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Emotions were a tricky thing, Bucky mused as he watched the evergrowing residents of Avengers Tower roam about, talking, joking, shoving and playing with each other.
Bucky didn’t think he had any of emotions left after all he went through, all the wipes, the electrocution, the freezing and hypnosis, he was a robot. He existed to obey commands and take them out with bullets. But slowly, right after that day on the bridge -- and the day on the crumbling Hellicarrier -- Bucky started to feel.
He wasn’t sure what he felt, but he knew it was tied to this blond man, this Captain America, this man who gave him a name, dropped his shield and didn’t defend himself against him, and even with Bucky trying to knock all of his teeth out of his jaw, the captain -- Steve, looked at him with such overwhelming emotion. Warmth. Sadness. Heartbreak, that was the word.
Heartbreak, from what Bucky gathered from the Captain America memorial in the museum, was all Steve knew long before he too went into deep freeze and came back out in this century. He remembered a lot of things now, especially after that exhausting fight with Stark, in which Steve sacrificed everything, even being Captain America, for him.
Captain America had dropped his shield twice for Bucky, what did that mean? Was it really just what he said to Stark? That Bucky was his friend? What qualified as a friend these days? What levels of friendship were there, because Steve’s curious relationship with the Widow -- with Natasha was different to the one he had with Sam and to, supposedly, the friendship he had with Stark.
Judging by the Steve Bucky remembered, the small, sickly, righteous, vicious little bastard with a mouth bigger than his lousy lungs he knew in 1940s Brooklyn, and the strong, enhanced, steadfast super-soldier he knew in the army, both wouldn’t put up with someone like Stark unless he had something really special.
Unless it had to do with his resemblance to Stark, Sr., who Bucky had killed.
With a deep sigh, Bucky rubbed his forehead and moved his hand up through his hair. He had done a lot of horrendous thing, things he was glad he only remembered very little of, but the video Zemo showed Stark, of Bucky -- the Asset killing Howard and his wife. Howard recognized Bucky just as he killed him and Steve knew all about this and didn’t tell anyone. Stark had a right in being angry but when it got too much, Steve went from just vicious in his fights to downright feral, him beating down Stark after he destroyed Bucky’s arm and destroying his arc-reactor with his shield, was one of the scariest things Bucky had seen.
Would Steve have done this for Natasha or Sam or the little witch he seemed to be aggressively parenting lately? Would he have done this for any of the other Commandos or was this a top-tier friendship that no one else could access?
If that was the case, then why didn’t Steve touch him?
During the war, soldiers practically hung off each other, there was barely a thing called personal space. He could say it was part of today’s culture but that wasn’t the case. Whenever Thor visited, he would half-lean on Steve, an arm over his neck and a hand on his shoulder as they walked, and he hugged him a lot. Thor hugged Steve far more than he ever did the Widow -- Natasha, or Stark or the Vision. Hugged him hard enough to crack his ribs and always came with Asgardian ale that sent Steve spinning and made him giggle, an emotion of many Bucky never saw directed his way.
Bucky had seen sadness, warmth, grief, concern, fear, outrage, and fondness directed at him from Steve, but the rest of his arsenal was reserved for others. Fun, camaraderie, embarrassment and even child-like giddiness came out for Thor, and annoyance, humor and inside jokes were a staple of his and Natasha’s peculiar friendship and the same went for Sam, including shared understanding, hobbies and the moments they spent silent in each others company.
The little red witch, Wanda, got worry, sympathy, and a quiet kind of affection, not the boisterous sort Thor got, the easygoing sort Sam got or the joking sort Natasha got. That shaped four people Steve touched, hugged and smiled at. People that didn’t include Bucky.
Bucky couldn’t remember the last time Steve aimed a smile at him that wasn’t sad. It made him feel like something in him was broken, setting off loose springs.
In a slightly odd news, Steve’s awkward and uneasy interest in Agent Carter’s niece, Agent 13, waned pretty fast, Natasha had readily tried to push Steve in her way, to make him share his feelings with her, to give her another stomach-turning kiss --
Bucky stopped thinking about Agent 13 as he felt his brain tighten and his breathing speed up. That day in that cramped car with Sam, when they watched Steve with Agent 13, it took all of Bucky’s self-control to not put his metal fist through the roof. What did she, who Steve had spoken to a total of five times, have to make him give her what Bucky didn’t get a fifth of?
It might be the same reason as Stark, his resemblance to Howard and her small link to Agent Carter, who had Steve twisted around all her little fingers. If anyone could be the spiritual successor to Carter’s hold on Steve, it would be Natasha, who had quickly slotted herself back at Steve’s side while Agent 13 distanced herself.
To make things more mind-boggling, Stark dropped next to him on the C-shaped couch of the recreation room. Loosening his grey tie and crossing his legs, Stark leaned back with an arm across the back of the couch and a glass of scotch in his calloused hand. “What’s the matter, Terminator?”
Though it’s been over a year since that day with Zemo, since Bucky saw the unhinged side of Steve, and they had since mended things with Stark and moved into his ‘superhero dollhouse’ as Natasha put it, but Bucky was still weary of him, like any day now he could freeze Bucky with nitrogen and break him apart with his welding hammer.
“Nothing.”
Stark quirked an eyebrow at him curiously and his eyes followed Bucky’s gaze to the far left, where Steve was sitting on an armchair by the window, reading an illustrated book. Natasha sat on the arm of his chair, pointing out parts in the book with a big smile on her face.
“Ah.”
Bucky ran his hand through his hair, it had gotten so long lately, long enough to braid. “Ah, what?”
“Tell me, Barnes, how do you feel about our little firecracker?” Stark asked, gesturing towards Natasha with his glass.
“Why?”
“Just trying to figure something out for you, because you seem pretty confused.”
“I’m not.”
Stark lowered his head, further raising his eyebrow in mocking disbelief. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m confused in general, but not about her. I remember her now. I -- the Asset trained her in the Red Room along with twenty-nine other prospective Widows. She resents me and I barely feel anything about who she is now.”
“Oh, I think you feel something.”
Bucky stopped playing with his hair and looked directly at Stark. “Which is?”
Stark waggled his eyebrows cartoonishly. Bucky distanced himself uncomfortably, hopping two seats away from Stark, who followed without missing a beat. “Baaaaaaarnes, come on. You can tell me. I won’t tattle.”
“I told you, I have some remnants of how I felt about Natalia, but not about this new person called Natasha.”
At that moment, Natasha slid off the arm of the chair and into Steve’s lap, her legs now stretched out across her vacated spot. Bucky gripped the rim of the coffee table to steady himself as the head-tightening headache returned. “Feel nothing at all.”
Natasha took the book from Steve and without a thought, he rested his arm across her calves and stroked her knee. Bucky gripped the table tighter, he could feel the thin wood stretching up under his palm.
When Natasha rested her head against Steve’s shoulder and Steve rested his cheek against her head, Bucky felt his blood burn and it quickly reached its boiling point. They were the picture of perfect affectionate ease and contentment.
It only took a quirk of Steve’s mouth — a smile, a genuinely at peace smile — for a chunk of he table to snap off in Bucky’s hands.
A loud crack resonated through the room, startling Stark into dropping his glass, Thor into slipping back on his cape, Vision flying half into a wall and Natasha and Steve to jump out of the chair at high-alert. Steve’s eyes paranoiacally darting from end of the room to the other, sweat already beading on his forehead.
When all their eyes landed on him, Bucky got up and left the room without a word.
The last thing he saw was Natasha rubbing Steve’s back.
Bucky considered that he should be happy for Steve for having Natasha fill the void Agent Carter — Peggy, her name was Peggy — left. Steve was a good man who deserved someone who truly knew him and appreciated him for it like Peggy did before he got the super-soldier upgrade. Like Bucky did way before Steve got it in his head to join the army.
He still sometimes found himself missing the days when Steve was short and weak and his. His to manhandle, to hug, to defend and to tease. Steve stopped being Bucky’s the day he dove into a Nazi camp to rescue Bucky and hundreds of other prisoners. That was when he knew Steve didn’t need him anymore.
But apparently, he did need someone else.
Sam Wilson was a nice, if not passive-aggressive, man. Though the passive-aggressiveness towards Bucky had gone from serious to joking as he talked more and more to Bucky. Sam loved birds, breakfast food, heights, sky-diving and joined the air force straight out of high school before he got involved in the experimental para-rescue division that gave him those fucking wings he wouldn’t shut up about.
He described his first meeting with Steve as ‘being trolled by Captain America’ and claimed that Steve continued to ‘troll’ him regularly, whatever that meant.
Niceness and wings aside, if Natasha had taken Peggy’s place then Sam had taken Bucky’s. If that wasn’t clear from Steve crashing several nights a week in Sam’s suit it was from the way they interacted. There was a certain…gentleness Sam treated Steve with, a gentleness that was aware of Steve’s self-esteem and knew when to be sarcastic and when he was overstepping, it was those light but joking shakes, the claps on the shoulder, the soft voice that Bucky used back with pre-serum Steve. In short, Sam gave Steve a lot of comforting touches and whispered to him or directly in his ear whenever they were in a room full of Avengers, like everything between was a secret.
You’d expect Steve to treat Bucky with that respectful gentleness, but all Steve did these days was keep Bucky at an arm’s length and treat him like he was about to break if he so much as nudged him.
Bucky watched them at Stark’s fiftieth birthday, sitting on a white couch that barely fit the both of them, squished near each other, each with a bottle of expensive beer that would do nothing for either of them. Steve talked with his hands and Sam would respond by leaning and whispering and sometimes Steve would laugh.
He couldn’t remember the last time Steve laughed at him or with him.
Natasha dropped herself next to him on the platform seats in front of the giant windows that looked down at New York City. Her hair was loosely curled today and she wore a backless satin purple dress, she was beautiful, objectively. Bucky didn’t know if he could ever feel an attraction to her or anyone after what he’s been through. Like several of his other emotions that started coming back piece by piece, arousal or lust had yet to make its way back to his body.
“Wooh!” Natasha huffed, leaning so far back she pressed against the glass, her short legs dangled her feet off the floor. “Think we’re far enough into the party for me to take my shoes off?”
Bucky avoided answering her by taking a sip of his juice. Orange juice today tasted nothing like the orange juice from before, it was more metallic, in a sense.
Natasha’s face came very close to his, her nose was within brushing distance of his neck. “Hey, there, Mr. Grumpy Gills.”
“What do you want?” Bucky groaned.
“It speaks!”
“Shut up.” Bucky shoved her lightly, making her cackle.
She leaned back in, testing her luck by setting her chin lightly on his shoulder. “You’re unusually crabby lately.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because you were becoming pretty chatty until this week.”
Steve threw back his head laughed and Bucky’s head automatically turned in his direction like a dog hearing its name. Steve laughed, his eyes shut, his broad shoulders shaking while Sam rubbed his triceps, urging “Listen, listen, just listen —” while he watched Steve with amused eyes.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the hand on Steve’s arm, the tight, steadying grip set there in a casual sense. Whenever Steve touched Bucky like that it was to hold him back, not because it was a mindless gesture of how comfortable he was around him.
Sam’s hand moved further up, tucking his fingers on the inside of Steve’s arm while his thumb pressed against his bicep, steadying Steve’s guffaws so he could lean in and whisper in his ear.
Bucky took another sip of his metallic orange juice, the bitterness of it was nothing against the already bitter taste of his tongue.
Natasha turned her head on his shoulder so she looked in the same direction. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Seeing Steve relax.”
“Steve is relaxed enough for you to make yourself at home in his lap,” Bucky thought angrily.
“He was so stiff when I first met him, called me ma’am. Ma’am, James, ma’am,” Natasha stressed, giggling. “He was also ready to go off at any minute, picked so many cranky fights with Stark and didn’t laugh at any of my jokes.”
“From what I hear you weren’t that cuddly when you two first met.”
“Hey, Clint had been brainwashed and kidnapped, I wasn’t exactly in a clowning mood,” Natasha defended. “But after Loki’s bullshit was over, I tried a lot to get him to talk to me, since we were both stationed at SHIELD. Told him all the jokes I knew, only started to get a smirk after three months. Three months of jokes, James!”
“Have you considered that maybe you just have a shitty sense of humor?” Bucky asked, forcing a humorless smile. “And don’t call me James.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Natasha snorted, shoving his arm. “But really, I tailed him around like the world’s most annoying kid sister, talking at him, trying to get him to socialize and go on dates but that tank is as stubborn as a mule.”
Bucky felt a real smile taking over his mouth. “Yes, he is. The stubbornest ass in those whole town.”
“I don’t think stubbornest is a word.”
Bucky’s grip tightened on his glass as Sam set one knee on the couch to give him some leverage as he pulled Steve back into his personal bubble. “This New York, anything you say with enough feeling is a word.”
“Nice to know Steve took all the stubborness of this state to heart,” said Natasha. “He slipped out of every group meeting or date I set up for him so he could make friends, insisted he didn’t need my help. Which he totally did, but I’m guessing he just didn’t go to any of my set-ups just so he could continue being a stick in the mug,” Natasha continued. “Then he decided to make his own friends like a big boy. I don’t know why he picked harassing joggers near the Lincoln Memorial as a way to make friends, but you do you.”
“So, Steve ‘trolled’ Wilson, huh?”
“Aggressively-flirted is how I’d describe it,” Natasha said off-handedly, making Bucky choke on his drink. “Steve basically stalked Sam for a couple of days, learned his jogging schedule then decided the best way to get his attention was by annoying the fuck out of him. Classic pigtail-pulling right there.”
Steve turned bright red and put a hand on the Sam’s arm, the one gripping his and pulling him closer as his mouth remained pressed to Steve’s ear as Steve bashfully stretched his neck to the side, turning his head away as he laughed. From this angle, it looked like Sam was kissing his neck and making him blush.
The glass of orange juice shattered in Bucky’s hand. He threw the rest of it on the floor and left in a hurry, just so he wouldn’t have to see his replacement doing what he could have been doing right now.
Bucky was starting to suspect that what made up his frosty relationship with Steve now was all about loyalty and not much else. Steve risked everything to save Bucky three times, once at the Nazi camp, once on the Hellicarrier and another against the whole world and Stark. Did he do all that because he loved him, because he was his best friend, or because he felt that he wouldn’t be able to sleep from the guilt if he didn’t? Was whatever Steve felt towards him back during the war anything like what he felt now? Was it the same as his fondness for Stark on Howard’s behalf or his attachment to Natasha as a new Peggy? Did Steve see him now, the Winter Soldier, as only a reminder of his Sergeant Barnes? Was all of this in memory of the Bucky he thought he could never get back?
“I’m not him to you, am I?” Bucky asked Steve from atop the breakfast island in the kitchen. He had hoisted himself up on the edge to watch Steve cook. Bucky’s vision flickered back between the past and the present several times like a shaky TV screen. Right now, Steve standing with his back to him while he nudged eggs around a pan on the stove in mismatched clothes, blue pajama pants and a white undershirt, was exactly like one vivid memory of their lives when Bucky moved in with Steve after his mother died. Bucky woke up to Steve hunching over in a tiny undershirt that showed his bony shoulder-blades poking out against the cloth and worn-out pajama bottoms. The only difference now was that instead of bones it was rippling muscles in his back and the stove was made of glass and the clothes were new.
Steve looked at him from over his shoulder with a small frown of concern. Concern was all he ever got from Steve, not laughter, not jokes, not smiles. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not actually James Barnes to you, I’m a reminder of him, like Stark — Tony is a reminder of Howard,” Bucky reasoned, rubbing his hand up and down the cold, divided lines of his metal arm. “Is that why you won’t look at me? Because I don’t look like him anymore.”
Steve fully turned around, the second of his emotions reserved for Bucky was on display: sadness. “I’m looking at you now, Buck.”
“You really aren’t,” Bucky said, felling the small gaps in between the sections of his arm, feeling their sharp metal edges, the inhuman coldness of their design as he vividly remembered Sam’s hand around Steve’s arm. “I feel like you’re trying to imagine something else in my place.”
“I’m not, it’s just sometimes it’s hard to get used to how you look now because to me, nineteen-forty-five was still four years ago. And I just got you back this year, so I keep expecting to find you in a blue peacoat with your hair short and your dog-tags in your mouth.” Steve stopped and pressed his hand to his chest, instinctively feeling for his own dog-tags. “I wake up most days and still think I’m going to be in our tent, that I’ll hear jets flying overhead, feet stomping on the ground and your voice telling my lazy ass to get up.”
“Do you wish you could go back there? Back to where everything was as you left it?”
“No, Buck, I wouldn’t. It was a horrible time for all of us, HYDRA was spreading fast, people were dying by the hundreds every day and you —” Steve choked, his hand moving up from his chest to his throat as his lips wobbled. “You had just fallen off the train.”
“I remember that,” Bucky said distractedly, gripping his metal arm as he quickly relived his fall. Steve reaching out, screaming his name, hitting his arm on the side of the cliff then landing on it. The bone had snapped up and out of his skin and blood gushed out at an alarming rate, turning the snow red. Then HYDRA found him and Zola sawed off his snapped arm.
That was when he stopped being the Bucky Steve loved.
Bucky frustratedly banged his fist against his metal arm. “There’s nothing I can do about this, but I can cut my hair,” Bucky suggested desperately. “I can cut it and style it like I used to, I can find clothes that look like they did back in our time — fuck, I can even find a blue peacoat if you want.”
Steve came closer, the concern back in his eyes. God, Bucky hated that look, he hated seeing nothing but it, especially when he remembered how Steve looked at Sergeant Barnes. “Bucky, what are you talking about?”
“I can pretend for you!” Bucky shouted. “I can be him again, just give me some time, okay?”
Steve cautiously reached out a hand, Bucky could already feel the restrained touch, the emotionless gentleness that was afraid he would crack like thin glass. “That’s not what I want.”
Bucky jumped off the island and took one step forward, getting up in Steve’s face. “Then what do you want? Tell me, just what can I do to get you to look at me like you look at him, or like you looked at Carter or Wilson or the Widow or even how you fucking look at Stark!”
“Bucky —”
“What do I have to do to get you to touch me again?” Bucky’s voice cracked as so many memories of his time in the army, in the control of HYDRA, then the Soviets, then his moments in and out of the ice, his time in the Red Room tossing agents around around, his time back in HYDRA’s control —
— his time in Steve’s mother’s house, sleeping on the couch cushions on the floor, watching him cook while he folded the laundry, pulling him out of back-alley fights and into his arms, taking him to the pictures and dragging him on double-dates to dance clubs. The days where he was all Steve saw, before Agent Carter, before Howard Stark, before the serum, before Thor, the Widow and Wilson and their grabby hands. Just what could he do to get those days back?
The only answer to this cold distance, this sickening reverence Steve treated him with, was that he didn’t see him as Bucky anymore. If he wasn’t Bucky then he wasn’t worth Steve’s love and all that came with it, the warm laughs, the affectionate touches, the loving smiles.
Those were all directed at other people now.
“What do I have to do to get you to love me again?” Bucky finished, his voice trailing off as he looked at his feet. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and the Widow or Wilson, if they share you or if there’s nothing but I can’t take watching you with them.”
A finger tipped his chin up, Steve’s eyes met his for once filled not with heartbreak, pity or concern, but understanding. “Buck, I kept my distance because I thought it was what you wanted.”
“What?”
“Sam said that I shouldn’t smother you because you were in a confusing time, that you might need space.”
“Oh, Sam, said so, did he?”
Steve frowned at him suspiciously. “I’ll never understand what you two’s problem is.”
“I don’t know what his problem is but my problem is him replacing me.”
“He’s not replacing you, no one could do that, you know that.”
“Do I? You seem to not need me for much these days when you have him and Natasha to hang all over you and smile at.”
Steve opened and closed his mouth, briefly at a loss for words.
“I just want a real answer, Steve,” Bucky said, searching Steve’s face. “Just tell me the truth and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I don’t want you to!”
“Then why are you leaving me alone?”
“I thought it was what you’d want!”
“Ask me what I want next time, you hard-headed bastard!”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck, flushed pink with embarrassment. “I guess you’re right.”
“What did you think you’d do if you so much as hug me? Crush me?”
“Scare you, make you uncomfortable,” Steve listed off. “You’ve been through a lot, physically. I knew when I first came out of the ice I couldn’t stand anyone being near me.”
“It’s been a while since we both came out of the ice, pal,” Bucky reminded softly, holding Steve steady by the arm, pressing his thumb against the curve of his muscle. “You know me, I’m not the type to take it lying down, if you so much as pissed me off I would have told you.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that. You could still be conditioned into being obedient and not complaining or something. I wanted to do everything to make you comfortable and maybe, if I left you alone long enough, you’d come back to me.”
“You think too much,” Bucky told him, laughing tiredly. “You’re my lifeline, my anchor to everything, including my sanity, you think I’d want that far away from me?”
“Guess I wasn’t really thinking then. The second I saw you I wanted to be touch you, squeeze you, make sure you were real, that you were really here, but you were out of it for months, you barely remembered who you were and if I had started that all up with you again, it would have been like taking advantage. You wouldn’t know any better.”
“And if you knew that I actually wanted us to go back to how it was before, none of this easing-me-in bullshit?”
“I knew that if you’d let me I would cling like a limpet,” Steve sighed heavily, cracking a real smile, like all those times from Bucky’s oldest memories. “It would have taken a giant crowbar to pry me off you.”
“Then what’s stopping you?” Bucky whispered, his heart hammering in his chest. “I don’t want you to walk on eggshells, to give me space or fucking ignore me. I want to know what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling and how you think and feel about me.”
“I thought it was obvious.”
“It clearly isn’t.”
Steve’s fingers left his chin, sliding up so his hand could cup Bucky’s jaw. “Bucky, I don’t want you to change, you aren’t close to who you used to be and I know that.”
Bucky raised his metal arm sadly. Steve pushed it down but kept his hand on the arm’s wrist. “But I’m not either. I’m not half the man I used to be.”
“That’s my line,” Bucky snickered.
Steve shoved his head light with the hand on his face. “Shut up, I’m trying to be emotional here.”
“Please, try your best with that.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“I’m serious,” Bucky said, putting his hand on Steve’s. “Are you telling me that you think you’ve changed as much as I’ve been changed?”
“Well, yeah. Look at me, look at this body, hell, Bucky, look at my hair, it’s spiky and shit. People these days don’t brush their hair.”
“I’m looking, pal,” Bucky assured him, looking him up and down appreciatively. “I’ve been looking for a long time, just wondering if I’m still in look-but-don’t-touch land.”
“Touch whatever you want, just don’t touch my hair,” Steve joked. “A lot of effort goes into looking this messy.”
“So, we’re good?”
“We’re great.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Steve rolled his eyes fondly. “God, I missed you.”
“I missed me too, I missed me being with you,” Bucky admitted. “I missed you being yourself around me, I missed you being mine.”
Steve moved in and pressed his mouth against Bucky’s. Bucky’s senses went haywire, the blue of Steve’s eyes close and full of life, the hair on his arms rising with a wave of goosebumps and excited shivers, his mouth buzzing with every quick and desperate slide of Steve’s lips against his.
Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and pulled him down and further into in the kiss, rubbing his nape and feeling and squeezing his broad back, biceps and grabbing chunks of his hair. This was all his, a side no one else will get to see, not Natasha, not Sam, not Thor or fucking Agent 13.
Steve melted on top of him, the hand on his face moving up into his hair and the hand around his wrist moving up to his waist, wrapping an arm around it to pull Bucky closer to him. An explosion of sensations and emotions burst from Bucky’s mind and through his body, all the ones he was missing before now: relief, excitement, pride, shock, desire and adoration, enough to make his heart burst.
They pulled apart, panting, staring at each other.
“Does that answer your question?” Steve panted, rubbing the back of Bucky’s head, combing his fingers through his hair.
Bucky moved in closer, nuzzling Steve’s cheek then the side of his nose, breathing on his skin, “Still might need you spell it out for me.”
“I am yours, always,” Steve whispered against his mouth. “As long as you’re mine too.”
“You’re damn right I am.” Bucky put his hand on the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him down into another slam of a kiss.
There was something else Bucky felt now, he didn’t have a name for it yet, but he would figure out. They would figure it out, they always did.