Chapter 2
The next day, Steve leaves with Natasha for Turkey. He’s gone before sun up, and leaves a note for Bucky on the counter next to the coffee pot, but Bucky hears him leave regardless. He’s been lying awake all night, resisting the urge to sit outside Steve’s bedroom door and maybe even muster up the courage to turn the knob and step in.
Steve’s been on missions since they’ve been at Stark Tower; he typically agrees to go once or twice a month. Bucky knows there’s no telling when he will be back, whenever the job is done, and he definitely isn’t going to risk going back to Tony Stark’s floor to ask about a mission.
The first night, he curls into the couch and watches Netflix, his current mission, until the pink rays of sunrise filter through the balcony door. On the second, his eyes are so heavy he can’t walk straight, and he runs into the door jamb on his way into his bedroom. Despite his exhaustion, sleep comes fitfully, dark, twisted nightmares that wake him to the sound of his own screams. His sheets are clammy and soaked in sweat as he pulls off his teeshirt and stands at his bedroom door, staring over at Steve’s empty bed across the hall. He grabs a pillow and takes his post, feeling sillier than usual. It’s not until the sun is streaming through the window that he gives up, tosses aside the pillow and crawls into Steve’s bed.
The sheets are cool and clean, but he sleeps soundly with his face buried in the pillow of his runty best friend, his familiar smell enveloping Bucky like a warm blanket.
A week has passed, and Bucky has made enough desserts to feed all of Wakanda and punched through every weight bag in the gym, including a pallet of concrete blocks that he hopes were for training. Somewhere around the fourth day, he takes a sideswipe just a little too hard, and the plates behind his elbow stick. He rotates the arm, waiting to hear the plates whirr back into place, but they drag over one another, little sparks tingling up Bucky’s forearm.
He inspects himself in the mirror with a curse: his elbow up to the tricep is a tangle of metal. The arm rarely malfunctions and when it does, someone from---
Suddenly, the room is too cold, too dark, and Bucky feels sick with loneliness. Even on the bad days, Steve is hovering around somewhere, like a giant hot water bottle begging to pull him back into the light.
Bucky darts toward the elevator and punches the button.
It doesn’t occur to him that it’s two in the morning until he sees that the floor is dark, save for a light on in the kitchen over the sink. He perches onto a stool at the counter, slowly opening and closing his fingers. He’s trying to move each plate meticulously back into place so he can get the hell out of dodge.
An almost inaudible intake of breath brings Bucky’s eyes off the metal fingers and up to see Tony Stark, clad in a faded Black Sabbath teeshirt and his boxers. He’s holding another empty glass.
Bucky expects a rainbow of colorful profanities, but instead, Stark blinks, then casually opens several cabinets until he finds a bottle of clear liquid. He takes it to the counter across from Bucky, pouring an impressive amount. Before he can bring it to his lips, Bucky gathers his courage and sticks out the arm, fingers lax.
“I don’t know how to fix it myself.”
An hour has passed in the lab before Tony starts talking, and when he does, it’s mostly nonsense. He starts mumbling about connectors and fuses, wiring harnesses and cables, until Bucky shakes his head a bit and realizes Tony’s asked him a direct question.
“How’s your touch sensitivity on this thing? You feel heat?” A nod.
“Cold?” Nod.
“Pain?” That makes Bucky pause. He’s deflected bullets with the thing, landed a several story drop, swung himself onto buildings with a flick of the wrist. As the Soldier, he used the arm as a tool to detain the asset at the time. Pain wasn’t a part of his vocabulary.
So he shrugs.
He expects a smartass comment from Tony about his intelligence, but instead the man swallows and carefully turns back the control panel open just above Bucky’s wrist.
Tony drains clear liquid from his glass, chasing a piece of ice.
“You drink a lot.”
Tony looks up at him like he’s a petulant child. “Maybe it’s because I’m working so hard harboring international criminals.”
“The blonde lady must not like that.”
“The blonde lady’s name is Pepper,” Tony says evenly, an edge to his tone.
Bucky lets out a little hum. “Pepper. She’s nice. Haven’t seen her around in awhile.” He risks a glance in Tony’s direction.
“You keep your mouth shut about my vodka consumption, and I won’t tell Captain Underpants you’ve been sleeping in his bed every night.”
Bucky fights the urge to cut a Winter Soldier-worthy glare at Tony and lets his eyes drop shut instead.
“Speaking of, have you, uh, have you heard from Steve?”
Tony huffs out a soft laugh, snapping a plate into place at Bucky’s forearm. “You’re boyfriend’s fine, Father Russia. Romanov’ll bring him back in one piece.”
He gives Bucky’s arm an experimental rotation, the plates whirring together in a familiar pattern.
“FRIDAY, give me an update on Rogers and Romanov.”
“Yes, sir,” the musical voice responds. Bucky tries not to flinch at the sound. He should be used to the AI by now, but the thought of all-seeing eyes around him makes panic prickle under his skin.
“Target acquired and terminated,” FRIDAY reports over the speaker a few moments later. “Building compromised, no survivors. Will need medical care upon arrival. Multiple GSWs taken by Rogers, Steven Grant. ETA 0500 hours.”
Bucky’s slamming the control panel door shut, shoving exposed wires back beneath the metal before Tony can open his mouth. His movements feel jerky and mechanical, and the Soldier threatens to creep in as he thunders to his feet.
“Take me up there. Now.” He doesn't realize he's barking orders in Russian until FRIDAY's voice tinkles out a translation for a steely-eyed Tony.
Bucky likes watching Steve sleep, because he looks so young and peaceful that it dredges up clearer memories of the days he misses the most, the ones that slip away from his mind like smoke through his fingers. In those days, Steve was small enough Bucky could gather him in his arms and carry him to bed when he was too weak to carry himself.
Thanks to his own supersoldier serum, he can still carry Steve, as he does now, his footsteps heavy and thudding despite the carpeted hallway leading to the elevator. He insisted, or more just glowered dangerously at Dr. Banner when he suggested letting Steve rest in the infirmary. Steve’s taken a bullet to the knee, one to the thigh, and one that left a deep graze along his side. The thigh shot was dangerously close to his femoral artery, and Natasha was covered in blood by the time they arrived back at the Tower. Her eyes were wild, looking as if she’d emerged from a Stephen King novel.
“You want a reason to tag along?” Suddenly Natasha was snarling in his face, flinging droplets of Steve’s blood. It spattered on the polished floor, the white walls, on the gleaming metal of Bucky's arm. She points toward the swinging doors that had just swallowed Steve up, the medical team wheeling him away to places Bucky is not allowed to follow.
“There’s your fucking reason. He goes running in there, no cover but that damn shield, like he’s made of metal. I can’t do it all by myself, you know.” She gestured to her blood-soaked catsuit, dancing along the edge of hysteria. He sees it in her bottomless blue eyes, the imperceptible twitch of her brow gives her away to only Bucky.
“You’re scared of yourself, Soldat, but you better be scared for him.” She'd turned to go down the hallway, stopping momentarily to add the crushing blow.
“I can’t stop him from being reckless, but you can. You may be the only one he cares about, but you’re not the only one who loves him,” she hisses, eyes cold. “сейчас неплохо играть хорошо, солдат.”
Then she'd left him alone in the hallway, bloody footprints following her out.
Bucky's head buzzes now as he rides down the elevator, Steve clutched in his arms. Tunnel vision leading him to their door, the adrenaline slowly making it's downward spiral in his veins. He takes deep breaths, hearing Steve’s gentle voice counting them, even if it's only in his head. Steve is sedated, his face calm and cheek tucked into Bucky’s chest, like he’s nuzzled there in his unconscious state. Bucky eyes comb over the bandages, ones on his leg, wrapped around his ribs, his bicep, the butterflies on his cheek. He knows Steve will be back sparring with Bucky again in two days, tops, but now he only sees red, sees Natasha’s bloody hands behind his eyelids. No matter how super Steve’s serum is, blood loss could put him six feet under and make sure he never comes back again.
Bucky pushes on the bedroom door and lays Steve gently down, pointedly ignoring the unmade bed that Steve would notice were he awake to see it.
He wets a rag with warm water and wipes down Steve's body around the bandages in long, gentle strokes. Steve smells of antiseptic and iodine, and Bucky knows how uneasy the smell makes him feel, how it would be jarring to wake up to. He tucks the soft cotton comforter around the man and pulls over Steve's right hand to cradle it in his own, running the rag over each finger in an attempt to remove the blood that’s stained his palms.
Satisfied, Bucky runs lithe fingers over his wrists, the thick muscle on his forearms, down the divot in the bend of his elbow, and up over the round curve of his bicep. He’s never had the time to marvel at Steve’s new body, though he knows he’s wanted to, but chased the feeling away with embarrassment, blaming it on the fucked up state of his head. But Steve’s so different, chest swollen upward where it used to cave in at his clavicle, wrists big enough Bucky almost can’t wrap his fingers around them. He reaches a tentative hand up to brush Steve’s cheek. His face is still the same, handsome as ever.
He’s interrupted by the sound of lips parting, dry from anesthesia, and a slow rush of breath. Bucky jerks his hand away immediately, and looks up to Steve’s sleepy blue eyes. He feels a little light-headed at the tidal wave of emotion that passes over him.
“Heya, punk.” Bucky places a hand on Steve’s shoulder, thumb gently rubbing the skin.
Steve opens his mouth, but doesn’t say anything, wanting to speak, but to weak to do so. He gives Bucky a slow, sleepy smile, and suddenly it’s all Bucky can do to not burst into tears, an emotion he is completely unfamiliar with, because it’s Steve, his Stevie. The skinny boy brushing off Bucky’s worried hands years ago and the muscled man wrapped in white bandages now: they’re the same person. The same reckless, bleeding heart, the same spit-fire tongue, wise beyond his years and so loyal, so achingly loyal that it breaks Bucky’s old leathered heart in two. This whole time since he’s been back with Steve he’s wondered how he could feel present in this life, how he could be Bucky again without feeling the Winter Soldier bleed through like a double exposed photo, but this is it. He feels an urgency now, the emotion so present and raw that it pushes all the soggy, itchy memories of the past to the back burner and demands to be addressed now.
Steve, reckless Steve Rogers is broken in front of him. Bucky feels the need to be the Sentinel stronger than ever before.
This knowledge, this gut-feeling of knowing his place, feels like it’s always been there, like a puzzle piece he dropped behind the couch and found ten years later. The blurred lines become sharper, colors a little brighter, his body weightless, like it’s the first day of summer.
And Steve opens his eyes again and says, “Hey yourself, Buck.”
Bucky watches Steve doze on and off until his own head hits the mattress. He wakes, neck stiff and sore, to Steve’s cool palm on his flesh arm.
“C’mere,” he says, voice rough with sleep. He pulls on Bucky gently and pats the empty side of the bed. “S’no use’n you sleepin’ on the floor.”
Bucky comes to his senses, this newfound feeling of sharpness zeroing in on Steve’s situation. “Nah, Stevie. I'm good right here.” He rolls onto the balls of his feet, crouching at Steve’s level. .
Steve lets his gaze drop, and he rubs his cheek against the pillow before looking back up at Bucky through his lashes. Like a damn dame.
And despite his best intentions, Bucky toes off his shoes without a word and silently pads around the bed, sliding under the quilt beside his best friend like he always has. Seventy years of HYDRA and Cryo still haven't removed his soft spot for Steve Roger's baby blues.
“You okay? Need anything? Are...are you comfortable?” Bucky frets, worried eyes moving up and down Steve’s exposed skin.
“Need ya to quit mothering me and go to sleep,” he mumbles thickly, and Bucky just smirks, lying down on his back and staring up at the ceiling to pull his eyes away from Steve’s full lips slurring his words.
“Don’t act like you don’t wanna sleep with me, Buck, you’ve been in here all week.”
His eyes shoot open and he refuses not look over now. Bucky doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed by the fact that he’s been caught or by the implication Steve is making.
“Is that so, pal? Sounds like they gave ya a little too much laughing gas.” Bucky responds lightly.
“Yeah. The sheets smells like you, Buck. Even my pillow.”
Bucky swallows thickly, eyes still glued to the ceiling. He jumps when Steve lightly elbows him in the side. Bucky feels his long fingers run down the metal forearm and slot their fingers together, curling them up to hold his hand.
“Told ya you’d sleep better in here anyway.”