Chapter 5
“Jesus Christ, Stevie. Quit poking at my face.”
Steve laughed and pulled his hand back, while keeping eye-contact with Bucky through the bathroom mirror. “It’s so....distinguished.” He reached out again, feeling at the rough hairs on Bucky’s chin.
Bucky turned the razor back on and waved it threateningly at Steve’s fingers--grinning as Steve pulled back quickly. He leaned forward again, and started at the bottom of his neck while Steve settled in behind him with his arms crossed, looking annoyed. “What?” Bucky yelled.
Steve mouthed something in return, but it sounded fuzzy and garbled over the noise of the electric razor. Bucky clicked it off and turned around. “What?”
“I liked it.”
“Shut up. I’m sure you have a few, too. You’re just too blond to notice ‘em.”
Steve grinned again, and came up behind him wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist and nuzzling his face into the space between collarbone and ear before whispering, “I’m still too young for grey hair.”
Bucky twisted around, the razor dropping to the sink below with a clatter and tried to get his arm around Steve’s neck in a choke hold, but Steve had the advantage. He was smaller now, and wiry, but he’d always known how to use his body in a fight.
Their makeshift wrestling carried them out of the bathroom and up to the bed where Bucky finally squirmed out of Steve’s grip and threw them both on top of the down comforter, the whole of his body weight holding Steve down. He threw up his elbow and managed to pin it on top of Steve’s throat as he writhed beneath him. He could feel Steve sucking in air, and he could feel his heartbeat under his forearm. It was almost in time with his own. He grinned. “Say it.”
Steve sputtered underneath him, and threw his head in all directions trying to get loose, but he couldn’t manage to move enough to gain purchase. He finally stilled and Bucky bent his head down a little closer--enough to brush his nose gently against Steve’s left ear. “Say it,” he whispered again.
“Jerk.”
Bucky moved up slightly and fisted his hand through Steve’s hair--blond, vibrant, and obnoxiously without a single hint of grey. He pulled slightly--enough to make Steve wince. “Stevie…” He closed his eyes for a moment as he felt Steve start to go hard underneath him, then opened them again, and waited.
“Uncle.”
Bucky laughed, and released his grip then slowly rocked back for a moment--watched Steve’s eyes squint closed then open, pupils blown. He lowered his head back down and met Steve’s mouth with his own. Their kiss was long and passionate, and though it never needed to end, Bucky pulled away. He mouthed at Steve’s ear once more as his right hand reached for Steve’s belt buckle, then he slid down slowly.
***
The wind blew strong gusts through Steve’s hair as he rode. He was up in the hills today--miles from their small farm. As he crested the top of one of the ridges, he pulled in Adolin and the horse came to a halt underneath him. Steve felt a shiver of pleasure escape through his skin. There was something so surreal about having the strength to ride for miles, to reign in a horse, to leave the farmstead for the day and not worry about making it back. He knew this body, and still fell prey to the fears that came with being trapped small, but he was harnessing control over that.
He looked down to the landscape below as Adolin shifted underneath him. The creek that ran through their land was just a part of a mass of tributaries that all connected to the Snake River and they wove through most of the lower countryside here. There were windmills as far as he could see--harnessing the raw power of the air. Steve smiled at that: he had been born into an America that was suffering, and lived through the Great Depression, too many wars to count, and what seemed like an endless political battle on the inevitable destruction of the earth. To be alone in these hills watching the birth of a new age was...peaceful.
Adolin nickered underneath him and Steve reached down to rub along the horse’s jawline. “I know. Bucky’s waiting.”
He turned the horse, and kicked his legs against Adolin’s powerful body and they moved together, back towards home, back towards Bucky.
***
The discovery of their bodies together as they both aged was something magical. The weeks passed and turned to months, which slowly rolled into years and still each moment together was something new--each kiss, each shower, each night. Steve thrived in a world with medication. He still had a small build, but his daily ministrations on the farm and with Adolin had built up muscle in him that he never realized was possible back in 1940. Bucky discovered a love of long distance running, and quickly lost all his muscle mass in favor of the long, lithe figure of a marathoner. He went totally grey within a few years, and at nights when it got just cold enough, his joints in his fingers and hands swelled up so he could barely move them.
They relished this simple decay of cells. It meant age, and age meant change, and change was inherently human.
In the evening they would sit by the fire, or walk out through the orchards, or find their rock by the creek. They spoke of the trips they would never take, and the world they would never see, and the people they would never meet. They argued over music, and money, and who had done the dishes last. They went to bed angry and hushed, and sometimes they didn’t speak for days but the silence would always end. They lived.
In May of 2068, they got the call from Sharon, and made their way back to New York for Tony’s funeral. He had lived longer than any of them thought possible, even longer than many of their other friends. He’d gone out in typical Tony fashion. He’d spent the last few years of his life unbeknownst to anyone else re-modeling the Avengers tower and turning it into an enormous complex dedicated to space exploration and the future resettlement the human race on nearby planets and moons. There were apartments dedicated to freely housing the staff and their families, and he left his entire fortune to the upkeep and support in hope for a better future. He then donned the suit for one last ride; shot himself as far into space as possible, and crashed down in glorious fashion--calculating it perfectly to land in the uninhabited Sahara.
The pure ego of the entire thing was incredible.
Steve missed him terribly.
That they would live to see friends die seemed too high an admission to pay for what they had now. Steve felt the guilt strongly for not being there--for outliving them all. Bucky whispered the words he’d seen scrawled in Steve’s journal in hushed tones;
“We deserve an ending.”
“I know.”
***
Sharon passed not long after. She was the last of the Carter line. They traveled to England this time and Steve spoke at her service, then kissed her gently one last time. When he sat back down in the pew of the crowded church, Bucky squeezed his hand tightly and Steve let out a shuddering breath. Their past was ash in their mouths and dust in their eyes. They’d stretched passed their time, into someone else’s world and time felt frozen around them.
“Steve?” Bucky asked, from the comfort of the clean white hotel room bed.
“Hmm?” Steve was standing at the window, watching the drizzle fall on pedestrians.
“Let’s not go home yet.”
Steve turned, and glanced at him sadly. “What?”
Bucky cleared his throat and repeated himself. “Let’s not go home. Yet. We can phone Elisa and she’ll take care of the place for us, she'll take care of Adolin. I want…” he stood up and crossed the room in a few short steps and Steve looked right in those perfect brown eyes. “I want to go back to where we began. Let’s go back to Brooklyn.”
Steve swallowed and felt his heartbeat quicken. “It feels so lonely now,” he whispered.
“It’s never been lonely with you. Not for a minute.”
Steve reached out and kissed him gently--just long enough to taste the salt on his lips. He nodded, just once, and a slow smile danced at the corner of his mouth. “Do you want to go around again?” He backed up and reached out a hand, as if offering a dance, as if offering a second chance at life.
Bucky took his outstretched palm in his own. “I do.”