Chapter Text
Bucky
He's been at this truck stop for fifteen days and he knows he should move on, but it's perfect.
He has everything he needs here: for a-dollar-a-minute Bucky can use the coin operated showers inside the public washroom at the far corner of the enormous parking lot - they've got all-in-one soap dispensers mounted on the walls of each stall so he doesn't even need to use his own. Outside the front of the lot, a grounded trailer acts as a seasonal food stand. The smell of coffee and bread wafts through the air like a beacon, drawing in the unending stream of truckers that pass through here for a warm meal and a hot drink. And then there's the view. It's gorgeous: steep mountains tower over them on all sides, a stunning panorama of lush greens and steely blues, while inhospitable stony mountain faces stare down all around them with ancient gravitas. The parking lot itself is hemmed in on most sides by dirt mounds left by old construction crews, small hillocks that have grown over with the grasses and native brush, crowned with yellow wildflowers.
Bucky might be a little bit in love.
Which is a problem. He needs to leave, like, yesterday, before the grumpy employees at the food stand call the police on him and he gets a ticket for loitering or worse. They are already giving him the stink eye whenever he orders the grilled cheese sandwich and soup for lunch again - the most filling thing on their menu - and despite the ideal conditions he feels the itch at the back of his neck and knows it's time to leave. Luckily Bucky's in the land of Transient People With Transport Vehicles, and many of them are more than happy to give someone a lift - especially if that person is good company and can offer extra services. He just needs to find the right ride.
He gathers his meager belongings from his spot under the thick boughs of a giant hemlock, a makeshift camp just over the hills of dirt and out of easy eyeshot from the lot. He bundles the clothes and towel that hung out to dry on the branches overnight into his backback, then rolls his sleeping bag tightly and straps it underneath. He double checks that the lube and condoms, knife and pepper spray are all within easy reach in the outer pockets and gives his shoulder length hair a quick comb.
Bucky emerges onto the massive concrete parking lot into full sunlight, squinting against the glare of metal and pavement as he weaves between roaring semi trucks. Sweat prickles under his long sleeved t-shirt as the summer heat turns everything on the surface of the asphalt into a furnace, undoing some of the work of the shower he took earlier this morning, and he mourns the loss of perfectly clean skin for the forseeable future.
There are fewer trucks than usual at the moment, so he scouts his options carefully.
Avoiding the food stand Bucky paces through the length of the parking lot, measuring up each semi truck driver he sees with a keen eye; most of them are absent, probably sleeping or doing who-knows-what inside their cabins; the few that are around don't look his way, or rather won't meet his eye for long; those Bucky passes over politely. One or two truck drivers glare back with hard expressions, and Bucky walks past these with his head down, fast like he's just remembered some urgent business across the lot.
It's in an effort to avoid one of these last ones that Bucky rounds an enormous midnight blue semi truck with the hood down and sees a broad-shouldered man on the other side tapping the tires with a hammer. The trucker straightens to his full considerable height and wipes a sunbrowned forearm across his face, flashlight in his gloved left hand. It looks like he's just finishing up whatever inspection he's doing.
The man looks up when he notices Bucky; his face under a shag of dirty blonde hair and beard is handsome; his eyes, however, are piercing when they land on him, steady and zeroing in like a hawk, and for a second Bucky is unnerved by it. But the trucker's body language is comfortable, open as he turns when he sees Bucky approaching him. His plaid button up is rolled to the elbows and his grease stained jeans are tucked into heavy duty work boots.
He looks - honest. That's the only word Bucky can find for it, measuring up the strong, sharp features: long, arrow-straight nose and the rosy cheeks of someone who smiles often, and finds warmth simmering in the cut of his eyes despite their shrewd quality.
This is his ride, Bucky knows immediately. Even if he doesn't want any of Bucky's other services, this man will happily oblige a hitchhiker; he's got that wholesome look all do-gooders of the world have, and a confident demeanor that won't be easily scared off by supplication.
Bucky hitches his most charming smile onto his face and sure enough the guy smiles back and actually waves, like they're neighbors in a small town or something, stepping away from his truck to meet him partway.
"Hey," Bucky calls once he's near enough; up closer he can see the man has a few deeper lines on his forehead and fine wrinkles in the corners of his eyes; if Bucky had to guess he'd put him at around forty, but he looks good, healthy and obviously very strong - he's built like his truck, power stacked on power in such a way that looks almost mean. Bucky would seriously consider passing over him altogether for that reason alone if his face weren't so kind.
Striding forward the last few steps, he licks his lips and says, "I'm Bucky," holding out a hand.
"Steve Rogers," the man says, peeling off a leather glove with one hand and holding it in the other along with his tools to return the gesture. His voice is almost as deep as some of the trucks rumbling around them as he gives their joined hands a firm shake, palm warm and calloused. "What can I do for you?"
Bucky makes a judgment call and goes for a slightly edited version of the truth, erring on the side of caution:
"I'm looking for a ride out of here if you have the room." It's one of his canned lines, tweaked and tuned to give the guy an easy out; of course he has room, almost all truckers do - in their sleeper compartment if nothing else - but it lets the guy know he doesn't consider it a sure thing, that he can wave Bucky off with any mild excuse and he'll take the no for what it is.
The guy looks Bucky up and down, a once-over he should be used to but for some reason leaves Bucky feeling flustered. He's just asking for a ride. It's not that weird; he hasn't even offered any sex yet. And lord, but he'd like to offer sex to this man, he thinks, eyeing those shoulders and tanned forearms, corded with muscle and thatched with hair. But. At this point it might be counterproductive: Bucky can get an instant feel for most people but that doesn't mean he's perfected the art of clocking homophobes. People will surprise you, good and bad.
"Where are you headed?" Steve Rogers asks, and that's certainly promising.
"Anywhere but here," Bucky answers flippantly, letting a little smirk color his words, and instantly regrets it. Steve looks at him, too considering, and then looks around them like he's wondering what Bucky's problem is with it. Shit. He fumbles around and goes for some honesty. "There's a great little camping spot nearby," he explains hurriedly, "But I think the food stand workers are gonna kick me out for loitering if I stay any longer." He says it with just enough wry humor, like it's all a joke he's in on. He's not sure if he sells it. At least this information seems to capture Steve's attention again.
"Oh?" He raises an eyebrow, encouraging him to elaborate without saying anything, and Bucky shrugs one shoulder.
"I've been at this spot a little over two weeks; think it's time to move on," he says, real casual: he forgot how much he hates this part, treading carefully between truth and embellishment, trying to put his mess of a life into acceptable terms for other people, to frame it just right so it's a little more preppy-backbacker than homeless-vagrant. Bucky forces himself to smirk and not squirm as he meets Steve's discerning gaze and just barely manages not to drop his eyes in something horrifically close to shame. It's a relief when Steve finally releases him to glance wistfully up at his truck.
"Well, if you don't mind where you're going, I can give you a lift. I need to make a stop in Missoula next; Maggie's acting a bit funny and I want my mechanic to look her over before I go any further than that."
"Maggie?" Bucky says curiously, following Steve's gaze up the chrome blue truck cut with two wide bands of maroon paint and finds that, oddly enough, the name suits the massive vehicle.
"Short for Margaret," Steve explains, like that's supposed to mean something, and then he looks back at Bucky, who realizes he needs to give some sort of answer.
"Right. That's - great, yeah; about Missoula. Doesn't mess up my plans," he adds, trying for another humorous little dig at himself, and nervously checks that his tone isn't putting Steve off again. The other man just snorts and heads to the front of the truck. He reaches up and pulls the hood back down; it follows slowly with a hydraulic hiss before closing with a crunch and Bucky swallows dryly at the muscles he can see straining in Steve's shoulder and back as he moves.
"Well, in that case: welcome aboard the noble Maggie, Bucky," the trucker says grandiosely, matching Bucky's self depricating sarcasm as he gestures broadly up at the semi, and it makes Bucky laugh in both humor and pure relief. He did it: he secured a ride out of this place! And he didn't even need to offer a blow job in exchange for it.
Steve opens the driver's side of the truck and hops up with the ease of practice and Bucky jogs around the front to open the passenger door on the other side.
As soon as he climbs up the steep set of grated metal steps and settles into the cabin, something shifts. His body is familiar with this routine by now: even if it's stupid, inside the cab Bucky feels better, more in his element, and he relaxes just a bit, arranging his backpack between his knees and retrieving his water bottle, taking a small sip for hydration but not so much as to need the washroom anytime soon. As he glances over he sees Steve watching him just before he turns the key in the ignition and Maggie rumbles to life all around them.
It's been over two weeks since Bucky was actually in one of these rigs while it was moving, and excitement thrums through him despite himself; despite all the other conditions of Bucky's life right now, despite everything that brought him here, this part brings him true, unexpected joy: they could go anywhere from here, and the world feels like his oyster again for a moment. Bucky doesn't bother containing his grin.
It's maybe noon as they're pulling out of the truck stop, and Bucky resists the urge to give a cheerful and somewhat obnoxious wave to the food stand workers as they drive by; he cranes his neck to look at the stop for as long as possible, memorizing it, and then focuses on the road ahead once it's out of sight.
"Is there anything you like to listen to?" Steve asks, his hand fiddling with the radio dial once they've successfully merged onto the highway. The truck is an older model, with a russet brown dash and round glass gauges and switches inset; a layer of debossed brown upholstery pads the entire inside of the cab, creating a cozy insulated effect and placing the entire rig somewhere firmly in the 80s. Bucky shrugs in answer, just happy to be moving again.
"This is fine," he says, referring to the generic 2000s hit that's playing through the grainy airwaves, and then his eyes widen as he looks at the road in front of them.
"Woah!"
"What?" Steve immediately snaps his attention out the windshield, looking for whatever's startled him.
"It's steep," Bucky says sheepishly, more anxious than he thought he'd be at the sight of the highway dipping dramatically down in front of them. As if that wasn't bad enough, way far down the mountain at the point of terminal velocity is a bend that veers sharply out of sight. It's this moment that Bucky's brain decides to remind him that Steve said there might be something wrong with his truck. He tries to suppress the sudden lurch of panic; he's being ridiculous; Steve is a trucker; he knows what he's doing. Probably. He can totally trust this complete stranger with his life. Right.
Beside him, Steve rumbles a good natured laugh. "That's the Rockies for you," he says fondly, doing something complicated with the stick shift. The truck's engine grumbles and downshifts, thankfully slowing its descent, though the speed still feels wildly uncontrolled to Bucky. "This is the steepest hill on the I-90 though," Steve continues; "That rest stop you were at is a brake check for truckers to look over anything that might need it before taking this hill." He shifts the gears again and they slow down even more, the bend still rapidly approaching but at slightly less instant-death speeds, and Bucky breathes through his panic. This angle and the height of the truck make it feel like he is dangling over the edge of the world, like he should lurch out of his seat and go flying off the side of the mountain through the windshield, and that's when it clicks: fear of heights. He has a fear of heights.
He'd forgotten until this moment, or maybe just didn't expect to encounter it while driving down a highway of all things.
"You alright?" Steve's voice brings him back to awareness and Bucky nods tightly, even though he's not really sure, but he feels too silly to admit it. It's literally just a truck driving down a highway. There is nothing wrong.
"I've been driving semi trucks for a little over five years now," Steve explains breezily, inexplicably sounding like he's talking directly to Bucky's panicked thoughts. "You get used to dealing with all sorts of road conditions and breakdowns on this job; the real condition to watch out for is other drivers." Bucky swallows down his feeling of vertigo and forces himself to reply, to engage with the lifeline Steve is unwittingly throwing him.
"What's the most annoying thing?" He tries, as they slow even further and begin to take the bend, which seems to get gentler and less threatening as they turn onto it, and the anxiety lessens by degrees. At least while they're corkscrewing around the mountain Bucky feels less in danger of going splat headfirst into the windshield.
"About the job? It's the new rest guidelines."
"Rest guidelines?" Bucky repeats mindlessly, unsure what they're talking about but sure that he wants Steve to keep talking. Not only is it helping, but Steve has a really nice voice. It's deep but also resonant, and sincere as can be. He means everything he's said to Bucky so far, that much is sure, and it's weirdly soothing.
Steve huffs with the force of someone about to unload a personal grievance. "The government teamed up with the American Trucking Association last year and decided to enforce strict new rest policies for truckers in all fifty States: no driving for more than eleven hours a day with a mandatory rest period of ten consecutive hours after; once you've used up your limit for the twenty four hour period you can't move your rig an inch." That catches Bucky by surprise.
"Wait - seriously?"
"Yeah. A lot of guys hate it, including me. It really robs you of your sense of freedom at times. And we used to do our drives in one big push, you know? There's that aspect, too. It's easier that way for some. But now we can't do that, because some board of directors decided to dictate our sleep schedules to us. Which is great for the people that need it, but for people like me it messed up our whole lifestyle. There were guys who'd adapted to ten, fifteen years of long shifts on the road like that who suddenly couldn't do it anymore and had to quit.
"It's a nice idea, I'll grant them that. But in reality it slows us down and can make it harder. What if you can't always sleep at the scheduled time, you know? Then you're sleep deprived but can't stop when you need to, or you can but you won't because you need to get your hours in. It's dangerous. It puts people at risk for all sorts of things. I'd rather decide my own limits than have some pencil pushers tell me what they're supposed to be, y'know?" Steve suddenly seems to remember his audience, and glances contritely in Bucky's direction.
"Sorry; that all just came rushing out. Normally no one's actually listening when I go on a rant in here."
Bucky bites his lip in a smile. "No; that made perfect sense to me," he says thoughtfully, and Steve glances over, curious. "A big part of the appeal of trucking is the independence, right? You set your own hours, you spend your time alone, or - mostly alone, I guess," he adds self consciously, shaking his elbow to indicate himself while his hand grips the handlebar above the window - "And you don't have to answer to anyone while you're on the road."
"Yeah; exactly," Steve says emphatically, sounding exasperated. "I wanted a job without my boss breathing down my neck, and that's what it was at first, but now they've got these new guidelines and remote satellite monitoring and ELD trackers -"
"Wait, what?" Bucky interrupts, alarmed. Steve grimaces.
"They've got mandatory trackers on all the trucks now to see where you're going, and the timing is also monitored through a route schedule on your phone. If you go off route you have to call it in. I'm going to have to report taking Maggie to the mechanic; and if I do anything out of line like don't follow the rest guidelines or go over the speed limit, I'll get a warning text."
Bucky stares at him, a little horrified for Steve's sake. It sounds like a great way to kill all enthusiasm for this job.
"Is that... like, standard?" He asks fumblingly, and Steve shrugs.
"For the company I work for, Shield, it is. I don't know about many others; I haven't looked into it."
"You should look into it," Bucky says instantly, fervent, and Steve glances over, curious at the heat in his voice, and Bucky doubles down. "I mean, if that's not standard for other companies, why stay with this one? It's the same basic job, isn't it? Load, haul: deliver. But if you don't have to be tracked and browbeaten for tiny mishaps why put up with it? No one likes being micromanaged," He adds this last thought particularly darkly, and Steve laughs, but it's bright and clear.
"Maybe you're right," he says, and glances over at Bucky with something like real interest in his eye. "That sounded like it was coming from personal experience," he says lightly, but it's clearly a question, and Bucky rolls his eyes, glancing out of the side window to watch the trees and brush whip past. He hadn't even noticed that they were well past the curve and that the highway had levelled out somewhat; he was too absorbed in the conversation to remember to stay afraid of anything. Huh.
"Yeah, well, I used to work at a McDonalds," Bucky says, and a surge of unwelcome memories wash through him as he says it: the neverending rush, angry customers yelling while the whole line behind them listened in with sadistic intrigue; the smell of grease that clung to his clothes and hair; standing dead-eyed in the bathroom with a mop at the end of a long shift, trying to push through the last hour and coming to a complete standstill instead, listless.
"Yeah?" Steve's voice breaks into his reverie, the single syllable full of unasked questions he's either too polite or too kind to voice specifically. Bucky shakes himself and focuses on the reason why he brought it up. There was a connection somewhere.
"Yeah," he says slowly, remembering the relevant piece of information as he speaks: "They used to have this computerized display in the corner of the store facing out so all of the customers could see; every employee had a line with their name on it next to a realtime counter for how long it'd been since we started our most recent order; if it took longer than two minutes for any single order you got penalized. They wanted us to compete to get it done in under one, though."
"Jesus," Bucky hears Steve mutter, and when he glances over there's real distress on the man's face, like he really understood how fucked up that was, and Bucky focuses on breathing, because he's never really talked about this with anyone before, and he's surprised to find how strongly it's affecting him. He drops his hand from the handlebar above him and hides it in his lap where Steve won't see it trembling.
It's quiet for a minute after that, and Bucky appreciates it; he stares out the window and just breathes, letting the crooning voice of whatever singer this is on the radio wash over them. It feels more peaceful than it ought to.
"So you were - camping?" Steve asks after a while, and Bucky considers lying for a whole three seconds before he gives that thought up. He doesn't want to lie to Steve, and isn't that something.
"Not really," Bucky says evenly. "I mean. For a certain value of the word, sure." He scoffs and lets his lips twist into the cruel little self depricating smile like they want to, feels Steve's eyes on him but doesn't check to see what expression is on his face.
There is a beat or two that lingers uncertainly, and then for the second time that day Steve starts talking apropos of seemingly nothing, and for the second time Bucky is strangely grateful:
"I took this job after my wife, Peggy, died in a car accident," he says, and when Bucky glances at him Steve flips the sun visor down in front of him to reveal a photograph of a woman with wavy chocolate brown hair and red lips curved into a killer smile staring out of the little square of photo paper pinned there. "That's her," Steve says needlessly, and Bucky is taken aback by her beauty until he glances again at the man across from him, at his Adonis-like profile only barely disguised beneath the rugged beard, and is harshly reminded that Steve is as handsome as he is terribly out of Bucky's league.
Bucky shakes himself and focuses back on the topic at hand, which is a tragedy: this man lost his wife to something horrific and Bucky is busy feeling jealous of her.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he makes himself croak around his own self recrimination.
Steve makes a sound between a hum and a grunt of acknowledgement and flips the visor back up. He looks a little strained but his eyes are soft when they meet Bucky's.
"It was hard for a long time after I lost her," Steve says by way of agreement, and lets the statement sit with the weight it carries before moving on: "But so was the time right after we both got out of the military and had to make a life out of what they'd made us." He snorts and looks across the cabin with derision. "Talk about being micromanaged - for a while there it was like we were both trying to play the role of CO for the other. We were lucky to have each other; no one else would have understood our particular brand of crazy." Steve glances over, his smile wistful.
"People don't realize the damage that style of leadership can do, but even worse is being in a high control environment and then not even realizing how bad it was. At least you realized it and got out of there."
It's an odd place to take the conversation, Bucky thinks, but he also sees what Steve is trying to do: without even addressing it directly, he's made himself vulnerable too, kindly drawing a similarity between them all at the same time. It's sort of masterful, and Bucky has to admire his tact. He leans his head back on the headrest.
"All the more reason to find a different company," he concludes doggedly, and Steve's expression is fond when he looks over to check.
"And what about you?" Steve asks, hands resting idly on the wheel as he guides them around another bend, "What do you do for money now?" And just like that, all the good feeling in Bucky's body evaporates. He feels himself stiffening in his seat and he can't help it, because Steve's hit on the one thing that somewhere in the course of this conversation Bucky suddenly doesn't want him to know, not now that they've been talking and sharing things, real things, with one another. Bucky's not used to finding conversation on the road, and he'd opened up thoughtlessly; now the idea of lying feels repugnant, but the thought of telling the truth leaves him cold.
Thankfully the glib persona that has helped him survive all this time slides into place and takes over before Bucky himself has time to decide.
"I suck cocks," He hears himself say with forced bravado, something arrogant and cold in his voice that wasn't there a second ago, that hasn't been there for any part of their interaction up til now. He sees Steve's head whip around at the jarring new tone, distantly registers his expression, furled brows over wide, almost angry eyes, piercing in their searching, but they cannot locate Bucky because he has happily retreated into the rafters of his own mind. Safely detached, Bucky lolls his neck toward Steve with a wide smile and goads him deliberately: "That gonna be a problem?"
It's pure defense mechanism: that one quick flash of anger he'd seen in Steve's eyes startled him; it had been - intense. Deep like a fire burning underground that he had not noticed until it was too late to outrun. It has Bucky waiting, bracing for impact.
He's expecting Steve to yell. He expects him to slam on the brakes and pull the semi truck over onto the side of the road, for Steve to call him whatever homophobic slurs he can think of and kick Bucky out, make him hitchhike the rest of the way to the next town - hopefully leaving Bucky in one piece when he does so.
"Not a problem," Steve says stiffly instead, but his voice and shoulders are tense, and Bucky doesn't believe it. Of course his mouth has no idea when to shut up.
"You want me to suck you off?" He offers, artificially blasé.
Steve waves him off almost in irritation. "No," he says shortly, his voice hard, and Bucky shrugs like it doesn't matter one way or the other and has to fight off an absurd urge to giggle because otherwise he's going to have a panic attack. So Steve probably is a homophobe, then. But he's trying to be nice about it. Shit. Shit. Bucky should have put on an act of being a preppy college kid in his gap year, not went ahead and had a heart to a heart with a damn trucker. He needs to get out of here as soon as possible; maybe he can say he needs the bathroom at the next hamlet and take off.
"Suit yourself," he says, folding his arms over his stomach, which feels like it might as well be full of snakes, and they drive in pseudo-silence of the truck for a good couple of minutes, the sounds of shifting gears and tinny radio music only serving to emphasize the silence between them somehow.
After what is surely a small eternity, Steve speaks again. "How'd you get into that, if you don't mind my asking?" His voice is quiet, and too gentle, and oh, god, he wants the damn sob story. It pisses Bucky off to no end. He wants to say something terrible that will devastate this nosy, clueless boy scout, so he chooses his next words with all the care of whetting a knife:
"After my stepdad threw me out for being a fucking faggot, I figured I might as well start getting paid for it."
To his satisfaction, the intended hit lands. Steve flinches and goes quiet after that for even longer than before.
It's so long that Bucky has time to mull it over and feel bad about it, a little.
He might have jumped to some conclusions here, typecasting Steve into a role he hasn't done anything yet to deserve - Bucky has his paranoia and his plethora of bad experiences to thank for that. In his defense, those experiences are not great. Bucky has an entire rolodex of memories to choose from in which luck and civility were not on his side, but so far Steve has only been decent.
They drive past a little hamlet that's nothing more than three houses and a gas station clustered together and Bucky says nothing about pulling over. He's watching it disappear in the rearview mirror when he tries to speak again.
"Look - "
"In th - "
They both stop, startled by the unlikely timing of the other.
"You first."
Steve clears his throat, hand on the gear shaft. "In the military," Steve starts cautiously, "If a guy was queer you didn't talk about it, but everyone kind of knew anyway. You live in each other's pockets like that, depend on each other for survival for so long, it tends to come up one way or another."
He's staring determinedly out the windshield not looking at Bucky as he goes on: "When my CO walked in on me and another man, I thought I was going to get dishonorably discharged for being distracted on duty, if nothing else."
Bucky makes a noise of surprise. This is already going a wildly different way than he had expected. And Steve. Steve is - ?
"Don't know what I would have done if that had happened; for a whole day I was absolutely terrified, waiting to get written up, walking on eggshells and trying not to look anybody in my unit in the eye."
"What did happen?" Bucky tries, curious despite himself, and he looks over at Steve, wordlessly shifting his mental image of him from a straight-laced authoritarian bigot to... something else.
"I married her," Steve says, smirking, and then taps the visor above the windshield when Bucky stares uncomprehending. "Peggy was my CO," he spells it out, and now Bucky feels like the clueless idiot in this equation. He turns to look at the road straight ahead, wrestling with the chagrin he feels at missing an obvious context clue due to a sexist stereotype.
"She didn't mind?" He says, mostly because he is at a loss right now for what else to say.
"That I'm bisexual? Not at all. She was, too."
Bucky guffaws helplessly at that. "Just a regular couple of queers, huh?" He teases, but the relief he feels is enormous. It feels like there is a helium balloon being set loose in his chest, all of the crushing terror falling away, and it makes room for him to feel foolish and small instead, to feel the beginnings of shame creeping in.
"Yep," Steve takes this good naturedly, smiling over at Bucky, and Bucky's breath catches; Steve would be a gorgeous man just standing around doing nothing, but when he smiles like that, with a gleam of affection in his eye, his whole face softened by it, he's positively beatific.
"But my point is, that day? The day I was walking around the barracks with my heart in my stomach, waiting to get sent home? That was one of the worst days of my life. I can't imagine if it had been someone else, or god forbid a homophobic male CO. My name would've been mud if it had been anyone but Peggy. Definitely wouldn't have gotten a recommendation letter for any of my civilian jobs later, either." He pauses, swallowing.
"But anyways, all this to say: I'm sorry that happened. It sounds like you had your own version of that day, but your stepdad was crueler to you than the military was to me." Steve shakes his head sharply in anger.
"He didn't have to do that," Steve goes on, and now his voice is all fired up, full of heat and conviction. "Nobody made him do that. That's on him, but you're living the consequences for some reason, and that ain't fair." There's a twang at the end of Steve's speech that's achingly familiar, and all of it leaves Bucky pinned to his seat, gobsmacked.
No one's ever said it before. He knew that, but no one's ever said it right to him like that. And certainly not with that accent. Bucky finds himself asking reflexively:
"You from Brooklyn?"
Steve looks around in something like amazement this time. "Born and raised," he says. "Are you?"
Bucky laughs, wild and incredulous. "Yeah," he says wonderingly, "Same."
They share a brief look filled with astonished recognition before Steve has to fix his gaze back on the road. He shakes his head and laughs as well.
"Where'd you live?"
"Prospect Heights," Bucky says excitedly. "You?"
"Three miles away in Kensington, on Ocean Parkway," Steve huffs, disbelieving.
"Small world," Bucky tries unsteadily, because now he's thinking about home and all of the reasons he left again. "You still live there?"
"Nah," Steve says easily, reaching for a travel mug in the cup holder and taking a sip of water. "I have a place in DC. But most of the time I'm out here, on the road."
Bucky glances around the cabin like he's seeing it for the first time, twisting a bit to look in the back. Cut into the upholstered wall behind them, a rounded entryway leads to the sleeper compartment in the back. From what Bucky can see the area is tidy and organized, everything secure and multifunctional: compact. Like one of those idealistic tiny homes he's seen in YouTube videos.
"Home sweet home, hey?" He says, resettling in his seat. He lets his foot come up and rest on the seat with him this time, knee bumping his chest.
"That's Maggie," Steve says with a pleased little smile. And with everything apparently easy between them again, Bucky feels a stab of guilt for earlier.
"Listen, I'm sorry about - "
"Don't apologize," Steve interrupts; there's something hard in his voice that has Bucky darting a look and the answering one stabs him like that first moment out on the parking lot, sharp and perceptive.
"I didn't have to say it like that," he mutters.
"I put my foot in it, don't try and tell me I didn't," Steve argues; his accent is thicker now, and not just because Bucky's looking for it. "Always did do more'n my fair share of that." His right hand gestures vaguely at his ear. "Think I actually heard Peggy calling me an idiot," he confesses with a laugh, and Bucky feels his lips twist helplessly into a smile at that.
Steve's hand falls heavily back on the gear shaft. "There's nothing to forgive," he goes on more seriously, and Bucky sees a similar look on his face now as to the one he thought was anger before, only this time he can see it's not that. It's intensity; it's passion. It's just whatever stuff this man is made up of and if Bucky thinks back over the entirety of their interaction thus far, that's been plain as day since the moment he set eyes on Steve. All that intensity is pointed in Bucky's direction - but not at him, Bucky can see that now: Steve is fired up on Bucky's behalf, somehow.
Bucky feels pieces of his meticulously constructed walls sheering away like ice shelves off a glacier. His shoulders drop; he hadn't even noticed the weight they'd been carrying until it's not there anymore.
He weighs the potential consequences for a minute and then jumps:
"I was staying at my friend Natasha's place and working at McDonalds trying to finish the semester," he says, grateful his voice is steady. "And then one night I was walking back to Nat's place and a guy pulled up next to me in his car; told me to get in." Bucky shrugs. "It was better money than what I was making flipping burgers."
Steve contemplates this, his posture still tense but Bucky understands it now as a sort of indignant protectiveness against the injustices of the world - and says, "What did your friend Natasha say?"
Bucky shakes his head. "I never told her. I quit McDonalds and had a place lined up a week later. Moved out the next month."
"What happened to the place?" He says. It's obvious how careful he's being this time, so Bucky tries not to show that he's stepping right next to another landmine. He takes a breath and delicately diffuses it.
"It didn't work out."
Not a real answer, but Steve hears the warning for what it is and backs off. Bucky can practically hear the other man thinking of a new question, rerouting.
"What kind of classes?"
"Huh?"
"You said you were trying to finish the semester."
"Oh. I was doing my freshman year at college. I didn't have a field picked out yet, though."
Steve looks over, puzzled. "How old are you?" He asks.
"Twenty six."
The what the hell happened between the first year of college and twenty-six hangs in the air, and Bucky doesn't answer that, either.
"How old are you?" He asks.
"Thirty eight."
"You don't look a day over thirty nine," Bucky says quickly, deadpan, and Steve laughs.
"Thanks?"
"I'm serious," Bucky says, not sounding very serious at all.
Steve shoots him a look. "I can't tell if you're joking or not right now."
"I'm serious! I would never have pegged you for forty. Thirty nine, maybe. But thirty eight? I'd definitely peg you."
That takes a moment to sink in, but when it does Steve guffaws and whirls on him, taking the drink out of its holder from earlier and splashing it towards him.
"Agh! Stop it!" Bucky cries, laughing, and Steve just splashes him again - it's a travel mug, so not much water can even get out of the mouth let alone go far, but Steve still manages to make two sizeable stains on the front of Bucky's tshirt.
"You're like a feral cat," Steve laughs, setting the mug back in its place.
"As if it's my fault," Bucky groans, and he sees Steve shoot a questioning look at him from beneath his eyelashes. And, lord: those eyelashes.
The want that Bucky has been ignoring this whole time steps to the forefront, and he trails his eyes down Steve's body again, letting himself really look this time: from his long legs and thickly muscled thighs shifting under the denim, to his built chest and arms, laying so casually over the steering wheel. His face is oddly delicate, at odds with the intimidating build; only his nose matches the rest of it, strong and noble; beneath it, his lips are full and red, and Bucky swallows hungrily. He catches Steve watching him, a similar hunger mirrored in his eyes but also wary. Bucky forces himself to look away. Whatever he's feeling for Steve, it's not how he feels about his clients, and he's going too fast, going to get himself hurt bad.
The radio crackles to life before either of them say can anything more.
"Breaker breaker Eastbound; anybody copy?"
Steve reaches for the radio handset and holds it to his mouth.
"Ten-two this is Eastbound, over."
"Are you the red and blue Peterbilt at mile marker seventy-eight?"
Steve glances at something on his phone. "That's me."
"I'm watching your back door; you got a bit of smoke coming out from under your trailer," the voice on the radio crackles.
"Ten-four; I appreciate it," Steve says quickly, and sets the handset back in its holster.
A couple of minutes later they're pulling off onto the next exit to Wherever-The-Fuck-This-Is Tinyville; Bucky thinks he sees twelve houses total as they come to a swift stop in front of the only gas station, a lonely truck stop with a motel and diner. The abrupt stillness is loud.
Steve hops out of the truck, nearly running around to the back of the trailer to see what the other trucker was talking about. Bucky follows, curious and a little worried, although there's not much he thinks he can do if there is a real problem.
He sees the white smoke curling out from under the trailer just as Steve does, and Steve is right there with his leather gloves and toolbox, muttering,
"Second thing today; it's just not your best week, girl, is it?" And then he's poking around with the flashlight, getting his face much closer to the stink than Bucky would have dared.
It's fifteen minutes of standing around in the hot sun watching Steve poke and prod with a variety of tools, before giving up and calling his mechanic, whose name is apparently Sam.
Steve walks Sam through the problem and a lot of gesticulating and words like "exhaust manifold" and "fuel injector" ensue and Bucky mostly tunes them out, going to sit in the shaded half of the cab while he drinks his water. He sneaks a few glances at the nearly empty motel while he does so, part of his survival brain eternally scheming for where to find likely clients and opportunities. A weary part of him suggests that this is where Steve is going to realize what a basketcase he's picked up and decide to ditch him, and the thought wriggles its way under his skin by the time Steve sighs and puts his phone away. Bucky squints up as the trucker walks around to where he's sitting, waiting to hear the game plan. This is Steve's show, after all.
"Sam says he has an idea of what's wrong and that we should be safe to drive in short sprints once it's cooled all the way down, but in the meantime he needs to order a part. Won't be in til tomorrow; we might as well stay here for the night."
"Okay," Bucky accepts this, feeling strangely at peace, staring around at the scraggly brown shrubs and bushes lining the asphalt that have become more and more common as they descend from the mountains. Steve is talking like Bucky will still be coming along for the rest of the ride to Missoula, but it's never safe to assume, and Bucky can't bring himself to ask.
Steve steps up into the truck with the door hanging open to let the dispatcher know there's going to be a delay and then climbs down.
"Want to get some food?" He suggests, motioning to the old style diner connected to the gas station, and Bucky shrugs and stands up, bringing his backpack with him.
"Sure."
They head inside and the door jingles as a blast of cool air mercifully embraces them, smelling strongly of bacon and coffee, and the waitress looks up from the counter, somehow managing to look bored and suspicious at the same time.
"What can I do for you," she says like she doesn't want the answer. She's older, maybe fifty or sixty, and she looks tired and world weary with her graying braids and dark circles under her eyes. Bucky gives her a small conspiratorial smile, and sees her face soften slightly.
"Just looking for a decent meal," Steve supplies as she leads them around to an empty table by the window and plops two worn out menus down in front of them.
"Try special number three. Coffee?"
"Please," Bucky says quickly, thinking of late nights and the truck he'd seen parked in front of one of the rooms at the motel.
"Just water for me, thanks," Steve says.
They look at their menus for a while and end up choosing the special the waitress (Linda, her nametag reads) pointed out - two eggs in a basket plus sausage and hashbrowns served all day with a soup or salad of choice. They make their orders and Linda brings them their drinks as she takes the menus away.
Another patron walks into the diner with a jingle. Bucky can see him over Steve's shoulder and gives him a quick once-over: a broad and beefy white guy with a goatee and a tattoo around his neck that disappears beneath his shirt. He looks like a suppressed closet case if he's anything Bucky can work with. The newcomer looks back at Bucky and for a moment his eyes linger. Bucky holds his gaze for a beat longer than is socially acceptable, and he knows the moment the message is sent went the other man smirks. Bucky looks back down back at his coffee and takes a sip.
Oblivious to the exchange, Steve is looking out the window at this tiny truck stop in something close to wonder, and Bucky almost wants to roll his eyes at the guy - how earnest can one person be, for goodness' sake? - when Steve says,
"I think I recognize this place."
That pulls Bucky up short. "Oh?"
Steve nods distractedly, craning his neck around. "Yeah! I think there's... let's see; if that's where the motel is, then over there behind it there's a trail."
Intrigued, Bucky twists around and looks where Steve is indicating. There is nothing that he can see from here other than the scraggly brown bushes and thin forest surrounding the asphalt, but maybe Steve knows what he's talking about.
"Wanna go check it out after we eat?" He suggests, and Steve's whole face lights up.
"Yeah!" He says happily, and that settles it.
They speculate about what might be wrong with Maggie (mostly Steve speculates while Bucky listens) until Linda comes back with their food, and then they tuck into their meal; Bucky isn't surprised by it, but he's a lot hungrier than he'd noticed in the truck.
Bucky sees the man who came in shortly after them watching him across the diner, and they make brief eye contact a couple of times throughout the meal.
When they finish up and get their bill - Steve insists on paying - they head off to where he said there'd be a path, and Bucky notes the room number of the lone black truck parked in front of the otherwise empty motel as they pass.
Sure enough, there is a small trailhead leading into the forest out back; it's not terribly well-trodden, but it's there, and Steve leads them to it with unsuppressed excitement.
"It's here!" He calls. "I can't believe this is the same place!"
"Same as what?" Bucky asks, batting a slender branch out of his face as they proceed down an incline. It's packed dirt littered with the bumpy crowns of rocks and tree roots.
"I came through here as a kid with my ma; must've been, oh, fourteen at the time? It was just a random pit stop on a long road trip, but I found these falls and spent a whole day here while ma was - well, she was busy."
The ending of that felt abrupt, but Bucky doesn't press. It seems too wildly unlikely that they've stopped here in the first place to spoil the mood right now by dwelling on whatever it is.
"What's that about some falls?"
"Oh, yeah - it leads down to this gorgeous waterfall. If I can remember how to get there - come on!"
And then they're just two guys running through a forest, and Bucky has forgotten all about the truckstop behind them and the guy at the diner and his past and his precarious standing in society as they stumble and slip down forested paths and hold branches out of the way for each other. They travel deeper into these woods and into Steve's half-forgotten boyish memories of it, Steve trying to retrace his past self's footsteps by talking through it.
"I think it was this way after the really mossy boulder," he pants as they approach yet another fork (Bucky may have temporarily lost touch with his omnipresent fear but he's still counting the switches and turns to the way back because he's not stupid). "No - over here," Steve calls a few minutes later as they double back, both breathless and laughing at Steve's sense of direction and his unabashed delight despite it. Bucky's seeing a younger, freer side of the older man, outside of his truck and all its responsibilities, and it puts part of Bucky at ease, too.
Three wrong turns and two alternate discoveries later - a very large patch of mushrooms and a gnarled old tree that somehow looks like a little old lady - they hear the falls and emerge onto a cliff edge facing them.
"Woah," Bucky says, impressed. The waterfall is stunning, a violent crystalline curtain plummeting down layered reddish cliffs that look as though they've been there for a million years or more, ending far below in a picturesque pool of clear water, surrounded by greenery on all sides like an oasis.
"Wanna go down there?" Steve breathes, and Bucky doesn't have to think twice.
"Yeah."
Getting down proves to be almost harder than it was to find the fall in the first place, and twice as treacherous. Only by exploring the surrounding area thoroughly and following a couple of deer trails do they eventually find it; even so, Bucky lowers Steve down a couple of times by hand and then Steve spots him as he jumps after.
By the time they're all the way at the bottom both of them are covered in a fine layer of red dirt and more scraped up than they began.
Still, the effort is worth it. Bucky turns to look up with wide eyes; above the thundering roar of the water, they can hear sharp birdcalls surrounding them.
"Did we just find some kind of portal to the Jurassic era?" He calls, shouting to be heard.
"Right?!" Steve squawks, spreading his arms to indicate the entire place. "It's even better than I remember!"
They both head straight to the falls without discussion, drawn in by the mesmerizing power of this natural wonder.
Wordless, since they can't hear each other anyway, they carefully edge onto the slippery shelf of rock that tucks behind the waterfall and stare up in wonder from this unusual angle. Steve steps out to where a little shower is gently raining down at arms length from the edge and sticks his head in it, laughing, and wets his hair.
When they retreat to the banks further downstream to get a break from the wall of noise Bucky eyes Steve speculatively.
"You've still got more dirt on you," he informs him, and Steve smiles.
"Oh yeah? Where?"
"Everywhere," Bucky says solemnly. "I think you might need to take a bath."
"That so."
"Mmhm."
"I don't have a change of clothes."
"Then you should take them off," Bucky says wickedly. "For your bath."
"For my bath," Steve repeats, but he's standing too close and Bucky can practically feel the heat radiating off his chest as he stands with amusement and something questioning and too earnest in his eyes, and Bucky's being stupid but he's not in the mood for that. "What about you?" Steve asks.
"Unlike you, I carry a change of clothes with me everywhere I go," Bucky says seriously. "I'm practical like that."
"I see," Steve says, and then shrugs off his brown flannel and drops it in the dirt. Underneath is a light blue tshirt that has obviously seen a lot of workdays, and yet somehow it only enhances his looks as it hugs Steve's chest, which is way, way more built than it had looked underneath the plaid. Bucky swallows as his eyes rake over Steve hungrily, and when he glances back Steve is still watching him.
"Well?" Bucky goads him, and with that Steve loses the last of his hesitance and pulls off the shirt in one go, the pants next, and Bucky is at a loss, for a moment: he doesn't know where he is or what his life has turned into, because he appears to be hanging out with a gentle Greek god in paradise, and - maybe he died? Did he step in front of a semi truck or something and go into a coma? His life this morning feels very, very far away as he rakes his eyes up Steve's calves, Steve's thighs, good god - up pecs and abs and chest hair and shoulders and he watches the man smirk at him knowingly in his underwear and turn and walk straight into the water.
Bucky watches Steve splashing around for a good minute, submerged up to his waist before leaning down and getting his face wet, before Bucky gives in and strips to his boxers despite what he said earlier and joins in.
Steve eyes him appreciatively as Bucky steps into the water, and -
"Oh jeez, it's cold," Bucky hisses. He hears the other man laugh and turns to glare, but Steve nearly naked and dripping wet and laughing turns out to be the exact secret bait Bucky needed to lure him further in, so he pinches his nose and just dives in all the way, coming up like a dog shaking water out of its long hair at Steve, which starts a splashing war that ends with Steve getting fully submerged, but he has the clear upper hand, sending wave after massive wave of cold water in his direction until Bucky yelps and dives under just to get away.
When he laughingly calls for mercy they both wade back to the shore.
"That water's got to be straight from a glacier," Steve says, shivering in the open air as he takes the towel Bucky offers up from his backpack, and Bucky concurs, shuddering.
They hop along the rocks to find a spot that's warm and flat enough to lie down on side by side, laying the towel along the sun-baked rocks as well.
"What did you do the other time you were here?" Bucky asks curiously once they're situated and the birdsong starts back up.
"Just sat and drew, mostly," Steve answers, eyes closed against the sun. "First I cried a bit."
Bucky turns his head and asks the obvious question. "Why?"
"My parents were going through a divorce. That's why we were out here; my ma took me on a cross-country road trip, just me n' her. Said it was so I could see the rest of the country, but really it was so she could have some space from my pa.
"She called him at the motel and I heard them getting into another fight, so I came down here instead."
Bucky, who knew nothing of his real dad and kinda desparately wishes the parents he did have had gotten a divorce, doesn't know quite what to say. "I'm sorry. That must have been hard."
"I never thought I'd see this place again," Steve muses. "I drew some of it, but I had no idea where it actually was."
"Maybe Maggie knew," Bucky says, and it's a ridiculous idea, but he lets himself say it anyway.
"Yeah," Steve says, sounding surprised and delighted. "I like that; maybe she did. Old girl's never acted up like this before."
Bucky wants to say something even dumber about how Maggie helped Steve find him, too, but he holds his tongue.
"Is your ma still around?"
"Nah; she died a while ago," Steve says in a mild tone, but Bucky doesn't miss the raw edge in his voice.
"I'm so sorry," he says again, uselessly; but softer this time, sincere. "How did she die?"
"Lung cancer," Steve says, and Bucky supposes there wasn't going to be a non-tragic answer, but he still makes a wounded little noise. "Fifteen years ago."
"What was her name?"
"Sarah."
As soon as he says the name, Bucky can hear the tears in it, as whatever old grief that needed to bubble up drips down the sides of Steve's face. Steve wipes them off unselfconsciously and lets his hand fall to his chest. Bucky reaches over and takes it, a tangle of emotions in his own chest. Steve winds their fingers together and squeezes.
This would be the perfect time to come onto Steve, Bucky realizes. They're both cold and mostly naked where no one can see them and there's the easy excuse of getting close for warmth and -
- And Bucky really doesn't want to. He doesn't understand why exactly except that it seems too similar to a move he'd use on a john, and Steve just cried about his mother, and Bucky doesn't want to use what he knows is an opening on this man like he's preying on a weakness. Like how he'd been trained.
Instead he lays there and enjoys the feel of sun all down his front and the smell of the water and the sight and sound of Steve laying next to him, all pink and tan and gloriously masculine yet soft and unguarded in the bright sunlight with eyes like the sky when they occasionally peek over at him.
Ten minutes later the sunlight has slowly crawled out of reach of their little valley oasis and they unanimously decide to get a move on, still too cold to sit still in the shade.
They change facing away from each other, pulling their clothes quickly back on sans wet underwear.
Bucky wraps his wet boxers in the still slightly damp towel and stores them in a plastic bag he keeps for just such a purpose in his backpack, shouldering it again. Steve wrings his own underwear out and wads it up in his hand for carrying.
It takes a while to get back out of the valley, and by the time they do the sun has started dipping lower in the sky.
"I should have paid more attention to how we got here," Steve says worriedly.
"Don't worry," Bucky says cheerfully, pulling ahead of him: "I did!"
Bucky leads this time, counting the twists and turns he'd memorized on the way in, only wavering once on which path to take, and Steve follows at his heels, sheepishly offering to carry the backpack, but Bucky declines. He feels safer with it on his own back in practically all scenarios.
When they finally emerge back onto the parking lot, it's evening, and both of them are feeling tired.
"You can stay in the truck tonight if you want," Steve offers.
"That's alright," Bucky says quickly, not wanting to hear the painful dance between Steve trying to be kind while holding him at a distance that feels too painful somehow. Like Bucky's something dirty, or worse, like he's too fragile. "I'll get a room at the motel."
"You sure?" Steve says, but Bucky's already nodding, his mind made up. "Alright. Well - if you need anything, you know where to find me," he says uncertainly, and then: "You are still coming to Missoula with me tomorrow, right?"
"I - yeah, if that's okay," Bucky stumbles around his unexpected pleasure at knowing for certain he's still welcome along.
"Of course it is." Steve is frowning at him now. "Do you have a phone number, in case we get our wires crossed or something?" He presses, and Bucky feels strangely warmed by the fussing.
"Yeah - here - " he reaches out his hand for Steve's phone as Steve unlocks it and passes it to him. Bucky's fingers stumble across the unfamiliar formatting, but he manages to get his name and number in quickly, adding a little purple devil emoji after his name for his own amusement, and hands it back to Steve with a smirk, who smiles too sincerely when he sees it and sends a text back.
"Okay; well - see ya tomorrow, then," Bucky waves and turns away like it's easier than it is, and he can feel Steve watching him as he heads to the little motel office.
Bucky isn't, of course, going to rent his own motel room. He's going to knock on motel room number five after dark and offer to give that guy a blowjob for starters, and then see if he can't wrangle a whole night's stay out of it, all expenses paid.
He walks right through the office and out the back exit before the clerk can really register his presence, a little performance solely for Steve's watching eyes to show that Bucky's gone in to book his own room.
He heads straight back out to the thinly forested area they just came from right off of the motel lot and sits down on a log with room number five in clear view to wait for dark.
An opportunity presents itself sooner than that; the man from the diner earlier steps out for a smoke, and with a glance toward Steve's truck across the lot to make sure he isn't watching, Bucky lopes up to the front of the motel.
"You got a light I could borrow?"
The man is sitting outside in the plastic patio chair just outside his door, sucking on a cigarette, pack in hand, and he takes a drag while he assesses Bucky, eyes flicking up and down. He is heavy lidded with a broad face, nothing like Steve's, Bucky's mind notes nonsensically.
Wordlessly he hands the lighter over as he says, "Not from around here?" He has a Texan accent.
"Neither are you," Bucky counters smoothly, and then he tilts the lighter in his hand towards the guy and then says, very deliberately, with a hint of wry humor: "I think I forgot my cigarette."
The guy laughs, and Bucky right along with him.
"Don't think that's what you're looking for anyway," he says, and that's what leads them both inside.