Work Text:
Photo-booth Picture, Brooklyn Heights 1937 (dated on the back) Private Collection.
“Can you hand me my phone now that you are up, please? I left it on the kitchen counter.” Bucky asks the second he pauses the movie they’re watching to get up from the couch to grab a glass of water.
“I don’t know if your dependence on that thing is something to celebrate or to be worried about when considering your adjustment to this century.” Steve chuckles, walking back to his spot on the couch beside Bucky, the phone’s screen lighting up with a notification while he’s still holding it. “You may wanna check the Instagram DM you just got from the Brooklyn Historical Society, because I bet you’re getting sued for liking too many of their posts.”
“You little sh…” Bucky starts talking as he grabs the phone from his hands, but he doesn’t finish the sentence, suddenly too focused on the tiny screen while reading in silence.
“Steve, dear, I think you should read this.”
Bucky hands it back to him, and maybe Steve should be worried about those words combined with the pet-name so soon after almost being insulted, but Bucky’s face is relaxed, and he’s smiling, so he knows I can’t be that bad.
“Before you start reading, though, please remember whose idea it was.”
“Whose idea was what?”
Bucky doesn’t answer, just smirks and gets closer to him. Steve can feel his eyes on him as he looks at the DM.
Dear Mr Barnes: Please excuse this unsolicited message, but since you support the historic society, we hope it won’t be much of an intrusion and even good news.
A woman named Olive Morgan sent us the picture that follows this DM a couple of days ago, hoping that we could contact you about it, since she realized you follow us on here on Instagram.
She firmly believes that the picture belongs to you and Captain Rogers and, after double-checking it ourselves, we can’t help but agree with her conclusion.
Miss Morgan claims that she found it inside a suitcase with the initials “SGR” on the side, that’s filled with pictures and letters. Her late grandfather used to travel around the flea-market circuit with a vintage pictures’ stall back in the 60s, and the suitcase was laying in her parents’ attic amongst his possessions.
Can you confirm if this is, in fact, yours? She told us that, if that’s the case, she’d like nothing more than to return all your presumed belongings to you both.
We could pass along any message or information you want us to, or send you her contact details, so you can talk to her directly.
She was also very insistent about letting you both know she hasn’t checked the rest of the pictures or letters, and that she has kept this discovery a secret even from her own family, just in case it may bother you. No need to say that you can expect the same discretion from us, too.
Please find the picture attached and let us know how to proceed about this. Best regards, and thank you for your continuous support, it’s an honor.
Steve smiles as he takes a deep breath.
He remembers the brown suitcase with his initial that Bucky bought him as a present (as a promise) on his twentieth birthday; remembers hurriedly collecting their most precious things (their most tangible memories) to lock them inside it for safekeeping before he went on the USO tour; remembers thinking about it and the rest of their few belongings when he was sent to war.
Steve remembers longing for it when he lost Bucky for the first time.
He remembers constantly thinking about it when he came back from the ice, constantly missing it as much as any of the other big, lost pieces of his life, because he didn’t even have the keepsakes to touch and ground him in, not beyond Bucky looking at him from his compass.
Steve looks at the picture after the message, and the sad memories take a back seat as his smile widens. Yes, he remembers that too.
“Well, you were not wrong, Buck: that picture was my idea.” He laughs, and snuggles against Bucky, who welcomes him by moving his vibranium arm over his head to pull him even closer to his body.
Both of them look at the screen in silent remembrance for a few seconds, their heartbeats synching.
“I know I pushed you into that booth instead of the hot dog stand, and…”
“And I went hungry all day, don’t sugar coat it.” Bucky cuts in. “I believe people in Jersey could hear the sounds that came from my poor stomach.” He pauses, and looks at him with a smirk. “Damn my inability to say no to you, Rogers.”
He laughs louder at the accusation, but Bucky is not lying. Steve had seen “Four-minutes picture booths” popping up all over the city for years and people going crazy over having their picture taken, but he had never had any desire to invest the scarce money he had in a picture of him. Not until he unintentionally listened to two of his neighbor's teenage daughters giggling over a picture strip while whispering about forbidden kisses, necking, and a love that would last forever.
“I’ll have you know that it was planned, too. You might have thought we were on a non-date to get our bellies full and our good suits stained with mayo, but the truth is that I just wanted to kiss you in front of a camera.” He confesses.
“You kinky punk.” Bucky smiles and kisses him on the temple. “But… well, you know how they always say ‘take a picture, it’ll last longer’?”
Bucky pauses, and the way he focuses his sight on him goes straight to Steve’s gut.
“Your thankfully required teenage crush on your best friend is still going strong, Rogers,” he says to himself, managing to nod at Bucky.
“Well, that hot dog was probably delicious, but with your current massive weight crushing my ribs right now, it’s way better to have a reminder of how small you used to be,” Bucky tells him. “Small, beautiful, strong, and stupidly stubborn… and everything but small remains the same, in case you’re curious.”
“And you look just the same.” Steve blurts out. “Minus the poor-boy hat. I despised that thing.”
“You’re delirious, Steve, and not just because of your irrational hate on my very nice hat. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m lacking one arm, I have tiny wrinkles all around my eyes, and my baggage is heavier than Mjölnir, I a-”
“You still look at me the same way, Buck. You were the only one who saw me back then, and I was the luckiest person alive because you were the only one who mattered.”
That undeniable truth shuts Bucky up for a full minute, and Steve is proud that it did, because even when he can feel it every day, seeing that look on a picture is a nice reminder.
“Fine, you win, sap.” Bucky jokes, getting himself together. “Will you kiss me now, or do you need cameras pointing at you to feel something? Because luckily, that can be easily arranged in these joyful times we’re livi-”
Steve shuts him up again, this time with a kiss, and it leads to lazy kisses on their couch. Movie, water and phone forgotten for a while.
It’s just them, their kissing, and the promise of a suitcase full of little pieces of themselves shining like a beacon on the back of his mind.