Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Have you ever thought about it? Running for office.”

She’s wearing a plum dress tonight, jewel-toned and making her gold jewelry practically glow against her skin. He already bit back no less than five jokes about how she’s the visual representative of Valentina playing all sides of the political aisle as long as it gets her ahead, which he’s quite proud of. They have a tentative truce, him and Mel, or well, he’d like to think they do, so snarky comments about symbolism in dress will just have to wait until he’s in the car with Steve. 

He asks the question during an awkward pause, a malfunctioning microphone bringing the debate to a screeching halt before it can even begin. Valentina seethes at her podium, though if Bucky was at home watching he would have been fooled by her politician’s smile as she watches Steve and Everett Ross trade small talk to fill the space while their own mics aren’t hot. But here in the wings he can see from another angle the tension in her hands beneath the podium, the crack and crinkle of her water bottle every time she takes a sip and squeezes just a bit too hard. Mel’s just as tense next to him, as if Valentina’s a bomb she can’t quite get close enough to defuse. 

“Once or twice on a much more local level when I was much, much younger,” Mel tells him in a hushed tone with a flash of bleach-white smile and burgundy lipstick, “but then I remember that I enjoy not living my life under a microscope. Not as many people watching your every move when you’re just a legislative aide.”

Bucky hums, glancing back out onto the stage, “Law degree?”

He can see it, her awake late into the night at a table bowing beneath the weight of textbooks and dirty dishes. It’d been a regular sight when he’d come back from overseas and slept on Steve’s couch for weeks on end. He’d woken up more than once with a stray flashcard stuck to his cheek, Steve asleep in the recliner, still in his stupid button-up and slacks. 

A shake of her head banishes the image, pulls him away from the too-yellow glow of the lamps in Steve’s old apartment and back to the cut of shadow they stand in, just a couple yards out of the spotlight. 

“Double major in political science and public administration. You?”

“Impressive.” An assistant sprints by, harsh lines on his polo under the stage lights, shoes squeaking as he passes a new mic to the moderator, “Just political science for me.”

He catches the movement of Steve’s hands, a nervous adjustment of the buttons of his suit coat, watches them twitch in a way that screams a desire to fuss with his glasses and mess with his hair despite firm orders from Peg to leave it alone, Steve, for heaven's sake-

Bucky can’t help but smile.

“You were a sniper before, correct?” 

Steve glances over as the moderator starts up again, catches Bucky’s eye, smiles. A quick one, sharp, more a reassurance to himself that he’s got it than anything else. He’s never looked stronger than he does behind that podium, never looked taller, never sounded better. In another life, the rest of Steve matches his voice. 

“You did your research.” He keeps his tone light, not wanting to warn her off of conversation altogether, but its just heavy enough that maybe she’ll be warned off digging too deep. Not tonight, at least, “I was. It was a lot of waiting. Sitting around in the dirt, looking through a scope, lots of patience. Growing up with that one gave me plenty of that.”

He nods at Steve as he says it, voice dropping to a whisper as the moderator continues past his apologies to the viewers for the delay and moves into the first set of questions. Foreign policy, it takes all of Bucky’s self control to not roll his eyes. 

“Can’t just start with taxes, can we?” Sharon mutters behind him, the fabric of her suitcoat rustling too-loud in his ears. 

“Can Congressman Rogers be trusted to keep America’s needs at the forefront when his own wife isn’t even a born American citizen and his child is a dual citizen-“

“Weren’t De Fontaine’s parents immigrants?” He can’t help but ask Mel, tipping his head to the side to whisper it. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” She taunts, but her face is relaxed and her voice is laced with humor,“I don’t even know why Ross is still in this. He’s trailing nearly forty percent, just throwing away money at this point.”

It’s the question of the hour, really. Or of the week, depending on how tired he is. He can’t imagine being Ross’ campaign manager right now. 

“Everyone loves an underdog.” 

It’s purely out of sympathy that he says it. It makes the corner of her mouth quirk up, a twitch of her lips, a suppressed smile, before she tilts her head up a little to look at him better. Warmth rushes to his ears, amplified with every fabric-rustle of Sharon’s ever-watchful form behind them and her voice in his head, go on now and bat your eyelashes at her, win her over to the dark side.

“Which is why Rogers is leading in the polls, I suppose. Five-foot-four all American heart of gold underdog.”

In that moment, looking out at the stage, all he can see is Steve on the front page of the New York Times. Rain-soaked through his clothes to the bone, unrelenting, demanding the goverment do something.

It stings his throat to think about it, to see the scene transposed over this equally powerful one. He clears his throat, swallows rough, shifts just a bit away from her so he can breathe properly again. 

“No, that’s actually because of my sparkling personality, Gold.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her roll hers. 

“I’m sure it is, Barnes.”

. . .

A week passes, the work continues. 

Steve has luncheons and dinners and red-eye flights, which means Bucky has an endless number of phone calls and emails and plane tickets to deal with. Sharon lurks in his office, hogging his desk when she has her own down the hall, but he never asks her to leave. He’s not a fan of the silence and well, she’s a workaholic too, which makes justifying his own behavior so much easier. Sam gets back from the gym at one in the morning some nights, towel around his neck as he stands in the doorway of the office and coaxes her home, giving Bucky orders to head out as well. 

He gets a middle finger in reply every time. 

Most of the time, Bucky goes home about ten minutes later, long enough for spite, soon enough for reason, but tonight he lingers. His house is too empty, the calendar too close to the time of year that he went missing, to the months as a POW, and all the blurry bits of his memory like to lurk in the shadows of his hallway, his living room, his bedroom. It was easier when he lived with Steve, between his terrible habits of falling asleep with the lights on while studying and the stubbornly creaky floorboards of the ancient building, Bucky didn’t feel so easily ambushed. 

If he asked, he could go sleep on Steve’s couch, even now. Even in a different building, with different furniture, with smartlights that turn off on their own, with plush carpet in the hall that doesn’t creak nearly as loud, Bucky thinks it would still probably work, because Steve won’t let him die. Won’t let him be taken, not again. 

But he doesn’t ask. He’s too stubborn for that, clinging to what little shred of pride he can even as he knows better. 

Instead he stays up, stays in his office with its yellow lamp lighting. Listens to the night wail of the city, of car horns and ambulances, the work in front of him blurring. 

. . .

Easter arrives with the comfort of routine, of familiarity. 

It’d been Sarah Rogers’ favorite holiday, which made it even more holy, and even the less religious in the family treated it as so for her memory. For Steve, with her handkerchief in his pocket at Mass, the tie she’d bought him for high school graduation around his neck. 

Bucky slips into the church only a couple minutes before it begins, the Rogers scooting down to let him in on the end, and he brushes a kiss on Michael’s dark hair and across Peggy’s cheek with a hushed happy Easter, reaches around to squeeze Steve's shoulder. Sharon and Sam meet them at the townhouse after, the backyard laden with shiny plastic eggs for Michael and Riley to search for after lunch.

It’s a good day, really. Almost perfect with the warm sun on his skin, Sharon stretched out on a lounger next to him and smiling at Riley as she runs by with her basket, Michael on her heels. Someone’s turned on the record player in the living room, the windows open to let the sound out into the backyard. 

Sometimes, he’ll sit in moments like these and remember this is what he focused on when he was a prisoner. When he’d sit in the cell and close his eyes, trying to conjure the feeling of a warm sun, of the grass, of condesation on a glass of lemonade. The shade of Steve’s hair, of Becca’s freckles, of the crows feet beside his mother’s eyes. The smell of his father’s cologne mixed with tobacco. 

All the little things he never wanted to lose.

He soaks it in, breathes it into his lungs, and for the brieftest moment he doesn’t think about losing it. Doesn’t think about if he’d never made it home. If all of Steve’s work had been for nothing. If he’d still be able to imagine those things now, all these years later, if he was still in the cell. 

When his phone rings, buzzing insistently, he almost doesn’t answer, almost lets it go to voicemail. But he doesn’t, instead he gets to his feet, leaves behind the lounger, and steps inside before he presses the answer button, before he gives a greeting. 

“It’s Mel.” 

The tone of her voice sets him on edge, it reminds him of the moment before he’d lie down in a sniper nest, before he’d breach a door leading to a building full of combatants. 

“You need to tell Rogers to drop out of the primary. I don’t know how, but Val knows.”