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“And that’s how I ended up standing naked on the Brooklyn Bridge on Christmas Eve.”, Bucky ended his little tale, feeling a heavy, but genuine smile slip onto his face as a chuckle rumbled deep in his throat. A lot more fond than the usual exhaustion was carried with it.
T’Challa and Sam had broken into hysterical laughter while he told them the story bit by bit, the memories so clear and colorful that he almost stumbled over his words while trying to catch up with them. Some even came out as exhales when he got into the details of the happenings on that day in his very, very far away past.
He remembers the bright red colour of Steve’s Christmas jumper, the sleeves at least four inches too long and peeking out under his heavy winter coat. How his thick wool hat kept falling into his eyes and tried to meet the fabric of his loop scarf. The paleness of his almost ash-colored face despite the harsh New York winter wind clawing at his cheeks and nose and lips, trying to leave some shades of red among the blue. How he couldn’t get their eyes to lock because the stubborn shivers shaking the fragile body were ruthless and rough.
And how absolutely furious he was that Steve kept being an idiot who couldn’t escape a fight, let alone a fight against his body and health. “Steve, I swear to god, if you won’t let me take you to the hospital right now to get your fever checked, I’m gonna get naked to the bone until you give in!” Bucky heard himself say when he recited his own words to the two men on the opposite of the table. He had sounded so young and worried and just as stubborn as the young man in front of him. And scared, too, dead scared.
Steve had just shrugged back then, trying to feign indifference, but James knew he only didn’t react verbally because he physically couldn’t.
It was their tradition every year. They’d take Steve's mum to the bridge to watch the river and see the boats covered in hundreds of fairy lights drive by right after they left church and greeted the darkness. And right before they went home for dinner with Bucky’s parents ever since Steve’s dad had died because Winifred would not allow the two of them to stay alone over the holidays.
With a cold sadness gripping his heart, Bucky had realized how that has been the first year Sarah wasn’t with them. To keep the story light, he had kept that fact from his listeners.
Relieving a mixture of a grumble and a sigh, Bucky had decided against manhandling Steve and just carrying him all the way to the hospital and began stripping down all the way to his socks, not caring that they were being watched. And Steve had been so lost in his thoughts and probably the sickness clouding his brain, that he had only realized that Bucky wasn’t throwing an empty threat at him when the latter let a painful “Fuck” escape into the darkness laying over Brooklyn Bridge.
His head had snapped around so quickly that Bucky could have seriously been worried, if he wasn’t cradling his balls in his hands trying to save them from frost bite. Steve had lurched forward with a hysterical, guilty and absolutely alarmed look on his face, stomping over to him and quickly bending down to gather his clothes. “You are insane, Bucky. You will catch pneumonia and die!”, he yelled at him and pulled the slightly wet undershirt over Bucky’s slender frame, hands ungloved and warm on his cooling skin. He was glad the cold gave him an alibi for the shy shivers moving his bones.
He had bitten his lips for the break of a second, immediately realizing that he almost spilled one of his deepest secrets when he got to this point of his anecdote. How, back then, he had wanted nothing more than to be brave enough to voice his thought out loud. ‘At least I could still be with you after you finally let the cold get you’. He should have known back then - maybe he did.
What had come out was “Well, that makes two of us then!”, followed by a yelp when his penis got caught in the leg hole of his underpants when Steve yanked them up too roughly. After silently tying up Bucky’s shoelaces, Steve finally gave in defeated. “Fine, take me to the hospital.” And less than five minutes later, Bucky was still horribly cold, but fully dressed with Steve on his back, whose limbs were curled around him in a clingy, but comfortable way. He’d pretended to put up a fuss when Bucky told him to climb on his back during the short walk to the hospital, but secretly, he was relieved to be able to give Bucky some of his - admittedly poor - body heat and get some in return.
“Stevie?”, he recalls himself asking and continuing after a grumpy humming sound “As soon as the doctors say you’re better again, we’ll come here every night after dinner!”, he had promised, voice tender, kind and honest. “Yeah?”, he heard, Steve’s voice strained and sleepy, but still very present. “Yeah!”, he had said and gently squeezed a tiny calf in reassurance.
The Bucky from the present had tears glistening in his eyes, from sadness or overwhelming joy about being able to recap a moment of his past so clearly, he wasn’t sure, but there were all kinds of funny feelings rumbling under his rib cage.
He was brought out of his thoughts from Sam’s laughs stopping abruptly and the fine and almost unnoticeable sound of the camera capturing his every move for the doctors to analyze in less than 30 minutes. Angels on earth they were, all of them.
He didn’t have to turn around to know that Steve was approaching him after he’d probably listened in for a couple of minutes or a couple minutes more. The feeling of awe and excitement shoving his shoulders together to pull him into an upright position mirrored in Sam’s face - and T’Challa’s too, although he’d never admit it - and he counted down down the seconds until Steve’s hands found the nape where his neck turned into his collar. Just as warm, familiar and kind as more than 70 years ago. But coupled with a wonderful and strong confidence.
“He kept his promise”, Steve's voice cut the joy-filled silence and T’Challa’s watchful gaze. “For 28 days in a row.”