Work Text:
“Oh!” Bucky said, startled out of his morning complacency. He’d bumped into someone while fumbling in his satchel, digging for his fare card as he hustled out of the coffee shop. It was new, this one, and he hated it. Loud and bright and sterile, it’s trappings failing at their attempt at eclectic, at cozy, at different, tipping over into predictable, into uncomfortable, into forgettable. Filled with bad mustaches, ironic outfits and all the crises of youth, it was the only one within walking distance of his apartment beside the other, and that he’d given up as lost. Too many memories, and too high a chance of running across the reason for those. He could give up the coffee shop, to save his heart.
Though somehow, it looked as though he could have saved himself the trouble.
“Oh,” he said again, the word trailing out on a breath forced from his lungs as inexorably as air from a bellows. “It’s you.”
Steve, for his part, looked as shocked as Bucky feels, summer blue eyes wide under heavy brows, mouth pink and open. Blood is rushing under his skin, turning the glow of new cream to madder rose. An engineer like him had no business knowing the name for that exact shade, but he did. Love of an artist will do that, he thought. Knowledge is harder to remove from one's life than a coffee shop. He knows, he’d tried. But he still knew 37 shades of blue, and he still knew how Steve liked his eggs, and he still knew the words to Steve’s favorite songs.
He knew what that sweet pink mouth felt like on all the skin of his body, every inch having known what it was like to have love pressed into it by those two lips.
“U -uh. Yes. I suppose it is,” Steve replied, the moments between Bucky speaking and Steve answering having felt like days, like months, while feeling like milliseconds. It had always felt like that, with them. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too,” Bucky told him. That it was honestly good to see him was a surprise, the feeling of it new in his chest. He hadn’t thought, hadn’t hoped it would feel like this. It had been six months, after all, since they fell apart so completely.
A smile was pulling at Steve’s mouth—no, not a smile. It was the shy little one he had for when something was surprising and unexpected and something he’d hoped for but had never thought to get. That his face was still so open to Bucky was a marvel, but one he elated at. He still knew Steve like he knew himself.
“Would you- could I, I mean,” Steve trailed off, blush going from madder to crimson in seconds, and beginning its slow descent down the creamy column of his throat. Bucky was transfixed, as always, by the slow seeping of color into such delicate skin. He knew, if one cared to look, that given a chance and a little encouragement, that blush would trail its touch down to the flare of ribs beneath the sensible sweater. He’d mapped it as it happened one night, testing the theory of cartography by tongue.
Bucky saw Steve steel himself, those impossibly broad shoulders square up and brace themselves for any outcome. “Would you like to have coffee sometime? With me? I mean, obviously with me, that was dumb, I just,” he broke off, his broad hand coming up to rake fingers through his wheat gold hair, “I’d like to catch up. If you’d like, that is.”
Bucky did.
-
Coffee led to lunch, and lunch led to drinks. They stuck so very closely to the clearly defined borders of “just friends” it was a miracle that anything led to dinner.
Though Bucky could tell you what led to dinner.
“I’m seeing someone,” Steve blurted out after his second old-fashioned. He must have noticed all the blood draining from Bucky’s face because he followed it quickly with, “a therapist. Not a, y’know, someone someone.”
“Ah,” was all Bucky had in the way of replies for the moment, his heart still recovering from its rather sudden discovery that it had not, in fact, be staying within the borders of just friends. The thought of Steve having a someone was something he hadn’t been prepared for, he realized, now that his blood had stopped pounding in his ears and the lightheadedness had faded.
Steve, never one to be deterred once he’d started something (it was the getting started that had always been the sticking point before), kept on with this deluge of new information. “Yeah, finally, I know. But I didn’t want to admit it, Buck, I couldn’t. I grew up thinking only certain types of people went to shrinks, and that I was not one of those types. I see now that that’s part of the problem but,” he lifted those shoulders as if to say “What are you gonna do?” What indeed.
Bucky took a moment, while Steve gathered his thoughts, to really look at the man sitting next to him at the bar. The low lighting in the room did wonders for him, enhancing all the planes of his face, carving his features from skin like honeyed milk instead of his usual Irish cream. He did look better, now that he allowed himself to see it. No more circles under his eyes, no more sharp crease to his forehead. The lines it had carved were indelibly etched in his skin now, but Bucky liked it like that. Battles fought should leave some sign of themselves, if only to remind us of their cost before we find another to fight.
“You were right, Bucky,” Steve said lowly, the sincerity of his voice bringing Bucky’s eyes back up to his face. His eyes were bright, his gaze steady. “I’m sorry it took me so long to understand that you were saying it because you loved me, and not because you thought I was broken.”
“I never thought you were broken, Steve, never,” Bucky breathed, his hand somehow clasping Steve’s on the bar top. “Not one second. You weren’t then, and you aren’t now. I never saw you as anything other than whole. I just wanted you to see it, too.”
They’re quiet for a while, and neither of them moves their hands, taking solace in one another.
-
Drinks lead to dinner, which leads to “Can I walk you home?”
Bucky, having decided after their drinks that second chances aren’t often granted, said yes immediately. Their stroll through the late night streets of Brooklyn was reminiscent of all the others they’d taken, and for the first time in a long time, the thought of them brought Bucky happiness.
When they reached his door, they shuffled, the awkward dance two people do when they don’t want the night to end but don’t know where to go from where they are.
Someone walking their dog passed by them, causing Steve to step closer, into the very edges of Bucky’s personal space.
It happened slowly, the closing of the distance between them. Neither could say who leaned in first nor did they care, but it was undoubtedly Steve who closed the gap.
Steve’s lips were still as soft as the looked, plush and pink and slightly damp from where he’d licked them nervously moments before. It was chaste, at first, pressure exchanged and hands ghosting towards hips and shoulders. It was “I’m sorry,” and it was a sweet and gentle as any heartfelt words could have been.
It changed after a moment, Bucky's hands coming to rest firmly on the narrow width of Steve’s hips, first and middle fingers of each hand threading through the belt loops there, the leather of his belt a contrast to the wool of his trousers. Steve wound one arm around his shoulders, using his slight height advantage to draw Bucky closer, threading the long fingers of his other hand into Bucky’s hair. It was longer than he’d kept it when they were together and perfect for wrapping around the fingers of a lover. The press of lips became insistent, demanding, and he slid the very tip of his tongue along the seam of Steve’s lips, asking, requesting entrance.
Steve acquiesced with a groan, fingers digging in where they rested on Bucky’s shoulder. His tongue ventured forth, caressing the very edge of Bucky’s bottom lip before meeting its counterpart in joyful reunion. It was “I missed you,” and it was passionate heat mixed with sorrow.
They grew more frantic, breaking apart occasionally, the air between them hot and damp as they shared a single breath between them, not wanting a single part of themselves to be separated any longer. When they dove back in, it was with a renewed sense of desire, Steve biting at Bucky’s lip before sucking it into his mouth and devouring the sounds that followed. Hands grasped firmer, legs slotted together, and hearts beat against each other from inside their chests. It was “please love me again,” and “I never stopped” all at once.
When they finally broke apart, there was dampness on their faces, emotions overflowing in salty tracks down cheeks. Steve brought his hands up to cups Bucky’s face, and Bucky brought his up to cover Steve’s.
“I was an idiot,” Steve said. “But I never stopped thinking about you.”
“You were,” Bucky agreed. “But neither did I.” He stepped back and held out his hand, waiting. “Stay with me?” He asked, and they both knew he meant more than just for tonight.
“Forever,” Steve answered him, taking his hand and following him towards the door. “Till the end of the line.”