Chapter Text
He finally worked up the courage to say it. "Steve. I. Look, if you want to go to midnight mass—"
Steve immediately turned to stare at him. "What? No."
"—there are a couple of options. Holy Innocents, St. Catherine’s," Bucky said. "And I'll go with you if—"
"Why would you?" Steve shook his head irritably, like there was a fly. "Buck, I know you don't believe."
"So?" Bucky shot back. "There'll be music and lights, art—I'm not a fucking philistine," and that made Steve laugh, anyway. Bucky said, soft, "Just—I would go if you wanted to go."
"But I don't." Steve looked at him. "I don't want to go," and Bucky, confused, searched his face.
"Because you don't believe," he said finally, and shit, he was the one who had it backwards.
"No. Not anymore," Steve said with a sad smile. "I'm maybe sorrier about it than you, but…" He shrugged his shoulders. "What's done is done, I guess. That all—feels like a dream. From another life."
"Yeah, I—yeah. I know what you mean. Are you angry?" Bucky asked.
"No," Steve said. "I mean yeah, I'm furious," and Bucky smiled grimly, "but not like that. I tried—I mean, I did. But it's just gone now. It was just gone one day, faith, like so many things." He looked at Bucky and said, "You know, I could almost believe again because of you. Except for how it makes the Book of Job look like a comedy—"
Bucky barked out a laugh. "A rip-roaring, side-splitting—"
"—gut-buster, yeah; comedy hit of the season," Steve said, sighing and laughing, both. "So you know, I really hope there's not a God, or a scheme, or—I can barely just about handle it if everything turns out to be—" He flailed helplessly.
Bucky picked it up: "—chance and fate," he said, understanding. "Pointless cruelty and bizarre coincidence and fucking incompetence and—"
"—yeah, and man's inhumanity to man," Steve concluded, nodding furiously. “I can just about cope if it’s that, but if there's a God involved, then—well, I want a word," and suddenly Bucky was laughing so hard he had a stitch, because that was Steve all over, taking on bullies and picking fights outside of his weight class, and this was the big one, a doozy: Almighty God, if you'd please step outside, Steve Rogers would like a word with you.
Bucky would hold Steve's coat in that fight. He'd bet all his money on Steve, and if that was blasphemy—well, so be it. He was overcome with a fondness so huge it made his chest ache. "Merry Christmas, you whackjob, you nutcase, you fucking lunatic, Steve," he said with breathless sincerity, and Steve cuffed his arm around Bucky's neck and said, "Right back atcha, you jerk, you dope, you filthy, dog-faced fiend."