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It had been three weeks since Steve had seen his husband. He ached with a madness he once thought he'd felt when Bucky had been gone two nights to visit Becca while her kid was sick, and up to now that had been the longest they'd been apart since they rented their first apartment as seniors in college.
Many of Steve's friends had laughed at him over the last few weeks, but Steve figured they were just jealous that they hadn't yet met the loves of their lives.
This new job was good for Bucky's career, absolutely, but Steve worried at how often it might take him away, and this trip so soon into the position? Well it just went and proved all of Steve's concerns, hadn't it? Three weeks of supplemental orientation—one week at each regional office in Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta—in order to get Bucky to meet various teams he'd be working with and so they could meet him, too. It was good, Bucky and Steve kept reminding each other over late-night phone calls and Skype sessions.
But Steve loved his Buck, and he just wanted him to come home.
Which, the flight itinerary email told him, was today. In two more hours.
He'd offered, of course, to come pick Bucky up at the airport, but Bucky told Steve he didn't want to have to let go once they were back together, and that was sweet and a bit sexy, so Steve agreed, only promising to arrange for the Lyft to pick him up, and being home to wait for Bucky eagerly.
The eagerness was hardly a problem.
Patience, however, was likely going to destroy him.
He paced the front room of the house, the dining room, looking out the window even though he knew it was far, far too early. Bucky was still in the air, and then there was the twenty-minute drive home, which of course was after lingering around the baggage claim, he hadn't even ordered the car yet, and—
A car pulled up.
Bucky stepped out, and went to the trunk to retrieve his luggage.
Steve absolutely did not let out a shriek, he instead only went the front door very calmly and pulled it wide open, stared across the front path and lawn, over the hedge that protected the yard Bucky kept so nicely manicured from the destructive forces of the neighborhood's peeing dogs, and watched Bucky close the trunk, wave to the driver, and start to pull his luggage up the driveway.
"What the fuck, man?"
Bucky grinned at him like he ate the world's most delicious shit sandwich. "Swapped for an earlier flight!"
Steve shook his head in disbelief. "But you didn't tell me!"
"Nnnnope!" Bucky got to the front porch and put down his bags, freeing his hands to be able to reach for Steve's face as he stepped close. "Wanted to surprise you, sweetheart." He kissed Steve, then, and oh, he was home.
They made out in the front doorway for probably longer than their neighbors across the street would probably prefer—but fuck 'em, honestly, they were just jealous that their dumb heterosexual marriage was loveless after only three years and they had two kids already so they feel trapped—but finally Steve pulled away, breathless and beaming like the sun after a lifetime of cloudy days as he stared into his love's windswept ocean eyes.
(Lord, he really had been missing Bucky if he was this sappy.)
"Come in, baby. I'm not totally ready for how I was going to be set up when you got home, but I think you kinda have to forgive me." He stepped back, both of Bucky's hands in his, pulling him gently.
"I dunno," Bucky said with a soft smirk. "I'm a bit upset that you didn't assume I would get home early to surprise you and be with you even just a couple hours sooner." He kicked the door shut, neither of them, at the moment, remembering that all his bags were still out there on the front porch. (They'd be retrieved the next morning, and thankfully nothing was stolen.)
Steve steered them to their bedroom in the back of the house, the cozy master suite they'd added on last summer and moved into, making their previous master bedroom the guest room, and turning the old, smallish guest room into a functional office space for Bucky to work from home. (That was the trade-off, that Bucky might have to go out of town more often, but he didn't have to commute into the city anymore. At the moment, Steve still doubted that they'd done the math right on that.) Their new bedroom boasted a high ceiling, thick drapes that commanded a feeling of comfort, and twin walk-in closets, in which so far Steve had avoided trying to claim space on both sides.
And of course, the highlight of the room, the king size bed that was always ready to welcome them, no matter the time of day or night.
They toppled onto it, lips pressed together, then apart to shift angles, then together again around their tongues seeking each other's mouths. Their hands reached for every piece of their partner, fingers through hair, palms seeking skin, thumbs tracing jaw bones, hip bones, figurative bones with gasps and jerks in response. Slowly, because now there was no rush at all, the clothes were peeled away, a layer at a time, with a keen patience borne from knowing one's lover so perfectly, so intimately, so—
"What the fuck is that?"
Steve panted as Bucky pulled his mouth away, and his mind was blank as he stared at the messy-haired god in his arms, who in turn was staring at Steve's chest with... surprise? Confusion?
Steve looked down, and then said, "Oh. That."
He hadn't exactly forgotten about it. Hard to do that, really. But he'd somehow forgotten that he never told Bucky about it. It was meant to be a surprise, but, well. Oh well.
"So, yeah. I got a tattoo." He stretched out more so Bucky could see it better. "You like it?"
Because Steve never did things by half-measure, the tattoo spanned down his ribcage, a skyline of a city, and from the perspective and relative size of iconic pieces, he knew Bucky would immediately recognize it not only as New York City, but also the exact skyline as seen from the bedroom window of their first apartment together in Brooklyn. It was in detailed black ink with delicate shading, and stretched from just below his right pec to end even with his navel.
Bucky traced the line up to where their perspective would be, where they would look out the window together and marvel that they could be together in such a city, and he very softly kissed the splash of watercolor ink there that formed the rough shape of a heart, messy and bi-flag colored.
"You're a sap," Bucky murmured, dragging his nose over Steve's ribs and kissing more, clearly unbothered by his own sappy behavior.
"I missed you," Steve whispered back. "I wanted you with me."
Bucky, whose skin has known four tattoos by now, touched the ink gently and looked up at Steve. "The way this is healing? Honey, you had to have gotten this, like, right after I left."
Steve didn't deny it. Couldn't, wouldn't. "I missed you," he said again, and tucked his fingers under Bucky's chin, thumb grasping at the dimple there, and pulled him closer to kiss the soft lips that smiled at him so sweetly.