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It had been a long time since the last big casual Avengers gathering — even before the Blip, it had been years. Steve knew Bucky had it in his mind that it was his fault the rift had occurred between the heroes back then, no matter how many times Steve tried to assure him that wasn’t the case — if anything it was his own fault for not telling Tony the truth sooner or trying harder to come to a mutual agreement, but that was all in the past now.
In any case, things had changed again now that Thanos had been defeated and everyone had made their amends. There were new Avengers and retired Avengers, and Tony had invited all of them to his place for something of an Avengers reunion party. That included both Steve and Bucky, too.
“I’m not an Avenger.” Bucky had said the moment Steve brought up the invitation.
“Sam says you are,” He refuted, “And he’s in charge of the team now, plus Tony specifically said you were invited too, so. No excuses.”
“I don’t even like parties, Steve!”
Steve liked to think that he was pretty persuasive, or at least he was when it came to Bucky, so with a handful of promises made, they were now both at Tony’s place with just about everyone who could have possibly received an invitation. Steve wasn’t exactly surprised to see Bucky keeping mostly to himself while everyone else mingled, but he was just glad he’d agreed to come along — and at least he was talking to Sam. That was something.
Between the food offerings inside and the bonfire outside as the night crept in, there was a constant flow of people going in and out for Steve to keep track of, just to make sure he didn’t neglect to talk to anyone throughout the evening. Periodically, he stopped by to check on Bucky, who had settled by the fire for the sake of people-watching in a less busy environment, and it was on one such visit that he noticed his partner’s new friend.
Little Morgan Stark was hanging off Bucky’s vibranium arm, chattering on about some show she liked watching while the man nodded along intently, completely unfazed by the child attached to him. Sam was sitting in a camp chair adjacent to the unlikely pair, while Scott and Clint were settled on the other side of the firepit — all three other men looking particularly amused at the situation.
“Who would’ve thought, right?” Scott commented as Steve came to join them all, “Super happy little kid and super grumpy dude with a metal arm become best friends in like five minutes. Did you know he was good with kids?”
Steve shrugged as he went to sit down, catching Bucky’s eye for a brief moment and shooting him a fond smile before turning his attention back to Scott and the others. “Always has been. He had four younger sisters and always kept an eye out for the little kids at school.”
“And you, the littlest of them all.” Bucky said with a mischievous smirk in the two seconds Morgan had paused to take a breath in her speech.
“The younger kids.” He huffed.
“You’re younger than me.”
“...Touche.”
“My nephews kinda did the same thing that Morgs is doing when he came down to help out with the boat,” Sam added with a snort, “Dude had been there for ten minutes and they were calling him Uncle Bucky. Must be the arm.”
Morgan’s face lit up upon hearing that, and she readjusted her grip to climb a little further up Bucky’s arm as she piped up again, “Can I call you Uncle Bucky?”
He looked more than a little unsure at the suggestion — Steve couldn’t blame him, he knew it must’ve been painful to hear that from a kid whose grandparents he’d been responsible for the deaths of, and whose father he was still on shaky terms with because of that — but a glance around at his companions proved he couldn’t just say no to her. Locking eyes with Steve, though, he seemed to have an idea. “Only if he gets to be Uncle Stevie, too.”
Morgan followed Bucky’s gaze and grinned as Steve gave her a little wave, “Okay!”
A few more people soon began making their way over to the bonfire, some bringing more camp chairs and others choosing instead to just sit on the ground and try to keep their food away from the multitude of dogs that had been brought by their respective owners to the party.
Peter had done the latter, plopping down on a patch of ground in the middle of the group — though he’d soon had to scoot back and was now placed a little awkwardly between Bucky and Sam’s chairs, both of them refusing to move no matter how many times Steve tried to nicely ask them to, or how many times Peter insisted it was fine.
“Dude, you dropped an airport ramp on his head the first time you met him, how can you tell us to be nice?” Sam pointed out with a snicker.
Steve fumbled, but Peter himself was quick to jump in, “It’s okay Mister Rogers! I mean Mister Wilson did kinda throw me out a window, so. I think we can all move on from that!”
Sam huffed. “That wasn’t me, it was Redwing.”
“Just trying to boost your ego after getting webbed to the floor by the kid.” Bucky chimed in helpfully.
“Excuse me, you were also stuck to the floor three feet away from me.”
“Never said I wasn’t.”
“You know, Mister Barnes,” Peter suddenly piped up again, having managed to quickly eat the last of his food before Lucky could get to it, “Now that you’ve cut your hair and don’t have a beard anymore, you look a lot like this guy in one of my World War Two history textbooks.”
Bucky exchanged a look with Steve, who just shrugged in return. “Oh yeah? What’s his name? Maybe Steve and I knew him.”
Steve was more than prepared to go along with whatever joke Buck was planning on making, given that obviously Peter was trying to run them around first. He wouldn’t get them so easily, they were always ahead of the game.
“Well yeah that’s the thing, he was in the Howling Commandos unit which, I mean obviously, was like the unit that Cap — that is, uh. Mister Rogers, Captain...anyway, led.”
Steve smirked. “I wasn’t aware.”
Peter grinned sheepishly, “Yeah so his name was...Sergeant James Barnes? Honestly I missed class a couple of days when we were going over all of it but we went to the Captain America exhibit when we were on this other trip to Washington so I saw some more pictures and—”
“Alright I’m gonna stop you there for a second, kid,” Bucky cut in, looking about as confused as Steve felt. A glance over at Sam showed just another of the same expressions, though he looked like he was about to laugh, too, “You are joking, right?”
“...About you looking like this guy?”
“No, about you going to Washington. Yes about me looking like that guy.”
“No? I can Google it if you want and show you—”
That was when Sam burst out laughing. Bucky and Steve were both doing a good job to hold it in for now, but only because poor Peter really didn’t seem to have gotten it yet. Steve really had to wonder how a kid that smart could’ve missed such a glaringly obvious connection.
“Oh my god, kid,” Bucky choked out, barely containing his mirth at this point, “Oh my — that is me. You did know that, right? You’re just trying to do a...I dunno what kind of meme that is but is that what you were doing?”
Peter’s cheeks clearly weren’t just red from the warmth of the fire by now, and Steve almost felt bad for him...except for the fact that this was absolutely hilarious, and Sam’s loud and highly infectious laugh really wasn’t doing anything to help the situation.
“Well I know now,” Peter mumbled, utterly embarrassed, “They were old photos okay? And you looked way different with the hair and stuff before! And now you’ve got a metal arm and — wait, your name is James?”
Bucky pulled a face. “Yes? It’s not uncommon.”
“How do you get Bucky from James, though?”
“You really didn’t read that history book, huh?”
“...It’s not my favourite subject.”
Bucky snorted, unable to contain his smile now that Steve had started laughing as well. “Obviously not. God, I don’t even know if I should tell you where Bucky comes from after all that.”
“If only you’d remembered his middle name.” Sam managed to wheeze.
“Starts with a ‘B’?” Peter offered, “I’m just gonna...not guess.”
“Save yourself the embarrassment, kid,” Steve chuckled, “It’s Buchanan. Sorry to ruin your fun, Buck, he kinda needed a win.”
Bucky pouted, but Steve simply reached over to grab his hand and squeeze in apology. The other man seemed happy enough with that, and even scooted his chair a little closer so it was less of a stretch to keep their hands joined.
“Honestly, having Buchanan as your middle name is almost as embarrassing as the rest of this situation.” Sam joked, finally having composed himself enough to sit back up properly.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “It’s almost like it’s an old name and I was born before 1920.”
“Wow, I know we were just talking about you being in my history textbooks and all but it really is weird to think that you guys were really born that long ago. I mean I was born in 2001 so basically everyone here except Morgan is older than me but you know what I mean.” Peter said, seeming to have recovered at least a little from his shame.
“Yeah, you two are just extra old.” Sam snickered, “That or Peter’s just really young. 2001, man, I don’t like that. I was already in my mid-twenties by then.”
“How do you think I feel? I was in my eighties. And also frozen in ice, but we can forget that for a second.” Steve put in helpfully, though not missing the way Bucky’s fingers twitched and clutched a little tighter to his own hand at the mentions of what they’d all been doing at the time.
If Bucky had any idea what he’d been doing in 2001, he didn’t say it — whether that meant he just knew he was stuck in cryo waiting to be used again, or if he had a particular mission he was thinking of, or if it was just one of those years he really had no idea about, it was anyone’s guess. And it wasn’t like anyone was going to be the one to ask.
Steve glanced at the other man to check on his expression, catching the way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes anymore. Most others probably wouldn’t have even noticed.
Bucky’s eyes met Steve’s for a brief moment, a silent reassurance of I’m okay before turning back to Peter. “So was there a reason for bringing that up or did you just wanna find an excuse to call us old?”
“No!” Peter assured quickly, “No, just commenting. Making conversation? I was gonna ask what it was like back then, or if you guys had any cool stories from like, old days New York, you know?”
“I dunno about cool, I mean back then was just a lot of getting Steve out of fights everywhere he went.”
“So nothing’s changed.” Sam snorted.
“Not really,” Bucky agreed with a light kick to Steve’s ankle, which was swiftly returned, “I was never the one on the wrong side of the law, always Stevie.”
“Hey,” Steve countered, “What about that time you almost got arrested at that one speakeasy?”
“That was different and you know it. Also you were there too, jerk! I remember I had to piggyback your tiny asthmatic ass out of there because you would’ve collapsed and been grabbed by the cops in three seconds if I hadn’t.” He huffed, “So, you’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” Steve said insincerely, though he wasn’t trying to bite back his smile as he said it, “For not letting me get arrested the first and only time I ever went to one of those speakeasies even though it was your idea to go in the first place.”
Bucky rolled his eyes fondly. “Actually, it was Becca’s idea. But you wanted to come too!”
“Maybe. I didn’t actually realise where we were going until we got there.”
“Why’d you almost get arrested?” Peter questioned, “Just because they weren’t supposed to be selling alcohol or?”
Steve shook his head. “Nah, kid, Prohibition ended before we were legal anyway, so that was never really our problem.”
“It was a gay bar, basically.” Bucky jumped in to explain, “We’d gone on a bunch of fake double dates with my sister and this girl she’d been seeing, you know, covering for them — and I thought covering for us as well but Steve was kinda dense and didn’t realise that was my thought process—”
“Hey!”
“It’s true. Anyway, so we went to this club because why not, the girls could do their thing while we kept an eye on them, and I was hoping to talk to Steve about our thing a bit easier, but I never got the chance.”
“Turns out that happened to be the night the cops discovered where that one particular place was and raided it, hence the running.” Steve said with a slight shrug, though he was still pouting a little about being called dense, “And then we never went to another one.”
“You never went to another one,” Bucky corrected.
“You did?!”
“Probably the one time I’ve been more irresponsible than you, I know. I thought you were mad at me after the first time and wasn’t sure if you actually felt the same way I did, so I never said anything when I went again. It was boring anyway, without you, so I only went once. None of the other guys or gals there were half as good as you.” He trailed off with a little bashful smile, looking at their joined hands where they sat on the armrests of the two camp chairs.
“Hold up, so you’re saying Buck took you to a gay bar in the 30s and you didn’t get that he was probably interested back then?” Sam questioned in disbelief.
Steve shrugged sheepishly. “No? I always just thought we were covering for Becca and her gal, never even occurred to me that we could’ve been doing the same thing.”
“So you weren’t into him at the time, or you just didn’t realise he was?”
“God, no, I was falling big time. I just thought he was straight. I mean, nobody was open about it if they weren’t, but I figured since we knew about his sister he would’ve mentioned it to me if anything was different with him.”
“And why didn’t you?” Sam addressed Bucky, who also shrugged.
“I figured he already knew and wasn’t saying anything because he didn’t wanna make it awkward by not feeling the same.” He said, “Classic Stevie being too polite, or something.”
“Man, so you guys really could’ve sorted everything out way sooner if you’d just had a conversation.”
“Probably. But it was still the 30s, so. Also we still would’ve ended up here eventually, eighty something years later. At least we’re not gonna get arrested for going to a bar these days.”
“Touche.”
Silence lapsed in the group for a few long moments, and Steve found himself unable to take his eyes off Bucky, who looked devastatingly handsome in the light of the bonfire. It was hard not to stare just for that reason alone, but Steve couldn’t help the gaze he knew was embarrassingly soft while watching the love of his life smile and laugh as a couple of the dogs ran in and snatched Peter’s empty paper plate right out of his hand.
It was times like these, reminiscing about the old days and having fun with their new friends, that Steve was particularly grateful for whatever fate had been at work to bring them back together. More than anything, though, he was grateful that Bucky was slowly finding it easier to relax and enjoy himself. Seeing him freely laughing, cracking jokes with Sam and Peter, playing with the dogs or with Morgan whenever she came by with something new to tell him about…
Steve was snapped out of his daze with a gentle nudge, noticing the stormy blue eyes that had met his own at some point in the last few seconds. Bucky gave him a fond half-smile as he asked, “You good?”
Steve smiled in return and nodded, barely even thinking before leaning across to catch Bucky’s lips with his own in a short, sweet kiss. “Never better,” He assured as he sat back, “Just thought of another story Peter might find entertaining.”
Bucky’s cheeks were tinged a little pink from the open affection, though he seemed to quickly recover and grin, “Better tell him, then.”
Yeah, things really had ended up about as good as they possibly could have, given everything. Steve was one lucky guy.