Work Text:
March 10, 1928
For as long as Steve Rogers had known Bucky Barnes, Bucky had always loved the comics.
“Steve! Steve!” Bucky came running toward where Steve sat on the stoop of his apartment, a brightly colored book in his hands. “Jimmy from around the corner gave me it since he was finished.”
“Really?” Even though Steve was colorblind, he could still see some of the colors, and he liked the way Bucky changed his voice for each character when he read the best lines out loud.
“Yep. I didn't havta’ give him nothing either.” Bucky smiled proudly and plopped down next to Steve. Their knees touched, the knobby knees of eleven-year olds. They were red faced; Bucky from his run and Steve because of the chill of late February. They were only outside anyway to escape from the claustrophobia of the Rogers’ small apartment; Bucky would make him go inside in a second if he thought Steve was going to get sick.
“Stop bragging, jerk. I wanna read it.” He elbowed Bucky in the stomach.
“Stop complaining, punk.” But Bucky grinned and opened it anyway, the excited flicker in his eye giving him away.
They read the book in mostly silence: it was a good one. A tale of valor and strength and justice. Doing what’s right.
“Wow.” Bucky sighed, when they were finally finished, his breath coming out like smoke in the rapidly chilling air. “That was amazing. I could never be a guy like that.”
“What?” Steve asked, incredulously. “Of course you can. You are!”
“I ain’t no hero, Stevie, I ain’t never gonna be one. You on the other hand…”
Steve snorted. “Yeah okay. When pigs fly and I grow two feet and gain 200 pounds of muscle.” But he turned to Bucky then, meeting his eyes under the brown hair that had surely missed an appointment with the barber. “But you’re a great guy Buck. I know it because they're too many jerks out here, especially at our school. But you help people.”
“Yeah, yeah okay. Can we go play toy soldiers in your room now?”
Steve understood Bucky was changing the subject. But Bucky was good. He was definitely Steve’s hero, every time, he saved him from the countless bullies that always seemed to find him(though some would argue that Steve found them).
“Sure, Buck.” Steve noticed the way Bucky held the wrinkled comic, like it was something worth saving. And that’s where Steve got the idea.
*
“Happy birthday Bucky!”
Bucky was twelve today, and he was giddy. There was enough money for cake and a few small gifts that year, and it showed in his excitement.
“Come on, there’s cake! Chocolate with vanilla icing, your favorite.”
Steve turned to him with a frown, his gift for Bucky neatly wrapped in newspaper, tucked under his arm. “But that’s not your favorite?” Bucky preferred vanilla with chocolate icing.
Bucky shrugged. “So?” Inside his apartment, his three younger sisters filled much of the space, greedily looking at Bucky’s cake.
“I thought you invited some of the guys from school?” Regardless of his friendship with Steve, Bucky was pretty popular. And by default, most of them were friendly enough to him.
“Changed my mind. More cake for us, Stevie.”
Steve grinned. A happy birthday was sung, and the cake was cut into. Bucky’s mom grudgingly let them take the rest into Bucky’s small room(large closet was more like it) where they wedged together on the bed, the cake between them.
“I got you somethin’ Buck. It’s not much, but I hope you like.” He handed Bucky the package. Suddenly Steve was feeling nervous. A part of him wanted to rip the parcel of out Bucky’s hands and run home, but he couldn’t. Not with the way Bucky was smiling at him.
“Aw, Stevie. You didn't have to.” He shook the package in an exaggerated fashion, clearly perceiving Steve’s nerves and trying to make him smile. As usual, it worked.
Bucky opened the package carefully. Their mama’s had told them both countless times not to waste. It could probably be reused. When Bucky finally revealed the gift, he gasped audibly.
It was a comic. Steve ran home everyday from school for the past couple of weeks to work on it. He’d never put so much work into drawing before. Steve wanted to make sure everything was perfect for Bucky: no stray lines, colors checked and double checked by his Ma. He had to come up with a story too, he didn't know how those real comic book guys did it.
He called it, James and the Giant Beast, a play of on the title of that horrible book that Bucky had to read last year for Literature. Bucky had complained to him on the walk home everyday. So much, that Steve began to hate it too, even though his year hadn't read it yet.
The story followed James, a brave, strong young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw a beast attacking his beautiful city of Brooklyn, and he knew he had to act. The beast had taken a young girl hostage, and James couldn't let her die. James fought the beast, using nothing but what he learned on the streets. He was loosing, badly. And when the beast bit him, it was surely over. But the venom of the beast couldn't harm him because of how pure his heart was. It only made him stronger, and he played the beast and saved Brooklyn.
“Why James, and not Bucky?” He finally spoke, his eyes not leaving the pages as he flipped through them slowly, not reading, just looking.
“Uh…just incase you didn't want your friends knowing I made you a stupid comic about you.” Steve laughed, but it came out too sharp.
Before he could say anything else, Steve was dragged into a bone crushing hug. The cake almost toppled over, and he was sure Bucky was going to break his bones. But Bucky’s head was on his shoulder, and no one ever touched him except his Ma, and not like this, so Steve just held on tight.
A few moments later, he pulled away. “Does that mean you like it?”
Bucky laughed, a sound that Steve would dream about at night and die thinking of. “I love it. The best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
“Really?”
“Would I lie to you, punk?” Bucky grinned.
Steve laughed and grinned right back at him. “I hope not, jerk.”
March 10, 2016
Bucky didn't grin like that, anymore. He didn't laugh like that either, but sometimes, sometimes Steve would catch a glint of it, when Bucky joked with Clint or sparred with Natasha.
He laughed the most with Sam, they bonded easily, with common interests that exceeded them both being soldiers. Sam helped Bucky get through his worst days in ways Steve couldn’t, but more than that, they were friends.
Bucky didn't laugh a lot with Steve. What Steve got was a soft smile from Bucky, that stayed present whenever they were together. It was content. It was fond. Often times it was amused, at Steve’s antics, the way he talked at the TV during an intense movie.
But he did laugh when Steve bounded into their apartment on Bucky’s birthday with a giant cake, the top of it filled with candles. “What the fuck, Steve.”
“Happy happy birthday Buck!” Steve grinned. Bucky wasn't the only one who had ‘at home’ behavior. Steve was so stoic outside of their apartment, the home they had somehow made for themselves. It wasn't the same corner of the city, the prices had gone sky high. But the windows were spacious and the blankets were warm. The food was good when Bucky cooked it. It was home.
“Steve how many goddamn candles are on that cake?”
Steve shrugged, laughter on his lips. “I don’t know, I stopped counting around 51 and just kept going. You’re 99 today, aren't you, Buck?” He took out some sort of blow torch and began lighting the cake.
Bucky chuckled. “I guess so. But why Steve, did you get such a huge cake, it’s just us today.”
“To make up for all the birthdays we’ve missed,” Steve smiled a little sadly. “But also because it tastes amazing.”
Bucky took a hold of Steve’s hand from across the table, not missing the look of pleasure that always crossed Steve’s face when Bucky casually touched him with the metal. To Steve, it represented trust. Bucky trusted him with his goddamn soul.
Steve began singing quietly, once the cake was lit. The awkwardness of the situation didn't escape them, what with just Steve singing. But his voice was strong, and there was no place else Bucky would rather be.
All of a sudden, Bucky realized something. “Hey! You got the wrong cake.” It was vanilla with chocolate icing, Bucky’s favorite, and Steve told him so.
“No. No. I remember.” Bucky furrowed his brow the way he always does when he's trying to pull a memory out of his head. “We had chocolate with vanilla icing every year.”
A laugh was pulled from Steve’s chest when he realized. “Oh Buck. Bucky that was my favorite. But you got it every year on your birthday when I started becoming your only guest.”
“Oh. I remember.” Bucky looked pleased. “But I think that ended up becoming my favorite, we had it so much. Wow, Steve. Making a guy change his preferences,” he teased, with a shake of the head. That was one of the first things Bucky had gotten back after he’d come in from the cold: sarcasm.
“Bucky, shut up and make a wish.” Steve smiled anyway.
“Nah. I’ve got everything I want right here.” Bucky smiles his little secret smile at Steve, and Steve can’t help but laugh with happiness that is all consuming.
Sometime later, they end up on the couch.
“You know, Stevie, I think I like this kinda cake too.” Bucky said against Steve’s lips, metal fingers gently scraping his scalp.
“Really?” Steve pressed another kiss against the hollow of Bucky’s throat before returning to his lips, tasting them.
“Yeah me too,” he gasped.
“You know,” Steve said, a little while later. “Buck, you’re ninety-nine.”
Bucky growled. “I’ll show you ninety-nine.”