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Bucky lingers around the room, moving and moving back the end table lamp. His fingers tap against the side of the base, the chipped yellow wood rough beneath his skin. Glancing back at the door, Bucky bites his lip. Why was Steve’s key not clicking in the door lock? Why were Steve’s feet not stomping up to the doorway? Why was Steve not home ?
Shaking his head, Bucky turns around and faces the lamp. Everything is fine. Eventually, Steve would be home. Sitting down on the couch, he props his feet up on their coffee table. There’s nothing for him to do. All he can do is worry about Steve. Bucky purses his lips, Steve, the little shit.
Time ticks by and Bucky just sits and waits and grows more and more anxious. Until finally, the click of Steve’s key as it turns in the lock comes through and he walks inside nonchalantly. As Bucky goes to speak, Steve just walks right past him and into the kitchen.
Bucky cocks his head as he stands up. “Hi there, Stevie,” he says, following Steve into the kitchen where his face is buried in their mug cupboard. When Steve makes no move to turn around, Bucky carefully wraps a hand around his waist. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Steve leans slightly into the touch.
Taking advantage of the touch, Bucky spins him around to face him. Giving him a once over, he catches a glimpse of purple along the side of Steve’s bare arm. Eyes widening, he turns Steve to fully face him and steps back, holding him at arm's length, and traces him up and down fully. He has no other marks except for an ugly bruise forming on his arm, a slight cut lined in the center of it.
“Uh, Stevie… where’d you get that wound?” Bucky’s voice is soft laced with poison. He knows it.
Steve knows it too. He doesn’t even try to meet Bucky’s eye. Instead, he slips from Bucky’s grasp and walks past him and out of the kitchen.
Bucky blinks, staring at the space where Steve had been standing. “O-Okay?” Bucky turns around on his heel. “We can uh… we can try again.” He follows Steve out of the kitchen, snagging the first aid kit and an ice pack on the way.
Steve is now sitting in their plush recliner, feet propped up and a book in his hand. He doesn’t look up when Bucky enters, continues to not look up as Bucky clears his throat to announce himself.
“Where’d you get that wound?”
Steve glances up, bats his ridiculously long lashes over his bright blue eyes, and looks back down at his book. Waiting a beat, he leans forward and pulls the blanket from the couch. Steve sets his book down, looks Bucky in the eyes, and wraps the blanket around his body- his arm now covered with the plush blue fabric.
Okay, Bucky thinks. Two can play at this game. Sitting down on the couch, he reaches over to grab a book of his own. He opens it to a random page, glancing over the top to look at Steve. Steve, who’s eyes remain unmoving on the page before his own.
It’s moments like this that get under his skin the most. The way Steve can just… be Steve. Be dramatic and give Bucky the cold shoulder for simply caring. But Bucky was stronger. He could play Steve’s game. He wouldn’t cave, no. He would sit and wait for the silence to overwhelm Steve first.
Minutes tick by. Bucky loses count after five. Rolling his eyes, his fingers grip around the book, the same page staring at him. He’s too impatient, too worried to know how Steve got hurt. Bucky slams his book shut and drops it down next to him on the couch.
“You going to answer me?” Bucky snaps.
Silence.
Bucky shoves his tongue into his cheek and gets up. Pacing by the couch, he puts both hands on his hips. Squeezing his hip bones lightly, his tongue presses into his other cheek. He huffs a breath, he clicks his tongue. Steve will not look up. Steve will not speak.
Bucky sucks in a breath. “Can you answer me?” As an afterthought, he says an exasperated, “Please.”
Steve looks up. “I did respond… with silence.”
Bucky holds his hands up in front of him, his fingers slowly closing into a fist as he processes Steve’s response- if he even wants to call it that. “You’re kidding, right?”
Steve shrugs a shoulder and sets his book down on the table. “I mean, I wasn’t ignoring you or anything.”
Bucky’s eyes practically bulge from his head. “I’m pretty sure ‘responding with silence’ is ignoring.”
Shaking his head, Steve gives Bucky a cocky look. “Only to you.”
“I think the world,” Bucky’s bobbing his head as he speaks. Moving his arms in circles, he continues, “the world would agree with me.”
Steve leans back into the chair and crosses his legs. “Whatever.”
Raking his hair back, Bucky sits on the edge of the coffee table in front of Steve. “Tell me what happened. Please?”
Steve sighs, sitting up. “I got into a fight.”
“And?”
“That’s it.”
Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose.
“This isn’t new ,” Steve says before Bucky can even attempt to utter a response. “You act like I’ve never come home with a bruise.”
This was true. More nights out of the week than not, Steve would come home with something on him to indicate he got into some altercation. Sometimes it would be a slightly ripped shirt sleeve, other times it would be a nasty bruise.
It scared Bucky every single time he walked through the door not looking like he did when he left. Steve was…precious in Bucky’s eyes. Not that Bucky would ever tell him in a way that made Steve feel weak. Steve was far from weak. He would tell Steve he was the strongest man alive and mean it. Because it was- is -true.
That didn’t mean people wouldn’t hurt Steve. Wouldn’t try to do purposeful, permanent damage. This was proved time and time again to Bucky. Like the time Steve had limped through the doorway and practically collapsed into Bucky’s arms.
A small shiver races through him. Bucky had thought it was over then. The way Steve became dependent on Bucky to just walk into the bathroom to clean off. The tears that had streamed down Bucky’s face as he ran the bar of soap over Steve’s purpling ivory skin. The way Steve’s breathing wasn’t at full strength. Tears started to spring into his eyes in the present moment. Quickly, Bucky blinks them back.
That was why now, each time Steve comes home, he always spares glances at different parts of him to make sure he’s okay. It isn’t like he has to tell Bucky about being in a fight, Bucky can always tell. And if Steve didn’t want to talk about it, they wouldn’t.
But the bruise was now once again exposed because Steve had let the blanket fall. It was ugly, growing a dark shade of purple as the cut began looking deeper the longer Bucky stared at it.
“I’m okay.” Steve places a hand on Bucky’s knee. “I don’t mean to scare you.”
Sniffling, Bucky clears his throat. “Just…” He shakes his head. “What happened?”
Turning away, Steve bites his lip. “I was walking home and there was a flower stand. They were out of lilies, so I kept walking. But this guy just… he started to try to steal the flowers. So, I turned around.”
Bucky places his hand on Steve’s knee and softly strokes his thumb. “Of course you did,” He says fondly.
Steve chuckles. “Anyway, he had roses and he started hitting me with them. His fist hit me pretty hard in the arm and the thorns made the cut.” Turning, Steve holds his arm out toward Bucky and looks down at it himself. “It’s not too bad.”
“No.” Bucky gently moves Steve’s arm to take a closer look. “No, but it could have been. Over flowers. Mind you, I’m worried about you, and this is over flowers.”
“Yep.”
“Wow.” Bucky mouths. “Anything could have happened to you, Stevie. And I assumed the worst.”
“Don’t get caught up on the ‘what ifs’ and ‘could have beens’ and instead, be grateful for what did happen.”
Bucky looks up and meets Steve’s eye. “If something happens to you,”
“Which it won’t.”
“ If anything does, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”
“Buck,” Steve sighs, moving Bucky’s legs. “It’d never be your fault.”
Opening his arms, Bucky accepts Steve as he starts to curl up into Bucky’s lap. Slowly, he traces his fingertips up the expanse of skin on Steve’s slender back, slipping his hand underneath his thin t-shirt. “I should be able to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“Never said you did.” Bucky says for the millionth time in his lifetime. Afterall, this conversation is a weekly one. “I love you, Stevie. I have to protect you for myself more than anything else. I know you don’t need me to, but I have to.”
Steve smiles, pressing a sweet kiss to Bucky’s jawline. “Your worrying isn’t necessary though.”
“Well,” Bucky says, looking down at Steve with an eyebrow raised. “When you ‘answer’ with ‘silence’, how am I supposed to be calm?”
Steve shrugs, a wide grin on his face. “You just… be.”
Bucky leans his head on top of Steve’s. “How about you let me clean the cut and wrap some ice on it?”
Steve hums as if contemplating. “What’s in it for me?”
“I cuddle you tonight.”
“Try again.” Steve laughs. “We both know that’ll happen either way.”
Bucky laughs too because he knows Steve is right. “We could pack a cold dinner and go watch the sunset on the pier? But, only if we do it now.” Looking out the window, Bucky places a kiss to the top of Steve’s head and adds, “And we have to do it now. The sun won’t wait for us.”
Steve perks up, his fingers playing with the buttons of Bucky’s shirt. “Lucky for us, it sounds like the perfect deal to me.”