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Steve looks at him like he’s crazy, and that’s fair. He feels crazy some days. When he’d accepted this job - The Man on the Wall - it had been a grim choice. He’d been depressed, unwelcome at home, pushed away from his found family with Sam. Space seemed like a good escape route. Not that it was all space. Sometimes it was mirror realms and quantum cataclysms. Sometimes it was places only Stephen Strange could take him to, and he had to do it under false pretenses.
Really it was the job description that rattled him the most. He was basically an assassin. Again. Sure, it saved the world from monstrous overlords who wanted to feed human beings into their virgin sacrifice machine, but here he was opening himself back up to a part of his past that had made him incredibly unhappy, and he didn’t know if the fact that he was doing it by his own volition made enough of a difference at all.
Bucky had been stubborn, but he didn’t like the disappointed looks from Steve and Sam that it earned him once they’d discovered the true nature of his role.
Fortunately, today Steve is preoccupied with something else.
“Just trust me, okay? You’ll be safe the whole time.”
So Steve trusts him, because he’s honor bound to trust him because he’s
such a good guy
like that–and Bucky takes him to the most magical place he’s found in his journeys so far. A planet that’s teeming with alien life, all of it benign, gracefully flourishing on the abundant, vivid purple plantlife.
Between the flying manta rays with their luminescent semi-transparent bodies floating above them grazing on airborne plants, and the reactive grass which recoils and springs up behind them, changing color from purple to green to lead a path back toward the ship, Steve realizes - finally - the point of all this.
The star above them is blue, but it’s warm as a spring day, and Bucky smiles as Steve’s blue eyes light up with that recognition.
This
is why Bucky likes this job. Places like this. Moments like this.
“I get it now,” he says, reaching out to tangle his fingers with Bucky’s own.
“I don’t know, Steve. Our planet is this beautiful too. I miss it. I miss being at home. I miss…”
Steve seems to be holding his breath waiting for Bucky to finish, and that’s a problem, because the next few words are the kind he struggles to get through. It makes his eyes turn glassy.
“I miss
you.
”
Steve steps in closer, willingly bumping their foreheads together. His arms are strong and firm, deliberate around Bucky’s waist. He’s like an anchor, or a comfort blanket. Maybe both. He smells like
Steve
. Like apple pie and hops and freshly cut grass. If anything it makes Bucky feel that much more homesick. As usual, Steve knows exactly what to say, and it’s enough to force him to fight harder to bite down on his impending tears. Bucky buries his face in Steve’s throat and inhales more of that heady scent.
“Do you have to do it?” Steve asks. “Couldn’t you pass it on to someone else? You did your time, right? So why not… Why not retire? Find someone else to do it?”
“Steve I…”
“Come home, Bucky. Please. Just come home, okay? I’ll help you find someone, a way to make it work, but we… Everyone just wants you to come home already.”
Bucky rubs his face a little more firmly against Steve’s neck, trying to scrub away tears that were now falling faster than he could shake them off. “Everyone?”
“I do. I want you to come home. I mean, I love this. It’s beautiful, Bucky. I’m glad you brought me out here to see it. But I miss you. Can we do that? Can we go home?”
“After the picnic?” Bucky sniffs, peering at Steve through bleary eyes.
“Damn right, Buck. We only just got here. Let’s eat, okay? Then let’s go home. We’ll take the scenic route.”
Bucky nodded, a little more eagerly now. He should have trusted Steve with all this sooner, should have known Steve would be able to help: help him feel better; help him come home.