1997 — five & seven
Steve and Bucky have sworn they’ll stay awake long enough to see Santa. Their parents, worn down by the begging, let Steve sleep at Bucky’s on Christmas Eve, and they’re yawning in the living room. Bucky is really almost asleep, curled up next to Steve, holding his hand and fighting to keep his eyes open.
“You can sleep,” Steve tells him, yawning himself, “I’ll wake you up.”
Bucky blinks. It’s hurting his eyes to keep them open.
“I don’t want you to fall asleep, though.”
Steve grins. Bucky sometimes thinks Steve knows everything. “I won’t.”
“M’kay,” Bucky mumbles, “I’ll try to stay up, though.”
He is asleep, though, in ten minutes, and when he wakes again, it’s morning and Steve is knocked out beside him.
“Stevie,” Bucky groans, reaching over to shake him awake, “you fell asleep.”
Steve blinks, then sits up in horror. “Oh, my god,” he says, and presses his hands over his face. “Sorry, Bucky.”
Bucky giggles at him. He doesn’t have it in him to be upset, not when it’s his favorite holiday and he got to have a sleepover with his best friend and he’s going to go downstairs and open some new toys.
1998 — six & eight
It’s Christmas Day, and they are at Steve’s this year. In the living room, they have spread out their gifts in the living room floor and are playing with them.
“Hey, Steve?” Bucky says, rolling from his stomach onto his back. Steve drops his plastic shield and looks over at him.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we’re still gonna be best friends when we’re grown ups?”
“Of course, silly,” Steve says. Bucky smiles. Steve smiles back.
“But are we gonna still have Christmas together?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, “duh.” He smiles, eyes bright. “We’re gonna have our own house and tree and presents and everything.”
Bucky giggles. “What about our moms and dads?”
Steve thinks about this. “They can come,” he says, “it’ll be great.”
Bucky grins, delighted. “Okay.”
1999 — seven & nine
Christmas that year almost immediately follows Bucky getting out of the hospital, which means it is chaotic and frantic and tinged with unhappiness; his mom is crying all the time, and his dad looks constantly tired, and Bucky is frustrated and scared and hurt and he doesn't have the words to explain all the reasons why.
Steve, somehow, is the one person on earth who has figured out how to not make him feel like a burden and a freak and a tragedy, and Bucky’s parents have resorted to giving him everything he asks for, so when he says he wants another sleepover with Steve, they let him have it.
“That’s kinda great,” Steve said, trying to be helpful, when Bucky told him they had stopped saying no to him at all. “You should ask for a dog next.”
“I’d rather have my arm,” Bucky told him, a little annoyed, but not really, because Steve was the only person not treating him like something breakable and explosive.
Steve thought about that. “If it helps,” he said, “you can probably still play more sports than me.”
Bucky actually laughed at that. “My grandma can play more sports than you, Steve.”
Steve shoved him, then looked immediately terrified he had hurt him somehow, but he hadn’t—in fact, Bucky was relieved Steve would still touch him normally—and he shoved him back and they had laughed and it had been the first time Bucky felt normal again.
Right now, they’re curled up in Bucky’s room. They’re supposed to be asleep, but they’ve been going through comic books together all night and neither of them are tired enough to stop.
Bucky, at one point, turns the page, but it’s resting on the side of the bed and he doesn’t have another hand to hold it and it slips down. Steve, without missing a beat, slides down to get it, but it’s too much, this small, infuriating reminder of what he can’t do anymore, and Bucky starts to cry.
Steve looks so worried, and Bucky doesn’t know how to tell him that this has just been happening lately, that he’s sorry. Steve doesn’t say anything. He just wraps his skinny little arms around Bucky’s shoulders and squeezes him.
Steve hugs him until he stops crying, and for some time after that, and they must fall asleep there because the next thing Bucky remembers is blinking against soft morning light inhibited by his covers and realizing he’s still tangled up against Steve.
Bucky shakes him awake, smiling. “Stevie,” he says, “wake up. It’s Christmas.”
Steve blinks, then sits up and grins. “I gotta call my parents and tell them we’re up,” he says. Bucky nods, still half-asleep.
Then Steve glances at him, growing serious. “You okay?” he says.
Bucky swallows and nods. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “You’re a really good best friend.”
Steve smiles, reaching over and taking Bucky’s hand, and he really does feel okay.
2000 — eight & ten
Downstairs, Bucky’s parents are fighting.
It’s been bad lately; it started after he got hurt and has only gotten worse. The only person he talks to about it is Steve, who listens, eyes big and sad, and tries to make him feel better about it.
Steve is over, right now, and he can hear it downstairs. Bucky is kneading his sweater anxiously, so Steve reaches over and takes his hand.
“Wanna go to my house?” Steve asks him.
Bucky swallows and nods.
They slip out the front door, barely drawing a glance from Winifred and George, who are snarling at one another about money, which is usually the topic. Bucky knows it’s mostly his fault. The kitchen table is permanently scattered with hospital bills and physical therapy bills and, subsequently, letters reminding them that they haven’t payed their rent and electricity bills and health insurance because every cent they have has been funnelled towards things Bucky needed. Steve, when Bucky told him this, replied that that was stupid, it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t choose to lose his arm, but still. They didn’t yell at each other like this before.
Steve’s parents aren’t home. Steve lets them in and they throw their coats down and look at one another.
“Wanna decorate cookies?” Steve asks him, bouncing a little. “My mom bought frosting and stuff.” It’s all spread out beautifully on their counter; Sarah likes to bake.
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Shouldn’t we wait for your mom?”
Steve grins. “Nah, it’s fine.” He grabs Bucky’s hand again and pulls him into the kitchen. He has to prop himself up on a stool to reach the plates, which makes Bucky laugh at him which makes him say, “Jerk,” but eventually, they get it all set up. Steve puts on a Christmas record, which he’s also not supposed to touch, but Bucky knows him well enough to know that no one tells Steve what he can’t do.
“I think they’re gonna get divorced,” Bucky says a few minutes later, his voice small. He doesn’t look at Steve, focused instead on dumping too many sprinkles on top of a sugar cookie. Steve looks up.
“Did they say that?”
Bucky shakes his head. Then, he adds, “Maybe they should. At least they wouldn’t be yelling all the time.”
Steve frowns. “I’m sorry, Buck,” he says, sounding sad.
Bucky glances up. “It’s okay,” he replies, shrugging. “I just hate it.”
Steve squeezes his hand again, and Bucky squeezes back. Then, smirking, he reaches over and swipes a fingerful of frosting over Steve’s nose, making him gasp and glare.
“You’re so annoying,” Steve moans, but he’s laughing, then he does the same to Bucky, who giggles and swerves back. He tosses a few sprinkles half-heartedly at Steve, who grins and throws a much-larger handful at him.
“That’s not fair!” Bucky protests, lunging at him, but he loses his balance and slips off the chair, which shocks him more than it hurts, but above him, Steve cries, “Bucky!” and climbs down to check on him.
Bucky, though, is laughing so hard his chest hurts, which, once Steve realizes he’s fine, makes him start laughing too, and they stay there for a few minutes, on Steve’s kitchen floor in hysterics, baking fix-ins surrounding them, until Sarah and Joseph get home.
“Christ,” Joseph says.
“Joseph!” Sarah snaps, and he grimaces in apology. “Steve! What on earth are you doing?”
Steve tries to answer, but it just ends with them collapsing into laughter again. Steve’s parents exchange a look, and Joseph shakes his head and walks away.
Sarah glances helplessly between them. “You know you two have to clean this up, right?” she says finally.
“We will,” Bucky manages. Sarah purses her lips against a smile and walks out, and Bucky and Steve collapse into laughter again.
2001 — nine & eleven
They go to Bryant Park at Christmastime that year, the first time they ever have together. It is the first time they ever have, and it’s a whirl of delightful iridescent Christmas lights and stores and food, and at some point, their parents duck into a candle store and give them money to go buy hot chocolate.
“Stick together,” Winifred calls after them as they duck away, feeling very grown up.
The park, though, is packed and sprawling, and weaving through booths and tourists proves very difficult because they’re both still quite small (Steve more than Bucky, but still), and Bucky glances back at one point and when he looks forward again, he’s alone. His heart drops. Everything looks suddenly foreign, scrambled and confusing, and Bucky realizes he can’t breathe.
Someone grabs his arm, and he jumps, but when he swings around, his lungs unclench. Steve is frowning, his hand light.
“You okay?” he asks, with a little squeeze. Bucky nods, closing his eyes for a moment.
“I couldn’t find you,” Bucky tells him, feeling stupid for how panicked he had been and stupid for how relieved he is now.
Steve doesn’t make fun of him; he never does. He slings an arm over Bucky’s shoulders and says, grinning, “You’re stuck with me, pal,” and Bucky laughs at him and Steve drags them towards the hot chocolate.
2002 — ten & twelve
“You can’t watch Die Hard,” Bucky’s mom tells them, appalled. “I thought you wanted to watch Home Alone.”
“Steve’s parents let him watch it,” Bucky protests. Beside him, Steve nods.
“It’s not that bad, Winifred—”
She rolls her eyes, trying not to laugh. “Steve’s older than you.”
“By one year—”
“Two,” Steve teases, just to annoy him.
Bucky glares at him. “By one, my birthday’s in less than a month.”
“One and a half,” Steve points out. Bucky shoves him.
“I thought you were on my side.”
“Sorry! Sorry, I am.” He clears his throat. “Only one year,” he says, and grins.
She sighs. “No. Steve, I don’t know what your dad was thinking, but you probably shouldn’t have watched that.” She smiles. “Something else, boys.” Then she leaves.
Bucky groans. “Sorry,” he says, pouting.
Steve smiles. “‘S okay. It’s a little boring at first, anyway.”
Bucky grins back. “Home Alone?”
“Hell yeah,” Steve says, stretching his legs out. Bucky giggles and fumbles for the remote.
2003 — eleven & thirteen
Christmas Day, at Steve’s house, he and Bucky and their families are sitting around the table while their parents talk. It’s been a good day, and Bucky is very happy.
Bucky’s mom is looking over towards the wall at a drawing of Steve’s. “I think you might have a prodigy on your hands,” she tells Sarah and Joseph. Steve looks pleased. Bucky smiles at him.
Sarah smiles, and Joseph laughs. “I mean, sure,” he says, “I wish he’d put all that focus towards school or sports or something that could get him somewhere in life.”
Steve’s face drops, and Bucky bristles.
“It’s a hobby, Joseph,” Sarah says, slightly annoyed. “C’mon.”
Joseph rolls his eyes. “Well, it’s a girl’s hobby, Sarah, and when he’s putting all his time towards something pointless…”
“He’s thirteen,” Sarah says. “And he’s also sitting right here.”
Bucky nudges his foot into Steve’s calf. Steve nudges back.
Joseph gives her an annoyed look, like he can’t believe he’s being forced to endure this. “I know he’s right there. He knows what I think about it.” He glances at his son. “Stevie, sure, you can draw. Just don’t go thinking you’re gonna be Picasso.”
Bucky, uncharacteristically, pipes in with, “That’s ridiculous.”
Everyone looks at him. He shifts a little, and goes on, “Steve’s a better drawer than most grown ups. And just ‘cause you think—you think you have to have a boring office job doesn’t mean he does.”
“Bucky,” Winifred hisses.
Joseph laughs, resigned. “Sure, kiddo. I stand corrected.” He lifts his glass and says, “Steve, you got a good friend there.”
“Coming from the one who thinks he’s gonna be a novelist,” George interjects, and Joseph laughs.
“Something wrong with us, that we don’t know how to raise boys, Georgie?” Joseph slags him. George laughs.
“Joseph!” Sarah snaps, just as Winifred scoffs sharply, “George, stop.”
“Can we be excused?” Steve says wearily. Their mothers nod, and they clear their plates away and retreat to Steve’s room.
“Thanks, Buck,” Steve says to him, mouth twitching into a smile. Bucky returns it.
“No problem, Stevie.”
Steve, never still for more than a few moments, shifts his weight. There is a ribbon tossed aside with some wrapping, and he picks it up, turns it over in his hand, and sticks it on Bucky’s shirt. Bucky laughs, casting him a strange look, and Steve shrugs and tilts his head, looking pleased with himself.
“You’re so weird,” Bucky tells him, scoffing. Steve laughs and shoves him, then begins to gather the wrapping up with twitching, nervous hands. Bucky joins him, their arms close, resting his head momentarily on Steve’s shoulder. Steve smiles, suddenly content.
2004 — twelve & fourteen
That year is the first Christmas they spend apart since they’ve known each other. Bucky’s parents, to much protesting from him and Steve, have decided to go to Indiana for reasons that they won’t explain.
“Dad doesn’t even like his family,” Bucky whines, two days before they have to leave. He’s in his kitchen with Steve, who is nodding vigorously to everything he says.
“Bucky,” Winifred says, exasperated, “enough. Everyone loves their family no matter what.”
“Why can’t Bucky just stay with me and you guys go?” Steve suggests, as if it’s a new idea and not one that they’ve tried sixty different times.
“Because we haven’t seen them in a long time,” Winifred answers. “And they already bought the plane tickets for us.”
“Why can’t Steve come?” Bucky asks her.
“Because his family wants him here.” She shrugs her coat on. “I have to go out. There’s food you guys can heat up.” She kisses Bucky’s head and squeezes Steve’s shoulder and strolls out, leaving them to exchange a miserable look.
“It’ll be fine,” Steve says, “it’s only a few days.” It’s a disruption, though, to their usual Christmas routine, and Christmas seems pointless without Bucky.
Sometimes, Steve thinks he loves Bucky more than he loves his parents. He does love them, but Bucky eases things for him in a way no one else has ever come close to. No one makes him laugh like Bucky, or lets him talk without judgement like Bucky, or calms him down when he doesn’t even realize he was tense the way Bucky does. He is starting to know what this means, and he is ignoring it with a vengeance.
Bucky frowns and scrubs his hand over his face. “Yeah,” he says half-heartedly. “They’re the worst, though. And I like being with you on Christmas.”
“Me, too,” Steve says. Then, awkwardly, he touches Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky looks up and laughs at him.
“We’ll just celebrate after,” Bucky says, his face hopeful, “right?”
“Of course,” Steve reassures him.
Bucky’s lips tug up into a smile. Steve squeezes his shoulder; his hand hovers there for a moment, and when he pulls away, Bucky feels the loss.
2005 — thirteen & fifteen
The song, Bucky thinks, is accurate. He’s sitting next to him at a Christmas party for his dad’s office, and all he wants for Christmas is Steve. He’s wearing a red jacket of his dad’s that, even since he bulked up and grew way too many inches, is a little too big for him.
He just wants Steve to look at him all the time, is the thing. Even right now, at this stupid party that Bucky absolutely does not want to be at, he can’t be too upset because when Steve is there, all the things that leave him unsettled and nervous kind of dull and the world slows down a little. And that’s scary and horrible and wrong, because he’s pretty sure he loves Steve in a way he isn’t supposed to and when he isn’t with him, he begs the universe to not make him this way and cries and promises to be better, and then he sees Steve again and Steve smiles and it undoes him. Bucky just feels constantly uncomfortable, quiet and nervous and aware of his own flaws, and the fact that Steve has chosen him as a best friend always blunts that discomfort. He likes himself more with Steve. That simple fact always wins out over whatever his parents could make him think.
They are at this party because Bucky was dragged along to remind his dad’s boss that he has a child to take care of as a round of layoffs sweep the company. “Bring Steve,” his mom said tiredly when he protested, and Steve had agreed.
They’re parked in the corner drinking eggnog and making up slightly unflattering backstories about Bucky’s dad’s coworkers. It’s more fun than Bucky thought it would be, but he always has fun with Steve.
“Wanna go outside for a minute?” Steve asks him. Bucky smiles and nods and falls into step beside him.
It’s snowing out, a thin sheet of it dusting the ground of the restaurant’s back patio. Steve shoves his hands in his pockets and looks up, mouth quirking into a strange, nervous smile.
“Mistletoe,” he says, a little sheepishly, looking up. Bucky jerks his head up and sees it, delicate little leaves strung up above them to taunt him. He coughs.
“There someone you wish was here?” Bucky asks him after a moment, forcing a smirk.
Steve swallows. “No.”
There’s a brief, rare moment of awkwardness between them. Bucky shifts his weight.
“Bet you wish Connie was here, though,” Steve teases him. Bucky snorts and doesn’t answer.
“C’mon,” he says finally, tugging Steve’s arm. “I want more of those little pie things.’
2006 — fourteen & sixteen
“There’s not a chance I’m watching Love, Actually with you,” Steve tells Bucky.
“You’re my boyfriend this year,” Bucky tells him, which, still, after seven months, makes him grin to say, “you have to.”
They’re in Bucky’s room, sitting across from each other on his bed, and Bucky’s legs are laying over Steve’s. It’s Christmas Eve, and in a few hours their families are having dinner, and they have jammed a chair in the door to make sure no one walks in on them like this.
“That’s not what that means,” Steve replies, but he’s laughing. “You could write a better movie than that one, Buck. It’s so bad.”
“Fuck off,” Bucky says, kicking him, “it’s beautiful. You just hate romance.”
Steve smirks. “You don’t think that, baby.” Baby is new and Bucky is embarrassed by how much he loves it.
He grins. “You could never do for me what Jamie did for Aurelia.”
Steve scoffs. “I don’t even remember who that is.” Then he smirks. “We should watch Die Hard.”
“Die Hard isn’t even a Christmas movie.” Bucky kicks him, a little harder. Steve kicks back, laughing.
“If it takes place at Christmas, it’s a Christmas movie!”
“That is not at all how that works.”
“Of course it is!”
Bucky rolls his eyes. Steve, grinning, untangles their legs and shifts across the bed to kiss him on the cheek. “I’ll watch your stupid movie if you watch mine.”
“Deal,” Bucky says, laughing, and slots their fingers together.
Steve groans. “Love, Actually is so fucking long—”
“No take backs,” Bucky replies, and kisses his nose.
So later, once Steve’s parents are asleep, they slip downstairs and curl under a blanket and turn it on, tree glowing beside them. It all feels very romantic.
“Hey,” Steve says when it finishes, grinning in a way that tells Bucky he’s about to make a terrible joke. Bucky raises his eyebrows. “You’re perfect to me.”
Bucky smacks his shoulder, then laughs and kisses him.
Steve, on Christmas, burns Bucky a CD. On it, alongside several gorgeous love songs; songs they have swayed to, clumsily and happily, in the dark in their bedrooms, tender, pretty songs that Steve says make him think of Bucky, and, thrown in at the end, a couple of the songs from the movie. Bucky bursts out laughing.
He wrote, on the back, I’d watch every terrible movie in the world for you. I love you forever.
2007 — fifteen & seventeen
The worst fight they’ve ever had is on Christmas Eve that year.
They have to go to Mass that year. Depending on how devout their families are feeling, they may or may not have to go, and right now, apparently, they are in a deeply Catholic phase. Steve shoots Bucky a neutral look when they head in, and they don’t say a word.
It’s worse than usual, or maybe Bucky just forgot how bad it usually is. There is a short but vicious break in the sermon where the priest spits out some terrible words about the role of sin in today’s society and how the rise of homosexuality and abortions and uninhibited greed is destroying them all, and Bucky and Steve determinely don’t look at one another. Beside Bucky, Steve is grinding his teeth.
They get home, and Steve goes to Bucky’s. As soon as they’re closed in his room, Steve wraps his arms around him and kisses his neck. Bucky, swallowing, pulls away, and Steve backs off, surprised.
“You okay?” he asks Bucky.
Bucky doesn’t answer right away. “How does that shit not bother you?” he says finally, his voice hard.
“The homosexuality stuff?” Steve replies. Bucky winces and nods. Steve sits and leans back on his palms. “I mean… it bothers me. A lot. But like, also, it’s insane.” He smiles a little. Bucky doesn’t.
Bucky doesn’t look at him. “My parents were nodding,” he says quietly.
Steve swallows. “Mine, too,” he says. “I just—I love you more than that. I love you more than anything. I don’t really give a fuck about being told I’m going to hell when I think the whole thing is deluded, and when I have you right here, which is just… bigger to me than anything my parents or the church or anyone could say, you know?”
Bucky rakes his hand through his hair. “It isn’t—I don’t give a fuck what the church says. But my parents.” He swallows, irritated with himself for caring so much.
Steve watches him, eyes soft. “Baby,” he says, and for some reason, it makes Bucky wince, “c’mere.”
Bucky turns on him, jaw set. “Don’t be patronizing,” he snaps. He can hear how unfair he’s being, how irrational, but he feels sick, stomach constricting with shame, and Steve is quite literally the only person he can express this to, and it’s coming out tangled and wrong and he wants to start crying but he doesn’t.
Steve raises his eyebrows. “I’m not being patronizing—”
“You are, actually,” Bucky tells him, crossing his arm over his chest. “Sorry that I can’t just take things in stride like you, Steve—”
“What are you talking about?”
“—but it actually fucking matters to me, being told that shit from my parents—”
Steve grits his teeth. “You think it doesn’t matter to me? You think I don’t feel like shit when I hear that, too?”
They aren’t yelling because Bucky’s parents are one floor down, but the viciousness is there, heat behind the words that they’ve never spoken to one another with before. Bucky glares at him, and Steve glares back.
“You don’t need to be so careless about it, then,” Bucky snaps, and turns away. “Maybe you should go,” he says coldly, after a moment.
Steve stares at him, working his jaw. “Fine,” he snaps finally, and grabs his jacket from off of Bucky’s chair, and then Bucky does cry.
The thing about Steve and Bucky is that they’re very bad at fighting with each other. Three hours later, Bucky’s phone lights up from his desk. He’s lying awake, heart jack-hammering in his chest with guilt and anxiety, and he stands to get it.
you up?
He writes back, yeah.
A moment later, Steve writes, get your door.
Bucky blinks, then sighs, then pulls on a hoodie and treads quietly downstairs. He pulls the door open and Steve is already there, hands thrust into the pockets of his very thin sweatshirt, shivering.
“Hey,” Steve says, a little nervous.
“Jesus,” Bucky says, and jerks his head inwards. “You’re gonna get fucking hypothermia.”
“Good thing I don’t have a bad immune system anymore,” Steve retorts, grinning hopefully. Bucky scoffs and steps aside to let him in.
Steve bites his lip, but he’s smiling. “I didn’t have the big stock paper from the movie,” he says, “Or a portable CD player. But—” With hands that have gone pink from the chill, Steve pulls out a pair of earbuds and holds out one to Bucky. Bucky stares at him and pops in the earbud, bewildered.
Silent Night is playing on Steve’s tiny, battered iPod. Bucky snorts.
Steve, eyebrows raised, brings his other hand from behind his back where he’s clutching a piece of paper. Bucky gives him an exasperated look and takes it from him.
It’s legible, which means Steve spent more than thirty seconds on it; for someone who can draw so breathlessly, Steve’s handwriting is rushed and little more than hieroglyphics. He wrote I’m sorry, I love you, I can’t not talk to you even for a couple hours.
Bucky laughs, lifting his head. Steve is biting his lip.
“You hate Love, Actually,” Bucky finally says.
“Yeah, but I love you,” Steve replies, tilting his head, infuriatingly cute. Bucky rolls his eyes and shuts the door behind them—the cold is starting to be unbearable.
“I’m not mad at you,” Bucky says, and scrubs his hand down his face. “And I’m sorry for yelling at you. You didn’t… you didn’t do anything.”
“I wasn’t listening—”
“No, you were, I was just upset and I took it out on you, I know—I know it hurts you, too, of course it does, it was shitty of me to—”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s okay, Buck. I’m sorry. It was just—it was a fucking bad night, having to hear that. It fucked us up a little.”
Bucky leans into his arms and hugs him. “Yeah. I’m sorry.” He pauses. “What if the church’s whole plan was to get us to fight and split up?”
Steve snorts. “Don’t give them that much credit.” He pauses. “Gonna take a lot more than that to split us up, I’d say.”
“Mhm.” Bucky tucks himself close enough against Steve’s chest that Steve can wrap part of his jacket around him while they hold each other, and when he kisses Steve, a car outside speeds by and casts empty light briefly through the frosted glass so Bucky can see him clearly, just for a moment. Steve’s half of the earbud has started to slip out, and Bucky pushes it back in. Steve laughs.
“Stay,” Bucky tells him, when they pull apart.
“I’d have to slip out really early,” Steve says. He cups Bucky’s face while he talks, his hands chilly.
“I know,” Bucky says, “I don’t mind.”
Steve smiles. “Okay,” he says, and kisses Bucky’s forehead, and Bucky takes his hand and pulls him up the stairs.
***
At five-thirty, Bucky’s alarm whines to life and they both groan. Bucky doesn’t lift his head from Steve’s chest.
“Baby,” Steve says, yawning, “Let me up.”
Bucky stirs a little. “Ten more minutes,” he says, voice bleary.
Steve smiles, so in love. “I’m gonna see you in a couple hours, you know.”
Bucky opens his eyes, wincing at the choked morning light. “Still,” he says.
Steve kisses his hair. “Fine.”
Settling in, Bucky smiles. “Merry Christmas, Stevie,” he mumbles, reaching blindly for his hand and squeezing.
Steve laughs, lifting their hands to kiss Bucky’s knuckles. “Merry Christmas, Buck.”
2008 — sixteen & eighteen
“You ever think about how next Christmas, we’re probably gonna celebrate it in our own place?” Bucky asks Steve.
They’re in Bryant Park, cuddled up on a bench sipping hot chocolates. They just stepped off the ice rink, breathless and giddy in an it’s-Christmas-Eve-and-we’re-in-love kind of way, surrounded by glittering Manhattan and falling snow.
Steve grins. “All the time.”
Bucky kisses his cheek. His hair is a little longer than usual, soft and bouncy, and Steve runs his hands through it. Bucky smiles up at him. Steve’s cheeks are spotted pink, blonde hair untucking itself from his beanie, beautiful in a way that strikes Bucky as extraordinary. He pulls Steve to his feet, tucking himself under his arm and walking aimlessly.
“Hold this for a sec?” Bucky asks, handing him his cup. Steve takes it, and Bucky plucks his hat off and pulls it on, smirking up at him.
Steve snorts. “You’re so annoying,” he tells him, pulling it down over Bucky’s eyes. Bucky giggles, adjusting it, and then takes his cup back and pushes on tiptoes to kiss Steve.
“Keep it,” Steve tells him, “looks better on you.”
“Mm, most things do,” Bucky says, tilting his head up to kiss Steve’s nose.
“Jerk,” Steve says, but, when Bucky turns away, wraps both arms around his waist and kisses him once more, drawing a scoff from a woman who walks past. Steve smirks at her, and Bucky bursts out laughing.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside blasts from a park speaker. Steve mouths along to it, arms still tight and warm around Bucky.
“This song is so creepy, Steve,” Bucky laughs, shoving him.
Steve, in his infinite grace, trips backwards into a family of five, shoving them a few steps to the left. Bucky chokes on hot chocolate laughing at him. Steve glares and straightens up, giving the guy a sheepish look.
“Sorry, so sorry,” he tells them, jumping back. The woman rolls her eyes and the guy glowers like Steve just threw a punch, and when Steve adds, uncomfortably, “My bad,” the daughter their age gives him half a dismissive smile.
“Watch it,” the son snaps.
Steve, already next to Bucky again, bites back a surprised laugh and says, “Alright, man, it was an accident.”
“Calm down, Alex,” the girl replies, annoyed.
Before Steve gets into it with him, Bucky tugs him away without a second look, and they make it half a block before collapsing into hysterics.
“God, what a bunch of assholes,” Steve snorts.
Bucky giggles in agreement and wraps his arm around Steve’s neck, kissing him quickly. “Yeah, but the last thing I need is you getting into a thing with some random weird family on the street.”
Steve grins. “Good thing he didn’t yell at you, though, then I really would’ve thrown down with some trust fund pricks.”
Bucky snorts, leaning up to peck a kiss to Steve’s cheek. “You don’t know that they’re rich.”
“They were getting into an Escalade, babe. They all had Canada Goose on. They were loaded.”
Bucky shakes his head. “C’mon, let’s go look at the shops.” He pitches his empty cup into a trashcan and looks pleased with himself when he makes it, and Steve rolls his eyes and takes his hand.
One of the Bryant Park stores has strung up mistletoe. Steve stops, tugging Bucky back into his arms and looking up, mouth quirking into a grin.
“Have we never done this?” Steve asks him.
Bucky giggles into his neck and shakes his head. “Better make it a good one, Rogers,” he says, and pulls him in for a kiss, cold and sweet, in the middle of the Christmas Eve rush, in love and invincible.
***
“I still can’t believe we aren’t being forced to go to Mass this year,” Bucky says that night.
Steve pulls back from where he’s kissing Bucky’s neck. “Please don’t talk about our parents or church when we’re about to have sex.”
Bucky snorts. “Not your thing?”
“I literally hate you.”
Bucky grinds down on him. “Your dick says otherwise,” he says, grinning, and Steve shakes his head and kisses him. Then he smirks. “Gonna put me on the naughty list this year?”
Steve laughs so hard he chokes, even though it was an unbelievably terrible line, because he loves Bucky so much that his most abysmal jokes make him laugh, and Bucky giggles against his lips so it thrums through his throat and then they stop talking for some time.
2009 — seventeen and nineteen
“Hey,” Nat says. Steve doesn’t know what he looks like, but it must be bad, because she purses her lips. “Can I come in?”
Steve winces at the light. “Don’t you have class?”
She glances down. “It’s Saturday, Steve. Also, I’m on break. Can you just let me in, it’s fucking freezing.”
He nods, moving aside.
She gets to the point. “Come to mine on Christmas. We don’t want you to be alone.”
He blinks. “Your family doesn’t want me there. I’m not gonna be great company.”
“Yeah, somehow, amazingly, my parents aren’t expecting you to be a ray of sunshine. We want you there anyway.”
Steve scrubs a hand down his face. “I appreciate it, Nat, but that’s gonna interfere with my pretending-it-isn’t-Christmas-at-all plans.”
She gives him a hard look. “Hence why I’m telling you to come over. C’mon, Steve. Please. I know—“ She swallows. “I know that you don’t want him to be sad.” He’s pathetically grateful for the present tense. “He doesn’t want you to, either.”
Steve bites his lip until the tears subside. “He should be here,” he whispers, and the anger in his voice, momentarily, prevents the misery. “It’s so fucking unfair.”
Nat wraps an arm around his shoulder, and he chokes out a sob, finally coming undone. “I know,” she whispers, and Steve realizes she’s close to tears, too.
He does go, in the end, and Nat’s family is good to him, going the extra steps to make sure he feels welcome there, but it’s not good. Nat talks about school being hard, and her sister talks about the stress of college applications, and Steve thinks, You self absorbed people, how can you complain about something so small, you don’t have problems, and then feels immediately awful because these are people he loves, who are taking care of him even though he has spiraled into disaster, who bought him little gifts even though they didn’t have to, but he doesn’t have it in him to be patient anymore when the person who made him better is gone.
2010 — eighteen and twenty
“Don’t work on Christmas,” Scott tells Bucky.
They’re all in Wanda’s living room, which Bucky is grateful for because it’s freezing out, cold enough that he aches more than usual. He leans into the corner of the couch and sighs.
“People pay more on Christmas,” he says, “giving spirit, and such.”
Scott looks weary. “Buck, I will pay you to stay here and have a nice day with us. Please.”
“You’re both Jewish,” Bucky points out. Wanda snorts.
“Yeah, but you’re not. That’s why we’re not telling you not to work on Hanukkah.” Wanda casts him a long look. “Please. It’s depressing.”
“As opposed to every other day, when it’s a great time,” Bucky retorts.
Wanda rolls her eyes, biting back a dry laugh. “Buck. Just stay here and order in with us. Please.”
Bucky sighs. “Fine,” he says, more to appease them then any real attachment to celebrating Christmas. He doesn’t remember what he did last year; he doesn’t think he even knew when it rolled around.
Admittedly, he has a better time with them than he would have with whatever lonely creep he’d have slept with otherwise. They get Chinese food and watch part of the Harry Potter marathon on NBC, and after movie number four Scott retires to bed after hugging each of them.
Bucky misses Steve. He misses Steve so much it hurts, a permanent, carved out ache in his chest that he forgets about until he acknowledges it, that will probably never heal itself up. He tries not to ever think about Steve, which is always a futile effort because Steve was the defining relationship of most of his life, but it’s especially hard at certain times. Christmas, their anniversary in May, early July, Steve’s birthday and the day everything fell apart.
“Hey, hey, Buck,” he hears Wanda say quietly, and when he looks up he realizes he’s crying. He’s just so tired, so impossibly, excruciatingly tired, and he knows that tomorrow he has to wake up and go out there again and he doesn’t want to.
She doesn’t ask what it is, because she knows there is no one answer. She wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her side and chokes down a sob and she lets him without a word.
2011 — nineteen and twenty-one
Steve wishes he still smoked. He’s outside on the balcony, and he is so cold that his hands have gone numb on his gin and tonic, but it is preferable to going inside and facing the party.
He’s also fairly drunk, drunk enough that when the door swings open and Tony steps out, it takes him a moment to register him.
Tony shoves his hands into his pockets and stares at him. “Party that bad?” he asks finally.
Steve makes himself laugh and shake his head.
Tony frowns, shutting the door and leaning against the wall beside him. “You okay, kid?”
Steve nods and takes another sip.
Tony clears his throat, scuffing his foot over the floor. “Thought you might bring Gabe,” he says.
Steve laughs dryly. “Yeah, you won’t see much more of him.”
Peripherally, he sees Tony grimace. “What happened?”
Steve tosses back what’s left of the drink. “We broke up. It was never gonna work.”
“Why’s that?” Tony asks carefully.
Steve scoffs and closes his eyes. “C’mon, Tony. You know why.” He wouldn’t be saying this sober. He wouldn’t even be thinking it.
Tony sighs uncomfortably. “Steve,” he says, voice strained, “don’t say that. You can’t—there’s not just one person for everyone. It doesn’t work like that.”
Steve’s eyes sting. “I think it probably does for me, is the thing.” Tony gives him a look so soaked in pity that Steve grimaces. “I should get going,” he says finally, “thanks, Tony.”
“Rogers,” Tony says, wincing. “Stay. Sleep in one of the guest rooms. I feel like I’d be a bad adult to send you home like this.”
Steve snorts. “I’m an adult, too—”
“Yeah, twenty-one isn’t an adult, kid. Just sleep over, alright?”
Too tired to fight him, Steve nods. “I’ll grab you sweats and a tee,” Tony says, clearly relieved, and lays an arm over his shoulder to lead him in, and the emptiness in Steve’s chest feels heavy enough to pull him through the floor.
***
The guy Bucky goes home with is probably in his fifties, and he’s rich. He says his name is Michael Smith, which is probably bullshit, but James can’t argue.
He lives up high in an Upper East Side building, and he asks Bucky to stay over. He tries to be relieved. It’s a warm house and a bed and probably a shower, but Michael Smith is quiet on the way over and the quiet ones are usually the angriest.
One floor up, there’s a party. Michael rolls his eyes and says, “That fucking guy.” Bucky nods, agreeing. “That’s Tony Stark up there,” he namedrops, scoffing. “He’s moving in a few weeks, thank god. Never a moment of quiet.”
“That’s good,” Bucky answers, shifting his weight. He wants Michael to get it over with.
Now that he’s home, Michael seems more interested in talking. All Bucky does is listen, and occasionally nod as he goes on about renovating his kitchen or living room, and as he talks, white noise begins to hiss in Bucky’s ear. He’s exhausted, and he’s hungry. Michael must be lonely, or Bucky must be the first person who has been in his home in some time, because he shows him around with smarmy, almost aggressive braggadocio: a glass blown bowl from a famous shop in Italy, a new Wolf stove.
“And here,” Michael says, and tugs him by the waist into the next room. “See that?”
It’s a painting, and before Michael says another word, Bucky knows. He swallows hard and blinks.
“I don’t suppose you know who Steve Rogers is,” Michael says, and Bucky doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry so he doesn’t do anything. “But his work is groundbreaking. It’s very difficult to come by. I bought that one this week.”
Bucky swallows again. It’s a painting of two kids, their faces obscured by the angle and by hats, kneeling and looking out the window of a subway into an amber sunset. It’s gorgeous.
“The way you do light is fucking amazing,” Bucky told him once, lit up with pride when Steve showed him a painting. Steve had grinned and then kissed him, because that had been when kissing was a good thing.
It’s still fucking amazing. In the window, Steve has somehow managed to get the translucent reflections of people around them, and the shimmering tops of buildings just before the light dies, and Bucky can’t stop looking because Steve touched that canvas and made those beautiful brushstrokes and he feels, as he had when he bought the magazine, like he’s lost him all over again.
Bucky’s mouth is very dry. “Do, um, do you have anything else of his?” he finally asks. His voice trembles.
Michael shakes his head. “He’s very difficult to get,” he boasts again. Then he turns to Bucky and smirks. “But I didn’t bring you here to look at art, sweetheart.”
(A few years later, Michael Smith will show up at an exhibit of Steve’s, and Bucky will know him and tell Steve, hands shaking, and Steve will have him escorted out.)
Right now, Bucky nods and shuts his eyes. Michael fucks him right there on the couch, and he is rough and Bucky lets him be. He disattatches, he severs himself. He focuses on the thread coming undone on the pillow underneath him, and the consistent murmur of noise from the floor above, and Steve’s painting.
2012 — twenty and twenty-two
On Christmas Eve, as they are cooking an uninspired but somehow thrilling dinner, Steve glances over and tries, the way he has since Bucky let Steve back into his life, to memorize the moment, to bottle it up so that if this slips away again, he can relive it down to the molecules. Bucky’s hair is coming loose as he stands over the rice cooker. Let it Snow is faint in the background. The room smells rich with spices, and they have an unpopped bottle of champagne stored in the fridge for later. Their Christmas tree glitters in the background.
They did get it, their Christmas together in their home. Four years late, but they got it, and even though there is a vague, uncomfortable hum beneath it all, the way Bucky jumps when Steve moves too fast and the still-fading black eye Steve has from the party, Steve can be nothing but happy right now.
Steve pulls Bucky into his arms. Bucky sighs comfortably and hugs him, fitting his head against Steve’s shoulder and breathing in, and Steve kisses his forehead. They sway vaguely to the music.
“What do you want?” Bucky asked him a few weeks ago.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Steve answered, kissing his cheek and slipping behind him for more coffee. “You’ve always gotten me great gifts. I trust you.”
Bucky rolled his eyes, cheeks flushing. “If I’m gonna buy you something with your money,” he mumbled, glancing down, “I wanna get you exactly what you want.”
Steve frowned. “What I want,” he said, after a moment, “is for you to realize it’s not just my money.”
Bucky bit his lip and didn’t look up.
“Buck,” Steve prompted gently, and reached for his hand. “Not to sound like a Hallmark card, but everything is ours, okay? House, money, all of it.” He paused. “We’ve never argued about money before. Why start now?”
Bucky, still not looking up, replied, “‘Cause before, we were both broke.”
Steve squeezed his hand. “Sweetheart,” he said, “you’re the biggest thing in my life. More than money or work or anything.” Bucky finally lifted his gaze, his eyes too bright. “Buck, I just—you make me so fucking happy, baby. It’s not—if it’s what you want, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I just—building this life with you, it’s the best thing I’ve been able to do, okay? ‘Cause… cause we’re doing it together. And so everything is ours, and I fucking love that, okay?”
Bucky swallowed. “I‘m sorry,” he said, voice quivering. “God, you’re just—you’re so good, Steve, and I—I’m sorry I can’t—that I’m not—”
Steve shushed him, cupping his face and moving in, tucking his hair back, not letting him finish that thought. “You’re everything, Bucky,” he answered, “okay? You’re everything I could ever want.”
The thing is, there really is nothing Steve wants this year. He has Bucky, the only thing worth wanting for in the world.
Well, he wants things, but not boxed up, pretty things. He wants Bucky to stop being cruel to himself and to stop waking up wracked with terror. He wants to skin Alexander Pierce alive. He wants to help Bucky in some meaningful way, something that isn’t a glass of water in the middle of the night and an empty promise that everything is okay.
“Hey,” Bucky says, not lifting his head from Steve’s shoulder. Steve hums in response. “I do want that.”
Steve blinks and furrows his brow, giving him a small, inquisitive smile. Bucky swallows.
“What you said before about… about the rest of your life. I didn’t answer, and um. You said if I want that, and—and I do. As—as long as you do.” He swallows again and looks down, mouth pulled into a small, almost scared grimace, like he’s expecting Steve to mock him or recoil or say he changed his mind.
Steve takes a breath. “Good,” he says, voice warm and soft, “‘cause you’re never getting rid of me, okay?”
Bucky looks up again and smiles, sad and bright and so close to hopeful. “I love you, Stevie,” he sighs.
Steve kisses his forehead. “Love you so much, Buck.”
Bucky tilts his chin up and kisses him, which they haven’t done since the party, very soft, a little hesitant. Steve kisses him back, breath held, letting Bucky be in control. When they pull apart, Bucky buries his face in Steve’s sweater, breathing him in and clinging to him, and Steve holds him back with enough fervor to light the city and they stay there, holding one another and swaying to soft Christmas music, warm and safe in their home, braced against one another.