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Steve liked his street. It was quiet – and he needed a lot of quiet now, after everything. It was the kind of area where people retired. Old folks in every little house, white hair and pacemakers and little yapping dogs and Steve knew he stood out like a sore thumb, 240lbs of muscle and youth. 26 years old and feeling like he was nearer 90 when around people his own age – he left New York, somewhere he’d always associated with home, and safety (no longer, not with all those people, all that noise) and lived in a sleepy little suburb In DC. The most drastic thing that happened around his place was that old Mr Dugan stole old Mr Falsworths newspaper and they’d yelled at each other for a good hour before wandering off for a drink of gin and a game of cards with old Mr Jones, whose wife made them play in the garage because she wouldn’t let them smoke their cigars in the house.
Steve sometimes joined them, and listened to their stories about the war. They didn’t ask him about his service – they knew when a man wasn’t ready to talk. Apparently there had been ‘ol Jim’ who lived in the house next to Steve’s, who never spoke a word about the war from the moment he got his foot back on American soil. He passed away around 6 months before Steve moved in, and he felt like sometimes the only reason they invited him was because they missed their old buddy. He didn’t mind, but sometimes he declined, if he was having a bad day.
Steve had a routine. A good routine, and he stuck to it. He woke up (if he ever fell asleep in the first place) at 5am and went for a jog. The streets were deserted, because of the age of the residents, and the only thing he’d had to deal with might be the occasional glimpse of a mailman, or a kid on his bicycle throwing papers into yards.
When he’d run as far as his muscles would let him, he’d go home, shower, have something to eat and try to work through the yoga poses that were supposed to calm him down for an hour.
Then he’d clean the house, every inch until even he could see that he was being completely ridiculous – no one needed to wash inside of the cabinets every day, or wash the windows, or a hundred other jobs he got stuck on. Normally by the time he talked himself out of washing the tins of food in the store cupboard it would be time for him to think about dinner, and then after that (every pot, pan and plate scrubbed so hard they were probably getting thinner) he’d try to read, or watch TV. He’d missed a lot of TV when he’d been deployed. He remembered wanting to catch up when he got home, with all his shows he loved.
It wasn’t the same though, because those shows he’d loved once were now a chore to watch, he had to be careful. No explosions, no underwater stuff, no tunnels, no gunshots – and absolutely no death. Not unless he wanted to try sleeping on the floor for another week or so, or forgot where he was and ended up standing in the middle of the street looking for an extraction that would never come.
Mr Dernier found him like that one morning, standing in the middle of the street, staring blankly ahead. “Hey, Captain.” He’d said, warily. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
When Steve had come to, he’d been sitting in Derniers dark living room, drapes drawn tightly shut, a glass of lukewarm water in his hand and an old scratchy blanket over his bare shoulders.
“You gave the old ladies around here something to talk about.” He cackled, accent thick. “Us single fella’s don’t have a chance now, non?” He grinned, waving his hand over Steve, sitting stark naked on his couch, nothing but the blanket to protect his modesty.
“Did I,” Steve said, voice cracking. “Did I hurt anyone?”
“Non,” Mr Dernier said. “Very quiet, like a little mouse.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Call me Jacques.”
Steve heard the truck pull into the street and put down the wire brush he’d been using on the stone steps that lead up to his door. He’d promised himself that once he’d finished he was going to stop and have lunch, but his arms were aching and he wasn’t quite sure how long he’d been scrubbing. The rough bar of soap he’d been using was markedly smaller, so at least an hour, he assumed. Too long.
He’d expected the van to keep going, after all, it was a quiet place and he’d not heard of anyone moving away – he was pretty sure that nothing happened on the street that Mr Stark didn’t already know about, and tell everyone.
But then, it stopped, right next door.
Jim Morita had died before Steve moved in to the house next door to his, and he’d gotten used to the empty house on his left. The house was almost identical to every other house on the street, even Steve’s – but a couple of years of sitting empty had done its damage. There was a guy who used to come around and cut the grass, but he’d stopped once he found out the old man had died, and Steve had been mowing the lawn out front at the same time as he did his own, but the bedding plants were dead or just weeds, the building looked like it needed a lick of paint and the windows were thick with dust.
He hoped that whomever moved in was a good replacement for Ol Jim, who was apparently a bit of a joker and well loved – but selfishly he prayed that they were quiet. He didn’t think he could cope with the noise of kids or – god forbid – a baby.
His knees ached when he stood up, in protest about his kneeling on a hard slab for a good hour, and he tried not to look like he was looking.
“Well, Captain.” Jacques said, appearing like a ghost from his own garden, “Looks like we have some new blood.” He didn’t seem concerned. “Perhaps a pair of sisters, yes?” He grinned. “One for me and one for…” He glanced at Steve and grinned. “Well, a mother and daughter, maybe.” Steve shrugged, he didn’t really mention that girls weren’t really his thing. Old habits from when people didn’t ask and your certainly didn’t tell.
Old man Dernier didn’t seem to care about hiding the way he watched the movers pick each item out of the back of the van, so Steve followed his lead, just stood and watched. The stuff looked… not new. Not old, not at all, but the kind of stuff that had maybe been picked out with great care at flea-markets and foreclosure sales, the kind of thing Steve had filled his own home with – yard sales, craigslist. Nothing really matched and although Steve had pulled off the old fabric coverings off his couch and dyed it to try to make it look better (it worked, once he’d stained the wood and re-painted) but he could tell that whomever was moving in hadn’t gone to that length. Yet, anyway.
Nothing about the items the men moved into the dark house really gave much away. There wasn’t a crib or toys, so Steve was starting to feel a little relieved about that, but there was also a running machine. So maybe it was a frat boy. That would maybe be worse than a baby, he thought. Parties every night, loud, thumping music. He wanted to crawl into bed and never wake up at the thought.
Three days later, and aside from the movers van, there had been no actual change. No one had arrived with a suitcase and a keg of beer, and Steve was starting to think that perhaps no one would actually move in at all. He’d like that. He’d like things to stay the same. That was his goal in life.
Of course, the same morning he looked over at the dark windows and smiled, would be the same morning that he came back from his run to see an oldsmobile pulled up in the drive of the house. The car was vintage and well restored, and Steve took a moment to appreciate that a bit before his brain registered that its appearance would mean that his new neighbor had arrived. An old Buick, a classic convertible if he knew his cars (and he didn’t, not really, just enough to get by) maybe from the 40’s. He didn’t want to be seen though, staring, so he headed back in. So maybe his new neighbor was old. Old enough to respect a car like that, and to take the time to restore it. Probably not a frat boy.
Steve didn’t spy. Exactly. He may have kept a closer eye on the house next door as he went through his normal routine, but all he saw were dusty windows and not much else. When he left for his grocery shopping there was no light on inside, and when he came back nothing had changed.
He was struggling to find something to watch on Netflix that wasn’t going to freak him out (The Disney movie with the ice had been a bad idea, that was for sure) when there was a knock at the door. A too loud knock, like someone was using a cane or a bat rather than their hand.
He jerked upright on the couch, but managed to stop himself from reaching for the gun he no longer carried. Progress, he figured, if you were keeping track.
His door was triple bolted. Technically it didn’t need it, but Steve slept so much better (when he slept at all) knowing that the perimeter was as secure as he could make it. He looked through the peephole to see a man, with long, dark hair and pale skin looking around a little wildly. He was pretty muscular, Steve could tell that even though the bevelled glass, but not as large as Steve. He didn’t feel threatened, but he’d made wrong snap judgements before, and he reminded himself to stay on alert.
“Just a second.” He called out, realising that he hadn’t spoken at all that day – going around his routine in silence – as he unbolted the locks.
“Hey, man, I’m not crazy.” The dark headed man said as soon as Steve opened the door. He was wearing black jeans and bare feet, a soft looking grey hoodie thrown over a white t-shirt. “I’m not.” Bare feet?
Steve wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so he just nodded. “Okay.”
“I live next door? I just moved in yesterday.” The man said, and Steve nodded again. A few things were starting to get through to his brain, the chain just visible at the neck, a slight indentation under the t-shirt – dogtags, if he had to guess. A pretty impressive looking prosthetic arm that caught the light thrown out from behind Steve, made of some kind of metal. Military, probably, although the hair was kind of throwing him off a little. He couldn’t imagine his CO letting him have hair that long. “I’m… uh… shit, man, I swear to god I’m not crazy.”
Steve nodded. He wasn’t sure what to do. “You want to come in?” He asked, and noticed the way that the man threw a worried look over his shoulder, back at the house on the left.
“Yeah, sure.” The man said, before pausing at the threshold. “Uh, Bucky Barnes.” He said, awkwardly.
“Steve Rogers.”
Bucky followed him into the house, and didn’t say anything when Steve locked the door behind him – double checking the locks, and then pausing before checking them again. “Do you want a tea or something?” Steve asked. “Sorry, I’ve got no coffee in the house – trying to cut back on caffeine.”
“Hmm?” Bucky said, obviously trying not to look like he was checking out Steve’s place. He was suddenly very aware of the lack of ‘personal touches’ that made up a persons home. Sure, he had taken the time to sand the floors and all the woodwork, and the walls were painted a warm honey, but he had no pictures – no family portraits or little trinkets picked up on vacation. For the first time he saw his home as other people might see it, a shell.
“I like what you’ve done.” Bucky said, suddenly, looking at Steve. “I’ve got damp and mould and boxes right now.” He grinned, and…
Oh. He was quite attractive.
Quite a bit attractive.
“I think my place is haunted.” Bucky said, once Steve handed him the mug of lemon tea – he’d even put a slice of lemon in the water, which looked a little fancy and Steve was aware that he was utterly pathetic by trying to flirt via lemon slices. It actually took a few seconds for his words to work through Steve’s mind.
“Haunted?” He repeated, dumbly, before frowning.
“Look,” Bucky said, holding up his hand in surrender. “I know. I already spent the better part of 7 hours trying to tell myself that I’m hearing things, and I’m still fucking hearing them.” Bucky carried on. “It’s not rats, I know what rats sound like, trust me. It’s not the fucking wind, because I’ve checked every seal in the house – and it’s not a squatter in the attic.” He took a sip of the tea and looked at the floor. “I’m going mad, aint I?” He asked. “I’ve been back for a year and I’ve lost it.”
“I’ve been back for two and I’m still pretty sure most days that I’m going to wake up back on base, chewing sand.” Steve admitted. “But I’m pretty sure if you’re hearing things, then there is something to hear.” He looked around. “I can come over and take a look, if you don’t mind?”
The house smelt stale, unlived in – and familiar to Steve. He’d been in so many abandoned homes and buildings throughout his career that it was a second nature to him. He could tell where Bucky had tried to open up the windows to get some life back into the place, and could see the boxes that he’d piled up in perfectly neat lines, black marker written on the side of each box. Organised, deliberate. Not the kind of person who would normally admit to thinking that their house was haunted.
The light fixtures hadn’t been put up, so the bare bulbs threw a harsh light all around – highlighting the problem areas, cracking paint and wallpaper peeling off a little at one side of the living room. “Okay.” Bucky said, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder to stop him. “Wait for it.”
Steve stood, holding himself still almost immediately. He wasn’t sure how long they stood for, but the sun had set and the house was in the semi darkness of twilight. Bucky hadn’t moved either, standing just to the left of Steve in a firm parade rest.
Then, in the silence, Steve heard something.
Neither of them moved, training and practice keeping them still, but Steve was sure that Bucky heard it by the sudden tension in the air. The sound was… eerie.
A muffled dragging sound, Steve’s mind filled in the blacks easy enough. Someone dragging a bag, a body, across the wooden floors. But lighter, a ghost of a sound, his mid supplied, which wasn’t helpful at all.
Then silence – followed by a rapid ‘rat-a-tat’ of pins on the floor. Steve tensed, hand reaching for the gun he wasn’t carrying, and he could feel Bucky tense beside him. He pointed up, and Steve nodded, already knowing the layout of the house that was identical to his. He crept forward, still only wearing his socks and Bucky in his bare feet, they made no sound for two rather large men. The sound didn’t seem to get any louder as they climbed the stairs, Steve leading slowly – measuring each step.
Then he heard it.
A chuff-chuff followed by the ‘drag-thump’ and then utter silence.
Four two hours they crept around the house, searched every room, the rodent traps and the eves of the attic, the boxes in the basement that had been there since before Bucky moved in, and they found nothing. They’d heard a lot. Like, way more noises than Steve had expected, and although once they were pretty sure one of them had just been the wind, the howl through the house made both of them jump.
“I’m not going crazy, right?” Bucky asked, sitting on Steve’s back porch looking over at the darkened house. He’d put on a pair of shoes, but had kicked them off before walking back through Steve’s hallway to the kitchen. Steve wasn’t sure why he found that a little endearing, that Bucky wouldn’t wear shoes in the house. It certainly wasn’t something Steve ever thought about. They’d decided, almost as a unit, to drink the coffee on the porch. The house on the left was dark and looked seriously more spooky now that Steve was half way convinced that, yeah, it was actually haunted.
“No, I don’t think so.” Steve hedged. “I mean, we’re both grown men. We checked everywhere.” He admitted. The house did look a bit foreboding. “I think we’d be better to check in the morning.” He finished. Trying to do anything in the darkness was a stupid idea.
“I’m gonna book a room then.” Bucky said, nodding. “I’m won’t be able to sleep there till I know it’s been checked.”
“You can stay here.” Steve suggested. “I’ve got a spare room. It’s clean.” He added – not feeling like it was necessary to mention that he’d spent four hours the previous day washing the already spotless carpet. There were still parts of the house that never lost the smell of cleaning products.
“That’s not such a great idea.” Bucky said, eyes flicking up and down Steve’s seated form. It probably didn’t mean anything, but it still made Steve a little hot under the skin. He knew that Bucky wasn’t really checking him out, but it was nice to think.
Steve wasn’t about to be deterred though. “Why not?” He asked, taking another sip of his hot drink. “I mean, it’s gonna be a helluva lot easier than a hotel room.”
“I don’t sleep right.” Bucky said, eyes fixed on the darkness of his own house. “I um, I have dreams.”
“Is that all?” Steve asked, and then realised that he sounded like a total jerk. “I mean… uh… I don’t sleep much. At all, really.” He said. “Um, since I got back. I might keep you up.”
It was somewhere in the back of his mind that he might actually sleep better with another person in the house. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought that it would fix him. Even just for the night.
It didn’t.
He slowly became aware of his surroundings – it edged around the darkness that overtook his vision like smoke. He was sitting on the steps outside of his own home, wearing a pair of sleep pants and nothing else, the cold night air seeping into his skin. He could hear someone talking.
“He gets like this, sometimes.” A voice said, older, calm. “Sometimes he gets a bit lost in his own head.”
“Does he go to meetings?”
“Non. He cleans.”
“Cleans?”
“Very clean.” The older voice said, “But nothing to worry about, hmm?”
“I think it’s something to worry about.” The younger voice said, slowly, like he was explaining something to a child. “It’s not… it’s not a good idea to leave him like this.”
“Ah, but we watch out for him.” The older man, Jacques, said. “He’s a very private man.” There was a shuffle of feet. “See, now he comes back to you, and so I go back to sleep.”
“Sorry for waking you.”
“Pah, it is nothing.”
“And that’s how I lost my arm.” Bucky was saying, when Steve was finally, finally, able to blink himself back to the here and now. “I keep in touch with her, though.” He was saying, “Cause you never know when you’ll need a favour from Spatznav.”
Steve swallowed. There was a lightning of the sky which probably meant he’d been on the steps most of the night. His ass was numb. “Sorry.” He said, although it came out more of a croak. He swallowed. “Sorry.” He tried again.
“Hell, it’s nothing.” Bucky said, and if he was surprised to see Steve being more aware, he didn’t show it. He was wearing the same thing he’d seen when Steve had wished him a good night and gone to his own room. A glass of water sitting as his feet, which he handed to Steve. “I wouldn’t have asked you to check the house if I thought it was going to trigger you.”
“It wasn’t the house.” Steve said, after taking a drink. “It’s… um… sleeping. I – I was in a crash, you know? In the water. When they pulled me out, I had something called ‘locked in syndrome’.” He added. “It’s um, it’s when…”
“I know what it is.” Bucky said, quietly. “For how long?”
“About a week. I mean… they knew I was awake – they were all really great about it, talking to me and everything, but… sleeping just… I get panicked. I’m really sorry for keeping you up all night.”
Bucky frowned. “Seriously, it’s not an issue.” He returned. “The old guy next door, he, uh, says you get like this sometimes.”
“Mr Dernier.” Steve supplied. “He, uh, he helped me out last time.”
“He seemed alright.”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Uh, he lives next door, and over the street, that’s Gabe Jones’ place. His wife Mary’ll make you a casserole and mother you relentlessly. They’ve got four granddaughters who come around a lot. Single granddaughters.”
“Ah.” Bucky nodded. “Then I’m relying on you to give them the ‘super gay’ chat, so I don’t have to.”
Steve paused. “Uh, I can’t do that.” He said, and saw Bucky pull away a little, looking worried – like maybe Steve had a problem with that. “I mean, uh, I can’t do that because I already used that excuse.” He quickly added. “Um, they have a grandson too – Tripplet. He’s nice.”
“Cute?”
“Yeah.”
“Cuter than you?” Bucky grinned, and… oh. Oh. Steve maybe hadn’t been imagining the once over Bucky had shot him earlier.
“Um…” He paused. “No.” He said, giving Bucky a slight smile. “Definitely not.”
Bucky grinned. Steve quite liked that grin.
Steve was cleaning the windows when Bucky sauntered over to him. “So,” He started, holding his mobile phone in his hand. “I might be outta your hair sooner than you thought.”
Bucky had been sleeping in Steve’s spare room for a week. They’d checked the house over a hundred times, still not finding the source of the weird noises, but getting quite a bit of work done in the process. Steve had cleaned everywhere, even though a few times Bucky had to come and gently remind him that he’d been doing the same spot for a bit longer than he needed to – while Bucky painted and got himself settled in.
“Oh yeah?” He managed, trying not to sound too disappointed. Although they certainly weren’t sleeping together, they’d done enough making out on the couch to put an entire high school to shame. Steve had liked it, liked it a lot. Especially since Bucky had obviously no intention of keeping in hidden, kissing him pretty much whenever he felt like it – Jacques made a comment that the old ladies were far from shocked after seeing Steve and Bucky holding hands in the grocery store.
“Yes, they think two strapping lads kissing is quite the thing, hm?” He’d smirked as Steve blushed and Bucky smirked back. “Putting us old men to shame no matter what.” He laughed.
But of course, Steve knew Bucky wasn’t going to be living with him. “How so?”
“It’s a possum.” Bucky grinned, suddenly. “Living in the space between the walls. The guy was here earlier when you were out being fit.”
“It’s just a jog.” Steve grinned, climbing off the ladder he’d been standing on to reach the top of the windows and wiping his hands on his jeans.
“It’s unnecessary.” Bucky countered, walking up into his personal space. “Cause we could have been making out some more.”
“Hmmm.” Steve replied, before stealing a quick kiss.
“So,” The dark-haired man said, pulling back a little. “Since we’ve no longer got the ‘temporary living together’ thing in our favour, I guess I gotta up my game a bit, and ask you out properly.”
“You could do that.” Steve agreed, grinning.
“You wanna go out on a date, Steve?” Bucky said, looking serious. “Wear something nice and play footsie under the table?”
Steve wasn’t sure why Bucky stuck with him. Although Bucky did have trouble sleeping – nightmares that interrupted what little sleep Steve actually got – Steve thought he was pretty much well adjusted. It was Steve who was the wreck, Steve who lost time in tasks, or sat up all night, or panicked at a car backfiring.
“Uh,” He started, and didn’t miss the way Bucky’s face fell just a little, before he grinned a little to cover it. “I um, I don’t do so great in new places.” He admitted, slowly. “But… I do wanna date you.”
“Tell you what.” Bucky grinned, “There is this little place, really quiet, right beside the VA. You could sit in on my group while I worked through my shit and then we could eat.”
Steve grimaced. Bucky had been trying to get him to attend the VA group sessions daily since he saw just how fucked up Steve was. Steve, of course, didn’t want to talk about it to people he didn’t know – it sounded like his idea of hell.
“Look,” Bucky said, holding up his hands. “Sam is a great guy, you don’t have to say anything, and I promise I’ll be right there – I won’t leave you with people you didn’t know.”
After six months of dating, taking it so slow that Steve wasn’t sure if they were going backwards at some point, Steve finally spoke up at one of Bucky’s meetings. Their meetings, technically he supposed – he’d been going to them twice a week. Date nights, Bucky called them. After each meeting they’d go out to the small family run restaurant and Bucky would run his foot up the inside of Steve’s calf as they ate, and Steve would blush and try to hide the fact he was half hard in his jeans.
He never really managed it, and Bucky would drive them home with one hand on his knee, fingers running up and down the inside seam of his jeans and keeping Steve on edge just enough to drive him insane.
The car wasn’t quite big enough for two fully grown men to get fresh in the back seat, but that didn’t stop them.