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Bucky
“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” Steve says it so casually, just the edge of a smirk.
As if he isn’t about to get whisked away into time. As if he isn’t one misstep from fucking up their entire reality.
As if he’s going to come back.
Don’t you do anything stupid while you’re gone, Bucky wants to say, but that’s not his line. Don’t they have anyone more subtle? He wants to say, and what he would really mean is don’t they have anyone who I love a little bit less? But neither of those are his lines either. He has what he feels like is probably a majority of his memories back by now, and this one is always stuck at the forefront of his mind, stapled there—the first time, but not the last time, he had to say goodbye to Steve.
Now he has to say goodbye again.
“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” He doesn’t say it with the bravado that Steve did, narrow smile and clever eyes. He says it softly and slowly, as if he’s saying something else entirely. He is saying something else entirely. Steve just doesn’t hear him saying it.
He hugs Steve, and through his flimsy jacket, he can feel the hard material of Steve’s uniform digging into him. He lets go and steps back, making the hug short and almost perfunctory, because suddenly he wants to run so he doesn’t have to see Steve go, suddenly he can’t breathe, suddenly he can’t stand it, that Steve is leaving.
Steve takes a step back, mirroring Bucky, his footsteps cracking on the leaves and sticks on the path beneath their feet.
Bucky drinks him in this one last time: straw-colored hair, smile lines, his heavy brows and his expressive blue eyes. He can remember, as if it was yesterday, Steve before the serum, all skinny waist, narrow shoulders, spitfire and smart as a whip. He remembers Steve today—kinder, warmer, determined, his will set in stone. He loved Steve before. He loves Steve now.
He doesn’t know what Steve will be like when he comes back, only that he won’t be the same.
Stay. That's what he really wants to say. Stay, stay, stay.
And Steve is looking at him too, the forest quiet and the moment all theirs, as if Sam and the hulk aren’t waiting for Steve to step away and do what needs to be done.
“I’m gonna miss you, buddy,” he whispers, because a whisper is all that he can get out of his throat.
“It’s gonna be okay, Buck.” You’re gonna be okay is what Steve means. You’re gonna be okay without me.
No, it’s not. No, I won’t. No, not without you. But that’s still not Bucky’s line.
Steve woke up in 2011 and found himself in love with a woman who had lived life and grown old. Someone who was glad of what they had together but also of what they had apart—even though Steve hadn’t lived those years. Even though Steve would’ve lived them with her.
Now Steve can.
And now it’s Bucky’s turn to live in a timeline that sets him irrevocably apart from the person he loves.
He can do it for Steve, he tells himself as Steve climbs the steps up to the platform, turning on the red-and-white suit that envelopes him in the blink of an eye.
Steve deserves it.
There’s a solemn nod, Steve lifting the hammer, the clicks of the Hulk’s—Bruce’s—little buttons on the time machine that Bucky can’t begin to understand.
Sam’s asking how long it’ll take.
“For him? As long as he needs. For us, five seconds.”
As long as he needs.
A hell of a lot longer than five seconds. Try five decades.
Bucky sticks his hands in his pockets to hide the way they shake and gives Steve a nod as Steve picks up the hammer, his expression serious, focused. He’s the Winter Soldier, a spy and a supersoldier like the world has never seen. He can keep it the fuck together, even with three very big words pressed to the back of his throat, trying their damned best to pry his mouth open.
He has to keep it the fuck together, because he can tell Steve is a breath, a word away from changing his mind.
Steve deserves it, he thinks over and over, Steve deserves it.
Bruce counts down, still clicking buttons. “Going quantum in three… two… one…”
There’s a flash. In the space between one second and the next, Steve is gone.
Bucky opens his mouth and says it to the air, quietly enough that only he can hear it. “I love you.”
Steve
There’s quiet music playing through the open window of Peggy’s place when Steve rings the doorbell, closing his suit after the time jump.
He’s surprised that the window is open, surprised that the curtains are open, leaving an easy entrance into her house. He’s surprised by the whole thing—living with her friend, pretending to work for a phone company, taking a quiet, charming looking place like this smack in the middle of New York City—but he shouldn’t be. It isn’t as if he hadn’t done his research beforehand. He looked through the records of everything Peggy had done, unable to help himself after Peggy died and all that was left were photos and papers.
And a better world. That was her legacy—a better world.
But one thing to see faded photographs and entirely another to be standing here now, waiting to see if she’s in, living in this loud, busy place with her windows open as if she has nothing to fear, as if her whole career isn’t top secret, every inch of it. He can imagine Peggy telling him that the best way not to draw attention is to act like you’re no different from the rest.
Footsteps sound and locks click, and Steve goes still.
He thought he was ready.
Maybe he’s not.
If he hadn’t been the only Avenger able to lift the hammer—except for Thor, who they all respectfully agreed should not be the one to return the stones—he wouldn’t have come. If he’d had more time to think, maybe he wouldn't have come. If he’d been in a different mood when they’d asked or when he’d synced his little time watch, maybe he wouldn’t have come.
But they’d given him the stones and the hammer and the time frame, and Steve had had a day or two to make a decision that would completely and irreversibly change the course of his life. The timeline of his life.
And the decision had to be made, whether he was ready to make it or not.
So here is his on Peggy’s doorstep, and Peggy’s lock is clicking, the doorknob turning, and second thoughts are racing through his head, when—
“Steve.”
“Peggy.”
She’s got the same rich brown waves, pinned up just so, the same red, red lipstick and sharp eyes. It’s Peggy just as Steve remembers her before he went down in the ice, except instead of a military uniform, she’s wearing a blouse that fits right in with the time and place. Steve bets she can blend right in when she wants to, and stand right out when she doesn’t.
“You’ve got the window down,” Steve says, because nothing else is coming to him. He’s looking at Peggy and he can’t speak, and he’s not sure if the feeling welling in him is good or not, and he doesn’t know how to sort that out, not right now.
Peggy looks at him evenly, as if she’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and opens the door wider. “You’d better come in.” She’s lost her accent for a New York one, just the edge of Brooklyn, but then she says in a kinder voice, “someone might see you,” and her old accent is back, the soft British one that Steve used to turn over in his mouth and smile about at night.
He steps into Peggy’s flat—neat but lived in, rich browns of wooden furniture, off-white of the walls, maroon blankets and pillows. It looks just right, like Peggy has recreated the exact image of what her neighbor’s place might look like. None of Peggy’s papers and pinned notes, none of her thick folders and guns and magazines.
All the signs of a shared residence are scattered about—too many shoes by the front door, a table too big for one, rings on the table for drinks when Peggy and Steve settle across from each other, even though there’s a pile of coasters right there. Steve’s willing to bet Peggy isn’t the one leaving her cup uncoastered on the table.
“I can’t tell you how I got here,” Steve says, because there’s no other way he can figure out how to begin. He’s already thought about this, about what he can and can’t tell her without destroying the world. “I can tell you I’m from the future, but I can’t tell you what that future looks like. And I can tell you that I’m alive.”
He’s not off to a very romantic start.
Peggy shakes her head slowly, a smile turning up one side of her mouth. “What if my house was bugged?”
“Peggy Carter wouldn’t let her house get bugged.”
This gets a real smile out of Peggy, and she crosses her hands in front of her on the dark tabletop, leaning in. “And why are you here, Steve? Have you come to warn me about something that happens in the future?”
Steve swallows. It’s good to see Peggy, better, even, than he’d expected.
But he’d also expected—hoped, really—that he’d find Peggy, and he’d know. He’d know that this was the right choice, coming to her. Asking her if they could try. Or at the very least, he’d know that he was wrong, and then he’d go back.
And… it’s not happening. It’s incredible to see her in the flesh, her hair moving as she turns her head, her eyelashes against her cheeks when she blinks, and Steve thinks he could live the rest of his life with her. He could.
Could is not exactly stunning conviction.
“No,” he says, and looks at Peggy, trying to decide, right now, whether to go through with this. Maybe Peggy’s over him, maybe Peggy doesn’t even love him anymore—but he feels he ought to be sure of his own side before he even asks. “I… I think I owed you a dance.”
He isn’t asking, but understanding flashes through Peggy’s eyes, softening her expression. She straightens again and looks away, something Steve isn’t sure he’s ever seen her do.
Strains of the music playing come through what’s probably the bedroom door as they sit there. He thinks both of them are on the tightrope of deciding.
“Are you here because you love me?” Her eyes are back on him again, sharp as ever, as if she’s trying to dig beneath his skin and find out how he ticks. “Or because I love you?”
Steve’s heart thumps in his chest. It’s such a strange question. He’s not sure why it leaves him at such a loss, but he suddenly can’t suppress the urge to look away. He watches old-school automobiles drive around in busy streets, pumping out pollution, men and women in what would be formal wear for the 2000s but is normal for the time weaving their way past each other.
“I don’t mean it in a vain way. I don’t think you want me to fawn over you, or you’d have chosen a different girl.”
Steve can still feel Peggy’s eyes as she says this, but he doesn’t look back at her. He’s always thought about old New York with a warm fondness, and that warm fondness is returning to him now, but what surprises him is how unusual the street looks to him. Somewhere in there, he got used to the streets of what he previously called the future but somehow became the present day to him.
“What do you mean, then?” Steve asks.
“I mean,” says Peggy, “you go where you think you’re needed.”
This strikes something in Steve’s chest, violently so, and he turns toward Peggy so quickly, he can see her hand jump to her thigh for a moment before she relaxes. Steve doesn’t peek under the table, because that would be—well. But he suspects she has a holster there. He blames his not-noticing on his distraction in seeing her for the first time in years.
“You wanted to help by fighting, but they said they needed you to help by advertising, so you did. You were still helping, even if that’s not how you wanted it to go, do you remember? Prancing about in your ridiculous tights.” Peggy cracks a smile. “I don’t think I ever respected you more, Rogers. I mean that. You hardly have a fatal flaw in your pride. You might even have a fatal flaw in your humility, if that can be a thing.”
Steve raises his eyebrows and ducks his head, murmuring no, no, his go-to response to compliments. Then, realizing this is not helping his case, he amends, “Well—I mean. No, I don’t think so.”
Peggy laughs quietly. “I forgot how much I did love you,” she says, so warmly Steve loses his breath. “But back to the topic at hand. I think—” She says this in a way that makes it very clear she means this is true when she says I think. “—You want someone to give your love to, and you think I want it more.”
Steve frowns and leans forward, elbows on the table. “What do you mean?”
“Bloody hell, I mean your friend Barnes, is he still sewing his mouth shut?”
Every drop of blood in Steve’s body freezes.
Bucky, he thinks. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky.
Bucky has gotten Hydra out of his mind and most of his memories back and adjusted to modern day and even made peace with several Avengers. Made friends with Sam. Connected with Natasha over their trauma from the Red Room. Awkwardly patted Tony on the back and never spoke about it again.
Bucky is his friend, his very best friend, but he has other friends now. He doesn’t need or want as much from Steve as Steve can give to Peggy.
“What did you say?” Steve manages eventually, his voice strained.
“I said you put your heart and soul into dancing around on stage, but you wanted to put your heart and soul into punching Nazis. You told yourself it achieved the same thing. Your dance routine was effective, but not what you wanted.”
“That’s… not what you said.”
“I’m not going to say it again, Steve.” Peggy’s voice is kind, but there’s an edge to it, too. She’s looking hard out the window.
“Barnes… Bucky. James—what do you mean, sewing his mouth shut? How do you even know he’s alive? He fell from the train, remember?” Is there some big secret Bucky’s not telling him that relates to him being alive?
Peggy’s voice becomes something Steve recognises with jolt—her professional voice. Back straight, tone even, as if she’s giving a mission report or a list of orders to a group of rowdy soldiers. “I work with SHIELD, and we’ve been seeing someone they call the Winter Soldier popping up every few years to murder someone very high profile before disappearing again. We identified him as Barnes—and before you ask, we’ve tried our damn best to get him back but he’s impossible to find. I assumed he was still alive in your time, whenever that may be, because the Soldier showed no signs of aging and you have that look on your face.”
“Look?” Steve tries to fix his expression, but he’s not sure what exactly he’s fixing. “You’re still sharp as ever.”
“Your James Barnes look.” Peggy skips right past Steve’s compliment. “Or did I imagine your swooning?”
The door clicks. If New York wasn’t so loud and James Barnes wasn’t ringing in Steve’s ears, he might’ve heard someone coming up the steps, but as it is, he’s lost a few seconds on finding somewhere to hide. He isn’t an idiot—plenty of people know what Captain America looks like.
But Peggy just grabs his forearm and shakes her head, as composed as ever. “She can keep a secret,” she promises.
“...Who is—?” Steve starts to say, just as someone behind him demands, “Who is this man, and why is he in our house, Peg?”
Steve turns, his forearm still in Peggy’s grasp. It’s a blonde woman with soft-looking curls, a thin figure and a face that looks open, even though she’s currently eyeing him warily.
Peggy stands, and so Steve does, too, pulling his arm gently out of Peggy’s hold.
“A friend,” Peggy says, as Steve is working out how, exactly, he should introduce himself. Her eyes are on this roommate of hers, something about her relaxing when the roommate nods and offers a little bit of a smile.
“Steve,” he says, offering his hand, “I hope you don’t mind my barging in.”
“Colleen O-Brien,” the roommate replies, shaking the offered hand. Her hand is steady and firm, and she keeps glancing Peggy’s way, probably hoping for some context. “Another friend. And don’t worry about it, this woman, she has a life. You wouldn’t believe the number of unexpected, odd people that pass through this apartment.”
Steve would, but he doesn’t say it. “Well, I’m just another one of those.”
He looks to Peggy for cues—do they let her stay in the conversation? Should they politely hint that she leave? Should Steve leave?—but Peggy’s looking at Colleen, and the very tops of her cheeks are the edge of pink, and Steve stills.
It’s not that Peggy looks out of her mind in love, it’s just that… well, maybe Steve understands what Peggy means when she talks about Steve’s James Barnes face. She can’t keep her eyes away, and not lavisciously. Rather as if this roommate glows.
“Peggy,” he says slowly, unsure whether it’s reciprocated or even in the open, “You have a James Barnes.”
Peggy’s eyes immediately dart away from Colleen, her jaw setting. She busies herself pushing in the chairs they’ve stood up from, and Steve knows—definitely not open between them. He’s rather familiar with that.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, straightening them further, and then clasping her hands in front of her and sending Steve a sharp look.
“Neither do I,” Colleen laughs, and Steve can see Peggy’s eyes flicker her way for a split second before settling determinedly on Steve again. God, yeah, he’s so familiar with that. “Do you have a date, Peg? I’ve certainly never heard of a James Barnes, but Peggy, she goes places all the time, and I suspect at least some of them must be dates, wouldn’t you reckon, Mr. Rogers?”
Steve ignores Peggy’s look. “Maybe you ought to go on double dates? Are you steady with a lucky man, Miss O’Brien?”
Colleen laughs another light laugh, but it doesn’t sound quite so free this time, and her hand seems to tighten on the table, which she’s leaning against. “Hardly.”
“Well.” Steve’s not sure what to do with this short response, so he pulls out the first line he’s got: “Maybe you just haven’t found the right person to dance with.”
Peggy steps smoothly between them, making her way toward the kitchen. “I’m going to grab some biscuits for us, shall I?”
“Cookies,” Colleen clarifies to Steve, almost confidingly. There’s a fondness to her voice that makes Steve think that maybe… “She’s got her British accent out for you; you must be good friends.”
“You might say that,” Steve replies diplomatically. And then, less diplomatically, “I used that line on her, too, a while back. About meeting the right person.”
Something about Colleen closes off. “Why? Did you think she was the right person?”
The truth is that Steve still loved Bucky. The truth is that he was in love with two people at once, but it was the 1940s and Bucky had a new girl on his arm every night and if he loved two people and could only have one, and Peggy happened to be the one that had even a slight chance of happening, then Peggy was going to have to be the right person. But Steve doesn’t know how to say this, or if this even makes sense, so he just says, “I think it doesn’t matter who, you still have to learn to dance. But she could’ve been.”
“You still have to learn to dance,” Colleen echoes. “The only person I know how to ‘dance’ with is Peg; we’ve been living together for a while. She’s… well I can hardly imagine what living with a husband will be like, but it won’t be like living with her.”
Yeah. It’s definitely there.
Steve stops his beating around the bush, because there’s the clink of plates, and Peggy will be out soon, and he doesn’t know what more of a clue he can get than what Colleen has already said. “Do you think Peggy’s the right partner, then?”
Colleen goes still.
“Drinks for either of you?” comes Peggy’s voice.
Steve calls for water.
Colleen calls for coffee, saying, “You know how I like it!” and without missing a beat, turns to Steve and says lowly, “I know you’re Captain America. If you were thinking of exposing me as a homosexual.”
Steve bites down a smile—this is exactly the girl for Peggy. God, they’re perfect. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m in love with a man.”
That’s when Peggy pushes open the swinging door between the kitchen and the living room with a tray of cookies and drinks for them all, and to her credit, she doesn’t bat an eye when she catches the end of what Steve’s saying. “Biscuits.”
“I actually came to ask Peggy here to marry me, but I think that was the wrong move.” Steve looks at Peggy as he says this, and Peggy smiles back, a bittersweet thing.
“I reckon you were right about that,” she says. “Does that mean you’re going? Or will you drink your water and eat your biscuits?”
Steve elects to stay—only for now—and sits back down in his chair again, inviting Colleen to come sit with them when it’s beginning to look like she’s going to be standing there with a slightly bewildered look on her face until the end of time.
They eat quietly together, Peggy and Steve watching each other, catching eyes and offering half-sad smiles. They both know that they’ll never see each other again, not like this. Steve drinks his water and eats his biscuits, which are, as Colleen said, cookies, as slowly as is believable.
“What’s your man like, then?” Colleen asks, after they’ve been sitting quietly for at least five minutes. “What’s his name?”
“Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. He’s…” What’s your man like? God, what’s Bucky like? You can’t put Bucky into words; he doesn’t take to them. You can’t capture him. He’s made of life and movement, of change, of fighting and adapting, shouting, dancing, grinning, teasing—Bucky is made out of verbs, not out of adjectives.
Colleen raises an eyebrow, but even if she doesn’t understand what Steve can’t figure out what to say, she seems to understand what he feels. “Is he a homosexual too?”
Steve laughs. “God, no. I mean… there might be a chance that he takes to men, but he’s always gone for women. And a damn lot of them.” He has certainly made his peace with it, but his heart still stings when he says out loud. Some woman’s going to be real lucky, and Steve is… going to be happy for the both of them. He has made his peace with it. It just hurts, to see Bucky and every now and then have the thought slip into his mind, when you find happiness, it’s going to break my heart.
Peggy hums, not looking at Steve. She’s tapping her cookie against her plate and watching the crumbs fall, twisting her mouth in an unimpressed way. “That’s not true.”
Steve laughs again, because he doesn’t know how else to react. “I don’t mean he was, you know, indecent about all the girls he—”
“He is sewing his mouth shut, then.” Peggy taps the cookie some more, her expression unreadable. “I wouldn’t tell you this if we were in the same timeline, Captain. I’d wait and see if you turned out. But I don’t know how long it’s been and I might not ever know what your future will look like so I’m telling you now—if Sergeant Barnes doesn’t want to bloody marry you, it’ll be the first time in my life I’ve been wrong quite that enormously.”
“I don’t—” Steve almost knocks over his water. “He doesn’t—He never—”
Peggy lifts a shoulder. “You’re blind,” she says, in that impatient way of hers. “You’ve always been unobservant, but he’s never been very subtle.”
Steve would smile—there’s the Peggy he knows; she was being unusually gentle before—but he’s still trying to parse through her sentences. If Sergeant Barnes doesn’t want to bloody marry you… Steve would place that bet against Peggy. Absolutely. He’d bet 90% of his money, down to the penny, that Peggy was wrong.
But Peggy’s good at these things.
And in the end, it doesn’t matter. Even if Peggy is probably wrong, there’s a niggling, tiny, terrible maybe, and it lights something frantic in him. This is the knowing. When he came to see her, and hoped that when he set eyes on her and heard her voice, he’d know it was the right choice or the wrong one, this is that feeling. He gathered, intellectually, that he’d made the wrong choice, but now it strikes him down to his bones.
“Well.” Steve has finished his water and his cookies and the arrow in his chest is sure now. He stands. “I can’t stay, I have… a man to get back to.” He nods to Colleen. “Nice to meet you. I’m going to need you to keep this one quiet, alright?”
Peggy smiles, real and full, and she waves one hand to Colleen to stay behind as she follows Steve to the front door. “She can handle herself.”
Steve considers her as she opens the door for him, looking at him for the last time and not pretending she isn’t. “Step outside with me for a minute.”
Peggy does, closing the door firmly behind her. She closes the window, too, as much as she can from the outside. “If it’s about O’Brien—”
“Peggy, if by some miracle you’re right, I can’t leave without returning the favor.” Steve takes her hand and squeezes it. “We both have the right person. We just have to ask them to dance.” In Peggy’s case, anyway. And Peggy believes in Steve’s case, too, but it’s been longer than Peggy realizes, not to mention whether or not she’s right about the past.
Peggy’s eyes search his face, her mouth a flat line. “Alright,” she agrees finally, like it costs her something. “Alright.”
Steve runs his fingers over the timepiece around his wrist, trying to steady himself. He’s going back to the present day, where Bucky is waiting for him to arrive eighty years old and content with a long, long life.
“Let me kiss you,” he says, “Let me kiss you goodbye.”
The music plays through the crack between the window and the windowpane, something Steve might’ve danced to with Peggy if he’d ever gotten around to it. Peggy puts her arms around Steve’s neck says, one more time, “Alright.”
Bucky
Oh, god.
He’s not ready.
Bucky put every of his control into keeping it together for Steve’s departure—he’s got nothing left for when Steve comes back.
But Hulk—Bruce—gave no break between the counting down for departure and return. “Leaving in three… two… one… and returning in five… four… three… two…”
Bucky drags in a breath, pushes it out. Squares his shoulders and clenches his jaw and his fists, as if he can simply squash the urge to run again. At least I won’t be sexually attracted anymore, he thinks to himself, mildly hysterically.
“One.”
And as suddenly as Steve disappeared, he reappears.
Bucky starts forward, and then—
Steve’s suit retracts, and Steve’s standing there with his same serious expression, his same super-soldier frame, his same heavy brows and golden hair. Faint smile lines and the little wrinkle between his brows because he’s been wearing a worried or solemn expression half of his life are still the only wrinkles on his face.
“Nice to have you back, Steve,” Sam says easily. Sam didn’t know. Bruce didn’t know. They don’t know that the world has just been turned upside down.
“Nice to be back,” Steve returns, just as easily, flashing a friendly smile towards the both of them and holding up his empty hands as if to demonstrate that all the stones and the hammer are back where they belong. He pulls the suit capsule and tosses it to Sam, walking off the platform in all of his not-aged grace.
Captain America in his prime.
Bucky is sexually attracted.
Steve reaches the bottom of the stairs and waves at Sam and Bruce, who are putting away the time machine. “Do you mind if I…?”
Sam gives him a nod. “You just single handedly fixed our timeline, Cap. Go do your thing.”
And for the first time since he’s returned, Steve looks at Bucky. A whirlwind of emotions passes over his face—affection, relief, something almost fearful that Bucky can’t figure out. Steve opens his mouth, pauses. “Come on, Buck,” he says after a minute. “Let’s go home.”
Bucky has a million questions, but his voice isn’t working, so he just nods and matches Steve’s pace as they make their way back to the car, the soft crinkle of the path beneath their feet the only sound between them.
Steve takes the driver’s and Bucky takes shotgun, shooting Steve glances and trying to decipher the expression on Steve’s face. Did Steve go see Peggy? Did… something happen between them? Something big enough, bad enough that Steve would throw away his one and only chance to be with Peggy… Bucky can’t imagine something that big.
“You came back,” Bucky eventually manages to rasp.
Steve’s silent for a long time, his blue eyes focused on the road. They’re on the freeway, no traffic. There’s nothing to focus on but the little white lines passing and passing and passing. Bucky turns his gaze back out the window and looks at the city below them—cars and cars, all shiny and modern, stores left and right, clusters of people in T-shirts and jeans. Modern day.
Steve came back.
Steve clears his throat. “Yeah.”
More silence.
They descend onto surface streets, and the view out of the window slows, slows. Stores, and then local stores, and then the edge of residential—stacks of apartments, reaching into the sky.
“Steve, I—”
“Peggy said—”
Bucky snaps his mouth closed. There’s nothing in the world he wants to say more than he wants to hear the end of that sentence, more than he wants to hear anything that might explain why Steve is here, and still his age, driving them to the little New York house they share with no ring on his finger and something clearly eating away at him, but Steve doesn’t continue.
“Peggy?” he prods.
Steve’s quiet again. They round the corner, and Steve pulls right up against the curb and kills the ignition—they’re here. They’re home. Then Steve turns his head just a little, giving Bucky an unreadable glance. “I owed her a dance,” he says simply, and gets out of the car.
Bucky, unsure what to do with this, follows Steve inside, passing him the keys when Steve pats his pockets—he’d left them in the car. “Did you dance with her and come back, then?”
He wonders what the place looks like to Steve, watching the way Steve closes the door behind them and makes his way into the apartment, as if Steve will drop a clue to how long Steve has been away. Is it like returning home after work? Or is Steve drinking in the place, as if back from a long trip, breathing it in, new and familiar at once—their modern TV, the hallway to their two separate bedrooms and shared bathroom, the apparently expensive paintings on the wall that neither of them appreciate fully, which Stark dropped off on their doorstep as a housewarming gift and never talked about again, the clean but old sofa they probably should replace sometime soon—and thinking here it is, I’ve missed this place.
It seems more like the latter.
Steve’s pulling off the uniform he’s wearing right there in the living room—curtains are shut, not that the man checked—and slipping on a soft T-shirt from the loose pile of Bucky’s laundry on the armchair, which he’d left when he realized they were running late for Steve’s trip back in time.
He hadn’t done Steve’s laundry. He hadn’t thought Steve would be coming back until he was probably too old to wear the same clothes. He’d want thicker shirts, Bucky had thought, the nice polo button downs and clean khakis. Not the loose-casual Steve and Bucky both wear now, the kind you can walk around in public in without drawing notice but also fight in without restriction.
“I didn’t, actually.” Steve wanders off towards the shelf where they keep their records, despite the teasing they get from every other Avenger for being stuck in the times, rifling through them. They both like to put them on every now and then, enjoying the fuzzy sound, even though they get reminded every other week that they could play the same music from YouTube. “I told her once, before the ice, I told her I hadn’t danced because I was waiting for the right partner.”
Steve’s still flicking through them, as if he’s looking for something in particular. Bucky, after a moment of hesitation, joins him. Album cover after album cover, faded colors, big letters.
“Turns out… I think we weren’t the right partners for each other. I certainly wasn’t for her.”
Bucky sucks in his breath. Steve doesn’t sound nearly as wrecked as Bucky would expect him to be after being rejected by Peggy Carter, the love of his fucking life, but Steve has always been the type to grin and bear it. She’s insane, he thinks, she’s absolutely mad. Peggy’s great, from what Bucky remembers, but he can’t help a flash of frustration toward her. He’s spent his whole life in love with Steve, wanting Steve, wishing he had what Peggy had, and then, fuck, Steve’s ready to put his whole life off the rails to marry her and she doesn’t want it.
“Her mistake,” Bucky says eventually, as Steve slides a record from the shelf. “Some people would give every last fucking thing they have to be her.” He’s not quite able to keep his feelings from leaking into his voice, and he can tell Steve notices by the way Steve goes still.
“Buck—” Steve starts, turning.
Bucky cuts him off. “What’s that one?” He leans closer to Steve and peeks at the cover.
“The one that was playing in Peggy’s apartment,” Steve answers, mercifully letting go of whatever he was going to say to Bucky. He makes his way over to the record player and puts the record in. “I heard it and I thought we might dance to it, and then I realized—” He holds his hand out to Bucky, palm up, his gaze heavy on Bucky’s face. One eyebrow raised. The record begins to play. “I never learned how to dance.”
Bucky takes his hand without even thinking. He remembers daydreaming about this a long, long time ago. Not exactly this—they’d be on the dance floor, and some band would be playing loudly. Boys would be throwing back drinks and dancing with girls, the kind of fun he and Steve used to have. Or, the kind of fun Bucky pretended to have while watching Steve, and the kind of fun Steve didn’t even pretend to have because he hadn’t met Peggy yet and wasn’t particularly interested in any of the girls Bucky found for him. That kind of fun.
And Bucky would offer his hand.
In daydreams, this was something boys could do—dance with other boys. In daydreams, Steve took his hand, all skin and bones and a knowing smirk, and Bucky would pull him so close they could hardly even dance.
So Bucky takes the hand without a moment of hesitation and clutches it tight and thinks, yes, he can teach Steve how to dance. If Steve wants a distraction from what he can’t have with Peggy, Bucky can give him that. If Steve wants to dance to the song he heard on Peggy’s record player and pretend that Bucky is someone with red lipstick and curlier hair and tits, Bucky can give him that, too.
It’s not one of those energetic swing ones, but then, Bucky wouldn’t expect that from Peggy anyway. This one’s got class and gravity, magnetism. It’s a slow song.
“Like this,” Bucky murmurs, his voice rough, and steps closer to Steve, placing Steve’s hand on his waist, putting his metal arm around Steve’s shoulders. He takes Steve’s other hand with his human one. “You’re getting off easy, Rogers. Slow dancing is as easy as it gets; there’s nothing to it.”
Bucky looks up at Steve. His blue eyes are inches away. His stupid, fluttery eyelashes are right there. Steve’s eyes are half-closed because he’s looking down at Bucky, the way he might if they were about to kiss, and Bucky realizes—he should’ve realized earlier—they’re going to stay like that, this close, for the whole dance.
Bucky swallows hard.
He has to survive. He’s not sure if he can.
They sway back and forth, Bucky leading, Steve following fumblingly. No, here, put your foot here… like that. Good. Just move with me, God, Steve, it’s not rocket science. Even when he’s teasing, Bucky can't get his voice above a whisper. Eventually Steve catches on—he’s Captain America, and he certainly has coordination—and they fall silent again.
Bucky lays his head on Steve’s chest so he doesn’t have to keep staring into those blue, blue eyes.
Steve draws a breath; Bucky can feel his chest rise and fall. “I thought you might be the right partner,” Steve says abruptly.
Stumbling over Steve’s feet—Steve catches him deftly and pulls him even closer—Bucky jerks his head up and stares at Steve. He tries to smile. “To learn to dance with? It would be pretty embarrassing if you asked a girl to dance and didn’t know how, wouldn’t it?”
There’s no change in Steve’s expression but the flicker of his eyes, once, to Bucky’s mouth before he returns his gaze to Bucky’s eyes. “You know what I’m saying, Buck.”
Bucky shakes his head. He can’t afford hope that hard. His heart can’t take it. For a moment, it’s just the sound of the song playing, of their shoes on the wood floor, of their breaths in and out.
Steve presses stubbornly onward. “You do. I thought Peggy was, but when I was there, I realized… it wasn’t the same as with you. And nothing against Peggy, Peggy is incredible, but I was going to settle for someone who wasn’t you, and she… talked me out of it.”
He can’t be hearing this. Bucky can’t be hearing this. But he stares at Steve, hard, and he can’t see a trace of anything that isn’t genuine. Steve wears his heart all over his face, and right now, he looks like he means what he’s saying, every word.
“She said something, Peggy. She said…” Steve swallows hard. “Something that made me think that I—that you’d felt the same way, once, back before the ice. And the train.”
Bucky’s breath catches. His chest feels too small, like he can’t breathe because his heart is too big, pressing his lungs flat. Inflated with wild, wild hope.
They’re not even dancing. They’re standing in the middle of the room, Steve’s arm crushing Bucky into his chest, Steve’s face tilted down to look at Bucky’s and Bucky’s tilted up to look at Steve.
“I thought that if there was even a chance—” Steve’s voice has plummeted to a whisper, now, too. “The tiniest chance that she was right. That you did, once. I thought—maybe I could do it again. Maybe I could convince you—I’d never even imagined, before. But when she said what she said, I knew I had to try.”
Bucky stares at Steve: the earnest crease between his brows. The fear in his eyes, the determination. He tries to drag in a breath, tries to say something, but nothing’s coming. He never thought… he never prepared for this. For Steve to ever—
Steve’s arms loosen around him, not enough to be abrupt, but enough to put space between their bodies, for Bucky to shrug off Steve’s arms like a jacket, if he wants to. He doesn’t want to. “I’ve just realized saying this while we’re dancing isn’t the kindest way to break it to you.” The corner of Steve’s mouth lifts. “How are you going to excuse yourself politely if I’ve got my arms around you?”
Excuse yourself politely…
Maybe I could convince you…
Steve thinks Bucky’s over it.
“That’s hilarious,” Bucky mutters, his voice scraping against his throat.
Steve’s face goes blank. The song finishes and the room goes silent.
“You think I’m not already in love with you?” Bucky lets out a laugh. He can’t help it. Maybe he’s gone insane. Steve Rogers wants him. Yeah, he’s definitely gone insane. “You think I ever stopped being in love with you?” He brings his hands down, fists them in the stomach of Steve’s T-shirt, which is actually his T-shirt, drops his head down on Steve’s shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”
There’s a moment, two moments. Steve’s chest rises and falls with a heavy breath, and then his arms tighten again, drawing Bucky into him once more, and they stand there, clutching each other, for a moment.
And then Steve begins to sway.
Steve
“Bucky, when I was going to leave,” Steve says as they’re dancing—Bucky’s teaching him how to do the faster ones, the ones that whirl. They always seemed more Bucky’s scene, but he does enjoy pulling Bucky’s hand, sending him spinning neatly into Steve’s arms, Bucky’s back pressed to his chest. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
They’ve got a new record playing through the living room, one that makes Bucky smile, but his expression turns serious when Steve asks. “If I asked you to stay, you would have.”
Steve does that thing he likes to do, pulling Bucky into his chest, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s middle.
Bucky looks up at him, and even though it’s over, Steve’s here and it’s been months since Steve went back in time, Steve can see the memory of pain in Bucky’s eyes. “I couldn’t do that to you.”
The beat twists, and Steve spins Bucky back out again, clutching his hand tight. “Thank God for Peggy, then.”
Bucky’s expression clears, and his smile is back again, the smirk he’s always had, even before Hydra. Steve’s stomach flutters. “How is it that she hardly knew me and you’d known me for years, and she’s the one who noticed?”
The song ends in a triumphant finale, and the record begins a new one. Steve slides his arm around Bucky’s waist; Bucky throws his around Steve’s shoulders. They link hands. It’s a faster one—Bucky had laughed at how much trouble it gave Steve. “It’s the same thing as the slow dance, just a bit faster! More energy, Steve, God knows you have energy.”
“Just too much to hope for, I guess.” Steve smiles easily down at Bucky, and Bucky’s expression softens, just the slightest bit. Steve’s addicted to the effect his smile has on Bucky.
“Steve.” It sounds like worship. They’re dancing too slow for the tempo of the song, but Bucky’s tipping his chin up, and Steve finds he doesn’t care about the tempo at all.
Bucky loves to kiss Steve when they’re dancing, even though it always throws them off. He loves to grind and generally be distracting, and Steve… Steve just loves Bucky, the press of his mouth, the swipe of his tongue, the hand running over the short hair on the back of Steve’s neck. He loves the way Bucky tries to mold them into one, as if trying to make it so you could never pry them apart.
They’ve spent enough time apart.
Steve lets go of Bucky’s hand to trace Bucky’s bottom lip, and he remembers: “Peggy called it sewing your mouth shut.”
Bucky’s breath rushes against Steve’s thumb. “God, I did, didn’t I? I used to look at you and think I’d die without telling you.” There’s a tight feeling in Steve’s chest. “Is that what she said that brought you home?”
Home, Steve thinks. In Bucky’s arms—yes, this is home. “No, actually.”
Bucky gives him a look. “What was it she said?”
“She said…” Steve thinks about the last half a year, the best months of his life. He thinks of how they’ve both been in love for longer than plenty of people have been alive. “She thought you wanted to marry me.”
A new song starts, and Bucky draws them both back into the center of the living room without letting go, settling into the beat once more—another slow song. Steve likes these the best.
“What do you think, Rogers?” he teases. He’s smiling, bright-eyed and coy. “You think that’s true?”
Steve lifts a shoulder and turns them about, helpless to do anything but return Bucky’s smile, pressing his forehead to Bucky’s. “I don’t know.” He plays along. There’s no question for either of them. “All I know is that I’ve waited all my life to get a dance with the right partner, and now I have.”