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Tactically, being there was a shit move.
Bucky knew that, he knew it.
He would be outnumbered if Steve’s teammates were with him when he showed up. Steve might not be happy to see him. The Soldier’s instincts might reflexively try to hurt him if Steve got too close. Bucky might not be able to stop that reflex.
For hours, for days, those were the only thoughts in his head. Scenario after scenario of the innumerable ways this could go horribly wrong for him, for Steve. For everyone.
Bucky systematically ignored every damn of them.
He needed to be here. He had to be here.
The Soldier’s instincts, the Soldier’s training, Bucky had learned to ignore. He had learned to navigate them, control them. Some days, that was difficult. He would sit in a corner and stare at a wall until his mind went blank or bury his face in his hands, cut off his own sight entirely. It seemed to help.
He had to repeat things to himself a lot. He had to remind himself of the truth so that he didn’t start to once again believe the lies beaten into him over the course of a lifetime.
Each truth was spoken, put out into the world with an unsteady voice. He was never allowed to think for himself before. He was never allowed to speak unless directed to do so, unless his handler asked him a direction question.
Every part of his process was a step away from HYDRA’s control. Even the smallest detail was a victory in and of itself.
“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”
The same words Steve spoke to him on the helicarrier. It wasn’t the whole truth, not anymore, but it was close. It was enough.
“You were a Howling Commando.”
The museum exhibit told him that. The flashes of faded memory confirmed it. It was important that he remembered himself this way. It was important to see himself as a Commando instead of the Asset.
“You aren’t anyone’s weapon. Not anymore.”
This one was part truth, part promise.
It was the promise he made to himself when he broke free of his programming. He was a person, not a weapon to be used. He would never allow himself to be anyone’s weapon again.
Sometimes, these things didn’t feel like truths at all. They were acid on his tongue, lies that so flagrant that it made him nauseous to speak them out loud. He repeated them until they didn’t make him quite so sick, until he could breathe easily again. Until his mind wasn’t abuzz with mission failed and report, report.
A year of coping. A year of moving forward.
He had learned how to handle the Soldier’s instincts.
He had not, however, learned how to handle with the instincts of Sergeant James Barnes. The real Barnes, the one who fell in 1945.
So, there he sat in the corner of a darkened bedroom on an empty floor of a tower he really should not have been able to get into so easily. He sat and he waited, because Barnes demanded it of him.
Because Barnes had to know that Steve was whole and healthy and safe.
Sometimes, it seemed like his body was inhabited by three different people. There was the Soldier, who had ostensibly inhabited this body the longest. There was Sergeant Barnes, the original. And then there was Bucky has he was now. Someone new, someone who was part Barnes and part Soldier and part something else completely.
He was splintered, a patchwork of lives and personalities sewn together even though the pieces didn’t quite fit together the way they should.
Bucky wasn’t sure if this splintered feeling was permanent, if it would fade like a nightmare or linger like a scar. The uncertainty is one of the reasons he stayed away, why he wouldn’t let Steve find him.
He had no answers for Steve, none that would satisfy. He wanted to know for himself and for Steve before they faced one another again.
Bucky still didn’t have the answers, but the Avengers’ little adventure had been all over the news since it began a week ago. He wasn’t strong enough to combat Barnes’ instincts, the ones that told him to seek Steve out. The ones that said to find him and protect him, because Steve was absolute shit at protecting himself.
A huge part of Bucky didn’t want to ignore them. He had to know that Steve was alive, that he was still okay. He needed to know that his absence hadn’t led to the one death he couldn’t shoulder.
---
Eventually, Steve came home.
The Soldier’s training meant that Bucky heard him.
He heard the elevator’s soft chime as it stopped on Steve’s floor. He heard the doors open and he heard the soft footsteps that left the elevator and came slowly down the hallway toward him.
Steve was tired. His gait and pace told Bucky that much.
Steve was light on his feet. He didn’t used to be. He used to have a heavy foot, an uneven gait.
I used to make fun of him for it, Bucky thought. A scrap of a memory flares in his mind, the sound of his own laughter and Steve’s cheeks warm with an angry blush.
That was gone now. The serum had taken it away.
Now, Steve hardly made a sound at all when he walked. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to hear him, but Bucky wasn’t normal. He hadn’t been for decades.
The bedroom door was a whisper on the carpet and then for the first time since the helicarrier -- since Bucky had tried to kill him -- he glimpsed Steve.
It was difficult to see him in the dark. There was only the light from the city at night to see by, filtering in through Stark’s wall-windows.
Steve was all hunched shoulders and a downturned face. His mouth was pulled down in a frown and what little Bucky could see of his expression just looked exhausted. He looked as though the weight of the world rested between his shoulder blades.
Bucky hated it.
He wanted to see Steve properly. He wanted to see him bathed in light and smiling at something that Bucky’s said, the way Steve looked in a memory from a lifetime ago.
Bucky wanted it, but when Steve reached for the light switch, he panicked.
“Don’t,” he said into the darkness and Steve froze.
For a moment, the only sound in the room was harsh breath, both Steve’s and his own.
“Buck?” Steve asked softly and the fragile hope in his voice, it broke Bucky’s fucking heart.
“Yeah,” he said, even though it was only a half-truth. “It’s me.”
Bucky stood, careful to make noise as he did so. It was too easy to be silent these days. He’d been silent in every way for decades, a bloody shadow fading in and out of existence. Now, any noise he made was an effort. Most days, he couldn’t be bothered, but this was Steve. Doing anything for Steve, for his benefit, was easy as breathing.
Steve saw him as soon as he started moving, zeroed right in on the corner Bucky had tucked himself in. He watched with a wide, disbelieving gaze as Bucky moved toward him.
He moved slowly, Bucky did, telegraphing every moment, every step. He wanted to give Steve time to back away if that was what he wanted. He wanted to give Steve time to call for help, for back-up, if he didn’t feel safe being alone with Bucky.
Steve did none of these things, not a damn one of them. He just stood there and let Bucky close the distance between them.
Idiot, Bucky thought fondly.
He and Steve are nose-to-nose when he finally stopped moving. Despite everything, despite all that’s happened between them, the next breath that he took was his lightest since the 30s.
Bucky reached up with his flesh and blood hand, slowly again so that Steve could see. So that he could stop it if he wanted. He didn’t. Bucky’s fingers glide gently over a stubbled, dirty cheek. Steve’s breath hitched audibly and then he was pressing into the touch, encouraging it.
Once he started, once he knew Steve didn’t mind, Bucky couldn’t stop. He wanted to touch Steve everywhere, from his face to his neck to his shoulders, down his arms and chest and back. He wanted to and so he did.
His metal arm was tucked firmly behind his back, fingers clenched tightly into a fist from the effort it took to keep it there. Bucky wanted to touch Steve with all of him, with both hands, but that arm was part of the Soldier. He didn’t want the Soldier to touch Steve again, didn’t want to see metal against Steve’s soft flesh and remember how the Soldier had hurt him.
Finally, Steve shook his head, reaching behind Bucky to grasp his wrist. His movements were slow, too, just as telegraphs as Bucky’s own; both of them afraid to spook the other.
“It’s okay,” Steve whispered, gently tugging Bucky’s left hand toward him. “It’s okay, Buck.”
Bucky didn’t try to pull away, even though part of him screamed for him to do just that. He let Steve tug on him and watched as Steve gently rubbed his other cheek against metallic knuckles. Bucky couldn’t feel anything except light pressure, but the gesture itself made his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. He slowly opened his left hand and took the side of Steve’s face in his palm, bringing him closer while his other hand settled on Steve’s hip.
“You goddamn idiot,” he breathed into the minuscule space between them. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Steve’s lips quirked in amusement of all the things, the complete bastard. As if Bucky’s anger was something to laugh about.
“Which part?” Steve whispered, meeting Bucky’s gaze. The weariness had faded from his expression and now, his eyes practically fucking glow with happiness.
It floored Bucky, it honestly did, to know that he could have this kind of effect. To know that Steve could look like this just over Bucky being here, being near him.
“Any of it,” Bucky said and fuck it all, but his lips were twitching now, too. Seeing Steve’s smile made him want to answer it. “All of it. You couldda died.”
“Had to be done,” Steve said matter-of-factly. “This time was easy. The stakes weren’t nearly as high.”
This time.
Steve had, in his relatively short-lived life, actually saved the world a lot. But Bucky didn’t have to ask to know which time Steve was talking about now. He certainly didn’t have to ask to know how the stakes had been higher, either.
He just fucking knew. He knew because this was Steve and Steve’s heart had always been in the right place, but his priorities were also always a little fucked up. Bucky was always at the top of them, even when he shouldn’t have been. He didn’t deserve that kind of devotion, but especially not now. Not after everything he’d done.
This was not a thought he shared out loud, because Bucky knew it would be a waste of breath. Steve had never listened to reason before, it was doubtful he’d started in Bucky’s absence.
“You’re not right, Rogers,” Bucky said, earning him another one of those smiles. Fuck, but he loved that smile. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Just some jerk,” Steve told him. “A long time ago.”
“Guess that jerk needs to stick around. Tell you that a bit more.”
Bucky hadn’t been thinking when he said it, hadn’t known it was coming at all, but when the words were out there between them, something in his chest eased.
Yeah, he thought. Maybe.
The smile dropped from Steve’s face and for a single, terrible moment, Bucky thought that he wasn’t welcome. He thought that perhaps Steve just wanted to make sure he was alive, that he was okay. He thought that Steve didn’t want him dead or incapacitated, but he also didn’t want Bucky .
Maybe, he thought hollowly, there really was too much blood on his hands.
It was a terrible feeling, one of the most horrible he’d ever experienced. It was a heart-shattering, mind-numbing pain, so sudden and so visceral that Bucky found it hard to breathe.
He wasn’t even sure which part of it hurt the most: the idea that he was too low, too dirty, for Steve Rogers now or the idea that he no longer knew Steve well enough to tell .
“Really?” Steve asked and the longing in his voice saved Bucky from becoming even more broken than he already was. That one hopeful word and Bucky could breathe again. “You’ll stay?”
“If you want me to,” Bucky said. “If you want me, I’ll stay.”
Steve blinked, suddenly thrown. He knew what Bucky was asking, even if Bucky wasn’t brave enough to really ask it. His surprise turned into an irritated scoff that was so familiar that it made Bucky ache.
“Seventy years and you’re still asking that question?” Steve huffed. “Did you think Sam and I were chasing you around the world for our health? Of course I want you.”
He closed the space between them, pressing a kiss to the corner of Bucky’s mouth. It was soft, tentative, Steve unsure of its welcome despite his bravado. Bucky wanted to cry from how good it felt, those lips on his skin again.
That kiss was absolution, acceptance, love .
“I’m not better,” Bucky warned, his voice suddenly shaky. “Not even close.”
“Neither am I,” Steve said, just as honest as Bucky had been with him. He shrugged. “We can figure it out together, like always.”
Like always. As if they’d ever had to navigate anything quite so complicated as brainwashing and what was essentially time travel. As if their lives had ever been that complicated before the war.
“But later,” Steve added. “Let’s just -- let’s just go to bed now. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I just saved the world. That’s tiring.”
Bucky breathed out a laugh.
“Punk,” he said, but obligingly led Steve to bed.
They undressed each other in the dark, smiling foolishly while they did so. Things got tangled a few times and Steve tripped trying to step out of his uniform and it was the easiest fucking thing in the world, being together like this.
When they crawled into bed together, Bucky laid out on his back and let Steve rest on top of him, splayed out on his chest as much as man of Steve’s bulk could.
Bucky hardly slept that night -- not at all surprising when he was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar place -- but the hours he spent lying awake were as restful as any sleep when Steve was there with him.
--
He did end up catching an hour or two of real, actual sleep near sunrise. When he woke up again, Steve wasn’t in bed with him. Before he could panic, Bucky heard Steve’s voice floating in through the cracked bedroom door.
“No, Sam,” Steve said, in what he probably thought was a whisper. “I mean we can stop searching completely. He’s -- here. With me. No, I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
Bucky smiled up at the ceiling. Nah, he thought.
He wasn’t going anywhere.