Chapter Text
There had barely been two weeks between the morning that Steve and Bucky had marched into the SHIELD office in Manhattan to announce that they would be taking Nick Fury’s offer to join the agency on a full-time basis and the afternoon that they finished unloading the last of their meager belongings into the apartment in Washington, DC that SHIELD had provided for them. It had been disappointing to get the orders to move away from home, but ultimately Steve didn’t have much trouble letting New York go - it wasn’t exactly as if there was much familiarity left in it, and they were at least lucky enough to have been allowed to move together. Steve had been nervous, after hearing that Barton and Romanoff were consistently housed at different bases, so that neither of the main branches of the agency were left without appropriate staffing in the event of an emergency - but apparently Fury had already known better than to suggest splitting Steve and Bucky up. It was one of the only times in his life Steve had been grateful for someone’s pity, not that he would have admitted as much.
But then, the decision could have had to do with the desire to keep their two biggest assets as close as possible to their primary base of operations. Either way, it meant that they were both still living together, which made Steve feel like he could probably face just about anything their strange new future continued throwing at them.
SHIELD orientation had been about as intense as they had been expecting - both Steve and Bucky were put through extensive rounds of psychological and physical testing, then finally began pairing up and training with various tactical squads from within the agency’s top security teams. Occasionally they were teamed up with Natasha, and a couple of times Barton was brought in from the New York branch to join in on mission simulations; by the end of September they were both made level 8 SHIELD operatives, and cleared to begin official missions as needed.
Active duty wasn’t quite as exciting as Steve had been expecting - they ended up with more free time in their first week out of training than they had since moving to DC. It was good for some things: Bucky had found a record store within a few blocks of the apartment, where they’d both dropped a healthy amount of their first paychecks on new music, old stand-bys and a pile of cheap DVDs that they figured they should be catching up on. They worked out a couple of running routes for PT purposes, discovered a favorite Chinese place in the city, and even braved a trip to a frankly ridiculous Swedish home goods store when Natasha had suggested it after Bucky had complained about staring at white walls in the apartment.
Two days later, Bucky was in the middle of picking out prints from their road trip to put in the collage frame that he’d picked out when his long-suffering sigh interrupted Steve’s reading. “We shoulda gone to Coney Island,” he muttered regretfully, not bothering to look up from the pictures he was sorting through.
Steve looked up from his page, blinking in surprise as he processed Bucky’s words - he was exactly right. They’d lived in New York for over a month before moving, and outside of their one afternoon wandering around Brooklyn, they’d barely paid their old haunts any mind. While his own melancholy over all of the changes they had found around the city hadn’t made Steve particularly regret that decision while they’d been there, it was hard to comprehend that they’d spent a good chunk of the summer in New York and never once even looked into seeing the attractions at Luna Park or the boardwalk along the Lower Bay.
“Huh,” he finally responded, folding the corner of his page down and setting it on the coffee table in favor of his StarkPhone. “I mean… we could take the bikes up when we get a chunk of R and R. Or the train’s only what, four hours to the city? We could head up for a day on our next free weekend. Might be better to poke around during the off-season, anyway.”
Between the medal ceremonies and the amount of press that the Battle of New York had gotten them, it was a pretty regular occurrence for people to notice them while they were out in public. News stations still seemed to be looking for excuses to put Steve’s face in broadcasts, and it wasn’t like Bucky’s arm was exactly inconspicuous. Given the way their last time in the old neighborhood had gone, Steve wasn’t sure how much he wanted a tabloid rag splashing a bunch of pictures of them both moping around Coney Island if it could be avoided. So yeah - off-season it was.
Of course, the moment that they had plans made, the work at SHIELD picked up. First they were called in to deal with a terrorist cell in Eastern Europe, a mission that had taken the better part of a week even with Barton and Romanoff’s help. Then Bucky had been singled out for individual training at one of the higher-ups requests; between his service record and his marksmanship abilities he was perfect for special ops missions. Steve didn’t love the idea of sending Bucky away on his own, and he had a feeling that his friend was less than thrilled with some of the project objectives, given Buck’s sullen mood on the nights when he returned home, but it wasn’t as if the situation was new for either of them. At the very least, it looked like Bucky’s individual services would be needed sporadically at best - once his second week of training was over, things returned largely to normal.
It was the end of October before they both finally had a weekend free from meetings or trainings or press events and could actually make the trip North to Brooklyn. Thankfully the boardwalk and most of the attractions around it remained open on weekends through the year, as long as the weather cooperated - ultimately the timing ended up being something of a blessing in disguise; while the day was nice and sunny the wind blowing in off of the Lower Bay was chilly enough that there were hardly any tourists out, leaving Bucky and Steve with the place largely to themselves. They took full advantage of it, deciding to first walk a loop around all of the attractions, reminiscing on the things that were still familiar and working out their plan of attack for the day.
Unfortunately, the Cyclone was closed for repairs; Bucky was considerably louder about his displeasure over that discovery, having totally lost his cool when he realized on the train ride up that the roller coaster was still operating, but Steve had to admit that he was pretty disappointed about it as well. Bucky had only managed to talk him into riding the damned thing once, which had ended with Steve half-afraid he was having a heart attack and puking up his Ma’s oatmeal into the trash bin immediately outside the exit of the ride, while Bucky apologized between peels of laughter. He had bought Steve a soda for his troubles, at least, and never bugged him about riding the damned thing again. Considering all that they had lived through during the War and now fighting with the Avengers and SHIELD, Steve hadn’t really expected to find a roller coaster that exciting, but he had been looking forward to taking a spin on the thing in a body that might actually be able to hold up to it.
“Next time,” Steve promised as positively as he could, barely refraining from teasing Bucky as he moped away from the empty ticket booth.
They made-do with one of the more modern roller coasters in Luna Park, which they both had to admit was fun in itself, even if Steve got sick of the cheesy jokes that Bucky insisted on making about The Soarin’ Eagle clearly being named after him. After a brief debate they ended up deciding against the Thunderbolt - it was the largest of all of the coasters on the island, but the memory of hurtling towards the Arctic Ocean was still fresh enough that neither of them felt up to its infamous drop. With one last longing look at the Cyclone, they abandoned the rides for a while to head to the beach, stopping along the way to grab food at Nathan’s for tradition’s sake then settling in on a bench near the pier to eat.
Given how long it had been since they’d had breakfast that morning, they both ended up eating in hungry but companionable silence, watching the waves roll in against the shore and losing themselves to their own thoughts.
“You remember the last time we came here?” Bucky asked fondly as he finished his last hotdog. “I mean, just the two of us.”
Steve snorted as he grabbed a handful of peanuts out of the bag between them - given everything that had happened with his Ma getting sick and then moving they’d barely made it out to the beach during the summer of ‘41, but he definitely remembered the last time. “I remember the Reilly twins takin’ one look at me and remembering that their Gran was too sick for them to stick around for our date,” he replied, pleasantly surprised by how little bitterness had actually been conveyed by his voice. It wasn’t exactly like being completely mortified during double dates with Bucky had been an unusual occurrence for him while they were growing up, but being so obviously rejected on the boardwalk in the middle of an otherwise perfect day had left a pretty significant scar.
Bucky paused with his root beer halfway to his mouth, frowning as he finally looked away from the beach. “Huh,” he said quietly, “I’d totally forgot about inviting them, honestly.”
Steve shrugged, trying to play it off like less of a deal than it had been at the time. Truthfully, though, the rest of the day had been pretty spectacular. Bucky had managed to convince him to stick around despite the mortal wound to his pride, then proceeded to drag them from one attraction to the next, until Steve was too wrapped up in the rides and the stupid carnival games to give a damn about a couple of redheads who’d written him off on-sight.
Steve blinked, grabbing his own drink and shaking himself from the memory. They didn’t do this often, actually come out and talk about their lives from before - but now that Bucky had brought it up he couldn’t stop the memories from rushing back: Buck had won some stupid ring-toss game after they’d heard the attendant taunting some poor kid who hadn’t been good enough to earn the price he’d wanted, then actually let Steve buy their ice cream for a change to make up for it. It seemed like such a stupid thing to remember, but suddenly Steve couldn’t stop smiling about it. “I mean,” he finally spoke up, balling up his empty wrappers in the awkward silence that had settled in while he’d been thinking, “otherwise it was a good day. A really damned good one, thinkin’ back on it.”
“The best double date we prolly ever had,” Bucky agreed, giving Steve an odd smirk - one that didn’t quite seem to reach his eyes. Before he could think to ask what he’d meant by it, Bucky had tipped back the rest of his root beer and gathered up his trash as well. “You ready to check out the rest of the boardwalk?” He asked, already rising from the bench.
“Uh, yeah,” Steve agreed, chugging what was left of his own soda before following Bucky to the nearest trash bin, and then onto the boardwalk. Whatever awkwardness had come up during Bucky’s last comment soon dissipated, and before long they were back to pointing out the interesting things that caught their eyes and reminiscing on what had changed of the things they could remember. For instance: the games, while flashier and advertised for a hell of a lot more per play, all could have been the originals as far as Steve could tell.
“You notice none of them are heckling us about tryin’ the Strong Man games like they used to?” Steve blurted out, noticing the way the attendant eyed them as they passed by the High Striker.
Bucky snorted lightly, “I mean… if you really wanna show ‘em, Stevie, I can keep a secret. And I doubt it’d be that hard to put the weight back on the track after you knocked it clean off.”
“No,” Steve insisted immediately. “That’s not what I -” before he could finish the thought he caught sight of a huge collection of familiar toys hanging from the awning of one of the nearby games.
They were standard enough looking teddy bears, with light brown fur and huge brown eyes, only they wore ridiculous blue pea coats and little black domino masks that Steve would have recognized anywhere, even if he had avoided the comics like the plague during the forties. The only real difference between these Bucky Bears and the classic ones that Buck had found during his disgruntled Google search when he’d finally gotten sick of Stark teasing him about them was that the left sleeve of their jackets were missing, and had been replaced with a shiny silver arm - obviously updated to reflect the Bucky that had fought with the Avengers in New York.
Steve couldn’t help the stupid grin that spread across his face - he heard an intake of breath, guessing that Bucky was getting ready to ask what the hell he was looking at, but then he got a groan instead as he must have followed Steve’s eyeline.
After all of the jokes about the stupid Soarin’ Eagle Steve had to have one.
“Oh God,” Bucky muttered next to him, rubbing the bridge of his nose as Steve turned his smile at him and approached the booth on his own, laughing lightly at the muttering that he heard as Bucky followed behind.
The attendant for the booth looked shocked as hell to see them coming - going by how dead the park was, Steve guessed that he’d been planning on spending the entire day playing around on his phone, which he almost dropped when he found Steve standing next to the counter for it. The game looked simple enough: there were a couple of pop-guns underneath the half-boards, and ten targets lined up along the back wall of the booth. According to the signs, he got points that corresponded to how accurate the shots were.
The bears were worth eight bull’s eyes. Steve smiled and handed a five dollar bill over, all too ready to win and have something to tease Buck with forever. The gun was stupidly light in Steve’s hands, and he looked it over in confusion for a moment, trying to figure what type of rifle could feel so flimsy.
“It’s a laser point-n-shoot. You know, like Duck Hunt?” The attendant mentioned flippantly, catching on to Steve’s confusion. Steve gave him a smile, hoping that it wasn't too obvious that the explanation only left him feeling even more confused. “There’s no way in hell they were gonna let us have guns this close to the boardwalk; a few years ago we had air guns that shot corks but they got banned, so…” he gestured towards the plastic gun in Steve’s hands.
“Oh yeah,” Steve agreed, feeling like a total idiot as he raised it into position. “Yeah - that makes sense.” He pointedly ignored Bucky’s amused huff from the opposite corner of the booth, and focused his site on the first target, firing off the first shot.
He missed the damned thing entirely. Steve frowned down the barrel of the gun, paying closer attention as he changed the angle on his shot again. According to the light that appeared on the target, he’d barely clipped the far right side of it. He murmured a short curse and moved onto the next target, only to miss it again. The rest of the round wasn’t much better… by the end of it he’d hit three of the targets, and none of them better than the second ring on the target.
Bucky whistled lowly as the lights on the targets powered down. Steve glared at them for a moment, before pulling another fiver out of his wallet and taking aim again. He hit five of the targets this time, at least, and one of them on the inside circle, but it still wasn’t worth a damned thing.
“This is sad , pal.” Bucky chuckled, sucking his teeth and shaking his head as he leaned against the side of the stall and watched. “I mean, I know you can’t shoot for shit, but…”
“I’m just gettin’ used to the gun,” Steve muttered, handing over another five dollar bill and ignoring the way that the attendant kept looking back and forth between them. He wasn’t freaking out yet, and Buck had kept his left hand hidden underneath the half-board at the front of the booth, out of the guy’s sight; Steve doubted he’d recognized them, and hoped that his reactions were just in response to the tireless ribbing that they were giving one another. At least he knew that Bucky’s teasing was good-natured - or familiar, if nothing else. Steve looked down the site of the gun again and took his shots, but only hit two of the bulls eyes.
“Alright, I can’t take it anymore,” Bucky sighed, pushing himself away from the counter and approaching Steve with his right hand out. “Hand the gun over and let a professional take care of this.” He took it from Steve with a lazy smile, reaching into his back pocket with his left hand to pull his wallet out and handing a bill of his own over to the attendant, who stared openly at the metal hand, before immediately looking at Steve with considerably more interest than he’d been showing before.
“The weight and the lie are both weird,” Steve tried to argue, shrugging his shoulders inward and admittedly whining a bit as he tried to deflect the worker’s attention before he put together who they were. It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that the game was probably rigged, too, considering there was no way to actually prove where the laser had hit the target, but he still had enough pride to keep that thought to himself. And ultimately, he couldn’t even bring himself to feel properly miffed about it as he watched Bucky examine the gun, then assume his usual firing stance. He muttered something inaudible under his breath as he squinted down the site of the gun, then fired ten shots in a steady, even cadence.
He hit the dead-center on the target of every one. The poor guy running the booth couldn’t do anything other than gape in awe, looking back and forth between Bucky’s hand and his ridiculous marksmanship as he put what had happened together. “You’re… you guys are…”
“You’re sure you don’t have any of the Cap bears left?” Bucky asked pleasantly, setting the toy rifle down on the counter and giving the attendant a pleasant smile as he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.
“No, sir, I’m so sorry; if we did I’d give you both whatever you want, what you guys did…”
Bucky sighed and shook his head. “It’s really no problem, we were just doin’ our jobs.” He gave Steve a rueful smirk before continuing on. “Alright, this doofus wanted one of the stupid bears, so I’ll take one of those then we’ll be outta your hair.”
“The, um -” the attendant started, wincing as he moved towards the display.
“The Bucky Bears, yeah,” Steve chimed in, grinning unrepentantly when he saw Bucky’s ears start to turn red. He knew he probably should have felt embarrassed about the request, too, especially considering he’d needed Buck to win the damned thing for him - but it was worth it to see him squirm when the attendant offered to pull down two.
“No, just the one is fine, thanks.” Bucky insisted, shoving it at Steve the second the damned thing touched his hand then shaking his head with a thunderous scowl when Steve started laughing at it. Somehow it looked even more ridiculous now that Steve owned it - he didn’t bother keeping the thought to himself as they made their way away from the booth.
“You’re such a fuckin’ punk, I swear to Christ…” Bucky muttered darkly, picking up speed as they continued down the boardwalk, but not before Steve caught a glimpse of the smile that he’d been fighting off.
They were getting close enough to the departure time for their train back to DC that they figured they had time for one last circuit around Luna Park before they needed to catch the subway back to Penn Station. Steve did feel a little ridiculous, carrying a stuffed bear around with him the whole time, and realized that it was going to look even crazier when he had to board the Amtrak with it, but he’d be damned if he admitted as much to Bucky or got rid of the thing after all of the grief he’d faced to get it in the first place. Besides… there was a little part of him that Steve didn’t exactly want to acknowledge that was thrilled over the fact that, after all of the years of watching Buck try to win stupid carnival prizes for the girls he was courting, it was him that was going home with the most personal of all of them. It was a dangerous fantasy to entertain, Steve knew, but dammit - after years of depriving himself, he figured he deserved this one stupid little thing.
They were making their way back up tenth street to head back to the Stillwell Ave train station when Bucky stopped outside of the entry of Deno’s Wonder Wheel, staring in surprised excitement.
“What is it?” Steve asked, looking towards the ticket booth with a confused frown - according to Bucky the ferris wheel was really only good for necking, at least after he had grown tall enough to ride the Cyclone and old enough to be bringing girls to Luna Park on his own. And besides, they’d been able to see the ride from a distance for most of the day: it made no sense for him to be flipping his lid about it now.
“Stevie,” Bucky murmured, reaching out and grabbing Steve’s arm excitedly, dragging him towards the booth “c’mon, we gotta do it before we go.”
This time it was Steve’s turn to gape in shock; there was no way in hell that Bucky was implying…
They veered slightly to the right of the Wonder Wheel ticket booth and Steve caught sight of what had Bucky so worked up: there was a photobooth tucked into the corner of the amusement park, barely marked but still flashing an announcement that it was open for pictures, which the screen on the side said would be printed in seconds. Steve’s heart quit pounding in his chest, at least, but it was replaced by a weird sense of disappointment that he didn’t dare to acknowledge, much less think about.
“I can’t believe they still have these,” Bucky gushed as they approached the booth, sliding in first so that his left arm faced the far wall. “God, do you remember how long the line used to be for these stupid things?”
Steve chuckled nervously and shook his head, still trying to shake off the weird swell of panic he’d been feeling earlier as he ducked into the booth and took a seat as well. It was a ridiculously tight fit inside when he pulled the curtain behind them and tucked the Bucky Bear between his knees - the booth wasn’t exactly tiny, but they were both considerably broader than the last time they’d crammed into one.
“It was that day,” Steve said suddenly, the memory coming back to him of the two of them waiting for a booth like this one before heading home. “The last time we did this, it was the day the Reilly girls stood us up. We had to wait 45 minutes to get in the stupid booth and we almost missed the last train home.”
Bucky laughed as he grabbed his wallet out and unfolded a bill to put into the cash slot on the front wall of the booth. “You bitched about it the whole time, too.”
“Well yeah,” Steve scoffed, shifting slightly and trying to fold his arms across his chest, wincing when he ended up accidentally elbowing Bucky and hitting his funnybone against the back wall of the booth in the process. “We only had enough money for the one shot and there wasn’t any point. Plus we’d been out in the sun all day.” Steve didn’t bother pointing out the fact that at the time, he wouldn’t have needed an excuse to avoid having his picture taken, anyway; even sunburned and windblown and sweaty, Bucky would have ended up looking roguishly handsome in the stupid pictures, while Steve just looked skinny and melted, and even more pathetic than usual when juxtaposed with his friend.
“It’d been a good day, though,” Bucky argued, his voice surprisingly soft as he punched in a few commands on the touchscreen in front of him, selecting the number of shots to take and opting to print them in black and white. “We needed somethin’ to commemorate it with - there’s nothin’ wrong with that.”
Steve glanced over at him with a frown, trying to figure out what Bucky was trying to get at, but the weird look on his face was gone before Steve could say a word. “Okay,” Bucky continued, leaning back against the wall of the booth and nudging Steve with his elbow. “Uncross your arms and quit lookin’ like such a stiff, it’s about to start.”
Steve did as he was told, then tried his best to put on a cheesy grin as the light went off on the camera in front of them. He could feel Bucky shifting around on the bench next to him, clearly hamming it up and changing positions between shots - the distraction of their thighs pressed so tightly together in the limited space shorted Steve’s brain out, leaving him with no idea on how to pose. He tried to change things up a bit, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes like he was surprised, tilting his head a bit in one.
The next thing he knew the lights went down in the booth again, and Bucky leaned forward to collect the strip of photo paper that immediately printed out. Steve was in the middle of opening the curtain to the booth when Bucky spoke up, his voice loud and indignant. “Are you shittin’ me, Steve?”
“What?” Steve asked, turning back away from the door to find Bucky glaring down at the photostrip.
Instead of answering Bucky turned the offending image to him, holding it out so Steve would take it. “ That - you owe me a fiver. That’s your god damned stage smile, you’d think I had a gun to your head.”
Steve frowned down at the strip in his hand, realizing that Bucky wasn’t wrong - while Buck was hamming it up, grinning broadly, crossing his eyes, and generally looked to be having a great time… Steve looked every bit as stiff and awkward as he’d felt. He swallowed as he shifted his weight and grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket, feeling guilty for having ruined the picture that Bucky had clearly been so excited about taking.
“Sorry,” he muttered, handing the bill and the strip back over.
“I don’t want sorry,” Bucky replied, his voice sounding more exasperated than angry, at least. “I just wanna have a picture that looks like I’m havin’ a good time with my best friend.”
Steve looked down at where his wallet was still clutched in his hand, feeling like a couple hundred pounds of shit, before pulling another bill out and squaring his shoulders. “Alright, that was just a warm-up,” he said easily, trying to psyche himself up as well. It was ridiculous, feeling like he should be embarrassed about a damned photobooth picture, especially one with Bucky. It wasn’t as if anyone else was going to see it.
That seemed to put Buck back in a good mood, at least - he gave Steve a quick smile, biting his lip as he took the fiver and put it in the slot again. Steve took a deep breath before throwing his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, smashing the sides of their faces together with a laugh as the flash went off.
Things only devolved from there.
By the end of it, they’d both spent an embarrassing amount of money on the stupid thing, and when they finally stepped back out onto the sidewalk next to the booth they both had to smooth their hair down with their hands, snickering like idiots while they looked through roll after roll of stupid pictures. Steve tucked the bear under his arm as Bucky continued flipping through them, trying to pick his favorites as they finally made their way to the subway station, hustling when they realized they were going to be pushing it to make their train back to DC.
“Worst case scenario we’ll just tell Stark we need a flight,” Bucky quipped when he realized what Steve was worrying about.
Steve looked first at his bear and then at Bucky, giving him a skeptical look - he could only imagine how much Stark would rib them if they showed up at the tower in need of a ride after missing their train, especially given the circumstances that had led to them being late in the first place. Thankfully, Bucky seemed to follow his thinking; they grimaced at the same time, before taking off for the Stillwell Ave stop at a sprint, laughing as they raced each other and completely missing the looks of shocked wonder that the few other tourists in the park gave them as they sped by.
They ended up barely catching their return train, still winded as they settled into the seats on the Amtrak and finally allowed themselves to relax. As soon as they were pulling out of Penn Station, Steve sat the bear on the armrest between the two of them, waiting just long enough to catch Bucky’s eye before cracking up harder than he could remember doing in years. After a few seconds Bucky joined in as well, and despite the spectacle they undoubtedly made of themselves, Steve couldn’t help reveling in the lightness he felt in his chest, deciding that the day had undoubtedly been their best trip to Coney Island, even as they spent the rest of the train ride discussing other highlights from over the years.
Once they’d gotten back Bucky had tucked a couple of the most ridiculous photostrips from that day into the sides of the collage frame, leaving them on proud display in the middle of their living room in DC. As the months went on and they were allowed more free time between SHIELD missions more and more photographs continued to fill the apartment: Buck had gotten into the weird habit of taking selfies anytime they visited somewhere interesting, but Steve wasn’t exactly going to complain about it - over time the goofy pictures and their mismatched frames started to actually make their space in Dupont feel almost like a home. A weird, unfamiliar home in a frankly terrible city… but a home that was theirs all the same.
It was shortly after their second Christmas there, on a Sunday evening when Sam had come over for dinner and they’d ended up crammed together on the couch in front of the TV in the living room watching old horror films and shooting the shit, that Steve was hit with the surprising realization of just how content he was. Sure, they still had their issues; Peggy’s memory seemed to be fading by the week, with the good days coming fewer and farther between, and he still hated working for SHIELD more often than he didn’t; then there were the days when the longing in his chest - whether it was for their old friends or their lives from before or… something more to do with Bucky that he didn’t really want to acknowledge - became a physical ache, one that made it difficult to even get out of bed in the morning, much less go about the day like nothing was wrong. But for the most part, Steve was happier than he ever could have imagined possible, simply co-existing with Bucky and settling more comfortably into life in the weird world that they’d found themselves in, carving out their own spot in it as they went.
That had lasted until the last week in April, when Bucky had gone out with Sam and not even bothered to invite Steve, then dropped the bombshell that he was going on a date with a man while they were in the middle of a mission with Natasha. Watching Nat study their collection of photos the next evening had only twisted the knife further: Steve hated the knowing look on her face when she’d turned to him, even more than he’d hated her suggestion that he talk to Bucky about his feelings. The idea of giving anything away to Bucky had scared Steve shitless for years; being turned down by someone he was attracted to was something that Steve was all too used to, but the idea of seeing that familiar pitying look from Bucky (or worse, the disdainful scorn that seemed to be the case as they’d grown too old for unrequited crushes) wasn’t something that Steve thought his confidence could handle, enhanced body or not. And the thought of upsetting the comfortable symbiosis they had now - or of losing his friendship altogether - was one that Steve was too much of a coward to even entertain, regardless of how reasonably Natasha had presented her arguments that they talk.
In the end, he’d wound up standing in front of the collage frame after Nat had left, looking over the photobooth strips again and remembering the day as he guzzled down vodka and listened to Bing Crosby croon about unrequited love. It was a bitch, finally manning up to the realization, but now that Steve looked the pictures over with Natasha’s eye it was clear as day that he was mad about Bucky. Hell - the longer that he stood there, the more obvious that his infatuation with his friend seemed; not just in the photobooth pictures, but in any shot of them together over the past few years… and Steve didn’t feel anywhere near tipsy enough to blame the effect on the alcohol he was downing.
He was still regretfully sober hours later when Bucky had returned from his date, but after Buck had actually broached the topic of their falling out in the first place (Steve had no idea why he was considered the brave one of the two of them…) the truth had wound up tumbling out. And somehow, against all odds - Bucky had ended up revealing that he felt the same way. The shock of the admission, and the swell of hope Steve had felt when they’d agreed to try making up for lost time, were almost worth the disappointment in finding out that they would still have to wait until Bucky returned from his mission to start.
But then - apparently they’d both been pining like idiots since 1935, by that point. What was a couple more days?
And then the entire INSIGHT fiasco had gone down, the only saving grace of which was that in their panic over thinking they had lost one another forever they had finally gotten the balls to act on their feelings. Steve wouldn’t go so far as to say that it had been worth it, especially not when he still was recovering a week later in the apartment, a testament to how severe his injuries ultimately had been - but it was hard to complain too much when he was waking up next to Bucky every morning, and passing their limited amount of free time between moving preparations making up for lost time by fooling around on practically every horizontal surface that there was (and a couple of vertical ones for completeness sake).
Steve was in the middle of stripping down to his boxer briefs on their second-to-last night in DC when he noticed the new frame on the nightstand, blinking in surprise as Bucky blatantly ignored the thing in favor of the book he was reading. Steve noticed the fact that his eyes hadn’t moved in the entire time he’d been watching, though, and felt no guilt at all as he reached across Bucky to get a better look at the pictures inside.
There were two photo-strips side-by-side in the frame: the first was familiar, as it was the first goofy set of pictures they’d taken on their first trip back to Coney Island after coming out of the ice a couple of years prior. But the second one drew a surprised gasp out of Steve - it was yellowed and worn around the edges, clearly much older than the glossy prints beside it, and at first glance one never would have guessed that the young punks in the pictures were the same men. Steve might have grimaced over how tiny and young they both looked, in their collared shirts and suspenders (and hair that was disturbingly similar - he hadn’t realize how ridiculous they must have looked that first six months out of the ice until that moment), but he was too caught up staring at the middle shot to make a comment. In it, Steve was laughing hard enough that he was half-surprised that the last picture didn’t show him in the middle of a coughing fit - he figured it must have been from whatever Bucky had been in the middle of saying in the picture prior. That bit wasn’t exactly surprising, but the soft way that Bucky was smiling down at him, not even paying attention to the camera in the booth, definitely was. Hell, if Steve had seen the photo earlier, they probably would have been sharing a bed a hell of a lot sooner.
“Where’d you find this?” He asked quietly, tilting the frame towards Bucky but not able to look away from it just yet.
“I’d hid it in my first copy of War of the Worlds as soon as we’d gotten back from Luna Park that night,” Bucky admitted quietly, picking at a loose thread on the comforter. “I mean - it wasn’t really somethin’ I wanted anyone seeing, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, you know - especially considering that was the only thing that we brought home that day.” Steve finally tore his eyes away from the pictures, looking over as Bucky shrugged helplessly. “I’d wanted to take it off to Basic, but… you know. So I threw it in one of my trunks before shipping out and I guess - either Becca found it or she just remembered how much I loved the damned book and held onto it for sentimental reasons. Either way, it was in that box of stuff that Jenny sent down. I, uh - well, as soon as I found it I figured I wanted to keep ‘em both somewhere I could see them.”
Steve shook his head and glanced down at the photos one more time, remembering both days with surprising clarity. Suddenly, something that Buck had said on the beach the last time they’d been there stood out to him. “That day the twins stood us up… that was our first date, wasn’t it?”
Buck laughed and leaned against Steve’s shoulder so that he could get a better look for himself, considerably more relaxed than he had been when Steve had first noticed the picture frame. “Is it sad if I say I liked to imagine it was? I mean… if that’s not obvious.”
Steve huffed a short chuckle of his own, switching the frame into his right hand so that he could sneak his left arm around Bucky’s side and pull him even closer. “Only if it’s sad that I did pretty much exactly that every other time our girls ended up ditching early.”
Bucky hummed thoughtfully, plucking the frame out of Steve’s hands and moving it back to its place. “Then I guess the only real tragedy here is that we’ve both been too dumb to put it together for all these years.” There was surprisingly little regret in his voice as he said it, although Steve figured that had to do with the fact that he was already pulling him closer for a kiss. “Guess we’ll just have to keep makin’ up for it.”
Twenty minutes later they were both naked and pulling the sheets that had ended up getting kicked to the floor back onto the bed, panting and nuzzling against one another as well as they could while coming down from their adrenaline rush.
“I think,” Steve murmured into Bucky’s hair as soon as he’d shut the lamp off and they’d both settled down properly in the dark, “that we owe each other an official Coney trip as soon as we finish this mission.”
“Smartest thing I’ve heard you say in a while, punk,” Bucky sighed, the smile on his face obvious in his voice even if Steve couldn’t quite make it out in the low light of the room. “And we can keep up the photobooth tradition - just this time get some proper romantic shots, rather than sitting around like a couple of sad torch-carrying knuckleheads.”
“It’s a date,” Steve chuckled, already looking forward to it as he snuggled further into his pillow and let himself doze off.
Their return trip ended up getting postponed considerably longer than either of them had hoped; first the mission to bring down HYDRA had lasted months longer than Steve had been expecting. Even with Tony’s supplies and Sam’s occasional help, and the later discovery of Yelena Belova’s own vengeful rampage through Europe and Nat and Clint’s clean-up efforts, the reach of the organization had been huge and well-powered enough to keep them busy and away from home for months. When they had finally wrapped it up, coming together as a team to take down von Strucker at the final stronghold, they had barely had a full day to enjoy their victory before the Ultron debacle had gone down, nearly costing Steve the love of his life yet again and leaving them with weeks of congressional meetings and training plans before they could finally hand over command of the Avengers initiative to their new team and step away for good.
It was such a relief to finally be settled in their brownstone in Williamsburg that Steve couldn’t bring himself to recommend leaving the confines of their house for anything.
The first weekend after their retirement Bucky had woken Steve up early, insisting that they had somewhere important to be as he practically dragged them both into the shower and rushed Steve through getting dressed, all the while refusing to say just what it was that he had planned. As soon as they switched over to the Q, Steve realized he should have put it together, but he still grinned like an idiot right along with Bucky when they got off at the Aquarium, making their way out into the bright morning sun of the boardwalk and staying close enough to one another that their shoulders and hands seemed to brush against each other’s every few steps.
Aside from the physical proximity, there really wasn’t anything different about this trip to Coney than all of their others; a fact that somehow charmed Steve even more once he realized it. Being with Bucky had always been the easiest, most natural thing in the world - it only made sense that actually being with him would be the same way. They made their way onto the Cyclone shortly after lunch; it was rough enough that it managed to beat them around a bit, but Steve was happy to note that his stomach had no problem handling the ride. All the same, he may have played up a bit of an act when they got off, groaning and weaving so that Bucky laughed and snaked his left arm around the small of Steve’s back, exactly as he’d hoped. Even better… it had stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, a warm, comforting reminder of how far they’d come.
They ended up at Deno’s last, of course, and without so much as discussing it piled into the photobooth that was thankfully both still there and empty. Steve did his best to ham it up for Bucky this time, but between the way Buck threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders and the stupid noise he made pulling whatever face he decided on for the first picture, Steve ended up laughing so hard that he was worthless for coming up with a second pose. Instead he gave into the urge to throw his head back and continue laughing, bracing himself with his hand against Bucky’s chest as the camera flashed a second time. Bucky was giggling as he turned and pressed a sloppy kiss to Steve’s cheek right before the third shot - on a whim, Steve turned his head, bringing their mouths together for a lingering kiss as the camera flashed for the fourth time and the lights came back up.
Bucky stayed frozen in place, blinking at Steve in surprise for a beat before grinning like an idiot and digging his wallet back out of his pocket. It was a good half hour before they finally piled out of the booth, hair askew and lips swollen and wallets jammed full of what probably should have been an embarrassing number of photo rolls, if they’d been capable of feeling an ounce of shame over the giddy high that they ended up riding all the way home.
Kissing on Bucky was nothing new, and behind the closed curtain of the photobooth it wasn’t even as if they’d been makin’ time in public - but something about having photo evidence of it had ended up pushing buttons neither of them even realized they’d had. When they finally crashed into bed hours later, they both agreed that there would be much less time between their next trip out.
Coney days continued to be a regular thing for them as the summer went on - and even better, the farther they got from the incident on Sokovia (and the better that Steve’s beard came in, if he was honest), the rarer it became that any of the other visitors to the boardwalk or the parks seemed to recognize them. The first day that they went after Stark had finished the synth skin for Bucky’s arm, Steve hadn’t seen a single tourist double-take to look at them once. He felt so bold by the time that they left the booth at the end of the day that he slipped his hand into Bucky’s while they made their way back to the subway station, chewing on the inside of his cheek to avoid smiling like an idiot when Buck squeezed his fingers gently then went right on walking, barely missing a beat in the story he’d been telling.
They both got bolder from there. As fall set in and the weather got cooler, the crowds thinned out and any remaining sense of propriety that they’d been maintaining went out the door; they were constantly touching one another on the boardwalk, either holding hands or leaning against the other with an arm around his shoulders or back. They shared food, stole licks from the other’s ice cream and even kisses on the beach when there was no one around to see it. Steve thought he might have been tempted to go ahead with it anyway, paparazzi be damned: they’d already gone through the hassle of the coming out and the press circus that had followed, they might as well make it all worth their trouble.
Thankfully, Bucky seemed to feel the same way - he’d startled slightly the first time that Steve’s hand had slipped into the back pocket of his jeans as they made their way into Luna Park, but then he’d grinned so brightly that Steve had damn near ran into a trash can when he hadn’t been able to look away. Within an hour of their arrival Bucky had stolen a kiss while they were waiting in line for the Cyclone, and by lunchtime Steve’s face ached from smiling. If anyone took issue with how ridiculously affectionate they were being, they were both too smitten to notice.
The entire day was like a dream, one that Steve was already waiting to repeat again and again as they piled into the photobooth before leaving, laughing like idiots as Steve planted himself on Bucky’s lap for the entire shoot.
It started out innocently enough - their favorite strips from each trip would get tucked in the corners of other frames around the living room, or put up with a magnet on the refrigerator door. Others got used as bookmarks, or propped up against knick knacks in the living room and office. By the end of the summer, though, there were enough of them scattered around the house that their friends started taking notice - and poking fun at the both of them as much as possible.
Natasha joked about staging an intervention, before turning to Yelena to explain the idea behind the photobooth (at least, that was Steve’s guess - they still spoke Russian too quickly for him to follow more than a couple of words) while Clint made obnoxious gagging noises and tried to draw Lucky’s attention away from Buck. Sam made a habit of humming Summer Lovin ’ from Grease, which was funny until he and Bucky were laughing so hard they nearly made themselves sick over the idea of Steve as Sandy.
Weirdly enough, it was Tony who had the most mature reaction of all of them, frowning as he looked at the collection that practically covered the entire door and half of the side of their industrial-sized refrigerator before turning to ask if they wanted him to buy them one of their own.
“Our own what?” Bucky asked, in the middle of flipping through art designs on his StarkPad, which had the weird side effect of changing the tattoos on his arm like a weird video game glitch.
“Photobooth,” Stark answered smoothly, “they aren’t even that expensive anymore - hell, I could probably build you one in here in ten minutes, if you wanted.”
“No thanks, Tony,” Steve cut in, turning away from the oven after checking that the chickens he was roasting were coming along fine. “I mean, it’s… it’s kinda tradition, making the trip and whatnot. Having a booth in the house would defeat a lot of the purpose.”
Bucky hummed in agreement, settling on a water-color interpretation of the Brooklyn Bridge and studying it as he moved his arm around.
“I like that one,” Steve commented softly, smiling when Bucky glanced over at him. “If you want, I can add some color to the river tonight, too… I finally found the Wacom stylus this afternoon.”
“Yeah, the romantic cliche is cute and all,” Tony interrupted, “but you do realize that the booths today are all digital, right? All it takes is one nosy paparazzo seeing you guys go in and a friend who thinks she’s a master-hacker, and these will end up all over every tabloid rag in the country.”
Steve blinked in surprise, frowning as he followed the finger that Tony had pointed at the refrigerator, covered in hundreds of photos of the two of them. Tony seemed weirdly worried about the whole ordeal, at least if the lack of his usual sarcasm was anything to go by; Steve had no idea how to take the comment or the concern.
Bucky was quiet for a while as well, staring at the refrigerator for a minute before shrugging and turning his attention back to Tony. “Alright - I don’t see what the big deal about that is.”
“Besides the massive invasion of privacy?” Tony scoffed.
“I mean, yeah, that sucks… but we take that risk every time we leave the house, don’t we?” Bucky gestured to the refrigerator again. “It’s not like we’re takin’ any explicit pictures in there, and everyone already knows we’re together so there isn’t much reason to hide them. I mean, it’d be embarrassing to get some of the dumb ones posted, and Stevie’d have to do a hell of a lot of work to try to convince the world into ignoring the fact that he’s a giant corn cob…” Bucky shot Steve a teasing wink with that, apparently trying to rile him up, but Steve could hardly argue against it. Especially not to these two, who knew him better than almost anyone else, and had at least a dozen pictures at their fingertips to prove him wrong if he did try to deny it.
“Well,” Steve drawled as he started chopping carrots for the salad he was supposed to be making, “I’m supposed to be embracing my feelings and expressing my self more, rather than my publicly perceived self… right?”
“Oh God,” Tony muttered. “No more therapy talk or I’ll have to run out the door - it’ll be embarrassing for all of us.”
Bucky laughed at the both of them before continuing. “I’m just sayin’, I don’t think the possibility of us gettin’ caught taking goofy photobooth pictures is a reason to stop taking ‘em. Especially given how long we’ve been going without any problems.” He gestured over his shoulder at Tony’s questioning look, pointing towards the frame on the wall in the hallway that was now home to the battered old strip from their last trip all those years ago.
It was intriguing enough for Stark to study further: he moved out into the hallway to stare for a few seconds, before turning back to the two of them with an odd look. “Yeah, alright,” he conceded finally. “Just… the next time you guys go get the IP address for the booth, if you can find it. I’ll make sure to beef up the encryption on it.”
“Thanks, Tony.” Steve responded sincerely, touched by the offer.
“I mean, it’ll save Pep the headache of the fall-out,” Stark responded quickly, waving him off and walking towards their pantry. “Now - do you guys have any snacks that are under ten thousand calories? I’m starving…”
Stark dropped the topic completely after that, but later that night Bucky got it in his head that they should take matters into their own hands, just in case. After a long debate he picked four of his favorite strips, carefully arranging them on the coffee table in the living room so that the goofiest, most innocuous shots were the focus of the collection, then took a few pictures of them on his phone before posting the best one to the Instagram account they’d set up while they were still with the team. It seemed like the easiest way to reach out the public anyway, and given how long it had been since either of them had even looked at the app they didn’t expect it to cause much of a fuss.
The next day, Buck would swear that he hadn’t noticed the shot in the top right of the photo he’d posted, where most of their faces had been covered except for their lips - but it was still clear as day that Bucky’s teeth had been tugging playfully on Steve’s pout.
The servers at both Twitter and Tumblr were both down for hours.
After the hoopla died down, Tony did end up installing his own encryption software on the photobooth - which wound up getting considerably more patronage after word got out that it was the official ‘Stucky’ booth (Steve had no idea how that rumor had started - but he supposed it was nice to know that their shenanigans were helping local business). It wasn’t so busy that they couldn’t keep up their tradition, though; as the months turned into years, they were both sappy enough that they continued making their way down to Luna Park at least once a month, coming back with at least one photostrip until they’d taken up all of the space they could justify filling with them and had to settle for only displaying their favorites, keeping the rest in a box on the bookshelf.
As cheesy as he knew it was, Steve was a big enough romantic that he loved them all: but they ended up taking his favorite set of pictures when they hit the boardwalk at the end of April in 2016. They’d gone on a Thursday afternoon so that the Island was by and large dead, but had still made for a good time celebrating the end of Bucky’s exams and Steve’s first round of EMT training.
Plus, the lack of crowds played in well to Steve’s larger plans, and saved the risk of them getting recognized on account of the fact that Bucky’d forgotten his hologram sleeve that morning in his rush to make his exams on-time.
After a couple of spins on the Cyclone and the compensatory food truck lunch, they’d finger-combed their hair and piled into the photobooth as usual. Steve did his best to act like everything was normal, laughing and following along with each of Bucky’s increasingly ridiculous ideas for poses and capping it off with a teasing Eskimo kiss, trying all along to hide the fact that it felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest. Given the way that Bucky pushed him away playfully (damned near out the flimsy curtain that covered the door, but it wouldn’t have been the first time that one of them took a tumble), Steve figured he’d pulled it off.
Buck grabbed the stirp as soon as it had finished printing, and was still grinning down at it as he moved to get up, when Steve grabbed his wrist gently. “Hold on,” he said with a shy smile, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “I wanna get one more."
Bucky shrugged and sat back down on the bench, all-too-happy to go along with it. He didn’t look like he suspected anything was up, but then they usually ended up sitting for at least a couple of rounds, and it had been a while since they’d had time to visit. Steve left his wallet sitting on the floor of the booth at his feet as he slipped a five-dollar bill into the slot and wiped his palms on his jeans in an attempt to calm himself as the screen counted down for them.
The resulting strip would end up being one of the few that actually got its own frame, and the only one that had a space of honor on their bedstand from there on out. The first shot of the roll was fairly typical for the two of them, with Bucky pulling a ridiculous face and holding his fingers up behind Steve’s head like bunny ears; for his part, Steve gave the camera a slightly nervous smile, as he watched Bucky out of the corner of his eye. In the second shot Bucky had thrown his arm over Steve’s shoulders while mugging for the camera, a move that Steve was able to use to his advantage as he reached down onto the bench and grabbed his wallet out of the frame. In the third shot Steve was grabbing Bucky’s chin, gently turning his head to face him - the grimace that Bucky had been in the middle of making was replaced with a small, inquisitive smile, while Steve’s jaw was set in a strong, determined line as he stared into Bucky’s eyes.
It was the fourth shot that made it.
In the last picture on the strip, Bucky’s eyes look ready to pop out of his head in surprise, while his mouth is obviously hanging open, despite the fact that he’s reached up to cover it with both hands. Steve’s smile, although in profile, is blinding all the same.
He’s holding a ring out in the space between them.