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Thursday, January 13th, 1944 - Cassino, Italy
“Buck,” Steve chuckles. “You’re gonna freeze, I don’t need all of these blankets, really.”
“No, no, you need them more than I do,” Bucky shakes his head, adamant to keep Steve protected from the harsh cold.
“I can’t get frostbite anymore,” Steve reminds him gently, slipping the blankets beneath his shoulders and leaning up on one arm. “I barely even feel the cold. I’m like a furnace now.” Bucky had felt his warmth, when Steve carried him out of Azzano, warmth that seeped through his tattered shirt and right into his bones.
Bucky nods hesitantly and sits down on the ground next to Steve. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, lets them trail experimentally down to his cheekbone, his filled out jawline, the dip where it meets his neck. “I thought I was delirious, y’know,” he whispers. “When you saved me. Thought I’d gone mad. Big, strong, healthy Stevie, saving me like I’m some dame in a movie? Couldn’t be real.”
Steve chuckles and tilts his head to press a tender kiss to the inside of Bucky’s wrist, right against his fluttering pulse. “Lay down with me,” he murmurs, looking up at Buck with those familiar cornflower blue eyes, the same blue eyes Bucky’s loved for ten years.
Bucky does as Steve urges, reclining next to him and resting his head on the pillow next to Steve’s.
“Are you cold?” Steve whispers. Bucky nods slowly and Steve gently tucks Bucky under the pile of scratchy, wool blankets.
It’s strange. Not bad. Just strange. To have their well-practiced dynamic so abruptly startled, for Bucky to no longer have a reason to fuss over Steve before bed and use the chill as an excuse to wrap his arms around his frail, trembling frame. To look into his lover’s eyes and yet barely recognize his body.
“It’s uncomfortable,” Steve admits, like he knows what Bucky’s thinking while his grey eyes rake over Steve’s form, partially obscured by the dark and the blankets. “I keep bumping into things because I don’t realize how big I am, and then the bruises go away within the hour,” he chuckles. Each laugh breathes a little cloud of steam into the air between them.
“I like it,” Bucky says truthfully. “Not that you weren’t a looker before, but…” he trails off, eyes wide and smiling. “Goddamn, Stevie, you look like one of those propaganda posters the Army puts out.”
Steve laughs quietly, a smile tugging at his lips.
“And you really can’t get sick?” Bucky asks hopefully.
“As long as the serum works right,” Steve nods. “Can’t get sick, can’t get drunk. I could get shot and I would heal over the bullet faster than I could dig it out.”
Bucky chuckles breathily, tracing his fingers up and down Steve’s face. There’s a fine dusting of pale stubble across his still-sinful cheekbones, his utterly gorgeous facial structure. He leans in and presses a soft kiss to Steve’s nose. His face is nearly the same, Bucky thinks, a bit plumper in the cheeks perhaps, but with the same cocky grin that Steve’s always had.
“You really think I look good?” Steve asks nervously.
“You kidding? Of course.”
“No, I… I understand that I… I am handsome, alright, I know that, but… I’m just not your Stevie, y’know, I’ve been worried…”
“What?” Bucky murmurs. “Worried I might look at you different just because you’re a bit taller? A bit more muscular?”
“Well…”
“I don’t care,” Bucky says quietly. “I thought I lost you, I thought I wasn’t ever gonna see you again and you… you burst in there, all… all heroic and strong and healthy, god, you’re so healthy… you’re a dream, angelface. You’re my Stevie now and you’ll be my Stevie in a hundred years and it couldn’t matter less to me what you look like. I didn’t fall in love with you for your looks.”
“Wow, flattering,” Steve scoffs, rolling his eyes.
Bucky hums out a little laugh. “You know what I mean, punk. You’re still as sweet as you’ve always been, same pretty lips, pretty eyes, pretty everything.”
Steve gazes up at Bucky, eyes dilated and breath quick. “You gonna kiss me or just keep complimenting my lips all night?”
Bucky leans forward and presses a soft kiss to Steve’s parted lips, bringing a hand up to caress the sloping planes of his face. “My love,” he murmurs possessively against Steve’s mouth.
“Yours,” Steve whispers.
Saturday, February 15th, 2025 - Brooklyn, New York
Bucky’s awake by the time Steve returns from his run. He’s in the kitchen, standing bewildered amidst half a dozen different smoothies, all different shades of pink and orange and green, with little paper straws sticking out the top. “Conducting an experiment?” Steve raises an eyebrow, stopping in the doorway.
Bucky glances up at him. “Don’t get your sweat near my smoothies.”
Steve chuckles softly and backs up a step.
“I’m tryna figure out what kind of smoothie I like best. I like mangoes but pineapples make my mouth itchy so I’m trying out a banana-mango-strawberry hybrid, but I don’t like strawberry seeds.”
“And the spinach?”
Bucky shrugs. “It’s healthy. Y’know. Popeye and stuff.”
“Old man,” Steve scoffs.
“You’re really overcompensating, y’know,” Bucky narrows his eyes. “Doesn’t matter if you look like sin incarnate in that shirt, you still act like someone who was alive during prohibition.”
“Mmm, well, this old man is gonna go take a shower, have fun with your smoothies.”
He emerges twenty minutes later, smelling of coconut soap and laundry detergent, towel slung dangerously low on his hips. He walks into the bedroom to find Bucky sat on the edge of the bed, shirtless, staring into the mirror.
“Admiring yourself?” Steve teases.
Bucky doesn’t respond. Steve takes a cautious step closer, brows furrowed. Bucky’s eyes look glazed-over and his bottom lip is worried between his teeth.
“Buck?” Steve repeats, moving into the sight of the mirror.
He watches as Bucky’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “I look different.”
“What do you mean?” Steve asks, stepping toward the dresser and rummaging through the drawer for a pair of boxers.
“I gained weight.”
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs. “So did I.”
“Yeah, you gained muscle,” Bucky scoffs. He traces the pudge of his stomach, face set in a slight grimace.
“Buck,” Steve says softly, letting the towel drop to the floor and stepping into the boxers. “You were being starved, you were on crazy amounts of steroids. You had six percent body fat. Six packs are fine and all, but you were barely functioning. I’m relieved you’re gaining weight.”
Bucky grumbles quietly, narrowing his eyes at his reflection. Neither man speaks until Steve yanks on a pair of pants and a hoodie and sits behind Bucky. Bucky doesn’t look up, but he feels the dip of Steve’s weight on the mattress.
“My love,” Steve murmurs, hooking his chin over Bucky’s shoulder and pressing a soft kiss to the side of his neck. “You are so beautiful.”
Bucky tilts his face down when their eyes connect in the mirror, but Steve guides his chin back up. “Stevie…” he sighs, eyes glistening. “Look at you, then look at me. You’re all…” His eyes rake over his boyfriend. “So perfect. Every single part of you. Pristine and gorgeous and… and then you look at me. Even if I lost weight and got in shape, I’d still…” He trails off, gesturing vaguely to the tangles of scar tissue lining his left arm.
Steve presses a kiss to the shimmering branches chiseled into Bucky’s skin. “You used to listen to my rambling lectures about art history,” he chuckles warmly. “I’m assuming you know the Venus de Milo?”
“Mhm. The statue,” he mumbles.
“She’s a work of art,” Steve says softly. “One of the most famous Greek sculptures. Admired by millions. The pinnacle of beauty. Do you think anyone would look at that statue and believe that it’s been ruined?”
“No.”
“And the Sistene chapel, The Creation of Adam. The paint is chipped and cracked, but does that take away from its beauty?”
“No,” he whispers.
“I know how painful it is,” Steve murmurs. “To look at yourself and see the physical reminders of what you’ve endured. And I could tell you… I could tell you to look at your scars as reminders of your survival and your bravery, but I know nothing I do can ever take away from the horrors you’ve faced. But when I look at you, Buck…” He lets out a slow breath. “I see nothing but beauty.”
“But look at you,” Bucky breathes. “I feel like…”
“Yeah?”
“It feels wrong that someone like you could love me.”
“Buck… love…”
Steve watches in the mirror as Bucky’s face crumbles, tears streaking down his face as he curls in on himself. Steve wraps his arms around him from behind, stroking his shoulders as he lets Bucky sob. “I don’t understand,” he mumbles under his breath, repeats it until he goes hoarse. “I don’t– I– Stevie–”
“I’ve loved you since before I understood what love was,” Steve whispers, rubbing both arms, skin and metal alike. “And those gleaming eyes and cocky smirk were part of it, sure, but I fell in love with your mind, your soul, your heart. I see beauty in every facet of you, my love. Just like when I was all sick with pneumonia and you sat next to me the whole time and I’d be hacking up half my lung and you’d start laughing and I’d–” Steve pauses to sniffle and Bucky realizes he’s crying too. “And you’d start laughing and I’d get all confused and you’d say you just loved me so much, you just kept telling me how handsome I looked.”
Bucky chuckles through his tears, heaving a shaky breath. “I meant it.”
“And I mean this,” Steve reassures. “I love you in spite of nothing. Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Bucky scoots around and buries his face in Steve’s shoulder in lieu of an answer. “Love you too,” he mumbles, muffled by Steve’s hoodie.