Chapter Text
Steve watched as his friend clumsily tore the wrapper, squinting slightly in Manhattan’s red evening sunlight. Managing the end of the lolly into his mouth, Bucky looked up, catching Steve’s appraising eye and flashing him that ever-familiar grin. Steve’s grinned back; every minute he spent with Bucky like this was a blessing, and he couldn’t help smiling like a fool when he remembered how absurdly lucky he was.
‘You wanna share the joke?’ Asked Bucky through a messy mouthful of chocolate and ice-cream.
‘No joke, Buck. Just…’ Words fail Steve: ‘Just… this… you. It’s perfect.’ Steve could feel himself tearing up. Bucky rolled his eyes mockingly.
‘You soppy old man. There I was thinking you had something funny to say.’ Steve knew though, that for all Bucky mocked, he felt the same. Ok maybe not all that lucky, but Steve had no doubts that Bucky loved him, and loved this, their second chance. He watched as his friend took another bite of ice cream, looking up at him teasingly through those dark lashes (Steve remembers how they drove him wild back in the day, just as much as any woman’s ever had).
They walked together, companionably quiet, Bucky eating his ice-cream and Steve, hands in pockets, gazing at the sunset between the darkening buildings. Crossing the road into Morningside Park, the roar of the city receded to a gentle hum, the occasional lazy hoot of a car carrying on the evening breeze. Neither Steve nor Bucky liked it to be completely quiet (having silently agreed it leaves too much to the imagination), and the distant noise was comfortingly familiar.
Somewhere on the walk, Bucky had finished his ice-cream, and now he turned to Steve, gesturing, like he would to a woman, for Steve to take a seat on a sun-warmed bench.
‘Ever the gentleman, huh, Buck?’ Steve teased, both of them knowing full well Bucky had always grabbed every opportunity he could to be ungentlemanly. He flashed his grin again.
‘Well how am I supposed to get the nice dames without being a gentleman?’
‘You tell me, you always found a way.’ Steve sighed contentedly, closing his eyes in the sun. ‘Maybe they all want a taste of rebellion.’ He sneaked a sideways glance at Bucky ‘Someone they can’t bring home to their mothers?’
‘Hey! I’m perfect mother material!’
‘Yeah Buck, you’ll make a great mother.’ Both of them laughed at that, but when they fell silent, Bucky could feel Steve thinking about his mother. After all these years, he still missed her. They sat in silence for a minute, before Bucky reached up to stretch his flesh arm around Steve’s shoulders. It had become significantly more difficult now Steve was no longer a skinny teenager, but anything different to how they had spent so many evenings in a crappy Brooklyn apartment, smoking and talking, felt wrong. Steve slid down into the embrace and sighed deeply, a small smile returning to his face as Bucky rested his cheek on Steve’s head. Contented silence fell once more as they watched the remainder of the sun drop through the treetops.
Maybe it’s because it reminded Bucky of the old Steve, the skinny Brooklyn kid who was always getting into pointless fights, a weakling (and an idiot, thought Bucky with a fond smile), but earnest, feeling every injustice and every love more intensely than anyone else he’d ever known. Maybe it reminded him that no matter how much he’d changed on the outside, no matter what this crazy Captain America world had asked of him and thrown at him, on the inside he was the same useless kid Bucky had loved, all those years ago.
Bucky didn’t know. All he knew was that he loved when Steve went soppy.