Work Text:
b e f o r e
(1936)
Steve sneezed for what must have been the billionth time within the last couple of minutes, and with a tired and exhausted groan, he wrapped himself further up in the blanket that was covering his body. His legs were drawn up to his chest, the blanket up to his ears, and he was wearing as many layers as he could without being strangled.
And still... still he was freezing.
His toes were cold despite the two pairs of socks he was wearing (granted, both had holes in them), his nose was cold despite being buried against the edge of the blanket, his fingers were like icicles despite being covered in the sleeves of his shirt and despite being curled around the corner of the blanket.
God, he really fuckin' hated winter. The heating in the building had died out sometime during the night and wasn't going to get fixed for another few days. Snow was falling outside, each snowflake making it that much colder, and Steve was tired of shivering and trembling and sneezing and not being able to do anything but sit there and hope he didn't die of hypothermia or whatever else his body would undoubtedly catch from this kind of weather.
“Stevie,” a voice said to his left.
Steve lifted his gaze from the plate of now cold food in front of him (he hadn't touched it, too busy shivering and unwilling to get out of the little heat he had gathered under the blanket) and looked over at where Bucky was frowning at him from the front door, the door open and letting in a new wave of cold air.
Steve sneezed again, and the door closed faster than he could blink.
“Steve,” Bucky repeated, and Steve blinked a few times before lifting his gaze. Bucky's frown had turned worried, the same crease between his brows he had when Steve came down with pneumonia the year before. “C'mon, it's bed time.”
“Sun ain't down yet, Buck,” Steve protested, sniffling. “How was work?”
“Same as always. Work never changes, you know that,” Bucky said and stepped out of his boots, stripped off his jacket, and walked over to him, holding out a hand. “Now, either you're gonna come willingly, or I'm gonna throw you over my shoulder and carry you. Fight me all ya want, you're going to bed, right now.”
Steve sighed heavily and fell back against the couch. “'m fine,” he insisted and wrapped the blanket further around himself.
There was a second or two's silence where Bucky just stared at him, deadpan and unimpressed. Then, before Steve knew it, Bucky had picked him up from the couch and into his arms, carrying him bridal style toward the small bedroom they shared.
Steve struggled and complained in the form of whining and groaning and wiggling, but it wasn't for long. Because Bucky was warm, and Steve couldn't help but lean into him, chasing the warmth his cold and shaking body so desperately needed. He pressed his cold nose to Bucky's warm neck and curled into him.
“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky breathed as he shivered, Steve rubbing his nose against his skin. “You're a fuckin' icicle.”
“And you're a damn heater,” Steve murmured, lips brushing against Bucky's skin, goosebumps slowly appearing there as he pressed his nose against his neck again. “How 're you warm when you've been out all day? Ain't fair.”
“Cause unlike you,” Bucky said as he pushed the door to the bedroom open with his hip, “I've gotta be moving 'round all day long. You get warm pretty quick like that even when it's snowing, lemme tell ya.”
Steve just hummed in response, and Bucky put him down on the bed. They had two separate beds; two singles, both with shitty mattresses. They used to be kept apart, but then after pushing them together during one particularly terrible winter, they just never pushed them apart again. Bucky had volunteered for Steve's personal heater throughout the cold nights, sharing not only his blanket but his body heat too.
Steve whined almost (definitely) pathetically when Bucky's heat left him, and Bucky chuckled and pushed him back down on the bed. “Relax, you baby,” he said, fingers moving to strip himself out of his work shirt. “I'll be right there, don't worry.”
A minute later, Bucky crawled into Steve's blanket burrito, grabbed his own blanket, and wrapped them both into it. And Bucky wrapped himself around Steve, hissing and shivering when Steve shoved his colds hands under his armpits and his cold feet between his shins.
But Bucky said nothing about it, only wrapped his arms around him and pulled him closer, tugging his head under his chin and giving him all the warmth he possibly could.
Steve shivered and trembled against him, but when Bucky pressed a kiss to the top of his head a while later, Steve was fast asleep, hands and feet slowly getting warmer as they cuddled.
d u r i n g
(1943)
Up. He had to look up now. Granted, it was only by an inch, maybe two, but after having looked down several inches for the majority of his life, this was odd – strange.
Bucky stared at him, a frown stuck on his face as he watched Steve move around inside his tent. He was so much taller, broader, wider, healthier, and Bucky almost didn't recognize him. But there was still the blond head of hair, the same jawline (although more defined now), the same blue eyes, the same boyish smile he had fallen in love with, the same Fight Me attitude, the same Steve.
Underneath the new body and the new and improved health and the new role as Captain America, Steve was still Steve. It just took some getting used to, this body, Bucky figured.
There was just something that bothered him. This one, little thing he couldn't stop thinking about.
“Do you still get cold?” he asked, breaking the silence. The camp was quiet outside Steve's tent, everyone asleep except for the ones on watch and the few who couldn't.
Steve lifted his head and looked over at him, a small and crooked smile pulling at the corner of his lips as he lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Not like I used to,” he said and sat down on the edge of the cot in the tent. “Guess I run hot now. No more worrying about getting pneumonia or dying of hypothermia.”
With a quiet hum, Bucky nodded. It should make him happy. It did make him happy.
Steve was healthy. Death was no longer standing at the end of the hall, waiting to take him away for good. Death was long gone, shooed away by whatever serum had been injected into him, making him this... superhero of a soldier; stronger, better in every way, body to match his stubbornness and stupidity and heart.
Steve didn't need him anymore. Maybe that was why Bucky felt a pang of hurt and disappointment flash through him at Steve's answer.
Steve wasn't cold anymore, didn't need Bucky's body heat.
“Doesn't mean I can't use a bit of warmth, though,” Steve said after a moment, and Bucky looked from his own two feet to him. Steve was looking back at him with an almost nervous and pleading look in his eyes, fingers picking at the blanket thrown over the cot.
In that moment, Bucky could almost see that skinny, little punk. That skinny, little punk who would subtly hint at wanting to be cuddled and held.
And Bucky was over by him in a second, the tent closing off to give them privacy as they both laid down on the cot, face to face and scooting close to both fit there. Steve was so much bigger now, they almost didn't.
But Bucky wrapped his arms around him and brought him close, and Steve tucked his head under his chin and wrapped his now stronger and no longer stick thin arms around his waist. Bucky closed his eyes and ignored the way his heart clenched when Steve breathed him in and squeezed him.
They laid like that, arms around each other and legs tangled together and just breathing each other in, for a while, a comfortable silence stretching between them as they cuddled. Steve was the one to break it.
“I never thought we'd get to do this again,” he whispered, lips brushing against Bucky's neck as he spoke and breath ghosting over his skin.
Bucky tightened his grip around him and buried his nose in Steve's hair. “Why, cause you're a big and strong supersoldier now?”
“No.” Steve lifted his head until they were face to face, inches apart and their noses brushing. “Cause I thought I had lost you, Buck. I thought you were gone.”
“Hey,” Bucky cut in in a soft whisper, one hand moving to Steve's cheek. “I'm right here, Stevie. I'm not going anywhere. You ain't getting rid of me that easy. 'Til the end of the line, remember?”
Steve's eyes flickered between his. Bucky's hand was still on his cheek, thumb brushing over his still sharp cheekbone, when Steve leaned in and closed the distance between them, kissing him so passionately and sweetly that Bucky could do nothing but let himself be swallowed by it.
They hadn't kissed since before Bucky left for war, but kissing Steve still felt the same. Still gave him the same tingling feeling, still made his heart swell and soar, still made him feel warm where he had felt cold before, still the same.
“'Til the end of the line,” Steve whispered against his lips after they parted, and Bucky kissed him again, holding onto him for dear life.
. . . . . . .
When Bucky fell and died, a part of Steve's heart fell and died with him.
And when he woke up in 2012, a world with no Bucky and a world he didn't recognize, Steve felt empty and cold every time he went to bed alone.
a f t e r
(2017)
Steve looked down at where their hands were joined together, fingers intertwined and resting on his chest. He rubbed his thumb along Bucky's, tracing it and feeling out the rough skin. His other arm was wrapped securely around Bucky, other hand resting on his shoulder and keeping him close, while Bucky's head was pillowed on his shoulder, tugged under his chin and cheek resting against his chest.
Every once in a while, Steve could feel a soft puff of air ghost across the skin of his neck when Bucky breathed, and it was reassuring and comforting every single time, a reminder that Bucky was here – Bucky was alive and breathing and out of cryo.
The duvet was pulled up to just under Bucky's armpits, right arm free and left arm gone. What didn't cover Bucky was pulled over Steve, his one leg stretched out of it and into the pleasantly warm room they were in.
Steve's bedroom in the apartment they shared, all the way over in Wakanda. A long way from the home in Brooklyn that didn't exist anymore. Not for them, at least.
For Steve, home was laying cuddled up next to him. Home was in his arms, breathing and alive.
Neither of them had said anything. Not since Bucky silently walked into the bedroom, crawled into Steve's bed, and cuddled in close to his side. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, it wasn't tense or awkward, it was just nice and Steve savored every second of this.
“Steve,” Bucky said after a while, his words cutting in through the silence in a lowered mumble.
Steve turned his head just slightly, pressed his cheek to Bucky's forehead, and whispered, “Yeah?”
Bucky was silent for a while, shifting a leg in between Steve's and Steve hooked a foot around his ankle to keep him there. Bucky's head moved to his chest, further under Steve's chin, and there was a soft hum before Bucky muttered, “Nothin'.”
The hand intertwined with Steve's tightened its hold, and Steve squeezed right back and pressed a quick and soft kiss to Bucky's forehead. “Goodnight, Buck,” he said softly against his forehead, and Bucky hummed quietly in response.
A light weight dipped Steve's side of the bed, and Steve glanced over to see a white cat step over their tangled legs.
Miss Liberty was a kitten Bucky had found on the streets of Wakanda a couple of weeks ago, homeless and hungry and meowing at everyone who walked by. Steve hadn't even fought it when Bucky had picked her up and gently stuffed her into his hoodie. He'd just smiled, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and asked what they were going to call her.
“Miss Liberty,” Bucky had said after a moment of thinking.
Steve had known it was a joke because he knew Bucky, but he couldn't help but beam at the suggestion regardless, his whole face lighting up. And Bucky had stared at him for a second before blushing and repeating himself, the kitten batting at one of the strings on Bucky's hoodie.
So the name had stuck, and the kitten had stayed.
Just like every night after the sun had gone down and the lights all around the place had been shut off, Miss Liberty walked right over to Bucky's side of the bed, made herself comfortable next to Bucky's head on the pillow, and laid herself down to sleep.
A soft and little smile tugged at Steve's lips, as he watched her pat lightly at Bucky's hair laid out on her spot. Bucky was unbothered by it, snuggling closer to Steve and pressing his face to his neck.
A silence fell over them again, and Steve's thumb rubbed against Bucky's again. Right up until Bucky slipped his hand out of his and wrapped his arm around his middle, tugging his hand between his back and the mattress. Steve laid his hand on Bucky's arm instead, lightly caressing the bare skin below the sleeve of his tee shirt.
Miss Liberty purred softly after she had fallen asleep, and Steve slowly closed his eyes, assuming Bucky was going to sleep (or attempt to, at the very least) sometime soon as well.
He was wrong, as it turned out.
“Steve?” Bucky mumbled again, his voice rougher this time around.
“Still here, Buck,” Steve whispered back, squeezing his shoulder in reassurance.
Bucky didn't say anything for a while, but Steve didn't push him. Bucky was tense against him, shifting ever so slightly, and Steve knew he was hesitating, maybe even nervous. What about, Steve didn't know, but he gave Bucky the time to say whatever he wanted to in his own time.
After all, they had all the time in the world now.
“I'm sorry,” Bucky continued in an even lower mutter now, and Steve almost couldn't hear him. But he did.
Steve blinked, frowned, and asked, “Why 're you apologizing?”
“I made you give up your life for me.” Bucky shook his head a little, and only shifted closer, clinging onto him like a lifeline. “That ain't right, Steve.”
It was an old wound, this whole thing. This whole, “I'm not worth all this.” An old wound that hadn't healed yet but was getting there. Bucky just refused to let go of it, refused to believe that he didn't make Steve do anything. But Steve never stopped reminding him of the truth.
“You didn't make me do anything,” Steve said firmly. “What I had before, that was no life.”
“But I made-”
“I chose you,” Steve interrupted, squeezing Bucky's shoulder as if to emphasize his words. “I made the decision to give all that up, Buck. You didn't make me, that was all me. And if I was given the chance to do it all over again, I'd still choose you. Every single time, cause there's no me without you.”
He paused and when he spoke again, his voice was lowered to a whisper. “'Til the end of the line,” he whispered against the top of Bucky's head. “Remember?”
When Bucky said nothing and just nodded slightly against him, Steve wrapped his arms further around him and hugged him closer. It took a second, but then Bucky hugged him back, right arm tight around him and hand clutching at the back of his shirt.
Steve kissed the top of his head and repeated the words to him. Bucky closed his eyes and breathed him in, finally letting go and letting himself be held and protected.
And Miss Liberty wiggled in between them once Bucky finally fell asleep in Steve's arms, Steve's fingers running through his hair and lips pressing against his forehead.