Archive of Our Own ^beta

christmas eve, 2018

It’s not white outside. It’s not warm, but it’s not particularly cold, and it most certainly is not white.

There are only a few things he has memories of and other things that he’s begun piecing together, but the one thing he thinks he remembers--really, truly remembers--is snow falling gently from the sky, crystal flakes blanketing fire escapes and the concrete just outside the window. It’s inextricable to him; snow and the holidays.

It’s the holidays now, but there’s no snow. He tries to wrap his mind out around it, like he tries to wrap his mind around so many things that shift and slip through, like a sieve.

He runs a hand over the soft, long hair of his goat. Bilbo, he named him the day he was born. Bucky had been in the fields behind his hut, working on a patch of ground that Shuri had helped him turn into a small garden. He had heard the doe’s pained cries of labor and Bucky hadn’t had any experience in any kind of birth, but he had moved as fast as his super soldier speed had allowed.

It had taken quite a few hours and the Dora Milaje had eventually come to see what was happening, but the mother had finally produced two kids. One had emerged healthy and strong, but the second had almost died in the process. Bucky spent weeks helping the runt to health. Bilbo had been loyal to him ever since.

He smiles and runs a hand over Bilbo’s nose and the curious goat gives a sniffle and runs a rough tongue against Bucky’s palm.

“Tree’s up,” a voice suddenly says and Bucky sees the cloth to his hut draw open. Inside, he can see the lights making his home glow and in the doorway, the silhouette of someone Bucky had thought he would never remember again.

“You did all that without me?” Bucky asks.

“Well I asked you to help,” Steve says, the side of his mouth quirked into a half-smile.

“And what did I say?” Bucky says.

“I have a goat, Steve,” Steve says, dropping his voice lower and making a face in that way he thinks is hilarious. “It’s very important that I go spend time with him.”

“Well it was,” Bucky says. He runs his hand over Bilbo’s head once more and then stands.

“Come look,” Steve says and he smiles at Bucky so brightly that Bucky has to fight not to duck his head. He’s still healing, inside and out, and things overwhelm him easily. Perhaps most of all is Steve Rogers and his kind, excited smile.

Bucky walks in through the open doorway and Steve lets the cloth fall behind them.

Bucky’s hut isn’t enormous, but it isn’t small either. Inside there’s a wardrobe and a mattress on the ground, a shelf of books, and a desk that he uses to write in journals he keeps locked away in a trunk underneath.

There’s a rug on the ground and a space just big enough for--

“Oh,” Bucky says, lights from the tree sparkling in the reflection of his eyes.

“Shuri said they don’t have Christmas trees here,” Steve says proudly, coming up next to Bucky. “But she found one for us. Well, maybe she made it, I don’t know. She’s a little scary.”

“She’s a brat,” Bucky says, but he’s grinning. He walks toward the tree.

It’s large enough to fill the space, but small enough to not overwhelm it. The tree itself is laden with tinsels and garlands of popcorn, little ornamental balls, fairy lights, and other shapes hanging and glinting in the dim light of the hut.

There are other, brighter lights too--little orbs that float around the room.

“Those are Shuri’s,” Steve says with a smile. “I told her how much lights mean to you--well, us. It’s not a menorah, but I thought it was a nice compromise.”

Bucky steps forward and catches one in the palm of his hand.

“What are they?” he asks. The light blinks in his hand and he lets it go. It rises up from his palm, continues floating around the air.

“Something something science,” Steve says with a shrug. “What do you think?”

Bucky takes a breath, a little overwhelmed, a little giddy.

He steps toward the tree and falls silent.

Bucky’s memories are held together piecemeal at best, pictures drifting in and out of his head, staying during good days, and disappearing during bad. Shuri had told him it might be like that for a while--perhaps forever. He’ll remember some things and other things he’ll never get back again. HYDRA didn’t take everything from him, but they took enough. He has a functioning memory, but much of it has been broken, irreparably.

When he had told Steve, Steve had looked so stricken that Bucky had wanted to take it back, immediately. He doesn’t know that he minds, really. Everything that happened to him in the past happened to someone else. Bucky doesn’t know who he is now, but it’s not that person. Or, at least, it’s not all that person.

He looks at the ornaments around the tree. They’re all colorful, some made of metal, some wood. Some have sparkles on them and some are fading. Some seem brand new and some seem worn with age. No two are the same.

Bucky stops in front of an ornament that neither sparkles, nor shines. It’s a small, wooden bird with red paint on its throat. He reaches for it, feeling something strange prickle under his skin. It feels familiar somehow, although he couldn’t say why. He holds the bird in his hand and it’s so small that it barely covers his palm. The bird has feathers carved into the wood and two little wooden feet, although one has been broken through time. It stirs something in him, in the back of his mind, like the ghost of a dream.

“Steve?” Bucky asks.

Steve, who’s rummaging through a box for something, looks up.

“What is it?” he asks.

Bucky turns to him, his hand still on the bird.

“I know this,” he says. “But I don’t know why.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a moment and the lines of his shoulders are so rigid that Bucky’s afraid he’s said something wrong. But then, before Bucky can apologize or retreat, Steve’s face softens.

“Oh,” he says. “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

Bucky’s throat grows thick with feeling for some reason. He nods.

Steve says nothing for a moment, then brings something out of the box. It’s another ornament; something that looks like a battered little angel.

“My Ma once told me a story,” Steve says softly. “She said that she and my dad had a tradition. Ma was a poor Irish immigrant and my dad was--well, he was a soldier, he didn’t have anything really, even before the war. They didn’t have much, but they had each other. So one Christmas they decided, well, if they couldn’t give each other gifts, they’d at least give each other something to show their love instead. So every Christmas, even when times were tough and they couldn’t afford anything, they would give each other a single present--something to remember the year by. An ornament.”

“Oh,” Bucky breathes. He looks down at the bird and tries to imagine Sarah Rogers and this tiny little bird.

“I told my best friend that story,” Steve says after a moment, voice thick. “When we were seven years old. And he told me he’d do the same for me. And that year, when I opened my present, inside was a small wooden bird to hang on the tree.”

Bucky looks up at Steve, the little bird in his hand and Steve--well he’s smiling.

“I don’t remember,” Bucky whispers.

“I’ll tell you,” Steve says.

*

around christmas, 1925

Steve’s Ma is working the double shift during Christmas that year. She sits him down after school one day and looks so sorrowful that his little heart tumbles in his chest thinking there’s something wrong.

She says, “I’m so sorry, sweetling, but I have to work on Christmas. They just can’t do without me. Mrs. O’Sullivan will have you over that day. That’s okay, isn’t it? You like her pudding.”

Mrs. O’Sullivan is old and has ten cats and likes to show Steve pictures of her son who she lost in the war. She’s nice, but all of her food is bland and lukewarm, even those things that are supposed to be cold and especially those things that are supposed to be hot.

Steve is relieved his Ma isn’t sick, but he wants to cry. He loves Christmas and he loves Christmas with his Ma. He doesn’t want to spend it with Mrs. O’Sullivan and her lukewarm figgy pudding or her cats. They scratch him every time.

“Sure,” he says, trying to give his Ma the best smile he can. “It’ll be fun.”

At school the next day, Steve is so sad that Bucky notices. Bucky is eight years old and his best friend in the whole world. They met the year before when a bully shoved Steve into the sand at the playground and said he must be a baby because only baby’s are that small, and Bucky had come out of nowhere and shoved the bully into the grass.

“Don’t be a child!” Bucky, full of eight year old outrage, had said.

He had offered Steve a hand.

“Hi!” he said. “My name is Bucky Barnes. Sorry about Frank, he’s the worst. Why do you have so many scrapes on your arms and legs? Wanna go play on the slide?”

It had been a lot for Steve to process, but Bucky had grinned so widely and been so nice about it, that Steve had taken his hand.

“Hi,” he had said. “My name’s Steve. Thanks for shoving him, I’m not supposed to shove anyone anymore. I fall a lot because my sense of balance is still developing. At least that’s what the doctor told Ma last time. Also sometimes I get into fights. I like the swings.”

Bucky had stared at him and Steve had stared back and they had done some negotiations and played a game of rock-paper-scissors and then ended up compromising on the see-saw.

“Cool,” Bucky had said as he had gone up and Steve had gone down. “Wanna be best friends?”

Steve, who had never had a best friend before, had felt his entire chest flutter. He had smiled widely.

“Yeah!” he said. “Okay!”

And so they were.

“You hate Mrs. O’Sullivan,” Bucky says, making a face. “She smells like cats.”

“I know,” Steve says glumly, eating his apple. “But Ma’s working and I got nowhere else to go.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, considering and frowning. “Okay. I’ll fix this.”

Steve doesn’t know how, but he trusts Bucky with his whole life. He finishes his apple, throws the core away, and the two of them run off to play tag.

Mrs. Barnes calls Steve’s Ma and says, “Let Steve stay with us. It’s no problem at all. We already have four, what’s one more?”

“Be good for the Barnes’s, okay, sweetling?” Sarah Rogers says when she walks Steve to Bucky’s house on Christmas Eve. “Wash your hands and eat all the food they give you, unless it’s something you’re allergic to. Say please and thank you. Don’t make a fuss.”

Steve promises and he’s bouncing on his feet with nerves when Mrs. Barnes opens the door.

“I love you,” Sarah says as she bends down and kisses Steve on the forehead. “Merry Christmas, little one.”

Steve wraps his arms around his Ma, gives her a hug, and then runs off to play with Bucky.

The Barnes’s are Jewish, which means they celebrate something called Hanukkah. Steve doesn’t know much about Hanukkah, but Bucky tells him there are candles and lights and something called Challah bread and a game called dreidel and presents. It’s not Christmas, but Steve doesn’t mind so long as he can be with his best friend.

They go upstairs to Bucky’s room and play with his toys. Bucky reads a book and Steve gets paper and a pencil and starts drawing. Steve likes drawing a whole lot and Bucky’s told him for a whole year now that he should be an artist. Steve doesn’t know about all that, but when Bucky looks at his artwork and tells him it’s the best thing he’s ever seen, Steve feels so happy he thinks maybe he should be an artist, just to make Bucky keep saying those nice things.

Becca, Bucky’s younger sister, comes in and the three of them play hide and seek around the upstairs. Bucky has two older sisters, Louise and Helen, and a baby brother, Teddy, but Becca is Bucky’s favorite and Steve’s too, by extension.

Eventually, they lay sprawled on Bucky’s floor, hungry and exhausted.

“Hey,” Bucky turns and whispers into Steve’s ear.

His breath tickles and Steve squirms a little, laughing.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says.

“Okay,” Steve says.

Bucky gets up and offers Steve his hand. Steve gets up too and takes Bucky’s hand.

Bucky leads him across the hallway and down the stairs. Steve looks at all of the Barnes’s family pictures, the artwork in the hallways, the menorah above their fireplace.

“Are we playing dreidel?” Steve asks. “You promised you would teach me.”

“I will, I will!” Bucky says shushing him. “Come on, come on.”

Steve gets pulled through the waiting room, barrels through the kitchen, where Mrs. Barnes yells after them, and the two of them go skidding into the Barnes family living room where—

Steve sucks in a breath. Bucky beams.

“Do you like it? I know it’s not big, but we only had a little time and—”

Steve shakes his head and then he nods it. He walks toward the tree, all covered in popcorn garlands and little ornaments. There’s a Jewish star at the top, which makes Steve laugh, but he likes it anyway.

“But you celebrate—Han-u-kkah,” Steve says, sounding out the word.

“Yeah, But you don’t,” Bucky says, smiling. He slings a small arm around Steve’s even smaller shoulders. “D’you like it, Stevie?”

Steve wrinkles his face, as he always does at the nickname. He secretly likes it, but it also makes him seem like a baby, which he isn’t.

“Yeah,” Steve says, his smile growing wider. “I love it. It feels like Christmas.”

That makes Bucky grin excitedly.

“I have—wait,” he says. He leaves Steve to go under the tree and Steve moves closer to look at all of the ornaments and touch the pine needles. It smells like the trees his Ma got every year. It smells like Christmas.

“Okay, here,” Bucky comes back and thrusts a little package at Steve.

“Buck?” Steve asks and Bucky gestures at him to open it. Giving Bucky a mystified look, Steve carefully opens the newspaper wrapping.

Inside, in the middle of the newspaper, is a small, wooden ornament. It’s a bird with feathers carved into its wings and tails and a bright red throat.

“Remember the bird we rescued?” Bucky says quietly, now moving closer to Steve.

Steve does. It was a baby bird with a broken wing that had been left behind in Steve’s kitchen window box. He and Bucky had discovered it one day after school and Sarah Rogers had come back from a long shift and found both of them trying to make a splint out of tissue paper and sticks.

She had laughed at them and brought the baby bird in. Together, the three of them had nursed it back to health, until it was strong enough to fly away on its own. It was some kind of warbling bird, with red painted on its throat.

“To remember it,” Bucky whispers. “And—”

“And?” Steve whispers back, looking up at him.

“It reminded me of you,” Bucky says. “Sometimes you’re broken too and you need a little help, but then you’re stronger and you—you’re flying away, all over the place.”

Steve makes another face, but his entire body feels tingly and warm.

“I told you,” Bucky says. “I’ll give you an ornament every year. Like your dad gives your Ma.”

“But I didn’t get you one,” Steve says, a little distressed.

“That’s okay,” Bucky says with a shrug. “Next year.”

Steve nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Next year.”

Bucky beams at him and the two of them look at the ornament together, closer. They both take turns holding it and they name him—Charlie.

They hang Charlie on the tree together.

“Buck?” Steve says after, turning to his best friend.

“Yeah?” Bucky asks, turning back.

“Thank you,” Steve says. “I love it.”

He leans over and kisses Bucky’s cheek and Bucky, all eight years old and enamoured with his best friend, smiles in delight.

They go play dreidel after, but Steve keeps looking back at the Christmas tree, spying his little red ornament and smiling.

*

close to christmas, 1938

“That’s the last of the boxes,” Bucky says, stacking a box of scant cookware on the small counter they’re gonna pretend to call a kitchen.

“This is depressing,” Steve says. He’s standing at the doorway to their bedroom, looking at their small one-bedroom apartment.

There’s the kitchen, which is connected immediately to what he supposes could be called a living room. The thing which he supposes could be called a living room has exactly one lumpy couch and one rug on the floor under a wooden table that neither of them can move. There’s a small, rickety kitchen table that they can eat at and a radio sat in the middle of it. Their bedroom has two tiny beds that they’ve already considered just moving together, about three boxes of clothes between the two of them, and a box of Steve’s art supplies and sketch pads. There’s a box of Bucky’s books in the corner of the living room, and a box of cleaning supplies in the bathroom. The seven boxes altogether make up the entirety of their possessions, but, Steve supposes, at least they have an apartment at all.

“Okay, I’m going to work,” Bucky says. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Bucky works at the docks, which means he’s gone a lot, sometimes during the day, sometimes during the morning hours, and sometimes overnight. Steve hasn’t thought yet about how lonely he’ll feel when Bucky leaves, but he supposes it’s no lonelier than he felt after his Ma passed and he was living on his own.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Think you’ll get Christmas off?”

A frown flickers across Bucky’s handsome face and he runs a hand through his hair in the way that drives Steve a little crazy.

“Maybe, I dunno,” Bucky says. “I’ll try.”

“Okay,” Steve says, trying not to feel too disappointed.

Bucky changes into his work clothes and grabs his keys and waves to Steve as he leaves. Steve finds himself wishing he could stop him at the door, one hand on his collar, the other in his hair, and kiss him goodbye.

He swallows the yearning and turns away as the door closes.

He has no business loving his best friend the way he does. He sets about cleaning instead.

Bucky’s gone all that night and the next day too. The apartment isn’t big, but it feels small without him. Steve cleans and unpacks their boxes. He puts away their clothes and his art supplies, Bucky’s books, and everything for the kitchen.

He looks in their cupboards and tries to make some kind of dinner. It’s boiled potatoes, mostly. He swallows it, but barely.

He does some sketches and reads a bit of a book and fiddles with the radio.

He sits down on their lumpy couch and tries not to be depressed.

Steve looks around him, sees the empty walls, the empty kitchen, the empty space.

He’s depressed.

He looks at the calendar and sees the date

And then he gets up and goes out.

christmas, 1938

“Stevie?” Bucky comes back in the early hours, Christmas morning. He’s tired and sore and covered in the smell of the docks, a mixture of sweat and grime, with an undercurrent of fish.

The apartment is dark and Bucky thinks how simultaneously happy and sad he is to be home. There’s nothing here and it’s so quiet he can hear his breath echo in the dark. He thinks about his parents, his sisters, his brother, and his nieces and nephews and tries to swallow the disappointment of missing Hanukkah with them.

He takes his shoes off at the door and creeps in. He doesn’t even make it to the bedroom—sees a lump on the couch.

Frowning, Bucky goes and puts a hand to Steve’s shoulder. He pauses, just before shaking him awake.

Steve is, and always has been, fitful. He’s fitful in sleep and he’s fitful awake. It’s almost as though his body can’t contain it, all the things it could be if it just cooperated for longer than a few minutes. It breaks Bucky’s heart sometimes, just to see his best friend unable to rest. He would give that to him if he could, a moment of peace, just to see angels on his eyelashes.

Steve’s breathing is mostly even and he’s not moving too much now. Here, in the dark, so quiet and warm, Bucky could just lower his mouth and—

He swallows and hangs his head.

He thinks he wishes for it every year, a Christmas or Hanukkah miracle, to be able to take his best friend in his arms and tell him he loves him. Not in that way, but that way.

He runs a finger through Steve’s hair anyway, fine spun blond strands sliding against his skin.

Bucky sighs, heart aching, and shakes him.

Steve’s eyes open immediately.

“Buck,” he says with a sleepy smile. “You’re home.”

It feels dizzyingly good, that word. Home.

“Yeah Steve,” Bucky smiles tiredly. “I’m home.”

Bucky goes to shower and by the time he comes back out, Steve’s awake too.

“I have a surprise for you,” he whispers. And then he leads Bucky by the hand to the living room.

They don’t have much between the two of them except a handful of boxes and years of memories. But when Bucky looks at their living room, the small tree in the corner, the tinsel strewn everywhere, a small pile of wrapped gifts under the tree, and long, tapered candles above the fireplace, Bucky feels as though he has everything he’s ever wished for.

“The stockings are a bit...questionable,” Steve says, scratching his nose, “but it was the best I could do.”

There are two long socks hanging in front of the fireplace. They’re not red and they’re definitely just a pair of long, clean socks that Bucky owns, but Steve has somehow painted an S on one and a B on the other and they’re bulging, like there’s something inside them.

“Steve,” Bucky whispers. “How did you--”

“Got to know our neighbors,” Steve says with a smile. “Got the tree up between the two of us. And you were gone so long, I got time to do all the rest. Is it okay?”

Bucky--he feels his heart hammer low in his throat, somewhere above his chest, where it should be. He looks around, touches the stockings, turns and looks at the tree.

“I couldn’t reach the top,” Steve says. “Help me?”

Bucky stares as Steve gets out a box that he doesn’t recognize.

It’s only after Steve opens the lid that the recognition sweeps over him. Settled in a box of tissues is a large Star of David.

“Stevie,” Bucky breathes.

“Your Ma gave it to me,” Steve says, beaming gently. “I--well, I called her and told her you were gonna miss her somethin’ awful. And I thought maybe--I know it doesn’t replace being with them, but maybe this is okay too. It’s a little bit of them in our place. Is that okay?”

“Is that okay?” Bucky whispers. He feels so overwrought that he nearly sways on his feet. Steve places the star in his palms carefully.

It’s made of wood, with intricate detailing in between the corners and sides of the star. Bucky remembers being a child, helping his father make the star in his shed and paint it gold after he finished.

Some of the gold is chipping off by now, but most of it remains. The star glows in his hands.

Steve nudges his shoulder, or as best as he can reach it.

“Go on,” he says.

Steve pulls over a chair and holds it steady as Bucky climbs on top. He reaches up with his whole body, takes a breath, and places the star on top.

When he climbs back down, he backs away, just to see it shine in the dim, glowing candlelight.

It looks like the tree back home, but it looks different too. It’s not Becca’s popcorn garlands or the disastrous ornaments Teddy tried to make every year. There are presents underneath that aren’t in the messy, last minute wrapping that Louise was so infamous for in the Barnes household. It’s not a large, towering tree that Bucky, Teddy, and their dad went out to cut down at the beginning of December.

It’s none of these things, but it’s some of them.

And then it’s something more too--garlands made by Steve, and presents wrapped by Steve, and ornaments hung, carefully, spaced at random intervals, by Steve.

It makes sense to him, he thinks, that everything this is, this tree in their new home, is all Steve Rogers, and set at the top is something that reminds Bucky of home, where he came from. It makes sense that it would come together like this, the old and the new, something borrowed, something blue.

“Are you ready for your gift?” Steve says.

Bucky takes a breath.

He and Steve sit down at the base of the tree. Steve has a little package, wrapped in newspaper, in his lap, and Bucky has a little package, wrapped in sketchpad paper, in his lap.

“You first,” Bucky says.

Steve grins and carefully opens his. He’s as creative and chaotic as Bucky is meticulous and methodical, so it’s never been of any surprise to Bucky that where he likes to unwrap his presents slowly, one corner at a time, Steve just sort of rips the paper and goes digging for the treasure underneath.

In the middle of the newspaper this time is a silly little ornament. It’s made of wood and shaped like a paintbrush. The handle is painted red and the bristles are a stark white. Just above the bristles is painted a pair of eyes and underneath, a nose. It’s a paint brush, but it’s also Santa Claus.

Steve laughs in delight.

“Is this because of that mural?” Steve asks wryly and Bucky grins.

Two months ago, Steve had been commissioned by the grocery store down the street to paint a mural on the brick wall next to the storefront. Steve had been real mad about having to paint a Christmas mural in the month of October, but the owner had been insistent. Also the owner had been kind of an asshole. After months of griping at Bucky, Steve had finally painted Santa buying produce--with one twist. Santa had been black.

Who says Saint Nick is white?  Steve had demanded. Who?

The grocery store owner had been angry as hell and Bucky had been amused and Steve had been triumphant, in a way, and one of his friends from art school, Eli, had thanked him for putting into paint what he’d been telling everyone all along--that Santa Claus was definitely a black man.

“I love it,” Steve says with a smile. He leans forward to kiss Bucky on the cheek. “Thank you. It’s perfect. Also, I was right.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, you,” Steve says.

Bucky starts at the corners and starts peeling away the sketch paper. He works his way slowly down, making sure not to ruin it, even though Steve hasn’t drawn anything on the package, but still, sketchpads aren’t cheap and Steve can still use this sheet after if Bucky’s careful about it. Steve clearly gets impatient halfway through, because he starts making these little sounds through his nose that makes Bucky almost giggle.

“Buck! Sometime this century!” Steve complains.

Bucky hushes him and finally gets the paper all the way open.

He moves the last corner and--

“Oh,” Bucky breathes out. “Oh, Stevie.”

In the middle of the paper is a beautiful ornament, a blue menorah. It has the Star of David painted in the middle and little orange flames at the end. It looks just like the menorah his father keeps on the fireplace.

“I made it,” Steve says, sounding nervous. “Is that okay?”

Sometimes Bucky thinks that Steve is so oblivious to the things he does, the impact he has on Bucky, that he must actually be messing with him.

“Steve,” Bucky says. “You made me a menorah.”

“Yeah,” Steve swallows. He still looks nervous, the absolute idiot.

“Steve, no one’s ever made me a--” Bucky looks at it and looks at Steve with emotion. “This is. I can’t believe it.”

Steve seems to take that well, because his shoulders slump and he looks happier for it. He smiles broadly.

“Let’s put them up.”

Steve and Bucky stand side-by-side at their small tree. Bucky sees remnants of their pasts--a little red bird near the lower right side, a little wooden board, painted with a tooth from the year Bucky had lost a tooth throwing himself into a fight for Steve, an ornament of a nurse’s cap with the cross on it that Bucky had given to Steve and Sarah the year Sarah had been made head nurse on her floor, a little wooden dog Steve had given Bucky the year the beloved Barnes family dog, Ruthie, had died, a little steamship Steve had gotten Bucky the year Bucky had declared he was going to become captain of the entire ocean one day, and a little ceramic house Bucky had given Steve, two years ago, with the promise that they would buy a house of their own someday.

All around the tree, everywhere, as far as Bucky can see, are traces of their friendship, of their lives together. Bucky Barnes has known Steve Rogers as long as he’s known himself, practically, and in that time, they’ve made promises and kept them. They’ve made memories and remembered them.

“Here,” Steve says, hanging his paintbrush by a round globe of an ornament, painted a dark green. That year, Bucky and Steve had decided they were going to both buy spheres and paint them for each other. Bucky, who could not paint a picture to save his life, had written S+B on his dark green ornament, simple and true.

He steps back with a soft smile smudging the edges of his mouth.

Bucky scans the tree to find a perfect place and--there. He steps forward, finds a place next to Steve’s matching globe ornament. Steve, who could paint to save his life, had painted a beautiful and delicate scene--Steve and Bucky at Coney Island, laughing on a Ferris Wheel. Bucky had loved that ornament a lot. He remembers Steve’s birthday on Coney Island to be one of the best days of their lives, even if Steve had thrown up three times from the Cyclone.

Bucky places the menorah next to it and feels his heart swell again.

He steps back next to Steve, feeling emotional, overwhelmed by this, the story of their lives and all the homes they’ve made together.

“I like it,” Steve says.

“Me too,” Bucky replies.

He wraps an arm around Steve’s back and Steve leans into him, his arms going around Bucky’s waist. Bucky drops a kiss onto the top of Steve’s head and they stay there like that, arms around one another, looking at their story, one ornament at a time.

Eventually, Bucky’s stomach starts rumbling.

Steve laughs.

“I got boiled potatoes and some Christmas ham and, if you’re real nice to me, some wine and cake.”

“I love you,” Bucky groans, following Steve to the kitchen.

Steve’s cheeks turn a rosy pink, and he wrinkles his face, like he’s trying to deflect something.

“Turn on the radio,” he says. “I wanna hear some Christmas stories.”

Bucky turns on the radio and Steve warms up their food and they curl up on the couch next to each other, eating and listening, leaning into one another and laughing.

It’s their first Christmas together in their own home together. It’s one of the best Bucky’s ever had.

*

december, 1942

Bucky leaves for war with the draft and Steve stays home. It’s not for lack of trying, but that doesn’t help him when he turns over in his bed in the middle of the night and sees Bucky’s bed empty, their small apartment gaping large and empty in his absence.

Christmastime 1942 is as depressing inside as it is outside. It’s a harsh winter and Steve stays in the apartment with a bitter cold that turns into a lowgrade flu and he only just misses pneumonia out of sheer stubbornness.

He writes to Bucky, wherever he is. 

Dear Buck,

Hope you’re having a grand old Christmas wherever you are, jerk. Bet you’re having the time of your life in Europe, while I’m sitting here shivering in the Brooklyn cold. Tell me about the Italian countryside. Tell me about the French Riviera. I don’t remember what warmth feels like or the sun looks like--maybe you can remind me?

Home isn’t home without you.

Miss you,

Steve.

Steve puts something inside the envelope, addresses it for Bucky’s barracks, and hopes it gets to him.

christmas, 1942

Bucky sits in a military tent in the Loire Valley. He’s a sergeant now and his officers are out drinking for the night. He doesn’t begrudge them their drinks. It’s Christmas day and they’re fighting a war for their country that’s taking more than just innocence and limbs. Glory and honor are funny things. They’re magnificent concepts that forget the grit and blood taken to achieve them. They wrap themselves in patriotic splendor, but lose their brothers in the trenches. Is the exchange ever good enough?

He’s tired; they’ve won a hard-fought battle, helped push the Germans back an inch. They gain an inch and lose a dozen lives to get it. This is what it means to be at war.

Bucky has a glass of some shit liquor himself, but it’s just him at his table, in his tent, with maps and papers spread out in front of him. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a crinkled and folded envelope.

He had gotten it just today, the letter. Bucky has a few people who write him from back home, but only one with the spiky, rushed, artist’s handwriting he has memorized in his sleep.

Bucky opens the envelope and slides the letter out. He reads what it says and closes his eyes. He imagines it, Steve writing this letter to him. Steve brushing his fingers across this very piece of paper. Steve saying he misses him.

It smells like Steve, Bucky thinks, but maybe that’s just in his mind. He doesn’t know. His memory isn’t what it used to be.

Bucky’s about to put the envelope back into his jacket when he notices something inside. He opens the mouth of the envelope and tips the little thing onto his palm.

It’s a little paper airplane, with a rope attached to the end. A paper ornament.

Bucky’s heart sticks in his throat as he reads what’s written on the wings of the plane. 

To remind us how to find our way back to each other.

Bucky takes the paper plane in his hand. He holds it close to his chest and weeps.

*

december, 1943

Months after Steve rescues Bucky from Zola’s experimental table, his hand still shakes. It’s a nightmare in his head when he’s in there and when he’s not, everything around him fades to a light blue. It’s perpetually twilight in the depths of his head and he can’t shake it, not without something taking him from his own horrors.

Steve doesn’t know, not really, and even if he did, he’s busy besides. It’s funny how everything changes in the blink of a Nazi eye, but Bucky had gotten himself captured and his regiment were slaughtered and when he woke up, Steve was a supersoldier and a hero and not someone who needed Bucky anymore.

He stays with him, though.

You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?  Steve asks, because the little punk still doesn’t understand this; he doesn’t understand that he’s not a want, but a need.

Bucky needs him, even if Steve doesn’t need him anymore.

Bucky had gone off to war and everything had become unbalanced, his whole life unraveled before him. When he sleeps, he has nightmares in blue.

The only thing he’s good at, the only thing that makes him feel good, is holding his rifle in his hand, looking out through the eyepiece, and sniping down a Nazi hundreds of yards away. Death makes him feel good and if that doesn’t make him a monster, well--

It’s December again. Somehow, it’s always December in Bucky’s mind.

christmas, 1943

It’s Christmas day and they’re in a ditch.

Well, it’s not a ditch, it’s a foxhole, but a foxhole is little more than a ditch made to bury human bodies easier during times of war. They’ve been in the foxhole for most of the night and half of the morning. Every so often, artillery rounds shoot out, loud blasts and the thudding of shells scattering to the ground.

Bucky stopped wincing after the first shots spit out. They had blasted open the ground feet away from the foxhole, spraying up clods of dirt that had fallen in specks down around them. It hadn’t been close, but it had been close enough. Steve had given Bucky that look, grim determination, but apologetic at the same time. Steve didn’t want to make the call, but it didn’t matter what Steve wanted, ultimately. War wanted what war wanted.

Bucky had taken a resigned breath, hoisted his rifle up, set it on the mouth of the hole, and opened fire.

It’s Christmas day and he’s killing Nazis.

There’s a lull sometime between the morning hours and the afternoon. The Howlies are in their own foxholes, tired and murmuring to each other. Bucky can hear Dugan’s voice louder than the rest. He’s telling Dernier a story about his wife and kids back home.

Bucky doesn’t have a wife or kids back home. He has a family, but most days he’s too tired to write them. They write to him, tell him what’s happening back in Brooklyn, and it’s the strangest thing, the disconnect he feels between who he was and who he is now. Some days he wonders if he’ll ever get that part of himself back.

There’s only him and Steve in their foxhole.

They’re covered in dirt, sweat, and the frustration of hours of stalemate. Something has to change, but they don’t know what. Steve’s tired, Bucky can see it in the way his shoulders are shaking. The idiot is a supersoldier, but he’s an idiot nonetheless.

Steve grunts after looking over the lip of the ground, then slides back down, landing in a kind of sprawled heap near the bottom.

Bucky watches him out of the corner of his eyes. He remembers, distantly, what he used to be like--his Steve; small, angry, spitting fire and artistic visions. He knows this is the same Steve, but it isn’t the same Steve, by the same token. They haven’t talked about it yet; Bucky doesn’t know how to.

Still, when he lets his gaze linger, Bucky remembers that hot pool of yearning in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t know if he thought Zola would have taken it from him or if Steve’s transformation would have changed anything, but it hasn’t. At the end of the day, he still wants his best friend. At the end of the day, he’s still in love with him.

“I can’t remember the last time I was this tired,” Steve says quietly. He hasn’t moved from his heap on the bottom of the pit. “Happy Christmas to us, right?”

Bucky lets out a laugh, a little rough around the edges.

Then, thinking he’s too tired to care, he slides over, lets his body settle against Steve’s own.

After all of this time, Steve reacts to Bucky’s body like it’s something simple and familiar. When they touch, it always feels a little bit like home.

“Guess neither of us have a surprise tree this time?” Bucky grins. He can still grin. It rarely reaches his eyes, but he can do it.

“Sure I do,” Steve says, tiredly. “Just got it waiting--next foxhole over. Can’t miss it.”

Bucky laughs, low, like a punch to the gut.

They’re quiet.

Steve reaches over, puts a palm against Bucky’s neck. Bucky tries not to sigh and leans against it.

“Your hand’s bigger than it used to be,” he mutters. “‘Sweird.”

“Bad weird?” Steve asks.

“Nah,” Bucky says. “Just weird is all.”

They grow quiet again, Steve’s hand at the back of his neck, Bucky’s body nestled against Steve’s, the way Steve’s used to be nestled against his.

Without asking, wordlessly, Bucky turns his body. He rests his head under Steve’s chin, his body angled over Steve’s chest. Steve doesn’t even ask, he just wraps his arms around him.

For the first time since his capture, Bucky feels safe.

They’re in a fucking goddamn ditch killing fucking goddamn Nazis on fucking goddamn Christmas, but Bucky can hear Steve’s heart beat, strong and steady under his ear, and he feels safe.

Maybe because it’s Christmas day, but there are no shots fired. It’s mostly quiet, the group of them in their respective ditches, tensed, just waiting. Someone--Dugan, he thinks, or maybe Gabe Jones--starts singing a Christmas song and then the rest of the start singing too. Steve’s never had much of a singing voice, but he tries and Bucky tries not to smile.

“You got a good voice,” Steve murmurs after, into Bucky’s ear, and Bucky shivers.

“Steve,” Bucky says.

“Yeah?” Steve asks.

Bucky shifts so that he can move himself away from Steve and Steve immediately sits up, straight, face stricken.

“Buck, I’m sorry I--”

Bucky pats himself down, then reaches into a pocket. It’s still there. Despite everything, it’s still there.

He takes out the little figurine, wrapped in dirty tissue paper.

“Buck?” Steve asks quietly.

Bucky’s eyes are tired, hazy even, but he presses it into Steve’s palm.

“Merry Christmas, Stevie,” he says. “I didn’t forget. I promised I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.”

Steve looks like he’s about to cry. He doesn’t, though. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and produces something wrapped in, of course, sketchpad paper.

“Me neither,” he says.

Bucky takes his ornament and Steve takes his.

Bucky opens his first.

Inside is a little pocketwatch that Steve’s made into an ornament. Bucky opens it, hands shaking, and on one side is a clock that’s still ticking. On the other is--a picture, of the two of them. They’re dirty and they’re tired, but they’re laughing. It’s in the middle of the war, but they’ve found laughter, because they have each other. It’s Steve and it’s Bucky. It’s Steve and Bucky.

Now Bucky looks like he’s the one who’s about to cry.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve whispers. He’s opened his ornament too. It’s a little angel, battered and a little dirty, but altogether whole.

Bucky swallows.

“It reminded me of you,” he says.

He remembers it then, on his deathbed on a metal table in Austria, thinking he was losing his mind, hoping he would die and wishing he would stay alive. Steve had shown up just when he had given up and Bucky had thought; oh. He’s an angel.

There’s so much Bucky could say to the way Steve looks at him--I love you, to start. I have always loved you, also. Or even, I will always love you, Steve Rogers. Merry Christmas.

He doesn’t say any of these things, although they sit on the tip of his tongue.

Instead, he closes the pocketwatch ornament and puts it into his jacket.

“Gonna hang it on our tree next year,” he says confidently. “Gonna find a real good spot.”

Steve laughs and maybe it’s a little watery. He holds his angel in the palm of his now-large hands and looks at it with sad eyes, an artist’s eyes.

“Yeah, Buck,” he says. “We’ll find a real good spot for them both.”

*

christmas, 1945

Steve loses Bucky and he loses some part of himself he never realized he could lose. All of the unsaid words settle over his shoulders, weigh him down with the heaviness of the world and all the love he’s lost.

He’s Captain America and he has nothing.

He lays awake at night, the camp quieting around him, and he says those words out loud. Bucky will never be there to hear them. He feels a small angel ornament pressed against his breast pocket.

They move through the Polish countryside and the destruction is incomprehensible—windows shattered, houses boarded up, piles of rubble made of cracking and crumbling bricks and stone. People used to live here. They’re almost all gone now. They live among ghosts, just as Steve does every day.

He bends down in front of a house that’s been blown to pieces, wood and brick and old things scattered in a neat square radius.

Steve picks up a piece of stone that looks roughly like a star. He thinks about a star on top of a Christmas tree sitting in the middle of a too-small apartment in Brooklyn. His heart aches so much it feels cleaved in two.

“Time to go, Cap,” Dernier says to him.

Steve takes the stone. Then he takes a broken piece of brick and pieces of spent artillery shells. He puts them in his pocket and stands up.

“Move out,” he says. “Peggy’s waiting.”

Later that night he sits in his tent, pieces of rubble and memories laid out in front of him. He pours whiskey that does nothing for him into a glass.

“Captain Rogers,” Peggy says, lifting the flap to his tent and coming in.

“Peggy,” Steve says, smiling sadly at her.

“What are you doing on Christmas all by yourself?” she asks. “You should be drinking with your men.”

It doesn’t feel like Christmas without Bucky is what Steve wants to say.

Instead, he shakes his head.

“Let them celebrate,” he says. “I just want to remember.”

“Eventually, we will all have reason to celebrate, Steve,” Peggy says, resting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “Even you.”

He supposed that’s objectively true, but he doesn’t feel the truth of it. He can’t imagine ever feeling like celebrating anything again.

“Sergeant Barnes’s belongings are being sent back to his family,” Peggy says quietly. “But I thought you should have this.”

Peggy presses an envelope into his palm. It feels heavy, like there’s something in it.

“Thanks, Pegs,” Steve says, voice thick.

“Happy Christmas, Steve,” Peggy says and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Peggy takes her leave and Steve wishes—he wants desperately to give her the kind of love he wants to give her, that she deserves to have.

He turns the envelope over in his hands. On one side, in Bucky’s looped, neat handwriting is written Stevie.

Steve tries not to cry.

He runs a nail under the crease and opens the envelope. Inside there’s a note—  

Merry Christmas, punk. So we can have one no matter where we go.

Inside there’s a little wooden Christmas tree on a string.

Steve’s hand curls around it. He almost crushes it and is careful not to. His shoulders shake, his chest sinking under the weight of grief.

He covers his face with a hand and cries.

He takes the stone, the piece of brick, and the artillery shell, starts working them over.

He makes a Star of David out of the rubbles of this war, to remind him what they fought for, together, and to remember every Christmas they had together and all of the ones they’ll never have again.

He puts it in the envelope with the Christmas tree ornament and turns the envelope over.

Underneath where Bucky’s written Stevie, he adds in and Bucky.

*

december, 2015

Steve wakes up a lifetime later. He doesn’t know what happens in the meantime and the world, for its part, moves on without him, one step forward and three steps back. They win the war and they lose it at the same time. He joins a group of Gods and men in robot suits and they call themselves the Avengers.

It’s not bad, as far as a life goes, but it’s lonely and it’s unlike one he could have imagined when he had fallen asleep in the ice. He passes years this way. He wakes up in 2011 and finds some purpose in his work. It’s the future and he’s still fighting off Nazis, but that’s not all. There are drug cartels too and aliens and science experiments with physical manifestations and murderous intent. It’s busy work; good work, even.

He finds friends too, although it takes some time to get there. Natasha begs him to go out on a date and Sam asks him to come home with him and spend the holidays with his family. Steve considers both, he really does, but every time he thinks about it--taking someone out on the town, celebrating Christmas with someone else, seeing someone else’s Christmas tree, well, something in him comes up short. All of it, really; every part of him.

He fingers something in his coat pocket, an envelope found in a box in the Smithsonian. 

Captain Rogers--

Thank you for your service. It is an honor. Please find a box of things we thought you might want to have back.

--The Smithsonian

He spends the holidays at the gym instead. He spent so much of his life being sick, now that he has impeccable health, he figures he should spend as much effort as possible maintaining that kind of miracle. He doesn’t mind it, really. He turns on the radio, plays Christmas music in the background, and takes his aggression out on some punching bags. He orders in Chinese food and watches all of the movies he’s missed in the last seventy years until he falls asleep on his couch.

It’s fine, as far as holidays go. Perfectly fine.

“You been to one of those markets?” Sam asks one evening. They’re in Avengers’ Tower, on the floor Tony had given to Steve. Steve doesn’t like to spend too much time here, but they had come back from a mission and been so wiped out by it that he and Sam had taken showers and just collapsed, one on the bed, one on the couch.

Natasha sits on his kitchen counter drinking a cup of coffee. The mug, supplied by Tony, reads WORLD’S OLDEST AVENGER.

“No,” Steve says. He’s on the couch, flipping through channels. There’s nothing good on, just a handful of romantic comedies he has no interest in and some cooking competitions that he would get too invested in too fast. “Never had the time.”

Sam and Natasha exchange looks, which Steve steadfastly ignores.

“Let’s go,” Sam says.

“I’m watching TV,” Steve says stubbornly.

“You’re scrolling through the guide. You’re gonna end up watching Finding Nemo again for the tenth time,” Sam says pointedly. “This month.”

“It’s a good movie,” Steve frowns. “The animation is--so good! And that little fish always gets me.”

“They’re all little fish, Steve,” Sam says, rolling his eyes.

“Sam, I’m fine, reall--” Steve starts, but is interrupted by Natasha, who shoves herself off the counter and puts the mug down by the sink louder than she strictly needs to.

“Get your coat on, Rogers,” she says. “We’re going to a Christmas market.”

Steve shoots both of them a glare, but then sighs and turns the television off.

“Fine,” he says. “But only because Finding Nemo isn’t on right now.”

They go to the Bryant Park Christmas market. After the first few minutes of feeling overwhelmed by the crowd, Steve has to admit that there’s something lovely about it; this market of holiday love and cheer under the tall, glittering skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan. There are stalls of holiday vendors and holiday food lining Bryant Park, with an ice skating rink in the center of it all. There are holiday lights framing the rink and twinkling about the vendor stalls. The air is cold, but full of the smell of spices, cookies, and hot, fresh, sometimes fried, foods. There are children skating, lovers holding hands, parents and students looking through the market, searching for that perfect gift.

“Hot chocolate?” Sam asks.

“Please,” Natasha says and Steve thanks him too.

Steve and Natasha stroll through, looking at artwork, stopping to admire jewelry, laughing at the weird stall of a stuffed monkey selling what looks to be a very comfortable onesie.

“Think we should get matching pajamas?” Natasha asks, feeling the fleece on one.

“I have it on good authority that Tony’s probably custom making us matching Avengers ones as we speak,” Steve grins.

“Is the good authority that you’ve spent more than five minutes with Tony Stark?” Natasha asks.

Steve laughs.

“You know us too well,” he says.

“We all know each other too well,” Natasha says. “It’s annoying.”

Steve grins anyway, feeling his spirits lift by the very vibration in the air. The holidays are the loneliest time for him, but something about being here, in the middle of all of this good cheer makes him feel--well, it’s nice. Sam and Natasha might have had a point.

“Oh, animal hats,” Natasha says. “Come on.”

Steve follows her and Sam finds them, Steve with a lion on his head and Natasha with a panda.

“Okay, I don’t know what happened while I was gone,” Sam says, handing them their hot chocolate. “But if this is the new Avengers, I’m in. Lion Boy and Panda Girl.”

“There’s no falcon here,” Steve says. “Oh here, perfect.”

He shoves a ridiculous penguin hat on Sam’s head.

“Penguin Lad to save the day,” Sam grins and the three of them crack up.

Okay, it’s more than nice. It’s fun. Steve is--he’s having a surprisingly good time, all things considered.

They leave the stall of hats and wander through the crowd, sipping at their hot chocolate, murmuring to one another. Only twice are they stopped for a picture and both times by wide-eyed four year olds who are sworn to secrecy immediately thereafter.

“Want to skate?” Natasha asks.

“Man, I haven’t skated in years,” Sam says. “Gonna make a fool of myself. I’m in.”

Steve makes a face.

“I guess in public’s a good time to find out if I have any balance on ice?”

“You lived in it for seven decades,” Sam jokes. “It’s like riding a bike, right?”

Steve snorts. The three of them bicker and move toward the ice rink. They’re almost there when something catches the corner of Steve’s eyes.

“Hey--one minute,” he says, his heart beating faster. “Give me a minute? I’ll meet you guys there.”

Sam and Natasha give him a quizzical look, but Steve shakes his head, assures them it’s okay.

He needs to be alone for this.

He wanders into a large stall that’s hanging heavy with weird wooden statues, dolls, and--

Ornaments. Everywhere.

Hanging down the sides of the stall and overhead, across the entire top, are little wooden, ceramic, and plastic ornaments of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

There are ones about New York--the iconic taxi cab, the Statue of Liberty, an apple--and there are weird animals, little toys, vehicles, Christmas trees and snowflakes and Nutcrackers and snowmen and elves and dreidels. They deck every single inch of the shop and Steve--he’s suddenly overcome, emotional in a way that makes him close his eyes.

“Can I help you?” the vendor smiles.

Steve, barely biting back his sadness, looks around him, looks at all of the ornaments his eyes can find. Then, knowing he shouldn’t, but unable to help himself anyway, he says--

“Do you have a little soldier?” he asks. And, quieter. “Or a red star?”

The vendor looks around him and smiles.

“Oh, I have just the thing,” he says.

“Where’d you go?” Sam asks as Steve gets his skates at the counter.

Steve’s feels the package nestled in his pocket next to the envelope.

“Just had to buy a gift for someone,” Steve says. He smiles at Sam, but it’s too sad to reach his eyes.

*

christmas, 2015

It’s a day, in the middle of the week. Or maybe it’s at the beginning of the week. He thinks he knows the month, at least. December. And the year too. 2015. It has been one year, eight months, and some days. No, twenty one days. It has been one year, eight months, and twenty one days since his escape. It’s December 25th, 2015.

That’s a day of importance, he thinks. Or it used to be. He supposes it still is, to everyone else. Christmas, he remembers.

Today is Christmas.

He has a routine. He finds a hotel or a motel, an abandoned warehouse, or an apartment that’s empty. He stays there for a week, maybe two weeks, uses a fake name, pays in cash, then, when too many people are watching, when someone remembers that fake name, he moves on. It’s like this for one year, seven months, and fifteen days.

Then he moves to Bucharest.

He tries to leave after two weeks, even packs his few belongings, but then this happens--he picks up a loaf of bread, some deli meat, and a bag of fruit at the market and the little old lady stops him.

She speaks to him in Romanian and his mind clicks into place, sifts through all of the languages that have been programmed in his head, and he speaks back in Romanian. She says her name is Ioana. She gives him an extra plum. She asks if he might come and help her with the fruit cart on the weekends, because she isn’t as strong as she used to be and her eyesight is going.

The Winter Soldier--no, James; no. Bucky. Bucky almost says no. But then he considers his options. Selling fruit is much preferable to murdering.

He says yes.

He stays in Bucharest.

Bucky doesn’t like the crowds. There are too many people and too few vantage points to keep track of all of them. He prefers the farmer’s market that he and Ioana sell at. He helps her load up their crates of fruits for the day. He likes doing the labor work for her. Ioana could sell a fish to the ocean, but her back is bad and the fruit are heavy. Bucky has too much strength. Using a little of it to help lift crates helps him focus. It brings him back into his body when he drifts away from it and the sweet smell of fruit reminds him when he hasn’t eaten. So does Ioana. She prepares him two plates of colțunași, filled with fresh cheese and dill, each day and he eats them in silence. At the end, he thanks her. She pats his face and tells him he is a good boy.

Bucky might love Ioana. He constantly looks for people trying to harm her. He would cut their eyeballs out without a thought.

Today, Ioana is fussy. She gets like this sometimes, when she is feeling ill or her grandson has forgotten to call again.

“Go,” she says to Bucky, glaring. “It is Christmas. You should not be working, you should be resting.”

Bucky frowns.

“I want to work,” he says in Romanian.

She glares at him again and then shoos him with a handkerchief.

“You are too young to work so much,” she says. “You get to my age, then you work. Now, you live.”

Bucky doesn’t think to tell her that he is much older than she is; that he has lived and he has died and now he is something in between.

She puts a plum into his hand and hits him with her handkerchief until he leaves.

Bucky doesn’t know what to do on Christmas day by himself, so he follows the crowd. They are not as numerous as usual, but they still bustle. He follows a tourist couple to Vorosmarty Square and his eyes widen.

There is some kind of market--larger and brighter than the one he and Ioana sell their fruits at. It is a happy market, filled with stalls of brightly colored toys and crafts and food that, surprisingly, make his mouth water. There are lights strung above the stalls and he can see them twinkle, even though it’s not dark enough yet.

Bucky stops at a stall selling something Turkish that’s wrapped in a flat bread and fishes out a handful of leu to give to the shopkeeper. He waits while the man prepares his food.

Bucky keeps looking around, taking in the colors and the wares and the people, all cold and loud and happy on this day. There are children pulling at their mothers and lovers strolling along, hand-in-hand. There is someone tall and blond, broad in the shoulders, and Bucky has to look away quickly, his heart hammering in his chest.

He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the memory.

“Here,” the man says and hands Bucky the Turkish wrap.

Bucky takes it and flees as far from the blond man as possible.

He doesn’t know how much time he spends at the market, only that he walks around in loops, looking at each stall carefully, and when he gets to the end, he turns around and does it all over again. He eats more pierogies and a small bowl of paella, some churros and handpies, gingerbread cookies and baklava drenched in syrup. He likes the baklava so much, he goes back and buys some more. And then again. The fourth time he goes back for the sweet, walnut dessert, the man behind the counter laughs and gives it to him for free.

Bucky is licking his sticky fingers, happily--happily? he thinks, huh--when he accidentally bumps into a child.

The kid looks up at him with bright blue eyes and blond hair and Bucky freezes.

The kid freezes too.

Bucky must look terrifying, because the kid looks like he’s going to cry. Bucky backs away from him, trying to chase the memory out of his head.

He wanders into a large stall that’s mostly empty now.

He almost knocks his head against a wooden airplane hanging from the ceiling and moves his head just in time.

“Careful,” a middle-aged woman smiles at him. “You’re much taller than my normal customer.”

Bucky apologizes to her and then looks around him.

In the stall, covering all of the surfaces are--

“Ornaments,” the woman says. “All kinds, from all places. Some are made by me, some by my husband. Some I have found along the way, in different markets, in different places. Mostly they are new, but there are some from long ago too. I have something for everyone.”

Bucky’s heart beats fast in his chest, although he doesn’t know why. He turns his head, nearly spinning in the stall, trying to take in all of the ornaments at once. He’s almost overwhelmed by them.

“See one you like?” the woman asks. “Although I suppose Christmas is over after today. That’s why no one is buying from me.”

Christmas is--for ornaments. Bucky doesn’t know this so much as he feels it. There needs to be ornaments on this day. He needs to buy one.

He needs to buy one for someone, but he doesn’t know who and he doesn’t know why.

“Tell me what you’re looking for,” the woman says, kindly.

“I don’t know,” Bucky mumbles. He turns and he sees one that looks like a plum. He touches it. Then he turns and he sees one shaped like Santa Claus. He touches that one too.

One by one, he carefully, gently even, looks at and touches each of the ornaments--old and new. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he thinks he’ll know when he finds it.

“I have a special one,” the woman says after a while. “Let me show you.”

Bucky turns toward her and waits patiently.

It only takes a few minutes. She rummages in a box near her register and then comes to him with something wrapped in tissue paper.

“This is an old one,” the woman says. “It’s from the second World War. I don’t know who had it, but I like to think they used this ornament for a long time before giving it to someone else to enjoy.”

Bucky’s breathing stops in the middle of his chest.

In the middle of the tissue paper is a little wooden bird. It has feathers carved into its tail and all along its wings. It’s a faded blue that was once bright and there’s gold paint at its throat.

Bucky doesn’t know why, but he thinks it should be red.

“Can I hold it?” he whispers.

The woman smiles and slides it onto his flesh palm carefully.

Bucky holds it--like it’s something delicate, something he could break if he breathes on it too hard. He holds it like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever held.

His heart thumps steadily in his chest, then somewhere up near his throat. He’s enamoured with this little bird. He loves it.

“I’d like to buy it,” Bucky whispers, looking up at the woman. To his surprise and horror, he feels something wet slide down his cheeks.

“It’s yours,” the woman says. “No cost.”

“But--” Bucky says and the woman shakes her head, wraps the bird up in tissue paper, and slides it into a soft, cloth pouch.

“Merry Christmas,” she says with a smile. “Give it a good home.”

Bucky takes the pouch carefully, holds it cradled to his chest, careful not to squeeze it too tight.

He saves it for something, or someone. The perfect little bird for the perfect person, even if Bucky doesn’t know who they are yet.

* 

christmas, 2018

Bucky sits on the ground near the Christmas tree, wrapping paper all around him. Steve had spoiled him. He has thick knit sweaters, even though Wakanda never gets too cold, new pairs of sweatpants, and sneakers because his boots are too hot in Wakanda and sometimes he doesn’t feel safe wearing just sandals. Steve’s bought him a pile of books--a lot science fiction, some non-fiction, some just science, and some that are cookbooks. HOW TO COOK IN THE WILD, one of them reads, because Steve Rogers is a real funny guy.

Steve buys him an iPad, because Bucky has told him a hundred times he doesn’t want one and Steve’s an asshole, and fills it with books Bucky loves and pictures of them and their friends, because he’s actually the greatest guy Bucky’s ever known. Sam sends him the collector’s edition of The Lord of the Rings and Natasha, wherever she is, sends him a card with a snowman on the front that says HAPPY HOLIDAYS. Inside the card it just reads --Natasha. It makes Bucky laugh. He puts it up on top of his dresser.

“Eggnog?” Steve asks.

“Boozy?” Bucky looks up at him.

“No one can drink non-alcoholic eggnog, Bucky,” Steve says as he sits down next to him. “That’s disgusting.”

Bucky smiles and takes the drink from Steve. Alcohol does little to nothing for both of them, but Shuri had used her science brain to concoct some potion that works against their serum-enhanced metabolism. It’s not the strongest thing, but it does make them feel warm and, after quite a few shots of it, just a little giddy.

Or maybe, Bucky thinks, that’s just because of who he’s taking shots with.

Steve is wearing a ridiculous ugly Christmas sweater, with a stupidly bright Christmas tree on it and bells that are attached to where the star or the angel should go. Every time Steve moves, he jingles a little, which makes Bucky laugh.

His hair seems to glow in the soft light of the candles, fire, and Christmas tree lights. His face is flushed from the heat. He looks soft.

Bucky drinks his eggnog.

Something glints at Steve’s neck and Bucky smiles a little, reaches forward to touch the chain.

“Did you like it?” he asks.

Steve’s mouth curves into a smile that softens his face so much Bucky kind of just wants to rub his own face in Steve’s thick shoulder.

Steve reaches under his sweater and slides out his necklace. T’Challa had offered Bucky credit for expenses and Shuri had offered to create technological marvels, but Bucky had kindly declined both of their offers.

He doesn’t have much to give Steve, but what he had wanted was to give him something that mattered. Something he had made himself, with hands not used for killing, but for growing and creating.

Maybe that was a little cheesy.

“Buck, it’s beautiful,” Steve says.

At the bottom of the chain rests a little shield, with a little star in the center, carved out of bone. The work is intricate, but not too refined--Bucky’s still learning how to carve, after all. He finds it soothing, to sit there with a piece of wood or bone and whittle whatever comes into his head. He’s never been the artist that Steve is, but this makes sense to him--it’s not art, really, it’s using his brain and his dexterity to create something out of something else.

“You gave it up for me,” Bucky says. “It was important to you and you did that. For me.”

“Bucky,” Steve starts to protest, but Bucky doesn’t let him.

“I wanted you to—have something of mine,” Bucky says quietly. “Something I made. Is that okay?”

Steve turns his face and the lights glint off his hair, make it seem as though he’s sparkling. The light from the fire seems to catch low on his eyelashes, making them stretch longer, cast a shadow on his cheeks.

His cheeks are covered in bristles. It’s all well groomed now, but god does Bucky want to run his fingers through Steve’s beard.

Is this okay? he wonders. Is it okay to be in love with his best friend, after all of the evils he’s committed?

“More than okay,” Steve says softly. “Couldn’t ask for a better gift.”

Bucky’s metal hand is on Steve’s neck. The plates shift and he holds his breath, hoping Steve doesn’t get pinched.

“It’s nice and cool,” Steve says. “Shuri did a good job.”

“Shuri’s a brat,” Bucky says, with fondness.

His fingers linger at Steve’s pulsepoint and Steve takes in a sharp little breath. Bucky looks up and sees his eyes darken, just a little.

“Steve,” he whispers.

Steve doesn’t say anything, but Bucky can feel it, the way his heart rate spikes.

After a minute of no movement, Steve pulls away. Bucky feels the deep pant of disappointment, but then Steve smiles.

“Let’s dance,” he says.


Bucky’s rusty at this, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He turns a holiday playlist on his phone. Bing Crosby sings softly in the background and Steve steps forward. Bucky feels Steve’s large hands firmly at his lower back and the back of his neck.

Bucky has no real finesse. He wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulder and Steve’s face brightens with pleasure. Steve moves both hands to Bucky’s lower back and they sway gently to the music.

“We used to do this all the time,” Steve says quietly.

They turn, movement gentle for two super soldiers.

“Just like this?” Bucky asks.

“In a smaller apartment,” Steve laughs and Bucky grins. His hut isn’t exactly cavernous. “And with, y’know. More discretion. Homophobia and all that back then.”

“We were never like that,” Bucky says, frowning.

“No,” Steve shakes his head. “You had your gals, but you never stopped touching me. I thought you might, once you knew—”

“Knew?” Bucky asks, wonderingly.

Steve pauses, looking torn.

“That I like men,” he says quietly. “And women too. I like both.”

Bucky digests that, his heart beating like hummingbird wings; light and fast.

“Did I...I knew that?” he asks.

They turn again, Steve looking thoughtful this time.

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “I always thought you might’ve. But that you loved me anyway.”

Bucky doesn’t remember much, but that—that he does remember.

“I did,” he breathes out and Steve smiles widely.

They sway and turn some more, Bing singing about snow and Christmas, the fire crackling and popping behind them.

“Steve?” Bucky says.

“Yeah Buck?” Steve looks at him. His eyes are blue; so blue Bucky could drown in them, and most likely has, time and time again.

“I like men too,” Bucky says. “I don’t know if I did then, but...I do now.”

“Oh,” Steve says, cheeks glowing pink. “I’m glad you told me.”

Bucky smiles widely, feels a weight melt off his shoulders.

The hut shouldn’t smell like pine trees and Christmas cookies, but it does. Shuri has found all the ways to give him a Christmas there is.

Bucky feels the boozy eggnog settle into his bloodstream and he laughs, leans his forehead against Steve’s chest.

Steve holds him closer. They both move closer.

Steve’s body is large and warm in a way Bucky doesn’t think it used to be. He has vague recollections of bony edges and ribs that jutted out and skin that was always pale, always cold, always just a little blue.

Now though. Steve wraps him in his thick arms, against his thick sweater, and Bucky feels safe. Bucky, the former Winter Soldier, feels safe.

“I don’t remember all of those Christmases,” Bucky says after a while. He sounds sorrowful. He turns his head on Steve’s chest so he can look at the tree.

He sees each of them—the little red bird, the wooden paintbrush, the menorah, the nurse’s cap, the steamship, the battered angel, the pocketwatch, even the Star of David Steve had made from rubble, the little red soldier that looks just like Bucky, and the blue and gold bird, bought at Christmas markets in New York City and Bucharest at the exact same time.

The tree is them; it’s their relationship, their history. Bucky doesn’t remember all of it, but he feels it, knows this thing--it’s their story, it’s all of the holidays they’ve ever spent together, years of friendship and decades of love.

At the top is another Star of David.

“I have something for you,” Steve says, his voice a rumble in his chest that Bucky feels against his cheek.

“Me too,” Bucky grins.

They pull apart reluctantly and meet at the tree.

“I got you something,” Steve says and presses a little package to Bucky’s hand.

“You’re not the only one, punk,” Bucky says affectionately. He pats his own small, wrapped packet against Steve’s chest and Steve laughs. “You first.”

Steve takes his time, the annoying punk, but he peels the corners away and in the middle of his palm is a little—

“You ass!” Steve bursts out laughing.

Bucky grins a lot.

“Maybe it’ll remind you to take one before you jump off a plane next time,” Bucky says wryly.

In the middle of Steve’s palm is a little parachute ornament.

“This is the memory you have of me over the past year?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky gripes. “Take a goddamned parachute, Rogers.”

Steve grins, maybe a little chastened, and leans forward, presses a kiss to Bucky’s cheek.

“I love it,” he says. “Thanks, Buck.”

Bucky warms under the kiss, nearly giddy with it. He smiles down at his hands before Steve judges him.

“All right, all right,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes at his best friend.

He unwraps the ornament, wrapped delicately in newspaper, like it always used to be, moves the corners, and—grins. Widely.

“Bilbo!” Bucky exclaims.

Steve laughs.

“Steve, it’s Bilbo!” Bucky says excitedly, turning the little goat ornament over and over in his hand. “Oh he’s so cute.”

“You and that damned goat,” Steve says, making a face, but still laughing. “My best friend, the goat herder.”

“Wow, my dream,” Bucky says with a wide, wide smile. It takes over his entire face. “C’mere, punk.”

Steve shuffles forward and Bucky kisses his cheek too. Steve’s skin warms under the kiss and Bucky lingers.

He wonders.

“Let’s put them up,” Steve says.

Bucky pulls back and Steve is all pink and bearded and happy.

They find a spot on the tree, two branches side by side, and slide the ornaments on.

Bucky’s surprised when Steve’s arms slide around him, his chin resting on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky’s heart beats fast and loud and steady, one thump and then another and then another. He feels it in his chest and then spreading slowly through his body.

He turns and Steve looks at him.

Bucky presses his flesh hand against Steve’s face and Steve turns into it. Bucky smiles and runs his thumb through Steve’s facial hair.

“Stevie,” Bucky says.

Steve looks like he’s gonna cry.

Bucky takes a breath.

“Look up,” he says.

Steve looks up.

He barely has time to see the mistletoe before Bucky cups his cheek, leans up, and kisses him.


There’s no hesitation.

Steve seems to open up under his kiss, his fingers touching Bucky’s face, his hands in Bucky’s hair. He’s somehow grinning and kissing at the same time, his mouth opening up beautifully so Bucky can lick into it.

Bucky presses closer, one hand curled against Steve’s face, the other curled into Steve’s sweater. They kiss softly and then hungrily, the gentleness sharpening into something needy, almost desperate.

Steve tastes like eggnog and gingerbread cookies. He feels hot under Bucky’s hands, all hard planes and soft sweater. Bucky sucks on Steve’s tongue lightly and Steve gasps, which makes Bucky do it again, press even closer, until they’re flush against each other and Steve’s hand is curved around Bucky’s neck and Bucky’s metal fingers have slipped under Steve’s sweater.

He’s overcome with the warmth of Steve, intoxicated by his smell and the feel of him under his fingertips. He’s dizzy from the kiss, his chest tight, his heart beating rapidly, his head cloudy, foggy with pleasure.

Steve pulls back just a little, just enough to break the kiss, and Bucky gasps air into his lungs. He almost whines, but swallows the sound at the last second. They press their foreheads together, cheeks glowing, both laughing, giddy with happiness.

“I’ve wanted to do that. For so long,” Steve says, trying to catch his breath.

“Really?” Bucky asks.

“So long, Buck,” Steve says. “Like. Years. Decades. My entire life.”

“Stevie,” Bucky says, voice low. He’s so hungry for more he has to physically restrain himself. His fingers curl into Steve’s lower back. “I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Steve whispers.

“There’s a serious chance,” Bucky says. “That I’m deeply in love with you.”

Steve—his face brightens. Like actually, somehow, physically brightens. His eyes are so bright, they’ve created a new shade of blue.

“Bucky,” Steve says.

“Yes, Steve?” Bucky asks.

“I have something to tell you too.”

Bucky’s heart flutters aggressively. He grins.

“Yeah, Steve?”

“There’s a serious chance,” Steve says. “That I’ve always been deeply in love with you.”

Bucky buries his face into the crook of Steve’s neck and Steve strokes his hair as he shakes.

He’s overwhelmed by this—by their love, by the weight of their history. By them.

“Well Bilbo’s going to be very jealous,” he says eventually, words muffled into Steve’s skin, and Steve laughs, hard.

Bucky pulls back, face warm, eyes a little wet, grinning.

“I love you,” he says. He takes Steve’s face between his hands and kisses him. “I love you.”

“Bilbo can fight me for you,” Steve says, murmuring into the kiss.

“It’s the holidays, Steve,” Bucky says, seriously. “Don’t fight my goat.”

“I can take him,” Steve says, because he’s stupid.

They kiss slower, sweeter.

Bing Crosby’s voice melts into Ella Fitzgerald.

Bucky thinks he doesn’t deserve this; he’s not right for this Christmas miracle.

But Steve’s arms tighten around him and his mouth coaxes Bucky’s open again and he thinks maybe, for once, he won’t question it.

Maybe, for once, he’ll let a good thing happen to him.

It’s the holidays, after all. And he might not remember many of them; but he remembers this one.

Steve gets under his sweater, helps shove it up and off his body. He does the same to Steve and they take their time slowly mapping each other’s skin, leaving fingerprints and trailing kisses, tracing memories onto limbs and mouths. They taste the salt on each other’s bodies, leave love letters only the other can see.

The fire warms them and then they warm each other.

The tree twinkles somewhere behind them, wreathed in lights and ornaments, holding all of their memories, remembered and forgotten, the weight of their stories past and all of their stories to come.

Bucky lays his head on Steve’s chest, curls into him, and looks at the little red bird on their tree. He imagines it warbling.

He doesn’t remember all of their stories, all of their holidays, and he never will.

But he remembers this one.

He will remember this one.