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The 2010s were drastically different from the 1940s. The technology of the modern age more closely resembled the high-tech gadgets of science fiction stories than a reality Steve or Bucky could ever have imagined existing in the real world. (And somehow, Howard Stark still never managed to make his flying car a staple of transportation, as he once claimed he would.)
Bucky didn’t have to grow up with this technology to understand its capabilities. He’d grown up fascinated by futuristic tales and new inventions, and it was something that continued to excite him well into adulthood. The possibilities of the progress that humanity could achieve were a wonder to imagine and even more so to see in person.
During the war, Bucky encountered far greater than his fair share of technological marvels that were simply too fantastical to fathom until they’d been seen firsthand such as Steve’s new Captain America body or the blue laser weapons that HYDRA had created. Bucky himself had even unwillingly been a science experiment during this time.
As far as he could tell, the greatest achievements in technology had come about during wartime. It was this conflict, this struggle between nations and their relentless need to overpower each other that led to technology advancing so rapidly. And with these inventions being created for war, that is of course what they were often used for. Even wartime inventions not created to cause violence still existed because of it.
But as time went on and the capabilities of these new inventions increased, there became more threats to the general populace than simply violence.
It’s relatively well known that the government and large tech corporations are spying on our every move. They know who we are, what we do, where we go, and how to manipulate us. Many people assume that because they are normal, law-abiding citizens, that this constant surveillance is naught but a mild annoyance. They don’t perceive it as the threat to public safety that it truly is.
But those people can’t be entirely blamed for their lack of concern about this aspect of modern society. Many of them grew up with this being the norm. They knew no other way of life and didn’t seem bothered, as this constant surveillance wasn’t directly affecting them in any noticeable way. They were conditioned by the powers that be to view the fact that their every move was being watched as inconsequential.
But for Bucky Barnes, a man who didn’t grow up in this time period and who had spent so long knowing the true horror of what the people who held the secrets were capable of doing with them, he knew to be afraid.
And while Bucky may now be free from HYDRA, he certainly isn’t free from being watched.
*****
When Bucky returned, he and Steve bought a small plot of land in the middle of nowhere and built a house upon it where they lived together. There was no modern technology in this house. Steve still had his apartment back in New York, and, at Bucky’s insistence, any high-tech electronics were kept there. (Any visitors to the house were required to abide by these rules as well, and as such, Sam, Natasha, and occasionally Clint were the only people to ever visit the house.)
Publicly, the reason for all of this was due to Bucky’s recovery from HYDRA and adjustment to living in the 21st century. As far as anyone knew, Bucky needed a quiet and simple life reminiscent of his time before the war, and Steve was a good friend who was helping him through the struggles that came with being the former Winter Soldier.
What the world and their friends didn’t -and couldn’t- know, was that there was a much more important reason why they lived together off the grid.
They were more than just longtime friends and roommates; they were lovers and had been for a very long time. Of course, back then, it was far easier to hide such a thing. It was still, of course, by no means simple, but it was certainly much less difficult as it had become as time wore on. With this ever-advancing spyware technology, the only way to keep such a relationship secret was to lock it away from where prying eyes could look in.
*****
Of course, another thing that made it hard to keep secrets was being friends with actual trained spies.
Natasha visited often and sometimes stayed over while Clint was off on missions doing God only knew what.
It was during one of those times while Natasha was staying in the guest bedroom (known to her as Bucky’s bedroom; he told her that since the house only had two bedrooms, his and Steve’s, he would simply share with Steve when she stayed over, and she could use his room, that way no one had to sleep on a couch) that they almost got caught making out.
Likely due to her time as an assassin, Natasha was very quiet on her feet. Even with super soldier hearing, it was not easy to hear her approaching.
“Hey, Steve, have you seen my purse?” Had it not been for her beginning her question before she had turned the corner into the living room, the boys never would have known she was coming. They pulled away from each other as quick as they could and tried to look as though they’d not been passionately kissing for the past several minutes.
“Um, yeah, I think it was on the kitchen counter,” Steve said after a pause, once he’d registered her question.
“Thanks,” she replied, heading off to go get it.
“I know you aren’t ready yet, but if you ever are, I’d be okay with it if you wanted to tell our friends about us,” Steve whispered after Natasha had left the room.
Bucky shook his head. Couldn’t Steve see? Bucky wasn’t doing this out of his own desire to hide this; he was doing it to protect Steve. If homosexuality wasn’t illegal, Bucky would love nothing more than to loudly proclaim to the world that Steve was his. Maybe Steve was right and their friends would have no issues with what they were to each other, but there was always the possibility that they could turn them over to the authorities. What Bucky and Steve shared, while perfect and magical in every way, was also illegal, and Bucky couldn’t let anything happen to tear them apart again. Not after they’d both been through so much.
*****
The second time their relationship almost got discovered was during one of Sam’s many attempts to get them caught up on all the great movies they’d missed while they spent roughly 70 years unconscious.
Not even half an hour into the film, Bucky was cuddled up against Steve, fast asleep. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep, obviously, but his sleep schedule was so out of whack and he felt so at peace that night that he just dozed off.
Steve and Sam just continued to watch the movie anyway, with Steve being afraid to move lest he accidentally awaken Bucky. Not because Bucky would be upset by it but rather because Steve just enjoyed how peaceful he looked resting his head against Steve’s chest and getting some rest.
If Sam had any thoughts about it, he kept them to himself. At least until Bucky woke up, that is. Because if there was one thing Sam Wilson couldn’t resist, it was an opportunity to mess with Bucky.
“Alright, Barnes,” he said, some time after Bucky woke up. “You win. You’re Steve’s true best friend. I’ve never fallen asleep on him like a small kitten.”
At this, Bucky just glared at him. Not out of anger at Sam, but out of frustration at his own inability to come up with a good comeback at the moment.
But inside, Bucky was panicking. Of course, he knew Sam was only joking around with him and didn’t know the true nature of Bucky’s relationship with Steve, but he had made it clear that he viewed this as slightly beyond the boundaries of what is considered friendship. If incidents like the one that had just happened continued to occur, it was only a matter of time before Sam would figure them out.
*****
While Steve was quite a bit bigger and taller than Bucky, the two of them frequently wore the same size clothing since Bucky liked his clothes to be loose and baggy while Steve liked most of his clothes to hug his body as tightly as possible. As such, it wasn’t uncommon for the two of them to wear each other’s clothes.
Bucky never really thought much of it. Having been around during the Great Depression, he was rather well adjusted to the idea of sharing his clothes with Steve. (Though, of course, back in those days, most of his clothes were far too big to fit Steve properly.) Besides, he and Steve lived together. It wasn’t weird that they shared any other household items, so why would clothes be an issue?
Or, at least, that was how he viewed it until Natasha took notice and said something about it.
“I think it’s cute that you two wear each other’s clothes,” she told him out of nowhere one day. “You don’t see that happen with platonic male friends very often. It’s very refreshing.”
Sometimes, Bucky wondered if Natasha already suspected the truth about him and Steve and was just waiting for him to confirm it.
*****
And then, inevitably, there was the day that one of their friends actually found out.
Sam was over that evening for dinner, and Steve had left the house to pick up their takeout from a restaurant in the next town over.
Sometimes, when Steve wasn’t home, Bucky liked to flip through his sketchbooks and admire Steve’s artistic talent. He liked looking at whatever drawings Steve had been working on since the last time he’d gotten a chance to peek. And it wasn’t that Steve had any problem with Bucky looking at his drawings or anything. Bucky had been given permission to look at Steve’s sketchbooks all he wanted. The only reason he often did it when Steve wasn’t home was because Steve got embarrassed when Bucky did it in front of him, which was also quite fun for Bucky, but it was hard to fully appreciate the artwork when Steve was constantly trying to change the subject, so he’d taken to doing so when Steve left the house.
Currently, he was looking through Steve’s newest drawings, admiring for the first time all the one’s he hadn’t yet seen. Sam was seated on the couch next to him, looking over his shoulder. Bucky didn’t mind, and he knew Steve wouldn’t either.
That is, until he got to a certain piece of artwork he’d not been expecting to see. And as soon as he recognized it for what it was, he slammed the book shut and threw it across the room in a panic.
And the drawing itself was amazing, of course it was. But it wasn’t one meant for anyone’s eyes but Steve’s own and Bucky’s. Let’s just say, it made it very clear exactly how Steve felt about Bucky.
And normally, such a drawing would have made Bucky smile. But because Sam had seen it, Bucky was instead shaking, struggling for breath, and trying to keep the tears from pouring out.
Sam immediately went into counselor mode, trying to help. Maybe in part due to Bucky’s past experiences with therapists, all this succeeded in doing was making the panic worse.
“Barnes, can you hear me?”
Bucky wished he couldn’t. He wished he could go back in time and stop Sam from ever having seen that picture. And Bucky couldn’t even claim that he had forced himself upon Steve like he always said he would have if they got caught. Steve had drawn this picture; there was no way to alter the narrative to absolve him of all fault. Bucky could live with whatever punishment 2010s law had for homosexuality (he’d almost certainly survived much worse), but he would not let anything bad happen to Steve.
*****
It was only a matter of minutes before Steve returned home, but it felt like hours.
Steve, upon seeing Bucky in such a state, immediately rushed over to try to help him.
“What happened?”
Bucky, not trusting himself to be able to give a verbal response without completely breaking down crying, merely pointed at the sketchbook lying on the floor several feet away.
It took Steve a moment to put the pieces together, but when he realized what had happened, he too almost started crying.
“I’ll give you two some space,” Sam said, getting up to leave the room.
“I’m so sorry,” Steve told Bucky, hugging him tightly. “I’m so, so sorry. I know you weren’t ready to come out, I didn’t realize…”
Bucky just buried his face in Steve’s shoulder and let himself cry.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, still holding onto Steve for dear life.
“What do you mean?” Steve asked, genuinely confused. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“They’re gonna take you away from me!”
“Who’s gonna take me away, Buck? What are you talking about?” Steve’s voice was gentle, but Bucky could hear the concern and worry in it.
“Sam knows how you feel about me. If he says anything…”
“He’s not going to say anything,” Steve said, trying to reassure Bucky that everything was okay. “And even if he did, I wouldn’t leave you. It’s not the 1940s anymore, I wouldn’t get arrested for loving you.”
Bucky looked up at him, confusion in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Like, of course, a lot of assholes will take issue with Captain America loving a man, but it’s no longer a criminal offense.”
“It’s not?”
Steve looked into Bucky’s tear-filled eyes and realized. No one told Bucky the laws had changed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you didn’t know. I thought… I don’t know what I was thinking. But, yeah, Buck. Gay rights have come a long way since our time. No one can punish us for loving each other. We could even get married if we wanted to.”
“We could get married ?” This was too much for Bucky to process, and he broke down sobbing all over again. He punched Steve lightly on the arm.
“What was that for?”
“We could have been married this whole time, and you still haven’t fucking proposed to me?”
At this, Steve merely laughed. “I thought you wanted to keep it a secret!”
“I thought we had to keep it a secret!” By this point, he was also laughing while still crying.
“Do you want to get married?”
“That’s a pretty shit proposal, Rogers.”
“Fine,” Steve relented, getting down on one knee and taking Bucky’s hands in his. “Bucky Barnes, I have loved you since before I even knew what love was. For almost as long as I can remember, I knew that there’s no greater feeling in the world than being by your side. I decided long ago that I don’t ever want to live without you. I was forced to for a while, and I don’t ever want to experience that again. I’ve told you that I’m with you ‘til the end of the line; will you let me make it official?”
“That’s a little better,” Bucky said, causing both of them to laugh. “Of course I’ll marry you, Stevie.”
*****
A few weeks later, the invitations went out. The day Sam received his, he also received a phone call from Natasha.
“Guess what I got in the mail today?” she said into the phone.
“I’m gonna say it was an invitation to Steve and Bucky’s wedding?”
“You owe me fifty bucks, Wilson. I told you they were a couple.”