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Steve doesn’t like the cold.
It’s not something he tells people – it seems stupid, Captain America being afraid of a little chill. So he keeps quiet and shivers, thinking no one will notice if he breathes a little more harshly and trembles a little more violently than the rest of them.
(They all notice.)
Steve doesn’t realize they’ve noticed until Tony issues him a new suit, complete with thermal insulation that will keep him at a comfortably warm temperature even if the air gets down to -10°F. Then Bruce shows him some simple yoga movements that easily keep his muscles (not to mention the rest of him) warm while on surveillance. Then JARVIS changes the normal temperature in his room up to 72°F, whereas it was a perfectly acceptable 65° before. Then both Natasha and Clint give him blankets made of something called microfleece for Christmas. He has no idea what that is, but they’re the warmest blankets Steve’s ever owned and that’s when he knows.
He’s glad they’re all as private as he is because no one tries to talk to him about it.
When he hears of the Winter Soldier, he has to take several deep breaths before he can speak. This man, if he even is a man, is like winter in carne (he is cold and comes in like a rushing avalanche and his eyes are like chips of ice that freeze you where you stand) and there is nothing Steve can think of that would be more terrifying than all of winter trapped in a man.
But he is a man and men can be stopped, so Steve puts aside his fear and picks up his shield instead. He charges into battle with his friends beside him, just as he always has (he tells himself it doesn’t matter that the friends are different, but it does, oh it does) and tries to fight the Winter Soldier off. He swears he can feel ice on the tips of his fingers and creeping across his skin but it’s not real, can’t be real –
And the mask falls, the Soldier faces him, and the ice closes around Steve’s heart.
He can barely bring himself to take up arms against the soldier again, now that it’s Bucky looking back at him, but he does and it’s so hart but he has to and Steve understands duty better than most. He fights for as long as he has to, but then the helicarriers are reprogrammed and he stops. His mission is done and he won’t fight Bucky any longer than he has to, he won’t live if Bucky is here but not with him.
But Bucky drags him out of the Potomac and Steve knows he can be saved and Steve would rather die than give up on his friend.
(Bucky’s still in there somewhere and the ice around Steve’s heart begins to thaw a little.)
As it turns out, Bucky is remarkably easy to find, wandering through the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. He lets Steve bring him to New York, to the Avengers. Tony builds an apartment in the Tower that locks down at the push of a button or a spoken command to JARVIS. Bruce and Sam personally oversee Bucky’s recovery, help him through the flashbacks and panic attacks and relapses and Steve could cry with joy over how kind his new friends are.
(As soon as Bucky’s safe, the ice in his heart melts a little more.)
He does cry, alone in his room, the night Bruce and Sam announce that it’s safe for Bucky to leave his apartment. Bucky finds him, of course, and doesn’t say anything, just curls up around Steve and holds him until they fall asleep.
Steve doesn’t think anything of it when Bucky moves into his apartment at the tower. They had lived together before hadn’t they? It wasn’t until he caught on to Tony and Clint’s repeated sex jokes that he remembered it was legal to be gay now and maybe it was a little suspicious for two very single men who had already admitted they would die for each other to be living together. Steve certainly doesn’t care what they think, but figured Bucky should know and be given the choice to leave.
So Steve brings it up while they’re eating Chinese food on the couch one night. He stumbles over sentences, stutters out facts while pointedly avoiding Bucky’s face until Bucky says his name in an exasperated but fond tone and Steve immediately turns to him and Bucky leans over and kisses him squarely on the mouth and oh, okay, Steve can work with that.
(At that exact moment, the last bit of ice melts from Steve’s heart.)
When they curl up in bed together that night, Steve finds out that Bucky doesn’t like the cold either.
When Steve asks, Bucky mumbles out a vague explanation involving the fall from the train and years of cryo-sleep before pressing himself to Steve’s side and informing him that he’s a human furnace. Steve snorts and tells Bucky that he’s not too cold himself before pulling a small mountain of blankets over them.
And while the blankets had been nice, Steve’s never been warmer than when Bucky’s curled up beside him.