Phillips was around. He didn’t have to wait long though—the man stood without further delay and handed Steve a portion of the stack of papers he had been given. “You’ve got to the end of the week to choose, and if you try stealing another jeep before then I will tell my men to shoot on sight.” Steve’s face flushed at the reminder, but Phillips merely sat down, his attention already turned to the next problem in line. “Dismissed, soldier.”
Steve nodded, though if Phillips saw he didn’t let on. As he left the tent he could feel Keller’s presence at his back, the exuberant nervous energy almost rolling off the young man. Sure enough, Steve was only two steps clear of the canvas flap when Keller bounded forward so that he was walking beside Steve. “Well, that could have gone a whole lot worse—I’d say you got off easy, Captain!”
A part of Steve wanted to brush past Keller and ignore him, but when he turned his head and saw the genuine smile on the kid’s face he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but grin. “You can call me Steve, Keller.” His Ma didn’t raise him to be cruel.
The look that came over the kid’s face almost drew a chuckle from Steve—it was damn near twitterpated. “Steve, then. I just knew they wouldn’t give you a bum rap on this one. I mean, you saved all those guys, and all on your own—I think there’d be a riot.”
Steve sighed and shrugged. “I was really only looking to save one.”
“You mean Sergeant Barnes?”
Keller was practically bouncing as he walked alongside Captain America, seemingly oblivious to the shocked look Steve was sending his way. “Yeah, actually. How do you know about Bucky?”
“Everyone knows.” Keller continued when he saw Steve’s confusion. “Well, not everybody, see. It’s just that, the guys talk, and they say you basically went to hell and back for this guy, and after you already had the others out. Said you’re a real hero.”
Steve breathed a soft sigh of relief—if that’s as far as people’s interest in his interest in Buck went, then he might be grateful for the heroic screen of stars, stripes, and cheesy titles. “I ain’t a hero, but soldiers are worse than old fishwives.”
To his credit, Keller seemed to realize that being the subject of gossip wasn’t high on Steve’s wishlist and looked a little abashed. “Well you ain’t whistling Dixie, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah. Listen, Keller, I actually need to find Buck—Sergeant Barnes. You wouldn’t have any idea where I could find him?”
“Well,” the flush on Keller’s cheeks spread down his neck, “I saw him heading for the bar in the town near camp just an hour or two ago. Figured what with all this talk about you saving him, you might want to see him once Phillips finished chewing you out.”
Steve clapped Keller on the shoulder and gave him a genuine smile, untempered by his frustration at three days without the chance to check on Buck. “Thanks Keller, I owe you one.”
He heard Keller shouting something at his back as he started jogging in the direction of the town, but he just raised a hand up in acknowledgment and continued on.
The walk over to the town and the little dive bar within it seemed to take no time at all, and all too soon Steve found himself staring at the wooden door without any idea of what he was going to do if he managed to find Bucky inside. Worse, he had no idea what Bucky was going to do when he saw him. He knew he was being avoided. Aside from that first night when he held an endless vigil by Bucky’s side, any glimpse of that face—sallow and drawn, pinched in some pain Steve didn’t want to guess at, but still undeniably Bucky—ended with dead ends. There had been no chance to rehash their argument from outside the medical tent, and the more Steve thought, the more he was sure that there was nothing he could do to make up for what he did. Whether he’d admit it or not, and he doubted already that he would, he felt like he’d taken something from Buck that he couldn’t give back. It wasn’t surprising that his lying had gotten Buck all but running from him, and he’d have to pray that the truth’d get him out of it.
When he finally pushed open the door, the sounds of soldiers hiding from troubles more intangible than their superiors enveloped him and nearly sent his enhanced hearing ringing. A few steps into the bar and he couldn’t catch sight of anyone that looked like Bucky, and he had almost resolved to go and ask the bartender if he’d seen Buck when he heard a loud yell from the back corner of the room.
“Hey, if it isn’t our favorite Star-Spangled Man with a Plan! Get over here, Captain!”
Steve’s head whipped around and he sent up a prayer of thanks at what he saw. He glanced only briefly at the vaguely familiar soldier who had called out to him, his eyes immediately drawn to another that he definitely recognized. Slumping in his seat and looking for all the world like he wanted the ground to swallow him up was James Buchanan Barnes, still pale and bruised despite the echo of laughter ringing around his eyes. Steve couldn’t have felt any remorse at interrupting his good time if he’d wanted to—and he very much didn’t want to. “Major Falsworth!” Or was it Dernier? He just slapped his best Captain America smile on and headed over, hoping he got it right. “Good to see you under better circumstances.”
By the end of his statement Steve had made it to the table, and stood in the space directly opposite Bucky, addressing the other five men sat at the table but staring intensely all the while at the top of Bucky’s head. “See you found Sergeant Barnes.” Sergeant Barnes looking all doleful and nosing a whiskey that must’ve been there for a long time, because Buck never was one to drink it straight and there wasn’t any ice to be seen in the amber liquid. “That’s a real tough job, apparently.”
Now, he took a drink. Steve’s smile twitched, and he had to fight to keep it from dropping into a scowl when he took in the still-split lip and bruised face. He just knew Bucky wasn’t gonna go see a nurse. The brief uncomfortable silence that ensued was broken by one of the men Steve definitely didn’t know, who glanced between Steve staring at Bucky and Bucky staring at his glass and snorted louder than Steve would’ve thought anyone capable of. “Trouble in paradise, boys?”
Steve didn’t even have the chance to acknowledge the twinge of panic at the expression that fell so easily from the soldier’s admittedly loose mouth before the man had turned to the other unfamiliar faces sat around the table. “You know this guy—Mr. America sir—you know he came all the way to Austria and the first thing he did when he found us was he told Dernier and Falsworth to get us out and asked them to point him to Barnes? I mean what are we man, chopped liver?”
Now it was Steve staring resolutely at the table, all too aware of Bucky’s gaze suddenly locked curiously on him amid the din of too-loud laughter around the table. He shrugged. “Guess I’ve just got a one-track mind. You made it anyway, huh?” The chorus of decidedly unmanly giggles that arose from the three unfamiliar guys reminded Steve that before he walked up, Buck had been laughing with them. “And it’s Steve, please. None of that Mr. America stuff.”
Falsworth had stood up on shaky legs that were a testament to just how drunk all these guys—Bucky excepted, it seemed—had gotten. The guy was so sloshed that he didn’t even pretend to notice Steve’s discomfort at being clung to like a vine. “Steve, Steven, Stevie—can I call you Stevie?” He also didn’t seem to notice the daggers Buck was glaring, though Steve did. “Stevie, you gotta meet the others here. You know Dernier. We’ve got Jones, Morita—be careful with him, Stevie, he’s a real ring a-ding-ding—and over there with his head under the table is Dugan.”
If Falsworth knew who was who, Steve sure as hell couldn’t tell from his wobbly gestures, so he settled for directing a quick wave at the entire table. “Bucky’s told me some about you, it’s nice to meet you guys. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”
It seemed that was the wrong thing to say, because the second the words left his mouth Bucky abandoned his half-full glass on the table. The way his face screwed up in pain when he stood and the slight stumble in his step as he made his way to the bar had Steve thinking of endless staircases and broken beams, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get the both of them out of that damn room.
Someone grabbed at his sleeve as he stepped around the table and over an empty bottle. “Hey, hey, Cap—they really have you pose for those posters in the tights and everything or—”
“Hey, ‘scuse me for just a minute—I’ll get back to you guys, good to meet you.” He didn’t bother turning around, too focused on the way Buck was whiteknuckling the edge of the bar and staring at his hands like he didn’t understand why they were shaking. It seemed like it only took three strides to reach his side, and Steve hadn’t spared a thought for Buck just maybe not wanting to talk to him still when his hand came up to rest on Buck’s shoulder.
“Hey, Buck.” The small flinch that came with the touch of the hand made Steve lower his voice. “Were you wanting to talk over here, or?”
The scoff that left Bucky’s split lips was the worst sound he could make, because it was one Steve had never heard directed at himself before. “What for? Clearly doing fine on your own.”
Buck finished off the words with a shaky smile that didn’t even pull to his eyes, going for teasing but landing somewhere closer to agonized. Agony is exactly what he was feeling, Steve realized with a shock. Sitting here, staring into Bucky’s eyes for the first time since he had been muddled beyond what Steve could comprehend, it was so easy to see it. Buck had always put on a good face, always a handsome one, sometimes sweet and sometimes confident, and Steve had learned early that if he wanted to know Buck he needed to know his eyes. It helped him now, as he sat there picking apart the different emotions running rampant behind the shield of Bucky’s smile. Agony, fear, the two were intertwined too closely to do away with. He looked for the pain, the effects of all the wounds he had seen in the factory and chosen to ignore until they were back on better ground, the worst of which he knew were hidden just behind the bounds of the old jacket. He looked for the pain, but just kept finding fear in all its forms. Fear of what? Of the doctor, of course, and his table, and whatever that meant to Bucky that Steve was sure he’d not be privy to, not for a long while. But to keep Bucky running from Steve and not to him, there had to be more. Steve unconsciously flexed his hand where it still rested on Bucky’s shoulder, and the man tensed in response.
The realization hit Steve like a freight train, and was just as devastating. He didn’t know what he could say.
“Walk with me? I think we gotta finish our talk.”
Buck flashed him a wan smile, but Steve didn’t believe it for a minute. “‘Course. Dunno what we’ve got to talk about, though.”
Steve grinned back, a little stretched and a little sad, and shoved both of his hands deep in his pockets as the two began walking to the back door. “Trust me, we’ve got plenty. Come on.”
The silence between the two felt deafening, the distance insurmountable except for the brief moment when Steve held the back door open and Buck brushed past him. He smelled like sweat, and mud, and maybe it was wishful thinking but Steve could have sworn there was some undercurrent of brown sugar and rum. The door opened into a little back alley, narrow but long, and Steve followed Buck to a stretch of wall some distance away from the door and took up his place leaning against the brick, at least two feet of space between them. Despite staring straight ahead, Steve could tell that Buck was shivering, and he found himself wondering if it was the chill still lingering in the air. When he had the thought he had to fight against taking off his own jacket and laying it over Buck’s shoulders—doubted he’d welcome that right now.
When Steve finally turned to Buck, he saw his head upturned towards the grey sky, and if he hadn’t known better then he’d have thought he was praying. Steve let his eyes run down the length of his neck, where what looked like more bruises were disappearing just below his shirt. “I told you I’d know if you didn’t go. Why are you doing this to yourself, Bucky?”
Buck didn’t even turn towards Steve, just let his gaze drop to the ground. With his downturned head and the slight hunch to his shoulders, he looked as Steve had never seen him. He looked small, and he looked afraid. “Look, I just—I couldn’t. I couldn’t go, okay? It’s too much like—I couldn’t go back.”
It seemed obvious now, so obvious that Steve couldn’t help but want to kick himself for trying to force Bucky’s hand. “Couldn’t go back on somebody’s table?”
The small flinch and smaller nod were enough of an answer, and Steve pinned his gaze against the opposite side of the alley, staring straight ahead. “I could help.” He felt more than saw the questioning look Bucky shot him. “You know, when we’re done talking. No doctors, no med tent, if you’ll let me.”
Steve could practically hear the gears grinding for a full minute before Bucky finally spoke up. “...yeah. Yeah, okay.” When Steve turned to look at him, he was met with another one of those shaky smiles, though this one at least got closer to Bucky’s typical over-confident grin. “Guess you’ve probably picked up some first aid skills over the years, watching me patch you up time and again.”
Maybe he should have gone with what Bucky obviously wanted, but Steve wasn’t ready to lighten the mood yet. He had promised himself there’d be no more lies, and the truths he had to tell didn’t really jive with any attempt at joking around. “Never realized it was that hard to watch someone carry on like that. I guess that’s one more thing I gotta apologize for, huh?”
Buck gave Steve a small, tight smile, and the little shake of his head did nothing to loosen the guilt that had been building up in Steve for over a year now. “Nah, Stevie. You don’t gotta apologize for nothing.” It sounded about as sincere as that smile felt.
If Steve could have seen himself, he would have said that he folded in on himself at Bucky’s words. As it was, all he registered was his lips stretching into an awkward smile and, not for the first time, the feeling of being given more than he deserved. “Really though, never woulda gotten anywhere without you, dumb as I am.” He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly nervous. “Makes me think of something else I gotta ask, actually.” Bucky’s expectant look was so familiar that he just kept going. “So, I’ve been getting chewed out the last couple of days, you know. Disciplinary hearing and all that jazz. Well, they asked me—more like told, but I ain’t gonna split hairs here—they asked me to stay on. Work with sort of a, a special unit. Handpicked. Phillips has final say but, well, they want me to do the asking.”
“Oh. That’s—wow.” Steve was half worried Buck was about to shoot him down point blank—after all, why would he want to follow Steve into worse than he’d already been through?—but after a moment of thought Buck continued calmly. “I mean, I know some people… Dugan, Morita, Jones, all great guys. Tonight excepted, maybe. Saved my ass more times than I can count.”
“Well, that’s a world of good in their corners already. But I was sorta wondering about you.” The way Bucky’s jaw dropped just a fraction had Steve scrambling to qualify. “I mean, wondering whether you’re even gonna stay. I heard they’d let you go back, if you wanted. And I just wanted to know, you know, if you did want that.”
Buck was just staring at him, eyebrows raised and leaning in, and it was driving Steve a little crazy that he was surprised Steve wanted him to stay. “Really, you want me for your… your team, or whatever? After—after all this?”
Steve thought about the scene in the infirmary, about Buck strapped to a table for God knows how long going through who knows what, about the way he kept flinching whenever Steve went for a casual touch. “I just mean, if you did want to stay, of course I’d want you with me. But I get it if you want to—need to leave. I wouldn’t stop you, I just, yeah. If you did want to stay.”
Buck breathed in sharply and tilted his head back against the brick wall of the alleyway, eyes fixed on the clouds that were beginning to send down miniscule white flecks over their heads. Steve hadn’t realized it was that cold. He had the sudden inappropriate urge to stick out his tongue and catch one, or see if he could cradle one in his palm and preserve it there through sheer power of will, something in his pocket that would never change. Buck let him simmer like that, just staring at a point far away or maybe at all the points, the whole sky, because his face was just too open and raw to be narrowly focused on one thing. So he left Steve swirling around in his own head like the light flurries on the breeze.
The small chuckle that finally left Bucky’s throat was rough around the edges, but it warmed Steve from the inside out. “‘Course I’m staying, Stevie. If you’ll have me. ‘Til the end of the line, right? Ain’t nothing gonna change that. At least, not for me.”
Relief was instantaneous, and the force of it dragged Steve away from the wall and compelled him to clutch Bucky’s arm. Steve thought wildly that life must be just a study in dichotomies, because when he looked into Bucky’s eyes there was guilt, too. In all his years Steve rarely felt guilty, always so sure that what he was doing was right, and here he was standing guilty because he’ll be stringing Bucky along at his side and guilty because he almost didn’t care. “‘Till the end of the line, Buck. Always.”
And then Bucky smiled at him, really smiled in a way Steve hadn’t seen for what might have been a lifetime. He’d seen that smile time and again, heard it in Buck’s voice when no one else was around and he let himself go all soft, felt it from across their little apartment, and all Steve could think was that if he could only taste that smile against his own, then he’d really understand what it meant.
Just thinking it felt like crossing a line, and his mouth knew the shameful taste of ash instead of Bucky. Removing his hands from Bucky’s warmth felt like a lie. Steve didn’t know if he could handle another lie, or maybe he just didn’t want to shoulder this one. “Buck I, there’s one more thing you gotta know before you really decide to stay.”
“Yeah. Anything, Steve.” The sincerity in Bucky’s eyes twisted Steve’s stomach into knots; he had to turn away.
“Buck, I...aw heck—”
Steve threw his head upwards and stared at the sky, wondering at the snow falling. If raindrops are God’s tears, Steve wondered, then what the hell was snow? It was bringing him near to tears just thinking about it, or maybe that was the number of flakes falling straight into his eye. He let up and dropped his head, meeting Bucky’s eyes. They’d always been expressive, and now it was like they were screaming—nerves, suspicion, too many things to mention, more than Steve could stand to pick apart. He thought about the snow, instead. He thought about the way it was made of tiny droplets of water, all wrapped around dust and minerals and whatever else was stuck in the air. A bit of Heaven and a bit of Earth, all frozen together. He thought about the way it was already starting to blanket things in white—Bucky’s head, for one—and how the number of flakes it took to dust Bucky’s shoulders and head was already blessedly innumerable, like the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on a beach. He thought about how it fell silently, gently, gentle enough that it could fleck Bucky’s eyelashes—long, almost like a dame’s—without making him flinch in the slightest. It was then that Steve realized the snow wasn’t just covering Bucky, it was reaching out to him, to both of them. Standing there breathless at the sight of Bucky framed in white, he knew the answer. If rain was God crying, letting his heavenly sorrow fall down in sheets to the earth, then snow was God’s blessings. Thousands, millions, more than that, reaching out in purity, asking Steve to trust on his own terms.
Steve saw Bucky again, saw his eyes, and it seemed like the snow had enveloped them both, and he found that he didn’t mind because this—this day, this scene in front of him—this was inevitable. “I love you.”
“You—what?” Steve didn’t need to be looking at Bucky’s face to see the way it fell, the way he ran through so many emotions at once—shock, anger, and was that hope? Or wishful thinking?—but he was looking, and he couldn’t look away now.
Steve kept his posture relaxed, determined that even if what Bucky wanted to do was sock him in the face, that he’d let him do it. Whatever happened, he had to see it through. “I’m in love with you, I...that’s what I mean.”
Buck stared open-mouthed for so long that Steve had half a mind to snap his fingers in front of his face to see if he was still in there, but just when his hand twitched upwards Buck opened his mouth. “Don’t...don’t say that, Steve. You don’t even know—you can’t just say that to me.”
Steve had expected confusion, or anger, but not this. Not Bucky staring at him, looking like he didn’t know whether to run to Steve or away from him, looking at him with everything that Steve felt pouring out through his own expression and a little frantic besides. God bless his heart, but it gave him hope.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true—Bucky, I’m in love with you and I think—” Steve thought of portraits, and shoes lined with newspaper, and birds singing po-ta-to-chip in the park. “—I think I have been for a real long time.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Buck took a small step backwards, and it felt like a noose around Steve’s neck, but his hand was twitching at his side like he wanted to reach out and that had to be some kind of sign.
Steve reached out for him and laced their fingers together, and despite his fears that Buck was about to bolt like a skittish colt he felt his own cheeks flush at the way that hand wrapped warmly around his own. Buck was busy staring down at their intertwined hands like he’d never seen such a thing before, but he didn’t try to pull away, and that would have to be enough encouragement for Steve.
“I used to watch you.” Bucky’s eyes snapped back onto Steve’s face, and he tried to focus on the snow chilling his outstretched hand instead of the piercing attention placed on him. “When I was sick, I mean. I used to watch you sagging asleep in that rickety old chair in the corner of your own room so that I wouldn’t wake up alone. You were always there, like some kind of guardian angel Buck, always there in the corner, and all for me.” Bucky’s brow was pulled down in confusion, and Steve had to swallow down a breathy laugh that sounded far too thin for his new frame. “Maybe that ain’t very clear. Look, it was more than just when I was sick. I honestly used to watch you, well, all the time.
“I mean, I flip through my sketchbooks now and it’s all just you, you at the docks, you on the couch, in the kitchen, freezing out on the fire escape...it’s like every time I looked your way I just thought ‘wow, I gotta get this down somewhere, I gotta remember this, I gotta know this moment.’ Every last one, everything you did, I wanted to have every single second of it. And I never even realized…” Steve smiled nervously, lips pulling up shyly at one end, and lightly squeezed Bucky’s hand. Bucky was still looking at him like he’d said he went to the moon or something, but he took a tiny step closer to Steve, and if that wasn’t enough to make Steve’s heart flutter then he didn’t know what would do it.
“I don’t think it ever even occurred to me what I...what I was really feeling ‘til you left. See, it’s like there’s this pull that’s always been there, but it was easy to ignore it when you were right there beside me. I just had to look over and there you were, right as rain, and I was satisfied with that.” Steve laughed. “Hell, lately I...I dunno why I’m saying this, really, but lately I’ve been thinking of it like a dance. Like you taught me—remember when you taught me, remember the song “I’ll be seeing you?” You told me that when people dance, they gotta try and stay the same distance apart—not too fast, not too slow, not pushing or pulling, just holding that position while they spin around forever and ever. We were like that for a long time.
“But when you left, Buck, everything that had been so balanced just came falling down, and I ended up finding myself pulled halfways across the world after you—away from everything I know, every familiar place—because I just couldn’t stand another second of not being right in time with you. Now you tell me, how can that not be love, Buck?”
The touch of Bucky’s hand on his face stole Steve’s breath better than any asthma had ever done, and he almost lost his next words in the rush of sugar and rum and sweat that surrounded him. “You—you really mean that.”
It wasn’t a question, but neither was it a declaration. Steve’s eyes fluttered open—and
had they really been closed?—and he saw that it was, in fact, a challenge. “Yeah, I really do.”
But the challenge didn’t leave Bucky’s eyes. Steve pressed his cheek into Bucky’s palm, putting his own plea into Buck’s hands. He didn’t know what to do, hadn’t ever done it, didn’t know how. Bucky’s hand slipped around to cup the back of Steve’s head, not pushing or pulling, just combing through the hair at the back of his neck, and he made it clear. Bucky had already pulled before, and now Steve would have to push, and somewhere between the pulling and the pushing they fell straightaway into a whole new dance Steve couldn’t put a name on.
Bucky led with his hands on Steve’s back and neck to guide him and Steve followed, clinging to his shoulders and trying not to fumble the steps. He tried to pay attention, tried to follow along like he was supposed to, but he could feel the fluid press of split lips and Bucky was ahead of him already with his mouth opening to Steve, asking him to do the same. If there was any music it was in the way the snow kept falling in deafening silence, and the scrape of stubble against Steve’s smooth jaw, and the way Steve keened at the first warm reach of Bucky’s slick tongue into his mouth.
And then, Bucky was speaking. “God, you have no idea how long I’ve been thinking about doing that.”
Steve’s mouth was still open, body buzzing with the feeling of Bucky all along him up and down and in, and he hadn’t even felt Bucky pull away and he still didn’t know what Bucky tasted like and he didn’t know which one felt more like a crime.
“You ever think about doing it more than once?”
“God yes, you punk.”