Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was bound to happen, Bucky supposes. Eventually the honeymoon is over and a bit of the magic is lost. Sure, it’s still pretty great. But day in and out, he pretty much knows exactly what he’s in for.

13 copies of Twilight, 5 hold requests for Gone Girl, 3 kids pulling anatomy books down from the shelves to giggle at, 2 irate patrons arguing about their fines, 1 lost looking blonde guy wandering around, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Bucky glares at the kids from his position at the reference desk at the middle of the large room. They don’t even have the decency to reshelf the book before they take off running out the revolving door and into the street outside. He begrudgingly stands up from the books he’s supposed to be entering into the catalogue and walks to where the anatomy book is lying open on the ground, displaying a pretty detailed rendering of a large intestine.

It’s nearly 5 now, just another hour and Bucky will be able to go home, lock the door and hunker down for the night in his apartment. Where no one touches his books, he isn’t responsible for gathering 20 copies of The Help for a book club, and he’s the only one who is allowed to write in the margins.

It’s not that he’s antisocial. Well, maybe a bit antisocial now that the bloom of hanging out in bars has worn off. Sometimes Natalie will drag him out, but Brooklyn has officially been adopted as the Hipster homeland. Any place they go is crowded with guys who look like the villain from old cartoons where women were tied to train tracks. Its better for everyone involved for Bucky to stay at home, ordering in food on Seamless.

Bucky sighs to himself, putting the book back, edging out the volumes surrounding it so that they sit flush with the edge of the bookshelf. Looking around, he realizes he’s going to have to have Darcy come through while she’s paging to tidy this whole area. She’ll hate it, and then become obsessed with it until it looks so pristine that people are afraid to disturb the order.

“Uh, excuse me?” a man’s voice sounds hesitantly from the end of the stacks, where the computers are. Bucky turns, expecting a nervous looking freshman from the college two blocks away, clutching an iPad in his hands. There’s a particularly prickly professor who insists her students use only print resources. And so every term, Bucky gets at least 20 shell-shocked looking kids who have no idea where to being with their research.

Instead, his eyes have to continue looking up from the place where they had land on the man. Up and up past broad shoulders to a handsome face with blue eyes.

“Bathrooms are in the basement.” Bucky answers, hopefully saving himself some time here.

The guy’s eyebrows come together on his forehead. “Okay.” He says, bobbing his head up and down. He turns away quickly and heads away, new looking sneakers squeaking on the marble floor.

Bucky rolls his eyes and goes back to his desk, trying to finish up his work for the day. He has Netflix and pad thai calling his name back at the apartment.

It goes on in silence for a few minutes. A couple patrons come in to use the computers, but they seem to know the drill of logging in and accessing whatever they need.

He hears the approaching sound of Darcy’s heels long before he sees her emerge at the entrance to the large room where the reference desk, computers, and nonfiction section are.

“Darce, I could use you straightening up in the stacks.” Bucky tells her, not looking up from his scanning.

Darcy snorts through her nose, “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say. Because clearly it would kill anyone here to put a book back the way they found it.” She taps her foot on the floor for a few beats. It’s long enough to get Bucky’s attention. “This guy needs your help finding something.” She says, nodding her head in the direction of the blonde guy from earlier.

Blonde guy has the decency to blush and look a bit more flustered at having to have Darcy lead him here.

“You got it Darce.” Bucky says, giving her a thumbs-up. She rolls her eyes and heads off to the stacks once again. “What can I help you with?” He asks the man.

The other guy shrugs, his hands in the pockets of a tan coat. He looks like he just came from church. Blonde hair combed neatly, black pants pressed with a crease, and a collared shirt beneath his jacket. Bucky absently picks at the messy way that the sleeves of his shirt are pushed up to his elbows, pushes his glasses up his nose and sets his shoulders.

“Card catalogue?” The blonde man asks, avoiding making eye contact with Bucky.

Bucky nods, pointing at a computer on a stand near his desk, “Over there, if I can help you further, let me know.”

The man nods. “Thank you.” He says, turning and walking to the computer terminal. He pulls a small spiral bound notebook from his pocket and places it next to the keyboard.

And then nothing. Bucky watches absently from his desk as the man prods at the mouse for less than a minute, and then cautiously presses a few keys. The computer screen lights up, displaying someone’s previous search for The Hunger Games. The blonde man stares at the screen in confusion for a long minute.

Bucky looks away for a moment, pulling open a new book and setting up his scanner.

When he looks back up, the man’s gone. Bucky looks over each shoulder, rising to peek around the corners of bookshelves around him. Only there’s no sign of him. Bucky goes to the computer catalogue to clear out the search and return it to the main page. There, resting against the number keypad for the keyboard is the small notebook.

Bucky picks it up, muttering to himself about the lost and found. He flips it a couple times in his hand before eventually throwing it in his desk drawer in case the guy comes back to claim it.

And then it’s 6 0’clock and Bucky gets to clear the desk for Natalie to take over for him.

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Curiosity gets the better of Bucky three days later. The blonde guy hasn’t come back to stare blankly at the computers some more. And his notebook has been sitting in Bucky’s desk drawer for just as long, untouched. So, on an incredibly slow Sunday afternoon, Bucky quietly slides his drawer open and reaches for the notebook.

He at least has to check to make sure there isn’t anything crazy inside.

There isn’t.

The first page is blank. The second page, there is an address listed, about 4 blocks from the library. It’s close to where Bucky lives actually. Then there’s a small grid below this with a line winding its way through seemingly at random from one point to another.

Except, when Bucky turns the notebook on its side, he sees that it’s a map, from the apartment building to the library.

Bucky frowns. Does this mean the guy’s new to the area and doesn’t know how to get to the library? It’s not of a hard trip. And anyone who has lived in the area for more than a few weeks would be able to tell you exactly where it was. You couldn’t miss the large stone façade and the granite steps leading to the front doors if you wanted to. Some days when he rolls in to work late, Bucky tells his boss that he missed the building completely, she makes him be in charge of calling back all of the inquiries about programming.

On the next page Bucky finds a list. A seemingly random list of things:

V Day
I Love Lucy (TV show)
Martin Luther King Jr
Moon Landing
Berlin Wall (up and down)
Steve Jobs (Apple)
Disco
Thai Food
Star Wars/Trek
Nirvana (Band)
Rocky (Rocky II?)
Game of Thrones (Game? Show?)
Harry Potter
Bees (Missing)

After this, in the same neat handwriting, the man has written ‘Library card?’ and circled this.

And of course, Bucky feels like an asshole. For falling prey to the age old stereotype of the bitter, knowledge-hoarding librarian who didn’t see a cry for knowledge when it was right before him. And also for looking at the notebook in the first place.

He’s not the kind of person who really takes things to heart. It’s how he can go weeks without calling his parents or hanging out with Natalie. Very much of Bucky’s life has been in the books he reads and surrounds himself with.

But this nags at him. All day. Even through the patrons who bug him every few minutes and the earnest teenagers who have come for Bucky’s recommendation of what they should read next. He feels guilty for whatever reason.

When he gets home that night, he stares at his walls and walls of books neatly put away over the years. He must have dozens of bookcases at this point, mismatched in size and material just to fit in his not so spacious apartment. But it still works.

Bucky sighs to himself, meandering over to his history section. It’s not nearly as full as his fiction or mystery area. But there are three full shelves of heavy political biographies and accounts of major historical moments.

He plucks “Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma”, “The Monuments Men”, and a general history book about WWII off the shelf, throwing them into a random Whole Foods reusable shopping bag. On his way back out the door, Bucky takes one of the 10 paper menus from his favorite Thai place around the corner and throws it in the bag.

It’s a short walk to the address listed in the notebook. Bucky doesn’t even know if this is where the guy lives or not. For all he knew, he was about to leave this stuff for some unsuspecting person. Whatever.

Bucky climbs the steps to a brownstone that’s been split into two apartments. He throws the notebook back into the Whole Foods bag and hits the buzzer for the top floor where the name “Rogers” has been written neatly on a small label.

He leaves before there’s any chance for an awkward encounter along the lines of “Sorry I was an asshole, have some books about World War II if you’re into that kind of thing.”

Bucky keeps his head down even as he distantly hears the sound of a door opening down the block. He goes back to his apartment, selects a book at random and settles in for the night.

----------

Two days.

Squeaking shoes and the scent of soap approach Bucky’s desk. Bucky looks up to see the blonde man got Bucky’s books, as he’s holding the Whole Foods bag in the crook of his arm not unlike Bucky’s mother would if she was coming home from the store.

“These are yours.” The man says, holding the bag towards Bucky, two patches of red doting his cheeks. Bucky didn’t think that people still blushed. This guy must do it to make up for everyone else.

“Thanks.” Bucky says, taking the bag. “How did you—“

“Property of Bucky Barnes—Return to rightful owner or die.” The man deadpans back. And Bucky remembers Darcy’s personalized book stamp that she gifted him with last Christmas. She had told him that at least this way, she would feel a bit guilty for not returning Bucky’s books in a timely manner. It still took months and a tactical plan for Bucky to get his books back, but at least they were identifiable.

“Ah,” Bucky sighs. He closes the book before him and sets his hands together on the desk. “What can I help you with today?”

“I need more books.” The man says, pulling that familiar notebook out of his pocket. “And also, I Love Lucy.”

Bucky nods, standing up.

“How about I show you how to find them?” Bucky asks, walking to the computer terminal that gave this guy so much trouble in the first place.

“That would be great.” The guy says, and then he seems to think better of himself. “I’m Steve.” He says, sticking his hand out to shake Bucky’s.

Polite, doesn’t know how to use a computer, tucks his shirt into his pants, and has exquisite hygiene. Bucky doesn’t know where this guy came from, but it sure as hell wasn’t Brooklyn.

Chapter Text

The first problem is that Steve looks totally blank when Bucky hands him the DVD case for I Love Lucy. He stares at it in his hand like it dropped out of the sky and landed there randomly.

“You do have a DVD player, right?” Bucky asks.

“Not yet.” Steve answers, “I need a television for one of those, don’t I?”

After that, they go in search of more traditional forms of media.

The second problem arises when they go to get Steve a library card. This is the moment where Bucky might actually describe Steve as giddy. Maybe he’s been desensitized by decades of living in the city during a time when kids are more apt to their snapchat instead of lounging out on the floor of the young adult room like Bucky used to. But there’s Steve, with a stack of books in his arms so high that he practically can’t see over it.

“You sure you don’t need to help you carry these? Or like, a fork lift.” Bucky asks, looking skeptically at the stack of books.

Steve sighs behind the stack of book, “Nope. I’m good.” But it isn’t one of those forced responses from someone who doesn’t want help but needs it. Maybe Steve’s on steroids or something. Maybe he was recruited from some tiny town in the middle of nowhere to play football professionally.

“You sure?” Bucky asks. Darcy walks past them, her mouth dropping open as she stares at Steve. Soon she’ll want to hire him just to help her lug donations off the front steps.

“Positive.” Steve says, and he sounds happy as a clam, so Bucky leaves him to his backbreaking work and escorts Steve to the circulation desk where he’ll sign up for a card and check out his books.

“Alright,” Bucky says, pointing at the desk where an overworked and underpaid clerk stares at Steve in wonder as he sets the mountain of books down on her desk. “Cristina’s gonna take care of that library card for you and then you’ll be all set.”

Steve nods, but when Cristina asks him for verification of his address and photo identification, his face falls. Bucky, who is hanging around straightening the new books and totally not snooping hears the whole exchange.

“I’m getting set up in my new apartment. I don’t have any mail there yet.” Steve tells her.

Cristina nods, pulling out a postcard from her drawer. “I just need something postmarked to your address. Put your mailing address on here, we’ll mail it to you, and then you’ll bring it back. But if you have your ID, I can get started on your registration now and finish it later.”

Steve’s face falls into a category that Bucky would call ‘kicked puppy’ and he doesn’t even bother reaching for his wallet. “I’m still working on getting that sorted out as well, thank you.”

And seriously, no one has the right to be so polite when they’re being told that two pieces of paper are stopping them from reading upwards of 10 non-fiction books about the Civil Rights Movement.

Steve looks at the stack of books on the desk, picking it up and walking back towards the nonfiction section.

“You don’t have to do that.” Bucky tells him, pointing at the cart labeled ‘book reshelving’ near the first set of stacks.

Steve nods, “I don’t mind.”

Bucky doesn’t know why, but his stomach feels queasy at the thought of the most enthusiastic reader Bucky has met in years having to put the books he had planned on reading away. It’s pretty much the Christmas Shoes of being a librarian. And yet, there’s Steve, winding his way through the books and putting each volume away one by one until he’s just holding onto the notecard Christina gave him.

“I’ll be back in a week or two, I think.” Steve says, trying to smile.

Bucky nods. “There’s a bookstore around the corner.” He offers. And never in his life did he think he would tell anyone to head over to the giant big box bookstore when there’s a perfectly good library right there. But this is a special case and desperate time call for desperate measures.

Steve actually shudders at the thought. “I don’t like it in there. Too many people, too busy. Just too much.”

“Yeah, of course.” Bucky says, looking around his own sleepy nonfiction section. He remembers when this place used to be bustling on a weekday afternoon. Kids doing their homework, tutors and college kids at every desk available, and old couples walking hand in hand while they browsed.

Steve pulls a pen out of the pocket of his checked shirt and fills out the postcard while Bucky feels like literally the worst person on the planet.

Bucky twiddles his thumbs nervously as the whole thing goes on, trying to look anywhere but at the crown of Steve’s head bent down over his desk as he fills out the small piece of paper with his careful handwriting. Instead, Bucky stares at the outdated poster on the wall offering computer classes every Thursday evening.

And then the thought hits him.

“I guess I should go home now.” Steve sighs, pushing the piece of paper towards Bucky and recapping his pen.

“I could always set you up with a guest pass.” Bucky tells him, trying to sounds cool and collected. “You wouldn’t be able to take books out until you had a real card, but you could attend classes here and use the computers.”

“Eh,” Steve says, eyeing the computer on Bucky’s desk nervously. Bucky had told Steve he would show him how to find his books, but after their first search, Bucky mostly just followed Steve through the stacks, making suggestions. “I don’t think so. Sounds like most of the stuff on that thing isn’t good and whatever’s left is worse.”

Bucky didn’t think it was possible for someone without a walker to make a statement like that.

“I’ve gotta ask,” Bucky says, folding his hands before him on the desk to stop them from flailing. “Were you raised Amish or Mennonite or something? Are you on that rumspringa thing where you get to leave and go crazy before you go back and join the church.”

Steve’s face twists into a confused frown. “No?” He responds like Bucky is speaking nonsense instead of English. “I just had a very—“ Steve stops to consider his words here, “traditional upbringing.”

“So did I, or at least what that means here in the city,” Bucky says, holding up his iPhone. “But I still have had this thing for the last 10 years.”

At that, Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m good, I don’t need that computer to help me.”

Bucky’s a stubborn bastard, and he’s never been one to walk away from a fight. So he squares his shoulders, prints out a guest pass and hands it to Steve. “Five minutes.” Is what Bucky tells him. “Just give me five minutes and then you can leave.”

And with that Bucky and Steve end up huddled at one of the older computers in the corner. Bucky doesn’t think that the touch screen at the other stations would work out well for them right now.

So Bucky shows Steve how to use the mouse to hover over the log in icon, and then that he has to punch in the numbers on his guest pass in the text box that opens up on the screen. Steve, types like Bucky’s old man, with the pointer fingers of each hand and his face nearly pressed against the screen.

However, Bucky’s dad doesn’t scrunch his face up dramatically and keep his tongue clenched between his top and bottom teeth like Steve does. It reminds Bucky of how kids mouth words along with whatever they’re reading.

After a few laborious moments, Steve has logged in and Bucky is running out of time. “I’m just gonna set this up for you, so that way you can get started.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s cheating so you don’t run out of time.” Steve says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair so that Bucky can reach over the keyboard and open the internet browser.

“Oh, hush.” Bucky grumbles, pulling open Goggle Chrome and typing quickly to get to the website he wants to access. “You’re gonna like this.”

Steve sighs, “This doesn’t look that interesting.” He says, his blue eyes flicking over the screen before him as Bucky types.

“Just give me a second.” Bucky says, typing the words ‘Montgomery bus boycott’ into the search bar. It takes less than a second for the page to load, a great big wall of text and photos. Steve’s eyes light up. “Okay, so this is Wikipedia. Basically there’s an article for anything you would ever want to know.” Bucky hovers over a hyperlink. “These blue words, if you click on them they will take you to a different article.” He shows Steve the forward and back buttons, “These will take you back to the page you were on if you want to do that.”

Bucky leans away from the computer, expecting questions, but instead Steve’s eyes are already sweeping back and forth across the screen, his hand taking over the mouse.

“I’ll be at my desk if you need something.” Bucky tells him, getting up and realizing that there has been a patron waiting there for at least a few minutes.

They end up having to kick Steve out at the end of the night with the stragglers who stay until closing. Steve, it seems, had been limited by the three books that Bucky brought him initially. Every time Bucky passed by Steve’s computer, he was engrossed in a different article. He was probably pacing himself to get through three books in two days, making them last.

Steve stops by Bucky’s desk on his way out the door. “Wikipedia.” He says, nodding in a knowing way. Like he knows that Bucky was right.

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Bucky doesn’t know what Steve does after he leaves the library for the night. But every morning after that, he’s there before Bucky begins his shift at 10, already on a computer, with a new notebook at his side and a pencil in his hand. He takes notes on everything, on dates and names, and things he wants to go back to and look at again.

“Are you writing a paper?” Bucky asks Steve one two days later.

Steve shakes his head, “Nope, just curious.”

Curious and not great with technology. He’s pretty much limited to only Wikipedia at this point, they’ve tried to work with other applications and it always goes wrong.

Bucky leaves Steve a pamphlet about the computer class that the library offers every week, sort of expecting that Steve will be hesitant to sit in a room with 10 elderly people while trying to learn how to use email.

----------

Bucky should really get used to the feeling of being wrong. Not only does Steve go to the class, but every single old lady in the room adores him.

And why wouldn’t they when Steve arrives to the room half an hour early and chats with them until the man who runs the classes shows up. Bucky passes the meeting room a few times during the whole ordeal, witness’s Steve’s ‘Computer Face’ in full effect as the professor shows all of his students how to sign up for email.

It’s only an hour long class, so it’s not long before Steve and three white-haired women emerge from the room chatting like they’re old friends.

“Luca’s around the corner.” One says to Steve, “We go there after class for coffee.”

“And coffeecake?” Steve asks, “Best coffeecake in town.”

One of the ladies playfully hits Steve on the arm with her pocketbook, “You are too much, Steven.”

Bucky and Steve lock eyes then. Bucky’s are comically wide, Steve’s blushing. The ladies carry on, slowly making their way out of the library with Steve leading the way, ducklings in tow.

Steve returns an hour later with his notebook and a grease-stained brown paper bag. Bucky’s about to tell Steve that he isn’t allowed to have food at the computers when Steve drops the bag on Bucky’s desk silently and walks to his favorite spot in the back of the room near the window.

Bucky looks inside the bag, a huge piece of coffeecake stares back at him. Damnit.

Bucky’s computer makes a dinging sound a moment later. He has a new email with a subject line that already troubles him.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

Subject: Did this work? I think THIS IS WHERE THE SUBJECT LINE IS. OR IS THAT THE BCC LINE?

DEAR BUCKY,

DID YOU KNOW THAT MRS. SMITH FROM MY COMPUTER CLASS WAS ONE OF THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS WHO ATTENDED AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THAT HAD BEEN SEGREGATED IN ALABAMA? SHE TOLD ME THAT SHE HAD A POLICE ESCORT FOR MONTHS UNTIL THE PROTESTS AT THE SCHOOL ENDED. SHE MET HER HUSBAND THERE. THEY MOVED TO NEW YORK AFTER HIGH SCHOOL TO GO TO COLLEGE AND SO THEY COULD GET MARRIED. SHE WANTS ME TO MEET HER GRAND DAUGHTER, LUCY FOR COFFEE.

SINCERELY,

STEVE ROGERS

P.S. HOW DO I MAKE THIS NOT ALL CAPITAL LETTERS? I’M NOT YELLING, BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT STOP.

And thus the third problem is sitting at the computer behind Bucky’s desk near the window. And when Bucky peers over his shoulder, Steve gives Bucky a wide emoticon smile.

Chapter Text

Steve must know someone with political ties. Or he’s offered sexual favors to the DMV because he has a motorcycle license in his possession not a day after the day he discovered email.

“This works, right, Mr. Barnes?” Steve asks, handing Bucky the card. It’s not even a temporary one until the real one comes in the mail weeks later. It’s brand spanking new. And of course, in the photo Steve is smiling so widely that the DMV is probably going to use his photo in their examples.

“Yeah,” Bucky tells him. “Works just fine. Head on over and give Cristina something to do. She looks far too comfortable. Also, you don’t have to call me that. You can call me Bucky.”

Cristina does not, in fact, look comfortable. She looks like she’s going to fall under the weight of a six encyclopedias. Seeing this, Steve swoops in to the rescue, taking the heavy books from the girl and holding them under his arm, easy as anything. Cristina looks both like she wants to cry and have his children.

She blushes all the way through getting Steve registered for his library card and then Steve blushes in return. Between them, they could probably power a small city. Blushing around Steve is contagious, like smiling at puppies.

He holds his card up proudly to Bucky when he walks past the reference desk, on his way to the card catalogue computer. They’ve had their ups and downs, but it seems like Steve actually has a handle on how to use it now.

Bucky works on the newsletter for the library while Steve meanders through the stacks, picking up as many volumes as he can carry, and then a few more.

“You know you need to have those back in 3 weeks, right?” Bucky asks when Steve gets close to his desk. Steve purses his lips, head tilted to the side. It’s the closest thing that Bucky thinks Steve can get to throwing side eye.

“I think I can handle it.” Steve says. And finally, Bucky hears a bit of an edge in his voice. Something to tell him that Steve isn’t all sunshine and having no concept of what a printer is.

“If you say so.” Bucky answers playfully. Talking like this with Steve is refreshing. It feels more natural then what they’ve been doing for weeks with Steve coming for help, and Bucky faltering for whatever reason a couple of times. They’re on a more even playing field now that Steve can find things on his own.

“Wizard of Oz was playing at the Lane a few streets over.” Steve tells him, “I went yesterday with the girls.”

The girls being the old women who have adopted Steve into their fold. Not that he minds. He’s wearing a sweater in the middle of summer, and Bucky thinks it might have something to do with his new friends.

“You need to watch out for them.” Bucky tells Steve, mock-seriously. “I heard they’re a rowdy crew.”

“Yeah, they brought their own candy into the theater. I nearly called the cops.” Steve jokes back.

Steve leaves Bucky to his work. Eventually Steve heads out for the night a bit earlier than usual, this time with a, “Have a good night, Bucky. Thanks for the help.” It’s still light out. Natalie drags Bucky to a bar close to the library. Bucky wades through a crowd of clove cigarette smoke outside the doors to the bar coming from a group of kids from the neighborhood.

Even considering the fact that Natalie’s only worked with Bucky for a few months, they’ve become pretty good friends. She’s the only other person Bucky has met who has horror stories of trying to work out the Russian method of collection organization. Bucky’s also pretty sure that by hiring her, the library has cut down on the minimal criminal activity by 100%. On her first week working at the library, a man stole a woman’s purse and Natalie kicked off her shoes and chased him 10 blocks until he finally surrendered.

“So what’s up with grandpa?” Natalie asks over the loud din of the crowded bar.

“Don’t call the guy that.” Bucky tells her. He motions frantically to the bartender who seems preoccupied with chatting up a few girls at the end of the bar rather than serving anyone a drink.

“If the sweater vest fits.” Natalie shoots back, leaning over the bar and flipping her red hair to get the attention of the bartender. Like a moth to a flame, the bartender makes tracks over to where they’re standing. Natalie orders them both vodka gimlets and they retreat to a booth where they can hear each other without screaming. “You’re actually nice to the guy. And not the kind of nice where you’re just trying to get someone to go away.

“It is because you feel bad for him? Is that what’s going on?” Natalie asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I think you’re forgetting that our job is helping people?” Bucky responds, a sarcastic note to his voice. “The guy’s off, in a weird ‘I’ve been trapped in a bomb shelter for the last 60 years’ way. I don’t know if this whole thing is some kind of medical issue, like amnesia. Or is the guy’s been raised by wolves his whole life and just returned to society. But he seems to know how to wash his hair and drive a motorcycle, so I wouldn’t count on that last one.”

“’S weird.” Natalie says into her drink.

And yes. Yes it definitely is.

Just as weird as witnessing a guy who is definitely Steve carrying a punching bag over his shoulder in the direction of his apartment after he and Natalie have said goodnight on the corner.

That gives Bucky a bit more to work with on the puzzle that is Steve Rogers. Maybe he’s joined a gym (though hopefully not one of those intense ones where everyone is grunting and slinging protein shakes) or perhaps he’s taking up carrying heavy things around.

Maybe they’re reaching the time when Steve feels like he knows enough about how the world works that he’s trying to get out there and make friends. Being cooped up in a library all day doesn’t sound like the healthiest thing.

Bucky pointedly ignores that Natalie’s told him this dozens of time.

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At this point, Bucky is used to Steve arriving at the library with a newfound obsession for some random historical event.

Today it’s the Howling Commandos.

Bucky only knows this because Steve can’t find the books for himself because there are no books written about these guys, there’s only footnotes and appendices that mention them.

“It’s always something new with you.” Bucky tells Steve, trying to do his best to find the books that Steve wants.

“Well, they deserve to be written about.” Steve answers shortly, staring at the screen with his eyebrows drawn together and a frown on his face.

“I don’t doubt that.” Bucky says, trying to smooth out whatever issue this is causing for Steve. He adds another book to the list of potentials for Steve and moves on. “I could order you something from a college or somewhere out of state. I’m sure that somewhere in D.C. they must had an account of what these men did.”

Steve shakes his head. “That’s okay.” He takes the paper from Bucky. “This should be enough.”

And then he walks away, shoulders tense under the brown leather jacket he’s wearing. More importantly, he walks away without thanking Bucky like he had done at every interaction they’ve had so far. And that really throws Bucky for a loop. The past few weeks had seemed to soften Steve’s hard edge regarding the world around him. He’s not as polished as he had been when he first showed up.

Whatever is going on in his head however has erased the progress they made. Steve hadn’t wanted to search online for this stuff, he’d stared angrily at the catalogue when it returned nothing at him. Bucky’s pretty sure that Steve only accepted Bucky’s help because Bucky saw that he was struggling. He probably would have just slipped away like he did on the first day.

And that bothers Bucky. Bothers him enough that he wants to get up and follow Steve through the library just to keep an eye on him. He wants to make a few calls to old grad school friends who now work in the archives for the Smithsonian.

But he doesn’t. Because it’s not his place to dig into whatever is going on with Steve.

He’s just a librarian. Steve is just a patron. And life will go on.

----------

And then, it just keeps getting weirder. Steve doesn’t come in the next day. Not that Bucky blames him, or misses his presence that much. The guy took out 20 books yesterday. It would be strange if he did come in.

For a week, Bucky’s life continues as it had before Steve rolled into the library, with no concept of how anything worked. The majority of his day is spent ordering the same books for different people, doing the mundane day to day of acting as the personal Google butler for anyone who calls in. Natalie’s called off for the week and then Darcy takes a few vacation days to fly to somewhere in the Canadian tundra to help with an old college advisors project.

It’s strangely quiet and a little sad to be honest.

It’s mostly Bucky and Cristina trading IMs the whole day while they work. Eventually she sends him one that just says, “I have a line at the counter and registration cards to file, get your ass over here.”

It’s a slow afternoon so Bucky puts up his sign that indicates patrons should seek out the other reference desk in the fiction section if they have any questions. Cristina presses a stack of new card registrations into Bucky’s hands and sends him away to the dark corner of basement storage where an old card catalogue has been retrofitted into their organization of registrations.

Bucky stares at the old wooden catalogue, with at least a hundred tiny drawers for registrations to be filed. He vaguely blames himself for believing that he would somehow become the Indiana Jones of librarians while he was in school and settles in to try to make some order out of the chaos.

He loses time a bit, eventually pulling his headphones out of his pocket and plugging them into his phone so that he can catch up on Serial.

Steve’s card is near the end of the stack. Bucky pulls open the Reo-Ros labeled drawer all the way and begins flipping through the small cards until he finds where Steve’s would go. Along with all the other Rogers’.

Only, there’s another Steven Rogers there. A registration so old that the papers it’s written on is yellowing and the corners are crumbling when Bucky lifts it carefully out of the drawer, flipping it over carefully. He chuckles to himself, wishing that he could show his Steve (not that Steve is Bucky's in the first place, because he isn’t) if it wasn’t for privacy laws and all that. But upon closer inspection, the birthdate of this Steven Rogers is July 4th, 1920. So unless the guy is going to turn 100 in a few years, chances are that he passed away. Honestly, it’s a bit strange that his registration would even still be there. The library staff went through 20 years ago and tried to figure out who was a current patron and who would be pulled from the database.

The card in Bucky’s hand smells like mildew and is covered in the blocky, but neat handwriting of a child. Someone had to help him on the back with the cursive spelling of his name. A woman named Sarah Rogers signed for the card as his guardian. Back in the good old days before electronic scanners, they kept a record of who had which books via sheets of paper stapled to the back of the library cards.

The sheets stapled to 1920’s Steven Roger’s card tell a story of a kid interested in pretty much everything from drawing to aerospace. There are hundreds of books listed in the same lovely cursive of who Bucky is going to assume was the librarian at the time. Bucky flips through them until he gets to the last page, where it ends abruptly in 1940. The last three books on his list all have a red stamp going through them “Overdue—Billed September 31st 1941”.

Bucky frowns. Perhaps it wouldn’t actually be that smart of an idea to show Steve this when it kind of looks like the guy dropped off the face of the planet with no explanation about 70 years ago.

So instead, Bucky sets both Steven Rogers cards together in the drawer next to each other.

“You two get along now.” Bucky says, closing the drawer and feeling a bit like an idiot.

He shakes it off (reminds himself to pointedly not introduce Steve to Taylor Swift music for fear he would either get a lecture or Steve would take to it like nobody’s business) and goes back to work.

---------

Okay. So Bucky realizes that he is pretty much the most jaded person that he knows when his reaction to the world ending during his first trip to Manhattan in 6 months is this, “I never should have left Brooklyn.” He yells this as debris falls from the ceiling and he has to take cover under a bench in order not to get hit in the head with falling stonework.

Broken glass is raining down from windows high up in the building, pushed in by something that looks like scaled fins. Something that makes a horrifying sound as it sails through the New York City skyline, taking out buildings in its path.

Call him a dork, but Bucky always gets a little sentimental when it comes to Grand Central Station. He didn’t come uptown just to walk around and take pictures to post on Instagram. If he dies today, that’s what he wants on his tombstone.

“Here lies James Buchanan Barnes—He definitely wasn’t after follows and likes when he died.”

Only he might have been.

Whatever.

The point is that everyone around him is screaming and diving for cover because a giant, THING out of someone’s acid trip just crashed into the building. There’s a little girl and her mom standing a few feet away, suitcases at their feet. Bucky darts out from beneath the bench and hustles both of them under the bench just in time for more stone to come down on where they were standing.

Panic settling in his chest, he pinches himself. No this is not a dream; no matter how much he wishes it were. He’s really here.

Who else experiences this on a Thursday?

So now along with the end of the world, he has a six-year-old girl screaming at the top of her lungs in his ear. The mother’s not much better. They mostly sound like how Bucky feels on the inside. They’re both yelling in Russian, the mother trying to comfort her daughter.

“We’re going to be okay.” Bucky reassures her in her native language. Years of sitting in his grandparents’ kitchen, listening to them have obviously paid off.

The woman shakes her head.

“No, seriously.” Bucky tells her. And because even in a situation like this, he can’t stop being a smart ass, “This kind of thing happens all the time.”

Somehow the woman and her daughter actually chuckle at that. And Bucky feels a bit better, also like his heart is going to explode.

This is when he starts blaming everything that’s lead up to this moment.

His parents had to pick New York to raise him, he had to choose to come back after a year in Moscow, and now there’s some kind of alien invasion taking place. No one from this planet can fly, except Iron Man. Bucky’s eyes dart to the TV’s above the ticket counter trained on CNN where a few daring helicopters are trying to get a great shot of whatever is going on out there.

Oh, and there’s Iron Man, flying by the train station. Super casual.

“Look mama! Iron Man!” The girl yells, pointing. Terror lost for a moment by the apparent charm of Tony Stark. They’ve never officially met, but sometimes Bucky’s favorite hole in the wall establishments are closed for a mysterious reason while a stunning car and a bored security guard sit outside. If this guy can save the city, Bucky will forgive him for denying Bucky pirogues a month ago.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Bucky tries to gauge just what kind of protection they might have here. A dozen transit cops at the most, and a few hundred civilians trapped in a giant box of a building. Whatever that thing is seems to have moved on from them at least for a little while.

And they can’t stay here. They just can’t. He peeks at the TV again and sees yet more gigantic, flying monsters have descended on the city, and with them what looks like hundreds of tiny flying crafts.

Bucky pushes himself out from under the bench and runs up to the closest police officer. “Are the trains still running?” He asks. The police office, whose talking into his walkie-talkie stares at Bucky blankly. “Are the trains still running!?”

The police officer shakes his head, turning to another one. “Vin, Trains still coming through?” he asks.

“Nope.” The other police officer says, “Emergency stop on all railroad traffic when the portal opened up.” They both have a panicked look in their eyes. There can’t possibly be a drill that tells them what to do in the case of an alien invasion. Can there?

Portal? There’s no time for this.

“Are there any trains in the station right now?” Bucky asks.

The first guy nods, “One heading up to Connecticut and one to Jersey. They’re stopped at the platform.”

Bucky shakes his head, “Talk to whoever you need to talk to in the transit department. If you have trains coming in, you can shuttle people out of the city a lot more safely than you might be able to on the street.”

One cop looks to the other, realization dawning on their faces. “Yeah, that might work.” He says.

“Have the trains coming through the city dump everyone outside before the cross the river, doesn’t matter where really. If we have empty trains, we can get hundreds of people onto each one of them.” Bucky orders. This is probably stretching whatever leniency he has with them. He shouldn’t be giving orders in the first place, but someone has to do something about this.

The first cop raises an eyebrow while the second seems to be dialing in his radio to the correct channel. “How do you know all this?” the first guy asks.

Bucky shakes his head, “I read a lot of books?” he answers, eyes sweeping the room. “We should get all these people to the platforms. They’ll be underground. It’ll be safer.”

“Yeah, unless the ground caves in!” The police officer shoots back.

Bucky points to the ceiling and the wall where they can see straight through to the chaos outside. “Does it look much safer in here to you?” he asks.

The police officer frowns and starts yelling for all of the other transit officers to gather around. He tells them to take everyone down to the platforms, no baggage or anything that’s going to take up space.

The other police officers look a little surprised by the turn of events. They stare at Bucky with startled expressions even as the sounds of mayhem outside keep pouring in.

“Just get everyone down to the platforms!” The officer yells, and that seems to do the trick.

They disperse in opposite directions. Bucky runs back to the woman and the child, beckoning them out from under the bench. “We’re going to get you out of the city. Follow those men,” He points to three transit cops leading the first group to the escalator. “And they will get you on a train out of the city! You’ll be safer there.”

The woman throws her arms around Bucky’s neck, thanking him rapidly in Russian. She pulls away quickly, hoisting her daughter up onto her hip despite her thin limbs in the strange maternal strength that comes in a crisis.

Bucky takes a moment to watch them go before he heads back to the officer with the radio. “Transit is dumping everyone from all trains in a 30 mile radius.” The officer tells Bucky. “All of the trains scheduled to come through are still on time, they’re trying to reroute whichever ones they can into the city safely without causing a backup.”

“Or a crash.” Bucky adds, nodding. “That’s good. And the people in the buildings around us?”

“I haven’t been able to get in touch with them yet.” The officer says, looking nervous.

There are moments that take no time to think about, but still can change your life forever. Good or bad. Kind of like accepting an engagement ring. A split second decision that might end in happily ever after or divorce.

For Bucky, the decision is more about a door and what lies beyond it.

“I’ll go and try to find some kind of command post. I’m sure that the lines must be clogged with chatter everywhere.” Bucky says, his hands clenching into fists at his sides as though that will ready him.

Radio guy shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You should let one of us go.”

“I need you all here keeping order.” Bucky says. If this turns out to be one of those dreams where Bucky ends up in charge of an army he would like to wake up now. “I’ll be fine out there, years of dodging through alleyways and jumping fences on my side.”

The radio guy nods, and then in a surprise move he pulls off his bulletproof vest and hands it over to Bucky. “If you’re going to be out there, you need this more than I do.” And then the guy forcibly straps Bucky into the Kevlar.

And like that Bucky runs from the building and into a warzone. Screaming everywhere, and rays of purple energy that explode on impact. Everywhere Bucky looks, cars are overturned and buildings are full of holes like Swiss cheese.

There’s a general chaos that lends itself to a disaster. People running in every direction. Bucky yells to everyone that he passes to get to the train station, hoping that the plan is working and at that moment, there are people being shuttled out of the city.

These aliens are like nothing Bucky has ever seen, swooping low over his head, making Bucky duck and dodge to keep his life. Already his hearts is pounding and sweat falls over his forehead.

Above him on the ramp leading up to the station, he hears screaming and gunshots, one of the creatures falls over the railing at Bucky’s feet with an arrow planted in its head. Bucky makes for the ramp, running as fast as his feet can carry him. An alien falls from out of nowhere, hitting Bucky on the way down so they both hit the pavement.

In the classic cartoon moment, Bucky’s glasses fly off and the world turns to a fuzzy landscape of fire and screaming. He feels the crushing weight of the alien on his back and flails, trying to knock the thing off of him. A large hand winds its way around his throat, and Bucky scrambles, pushing with all of his might.

Turns out that the vest will do Bucky no harm as the alien prepares to pop Bucky’s head clean off his body easy as nothing.

Pop pop pop of a gun nearby and the grip on his neck loosens enough that Bucky wriggles his way out from underneath the thing. His hand searches around him, finally landing on his glasses and putting them on. Even though one of the lenses is cracked, Bucky can see that the creature that meant to kill him is dead. A single bullet wound to the middle of its forehead.

Bucky turns around, and sees a man with a quiver of arrows helping passengers off of a bus. Bucky runs up to him, “Get them into Grand Central. The trains are getting people out of the city. Tell everyone!” he yells. The man doesn’t even bother questioning Bucky; he plants a strong hand on Bucky’s shoulder and nods.

More gunshots and Bucky spins to locate their source. Out of all of this, he finds himself more surprised at who stands before him.

“Natalie?” he yells over the general din of destruction.

She frowns, shrugging in her leather jumpsuit. “Natasha.” She yells back, looking a bit guilty. “We’ll talk later.”

And it’s proof of just how insane this day has become that Bucky just accepts this and doubles back the way he came, in search of whoever might be in charge.

“I need to do more cardio.” Bucky wheezes to himself, still running into the fray. More gunshots now, which is either promising or incredibly stupid.

Bucky sees them when the smoke begins to clear, at least 15 squad cars and 50 officers at a standoff in the middle of the street, shooting straight up as the aliens move through on their flying contraptions.

“It’s going to be an hour before they can scramble the National Guard!” a young officer yells, approaching the man who looks like he’s in charge.

“National Guard? Does the army know what’s happening down here?” The one in charge yells back, ducking as a stray ray of energy hits the car behind him.

“Do we?” The younger officer answers.

“We need to get everyone out of here!” Bucky shouts when he approaches. He’s so out of breath that it comes out raspy and guttural.

“Sir,” the older officer says, “We’re doing everything we can right now! But if you couldn’t tell, we have our hands full!”

“People are gonna die if they’re trapped!” Bucky yells, wracking his hands through his hair.

“You need men in these buildings!” A voice comes out of nowhere, yelling over the screaming. Bucky spins around as the man lands on the hood of a nearby car, pointing at the two buildings nearest to the police. He’s like nothing that Bucky’s seen in real life, wearing a red, white and blue uniform with a shining silver star inset in the chest. A blue helmet with a silver ‘A’ on it protects his head and face. The police standing with Bucky both raise their guns in alarm.

“There are people inside and they’re going to be running right into the line of fire!” The new man says.

“That’s exactly what I was telling you!” Bucky yells petulantly. He is ignored, as clearly a higher form of crazy has joined the party.

“You take them to the basement or through the subway, you keep them off the streets!” He tells the police, who now look pissed that someone new is trying to give them orders. “I need a perimeter as far back as 39th.” He says, kneeling and pointing in a very much action movie way.

“Why the hell should I take orders from you?” The officer in charge asks, shaking his head.

A blast sounds and then suddenly a car not 10 feet away explodes into a fireball. Bucky shields his face from the heat reflexively as his ears now ring from the sound. But Action Guy seems to take this in stride; he rises from his crouch calmly, holding up the circular shield that Bucky only just notices.

Two aliens drop down, guns out and shooting. Action Guy uses the shield to deflect the shots, dispatching the aliens with quick kicks and slices the thing’s arm from his body with his shield, holding it and turning back to the police and Bucky as if in slow motion.

“I need men in those buildings, lead the people down and away from the streets. Get them to Grand Central if you can!” The guy in charge says into his radio, turning smoothly from Action Guy as though this whole thing was his idea in the first place.

Action Guy actually smirks and looks down at his feet for a moment before taking off once again.

Seeing the creature’s rifle laying there, Bucky takes hold and fires a test shot into the air. It works, though the kickback rattles his shoulder in a dull way that already aches.

“We’re sending everyone we can to you, kid.” The officer tells Bucky, “Whatever guys I can spare as well. You get as many people out of the city as you can.”

Bucky nods, turning away when it’s clear that his job here is done. He doubles back the way that he came to the train station. The fighting seems to have moved on from here; Natalie (Natasha?) and Katniss have both disappeared off to somewhere. He sees a flash of blue a block away and recognizes it as Action Guy fighting.

Inside the train station, it’s more insane than when Bucky left it, though the original people who had been there aren’t anymore. Bucky approaches the man on the radio. “Spoke with someone in charge. They know to send people down here now.”

The guy nods, “Heard Captain America’s out there.”

Bucky furrows his brows at the man. “If it is who I think it is, there’s no one else who would choose to wear that outfit. “

“We’re on out third train out of the station so far.” The guy says, patting Bucky on the back. “That was good thinking.”

Bucky has a moment to feel proud of himself before it shatters just like the window high above their heads. Captain America and three of the aliens tumble into the building and land on the marble floor with a sickening crunch. People streaming in through the door panic and try to make it back outside. Those on the stairs and escalator all try to rush downstairs.

“Find cover!” Bucky yells at the man with the radio, raising the weapon he took from the thing Captain America killed. “Get down!” Bucky shouts at Cap.

He curls his body behind his shield like a one of those pill bugs from earth science as Bucky fires on the aliens.

His aim is crap. He hits one in the chest, sending it backwards. Another shot hits the wall in an explosion of masonry he’s sure the city will bill him for. Another shot hits the floor where one is standing.

And then the world explodes in pain and fire spreads from his elbow out outwards into his chest. Bucky is knocked backwards to the ground, screaming, as his whole world becomes pain. Vaguely he registers the sounds of fighting feet away, but it’s covered by the rushing sound of blood in his ears.

He’s read about shock before. Knows that he’s not fully feeling what happened to him yet. Because when he opens his eyes and looks over, he can see his arm is still holding onto the gun.

The arm is laying 6 feet away from his body.

Bucky can’t look at where it used to be. He won’t see that. But he does feel it. And now that there’s a gaping open wound on his body, his heart is beating double time.

“Oh my god!” Bucky’s yelling. In his own ears, his voice is frantic. He’s screaming at the top of his lungs.

Bucky closes his eyes against the pain, crying out when someone approaches and rips on the of the long Velcro straps off his bulletproof vest and wraps it tightly around the stump where his arm used to be as a tourniquet to stop the blood flow.

“It’s going to be okay Barnes.” A voice above him says, “I’ve seen guys with worse wounds than this walk away.” And it’s reassuring, though Bucky thinks it might be some kind of hallucination.

Bucky shakes his head much like a child would. But if he’s allowed a moment of being obnoxious and needy, it’s right now.

“Hey, look at me.” The voice says.

And so Bucky does.

And his hair isn’t combed into place. There’s soot all over him from the nightmare outside. But he has the same determined look on his face that he had the first time he was able to find his books by himself. His face fills up Bucky’s entire field of vision.

“Steve?” Bucky asks dumbly, because of course it’s Steve. His helmet fell off in the fight somehow and he’s wearing the stars and stripes.

“Yeah, it’s me. We’re gonna get you out of here.” He says, his blue eyes flicker around the room. “Hey! I need your help over here!” he yells to someone at random. A man and a woman dressed in scrubs appear out of nowhere. “Get him on the next train out of here.” And then calmly, Steve stands and walks away, he comes back with Bucky’s arm in his hands. “Take this with you.”

The woman strips off her scrub top so she’s only wearing the thermal t-shirt beneath and wraps Bucky’s arm up efficiently.

Together, Steve and the man get Bucky on his feet and they slowly set off towards the steps where hundreds of people are trying to make it out of the city. Bucky glances over his shoulder. Steve’s standing in the center of the station, blood drying on his gloves as he surveys the room around him. They make eye contact, Steve nods.

He has to go, Bucky knows that. Knows that the city outside needs Steve right now more than Bucky does. But it’s still a shock to see Steve bend down to pick up his shield and then run from the building.

People are ready, willing and able to get out of their way once they see a man with one arm coming through. The police on the platform take one look at Bucky and march him to the front of the line and into the bar car of the train.

They sit Bucky down at one of the linoleum tables while they argue about what to do next.

“We should sanitize the wound.” The woman says to the man, they’re both flipping through tiny notebooks. “We should have paid more attention to triage.”

“You’re interns. Aren’t you?” Bucky asks, his throat hurts from all the screaming.

The woman nods.

“Vodka.” Bucky says, nodding his head at the bar. “Sanitize it with vodka.”

Bucky screams when they do and the sharp white pain knocks him unconscious as he feels the train pulling out of the station. Away from the battle and the monsters in the sky.

Bucky just hopes the bastards didn’t make it across the river to Brooklyn.

Chapter Text

It’s a totally cliché, but the first thing Bucky does when he wakes up is try to reach for his glasses on his bedside table.

And then everything goes sideways because nothing happens. Nothing at all. Now he’s opening his eyes to a lowly lit hospital room and confusion washes over him.

Bucky tries to sit up but finds he has absolutely no energy to do so. If anything he sinks deeper into the pillows of the bed. He breathes sharply through his nose as his heart begins to beat faster and faster in his chest.

A door opens across the room, light spilling in to the room as Natalie steps out of the restroom. “Oh, hey.” She says, walking over, “Don’t freak out. Don’t panic.”

She walks over to the bed and hits a switch that makes the head of the bed rise up, allowing Bucky to sit now. Instead of handing him his glasses, she takes them out of a drawer nearby and presses them to his face. It strikes him as much more of a nurturing gesture than he expected from her.

“Natalie, am I on a lot of drugs or is this room filled with balloons?” Bucky asks in a hoarse voice. His mouth is so dry. He begins to wonder how long he’s been asleep.

“Oh, you’re on a lot of drugs alright,” She says with a sigh. “A lot of people owe you their lives, and for wherever reason the way that they like to express that is through balloons, gift baskets, and stuffed animals. And it’s Natasha.” She adds, picking up a glass and a straw from the bedside table. “But we’ll talk about that later.”

Bucky nods, taking a few sips of water from the straw while he looks around the room. He has a private one with only a single bed, and the window’s view is of Trenton, New Jersey.

“There a reason we aren’t in New York? It’s still there right?” Bucky asks. He’s remembering now how exactly he landed in this room feeling loopy and full of cotton.

Natasha smirks. “Still there. Still standing.”

Bucky takes a long breath. The silence of the room is broken only by the mechanical whirs that run Bucky’s IV drip. There’s a fear welling up inside him now that he knows he survived.

“Were they able to save it?” He asks her softly. He’s too scared to look for himself and see.

Natasha’s eyebrows crease together and she presses a hand to his knee over the blanket. “I’m sorry.” She says, and that’s enough. She looks battle worn in the dim light, a bruise darkens one of her cheeks and there are scraps across the back of her hand.

Bucky knows he can’t prepare himself for seeing it and knowing it to be true. Still, he turns his head to the left and sees an emptiness where there used to be part of his body. Instead he sees the sleeve to his hospital gown hanging limply.

He cries. He’ll admit it. Bucky cries every time he watches Wall-e, at the Grand Canyon, when he rereads his favorite books, and upon discovering that his left arm is gone. He can’t feel the pain that he knows is there, he’s on painkillers from the surgery they must have done to close the wound.

Still, in that moment the first thing that comes to mind is “What did they do with it?” Bucky asks in the hysterical way that only happens when things are so serious they become a parody of themselves.

Natasha’s face crumples, “I don’t know Buck.” She tells him, her hand squeezing his knee.

He tires himself out after a little while, falling back to sleep. He feels comforted knowing that Natasha is there, even if she’s been lying to Bucky for as long as they’ve known each other.

----------

In the morning doctors come in and examine the stump, change his dressing.

“We’d like you to try to have something to eat, maybe get you walking here in a few hours if you feel up to it.” They tell him, three doctors all in a row with clipboards.

When they leave, Bucky turns to Natasha who is still there from the night before. She has no right to look as relaxed as she does. “Three doctors?” He asks.

Natasha sighs, “Stark’s wishes. Brought in from New York, Pittsburgh, and California.”

Bucky nods. “Any chance his majesty could hook me up with some real clothes?”

Natasha snorts, “We’ll find you a robe so that no one can look at your ass.”

They’re joking around while Bucky doesn’t have an arm. It’s how they both cope.

“And my parents?” Bucky asks. This probably should have been his second question after where his arm went.

“Flying from Kiev as we speak.” She says, “They’re 99% sure I’m your girlfriend. Even though I tried to reason with them. Good news is that they aren’t bringing the cousins, or the aunts and uncles.”

“That’s good.” Bucky tells her. The last thing he needs is 30 members of his extended family all barking at each other, Bucky, and the doctors in Russian. “They invited me to go with them on the vacation.” He says with a huff, shrugging his shoulder and feeling the soreness in his muscle there. But he doesn’t look over again to see the empty sleeve flapping in the breeze. “Probably should have gone with them even though I hate beets.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. A nurse comes in with a breakfast tray of toast, eggs, orange juice, and apple sauce.

“Could I get some coffee?” Bucky asks her.

“We’d like to keep you off caffeine for a few days, allow you to get some rest.” The nurse tells him before she leaves the room.

“Allow me to get a withdrawal headache is more like it.” Bucky grumbles under his breath. Natasha sets the tray down on a stand and wheels it over to the bed so that Bucky can get to it. She holds out a fork to him, which Bucky takes in his right hand, feeling awkward even though it's his dominant hand.

“Get through this meal without complaining and I’ll go find you a latte.” Natasha tells him, wandering and browsing one of the dozen gift baskets in the room.

“Hey, those are mine.” Bucky tells her. “I got those for helping people. Chocolate covered pretzels and Care Bears for my left arm, which I don’t think is the best trade, but whatever.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and pointedly breaks into one of the baskets. “We’re sharing. No one knows where to send my gifts for saving the city.” She pulls out a stack of magazines and walks back to the chair by Bucky’s bed. “This is the closest thing I’ve come to a vacation in years.”

“Oh,” Bucky replies, trying to scoop his eggs awkwardly. “Don’t I know it? This place is just like the beach.”

Natasha sighs and puts her feet up on the bed, kicking back while Bucky settles for picking up the toast with his right hand and eating it.

“Shut up or I won’t read you this article about celebrity birth plans.” Natasha says, wagging the tabloid at him.

“I’ll give you my other arm to never tell me what those words mean.”

Natasha doesn’t look like the kind of girl who snorts when she laughs. And that isn’t one of those comments that means she’s too pretty to have a sense of humor. It just means that she’s more subdued and dry when it comes to their banter.

Apparently her weak spot is jokes about amputation. Because she totally snorts and Bucky smiles around his bite of toast for the first time since he walked into Grand Central Station before the invasion.

----------

An orderly and a doctor arrive later to try to get Bucky out of bed, which he would have done himself hours ago if it weren’t for Natasha glaring at him and the bag of his own urine he doesn’t know what to do with. It goes much better having two people who are obviously adept at untangling a person from IVs, and bags of pee.

Bucky sits on the edge of the bed, his feet skimming across the ground in the grippy compression socks that the hospital were so kind to provide him.

“Can we get a robe or something?” Natasha asks the doctor, “No offense, but I don’t think your staff could handle the free show this guy would put on if he walked down the hallway like this.” She says, jerking her head over her shoulder at Bucky. And Bucky doesn’t feel sexy at all in this moment. He feels muzzy and like a kid dressed in clothes 10 times his size. He feels off balance physically and emotionally.

But Natasha’s a bro, so she covers Bucky’s ass (literally) while he freaks out.

Doctor White (Bucky’s favorite personally because he actually makes eye contact with his patients) chuckles, “Absolutely.”

Bucky’s pretty sure that’s as much as he can joke about the situation at hand without risking a sexual harassment lawsuit.

They end up getting him another hospital gown that they put on backwards, snapping his remaining arm into the sleeve without having to mess with his IVs. And he looks like a fashion train wreck, but at least it’s not as drafty.

The orderly and Natasha help Bucky out of bed, Natasha on the left with an arm clamped around his waist, mindful of the wound. The orderly slings Bucky’s right arm over his shoulder and plants his hand on the middle of Bucky’s back. He wants to make a joke about the Rockettes. If he makes any more jokes about this, he’s worried they’ll place him on a psyche evaluation, if he isn’t already on one.

“We’ll take this slow.” Doctor White says, walking backwards out of the door to keep an eye on them.

It’s slow going mostly because Bucky feels so tired, and though they’re weaning him off of the pain meds, the world is still a little out of focus.

Together, they take a few steps to get Bucky out of the room and into the hall. Into the hall filled with guards carrying guns.

“Uh, could someone explain this? Is Beyoncé staying on this floor?” Bucky asks as they pass the two guards who stand at the entrance to Bucky’s room. Down the hall there are four more around the nurses station and another two blocking the double doors to the wing of the hospital.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Natasha tells him, “the guys that I work for.” She clarifies when Bucky frowns, not understanding. “They’re here to make sure you’re safe.”

“You called in a favor?” Bucky asks.

“A few of us did.” Natasha answers.

Bucky looks over at the orderly, “You a spy too?” he asks.

The orderly shakes his head. “Absolutely not, but I do work for S.H.I.E.L.D., even got to set Hawkeye’s wrist once.”

“Ohhh,” Bucky intones like a small child before turning back to Natasha. “I have no clue what that means.”

She sighs, “Basically what you saw yesterday, my people are the only ones really looking out for that. We’re the spearhead when it comes to defending against things that no one can understand.”

“Like giant flying turtle snakes?” Bucky responds. It does feel good to be up and walking, even if he feels like an exhibit at the circus with all of the nurses, doctors, and guards staring at him to make sure he’s okay.

“Not always, but yes.” She says. They pause, now half way down the hall.

“Any weakness?” Dr. White asks, pulling a pen and a notebook out of his pocket.

“Just a little unbalanced.” Bucky tells him honestly. “My legs are pretty stiff.” Natalie’s arm tightens around his waist incrementally.

“That’s good.” Dr. White tells him, “I don’t want you walking on your own, but if you and Natasha want to continue, just yell if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” Bucky says. The orderly lets go of Bucky, carefully handing him the pole that the IVs hang from to steady himself with. Natasha holds onto him and they walk slowly on down the hall. “This is the part where I want to know if our whole friendship has been a lie.”

Natalie totally throws him side-eye at that. “Barnes, the only thing I lied to you about was my basic identity. Working with you was the easiest cover I’ve ever had apart from pretending to enjoy Proust, which I don’t by the way. At all.”

And now Bucky gets to snort with laughter. “I was placed in the neighborhood because Steve had been released and we needed to keep an eye on him. I lived in the building across from his. I was supposed to befriend him, but you did that for me.”

“Were you going to seduce him?” Bucky asks, scandalized and picturing Natasha arriving at Steve’s apartment in the rain with a broken umbrella and a story about losing her key to the apartment.

“Not this time.” Natasha said, “I was mostly there to gauge how well he was acclimating to modern life. Turned out that befriending you was all the work I needed to do on that front.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “So I’m a moron right, for not realizing that the Steve Rogers from the History class I never paid attention in and the Steve Rogers who has been hanging around were the same person. The guy who disappeared at the end of the war, the guy they keep making Discovery Channel documentaries about.” Bucky rants, “The same guy who up until a week ago I assumed was the product of some weird government experiment is actually the product of a government experiment.”

“Yeah, pretty much on all accounts.” Natasha tells him. “You’re taking this a lot better than I thought you would. Its not every day that you find out your favorite patron is Captain America.”

Bucky looks over at her, across his shoulder. “It’s not every day that your hometown is nearly destroyed either. I’ve got enough going on up here,” Bucky says, coming to a stop so he can tuck his hair behind his ears, “to fill a Lifetime movie.”

“You need a haircut, scraggly.” She tells him, squinting is his head.

“I think there are more pressing concerns here, Nat.” Bucky tells her.

----------

As Bucky predicted, the first thing that his mom does when she walks into the room is to yell “Moya solnishka!” At the top of her lungs, clutch Bucky’s head to her chest and weep for a good 30 minutes. His dad is a strong, reassuring presence though, sitting on the other side of Bucky’s bed with a callused hand holding on to Bucky’s.

When his mother has recovered enough to start yelling at him for being an idiot, he just has to sit back and take it.

Luckily, he’s got Natasha there to smooth his parents over while Bucky hits the button on his IV for more pain meds. Its an abuse of the system, but Bucky deserves it.

Despite the fact that their son’s missing an arm, they take it pretty well after that. Bucky’s mom keeps looking between Bucky and Natasha like she can already picture what their children would look like.

It’s weird knowing your mom ships you and an assassin together even if she probably doesn’t know what shipping is to begin with.

And then he falls asleep.

----------

Steve doesn’t come to the hospital, not that Bucky really blames him. Hospitals are super depressing for one thing, they also smell awful.

Natasha’s stayed with Bucky for the last three nights, and whatever breaks she takes, Bucky’s parents come to keep him company. Though Bucky mostly has to stop his mom from straightening thing up and bugging him about Natasha.

Bucky gets his first uninterrupted time alone that afternoon when Natasha tells him she and the rest of their team have an errand to run. Bucky suspects its something that Natasha looks forward to a great deal and also dreads.

Either way, relishes the fact that for the next few hours, he has the room to himself.

His mom brought him sweatpants, old t-shirts, and slippers from his apartment. The thought of her wandering around in there gives Bucky hives. He fully expects the place to be sparkling when he returns in a few days. His treatment is not done by far. He still has months of physical therapy, actual therapy, and checkups ahead of him. But considering that he was in good health when it happened, his recovery has been quick. No signs of infection, and his pain is manageable even if it is totally strange to feel it and know it’s at the border of where there once was flesh.

Bucky feels relatively normal all things considered. Well enough to get up and walk out of the room on his own with only minimal fussing by the nursing staff who are used to him wandering the halls at night with Natasha.

The thing that takes the most getting used to is how off balance he feels physically. He’s had 27 years to take his arms swinging by his sides for granted. Relearning how to walk without the pendulum swing of both appendages takes time. A few times he’s stumbled and nearly fallen to the ground, trying to reach out and steady himself as he used to.

Bucky spends a good hour like that, walking up the hall and then back when he reaches the end. When he gets tired, he takes a seat on a bench out in the hallway. There’s a long line of windows looking out on the grounds outside. Currently it’s full of birds chirping and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents glaring at anyone who gets too close.

He doesn’t really know why he’s so important that all this is going on. Maybe because of the train thing. Or because he’s a small part of Steve’s life and they think he might know something that could put Steve in danger. The same goes for Natasha.

The sound of a motorcycle cuts through the summer afternoon with a rumbling that Bucky can hear shaking the windows a little. Natasha pulls up to the hospital in a matte black sedan and tinted windows, pulling right up and getting out in one fluid motion. Just a second later, the motorcycle pulls up next to her car, its rider leaning to talk to her above the din of the machine.

“Son of a bitch.” Bucky says to himself, up and out the door to the garden outside in about two seconds. Because that’s Steve, and Bucky hasn’t seen him since his arm left the band.

“Hey you!” Bucky yells over the engine. Steve looks up sharply at the sound as the agents in the garden look like they’re debating tackling Bucky to get him back inside.
“Yes you!” Bucky yells again when Steve looks behind him, confused.

Natasha looks between them like she’s not really sure what’s about to happen. She must know that Steve was there when Bucky got hurt. So it’s common knowledge that Bucky was shooting at the aliens, thus provoking them into shooting right back at Bucky.

And yes, Steve was there, but it’s still Bucky’s fault that it happened.

“Don’t make me chase you, think about how terrible that would look. Steve Rogers running away from a guy in slippers.” Bucky tells him, walking forward until he reaches the sidewalk where they’re standing. Steve cuts the engine to the motorcycle, giving Bucky a long look that’s a lot more like how he looked at him during the attack than he used to in the library.

There’s a hardened edge to Steve that Bucky never noticed before. A loneliness that he mistook for confusion and eagerness to learn that he sees as Steve’s struggle to catch up on 70 years of history.

“You’re—“ Steve says, and there’s a long pause that neither one of them quite know how to fill.

“Alive.” Natasha fills in for both of them. “And believe me, we’ll figure out how to move on from this.”

Steve nods tightly. His jaw is clenched and he’s staring at Bucky. But he’s not looking at Bucky’s face. Instead he’s staring at the empty sleeve on Bucky’s left as it flaps in the breeze like a flag.

Chapter Text

“My face is up here.” Bucky says, pointing at his face, growing paler by the day as he’s kept in the hospital. Not that Bucky spent that much time outside before this all happened. But he can practically feel his pores taking in the smell of the hospital with every day that passes.

Abruptly, Steve looks away from Bucky’s sleeve, but not meeting his eyes. Steve really does seem like he’s at a loss for words now. He settles for, “Bucky, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Bucky scoffs, “Uh, obviously. Because you’re not a terrible person.” Whomp, there it is. Yet another example of Bucky using humor and sarcasm as a defense mechanism.

“Would you just--,” Steve stammers, resting his hands on his hips. He looks from Bucky, to Natasha, and then back to Bucky. “Cool it for a second, okay? I have things to say too.”

And that has Bucky snapping his mouth shut. On one hand, he want to know what Steve is going to say. On the other, Bucky has a feeling that Steve’s taken this one to heart, and Bucky only has a very low tolerance for sentiment right now. He just wants to reclaim his life without the sappy looks that all of the nurses throw his way because apparently being young and injured is more endearing than being old.

He already doesn’t like the attention that the lack of arm has given him. But he has to concede with whatever Steve is about to tell him, because if he let his mother scream at him for upwards of an hour, he deserves whatever Cap is going to say.

“Shoot.”

Steve sighs. “I should have told you to stay out of the city.” There’s a crease forming between his eyebrows as he speaks. It’s a tension coiling over his whole body. Bucky can see that Steve’s shoulders are trying to creep upwards towards his ears. “Thor got Darcy out.”

“Big guy swinging the hammer knows Darcy?” Bucky exclaims. Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing.

Natasha sighs, “Later.”

Steve drops his hand, flexes and releases by his sides. “Millions of people in the city and it just didn’t seem right to pull a few people out just because I know them. The chances were so slim that you would be there when it happened, a block away from Stark Tower, and then you are running through the streets. Frankly it’s a miracle you’re breathing right now.”

And yes, that’s probably a good reminder for Bucky to actually breathe.

“And that was a stupid assumption on my part.” Steve says. He rakes a hand through his hair. Bucky’s going to have to have a word with him about his lack of helmet when he rode up. “The entire city could have fallen, or been leveled by--” Natasha nods shortly at him. Steve thinks otherwise of what he was going to say, moving on. “But I should have gotten you out.” He finishes awkwardly.

Bucky shakes his head, “Yeah, if New York fell I’m not sure there would have been a safe place anywhere. Certainly there’s nowhere else where a bitter old man like me would have been able to live.”

Steve smiles softly, shaking his head. Probably at the notion that Bucky is the one in their friendship (not that Bucky can pin the exact moment that he started thinking of Steve as his friend and not just another patron of the library) who is the bitter old man.

There’s earnestness to Steve that’s been lost somewhere along the way in society since he was frozen. He says what he means, doesn’t play games. Probably because he came from a time where the cultural shift was so great that if you didn’t ask questions about what was going on, you would be left in the dustbowl.

Opinions really mattered back then. This was a generation of people who dropped everything to join the war, build planes, collect scrap metal, and buy war bonds. A people whose entire lives revolved around an effort to hopefully help people overseas. Bucky doesn’t remember much from high school history class, where he’s sure he probably had a quiz all about Steve that he failed. But what he does remember is the fact that Steve was rejected from every single recruiting station he went to. And he kept coming back until someone took a chance on him.

“I just know what it’s like to be there and not know what’s going to happen next.” Steve says. His Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he clears his throat. There’s a faraway look in his eyes. “It took me a while to be able to come here, I had some things I had to clear up. But you helped me adjust to the 21st century, so I’m here if you want me to help you with—“ and then he points vaguely to Bucky’s left.

“I will forever argue that teaching you how to use correct search terms was my own personal hell.” Bucky says, “This,” he points at his left, “is just a mater of months of adjustment and training, also maybe a hook hand. But hey, built in Halloween costume.” He points at Steve, testing him.

“Peter Pan?” Steve asks, his voice lilting up at the end questioningly.

“Give the man a prize.” Bucky says, turning and walking towards the doors to the hospital “It’s actually great that you showed up when you did, I was going to have to make Natasha take about 100 plush animals to the children’s hospital for me. But now that you’re here, you can help!”

“Oh can I?” Steve asks, his voice following Bucky at a few feet away.

“Yup,” Bucky says, “Any chance you have that outfit with you. You know the one, red boots, blue leggings, kind of strange jacket with abs built in.”

“Those are Kevlar plates to protect my internal organs.” Steve tells him, getting a little annoyed. Clearly the costume means a lot more to Steve than Bucky would have expected.

“Cool, just as long as it doesn’t have those fake nipples on it like in Batman Forever.” Bucky tells him, reaching for the door when Steve appears, wrenching it open for him. “What a gentleman.”

----------

So Bucky’s occupational therapist nearly falls and hits his head the first time that Steve walks through the door of Bucky’s hospital room while he’s there. He’s staring at Steve like he hung the moon.

“Uh,” Bucky says awkwardly, a long line of gauze resting over his shoulder from the man showing Bucky how to replace his dressings. “Steve, this is Sam. Sam, the man you’re staring at is Steve.”

Sam, suddenly flustered, rises to stand from the stool he’d been sitting on while working with Bucky. “Sir, it’s an honor to meet you.” Sam says earnestly.

Watching Steve slip into soldier mode isn’t something that Bucky can really ever get over. He stands up straighter, holding out a hand automatically to Sam. They shake hands, “Pleasure to meet you.” Steve tells him. He looks around Sam, now scanning the room and taking in the pamphlets and information that Sam brought with him. “I should leave you to your work.” Steve says awkwardly, stepping towards the door.

“Get back here.” Bucky tells him, pointing at the chair near the bed on Bucky’s good side. “Otherwise Sam’s not going to get anything done here. We’ll just be talking about you.”

Sam shakes his head. “I always thought I would be so much cooler if it came to meeting you.”

Bucky still isn’t used to the Captain America Effect. It seems like everyone who knows who Steve is automatically gets tongue tied and sentimental around him. He’s taken at least a dozen selfies with the nurses and staff of the hospital. Though, Bucky isn’t sure that Steve knows those things will automatically go up on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Someone should probably tell him what those things are before anything strange happens.

Though, its Steve. So it wouldn’t even be like a scandal. He’d just probably think that he needed to respond urgently to all of his @replies.

Sam gets back to work as Steve pulls a battered paperback book from his jacket and begins reading. It’s one of those old penny dreadful novels about ghosts haunting a beautiful young woman judging by the cover. Bucky makes a note to show Steve some horror movies when he gets back to work.

“We’re going to work on increasing your core strength.” Sam says, returning to wrapping Bucky’s arm with the gauze. “It’ll help with your transition to a prosthetic if you choose one. If you don’t, you’ll be more capable of living your life without as much hassle.”

He explains to Bucky the exercises and stretches that Bucky should do to retain muscle mass on his right side. “I’ll be taking a visit to your workplace and looking for areas where I can get your assistance.”

Ah, the library. Bucky’s first love. It’s been two weeks since he’s stepped foot in the place, and he’s feeling homesick. The smell of book glue and dust calls to him like a beacon.

“I’m in Brooklyn most of the week,” Sam tells him. “So don’t think I won’t know if you aren’t working out and following the program.” He raises an eyebrow at Bucky. “I’ll chase a guy with one arm. I will.”

Bucky snorts, looking down a the place where Sam has one leg crossed over the other, where his pant leg has ridden up to reveal the tan plastic of an artificial limb attached to a gleaming running shoe.

----------

Darcy greets him with a fond, “Moron.” And a punch to his shoulder a few days later. “Running through the streets and saving people. What an idiot.” She grumbles under her breath, taking off in the direction of immaculately edged and organized shelves.

She says nothing about the fact that Bucky looks like a student who woke up for class with 10 minutes to spare. Since it was the first time that he had to dress himself without the assistance of Sam, Natasha, his mom or one of the nurses he had a bit of a struggle. He’s wearing old slip on Vans sneakers that somehow stuck around after college, black track pants (jeans with a button fly were not happening this morning), a lived-in grey shirt with long sleeves, and a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

And while it looks like it took him a grand total of 15 minutes to get ready that morning, in reality it was over an hour. Over an hour to look generally awful. After a night of sleep unable to roll over on his side and get comfortable. In his too quiet apartment without the reassuring hum of voices outside the door.

It cannot be possible that Bucky somehow misses the hospital.

But things were definitely easier there. So many things were done to help him, and if he needed it, assistance was only a call away. After getting home last night (and he was correct, everything he owns is now color coordinated, dusted, and put away thanks to his mother) Bucky absently walked around his apartment and he felt like a stranger there. Really alone for the first time in weeks, and on his own.

Not so much on his own that there wasn’t 20 single serving meals lovingly packaged in his fridge for the week thanks to his mom. She even put post-it notes on each box indicating how long to microwave it, how long it was good for, and a ‘Love, Mom’ at the end. His freezer wielded the same.

It turned out that when his mom hadn’t been at the hospital, she was catering the next month of his life.

It bothers him a lot that he doesn’t have his sleeves rolled up the way that he likes and he couldn’t figure out how to get into anything involving buttons. Natasha arrives as Bucky is putting his bag down at his desk, sitting down and surveying the room.

“I look like shit.” Bucky tells her when she approaches the desk. “You don’t have to remind me.”

She rounds the desk, sitting at the rarely used computer monitor next to Bucky’s own. There’s never a need for both of them to be covering the desk at the same time. She pulls off his cap and leans in to assess the situation. “Haircut.” She tells him, meaning it. “You couldn’t sleep.” She says it like it’s a fact. And now that Bucky knows she was really a spy this whole time, he’s pretty sure that Natasha is more equipped to deal with injury than he is.

“Couldn’t get comfortable.” Bucky tells her.

“Bring a button-up shirt with you next time and I’ll help you with it.” She tells him, knowing exactly what happened apparently.

“Is my apartment bugged?” Bucky asks, his hand reaches for the mouse, moving the cursor to log himself in.

“Not to my knowledge.” Natasha says, glancing at the long, empty sleeve of Bucky’s shirt.

“Good, I don’t want you taking a peek at me in the shower.” Bucky tells her.

-----------

Steve carries pins around with him now. Stick pins like the ones that people who sew use to hold pieces of fabric together. Bucky knows this because while in the process of moving a stack of new books to the other room, Bucky has managed to get his sleeve caught under the pile. And when he pulled the sleeve free, all of the books on the display were knocked to the ground.

“Magicians can pull a tablecloth out from under a dozen wineglasses and nothing happens. Bucky Barnes tries to free himself from three copies of Janet Evonovich and suddenly it’s a different story.” Bucky says as Cristina and Steve appear to help him get all the books back in order.

Bucky expected these kinds of things. Really. He did. Having never been exactly graceful before the accident, he fully expected to return to life with a more, even more destructive wake behind him.

That doesn’t make it any easier.

Sam’s told him over and over again that he can’t expect the same things to work as easily now. He shouldn’t be hard on himself when there’s nothing he can do except adapt.

“I think magicians have magic on their side though.” Steve tells him lightheartedly, placing the last book on the shelf.

“And the devil.” Bucky mutters, looking away. He waves at Steve. “Thanks, for that.” He gestures towards the books. “Probably should hire someone to follow me around and clean up after me.”

Self deprecating and a little embarrassed sounding, even for him.

Steve reaches into the pocket of his leather coat, drawing out a pack of silver pins. “If you get it out of the way, you won’t catch it on anything.”

Bucky sighs. He jerks his head towards the staff lounge where they can do this in private. Steve looks anxious following Bucky into the room and sitting down next to him on the couch, on his left.

“I did a tour of VA hospitals.” Steve says, carefully folding Bucky’s sleeve up to his shoulder in precise movements. “I have plenty of practice.”

And so Steve and Bucky sit side by side in the lounge as Steve works. He’s holding four pins between his lips carefully as he works, talking like a ventriloquist without moving his mouth too much.

“Did you do that a lot? Visiting soldiers?” Bucky asks. He’s not really about dragging this information out of Steve. He would rather Steve volunteer whatever insight he wants to about the war.

“Before I joined the front I was doing 7 shows a week, plus two matinees on the weekends to promote war bonds.” Steve says, pinning the layers of Bucky’s shirt for him. “But my days were my own, kind of. I went around to whatever wards would let me in, first in costume and then as a volunteer.”

Bucky doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He wants to ask how Steve felt about being a symbol rather than the soldier he wanted to be in the first place. If things had gone according to plan, Steve would have been one of thousands of super soldiers. He might have stood a chance at living a normal life after the war.

“That’s nice of you.” Bucky settles for that.

Steve scoffs. “It’s not nice. It’s just what you do.” He says, “Those men were my brothers, and if I couldn’t have their back in the field, I was going to be there for them at home.”

He finishes up after about another moment, looking at the job he’s done proudly. Bucky looks over, his sleeve looks secure enough that it’s not going to go unraveling on him anytime soon.

“Thanks.” He tells Steve.

Steve shakes his head, “It’s nothing.” He blushes.

But it isn’t nothing. Definitely not at all.

Chapter Text

Steve looks at Bucky like the other man just handed him a grenade. Confused. Wary. Betrayed.

Bucky, laying on the ground and wheezing after just one lap jogging around the park with Steve, closes his eyes and wishes for a clean death.

“What is this?” Steve asks, holding the silver and white object in his hands. He turns it over and over, curious.

“Its your version of me running.” Bucky wheezes on the ground, throwing an arm over his face. “It’s an iPod. It’s for listening to music. Leave me here to die.”

“But I have a record player.” Steve says, and Bucky can’t see him. But he’s 99% sure that Steve has a confused look on his face.

“Yeah, but you can’t take your record player with you everywhere.” Bucky tells him. He can feel his feet again. It’s a sticky New York summer and his whole body feels like it’s crying in the form of sweat. Steve isn’t even out of breath. The bastard. “Please tell me you haven’t been listening to your record player out in public. That’s a hipster move, and I didn’t raise you to be a hipster.”

Bucky blinks his eyes open. Steve is looking down at him with a puzzled expression. “I don’t know what that means.” He says, holding out the iPod to Bucky. “I thought that hip meant cool. And I don’t need this.”

“Sure you do.” Bucky says, pushing himself to sitting in the grass. “Now that I know you were in 1945 3 months ago to you, and haven’t been fucking with me this whole time, I’m taking the gloves off. Or glove off as it were. I don’t have to be nice to you anymore, you dragged me out of my home and forced me to run.”

“Your OT told you that you should be running,” Steve says, sitting down next to him. “I don’t think that qualified as dragging you out of your home. Imagine how that would look, Captain America dragging a guy with one arm out of his apartment.” Steve chuckles at his own joke. He smiles, laugh lines spilling out from the corners of his eyes towards his temples.

Bucky regrets ever making that joke in the first place to guilt Steve into doing things for him.

“You are the worst.” Bucky tells him. “Did Sam put you up to this?”

Steve chuckles, “Nope. Just doing my civic duty.”

“I should have just let the people at Barnes and Noble take you in and ruin you.” Bucky laments. Now that he’s had a rest, his lungs don’t ache as much. Mostly it’s just good to be out in the sun. A group of guys with their shirts off runs past, a few giving Bucky the nod as they pass him.

“Never mind, this place isn’t so bad.” Bucky says.

Both of Steve’s eyebrows fly towards his hairline. His eyes track the men running around the corner and then settle on a girl sunbathing in a bikini 50 feet away.

“This must be kind of a shock to you.” Bucky says, nudging Steve with his elbow. “I mean, back where you came from it was a big deal to see a woman’s knees.”

Steve snorts, “Bucky, we had nudity back then. That wasn’t an invention of your generation. We were just a lot more subtle about this kind of stuff. We had bars with drinking, smoking, and jazz music. We had dirty magazines. We weren’t a group of angels hanging around until the 1960s. Plus I think you’re forgetting that I traveled with 15 chorus girls across the US and Europe. And then I was with an outfit of 200 men. There isn’t a lot I haven’t seen.”

And now it’s Bucky’s turn to be a little shocked. The more that he learns about Steve, the less he thinks of him as a relic from a time of innocence and modesty. Granted, every generation’s had sex and drugs, they’ve just been different about showing those things. But Steve is a man, it makes sense that these things Bucky thought would shock him have no effect.

Now if Bucky took Steve to a strip club that would be another story. He’s pretty sure that S.H.I.E.L.D. would actually black bag him if he took Steve to Busty Brooklyn.

Steve makes Bucky get up and jogs with him for two miles until he allows Bucky to sink the ground to recover while Steve goes on the rest of his run.

His run that consists of circling the park about once every minute for an hour, not looking at all like he’s about to die. Bucky amuses himself by shouting different stuff at Steve every time he passes.

“See, if you were listening to an iPod, you wouldn’t have to hear me yelling at you like that.” Bucky tells him when Steve marches over, his run complete.

“Somehow, I don’t think it would help that much.” Steve sighs.

Bucky deserves a coffee after this. So he takes Steve to his favorite place with its worn out armchairs and stacks of paperback books on shelves for people to read. They sit outside. Bucky drinks four shots of espresso over ice, Steve has an iced tea.

Eventually Steve pulls the iPod from his pocket and stares at it for a long time. “Bucky, will you run with me every day if I give this thing a shot? No complaining. For either of us.” Steve asks.

“Steve, its going to take a lot more than that from you to get me to run every day.”

And that is the story of how Bucky convinced Steve to buy his first pair of jeans. 

-----------

Bucky isn’t exactly sure when exactly the Steve Rogers Effect manifested in himself. Not in the way that Bucky feels embarrassed or has the need to blush around Steve. No instead he’s filled with a gnawing sense of possessiveness whenever someone is too flirty with, bothers, laughs too hard at his jokes, and is generally around Steve.

Not in a Fatal Attraction, bunny boiler way. Just in a general ‘I hate you, don’t look at him’ kind of manifestation. Maybe this whole experience has resulted in Bucky imprinting on Steve and vice versa. After all, Bucky was one of the first people that Steve met after he got out of the ice, and Steve’s been around so much since the accident.

Darcy breaks it to him a week later by marching up to his desk and proclaiming, “If you’re going to glare at every person who talks to Steve, you should probably wear sunglasses or something.” She tells him.

“What?” Bucky responds. “I do not.”

“Oh you do. You’ve been sitting here, glaring for the last three hours while Steve helps the volunteers set up for the summer book sale.” Darcy hisses at him. Bucky looks through the archway where Steve is carrying three boxes of books for the thrilled volunteer coordinator. Bucky’s eyebrows draw together. “You’re doing it again!” Darcy tells him, leaning over the desk to smack him lightly upside the head.

“No I’m not!” Bucky argues back.

“You’re making a face. A face halfway between emotionally devastated and horny.” Darcy says, throwing her hands up in the air. Bucky looks around to make sure no one is catching on to this conversation. “Don’t think I don’t know that face. I’ve spent days in the presence of Thor. Oh I know all about dudes wistfully staring at people.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Okay, so I might be staring.”

“And making a face.”

“Fine, and making a face.” Bucky adds with a roll of his eyes. “But I think you’re forgetting that the guy is Captain America. He could literally have anyone that he wanted. We don’t even know if he likes me.”

Darcy scoffs, “Barnes, you are a moron. First of all, the guy is Steve Rogers. He’s a person and not a symbol. Second, just because he could get anyone doesn’t mean that he wants to. Third, why would someone voluntarily spend this much time with you unless they ever head over shield, crazy in like with you.”

And with that startling revelation, Darcy turns heel and storms out of the library.

----------

In what is the most middle school move since Bucky was actually in middle school, he texts Natasha.

Nat, has Steve said anything about me? –B.B.

About the fact that you’re kind of a pill all the time? Or about the fact that he wants to kiss your dumb face? –N.R.

Both? Either? –B.B.

A guy doesn’t look at everyone around you like they want to pick you up and run off with you unless he likes you. Trust me, it’s my job to get guys to look at me like that. –N.R.

I am so screwed. -B.B.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, that hasn’t happened yet. ;) –N.R.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark is sitting on the stoop of Bucky’s building with a bag of tacos.

Maybe Bucky’s actually been in a coma this whole time since the battle of New York and this is some elaborate fantasy that his brain has conjured up. Because of all the things he expected out of life, a billionaire sitting on his stoop, engaging in an unholy amount of Mexican street food wasn’t one of them.

“Pop a squat, have a taco.” Stark says, motioning beside him towards the empty space. “Chicken or shrimp?”

“Chicken?” Bucky answers cautiously, taking a seat next to the other man. Tony hands him a warm foil wrapped taco still steaming when Bucky awkwardly peels back the wrapper with one hand. Beside him, Tony doesn’t offer to help but he does casually stop eating and watches Bucky out of the corner of his eye.

It’s actually kind of nice to not be offered help when he kind of needs it. That being said, the family across the hall from him are all too happy to open jars of pasta sauce for him once he gives up wedging the jar between his body and the counter to act as a vice.

Stark though, Stark just goes on eating once Bucky’s gotten his taco exposed.

“Cool thing you did, saving those people. Not as cool as I was, saving the whole city.” Tony says. And how is it possible that a compliment can sound as dismissive as that one. The guy’s kind of an asshole, Bucky can already tell. It probably means they’ll get along famously. “But it sure was a thing.”

“Hell of a thing that lost me an arm.” Bucky says, shrugging. Tony looks over again, this time his eyes land on the sleeve of Bucky’s left side. He’s wearing a t-shirt, unpinned and flapping a bit. If Tony wanted to, he could peek down it and see how it’s healing for himself.

“Yup, I know how that goes.” Tony agrees, taking an inhumanly large bite of the last of his taco. He balls up his foil, tossing it into the bag before retrieving another. Bucky casts him a sidelong glance, specifically looking at both of his working arms before rolling his eyes. “Okay, a metaphorical arm then.”

“Oh, sure.” Bucky nods.

And what a strange turn his life has taken that he’s eating cheap but amazing Mexican food with Tony Stark. And they’re acting like they haven’t just met. Stark asks him about the library. “Of course, I understand the usefulness of helping grandmothers access Facebook, but the Internet allows for a much better saturation of information. Pretty useless thing to dedicate a whole building to what could be room for servers.” Stark tells him.

“Don’t talk about my library like that.” Bucky says. “Or the next time I see your trashy car outside of Red’s, I’m keying it. No piroshkis for you once I tell her what you just said.” He’s sure to roll the end of the word, letting his little used Russian make itself known. It feels nice, like flexing a muscle until it’s a bit sore.

“Red’s out of jail?” Stark asks, one half of his mouth quirking up. “Good for her.”

And it’s just as strange when a woman with a strawberry blonde ponytail leans out of the tinted window of an SUV parked down the block to call for Stark, because he’s apparently going to be late for a ribbon cutting ceremony.

“I’ll see you later.” Stark tells him as he gets up, wiping his greasy hands on the expensive suit he’s wearing.

“Yeah, later.” Bucky tells him, still sitting on the stoop for another half hour after he’s gone.

----------

Sam and Steve work out at the same gym.

Because of course they do.

And while Bucky’s never been inside that place before, he has run into the Steve after he’s gone for a workout. So he knows for a fact that the place reeks of decades of cigar smoke. It’s probably the kind of place where all they have is a few beat up boxing rings and the only music playing is the Rocky soundtrack over and over again.

Either way, it explains why Sam and Steve are both stretching at the meeting place in the park where Bucky usually collapses at the end of their workout. Sam’s wearing a faded Air Force t-shirt and a pair of star spangled compression shorts under anther looser pair of shorts.

“Tell me you had nothing to do with this.” Steve says, gesturing to Sam’s shorts. And while Bucky didn’t have anything to do with it, he’s still oddly proud at seeing where Sam’s prosthesis begins a few inches below his knee and extends down to the running shoe he’s wearing. It kind of makes Bucky feel like his armless side will have a friend in Sam’s footless leg.

“Just being patriotic is all.” Sam shrugs.

“Right.” Steve responds, a sarcastic cadence to his tone.

“I’m sorry Steve, not all of us can rely on our government issued super serum.” Bucky teases him. “Some of us express ourselves via athletic ware. I think I might want a pair.”

“I will get you a pair.” Sam says definitively, pointing at Bucky and nodding.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Laugh it up guys. Are we going to stand around here all day, or are we going to run so that Bucky can tap out by nine and lounge around in the grass?”

“Who’s tapping out what now?” Sam asks, now turning his sights on Bucky. “Dude, you know you’re supposed to be exercising for an hour a day, at least. Don’t tell me that Mister United States over here has been letting you slack.”

Son of a bitch.

Steve doesn’t even have the decency to look a little guilty. He just kind of smiles brightly and comments on how great the weather is.

And that’s the story of how Bucky nearly collapses in the park because Sam won’t stop running behind him and yelling in some kind of scare tactic he must have learned in basic training.

By the time that Sam’s admitted that Bucky’s run enough for the day, his whole body hurts. They’ve easily done 4 miles. And Bucky’s worked up his tolerance to running over the last month, but it’s easily twice as much as he’s ever run in one go.

Bucky lays on his back in the shade of a large tree while Sam goes to buy them water from the man with cart a little ways away. Surprisingly, Steve stops and waits. He’s standing at Bucky’s feet. And when Bucky opens his eyes, Steve is looking down at him with a funny expression for about a second, and then he averts his eyes.

“What is it? Do I look really pathetic?” Bucky asks.

“No.” Steve says, plopping down on the ground next to Bucky. “You just remind me of someone.”

“Someone super attractive and missing an arm?”

Steve snorts. “Not so much in the looks department.”

“Come on.” Bucky prods, reaching out and trying to push Steve sideways a little, but mostly he ends up rocking himself back and forth because Steve is unmovable. “Tell me.”

Steve looks down at his hands.

“You remind me of myself before the serum.” Steve tells him.

And there’s a weird buzzing in Bucky’s ears that might be from a runners high or just from Steve saying something like that.

It kind of makes not being able to feel his legs worth it.

Kind of.

----------

Bucky only finds out that Steve’s been using his iPod because he walks into his own office in the library to find Darcy showing Steve how to back up his iTunes account.

“Hi. What’s going on here?” Bucky asks, setting down his bag on the chair by the door. He doesn’t really use this space much, only when he needs the room to process a large amount of materials or when he wants to nap during his lunch break.

“An act of public service.” Darcy tells him, her eyebrows drawn together in concentration as she clicks. “There, now you can go in and make a playlist.”

Bucky sticks around mostly to listen to Darcy ridicule Steve’s taste in music.

“The soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever?” Darcy exclaims. “Frozen for nearly 80 years and this is what you are choosing to listen to? I’m making you a mix, dear lord.”

----------

The thing about Steve is that he’s so nice to everyone. And he claims that he grew up in Brooklyn just like Bucky did, but he doesn’t have the cynical edge to him that everyone seems to develop upon moving to the city.

Not that Bucky doesn’t appreciate the city for what it is; a messy, insane, overwhelming happy/sad, loud, smelly, and beautiful place. There’s good and bad everywhere. New Yorkers however, seem to be more prepared for the bad than the good.

Steve though, Steve holds doors open for people and helps old women with their groceries. He gives directions to every tourist that he sees on the block. He poses for photos with every business owner he and Bucky meet on their various trips out for lunch or coffee.

So Bucky’s not exactly sure if his feelings for Steve (a crush, that seems like a safe thing to call it) might be returned or if Steve is just being nice. And if he was just being nice this whole time, yeah, that would pretty much fucking suck.

Usually it’s been pretty easy to figure out when someone is interested in him. For one thing, it usually happens in a bar. And for another, it’s hard to mistake someone pushing you up against the outside of a bar and attacking you with their mouth as anything except for attraction.

Not that all of his relationships have started in bars. Just most of them. Guys and women who looked at him at closing and jerked their heads towards the door. One time a hot Russian businessman 20 years Bucky’s senior who passed him his hotel key after he closed out his tab.

And yes, that guy thought that Bucky was a prostitute. But once they got that all cleared up, he turned out to be a pretty nice guy. And the room service was excellent.

Bucky stole a bathrobe from that hotel.

With Steve though, they began this whole thing in such a strange way. Almost in a tutor and pupil way with Bucky showing Steve everything he could to help the man find the information he was looking for. Back then he thought Steve might have escaped a cult. Now he knows that Steve’s genuine interest in the people around him is all Steve and not the product of brainwashing.

It’s just Steve. And that’s part of the problem.

Because if Steve is so wonderful and full of life, what could be see in Bucky?

And that’s not him being down on himself. But really, what does Bucky have to offer except for a one bedroom apartment, a pretty impressive collection of books, and a storm trooper costume he made in college?

Yeah, stacked up against all of Steve’s medals and accolades, it looks pretty pathetic.

But maybe Steve will be nice enough to ignore that and make out with Bucky anyway.

He can really only hope.

---------

Natasha comes over a few nights after the iPod incident looking a bit rough around the edges. But she’s got a great bottle of vodka in one hand and a giant bag of chocolate in the other. So Bucky lets her in.

“Senate hearings about the invasion.” She tells him, going directly to the kitchen to get ice and glasses. “Imagine sitting in a room with Tony Stark for hours on end and then imagine that while having to be sober.”

Bucky follows her into the kitchen, hoping she’ll ignore the pile of dishes in the sink and the general laziness his apartment conveys to the outside world. Bucky maintains that it’s incredibly difficult to clean an apartment one-handed.

“Why now?” Bucky asks, accepting the glass that she hands him before heading to the living room. They sit on the couch together. Natasha propping her feet up on Bucky’s legs like they’ve been bests friend since college. “Doesn’t Steve have to go do those too?”

“He already did his.” She tells him, taking a big swig out of her glass. “It’s why he was gone the week after the invasion happened. Called to check up on you a lot while you were sleeping.”

Bucky’s eyebrows come together, his eyes focusing on a spot on the wall now that he has this information. “Really? When I was asleep?”

Natasha huffs, “Yeah, middle of the night mostly. He was busy all day anyway.” She raises an eyebrow. “We’re not really talking about Steve’s senate meetings. I don’t need to be a genius assassin with incredible interrogation training to know that you want Steve’s body, on your body. On top of it. Under it.”

“Yeah, sure.” Bucky exclaims. “It’s the Green Eggs and Ham of attraction. Pretty much any way would be good for me. I would like him here or there, I would like him anywhere.”

Natasha snorts, “I didn’t think I would like being a librarian so much. You’re like a bunch of people who were built for literary references. S’nice.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, slugging back more of his drink. “Yeah, I’m a real peach to be around. Let me tell you. Now you, tell me about Steve.” He nudges her with the hand holding the drink. His ice cubes rattle in the bottom of the glass.

Natasha shrugs. “If it was me, I would have said something by now. But Steve’s wound tighter than a spring and you have this awful way of saying the opposite of what you mean all the time.”

Bucky bites his lip, feeling loose and pliable from the vodka and Natasha’s lazy company. However, a slow tension was creeping inside him, coiling tightly in his belly. “Well, do I say something? Go for the romantic gesture?”

She flung him a skeptical look. “Bucky, in case you haven’t noticed, you sort have been there for Steve since the week he came back. He’s imprinted on you like an enormous gosling in flannel. I think you both know what’s going on. And if Steve wasn’t into it, he would tell you. The guy’s pretty huge on sticking to his principles.”

And that, that was true. Except in the case of Steve growing to love iced coffee even though he had sworn up and down that all he needed in his life was a cup of black coffee. Yes, Bucky knew ALL about Steve’s caffeine habit at the shop near his place. He’d seen enough photos on Twitter and Tumblr of Steve clutching an extra large in one hand, smile plastered on his face with an arm around whoever was taking the photo.

----------

Steve breaks the internet a week later when three things happen.

1. Someone signs him up for a twitter account. Probably Darcy.
2. As it’s pride week, someone from the NOH8 campaign reaches out to him to ask if he would consider doing a photo shoot to show his support for the LQBTQIA community.
3. Steve responds, telling them he would love to be a part of their campaign. And then he says that he should support the community that he’s a part of.

Shit. Gets. Crazy.

Turns out when your name is Captain America, and you come out via social media a lot of people love you, and some of them hate you. Namely one giant news outlet who urge their viewers to speak out against S.H.I.E.L.D. and their support of less than wholesome values.

They have footage of a guy with an eye patch marching into the Triskelion while at least 50 reporters are trying to shove microphones into his face.

“Director Fury, what do you have to say in regards to the backlash against Steve Rogers?”

The man dressed in an impressive black leather trench coat despite the summer weather spins around, fixing the reporters with a glare from one eye.

“Let’s get some BLEEP straight, if anyone has a BLEEP BLEEPING problem with it, they can feel free to remove the stick from their BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP whenever they feel like it. Steve Rogers is a BLEEPING national treasure. We’ve got bigger problems at hand than who he’s BLEEPING. Okay?”

Bucky snorts into his latte. Across from him, twin patches of red have appeared on Steve’s cheeks. He’s wearing a plain baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Luckily the coffee shop is narrow and deep, so they’re sitting at the very back. Someone would really have to be looking for Steve to recognize him.

As politely as possible, Bucky rises from his seat, walking to the counter and asks the barista to change the channel to anything but news. She changes the channel to the Food Network. Bucky leaves her a 10 dollar bill in the tip jar.

Steve’s sitting with his back to the door, so when Bucky walks back to their table, he can see that the back of Steve’s neck is a flushed red. God, he must blush all over.

Okay, enough of that. This is no time for Bucky to think thoughts like that when Steve’s going through his first PR crisis since the war.

“It’s going to blow over.” Bucky says. “In a day Tony will fly off the rails and run through the city naked from sleep deprivation and all will be right as rain.”

Steve sighs. “I didn’t think it was a big deal anymore.” He says.

“It’s not.” Bucky says, but clearly it is. Otherwise Steve wouldn’t be the subject an practically an entire 24 hour news cycle. “It shouldn’t be.” He corrects himself.

“We couldn’t talk about that kind of thing before.” Steve says, staring down at his hands clutching his coffee cup. But he’s clearly not actually clutching it, otherwise it would have cracked and shattered by now. Steve somehow forgets that his strength is so otherworldly all the time. Carrying things twice his weight with ease. And then other times, like now his hands show the illusion of holding tightly. “I thought we could talk about it now.”

Bucky nods. “We can. It’s just a bigger deal because you’re a celebrity.” Bucky tells him. Steve shakes his head and Bucky cuts in. “Shut up, you are. Whether you want to be one or not, you are. But I think you’re kind of forgetting that this kind of thing is going to have a positive outcome too. I mean, there are kids growing up in places a lot less accepting of anyone who isn’t heterosexual. And seeing you come out is inspiring. I mean, your coming out was a hell of a lot more dramatic than mine, doesn’t mean it’s not a hard decision.”

Steve’s eyebrows come together in a line across his forehead as Bucky speaks. He looks up suddenly at the end of Bucky’s speech, blue eyes widening.

“You didn’t tell me you were gay.” Steve says.

Bucky pats down the front of his shirt. “Oh shit, did I forget to wear my club pin this whole time? I guess it never really came up, but I’m actually bisexual. I’ve always been pretty indecisive.”

“Yeah, me too.” Steve says softly. His mouth ratchets up slightly to one side. His hands loosen on the mug and come to rest on the table before him.

“If it means anything, I think you just became the most eligible bachelor in all of New York City.” Bucky means it as a compliment. But then he remembers how pretty much everyone wants something from Steve. And it would drive Bucky crazy to always be giving and giving to people he’ll probably never see again.

“Wonderful.” Steve grumbles.

----------

After that, Steve seems hyper aware of the people around him. It seems like his head is constantly on a swivel for a photographer or a reporter on the loose.

Steve and Bucky still go running, but they change the time to later at night, the darkness making it easier for Steve to feel like he’s not being watched.

“Are we sure that you aren’t just really jealous of all the attention that I’m getting? A strapping guy with one arm. I mean, that’s hot.” Bucky wheezes in between breaths, coming to a halt near the entrance to the park. Steve looks around shiftily, visibly antsy.

“Come on, lets keep running.” He says, jerking his head in the direction of the pavement.

Bucky holds up a hand, bent over at the waist to try to keep his breath. “Unless you want to see me cough up a lung, you’re going to have to give me a minute here.”

Steve allows Bucky to catch his breath. Two couples pass Steve and Bucky on their way through the park. One of the girls looks back at them.

“She’s staring at me. Everyone is staring at me.” Steve says quietly. Bucky begins to wonder if he’s witnessing the prelude of a mental breakdown.

Bucky narrows his eyes at the girl, who has now turned back to her date as they continue walking.

“Dude, she’s not staring at you because of the coming out thing. She’s staring at you because you’re fucking Captain America. Nobody cares about the bisexual thing.” Bucky tells him.

“Clearly you haven’t turned on your television in a few days.” Steve says, looking forlorn.

“Correction: Nobody who matters cares about the bisexual thing.” Bucky says. He looks around. And yes, there are a lot of people out tonight, and some of them are looking at Steve and Bucky. But not angrily. Mostly they’re just observing Steve in his natural environment. That makes Bucky kind of angry now that he thinks about it. “I’m going to do a thing. And nothing is going to happen after the thing happens. No one is going to care.”

“What are you even talking about?” Steve asks. But Bucky’s already made his decision. The end of Steve’s sentence gets cut off as Bucky reaches out, grasping the front of Steve’s sinfully tight shirt, hauling him down to Bucky’s mouth.

There’s two points of contact between them, but Bucky can feel Steve coil with tension. And a lead weight settles in Bucky’s stomach. He’s about a millisecond away from pulling away to apologize.

The feeling of Steve’s hand cupping the side of Bucky’s face is just about the closest thing to heaven that he’s ever felt. It’s not even particularly a passionate kiss. Closed lips against closed lips. But Bucky can hear Steve’s sharp intakes of breath and his heart is beating wildly in his chest.

Bucky goes to pull away a moment later, but Steve reels him back in with the hand cupping his jaw, planting another kiss on his lips.

And then Steve releases him, his face flushed but his eyes are heavy looking. Warily, he looks around at the people in the park. “World’s still turning.” Steve supplies.

But is it?

Chapter Text

So now what?

Steve is standing there with his hands on his hips, surveying the people in the park who clearly don’t give a damn that Bucky just kissed him. Meanwhile Bucky still has his hand clenched in Steve’s t-shirt. Reluctantly, he lets go, observing the spider web of crinkles he caused instantly get pulled taunt by Steve’s broad chest.

“They really don’t care. Do they?” Steve says. Only, it sounds more excited than put out. Anyone else would probably be a little annoyed that they weren’t getting some kind of attention from being kissed by a one-armed man in the park at 9 P.M. on a Friday. Steve though, he’s practically elated.

And Bucky. Bucky’s freaking out. Because he does these things and never really thinks about the consequences.

Accepting his internship in Moscow? Snap decision once he got the email.

Sleeping with the roadie from that boy band? A choice that happened between the guy stepping outside the bar for a smoke and Bucky hailing g a cab.

Looking in Steve’s notebook guide to the future? A bored afternoon and the desire to know if Steve was an escaped cult member.

Losing his arm? A probably miscalculated heroic move that Steve had under control in the first place.

Kissing Steve? The result of Steve’s inability to believe the world didn’t revolve around him, months of pent up aggression, that t-shirt, and mental instability brought on by cardio.

And yet, here’s Steve basking in the glow of being ignored while Bucky’s whole (shambles) of a plan to ask Steve out crumbles before him.

Telling Steve what’s going through his head? The realization that Bucky’s in for a penny, in for a pound at this point.

“It wasn’t a joke.” Bucky exclaims. And then his hand flies out to cover his own mouth as Steve slowly turns to look at him.

In the late night sunset, Steve’s face is awash in pink and orange. One of his eyebrows is raised over his wide blue eyes.

“I kissed you.” Bucky says from behind his hand. Now Steve’s beginning to look a bit worried around the edges. Shoulders slumping inward, head coming down a bit to look Bucky in the eye.

“Yes, you did.” Steve answers. And he sounds just as snarky as he had all the other times that he reminded Bucky that he wasn’t totally clueless. “You okay, Buck?”

“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you.” Bucky says. Now Steve bends down more, looking into his eyes. Bucky’s pretty sure he’s checking for a concussion more than staring deep into Bucky’s soul. Still, it’s nice to see Steve’s face this close up. They’re about the same age (Bucky’s 3 or 4 years older), but Steve doesn’t have any of the wear and tear to his skin that Bucky has from more than two decades of living in the city. Pollution, stress, skateboard accidents.

“I should hope so.” Steve says, nodding. “I didn’t peg you for a coat-tail rider.”

And that’s Steve giving Bucky an out. Because Bucky could make a joke right now. Something about proving Steve wrong about his big head and (lack of) inflated sense of self worth when it comes to his celebrity.

And for once, Bucky’s not going to take it.

“I really like you.” Bucky says, dropping his hand. It’s the kind of sentence that when used between friends that means pretty much nothing. He’s told Natasha he loves her for binging him Chinese food and movies. Told Darcy she lights up his life for straightening up the nonfiction section. But when used between people who might be more than friends, the confession of ‘liking’ them is pretty much the most nerve-wracking thing besides telling them you love them or you have VD. Not that Bucky has VD. Or loves Steve.

One of Steve’s shoulders goes up and comes down. “I like you too.” He says, blushing.

“Not in a friend way. Though, I am your friend. Not that I wouldn’t want to be your friend.” Bucky rambles. This man makes him ramble.

Steve shakes his head, reaching forward to hold Bucky steady by his shoulder. “Slow. We’ll take it slow.” At least he has the decency to look nervous now. “I haven’t really done this before.” He adds, doing his little self-deprecating smirk.

“I get it, you weren’t comfortable back then to date guys.” Bucky says. This is the strangest conversation he’s ever had.

Steve shakes his head again. “No, uh, I’ve never really dated anyone before. As in anyone.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I’m sorry, were people in the 1940’s dumb as a post? That makes no sense whatsoever. You’re you.” He points to all of Steve.

“I wasn’t always like this, Bucky.” Steve tells him. As if Bucky didn’t already know that.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Not the body part. The other part.” He pokes Steve in the chest. “That part, you punk.”

“There was someone.” Steve says, “During the war. But we were all to preoccupied with trying to save the world to really ever hash things out.”

Steve likes to do that. He likes to gloss over it whenever anyone tries to talk about how it wasn’t just the serum that made him Captain America. It was what he already had that added to it.

“They died?” Bucky asks.

Steve nods tightly. “She’s gone.” He replies.

Bucky looks from side to side, unsure of how you move on from that.

“Times have changed, I get that.” Steve continues, thankfully moving on. “My priorities haven’t changed, but I understand that having a relationship is something I’m able to do now. If that’s what you want.”

There’s a long pause. Bucky’s stomach makes a loud protesting noise.

“How about we start with dinner?” Steve asks. Bucky’s about to ask if this means they’re cutting their run short but he doesn’t want to chance Steve making them finish.

When Bucky tells Natasha that’s how he and Steve ended up going to the hole in the wall Thai place around the corner she start’s jabbering in Russian.

Bucky knows its late at night, but he still feels like he has to tell her about how Steve walked Bucky to his door even though he had to double back towards his own apartment. And how when Bucky told him he didn’t have to, Steve just shook his head and went. “This is how I do things.”

“That’s just how he’s going to do you.” Natasha yells into the phone.

“Nat. Seriously it’s two in the morning.” A male voice grumbles on the other end of the phone. Bucky pictures her in her darkened bedroom, leg splayed out from underneath her sheets with the window blowing cool air into the apartment. He had not pictured someone else there with her when he made the call.

“Shush.” Natasha tells the man. “Bucky, I am so happy for you two idiots.”

“I’m kind of freaking out—“ Bucky tells her.

But then the male voice on the phone goes. “Why are you acting surprised, you saw the Twitpics like five hours ago?”

Bucky’s jaw drops.

“Clint!” There’s a slapping sound on the other end of the line. And then a sharp cry of pain.

They’re captioned: #CapKiss and #JoggingSnogging.

So that’s certainly a thing.

Chapter Text

“Look at you, like a pig in shit. I’ve never seen you happier.” Darcy says, sidling up to Bucky’s desk and planting a hip against it. She’s wearing bright red lipstick, her lips set in a smirk. All in all it makes her look like she should be the secretary to an incompetent private detective. She solves all the crimes, but he’s pretty so she doesn’t hold it against him too much.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky answers haughtily, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Darcy rolls her eyes for a full five seconds, clasping her hands together. “Then allow me to lay it all out for you.”

“Please don’t.” Bucky grumbles, turning in his swivel chair towards her.

“Exhibit A.” Darcy points over to the computers where Steve is dutifully researching a topic that Bucky will no doubt have to look up in order to try to have an informed conversation about it later. Apparently the war granted Steve with an extrasensory perception of when people are pointing at him. Or his music isn’t on loudly enough to block out Darcy. She tends to be a bit loud.

Either way, Steve looks up, a carefully blank look on his face. He idly scratches his chin, blue eyes darting between Darcy and Bucky. His mouth bends down a fraction, not sad. Just curious. He quicks his head to the side, reminding Bucky of a puppy. Bucky shakes his head in reply. Steve goes back to his work.

“Steve’s always here. I don’t know what your point is.” Bucky says. He really wishes that he could cross his arms over his chest. Just doing it with one feels unnatural and looks like he’s just holding a hand under his armpit.

“Not Steve.” Darcy says, “The way you look at him. You’re not all moody and torn Pride and Prejudice style anymore. You got your Darcy!”

Bucky raises his hand, holding up one finger. “Excuse me, but I hardly think that Steve is Darcy in this situation. And I’m not Elizabeth. If anything, he’s Bingley and I’m Darcy. And in some fan fiction universe I’m sure someone has come up with this already.”

“Oh, they have.” Darcy says, certain. Bucky doesn’t even bother asking. “We’re getting off topic here. I only have one other exhibit, your honor.” She says, whipping out her phone and scrolling for about two seconds before flipping it back around. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.”

Because there’s the infamous photo from the park that Bucky has heard all about but didn’t have the balls to go looking for. And not just because it would be weird to see himself kissing someone. But also because he’s not sure he could stomach the comments about what Captain America is doing with a guy who sort of desperately needs a haircut.

It’s kind of a blurry photo, taken from at least 30 feet away. They’re not at the center of the frame. It’s clear that whoever took the photo, a girl who owns a tshirt with Stark’s face on it judging from her profile picture of the twitter it’s posted to. It’s kind of hard to tell who it is in the photo because they’re standing against the backdrop of the sky, and the sunset’s made Steve and Bucky appear in shadow. But once you lock on to Steve’s blonde hair, and the outrageous proportions of his body turned halfway towards the camera; it’s easy to tell that that’s Captain America.

Bucky’s mostly obscured by Steve’s body. And since the photo was taken from his right side, you wouldn’t be able to tell that he’s missing an arm unless you were there.

“Huh.” Bucky says, leaning back in his chair.

“What? For once you aren’t going to argue with me about something until we both vow to never speak of it again.” Darcy asks, turning the phone back around. She scrolls a tiny bit more and then turns the phone around. It’s a better photo, taken from straight on. Steve ducking down to speak to Bucky, one hand on his shoulder. That sappy concerned look on Steve’s face while Bucky looks like he just swallowed a bug. “Just admit that you’re happy so I can get back to my job.”

“Fine.” Bucky relents. “I’m happy. There, you win.”

Darcy tosses her head from shoulder to shoulder in a silent brag. “For what it’s worth, you two make a super cute couple. But you need a haircut.”

And with that she flounces away.

A little later Steve drops by the desk. Apparently having thrown his manners to the wind, he’s bent over at the waist and leaning over Bucky’s desk instead of standing awkwardly in front of it. It’s the kind of shit that usually annoys the piss out of Bucky. Patrons who practically lay on his desk to look at his computer monitor. It’s a good look on Steve though.

“What was that about?” Steve asks.

Bucky shrugs, leaning back in his chair to take in the view of this casual Steve dressed in sweat pants and a blue V-neck the same color of his eyes. Steve still sometimes dresses up like he used to when he first arrived in Bucky’s life. Bucky thinks somehow all the layers comfort Steve even though the actual clothes must be irritating in this heat.

“Beats me.” Bucky shrugs. “Though, I should probably tell you that there were people in the park who took a few photos—“

“Of us kissing?” Steve finishes for him. “Stark has a Google alert set up on me, he texted me about it while we were on our way to Thaifoon.”

“I don’t know what has me more dumbfounded, that you know what a Google alert is, or that you aren’t furious that your privacy was violated?” Bucky snorts. Personally he’s not angry about it, but he feels like maybe he should be on Steve’s behalf. This is the man who had to be talked out of getting a pager because he didn’t want the potential security risk of letting Stark give him a phone.

Steve’s bottom lip pops out a bit as he considers this. “Barnes, I have a lot of free time when you aren’t around. I tend to occupy myself with even more research to get up to date.”

“Is that so?” Bucky asks, leaning forward now, propping his chin on a hand.

“Loads of time.” Steve answers. Their faces as about 6 inches apart. He can make out every one of Steve’s eyelashes. And he’s pretty sure that Steve is hitting on his hardcore right now.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to fix that.” Bucky answers. A smile snakes across his face before he can stop it.

Someone clears their throat from behind Steve. They both look over to find one of Bucky’s regular patrons holding a request slip. “I’ll just be one second.” Steve tells her, smiling sweetly. She smiles in return, looking around to give them the illusion of privacy. “And to answer your other question, I ain’t got nothing to be ashamed about kissing you in the park. ‘S why I’m not angry.” Holy shit. Steve’s pulling out 1940’s Brooklyn slang on him like he’s a fucking newsie all of a sudden. It’s too hot. “I’m going to go get an iced coffee. You want one?”

Bucky nods dumbly as Steve rises to stand. He nods cordially to the woman, “Ma’am.” He says, striding out of the library without a look back.

It’s singlehandedly the most sexual thing to ever happen to Bucky. Ever.

The women in line’s eyebrows have skyrocketed to her hairline. “Well. That happened.” She says. And she’s married to her beautiful partner, Bucky’s seen them at the farmers market a few times. Lovely women. But right now she and Bucky have matching blushes going on.

“I’m a lucky guy.” Bucky tells her. Then he looks over to his left and concedes. “Okay, not the luckiest there’s ever been. But I have my moments.”

He helps her order books about Montessori school for her twin son and daughter. And then they gossip about Steve until he comes back.

---------

Bucky has a moment, lying in bed that night when his brain will not stop turning over and over. A night when sleep is impossible.

And of course, the topic tonight is Steve. Pretty much as usual.

When he found out that for Steve, two months ago had been 1945 and the whole world had been at war he initially through that might mean that Steve was going to be a lot more resistant to change than he was letting on. That maybe all of his searching for information on what he missed was just so that he could have touchstones for conversation and a general understanding of how the world worked now.

Didn’t mean that he had to fully embrace it.

Not that Steve does fully embrace it. But Bucky can tell that there are things that Steve really enjoys about the twenty first century. Things that Bucky totally takes for granted.

Like the telephone.

According to Steve, when he was growing up, there was one telephone line for every block in his neighborhood. It always makes Bucky want to chime in with a “Back in my day, we had to carry our stone tablets to school in backpacks made out of mammoth hide!” or some other exaggerated thing that his grandfather would tell him before launching into a story about huddling around the fire at night and getting an egg for his birthday.

But Steve does embrace a lot of what there is to offer now. He makes a fuss about stuff at first. Bucky thinks that he’s so quick to want to know how everything works that he gets frustrated. The great microwave debate of July isn’t something that Bucky ever wants to relive again.

Then there was the whole culture shock thing that Bucky really had worried about there for a moment. Until Steve explained to him about how they still had porn back then. And drinking. And drugs. And all of the other dumb shit that people get in to now. No sexting back then, but that doesn’t seem like something that Steve would be in to. Too worried that somehow it would get out. And Bucky’s not going to push him on that one.

Having done a bit of his own research (privately, on afternoons when Steve is out with his old lady friends from computer class which has been over for weeks but they still meet up) about Steve. Who was apparently a bit of a punk. He falsified his enlistment documents like 3 times and went to almost every army recruiting center just to try his luck at getting in. Yeah, precious image of American patriotism and right forged not one, but three birth certificates for other people.

That’s some deep shit. The most Bucky’s ever forged was his mother’s signature on a permission slip to go on a ski trip.

Steve’s seen some terrible, no good, awful stuff between the Great Depression and World War II. Worse stuff than Bucky could ever imagine. Not that he even wants to imagine it in the first place. But sometimes when he’s laying awake at night he remembers a scene from a movie or a passage from a book about that time and his brain fills in the empty spaces with Steve. Skinny Steve, ill all the time, living in a ramshackle tenement. Steve standing in the middle of a field hospital amongst the chaos of lost limbs and lives.

And yes, Bucky tries to push those thoughts away, but they also stick around more than he would like.

Bucky has nightmares about what happened with the invasion. Nightmares about the people around him not knowing what to do. Of waking up to an empty room because something happened to Natasha. They leave him in a cold sweat and panting when he wakes up. He has to turn on the lights and walk around the apartment to calm himself down, his right arm holding his left shoulder at the stump to reassure himself that he made it out alive.

He absently wonders if Steve’s ambition for knowledge is a way of holding on to his own missing arm. That if he knows enough, he can remember that the war is over and life has moved on. He can assure himself that moon landings and revolutions have happened and that the world is still there.

They both act like nothing is wrong with them in public. Steve all bashful shakes of his head whenever anyone thanks him for his service. Bucky wisecracking whenever having one arm is even more of a trouble than it had been the day before. Dropping his keys on the stoop a few times because he doesn’t have another hand to hold onto the doorknob. Pulling his groceries home with one of those wire carts that old ladies always have.

Bucky owns one of those now along with button hooks, compression garments, and literature that Sam wants him to look over about prosthetics.

And so far Bucky has some a fairly decent job of keeping as much of a smile on his face as he can or at least a sarcastic comment to dissuade anyone from thinking there’s anything wrong. Because honestly, Bucky recognizes that in the grand scheme of things, he’s not that much worse off. He has healthcare and access to doctors. Hell, he had three times the number of heath care staff than he needed in recovery.

But there is a private mourning that goes on sometimes. There is nothing that Bucky loved more than laying sprawled across his bed, on his back reading a book. It’s pages spread between his thumb and pinky, the three fingers behind the spine as support. The kinds of hand positioning that you never remember who taught you how to do it. You just sort of always knew.

And he’s capable of holding the book, getting it open clumsily with his right hand all by itself. He can hold it up to his face and everything just fine. But he can’t flip the pages.

Just that is enough to piss Bucky off enough that he throws a well-loved copy of Slaughterhouse Five across the room late that night.

He’s living in an apartment crammed with books he can’t sprawl out with and read the way that he wants to. His old catchers mitt is still in his closet, totally useless now. Gloves, even if it’s summer now he doesn’t know how he’s going to be expected to get the damn things off and on when winter comes.

And on and on it goes.

Bucky’s standing and turning on the light before he even realizes it. He walks to the kitchen and opens the fridge, staring inside for a moment and then closing it. The living room offers nothing that catches his attention. He could watch TV, but his eyes hurt from working on the computer all day and he left his glasses on his bedside table.

There’s a buzz that sounds from the intercom, breaking through the quiet night. Bucky jumps, staring at the clock above the oven that lets him know that it’s a little after two in the morning.

And Bucky’s not sure, but he thinks that murders don’t usually call up before they kill you.

Maybe it’s Natasha or Darcy on their way home from the bar or a date and they want to commiserate about it.

There’s a break and then another buzz goes off. Interest definitely peaked, Bucky walks to the intercom and hits the button.

“This doesn’t seem like an appropriate hour to be calling, whoever this is.” Bucky says into the intercom.

There’s a pause and then the static crackle on the other end. A chuckle. “Not an appropriate time to be up either, Bucky.”

Steve.

“What’s a guy like you doing prowling the streets at night, buddy?” Bucky asks, and then because he’s an asshole he adds. “Looking for cats stuck in trees?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk.” Steve answers honestly. “Saw your light was on.”

He’s not asking for Bucky to invite him up. But he does it anyway, unlocking his apartment door and going to turn on a few lights in the place so that Steve doesn’t think he’s walking into some kind of sex trap. Not that Bucky is ruling that out all together. But Steve seems like the kind of guy who would be fourth or fifth date sleepover situation.

There’s a soft knock and then Steve pushes the door open. “You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked.” Steve says, entering and then dead-bolting the door. If anyone else did that, Bucky would probably think they were being paranoid, when Steve does it however, it seems more protective.

“Anyone who might try to rob my place right now would be choosing the exact wrong apartment in New York City.” Bucky grumbles, picking up some magazines off the couch and tossing them on the floor absently. He hasn’t even really looked at Steve yet. He feels kind of shy and awkward for an unknown reason.

“You’ve got enough things to hurl at them, you trying to open up your own branch of the library?” Steve says, whistling. Bucky turns around, watching as Steve does what any person does when confronted with hundreds of books, they browse. In Steve’s case, he goes from shelf to shelf, reading titles silently to himself, his lips moving around the words.

“It’s a perk of the job. Discards and early pick of the book sale.” Bucky tells him. “You can borrow some if you want. I know you aren’t one of those people who turn down the corners of the page.”

Steve smiles fondly, glancing over at Bucky. And normally this is where he would go back to what he’s doing. But there’s something that’s caught his attention. And it’s at about that moment that an errant breeze kicks through the open window and gives Bucky’s skin a chill. The hair on the back of his neck and his right arm standing up, and then the slightly deadened feel of it over the scar tissue of the place where his left arm used to be.

Bucky’s right hand closes over his other shoulder, vainly trying to shield it from view as he remembers that as summer in the city dictates; he’s been sleeping in basketball shorts and nothing else.

And he’s pretty much fully exposed to Steve’s gaze right now.

“Oh.” Bucky starts, his face heating up and his stomach bottoming out. Because the healing surface of the stump is only just becoming familiar to him. And Sam’s walked him through all of the parts, the place where a skin graft was taken to cover it up, and the pink scar bisecting his shoulder.

“Bucky?” Steve asks cautiously. And Steve is very carefully looking at Bucky’s face right now. Not looking away like Bucky’s body is something he should be ashamed of looking at. But obviously making a point to avoid looking at the stump because it’s clearly making Bucky incredibly uncomfortable.

“I forgot.” Bucky blurts out. His right hand cannot possible shield the whole sight from view. He can feel the places on his skin that his spread fingers don’t cover. And it gnaws at him that there’s nothing separating it from both of their eyes. “I didn’t think, I couldn’t sleep.”

Steve shakes his head, “Bucky, I honestly don’t care. Makes no difference to me. But if you don’t want me to look, I won’t look.”

“But you’ve seen stuff like this before.” Bucky fills in the lines here. Worry still churning. He’s pretty sure that right now if he was totally naked, he wouldn’t feel any more self conscious than he does right now.

Steve’s eyes flash understanding. “Yeah, Buck. I have. Doesn’t mean I’ll look if you tell me not to.”

“I should put on a shirt.” Bucky says, looking away from Steve and towards his bedroom door.

“You don’t have to.” Steve tells him. “Not coming on to you, by the way. But it’s your place. Your rules. Don’t have to change anything if you don’t want to.”

But Bucky does. Does want to put on a shirt. Steve’s gonna see it. Already has seen it. And how gentlemanly of Steve to want Bucky to give him permission to look at the scars fully. Not to glance at them in the dim living room of Bucky’s apartment. But hopefully in Bucky’s dim bedroom at some point.

“I’m not ready.” Bucky tells him. And Bucky very rarely tells people exactly how he feels. With Steve though it seems to be happening more and more often. “I’m going to put on a shirt.”

“Okay.” Steve says softly with a nod. He goes back to reading the titles of Bucky’s books so that Bucky can make a quick exit to him room for a quick mental breakdown while finds his t-shirt on the floor. It’s kind of oversized and washed so many times that tugging just the right thread would unravel the whole thing, but it smells comforting when Bucky puts one arm through the sleeve and does his best to navigate dressing himself.

Only, clothes seem to be failing Bucky right now. The shirt’s rolled up in the back, refusing to come down, and Bucky cannot for the life him find the hole for his head to go through.

After about a minute of this, Steve calls out from the other room. “You okay in there?”

Bucky’s muffled voice comes through the fabric. “I could use a little assistance, honestly.”

And then there’s the soft padding of Steve’s shoes against the hardwood floor of Bucky’s bedroom and a warm set of hands just brush Bucky’s sides as they grasp the hem of the shirt, drawing it down to finally cover him. Those same hands find the neck of the shirt and stretch it, guiding Bucky’s head through with the gentle touch of a few of Steve’s fingers against Bucky’s ear and through his hair.

He emerges on the other side, quite a bit more flustered than getting dressed has ever left him. Steve doesn’t look much better. There’s an intensity to his blue eyes, illuminated by the small lamp on Bucky’s bedside table. Like this, they’re mostly inky black pupil with a thin ring of blue around the edge as they stare into Bucky’s eyes.

Steve leans forward, his nose brushing against Bucky’s softly, giving Bucky the out of pulling away if he doesn’t feel up for the kiss. Steve’s skin is just so warm against Bucky’s own, and his breath always smells like peppermint for someone who drinks so much coffee. So instead of pulling away, Bucky presses forward, letting his chest press against Steve’s and his lips descend on the pair before him.

He sighs. Steve sighs when he gets kissed. It’s not something that Bucky noticed the first time in the park. When that happened, Bucky had been too preoccupied with the adrenaline of kissing Steve to fully appreciate kissing Steve.

And yes, kissing Steve is fucking awesome.

Because he has these soft, pillowly lips that Bucky wants to bite (but it’s a little too soon for that, he thinks) and Steve’s hand once again reaches up to cradle the side of Bucky’s face. The other curls around where his neck meets shoulder on Bucky’s left. Steve’s being careful not to put any pressure on where Bucky has scar tissue.

It sends a thrill through Bucky that Steve is strong enough to be careful with Bucky.

Bucky parts his lips slightly, just to see if Steve might feel comfortable enough to move this forward a bit. And yep, that’s Steve’s tongue.

He’s the best kind of kisser, considerate and enthusiastic. He bites softly at Bucky’s bottom lip and then laves away the pain a second later. Bucky’s arm, curled around Steve’s back clutches at a handful of the other man’s shirt. He so enjoys the feeling of Steve’s body against his. Bucky feels protected just like he did when Steve locked the door behind him.

They’re both panting when Steve pulls away, pink cheeked and lips raw. Bucky cannot wait to seem him after an hour of kissing him. “Was that okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky’s eyes go wide. “Okay? I would say it was a lot fucking more than okay.”

Steve’s cheeks go even pinker and he presses his forehead to Bucky’s. He’s still holding on to the side of Bucky’s head, cradling his cheekbone and jaw in the palm of his hand. Steve’s other arm snakes around Bucky’s waist, bringing him even closer somehow.

They’re pressed together from knees to forehead, standing in Bucky’s bedroom. He’s standing in the space between Steve’s shoes, sharing about as much space as humanly possible with clothes in the way.

Bucky feels warm and tingly. There’s a pull in him to slip his hand under Steve’s shirt and kiss his neck.

And another part that just wants to stay like this for as long as possible.

“So you couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Steve asks. Bucky’s forehead slips down to rest against Steve’s shoulder. They’re in full on slow-dance position standing still in his room at this point.

Bucky shakes his head against the shoulder of Steve’s shirt, inhaling the clean scent of Steve’s laundry detergent. “Not a wink. Got angry ‘bout not being able to hold my books the way I want.”

Steve’s chest rumbles against Bucky. And it makes Bucky want to curl up like a cat on top of him and nap through lazy afternoons. “When I used to get sick, ma would read to me because I couldn’t sit up to hold the book, hands shook too much to make out the pages anyway.”

Bucky sighs against Steve’s chest. And now he is beginning to feel kind of tired. The day’s catching up with him it seems like.

“I could read to you?” Steve asks.

Bucky draws his head away, looking into Steve’s face. And he’s just so—good. So right in that moment. “I’d like that.” Bucky tells him. He glances behind him at his unmade bed. “Pick whatever you want, nothing scary.”

Steve chuckles, rolling his eyes. “Won’t tell you about what we had for rations in the war then.” He pushes Bucky towards the bed. “I’ll be right back.”

Bucky crawls under the sheets, on his usual side closest to the wall and window, leaving the side by the door open to Steve who returns just a few minutes later with a yellowed paperback in his hand. He looks from Buck to the empty spot in the bed like he doesn’t know what to really do. Bucky thumps the spot with a hand a few times, pulling back the sheet.

He settles back down to the bed as Steve toes off his sneakers and gets in next to Bucky. He’s wearing sweatpants and a shirt from the gym he belongs to. Good enough pajamas in a pinch. If he chooses to stay.

Steve props himself up against he headboard with a few pillows, holding his right arm out for Bucky to duck under, which he pretty happily does. Closet snuggler that he is, Bucky sidles up to Steve and allows the other man to put his arm around shoulder. He’s laying on his right side, knows it looks awkward that where there should be an arm, there isn’t on his other side.

Once again, Steve’s careful to keep his contact as much away from the stump as possible. Not because it grosses him out, but probably because Bucky freaked out earlier about him seeing it. The only problem is that this interferes with Bucky’s snuggling. So Bucky reaches up with his right and tug’s Steve’s arm more tightly against him. He’s pretty much got his head pillowed against one of Steve’s pecs, their sides plastered together.

“Comfortable?” Steve asks, he flips the book open, holding it with the arm around Bucky so that he can turn the pages with his other. “I thought science fiction would be nice.” He says, holding the cover closer for Bucky’s inspection.

Bucky snorts. “Out of all the literature, you chose the novelization of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace?”

Leave it to Steve to somehow stumble upon one of the nerdiest things about Bucky, his Star Wars obsession in high school.

“Looked interesting.” Steve tells him, “Now hush, I want to find out about this Anakin Skywalker kid.”

And Steve is in for a rough ride with that one. Bucky files that away for things to talk about when he doesn’t feel so drowsy. Steve reads to him, just loudly enough that Bucky can hear him even as Bucky closes his eyes and more pays attention to the rise and fall of Steve’s chest under his head than the words that he’s saying.

He falls asleep moments later as Steve describes the sand dunes of Tatooine where a young boy dreams of becoming a Jedi knight.

Chapter Text

Bucky wakes up warm and with his face pressed against something hard, yet yielding. Further investigation via opening one eye grants him a pretty spectacular view of the majestic peaks and valleys of Steve’s chest, which he’s resting his head on and leaning in to. He must make some sort of indication that he’s awake, because there’s the sound of a book being put down and then the arm around him tightens.

“I’d bet you were a goner at this point, Barnes.” Steve chuckles above him.

Bucky grumbles something that isn’t words, but conveys his annoyance to be around anyone who is coherent when Bucky’s just waking up. It’s wholly obnoxious and totally unnecessary.

“None of that burrowing away. It’s practically noon.” Steve tells him. And Bucky thinks this is supposed to sound like a deterrent to sleeping in. But Bucky just feels proud.

“Why’re you awake?” Bucky grumbles, picking up his head more to observe Steve. The man already is wide awake. He even has a coffee cup on the side table. “Were you up already?”

Steve snorts, taking this opportunity to bonk Bucky lightly on the head with the paperback in his hand. “I’ve been up since 7.” Bucky looks at the alarm clock. It reads 11:30.

Bucky rolls over and stares at the ceiling, trying to make sense of all this. “So I’ve just been laying on you for five hours while you drank coffee and read about Jedis?”

Steve shrugs, going a bit red around the ears. He holds up the book in his hand. “Finished the first one, started on the second. Figured you wouldn’t mind. I asked you if it was okay and you kind of just drooled on me, so I took that as a yes.”

Bucky snorts, scratching at his face. “Such a nerd.” He pushes himself up on his elbow and looks over at Steve. It’s not even fair. His hair is a little messy, but nowhere near the epic bedhead that Bucky is certain he has going on right now. He probably looks like BeetleJuice minus the Robin Thicke suit.

Steve rolls his eyes fondly and nudges Bucky with a large hand. “More coffee in the kitchen.” He says.

Rather than get off the bed and walk around it to the door like a normal person, Bucky rolls over Steve just to annoy him, taking the path of shorter distance. Steve puts up a good natured grumble at being rolled over by a guy with some weight to him, but mostly he just lifts his book and then brings it back down to his face.

Bucky stumbles to the bathroom, closing the door and taking care of business before he gets his coffee. And not only is there coffee still hot in the pot on the counter, there’s also a pastel pink pastry box from a bakery a few blocks away.

So Steve did leave the apartment, in the rumpled clothes he wore to bed last night. Probably looking like he was on a Walk of Shame.

And he brought food back.

He pours himself a giant mug of coffee in his favorite mug, skipping cream and sugar in favor of taking the mug into the bedroom. “Hold this.” Bucky tells Steve, who holds out a hand obediently, his eyes never leaving the page he’s on. Bucky goes back to the kitchen and brings the whole thing of pastries into the bedroom, plopping it on the bed between him and Steve.

“You’re crafty.” Steve tells him once his eyes settle on the pastries. Donuts, Danishes, bear claws, and cinnamon roll as large as Bucky’s face all rest inside. Steve hands Bucky back his coffee and reaches for a donut, happily returning to his book in he companionable silence.

It’s weird. Bucky’s only real experience with people sleeping over has been awkward in the morning. Either they’ve been gone, or he’s caught them in the process of collecting their clothing off the bedroom floor. Sitting here with Steve though is actually comfortable. Steve seems pretty in to his book, and doesn’t make so much as peep while Bucky pulls out his tablet and surfs around. They eat and drink their coffee in silence, only broken by Steve’s quiet exclamations of surprise or amusement at whatever Anakin and Obi-Wan seem to have gotten themselves in to.

“You really like that book, huh?” Bucky asks once he’s woken up more. For some reason he can’t stop staring at how his own legs are bent up towards his chest and Steve’s and sprawled out flat under the covers.

Steve nods and then proceeds to give Bucky a play by play of the entire story so far because he’s apparently forgotten that he found the book at Bucky’s place.

“I love Padme, she reminds me of—“ Steve begins and then trails off, his eyes going a little unfocused. “Someone that I knew, all smart and sure of herself. A really great leader. It’s just so frustrating that the Jedi feel like they have to make Anakin choose between being the Chosen One and being with the love of his life.”

Oh my god. Steve makes even Star Wars hot.

“Okay, I wasn’t going to show you this.” Bucky tells him. “But you’ll probably get a kick out of it and you’ll appreciate the work that went in to it.”

He makes Steve get on a chair and pull down a giant box at the top of the closet. The look on the other man’s face when he lifts the top and finds a replica stormtropper costume is pretty fucking priceless. He kind of just stares for a full minute and then blinks up at Bucky from his place knelt on the floor.

“You can try the helmet on, if you want. “ Bucky tells him, and the worlds have barely left his mouth before Steve has the helmet in his hands and plops it on his head.

“Oh my god!” Steve exclaims, his voice muffled from behind the plastic. “This thing is so neat!”

The man’s going to be the death of Bucky.

----------

Tony Stark is sitting on the stoop of Bucky’s building with a hotel pan of something that smells amazing and a bundle wrapped in an old MIT sweatshirt.

“We have to stop meeting like this.” Tony says, rising to stand as Bucky and Steve turn the corner, having ventured out of the house to pick up a few movies from the library and paper towels from the corner market.

Not only does Steve look concerned to see Stark at Bucky’s apartment, he has his hackles raised as though preparing himself for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m the one who lives here, you’re the one who keeps showing up with food.” Bucky tells him. Steve’s standing half in front of Bucky, putting himself between Bucky and the billionaire. Only, it looks strange considering that Steve still has a grocery bag in one hand and the movies in his other.

“What’s the situation, Tony?” Steve asks. He’s keeping his words clipped at the ends, more of the authoritative side that Bucky saw during the invasion. Back before he realized that his Steve Rogers and Captain America Steve Rogers were the same person.

“The Situation of Jersey Shore fame?” Stark replies flippantly just to get a rise out of Steve. And it works. Steve’s shoulders climb up towards his ears, which are turning red from Bucky’s vantage point.

“Something happened to the Jersey Shore?” Steve asks, his voice totally serious. He begins looking up in the sky for any signs of incoming danger.

“Stop it.” Bucky tells Stark over Steve’s shoulder. He touches Steve’s shoulder, turning him around so that Bucky can explain. “Steve, The Situation was a personality on a reality television show called the Jersey Shore. And it was pretty much a disaster, but not one that qualifies for your help.” He looks pointedly back at Tony, “Could you not put him on high alert right now?”

Tony rolls his eyes. Bucky steps from behind Steve and climbs the steps, looking back at both of them once he’s gotten the key in the door. A billionaire and a super soldier. A year ago he had a waterlogged copy of the white pages waiting on his doorstep. Boy how things have changed.

“You’ve got two choices, Stark. Either you can play nice and come upstairs. Or Steve’s going to take whatever food you brought with you and we’re gonna leave you out in the metaphorical cold.” Bucky tells him, trying to sound as intimidating as possible.

Sighing, Tony picks up both the pan of food and the bundle he brought with him. “I promise nothing, but I will try to restrain myself for agitating the elderly.” Steve sighs behind him. Bucky raises an eyebrow in warning. “Sorry, it just slipped out.”

Steve sighs and files into the entryway after Bucky, holding open the door for Stark. They all pile into Bucky’s apartment. And for the second time in less than 24 hours, Bucky wishes he had done the dishes.

“Lovely apartment, is that the original crown molding?” Tony asks once he’s inside.

Bucky snorts, filing into the kitchen. “Hell if I know. Want anything to drink?”

Stark follows Bucky into the kitchen, immediately walking to the oven and turning it on. “I’ll take some coffee if you’ve got it.”

Bucky puts a pot of it on and turns around to observe Tony Stark casually sitting at the small kitchen table that came with the apartment. He’s drumming his hands on the table. Tony’s not wearing his usual suit or any other of the flashy outfits that Bucky’s seen him in on the news or on the cover of tabloids over the years.

Instead he’s dressed just as casually as Bucky and Steve are, in a pair of black sweatpants and an old AC/DC t-shirt that looks threadbare in places. The white-blue light of his arc reactor shows through that thin material. His eyes are alert and pretty much constantly scanning the room. It takes some getting used to, knowing someone who’s covering all the angles while they’re having a conversation with you. Back when Natasha had been Natalie, Bucky just thought she was one of those people who watched too much CSI and believe crime was just around the corner.

But Tony isn’t an operative. He doesn’t work for S.H.I.E.L.D. and the guy went through a wormhole literally hugging an nuclear warhead to his chest.

Bucky’s traumatized enough from his grand total of 40 minutes of fighting the good fight. Steve’s got years of experience living in the trenches (literally) and he still has his moments where he needs to just get away from everyone and everything.

Tony. Tony is sitting at Bucky’s kitchen table when he should be freaking the fuck out for all intents and purposes.

Bucky gets him a cup of coffee and sets it down on the table in front of him. He sits down at the table across from Stark. Steve’s standing in the doorway, leaning against it with his arms crossed over is chest.

“It’s lasagna.” Tony tells him, “Picked it up on my way here. The best.”

“It’s always the best with you.” Steve says quietly. There’s something in his voice that sounds off. Steve doesn’t really talk about Tony. The few times his name’s been mentioned by Natasha, he’s rolled his eyes and pointedly sighed. Bucky gets it. Stark’s an asshole. He’s smarter than anyone else in the room and he knows it. He throws money at any problem in his way, and when that doesn’t work he throws his body at it.

“Hi.” Bucky says sharply. “This isn’t Heathers. Can we have a conversation like the adults we all pretend to be? Will you come sit down?”

Steve, begrudgingly sits down next to Bucky, facing the doorway. He looks at the bundle that Tony brought with him. “What’s that?”

“It’s not for you.” Stark tells Steve, not unkindly. “Lasanga’s for you. Well, I hope you’re going to share it, otherwise I’m going to have to ask the grandmother who made it to take pity on me.”

Steve gets up and puts the lasagna in the oven.

“So are you going to tell me what it is?” Bucky asks, leaning forward on an elbow.

“It was a shelved project from three years ago. Never tested, the only prototype only half completed. And this was while I was in a cave, building myself the world’s most expensive magnet. It’s a piece of crap.” Tony tells him, both of his hands curling around the mug.

“You’re really building it up for me.” Bucky says, now skeptical of what exactly is wrapped up in that hoodie.

“I’m just trying to give you some perspective.” Tony tells him. He reaches over and slides the thing towards Bucky. “Take a look but try not to get your hopes up.”

Bucky doesn’t even know what hopes he was supposed to have in the first place. Steve stops puttering around with the dishes and stands behind Bucky, his hand curling around Bucky’s left shoulder reassuringly.

Bucky reaches out and flips the fabric over, revealing a mess of wires and plating. And that’s what it is. It’s a mess. A jumble of metal that’s falling apart at the seams. A sprawling series of wires over two feet long ending at a circular metal plate that wraps around the wires and sensors. Extending from that is the familiar square shape of a palm and a single metal finger, a thumb made from two shining pieces of steel, hinged in the middle.

Steve’s other hand lands on Bucky’s other shoulder. He’s a super soldier and right now he’s practically leaning on Bucky for support.

Because Tony brought him a piece of crap arm with just a thumb on it.

But it’s the most beautiful thing that Bucky’s ever seen.

“It’s junk.” Tony tells him when Bucky looks back up at him. And Bucky’s throat feels scratchy and his face is heating up. “But the good news is, I have about a hundred thoughts on how to improve from this piece of shit and I’m in need of someone who would be willing to test it out for me.”

Chapter Text

Inexplicably, Steve goes from silent to angry in about thirty seconds standing behind Bucky in the kitchen.

“No way.” Steve exclaims out of nowhere. Bucky’s right hand is extended, one finger tracing along the cool metal joint of the wrist. He jumps in his seat at the sudden sound, his body held tight by Steve’s hands wrapped around his shoulders. Tony doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash. Instead he just lifts his mug and takes a sip. “There’s no way that Bucky’s going to wear that thing when we don’t know what kind of danger it might pose in the long run—when it could cause him permanent damage or kill him.”

Tony sets the mug down, placing both hands on the table and setting his shoulders. “Well, here’s the thing Cap, it’s not your choice. Last time I checked, this isn’t a feudal society where he’s a serf. Bucky makes his own decisions. That’s why his hair looks like that.”

Bucky blushes, internally reminds himself to make the appointment at the barbershop already.

“I was at the Stark Expo the year your father built a flying car. I watched it crash to the ground about a minute into his presentation. The Starks don’t exactly have a great track record with their prototypes.” Steve tells him. His words are colored with something that sounds like anger and are probably really fear.

“I wouldn’t speak so ill of yourself.” Tony tells him, “Without my dad there, you wouldn’t be here either.”

“Yeah,” Steve shoots back. “And America would be run by people whose very nature flies in the face of what this country was founded on. Our flag would be Hydra’s and you wouldn’t be sitting in this room.”

Bucky’s right hand coils into a fist and slams into the table before he can stop himself. “Could you two stop pulling pigtails for about thirty seconds while I have an existential crisis over here.” Bucky says, his voice is hoarse. It feels like it’s been hours since he saw the arm and not a matter of minutes. Inside his chest, his heart is beating wildly. And something like hope is blooming. He’s totally disregarded everything Tony told him about not getting excited.

It’s an arm. An arm that might make it possible for Bucky to never have to ask for help opening pasta jars ever again. Obviously it represents more then that. But Bucky is in so much shock that jars of pasta are all he can focus on.

Bucky can hear Steve swallowing and the hands on his shoulders let go. Steve takes a few paces backwards and turns the water on. Then there’s the sound of dishes rattling in the sink.

“Steve, we don’t know if it’s going to be dangerous.” Bucky says softly. He looks over his shoulder. Steve’s pointedly looking down at his hands, one holding a sponge and the other a dish. “We don’t know anything. I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”

“This is the first step in a long process.” Tony says, Bucky can see him trying to work out how to make the arm work already. “But if it’s going to happen, we’re going to need to work together. I need a medical workup, and scans to make sure that your bones have the density to support this kind of technology. I’ve got research in prosthetics to do. And then on the nerve grafts.”

The sound of ceramic breaking sounds in the kitchen. Steve’s holding a soapy ceramic mug in both his hands, or what used to be the mug and is now a collection of shattered pieces. Steve walks to the garbage, throwing the pieces inside and then pulling the whole bag out of the can and walking to the front door.

Bucky’s out of his chair and following Steve down the steps and out to where they keep the cans for pickup. “Steve, please don’t freak out. Don’t angrily take out the garbage.”

Steve lifts the lid to the locked garbage enclosure without unlocking it. They both ignore the sound of nails pulling free from the ring holding the lid closed and the padlock falling to the ground. Steve throws the garbage bag into one of the cans and then slams the lid closed.

“I know what it’s like to be a science experiment Bucky. You don’t want it to become your life.” Steve tells him, both of his hands laying flat on top of the enclosure while he pointedly stares at the brick wall. “And all this stuff—nerve grafts. It’s untested. It’s not safe. And I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Bucky crowds in behind Steve and plants his chin on the other man’s shoulder. Tony’s probably hotwiring Bucky’s vacuum right now.

“Well, when you signed up for the program, did you fully weigh your options?” Bucky asks. “Because I’m pretty sure no one could ever really explain what they were going to do to you. I think you wanted to improve your situation.”

Steve huffs, his back contacting minutely. It’s probably not fair to bring this up to him when Bucky’s pretty much the least informed person about what makes Steve a physical powerhouse.

“You’ll live without your arm, Bucky.” Steve tells him. “You will. We’re not even fully into the rehabilitation process. You haven’t talked to Sam about any of this. That’s where you and I are different. You’ll live without the arm. Without the treatment and the serum,” He pauses, clearing his throat. “I wouldn’t have made it another winter. Not the way that I was. It was either going to be pneumonia or my heart or an asthma attack.”

Bucky puts his forehead down on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve touches the crown of Bucky’s head gently, just holding him there.

They’ve been on one date. But their relationship’s been about a lot more than both of them really admitted to from the beginning. And they’re having this huge moment on the street in front of Bucky’s building after spending the night together. For once, Bucky feels like he can trust that his instincts are right. Because with Steve they usually are.

“I’m not saying yes.” Bucky tells Steve’s shoulder. “I’m weighing my options and making an informed decision. We’ll bring in Sam and we’re gonna test this thing with everything we can throw at it before I decide if it’s the right option for me. And if it isn’t, that just means Tony will be closer to being able to help a lot more people with injuries like mine.”

Steve inhales sharply, his whole body rising and falling. “Okay.”

He says it like he’s unsure.

Tony pokes his head out the window and tells them that dinner is ready and that they should wash their hands.

----------

Bucky and Tony sit at the table for hours after dinner is over hashing out the details of how this is going to work. Tony finds a dry erase marker and shows them on the white linoleum of the kitchen table how he hopes the arm will work. It’s a metal port anchored to Bucky’s clavicle and rib cage with a series of surgical screws. Somehow Tony plans on grafting Bucky’s nerves alone with sensors so that he will be able to move the prosthetic like a normal limb. From there Tony will build an attachment so that the arm can be removed from Bucky’s body for repairs or upgrades without requiring major surgery.

Steve stays in the kitchen the whole time, but apparently he deals with stress by cleaning when there aren’t any punching bags around. He’s done the dishes, cleared out Bucky’s fridge of all expired food, and put together a bag with all of Bucky’s mom’s Tupperware to return next time Bucky sees her.

Bucky kind of wonders if it would make him the worst person in the world to hope this means Steve might vacuum the place as a coping mechanism. He’s the worst.

But Steve has questions. Dozens of questions asked from under the sink while he cleans out the trap and inside the tiny pantry alphabetizing canned soup.

And Tony answers all of them to his best ability. There are just certain things he can’t account for. Like what might happen if Bucky rejects the port. Or if this will ruin his chances of a traditional prosthetic if Tony’s is a lost cause.

Steve starts putting together brownies at some point, and Bucky’s exhausted from all the talking but he still stays there.

Tony eventually leaves, with a bag of brownies to take home with him. They’re going to have a meeting with Stark at the tower once they find a time that works for Sam.

“I should probably head home too.” Steve says awkwardly shuffling his feet and heading towards the door.

“Not uh.” Bucky tells him. He plucks the third Star Wars book off the shelf and tosses it to Steve. “I have your nerdy books here. And I’m so tired.”

Steve looks bashful, holding the book to his chest. Bucky sniffs his shirt. “I’m gonna shower. You can shower too.” Steve’s eyebrows shoot up. “Separate showers. Not insulting your modesty or anything. Though the thought you of you doing the dishes shirtless is kind of at the front of my mind now.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’ll stay. I’m gonna run home and grab a few things while you’re in the shower.” Bucky doesn’t even have to remind Steve where he keeps his keys to the apartment. Steve just plucks them out of the bowl on his bedside table and reels Bucky in with an arm around his waist, planting a kiss on his lips before he heads out the door.

“Such a tease.” Bucky calls after him.

Steve locks the door behind him. No one else has ever cared enough to do that.

----------

Steve wakes Bucky up around three in the morning. Its not that he makes any noise really, its more that his whole body tenses under where Bucky has his head and arm resting. Bucky blinks his eyes open against the low reading light that Steve has on. Nothing bright enough to really bother him, and Steve’s eyesight is perfect anyway.

“Wassup?” Bucky grumbles.

Steve’s laying there with the book pressed against his breastbone and his wide eyes staring at the ceiling.

“He killed the younglings.” Steve says, totally shocked. Even the color’s drained out of his face. Uh oh. Bucky had hoped he would be able to warn Steve about the outcome of the whole Anakin Skywalker saga. But apparently he fell asleep before that could happen.

So instead Bucky takes the book from Steve and puts the bookmark on his page and closes it. “’S gonna be okay. Go to sleep.”

“He was the Chosen One.” Steve says to the darkness when Bucky leans over him to turn off the lamp.

“Okay Voldemort, calm down.” Bucky grumbles. Steve pretty much lets Bucky move him how he wants until Steve’s curled around Bucky’s back.

“I’m just saying he wasn’t supposed to be a Sith Lord!” Steve whispers after a moment of silence. There’s another beat. “You don’t just do that with the hero of your entire story!”

Bucky snorts to himself. Drowsy and yet content. “It’s cool, Steve. Next book’s about this dude Luke and I have a feeling you’re really gonna like him. Lives on Tatoowine, too.” Steve makes a considering sound in the darkness. “You won’t convince me that you don’t need sleep all together. I don’t want to find you mainlining books in my living room when I wake up tomorrow. Don’t you dare sneak out of this bed.”

Steve’s fury over the direction of George Lucas’s world fades at some point and he falls asleep. Bucky can’t decide if he’s going to like Han Solo or not, if he doesn’t it might be the breaking point of their relationship.

Chapter Text

It’s a quiet Tuesday night when it happens. Steve’s sitting on the end of the couch in Bucky’s apartment while Bucky leans against his side under the pretense of being tired, when really it’s just comfortable. Steve is absorbed in his book. And Bucky’s going to introduce Steve to message boards and online communities so he has someone to talk to other than Bucky about Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bucky gets it. Obi’s a cool dude. But there’s only so much that Bucky can take.

Bucky’s watching a VH1 documentary about he 27 club. Which Steve tells him is morbid, but Bucky can’t stop watching it.

Steve snorts at something and then a few seconds later snorts again. Bucky looks up at his face from Steve’s shoulder.

“Would you care to share with the class?” Bucky asks him, “What’s so funny.”

Steve sets down his book on his knee and points at the television. “He has your haircut.”

He’s pointing at an image of Jim Morrison up on the screen. “My hair is not that wide.” Bucky tells him, twitching his shoulder against Steve.

“Of course not.” Steve tells him, though it sounds a little patronizing in a fond way. Steve’s hand tangles in the shaggy hair at the back of Bucky’s neck in a way that makes his leg tingle oddly.

They’re silent for another few moments. And then just as Bucky’s settling back down, Steve bursts out laughing. He slaps the book over his face and pushes his body into the back of Bucky’s couch.

“Now what?” Bucky asks, glaring and sitting up on his own. Steve just points at the TV where they’re showing a picture of Kurt Cobain.

“My hair doesn’t look like his!” Bucky insists. Playing dirty, he takes the book from Steve and hits him with it. “It doesn’t. First of all, not blonde. Second, I don’t need a second reason. It just doesn’t look like his hair!”

Steve snorts, one hand holding his chest like this is the funniest shit he’s ever heard.

“You wanna know how Star Wars ends? If you don’t stop laughin’ at me, I’ll spoil the whole thing.” Bucky tells him, cheeks heating up. He wouldn’t actually do it. But Steve’s eyes grow wide as saucers, staring at him.

“Buck, don’t.”

“There are these things called Ewoks-“ Bucky exclaims, jumping up from the couch and running to the kitchen.

“No!” Steve yells.

“Cutest little guys you ever did see!” Bucky continues, not daring to look behind him because Steve is fast as hell, but Bucky’s better at handling the corners of his place.

“Bucky! Shut up!”

“They live in the trees!” Bucky continues, scampering around the kitchen table and back through the doorway into the living room. He goes over the couch and back through the bedroom doorway, Steve still following him.

“Seriously! Don’t spoil it!” Steve whines.

“Shouldn’t be picking on a guy with one arm about his hair then!” Bucky tells him, rolling over the bed and standing with his back up against the wall. Which is the exact moment when Bucky realizes there’s nowhere to go and Steve’s standing on the other side of the bed, cheeks flushed.

“Well,” Steve says, cocking his head to the side. His hair is all out of place from running around. Bucky wants to run his hand through it and mess it up even more until Steve has no place in mocking Bucky’s shaggy haircut. “Seems as through I have you surrounded.”

It makes Bucky’s heart beat wildly. Steve’s not a scary guy, and Bucky has never been afraid of him. Really turned on by the time that Steve lifted Bucky’s couch with one hand while he was vacuuming. Bucky was on the couch at the time. So Bucky gets reminders of Steve’s strength all the time, but engaging in a chase around his own apartment is unexpectedly hot.

“Admit you like my hair.” Bucky says, holding up a hand. “Admit you like my hair and I’ll continue to allow you to languish in your love for George Lucas free from spoilers.”

“I think you’re forgetting I’ve got you cornered, champ.” Steve tells him, once again it sends a thrill through Bucky.

“Sidebar: where do you keep the costume exactly?” Bucky asks.

Steve’s eyebrows crinkle together. “At my apartment?” He puts both of his hands on his hips. “And it’s not a costume. It’s a uniform.”

“Good to know.” Bucky nods. “I refuse to concede!”

They reach an agreement eventually end the argument by Steve pressing Bucky against his own bedroom wall and kissing the hell out of him.

----------

The person with the busiest schedule turns out to be Sam and it takes them over a week to nail down a day and time that Sam, Bucky, Tony, Steve, Natasha (claiming emotional support when Bucky really thinks she just wants to see the arm), and a guy named Bruce Banner all meet in the medical wing of Tony’s building. Because Tony apparently requires the use of an MRI, X-ray machine, and a digital imaging suite that’s supposedly the most detailed of its kind. Bucky ate a button when he was a little kid. He’s kind of tempted to see if it’s still in there somewhere.

It’s actually really boring for Bucky because all he gets to do is have his blood drawn by a series of beautiful nurses (but Steve is right there beside him, now pouring through one of the tie-in Star Wars books he ordered on Amazon for himself, so Bucky doesn’t so much as smile at them) and then have scans taken by every single machine that Stark has in the building. It’s just him and Steve, no one else is scheduled to arrive until after this part is over, lest Sam and Natasha somehow start conspiring against Bucky and Steve about how antisocial they both are.

Eventually, when it’s all said and done, Steve and Bucky are shown to a conference room with a whole sideboard of food and drinks. Classic Stark fashion.

“I think he keeps all of this around to bother me.” Steve says, a little haughtily. Though he’s still picking up a plate and loading it up with fresh fruit and vegetables. Meanwhile, Bucky’s gone right for the queso and salsa bar.

“I don’t think he does it at all.” Bucky says. “Guy like that doesn’t plan the food for meetings. I think they just keep food everywhere in the hopes he’s gonna graze before he disappears into the lab for weeks on end.”

Having been on the receiving end of more than a dozen video chats with Tony over the last week, Bucky’s seen the man wearing only two outfits during that whole time. During one particularly longwinded and one-sided conversation on Stark’s part, a robot of some kind practically chased Stark around his lab with a protein shake for a full 20 minutes until Stark noticed.

Steve sighs. “It’s just kind of a shock to come back from what was going on and see all of this.” He says, gesturing at the spread on the table.

“I get that.” Bucky nods. “But not everything that the guy does is to spite you.” Steve opens his mouth to argue. “And when he does, you always rise to meet him. Both of you need to be locked in a room until you figure your shit out.”

Steve looks over at him, head tilted and eyes narrowed.

“I’m on your side, but I’ve watched too much daytime television to not want to set this straight.” Bucky tells him. He sidles past Steve, knocking into his hip on purpose. “Though, I think you would really get a kick out of Judge Judy.”

A rapping sound comes from the glass conference room door. Steve and Bucky both look over to see a man with salt and pepper brown hair and a stack of files in his arms standing at the door. He lifts one hand, waving awkwardly. Steve sets down his plate immediately, walking to the door and pulling it open for the man. It’s not even locked.

“Dr. Banner, great to see you.” Steve tells him, holding the door open and motioning for him to step forward.

“Please, it’s Bruce. Otherwise I’m going to have to call you Captain and it’ll just be confusing.” He says, setting down his papers and then surveying the room almost warily.

“Of course, Bruce.” Steve says. Always so polite and accommodating. Bucky has no doubt that Steve would literally bend over backwards to please everyone in his life. Steve nods at Bucky, “This is James Barnes, Bucky.”

Bucky hastily sets his plate down so that he can shake Bruce’s hand. “Great to meet you.” Bucky tells him.

Bruce nods at the sleeve of Bucky’s left side, “Thank you for your service.”

It’s an oddly reverent thing for Bruce to say to someone who he’s only just met. But Bucky’s all caught up on what happened in the city besides his coworker turning out to be all spandex bodysuit. He knows vaguely about Hawkeye, a little more about the blonde guy wielding a hammer that Home Depot is jealous of, and obviously it was hard to miss the Hulk taking down whole squadrons of aliens and those flying beasts all on his own.

Bucky hasn’t seen footage of the Hulk’s counterpart. But he has heard Banner’s name being thrown around by Natasha and Steve before. The man before him doesn’t look capable of the kind of destruction that the Hulk has been linked to in the news. But he does look like the kind of man who is capable of the good that the Hulk can do.

“You as well.” Bucky tells him, raising an eyebrow. Bruce takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising up to his ears and falling. He looks over Bucky’s shoulder.

“Oh look, food.” He says, going to get himself a plate.

“I would have thought you were used to all of this by now.” Steve says. He chuckles to himself. This is probably the closest that Bucky will ever get to seeing Steve chatting around the water cooler.

“Nacho bar only comes out for important meetings.” Bruce tells them, picking up a plate and digging in.

Steve looks at Bucky with a decidedly ‘I told you so’ expression and Bucky rolls his eyes in response.

Steve picks up both of their plates and sets them down next to each other at the end of the table. Bucky follows and throws himself down into one of the conference table’s chairs rather ungracefully. Luckily Stark has shelled out for top quality furniture because it’s pillowed and yet still supportive when Bucky sits back. Though, knowing Tony, he’s probably spent 10% of his life sleeping through meetings. He would want a comfortable chair.

Bucky has no idea how long Tony plans on keeping them here for the meeting or what he has in store exactly. His plan mostly hinges on eating everything in sight to stay awake.

Bruce sits down at the table opposite Bucky and Steve. “How’s life in the tower?” Steve asks Bruce.

Bruce bobs his head up and down a bit. “Facilities are amazing. Bit weird having the whole floor to myself. Jarvis took a bit of time getting used to.”

“Who’s Jarvis?” Bucky asks, shoving a nacho into his mouth.

“I am, Sir.” A cool male voice sounds from every corner of the room inexplicably. Bucky jumps in his seat, Steve shrugs when Bucky glares at him. This is probably Steve getting back at Bucky for all of the times that Bucky’s let Steve be surprised about things dealing with technology. “I manage the tower as well as all of Mr. Stark’s assets.”

Bucky clears his throat. “I take it that since you aren’t sitting with us, you’re a guy in a room pulling a wizard of Oz?”

Bruce shakes his head. “He’s an AI of Tony’s design. Considerably more polite than anything you would associate with Tony.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jarvis tells Bruce. Bruce smiles faintly and looks down at his files. “Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Barton, and Mr. Wilson have arrived and will be here momentarily.”

“Barton?” Bucky asks. Steve makes a vague humming sound. “Is he a doctor?”

Bruce makes a snorting sound that he tries to cover as a cough.

“Clint Barton worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. before any of us became involved.” Steve tells Bucky. Bucky beings to wonder how a) he’s going to keep this all straight and b) if he has some kind of security clearance that he doesn’t know about. “Deep cover and surveillance. He probably tagged along with Natasha.”

“Because they’re dating.” Bucky says through a mouthful of chips. Bruce’s eyes go wide and Steve turns towards Bucky in his swivel chair. “What? You guys didn’t know?”

That certainly explains the dude Natasha punched when Bucky called her to tell her about the revelation in the park a few weeks back. It’s actually kind of gratifying to know something about Natasha that the rest of her team didn’t know. And honestly, if they paid attention, they would have worked it out. Natasha hadn’t been on a date since the attack happened. If that didn’t coincide with the whole dating Clint thing, Bucky doesn’t know up from down anymore.

“You would think I told him I wanted to force him to sit through watching paint dry. Tapas is delicious!” Natasha says, holding the door open for Sam and a handsome man wearing sunglasses indoors. “There they are, the least social people in New York City and you all found each other.”

Steve grunts, knowing by now that Natasha is far more sarcastic than any of them gave her credit for. Also, she’s mostly poking fun at Bucky. She looks over at Bruce fondly, tilting her head in greeting.

“I brought this one along.” She says, nodding towards Clint. “Bucky, this is Clint Barton and he’s here mostly for the food.”

“I’d change that to completely here for the food.” Clint says, walking to Steve and Bucky. “Wait, do the thing we practiced.” He tells Steve, holding out his fist. Steve rolls his eyes and caves, curling his hand into a fist and bumping it with Clint’s. He shakes Bucky’s hand, introduces himself.

They all exchange names and pleasantries as they wait for Tony, who hopefully remembers that he scheduled the meeting. Eventually, Sam sits down on Bucky’s other side and Natasha and Clint take seats beside Bruce.

“Is anyone going to tell me why I’m here.” Sam says, taking a bite of an eggroll. “Not that I’m complaining. But I was summoned to a secret meeting at the place where a giant hole in the universe tore open at the beginning of the summer.”

And before Bucky can even begin to bullshit Sam about this, Stark walks in, because along with paperwork he’s had to fill out, he also had to sign a contract stating he wouldn’t speak about anything to do with Stark’s projects publically. And he’s not fucking around with a lawsuit.

Only instead of beginning with introducing himself to Sam, he stands in the doorway, staring at the man.

“You.” Stark begins, pointing at Sam. Sam shifts in his seat, looking a little guilty for a reason Bucky doesn’t even begin to understand.

“Okay.” Sam begins. “Allow me to begin my apology.”

“12 million dollars. Over 300 man hours putting it together. Three hammer injuries.” Stark rattles off, slowly walking into the room. Sam’s mouth turns down into a frown.

“I’m going to have to point out that I never told anyone to shoot at me in the first place. So it really wasn’t my fault.” Sam says, “You could also say that my dancing skills were forever compromised in the crash landing and that should be penance enough.”

“Well, this is awkward.” Clint grumbles to himself, saying exactly what Bucky is thinking.

“Yeah, not pry into whatever’s going on. But the fuck is going on?” Natasha butts in.

“Someone in this room swore up and down that they were the best test pilot anyone had ever seen.” Stark says, staring Sam down. “And I took their superior officer at their word and handed over the seventh favorite thing I’ve ever made in what was supposed to be a good will gesture with the US military. Not three months later, I get word that not only has the prototype been destroyed, but the moron pilot also landed himself in the hospital.”

“Once again, I’ll point out that I never asked for anyone to shoot at me.” Sam says.

Tony stares down at Sam for a long time. So long in fact that Steve starts to get up from his chair. Then Tony bursts out laughing and a wide smile spreads across Sam’s face.

“Oh, I’m just fucking with you.” Tony tells Sam, clapping him on the shoulder. “Glad to see you’re okay, and I’d love to pick your brain about the crash.”

Bucky’s jaw drops. “Tony!”

Sam waves him off. “It’s fine, man.”

“What exactly is going on here?” Steve asks, a look of annoyance on his face.

Stark waves a hand in his general direction. “Wilson here was the recipient of another one of my projects.” He points grandly at a blank wall that suddenly has become one giant photo of Sam, dressed in a military uniform complete with goggles and a massive set of metal wings strapped to his back. “It was destroyed when he was shot down somewhere classified enough for not even me to know.”

“Is everyone in my life a super hero?” Bucky asks the room. “Do I need to ask my parents if they’ve been able to see through walls my whole life or if they could stop a speeding train? Seriously.”

“Bucky Barnes and the Case of ‘Everyone I Know is Way Cooler than I am’.” Natasha chimes in. “It has a ring to it.”

“It does not!”

But it kind of does.

----------

Bucky goes and gets a haircut a few days later.

“Did you bring it?” Bucky asks Steve when he comes over later that night.

Steve blushes and takes off his backpack, pulling his shield out and holding it out towards Bucky.

“For the record, I liked your hair the way it was before.” Steve tells him, walking in to the apartment and shutting the door.

Chapter Text

Being the recipient of a new arm is basically a full time job. Between the neural mapping, and extensive studies on his remaining limb for necessary flexibility and strength, Bucky hasn’t had the time to continue his runs with Steve. Not that he misses those now that Steve practically lives at Bucky’s apartment. Bucky doesn’t require the guise of chasing after Steve like a puppy in the park now that he knows Steve’s gonna be laying on Bucky’s sofa with his book all night.

He’s still working through Star Wars. Bucky thinks it might have something to do with Steve cutting his Star Wars with other science fiction so that he won’t finish the film canon so quickly. He’s a pretty prolific reader. He doesn’t want the story to end even if that means he can move on to another series.

Anyway, he’s pretty adamant about joining Bucky for whatever fresh hell Tony has in store for him after he’s done at the library. From there, he and Bucky take the train into Manhattan and pray that Clint hasn’t pilfered the entire spread of food that the lovely people at Stark Tower provide for him every day.

On this one in particular evening, Bucky doesn’t need to worry because it turns out that Thor is in town. Which has the opposite effect on food. Stark’s attendants keep bringing more and more of it. Bucky and Steve follow the long line of men and women baring hotel pans of delicious smelling food into Stark’s lab.

“We should take him to a buffet and film it.” Steve mutters to Bucky under his breath. “It could go viral.”

Bucky snickers, though that dries up once he gets a glimpse of Thor in real life. He thought that Steve was larger than life. Thor makes Steve look like the runt of a very blonde and muscular litter.

“Is there illness afoot, brother?” Thor asks in a grandiose way. He holds out a hand the size of a trash can lid and a hammer flies from a few feet away to land in his hand.

Steve looks over at Bucky, his eyes full of glee at understanding a cultural reference and not being on the outside for once. Bucky rolls his eyes. “Best not to make fun of the god of thunder, Steve.” He tells the other man. Steve shrugs and then guides Bucky forward.

“Thor, this is Bucky.” He pauses, looking around for a second. Bucky elbows him gently in the side. “My boyfriend.” Bucky nods once. They had a whole discussion about partners, friends, and boyfriends. He never thought the first person he’d hear Steve say the b-word in front of would be a Norse god. Whatever. Par for the weird fucking course his life seems to be on.

“The great man who sheparded the women and children to safety?” Thor asks, getting an excited look in his eyes. “We must toast your good doings!”

“I never thought I would ever discourage anyone from drinking.” Tony says, emerging from a bathroom in the corner in his usual sweats, toweling his hair dry. “But this one,” he points at Bucky, “needs to be coherent for what we’re working on.”

It turns out that Thor isn’t there to be just a pretty face and a competing set of biceps in the room. He actually knows a little about some intense sounding medicine from his home realm. Mostly Steve and Bucky sit back while Tony and Bruce argue over how they might be able to turn Bucky’s nerves into something that would be able to move a piece of machinery.

“If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this right. Not Captain Hook. None of that. I want a fully functioning left arm on that bum playing Words with Friends in the corner.” And then Tony points at Bucky, who is playing Words with Friends with Steve.

And it goes on like that for weeks.

---------

Stark calls and tells them that their third iteration of the arm had to be scrapped because the tension of the muscles was so great, it would have ripped itself out of its socket, which would cripple Bucky for life.

There are, of course, other setbacks. Tony has to go to Africa to find a rare metal he think will be light enough that the arm won’t physically make Bucky fall to the ground.

Tony gets kidnapped while he’s there. The Avengers need to go set him loose.

Two days later they have Tony and what seems like a metric ton of rare Vibranium in Tony’s lab.

Thor has to return back home in order to secure relations in the other realms he rules.

Tony works for a week straight and emerges victorious. He shows up at the library with the arm raised above his head in triumph. Darcy asks Bucky if she wants him to call the cops.

Bucky thinks about it for a moment before decides that would be a bad idea.

Tony accidentally drops the arm and leaves a massive scratch in the original wood flooring of the building. He starts writing a check on his way out the door.

----------

They haven’t had sex. Which ordinarily Bucky would have knocked out of the way within 12 hours of meeting someone he was interested in.

They’ve done their fair share of making out on subway platforms coming home from Stark Tower and less than innocent knee touching at the movies. Bucky’s pretty sure he nearly dislocated his remaining arm trying to get Steve out of his shirt when he came over with his shield as per their agreement over Bucky’s haircut.

But with Steve, things are different. Not just because the guy’s told Bucky that he’d never kissed a man before the incident in the park. But because Bucky’s pretty much terrified that if they move forward and something goes wrong, it could be the end of their relationship.

He and Steve go on a lot of dates. More dates together than Bucky’s gone on in his whole life before Steve. Sometimes they get recognized and Steve blushes. Bucky dreams of taking Steve out during Pride next summer. They’ll probably ask him to be the grand marshal of the parade.

“It’s the arm.” Bucky blurts out in the kitchen one night when he’s loading the dishwasher and Steve’s sitting at the kitchen table on his tablet.

“Is it? I thought it was the butler, in the study with the wrench.” He grins up at Bucky. Damn, that face could launch 1,000 ships.

Bucky rolls his eyes and goes back to what he was doing. “I just thought I would tell you what it was—why it was that we’ve been dating for a couple months now and nothing has happened yet.”

Steve sets down his tablet and leans back in his chair, regarding Bucky. “So everything we’ve done so far. The fact that I’m pretty much living with you means that nothing has happened.”

Bucky jerks so hard he nearly breaks a plate against the counter. “What?”

“You said nothing has happened between us. I’m telling you that the most time we’ve been away from each other was when I had to go after Stark a few weeks ago in Africa.” Steve reminds him.

“I’m not talking about the hanging out and dating part.” Bucky says, and he can feel his ears start to heat up like they do when he’s nervous. “I’m talking about this part—“ He gestures between them in the generally accepted signal for ‘wild and crazy sex’ and now Steve’s looking at him like he’s crazy.

“The sex part.” Steve fills in for him.

“Yeah, the sex part.” Bucky says, petulance shading his tone even though he doesn’t want it to.

“When you say it like that, you make it sound like nothing else matters.” Steve says. “I’d like to have sex with you. I’d like it a lot. But I also recognize that the dating and the hanging out part is going to take up a solid 95% of our time together. And I think when you hang up the weight of an entire relationship on whether or not we’re having sex, you’re kind of screwing both of us over.”

“95%?” Bucky answers, his voice squeaking a little.

“That last 5%. Too high of a percentage?” Steve asks, quirking his head to the side.

“A little low actually.” Bucky tells him, shrugging.

Steve smiles despite himself and laces his hands on the table before him. “I don’t think this is something that we need to be worried about. I’m certainly capable of taking care of myself until you feel comfortable enough to be with me that way. Not like I haven’t heard you in the shower every morning.”

Steve gets up and presses Bucky against the kitchen sink. He kisses him like Bucky means a lot more than he ever thought possible.

“I’m ready when you’re ready.” Steve tells him, pulling away. “Not a second before.”

----------

It doesn’t happen that night. Or the night after. Or even the one after that.

It happens after a week of hearing nothing from Tony. But then he calls and tells them it’s time. If Bucky’s still willing to go under the knife, they’re going to schedule the surgery in a few days.

Bucky feels like its time. Like he can share this with Steve because in a few weeks time he’ll potentially have his other arm back. And because in the back of his mind he’s reminded that nothing is ever 100%. Something could go wrong.

And he doesn’t want to leave without knowing Steve’s body as much as his mind.

They’re both nervous and a little scared. It turns out that Steve’s done his fair share of research (of course he has). Later he tells Bucky that Darcy and Natasha were a lot of help.

And it’s not perfect. But what it is, is exactly what Bucky wanted it to be. Imperfect and full of good humored laughter and more than one heated negotiation about positioning. And Bucky knows a lot about this. But he didn’t anticipate what it would be like with Steve. But Steve is just as curious, caring, and brave as was the day he stumbled into Bucky’s life.

Afterwards they rescue a pint of ice cream from the freezer and eat it out of the carton with a single spoon. Steve leaning against the headboard with an arm looped around Bucky’s torso. The sheets pulled up around their waists as Steve alternates between giving Bucky and himself bites of ice cream.

And Steve’s books are still on the side table. His giant shoes sit at the bottom of Bucky’s closet. And his hand is absently carding through Bucky’s hair.

And it’s not perfect. But it’s theirs. And nothing has changed.

Which is basically perfect anyway.

Chapter Text

Bucky had his tonsils out when he was 10. And that experience was colored by the nonchalance and kindness of the nurses that didn’t want to stress him out before the operation. Because it had been necessary. And now he’s electing to have a procedure that could very well put him at less of an advantage than he had when he had one arm.

They had a meeting full of contracts and Stark telling him the complications. Sam looking both excited and upset. Sam telling Bucky that sometimes progress means setbacks. Steve holding his hand and telling him that he didn’t need to be the first. Because of course Steve knows what its like to the at the cutting edge of medicine.

Bucky needs a minute in the middle of these briefings. He stands on the landing of a set of steps on the floor and moments later Steve joins him.

“What if I’m not strong enough to live like this for the rest of my life?” Bucky asks. And he feels like he’s so weak for wanting to go back to the life he had before when he knows that there are so many people who aren’t fortunate enough to have directly effected a billionaire with apparently nothing but time to work on robot limbs.

But he still has dreams about how normal his life was before the attack on the city happened. And sometimes nightmares about the invasion itself. He still wakes up reaching on his left only to have nothing happen. And he lies there in the middle of the night while Steve snores softly next to him, quietly trying to keep it together.

“I think it’s pretty normal to want more.” Steve tells him; he runs a hand through Bucky’s hair and cups the nape of his neck in one giant hand. “I wanted more. Got a lot more than I was expecting. But what you want is just to return to what you had before. And I wanted beyond that.” He blinks and looks away. “It’s why I won’t try to talk you out of this. If it’s what you really want. If it’s what will make you happy in the end.”

Bucky feels like he’s going to cry. Out of nowhere.

“I think it will.” Bucky says. “I feel spoiled.”

Steve shrugs. “Can’t help that your circumstances put you in Stark’s way. Or that you tried to help me and got hurt. It’s not wrong to want to go back to the way your life was before.”

They go back to the meeting and Bucky quietly looses his mind over the decision that seemed like such a no-brainer when it was Tony bringing him a piece of crap arm and throwing it down on his kitchen table.

----------

It really does look like an arm.

Which probably shouldn’t have come as such a complete surprise to Bucky. But it looks very much like Bucky’s remaining arm, only made from metal and not flesh.

It’s the night before Bucky is scheduled for surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He and Steve were goaded into staying in Stark Tower by Tony. And their room isn’t so much a room as it’s own apartment. And it’s suspiciously furnished in a way that leads Bucky to believe that Tony wants Steve to move in. Clearly he doesn’t get the fact that Steve’s cleaning compulsion would drive Tony crazy.

But there’s a vintage phonograph in the corner of the living room and a stack of old albums sitting underneath. There’s an office with a sleek computer and a large artist’s drafting table. Cups of fine pens and pencils sitting on the ledge of the giant window. He could imagine spending lazy weekends in that room, stretched out on the conveniently placed couch while Steve draws a series of studies of the cityscape outside.

There’s kind of a party happening at the moment. And it’s supposed to be a celebration of the arm’s “Homecoming” tomorrow. Clint has fully taken over the position of DJ and keeps playing them Kesha deep cuts and demos. Natasha has remained sober out of solidarity to Bucky, who isn’t allowed anything to eat or drink past midnight. Last he saw them, Sam and Thor were avidly discussing Sam’s mechanical wings. Tony, a man named Rhodey and Steve have been arguing about certain “upgrades” Tony would like to do to both Steve and Rhodey’s gear.

Steve outright rejects the idea of night vision goggles added to his helmet. Not because he doesn’t need them, but because he thinks they would make him look like Greedo from Star Wars.

And Bucky, Bucky slipped away to come up to the lab and press his face against the glass, staring at the arm that is innocuously resting on one of Tony’s cluttered tables.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Bucky spins around to find Bruce awkwardly shifting from foot to foot right outside of the elevator.

“And she’s mine, I guess.” Bucky answers, a little embarrassed to be found up here when there’s an entire group of superheroes assembling upstairs in his honor. “Snuck away to check on your Fantasy Football league?”

Bruce snorts and shakes his head. “Naw, the only sport I actively root for is this weird hybrid of ice hockey, lacrosse, and football from Asgard. They play it on skates with a ball that weights about 20 pounds, no protective padding of course. Oh, and the ball is on fire.”

“I would pay a lot of money to see that.” Bucky answers. Now he needs to see if he could glomb onto Thor on his way through the bifrost. Maybe it works like a portkey and Bucky only needs to be touching Thor for it to work.

“It sure is something.” Bruce tells him, stepping forward. He motions to the door. “I was actually coming down to run a few tests on the arm.” He pauses and considers this. “For the 265th time. This week. Would you like to come in?”

Bucky nods a lot more excitedly than is cool. But Bruce doesn’t mind. Of course he doesn’t.

Bruce doesn’t even need to enter a pin on the keypad by the door. He simply approaches and the glass door slides smoothly open to accommodate him.

“Thanks Jarvis.”

“My pleasure sir.” The cool British voice answers. “Would you like me to bring up the testing suite?”

“On the largest screen, please.” Bruce tells the computer.

Bucky follows Bruce into the room as lights flick on and fully illuminate the room. A robot wearing a dunce cap races past them towards a small kitchen area and sets to pouring things into a blender.

“Dummy, that’s really not necessary.” Bruce tells the robot in a comforting way. But it seems like the robot is set on making them smoothies. Bruce waves a hand at it in soft surrender. “Well, it makes him happy anyway.”

Bucky stands before the arm. Laying there on the table it looks incomplete. Of course, there’s also the metal shoulder portion, which will cover the existing area of his shoulder joint and anchor to his collarbone. Which means he’s basically giving up even more of his arm to have the robot one. He’s heard this all dozens of times. The shoulder portion means they’ll be able to remove the arm painlessly for upgrades and tune-ups.

“She’ll be just as light as your other arm.” Bruce tells him, walking over and picking up the arm. He holds it gently in both of his hands. The silver surface gleaming in the lights of the lab. “The vibranium shell could withstand being run over by a tank. Inside, thousands of nanofibres connect to sensors that map pressure and temperature. You’ll be the first person in the world to have their nerves grafted in this way. You’ll be able to feel the things in this hand. You won’t be as sensitive, but you’ll have the full range of movement you normally would, plus increased strength.”

“If everything goes according to plan.” Bucky says. He absently reaches out and moves the metal hand around to test the flex of the fingers. The metal is cool to the touch, but warms rapidly.

“If everything goes according to plan.” Bruce echoes.

Bucky lets Bruce take away the arm and connect it to the computer. He watches as the hand begins to move on its own. The program tests the motor’s calibration.

Bruce stands at the computer; he absently pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and spins a pen in his other hand.

They sit in silence for a while. But eventually Bucky has to ask. “You’ve known Stark for a while.”

“Since May.” Bruce tells him. “But I guess in Tony Time that would be years of friendship.”

“I guess so. I just gotta know, why would he do something like this for me? He barely knows me. I mean, I’m sleeping with your coworker.” And then Bucky gulps and blushes, because that’s not what he meant to say it that way. But it’s not like Bruce is going to sell their story to a tabloid. “I’m not his family and I wasn’t really his friend until he showed up at my house with tacos.”

Bruce takes off his glasses and polishes them with the hem of his shirt. “Well, the thing about Tony is that he doesn’t know how to really tell people he cares about them. So instead he builds things for them. It’s kind of like a dog presenting you with a giant stick for no reason. Tony brings people things. And it probably has a lot to do with his father being a workaholic and emotionally withholding. I think he appreciated what Tony could do more than who he was.” This is the most Bucky has ever heard Bruce speak at one time. But still waters run deep, and it seems like Bruce has been thinking about this for a long time.

“The guy woke up in a cave with shrapnel in his chest and a group of men who tried to torture him into making weapons for them.” Bruce says it in a rush. “He knows what helplessness is.” Bucky feels like he’s learning more about Tony during this conversation than has even been known to him since they met. “The day Loki took Thor back to Asgard, Tony brought me to a cabin that used to belong to Nick Fury. Out in the middle of nowhere. I think he knew that I was barely holding it together in the city and I needed some downtime. Turns out that the whole place had been outfitted specifically for me. Well, for me and the other guy. We sat down and started working on something that would help the Avengers save me from myself if I ever went out of control.

“He knew he physically couldn’t fix me. But he could give me the piece of mind that I could be contained. I stayed there for a few weeks on my own. Tony would come and visit. Steve and Natasha too. And then Tony showed up and told me it was time to come home if I wanted to. And I actually did for once. Knowing that Hulkbuster existed was enough to get me out of my shell a bit. I’ll probably never trust myself to be a part of the action somewhere where I could hurt innocents. But I’ll ride the bench because I know Tony’s got my back.”

Bucky jumps as a mechanical arm holds out a glass of strange looking green smoothie towards his remaining hand. Bucky accepts the glass, nodding to the robot in appreciation as it does the same for Bruce. Bruce pats the robot on its arm before it rolls away.

“So Tony fixes people?” Bucky asks.

Bruce shrugs. “He’s a mechanic who likes collecting. Cars, art, and I guess people with extraordinary abilities.”

Bucky snorts. “But I’m not like the rest of you.”

Bruce pins him with a strangely knowing look. “I can’t speak for the man, but I can say it must mean he sees something worthwhile in you.”

And for no reason, Bucky blushes at that and takes a sip of his smoothie. It tastes delicious. Like crisp apples and kiwi.

“Nice right?” Bruce asks.

Bucky nods. “Pretty great.”

“It’s the only thing Dummy can make, but he does it pretty well.” Bruce tells him, and he looks a little proud of the robot rolling around the room. “Look, he wants to set you right. Put you back in play. Probably because he blames himself for the whole thing. But hey—“ Bruce points towards the arm, “it’s a pretty cool arm.”

It is.

Chapter Text

It becomes more and more of a reality as they move Bucky through the process of intake and prep for surgery. He tells Steve that he doesn’t have to leave as Bucky changes into the gown they give him. Of course, Steve folds his clothes the moment that Bucky has taken them off. He even folds Bucky’s socks into tiny triangles and stuffs them into Bucky’s empty shoes.

The gown is just as uncomfortable as it had been the first time he woke up in one after the invasion. It’s both drafty and warm in a non-breathable way. He keeps reaching behind himself and holding it closed over his ass.

“Don’t laugh.” Bucky grumbles at Steve. The other man is red around the ears and pursing his lips as though to hold his chuckles inside. “I’m gonna be part robot when I wake up. Don’t anger me.”

Steve puts both hands on Bucky’s shoulders and holds him at arms length. “Sorry, but you just look really sweet standing there.” His blue eyes flick briefly towards Bucky’s left. Steve swallows and shakes his head. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I know I’m a pain in the ass. First I have a left arm, then I didn’t, and now I’m getting it back again.” Bucky tells Steve sarcastically. “I mean, If I were you I would be thinking, ‘golly, is my best guy ever going to make up his mind?’”

Steve rolls his eyes at that one. “Never called you my best guy.” He holds Bucky’s face in both of his hands. “You are though.”

“Call me that when this is all over. Okay?” Bucky asks him. Steve closes his eyes for a moment, nodding. His face is very close to Bucky’s. He could probably count Steve’s pores if they weren’t so damn small. He’ll settle for noting the place of a few light freckles across his nose and how his eyelashes are bizarrely dark for a guy with blonde hair. “What stuff are we gonna do when I’m in recovery? Will you make a plan?”

“I’ll make a plan.” Steve tells him, nodding serious like Bucky just gave him his marching orders. “Some old stuff. Some new stuff.”

How very like their relationship. It’s been colored by Steve’s past and seen through the lens of the modern age.

“I’m happy you gave up on Barnes and Noble.” Bucky tells him all in a rush.

Steve shakes his head again and presses his forehead to Bucky’s. “I’m happy Darcy made me come talk to you. Happier that you went through my notebook and tracked me down.” He kind of clears his throat and then pecks Bucky on the lips.

When Steve pulls away, he kind of holds Buck at arms length and studies his face.

“Please stop looking at me like I’m going to do something stupid and die. We both know I’m too stubborn to do anything like that.” Bucky tells him, poking Steve in the chest.

Steve laughs, but he looks wrinkled around the edges.

It strikes Bucky at this moment that Steve’s been through this moment many times. Not necessarily this exact one. But he surely looked men in the eye back in the war and knew that a shadow could cross over that face at any moment. For someone who is Bucky’s age, he’s had literally everything taken away from him except for his name. And even now, he’s better known as Captain America rather than Steven Grant Rogers.

He meant it as a joke. But he really is too stubborn to die. Bucky would probably punch Death in the face if it came for him.

“Hey.” Bucky tells Steve. “Plan that fucking week of recuperation activities. Because I love you, and I can’t wait to make fun all the super nerdy things you have planned. And I swear to god, if you respond to my ‘I love you’ with ‘I know’ I will divulge a certain video of you almost burning down my apartment in your underwear. Now take my glasses so I don’t loose them.” And with that, Bucky pulls off his glasses and shoves them into the pocket of Steve’s t-shirt.

A grin splits Steve’s face. The crinkles around his eyes make Bucky smile back.

“I love you too.” Steve tells him.

And then they make out until Stark and a team of nurses arrive to take Bucky to the surgical wing. Bucky asks him to make sure that his mother and father don’t accost too many nurses for information. He hugs Steve hard, his parents even harder when he meets them out in the hallway.

“I love you.” He tells his mom. “Please don’t freak out.”

She gives him a watery smile and pulls him down so she can kiss him on the forehead. Bucky’s dad kisses him on the cheek and tells him they make no promises about the freaking out.

“It’s not every day our son gets a Terminator arm.” Bucky’s dad chuckles. And then his mom bursts out laughing. And then starts crying.

He has barely enough time to shoot Steve a look that says, ‘make sure they don’t get arrested’ and then they whisk him through a set of double doors and out of sight.

---------

“Tell me you aren’t the one who will be operating on me.” Bucky says. Above him, Tony laughs from behind the teal face mask covering his nose and mouth. He’s decked out in the finest scrubs. “Did you have your own custom scrub caps made?”

Tony points to his head were a cap patterned with tiny Iron Man cartoons fight cartoon aliens across the New York City skyline. “Believe it or not, these actually existed already.” Tony tells him. His eyes search Bucky’s face. He probably sees the worry creeping along the edges of Bucky’s eyes.

He’s laying on the operating table of a very futuristic operating suite that he’s pretty sure Tony had a lot to do with funding. A team of nurses and doctors flit to and fro around the room.

“I think I’ll stick to the mechanical side of things.” Tony says, “Wouldn’t want to lord my prowess in medicine over the rest of the world. Besides, why would I get my hands dirty when we have the lovely Dr. Cho here? And we paid her very well to be here in the first place. She needs to sing for her supper.”

A very pretty pair of eyes appears over another surgical mask as Dr. Cho stands next to Tony at Bucky’s head. Of course, he remembers her from the few teleconferences he’d been able to sit through without falling asleep. “Great to see you again.” She tells him, “We’re all very excited to help you today, Mr. Barnes.”

“Please call me Bucky, I’m totally naked under this surgical dressing. I think we’re there.” Bucky tells her. Once again bullshitting through the nerves. He nods at Tony. “I’ll know if you peek.”

“Wouldn’t dream of incurring the wrath of your studmuffin.” Tony says. “But I’ll be here the whole time. And Steve’s behind that wall.” He points to the far wall. And that helps, knowing that Steve’s so near.

“I think it’s time that we get started, Bucky.” Dr. Cho tells him. Her voice is calming among the general din of the room.

Bucky nods, laying his head back against the headrest.

Tony talks to him about his car collection as Bucky’s right arm is strapped out from his side so that they can connect him to an IV. And that helps too. He knows exactly what Tony’s trying to do. He’s trying to distract Bucky. But Bucky’s mind is racing.

“We’re going to administer anesthesia now Bucky,” Dr. Cho says. “Next time you see us, you’re going to have a whole new arm.”

And then a man with a nondescript face places a mask over Bucky’s nose and mouth. “Breath in deeply, count to 100 for me Bucky.”

He gets to 3 and then there is nothing.

----------

The buzzing of voices around him. Bucky can’t make out their words but they seem to come from everywhere. Somewhere a glass shatters.

“Find cover!” Bucky yells at the man with the radio, raising the weapon he took from the thing Captain America killed. “Get down!” Bucky shouts at Cap.

He curls his body behind his shield like a one of those pill bugs from earth science as Bucky fires on the aliens.

His aim is crap. He hits one in the chest, sending it backwards. Another shot hits the wall in an explosion of masonry he’s sure the city will bill him for. Another shot hits the floor where one is standing.

Bucky flails in confusion, crying out through a sore throat. Something connects with his arm and a man screams.

And then the world explodes in pain and fire spreads from his elbow out into his chest. Bucky is knocked backwards to the ground, screaming, as his whole world becomes pain. Vaguely he registers the sounds of fighting a few feet away, but it’s covered by the rushing sound of blood in his ears.

And the pain, dear god the pain. Firing through the left side of his body so hot he thinks he might die. He keeps screaming and fighting even as several sets of hands push him back towards the bed. His fist curls and he’s swinging with all his might. But his other arm won’t move. 

“Bucky!” A voice yells. “Bucky open your eyes!” But he’s got more important things on his mind right now than someone speaking to him.

There’s another crashing sound and more yelling. Someone screams. “You can’t be in here!”

And then an answering “Make me leave then! Bucky!”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Someone answers.

He’s read about shock before. Knows that he’s not fully feeling what happened to him yet. Because when he opens his eyes and looks over, he can see his arm is still holding onto the gun.

“Bucky, you need to open your eyes and look at me.” A voice says, a familiar thing. Tangible even in the confusion. Bucky holds onto it like a drowning man to a life preserver.

Bucky peels his eyes open. And is instantly blinded by a spotlight aimed directly into his eyes.

And then a shadow crosses his field of vision and blocks out the light. And there’s Steve. His hair messy and falling into his forehead.

“I can’t feel my arm!” Bucky yells.

The arm is laying 6 feet away from his body.  

Bucky can’t look at where it used to be. He won’t see that. But he does feel it. And now that there’s a gaping open wound on his body, his heart is beating double time.

“Oh my god!” Bucky’s yelling. In his own ears, his voice is frantic. He’s screaming at the top of his lungs.

Steve’s hand clasps his own and holds it tightly. 

“Bucky, please look at me. You’re coming out of anesthesia. You’re confused.”

Bucky closes his eyes against the pain, crying out when someone approaches and rips on the of the long Velcro straps off his bulletproof vest and wraps it tightly around the stump where his arm used to be as a tourniquet to stop the blood flow.  

“It’s going to be okay Barnes.” A voice above him says, “I’ve seen guys with worse wounds than this walk away.” And it’s reassuring, though Bucky thinks it might be some kind of hallucination.

“Grab his hand!” Steve tells someone. And then he feels the warmth and pressure of another hand in his own.

Bucky’s heart is beating so hard he can feel it all over his body. Slowly it dawns on Bucky that they’re back in the surgical suite and Steve is standing above him, looking terrified.

“There’s my best guy.” Steve says. “You need to breathe for me, Buck.”

The room has quieted down a bit now. Steve presses his free hand to Bucky’s face and touches his temple where a few tears have strayed and leaked into his hair.

“Please just take a minute.” Steve says. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” His hand readjusts its grip on Bucky’s.

Bucky takes one long breath in and shakily lets it out.

“Should I call security?” Someone asks quietly.

“That’s not necessary.” Dr. Cho says from the periphery of Bucky’s vision.

“There we go.” Steve says. “You’re okay. Everything is okay.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I can’t move my arm.” It comes out terrified and raspy.

Steve leans in and presses a kiss to Bucky’s forehead. “Bucky, look over. Look at my hand.”

It makes Bucky want to cry even harder. He didn’t look at the wound the first time, why would he look now? But something needles at his brain and reminds him of his perspective on the room. Laying on his back. Steve above him, holding his hand.

Steve’s thumb moves against the back of Bucky’s hand almost absently.

Bucky looks.

And there. Standing on Bucky’s left side, Steve is cradling Bucky’s metal hand in his own flesh and blood one. And Bucky feels it. Feels it just like he still feels the pain that makes him want to throw up and cry more.

His head whips to the other side. Tony’s crouched next to the table, and Bucky’s right hand is holding onto his so tightly that Bucky can see the bones of his knuckles in stark relief against his skin.

He hasn’t felt this in so long. He forgot what it was like.

And with his right arm strapped down, he didn’t get it. Couldn’t connect the dots and understand what the pain meant.

That it worked. Bucky can feel Steve’s hand in his own. Not as well as he can his right. But it’s there.

“Oh my god.”

And then he’s crying again. Looking over at Tony like a maniac. And Tony looks just as elated, just as filled with turmoil as Bucky felt at remembering how it came to be he lost the arm in the first place.

But that’s when Bucky notices two nurses bent over a man who is laying on the immaculate floor, passed out.

“Oh fuck.” Bucky says, collapsing back against the table like he’s lost all of the fight he had not a minute again.

“I’ll say that again.” Tony says.

And from there, they load Bucky up with painkillers that make him feel fuzzy and out of sorts. He vaguely registers the man on the floor standing up and rubbing his shoulder as he makes his way to the door. Bucky did that, He realizes that now.

He tries to tell the man he’s sorry, but the words slip around in his mouth and he just wants to sleep.

Steve stays with him the whole time, holding onto his new hand and running his thumb over the arch of Bucky’s eyebrow over and over again until Bucky lets the sleep wash over him.

Chapter Text

Once he wakes up and gets over the mortification of nearly killing someone with his fancy new robot arm, it’s mostly eating a lot of pudding and submitting to Steve and his mother smothering him with offers to fluff his pillows and bring him magazines.

“Don’t you want to find out what’s going on with Bethany’s juice cleanse?” Steve asks him, hopefully only half joking.

Bucky holds out his right hand towards Steve, palm outstretched as if to ward the magazine off.

In the corner, his mother makes a sweet tutting noise under her breath. Bucky looks around to where Bucky’s father are seated on a sofa near the window. “What was that from the peanut gallery?”

Bucky’s mother tucks a hand under her chin, regarding them. “Nothing, just that it would have been nice for our first introduction to Steve—not that we don’t love you, sweetie. I’m not quite sure the last boy Bucky dated wasn’t affiliated with some kind of organized crime syndicate.” Which is pretty accurate. The amount of seafood that Bucky was gifted during that relationship was really concerning. He still has prawns in his freezer. “And to be honest, I’m happy we got to meet you at all. James is always hiding his boyfriends and girlfriends from us.”

“Helen,” Bucky’s dad looks up from his book and puts a hand on his wife’s knee. “Finish your first thought before you launch into your guilt trip.”

She puts her hand over Bucky’s fathers and shoots him a look. “It would have been nice to meet Steve in a restaurant and not in the waiting room of a hospital while our son underwent experimental surgery.”

“Well,” Bucky considers this. “Not as bad as how you met Lou a few years ago.”

Bucky’s mother and father both visibly pale and shrink back in their seats.

“That’s why we knock now.” His mom says, nodding. “But a responsible adult locks the door in the first place.”

Steve gives Bucky a wide eyed look, shaking his head. “Well, I’m smarter now.” Bucky tells his parents. “Plus I’ve got a real strategic boyfriend. He’s the brains of the operation.” And that makes Steve roll his eyes and pull his own book out of his bag.

It’s probably not allowed, but Steve somehow wedges his way into bed beside Bucky while Bucky dozes from a combination of both the pain medication and Steve’s breathing beside him.

“He’s an Avenger.” Bucky’s dad says somewhere in the distance. “Do you think he could help me with that thing? Steve, any way you’ve got pull with parking tickets?”

“And noise violations.” Bucky’s mom chimes in. “Not that he’s not a good kid, but the boy next door is coming and going at all hours. In and out of his bedroom window all the damn time. Playing that damn music at all hours of the night. I think he’s on drugs.”

“Honey, Miles isn’t on drugs, he’s just a teenager. We’ve known the Morales family for years. He’s a good kid.”

----------

In a much shorter time than after Bucky lost his arm, he’s released from the hospital with strict orders to rest, heal, and under no circumstances fight any kind of crime that might happen to take place.

A year ago, Bucky would have laughed at that last part. But Dr. Cho hadn’t been joking. And yeah, just because Bucky has a metal arm how doesn’t mean he’s going to be slapping on a mask and taking to the streets. He’s still just as uncoordinated as he had been before. Now he just has an arm that could lift the back end of car. It means carrying book club selections to the display area will be a lot easier.

Steve holds Bucky’s bag for him while Bucky piles into the spacious backseat of some kind of ridiculously giant and expensive car of Tony’s. The man in the drivers seat seems to be staring at Steve in the rearview mirror once the other man gets in and helps Bucky with his seatbelt.

Contrary to popular belief, once you receive a robot arm, it’s not just a painless limb immediately. Since his outburst in the operating room, it’s been in a sling at his side so that he doesn’t strain his healing muscles and nerve grafts. It’s a low buzzing pain and the numb feeling of a limb falling asleep constantly. Once he gets home, Sam will be making house calls for PT and general hero worship over Steve. He’s actually looking forward to both. Seems like a guy’s gotta get a new arm to have any face time with Sam, he’s such a busy guy.

As of right now, Bucky is a little out of it and constantly exhausted. But he’d rather be in his bed at home than in a room where it seems gaggles of doctors and interns enter every fifteen minutes. So he will get into this strange car with Steve in the hopes that it will take him back to his apartment.

Steve nods to the man driving. “Happy.”

The man, named Happy apparently, winks and sets a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. “Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes.” And then he pulls away from the curb of the hospital and out into traffic.

Only, instead of heading over the bridge and towards Bucky’s probably stuffy apartment, they pull into the underground garage to Stark Tower.

“Excuse me, but I’m supposed to be lounging on my couch while you feed me grapes.” Bucky says as Steve slips out of the car and jogs over to Bucky’s side to help him out.

And now Steve looks vaguely guilty.

This is kidnapping. This is somehow in violation of the Geneva Convention.

“Are we not committing to the two weeks of rest at my place like we talked about? Like I’m some kind of regency era heroine who requires weeks of rest. And no grapes?” Bucky asks, the tips of his metal fingers twitching.

Steve shrugs, pressing the button to an elevator that arrives immediately. “This way you’re much closer to the hospital. I’m sure we can find you grapes.” Of course Steve would think of things like being close to the hospital. Bucky tells him that they know enough heroes, one phone call to Thor would be there in a second, bursting through Bucky’s window and destroying his apartment. Okay. Now that sounds like a good case for staying at the tower.

Bucky allows himself to be steered into the elevator lest Steve whisk him up in his arms like they’re on the cover of a romance novel and Stark screencaps the footage to wallpaper his lab. Its not worth the risk that some intern might sell the photo to TMZ.

“It’s not about the grapes.” Bucky replies petulantly. “It’s about what they represent. A Tony Starkless existence for the next few weeks while I recover. I haven’t had a week that didn’t involve someone I know nearly joining the limbless existence since I lost my arm. It’s like you’re all desperate to jump on the band wagon.” Steve puts his arm around Bucky and pulls him into the side of his body. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been stoned since I woke up as Robolibrarian. I can’t be blamed for anything that I’m saying.”

Steve drops a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head. “Noted. You’re a regency protagonist. You’re high all the time. And you want no drama. Sounds like you’re up for the Oscar with that one.”

The elevator dings and the doors open on the apartment that Bucky knows Tony designed especially for Steve. And of course, there is Tony standing in the living room with his hands on the handles of a shiny new wheelchair with a giant red bow on it.

“Welcome to your convalescence!” Tony greets them. Bucky does his best to plant his heels and refuse to be moved. But it does little good when your boyfriend has been bestowed with the finest super soldier serum from the 1940s.

“You can’t resist an opportunity for a joke, can you?” Steve asks. He pretty much physically pulls Bucky into the apartment.

“I’ll have you know that Sam told me that you might need this because your boy here,” Tony points at Bucky, who isn’t feeling as sure on his feet as he had been in the elevator. “Shouldn’t be on his feet for longer than a few minutes at a time. And it looks like what was going to be a joke might actually come in handy.” Tony whips the bow off the chair and wheels it towards Bucky as the other man blinks against a sudden wave of discomfort and sways against Steve. “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll pretend this is you having a sense of humor?”

Bucky sits down in the wheelchair and holds onto his new arm with his flesh and blood hand. He can feel the pressure on his left, not at much as he could in his hand in the beginning. The doctors told him it would take weeks for his nerves to fully recover.

“There we go, Sparky. Can I show you your quarters now?” Tony asks.

“We’ve already spent the night here.” Steve reminds Tony.

“Allow me to refresh your memory.” Tony says. “As the technical elder of the group, humor me.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but then that makes him dizzy so he allows himself to be wheeled around the apartment. He feels like he belongs on Downton Abbey. They should have that cute dog from the show and dinner with the rest of the Avengers at a fancy table with Maggie Smith acting all sassy.

Holy shit. Bucky is high.

Tony leads them into the kitchen. “Fully stocked, or course.” He pulls open the fridge, which is full of fresh fruits and veggies, yogurt, juice, ginger ale, an assortment of other food and a few containers that look suspiciously like takeout from Red’s. “If you want anything else, let Jarvis know and he’ll have it delivered.”

From there, Tony takes them to the living room where a large and comfortable sectional sofa stretches out in front of a giant flat screen TV. “Netflix and TV. Anything you want. Even the dirty channels.” And with that he winks at Steve.

The bathroom is the same as Bucky remembers it. With the addition of a chair he doesn’t remember from before sitting outside the shower stall. There is shampoo and soap, toothbrushes and luxurious looking bathrobes.

In fact, the only real difference is in the room where Steve’s desk had been set up. A seat has been constructed along the wide windowsill and lined with a plush looking cushion and pillows. It looks perfect for naps and reading while he recovers. And with Steve’s drafting table in here, he could fall asleep listening to Steve sketching the skyline.

“You had this built after I went into surgery.” Bucky says, grabbing Tony’s sleeve when he goes to scoot out of the room.

“You’re crazy Barnes.” Tony tells him. But he’s looking to the side in that way that people do when they’re lying.

“Tony Stark and the Case of Everyone I Know Thinks I’m an Asshole, but I’m Really Not.” Bucky tells him, shaking his head.

“Use the next week to come up with a better title for that thrilling saga, Sparky.” Tony says.

Tony leaves. Steve takes Bucky to the bedroom and helps him under the covers. The bed is just as amazing as it had been the last time Bucky slept in it. Though he had spent most of the night tossing and turning before his trip to the hospital the next day. Now he feels himself sinking into the mattress and sighing into the pillow.

“I’ll stay.” Steve tells him without Bucky even having to ask.

That’s nice.

---------

When it moves for the first time on its own, it feels like the first house Bucky lived in America. He remembers it vaguely and vividly if that is possible. The smell of thyme growing in a planter outside one of the windows and Lemon Pledge on the floor in the scrubbed bedroom he moved into.

It’s the kind of thought he can’t conjure up at will. It takes him by surprise.

And yet, the somehow alien feeling of his left side grasping for the mug sitting there on the coffee table is so familiar it’s only the generalized pain in his shoulder that alerts him. He even looks down in surprise when the metal hand moves based on his mental order.

“Steve.” Bucky says to Steve. It’s been two days since they arrived at Stark Tower and they’re sitting in Steve’s office. Bucky watching traffic fifty stories below and Steve watching Bucky. “Look at this.”

Steve looks up from his work, his hair a bit wonky from running his hand through it over and over again as he works, It’s something that Bucky’s just noticed about his work process.

One of Steve’s eyebrows rises in question as Bucky sits practically motionless in the window seat. But then, in the sling pulled against his chest, three of his metal fingers move as if they’re ready to reach down and take the mug of tea off the floor and deliver it to Bucky’s lips.

Steve catches the movement and his face breaks into a wide grin, his sketch forgotten, he crowds Bucky into the window seat and peppers his face and neck with kisses. All the time telling him how proud he is and how amazing Bucky is.

And Bucky didn’t build the arm.

Stark deserves this recognition. But in the moment, Bucky accepts it all the same.

--------

Sam arrives a few days later on a lazy afternoon to watch a baseball game. Bucky has no interest in the baseball game itself. But the snacks that accompany said game are what he’s here for.

And he’s happily munching on nachos, salsa, and fresh seedless watermelon while the Yankees play. Sam has him take off the sling and hold onto one of Sam’s fingers as hard as he can. Which turns out not to be hard at all. Bucky tries to relearn grip and grasping with they watch the game.

Sam gives him a foam ball he’s supposed to practice with in the meantime. He promises to come back later in the week with more exercises that Bucky is sure to complain about.

--------

Clint takes his foam ball and won’t give it back.

“I’m not in middle school anymore, and I’m pretty sure I grew up in a rougher neighborhood than you did, Barton.” Bucky yells at him. He’s been weaning off the pain meds, and it leaves him a little edgy.

Natasha surveys them over the top of her magazine, Guns & Ammo.

“So take it back.” He tells Bucky, shrugging. Bucky’s going to snatch those dumb fucking sunglasses off his head and snap them with his robot hand the first chance he gets.

“Just because you look like a villain from a Disney Channel Original movie about a guy who moves to the beach from Canada and uses his snowboarding skills to excel at surfing doesn’t mean you have to act like it.” Bucky tells him, hands on his hips now that Sam’s told him he can take the sling off. His left arm feels like lead and static.

Clint stares at Steve. “I don’t even know.” Steve answers, taking a swig from his beer.

“Aren’t you going to defend me?” Bucky asks. Steve’s sitting on the couch with a well loved copy of A Game of Thrones in his hands. He took it from Bucky’s apartment when they were packing up Bucky’s things. And the fact that Steve brought so many books should have clued him into the fact he would be marooned somewhere other than his apartment. “He took my ball.”

“If I thought Barton posed any real threat to anyone in this room, I would lock him out on the balcony again.” Steve tells him, looking up from the book. “They’re on the King’s road.” He likes to fill the room in on what’s happening in the book as it goes on. Natasha and Bucky have both read the whole series and seen the show. Clint has only seen the show. And apparently the Red Wedding was something he never saw coming.

“Who is? Which time?” Bucky responds. Because that’s the most vague description of action he’s ever heard.

“The king.”

“Which one?” Natasha snorts.

“The fat one.” Steve answers.

“Oh, early days then.” Bucky chimes in.

Steve looks up, annoyed. “Don’t. No spoilers.” He whines. “I’m pretty sure the only reason I haven’t had the series spoiled for me is because Tony installed some kind of thing on my phone and tablet that censors anything about the show.”

“Tony goes to a lot of effort so that you can be upset about the plot in your own time.” Bucky tells Steve. And then because he’s still annoyed. “But I think you’re forgetting that I heroically lost my arm after successfully getting thousands of innocent women and children out of the city. And now I can’t rehabilitate because Erik Von Detten stole my ball.”

“I swear, you’re both like children.” Natasha grumbles, putting down her magazine with an audible crinkle of pages. “If I threw a hissy fit like you every time I was critically injured in the line of duty, I’d never have time to do anything else.” She snaps her fingers at Clint in a really threatening way.

And in a flash, the ball leaves Clint’s deft fingers, flies through the air and Bucky reaches up instinctively with his left hand to grab it. A shock of sharp pain shoots through his side at the movement, Bucky gasps, but his fingers close around the soft foam of the ball.

Steve’s on his feet a second later at the sharp intake of breath from Bucky. He looks into Bucky’s face for signs of distress and then he pulls the sleeve of Bucky’s shirt up to look at the stitches lining the perimeter of the shoulder socket. “Are you okay? Did you pop a stitch? Do you think its one of the screws anchoring the arm? Or a nerve graft? Do you feel a hot stabbing pain when I palpate the area? Damnit Clint, I swear if he’s hurt--”

“Steve. Steve. STEVE.” Bucky interjects finally as Steve begins lifting Bucky’s arm as though he can see through the incision to Bucky’s ribs with the naked eye. “Steve, I’m fine. Just caught a little off guard.”

Steve takes Bucky’s metal hand and holds it between two of his own. “Are you sure?” He asks seriously.

“Yeah.” Bucky answers good naturedly. “I just surprised myself a little. Moved too fast. But this is probably good for me. Hand-eye coordination and grip strength.”

“Mmm grip strength.” Clint echoes.

“Okay, now I’m going to lock you on the balcony.” Natasha answers in a grossed out voice. She takes Clint by the ear and drags him outside, shutting the door after him. It’ll be minutes before he scales the building and gets back in. He’s like that octopus that climbs out of its tank at the aquarium to murder the other fish.

Clint knocks on the window and throws them a thumbs-up. He holds up his other hand, clutching Bucky’s ball somehow.

Natasha follows him outside to get it back this time.

---------

Steve insists on calling Sam about the ball incident. And once he ascertains that Bucky is neither bleeding, experiencing shooting pains, or more tenderness than usual he tells them that Bucky was right. So long as they take it easy and try not to have him move the arm too quickly, activities like catch can be introduced to his recovery.

So now when they watch movies at night, Steve, Bucky, Natasha, Clint, and sometimes Bruce, Sam, or Tony will toss the ball to Bucky in turns from different sides of the low, giant couch.

----------

“I don’t see how this helps my recovery. I’m not even using my left hand.” Bucky tells Natasha. More accurately, he tells Natasha’s foot perched on one of his legs. They’re taking advantage of the dwindling days of summer on the balcony. It’s breezy but still warm from the sun. Natasha is sitting on a lounger with her eyes closed while Bucky sits opposite trying to balance a bottle of Bahama Mama nail polish on his leg.

“Sure you are. You’re holding onto my foot, aren’t you?” She asks, wiggling her foot in his grasp while he tries to go in for her big toe with the brush.

“Quit it.” Bucky tells her, his hand clamping down on her foot to keep it in place.

“Ow, jesus, that’s a pressure point Barnes!” Natasha exclaims. Bucky instantly lets go, thinking he’s hurt her S.H.I.E.L.D. insured foot. Natasha laughs and shakes her head. “And that’s a tactic to get people to stop torturing you. Pretend it really fucking hurts. Now get back to work.”

She leans back in the chair and they sit in silence, the sounds of traffic far away. Every now and then a drone from one of Stark’s buildings somewhere in the city will arrive a few floors above them. Bucky thinks he can hear someone running the blender. He hopes it’s margaritas. Not that he can have any tequila right now. But a nice virgin one sounds refreshing.

It does turn out to be margaritas. Clint brings them out on a tray with chips and salsa.

“Will you do mine next?” Clint asks, looking at Bucky over the top of his ever-present sunglasses.

“Fuck off.” Bucky tells him.

“Actually Clint likes having them done.” Natasha pipes up. And because Clint is shameless, he doesn’t even blush. He just shrugs. “He comes with me to get a pedicure. But he can’t get the foot massage because he nearly kicked the poor girl in the face the time before last.”

“I’m fucking ticklish. Fuck off.” Clint says, shoving a chip into his mouth.

They laugh and joke about booking a trip to the spa for massages and trying to imagine Steve laying back with cucumber slices over his eyes. Steve really doesn’t relax well unless he’s on the couch with a book in his hand.

Speak of the devil, Steve emerges from inside the apartment in the middle of their conversation. His face is all pinched up in anger, his blue eyes practically grey and intense.

“He’s a main character of the series.” Steve says, holding up A Game of Thrones. “This is ridiculous. He’s a goddamn main character. He’s my favorite character. You can’t just kill the main character of your series in the first book!”

Clint holds out a margarita to Steve, but it goes unnoticed. “This is ridiculous. I can’t believe you made me read this book.”

“Babe, no one put a gun to your head and told you to enter the conflict of Westeros.” Bucky tells him. Steve rolls his eyes in response. He huffs and sighs, sitting down on the end of Bucky’s lounge chair.

“This can’t keep happening though, right?” Steve asks. He lifts his arms so that Bucky can put his feet across Steve’s lap.

Bucky grimaces. “I cannot confirm nor deny the demise of many characters in that series.”

Steve sighs, the wind letting out of his sails. He shuts the book and sets it down beside him. “Dany is great though.”

“Say what you want about Rogers, I’m 99% sure the guy who plays Khal Drogo was actually grown in a lab to be the perfect man alive.” Natasha sums up. Clint nods.

Chapter Text

Nick Fucking Fury can go straight to hell. Bucky doesn’t give so much as a single fuck about the fact that Fury stuck up for Steve when he dropped the great bisexual bombshell (and that’s pretty much the only thing he’s going to call Steve from now on, because it just fits) or that S.H.I.E.L.D. has invested millions of dollars trying to rebuild New York City after the invasion.

“Give me his number, I’ll tell him no. I love telling people no.” Bucky says, holding out his hand expectantly, the silver of his hand flashing, reflecting the white snow on the ground.

Steve looks over at him with a painful expression written over his face. Like it hurts him to have to say this in the first place, and also that he wants to give in and let Bucky fight this battle for him. He sighs, a puff of white mist in the air. Angry as Bucky is, he reaches out and tugs the side of Steve’s hat down to cover his right ear.

Steve shakes his head. “It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is.” Bucky interjects. “You just dial the phone and tell him to fuck off.”

Steve sets his shoulders and looks straight ahead. “I didn’t think you would understand.”

Bucky grits his teeth so hard that he can feel the tension spreading all over his body. “You’re right. I don’t get it. Haven’t you given these people enough?”

He loves Natasha, Clint, Bruce, and (begrudgingly though he would never admit it) Tony. But so far as Bucky’s concerned, they’ve put in their time. They should be allowed to go live on the superhero farm to just hang out for the rest of their lives. But they’re not wired that way. Thor, he’s good to go for the rest of eternity. But everyone else in the Avengers is a lot more breakable.

Steve shrugs, just a small up and down motion of his shoulders. It’s early morning. One of the first weeks of December and the air is so crisp that it almost hurts to breathe. Their footsteps are the only ones that cut through the snow for most of the way. An hour ago, Bucky woke up to find Steve standing in their kitchen with a cup of coffee and a faraway expression. And that was unsettling. Sunday mornings were for lounging together under the covers with a couple of newspapers and pastries if they weren’t being lazy. Correction: If Bucky begged Steve to brave the cold to get them.

Bucky picks up his pace just the tiniest bit to catch up to Steve. He snags Steve’s gloved hand in his brand spanking new one. And the novelty of that still hasn’t worn off. The pressure of Steve’s hand in his own, the warmth that he feels through the magic of modern science.

“Jeez Buck, your hand is freezing.” And Steve is annoyed and upset, but he still pulls Bucky’s metal hand into Steve’s coat pocket and holds it there. They bump shoulders as they walk.

And its just like Steve to be the kind of guy who concerns himself with the temperature of a cybernetic arm when he told Bucky 10 minutes ago he would be leaving town.

Okay, strike that. He told Bucky that he agreed to be the head of a special forces S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team. A team operating out of the brand spanking new headquarters in Washington D.C.

Which means Steve would have to live in a stupid swamp town for most of the year, and have to be on call at all hours of the day in case of incoming emergencies.

“I agreed to it after the invasion—obviously. But before you and I became anything more than friends.” Steve explains. He sighs like the weight of telling Bucky is physically forcing the words from him.

“But you didn’t tell me.” Bucky says, feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under him. The city, its his home. It’s Steve’s home. Bucky loves his library, his apartment, and the neighborhood. He hasn’t ever really considered living anywhere else. Traveling sure, maybe settling down for a year or two somewhere with a beach.

“I’m not exactly proud of that.” Steve tells him. “But with everything that happened after the invasion, your arm, sending Loki back to Asgard, figuring out what I’m doing here, and your arm again—its been a busy 6 months.”

Jesus has it really been less than a year since Steve wandered into his life in those dumb new sneakers that are resting next to his door back home? They’re all worn in from months of runs, trips to the bakery, hanging around the library, and life in the city. He can’t picture Steve walking into a Footlocker and telling the salesman he didn’t need anything with running technology or cyber-mesh. Someone from the S.H.I.E.L.D. probably gave them to him before they let him go.

Bucky shakes his head. “You’re the most difficult man I’ve ever met, but this has been the easiest relationship I’ve ever been in.” Steve squeezes his hand inside of his jacket pocket. “Is it totally over dramatic for me to think that you came out of the ice so that I could meet you? Like that sort of shit doesn’t just happen. And if you leave, I feel like that just means whatever this is, is going to be over.”

Steve stops walking. They’re standing on an abandoned street while everyone in their apartments sleeps. The blue of Steve’s hat is barely visible under the layer of snow that has collected on it.

“Do you think I’m breaking up with you?” Steve asks, looking Bucky dead in the eye.

Bucky bites his lip and it’s hard to get an answer out. What with the burning lungs, and the burning panic beginning to settle in for the long haul.

People don’t go on walks like this unless there’s a breakup or a proposal about to take place.

And Steve wouldn’t be dumb enough to try to propose to Bucky when he looks like shit. He knows that Bucky would want to take a selfie afterwards. And that requires his hair to not resemble a birds nest, and for there to not be snot on the precipice of coming out of his nose.

“I’m not breaking up with you.” Steve tells him. “And you’re not breaking up with me. I’m not going to let that happen. And not because of some controlling thing, but because I know sometimes you blow things out of proportion. And I love you for that, but that’s not what’s happening right now. Okay?”

Bucky takes a deep breathe, that feels like the thing he’s most capable of doing right now.

“Tell me I’m not breaking up with you.” Steve gives his hand another squeeze. His other hand touches the back of Bucky’s head and inclines it so that Bucky’s looking Steve in the eye.

“You’re not breaking up with me?”

“Damn straight.” Steve replies, and then he kisses Bucky and makes no mention of the snot.

----------

“Okay,” Bucky says, pulling a box from his closet and setting it on the bed. “I bought this months ago, and I was saving it for your Christmas present. But since this—“ Bucky points to the boxes of Steve’s things that are now scattered through his apartment. “Is happening, I think it might be the perfect opportunity.”

They’ve decided that it really just makes sense for Steve to move in. Well, move in and move out. He’s let the landlord know he’ll be moving out at the end of the month before he moves out of town for business. Bucky only now realizes how much of Steve’s life revolves around lying to the general public. Bucky has a high enough security clearance (somehow, god knows how) that Steve can tell him what’s happening without the fear of a SWAT team busting down the door to take him away.

Anyway, Steve’s apartment in DC is where he’ll be staying half the year, and the other half he’ll be back in New York City under the pretense of general Avengers business and making sure Bucky doesn’t go crazy on Amazon as a coping mechanism.

So Steve is taking some of his things with him to the new place, but the lion’s share is remaining in Bucky’s care. Hence the boxes.

The boxes that Steve carries around as though they were filled with nothing rather than the alarming number of political biographies and illustrated art history folios he’s collected in less than 6 months.

“Perfect opportunity for what?” Steve asks. He’s sitting on the floor and going through what looks like his baseball card collection from when he was a kid. The thing is probably worth millions of dollars.

“To give you a gift, do you not want your gift?” Bucky asks. He plops down on the unmade bed next to the box and waggles his eyebrows.

Steve sighs and stands up, but Bucky knows it’s all an act. Steve makes a huge deal about not making a huge deal. Bucky thinks he secretly loves getting gifts and being able to afford the things that he needs. That doesn’t make him any less of a bargain hunter. Bucky has heard Steve exclaim over the price of grapes no less than a dozen times.

“Who is the best boyfriend you’ve ever had?” Bucky asks just to be a little shit.

“You’re the only boyfriend I’ve ever had.” Steve points out, smiling and settling down beside Bucky.

“Fair enough.” Bucky places both hands on the box and pushes it towards Steve. “If you don’t like it though, we might legitimately have to break up.”

Steve squints at Bucky, but his hands reach for the tape and peel it away with ease. He lifts the flaps of the box and looks inside.

“I was kidding about the breaking up with you thing. But I though that you should have your own copies. I could have lent you mine. But—“ Bucky rambles. Steve’s still looking into the box. “I can return them.”

“No.” Steve says finally. He pulls the set of books out of the box and rests them on his lap carefully. “They’re beautiful.” Steve runs his hand over the spines of all seven books carefully. They’re in a case that holds them together, leaving the spines exposed. Brand new dust covers that have never been touched. Spines that remain rigid through the first reading.

He went for the hardback set. Of course. Books never smell the same when they’re paperbacks.

God, books are sexy. He doesn’t want to consider if that’s the reason Bucky went into being a librarian. Though sometimes when the library is closed and he walks the stacks, the smell of book paste and pages takes him away a bit.

And now he’s turned on because Steve’s holding the set of books in his amazing hands.

“I though we could read them together while you’re away.” Bucky tells him, “Over Skype. I’ll read a chapter and then you will.”

“That sounds great, Buck.” Steve tells him, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “But haven’t you read these already.”

Bucky snorts in what is definitely not a sexy move. “Of course, but its like going home again. And this time I’ll get to go there with you.”

Steve smiles from ear to ear and rolls Bucky onto his back, looming over him. “You are so sweet, and a dork.”

Steve drops his head down and kisses the join of Bucky’s neck and shoulder. Bucky laughs at the feeling despite the shivers running down his body. “Steve.” He whines. Steve pulls away, looking down on him. “Not in front of Harry.” Bucky says, nodding his head towards the books.

“You’re lucky you’re so handsome.” Steve tells him, getting up from the bed. He takes the set of books and carefully places them in a box labeled ‘Steve’s Swamp Town Stuff’.

“I’m not about to get it on in front of one of my childhood heroes. Excuse me.” Bucky tells him seriously.

And then there’s not much to be serious about all after noon. And then again in the shower. And then after dinner.

-------

Bucky actually drew up a reading list. Mostly so that he could assure himself that he was seeing Steve’s reaction though all of the books as they made progress. Because knowing Steve, he would use his super brain to stay up for a week straight and read all of the Harry Potter books in one sitting.

And so they Skype, or call or text every night at seven to touch base and talk about their days. When Steve has to go out on a mission, he tries to use the satellite phone to call Bucky. But those are the days that Bucky walks around feeling like he’s holding his breath.

He pulls a few books from the display in the lobby of the library and carries them back to a few eager YA readers who are looking to move on from the teen section. One of the old ladies from Steve’s computer class calls out to him as she pulls on her coat and gathers her things to leave.

“Tell that boy of yours not to forget his family.” She looks at Bucky seriously over the top of her glasses, Bucky does the same back to her.

But that has him softening. It’s hard enough being in a long distance relationship. When the world knows you’re dating Captain America, things can get even more complicated.

“Will do, Phyllis.”

-------

That night Steve calls to tell him about Sirius and Lupin. “There’s something there right?” Steve asks. There’s a crackle over the line. He’s probably half a world away, staring up at the ceiling of a small cabin in a submarine. Okay, that’s pushing it.

Bucky wanders from room to room, touching random things on his circuit. The storm trooper helmet Steve left on the dresser as a joke before he left, a random sketchbook, and the plain blue ball cap Steve bought to try to make incognito trips to the bodega on the corner.

He snorts into the phone, “I certainly think so. A lot of the internet too.”

Steve makes a noncommittal humming noise over the line.

“Tell me about your day.” Steve says, finally. “I can’t tell you about mine.”

And so Bucky does. He tells Steve about meeting Sam for coffee and how Sam wants a robot leg. “Sam mentioned something about Stark offering to make him a new set of wings, he wants to see if he could milk it for both the wings and the leg.

“Then I went to work and got stuck in the world’s most unnecessary conversation about gluten with a patron.” Bucky continues.

“Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

“Pretty?” Steve asks because he’s actually curious. He doesn’t get crazy jealous and then outright crazy. The only time that Steve’s ever seemed threatened was when Bucky mentioned off handedly that he thought Tom Hardy was attractive.

“Eh.” Bucky answers, shrugging. “I’m shrugging by the way, since you can’t see me. That was a shrug. After that I worked on some orders of new books for the teen department. Then I chased Darcy and her new boyfriend out of the nonfiction stacks and she told me I wasn’t fun anymore. Then I think they went and made out in my office.”

“Well, you never use it.” Steve adds. Ever pragmatic.

“Yeah, but I still don’t want anyone conceived on my desk.” Bucky answers. “Other than that, I mostly waited on patrons. Oh, and Phyllis grabbed my ass and told me I was her favorite and she hopes you never come back.” Bucky adds, just to make his day sound a little more interesting.

“My Phyllis?” Steve exclaims. And Bucky has no proof, but he bets that Steve is clutching his metaphorical pearls right now. “Grabbed your ass?”

Bucky bursts out laughing. “Okay, so I may have embellished. She mostly told me to tell you that you better come visit. Only she did it in a way that was vaguely threatening.”

“I’m so sure.” Steve responds, sarcastic.

Bucky waves his metal hand in the air dramatically. “Fine, don’t believe me. Don’t believe your poor, one-armed—“

“You don’t get to use that excuse. I spent a week hand feeding you after you got the arm because you claimed you couldn’t do it yourself. When I know for a fact that you spent a good few months eating with one hand.” Steve butts in. He’s so cute when he’s contrary.

Bucky shakes his head, leans against the kitchen counter and looks up at the clock on the wall the he made Steve change the batteries in on his second visit to the apartment. “I miss you.” He tells Steve, not because he wants the other man to feel guilty about not being there. But because he can’t hold it in any longer.

It feels so lonely around the apartment. There’s a good chance that every time Steve gets back, Bucky will have a new pet. He’s spent far too much time on Pet Finder.

“Two days.” Steve reminds him. “No complications.” Bucky knocks on wood. “I miss you too.”

--------

A funny thing happens on the way to the bathroom. Two dudes in suits march past Bucky on their way out of the director of the library’s office. They’re muttering to each other about “Ebay.” And “Fucking vultures. Probably worth a fortune.”

Bucky skids to a halt outside the door to the office that’s much fancier than his own. Mostly because it has two windows.

Karen, his boss is sitting at her desk arms crossed over her chest.

“What was that? Some kind of mob shakedown?” Bucky asks. Luckily Karen is a lot more accepting of Bucky’s sarcasm than their old library director.

Karen shakes her head and rubs at her temples. “That was the Smithsonian. Or at least two of the least charming men they have on staff.”

Intrigued, Bucky steps into the office and shuts the door after him. “The Smithsonian? What do they want?” He sits down on one of the chairs before Karen’s desk.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh just the usual, a pound of flesh and your boyfriend’s library registration card.”

Bucky frowns. “Steve’s registration. I filed it myself. It’s in the card catalog downstairs along with about a million spiders.”

Karen shakes her head. “No, Steve’s original registration.” She frowns. “It was probably purged in the last clean up we did.” She sighs. “There was no way to know that the guy was going to come back and save our asses from aliens.” She looks at Bucky’s arm for a long moment. “Sorry.”

Bucky shrugs. If anything, the arm has made him even more popular with the patrons. Hell, the teens all think he’s a total badass. And the new moms at story time won’t stop covertly taking pictures of him and posting them to Instagram.

“Either way, they’re fucking pissed that we don’t have it. Something about an exhibit in the works, and they’re combing every nook and cranny in Brooklyn for any sign of Steve’s life.” Karen tells him. A sick sense of dread coils in Bucky’s stomach at that. He thinks of the boxes of Steve’s things in his closet. The guy already doesn’t have much from before the war. He was poor and presumed dead for 70 years.

Bucky sighs, “Which probably means they’re headed for my apartment right now.”

Karen grimaces. “Sounds like a possibility.”

And that’s the story about how Bucky lied about being in possession of Steve’s grandfather’s pocket watch, his favorite cat’s eye marble from when he was a kid, and a old and mud splattered sketch book from the war.

--------

Okay. So Bucky is officially a criminal. And he could be fired for what he did.

But the look on Steve’s face when Bucky handed him the stolen copy of his library card registration with his mother’s signature was just as priceless as the Smithsonian thought the piece of paper was in the first place.

He asked for help from Pepper, who was well versed in art and document preservation on behalf of Tony’s collection. She took him to a tiny and crammed shop in Manhattan where a equally tiny woman placed the card between two pieces of glass in a frame so that Steve could see both sides if he wanted to.

Steve and Bucky are sitting on the floor in Bucky’s apartment, their legs folded into pretzels. He has a dinky Charlie Brown tree because that’s the only one that would fit. And usually he wouldn’t bother with a tree at all, but it’s Steve’s first Christmas since coming back. Steve reverently runs his finger over his mother’s signature over and over again. He plugged in the lights that he strung up all over the book shelves last Christmas and never took back down.

“How?” Steve asks him. He looks tired, having flown in the night before directly after a mission. He’s scruffy and worn around the edges, needs a haircut.

“I found it before I knew who you were. Well, before I knew about the Captain America thing.” Bucky tells him. “A friend from Brooklyn College told me that the Smithsonian shook then down for any of the artwork you did in your drawing classes. I figured that the library would be on their list of acquisitions. So I made Darcy stand guard and I stole it.”

Steve’s face splits into a grin. And it’s like Bucky didn’t just tell him he committed a crime.

“I feel like my present isn’t as good now.” Steve tells him. Bucky pokes him with his robot hand, just to watch him sway back forward.

“Psh.” Bucky waves a hand. “Having you here to kill that spider I trapped last night is a good enough gift.”

Steve goes red in the ears, Bucky’s favorite. God, when did he become so sentimental? Not that he minds.

“Well, I still got you this.” Steve says, he takes a small box from under the tree and hands it to Bucky. It feels deceivingly heavy in his hand. Steve wrapped it in dark green paper with a red ribbon. “I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it.” Bucky tells him. He rips off the paper as casually as he can when he’s secretly incredibly excited.

There’s a small black box under the paper, rectangular and a bit larger than Bucky’s palm, he lifts the top and looks inside.

At first he thinks it’s a lighter. A very nice lighter with a green marble body and gleaming silver on the top. There’s a note on very nice paper under it. Bucky pulls the thing out the of box and it has a real heft to it. He depresses the button on the top, and a cap lifts off the top, but no flame emerges.

It takes him a moment. “It’s a deluminator!” He exclaims. And how sweet of Steve to get him something Harry Potter related when they’re on the fourth book right now!

Steve shrugs, looking embarrassed. “It’s actually the deluminator.”

Bucky goes cold and then hot in the space of a second. “The Deluminator.” His voice is getting higher pitched as he speaks. Pretty soon only dogs will be able to hear him. “As in, The Deluminator that Dumbledore held in his perfect hand when he was dropping off an infant Harry Potter at the Dursley’s in the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? This was in the presence of Dame Maggie Smith?!”

And now he’s shouting. Steve’s nodding. “Also, apparently Ron has it at some point? We haven’t gotten to that part of the books yet.”

Bucky, now too shocked to move or speak, holds it in his hand and stares at it for a whole minute. “Oh my god.”

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, “I’ve never seen you at a loss for words.”

“How?” Bucky exclaims in a broken voice. His heart is hammering away in his chest.

Steve looks around a little guiltily. “I was on a job that required a lot of discreet maneuvering through the British countryside in pursuit of a certain individual who may or may not have ridden a golf cart into the wilderness and hadn’t been seen for days. And the government over there didn’t want to call attention to it. But a gracious, and embarrassed monarch insisted on offering payment in the form of a favor. I’ll say she cares for her family very much.”

Bucky pins him with a look. “Prince Harry? In the club? With a bottle of champagne?”

Steve crossed his heart with a finger. “I’m contractually obligated to never speak of it again. Anyway, there’s another part.”

And that part would be the note still inside the box. Bucky unfolds it carefully. In black pen on the crisp white paper reads the following:

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light"— Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Ron used this to find his friends when he needed them the most, now I leave it in your safekeeping. Happy Christmas, Bucky. –J.K. Rowling

Bucky’s pretty sure that he blacks out after that because he comes to minutes later standing in his kitchen with the window open and frigid winter air hitting him in the face. Steve’s standing with his back against the fridge, arms crossed over his chest, observing him curiously.

“You back with us?” He asks.

“I’m pretty sure I legitimately died and came back to life. Oh my god!” Bucky yells.

--------

Stark insists it’s not Christmas dinner. It’s just mountains of Chinese food and White Christmas on the television that takes up an entire wall. The guy has issues with formal family affairs. Not that they’re a family. Or ever formal.

Still, they’re all piled into Stark’s living room in their sweats because everyone was too lazy to get dressed.

Steve, Bruce, Natasha, Clint, Darcy, Thor and his girlfriend Jane, Sam (claiming to just be stopping by, but he’s helped himself to so many egg rolls that he might never move again), Stark, Pepper, and Bucky all bicker over who gets the last fortune cookie.

Tomorrow Steve and Bucky are having dinner with his mom and dad. Hopefully his entire extended family won’t drop in as a surprise. Steve doesn’t need all of his aunts forcing rum cake one him and insisting theirs is the best. Bucky doesn’t think Steve can get drunk, but if he’s forced to ingest that much rum cake, he’ll be stumbling.

Right now he’s comfortable with Steve’s arm around his shoulder in the corner of Tony’s giant couch. Natasha catches his eye across from them, winking.

And to think that it was only months ago that he was sitting at his desk, praying for the end of his shift so that he could go home alone and watch Netflix by himself. He used to resent Natasha’s efforts to get him out to the bar.

What luck that Bucky didn’t take that last half hour to wander the stacks looking for something to pass the time that weekend. What an incredible stroke of luck that he was sitting there when a gigantic, blonde man in squeaky shoes wandered up to his desk for the first time (of probably thousands). But the thing that’s probably the most unbelievable is that Steve came back after Bucky blew him off the first time.

And thank god that Darcy marched him back to the reference desk.

Because if she hadn’t Bucky would be sitting in his apartment by himself, with both arms. And even though he lost a part of himself he will never truly get back, being here with his friends as they bitch and moan about who is hogging the lo mein is more than enough of a fair trade.

Having Steve there beside him, is something that he never thought would be fortunate enough to have.

It wasn’t bound to happen, Bucky supposes. With Steve, the honeymoon is never going to be over and a bit of the magic remains. Sure, it’s difficult and frustrating at times to be dating a guy who belongs to the world. But day in and out, he pretty much never knows exactly what he’s in for.

13 copies of Twilight, 5 hold requests for the Gone Girl film that came out a year ago, 3 kids pulling anatomy books down from the shelves to giggle at and then study with actual curiosity, 2 irate patrons arguing about their fines, 1 smug-looking blonde guy with coffee and a bag from the bakery in his arms, and a partridge in a pear tree.

And then the movie is over and Stark hands Sam a set of keys and they all follow him at a run to the roof where a new, gleaming set of wings are resting with a gigantic red bow around them.

Chapter Text

Sooooo about a million years ago when I posted this fic, I never imagined it would become as popular as it did. Thank you to all of you who have left comments and feedback. I'm adding this chapter so that you can know that I've posted everything I have from my original draft for the sequel to this fic.

It's called 'The Winter Woman'. If you read this work when it was originally published, you might remember there was a teaser ending that was setting up a Captain America: The Winter Soldier AU. While most of the feedback was kind, some was not. I think about the day someone commented that it was a 'cheap ending that ruined the rest of the fic' and I really regret not just sticking with my writing and putting something out to spite them. No, dear reader I didn't write anything for years following that comment. I was super young, and sensitive. I backed up my drafts for multiple fics and then moved on to writing in other fandoms eventually.

But, last week I went and reread this entire series from start to finish. Enough time had passed where I really didn't know exactly was going to happen. I was really pleased with my writing and wanted to check out what else I had been working on in this series. And boy did I find a bunch. So I've posted a little ficlet about Bucky getting mugged and Daredevil saving him last night. And just posted what I have of the draft from The Winter Woman.

Enjoy!