All I ask

He missed this. He really missed the feeling of the paper beneath his fingertips, the way his hand automatically knows how to hold the pencil, the charcoal smudges he inevitably leaves on the edges of the ivory sheet. He missed being able to lose himself in his head while he drew things and people he knew the traces to, the ones he’d drawn over and over again, and he also missed the concentration he felt as he portrayed something or someone for the first time.

Right this moment, nothing could tear his eyes away from the slight frown of Sarah’s lips as she shot him that worried look whenever he got home after a fight. He could never get her to stop worrying, no matter how many times he told her he’d be fine.

He’s been thinking a lot about her for the past two days, ever since he returned from this one mission, a hostage situation, one of the women that was held had the exact same shade of blond his ma had. Her eyes were also blue, but they weren’t all that similar. He got home immediately after the mission and drew Sarah laughing, because he needed to see something other that the frightened expression on her face. He hadn’t stopped; his coffee table now holds eight different portraits of her, all in different expressions.

He's so focused on getting the shape of her lips right that he doesn’t hear the shrilling sound of his phone the first few times it rang, just registered it as a new sound around him, something that hadn’t been there before. But then it keeps making noise and he can’t ignore it. He sets the pad and pencil on top of the coffee table and plucks his phone from between the couch cushions.

The screen shows an unregistered number, not that unusual, but something about the code makes him immediately pick up. He doesn’t dare hope to hear T’Challa’s voice, maybe it really is a random number but… Maybe it isn’t, maybe the king is finally going to tell him Bucky's making progress. Maybe.

“Hello?” he greets softly, almost hesitantly. There’s a short pause and then…

“Hey, punk” he hears an almost breathless voice that makes his whole body freeze up, unable even to draw the next breath; after an undetermined period of time that could’ve been seconds or days, he hears a sigh and his muddled brain thinks he can almost see the eyeroll there on Bucky’s face. “You there? Did I brake you or somethin’?”

“Buck” he gasps, and just like that springs in motion, nearly jumping out of the couch in a frenzy and slipping in the process, but he doesn’t mind. All he can think about was getting to Bucky.

“There you are, pal” his friend chuckles on the other side, and it all feels incredibly surreal. Maybe he’s dreaming.

“Jesus, Bucky, how long have you been awake? Why didn’t they call me sooner? Where are you right now?” as he fires the questions, he tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear and grabs the first hopefully clean clothes he can find, shoving them into a small duffel bag.

There’s another chuckle and his heart gives a painful lurch against his ribcage because it has been an awfully long time since he last heard that. “Still in Wakanda, woke up a couple days ago, was waiting for the last scans to be clean and all that” Bucky explains. Steve wants to interrupt and ask why the hell he hadn’t called sooner, but he also wants to keep hearing that beautiful voice. “Shuri gave me this phone just now and um… she said I was cleared for visits”

There’s clear hesitation in Bucky’s voice as he says that and it makes Steve slow down a bit, the bag slung at his back and in the process of tying up his left shoe.

But why? Did he not want Steve to visit? No, that wasn’t it or Bucky wouldn’t have said anything about it. Did Bucky think Steve wouldn’t want to visit? Maybe he thought Steve was scared or something like that. ‘Can’t have that’ Steve thinks with determination and stands up, heading for the apartment door. At the last second his eye catches the drawings he’d just been doing, the gray folder with all of Bucky’s in it was half hidden under Sarah’s more recent ones. On a whim he picks the folder out and secures it under his arm. Now he can go.

“Good, cause I’m literally out the door” he says shamelessly, trying to convey just how much he needs wants to see him. That draws another short laugh from Bucky, and Steve just has to know, “Buck, you sound better… Are you better?”

His friend hums and for a few seconds there’s no answer. By the time Steve’s stepping out of the building and Bucky still hasn’t said anything, he starts to worry, maybe he shouldn’t have…

“I’m feeling great, Stevie… I… I didn’t know I’d feel like this again” Bucky finishes in a whisper.

Steve’s heart once again jumps upon hearing that and he can’t help the huge smile that spreads on his face. He’s so incredibly focused on the phone call that he starts walking down the street, not really knowing where, and doesn’t notice the person watching him with an amused smile.

“Going somewhere, Cap?” he hears and whips around to face Natasha, leaned against that extravagant black car of hers. Sam’s waiting in the passenger seat already.

“Nat, what…?” he starts asking, but Bucky’s on the other side of this phone call and Steve just can’t put two and two together right now.

“Get in, loser, were going to Wakanda” Sam declares then.

Steve understands the reference. He loves that movie.

“Bucky, I’m on my way” he says to the phone as he climbs in the back of the car, Nat slipping in the driver’s seat. Obviously.

“I’ll be here, Stevie” is his answer, and it just… It sounds like a promise.

Thankfully, Bucky hangs up before he can hear the strangled noise that comes out of Steve’s mouth. He doesn’t want to cry, he really doesn’t, because this is good news, this is fucking fantastic news. Bucky’s awake, and he is better than Steve had expected, he sounds so happy.

Steve lets his head hit the back of the seat as a few tears slip past his closed lids.

“You okay, Cap?” he hears Sam ask from the front seat.

He sighs and manages to nod his head a bit. “I don’t even know why… I mean, he’s okay” he murmurs, quickly wiping away the wetness from his face.

“That sounds like plenty of reason to cry, Steve” Natasha says softly. “You’ve been worried about him for a long time now.”

She’s right. Bucky has been on his mind every single day since that first encounter at the bridge, even during missions that required his complete concentration, even when he swore he felt happy and relaxed, he couldn’t help but wonder where Bucky was, if he was safe, if he was struggling, if… he had spared even one thought to Steve too. And then, after the fight with Tony and going back to cryo, he wondered all the time if it’d work, if Bucky would wake up any time soon, and if he did, if he’d want to see Steve. There was no way of knowing just how much Bucky would remember, and Steve was sure there were a thing or two that could make Bucky think twice before calling him.

But here they are.

The short ride to the abandoned warehouse where they chose to keep the quinjet this time is silent after Natasha’s words, and Steve appreciates that his friends know him enough to pick the right times to talk and also recognize when he’s just too far gone in his own head.

“So, how’d you know?” Steve asks them while carrying a few bags from the trunk of the car to the quinjet.

“Shuri texted me an hour ago saying she was on her way to give Bucky a phone” Nat answers with a quirk of her lips. “Wasn’t hard to figure out you’d be out the door seconds after hearing your darling's voice.”

There’s something else in her voice, she’s implying something Steve doesn’t feel like discussing, so he makes a non-committal noise and climbs on the jet, followed by Nat and Sam, who closes the hatch behind himself.

They are in the air seconds later. Steve makes himself as comfortable as he can be in one of the benches behind Natasha, pulling out his sketchbook, but before he can even open it Sam sits right in front of him, on the opposite side of the narrow corridor. He has his ‘therapist’ face on, though, so Steve is very much inclined to just ignore him. He doesn’t get the chance.

“Are we gonna talk about it now?” his friend asks right away, not even bothering with small talk first.

Steve narrows his eyes a bit before deciding to play stupid, though he knows with both Sam and Natasha here, his chances of getting away from this are slim.

“Talk about what?” he still asks, earning a snort from Nat.

“Steve, in about 5 hours you’re going to be standing in front of the man you’ve been pining on probably since before the freaking war, we don’t have time for games” she declares, switching on the autopilot on the jet and taking a seat next to Steve.

Well, he’s surrounded now.

“I have not been pinning…” he mutters stubbornly.

The thing is, they’re right. He has been in love with Bucky probably his entire life, even if he only realized that when he thought he’d lost him. Hearing that soldier say the 107th had been captured and most of them were dead… he hadn’t felt fear and pain like that before… not even when his mom died; that had been different, he’d been heartbroken and lost but he knew it was going to happen, Sarah had been really sick for a long time. And he had Bucky, he made sure to let Steve know it’d be the two of them from then on. The thought of losing Bucky after all was unbearable.

So, he did a stupid thing and went looking for him, cause that’s the only thing he could actually do. If there was an infinitesimally small chance that Bucky was still alive, Steve was going to try, and he’d find him. He hears people say all the time that he was the bravest soldier to ever grace the earth for what he did in Azzano, but the truth was… he just had a pretty damn good incentive. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t’ve saved those men anyway, but maybe he would’ve cone it the authorized way.

Seeing Bucky, lying on that stretcher, so vulnerable and practically unconscious was a hard blow, Steve was used to seeing always the tough and overprotective side of him, always taking care of the scrawny Steve. The tables were turned now, Steve had to take care of and protect Bucky, and he couldn’t be prouder about his choice to completely disregard his colonel’s orders, because his friend was alive.

That night, watching Bucky sleep next to him in the tent, Steve realized what he felt for the man was not the fraternal love he always thought it to be. He was in love with him.

He expected a panic attack at the realization, but it never came; all Steve felt was warmth and the absolute certainty that as long as Bucky was by his side, he could do anything.

He really did try to keep his mouth shut about it, but after a couple weeks it just slipped. He’d been lying wrapped around Bucky one night, and as he heard his shivering breaths and felt his heartbeat against his own body, Steve could do nothing but whisper those three words. They fell on deaf ears. Or… more like asleep ears.

But then Bucky died. A big part of Steve died with him.

And here they were now, close to 75 years later, both very much alive and Steve still undeniably in love with Bucky.

Steve lets out the longest of sighs before squaring his shoulders and looking Sam straight in the eye. “I love him. I’m pretty sure I’ve always loved him” he didn’t expect to feel so light after saying those words to another person.

He knows both Nat and Sam suspected something like this, if the not-so-discreet hints were anything to go by, but… this is Steve baring his feelings to them. It feels good.

“Okay” Sam nods, not even pretending to be surprised, “why didn’t you say anything before?”

“We were in a war, I couldn’t exactly...” Steve starts, a bit put off, but Sam shakes his head and interrupts.

“No, man, I kinda get why you didn’t tell him, but why didn’t you talk to us?” he clarifies. “I mean, you knew we kinda suspected after the whole Winter Soldier thing, so I’m trying to figure out why every time we tried to bring it up you’d just shut us out entirely.”

“Were you ashamed?” Nat ventures as kindly as she can, but Steve can tell she doesn’t really think that’s it.

“No, I... I did some research a few weeks after waking up, discovered that being queer in this century is different than before” he says distractedly.

Sam smiles a bit a that but continues trying to figure him out. “So Steve Rogers being queer was okay, but did it worry you that people wouldn’t accept a queer Captain America?”

“It crossed my mind once or twice, but the thing is...” he thinks about his next words and realizes this is the answer to their original question. “The thing is, I wasn’t going to come out because Bucky was gone, and I knew there was no way I could be with another man” he shrugs, “and the reason I didn’t tell you guys after the bridge was that I wasn’t sure I was gonna see him again, didn’t know if he’d come back to me so... why get my hopes up?”

His friends mull his words over carefully and when Sam purses his lips in a specific way, Steve knows he’ll get his ear chewed.

“You’re an idiot” is what Steve hears and he can’t help but laugh because, what the hell is new? “For several reasons actually, but let’s start with this: coming out of the closet is not a means to an end, it’s not supposed to depend on whether or not you’re in a relationship, so saying you weren’t gonna come out cause Barnes was gone is... not a healthy way to think” Sam’s voice is steady and friendly, but he sounds every bit the therapist he is. “Your sexuality is more than just who you choose to date, it’s a part of who you are and it depends of nothing and no one.”

That’s... interesting, and definitely not the way Steve had thought of it. For him, it truly didn’t matter what he was because there was no one he wanted to be with anymore. And, he figured once, even if he chose later on to engage in informal relationships he knew it wouldn’t be with men. He couldn’t.
But hearing Sam explain it this way makes him feel, as usual when they had talks like this, like Steve is more than the captain.

“You’re also an idiot because you were planning on keeping this huge part of yourself hidden, carrying a burden like this on your own” Natasha is less of a therapist and more of a no-nonsense best friend.

He loves them both.

“Man, I’m starving” Sam suddenly huffs, and Steve knows this is just an intermission to let his mind settle a bit before continuing their talk.

They share a few subs and beers Nat picked up on the way before Sam pulls a big bag of chocolate covered cranberries, Steve’s favorite candy. The next couple hours consist of making small talk and joking around, bantering as usual, Nat standing up a couple times to check they’re still on the right route.

After a few minutes in silence, Nat turns to look at him with an expression he doesn’t often see on her face, she looks open and soft as she just stares for a few moments. Then, she takes one of his hands in hers.

“Are you gonna tell him?” she asks in a gentle voice.

That is the question, isn’t it?

“I have no idea” he answers truthfully. “Do you guys think I should?”

“It’s gotta be your decision, Steve. You have to figure out what’s gonna be best for you, you know?”

Steve snorts and shakes his head a bit. “What’s best for me is living the rest of my life with that man” it feels like such an intimate confession, but his friends are more than worthy of seeing the vulnerable side of him, he knows.

Nat smiles widely at that. “Sounds to me like it’s worth a shot, then.”

“What if I end up driving him away from me though?” Steve can’t help but wonder.

The three of them are quiet for the next few minutes, each thinking on it from different perspectives. The first one to break the silence is, unsurprisingly, Sam.

“That’s where being brave comes into frame, I think. And where you decide what weighs more.”

Steve looks at him quizzically, so Nat helps out. “Simply put, there’s two dramatic options: option number one, he loves you too, you get married and have a bunch of kids for me to spoil” Steve full on laughs then but she carries on. “Option number two: ... he can’t live with the idea of you loving him and decides he doesn’t wanna see you anymore, in which case we’ll know he isn’t worthy of your love anymore”

It hurts, thinking about it that way. But for some reason that second option sounds wrong, Steve simply can’t see Bucky reacting that badly. Unless... unless his years of brainwashing managed to turn him into a different person, though he doubts that too.

Sam voices what’s on Steve’s mind right then. “Of course there’s a bunch of things that can happen in between, I mean... maybe he begins to figure out he can love you too, or maybe he’s sure he’s straight but tells you he still loves you as a brother.”

And that hurts too. Maybe not as much, but living the rest of his life around Bucky with one sided feelings... Steve doesn’t think he’d make it.

They’re silent again, this time for almost half an hour, until Natasha goes over again to the cockpit and sits on the pilot’s chair, switching off the autopilot mode.

“We’ll be there in 45, you guys”

Shit. Steve’s got less than a freaking hour to figure out what, or if, he’s going to tell Bucky about all this. Why can’t he just... turn off this part of his heart and go back to them being a couple of best friends?

A voice in his head whispers: ‘Because that’s never been all this was’ and well... the voice is right. Steve had never considered back in the forties that their relationship could be romantic, cause it couldn’t be, but thinking back now it made perfect sense to think Steve had always felt this way.

He can’t help but draw out these small moments where he’d thought maybe Bucky felt the same way, when he’d catch him just staring at Steve while he did whatever, or those times when Steve nearly died of pneumonia and he was just about lucid enough to hear Bucky’s muffled sobs, his quiet prayers.

One time, he’d heard him say ‘Please don’t take him away from me, Sarah, I ain’t done...” and the rest sounded a lot like ‘loving him’ but Steve was never sure, and he certainly didn’t ask.

Before he knows it, trees appear in front of the quinjet, their shapes dark against an even darker sky, and Steve knows he’s out of time. So he squares his shoulders and stands up, trying to get into the same headspace he gets in whenever there’s a mission to focus on.

This is a mission too. He needs to get intel and assess the situation in order to decide the best course of action.

He tells as much to his friends and earns a proud look from Sam and an amused smile from Natasha.

“I’m pretty sure we can summon Thor and his mead if things go south” she shrugs playfully.

“Good to know you’re rooting for me, Romanoff” Steve scoffs, only half joking.

Sam stands next to him as the jet touches down on Wakandan soil and pats him on the back. “We are man... we really are”.

Steve’s last thought before the jet's hatch opens is ‘I got a good feeling about this’.

And then he’s left staring at one James Buchanan Barnes, T’Challa’s palace all lit up behind him and making Bucky look like a prince from a fairytale.

‘Will we get out happy ending, then?’