Chapter Text
The first thing that Bucky rediscovers about himself is that he can say “No.” And that he can like what he wants, do what he wants, be what he wants to be.
The last one is a bit tricky, though.
He’s not the Bucky Barnes that Steve remembers, not quite, not completely. And sometimes, he thinks that the part of him that still is the Winter Soldier had always been there, the part that can break a human being down to simply being a target and a mission. He can kill. He can kill without regret, without remorse, but the difference is.
The difference is that back then, he had choices. He could choose, he chose to follow Steve to hell and back again. He chose to protect Steve, to watch over him, when he’d been the skinny punk kid from Brooklyn with zero self preservation except for that too-big, too-kind heart. He still chose to protect Steve even when he’d grown a foot taller and had the physical strength to match what had always been there inside of him.
And it’s taking a while to sink in, really internalize it, but he at least knows, intellectually, that the past seventy years was a time where he had all his choices stolen away from him.
He’s trying to live with it. Every day. He’s trying.
On the good days, Bucky tries to focus on what he likes. He likes hot dogs and ice-cold Cokes, the way he and Steve used to have them when they were kids and they’d pool their money together with some left over for chocolate ice cream. He likes pizza - good ol’ New York style pizza - and he’d dragged Steve all over New York looking for their favorite pizza haunts, some of which, thank Jesus Christ, are still standing.
He’s actually memorized Jon Stewart’s infamous Donald Trump Pizza Rant. He can deliver it line by line, beat for beat, accent dead on, sending Steve into stitches.
He likes making Steve laugh.
He likes trading wisecracks with Natasha in the “mother tongue” although he knows, intellectually, that Romanian is his real mother tongue and he hasn’t forgotten this language either. But he does it and he loves Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky and he and Nat once spent a quiet hour listening to Leila Josefowicz’s rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major. And once he’d stolen a few moments to play on Tony’s piano - Rachmaninoff and then some lighter, popular songs that he and the rest of the Commandos would sing along to.
He likes calling Steve “baby” - now that he can, now that he knows Steve would welcome it. He likes the pink flush that slowly spreads across Steve’s cheeks and he knows that eventually it’ll turn into a full-blown body blush. He likes the fact that he can trace the path of that blush with his lips and his hands and play Steve better than a piano, with the sweet noises he can coax out of him.
He likes the fact that he’s managed to chase away that occasional, unguarded, heartbroken look that he sometimes spots on Steve’s face. Steve tries to cover it up - sometimes with a smile, sometimes with his normal stoic “Captain America” look. It didn’t fool Bucky then; it’s not working now. Bucky isn’t the only one broken; he knows that Steve is just as badly off, though this is Steve and he always puts himself last, always tries to manage things on his own.
That’s usually the time Bucky puts his foot down, tells Steve “No.” They’re in this together or not at all.
"You two are disgraceful," Sam tells them one day.
Steve’s currently a happy puddle on the grass, with Bucky as his pillow. He opens one blue eye and very eloquently says, “Mwuh?”
"Ten laps. Just ten laps today? I only get to hear fucking ‘on your left’ ten times instead of twenty? You two are a disgrace. You oughta be ashamed of yourselves."
Steve smiles, sweet and silly and Bucky just smirks up at Sam, one hand threading through Steve’s hair, making him purr. That’s something he likes too.
Sam just laughs at them both and goes on his way for one more lap. In the meantime, two young-old soldiers enjoy the sunshine.
- end -