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It’s not everyday the love of your life that slipped from between your fingers re enters into it. But, then again, it isn’t everyday you survive being frozen in a block of ice for seventy years either. Steve feels like his life has had far more excitement than it should have been allowed.
As he sits in the plush chair in their living room, Bucky is sprawled out on the couch, asleep. His arm is above his head, his other wrapped around his middle. He’s on his side just slightly, the blanket draped over his lower half. A sliver of skin peeks out from beneath it just where his t-shirt is rolled up with sleep. He’s the most beautiful, captivating, precious thing that Steve has ever seen.
As his fancy colored pencils (Bucky insisted on buying Steve, telling him, “life is too long and too short not to buy whatever you want to be happy.”) sweep across the sketchpad, the lines they create take shape to Bucky’s sleeping form. This isn’t the first time Steve has ever drawn Bucky, and it certainly won’t be the last. Yet, each time he does, he can’t believe how much essence of Bucky he misses in his artwork. There is something about Bucky that the pages, the photographs, the freezes and locks into time just cannot capture.
Steve knows this is love. That big word that gets tossed around so easily. The word people sometimes dread to hear but will say it to a random person drunk in a bar. It’s a word so complicated, but it drops so hard every time it slips between somebody’s lips.
“I love your outfit!” Steve will love his outfit for the rest of the day, feeling extra confident.
“I love your hair!” Steve will play with his hair the rest of the day, feeling extra confident.
“I love you.” Steve will freeze and time will stop, feeling extra terrified.
Steve remembers when he realized he loved Bucky. Not the way he loved their friendship, that was nothing compared to when it became something more. Saying love in their friendship was the easiest the word ever rolled off his tongue.
It was the way the word popped into his head when he was looking at Bucky. He had been gelling his hair back, getting ready to go on a date with a redhead named Dot. It wasn’t their first date, but Steve wanted it to be their last. Bucky liked her, liked the way she smelled like daffodils all the time and the way she flipped her hair when Bucky made her mad.
Steve hated to see the way Bucky radiated around her when he used to just radiate around Steve.
He had been watching Bucky, and in his head, he blurted out, “I love this man.” And then suddenly, he was frozen to the bed. It was in his head, Bucky didn’t even hear it, but he wanted the bed to open up and teleport him to a new dimension. How could he love his best friend? How could he be jealous of the woman who got to hold his hand and kiss him?
Steve stopped saying he loved Bucky for a long time.
But then it hurt Bucky.
Bucky always told Steve he loved him, but it hurt too much knowing it just wasn’t the same. Would never be the same. And when Steve stopped saying it? Well, he started to say it even more. Any chance he got it was, “I love you, Stevie.” and “You know I love you, right Steve?” Each time, Steve would nod, say “of course,” and smile. The smile hurt and the tears burned behind his eyes but they never came forward. Even they didn’t understand yet understood all the same. It was love. One sided, hopeless love.
And Steve, the day he watched Bucky fall to his tortured future, said “I love you.” But Bucky didn’t hear it. He was already too far gone.
Steve still hasn’t forgiven himself.
Even when he got Bucky back and the first words he said were “I love you,” he still didn’t forgive himself.
If anything, he’s only grown to love Bucky more. The strength the man possesses cannot be overlooked. Steve watched the shell of a man blossom into the most beautiful thing the earth has created. Human life is fascinating; Bucky’s growth through years of the most tortuous of tortures proves positive.
Steve looks up from his drawing and watches the slow rise and fall of Bucky’s chest. “Precious,” He mumbles, looking back down toward his sketchpad. “I love you.” Steve breathes out, letting his tone of voice seep with admiration and years of longing.
But then a startled noise and a “What?” comes from what was once Bucky’s sleeping form. Steve panics, looking up from his drawing with wide eyes. “You… love me?”
“Of course,” Steve says. He can save this. He needs to save this. “I’ve always loved you.”
“You’ve never,” Bucky rubs at his eyes. “You’ve never said it like that.”
“Sure I have!” Steve laughs nervously, lying through his teeth. He curses himself for being the world's worst liar.
“You’ve--” Bucky’s voice cracks. Steve quickly sets his art supplies down on the floor by the chair. “You haven’t said you love me in years.” The words are barely above a whisper as Bucky presses his palms into his eyes.
There’s an itch, a pull to go sit by Bucky. To hug him, kiss the side of his head, to keep saying he loves him until his last breath. But Steve’s frozen to the chair, mouth opening and shutting as it tries to find words.
Silence hangs heavy over them. When Bucky removes his hands from his eyes, they’re red rimmed with tears and glossy as glass. “You’ve loved me all this time?”
“Bucky--”
“Answer me,” he croaks.
It’s now or never. The truth is… it’s already been revealed without the words needed to be said. Bucky is looking for clarification now, but the level of clarification Steve doesn’t know. Is he looking to clarify to know he needs to leave their shared apartment? Is he looking to clarify because he feels the same way? Could Bucky feel the same way?
Steve’s head swims and he just stares back into Bucky’s raw eyes. The emotion swimming in the eyes he’s stared into his whole life. The blue eyes that crinkled when he would laugh and throw an arm around Steve’s shoulders. The blue eyes that wandered to watch a woman walking past them. The blue eyes that became Steve’s home at a young age and never stopped.
“Do you, what kind of love do you think it is?” Steve asks, a single tear rolling down his cheek.
It’s Bucky who makes the move, gets up and crosses the short distance and kneels down before Steve. Both his hands squeeze his thighs, grounding him as he looks down at the floor between them. “The kind that warrants the word.”
Steve just nods, nods as Bucky looks up and keeps nodding as Bucky rises up and pushes himself into Steve’s lap. “I do,” Steve whispers. “I love you.”
Bucky’s hands trail up Steve’s neck and cup his face. The cool metal sends a pleasant chill through his sweaty, nerve ridden skin. “You love me?”
“So much,” Steve breathes out.
He has never been able to stop himself from falling apart before Bucky. The way Bucky looks at him, but in him, looking at his exposed soul as if it’s the part of Steve that walks the earth. Steve falls apart. He lets out a broken sob. Bucky’s thumbs rub underneath Steve’s eyes, the tears catching on his fingers and dissolving.
Bucky presses his forehead to Steve’s. “I love you, too.”
The world stops. The lights go black. There is Bucky, only Bucky. His eyes start to twinkle with love. A twinkle Steve’s seen a thousand times and is just now seeing for the first time.
A love that has lasted decades suppressed between eyelids, trapped inside minds.
“I love you,” Bucky wetly laughs. “I love you.”
Steve shakes his head, reaching his lips up to connect with Bucky’s. They’re softer than Steve imagined and salty with Bucky’s tears. Their kiss is soft, full of passion and words unspoken for years and years. It’s perfect. It’s everything. It’s overwhelming.
Gripping Bucky’s waist, Steve pulls him closer. Bucky’s fingers glide up and down Steve’s chest. “I love you,” Steve breathlessly says as he pulls away.
Nuzzling into Steve’s neck, Bucky chuckles. “I’ve loved you so long. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me,” Steve retorts.
The answer looms over them, neither one wanting to speak the words into existence. Instead, Bucky peers over the side of the chair. “You were sketching me?” He asks, lips quirking up into a smirk.
Reaching down, Steve picks up the sketchbook. Bucky leans against him, his eyes tracing the detailing. “Wow.”
“Sorry,” Steve blushes. “I promise I don’t just draw you when you sleep.”
“You draw me often, Stevie?” Bucky runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, curling strands around his fingers.
Steve nods, the blush spreading down his neck. “You’re my muse.”
“And you,” Bucky kisses Steve’s nose. “You’re my love.”