Chapter Text
After all he’s been through, it’s not really a surprise that Bucky doesn’t like being touched sometimes. He’s talked about it with his therapist - the one he’s had for four months - and apparently it’s nothing he should panic about. It’s normal. Of course, that’s not enough to settle that heavy feeling in his stomach, so he goes searching. Online. Because he knows how to use the internet, despite how Natasha light-heartedly teases him and Steve. They band together, a force to be reckoned with against her, and constantly leave different printed out pictures of crocodiles around the house. Because apparently, Natasha doesn’t like crocodiles.
That’s another thing - the way he and Steve have somehow fallen back into an effortless rhythm. It’d taken the Wakandan scientists seven months to figure out a way to safely get rid of the HYDRA shit in his head, and ever since then he’s felt safer knowing that he’s fully in control of his mind. Which allowed him to let himself get close to Steve again. Knowing that Steve was safe from him - that he would never hurt Steve because of HYDRA again...It meant a lot.
So, safe to say, Bucky owes the king of Wakanda an unrepayable debt.
T’Challa doesn’t seem to mind, though. And he was still giving. Bucky’s therapist was helping him because T’Challa asked her to. Maybe T’Challa is paying her - Bucky doesn’t know. He isn’t sure how he’d go about bringing that conversation up, either. And Bucky’s living quarters are, again, courtesy of T’Challa. With the unstable nature of things in mind, none of them - Bucky, Steve, Natasha, Sam and Wanda - have anywhere to go. Clint had gone home, apparently, wherever that was. So had Scott. They’d been cleared - Clint wouldn’t be found, and apparently no one thought Scott was in any immediate danger. But the rest of them had nowhere safe to go. So T’Challa had granted them another kindness - it was unending, apparently - and offered them a modest building to stay in while they regrouped and figured out what to do.
And, on top of all that, Bucky has a new arm. Light, fast, unfaultable. And made from vibranium.
So. Unrepayable, indeed.
But, back to the no-touch thing. Bucky’s spent time thinking about it, and it seems to run deeper than a simple left-over squick from HYDRA. He just...Doesn’t want it. Touch. Doesn’t need it. Sometimes it’s nice - Steve’s hand brushing against his as they walk, a warm hand on his flesh shoulder grounding him, or Natasha’s fingers threading through his hair as she braids it. But his therapist - Amina, he needs to stop referring to her as his therapist - insists that part of it could be to do with the time he was with HYDRA. She’s asked him to explore it more, dig deeper.
He’d had a session with her today - her home was calming, wind chimes hanging at the door and all the windows open, letting in fresh air. She has many plants, and sometimes she asks him to help water them before they begin. He always obliges; it proves to be very therapeutic. Today, she’d asked him about what his sex drive had been like lately. The question had stumped him, because he genuinely hadn’t thought about it. He knew he’d been with dames before the war, but that was before. He’d answered truthfully - there was no sex drive. It simply wasn’t there.
And that was okay, apparently. Lots of people were like that. But the thing was, even as Amina reassured him that it was nothing to worry about, as if he was worrying, he’d sat there on that comfy couch and let the wind chimes instill peace into his buzzing mind. He wasn’t worried. Sex doesn’t matter to him. The touch thing matters a little bit more, but only a little. If he doesn’t want it, why should it matter?
So there’s no explaining the heavy feeling in his gut. He ignores it, as much as he can, and goes about his daily life. Which was interesting. Now that he was free of HYDRA, he could participate in activities that involved other people without fear of hurting them. And the little group that lived in the same house as him now? They were good people. Even if they asked how he was doing all too often.
The house is quiet, right now. Wanda is out, spending time with a friend she has made - Nailah. Bucky’s not sure how she made a friend - the Wakandans, as peaceful and inviting as they were - avoided the group of outsiders as much as they could. But Wanda moved among them like she belonged. Perhaps it was because of her nature - she was kind and clever, it wouldn’t’ve taken her long to learn the ways of the Wakandan people. Plus, going outside a lot would help, too. She doesn’t seem to like the indoors, much.
Bucky thinks that has something to do with that fact that she’s spent a lot of time as a prisoner.
Sam is out, too, most likely with T’Challa. The two had struck up a mostly unlikely bond - Sam was one of the most easy-going people Bucky could remember meeting, and T’Challa seemed like he had too much weight on his shoulders. Maybe Sam eased that. And T’Challa was inviting and endlessly charismatic - it doesn’t take long to grow to like him. Even Bucky does. And that has nothing to do with all he’s done for them, thank you very much.
Natasha is most likely upstairs, sleeping. She’d been out last night, working on something. Bucky stays out of it, mostly, lets her and Steve handle the...Situation they’re in. Even after nearly a year, they were still not welcome back in America. Still fugitives. Bucky doesn’t mind. He’s constantly surprised to find that he’s calm here, happy with the way they’re living. It’s still, peaceful. Solid and reliable. He knows that someday, possibly soon, the illusion of the safe life they’re living will be shattered. Until then, Bucky will enjoy every moment.
Mostly every moment. There are still the nightmares, flashbacks. He knows how to work through them, now, at the very least. And Steve. Steve gets nightmares too.
Steve’s here, at the other end of the couch, facing the floor-to-ceiling window that looks out into a patch of rich green forest. It’s beautiful. Bucky likes sitting here, watching the birds flit through the trees. Steve’s not watching, though. His mind is elsewhere - Bucky can tell that from the glassy-eyed look on Steve’s face.
He’s been like that for the past ten minutes. Bucky has a lot of practice of staying still, being patient, of going blank and bearing it till it’s over. He doesn’t do that much anymore, though. He thinks it surprises people how impatient he is. He’s not quiet, either; if he wants you to stop drinking his orange juice, he’s going to tell you. And you’re going to stop drinking the orange juice, because ‘I am the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson, and I have seven knives on my person right now.’ He thinks that surprises people, too, how easily he’s accepted who he was, and is.
From the other end of the couch, Steve blinks, and then blinks again. A little crease forms in between his eyebrows, and he swivels his head around and meets Bucky’s gaze. Bucky gives him a little smile. “Where’d you go?” he asks, voice ever-gravelly. He doesn’t speak often, no matter how much healing he’d done. Doesn’t think he ever will. It’s just not a necessity. Plus, he likes the quiet.
“Just thinking, is all,” Steve hums, and leans his head back on the backrest of the couch. Bucky observes him in silence, and then does the same. He waits, because he knows Steve will elaborate on that eventually. Steve sighs, long and low, and then turns his head slightly so he’s looking just over Bucky. “You said you remember everything,” he says.
Bucky closes his eyes, and wonders where this is going. “Some of it’s patchy,” he replies.
“But it’s all there, right?” Steve presses. Bucky just nods. This conversation is already making him tired. “So, what do you remember about...Us?” Steve says. It’s real quiet, almost timid. Bucky doesn’t remember ever hearing Steve talk like that before.
He opens his eyes and turns to focus on Steve, frowning. “Elaborate, Steve,” Bucky prompts. His metal fingers clench into a fist and then unclench, almost of their own accord. Amina says it’s most likely a nervous tick. He silently agrees with her, because every time he does it, it’s usually paired with a sweaty flesh palm and an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.
“Do you remember us ever being...More? Than friends?” Steve murmurs, voice low like he doesn’t really want to say it.
Bucky frowns harder, and then looks back up at the ceiling. Steve’s never brought this up before, and he wonders how long he’d been thinking about it. “Yes. We were together, weren’t we?” Bucky’s unsure, because he doesn’t remember there ever being anything sexual about their relationship. He remembers unfaultable friendship, undying loyalty. They were extremely close, and he has warm memories of curling up around a smaller body, pulling the blankets up and enjoying the closeness of skin on skin. The memories are calm, but there was never anything...Heated about them. Just warm. And full of love. “We loved each other,” Bucky adds.
Steve’s quiet for a while. But, eventually; “yeah, we loved each other,” he croaks, and that makes Bucky look over, frowning harder than before.
“Steve?” he asks.
Steve squeezes his eyes shut, and Bucky watches his adam’s apple bob as he swallows. Steve doesn’t reply, and he looks vaguely pained, like he’s holding back some Extreme Emotion. Bucky’s found that he does this a lot, even more than before. And most memories from before are hazy, like he’s looking through frosted glass. They’re his, but he feels disconnected from them, as if he experienced them as a movie. He remembers the emotions from them, though. Remembers tranquility, sometimes, remembers raised voices and gut-stabbing hardships as well. It wasn’t easy, he remembers that. But it was worth it.
They’ve always been best friends first, though. Maybe that’s why they haven’t had this conversation yet.
Steve speaking draws Bucky out of the warm haze of memories, and it feels like he’s drifting to the surface of a hot spring. “I miss it, Buck,” he’s whispering. Bucky frowns, and goes to speak, but Steve hasn’t finished. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m so, so grateful that you’re here, and we’re friends again, and I would never, never ask for anything more than this if it was going to jeopardize what we’ve got, but. I’ve gotta know. I’ve gotta know if you’d ever want what we had, again.”
Steve talks a lot, that’s another thing that hasn’t changed. “Steve,” Bucky begins carefully, picking and choosing his words before he says them. “I don’t like being touched. I don’t - I’d never want sex, I don’t think,” he murmurs.
When he looks over at him, Steve just looks quietly sad. “We never did have sex, Buck,” he replies.
Bucky blinks, real slow, and then frowns. He’s frowning a lot. Confusion is a very familiar emotion to him. “Why not?” Just because he’s got his memories back, doesn’t mean he has them all back with perfect clarity. It has been seventy years, okay?
“There’s a word for it now. I never wanted...Any of that. We kissed, sometimes, but. I didn’t want anything more. You were okay with it. It just...Was. Um. It’s called asexual, now. I did some research,” Steve says. It comes out slowly, but all in a rush, somehow.
Bucky blinks again. That...Makes sense. Why he doesn’t remember them ever touching with the intention of anything...More. And Steve did research? Okay, so apparently Bucky’s not the only one who relies google for anything future-related. And the asexual thing. That’s something that Bucky had come across in his searches, too. He’d have to talk about it with Amina.
Steve’s talking again. “And, I’m sorry if this mucks things up, we can just forget about it, I just. I needed to know. Because. Um. Shit,” he stops, and lifts his head off the backrest. He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, and takes a deep breath. Bucky just watches him, lips pressed together. “I still love you,” Steve whispers, but he’s not finished. He talks a lot. “But if you just wanna be friends, then that’s fine. Because I love you that way, too.”
Is he done? Bucky thinks he’s done. “I never stopped loving you that way, Steve. I just wasn’t ready for it. And neither were you,” he hums, and smiles at the way all the insecurity drops off Steve’s face.
Steve looks vaguely incredulous. “Oh,” he breathes.
Bucky wants to laugh. Instead, he sits up and then stands up, walking over to the window. He stares out at the birds, eyes following their swooping and diving. “You’re still...Like that?” he asks, because if he can change, so can Steve.
“Yeah,” Steve says from behind him.
Bucky refocuses his eyes, and meets Steve’s gaze in the reflection on the glass. He smiles softly, and Steve beams back at him. “I want to try it. Again. Us,” Bucky tells him, turning around and pulling the sleeves of his sweater - he loves sweaters, they’re very big and warm and comfy - down over his knuckles. This sweater is mint green. He has seven sweaters, all different colours, because he can.
Steve’s eyes light up, and Bucky blinks, coming back to the conversation. His mind drifts easily, nowadays. “Really?” Steve asks.
Bucky sets him with his Serious Face. “Steven Grant Rogers, will you be my no-sex boyfriend?” he retorts, and feels weight float up and off his shoulders at the vibrant look on Steve’s face. It’s like the sun. It’s wonderful.
“Yes,” Steve replies, and just like that, they’re boyfriends. Amina is going to be so proud of Bucky.