2023
People have fallen in love for less. They’ve locked eyes across a room. They’ve tripped into each other’s arms. They’ve sat next to each other on the train every morning on their way to work. People have fallen in love without this devotion, this loyalty, this fidelity. This impending ache that swallows Bucky down to his shoes.
He supposes it’s true for him too, he has fallen in love with Steve for less. So early and young. He had loved with knowing so little about Steve, about himself, about who they were going to be.
It just turns out that Steve hadn’t.
Sick nights, days, and weeks before the war where Bucky leaned over him whispering the same prayers he used to hear Sarah whisper, the clutch of her worn rosary familiar between his fingers. Restless nights, days, and weeks spent lying awake in a snowy forest in France, Germany, Austra; the cold a prophetic chill that snuck under Bucky's collar as he counted Steve's breaths. Even two years ago when he arrived in Wakanda, even days ago when Bucky met him at that platform, the way Steve looked at him then. All of it had turned to ash. Like the world, like the endless, challenging universe did a week ago. Five years ago, Bucky has to remind himself. It all tastes sour on his tongue and stings like bad liquor down the back of his throat.
"Maybe if you had known then you wouldn’t have left,” Bucky mumbles under his breath, eyes tracing the unfamiliar outline of Steve. Maybe if he had known how he felt. The things he wanted. There's an unbearable, sickly heat of sorrow trying to worm its way onto Bucky's cheeks, behind his eyes. Making him flush with frustration and anger and a brokenness he is struggling to define. He’s still watching Sam, can hear even from here clear what they’re saying. And, Jesus, if Steve had to age and live on and wait ‘til now to pass that goddamn thing on then Sam sure as hell deserved it. But that small victory for Sam doesn’t make it hurt any less to see Steve’s wisps of grey hair catch on the setting light and hear the worn and winded old croak of Steve's voice. How can that be him?
When it’s his turn and Sam has retreated with Bruce elsewhere, Bucky sits next to Steve, shoulder to shoulder because time hasn’t passed for him. This is what they would have done five minutes ago when Steve was young and vibrant. So this is what they do now. Steve doesn’t pull away and Bucky lets out a breath. His shoulders are different, unlike the brawn of before and still unlike the unmistakable angle of before the war. Bucky leans in a bit more to map it out, commit this Steve to memory. He feels when Steve takes a breath, getting ready to speak.
”Do you remember—”
”Probably not,” Bucky says out of spite more than anything.
”—skipping stones in France?” Steve finishes, turning his head to look at Bucky’s profile. Bucky bite his lip because he actually doesn’t remember this but like his Steve Rogers would have, this Steve barrels on, “You had this real round one, it was reddish...reddish brown. And you had gone looking for the smoothest stones in the brush and came out with a leaf in your hair. I didn’t tell you.”
”Then?” Bucky prompts.
”Then I watched you skip the stones, and the reddish brown one. And you were perfect every time. Four skips.” Steve holds up four fingers and Bucky nods still not looking back at this Steve.
”Why are you telling me this?” Bucky asks, full of resignation and exhaustion. Even now, with Steve so many years away from him, he still has to gear up to a point with an entire trip around the world.
”Because I didn’t forget it. I didn’t forget you. Not then and never inbetween.” Bucky takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs them fast and rough against his thighs, trying hard not to get up and leave this sorry fucker on the bench alone.
”Which me did you not forget about? The one waiting to spend the rest of his life with you here or the one getting beaten like a dog there?” He wishes his words would at least make Steve flinch but the muscles he feels on his right shoulder don't even flutter. Bucky bites his lip a little harder, maybe to keep from screaming.
”Bucky,” Then Steve sighs, sighs, like it’s tiring to have this conversation.
”Nothing you say…” Bucky bites out then trails off, the lump building in his throat not allowing more out. Nothing you say will make this right.
”I knew you’d be angry, like when we were boys and—”
”Stop bringing up the past. You’re the one who wanted to go relive it. Not me. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about getting out of the war and going home to Brooklyn and having Sunday dinners with you and your pretty wife. I-" Bucky rubs his eyes hard when his vision starts to blur. "I don’t fucking care, Steve.”
”I know,” Steve says then faces forward again, his hand resting on Bucky’s knee. Bucky leaves it there, even though he's seething, because if he’s being honest he missed Steve the five seconds he was gone and he misses him tenfold with the old version sitting next to him. He just fucking misses Steve Rogers.
”I know you think you need me, too,” Steve adds. Bucky finally looks at him. It's wide-eyed, incredulous disbelief. Think? Bucky thought they always needed each other. Bucky always needed Steve. Steve always—
“But you really are going to be okay. Sometimes we do things...sometimes we watch people do things and we know we will never understand them. That we will always be angry with them for it. But you will be okay.”
”It’s funny how much I used to trust you," Bucky studies the lines of this Steve's face. What a horrible nightmare, it's a goddamn nightmare. He was supposed to watch this happen, slowly over the years, his face mirroring the change. He knows he told Steve it'd be okay but, fuck, he didn't believe he couldn't really leave the world behind for her. Bucky looks back to the lake.
”I never did anything you didn’t think I was capable of doing. You can trust me now just like you did then,” Steve squeezes Bucky's knee, but it's light and fatherly. Bothersome. But then he pulls his hand away and seems to lean away from Bucky, maybe just giving him space. But the contact has to be more and it has to be enough so Bucky leans back into him, bridging the gap. This Steve does the same and then they are tight against each other, sharing warmth and a too-innocent-for-this-moment view. Bucky stays quiet because there is nothing left to do and there is nothing left to say.
He loves him. And there is nothing left to do about it.
Then, when the quiet is just beginning to feel intrusive, “How ya been, Buck?”
A week ago when Steve asked him this, golden and glowing and smiling just for him, it lit Bucky up and down to the tips of his hair. That was the Steve Bucky had, thought he had, forever. That was the Steve that helped him plant flowers outside his hut in Wakanda. That was the Steve that pointed out the constellations hanging over their heads when neither of them could sleep. That was the Steve that Bucky believed in and had died on a battlefield for. Twice. But this is where they are now. This is who Steve chose to become and what he became in the absence of Bucky. He doesn't know this Steve at all. Only knows the feel of his body against his, different but familiar as Bucky charts the angles. He is not small, he is not big. He is something and someone else entirely. Bucky is shocked to find that even through his rage, which swells around and in him, he still finds himself loving this Steve because what else is Bucky Barnes good for, if not loving Steve Rogers?
It takes a long while for the words to come, for Bucky’s mouth to figure out how to say them but when they do come they don’t shake or tremble like he thinks they will. This is familiar, old hat—easy, lying for the sake of Steve’s satisfaction. The side of Bucky's mouth quirks up and he glances back at Steve.
”I’m good, Steve. Like you said, I’m doing okay.” And Bucky smiles, a terrible, wicked thing. And Steve smiles back.