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The entire left side of Bucky’s torso fucking hurts.
Blood trickles down bruised skin, his metal arm can’t be moved without it burnin’ something fierce, and it feels as though he has at least one broken rib. It’s fucking worth it, though, even if the life he saved in the process of getting hurt won’t agree.
Steve, when he steps into Avengers Tower’s medical center, is livid. He’s still dressed in his torn uniform, hair in disarray and streaked with dirt, fists balled up at his sides. His expression is tight, closed off, lips drawn back in a badly concealed sneer and brow furrowed deeply. He’s the angriest Bucky’s ever seen him but behind that anger, living only in the depths of his blue eyes, is an unfathomable panic; a deep-seated fear that Bucky knows all too well.
Guilt twists low in his stomach.
The entire team stands between them; Steve still hovering by the sleek, glass doors, trying to get his anger under control and Bucky sitting on one of the hospital beds at the other end of the room as he gets checked over by Stark’s personally vetted staff. When they spot Steve, one by one, the Avengers are smart enough to clear a path. They’ve never seen Captain America truly angry and it’s a sight to behold.
“What the fuck was that, Barnes?” Steve hisses, stalking forward. “Huh? What the goddamn hell did you think you were doing?”
Somewhere, there’s an audible gasp.
Bucky doesn’t know who it was but he does catch a glimpse of Clint and Tony shoving at each other, pointing, before Steve is too close for Bucky to see anything past the breadth of his shoulders. He looks up and is distressed to note that the anger has completely melted out of Steve’s expression. With no one to witness it but Bucky, the panic and fear has completely taken over. His eyes are bright with unshed tears and Bucky Barnes suddenly feels like the lowest kind of dirt.
“Hey,” Bucky says softly, reaching out. “Hey, no. C’mere, Stevie. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
The flesh and blood fingers of his uninjured side hook around Steve’s neck and pulls him close, puts his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck so that no one else has the chance to glimpse him as he falls apart. Steve presses a hand to the other side of his neck, careful not to bump against his injuries, and lets his fingers dig into the skin there. He’ll have more bruises when Steve lets go, these ones fingerprints, but Bucky doesn’t mind that at all. Those will be worth it, too.
“You can’t leave me, asshole,” Steve says just as Bucky feels the gentle slide of tears against his collarbone.
Steve isn’t talking loudly but it’s far too easy to hear him in the sudden silence. The medical staff has conveniently disappeared but the Avengers haven’t; multiple pairs of eyes bore into him - into them - because none of their teammates apparently having the decency to look away from what is obviously a private moment.
He resists the urge to sneer at them.
“I’m not gonna, ya dumb punk,” Bucky says instead because Steve will always be his focus, his first priority; he’ll deal with the snooping, eavesdropping bastards later.
He pulls Steve away from his neck just far enough to where he can look him in the eye again. Steve presses their foreheads together, nuzzling against Bucky’s nose gently. There are tear tracks on his cheeks, just a few of them, but even that is too much to see.
Natasha gives a soft, “oh.”
“Wait,” he hears Bruce ask softly. “Are they…?”
Sam adds, “I thought they were just friends?”
The group breaks into whispers but Bucky steadfastly ignores them all and therefore doesn’t catch anything else they say. It would take too much of his attention away from Steve.
“I’m not gonna,” he repeats, keeping his eyes connected to beloved blue ones. “But that means you can’t either, hear me? This reckless bullshit you keep pullin’ has to stop. You can’t go runnin’ off half-assed trynna get yourself killed and expect me not to protect you, got it?”
“I’m sorry,” Steve says, eyes widening like he’s just now realized that this shit goes both ways. That Bucky loves him just as much, is just as goddamn worried about losing him and being left alone in this strange time, with these fucking strange people. Of being left alone, period. “I’m sorry, Buck, I didn’t mean --”
“I know, Stevie; I know. You just reacted. So did I.” He nudges Steve’s nose with his own. “Let’s both promise to be a little more careful, alright? I kinda like your ugly mug, don’t need it disappearin’ on me.”
“Ugly mug my ass,” Steve says with a grin. “You like my mug.”
Bucky says, “yeah, I do,” with a fond smile at the same time that Tony, who has apparently taken all he can, shouts, “Swear Jar! Swear Jar, Rogers, you owe the -- oof!”
Bucky cranes to look Steve’s shoulder just in time to see Sam take his elbow out of Tony’s ribs.
“Not the time, Stark,” Sam hisses.
Bucky grins; he likes Sam. Sam can definitely stick around.
Steve straightens up, a delicate blush dusting his cheeks as he studiously does not look behind him. It’s as if he forgot their teammates were even there. Bucky knows him well enough to know that it isn’t the slip-ups he’s embarrassed about but the display they just made.
Still, to ease the tension in Steve’s shoulders, Bucky laughs and says, “Can’t con ‘em anymore, Rogers. Your secret is out.”
“Con us?” Clint exclaims but neither he nor Tony get to properly express their outrage.
“We can discuss this later,” Bruce says. He glances over at them pointedly, as if to stress the fact that there will be a discussion. “After Barnes has been patched up. Come on.”
They file out the door, one by one, each of them glancing back at least once.
*
Later turns out to be after dinner, preluding their post-mission movie ritual.
Bucky is patched up, showered, and dressed in his favorite sweats, sprawled across the couch on the communal floor. The painkillers they gave him work pretty nicely, even with super soldier metabolism, and his injuries tingle, pleasantly numb. The others are scattered across the living room in their comfort clothes, tonight’s movie choice already pulled up but paused.
Steve is the last to arrive and he very pointedly drops a few dollars into his swear jar before joining Bucky on the couch, leaning into his uninjured side. There’s a pregnant pause where their teammates just look at each other, trying to figure out where to begin.
“So,” Natasha says, because in this tower of Gods and geniuses and super soldiers, she will always be the bravest among them. “You’re together?”
That honestly surprises Bucky. She knew about the swearing but not about this?
“Yeah,” he says, frowning. “Outta everyone, I thought you wouldda already known that.”
Natasha smiles, unconcerned. “I knew that you were in love,” she says. “I just didn’t know that you knew it.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sam asks, calm as ever. He’s trying not to show it but his expression edges on hurt.
“It’s not something we’re used to sharing,” Steve says, gentle, because of course he notices, too. “And after a certain point, it seemed weird to bring it up.”
“Who cares about their secret love affair,” Tony interrupts loudly. “Let’s talk about the fucking Swear Jar!”
Bucky grins, his shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter. His side twinges a bit but not enough to dampen his amusement. When he sees it, Tony points an accusatory finger.
“You knew!”
“‘Course I knew,” Bucky says, shrugging his right shoulder and jostling Steve in the process; he puts an apologetic hand on Steve’s knee and squeezes it. With a smile, Steve settles his hand over it. It’s strange to do even that in front of the others but not wholly unpleasant. “But no one wanted to trust the amnesiac assassin, so I kept my mouth shut.”
The room shifts uncomfortably, more than one person avoiding his eye. Satisfaction swells in his chest, making him smirk. He doesn’t even bother to point out that Natasha knew, too. There’s no need, really, and he doesn’t feel like gaining her ire.
“But why?” Bruce asks, adjusting his glasses.
“You made assumptions about me before you ever even met me,” Steve says, calm. They look, if possible, even more abashed than they did when Bucky spoke. “I don’t blame you, not really. It’s happened before. But I got tired of it long before I ever went into the ice, so I started playing those assumptions against people.”
“You hustled us,” Clint says, annoyed. He looks as though he’s mentally calculating all the money that he’s put into the Swear Jar since its conception.
Tony snorts. “Give credit where credit is due, Barton,” he says. “Captain America trolled us, is what he did.”
The others perk up, eyes bright and wide with this realization, as Steve looks at him and frowns. “I don’t get that reference,” he whispers but Bucky’s not paying attention.
“See, this is where you keep messin’ up,” he says loudly, over the beginnings of their laughter. It dies as suddenly as it began and one by one, heads turn towards him again. “None of you geniuses seem to be able to separate Captain America and Steve Rogers. No wonder y’got swindled.”
“But Steve is Captain America,” Tony says, with a frown that says he’s worried Bucky forgot that. Like Bucky hadn’t just seen Steve in uniform that morning.
“Yeah,” Bucky says, sardonic. “But Captain America ain’t Steve. Whatever you heard about Cap, whatever they taught you in school? Don’t go applyin’ it to Stevie. Steve’s a devious little shit. He’s been swearin’ since we were twelve and the truth ain’t all that comes outta that mouth of his.”
“Alright, Buck,” Steve interrupts with a soft smile. “That’s enough. We got a movie to watch, don’t have time to sit here and listen to your whole I hate Captain America lecture.”
Clint’s nose scrunches up in surprised confusion. “He hates Captain America?”
Natasha rolls her eyes. “How oblivious are you, Barton?” she asks just as Bucky sneers and says:
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
“I think we should follow Cap -- I mean Steve’s advice and play the movie,” Sam says, glancing at Bucky as he corrects himself.
Bucky grins. Yep, he’s definitely a keeper.
“You two gonna start making out if we shut off the lights?” Tony asks.
He’s not fast enough to dodge the pillows that both Steve and Bucky throw at him.
*
A week later, Steve comes back from his morning run wearing a shirt he definitely didn’t have on when he left. It’s a dark gray-ish blue color and reads, in large white letters, Keep Calm and Troll On.
Bucky accepts his greeting kiss with a raised eyebrow. Steve, to his credit, doesn't even bother to feign ignorance.
“Natasha explained it to me,” he says, shrugging. “I like it.”
“Where did you even find that shirt?” Bucky asks because he’s definitely never seen one before. Not that he’s perused every store that the future has to offer.
“Didn’t you know, Buck?” Steve grins, mischievous. “The future has everything.”