Work Text:
1946
“Peggy I’m home!” Steve called out as he walked in the front door.
“I’m in the bedroom!” Peggy called back from where she was sitting on their bedroom floor, looking at the pictures she had from the war.
“What’ve you got here, Darling?” he asked as he bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Oh just some old pictures I couldn’t bring myself to let go of. This one’s my favorite.” She pointed to his enlistment photo, showing a skinny young boy from Brooklyn.
Steve smiled sadly. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who liked me for who I was before the serum.”
She shook her head. “Not the only one, Steve.”
Steve smiled like she’d just told a joke. “You know something that I don’t, Peg?”
She looked back down at the pictures in front of her. “Sit down Steve, there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Sure Peg, I’ll tell you anything.” He sat beside her on the floor. “Is something wrong?”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. “Nothing’s wrong Darling, I’m just confused, is all.”
“Go on,” Steve encouraged her.
She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she knew was not going to be an easy conversation, but she needed to know. “Right. Well, you didn’t tell me much about the future that you came from, and I understand that. I’m not trying to get you to tell me more about the future, but did tell me one really big thing. You told me that Bucky is alive.”
Steve nodded. “He is. I can’t tell you why or how in too much detail, but he’s been through a lot but he’s alive, and he’s got a knockoff version of the serum from when the 107th was captured. Where are you going with this, Peg?”
“I guess I’m just wondering why you came back to me if he’s still around in your future.” Peggy tore her eyes from the photos on the floor and forced herself to look at her husband, who was gaping at her.
“Peggy. I came back to you because you’re my best girl and you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved and I want to spend my life with you.”
“That’s just it, Steve. I’m the only girl you’ve ever loved. We both know I’m not the only person you’ve ever loved. You had him, why’d you leave him?”
“You knew?” He choked out.
She smiled to herself at his surprise. “Of course I knew, and it didn’t change anything. I knew you loved us both, but I also knew you loved him longer. And I know that in these times you two never could have been open, but I’m assuming, or maybe hoping, that things are better in the future.”
“Things are better in that respect. It’s legal in the whole country, for guys to marry each other. Ladies can marry each other too,” Steve explained.
“So why are you here with me?” Peggy asked.
“You want me to leave?” He asked, and she could tell he was trying to joke.
Peggy smiled at him. “Of course not Darling, I love you, and I’m happy you’re here. I just can’t quite wrap my head around why you’d leave him.”
“You must know it’s not that simple, Peg. It’s not like he felt the same way.”
“He told you this?” She asked.
“What? No. I never asked, I just assumed he’d never feel the same way,” Steve answered.
Peggy smacked him on the arm. “Steve Rogers you’re the dumbest man I’ve ever met.”
Steve rubbed his arm. “What are you talking about?”
Peggy thought back to a night during the war, a conversation in which Bucky had been as honest with her as he felt he could, given the situation. They’d understood each other far better from that night on. “Bucky Barnes was in love with you, you idiot. He all but told me so one night at the bar,” she sighed.
“No,” Steve shook his head frantically.
“Yes,” Peggy insisted, her hand still clutching his.
“He never said anything,” Steve breathed.
“Yeah I figured as much,” she huffed. Obviously, if he’d said something, Steve wouldn’t be here with her.
“God, why can’t anything in my life just be easy?” He leaned into her and she wrapped her arms around him.
“Oh my Darling, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought it up.” She rubbed circles into his back.
“It’s okay,” he gasped. “I’m glad I know now, but this doesn’t change anything. You’re still my best girl, and I’m still the luckiest man alive to be married to you.” He sounded so earnest that she almost believed him.
“Steve,” she breathed, “you don’t have to lie to spare my feelings. I know that you love me, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, but I know you loved him first. You’re allowed to be upset about this, and I understand if it does change things.”
She braced herself for his response. “Well,” he finally spoke up, “it doesn’t change anything in any way that matters. I love him, yes, but I also love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She knew he didn’t really have any way to leave, and her heart broke for him because of that, but the selfish part of her was just glad he was here.
2024
Sam looked up from the stove when Bucky walked into the apartment they shared. “Hey man, where have you been?” Bucky kicked the door shut, grumbling to himself as he did. “I didn’t catch that,” Sam said.
“I was at the Smithsonian. Happy now?”
Sam sighed. “I mean, not really, because obviously it’s got you in a mood, which means you’re gonna be brooding for the next three hours, at least. But you know me, I’m always here when you’re ready to talk. Soup?” He held out a bowl. Bucky reached for it, and Sam could tell he was fighting to keep his movements gentle and calm.
“Thanks,” he whispered. “And I’m sorry about the brooding, it’s just, the museum makes me feel a lot of things. Today it mostly just made me angry.”
“Anything in particular set you off, or just the exhibit in general?” Sam didn’t bother asking which exhibit Bucky had gone for, since he only ever bothered with the one.
“His picture, Peggy’s picture, the existence of their pictures side by side, like I always knew they would be. It’s stupid.”
Ah. So this was where this conversation was going, Bucky was pissed because Steve ditched him. “It’s not stupid,” Sam assured him. “You’re allowed to be mad at him for leaving. Sometimes I get mad at him too.”
Bucky stared into his soup, spoon hanging limply in his hand. “It’s not just that he left. You don’t understand.”
“So make me understand.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Come on, yeah you can Buck -”
“Don’t call me that!” Bucky cut him off. “Steve was the only one who could call me Buck, and he still chose her!”
Oh. Oh. Sam couldn’t stop his eyebrows from shooting up. “Oh.”
Bucky sighed. “Yeah, oh,” he pinched the bridge of his nose between his metal fingers.
“I’m sorry I called you that,” Sam said.
Bucky shrugged. “You didn’t know how much it meant to me, don’t worry about it. Sorry I shouted.”
It was Sam’s turn to shrug. “I’ve been yelled at before, I’ll be yelled at again,” then, because clearly it needed to be addressed, “so, are we gonna talk about the fact that you just said that you’re jealous of Peggy Carter?”
“I mean, I’ve been in love with that asshole since he was a tiny asthmatic nerd looking for a fight and he still chose her, there’s not a whole lot to say.”
Sam flashed on how determined Steve had been to save Bucky, no matter the risk to his own life. He rolled his eyes, and asked a question he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to. “Okay, but did he know there was a choice to be made?”
“What do you mean?” Sam smacked himself on the forehead.
“Dammit Bucky, did he know that you were in love with him?”
“Oh. I mean, I never told him, but I thought it was pretty obvious. Natasha made fun of me for it all the time.”
“So you’re both idiots then.”
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked.
Sam slammed his head on the table. “God why were you both such idiots about this?”
Sam felt a cold hand on his shoulder. “Sam, what do you mean we were both idiots? What are you not telling me?”
“God, Bucky, he was so in love with you it hurt to watch. When he left I figured you’d turned him down and didn’t want to talk about it. I never thought he would just leave you like that.”
“You’re lying.” Bucky shook his head. “No, you have to be lying.”
“Bucky,” Sam sighed, “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t lie to you about this."
“Then you’re wrong. You have to be wrong about this. I love him but he didn’t love me and that’s why he left. There’s no way he felt the same way.” Bucky was shaking in his chair now, and Sam had no idea what to do.
“I’m sorry Bucky, but Steve Rogers loved you more than he loved himself most days.”
The next day, Sam walked into a tiny restaurant where he was meeting Old Man Rogers, as he’d taken to calling Steve, for dinner. It was always weird, these monthly dinners with an old man who’d been his best friend a few short months ago, but Steve enjoyed them, so Sam went, and Steve asked him not to tell Bucky, so Sam didn’t.
“Hey Sam,” Steve greeted him as he sat down.
“Hey Steve, how’ve you been, old man?”
“I feel like an old man,” he responded.
They ordered their food and fell into an easy conversation, but Sam couldn’t stop thinking about what Bucky had told him the day before.
“Sam,” Steve cut himself off mid sentence, “What’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird since you got here.”
Sam sighed. “Don’t worry about it Steve, it’s nothing.” Well, not nothing, just nothing he could fix.
“No, something’s wrong. Are you okay? Is Bucky okay?”
“Bucky’s fine Steve, and so am I.”
“Then what’s wrong? Sam I know I’m an old man, but I’m still your friend, you can tell me anything.”
Not this. There was no good reason to tell Steve this. “I just, I learned something yesterday that’s making it hard for me to focus on anything else.”
“Learned something about what?” Steve asked, and god, Steve was gonna wrench the truth right out of him.
Sam decided to be as honest as possible. “About you.”
“About me?” Steve asked, eyes full of concern.
“Nothing bad or anything,” Sam assured him, “it just made me sad.”
“Sad for me?”
“Sad for you, and maybe one other person too,” Sam answered, and it was the truth, just not the whole truth.
“Are you going to tell me what it was that you learned?” Steve asked.
“Just that you’re a goddamn idiot.”
Steve smiled. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Sam shook his head. “I didn’t know you were this bad.”