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Bucky finds him as the reception winds down, guests making the most of their open bar and dance floor before indigo stains the night sky and calls an oncoming dawn. Steve should’ve known Pietro would never settle for anything less than a rager—his kid’s always been the life of the party; why would his wedding be any different?
Just like his dad, he thinks, watching as Bucky slips out of the crowd to make his way over.
With the hazy glow washing over their end of the gardens, sporadic golden bulbs adorning the bridge Steve’s all but commandeered once the formalities wrapped up, Bucky makes for one hell of a sight. Past their so-called prime and undoubtedly worse for wear, neither of them look particularly young—but with his hair gelled back and suit undone, Bucky might as well have walked straight out of their old wedding pictures.
Steve shakes off the memory lest the festering ache swallows him whole.
“You’re not dancing,” Bucky chides, a crooked tilt to his grin softening the edge of his teasing glare. “Come on, Stevie, our kid got hitched today. And Cassie ain’t so bad, Pietro coulda done worse for himself.”
It’s the Stevie that gives him away, and Steve clucks his tongue in mock reprimand. Bucky hasn’t called him Stevie in over ten years—at least not when he’s sober.
Tugging at his arm, Bucky whines a needy, “Dance with me,” knowing Steve is helpless to turn him down.
Unfair, really, but he lets Bucky guide him into a slow waltz, wooden slats creaking under their weight and threatening a shallow drowning in the pond below. Steve ignores it like he does everything else when it comes to Bucky Barnes.
“Can’t even hear the band from all the way over here, Buck.” It’s the closest to a protest he can muster, with Bucky pressed against his front, eyes bright and gleaming—unencumbered by the regret that inevitably comes when they land on him.
Though, with all the time they’ve been spending together, all the wedding planning and tedious fittings and endless, headache-inducing budgeting, it’s been waning by the day.
Probably wishful thinking on his part, if Steve’s being honest, trying to keep his mind off the fortune they’re hemorrhaging with every passing second. He doesn’t remember paying for so many finger foods and centerpieces and elaborate goddamn napkins when he got married.
Then again, he and Buck couldn’t care less back then. Young and in love, they would’ve tied the knot on laundry day long as the judge let them say I do and sign the papers.
His son’s just as devoted, he’s sure.
Who knows, maybe the right shade of tablecloth is exactly how Pietro’s marriage will last longer than his fathers’. Steve’s well aware it’s not that simple, but he sure holds out hope, for the kid’s sake.
“Do you remember—” Bucky pays no mind to his complaint, instead burrowing closer when a gust of wind rustles the trees overhead—“our first dance?”
Guess he’s not the only one who’s been reminiscing, in between tearful speeches and sufficiently embarrassing toasts. “Sure, I remember,” he sighs.
As if to distract them both, Steve gives the lightest of shoves to send Bucky into a gentle spin, before drawing him back into his arms. His efforts are less than successful, earning instead a comment about how the lessons they’d taken—one Winnie insisted on given Steve avoided every dance hall in the 30s and Bucky had pretty much stuck to doing the running man since he first learned it in 3rd grade—must’ve stuck around.
The only thing that did, Steve has to keep from biting out, though he knows that’s not true. Not on his end, at least.
“Maybe you should take up ballroom dancing in your retirement,” Bucky muses. “Go on Dancing with the Stars or something.”
Steve barks a laugh, caught off guard by the mental image taking shape; he’d surely make an even bigger fool of himself than he already did in the USO. He’s grateful for Bucky’s absurdity—he’s grateful for Bucky, for this time he’s granted to revel in his presence—and his unfailing ways to deter the encroaching bitterness that would’ve otherwise descended on their little bubble.
Retirement was a frequent topic of discussion when they’d been together, dreams of lengthy family trips and seaside summers before it inevitably devolved into arguments neither of them could ever put down. Until they did, for good.
Steve swallows the bitter pill that is Bucky’s lack of say in what he does and doesn’t do these days; there used to be a time when Bucky played a key part in his every waking moment. “Think I’ve been doing just fine keeping myself busy,” he says instead.
It’s been years now since he left Cap behind, though a few too late to make much of a difference, the kids all grown up and Bucky—gone. Talk about regrets.
“If you say so,” Bucky sing songs. “You should invite me up to your studio.” The icy blue of his eyes cuts a gaping wound when they flick up to meet Steve’s searching gaze, too intent to not warrant the caution creeping up his spine. He sounds almost nonchalant, murmuring a quiet, “I miss seeing your work.”
Steve doesn’t think he can take much more of this, the torment of Bucky’s attention just to lose him again at the end of the night.
He would think Bucky cruel, if he didn’t know better; sidling up to Steve’s side in every room they’re in, asking after his life like he’d never asked to have no part in it, touching him like he doesn’t know Steve’s been aching for that very thing from the moment he lost the privilege.
“You didn’t bring a date,” Steve blurts out in a transparent change of subject, barely suppressing a wince at his own lack of subtlety. “I thought Matt would want to come. I know Pietro and Wanda really, uh, liked him and all that.”
He doesn’t expect for Bucky to frown up at him, confusion apparent in every crease of his furrowed brows. “Matt? Steve, we’re not together anymore.”
“You—” Steve combs through the past few months and realizes he hasn’t heard Bucky mention Matt once. Flushing in embarrassment, he huffs a contrite, “The kids never fucking tell me anything.”
Bucky snorts, and Steve basks in his clear amusement, uncaring that it’s at his expense. He marvels at the ease with which Bucky casts away every mark time had left behind with a mere curl of his lips, shedding years of wrong turns and countless mistakes—Steve’s, mostly, he loathes to admit.
“I haven’t been seeing anyone in a while,” Bucky tells him like it’s no big deal, like an unforgivable thrill doesn’t go through him at the news. Steve’s never had much of a poker face, and Bucky sure enough shoots him a knowing look.
“Right, yeah,” he mumbles, the words taking shape seemingly without his say so. “Me neither. I mean, you know that.” All but forcibly clamping his mouth shut, Steve leads them away from the edge of the bridge when he realizes they’ve crept too close for comfort. It’d be just his luck to topple over the side and take Bucky down with him.
“You’re better at this,” Bucky ponders faintly, before rushing to add a hurried, “at dancing.”
An acute sense of exhaustion washes over him as Bucky stumbles in his own lighthearted facade, one built up over endless months to make for a singular sweet torture Steve can’t bring himself to escape. Being around Bucky again, reveling in his company without the buffer of the kids—it’s been heaven and hell all at once.
Steve doesn’t want to play along with whatever charade Bucky’s decided on, instead confessing a plain, “At this too, I think. Talking—” he slows their swaying to a halt, resisting Bucky’s valiant attempt to drag him back into another turn—“with you.”
Bucky lets him end their impromptu waltz, his mortal body no match for the imbalance in their physical strength. Steve never thought he could ever detest the serum for its power, the sheer brawn he’d’ve killed for in his youth, yet he’s found himself wishing it away time and again.
It’s nothing like he would’ve thought, knowing his body has the infallible upper hand, a double-edged sword he can never stow away.
Bucky looks at him forlorn when Steve leaves his side to settle at the railing adorned with ribbons and a myriad of flowers in bloom. He cringes to think of the hundreds of dollars wasted as his lower back flattens a whole row of painstakingly handmade decor.
“You were always good at that,” Bucky protests, the dismay in his voice irreconcilable with what Steve knows to be true.
He offers a simple, “Not lately,” and watches as something too close to guilt flits across Bucky’s face.
“I think that’s on us both,” is all he gets in return, honest and nothing like the lighthearted front Bucky’s been very convincingly pulling off for—who’s benefit? Steve’s? He can’t make heads or tails of them anymore, not when Bucky’s been putting ideas in his head, the seeds of a hope he knows will never come to fruition but lodges a thorn in his chest all the same.
Steve had been fine, before. He’d been fine living out the rest of his days on his own, seeing Bucky in three-hour increments whenever the kids bother to call him up for dinner in the city. Hell, he’d been more than fine, finding a detached sort of pleasure in his lackluster art, picking up hiking to tire out the serum on bad days, basking in the half minute of pure contentment when the sun rises at the end of his morning runs.
He’d found a way to live with himself, faults and all.
But he doesn’t know what to do with this—Bucky whispering a repentant, “I miss you,” in the same voice he used to relay all his embarrassing hopes and dreams on long-ago nights, when they shared most everything. “I’ve been missing you for a while,” he goes on without much care for the havoc it wreaks in Steve’s carefully put-together life.
Through the thick of the grove and low stone walls, they can hear the band announcing their last song of the night. They should go back, to the guests and their kid and the last dance of his wedding, but Bucky chooses instead to lumber over and press close to his side.
Unable to keep his resentment in check, Steve spits out a sour, “You were missing me when we were married. That’s how we got here, remember?”
Shame washes over him in an instant; Bucky is the last person who deserves to bear the brunt of his self-loathing.
“I remember,” Bucky tells him, mild and entirely devoid of the hostility that once tainted whatever they used to have. Even after all these years, Bucky still finds it in himself to put up with him, fitting their hands together when Steve realizes he’d been splintering the aged wooden railing.
Steve thinks he might just fall to pieces, as Bucky strokes over his callused palm with the tenderness that had sputtered out at the end of their marriage. It pains him to realize that its return is nothing short of torturous.
“What do you want, Buck? Because I—” Steve pries his gaze away from Bucky’s scrutiny, knowing he’ll thank himself for the foresight to keep from baring every inch of his soul at the lightest of Bucky’s caressing touch—“I’m real sorry, you know? I think I told you, a long time ago. But in case you forgot.”
“Steve—”
“Biggest regret of my life,” he gasps out, memorizing every minute detail of their still-tangled hands, “was losing you.”
Having all but bled himself of the longing that’s made a home beneath his skin, Steve looks up only to find the echoes of grief plain on Bucky’s downturned lips, a once-familiar care suffusing that unyielding stare.
He doesn’t move an inch, all but holds his breath, when Bucky leans in and presses their lips together, parts his mouth to let Steve taste that sweet affection he’s found himself in short supply for much too long. Steve hears his own whimper as Bucky tugs at the nape of his neck, a plea dredged up from the very depths of his soul.
He should’ve known Bucky would end up with every bit of him, the wretched parts too unseemly to put on display and ones he all but lays out on a silver platter. Sometimes, he can’t quite tell them apart.
“You can’t—” Steve chokes out, surprised by how little air remains in his lungs when finally freed of Bucky’s grip—“can’t do this to me.” The wavering of his voice is unmistakable, a sob welling up despite his best efforts. “You left me, Buck. You left.”
“I did.” Bucky’s voice is hollow, the indignation that used to lace his every word absent to leave an indescribable emptiness behind.
Steve closes his eyes as if to avoid having to decipher what it could mean.
He can’t get into the weeds of things again, how Bucky had left because Steve did everything but stay when he had the chance. He can’t relive the truth he’s come to accept, that it wasn’t the shield or the cowl or the suit rotting them from the inside out but him—Steve can’t keep blaming Cap for his own shitty choices.
Gathering himself, he keeps it together long enough to manage the only thing he can ask of Bucky. “I can’t be a mistake. Again.”
Bucky lets slip a sound of hurt, eyes growing dark with remorse. “Stevie, you were never a mistake.” He doesn’t know how Bucky can think that, after all the pain Steve had caused him. Seeing the disbelief in his eyes, Bucky vows a firm and resolute, “You weren’t.”
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Bucky wipes away his tears, kissing the tops of his cheeks as he murmurs soft apologies. Steve doesn’t know what Bucky can possibly be sorry for.
“Steve?” Bucky looks—so sad, and lonely. “You aren’t a mistake, okay?”
When Bucky kisses him again, it tastes like forgiveness.