Chapter Text
Bucky is standing in front of him in place of Sam, at the other side of the corridor, his face covered in a black mask, long hair curling around his face and a little wet with - sweat, maybe? There are black gloves on his hands and long sleeves covering his arms.
“Hey Steve,” Steve can’t see the smile on his face but he can hear it in his voice, tentative and gruff as it is.
Steve looks to the right and sees Sam holding a big black bag that looks full.
“You got Sharon in there?”
Sam just snorts and looks down, wrapping his fist into the plastic.
“Um, no… So, basically, I have the clothes Bucky walked over in and he changed into these clothes,” he points at Bucky’s body, “here so he was less likely to be contaminated when he got to you.”
Steve looks between the two of them, before staring directly at Bucky, “I thought you couldn’t leave.”
Bucky is sweating profusely, staring at the ground under Steve’s feet, tapping out a shaky rhythm against his thigh with his fingers. Then Bucky is glancing at Sam and shrugging. Even with his bad hearing, Steve can hear how heavy he’s breathing.
Steve looks to Sam for an explanation.
“The last few weeks, we been working on him getting out… Getting here.” Sam looks at Bucky with a proud grin, “we made it to the door downstairs two weeks ago so it was time.”
Steve turns back to Bucky, who’s looking a little worse for wear. Like he’s literally about to faint.
“Two weeks?”
Sam grins, glancing between Steve and Bucky and looks proud.
“Two weeks. Got a Covid test just after and has isolated ever since... To see you.”
Steve feels like his body has been whipped by a heavy wind. He stares at Bucky, the sweat clinging to his brow, his tapping finger, his darting eyes.
“For me?” Steve whispers, but before anything else can happen, Bucky sways a little on his feet.
Sam suddenly looks a little rushed and more than concerned, moving slowly towards Bucky.
“Okay, so I hate to rush this but Bucky’s basically decontaminated and it's the longest he's stood in one place so can he come in and I’ll be back for him later?”
Steve’s eyes flick between the two; Bucky’s ashen face and Sam’s frantic eyes, so he just nods. Sam doesn’t touch Bucky but he does whisper something that’s too low for Steve to catch. Steve moves away, behind the door and lets Bucky stumble through before Sam is walking backwards down the hall.
“Steve, call me!” And then he’s gone.
He closes and locks the door and leans his forehead against the cold laminate door for a deep, steadying breath before he turns around. Bucky is unmoving, his back to Steve, but his shoulders are visibly trembling.
“Hey Buck? You wanna go down the hall there, to the left, and use the bathroom?”
Bucky just nods and stumbles away, careful not to touch off anything. Once the bathroom door clicks shut, Steve pulls off the mask because it's making him feel more than a little claustrophobic, and he’s at the kitchen sink then, cupping water into his hands to scrub soap into the skin for two Happy Birthdays before he’s splashing clear water over his face and neck.
Something suddenly dawns on him and he turns to look around the room, eyes landing on the paintings of Bucky. He just about manages to move them into the coat closet before Bucky returns.
Steve turns to look at him. He’s wearing all black but his socks are red with little black stars on them and Steve realises that, even in his state, Bucky managed to kick off his boots at the front door. They’re both silent and much more than two metres apart but Bucky won’t look at him.
Steve turns to the kitchen, making his way to the little alcove.
“Buck? You want something to dr-?”
“I love you.”
His voice is low but Steve heard it clear enough to whip his head around and stare.
“What?” He can feel his eyes grow wide and wet and then Bucky is looking at him, and he still looks shaken and terrified but maybe it’s for other reasons.
“Fuck,” Bucky whispers, staring at his feet, “I was supposed to wait to tell you that.”
Steve can’t move, his skin is too hot and too cold and he has lost the use in his arms, like he’s been climbing the walls and has just since stopped. Bucky continues.
“I -” he starts before clearing his throat, “I know I’ve been gone for so long but I had to make sure I could leave before I told you.”
Steve is sure Bucky’s words are supposed to make sense but his blood is rushing in his ears.
“I don’t understand.”
Bucky wipes his eyes with his sleeve, glancing at the couch.
“Can we sit?”
When they’re sitting, Steve has his knees pressed to his chest, turning fully to Bucky; Bucky has one leg bent up between them, but his hands are in his pockets – gloves removed some time amongst the chaos – and he looks so uncomfortable it makes Steve relax a little.
Bucky pulls his hands out of his pockets without saying anything, he won’t meet Steve’s gaze as one flesh hand and one metal hand are revealed.
It's – unexpected. But something that niggled in the back of Steve's mind since they first met eases with the knowledge. It explains that little lopsided shrug he does, the way he pulls his sleeves down over his hands, how soft and shy he is in spite of his striking beauty; the nightmares, the fear.
He’s beautiful.
“Your arm?”
Bucky is frantically nodding,
“S’why you didn’t wanna pose topless?”
His head still nodding, his breath shudders.
“Talk to me, Bucky.”
He’s taking deep steadying breaths in strict increments like how Sam taught Steve to breathe through his numerous stresses. He taps out a staccato rhythm with his right hand.
Eventually, he seems to calm, if only slightly.
“Sam told you some stuff?” His voice is tiny, like that night he called Steve, and it breaks his heart.
“Yeah, I mean, he didn’t tell me about your arm or nothing, just, him playing around in our lives,” he tries for a joke that falls immediately flat.
Bucky frowns, nodding, eyes staring into the middle distance, his back rigid. The silence stretches like taffy.
“I was captured,” Bucky starts on a whisper, “when I was overseas. They had me for eight months,” he continues like he’s reading a story about someone else, “they took my arm. By the time I got back, my mom and dad had been dead four months and Becca thought I was dead too.”
Steve’s romantic idea of Bucky immediately shatters before his very eyes and something real shimmers into place.
Bucky flexes his metal fingers before looking up.
“I was the only survivor and, for some reason, they thought I deserved accolades and a fucking state of the art arm.” He snorts but it lacks any humour. His eyes are haunted and the sight makes Steve a little sick but he can’t look away.
“Didn’t you? Deserve it, I mean?”
Bucky breaks his gaze and looks back down at his hand, sniffling, “what made me so special that I got out? I shoulda died there with them.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Steve attempts a smile but he thinks his wet eyes might ruin the overall effect.
Bucky laughs lightly and if that isn’t the best sound Steve has ever heard in his whole life. He loses his train of thought because Bucky reaches out to bridge the gap between them. Not touching, just resting his flesh hand on the cushion by Steve’s leg.
“Me too. For the first time since - ”
The silence between them isn’t uncomfortable, Steve allows it to wrap around them so that Bucky has time to reveal more if he sees fit.
“I had a string of setbacks at Christmas…” he whispers, “their anniversary. Christmas Eve… It’s always pretty bad but this was the worst. Haven’t left the house since then.”
Steve’s stomach is churning like there’s a herd of buffalo trapped in there, so much so he feels a little light-headed. He’s almost afraid to ask, to break the spell that has settled between where their eyes are locked.
“What changed?”
Bucky bites back a sad smile, scrubbing at his eyes.
“Met this cute blonde.”
Steve can’t help the bark of a laugh, whispering, “asshole.”
Bucky finally grins, letting his head fall back against the couch, “he’s a feisty one,” he’s still staring into Steve’s eyes, “he made me laugh when no one else could, made me reveal things he didn’t even know were secrets.”
Steve scrubs at the itchy corner of his eye, his knuckles coming back damp.
“I was falling in love with him and then I fucked up. Called him during a flashback, found out his friend and my friend were the same person… A meddling douchebag.”
Bucky turns so his body is facing Steve a little more.
“All the paranoid thoughts kicked back in, the self-hatred, the fear so I stopped talking to him.”
Steve tightens his hold on his knees and breaks eye contact. He can’t swallow around the lump in his throat. He tries to smile as his lip quivers, “you broke my heart.”
Then Bucky is moving, almost frantic to touch, but holds back, sitting so close, he may as well touch him.
“Fuck Stevie,” he looks utterly devastated, “I’m so, so sorry.”
Steve is sure that he looks a mess but he still lifts his head to look at Bucky because he's nothing is not hard-headed.
“I made my peace with you never talking to me again,” Bucky’s face falls, “I…” Steve's voice sounds high and distressed, even to his own ears, “I was just as confused as you, Bucky! Sam did that to me too.”
Bucky's rigid back deflates, his shoulders curling in on him. His flesh hand shakes through the couch but his metal hand is perfectly still.
“I – I wanted to talk to you, Steve, I promise. I just...” He looks up and his pale eyes are wet and glistening in the corners, “it's like I forgot how.”
Steve settles back into the cushion and stares at the far wall, his mind whirling. He tries to think of Bucky. How he must have felt.
When he looks back at Bucky, he's staring. Bucky is staring at Steve's face with a misture of sadness and wonder. He doesn't look like he's going to say anything so Steve decides to pick himself up by his big boy pants and speak.
“I missed you,” his swallow clicks in his dry throat, “I never met you and I missed you.”
Bucky looks like he's going to burst of his skin where he is sitting, fingers tangled together, face pale and cheeks bright pink. His voice is quivering.
“Can I touch you?”
It's all he has wanted, he tries to swallow the thickness in his throat. He hasn't been touched in so long and all he wants is Bucky. Steve's breath whooshes out of him and tears spring to his eyes.
“Stevie...” Bucky coos, moving a little closer and studying Steve's face like he's seeing him for the first time. When Bucky pushes his index finger against the seam of Steve's sweats, he yearns. He's breathless when the words fall from his lips. “Talk to me.”
Steve is staring at the space between them, noticing Bucky's purple under eyes and the burst blood vessel near a sharp grey iris.
“Why are you here, Bucky?”
Bucky frowns like he wasn't expecting it. Steve didn't mean to throw this at him in such a way.
“I – I told you, I lov -”
Steve turns and Bucky's face has fallen ashen.
“You haven't spoken to me in, in weeks, months, even? You... and then you just turn up here and tell me you love me?”
And he's really trying his best to keep it together because it's too good to be true, it's too much.
“I – Steve...”
“What changed, Bucky?” He inhales and exhales in a gentle rhythm, Sam would be so proud.
“Sam gave me your paintings.”
Steve feels his face flush, blood-hot, he had forgotten about it. Well, not so much forgotten, but he had cut out the image of Bucky actually seeing the paintings he had put so much work into. He can't say anything.
“I could barely believe how you had painted me but,” he gives a little self-deprecating laugh, “it was the painting of you that... well, it made me feel things, I guess?”
Steve glances up at that, out of the corner of his eye, but Bucky is staring at his own hands.
“Feel what?”
Bucky frowns, “it's hard to explain... I, it just, um, made me feel... less alone? Like, as selfish as it sounds, but I guess I was happy – or not happy - but it was good, like, comforting to know that. And I mean, comforting is also a weird way of phrasing that. Um, I'm not one of thse people who sees myself in, well -”
“Bucky!” Steve cuts him off with a soft chuckle before the poor man talks himself into a stroke. Bucky lets out a long forced breath.
“You know what pain is. I could see that you see yourself the way I see myself. It's not good or healthy, I suppose, but it's honest and, and I thought, y'know, I had left you feeling this way and you had shown me this really personal, like, I felt like you were showing me your diary or something and I couldn't stop thinking about how... Fuck, how I had just left you all alone, after all that.”
Steve slumps, unsure what he can say.
“I abandoned you when we were both hurtin', Steve, and I, I really fucked up. I fucked it all up.”
Steve's nose is itching and his throat is tight like a fist, the back of his eyes burning and, fuck, he can't just cry all over Bucky. But it seems like his body won't just get on board with his plan.
“It's not all fucked up,” Steve whispers, “you hurt me but, but it's not all fucked up.” A wayward tear slips out but Steve hopes that rubbing it away quickly enough means others won't follow.
“Can you forgive me?”
The words are gruff and, maybe Steve isn't the only one desperate to keep his emotions in check.
“You can't do this again, Bucky,” Steve turns and studies his face, “you talk to me. You talk to someone else, and you talk to me. You don't shut me out. You shut me out again and we're done. Over.”
Bucky bites his lower lip and his silver eyes glow with tears until he turns his face away. He looks defeated, torn in two.
“I'm so fucked up, Steve. I can't promise I'll always make the right decision.”
Steve turns towards him again, “neither will I. But all you gotta promise is you will try not to shut me out. That's it. You can have bad days and nightmares and cry and stay in bed all day beause you're too sad to get up. But I wanna be there, I want to hold you when you're scared, an-and dry your tears when you're sad and bring you tea when you can't face getting up.”
Bucky's face is in his hands and his back is shuddering. Steve moves closer and gathers Bucky's wide shoulders against him, his large body curled up, making him seem so small and delicate.
“I'm gonna have bad days too, Buck... I'm gonna have bad health days and shuffle around because my back has seized and get pneumonia every January like clockwork and I get into fights whenever I can actually leave the house, and I'm stubborn and I'm still lonely for my ma and I hate myself more often than not and I have the weirdest sleep -”
Bucky wraps his arms around Steve, stopping Steve's words on his lips. They stay wrapped in each other, Bucky smells warm and a little sweet, like leftover cologne, and whatever he uses to keep his hair looking like that.
His face is pressed to Steve's neck and collarbone and his breath condenses against Steve's skin. Bucky's lips purse into a kiss and Steve shudders in response.
Buky pulls away slowly and presses a kiss to Steve's cheek. Steve's eyes close in a daze until Bucky's voice carries across his lips.
“Can I kiss you?”
Steve doesn't even open his eyes at the request, just tilts his chin forward, and trusts Bucky to meet his mouth. And then he does.
Bucky's hands cradle Steve's face like he's something precious before one wraps around the back of his neck. It feels like a roaring fire and rain pattering on a windowpane and Christmas Eve and lazy Sundays and too many blankets and hot chocolate and...
That's until Bucky's gentle tongue sweeps deftly against the crease of Steve's mouth, sighing as it opens, welcoming him inside. Bucky's lips curl into a smile and Steve can't help but reciprocate, grinning like a mad man, curlng his fingers into Bucky's shirt.
And then Bucky is pulling away, pressing chaste kisses around his cheeks and mouth and Steve can't remember ever feeling this... loved?
Steve opens his eyes and stares at Bucky, before lying back and tugging the bigger man with him. But Bucky is reluctant.
“I'll crush you!”
Steve just laughs and pulls more forcefully, “my doctor recommended a weighted blanket so you're just saving me money.”
Bucky snorts and rolls so half his weight is on the couch where he is squished between the cushions at the back and Steve's small frame, with his arm and leg and a half (a third) of his torso settles over him.
Bucky turns Steve's face so he can stare into his eyes and Steve can barely believe this is really happening.
“Let me make it up to you. Let me stay. I'll stay until you want to get rid of me.” His thumb traces Steve's jaw and he can feel where the calluses are rough but his touch is like a spring breeze.
Bucky's face is serene, hopeful, and Steve doesn't understand how someone can look at him like that.
“You really wanna stay here?” Bucky nods, eyes open and sweet, and it makes something quiver in Steve's chest.
“And if I don't wanna get rid of you?”
Bucky smiles, rolling his lips into his mouth, “then you won't get rid of me.”
They are silent for a minute before Steve presses a kiss to Bucky's forehead.
“I love you too, you know?”
Bucky sticks his face back into Steve's neck and sighs, “now I do.”
The sun travels slowly across the sky and they just lie together, sharing an occasional kiss, hands gliding slowly across skin-warmed clothing. Steve breaks the silence with a whisper.
“Sam will never let us live this down.”
Bucky just scoffs, sound sleepy and relaxed.
“Sam can eat my entire ass if he thinks this lets him off the hook.”
Steve bursts out a laugh that he can't contain until Bucky kisses him into silence.