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Blind boy, blind boy, the kids used to call out at him on the schoolyard, back when he hardly weighed enough to stay on the ground when the wind picked up, when his ma couldn't afford glasses and they wouldn't have helped anyway, not really, so his face was perpetually scrunched into a squint, turned to favor his left eye because it was a little clearer. He'd always stood up against injustice, against bullies, but never when they called names at him. He never fought for himself.
Steve knew if he told Bucky about it, Bucky would chase them off, holler after them and make them pay. They never said it when Bucky was around, because they all knew it, too. But Steve never told him, because he didn't need to. Steve didn't need assurances when Bucky was around. He'd feel awful, feel worthless and useless and frail, when they taunted him and he wheezed as he sat alone. But when Bucky was there, smirking at him, arm around his shoulders, knocking their heads together and crowing about whatever big plan he had in mind, Steve felt bigger than he was, felt strong and powerful, felt good enough to laugh off his insecurities. He wasn't just a blind boy when Bucky was around; he was Steve Rogers, best friend of Bucky Barnes, and he was invincible.
Except, of course, that Steve was blind around Bucky. Their new friends in their new world noticed and held secret conferences about it. He was deaf about it, too, which they didn't know the kids used to tease him about, as well.
“Steve,” Natasha said one day, voice full of fond exasperation, and Steve looked up guiltily before he even knew what he was in trouble for. He was sketching, of course, because Bucky was curled up on the couch with a beam of sunlight over him like he was a damn portrait, and if he wasn't yet he soon would be because Steve needed to capture that immediately, catch the piece of hair that had slipped out of the ponytail he'd tied it into, fluttering as he breathed; catch the way his face was slack and peaceful in his sleep in a way it hadn't quite gotten to when he was awake; catch the way his mouth was hanging open just a fraction, the way Steve could remember it always had, puffing out hot gusts of breath that usually prickled against the back of Steve's neck when they curled up.
“What? Did you ask me something?” Steve asked. He hadn't heard her speak, but sometimes he got absorbed in drawing and missed things.
“No.” She was looking at him through narrowed eyes. “I'm just wondering if you realize what you're doing.”
“Um...what?” Steve politely set his pencil down to give her his full attention, though his fingers twitched a little when Bucky's lips twitched and he burrowed closer to the cushions.
“You're drawing James,” She pointed out. Steve actually laughed.
“Of course I am.”
“Of course.” She raised an eyebrow, like she was revealing something, and Steve shrugged.
“I always draw Bucky?” He had no idea why this was a topic of conversation.
“Yes, you do. And you do that because...?” She was talking like she was leading him right to a cliff in his thoughts, but he stared at her, mystified.
“Because I've always drawn him,” he told her. “Sometimes when I was sick, he was the only person I saw for days or weeks. He was my only material. And then I missed him when he was gone. And now he's back.”
Natasha rolled her eyes and left, muttering something under her breath in a language that was not English but didn't really sound like Russian. Steve was working on his Russian, partially because sometimes in Bucky's nightmares he cried out in Russian and it took him a few minutes upon waking to switch back to English and partially because Steve couldn't bear the thought of Bucky having a language he couldn't understand.
“Where's your boy?” Sam asked one day as they sat in a cafe sipping lattes. Steve pretended to like his because Sam had sworn he would, but it was so sickly-sweet it was giving him a stomachache.
“Bucky?” Steve clarified, and Sam arched an eyebrow.
“What other boy would you have?”
“Well, isn't 'your boy' just slang? Like, your friend? That could be you or Tony or Bruce or Clint or Thor, too, you know.” Steve had no idea why Sam cracked up laughing.
“You're still about a decade late on your slang, Cap,” Sam told him with a smile.
Steve hunched his shoulders, embarrassed. “Oh. I didn't know that.”
Sam waved it away. “Where's Bucky?”
“He's spending the day with his grandniece. His youngest sister's youngest granddaughter. She looks so much like Louise at that age.” His voice came out a little wistful, thinking of a little girl following after them with a few teeth missing and sticky fingers as she reached for their hands to cross the street, crying for Bucky to help her when the ribbon fell out of her hair and giggling as Bucky's deft fingers retied it perfectly.
“You didn't want to go?” Sam called him back from 1926. Steve shrugged.
“Sometimes Bucky should have time alone with his family," he said, and he didn't understand why Sam snorted or catch what Sam murmured to himself.
“He's doing well,” Bruce commented at Steve's side. They were at a party, not one of Stark's giant galas but a small gathering at the Tower, and Bucky had gotten stopped by Maria Hill as he went for another drink and was actually holding a conversation with her, his body language relaxed and open.
“He really is,” Steve admitted happily. “Next thing we know he'll be dragging me on dates again.”
“You two went on dates?” Bruce asked, and Steve couldn't figure out why his voice had a careful edge to it.
“Oh, Bucky dated like a madman. He always scrounged up some friend to stick with me. I always felt bad for those girls, because it was obvious they wished Bucky had asked them.”
“Just the girls?” Bruce asked cryptically, but Steve missed it because Bucky had just laughed at something Maria said, the peal of it carrying across the room and splitting Steve's face into a wide grin.
“This is an intervention,” Clint declared. Steve glanced around. No one else was in the room. Steve had been rummaging through the communal fridge for a late-night snack, because he'd woken up from a nightmare to an incredibly insistent stomach and he was dissatisfied with the contents of the fridge in his and Bucky's apartment.
“What?” He asked after he swallowed the grape in his mouth.
“An intervention,” Clint repeated. “You.”
“About what?” Steve asked, trying to figure out what he'd done wrong lately.
“Bucky.”
“What?” Steve's vocabulary was a little limited at three in the morning.
“Aw, come on, are you blind?” Clint burst out, and Steve flushed a little as the old pang flashed through him. Blind boy, blind boy.
“Steve's not blind.” Bucky's voice was sleep-rough and anger-sharp. “He never has been. Don't call him that.” Steve turned to look at Bucky, standing in the doorway shirtless, frowning deeply at Clint.
“What?” Now Clint had stolen Steve's word.
“Buck, he didn't know.” Steve finally stood up and shut the fridge. “I actually kinda was blind, before the serum,” he told Clint. “And kids used to...you know. Say stuff.”
“Shit, I didn't know,” Clint immediately insisted. “Steve, you know I would never say that. I mean—you know I wouldn't!” He was borderline panicking now, probably at least half because of the glare still firmly in place on Bucky's face.
“I know, Clint, don't worry about it.” Steve glanced at Bucky. “Come on Buck, your face is gonna get stuck like that.”
“I don't like when people call you names,” Bucky insisted. Sometimes, when he was still half-asleep or in one of his bad-day trances, he got really fixated on protecting Steve.
“I definitely wasn't,” Clint promised. “Remember the hearing aid thing?” He tapped one of his ears and the storm clouds immediately cleared from Bucky's face.
“Oh, yeah.” Bucky looked sheepish now. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”
“No problem, man.” There was a bit of an awkward pause. Bucky came closer to Steve, the cool metal of his arm resting against Steve's shoulder. Steve glanced at the patchwork of scars at the juncture of metal and flesh, then down at the different lines that marked places Bucky had been hurt. Steve knew the story of some of them—the puckered slash just above his belly button from hopping a barbed-wire fence at fourteen and not quite making it, the shiny burn mark below his collar bone from lighting off fireworks for Steve's eighteenth birthday, the angry line down his left side from getting his appendix out when he was nine. But there were marks Steve didn't know, too, and it twisted in his gut because he knew they were times when Bucky didn't—couldn't—care that he was hurt.
“What were you guys talking about?” Bucky asked, and Steve tore his eyes away from what was clearly a bullet wound near his hip.
“Nothing,” Steve said quickly. “I was looking for something in the fridge and Clint was telling me where it was.”
“Yeah,” Clint agreed, giving Steve an inquiring look.
“You want a sandwich?” Steve asked Bucky.
“There any salami in there?” Bucky asked around a yawn, scratching his stomach.
“You get heartburn when you eat salami at night,” Steve reminded him absently. “How about turkey? More protein anyway. You want anything, Clint?”
“Uh...no. I'm good.” Clint was staring at them both, his mouth open a little, and he laughed a little as he left. As he walked out, Steve was pretty sure he heard him mutter, “Married.”
Bucky spread mayonnaise and mustard on the bread as Steve pulled out turkey and pickles and lettuce. He threw a tomato at Bucky, who caught it easily and began slicing. They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes.
“You have a nightmare, too?” Steve asked as he cut two sandwiches diagonally, the way Bucky liked it. Bucky shrugged as he sliced two down the middle. They each pushed the plate they were working on at the other—they always made one another's sandwiches and switched. It was something they'd done since before the war, something they'd started because they'd been arguing over whose turn it was to make lunch, both insisting on taking care of the other, until Bucky had declared, I'm making you a damn sandwich, Steve, and you're gonna eat it, and Steve had shot back, fine, then I'm making you one; pass the bread, jerk.
“I don't remember if I did,” Bucky admitted, mouth full. “Think I woke up because you were up.”
Steve nodded. It happened to them a lot; always had. Of course, it used to happen a lot because they shared a bed with squeaky springs, so when one woke up and tried to climb out of bed the other didn't have much choice, but somehow even now, in separate rooms, they were attuned enough to each other to keep up the tradition. They ate quietly, sitting side by side on the barstools tall enough that even their legs dangled a little, nudging at each other with their feet, Bucky knocking his elbow into Steve's to see if he could make Steve drop his sandwich.
“Why'd Clint think you needed an intervention about me?” Bucky finally asked. Steve coughed a little, trying not to choke on his mouthful, and Bucky thumped him gently on the back.
“I don't know,” Steve lied. He wasn't positive, of course, but he had a pretty good inkling after what Clint had muttered that it had something to do with the way his eyes often lingered a second too long on Bucky or the way he'd sit and watch Bucky do anything, even (or especially) the most mundane things like fold laundry or clean his guns.
“Hm,” Bucky grunted. “Probably the same reason Natasha ambushed me.”
Steve's heart started to beat faster, betraying him the way it wasn't supposed to anymore now that his body was scientifically perfect. “Oh?” He managed.
Bucky shrugged and liberated the slice of pickle off Steve's plate that had fallen from his sandwich. Steve elbowed him away but he escaped with his prize anyway.
“She caught me staring at you again,” Bucky said it nonchalantly, like it wasn't a big deal, like he wasn't dropping a bomb on Steve.
“Staring?”
“Looking. For a long time. With my eyes,” Bucky snottily defined the word for him and Steve rolled his eyes, pulling at a shred of lettuce hanging from Bucky's sandwich and earning himself an indignant huff and a kick to the ankle but also an extra piece of lettuce.
“Why were you staring at me?” Steve asked, taking their empty plates to the sink and filling two glasses of water.
“Just reminding myself what you look like,” Bucky said glibly before taking a long pull of his drink. Steve watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
“You forget sometimes?” Steve laughed. Bucky forgetting things wouldn't usually be something Steve would joke about, but he was confident enough that Bucky wouldn't forget him again to scoff at the idea.
“Haven't yet. But...” Bucky hesitated and Steve set on it immediately.
“But?”
Bucky shrugged, worrying his lip between his teeth. “I don't want to. Like I did. I mean, if something happens again.”
Steve felt his shoulders tighten as he pieced through what Bucky was saying. “That's never going to happen to you again,” he promised.
“I'm not planning on it.” Bucky tried to force a laugh and might've succeeded in convincing anyone who wasn't Steve. “I'm just saying, 's all.”
“Well, don't say.” Steve fought to keep from lashing out at Bucky. He knew Bucky had these fears, and he knew they were justified, but they always felt a little like a slap to his face—he'd failed Bucky before, and they were both worried he'd fail again. Bucky fixed him with a stink eye.
“Quit blaming yourself,” he commanded. Steve took a drink to avoid answering and Bucky flicked water at him. “Bad soldier,” he scolded, mimicking the animal training show they were a little obsessed with. Steve rolled his eyes.
“What an idiot I've been saddled with,” he sighed.
“I could say the same,” Bucky pointed out. They were quiet again and Bucky traced circles into the counter top with his finger. “I stare at you a lot,” he admitted softly. Steve considered him for a minute, took in the way he wasn't meeting Steve's eyes, the tension in his shoulders, his tongue darting out over his bottom lip.
“Yeah?” Steve finally asked, his voice a little higher than he'd like it to be. Bucky glanced at him and immediately smiled. Steve felt his own smile rise in response.
“Hm.” Bucky tapped his chin, thinking.
“What?” Steve returned to his favorite word.
“Smile for me, Steve,” Bucky commanded. Steve scoffed.
“Why?” He asked. Bucky reached out, lightning quick, and found the ticklish spot in Steve's ribs no one else alive knew about. Steve immediately squirmed away, laughing, and Bucky's face lit up with a smile.
“That's what I thought.” Bucky nodded.
“What, that I'm still ticklish?”
“You smile when I smile. I smile when you smile.” They were both smiling now, and they probably looked slightly stupid.
“I've never seen you staring at me.” Steve brought the conversation back around.
“I don't do it when you're looking, silly ass.” Bucky was busting out their favorite swear from when they were kids, the one they'd giggled over when they'd heard Tinkerbell call Peter Pan the name, the one that made their mothers frown at them because it wasn't polite and they were supposed to be gentlemen.
“Well, um...” Steve took a deep breath, ready to jump off the cliff he now realized Natasha had been nudging him toward. “That seems like it'd be hard work, because I, uh, I look at you a lot, too.”
Bucky laughed, a short burst, and Steve couldn't help his own amused huff at the sound of it. “Well, ain't we a couple of blind boys,” Bucky proclaimed, no sting at all in the words because Bucky was the one saying it, they were lumped together and side by side and Bucky's foot was hooked around his ankle and he was possibly suggesting what Steve had always hoped he'd suggest.
“They say love is blind,” Steve said, and Bucky laughed again, hard this time.
“You are such a sap.” Bucky was still laughing as he tugged at the front of Steve's shirt, pulling him forward. Steve's heart was hammering away, hard enough that had it been seventy years ago he'd classify it as an episode and probably end up missing at least two days of work.
“Maybe,” Steve whispered, their mouths barely a breath apart, and then one of them closed the gap and neither of them could work out who because, as happened so often, they were so completely on the same page that one did exactly what the other did. It was a light press of lips, less passionate even then the decoy kiss with Natasha at the mall, but Steve felt his stomach doing back-flips.
“So,” Bucky murmured when he pulled away, not kissing anymore but still resting their foreheads together, mixing their breath and intoxicating Steve the way alcohol couldn't anymore. “You too blind to see what comes next?”
Steve shivered a little. “Buck, I've been seeing that in my dreams for eighty years.”
Blind boy, blind boy. Steve's eyes were still closed, but for once, he could see everything.