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December 31, 1941
Bucky fumbles with the key to his and Steve’s apartment, leaning on the door and missing the lock more than twice before the door suddenly gives beneath him. He nearly falls on his face.
“Stevie!” he shouts, surprised and almost mad, except Steve’s up and walking, and he looks gorgeous, and Bucky’s insides feel like they’re full of laughing gas.
“I swear I could hear you coming a mile off,” Steve says, laughing as he steps aside to let Bucky into their tiny apartment (their apartment, and God, does he love the sound of that). Bucky shoulders past him and decides to leave the accidental innuendo alone.
“Feelin’ better, then?” He sets the grocery bags he’s carrying on the kitchen counter. Something in them clinks, and when he turns around, Steve’s looking from the bags to Bucky’s face with suspicion propping up one of his eyebrows.
“Yeah, feelin’ better,” he says slowly. Then he looks at Bucky like he’ll explain, but Bucky just grins—ear-to-ear, he can feel it—and starts unloading groceries.
“Well, good. Serves you right for spendin’ all your extra cash on my Christmas present insteada gettin’ yourself some tonic. You know how you get in the winter.”
“Wanted to get you somethin’ nice,” Steve mumbles behind him. Then, a few seconds later, “You like it, don’t you?”
Bucky turns and sees Steve staring at his shoes. Steve glances up at him through those heinously long lashes, and Bucky thinks he might go insane, living with this man. What the hell did he sign himself up for?
He crosses the short two steps between them and lays his hand at the crook of Steve’s neck, squeezing gently.
“Yeah, Steve. I love it. Now we just gotta get a record player, and we can fill this place up to the eaves with Eartha, and maybe I’ll even teach you some steps.” He doesn’t say, But I love you, too, and the best record in the world ain’t worth shit if you’re not around to hear it.
Steve looks up at him then, and his whole face lights up, a sweet little smile tugging at his lips, and Bucky reminds himself firmly that it’s worth keeping his feelings in, worth courting disaster by putting himself in close quarters with Steve, if he gets to see this every day. If he gets to make this happen. (Bucky will never cease to be amazed that he has that power.)
“You’re gonna have to do a hell of a lot more convincing if you ever want to get me dancing,” Steve laughs.
Bucky lets the lightness in his chest spill onto his face as he wraps an arm around Steve and yanks him in close. He pitches his voice low, and it comes out a little huskier than he means it to, but he figures it works for him, anyway.
“Oh, I can be very persuasive.”
He shakes Steve around, and Steve grunts and shoves at him half-heartedly.
“Ow, Bucky—okay, okay, just cool it with the strongman act!”
Bucky musses Steve’s hair, resists the urge to plant a big smacker on his cheek, and lets him go.
He goes back to unloading grocery bags. “Picked up the last of my stuff from my folks’ place,” he says cheerfully. “I’m officially all yours.” He thrills a little saying it, even though that’s not really what he means.
“Bucky.”
He looks over and sees Steve next to him, holding the two bottles from the other bag. The disapproval in Steve’s eye could rival any of the nuns from school, and Bucky’s grin just widens.
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” he shrugs. “Our first one living together, too. Thought we should celebrate.”
“So you bought champagne?”
“It was a gift from my folks,” Bucky lies.
Steve purses his lips. Bucky wants to kiss them.
“C’mon, Stevie,” he says, turning up the charm. “Live a little. It’ll never be 1941 again!”
Steve looks at him a moment, then folds—rolls his eyes, sets the bottles on the counter.
“Dinner first,” he says sternly, but he’s smiling.
They get... well, pretty drunk. Steve’s a lightweight, after all, and Bucky’s just happy, and not paying attention. He thinks he probably drank a whole bottle on his own, but now they’re walking down a snowy street in Brooklyn, Steve bundled up to within an inch of his life, and the streetlights glance off his golden hair like a halo and his eyes are sparkling and every time he finds an untouched patch of snow he leaps right into it, and Bucky’s so in love it hurts, but he’s so goddamn happy.
“Hey, Bucky!”
Bucky shakes himself.
“Yeah, St—?”
He turns right into a faceful of snow.
Spluttering and furiously wiping snow from his face, Bucky opens his eyes to see Steve trudging out of another snow patch, now thoroughly sullied, and he’s got two more snowballs in his hands, but he’s laughing almost too hard to hold them.
“Oh, now you’ve done it, Rogers,” Bucky growls. His ribs feel bathed in sunlight as he leans down for a handful of snow.
They’re soaked when they make it back to the apartment, pink-cheeked and grinning like idiots just outside their building. They’re standing under a streetlight, trying to shake as much snow as they can out of their clothes before they track it into the apartment, but Bucky thinks it’s probably a lost cause.
As Steve swipes a big glob of slush off his shoulder, Bucky sees how red his hands are. In a fit of rare courage, he reaches out and wraps Steve’s hands up in his own. Steve looks at him, wide-eyed.
“Fingers cold?” Bucky murmurs, rubbing Steve’s hands gently. Steve just stares.
There’s a commotion in one of the apartments above them—light and sound stream out of someone’s open window, and there are errant pops and cheers and when Bucky looks up, he sees a couple leaning in for a kiss.
He looks back to Steve and grins. “Midnight,” he says. “Happy New Year, Steve.”
But Steve’s looking at him funny. It’s kinda like the look he gets when he’s about to invite a thug into an alley with him via his fists, and it’s got Bucky a little worried.
“What?” he asks, the smile sliding from his face.
Steve steps forward, and Bucky locks up, panics, steps away. Steve backs him up until he’s pressed to the door of the apartment complex, and the overhang blocks the view from above. Then he gets right in Bucky’s space, so close Bucky can feel the moisture in Steve’s breath sticking to his lips. Bucky thinks maybe they’re both a lot more drunk than he thought, only Steve’s eyes are bright and clear.
“Happy New Year, Buck,” Steve breathes, and kisses him.
Bucky doesn’t mean to, he really doesn’t, but as soon as Steve’s lips meet his, he feels like a half-drowned man taking his first gulp of air; he’s pretty sure he whimpers, shifting his head until their lips fit together just so, and his arms come up and lock around Steve like that’s what they were made to do. Steve moves against him, presses into him, and the little cheat bites Bucky’s lip and makes him gasp, and then he’s going in with his tongue, and all Bucky can do is pull him in close and think please, oh, please.
It’s over way too quickly. Steve pulls away, but rests his forehead against Bucky’s and stays there, breathing hard. Bucky wonders if you can catch asthma from someone else, because his throat feels like it’s closed up—but that might just be because Steve’s eyes are still on him, looking straight through him, and God, he looks so happy. How is he that happy?
“Christ, Stevie,” is all Bucky can say.
Steve smiles, soft and smug, and hums his agreement into Bucky’s lips.
*.*.*
December 31, 2014
Stark’s New Year’s Eve party is about as glitzy and glamorous as one would imagine. There are at least five hundred people crowding the ballroom at Avengers Tower, and Steve only knows a handful of them, but they all know him, or think they do, at least. The room contains more famous people than you could shake a stick at, but it feels to Steve as though everyone wants to talk to him (and he feels a bit narcissistic thinking it, but Sam keeps shooting him this look like, Man, I am so sorry, so he’s pretty sure he’s not imagining things). Stark’s limo drops him off at 10:30 (“You sure you’re gonna be up that late, grandpa?” “Just send the car, you ass.”), and after about an hour of schmoozing and Captain America-ing, Steve takes advantage of his stealth training and sneaks out onto the deserted terrace.
The air is cold, and colder for how high up he is, but the wind doesn’t go through him like it used to. He leans against the railing and takes in the city, the sea of windows still lit up with Christmas lights, the tinkling laughter drifting along on the wind. He can see Times Square from here, and he might’ve thought the square was deserted if it weren’t for the way the pavement seems to eddy and shift, like the ocean on a clear, quiet night. Steve’s never spent New Year’s at Times Square, and he’s not sure he’d want to; still, the ball of multicolored crystal suspended over waves and waves of people makes a hell of a sight.
He’s not sure when it happens, precisely, but all at once Steve becomes aware that he’s not alone on the terrace. There’s a shadow beside him, eyes skating over the city lights.
“You’re late,” says Steve, a smile tugging at his lips.
Bucky shrugs, and he’s close enough that Steve can feel it, their shoulders brushing together. “Lotta people in there,” he says, and Steve remembers that this new Bucky isn’t quite as genial as he used to be, though he’s just as sweet. Steve’s heart warms at the thought. Some things never change.
“Glad you’re here, at least,” he says. “You wouldn’t believe how many people have just been dying to talk to me.”
“USO never quite cured you of your stage fright, huh?”
Steve shrugs. “I was never good at this sort of thing. Now you’re here, though, maybe you can give me a few pointers.”
“These days, I think I’m better at scarin’ people off,” Bucky says, smiling a little, though Steve knows he’s serious.
“Nah.” Steve waves off the idea. “You’ve just got a different sort of charm.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Steve turns to look at him, finally, and Bucky mirrors him, and God, does Bucky look good in a suit. Stark must have gotten it tailored for him, Steve thinks, because the thing fits him like a glove. The shirt he’s wearing underneath the jacket is the color of dried blood, and he’s done away with the tie, leaving a couple buttons open at the collar. He’s also done away with a glove for his left hand, and Steve’s heart goes a little wibbly at the sight.
“What kinda charm do I have now?” Bucky asks, and his smirk is like the edge of a knife. It makes Steve’s breath catch.
Steve hums, considering. “You’re more of a bad boy now, I think,” he says, smirking back in kind, and holy shit, when did he get brave enough to flirt with Bucky? “There’s something irresistibly dangerous about you now.”
Bucky’s smirk widens slowly, so slowly, and he leans infinitesimally closer to Steve, and Steve thinks, Is this really happening?
“‘Irresistible,’ you said?” and it’s barely a rumble, and Steve shivers.
The sound of five hundred-odd socialites counting down from ten drifts out onto the terrace. Bucky glances toward it, then down at Steve’s hand, resting on the railing. He reaches out and covers Steve’s hand with his flesh one.
“Fingers cold?” Bucky murmurs, grinning this devilish grin, and Steve thinks, Wait, does he remember that? He said he didn’t remember a thing—
“...two, one! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
A low roar rises up from the sea in Times Square, and fireworks start squealing and popping overhead, and the lights are throwing sparks across Bucky’s face, refracting in Bucky’s eyes, and Bucky’s staring at him, grinning like he hasn’t since they were young together in Brooklyn, and Steve can’t look away.
“Happy New Year, Steve,” Bucky says, and kisses him.
It’s like their first kiss, and it’s like their thousandth. Steve can’t imagine why he’s ever kissed anyone but Bucky in his life. Bucky’s left hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, and it’s cold to the touch, but Steve just shudders and leans into it, leans into Bucky, parts his lips so they fit with Bucky’s better. Bucky hums, presses into Steve, drags metal fingers through the hairs at the nape of Steve’s neck and nips at Steve’s lower lip until Steve opens his mouth. Then their tongues are tangling together, and Steve’s breathing the air out of Bucky’s lungs, and he gets a little lost in Bucky’s smell all around him, so long missed.
When Bucky pulls back, his heart’s in his eyes, the fireworks glimmering a little too brightly across them as he stares at Steve with an unreadable expression. Steve’s chest feels so full he thinks it’ll burst. He grabs a fistful of Bucky’s jacket.
“I didn’t think you remembered,” whispers Steve, smiling helplessly.
Bucky’s hand slides back to cup Steve’s cheek, and he swipes a thumb across it. “Hell of a thing to forget,” he replies.
“Calling all nonagenarian super-soldiers!”
Steve blinks, and just as he’s turning toward the door to tell Stark to bug off, the music changes, and he can’t speak.
Never thought that you would be, standing here so close to me...
“They’re playing your song.” Stark’s little more than a silhouette in the doorway, but he’s grinning so wide his teeth glint in the light of the fireworks.
Bucky looks a little taken aback, but then he grins. “C’mon,” he says, moving back and holding out his hand to Steve. “I never taught you those steps, did I? Let’s show all these babies what real dancing looks like.”
Steve laughs, something warm and bright sloshing around in his chest. He takes Bucky’s hand and follows him inside.