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There are moments when Steve can’t believe how lucky he is. Moments like these, when the sun tints the kitchen into golden light on a Sunday morning and the neighbourhood is still quiet, and the whole apartment smells like freshly brewed coffee. Everything is for once peaceful and still. The only sound disturbing the silence is the rustling of the newspapers from across the table.
Bucky’s brows are slightly furrowed as he reads through the sports pages, but the expression on his face is perfectly content. He wears a not quite buttoned up burgundy shirt, sleeves casually rolled up. The new arm that Tony developed has synthetic skin and muscles and looks so real that the ugly robotic arm almost seems like a bad dream now. Except for the red star tattooed on the shoulder, like the one that used to adorn his Soviet bionic arm. As a reminder, Bucky said, so he never forgets what lies in his past. Like he could ever do that. But that aside
It’s like times never changed, like the past seventy years simply haven’t happened, as if Bucky never shipped out to England and Steve never took the serum (except of course this would be a version in which Steve never was a scrawny, asthmatic kid) and they’re both fine, without all that blood on their hands. They never lost their friends to battle and terror, they were never made and unmade. He knows Bucky has nightmares though he doesn’t talk about them, and Steve feels so helpless when Bucky shivers and whimpers next to him and all that Steve can do is wrap his arms around him, hold him and try to wake him up.
But right at this moment, everything is perfect and Steve can’t believe how lucky he is. Sometimes he finds himself staring at Bucky because he simply cannot wrap his head around the fact that after all this time, they found one another again. They have both changed, of course, but somehow they still fit each other like a glove, and he still knows Bucky inside out just like his partner knows him. They’re strangers in this brave new world but they’ve got each other, and Steve doesn’t care where or when he is, as long as Bucky is there.
Bucky looks up from his newspapers and finds Steve staring at him. His lips curve to a smile that lights up his face, a cheeky twinkle in his eyes and God, he is so beautiful.
“What are you looking at?” he asks.
There was a time, right after Bucky returned, where Steve feared that his friend would never be able to laugh again. Every time Bucky smiles now, Steve’s heart puckers up and he feels like the overwhelming joy is going to tear him apart.
Steve shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Can’t get enough of me, eh?”
“You wish.”
Bucky laughs and shakes his head before turning back to the newspapers. Steve takes a sip from the coffee mug.
He’s so lucky. So unbelievable lucky.
Photos of the two of them on the wall. Drawings of Bucky sleeping. Tickets to baseball games on the fridge. Steve would never have dreamed that he could have all that. Not even back then in the forties. Particularly not back in the forties.
***
They’re spread out on the sofa—each cozied into a corner, their legs stretched out and overlapping in the middle. Bucky’s legs are resting over Steve’s, and his head is leaning against the back of the couch while his face is barely visible behind the novel he’s reading. It’s one of those things about him that surprises people—the ones who knew him as the cocky ladies man back then as well as the ones who only know him as the tough sniper with somewhat rough manners. Neither persona really seems to fit with the fact that Bucky loves books and always has but then again, neither persona actually is James Buchanan Barnes. Steve is the only one who really knows him, inside out, and maybe he is also the only one who ever did.
Bucky loves books. He loves crime fiction and autobiographies, he likes contemporary fiction and fantasy, he likes non-fiction books and on occasion even romance. He reads Tolkien and Philip Roth and Paul Auster and Kathy Reichs and Julia Quinn, Jane Austen and Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling and sometimes Steve thinks that for Bucky the hardest part of missing 70 years of one’s life is all the fiction that he needs to get caught up on.
He used to bring books whenever Steve was sick and stuck in the infirmary. Sometimes, when Steve was so unwell that he slept the day away, Bucky would spend hours just sitting by his side, reading. The nuns would let him, because he wasn’t disturbing anyone and, perhaps, because they figured that when a boy as cocky and, on occasion, as what they considered wicked, actually picked up a book you shouldn’t give him a reason to put it down. When Steve was awake, but too weak to hold a book himself, Bucky would read to him. He would bring in all kinds of books, but usually adventure books from another time set in exotic places, or Europe, or the Wild West, books with kings and conspiracies and brave, bold heroes. One time it was The Last of the Mohicans, and then one time he brought in The Three Musketeers and then one time The Jungle Book. He read them to Steve tirelessly, even doing all the voices and acting certain scenes out. Most of the times Steve was the only patient in the infirmary, but when he wasn’t he could tell that the other boys in the orphanage were listening as well and pretending not to be.
Bucky Barnes loved girls, and fighting, he loved good beer and cars and he loved Steve, and he loved books.
Steve watches Bucky as he reads on, turning the page, his brows furrowed except for when his lips curve to a smile, and he laughs quietly. It’s a beautiful sight, having Bucky here and safe, having him here feeling safe.
God knows they each have more than enough demons to deal with still, but at least Bucky is healing, and that is something.
“What are you reading?” Steve asks. He could simply read the title off the book, but he loves the way Bucky’s eyes light up when he gets to tell Steve about whatever he’s reading.
Bucky looks up from behind the book, only his eyes and his mop of hair visible.
“It’s called The Lightning Thief from the Percy Jackson series. It’s all about Greek Gods still being on Earth and their demigod children. I bet Thor would get a kick out of it. But he might take it as an actual chronicle.” He grins.
“Is it any good?” Steve asks even though he already knows the answer.
“It’s really clever, Steve. And really funny. Wait, this bit here is hilarious…”
And he starts to read a paragraph out loud. And he still does all the voices.
***
Bucky’s hand gently cups the back of his head, before fingers run through Steve’s hair, ruffling it. Steve’s eyes snap open and find Bucky’s face above him, grinning. He must have dozed off. Sleep still in his eyes, he pulls off the head phones.
Bucky grabs the iPod that Tony gave to him about a week after the New York incident, gives it a quick glance and smiles.
“Springsteen again, huh?”
Steve shrugs. “I like him.”
“Figures. You love the man who sings about the little people. That’s so you.”
He pats Steve on the shoulder, then bends over to give him a quick kiss.
Clint had handed Steve a CD (which was like a small vinyl, except the sound was crisp and clear—too crisp for Steve, really—and you could skip tracks just like that) a few weeks ago, commented that Steve should give the Boss a try, and Steve had pretty much listened to Springsteen on every possible occasion. He liked how he could just close his eyes and listen to the wistful blues harps and guitar strumming and Springsteen’s slightly mumbled singing, and just know what the songs were about. It was like Springsteen was telling him stories about the America that Steve had never known, but he could feel it when he put on the headphones and listened to the songs.
He likes other artists, too. He is very fond of Johnny Cash, even though the man surely has a thing for the gloomy, and he definitely has a soft spot for Adele and Duffy. At some point, Bruce buys them the entire Beatles collection and Bucky and Steve spend an entire afternoon sitting on the floor of their apartment, looking through the CDs while the stereo plays Sgt. Pepper’s Loneley Hearts Club Band. (Steve’s favourite is “All You Need Is Love”, which Bucky finds funny. He then admits that he loves “When I’m 64” best, which sort of simply melts Steve’s heart. Particularly since they’re both well past 64. “Ah, you’re such a softie” he says in a tone that really means “I love you” and Bucky just lifts an eyebrow before he leans in and kisses Steve.) They listen to Tony’s AC/DC and Rolling Stones collection after that, before Natasha hands them a few CDs by Tori Amos and it’s not what Steve expected Nat listens to in her spare time, and yet it makes perfect sense. And then everyone starts handing in their second favourite bands and their third and fourth favourite singers and albums of all time, and for weeks the apartment is filled with the sounds of whatever CD Steve gets his hands on.
***
One day, Bucky brings home a Billie Holiday CD.
“I didn’t think they’d still listen to her,” Steve says, his voice suddenly hollow and thick at the same time as memories wash over him, and he purses his lips.
Bucky gives him a smile. The kind that makes something within Steve leap. He unwraps the CD and puts it in the stereo, pressing “Play”.
Piano. Muffled, not as crispy as the CDs this days. The sound is slightly washed out, sounds blending into one and another, and the hair on Steve’s arm stands up.
Billie starts singing, a mellow ballad about heart break and love and from the first notes there’s a lump growing in Steve’s throat. Bucky is standing by the stereo, hand casually placed on his hip, and suddenly it’s like they’ve been transported back in time, and Steve can almost hear the old-fashioned car honks as they pass by.
He was never a good dancer, partly because he was born with two left feet and partly because it was impossible for him dance with the one person he’d cared to dance with. He remembers Bucky dragging him to some bar, and how when the singer was performing a ballad Bucky would stand with Steve for a bit before he went off dancing with a girl. And Steve would watch him from across the room, the way Bucky moved so smoothly, so light on his feet, the way he put his hand on the girl’s back and moved his face close to hers, and he would wish that it was him, and at the same time feel the awful sting of knowing it was never going to happen.
He knew that even if Bucky would have wanted to, it never could have happened. It was dangerous back then. After a while, he wouldn’t go to bars with Bucky anymore.
Bucky shoots Steve a glance, thoughtful, then extends his hand.
“Come on.”
Steve frowns up at him. “What?”
Bucky smiles, shaking his head, like he can’t believe how slow Steve is with the uptake on matters like these.
“I know you love this song.”
“Oh,” Steve replies, heat shooting into his cheeks. “You know I can’t dance.”
Bucky shrugs. “Nobody’s watching.” And then, less cocky. “I’ve been waiting for a long time to get to dance with you.”
He pulls Steve up, who stands around awkward, not quite sure what to do with his arms and hands. Gently, Bucky puts one arm on Steve’s back and wraps his other hand around Steve’s, then pulls him in even closer until Steve can actually feel Bucky’s breath on his neck. Billie Holiday is still singing, and if Steve closed his eyes right now he would have no trouble believing this was actually 1940.
Bucky begins to move slowly, shifting his weight from one foot to another and Steve follows him obediently. Suddenly they’re dancing and then, Steve does close his eyes.
He moves even closer to Bucky, and even though he is the taller one of the two, he leans into the arms of his partner and rests his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder. He feels Bucky cocking his head slightly in response, resting against Steve’s.
“Do you know why you always were such a bad dancer?” Bucky asks softly, his mouth close to Steve’s ear.
“Because I was about as tall as a Hobbit?” Steve asks and Bucky chuckles.
“No,” he answers, “The reason why you were such a bad dancer is easy: you love music too much. You got so distracted by the tune and the lyrics and the voices that you kept losing track of the steps.”
Steve swallows past a lump in his throat that wasn’t there just seconds before. He hadn’t even thought about it that way, but trust that James Buchanan Barnes manages to see something beautiful even in something as silly as Steve’s two left feet.
“I kind of wish we could have done this earlier,” Steve finally says and they both know that earlier in this case means back then, before the war, before the serum and the Red Room.
“No regrets, remember?” Bucky replies, voice quiet.
Steve nods, taking in Bucky’s scent. All through the years, it hasn’t really changed. He’s been through war, the Red Room; he’s been through torture and dark years of being nothing but a terrible shadow, he has been on trial and sent to a Russian Gulag, he has died and he has still managed to smell the same, even though the colognes he used back then have not been fabricated for decades.
“I can’t believe we’re both here,” Steve says at last. “You, me—we’re back in Brooklyn after all those years. It’s incredible, isn’t it? Things like these usually don’t happen.”
“We’ve made it home,” Bucky says.
“Yeah,” Steve replies, placing a kiss on Bucky’s shoulder. “We have.”
The End