Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's not Steve's body that needs time to heal. No, the mess in the Potomac is long behind you.

But so is your last sighting of the Winter Soldier.

Or Bucky, which is the only thing Steve will call him. You slipped twice, and the second time you had to hear Steve's mouth for an entire week, a lecture a day about how you don't understand what Bucky's been through, how calling him the Winter Soldier strips him of his humanity. He didn't say that it made you anything like HYDRA, which is how Steve avoided being broken up with that week, but you kept bracing for it. It's just something you're used to. Your mother would tell you to stop dating white men, and you'd tell her she's right, even as you continued to do so.

You convinced Steve to take a break from the search. It's the kind of healing he needs, whether he can admit it or not. You sublet a little one-bedroom in DC, got yourself a job even though Steve is sitting on a mountain of interest from a bank account nobody ever closed out after his presumed death in the 40s. You like to feel busy. More than that, you could use a little normal after the past year of trawling the globe for a ghost.

A little normal doesn't have to mean boring, though. You linked up with Maria Hill in the aftermath of the fall of SHIELD, and she said she was starting a dance studio in DC. With espionage on the back burner, why not go after the dream of her four year old self? That's what she said, anyway, right before asking you if you'd want to join.

"Dance?" you remember saying, looking down at your gingham button-down and dockers.

Three months later and you've fully graduated to the comfort of dance wear, chic in top to bottom knitwear. You're also learning fast, your aerial skills translating well to the precision needed for the style of dance Maria's teaching. It's fast with a lot of big movements and tight turns and jumps, high energy and high concentration. There are days where it's a perfect substitute for flying.

You tried to get Steve to join you, knowing what an acrobat he can be on the battlefield, and knowing how badly he needs to be distracted from his failure to find Bucky. (You don't slip anymore.) And Steve, being a good sport, tried it once. Tried it once, couldn't figure out how to translate his ridiculous backflips into moving on beat, and gave up. He bought a whole new set of oil paints after that, and spent the rest of the week stretching his own canvasses.

You wonder sometimes, still, if the other reason he gave it up because it was one step too far in making him homesick for a long-dead era. Dancing to Missy Elliott in leggings and sneakers is a far cry from the Lindy Hop. But Steve insisted he was happy to take up art again, and while you progress in your dancing ability, Steve's artistic talent blossoms. He rents an art studio not far from the gym you work at, and you alternate between picking each other up, depending on how many hours Steve puts in painting. You don't see more than three examples of his work, but they're beautiful, loving and fluid, massive in their scale. All three pieces were portraits—of Natasha, of Nick Fury with both eyes exposed, and of you.

It's a Tuesday. Work ends early on Tuesdays, which you can admit you orchestrated around Maria's studio schedule. You drive up to the dance studio humming your current routine song, and sling your duffel bag full of clean dance gear over your shoulder as you get out of the car. You almost forget the aluminum water bottle Steve got you, which you ended up liking a lot more than you thought you would.

The studio is at the top of a narrow staircase, the door to which is next to a T-Mobile store. Maria didn't spring for a whole lot of signage, keeping things humble. The door opens into an entrance hall just as narrow as the staircase, with doors that lead to the changing room, Maria's office, and the actual dance studio itself. You knock on the changing room door, and let yourself in when you get no answer.

There's a kind of freedom about dance wear that extends beyond the comfort and range of motion it offers. You've always been a little straight-laced when it came to clothes, especially after being in the Air Force. You never wanted to conform to stereotypes, or at least that's what you told yourself whenever you considered stepping outside your khakis-and-button-down zone. But surrounded by people who all dress this way, in crop tops and leggings and shorts and joggers and anything else that's comfortable and aesthetic at the same time, people who don't comment on your gradual slide into androgyny, it's easier to explore. You're just still working up the courage to wear it outside. That, and trying dancing in heels. The only ones who have that down so far are Maria and Natasha.

Dressed for success in a big cut-up T-shirt that hangs off your shoulder and simple black leggings, you head into the studio. You open the door, and every head in the room turns your way to give you a chorus of all kinds of greetings.

The thing about the dance studio is that all of its current members have had some kind of involvement with the Avengers Initiative. Maria told people she knew about her idea, and it didn't get out much further than that.

You're also the only man in the room, and the only Black person, to boot. Flat out, it's a lot of white women (plus you) being taught by a stealth Latina, and without your shared experience with some of the wildest shit the universe has to offer, that might have been too much for you. But you get a place where you get to learn, expend the energy that builds up without being able to strap your wings on and blast off anymore, and make cracks about Tony Stark's dumb decisions, or Thor's celestial booty, or what the next alien invasion will be like.

"Thought you'd never get over here," Maria comments from the front of the room, thumbing over her head at the big analog clock on the wall. You're the last to arrive for the four o'clock session, and it's 4:05 by the studio clock.

"Oh wow, yeah, I'm so late," you say with a snort, even as you stretch your arms over your head.

Still, Maria takes another few minutes to chat with Natasha about something, and Darcy trots your way for sneaker talk. She thinks you're a little more interested in sneakers than you really are—okay, a lot more interested, like lowkey you suspect Darcy thinks every Black man is a raving sneakerhead—but yes, your sneakers are new, and yes, they're very comfortable. No, you didn't know how many kinds of Nike Huaraches there are, so no, you don't know which ones you picked up. But you do like them.

"Keep running through your stretches," Maria calls as she picks up a clipboard. She takes attendance for her own administrative purposes, and she checks her students off by eye. "Lose Control is higher energy than what we did last week, so I don't wanna hear any crying if anyone didn't get limber enough."

Maria puts the song in question on, lines of music makes you lose control repeating until the beat drops into fast-paced keyboard notes. It's just to get everybody into the spirit of it, or so Maria has said in the past, but what it means is that it masks sounds. It means you can't hear Darcy when you bend from the hip to put your hands on the floor in the space between your spread feet, and she leaves you alone to do her own stretches.

It also means nobody hears the door as it opens, but from your position you see it open, albeit upside down. You see a pair of booted feet step through and stand to one side of the door. The jeans that crumple over the tops of the boots are worn and a little dirty.

You rise from your stretch as Maria shuts off the music, and one by one everyone turns to face the interloper.

The first thing is that in a room full of flexible people in bright, easy clothing, this man is layered in dark clothes that seem to meld together into one sweat-permeated mass of cotton and polyester, and his entire body is pulled into itself. One hand is tucked into a jacket pocket, and the other clutches an off-brand smart phone like a lifeline. His hair has a greasy sheen to it, spilling out in short waves from under the cap that hides his eyes but not his stubbled jaw.

"Uh—" Darcy is the first one to open her mouth, but Maria is quick to interrupt.

"You can change in the room across the hall," she says to the stranger, who doesn't look up. More than half the room's occupants are giving Maria sharp looks, because there's never been an outsider in the class, but the fact is that the class has always been open, with an online class registration that goes through PayPal. When he doesn't move, she adds, "There's no boots in the studio, sir."

It's the floor that creaks when he finally moves, but it might as well be him with how stiff his movements are. He doesn't close the door behind him, and Darcy sashays over to nudge it shut with her toe.

"Who the hell is that?" she wants to know, and honestly, so do you.

"A new student," says Maria, who makes a check on her attendance clipboard. The whole room looks her way, even if they don't move toward her.

"We don't get new students," you say, folding your arms over your chest.

"Registration is open online," Natasha points out, as if you didn't know. "He paid for the class, so he gets the class."

"He's not even up to speed with us. We're halfway through this routine," Darcy says, which is a fair point. You never thought you'd see the day where you agreed so much with Ms. Darcy Lewis.

"And? We'll just take a step back to help him get there, and help him integrate." She points at each of you, even Nat, with her pen. "Play nice. This was never some Avengers-only club."

Darcy raises her hand. "I was never in the Avengers—"

"And neither was I. You know what she means," Sharon says, crossing her arms like you.

"Does he have a name?" Natasha asks, and you're glad she said it so you didn't have to.

"Well," Maria says, chewing her lip, "it says Jim Parnell."

"His name is not Jim Parnell." You slice a hand through the air. There's no way.

"It could be, it's not like there's not more than one person named Jennifer Lopez," Maria says, and Natasha nods sagely, as if she gives a fuck.

"Guys." Sharon nods at the door, and you bite your lip before any other objections can escape. Darcy looks like she wants to say something else, but Maria gives her a solid glare that gets a silent eye roll in return. The door opens slowly.

The stranger is still wearing jeans. In fact, he doesn't seem to have changed into anything so much as he peeled off a couple top layers and took off his shoes. You can see Maria's eyebrows twitch with concern as she takes in the sight.

"Do you need to borrow a pair of sneakers?" Maria says, and that surprises you because you didn't know she had a lending library of shoes on hand. It makes sense coming from Maria, though, if you take a moment to think it through.

He nods. "What size do you wear?" Maria asks, and the stranger tenses, his shoulders askew as he seems to pull into himself. He doesn't answer, though.

You spot Natasha frowning deeper and deeper as Maria takes a couple steps closer to this man. "I need to know your size, hon. What are you, a ten maybe?"

The man nods again, his face still pointed down, and Maria whisks out of the room. Looking at his feet yourself, ten is probably a decent guess, but you don't think this guy knows the answer at all. Natasha is chewing her lip practically in half, not even trying to be sly about inspecting the strange man.

You try to give her a sharp look when she starts to approach him, one of those leave it alone looks, but she doesn't pay you any mind. The stranger shuffles to point his body away from her as she sidles up, but she leans in anyway, and you see her mouth moving. You can recognize the curvature of Russian speech after being around her long enough.

She may as well have held a taser to his spine and pulled the trigger. His hunched posture vanishes, his face in full view as he stares at Natasha with lidless eyes. Recognition floods you, but your mind won't give you a name. Natasha looks back with a face almost as surprised—like she didn't expect that to work, whatever she just whispered to him. Her mouth moves, the beginning of a name. You've seen this moment before. Bucky? Steve had said.

Natasha doesn't get the chance to finish mouthing her name for this man. He starts to take tight steps back toward the door, a precursor to bolting out the door—you can see it in his whole body.

"I think these should fit you," Maria says as she ducks back into the studio. The man you think you know looks at her with a new kind of surprise, as if he'd forgotten she was getting something for him. "I'm pretty good at guessing shoe sizes by now."

Natasha is suddenly in the far corner of the studio, acting like a cat who fell off a table. The strange man is left with Maria pushing gently used Champion sneakers into his hands—which is also when you notice one of them is gloved. A man this grubby is the last person you'd expect to be channeling Michael Jackson, although the glove in question is plain, black, seamed. Recognition is starting to meet realization, but—no. It can't be.

The man goes to the wall to put on the shoes Maria brought him, and you trot over to Sharon. You were going to go ask Natasha about it, but seeing her so cagey makes you think twice.

"Don't say it out loud," Sharon says, before you can even say anything.

You don't get to say anything at all, in fact, because Maria steps to the front of the studio and claps her hands a few times for attention. "Alright, alright! Everybody!" She projects without shouting, just the way she did across the floor of the helicarrier not too long ago. Against your better nature, you turn your back to the man you know isn't just a random new student, facing Maria like everyone else.

"Now," Maria says, clasping her hands in front of her waist, "we do have a new student in the class, so we're gonna have to take a step back in our choreo to let him catch up." You glance over your shoulder, trying to be as discreet as you can in a room with barely ten other people, and catch the so-called stranger shuffling awkwardly against the wall. You can't help but look at his feet—and the sneakers are too big. You don't know how to feel about that. He hasn't said anything to Maria about it, though.

"Two options." Maria holds her fingers up in a peace sign. "One, we roll back and go over moves the rest of you already know, but nice and slow for the newcomer. Which for some of you," she says, eyeing Darcy, "would be a good refresher course. Get some bad habits out."

"Dance is about free expression," Darcy counters, but Maria ignores her.

"Two, we drop what we've been working on. It's been three weeks, but in the long run, three weeks is a blip to the universe, right? And we start fresh on a new song."

"Old song," Natasha says, face set. "Just because we took on someone new is no reason to throw out a perfectly good song."

"Is it that good?" Sharon asks, scrunching her nose just enough to make Nat huff at her.

"I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, I'm saying we should see it through to the end, and it's a perfectly danceable song, so why the hell not?"

"Or we could pick a better song," Sharon says, taking a step Natasha's way.

"Or we could hear from the rest of the class," Maria says, holding a hand up, and both women subside, just enough for Maria to wrangle control of the room back. You wonder if Fury knows she does this, putting his incidental lessons of how to be commanding to use in a dance studio. "I'm putting this to a vote. Hands up for option one."

Natasha's hand shoots up. Darcy's. Yours, even though Sharon bumps you with her hip and you can feel the heat of her glaring at you. Whatever, she can get her song choice next time. And you like to see things through, like Nat said.

"Option two?"

Sharon raises her hand so hard her shoulder might as dislocate. But she's alone, because New Student isn't weighing in at all, and she sighs as she lets her arm fall back to her side.

"Alright then. Let's roll it back." Maria fiddles with her phone in the corner where it's connected to the aux cord, while Sharon pinches the bridge of her nose. She'll get over it. She's a tough girl.

All the progress made over the past two weeks gets thrown out the window, and Maria runs slow motion drills of moves you've already got down pat. (She's right, though—Darcy needs to run through them again.) Natasha comes to practice with you, matched to your ease of movement and mastery of the beat. Sharon works hard, but sometimes her white girl soul gets the best of her, athleticism aside. She's working just as hard to pretend like Natasha isn't there, and you catch Natasha's eyes over Sharon's shoulders. Nat rolls her eyes.

The back of the room is Maria working with Darcy and the newcomer, but when you look—breaking from drills to catch a sip of water—it's a bigger disaster than you could have predicted. While Darcy is earnest in the way she shakes her body to Rihanna, the new student seems stuck. Literally, to the wall, eyes still hidden under the frayed brim of his baseball cap.

Maria looks up just in time to catch you staring, and she pleads with her eyes. Help me with this. As her official unofficial teacher's aide, you leave behind the ticking bomb of Natasha and Sharon alone together, trying not to let your jangling nerves show in your gait. Walk smooth, Wilson.

"Hey. You having some trouble?" Talk smooth, too, Wilson. You're so grateful your voice doesn't quaver. "You don't have to be shy here."

He looks at you. Not just at your shoulder, or your ear, but full on eye contact, and his eyes are such a watery blue, luminous without being bright.

This is the Winter Soldier.

Bucky.

These are the eyes you looked into before he threw you backwards to plummet hundreds of feet. To your death, as far as he intended, because all you were was a distraction to be swatted out of the sky. Disposable.

You know, after months spent with Steve, that he's a good man under bad influence. You know the facts of his brainwashing, his torture, his mutilation. You listened to Steve's stories of the Bucky that once was, chuckled at the stupid shit and squeezed Steve's hand over the deeper stuff.

But all your hands want to do is to ball into fists that will find their way to the Winter Soldier's jaw. All your feet want to do is take you through that door, keep running until you're safe. He tried to kill you. Your heart doesn't forget.

Bucky's chapped lips part, and his voice buzzes. It strikes you he probably doesn't use it much. "I don't know how to start."

The trepidation in his words startles you back into the real world, one where you're just a man in a dance studio about to show another man in too-big sneakers how to find the beat.

It's fucking unbelievable. You've seen the Winter Soldier engage in combat so fast and smooth it frightened you that anyone could be so agile, even after seeing Steve in action. Now his body is stiff, the muscles cold with how much he doesn't want to do this.

"You know what? You came in late," you say, glancing at Maria while Bucky looks at the wall clock. "So you missed warmups. Maybe that's it." That's very likely not it. But you're supposed to get him moving in some way.

You try to lead Bucky through stretches while giving Darcy your best mind your business glare. His jeans don't do much to help him. And god, you promise you're not petty, but the man smells. It's not the ripest thing you've ever smelled, but it's not good, especially when you have him do lunges to stretch his hamstrings.

By the time the hour is up, you haven't done much with him, but it looks like Maria did her teacherly duty and got Darcy to fix her form where previously it had been kind of busted.

You keep an eye on Bucky while you reconvene with Maria. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with him," you say, watching him watch everybody else mill around and pick up their belongings. "He's—I'm not the only one, right? Who figured it out?"

"Darcy might be the only one who hasn't," Maria snorts, just as good at keeping her voice down. You hope. Bucky doesn't seem to be paying you any mind, but that Great Value super serum probably still gives him better hearing than yours. For now he's just peeling off his borrowed sneakers. "I never thought he'd have little feet, though."

"I can't even address that." The part of you that's able to see Bucky as just a person, divorced from your shared past, wants desperately to get him bathed and take him shopping.

Your eyes flick down to your phone as it buzzes in your hand; a text from Steve. You don't even get the chance to bring the phone closer to your face to read it before Maria puts her hand on your wrist. "Don't," she says. Her voice is lower than ever.

"Don't reply?" She knows you're playing dumb, though. "Maria. That's not for you to decide."

"You can't make that choice either."

"He's been looking for—"

"Think about it!" Maria hisses. She's still doing her best to stay quiet. "If he wanted to find—" She gestures at your phone. Neither of you want to say Steve's name out loud while Bucky is still here. "Then he would have gone to find him already. Instead he's here."

"I can't keep this secret."

"You have to."

"I don't want to. I don't want to keep secrets from—from him."

Bucky is looking at you. Or rather, he's looking at Maria, because he wants to give the shoes back.

"It's not forever, Sam. Just for now." Bucky approaches, and Maria breaks away from her hushed conversation with you to thank him for returning the sneakers. There's a moment, as she talks to him about affordable options for dance wear if he chooses to return in three days, where Bucky is staring at you instead. Your shudder is involuntary.

He knows. He has to know.

Chapter Text

You haven't been to Steve's art studio in a minute. It's not that you don't want to, but more that you're two relatively busy grown men more interested in getting home to dinner and companionship than checking up on each other's hobbies.

Which, given the current roster of the dance studio, can only be a good thing.

Still, you finish your shift at the gym early—your last appointment rescheduled after getting bogged down in post-accident traffic—and text Steve while you putter around the locker room.

you still painting at the studio?

You pull your street clothes out of your locker while you wait for an answer, stepping on the heels of your sneakers to take them off. When they pass your face on their way to being put back in your gym bag, you frown; there's already a little hole forming in the neoprene. Thanks, Nike. Your phone buzzes.

Yeah babe. Are you done at work?

yup. reschedule. can i come watch a master at work?

I'm not doing a whole lot right now, but sure.

alright your side chick got half an hour to clear out before the main event arrives
that's me, fyi, i'm the main event

Sam, she lives here. Be nice

That makes you laugh. God bless this great-grandpa of a white man for being able to keep up with your jokes.

You don't exactly have to shower, but it makes you feel good, especially before going to see your man. You like pulling on clean clothes over clean skin, smelling the pleasing mixture of your body wash and detergent. You finish packing away your souring work clothes, push your feet into black leather boots, and head out the door, even if it takes a few extra minutes to say goodbye to everyone.

"Knock knock." You say it even as you physically knock on the open door of the studio.

Steve turns before you even begin the second knock, and a smile spreads across his face, earnest and bright. "Sam!"

"You say it like you thought I wasn't really coming," you snort. You only get the chance to take a few steps before Steve's already sweeping you halfway off your feet with an arm around your waist. Your duffel bag falls from your grip instantly, and you only just have the werewithal to kick it into a corner. He kisses you hard, but it's nothing lascivious. He's just happy to see you, is all.

Steve's studio is cleaner than you'd expect for a painter's work area, but it's still not neat or tidy. There's paint on his pilled grey T-shirt and on his exposed arms. He's got a few pieces in progress; it's just like Steve to not want to sit still when he's stymied by something. Music plays from a little speaker, just powerful enough to fill the room with slow jazz crooning. The recordings are so old you can still hear a static crackle over the entire song.

For the most part, Steve doesn't cling to the past—he told you right off the bat he enjoyed the commodities of the 21st century, the advancements in technology and medicine, the rapid evolution of art and communication. But it's a lonely life he leads, being the literal man out of time.

He tried hanging out at a senior center, once, but most of them had still been born at least twenty years after him. Those closer to his age tended to be lost to dementia. And the one time he did find someone his age who was still lucid, he still couldn't relate—Pearl had lived a lifetime while Steve had been under the ice. There was only so much she cared to reminisce about the little slice of her life spent as a foolish young girl in the 30s and 40s.

That, and it made him feel like an aberration, looking at this woman who could have been his little sister, wasted away to wax paper skin and a puff of white hair. After he told you that, he never brought it up again.

Anyway, you certainly don't mind it. Not that you say as much to Steve, but it reminds you of your grandparents. You remember your sister hopping up on your grandfather's toes to be waltzed around the room to Miles Davis, remember helping your grandmother with her baking as Billie Holiday sang about her sentimental side. The sound of a saxophone can only bring you home.

Steve dances you into the center of the room to a steady bass thump under tinkling piano. You laugh, let him lead you. "Show me what you've been working on, Steve," you say, as if you can't see the canvases with your own eyes.

While you joked about Steve and his hypothetical side chick, you're actually well aware strangers come to his studio and strip down to nothing in front of your boyfriend. There's nothing he likes to paint more than just people. The backdrops tend to be spare, and he doesn't shy away from the reality of any body he paints, but his skill with oil paints—honed over the past summer, not during the poverty of his youth—lends every subject a soul so stark it feels like you suddenly know them too well.

Each painting, then, should be a straight shot from start to finish, but Steve is such an artist he toils over details you'd consider minute. So each work around the room is in a completely different state of completion, with the one in front of you closest to done. He's started creating a new position to the subject's forearm, a crude sketch painted over the existing art, and there's something still flat about the eyes.

Steve talks about the paintings and their subjects for a little bit, and you just listen, content to let him talk. Even when it brings him consternation it's better than the anguish that comes from so many other facets of his existence. Mainly, you're happy to see him thinking about something that isn't his long lost friend. He likes to tell you about who his subjects are as people, and what he wants to express about them in this larger than life artistic nude.

And because he's Steve, he asks you to sit for him. Again. "I don't know why," you say, even as you're already unbuttoning your shirt. "How many times have you painted me, now? I thought your whole thing right now was strangers."

"I just like to paint you," Steve says, shrugging with a grin that only starts out as bashful. "You've got, uh, a lot of good angles. Good colors."

"Good colors, huh?" You arch your brow just enough to make Steve finally blush, then gesture to make him help you out of your sleeves. "I suppose I have to believe you, considering it's not like I won't get naked for you any ol' time at home."

Steve makes you a nest of pillows and colorful strips of satin, brings a pair of space heaters on an extension cord to surround you and keep you from shivering. He doesn't fuss at the way you pose, just tells you to look languid, comfortable.

And you are comfortable, because as long as Steve takes to draw you, it still startles you when he speaks up. You hadn't realized how close you were to falling asleep.

"I think that's all I need. You're the best, babe, you didn't have to do that."

"No, but I'll always take the opportunity," you say, sitting up to stretch your arms and back.

"I gotta run to the bathroom down the hall, and then I can lock up and we can go," Steve says as he gets up, shaking out stiff legs.

"So long as I get all my clothes on first." You reach up, and Steve clasps your hand with both of his to help pull you up.

"You don't think DC wouldn't like a treat?" He lets you go so you can fish out your underwear from the pile of your clothes on a nearby stool, and you chuckle.

"Go to the bathroom, old man. Let me get dressed in peace, without all the lechery."

"I'm not lecherous," Steve protests, but he leaves the room all the same.

It doesn't take you long to get dressed again, fingers moving down the placket of your shirt with an easy speed. Down the hall must be further into the building than you realized, because Steve isn't back from the bathroom yet, so you take another look around the studio.

One wall has a set of big steel drawers against it, each drawer as massive as it is shallow, and a row of stretched canvases of various sizes leans against it. A place for Steve to store his work. And since he's showed you this much so far—since you're, in fact, a repeat subject—you don't think he'll mind if you take a peek.

The drawers are all full of loose paper drawings, ranging from simple pencil sketches to charcoal to oil pastels, the latter of which smudge ghostly prints of themselves on the backs of their drawer-mates. You pull one of these out from the middle, ginger in your handling of it.

It's of Bucky.

Not anything like the Bucky you know, of course. Dewy-eyed, pouty-lipped, wartime horrors only just starting to lurk in an enigmatic expression. There's something surreal about looking at this version of him as the music of his youth keeps playing behind you.

Well. It makes sense that Steve wouldn't actually stop thinking about Bucky. You can't expect Steve to just forget about him. You place the drawing, heavy with its medium, on the dented top of the drawers and pull out another piece.

Another one. Bucky, even younger, a little happier, and not quite on model. This one was probably drawn from memory, hazy and fragmented decades later.

You pull out the whole sheaf. You lay each one out, thinking not about how Steve's due to come back any second but of how you need to know, just how many—

Almost all of them. You're represented, too, but Bucky is the overwhelming majority, and none of them depict him older than his mid-20s. You start to leaf through pencil sketches in another drawer, and it's nothing like the oil pastels, a healthy diversity of strangers in various poses and angles. And there you are again, quick sketches of you anding around on your phone or looking out the window you don't remember Steve drawing. So why—?

"Sam."

You jump. You at least don't drop the drawings in your hand. At least.

"Did you mean for this to be hidden?" You don't turn around, just listen to Steve's steps get closer.

"I didn't mean for my things to be looked through, if that's what you mean." Steve's voice is eerily neutral.

"I didn't—I was only looking." You look down at the drawing you're holding. Still Bucky. "I didn't mean to—"

"Hey. I know." Steve sighs as he comes to a stop just behind you. He puts both hands on your shoulders, gives you a peck just in front of your ear. "I'm not angry. I'm sorry if I sounded that way."

"I don't know what to think of this, Steve," you say, soft as he shifts to put his arms around your waist and clasp his hands over your stomach.

Steve lays his head against your neck, sighing again. "I know I said we would stop looking for him, at least for now. And... I'm not going back on that. I like our life together."

"I do too," you murmur, eyes scanning the whole page of the drawing, and again, and again. You didn't know a piece of art could make you feel so guilty.

"Anyway. Whose turn is it to make dinner?" Steve says, louder to break the tension. It always works.

"Yours, unfortunately," you laugh, putting the drawing down on top of the steel drawers.

"Unfortunately?" Steve is theatrical in his mock offense, huffing and puffing with put-on indignation. "If you don't like my cooking, then just don't eat it!"

"Aw, baby, please, I didn't mean it like that," you say, playing into it. "I'll be good. I'll eat your damn cabbage and meatloaf. I'll eat that Irish cuisine. Don't put me out."

"I worked hard on my shepherd's pie," Steve says with a sniff, dabbing at dry eyes before turning the sink on full blast to clean his brushes for the day.

"I'll buy you flowers every day and eat your beef wellington and mashed potatoes, baby, I'll do better." You affect a deeper voice that reminds you of your ain't-shit cousin Terrence, always promising girl after girl he'll do better, whether he's just always late to pick her up, or straight up caught cheating (again).

"You better." Steve dries his brushes individually, collecting them into a quart container that probably contained a double helping of matzo ball soup at some point. There's a deli not too far from here run by an elderly Jewish couple and their granddaughter, and Steve is one of their regulars now.

It doesn't take Steve too long to close up the studio for the night. Instead of the motorcycle he used to always favor, you drive home in the used Jeep he bought shortly after moving back to DC. You talk about little things, domestic things, on the way home. The radio plays top 40 music with only a little bit of fuzz.

Steve makes exactly the kind of food you expected, meaning meatloaf topped with lots of ketchup and bacon, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. You tease him, but he's gotten better at seasoning and the meal is well put together. He serves it with red wine, making a show of pouring your glass. He can't even get tipsy without a little Asgardian interference, much less drunk, but he likes to see you giggly, and he says it makes him feel like a real person to drink wine with dinner, in a home he makes with you.

Your post-coital bliss manages to last until you're almost asleep. But when it wears off, Steve breathing softly against your side, the guilt is still there, ready to welcome you back.

You spend the next morning with Steve in bed, because he doesn't work outside of his art and you have the day off. He brings you to orgasm three times between 7am and noon, and each time there's so much love in his eyes it's overwhelming.

"Someone's getting a lot of texts," Steve remarks an hour later, as you make half-assed grilled cheese sandwiches. You might give Steve shit, but you have never been the chef of any household. You curse under your breath as you realize one of them has started to burn on one side, and resign yourself to eating that one.

"I keep forgetting to put the damn dance studio group chat on mute," you say, your spatula scrabbling in the pan as you try to pry your burnt sandwich out of it. You drop it on a plate, and Steve comes up behind you to pick it up with the hand not holding your phone.

He takes a bite of the sandwich you didn't tell him he could have, and says, "You burnt this one," while actively scrolling up through the group chat history. "Who's Vicky? Do I know her?" Steve continues through the big mouthful of a bite he took.

"No, she's new. She's not from our, you know." You twirl your finger, pointing up. "Social circle. She just wandered in a couple months ago, and we didn't really have a reason to turn her away, so..." You glare at the sandwich with the bite out of it. "I know I burnt that, you know. I was going to eat it so you wouldn't get the burnt parts."

"I have a war rationing palate, babe, I don't care if it's burnt. You should get the nice one." He swallows the food and gives you a big smack on the cheek, and god, how does he still get you blushing like this?

"You can't just drop corny shit like that," you mumble as you place the second sandwich in the crackling buttered pan.

"It's all I know how to do," Steve says, suddenly low and sultry as he puts the sandwich down. "That, and a few other things..."

"I swear to gawd Steve, if you try to drag me into sex while the stove is on, I will let this apartment burn down, and you'll have to pay all the damages, not me and my middle class bank account!" You slam the spatula down and glare at him until he laughs and backs away, taking the plate with the burnt sandwich with him to the table.

"Sorry! Sorry. I just can't help myself," he chuckles, taking his seat.

"Jesus can't help you," you mutter, pressing the sandwich down with the flat of your spatula. "Goddamn chemically enhanced sex machine. Man can't get anything done around you."

"I don't think that's what Dr. Erskine intended to make out of me, but sure," Steve says, super hearing picking up on your words. "Super soldier, sex machine... Same thing."

"Mind your business!" you snap, flipping your sandwich. Too early. It's barely cooked on that side, and the flipping makes a mess of the sandwich itself because nothing is melted enough yet. You try to push it back into position, but some of the cheese has become definitely stuck to the pan. Dammit.

"That was part of the serum too," Steve says, talking while chewing again. "Vicky's kind of a weird girl, huh? She reminds me of someone I know."

"Calling me weird, Rogers?" You know exactly who he means, though, and if you don't play this cool you're going to show your hand. "Why can't you just let me have my stupid group chat conversations?"

"You're weird in a different way, Sam." You keep praying Bucky wasn't stupid enough to sent photos to the group chat, because you honestly can't remember. You don't think so, especially considering how careful Bucky's been about hiding himself in the past, but also enrolling in a dance class full of people who know the person he's running from is not exactly careful. You also pray at this stupid sandwich to cook faster.

You flip it again, gratified to see this side has cooked pretty well, and leave it on for another thirty seconds before impatience and nerves collude to get you to turn off the heat. You slide the grilled cheese onto another plate and hurry to the table. "Give me my phone, Steve."

He looks at you, and for a moment you expect him to say no, playful but firm. But he smiles. "Yeah, alright," he says, and passes it back before you've even picked up your food. You swallow your relief like an appetizer and put your phone under your chair.

You get to the dance studio a few hours later, and your tension must be palpable because Maria asks you if you're sick, and Natasha gives you a knowing arched eyebrow.

But you're not here to get into all the ways you're screwing up your relationship with a secret that grows bigger and uglier with every passing day.

Or well, if you want to be more direct, it's a secret that grows more flexible and confident with each studio session. Bucky is in the studio, wearing an easy white T-shirt and heathered gray joggers. Everyone's silently accepted that this is the Winter Soldier and that he is, for the moment, harmless, so his metal arm is in full view. (So are certain outlines that can't be ignored in the front of his sweats, but you're not trying to dwell on that.) Maria presented him with a T-shirt after yet another session of him sweating in dank layers of long sleeved shirts, and that was her signal to him that no one here would rat him out.

"Sam," Bucky says as he catches sight of you. His voice has smoothed out a lot. It's not that he was silent as the Winter Soldier, but he certainly wasn't chatty.

It still catches you off guard, sometimes. Seeing him like this, all soft edges and big eyes. With regular access to a shower and conditioner, his greasy tangle has become shiny waves of healthy brown hair, and instead of old sweat and desperation he smells like musk and spearmint. Sometimes when he moves too quick your brain still shows you how he looked when he was trying to kill you, and you have to remind yourself that he isn't that Bucky anymore. That you hope he isn't that Bucky anymore.

"Bucky," you reply, giving him a nod in your approach. You've always been pretty good at keeping your emotional turmoil to yourself, but being around Bucky twice a week has made you even better.

"You're late," he remarks, arching a brow. "Don't tell me Steve held you up." Both brows start to waggle.

"Shut the fuck up," you say, laughing and giving his shoulder a push.

There's a moment where you both freeze; Bucky because his limbs are locking up in a battle between his brain and his muscle memory, and you because you're waiting for his brain to win that battle. It's only a split second before Bucky is relaxing again, rubbing his shoulder as if your push could really hurt him and laughing in reply, but it feels like time lurched forward a whole hour.

Maria claps her hands, bringing attention to the front. Most of you is watching her and listening to her as she goes over what she wants to add to the choreo today. This is Bucky's third song with the group in as many months, a high energy Major Lazer joint that isn't one of his top 40 hits so much as it's just fun. The high energy ironically means slower going on learning each move, though, more practice put in to pull off the fast movements Maria has in mind.

The rest of you is watching Bucky. And it's not just a trust thing, of that you're sure. Despite your reservations, Bucky has become something of a friend. Away from the drugs and torture of HYDRA, it turns out Bucky has a sense of humor, as slow to emerge as it's been. You're not ready to say you care about him, yet, but he's definitely growing on you. Which, for your easily-attached ass, means you've been paying attention to his progress in how he uses his body in class.

It sounds weird when you put it that way. But it's like his body and mind were two separate entities, and through this class he's been stitching them slowly back together. Something like that, anyway. You're not trying to spend that much time thinking about Bucky, especially outside of class where you're supposed to pretend you have no idea where he is.

Maria starts the class. You don't know if it's SHIELD or just her personality that made her so thorough, but she shows the class a single move, and refuses to move on from it until she's seen that everyone has a basic understanding of it. (The basic part is how you get Darcy still slightly off beat a week later, though.) For you, the movements are easy to get the hang of, growing up in a family that loved to dance as much as birds love to fly. Your USAF training makes it even easier for you to follow Maria's instruction; it's always a race to see whether it'll be you or Natasha who get a move down pat first, although sometimes Sharon pulls through in a rare upset.

It's Bucky's more recent training that does the exact opposite. They're not moves meant to inflict pain and violence, so his weaponized body doesn't know how to parse them. His movements are stiff until he forces himself through it, and he stumbles sometimes, threatening to bang into you.

But he pushes through, working up as much a sweat as anybody else in the studio, forcing his hips to gyrate or his shoulders to tilt even if it's offbeat. You can't bring yourself to hold him to the same standards as Darcy and her white girl sense of timing. He's hitting at least a third of his marks, which is more than could be said of him when he first arrived. Back then he was more of an escaped living statue.

At the end of the class, Maria beckons Bucky, and your ears can't help but perk, even as you pretend to mind your business by retying your shoes. Maria looks confident and upbeat as she speaks, and Bucky looks both shy and flattered. That second one is new enough that you couldn't identify it right away.

You don't like what you hear.

As soon as they part, you sidle up to Maria. "You wanna put him on the channel?" you hiss, fully aware that Bucky can hear you anyway. Whatever, he should know better.

"He's been working hard, Sam. He deserves to be part of a class video."

"This is not Little League. He's a wanted man, and I don't just mean federally." Maria starts walking to the other end of the studio, and you block her path. She will hear you. "You want some rookie NSA agent to catch their first break finding the Winter Soldier in an amateur choreography video?"

"Nobody would believe it, and that's why it's fine," Maria says with a shrug.

"Fine. Let's say I agree with that, which I don't," you say, shuffling to stay in her way as Maria tries to get around you. "You think Steve doesn't watch the channel? You think Steve doesn't make time to watch every video you upload just so he can work on exactly what compliments he wants to give me on it? Because that's exactly what he does, Maria."

That, at least, makes her pause. Your heart flutters with hope that maybe she'll finally fucking listen to you.

"And would Steve really believe his childhood best friend would turn up in a silly YouTube video about dancing to EDM in a small room with his boyfriend?"

"Yes!" In your frustration you forget to keep your voice down, and both Darcy and Bucky are looking at you. Darcy shrugs and looks away when you meet her eyes with your own challenging stare, but when you look at Bucky next, his brow furrows, his lower lip catching on a canine tooth.

Maria sighs, and you turn your attention back to her. "I mean, if you want, we can put him in a disguise, but I really don't think it's fair—"

"It's not about what's fair, it's about what's safe." You bring the volume of your voice back down, but you make sure to keep the urgency just as high. "I don't know how you don't get this. You were Nick Fury's right hand. That's as smart as it gets, and it takes ignoring your own smarts to think that it's about what someone deserves."

"You must think I'm so stupid," Maria sneers. "You think you know better than me, but I'm the spy, not you. The fact that everyone thinks the Winter Soldier is the asshole in their gym? It'll make his being in this video totally irrelevant because it'll just be another false positive, and the fact that I have to explain this to you is more insulting than anything you've said so far." Fists planted on her hips, she takes a step back. "I thought you had at least a modicum of trust and respect for me."

"It's not like that," you sigh, but she's already shaking her head.

"Learn to mind your business, Sam," Maria says, and that makes you sigh again as she walks away from you. God damn it all.

"Hey," Bucky says from just behind your elbow, and you think you deserve a medal for not jumping right out of your skin. "Do you, uh..."

"Do I what, Barnes?" you ask, eyes still on Maria, who is ignoring you with all her might. You're going to have to apologize to her once she's done showing you just how mad she is.

"You like smoothies?"

"Smoothies?" That snaps you out of it, and you look back at Bucky with an incredulous eyebrow.

"Yeah. There's a neat little smoothie shop around the corner. I've been wanting to try it, but—"

"But you wanna go with someone." That makes sense, you guess. If it's not that he's shy (of all people), then it definitely helps with his cover. An international assassin doesn't go for smoothies with a buddy. "Doesn't it remind you of...?" You stop yourself.

"What, being fed by my keepers?" Bucky snorts. "That was intravenous. I didn't get to use my stomach for decades." The way he's so cavalier with such ugly facts makes your own stomach turn, but you know he'd hate it if you let on as much. "Smoothies are what I live on these days."

"Are you telling me the Winter Soldier never took a shit?" you say, cracking enough of a smile to get Bucky cackling. You ignore the part where he just told you he can't eat solid foods.

"Taking a shit isn't really conducive to being an efficient killing machine, is it?" Bucky says. He already has a bomber jacket on, and now he pulls gloves out of one pocket.

"Guess not." You shrug into a windbreaker, and sling your duffel bag across your body. "Smoothies, then?"

"Smoothies."

While Bucky makes his order after you, you shoot Maria a quick text, something to the tune of sorry i was an asshole.

Sorry you were such a man about it? Maria texts back at lightning speed.

yes

Buy me something nice and I'll consider it apology accepted.

something nice?

I have to think about it. Don't worry, I won't break your budget. I know you don't have Steve money.

if i said sorry why are you still hurting me like this damn maria

I said I'd consider it apology accepted when I got something nice. Until then, you're still persona non grata.

damn you really gotta do me like that huh!

Bucky approaches, having picked up both orders. "You texting Steve?" he says, and there go his eyebrows on a wild waggle ride again.

"No," you say, scowling. "I wish you wouldn't talk about him, especially outside the studio."

Bucky hands you your smoothie in silence, then says, "I'm not avoiding him forever."

"No, just long enough to land in my life and force me to keep a huge, potentially relationship-ruining secret from my life partner." You take a long sip of your smoothie. "You weren't wrong about the smoothies, though."

"Life partner?" Bucky looks stunned, and you can feel your entire face heat from blushing.

"Boyfriend. Whatever. I hate lying to him, is the point." You point at the door with your chin, and you start walking out together. Sure, there are a lot fewer people in the smoothie shop than there are out on the sidewalk, but if you walk and talk, nobody gets enough of the conversation to understand it unless they're trying to. And you can spot a tail.

"I didn't know you guys were that serious." Bucky frowns, then sucks on his straw. "God, those smoothie girls really know what they're doing."

"I didn't say all that. Shut the fuck up and stop annoying me," you snap, jostling Bucky's meat arm. You heard someone call it his flesh arm once, and you had such a skin crawling reaction to the word flesh you immediately vowed to yourself you'd only refer to it as his meat arm. Mentally, anyway. In person you just call it his right arm. Or you point.

Bucky goes quiet again, draining his smoothie too fast.

"You'll get brain freeze at that rate," you say, before you realize what you said.

"Few decades too late for that, comrade," Bucky snickers.

"You didn't just want to get smoothies for the good flavor, I'm guessing." And the flavor is good. It's like you've never tasted pomegranate before.

"I don't know. I guess I wanted to. To talk." Bucky shrugs.

"Why, because you knew I was a counselor at my job before I met Steve?"

"No." He shrugs even deeper, resembling a turtle more than a person. "Never mind."

"Just say it, stupid." You swirl your smoothie cup like a wine glass.

"Stuff like that. You make me feel like—" You can practically hear Bucky gnashing his teeth, enamel grinding against enamel. "Steve wouldn't treat me like that."

"You mean Steve would treat you like you're fragile." And he very well might, because as much as he can be a people person, Bucky is this big ass blind spot to him. You can just imagine Steve being so scared to lose Bucky that he'd approach him like a wild horse he means to tame.

"I'm not saying I'm not, exactly. I know I'm a fucked up mess, and I'm still picking apart all the ways how."

"It's progress for you to be able to articulate even that much, though," you say, gesturing with your smoothie.

"Yeah." Bucky chews the tip of his straw. "The class helps a lot. Helps me feel like I own myself again."

Again with just spitting out horrifying statements as if he's offering a review of a movie he liked. You're not sure you'll ever get used to that.

"I'm going to let Steve see me eventually," he continues, while you're still processing his last statement. "I can't hide from him forever. Even if it wasn't cruel, he'd figure it out eventually."

"It'll be worse for hiding from him right under his nose."

"I know."

"But you do it anyway."

Bucky grabs his entire face with one gloved hand, grimacing under his palm. He drags the fingers down his face like claws, catching in the folds of skin where age has caught up to him more than to Steve. He doesn't reply still, just shaking his head out like he's whipping the water out of his hair.

He looks at you. "Tell me about Steve's art again."

You keep this particular sigh to yourself, and pull your phone out to show Bucky photos of some of Steve's work. You don't show him any of the drawings of himself, though.

You fake feeling sick that night, and feel worse for letting Steve baby you. He fixes you canned soup and makes brownies from a box mix while you eat. You realize as you finish eating the soup, though, that the nausea swirling in your gut is real, anxiety gripping your organs like a grocery shopper squeezing the life out of ripe tomatoes. The only thing you're faking is the cause of your distress.

Steve carries you to bed after you eat warm brownies together. (He didn't have an answer when you asked if brownies were really a remedy for feeling under the weather.) He kisses you on the forehead as he tucks you in, makes a joke about not wanting your cooties—as if he could get sick at all, the asshole. Then he leaves you in bed to go watch TV at a lower-than-reasonable volume, because he doesn't need it up any higher than that, and because he doesn't want to bother you.

When he comes back to bed a couple hours later, you do your best impression of having been asleep all this time, with leaden limbs, deep even breaths and eyelids that don't even flutter. You listen to him move around the room to undress for bed, feel the mattress dip and creak behind you, and the heat of Steve's skin inches away from your back. You wish it could allay these stupid fucking feelings, finally get you to sleep, but instead you're still awake until four in the morning wishing Bucky back to hell where he clearly came from.

Chapter Text

The idea of being on the channel has galvanized Bucky more than anything else. More than reclaiming his bodily autonomy, more than rediscovering his own humanity. You still think it's the worst idea Maria has ever cosigned, and you don't understand how Bucky got so sloppy, but maybe you're just being paranoid. Maybe Maria is right about hiding in plain sight. Bucky has been talking about maybe bleaching his hair to be in the video, even.

You'll just still have to keep Steve from watching the video. A bleach job is not going to keep him from recognizing his metal-armed best friend from a century ago. Whenever you consider it, you do your best to ignore the twist of guilt in your gut.

"You're not present," Maria says to you, a week before recording. "If you're not careful, Darcy is gonna catch up to you and then some."

"Hey," Darcy says, but the offense is as absent as her attention is.

When you say galvanized what you mean is that Bucky, despite the total lack of necessity, has been practicing in heels. He's shaving regularly, started using more than just shampoo because he wants to look good for the video. And it's a testament not just to his determination but to Maria's teaching that he hasn't fallen down once in those heels.

You look at Bucky in the studio, full of vibrant energy as he moves through the choreo with fluidity and confidence, and Maria's right. You're not present. You want so badly to be happy for him; this is more progress than anyone could have ever hoped for. For all you know, Bucky has never so thoroughly owned his own body, not even before the war.

"You're not present," Maria is saying to you. You're back in this moment because she's right. Anxiety made you dissociate, when you were readjusting to civilian life. "If you're not careful..."

Bucky comes to you next, takes his time sitting down. He's wearing his heels. Natasha started wearing heels last week. Darcy brought in a pair this week, and she's sitting against the wall with them next to her because she's not going to wear them during mid-session break.

He doesn't say anything, as much as he looks like he's full of things he wants to say to you. Instead, he puts a pair of heels in front of you. "I asked Maria your size," he says. They're red grain leather, with a slender heel and a decent platform in front.

You want to reply. A passing thought: Bucky has switched places with you. You were the cream of the crop in this group, and your moves made a damn good answer for the eternal question of What that ass do? Bucky came to you stiff and tight, body locked up with trauma and a memory shot full of holes. Now look at you. Look at him.

"I ruined this for you," Bucky says. He puts his metal hand on your knee. "Sam."

"You didn't ruin anything," you reply. You don't know yet if you're lying, but it makes you feel tired—more tired—to say it, and you're exhausted from lying to Steve, so maybe you are. But it would be uncharitable to say anything else.

Like telling him to just go to Steve already. Like telling him to stop putting you in the middle just because he's scared Steve will treat him like glass. Maybe even like telling him you're just going to confess to Steve because you can't take it anymore. Bucky's a big boy now, in his big boy heels and everything.

"Try them on," Bucky says, gesturing at the heels.

They fit. You didn't actually expect them to; your time in the service didn't really do many favors to your feet, not to mention the natural effects of testosterone and never having even one pedicure. (You're just not that guy.)

"Maria thinks we should all wear heels for this one. Maybe put the recording off another week to get everyone up to speed."

He's even taken your spot as Maria's second in command. Damn.

Luckily for you, Maria calls the class back to order. Instead of having to answer Bucky, you push your back up the wall and walk to the front of the studio. Bucky takes his usual spot next to you.

Let it go. Let it go. He's not hurting you. He's not trying to hurt you.

The heels aren't as difficult as you expected, which is gratifying, at least. Actually, it makes you feel pretty damn good about yourself, being able to move in footwear this unwieldy. You catch Bucky grinning at you, and you realize you're smiling, too.

You go out for smoothies with Bucky again afterward, your feet glad to see the insides of your sneakers again. If you make yourself forget Steve exists, it's nice. Bucky keeps asking about where you come from, how you grew up, really finding his way into being your friend. You daydream about Steve being able to join you, though, and then you've violated your own rule about ignoring Steve's existence.

Steve asks you if you're okay. You haven't had sex in two weeks. You say you don't know what's wrong, but that you love him, and at least that last part is pure truth.

Recording is in a few days, the next studio session. Bucky is practically walking on air in his stilettos. He's showing Natasha the pum pum shorts (as your aunties would call them) that he got for being in the video. Darcy is about to hop another Bucky trend and get her own pair, it sounds like. Sharon isn't sold, exactly, but if Natasha's doing it, well—Sharon blushes. Bucky's arrival is not the only big change around here.

"Alright everybody," Maria says, her voice carrying easily across the small space. You all fall into place.

It's a rehearsal. With the exception of a few kinks to be worked out, everyone's about ready for recording. Hips move effortlessly even when the beat is demanding, feet in heels move quick and sure across the floor, and cues are hit so smoothly Maria gasps with delight. Maybe Bucky and his growing enthusiasm was the magic ingredient this studio was waiting for.

In fact, you're so breathless with the exhilaration of getting it right that hearing the door click shut doesn't mean anything to you. The wind, probably, even if you're indoors. Who cares. Everyone looks amazing. Darcy whoops as the song dies down. Maria applauds her students, as sweaty as she is from performing the choreo herself. Sharon looks pleasantly shocked when Natasha gives her a side hug.

You let that euphoria carry you home. You text Steve that you're picking up dinner so that everyone can relax. You stop by that restaurant you both like, pick up pork katsu for him and chicken katsu for you. You stop by the corner store near home, too, pick up ice cream. Steve is getting treated tonight, for no other reason than it feels so good to get something right. You can feel That Other Shit creeping in on the edge of your happiness, but you push it back with force.

While you're fumbling your keys you check your phone again. Steve never replied, but if he got home early that's nothing unusual. The second he goes through the front door, you swear to god it's like he forgets phones are anything but a hunk of plastic with a rotary dial and a spiral cord.

The air inside your apartment is still, and you freeze. "Steve?"

There's no answer. Panic fills your chest, and you drop the food on the side table, huck your dance bag under it. "Steve!"

Your panic is short lived. Steve is sitting on the couch with his arms crossed, right where you know from experience he's able to hear you from the front door. He doesn't look at you as you enter, though, and realizing that is what makes you also notice the overnight bag next to him.

"Steve," you say, as measured as you can manage, "what's with the bag?"

"I needed it," he murmurs.

New panic fills you even fuller than the last, ugly spikes of adrenaline bursting painfully in your body. "For what?" You have to keep assumptions and tremors out of your voice.

Steve finally looks at you, and you wish he hadn't. You wish that you didn't wish that. You thought Steve was being stoic but his eyes are so red you know he's been crying for at least a couple hours.

You know, about as long ago as when you heard the studio door shut.

"You know," he starts, and as much as you kept your voice smooth, he can't do it. "It's not the fact that he's been there, right under my nose, or that he looks happy. I'm glad he's happy. All I've ever wanted for him was—was for him to be happy." His broad chest shudders over the hiccup in his words.

"Steve," you sigh, but he shakes his head.

"It's you, Sam. It's that I don't even know how long you've been lying to me." His eyes are getting shiny, like just thinking about it is going to make him start crying again. "Or why. I thought—"

It feels like approaching a cornered dog, but you put aside your misgivings and walk around the coffee table anyway. You pluck Steve's overnight bag from the center couch cushion, push it under the coffee table, and sit in its place. He doesn't relax, but he doesn't lean away or run, either.

"It wasn't for me to tell you." It's all you can say. It's the truth, but you expected it to feel better. Freeing. Instead it feels like an excuse.

"Wasn't it?" Steve tightens his arms across his chest, as if he could ever make himself smaller.

"You know it wasn't. He said he wasn't ready to see you yet." You wish you could make him listen to recordings of all the times you talked to Bucky about this. Too bad they don't exist.

"You should have talked to him. You're a counselor." Now Steve's just being petulant, and it makes you sit back.

"Steve, really?" The note of exasperation makes him look at you with a quizzical eyebrow. "I never asked to be put in the middle. Bucky showed up out of the blue in my dance studio. I almost texted you on the spot, but Maria reminded me that if he'd wanted to be found by you, he would have come to you in the first place."

"It—it doesn't—" Steve squirms in his seat, his expression twisting across the emotional spectrum.

"I've been sick over this, and you only halfway noticed." You reach for Steve's closer hand, clenched over his bicep, but the second half of your sentence startles him out of his pose, and you're reaching for nothing.

He doesn't even start a real sentence of his own, just sputters because if there's one thing Steve can't handle in a relationship—in life, actually—it's feeling like he wasn't selfless enough.

"Not because you were stupid, by the way, but because I worked hard at trying to keep it under wraps." Steve finally notices what you were trying to do, and puts his hands in yours.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Steve says, squeezing your hands earnestly. This conversation feels very different, all of a sudden.

"I think we got off track, here," you say, as much as you enjoy the apology, and the broken tension.

Steve murmurs in your ear, asking permission that you grant to sweep you back against his chest, head tucked just to the side of his jaw and surrounded by his big, warm arms. His hands clasp over your ribs, and you run your fingertips along their knuckles. Where the truth about Bucky didn't do much of anything for you, this is what makes you breathe easy again. This is your relationship with Steve in its truth. You're so happy to be back, even if you haven't talked everything through yet.

And you don't, at first. You just enjoy the physicality of Steve. Yes, you need to talk before there's sex again, but you just like to be against him and his muscles that radiate heat. And you like to kiss him. You like to turn over and straddle him so you can get a better angle at kissing him. You like to grind against him, just to remind yourself what you've missed.

Alright, so you were wrong about having to talk first. But after Steve carries you into the bedroom to lavish on you—and after Steve goes out to replace the ice cream that melted on the side table—you're ready.

"So I guess you forgive me," you say, trying not to look too smug as Steve comes back from putting the ice cream in the freezer.

Steve pauses for only the briefest second, but it's enough to tell you to reel it in. You clear your throat while Steve sits down next to you on the couch. He puts his arm around your shoulder, though, so he can't be too mad.

"I shouldn't have been upset with you," Steve says, which isn't quite the same as forgiving, but it's a start for both of you. "You got caught in the middle of my problem."

"I mean, Steve, I'm always going to get caught up in your problems." Steve looks ready to be both confused and hurt, maybe even ready to speechify on how he hates to inflict himself on other people. "As much," you hurry to add, his face already starting to crumple, "as you're gonna get caught up in mine. Wait'll you have to go to a family gathering."

"Fam—family gathering?" Steve blinks rapidly, face coloring just as fast. This is a lot like when you called Steve your life partner to Bucky's face. You clear your throat again, louder this time.

"I just wanna say again, especially now that we both have clear heads," and you give his hand a meaningful squeeze, "I never wanted to keep this secret from you. I just—I didn't know what to do. Everyone told me to leave it alone."

"Everyone who?" Steve arches both brows.

"Oh, you know. Bucky, Maria, Nat..."

"Natasha told you to keep it from me?"

"I don't know why you're acting surprised. The only person I know more secretive than her is Nick Fury." You resettle yourself to lean against Steve a little more, chuckling.

"Yeah, about her own stuff. Nat loves to gossip so long as she's not involved."

"What? No she doesn't," you say, but instantly second-guessing that statement. You don't like the way Steve is laughing now. You're gonna have to confront Nat later.

"The point is," Steve says, once he's done laughing, "I know I shouldn't have hung that on you."

"Look at us, having a healthy relationship." You can't help but smile.

"It's not gonna be so healthy if you keep interrupting me." But Steve is smiling back, just a little. "It's—it's Bucky I need to talk to. If he doesn't run away from me."

"Well, he learned how to dance in heels, so I'm betting he can run in them, too," you snort. "I mean—sorry. He keeps saying he's not ready."

"Sometimes you won't ever be ready." Steve looks away, and you can see his jaw working. You squeeze his hand again, gentler this time. "I have to see him, Sam."

"I know, baby."

Steve looks at you again. "At times like this I think you're too good for me, Sam. I don't know what I did to deserve you." There's no smiling now. He means this with his whole self.

"Shut the fuck up, Rogers." You shake your head, laughing as you kiss him behind the ear.

Steve can't help but kiss you back to show his appreciation, and a minute later you're pushing at his shoulders because goddammit, Steve, you've been hungry and you definitely don't have the same refractory period he does. No.

The rest of the evening is smooth. Steve reheats and plates the food you brought home, which you have with some craft beers he picked up when he got the new ice cream. You eat the ice cream on the couch with the TV on, cracking wise about the reality shows you keep landing on when you channel-surf. You go to bed satisfied, happy, and calm.

Except you're still awake two hours after Steve has fallen asleep sprawled all over you. All that calm and happiness is drained away, and all that's left is thinking about how Bucky will react when Steve inevitably confronts him.

Patching things up with Steve was, you thought, supposed to make recording day extra smooth. Without secrets to keep, you could focus on what's important, like not falling down in your red leather heels, and making sure you remember which direction your ass is supposed to go. Instead you feel jittery and distracted, and seeing Bucky when you enter the studio makes you want to go right back down the stairs.

Maria is in the process of setting up the tripod in the corner of the studio, fitting her phone into it and adjusting the angle over and over again. Everyone's in their booty shorts and heels, although nobody quite matches, either, which is about right for this ragtag group. Bucky's legs are smooth and hairless, which you're not sure you expected; the hair on your legs is so sparse, and so hard to detect against your skin, that you didn't bother. Bucky's legs also clearly haven't seen the sun since 1942.

You catch Maria's eye, and she beckons you with a quick twitch of her hand. She stands as you approach, and by the way she sighs through her nose you can already tell what she wants to say.

"Do you need a break, Sam?"

"A break from what?" You know playing dumb won't work, but you have to at least say you tried.

"From this. From him. I know you don't like keeping it from Steve, and I sympathize, but you've been off lately. You missed three cues during last rehearsal, and your ankle bent out right at the end. That's bonkers for you."

"Don't worry about that. Don't worry, period." You plant your hands on the back of your hips. "It's a non-issue."

"Bullshit. Look at you. You're all over the place, Sam." She points at your jiggling leg, then snaps right between your eyes, startling you.

"Anybody would jump at that!" you snap, right before you remember to keep your voice down.

"We're gonna do one more rehearsal today. I need to see you're all here. Please, Sam, don't put something as trivial as a choreography video before yourself."

"This is something I want to do." You take a deep breath. "Just let me do the damn thing, Maria, alright? If I have a mental breakdown in the middle of it I'll let you know."

Maria shakes her head, but she can't help but laugh. "Alright. Do the damn thing then, Sam."

And of course Bucky comes up to you next, right when you're trying to get your head back together. Of course the second, Bucky doesn't know that Steve found him out, or that you told Steve so much of the shit Bucky said vis-à-vis being ready to see Steve. So of course the third, he's happy to see you, asking you if you're ready. "Of course you are," he says to answer himself, chuckling. "This is gonna be great."

It really is astounding to see the difference in Bucky. Gone is the reticent robot with greasy hair and a smell rank enough to fill the studio. Gone are the drab layers of polycotton, gone is the stubble threatening to become a scraggly beard. Gone are the downcast eyes, too shifty to ever meet anyone else's. His hair looks silky clean, falling in pleasing waves around a fresh face and bright eyes. When you're close to him you can smell lingering wafts of all his bath products he has stashed in Natasha's apartment. His white tank top covers the ugly seam where metal meets tortured flesh.

It's not that he's totally rehabilitated—you've gotten those texts from "Vicky" when he's falling into self-loathing or dissociating hard—but it's when he's in this studio that recovery seems real for him.

Maria begins the rehearsal. You get into position next to Bucky, flow through the choreo because you told her you'd do the damn thing. You miss one cue but you swear to god, you're only off by a millisecond, and you catch up instantly, so maybe Maria won't notice. You're here. You're present. You promise.

The second beat drop is coming up when you hear the door. Nobody else looks but you, you, your nerves are on fire right now. Your ears are fine-tuned for that door now that you know who could be behind it. You twist your neck to look at the fucking thing and lose all focus, which is how Sharon slams into you from behind.

"Jesus, Sam!" Sharon protests, and Maria cuts the music.

"Sam—" Maria starts, but the door finishes opening, validating your interruption.

Bucky is the last one to turn around and face the door. What little color he has drains from his face, and you watch his body lock up in real time, all the old tension flooding back to his muscles.

"Oh, shit," Darcy says, because everyone else is speechless.

Steve looks at everyone but Bucky. "I, uh, came to watch Sam." What the fuck is he doing? Is he playing dumb? He's doing a bad job if that's what he thinks he's doing.

Bucky takes two steps back, right out of his shoes. You were kidding about him running in heels, but it looks like Bucky wants to be able to feel where his feet meet the floor. You know, the better to run away.

"You knew I was here," Bucky mutters, staring at Steve so intently you doubt he can see anything else. It's jarring how low his voice drops—you didn't even realize his voice had changed as he improved. This isn't Bucky's voice—this is the Winter Soldier's voice.

Steve chews his lower lip. The gears are grinding so hard in his head you can practically hear them as he reassesses his approach. But god, that fucking idiot, he holds his head up high, and says, "Yes."

Bucky's about to go out the fucking window or something. You open your mouth to say something, some magic words to break the tension—but you've got nothing.

"Sam told you." Bucky's voice is turning into an awful growl, and you realize the whole class—yourself included—have backed away to leave a big bubble of space around him.

"Sam didn't tell me anything. I came to visit a few days ago, and I saw you in here, dancing next to him." Steve walks into the studio itself, and for every step he takes, Bucky takes one back. But Bucky is staggering and Steve is striding, with an even bigger step over the abandoned pair of heels, and there's only so far Bucky can go before he hits the wall. "Sam has nothing to do with this."

Bucky glares holes into the floor, lower teeth bared. Maria looks pained—probably because if a fight breaks out, the bill for the damage to the studio would go to her. (Steve would pay it, actually, out of his endless well of guilt, but that's not the point.) But Steve stands in front of him anyway, too close, too intense. "Bucky," Steve says, and Bucky flinches like his name was a gunshot.

You catch Maria nodding toward the door out of the corner of your eye. She and the other women are ducking out of the studio, heading for the dressing room, and she wants you to follow, but you shake your head with as little motion as you can. You can't leave. Or you won't. Either way you're not going.

As Natasha is slipping out, the last of the class to go, Steve's intensity crumbles. He can't keep it up in the face of someone he cares about. "Why don't you want to see me?" he asks Bucky, and his voice is small and quavering where it had just been confident and booming.

Bucky looks stricken, and he has no answer.

"I'm—" Steve takes a slow step away from Bucky, putting a hand over one side of his face. "I'm sorry, Bucky, I know what happened to you was my fault—"

"Jesus, Steve!" Bucky's shout is so sudden, so loud, that both you and Steve jump. "This is why I didn't want to see you!"

Well, at least he's said the words now. No more speculation. Now you actually wish you had escaped with everybody else, but it's too late now.

Bucky stands up straighter, gets right in Steve's face. "Because I knew you'd be this way. You're sorry? You didn't torture me. You didn't brainwash me, or mutilate my body." Steve flinches at each count of trauma. "But I don't want to think about those things. That's why—" Bucky ducks down past Steve's legs, picks up his shoes by their thin heels. "That's why I'm dancing in shoes like these, Steve!" He shakes the heels at Steve, who looks at them like Bucky's waving a dead animal. "To have fun! To take my mind off how fucked up everything is! But you want to talk about it!"

Steve is quiet, and that's how you know this has taken a bad turn. Knowing Steve, all he got out of that was a resounding Go away! and now he's ready to self-flagellate right out the door and out of Bucky's life. So you step forward.

"Y'all are doing a lot right now," you say, holding up both hands as you approach Steve and Bucky.

"I'm telling Steve what he needs to hear," Bucky says, without looking away from Steve.

"Are you? Or are you just saying what you need to get off your chest?" You know you're treading dangerous waters. You pull your hands back down to your sides because they're shaking, your body reminding you again what happened last time you were close to an angry Bucky.

Bucky deflates when he finally looks at you, anger drooping into exhaustion on his face. "Stop it, Sam."

"Stop what, inserting myself? You can't tell me shit when you busted into my civilian life and asked me to lie to Steve because you couldn't deal with his grief over you." Adrenaline pumps through you until you're light headed, but goddammit, you're right. And the way Bucky looks down only proves it.

"And Steve," you say, fixing him with a look, "I can't believe you came in here trying to pretend like you didn't already know Bucky was in here. You can't act. I've seen the recording of you pretending to punch out Hitler onstage." Steve turns tomatoey red at that. You're right again, and he knows it.

"Here's the thing," you say, steepling your fingers. "Both of you need to talk to each other. A lot. But—" You gesture to the door. "—We have a dance choreography video to record. In this room, where y'all are having your big confrontation."

Bucky scratches his head as he continues to stare at the floor, and Steve looks up at the ceiling with a grimace.

"Is it over?" Natasha says from the doorway. "Are the babies done crying?" She'd been lurking in the stairwell the whole time, you guess, the better to hear everything. Maybe Steve really is right about Nat being a big nosy gossip.

While everybody not nosy files back in from the dressing room, you take Steve's hands.

"I should leave, shouldn't I?" he says with a baleful little smile.

"Well—" You take a deep breath just to stall.

"You don't have to," Bucky says from behind you, and as surprised as Steve looks, you can also tell he's trying to hide how pleased he is.

"Alright," Maria says, taking her place by the tripod again. "Does anyone else have any big dramatic outbursts they need to get out? Because I'm done with the interruptions."

"I might," Natasha says, and Sharon elbows her.

"I can hit record," Steve offers, "if you wanna be in the video, Maria."

"I'm just going to hit record then get in the video," she says with a soft laugh, "and edit that part out later, but I appreciate the thought, Steve. Go sit down." She points at the phone's blind spot.

Steve obeys, and Maria stares down you and Bucky. "Are you both focused? Are you both free of bullshit?"

"I'm never free of bullshit," Bucky says, but when Maria presses him harder he nods. "Yeah, I'm focused." He drops his shoes to step back into them.

"I'm present," you say, and this time, you mean it. You'll also never be free of bullshit, but for now you're free of secrets, and that's good enough.

You haven't danced like this in weeks. Your body feels liberated. Even Darcy has mastered every move now, and the six of you move together like water with Maria leading you.

The beat is fast, the bass is strong, the energy is high. Every movement is wild and strong, the sound of six pairs of heels hitting the hardwood at the same time almost as loud as the music. Sweat runs from your forehead, down your back, your thighs. Your heart thuds, waiting for one misplaced step to send you crashing down, but it never comes.

The song ends so much faster than you realize, now that you've become immersed. Someone pushes a water bottle into your hand, and you hear Steve's voice tell you to drink. Everything is a little too bright, and essentially, you're high on dance.

When your vision calms down, you look Bucky's way, and he looks as thrilled as you do. Steve is doing water boy duty, making your fellow dancers take water bottles, and Bucky's gulping water too. Natasha tries to demur, saying she feels fine, but Steve is nothing if not stubborn. Sharon backs him up, and Natasha makes a point of drinking the entire bottle in one go.

"Now," Maria says, wiping sweat off her face with the back of her arm, "that felt like a really good take. But what do you guys say to a round two?"

The five of you look at each other. You look at Bucky, especially, and his grin is infectious.

"Yeah," Bucky says. "Let's dance."