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The tower is bright in the distance. A fabricated star in the jitter of lights as they descend towards the city. Steve never could have imagined that he’d trace the contour of that building reverently, but he’s sighing with relief where he’s looking out of the window, now. Feels the pressure over his chest ease as the distance grows shorter. He’s already forgotten about the wounds that are littered along the length of his body – feels no pain but the hollow surge of longing in the bones beneath his dirty skin.
“You go,” Nat urges. Her gaze is soft over her shoulder, worn under overhead light but knowing all the same. “We can debrief in the morning.”
Steve doesn’t quite sigh at that, he simply breathes out a Captain America-sized inhale that no longer needs to fill him up with intent. The space in his chest feels familiar – tight around his heart and lungs, and around that trembling longing that makes him jump out of the jet and down on the platform of the roof before Nat has landed.
“Welcome back, Sir,” JARVIS greets as he steps into the elevator. “Mr Barnes is currently staying on the common floor.”
“Thank you, JARVIS,” Steve replies, grateful even though they are months into the routine of having Bucky’s whereabouts reported to him. He presses his hands briefly to his thighs, unsure if he wants to know whether the stay on the common floor is a fleeting thing, or if Bucky’s planted himself there over the entire three-day period that Steve has been away.
They stop on Nat’s floor, and Clint looks up with an expression that quickly smooths out at the sight of Steve behind the sliding doors. He’s got a tuft of hair standing up at the crown of his head, and strands of it pressed tightly to his left temple to announce that it’s been slept on. There’s a cup in his hand, and confusion fading in his eyes, and Steve doesn’t have to force a smile upon his lips in greeting; it comes naturally.
“Oh, thank god,” is what Clint breathes out in response, pushing the cup into the space between them. “You know I like him, but I honestly think I may have preferred the guy that tried to kill us all over the sad lump he’s been while you’ve been gone.”
Steve takes the cup, and lets the warmth of the cradled coffee spread from his fingertips. Then he raises an amused eyebrow and watches the exasperated twist of Clint’s mouth.
“Those eyes, man,” Clint mutters, conviction in his gaze and voice. “They break my fuckin’ heart.”
Eyes, nose, mouth, expression – there’s not an inch of Bucky that isn’t fatal. Steve has spent countless hours in two joint lifetimes watching the curves of that body and committing them to memory while his breathing’s gone shallow and rough. His health problems back in the day were only a fragment of it; Bucky’s piercing beauty more of a hazard whenever all that attention was aimed back his way.
“Thank you, Clint,” he hears himself say, now, with his fingertips still tight against the ceramic. His smile’s starting to feel strained, as though it’s running out of power, and he shuffles back from the doors. “Nat’s still upstairs.”
Clint nods and manages a smile before the doors close between them, the resumed descent of the elevator sending an echoing swoop of anticipation to truly come home through Steve’s stomach as they drop the few floors down to the common room. To Bucky, where the elastic of Steve’s longing will go slack again – give his bones some substance.
There’s an episode of Antiques Roadshow on, the volume turned down low while the shifting images paint Bucky’s face in soft colours – washing him in whites and browns that only seem to enhance the beauty of his features. Or perhaps, Steve thinks, it’s just been too long since he last saw them.
Bucky turns his head slowly, his trust in JARVIS transparent in the way he takes his time to open his eyes and address the arrival with a defeated gaze. His head rolls along the backrest of the couch; the small knot of hair at the back of his head pressed into the cushion during the seconds it takes his eyes to light up with a hesitant flicker of hope.
“Steve,” he murmurs in an all too familiar manner; pleasant surprise written along his lash lines and in the tilting corners of his mouth as he unfolds legs from beneath him. He’s blinking slowly, as though he’s scared to swipe away the flames of his own fire, but his gaze is steadily aimed at Steve’s face, and Steve’s sure that he must be see-through with love and affection. Transparent in the way he depends on this man.
“Hey, Buck,” he says, his voice as soft as his chest feels now that he’s home. Back where he belongs. “I’m okay. Just a few scratches, I’ll be healed up in no time.”
He stops by the couch, once his leg is brushing against Bucky’s. Offers the cup while their gazes remain locked above it, drinking each other in. There’s a dubious furrow forming upon Bucky’s brow – an uncertain tremble to his eyes as though they’re desperate to scan Steve’s body for wounds and assure him that Steve’s not covering anything up.
In the end he just takes a deep breath, though, grasping the cup in his right hand while his lips take on a self-deprecating curve. “I drank all the coffee.”
Steve figured, seeing how Clint was in the middle of retrieving more from Natasha’s secret stash. He’s not surprised, either. Knows that this is one of few things that Bucky indulges himself in in an age in a part of a world that barely seems to know what the word ration means.
“That’s okay,” flows lightly out of relieved lungs, fondness on Steve’s breath as he telegraphs the movement of his hand. It takes a slow hike up to the side of Bucky’s head, and is rewarded with a silent sigh from Bucky’s lips when he brushes a loose strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear. “Have you slept?”
Bucky shakes his head – moves it gently into Steve’s palm and closes his eyes briefly. “Not much.”
This doesn’t come as a surprise, either. The past months have been made up of shifts of sleep that have been broken up by nightmares, and Steve’s been there through them all. Has gasped awake to Bucky’s screams and had to furiously blink away the flashing images of mountains and snow and Bucky falling, falling, falling, until the tight grip of Bucky’s hand in his shirt has brought him back to the reality of his best friend in pieces.
They haven’t even pretended to go to bed since the very first night Bucky stayed on their floor, even though the shifts of restful sleep have gotten longer with time. They simply leave the TV on so that there’s something to try, and fail, to focus on when the terrors grab them both by their throats, and their shoulders, and their trembling hearts.
Steve runs his thumb over Bucky’s eyebrow, up to his hairline and back down behind his ear. His hair is dirty, kept away from water the way it always is when Steve isn’t there with his soft and urgent suggestions to get in the shower, and a promise to stick close throughout the process. It reminds him of his own state – the rips in his uniform and the dust that must rest like a layer over the warmth in his cheeks.
He watches Bucky take a sip from the cup – commits the image of Bucky’s fluttering eyelashes to memory even though this is another sequence that he’s got thousands of files of already, and hums, “I need a shower before I go to sleep.”
The tentative hope burns a little bit brighter in Bucky’s eyes when he looks up again; his smile gaining a bit of strength in that unguarded way that still takes Steve’s breath away, because he knows that it only happens in the face of his own attention. That it’s trust that has Bucky leaning into him like this, moving blindly with past-life intimacy.
“I,” Bucky starts, frowning briefly as he sorts through his words. “Can I, too?”
Steve breathes it all in; feels his lungs and bones fill up until his feet feel like cement, sinking into the carpet to ground him in this moment. There’s not a lot of sound to his voice when he finally speaks – more breath and adoration as he murmurs, “Yeah. Yeah, of course, Buck.”
*
They run the water hot enough to keep the bad memories at bay. Strip out of uniform and sweatpants in silence, with the dimmers turned halfway to escape the clinical feel that comes when the light bounces off the tiles on the walls.
The soft, orange tone sinks prettily into the lines of Bucky’s body – makes him look like a sunset where he’s slipping his boxers past his knees and ankles. He’s as beautiful now as he’s always been, but Steve moves his gaze away before it becomes a weight to bring that sunset down and paint Bucky in discomfort. Closes his eyes and steps in under the spray of water to rid himself of the physical memories of the past days’ battle.
When he looks back up there’s drops of water weighing down his eyelashes – a play of light framing Bucky’s posture that makes him look angelic and too far away in the space of the shower. He blinks frantically – lets Bucky come back into view while his heart beats away furiously in his chest, hyped up on intimacy and love and an unbearable need to touch that he’s hesitant to divulge.
Bucky’s looking back at him with that same trust that he showed on the couch – the undying force of it that’s only grown stronger with every day that they’ve spent together. He doesn’t hide his body from Steve, not anymore, and Steve doesn’t think that his gaze upon it would be unwelcome, but he wants the longing in it to be entirely wanted. Wants Bucky to take everything Steve has put into his hands and act with it, if that’s something that he truly wants to do.
He does, it seems. Wants bits of it, at least, given the way he moves in under the spray of water. He closes his eyes against the wetness, then his left hand around Steve’s wrist – an unspoken request for Steve to stay, as though he’s scared that there’s anywhere in the world where Steve would rather be, now, unaware of the home that his touch is to Steve’s heart.
Steve lets the warmth sink into his shoulders and relax them – feels his entire body slump in a comfort that is seeping up from the net of veins on the inside of his wrist. The metal of Bucky’s hand is as warm as the water, and gentle where the thumb’s rubbing a reminder of life into Steve’s flesh, and Steve doesn’t think that it can get much better until Bucky ducks a smile out of sight and makes himself small under Steve’s chin; fitting his nose against the hollow of Steve’s throat as though it’s an instinct. A longing in return that ties them together.
“Don’t fall asleep in here,” Steve tells him softly as he fits his hands to the small of Bucky’s back, though he doesn’t quite mean it. Wouldn’t mind the slow and steady wash of Bucky’s breath against his skin if it meant that Bucky was as peaceful in sleep as he seems to be now, awake and pressed to Steve’s chest, taking comfort where he’s otherwise hesitant to take anything but coffee from anyone else. He’d stand in here all night, holding on.
Bucky smiles against Steve’s skin, tangible and real where his stubble moves over the top of Steve’s breastbone, and Steve presses his mirroring grin to the top of Bucky’s head while he slips the hair out of its knot at the back of Bucky’s neck. It feels soft even in the water, healthier now that it’s getting the nutrition it needs on a daily basis. It’s silk between greedy fingers that can’t quite believe their luck, being allowed to do this. Have this. Keep it to themselves with the rest of Bucky pliant and melting into his chest.
“Did we –,” Bucky starts, before he stops to gather his thoughts again, more conviction in his voice when he says; “We used to do this.”
“The pipes in our building weren’t – and I needed all the warmth I could get, back then,” Steve tells him. He rubs his hand along the back of Bucky’s neck, just for reassurance. For the reminder that Bucky’s here, in the flesh, healthier with each passing day, just like their friendship.
“We shared a bed,” Bucky remembers. He has a scrapbook in his mind of blurry memories, and bits and pieces of clarity that Steve has filled him in on, but there’s a desperation to the fingertips he presses to Steve’s stomach – an equal need in his tone when he adds, “and your toes were freezin’. We didn’t – nothing more, though.”
“No, Buck,” Steve swallows. “Nothing more.”
Bucky nods, turns to press his cheek to Steve’s sternum and lets Steve’s fingers work shampoo through his hair. He hums every now and then, so softly that it barely registers over the splatter of water, but it’s there and it sounds content, and the process of washing off with a former assassin clinging to his waist is better than anything Steve can remember doing before.
When Bucky’s hair is free of froth he straightens up in Steve’s hold – watches with a line between his brows as Steve lets his arms fall back to his sides, and flashes another self-deprecating smile when he says, “Think I want to get out, now.”
It’s fairly new and it still makes Steve’s heart swell a couple of sizes, that Bucky is being vocal about what he wants. Steve ignores the tentative tone in Bucky’s voice and simply nods to show his attention, smiling back with warmth radiating from his cheeks and past the water upon them. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
He can see Bucky’s silhouette through the fogged-up glass of the shower; wrapped up in a towel and hunched on the closed lid of the toilet, waiting as though the three days of separation have taken their toll on him. Steve can only imagine what he’s going through when Steve’s not around – how close to withdrawal he might be when the one person he feels truly comfortable touching is more than an arm’s length away.
Steve brushes his hands along his body another time, wary of the scabbed cuts and greyish bruises over muscle and bone, but he doesn’t find anything worse than that. There’s only Bucky, too far away and tugging at his heart through glass and streaming water. Steve shuts it off.
Bucky swipes his gaze along Steve’s body when he steps out – drags it along the bones of Steve’s ankles and the shapes of Steve’s knees, along muscular thighs and over Steve’s half-hard cock on his way up to the path of muscle of Steve’s stomach. Looking for wounds, more than anything, yet still with a glint of admiration in those eyes when he finally locks that gaze with Steve’s again. He hands over a fresh towel, unapologetic as he keeps staring while Steve presses it along his skin.
“If I wanted more,” he starts, once Steve is tying the towel around his own waist. “If I do… will you give it to me?”
“Buck,” Steve breathes out, arms once again dropping to his sides. They’ve got no shield to hold up against Bucky’s open gaze – offer no protection against the unguarded emotion within that shade of blue. “It’s always been yours.”
Eyes, nose, mouth, expression, Steve thinks again as he looks at Bucky. It’s all fatal. All devastatingly gorgeous in this dim lighting, in Steve’s line of sight where he’s always belonged. His smile is open, now, without traces of self-deprecation. It makes the hope and desire of his expression seem blinding.
“Mine,” Bucky murmurs, seemingly testing the word on his tongue. “I want it. You. If you’re sure. If I’m… worth it.”
Steve slides his feet over the floor, barely aware of the chill of the tiles beneath his toes as he fits himself close in-between Bucky’s legs. He fits his hand back to its palace on Bucky’s cheek, upon stubble and the mixed heat from the shower and Bucky’s blush. Bucky’s head is already tilted up towards him, so it’s easy to lean down and fit their mouths together, but the rest is complicated in the sense that the contact simultaneously tears Steve apart and puts him back together again, only in a better order. One with pieces of Bucky interspersed with his own flesh to make him the solid human being that he never was before, with sickness and longing eating him up from the inside.
The kiss is nothing but a soft press of equally soft lips, at first, as Steve tentatively presses forward. He strokes his fingers over Bucky’s cheekbone and presses his legs to the insides of Bucky’s thighs to feel fenced in by the warmth, and gets metal fingers wrapped gently around his wrist again. Another plea for Steve to stay pressed into veins and flesh that wants nothing but to obey.
Bucky exhales something that feels like relief against Steve’s upper lip, and it’s all the confirmation he needs. He leans back to fit the pad of his thumb against Bucky’s bottom lip and presses just enough to open that mouth up before he moves in again – captures Bucky’s lip easily between his own and trails that thumb down to Bucky’s jaw to keep him close as he deepens the kiss. It says more than he could ever convey through words, and Bucky seems to catch on to all of it; the love and intent and longing that is finally easing up and falling into place within Steve’s chest.
“You?” he still finds himself asking, though, with his lips brushing the letters against Bucky’s. “You’re worth everything.”
*
The entire floor is cast in the same, dim lighting, and Steve isn’t about to ask JARVIS to change it. He enjoys the mellow feel to it – how it matches the silent connection between himself and Bucky and builds a proper home out of the walls.
Bucky’s expression is equally soft like this, without the narrowed eyes and the gaze that is usually full of suspicion. He’s been smiling since they stepped out of the bathroom, with flashes of wonder brightening him up at the touch of Steve’s hand to his lower back, like he doesn’t mind being handled anymore, as long as it’s Steve who’s doing it to him.
It’s something to figure out as they go, Steve thinks. Another thing to work on together. For now he’s just cherishing the mood Bucky is in and the fact that he’s here to see it – feel it and accept it, every smile and every look sent from the foot of his bed to his spot by the wardrobe.
They’re sharing every item of clothing that Steve owns, these days, as Bucky never touched the things that were sent over especially to him. Most if it sits a bit loosely around his shoulders, but their waists are similar, and it’s only the length of the pants that gets in Bucky’s way. He’s taken to rolling them up to his ankles, or shoving them into his socks whenever he’s cold, but now he’s not even looking at the pyjama pants Steve’s holding out for him. He’s got a pair of boxers in his hand, and his towel’s spread out on the bed beneath him, but he’s in no rush to cover himself up. Might not even be aware that his cock is clinging to the intimacy in the shower just as badly as Steve’s is.
“I didn’t want you to give yourself away the way you give me coffee,” he’s saying. His eyebrows are tilting inwards in a lighter version of his usual frown, and his hair hangs in wet strands along his temples. Steve’s heart still feels too big for his body, looking at him now. “I was scared you’d give me anything for the sake of – of giving it to me. Letting me have it. Have something. Like the coffee.”
“That’s a founded fear,” Steve allows, frowning similarly at his own boxers as he pulls them up along his legs. It’s nowhere near as comfortable to wear as Bucky’s gaze, but he secures the elastic over his hips anyway, and forgoes the rest of his clothes in favour of making his way back to Bucky. “I’m being selfish with this, though. Us. It’s something I want, too.”
Bucky reaches out and pulls Steve in by gentle fingers on a hip. His lips work against Steve’s more confidently now, as though his muscle memory has kicked in and reminded him of how good this can be – how many noises there are to try to coax out from the back of Steve’s throat.
Steve urges him back on the mattress and fits a knee between Bucky’s thighs – leans his upper body over Bucky’s and holds himself up while he deepens the kiss. He’s more grateful for the serum now than he’s ever been before, with enough air in his lungs no matter how badly Bucky seems to be trying to pry it out with his tongue, and with muscles that quiver more from want than the strain of carrying his weight.
He kisses a path from the corner of Bucky’s mouth and over his jaw, down along the column of the throat until he reaches the clavicle. There are forgotten drops of water there, clinging to the line of bone. Wetness from Bucky’s hair dripping to skin and seeping into the sheet beneath them where Steve’s gently pressing him into the mattress. He looks alright, here, despite the captivity between Steve’s arms. Trusting Steve with everything where he tilts his head to give Steve better access to his neck.
Steve moves on, though. Drags his lips over Bucky’s chest and down along the valley between Bucky’s abs until he can punctuate his journey with a kiss above Bucky’s navel – his smile destroying the effect a little, but echoing on Bucky’s features once he finally looks up again.
“You love me,” Bucky realizes, not for the first time. The colour of his conclusion varies from time to time, though, and this time he seems awed. His fingers are curiously pleased where they brush up to touch Steve’s cheek. “You shouldn’t do that.”
Steve turns his head and kisses Bucky’s palm – the metal of it still warm from the shower. Says, with an honesty reserved for Bucky; “I wouldn’t know how to stop.”