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Steve’s spent an objectively ridiculous amount of time thinking about this.
He’s still pretty sure he’s going about it all wrong, though.
He’d originally tried to be pretty careful about it, reconnaissance style—he’s a master tactician, so it couldn’t be too hard.
Save that it was way too hard and people should really give the Director more credit for being basically the most buttoned-up badass Steve’s ever known.
So he’d tried another angle: paper trail. Surely there was a hint somewhere in the records, some pattern he could trace or discern, and hell, Coulson’s only been Director for a few years now, right? Not even that much to sift through.
Wrong.
There was a shitload to sift through—Steve probably should have been a bit more liberal in his estimates, when factoring in all the costs of an entire organization’s headquarters being wiped out, plus the manhunt to weed out the traitors within—and there were no patterns, because Coulson either had a private account of (and the or is probably more likely given what Steve knows of Coulson’s personality and sense of duty), he pays for this kind of thing out of pocket, even on official business.
So the paper trail tack was doubly wrong, really.
Steve tried a few other approaches that, in hindsight, are a touch humiliating—mentioning inter-office secret santa exchanges to one of the secretaries in a quasi-casual “Do we do those? I’d hate to get the Director, who even knows what he likes!”, but he’d been able to recover at least a little (or else, he’s going to let himself think that henceforth forever) from the stonefaced look the agent had given him with a little bit of his much-hated old-man routine.
He’s pretty sure he threw too many “golly”’s into the mix to be all that convincing, but oh well.
In the end, he breaks down. He gives in. He uses his resources and goes to the heart of the matter, because if there’s one person, one person who is going to have the information he needs? It’s the Hawk himself.
If there’s one person who knows what Coulson likes to drink best on a day off (does he have days off?) on the couch with Lucky and a pizza (does the Director eat pizza? Steve thinks so, who doesn’t, and definitely, who doesn’t when they’re with a dog and a man who Steve figures have pizza coded into their DNA): but if anyone is going to know the answer to Steve’s question?
It’s Clint Barton.
“Bitburger Radler”, Clint mumbles through bites of pizza, proving Steve’s point. “Nasty shit, quite frankly, but he’s such a fucking lightweight, it lets him have an evening’s worth of drinking without feeling it too hard, and no hangover for the office the next morning.”
From there, Steve gathers his pride and checks Coulson’s schedule with his secretary, who loves Bucky a whole hell of a lot and has warmed to Steve solely because of that fact and no other reason, and heads to the first place the internet tells him sells the stuff, where he buys as many six-packs as he can carry semi-clandestinely in a nondescript gift bag.
And it’s a big ass, professional grade, engineered-nondescript gift bag that looks like a tactical pack—after two hours at big box stores lamenting the quality of modern production, he’d asked R&D if they had anything non-essential to any current or upcoming op but still sturdy, and voila—and Steve’s pretty fucking strong, so he can carry a lot of six packs.
Which is finds himself here, now: just inside an unexpectedly upscale cocktail bar where the Director is scheduled to have and where Steve is very casually trying to remove his trademark ballcap because it’s definitely not part of the dress code (thank god Bucky isn’t there to see him, because ’trademark’ disguise makes it not a fuckin’ disguise, Steve, I mean seriously, if those shoulders don’t give you away, it’ll be the shirts that hugs your guns so tight because they’re too goddamn sizes too small, you’re lucky I like ripping them off you with my teeth because otherwise I’d never let Nat take you shopping again—
Steve’s getting off-mission.
He’s scouted the terrain, and decided yeah: slip the cap into his pocket quietly and keep the jacket on, and thank god he grabbed his nice jacket this morning because not he can keep it on and make it look like he means to wear it fashionably, versus covering up his tee shirt (which yes, Steve knows they’re too tight and no, he doesn’t need Nat to help him pick them because yes, he also likes when Bucky tears them off with his teeth), and he scans down his body casually: slacks, not jeans, and boots, well. At least not a his pair of running shoes, there’s a plus.
And he really shouldn’t be so twitchy, so off-balanced: Steve knows the Director—Phil, his name’s Phil, he’s Bucky’s friend Phil, hell, he’s Steve’s friend to in a way, Steve’s idol in a big way for what he did, the role he played in putting Steve’s world back to rights; he knows Phil, and so he watches, waits until the man’s tablemate stands and leaves, and Steve doesn’t pretend that he’ll get more than a moment of the Phil’s time because the man’s the most overbooked person Steve’s ever encountered these days (again, probably should have thought more about the whole rebuilding-an-institution thing), but it’s all he can think of. All he needs is a moment to give something, even simple and silly and paltry in comparison: but Steve, in some part or all part, owes his heart to Phil Coulson’s drink in a pub in Belarus.
And Steve’s spent ages trying to figure out how to say thank you before realizing that there’s no thank you in the universe big enough, strong enough, anything enough for this, so it’s far past time to at least try.
Plus, coincidentally, it’s also nearly Christmas by the time he thinks of it, starts his task of tracking down and plotting out: so maybe the joy of the season will underscore how much he means it.
He’s just about to walk up and smile apologetically at the maître d′ with his bag of low-alcohol beer, asking forgiveness for bringing it into a fancy establishment and all, when he sees it: another body sliding smoothly into the seat just vacated across from Phil before Phil can even motion for the check.
And it’s a body Steve knows well.
Very, very well.
“The hell are you doing here?” Phil’s brows raise; he’s surprised, and it’s only Steve’s enhanced hearing that lets him hear the question, and Steve doesn’t want to eavesdrop, really. That’s rude.
But he does want to hear what his partner’s doing here, unannounced and smiling too coyly and self-satisfied not to pique Steve’s interest.
Plus: looking away from Bucky? Ever?
That’s more than anyone should ever ask of Steve, so he tucks himself away in just the right crook, shadowed enough to go unnoticed by the staff but close enough to hear and watch in his peripherals.
Again: he’s only a man. And the opportunity to observe his lover is always an indulgence, a gift, a privilege. A joy.
“Well, hi yourself, Phil! Great to see you,” Bucky snarks, dressed in sleek black and Steve’s mouths just a little dry for how the shirt stretches around his chest, how his jet-black jeans hug his ass. “This place is swanky,” he leans a little too casually for the surroundings, just slightly sprawled in his chair, but comfortable and charming enough about it to fit. “I like it.”
“My contact likes the finer things,” Phil answers blankly, watching Bucky closely, trying to figure him out.
“Which was lucky, on my part,” Bucky nods, leaning forward now and steepling his hands on the table. “Meant I could just wait here until you’d wrapped up.”
Phil’s eyes narrow. “I ordered a sweep on this place.”
Bucky snorts.
“Think, Phil,” Bucky needles says playfully. “You’ll get there.”
Phil scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “You’re an ass.”
Steve smiles to himself: it’s hard to sweep for the world’s greatest spy.
“Hmm,” Bucky reaches out for Phil’s water and drinks from it without a thought; Phil doesn’t even react to the gesture.
“I don’t deny it,” Bucky replies to Phil’s accusation with a smack of his lips against the lip of the glass and a slow smirk behind the rim. “My therapist says self-awareness and knowledge are key to a healthy emotional life.”
Phil fights a quirk of his own lips before he sighs.
“Why are you here, Barnes?”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Bucky shrugs, settling more comfortably into his seat, the way Steve’d learned to notice meant he intended to stay put for at least a bit—it’d been helpful, when Steve was still afraid with every breath that he would vanish, and when Bucky wasn’t entirely sure of his own welcome, or else, not enough that he could promise Steve he wouldn’t ever run, no matter how much he did promise that he’d always come back.
“Just wanted to grab a festive drink with a friend,” Bucky grins at him cheekily, and finally Phil’s own body relaxes and he shrugs, giving in.
“We’ll have to make it quick,” Phil says, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got,” he pauses, phrasing carefully: “responsibilities at the office tonight.”
Steve knows, as does Bucky, that the operation in the Siberia has to go flawlessly tonight if the information they need is going to change hands safely. The timing isn’t ideal, or planned—extraction had taken longer than anyone had wanted or intended but the documents are critical. It may be the key to understanding the origins of Kree technology on Earth, and unravelling the puzzle of the Skrulls.
Steve is selfish as hell for it, but he’s glad it’s Phil down the road, versus himself a few months back in the UAE, and Bucky for weeks up until just a few days ago, in Eastern Europe: if it has to be anyone, anywhere, at least or not Bucky.
“Quick is fine,” Bucky’s voice jolts Steve out of his head again; “but relax for the space of the quick drink, yeah?”
Bucky’s tone is firm, but so warm it makes Steve feel cared for, looked after by proxy; it must work tenfold on Phil who eventually sighs and concedes:
“I’ll make an attempt.”
Bucky grins wide and gestures toward the bar, where a waiter trays two glasses, one obviously of Bucky’s favourite whisky (Steve knows the Colorado exactly), and the other something red and opaque.
“What’s this?” Phil eyes the glass suspiciously whole Bucky sips his own.
“A very sweet, very low-alcohol holiday cocktail,” Bucky informs him shrewdly; “so you’re not compromised at all by the time your responsibilities call.”
Phil sniffs it tentatively; Bucky snorts.
“I’m pretty sure there’s sherbet in it, so like, super low alcohol.” He enunciates the last words carefully, patronizing in the most endearing way—something Steve is convinced only Bucky is capable of in all the world.
“Again,” Phil says, but finally takes a drink; “you’re an asshole.”
“Just looking out for you, man,” Bucky raises his palms innocently, though his grin betrays him. “I’m a good friend like that.”
“Hmm,” Phil hums skeptically, but smiles and keeps drinking. “So, how was the weekend?”
It’s a leading question with a million undertones: they’d got back from Poland three days ago, and Steve had barely let him out of their bed for the first 48 hours, sometimes just holding him close because while Steve had rendezvoused with him last week in the field, Bucky’d been alone on assignment for a week and a half prior, and, well. It’s still hard to be apart from him, though it’s not from fear of losing Bucky to the wind anymore—though the fear of losing him to the work they do and the hate in the cosmos out to end them isn’t much easier to bear.
“You know?” Bucky says, after considering a long moment. “It was good. Like,” Bucky leans back and bites his lip, the corners lifting his his teeth pressed between. “For a while, things have been off, like my suit doesn’t fit right, you know what I mean?”
Bucky’s oddly vulnerable, and there’s something tight in Steve he didn’t know what there, or else, knew was there somewhere but wasn’t acquainted with this strand of it: not until it starts to ease with the view of his lover being so open, so unguarded—something Steve’s only see Bucky be with Steve himself, and it’s warm in Steve’s chest to watch Bucky at ease like this, trusting: at home.
There’s a flutter in his pulse and a gratefulness he didn’t think he could hold any more of swelling in his bones and Steve’s eyes are damn well stinging because: Bucky.
God, just: Bucky.
“But things are starting to settle in, I think,” Bucky nods, swirling his scotch before lifting it to his lips. “Finding my feet again.”
“Happy to hear it,” Phil says, and these words have warmth in them, too: familiarity and care, not a director or a boss but a confidant, a friend. “Really.”
“Thanks,” Bucky smiles, a little bashful with the duck of his chin, and Steve doesn’t think he’ll say more out loud, until:
“Me too,” and it’s soft when he adds: “I missed…”
Steve tries to ponder it out, remember something Bucky may have said because Steve knows the way he’s talking, the cadence of his voice and it’s not something he’s hiding as a secret, it’s something he holds close to his heart and Steve, for all that he cannot grasp it sometimes, knows that for all that Bucky holds close to the chest, he holds Steve the closest.
Because wonders never cease, and Steve has always ended up with more than he ever deserved when the scales shook out.
“So did he.”
Phil’s soft voice, and the slow widening of Bucky’s eyes: oh.
Oh, Steve had, Bucky had…
Bucky’d missed watching out for Steve. Having his six. He’d been active as a solo agent for a while, but had strategically been rotating in on team missions when he wasn’t already on a mission, but he’d mentioned how he wished they’d stop with the solo stuff. Steve had felt the same, but because solo work meant Steve had to wait with his heart in his throat and his jaw clenched until he heard Bucky was safe, and could do nothing to make sure of it himself.
Apparently, Bucky’d been of the same mind. Steve shouldn’t be surprised by it anymore, and yet.
“What about you, we haven’t had a chance to catch up in a while,” Bucky dips his head Phil’s way, raises his glass in kind; “Everything alright?”
Phil snorts, and drinks liberally from his ruby-red cocktail. “Given a liberal definition of the term, sure,”
Bucky frowns, but it’s a commiserating sort of expression. They all know what this work, this life, costs. “You’re long overdue on vacation time,”
“No rest for the wicked.”
“Hey,” Bucky takes mock-issue with the phrasing; “even I get time off.” He winks exaggeratedly, and gets the tiny laugh from Phil he’s looking for—Steve laughs lightly to himself, in kind, so fucking thrilled to see this side of Bucky as it’s...not reemerged, exactly, but reshaped and blossomed all on its own, new and gorgeous and perfect.
“Which means your argument is, as they say,” Bucky tuts, knocking back the rest of his drink: “invalid.”
“Hardy-har-har,” Phil deadpans, finishing his own drink in kind. They let silence settle for a few seconds, and Steve watches as Bucky studies Phil carefully before breaking the still.
“Come on, Phil,” Bucky voice is low as he leans in; “what’s up?”
Steve doesn’t know if he’s expecting Phil to dodge the question, or resist answering in some way, but he knows he doesn’t expect the way that Phil puts up no fight at all, just deflates and looks a little abashed to admit whatever comes.
“Clint wants to come in tomorrow because I’ve got oversight,” of the mission ops, yes. Because even Steve knows Phil’s a self-sacrificing sonuvabitch who wouldn’t want anyone but himself and the necessary personnel on deck for the mission on a holiday, not if he could help it—by steppin in himself and making the sacrifice, as he was so wont to do.
Bucky’s expression gives away that he’s thinking the very same thing, too.
“But he’s been on assignment for weeks, he needs rest,” Phil protests in Clint’s defense, or else: against Clint’s wants and in favor of Clint’s needs. The physical ones, at least. “And hell if not rest just, time to be, you know?”
“Do I know what it means when the love of your life’s a stubborn bastard?” Bucky snarks, with little heat and mostly wry resignation. “No, not a clue what you’re talking about, sorry.”
Steve can’t even pretend to take offense at that.
“Point.”
“He just wants to be with you,” Bucky says, oddly serious; solemn. “He’s...”
Bucky stops, and his eyes say something that even Steve’s enhanced vision can’t quite make out from the distance; he wonders, fervently, whether being closer would reveal the endless things that live in those eyes, that Steve knows better than anyone living but even that’s not anywhere near the whole.
But Bucky’s voice is low, and soft, and barely there when he speaks, looking not quite sad, not quite melancholic, not quite any one thing. But his voice is like a wisp when it comes, when it shapes the name it starts on like his lips know it best of any word in the world:
“Steve still looks at me like I’m...fuck,” he shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair; it shakes a little, and Steve fights the urge to go to him because something’s eating him, and Steve doesn’t like that. Ever. For any reason.
“He still looks at me like I’m a revelation, an answered prayer, some magical wish from a genie in a lamp, I don’t even know,” and it’s marveling. The thing in Bucky’s voice, it’s disbelief and wonder: not quite any one thing. He still doesn’t understand how much of what and who Steve is hinges on Bucky’s being in this world. Steve thinks it’ll be his lifelong vocation to get Bucky to believe that, and to believe it so deep that he never has to wonder, that he never had to ask or doubt; that he knows it in his bones.
Steve thinks that’ll be the work of his life, the real work that matters, and he doesn’t mind one bit.
“It’s not as often, or as obvious, but sometimes he just,” Bucky bites his lower lip; “Sometimes he just stares. Like if he blinks I’ll be gone.”
And Steve does. He knows that. Because he’s scared. He might always be scared: but he’s beginning to think that maybe that’s Bucky’s life’s work, for the way he soothes Steve before Steve even knows it’s happening: tells him he’s there, he’s not going anywhere, he loves him, he needs him, he wouldn’t leave for anything, he never could.
Maybe it’s Bucky’s work to make Steve believe that, and leave the fear behind.
“And it’s Christmas,” Bucky picks back up toward Phil’s struggles; “and he’s been gone, too.” Clint was with them in Poland, as it happened. “And you know what they say,” Bucky tilts his head;“‘tis the season for family and the people you love and togetherness and…” he gestures aimlessly: “stuff.”
“Stuff,” Phil repeats dubiously. “Right.”
A waiter stops over with another whisky for Bucky and a glass of amber colored something for Phil, which he glares at. Steve thinks probably he glares at it as a placeholder for glaring at Bucky.
“I’ve got to work after this,” Phil protests sternly.
“It’s an Arnold Palmer,” Bucky rolls his eyes, and his tone sounds like a child sticking out his tongue, somehow. “Your virtue is safe. Plus, tea. Caffeine. Keep you sharp.”
Phil drinks it almost begrudgingly.
“I’ve been away,” Bucky lifts the mood and changes the subject effortlessly, leaning back in almost a lounge. “Fill me in on all the office gossip.”
And that’s where Steve stops listening, one because he doesn’t care to hear the office gossip, though he sincerely doubts that what Phil’s going to talk about is anything approaching “gossip”, plus really? All Steve wants to do is watch Bucky. Bucky interacting with someone he likes, loves: someone Bucky trusts and enjoys the company of. Bucky looking just a little bit like he used to, but then so much better and more, because he’s as strong as he ever was and so much, impossibly, inhumanly stronger that has nothing to do with a serum or an arm but everything to do with the heart Steve’s been in love with for what feels like forever. The soul he’d give his own to protect, that he’ll see hell and eternal damnation for gladly, willingly and with a smile before he ever lets it go.
Steve’s floating in those thoughts, that conviction, watching Bucky’s expressions and mulling over how much he cannot even fathom the years before Bucky came back, before he had Bucky, hell: sometimes he can’t understand how he wasted so many years with Bucky being right there and his heart beating in time with Bucky’s every few months for the way Bucky held him close for warmth and stayed like that, until it tripped and skipped and stumbled, and Bucky pressed close again to set it right: right not because it was healthy or a doctor would write him off as fine, but right because it moved, it danced to Bucky’s rhythm.
Steve’s floating there, until he watches a waiter approach the table again, and Bucky’s grin get that satisfied gleam once more, as the waited presents a bottle of wine for approval.
“I said I had to work,” Phil huffs, exasperated.
“You did,” Bucky nods; but it’s to the waiter in assent to the wine, which is uncorked promptly; not to Phil. Then he turns, this time definitely to Phil when he says: “Now you don’t.”
“James,” Phil sighs, and oh, he’s serious now. Full names. “This isn’t something that can go unsupervised,”
“It’s not going to, Philip,” Bucky shoots back, eyes clear and unwavering. “because Hill is going to take the reins and make sure Johnson knows what she’s doing as her second,” Bucky reaches behind him and waves, like he’s calling someone over.
“And your man’s going to join you for a nice Christmas Eve dinner, so you can sleep in together with a little bit of a buzz on your part,” he winks, and that’s when Steve sees Clint, dressed to the nine (wel, for Clint) approaching from somewhere to the left of the open floor plan, coming around the fancy-ass bar. “And he can make dinner while you go in tomorrow evening to review the reports of an undoubtedly successful op.”
Bucky moves to stand and give up his seat just as Clint gets near enough for Phil to see him, for Phil’s mouth to open just a little in shock. “Maybe you’ll even make it home before the food gets cold. Season of miracles and shit, right?”
Clint clears his throat and offers his hand to Phil, who’s still sitting and gives it almost in a haze. Clint smirks and kisses his knuckles theatrically.
“Shall we?”
“Clint,” Phil says distantly, blinking rapidly as Clint keeps hold of Phil’s hand across the table as he takes Bucky’s seat. “I...”
Bucky grins at Phil’s speechlessness.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he leans down to grasp each of them by one shoulder. “Merry Christmas, gentlemen.” And off he goes in the direction Clint came.
“Bucky.”
He turns at his name; Phil, getting his attention to do all it seems he can for the surprise of it, for the delight in it—
For the gratefulness as he mouths across the distance:
Thank you.
And Bucky smiles before turning again and walking away, and Steve’s chest is tight where it had gone loose before with watching Bucky’s ease, Bucky living so sweet; it goes tight with a burn behind his eyes for how much joy it brings him, to see the same Bucky who’d go to crazy lengths to make those closest to him happy, to bring them solace and joy, and—
Steve jumps when his cellphone vibrates in his pocket; he grabs for it, thumbs the screen on and reads:
Come out from your hiding place, Rogers. We’re going to headquarters to make sure everything’s on course, and I need to give you an early present in Ops Center...15? Are we on 15?
Steve goes hot, red in his cheeks immediately. He may be the one who presses for it, with only slowly dimming embarrassment, but that doesn’t mean he stops flushing when Bucky suggests that they, they do that, in the workplace—
“Sixteen,” Bucky’s voice is warm and wet and low behind the shell of Steve’s ear, his arms snaking around Steve’s waist. “I forgot about when we almost got caught in room nine and had to run into elevent,”he kisses Steve’s neck with a little bit of tongue; “two in one go.”
Steve shivers, and covers Bucky’s hands with his own.
“I love you,” he breathes, leaning into Bucky’s frame. “I fucking love you, James Barnes.”
“Well that’s convenient,” Bucky chuckles, and Steve can feel it from Bucky’s chest against his spine, straight thought his lungs to the trembling blood in his heart; “‘cause I love the hell out of you, Steven Rogers.”
“And you are a revelation, a miracle,” Steve says before the moment dies, before this little private bubble gives way to the real world and they pretend Steve wasn’t watching and listening to Bucky’s conversation from the dark corner of the entryway. “And I did pray, and,” Steve’s voice cracks, and Bucky brings their joined hands up to his lips, hugs Steve around the shoulder, across the chest.
“You were all of that before you came back,” Steve exhales; “but I prayed every day after for the impossible, and you,” Steve shakes his head and closes his eyes again against that persistent sting; “you.”
Bucky tugs him closer and kisses the nape of his neck. “Fuckin’ sap.”
But he holds Steve, quiet and sure for a few seconds while Steve swallows hard and gets his bearings, and he never relents, never tires, never wavers.
He’s there, and Steve is made whole for it.
“Come on,” Bucky urges, lacing their fingers and squeezing before letting go and bumping his shoulder in the direction of the exit. “Sooner we leave, sooner we stroke that exhibitionist streak of yours,” he snorts when Steve blushes again.
“And then we can get home before the big guy in red comes.”
And maybe Bucky walks in front of him. Maybe Bucky bends over and grabs Steve’s long-forgotten tac-bag of beer. Maybe in so doing, Bucky lets his jeans ride low enough to show a sliver of his boxer-briefs: scarlet fucking red.
And Bucky’s never had to worry about size, so—
Steve’s laughs, loud and full as they stumble out of the establishment and into the chill of the winter air, and Bucky kisses his laughter full on the mouth, and Steve is sure as hell going to make the big guy in red come at least 12 fucking times, every day of Christmas all at once, and, and—
Maybe he’ll just write a nice post-it for the top of the beer-bag and leave it outside the Director’s office. Steve thinks Phil’d understand.