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He should be around here somewhere, Bucky thinks.
They'd planned to meet just a few blocks down, but when the time finally came and Steve was nowhere to be found, there was really no other explanation.
So here he is, scanning dark alleys and otherwise anywhere his best friend could be getting absolutely pummeled. For no less than righteous reasons, of course, knowing him.
As luck would have it, he soon finds Steve getting taught a lesson by the jerk of the week. A lesson that he never learns, but seems keen on being taught at every opportunity regardless. Watching from a safe distance are a pair of women who timidly leave the scene once Bucky arrives, though he doesn't pay them much attention, much too focused on making sure he still has someone to inevitably rescue come tomorrow.
“Alright, alright, break it up,” Bucky calls out before joining the fray, barely needing to lay a hand on the bully before he scurries off like the rat he probably is.
Steve hasn't gone down yet, but sways slightly on his feet, placing a palm on the brick wall of the alley to stay balanced. From his nose is a steady flow of blood, his lip is totally busted up, and a bruise is already forming on his jaw that's so colorful it makes Bucky stifle an empathetic grimace.
After giving Steve a careful once-over, he crosses his arms. “You’re damn lucky, you know. I'm surprised you haven't gotten your brain knocked out through your ears by now.”
Steve runs his tongue over his bleeding lip, tests it with his thumb, and sniffs roughly. His eyes stay low to the ground; he still seems pretty agitated.
“What was it this time?” Bucky asks.
“He was givin’ those women a hard time… and his choice of words wasn't exactly kind,” Steve grumbles, and Bucky is a little surprised when he doesn't elaborate.
“That's it? Steve—” He laughs softly. “You do realize if you throw yourself at every fella who’s a little less than respectful, you’ll never sleep again, right? Don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to get involved when a guy gets physical, but this? This coulda happened to any woman who—”
“They weren't just any women,” he states firmly, finally meeting Bucky’s eyes, face hard with determination. “They were like me.”
Bucky arches a brow in confusion, before understanding gradually settles in. “Oh.” His expression draws into one of sympathy. “Look, Steve…”
“I couldn't just stand by while he said—actually, it doesn't even matter what he said to them, alright? What matters is someone has to stick up for them. God knows the police won't. If the police aren't the ones harassing them in the first place.” He shakes himself, already seemingly unbothered by his injuries, shifting back and forth on his feet like he's still itching to fight about it. “No one else is standing up for people like us, Buck. No one. Which is why I had to show him he can't get away with what he was doing.”
“What, by getting your ass kicked? Yeah, you really showed him.”
Steve scoffs, walking past him and out of the alley. “You don't agree with me, fine. I don't expect you to understand.”
Turning to follow him as he storms off, Bucky reaches for his arm. “Stevie, wait.”
Steve sharply rips it away, hurt shining in his eyes.
At that, Bucky sighs, guilt twisting uncomfortably in his stomach. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, but it is the first time Steve’s stayed so pissed about it, and Bucky can't exactly blame him. “You're right. I don't understand,” he says. “I’m not one of you, I don’t know what it's like. But I do get wanting to fight for… for people like yourself. And for people who can’t fight for themselves. Really, I do. I wouldn't be friends with you if I didn't. I just wish…”
“That I wouldn't fight?” Steve asks. “Sorry. You know I can't do that.”
Bucky sighs again. “Yeah. I know.” Looking him up and down again, he forces himself to loosen up and drop the heavy tone, suddenly wanting nothing more than to cheer up his friend. “How about this: We go home, I patch you up, and next time you let me back you up when a guy gets worked up about what’s in some poor somebody’s pants, that way we can kick his ass together.”
Steve drops the glare, smiling a bit awkwardly with his beaten face. Mission accomplished. “Sounds like a plan.”
…
“‘S funny, you bein’ the one to patch me up. It's like—it's like we swapped,” Bucky says with a wide and lazy smile, drunker than he probably should be, laid out on a cot while Steve sews up a gash in his arm.
They're in a tent in the middle of nowhere, listening to the rest of the Commandos who holler and cheer in the dark outside, wasting time until the next fight. Steve’s just glad they have a moment to themselves for once. He hums in quiet, gentle agreement, carefully drawing the needle in and out of Bucky’s skin in a motion that feels eerily similar to stitching up a tear in worn leather.
“What’s takin’ so long anyway, Rogers?” Bucky asks after a little while, a cartoonish look of scrutiny on his face. “I barely even cut myself. You shoulda been done by now.”
Steve rolls his eyes. “First of all, I'm pretty sure it's worse than you think it is. Second…” The words catch briefly on his tongue as he finds himself too flustered to admit to just wanting more time alone with his best friend. His sheer lack of an excuse comes out as a mumble: “I'm taking my time.”
“You’re what?”
“I'm taking my time,” he says more clearly, pulling the thread a little harder and making Bucky wince.
“Jeez, watch it!” He hisses, but can't have been that hurt, because he starts giggling not too long after, as if nothing had happened at all.
“What?”
“Hurt me all you want, Captain America,” Bucky uses his unserious title very unseriously, “it's still your dainty little lady fingers on the needle. ‘S probably why it's takin’ you so long, now I think of it. Gotta be all delicate.”
It's the kind of comment that would have hurt Steve pretty bad before the serum. But now… now, with him looking the way he does, with his tall frame and impressive muscles, it's… well, it's actually kind of hilarious. The idea of someone perceiving any part of him as ladylike is so absurd he's shocked to find it doesn't hurt at all.
So he laughs. For the first time in his whole life, being questioned as a man is actually funny to him. It’s a strange and new feeling, but it makes him feel a lot lighter.
“Oh yeah,” he chuckles, “I'm the very picture of femininity.”
Bucky snort-laughs. Apparently the notion is just as amusing to him. But just like every other time he laughs, he jostles his arm, and Steve has to grip him pretty tight to keep him steady.
“Buck—Bucky, hold still,” Steve orders, still smiling wide. “I'd be done by now if you didn't keep squirming.”
They're hidden away, somewhere no one will find them. For tonight, at least.
The sun sets amber over the horizon. The beautiful sky through the window doesn't do much to soothe the worries of the two wanted men who have been on the run for… more sunsets than just this one, that's for sure.
Bucky hasn’t spoken much since the battle, but Steve doesn't mind. It's enough just to know that he's here. That he's safe. That both of them are. That even after everything, while the whole world has moved and shifted in ways he never could have imagined, some things never really change.
The tools he uses aren't your typical medical equipment. It's more the kind of stuff one might use to tune up machinery. Steve isn't exactly qualified to be doing this, but when he'd suggested calling in someone who is, the look of fear on Bucky’s face had been more than enough for him to scrap the idea altogether.
Bit by bit, he rips away small pieces of what's left of the metal arm, useless after the fight with Tony. He doesn't get too much done with each session, not wanting to push Bucky too far, even though his friend doesn't quite react to pain the same way he used to. He makes little bits of progress, leaving time between for it to heal, and apologizing profusely when he removes a piece that's especially bound with his flesh. It hurts, he knows it does, and he hates everything that's been done to Bucky to make him not show it.
“I read an American magazine a few months ago,” Bucky says quietly, voice raspy from lack of use, gently pulling Steve from his focus on the shredded mechanical stump. As Steve worked, Bucky had been silently watching the sunset, almost entirely motionless.
Steve sets down the pliers he had been using to pick at the scrap, furrowing his brow. This is the first thing Bucky has said all day.
He's so caught up in his attentive concern that he barely even registers the peculiarity of the statement.
“I thought it might… help,” Bucky continues. “Help me understand.” He seems to take his time, choosing each word individually, almost savoring the process of constructing each sentence. “I didn't understand much, most of it flew over my head. But there was this—this one story that caught my attention.”
Steve stays quiet, not wanting to interrupt this train of thought, even while his own is barreling down the track.
“A man had… undergone these procedures. Treatments. He had been born a woman, but put in a lot of time and money to have that changed.” He turns to look at Steve, not head-on, but catching his eye and revealing a thoughtful and perplexed expression, framed by messy dark hair. “They talked about him like he was some kinda freak.”
Despite his best efforts, Steve stiffens at this, not sure where it's going. In all honesty, he had kind of wondered if Bucky had forgotten how Steve started out.
They're still sitting close, each on an uncomfortable chair at a small round dining table.
Bucky narrows his eyes at him. “Do they… know about you?”
There's no judgement in his eyes, only tentative curiosity. It’s an odd question, and an odder thing to care about, but somehow it puts Steve at ease.
In all his time as Captain America, the man out of time, he hasn't cared much what the public did or didn't know about him. But he has investigated a few things which relate to him. His exhibit in the Smithsonian, which is still bizarre to him, since he continues to feel a little bit too young to be considered a piece of history. A nice little memorial with a statue of him, which had been nice, though not very accurate. There had also been a website dedicated to him on the internet, and it had contained details about his life that surprised even him.
What none of those things ever mentioned, however, was him being transgender. That's the word for it nowadays, isn't it? They describe him prior to the serum as being a scrawny, sickly, short man, but they never go any further than that.
“Actually, now that you mention it,” Steve feels the corner of his lip twitch as he realizes, “I think you might be the only person alive who does.”
It's both invigorating and strangely chilling, knowing that everyone who knew his secret is dead. There's no one left who can challenge him on who he is, who knew him as he was before he knew himself as Steve. Though he sincerely doubts that anyone actually would.
Bucky just nods, taking in the information to do with it what he will, whatever that may be, and looks away again.
Steve is just about to pick up his tools again when Bucky makes yet another strange and unexpected statement.
“I'm… kind of like you now.”
It's Steve’s turn to be curious, it seems, since he really has no idea what to make of that.
“How’s that?” He asks.
It takes a few seconds for Bucky to elaborate. The sun has gone down entirely now.
“I wasn't allowed to be a man, either,” Bucky explains. “At HYDRA, they didn't—didn't let me be. To them, I wasn't even a person, let alone a man.”
The idea that they would strip him of that is deeply upsetting, but not surprising in the slightest. Still, it makes Steve hate them just that little bit more, though he'd rather not show it, much preferring to ask a question that he would have liked to hear, once upon a time. “Do you feel like a man, now that you can be?”
Bucky takes a shaky breath, but nods. “I think I do, yeah. It—it feels different now, though. I don't remember everything from before, but I do remember that being a man was… was something that wasn't always… pleasant. I was a man, I knew I was, but I also had being a man forced on me, if that—if that makes sense.”
“It does,” Steve replies softly. And he can certainly relate. It stirs images in his head of flashy lights, revealing skirts, and in-your-face American war propaganda.
That seems to comfort him. “It's different now that I can choose it. It feels different.”
“Like being a man is something you can make your own, instead of abiding by what other people say you should be,” Steve guesses.
Bucky looks at him again, surprised. “Yeah.”
“I know the feeling.” He smiles. “In more ways than one.”