Chapter Text
Six months earlier, Bucky would have said the prospect of dying back home in Brooklyn sounded like a dream. Now, faced with his own imminent demise in a Brooklyn that is almost unrecognizable, streets littered with corpses, air heavy and stagnant with death and sickness, it’s decidedly less appealing.
Honestly, it’s just sort of bizarre. Survive Afghanistan and come home to die in the pseudo-zombie apocalypse. Can’t make this stuff up.
It’s not that they’re zombies, exactly. The Afflicted—and god, doesn’t that sound just like a fucking politician’s word for it, it’s about as clear as “insurgent,” in terms of saying what you mean—aren’t dead. They’re just beyond saving.
He drops into a crouch behind the hanging door of a wrecked car and shoulders his rifle. His only chance, as far as he can tell, is to take out as many of them as possible and make a break for it through the Dyker Beach golf course. It’s fenced, and they don’t seem nimble enough to handle eight feet of chain link. If he can just make it over the padlocked entry gate, he might stand a chance of living for another hour or so. But when the gory, staggering horde turns toward him and starts down the street in his direction, he counts forty, at least. He’s got twenty rounds.
Well, fuck it. He starts shooting.
He tells himself it’s more humane this way. The virus eats through the nerves first, rendering people numb to all external sensation, but inflicting constant pain from within. Within two days, it works its way into the brain, with much the same effect.
There is no cure, he thinks, kind of the same way he used to think, it’s them or me when he was plowing through Zabul Province, where the border was lousy with Taliban and Bucky would find himself hanging out the back of a Humvee, taking head shots and wondering how the fuck this amounted to sharpshooting. It was absolutely not the controlled, strategic environment he’d imagined after training. Now, as he takes three quick shots, all clean and to the head, death is instantaneous. He can’t quite decide which is worse—putting down braindead Americans or very-much-alive-but-trying-to-kill-him Afghans. He breathes in. Out. Three more shots. Three more kills.
And then he hears a sound behind him, a three-note whistle, and he freezes.
“Barnes,” says a voice. “Right behind you. Don’t shoot.” A hand on his elbow.
Bucky turns, and stares, and immediately questions his sanity. It’s just not possible.
Yeah, okay, the social order has gone straight to hell; up is down, dogs and cats are living together, the whole schmear, but still. It can’t be. It just can’t. Had he somehow wished him into existence?
“Cap?” he asks, uncertain. “Captain Rogers?”
“Course it’s me. Hasn’t been that long, has it?”
“Sorry, sir - the beard and the civvies threw me off,” Bucky says.
“I knew it was you, though,” his former CO whispers, clapping a hand to his shoulder. “Nobody else shoots that clean, that fast. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Got sent back here a month ago, I’m part of the crisis response team,” Bucky says. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I live here. Joined the fire department. We can catch up later, let’s focus on getting out of here first.”
*
Rogers had resigned when Bucky was still in Afghanistan—and Jesus, his replacement had been a sack of shit. They hadn’t known how good they had it with Rogers, not till Rumlow had shown up, started making shit decisions.
Rogers had been the kind of CO everyone bitched about, a little, even if they liked him. And they did like him. But he did things by the book, for the most part, a man with high expectations and little patience for fucking around.
He had also been the kind of CO everyone was grateful for, when shit hit the fan. He’d kept them alive, more than once, stuck behind some burned out building in Kandahar once, again when they were stranded beside some dusty stretch of camel trail a hundred miles from camp.
The thing about Afghanistan, though, is that most of the time it wasn’t firefights and life-or-death runs through the desert. Most of the time it was fucking boring.
Bucky had learned to play spades almost as soon as he’d got there, spending hour after hour huddled around a rickety little table in a tent that smelled like stale sweat and Ramen noodles. At first it had been alarming, trying to concentrate on a hand of cards with the sound of explosions in the distance, night after night. Like anything else, though, it had gotten to be old hand pretty quickly.
“Rogers’s got us on shit detail again tomorrow,” one of the boys he usually played with would say, rolling his eyes.
“Man’s got too much free time on his hands,” another would chime in, shaking his head. “You think he’s got a wife back home? Girlfriend, maybe? Someone to send him a few titty shots, maybe whisper something dirty next time he calls home? Help him ease up a little.”
Bucky could not imagine a world where someone who looked like Captain fucking Rogers didn’t have someone—maybe several someones—waiting for him back home.
“Never mentions no one,” Mikey would say. He was a scrawny little guy from Mississippi, dirty blond hair that was always in his eyes and a Southern accent about twice as tall as he was. Bucky liked him. “Maybe he ain’t got no one and that’s why he’s always so fuckin’ serious.”
“Maybe he’s gay.” The words were out of Bucky’s mouth before he considered them, and he’d swallow them if he could. DADT might have been repealed, but that didn’t mean you could, necessarily, go around screaming about how you just loved taking a dick.
The other guys just snorted, though. “Cap, gay? Yeah, he looks like a real pansy, Barnes.”
Mikey was the only one who didn’t laugh or cut up, and he just gave Bucky a speculative look and then merrily trumped his ace.
Fucking Mikey. He’d bled out beside his half-blown Humvee not six months later, after Rogers had resigned and Rumlow had rerouted them down a utility road on a routine run.
*
Bucky shakes his head, clearing it, trying to get his head in the fucking game. He keeps his eyes on his targets and clears his throat. “Right—you got any ideas for a quick escape?” Those had kind of been Rogers’ specialty, back in Afghanistan. Never was a tight spot he couldn’t see a way out of. It was a good quality to have in a leader.
“Nothing fancy,” Rogers says, and he hefts a huge axe in one hand, the blade stained black with blood. “But I think between the two of us, we’ve can maybe manage something. It’ll be messy, probably. You got a head count?”
Bucky instantly relaxes into their old chain of command, so happy to have someone to tell him what the hell to do, he could cry. “Forty. Minus six.”
“How many rounds you have left?”
“Fourteen.”
“Twenty apiece, then? Sounds fair.”
“Then what?”
Rogers points at a side street a half-block from the golf course gate. “Got a bike parked in the alley. If you split’em with me, we might just make it - this is the biggest group I’ve seen in the neighborhood. Mostly singles, a few pairs - don’t know why they’re herding up like this, but I think we’d better stop it. Sound good?”
“Yes, sir,” Bucky replies automatically.
“It’s just Steve, now, resigned my commission, remember?”
“Yes, sir,” Bucky says again, but with a little smile, this time. Steve shakes his head, laughing, and swings the axe up to his shoulder, looking for all the world like a lumberjack. And Bucky feels his heart grind to a halt in his chest.
There’s the beard, of course, which does wonderful things to his face - makes his eyes look even brighter blue, makes him look a little older, less innocent. He’s wearing a checked flannel shirt, which fits well enough across his broad shoulders, but pulls tight across his equally broad midsection. Which is where Bucky’s eyes catch, and linger.
Steve’s always been a big guy, and the flannel does nothing to conceal the curving muscles of his chest and upper arms - but neither does it conceal the contours of a substantial belly, a round, firm, ball gut that hovers over the sagging waistband if his jeans. Like the beard and the civilian clothes, this is new. It’s also the hottest thing Bucky has ever seen.
He’d been gone on Steve right from the get-go - hell, so had the rest of the unit, no matter how they might have bitched or joked. Steve’s just that kind of guy, the kind who asks a lot of his men and gets it, the kind people love. It had been a hopeless adoration; even if Steve had returned his feelings, there was never any question of either of them doing anything about it. Fraternizing between officers and enlisted was strictly against the rules, and Captain Rogers was famous for his respect for the rules. Naturally, the fact that it was forbidden had only made Bucky’s crush that much worse.
But this? Shit. This hits him right in his deepest, most powerful kink. He’d wanted to drop to his knees and praise the gods the first time someone told him about the whole lumbersexual trend going on back home. But this is even better, because it’s not just some skinny hipster from Park Slope, it’s his goddamn blazing hot former CO, the object of his most feverish crush. Steve couldn’t be less ironic. The belly, the beard, the clothes, all of it - if it weren’t for the imminent danger, Bucky would be doing whatever it took to get inside that cozy-looking flannel.
We’re in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse, he reminds himself. Keep it in your pants, Barnes.
He drops back into position, taking aim again, as Steve walks out into the middle of the street, casual as anything, axe resting easily on his shoulder. The meandering herd of Afflicted seems to sense him all at once, shifting like a flock of birds to close in on him.
Bucky takes out four in rapid succession, giving Steve space to work. He’s incredibly fast, sinking the axe deep into the neck of the first attacker, the chest of the second. It sinks through flesh and bones with a dull, sickening thunk, pulls out again with an equally ghastly sucking sound.
Bucky aims, shoots two more, dropping them in swift succession. They go on like this; Bucky taking shots whenever there’s an opening, Steve hacking his way through the rest, until Bucky’s out of ammunition and there are only two left.
“C’mon, Buck, I’ve got these two, let’s go!”
Bucky shoulders his rifle and runs down the street. There’s a sudden flurry of movement from the doorway of one of the ransacked townhomes, and then he’s on the ground, breathless, and something hot and wet is clamped onto his arm.
Steve is there, instantly, and the heavy, stinking weight is lifted off of Bucky’s chest. He rolls to one side as the axe swings down, and a splatter of burning hot blood hits the side of his face. He’s shaken, but he’s good. He’s fine. He’s alive.
Steve takes him by the hand, pulls him to his feet.
“You okay, Buck? Not hurt?”
“Think so,” Bucky says, wiping blood and sweat and dirt from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“What’s this?” Steve catches his hand, turns it gently, and Bucky winces, feeling a sharp throb from his left forearm. “You’re bleeding,” Steve says. “Look here.” He points to the faint trickle of blood, the ragged, bruised-looking tear in Bucky’s skin.
Bucky suddenly feels cold. “I don’t know,” he says. “I think – right at first - he might’ve bitten me.” Bucky stares into Steve’s face and sees his worst fear realized in the grim set of his mouth. A little pop of adrenaline goes off in his chest.
“Okay,” Steve says, levelly. “Okay. We’re not gonna panic here - we don’t know for sure he bit you.”
“Right,” Bucky says, although he’s thinking about that warm, wet pressure near his wrist. “But -”
“No,” Steve says, squeezing his shoulders. “We’re not assuming the worst. We’ll get you back to the infirmary at Fort Hamilton - they’ve been working on the vaccine, maybe there’s something they can do. I don’t know if they’ve ever caught a case this early.”
“Okay,” Bucky says. It’s hard to feel as frightened as he possibly should; he’s just so relieved not to be alone, and Steve’s steady blue gaze is deeply reassuring.
Steve swings one leg over the bike, and Bucky climbs on behind him. He accepts the helmet Steve hands him, even though he figures he’d rather die in a motorcycle accident than of the virus. “Might want to hold on to me,” Steve says. “It’s rough going and I don’t need you falling off.”
“Right,” Bucky says. And again, circumstances being different, this would be a goddamn wet dream. He leans forward, the insides of his thighs wrapped around Steve’s hips, and clasps his hands around Steve’s middle. It’s almost too much intimacy all at once, being pressed up against Steve’s wide, warm back, hands meeting over his belly. His body is thick and solid and just a little soft, and holding onto him makes Bucky feel safe, even though he knows he’s almost certainly fucked.
****
It’s not that far to Fort Hamilton—not even two miles, and the bike makes it easy to navigate the streets, fucked up as they are. They don’t make it, though. The Afflicted are crowding up again, shuffling and terrible in the fading light, and Steve isn’t willing to risk a fight when he’s carrying an axe and Bucky fucking Barnes, possibly—probably—bitten, just as beautiful as ever. The decision to hole up in an empty house is an easy one; they can make for Hamilton tomorrow, in the daylight.
Steve can’t believe he found him; can’t believe bits and pieces of his old unit are back, or that Rumlow had fucked up so badly that apparently he’s dead. Can’t believe that a soldier like Barnes, born to take orders and smart enough to do it well, is on his own, ducking behind a fucking car door and picking off zombies.
It’s all surreal, and all Steve can really think, above the baseline hum of survival, is that he can’t fuck this up. He can’t let Barnes down. Can’t let him die here, can’t let his service end like this. Bucky deserves better. Doesn’t deserve to die in some fucked up fake zombie apocalypse situation. There hasn’t been any news about the situation in the rest of the country for weeks. The hybrid virus had spread like wildfire, decimating whole communities overnight. There are people working on a solution, he knows that, but right here, right now? New York City is overrun with people infected with a virulent mutation of the rabies virus that makes people act like zombies, and his new priority number one is saving Bucky Barnes..
Shit. Bucky had gotten under his skin from the moment Steve had clapped eyes on him in Afghanistan. Steve had been protective of every boy who had served under him, had been painfully aware of their youth, their fear, their trust in him to keep them out of harm’s way.
Bucky had been different, in that sense. He wasn’t a kid, for one thing, had ended up being promoted to sergeant, for another. But for reasons that Steve can hardly bear to inspect too closely, he’d felt as protective of Bucky—more, even—than he had of any other man under his command.
Part of it had been the beautiful way he’d taken orders, like he was born to it. Some men took commands like stallions with their blood up, biting and snapping at the bit till their mouths bled with it, until you broke them because it was the only way they would have it. Bucky, though—Bucky had always looked at him, direct and steady with those big gray-blue eyes, and listened, like his “yes, sir,” meant something besides protocol.
Then there was how fucking beautiful he was. Too pretty for the desert, certainly, too pretty for rough fatigues and the ugliness of modern warfare. He had a cocksure smile, a quietly appealing confidence, and the kind of easy camaraderie with the men in his unit and the team he led that Steve had admired—an easy camaraderie with men that had led Steve to wonder, at night and alone, if Buck was queer.
It wasn’t any particular thing that had made Steve wonder; in fact, maybe most of it was wishful thinking. He’d just instantly wanted him, this man who was roughly Steve’s age, certainly his equal in terms of intelligence and capability, but who had submitted to him so gracefully, taken orders from him as if it were not just his duty but his pleasure, and done it all while looking so achingly gorgeous it had nearly driven Steve to distraction.
Steve had been so fucking happy to see him—and not just because he liked the man, but Jesus, because he’d needed the damn cover fire, because Brooklyn was a goddamn mess—and it had, if Steve were being honest with himself, given him a little thrill to feel Bucky climb onto the bike behind him.
Sitting bitch, you wanted him sitting bitch behind you.
And yeah, that’s what he’d wanted, although he’d sort of regretted his own enthusiasm for it when Bucky had wrapped his arms right around Steve’s waist and rested them, fingers loosely entwined, over the roundest part of Steve’s belly. When he’d told Buck to hold on, he’d figured Bucky would grab him by the shoulders. But nope, he’d just latched right around him, torso flush against Steve’s back, arms around his waist, hands resting right front and center on the new thirty or so pounds—more than thirty, it was forty if it was an ounce, but Steve can’t quite acknowledge that just yet—that have landed almost entirely on his belly. His belly that is, by pretty much any standards, a full fledged beer gut, these days.
If it had bothered Bucky, Steve hadn’t been able to tell. He’d just hung on and leaned forward, his chin tucked onto Steve’s shoulder. And now—well, now Bucky’s lying sprawled out on some stranger’s shitty sofa in this empty house, looking up at Steve with big somber gray eyes, right arm cradling the wounded left one, and waiting for Steve to tell him what to do.
*
“So are you glad to be back?” Bucky asks, looking over at Steve from his end of the couch. ‘I mean, when there’s not a zombie emergency, are you glad to be back?” He looks ethereal and pretty, in the candlelight. As soon as Steve had secured the doors and windows, he’d used the last of the fading daylight to dig around the empty house for candles. Brooklyn—and probably the whole damn city—had been without power for days now. He’d come up with a mishmash of decorative pillars and jar candles littered around the house, and now their little makeshift camp in the living room smells like a weird mix of vanilla and cedarwood. Very artisanal.
Steve considers the question. “Yeah, I am.” He shifts his weight a little bit, very aware of how Bucky has tucked his feet up onto the sofa and is facing Steve, taking up more than his half of the allotted space. His boots are a mere six inches from Steve’s thigh. “I like the fire department. Good work, good guys.”
Bucky whistles, long and low between his teeth. “Yeah, FDNY. Sounds about right, Cap.”
“It’s a good job.’ Steve eyes Bucky in the dim light. He can tell Bucky’s scared, can tell it by the way he’s angling his entire body toward Steve, like Steve is his only point of reference in the world. He’s grasping his left wrist, holding it against his chest like something fragile. There’s clearly a bite mark, and when they’d first gotten into the house and Steve had asked to see it, Bucky had held up his arm so trustingly, just offered it up to Steve without any hesitation, that it had nearly broken Steve’s heart.
There hadn’t been much he could do. He had first aid gear in his bag, but it wasn’t exactly a snake bite; he couldn’t suck the poison out, or inject him with an antidote. In the end, he’d carefully washed and disinfected it, and then left it open, hoping maybe the air would be better for it than a dressing.
“So other than being a hero, what else do you do since you got home?” Bucky asks the question casually, but Steve can read it for what it is: a desperate invitation for Steve to distract him, entertain him, give him something to think about other than the fact that he’s been exposed to a deadly virus with no cure, and he’s probably a few days away from shuffling around in the street with the rest of the Afflicted.
Steve shrugs, digging the last of the potato chips out of the crumpled bag he’d procured from the kitchen cupboard. “That isn’t enough?”
Bucky shakes his head. “Nah, it’s enough. Just thought maybe you had a—a wife, or something, I guess?” The look he gives Steve is hard to decipher, and the tilt of his chin keeps his face mostly in the shadows.
“No wife,” Steve says carefully, trying to decide how to proceed. “No one—not dating anyone right now.”
Bucky gives him a grin. It’s a little weak, the stress of the situation leeching out some of his usual cocky gaiety, but it’s still a charming smile. “Hard to believe you have trouble getting laid, Cap.”
Steve runs his hand surreptitiously over the side of his belly, the big rounded curve that angles over his jeans, the weight of it pushing down on his belt buckle until it digs into his stomach. He’d had a six pack the last time he’d seen Bucky, and although he doesn’t really miss it, as a rule, he’s hyper conscious of its absence now. “Didn’t say I had trouble getting laid,” he says. “Just not seeing anyone at the moment.”
“Well,” Bucky says, drawling out the word, “I’m sure you do fine when you set your mind to it.”
“What about you, Barnes?” Steve says, deciding that his best defense is a good offense. “I don’t remember you ever talking about any girls back home. You got one now?”
“No girls, sir,” Bucky says, holding his gaze a beat too long before sweeping his pretty long eyelashes down and looking at his wrist again.
*
The next morning, Steve wakes to find Bucky already up, peering out the window, right hand gripped tightly around his left wrist. “How’s it feel?” Steve asks.
‘It doesn’t hurt,” Bucky says. “At all.”
That is, of course, a bad sign.
*
When Steve was in Afghanistan, he’d always told anyone who inquired about his stellar reputation for keeping his men alive that a stunningly significant percent of military strategy was gut instinct and dumb luck. It was not, typically, the answer that anyone wanted to hear. The brass didn’t want to hear it because there was no way they could spin it for anyone. Journalists didn’t want to hear it because it didn’t do much to sell newspapers. His men didn’t want to hear it because it wasn’t particularly reassuring. No one, really, wanted to hear it.
It was true, though. The times when he’d been able to steer his men clear of danger, when he’d snatched them from the proverbial jaws of defeat—and what was Afghanistan, really, except one long and grinding tour within that gaping maw?—it had been mostly due to some combination of dumb luck and even dumber animal instinct. A feeling low in his belly that something wasn’t right, a tingle at the back of his neck that he didn’t ignore. War was, in a weird and real way, instinctual.
Steve still remembers, clearly, the time that they’d been on a recon run, headed back from the Pak border. It was a stupid mission; everyone in the whole damned Army knew that the border was a mess, Taliban skipping over and under it like kids playing double dutch. There wasn’t even a clear objective, really; in fact, that set of orders had been the beginning of the end, regarding Steve’s military career. He’d resigned a few months later.
But that day, it had gotten tight in one of the border villages, where the Afghani friendlies had turned out to be not-so-friendly. A conversation with the locals had escalated into a firefight, and suddenly the village had been thick with Taliban. The drive out had been a massive fuckup, not the least bit tactical or strategic, and if you ever needed a reminder that the might of the American military was by no means absolute, hightailing it off into the desert in a bullet-riddled Humvee did a good job driving that lesson home.
They’d been taking fire all the way out of the village, and Steve had ordered Bucky to the back of the vehicle, commanding him to take as many shots as he could, armed insurgents only. The village was full of women and children, none of whom seemed particularly inclined to stay the fuck inside during the firefight, so it was a dicey proposition. Bucky had looked at him with those big eyes, blinked once, and nodded. Then he’d hung out the back of the vehicle and systematically picked off every fighter they passed. It was a beautiful thing, watching Bucky work. Beautiful and terrible, to see him transform, in a matter of seconds, from the charming and affable man who played cards and ribbed his teammates, always quick to make a joke or sling his arm over the shoulders of a buddy, to a killer, cold and mechanical.
Steve had felt guilty for weeks about how much he’d wanted Bucky in that moment. He wanted both sides of him—the killer and the soldier, the sharpshooter and the subordinate. When they’d gotten back into camp that night, Bucky had smiled at Steve, the gray of his eyes still cloudy and remote. “Thanks for getting us out of there, Cap,” he’d said quietly, as if his own shooting hadn’t had anything to do with it. Steve had to fist his hands, stick them in his pockets, to keep from reaching out and touching him as he spoke.
The point, though, was that Steve had felt uneasy about that border run from the moment he’d received the orders to go, and he’d gone anyway—and they’d almost died for it. After that, he’d never ignored his instincts.
So this morning, when he can’t quite get over the sinking feeling he has over the very idea of taking Bucky to Fort Hamilton, he doesn’t ignore it.
“I think you should wait here while I run to the fort, check things out,” Steve says over their breakfast, which consists of handfuls of dry Cheerios, warm cans of Coke, and some granola bars, all scavenged from the kitchen pantry of their generous and absent host.
The look Bucky gives him is endearing in its simplicity: his entire being practically screams, “don’t leave me.”
“Sure,” Bucky says, his words at odds with his stricken expression. ‘I can wait here. Why, sir?”
Steve shrugs his shoulders carefully. “No reason, really,” he says, lying a little. ‘Just thought that I should check it out, make sure they know how to deal with a bite, before I bring you in.” He winces a little over the word--bite--but figures they have to address it, have to acknowledge the situation they’re in.
Bucky nods. “Gotta make sure they’re not shooting anyone’s been bit,” he says, his voice almost placidly calm. “That’s smart, Cap.”
Steve winces. “I—yeah. We gotta play it that way, Bucky.”
*
It’s the longest morning of Bucky’s life, standing at the window and waiting for Steve. It shouldn’t feel that long; God knows he’d spent a lot of time in Afghanistan waiting—waiting for drop offs, for pick ups, for deliveries, for attacks. This, though, this waiting in this stranger’s house, left arm slowly losing sensation, is the longest wait of his life.
God. He’s probably as good as dead. Probably dying already, the virus moving slowly through his body, destroying him from the inside out as it goes. But shit—even now, knowing he’s most likely fucked, most likely going to die in the worst possible way? Either shambling around with the Afflicted or at the hands of Captain Steve Rogers, hero and savior extraordinaire, who might be willing to put him out of his misery before it gets too bad? Even now, he can’t stop thinking about how he slept next to Cap last night.
They’d slept all night on the sofa together. There were bedrooms—presumably two of them, although Bucky hadn’t even bothered to check out the rest of the place—but by unspoken agreement, they hadn’t made any move to sleep in them. Instead, Steve had disappeared at some point and then came in with a pile of blankets and quilts in his arms. Bucky had curled up in a ball, taking up two of the three cushions, and Steve had propped his long legs up on the coffee table in front of them.
Cap could have just handed Bucky a blanket, but he didn’t. He unfolded a quilt and spread it over Bucky. He hadn’t been fussy about it, hadn’t made a scene; he’d just quickly, efficiently spread it over him.
For reasons Bucky can’t quite fully explain, it had made his heart skip a beat.
Now, staring out the window, all Bucky can think is that, if he weren’t probably dying of whatever-the-fuck this virus is, if he weren’t worried that he can’t feel a goddamn thing from the elbow down anymore on his left arm, he’d probably have made a move on Cap last night.
He’d have uncurled himself and stretched out, pressed himself up against Steve’s big, warm, solid body. Held his gaze a little too long, dropped his voice a little too low. Put one hand on Steve’s thick thigh and squeezed.
Steve wouldn’t have turned him down. Bucky knows it with the unerring instinct he’s always had for other people. Steve wouldn’t have said no when Bucky put a hand on him, and that tacit approval would have been enough. Bucky would have dropped to his knees in front of Steve, would have run his fingers up to the button on Steve’s jeans and tugged it open. And Jesus, just to get to the button he’d have had an excuse to put his hands on that perfect, round gut that Steve, miracle of miracles, has put on since he left Afghanistan. Bucky swallows hard, thinking about it, amazed and a little appalled that he can pop a boner under this kind of duress.
But for chrissakes, Steve is like a walking fucking wet dream now. Bucky can picture it, perfectly, the way it would have felt to slide his fingers over the curve of Steve’s gut, where it protrudes over his waistband. Jesus, he would have had to lift it up, a little, to get to the button. And god, he’d have savored every second of it, before he’d undone those jeans.
He’d have sucked Steve’s brains out through his cock, admiring that big belly the entire time.
Of course, none of that had happened, he reminds himself, reality crashing in like a wave of cold water. Instead, he’d curled up and fallen into a fitful sleep, holding his stupid, bitten arm against his chest, like he could somehow safeguard it from the sickness already coursing through it.
*
It’s noon before he gets back. Bucky can hear Steve’s bike from blocks away, and Jesus, he hadn’t known he was half afraid it wouldn’t return until he feels relief surging through him. It’s crazy—of course, Steve wouldn’t leave him. Cap had never left a man, never lost a man. He would come back for Bucky if he’d had to fight his way through a wall of the Afflicted with his bare hands.
“Hey,” Bucky says as he unbolts the door, trying not to sound stupidly grateful just for the sight of Steve in the doorway.
“Hey.” Steve’s eyes dart to his left wrist, then back up.
“I’m ready whenever,” Bucky says, reaching for his backpack.
“Ah—well. Change of plans.” Steve’s voice sounds carefully neutral.
Bucky stops for a second, looking Steve over. “They ain’t handing out the cure over at the fort, then?”
“The cure’s a bullet,” Steve says grimly. “We gotta get out of the city.”