Chapter Text
Bucky’s omelette feels like sand in his mouth and not just because Steve has no idea how to utilize milk. He stares across the kitchen table at Steve, feeling his heart tighten as he takes in the way his husband is practically glowing in the morning light from the window behind him. He’s always looked like a fallen angel, and Bucky’s always wondered what he did to deserve him, just like Bucky always knew it was going to come to this exact moment, mouth dry, chest tight and a stack of papers in his lap that feel like the weight of the world.
He’s not afraid of Steve catching him staring and asking about the guilty look on his face. Steve is too busy staring at his tablet, eyes skimming over the screen. Bucky isn’t fooled though. Steve isn’t just casually checking emails or reading a report or anything else he has to do for work. Bucky can tell from the hard line of his shoulders and the wrinkle in his forehead that he’s actively avoiding having to talk to Bucky.
Not that they’d actually talk, just exchange pleasantries and avoid eye contact like fucking strangers. But they aren’t strangers. They’re supposed to be partners, they’re supposed to be each other’s world. Or at least they promised each other as much two years ago. Which is why Bucky has a stack of papers on his lap and a pain in his chest and a question on the tip of his tongue that he can’t seem to get out of his mouth, because no matter that he knew this moment was coming, he didn’t want to have to do it.
But it had to be done. So he swallows the dry bite of omelette, washes his mouth out with a sip of coffee and clears his throat.
Steve tenses, almost imperceptibly, but doesn’t look up, just stares at his screen like it holds all the answers he could hope for. Bucky makes another small noise in his throat, hoping to catch Steve’s attention for a second before he has to begin the speech he had been preparing for the last three months. Steve hears him, if the little flinch was anything to go by, but still doesn’t look up.
So he has to go all in then.
“Steve,” he says, trying not to sound annoyed, or worse devastated. Steve drags his eyes up of the screen, reluctantly but with an apologetic expression. Bucky takes a deep breath, steeling himself for whatever was to come. He reaches for the papers on his lap.
“Bucky,” Steve replies with a smile that was more of a grimace. “What’s up?”
“Stevie,” Bucky repeats, tightening his hold on the papers to stop his hand from shaking. “Look-”
“Oh no,” Steve gasps, and for a terrifying second, Bucky thinks he knows. But his eyes aren’t playing tag with his anymore, and are instead fixed on the clock behind Bucky’s chair. “It’s 7 already? I have a meeting in like a half hour. Buck, I’m sorry I have to go. We can talk when I get home tonight.”
He didn’t look sorry. He looked relieved. Apparently, whether Steve knew or not, he didn't want to have this conversation with Bucky anymore that Bucky did. He jumps out of his chair, shoves his tablet into his messenger back, and with a chaste kiss placed strategically on Bucky’s cheek he dashes out the door, leaving Bucky in his seat at the table with the aftertaste of a bone dry omelette in his mouth and a death grip on a stack of divorce papers, feeling as though he's about to cry.
***
Steve has been on mandatory medical leave for three and a half weeks and he's losing his goddamn mind. He's been told by many friends and many psychiatrists alike that he's too obsessed with his work, but he'd blown most of them off. Now, sitting in his apartment and staring at a blank wall for lack of something better to do, he decides to give their concerns some thought.
He's worked hard. He's worked his damn ass off climbing the ranks at Shield, proving himself over and over again, putting his life on the line time after time. He's not complaining. He loves what he does. It's just that he's been working so hard that he can't remember the last hobby he had. Or the last TV show he watched on his own. Or the last time he focused on something that wasn't related in some way to his job.
So now that they're forcing him, and they are forcing him because he tried to say no, to stay at home and recover, even though he's fine, you know despite being pushed off a roof after taking down a fully armed Hydra compound by himself, he's not exactly sure what to do with himself.
The first week had been alright. He'd sat down, watched TV even though he had no idea what he was watching. He'd gone out a bit, strolling through parks or malls. He even drew a few pictures, albeit shitty ones, but he's years out of practice so he cuts himself some slack. The second week he called work, just to confirm that they did indeed mean six months of medical leave, six full months no matter if he was feeling much better and totally ready to go back to work. On the third week he was calling up his coworkers and asking if they had any paperwork he could help out with. Twenty five days in he tried stopping by his office, and the very next day Natasha woke him up, shoved a suitcase full of books and speedos into his chest and handed him a first class ticket to Puerto Rico.
There wasn't a return ticket.
She drove him to the airport, and left him at the security entrance with a kiss on the cheek and the address of a beachfront resort he apparently had reservations at. Once the plane was in the air, he felt himself take a full deep breath for the first time in six years.
***
"Why do you look like someone killed a puppy in front of you?" Natasha asks, pushing herself up to sit on Steve's desk next to his computer. He pulls himself away from the mission proposal he was writing, mentally scolding himself for bringing his home problems to work. Again.
"It's nothing," he assures her, giving a hopefully optimistic smile.
"Don't bullshit me, Rogers," Natasha demands, crossing her arms. "You're as subtle as a stampede now tell me what's wrong."
"I can be subtle," Steve protests.
"There's a reason you don't do espionage, and that attempt at a diversion is it. What happened with James?"
"I never said it was Bucky."
"You didn't have to, now what did you do?"
"Why do you assume it was me?"
"Because I've known you for ten years and I also have met your husband."
Steve sighs and drops head into his hands like he's been wanting to all day.
"Bucky... I don't know, he seemed upset this morning, like something was bugging him. Something big. He tried to talk to me about it, but I ran out."
Natasha thumps him on the back of the head, and he doesn't even complain because he deserved that. “Really Steve?”
“I didn't know what else to do.”
“You've been wanting to have this talk with him for years. What happened?”
“I don't know if that's what he wanted to talk about or not. I panicked.”
“Steve.”
“I know, okay? I know I shouldn't have left, I know we need to have this conversation, but… I don't know, I got scared. I wanna fix things, but I'm just… I don't know where to start.”
Natasha slides off the desk and places both hands on Steve’s shoulders.
“Alright, this is going to be long, but I want you to listen,” Natasha begins. “You love Bucky. I know you do. But you treated your relationship with him like a hobby. The second you had a mission again, you forgot about him.”
“I didn't-”
“You forgot to pay attention to him. Relationships are work, Steve. They're a job, just like this one except more important. You've been taking a two year vacation from the most important job in your life. I know you want to fix things with him, to stop all the growing apart and get back to the way things used to be, but you can't just have one conversation and expect to fix everything. You need to work harder this time. You can't ignore your problems, you can't avoid confrontation, you can't put your work before him if you want your marriage to succeed. You need to be dedicated, Steve. If you want it to work, you have to put effort in.”
Steve can only nod and take a deep breath.
“I want to. I just don’t know where to start. I mean, how do I make up two years of being a shitty husband? He deserves better.”
“You can start by having that talk with him,” Natasha suggests, well, more like orders. “And not running away anymore. Bucky loves you and you love him. Just communicate.”
***
The hotel was illustrious. His room was even more so. It was large, with a walk in closet, king size bed and all sorts of other extravagant amenities. It was on the top floor and had a view of the beach and the inevitable sunset. Steve was terrified. His Shield wages were decently sized but nowhere near enough to stay in his current room for longer than a week.
But it wasn’t hooked up to his card. He figured it was Natasha’s way of telling him to go wild, and as much as he’d rather be at work, he wasn’t about to start complaining.
He decides to go a little wild. He stops going on morning jogs, replacing them with morning strolls on the beach. Instead of trying to watch TV, he would go to the pool and read. Or if he didn’t want to do anything, he would sit on the beach and stare at the ocean. Vacation is nice. It's peaceful. Sure, he's still spending a majority of his time thinking about work, but there's a majority of options of things to distract himself with.
For example, Latin dancing night.
Steve is in no way, shape, or form able to dance. He’s tried, but there’s no hope for him or for his partner’s feet. But he’s two weeks into his first non work related trip and he’s starting to get antsy, starting to feel the need to accomplish something, to be productive and get something done. So to distract himself, he decides that public humiliation is a good way to keep his mind off work.
And the thing is, he’s tried to keep away from work. But work doesn’t keep away from him.
He’s standing by the buffet, picking on some coconut shrimp, avoiding eye contact with anyone in case they try to ask him to dance. He makes the mistake of looking up for a second, wanting to get a view of the people who are actually good at dancing, and look mesmerizing on the floor, swaying and moving, and he manages to make eye contact with someone. Not someone he can ignore or politely decline. He makes eye contact with Brock Rumlow, a high ranking Hydra agent that he’d tracked to the base where he nearly died.
Rumlow knew him, had tried to kill him on a few occasions, and definitely recognizes him.
Steve needs a diversion and fast. So he taps the guy in front of the salad station at the buffet on the shoulder, pulse racing as he feels beady eyes bearing into the back of his head.
The guy has beautiful eyes. That's all Steve has time to notice before apologizing.
"I'm sorry about this," he warns the guy, placing a hand gently on his waist and crashing their mouths together.
There are reasons why Steve doesn’t do espionage, and this is an example of one of them.
Rule number one of, well, everything is always keep an eye on your enemy. Steve’s eyes shut immediately, and he kind of… forgets about Rumlow. Not actually forgets, but stops thinking about him actively, because he’s kind of overwhelmed. Steve is prepared for an awkward half kiss that will last about thirty seconds until Rumlow looks away and he can make a break for it. Steve is prepared to get punched in the face, shoved away, kicked out of this fancy hotel for harassing a guest. Hell, Steve’s even prepared for Rumlow to storm over anyway and try to kill him for the seventh time this year. Steve is not prepared for the guy who’s mouth he’s currently borrowing to kiss him back. But he does. Dear god, he does. The guy’s arms go around his neck, pulling him down a few inches to get a better angle. He's kissing him back, passionately, authentically, and Steve finds himself unable to do anything but reciprocating.
He doesn't count to thirty like he had planned to. He doesn't try to stop this at any point to see if Rumlow was thrown off or not. He doesn't even pay attention to what's going on in the ballroom anymore. He focuses on the guy in his arms and the soft moans he's making in the back of his throat.
He isn't sure how long they stand there making out in front of the salad bar, just that it's longer than thirty seconds. Much longer. Steve eventually pulls back, because it can't go on forever.
He plans to apologize again, profusely. Maybe come up with a lie for why he just jumped the guy. He barely gets a sound out before the stranger's hand is on his cheek, bringing him back for a much softer and sweeter round two.
Damn, he was a really good kisser. This time Steve doesn’t lose track of everything else. This time Steve puts his foot down after a few minutes. He pulls back gently, trying desperately to get a hold of himself.
“I’m sorry about that,” he offers, even though it’s pretty obvious he’s not all that sorry. “I, uh, I saw an ex and I, uh, panicked?”
“No need to apologize, 'm more than happy to help,” the stranger replies, with a gleam in his eyes that has Steve’s pulse jumping. The guy is gorgeous, Steve realizes with a feeling of dread and a feeling of something else that’s the exact opposite of dread. His hair is cropped short, styled to perfection in a way that indicates a lot of effort was put in. His eyes are the color of winter, but have a warm inviting look in them. He’s wearing a sleek navy colored suit that hugs his sharp angles just enough to have Steve’s thoughts go down a dark, unprofessional path.
“Thanks for being so understanding,” Steve says, carefully removing his hand from the stranger’s side. He needed to get out of here fast. Rumlow was still in play and a danger to everyone in the resort. He also had the inexplicable urge to run his hand through the guy’s hair, and that was even more dangerous.
He stepped back, eyes scanning the exits in case Rumlow was waiting. A hand on his wrist stopped him from bolting.
“Leaving so soon?” He asks, smiling shyly instead of smugly like before. “I don't think I got your name.”
“It's, uh, Steve,” he stutters, and blames his fumbling on the warm soft thumb that's brushing against the inside of his wrist. “I just wanted to get out of your hair.”
“Well, Steve, could I interest you in a dance or do you really want to run off?”
“I'm… I'm really bad at dancing. Like ‘I’ll probably break your foot’ bad,” he confesses, glancing down at the floor sheepishly.
“That's cool. I get it,” the guy assures him, taking his hand back. “Good luck with the ex, I guess.”
“Wait- I wasn’t… Look, I’m really bad at dancing,” Steve repeats helplessly.
“Yeah, you said-”
“But maybe… I could watch you dance? And we could get some food? If y-you wanted to of course.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“My name’s Bucky,” the guy says, a small smile breaking across his face.
***
It's during his lunch break and after a full day of worrying about Bucky, he decides to call home like he hasn't in two years. He's practically shaking with nerves, and has to strongly resist the urge to hang up, give up, or do anything except confront the problem.
“Hello?” Bucky says on the other end of the line, voice sounding heavy and strained.
“Hey Buck,” Steve replies, trying for cheerful.
“Steve? What's wrong? Are you okay?” Bucky breaths out immediately.
“I'm fine, promise,” Steve rushes out, cringing that his own husband gets a call from him and expects the worst. “Just calling to say hey.”
“Uh… Did something happen?” Bucky asks, sounding confused and concerned, and Steve can picture the soft crease on his forehead. It makes his heart pang.
“Hey, uh, look I know this is really last minute and you have to be busy with work or whatever, but it's Friday, ya know, and I was, uh, wondering, and look, it's totally okay if you can't or don't want to… But uh, I was thinking we could go out for dinner at that Italian place on 5th if you want. I can make a reservation for after work,” Steve rambles, rubbing the back of his neck and squeezing his eyes shut. “It's fine if we can't.”
Bucky splutters on the other end of the line, and Steve feels his stomach drop, chest tighten, fear set in like he's a teenager asking his crush out for the first time.
“What?” Bucky asks.
“I get that you're really busy and everything,” Steve begins, pressing his phone closer against his ear to keep his hand from shaking. “So like don't worry about it. I was just… We haven't really, um…”
“Sure,” Bucky answers, and Steve can't help the sharp exhale of relief.
“Great,” Steve breaths, beaming at nothing like an idiot. “That-that's great. I'll uh... I'll make the reservation for 7 then?”
“Seven sound perfect, Steve,” Bucky says softly.
“Alright great, I'll see you when I get home then,” Steve agrees.
“See you at home,” Bucky echoes. And Steve's feeling exhilarated and a little confident for once so her hardly thinks when he blurts out a quick, “Love you, Buck.”
Bucky makes a strangled sort of sound that has Steve’s heart aching to be next to him instead of just listening to his voice.
“Love you, too, Stevie.”
The line goes dead quickly after, and Steve nearly fist bumps the air, but manages to contain himself and finish lunch. He feels floaty and stunned, heart beating fast, palms sweaty, smiling so wide it hurts. He walks himself triumphantly over to Natasha's desk when his break is over.
“I just asked my husband on a date,” he announces, beaming. “And he said yes.”
Natasha looks simultaneously unimpressed and proud in the way only she can.
“Great job, Steve.”
He can't really tell if it's sarcastic or not.
***
Bucky has had a shitty day.
After the disaster that was breakfast, he made himself a bowl of cereal and tried to write for an hour to no avail since he kept staring at the stupid papers over and over again. He had to call his sister back and explain that no, he still hasn't told Steve he wants a divorce and no, Becca, he doesn't want her to march over here and tell him herself.
And then, staring at the goddamn papers again, he had a good half an hour cry, because fuck it all, he still loved Steve so much it hurt. But him loving Steve had never been the problem. He had loved Steve from the second he met him, too much, too fast. He expected it to burn out in seconds but it never stopped. Bucky never feed into the ideas of soul mates or true love, but he loved Steve with every fibre in his being.
The issue was Steve didn't love him back.
Now Bucky's sure Steve did love him at one point. Their first few months together were magic, and Bucky had tricked himself into thinking that this was his happily ever after. That he and Steve would have that same magic together for the rest of their lives. He's pretty sure Steve still loved him when he proposed and at their wedding and definitely the honeymoon, but after that it just slowly faded out. What might have been love tapered out into a fondness then into an acknowledgement, until Steve could barely stand to be in the same room as him. Bucky had tried denying what was happening for the longest time but that only led to breaking down on his sister's doorstep four months ago, realizing the love of his life could barely tolerate him. He met with a divorce lawyer for the first time two months after that.
Steve was perfect and noble and kind and compassionate, so Bucky knew that no matter how much Steve hated him, he'd never file for a divorce. He'd never want to hurt Bucky, no matter how unhappy Steve was, so the perfect idiot would suffer in silence until the end of time rather than do anything about it, divorce or cheating or otherwise. So, as one final testament to how much Bucky truly and deeply loved his husband, he set everything up, planned the separation with the lawyer as best he could without Steve there and had papers drawn up, ready for Steve to sign so he could go off and be happy again. The only thing left was finding the right moment to tell him.
And then Steve asked him out on a date.
Bucky stared at his phone for minutes after he hung up, feeling strangely elated. Steve had asked him out on a date for the first time in two years. Steve had said he loved him for the first time in nearly two years.
He’d made peace with letting go of Steve, and tried his best to move past the crippling pain of knowing Steve didn't love him anymore. But one spark of something and his mind was already buzzing with hope and excitement over the thought of having a second chance… before he caught himself.
Steve didn’t love him any more. He thought he’d drilled that into his head enough, but apparently not, since all it took was a single phone call to go back to deluding himself.
He set his phone on the kitchen counter, sank to the floor, and placing his head on his knees, he cried for the second time in three hours. This one hurt more.
He cleaned himself up, attempted to get some work done to no avail, and downed half a pint of ice cream. He got dressed in a black button down shirt and a pair of tight skinny jean, fixed his hair, and went back to staring at the divorce papers.
The papers ended up shoved in the back of his desk drawer minutes before Steve got home and a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Becca scolded him for being dragged back in so fast.