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Bucky checked the time once he emerged from the shower. Steve’s ETA was still over an hour out, so he took a second to text him the brain emoticon to remind Steve to use his head and not get himself into any more trouble before reaching the Wakandan border. As if that would work. Steve never listened to warnings not to do something if he’d made up his own damn mind, whether Bucky was standing right next to him or not.
He wandered into his kitchen for a drink, water from his hair dripping down his back.
Bucky’s apartment in Wakanda was on the edge of the city, close to the fields he worked as part of his rehabilitation. The intention had been to keep him away from needless stressors, until Shuri had found him staring in wonder at the items in her lab, and the hallways leading out of her lab, and the city’s urban planning, (etc), and had realized that always being in open fields might be detrimental to his recovery. Bucky loved everything, from the open windows with the force fields that kept insects out to the water recycler that didn’t waste natural resources.
It felt good to wash the sweat and dust off his skin. Normally, it felt cleansing and rejuvenating, but there was a weight on his shoulders at the knowledge that he was putting his armor back on and stepping back into the role of a soldier.
And that wasn't the physical reminder of the extra weight of the arm.
He was nervous, he realized, looking at the reflection of himself. He paused to put the feeling into words, flexing his left hand. He wasn’t scared to fight. He wasn’t scared to die, though his therapist still made a face when he said that. He didn’t want to, but it was a fear he’d moved beyond and accepted a long time ago. He felt confident about the arm Shuri made him, and about his ability to fight another battle without being triggered back to mindlessness. He wouldn’t lose himself by helping the people who had helped him.
He couldn’t place it. It hummed beneath his breastbone as he picked up his hairdryer and dried his hair, running his fingers through it to get it into place. He was in the middle of squeezing a bit of pomade in his hand so he could run it through his damp hair when he paused. And questioned.
Why did he want to look good when his hair would be covered in sweat and blood and gun oil and dirt in a matter of hours?
The only answer he could come up with was that it was an old habit from when he was just Bucky Barnes. He could remember having pride for his appearance on a daily basis, from doing his hair to shining his shoes, and everything in between. It made him smile to feel that again, to know all the efforts he'd been making to look his best had paid off into a habit that made him feel nice.
When he checked his phone Steve had texted Bucky a picture of a goat. What did that even mean? His best friend was such a dork, Bucky decided ruefully, sending back ‘I’m the brain, you’re the goat’ to him before starting the arduous process of getting into his uniform.
x.x.x.
“Oh!” Shuri said when she saw him, pausing what looked to be a very complicated process of rearranging her lab to give him her undivided attention. She reached over and tugged at a piece of his hair, looking thoughtful. “How long has it been?”
“Since?”
“A little under two months, I think. I remember, I’ve never seen my brother trounce someone so thoroughly at a game of ball.”
Steve. She was talking about Steve. “It’s been about that,” Bucky agreed, his lips curling up a bit at the memory. That had been a fun day. “Do you need any help moving things in here?”
“Not really,” she said, pressing another button on her tablet that made a wall collapse into the floor. Bucky watched it happen with surprise, because he hadn’t known she could do that. Cool. “Are you questioning my efficiency? Men tend to do that, whether it’s a physical strength thing or an age thing or a gender thing.”
“Not really,” he echoed with a shrug. “I’m just—” he trailed off with a wave of his hand. “Anticipating what’s to come.”
Her mouth turned up in amusement at something in what he said. “He’ll be here in half an hour. Just try to keep out of the way until then. Tell me about it later.”
Ooook. She’d probably be there for Steve’s arrival but…
Bucky was halfway down the hallway when he was able to put into words what Shuri had obviously seen immediately. That nervous excitement he was feeling was because of Steve.
x.x.x.
Jesus, and he’d told her he was Anticipating what’s to come.
x.x.x.
Bucky felt like finding the nearest waterfall and flinging himself off it. He’d survive, of course, but at least being waterlogged would be a good excuse to avoid his best friend who he was nervous to see. He both knew and had no idea where that came from. He’d spent seventy years not knowing Steve, and then another two both trying to forget and remember everything about him. He felt more solid about himself, and part of that was because Steve gave him the space to recover. Bucky could feel Steve’s need to rebel against that and always keep Bucky in his sights, but he had never let on besides a tightening around his eyes each time he left Wakanda and the energy radiating from his fingers that Bucky translated as a constant need to touch.
Then Steve, the man Bucky had met almost 100 years ago, and knew better than he knew himself – enough so that knowing him had broken through every piece of conditioning and trigger set in his head – had landed in Wakanda with one of Nakia’s envoys wearing a pair of jeans, a nondescript button-up shirt, and a beard.
A beard.
Bucky didn’t understand how he’d grown it. He couldn’t remember Steve shaving during the war, even though he could clearly recall the entire month the team had to share the same razor.
He spent a lot of time looking at Steve’s face. He’d even asked Shuri if someone had given Steve a hair-growth formula and had to weather her looking at him like he was crazy.
And maybe he was, because the beard was kind of sexy. Wasn’t that a thing to think?
x.x.x.
The quinjet landed, and Bucky watched from a distance as Steve and his team disembarked, met by T’Challa and Okoye. He watched them come forward and he could tell with 100% accuracy exactly what he’d been nervous about all day because his heart was leaping in his throat and it wasn't because Steve had brought the fight with him.
And then Steve was right in front of him. Their eyes met, and locked, and Bucky could feel himself drawn forward. He couldn’t do anything but meet Steve halfway and reach for him. His heart was racing. He should be concerned about the pending danger, but all he could think about was this wasn’t the way you felt when greeting your best friend. This was the way you felt when you were greeting someone very different from your best friend.
Steve pulled him into a hug. Bucky could feel leather and armor and Steve’s body heat, smell the sweat of his neck, and feel the tightening of his forearm for only a second that told Bucky that Steve was holding back from crushing Bucky to his chest. It felt wonderful. That nervous energy was thrumming through his veins again, urging him to hold tighter and for longer, and to rub his cheek against Steve’s neck. The attraction simmered through his veins. There was the nascent image of bare sweat-soaked skin flickering to fruition in his mind, and he ruthlessly pushed it away.
The hug was over too soon, and at the same time felt like it went on forever with each and every one of the people they knew pausing to watch.
“How ya been, Buck,” Steve asked with a smile, his hand moving with Bucky’s arm as he shifted his weight. It was a gentle touch. Steve looked Bucky up and down, so quickly it looked like a health-status check, but with that broad smile it felt like something else. It felt almost flirty.
“Uh, not bad, for the end of the world,” Bucky smiled back at him, still looking at Steve’s face. He didn’t look like this was the end of the world. He looked like it was the beginning of one.
Bucky could feel that fond look across all his nerves, a tingle along his scalp and the way his hands itched to reach for Steve. Bucky’s timing was, as always, exemplary.
x.x.x.
“It’ll be soon,” Steve said, stepping up next to Bucky on the observation deck. A few of the Dora Milaje were up there with him, ignoring the wolf in their midst as they continued to do their jobs. He looked out over Wakanda and placed his hand on Bucky’s left arm. “The stillness before the storm. Do you remember—”
“Steve,” Bucky interrupted him, turning with his arm against the ledge so he could face Steve head on. Steve’s hand stayed on his bicep, his grip casual. It created an intimate little bubble of just the two of them facing each other, which wasn't an odd place for them to end up. They always gravitated towards facing each other. “Shut up.”
Steve looked at him carefully, not saying a word. Bucky looked back. He didn’t want to lose Steve. He never wanted to lose Steve. He’d intimately known the fear of losing Steve all of his life, but it had never felt like the kind of precipice that came with attraction. Steve was a reckless danger-seeking idiot who replaced health problems with a superhero costume, and in all that time Bucky had never worried about losing him emotionally.
Bucky became very aware of Steve’s hand on his arm. Metal and wiring could only approximate skin, tissue, and nerves, and for battle Bucky had calibrated it so he could sense his surroundings. He could feel Steve’s warmth seeping into the metal in the shape of a hand, and he could sense the speed of his heartbeat. It gave him hope that maybe Steve was feeling the potency of Bucky’s presence the same way Bucky was feeling his.
Bucky licked his lips and focused his eyes on Steve’s collar for a second so he was able to ask the question he wanted to. “Are you nervous about the battle?” he asked, looking up to meet Steve’s eyes as he took a step into Steve’s place and touched Steve’s shoulder with his right hand. It was a calculated movement, one he could move out of if he needed to, but he didn't think he would need to because Steve automatically adjusted so he was standing with Bucky and not at odds with him.
“We’re going to win because there’s no other option,” Steve said. “There’s never another option.”
Bucky studied Steve’s face in response to that, and Steve’s heart rate picked up at Bucky’s eyes on so intent on his face. It made it easy to lean in towards Steve, just enough that he could feel how close he was, the air around him emanating a sense of energy. It was nervous and reckless and anticipatory, and Bucky could sense it as Steve tilted his face in response to Bucky, following his movements so they lined up easily.
All Bucky had to do was give in to the fear of letting go. Bucky had fallen from a helicarrier after Steve once, in the very beginning. He didn’t remember what it felt like or making a conscious decision, but he knew it was right even though he didn’t know himself. He might know himself now, enough that leaning those last few inches in to kiss Steve was frightening, but the letting go and falling was the same.
It was right.
The first touch of their lips was soft, barely a brush. Steve inhaled in surprise, his fingers tightening on Bucky's arm, and Bucky moved in so that it became more solid, still not pressing into Steve’s space. Steve’s hands came up to bracket Bucky’s face, his touch gentle.
Bucky could feel the beard tickling his chin, and he smiled into the kiss. Steve nipped at his bottom lip in response, a very slight chide that made Bucky wonder what he could do to get Steve to do it again. His breath was warm against Bucky’s skin, their lips became slick, the tender friction making everything a little sensitive.
Bucky opened his mouth so he could lick at the seam between their mouths and Steve moved, pressing Bucky backwards against the railing so he could take the opportunity to deepen the kiss. It both was and wasn’t the kind of kiss Bucky would have expected from Steve if he’d ever taken the time to think about it. It wasn’t filthy, not the kind of kiss that led to franticly tearing off clothing, but it wasn’t staid or boring, either. Steve kissed him like a man who knew he’d want to kiss him again and again, but might never get the chance.
So he wasn’t wasting it.
It felt amazing. Bucky could feel the delight of it up his spine, warming him from the inside out and he held on. He could barely breathe and could feel Steve pressing against his in a way that made him want to pull him closer and move his entire body against Steve’s so he could feel him head to toe. The kiss was slick and sharp, and fuck.
Bucky pulled away, and he was still smiling. He felt fond and happy and alive, disoriented, but in the kind of way you felt after being kissed senseless.
“Buck,” Steve said, reaching out and brushing his thumb over Bucky’s lip and then down his chin. He appeared shell-shocked, but ecstatic, and his touch was reverent. He looked at Bucky like Bucky was his world, and Bucky found himself huffing in amusement because that wasn’t exactly a change.
“Steve,” he said.