Watching Bucky wake up is a pastime Steve has had for most of his life.
He did it when they were teenagers and he was sleeping on couch cushions Bucky arranged on his floor, still trying to figure out what the fluttery feeling Bucky’s laugh put in his stomach meant. He did it when they were living together- in more ways than one- taking every opportunity to watch Bucky’s face from his position snuggled up to his bare side, pressing a kiss to lips as soon as his eyes were peeking open. He did it when they were on the front sharing a sleeping bag under the guise of warmth, feeling his heart break every time Bucky stirred out of the slumber he was never getting enough of thanks to the nightmares after Azzano.
He’s doing it now, and the habit feels almost hauntingly familiar. Everything about the moment does, in all honesty. It’s understandable, considering Steve might as well be looking at a ghost.
Bucky’s right in front of him, close enough to touch. Definitely not a ghost, but even when he’s unconscious there’s a tortured look on his face that makes Steve feel like he’s taken a knife to the gut. After all, that’s an accurate adjective for how Bucky is nowadays, isn’t it? Tortured. Because that’s what happened to him, thanks to Steve.
Bucky wakes up from his forced unconsciousness with a groan, breathy and low. His lips part, somehow still red and perfect despite the thick layer of sweat and grime covering him from today’s earlier incidents. Even like this, filthy and strung out, Steve thinks he’s beautiful. He’s so busy staring, watching Bucky come back to the world, that he almost misses the low word that comes out of his barely moving mouth, quiet and resigned.
“Steve…”
Steve almost visibly jerks at the sound of his name coming from Bucky, something he thought he might never hear again. He has to steel himself, taking a deep breath and keeping his voice controlled when he replies. “Which Bucky am I talking to?” he asks, eyes fixed on Bucky’s shadowed face.
Despite the lack of light, he can still see Bucky’s halfhearted grin, and it makes his heart pound. That’s another thing he thought he might never see again, and although the expression is bittersweet, it’s still there.
Bucky’s still there. Or at least, Steve hopes so.
“Yours,” Bucky replies, lips still upturned in a sad smile. Steve’s heart can’t stop making itself known now that its owner is back, it seems, because it starts beating even harder at the almost endearment. “I think. I don’t know for sure. I’m pretty sure your mom’s name was Sarah, if that means anything. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes?” His words are hesitant, like he isn’t sure of what he’s saying, but they make Steve want to cry.
His voice wavers this time despite his efforts. “Can’t read that in a museum.” If Steve pays attention to the little voice in his head- one that sounds suspiciously like Sam and is probably his common sense- he can practically hear it screaming just like that we’re supposed to be cool? The voice is probably right, Steve knows. Two fractured, uncertain memories shouldn’t be enough to just accept that Bucky is back and able to be trusted, but Steve can’t help but hope. It’s Bucky. He’s always been a fool for him, and neither time or place will change that. These two memories are enough for him, and although he knows that if Sam wasn’t outside keeping watch, he’d probably slap him silly at the naivety he’s showing, Steve can’t help but smile softly at Bucky in return.
They hold their gazes for a moment, eyes locked. Bucky’s are guarded and unreadable. Steve is pretty sure his own are shining with tears he can’t afford to let out and words that he’s aching to declare but can’t, given the circumstances. The look might last hours, or minutes. Steve can’t tell, really, with how lost in Bucky’s presence he is.
Either way, no matter how much time passes, Bucky eventually breaks the spell with a cleared throat, jerking his eyes away to fix on the concrete floor. “What did I do?” he asks roughly, and Steve’s heart drops. He swallows, not wanting to answer, but Bucky isn’t having that. His arm is still pinned, but his metal fist clenches along with his jaw. “Steve.” His tone holds so much anguish and apprehension that Steve can’t take it.
“Enough,” he says firmly, trying to keep the conversation clear of what Bucky did today out of his control. He doesn’t need the extra guilt. Not after how much he’s already been through.
His efforts are in vain. He can stop the conversation, but there’s no way for him to stop the guilt from crossing Bucky’s face. Bucky makes a devastated noise, slumping lower to the floor and practically banging his head against the machine his arm is under. “Oh, God, I knew this would happen,” he whispers, voice so low that even Steve’s super powered ears struggle to catch it. Still, he doesn’t miss the devastation that the words hold, and it makes him feel helpless in the worst kind of way. “I’m sorry. But I just can’t tell what’s real and what’s made up anymore. Everything Hydra put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words,” Bucky says brokenly.
Steve’s mouth is open and talking before he can stop himself, so filled with the urge to help the man he loves that he doesn’t even know what he’s saying until after he’s said it. “So ask.”
Bucky’s eyes raise slowly to him, expression still gutted and now wary as well. “Ask what?”
Steve bites his lip, but it’s too late to take it back now. “What’s real,” Steve answers gently. “I might not have all the answers, but anything you ask- I’ll do my best to answer, Bucky. I swear.” He keeps his expression open and honest, praying silently that Bucky will let him try and help.
It the least he can do after all he’s responsible for Bucky going through.
Bucky’s nod comes uncertainly, but Steve is just relieved that it comes at all. “We were friends,” Bucky starts off slowly, voice hesitant. “Is that real?”
The second phrase is uttered so fragilely that Steve expression almost crumples, but he forces himself not to let it. “Yeah, it’s real,” he gets out, voice choked up. “You were my first friend, actually. My best friend.” And so much more, he wants to scream, but he can’t, not with how torn up Bucky already is about him. Becauseof him.
Bucky nods, letting out a soft exhale. “Okay,” he says, and he sounds almost proud. It’s such a little thing to remember, but Steve can’t help but feel proud too. “We used to live together,” Bucky starts up again quietly. “Real?”
Steve’s mind flashes with a whirlwind of memories. Moving in with Bucky, trading kisses while they unpacked and arguing over Steve carrying boxes that were too heavy for him. Being able to curl up in the same bed every night, slow dance to the radio in the living room as long as the blinds were shut. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, taking in a deep breath before opening them back up and forcing his face blank.
“That’s real,” he manages.
If Bucky catches the sliver of sadness that seeps into his tone, he doesn’t comment on it, looking too lost in his own thoughts to pay attention to it. His next question doesn’t come for a long few minutes, during which Steve lowers himself to sit on the floor across from him, hands tucked under crossed legs partially to remain nonthreatening and partially because he’s afraid he won’t be able to keep himself from reaching out and touching. When Bucky finally does speak back up, his voice is cautious. “You know…Hydra? They used a machine- a chair- on me to control my mind. That’s what I can remember. I only survived it because I have a serum that they injected me with, and it hurt like hell when they did it. You have the same one. Real or not real?”
At the mention of Hydra and what they did to Bucky trying to recreate Steve’s serum, Steve’s heart drops to his stomach, leaden with guilt. “It’s not the exact same one,” he whispers, not wanting to speak at a normal level in fear his voice might crack and show just how weak he’s being. “But- it’s real.”
Bucky is looking at him again, expression still indecipherable. “When they used the chair on me, they would- say things. About my life. Taunts, mostly about you,” Bucky says quietly. His voice isn’t accusing, but Steve still feels the sting of it anyways. That’s what they tormented Bucky with? First Steve landed him there in the first place, now he finds out that he had made the torture and the mind-control even worse. “They would always go on about you leaving me. Giving me to them. Hating me. I think they even picked Pierce as my handler because they thought he looked like you. They’d put the images in my head right as I was going under so they’d be the only things I’d remember when I woke back up,” Bucky murmurs. He sounds pained but he keeps going, and through the guilt eating away at him, Steve is in awe of how strong the man he loves is. Even after all he’s been through. “I know they weren’t real. After I…got away, at first the real and the not real all blurred together, but now…now I can sort them out a little, but I still...”
Steve swallows, throat thick with tears he can’t afford to let fall. “That’s good, Buck,” he whispers. “I’m proud of you.”
Bucky assesses him for a second. Steve can’t bring himself to look back at him. “You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real?” Bucky asks, but this time he sounds surer of himself, and Steve feels like he’s just been handed the most precious gift in existence.
“Real,” he confirms, forcing his eyes up to lock with Bucky’s. They share another intense gaze. “That’s what you and I do. Keep each other alive,” he says fiercely, and he can’t help himself. He reaches forward and lays a hand on top of Bucky’s flesh one, skin singing at the sorely missed contact. “It’s what I’ll always do for you.”
Bucky gives him a small quirk of his lips, eyes softening for the first time since Steve has seen him in this century. He doesn’t pull his hand away, and Steve goes nearly dizzy with hope about what that might mean for him- for them. “You used to say- til the end of the line. Real or not real?” he asks, shifting forward so he and Steve are almost face to face.
Steve’s breath hitches, but his answer is immediate. “Real. Always,” he promises fervently, and Bucky’s smile this time is genuine. He leans forward further, and Steve can’t help the way that his eyes flick to his lips.
Bucky’s next words are murmured almost reverently, spoken intimately into the small space between them. His voice is gentle, but so intense Steve’s emotions are overtaken by it. “You love me,” he says softly, tipping his head forward to rest his forehead against Steve’s. “Real or not real?”
It’s a question, but he sounds like he knows the answer.
Regardless, Steve gives it to him instantaneously, voice finally breaking in the way he’s been fighting this entire time. “Real,” he tells him. His heart is beating so fast he feels like his entire body must be trembling, and when Bucky’s free hand comes up to cup his face, he feels like it’s the only thing holding him together.
“Ask me,” Bucky breathes, and Steve can’t keep himself from giving Bucky exactly what he wants. He never has been able to.
“You love me. Real or not real?” Steve asks shakily, eyes searching Bucky’s face.
“Real,” Bucky whispers. “It’s the only thing I always knew was real.” He brings his lips forward to gently press against Steve’s, and although the kiss is awkward with how Bucky’s still halfway pinned down, Steve can’t bring himself to care.
Because this is what finally makes them both feel real again.