Epilogue
One Year Later
When Bucky awoke, everything was quiet. It was a rare enough experience that he couldn’t help but find the occasion momentous.
Even though they were out in the field with the Commandos, sleeping rough while they pushed through yet another days-long mission, the usual noise and motion of their shared camp was absent. There was nothing to signify the other guys breaking up the camp as they got ready to move out, no feet shuffling around in the snow or tent poles clanking together. For once, there was no noise from inside their tent either - no flailing nightmare of nearby gunfire or unyielding metal tables to send Bucky shouting and Steve shaking him awake. Just this once, Bucky had woken up early enough and quietly enough that everything was tranquil and still. Before the war, just waking up to the early morning quiet might have been unremarkable, but it had been so long since they’d experienced anything even resembling peace that Bucky couldn’t help but revel in it now.
The only sound cutting through the delicate silence was Steve’s breath, falling into a steady, reliable rhythm as he snored softly. Bucky rolled over to look at him and couldn’t keep a slow smile from splitting his face at the sight - their faces were barely inches apart, and he could see every detail of Steve’s hair where it was mussed into an undeniable bedhead, could make out every tiny freckle dotting the bridge of his familiar crooked nose. Every night they spent out in the field, they would lay their bedrolls on opposite ends of their shared tent, but every morning they would somehow wake up practically woven together, Bucky’s cold fingers and toes tucked up against Steve - whether for warmth or for something else, he didn’t know. The one thing he knew for certain was that he would never get tired waking up with Steve tucked in right beside him.
Loath to get up just yet, Bucky buried himself further in the tangle of his and Steve’s intertwined bedrolls, wrapping an arm around Steve’s solid chest and pressing his cold nose into Steve’s neck. He still dreamed about Steve’s old body sometimes, all skinny limbs and sharp edges, but he couldn’t deny the little rush of relief he always felt when he reached for Steve and found him warm and solid and safe beside him. Steve wasn’t sick anymore, wasn’t cold - in fact, he radiated enough warmth for the two of them, now. A blessing, really; since the factory, Bucky always tended to run a little bit cold.
Steve stirred when the tip of Bucky’s icy nose met his skin, pulling away and taking most of the blankets with him.
“Hey!” Bucky chided, voice rough from sleep, poking at Steve with his admittedly freezing fingers. “What d’you think you’re doing, huh?”
Steve muttered something indistinct before rolling back over to Bucky with his eyes still closed, clearly still clinging to sleep.
“What was that?” Bucky asked, grinning widely in spite of himself. He was hardly a morning person, but he loved Steve like this, soft and warm against the early-morning chill.
“‘S cold, Buck,” Steve grumbled, pouting a little. The sour expression was a familiar one on Steve, though it looked softer on his newly fuller face. Even with a frown tugging at his mouth, he looked so impossibly sweet Bucky thought he could die with it.
“Dunno how you’re cold,” Bucky griped back, warm fondness bleeding into his voice in spite of himself. “You’re the one hogging all the blankets.”
“No ‘m not,” Steve protested sleepily, though he finally relented, pulling back the blankets enough for Bucky to wriggle in beside him. Bucky knew he didn’t mind, not really - much as he grumbled about it, Steve always went out of his way to make sure Bucky was okay, as safe and warm as he could possibly be despite the circumstances. Neither of them was too fond of the cold these days. And maybe neither of them had ever been too fond of waking up alone.
As Bucky wrapped his arm back around Steve’s chest and set about tangling their legs together, Steve finally cracked his eyes open a sliver, smiling blearily when they came to rest on Bucky’s face. Bucky didn’t think he’d ever get tired of that either.
For a moment they stayed there, just relishing the monumental stillness. It felt like a reward, somehow, an offering from the universe as compensation for the years of suffering behind them, for the whirlwind of change they’d all been swept into. Bucky traced his fingers in little patterns on the planes of Steve’s chest, and Steve lifted an arm to drape it around Bucky’s shoulders and tug him closer. Sometime later, there would be a job to do - a march through the icy Alps, a mission to accomplish. For now, though, it was just the two of them, together against it all.
Like everything perfect, it couldn’t last. The world eventually began waking up around them, the silence invaded by the sounds of tents unzipping and boots crunching in the snow. A few muted voices drifted in through the walls of the tent, the indistinct sounds of the other Commandos probably griping about the cold as they set about preparing to break camp and move out. Bucky closed his eyes and took one last long, deep breath before reluctantly easing up into a seated position, letting Steve’s loose arm fall away from his shoulders and curl around his waist instead.
“C’mon,” he said, nudging at Steve, who looked like he might still be dozing. “Gonna have to be up soon.” Enveloped in this little bubble of safety and warmth, getting up was very nearly the last thing Bucky wanted to do. There was at least one thing he wanted less, though, and that was for one of the other guys to walk in on them and find Captain America asleep with his arms around his second-in-command. The longer they stayed here, the more that became a possibility.
When Steve still didn’t move, Bucky gently shook his shoulder. “We’re moving out today, right?”
Steve sighed, opening his eyes again to glare at Bucky for reminding him. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “But if we just don’t get up, we can’t leave…”
Bucky smiled down at Steve, reaching out a hand to play with the soft blond bangs hanging over his forehead. “Tempting,” he said, watching Steve lean into the touch, even though Bucky knew his hands must be too cold to be strictly comfortable. “Might be unseemly for the Captain to sleep through his own mission, but you are the one calling the shots here. We could just, I dunno… miss this train?”
Steve groaned, admitting defeat, and finally started to ease his way upright. “Maybe,” he said with a yawn. “Only, if I don’t go, they might put Dugan in charge.”
Bucky wrinkled his nose. “Fair point,” he said. “Probably best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Steve grinned at him, beautiful and bright, before leaning in to press a kiss against his lips. Bucky may have had to goad him into doing it the first time, but since that first kiss Steve had grown bolder, always pausing to show Bucky affection like he’d never get tired of proving it. No matter how many times they kissed, how many ways they touched, Bucky still felt the same rush in his stomach that he had that very first time. When Steve broke away, Bucky, too, had a smile on his face that felt like it rivaled the sun.
Steve’s eyes lingered on that smile for a long moment before finally breaking away. He got to his feet, kicking away the tangled blankets of the bedroll as he went, and started digging through the scattered contents of his pack, only worsening the mess on his side of the tent as he threw around sketchbooks and spare bits of clothing in search of all the pieces of his Captain America uniform.
Bucky snorted, taking a moment to admire the view of Steve bent over and digging around for clean socks before also getting to his feet. “They really shoulda put you through bootcamp, pal,” he said as he reached for his own comparatively neatly folded uniform. “Swear you’d lose your own head if it wasn’t attached.”
Steve was halfway into his pants, but he stopped, precariously balanced on one leg, just to glare at Bucky. “Well, it’s not my fault! This suit’s got so many parts, can hardly keep track of ‘em all.”
“Oh yeah? Then whose fault is it?”
“You were the one who wanted me to keep the outfit,” Steve muttered under his breath. Bucky rolled his eyes and bit back a smile, so full of fondness he could hardly stand it.
Bucky did up his coat while Steve rifled through the tent for the rest of the admittedly complicated and easy-to-lose pieces of his uniform. Even when he finally appeared fully dressed, Steve still looked harried, glancing around like he was missing something important.
“What?” Bucky asked once it was clear Steve wasn’t going to find what he was looking for on his own.
“My shield. Have you seen it?”
Bucky joined in the search, digging through the few remaining articles of Steve’s clothing still scattered around the tent. It didn’t take long for him to locate the shield, lying discarded under a couple of Steve’s dirty undershirts.
“You’re hopeless, you know that?” Bucky said, picking it up. He’d meant to hand it over and get on with packing up, but he paused when he noticed something else on the ground beneath where the shield had been resting - a stack of paper tied neatly together with twine. Steve grabbed for the shield without really looking at it, all his attention on that bundle of paper as he leaned forward to scoop it up.
Bucky looked to Steve incredulously. “Is that what I think it is? You’ve really got those with you now? In the middle of a mission?”
Steve blushed, the tips of his ears going pink. “Yeah. Your letters,” he said softly. “I’ve still got every one you ever sent me. Carried ‘em all around the States with me. Still carry ‘em everywhere I go, and I’ve never lost even one.” He looked up, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. “Still think I’m hopeless?”
Bucky gaped at him. “Hopeless would be one word for it, yeah.” He shook his head, awed disbelief mingling with a twinge of sadness as he watched Steve’s hands reverently tuck the bundle of letters into his pack.
“Wish I still had yours,” Bucky said quietly after a moment. Steve looked over at him, all soft around the eyes like he used to get when he iced Bucky’s bruised knuckles and bandaged him up after fights. “Held onto ‘em as long as I could, but they got lost with all the rest of my stuff when I was… well.”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. Even alluding to the time he’d spent in captivity made his hands shake, and he quickly tucked them into the pockets of his pants, hoping in spite of himself that Steve hadn’t seen.
His attempt at putting on a brave face didn’t seem to have worked. Steve’s expression went solemn, and in the face of it the gravity of the day, of the mission they were about to attempt, hit Bucky full force.
“Yeah,” Steve said, “I know. Wish… wish there was a way to get them back.” Steve looked so genuinely sad for a moment that Bucky had half a mind to force a smile and tell him it didn’t matter just to make him feel better, but Steve quickly composed himself. “That’s why we’re doing this, though, right? We’re gonna get to that doctor before he has the chance to get to anyone else.” The derision in his voice seemed barely layered over rage, quiet and smoldering and lethal. If Bucky didn’t know better, he’d almost pity whoever ended up on the receiving end of that anger.
Bucky tensed his jaw and nodded. He’d agreed to this. He’d told Steve he’d follow him anywhere, no matter what. No matter the fear running through him at the prospect of coming face-to-face with the doctor again. No matter the vague sense of dread that had overtaken the early morning calm and now hovered over him, unshakeable.
“You ready?” Steve asked, moving toward the flap of the tent. Just as he was about to pull it open, Bucky stopped him.
“Wait!”
Steve turned, clearly alarmed at Bucky’s urgency, and Bucky found that he didn’t even fully understand why he was so desperate. He just needed the moment to last.
And as Steve looked at him, gazing with those eyes he’d known all his life, he realized there was something he needed to do. Just in case.
Bucky took a deep breath. “You may have most of my letters, but you don’t have... all of them.”
Steve cocked his head to the side, curious. “What do you mean I don’t have all of them?”
Bucky slowly reached for the breast pocket of his coat. With shaking fingers, he found the edge of the paper tucked inside and carefully drew it out.
He’d never told Steve about it, the letter written in desperation on the floor of the HYDRA factory, scrawled on the back of the apartment sketch Steve had sent him seemingly a lifetime ago. There hadn’t really been any need - over the past year they’d gotten good at simply communicating to each other the things they needed to say. At least, more or less. But everything Bucky had written in that letter was true. He’d loved Steve forever. And even if he never actually said it out loud, Steve sure as hell deserved the chance to hear it.
“I lost most of your letters,” Bucky said by way of explanation, watching Steve’s eyes go wide as he handed over the mottled piece of paper. “Never lost this, though. Even when things weren’t... looking so good, I still had it on me. That’s when I… well, I had some stuff to say, figured I might not ever get the chance to.”
“Our apartment,” Steve whispered, tracing his fingers over the splotchy remnants of the sketch on the outside of the folded piece of paper. He moved to unfold it, but Bucky stopped him.
“Don’t open it yet, okay? Just - hold onto it for me, would you? Just in case.”
“Buck, nothing’s gonna -”
“Steve. Please.”
Steve gave Bucky a long look, a reassurance clearly on the tip of his tongue, but the flat seriousness in Bucky’s face seemed to stop him.
“Okay,” Steve finally said. “Yeah, of course.” And as Bucky watched, he unzipped a pocket of his uniform, just a bit to the left of the star in the center of his chest, and settled the letter inside. With his words securely tucked above Steve’s heart, exactly where they were always meant to be, Bucky’s dread finally started to bleed away.
“So,” Steve said, putting on a wry smile and moving once more toward the opening of the tent. “You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”
Bucky did his best to match that sideways smile. “‘Course not. But the little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight? I’m ready to follow him.”
Steve nodded, his face softening in the pale light. Bucky thought he looked absolutely breathtaking.
“You know I love you, right?”
They didn’t say it often, not in so many words. But it was the truth, and in that moment the words fell out of Bucky’s mouth as easily as breathing. Steve gave him a curious look.
“I do. You know I do. You don’t even gotta say it.”
But just before they left the tent and went to meet the day in all of its unknowns, Steve spoke up, his words barely more than a whisper between them.
“I love you too, you know.”
And they stepped out together into the morning sun.