Work Text:
✪
“I know who you are,” Mrs. Falucci said, blinking up at Bucky firmly. She had a pretty good murder stare for a lady that was about the size of an ambitious fire hydrant.
Bucky, for his part, hid his panic and continued stocking the drinks cooler. “You firin’ me?”
“I ain’t decided yet,” Mrs. Falucci said, always honest. Maybe that’s why Bucky was drawn to her all those weeks ago when he’d picked a place to start working. “You gonna start attracting bad kinds of people? Am I going to find murdered babies on my back stoop?”
Unfortunately, Bucky deserved that. “Mrs. Falucci,” he tried, hands up. Gloved hands. Hands that had seen so much war – “Mrs. Falucci, I don’t do that anymore. I promise you. But. If you want me to leave, I will. I can be gone in an hour.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “I believe you, Jimmy. You ain’t shown me nothing but hard work and good companionship since I hired you. And good workers are rare nowadays.”
Bucky hesitated, feeling all of six years old again, praying his ma wouldn’t be too upset about the spilled flour. As soon as the thought arrived, his head ached. He couldn’t picture his mother.
“You’re not fired,” she said. “Although keep up leaving the cooler door open like that and I might reconsider.”
Bucky shut the door. “Uh, thanks.”
In classic Mrs. Falucci fashion, that was the end of it. With a hearty sniff she scooped up her box of Cheetos and made for the backroom.
“Wait, ma’am,” Bucky called. “Um—how was it you found out?”
“Oh,” his boss said, cocking her head thoughtfully. “That nice Captain America made a speech on the television. I did the rest of the sleuthing myself.” She sounded proud.
Well. That was a new development to say the least. “Fuck,” Bucky said to the rows of bottled water and energy drinks.
“Watch that tongue, Mr. Winter Soldier!” Mrs. Falucci hollered. “I don’t care how many years you were brainwashed; I know your mother taught you better than that.”
The situation was dire, and it called for covert ops. Bucky waited until his lunch break and snuck into the back storeroom to flip open his laptop and do a quick google search. Google was possibly the best thing about the 21st Century. Oh, it’d taken Bucky a few days to figure it out, but basically by messing around and watching others, Bucky was able to learn pretty much anything.
Including Italian, although it turned out he already knew most of it, which was probably why Mrs. Falucci hired him in the first place. “Where’d you learn to speak?” she’d asked in his interview.
Bucky had opened his mouth and frozen. The correct answer, the one he meant to say, was oh, my dad was Italian. Nondescript, vague, perfect. Even truthful. But before he could stop himself, different words flooded out to take their place.
“Job I had as a kid, I worked with a lotta guys who didn’t speak much English. You pick things up, although if I start talkin’ about car parts, you’ll know I exceeded my limit, Ma’am.”
Then he’d winked. Winked.
“Just from listening to friends?”
“And my dad was Italian,” Bucky heard himself saying. “Guess I got the genes for it?”
Mrs. Falucci’s lips twitched. “Guess you got a head for trouble, young man.”
“Don’t I know it, Ma’am.”
Maybe that was why she’d hired him.
Bucky knew a lot more than he had a few months ago when he’d crawled out of the river in D.C. with a dislocated arm and not much else. He’d run then, left Captain America to bleed out in the mud, and somewhere in there he’d undergone a terrible withdrawal from whatever they’d pumped into him, and he’d woken up in New York City.
What was it they said about horses and the direction of home?
Without all those drugs, the memory stuff had started flooding back in. Which was a laugh and a half, squatting in some leased flat that wouldn’t know a proper air conditioner if it had eyeballs, so Bucky had battened down the hatches and gone out to get himself a job.
Enter Falucci’s Corner Store.
In the backroom, surrounded by pallets of water bottles and boxes of candy, Bucky pulled up Captain America’s newest speech.
He was focusing so hard on not having a panic attack that he almost missed the first bit, which contained several dick reporters making wild accusations about motives during the Triasklon fight, and damages and suing and responsibilities, and then finally, the Winter Soldier.
Steve squared his shoulders in the video, and Bucky found himself anxiously balling the hem of his t-shirt up. “Don’t do it, Steve,” he said, even though he knew it was already done and Steve had always taken the high road anyway.
“The Winter Soldier was not responsible for his actions,” Steve said, and cameras clicked and flashed. “He is a prisoner of war that has been brainwashed and tortured for decades. Which is why I’m going to do my best to find him and make sure he can come home. If that’s what he wants.”
“What is he to you?” someone yelled.
Steve’s face flickered. Bucky nearly got a nosebleed from the déjà vu of it all. Steve’s face, Bucky’s vicious reaction, then the result. And explosion.
“We have ample proof,” Steve began, and then stopped himself. “The Winter Soldier,” Steve tried again. “His record and—”
Bucky put his head in his hands. He nearly missed it when the title was replaced by his god given name for all the world to hear.
“Thank you for your time,” Steve said, and then turned and walked off the stage. When he was almost out of the shot, his shoulders slumped like he was trying not to cry. Bucky paused the video.
Everyone knew. Everyone knew Bucky Barnes hadn’t died when he’d fallen off that train all those years ago. Everyone knew the Winter Solider was still out there, haunting the streets, looking for revenge, death, reconciliation, or maybe all three.
Bucky shut his laptop and went back out front to work the register. “That’ll be three seventy-nine,” he told a high schooler cheerfully.
He wasn’t mad.
He wasn’t. He knew, deep down inside him, that Steve had always done that, always spoken the truth no matter what it cost him, and it was somewhat reassuring to see it with his own eyes again, like Bucky’s memories were right. He was right, and his intel was still good. This was hardly the worst thing Steve had ever done, if Bucky’s intel continued to be right; the time he’d ripped one of Bucky’s baseball cards had been much more unforgivable.
It would benefit Bucky later, likely, to be reinstated as a living person. He could get stuff by being a living person, like a trial or a driver’s license. What he could also get was jailed for life, but oh well.
And no one other than Mrs. Falucci had linked up the old-war-hero-turned-assassin with the scruffy guy who hauled Gatorade crates around a bodega in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. No one yet.
Bucky decided there were worse places to be, and to stick it out and pretend nothing had changed.
That was when Captain America himself walked into Falucci’s Corner Store.
✪
Bucky was in the back room when it happened. He’d gone looking for more Flamin’ Hot Cheetos at the behest of some dead-eyed college kid, and was somewhat pleased in a viciously mean way, that alas, they were all out.
He picked up a box of Super Spicy Ramen Cups because it was nice to offer a replacement when you couldn’t fulfill the original request and barged back through the door. The college kid was waiting by the register and didn’t even flinch when Bucky slammed the box down with a rattle.
“Sorry, no more Hot Cheetos,” Bucky said. “Can I interest you in some hot ramen?”
“Ah, it’s okay,” the kid muttered. “I’ll go look elsewhere.”
Bucky eyed the ramen cups with some distaste himself. He’d had real ramen, the kind in fancy Japanese restaurants, and he’d also had the kind serious Asian grocery stores carried, and the kind Mrs. Falucci stocked was neither. The package wasn’t really selling itself either, with a lukewarm looking plate of limp noodles on the lid, along with microwave instructions.
Cheap fake ramen cups were one of the worst things about the 21st Century.
Sighing, Bucky bent over and dumped the box behind the register. He’d take it back next time he went. Something thumped down on the counter, and he straightened up in one move, picked up the junk and scanned it.
“Seven even,” he said, and then froze.
Steve Rogers stared back at him. He wore surprise well, although if Bucky’s healing memories served him, he wore just about everything well. He was dressed in workout gear, and the messiness of his hair said he was likely on his way back. He’d put several things on Bucky’s counter, one of which was a tube of chips. Ringles, or something, Bucky sure as hell wasn’t looking now.
“Do you have sour candy?” Steve blurted, and wow, he still had as much suaveness as a hippo barreling through an airport.
Bucky meant to say what the hell are you doing here, is there a SWAT team outside I should know about? But what he actually said was, “Aisle three.”
“Thanks,” Steve gasped out, and vanished down aisle three. Only he didn’t really vanish, Bucky could still see the top of his head. Mrs. Falucci liked aisles built for children, said she could spot shoplifters more easily. Bucky didn’t really have a horse in the race, but he had to admit it was nice, keeping tabs on certain people.
Steve stayed in aisle three longer than most people would have. Then again, Steve had vacationed in the artic longer than most people would have too. Steve did everything bigger, faster, and better, the little showoff.
Bucky wasn’t paid enough for this shit.
He had several options. 1, make a break for it right then before Steve could regroup and report back to his potential SWAT entourage. 2, Wait it out, see if he could catch Steve at whatever plan he had. 3, confront the problem head on, and demand answers.
Steve returned with a package of Extra Sour Lifesavers.
“If those things actually saved your life, you could buy ‘em all,” Bucky said, his mouth grinning before he could chop all the memos from his brain. “Hell, I’d give ‘em to you, free of charge, if it’d stop you from nearly dying all the time.”
Apparently, there was option 4, which was bad flirting with no escape plan. Bucky was a lunatic, Bucky was a moron, and if he hadn’t been himself, he would have shot himself. Well, actually, that was still option 5.
“Uh,” Steve said stupidly. Then he got a bullheaded look so familiar that Bucky got a migraine, and opened his mouth to say something awful no doubt, when the door jingled and about three separate customers came in.
Steve’s mouth snapped shut as he backed off. “I just remembered something else.” He set the sour lifesavers on his pile of stuff. “Can you hold these for me real quick?”
God, the accent leeching back into his voice…it made Bucky wanna do things. The biggest urge was to claw out his own eyeballs in agony, but he sternly stopped that kind of thought.
“No problem,” Bucky said, smiling sweetly. Saved by the bell, for now.
Customer number one was a slightly overweight guy in a slouchy hat who came right up to the counter with a couple bottles of soda. Direct and quick, Bucky respected that in a man.
“Nice choices,” he said, because knowing Steve was lurking in aisle three had him doing all kinds of dumb things. “I especially love…uh, Mountain Dew.”
Bucky had no idea what Mountain Dew was. It sounded nice, but the bottle was worrisome. Electric green was never a good sign. Bucky hoped the guy wasn’t going to quiz him on the subtleties of the drink. Maybe Mountain Dew was like wine nowadays.
The guy gave him a weird look and took his change without a word.
Customer number two came up and asked for ramen cups. Bucky eyed her most disapprovingly before bending over and sweeping the box on the counter like he’d known she would want it. “I’ll take the whole box, can you give me a discount?” she peeped cheerfully.
“Sure,” Bucky said, fluctuating between feeling sorry for her and also wanting to offer a shrink’s number. Not that he had a shrink’s number, it was the spirit of it. “Ten percent off.”
Customer number 3 had a customer number 4 hanging off her hip. Straight black hair, tied off with two tiny rubber bands, and large pink overalls. Bucky smiled at the toddler and received a wide eyed stare in return. Her mother had watched the ramen transaction with pain in her eyes, and Bucky grimaced at her sympathetically.
“No fake ramen for you?” he said before he could think better of it. Damn Steve Rogers in aisle three distracting him.
“No thank you,” the mother said, jiggling her daughter. “Phyllis, can you give him the batteries?”
The toddler didn’t move. Bucky wriggled the fingers of his real hand at her. She went to wave herself, and dropped the batteries she was clutching. Her mom caught them and handed them to Bucky.
“One eighty,” he said, and took her credit card. The toddler was still watching him, so he made a face at her.
“Are you single?” the mom said abruptly. In aisle three, something fell to the ground with a loud crash.
Bucky pasted on a smile. “Well, sort of, but—”
“I know it’s awfully forward of me,” the mom added immediately. “But I’d love to get coffee sometime, if you wanted.”
Bucky handed back her card along with the receipt. “I’m flattered, Miss, but I don’t really…uh…swing your way.”
“Oh. No worries. Have a nice day!”
She was barely through the door before a certain someone was standing in front of the counter with a package of bubble gum clutched tightly, still staring with a surprised look on his face.
“Your total is now nine thirty-five,” Bucky said helpfully.
Steve handed over the cash. Bucky handed over the change.
“Have a nice day,” Bucky said, all that bad flirting gone. All he was left with was the blank scaffolding of his customer service script.
“Uh, you too,” Steve said, because his mother taught him basic decency. And then, the pleasantries out of the way, he had no choice but to make his way out. He stopped at the doors, stood ramrod straight with his bag in one hand. Then he pulled open the door and vanished out into the sunlight.
Bucky collapsed against the counter and sucked in a breath.
✪
When Steve was twelve, he’d gone through what he liked to call a Prone to Slightly Overthinking Phase. It was what most other people nowadays would call an Abandonment Issues Anxiety Attack, but that was beside the point. The phase had begun by Steve refusing to go to school with an angry vehemence that had startled his poor mother, and when both explanatory cajoling and exhausted scolding hadn’t worked, she’d given up, kissed him on the head, and left for work.
Steve spent the whole day in a funk. He was good at funks, they were one of the few things he was actually good at, and he was somewhat placated by the fact that if he was being a ninny, he was doing a damn good job at it.
Bucky rapped on the door as soon as school got out.
Steve promptly put his pillow over his head and ignored it until Bucky went away. It backfired on him though, because right as he was letting his guard down and relaxing back into his bed, the window slammed open, and Bucky clambered through.
“There you are, you punk,” he said, loud voice filling the room. “You sick or somethin’?”
“Why are you here, Bucky?”
Bucky frowned, one foot still out the window. “Cause you missed school and I was worried about you.”
“Making sure I’m really sick?” Steve demanded. “Did the nuns send ya?”
“No,” Bucky said slowly, closing the window and facing Steve. “I came cause I missed you.”
Steve couldn’t believe it. “You already saved me from the Thompson kid, you brought me home when I was hurt over and over, you’re done! Why are you still here?”
His mother had come home at the end of the day to find Steve still sobbing in bed and Bucky sitting dejectedly on the other side of his door, having refused to leave Steve alone, but also wanting not to crowd him. They hadn’t known he could hear them in the kitchen.
“He doesn’t want me here,” Bucky said blankly, likely sitting at the table with Sarah Rogers.
“Did he say that?”
Steve lifted his head out of his pillow to hear better.
“Basically.”
Steve’s mother sighed loud enough to be heard through the door. That sigh could probably be heard all the way to Coney Island. “Steve doesn’t do basically, Jaime Barnes. Steve does yes and no. You know this.”
“Don’t mean it ain’t hard to talk to him,” Bucky grumbled, and Sarah hadn’t said anything to that, which meant she agreed.
Steve rolled over and tried to block out life itself but they weren’t done.
“He asked me why I’m still here.”
“Oh, Jaime. Steve…Steve’s never had a friend before. I think he doesn’t quite know what to do with one now that you’re here.”
“He doesn’t believe me?”
Sarah was quiet. “He doesn’t believe in himself,” she said finally, voice so quiet Steve could barely hear her.
Steve couldn’t remember much changing after that conversation. Bucky had walked home from school with Steve every day and they’d played till dusk, and then at some point, Steve grew up and had bigger things to worry about than whether or not Bucky liked him for real or just pretend.
Bucky was good at affection, had grown up learning it at his parents’ knees, and he showed it in all the ways he could. The main thing was that Steve had a very different idea of what love was and they were at each other’s throats about it more often than not.
Looking back, Steve could see that when Bucky shook him around the shoulders, it was because he couldn’t say all the things in his heart. But back then it had felt like Bucky mocking him, throwing him around, another cruel trick to point out just how wonderful and perfect Bucky was in comparison to poor, stupid Steve.
Hindsight, Steve thought, was one of the universe’s cruelest tricks.
Maybe you’re hallucinating and that’s not Bucky at all but some lucky kid who looks enough alike. But he’d had the same scraggly haircut, the same eyes. Steve wasn’t that crazy, was he?
Maybe he doesn’t remember you. Maybe the swim in the Potomac injured him further and he doesn’t remember. The guy at the bodega hadn’t looked at him like everyone else though; stared right through him like he didn’t exist. He’d looked irritated and then teasing and confused.
Steve had just been trying to get some more calories in before dinner. Steve was always hungry, and he was too good at tuning it out – years of the Depression trained him well –and then he’d nearly pass out, or bite someone’s head off. Not a good look for someone who was supposed to be leading the world’s elitist protection team.
Although why Steve was still the one leading, he wasn’t sure.
When Steve needed more food though, he could go back. See if Bucky had bolted, see if he would recognize him, even as a second time customer. Steve had never been to Falucci’s Corner Store before; it was another little shop in Brooklyn, it hadn’t been special.
It was special now.
Steve trudged back to the Avengers Tower. It was an awful name for a building as ugly as sin, but whenever he tried to raise either subject, Tony would start blaring music and ignore him. Steve wasn’t sure why Tony hadn’t punched him yet, to be honest, and a small part of him was eagerly waiting for it.
Another small part of him that sort of had Bucky’s angry eighteen-year-old voice, told him to sit down and shut up, and didn’t he get punched on a daily basis enough?
His Pringles and Lifesaver candies were gone by the time he made it back to Manhattan. But he’d gotten the gum, mostly to eavesdrop on Bucky, and also so he could chew it whenever he couldn’t get access to food right away.
He took the stairs instead of the elevator up to the common floor. He could leap from rail to rail, and it was slightly slower but he felt the need to burn off some steam.
“Hey,” he said, making for Natasha Romanoff where she was spilled on a barstool, elegantly slurping a smoothie. The smoothie was bright green, otherwise it would’ve looked appetizing. People sure did seem to drink disgusting-looking liquids a lot nowadays.
“Hey yourself,” she said without looking up. That was Steve’s favorite thing about Natasha – everything was beneath her, which meant she didn’t care about anything, which meant she didn’t care what Steve did, which meant she didn’t care who Steve was.
He sat next to her. “Any news?”
“Sorry, pal,” she drawled, giving him her full attention and putting the smoothie down. “Like I told you a few hours ago, my contacts’ trail went cold in Prague. Tracking a ghost isn’t the easiest job in the book.”
“No, I’m sorry, I know,” Steve said, hopefully conveying his gratitude the same way he would’ve if he wasn’t ninety-nine percent sure that Bucky Barnes was nowhere near Prague. “Thanks for all you’re doing, Natasha.”
Her gaze softened the barest inch. “I know it’s terrible to feel like you’re doing nothing waiting for news. I’m glad you got out on a walk today – where’d you go?”
“Brooklyn.” Steve smiled, showing her what she wanted to see.
It worked. She smiled back and turned to her smoothie. “I’ll let you know the moment I hear more.”
Sue him, but Steve didn’t exactly plan on waiting around.
✪
Bucky was furtive when he opened up shop the following day. He wasn’t a total amnesiac anymore, thank you, and if he remembered anything, it was that Steve Rogers was a stubborn sonuvabitch.
But there was no sign of him. Unlocking the front door and flipping the sign to open, Bucky abruptly remembered that Steve Rogers also slept like the dead if no one woke him, and contrary to popular belief on The Internet, didn’t go for 6am hell jogging sprees unless he’d had a nightmare.
Odds were, Bucky was safe for another few hours yet. He pushed the grates up, unlocked the register, and settled behind the counter to wait for the early morning rush. He grabbed a magazine. There was a pile of them behind the register, likely for waiting out the early morning rush.
Mrs. Falucci’s second employee was a teenager, and the girl was fond of popping bubble gum and flipping through magazines in a way that screamed I’m bored by everything.
Bucky could make himself look like anything in the book, and he had to admit that bored by everything was pretty decent camouflage in Brooklyn New York. Hence his reading.
There were about three commuters and a starved college kid in the shop when the door banged open and Bucky, nearly diving off his stool in fright, happened to look up and see it was not one (1) tall Caucasian man with muscles the size of moderate watermelons, but one (1) tiny middle aged Latina woman with muscles the size of moderate lemons. She was holding a plastic bag and she looked angry.
Bucky set his magazine aside carefully. “Can I help ya?”
She stared, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was scrutinizing him head to…waist, or whatever it was she could see over the counter. Bucky thought of dumb old Captain America’s little television revelation of the previous day and wondered if he was about to get the Feds called on him.
“You seem like a smart young man,” the woman finally said, her English accented. Bucky wondered if he ought to respond in Spanish. Either she’d like that or she’d call the Feds faster, it wasn’t clear. “Clever enough to see good deal when it is offered.”
“Thank you,” Bucky said. In aisle one, a commuter knocked a bag of chips on to the floor and cursed loudly before picking it up.
The little Latina woman heaved the plastic bag up on to the counter. A truly sinful smell wafted up from it; heat and chilis and lime and onion and cilantro and some kind of meat.
Bucky couldn’t help it. He inhaled.
When he opened his eyes, the woman was smiling evilly, like she knew she had him hook line and sinker. Now hang on, Bucky scolded himself. You are the Winter Soldier. You also had to bargain with Mr. Goldstein every week to get the price of potatoes down and that man was a miser. Don’t give in so quickly.
“Mrs. Falucci doesn’t make a deal with me,” the woman went on, tsking mournfully. “She is a fool. But I think you and I, we come to better arrangement, yes?”
“What do you want,” Bucky asked warily.
The woman leaned over the counter. For someone at the five feet mark, she was a serious force. “I trade you tacos for the chocolate knots.” She pointed dramatically.
Bucky followed her gaze to the bright blue bags hanging near the door. Chocolate Covered Pretzels. “You wanna trade tacos for chocolate pretzels?”
“Yes.”
“I mean, this isn’t my shop,” Bucky hastened to explain. “The pretzels would be coming out of my paycheck –”
She cut him off. “Two tacos for one bag.”
Bucky blinked. “No more than five bags at a time.”
“Fine,” she scoffed, which probably meant he should’ve asked for more but oh well. He was rusty, okay?
“Deal.”
They shook. “I am Lucia Santiago. You come and say for me and you can get discounted dinner. Is ten tacos in the bag now, I will take five chocolate knots.”
Bucky nodded and took the bag. “Gracias, Mrs. Santiago. See you around.”
She gave him one last shrewd look and left, taking her pretzels with her as she went. A commuter came up to the counter with a coffee and box of tampons, and Bucky rang her up.
Mrs. Santiago had bitten off a little more than she knew, offering a discounted dinner to a super soldier, but Bucky decided right then and there he wouldn’t ever mention it. He’d gotten the job at the corner shop so he’d have access to plenty of protein bars over the day, and half a meal of tacos was certainly a step up from no tacos at all.
Bucky counted down the minutes to his lunch break and then took the tacos to the small park down the street.
The tacos, to put it bluntly, were ecstasy. Bucky inhaled three and then unexpectedly remembered he’d spent the first fifteen years of his life forbidden to eat pork until he’d put his foot down with his parents. He’d climbed in through Steve’s window and said, “My parents agreed I don’t gotta keep kosher outside of their house, wanna go get some Chinese food?”
Bucky ate another taco. Oil slid down his fingers and he licked it off. Maybe Mrs. Santiago would teach him how to make them – they couldn’t be that hard, with the right spices on hand. Corn tortillas, some kind of seasoned meat, chopped onions and cilantro. Bucky could live on nothing else.
Mrs. Falucci was a smart woman, but Bucky wondered if maybe she needed her head examined, turning down a deal like this. Tacos were maybe the best thing about the 21st Century.
Around 2pm, Steve came back.
Mrs. Falucci was behind the register, and Bucky was unboxing band aids in Aisle two. Steve walked in right past the counter and down aisle two. Bucky was ready, Bucky was so prepared to give him a glare and send him packing.
“You got any – uh –” Steve darted a hand out and grabbed the first package off the shelf without looking. “Any different kinds of – uh. Condoms?”
His face turned the loveliest shade of pink. Bucky just looked at him.
“I’m shopping for a friend,” Steve said. “No wait, that’s worse. Yep, they’re for me. I need a smaller size, please, thank you.”
He really sucked at lying when he got flustered. Bucky already remembered that, but it was delightful to have the evidence laid out in front of him so cleanly.
“You forgetting a few years and a few hundred pounds?” Bucky heard himself saying. No, no, no, abort. “No wonder that shirt is a crime scene.”
Steve looked down at himself, and Bucky finished with the band aids and crushed the box between his fists.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Mrs. Falucci yelled. “Don’t waste a perfectly good box like that. I can still fire you, you know!”
“Um,” Steve said.
Bucky spun and went out back to throw out the no longer perfect box. The next box that needed unpacking was literally condoms. Great. Bucky grabbed it and the box of ibuprofen tablets and headed back out like he was marching to a battlefield.
Steve was still in aisle two. All the aborting in Bucky’s head vanished, replaced with something much more dangerous, more dangerous even then the flirting. Bucky hid his smirk and marched over, opening box number one wide.
“Can I interest you in our selection?” he asked, like he was peddling fancy soaps or something.
Steve stared down at the rows of packages. “Wow, such variety.”
“Mrs. Falucci sells only the best,” Bucky agreed, trying not to burst out laughing. He suddenly remembered playing make believe with his little sister – both of them trying to outdo each other in acting like competent grownups. I’m a fully qualified doctor, Bucky would say, chest puffed up importantly. Please, allow me to cut open your leg with this pie knife.
“You plannin’ a special occasion?” Bucky said when Steve offered no more. “You’ll want to go for more than one kind, I reckon.”
“I do like blue,” Steve said, picking up a blue package as though it was balloon colors and not just another brand of condoms.
“Jimmy, stop assaulting the customers,” Mrs. Falucci complained from the counter.
Steve’s lips quirked and Bucky had to turn away and throw the ibuprofen up on the shelves so he wouldn’t lose his shit in the middle of aisle two.
“I might need a reminder how to use these,” Steve said, and dammit, he’d overcome his confused embarrassment and now he was going to try and out-shit Bucky. “You got any tips for me?”
Bucky nearly crushed an ibuprofen bottle. “I’m not so easy as that, old man. You want tips you gotta pay for ‘em.”
Steve grinned and put back both packs, no longer pretending. “Actually, do you have any sliced ham?”
“I know a ham,” Bucky said under his breath, but pointed Steve in the right direction.
Mrs. Falucci stuck a hand out when he passed her. “Jimmy, you like him, don’t you?”
Bucky stared. How could he explain to this kind old woman that no, he wasn’t talking that way to Steve because he liked him, it was because Steve was Captain America and Bucky had maybe spent so long giving him trouble that he didn’t quite know how to stop?
Because apparently Steve’s stupid cap and civilian clothes shtick worked, and Mrs. Falucci had no idea who he was.
“Don’t worry,” she said, wrongly interpreting his silence. “Nowadays, all that’s alright, dear.”
“Oh,” Bucky said like a moron, like he hadn’t learned that early on through a lot of confusing internet searches. “Um.”
Steve appeared and thumped down two packages of the most expensive brand of their lunch meat. “Hello, Ma’am, how are you doing today?”
Mrs. Falucci blushed. Blushed. Bucky was quite possibly going to kill everyone and then himself. “Well, thank you, young man,” she said, ringing him up. “Jimmy and I were just talking about what a nice day it is for a walk. Do you like taking walks?”
“Jimmy, huh?” Steve said, eyes laughing. “I haven’t been on a good walk in a while, Ma’am, but I suppose that’s no reason not to try again.”
“Jimmy loves walks,” Mrs. Falucci said with a wink that was subtle to no one, except maybe Captain Oblivious. “I’m sure he’d show you around, if you asked.”
Bucky pointedly crushed the ibuprofen box with his left hand. Shouldn’t Mrs. Falucci be concerned about the Winter Soldier taking out what seemed like a totally normal guy? As far as she knew, Steve would turn up murdered in an alleyway afterwards.
“Maybe I will, sometime,” Steve said, scooping his ham and pocketing his wallet. “See you around, Jimmy.”
Steve was fucking with Bucky on purpose. Steve was doing it on purpose. Where was the dumb nincompoop who could barely get a word out for all his stammering?
Mrs. Falucci nudged him after Steve had gone. “He didn’t say no…”
“Mrs. Falucci, I say this with the utmost fondness for you,” Bucky said blankly, “But you are a no good busybody from hell. Let me get that off the shelf for you, Ma’am.”
✪
“Sam,” Steve said on Wednesday, slowing down enough that they could talk comfortably. “How do you tell when someone’s purposefully being a dick to you?”
“You mean when they lap you thirty-eight times on your morning run?” Sam bit out, sarcasm dripping off him right along with the sweat.
Steve shook his head, purposely being a dick. “Nah, not that.”
When they were done, Steve keeping pace with Sam for his cooldown, Sam picked the conversation right up. “Someone being a dick to you? I gotta kick someone’s ass?”
Steve ducked his head and grinned, pleased at being cared for, even if he didn’t need it. “I think I’ll do the ass kicking myself. Once I’m sure it’s on purpose.”
“Is this like that subway guy again?”
They’d been on the subway and a guy who was probably five years older than Steve had started asking him all kinds of obnoxious questions, and right before Sam could jump in, Steve had recognized the glint in the guy’s eye and asked him point blank if he enjoyed stewed cabbage or broiled better when he jerked off on it. Steve couldn’t tell which was better – the guy’s laugh and handshake, or Sam’s horrified face.
“No, not like that,” he answered, chuckling at the memory. He’d been lucky enough that no videos had surfaced of the event. It was a tossup who would have more fun with that audio clip, the media or Tony Stark.
Sam grabbed Steve and wrestled him into a headlock as punishment, effectively ending their running session. Steve grinned and smacked and eventually called uncle.
“Man, I really made it my life’s work to smack some sense into idiot white boys,” Sam said, shaking his head ruefully. “You wanna grab lunch?”
“No thank you,” Steve said, brain flying miles away and over the bridge. “I got an errand to run.”
Here was the plan. Steve hadn’t been the tactical genius of World War Two to realize that the plan maybe had a few flaws, a few gaping flaws, if you were being unkind, but it was a decent plan, and that counted for something.
Didn’t it?
The plan was: Steve goes back to the tower and changes into an obnoxiously small pair of running shorts. Why they were called running shorts who knew, Steve certainly wouldn’t ever go running in such things, but hey. They were for the plan. Then, coupled with a really thin white t-shirt, Steve would go back to Falucci’s Corner Store and casually buy something and walk out again without saying a word to Bucky.
Maybe he would say something though, if he had to.
Because Jimmy was Bucky, Steve was pretty sure. Steve was ninety-nine percent sure. And if Jimmy was Bucky, well then Steve was prepared to give as good as he got.
The biggest flaw in the goddamn plan came from Steve’s own arrogance. Because it became painfully obvious as soon as he pushed open the door, that Steve was a buffoon. A total numbskull.
Bucky wasn’t working today. Instead, behind the register was Mrs. Falucci and a teenaged girl snapping on gum.
And Steve was basically naked. Great.
He could hear his mother’s voice in his head – the phrase on your own head be it, comes to mind, Steve dear – and she was probably right, so Steve made for the coolers at the back. If he’d made this grave, the least he could do was be comfortable in it.
He took two bottles of ginger ale up to the register. Ginger ale could likely fix any problem, although Steve’s legs looking like abnormal stilts in a pair of tiny purple shorts was a big one, that was for sure.
“Oh, hello again,” Mrs. Falucci crowed when she saw him. “I’m afraid it’s Jimmy’s day off.”
Steve ignored the way she’d said that immediately, and documented the information. Wednesday meant no Bucky. Never come here on a Wednesday.
“Kaye will ring you up, uh…”
“Steve,” Steve said brightly, handing Kaye his credit card. Kaye blew an unimpressed bubble and swiped his card with a bored expression. “I like your haircut.”
Kaye looked up. “Mine?”
“Yeah.” Steve smiled, hoping he was conveying his sincerity. It was short, almost as short as Steve’s, but with long brown bangs over her forehead that made Steve somewhat miss the time when he’d had bangs. Kaye’s bangs were also stained purple at the ends, which was a little ambitious for Steve, but still.
“Uh, thanks,” Kaye said, and handed him a receipt.
“Jimmy will be back again tomorrow,” Mrs. Falucci said with a grin that was all too knowing. Did she know who Steve was? “Dear, before you go, I wonder if you might be able to do me a favor?”
Steve paused. “Of course.”
Mrs. Falucci led him over to a shelf of canned goods on the wall. “There’s a can that’s tipped over and rolled to the back there, can you see it?”
Steve stuck his hand in and rummaged around.
“Oh, thank you, Steve. Normally I’d wait for Jimmy, since neither Kaye nor my strength lies in our height, but since you’re here…”
Steve retrieved the runaway can and handed it to her. “I’ll see you later,” he said, and then remembered his skimpy outfit and wanted to die.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she said, and waved till he was out of sight.
Steve went back as fast as possible and booked it up the stairs to change before anyone could see him. God, he didn’t want to think about how long Tony would laugh.
Finally safe in a real pair of pants, Steve opened a ginger ale and plotted.
So, Bucky didn’t work on Wednesdays. Where was he then? He must have an apartment somewhere in the city, and probably close by. Steve would have to counter him; Steve would need an apartment too. Then think of all the messing with Bucky he could do. No more trekking back to the Tower, he could go every day and drop by, and have a real reason too.
Steve pulled up real estate listings in Brooklyn, and his phone rang.
It took him a moment to find it; he’d left it in his bedroom that morning and totally forgotten to take it when he went running or to the bodega. Whoops.
“Hope I’m not interrupting things,” Natasha said snappishly when he answered.
“Sorry,” Steve said. He just couldn’t remember to take the damn thing with him wherever he went the way people nowadays did. “What’s up, buttercup?”
Natasha sniffed. “That’s not a forties thing. You’re just messing with me.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just said out of nowhere, “The Winter Solider is in Munich.”
Steve was ashamed of it, but he spilled ginger ale down his white t-shirt. “Dang, that’s really see-through,” he muttered, ripping it off and padding down the hall to the washing machine.
“Did you just say something that wasn’t oh my god Natasha is he okay?” Natasha asked. “Honestly, I’m impressed.”
“Sorry,” Steve said again. “Did you say Munich? As in Germany?”
Natasha hummed. “Yup. He likely finished business in Prague and then came here. Some sort of European revenge tour. It’s happened before.”
Steve blinked. Bucky had definitely not been in Prague yesterday. Or Monday. Bucky had been cursing his way around a small store in Brooklyn. “Have you seen him?”
“Yes. He’s not wearing their uniform anymore – no mask. He just drops in, liberates another hidden base and disappears into the smoke.”
Steve frowned. “How long does it take to fly from JFK International to Munich?”
“Eight or nine hours, and no, Steve, you may not come.”
It wasn’t totally out of the question…Steve needed more information. Steve needed to go in again, scope out the situation.
“Steve?” Natasha said in his ear. “You okay?”
“Thanks for letting me know,” Steve said, his voice sounding a little funny even to himself. “Keep me posted, okay?”
Natasha sighed. “Okay. But Steve…you have to prepare yourself for the worst. He may never want to come home.”
Steve was pretty damn sure Bucky was paying a goddamn mortgage in Brooklyn New York. “Okay, Natasha,” he said, and clicked on a rental link.
✪
There was a cat, on Thursday. Bucky took out the trash and when he came back, someone had let a cat in. “Hey, who let the cat in?” he hollered, replacing the trash bags angrily. He ripped the first one, his metal hand puncturing right through the thin plastic. That made him grumpier, and then he had to do the second one gently, and that made him grumpier still.
Really, Munich had been a nightmare and a half. When most people had a day off from work, they spent it relaxing and buying groceries, not racing halfway around the world to randomly blow up a few things to keep people on a fake trail and not your real one.
Those people probably had a point. Relaxation sounded much more relaxing than blowing up things in Germany.
“Who let the cat in?” Bucky bellowed again, trash bags finally in place.
Kaye was behind the counter flipping through a magazine. “Not me.”
“So it was Mrs. Falucci, is that what you’re telling me?”
Kaye didn’t look up. “Or it was you.”
Oh, that was a good one. Bucky resisted the urge to throw a pair of socks embroidered with the empire state building at her, and stomped to aisle one, where the cat was sitting, carefully licking its paw.
“Hey, fucker,” Bucky said accusingly. “Get out.”
“Don’t let Mrs. Falucci hear you talking like that,” Kaye said tonelessly.
The cat was gray, light gray, with a pink nose. She opened her tiny mouth and meowed prettily.
“You’re breakin’ my heart, Ella Fitzgerald,” Bucky said, making shooing motions. “Get out.” He chased the damn cat out the front door, where she left haughtily, like it had been her intention all along.
Right as Bucky was unloading the stupid tourist socks on to the rack, the door swung open cheerily and Steve Rogers walked in with a stupid smile on his face and his hands in his pockets.
Bucky dropped a pair of socks that said I heart NY. Steve’s eyes flicked down to them. Bucky casually kicked them under the rack. Steve raised his eyebrows.
He was sucking on a lollipop.
Bucky glared at him.
“Hi Kaye,” Steve said, and walked past Bucky into the shop. Kaye, the damn traitor, summoned a lukewarm smile and a half wave for him. Bucky waited until he was out of sight, and then bent and picked up the socks.
Bucky was organizing the Gatorades by the color wheel when Steve popped by. He leaned against the chilled teas and coffees cooler in a manner that fooled no one. He was still slurping on that damn lollipop.
“How’s your day been?”
Bucky nearly dropped a bottle of yellow, but caught it. He had excellent reflexes. If Steve wanted to play, then fine. Bucky could play. “I’ll admit I’m a little worn out today. Had a big night last night.”
“Me too,” Steve said, and though Bucky was the one making insinuations, his thoughts immediately jumped to what Steve could possibly mean by that. Was he out dancing? They still had dancing nowadays, didn’t they? Who was he with – was he with someone else? Maybe the Black Widow, who was always with him on the television.
“Well ain’t we a pair,” Bucky said, to stall for time. He set a bottle of white next to the yellow, enjoying the way they blended together at the edges.
Steve huffed and took the lollipop out to say, “Partying to a soundtrack of nightmares followed by a round of lukewarm coffee, am I right?”
Oh. That was what Steve meant. Bucky looked up at him, words of comfort instantly bubbling up only to be frozen in their tracks at the sight of Steve’s lips, stained purple. “Uh,” Bucky said unintelligently, his brain now screaming alert alert his lips are purple!!
“Unless you don’t mean that kind of night,” Steve continued on, unaware of the slight calamity he was causing. “And you mean eight hours of air travel, cause that sure can be a bitch.”
Bucky shook his head to clear it. “What the hell are you talkin’ about, you shmuck?”
Steve just grinned cheerily and stuck the lollipop back in. He followed Bucky all around the store on his unpacking chores, and goddamn Kaye didn’t even say a word. The lollipop was driving Bucky to distraction—he nearly placed Utz chips in with Lays, he dropped the box of toothbrushes he was resupplying from, and he went down aisle two when it was really aisle three he should be going down.
He couldn’t tell if Steve was happy to follow him around and let him pretend aisle two was a shortcut when it was clearly anything but, or if Steve was waiting for Bucky to crack. Both options seemed possible, if Bucky’s fractured memories were anything to go by.
Bucky needed to up his game.
“That flavor must good if you’re enjoying it so much,” he said, making a big show of stamping each chocolate bar with a price sticker. “What kind is it?” He waited for Steve to open his mouth to speak, and then said, “No, give it here, let me try it myself.”
Steve blinked. He didn’t come up with a good enough excuse though, so with only a slight shuffling of feet, took the lollipop out of his mouth and stuck it in Bucky’s.
Bucky made sure to suck on it thoughtfully. “Hmm…lemme guess. Grape?”
Steve was looking at his mouth, but he forced his gaze up; Bucky smirked inwardly. “Uh, yeah, I think the package said it was strawberry grape.”
“’S good,” Bucky said, and handed it back over. He had to stifle a groan as Steve licked it twice before popping it back in. It was Steve that was supposed to be flustered, not the other way around. Whatever game they were playing, Bucky was losing, clearly.
“I’m thinkin’ about moving,” Steve said offhandedly while Bucky put the empty boxes back in the storeroom.
Bucky pretended Kaye wasn’t eavesdropping from behind her magazine. Bucky pretended he wasn’t going through the five stages of grief at Steve’s words. “Oh really?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, switching that damn lollipop to the other side of his mouth. “I can’t really keep living in a tower with Tony nearby. One of us is going to end up murdered at this rate.”
“Stark,” Bucky said knowingly, and then kicked himself. He wasn’t supposed to let Steve know that he knew. That he knew about Steve and knowing. Any of that. He wasn’t supposed to say yeah, Howard was a clever devil but if we hadn’t been out in the field so much, he would’ve turned up facedown in a puddle of his own genius and then the army would’ve been short a sniper. “Uh,” Bucky said.
Steve shrugged those huge shoulders. His leather jacket creaked. “So. Moving.”
“I hear San Francisco has a nice breeze.”
Steve crinkled his face up, amused. “Tryin’ to get rid of me, Jimmy?”
“No,” Bucky said immediately. “Move in next door if you want—there’s a for rent sign and everything.”
“I’ll check it out,” Steve said, which meant he’d always meant to move to Brooklyn. The little shit never swayed from an idea once it’d been planted, and Bucky could no more have suggested a place for him to think on seriously than flown.
Bucky glared, and Steve slurped his lollipop loudly in cheery reply. God, if he didn’t stop that soon Bucky was gonna rip the thing out of his mouth. With his own teeth. It simply wasn’t fair, Steve coming in and distracting Bucky so thoroughly. Bucky was supposed to put Steve on edge, not the other way around.
Steve still hadn’t asked him anything, hadn’t demanded an explanation, or called in reinforcements. This was a little out of character, Bucky was pretty sure. Bucky was almost completely sure.
“You’re moving?” Kaye piped up, two words more than she should’ve said. Bucky went to shoot her a glare, but was stopped by the easy grin that had crawled its way on to Steve’s face.
They were playing dress up again.
“Do you think I should?” Steve said, that aw shucks ma’am attitude back in full force.
Kaye lifted a shoulder and put it back. She was trying not to care at all, while actually caring so much her teeth hurt. Bucky knew the feeling.
“I’d be coming by pretty much every day, if I lived around here,” Steve told her, leaning on the counter confidentially. “I get hungry all the time, you know, and I have to eat a ton of disgusting protein bars.”
“Oh,” Kaye said, not even pointing out that Steve was already making a fulltime profession of shopping at Falucci’s. “You’d move closer. That’s cool.”
It was all but a marriage proposal from her.
Bucky swept the floor and generally stayed extra positive as Steve did his shopping—he felt partly like smacking Steve upside the head, and also ripping that lollipop away and replacing it with his own tongue. It was a relapse of some sort, a momentary mistake. Bucky would smile irritatingly and act fine until Steve got his dumb protein bars and left. Bucky could do that.
Steve bought his usual assortment of junk and marched out, happy as you please. Bucky tried to be angry at him, but he found all his anger was gone. Even the leftovers from Munich.
When it was Mrs. Falucci’s shift at the register, Kaye followed Bucky into the backroom. “You smile more when he’s here.”
It was maybe the most she’d ever said to him at one time. Bucky lifted a brow haughtily and gave her his best older brother glare. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”
“I hope he moves,” Kaye said. And then, “Ella Fitzgerald is back.”
“Do not name the cat,” Bucky warned, going for the broom again. “Do not encourage the cat, do not initiate eye contact with the cat. The thing is covered in fleas and it is going out on the curb. Do you copy, young lady?”
Kaye went back to a shrug and sniff. The cat tilted her head back and stared up at Bucky beatifically.
“Fuck,” Bucky said.
✪
“Do you think plumbing or natural light is more important?” Steve asked, casually leaning on the counter and watching Bucky replenish the bodega’s lime green frisbee supply.
The place was empty, close to closing, and instead of the bright lights giving Steve a headache, the whole situation was shockingly close to…something nice. Sure, it wasn’t a five star hotel room, but Bucky was there, which meant the literal space didn’t matter.
A frigid apartment falling apart? No problem for the two of them. War torn Europe? A breeze. A crummy shop in the heart of the best city in the world was really far from awful, when you thought about it.
Bucky stood, lime frisbee in hand, and leaned in like he was reaching for something over the counter. Steve could feel his lips on his ear when Bucky finally said, all sultry, “Plumbing can be replaced.”
“Lighting too, if you think about it,” Steve squeaked. Bucky’s moods seemed ever changing nowadays, and Steve liked all of them, but Bucky’s flirting had always had the horsepower cranked up, if all the girls were any indication. Steve was sorry to see that swooning was a completely understandable response. “I can put in nicer windows, a skylight, maybe knock down a few walls.”
Bucky, back to kneeling, looked up at Steve through hooded eyes. His hair was tied up, but a few strands were falling into his face after the long day, and Steve sort of wondered what it would be like to bite them. It had been a long day for everyone.
“Not if they’re loadbearing,” Bucky murmured, and licked his lips.
“What?” Steve said dumbly.
Bucky put the last frisbee away and said, “Not if the walls are loadbearing. God, I can see it now – Steve Rogers, makeshift handyman, knocking down the entire apartment.”
Steve crossed his arms. He could do it, he could google it, that’s what people did all the time. “You know, I invented frisbees,” he said out loud.
Bucky snorted.
“I did,” Steve said, smiling a little. “After the war, marketers tried making red, white, and blue plastic shields for kids – throw it just like Cap! They got so popular they come in every color and size now.”
“What a load of bull,” Bucky said, but gently. He flattened the box and sauntered off to the backroom.
Steve watched him go. Dragging his gaze away from Bucky’s legs in those jeans, he started walking around. Time to buy something, to pretend to be a customer who came to Falucci’s Corner Shop because the…Ranch Doritos were so good there.
Steve took three bags and continued on to the coolers. He was contemplating carbonated infused waters when Bucky returned, mango flavor or mint blackberry.
“You’ll hate that shit,” Bucky warned, loading in more bottled water. “Like soda but also like tv static.”
“Maybe I love tv static,” Steve said, trying to make the words sound all come-hither the way Bucky did. He mostly sounded like his nose was stuffed up.
Bucky reached around Steve to open the cooler right next to him, bringing them face to face. This close, Steve could feel the tension coiled in him, all that voltage waiting to be unleashed. It was a fifty fifty whether Bucky would take him down or stick his leg between Steve’s and pin him to the glass door.
“Replacing the plumbing is smarter,” Bucky breathed, and Steve’s head didn’t hit the cooler, but it was close.
“I guess I can call and get it looked at,” he agreed, trying his best to sound unbothered. “I’m sure Brooklyn has a ton of capable handymen.”
For some reason, the line of Bucky’s mouth went taut and sour. “Yeah,” he said, stepping back and actually opening the neighboring cooler. “Sure.”
The door slammed open. Bucky sighed, brushed his hands off, and went back towards the counter. Steve followed him unthinkingly, head still whirring like an overheated fan.
There was a small Latina lady waiting, and when she saw Bucky, she thumped down a white plastic bag. “Ten tacos,” she said, like the tacos had personally wronged her. “Five bags.”
“Deal.” They shook hands like some kind of smugglers, and then Bucky punched some numbers into the cash register and pulled some bills from his own pocket and put them in. “Hey, Mrs. Santiago, how’s that niece of yours doin’?”
Tiny Mrs. Santiago paused at the chocolate pretzels, and said, “Is good. That dumb white boy finally proposed. The wedding is in September.”
Bucky grinned, wide and happy. “That’s great! Tell her congrats for me.”
Mrs. Santiago glanced over at Steve. Steve waved awkwardly. She turned and left without another word.
Bucky set the taco bag down behind the counter and came back out to keep putting away water bottles. Steve followed him back, and leaned against the carbonated water door like they were hanging out, just shooting the breeze.
“What do you know about landlords?”
Bucky didn’t look up. “Like all people, Steve, there are some that are totally normal, and others who are Hitler reincarnated.”
Steve tried not to be amused by that, and failed. “What if the landlord is a woman in her late fifties who’s trying to act like she’s only twenty-five?”
“Let me guess,” Bucky said, back muscles rippling as he strained to reach the very back of the case, “She was all over you.”
Steve flushed. “That’s – that’s not the point, Buck.”
“Sure it is. It says something about her, don’t it? But hell. Maybe she’ll actually fix the things that break instead of stringin’ you along for months.”
Steve bit his lip. “You gotta tough landlord?”
He wasn’t asking where Bucky lived, but still he expected some kind of stiffening or shuttering. Bucky just stood up and walked over to lean against the waist high ice cream cooler.
“The guy’s a real hard ass,” he said. “Not a penny to the place, just all in his pocket. I get sick of waiting around and start doin’ the fixing myself.”
Steve smiled. “I’ll bet your neighbors love you.”
Bucky lifted one shoulder and put it back. “It sure does have a few benefits. They pay me with baked goods.”
The door banged open again, and Mrs. Santiago was back. She was holding another white bag, identical to the first.
“Ten more,” she said. “For tu novio there.”
Bucky’s ears went red, but he strolled over and took the bag from her. “Muchos gracias, entrometida.”
She smacked him on the arm – the left one, Steve noted, which meant it wouldn’t do a thing – and took five more large packages of pretzels.
“Eat,” she said to Steve at the door, and disappeared out into the night.
Steve darted a look at Bucky. Bucky stared back flatly, any sign of his previous embarrassment gone. “You like tacos, I hope?”
“Are you asking me to dinner?” Steve said, again trying to copy Bucky’s forwardness.
“Yes. In the backroom of this dump. Very romantic, so they say.”
Before leading the way to said backroom, Bucky paused in the doorway, making Steve stop behind him. Turning, he tilted his chin up and lazily surveyed Steve. Steve, one foot in the air, immediately felt like he was coming up short to whatever ruler Bucky was measuring with.
“What?”
“Nothin’,” Bucky said. “I just thought up another thing you should be careful of when rentin’ a new place.”
Steve looked at him. “Then spit it out, jerk.”
“I was just wondering if you knew anything about wall mold,” Bucky said sexily, and then went through the door.
There was a small gray cat in the backroom, daintily washing itself, perched on a box of Lays chips. Bucky went right past it and plopped down on a crate, kicking a chair out for Steve. The chair was slightly rusted and crooked looking, but Steve sat.
Bucky dove into his taco bag, emerging with a paper plate covered in grease and meat and dug in enthusiastically.
“Are we going to ignore the gray elephant in the room,” Steve said, still looking at the cat.
Bucky smacked him. “No eye contact. She’ll leave soon.”
“Are you trying to give a stray cat the silent treatment?” Steve asked, trying to figure out the best way to pick up a taco without transferring its contents to the front of his shirt. “That never worked in your favor before, Buck.”
The words were out before he could reconsider.
“If you’re referring to yourself, then clearly,” Bucky said without looking up.
Steve exhaled shakily. “I was not, obviously. I meant that fleabag you insisted on feeding all throughout your teenage years.” You remember, don’t you, he was saying. You remember me.
“That cat had a name, Rogers,” Bucky said, and he was still looking down, which meant he was doing it on purpose.
“It was a shit name,” Steve said mechanically, completing his part of the game.
Bucky stared at his taco like it was the most enthralling thing he’d ever seen. “Don’t you dare talk that way about Camelia Cordelia Barnes.”
Steve fell off his rusted chair. Bucky caught the plate of tacos as it went flying and also threw out a leg to keep Steve from totally wiping the floor with his ass. The gray cat lurched upright at the crash and disappeared behind several more boxes.
Steve sat on the cold concrete floor and tried his best not to cry.
Bucky put both plates down and crouched low. “Aw, you hate the name that much, huh?” he said gently, giving Steve an out. “I didn’t mean to upset you – won’t ya give me another chance?”
Steve scrubbed at his face till he was sure there were no tears. “What did you call this one?” he asked thickly, jerking his head in the direction of the gray cat’s flight.
“I ain’t namin’ her,” Bucky said, still down and watching him. “That encourages ‘em. She’s not gonna get any charity on my account.”
Steve climbed back up on to his chair. “Sorry,” he said, although he wasn’t sure why he was saying it.
“Don’t be,” Bucky said quietly, and handed back Steve’s plate. Yeah, it’s me, asshole, he meant. Don’t get in such a doozy over it.
Steve waited until the gray cat made a reappearance, and snuck it some meat. Bucky pretended not to notice, which was kind of him. Steve sniffled into his tacos, feeling all kinds of wimpy for such a strong reaction to a few stupid words. He’d already known it was Bucky, even before the confirmation. He’d known it all along.
“Ah, quit your kvelling and eat your goddamn tacos,” Bucky complained. “And listen while I school you on the horrors of wall mold, Steve.”
✪
In all, it could’ve been a worse outcome. Life went on.
Steve didn’t bring the Feds or the Avengers to Bucky’s doorstep. Steve didn’t do much of anything except show up every day and hang around like a bad smell. Mrs. Santiago started bringing by more tacos without even being asked, and they sat in the backroom and ate them together, the damn cat purring from a box.
On Wednesdays, Bucky flew to Europe, blew something up, and took more cash from the drop boxes.
He kinda wanted a real day off though. A day where he could cook some real food in his little kitchen and lie back on the couch. Maybe do some laundry, if he was feeling real adventurous.
“He doesn’t come in on your day off,” Kaye told him one night at closing, sweeping dust and dirt out the front door.
Bucky, behind the register, tried to pretend he wasn’t listening. “Who?”
“Funny.” Had teenagers always been this snotty and Bucky’s amnesia was protecting him? “Steve.”
“Maybe it’s his day off too,” Bucky pointed out.
Kaye put the broom away and snorted. “Yeah, okay, old man.”
“We missed you yesterday,” Mrs. Falucci said cheerfully when Steve appeared Thursday morning.
“Had an appointment,” Steve said, hands stuffed in his pockets. He was chewing gum.
Mrs. Santiago appeared with the customary gaping bag of goodness. “Everyone’s busy yesterday?” She demanded. “Jimmy too busy, tu novio too busy…you’re lucky I saved you some food.”
“Get out,” Mrs. Falucci said wearily. “I’m not going to trade you.”
Mrs. Santiago pointedly handed the bag to Bucky and took her chocolate pretzels with a sneer. She passed Steve on the way out and smacked him gently on the arm.
Bucky put the right amount in the till. It seemed he wasn’t the only one on the street getting awfully used to the sight of Steve Rogers around.
It was on Monday, that Steve didn’t show.
Bucky knew this, because he’d asked Kaye when he came in in the late morning, and he was there till closing. No Steve.
He tried not to worry – Steve had his friends, maybe one of the had gotten married. Maybe he’d had a doctor appointment. Maybe he just hadn’t felt like company. Or maybe someone had murdered him in an alleyway. Maybe he’d gotten into a fight. Maybe –
“You’re going to break something,” Mrs. Falucci told him frankly, right before Bucky ripped a liter soda bottle in two, soaking both himself and the floor.
“God –” Bucky threw the shredded plastic in the garbage and went stomping into the backroom for the mop. “Sorry, Ma’am. I’m fine. I’ll clean this up and pay for it, just give me a second.”
Mrs. Falucci sighed. “You don’t gotta pay for it, boy. Go home, get some sleep, get your head back in the right place.”
Bucky went home.
The next morning, he was methodically shelving toilet paper, when the doors burst open. “Jimmy,” Kaye yelped. “You gotta turn on the news.”
She didn’t have his number, she explained, so she’d run the two blocks to tell him. Bucky eyed the pedestrians outside and stalked into the backroom to fiddle with the old television set. It didn’t take long before the news flashed on, a reporter standing in front of what looked like the tower of London.
“– have taken him out, but it’s not clear who’s injured thanks to both the flooding and the debris. When we last checked in with Carl, he reported Hawkeye and Captain America pinned in by the flood, and here, Iron Man was just struck by falling debris –”
Bucky turned to Kaye. “You know who he is?”
Kaye just raised an eyebrow.
“Mrs. Falucci hasn’t figured it out.” Bucky felt kinda dumb. “Well, yeah, I guess that doesn’t mean much.”
On screen, Black Widow skidded to a halt. “We’re cleared,” she told the reporter. “But there’s still weakened pipes bursting. You need to get out of here.”
“Are Hawkeye and Captain America alright?” The reporter asked breathlessly.
Black Widow’s lips twisted worriedly. “I don’t know yet.”
Bucky turned off the tv.
“Hey, Jimmy, calm down,” Kaye said, and he realized he was shaking just the slightest bit – jaw tight enough to crack nuts and fists to match. “You gonna be okay?”
“London,” Bucky ground out, forcing himself to stop scaring the kid. Even he couldn’t get to London quick enough to do anything. He didn’t have Steve’s number, and short of storming the Avengers tower in Manhattan, there wasn’t a thing Bucky could do. But wait.
“I’ll stay here right now,” Kaye said, going back out front. “Keep you company.”
That dragged Bucky out of his head. “Kid, you’re off right now, you don’t gotta –”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” Kaye said.
Steve didn’t come in that day either. Bucky tried not to growl at every person who dared go shopping. They acted like nothing was wrong, they acted like they didn’t know. They didn’t know.
Bucky shelved soda bottles and rang up cigarettes and thought about Steve. If he thought hard enough about Steve, could he conjure him back, whole and well?
A month ago, Bucky hadn’t given one damn about Steve. He’d come back to Brooklyn because Brooklyn was home, Steve or no Steve. He knew Steve was right across the river, but didn’t see it mattered much. He’d been doing fine.
Look at him now; couldn’t even go three days without worrying like a mother hen, acting like the Avengers hadn’t gotten themselves out of worse scrapes before.
He went home that night and spent some quality time staring at the wall unseeingly, and then ate a whole jar of peanut butter. He was doing so fine.
His phone bleeped early the next morning; a text from Kaye. Guess who’s here, she said. Get your butt in right now.
Bucky made it halfway down the block before remembering he was The Winter Soldier and very much capable of handling every situation with a detached calm. He looked down and was glad to see he was wearing two matching shoes and a pair of jeans. He walked to Falucci’s, not a frantic walk, just a normal walk, a little quicker than usual.
Kaye pointed to the back of the shop as soon as Bucky walked in. The top of a messy blond head was visible in the drinks section.
Bucky did not run. Bucky power walked.
As soon as he rounded the corner, he clocked the right arm in a sling and the way Steve was standing, with the weight off his right leg. “Give me your phone number,” Bucky demanded.
Steve jumped, landed on his bad leg, winced, and then straightened up and smiled. “Hey, Jimmy, sorry I missed you the last few days.”
“Give me your number.”
Kaye choked behind the register. Whoops. Maybe Bucky was speaking too loudly. “That is not how you ask someone for their number, Jimmy!” she hissed, not even trying to deny eavesdropping.
Bucky stepped closer and lowered his voice to just loud enough for enhanced ears. “I cannot get news on the television. Give me your number and text me you’re alive every now and then.”
Wordlessly, Steve dug his phone out with his good hand and gave it to Bucky. Bucky aggressively punched his own number in and then called it so he’d have the information on his phone too.
Steve took it back and froze. “You put it under Bucky.”
Still quietly, Bucky said, “Cause that’s my name, dipshit.” He saved Steve’s number under little shit Steve. Then, he said, “How was dear old London anyways?”
Steve turned back to the cooler and propped an open door against his hip. He reached inside and took out a yellow Gatorade. “Still as rainy as ever, Buck. Seriously, that country has a problem with rain.”
“All that rain the cause of the flooding?”
“No.” Steve let the cooler swing shut. “That was likely the cause of a criminal damaging the plumbing in about five city blocks.”
Bucky nodded and grunted and made like he wasn’t irrationally mad at a random British criminal. Steve continued down the aisle and turned the corner. He grabbed packages off the shelf, tucking the stuff in the cavity of his other arm. Bucky watched the sling take more weight than it was supposed to, and caught the Sour Patch Kids when they tumbled out.
“Thanks.”
Bucky sighed and took all of Steve’s goods for him. “You get everything yet?”
“Um, let me grab some of those granola bars.”
When they got to the counter, Kaye stared up at them unblinkingly. “You know, if you buy a whole box of granola bars you get a twenty percent discount.”
Steve held her gaze. “As long as it’s not an Avengers discount, which I want no part in.”
“Avengers who?” Kaye replied, ringing up the offending granola bars.
Steve turned to Bucky with a small smile on his lips. “Barton actually did that, did you know? Convinced half of Manhattan that there was an Avengers discount, and it would’ve worked forever, if Natasha hadn’t blown his cover.”
“Brooklyn would never fall for that,” Kaye said dismissively.
Bucky followed Steve to the door. He wasn’t even working till later in the day, but he didn’t exactly know what to say. Walk ya home? Oh yes, that was a great idea, walk Steve back across the bridge like it was no big deal at all.
“You gonna be okay all the way back?” he found himself saying. Still reluctant to let Steve out of his sights.
Steve smiled and nudged his shoulder into Bucky’s. “I hear you’re a big fan of walks, Jimmy. This you askin’?”
Bucky stared at him flatly and opened the door. “Did you walk here?”
“No,” Steve said. “My leg hurts. I rode the bike.”
If Bucky had been staring before, that was nothing compared to now. “With only one arm?”
“Hey,” Steve said. “I should think you, of all people, wouldn’t discount someone with only one arm.”
Bucky’s lips twitched without his opinion. Steve noticed, of course he did, and then he ducked his head and turned to go. Down the street was his bike, all sleek black and deep blue. It was a nice bike.
“Oh,” Steve called, turning around in the middle of the sidewalk, getting glares from hurried pedestrians. “I’m moving in tomorrow, Jimmy!”
✪
When Steve went into Falucci’s the next day, Kaye was behind the counter, wearing a cute shirt with what looked like safety pins holding the sleeves on. She’d exchanged her usual bubble gum for a lollipop, and like a stab of electricity, Steve remembered the dark looks Bucky had sent him that time Steve had one of his own.
“Where can I get one of those?” He asked interestedly, and Kaye pointed absently to the little stand by the cash register.
Steve took one – blue raspberry – and said dramatically, “Put it on my tab.”
“Sure. Jimmy’s in the back,” Kaye said, slurping in a way that oozed indifference.
Steve unwrapped the candy, and stuck the wrapper in his pocket and the candy in his mouth. Then he sauntered into the back.
He’d walked there that morning from his new place. It was a small place, nothing amazing, but nothing to snooze at either. Steve and his ma would’ve lived like kings in the place back in the 30s. It was sorta beat up, and not home yet, but Steve was confident it would be soon. The couch was comfortable enough, the windows let in nice light, and the bed was pretty firm. Sure, it would make commuting to work a little trickier, but Steve had the bike. He’d be fine.
Bucky was bent over a clipboard, a whole stack of shrink-wrapped boxes on a pallet next to him. The big back door was open, revealing the alleyway beyond.
Steve leaned against the wall and waited for Bucky to notice him.
It didn’t take long – he was, after all, the former fist of Hydra. Bucky clocked him and stiffened before looking up. Several things crossed his face at once – surprise, if Steve wasn’t mistaken, and also briefly pleasure, followed by irritation.
“Aw fuck no,” Bucky said in greeting, turning his back to Steve and focusing extra hard on his clipboard. “Get that thing out of your mouth right now or you can leave.”
“Whatsamatter?” Steve asked thickly.
Bucky muttered something that sounded suspiciously like not awake enough to deal with this today and tapped his foot impatiently. The gray cat tiptoed out from behind the pile of boxes and snuffled Bucky’s boot.
“Fuck,” Bucky said, and then hollered, “Ella Fitzgerald is back, Kaye, get your butt in here!”
Steve felt something twist in his stomach. He didn’t say anything, but Bucky must have felt it anyway, because he turned and locked eyes with Steve right as Kaye brushed past, making cooing noises.
The cat backed up behind Bucky’s legs and stared unblinkingly at Kaye’s attempts. “Jimmy, I don’t know what to say. You gotta kick her out.”
“You named her Ella?” Steve said, taking half a step forward.
Bucky ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, fine, everyone. Yes, I accidentally named the cat, and now she won’t stay away, and it’s all my fault.”
“She loves you,” Kaye said plainly.
Steve squatted and held his hand out. Ella Fitzgerald stared at him cautiously. Steve took the lollipop out of his mouth. “Hey, girl,” he said quietly, still holding his hand out, “C’mere. C’mere, sweetie.”
Bucky made a bitten off noise of disgust and bent over, picked up the cat, and calmly deposited her into Steve’s lap. Steve sat down with a thump. “Keep an eye on the old fleabag while I check the inventory,” Bucky said sternly, to both Steve and cat. “Neither of you make one peep or I will end you. I know how.”
Kaye tiptoed out, and Steve tentatively petted Ella on the head. She let him do it, which was pretty nice of her. Steve leaned back against the wall and let artificial raspberry slip across his tongue and watched Bucky mutter to himself and cross things off with a pencil.
Ella Fitzgerald decided about ten minutes later that she deigned to let Steve keep going, and rolled over on to her back and purred, butting her head against Steve’s knee. Steve frowned.
“Bucky.”
“What did I say?”
Steve looked up. “Bucky. I think you’ve made a mistake.”
“No,” Bucky said, biting his pencil, “No, they’re all here, five boxes. I triple checked, that last one is on the bottom corner, it’s here…”
“No, Bucky,” Steve said urgently. “The cat. Ella Fitzgerald. I think…I think she’s a boy.”
Bucky whipped around. Ella Fitzgerald opened her – his? – mouth and yowled prettily. “Pretty queer ass boy,” Bucky said flatly, and Steve laughed so hard he nearly swallowed his lollipop.
A week later found Steve back from his latest mission and all but running to Falucci’s. He was aware he was a mess, yes, he was aware he was bruised and trembling just a little, like he couldn’t get warm and that everyone looked at him funny when he left the Tower, giving him strict instructions to go home, but they didn’t know that Steve’s home wasn’t really a place anymore, did they?
Was it bad form to stalk someone? Was it bad form to stalk someone you’d known for eighty years?
Bucky looked up from the register and immediately frowned. “You look like hell.”
Steve knew. He lifted one shoulder, but even that took too much effort. He looked away down one of the aisles. “I needed – a toothbrush.”
It was maybe the biggest lie he’d told since he’d snuck into the army.
Bucky came around the counter and hovered while Steve looked at different colored bristles and tried to pretend he cared about anything as fucking stupid as colored bristles.
“Was it a bad one,” Bucky asked.
Steve looked up from softer on the teeth! “Not really.”
Bucky hissed. He looked angry, and for a dazed minute, Steve thought it was directed at him, an apology halfway to his lips before he realized. “It’s like this all the time then?”
Steve didn’t have the energy to shake his head. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ll be fine soon enough.”
Bucky’s brow furrowed and his mouth twisted like he was about to punch someone. You’re my mission! he’d said all those months ago, scared and angry and vengeful. He opened his mouth, and said, “Can I?”
Steve put the words together along with the arms now reaching out toward him. His head was full of fog, thick and unyielding, but then it snapped away like a rubber band. Steve moved, stepping right into Bucky’ space and as Bucky’s arms landed around his shoulders, Steve gripped the back of Bucky’s jacket tight enough that the fabric groaned.
It was – it was. It was like taking off a soaked winter coat in the heated front hall of home, your breath hanging hot and weighted in front of you, and the smell of chocolate floating in from the kitchen.
Steve squeezed his eyes shut and just breathed. Bucky’s shoulder was hot and his arms were tight and Steve felt distinctly safe in a new and important way. He wasn’t too tall, he found, to mash his face under Bucky’s jaw.
After maybe three hours, he pulled back just enough so his lips could move – chin propped up on Bucky’s collarbone. “You’re working.”
Despite his words, as soon as Bucky went to step away, Steve’s arms turned to metal and locked into place, thoroughly terrified at the prospect.
“Relax,” Bucky said. “You can stay here as long as you want. I’m on closing today.”
Steve clutched at him tighter, like now that he’d tasted too much of a good thing he wasn’t ever going to let go.
“I’m gonna kill your coworkers,” Bucky told him patiently, hands now tracing the lines of Steve’s spine. “I take it no one bats an eye when you get this way?”
“It’s not their fault, Buck. They don’t know any better.”
Bucky snorted. “Then it’s their fault for not figuring it out, for not asking.”
Steve smiled, just the tiniest smile, pressed into Bucky’s jacket.
“I have bad news,” Bucky said after a brief pause that meant he was unhappy with the way Steve had all but decided to grow roots on top of him, and Steve felt a little bad because Bucky had made his place clear when he’d hidden away right in plain sight, and it wasn’t fair of Steve to pile the ruins of his heart on Bucky that way.
“What?” Steve said, pushing back and away as punishment for making Bucky upset.
Bucky just tilted his head and squinted. “You’re right. Ella Fitzgerald is a boy cat.”
Steve exhaled. “Oh. Well, just rename him then.”
“I can’t do that like it’s nothin’,” Bucky exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips. A pedestrian pushed open the front doors with a jingle. Bucky stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I can’t morally take that name away from him – Ella was a genius, Steve, you know that, you’ve heard her. What kind of legacy would she want left behind?”
“You can’t rename a misgendered cat,” Steve repeated, hardly believing his own ears, “Because a long dead singer will be insulted?”
Bucky huffed and went behind the register to wait for the shopper to arrive. “Steve. For me it’s been like one year, okay?”
“Don’t pretend like you weren’t getting field trips,” Steve said, feeling some life seep back into him. “Some of us really feel like’s it’s been a year.”
“Oh yes, field trips to murder-and-torture-land,” Bucky said scathingly, and then flashed a grin at the poor shopper hesitating in front of the register. “You seen that show yet?”
Pacified, the shopper shook their head and handed over their goods. Bucky rang them up, bagged them, and forked them back over. The shopper took their receipt and disappeared back out into the dusk.
“You just gotta ask if they’ve seen that show yet,” Bucky informed Steve, now wiping down the counter. “Throws ‘em off any scent. Don’t think you’re off the hook for bein’ disrespectful to Ella now. I cannot rename that cat.”
“You could ask someone else to do it.”
Bucky glared. “No, nobody is renaming him. He wasn’t upfront with me in the first place, so Ella Fitzgerald he stays. If he has complaints, he can file ‘em.”
“Sure,” Steve said, because there was no arguing with Bucky when he got that way. Steve wasn’t the only stubborn tool in the shed.
When it was closing time, he watched with growing dread as Bucky swept, wiped, and took out the trash. The ice in Steve’s chest was mostly melted, but the ache in his limbs persisted. He didn’t want to be alone.
If Bucky noticed Steve lollygagging around, he didn’t say anything. He also didn’t appear to slow his chores down at all, but there sure were a lot of them Steve hadn’t known were so important, like vacuum out the cash register drawers, and sweep the entirety of the backroom and a little of the alley asphalt too.
“Mrs. Falucci runs a tight ship, huh,” Steve said, leaning against the industrial doorway and watching Bucky attack concrete with his little broom like a grandmother in a floral apron and slippers.
“Sure,” Bucky said, and went inside to fetch a scrub brush.
Around eleven, Bucky could no longer think up extra duties. The shop had been closed for a whole hour, and even his impressive array of supplies lacked bottles of fluid designed for cleaning the ceiling.
“Alright pal,” he said, and turned off the lights. They went out the back, locked the door, and walked out to the street.
Steve bounced once on his feet, winced, and stayed standing still. Every fiber of his being wanted to ask, to plead, to see if Bucky would walk him home, come inside, and maybe never leave again. His mouth felt like cotton when he thought about it. He wasn’t sure he could bear being told no.
“Hey,” Bucky said, hand on Steve’s arm. “You go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Steve echoed. Maybe if he went to sleep really fast, tomorrow would come. Maybe he could go to sleep on the sidewalk, because that was easier and then he’d be in prime position when the sun rose.
God, he was pitiful, he was pitiful and a bonehead, and he wished they’d just left him in his block of the Arctic.
“Text me when you get back safe,” Bucky said threateningly, and then started off down the street. “Or else.”
Steve texted him. Got back safe. Or I got kidnapped and they typed this message while I’m locked up in a freezer in Brighton Beach.
Well, you should feel right at home then, Bucky replied testily.
You’d know.
There was a slight pause, and then, I’m working the early shift. See you then.
Steve rolled over, tried to not screech at his protesting limbs, and spent an hour falling asleep.
✪
“You know what I hate?” Steve said, his voice warm in Bucky’s ear, “Whole Foods.”
Bucky propped his phone under his ear and continued scrubbing out his oven. It was Wednesday, and the apartment wasn’t going to clean itself.
He could picture it; Steve’s huge frame slinking past the displays of twenty-dollar soap bars, and the bottles of precariously balanced Kefir. “I’ll bet you do.”
“It’s so pretentious,” Steve complained. “And you literally cannot spend less than fifty dollars.”
“What did ya buy,” Bucky asked, grinning into the depths of his oven, “A pack of toothpicks?”
“I bought a tube of toothpaste, a package of hot dogs, and a jug of milk, and I paid fifty dollars. Maybe more, I can’t remember. I burned the receipt.”
Bucky laughed into his phone and put some elbow grease into the disgusting population of burnt drippings at the very back.
“They made me go, you know,” Steve continued, and there was a scratching noise, like he was sketching while he talked. If Bucky closed his eyes, he could hear Steve drawing, trying to find the right words while his hand was busy. “They thought I’d approve, of the organics, and the farm fresh.”
Bucky stood up to get more paper towel.
“I’m surprised I didn’t get blacklisted from the store for life,” Steve whispered.
“I’m surprised too, did ya curse out the checkout kid?”
Steve sounded insulted. “Of course not, Buck, it’s not their fault. I just answered truthfully when my chaperone asked me what I thought of it. It definitely was on Twitter after five minutes. And no, don’t go looking for it.”
Bucky grinned into his phone. “Did you tell your chaperone that a few years ago you didn’t know what the word organic meant?”
“Sort of. I told her that I’d be lucky to get a couple of the cabbages and onions, and her response was to show me the seafood selection. That woman could not take a hint.”
“So, Twitter.”
“Naturally,” Steve said, his voice going all lofty. “My voice can’t be quieted.”
“I know,” Bucky said gently.
There was a huge thud from outside. Bucky put down his spatula and paper towel and craned his neck to see out the window. Nothing looked disturbed, but faintly he could hear cries of distress from a few blocks over.
“Steve –” Bucky said, already throwing down his cleaning supplies and running for the bedroom. “I gotta –”
Something started beeping on Steve’s side of the phone. “Shit,” Steve said, and it sounded like he was running. “I gotta go Buck, bye!”
He hung up before Bucky could yell that it was Bucky who’d tried to hang up first and Steve had just beaten him there like a little punk. Then Bucky put that childish thought behind him, and threw open his bedroom closet to get at the tac gear.
Outside, pedestrians were booking it eastwards, and there was definitely a fire in the distance. Bucky kept to the shadows and made for the plume of smoke. He wasn’t too worried about being spotted or caught on tape – there wasn’t much about him that spoke of his past.
Hair tied back in a knot, metal arm completely covered up, his gear jet black and unassuming. He’d burned the vest they’d made him wear, the buckles and straps both a mockery of his blue army coat, and reminiscent of a straitjacket.
The Avengers beat Bucky there; he was mildly impressed.
The cause of the fires and screaming was a huge glistening white humanoid, who could apparently rip up the street with its hands at will. Bucky stayed back, letting the Avengers go at it, and helped pedestrians clear. His huge rifle was basically useless – the Widow was leading the science team on slowly unloading an entire clip into the lower parts within reach, and the alien guy had yet to flinch.
Steve was in the thick of it, dodging the cars sent his way, doing his best to hack through the alien.
Bucky tuned it out until there was a huge crunching noise and a very familiar cry of pain. Whipping around, Bucky found Iron Man crashed into a building, and Captain America thrashing around in the huge white alien’s fist.
“This is your worst?” the alien bellowed, holding Steve aloft like a toy. “Earth’s mightiest heroes, some joke.”
“You’re some joke!” a tourist called, phone up and filming.
The other Avengers seemed frozen, not wanting to do anything that could further irritate the alien while Steve was in the line of fire. As Bucky watched, Steve contorted his body, and bit the hand that was holding him.
“Ew,” the tourist said appreciatively.
The alien turned its head slowly and stared down at Steve. “Be still,” it boomed, and brought up its other hand to flick Steve in the face, hard.
The sound of his head snapping back could be heard all the way to Jersey. It was certainly going to feature in Bucky’s nightmares.
He was moving before he realized it, storming out of the cover of the shops, marching straight across the street into the sunlight, taking his rifle off his back.
The alien dropped Steve, and he fell limply, landing with a puff of dust. The alien lifted its foot, and carelessly put it on Steve’s face. Steve’s head turned like he was already a corpse. “You are failures, and you will only follow this one,” the alien said. “Captain America is no more than my spoil of war.”
Steve Rogers, Bucky thought through a haze of red. Is mine.
There wasn’t much clear in the newfangled world of Mountain Dew and Beyonce, but if there was any truth, it was this. Against all odds, Steve Rogers had wandered back into Bucky’s life and Bucky fucking wanted him to stay there.
“Okay,” he said aloud, and quickly debated whether he would gut the alien slowly or just shoot its brains out in a clean swoop.
He ran across the street, unloaded two dozen bullets into the alien’s stomach area, and before anyone could even tell who he was, jumped and scrambled up the alien’s glistening leg. He barely even noticed the disgusting sticky surface he was so intent.
He had a garret wire around the alien’s fat neck before the Avengers realized what was going on. “Holy heck,” Iron Man buzzed from behind his dumb armor. “Is that –”
“Eбать,” the Hawkeye and the Black Widow said in unison, and well, Bucky understood that word in any language.
The alien bucked, but Bucky yanked the wire tighter, then held a pistol up with the barrel right about where an ear would be, if the alien had any. “Hey, fucker,” he said conversationally, blood still roaring in his head. “Don’t try anything, I’ll kill you.”
“You can’t k –”
“I bet I can,” Bucky said. “I bet I can, you dumb bastard fuck.”
The alien turned with a growl, and Bucky pulled the garret wire as tight as he could and shot five times into the side of its head. The alien blinked bewilderingly and wobbled.
“A little more?” Bucky asked, like he was offering tea. He shot the rest of the clip into the alien’s neck and pulled the wire until the entire gelatinous head oozed off its shoulders.
When the headless alien finally crumpled for good, Bucky slid off him gracefully. Steve was gone. The Avengers were talking with paramedics and a blinking ambulance, and Steve was gone. Bucky was covered in alien goop, and the alien was dead. Steve was gone, there was no point in sticking around – Bucky had laundry to do.
He’s fine, the doctors will take care of him, Bucky’s brain pleaded.
Bucky ran home, his soggy boots slamming on to the pavement. His head. His head. His head.
He’s survived far worse. He’s in the best hands. He heals fast.
Bucky threw open his front door and made for the shower. His head. His precious head.
The water was hot, almost scalding, but he barely felt it. The image of Steve’s neck snapping back and the alien’s foot on his skull played on repeat. He dropped the soap and nearly punched the glass door down in shock.
He dragged himself into clean clothes, turned on the news which revealed nothing, turned off the news, and started the laundry with his disgusting gear.
His head, his perfect beautiful head. Steve was the only one who’d known Bucky before. He was the only one who knew him now, who really knew him. He was the most important thing in the world.
He was maybe the only important thing in the world. Brooklyn, home, Falucci’s Corner Store – all of it was extraneous, irrelevant. If there was no more Steve, what was the point anymore?
Bucky had escaped Hydra. Bucky had survived against all odds. Now he spent his days shelving plastic scissors and eating tacos and staring as Steve licked lollipops. He didn’t want to survive anymore, he wanted to want.
Bucky stood next to the washing machine and thought privately that he might go insane for good, and it wouldn’t be seventy years of brainwashing that did it. It would be Steve.
He was going to – he was going to –
He was going to go eat some tacos.
When he pushed open the door of the restaurant, Mrs. Santiago took one look at him and pulled out a chair. “Oy, niño, come eat.”
Bucky sat.
✪
Steve blinked awake. His head hurt, and his back hurt, and there was someone sitting by his bedside. “Bucky,” Steve said, cracking open his eyes, feeling like there was a pound of grit on each eyelash.
“Alas, no,” Natasha said, arms crossed. “But perhaps you’d like to explain why the Winter Solider appeared from thin air the moment you were in trouble?”
“He did what?”
Natasha stood and started pacing around the room. They were in the tower, in the hospital ward. “I track him to Munich for you, I formulate a whole plan about his motives and his next appearance, he shows up in New York City not a week later.”
“With modern air travel –” Steve said weakly, his head whirring. Bucky had shown up? In broad daylight, in front of the Avengers? Bucky had saved them?
“He could be after you,” Natasha said. “You should stay in the tower until we can track him.”
Steve tried to sit up and groaned. “Natasha –”
“Your neck was almost snapped,” she scolded. “If you were me, you’d be paralyzed. Steve –”
“He’s not after me,” he said, and gave in to the heaviness of his head. “Thank you for thinking of me, but I’m going home in the morning.”
Natasha glared. “I’m not thinking of you, I’m trying to save your life. And you just moved out, Steve, I hardly think your dump of an apartment will be so terrible compared to the tower.”
“My bed is nicer in Brooklyn,” Steve said delicately, and closed his eyes again.
There was no text from Bucky. At first, Steve was terribly hurt, holding his phone gingerly between two heavily bandaged hands like oven mitts. Then he glared suspiciously at Natasha who was reading pointedly and ignoring him, although it was unlike her to purposely ruin any evidence of any kind. Then he pictured Bucky biting his lip, typing and then deleting for three minutes straight before throwing his phone across the room in exasperation.
Steve twisted his head and smiled into his pillow. He had to get across the river.
It took him twenty-four hours. Really, it would’ve come to blows if it’d taken any longer. Steve loved Natasha, but there were limits. “If you can walk, you’re fine by me,” Clint told him carelessly, chewing on Vietnamese noodles and shrugging when Steve climbed out of bed and ripped the damn bandages off his hands.
“Bye,” Steve said unashamedly, and booked it for the garage where his bike was.
He got scared while driving across the bridge. If Bucky wasn’t working. If Bucky wasn’t working – Steve flipped through the days in his head frantically. It was Friday, and if Bucky wasn’t on the late shift, Steve wouldn’t know how to find him.
To his right, the sun sank over Hoboken. The sky was pink at the edges, and the wind was biting for early autumn. Falucci’s Corner Store was lit up, florescent lights bleeding out on to the sidewalk where Steve stashed his bike.
A bell jingled like his heartbeat as he entered.
Steve walked up to the counter and smiled automatically at Mrs. Falucci. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at him. “Some of us missed you yesterday.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said.
“All of us missed you yesterday,” she amended, smiling back finally. “You look tired, busy week?”
She didn’t know who he was. Steve didn’t know whether to laugh or explain himself. “Yes,” he said, hands in his pockets. “You could say that. What do they say about the rain? It only pours.”
Mrs. Falucci patted his hand sympathetically. There was a crashing noise from the door to the backroom. Kaye stood there with a box of chocolate bars scattered around her feet, phone up to her ear.
“Jimmy!” she shrieked into it. “Get your butt over here, right now. Yes, he’s here. Yes, him!”
Steve blushed. Just for something to do, he went and stared at toilet paper prices.
In the time it took Bucky to show up, Kaye followed Steve around after ending her abrupt phone call, chattering a mile a minute, which for her meant an actual conversation.
“I saw that giant monster attack you on tv,” she said breathlessly, keeping her voice down so Mrs. Falucci couldn’t hear. “I thought you were dead.”
“Takes a little more than that to kill me nowadays,” Steve told her, still staring like toilet paper rolls were worth their weight in gold.
Kaye blinked owlishly. “But you looked really dead. And then I saw Jimmy – he looked pissed.”
“Doesn’t take much to piss Bu – Jimmy off.”
“It does at you,” Kaye said, like that sentence made sense. “And you were gone all day yesterday and this morning.”
Steve hummed. “Hospital wouldn’t let me go.”
“Yeah, cause your neck was snapped!”
The door slammed open, the bell screaming bloody murder, and Kaye yelped and leapt aside just in time before Bucky had Steve smashed up against a cooler.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt,” Steve got out, before Bucky was feeling all up and down his sides, hands roughly probing arms, neck, and head. “Stop that, Buck –”
“Are you okay?” Bucky demanded, voice barely above a whisper. “Are you hurt? That fucker –”
Steve grabbed on to him, doing his best to put himself into Bucky’s shoes. They weren’t very pleasant shoes to be in. “I’m fine, Buck, good as new. Hospital patched me up, serum did the rest.”
They were murmuring quietly, Mrs. Falucci puttering absently behind the register, Kaye trying not to be obvious about spying from the toilet paper. Bucky’s hands were still moving, ghosting across Steve’s collarbone. His flesh hand came to rest on Steve’s neck, fingers brushing under his ear.
“Your neck snapped,” Bucky said, voice as rough as sandpaper. “I saw it, I saw it. Steve.”
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” Steve apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m fine, Bucky.”
Bucky looked like he would close his eyes in relief but for wanting to keep Steve in sight as long as possible. “I killed him. I killed that – thing.”
“I saw it on tv,” Steve said steadily. “You really did a number on him.”
“Oh yeah,” Bucky said, and made a sheepish face. “I was on tv. Wasn’t really thinkin’ about that.”
Steve couldn’t help but smile at him. “Don’t worry, they’re keeping it hush hush. Don’t wanna admit they have no clue where the hell you are. Natasha’s mad. She thought you really were in Europe.”
“Well, I really was, last week,” Bucky said, still a breath away, hands cupping Steve’s face. “Maybe I’ll go again next Wednesday, really piss her off.”
Steve laughed.
Bucky’s eyes followed the motion of Steve’s laugh, and it was like being young again, being cared for.
“Are you gonna finally kiss him, or?” Kaye asked from the toilet paper.
Bucky jumped back and glared at her, and Steve did his best not to turn pink. He failed. Kaye simply didn’t understand what was going on here, the years of history, the old habits. This was just how Bucky was – and Steve had been a starving man in the desert for too long to shove aside the affection now that he had it back. That was all.
Steve let the feeling simmer in his chest and wondered why he wasn’t at all bothered. By either the truth or Kaye’s guess. Maybe he was just tired.
✪
The following day it was like everything went back to normal. Bucky showed up at work to find Ella Fitzgerald sunning his little butt in the window – Bucky picked him up by the scruff of his neck and deposited him on the floor. “You be lucky it’s not the curb,” Bucky hissed, “At the rate you accumulate fleas, it’s where you belong.”
Mrs. Falucci had him reach up to the top shelves, commented on how wonderful it was that Bucky was making friends, asked him to bring in the new drink cases, mentioned that he really should take dear Steve on a walk one of these days, and sat behind the till counting change to take to the bank. “Ma’am,” Bucky said, on his knees wiping down the coolers, “Thank you for your concern, but I really need to concentrate on this here task.”
Kaye came in to relieve their boss around 3pm, immediately picking up where she’d left off. “Has Steve come in yet?”
“No,” Bucky said, thoroughly tired before 3pm, opening boxes with a small retractable knife and wishing he could use the knife elsewhere. He mentally smacked himself. He didn’t wish that. He didn’t.
“Hope he comes before you leave tonight,” Kaye said, thumping down on to her stool and lifting a magazine like it was beneath her notice.
Bucky made a face at her.
It was nearly dinnertime when Steve walked in, grocery bag in one hand. Bucky was behind the register, and certainly not scanning the sidewalk for familiar unruly blond hair. Sue him, okay? Sue him, the last few days really shook him up. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the awful rag doll motion of Steve’s head turning without his direction, heard the terrible snap as he went limp, and every time, Bucky screamed himself awake.
“Hey,” Steve said quietly, coming to a halt in front of the counter. “Uh, happy Saturday.”
Bucky opened his mouth, but happy Saturday refused to come out.
“When do you get off today?” Steve asked cautiously, and god, it was like all those years ago, Bucky leaning all casual like next to a girl working some counter, asking when she got off with a meaningful wriggle of his eyebrows. Only it was nothing like that. It was better.
“About s –”
“He’s free to go now,” Kaye said like a wraith, appearing from the backroom as if summoned. “Really, he is. It’s gonna be a quiet night, I can handle it until Mrs. Falucci comes to help close up.”
Bucky stared at her. “It’s a Saturday evening, Kaye.”
“Jimmy, are you saying I can’t do it? Because I’m a girl?” she drew herself up, hands on her hips, terrible frown on her small face.
Bucky didn’t even try to argue that one, even if he’d said nothing of the sort. “You wanna make this grave, I guess you can lie in it.”
“What are your plans?” Kaye asked Steve slyly. “I love to hear about people’s plans, so exciting!”
Steve blinked. “I had some errands to run, and since I can’t stay, I thought maybe –”
“You thought Jimmy would keep you company while you shopped,” Kaye interrupted understandingly. “Say no more. You two have fun now.”
Bucky shot her a look as she all but pushed him out the door. The look said we’re going to have a talk tomorrow and you’re not going to like it. Then Bucky realized it was just Steve in the store, and he didn’t care what Steve thought. He was going to say it now.
“Listen, Kaye, what if Steve hadn’t even been inviting me, what if I didn’t want to go? You’ve gotta be more respectful of other people. Sticking your nose into their business is impolite.”
Steve watched, his eyebrows drifting further and further up until it looked like they might fly away.
“Fine,” Kaye said, and stomped back to the register. “Sorry. You don’t have to go on your dumb date.”
“And another thing,” Bucky said, pointing at her. “Don’t force people into boxes they haven’t walked themselves into.”
“Aw, just go, I didn’t know I was signing up for a lecture,” she said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms like the obstinate kid she was. “Have fun on your stupid errand that isn’t a date. Yeesh.”
Steve held open the door. “You did that on purpose,” he accused once they were out of Kaye’s earshot on the crowded sidewalk.
Bucky shot a look at him.
Steve switched his bag to the other hand and smiled. “I was inviting you, and you knew it. And you did want to come, and I knew it. And telling someone not to stick their nose where it don’t belong is the most hypocritical thing either of us could ever do.”
“Maybe for you,” Bucky said, slamming his shoulder into Steve’s. “I am the paragon of innocence, and never have I ever stubbornly busybodied anybody.”
Steve stared a beat and then burst out laughing. Bucky was torn between getting hot and offended, and staring as Steve’s eyes crinkled shut and his teeth gleamed and his whole face transformed into what could quite possibly be described as literal light.
“That’s funny,” Steve said fondly, and then the stoplight turned green and they were crossing the street.
Steve’s errands, it turned out, involved the post office and laundromat. He spent enough time trying to unlock his postbox onehanded, that Bucky, fed up, stole the grocery bag and stomped over to a bench to wait. The key was tiny and finnicky for a normal person whose hands weren’t the size of baseball gloves, but Bucky didn’t point that out.
Steve brought over a handful of mail, some of which was definitely decorated with intense crayon scribbling, and stuffed it into the grocery bag.
Then they went to the laundromat.
“Are you kidding?” Bucky said in disbelief as Steve took another reusable bag out and started dragging freshly dried laundry into it. Bucky stared, bug eyed, and then Steve pulled his navy-blue Captain America suit out and shook it to avoid wrinkles, and Bucky said, “Are you fucking kidding?”
“No one asks questions here,” Steve said happily. “God, I love Brooklyn. Old Mr. Avery runs the place, didn’t bat an eye when I lost the name tag off this thing once.”
“You lost the name tag,” Bucky repeated dumbly. “From your Captain America suit. In a laundromat.”
Steve shrugged. “I mean, this one is technically the stealth suit, so –”
“Rogers.” Bucky yanked the bag of clean laundry to hold for him, because even though Bucky was well and truly pissed, that didn’t mean his arms had stopped working. “First of all, why are you putting that poor thing in the dryer?”
“Uh,” Steve said.
“Secondly, why the hell are you hauling all this here? Doesn’t your place have a damn washing machine?”
Steve’s jaw tightened. “No. I gotta buy one, and I ain’t yet, Barnes. Happy?”
Nearly bowled over by the amount of Brooklyn in Steve’s cross words, it took Bucky a beat longer to answer. “Next time – next time, bring your shit to me. I’ll wash it, okay?”
He could offer Steve free reign of his place, he knew. He could give Steve a damn key and let him in to use the machine any time he wanted. But he didn’t want to. He was still wary, still scared. He was still fucked up, what else was new? He was volunteering to haul Captain America’s dirty clothes home and run laundry after work.
They really had scrubbed his brain empty.
Steve just sent him a funny look, and hefted his grocery bag up. “Wanna get dinner?”
Wanna get dinner, what was this, some family outing? Some interrogation? Bucky sent him a sideways look. “Why?”
“Cause I haven’t eaten in a while, and someone once told me I was a cross eyed rat faced grumpypants when I hadn’t eaten,” Steve said serenely.
Bucky would never say it, but being quoted really went to his head. He steered them into the first burger joint he saw, and insisted on paying.
It was…it was impossibly good.
Steve ate his burger in huge healthy bites, wiped ketchup off his face mid word, laughed when Bucky dropped pickles and tomato slices, doodled on a napkin when he was full and tired. Bucky didn’t mean to be all pretentious and shit, but Steve glowed.
Even slumped back against the booth and biting his lip while his hand moved. Even covered in ketchup.
Goddamn, Bucky thought, marveling. How did I ever convince myself I didn’t need you, sweetheart?
Steve didn’t jump when Bucky tucked his foot up next to his under the table. Just looked up with a slow smile and left their feet touching.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Steve admitted, ears turning slightly embarrassed.
“I’m here,” Bucky said, and he hadn’t known it was possible, but Steve’s whole face lit up even more, like the goddamn fireworks on his birthday. How many times will I have to say it? Bucky wondered. How long will I have to prove it to you? And then, lastly, I’m sorry. God I’m sorry you have to ask.
Steve reached over with his long fingers and snatched Bucky’s last fry. “Thanks for dinner, Buck.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, the word low and lazy, watching the way the dwindling sunlight danced across Steve’s hair and down his arm, all the way to the french fry disappearing into his crooked smile.
✪
Steve went to bed that night grinning, remembering the way Bucky’s foot had felt against his, warm and solid. He woke up the next morning remembering the grumpy frown that had melted away once they’d started eating, making way for Bucky’s jokes. He went in to work dazedly remembering the small area between Bucky’s smirk and true devastating smile.
All those memories probably helped him get through the day without any anxiety or irritation toward his teammates. They also helped him out when they got called out to Nashville for an emergency at 5pm, which meant Steve couldn’t have the real thing, but at least he had thoughts of Bucky.
Unfortunately, they also distracted him in Nashville, landing him with a hit to the leg that had him screaming in pain.
It was broken, that much was clear, long before Tony’s doctors looked at it. Steve sullenly accepted a ride back to Brooklyn from Tony’s driver Happy, and stewed all the way across the bridge.
Not only was he late, he was going to be very late, because there was no way he could walk. Having Happy drop him off at Falucci’s was no good either, because Steve sure wasn’t going to get home from there himself.
“Fuck,” Steve said sadly, watching yellow taxis blur into their own taillights out the window.
“What's that?” Happy asked from the driver seat.
Steve lifted his head. “Duck, is what I said. But it’s not a real duck, it’s a billboard. Don’t worry.”
Happy lifted an eyebrow, but said no more.
Steve got dropped on his front stoop and waved goodbye. He managed not to puke while walking up to the door, and then lurched his way to the elevator. Normally he didn’t use the elevator because it was faster to bolt up the stairs, but thank god for the damn elevator.
He made it in somehow, and collapsed on the couch.
“Okay. Couch.” Steve stared around his dark apartment. “Well, it’s good I love this couch, because I’m not getting off it for the next twelve hours.”
His crummy apartment didn’t answer. His phone started ringing.
“God fucking shit fucking hell faced dickshit hell,” Steve said, and clawed his way off the couch to figure out where the fucking hell his phone was.
It was by the front door. Figures.
He hit the accept button and then decided that while he was upright, he might as well try to get more comfortable, and unzipped the top half of his uniform. “Hello?”
“How are you,” Bucky said cautiously. “Are you back yet?”
“Just got in,” Steve answered, trying to pull one arm out. “Thanks, I’m okay.”
Bucky snorted. “Are you really okay, or are you just posturing?”
Steve got one arm out and then grunted, trying to pull the other. Whoever had designed the damn suit really should go into fashion. For straitjackets.
“I got some soup,” Bucky continued. “If anyone would want some, potentially.”
“You know where I live,” Steve huffed, thoroughly fed up and shaking his arm like it might yield salt or pepper. “Either make good on your threat or shut up about it.”
Bucky exhaled in what might have been a laugh. “You’re okay,” he said. “And how on earth would I know where you live?”
“Oh, excuse me,” Steve said, finally ripping his second arm out and nearly crying in relief. He hobbled back toward the couch, the top of his suit hanging around his waist like a wetsuit. “The Winter Soldier is a deadly machine of intelligence. He monitors everything that goes on around him. But he doesn’t know where I live. My bad.”
“That’s the first time you’ve called me that.”
“I said it on national tv.”
“That wasn’t really to me.”
Steve sat down again. “Do you not like it?”
“I like it,” Bucky said, surprising him. “I am the Winter Soldier, Steve. I know where you live, and where every single one of your teammates does, and also the undercover cop who lives half a block from Falucci’s, and the FBI agent who goes home every night to her family of five on Flatbush Avenue.”
“I told you so,” Steve said, because his leg hurt and he was going to be a pain about it. He’d used up all his good burger memories, and he was cantankerous.
Bucky exhaled loudly. “I guess it’s nice to be seen for all of you. Nice to be understood.”
“I’ve always seen all of you,” Steve said crankily. “So. Are you going to put your money where your mouth is and bring me soup, or what?”
“Fine. But I want to point out that I’m not the me you’ve seen. Not anymore.”
Steve tried to move his foot and then quickly decided against that. “If you’re talking about the arm, that’s old hat.”
“Are you serious?” Bucky sounded strange.
“You see one metal arm, you see them all,” Steve said, and then, “I’m going to hang up on you. Either come or don’t, I’m going to bed.”
And then he hung up. He couldn’t roll over because of his damn leg, which was really Bucky’s fault if you thought about it, but he could throw his arm over his face and let his eyelids finally win.
It didn’t feel good, per se, but it was better.
He woke up to a rich smell and the sound of quiet clinking in the kitchen. When he cracked his eyes open, Bucky was padding around in pale blue socks, hair tied back into a tiny knot. He saw Steve looking at him, and made a face.
“Were you planning on sleeping when I showed up and knocked on the door, or…?”
“Oh, boo hoo,” Steve said groggily. “The big and scary Winter Soldier can’t even pick a lock. What’s he gonna do?”
Bucky stared at him. “This is gonna get real old real fast, ace.”
“The Winter Soldier can’t take a harsh point, oh no –”
Bucky threw a pillow at him.
The soup was chicken matzo ball, the same way Winnifred Barnes had made it all those years ago, chunks of celery and carrot, bits of herbs that clung to Steve’s spoon. Fat, round, and firm balls of buttery goodness. It didn’t magically heal him, but Steve felt like it did.
“God, I love you,” he said, finally setting his bowl down after finishing his fourth serving.
Bucky grinned from his own bowl. “Love ya too, pal. Even though this place you got here is a dump and a half.”
Steve looked up. Bucky was in his house, oh yeah. “Thanks. You’re welcome any time.”
Bucky’s forehead got a little pinched despite the teasing. If Steve knew him – and Steve did – they were thinking about the same thing. Bucky’s house. Bucky’s house, still secret, still safe. Steve tried not to mind, he understood, after all. Would never want to push anyone let alone Bucky into a place they didn’t want.
“You’re right about it bein’ a dump,” Steve offered. “There’s still no washing machine.”
Bucky unfroze. “Give me your stuff in a bag, I’ll take it back and wash it.” He rolled his shoulders back.
“Okay. Thanks for coming over with the soup.”
Bucky smiled, but it was a half-smile. “Give me your suit so I can wash it too. Properly. Hang dry and iron.”
“Buck, nobody irons anymore –”
“Sorry that my mama didn’t raise a heathen,” Bucky exploded, throwing his bowl aside and gesturing for Steve to strip out of his suit fully. “Sorry that you Catholics have to stick your noses in everyone’s business and dictate what’s right and wrong –”
Steve glared. “Low blow to sink back to religious quarrels, James Buchanan. The Catholics never did nothin’ to you personally.”
“You did a lot to me personally,” Bucky grumbled, and held out his hand.
Suddenly self-conscious, Steve did his best to stand up. He wobbled but adjusted, gritted his teeth against the pain in his leg, and prepared to bend over, when Bucky had ahold of him.
“Sorry,” Bucky said gently, supporting more than half of Steve’s weight. “I forgot. Let me help you.”
“Thank you,” Steve said, in an embarrassingly tiny voice. Bucky laid him back down and bent over to wriggle the suit off of him until it was just Steve and his undershorts on the couch.
Bucky disappeared up the hallway, because the Winter Soldier didn’t exactly ask for directions to your clothes hamper. He came back with a duffle bag, Steve’s oversized sweatshirt hanging over the side.
Steve thought about asking him to spend the night. He could have the bed, Steve was already on the couch – just another breathing body in the place would’ve cheered Steve immeasurably. But there were still boundaries in place around them, invisible glowing lines that neither of them could cross. Steve wouldn’t ask Bucky for anything he wasn’t ready to give.
“You’ll be alright here tonight?” Bucky asked, giving Steve the perfect opening, which he ignored.
“Fine, Buck.”
Bucky shouldered the duffle and flashed him a sweet sincere smile. “If I don’t see you tomorrow during the early shift, I’ll come by.”
I’ll be waiting. “Sounds great,” Steve said, and curled up into a ball. “Night, Bucky.”
Bucky moved to go and then turned back. Steve watched, curious, as Bucky walked around, scooped a blanket off the reading chair, and unfurled it, tucking the ends around Steve.
“Sleep well,” Bucky whispered, and it sounded an awful lot like I love you.
✪
Bucky woke up early to do laundry for Captain America. Now that’s a statement you don’t hear every day.
The thing was, and how could’ve Bucky forgotten this so easily, that Steve wasn’t the only one who was the one remaining piece to a matched memory? He’d been all caught up on how Steve was one who remembered him, Steve was the only person who understood, when he was the only one who remembered Steve, was the only one with any hope of understanding the mess and a half that was Steven Grant Rogers.
And Steve on the couch, eyes screwed tight, hair a no man’s land, giving Bucky shit, well. That was familiar and soothed Bucky’s bones in a way he hadn’t known he was starving for until then.
Steve forgot things too, clearly. When he was tired and in pain, he forgot to tread lighter, forgot he weighed a heck ton now, and gave it all he got. Bucky liked it.
Bucky liked a lot of things though, it was no big deal. For example, Bucky liked not being fired, so when he flipped the laundry, hung out the suit, and accidentally looked at the clock, he booked it out the door in record time, flew around the corner, and hopped on the subway, which of course was five minutes late.
“Sorry,” he gasped as he ran into Falucci’s, and found Kaye, Mrs. Falucci, and Mrs. Santiago all waiting by the register for him.
“Hmph,” Mrs. Santiago said succinctly, and slammed down a bag of tacos.
Mrs. Falucci grabbed her keys and said, “I’m going out. Lucia, don’t be rude to my employees, not if you want to keep doing under the counter deals in my establishment.”
“That reminds me of something my niece’s fiancé said,” Mrs. Santiago answered, following her to the door. “Do you know he wanted to make the wedding a potluck?”
“What?” Mrs. Falucci yelped, and the door jingled closed behind them.
Bucky turned to Kaye. “Were they just…talking? Like friends talk? That kind of talk?”
Kaye lifted one shoulder and put it back, just as bewildered as he. There was a small thump as Ella Fitzgerald appeared from Hell and landed on the counter. “Hey,” Kaye said, making halfhearted motions, “Shoo, shoo.”
“I know you pet him when I’m not looking,” Bucky said, and swished through to the backroom to put his bag down.
The afternoon was slow, the humidity keeping everyone but the hardiest commuters indoors. Around 5pm, the whole store darkened. Bucky peered out the front window and went hunting for his leather jacket. “’S gonna rain,” he reported to Kaye, who was petting Ella Fitzgerald behind the register.
Mrs. Falucci returned not long after that. “Both of you go home,” she said, throwing her coat down and shoving Kaye off her stool. “I want you safe and sound before this storm breaks.”
“Mrs. Falucci –” they both protested at the same time.
“Nonsense,” she insisted. “I live above the shop. I can handle it – I’ll probably close early. You both get home safe now.”
Bucky and Kaye went different directions out the door. Around Bucky, the air hummed in anticipation. He eyed the sky a little skeptically. The clouds were rumbling closer together, blotting out the sun, menacing and posturing. All talk, likely.
It started drizzling as Bucky was unlocking his door. Maybe they were due for some rain. Well, since he was home early, he might as well be productive. Steve’s laundry was mostly dry, so Bucky ran another load of his own clothes, wiped down the entire refrigerator, and was preparing to wash his hair when the heavens opened up and drenched everything outside in a wash of gray.
“Damn,” Bucky said, looking through his bedroom window, shirt half off. He turned to head into the bathroom, the first flash of lightning lighting the room stark white. The storm had arrived.
Shower over, Bucky pulled on a pair of sweats and toweled off his hair. The thunder grumbled discontentedly before slamming together in the loudest sound Bucky had heard since –
Fire, burning in small patches all around. The mud was on fire. Over there, a man’s body was on fire. Over there – someone’s leg was on fire. The sky lit up. The men scattered, throwing themselves down into the muck, hopefully not where the fire was, but the fire was preferable to what was coming.
“Run,” someone screamed, and Bucky tripped, going down hard, hitting up against another body – the dresser – and mud smeared across his face as the shells hit.
The sound was terrific. It was all around him, all encompassing. Bucky reached up, sure his ears had to be bleeding, sure his head had to be split in half with the noise, if not an explosion.
Someone was crying nearby – one of the kids. Bucky couldn’t look, couldn’t see another blown off limb, more shrapnel. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.
Light flashed again, and he curled up tighter. The echoing shells sounded like canons going off. Bucky was going to die with his scream caged in his teeth.
There was a shrill ringing noise. The crying stopped. Bucky lifted his head, confused – was there a radio nearby? The room around him solidified, the carpet under his maroon fatigues. Sweatpants? The crying had been him, he realized. He was in his apartment.
Thunder shook the room again, the storm right overhead. The battlefield flew into vision, but Bucky forced it back. His phone. His phone was ringing.
He struggled to his feet. Carpet, sweatpants, air conditioning, gleaming slim television. 2015. His phone was on the kitchen table.
“Hello?” Bucky croaked. He made himself try again, hardened his voice. “Hello?”
“Hi,” came an almost as scratchy voice. “Is this Barnes?”
Bucky was immediately on edge. Lightning flashed and he flinched. “Who’s askin’?”
“Oh shit, sorry. This is Barton. Clint Barton. Avengers and co. and all that. Hawkeye?”
Bucky exhaled. Thunder boomed. “What do you want?” he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see the next lightning.
“I would never bother you, dude, but you’re the closest contact in Steve’s phone, and –”
Bucky opened his eyes. “Steve.”
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “He’s down bad – I need to bring him somewhere, and my place ain’t safe.”
Before he could even realize what he was saying, the words were out. “Bring him here.”
“Okay,” Hawkeye decided. “Yeah, I’ll do that to start. Where are you?”
Bucky jumped up and ran into his bedroom for a shirt, giving directions as he went. Steve was down bad. So, he might need warm fluids. Bucky made tea. He might need a place to lie down. Bucky remade his own bed. He might need –
The doorbell rang.
Bucky ran over with a crash of thunder to throw open the door. It was worse than he’d feared; Hawkeye was standing there, bow in one hand, Steve draped over his shoulders like a gutted stag. Bucky heard a creaking noise and made himself let go of the door frame before he splintered it.
“Come in,” he said jerkily, standing back to let them in, and then leading Hawkeye to his bedroom. “What happened?”
Hawkeye gingerly laid Steve down. “It’s a little bad.” He fixed Bucky with a frank and open stare. “And it’s classified, but who cares. I know who you are. And nice shirt, by the way.”
Bucky looked down at whatever shirt he’d happened to throw on. It was deep blue, and had the word sniper written across the front. “Uh, thanks.”
He focused on Steve. His hair was wet, plastered to his forehead, his face tight in pain, even unconscious. Bucky reached over and undid the clasps on his fingerless gloves and carefully eased them off.
“Terrorists,” Hawkeye said, dripping on to the carpet. “You know, the usual. Only these ones were packing a bit more of a punch than we expected. Nat’s gone after them, which is mildly worrying, and Stark’s down for the count too – and Steve likely has three concussions all at once.”
“Concussions,” Bucky said, relieved. “Is that all?”
Hawkeye’s stare intensified. “Right before they bashed him over the head, they shot a civilian child right in front of him, Barnes. I’m – I’m sorry to burst in here and throw all this on you – I know you’ve been keeping to yourself and with good reason –”
“It’s okay,” Bucky said, gentler. “Hey, Hawkeye, you want a shower? Towels are in the bathroom, and I’ve got extra clothes.”
“Thanks,” Hawkeye croaked. “And please, call me Clint.”
Bucky nodded and waited until Clint had disappeared into the bathroom before turning all his attention to Steve. He sat on the bed, heedless of the way Steve’s wet tac gear slowly soaked into his pants. He took Steve’s nearest hand, and held it. Come on, Steve. Wake up.
Steve’s serum was faster than Clint’s showering skills, what did you know. Before the water was showing signs of turning off, Steve blinked his eyes open. He seemed bewildered to see Bucky’s ceiling fan, and Bucky frantically ran through what he knew about concussions – not much – and then Steve tried to sit up and let out a terrible gasp of pain.
“Hey, hey,” Bucky said, pushing him back down on to the blankets. Lightning lit up Steve’s grimace. “You just stay down there, ace. You’re okay.”
“Bucky,” Steve said, and then he groaned and let out a small sob. “Bucky.”
“You’re safe,” Bucky told him. “It’s over. Clint Barton is in my shower.”
Thunder boomed beyond the windows. Steve’s face was almost comical. “In your shower? Where are we?”
“In my place,” Bucky said, totally normal about it. Clearly it wasn’t as big of a deal as he’d been making it out to be. “Clint brought you here, after the fight.”
Steve sighed. “I’m sorry, Buck. I know you wanted your privacy, and I don’t know how Barton got your address, but –”
“I invited him. Don’t worry about it. Just. Lie there, okay? Get some rest.”
Steve nodded and closed his eyes, which must mean it hurt worse than he was letting on.
“But no sleepin’,” Bucky reminded, taking his hand again. “Remember?”
Steve opened his eyes and glared. Fuck off, he meant. Bucky just shook his head placatingly. Come on, pal, you know the rules, you don’t always gotta fight them. Steve tried to pull his hand away but Bucky held him tight. Sighing, Steve rolled his eyes and then gritted his jaw together. Fine. But…will you stay with me?
“I will,” Bucky said, instead of saying of course or you know I always do, because Steve didn’t know. Steve didn’t know, and Bucky had to show him over and over again.
“That was weirdly terrifying,” Clint Barton said from the doorway, and Bucky nearly jumped out of his skin. “That was like, a full-on argument, but with no words.”
Bucky stood up. “I’ll get you some clothes,” he said gruffly. “And there’s hot tea.”
After dressing in a pair of Steve’s jeans from the clean laundry bag and one of Bucky’s Nasa t-shirts, Clint made camp on the couch. He pulled his phone out, likely looking for updates from his remaining teammates. Bucky quietly asked him not to give their location to anyone, and he promised not to.
Steve choked down some tea and then stared at Bucky’s ceiling fan. Bucky got the sense that Steve was going to fall asleep the minute he turned his back, so he simply didn’t. He climbed right in next to Steve, careful not to jostle him the slightest bit.
The Winter Soldier knew how to slit the throat of a man without waking up his wife sleeping on the next pillow. Really, this was child’s play.
“I’m gonna get you all wet,” Steve said miserably.
“I got a washing machine, remember?” Bucky whispered. He didn’t exactly curl into Steve’s side, but it was close.
Steve turned his head away. “I’m barely even hurt. I should be –”
“Resting,” Bucky said. “Because head injuries are serious, even when you heal in two days, and don’t you dare tell me there’s nothing wrong with your ribs, because I know you, Steve Rogers, and that looks like at least one broken rib, if not two.”
Steve looked back at him, eyes wide. Bucky sighed in the confirmation, and stared up at the ceiling himself.
“Is your leg still broken?”
Steve frowned. “What? Oh. Oh, that. No, that was…ages ago. It’s fine.”
Bucky recalled it had been about twenty-four hours ago, but he voted to say nothing. Clearly, they had bigger problems.
“Were you workin’ when Clint called?” Steve asked, voice hushed.
Out in the living room, Clint made soft padding around noises, to the kitchen and back. Bucky exhaled. “No,” he said. “I was here, having a panic attack because of the storm.”
Steve makes a wry noise. “Did Clint tell you what happened?”
“Only the bare outline.”
“It was my fault,” Steve said, the predictable bastard. “Standard op, nothing we hadn’t handled before. Natasha was waiting with the hostages, Clint had the van rigged to blow, I should’ve been able to take down the two thugs and save that little boy all at once.”
Bucky waited, breath held.
Steve squeezed his eyes shut, but not before a solitary tear slid down his cheek. “The storm, Buck. I thought – I thought –”
“You thought you were back in the trenches,” Bucky realized, stomach twisting.
“Just for a moment,” Steve agreed. “But it was too late.”
Bucky didn’t say anything. Didn’t know what to.
“They shot that little boy,” Steve said vacantly. “Right through the head. Because of my stupid mistake, I gotta go tell some mother that her son is never gonna grow up, never go to high school, never come home and throw his shoes on the floor in that way she hates –”
“Hey,” Bucky interrupted, and couldn’t help himself. He put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, pressed a little. “You don’t gotta tell anyone anything.”
“Yeah I do.”
Bucky shook his head, growing mad. “Steve, you thought you were in the trenches, okay? That’s not small potatoes, that’s not an honest mistake. That’s serious, and you should tell your teammates that you have trouble with thunderstorms, and get a therapist maybe, not track down the mother and tell her how her kid was murdered by terrorists.”
Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “It was so loud, Buck. Remember how my ears used to bleed?”
Bucky breathed in and out, in and out. Yeah, he remembered. Remembered the blind panic in Steve’s eyes the first time he’d heard the terrific noise. The blood that had been all but black in the dark of night, dripping through his fingers, his tears of pain at the sound.
“I didn’t know, back then.” Steve turned his head to look at Bucky. “Did your ears bleed too, and you hid it from me?”
Bucky shook his head again. “Nah. I was used to it. Sure, I had no idea how to measure my own hearin’ against anyone else’s, but we all knew it was loud as fuck. I was okay, Steve.”
Steve exhaled. “I’m so glad you’re with me, Buck.” Like me, he meant.
“Always, you big lump,” Bucky replied lightly. In every universe, in every lifetime.
✪
Bucky kept Steve awake until the next morning, which left both of them in moods with a lot to be desired. Sternly, Bucky set Clint at Steve’s bedside with strict orders, and then disappeared to go out for a run. It meant something, Steve thought, that Bucky not only had let them in to his place, but was now leaving them in it, alone.
It didn’t mean Steve was happy about it. “I should be going out too.”
“Hmm,” Clint said, only half listening. “Say, can your pal Barnes there run as fast as you? After a night with no sleep?”
“I can go four days without sleep,” Steve pointed out. “Longer, if you don’t need my brain to work. Bucky’s the same.”
Clint looked at him then. “Just the same, eh?”
Something hot and proud bloomed to life under Steve’s broken ribs. “Yeah.”
Clint watched him a few beats more, and then shook his head like a dog. “As soon as your twin gets back then, I’m gonna have to scoot. Natasha –”
“I understand,” Steve said immediately. “Of course you should go check on her. I’ll be fine here with Buck. Worst case scenario he hits me over the head again to make me stay in bed.”
“What?”
“That’s a joke,” Steve said. “Did you not – never mind.”
Clint shot him a look, and then slowly went on. “I can send someone by, Sam or Tony, or I can keep it all hush hush. Tell them you’re recovering at a safehouse in Brooklyn. They’ll think it’s mine, since they all think Barnes here is in Europe.”
“You’d do that for him?”
“No,” Clint answered. “I don’t know him well enough yet. I’m doing it for you. You’d do the same and you know it.”
It was one of Steve’s lines, and he was smart enough to recognize the sternness in Clint’s voice. No arguing then. “Thanks, Clint.”
“Sure, dude,” Clint said, and actually ruffled Steve’s hair. “We’ll clean this all up, you just rest, okay? Okay.”
Steve was allowed to sleep now, according to high and mighty Nurse J.B. Barnes, so he woke up some time later to find Clint gone and J.B. himself singing in the kitchen. The hot and proud thing turned even hotter and twisted up, and Steve had to squeeze his eyes shut before the tears could leak out.
With his eyes closed, it could be 1938 again. It could be 1924.
With his eyes closed, that little boy’s face filled his vision. The deep brown eyes that had watched Steve so trustingly, and the spray of red as he went down for good. Steve choked and sat up and then felt nauseous from his ribs too.
“You’re up,” Bucky said, standing in the doorway, hair disheveled and eyes soft. “Time to get out of that suit again, buster.”
Steve had to fight to get one of Bucky’s t-shirts after the suit was off. It was a real downer having his own laundry sitting pretty and folded up in the apartment, when he wanted a harsh reminder of where and when he was by taking Bucky’s things.
His own sweatpants were much longer, so fine, but Bucky’s deep green t-shirt from Colorado smelled like him and felt like 2015. Safe.
“I can’t believe you,” Bucky said in disgust, and stomped away with Steve’s disgusting suit. Probably to go iron it.
He’d made oatmeal for Steve. There was cream and honey and sliced peaches, which was more than they’d ever had during the 30s, and Steve got confused at the choices and went all close to crying again.
Bucky sighed and chose for him, and then Steve could talk.
“Don’t you have work?”
“Nah. Had a visitor while you were out.” Bucky looked up from his own porridge. “Mrs. Falucci wanted to…check in on me after the storm, and saw I had a guest, and was so delighted I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t because you and I were horizontally tango-ing, but more because we’re both veterans of a world war and you had a concussion.”
Steve felt his cheeks flush. “She thinks—”
“Uh huh.”
“That you, and me—”
“Yup.”
“And you didn’t want to correct her?”
Bucky just lifted one lovely eyebrow. “Steve, I’ve learned a lot in the last seventy years, and it’s that arguing with women gets you nothing but a kick in the rear.”
“You learned that when you were eight,” Steve dismissed, going back to his oatmeal. “Didn’t your ma paddle you only once in your life, and because –”
“– Because I’d talked back, yeah,” Bucky finished, and then looked a little surprised. “Yeah, she sure did.”
Steve finished his bowl. There was a creeping sensation of dread settling in on his shoulders, like two vultures of ill omen. It was just that, well, he was better. He was clearly well enough to walk around on his own two feet, his ribs were mostly knitted back together, the concussions were long gone, and there was nothing keeping him in Bucky’s lovely apartment once he was done with breakfast.
He didn’t realize his shoulders were creeping upward despite the heavy vultures, until Bucky kicked him under the table.
“Relax, Steve. I’m not gonna throw you out just cause you’re well.”
Steve looked up in surprise.
“You’re here,” Bucky explained, looking very casual about the whole thing. “The cat’s outta the bag, you know where I live. If you’re gonna be bangin’ on my door every day from now on, well, I figure I’ll get used to it.”
“I won’t,” Steve hastened to promise. “I can leave and never come back if you want. We can go back to once a day at Falucci’s, if that’s what you want.”
Bucky stood. “Come here,” he said.
Unsure where this was going, Steve pushed back from the table and went over to him. Bucky dragged him close and threw his arms around him.
Steve inhaled cotton and some kind of citrusy detergent, and automatically hugged back. Everywhere Bucky touched went warm and relaxed, like the blood was finally circulating again, like he was pieced back together under the onslaught of it.
Bucky’s mouth was moving, Steve realized. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, murmured over and over again into Steve’s shoulder. He made to pull away to tell Bucky he had nothing to apologize for, but Bucky didn’t let him.
“I’m here, Steve,” he said, voice muffled but perfectly audible. “For good. I’m gonna prove it to you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I just don’t wanna go too fast, that’s all,” Bucky said, and he did pull away, now. “Oh, don’t give me that look, you know what I mean. If I brought you here, I was gonna do something rash and impulsive, like tell you to move in. If I told you to move in, I was gonna do something strange and codependent, like lie on the floor next to you until I rotted, simply so you’d always be in sight.”
Steve didn’t understand. “But you wanted your freedom. You were doing just fine by yourself, you’d come back and were working, living your own life. The kind of life –” he forced the words out. “The kind you might have lived if you’d never have met me.”
“But I met you,” Bucky said flatly, not taking any of Steve’s apparent crap. “And again, here in the future. I met you. And both times, Steve, every time, it becomes clear to me that there’s no going back from such a thing. So, might as well lean into it.”
Steve still felt bewildered, but he didn’t say anything.
Bucky sighed. “You’re here now, that’s what matters. So, at the risk of bein’ a total idiot, Steve Rogers, you wanna move in with me?”
Steve stared.
“Well –” Bucky said uncertainly, wrongfooted in his own kitchen, “I mean. There’s a spare bedroom. And a washing machine. And I can cook kinda decent, and I make a lot of food. But maybe the commute’s not good, or you don’t want a roommate, and I definitely understand. No worries at all. It was dumb anyways.”
“What are you gonna tell Mrs. Falucci?” Steve whispered before he realized it and then he just blinked.
Bucky looked at him properly. He must have seen Steve’s answer in his face, because the hesitation cleared away, replaced with a big smile. “Well, we could always try out the horizontal tango just once so she could be right in her assumptions.”
Steve gave him a death glare.
“Or we could let an old woman be wrong about something,” Bucky allowed immediately, and said, “So, you gonna pay me rent or what?”
✪
Steve Rogers was back in Falucci’s corner store two days later. He’d still insisted on visiting the mother of the boy he’d failed to save, but Bucky put his foot down and made him swear to skip the Avengers press conference. The last thing Steve needed was to be led around in circles by conniving reporters.
There was a small lightness to his step as he walked right up to the counter instead of the long way around via the coolers. It wasn’t a bounce, at least not yet. Bucky had hopes though.
Moving day was coming up. And then he would see Steve every day, rain or shine, press conference or battle. Bucky tried to pretend he wasn’t deliriously happy at the very thought.
“Mornin’,” he said.
Steve smiled, and it was like a pat of butter melting over the top of a bowl of porridge. He didn’t say, I just saw you two nights ago, or you called me when you woke up this morning, or any of that. He just plucked a lollipop from the carton, and went on his way to aisle three, without even asking for directions.
Bucky sighed and tried to forget he was even there. The store was busy for a Tuesday, lots of parents on their way back from dropping off kids, several construction workers, a few more commuters. Bucky rang them up one by one, only looking up when the usual purchases were replaced with a white plastic bag that smelled of heaven.
“You were out all yesterday and the day before,” Mrs. Santiago pointed out heatedly. “What is wrong?”
“Was taking care of a sick friend,” Bucky answered calmly, opening the register to put some money in for her pretzels.
Mrs. Santiago’s eyes narrowed. “Steve?”
“Yes?” Steve said, the numbskull popping up like a demon summoned from hell. A demon with a green lollipop. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Santiago. How was your niece’s wedding?”
It was the best thing he could’ve said. Mrs. Santiago forgave him immediately and pulled out her phone to show them both pictures. Bucky smelled cilantro and onion and fried meat and watched Steve swirl candy around his mouth, and leaned on the counter and oohed and aahed occasionally.
When she’d gone, Steve slumped down across from Bucky, not even pretending to buy something. “Hey, Jimmy,” he said, and he was Steve alright, cocky and sardonic and beautiful. “You know anything about landlords?”
Kaye came in for her afterschool shift. Bucky was working the counter and making Steve break down boxes behind him, loudly pointing out his own merits, while Steve shouted him down.
“– Rent is late, he doesn’t care! Who was that guy your ma leased from back in ’34, that dick –”
“Sure, he was a bastard straight from hell,” Steve agreed, the act of ripping apart a thick piece of cardboard doing some sinful things to his biceps. “But this new guy, Buck, he asked me to move in with him, and then had the nerve to charge me for rent.”
Kaye walked past to put her backpack in the backroom. “He sounds like a cad.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, eyes twinkling. “But the hot water in my old place only works two days outta three, and me and cold water ain’t such a good match anymore, so.”
“Does this guy cook you dinner?” Bucky demanded. “Does he cook better than you could ever dream of cooking?”
“Dunno,” Steve answered, voice dropping slightly. “He hasn’t exactly asked me to dinner yet.”
Kaye came back with boxes to unpack. “Steve, did you move in with a casual hookup?” She looked disappointed beyond belief, and kept shooting Bucky sad commiserating eyes.
“Of course not,” Steve sputtered.
“Well,” Bucky said wickedly, “This guy did proposition you like, right after he asked you to move in, didn’t he?”
Steve spat out his lollipop to glare at Bucky, which backfired, because Bucky was just staring at his mouth now.
“You said no, right?” Kaye asked breathlessly.
“Duh, I said no,” Steve declared, and stuck the lollipop back in to rip apart more cardboard. Bucky’s brain sizzled like bacon hitting a griddle.
“I feel like Captain America could get a place wherever he wanted, and with hot water,” Kaye mused, disappearing down aisle two, short enough that she actually disappeared. “Not get stuck with some lowlife.”
Steve laughed lowly and winked at Bucky. Bucky let himself smile back. “You gonna hang around the lowlife, Captain?”
Steve reddened, but remained firm. “I’ll think it over, if he cooks me dinner a few times.”
Bucky snorted and went back to the register, already planning a meal in his head. Baked chicken and potatoes and a green salad with three different kinds of lettuce – oh dear did Bucky have it bad now.
He didn’t mourn. A few months ago, he’d had nothing to tie him down, no loyalties to anyone but himself. It’d been nice, in some ways, and terrible in others. So, now he had Steve, and it turned out that he’d kill anyone who looked at Steve wrong, and he’d throw away all resolve the minute Steve was hurting, and maybe Steve and lollipops drove him insane half the time, and he was getting particular about lettuce, but it was better. It was better now.
Bucky was happy, he realized. He kept quiet on it, shoved it back down instinctively, but it didn’t go away. It lingered, somewhere low in the pit of his intestines, down where his kidneys and bladder were and whatever else was down there.
The Winter Soldier had learned the complete anatomy of the human body. Kidneys were notoriously fickle after all, and could be stabbed only a few times before killing their owner for him. But Bucky’s memory wasn’t what it’d used to be, and turns out there were a few things he didn’t mind forgetting.
One thing about Steve moving in, Bucky realized as he watched Steve yank his own reading chair into Bucky’s living room, was that things were certainly going to change with this new development.
Number one. Steve always always forgot to bring new clothes into the bathroom with him, which meant kicking the door open in a towel and a cloud of steam, and then crossing the apartment to his bedroom.
This was a problem for several reason, most of them being that Bucky nearly dropped dead every single time.
Number two. Being around Steve so much was like orbiting the sun. Steve was tall and warm and oh so within reach. Bucky found himself nearly breaking half of his furniture in efforts to keep his hands to himself.
And why should he? Well, despite all the signs that Steve was severely touch deprived and had a barrel of abandonment issues – Bucky had learned both those terms on the Google – Bucky had spent too long and too hard burying his own criminal inclinations to lose the war now.
It was like he’d said already. If he was around Steve too much, he’d tell him to move in. If he told him to move in, he was going to be strange and terrible and take too much, and then what?
Either Bucky would combust from inside out from touching Steve, or Steve would be sorry and leave. Either way ended kinda bad for Bucky Barnes.
Steve was most certainly not helping either. He was probably doing it on purpose, just to fuck with Bucky.
Number three. He left all his junk scattered around like his new profession at life was to be Captain Clutter-pants. Socks, books, t-shirts, you name it. Far from piss Bucky off, it only endeared him more.
Goddamn childhood conditioning. Anyone else in the world, literally anyone else would’ve had Bucky sitting them down, explaining his preferences, and then giving them the boot. With Steve, Bucky tidied up the living room five times a day and barely noticed. This was why the guy was such a slob no doubt – no one had ever told him what a terrible roommate he was, because the only roommate he’d ever had was wildly obsessed with him in a not creepy way.
That was all.
Bucky’s new favorite thing was evenings, when they were both satisfied and full of good food, and Steve was at the sink humming tunelessly and Bucky was packing up the leftovers, because leftovers made them both ridiculously happy, because okay, post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t a thing only soldiers had, turns out nearly starving for half your childhood could mess you up too.
Sometimes there’d be music playing from across the living room, sometimes it would just be the song in Bucky’s head and the quiet noise of Steve scrubbing with the same wide-eyed concentration he did everything.
It felt safe, it felt calming. It felt like home.
Bucky stopped going to Europe. Let someone else’s mess play the Winter Soldier for now. The real Winter Soldier had better places to be. Bucky bought Steve ice cream on his day off.
There was a wealth of recipes in the 21st century. Bucky went looking mostly for Steve, but after attempting his third chocolate cake in two days, he had to concur that cooking with all these new ingredients in a kitchen supplied with more than he could ever want, was just another Depression quirk of his, so sue him.
Steve ate chocolate cake till normal men would’ve thrown up, sticky and happy, and washed all of Bucky’s discarded dishes.
They were happy; things were good.
So, of course it all went to shit.
✪
Bucky was minding his own business, hauling in new merchandise like the city’s best bodega employee, when Mrs. Falucci stormed in, planted her hand on his chest, and shoved till Bucky went stumbling into the backroom.
Mrs. Falucci had a strong push for a woman half the size of a decent doorway.
“You hide in here,” she said furiously. “I know you didn’t do it.”
“…What,” Bucky said, something cold and fearful poking through the thin layer of dirt planted atop in his stomach.
Mrs. Falucci pulled her phone out and handed it to him. Bucky took it and found himself staring at a news video. United Nations bombed! The headline read, complete with terrible footage of a building in Berlin blowing up. They prattled on about the world leaders trapped inside, including the Black Widow and the leaders of the small African nation, Wakanda.
Then. The blurry photo, the accusation. The inevitable.
Bucky handed the phone back, head whirling. There was a go bag stashed under the kitchen sink. He could be on a flight to Mumbai within two hours. No, something within him cried. No.
Steve.
The plans changed, shifted inside Bucky’s brain like new folders flicked through and discarded. Take Steve, hide upstate until the search moved far from New York. Take Steve to Mumbai and…what. Lock him up? Hide him from the sun? No.
Leave Steve.
“Please breathe, Jimmy,” Mrs. Falucci said, voice thick, and it dragged Bucky back into his own body.
“Mrs. Falucci,” he said, and was embarrassed to hear how ragged his voice came out. “I have to –” Run. Go. Get away.
She grabbed his arm then, shook it for good measure. “Jimmy. Did you bomb the UN?”
Bucky shook his head mutely.
“Then why the fuck would you run, pardon my French?”
Bucky stared at her. Out front, the door jingled open and shut. The air conditioner whirred. Ella Fitzgerald sunbathed dazedly in the window.
There was a crashing noise. “– Sorry,” came Steve’s voice, sharp and irritated. “No, I don’t work here, but if you’ll just – I beg your pardon, I’m fucking Captain America, aren’t I?”
Mrs. Falucci gasped. “He’s come for you – hide under these boxes right now, Jimmy.”
“No, it’s okay,” Bucky tried, but she seemed to think he wanted to give himself up, and wrestled him back. Short of using brute strength against her, Bucky could do nothing but be pushed.
“Get out,” Mrs. Falucci shrieked, knocking Bucky behind a crate with one last shove.
“Please, I’m just looking for Bucky.”
“Steve?”
Bucky staggered out from behind the crate. Mrs. Falucci and Steve both whirled on him.
“Buck,” Steve breathed out, and then he was gripping Bucky tighter than Mrs. Falucci even. “I came as soon as I could. Nobody knows you’re here.”
“You’re Captain America?”
Bucky took a deep breath and looked at her. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Falucci. Would you mind giving us a moment here?”
She nodded jerkily. “Of course. I’ll…I’ll be out front if you need anything.”
Bucky thanked her and focused on Steve. “I didn’t do it,” he said bleakly. Not that it mattered. But he wanted Steve to know.
“Of course you didn’t, you were taking care of me the day it happened.”
“What?”
Steve held out a newspaper. “They were keeping it hush hush until they had a lead on the bomber. Look at the date. It was a week and a half ago.”
Bucky shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s clearly a mistake. You were with me that day. I can vouch for you in court if I hafta.”
“No you can’t, you’re as biased as fuck. You’d lie for me and everyone knows it.”
Steve’s chin made an angry jerk. “But it’s the truth.”
“Truth’s no good if no one believes it.”
Steve grabbed him. “You are not giving up, Buck. I’ve already thrown them off your scent, but I’ll drag them back if that’s what you want. I’ll tell the whole world you were nursing me through a concussion if you want. I’ll go on tv.”
“Relax, don’t blow a blood vessel,” Bucky said tiredly, already feeling better about the whole thing. So the world had chewed him up and spat him out and left him for dead. He had Steve, didn’t he? This was familiar, really. “I hear you.”
The Black Widow was tracking him from Munich to Prague. Berlin was in the right direction, she was going to be hard to convince. Unless…
“Get Barton to testify.”
“Clint? Will they believe him?”
Bucky allowed himself a smile. “Put it this way. Clint didn’t grow up bribing me to finish his homework.”
“You remember that?”
Bucky reached up then, allowed himself to touch, just a little bit. Steve’s cheek was smooth under his hand. “I remember most of it, ace. I remember the good stuff.”
Steve inhaled but didn’t move away. “You can run, you know. If you want to. I’ll keep ‘em away, give ‘em fake leads. It’ll blow over, Bucky, it always does. You don’t have to come into the spotlight like that, you don’t have to.”
“It’s time,” Bucky said, holding his gaze. “I got you?”
“You got me.”
“Then I’m ready.” Bucky closed his eyes and then opened them. “Let’s go fight ‘em, Stevie.”
Mrs. Falucci was the only one out front; she’d closed the whole store. “I can’t believe you’re that Steve,” she kept saying. “All along?”
“Yes Ma’am,” Steve answered.
“My heart’s been through more excitement in one year than it has since I was born,” she declared.
“I’m sorry,” Bucky said.
She patted him clumsily. “Don’t you apologize for a thing, Jimmy Barnes. You are a wonderful employee and a good boy to boot. Kaye is going to be steaming mad she missed the whole thing.”
The Avengers were, understandingly, less forgiving.
“You were where, on September 22nd?” The Black Widow demanded, ignoring Steve’s frown.
“Brooklyn,” Bucky said patiently. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I don’t do that anymore.”
“He was with me,” Steve said for the hundredth time. “Where’s Clint, he can back me up. It was after the terrorists, you remember the terrorists. Clint took me outta there, right?”
Clint stepped forward. “Yup.”
For some reason, this single syllable seemed to placate the Widow more than any of Steve’s kvetching. “You weren’t in Europe? You’re sure?”
“My brain isn’t so terrible these days,” Bucky said. “I’m sure.”
Her mouth twisted. “It’s still pretty bad, if you don’t remember me at all?”
Bucky stared at her. Short curly red hair, startlingly terrifying green eyes, pale skin. She was beauty and danger rolled into a smart little package. Even his…criminal ass could see that.
“Sorry,” he managed. “I tried to kill a lot of people back then. It wasn’t personal.”
She looked sad for a moment, but then covered it up. “No, it wasn’t that. Don’t worry about it. I’m better off forgetting myself.”
“Natasha,” Steve said, and went after her.
Clint plopped down next to the still stunned Tony Stark and started eating the pistachios on the glass coffee table. “You trained her in the Red Room, dude.”
Bucky waited for the punchline. It didn’t come. “…I don’t remember.”
Clint shrugged and knocked shoulders with Tony Stark. “Wish we were all so lucky, amirite, Stark?”
“Jesus,” Stark managed. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like your old photos? I mean Steve told me it was you but. I never really imagined it, you know? Too bad my dad isn’t still alive; he’d be peeing his pants if he knew I’d found you first.”
Bucky blinked. “I just wanna get this over with as soon as possible. Can we take it to the court, release a statement? Clint Barton can prove my alibi.”
“Sure,” Stark said, getting off the couch and thumbing open his phone. “I’ll put my wife on it, it’ll be done within the hour. You might have heard of her? Pepper Potts? The CEO of Stark Industries?”
He was clearly waiting for a reaction, but actually, Bucky hadn’t heard of her. “Sorry. Been living under a rock, kinda. And Stark, about your dad, there’s something you should know –”
“You killed him?” Stark asked.
Bucky stopped, wrongfooted. “I mean, I can’t be sure since my memory is full of holes, but – yeah. Probably.”
“Probably is good enough for me,” Stark sang, and put the phone up to his ear and marched away to call his wife. Bucky stared at Clint, feeling like he’d just been run over by a small racecar.
Clint ate a pistachio. “He’s weird. You get used to him. And don’t worry, okay? We’re gonna get you back to Brooklyn with Steve where you belong. Don’t think none of us noticed how much happier he is now with you nearby.”
Bucky shook his head to clear it. His hair fell into his face and he smacked it away.
“Natasha thought he’d finally met someone. Got some, you know? But nope.” Clint sounded gleeful. “He’d just found you.”
“And you’re happy for him?”
“Well, duh, but I’m more happy that Captain America, who sucks at this kind of stuff, found the Winter Solider before the Black Widow. The Black Widow! Fooled by a few airplane tickets.” Clint dissolved into giggles, and Bucky decided to leave him to it.
Steve reappeared as Bucky started looking for him. “We don’t even have to go to court,” he breathed, hair messy like he’d been grasping at it. Bucky thought about patting it down for him, or maybe offering to mess it up further, and had to mentally smack himself. “They can have a press conference in an hour, and then you’ll be free to go anywhere you like.”
“Home, with you?” Bucky said, pasting on a smile so Steve wouldn’t know how tired he was.
Steve smiled, wide and real, and knocked his shoulder against Bucky’s so he’d know he was fooling no one. “Yeah,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
It was.
✪
Pepper was even better than her word. In an hour’s time, Steve was sitting in a suit at a table facing a roomful of reporters, Bucky quiet and tidy at his side, Pepper, Tony, and Clint to his right.
They’d opted for formal dress instead of mission gear, and while Steve could care less for a vest and jacket deal, he had to admit Bucky sure looked sharp. They’d tied his hair back, given him a steel gray bowtie, and let natural time make his edges just the slightest bit rumpled. He was…stunning.
After the opening statement made by Pepper, Clint stood and gave testimony to Bucky’s whereabouts, and the reporters had their field day asking about Bucky’s mental state and whether or not he was still working for Hydra and how he felt about the modern day, and Bucky answered each question with charm and wit and seriousness.
Halfway through, Steve could pretty much see him grow bored and start messing with the press, so Steve kicked Tony under the table to signal for help.
“Yes, bananas,” Bucky said severely to an innocent young woman who’d asked what was one of the strangest things for him after being the world’s longest serving POW. “You young people should be ashamed of yourselves, the way you’ve let fruit go to the dogs.”
“That’ll be all the questions for now,” Pepper interrupted, like a redheaded guardian angel, and then it was all over.
Somehow, Steve followed Bucky home, said good night, and fell into bed. Miraculously. Steve was going to have to buy Pepper a diamond ring, or whatever it was that you got to thank someone for keeping your best friend from a life in prison for a crime he didn’t even commit.
Bucky shook him awake at 4am.
“It’s okay, shush, sweetheart, everything’s okay,” Bucky was saying, and it took Steve a minute to realize that he was crying, and that Bucky was real and warm in the dark, and very much not gone.
“Thought –” he got out, before Bucky was enveloping him, fuzzy sweater and strands of hair, citrus soap and gentle reassurances.
“It’s all okay, sweetheart, go back to bed.”
Steve closed his eyes tightly and his arms tighter, and thought about how in the morning, Bucky could be persuaded to try out a new pancake recipe and maybe they’d go for a run in the park, and then Bucky would go to work and Steve would invent new ways to stalk him, and if anyone saw them on the street, Steve could walk right up to them and say, that’s my friend James Barnes back from the dead, isn’t he incredible? and no one would bat an eye.
“Bucky,” Steve said, and he meant thank god you’re here. Thank you so much. Thank you.
“Steve,” Bucky said back, into Steve’s hair, into the meat of his shoulder, into his bones. And he meant the same thing.
Steve woke up surrounded by an expanse of Bucky.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love it. He did. He loved it so much that he felt like he was swirling around like a tornado in a blender. All the time spent burying his own feelings, whether they were ugly or angry or…dangerous, all that time threatened by just a few hours of warmth.
There’d been a mess of emotion too much to untangle back when he was a teenager with a failing body. He didn’t need one more problem, and besides, Bucky was too good to even consider losing. And then again, during the war, when he’d gotten another chance and Bucky had been sunken and sullen but somehow still alive. And now here he was again with an incredible third chance to doubt himself, to hem and haw and shove shove shove. Pray everything stayed in its box.
Because the alternative was too scary to think about.
And now Bucky was curved around him, hand on Steve’s hip, foot resting on Steve’s ankle, breath huffing hot against the back of his neck, and if that went on much longer, Steve didn’t have a good reason not to explode.
He rolled away and took a shower. When he finally got out, the bathroom mirror obscured in steam, the bedroom was empty, and there was a whistling noise from the kitchen.
“Mornin’,” Steve said cautiously, dressed and toweling off his hair as he walked out.
Bucky was lying under the kitchen sink, upper body totally blocked by the cabinet. “Good morning, there’s coffee and toast if you want it.”
Steve did want it. He helped himself, casually eyeing Bucky’s legs as he stepped over them to get to the mugs. Towel around his neck, he leaned against the counter and ate slowly, still getting used to the bright sunlight. It was nearly ten in the morning.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Steve finally said, because he knew Bucky was being obtuse on purpose.
Bucky slid out in a move that was too fluid to be an accident. “Did I ever tell you about ball valves, babydoll?”
Steve sighed into his coffee. “No, but I bet you’re gonna now.”
“I installed some about a week ago,” Bucky explained, standing and going over to a modest collection of wrenches near the stove. “In here and in my neighbor’s bathroom. The landlord ignored my kind calls so action was needed.”
“I remember you said your landlord needed a talking to.”
Bucky huffed and some hair slipped from its ponytail. “Yeah, no shit. Anyways, I’m not a fucking plumber, I turn the sink on today, and there’s a terrible spraying noise from underneath. I gotta fix the damn pipe.”
Steve snorted. “Or you could…I don’t know, call a real plumber.”
“Pay for someone to muddle around in my house? I can do all that for free.”
Steve grinned into his coffee cup. “I should go to work,” he said regretfully.
“I can’t believe they make you still go in on the days nothing’s blown up. They make you show up even when there aren’t any criminals? Just terrible.”
“Believe it or not,” Steve said ruefully, “Criminals mean a lot of paperwork. And nobody makes me, Buck, it’s my job.”
“Well, don’t expect me to keep a candle burning and all that,” Bucky said, back under the sink. “I’m working the closing shift today.”
Steve put his cup in the sink and went looking around for wherever he’d put his jackets upon moving in. “See you when I see you then.”
When he saw Bucky, was of course, in Falucci’s after he was done with meetings and paperwork and Bucky still had three hours to go. Steve brought him dinner, not because it was anything special, but because he wasn’t the only one who was always hungry, and he knew how Bucky felt about spaghetti.
Bucky gave him the stink eye at the rich tomato sauce smell coming from the takeout bags. “If this is cheap Italian knockoff food, I’m not gonna eat any of it.”
“I know.”
“If it’s from some stupid restaurant catering to tourists, I’m not even gonna let Ella Fitzgerald eat it.”
“I know.”
Bucky opened the container, stared down at the noodles and sauce and lamb or whatever else was in that one, and stabbed at it with a fork.
“You gotta do that curly thing,” Steve said, miming. “You know, where you—”
Bucky glared. “Don’t insult me, Steve.” He tasted the food and his frown cleared up. “Damn, that’s good.”
“Not tourist fare then?”
Bucky harumphed. “It’ll do.”
Mrs. Santiago walked in, saw Steve’s takeout bags, and got such a look of hurt outrage on her face before Bucky nearly jumped over the counter to placate her. They completed their strange exchange, and Mrs. Santiago gave him strict refrigeration and reheating instructions.
“If it was anyone other than tu novio, I would have your head on a roasting stick,” she told Bucky, eyeing Steve in a way that said she was still considering it. And maybe more than one head. “But I understand.”
“You’re too kind,” Bucky said, and shoved her out the door, rolling his eyes at Steve.
Steve waited for the single customer to check out with Bucky and disappear through the doors. “What does tu novio mean? She’s called me that from day one.”
“Aw,” Bucky said. “What do you think it means?”
“Somethin’ unflattering?” Steve guessed.
Bucky’s face softened into something terribly sweet. “It means the boyfriend, Steve.”
There was that hot and prickly feeling again, a stick of dynamite in Steve’s gut. “Oh.”
“Looks like there’s more than one old lady imagining us –”
“Okay,” Steve said loudly. “Eat your damn pasta, James Buchanan.”
✪
“Hey,” Bucky said three weeks later, stopping in the middle of his sweeping and propping himself up on the broom handle. “Remember that time you came in here all dead after that mission that hadn’t even been bad? Remember that?”
Steve barely looked up. He was reading one of Kaye’s magazines, sitting behind the register with Ella Fitzgerald lying around his neck like some million-dollar mink fur. “Yeah.”
“Has that happened recently?”
Now Steve looked up. “Come to think of it, no. It hasn’t. Not in a while.”
Bucky studied him. The idea hit like a ton of bricks, he pointed accusingly at the same time that Steve opened his mouth. “Don’t you dare imply –”
“I wasn’t gonna!” Steve yelled almost at the same time. “I would never, Buck.”
“Cause you have a lot of nerve –”
“Oh please, you’re not gonna waltz back into my life and fix everything,” Steve snapped.
Bucky jabbed the broom bristles into the floor. “Fine then.”
“Fine.”
The door jingled and Bucky went back to sweeping like his life depended on it. “Excuse me,” said a tall white kid in a slouchy hat. “Do you sell Advil here?”
“Aisle two,” Steve said from his magazine, and Bucky stopped his sweeping again to stare.
Bucky was off around 5pm, so he slung his arm around Steve’s shoulders and casually asked if maybe Steve knew anything about Vietnamese food versus Moroccan.
“Is this gonna be like the wall mold?” Steve asked testily.
Bucky turned in the middle of the sidewalk so his mouth was right up against Steve’s ear. “Why, did you like the wall mold?”
Steve shivered and shoved him away. “No one likes wall mold, and no one wants to think about it when they’re about to eat dinner. I know you’re new to this world, Buck –”
“Hey, technically I’ve been around since before you were born, and I don’t appreciate –”
“Moroccan,” Steve said, which meant he knew he was going to lose that one.
They had a delicious meal of cous-cous and curries full of rich chunks of carrot and zucchini and chicken, all of which reminded them both that they still liked each other and they didn’t need to go to jail for murder.
When they got home, Steve had left out a set of new watercolors and two different history books, and Bucky only sighed and cleaned them up without a word. Bucky had forgotten dishes in the sink and Steve cleaned them and didn’t even frown.
Bucky looked at him washing dishes in the low lamp light, and thought about how just a few months ago Bucky had been the loneliest idiot this side of the Mississippi. And now look what he had.
“Steve,” he said out loud, and nearly jumped in surprise too. He hadn’t meant to say it, to actually say it, but maybe he should. “You know how I feel about you, don’t you?”
Steve’s eye roll was nearly audible. “Sure, since you leave nothin’ to the imagination every time I irritate you, Buck.”
“No, I mean for real,” Bucky managed, throat dry. “Like, for real, for real.”
Steve set the sponge down and reached for the last pot. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
Bucky leaned against the countertop. The pipes under the sink that he’d painstakingly put back together held, and the dirty water disappeared down the drain with soft gurgling noises. Steve’s shoulders rippled underneath his sweater.
“I like you,” Bucky blurted, and then immediately wanted to die. “No, wait. That’s not what I meant to say.”
I love you, he meant to say. Thank you for being half my purpose, half my joy in the world, and all of my heart.
Steve glanced over his shoulder with a crooked grin. “I’ve watched you flirt everything in New York City into submission, Buck. How’d the cat get your tongue now?”
“Nothin’ I ain’t ever done mattered very much compared to this,” Bucky said, and decided to forget it. Who did he think he was, blurting all this out all of a sudden? He’d done just fine bottling it all up for his whole life, he’d do just fine now. “Aw, never mind, Steve.”
Steve turned all the way and wrapped his arms around Bucky. His hands were wet and clean and his long nose smeared into Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky hadn’t been held this tightly since…he couldn’t remember when.
Since 1941, most likely.
All his defenses crumbled, the way they’d always threatened every time Steve touched him. And hadn’t he said he was a goner if Steve ever got worse and more touch deprived and needy than he already was? Here they were, a pair of gasping wobbly idiots, wrapped all around each other in the middle of the kitchen, and it shouldn’t have felt like Bucky’s valves and tubes were finally pumping right again, but it did.
“You can’t know what you mean to me,” he breathed out, collapsing into Steve’s embrace just a little bit more.
Steve barely moved. “I think it might be mutual, Barnes.”
He was real and thumping in Bucky’s arms. Healthy and as happy as could be expected given the circumstances, and still with that wry humor and half grin and those flashing eyes. He was a miracle of pieces, lungs and ears and heart.
“I love you,” Bucky said, and really it was very simple.
Steve pulled back at that. His eyes were very blue. “What are you saying?”
“Aw, you know,” Bucky said, going all weak. “Ain’t I flirted you into submission yet?”
“Like that?” Steve said incredulously. “Like that, like that?”
Bucky was suddenly nervous. “At least I’m not about to get arrested anymore, right? A few things do change for the better, look at that.”
“Bucky,” Steve said.
Bucky snapped to attention. He always did, when Steve said Bucky, just so, soft percussive b, and the y a little longer than strictly necessary. “I love you,” he repeated, laid out bare under Steve’s hands, under his touch.
Steve smiled. It started out small but bled outwards, brighter than the lamps, bigger than the city. “It’s like that, then, huh?”
“You know me, Rogers,” Bucky joked, “Can’t let a stray be unloved. It’s a problem of mine.”
“You got a problem alright,” Steve agreed amicably.
“His name is Steve,” Bucky said. Something changed in Steve’s face, something fast and hot and new. For a moment, Bucky caught a glimpse of the raw energy still waiting to be unleashed, a new facet of Steve he hadn’t ever had the chance to really see, at least so far. It was feral and strange, but not off putting in the slightest.
“Kiss me,” Steve demanded.
“Nah,” Bucky said. And then – “Oh my god, yes, yes, come here, the look on your face, I swear –”
Later, after Bucky had done nothing but stare at Steve in the shower, head tilted to let the water run down his neck, Steve running the towel over his head rapidly and emerging with hair like duckling fluff, Steve dressed in one of Bucky’s shirts and a pair of pajama pants, and felt so overwhelmed with feeling he could die, Steve looked up from his perch on the side of Bucky’s bed and said, “You should’ve said something.”
Bucky couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Oh yes, that would’ve been a great idea, get us both into jail before the late-night rush. Come on, Steve.”
“We could’ve made it work.”
“You weren’t mine to love, not that way,” Bucky explained, finished with his toothbrush. “But I loved you anyways.”
Steve waited until Bucky sat beside him. He leaned over until he was whispering into Bucky’s ear, like the secret was too good to share. “I’ve always been yours.”
Bucky let their fingers touch on the bedspread and tried to remember to breathe. “You know, in the name of science and also letting poor old Mrs. Falucci be correct for once in her life, you interested in some recreational –”
“If you ever bring up Mrs. Falucci in this room again, I will simply stop kissing you for good,” Steve informed him, yanking his hand away. “You got real problems, Buck.”
“So why are you still here?” Bucky replied, but it didn’t sound like a joke.
Steve’s face softened. “Well, we already went over that, didn’t we? I’m one of the problems, it’d be real hypocritical of me to walk out on all the rest. And besides. You’re a good cook, and you kill the monsters under my bed.”
“The monsters under your bed level cities,” Bucky pointed out.
Steve grinned cheekily. “That’s why I have my very own pocket Winter Soldier, of course.”
“I’m not your – it’s not your –” Only he was, wasn’t he. The Winter Soldier wasn’t some toy, wasn’t some defense to deploy on a whim. The Winter Soldier was him, and he was also somehow James Barnes, and both of him loved Steve. Both of him would always have Steve’s back. So, maybe Steve was right, in a twisted and bad way. “You shut up,” Bucky said eventually.
Steve leaned in awful close. “Make me,” he whispered. And Bucky always had Steve’s back.
✪
Bucky went from being Steve’s personal pocket Winter Soldier to sitting on the floor and repairing the front door in the span of twelve hours, and that was enough to make a fella dizzy, but Bucky wasn’t what most would call a normal fella, and he found he was doing just fine, somehow.
Things out in Zurich went about as bad as they could possibly have gone, and Bucky had ended up going out there in full black regalia, guns blazing in order to keep bullets from slicing Steve’s head apart.
Leftover Hydra in Zurich had nearly peed their pants sideways upon seeing the Winter Soldier, and a solid half of Bucky had been darkly amused to see them flee halfway across the roof before he took them down with carefully aimed shots.
Then, finished killing anyone who looked at Steve wrong, shooting the breeze with Steve’s dumbass coworkers – except Clint, who was really cool and funny to boot – Bucky came back home and had to break the door down to open it, the weak latch finally having given up the good fight while they were out of the country.
“Really?” Steve huffed, exhausted and rumpled, leaning against the door while Bucky nearly bent the handle in two. “At 2am? Now?”
“I don’t control the speed at which our house breaks down around us, Steve,” Bucky retorted, and smashed the door open. After they were through, he wedged it shut so that a small battalion would have taken a full day to get through, and collapsed into bed next to Steve.
The following afternoon found him armed with his trusty companions, screwdriver and flashlight, slumped down in the doorway for each and every neighbor to gawk at as they went out for lunch.
“You need a haircut,” Old crotchety Mrs. Woolhaven informed him, pushing her little cart in front of her with a small squeaking noise.
“Hold up a minute,” Bucky answered, grabbing the oil he had at the ready and spraying some into her cart wheels. It was gun oil, but it would serve. The cart was damn lucky it was touching something so fancy. “There you go, ma’am.”
“At least tie it back while you’re working,” she said, never a thank you or please. “It’s going to blind you and then you’ll cut your hand open and where will you be then.”
Bucky didn’t tell her that he was pretty damn sure he’d murdered eight people with his hair in his eyes before. He just smiled and waved.
The problem was that the latch that retracted in and out when the handle was turned, wasn’t moving. Bucky took both handles off on either side of the door, and dismantled the inner mechanisms until there was nothing but the long latch piece.
This Bucky cleaned and oiled – more precious gun oil – and replaced, using the other pieces to try to turn it. No go.
“Steve,” he called, already grabbing his wallet, “I’m gonna run to the store!”
Steve’s answering shout came from somewhere in the living room. “Thought you weren’t workin’ today.”
“I’ll be right back,” Bucky hollered, and tore out for the nearest hardware store.
When he came back with a replacement latch, Steve was sitting amidst the screws and instructions, playing with the locking mechanism.
“Don’t touch that,” Bucky barked, glaring from under his sweaty hair. “What are you doing?”
Steve shrugged. “’S neat, that’s all. Look, the lock slides on to this shaft and it can’t turn either way until this piece slides through here –” he demonstrated the door’s brilliant capabilities, minus the fucking latch.
Bucky’s heart softened at the sight, Steve’s long fingers figuring things out the way they always had. Slowly he climbed into Steve’s lap, knees bent up on either side, hands gently sliding into Steve’s soft hair.
“Where is the screwdriver?” Bucky whispered, kissing him tenderly.
“Are you gonna fix it right now?” Steve asked, and then dove back in just as enthusiastically.
They had issues, the two of them.
“Don’t you wanna shut the door again so our neighbors stop staring at us?”
“Wow, you have such high standards.” Steve handed over the screwdriver.
“Don’t want they should see while I kiss you for half an hour. Call me crazy.”
Steve always did.
Bucky was back working in Falucci’s the next day when Mrs. Santiago came in, tacos in hand. She seemed unusually happy, or maybe she’d tasted a particularly spicy chili and her mouth had just frozen that way.
“What do you want,” he said warily.
“What makes you think I want something, what kind of person do you think I am, young man?” Mrs. Santiago demanded, strange smile disappearing to be replaced by a more comforting glare. “I only come when I want something?”
Well yeah. “Um.”
She set the bag down on the counter in front of him. “When are you going to have the wedding?”
Bucky blinked. Surely, he’d heard wrong. Was he supposed to be organizing someone’s wedding and he’d forgotten? For a brief moment he had a slight heart attack. He wasn’t exactly known for his terrific memory, maybe there’d been something in the calendar –
No. Bucky knew five people and none of them had asked him to design and plan their wedding. Which meant that likely Mrs. Santiago was off her rocker.
“What do you mean?” he asked politely, instead of what in God’s name is wrong with you, woman?
Mrs. Santiago took her pretzels. “You and tu novio. You going to ask him or not?”
Now Bucky did feel panicked. It took him a moment to realize what was going on. Alarms blared in his head, screeching she knows she knows she’s going to call the cops. Deny it, deny everything, get out of there, run as fast as you can and don’t look back.
Okay, he thought, trying to let the word bleed out and cover everything else. It’s okay.
“Ma’am,” he said, trying for joking and just sounding wretched, “I don’t see how it’s any of your business, to be frank.”
“My niece is married,” was her logic. “Your turn now. I will bring tacos to the wedding.”
Bucky momentarily considered fabricating a false marriage celebration for the free food.
“Let me know when it is,” she finished, and left the store, leaving behind the jingle of the bells and a churning in Bucky’s stomach that had nothing to do with his previous near-panic attack.
Marry Steve? Darting a look over his shoulder, as though someone might actually care and be spying, Bucky allowed himself to admit it wasn’t like he hadn’t played with the idea before.
Way back when, all of his sisters growing up and finding suiters, the talk of rings and homes and futures got to him. Overseas, the fellas reminiscing over letters and white picket fences and a dog. There would be no fence or dog, not for Bucky, but still. A guy could dream.
And now, with Steve’s smiles and Steve’s kisses and Steve’s bright hope in this bright new future when maybe they wouldn’t immediately be thrown in jail. A world where there was Mrs. Falucci hiring a known assassin because he could speak Italian and reach high shelves. A world with Mrs. Santiago offering food and pictures of her niece along with her opinion. A world that Bucky belonged in, despite all his initial misgivings and mistakes.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said aloud, and angrily slammed the cash register closed.
When Kaye showed up, he was meditating, sitting behind the counter with his eyes shut, trying to hear his heartbeats slow as he inhaled and exhaled like the best yoga guru this side of the Mississippi. The effect was ruined slightly by damn Ella Fitzgerald, who was perched on Bucky’s shoulders and massaging with his little paws like the best masseur this side of the Mississippi.
Kaye left her backpack behind the counter and leant over, chin propped on her small fists. “You should get Ella a collar. So he can’t get lost.”
“I wish he would,” Bucky told her serenely.
“No you don’t.”
Bucky opened exactly one eye. “See, Kaye,” he said, the way he’d speak to Tony Stark, maybe, or a two-year-old, “When someone says they wish something, that generally means they actually wish it, and aren’t playing opposite day with you.”
Kaye pouts. “You’d just about die if that cat didn’t turn up one day.”
“I hate stray cats,” Bucky said, while right around his ear, Ella Fitzgerald gave his left paw a vigorous bath.
“I’m talking about the cat,” Kaye announced. “And I’m serious, I’ll even chip in for the collar and tags. But I actually mean Steve.”
Bucky opened both eyes.
“Give him a collar,” she said. “So he can’t get lost.”
“Did Mrs. Santiago put you up to this?” Bucky asked, ready to rip both of them a new one. “Because I think it’s real funny –”
Kaye scrunched her nose. “What are you talking about? I’m telling you to tell Steve how you feel because he’s gonna go hang out with those unsavory characters he mentioned a while ago. The –” here she whispered loud enough for the entire empty store to hear, “– the one night stands.”
“The one night stands –” Bucky couldn’t believe he was talking to a teenager about this. Maybe he shouldn’t talk to a teenager about this; teenagers were awfully young nowadays after all – “The fucking one night stands are all me, Kaye.”
Her mouth opened and shut again. “Then by definition, they wouldn’t be one night, would they?” she asked tartly. “I’m talking about Steve and his –”
“He knows,” Bucky said, exasperated. “He knows, okay? I’m not sure there’s anyone in this godforsaken city who doesn’t know by now. Don’t worry.”
“Oh,” Kaye said, voice small. “Well good then. I’m proud of you, Jimmy.”
She popped a loud bubblegum pink bubble, and disappeared to dump her stuff in the backroom. Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier stood in an old bodega, stray cat on his shoulder, a teenage girl telling him she was proud of him and his romantic pursuits. Really, he couldn’t sink much lower.
Or maybe he could.
He went to a ring store the next day. The poor girl behind the counter did her very best, showed him every damn ring in the store, asked about his upcoming plans, and was very kind. Bucky was sharp edged and nervous, grumpy in all the ways he realized he hadn’t been so much since Steve.
“I’m sorry,” he broke out with, an hour into their debate. “You don’t deserve this.”
“Everyone has nerves, Mister,” she said, smiling kindly.
Was that what was wrong with Bucky? “It’s just,” he tried, and she waited, four different rings on the counter between them, “I’ve known him my whole life,” he explained. “Start to finish. And there’s been a hecka lot of crazy in between, and I don’t know – I don’t know if what we’ve got now is going to be enough. I don’t know if I’m enough.”
“Childhood friends, huh?” the girl said, leaning in, chin propped on her hand. “Well, it sounds like you like each other enough to stick around this long.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, voice embarrassingly small. “Yeah, no shit.”
“So why on earth can’t you be enough, just as you are?”
Bucky stared at her, long and hard. “The plain silver one,” he said abruptly. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a good salesman?”
The girl laughed. “The plain one? You want anything engraved on it? Comes with the set price.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, inspiration stealing over him. Steve was either gonna love it or mock Bucky mercilessly till the day they died. “Yeah, can it say a line has no end on the inside?”
When it was done, Bucky received the wrapped ring box. “I’ve watched a lot of people prepare to propose,” the girl told him, and handed him the receipt. “You got nothin’ to worry about.”
“Thanks,” Bucky said, and then thought about how smug Kaye was going to be if she ever found out.
There had to be a right time to propose. Bucky had several ideas, and one of them was bound to fit, but truthfully, he had no idea how he was supposed to figure out which one. Option 1, have a romantic dinner with wine that didn’t work on either of them. Option 2, take Steve out on a fun adventure in the city, wait till sunset. Option 3, hire an airplane to write it in the sky or something equally ridiculous.
Then there was always option 4, which was Steve singingly terribly offkey as he did laundry one evening and then marching out of the bedroom abruptly and slamming the ring box down on the table in front of Bucky’s book.
“Oh my god,” Bucky said.
“What’s this?” Steve asked, hushed.
Bucky felt the briefest stirrings of irritation in his chest. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, dammit – “That’s not yours, Steve, so why don’t you leave it alone?”
Steve stepped back, looking like he’d been slapped. “It’s not mine?”
“No – goddammit fuck –” Bucky slapped his hands to his face. “Ugh!” he yelled and grabbed the small black box from Steve in his metal hand. “Fuck you, Steve.”
“It’s fine,” Steve said, moving away. “Whatever.”
“No,” Bucky repeated, the words forcing their way up in sheer desperation. He snatched Steve’s wrist in his free hand. “Please. Listen to me.”
Steve turned, and his eyes were awfully glassy. It hurt Bucky deep in his ribs. It hurt his heart.
“It’s yours,” Bucky said, the words raw. “I got it for you. I just – it wasn’t supposed to go like this, you know? I was waitin’ for a picnic, or a big moment. I was waitin’ till it was perfect. And look at me – shit timing, shit backup plan, and I even topped it off with cursin’ you out.”
Steve inhaled, and it was like life bled back into him. He bit his lip and his cheeks were suddenly flushed rosy. “Oh,” he said softly. “That’s okay then.”
Bucky didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t fucking planned – “Steve. I don’t really know what to say here, but I guess the basics are still the basics since if it ain’t broke – Steve, will you –”
“Yes,” Steve said, beaming like a lighthouse welcoming lost travelers home.
“Really?” Bucky croaked, suddenly terrified for no good reason. “Well. That’s cool then. Okay.” He realized what he was doing a moment later, Steve still smiling widely at him. “Goddammit,” Bucky muttered, and reeled Steve in for a kiss.
He pulled back after a few minutes, not because he wanted to, but because he had a ring to give. Steve was like a lantern, warm and glowing and barely containable in his excitement. It made Bucky wanna do things, starting with yell from happiness, and ending with shoving Steve up against the wall to get more familiar with the way the ring looked on his hand.
“Thank you,” Bucky said, and kissed him again. “For being a hungry asshole and walking into Falucci’s. Thank you for coming back to me. My bad penny.”
“Yours,” Steve said, grinning, hand fisted in the front of Bucky’s shirt. “I love you.”
Bucky smiled. “We’re gonna have to stay engaged forever though. I ain’t provin’ Mrs. Santiago right.”
“Eh,” Steve said, still holding on to Bucky’s collar, walking backwards and dragging. “We’re already provin’ the rest of them right, Buck, what’s one more?”
“I’ve never known you to be alright with other folks bein’ right. You feelin’ okay?”
“Can’t get sick now,” Steve sighed, and then tripped over the laundry he’d been gathering before, knocked Bucky on to the bed, and didn’t say another word, which was also uncharacteristic of him and warranted some suspicion, but maybe at a later time.
A much later time.