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Steve Rogers learned how to dance.
Inside the shell of the muscles, the sudden height, the size that fit all over him like an extension of himself, he was still the small man waiting to be eclipsed by someone else. When the chorus girls smiled at him in dressing rooms or rehearsal halls, he fought the urge to look over his shoulder and see who was standing behind him. For the first time, Steve was the one people wanted to dance with. The trouble was, Steve didn’t much feel like dancing with any of them.
For the most part, Steve had to walk on beat while he smiled and read his lines to the audience. And I thought bootcamp was hard. Steve thought during a rehearsal that ran late.
“No, no, no. Mr. Rogers. From the beginning of your line, if you please. And don’t start until you hear the drum. That’s for you, so you know when to step.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just do it.” The director said, rolling his eyes. The chorus girl behind him, Debbie, Steve was pretty sure her name was Debbie, let out a soft sigh.
“Okay. Got it.”
“Right. Let’s try it again.” They tried it again. And then again. Steve developed a new appreciation for the quick, flawless steps that each of the dancers pulled off without fail every night, while he worked to maintain the simple one-two-three-four across the boards. At least he could lift that motorcycle over his head. He was good at that part.
“Steve,” May called into his end of the bus on a rainy Tuesday evening. Steve put down the blank paper, relief seeping into his bones that he no longer had to stare it down, trying to compose a letter in which he did not say any of the things he longed to tell. His new secret ate away at him with each breath that he drew, but it was worst whenever he tried to write to Bucky.
“Yes?” He called, pulling the curtain back to greet May. Her sweetheart face framed by perfectly crafted blonde curls. She was smiling like she just won a million bucks.
“We’ve got the night off.”
“Really?” Steve asked. He could hear a general uproar of excited voices from outside, louder than usual, even with the entire cast and crew milling about like they usually did just before dinnertime.
“Yes, really. The venue had to cancel on us.”
“Gee.” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s a shame.”
“Do you see me crying?” May said. “We’re going dancing. Come on and get dressed.” Steve felt pushed back in surprise. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered what he would have thought of himself if he could have seen this moment a year ago. In the front of his mind, however, all he heard was a faint buzzing sound. He was not prepared for this.
“May, uh.” He swallowed. “I don’t. I mean, that is to say. I think you’re—“
“Oh don’t worry. Rose is coming too. You can start breathing again. If I was going to try putting the moves on you, you would know it.”
“Thanks.” Steve said, feeling his face go seven different shades of red. “That’s real nice of you, May.”
The club was in full swing by the time they got there. Steve arrived with a gal on each arm and only a minor sense of foreboding hanging at the back of his mind. It was not that he didn’t want to be there, not exactly. After so many nights in endless, thankless rehearsals or on stage, even he was starting to get tired.
The truth was, of all the unexpected things that had happened to him in the past few months—sprouting up several inches, gaining an extra hundred pounds of muscle, chasing down cars and submarines, and finding himself as the poster boy for the army of the United States of America—walking into a club with couple of women who didn’t look as if it were a chore to be with him felt like the strangest. Going out on the town without Bucky was the part that felt the most wrong. It was a nice life that Steve had stumbled into, it was just not his life.
He glanced around the club and noticed a fair amount of men in dress greens. It was nice to feel like his uniform allowed him to blend in, even when he went out. He stood straighter and caught May’s eye.
“This what you had in mind?” He asked.
“Perfection.” She said, positively beaming.
“Hey Captain,” Rose said, with her trademark permanent smirk on her cherubic lips. “How about you get us some refreshments?” She asked.
“Sure.” He said, eyeing the bar.
“Gin and tonic.” Rose said.
“May?” Steve asked.
“Water.” She called back over her shoulder, already being led out onto the dance floor.
There was space at the bar for Steve’s broad shoulders, but not much. The man next to him was skinny and short, wearing civvies that had seen better days. Steve felt an instant sense of comradery for him. He knew the look on this man’s face so well, the determination set in his jaw and a fire burning hot and bright just behind his eyes.
“Did somebody drag you out here too?” Steve asked. The smaller man started, surprise and suspicion in his face.
“What was that?” He asked.
“Just,” Steve leaned a little closer, “My friends wanted to go dancing, but now I don’t really know why I’m here.” Steve said. The other man’s expression softened slightly. His dark hair had fallen out of place and hung in his eyes, the barest traces of stubble crept along his sharp jaw. His lips were accentuated by the lighting of the club. They twitched just slightly, almost a smile.
“My friend.” The man said, pointing to a tall soldier twirling two women on the dance floor and laughing so hard they could hear him all the way from the bar. Steve nodded.
“I’ve got a friend like that.” Steve said. The man shook his head.
“No, sir. I saw you walk in here with those ladies. I’m telling you, you are that friend.” His smile almost made it to his eyes. The bartender approached, expectant.
“Water and a gin and tonic.” Steve said, and then going to hell with himself, added “and a whiskey neat.” The bartender nodded and walked away.
“I can’t say I’ve ever thought of it that way,” Steve picked up their conversation, “but you’re probably right these days.”
“In any case, you say your friends dragged you in.” The man said, “I’d have a hard time believing anybody could make a fella like you do a thing he didn’t feel like doing.”
Steve breathed out a soft laugh and thought of Bucky and his uncanny knack for talking Steve into just about anything. Then again, the reverse had always been true as well. They understood each other, knew what made them tic and what made them said yes. Steve gave the man standing next to him an appreciative once-over. The height difference was just about the same, but for the first time, he was looking down instead of up. It was like being through the looking glass.
“It’s Frank, by the way.” The man said, offering a hand to Steve. Frank’s handshake was firm and they held on longer than was strictly necessary. Steve felt the flush creep into his cheeks, already feeling as if he had downed the whiskey sitting untouched next to him. “You got a name?” Frank asked.
“Steve.”
“Nice to meet you, Steve. Those dames you came in with are looking for you.” Frank said, raising his glass in the general direction of the table that May and Rose claimed.
“Good luck with your friend.” Steve said, picking up the glasses and carrying them away.
He knew he was not supposed to, but he let May lead. Her smile was indulgent while she spun him around the floor, steering him where he needed to go and shaking her head every once in a while at his ineptitude. The serum had enhanced so much about Steve, his reflexes and his timing were top notch these days, but there was a disconnect between his brain and his feet that even the best of modern science could not fill in. He returned her patient smile with an apologetic one of his own and allowed a nervous man in a fine suit and tie to cut in and take his place.
The alley had always been Steve’s natural environment anyway. He took a deep breath when he stepped outside feeling the pressure of the club drop away like an ill-fitting coat. To his left a throat cleared softly. He caught Frank watching him from a few feet away, a certain wariness lingered in the way he held his head and shoulders, but a cautious smile played upon his lips. Steve stepped out of the doorway and closer to Frank inhaling the scent of his cigarette without the urge to cough.
“Why aren’t you in there dancing?” Frank asked. The whiskey that Steve drank tasted good, familiar, but it had not made him feel a thing. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip, hoping to collect a stray drop, wondering if it was taking its time on its way to his brain. Despite feeling too aware of himself, the truth of his answer was ripped from him with surprising force as he took another step toward Frank.
“I don’t feel like dancing.” Steve said. At the same moment, Frank flicked his cigarette away and turned to meet Steve with equal energy. Steve’s hands landed on either side of Frank’s face before he could consider his actions, bearing down on him with a determination that he saved solely for a more violent kind of attack. Instead, for once, the touch was soft.
Lips found lips in desperation, but they kissed their surrogates the way they wished they could kiss the men who were not in this alley. Steve closed his eyes and pictured Bucky’s lips, full and lush, parted in surprise and smiling the way they always did. He imagined the way Bucky would have stared at him, wide-eyed, through the kiss and then kissed back with the same kind of fervor that Frank supplied.
He did not wonder too hard about who Frank imagined as he gripped Steve’s hair and pulled him down, shoved him toward the wall, pressed a thigh between his and—oh. Steve leaned his head against the bricks behind him while Frank latched on to his neck. He was lightheaded and his knees were weak. Hands on either side of Frank’s slender, fragile waist, he pulled him closer and felt the bulge that rested against his own thigh as they moved together in the quiet and the dark of the alley. Steve chased down the other man’s lips again and pressed another kiss there. He felt hot puffs of breath, sweet with alcohol and want.
The club’s alley door opened again with a resounding bang. They split apart and jumped away from each other as if they had been scalded. Frank’s friend looked between the two of them, confusion and hurt radiating from him. He crossed the space between them in one stride, stepping into the space that Frank vacated, right in front of Steve, and pushed him against the wall. For the first time that Steve could remember, he did not feel like fighting back.
“You touch him?” He asked, his voice a low growl. “Frank. Did he hurt you?”
“No, Bill. It’s fine. Let him go.” Frank’s voice sounded thin and tired. Bill matched Steve in height. He could hardly have known he was punching so far above his weight class. Steve watched the way his eyes softened when he looked at Frank. He knew that look, aimed so often in his own direction from Bucky’s eyes. Steve allowed himself to be held against the wall. Bill returned his attention to Steve, his expression hardening again into a sharp, decisive one.
“You better not have—“ Bill didn’t finish his sentence. Hurt him? Steve wondered. Fucked him? What would Bucky have said if he were the one pinning a stranger to an alley wall on Steve’s account? If he were honest with himself, Steve did not know anymore.
Steve met Bill’s eyes and shook his head, a silent answer to either question.
“Okay.” Bill said, dropping his hands to his sides and stepping away. He draped an arm around Frank’s shoulders in a fashion that could almost have been brotherly if Steve had not seen the devotion in Frank’s eyes and felt it firsthand from Bill. He watched them with a growing agony in his gut, worse than any uppercut or kick had ever caused. They turned without another word to Steve and left him where he stood in the alley with the broken bottles and the soft hum of music through the wall.
Bucky
He almost forgot that his feet could move until Steve dragged him from that Hydra facility like a resurrection. Bucky believed himself to be a lost cause, a string of numbers, something that had been forgotten but not surrendered. Now that he drew free breath, the air went to his head and he found himself imagining all the ways he wanted to spend it.
The Army wanted to send him home, just like they wanted to send him to boot camp and Europe and then to the Front. They liked to send him places. They were not going to send him away from Steve again so easily. The difference was, this time he knew what he was signing up for.
Things came easier and so much harder now. He could put a bullet in a moving man from distances he never would have tried before. The march back to base left him no more breathless than a quick trip around the block (except for stolen glances at Steve, which made him want to stop and catch his breath along with the sickest of the soldiers). However, in a concrete and inarguable way, Bucky did not feel exhaustion, he did not falter, and the things that once gave him pause no longer bothered him.
On the other hand, the simple act of tying the laces of his boots or straightening his collar felt like insurmountable tasks. Those little things, the details of being alive and no longer on the scientist’s table, that he once craved as much as breathing, seemed to take every ounce of strength he had.
Steve entered his tent with that gentle smile that he saved for bad news.
“You feel like going out tonight, pal?” He asked. If it had been anyone but Steve, Bucky would have shaken his head and gone back to contemplating the inside of the canvas, but his heart gave a sudden lurch, sending him to his feet.
“They’re letting us?”
“Sure.” Steve said. “Not every day a labor camp is liberated, you know. Gotta celebrate the small stuff.” Bucky nodded and smoothed his hair back. He watched the way Steve licked his lips, absentminded, distracted. It was comforting to know that his habits had not changed along with so much of him.
The bar was loud. That was good. The raucous noise made such a contrast to the hours of desolate silence that Bucky had been subjected to that it left little doubt in his mind that he could still be in the lab somehow.
Steve’s arm draped around his shoulders as they entered and found vacant seats side by side. He used to walk with his arm around Steve that way, Bucky remembered, back when he was the taller of the two and his arm fell there without thought, comfortable in its place. Clutched close to Steve’s body, all heat and goodness, he felt safer in a way.
“You talked to the rest of the guys about fighting together?” Steve asked. He had been throwing the idea around, just between the two of them, of getting a team together. The men who fought their way out of the Hydra base with them were good. They knew their stuff, and there was an undeniable layer of brotherhood that grew between people in such an experience. Steve had not known them for long enough to feel it, except that it was his nature. Bucky on the other hand, felt that he knew each of them for nearly as long as he knew Steve.
“No way. That’s your job.” He said, shaking his head.
“You still think I oughtta?” Steve asked. Bucky nodded.
“Who else?” He asked. “After the stunt you pulled, just about anybody would follow you into the jaws of certain death, but they’re the only fellas I would trust to try it.”
“Alright.” Steve said and rose from his seat. “Let’s see what they say.”
While Steve asked the gang to be their gang, properly and army-sanctioned, Bucky drank whiskey. It tasted bad, like the bottom of the barrel, but it tasted like home. He felt the burn at the back of his throat, but none of the relief. His shoulders stayed as tense as ever, and the heavy burden that he carried all the way from Austria was no lighter with each sip that he took. He ordered a beer, dark and frothy, for Steve, who returned beaming.
“See? Told you.” Bucky said upon his return.
“How ‘bout you?” Steve asked. “You ready to follow Captain America?” It was almost a joke. Bucky smiled and took another drink that he did not feel.
“Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight, I’m following him.” Bucky said. A different conversation entered his thoughts, teaching Steve to dance in the living room to old records that a girl had left at Bucky’s house a lifetime ago. He told Steve to follow him, and even in those days, Steve had been terrible at following. Steve had been shorter than Bucky then. The world had not been flipped on its axis yet.
Steve took a long pull from his beer and Bucky watched for the way he used to go pink, cheeks flushed, his smile dopy and bright. Instead of that innocence, washed brighter by the drink, Bucky saw Steve grow contemplative. He still had that sadness in him. Bucky shrugged it off. Things change. Neither of them were kids getting drunk off stolen liquor on the kitchen floor anymore. If only those kids could see them now. Bucky leaned into Steve with a conspiratorial smile.
“But you’re keeping the outfit, right?” he asked. Steve considered him for a moment before a devious smile crept across his face.
“You know what? It’s kind of growing on me.”
Agent Carter was something new that Bucky had not reckoned on. When she walked in with her red dress that held her the way every man in the bar longed to, and eyes only for Steve, he felt something settle into place—a fear that had never before known a name. Steve had always been the only light in the room for Bucky. Suddenly, he shone on everyone around him, too. Bucky looked between them, from eye to eye, and saw the magnetic energy there. He felt entirely inconsequential, unreal, except for his own jealousy. The floor was easier to watch, so he fixed his gaze there, instead.
Agent Carter’s words ground the gears of Bucky’s brain to a screeching halt.
“I might, when all of this is over, go dancing.” She said.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Bucky asked. It was an invitation, a claim, a threat. He would dance with Miss Carter until the night was over and tire her out so that she couldn’t dream of doing anything but finding her way back to her own quarters. Alone.
“The right partner.” Carter said, her eyes never leaving Steve’s. A slight smile played at the corner of her mouth. Bucky tried so hard not to resent them. He failed. When she left, he let out a frustrated huff of breath.
“I’m invisible.” He laughed. “I’m turning into you. This is a horrible dream.” Bucky said. Steve clapped him on the shoulder and bought another round, for all the good it did him. The proximity to Steve, however, uninterrupted and close, was as intoxicating as any bourbon Bucky had ever tasted.
Over the course of the night, with the boys singing along to the bouncing tunes plunked out by the piano, their off color jokes, endless laughter and his quick glances at Steve that ended before they began, Bucky could nearly allow himself to forget where he was. The desire to feel sorry for himself was trampled down when Dernier dragged Dum Dum to his feet and spun him in a clumsy circle, swinging his arms about.
Bucky caught Steve watching him.
“Remember when we did that?” He asked.
“Sure, but we danced better than those mooks.” Bucky said, laughing. If he remembered correctly, it may not have been strictly true.
“Want to show them how it’s done?” Steve asked, offering an arm to escort Bucky to the space where tables and chairs had been roughly shoved aside. Bucky looked at Steve’s arm, and the invasive thought came screaming into his head before he could shut it out.
Bucky did not know this arm. He did not know this body, or how to dance with it. If Steve stood in the wrong place at the wrong time tomorrow and got his head blown off, Bucky wouldn’t be able to identify the carnage. He did not know this Steve from Adam. Heart beating in his throat like a battering ram, he shook his head and pushed past him out the door and into the chill of the night.
Steve found Bucky with his arms crossed against the breeze, staring up at the stars. He could see the constellations so much better here than he ever could in Brooklyn. He thought back to the rooftops where he used to sleep on hot summer evenings, stretched out on borrowed quilts to watch meteor showers that hardly broke through the haze of city lights. These skies were something else entirely, and Steve outshone them all.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Steve asked.
“Trust me,” Bucky said, returning his mind to the ground, “They aren’t worth that much.”
“You don’t have to talk to me, Buck. I can read you like a book, you know.”
“That’s your trouble, Rogers. Too much reading.”
“I’m serious, Bucky.” Steve fixed him with a concerned expression, and even in the dark, lit only by starlight and the faint glow from the bar, Bucky could see that Steve meant business.
“You always are.”
“You’re not okay.”
“No.” Bucky shook his head and shrugged, as if to say, What else would I be? As if to ask Are you? “But I’m here.” He said.
Steve fell into his arms. He was taller now, holding him was different, and he found his arms supported by Steve’s, rather than the other way around, as they spun each other through the empty courtyard, away from prying eyes. One of Steve’s hands rested on his shoulder, gentlemanly, solid. The other held Bucky’s like it might break, or like he might run. Bucky had no intention of doing either of those things.
He watched Steve’s eye as they stepped in sync, their feet followed a soundless melody which they both could hear. They moved in time with one another in the most harmonious way, feeling each lilt and lift of their imaginary music. It was a dance that nobody taught them, and one that they knew by heart. It was theirs and theirs alone.
For the first time that Bucky could remember, the smile on his face was genuine, and not tinged with hurt, or loss, or the satisfaction of killing. Instead, he was wrapped in the joy of Steve’s arms, so much larger and warmer than they had once been. Suddenly, these arms did not feel like they belonged to a stranger, they were the arms he had known his whole life. Steve was Steve was Steve. He leaned in, so close that Steve could feel his breath against his ear and sang, low and sweet,
The way you wear your hat/ The way you sip your tea/ The memory of all that/ No, no, they can’t take that away from me…
Their steps became smaller, intimate in a slow, intentional way. They had all night, they had forever, and right now, Bucky was singing to Steve, just like he used to do before everything got so twisted. It was all he needed to do and everything he needed to say.
Steve’s voice, so quiet it was almost a whisper, joined his.
We may never, never meet again on that bumpy road to love/ still I’ll always, always keep the memory of/ The way you hold your knife/ The way we danced ‘til three/ the way you changed my life/ No, no they can’t take that away from me/ They can’t take that away from me.
The moment stilled and they found themselves in the dark with nothing to hide from. To turn his face up and capture Steve’s lips with his own would have been the simplest thing, but Bucky found himself frozen where he stood, unable to do anything but feel himself in Steve’s arms, and to watch the rise and fall of his chest, comfortable in the knowledge that they were both alive and present. Neither of them had been taken away after all. That was good enough, wasn’t it?