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Steve says, “What you did all those years, that wasn’t you. You didn’t have a choice.”
Bucky responds, “I know.” His eyes are very blue when he adds quietly, “but I did it.”
**
Clouds tumble past the quinjet’s windows, thick and grey. Like some kind of dreadful omen. Like they are flying through some between place not quite of their own world. Steve watches them and wishes he and Bucky could just disappear into them. Heartsick over the conflict with Tony and still feeling raw from Peggy’s funeral, he wants to take Bucky and hide him somewhere no one will ever find him again. The terror of losing him just as he’d found him…
Steve takes a deep breath and peers down through the clouds, catching glimpses of cold black water under them. Remembers another time he was flying a plane over waters like these. Behind him, Bucky is silent even though his presence is towering. Steve is aware of his every shift and breath. And he wants Bucky so much.
This is the first time he’s been alone with Bucky since 1945 and he’s missed him.
With shaking fingers and sudden anguish flaring under his skin, he puts the quinjet into autopilot and practically launches himself out of the pilot’s chair.
Bucky’s eyes are sharp when Steve turns around.
“Steve, what—” he begins to ask but Steve is pushing into his space, looming over him, registering the flicker of something cold and defensive in his eyes. But his heart is beating hard and he’s looking into Bucky’s face; not from a photograph or through a screen but here, right in front of him. Warm and breathing and alive.
“Can I touch you?” he asks, throat tight and that defensive expression narrows. But Bucky nods and doesn’t flinch away when Steve gently runs his fingers over the curve of cheekbone and forehead. Dark hair brushes against his fingers and he runs his hand over it. All the while, Bucky watches him. Watches him as he curls his fingers deep into Bucky’s hair, watches as Steve crowds closer, his knees pressed to Bucky’s thighs, watches as Steve struggles to breathe.
Bucky’s face softens and his eyes go warm.
“I thought…” Steve tries, swallows, tries again, “Buck, you were gone. You were gone and I missed you every fucking day, like a damn piece of me got ripped out when you…” he breaks off because his voice is cracking and there’s a small smile starting to curl at the corners of Bucky’s lips.
It’s a sad smile.
So sad Steve can barely stand it. He straddles Bucky’s lap, knees bumping the armrests on either side and he catches a glimpse of wide-eyed surprise on Bucky’s face before Steve presses his nose to his temple. Breathes him in, familiar, the smell bringing him back to summer days spent laying on a drab apartment floor to escape the heat. To split lips and black eyes in back alleys as a young Bucky comes swooping in with raised fists and bared teeth like some avenging angel to save him. To dance halls, and nights at the movies, and days when Steve would lay sick in bed and the only one who gave a damn was Bucky. Two years of missing him and two more trying to find him.
And seventy in between.
“Steve,” Bucky says gently, his hands folding around Steve’s waist, “Don’t cry, Steve.” Surprised, Steve pulls back a little and realizes his face is indeed damp with tears and there’s an ache in the back of his throat. With shaking fingers, he brushes them away.
“I’m don’t…I’m not sad,” he says even though that’s not really true. The hole inside of him is too complicated to just describe it as sadness. Bucky’s eyes are close and very blue and though his face has a few more lines in it, it’s the same. With a sigh, Steve leans forwards and presses his forehead to Bucky’s, closes his eyes, winds his hands into Bucky’s long hair. “I’d’a done a lot more, Buck. Would’a burned down the whole world if I had to.”
Their breath mingles and Bucky’s hands tighten on his waist, the left one enough to bruise. He is silent for a moment, solid under Steve’s thighs. Real.
“It’s not worth that. I’m not worth it,” there is nothing bitter in Bucky’s voice. It’s like he’s just stating a known fact. Hearing it for a second time is just as painful as the first the first time he’d said it. Steve shakes his head, their noses brushing. Bucky’s breath is warm against his lips.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” he murmurs, “but even if it was true then I don’t give a fuck.” If anyone wants to take Bucky away from him again, they’d have to pry him from Steve’s cold, dead hands. Bucky makes a small sound of amusement and slides his hands around Steve’s back, holding him close.
“You never did, did you? Steve Rogers against the whole world,” Bucky snorts, a puff of breath against Steve’s mouth and he presses in closer, not caring that his knees are crammed into the small space between Bucky and the chair.
“Not you. You were always on my side,” he feels Bucky smile again, feels his mismatched hands curling around the straps of his shield holster, adds, “and no matter if the entire world comes for you, I’m not letting them take you,” his words bite the air, a promise breathed between the scant half an inch of space between their lips. But Bucky jerks at the leather straps, yanks Steve back enough so they can look at each other again.
“That is my decision to make, pal, so don’t go around making stupid, heartfelt speeches,” the bottom of Steve’s stomach drops out, fear turning him cold but before he can say anything, Bucky frees his right hand and gently cups his palm around Steve’s jaw so that he can run the pad of his thumb along a damp cheek, “But I’m not going anywhere for the moment,” Steve doesn’t like that last bit but he nods, scrubbing his fingers against Bucky’s scalp.
They have a job to finish and a mess left behind them Steve isn’t sure he can fix.
But for now there is silence except for the drone of the quinjet’s engines and their breathing and Steve doesn’t think very hard about leaning in again and capturing Bucky’s lips in a kiss.
It isn’t anything extraordinary in the grand scheme of things but his breath runs short at the feel of Bucky’s lips parting under his own, soft and welcoming. Mingled breath and sliding lips and bumping noses. Steve grins into the kiss for a second then gasps when Bucky traces the inside of his lip with his tongue.
When they part, Bucky makes a soft sound in his throat, like he can’t help it and Steve wishes again to fly far away, to a place they’ll never be found.
But then the console beeps at them, warning of their swiftly approaching destination and he regretfully lifts his head. Bucky's eyes are soft when they meet his.
“That…wasn’t in any of the memories that have come back,” he admits, fingers gentle on the back of Steve’s neck. Steve laughs, presses another swift kiss to the corner of Bucky’s mouth. Pulls away with the taste of him still on his lips.
“Nah, it wouldn't be,” he admits, detangles himself with one last lingering touch of fingers to Bucky’s chin before sliding to his feet, “Been waiting for that for a long time,” Bucky studies his face for a moment then tilts his head down, his hair falling forward to cover his face.
“I think I have too,” and Steve’s heart soars. When Bucky lifts his head again, Steve meets his gaze with a grin.
“Lets get this done. And then we can go wherever you want,” he turns and slips back into the pilot’s seat. But not before he saw the sadness return to Bucky’s face, the darkness in his eyes. The haunted look in the lines between his eyebrows and around his mouth, “We’ll have all the time in the world,” and knows that it isn’t true as soon as he says it. Their time was always running out, even from the very beginning.
“Always wanted to see the Grand Canyon,” says Bucky softly, and the tears are back in Steve’s eyes, blurring the console. Because he knows that. Bucky was twelve when he first saw pictures of the Grand Canyon and wouldn’t shut up about it ever since. One summer he even got three jobs just to save up for a two train tickets. For both of them. Only Steve got really sick and Bucky used it all on medicine.
“Alright,” he responds, voice rough, “the Grand Canyon it is.” When he glances back, Bucky’s smile is full of affection.
Steve looks ahead, through the windshield at the huge expanse of ice before them and swears with everything he has in him that both he and Bucky will make it through this and whatever comes next, they’ll face it together.
**
“You called her Dot,” Steve says, fondness curling warm in his chest. The cold Siberian air nips at the exposed skin of his face but he’d never been warmer in his life. Bucky shoots him a crooked grin.
“She’s gotta be a hundred years old now,” he jokes and Steve snorts, claps his hand on Bucky’s shoulder.
“So are we, pal,” he says and leans in for one last kiss, sweet and lingering. They smile at each other and for the first time in more than four years, Steve feels whole again.
When he steps down the ramp into the snow, Bucky is at his side.
No matter what happens next, he has this right now. It is enough.
/end