Archive of Our Own

Loud.

That’s the first. A loud voice shouting. Fists, maybe feet. Someone getting hit.

And still, that voice. Loud.

Bucky runs straight ahead, and he’s not even sure why. He should run away, shouldn’t he? There’s shouting and kicking and something like metal scraping brick. He should run away from sounds like that, not toward them.

But he keeps running down the sidewalk, hearing loud just getting louder and louder until he goes around the next corner and into the alley-

There’s three boys. Two standing, one on the ground. Bucky thinks he recognizes one of them, one of the ones standing. Maybe both of them. He thinks they go to the same school as him. But not in the same class. One of them is older than Bucky. Or younger? They’re not the same age as him.

And the boy on the ground…

Loud.

He’s the loud one.

He’s shouting. Cussing up a storm. Yelling a string of words Bucky would get cuffed just for thinking too loudly. He’s on the ground, sprawled over a knocked-down trash can. There’s blood in his hair. On his shirt.

Bloody.

That’s the next. Loud was the first thing Bucky thought. Bloody is the second.

The boy tries to get up. He’s wheezing.

Wheezing, that’s the third.

One of the other boys winds up again, pulls back his fist-

“Hey!”

They turn to look at Bucky, still with their fists ready to go, still with mean faces. Bucky doesn’t want to fight them. There’s two of them, and one of him. He’s already walked almost all the way back home from school. He’s tired. He’s hungry. He wants dinner - and he knows there’s a good chance he won’t get his dinner at all if he shows up late because he was kicking the snot out of some kids in an alley.

The boys look him over. Bucky tries to look as mean as them, tries to make it look like he wants trouble.

One of the boys smacks the other on the shoulder. “C’mon.”

Bucky widens his legs, squeezes his hands into fists-

But he must not be worth it. Because the boys look behind them, down at the one who’s still leaning on the trash can. One of them sniffs. The other spits. They both give Bucky a nasty look. And they walk away.

There’s a lot of smugness to it. Like they’re suddenly too good for what they were doing. But Bucky thinks they just didn’t want to fight an even number. He thinks they liked getting to beat up on one kid between the two of them. A fair fight would be too much work.

There’s a cough, and another wheeze.

Bucky walks closer, grabs the other kid’s hand, tries to help hoist him up to his feet. “You okay?”

The boy grabs Bucky’s arm. His fingers dig in. He pulls himself up, and it’s almost enough to pull Bucky down.

Strong.

He gets to his feet. He spits something that Bucky thinks is probably blood. He stretches himself out carefully, like he’s testing to see where the pain is coming from. He stretches himself to his full height.

Small.

Huh. Bucky almost kinda wants to laugh. All that cussing, how loud all that shouting was, the strength in his hand when he gripped Bucky’s arm. And somehow, he’s so… small.

Surprising.

“What was that about? Coulda got yourself killed.” Bucky doesn’t really think that’s true, but still. Close enough.

The boy makes a sound, like he’s trying to flub his lips, but he can’t because they’re already starting to swell up. “That was nothing.” He dusts himself off - which is funny, seeing as his shirt’s ripped and there’s blood on the collar, so wiping off that bit of dirt on his sleeve ain’t gonna help much. He jerks his head back toward the street. “They were beating up on an old cat. Like it was fun, ” he says, nose wrinkled and lip curled like he’s all sorts of angry and disgusted and offended.

“Thought it’d be better for them to beat up on you?”

The boy frowns. “An old cat can’t fight back.”

“It was probably doing a better job of it than you did.” Bucky nods toward the blood in his hair, the dripping gash on his forehead, the spot on his jaw that’ll be a bruise any second now. “‘Nother hit probably woulda knocked you right out.”

The boy laughs. Loud, and defiant.

Loud. Small. Bloody. Stupid?

Reckless.

“Nah.” The boy grins at Bucky, and there’s blood on his teeth. “I could do this all day.”

Precise.

Bucky had thought it was control, at first.

But it’s not. By now, he knows that Steve Rogers has never had one drop of control in his tiny little body. It’s not control. It’ll never be control.

It’s precision.

There’s a difference. Bucky doesn’t think he could explain how, but there is.

Steve holds the needle between his teeth while his fingers fiddle to untangle the thread. Then he takes the needle between finger and thumb again, and makes another little pair of stitches in the sleeve of the shirt that’s spread across his lap. And then he pauses, and takes the time to carefully, carefully pull the thread through the fabric. Making sure that the stitches are tight, that the thread isn’t knotted, that the mend in the fabric is as unobtrusive and unnoticeable as possible. He rubs his thumb over the newest stitches. He smooths the shirt in the spot where the next stitch will be.

And he starts it over again. Stitch, stop, pull, stop, smooth, stop, prepare, stop. And then back to stitch again. Over and over and over and over, every single time.

Precise.

He’s precise whenever he mends a shirt. He’ll be just as precise when he washes it (the second round of washing, to work a little harder on that faded stain on the hem). And when he hangs it out to dry. And when he irons it. And when he puts it away. Precise.

And then next week, he’ll wear the shirt again, and he’ll get in another stupid fucking fight, and the shirt’ll get ruined again. And then they’ll be right back here. A Sunday afternoon, both of them sitting on Steve’s bed. Steve repeating the entire goddamn process. Bucky watching him do it.

It’s his Ma’s rule. Ever since Steve was, what, eight? Maybe even a little sooner than that? Her patience for his ruined clothes ran out pretty damn quick. And now that’s the rule, has been for years: If Steve starts the fight, Steve has to mend his clothes himself.

Steve doesn’t start fights. In all these years, Bucky’s almost never seen him be the one to cause the trouble. He’s damn good at finding trouble, yeah, but he doesn’t find the trouble in hopes that he’ll have to beat his way out of it. He’s always willing to try something else before the other guy inevitably sends him flying.

Steve doesn’t start the fights, but he always mends his clothes anyway.

Responsible.

Well, words like ‘responsible’ should probably be reserved for people who don’t get their asses kicked in their Sunday Best in the first place - especially not as a regular habit.

Decent.

That’s better. It may still be fucking stupid of him to get into trouble with such ridiculous frequency, but it’s decent of him to at least clean up after himself. Steve is decent, and he’s precise. And he can sew on a button faster than anyone else Bucky’s ever seen.

(That might be Bucky’s least favorite part of these messes, of pulling Steve out of so many scrapes. Having to stick around the scene of the crime and comb the ground until they find whatever buttons got yanked off of Steve’s clothes so he can sew them back on. His Ma has said many, many times that their household clothing budget doesn’t have extra room for stupid.)

The shirt doesn’t really deserve this kind of care. That’s how Bucky sees it, anyway. It doesn’t even fit him right. It’s too big. His Ma had hoped he’d grow into it. But that was two years ago, and they’re still waiting.

It hadn’t stuck out as much when they were younger. Yeah, Steve was little, but what was strange about that? He was just a short six-year-old, and if he was suspiciously skinny, he sure wasn’t the only one on the block.

It’s more noticeable now, now that a couple of growth spurts have hit everyone else and seemingly passed Steve right by. Every time he gains so much as an inch, he worries that that’s it, that’s all the growing puberty is gonna give him. At fourteen, with so many of the other boys already starting to shoot up feet overnight, it looks more likely that Steve is actually shrinking a little bit every day.

Steve pushes the needle through the fabric. Pauses. Pulls the thread slowly. Careful. Precise. And he smiles to himself. “What’re you looking at?”

Bucky keeps looking at Steve. “Reading.”

Steve still doesn’t look up from his shirt. Not even a glance. “Not a good one this week, huh?”

Bucky rubs his fingertips against the issue of Astounding Stories that’s resting open on his knees. He’s still holding it in both hands, but it’s slipped a bit. “How’d’ya figure?”

“You haven’t turned the page in ten minutes. Either you’re bored stiff,” he flicks his eyes up to Bucky, just for a second, “or they’re using a lot of words too big for you to understand.”

Bucky’s mouth twists up in a smile. “This one’s about a giant monkey. That’s it. It’s a monkey, but it’s real big.” He tips his head back against the wall. “Can’t believe I paid two whole dimes for this.”

Steve smiles down at his next stitch. “They should write more of ‘em about space.”

“They should all be about space!” Bucky sets aside the magazine just so he can use his hands to gesture in wild agreement. “They can write about whatever they fuckin’ want, and they have the nerve to write about an ape?!”

Steve frowns. “I thought you said it was a monkey.”

“Don’t get smart with me, punk.” Bucky stretches out one leg so he can weasel his toes into Steve’s side.

Steve yelps and lurches away stomach-first, trying to wiggle out of foot-range. He’s laughing, but he’s also holding his sewing above his lap, out of the way. As if laughing too hard might be enough to make the whole thing rip again right in his hands. He shoots Bucky a look that’s probably supposed to be chastising - and it might be, if he weren’t so smiley about it. Then he pointedly scoots a little ways across the bed, and settles back into his sewing routine.

Precise.

Smiling.

Laughing, just a bit.

Bucky keeps looking at him. Watching as his smile fades from something active to something distant. Like he’s not really thinking about smiling, he’s just doing it because his face hasn’t thought to stop yet. Smiling down at his needle and thread.

Distant. Smiling. Warm. And…

And something else. There’s another word, somewhere. Somewhere in that smile, somewhere on his face. Bucky doesn’t know what it is. But it’s there.

It’s there a lot. Bucky’s been looking at it for years - maybe all the way since they first met. But he still doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t know the right word for… it, for whatever this thing is that he sees in Steve’s face. In his smile.

Warm. Soft? Easy.

Easy, that’s a good one. It’s an easy smile.

Bucky scrunches his nose. That may be a good one, but it’s still not it.

“You should finish it.” Steve jerks his head toward Astounding Stories without looking away from his work. “Maybe it’ll get better.” His smile twists a bit. “Maybe they’ll send the monkey into space.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “They can’t send the monkey to space, Stevie.”

“They can’t?” Steve’s smile is a big, dumb smirk now. “What, is it busy or something?” He squishes his face down and pitches his voice up. “‘Y’know, we were planning on sending this giant ape to Mars… but his schedule’s just really full this week. Guess we’ll have to cancel.’ You said they can write about anything, why’s this the one thing they can’t do?”

Bucky presses his lips together, because he’s not gonna smile. He’s not gonna give Steve the satisfaction. “They wouldn’t be able to make a spaceship big enough.”

Steve laughs, head tipped down, shoulders shaking. “So they can write up a real big monkey, but not a real big spaceship?” He glances sideways at Bucky. “This story of yours sure has some dumb logic.”

“Yeah? You gonna write me a better one?”

Steve laughs again. Louder, this time. “You know I can’t make up a decent story for shit. If I ever tried to write like one of those magazines, the only thing it’d be good for is putting people to sleep.”

“Nah, nobody could sleep through something that bad.” Bucky pushes back against the wall, scooting himself toward Steve, so his feet bump a bit against his leg. “They could read it out loud to prisoners.”

“You calling my writing a form of punishment?”

“I’m calling it a form of torture.”

Steve turns his head to look at him. He’s smiling with his jaw clenched. Gritting his teeth. He’s got that crooked little look in his eye, like this particular offense might be enough for him to tackle Bucky to the floor and smack him stupid for the insult (or try to, anyway).

Bucky smirks right back, and gives a pointed glance to Steve’s nearly-finished shirt. A wordless challenge, daring Steve to get distracted by roughhousing when he’s still got work to do.

Steve stares him down for a few moments, thinking.

Then, he narrows his eyes, exhales sharply, and goes back to sewing. “Fuckin’ jerk.”

Bucky grins, and digs his toes into Steve’s leg again just to be a pest.

Feisty. Fierce, in his own way. Fierce enough to get into a scrape over just about anything. But decent, too. Decent enough to not get into that scrape until he’s finished mending his shirt. Still not responsible, though. Bucky’s still not willing to go that far.

“Finish your damn story. I want to know what happens to the big monkey.” Steve smiles as he pulls the thread again. And there it is again. Whatever that thing is, whatever that word is. It’s in his smile again.

Bucky keeps looking at Steve. He picks up the magazine and thumbs to a random page. He holds it open in front of him. He rubs his fingertips against the cover. He turns the page. A minute or two later, he turns the page again. He doesn’t look at the words once.

Shaking.

Sweating. Hot. Cold. Shaking. Wheezing.

But wheezing is good. Wheezing is breathing, and if he’s breathing, then it’s still good. It doesn’t matter that it sounds strained. That it doesn’t happen as often as it should. That Bucky can hear the wetness of all the shit that’s built up in his lungs. It’s still breathing.

He’s still breathing. That’s what matters.

Steve wheezes again, another breath that shakes and scrapes and makes a horrible noise. It turns into a cough - wet and weak but somehow still enough to wrack his entire body.

Bucky holds Steve a little tighter, puts a hand on the back of his head so he can really press Steve’s face to his chest. It won’t help. It won’t do anything. Hell, it’s probably hurting. It’s probably making it harder for Steve to get air. Bucky’s probably smothering him.

But he can’t make himself let go, or loosen his grip. Because this is it. This is all he can do. They’ve just got to wait this out. To wait for the ending, whichever one it is. Steve will either get better, or this’ll kill him. Those are the only two options. And right now, they don’t have any damn way of controlling which one it’ll be.

Steve’s hands are crushed between them, but Bucky can still feel them trembling. He coughs again, another cough that sounds like something out of a horror movie. His fingers curl, like he’s trying to get a fistful of Bucky’s shirt. But they don’t make it that far. He can’t grip.

So Bucky fists a hand in the back of Steve’s shirt. It’s an acknowledgement. He’s here. Steve’s here, and Bucky’s here. It’s not much, but it’s something.

It’s maybe the one thing about this that’s gotten easier over the years. Steve got sick like this all the damn time when they were kids, but back then, he had guards. They both did. They both had families right outside their doors, keeping Bucky from getting out of his room, and keeping him from getting into Steve’s room if he managed to make it that far. Steve would be quarantined back then, locked away so no one else would catch whatever he had that time. Bucky wasn’t allowed to see him, because Bucky would get sick too.

Which meant Bucky would have to sneak out. Out the bedroom window, down the fire escape, three blocks up, one block over, up the trellis (because the fire escape there creaked like an alarm), in through Steve’s window, into Steve’s sick bed.

Now, he doesn’t have to go through all the fuss. Now he’s already here, already in the bedroom. And even if the doc firmly told him to sleep out in the kitchen until Steve can’t get him sick anymore (one way or the other), what’s he gonna do? Show up and personally drag Bucky away? Bucky’s a grown man, and if he wants to cram himself into Steve’s tiny bed and try to squeeze the pneumonia out of his lungs, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.  

Steve tilts his head a bit, curling in a bit more. His forehead knocks against Bucky’s collarbone. Drenched in cold sweat. Bucky tightens his arm around him.

Small.

He’s so small, like this. In a way he never is any other time. He isn’t small when he’s burrowed against the arm of the sofa, sketching for hours at a time. He isn’t small when he’s getting brushed off by a dame who’s three inches taller than him without her heels. He isn’t small when he’s getting knocked down by an asshole more than twice his size.

He’s small like this. With his head tucked under Bucky’s chin, Bucky’s arm wrapped around him, curled up against Bucky’s chest.

Small. Thin. Frail. Breakable. Small, so small.

Wheezing. Breathing.

He coughs again, and it’s practically right down Bucky’s shirt. Not that it matters. He could be coughing straight into Bucky’s mouth and it still wouldn’t fucking matter. Bucky’s been sneaking himself into Steve’s bed for well over a decade now - during pneumonias and whooping coughs and scarlet fevers and some things the doctors couldn’t even pin down - and he’s barely ever caught more than a cold. Bucky doesn’t get sick. It just doesn’t happen. Steve gets an inch away from death every winter like clockwork, and Bucky doesn’t even catch a cold.

It’s unfair. It’s so uneven.

Steve and Bucky must have been made right next to each other, side by side, at the exact same time. And when they were divvying up all the stuff that was supposed to go in each of them, someone fucked up. They spilled all of the good health into Bucky, and they didn’t have any left over for Steve. Bucky got all of Steve’s health, and it’s not fucking fair. Bucky could handle it. He could handle some sickness like this, at least once in a while. It’d be worth it, if it meant there was a Christmas where he was the one too sick to get out of bed, and Steve was fine.

He’d take so many of these sicknesses, if it meant Steve would be fine. He’d do it.

He’d do anything.

Anything. He’ll do anything, to make Steve better. He’ll fix all his problems, he’ll make himself into a better person, a decent person. He’ll drink less. He’ll start praying. He’ll stop bringing home dames that he never means to see again. He’ll stop going to dance halls to find them. He’ll even stop going to those dance halls, those clubs, the ones where he doesn’t have to dance with a dame at all. The ones where he can dance with a guy, the ones where he can go out back, go with a guy into an alley or a hallway or a room upstairs - always the smallest, skinniest, blondest guy he can find-

He’ll stop all of it. He’ll give it all up. He won’t do another bad thing in his life, if it means Steve can get through this one.

He does this every time. He knows that, he knows that he thinks these exact same things every time he’s in Steve’s bed like this. He’ll be better, he’ll give up his vices, he’ll change it all, if he can still have Steve.

He says it every time. And every time, Steve gets better. And every time, Bucky goes right back to it. Back to the corner store for the cheapest whiskey he can find. Back to the dance hall to find a dame for the night. Back to those clubs, back to an alley where he’s on his knees and using all his imagination to pretend he’s with someone else, pretend he’s hearing a different voice and fisting his hands in the tails of a different person’s shirt.

But this time, he means it. He’ll change. He’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to fall asleep tonight without wondering if he’ll wake up with Steve dead in his arms.

He’s fallen asleep like that too many times. Too many damn nights and it’s not fair.

It’s not fucking fair. He shouldn’t have to know what that’s like, how it feels. Steve shouldn’t have to do this. They’re barely over twenty years old and they’ve already faced this more than enough for a lifetime. Several lifetimes. Bucky’s had to check his pulse too many times, make sure he’s breathing too many times, make sure he’s still alive too many goddamn times. He’s heard Steve’s last rites, heard them more than once, more than a few times. It’s not any kind of fair. Steve’s life shouldn’t have to be a question.

He’s so strong. Strong. Fierce. Loud. Reckless. Righteous. Bucky’s seen him tell off giants for saying something rude, seen him take hit after hit after hit after hit without giving up because he knows he’s doing right and they’re doing wrong, seen him covered in his own blood and still smiling right through it.

And somehow, Bucky’s also seen him vomit right onto his pillow because he’s too weak to lean over the bed and aim for the bucket on the floor.

It doesn’t make any kind of sense. One person shouldn’t be able to live on such extremes.

Inexplicable. Impossible.

Steve makes a noise like a cough. A cough without any of the power. He wheezes. His fingers tighten in Bucky’s shirt.

His fingers go slack.

He goes quiet.

Bucky waits.

He waits, with his heart pounding in his ears. With panic cold in his chest. He waits. Patiently. He waits.

He waits.

Steve wheezes again.

Bucky closes his eyes, and holds him a little tighter.

Impossible. Unfair. Wheezing.

But, breathing. That’s the important thing. Nothing else matters, for tonight. As long as there’s that. Breathing.

Breathing.

Breathing.

Sad.

Sad?

Maybe.

But maybe Bucky’s just imagining it. Just projecting. Maybe he just wants Steve to be sad. It seems like it’s what he should be. Like Bucky should expect that from him.

And isn’t that kinda fucked? Wanting Steve to feel something like that? Wouldn’t this be so much easier if Steve didn’t feel a damn thing? Easier for Steve, anyway.

Hell, maybe easier for both of them.

Bucky’s uniform feels too tight. In a way it didn’t yesterday. In a way it never has before. It’s suddenly constricting, stifling.

Yeah, maybe this would all be easier if Steve wasn’t feeling a damn thing. Because if he didn’t give a fuck, then Bucky wouldn’t have to either. Right?

Maybe.

They’re lingering. Dawdling. Delaying the inevitable, Bucky supposes. They’ve been shuffling around all morning, shuffling closer and closer to the door. It’s open now, and Bucky’s been standing on the threshold for probably fifteen minutes.

It’s just stalling. It won’t make anything any different. Any easier. Hell, Bucky thinks it might have been better if he’d just… left. First thing when he woke up. Like it’s any other day, and he’s just heading out to the docks. Like he’ll be back for dinner. Like he’ll be back.

They’re out of time now. Bucky’s already stayed longer than he should have, and now he’s still here. Still trying to say goodbye, like that one word could somehow take over half an hour to get through.

Then again…

“Y’know something, Stevie? I don’t think I’ve ever said goodbye to you before.”

Steve’s mouth moves, like it’s supposed to be a smile - but his eyebrows are furrowed, and that sure ruins the look. “Guess not.” He shrugs. “Never had a reason to.”

Not a reason like this, anyway. They’ve said goodbye plenty, but they’ve never really… meant it. They’ve said it as an in-between, as the thing they say to acknowledge the little gap before they see each other again. Goodbye has always been a placeholder for them. It’s never really been a goodbye.

Bucky supposes there’s a first time for everything.

“So, ah.” Bucky laughs. It’s halfhearted, at best. “How do we do this?”

Steve slips his hands into his pockets. “Dunno.”

It’s stupid. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Bucky knew they’d be here, they both knew this would happen eventually. It took a little longer than Bucky thought it would - and maybe that was the problem. Maybe he had enough time to let himself pretend. Maybe he let himself start thinking that he’d be on leave just long enough for the war to end. Maybe he let himself believe that this conversation would never have to happen, and that’s why he never bothered to prepare for it.

Because he didn’t. He didn’t prepare. He’s never felt less prepared in his life.

It’s not that he’s unfamiliar with the concept of ‘last words’. He’s probably said about a dozen last words to Steve over the years. But they were goodnights, not goodbyes. Things he said when he didn’t know if Steve was gonna wake up, when Steve could listen but didn’t have the strength to talk. This isn’t like that. For some reason, this is different.

Maybe because he’s leaving. Because he’ll choose the words right now, and he’ll have to keep going, having no fucking clue if that’ll be the last thing he ever says to Steve. The last time he’ll ever see him. He doesn’t know if he’ll be making it back here. And, even if he does-

Even if he does get to open this door again, he doesn’t know if Steve will be on the other side of it.

Would he even know?

If Steve dies next week, during the winter, next year, would anyone think to tell Bucky?

That’s not supposed to be part of this. Bucky’s supposed to go overseas, and get shot at and blown up, and everybody here is supposed to worry. Everybody else is supposed to be afraid that he’s already dead, and they just haven’t heard about it yet. Bucky shouldn’t be the one worrying about that. Bucky shouldn’t be the one who’s afraid of what’s happening a continent away. Bucky should only have to worry about his own fucking death, not Steve’s.

He’s spent so many years now - most of his damn life - wondering if he’d watch Steve die. In the same room, the same bed, in his arms. Right in front of him. He’s had to wonder what that would be like. How unbearable it would be.

And now there’s something else for him to wonder. What’s worse: Steve dying with him, or Steve dying without him? He’s facing down this new option, the possibility that Steve could die hundreds of miles away from him. That Steve could die without Bucky having a fucking clue. That Steve could have a funeral that Bucky isn’t at, that Bucky doesn’t even know about. If Bucky gets his hands on a miracle or two in Europe and is alive enough to come home, he could walk into an empty apartment, not even knowing where the grave is that someone else buried Steve in.

Bucky exhales, just short of being an actual sigh.

He should have just left. Tossed Steve a quick ‘see ya’ as the door closed behind him. He wouldn’t be this fucking morbid if he weren’t standing here, if he weren’t staring down Steve for minutes on end, while they’re both trying to pick the words that they want to be the last things they ever say to each other. Bucky doesn’t have thoughts like this when he doesn’t actually see him. It’s only when he’s looking at him.

Sad - maybe, Bucky’s still not sure. Disappointed? Maybe that’s better?

No, that doesn’t make any sense. He knew this was going to happen, just as much as Bucky did. Not sad. Not disappointed. Quiet. Tired. Deflated. Resigned.

There, that’s it. Resigned.

Bucky can’t tell what Steve’s feeling, because he’s not letting himself show it. Maybe he’s not even letting himself feel it. Because what the fuck does it matter, anyway? It’s not gonna keep Bucky from walking out the door. This is it, and it’s inevitable.

Resigned.

Calm. Unusually calm. Calm isn’t one of the ones Bucky thinks very often. Calm, and quiet. Both uncommon. Both kinda awful.

Steve tries that smile again. And fails, again. It’s just his mouth. It doesn’t make it to the rest of his face.

Soft. Easy. Comfortable. Familiar. Hell, Bucky’s more familiar with Steve’s face than he is with his own. Open. Warm. Beautif-

No.

No, that’s not right. That’s not one of them.

That isn’t one of them.

That can’t be one of them.

Steve tilts his head. “What’re you looking at?”

Bucky keeps looking at Steve. He makes himself smile. “Nothing.”

Big.

That’s the obvious one, anyway. That’s probably the first thing anyone would think when they see this - see him. Big.

Awkward.

That one’s not as obvious. It’s probably not something anyone else would think. It sure as hell didn’t apply yesterday, after all. He wasn’t awkward when he was fighting, running, marching, giving orders, taking on a Hydra base like it’s a hobby. Like it’s second-nature. Like he was born to do it. Nothing awkward about him then.

But now, sitting. Sitting on a cot that doesn’t look like it should support his weight, much less his size. Sitting with his legs too close together. Sitting with his hands in his lap, like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with them.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with his hands. His limbs. His bulk. There’s too much of him. Bucky knows it’s been a decent while since he’s been… this. But he’s still not used to it. That much is painfully clear. He may have known how to march all of their asses out of Azzano with nothing but fire in their wake, but he sure as hell doesn’t know how to sit on a cot. His shoulders keep moving, shifting, he keeps letting his head tilt around on his stupidly thick neck, his knees keep knocking together - and hell, Bucky can see his ass tighten, clenching and relaxing over and over again. He can see the way it changes his posture. Again, and again.

Awkward. Restless. Uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in his own fucking body.

It’s like Steve’s still in there - the real Steve. The actual Steve Rogers is still himself, still exactly the size he’s supposed to be, and they’ve stuffed him into this giant meat suit, and it doesn’t fit right. His hands tense and flex and his fingers fidget and it’s because his hands don’t fucking fit. Steve doesn’t have hands the size of lion paws and fingers like goddamn sausages. He’s got thin hands, artist fingers, and they’re trapped inside these awful, gigantic gloves. Bucky can see them trying to get out.

Bucky keeps breathing. He hasn’t been breathing enough. They’ve had to keep reminding him to breathe since he got here. He thinks it’s just because he’s too tired - tired from marching, tired from spending an entire goddamn day and night with the docs poking and prodding and interrogating him, just to be told that they don’t have a goddamn fucking clue what Hydra’s been doing to him. Tired from answering questions. Tired from not getting answers of his own. Tired from trying to keep himself awake. Tired from being afraid to let himself sleep. Tired from being afraid that he’s already asleep, that he’s still back there, that none of this happened, that he’s going to wake up any second-

Bucky breathes.

And he keeps looking at Steve.

And Steve keeps looking at Bucky.

There’s a mountain of shit Steve’s supposed to be dealing with. It’s all piled next to him on the cot, and on the tiny excuse for a desk that’s crammed into the tent with them. He keeps trying to deal with it. He keeps picking up books and unfolding maps and looking down at them. And then a few seconds later, he looks back up.

Distracted.

Steve’s looking at Bucky. Steve’s eyes are looking at Bucky, from inside this face that’s not Steve’s at all.

It’s disorienting. Bucky feels dizzy. Bucky feels like he might hurl.

He keeps breathing.

And after another few moments, he swallows. “Your ears?”

Steve doesn’t have to ask for clarification. He just gives a little smile. “They both work.”

Bucky nods. “Eyes?”

“I can see all the colors now.”

Bucky nods again.

It’s still his voice. It still sounds like him. They didn’t fuck that up.

Thank god.

Bucky closes his eyes. “Lungs?”

“You saw me running, didn’t you?”

He still sounds like him. With his eyes closed, Bucky can almost pretend he still looks like him too.

Thank god.

“Spine?”

“Straight as a rod.”

“Heart?”

“Beats just like it’s supposed to.”

“All the rest? All of it?”

“Far as I can tell.”

Bucky nods.

He keeps nodding. Eyes closed. Breathing. Breathing.

He opens his eyes, and looks at Steve.

They did it. They fixed him. Fixed what was wrong, everything that made it hard - hard for him to get from one end of the day to the other. That’s gone now. All of it.

And that’s all Bucky’s ever wanted. Isn’t it?

He keeps breathing.

So many nights, so many battlefields, so many trenches, so many bombs, so many bullets, and all Bucky could ever think was that he’d tell him, if he had the chance. If there was a miracle working in his favor and he got out of there and he saw Steve again, he’d tell him. He’d use all the words he’s kept to himself all these years.

Warm. Familiar. Soft. Loving. Loved. Beautiful.

He’s promised himself, a hundred- a million times over, promised himself day after week after month. If there was ever a miracle. If he ever had the chance.

Here he is, sitting on the other end of about a dozen miracles. Steve right in front of him, with two good ears to hear him.

Bucky looks at Steve.

Ugly.

Different. Wrong. Wrong.

Fucked.

Fucked.

Wrong.

This wasn’t supposed to be part of it. He’s had the fantasy written in his head like a new issue of Astounding Stories , he’s had the story all planned out for a good twenty years. Some scientist comes up with a pill or a shot or a goddamn magic potion, and it fixes Steve. Fixes his illnesses, fixes his body, fixes everything from the life-threatening to the mildly inconvenient. Bucky’s imagined it for decades. Bucky’s wished it for decades.

But not like this. In his little story, they just fixed him. Made him healthy, and left everything else the fuck alone. They didn’t change him. They didn’t take Stevie and turn him into… this, whatever the fuck this is.

Big. Hulking. Bulky. Unreal. Ugly. FUBAR.

Huh. He’s heard that one a few different ways. It never really seemed to matter before - it all basically meant the same thing. Fucked Up Beyond All Repair, all Reason, or all Recognition.

Bucky looks at Steve.

Recognition. Fucked up beyond all recognition.

His stomach churns. He knows he can’t blame that entirely on this, on what he’s seeing. He’s been all sorts of sick for- well. For too long to really pin down. He can’t quite remember the last time he felt anything like okay. So he knows it’s not fair to say it’s just this. It’s so much.

But this sure as fuck isn’t helping.

Because Steve is here. Yeah he’s fine, and he’s healthy, and they fucking fixed him like a goddamn science fiction story, and he’s not alone in some Brooklyn slum dying a quiet death in his bed, and that’s good, that’s such a good thing and Bucky knows he should be fucking grateful, but…

Steve’s here. He’s here.

They did this. They could have just fixed him - fixed his lungs, his heart, all of that. Clearly, they knew how to do that. They could have just done that and let him go. But they didn’t. They made him this, and they sent him here. They kept him from dying in Brooklyn so they could send him to get killed in Italy.

What’s worse: Steve dying with him, or Steve dying without him?

Except now there’s another piece to it. Another layer. What’s worse: Steve dying across an ocean, when there’s not a damn thing Bucky could do about it, or Steve dying right in front of him, when Bucky could have saved him?

It’s already happened so many times. A guy’s next to you, and then he’s not. And there’s always something. Bucky could have taken that bullet, Bucky could have pushed him out of the way, Bucky could have stepped on that mine, Bucky could have taken out the shooter before he took the shot. There’s always a dozen things. There’s always something Bucky could have done to save them, and that’s already too much, too much responsibility, too much guilt for him to-

And now, it’ll be Steve. It’ll be all that again, all that fear and guilt and shame and hatred, and it’ll be Steve whose death he’s watching.

Bucky wants to kill them. He wants to find the person who did this, the person who thought of it, the people who figured out how to do it, the people who helped, the person who found Steve, every single person responsible for any piece of this. And he wants to kill them. Because they took his Steve - they took his Stevie - and they ruined him. They took him away from where he was safe from everything but his own stupid body, and they ruined him, and they sent him here to get killed. Even if he agreed to it, even if he volunteered, even if this mission was his idea, they still sent him here in the first place. They gave him this weapon disguised as a body and put him somewhere he can use it to get himself killed. Bucky looks at Steve and he hates it, because that’s not his Steve, that’s not him, it’s not-

He closes his eyes.

He keeps breathing.

He keeps breathing.

He keeps… he keeps breathing.

He opens his eyes.

Steve is still looking at him. Not doing a damn thing he’s supposed to. Just… staring at Bucky.

And Bucky’s not used to being the one stared at. It’s been one way for twenty years, it’s too late for them to change places now.

Bucky keeps breathing.

“Read your comics.”

Steve looks surprised for all of a second. Then his mouth twists up in some sort of dumb, embarrassed smile. He looks down at his lap. “Yeah?”

“Captain America’s a big deal. We always get the new ones.”

Steve chuckles, like it’s ridiculous. And it is. This whole damn thing is ridiculous. Every fucking detail of this situation is ridiculous. So he might as well laugh. Hell, it makes more sense to laugh than to take this bullshit of a situation seriously. “D’you like ‘em?”

Bucky knows what he means, but for some reason he says, “Some of the guys are really into them. Some think they’re stupid. Propaganda ain’t exactly subtle; it’s not to everyone’s taste.”

But Steve knows that Bucky knows that’s not the answer to the real question, so he doesn’t let up. “You?”

Bucky takes a moment. It’s a thought he’s had so many times, but he’d never once considered that he’d ever say it out loud. Not to Steve. Especially not like this. It’s a little disorienting.

“Y’know what I’ve thought, every time I see one? Every damn time I’ve seen one of those things?” He tries to make himself smirk. “‘Steve could draw better’n that’.”

Steve’s eyebrows tilt up. The angle of his whole face changes.

And then he laughs. Big. Loud. Stupid.

It’s his laugh. It’s Steve, laughing. Ain’t nothing about it that’s not him. The sound, the way he awkwardly gulps and hiccups to try to take in air, the way his head tilts, the way he puts a hand to his face like he’s trying to cram all the laughter back into his mouth. The way his eyes crinkle. The shape of his smile - even if it’s stretched out over all this extra chin and jaw no one fucking asked for.

Bucky doesn’t laugh with him. He’s not sure he could, even if he wanted to. He’s not sure he has that in him right now. But still. Seeing it, and hearing it, it’s…

It’s alright. It’s not like it fixes anything, but it- yeah. It helps.

Bucky keeps breathing.

Steve’s here. He ain’t supposed to be, but he is. It’s not gonna be easy for Bucky to get past the part where he’s not supposed to be here, but once he does…

Steve’s here.

Different. FUBAR. Fixed. Broken.

Laughing. Here.

Smiling.

And it’s his smile. It’s different, but it’s still his. It’s that smile. Steve’s here, and he’s smiling.

Steve’s here.

Here.

Bucky keeps breathing. He keeps looking.

“Stevie?”

Steve moves. He jerks forward a bit. His hands are still fidgeting. He still doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t know how to sit still inside this body. He looks worried. He looks like he’s supposed to be doing something, like he doesn’t think he’s capable of doing nothing. “Hm?”

Bucky keeps breathing. “I’m real happy to see you.”

Steve’s face softens. It starts in his eyes, and it takes its sweet time spreading out to the rest of him. His look softens so damn much that it’s almost enough to smudge away all these new angles, all these extra edges and hard lines. He smiles, with his face all soft like this.

Relieved.

“‘M real happy to see you too, Buck.”

Yeah, that’s better. The dopey grin. The tilt to his eyebrows. The sag of his shoulders.

Soft. Smiling.

That’s him. He’s in there. He’s still in there.

Alright. Maybe Bucky can work with this.

Shouting.

Loud, even over everything else. Bucky can still hear him shouting over the wind, over the gunfire, over the roaring of the train’s engine and the horrible screeching of the wheels on the frozen track. Bucky can hear him. Loud. Shouting. Reaching. Reaching for him.

Bucky’s not entirely sure what he’s holding onto. But it’s loose, it’s shaking, it’s metal, it’s cold. Bucky isn’t wearing gloves, and he’s gripping frozen metal. It’s probably burning his hands. It’ll probably start hurting soon. Once the adrenaline wears off, once Steve grabs him and hauls him back onto the train, and he has a chance to catch his breath, and his heart stops pounding so loud in his ears. Once he’s safe again, his hands will probably start hurting. He’ll have to worry about that soon. As soon Steve manages to reach him.

Reaching. Shouting.

Panicked.

Afraid.

He shouldn’t be afraid. Because he just has to reach a little farther, and he’ll be able to grab Bucky’s hand. And Bucky will have to let go with his other hand, but that’ll be fine. He can let go, once Steve has him. He knows Steve can hold him. He knows Steve can pull him to safety.

And when he does, Bucky’ll tell him. He will. He finally will. He’s put it off for too long, and it doesn’t make sense anymore. He’s had so many perfectly good chances. He’s had years, a lifetime of good chances all strung together, and he’s never taken any of them. He’s let them roll right past for no goddamn reason.

When Steve gets him back on the train, he’ll tell him.

Or, hell, maybe he can tell him right now.

His grip isn’t gonna hold much longer. The railing is shaking harder, letting out awful, rusty creaking sounds. Bucky sees a screw fly loose and disappear in an instant. There isn’t much time. There isn’t gonna be enough time for Steve to reach him. Steve’s not gonna save him. There’s not enough time for Steve to save him. But maybe there’s still enough time for Bucky to tell him. It’s only a few words, ain’t it? How long could it take?

Afraid.

Steve’s reaching and shouting and he’s afraid, like Bucky’s never seen before.

Maybe there’s still time. It’s just a few words. Maybe-

The creaking noise comes first, flaking rust and snapping metal. The sound happens just a split-second sooner than the rest of it. Then it’s the feeling. The wind, the weightlessness. And at first, there’s moment that’s almost like… euphoria. There’s a rush that makes it feel like flying. Maybe his brain is attempting some optimism, trying to make him feel like this new experience, this new sensation should be exciting.

He hears Steve. Loud. But only for a second. He gets drowned out by wind. He gets too far away. So quickly. His face disappears so fast.

Vanishing. Gone.

Beautiful.

Bucky closes his eyes.

Because he can. And there’s not much else left he can do now. This is may be the last decision he gets to make. He can choose to block all this out, he can choose to not see anything else.

And, hell. If Steve’s face is gonna be the last thing he ever sees, at least the view ain’t half bad.

“Bucky?”

Small.

No, that’s incorrect.

The hostile has stopped engaging. Standing still. Non-threatening.

He looks at the hostile, trying to assess damages.

And again, there’s that thought.

Small.

And again, it’s incorrect. He can see that it’s incorrect. The hostile is roughly 1.85 meters, roughly 90 kilograms. The hostile has displayed above-average speed, strength, reflexes. The hostile must have some form of enhancement. The hostile is proving unusually difficult to kill. The hostile is not ‘small’.

He assess damages: The hostile has retrieved the weapon - the shield? - but lax, no longer in defensive position. The hostile shows no sign of significant injury. The hostile is breathing heavily, possibly running out of energy. The hostile won’t be able to keep up this level of physical activity. The hostile has weak lungs, and will be vulnerable to an asthma attack under continued strain. The hostile is deaf in his right ear, giving him insufficient defense and making it likely that he’ll favor his left side-

No.

That’s not…

That’s incorrect. The hostile has shown no signs of asthma or difficulty breathing. The hostile hasn’t favored his left side or been negligent to threats on his right.

So, why did he think…

There must be a comm. In the hostile’s right ear. He must have seen it. He must have mistaken it for a hearing aid. That must be why… It’s the only reasonable explanation for-

There are still two others. The target has been dealt with, but all three hostiles are still a threat, and two of them are currently unaccounted for (the woman - injured, less likely to engage again. The man - potentially airborne, potentially anywhere). He’s lost track of them.

Shit.

He’s let himself lose track of them. Fuck. Because he’s been distracted - he’s let himself become distracted, by this one. This hostile, standing perfectly still, in the middle of the street. Breathing heavily. No longer engaging. Just… standing. Still. Staring at him. The hostile’s mouth is slightly open. Perhaps to help regulate breathing. But it looks almost like…

Still.

Breathing.

Surprised.

Stunned.

The hostile addresses him.

“Bucky?”

Small.

Loud.

Bloody.

No, that’s incorrect. The hostile is large, and his voice is quiet, and the injuries he’s sustained are bruises, not blood. He looks at the hostile, he looks.

Small.

Loud. Shouting.

Precise.

Small.

Strong.

Steve.

No. No. No, that’s incorrect.

Bucky.

Steve.

No.

He can’t speak. He hasn’t been authorized to speak on this mission. He’s not allowed to speak. He’s not allowed. He’s not allowed. But he looks at the hostile.

Small. Loud. Bloody. Strong. Steve.

He isn’t allowed to speak. But he needs-

He needs.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

Steve.

It won’t get out of his head. He can’t get it out. He can’t regulate his thoughts. He’s not supposed to think this.

He looks down at the target.

Bloody.

And this time, that’s correct. He is. Bloody. Bruised. Beaten.

Steve.

He still feels blood on his hand, but he knows it’s been washed away by the river. He knows it’s water dripping off of him, not blood. But he sees blood on the target, and he feels it dripping. He feels it on his hand. He feels the target’s blood. Steve’s blood.

Steve.

He can’t stop thinking.

But he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t think this. It hasn’t been authorized.

And it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to think this because he knows. The target is Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, the target’s name is Steve, he knows that, they told him that.

They told him.

He’d asked to see the file.

Not authorized.

He usually gets to see the file. They usually give it to him, without him having to ask. And they didn’t, this time. So he’d asked.

Not allowed. Denied. Punished.

He’d wanted to see weaknesses. They’d told him there were none - scientifically enhanced, regenerative DNA, advanced healing. But he’d wanted to see for himself. He needed to see it, in the file. He’d needed to see deafness in the target’s right ear. Asthma in the target’s lungs. A curve in the target’s spine. An irregularity in the target’s heartbeat. He’d needed to see it. He’d needed proof.

He still needs it. And he still doesn’t have it.

The target is immobile. The target is unconscious. The target is breathing. Wheezing.

Wheezing?

Bloody. Bruised.

Small.

He can’t stop thinking it. He’s hauled the target’s full weight out of the river, and he still thinks it. Small. Bloody. Wheezing. Steve.

Steven Grant Rogers. Target.

Steve. Stevie.

He wasn’t authorized to pull him from the river. He hasn’t completed the mission. He’s not…

He wasn’t allowed to save him. He’s not allowed to be standing here.

He’s not allowed to walk away.

The target is breathing. Steve is breathing.

He’s not allowed to walk away - mission failure.

And he’s not allowed to stay - mission failure.

He’s not authorized, he needs to finish this, complete his mission, return for debriefing, he’s not authorized-

He wasn’t authorized to save him. And he did.

Alive. Breathing.

He’s alive. Steve is alive. Stevie is breathing.

He wasn’t allowed to save him, but he did.

He isn’t allowed to walk away.

But he does.

Calculated.

Performative.

Performing.

It must be exhausting, performing like this. So careful, so calculated, almost every minute of every day, for so long.

It’s been six months.

No, that’s inaccurate. Possibly incorrect.

Bucky doesn’t know.

It’s been six months since DC. Since the Potomac. And Bucky doesn’t know if the performance started right away. Presumably, there was time before that. Time in the hospital, recovering. Time spent making this decision, making plans. Time before Bucky was watching.

It’s been four months since the press conference. Maybe that’s a more accurate time frame. Maybe that was Steve’s way of starting the performance. It was certainly when Bucky first became aware of it.

Bucky had watched from a diner counter. There were televisions in every corner, playing the news with no sound. Someone told them to turn it up when Steve started talking. People stopped eating, stopped whatever they were doing, to listen.

It had been diplomatic. Short, but formal. Official. He’d thanked his team. He’d thanked the country. He’d used words like ‘peace’ and ‘rest’. And he’d handed the shield to Wilson, in a deliberate, ceremonial gesture. That moment, that picture had covered every newspaper, magazine, talk show, website, for weeks. That picture ended seventy-five years of Steve Rogers: Captain America.

And it began the performance.

He must have known Bucky would see it. He must have known. It was international news, after all. He’d have been able to see it anywhere. Steve must have known Bucky would see it, and he must have known Bucky would be able to find him, after that. He must have known Bucky would watch him, after that.

He knows Bucky is watching.

It’s obvious, because he’s performing.

Calculated.

Every detail of it. He’s off the grid - as much as a former superhero and national icon can be. He’s upstate, out of the way. He probably wanted Brooklyn. Under different circumstances, he probably would have picked Brooklyn. But he can’t find the same isolation there. People expect him to be there, because everyone knows Steve Rogers is a sentimental fool. People probably don’t expect him to be in a rambler buried in the suburbs.

Small houses, big yards. High picket fences in front, dense woods in the back. An intense level of casual suburban isolation from neighboring properties. Casually isolated neighbors. A neighborhood where polite nods and waves are the only regular interaction. A neighborhood where the excitement of Steve Rogers attempting to live incognito wore off in less than a month. People used to take pictures of him on his morning jog, at the farmer’s market, at Target buying towels. But once everyone saw the crushing mundanity of his daily life, they stopped caring. The first time you see Steve Rogers carefully sorting his recycling in the driveway next to yours, it’s sensational. The dozenth time you see it, it’s depressing reminder that Steve Rogers’s life is as unremarkable as your own.

There’s still sensation, now and again. Some tabloid tries to make a story out of the former Captain America’s retired life. But it doesn’t last. The neighbors have quietly accepted him, and here that acceptance means being utterly ignored.

Isolated.

No one coming and going. No one poking around in his business. No one coming to the house unexpectedly. No threats. Easy to secure. Easy to monitor.

Safe.

Obviously, blatantly, presentationally safe.

A ground floor, and a basement. No upstairs. Two-car garage, front door, sliding glass door to the back porch. The only other viable exits are the windows.

Three bedrooms. Three bathrooms. Kitchen. Living room. Dining area adjacent to the back porch. Finished basement full of exercise equipment.

Basic floor plan. Basic security system. Locks on all doors and windows, including all bedrooms.

Safe.

Performative.

One bedroom is probably intended to be a generic ‘Guest Room’. In practice, it’s just Wilson’s room, where he stays when he visits. Sometimes a few hours. Sometimes more than a week, off and on. It’s the most elaborate, the most decorated. Warm colors and simple pieces of art on the walls.

The bedroom with the most sunlight is Steve’s. Open. Simple. Decorated, but plain. Full of personal belongings, not luxuries. A bed, an easel, a chair, and belongings.

The master bedroom isn’t used. But it’s furnished. It’s prepared. Ready.

Waiting.

Plain, full-sized bed. Functional. Navy blue bedding. One pillow. Large dresser. Several drawers, all empty. Small desk, plain chair. Empty.

Waiting.

Performing.

The blinds in the master bedroom are never closed. The lights are only turned on once a week, when Steve vacuums and dusts it along with the rest of the house. The room is maintained. The room is on display.

Inviting.

The room is the most obvious. The most egregious part of the performance. The house itself - the location, the neighborhood, the isolation, the safety, the security - is all bad enough. Is blatant enough. The room is so obvious it borders on ridiculous. Steve’s done everything short of stocking the dresser with clothes in his size, or carving his name on the door.

It’s the room, it’s the house, it’s the isolation, the safety, the simplicity. The gym in the basement, with no exits except the staircase and one easily-secured window. Punching bags. Steel. Everything strong enough to survive a daily visit from a superhero. And still, that’s not all of it.

It’s the mundanity. Steve is performing, all day long. He knows. And still, it’s so simple. Jogging and breakfast and laundry and the farmer’s market and cooking and mowing the lawn and watching movies and drawing and doing absolutely nothing.

Soft. Such a soft life.

Easy.

No fighting. No danger. No risking his life every three days when there’s another threat to humanity. Just his house. Yard work on Thursdays. Visit from Wilson on Sundays. Therapist appointment on Wednesdays.

(And even that is part of the performance. It’s too calculated to be coincidental. Mostly veteran clientele, specializing in PTSD, that makes good enough sense for Steve. But the emphasis on trauma, on prisoners of war, on victims of torture, that’s another calculation. That’s something else that Steve had chosen specifically, intended to be seen.)

It’s regular and it’s safe and it’s simple and it’s easy.

Soft.

Safe.

Performative.

It’s all been on display. For four months, possibly longer. Steve leaves the blinds open in the empty master bedroom. Steve follows the same predictable schedule, follows the same traceable path everywhere he goes. Steve secures the house every night, leaving the lights on and the curtains open until he’s done. Steve leaves himself almost no privacy - except the two hours he spends every day in the basement, and the few nights a week he sleeps with his bedroom blinds closed. Steve leaves the house unsecured when he’s going to be gone for an afternoon, leaves the house unlocked, leaves it wide open. He leaves it so anyone could get in.

He leaves it so Bucky can get it.

He must know Bucky could get in anyway, if he wanted to. But it’s about the performance. The gesture.

He leaves the doors unlocked when the house will be empty for a decent amount of time. So Bucky could go in alone. Scope things out better than he can from outside. See things better than he can when he watches.

He’s had so many chances.

He’s never gone in.

He’s not authorized.

That doesn’t matter, some days. Some days, he does exactly as he wants, and he doesn’t even consider that he should be waiting for orders.

And some days, he can’t get up. Can’t feed himself. Can’t make a single decision. Because he hasn’t been given permission. Because no one tells him that it’s allowed.

He doesn’t understand the differences, doesn’t know what determines which kind of day it’ll be. He can’t control which kind of day it’ll be.

The days he wants to go are usually the days where he can’t. He thinks about the house, the bedroom, waiting, ready, Steve waiting. For him. And he wants it. And he can’t have it, because it hasn’t been authorized. Because he thinks about Steve those days, and there’s the prodding in the back of his brain, behind his eyes. Mission. Target. Failure.

The days when that voice is quietest are the days that he watches.

He watches the performance.

Calculated.

Easy.

Soft.

Steve is baking bread. He has no work left to do today. He’d done laundry yesterday. Wilson shouldn’t be visiting today. There’s nothing happening today. There’s a cartoon playing on the tv in the living room. Steve hasn’t been paying much attention. It’s background noise. To his mixing, and his kneading. To his sketching, while the dough rises. To his rolling and his shaping and his careful, easy work.

Easy.

Safe.

Simple.

Safe.

Safe.

Nothing else will be happening today.

Simple.

Nothing to interrupt. Nothing that could be ruined.

Bucky waits until Steve takes the bread out of the oven. He waits until Steve cleans up the mess of flour in the kitchen and loads the dishwasher. He waits until Steve takes the bread out of the tin and leaves it to cool.

He won’t interrupt.

Simple.

Safe.

Bucky’s right hand hovers over the doorbell.

He isn’t authorized to do this. He isn’t allowed. No one has told him he can do this. No one has-

Steve.

Steve has.

Performing. Calculated.

Inviting.

Allowing.

Bucky lowers his right hand.

He raises his left. And he knocks.

There are footsteps, right away. Quick. Eager.

The door opens.

Bucky assumed he’d have the good sense to check through a window, a crack in the curtains, the peep hole, anything.

But he obviously doesn’t. Because he sees Bucky, and he crumples. A small collapse in his face.

“Hey, Buck.”

And suddenly, Bucky understands. All these months, the waiting, the invitation, the performance. It makes sense. The look on Steve’s face. The sudden wetness in his eyes.

Relieved.

Grateful.

Because Steve sees Bucky as the man who pulled him out of the river.

Bucky sees himself as the man who’d put him there in the first place.

Steve takes a step to the side, his hand still on the open door. “You wanna come in?”

He does.

He does, but he can’t say that. He hasn’t been authorized to speak. He’s not allowed to speak.

But… he’s allowed to go in.

He can’t say anything as he steps into the house. Steve doesn’t seem to mind.

Worried.

No, not entirely accurate. Not entirely fair.

Attentive.

That’s better.

Highly attentive. Active. Bustling. Eager.

No, that carries incorrect connotations. He’s not eager. He’s responding to issues. He’s not eager for there to be issues. More problems.

But when there is an problem, he’s eager to deal with it.

Attentive.

Unfazed. Surprisingly unfazed. Stupidly unfazed.

He had no idea what he was getting himself into. What he was inviting through his door. Now, he’s learning.

Learning.

And every time he learns something new, he accepts it. Unfazed. Calm. Quiet. He’s confronted with some new inconvenience, some new problem, and he only has to take a moment. He breathes, he nods. And he says “Alright, then.” No matter what it is.

Bucky stashes weapons throughout the house. Steve cuts his hand on a knife hidden in his flour jar. “Alright, then.”

Bucky needs physical activity. He tries one of the punching bags in the basement. The bag ends up on the floor with six bullets in it. “Alright, then.”

Steve bakes chocolate cookies. Bucky only eats one. It’s too much sugar. He vomits right at the table. “Alright, then.”

“Alright, then.” No matter what.

Unfazed.

This morning, Bucky sat on his bed. For six hours and thirty-seven minutes. Because he wasn’t allowed to get up. He hadn’t been authorized.

Steve had waited until almost noon to check on him. To knock. The door was locked. He’d almost walked away when Bucky couldn’t respond to him. Bucky could only start answering when Steve started asking questions. He could only unlock the door when Steve asked him to.

He couldn’t get out of bed until he was told. He couldn’t turn on the light, get dressed, get up to piss, he couldn’t move. Because he hadn’t been told he could.

Steve had to find him. Steve had to tell him to get up. To unlock the door. To eat. To use the bathroom.

“Alright, then.”

He hasn’t had a day like this in a while. It’s the first time it’s happened here. Yesterday he’d done laundry, cleaned up the dishes after dinner. Today, for no reason whatsoever, he can’t even stand up without permission.

Steve is unfazed.

Calm. Quiet. A little quieter than normal.

Attentive.

Eager. Eager to help.

He holds his hand under the bathtub faucet. He fiddles with the knobs. He flicks the water off his hand, and looks at Bucky. “Feel that.”

Steve’s a fast learner. It only took a few tries today to realize he needs to phrase things like that. He needs to make demands. He clearly hates it. It’s obvious every time it comes out of his mouth. He feels rude. But he adjusts. Attentive. Unfazed.

Still, he finds ways to compromise. “That feel good?” Questions with the commands. Soft edges on orders.

Bucky touches his right hand to the water.

He flinches, though he knows he shouldn’t. It’s unnecessary. It’s weak. He recoils. “Too hot.”

Steve fiddles with the knobs again. Holds his hand under the stream again. Fiddles some more. Waits. “Try again. How ‘bout now?”

Bucky touches the water. And this time, he keeps himself from flinching. “Too hot.”

Steve’s face falls. It’s that look, again. The sadness that overtakes him for a second or two before he manages to pull himself back together. It’s the look he gets when Bucky says something he doesn’t like. The look he gets when he learns something about Bucky that he thinks is unsatisfactory. When he understands another piece of just how fucked up Bucky really is.

The same look he had when Bucky told him that he can’t sleep with blankets or pillows. That he can only handle certain solid foods, and only in certain amounts. That his teeth are porcelain, that his real teeth rotted out in a cell sixty years ago. That scented soaps or lotions or detergents make him sick. That there are days where he can’t get out of bed unless someone orders him to.

And that, apparently, lukewarm water is too hot for him to bathe in.

Steve fixes his face quickly enough. It’s just a quick look. A brief imitation of a cartoon animal that just got its heart broken. Then, it’s a business face again.

“Alright, then.”

He makes the water colder.

Things are starting to soften in Bucky’s head. The restrictions always start instantaneously, the moment he wakes up, for no reason at all. But they fade gradually. It takes hours, it takes all day sometimes, but they get blurry. He gets numb.

So by the time the bathtub is filled to a satisfactory level, the restrictions in Bucky’s mind have gone fuzzy, and the routine starts to take over. It’s just bathing. Just hygienic protocol. That’s simple, and it’s straightforward, and he doesn’t need to wait for specific instructions or permission.

Bucky stands up as Steve turns off the water. He strips quickly, leaving his clothes neatly piled in the sink.

But apparently, that’s incorrect. Because Steve turns and sees Bucky and makes a soft, startled sound. And he turns away again. “Alright, then.”

Bucky gets in the water. It doesn’t feel like anything. No sting, no burn, no ice. It’s the biggest bathtub he’s even seen since- since… longer than he can remember. He lies down. He can stretch out comfortably. The water comes almost all the way up his chest. There’s a dip in the edge behind him to cradle his neck. There are grooves along the sides to rest his arms (though Bucky chooses to keep his left one on the edge of the tub instead, out of the water, just in case).

It’s… better. Better than he’s known in a long time.

Steve hasn’t left.

Hovering.

Steve hovers. He gives Bucky privacy when the thinks he wants it (or when Bucky says he needs it), but otherwise, he hovers. He’s always nearby. Sometimes bustling. Sometimes doing nothing at all. But always close.

Hovering.

He’s sitting on the rug in front of the sink with his back up against the cabinets. It doesn’t look comfortable. But he doesn’t move.

Bucky doesn’t know why he stayed. He knows he’d leave if Bucky asked him to, but that’s not the same.

Hovering. Calm. Attentive.

Quiet.

Looking.

Not staring. Just looking. Sometimes looking away. Looking at the walls, the bathmat, the shower, the towel rack. Looking at Bucky again.

Bucky looks at Steve.

Quiet. Calm. Attentive. Content.

Content.

Which is worse.

Bucky remembers that. The question. Which is worse?

He’d had to ask that, more than once. A few different versions. And he never knew the answer. It was always too complex. Which was worse, for Steve’s death. Here or there, action or inaction, helplessness or failure.

There’s a new one now. He’s only just remembered the others, and already, there’s a new one.

Which is worse: being the person who couldn’t save Steve, or being the person who killed him?

If nothing else, at least this time the question has an obvious answer.

But still, Steve doesn’t seem to mind.

Attentive.

He isn’t supposed to be attentive. Caring. He isn’t supposed to care. The Winter Soldier showed up on his doorstep six months after very nearly putting him in a grave. You don’t let that person into your home.

You don’t invite that person into your home. You don’t give him the master bedroom. You don’t make his breakfasts every morning. You don’t draw him a goddamn bath. You don’t hover around him.

Sitting. Quiet.

Looking.

Smiling.

He’s smiling. It’s small, and it’s more sad than happy. But still. It’s a smile.

For Bucky.

Insane.

Delusional.

Foolish.

Steve’s smile gets a little wider, the longer he holds Bucky’s gaze. Smiling at him. Smiling. He tilts his head. “What’re you looking at?”

Bucky keeps looking at Steve. He doesn’t say anything.

And still, Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He hums. It sounds sad. Wistful.

Wistful. That’s a good one.

Steve’s smile twists. It becomes less sincere. He looks almost embarrassed. He keeps looking at Bucky. “Y’know, this is-” his smile breaks open, and he laughs quietly to himself. “This is gonna sound stupid. This is stupid. But, it’s just, seeing y-” he cuts himself off with an inarticulate noise. And he leans his head back against the cabinet. He looks away, up at something on the wall across from him. “I was colorblind growing up. Remember that?” He doesn’t wait for an answer (he never does, when he asks that). “When the serum fixed my eyes, I was so excited. There were so many colors I hadn’t seen before. Everything looked better. Everything had so much… depth.”

He looks at Bucky again. His smile is twisted again.

Embarrassed.

“And then I saw you, for the first time after that. And I-” he laughs at himself again. “It sounds so ungrateful, and stupid. But I was upset. Because your eyes were a different color. And I knew that- I knew that they were the right color. I knew I’d been seeing it wrong for all those years, and it was finally right.” He lets out a breath. Maybe it was meant to be another laugh. “But I was heartbroken. Because even though I knew I’d always seen it wrong, I was the only person who saw it that way. I was the only one who saw that color in your eyes. Sorta felt like it was mine. And then the serum just made me see the same color as everyone else did. I felt like they took something away from me.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Still looking.

He laughs again, just an exhale through his nose. Just an embarrassed smile. “Like I said. Damn ungrateful of me. I just… haven’t been able to forget that. How angry I was.”

He’s quiet.

He looks away.

Calm.

Bucky hasn’t been authorized to speak. But-

“Your eyes were the only thing I liked.”

Steve snaps his gaze back to Bucky. “What?”

“After the serum. Everything else looked different. Only your eyes were the same. At the start, they were the only thing I could stomach looking at.”

Steve’s brows are furrowed. Surprised. Confused. Which is understandable - it’s been a few days since the last time Bucky said something without being prompted. And it’s the first time he’s said something like this.

Steve shakes his head, like he always does when he’s trying to piece something together. “You… you saying you didn’t… like? How I looked with the serum? All of…?” he spreads his elbows a bit with his hands still in his lap, and jerks his head down. Indicating himself.

“I hated it.”

Steve looks bewildered for a moment. Then he smiles. And he laughs. There’s not much sound to it at all. His chin tucks down toward his chest. His shoulders shake. Bucky can only hear punctuated exhalations, a repeated catch in his throat.

When Steve looks up at him again, his face is flushed. He looks… bright, somehow. Brighter than Bucky has seen so far. His grin is crooked. “You never told me that.”

There are a lot of things Bucky never told him.

But apparently, he’s not entirely sure what they are. He doesn’t remember what he’s said, and what he’s just thought. What he’s thought loudly, repeatedly. He’d hated what the serum had done to Steve, he remembers that so clearly. He remembers how his stomach had churned and roiled when he’d looked at him too long. The memory is visceral. He assumed he must have said it at some point, if it’s lodged that deeply in his mind.

Steve is still smiling. “So.” He nods down again. “Has it grown on you at all? Or do you still hate it?”

Bucky thinks for a moment. He wasn’t expecting that question.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Steve looks away. Still smiling. “Alright, then.”

Silent.

Which is unusual. Two in the morning, and there’s not a sound from behind Steve’s door. That’s never happened. Bucky may not check Steve’s end of the hallway every night, but it’s damn well been enough nights to know that silence isn’t normal. If he’s asleep, there’s snoring. If he’s trying to sleep, there’s a white noise machine. And if it’s neither of those, there’s crying.

That one’s the least common. That’s only once or twice a week. There was one week where it was five nights in a row, but that seems to have been an outlier. Lately, it’s once or twice a week. Never more.

Thank god. Bucky hates those nights. He hates being aware of it. He knows it’s not really his place to complain about what he hears when he sneaks up on a locked door in the middle of the night, but still. He wishes Steve were more quiet about it.

That’s the part he hates. That he can hear it. He doesn’t hate that it’s happening, he just hates how it makes him feel. He hates the uneasy twisting in his stomach. He wants it to stop, but only for his own sake. He doesn’t want to have to be aware of it.

He knows that’s selfish, it’s a fucking shitty way to be. But at least he knows that. He’s self-aware of his selfishness. That’s a step or two better than he was, just a few weeks ago. That’s progress.

But there’s no crying tonight. No snoring. No white noise.

Silent.

Steve didn’t check Bucky’s door tonight. But that’s not exactly unusual. Steve doesn’t check Bucky’s door every night, the same way Bucky doesn’t stand outside Steve’s door every night. Just some nights.

Just most nights. More often than not. Steve goes to bed early. Bucky usually goes to bed a few hours later. He locks his door.

And most nights, he hears the handle rattle. Steve quietly checks the door, sees that it’s locked like it always is, and he walks away. Not every night. Just most nights.

And some nights, Bucky stands outside Steve’s door. Usually on the nights when Steve doesn’t check the lock on Bucky’s door. It seems fair, like that.

Steve didn’t check his door tonight.

And now, there’s no sound in Steve’s room.

It should be disconcerting. He should think there’s something wrong. It should feel like a warning.

Instead, it feels like an invitation.

Bucky checks the doorknob. It’s unlocked. That is an invitation. An unlocked door is as good as no door at all in this house. He knocks, to be courteous, but he doesn’t wait for an answer.

Steve wasn’t waiting, either. He’s already sitting up in bed. “Hey, Buck.” He’s trying to smile. He doesn’t look tired at all. “Everything okay?”

Bucky wants to ask him the same question. For some reason, he can’t.

So he says something else. “Can’t sleep.”

Steve gets about halfway to that smile he’s going for. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

They don’t say anything else. They’re just… there. Steve sitting in bed. Bucky looking at him.

Hesitant.

And that’s not how this is supposed to go. The fact that Bucky walked into the room was supposed to be the offer. Steve should know damn well by now that Bucky won’t be able to put the offer to actual words. That’s on him.

Steve’s not saying anything. Hesitant.

Shy?

Nervous.

It takes a few more moments, but Steve opens his mouth, then ducks his head. “Would you- um.” He looks up again. “You wanna stay here? I’ve never been any good at sleeping alone.”

Bucky can’t make himself say yes. But he can close the door behind him, which is basically the same thing.

He doesn’t know if Steve has been wanting for this to happen. If he planned for it. But from the look of it, it’s at least crossed his mind. Because he’s not surprised. He’s prepared.

Attentive. Detailed.

Steve doesn’t have to ask questions. He doesn’t have to ask what Bucky needs. Steve sleeps with a mountain of pillows, and an unreasonable amount of matching linens - sheets and light blankets and heavy blankets. But now, he kicks it all to the floor, without having to ask. He keeps one pillow for himself, but the rest gets tossed. A naked bed, with only a fitted sheet, a single pillow pushed to one side, and Steve.

Caring, maybe.

Thoughtful. That’s better.

He doesn’t ask questions. And he doesn’t make Bucky ask questions. He just sits on the empty bed and watches silently while Bucky locks the door, checks the window, closes the blinds, checks the closet, secures the room, takes one of the knives out of his pajama pants to hide behind the mattress. Steve doesn’t say anything. He seems entirely unsurprised by all of it. Because this is what they do.

No, this is what they did. This used to be normal for them, Bucky knows that. He remembers it. If it was because Steve was sick, or because they didn’t have heat that winter, or just because they couldn’t get to sleep, this is what they did. Share a bed. Sleep together. Bucky knows this used to happen more times than they could count. He’s slept with Steve so damn often that it should feel downright normal. Familiar.

And maybe Steve’s feeling that. Familiarity, nostalgia. But Bucky doesn’t really work like that anymore. Even if it’s something he knows should feel familiar, the differences are always too pronounced. Yes, he’s slept in the same bed as Steve hundreds of times. But this is the first time they’re sleeping in this bed, this house, this life. It’s the first time he is sharing a bed with Steve. Him, this version of himself. This version of himself has never shared anyone’s bed. It’s new.

And it’s unfamiliar. And it’s strange.

Steve is on the side closest to the window. Bucky is on the side closest to the door. They lie down, on the bare bed, each on their own side. Steve nestles into his pillow. Bucky lies still on the mattress. They’re both on their backs.

Motionless.

Silent.

This isn’t…

This isn’t right.

It only takes a few strained moments for Bucky to realize that this isn’t right at all. Lying side by side, staring up at the ceiling, hands at their sides. Not a sound between them. This isn’t how he remembers it. He knows it won’t feel exactly the same. He knows it’s impossible to make it feel like it did back then. But this is more than that. This is wrong. This is somehow incorrect.

They should be closer. Bucky remembers that. They didn’t sleep in the same bed just to keep their distance. They might as well have stayed in separate beds if that were the case.

And, he remembers…

He looks over at Steve.

Motionless. Silent.

Distant.

Bucky moves slowly. He may remember this, but that doesn’t mean he remembers how to just… do it. How to make this decision.

So he moves slowly. He’s careful. He takes each movement on its own, one at a time. He shifts closer to Steve. He lifts himself a bit on one elbow. He looks at Steve.

Steve is looking at him. Confused.

But he doesn’t tell Bucky to stop. He doesn’t ask for clarification. So Bucky lowers his head onto Steve’s chest. He presses his face into Steve’s shirt. He stretches his body out against Steve’s side. He rests his right hand on Steve’s stomach. Because this is what he used to do. This is what they did.

This feels right.

But Steve-

Still.

Tense.

Bucky can feel the tension. It’s strongest in his shoulders. He’s holding his hands up, a little ways off of the bed. Away from Bucky. His breathing is irregular. His heart is racing - Bucky can hear it racing in his chest.

Uncomfortable.

No-

Shit.

This isn’t-

They didn’t do this.

Shit. Fuck.

Fuck.

This isn’t what they did. They’ve never done this. This isn’t how they slept. This isn’t a memory. This isn’t one of the things Bucky remembers doing. It’s one of the things Bucky remembers wanting. Imagining.

They used to sleep like closed parentheses. Facing each other, sharing a pillow. Separate. Close, huddled, but not touching.

Not like this. They’ve never done this. Bucky’s never done this. He’s never put his head on Steve’s chest, curled up against him, tucked against his body. He’s just imagined it. He used to look at Steve while he slept, and wonder what it would be like to touch him, to press his ear to his rib cage and listen to his heartbeat. He imagined it, but he never did it.

This is new. This is entirely new.

Steve’s heart is racing. He’s holding his breath.

Surprised. Uncomfortable. Uncomfortable.

Fuck.

Bucky doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now. He doesn’t know if it’s worse for him to move, or to stay.

Fuck. Fucking hell.

Steve breathes again. At least that’s somewhat encouraging. He exhales slowly, and Bucky can feel him deflate under his arm. Then he breathes in again. Slow, and deep.

Breathing.

He puts his hand on Bucky’s back.

They’re both still, for a moment. Hesitant. Waiting.

Steve hand slips down Bucky’s side. His arm fits around him. Relaxed.

Warm.

Steve keeps his arm around Bucky. Bucky keeps his face pressed to Steve’s chest. They both keep breathing. Steve rubs his thumb against Bucky’s t-shirt.

Warm. It’s a nice feeling.

Bucky becomes aware of Steve’s shirt, under his hand, his fingers. He could touch it the same way. He could touch Steve’s chest, the way Steve is touching his back. Warm. Nice. It’d probably feel so nice.

Bucky can’t make his hand move.

They keep breathing. Steve keeps rubbing his thumb, back and forth, small circles, aimless.

It’s new. They’ve never done this before. But… Bucky can understand why he’d always wanted to. Why he’d thought about this so many times. Why he imagined it enough to turn it into a memory. It’s simple. Easy. Comfortable.

“A lot more comfortable than back then,” Bucky says, without really knowing if he means to.

“What, the bed?”

“You.” Bucky taps his finger once against Steve’s chest. “Got a lot more padding.” He doesn’t have any memories of sharing a bed with this version of Steve, the one with a chest wider than a king-sized pillow and several inches of muscle between his skin and his bones. His memories of sharing a bed are all with a Steve that was a tiny pile of sharp corners. “I used to wake up with bruises from your pointy elbows.”

“That was one time,” Steve says. Defensive, but also… amused? Is that what that is?

Bucky waits to respond. He thinks, for a moment.

Then he says, “No, I remember it happening a lot more than once.” He takes a breath. “And my memory is very reliable.”

Steve’s hand stops moving. “Was- was that a joke?”

“It was supposed to be. But if you have to ask.”

He hadn’t thought it would work, anyway. He doesn’t remember how to do that. He doesn't know how to make jokes. He’d just… felt it. In the conversation. Something about the tone of Steve’s voice, the rhythm of their sentences, he’d just known. That was where there would have been a joke. Where the person he used to be would have a made a joke. He could feel it. But apparently, remembering his old sense of comedic timing isn’t the same as remembering his old sense of humor. He knows when he’s supposed to say something clever, but he doesn’t have anything clever to say.

Still… Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He laughs. Just once, a little huff. It’s quiet, but Bucky can feel it against his ear.

Laughing.

Happy?

Amused, that’s more likely.

Steve starts rubbing his thumb against Bucky’s back again. Bucky realizes he’d been disappointed when he’d stopped. It feels much nicer like this. Warm.

Bucky doesn’t remember the last time he felt warmth.

They’re quiet again. But now, that’s alright. There’s nothing wrong this time, nothing strained or uncomfortable in the silence.

Bucky can hear Steve’s heartbeat. It’s faint; his ear isn’t quite close enough to it. But it’s there. It’s a regular, even rhythm. It’s slow. Slower than it used to be. More regular than it used to be.

Slow.

Soft.

Comforting.

“Why do you check my door?” Bucky hears himself ask.

He didn’t plan to ask that. He didn’t mean to say it. That’s twice now that he’s said something without meaning to. He doesn’t know how that’s possible. There must be something about laying on Steve like this that makes his mouth more powerful than his brain.

Steve doesn’t seem surprised by the question. And he doesn’t need to ask what Bucky means. He just keeps breathing, keeps moving his thumb. “It’s not every night,” he says, even though he knows Bucky is already well aware of that. He must know Bucky hears it, every time it happens. He must know that Bucky could never sleep deeply enough to not hear someone trying to get into his room in the middle of the night. “It’s just, sometimes…”

Steve lets out the rest of his breath. He was prepared for the question, but he still sounds unsure of how to answer it.

He tries again. “I get disoriented sometimes, when I wake up. Especially if I was dreaming. It can take me a few minutes to get my bearings. Remember what’s what. And when that happens, I… I want to know you’re here. I need to remember that part’s real.” He exhales in a way that sounds like a shrug. Trying to be casual. “And if your door is locked, I know you must be in there.”

Bucky waits for a moment. Still listening. To Steve’s heartbeat, to his breathing. Waiting to see if he’ll say something else.

When he’s sure Steve’s done, Bucky says, “I could have gone out the window.”

Steve makes a startled noise. “Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.” He hums deep in his throat. “Well. If you’re planning on leaving, I’d greatly appreciate it if you used the front door instead. Maybe even send me a text, so I know you’re gone.”

Bucky’s face constricts. “You’d be fine with that? If I left?”

“‘Course not. I’d be devastated,” Steve says plainly. Matter-of-fact. His thumb is still moving. “But I’d be a lot worse if you were staying here when you didn’t want to.”

They go quiet again.

And Bucky gets that feeling again. Something about the rhythm of the conversation, something about the tone of Steve’s voice. He knows that this is where he would have said something clever. If this were back then, he’d make a joke right now. The person he used to be would know exactly what to say to make Steve laugh.

The person he is now doesn’t have anything to say at all.

He wonders why Steve didn’t ask Bucky why he stands outside his door. It would have been fair. Bucky made Steve give his reasons, so Steve could have made Bucky give his. He may not turn Steve’s handle, or check the lock, but Steve must know that Bucky is there - the nights that he’s awake, anyway. He must know that Bucky hears him. Bucky gave him the perfect opportunity to ask him why. And he didn’t.

Bucky should probably be grateful, because he doesn’t actually have an answer. He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t even know why he only does it some nights, or what the difference is between a night where he does and a night where he doesn’t. He doesn’t have answers. He doesn’t have anything to say.

He never seems to have much of anything to say, these days.

Steve doesn’t mind.

Steve is breathing deeply. Minute after minute after minute. His stomach rises and falls under Bucky’s arm. His breaths are getting a little louder. His hand slips a little further down Bucky’s back. His thumb starts circling a little more slowly.

Eventually, he starts snoring. It’s deafening against Bucky’s ear.

Deafening.

(“Y’see, Stevie, I always said your snoring’s so loud it was gonna make me go deaf one of these days. Didn’t realize you’re such a competitive little punk that you’d make yourself deaf first, just to beat me to it.” But it wasn’t the snoring, it was scarlet fever, when he was ten. No, when he’d just turned eleven. He was bedridden on his birthday. “You snore so goddamn awful, the whole right side of your head shut down just so it wouldn’t have to hear it anymore.” It sounds so harsh in memory, it sounds almost cruel. But Steve had laughed. He’d been trying not to cry, and he’d laughed. Loud, and startled, and happy. And he’d punched Bucky’s shoulder. “At least now I can only hear half as much of your bullshit.” )

Deafening. He remembers that.

And he remembers the first night, after the serum. Steve had given Bucky the cot in his tent (since they couldn’t both fit - and they’d tried), and he’d passed out on the floor. And he’d started snoring. And Bucky had cried. He’d quietly sobbed into his hand, because he’d thought the serum would have taken that away too. The serum had taken so much away from him, and the relief of hearing Steve make those same big, awful snorts had been enough to finally break him.

He still sounds the same. Bucky remembers the sound. Steve’s snored the same way since he was five years old.

Loud. Thick. Wheezing. Disgusting.

Comforting.

It’s a fucked up sort of lullaby. But in a way, Bucky supposes that makes sense.

Loud. Even.

Breathing.

Sleeping.

Comfortable.

Warm.

It’s getting difficult to keep his eyes open. He looks at his own hand, still resting on Steve’s chest.

Steve’s thumb has stopped moving. But his hand is still on Bucky’s back.

Warm.

Bucky stares at his hand. His thumb. His fingers. Steve’s shirt is warm under his skin. Warm. Comfortable.

Bucky rubs the tip of his index finger against Steve’s chest. Back and forth. It’s just one finger, and he’s probably moving it less than a centimeter. Back and forth. Just one finger. Barely moving. But for now, it’s enough.

Laughing.

No, giggling.

Giggling? Is that fair? Is that something you can think about an over-sized action figure? It doesn’t seem as though someone who looks like Steve Rogers should be physically capable of something like giggling.

Steve laughs again.

Giggling. There’s no better word for it.

He always gets like this when he watches the press conferences.

Well, no, that’s not entirely fair. He only gets like this when he watches Sam. All of the Avengers get pleasant enough reactions when Steve sees them on the tv, they get smiles and chuckles at their press conference versions of humor. It’s pleasant.

Sam gets grins, and giggling, and that stupid look on his face. The same look Steve always gets when he looks at Sam. He tries to keep himself in check when Sam is actually here, but he’s not very successful. Whenever Sam is around, Steve perpetually looks like he’s about two seconds away from getting down on one knee and begging Sam to make an honest man out of him.

Not that Bucky doesn’t get it. He definitely gets it. But still, there’s almost a sense of second-hand embarrassment, watching Steve watch his own best friend on tv with a dumb grin on his face that clearly says ‘Hey, I know him!’

Steve’s stretched out on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. He’s spent all afternoon fiddling with the buttons on the fancy camera Bucky and Sam got him for his birthday. He’s been experimentally snapping pictures of the tv throughout the Avengers’ appearance, but once the reporters focus in on Sam, the camera’s ignored, hovering in a loose grip just below his chin.

It happens at every press conference, when Sam is there. There are always a few token questions about Steve. Where is Steve? How is Steve doing? Does Steve think you’re doing his job well enough? Does Steve approve of this particular thing you did on this particular mission? What does Steve think about this, or that, or the other thing?

It’s never been a secret that Sam spends time with him. Steve’s still off the radar, his little suburban house is still off-limits, and his war criminal house guest is still seemingly undiscovered. But the regular visits between the old and new Captain Americas are common knowledge. And while it’s been enough time for most of the interest to die down, there’s still at least a half-assed reference to it in all of Sam’s public appearances.

And it looks like it’s about that time, because they’re trying to coax Sam into giving up some answers about what exactly he and Steve Rogers get up to at their weekly slumber parties.

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” Sam says on the tv, in his specific Captain America voice.

“Are you saying that your activities are somehow classified? ” the reporter presses, hopeful.

“No, I’m saying that right now, I am the only cool Avenger, and I have a reputation to maintain.” Sam’s mouth twists up on one side, into that smirk he gets when he thinks he’s being funny. “And if anyone found out that I spend my Sundays baking muffins and playing cribbage with a ninety-year-old man, that reputation’s dead.”

It gets a polite press conference laugh from the audience, and loud, stupid guffaw from Steve.

Stupid. Loud.

Laughing.

Giggling.

The reporters change topics, and now the focus is off of Sam, so Steve’s focus is back on his camera. He holds it up to his face, points it toward the porch door, lowers it to hit a few more buttons, then tries again, and takes the picture.

Focused.

Smiling.

And… something else. There’s another one, tugging at the back of Bucky’s mind.

Bucky’s still unloading the dishwasher. Putting it on the heat-dry setting makes something inside it smoke and smell like burning plastic, so he has to dry everything by hand before putting it away. He doesn’t mind, but he does have to wonder why a national icon can’t have a life nice enough to include fully-functional appliances.

He sets the silverware caddy on the counter so he can get a better view of the tv. It’s showing old news footage now. A highlight reel of the most dynamic-looking professional shots of the Avengers’ last mission, cut with some cell phone footage. And Bucky has to admit, it sure is something to see that uniform fly overhead and swoop up behind a skyscraper.

He wonders if Steve is embarrassed about the fact that he’s the lame Captain America now. The one who just walked everywhere, like an idiot.

Hm. That’s not bad. He should say that. Steve’ll probably have a decent comeback, but still. Bucky thinks he could get a laugh. Bucky likes when he can get a laugh.

But Steve is watching the tv again. He’s watching the footage. A blur of red white and blue streaks across the screen. And a second later, the shield flies past, lodging right in the engine of an escaping enemy jet.

Steve’s staring.

Quiet. Focused.

“Do you miss it?” Bucky asks.

“I missed you,” Steve answers, without missing a beat.

Bucky frowns down at the spoon he’s drying. “Not what I asked.”

“Still the answer.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, because he knows that’ll make him pay attention. He knows Steve likes it when Bucky uses his name. So he specifically uses it when he needs to make a point. When he needs Steve to listen to him.

It may be somewhat manipulative, but it gets results. Steve turns to face him, immediately ignoring the tv he’d been so engrossed in and abandoning his camera on the couch cushion.

“Do you miss it?” Bucky asks again.

This time, it looks like Steve actually considers his answer for a second. “Sometimes, yeah.” He shrugs. “But not enough to want to go back.”

“Why not?”

“I kinda like what I’ve got going on now.”

“No, you don’t.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline, and his mouth falls open in something that might be a smile, if it weren’t so lopsided. Surprised. “That’s a bold statement, Barnes.” His smile straightens out a bit as it widens. “You think you know my opinions better than I do?”

“You’re not doing anything.” Bucky sets the spoon in its place in the drawer. He picks up a fork to dry. “You can’t handle doing nothing. Never could.”

“I can’t handle not being able to do anything,” Steve corrects. “I’ve been doing too much for too long, and I’ll have you know that I’m damn grateful to finally be taking a break.”

“Retirement isn’t a ‘break’.”

“And it’s not putting myself out to pasture, either.” Steve’s face is starting to fall. It’s still something like a smile. It’s smile-adjacent. But it’s getting more serious. Focused. Intense. “If I change my mind down the road, I can always go back.”

Bucky looks at him for a moment. “Can you?”

It’s been eight months, since DC. Since his last real mission. And it’s been six months since the announcement, his official retirement. He hasn’t done anything since.

And it’s not just that he’s out of practice. He’s changed. Changing. He’s settling into this… stagnancy. Whatever this life is. Yes, he still goes down to the basement every morning for an hour, maybe two. But he’s set aside almost all of his old routine. Now it’s just the treadmill - or, on a nice day, the walking trails just outside the neighborhood. He still goes for several miles every day, still runs at inhuman speeds with inhuman endurance. But it’s just that now. Just running. He’s not maintaining the rest of it.

It’s starting to show. His strength is still there - from what Bucky can tell, anyway. It’s not like the serum is planning on wearing off anytime soon. But apparently all that cartoonish muscle actually requires some upkeep, some effort. Because that’s been going away. Steve’s abandoned the weights and the rigorous workouts, and he’s still strong, but he’s… softer. He’s still big, but it’s not chiseled anymore. He’s made of flesh again, not marble.

It’s not as though he’s suddenly mistakable for some sort of regular person. But the term ‘supersoldier’ feels a bit… outdated. Super, sure. But he isn’t a soldier anymore. He hasn’t been for a while.

Steve knows it, he’s well aware, and he doesn’t seem to mind. But there’s something wry in the smile he gives Bucky that makes it look like he’s not exactly thrilled to have someone else point it out.

“If I wanted to, I could go back,” he affirms. “I’m good for more than just flinging around a shield, y’know.” He pauses for a moment. Thinking. Then, he shrugs. “But for now, I’m perfectly happy being away from all that. I’m enjoying it.”

Bucky doesn’t have any silverware left to dry. But he doesn’t go to put the caddy back in the dishwasher. He doesn’t want to turn away yet. “How long do you think that can last?”

“Hell of a lot longer than this,” Steve says, and there’s laughter in his voice. “Buck, I’ve never had a chance like this before. I just turned ninety-six, and this is the first time in my life I’ve been able to do whatever the fuck I’d like.”

No.

No, that’s wrong.

Bucky wrings the damp towel in his hands. He doesn’t want to be frustrated. “You can’t do anything.” He keeps himself calm, because he needs Steve to understand. Steve’s not even missing the point, he’s willfully ignoring it. “You’re not doing anything here, because you can’t.”

There’s nothing here. Nothing, and no one. Steve buys groceries, he gets oil changes for the motorcycle he barely uses, he jogs laps around the same two-mile trail around the same little lake, he goes to his therapist who works out of a house that looks exactly like this one. And that’s it. He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t go anywhere. He doesn’t see anyone. He can’t.

Because he’s here.

Trapped.

He could be doing anything. He could have asked Stark for a private jet months ago and never been seen since. He could be doing all the shit he’d always talked about when he was young. All the places he’d wanted to go, things he’d wanted to try. He can finally do any of it. All of it.

And he’s here, in this house, doing nothing.

At least when he was Captain America, he was useful. He was taking the scientific achievement that was his body and putting it to good use. Helping people. Saving the goddamn world. If Steve’s gonna give up his purpose, and let all his strength and skill and capability go to waste, he should at least be doing something to make it worthwhile.

He hasn’t left the house in four days. He just sits, in this house, and does nothing.

Sam visits every Sunday - unless there are heroics to be done. They play cards, he tells Steve the gossip about what the Avengers are getting themselves up to, all the stuff that Steve can’t get from the news. If he’s got nothing else to do, he spends the night in the guest room. He and Steve go jogging the next morning. On that same trail, that same lake, that same two-mile stretch.

Everyone else is less frequent. Pleasant surprises, not scheduled guarantees. Stark stops by every few weeks, bearing gifts of some modern bullshit trinket he thinks Steve doesn’t know about yet. Nat shows up more frequently, but never announced. They go to make breakfast and she’s already at the table, already sipping coffee. She makes pirozhki with Steve and teaches Bucky a new way to style his hair. Every now and then, Banner and Thor show up on Sam’s night, along with some Asgardian alcohol and a Midgardian deck of cards, and they gamble for whatever baked goods Steve’s got lying around the kitchen.

And all of that is good. The visits are good. Bucky likes them, and Steve clearly lives for them. But they’re isolated. They’re outliers, not routines. And they’re a little too… intentional. It feels a little too much like Steve is grandpa, and all the kids are taking turns visiting him in the old folks’ home so they don’t have to feel guilty about leaving him to quietly waste away in here.

But really, that’s exactly what this is, isn’t it? This is a nursing home, and Steve can’t leave.

“You’re not choosing to do nothing here,” Bucky says. “You’re not able to do anything. You’re trapped.”

Steve isn’t smiling anymore. He looks confused. “No one’s forcing me to be here, Buck. I want to be here.”

No, he still isn’t getting it. He’s still avoiding the point. Bucky wants to correct him. He needs to correct him, to make Steve understand what he means, to acknowledge what he’s trying to say. He needs to know that Steve knows this. He needs to hear him admit it.

But he can’t make himself say it.

He opens his mouth.

He doesn’t know why the fuck he can’t say it.

“You-”

Bucky looks at Steve.

“You gave up everything to be here.” He traded any sort of real life for this. For dealing with Bucky. For taking care of him. “It isn’t worth it.” He isn’t worth it. Bucky isn’t worth this.

Steve’s eyebrows are furrowed. Confused. Thinking.

“I gave up some things,” he says after a moment. “Don’t make me out to be some kinda martyr. I knew what I was doing, and I wanted to do it. And…”

He takes another moment. His face softens, into an almost-smile. Soft. Disbelieving. “Bucky, having you could never be a sacrifice.” And he raises his eyebrows, as if to say ‘understood?’

He…

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Bucky doesn’t know what to say.

Steve doesn’t mind. His smile widens. He slouches against the couch cushions. Relaxed. “I certainly don’t mind getting to spend some quality time with my best guy. I got nothing to complain about.”

He looks at Bucky.

Bucky looks at Steve.

And Bucky doesn’t… know. He remembers those words, he knows he does. But he doesn’t know if they’re a real memory, or one of the ones he’s given himself. He doesn’t know if Steve has ever said this to him before.

Bucky keeps looking at him.

Open. Honest. Soft. Smiling. Warm.

Beautiful.

Beautiful?

Is that…

Is that one of them?

Steve’s smile twists. “‘Sides, I gotta keep someone around to make sure Sam doesn’t cheat so much.”

“You can’t cheat at cribbage. The only reason Sam beats you every time is because you’re bad at it.”

Steve makes a dramatically wounded sound. “Christ, whose side are you on, jerk?” He shakes his head. “Next you’re gonna be telling me you like his muffins better than mine.”

Bucky opens his mouth-

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” Steve says, pointing a finger at him.

Smiling.

Laughing.

Giggling?

Happy.

And, maybe…

Steve picks up his camera again, giving his focus back to the living room. Still smiling to himself. “Y’know how I see it, Buck?” He hits a button, twists a little knob. “Things have always been hard. Even when things were good, they were hard. We’ve been dealing with so much bullshit, even before any of the real bullshit started.” His smile gets a little wider. “And have you looked around lately? We’re not on a battlefield, we’re not getting shot at, or blown up. We’re not getting tortured, we’re not frozen,” he scoffs through the word. “We’re not broke, or starving, or dying of pneumonia. There’s still bullshit, but when you compare it to the rest of the bullshit we’ve seen, things are pretty good right now. Our lives have been real difficult, for decades. And now, things are actually kinda easy. And y’know what I think?”

He looks up at Bucky. Smiling. Happy. “It’s about damn time.”

Bucky keeps looking at him.

Happy. Smiling. Easy. Bright.

Beautiful.

Bucky takes a breath. “About damn time,” he repeats.

Wrong.

Stubborn.

Irritating. Infuriating.

Impossible.

“I don’t know what you’re hoping for me to do here,” Steve says tightly as he uses far too much effort to put a box of cereal on the shelf in the pantry. “From what I understand, you’re mad that I’m not mad, so, what, you’ll be happy if I get real pissed off? ‘Cause honestly, Buck, that’s the direction I’m headed.”

“I don’t want you to be mad,” Bucky says again. Again. Again. It feels like he’s been saying it for hours. “I want you to be bothered.”

Steve takes a bottle of honey out of the grocery bag on the kitchen island. “I gotta say, I’m not really in the mood for bullshit semantics right now.” He goes for the groceries again-

“Steve.” Bucky grabs the corner of the bag and tugs it out of Steve’s reach.

And he waits for Steve to stop, and take his usual loud, slow, angry-breath, and look at him.

“I couldn’t get out of bed for three days,” Bucky says. He tries to be plain with it, to talk slow and even, like maybe that’ll help Steve get what he’s saying. “You had shit you wanted to do. You were going to see people, you had all these fucking plans. And you had to cancel all of it because I couldn’t keep myself alive for three days in a row.”

Steve’s face doesn’t change. “So I’m supposed to get upset with you for having a couple bad days?”

For fuck’s sake-

“I never said you’re supposed to be upset with me, but you should be upset! It was upsetting, Steve. It wasn’t just some ‘bad days’. You couldn’t even leave me alone for a second of it, and you’re acting like nothing happened. The whole time, you acted like it was nothing.”

Steve works his jaw. His face hardens.

Stubborn.

He turns away to put the honey in the pantry. “I’m not gonna pretend that I’m inconvenienced by you, Buck.” Sharp. Disdainful. Offended. Angry.

Bucky grips the edge of the counter. “You’re pretending that I’m fine. And that’s worse.”

Steve stops for a moment, holding the pantry door. He turns his head, but not far enough to actually see Bucky over his shoulder.

“I’m not fine, Steve. I’m not. You keep acting like I am, and all of this is normal. And that’s not helping.”

“I’m not making a big enough fuss for you? You want me complaining because you’re still dealing with… this?”

This.

Again, this.

Bucky’s fingers dig in a little harder. In a different situation, he’d worry that his left hand might leave dents in the laminate.

He picks his words carefully. He speaks carefully. He controls himself. “Steve. They fucked me in the head. And you keep trying to tell me that everything’s fine, that I’m fine. That all ‘this’ is no big deal. You don’t realize what it’s like t-” No, that’s not right. That’s not what he wants to say. “Some days I have to try so hard to keep myself from blowing my brains out, and you treat me like I just have the sniffles. How d’you think that feels, for me?”

Steve turns around. He lets go of the pantry, but his hand doesn’t drop all the way. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Uncertain. Frowning.

Quiet.

Bucky doesn’t look away, even though he wants to. “I don’t need you telling me that you think this should be easy for me.”

Steve’s head jerks to one side, like he only half-committed to shaking it. “That’s not- I’m not trying to…” he works his mouth. Maybe he’s tasting the different words, all the ways he could finish his sentence. “I just don’t want to make it seem like… like I think you’re not strong enough to deal with this.”

“Some days, I’m not,” Bucky says immediately. He’s almost surprised by how easy it is. He’s thought all of this, he’s been thinking this for such a long time. Usually it’s a struggle to let his thoughts get out of his mouth. Right now, he can’t seem to stop them.

Maybe it’s because it’s an argument. Maybe it’s easier to tell the truth when telling it will give him the satisfaction of getting to be right, and getting to make Steve admit he’s wrong.

Or maybe it’s just because this… stings.

He’s known it for a long time. He’s known it since he came here. But it’s something else to hear Steve say it. Hearing Steve get so close to actually putting it to words.

Bucky blinks. He still wants to look away, and he still won’t let himself.

“Steve, I know you think-” he has to take another breath, his throat feels tight, “that if Hydra got you instead, none of this would have happened.”

Steve’s frown gets a little deeper. “What?”

“You’ve said it so many times. If only you were the one who fell, if only you’d jumped, if only you’d gone looking for me, if only it were you, and not me, there wouldn’t have been a Winter Soldier.”

“Bucky, that’s…” Steve shakes his head. “That’s not what I-”

“You think I was just too weak to fight this.”

“You’re one person,” Steve says. It’s the same script he’s used a hundred times, every time this comes up. “It was you against all of Hydra, using everything they had. You can’t hold yourself responsible for not being able to fight off their entire force by yourself. It would have been impossible for you.”

“But not for you,” Bucky finishes. It’s the part Steve never says. But he always means it. Bucky can always hear him think it. “You say it, all the time, that if you’d been there, you could have stopped it. You think I don’t know what that means? That you could have prevented all of this, and if I weren’t so weak I wouldn’t have let them do this to m-”

“You do not get to decide what I think!”

Yelling.

That’s-

Huh.

Yelling.

Is that a new one? It feels new.

Angry. Furious. Yelling.

Yelling at him.

“I have never thought that you’re weak, never once in my life. Don’t you dare put a word like that in my mouth.” Steve’s voice quiets down, but he doesn’t sound any less angry. Tense. Controlled. “You are not weak.”

“Then why do you treat me like I am?” Bucky asks it, but he doesn’t think he actually wants an answer, so he doesn’t wait for one. “None of this bothers you. You treat it all like it’s nothing. Even this time, you had to do everything for me, you had to force me to eat, fuck, you had to feed me, and you still kept telling me that it was nothing. That I was okay. It was no big deal, and it didn’t matter, and-”

His throat feels tight again.

He doesn’t like it. He swallows.

“You keep telling me that I should be fine. Because you think you’d be fine, if this had happened to you. You’d be fine by now. And I’m not, because I’m not as strong as you.”

Steve’s shaking his head again. Small, tight movements. “Buck, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“I should be fine, because it’s not that bad. I can’t keep myself together, but it’s fine, and I’m just overreacting, because nothing that happened to me was really so bad, was it?”

“Bucky, that-”

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are that you try tell me about what I went through. I know you got ego problems, but I figured you’d at least know that your opinion of my experience is worthless.”

There’s silence.

Tense. Uncomfortable.

And Steve is… what is that? There’s something happening with his face, his posture. And Bucky can’t understand it. Angry? Insulted, bristling, upset, sad? Hurt? Bucky doesn’t know what he’s seeing. And that’s… that’s not normal. Steve isn’t supposed to be unreadable.

Steve looks down. He takes a step in, so he and Bucky are standing at opposite ends of the island. A tense, quiet standoff.

After a moment, Steve says, “I don’t like thinking about it. Okay?” He looks at Bucky again. Set. Stubborn. “I don’t like thinking about wh- what happened to you, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable of me. And yeah, it is easier for me to… pretend.”

Bucky tries to keep his expression from becoming an actual sneer. “I’m sure that must be a real hardship for you, but I don’t have that option. You can pretend I’m alright. I can’t.”

“I thought it’d be easier, if I act like it’s easy.” Steve leans in, like he can sense Bucky pulling back. “If I don’t… make a big deal out of it, then maybe it isn’t-”

“Jesus fuck, Steve, I’m not a goddamn toddler! You can’t trick me into not being fucked up anymore.”

“It’s not for you, it’s for me.” Steve puts a hand on the island, and even if it’s a calm enough movement, his fingers are curled into a fist. “The guilt is already bad enough, and. Sometimes I can’t handle it, so it- it’s easier if I tell myself it’s not so bad. And I know that’s selfish, but I can’t help it. I am selfish. And I’m not good with guilt. Never was.”

So.

That’s what this is.

Bucky looks at Steve, and- yeah. He’s right. That’s it. The thing on his face that Bucky couldn’t read.

Guilt. Guilty.

“That’s what it’s been… the whole time,” Bucky says quietly. He doesn’t like this. He hates this. The hate of it pounds in his head. He has to let go of the island because his hands don’t want to grip anymore. He suddenly feels tired. “That’s why you’re doing this. That’s why you’re here.”

Guilt. Just that. Only that. “You think this was your fault, because you didn’t save me back then, and now you’re just… fixing it. You’re just babysitting me until the guilt goes away. Hail Marys weren’t cutting it, huh? You gotta hole up in here and flagellate yourself being my nursemaid?”

Steve frowns. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You were never gonna save me, Steve. It was never a possibility, no matter how hard you tried. I always knew that.” Bucky has to swallow again. “So if you’re trying to ‘save’ me now, to make up for not saving me then, please stop. It’s not gonna happen. And I’m not here to make you feel better about yourself.”

“That is not what I said. You need to stop twisting my meaning.”

“Where’s the nuance in ‘I feel guilty about how fucked up you are’? Doesn’t sound open to much interpreta-”

“I don’t feel guilty for what happened to you, I feel guilty because I’m grateful for it.”

Loud. Not yelling, but loud. Serious. Pained.

Bucky stops.

Steve’s fist tightens, still pressed to the island countertop. “It’s the only reason you’re still here. If they couldn’t have done this to you, they would have killed you, or left you there to die, or-” He works his jaw. He’s breathing too heavily. “The Winter Soldier is why you’re still alive. It’s why I- why I got you back, and…” he blinks a few times, “and I have to be grateful for that. Because I’m selfish. I have to be grateful for what happened to you, and that kills me.”

No, that’s not… right.

That’s not right.

It wasn’t supposed to be this. Steve wasn’t listening. Bucky needed to make him understand. Steve isn’t supposed to be saying… something new. Something Bucky doesn’t know. Didn’t know.

Bucky is supposed to be angry. That was the point, of all this.

The point wasn’t for Steve to say this.

Steve wasn’t supposed to say this.

Quiet. Breathing.

Bucky was prepared to make a point, to prove Steve wrong. To teach Steve a lesson. But it was a specific point and a specific lesson, one that he was ready for. He didn’t think he’d need to say anything else. He didn’t think Steve would need to hear something else.

Bucky doesn’t feel ready.

“Steve. You can be grateful that I’m here, and still hate what happened to me.”

Steve laughs. Hollow. Bitter. “Yeah? ‘Cause that sure feels like taking the easy way out. Just ignoring the hard stuff because I don’t want to deal with it. Like… cheating.”

Bucky looks at him. “That’s how I do it.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. And again, there’s… there’s something there, something Bucky can’t read. It’s not guilt this time, it’s something new. Bucky doesn’t know what it is.

Bucky hates not knowing. He hates looking at Steve’s face, and not knowing what he sees.

So he looks away. He grabs the groceries, just so he has something to do. Something else to look at. He opens one of Steve’s ridiculous reusable grocery bags and takes out a smaller, even more ridiculous reusable produce bag, full of rice from the bulk bins. He goes to put it away-

Steve is still standing in front of the pantry.

Fine.

Bucky sets it back on the counter and rummages through the grocery bag again until he finds a carton of cream he can put in the fridge. Facing away from Steve.

They’re quiet. The silence somehow feels even louder than the noises of Bucky sorting through the groceries, putting lettuce in the crisper and salmon in the freezer and keeping himself as focused as possible. As distracted as possible. Because he doesn’t like what he’s said. He’d been so determined when he was picking this goddamn fight. He poked and prodded and egged Steve into the argument specifically so he could make these points, finally get these things out of his head and into the air between them.

And now that it’s out there, he doesn’t like it.

He keeps unloading the groceries.

Steve is still standing there. Still not saying anything.

Quiet. And…

And, what?

Bucky still doesn’t know.

Bucky’s folding up the first grocery bag and tucking it into its place in the cupboard above the fridge when he hears Steve move behind him.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Buck. I don’t know what you need from me.”

Bucky closes the cupboard. He doesn’t turn around. “I don’t either.” That’s the problem.

Steve takes a breath, loud enough for Bucky to hear it. “Alright, then.”

Alright, then. Alright.

Steve’s stepped away from the pantry now, so Bucky busies himself with getting everything else put away. He wants to move. He wants to have something to look at. He wants to think about cans of beans and bags of rice and the best place to cram the potato chips without crushing them. He doesn’t want to think about anything else.

Steve takes a few more steps. “I’m gonna… I think I’m gonna go for a run.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, because he doesn’t have anything else to say. “Good.”

Steve goes out the front door.

Bucky frowns. He thought Steve meant the treadmill. He goes to the living room, checking out the windows, because-

There hasn’t been very much snow this winter, but there’s enough, and there’s plenty of slush and sludge where the snow’s melted. It’s only a handful of degrees above freezing. There’s a cold wind.

Steve trudges down the driveway. In his jeans, and his light shirt. His sneakers splash in cold puddles, and there’s no way he just had time to put on socks. But off he goes, taking a left when he gets to the street, and working up from a trudge to a jog to his superhuman run by the time he disappears down his usual path at the end of the block. Running. Sprinting.

Gone.

So.

Alright.

Alright, then.

He probably won’t be gone too long. Not unless he winds up falling under the ice somewhere, what with this weather. He doesn’t have a promising track record when left unsupervised in cold climates.

Hm. That’s not bad. It’s not his best, but still. Steve’d probably laugh at it. If Steve were in a laughing mood.

Bucky finishes putting away the groceries, because what else is he gonna do? It’s still easier than thinking. It’s easier to read labels and open cupboards and fold up the rest of the reusable bags and roll his eyes at how much extra money Steve spends for organic. He puts away the groceries, and he washes the produce because he’s already here anyway, and he chops up the lettuce for salad while he’s at it, and starts the dishwasher because it’s full, and heats up some oil in a saucepan because he happens to be by the stove and the last of the old garlic is gonna go bad soon so he might as well.

By the time he hears the front door open again, Bucky’s somehow got a whole meal on the table. He doesn’t have Steve’s interest in cooking, and it’s hardly anything special. But it’s pasta, and it’s hot, and it’s filling, and it tastes pretty good.

The front door closes, and Bucky hears shoes getting kicked off, and now that he looks at it, the food seems a hell of a lot like a peace offering. An apology.

And he honestly don’t know if he’d meant to do that.

Steve goes to the kitchen. He gets a paper towel to wipe his face. He skips the glass and downs about half of the water right out of the jug in the fridge.

He takes the seat on Bucky’s left. Next to him, not across from him.

Bucky looks at him.

Cold. Flushed. Sweaty. Wet. Tired. Calm. Serious?

No, sincere. That’s it.

“The last few days were real fucked up, Bucky.”

Bucky’s shoulders drop. Something loosens in his stomach, something that’s been tight and knotted for so long that he’d forgotten that that’s not how it’s supposed to feel. He almost manages a smile. “Yeah, I know.”

Steve’s face lifts. He’s not smiling either, but still. It’s close enough. “You feeling better today?”

Bucky makes himself think about that before he answers. “Yeah. Today’s good.”

“Good,” Steve repeats. He puts his hand-

He puts his hand on the table. Palm down, fingers splayed out. He puts his hand on the table, right next to Bucky’s. Steve’s right, Bucky’s left. Not touching, but… close.

“I wouldn’t trade you for anything, Buck. And I’m so grateful that you’re here.”

Bucky knows he needs to say the right thing to that, that he needs to pick this response carefully. That he needs to think. But before he can, he hears himself say, “So am I.”

And that’s… true.

That’s true.

He looks at the table. Their hands are so close. Metal fingers, maybe an inch of bare table, then Steve’s fingertips, reaching toward his. Just an inch, that’s it. So little distance. So close. It’d be so easy to move his fingers even closer.

Bucky looks at his hand.

Bucky wants to move his hand. He wants to. He wants.

He…

He grabs the serving dish of pasta from the middle of the table, and shoves it toward Steve. And he goes back to eating.

Steve smiles as he gets up to get himself a fork.

Patient.

That’s the one Bucky can’t understand.

Patient. He’s so patient.

Calm. Gentle.

Steve soaks a wad of toilet paper with something from a bottle with a label too small for Bucky to read (his eyes still haven’t focused enough, his head still hurts too much). He dabs it against Bucky’s knuckles-

Bucky inhales.

It’s an antiseptic. He should have been able to guess that, really. But the sting and the burn and the sharpness of it in his open skin is still a small shock. He doesn’t show it. He clenches his teeth, and regulates his breathing, and makes sure he doesn’t show any sign of discomfort. He knows how to do this. He breathes slowly. He tenses his shoulders. He breathes. He bites the inside of his cheek, and focuses on that instead, focuses everything he can on that dull pain, the sense of pain he can control. He knows how to do this. He’s good at this. He doesn’t show any sign of it, because that’ll just end worse for him. He can’t show discomfort. He can’t show pain. He can’t-

No.

No.

No.

No, that’s not what this is.

That isn’t where he is.

He’s here. He’s in the house, he’s in his bathroom. This isn’t there, and it isn’t them. This is Steve.

It’s Steve.

Steve.

Patient. Caring. Gentle. Careful.

He cleans the blood off of Bucky’s knuckles. The breaks in his skin are deep, so they just start bleeding again. But Steve still wipes them, letting the antiseptic sting and clean. When he’s satisfied, he reaches around Bucky’s leg to drop the soaked red and pink toilet paper in the trash.

He’s kneeling on the tile. Bucky’s sitting on the lid of the toilet seat. Steve is kneeling at his feet, in front of the toilet. Cleaning the blood off of his hand. Cleaning it thoroughly, but also being gentle. So gentle.

Patient.

He’s been patient. And he’s been gentle.

When he could be, anyway. He wasn’t gentle when he’d found Bucky in the basement. When Bucky turned on him, for no reason - Bucky still doesn’t know what triggered it. He doesn’t know why he suddenly knew he was in danger, why his brain told him he needed to fight, to protect himself, to attack, to kill. He doesn’t know why he didn’t recognize Steve. He doesn’t know why it had taken so long for him to remember, and control himself. He doesn’t know why this one took so long to end. They’re usually faster than this.

They’re usually safer than this, too.

It’s been such a long time. He hasn’t had a bad day in weeks. He hasn’t had a day this bad in months. He hasn’t had a day this bad since he first got here, and it’s been months, it’s been almost a year, and there was no goddamn reason for it. There was no reason for any of it. He was fine. It was a good day. It was good.

Steve takes another little bottle out of the first aid kid. This one has a brush in it. Ointment, maybe? Bucky thinks he sees the word ‘bandage’ on it, but… his eyes still aren’t that good. Everything’s still a little too fuzzy.

Steve dabs the brush against each of the breaks in Bucky’s skin.

Careful. Caring.

Steve’s shirt is torn. It had gotten caught under Bucky’s foot, after Bucky threw Steve to the ground, and Steve wasn’t ready. He didn’t realize what was happening yet. He’d been caught off-guard.

He’d fought Bucky, once he realized. Once he knew he needed to. He’d protected himself, and had gotten Bucky pinned. Subdued him. Waited with him, and soothed him, and helped him, until it was over. It wasn’t… horrible. It could have been worse. Bucky is sore. He’s busted up his hand from landing a punch on the concrete floor. He thinks he pulled something in his right leg.

And Steve…

Bucky looks at him. Kneeling at his feet, in front of the toilet. Dabbing liquid bandaid on his split knuckles. Patient. Gentle. With bruises on his throat.

They’ll be gone in an hour, maybe less. They’ll fade. They’ll heal. But right now, Bucky can see them. Fingers and a thumb, dark and ugly on Steve’s throat. Around his throat.

Bucky’s hands are resting on his knees. His left curls into the fabric of his sweatpants. Tight. Tight enough that he’d be in pain, if it were his flesh hand.

Steve keeps taking care of Bucky’s knuckles. Caring. He’d carried Bucky upstairs when his legs were unsteady. He’d made Bucky drink some water. He’d brought Bucky into the bathroom to clean the sweat off of his face, and fix his hair. And to put a bandaid on his knuckles.

But he’d fought him, too. He’d used force when it was necessary. He’d fought back. He’d pinned Bucky down. Not wanting to hurt him, but not willing to let himself be hurt by Bucky, either.

Patient.

Understanding.

Gentle.

Beautiful.

Bucky swallows. His throat feels dry, and he’s not sure his voice will hold.

“Stevie?”

Steve smiles with one side of his mouth. “Hm?”

“You know I love you, right? You know that?”

Steve stops.

He looks up at Bucky. His smile spreads slowly, lifting all the way up to his eyes. “Yeah, Buck. I know.” He looks down at Bucky’s hand again, goes back to his work. “And you know I love you too? Always have.”

“Since we were kids.”

“Damn near a hundred years ago,” Steve agrees. There’s almost a bit of laughter in his voice. Light. Happy. Happy. He glances up again. “I think that’s pretty clear proof that I’m gonna be loving you forever.”

Happy. Caring. Patient. Gentle. Beautiful. Loving.

He goes back to Bucky’s knuckles.

And that’s it.

That’s all. Steve won’t say anything else, do anything else.

But, Bucky still…

He looks at his hand. At his left hand, clutching the leg of his pants.

It’s just movement. Just his hand, his hand, a part of him that he controls. It shouldn’t be difficult. But he has to look so long, look at his hand and want and will himself to relax his fingers, to let go of the fabric. It’s so little, and it still takes him such a long time to make himself do it.

It takes even longer, and it’s even more difficult, but…

Bucky turns his hand over. He rests it on his knee, with his palm up, his fingers lax.

Steve doesn’t look up at him. But he smiles, and Bucky can hear him hum quietly. Content, maybe. He puts his hand over Bucky’s. Their fingers can’t fit together like this, but Steve curls his around Bucky’s thumb.

Bucky looks at his hand.

After a moment, he presses his fingertips to Steve’s wrist, and squeezes. Soft. Gentle.

Steve hums again, and squeezes back.

Smiling.

Bucky doesn’t know what the fuck Steve has to be so goddamn cheerful about while they’re folding their third load of laundry in a row, but he’s not gonna complain about it, either.

It was the bedding, first. Then all the towels. Now, it’s the clothes. Which - when Bucky thinks about it - was a goddamn bullshit way of organizing the day. Because he ran out of patience for folding back when all they had were big sheets and blankets to deal with. Now he’s at his least interested right when they’ve got the most to do.

This is the last time he lets Steve be in charge on laundry day.

Still, apart from the actual folding bullshit, the rest of it is… okay.

The rest of it is pretty damn nice.

It’s finally warm enough to leave the porch screen open, so there’s sunshine and a breeze filling the living room. There’s still a faint smell from the cinnamon rolls Steve made this morning, and Bucky’s been making numerous attempts to see if he can fit a whole one in his mouth in one bite. He hasn’t been successful yet, but persistence is a virtue. The laundry’s timed out so that there’s always something going on, so if nothing else, he at least feels busy. The only interruption in their work is when they have to tell Netflix that yes, they are still watching Bob’s Burgers. They’re kneeling in front of the couch, with the coffee table pushed out of the way. Steve’s got all the t-shirts in front of him (because folding t-shirts kinda makes Bucky want to die), and Bucky’s got the pile of socks in front of him (because socks are okay).

Grab a sock, find the match, sockball, toss back into the hamper.

All in all, it’s not a horrible day.

“Think I’m gonna try gardening,” Bucky says.

And even though that’s come out of fucking nowhere, Steve just smiles as he sets another shirt on his ‘done’ pile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, got nothing better to do.” Grab a sock. “And I kinda like the idea of having a hobby where the whole point is to keep something alive.” Find the match, sockball. “Thought it’d be a nice change of pace for me.” Toss back into the hamper.

Steve laughs.

(Bucky likes when he makes Steve laugh.)

“Y’gonna grow some pretty flowers for me to take pictures of?”

Bucky scoffs. “I’m not gonna let you use my garden to bolster your instagram account. If you want more followers, you can grow your own shit.”

(Steve barely has any followers anyway. Because who wants to follow an anonymous nobody that just posts pictures of baked goods with inspirational quotes? He’s done a damn good job of making sure that no one knows the account belongs to Steve Goddamn Rogers, and based on the pitifully small following, it’s working. Bucky assumes his thirty-two fans are convinced he’s a sweet old lady who only bakes so much because she doesn’t have anything else to take up her time. And, in some sense, Bucky supposes they’re right.)

“But I’d make ‘em look so nice! Don’t you want a nice, artistic commemoration of all your hard work?”

Bucky smiles. “Okay. I’m gonna find out what the prettiest flower is, and I’m gonna grow a real perfect one, and I’ll let you put it online.” He looks at Steve. “But you gotta draw it. No photos.”

Steve makes a dumb face, like he’s frowning with his eyes but smiling with his mouth. “Come on, Buck-”

“Hey, my hypothetical flower, my hypothetical rules.” Steve never puts any of his art up on that damn website. He always says it’s not good enough, or it’s not ‘real’ enough, or it’s just a sketch of Bucky’s face and he doesn’t want that giving away who he is - which is the one valid excuse he has.

Grab a sock (one of Steve’s Captain America ones, with a little cartoon of Sam), find the match (hiding under the pile of t-shirts), sockball, toss back into the hamper.

“Fine,” Steve picks up a shirt and pointedly flicks it down to beat out the wrinkles, “keep your fancy fuckin’ flowers.”

Bucky snorts, because that’s one hell of a pleasing sentence. Bucky laughs, and Steve smiles.

(Bucky knows Steve likes to hear him laugh.)

“You can keep your flowers all to yourself,” Steve continues, “but then you gotta grow me some vegetables instead.”

Bucky laughs even louder. “Yeah, so you can bake ‘em into into a fancy pastry and put that on instagram.”

“Exactly.”

Smiling. Grinning. Pleased. Smug.

Bucky rolls his eyes. Grab a sock, find the match. “So what are you thinking? Spinach? Brussels sprouts?” Sockball, toss back into the hamper. “How do those even grow?”

“Nah.” Steve’s wearing a big, goofy smile. “I just want tomatoes.” He dramatically spreads his arm across the expanse of the living room. “I want the whole backyard filled with tomatoes.”

Bucky scoffs through a smile. “Why? You’re allergic.”

Wait-

Bucky’s brain clicks back into place, and his eyes go wide. “Jesus christ, what year is it?”

Steve starts to make a pained little noise-

“Shut up, punk, I know what year it is.” Bucky shakes his head. “Just, fuck. Usually when my brain wants me to think you’re tiny again, it’s remembering something more useful than your old list of fucking allergies.” He laughs at himself, just once. “I’ve seen you eat so many goddamn tomatoes.”

“I ate a tomato this morning.” Steve’s temporary panic is gone, and his goofy smile is starting to come back.

“A plain fuckin’ tomato for breakfast, you’re disgusting.”

“‘S better than having five cinnamon rolls and nothing else, jerk.”

“Y’think that one tomato’s gonna make up for the rest of your awful lifestyle? How many pots of coffee have you had today?”

“Dunno. How many cigarettes have you had?”

Bucky presses his lips together to keep himself from smiling while Steve laughs like he thinks he’s clever. “God, you’re a piece of shit.” Grab a sock, find the… match… find the fucking match…

It’s under the couch, next to Steve. How the fuck did it wind up all the way under the couch? Bucky reaches over with his left arm, leaning back on his heels to get behind Steve and all the way around his left side. The concept of ‘underneath the couch’ feels uncomfortably dusty and terrifying to Bucky, but luckily the sock looks relatively unscathed as Bucky retrieves it and uprights himself again. Steve turns his head to see what Bucky’s doing, and-

Oh.

There’s…

Huh.

That’s almost… kinda odd.

Because nothing’s happening. They’re just doing laundry. Bucky picked up a sock, and Steve turned his head. It’s so unremarkable. There’s nothing new, or changed. But somehow, Bucky can tell. He knows that they’re about to kiss.

And he’s right, because Steve is leaning closer - even though there’s not much closer for him to get. He moves slowly. His eyes are on Bucky. On Bucky’s eyes, his lips, his eyes again.

Cautious.

Bucky wants to lean in, to cover that last tiny bit of distance. He wants to tilt his head. He wants to put his hands somewhere, he wants his body to remember where he’s supposed to put his hands on another person when he wants to touch them. He wants to touch him. He wants to kiss Steve.

He can’t make himself move. So he just closes his eyes, and lets Steve kiss him.

S- soft. Soft.

Soft.

Gentle. Hesitant.

Experimental.

Soft.

Neither of them breathe. Neither of them move, either. It’s just their lips, just barely touching. Soft. Delicate, almost. Still.

Suspended.

Quiet.

It’s so quiet that when Steve pulls back, the tiny sound their lips make as they separate somehow seems even louder than the tv that’s still playing in front of them.

Bucky remembers to breathe.

As soon as he does, he hears Steve do the same. Breathing.

Bucky doesn’t open his eyes yet. Because he’s still trying to think. He’s trying to remember. Because that was… easy. That was easy, and comfortable, and he’s waiting for it to feel familiar, too. He knows he has this memory, and it feels like it must be one of the real ones, not one of the ones he’d just wanted. So he waits. He waits for it to feel familiar, to remember it, but…

Bucky opens his eyes. “First time we’ve done that.”

“Yeah,” Steve breathes out.

That-

That’s fine. That should be fine.

Bucky looks down, pointing his gaze somewhere on Steve’s shirt, but not really focusing. His eyebrows furrow. Because he shouldn’t care, he knows he shouldn’t care. But… “Lotta people wanted to kiss me, growing up. I was a lot more likable then. I was nice. Nobody had fucked me up yet. Seemed like everybody wanted to kiss me.” He tries to make himself laugh. It’s just a breath, and it doesn’t sound like anything. He doesn’t want to care. He doesn’t want to care about this. He looks up. “But you didn’t? Didn’t want to kiss me, back then?”

Steve’s eyebrows tilt, and the rest of his face crumples. “No, Buck, I wanted to.”

“Yeah? You never thought to let me know that.”

“You didn’t… I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“How’d you know? You never asked.”

Steve waits for a moment.

And slowly, he grins. “Well, I’m askin’ now.” He puts his right hand on Bucky’s knee. “Do you want me to kiss you, Buck?”

It’s another one of those moments, one of the ones where Bucky can feel it. He can tell that the person he used to be would say something right now. He’d say something charming, and he’d smirk, and he’d be able to make Steve melt.

But that’s not the person he is now. So he just nods.

Steve’s grin softens. He keeps his hand on Bucky’s knee, and he brings the other one up to Bucky’s face.

Slow.

Careful.

Easy.

Bucky breathes in when Steve’s fingertips touch his cheek. Gentle. Warm. Steve runs his fingers along Bucky’s jaw, then back up to his ear. Bucky shaved this morning, so the trail of Steve’s fingertips is smooth on his skin. Steve curls his fingers gently down Bucky’s face, under Bucky’s chin. He lifts up his thumb.

And he hesitates.

Smiling. Waiting. Warm. Soft. Beautiful. And-

Oh.

Eager. Excited.

Steve touches his thumb to Bucky’s lower lip.

Bucky has to close his eyes again, because he can’t handle both. He can’t see Steve’s face, and feel Steve touching his lips at the same time. It’s too much. He can’t handle that. He doesn’t think anyone could.

He feels Steve get closer. He feels Steve take his thumb away from his lip. And a split-second later, he feels Steve kiss him. Again.

Eager.

Steve kisses him, and…

And it’s-

It’s…

He doesn’t know.

Bucky doesn’t have words for it. He doesn’t know how he could possibly describe this with something like words.

Steve cups Bucky’s face in his hand. It’s his whole hand now, not just his fingertips. Bucky feels his fingers, his palm, feels his hand slowly run up the side of Bucky’s face and into his hair. It’s braided back today, and Steve presses against his scalp carefully. Careful. Not wanting to muss Bucky’s hard work.

His other hand goes from Bucky’s knee, up to his waist. Bucky feels the heat of Steve’s hand through his shirt. He feels Steve grip his side, and hold him. Hold him tight.

And still, he’s kissing him.

Bucky can’t remember how long it’s been since he’s kissed someone. And he has no idea how long it’s been for Steve.

Judging by this kiss, he thinks there’s a good chance it’s been a long damn while. For both of them. Steve’s hesitant, despite his eagerness, and Bucky can barely make himself move. It’s a clumsy combination at first. Their rhythms don’t quite match, and Steve doesn’t seem to be sure whether or not he’d like his tongue to be involved, and he’s moving his lips a bit too much, while Bucky isn’t moving his lips nearly enough.

But they keep going. Steve keeps touching him, keeps holding his waist, keeps his fingers buried in the back of Bucky’s hair, keeps kissing him.

They’re still surrounded by laundry. The tv is still playing. Bucky starts to move, and he realizes that he’s still holding a goddamn sock in each hand. He drops them, and they land in Steve’s lap. So now Steve’s got a pair of socks in his lap. It’s ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous.

But Bucky needs his hands free.

Bucky wants to touch him. He wants to touch Steve, the way Steve is touching him. He lifts his hands, so they’re between them. Hovering between their chests. He wants to touch Steve. He wants to. He wants to move his hands, he wants to touch him he wants.

He feels the fingertips of his right hand brush Steve’s chest. Barely, barely touching. He wants more, but he doesn’t… he doesn’t remember how to do this. He doesn’t know what to do. He wants. He wants this, but he doesn’t know, he just wants, he wants, he wants, he-

Steve makes a noise against Bucky’s lips. He breaks the kiss, he sighs into Bucky’s mouth.

He puts his right hand over Bucky’s, and presses it down. He holds Bucky’s hand firmly to his chest.

Bucky can feel Steve’s heartbeat against his palm. Racing. Pounding. He feels Steve’s heartbeat, he feels Steve’s hands, he feels Steve’s breath against his face, he feels Steve kissing him.

Bucky moves.

He kisses Steve, he opens his mouth and tastes Steve’s lips. He curls his fingers against Steve’s chest because he wants to pull him closer - but he can’t, because they’re already here. They’re already pressed together, they’re already touching. They’re kissing. Bucky puts his other hand on Steve’s neck, and-

He touches Steve’s throat. His metal fingers touch Steve’s throat. He runs them over Steve’s skin. He wraps his hand around the back of Steve’s neck, but he’s gentle, and it’s… it’s alright. It’s alright. He can touch him like this. He can touch Steve’s throat, he can grip his shirt, he can lick into Steve’s mouth, he can touch him, he can kiss him.

He can touch Steve. He can kiss Steve.

He kisses Steve. And-

It’s…

Good.

It’s good. It’s good. God, it’s so good. It’s so good. Bucky didn’t realize there was anything this good left in the world. And if there was, he certainly wasn’t allowed to have it.

But here he is. Kissing Steve. Touching him. Hearing Steve make these small, beautiful noises. Feeling Steve’s fingers tighten, feeling Steve trying to pull him closer. Kissing Steve. Feeling Steve kiss him.

Good. So good.

So much better than Bucky thought he could have.

It’s still ridiculous. It’s still laundry day, the tv is still playing, and they have no right to be doing something this good while they’re kneeling in front of the couch surrounded by unfolded underwear. There was no reason for this to have happened right now, like this. Nothing makes sense about it, except… nothing else has ever made this much sense before.

Good.

Soft.

Softer and softer, and…

Stopping.

But that makes sense too. They stop, and it makes just as much sense as it had for them to start. It just… happens. Gradual. Easy.

Easy.

When has anything ever been this easy?

Both of Bucky’s hands are on Steve’s chest. Both of Steve’s hands are cupping Bucky’s face. And they’re both breathing. Their faces are still so close, just barely keeping their lips apart. Their noses are still touching, still bumping a bit as they try to catch their breath. Breathing.

Bucky moves back a little further. He looks at Steve.

Breathing. Panting. Flushed. Smiling.

Smiling. Happy. Breathless.

Happy.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

God, he’s so beautiful.

Steve looks down, and he laughs.

He picks up the socks Bucky dropped in his lap. He folds them into a sockball, and tosses it back into the hamper.

And that’s it.

Just like that, they’re doing laundry again. Steve is picking up another shirt. Bucky is grabbing another sock, finding the match. Sockball, toss back into the hamper.

Just like that.

Easy.

So easy.

Steve makes a noise. It sounds a bit like a laugh, maybe. Happy. Silly.

Bucky smiles.

He knows what Steve’s thinking. He knows Steve’s thinking the same thing he is. So he decides to say it for the both of them as he tosses the last sockball into the hamper.

“About damn time.”

Breathing.

Not snoring. Not yet.

But it’s close.

Quiet. Tired. Peaceful. Noisy. His breaths are so goddamn noisy.

He’s on his stomach, for now. One arm tucked underneath him, under the pillow, and the other stretched out toward the headboard.

Breathing. Breathing so heavily. But still, not asleep. Not quite.

Bucky’s hand is on his back. He’s propped up on his left arm, resting his head on his palm. And his right hand is on the small of Steve’s back. Just resting. Just touching.

Steve opens his eyes. It’s a bit of process, more back and forth and back than just one movement. But eventually, his eyes are open, and he’s looking at Bucky.

He smiles. Tired. Soft. Sleepy. “What’re you looking at?”

Bucky keeps looking at Steve. “You.”

Steve’s eyes open a little more. He looks a bit more awake now. And he’s still smiling, just a bit. “Not much to look at.”

“Never stopped me before.”

Steve makes a face like he doesn’t get that, so Bucky explains for him. “I’ve spent my whole life looking at you, Steve.”

Steve blinks. He looks at Bucky, and he breathes, and he blinks. Eventually, he says, “I don’t know if I was meant to hold up to that much scrutiny, Buck.”

Huh.

Bucky hadn’t… considered that before.

Then again, right now he doesn’t really care. Because Steve’s hair is all fucked up from tossing and turning so much to get comfortable, and there’s a bit of drool dried in the corner of his mouth from the few times he’s dozed off, and his eyes keep closing even though he doesn’t want them to, and he’s kind of a mess. Sleepy. Mussed.

“Stevie?”

“Hm?”

“I ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

Steve makes a stupidly cute little groan, and he buries his embarrassed smile in his pillow. “Well, you have now.”

Bucky smiles to himself. “Guess so.”

It’s too dark in Bucky’s room to really see, but somehow, he has a pretty good feeling that Steve’s face is a little red. Still, he lifts it off of his pillow and rolls over onto his back.

It’s an invitation, and Bucky is happy to accept. He rests his head on Steve’s chest, and wraps his arm around Steve’s side, and hitches his knee up over Steve’s legs. And Steve puts his arms around Bucky - one hand on his back, one hand on the back of his neck. Simple. Easy.

Comfortable.

Warm.

“Stevie?”

“Hm?”

He shouldn’t say it. He doesn’t need to say it. He has no reason to say it.

But he can’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t, either.

“Sometimes I think loving you might be the only good thing I ever did.”

Steve doesn’t miss a beat. “Then you did a good thing well.”

That-

Bucky lifts up his head, frowning. “That’s damn sappy of you, Rogers.” Jesus, he was supposed to call Bucky a dope and punch his arm, not make it worse.

Steve hums. “Yeah.” He sounds awful pleased with himself.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Get some sleep, Steve.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky gets himself nestled against Steve’s chest again.

Comfortable. Warm. Easy.

Steve rubs his fingers against Bucky’s back. Bucky rubs his fingers against Steve's chest.

Soft. Gentle.

Bucky closes his eyes. Steve’s breathing gets a little heavier. His touches get a little softer.

Gentle. Warm. Beautiful. Here.

Here.

Here. Home. Beautiful.

Steve.

Steve.

Steve.