Chapter 5
Never Enough
‘Take my hand
Will you share this with me?
‘Cause darling without you
These hands could hold the world
But it’ll never be enough’
“Good news,” Hill says.
It’s been five excruciatingly long weeks since Steve had gone into her office and offered up his skills as a tactician. Five weeks he’s been waiting on an answer, watching Bucky go out into the field, knowing that whoever had been assigned to planning his missions wasn’t, would never be, as good as Steve himself.
Because Steve is invested. And while he may care about the mission, that care is secondary to how he cares about Bucky.
That’s something none of Hill’s agents can claim. And it’s something Steve knows that Bucky could stand to benefit from, even without taking into account the fact that both Sam and Hill have basically said the same thing.
“I’ve spoken with Fury,” Hill continues, and we both agree that having you as part of Barnes’ support team when he’s out in the field is a good idea.”
“We definitely want to include you in the tactical side of planning his missions. To be honest, we’d like you to be included in the planning of as many of our missions as you’d like to be. Especially the more critical ones.” She shrugs delicately. “Mostly, the critical missions involve your friends anyway: Wilson, Maximoff. Occasionally Banner. And Barnes, of course.”
“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Steve says, watching Hill closely.
“Not a ‘but’,” Hill says. “More like, ‘Would you consider another form of involvement?’”
“That depends on the kind of involvement.”
Hill appears to be choosing her words carefully. “All of the handlers we’ve assigned to Barnes have ended up… unsuited to the task. They never last long, and they seem to have a hard time… connecting with him. It makes for a dysfunctional handler-agent relationship when the handler can’t form any sort of bond with the operative, even if it’s only on an emotional level. A handler has to trust his operative — which isn’t actually the problem. Barnes is proficient enough that none of his handlers have lacked confidence in mission success — but an operative has to trust his handler as well. Trust allows them to follow orders, to believe that their handler knows what’s best for the mission and for the well-being of the operative. It means when the mission looks to be going sideways, the operative will confide in his handler. He’ll avail himself to his handler’s resources, instead of taking everything upon himself, relying only on himself.”
“Bucky doesn’t trust his handlers.”
Hill shakes her head. “He doesn’t.”
Steve leans back in his chair, studies Hill seated on the other side of her desk.
“To be fair,” Hill says, “We know Barnes has a traumatic history with handlers. And some of the handlers we’ve assigned him have their issues as well. We’re still building up our ranks, and a lot of our agents haven’t been trained to work with someone like Barnes. That was our mistake. But it’s not only handlers Barnes doesn’t trust. He doesn’t trust the agents, our field medics. The doctors on site. He doesn’t really even trust the other Avengers. He tolerates them. But he either can’t or won’t connect with them, and it makes everyone just a little bit skittish, and that much less cohesive.”
“This is where I come in.”
Hill nods. “This is where you come in. We’ve seen the, frankly, miraculous rapport you’ve managed to build between Barnes and the agents you’ve been working with these past weeks. Already tension levels have dropped, and they’re working better together in the field. Fury and I both think that your involvement with mission strategy in conjunction with you handling Barnes in the field can only improve matters further.”
Steve considers Hill’s words. Remembers the disturbing experience of reading through Bucky’s case files, and Sam telling him that Bucky could benefit from having someone around with his best interests in mind.
Hill’s not wrong about the lessening of tensions between Bucky and her agents, and Steve has no doubt about the fact that he’d rather be Bucky’s handler than leave that job to anyone else.
So he agrees to take on the role, provided that Bucky doesn’t object.
Hill kicks him out of her office with a pleased little smile tucked into the corner of her mouth.
—
“On your left.”
Bucky swivels, goes down into a crouch to shoot out the knees of the Hydra agent attempting to sneak up on him. He takes down two more, clearing the room, and then turns to give the tiny camera in the corner a faint nod.
A quiet breath in his ear is the only response as Bucky continues deeper into the Hydra base, but it’s enough to let Bucky know Steve picked up on the subtle movement, that he’s hacking into each camera along the way, following Bucky closely as he progresses through the building.
Three of Hill’s agents, finished with clearing the room across the hall, fall in behind him — the other half of his assigned unit.
Not too far behind them, more of Hill’s agents bring up the rear. A small subsection collects intel from the areas Bucky’s team has already cleared, while the another stations themselves as sentinels, making sure he and his team don’t get their exit blocked by any surprise Hydra ambushes.
It’s happened before, once or twice, where Bucky’d had to fight his way back out of a base he’d previously cleared because the enemy had circled around behind him. Now they account for those sorts of contingencies, and Bucky’s got the bonus of a better set of eyes watching his six — a better handler.
It’s not as if—. He doesn’t actually need one.
Hill would cite regulation at him and Sam would probably burst a blood vessel if Bucky ever said as much. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. He doesn’t need a handler.
He’s enhanced, highly trained. Has been dominating the battlefield for far longer than Fury, or Hill, or any of their people have been alive.
And, he’s had handlers before.
Horribly abusive handlers — those assigned to him by Hydra. Indifferent, or incompetent, or sometimes both — the ones assigned to him by Hill.
All of those “handlers” hardly deserved the title. Even so, even in spite of them, Bucky’s always been exceedingly proficient. He always accomplishes the mission.
So. He doesn’t need a handler.
Still, he hadn’t objected when Hill had told him he was getting a new one — again. Turns out she’d recruited Steve for the job and Steve had said yes... provided Bucky had no objections.
Bucky hadn’t. Strange as their relationship is right now, Bucky doesn’t think Steve could possibly be worse than any of the other handlers he’s suffered through. He doesn’t really have any of the biases that others seem to have toward Bucky, and he’s well-versed in the way Bucky works in the field. This has been tried and tested on more than one occasion, and they’ve never failed to work seamlessly together.
Steve’s also been Bucky’s commanding officer before. He’s got experience with that where no one else has. Which makes it a hell of a lot easier to follow his direction, to trust in his judgement. In this, at least, there is no uncertainty, and Bucky doesn’t hesitate to rely on Steve’s guidance.
And.
It’s also… nice. To have Steve in his ear. To know he’s watching Bucky’s six.
It’s nice in a way that has nothing to do with competence, or the fact that Steve has one of the best tactical minds in history.
It’s nice because, for once, it feels like someone is on his side. Someone who, apparently, cares about Bucky more than the mission objective.
It’s novel, and unfamiliar, and... comforting, to know that. To believe it.
It causes something warm to settle in Bucky’s chest. Something that fissures the walls around his heart and wriggles between the cracks, small but resilient.
—
Steve jogs quickly down the halls of the compound’s medical ward.
Near the end of Bucky’s latest assignment, amid the chaotic sounds of bullets flying and angry shouting, Steve had caught the slightest hiss of pain over the comms. It’s nothing, Bucky had said when Steve immediately called for a status report. Just a graze.
But Steve knows Bucky has a high tolerance for pain. And from what he’s heard — from Sam, from Hill — he knows Bucky will do just about anything to avoid medical. He wasn’t taking any chances.
He’d made Bucky promise to get himself checked out as soon as he’d wrapped up the mission, and Bucky, with obvious reluctance, had consented.
Once his own handler-related obligations had been fulfilled, Steve headed over as well, quick as he could, as close behind Bucky as he could manage. Any good handler would do the same, Steve knows, but he doesn’t kid himself that the overarching urgency he feels to be there has anything to do with proving himself a responsible handler.
As he rounds the corner toward the nurse’s station, Steve forces himself to assume a slower pace.
There’s no reason to rush, he tells himself. Bucky will definitely be there. It’s why he’d made Bucky promise; because he knew Bucky would keep his word. And, while Steve may have tried it once or twice in his lifetime, Bucky’s not really the type to sneak out the back.
“Barnes, James B.,” Steve says to the first nurse at the station who makes eye-contact.
Apparently Bucky’s made enough of an impression here that the nurse knows exactly who Steve’s asking about. “He’s just gone in, Captain,” she tells him. “Room 3A, down that hall and to the left.”
“Thank you,” Steve says, as cordial as he can manage as he immediately heads off in that direction, wondering, distantly, what kind of impression he’s making; the nurse hadn’t even tried for any of the usual small-talk. She’d offered no greeting, hadn’t asked how he was doing; got straight to the point.
When Steve reaches 3A, his eyes immediately latch onto Bucky sitting perched on the edge of the cushioned exam table, shirt already removed to reveal several bloody grazes scattered across his torso.
There’s a young woman in the room with him. She’s slender, pretty, blonde — outfitted in the tactical gear favored by Hill’s agents and gazing up at Bucky with something like reverential admiration. She’s smiling widely, caught up in whatever they’ve been talking about, one hand placed on the exam table near Bucky’s hip as if she’s not quite brave enough to touch him directly.
And Bucky.
Bucky’s looking down at her with that intense focus of his, the tiniest of smiles curving his mouth. He’s tense, and not quite comfortable, but smiling… and Steve feels something dark and bitter cut through him at the sight. At where that focus, that smile, is being directed.
Steve clears his throat softly, needing to break up the moment, unwilling to watch the exchange go on any longer than the few seconds he’s already witnessed, and the agent jumps at the sound, widened eyes darting to where Steve stands just inside the doorway.
“Captain Rogers!” she acknowledges, bright-eyed and somewhat flustered. “I’m sorry I— didn’t see you there.”
Bucky looks up himself, catching Steve’s gaze with those silvery blues, his expression of mild amusement flickering away. For the barest of moments, Steve feels pinned beneath the intensity of Bucky’s stare. Can’t help but wonder what his own expression is revealing.
Not everything, he hopes. Not the uncomfortable sensation of jealousy cutting through him, or how sorely tempted he is to haul the agent far away from Bucky. To toss her right out of the building and, ideally, into the stratosphere.
“You looked like you were in the middle of something,” Steve replies, working to keep the words even.
The agent flushes, but quickly scrapes together her composure. She straightens into something close to parade rest and speaks in a tone of voice one might use to deliver a field report. “Agent Hill requested I accompany Sergeant Barnes to medical, Captain. She thought that he might benefit from a familiar face.”
“That right?” Steve’s voice is low, but he manages to keep it from dropping into a growl, grasping at some veneer of civility.
The agent hesitates, a small frown appearing at the not-quite friendly tone. “Yes, sir.”
“In that case, agent,” Steve says, “I can handle it from here. Consider yourself dismissed.”
The agent stiffens, lips tightening in displeasure, but she nods, executes a sharp salute, and heads for the door.
Watching her go, Steve feels a wave of satisfaction combined with irritation at his own behavior. Bucky surely doesn’t need Steve acting so crudely possessive, and as Steve glances over to meet that shrewd assessing gaze, he wonders if he should apologize. Even if, despite his chagrin, he doesn’t actually feel sorry.
He’s saved from further debate about whether to apologize by a firm knock on the door followed by a white-coated doctor sweeping into the room.
“Sergeant Barnes,” the woman says, “I’m Doctor Clarke. I understand you sustained some injuries during a mission earlier today.”
It’s not a question, but Bucky nods, blank-faced and silent. It’s subtle, but Steve can see where Bucky’s become more tense, fingers of his right hand tight around the edge of the exam table.
The doctor flips through the chart in her hands and looks up, perceptive gaze flickering over Bucky’s rigid form — his expressionless face, his clenched fingers — in one comprehensive glance.
“That’s probably going to need stitches,” Doctor Clarke says, indicating the deepest graze along Bucky’s flank with a pointed look. “Though I’ve been informed that you’re not overly fond of medical personnel and prefer to take care of your injuries yourself.
“I’d say I’ve got more than enough experience to be able to handle it,” Bucky says blandly, expression giving nothing away.
The doctor tsks, shaking her head. “And I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to get you to change your mind.”
Bucky shrugs, unrelenting, and Steve finds himself not particularly surprised. Bucky is all smiles and charming words when he wants to be, but that amiability covers a layer of uncompromising steel.
“Well then,” Clarke says briskly. “As I’m not inclined to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I realize you’ve had enough of that to last you through multiple lifetimes; I’ll let you handle this one yourself. You’re right about your capability, and since thus far you’ve managed well enough on your own, I trust I can leave you to it.”
She has a nurse bring in the supplies Bucky will need and tells him that she’ll be back to check his work, to call if he needs any assistance. Then she’s leaving, shutting the door firmly behind her.
The room goes much quieter with only the two of them in it, and Steve drags his eyes from the closed door to find Bucky again watching him with that inscrutable expression.
After an uncomfortable length of silence, Steve motions toward Bucky’s injured torso. “Can I help?”
Bucky drops the stare, glancing down his body.
“Suppose it would be easier,” he admits with a small shrug, all traces of the easy affability he’d exhibited with the agent earlier vanished.
Steve, trying not to let Bucky’s neutrality bother him, figures that’s as much permission as he’s likely to get, and turns to the sink across from the exam table, washing and drying his hands thoroughly, then applying some latex gloves. While enhanced bodies typically aren’t prone to infection, the precaution can’t hurt, and he’d hate to be responsible for making things worse.
Once he’s finished, Steve approaches Bucky, eyes glancing over his torso, carefully noting each injury. There aren't many, only three minor grazes, but there’s the other wound on Bucky’s left flank, deep, and oozing slowly. If he were to guess, Steve would say the wound was probably caused by a bullet ricocheting the wrong way off Bucky’s metal arm.
That one will have to be seen to first.
Steve grabs a bottle of saline solution, tears open a small handful of gauze pads, and wets them thoroughly. He feels Bucky’s gaze on him — weighty, intent — and flicks his eyes up for just a moment to meet that cerulean stare. Then he turns to the task, cleaning out the deep wound as thoroughly and as gently as he can.
Bucky’s fingers tighten further around the edge of the table, but he doesn’t move apart from that and his breathing stays slow and even.
Steve wonders, absently, if it’s harder to have someone else treating the injuries. Thinking back, he remembers that it was always more difficult for him to treat himself. Something about seeing the injuries on his own body made everything seem closer to the surface — more painful. As much as he’d complained about and avoided it, it’d always been easier when Bucky stepped in to help fix him up after a fight. A relief. Because, somehow, when he wasn’t looking right at them, the pain of the cuts and bruises seemed more distant.
Still, Steve knows there are those for whom having another treat their wounds seems more painful. Clint, for instance, had told Steve once that he didn’t like others touching him when he was hurt. That he preferred to treat as many of his own injuries as he could. Because, he’d said, thenI always know exactly when the pain is coming, and where it’s coming from.
Bucky doesn’t like being touched— or he doesn’t anymore. And he won’t let the medics treat him if he can avoid it. (Which, if the doctor is to be believed, he has been, successfully, for quite a while.)
But, as he considers it, Steve thinks Bucky’s reluctance has more to do with not trusting anyone than it does with avoiding pain. For one thing, medical personnel come equipped with painkillers, making pain more-or-less a non-issue. For another, if — like with Clint — it was simply about someone else’s hands on him being less physically comfortable than his own, Bucky could always do it himself.
Except he’s not doing it himself.
He’s allowing Steve to do it.
The thought brings with it a tiny flicker of pride. Because that means — it must mean — that they’re making progress, gradual though it may be. Slowly, carefully, Bucky is opening up, allowing himself to trust Steve again.
On the heels of that pride, comes a healthy dose of awareness.
Because, certainly, this is a test. Bucky is testing him. Perhaps not consciously, but he’s very still beneath Steve’s hands. Still, and watchful, and Steve knows if he isn’t careful, he could easily spook Bucky back into pulling away from him again.
Not this time, he swears silently. This time, he’s going to be careful. He’s going to pay attention. He won’t be so careless with Bucky again.
When he’s finished cleaning the deepest wound, Steve glances back up. “Gonna have to stitch it up now,” he says, though he’s sure Bucky already knows. “You want an anesthetic? I’ll have to call the doctor back…”
Surprisingly — or maybe not — Bucky shakes his head. “Just do it now.”
Personal feelings aside, Steve spends a moment debating whether or not to argue. In the end though, it’s Bucky’s choice, and he cedes to Bucky’s decision. Steve’s gotten stitches without anesthetic before, it sucks, but it’s not the worst thing to go through.
Still, he can’t help feeling a pang of sympathy when, at the first bite of the needle, Bucky’s grip tightens further around the edge of the table.
Steve moves as quickly and carefully as he can after that, keeping an ear attuned to Bucky’s breathing as he works. Bucky may as well be made of stone, though, for all the reaction he displays throughout the rest of the stitching.
When he’s done, Steve spreads a thin layer of antiseptic cream over the wound before gently covering it with an adhesive gauze bandage. Bucky will have to remove the stitches relatively soon, Steve knows from experience, but the covering will keep the threads from catching on anything in the meantime.
Treating the rest of Bucky’s injuries goes quickly after that, Steve sinking into the rhythm of cleaning, medicating, dressing. He covers each wound mostly out of reflex, they’ll be healed up enough that bandages won’t be necessary within a matter of hours, but at least the dressings will keep the antiseptic from getting rubbed off when Bucky puts his shirt back on.
He’s just finished smoothing the last bandage over the graze beneath Bucky’s collarbone when he looks up and realizes, suddenly, just how close they are. At some point Bucky'd apparently shifted his knees farther apart, because now Steve’s standing between them, close enough to feel the heat coming from Bucky’s bare torso.
Bucky’s face is right there, blue eyes staring straight into Steve’s own, and Steve realizes that even as he hadn’t noticed how far into Bucky’s personal space he’d been getting, Bucky had been completely aware of it. He’d let Steve get into his space.
Steve’s eyes flicker slightly lower, taking in the tiny cut across Bucky’s left cheekbone just beneath his eye, rust-colored with dried blood.
Slowly, carefully, Steve dabs at it with a damp square of gauze, smooths antiseptic over it with the pad of his thumb, leaves his hand there, fingers gently cupping the side of Bucky’s face.
For a split second, Bucky drops his gaze, long lashes sweeping low to rest against his cheeks like dark shadows. Then his gaze lifts, eyes flickering back up to catch Steve’s, intent and unwavering.
Steve feels his breath catch. He raises his other hand, places his fingers ever-so-carefully against the smooth skin just above Bucky’s hip, and thinks if he tilted his head just so, leaned forward ever so slightly, they’d be kissing.
Bucky draws a quiet breath, and Steve knows Bucky’s read the thought right from his mind. He waits, watches different emotions flicker rapidly through Bucky’s eyes, wonders what he’ll choose to do and barely dares to hope—
The shrill ringing of Steve’s cell phone shatters the charged silence, and both he and Bucky jump, startled.
Steve considers ignoring it, wants more than anything to know what would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted. But then there’s a knock on the door, and the doctor is coming back in to check Bucky over before she releases him, and Steve is forced to retreat; to remove his hands from smooth, warm skin, to drag himself to a respectable distance so that the doctor can do her job.
He pulls off his gloves and checks his phone; sees a missed call from Hill, and stifles a frustrated sigh at her horrible timing.
Steve doesn’t have to see Bucky’s face to know that the moment, and whatever it was that had been passing between them, is lost.
Sure enough, as soon as the doctor’s declared Bucky fit to leave, Bucky is standing, pulling his black t-shirt back over his head, expression closed and unreadable once more.
—
Bucky checks on the chicken roasting in the oven, before shooting off a quick text to Steve.
Dinner ready in 30. ETA?
For all that he never had much time for it once he and Steve started living together before the war, Bucky always was the better cook. Which is not to say that Steve can’t cook. He gets by well enough and can put together a meal when necessary — though, admittedly, he sticks to simple fare.
But Steve doesn’t enjoy cooking, while Bucky has recently rediscovered that he does. It’s been nice to work at resurrecting these skills over the past few weeks. To use his hands for something that has nothing to do with fighting, killing.
He hadn’t seen much point in it, when it had only been him, by himself. If he’s honest, that may have something to do with the fact that often, eating had been forgotten, or — when he remembered it — a means to an end.
Now though, with Steve returned, cooking has become something Bucky covets. It gives him something to do with his hands when it’s just Steve and him in the apartment together, and provides a good distraction when needed. It also creates opportunities for Steve and him to interact without any weight of expectation.
There’s also something about the way that Steve responds to Bucky cooking.
He looks forward to it. Asks, often, if Bucky’s got plans to cook, what he’s going to make, how long it will take. And he eats whatever Bucky prepares with such obvious enjoyment, eyes crinkled up at the corners as he inhales whatever’s placed before him, that Bucky can’t help but want to keep feeding him — though he keeps the sentiment to himself.
His phone flashes and dings with a new message: Wrapping up with Hill now. Be home soon. Love you.
Bucky feels a flare of adrenaline jolt through his stomach. It’s not the first time Steve’s said the words. Lately, he’s taken to doing it quite often — though he always manages to say it at times when they are not face to face, relieving Bucky of any pressure of saying it back.
At the beginning of missions, for example. Before Bucky’s gone active, Steve will switch over to their private line, checking the connection, as is routine, and always ending the check-in with Be safe. And, I love you.
He doesn’t give Bucky the opportunity to respond, always switching over as soon as he’s said the words, and Bucky, never sure quite how to respond, finds himself grateful for the reprieve.
Because each time Steve says the words feels like a minor miracle.
And, each time, Bucky feels himself drawn that much closer to believing it.
—
Steve forces himself not to give in to the temptation to reach up and rub tiredly at his eyes. It’s almost over, this meeting of Hill’s, the latest in what is routine between Hill and her team of designated handlers, Steve included.
But soon they’ll be finished. Soon he’ll be able to go home.
In his pocket, his phone buzzes with a silenced message. Slowly, he pulls the device from his jeans and, keeping it below the table, peaks at the screen. It’s from Bucky.
Dinner ready in 30. ETA?
Steve doesn’t smile, but he wants to as a glow of warmth sweeps through him.
Bucky’s recently picked up cooking again, something that had been a rare treat before the war, and the idea of heading back to another home-cooked meal is more than appealing. It’s just as well that Hill is wrapping things up, her eyes pausing shrewdly on Steve as her gaze moves to encompass everyone seated around the long conference table, as if she knows he’s distracted. As if she can tell he’s got his phone out beneath the table.
Steve types rapidly with his thumbs. Wrapping up with Hill now. Be home soon. Love you.
He writes the last words without hesitation, telling Bucky, as he has been regularly throughout the past few weeks, exactly how he feels, leaving no shred of doubt.
Finally, Hill dismisses the room and Steve barely holds back a sigh of relief. Finally he can go home to dinner, to Bucky.
Things have been… interesting since that day in the med ward a few weeks ago.
Bucky’s just as quiet and reserved as he’s been since Steve’s return via time-machine. But, ever since that day, since that moment that might have almost become a kiss, Bucky’s taken up this way of looking at Steve whenever he thinks he’s not paying attention.
It’s intense, focused, the way he looks at Steve. Like he’s searching for... something. Like Steve’s a particularly complicated puzzle that Bucky just can’t seem to figure out.
Except Steve doesn’t think he’s all that complicated. He’s made it quite clear what he wants. After that exchange in the hospital, Bucky can’t possibly be in the dark.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to reiterate where he stands. As he’s taken up doing, repeatedly, since that day. (He refuses to let anyone, be it a pretty agent or someone else, slip between him and Bucky because of Bucky being uncertain about just where Steve’s feelings lie.)
And, ever since that day, things have...changed. Shifted between them. Now, stronger than in a long time, there’s an energy between them. An intensity that seems to thicken the air. Like electricity. Like the heavy weight of expectation that comes just before the onset of a thunderstorm.
Steve feels it. He knows Bucky feels it too.
He has to.
The question is, what’s Bucky going to do about it? And when?
Steve doesn’t want to push. Won’t, no matter how much he’d like to speed things up. He wants it to be Bucky’s decision, the direction their relationship takes next, and the speed at which it takes it.
Still, Steve can’t deny, the waiting is excruciating.
—
Bucky wakes on a choked-off gasp.
He rolls to sit on the edge of his mattress, forcing his breath to steady, his heartbeat to slow.
Minutes pass, and the uncontrolled tremors that always follow these kinds of nightmares begin to taper off. He draws a marginally steadier breath, runs a hand through sweat-damp hair, and glances at his closed door.
As usual, the persistent need to get his eyes on the man down the hall, to see for himself Steve’s form, asleep and unaware, but there , manifests unremitting. Tonight, Bucky knows he will give in. Tonight the need is too strong to push away.
He stands. Opens his door, Steps into the hall.
Steve’s bedroom door is ajar, something, Bucky’s noticed, Steve seems to do on purpose. He never closes it, as if he wants Bucky to feel always welcome.
Steve’s lying on his side, Bucky sees as he stops just over the threshold, back toward the doorway, breathing slow and even with sleep. Bucky bites his lip, holding there as the incessant clamor to see Steve — to soak in his presence, to confirm that Bucky isn’t alone — slowly begins to ebb into something manageable. The last of the tremors subside, and he draws a shaky breath, letting it go in a gradual release.
He’s about to go, to turn away and head back down the hall — because as much as he’d like to stay, to draw this out longer, it feels too intrusive to do so. Except Steve suddenly shifts, rolls over and captures Bucky with a penetrating gaze that makes Bucky’s breath catch in his throat, his feet freezing in place.
“Bucky.”
Bucky takes a short step back. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you—” but Steve raises a hand.
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
He sits up slowly, as though wary of spooking Bucky, but his gaze stays steady, unapologetic, still pinning Bucky where he stands. “What’s wrong?”
—
Bucky hesitates, chewing on his lower lip, eyes luminous in the dark, and Steve waits patiently, drawing out the words with his silence. Finally Bucky says, voice a low rasp,
“Tell me again. Please.”
Steve doesn’t need an explanation for the request.
“I’m here,” he says firmly, holding Bucky’s gaze. “I’m not leaving. I’ll never leave you again.”
Bucky lets out a tiny sound; a small, pained noise as his eyes fall away. A full-body shudder rattles through him and he wraps an arm around his middle.
Steve, longing to wrap his own arms around that shaking form, stays where he is.
“I thought—” Bucky cuts himself off. “You were going to stay,” he states. “I was... never going to see you again. I knew that. I accepted it.” He swallows, “Now you’re…” Shakes his head. “It’s too good to be true. It’s too— You’re. I don’t deserve this. You.”
“You deserve everything,” Steve says, fiercely. “Bucky. I didn’t leave because I thought you weren’t worth staying for. I know it’s hard, after everything that’s happened. After what I did. But please. Trust me when I say I love you. I love you, and if I had known, I would have stayed.”
Bucky stares at Steve, lips parted around startled silence.
“I didn’t know that you had feelings for me,” Steve says, quietly. “I didn’t know. But I should have taken a chance. I should have had the guts to just tell you myself, how I felt, instead of hiding behind the fact that you hadn’t said. I should have at least asked you. Because— God, Buck, if I’d had any idea, if I had believed for even a second that you loved me the way I kept telling myself was impossible, the way I love you, I never would have gone back. I would have stayed.”
Steve holds out a hand. Leaves it raised in the space between them.
“It was stupid. I was stupid, for leaving you. But I’m here now, Buck. I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere. As long as you’ll have me, I’m with you.”
Bucky looks at Steve for a long moment, eventually drops his gaze to the hand Steve keeps steadily raised.
Then he steps forward once, again, until his fingers brush against Steve’s, his hand sliding into Steve’s grasp.
Steve tugs, a gentle request, and Bucky moves closer, eyes darting to Steve’s searchingly.
They end up lying face to face, hands entangled between them as Bucky studies Steve’s face and Steve lets himself be seen.
After a moment, Steve moves his free hand, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair, and Bucky melts into the touch, eyes falling to half-mast, breathing deep and even.
They lie like that, in the quiet dark of Steve’s room, Bucky accepting Steve touch, peaceful and calm.
This is trust, Steve thinks, reverently. This is what trust feels like.
—
The sky glows, dawn highlighting the horizon with streaks of rosy pink and gold.
Bucky leans back into the warmth of Steve’s body, folded into the circle of his arms as they share one of the lounge chairs scattered across the compound’s rooftop.
A gentle breeze gusts by, and Steve adjusts the soft blanket draped across their shoulders, tucking Bucky tighter within the folds.
For the first time in a long time, Bucky finds himself completely relaxed, the proximity bringing comfort rather than apprehension. For the first time, his body isn’t fighting against the surge of emotions that swell over him when he’s in Steve’s presence.
Come with me, Steve had said long minutes after Bucky’d blinked out of a light doze, dawn just beginning to brighten the night sky.
Neither of them had been prepared to part, and neither wanted to go back to sleep, and so Steve had grabbed the soft throw from the foot of his bed, and led Bucky to the rooftop where the barest hint of dawn had just started to show on the horizon.
Settling onto a lounge chair, Steve had draped the blanket across his shoulders and then spread his arms, silently beckoning Bucky to fill the empty space between them. “Sit with me?”
Bucky’d stepped forward immediately, sliding into the warm space Steve had created, and after he was settled, Steve shifted, drawing out a green apple and a small folding knife from the depths of his pockets. Bucky watched as Steve began to neatly slice it, wondering when exactly Steve had managed to squirrel the things away, and how he’d managed it without Bucky noticing.
The fruit was tart and delicious on his tongue, and Steve had alternated between passing pieces to Bucky and eating them himself, until the apple was gone and he’d tucked the knife away again.
Now they watch the sun rise together, the silence between them peaceful, though still, to Bucky’s ears, filled with unspoken words.
He steels his resolve.
That silence between them has lingered long enough, he decides. Bucky’s silence has lingered long enough.
Steve’s been patient with him. Hasn’t pressured him, even as he’s made his own feelings plain.
He deserves— Bucky wants Steve to be happy. Isn’t that the reason Bucky had told him to go after Carter? Even though watching Steve leave had been like having a piece of his soul torn out.
Since he’d come back, Steve’s been waiting. He’s been waiting for Bucky.
He deserves to hear the truth. And finally, Bucky feels ready to tell him.
“Steve,” he says, shifting in his arms, turning so that they’re face to face. “I’m sorry.”
Steve’s expression goes from calmly relaxed to troubled, a small furrow appearing between his brows. “Bucky what…?”
“I’m sorry that I’ve made you wait so long,” Bucky clarifies. “I’m sorry that it took me this long to move forward.”
“Bucky.” Steve’s expression is fierce. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s my fault. What happened between us.”
Bucky huffs out a wry laugh. Has Steve forgotten that Bucky had encouraged him to go after Peggy? That Bucky’d made the choice, himself, to never reveal to Steve the depth of his feelings?
But, Bucky doesn’t want to argue who’s more at fault.
“I know you want more, from me. More for us,” Bucky says. “This isn’t— What we have now, I know it isn’t enough.”
“It can be,” Steve says. “Bucky, it can be enough. You don’t have to...” He shakes his head once, tightens his jaw. “It’s enough. Whatever you want to give, is enough.”
Bucky feels his lips curve, affection sweeping through him along with faint exasperation: Steve Rogers, ever the martyr.
“Steve,” he says. “It isn’t enough for me. I want more, too.” He reaches for Steve’s hand, tangles their fingers together in a tight grip. “I’m ready, now. I love you, and. I’m ready.”
Steve draws a shaky breath, something like hope beginning to cross his features.
He starts to lean forward, and when Bucky doesn’t move away, breathes, eyes covetous, “Can I kiss you?”
In answer, Bucky leans the rest of the way toward him, pressing their mouths together.
Steve lets out a quiet noise, before tilting his head, deepening the kiss into something warmer, slicker. He slides their mouths together and apart — sucking Bucky’s lower lip between his teeth to bite gently, drawing out a shiver, a tiny moan — but doesn’t take it further. Doesn’t press fully into the silky heat of Bucky’s mouth, keeps the kiss just this side of chaste.
Still, Bucky finds himself nearly overwhelmed. He can’t remember the last time he kissed someone like this, and the fact that the person kissing him now is Steve, makes things that much more intoxicating.
When they break apart, Bucky’s whole mouth is tingling, his heart beating a tattoo against his sternum, his breath stuttering between his lips. Steve, eyes closed, rests his forehead against Bucky’s, his own breathing labored, and Bucky feels a zing of satisfied pleasure because of it.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” Steve says, voice low, almost rough.
“Since you were a skinny kid in Brooklyn,” Bucky says, “I wanted you.”
Steve’s eyes snap open, and he pulls away just far enough to meet Bucky’s gaze.
“That’s— That’s a long time, Buck.”
Bucky huffs out a small breath, one side of his mouth tugging up in a half-smile. “Yes.”
Steve lays a careful hand against the side of Bucky’s neck, tucks too-long hair behind his ear with the other. “God, we’ve wasted so much time,” he whispers.
Bucky nods slightly, holding Steve’s gaze.
“Well then,” and he tilts his chin, leans forward just a fraction. “Let’s not waste any more.”
—
END