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Steve buys a record player that Bucky likes a lot but not as much as Steve likes it. Bucky likes his smartphone better, that can play about a billion songs and he’s not even exaggerating. The record player that Steve buys would have been state of the art when they first died. It’s electric, not the horn kind that Bucky’s dad used to have, with the crank and made Buck’s ma exasperated because Dad was always buying records for it and they didn’t have a lot of money, but more money than Steve Roger’s family which was just him and his ma and they were really poor. Buck and his sisters would sit on the floor and their dad would play jazz records and let Bucky hold the album covers and look at the pictures of the pretty ladies on them. He remembers Helen Kane. And Josephine Baker was the prettiest and Bucky’s favorite. He liked the pretty ladies more than the music sometimes. But not Steve. Steve liked to listen to the jazz music with no words, with Bucky’s dad. Bucky didn’t care about that music back then, only the kind with words, until later when he learned about dancing. But Steve liked the music and never got good at dancing and was too serious for dancing most of the time. When Steve would come over, Bucky’s dad would know he had a good audience and he would play his boring jazz records and he and Steve would sit around and listen. And Steve was always very polite and respectful to Bucky’s parents, more than Bucky was, which was the only time that ever happened and everyone thought Steve had good manners but he had the worst manners. He only had good manners around parents and old ladies.
So Steve bought his old-fashioned new-fangled record player that’s electric and has a radio and Bucky happens to know that it cost a lot of money, but not because it’s new; because it’s old. At first when it was new it cost a lot of money, and then it got medium old and outdated so it was cheap (Bucky was out killing people at this time,) and then it got so old it was worth a lot of money again. Bucky wishes he had some of his old stuff from childhood because it would be worth a lot of money by now. Maybe. Probably not, because then when he moved in with Steve in ‘36, they didn’t have any nice stuff, hardly. They had a radio. They were so poor! Now they’re super rich. Steve is super rich. He got paid a lot of money from the US government and from SHIELD. Bucky got paid some money from Pepper. Compared to 1936 it was a lot of money. But he didn’t get any money from the US government because they don’t know he’s alive and used to be Bucky Barnes from the Howling Commandos, which, he barely remembers that. They wouldn’t care anyway, they would only care that he killed the president one time. The president of the USA! What the hell was he thinking? Bucky did some things that he doesn’t know what the hell he was thinking or why he did those things.
He tries not to think about it, but when he thinks about doing some stuff and not knowing why he would do that stuff and not know better, then he feels scared. “Scared” is a feeling that has many different feelings, many different manifestations. Sometimes when Bucky feels scared, he feels so scared he can’t even move and his heart pounds in his chest so hard it hurts in his neck and then he wakes up somewhere else a long time later with Steve reading his e-book and Bucky has a fuzzy blanket. Bucky has five big blankets. They are all fuzzy and soft. One has stripes like a zebra. It’s goofy and he likes Steve to have the goofy blanket.
Other times when Bucky feels scared it means he is anxious that something will have a bad consequence, like going through a door, all of a sudden he will feel “anxious” and not want to go through the door to see his therapist. His therapist is Ms. Borsao who is a doctor and should be called Dr. Borsao out of respect but if they say he has to go see “Dr. Borsao,” he wants to die of fright and that’s another manifestation of “scared,” and anxiety. He is afraid of a bad consequence from a doctor. But if they don’t say “doctor,” he doesn’t get as bad anxiety, even though it still is a doctor, so it’s kind of stupid, but DOCTOR Borsao says it’s okay to do things that sometimes feel stupid because it won’t last forever and helps for right now. And she should know because she’s a doctor. Doctors have to be really smart, not like Bucky who didn’t go to a lot of school and is not that bright.
So sometimes Bucky is afraid to go through the door and is scared of bad consequences from leaving their suite, and if he doesn’t control it he will wake up somewhere with a blanket. Sometimes he gets scared for no reason and big stupid tears come out, and that’s the worst because it’s embarrassing. On top of feeling scared, then afterwards to feel embarrassed - if he cried like that in Zhitkur he would get a slap. He thinks if Steve slapped him it would be easier to not do it anymore, he wouldn’t cry anymore, but he also doesn’t want to get a slap from Steve. He thinks if he gets a slap from Steve, he gets a feeling in his belly like a knot that turns into a black hole and he gets sucked inside of it and dies. He hopes he never is so dumb or bad that Steve slaps him. He would rather get shot in the head. If Steve slaps him, he may as well get shot in the head.
So he tries to manage his anxiety with strategies from Ms. Borsao and this way Bucky will be normal, not crying, so Steve won’t get exasperated. Steve is putting a record on his record player and Bucky is watching from the dining table, where he is trying to write in his notebook, to do the chart of feelings for managing anxiety. He is trying to write that writing gives him anxiety. If he can write it down, it helps the anxiety go away. But he can’t write it down because of anxiety. That is called a “Catch-22.” “Catch-22” is a novel about World War Two that Bucky hasn’t read it yet, but it means...it means what he just said about two things that cancel each other out so you can’t do one because of the other so you’re stuck. Buck is stuck. He draws a sad face in his notebook.
Steve puts on a record of jazz music and turns the volume down. He just likes to have noise in the background, not peace and quiet. Bucky doesn’t mind. Sometimes when they were little and Steve would come over, Buck’s dad would put on a jazz record, then Bucky would do a crazy dance with his hands in the air, and then Steve would laugh, and then Bucky’s sisters would come in and they would do a crazy dance too, even Becca who still wore diapers and could only bounce with her knees or put her hands on her face and bend over and wiggle and was really cute. Steve always looked like he wanted to join, but he never did. Then they got older and Bucky learned real dancing and Steve learned to look like he didn’t want to dance. That’s because dames didn’t treat him right because they had no character, most of them. And the ones that did, Steve could be real standoffish to them and formal, so he missed his chance his whole fucking life like a moron.
Bucky draws a rectangle and he writes in big capital letters inside: D-U-M-B. See? He can write. He draws another rectangle and writes P-U-N-K. Then he draws arrows to the frowny face.
Steve is in the kitchen now trying to make dinner, moving pots and pans around. He’s not a very good cook and never has been. He always gets the amounts wrong on the ingredients, and gets impatient halfway through and just cooks it without finishing the recipe. That’s why Bucky has to be so exacting when he reads the recipe to Steve because otherwise Steve won’t do it right and it comes out like crap. Bucky could just make the food himself but he doesn’t feel like it. And he hasn’t felt like reading the recipe to Steve either. He just deals with food that doesn’t come out as good as it could. Because it’s better than eating sludge through his nose with a straw! Bucky draws a happy face with a huge smile that goes around half of the whole face. Then he stabs a nose onto it so hard it dents the paper. He checks the next page and it’s dented too, and there’s a little bump on the back of the first page, like braille. If Bucky learned it backwards, he could write a whole braille book for a blind person. But a better way would be with...maybe a backwards typewriter. It would push up bumps from the back of the page instead of slamming them down on the front, so it works backwards, not writes backwards. And then you wouldn’t have to think or read backwards. Or type backwards and read forwards? Or type forwards and read backwards.
Now he’s confused, so he writes PICKLE on the front of the page. He writes normal letters because he doesn’t know braille. He writes extra hard so that the back of the page says “PICKLE’ backwards, then he runs his finger over it from right to left. You would just have to read from the opposite direction of the one you wrote in, but you would probably get the hang of it after awhile. He flips back over to the front of the page. The typewriter would probably be easier. But if you didn’t have one, you would have to be able to go backwards, reading or writing. He runs his finger over the smiley face nose. It’s harder to feel from this side.
Well, at least he knows if he were blind, he would be able to not do his chart of feelings the same like he’s not doing right now. He puts X X over the smiley face’s eyes.
Bucky can see Steve in the kitchen because the kitchen is huge and has no wall, just a big long counter that has two levels and is higher on the dining room side with bar stools. Steve is standing at the counter with his brow furrowed into a line because he’s reading his e-reader and getting ingredients. If Steve ever got his hand chopped off they could replace it with an iPad. With a shield on one side and an iPad on the other, that would be the perfect hand for Steve. It practically is his hand right now. But it would be harder to open Nutella which Steve eats straight from the jar with a goddamn tablespoon. But he could hold it under his elbow and be able to open it.
Bucky tries to think of things that would be hard to do with an iPad hand. Tying shoes, but you could get velcro shoes or buckles. Doing buttons you could do with one hand. It would have to be waterproof for the shower. They probably already make waterproof kinds of iPads that can go to the bottom of the ocean and grow little legs and walk around taking video and posting to youtube. But you would have to have snaps on all your clothes because you couldn’t get an iPad hand through a regular shirtsleeve. But Steve has buttloads of money now so he could order all of his clothes special and ask Bucky to help him do the snaps, if he wanted. Bucky would help do the snaps around Steve’s iPad hand, if he wanted. But Steve might not like having an iPad hand. He might wish he had his old hand. He might miss it. But Bucky would help him. He would open the Nutella, too.
Maybe Bucky should go over and help with the recipe. He feels lonely from not helping Steve. But at the same time...he doesn’t feel like reading the recipe. He wishes they could just get fancy takeout like when Steve goes away for a speech and Bucky and Pepper get fancy takeout, sometimes. Then Steve could have a good meal without having to feel frustrated from trying to make food that Bucky can eat that doesn’t taste like gross baby food that’s bland and easy to digest. Actually Steve probably likes that kind of recipe better because it has less ingredients and Steve doesn’t care what goes into his body, he just shovels it in with a pitchfork. Bucky draws a pitchfork with a pile of mush on it. Then he draws a big open mouth behind the pitchfork, then a big round head. He colors the mouth in. Then he draws a bendy noodle arm holding the pitchfork. It’s Steve. Bucky draws smell lines coming up. He writes “SMELLY FART.”
Steve hasn’t changed in one hundred years. He chops everything up teeny tiny whatever he’s chopping first. Then by the end, everything is big chunks. Chopping teeny tiny makes the flavor go further, although Bucky guesses they don’t have to worry about that anymore, not having enough - EXCEPT: Steve doesn’t use more of the flavorful ingredients if he has to chop them up. That’s why he’s a horrible cook. He just uses the smallest amount he feels like chopping, unless Bucky makes him follow the recipe. Even before, sometimes Steve would get stuck with the cooking because Bucky worked longer hours, and he would make stew with everything big chunks and teeny pieces. Bucky wasn’t fancy but his stew was better than Steve’s. And you couldn’t say anything about it either because Steve would get sore about doing the cooking if he was out of work, because he felt like he should be at work and didn’t want to be Bucky’s wife. Bucky slams his notebook closed and pushes it away from him. Steve tries to make home cooked meals to give Bucky “nutrients.” Well you can get nutrients from a needle. So what?
Bucky scrapes his chair back, away from the table. He pushes the table with his hands to scoot back, but Bucky and the table weigh about the same, so the table scoots the same amount as Bucky. He doesn’t care and just leaves the table crooked. Then he goes to stand by the counter on the other side from Steve. Steve looks up with just his eyes, not moving his head. His eyebrows go up when he does that and he looks cute. Bucky should read the recipe for him to make sure the food turns out good. It looks like he is making spaghetti with meatballs. If he had an iPad hand, it would be hard to eat spaghetti and meatballs. Unless he twirled the spaghetti against the iPad screen. If it’s waterproof like the deep-sea-spider-iPad, that wouldn’t matter. He could just rinse it off in the sink.
Steve spins the iPad so the recipe is facing Bucky and Bucky’s body gets tense. He doesn’t take the iPad. After a while, Steve tilts the iPad so the image flips back to him. He could have done that to make the image face Bucky. But he didn’t.
Steve is making spaghetti sauce from scratch. You say from scratch like it’s stuff you already have around the house but Steve had to go to the store to get this stuff to make spaghetti sauce from scratch when he could have just bought spaghetti sauce in a jar and not had to chop anything! Instead he has fresh tomatoes and onions and garlic, and a plant??? He bought an entire plant of basil. That is some smart thinking, now he doesn’t have to buy basil again for the next time he makes this dumb recipe. He should get a tomato plant from upstairs from the greenhouse where Rodrigo works and where Bucky keeps his secret chicken that Steve doesn’t know about that he ordered online. They should just make their suite into a greenhouse so that Steve always has fresh NUTRIENTS for Bucky and he can cook and chop all day long since he loves it so much. The jazz record ends and gets quiet and makes a snk snk snk sound because the needle is hitting the end of the record where there’s no music. Steve is chopping an onion into teeny tiny pieces.
“Can you flip that?” he says. He means the record. Unlike Bucky’s smartphone which can play a billion songs until the end of the world, Steve’s record player can only play four or five songs before the record runs out and you have to flip it over. Steve looks up at Bucky and Bucky looks back. He doesn’t feel like flipping the record. It goes snk snk snk.
Steve doesn’t say anything. He finishes chopping his onion into teeny tiny pieces, which means his garlic or his tomatoes are going to be big honking chunks and the basil will just be ripped off and thrown in. Then Steve sets his knife aside and rinses his hands and dries them on a fancy dish towel that’s clean and fluffy, for a dishtowel, not a skimpy rag like what they used to have. Then he goes over to the record player and he carefully lifts the needle which is called a stylus and is made out of diamond, Steve probably doesn’t even know that.
Steve doesn’t flip over the record. He puts it back into its ancient, battered, cardboard sleeve and he puts it away. He has olive oil heating on the stove. It’s probably going to burn and start smoking up their entire suite, because he’s trying to make a stupid recipe for Bucky. And Bucky won’t even change the record because he’s a jackass. His eyes are stinging from onions being minced into oblivion.
Then Steve puts on a new record. The stylus goes sssssssssssssssssssssss which is the sound it makes in the beginning, before there’s music. Then music starts and then Fred Astaire starts singing Night and Day. Bucky ducks his head. Fred Astaire is his number one hero from when he was a little kid and wished he could dance as good as Fred Astaire. Now he could never dance like that because he’s practically a robot. He practically has a full metal skeleton and is held together with wires and nuts and bolts with skin stretched back over it. He wishes he had his old body, not this one.
Steve comes back to the kitchen and he scoops the onions up on the flat of the knife and drops them in the oil and they hiss and he looks under the pan to turn the flame down. Then he minces the garlic, then chops the tomatoes to perfect sized pieces, and puts it all in the pan. He measures the spices out, looking at his recipe and tapping the screen with the side of his pinkie when it starts to go dark. Then he puts the lid on the pan to let it simmer. He gets the ground beef out of the refrigerator. He flips to the next recipe, and Bucky knows it’s going to say: mince more garlic and onions…
“What the fuck,” Steve whispers. The record player peters out. It says snk snk snk.
Steve minced all the onions and garlic teeny tiny so that the sauce would have a good fresh flavor and not upset Bucky’s stomach, which gets upset easily from everything except bland boring food Bucky hates. He wishes he could eat good food again, that’s why Steve is making this sauce. That’s why he’s looking focused and doing all the ingredients exactly right.
Steve sets the iPad down. He goes to the record and flips it over. It goes ssssssssssssssssssssss. Then the music kicks in.
When Steve comes back, Bucky lunges and grabs him in a headlock.
Steve tenses, ducked over, his elbows jerked out, but he doesn’t fight back. The horns are honking before Fred Astaire starts to sing. Steve fights his instincts and just lets Bucky tighten his arm around his neck. Then Bucky scrubs his knuckles hard on Steve’s scalp and gives Steve the noogie of his life. Steve says “Aghkkk” and then tries to pull out from under Bucky’s elbow but Bucky has Immovable Tin Man Arm. When Steve bends low enough to start to pull Bucky over, then Bucky lets go and Steve holds him at an arm’s length. Bucky ducks his head down. He’s close to Steve now which is hard to do ever since some stuff happened at the end of last summer and now Bucky doesn’t know how to ask to be close to Steve. The words dry up in his throat and make his brain go blank. But when Bucky ducks his head down standing this close to Steve, Steve slowly takes the hint and closes Bucky into his arms, and Bucky’s body feels like a warm, bendy noodle, with his eyes closed against the crook of Steve’s neck.
Steve squeezes him a little and then rubs his thumb against Bucky’s shoulder, with his cheek turned towards Bucky’s hair. “I wish you’d talk to me,” he whispers. Bucky hasn’t talked to Steve in over a month. It’s getting worse and worse, his anxiety is getting worse, not better. Every time he moves forward it’s like an avalanche of bad feelings sets him back, and he’s so tired.
Steve sways, still holding Bucky firmly. It’s a little bit like dancing.
Bucky wishes he could say “You’re the love of my life. You don’t smell like a fart.” He wishes he could cuddle up all the time, not just when he has an episode. He wishes he could say “I don’t need this much space, Steve,” like the Grand Canyon is between them, and Steve just watches Bucky, not knowing, because the words turn to dust before they make it out of his brain, and Bucky is left with the horrible feeling that something bad will happen any minute, Steve will die, or the Tower will get hit by a bomb, or someone will come and say “it’s time to go,” and Bucky will leave, and leave Steve behind, not knowing why he would do that and doing it anyway. When he thinks of that, Bucky feels so scared tears start to come, but if he cries he gets a slap, not from Steve, but he doesn’t want one from Steve or for Steve to be thinking about it, getting sick of Bucky. He just wants to be normal and be good together with Steve like right now. Plus he’s stupid for thinking Steve would slap him, he doesn’t even fight in a headlock, and puts Bucky in a big fuzzy blanket, and minces onions into paste. He says stupid shit like “then finish it,” that makes Bucky want to punch him in the stomach when he remembers.
Soon, when it’s warm out, it’s going to be spring, and Bucky’s going to get better. He’s going to have his 99th birthday. Bucky takes a deep, long breath, leaning against Steve like a vertical bed. He’s going to get better. And then, he’s going to POP THE QUESTION! Bucky rears back and then pops Steve lightly in the stomach, and Steve bends away from the blow and pulls Bucky into a headlock and gives him the noogie of his life.
When Bucky pulls away, he feels that his face is smiling but he feels too shy to look at Steve. When he gets a hug from Steve he feels better. He’s going to get better and better until he’s a functional person and then he’s going to ask Steve to marry him, that’s his goal. Ms. Borsao says it helps getting better to have a goal, and that’s the benefit of being a frozen popsicle for 70 years is that in the future you can finally marry your best friend and he might say yes. So Bucky does something, and he leans against Steve again and Steve puts his arms around Bucky again, and Bucky turns his head so his cheek drifts across Steve’s, and Steve draws back a little to look at Bucky, and they are almost nose to nose. Bucky leans in and he touches the tip of his nose to Steve’s. He can feel that Steve’s holding his breath.
Then Bucky feels shy and he wants a meatball. He pulls away and goes around the counter. The iPad is dark so Bucky pushes the button and puts in the code so he can see the recipe. It needs a big bowl, and an onion, and garlic, and parmesan cheese, and breadcrumbs. Some of the things they have, but not bread crumbs. Bucky gets a big bowl out from the lower cabinet. He’s not going to make the meatballs. Steve is still standing still. His eyes look wide. Bucky looks at Steve until Steve slowly comes over. Then Bucky hands him the knife. Then he holds out an onion until Steve holds out his hand, then Bucky plops the onion into Steve’s upturned palm. Steve looks at him for a long moment, with his eyebrows up. One side of his mouth curls into a tiny smile. Then he shakes his head, and slices the ends off the onion. Then he cuts it longways, from end to end. That’s how you can mince it the smallest. He peels the skin off then sets it flat side down on the cutting board. Bucky watches close, over his shoulder. He can feel how warm Steve is through his shirt.
When the screen on the iPad starts to go dark, Bucky taps it for him, because Steve is using both of his hands.