Chapter Text
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.
It’s the first properly cold day of Fall; the city has been lucky this year, the syrupy-warmth of the tail-end of summer stretching well into November. It couldn’t last forever, though, and as Steve steps out onto the street, he’s hit with a wall of frigid air, the wind immediately working it’s icy fingers beneath his thin jacket. He curses himself for leaving his thick winter coat at home that morning, tucking the jut of his chin under his scarf and shoving his hands into his pockets.
Night has already drawn in, cloaking the streets in a blanket of darkness, streetlights twinkling like a smattering of stars. Despite the way that Steve’s feet are aching from a long day at work, he walks as quickly as his legs will carry him, weaving between the threads of people making their way through the clear evening. The leaves on the few trees lining the sidewalk are starting to turn crisp and golden, dropping from the branches to crunch underfoot.
The note feels like lead in his pocket, weighing Steve down every time his fingers so much as brush against it but he can’t even be surprised; he’s known that he’s been falling behind in paying his rent, that he hasn’t sold as many pieces lately. He walks faster, until his calves are burning and the snatches of conversation or music from the shops blur into the distance. As if he can out run his thoughts, his problems.
When he hears it, Steve is neatly weaving around a rack of citi bikes to avoid a group of tourists out too late, making their way back to the hotel. He pauses as he nears the intersection to Front Street, not for any particular reason - he’s almost home, just a few more blocks. The sound is so faint that, at first, Steve is sure that it’s just his tinnitus playing up; the cafe always gives him trouble, the upbeat jazz leaving him useless for the few hours he has before he goes to bed, his ears ringing painfully. But then he hears it again, clearer this time; a quiet low sound unlike anything he’s heard before. Wild, inhuman, and yet, it chills him down to the bone.
Steve is sure, even though he’s not sure why, that the sound is mournful, as if whatever is making it is in distress. He should leave it alone. He should go home. He needs to make dinner and work on a couple of commissions.
That’s the problem though; Steve has never been able to look away.
There’s a new development of condos going up at 85 Jay Street, the site surrounded by brightly coloured boards and the sidewalk closed. Steve takes one stumbling step and then another toward it, his chest wheezing unhappily as he breaks into a jog. What if somebody was hurt in there? Steve imagines that there must be a lot of dangerous equipment and as yet unsafe buildings in there; what if somebody was trapped?
Steve’s mind is suddenly full of images, haunting ideas of being stuck on the abandoned construction site; the chill of the night seeping into his bones, the darkness creeping in from every corner, the loneliness with a busy city right next door. Bleeding, injured, aching with pain.
Without stopping to think any longer, Steve stoops over, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears and pivoting sideways so that he can slip through a narrow gap in the chipboard fence. His rucksack bumps against the metal but comes free with a tug. Dusting off his knees, Steve straightens up and glances around. There’s plenty of hulking machinery chained up, casting long, mysterious shadows onto the metal shell of the building.
‘Hello?’ Steve calls out, swiping his tongue across his cracked lips. He can feel his weak heart thumping and fluttering in his chest, his blood rushing in his ears as he strains to hear the sound that had brought him there in the first place, or any signs of life at all.
Cautiously, Steve takes a step towards the shell of the building, gazing up at the metal struts that mapped out the shape of it. He’d never been so close to a construction site before, had never seen a building without it’s guts before; like the skeleton of a leaf, it stretches up towards the darkened sky, impossibly tall and imposing. Steve feels a little like an ant.
Still, there seems to be no signs of life as Steve glances about; the building lays dormant, silently slumbering. Steve shrugs, turning swiftly back towards the gap he’d squeezed through - he’s not sure that the penalty of trespassing would be great, no matter how much he tried to justify his reasoning - when he hears the sound again
Shit.
The wind picks up a little, the heavy canvas pinned up over certain sections of the building flapping loudly as a shiver of cold runs through Steve. His fingers are numb as he balls them into his fist, stepping back into the darkness.
‘Hello? Is someone there?’ Steve tries again. He blinks as his eyes slowly, much more slowly than he’d like, adjust to the darkness.
He shouldn’t be here, Steve realises with a sudden pang of fear; more likely than someone being stuck, is that it’s some kids messing around. That, or a murderer. Steve’s watched enough Dexter to set his mind racing.
He clenches his fists even harder, his nails biting into the meat of his palm, and pushes onwards. There’s always a chance, after all.
Most of the rooms are still mere shells, only a few have started to be properly separated off, and even the floor is patchy in places. Steve’s paying particularly close attention to where he’s walking, not wanting to sprain an ankle on an uneven patch of flooring, or worse drop down into a dark void, so he almost misses the box placed inconspicuously in the centre of the room.
At first, Steve doesn’t think anything of it; why shouldn’t there be a box there? It’s probably just something left there by one of the workers. Except… except that there’s something about it that, once he’s seen it, Steve just can’t shake; nothing he can place exactly, more of a kind of prickling feeling that runs all the way down the back of his neck.
Cautiously, he grips the smooth edge between his fingertips and peers inside.
‘Uh,’ Steve says. The edge of the cardboard drops from his numb fingers.
Two eyes stare back at him, reflecting the light from the streetlamps across the block like twin beacons; feline and yet not entirely. The pupils are blown wide in the darkness but there’s still an unmistakable ring of white surrounding them. More than that, the eyes are a deep, heather grey and surprisingly human, overflowing with emotion that Steve can’t place.
Not just a giant, grumpy alleycat, then. Steve isn’t sure which possibility is preferable.
‘Hello?’ Steve says, feeling like a broken record. Still, whatever this creature is, it deserves to be treated with as much respect as possible, even if it isn’t capable of understanding what Steve is saying.
The creature blinks at him slowly, before retreating further back into the box.
‘It’s okay,’ Steve says, forcibly softening his voice. He’s reminded of when he’d first brought Marshall home from the shelter, cone of shame proudly in place and his apartment decked out with freshly bought dog beds, food and toys. Steve had been so excited, had thought Marshall would love the place until they got home and Marshall had sat shivering behind the couch for two days. The only way he’d been able to get Marshall to trust him was to make himself as small as possible, to telegraph his movements and to speak softly and quietly to him.
Surely, the same might be true of this creature, then, even though he’s not sure how much good it will do. Surely the creature can hear the pounding of his heart, anyway?
‘I’m not going to hurt you. Are you okay?’ Steve tries again, acting on instinct more than anything.
There’s no response and the pair of eyes stare back at him, unblinking. Steve’s knees are starting to hurt, a sharp, stabbing pain that radiates outwards, from being crouched for too long but he steels himself against this, too.
‘Think you can come out so I can check you’re not hurt? I can… I can take you to the hospital to get checked out, if you need. Just let me see,’ Steve finds himself saying, despite the fact that he knows his bank card is teetering on the slippery precipice of an overdraft and he still needs to buy dinner tomorrow. Still, there might be enough for the fair to the hospital.
‘My name’s Steve, by the way,’ he adds lamely, rocking back slowly onto his heels. He feels hot allover, suddenly, entirely idiotic and useless. Sam’s voice rings in his ears, you can’t save everything Steve .
And he knows that, he does . Hell, the beatings he’s taken throughout the years have even managed to get it through his thick skull. But, just because he knows it, doesn’t mean he has to accept it. He knows well enough how it comes across; his unerring kindness and duty packaged up in a tiny, sickly body is either taken as comedy or, worse, as arrogance.
This is just proving it; shoving the fact that he’s just small, weak Steve Rogers who's going to lose his studio first and then his home. Who’s having to work a second job at the local Starbucks to barely make ends meet, who’s going to have to admit that his dream of being a professional artist is really just that. A dream, a silly one at that.
That he can’t make a difference, that he can’t be heard, no matter how firmly he plants himself.
Steve’s about to pull away, defeated, when the box makes a shuffling sound. Steve blinks, leaning just an inch closer. It’s all a terrible idea; he shouldn’t even be here, he should be tucked up at home, deciding what show he wants to watch on Netflix before he goes to bed. Nat would tell him not to, tell him about a horror movie she’d watched once, a thousand times, where the character got killed for exploring, on their own. For not looking away.
‘Steve?’ The voice isn’t what he’s expecting, though Steve’s not entirely sure what that even is. It’s low and rough, as if rusty from disuse, but the accent is American. And human. So very, painfully, human.
‘Yes! What’s your name?’ Steve leans excitedly back towards the box, pulsing thundering.
There’s a pause and then the creature is drawing out of the box, into the moonlight. It’s just bright enough that Steve can make out broad shoulders, which shrug upwards in a fluid motion.
It’s not just the eyes, then, that are slightly feline. The man has dark brown hair that hangs limply down to his shoulders; not unusual in itself, apart from the lank, uncared for look to it. The pair of ears, poking out from between the unruly strands, on the other hand…
Steve can’t quite force his gaze away from them, taking in each delicate flick of movement. It’s uncanny, he can’t quite believe that they’re a real part of this man and not some kind of halloween costume and yet they can’t be anything else; the fur atop them blends so perfectly with the man’s hair.
And, Steve can’t decide which is more devastating; the uncanniness of the mismatch of feline features and human - even more importantly, how this man had even ended up this way in the first place - or the fact that he has apparently been discarded in this building site, as if he’s little more than trash.
He’s suddenly reminded of the news; prim looking newscasters in tailored suits and neatly styled hair, pressing their lips together and looking serious, thousands of articles online sneaking their way into all of Steve’s feed, black and white print proudly displayed alongside glossy magazines on newsstands. The world was full of the same kind of insidious propaganda these days; the kind that seeped so easily, so neatly into everyday life that soon it went unnoticed.
The Mutant Menance! Mutants are the enemy! Mutants are among us! Support the Mutant Control Act!
He’s seen them all, the headlines, hundreds of them every time there’s another mutant related incident anywhere in the world and sometimes when there’s presumably just a slow news day. Steve has never been near a real mutant before, not since fourth grade when the boy who’d sat three desks away from Steve had set his exercise book on fire. They’d taken him then and he’d never come back, just thinking about it makes Steve shiver. Take from their homes, shunned by society just for being different.
Steve’s different too but his difference just makes other people see him as weak, disposable, someone to be pitied. For the mutants, it made them dangerous. None of it has ever sat right with him.
And here’s this man, abandoned in a cardboard box on a construction site. He doesn’t seem dangerous but he’s most definitely a mutant, the ears are enough of a giveaway. But for what reason would he be left here? Just to be discarded? To be found and arrested? To be killed?
‘Come on,’ Steve says and then, before he can consider his words too much, ‘you can’t stay here! You can come to my place.’
He tugs gently on the man’s sleeve, feeling a little bit like a lost child, but the man follows the gentle persuasion regardless, lumbering to his feet.
The streets are a little busier than when Steve had first started back, people dressed in their nicest outfits heading out for the night, talking excitedly and draped across each other. In comparison, Steve thinks he and the man must look strange. Steve tries to draw into himself as much as possible for once, trying not to draw attention to them. But when he glances to see what the man is doing, he’s paying no attention to anything going on; Steve can just make out his eyes beneath the shadow of the hood, focused down on the sidewalk in front of them.
Steve has watched the new buildings springing up around the neighborhood, dragging themselves from the ground like bulbous, misshapen plants. There’s a whole forest of them now; the landscape changed even in Steve’s lifetime. Local shops are gone and changed as are the residents; forced out by the prices and the lack of jobs, east, south, north, like water off a duck’s back.
There’s an album sitting on Steve’s bookshelf between two equally tattered tomes of art history,
dog-eared and yellowed from years of sunlight. Inside the album is a treasure trove of film; Steve’s parents, his grandparents and great-grandparents captured in stiff black-and-white that’s more brown and cream, as far back as the First World War. They’re smiling and laughing, with their stiff looking curls and workman's clothes.
Steve’s hair is straight and he’s sure they’d never recognise this place. And soon, unless he can find some way to make rent and keep making it, Steve will be forced out too; just another casualty. Steve Rogers has never been good at giving up though, clinging on to his little one bedroom apartment with thin, stubborn fingers. Almost a century separates them from Steve and yet he feels as if they have some connection, some bond across the years, some kinship that goes deeper than family.
It’s why he’s fought so hard to stay; this place is home to ghosts.
Somehow, they manage to make it back without anyone seeming to take any notice of them. Steve has never been more glad for the general apathy of New Yorkers than he is at this moment, as he leans against the inner side of his own front door, taking measured but relieved breaths.
The man, on the other hand, surveys the apartment with a blank look that belies neither interest nor apathy. It’s calculating and clinical, the way that he is obviously taking in all the details. The silence is deafening, Steve’s heart for once seeming to freeze instead of pounding furiously against the cage of his chest. All he can do is wait, hanging on to each second, drinking in each one of the man’s minimal reactions.
The patter of paws breaks the moment, as a golden head and long slobbering tongue bound into view from behind Steve’s bed. Steve barely has time to crack a smile as Marshall leaps towards them, before the man is springing backwards as if he’s in danger.
After so much deprivation, after so many stilted and understated reactions, the man’s response is excessive, almost oppressively. He springs backwards until he knocks against Steve’s fridge, the entire unit shuddering in place as the man’s hands scrabble against it, seeking purchase.
‘Hey! It’s alright!’ Steve snaps before forcing himself to take a deep breath. The man looks truly terrified, his eyes wide and his broad chest rising and falling rapidly, and Steve isn’t exactly going to help matters by shouting.
‘This is Marshall, he’s my dog,’ Steve says, keeping his voice gentle and calm as he pets Marshall’s head reassuringly. The man’s wide eyes track the movement of Steve’s hand, his breathing slowly minutely. ‘Sorry, though. I should have warned you about him. He’s harmless though just a bit…,’ Steve scratches behind Marshall’s ear, just for something to do with his hands, ‘eager.’
The man looks like he very much does not have any conception of what Steve is talking about; he watches Marshall with a wide, suspicious gaze but otherwise seems to relax. It’s hard to tell, obscured as his body is by the faded hoodie, which swims on the man’s frame.
‘Um,’ Steve says eloquently, Marshall squirming away from his grip. ‘Feel free to make yourself at home.’
He winces as soon as he’s said it. What even is the protocol for such a situation? Has something like this even happened before for there to be a reason for such a protocol?
Steve is sure with the size of the planet, that surely it must have; he’s not self-centered enough to believe himself the protagonist of any kind of story. He’s just a kid from Brooklyn, after all. Still, even with the sea of blinking lights and the distant roar of traffic outside, the snatches of conversation drifting up from the street below, Steve has never felt more alone.
He’s always been that way; a step apart from everyone else, even Sam and Natasha
Like something has always been missing...
‘My name was Bucky,’ he says, Bucky says, breaking through Steve’s thoughts. He steps forward towards Steve mantle, as if he is a puppet, not in control of his movements. Compelled by some outward force.
Steve’s breath catches in his throat; he’s not sure whether to focus on the fact that the man, that Bucky apparently, managed to remember something, or the cautious way he’s inspecting the jade elephant figurine Nat had brought back from Europe.
The juxtaposition between endearing and utterly horrifiying makes Steve’s head spin, and he has to sit down, heavily on the couch. It’s good that Bucky has a name and yet it makes Steve feel sick, right down to the marrow of his bones, because if Bucky has a name - a perfectly ordinary name, what sounds like a nickname even - then that means he had a life before… before… before whatever he was doing, discarded in a cardboard box on a construction site like a stray. Unable or unwilling to leave his flimsy confine despite being uninjured, 6 feet tall and pushing 200 pounds.
None of it makes any sense.
It takes him a few moments to realise that Bucky has gone as still as the elephant, his wide, grey eyes staring at Steve’s face, as if he too needs to be mapped out.
‘Bucky,’ Steve says slowly, testing how the word feels in his mouth. ‘Bucky. It’s nice. I like it, I mean, I’m glad you remembered. It reminds me of a bear, actually. A plush! Not a real bear. Small and cute. Um!’
Bucky stares at him, unblinking, his dark eyebrows drawing together until a crease forms between them, as if Steve is a particularly interesting but strange insect.
‘Sorry! I meant it as a… Look, never mind. You must be hungry. Why don’t you take a shower while I get us both something to eat? I’m famished.’ He scrubs his hands back and forth across the rough cord of his pants.
Could he be more clumsy? His limbs, usually stiff and worn out after a day working, feel like they’re buzzing with restless energy.
Bucky watches him with impassive eyes as Steve gets to his feet. It takes more effort than Steve would like to admit but Steve’s not sure if he’s got any choice there; Bucky’s gaze seems to burn through his skin, as if he can see right down to Steve’s bones. And Steve is pretty sure that there can’t be anything good there.
Still, Bucky eventually turns and heads towards the bathroom, giving Marshall a wide berth. The bathroom door closes with a resounding crash and finally Steve’s chest frees up enough for him to breathe again, gasping in a grateful lungful of air. He waits a few more moments, Marshall’s fur soft against his fingertips as he pets Marshall’s head, until he hears the telltale click of the shower turning on and the noisy rattle of the water in the ancient pipes.
Steve breathes another sigh of relief and turns his attention to the cupboards. They’re disconcertingly bare, only the pale swirls in the grain of the wood and a few crumbs staring back at them as he opens the doors.
It’s only a little stale and surely Bucky won’t notice when he’s dipped it in his soup; the moisture will surely soften them up a little. He’s starting to feel better about everything - they’ll work it out somehow - and he starts whistling, a dawdling, tuneless thing that’s as bright as the feeling blooming in his chest, nonetheless.
Outside of Steve’s apartment, evening draws into night and the city slows but never quite stops. A strange kind of tentative trust seems to have settled between them ever since they’d had dinner. Steve has never owned a cat himself but he’d looked after his neighbors pompous Maine Coon plenty of times; he’d only managed to come out of that unscathed after Luna had realised that Steve was able to use a can opener and, even though he feels a tug of guilt about it, Steve can’t help but wonder if the same is true of Bucky.
Steve wakes slowly, burrowing further beneath his covers in defiance of the break of day, until he’s curled around an ocean of warmth. His dreams evade him and eventually Steve has to give up the pretense, forcing his eyes open and groaning against the sharp stab of pain as the sunlight hits them.
The warm spot squirms. When Steve glances down, it turns out not to be a warm spot at all. There’s a tangle of overgrown man at the bottom of his bed, something that Steve had never thought he’d wake up to. Somehow Bucky has managed to make himself look small, curled up in Steve’s shadow, like a moon orbiting its planet. His arms are curled protectively around himself, his knees are tucked up against his chest but the sight of Bucky’s face makes Steve’s heart clench.
He’d not realised how much expression there’d been on such a seemingly blank face but the strain is even more evident in Steve’s memory at the sight of Bucky’s face slackened by sleep. He looks younger, almost carefree and Steve has to look away.
‘Buck?’ Steve mumbles, reaching out to tangle his fingers in Bucky’s hair before he considers what he’s doing.
Bucky makes a muffled keening sound, at the lightest touch of Steve’s fingers, a shiver running through his body; it’s almost as if it is more than a mere touch, as if it is something earth shatteringly powerful. Experimentally, Steve moves his fingers against Bucky’s scalp again, disturbing the neat sweep of Bucky’s curls. Despite the dire state it had been in the day before, Bucky’s hair is surprisingly soft against Steve’s palm.
The moment coils around them; as the sun slips over the horizon and the city slowly wakes from its slumber, here and now, they remain untouched by it, by the neverending spin of the world on its axis nor the neverending march of time. They are just this, reduced to warmth and sensation alone.
Eventually, however, the moment is shattered by the screech of Steve’s alarm. There’s something warm lodged in Steve’s chest, even as he forces himself out from under the warm safety of his bed. Bucky makes a low, grumbling sound, rolling over, and, when Steve glances back at him, he’s no longer the man Steve had found the previous night. Transformed by the sunlight, Bucky seems softer somehow, younger, as if all the troubles he wears around his shoulders like a cloak have disappeared.
It wrenches something, deep inside of Steve, to leave him now, to climb out from beneath those warm welcoming sheets and step into the cold, hard light of day. But, Steve has always been practical and he knows that he has to. Rent has been harder and harder to find, the clients for
So, he pushes himself upright, let’s out a cough that rattles around his bones and lets his feet hit the carpet.
When he gets back, however, the delicate peace has been shattered. The blinds are down, crooked at strange angles which cast the apartment in patchy light, so Steve doesn’t see the extent of the devastation straight away. Cupboard doors open, chairs upturned and magazines dumped out onto the floor; Steve’s heart pounds, painfully.
He finds Bucky curled in his bed, the sheets knotted and crumpled around him, like a fluffy, protective shell.
‘Hey, hey, Bucky,’ Steve says, careful to keep his voice low and gentle, ‘it’s okay, Buck. I’m here.’
‘You were gone.’ Bucky states, eying Steve reproachfully. His hands tug at the comforter and Steve can’t help but be endeared by the gesture, like a cat’s paws kneading.
‘I had to go to work,’ Steve says, simply. Bucky doesn’t seem to accept that as an answer - and Steve can only guess whether he doesn’t understand or whether he simply doesn’t trust Steve - but his shoulder’s relax minutely as Steve strokes a hand through his hair.
Before long, they fall into this strange sort of routine: Steve goes to work at the cafe or shuts himself in his tiny office space to work on his art and Bucky cooks them meals and sleeps; in Steve’s bed, in a patch of sunlight, sprawled across the couch with one foot dangling off, precariously.
Bucky seems to thaw out with every touch, with every kind and gentle gesture and Steve has always been a little too fond of creatures who crave affection. It’s entirely too easy, Steve finds, to start up this cosy, little habit, to get closer to Bucky until Steve can’t imagine life without him. It’s not like Bucky disrupts him much, apart from his strange but insistent sleeping habits. He hardly wants to speak, cleans up after himself and spends most of his day either sleeping or quietly inspecting Steve’s meager possessions.
The questions that had once plagued Steve’s mind, that still should be, slip away as if whispered into a spring breeze; swept up and forgotten. They are quite happy and peaceful until the entire thing shatters like glass.
Aching from head to toe after a particularly long and taxing shift, Steve is sluggish as he takes the stairs up to the apartment. He’s been working on a new piece that he’d been hoping to finish, some kind of strange, twisted cityscape which felt as if it’s being ripped from his very soul. But, the day weighs heavily on him and there’s ground coffee dust crusted underneath his nails, Steve’s not sure that he can muster the energy to work on it.
Head swirling with thoughts, Steve almost doesn’t notice how stiffly Bucky is sat in front of the TV, the news flashing across the screen.
‘The fugitive, Bucky Barnes, is still wanted for his crimes in Sokovia,’ the news reporter says, her shoulders stiff and her mouth a thin line. A picture flashes up onto the screen beside her; a man with sallow skin, dark shadowed eyes and wide, broadening shoulders. It’s low-quality, obviously pulled from some kind of security system but the ears are as clear as anything, brown and drawn down close to his skull, as if he is angry. Or, terrified.
Steve can’t breathe.
‘Tony Stark, of Stark industries, has personally put up an extra one million dollars as a reward for any information concerning Barnes’s whereabouts. However, in an exclusive interview today, Stark revealed to our reporters that an arrest might be close. This footage contains flashing images.’
Steve fumbles for the remote and turns the TV off with a click.
‘Steve,’ Bucky says and the sound is so utterly broken, so utterly unlike anything Steve ever wants to hear coming from Bucky’s mouth, that he can’t stop himself. He jumps, his skinny thighs protesting, and throws his arms around Bucky’s neck, like a porcelain vice.
‘Buck,’ Steve breathes back, pressing his face into the warm juncture between Bucky’s neck and shoulder. He can feel the strong thud of Bucky’s heartbeat beneath the delicate skin of his throat, against his forehead, but best of all is the fact that Bucky lets him, presses into the contact, settling Steve more firmly against him. Allowing himself to be vulnerable. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
‘I have to go.’ Bucky trembles. ‘I have to get out of here… Stark knows.’
He pauses, taking a deep breathe, as Steve tucks Bucky’s head beneath the point of his chin. It feels almost silly; like a bird trying to comfort a bear and for once, Steve allows himself to contemplate just how delicate he is in comparison to Bucky, all angles and bird-like bones.
‘You don’t have to come with me, Steve,’ Bucky says and Steve can feel the vibrations of each word against his skin, rattling him down to his very bones. ‘You can stay here. You can be safe. I would never expect you to…’ Bucky seems to stop himself, his arms dropping from around Steve’s shoulders.
The fire has always been there, burning away in Steve’s chest. It’s not like he hadn’t known; it’s driven him in everything that he’s done. The fight. The determination.
Don’t ever give in , Sarah Rogers says. The flames are a bonfire, blazing. Steve gets up.
‘I know,’ he breathes against Bucky’s skin, as if he can imprint them onto Bucky’s very being. ‘I’m coming with you, Buck.’
A shudder shakes it’s way through Bucky’s being and something wet presses against Steve’s hair; Bucky trembles in Steve’s arms and Steve holds him through it, his chest alight with enough warmth to shelter both of them. Bucky never has to be cold again.
Because that’s the thing, Steve thinks, we’re all going to fade. Either that, or burn out bright and Steve knows just which one he’s going to choose.
At Bucky’s insistence, they pack a single bag, which Bucky then slings over his shoulder. Steve doesn’t bother to fuss or mother hen or argue for once; he figures Bucky has got the expertise in this particular area. Steve busies himself collecting up Marshall’s things, scooping kibble into takeout containers, wrapping up Marshall’s favourite toys in his towel, in a daze while Marshall’s wet nose buts curiously against Steve’s hands.
‘It’s okay,’ Steve says, tucking the bundle he’s amassed under one arm so that he can brush his hand across Marshall’s head, scratching behind one floppy ear.
‘Ready?’ Bucky asks and when Steve turns to look at him, he freezes.
It’s just another reminder of his own complacency, he supposes, but still the sight takes his breath away. He’s starting to worry about his asthma at this rate; far too many revelations for one day. With the time Bucky has been here, mooching about in sweatpants and loose hoodies, looking soft and sleepy, Steve had forgotten just how he’d found him that first night.
Bucky cuts a broad, imposing figure; his old utility jacket makes his shoulder’s look impossibly wide and his waist bulky and thick, his features are broken up and hardened by the way his hair hangs around his face like a shield, a cap pulled down low atop his head.
‘Yeah,’ Steve says, suddenly feeling a little stupid. He plucks at his sweater.
Wordlessly, Bucky turns and heads for the door and all Steve can do is follow him, feeling a little foolish at the way he seems to fuss over everything: finding and clipping on Marshall’s lead, switching off all of the lights, and locking the door.
It feels like they’re going on vacation rather than…
The cold, evening air feels like a wall, gusting into them with real force and stealing Steve’s breath away. He coughs roughly behind his hand while Bucky stalks down the street, his shoulders held taut while his gaze roams wild.
Steve watches, his breath catching in this throat, as Bucky moves down the sidewalk with a kind of feline aggression. His ears are hidden beneath a baseball cap but Steve knows that if not, they would be pricked and alert.
The frigid wind nips at Steve’s arms and face, working its way beneath his clothes and chilling every inch of skin that its icy fingers touch. He shivers, grasping Marshall’s leash a little tighter in his hand.
Bucky seems to find what he’s looking for; a dark black mustang that gleams even in the dull fall evening. Steve watches, mesmerized, as Bucky touches the hood with his fingertips in a kind of reverent caress, before his elbow goes out and he forces open the side window with a sickening crunch.
‘Get in,’ he hisses, all fluid motion as he pops the hood and begins what Steve assumes is hotwiring the car. And, Steve’s never been one for taking orders lightly but, all the same, something in him compels his mouth to snap shut with an audible click as he climbs into the passenger side.
It’s only when they’re getting inside and Bucky is pulling out onto the road, that the realization sinks in. Steve’s chest tightens and he rubs a hand across it absentmindedly, his palm catching and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt; he’s giving up everything, his apartment, his job, his life because there’s no going back after this. Steve’s head spins, just imagining the charges he could face.
It seems distant, though, the inevitability of it dulling the panic that rises up with even the thought of it all; Steve’s always tried to do what’s right and, as he glances at Bucky in the driver's seat, he knows this is right. Whatever Bucky’s done or not done, Steve’s sure it wasn’t his fault. The supposed criminal pictured on the news wasn’t the gentle, timid, sleepy man that Steve knew and he’d found him scared, alone and abandoned in a box, first of all.
The cityscape speeds past outside the window and Steve curls his legs up underneath him, watching it all pass. Like a bathtub, he feels the thoughts and worries empty from his head under the blink of streetlights.
They drop Marshall off at Nat’s place. She takes him in without any questions or invitations for them to stay for coffee, petting his head and waving them off with a smile. Steve is starting to wonder, with this all, whether it’s really so out of character for him after all; Nat seems strangely accepting, if not outright knowing, about the whole affair.
And, apparently, Steve hadn’t exactly been wrong about trusting this whole affair to Bucky. He drives with an almost calculated single-mindedness, weaving through the city as if it’s his lifelong home rather than Steve’s.
And then, the thought hits him like a roadblock. Because… it could be, couldn’t it? Steve doesn’t know and he’s not sure whether Bucky does either. He’s running off with this man and Steve doesn’t even know where he’s from.
What the fuck is he doing?
Time is different now. Steve sleeps in fits and bursts, only aware of the passing of the days or how far they’ve traveled by their gas station stops and the shifting position of the sun in the sky. Eventually, Bucky seems to deem it safe enough to stop, and they pull into a quiet little motel with a lop-sided, neon sign.
The first order of business, once they have their room, is a shower. It’s dingy, Steve is sure he can see some mold growing in the corner, but it’s not bad as ‘on the run’ accomodation goes, he supposes. Not that Steve’s had a lot of experience with this kind of thing.
He let’s himself appreciate the feeble luxury of it all in a way he usually doesn’t, enjoying the warmth of the water across his aching muscles and the relative softness of the towel that he wraps himself up in before venturing back into the room.
Bucky has taken up a seat on the bed, his cap and hoodie discarded as he flips through TV channels. Steve feels a little thrill as he changes next to him.
‘Want some help?’ He asks, nodding towards Bucky’s straggly, matted looking hair, scrubbing his own with his damp towel.
Slowly, after a moment's consideration, Bucky nods his head. It’s almost shy and Steve’s chest goes tight.
He makes quick work of his own hair, tearing the comb through with little care before he sits down next to Bucky, placing a gentle but hesitant hand on Bucky’s head. Despite its current state, Steve has to admit that Bucky has pretty nice hair. The length is something Steve is sure he could never pull off but on Bucky… it suits him, just as the color compliments Bucky’s pale skin.
He runs the brush carefully through Bucky’s hair, partitioning it to avoid it catching on his ears; Steve’s sure that can’t be a comfortable experience. Bucky’s shoulders slowly relax, the stiffness melting out of them with each pass of the brush.
Steve’s so focused on working out some of the snarls from the ends that he almost misses the sound escapes Bucky; low and… Steve blinks, is it purring? It’s strange, not something that Steve ever expected to be doing, and yet…
The repetitive rhythm of the brush is soothing, so is the low sound of Bucky’s purring. He can feel the heat radiating from Bucky’s skin and presses closer without thinking, until his thigh is nudged up against Bucky’s.
‘Steve,’ Bucky breathes, turning his face just slightly. It’s only then that Steve notices how close they are, how they’re practically inside each other’s space, breathing each other in. ‘Stevie.’
He leans forward, pressing his lips gently to Bucky’s, half waiting for Bucky to jerk away in disgust. They’re achingly warm and just a little chapped, dragging roughly against his own when Bucky starts to kiss him back, moving slowly.
Electricity buzzes across Steve’s nerves and he presses closer, needing more. This one point of contact anchors them but Steve wants more than that, he wants everything, wants nothing. Bucky’s purrs have petered out, replaced by low, grumbling moans, that rumble through Steve’s skin right down to his bones, rattling somewhere around the cage of his ribs and twisting their roots into his heart.
This is all he can think, all he can be; he feels, he feels so much and all of it is Bucky, Bucky’s warmth and Bucky’s scent and it’s so much. Steve presses closer, rising up onto his boney knees to tilt Bucky’s head back, his fingertips finding the hinge of Bucky’s jaw and pressing forward greedily, into the carpet of his hair. He wants to give Bucky this, to make it so good for him.
Finally, they break apart, Steve’s hummingbird chest rising and falling unsteadily as he tries to catch his breath.
‘We should get food,’ Bucky says, seeming to recover more quickly, though his cheeks are still flushed. He casts about for a moment, trying to locate his hat.
‘Let me go,’ Steve says, giving Bucky’s hair one final pet before he tugs on his jacket over his slim shoulders. He feels light as a feather, like a strong breeze might sweep him up.
When Steve enters, the little bodega is empty apart from the cashier and one other customer. The neon lights in the ceiling flash unevenly as Steve stoops to check out the protein bars, trying to deciper which flavour Bucky would approve of. He settles on chocolate and honeycomb, knowing Bucky’s sweet tooth, and grabs a packet of chips for himself.
It tugs at his heart, achingly domesticity in the exact way he’s always dreamed of.
‘Steve Rogers, right?’ Steve jolts in shock, the protein bar slipping from between his fingertips in his shock. He scrambles for it, fingers fumbling, in the sudden anxiety that he needs to get it for Bucky as a shadow falls across him. ‘I’m a big fan.’
Steve gets to his feet finally, pausing to brush the lint from his jeans before he looks at the man. He’s fairly unremarkable, short cropped brown hair and a neatly styled beard in an expensive looking suit.
‘Tony Stark,’ the man says, having the audacity to smirk. Steve feels his blood turn to ice. ‘I think we need to have a little talk.’