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“You ruined the surprise.” Bucky whines half-heartedly, turning his whole body in the car seat to look at Steve. He isn’t actually that mad at Steve for including Nat in his plans to propose, but it would have been nice if Bucky could surprise her.
“She knows what you like.” Steve states simply, shrugging. The ring is perfect, but Bucky doubts Steve wouldn’t have been able to pick it out on his own.
“And you don’t? You’ve known me for a hundred years, pal.” Bucky chuckles.
“Pal?” Steve laughs, keeping his eyes on the road. “I think we’re past calling each other pals, pal.”
“Fine, fiancé.” Bucky teases. The word feels weird on his tongue. Steve is his fiancé. The thought is dizzying.
“You can still surprise her.” Steve says, trying to fix the non-problem.
“How? She knows, doesn’t she?” Bucky points out, it’s not possible to surprise someone with something they already know.
“Yeah.” Steve sighs, defeated.
“Hey, it’s not that serious.” Bucky assures Steve. “There’s no way she wouldn’t catch on even if you did try to keep it a secret. You know how she is.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Steve smiles. Nat is so tuned in to everything all the time, nothing slips past her.
“I am right.” Bucky says confidently as they pull up in front of her apartment.
“I’ll wait here.” Steve says, giving Bucky some time alone with Nat.
Bucky gets out of the car, taking a moment to open Steve’s door and kissing him before walking up to the building. He runs up the stairs, thanking his inhuman stamina.
“Nat!” He shouts for her as soon as he’s in her door. He stormed in without knocking, too excited. “Natalia!” He tries again, looking in all the rooms as he passes them, desperate to find her.
“Yasha?” Nat answers as she comes out of the kitchen. “Whoa.” She adds when she sees him. “What happened to you?”
“Steve proposed!” Bucky says excitedly, waving his hand in her face.
“Oh my god!” Nat sounds shocked, her face lighting up.
“Like half an hour ago!” Bucky can’t contain his excitement. He wants to cry all over again just from thinking about it.
“I can’t see the ring if you keep waving like that.” Nat laughs, speaking at an abnormally loud volume. She is always so calm and collected, but now she seems to have forgotten all about her façade.
“Oh, sorry.” Bucky stills his arm, holding his hand out to her.
“Wow.” Is all she says, speechless. Her eyes are huge, mouth hanging open, staring at the ring.
“But you already knew?” Bucky asks, confused at her reaction. Is she really that good of an actor?
“I knew he was thinking about it.” Nat replies, moving her eyes to Bucky’s.
“So you didn’t-?” Bucky trails off.
“I didn’t even know he bought the ring.” Nat says with a laugh.
“But you helped him pick it out, didn’t you?” Bucky admires the ring again; it really is so beautiful. The dark color reflecting all the colors of the sun suits his personality so well. He tends to intimidate people at first glance, with his staring and tense body language, but when you get to know him, he’s not like that at all.
“He asked my opinion on a couple rings, that’s all.” She runs a finger over the ring, just like Bucky has done a thousand times already. If she didn’t know about Steve’s plans, she’s just as shocked and surprised as him.
“You really didn’t know he was going to propose?” Bucky asks, realization setting in. He thought she knew everything, that she was just sitting here waiting for Bucky to tell her it was done. But she didn’t know, he got to surprise her with it.
“I know, I’m shocked too.” She says, dead serious. Bucky can’t help the giggle that escapes as happiness floods him.
“He fucking proposed.” Bucky is hit by another wave of disbelief. “I’m marrying Steve.”
“Congratulations!” She squeals. Bucky has never heard her make that noise before. He giggles; internally rolling his eyes at the teenage-girl-energy they’re emitting.
Laughing, he can barely get the words out, “Thank you.”
“Tell me everything.” Nat takes hold of his hands, leading him over to the couch.
“Where do I even begin?” Bucky asks no one in particular, trying to piece together what happened. In hindsight, Steve kind of hinted to it when they were talking about the memories.
And mom never cared either. Because she knew what they had was so special, it didn’t matter.
You had nothing to worry about. Because Steve always did and always will love Bucky.
I knew you’d come back to me. Because the kind of love they have will always draw them together. After all, it only took a couple years for The Winter Soldier to run into Captain America once neither of them were frozen.
“At the beginning! Where did he do it?” Nat snaps him back to reality.
“He took me to Brooklyn, said it was a surprise.”
“Which you hated.” She knows him so well.
“Of course.”
“And then?”
“It was our old apartment; he took me there.” Bucky says with a smile, remembering the warmth that filled him when he realized where Steve had taken him.
“That’s so romantic.” Nat comments in a soft tone, her eyes practically heart shaped.
“There were so many memories coming up as we walked through it.”
“I can imagine. And then?” She encourages him to continue, as eager to hear the story as Bucky is to tell it.
“We talked about them, just reminiscing, and when I turned around, he was on one knee.” Bucky smiles shyly. In this moment he realizes how normal he feels. He is just a person telling his best friend how he was proposed to. That is the most normal thing he’s done in so, so long. His and Steve’s every day life is full off Avengers stuff, and therapy, and talking about the distant past, but this, this is something anyone could do.
If Bucky didn’t know any better, he would say Nat is getting teary-eyed. “Don’t cry! I just stopped crying, and if you start-”
“I won’t!” Nat says, as she wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s just so good to see you so happy.” She smiles warmly at him, eyes glassy, clearly holding back tears. Who knew she could be this soft?
“I really am.” He says thoughtfully. He never thought he would be this happy again, that it would even be possible with the amount of trauma he has experienced, or that he could trust someone as much as he trusts Steve.
“I want to tell my ma.” Bucky says slowly as the thought enters his brain, unsure if it’s a good idea.
“I think she would be proud of you.” Nat says softly, switching from excited to sentimental in less than a second.
“Yeah?” Bucky isn’t so sure.
“What more could a parent want than their child living a happy, healthy life, doing what they love?” Nat asks rather than trying to convince him.
“They could want a child who does all that while loving someone of the opposite sex.” Bucky mumbles. He isn’t sure if his ma would have accepted him or not. Either way he thinks she would have preferred it if Steve was a woman.
“Listen to me Bucky.” Nat leans forward, putting on her serious listen-to-me face. “Love is love. It doesn’t matter who you share that with. And if anyone has a problem with it, that’s on them. That’s their problem, not yours. You are just living your live, if they want to have a problem, well, sucks for them then.”
Bucky loves that she talks as if his ma is still alive, and will actually have a conversation with him, rather than him just telling her gravestone.
“She would want to know.” Nat says, back to her calm voice, sinking back into the couch cushions; pep talk over.
“Yeah.” Bucky is thoughtful. Reality is, his ma wouldn’t have loved the idea, that’s just how it was when she lived. But Bucky can choose how she responds because she’s not really there. When he tells her, she will respond well, simply because that’s what Bucky needs.
“You better leave before you change your mind.” Nat pushes him, seeing the look of determination on his face.
---
Bucky takes a deep breath as Steve parks the car. He wanted this, but now that he’s here the anxiety is setting in. He has a bouquet of tulips on his lap, carefully picked out at a flower shop on the way here.
He practiced what to say the whole way, repeating it over and over in his head. Even though he knows his ma is dead and can’t say anything, it feels like he is coming out to her. And he is terrified.
“Are you sure about this?” Steve asks, sensing his hesitance.
“Yeah.” Bucky replies, sounding as unsure as he is. He wants to tell her but coming here is so incredibly hard. But this is important.
No matter her reaction, she would always thank him for telling her whatever it was. She would be much more hurt if he didn’t tell her the big news.
“Want me to come with?” Steve takes Bucky’s hand, squeezing it comfortingly.
“I need to do this on my own.” Bucky takes one last deep breath, tightens his grip around the flowers in his lap and steps out of the car.
As he walks down the path his heart beats fast in his chest. The wind is tossing his hair in every direction and blowing cool air straight through his clothes, sending a chill down his body.
He hasn’t been here many times since being back, but he still remembers the way like the back of his hand.
He takes the last turn, walking onto the grass, counting the gravestones as he moves closer. Kneeling down on the grass, he closes his eyes, allowing the emotions to settle over him.
He can almost feel her presence, like she’s just out of reach. The him of the wind reminds him of the way she would hum while doing chores, or cooking. She loved cooking, trying new recipes every week. The faint smell of the flowers reminds him of her. He can feel her hug, imagining she’s there. How he would bury his face in her shoulder and breathe in her smell of safety.
“Hey ma.” He whispers, scared someone can hear him. He looks around, seeing he is alone.
“I brought you flowers.” He speaks louder this time. He tries a smile as he carefully puts them down on her grave.
“I know how much you love tulips.” He smiles at the memory. They had a tiny garden, shared with the other people living in the building, but everyone would be careful around her little area for her tulips. She loved growing those flowers. Checking them every day in spring, telling everyone excitedly when the first flower buds appeared.
“I tried to find some nice ones, but this was the best I could find.” She would spend ours kneeling in the dirt, taking care of them. And they were so beautiful. Vibrant red, orange, and yellow brightening up the whole yard. Every tulip in the world pales next to hers.
“At least they’re the same colors.” He looks down at the red, orange, and yellow carefully wrapped in a thin layer of cellophane.
“I came to tell you something.” He steers the conversation in the direction he is dreading. The cold wind makes him shiver, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. How is it always so cold at graveyards?
“I guess I hoped the flowers would somehow make it easier to deliver the news.” He says, giving himself more time. Unlike Steve’s mom, Winifred was not so happy about his bond with Steve.
“Thing is-” He takes a deep breath, here it goes. “I’m engaged. And that should make you happy, but it’s to a man.” He pauses as if to let her reply, but it’s so silent even the wind quiets down for a moment.
“Steve loves me ma, he treats me good. Reminds me of how pa treated you, like you were his world. Steve treats me like I’m his universe.” He smiles despite the sadness in his chest, looking at the engraving of her name.
“I didn’t think it was possible to love or be loved this much until him. And I think that’s what matters, not who he is.” She died when Bucky was a teenager, so she didn’t get to see him and Steve come together, how strong their love was once they figured out who they were.
“I know you wanted me to marry a beautiful woman. But this is what I want.” He says, knowing she would want him to follow his heart. Being with Steve is not just what he wants, it’s what he needs; there’s no other choice. Without Steve he wouldn’t have anything to fight for, or come home to, no reason to live.
“He is my whole heart, and I know you would have been overjoyed if he was a woman, so I believe you can get over that small detail and just see that I’m marrying someone who fits me perfectly.” She wasn’t necessarily homophobic, she just lacked understanding. She cared a little too much about what other people thought, wanting her family to look good from the outside.
“He proposed in the most beautiful, romantic way I could’ve imagined.” He says, momentarily forgetting the weight of the situation as the smile and warmth in his chest comes back.
“He has become such a strong, brave, strong-willed man. You would’ve been proud of him.” He takes another deep breath, preparing himself for what he’ll say next.
“I hope you’re proud of me too.” His voice goes back to a whisper. Her approval has always been important. He would talk to her about everything; even when he was a hormonal teenager, he would come to her with every problem. When he would bring up Steve, she was more concerned about how it would look to other people, wanting her son to have an easy life.
“It’s okay to be gay now.” He says, realizing he forgot that part of his practiced speech. “We can legally get married. Most people don’t care.”
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that.” He says awkwardly, unsure how to end the one-sided conversation.
“I should go, Steve is probably wondering what’s taking me so long.” He speaks with more confidence. If she was here, he imagines she would give him a hug and tell him she’s happy for him, that she’s proud of him, and that she loves him no matter what. He can almost hear her words in the wind.
“Bye, ma.” He gets up and walks down the path he came from, walking backwards to look at her until she’s out of sight.
Steve is standing outside the car, leaning at the side, waiting. He envelops Bucky in a hug as soon as they’re close enough.
“Okay?” Steve asks simply, knowing how overwhelming it can be for Bucky to talk.
“Okay.” Bucky mumbles as they pull apart. He is so overwhelmed by this day; he’ll sleep like the dead tonight.