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Brooklyn was cold that winter. Not the crisp, biting cold that sent kids skidding over frozen puddles, but the kind that settled into your bones, stiffened your fingers, and made a single blanket feel like nothing at all. Snow fell in wet clumps, melting into slush before it ever had the chance to be pretty.
Brooklyn had never been kind to Steve Rogers.
It had battered him with its wind, choked him with its filth, and knocked him flat more times than he could count. But winter was the worst. Winter sank into the cracks of old buildings and made them groan. It gnawed at the fingers of boys with threadbare gloves and filled their lungs with a cold that never quite left, no matter how close they sat to the stove.
Bucky Barnes knew how much Steve hated the cold.
"You should be inside," Bucky said, his breath curling in the air between them. He pulled his too-short coat tighter around himself, shoulders hunched against the wind as he walked beside Steve.
Steve was coughing again, deep in his chest, the kind of cough that made Bucky’s mother whisper about weak lungs and saints’ mercy.
"You shouldn’t be out here, either," Steve muttered. The boy, thinner than ever, rubbed a fist against his nose, red and raw from the cold.
"Yeah, well, I ain’t the one hacking up a lung every two minutes."
"I had to get out," Steve said. "Ma’s working double shifts again, and I—" He broke off, coughing.
Bucky stopped. "And you what?"
Steve swallowed, ducking his head. "And I didn’t want her to see me like this."
Bucky’s stomach twisted. Steve’s ma, Sarah, worked herself to the bone at the hospital, treating rich folks’ until she was dead on her feet. She didn’t need more to worry about. When she came home, she didn’t need to see her son curled up under blankets, wheezing like an old man. Steve never liked worrying her.
But what was Steve supposed to do? It wasn’t like he could find work—not when he was so small and sickly that even the old men in the soup line shook their heads at him in pity.
Bucky understood, even if he hated it.
"Here." Bucky dug into his pocket and pulled out the scrap of bread he’d saved from breakfast. "Eat this."
Steve frowned. "What about you?"
"I had somethin’ already." It was a lie, but Bucky was good at those. His little sisters needed the food more than he did, and he could get by. And now Steve needed it more.
Steve looked at him for a long moment, something unreadable in his eyes, before he took it. He ate in slow, measured bites, as if making it last might make it more. Bucky turned his gaze to the street, pretending not to notice the way Steve’s fingers shook.
Bucky watched him, something twisting in his chest. It wasn’t just worry. It was—something else. Something that had always been there, buried under years of scraped knees and bruised knuckles, hiding in the spaces where their shoulders brushed or their fingers caught for just a second too long.
"You’re gettin’ skinnier," Bucky muttered after a while.
Steve swallowed. "No, I’m not."
"Yeah, you are."
Steve shot him a look, but there was no real heat in it. He knew better than to argue when Bucky had that set to his jaw, that determined press of his lips like he was about to do something stupid for Steve’s sake.
Bucky sighed, shifting his weight from foot to foot, changing the subject. "Ma’s worried."
Steve glanced up. "About what?"
"Money, same as everybody else."
Steve didn’t say anything. They both knew what that meant. It meant that Mr. Barnes might not come home with a full day’s pay from the docks. It meant another meal of watered-down broth. It meant listening to their mothers whisper behind closed doors, voices heavy with the kind of worry that kids weren’t supposed to hear but did anyway.
Bucky sighed. "I gotta find work."
Steve scoffed, then winced when it made him cough. "You’re sixteen."
"So?"
"So nobody’s gonna hire you. Why hire a boy when there are men lined up down the street for the same job?"
"Better chances than you got."
Steve scowled, and Bucky smirked. That was the thing about Steve—he could be stubborn as a mule even when his body didn’t back him up. It was easy, slipping into this, the way they always did—Steve getting worked up, Bucky smoothing it over with a grin.
"I’ll find something," Bucky went on. "Sweep floors, run messages—whatever they need. I heard old man Cohan down at the corner store might need help."
Steve wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I could—"
"No, you couldn’t." Bucky's voice softened.
Steve swallowed hard, glancing away. He hated this—hated being small, being weak, being a weight Bucky had to carry. But Bucky never saw it like that.
"Hey," Bucky said, knocking their shoulders together. "We’ll get through this."
Steve let out a slow breath. "Yeah."
The word settled between them, fragile but sure.
They didn’t say what they really meant. They never did.
But Bucky felt it all the same—the way Steve leaned in just a little, the way their hands brushed when they walked. The way Bucky would fight the whole damn world if it meant Steve wouldn’t have to.
“We’ll get through this.” Steve repeated.
Bucky nodded, because that’s what they always said. Even when the cupboards were nearly bare, even when shoes had holes in them, even when their ma’s hands shook from exhaustion—they always said they’d get through.
And maybe they would.
But right now, Brooklyn was cold, and tomorrow was uncertain, and all they had was each other.
For now, that would have to be enough.
~+~
The wind howled down the Brooklyn streets, sharp as a razor against exposed skin. Snow had started falling in the evening, dusting the sidewalks in a deceptive softness that did nothing to dull the bite of the cold. Inside a cramped apartment on the third floor of a tenement building, Sarah Rogers sat hunched over the kitchen table, her fingers red and stiff as she darned a pair of socks. The fire in the stove had burned down hours ago, and there was no coal left to feed it.
As she worked at a pair of Steve’s socks—the wool worn thin at the heels—she tried not to let herself dwell on how threadbare most of their clothing had become. There was no money for new ones. No money for much of anything, really.
Across from her, Steve sat bundled in a threadbare blanket, his nose pink, his thin frame wrapped in too many layers to fight off the chill. His chest rattled with each breath, the congestion sitting heavy in his lungs. It wasn’t as bad as the last time, Sarah told herself. The winter before, when he had burned with fever so fiercely that he had slipped into delirium, mumbling nonsense about knights and heroes and a war only he could see, she had sat beside him all night, praying for his little body to hold on.
He’d pull through. He always did.
A knock at the door made them both start.
“Mrs. Rogers?” came a voice—young, familiar.
Sarah set down her needle and thread, smoothing her hands against her skirt before standing to answer.
James Buchanan Barnes stood in the hallway, his cap pulled low over his dark hair, his coat worn at the elbows but buttoned tight. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and when he smiled, there was a crack in it—something Sarah had seen in plenty of boys these days. A little more worry than a child should carry. The boy had always been tall for his age, built sturdy like his father, but there was something about the way he carried himself that made him seem older than his years. It was in the set of his shoulders, the sharp awareness in his eyes—like he had already learned that the world was not kind to boys who let their guard down.
“James,” she greeted, stepping aside. “Come in, dear.”
He hesitated, scuffing his shoe against the floor, but then his gaze flickered past her to Steve, and he made up his mind.
“Ma wanted me to bring you this.” He pulled a cloth-wrapped bundle from beneath his coat and set it on the table. When Sarah unwrapped it, she found two small rolls, a wedge of cheese, and a handful of dried apple slices. A feast, these days.
Sarah’s throat tightened.
“Oh, James,” she said softly.
“Don’t worry, we got extra,” he assured her, though they both knew that wasn’t true. There was no such thing as extra anymore.
Yet here James was, handing over food as if it wouldn’t make a difference to them. As if he and his mother hadn’t already made the choice to go without so that someone else could have enough.
“You tell your mother thank you,” Sarah said, her voice quiet but firm. “And that I’ll find a way to return the favor.”
Bucky gave a half-smile. “She says you already have.”
Sarah swallowed against the lump in her throat and busied herself with wrapping the food back up.
From his place on the bed, Steve had shifted, his tired blue eyes peeking over the edge of the quilt. “You didn’t have to do that,” he rasped, his voice hoarse from coughing.
Bucky turned, his expression softening just a fraction. “Yeah, well, you’d do the same for me,” he said, crossing the small space to sit on the floor beside the bed. He rested his arms over his knees, his fingers tapping absently against the worn fabric of his trousers. “And besides, Ma says you gotta keep your strength up.”
Sarah pressed a hand over her heart, exhaling a breath to steady herself. She knew Winifred Barnes had more mouths to feed, knew that every scrap counted. Yet here they were, looking after each other the way neighbors did, the way families did when the world turned hard.
“Stay for a bit,” she said. “I’ll warm some water for tea.”
Bucky nodded, his fingers playing with the edge of Steve's blankets.
“Hey, you missed it today,” he said, nudging Steve’s leg. “That guy down on Myrtle Avenue was putting on a show—spitting fire and everything.”
Steve huffed a weak laugh. “Sounds better than spending the day coughing up my lungs.”
Bucky shrugged. “Eh, it was alright. You’d have made some smart remark about how dangerous it was. Probably started one of your speeches about safety.”
Steve rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitched.
Sarah watched them from the stove, listening as Bucky filled the space with stories, his voice lively even when the words hinted at the roughness of the world outside. He talked about the men lined up at the docks, looking for work. About the soup kitchen on the corner running out before half the line got through. About his own father’s hands, raw from the cold, from lifting things too heavy for a man who never quite recovered from the war.
But he also talked about Mrs. Romano’s cat having kittens. About the way the kids down the block had built a snow fort so big it took three of them to knock it down. About how a woman at the market had started singing out of nowhere, and for a few minutes, the whole street had gone quiet just to listen. About how his little sister Rebecca had drawn a picture of their whole family and insisted on tacking it above their table, right where they could see it during dinner.
It wasn’t all bad. It was never all bad.
Sarah poured the tea, rationing out what was left, and sat beside them.
They were hungry, yes. They were cold. The world outside was sharp and uncertain, but for now, there was warmth between them.
And that was all they needed.
~+~
The city smelled of coal smoke and desperation, of bread baking in kitchens that couldn’t afford butter. The streets were lined with tenements where whole families crowded into two rooms, and the nights were filled with the sound of fathers coming home late with their shoulders hunched in defeat, their hands empty of wages.
Snow clung stubbornly to the edges of the sidewalks, dirtied by passing boots, melting just enough during the day to leave everything damp before freezing again at night. The cold bit through threadbare coats and worn-down shoes, and in the worst of the winter months, it felt like the entire borough was holding its breath, waiting for something—anything—to break the tension.
Steve Rogers knew hunger like an old friend. It was the ache in his belly, the weakness in his limbs when he stood too fast, the hollowness behind his ribs that never truly left. He was small, too small for his age, his body worn down by sickness and the cruel hands of bad luck. His mother did her best—God, she tried—but there was only so much she could do when the hospital cut her hours and the rent kept climbing.
James Buchanan Barnes had it better. Not by much, but enough. His father still had work at the docks, and his mother knew how to stretch a dollar so far it seemed like magic. The Barnes apartment was still warm most nights, still filled with the smell of cooking, even if dinner was more water than stew. But even in their home, the fear lingered—what if tomorrow the work dried up? What if his father came home with nothing but an apology? What if they lost the apartment, like so many others had?
It was an unspoken thing between them, the ways their lives mirrored and diverged.
They were sixteen when they first stood in a breadline together. Bucky had resisted at first, scowling at the thought of taking charity, of standing on the corner with men whose eyes were hollowed out by hunger and women who clutched their children close like shields against the cold. But Steve—thin, fragile-looking but somehow still stubborn as hell—had just given him a look and said, “It’s not about pride, Buck. It’s about eatin’.”
And that was that.
They stood together, shoulders hunched against the wind, their breath clouding in the air. Steve’s coat was patched at the elbows, the sleeves too short, barely covering his wrists. Bucky’s wasn’t much better, but at least it fit. The line moved slowly, shuffling forward inch by inch, the promise of a half-loaf of bread enough to keep people standing in the cold for hours.
When they finally got their share, Bucky broke his loaf in half and shoved the larger piece into Steve’s hands.
“Buck—”
“Just take it,” Bucky muttered. “Ma’ll be mad, but I’ll tell her I ate mine on the way home.”
Steve hesitated for only a second before nodding, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I owe you.”
Bucky gave him a lopsided grin. “Damn right, you do.”
That was the way of things. They ran errands for a few cents, hauling coal or carrying groceries for old ladies in the neighborhood. Bucky was always finding ways to scrape together a little extra, sometimes slipping coins into Steve’s pocket when he wasn’t looking. Steve tried to argue about it, but Bucky always waved him off.
“You’d do the same for me,” he said once, when Steve caught him in the act. “So shut up about it.”
Steve had just stared at him for a long moment, something unreadable in his expression, before shaking his head and muttering, “You’re impossible.”
Bucky had only grinned.
Winters were the worst. The coal bucket in the Rogers’ apartment emptied too fast, and there were nights when Steve’s mother wrapped him in every blanket they owned before she left for work, pressing a kiss to his forehead like she could will him to stay warm.
When she got sick, Steve didn’t tell Bucky at first. He just worked harder, shoveling snow until his hands bled, coughing into his sleeve at night when his lungs burned.
But Bucky noticed.
“You look like hell,” he said one evening, sitting beside Steve on the stoop outside his building. His voice was softer than usual, like he was trying not to spook a wounded animal.
Steve shrugged. “Don’t got much of a choice, do I?”
Bucky didn’t answer right away. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of coins, and pressed them into Steve’s palm.
Steve stiffened. “I can’t take this.”
“You can,” Bucky said firmly. “And you will.”
Steve swallowed, staring down at the money. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to buy medicine. Enough to make sure his mother didn’t spend another night shivering and feverish in bed.
“I’ll pay you back,” he murmured.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Sure, punk.”
It was easier, sometimes, not to say what they really meant. Easier to push and tease, to fall into familiar patterns.
But some nights, when the weight of the world pressed too heavily on their shoulders, they climbed to the rooftop of Bucky’s building and sat side by side, staring out over the city.
Brooklyn stretched before them, a patchwork of glowing windows and smoke curling from chimneys. The stars barely cut through the city’s light, but if they tilted their heads just right, they could see them—small, distant things, blinking in the black.
“We’re gonna get out of here someday,” Bucky said once, voice quiet, almost reverent.
Steve exhaled, watching his breath curl into the night air. “Maybe.”
“No maybe,” Bucky insisted. “We will.”
Steve turned to look at him, something tugging at the edges of his chest. Bucky’s face was half-lit by the streetlights below, his hair a little longer than it should’ve been, curling at the ends. His eyes were dark, determined, shining with something Steve couldn’t quite name.
And for a second—for just a second—Steve thought about leaning in.
The thought startled him. He let his head fall back against the rooftop instead, staring up at the sky. “Okay,” he said softly.
Bucky grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
They sat in silence for a while, the cold creeping into their bones, but neither of them moved to leave. The world was quiet up here, away from the crowded streets and the sounds of the city. It was just them and the stars.
~+~
The weight of the world outside still hung heavily over them, the sounds of the city—its clamor, its sorrow, its hunger—echoing just beyond the door of their small apartment. The once warm rays of sunlight had long since faded, replaced by the cold, indifferent twilight of a city that had forgotten to care.
But in here, within the walls that Steve and Bucky had claimed for their own, there was a moment of peace—a rare and precious thing. The air smelled faintly of the bread they’d barely managed to scrape together for dinner, and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall was the only other sound, a steady rhythm that matched their hearts, pulsing in time with one another.
Bucky sat on the small worn couch, his knees drawn up to his chest, his eyes gazing out the window that framed the dimming sky. Steve sat on the arm of the couch beside him, his fingers lightly brushing Bucky’s shoulder. There were things they hadn’t said yet, words that hovered on the edges of their hearts like the dust in the air. But there was no urgency now. They had time, even if it was borrowed time.
“I miss her,” Steve murmured, the loss of Sarah weighing heavily on his chest. “She was… always so sure. Even when things were hard.”
Bucky’s hand shifted, just a little, until his fingers found Steve’s. He squeezed gently, offering silent comfort. “She loved you, Steve. She saw who you really are. She’d be proud of you—of us.”
The words felt like a balm, though the ache of loss would never truly fade. They both knew that, but there was something in Bucky’s voice, something quiet and steady, that made Steve feel like they could make it through the long, uncertain road ahead. Together.
“I keep thinking about how hard it is, Bucky,” Steve admitted, voice thick with emotion. “How hard it is to keep this part of us hidden, even from everyone we’ve known. Even now, after everything... it feels like there’s nowhere we can just... be.”
Bucky didn’t answer right away, and for a long moment, the only sound between them was the rhythmic beating of their hearts. Then, slowly, Bucky’s fingers moved to Steve’s chin, gently turning his face toward him. The gaze between them deepened, unspoken understanding passing between them, the weight of the world momentarily lightened by the truth they both knew.
“We’ll find it,” Bucky said softly. “Maybe not now, maybe not here. But someday, we’ll find a place. A place where we can be honest, where we don’t have to hide.”
Steve’s heart skipped a beat, the words threading their way into the space between them, filling the room with a kind of quiet hope. Maybe it wasn’t impossible. Maybe they could dream of something beyond this fractured world.
Without thinking, Steve leaned closer, the distance between them vanishing like a vapor. His lips brushed against Bucky’s for the first time, light and tentative, as if testing the waters, unsure and yet certain all at once.
Bucky’s breath caught, and he responded, not with words but with an open tenderness that melted Steve’s doubts away. He kissed Steve deeply, slowly, savoring the way their mouths fit together perfectly, as though they’d been made for this moment. The kiss was everything—the release, the confession, the love they’d kept buried for so long, all wrapped up in the simple act of being together.
When they finally broke apart, their foreheads rested together, breaths mingling in the quiet darkness.
“Maybe someday,” Steve whispered, voice full of wonder, “we’ll be able to say it out loud. Maybe someday we won’t have to hide.”
Bucky smiled, a soft, knowing smile, his thumb brushing Steve’s cheek. “Yeah. Maybe someday.”
But for now, in this moment, there was nothing more they needed. No grand gestures, no declarations, just the quiet certainty of two souls, entwined in a world that didn’t always make sense, but made sense in each other’s arms.