Chapter Text
1930- Just to Listen to Your Breath
I would dial numbers
Just to listen to your breath
I would stand inside my hell
And hold the hand of death
You don’t know how far I’d go
To ease this precious ache
You don’t know how much I’d give
Or how much I can take
Just to reach you
Just to reach you
Oh to reach you
Twelve year old Steven Grant Rogers had never backed down from a fight. Scars on his skin and old breaks in his bones proved as much. Given the fact that he was small for his age, really small, he’d been picked on more than your average pale Irish kid in Depression-Era Brooklyn.
Steve’s size had made him an easy target for the bullies on and off the school yard. Combine that with the fact that he was a mouthy little shit and he was practically a walking, talking target. Steve didn’t like bullies, and didn’t care who they were or where they came from. They were all equally detestable in his eyes and he lived to stand up to them. He’d square his little shoulders, raise that chin and stare up with all the righteous indignation those bright blue eyes could muster, stubbornly taking punch after punch. Each time he’d get knocked down, he’d pull himself back up just to mouth off again, tossing back, “I could do this all day!”
Thirteen year old James Buchanan Barnes was a good boy. He was naturally clever, mathematically inclined and fascinated by science and inventions. His teachers saw this as him having his head in the clouds, when really, his brain moved quickly. Having to focus on history and grammar bored him to death, and a bored Bucky was rarely a good thing.
Bucky was tall, strong and had a bright smile and piercing grey eyes. He was a friendly kid who got along with just about everyone, unless they had something to say about his best friend Steve. Because of that, Bucky had been in more fights than he cared to admit, most of the time jumping in for the sole purpose of saving Steve Rogers’ scrawny ass. All because Steve was a scrawny little shit that didn’t know when to quit. Regardless, Bucky practically worshipped the ground the kid walked on.
Steve and Bucky were practically inseparable. As they grew older, everyone assumed Bucky was the one that caused the trouble. Hardly anyone suspected the frail, innocent looking, artistic golden-haired boy of causing so much grief. Bucky didn’t mind; he let everyone make their assumptions. It was just one of Bucky’s millions of ways to protect Steve, because if Steve lived to mouth off, then Bucky lived to jump in and fight by his side. If for some reason, he didn’t get there in time to back him up, he’d always at least be there to scrape him up off the ground.
Each time he did step in for Steve, he’d surely hear about it later. The prideful little shit hated being babied, and insisted he was just fine on his own, thank you very much. ‘I had him on the ropes Buck!’
The bigger boy would patiently take the verbal lashing all the while cleaning and patching up the small blond’s cuts and bruises. That’s just how it was with Steve and Bucky. Steve’s mother Sarah was a nurse. She taught the boys first aid early on, once she realized her little troublemaker was never going to change.
Sarah Rogers knew Steve’s heart, partly because she was his mother, and that’s what mothers do. Also, because Steve got his stubborn streak directly from her. She wouldn’t trade it for the world though, because it was that very quality that kept his little body fighting through so many illnesses.
When Steve was just a toddler, he was diagnosed with asthma. He was also anemic and ran unexplained fevers frequently. Each winter, he’d practically catch his death with pneumonia. So, did Sarah want Steve to settle down? Go with the flow, learn how to take life as it came- without a fight? Not on your life. That instinctual, ingrained need to fight was sometimes the only thing that kept him alive.
During the late fall of 1930, Steve’s pneumonia arrived before the first snow. He was so sick, he’d slept nearly three days straight, and it scared the shit out of Bucky. It was the first time Bucky stood watch at Steve’s bedside that long, coming over straight from school Friday afternoon. He spent the weekend alternating between sitting quietly, praying for Steve to wake up and talking the blond’s ear off about everything from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the news about transatlantic flight.
“One day, Stevie,” Bucky said. “You just wait, we’ll be flyin’ too. All the way to Europe. Maybe we’ll even see Paris, wouldn’t that be somethin’?”
During the second night, when Steve still hadn’t made any real progress, Bucky started to silently panic. He begged quietly through his own tears for Steve to get better. The doctors had already been to see Steve, and told Sarah there wasn’t anything they could do until his small body broke the fever.
Bucky snuck a quick kiss to Steve’s lips. His skin was heated with the fever and his lips were chapped, but Bucky was willing to try anything. He knew he loved his friend, loved him more than anything and just maybe… that he could love him enough to make a difference.
Finally. Finally, Sunday afternoon, Steve’s fever broke and he woke enough to talk and eat broth. The color in his eyes was still dim and they looked sunken, but Bucky never thought Steve looked better, because he was back.
After supper, Sarah insisted Bucky return home to rest before school the next morning, much to the boys’ dismay. Poor Steve was so weak, he barely kept his eyes open, but he loved listening to Bucky’s voice. It didn’t really matter what he was saying, the sound just made Steve happy.
Late that night, Bucky found out he was finally tall enough to reach the fire escape ladder outside of Steve’s building as long as he stood on the metal trash bin. He climbed up the three floors to the outside of the Rogers’ home and shoved open Steve’s window.
Steve woke to a bitter cold breeze and the sounds of Bucky clambering in through his bedroom window. He curled in a ball and wrapped the blankets tighter around his small frame, trying to suppress a cough.
“Buck, what’re ya doin’? Ma’s gonna kill you if she hears you makin’ all this racket!” he rasped.
Just as quickly, Bucky closed the window and kicked off his shoes. “Just makin’ sure you’re doin’ alright, Stevie. Couldn’t sleep. Shove over, punk,” he whispered and crawled in, laying on his back next to Steve.
Their eyes met, each with that familiar grin they had when they knew they were getting away with something. Steve was the first to talk.
“Hey Buck?” he wheezed, coughing pitifully into his pillow.
“Yeah Stevie?”
“How long was I out for this time?”
Bucky’s smile faded and a worried frown took its place. He tried to hide it, but they knew each other too well.
“Off and on, almost three days.” Bucky turned so he was facing Steve and tried to do what he did best, cheer the kid up. “’Bout time you woke up, lazy ass,” he teased with a forced smile.
“M’cold, don’t feel right. You think I’ll make it outta this one?” Steve asked honestly, staring into Bucky’s worried grey eyes. His voice was small, and he sounded tired, discouraged. “Winter ain’t even here yet…”
“Don’t you talk like that Steven Grant Rogers!” Bucky whispered harshly. “You ain’t never backed off no fight yet, yeah? You’re not about to start now, ya hear me punk?”
Steve smiled at the conviction in his best friend’s voice. Leave it to Bucky to give him shit for feeling sorry for himself.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. ‘Sides, who else is gonna listen to ya yappin’ all day, ya jerk,” Steve nettled sleepily.
“Hey!” Bucky groaned in mock offense and play-punched Steve in the shoulder, causing him to laugh into a wheezing cough. “Turn over, Stevie. I’ll warm your lungs up,” Bucky ordered.
Steve did as he was told, and Bucky curled his larger, warmer body around his smaller friend. The laid chest to back, sharing the extra body heat.
“Thanks, Buck,” Steve whispered, relaxing into his friend’s embrace.
Bucky squeezed gently and buried his face into Steve’s blond hair. “Night, Stevie.”
Come to my window
Crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon
Come to my window, I’ll be home soon