Archive of Our Own

Bucky Barnes always knew his best friend was an impulsive idiot.

He knew from the very moment they’d met back in 1923, when Bucky was six and the dumbass in question was only five but looked younger still.

Bucky had been walking to school, innocently clutching the straps of his bookbag on his shoulders, when he’d passed an alleyway and happened to see a group of boys gathered at the end of it.

He would’ve kept walking, but something had compelled him to stop, to squint into the relative darkness of the alley, and it was only after a few more seconds had passed that he realized what it was.

There were four boys standing shoulder to shoulder, towering over another boy who was sprawled out across the ground. One of them snickered, the next kicked halfheartedly at the smaller boy’s shoe, the third stepped forward when the boy tried to get up to push him back down, and yet another shouted, “Come on, Rogers! Is that all you got?”

Huh. Four against one.

And even at six years old, Bucky couldn’t stand for that, especially when he saw the younger boy struggling to his feet, already purple and bruised and bleeding from his skinned knees, but still stubbornly raising a pair of small fists in utter defiance.

So, with a small sigh because he knew he’d get in so much trouble with his Ma later, Bucky tossed his backpack to the side and ran down the alleyway.

Later, when the fight was over, the pair of them all scratched up but ultimately victorious, Bucky asked the kid over some ice cream cones what had happened to start the fight in the first place. They were already late for school, anyway.

“They pushed a girl into the mud, so I told them to apologize,” the boy had said, vanilla soft serve and rainbow sprinkles smeared across his mouth, soft blue eyes big and wide like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She was crying… and I don’t like bullies.”

Bucky had just stared incredulously at his new friend for a bit, before he blinked and decided, well, yeah—there really was no better reason.

“Alright, well… maybe call for backup next time,” because even then, he’d already known this wouldn’t be the last time.

But he hadn’t known that Steve was this stupid.

Now fully grown (and then some), the two sit side by side at the edge of an open pasture just outside a small cozy little hut—where they always sit whenever Steve comes to visit him in Wakanda.

Their figures are partially hidden by tall blades of grass, their palms pressed into the soft, slightly damp earth, the heat of the beaming Africa sun not yet uncomfortable as they stare out over the gently rippling waters of a sparkling pond.

Once again, Bucky is forced away from any moment’s peace, turning away from the stunning view to glower at his friend.

“Tell me you didn’t,” he growls as their shoulders bump, just like they did when they were just boys, all tuckered out after spending an afternoon horsing around.

And just like when they were boys and Steve did something stupid, when the latter doesn’t say anything, his shoulders slightly raised and the tips of his ears pink with shame, Bucky smacks him up the back of his head.

“I’m not proud, okay?” Steve grimaces, but accepts the blow without resistance because he knows he deserves it. Bucky groans, wishing he still had the metal arm so he could really whack some sense into him.

“You—imbecile!”

“Hey.”

“You had to know I was kidding. You remember what jokes are, right?”

“Alright, I get it—”

“And the nerve—‘damn, they must’ve fried more of your brain cells than I thought’—” Okay, he can’t help it. Steve lets out a tiny snicker at this, even though he really shouldn’t. “Oh yeah? You think that’s funny?”

“No,” Steve lies, still smirking.

“That’s a fucked up thing to say to me.”

“I know, ‘m sorry,” but he doesn’t look very sorry at all, grinning like a maniac the way he is. Honestly though, Bucky’s been waiting for the day Steve can joke about all of this—otherwise they’d just sit here and weep, which wouldn’t be very productive, would it?

“What the hell happened to ‘that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’?”

Steve really has nothing to say in his defence. At the time, it really had been absolutely ridiculous, Bucky’s offhand little joke when Steve fled New York for the safety and peace of Wakanda, complaining for the nth time about the parade of women his team insisted on setting him up with.

“Oh, no, how terrible. All those beautiful women, how will you ever cope? It must be so hard being you,” Bucky had deadpanned, rolling his eyes, used to all the venting and ranting by now. It was all Steve ever talked about now that the Accords fiasco had finally blown over, and everyone had forced him and Tony into a room and refused to let them out until they’d worked through their issues.

Which really just meant Steve standing there, all contrite with sad, puppy dog eyes, and letting Tony punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Apparently, that was going to be his plan for everything now. It had worked so well the first time, after all.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that Bucky had been watching way too many movies with Shuri lately. She’d gotten fed up one day, because “you never understand my pop culture references, it’s an absolute tragedy that you don’t know just how hilarious I am”, so she put together a line-up of films she insisted he had to watch before his hundredth birthday.

Just the week before, she’d sat him down for a night of romantic comedies that he would never admit out loud that he actually enjoyed.

“The Proposal?” He’d asked sardonically when the title came up on the screen in Shuri’s lab, raising a skeptical eyebrow, only to be shushed into silence by Okoye and Ayo. He shrank back into his spot and picked at his popcorn.

The films were silly, cheesy, and sometimes just plain juvenile—two very different people coming together because they needed partners for various reasons—her, because she needed a green card, and him, because he didn’t want to lose his job. Nobody talks about the problematic power imbalances, or how some of these side characters are such terrible people that the audience ends up rooting for the protagonists even though they aren’t really any better.

But damn it, if he wasn’t entertained. And damn it if it didn’t work every single time.

Even if it’s a florist—because her parents are colossal, gaping assholes from what Steve tells him. Apparently they don’t believe a single woman, whose sole focus prior to the sudden and tragic accident that left her niece orphaned at only eight months old, was her struggling flower shop, had any business raising a child on her own.

And even if it’s an emotionally traumatized supersoldier—who can easily command a room full of hardened agents but can’t ever seem to find the heart to tell his team to shut the hell up and mind their damned business.

“But hey, it would buy you—and me—some peace and quiet for once,” Bucky had chortled one day during one of Steve’s regular visits, using his one arm to toss a bale of hay to the side, sidestepping a particularly clingy goat that just wouldn’t leave his side whenever they decided to hang around the farm.

And Steve had rolled his eyes, said everything Bucky had remembered him saying in retaliation, but there was this little voice in his head. The proverbial devil on his shoulder, whispering more ideas into his ear.

Think about it: sweet, sweet silence.

Maybe even months of it, if you play your cards right.

He hated that tug of temptation he felt at the mere thought, because, god, when was the last time Steve had woken up in the Tower without Natasha sitting crosslegged at the foot of his bed—“Stop flailing, for Christ’s sake, it’s just me”—equipped with a laptop and a PowerPoint filled with the pictures and biographies (with more detail than anyone should really know about their coworkers) of women he thought he should try asking out?

“You done freaking out? Cool—” and then she’d command FRIDAY to shut the blinds so she could start the slideshow, projected onto the wall opposite his bed. Steve would just sit there, eyelids still heavy from sleep. “Alright, I know what you said last time, but I’m not ready to write Lillian off just yet…”

Without Tony badgering him about what his type was, because he had an entire Rolodex of women just dying to know exactly what Captain America was into in private?

“Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Or do you wanna get freaky? We’ve got all sorts,” and he’d only backtrack when Pepper shot him an unimpressed look from across the room, which thankfully meant Tony would soon be too busy grovelling to continue.

Without Sam going on and on about some cute girl at the VA who’d be “perfect” for him, having turned this whole thing into a strange kind of competition because he couldn’t possibly lose to Nat or Stark?

Without Clint snickering in the vents because even though he wasn’t particularly eager to play matchmaker, he very much enjoyed watching Steve squirm?

Without Thor launching into an impassioned tirade about how love could only make life so much more worth living—“take Jane and I, for example…” and cue the chorus of irritated groans.

Without Wanda shooting him a sympathetic look, but then also cackling to herself whenever the others made a joke about not wanting him to die a virgin?

(For the record, he’s not.)

Too long. It’s been too long. This was the downside of having friends, Steve discovered.

“What is wrong with you?” Bucky asks, bringing Steve back to the present, and back to his colossal fuck-up. “When I said it works every time, I meant—haa, have you ever even seen a romcom? The two leads always fall in love at the end.”

And there is the crux of his problem. Now, normally, for literally any other person on the planet, there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love. Given his circumstances, however, it complicated things. And if he were being honest, he genuinely didn’t think it would happen.

Not that you weren’t perfectly loveable. You are…

His lips automatically curve up into a smile.

Well, gosh, what’s there not to like?

While the rest of the world seems intent on rushing him, you just smile and tell him to take his time. Don’t shut people out though, or the possibility that you might meet someone special one day. And if you do go out for a coffee date, you don’t owe anyone anything—it can be just that.

The others tease him now that the Tower has been practically turned into a conservatory, what with how many flowers he buys from you every week. But you always bring him something a bit extra, dried flowers tucked into his bag when he isn’t looking.

He’d be halfway across the world, reaching into his duffle with a weary sigh, about to clean off the dirt and grime of that day’s mission, only to find that his clothes smelled like lavender or lilac. He’d fall asleep in some dingy motel somewhere, but with the smell of air-detoxing gerberas in his nostrils, the flowers placed on the nightstand by the bed.

Rather than looking at him with pity because, for a long time, he’d been hung up on a version of Peggy Carter—and himself—that no longer existed, you urged him to look up and smell the roses, to appreciate the future he was never supposed to see. Maybe, one day, he’d be able to look at this new life as a blessing and not a curse.

Pair all of that with a sense of humour and a kind heart, and Steve really had no other choice but to call himself your friend. But he swears, up until recently, all of it had always been platonic.

Sure, one or twice, or maybe a few more than that, he’d glance over and think to himself that you made quite the picture in that lighting, warm golden sunshine spilling through the front window of your shop as you held an arrangement of flowers in that particular colour combination that made you look soft and sweet.

It hadn’t been more than that. He couldn’t allow it.

Nevermind the fact that you had an agreement, chock full of boundaries and lines neither of you were allowed to cross, the nature of his job meant that he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t ever need to leave at the drop of a hat because the next mission, the next global threat, the next existential crisis, would always take precedence over date night or meeting the parents.

While the two of you had managed to convince your parents otherwise, it wasn’t something he wanted for you. He wanted you to have more stability in your life, to be able to pick up the phone and call someone whenever you missed them (and have them actually answer), and without having to worry about whether they would ever come back.

He pictures it the other way around—what if he were the one left behind, not knowing whether someone he loved was even alive, let alone safe?—and remembers what it was like for him to say goodbye to Bucky before he went off to the front lines.

He’d felt helpless, frustrated, and just terribly sad at all once. How unfair it would be to subject anyone to that, let alone someone he was supposed to care about. Let alone you.

Steve wouldn’t do that to you, and the both of you were very aware of what the stakes were.

Violet. Your niece was at stake, and there was no way either of you were going to mess that up, not for anything or anyone. Not even for each other.

And that’s the part that gets him the most, because that kid is easily the best person he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting, no contest. Now, he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever see her again. He doesn’t know if he’s messed this whole thing up for you, whether it will affect the custody battle with your parents.

The thought, along with the one that reminds him he might never get to see you again either, makes his nose burn and his eyes watery.

Bucky seems to notice the shift in Steve’s mood, because he softens a little. He turns to face forward again, towards the horizon, and sighs.

“Alright, fine… just tell me what happened.”

Steve looks up from where his hands are fidgeting in his lap, squinting against the bright orange of the setting sun. He sighs too.

Well.

Now, that could take a while.

to be continued.