Chapter Text
1996
Sarah Rogers’ hands steadily guided her son’s frail body as he wobbled on the ice. One of the first things she had done when she had arrived in New York City, a scared, lonely Irish immigrant, had been ice skating. She had strapped on the skates and subsequently fallen multiple times, quite embarrassingly, in front of everyone in Rockefeller Center. But she had discovered a joy while sliding on the ice, a peace, a security she hadn’t known since her husband’s arms had enveloped her.
So once her baby boy had turned five, she had decided that she needed to take him to the nearest rink. Sarah stabilized Steve, and they slowly skated around the perimeter of the rink for a few more minutes.
Then, Steve asked, “Can I try it by myself, Ma?”
Sarah obliged, the tell-tale patter in her heart starting up again. She couldn’t help but worry whenever she let Steve out of her sight. He was already so weak, so fragile…
She watched carefully as he slowly gained his balance, and he swerved around the rink, gathering more speed. She saw the growing smile on his face. He turned his head around to grin at her, and then-
THUD.
His skates tripped over each other, and he fell flat on his face. Sarah couldn’t restrain her gasp of worry as she quickly skated over to him. His skinny arms tried to push himself up off the ice, and she saw a river of blood running out of his nose. She grabbed his shoulders, ready to hoist him up and out of there, but he said, stubbornly, “No.”
“No?”
“I can…” He trailed off as he struggled to push himself up. “I can do it myself.”
Sarah was baffled. Part of her was tempted to grab him and leave immediately, but the other part told her to wait. So she crouched next to him and watched as he gradually got back onto his feet. His small hands slipped on the ice over and over, but eventually, he got back up. She smiled at him, trying to hide the panic that must’ve lingered in her face.
“How about we go, now, Steve? I can’t have you getting hurt on me again,” she told him, brows furrowing.
“What? No!” Steve cried instantly. He took a reedy breath in, wiped the blood off his face, and told her with a grin, “I can do this all day!”
1997
Ever since his ma had first introduced him to the skating rink, Steve never wanted to be anywhere else. So here he was, dragging his mother to the skating rink after her long shift at the hospital, ready to skate. There was no one else there at this time of night except another boy with brown hair who Steve couldn’t see very well. Well, he couldn’t see anything well. He was mostly color blind, after all. His ma helped him strap on his skates and skated slowly behind him as he flew across the rink.
Steve felt like he was flying! He doubted he’d ever love anything as much. Until he ran straight into the other boy at the rink.
“Owwww,” the other boy groaned.
“Oh no!” Steve cried. “I’m so sorry!”
The boy stood up. He was a little bit taller than Steve was, but then again, everyone was. He had these bright blue eyes that Steve got lost in.
“ ‘S fine,” the other boy said with a smile. “You were going pretty fast before. Wanna race?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” his mother, who was standing behind him, said.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeease?” he whined at his mother, who sighed and nodded. He turned and grinned at Steve. Steve grinned back. No one at school treated him like this. They all thought he was sickly and weird because he was always out from school and because he was always getting into fights. But this boy had just… smiled.
“Three, two, one, go!” the other boy cried, and they both took off. Steve put all of his effort into beating him, but it was a bit too much for his lungs. He finished a few seconds after the other boy, hacking and wheezing.
“You okay?” the other boy asked.
Steve coughed a few more times before saying, “Yeah. Just get sick sometimes, is all.”
“Oh. Hope you get better,” the boy said.
Steve didn’t know what to say to that, but fortunately, he was saved from having to respond because the boy offered his hand and said, “I’m Bucky. I mean, my real name is James but everyone just calls me Bucky. Do you want to be friends?”
Steve couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. This boy, this boy who was tall and nice and fast at skating wanted to be friends with him?
He wanted to be friends with him!
Steve grinned at him and said, “I’m Steve. Yeah, I wanna be friends!” He stuck out his hand and grasped Bucky’s pudgy fist.
Their mothers came over and joined them, and the two boys began talking in earnest.
“What kinda name is Bucky anyway?”
There was something different about this boy to Steve. Not the way he was nice to Steve, or the way he talked. Steve didn’t put his finger on it until after he arrived home. Steve was mostly color-blind, but everything about Bucky Barnes had been in vivid color.
2000
Steve was nine years old when he had his first close call.
He had always been sickly. He was several inches shorter than most of the boys in his grade—and a good deal of the girls, too. He constantly missed school because he got sick easily in the colder months. His asthma made it easy for him to fall behind in every physical competition. But he’d never gotten quite so bad as he did in the winter of 2000.
He had begged his ma to go watch a specific hockey game at Bucky’s house. Everything was bigger and shinier at Bucky’s house. Steve was grateful for everything he had; he knew how hard his ma worked. But going to Bucky’s house was always a fun adventure.
The whole day at school, Steve had felt a sharp pain in his chest. He dismissed it as his usual asthma. After all, he got pains in his chest all the time. This time, it wasn’t from any exercise, but maybe he had overexerted himself earlier and hadn’t noticed. He started coughing by lunch. That afternoon, Bucky and Steve chattered on the way to Bucky’s house. Steve walked in and greeted Bucky’s family (his mother, father, and little sister Becca) before settling next to Bucky in front of the TV. The game swam in and out of his vision. Steve was starting to feel dizzy. Bucky leapt up, yelling at the TV. That must’ve been bad. Or good. Or….?
Steve’s vision flickered as he slowly slid out of consciousness. The last thing he heard was Bucky’s panicked voice: “Steve? Steve?! Ma, MA, come quick!”
Steve woke up in a hospital bed feeling worse than ever. His ma was sitting on his right, and Bucky was on his left.
“Ma? Bucky?” His voice was hoarse.
His ma leapt up from her seat and embraced him and then started to sob.
“You’re going to be okay, Steve, I promise,” she whispered.
“Okay,” he whispered back, which only made her cry harder.
He looked at Bucky and gave a small wave. Bucky smiled at him.
“Oh, I’ll get the doctor,” another voice exclaimed. Steve blinked. It was Bucky’s mom, Winifred.
“That’s.. good,” Steve murmured as he felt sleep take him again.
Steve slept for a long time.
His body was hot and cold at the same time, and he felt like every breath would make his weak lungs give out completely. His chest rattled up and down weakly, and he barely had the energy to move.
He drifted in and out of consciousness and heard only snatches of conversation.
“Mrs. Rogers, I don’t know what’s wrong—”
“You need to figure it out! You need to, because I can’t lose him! I can’t…”
“His body keeps rejecting the medicine. We’re not sure why. And any more medication could be lethal.”
“And leaving him as is?”
“That could also be lethal.”
Steve’s ma let out a horrible wail and buried her face into the pillow next to Steve’s head. He wanted to cry out. I’m here, Ma. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. But he couldn’t find the strength to tell her. He closed his eyes again.
“Steve? Steve, I don’t know if you can hear me, but you need to fight, okay? Because,” he heard a hiccup, “Because you’re my best friend in the whole wide world, and if you’re gone who will watch hockey games with me and get into stupid fights and skate with me and do everything we do together? I couldn’t make another friend like you, Steve.” A beat. “Please, Stevie. You’re my favorite person ever. It’d be awful if you died. Like, really, really awful.” Another beat of silence. And then Steve, for the first time in his life, heard Bucky cry. He cried and cried and cried until Steve drifted off to sleep again.
Two weeks later, Steve’s fever broke. He was healthy again (or at least healthy for him). Steve’s ma had cried so much that she had nearly become sick, and Bucky had grabbed him and brought him in a bone-crushing hug. In a shaky voice, Bucky said, “Don’t ever scare me like that again, Stevie.” Steve could only nod.
2001
“Hey, wanna go watch a baseball game? I think there’s one at the park,” Bucky suggested offhandedly as they lay in the sun.
“I’m not really in the mood to go outside today,” Steve replied, fiddling with his pencil. “I wanna draw, but I can’t make my pencil… work.” He gestured vaguely.
Bucky smirked. “You should draw me.”
Steve rolled his eyes.
“No, really. I’d be such a good muse, I bet I’d fix your broken pencil in a snap,” he said.
“I’m not doing that,” he told Bucky.
“Why not?”
“I’m just not.”
“It’s probably because I’d be such a good subject and you know it.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Okay, then prove it. Draw me, and do it badly enough to show me that I’m not a good subject.”
Who was Steve to back down from a challenge?
Bucky lounged in the sun for the next hour or two, doing nothing except tossing a ball back and forth while Steve sketched. There were so many different angles that he had to get right. How could he best showcase Bucky’s strength, his gentleness, his wit? How could he capture the lankiness of his legs or the edge of his nose? He drew and erased painstakingly until his hands were stained with charcoal.
Finally, he showed the finished product to Bucky, who just stared. Then he stared at Steve, who shifted uncomfortably.
Bucky finally said, “Well, you’re gonna have to draw me all the time, pal. This is… wow!”
Steve felt a blush coming on and said, “Yeah, yeah, sure.”
“No, really, we should hang this in the Louvre next to the Mona Lisa!”
“Are you saying that because it’s a good piece of art or because it’s of you?”
“Can’t it be both?”
They bantered back and forth, laughing in Steve’s small room, as the sun set over Brooklyn.
2002
“I can do this all day,” Steve grinned at his opponent.
“Wanna bet?” Gilmore Hodge responded.
He threw a heavy punch at Steve, who barely managed to dodge. He shoved Hodge back and got slammed into the boards as a result. He coughed, trying to ease the burning in his ribs. Before he could respond, though, the referee got in the middle and forced them into the penalty boxes. Steve stomped over and sat down, his ears ringing with anger.
However, after the initial fury abated, he realized that he had just put himself out of the game when there was a one-point difference. He leaned forward, devoting all his energy to studying the game. There were a lot of close calls that made Steve hiss. There were a lot of penalties that made Steve stand up inside the box and yell at the ref. But by the time Steve skated back onto the ice, the deal was done. His team had won.
Steve shuffled into the locker room, intentionally avoiding the gaze of Bucky Barnes. His best friend was glaring daggers at him, and Steve knew that he’d be in for a lecture later. Bucky was only a few months older than Steve, but that didn’t stop Bucky from acting as if he had so much more experience with the world. As he walked out of the locker room and into the main area, where his mother was waiting for him, Bucky was right behind him.
“What the hell was that, Steve?” Bucky demanded, shoving him.
“Hodge kept running his mouth,” Steve responded with a quirk of his mouth. “So I tried to shut it.”
“You can’t just go around punching everybody who runs their mouth in hockey,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “Your knuckles would never stop bleeding.”
“I think that that’d be a fair price to pay so that those idiots would finally shut up,” Steve replied with a grin that he knew would rile Bucky up.
As expected, Bucky threw back his head in exasperation and groaned.
“One of these days you’re gonna get killed, and I won’t be around to save you,” he said, a smile pulling at the edges of his mouth.
“Ah, but you’d avenge me, though, so it would all work out,” Steve winked.
Bucky looked away, as he was fully smiling now. His cheeks were red—must’ve been from the game. After all, Bucky had been a monster, ramming into people constantly for any chance to get the puck.
Bucky’s ice-blue eyes found his, and Steve startled. Had he been staring? A flush started to travel up his neck, and so he was grateful when his mother strode up to them and pulled Steve into a hug.
“Steven Grant Rogers, you need to stop getting into fights!” she scolded. “I feel like I might get a heart attack every time I see you take a punch. You—”
“Ma, he called me a fag,” Steve interrupted.
His mother cut off abruptly, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Bucky’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second.
“Well, then. Guess he deserved it.” His mother had never been one to mince her words.
“It’s not always a question of if they deserve it, though,” Bucky argued. “People always say stupid shi- stuff,” he hastily corrected when he looked at Steve’s ma. “Doesn’t mean you always have to fight back.” He directed this last part towards Steve, but it was his mother that responded.
“You always stand up, Bucky, because if you don’t, then bullies get their way. And we don’t like bullies.”
“No, ma’am,” Bucky responded, chastised.
“Of course, I’d prefer if my son got into less fights in general,” she said, shooting a playful glare at Steve. “But I can’t be mad if he stands up against bigots. Speaking of, we should really report that player for unsportsmanlike conduct. That was a slur he said, and-”
“Ma, you know that no one takes that stuff seriously,” Steve sighed. “There’s no use, it only makes it worse.”
Sarah frowned but didn’t push further. Steve noticed, though, that Bucky stood a little farther away from him than he had before. Bucky’s mother approached and warmly greeted Steve’s ma and fussed over Steve for a few minutes before both turned to leave.
“Hey, Bucky?” He hated that his voice sounded so small.
“Yeah?”
“We’re still on for Saturday, right?”
Bucky grinned. “Yeah, duh!”
“Just making sure.”
That Saturday, Bucky and Steve raced around the rink. The place was nearly abandoned, so they had it to themselves as they glided on the ice. As they skated back and forth, Steve snuck a glance at Bucky. And for a second, it was as if, after six years, he finally saw him.
The graceful column of his throat. His icy blue eyes. The way a few strands of hair fell in his face. His flushed, rosy cheeks. His adorable grin.
Steve felt like he was five again, and he had just fallen face-first into the ice.
He stopped skating abruptly. Bucky noticed, and called out, “You okay, Steve?”
Steve nodded numbly, forcing himself to be normal. Bucky skated closer, until they were face-to-face. Steve was struck with the sudden urge to grab Bucky’s chin and kiss him. The thought alone terrified him like he had never been terrified before.
You shouldn’t do this, he told himself. This isn’t the right time, or the right place.
“All good,” Steve responded, pasting a smile on his face. Bucky obviously didn’t buy it, so Steve added, “Just remembered I still have to do that algebra homework.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “You know I’d do all of your math homework, right?” He lightly thumped Steve’s shoulder. “Come on, Stevie. Let’s enjoy the moment.”
Steve knew he was right, and forced all thoughts of… whatever he had just discovered to the back of his mind.
For the next few hours, it was just them.
Joyful laughter and shouts.
The hiss of ice and the slam of the hockey sticks.
Steve and Bucky.
As they both parted ways for the night, Steve thought that he wouldn’t know what to do if it wasn’t like that.
2004
“This is getting old,” Steve spat blood onto the pavement, and then mentally thanked God his ma hadn’t seen that.
“How about you just stay down this time?” Gilmore Hodge suggested, raising his burly fists again. Steve raised his admittedly puny ones in response.
Luckily, he didn’t have to take another hit, because out of nowhere, Bucky appeared and hit Hodge solidly in the face. Hodge cursed loudly and as he moved to retaliate, Bucky shoved him backward with force and spat, “Pick on someone your own size!”
Hodge retreated, and Bucky wheeled on Steve with his eyebrows already raised in exasperation.
“If I hear ‘I was minding my own business’ one more time, Steve…” he warned.
“Okay, I wasn’t. But he was catcalling some poor girl and you could tell she was uncomfortable and afraid, and—”
“And of course you had to come in and save the day. Except you never save anything, Steve, you just divert their attention long enough so that you become a punching bag and she gets a reprieve for today.”
“Well, I didn’t ask you to come in and save me!” Steve snapped.
“And I didn’t ask for a dumbass of a best friend who gets himself beat up every other day because he can’t learn to deal with the fact that life’s unfair!” Bucky snarled back.
Steve pivoted to glare at Bucky, who glared right back. They stood there for about thirty seconds, neither one giving ground. Finally, Bucky sighed.
“Sorry I called you a dumbass.”
“Sorry for being a dumbass,” Steve responded.
Bucky started to smile and said, “’S fine, Stevie. I knew what I was signing up for the second you rammed into me from behind all those years ago.” He threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders, letting Steve give him some of his weight.
They walked in silence for a minute or so, until Steve said teasingly:
“‘Pick on someone your own size’?”
“Shut it.”
Steve and Bucky were both thirteen when Bucky first started dating girls.
In hindsight, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Bucky had always been the most charming boy in the school, and after he had hit his growth spurt, he had become the most handsome one too. There had always been a good number of girls who had feelings for Bucky ---he had kissed Betty Charles, in his sixth grade. When Steve asked him how it was, Bucky had grinned excitedly and gone into a detailed description about how soft Betty’s lips were, and how nice her perfume smelled, and Steve had suddenly wanted to change the subject. Bucky hadn’t ended up dating Betty; he declared that he didn’t want to be “tied down”. Upon hearing this, Steve’s ma burst out into laughter and pinched Bucky’s cheeks, much to his annoyance.
Steve should’ve known that was too good to last. Bucky came home from school one day, saying that he was going out to the movies with Lizzy Davis. Steve raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Bucky noticed this and flopped onto Steve’s bed next to him, a shoulder’s width apart.
Too far, a part of Steve’s brain complained.
Not far enough, another part argued.
“Listen, pal, all the girls’ll be after you soon enough,” Bucky told him.
“I don’t need you to- console me, or whatever,” Steve snapped.
“I’m not, I’m just saying, I could ask Lizzy to get a friend so that next time you can come with us and we can double date—”
“Next time? Since when do you go steady with anyone?” Steve demanded.
“I don’t know, I just thought—Is it so bad if I like her, Steve?” Bucky asked, his brow furrowing.
Steve was struck by a cold fear in his chest. He looked at Bucky from the corner of his eye. His rosy cheeks, his ebony-colored hair, his blue eyes, so warm and caring despite their cool tone.
He’s not like you! Steve screamed at himself. It’s stupid to think that he’ll ever like you back!
The heat that had been building in his chest suddenly loosened as he told Bucky, “Of course not. Sorry, I was just, uh… frustrated today. Didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“It’s fine, Steve. Of course it is. Hey, you wanna head to the rink?” Bucky offered an olive branch, which Steve gratefully accepted.
“What kinda question is that, huh, Buck?” he grinned at his friend. He stood up, already ready to go.
Bucky was dating Lizzy Davis. For real. It had been a month, and Bucky had convinced Steve to go on a double date. Steve had rolled his eyes but obliged. It’s not like he had anything better to do, why not get his self-esteem crushed?
When Steve and Bucky arrived at the movie theater, Lizzy and her friend (“Geraldine,” Bucky had told Steve earlier, who had grimaced at the name) were waiting for them. Geraldine was a very pretty girl; she was tall with fiery red hair (that Steve could see clearly despite his color-blindness) and strong shoulders. The second she saw Steve, her face dropped. Steve bitterly understood her feelings. He doubted she was excited to spend the night with a guy half a foot shorter than her.
Bucky’s face lit up when he saw Lizzy, which upset Steve’s stomach. They greeted each other with a kiss, which made Steve’s face burn as he steadily looked ahead and lifted a hand halfheartedly towards Geraldine. Lizzy’s gaze went to Steve, who felt like a bug being examined under a magnifying glass.
“This is Steve?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Bucky responded, obviously not understanding her surprise.
“Huh,” she replied.
They went inside for the movie. Steve started to hear Lizzy giggle, and decided to focus entirely on the movie. He was so concentrated on it that he entirely forgot about Geraldine, which she must’ve been grateful for. Then they all went to dinner. They got about halfway between the meal – halfway between Steve trying to make awkward conversation with Geraldine and her ignoring him— when Geraldine excused herself.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not really feeling well,” she told Bucky with a smile. “I’ll probably head home.”
“Ah, already?” Bucky asked with a charming smile. Geraldine melted a little, but glanced over at Steve, and responded, “Yeah, sorry.” She dashed out of the restaurant, leaving Bucky staring at the door with a furrowed brow.
Steve excused himself to the bathroom. He couldn’t deal with this. He didn’t want to be pitied by Bucky and his stupid girlfriend for the rest of the night.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true, Steve reasoned. Lizzy was a little daft, but she wasn’t an idiot.
He lingered in the bathroom for a few more minutes before slowly ambling back towards the table. As he approached, he overheard Bucky and Lizzy arguing.
“There wasn’t any reason for Geraldine to be such a bitch to Steve,” Bucky fumed.
“Don’t call her that!” Lizzy snapped.
“I would, if she hadn’t acted like such a … Who just leaves in the middle of dinner?”
“That was rude, but, Bucky…” Lizzy trailed off. “Let’s be fair, okay? Steve’s not all that.”
“What?” Bucky asked with a bite in his voice.
“I mean, look at him, Bucky!” Lizzy burst out. “He’s, like, 5’2”, and he’s not that funny or smart or anything. You hyped him up so much, and she came here and saw this asthmatic kid who she would probably accidentally step on!”
There was a moment of silence, where Bucky looked away from Lizzy. His eyes met Steve’s, and Steve saw the heat of the anger in there. Bucky stood up, slammed a couple of dollar bills on the table, and said coldly to Lizzy, “We’re done.” He nodded to the bills. “For the meal.”
He turned to Steve. “Let’s bounce, pal.” He didn’t spare a glance for Lizzy as they walked out. Steve did, and being petty, very much enjoyed the expression of shock on her face.
They walked in silence for a few moments, and then Bucky burst out, “I’m so sorry, Steve. I had no idea that Lizzy and her friend would be like… that.”
Steve sighed. “Who isn’t, Bucky? You shouldn’t have broken up with her.”
Bucky looked at Steve like he was crazy. “What? Of course I should have! She didn’t like you!”
“Well, it’s not like that that’s a particularly rare trait, is it?”
Bucky looked up at the sky, huffed, and looked back down at Steve. His eyes pierced Steve, as he said seriously, “If she doesn’t like you, Steve, then she’s gone, okay? You’re pretending like we aren’t a package deal.”
Steve laughed at that. “Right. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, not sold separately.”
“Damn right. I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”
The beaten feeling in his chest that had gotten worse as the evening had progressed started inflating. Steve tried hiding his grin, but he had a feeling that he was failing miserably.
“Hey, you wanna go to Coney Island?” Bucky said into the silence.
“Yeah, sure! Why not?”
So they set off to Coney Island. They stuffed themselves with hot pretzels and cotton candy first, which was not the best route (at least not for Steve).
The boys looked up at a large sign.
“The Cyclone,” Bucky read. He grinned at Steve, a grin so wide and beautiful that Steve was momentarily blinded by it. “Let’s go.”
“Uh…” Steve tried to find an excuse, but Bucky’s wicked expression told him he wouldn’t escape this.
About thirty minutes of waiting and two minutes of whirling around in the air later, Steve emptied the contents of his stomach on the boardwalk. Bucky hissed as he patted Steve’s back.
“Yeesh,” he heard Bucky say, which made Steve laugh a little.
After he was done vomiting, he curled up on the wood, not caring that there were people around. Bucky sat down next to him, looking at him worriedly. Steve leaned on his shoulder for a few minutes.
Finally, Steve said, “So, you wanna go again?”
Bucky barked out a laugh and said, “Not on your life, pal. Which you might actually lose if we do go on that again.”
They looked at each other then, and Steve was struck by the beauty of the boy beside him. His lanky frame, his muscular shoulders, his shining eyes, his red lips, his distinct, musky scent…
Steve noticed that they were both leaning in a bit. His eyes flickered down to Bucky’s lips momentarily, and he looked back up, terrified that Bucky had seen. But Bucky seemed transfixed on Steve’s face.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Steve croaked out, breaking the moment.
Bucky’s eyebrows jumped up a little, and he said hastily, “Just your ugly mug.” He laughed with a little manic edge and said, “You know, there’s a lot more here. You wanna look around?”
Steve nodded and they set off. The two boys raced along the boardwalk. It was different than their races on ice, less graceful, but their laughs were still bright.
They stumbled into a photo booth, the two of them, and took a bunch of photos, much too close to each other’s faces. Steve didn’t care. Bucky didn’t seem to either.
Years later, Steve would pull off his phone case and run his thumb over the pictures; Bucky’s grinning, young face, and Steve’s, gazing at him, obviously enamored.
January 2005
Bucky rammed into the opposite team’s offensive player so hard that his helmet came off. He stomped off to the penalty box, and Steve was counting down to the moment that he was let back into the game. They made eye contact, and Steve knew Bucky knew what Steve wanted to do.
The game resumed, and their captain, Gabe Jones, got the puck, and passed it to Steve. Steve sprinted across the ice, feeling his calves burn. He made it look like he was heading right towards the goal, and then whipped the puck towards Bucky, who held it for a moment, and then passed it back to Steve. They passed back and forth faster and faster until Steve was directly in front of the goal. He slammed the puck forward, and saw it go right into the net right as the buzzer for the game went off.
He and Bucky raced towards each other and grabbed each other, hugging tightly and laughing like they were insane. The rest of their team skated towards them, chanting, “HOWLIES! HOWLIES! HOWLIES!” and joined the hug. Soaked with sweat and staring into Bucky’s blazing eyes, Steve thought this was what euphoria felt like.
***
Bucky was supposed to be on a date tonight. Steve knew when he went. These days were stuck in his memory, despite his efforts to distract himself. But here he was, knocking on Steve’s apartment door.
“Hey,” he said, uncharacteristically silent. “Can we go on a walk?”
Steve felt a sense of apprehension, but called out, “Ma! Can I go on a walk with Buck?”
She yelled back, “Be back in an hour!”
“Okay!”
He walked out the door and let Bucky take the lead. Once they reached the street, Bucky slowed down. He seemed contemplative, gazing at the crowded streets with an unidentified emotion in his eyes.
They walked for a few more minutes in silence, until Steve couldn’t wait further.
“Buck?” he prompted.
Bucky looked at him, and suddenly, as if the words were ripped from his mouth, he said, “I’m moving.”
That moment changed a lot of things for Steve Rogers.
First, he would lose his best friend. They had been attached at the hip for most of their lives. How could they survive being apart? How could Steve go to school without talking to Bucky on the walk home? How could Steve play hockey without instinctively passing the puck to Bucky? How could Steve ever go to Coney Island again without thinking about the beautiful, beautiful boy who had once been his other half?
This last thought sent Steve into a spiral of emotions, and one thought arose from the chaos.
I love him.
Oh no. I love him.
Steve Rogers loved Bucky Barnes.
Steve Rogers loved Bucky Barnes, and Bucky Barnes was moving away.
“Steve?” Bucky looked at him, brows furrowing.
“Jesus,” Steve gasped out. “Where?”
There was a moment of silence, and then Bucky said, “Moscow. Russia.”
“What the fuck?” Steve exclaimed.
“Yeah, I know, it’s just that Dad’s family in Russia really need his help right now, and the entire family has to go. And it’s supposed to help my hockey skills or whatever. I think that’s just something he said to make the family want to go more.”
“Oh,” Steve said. He couldn’t find anything else to say. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said quietly.
“Jesus.” Steve said again. He felt like his chest was crumbling into dust.
Bucky looked at him again, sadness in his eyes, and suddenly Steve couldn’t stop himself from reaching for him and pulling him into a hug. Bucky squeezed him tightly, and Steve felt a tear escape from his eye.
They stood like that for a while. Finally, they let go.
Steve looked up at Bucky. “You’ll still call, though, right?”
“Duh. ‘Til the end of the line, pal.”
Steve’s eyes were watery again, and he had to blink several times to get them back to normal.
“Well.” Steve said.
“Well.” Bucky responded.
“Wanna shoot some pucks?”
“What kinda question is that?” Bucky asked with a grin, tears still glimmering in his eyes.
Steve went home that night, cheeks flushed from the exercise, and when his ma said, “Steve! I told you not to stay out so late—” she was interrupted by Steve shoving his face into her shoulder and sobbing.
“Oh, cariad, it’s okay,” she soothed, stroking his blond hair.
Steve cried harder and shook his head. No, it wouldn’t. Nothing ever would be right again. Not when the other part of his soul would be across the world.
Steve and Bucky had spent hours and hours together after hearing about the move, but it wouldn’t be enough. It was never enough. Because here they were, saying goodbye.
“You’ll text me,” Steve said.
“You’ll text me,” Bucky retorted.
Both of their eyes were watery, but they embraced. Steve was too busy holding his tears in to notice how Bucky’s hand was shaking on his shoulder.
As Bucky turned to enter the airport, Steve called out, “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”
Bucky turned around, called back, “’Til the end of the line,” waved, and entered the airport.
Steve tried to not feel like his heart had been ripped out.
He failed.
March 2005
Steve’s life changed after Bucky left, and it didn’t.
It changed because his best friend wasn’t around. He didn’t have anyone to rant about stupid things or talk about his fears with. He didn’t have anyone whom he could draw in the fading afternoon light for hours on end. He didn’t have anyone who could almost telepathically understand how he wanted to play a game of hockey.
It didn’t change, because, like everything else, life moved on. Steve still had his other friends from hockey, like Gabe Jones, “Dum Dum” Dugan, or Jim Morita. But it wasn’t the same, really. It couldn’t be.
It had been two months since Bucky left, and despite Steve’s frequent messages, he rarely got any responses from Bucky, whose explanation was either “bad signal” or “strict father”. Steve felt his relationship with Bucky slowly slipping out of his reach. His best friend was drifting away, and there was nothing he could do about it, short of hunting him down in Moscow. So Steve kept going, despite his heart’s efforts to make him stop.
“Rogers? You here with us?”
Steve shook himself out of his reverie to see Dum Dum waving a gloved hand in front of his face. The Howling Commandoes hockey team had practice today.
“Yeah, yeah, just drifted off for a moment there,” Steve responded, jokingly slapping Dum Dum’s hand away.
“What were you thinking about?” Dernier, a French exchange student with a passion for pyrotechnics, asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Morita smirked. “Bucky.”
Steve jolted. “How’d you know?” Fear began to trickle in between his spine.
“Please, you and Barnes were attached at the hip for as long as we’ve known you,” Morita scoffed.
“Yeah, being away from him isn’t something I’m used to,” Steve murmured.
“Plus, you were always gazing all moonily at each other, so—shit! What was that for, Jones?!” Morita snapped at Jones, who had whacked his helmet.
Steve stared at them, feeling the blood drain from his face.
They knew.
They knew that he was in love with Bucky.
His teammates. In the sport that was famously homophobic.
“I’m, I’m, just, gonna, uh, gonna, go,” Steve stammered, jamming his helmet on his head and fleeing the room.
As he left, he heard several groans and another yelp of pain from Morita.
All practice, Steve avoided talking to his teammates. He simply skated out onto the rink, shot the puck, and moved on. He could feel his teammates’ gazes on him, though. He tried to ignore it.
After practice, everyone was sweaty and exhausted. Steve hoped no one would bring up Morita’s words or Steve’s telling reaction.
No such luck.
“Listen, Rogers,” Gabe began, before Steve started to turn around. He grabbed Steve’s shoulders and said urgently, “Steve! No one here gives a damn about you and Bucky and whatever you felt for each other. I swear.”
Steve eyed him apprehensively.
“It’s true,” Dum Dum called out from the other side of the room.
“Really, Rogers, no one cares,” Morita explained. “Figured you and Barnes were a couple anyway by the way you two were acting.”
“What?” Steve asked.
“Well, it wasn’t very subtle,” another player, James Falsworth, piped in.
“The flirting was over the top, though,” Dernier added in a heavy French accent.
“Flirting?!” Steve sputtered, his face now radiating heat.
“‘Steve, you dumbass, getting yourself into another fight!’” Dum Dum imitated Bucky’s voice. Then he shifted into: “‘I can take care of myself, Bucky’. ‘You don’t have to though, Steve. Stevie. Steve-a-licious.’”
“Okay, I get it!” Steve yelled.
“Do you, though?” Morita asked with glee.
Steve groaned, knowing that the rest of his time in the locker room would be spent with retellings of every interaction he had had with Bucky in the last six years. But he couldn’t hide his smile. His team knew. His team knew, and they didn’t hate him.
As they walked out, Dernier said, “Might want to keep to yourself. Don’t want others…” He mimed getting beat up, which Steve had to scoff at. If there was anything that could make him get beat up more, it would be revealing he was attracted to men.
“Yeah, being gay isn’t really accepted in the NHL and all that,” Falsworth said, rather unnecessarily. They all knew the cost of being different in the NHL.
“Not gay,” Steve responded, feeling brave. His teammates had supported him today. He could trust them.
“Not gay?” Dum Dum’s bushy eyebrows reached his hair. “Last time I checked, being in love with a man makes you gay, buddy.”
“Love?!” Steve demanded, horrified to know that Dum Dum knew the exact emotion, and at the same time, Gabe rolled his eyes and said, “Bisexuality exists, you know”.
“Well, are you bi, then?” Dum Dum asked.
“Wow, Dum Dum, really give the guy some space to think about it,” mocked Morita.
“Well, he probably already knows, that’s why he said ‘not gay’! I mean, we know he likes guys already because of his drooling over Bucky—”
Gabe cut everyone off with a deep sigh.
“I swear, if Morita doesn’t put his foot in his mouth, it’s you, Dum Dum.”
“What can I say? Living up to the nickname!” Dum Dum responded cheerfully.
“I’m bi,” Steve said quickly. The levity that had been established evaporated.
“C’est bien?” Dernier offered to the silence.
Gabe turned to him. “‘That’s good’?!” he exclaimed. “That’s all you could think to say?”
“Well, what else—”
The team devolved into bickering until Morita turned to Steve and asked, “How’d ya know?”, to which Steve turned a tell-tale shade of crimson.
“Barnes?!” he bellowed, drawing the eyes of other people in the building. The others shushed him frantically, and he continued in a quieter, but still energetic tone: “Me, I understand, Jones, okay, even Dum Dum I get---”
“Barnes is fine, though,” Gabe interjected. The team turned to look at him, to which he responded, “Hey, I can see when another guy looks nice. Doesn’t mean I’m attracted to him.” Then, with a sly grin: “Don’t worry, Rogers, wouldn’t steal your man like that.”
The Howling Commandoes roared with laughter, and Steve rolled his eyes. He couldn’t hide his smile, though.
His smile faded by the time he got home. Because as much as his friends could joke around with him, he couldn’t ignore the fact that the person he was in love with was across the world. Steve didn’t know where Bucky was.
Would he ever know again?
One week later, Steve caught a fever.
It wasn’t the first fever he’d ever had, so he recognized the symptoms pretty early. He managed to get through the day, and arrived home, calling out for his ma.
Oh, right. She was at the hospital.
Well. Then Steve had to go there, right?
Steve turned around, dumped his backpack by the door, and walked back out. Which way to the hospital again? He couldn’t remember. He’d been there thousands of times before.
Focus.
He started to recall the route, and walked down the street, drawing some odd looks. He couldn’t tell why. Steve looked down. Oh, he was swaying quite a bit. He should sit down and start walking again later. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the silhouette of a girl, hunched over. He heard Gilmore Hodge’s taunting voice, and he marched over to that side of the street with nothing but righteous fury and his too-small, shaking fists.
Hodge turned to him, pleased with the easy target.
It didn’t end well for Steve.
After the third punch, Steve fell to the ground, boneless.
Get up.
He tried to lift himself up.
Get up.
His hands couldn’t grip the ground well enough.
Get up.
Hodge sneered down at him. “Finally had enough, huh, Rogers?”
I can do this all day, Steve wanted to say, but his mouth failed him.
The last thought he had before passing out was, Bucky, I’m sorry for being such a dumbass again.
Sarah Rogers had been worried about her son ever since he was born. He had always been too frail. His fighting spirit had warmed her heart, and she felt that he could make it through anything after encountering his stubbornness. Even after he came home with a bruised jaw or a broken nose, she pictured him saying, “I can do this all day”, and her anger abated.
It was evening when she finally got off her shift. She loved her work. Being a nurse was fulfilling and it was ever-useful considering the amount of scrapes her son got himself into. It had been necessary more often lately since he didn’t have his taller, brunet shadow there to protect him. She turned the key in the door and as it creaked open, she called out, “Steve?”, as she had been doing recently.
Usually, Steve responded.
Nothing.
She saw Steve’s backpack to her right, still full. So he wasn’t doing any homework.
“Steve?” she called again, her voice going higher as she searched their tiny apartment.
He wasn’t there.
Steve never went out unless there was a hockey practice these days, and there wasn’t one today. Sarah ran outside and questioned Mrs. Quagmire, an old woman who lived in the apartment below her.
“Have you seen Steve? He’s not in the apartment,” she told her.
“Saw him a coupla’ hours ago, I think,” the old woman replied. “Was all pale and sweaty. Swayin’ a lil’.”
Sarah thanked Mrs. Quagmire and started to walk down the street faster, her heart jackrabbiting. Steve had gone out hours ago, obviously sick? Where could he have gone?!
The streets were mostly empty at this time of night, so a slight motion from the other side of the road caught Sarah’s attention. She sprinted towards it, and—Jesus Christ.
Her son was lying in an alley with a bruised face and a bloody nose. He was paler than a ghost, and his chest was barely moving up and down. She grabbed him and started to head to the hospital. It was on her way. Had he been on the way to the hospital, to ask her for help? The thought made the fear in Sarah’s chest multiply. Steve never asked for help, even when he was in excruciating pain. It must’ve been awful. And, to make matters worse, he was now sporting several injuries, probably because of that worthless miscreant Gilmore Hodge.
She rushed to the hospital and called out desperately for help. Nurses helped her get Steve to a hospital room, where she sat and waited.
And waited.
And
waited.
Three days later, Steve was worse. The same problem he had when he was nine had resurfaced: his body was rejecting all medication. Sarah couldn’t explain why, since she didn’t know Steve’s father’s genetic problems. Their love had been powerful and true, but incredibly brief. They had eloped in Ireland and fled to America after neither family approved of their love, and almost immediately after arriving in the “Land of Promise”, Joseph had gotten shot.
Sarah didn’t talk about it. She didn’t talk about how she had to find his body on the cobblestones, lying in the same exact way she had found her son three days ago. She didn’t talk about how he had talked about all his dreams for his son, dreams that might not be able to come true.
He had just gone to the store to get some sugar.
Sarah didn’t talk about her husband to anyone, because what was the point in reliving such a painful loss when she had her beautiful son right here? Why should she focus on her heartbreak when she could focus on nurturing her child?
Steve was everything to her. Everything. His smiles, his drawings, his temper, his wit, his honor. She thought that she couldn’t have done a better job raising him. She was not about to let all of that go to waste.
She was not about to watch her son die.
So when the doctor told her, in that horrible, regretful tone she had heard six years earlier, she left. Sarah walked out of that room and just started walking and walking and walking until she collapsed in front of an unmarked door and started sobbing.
Her son, her pride, her joy…
“Sarah?” a quiet voice interrupted her wails. She looked up through her tears to see a familiar man.
“Dr. Erskine?” she asked, wiping her nose.
She had become friends with the man who worked behind closed doors, trying to develop new cures to obscure diseases. She didn’t know why exactly he chose to work at a hospital instead of a pharmacy, but when she had asked him, he had simply winked and said, “Pharmacies are for the weak”.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
The question felt so stupid, so obvious, that Sarah had to restrain the urge to scoff and/or scream at him.
“No. No, it isn’t all right. Abraham, my son is dying. My son…” she sniffled and fought the urge to bury her head in her hands. “My son, Abraham. He, he’s fought with illness since he was a child, do you know that? He’s partially color-blind, he has asthma, he has an arrythmia that makes his heartbeat weaker, he’s short and scrawny and he’s never once complained. He’s never complained to me, ever. He almost died six years ago and he didn’t tell anyone how he was feeling. He just passed out in his friend’s house, since they had agreed already to watch a hockey game. He plays hockey, did you know that?
“This boy, my boy, whose strength is so little, chose to play a game where players get slammed into the boards and throw punches like nothing. And you know what? He’s damn good at it. Steve, he, he’s so good, too, in his soul. He’s got the best from me and the best from his father. He always stands up for what’s right. Did you know,” here she paused, to wipe her snot, “Did you know that he gets beat up by the same old bully practically every week because this guy catcalls some girl or calls someone a slur, and Steve just… doesn’t let that happen. At all. He wants to stand up to bullies. Like I taught him.” She sniffled, knowing that the hot tears streaking down her cheeks weren’t bound to end anytime soon. “And he, he doesn’t just fight or play hockey. He makes jokes. He helps me cook stew. He draws—he’s such a good artist, did you know that? He once drew a picture of his best friend that was the most accurate thing I’d seen since I took him to the Met. He loves drawing, and singing silly songs with me, and gliding on the ice with his hockey stick in hand, and he deserves to do that, Abraham. Doesn’t he?
“And I- I know I sound like those stereotypical mothers whose sons are about to die. I hear this all the time here—‘It’s not fair! Why is this happening to him?’. It’s true, though. He deserves to live, Abraham. He deserves to be able to dance with me in our small kitchen and to draw the sunset. He deserves to be able to have the chance to see his best friend again. And I can’t believe the son, the smart, brave, good soon I raised, won’t be able to. I, I just, I just can’t.”
Here Sarah dissolved into tears fully, crying harder into herself. Dr. Erskine sank down next to her, saying nothing. He pat her shoulder a few times. When she composed herself a bit more, he spoke up.
“I’ve been working on something. A serum. And it might save your son.”
Sarah whipped her head around so fast her neck cracked. She didn’t care.
“What?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’ve been experimenting with different chemicals and the like, and I think I might have made something that will strengthen your son. It could not only bring him back from this brink of death, but also make him stronger than he was before. Every time I’ve tried to test it out, the body has rejected it. But if his body is rejecting all of the other medications, which all of my subjects accepted, perhaps he will accept my serum.”
He finished speaking and turned to look into Sarah’s wide eyes.
“I cannot promise any results. This is just my theory for what might happen. And since it has not been tested successfully anywhere else, there is also the possibility of death.”
The sudden bubble of hope in Sarah’s chest popped.
“Take your time, if he has much of it left. But I wanted to offer this option. I would never want you to lose your son, who, by all means, sounds like he would be a good man.”
He stood up and walked back inside his office.
Sarah was still sitting on the floor.
She went back to visit Steve.
Of course she did. He may not have had much time left. She wanted to be with him as long as she could.
Sarah stared at his pale, inert form. His small, sickly frame seemed to go deeper and deeper into itself the longer she sat by his side. She gazed at his hands. Artist’s hands. Sculptor’s hands.
What if he never got to use those long, delicate fingers again?
The thought made something in Sarah shift.
She left Steve’s room and headed to Dr. Erskine’s.
“I want to do it. I don’t care about the risks,” she told him.
“Are you entirely sure?” he asked her.
“It’s either him taking this and dying or him getting sicker and dying. I vote for the option where he has an actual chance of getting better.”
“Very well.”
The next day, Steve was moved into Dr. Erskine’s lab, where Sarah sat by his side as she watched Erskine inject fluids and chemicals into his veins. He used one final syringe, and Sarah watched as her son began to scream. And change.
He screamed, and screamed, and screamed. She held his hand the entire time.
And when it was done, he was different. He stood, shakily, and his eyes widened as he towered over his mother. He was wider, taller, more muscular. This wasn’t the same Steve. And yet, it also was.
Sarah didn’t care either way. After all, she had gotten the most important thing.
He was alive.