Chapter Text
I dug my heels in for the winter
And I waited for the snow
But something was stuck up in the clouds
Something was stuck up there
It couldn’t let go
the mountain goats - black pear tree
Steve doesn’t know how to respond, so he takes another big bite on the garlicky pizza and then almost chokes on it.
“Hey,” Cait says, head tilted to one side. She pushes a glass of water into his hand, but Steve has to cough a few more times before he can bring himself to take a sip.
“That’s how it is, huh?” she says, with a lopsided smile. “Someone mentions kissing... You choke on your food...”
“That’s not --” Steve says.
“You haven’t done this for a while, huh,” she says.
It’s true, but Steve feels kind of hurt. “I date,” he says. “I’ve dated.” He doesn’t say, I didn’t realise that that’s what this was, because he kind of did. He just... he forgot that he was doing it . And he doesn’t want to say, it’s fucking frightening and I’m not sure I even want to do it .
“Hmm,” Cait says, and she looks thoughtful as she takes a long sip of her wine.
---
There’s a storm in the air by the time they leave the restaurant, full of pizza and wine and -- well, on Steve’s part, anyway -- nervous energy that hasn’t found an outlet.
Cait puts out a hand and turns it around, as if she’s dowsing for rain. “I think I’ll get a cab,” she says. Steve still doesn’t know where she lives.
They don’t kiss, but she says, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and Steve doesn’t think -- what? Until she’s already in the cab, vanishing quickly down the road.
---
She meant the games night, of course. Excellent.
“This beer is terrible,” Steve says, but he takes another gulp of it anyway. It’s just him and Sam -- he’s looking through the games and drinking Sam’s beer while Sam puts together a lot of snacks.
Hey, it’s not Steve’s fault that he always turns up to parties on time. Don’t say seven if you don’t mean seven . “I’m not letting Kate or Clint near Cards Against Humanity,” he adds, and hides it behind Sam’s fancy big box of chess.
“If people want good beer,” Sam says closing the oven door, “they can bring it themselves. I’m not a bartender.”
Steve can’t really argue with that. “Light beer,” he says, though, kind of wounded. He hasn’t brought anything himself, which is why he’s hurt by it.
“I really want people to bring their own beer,” Sam says. “I’m providing the damn games. You owe me drinks.”
--
Cait turns up not long after. She’s got a bottle of fizzy wine and she’s brought along two games of her own. “They’re my aunt’s,” she says. They look like they’ve never been used.
“ Codenames ,” Sam says. “Nerdy aunt, huh.”
“Think my cousin just buys her them as gifts,” Cait says, and tosses her blonde hair behind her shoulder. “Anyway, you know, thought I should contribute to the party.”
“And I appreciate it very much,” Sam says, gravely. He puts the wine in his icebox.
--
“Oh, my god,” Kate says. “Remind me to never, ever play Pandemic with this sorry lot of semi-superheroes ever again, Steve.”
Steve is covering his eyes because he can’t bear to look at the board. “It’s carnage,” he says. He pauses for a second and then adds, hopefully, “Are we going to go again?”
“You really out for more pain?” That’s Bucky’s voice. Steve jumps up and turns around. When did he arrive?
Bucky’s leaning against the door. He’s in a jacket and baseball cap. Is he stopping? “Want a game, Bucky?” Steve asks. He gestures at the board. “Maybe our luck is about to change.”
Bucky stares at him for a second and then looks away. “Who knows,” he says. “Stranger things certainly have happened.”
“Why don’t we try something else then come back to it,” Cait says, reasonably. She picks up Codenames. “Let’s split into teams! I’m tired of everybody being on the same side!”
It’s a totally innocuous thing to say. Maybe it’s even charming. But right that second, Steve wants to scream at her to just stop talking. Please, stop talking.
Bucky turns away and looks like he’s about to make his retreat. “No, uh, that’s OK,” he says. “I’m not sure --” and then he walks right out of the room.
“Excuse me,” Steve says, and he runs out after him.
He catches Bucky on the stairs, and he says, “Hey?”
Bucky stops, waits a moment and then twists back. He looks tired. “Yeah, Steve?” he says.
“You don’t have to play if you don’t want to,” Steve says. “But don’t you -- don’t you want to just hang out for a while? We’ve got some wine, and snacks...”
Bucky rubs at his face, and he doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes. “I’m really tired,” he says, finally. “I’ve been looking at apartments--”
“You’re not staying here?” Steve says.
“No,” Bucky says. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Steve feels like he’s been smacked in the chest; like all the air has been knocked out of him. “Oh,” he says, quietly. He can’t think of what else to say. “You don’t think--”
Cait appears at the door to Sam’s apartment. “Hey, we’re about to start,” she says. “Oh hi, Bucky. You want to join too?”
“No. Night,” Bucky says, and he disappears up the stairs with extreme haste.
Steve sighs. “Give me a moment, Cait,” he says.
She smiles and goes back inside. Steve doesn’t follow Bucky -- he’s not sure what to say. It’s all such a big mess. He thought that -- after their conversation on the roof the other day, he had hoped that things were getting better. But suddenly it’s like they’re back -- weeks ago. Months. Before the attack.
It was like Bucky was a stranger again. Or worse -- like he’s angry at Steve, and Steve has no idea how to fix it if Bucky won’t talk to him. Is there even anything to fix?
He goes back to Sam’s apartment and plays a round of Codenames, but he begs off early to bed. It’s not until he’s in his own bed that he remembers Kate’s apartment, and her spare room. But this -- this building, for better or worse, it’s home.
He thinks about Clint, and all of his secrets. The way that he’s been unwilling to accept that the people he’s surrounded himself with are his family, just as surely as Barney is. Maybe Steve would do better to keep that in mind too.
Steve falls asleep to rain -- real rain -- falling against the windows.
--
Steve has never thought of himself as particularly quiet, or as much of a pushover. But he’s starting to think that maybe he is, and he’s just never noticed.
He’s happy to help out when people need his help. And usually if someone else takes the time to explain their point of view about something to him -- he can see where they’re coming from. Especially if they’re a friend or someone he already trusts and respects.
But this situation is getting out of hand. He’s barely said two sentences to Cait in which he’s actually expressed his interest in the roadtrip, and he wakes up the next morning to three texts about it and an email mapping out a route.
He looks at the email with a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Did I mention that I get extremely carsick,” Steve says, in an email back to her.
“Kate’s said she can lend us some futuristic car her dad’s getting rid of,” Cait says in her reply. “You will not believe the suspension on this baby.”
I’ll bet , Steve thinks.
Steve finds himself on the roof, alone. He thought Clint might be up here, but he’s not. When it’s empty, it’s a different place. He likes it. Last night’s rain has dissipated, and it’s kind of crisp and warm and just full of the distant (and not-so-distant) sounds of city life.
He’s been up there by himself for ten minutes, doing nothing in particular, when he realises that he needs to tell Cait that he really does not want to go on a road trip across the country with her. Not next week, anyway. If he’s ever going to do that, it’s going to need to be planned out a long way in advance.
He’s just written out a few paragraphs explaining this as best as he can, and he hits send as he hears footsteps on the stairs. He’s expecting it to be Clint, but it’s not. It’s Bucky. He’s wearing the same cap as the night before, and he looks as tired as Steve feels.
Bucky keeps walking until he’s only a few steps away from Steve. They’re alone. They’re close. Steve feels slightly dazed.
“Hi,” Steve says.
“Rebecca says that Cait was enquiring about the spare room on eighth,” Bucky says. “For when you’re back from your trip.” There’s a very intense look in his eyes.
“Oh,” Steve says. It’s the first he’s heard of it.
“Look,” Bucky says, his voice rough. He looks directly at Steve and then up at the heavens. “I don’t-- I like it here. But I’m not like the rest of them, and I don’t want to be in the way.”
Steve takes a moment to parse this. He’s not sure where to begin. “You don’t have to be like the rest of them,” he says. “Have you met them? They’re a nightmare.”
Bucky smiles, but it’s not a happy smile. “Steve. Help me out here. Did Rebecca hear right? Because -- I can’t --”
“Bucky,” Steve says, taking pity on him. “I am not going on a roadtrip with Cait.”
“That’s not what she seems to think.”
Steve sighs. “And as far as I know, she’s not moving in here. She’s a live-in carer for--”
He pauses, and frowns. Huh. He’d almost forgotten about that. He shakes his head to clear the thought -- now is not the time.
Bucky is looking at him, seriously. “You sure, Steve?”
“Yes,” Steve says, willing the seriousness he wants to project to actually project, even though he feels like maybe his voice has gone a bit funny. “Yes,” he says, again. “She’s not moving in to the apartment on eighth. Clint has said nothing about that. She’s not even asked me about it. You sure Rebecca heard right?”
Bucky shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe we’re jumping to conclusions,” he says. He still sounds cautious, but he seems to be slowly deflating. Good.
“OK,” Steve says. “OK. Don’t worry.” His phone starts to ring, and when he glances at the screen and sees that it’s Cait, he grimaces.
“Take it,” Bucky says. “I’d better, um, Rebecca is waiting, so--”
It’s not until Bucky’s left and Steve’s saying hi to Cait to that he realises the error. The maybe-error. Like when he was a teenager, and he told Bucky that Peggy had a girlfriend and so he wasn’t dating her.
He should have told Bucky that the apartment on eighth was his, always his. It didn’t matter if Cait wanted it or not. Bucky was the important one; he’d been offered it first. And he’s the one Steve wants to see every day.
Stupid .
“Hey, so how’s your aunt?” Steve says, as soon as he can get a word in. Cait pauses.
“She’s doing -- really great,” she says. “Yeah.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Steve says. “It’s a really bad time.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to pick up on that,” Cait says, quietly.
--
Steve talks to Cait for about an hour, and it’s quietly excruciating. By the tie he hangs up he feels like his ear’s on fire, like his brain is about to melt, and yet -- and yet. He really wants to speak to Bucky.
It’s not over, he thinks. He doesn’t want it to be over. He doesn’t want Bucky to leave -- just because he’s not been clear enough. Just because they’ve been living in the same building for months now and they’ve never had a proper, honest conversation.
Steve takes the stairs two at a time and practically runs to Rebecca’s apartment. He barely feels a twinge in his legs. He’s healing. He’s getting better every day.
--
“Yeah, come in,” Rebecca says. Steve hasn’t even said his name. But who else would it be? Everybody in the building knows everybody else.
Steve pokes his head in. Bucky’s there, sitting at the kitchen table with some sheets of paper spread in front of him and a look of intense concentration on his face. Steve hopes he’s not filling out paperwork for a new apartment.
His heart leaps into his throat. God, no. It can’t be, can it? That would be much, much too fast.
But -- it’s New York. Everything’s fast here, except the transportation.
“Wondering where you’d got to,” Rebecca says. “Bucky said he found you on the roof ages ago.” She’s packing up her handbag.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “I had to talk to Cait. Tell her I’m not going away with her on a roadtrip next week.”
“I see,” Rebecca says. She looks a bit like she’s trying not to laugh. “Well, I am surprised.”
“She seemed to be,” Steve admits.
“Steve, I have never seen you look less enthusiastic, and on the day we met I made you put together Ikea furniture.”
“That was fun,” Steve mutters.
“That is exactly my point,” she says. She looks at her watch. “Bucky, come on, we’re going to be late.”
Steve looks between them, confused. Bucky starts to arrange the papers. He’s still not looked up at Steve. He’s folding them and putting them in a brown envelope. It looks exactly like the kind of envelope -- no, Steve thinks. It could be anything.
“We’ve got to catch a lawyer before the office closes,” she says. And Steve feels like he’s going to throw up.
“Yeah,” he says, like that’s a thing he already knew and not a huge slap in the face. His mind is made up, then. Even though Steve told him the room here was available. Maybe -- maybe Bucky really does just want out. Out of this building, out of Steve’s life.
Bucky stands up, then leans back down and writes something on the envelope. Rebecca shoos them both out of the apartment. “Well, catch you later?” she says.
Steve nods, inanely. Like, yes. This is all normal, thank you, and we will definitely hang out later, once your brother has handed over all of the paperwork for a nice new sensible apartment, probably in Staten Island or somewhere I will never, ever visit. “Later,” he says, like a shitty echo.
Steve stands in the stairwell and watches them go. He turns away once they vanish from his sight, and starts the ascent to his own apartment. His legs feel heavy again.
But he’s only gone a few steps when Bucky reappears and thrusts the envelope into his hands.
“What--” Steve says, but Bucky gives him one terrified stare, and then vanishes again as soon as he appeared.
Steve looks down at the envelope. It’s big, rough brown paper. And on the front, inked in thick black pen, it says one word:
STEVE.
Bucky’s handwriting is intimately familiar. Steve traces it with his thumb, and thinks of all those days they spent sitting together in classes, in each other’s apartments, copying notes, passing notes, writing on their hands and arms and designing tattoos they never got, and --
He has to open it. He’s never felt so scared in his entire life.
He follows his feet.
The next things he knows, he’s alone on the roof again. It’s still light outside, although it’s early evening. He turns the envelope over, and slides his thumb under the flap. He eases it open. It’s time.