fanficition cove

Originally written/posted: August 2014
Fandom: Captain America (2011)
Universe: AU: Modern Setting (No powers)
Pairing: Steve/Bucky
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 27,934
Warnings: PTSD, Violence, Ableist Language, I don’t consider this a “warning” but this fic features amputee!Bucky. 
Notes: For over a decade, this existed as my longest work in fandom. I actually only surpassed it a couple years ago. This fic is also very near and dear to me. I was very proud of it for a long time. Admittedly, I have not reread this, so I’m not sure how accurate the portrayals are (I do remember doing a fair amount of research, but that is not a failsafe) so please heed the warnings, and take caution if necessary!

Bucky’s newspaper is missing.

It’s the third time it’s happened this week alone, and while Bucky would consider himself to be a pretty patient person when it  comes down to it, there’s only so much he can take. He’s tried being polite about it; he’s left multiple sticky notes on his neighbors mailbox (“please stop stealing my freakin’ newspapers” and “you have your own why are you stealing mine”). He’s started borrowing theirs, but he’s always prompt about bringing them back; he’s fucking considerate.

Alas, his newspapers keep disappearing, and his neighbor won’t acknowledge his notes. He’s not even one step closer to getting his own papers back, and it’s making him cranky. As it turns out, stealing his neighbor’s papers like they’ve been stealing his is exhausting when they could just be avoiding this in the first place.

He just can’t not do anything about it anymore.

*

He waits until he’s sure they’ll be home, and saunters over there.

It’s dead in the middle of summer, the DC heat beating hot and insistent on his back. The hair he hasn’t bothered to cut yet is curling around the edges of his neck, sticking uncomfortably to his skin, and it only serves to fuel his foul mood. He’ll have to get it cut soon. It’s starting to look greasy and it’s becoming unmanageable. Even though he definitely has the time he doesn’t want to spend hours in the bathroom every morning styling it. There’s only so long he can ride the “recent veteran” train before his hair just becomes inexcusable (Sam tries to tell him this is not actually a thing, but it is, okay; Bucky reads, it’s a thing, a bad thing. It’s a bad thing he’d like to stop doing). It all just makes him wish he had a rubber band to tie it up so he doesn’t have to deal with it anymore.

He knocks and waits an impossible amount of time, tapping his fingers against his thighs and leaning on the side of the house. It’s a near replica of his own, down to the same flowers lining the front porch and the wood railing leading up the steps. It’s oddly comforting.

He’s just about to call it quits and head home when the door opens.

Bucky’s not sure what he was expecting, but this was not it–the man is literally sculpted from marble, with a breadth of shoulders that Bucky hasn’t seen outside of weightlifting competitions and a slender, defined waist that he wouldn’t mind tracing with his fingertips. His hand twitches at his side, but thankfully he’s too frozen to move. The man’s shirt is covered in splatters of paint and Bucky wonders if he’s remodeling.

“How can I help you?” The guy’s voice is as warm as his eyes are–and they are impossibly blue, Bucky notes–and he finds that he has a hard time not sinking into them.

Bucky’s eyes travel from the man’s eyes to his too-pink lips and ignores the jolt that travels through him. He has never seen someone so impossibly attractive before.

The thought is enough to snap him out of his daze, and he scowls. “You need to stop stealing my newspaper.”

His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. It’s one of the odd moments Bucky wishes he had a camera. “Pardon?”

Bucky’s stare doesn’t waver. “You need to stop stealing my newspaper,” he repeats, slowly.

“I haven’t been stealing your newspaper.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, because he’s positive it’s this guy. He’s ruled everyone else out through reasonable doubt and deniability. There’s no way Ms. Carter on the opposite side could be stealing his papers, not when she’s nearing ninety-three. There are some days Bucky isn’t even sure the poor woman is still alive, though he does know Sam makes his way over there regularly to check for a pulse. “You are.”

“I can assure you, sir,” the guy says, and he doesn’t sound annoyed or angry at the accusation, if anything he sounds amused. It does nothing to dull the fire burning bright through Bucky’s stomach. “I am not stealing your newspaper. I have my own.”

Bucky squawks. This is his entire point. “Exactly. I’m gettin’ tired of lugging my ass over here every morning to read yours.”

The guy looks thoughtful now. “So, that’s where they’ve been disappearing to.” His eyes brighten, then, and his grin widens. “The notes.”

“What?”

“The notes,” the man repeats. “You’re the one leaving the notes on my mailbox.”

Bucky at least has the decency to flush a little, at that. The notes, now that he thinks about it, are kind of really embarrassing. And they were angry; very, very angry.

“Yep,” he drawls, crosses his arm over his chest. He doesn’t miss the way the man’s eyes seem to track the movement and he also doesn’t miss when his eyes scan Bucky’s shoulders, a straight line to the empty sleeve of the shirt he’s wearing.

He can’t help but immediately tense up. He’s slowly working himself through the guilt and the enveloping sadness for the arm he lost during the war, but the process is slow-going and draining, and he’s not there yet, not even close. Somedays, he’s not even sure he’ll get to that point, when even getting out of bed makes him feel exhausted. But Sam seems to have faith in him. It’s not really comforting when you find out it’s just the man’s disposition in general, but he likes it all of the same. It’s enough, most days, to know that there is someone out there rooting for him.

It doesn’t make this any easier in the long run, doesn’t help the rigid line of his back ease when he gets triggered by something, doesn’t help the apprehension or the dread that fills him at the thought of fighting off another person’s pity and questions, but it’s nice.

This, Bucky thinks ruefully, is why he chooses to stay inside.

The guy doesn’t do that, though, the guy steps aside and offers him a grin, too bright and wonderful in the too-hot air around him. There’s something about it that makes Bucky relax again.

“Would you like some tea?”

Bucky blinks. “Uh.”

“I’m Steve, by the way.”

Bucky’s reeling, unable to process what it is the man–Steve–is saying. He stands there, ridiculous and awkward on Steve’s porch for long minutes, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind. If anything it only makes the smile on his face grow, like he knows exactly what Bucky’s thinking and why he’s hesitating.

“Bucky,” he says, eventually.

“Nice to meet you, Bucky,” Steve greets, easily. “Now, how about that tea?”

Bucky blinks. This day couldn’t get any weirder. “You’re inviting me for tea when I just accused you of stealin’ my paper.”

Steve shrugs. “Looks like you could use some,” like it’s completely normal to think about whether or not angry neighbors need tea.

He pauses for a second, wondering what exactly he’s getting himself into this time, and then thinks if Steve’s kind enough to offer beverages, he isn’t a serial killer. Probably. “Make it coffee and you have a deal,” he says, at last, because he never did have the stomach for tea, but there hasn’t been a time he’s been able to turn down coffee.

“Deal,” Steve says, and let’s him inside.

Bucky forgets all about the newspaper.

*

There is a dog.

There’s a giant dog, and it’s knocked Bucky to the ground. He doesn’t realize he’s on the floor until there’s a warm, wet tongue slobbering all over his face, licking long lines down his cheeks, and he can hear Steve’s embarrassed apologies and strangled noises in the background. Bucky waits for the anger to course through him, waits for the panic to propel him into pushing the dog off, but it doesn’t come, he’s free and happy and he can’t stop laughing.

“It’s alright,” Bucky wheezes, and slides his hand behind the pup’s ears. He’s eager. Bucky likes him immediately. “He’s alright.”

“Shoulda warned me you had a guard dog,” Bucky says a few seconds later, after Steve has successfully helped him off the floor.

He can’t help the flush that crawls up his neck and attacks his face. Sam says he’s still pretty shitty at accepting help when he needs it, but he doesn’t curl in on himself or try to escape like he wants to, which is probably good, Bucky thinks. He isn’t naive enough to call it progress, but if Sam were here, right now, he’d clap him on the back.

“Sorry about him,” Steve apologizes, again. “Cap’s excited around new people.” Steve named his dog Cap. Bucky doesn’t know why he finds that kind of cute, but he does. He refuses to think about it and follows the other man into the kitchen.

Bucky shrugs. “Can’t blame him for that.”

“I don’t, ah, really have people over much,” Steve admits, cheeks flushed crimson again. Bucky tampers down the thought of wanting to see just how far the color goes, and comes to a stop at Steve’s counter.

“Neither do I.”

Steve smiles at him crookedly. Bucky pretends it doesn’t affect him, and looks around the newly remodeled kitchen. It’s nothing like Bucky’s own that he hasn’t bothered to clean in weeks, this one is expansive and gorgeous with smooth granite countertops and freshly painted white cabinets that span the entire wall. Bucky likes it.

“So,” Bucky starts, conversationally. Cap comes up behind him and nudges his thigh with his nose, and it’s all Bucky can do to scratch behind his ears. It leaves him in an awkward position, having to lean his side against the counter so he doesn’t topple over onto the dog, but Cap is panting happily at him and Bucky’s fingers are buried in his soft, golden fur, so the counter digging into his skin doesn’t pinch as bad as it should. He remembers reading something about dogs being able to sense how people feel, and it should bother him that Cap is obviously feeding on Bucky being touch-starved, but it only makes his fingers clench in his fur more. It’s not like the dog can tell anyone, and he doesn’t think Steve will mind. “Not a guard dog then.”

“Nope,” Steve says on a laugh.

“Hmm, that’s too bad. I was hoping I could borrow him to fend off the thieves.”

Steve looks up from where he’s been fiddling with the coffee pot and grins. “Oh, he’ll fend them off. Just not in the way that would be expected.”

Bucky can’t help the smirk that tugs the corners of his mouth upwards, and leans conspiratorially against the counter. “I might just have to use him anyway. S’long as he gets unwanted folk off my lawn.”

“That, Cap can do,” Steve replies and hands over a mug full of steaming black coffee. It smells fucking wonderful. Steve flushes again, bright red and inviting and Bucky’s grip on the cup tightens. “I don’t know how you take it. There’s creamer in the fridge and the sugar is on the counter over there,” he waves a hand towards a jar full of, what is presumably, sugar.

Bucky shrugs and takes a sip of the coffee. It’s thick and is just the right side of bitter that he likes. “I take it black.”

Steve nods, and puts on a kettle for tea.

*

It’s a Tuesday, they’re in Starbucks and Sam is fixing him with a look that Bucky isn’t sure he likes.

“You seem different today,” he says casually, but it’s an opening that Sam isn’t forcing him to take.

This, Bucky thinks, is one of the things he likes most about Sam. He doesn’t force conversation, the ball always set firmly in Bucky’s court. He sits back and wills whatever will happen to happen, which is probably why Bucky chose him in the first place. He doesn’t do well with force, he’s come to find out.

It also helps that Bucky genuinely enjoys the other man’s company, finds him stable and funny and not suffocating. Not that he would ever say so, anyway. Sam would never let him live it down.

“Well,” Bucky starts, a wry twist to his lips. “‘Did try something new with my hair today. Glad you noticed.” It’s the truth. He’d been long overdue for a haircut, not having cut his hair since he was released from the hospital, and it’s nice having hair that he doesn’t have to tie up anymore, makes him feel less like the weathered soldier war made him and more like Bucky. “I would recommend her, but,” he waves his hand around Sam’s general head area and shrugs, “Seems like you’ve got that covered pretty well.”

Sam rolls his eyes, and shoves Bucky’s drink closer to him.

“Think you’re a comedian now, do ya?”

Bucky grins, shit-eating. “I’ve always been a comedian.” It falls flat, but if Sam notices–which he does, because Sam notices everything, Bucky knows–he doesn’t comment on it. That is another thing that Bucky likes about him.

They fall into a comfortable silence for a while, the only sounds their joined breathing and careful sipping from their drinks and Bucky can’t take it anymore.

“There’s someone stealing my newspapers.”

“Your newspapers,” Sam clarifies. “Did I enter an alternate reality where people still read those damn things?”

Bucky scowls. “There’s nothing wrong with newspapers.”

“No,” Sam deadpans. “Absolutely nothing wrong except for wasted paper and thousands of dead trees that don’t need to be dead.”

“Exaggeration will get you nowhere, Wilson.”

“It’s gotten me this far,” he says, and spreads the hand not clutching his cup across the table. “But, your newspapers are missing.”

Bucky nods. “I think it’s Steve.”

“Rogers?” Sam does not look convinced.

“Sure,” he says easily, because he isn’t sure what Steve’s last name is, not at all, but he’s pretty sure Bucky and Sam only know one Steve, together.

“You think it’s Steve,” Sam snorts. “The All-American guy next door. The dude who still insists on walking little old ladies to their carts at the grocery store when their carts are too full. The guy who probably rescues boxes of endangered puppies for fun. You think he’s stealing your newspapers.” It’s not even a question at this point. Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen him at such a loss.

There are times that Bucky hates the fact that his VA counselor lives across the street from him. This is one of those times.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “Is it you?”

Sam blinks. “Why the hell would I want your newspaper?”

Bucky’s shoulders sag. “Yeah. Yeah. You’re right.”

“I don’t think it’s Steve,” Sam says, and his face is softer, now.

Maybe Sam’s right–he usually is, though Bucky isn’t willing to admit it too often. “It’s definitely not the woman next door to you.”

There are times that Bucky isn’t even convinced that the house is still occupied, but he keeps that to himself. If it turns out that one of his neighbors was the master assassin with a loose lease that Bucky fully expected her to be, well, he really couldn’t say he’d be disappointed.

“Romanoff understands the importance of online newspapers.”

Bucky doesn’t dignify that with a response.

“Seriously, man. Online newspapers are a thing,” Sam insists.

“I know,” Bucky sighs. There must be something on his face, or maybe in his voice, because it makes Sam pause, makes the reusable Starbucks cup freeze on it’s path to his lips. “It’s just–” It’s just that things are different now and stupid shit like newspapers and solo cups aren’t as easy to let go of as they used to be. It’s not something that he can vocalize either, certainly not to Sam, not without feeling like a self-destructive moron with no control.

Sam’s face smooths out and he clanks his mug against Bucky’s own. “File a complaint with the city,” he says, and it’s the most helpful thing he’s said so far. “You’ll get your newspapers again.”

“Thanks,” he says, instead of something utterly corny, “I’ll do that.”

*

Bucky goes down to city hall to file a complaint the next morning.

The lines are long and his feet ache by the time he stops in front of the desk of a bored looking woman who can’t stop flexing her fingers. He absolutely does not want to be there, but he does want his newspapers so he plops down in the seat in front of her and stares at her until her eyes meet his own.

It takes about as long as he expects.

“How can I help you sir?” The sound of her gum clacking in her mouth is enough to make him flinch.

“My newspapers aren’t being delivered,” he says.

She raises her eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“My newspapers,” Bucky repeats, this time slower. “They’re not getting delivered. To my house,” he clarifies.

She sighs, and clicks a few things on the computer. “Address?”

He rattles it off and rests his arm in his lap.

“Sir,” she starts, a few minutes later. “I can assure you your newspapers are getting delivered as scheduled.”

Bucky blinks. He can’t help the fire-hot anger that spreads through him like a fire. “Funny how they ain’t showing up when I go to get them, huh?”

The lady just stares at him. Her fingers are twitching for the phone, and he really doesn’t want to have to deal with her manager or whoever she’ll signal to come down to calm him down, and wills his voice not to sound so mean.

He lets out a breath. “Look, I just want my newspapers again. That’s all I’m asking.”

“I can do that, sir,” she says, and her hand slides back to her keyboard again. “I’ll put in the request for our deliverer to take extra care with your delivery, okay?”

Bucky manages a smile, and feels lighter than he has all week. “Thank you. I ‘ppreciate it.”

She nods, pleased, and offers a, “Anything else I can help you with?” But Bucky is already gone.

*

Bucky eventually finds himself a job, because he can’t not work for long, and his army pension is already running thin.

It’s a shitty call center job where he makes absolute crap for pay, the hours are long and horrible and his co-workers don’t stop staring at his missing arm, but it’s nice to feel like he can do something other than stew in his house, watching re-runs of Friends all day.

It helps that his boss is also a veteran, keeping Bucky’s tasks simple but tedious, and it keeps his mind off the phantom pains in his shoulder and how every damn person he speaks to grates on the edges of his skull.

“You need to go home now, James,” Hill says, stopping by his desk.

Bucky blinks at her. “Huh?”

“Home,” Hill repeats, smiling wryly. “You’ve been here for ten hours, and that’s far more than your shift today.”

“Oh.”

Bucky hadn’t even realized how much time had passed, which is new and he appreciates it. He doesn’t hate his job, not at all; it’s awful and the people–both his fellow employees and the customers–are worse, but his boss is great and doesn’t take any of his shit, which Sam says he needs. She doesn’t focus on his arm or how he’ll flinch every time someone slams a cabinet or drops something on their desk loudly, either.

His boss is a fucking catch, basically.

“C’mon,” She’s looking at him now, with soft, kind eyes, but her mouth is a hard line, like she will physically drag him out of here if he doesn’t comply–and she will, too, had his first day when he didn’t want to leave his desk because the thought of going back home to an empty house made his hands lock up, made his knees shake and his palms sweat.

“Sorry,” he says, and he is. “I didn’t see what time it was.”

“Just don’t make a habit out of it. Someone might think you’d actually like to be here.”

Bucky’s laugh is punched out of him. “Now, why would anyone think that?” He drawls, and let’s the sound of her answering giggles surround him like a blanket on the way to Sam’s car.

*

Between the part-time work Bucky manages to get (Maria refuses to let him work more than three days a week) and weekly meetings with Sam and reading his newspaper, he hasn’t had the time to see Steve, or think about him at all, really.

It’s not that he minds, really, he barely knows Steve, but he enjoys his company, and Bucky doesn’t find that much these days.

He manages not to go over here for a week before he cracks.

*

It’s the fifth time that Bucky has wandered over to Steve’s, and his gaze keeps straying to the empty sleeve.

Bucky’s in a good mood today. He had a nice meeting with Sam that didn’t end in one of them being covered–accidentally or not; it is, Bucky ruefully admits, a painfully common occurrence–in burning hot coffee and he was able to go to the grocery store without having a glaring match with one of the sales associates who seemed convinced that he was helpless.

So, he’s in a good mood, and Cap is licking happily at his feet, which is why instead of getting mad about it, angry about Steve’s curiosity and the way he isn’t even trying to hide his staring now, he blows out and exasperated breath, “You can ask, you know.”

Steve jumps and his eyes meet Bucky’s, looking wide and guilty. “I-”

Bucky awkwardly gestures to his own arm with his only arm and laughs. “About the arm, I mean. You keep glancin’ at it.”

He really does look guilty now, but Bucky waves it off. “Look-” Steve starts.

“It’s okay,” he says, and it makes him pause because it’s true. “I don’t mind.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Steve hastens to reply.

Bucky laughs. “Really, pal. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Steve says, feigning ease. “What happened to your arm?”

“War,” Bucky drawls, and then adds, “Was walking by an IED with one of my men and pushed him out of the way when it blew.” Bucky doesn’t like thinking about it. It’s not like he regrets it, because he will never regret saving one of his own, but he doesn’t have an arm, at least not anymore. There are still mornings when he wakes up and expects two arms and ten fingers but only gets five, and those mornings are the worst; when it’s hard to breathe and he can’t seem to make it out of bed.

“Army?”

Bucky nods. “Yep. The 107th.”

“Oh,” Steve says, and thankfully doesn’t say ‘I’m sorry’ or give Bucky some shitty condolences that he probably wouldn’t mean anyway–well, actually this is Steve, and Steve is painfully earnest. It’s silent now, but it’s better than the alternative, so he sinks into it like he sinks into the chair at Steve’s counter and breathes.

“I almost joined the army,” Steve says, eventually.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? Why didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he pauses. “ I couldn’t. Too many health issues, apparently.”

Bucky snorts. “‘Find that hard to believe.”

Steve shrugs. “I was smaller, before. Ninety pounds, soaking wet, and barely reached my mom’s shoulders.”

The weird thing is, now that Steve’s mentioned it, Bucky can picture a tinier Steve, one with stick-thin arms and a shitty immune system that wasn’t strong enough to support him, wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets to keep the heat in. It makes him embarrassingly protective to the point that he can feel heat rush into his cheeks.

“I was angry,” Bucky says, suddenly, because Steve shared something and he feels like he should too.

“At?”

“Everything,” and it was true. Bucky couldn’t remember a time that he wasn’t angry at something before he joined the army, and now it’s hard to feel anything at all.

“What about now?”

“What?”

“Are you now? Angry, I mean.” Steve’s expression is open and kind. Bucky doesn’t deserve the kindness Steve is frequently offering him. He’s not a nice person, he’s not sure he’s ever been a nice person, but here is Steve, pale and glowing and so fucking kind that it makes Bucky want to try.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Bucky laughs. It’s wry and brittle in his throat, but Steve doesn’t comment on it.

*

It’s only when he’s home, safely tucked in his own bed that he realizes he hasn’t opened up to anyone this quickly in ages, not even Sam.

Bucky isn’t sure how he feels about it at first, only that he isn’t angry or upset even, just content.

When he sleeps that night, the nightmares don’t come.

*

He’s over at Steve’s again when he notices the easel in the corner.

It’s blank but there are paints sitting right beside it, and a set of brushes that look used and well-loved.

“You an artist?”

Steve looks up, and smiles at him, bright and wide. Bucky’s heart stutters in his chest. “Yeah,” he says. “That obvious, huh?”

Bucky shrugs. “‘Dunno, Steve. The easel in the corner is kind of a dead giveaway.”

Steve scratches behind his head. “I forgot that was there,” he laughs. It does things to Bucky’s stomach that he doesn’t even want to begin to analyze. “Just got a new client today so things are kind of messy.”

Steve’s house is immaculate and it makes Bucky laugh.

He thinks about the pile of clothes on the floor in his room that he hasn’t bothered to wash yet and the pile of dishes in his sink that he hasn’t even really thought about tackling, and sighs. Steve has his shit together, and Bucky hasn’t even started. He has no idea why Steve voluntarily spends time with him, but he wouldn’t put it past Sam to try and pester the clean-cut next door neighbor to try and make a friend out of a lonely, armless veteran.

“You call this a mess?” He asks, eventually.

“Yeah, okay, point taken,” Steve laughs.

A few minutes later, Bucky blurts, “How long you been an artist?”

“Professionally?” Steve laughs, “a few years. Though, my mom might fight me on that one. I’ve been bringing home art pieces since I was a little kid.”

Bucky can’t help the grin that stretches his face. “Let me guess,” he drawls. “You were one of those kids that colored inside the lines even in kindergarten, weren’t you?”

Steve’s cheeks redden, like the streaks on the canvas hanging on the wall behind his shoulders, and Bucky’s never been one to appreciate art or understand the appeal of, but he thinks he’s never seen something so beautiful. “Guilty as charged,”

“Unbelievable,” He pauses. “Actually, sort of believable. I’m really not that surprised.”

“Shut up.”

“Nah,” Bucky grins, “Don’t think I will, pal.”

Steve just snorts. It’s embarrassing how much Bucky enjoys the sound.

*

Bucky opens the door and expects to see Steve.

It’s not Steve.

“Hey, bro,” Becca greets, and there are bags at her feet like she intends on staying at least a little while, which doesn’t make sense. They never agreed to this. Bucky would’ve remembered agreeing to this. He hasn’t spoken to her since he was discharged from the hospital and, despite the fact that Bucky’s house is unusually presentable, he’s not ready for guests.

Well, he’s not ready for his sister.

There’s a reason he hasn’t seen her in months.

“Becs?”

“Why the long face?” Becca snorts, and pushes her way through the door.

“Uh,” Bucky stammers, and then picks up her bags, which, she helpfully forgot in her haste to get inside. “You know I only have one arm now, right kid?”

Her face turns red, possibly redder than he’s ever seen Steve’s turn–it should be impossible, really, he was almost positive his little sister was absolutely incapable of blushing, but here she is, standing in the middle of Bucky’s foyer, wringing her hands, red as can be–and he takes a irrational, boyish joy in it.

“Fuck,” She mutters, and then bites her lip. “I’m sorry, James, I just–forgot.”

“S’what you get,” Bucky says, dropping her bags unceremoniously at her feet, “for just showin’ up like this with no warning.”

Becca raises an eyebrow. “James,” she starts, voice softer than before. “You live alone. Not much I can, y’know, barge in on and interrupt.”

“I do things,” Bucky retorts.

“Right,” she agrees, disbelieving. “I’m sure.”

“I work now.”

She just pats his shoulders, but her eyes are warm and pleased, and her touch is softer than he thought it would be. “That’s great.”

Bucky sighs, put-upon and suddenly way too tired, but lets his sister pull him into the hug she’s been searching for anyway.

It’s not that he hasn’t missed her, because he has. They were close as kids, ransacking Brooklyn and painting the town red together when their parents were out pulling double shifts just to pay rent, but it’s hard now. He can’t open up to her like he used to, can’t show her the dark corners of his mind that he can’t shake , can’t let her know the war has damaged him more than just a lost arm.

She would understand, he thinks. She’s like Sam in that way, endlessly understanding, but twenty times more insufferable about it, and there are just somethings he’s not comfortable with his baby sister knowing about him.

“Missed ya, kid,” Bucky breathes into her hair, and it’s the truth.

“Have I ever told you it’s seriously creepy that you call me kid? I can actually legally ingest alcohol now, you know.”

“Doesn’t mean you can handle it.”

“I handle my alcohol fine, thanks for your concern.”

Bucky gives her a look. “Last I remember it, you had two shots of vodka and then you did a rendition of ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ that had our audience in tears.”

“I was seventeen!” Becca squawks.

Bucky rolls his eyes, and runs his hand through his hair. Of all the ways to spend a Thursday, this was not even on the edge of what he imagined. “How long you stayin’?” he asks instead, because it’s obvious that she is, and he needs to prepare himself.

She shrugs, and looks smaller somehow. “The lease on my apartment ended and my roommate bailed on me.”

“Until you find a place, then?”

“Yep,” she pops the ‘p’ loudly, because she knows how much it annoys him, and looks around. “I’m disappointed, James. This looks nothing like I imagined.”

“I haven’t had time to clean,” he lies. He’s had plenty of time to clean.

“This is just gross,” she wrinkles her nose, “How do you even manage to make this much of a mess?”

Bucky grins, wryly. “I’m truly talented.”

“I’d say,” She whistles.

“‘m a one-armed wonder.”

“You gotta stop dragging that around like you are,” Becca says, patting his bicep. “I know it’s your admittedly quite dismal attempts at humor, but not everyone will see that.”

He can’t help the scowl that twists his mouth. “You sayin’ I’m making you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Becca grins, because she’s Becca and no matter how much has changed, she will ultimately, always understand Bucky. “I’m just saying, not everyone will be as understanding as I am.”

Bucky sighs and picks up her bags again. “C’mon. I’ll show you to your room.”

“This is so weird,” She comments, fingers tracing their way up the railings of Bucky’s stairs.

“The Motel 6 across town has vacancies, if you’ve changed your mind,” Bucky offers, smirking.

“Not a chance, bro,” Becca plops down on her bed. “I’ve only just gotten you back, no way I’m lettin’ you go again that easily.”

*

When Bucky wakes up the next morning and blearily stumbles into the kitchen to start up the coffee pot, the pile of truly impressive pile of dishes in the sink is gone, hung out neatly in the dishrack he found at Goodwill for two bucks.

He stares at it for a long time.

*

“I’ve got to leave for a while,” Bucky says, standing in the doorway to the room Becca’s staying in.

Becca looks up from her laptop that’s perched on her lap, and her expression is expectant. “Huh. Guess you weren’t kidding about ‘doing things’, huh?”

Bucky smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “‘Told you, got myself a proper life now and shit.”

She laughs and it’s warm like the sunlight of the room. It hits him, them, just how much he’s missed having her around. There’s comfort in solitude–Bucky knows this too well, has been alone in a house that’s too big for just him for months now–but there’s comfort in having someone there, too, and he hasn’t felt that with his sister in a long time.

“I’ll pick up some food from that Chinese place you like across town when I’m done, okay?”

“‘Course. Don’t forget the egg rolls this time, you heathen.”

The Barnes’ take their egg rolls very seriously.

Bucky glares at her. “That was one time.”

“Which is one time too many.”

“Yeah, yeah. See if I bring you your damn egg rolls now, Becs.”

“You will,” she grins, turning back to her screen.

Bucky hates how she’s right.

*

“How did your VA meeting go?”

Bucky halts in the doorway. He isn’t sure how Becca always knows things, how she knew where he hid her favorite toys when they were younger, and how she knew before anyone else that he was gay, but she does. He’s a moron for thinking he  could hide this from her, really.

“How’d you know?” He asks, when his throat isn’t trying to close around words.

She puts down the book and pats the seat next to her. “You have pamphlets on your counter, James.”

He would’ve hidden them, if he’d known she was coming. It’s probably why she showed up uninvited–Bucky would’ve spent way too long hiding things from Becca that he couldn’t have hidden in the first place.

“Should’ve hidden those, I guess,” he says, sinking into the cushions.

She puts her hand on his knee. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Not embarrassed,” Bucky mutters. “I got past embarrassed a long time ago.”

She bites on her lip, looking younger than he’s seen her in years, and he passes her the bag of food that’s sitting forgotten on his living room table. “I’m here for you, you know that, right?”

Bucky sighs, closing his eyes because he’s never been good at this, at talking about his feelings. Least of all with his kid sister who he’s terrified of disappointing at every turn. They lost their parents when Bucky was just fifteen, and the only memories he has of them are the vanilla scent of his mother’s perfume and the way his father’s calloused fingers would stroke Bucky’s hair when he was upset.

They’ve only ever had each other, really, but Bucky could move heaven and earth before he would be able to easily talk to his sister about how he feels. Especially now, with the distance of war between them.

“I know,” he says, and leaves it because he knows that she’ll accept the dismissal. “Got you your egg rolls.”

Her eyes are heavy on him for the longest time, before she nudges his shoulder and grins. “Told you that you wouldn’t forget them.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky says, a wry smile twisting his mouth. “Less gloating, more eating.”

“Whatever you say, Sarg,” Becca agrees, and then salutes him with her chopsticks,

He throws rice at her face, and pathetically enjoys her answering screeches.

*

It’s the second week that Becca’s there when Steve finally meets her.

He’s surprised it’s taken this long. His sister has gotten better at respecting boundaries, but she’s still the same curious kid he grew up with, and She’s never known the right time to keep her nose out of things. He’s also been avoiding this moment since she walked through the door, but, Bucky can only keep her busy for so long before she takes it upon herself to intervene.

“Who’s tall, pale, and handsome?”

It takes every trickle of Bucky’s willpower not to spit his cereal in his sister’s face. “What.”

“Your neighbor,” At Bucky’s unimpressed blink, she adds, “y’know, the one with the dorito shoulders.”

“Dorito shoulders.”

“Dude,” she hisses, “You can’t tell me that his shoulder to waist ratio doesn’t remind you of a dorito.”

Bucky doesn’t understand how they’re related sometimes. “I can assure you, that is one thought that has never crossed my mind.”

“Uh huh,” she says, unconvinced. “Stop avoiding the question, Jamie.”

Bucky has the fleeting thought of paying her to leave, but dismisses it. “That’s Steve.”

“Steve,” she repeats. “You’re on a first name basis with your neighbor.”

He flushes, though there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, and coughs. “I, uh, kind of accused him of stealing my newspaper.”

“Your newspaper.”

“Y’know,” Bucky starts, his grip tightening on his spoon. “Repeating everything I say isn’t an actual conversation.” 

She grins, shit-eating and impossibly wide and Bucky kind of wants to throw his spoon at her. “I know.”

“Stop smirkin’ at me, and eat your damn food,” he grumbles.

It’s quiet for a while, and Bucky revels in it, he does, before, “So, how long have you been wanting to bang your neighbor?”

This time, he does spit his cereal in her face.

“Rebecca.”

She glares at him, reaching over to take one of the napkins she placed on the table to wipe at her face. “I hate you.”

“You startled me, that’s all,” He smirks.

She rolls her eyes, but says way too innocently, “I was just observing, James, that’s all.” She mocks.

Steve is attractive. It’s hard to miss, because Steve’s attractiveness is the kind that is impossible to ignore and equally as hard not to fixate on once you’ve started noticing. Bucky is well aware of it, and he thinks, that maybe, if he had met Steve before the war, things would be different. He could wine and dine and bed him, but he can’t do that, not now. Bucky could never ask that of Steve. He’s always been an angry kid, angry at his teachers and his parents and his god awful fucking town, but he was charming once. He remembers that, at least. He could talk his sister into tagging random buildings on the rougher side of Brooklyn, and could convince his parents into not punishing them for it.

Bucky’s not that person anymore.

So, yeah, maybe in an alternate reality, or if it were earlier, he could seduce Steve. He can’t now, no matter how much he may or may not want to.

Bucky opens his mouth to retort, but the doorbell rings, and he sighs. “You, stay,” he says, because the chances of it being Steve are greater than the chances of it not,  and he will never be ready for the moment that Steve meets his sister.

“Anything you say, boss,” she says, with the air of someone who is aiming to disobey.

He eyes her for a second, before sighing and heading for the door.

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve greets. His smile is blinding, not that Bucky notices or anything though. Really, he doesn’t.

“Hey, pal,” Bucky returns, and if he’s unable to keep the warmth out of his voice, then it’s the lack of caffeine.

“I, ah–” Steve stops, suddenly, biting down on his bottom lip. Bucky has to forcefully look away. It’s not an easy task. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “If you need help hiding a body, you’re comin’ to the wrong person.”

Steve’s eyes widen. “What? No–no, that’s not–why would I be hiding a body?”

“Just kidding, Steve,” he can’t smother his grin. “What can I do you for?”

He can hear his sister’s startled laughter in the background, and scowls at the sky.

He deserves a thousand medals for dealing with her, honestly.

“I got an urgent call from a client,” Steve explains. “I don’t usually get them, but this is one I can’t ignore and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind watching Cap.”

Bucky blinks. “Can’t dogs be left alone?” He’s pretty sure that’s a thing. He’s almost positive that is a thing that owners do with their dogs, leave them alone for the day while they go do things. They’re at least semi-independent, Bucky distinctly remembers hearing that on one of the informative dog shows Becca regularly watches.

“Normally,” Steve agrees. “But, ah, Cap has had surgery recently and he can’t be  alone.”

Bucky has no idea how to look after a dog, or any animal for that matter. He’s disgustingly awful at it, but he likes Steve, and Steve likes Cap which means Bucky can’t help but like him as well. It can’t be that hard, when Bucky thinks about it,

Bucky has no idea how to look after a dog, or any animal for that matter, and he’s finding it increasingly hard to say no though; mainly he just doesn’t want to. There are not many things Bucky can do for Steve but this is one of them, he thinks, this could be it.

“He has a dog.”

He jumps at the unexpected voice, and turns to glare daggers at the side of his sister’s face.

Steve looks between Bucky’s relaxed posture and his sister a few times and turns very, very red. “Oh. Am I interrupting something?”

By the time Bucky realizes exactly what Steve means by that, a string of mortified noises erupt out of his sister’s throat and Bucky blanches. “Steve,” he says slowly. “This is my sister. Rebecca.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a sister,” Steve blurts, after a few long moments of silence.

Bucky throws a grin his way and resists the urge to wink. Becca would never let him live it down. “That’s ‘cause I try to forget.”

“Y’know, your sister is standing right here, and she would appreciate it if you’d stop talking about her like she’s not,” Becca chimes in.

Bucky ignores her. It’s the most successful way to deal with her, he’s found “I can watch Cap,” he eventually agrees.

Steve is beginning to look increasingly panicked, like he’s not sure what he’s going to do if he can’t find something to watch his dog, and watching Steve’s incredibly well-behaved dog isn’t on the very short list of things Bucky wouldn’t do to make that look disappear–not that there’s actually anything on that list to begin with, but you know, he has to have some dignity at least.

“But, I gotta warn you. I have no experience with animals,” Bucky tells him. It’s only fair, he’s trusting his dog to Bucky’s care.

“It’s true,” Becca laughs, and then, much to Bucky’s absolute mortification, adds, “He once killed our pet fish because he tried to play with it. Outside of the water.”

“I was seven,” Bucky hisses.

Steve laughs, low and rich, like velvet and honey, and fuck if that doesn’t do things to him. By the look that Becca is shooting his way, she knows. “Luckily, Cap can handle some playtime.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky waves his hand. “Stop gangin’ up on me.”

“Sorry,” Steve grins, without sounding it all, really, and brings his fingers up to whistle. Cap bounds up a few seconds later, a plastic cone around his head and Bucky can’t help the chuckle that escapes his throat without his consent.

“He looks ridiculous,” Bucky says, at the same time Becca says, “Please tell me you took all the pictures of this,” in a tone that implies she’s really, seriously enjoying herself.

“I may of snapped a couple, but don’t tell him that,” he whispers, conversationally.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Bucky grins, because he can’t not when Steve is looking like that, like he’s everything good rolled up in an impossible human being.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Steve starts, and then adds, “I should be back in a few hours.”

“Alright,” Bucky says. He can do this. How hard is it to watch a dog?

Steve reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slip of paper. “Here’s my cell number, in case you need anything. He might need to go out in a couple hours, but he won’t leave.”

“Let me give you mine, at least,” Bucky offers, “Just incase you need to get in contact with me.” It is, as Bucky admits, not one of his smoothest attempts at getting someone’s number.

Steve just smiles though, like he doesn’t even notice, and hands him his phone. “Good point,” he says.

Bucky programs his number and gives him the phone back. “Alright. How hard can this be?”

Steve’s smile widens. This man is fucking unreal. “Well, lucky for you, Cap is pretty well behaved.”

“Lucky me,” Bucky agrees, scratching behind Cap’s ears when he presses his nose into the legs of Bucky’s pants.

Steve turns around to leave, before he stops. “Don’t let him scratch at his stitches,” he calls over his shoulder, and then he’s off, and it’s just Bucky, Becca, and Cap standing in the middle of Bucky’s foyer.

*

When the door closes, Becca opens her mouth to say something, and Bucky cuts her off with a withering glare. “Don’t.”

She throws a faux-innocent look at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky agrees easily enough. He sighs. “How the fuck do you take care of a dog?”

Becca laughs at him. “Figure it out, Jamie.”

“Get out of my house,” Bucky scowls, exasperated, but there’s a smile twitching at the corner of his lips and not even his overzealous sister can stop his racing heart.

“I gotta make sure you’re not going to accidentally kill his dog.”

Bucky doesn’t even argue anymore. It’s sincerely very possible that he might just do that.

*

As it turns out, watching Cap isn’t nearly as painful as Bucky thought it would be.

Bucky thinks if all dogs were as sweet and highly trained as Cap, he wouldn’t mind having one. He doesn’t snoop around the house like Bucky almost expects him to, instead opting to stick as close to him as possible. He gets used to the curious, wet nose pressing against the bottoms of his feet and into his pant legs after the hundredth time Cap does it, and it’s nice. He could get used to having this kind of company around.

He’s scratching behind Cap’s ears when his phone buzzes on his thigh.

Steve Rogers [7:43:24 P.M.]
I’m on my way back. Sorry that took so long.

Bucky can’t help the smile that hijacks his face, and then decides not to be embarrassed by it. It’s not like anyone can see him anyway.

Bucky [7:44:11 P.M.]
don’t worry bout it. everything ok?

The reply, this time, takes a few minutes, and Bucky busies himself with searching the cabinets for something to eat. The last couple of weeks he’s mainly been ordering takeout, since cooking with one hand is about as hard as it sounds and Becca hasn’t really ever been studious in the kitchen–Bucky used to be, though, back before the war, back when he would spend weekends with their grandparents over in Queens, pouring over their old recipe books and the faded index cards they kept in the drawer.

Cooking, he thinks, would be the only reason he’d ever consider getting prosthetic.

Steve Rogers [7:49:33 P.M.]
Yep. Now it is. I hope Cap isn’t giving you too much trouble.

Bucky [7:50:42 P.M.]
you caught me. having a dog warm my feet up is the most awful way i could spend an evening.

Steve Rogers [7:51:55 P.M.]
Haha. Glad he’s not too much of a hassle 🙂

Bucky blinks and blinks and blinks at his phone. Steve just emoticoned him. He’s not even aware where those are on his phone, much less how to incorporate them into text messages.

Bucky [7:52:24 P.M.]
did you just emoticon me

Steve Rogers [7:52:45 P.M.]
😛

Bucky is helpless when it comes this, is always helpless when it comes to Steve, which is why he isn’t really thinking before he sends out his reply.

Bucky [8:02:11 P.M.]
have you eaten dinner yet?

Before Bucky can really freak out too much about it, or think about sending a text awkwardly backtracking, his phone buzzes in his hand.

Steve Rogers [8:02:54 P.M.]
No, not yet.

Bucky sucks his lip into his mouth.

Bucky [8:04:32 P.M.]
wanna?

Bucky [8:04:55 P.M.]
over here, i mean. becca left to go explore the town so you don’t hafta deal with her

When Steve doesn’t answer right away, Bucky has half a mind to start a new message telling him to just forget about it, because Bucky really doesn’t need the embarrassment. He doesn’t know why he offered in the first place, but he think it probably has something to do with the fact that he and Steve are friends. Or are becoming friends, are on the fast-track to  that, and he feels like that’s something a friend would offer (and if there’s a selfish part of him that invites him because he sort of wants to stare at his face for forty-five minutes over dinner, well, then, no one has to know about that).

Steve does buzz through again, and Bucky almost breaks his phone in his haste to look at his reply.

Steve Rogers [8:06:03 P.M.]
Let me just grab some food for Cap.

Steve Rogers [8:07:11 P.M.]
But that sounds great 🙂

Bucky’s pretty sure even his sister can hear his sigh of relief across town.

*

There aren’t a lot of things Bucky can successfully tackle in the kitchen, so he decides on spaghetti. It’s easy enough to do with one arm and delicious and it also helps that he completely mastered it by the time he was fourteen.

He falls into an easy rhythm, putting the ground beef on the stove, swirling it around to gather up the grease while he waits for the water to boil. The house is quiet, with Becca gone off to explore and Cap’s exhausted, snoring at his feet. It took him a long time to get used to the utter stillness of the suburbs of DC again, took him even longer to be able to round the corners of downtown without waiting for a random gunshot to fly past his face or an ambush from a sparkling expensive car, but he likes it now.

It’s comforting and it’s easy to fall into old routine until the doorbell rings and Cap flies for the door, tail wagging excitedly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky laughs, and scratches his head. The cone is still fucking ridiculous, but also sort of cute, too. “There’s Steve. Don’t hurt yourself, pup. Already promised you’d be in one piece.”

As if Cap can understand him, he sits down obediently.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’ figures, huh?” Steve’s dog would be strangely perceptive.

*

Dinner is easy.

He hasn’t had something this easy with anybody, not even his sister or Sam, in a while and he thinks that he should probably be used to Steve surprising him by now, but he’s not.

“That was delicious,” Steve tells him, for what has to be the tenth time.

Bucky flushes. “You pack it in like a train.”

“Always been that way,” Steve shrugs, and his face is scrunched up like he’s shy about it. Bucky has to look away before he does something dumb, like crawl into Steve’s lap and kiss it right off. “Even when I was tiny.”

“You had three servings.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Steve glares, but he’s smiling and his eyes are light and Bucky’s breath hitches. Fuck.

“I’m not,” Bucky grins, and gathers the plates. “I just can’t believe you physically were able to eat that much, pal.”

“It’s good food,” Steve says in way of explanation.

He just shakes his head, making his way over to the sink to do the dishes. He doesn’t even have to think about it, just slides up and starts the water and he can’t remember the last time he’s done this without having a panic attack. He takes a breath and Steve is there, beside him with a towel thrown over his shoulder and he’s looking at Bucky expectantly.

Bucky gives him a weird look, but Steve waves it off with a grin. “You wash, I dry.” Steve offers.

There’s a protest on Bucky’s tongue, but Steve holds up a hand and smiles. “I want to help.”

“Okay,” Bucky licks his lips. “Yeah. Okay.”

*

Bucky’s newspaper starts going missing again.

He doesn’t say anything for the first couple of days, because maybe it’s a fluke, maybe the delivery person forgot about his house or they ran out of stock or something and Bucky isn’t going to freak out about that, he’s not–he’s learning and learning and learning that it’s okay if things don’t always go the way he wants them to, that he will find a new way that sometimes even works better than the old one. But learning and applying are two very different things, and it’s hard to be optimistic when his fucking newspapers are missing.

On the third day, his hands start shaking.

Hill sends him home from work when he fumbles with the phone for the fourth time in an hour and tells him to get some rest and to call ahead if he won’t be in on Thursday. He is endlessly grateful for that.

It’s a Tuesday, which means he’s supposed to meet with Sam but he can’t stomach the thought of meeting Sam, not like this, not when his hands are shaking and he’s working himself into a colossal panic attack about a newspaper.

Bucky [11:14:21 A.M.]
won’t be able to make it today. sick.

The response, as it frequently is whenever Bucky decides to text Sam–which isn’t often–is immediate.

Sam [11:15:24 A.M.]
Need me to pick you up something?

Bucky’s heart clenches in his chest.

Bucky [11:16:52 A.M.]
nah. i’m just gonna sleep it off.

Sam [11:18:23 A.M.]
Feel better

And then, another one following right after,

Sam [11:18:32 A.M.]
If you need to talk, I’m here. It’s what I’m there for.

Bucky doesn’t know how Sam always knows, but he supposes it just comes with being Sam.

*

On the fourth day, Bucky can’t take it anymore.

He thinks about going back down to city hall and demanding they give him all of his backlogged newspapers, but he doesn’t have the energy to drag himself down there again, so he shows up at Steve’s house instead.

“They’re missing again,” He blurts, unable to keep his mouth shut when Steve answers his door.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve greets, and that crease between his eyebrow appears. “What’s missing again?”

“My newspaper,” Bucky says.

Steve is quiet for a long moment. “It’s still not me, Buck,” Steve says, gently.

Bucky sighs, the fight evaporating out of him quickly. “I know.”

“I’ll keep an eye on your place, alright?”

Bucky blushes, ashamed it has come to this, but not enough to stop Steve from offering. “You don’t hafta-” He starts, half-heartedly, because it’s Steve and Bucky will never not give him an out.

“It’s quite alright,” Steve says, and then adds, “I work from home, remember? I can afford to do something like this.”

Bucky’s gone more than he is at home now, between his sister taking him out to shops and museums that he hasn’t even visited since he’s been discharged, working longer hours at the call center, and meeting with Sam. Sometimes, on his days off he’ll go to one of the local parks and sit on the benches there, watching people walk by and smile at the sun, basking in the happiness radiating off of them. He hasn’t felt anything close to happiness in years, but it’s enough, he thinks, being close to people who are.

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, okay.”

“Come in for some coffee, Buck,” Steve offers, after the silence has stretched a little too long.

Bucky is weak, when it comes to Steve, lately, so he sighs, a little defeated, and a lot embarrassed, and nods. “Yeah, alright.”

*

They’re having tea (for Steve) and coffee (for Bucky) later and the words are out of Bucky’s mouth before he can think to stop them–and that’s happening way too much around Steve; only ever around Steve, and it’s unnerving–”It’s kinda sad, isn’t it.”

Steve just raises his eyebrow. “What is, Bucky?”

“The newspaper thing,” he clarifies, “I mean, it’s just a fuckin’ newspaper. I don’t know-” Luckily he bites down on the rest of the sentence before it escapes. Bucky doesn’t mope, not to his neighbors, especially not to his neighbors that are kind and funny and might be just a little bit more than a neighbor.

Steve smiles at him, like he hears it anyway, and when Bucky meets his gaze it isn’t mocking. It’s reassuring. He’s not sure what he did in a past life to deserve this, but he must’ve saved an entire litter of kittens. Twice.

“It’s not stupid,” he corrects.

Bucky shrugs. “It really kind of is,” Bucky says, and Steve stays quiet after that, either because he’s figured out that arguing with Bucky is pointless (it is) or because he’s starting to see Bucky’s side (maybe). “Things are different now. ‘Cause of the war.”

And the thing is, Bucky wishes he could say more. He wishes he could open up and say the shit he’s been wanting to say for months now, since he came back with a lost arm and a fucked up head, but he can’t. He can’t say it to Sam, and he can’t say it to Steve, or to his sister, and he gets tired sometimes, of all of the things he’s unable to say.

“I used to get beat up a lot,” Steve offers, once the silence has become too much.

Bucky snorts, but not unkindly. It’s hard to imagine someone with his shoulder width getting beat up. “When you were smaller?”

Steve nods, “Came home every day with a black eye or a bruise of some sort.”

“Wouldn’t have happened if I were there,” Bucky says, absentmindedly. It wouldn’t have, he knows. Bucky would have protected Steve. He is, as Bucky found out a while ago, someone worth protecting.

“Sometimes I wake up and think I’m going to be ninety pounds dripping wet again.”

“Sometimes,” Bucky pauses, unsure of how much he wants to say, how much he’s able to say. “I wake up and forget that I don’t have an arm.”

“Have you ever,” Steve clears his throat, and his face pinches up, like he’s not sure he should say what he wants to. He lets out a breath, and meets Bucky’s gaze; his eyes are impossibly blue. “Thought about getting a prosthetic?”

Bucky has thought about it. Sam brought it up during one of their first meetings, and he’s been putting it off since he woke up in the hospital with a concerned nurse peering down at him with a placating gaze, her fingers deft in pushing him down, down, down when he looked at his arm and couldn’t find it.

“I did have one,” he says, because he did. “I threw it out after a few weeks. Couldn’t stand lookin’ at it. It’s easier not having it then havin’ one that’s a fake, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and Bucky thinks that he understands.

*

Later, when Bucky is about to leave, Steve stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, y’know?” Steve offers, and he doesn’t say anything else, just squeezes lightly and then he’s shutting the door, leaving Bucky on his porch feeling bewildered and out of breath.

He doesn’t think he will ever understand Steve Rogers.

*

Summer bleeds into fall, and with it Becca finds a place on the other side of DC with affordable rent and a roommate who won’t leave her stranded again.

“Gonna miss you, bro,” She says, wrapping her thin arms around his neck.

He grins.

“I’ll be a fifteen minute train ride away, you sap,” Bucky snorts, but his fingers clutch at her ribs tighter than he means them to, and the thought of living in an empty, lifeless house is suffocating.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“You’ll be the first to hear about it if I do,” Bucky says, and then hands her her bags. “Now, go.”

Becca laughs, strapping her bag over her shoulder and dorkily saluting him with her free hand. “Aye aye, Sarg.”

He rolls his eyes, but keeps his eyes on her car until he can’t see it anymore, until it’s just a faded blue dot down the road.

*

He does the dishes that night.

It’s a lot easier than he remembers it being.

*

It’s a rare Monday off when Bucky walks outside and sees a dog playing in the field a few streets over.

He’s not sure what propels him forward. Maybe it’s the fact that the dog looks a hell of a lot like Steve’s, or maybe it’s the natural curiosity he’s had since he was little that the war hadn’t managed to burn out of him, but before he can stop himself he’s standing in front of it. He’s the same yellow-golden ton as Cap, and he has the same face, dopey and openly kind and adorable.

“Heya, buddy.” Bucky feels stupid for talking to the dog, but his ears perk up and he trots over to where Bucky’s standing, anyway. “You’re a little far away from home, aren’t ya, Cap?”

Steve’s house is about a thousand yards away.

It’s definitely Cap, though, now that Bucky has gotten a closer look. His fur is riddled with dirt and stray twigs and his usual flag collar doesn’t look to be on, but his nose is the same and his ears fold against his head the familiar way they do whenever Bucky pets him.

“Let’s get you back to Steve, huh? He’s probably worried sick ‘bout you.”

Bucky scratches behind Cap’s ears, knowing the pup has always liked that, and starts to make his way over to Steve’s. He doesn’t know why he knows Cap will follow him, but he does, and can’t help but chuckle at the tell-tale sound of paws padding against the pavement. Steve’s probably worried sick, tearing apart his house for paw prints and left over fur like it’ll point to where his dog has disappeared to, and it makes Bucky’s chest constrict. There are times that Bucky is convinced Steve loves his dog more than he loves himself.

The walk to Steve’s house is long because Cap feels the need to stop every three seconds to sniff at random patches of grass, but Bucky doesn’t mind. He’s never really been an animal person, but he likes Cap, likes the way he’s gentle and seems to know what exactly Bucky needs—and if he refuses to see that same exact quality in Steve, well, then nobody can blame him. Plausible deniability and all that.

“C’mon, pup. Let’s speed up a little, don’t wanna be ancient by the time we get you back to Steve. Assuming he survives that long,” Bucky feels kind of manic, really, talking to a dog like he’ll talk back, but it’s surprisingly comforting to talk to something without expecting a coherent response.

By the time they get to Steve’s door, Cap is panting, dehydrated and tired from his exploring and Bucky hides a snort in the crease of his shoulder as he rings the bell.

“Fuckin’ dogs,” he mutters to himself, gently petting Cap with the bottom of his foot.

The door opens, then, and Steve looks awful. His face is pale and his eyes are wide and dull; panicked. Bucky hopes Cap feels like shit, really, running off like he did, but Steve seems to calm down a little, seeing Bucky there.

“Buck,” he greets, and then deflates. There are keys jingling in his hand. “Sorry, can’t really talk right now. Cap is missing.”

“Is he?” Bucky asks, because Cap is sitting right next to him, panting happily, and for some unknown reason, Steve can’t seem to recognize that. It would be amusing if Steve wasn’t looking so miserable.

“Gave him a bath and left the fence open accidentally,” Steve sighs. “It’s not like him to run off like this.”

So, Bucky thinks, that explains the lack of collar.

“Well,” he drawls, and then gestures to the yellow heap next to him. “I got some good news for ya, then, buddy.”

It’s kind of ridiculous really, how bright Steve’s face gets and from the way that Steve is looking at Cap like he’s the sun personified, he’s almost inclined to give them a moment together.

“Do you guys need some time?” Bucky teases, and then adds, “Y’know. To…cuddle.”

Steve’s eyes snap up to his and he laughs, deep and rich. “Thank you. For finding him.”

“He was playing across the street in the field,” Bucky says. “S’wasn’t much of a hardship.”

It’s then that Steve seems to notice just how dirty his dog is and he groans. “I’m going to have to give him another bath.”

Bucky laughs again, can’t help but laugh again around Steve, raw and sharp and real.

“Seems so, Stevie.”

*

There’s a knock at his door later that evening, just as Bucky was putting a pot of noodles on the stove. They’re one of the only pre-packaged instant noodles brands that Sam says doesn’t congeal after boiling without tasting like bare ass. Sam’s never steered him wrong before, so he’s inclined to trust him.

He aborts the pot on the counter with one last dubious glance and makes his way for the door. He doesn’t usually get visitors this time at night, or, well, ever. Not unless Sam wanted to ask him personal, invasive questions or Steve needed something—which was rare and involved a lot of blushing (from Steve) and a lot of grunting (primarily from Bucky).

“Steve,” Bucky greets when he opens the door to find the other man standing there.

He looks better than he did earlier. His cheeks aren’t as pale, his eyes aren’t as haunted, and he’s changed out of the paint covered t-shirt and ripped sweatpants he was wearing earlier.

“I just, uh, wanted to thank you for earlier,” Steve blurts.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Steve. You already did that.”

Steve shakes his head. “I know,” he says. “I just–let me make you dinner.”

“You want to make me dinner,” Bucky repeats, flatly, because–what.

“For finding Cap,” Steve clarifies.

“A simple thank you would’ve been fine, Steve,” Bucky mutters, exasperated, but it doesn’t come out nearly as annoyed as he intended. Must be the humidity from the night air, or something.

“Maybe,” Steve shrugs, and then turns his million-watt smile right on Bucky. It makes it endearingly hard to say no to him. “But,” he says, leaning forward a bit on his feet. “I make a mean chicken parmesan.”

Bucky is done for. He is completely and utterly wrecked; there’s no way he’ll be able to say no, now–not that he really had much of a chance of doing that in the first place. Steve, it seems, has somehow burrowed his way underneath Bucky’s skin and that makes it that much harder to say no to him, especially when Bucky thinks he wouldn’t mind another dinner staring at the side of Steve’s face.

It’s a nice profile.

“Fine, fine,” he says, with a wave of his hand and smirks. “But, I gotta tell you, Steve. If your parmesan turns out to be shit, I might just be a little disappointed.”

Steve, impossibly, seems to beam brighter at that. “Trust me, Buck. It won’t.”

Bucky can’t help the smile he ducks his head to hide, and Steve’s bounding down the steps of his porch before he hears the beat stop.

“Tomorrow,” Steve says suddenly, realizing they hadn’t set a time. “At seven.”

Bucky salutes him, and refuses to analyze the fluttering in his stomach that erupts when Steve unashamedly returns it.

Fuck.

*

The next day is a Tuesday, which means he meets with Sam.

“I have a question,” Bucky says, because he’s thought about this since Steve left last night. He didn’t sleep much. “A hypothetical question.”

“A hypothetical question, sure,” Sam says, taking a pointed sip from his coffee cup. Bucky narrows his eyes; he knows that tone, and Sam unfortunately uses it often. Usually whenever he sees through Bucky’s bullshit but doesn’t just call him out on it.

“Hypothetically,” Bucky reiterates. Sam is Sam and he is terrifyingly good at reading in between the lines. “If a guy said to ‘nother guy that he wanted to make him dinner for finding something for him, does that make it a date?”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Did this hypothetical guy say yes?”

Bucky hides his glower in his mug and sighs. “Maybe.”

“It’s a date, Barnes.”

“Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically,” Sam agrees, and Bucky wants to punch the smirk straight off his face.

*

Later, when Bucky is packing up his things and getting ready to leave, Sam stops him with a, “Did you hear that Steve’s dog ran away the other day?”

Bucky turns so violently red Sam has to ask if he’s okay.

*

Bucky is nervous.

Bucky isn’t used to being nervous, he’s been anxious sure, especially lately, but even before the war he’s always had a way with words, and an even easier way with his tongue and his hands. But it’s hard to fall back into old habits. He’s not the same kid he was before and it’s different now. It’s why he hasn’t tried to date since he was discharged from the hospital; he may or may not have no fucking idea what he’s doing.

“Get ‘t together, Barnes,” Bucky mutters to himself, because this isn’t even a date, “You’re embarrassing yourself, here.”

He changes his outfit three times in a span of two minutes and eventually settles on a gray v-neck that doesn’t dip too low and jeans that make his ass look all kinds of spectacular, not that it matters, though. He runs his fingers through his hair and thinks he’s probably due for another trim soon, and makes a note to set up another appointment on his next day off.

By the time he’s done fussing over his appearance it’s five minutes to seven and he still has no idea what he’s doing or what to expect. There’s a small, fleeting part of him that thinks about just locking himself up in his house because Sam’s words are ringing loud in his ears and he’s not quite sure he can see Steve smiling at him today without doing something stupid about it.

Eventually, he tells himself to stop being a fucking idiot, and grabs his house keys, making sure to lock up on his way out.

It takes Steve seconds to answer the door this time, and his smile when he realizes it’s Bucky is warm and inviting. “Hey, Buck.”

Bucky’s lips twitch. “Hey.”

Steve steps aside to let Bucky in, and gestures towards the kitchen. “Foods almost done.”

“Smells good,” He says, hanging his coat on the hook by the door, and breathes in through his nose. It does smell good. He can smell the chicken marinating on the stove and the red sauce, and it takes him back to weekends with his parents, when his mom would spend hours in the kitchen perfecting Saturday night spaghetti, or whatever it was that Becca and Bucky had decided on that week.

He doesn’t remember much about them, not usually, the memories fading in and out, usually too indistinguishable to really focus on, but he thinks his parents Saturday nights were a lot like this, flowing around each other easily in the kitchen.

It makes his throat close.

Steve is looking at him. His eyes are the same blue he’s been staring into since he wandered onto his porch to accuse him of stealing his newspapers, and yet Bucky still can’t fucking identify the exact shade. His skin is glowing and pale and so, so smooth and Bucky doesn’t realize how close they’re standing next to each other until he can feel the ghost of Steve’s breath on his face, minty-fresh and inviting.

It would be so easy to lean in and press his lips to Steve’s. Bucky hasn’t kissed anyone in well over eight years, but he remembers pressing guys into brick walls behind clubs and remembers the heady press of skin on skin, when Bucky was young and dumb and had a house to himself. He doesn’t think Steve would mind that, either, not with the way they’re looking at each other. He’s about to say fuck it and just lean it, because this is getting to be all sorts of pathetic when the timer on the stove goes off, shrill and high and it makes them both jump.

Steve visibly shakes himself, his eyes clearing. Bucky doesn’t know how it’s that easy for him. He still feels unwound and hazy.

He clears his throat. “That’s the food,” he starts. “I should go get it.” He says, like he really doesn’t want to.

Bucky’s almost inclined to indulge him, but burnt chicken parmesan is awful chicken parmesan and he’s been looking forward to it all day.

“Go get our food, you lug,” Bucky smiles.

It takes a moment for Steve to smile, but when it does it’s blinding, and Bucky has to look away or he’ll never stop looking, and that’s just not something he wants to have to deal with tonight.

*

As it turns out, Steve does make a mean chicken parmesan, enough so that Bucky can’t help the noise he makes around the first bite, and doesn’t miss the flash of heat in Steve’s eyes when they snap over to Bucky’s own. It’s immensely gratifying and it sends a rush to straight to his dick.

“Jesus,” Bucky says.

Steve’s face is smug. Bucky tries to be annoyed at it, but the huff that escapes his lips sounds distinctly more fond. He hopes Steve doesn’t notice.

(If he does, thankfully, he doesn’t say anything about it.)

*

Bucky doesn’t know what to do.

It’s been a few minutes since they’ve finished cleaning up, and he doesn’t want to leave. He never wants to leave Steve, but he’s not sure what else he can do to stick around other than to curl up at Steve’s feet like a fucking dog and beg to be allowed to stay. It’s not like Steve would be weird about it, but Bucky is wearing new jeans and he’d rather not mess them up.

“So,” Bucky drawls.

Steve looks at him for a moment. Bucky almost thinks he’s going to kick him out, say he’s tired and that while he’s been fun, it’s time for Bucky to leave, but instead his hand settles on Bucky’s shoulder, touch feather-light enough that he could push it off if he wanted to.

He doesn’t.

“I was thinking,” Steve begins, and then gestures to the living room. “That we could watch a movie, maybe. If you wanted.”

Bucky blinks, and forces his body to stay relaxed. He is so not going to freak out about this. “Sure,” he blurts.

Steve smiles like Bucky gave him the right answer, which sends Bucky’s heart fluttering around in his chest. It’s kind of ridiculous, because he’s been out of high school long enough that he totally shouldn’t be responding to Steve’s…Steveness like a trigger-happy pre-teen. But here he is, stomach in his throat at the prospect of watching a movie with him.

He leads Bucky into the living room. The easel is still in the corner, but there’s a sheet over it which he hasn’t seen before.

“Hiding something x-rated?”

He jumps, looking between the easel and Bucky, cheeks pinking quickly. “What? I–no. It’s not that. Just, it’s not finished yet.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, because he really can’t say anything else, regardless of how much Steve is twitching. He looks nervous, like he wants to take the painting and hide, and Bucky isn’t going to pry if it makes him uncomfortable. “So, what movie are we gonna watch?”

Steve relaxes and points toward the entertainment cabinet. “Anything in there, I guess.”

Bucky takes this as a cue that he pretty much has free reign on what they can watch, and settles in front of the TV,  flipping through the countless DVDs Steve has. “I don’t think I’ve seen this many DVDs in Walmart.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, on a laugh. “Most of them are my mom’s. They were just something she collected, y’know? Felt wrong throwing them away after she passed.”

Something hot like coals settles in the bottom of Bucky’s stomach, because he understands that, he does. He still has all of his mother’s old journals stuffed in boxes in the back of his closet, the leather beaten and worn from the days she would spend countless hours opening and closing them, fingers tracing along the pages when she thought nobody was looking. He doesn’t know why he keeps them, he hasn’t even had the heart or the energy to read through them, but parting with them isn’t even something he’s considered.

A comfortable silence washes over them, Steve on the couch while Bucky thumbs through the various titles and it’s nice. For a brief, terrifying moment Bucky thinks he could probably get used to this. Could get used to quiet nights with Steve, curled up on the couch while they make their way through Steve’s staggering collection of movies, Cap curled up around their feet.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself, “shit, shit, shit.”

He picks a title at random, and puts it in the player before making his way over to Steve on weak legs. He doesn’t know how close to sit to him without being disgustingly obvious. Steve must get impatient, watching him stumble around like a moron, because he eventually pats the space next to him with an amused grin.

Bucky takes it.

*

Sometime during the movie, Bucky falls asleep.

He doesn’t mean to, but he hasn’t been sleeping lately, not since Becca left and the house is quiet and empty again. Steve is warm and oozing comfort into his side and it’s easier than he would’ve thought to settle against him.

“Buck.”

Bucky wakes up slow, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He almost panics, for a moment, when he doesn’t immediately recognize the shitty paint job in his living room or his bookshelf that’s falling apart, but it comes back to him. Steve, dinner and the movie, all wafting into his skull like smoke.

“Shit,” he grunts. “Shit. Did I fall asleep on you?” This is not something his dignity can ever recover from.

Steve waves him off, because it’s Steve and he takes everything with a grace that Bucky envies. “It’s not a big deal.”

Bucky glances at Steve’s shirt, and makes a face. “I got drool on your sleeve.”

He’s so mortified he’s considering locking himself in his bedroom and never coming out. It’s a miracle, Bucky thinks, that he’s survived this long without seriously endangering himself.

“Seriously, Buck, it’s okay,” Steve says, and the smile reaches his eyes, so Bucky’s inclined to believe him.

“Alright,” Bucky licks his lips. “Alright. I should be going. I think I’ve taken up your couch long enough.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but then immediately closes it. He places a reassuring hand on the top of Bucky’s leg, and Bucky dutifully ignores how his breath hitches at the touch. “You’re always welcome here.”

Bucky is frozen, there on the couch with Steve looking at him like he can’t possibly look away, and he’s too tired for this right now.

Bucky is frozen on the couch for a long time. He doesn’t say anything, just focuses on the even cadence of his breathing, and flexes his fingers at his sides. When he feels like he’s a little more in control, he looks back at Steve, and tries for nonchalance.

“Thanks,” he says. His voice cracks. They both ignore it.

“Of course, Buck,” Steve grins, and then nudges his shoulder. “Let’s get you home before you fall asleep on your feet, yeah?”

*

Steve comes back two days later to ask if he has any spare sugar, and if he does, would he mind letting Steve borrow some?

Bucky isn’t even close to understanding the man that is Steve Rogers, and he leaves the door open as he hobbles to his kitchen to get the jar of it on the counter. 

“Why do you need this shit anyway?” He asks, instead of ‘why don’t you go to the store and buy it yourself’ because it sounds remarkably less rude. He is actually trying not to lose a friend here. 

“It’s Mrs. Carter’s birthday today,” Steve says, and then flushes a delicious, bright pink. “I should’ve made them earlier, but I got distracted by my online orders and completely forgot about it.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Online orders?”

Impossibly, Steve gets even pinker. “I, uh, sell my art online. Sort of like an online art shop.” That is….disgustingly adorable.

“I see,” Bucky says, and then awkwardly hands him the jar of sugar. “Here. I don’t really use this stuff anyway, so feel free to keep it.” 

“I couldn’t ask you to–” 

Bucky waves him off with a hand. “It’s sugar, Stevie. Not a rolex. Just take it.”

Steve looks between the sugar and Bucky, almost like he’s thinking about arguing again, before his shoulders sag and his mouth lifts up a couple notches. It does unspeakable things to Bucky’s stomach, makes a heady heat spread all throughout him, and it takes every ounce of his self control to squash it all down. “Thanks for this, Buck. I appreciate it.”

“‘Course,” Bucky mumbles, and offers a lopsided grin. “Now go make her some cupcakes, ya old sap.” 

Steve laughs, and shakes his head. “You could always help me.” 

“What.” 

Steve stands straighter. “You could help me make the cupcakes. Usually Sam helps me, but he has a date with Romanoff across the street tonight and said I’ve spent way too long cockblocking him.” 

Bucky blinks. “Romanoff exists?” 

Steve shrugs. “She’s nice. She has red hair.” 

“Huh.”

“She has a cat,” Steve offers, too which, is just, what.

“A cat,” Bucky says.

“A cat,” Steve confirms. 

“This day can’t get any weirder.” 

Steve smiles, a little sheepishly, and asks, “So, cupcakes?” Like there was any possibility of Bucky saying no.

* 

There is batter in Steve’s hair. 

There’s batter in Steve’s hair and the sleeves of his plaid shirt are rolled up against his forearms, revealing pale, inviting skin that is somehow more appealing than the batter on his skin. Cap is at their feet, licking happily at any stray mix that falls on the floor, and Bucky should be having an existential crisis here because he hasn’t been this close to someone other than his sister in a long, long time.

He should be panicking, maybe reaching for thin excuses to leave Steve’s house and hobble back to his house to wallow in self-pity and loathing but he can’t bring himself to. 

“You, uh,” Bucky laughs, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. He’s sure it’s rude to laugh at someone so blatantly like this, but it’s Steve. If there’s anyone who won’t mind, it’s him. “You have some batter in your hair there, Steve.”

Steve blushes, he’s always fucking blushing, and wipes his hand along his face blindly. It steals a laugh out of Bucky’s throat, genuine and raw. “I do?”

Bucky nods, and reaches up his hand to catch it before pausing in mid air. This isn’t Bucky. Bucky doesn’t get to have the ideal suburban life with his insanely attractive, devastatingly sweet boyfriend or his boyfriend’s dog, or the kitchen where they’re allowed to touch each other’s faces to catch wayward batter. Bucky is carved from anger and from war and from death. 

He isn’t– 

“Buck,” Steve says, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Bucky. Are you okay?” 

Bucky can’t speak, he can’t speak and the room’s walls suddenly feel too close, way too fucking close, and Steve’s hands feel like a vice around his skin even if he knows, rationally, his grip is the same light touch. 

Carefully, Steve’s touch disappears, which is bad. Obviously bad. That means Bucky’s doing something wrong, and that something is probably having an ill-advised panic attack in the man’s kitchen.

(As it turns out, the day, has gotten infinitely weirder; Bucky really should learn to keep his mouth firmly shut.) 

“Bucky,” Steve probably screams it, but it’s faint, like Steve is miles away screaming through a tunnel. “I’m going to need you to breathe.”

“I–” Bucky chokes, wants to say “I’m sorry” and “I don’t think Ms. Carter wanted her cupcakes like this” and “I shouldn’t be doing this to you” but he can’t quite force the words out, can’t make his tongue and his mouth form the shapes. 

“Shh,” They’re on the couch now, somehow, away from the sharp edges of the countertop and the mixer, which is a good idea, Bucky thinks, hazily. Steve obviously knows what he’s doing here. “Just breathe, Buck. Don’t focus on anything else.” 

It’s easier said than done, and it takes a while for breathing to come naturally to him again, for Bucky to be able to focus on something other than the fact that his chest feels way too constricted. A flood of embarrassment quickly washes through him, embarrassed that he had an attack and that, of all people, Steve had to be the one to witness it. He doesn’t have any idea what Steve is thinking, only that he’s rubbing steady, soothing circles into Bucky’s back and that he hasn’t run yet. 

Bucky doesn’t know why he isn’t running. 

“You must have enough material to fuel an entire comedic routine by now,” Bucky mutters, still unable to look away from the brown spot on the carpet. It looks like a meat stain. 

The circles stop, for a second, halt on his skin, tense and angry. They start back up again, like they never stopped, and he lets out a cautious sigh of relief. 

“What do you mean?” 

Bucky laughs, humorless and dry and too loud for Steve’s house. “Y’know. First I can’t let go of a fuckin’ newspaper, and then I can’t leave you alone and now I–” 

“Hey,” Steve stops, as well as his fingers, though they slide up to tenderly grip his shoulders. Steve is gentle, always so gentle with Bucky, like he’s handling him with kids gloves, and it should annoy him, should make him see the reddest of reds, but it doesn’t. With anyone else, Sam, his sister, the baristas at Starbucks, it would, but he can’t bring himself to be angry with Steve. At least not on that. “You’re recovering, Buck.”

He doesn’t want to examine that closely, not at all, and shrugs. “Thanks, y’know. I haven’t said that yet.”

Steve looks like he wants to keep talking about it, but he must see something in Bucky’s face (probably a bone-deep desperation that he’s absolute shit at hiding) and drops it. He claps the side of Bucky’s neck in a way that he can’t help but think  says “anytime,” and rises to his feet.

“Let’s get those cupcakes in the oven, huh?”

*

Bucky breaks, eventually.

He’s been waiting for this. It’s something he’s been expecting since he walked out of the hospital in northern Maryland with too many scars for him to carry alone. He doesn’t even mean to, which is the thing. When he meets up with Sam for their weekly coffee, he doesn’t mean to snap but he does, and suddenly Sam’s coffee mug is on the floor, shattered in pieces, people won’t stop staring at them, single mom’s gaping with hands over their mouths and Bucky’s mind won’t stay quiet.

He doesn’t even remember what it was exactly that Sam said to set him off. Maybe it was something about seeing an actual licensed therapist (“You can’t keep coming to me forever, Barnes,” and he had been gentle, Sam was always gentle, but his tone did nothing to soften the blow) or maybe it was something different entirely, whatever it was it’s hard to grasp firmly now and Bucky is getting lost inside his own head.

“I can’t do this,” Bucky says, and he can’t, he can’t.

Sam stares back at him calmly. “James,” he starts. His hand makes an abortive movement like he was going to touch Bucky, but decided not to. Bucky’s glad; he’s not sure what he would’ve done had Sam touched him.

He shakes his head, though, and pushes away from the table. “Don’t,” he hisses. “Just, don’t.”

Sam doesn’t say or do anything. Bucky almost wishes he would, because it would make this easier, make it not seem so one-sided, but Sam just sits there and eyes him calmly. Bucky pushes the chair to the table with more force than necessary, and ignores how much he wants to punch Sam in the fucking face.

He doesn’t look back at Sam when he storms out.

*

The bar is unfamiliar and loud, and it’s why Bucky chooses it.

There are eight exit points. Four of them are windows, three are doors, and one is a loose looking piece of drywall that Bucky’s sure he can shoulder if he tries hard enough. Bucky sits in the booth in the far back, with a clear view of all of the exit points and other patrons.

He’s conditioned to do this, and for some reason, it calms him down a little.

The waitress who serves him is cute, with a button nose and wide chocolate brown eyes. He thinks it would’ve been easy to flirt with her once, to charm her into giving him free drinks, maybe, to take her home with him. But he can’t do that anymore, so he smiles thickly when she asks for his order.

“Just a whiskey.”

She smiles, eyes crinkling. “Of course, sir.”

*

His vision starts getting fuzzy after the third shot of whiskey and he can’t even make out his hand after his sixth.

She doesn’t serve him an eighth.

“Sir,” she says politely, after he’s beginning to notice the tiles on the ceiling. Some of them are discolored, or at least he thinks. He’s not really sure, they’re blurring together. “Can I call a cab for you?”

Bucky feels a shot of anger fire through him, and pushes it down. He’s not going to get angry here, he’s not. He runs his hand through his hair, counts to five, and sighs.

“No,” he starts, “that won’t be necessary.”

She looks uncomfortable with this, like she’s going to fight him on it. “Sir, really. It would be no problem.”

“Only a few blocks away,” Bucky slurs. “I’ll be alright.”

She stares at him for a few moments longer, before nodding and turning on her heel to walk away. Bucky is about to leave when a glass of water appears in front of his face.

“Uh.” Bucky has not known water to do this previously. He’s confused.

“Drink this before you leave, please,” She says. “Ease my conscious a little, will ya?”

Bucky snorts, but drinks the damn water anyway. It’s the best he can do for taking up so much of her time.

*

Bucky is warm. He’s warm, too warm almost, and his limbs feel light and loose. He lets his guard down, which is why he doesn’t hear the approaching footsteps until it’s too late and he’s pressed firmly against a chain-link fence.

His mind is moving slower than normal and he can’t keep track of his limbs, can feel himself trying to move his left hand but it’s not grasping at anything. Fuck.

“Hey, Cripple!”

Bucky represses a shudder and tries not to let the panic seep in too deep. “Don’t know what you’re tryin’ to get at, pal.”

“Cripples shouldn’t walk streets alone, y’know,” The guy says, and Bucky feels the cool metal of a gun pressed against his spine through his shirt. He takes a deep breath, to try and ebb the rising panic that’s crawling up his throat, and feels it when the man pushes him up against the fence with more force. “Should have someone to protect you.”

Bucky scowls, his lips tearing with the movement. “I can defend myself.”

“Uh huh,” the guy says, and Bucky is pretty sure he can smell alcohol on his breath when the man leans closer. Before he can so much as blink the guy has him on his back, his head colliding with the cold, hard concrete and Bucky nearly bites off his tongue with it. He can feel his skull rattle, and hopes to whoever’s listening that there isn’t any blood. “Sure are defendin’ yourself, huh?”

Bucky glares up at him, a retort on the edge of his tongue when a foot slams into his ribs out of nowhere, knocking the breath out of him. His vision is fuzzy, now, the edges starting to blur together a little bit, but he’s pretty sure he can see two sets of feet instead of one. Christ, he is so fucked here.

“Have you searched his pockets yet?”

“No.”

There’s a sigh, and then rough hands are gripping his arm hard enough to bruise, and turn him over. He can feel them take his wallet from his back pocket. He doesn’t have much in there, thankfully, just his I.D. card and a couple bills in cash that he didn’t spend on alcohol.

They pocket the cash. Bucky isn’t surprised.

It’s a blur from there, Bucky can feel stomping on his ribs, and fists on his face, and there’s one point he’s not sure he can breathe properly through all of the blood, but they eventually get bored. He can feel spit sliding down his face before they laugh and walk away.

Bucky doesn’t get off of the ground for a long time.

*

“Fuck,” Bucky mutters.

It’s too dark to see the damage, but it hurts to breathe, every inhale feeling like his ribs are trying to dislodge directly through his lungs. He’s certain at least a few of them are broken.

Bucky can’t go home right now, doesn’t trust himself to be alone. He needs go to the hospital, probably, but his phone fell out of his pocket during the attack, and it was shattered  by one of their boots. He has no way of calling a taxi, or the police, and he doesn’t trust going to some stranger’s house to ask for help.

He could go to Sam. But he doesn’t know exactly where they stand, now, not after what happened earlier. He can handle a lot, Bucky’s just built like that, but he doesn’t think he could take Sam’s disappointment. He isn’t strong enough for that.

He doesn’t even realize he’s heading for Steve’s until he’s outside of his house.

Bucky doesn’t turn back. He’s already made it this far.

*

He knocks on Steve’s door, a little louder than necessary probably, and sends a prayer to whoever’s listening that he’s actually home. Bucky isn’t thinking clearly, not really, so he knocks a couple more times for good measure and rocks back on his heels nervously until he feels like he’s going to topple over.

Right. Staying vertical doesn’t exactly agree with him right now.

“C’mon.”

It takes a while for the foyer lights to flicker on, and then he hears the lock turn. Steve’s standing in front of him suddenly, or at least he hopes it’s Steve. It’s definitely a vaguely Steve-colored blob, and he can barely make out his sleep-mussed hair and his wide, too-blue eyes before he feels a feather light touch to his shoulder. Bucky can’t help but flinch.

“Bucky?” And then clearer, “Buck? Shit. Bucky. What happened to you?”

It hurts, it hurts so much that it’s hard to tell where the pain ends and he begins, but he can’t say that to Steve, bright and brilliant Steve. “Steve.” He grunts instead, his arm holding his stomach. He’s not sure how much longer he can hold himself up for, his eyes fluttering every couple of seconds and all he wants to do is curl up on Steve’s porch and sleep.

“Jesus. Alright. Stay here, just-” He trails off, and then his hand trails over the ripped skin of Bucky’s cheek. His press is tender and warm, and Bucky can’t help but press into it, slightly. “Stay here, okay, Buck? I’ll be right back.”

Bucky nods, or tries to nod, the world tilts a little on it’s axis so he thinks he at least partly succeeds, and leans against Steve’s house.

He’s just nodding off when Steve appears again, his touch returning to Bucky’s shoulders. “Okay,” Steve has his jacket on now, and shoes, and there are car keys in his hands. It doesn’t all add up until he’s guiding him–touch still too light, way too light on Bucky’s skin–to his car.

“Where we goin’?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Steve answers.

Bucky is too exhausted to fight him on it.

*

Bucky fades in and out of consciousness frequently enough that he doesn’t exactly remember anything. He thinks he remembers arriving at the hospital, only to have the nurses and the doctors and Steve fuss at him in turn, but he’s really not all that certain.

“What’s happenin?” Bucky asks–or thinks he asks, at one point.

“They’re just checking your vitals,” Steve sounds upset.

Bucky doesn’t want him to sound upset. “Sorry.”

Bucky’s vision is all sorts of hazy, so he can’t really see anything Steve’s doing, but there’s a commotion, and something falls. “No, Buck, it’s-don’t apologize. This is not your fault.”

He blearily pats around until he finds skin. “It’s okay, Stevie,” he sighs. “I know it is.”

If a reply from Steve comes, he doesn’t hear it.

*

The second time he wakes up, Bucky is floating.

Bucky is floating, but there’s someone grounding him, or at least he thinks there is. At first he thinks it might be Sam gripping his hand like a lifeline, but the skin is too pale, and there are too many callouses.

Steve.

“Steve,” Bucky croaks. He is floating, but his throat is scratchy, and it hurts to talk.

His head pops up from where he was resting it on the side of Bucky’s bed, and Bucky can just barely make out his eyes that are glazed over, wide and blinking slowly. He looks like he hasn’t slept much, if at all, and his hair is sleep-mussed and sticking up at odd angles. He looks adorable, if a little tired, and Bucky wants to reach out and smooth down his hair. He’s pretty sure he tries, too, with the fond smile Steve gives him.

“You’re awake,” Steve says. He sounds worried, too worried, and even through the haze of medication Bucky can feel the heavy weight of guilt settle on his chest. Steve’s eyes narrow like he catches it. “Don’t, Buck.”

“What?”

“This is not your fault.”

Bucky’s throat closes, but he’s too exhausted to fight him on it. “How long have I been out?” He asks, instead.

Steve shrugs. “Little under 24 hours.”

“Feels like it,” Bucky mutters. His limbs are too heavy, and his head doesn’t exactly feel right, but at least there is no pain. From the amount of bandages covering his body and the looks Steve thinks he’s hiding, he must look pretty bad.

Steve looks concerned, again, his eyebrows furrowing. “Are you in pain? I can go get a nurse for some more medication.”

Bucky’s sure he’s smiling like a dope at him now. It’s a Pavlovian response around Steve, it seems.

“No, pal. I’m okay.” He says. “Kinda floatin’ right now.”

Steve snorts, and the lines around his mouth soften. “But, you’re okay?”

Bucky is far from it, but he nods. “Yeah, Stevie. I’m okay.”

*

Before they release him from the hospital, a nurse pops her head in. Steve is still there, hasn’t left at all other than to sneak Bucky in some food from the cafe down the street (hospital food is just as awful as he remembers it, and he wants no fucking part of it anymore, thanks) or to go take a quick shower at his house. Bucky’s not sure why he stays, why he doesn’t just go home, but he’s grateful.

“Due to the extent of his injuries,” the nurse begins, glancing at his missing arm. “He won’t be able to be alone for a few days. Doctor’s orders.”

Bucky scowls. “I can take care of myself.”

The nurse just smiles at him patiently. “Under normal circumstances, I’m sure that’s true, sir. But your bandages need regular changing and with–”

“You can say it, y’know, Bucky grunts, grumpily. “With one arm. I won’t be able to do it on my own.” he finishes for her.

Steve places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Bucky doesn’t know why it immediately relaxes him, but it does. “You can stay with me, Buck.”

Bucky glares at the floor. He doesn’t want anyone to see him so vulnerable, especially not Steve, but that went out the window the moment he showed up at Steve’s door, drunk and beaten to shit.

“Okay,” he murmurs quietly. “Alright. Yeah.”

*

When Bucky wakes up, he feels wrong.

The walls are a different color and the bed is too soft to be his and the fan doesn’t sound right. He’s working himself into a pretty spectacular panic attack when his eyes catch on the fuzzy shape next to the bed. He can just barely make out the yellow of Steve’s hair and the anxiety slowly eases out of his chest.

“Buck?”

Bucky looks up from where his eyes wandered over to the bandages covering his arm and meets Steve’s own. He didn’t even realize the other man was awake. Steve looks worried, but mostly a hell of a lot relieved, and he can feel the warmth of Steve’s hand through the blanket. Oddly enough, it doesn’t hurt.

“Heya, pal.”

Bucky doesn’t remember much, other than the doctor giving him the go ahead to leave, but after that everything is a blur of pain medication, and hazy, half-constructed thoughts. He thinks maybe Steve walked him through his house, with Bucky’s legs shaking uncontrollably, to his bedroom, but he’s not really sure.

“Hi,” he repeats, voice scratchy in his throat. And then he adds, “So, this is what your bedroom looks like. S’more colorful than I expected.” He at least hopes this is Steve’s bedroom. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t.

Steve’s mouth curls into a smile. “You’ve thought about my bedroom?”

Bucky blanches, and then shrugs his shoulders. It hurts, but he’s used to ignoring pain. “I don’t think you should trust anything that comes out of my mouth right now, Steve.”

Steve laughs, and then sobers up. “You’re alright.” It’s not a question, but his eyes are searching.

Bucky is quiet for a long time. He is not alright, he is very far from alright, but he would like to try to be, again. “I’ll get there,” Bucky says, painfully honest. He doesn’t regret the words when they come out, though, which is probably some sort of progress. He thinks that Sam would be proud of him, and his chest aches at the thought.

Bucky isn’t sure he wants to know what Sam thinks of him right now.

“So,” Bucky starts, instead of thinking about it anymore. “How long am I here for, doc?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but they’re brighter than they were a few seconds ago, so Bucky counts that as a win. “At least for a couple of days,” Steve answers, and then furrows his brows. “Maybe more. The doctor said it depends on how fast your wounds heal.”

That’s acceptable. “Okay.”

“I hope that’s alright,” Steve murmurs. To think that Steve thinks it is anything but alright makes Bucky want to sit there for hours to change his mind.

Bucky fixes him with a cool look. “Of course that’s okay.”

He is helpless but to return Steve’s answering smile, even if it hurts.

* 

“What happened?” Steve asks, a few hours later.

Bucky closes his eyes, and steadies himself with a deep breath. He thinks he probably owes Steve as much, for showing up on his doorstep, plastered and hurt and slightly incoherent. Or, well. Way past incoherent.

“I met with Sam,” Bucky starts. “Things didn’t go as planned, I guess. I got outta there sooner than I shoulda and went to the bar to let off some steam.”

It was an argument that never should’ve happened, one that Bucky shouldn’t have been upset by, but he was worn thin from a long, hard day at work, and Sam was in one of his moods where he wasn’t taking Bucky’s shit. He doesn’t remember particulars from the fight, only that Sam said something to set him off, and before he could apologize, Bucky slammed his cup into the trashcan and flew out the door. He thinks, maybe, that Sam is disappointed in him, for getting up and leaving, or for not sticking around and working out his problems. Bucky isn’t sure, but he deserves it.

When Bucky can work up the nerve to stop staring at his hands, Steve’s eyes are gentle. It’s just the right side of too much. “What happened after that?”

He licks his lips. This he remembers in startling clarity. “Got jumped outside. Probably thought I was easy prey ‘cause I was missin’ an arm and all.”

“Buck.” Steve sounds personally wounded.

“They were right, y’know.”

“You’re not,” Steve spits, after a while. He sounds angry, but not at Bucky. Never at Bucky. “You’re not weak.”

Bucky laughs bitterly, and gestures with his head to him in Steve’s bed, bruised. “Kinda looks like you’re a little wrong there, pal.”

“This isn’t weakness,” Steve insists.

“Musta never seen weakness up close, huh?” Bucky snorts, but it lacks his usual bite, and he is so, so tired.

Steve levels him with a look. “You’re not weak,” he says vehemently. “You’re trying,” and he sounds so painfully earnest that Bucky has to close his eyes against it, because it hurts.

*

Sam comes in shortly after Steve leaves to go get Bucky some soup from the kitchen.

Bucky’s surprised, probably more than he oughta be. Leave it to Sam to do the unexpected and keep him on his toes.

“You could’ve come to me, y’know,” Sam says, his voice is quite soft, but his eyes are angry (as Bucky expected); not at him (which he did not expect). It’s then that Bucky notices the flowers and card in his hand, which he sets on Steve’s bedside table.

Bucky’s throat closes up. “Could I?”

Sam’s eyes snap to his own. The anger is gone, replaced by something deeper, something that Bucky doesn’t want to analyze. “Don’t ever think you’re not welcome around me, Barnes. Especially if you need help.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bucky says, and it sounds raw.

“Do.”

*

When Steve comes back in, Bucky’s arm is wrapped around Sam, and it’s shaking. If either Sam or Steve notice, they don’t comment on it.

*

The next couple of days pass by slowly.

He hurts, more than he can remember since he was discharged, and it’s degrading having to depend on someone so heavily other than himself again. It makes him cranky, makes him shut down and curl up in Steve’s too-big bed, because admitting he needs help is still pretty fucking hard, and he feels bad about it, he does, but Steve doesn’t kick him out or ask him to leave so he stays.

“Buck,” Steve whispers.

Bucky doesn’t want to lift his head out of the cocoon of pillows and blankets he’s built around himself, but Steve sounds worried, and there’s not much he can do when faced with that tone.

“‘at is it, Steve?”

He’s tired. He’s always tired lately, since the mugging, and since the war, but he can never get enough sleep these days.

“Let’s watch a movie.”

Bucky didn’t think that was what Steve was originally going to say, but he doesn’t comment on it, instead burrowing further into the blankets with a discontented sigh.

“Don’t wanna get up.”

He hears Steve smile, and there’s a rustling noise. “Just scoot over, you damn bed hog.”

Bucky huffs, but he complies, anyway. “What’s this about, anyway?”

“We’re going to watch a movie,” Steve says, like he’s said it a couple of times before, and he probably has. “On my laptop,” he adds on, before Bucky can complain about not wanting to move.

There are dark purple circles underneath his eyes like he hasn’t been sleeping lately. He probably hasn’t been, has been too busy taking care of everyone else that Steve hasn’t stopped to think about himself, and Bucky wants to get angry at it, he does, and he can feel the burn of it course through him at the thought of Steve sacrificing for him, but he can’t do it now, he can’t.

Bucky thinks it should probably be illegal, how good Steve looks when he’s been rolling around in his bed looking like a pathetically bruised toad, but that’s just Steve.

“Hey,” Bucky says suddenly, reaching out his hand to grasp at Steve’s wrist. “Thanks.”

Steve looks at him for a while, with his clear blue eyes filled with concern and something that runs deeper, something that Bucky doesn’t want to clarify because it terrifies him to even think about it, and smiles. “Anytime Buck.”

*

He’s waking up from a nap when he hears the distinct noise of a pencil scratching on paper.

“What’re you doin’?”

Steve’s gaze snaps up, a little sheepish from where he’s been sketching something down in one of the dozen of sketchbooks he has hidden around his house. From his position on the bed, Bucky can make out at least four of them—one on Steve’s tiny desk in the corner, another resting on top of some clothes Steve hasn’t bothered to put away yet, and the other two stacked on his dresser.

“Sketching,” Steve says, like it isn’t obvious.

“Obviously,” Bucky drawls, and it makes Steve smile, one of those tiny, intimate smiles that Steve uses whenever it’s just them. Sam isn’t here today like he is most days. He’s out visiting one of his other patients and it’s nice to only have one mother hen fussing over him rather than two. “What’s your subject?”

Steve flushes, the tint gradually sliding down his neck and disappearing underneath the white v-neck he’s wearing. It’s possibly the most distracting thing Bucky has ever seen. “Uh. It’s you.”

“Me,” Bucky repeats, snorting.

“Yeah,” Steve says in a tone that he can’t quite decipher. His face is as open as it always is and the lines around his eyes are pinched like they are when he’s nervous. He’s not sure when he started knowing that, what Steve’s face did when he was nervous or angry or content, but he does. It’s terrifying and Bucky has to look away or be blinded basically.

“‘nother one of your projects?” Bucky mumbles, laying back against the pillows.

Cap is at the foot of the bed, and Bucky scratches at his ears with his toes.

Steve’s eyes are serious, then, serious and assuring, the kind of thing that makes Bucky want to curl up in the face of it. He will never be used to the kindness and utter goodness that radiates off of Steve in fucking waves. “No,” Steve replies, carefully, adding another stroke with his pencil. “I just like drawing you.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to do with that.

* 

“He hasn’t left your side, y’know,” Steve says one day, when Cap’s head is resting on Bucky’s stomach.

“He’s paying me back,” he jokes, around the tightening of his throat. “For saving his ass when he ran away.”

Steve laughs, low and rich, and lays a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Or he could just like you.” 

“Nah,” Bucky grins, self-deprecatingly. Cap’s too smart to like someone like him. Bucky’s holding his breath for the day Steve realizes the same, or when he simply just stops indulging him. “That’s the face of a dog who is just payin’ back some favors.” Steve rolls his eyes and shoves his shoulder gently, but doesn’t say anything.

Bucky counts that as a win.

* 

It’s a few days later when Bucky can finally return to his own house.

Steve almost follows him home, with one of those strong arms wrapped around his waist, but Bucky puts a wrench in that before it can even begin (“No,” Bucky glares at Steve through narrowed eyes. “Don’t even think about it, Stevie.”

“What?” Steve asks, innocent, but Bucky doesn’t believe it for a second. Steve may be the poster-child of all things holy, but Bucky knows he fights dirtier than most when he needs to. Being the self-sacrificial little shit Bucky knows him to be, this would be one of them.

“‘M not some damsel in distress,” He starts, “I can walk my own damn self home.”

“Buck,” The way Steve says his name says loads, like “you know I don’t think that” and “stop being an idiot and let me walk you home” but Bucky is stubborn at the best of times, and absolutely fucking insufferable at his worst, and this is not a thing that Steve can fight his way out of.

Bucky throws a grin over his shoulder. Steve never does know when to quit, but that’s not exactly a bad thing, not anymore. “Go on, Steve. I’m sure ya got loads of laundry to do since I’ve been hoggin’ your bed and your clothes.”

Steve’s expression shutters, probably because he knows Bucky is right and he’s feeling guilty over thinking Bucky’s right. He was kind of a hog these last couple of days, Bucky’ll admit that, at least, burrowing into Steve’s softest blankets and his warmest sweatpants–that had not been a hardship.

“Fine,” Steve finally relents. If Bucky wasn’t hurting absolutely everywhere, he might’ve fist pumped, but he’s hurting more than he wants Steve to know, or he’d never let Bucky leave, so he just smirks smugly at him. “Just call me if you need me, alright?”

Bucky nods, hobbling down the steps. “You’ll be my personal life alert service,” he promises.

He doesn’t have to look back to know that Steve’s probably scowling at his back. “That’s not funny, Bucky.”

Bucky’s too busy laughing to hear him. He’s fucking hilarious.

*

It starts with Arrested Development.

“You want me to watch Arrested Development with you,” Bucky repeats, just to make sure he’s hearing things correctly.

Steve flushes, a pretty pink that makes Bucky’s throat close up, and if he blames it on his injuries rather than on the man in front of him it’s not like anyone could blame him, not really, not after looking at Steve. “Sam said it’s a show that’s best when watched with someone else, and I thought–”

“Yeah, no, that’s fine,” Bucky says. A distraction would be nice. From his boredom. And from Steve too, probably.

Steve smiles like the sun, too bright in Bucky’s living room but he can’t bring himself to mind.“Where’s your DVD player?”

It takes Bucky a moment to remember that Steve hasn’t been inside of his house all that much, and he hobbles into the living room, taking the DVD case from him as he goes.

“Over there,” he gestures.

Steve’s eyebrows crease and his hand wraps around Bucky’s bicep. His fingers are warm and calloused from the paintbrushes he spends all day holding. It’s a feeling that he could probably get used to, one that he wants to get used to. “Sit. I can get it.” 

Bucky’s eyes narrow, he wants to argue, but the bruising on his ankles make it less than enjoyable to walk and he’d rather just sit down. It doesn’t stop him from dropping onto his couch with a heavy sigh, sinking into it. “I’m not actually fuckin’ helpless, y’know.”

Steve’s hard eyes snap to his. “I know better than anyone that you’re not, Buck.”

Bucky turns away from the intensity of his gaze and squashes down the feeling of wanting to run. 

“I know,” He murmurs, thankfully not screaming it.

*

Steve falls asleep somewhere in between the fourth and seventh episode. Bucky wasn’t really keeping track of it exactly, but he knows that Steve’s head eventually dropped onto his shoulder, while Job was going on about something that Bucky can’t really remember.

The show is actually pretty great, he thinks. It’s something that he can find the humor in, and he would’ve loved it before, too. But, Steve is asleep on his shoulder, snoring into the fabric of his wrinkled t-shirt. It’s domestic enough that Bucky almost panics there on the couch, with Steve drooling all over a shirt Becca made him buy because she said it brought out his eyes.

He chances a look down at Steve and immediately regrets it. His eyelashes fan across his cheeks, a stark contrast to the paleness of them, and Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen Steve look more attractive. His lips are pink and slack and spit-slick, like he keeps licking them in his sleep.

Bucky tries and fails not to find it fucking adorable.

Steve’s left hand is resting on the top of his thighs in his sleep, his legs hanging over the other end because the guy is the size of a tank and really, Bucky is surprised he fits anywhere.

Bucky should be trying to get as far away from this as possible because Bucky, admittedly, has already let this thing with Steve stretch too far, has let the lines blur way more than he meant to. Whatever it is Bucky doesn’t know, but he does know that he hasn’t let anyone get this close since his sister, and he really had no choice in that situation. Bucky doesn’t get close to people, at least not anymore.

Bucky can’t afford to. But, he’s not pushing Steve away, he’s pulling him closer with his right arm, which is awkward because his shoulder is already hurting under Steve’s weight without his arm there to support it, but he can’t bear to move him, either.

“Oh.” Bucky mutters, because this should be a sign. A sign that Bucky should get away from Steve and this situation as quickly and thoroughly as possible. He doesn’t move. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing. “Fuck.”

*

Bucky falls asleep a few minutes later, and if he wakes up with a crick in his neck and an empty house, well, then nobody really needs to know how upset he is about it.

*

The second time it happens is a few days later, Bucky opening the door to expect a package and instead he gets Steve.

(He’s so much better than the damn package.)

Steve looks nice. Not that he looks bad on the regular or anything, but his usual unkempt sandy blonde hair is slicked back out of his eyes, his lips curled into a blinding smile. His periwinkle blue button-down is tucked into a pair of khakis that are resting dangerously low on his hips, and Bucky’s mouth goes dry.

Steve looks like he just got home from church, and he says as much.

He laughs. “Nope,” he begins, sheepishly holding up what looks like tickets. “Going to a museum, actually. I have an extra, would you be interested in going with me?”

Bucky blinks. “To the museum?” He asks, dumbly.

“Yeah.”

Bucky has never been to a museum willingly, has only ever gone when he was required to for school on field trips, or that one time Becca dragged him to the Smithsonian when she was in town. He’s not sure why he isn’t more surprised that Steve is asking him to go to a museum on a Friday afternoon, but he isn’t.

“Is that to the art museum?”

Steve flushes, and Bucky watches it disappear into the collar of his shirt, Bucky’s bottom lip catching on his teeth.

“Yeah. I know it’s not your thing, but..”

Bucky cuts him off, unable to keep the dopey smile off of his face. This fucking nerd will be the death of him. “Steve,” he says, “I’d love to go.”

Steve sucks in a shocked breath. “Really?”

“Yep,” he confirms. “If you don’t, actually, I’ll be offended.”

“Well, we don’t want that, do we?”

Bucky grins. “Just let me change, okay? Don’t think sweatpants are appropriate for an art museum.”

“You look fine, Buck.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I look like a homeless person, Stevie. Don’t gotta get all noble on me.”

“Don’t think your sweatpants will change that,” Steve says, a little tentatively, like he’s not sure if he can joke about something like this with Bucky, but he grins, wide and pleased and smug when Bucky doesn’t look offended.

Bucky shoves his dumb smiling face out the door and refuses to feel bad about it. He especially doesn’t feel bad about it when he hears Steve’s loud peals of laughter; he does, however, lean against the door to listen to it for a few seconds. 

*

The ride to the museum is uncomfortable, not because of Steve but because the collar of the button-down Bucky’s wearing is digging into his neck and he can’t decide, not for the life of him, if this is a date or not. Again.

He thinks it says something about them that this has become a regular occurrence. These not-dates.

“Stop.”

Bucky’s head snaps up. “Huh?”

“I can hear you thinkin’ from here, Buck,” Steve says, and his hand slides to Bucky’s knee. Bucky’s heart pounds in his chest. “It’s okay.”

Bucky can’t help the flush that hijacks his face. “Haven’t worn one of these things since before my first tour.” He knows the button down just draws attention to his arm–or his lack of an arm, it’s a lack, not something that’s there, which he still has trouble admitting sometimes–which is why he’s avoided them.

Steve keeps his eyes on the road, but he squeezes Bucky’s knee. “How many?”

Bucky leans his head against the window. “Was in middle of my second one when the IED went off,” he says. “Just a few weeks off of my first leave.”

Steve’s quiet for a long time. “Your button-down looks nice, y’know.” He says, a little stiltedly.

“Thanks, pal,” Bucky snorts. “Glad to know there’s a reason I keep ya around.”

He can practically hear Steve roll his eyes, but he keeps his hand on Bucky’s knee, calming and warm. He counts it as a win.

*

Bucky doesn’t expect to enjoy the museum as much as he does. He’s always been more action than observation and has never really understood art, not the way Steve does. But he gets it now, gets how a bunch of complimentary colorful blobs on a canvas can be something to look at–and even if he didn’t, the way Steve’s eyes light up when he looks at a work he particularly likes, like it’s the only thing he can focus on, would be totally fucking worth it.

When they circle around to the end for the second time, Bucky stares at the side of Steve’s face for longer than necessary.

He clears his throat. “Hey, Steve?”

Steve looks at him. Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen Steve’s eyes look so happy. If he would’ve known all it would take was an art museum, Bucky would’ve done this ages ago.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” he says, just as quietly. He doesn’t have it in him to raise his voice, not today. “For today.”

Steve smiles at him. “Anytime, Buck.”

Bucky is finally starting to see that he means it. It feels his chest with a lightness that doesn’t fade for a long, long time.

*

He’s still half asleep when he answers the door. Still, he eyes Sam dubiously through narrowed eyes.

“Is it Tuesday?” He asks, even though he’s pretty sure it’s not.

Sam looks amused. “No.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, and rubs his hand over his face. He’s still kind of hungover from the art museum with Steve. He glances at the clock on the far wall and curses. “I gotta be at work, soon.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, because of course he has Bucky’s schedule memorized, of course.

“Uh,” Bucky grunts, caught out. He looks around his house and decides that it’s really not that messy, not compared to how it usually is, at least. He lets out a defeated breath and steps aside. “Want breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Sam says again and steps into his house. There are books laying on every flat surface, for when Bucky can’t sleep and his mind is haunted by nightmares. Sam’s eyes pass by them without much pause, though he does stop on the pile of takeout boxes on the table in the living room. Bucky should probably clean that up. It’s fucking disgusting.

Bucky pretends not to notice–as it turns out, he’s pretty good at it–and heads straight for the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. He refuses to think about how closely Sam is studying his house.

He grabs two mugs from the cabinets, adds two sugars for Sam, and takes them into the living room.

Handing the man his mug, he eyes him warily. “Why are you here again?”

Sam shrugs, sipping his coffee. Bucky wonders if Sam’s surprised he knows how he takes his coffee, and then quickly dismisses that. Sam wouldn’t be surprised, but he would be happy.

“Just checking up on you.”

Bucky scowls. “I was mugged. Not hit by a car. I’m fine.”

Sam just eyes him curiously. “I never said you weren’t.”

“Do you and Steve plan this?” Bucky can’t even be mad. He’s impressed, actually, if a little begrudgingly.

Sam’s eyebrows raise. “Plan what?”

“This,” Bucky says, and gestures with his only hand. It fails spectacularly, if Sam’s expression is anything to go by. “This weirdly coordinated onslaught of support.”

“No,” he confirms, slowly.

“Oh.” Bucky’s disappointed, sort of.

“You’re allowed to have friends, you know,” Sam offers, and his voice is cautious, but when Bucky meets his eyes, they’re kind. “You do have friends. It’s alright to depend on them, sometimes.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to do with that. He’ll admit that he does consider Sam a friend, probably, if heavily interrogated, but then there are sometimes he’s convinced Sam is nothing more than his VA counselor.

“We’re friends?”

Sam smiles, then, around the rim of his mug. “We’re friends,” Sam clarifies. “And friends look out for one another.”

Bucky nods, and stares at his coffee cup for a long time. They fall into a companionable silence, one that neither of them try to break, at least not until Sam rests his mug back on the table, and gently taps Bucky’s hand.

“Go on, Barnes. You’re gonna be late for work if you keep hanging around like this.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, and shoves his hand away. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, and takes their dishes to the sink to wash later (and he will, he will). “Go nag someone else for once.”

Sam shakes his head, but holds out his fist for a bump. Bucky returns it with no hesitation.

* 

Bucky is marginally impressed that Steve lasts four more days before coming around again. 

By now, most of the bruising has faded into a yellow-brown that doesn’t twinge every time he walks. His scratches don’t hurt so bad and his hobble is mostly gone, but when he opens the door and sees Steve holding two bags of chinese food and a set of movies in his hand, he is helpless. He’s in so deep there’s not even an option to pull him out of the hole he’s dug himself in. 

“Fuck,” Bucky breathes, “are those eggrolls?” 

Steve shoulders past him, and grins. “Yeah, uh,” he runs a hand over the back of his neck. It is, as is everything about Steve, endearing. “Becca said it’s your favorite.” 

Bucky stops. “You talk about me with my sister.” He doesn’t even know how they talk. 

Steve looks between the windows and the doors, like he’s trying to think of an escape route, and then sighs. “I may have called her to ask if you liked Chinese.” 

Bucky blinks. “You have my sisters number?” 

“She’s surprisingly comforting,” Steve looks embarrassed, “and persuasive.”

Bucky isn’t sure he likes where this is going. 

“I, uh, ordered some but they accidentally doubled it,” He switches from one foot to the other, placing the bags on the counter, but Bucky knows a lie when he hears one. “I know you don’t have much else in your fridge other than rotten apple sauce and a jar of mayonnaise, so I thought–”

Bucky can’t help but wonder when the hell he got so predictable, and grins. This moronic bastard. “‘Lax, pal,” he drawls. As much fun as it is to watch Steve squirm he’s starting to feel kind of bad. “I’m not mad.” 

“Good,” Steve visibly relaxes, “Where are your plates?” 

“Top shelf, to your left,” Bucky says, thumbing through the titles that Steve brought over.

“Disney movies?” Bucky snorts. “You brought over Disney movies.”

Steve narrows his eyes. “They’re classics.”

“Sure,” he agrees, easily enough. “To toddlers, maybe.” 

“I could take this back to my place, Buck,” Steve threatens, but there’s a grin fighting at the edges of his lips, one, that in a moment of weakness, Bucky can’t help but imagine kissing off. “If you can’t bring yourself to appreciate Chinese food and Disney movies.”

He throws up a placating hand. The only person in the world that knows his downright appreciation for Aladdin is Rebecca, and that was because one time Bucky got crossfaded enough that he called his sister in the middle of the night waxing poetic about his favorite cartoons. She’s sworn to secrecy in three different languages. “Alright, alright. I concede.” 

Steve plops down next to him, with the bags and plates. “Good,” he grins, opening a box. “Now, how do you feel about orange chicken?”

“Shit,” Bucky breathes. Steve really did talk to his sister. “You’re hitting all my weak spots in one night, Rogers. Better keep watch on that, soon you’ll run out of them.”

“Nah,” Steve says, sinking into Bucky’s couch. “I have it on good authority that you have enough weakspots to rival a crappy computer.”

Bucky glares at the TV. “I’m going to kill Becca.”

“Please don’t. The pie recipe she gave me came out quite nice.”

He makes pies, Bucky thinks. Steve makes fucking pies with recipes he got from Bucky’s kid sister, and he has no idea what it says about him, or about his taste in men, but it makes Bucky smile to think that Steve cares enough to ask what his favorite type of Chinese food is and if he likes Disney movies. And now that Bucky thinks about it, he has no doubt Steve knows what his favorite pie is.

Steve shoves some noodles into his mouth, and somehow makes it more attractive than disgusting. Bucky hates how much he likes it.

* 

It comes to a head when Steve tries dragging him to an animal shelter. 

“You want me to go to an animal shelter.”

Steve fixes him with a look. “There’s nothing wrong with animal shelters, Buck.” 

Bucky is quiet for a long time. “You know that I’m fine, ‘right, Stevie?”

“I don’t think you’re not fine,” Steve says. 

“Kinda gettin’ the feeling that isn’t the whole truth.” 

“You scared me,” Steve blurts, and then the crease between his eyebrows appears when his words don’t come out right. Bucky wants to smooth it out with the press of his thumb, wants to run his fingers down Steve’s face and smooth away the worry wrinkles around his eyes and the lines around his mouth, wants to undo everything he’s done to Steve since the beginning. 

“I scared myself,” Bucky admits, and then blinks. “But, I’m fine. I’m still standin’.” 

“I know,” Steve says, “I just–”

Bucky licks his lips. “Gotta make sure?”

Steve smiles self-deprecatingly. “Something like that.” 

Bucky waits for the anger to appear. He waits for the tell-tale, fire-hot burn to ripple through him, because if there’s one thing that Bucky is good at it’s turning away people who care, but it doesn’t come. There’s only a deep-seated contentment that he can’t shake no matter how hard he tries, and he realizes, a little belatedly, that he doesn’t exactly want to. He doesn’t know what to do with that. 

He never gets angry like he’s expects to anymore, not around Steve. 

And Steve is looking at him, looking at him like he’s the only thing in the room worth looking at, and Bucky can’t help the noise he makes in the back of his throat, placating and a lot like defeat.

“Alright,” He says, eventually. It’s not like he was ever going to in the first place. He’s never been very good at saying no to Steve,not when it mattered–or even when it didn’t. “Alright. But I’m not getting any animals.” 

“You killed the fish when you were seven.” Steve says in a tone that means he wasn’t planning on that happening in the first place.

Bucky glares. “Steve.” 

Steve grins, wide and menacing and utterly fucking devastating. Bucky promptly wants to take him apart with his mouth. It’s a problem lately, being in Steve’s presence and not thinking about him writhing underneath Bucky. “What’s wrong with a kitten?” 

“They have claws, Steve,” Bucky hisses. “Claws. I don’t know if there’s a worse animal for me.”

“You get through a war but you’re scared of a kitten?” Steve teases.

Bucky lightly shoves his shoulder, and scowls. “Yeah, yeah. Make fun all you want, but they’re little devils, Steve, I swear it.”

Steve doesn’t look convinced, but Steve could probably see the good in anything. “Whatever you say, Buck,” Steve says. 

“Damn right, whatever I say.” 

Steve pushes him into the car in retaliation, but the sun is bright and the company is good, and Bucky finds that he can’t stop laughing.

* 

There are kittens everywhere.

“They’re everywhere,” Bucky whines, and they really are.

There’s a tuxedo kitten hanging by its claws off the sleeve of Bucky’s henley,  there’s an orange one in his hair, and he’s pretty sure there’s a gray tabby trying to burrow it’s way into his crotch. This is definitely the worst idea Steve has ever had and he tells him as much. 

“You’re melting hearts everywhere, Buck,” Steve says, voice strangled with laughter, and there’s the distinct sound of a camera shutter. 

“Delete that immediately,” Bucky growls, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth because damn the bastard to hell, this is working, the kittens and their tiny claws and curious noses are helping him, and fuck it all if he isn’t a little petulant about that. “I prefer Sam.” 

Steve’s eyes are smiling and it sends his heart racing. “You’d never.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, because it’s true. Sam is great, but Steve is Steve, and that’s better. “You’re right.”

If he takes a personal enjoyment in Steve’s answering blush, well, then that’s his business.

*

They don’t walk out with any kittens. It’s a miracle within itself, really (if Steve thinks he’s been subtle about the way he’s been eyeing every litter of puppies the shelter has, he’s severely mistaken) but Steve does convince Bucky that maybe volunteering here every once in a while won’t be such a bad idea. And it probably wouldn’t be. He likes Cap, and handled the kittens well enough, and despite the fish incident that everyone in his life won’t let him forget, he thinks maybe this will turn out to be a good thing.

He still wants to say no. It’s easiest, really, saying no, because this is just one more commitment he doesn’t need, that he’s not sure he really wants, but his arm doesn’t feel so vacant when he’s here, and he thinks maybe that counts for something.

They’re in the car on the way home when Bucky can feel Steve’s eyes on his face. “Hey, Buck?”

Bucky looks over. Steve looks happy, and it hits him, then, that maybe this was just as much for Steve as it was for Bucky.

“Mmm.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, and his hand rests on the top of Bucky’s knee again.

It hits him, not like a train or a bus or whatever else happens in movies, but slow and soft, that Steve is always the one initiating contact. It’s not that Bucky doesn’t like to be tactical, because he was, once, but war has created barriers in his head and he doesn’t always know how to break those down.

His hand twitches from where it’s resting on the top of his other leg. He hesitates, for a moment, but then decides fuck it because today was good, and there’s a warmth spreading throughout his chest that he absently recognizes as contentment, and he reaches over to cover Steve’s hand with his own.

“You’re welcome,” Bucky murmurs.

Steve looks over at him, and grins. It’s somehow even more gorgeous than the sun shining through Steve’s tinted windows.

*

The next time Bucky sees him, Sam asks him about group therapy. Sam is always asking about something, whether it be how Bucky is or what he’s been up to, or, hey, there’s this group therapy session later this week, would you want to go?

Bucky has come to expect this, at least from Sam, because he is painfully predictable. It probably has something to do with his natural-born need to induce stability in other people’s lives (mainly in Bucky’s, really), and he doesn’t mind it.

Bucky wants to say no. He wants to tell Sam that he doesn’t need further therapy (he does), that he’s fine on his own (he’s not), that he’s surviving (barely) but none of that comes out. He presses his hand to his eyes until he sees colorful splotches, and very quietly murmurs, “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

*

The group leader is quiet. Bucky didn’t know how he was expecting. He tried not to think about it because it made his palms sweat and his heart freeze in his chest, but the man, who holds himself small like he’s not sure he can take on the world, with bright eyes and an intimate smile, surprises him.

Maybe it’s because he’s used to Sam, Sam who is also gentle but also confident and headstrong, and so, so very different.

He looks around the room, identifying all of the exits–there are two–and who looks dangerous and who doesn’t. He can see Sam off to the side, talking quietly but animatedly to a group of people. Bucky has to hide his smile in his shoulder.

Sam grins when he sees him and he can just make out the surprise in the lines around his mouth. He’s pleased, Bucky thinks, that he finally showed up.

He takes a seat near the back, where he he has a clear view of everyone and no one has one of him.

“Welcome,” The man says, and his voice is somehow even softer than his face. Bucky is not used to immediately liking people, but he immediately likes him.

“I’m Dr. Banner,” He introduces, and is greeted with a murmur of hellos. “But you can call me Bruce.

*

After the session ends, Bucky is just about to leave when he hears heavy footsteps behind him. He doesn’t have to turn around to know it’s Sam–he’d know those footsteps anywhere, really–and he turns around.

“I’ll concede,” Bucky says after a moment.

Sam tries to hide his grin, but he fails. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky rolls his eyes. “You were right. Soak in it. It’s not gonna happen often.”

“Alright, wonderboy,” Sam laughs.

Bucky has a retort on the end of his tongue when the speaker–Bruce; his name is Bruce–shows up beside Sam. “Thanks for coming today, Sam.”

Sam’s face morphs into something even more genuine. Not that Bucky is under the impression that Sam isn’t genuine around him, because he is, if there’s one thing he’s learned in his time of being around Sam, it’s that the man doesn’t have an ingenuine bone in his body, but there is something more about Sam around Bruce.

“You know I wouldn’t miss it, man.”

Bruce is still holding himself so small, and not for the first time Bucky wonders what he struggles with. He’s okay for the most part, Bucky thinks, or at least he seems like it, but no one who holds themselves like that has gone through life unscathed.

“Oh,” Sam says after a moment, and gestures between Bucky and Bruce. “Bruce, this is Bucky, Bucky, this is Bruce.”

He gives an awkward half-wave. “Hi,” he greets.

Bruce’s eyes are accepting when they roam across his shoulders, but there’s nothing in his gaze that betrays what he’s thinking. “Nice to meet you, Bucky,” he says, sincerely. “Thanks for coming out today.”

“Blame Sam,” Bucky says, but there’s a grin tugging his mouth upwards.

“I already do,” Bruce grins, and it’s secretive.

Sam grins, a little wry. “He was my therapist, y’know,” Sam says, and Bucky sucks in a surprised breath. “When I got out. Don’t know where I’d be now if it weren’t for him.”

Sam never talks about his time with the army. Bucky doesn’t know too much about it, only that he was a pararescue; that he saved a bunch of people and was too late for others and sometimes Bucky thinks he can see the weight of them resting on Sam’s shoulders. So, Sam never talks about it, and Bucky doesn’t ask–mostly he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t think he could handle the amount of guilt Sam still carries around with him–and it’s okay.

He doesn’t know what to say, not really, it’s not like he can say, “thanks for saving him so he could deal with me” but luckily Bruce saves him from having to say anything when he claps Sam on the shoulder with a fond, small smile.

“It wasn’t all me.”

Sam waves him off. “Modest and talented. He’s a threat to society.”

The laugh is punched out of Bucky’s throat, raw and painful and too loud in the empty room around them. “One could say that about you, too, Wilson.”

Sam grins reassuringly at him. He’s totally getting the hang of this people thing, slowly but surely.

*

Later that night, he gets a text from an unknown number.

Unknown Number [8:56:13 P.M.]
This is Bruce. Sam gave me your number. Hope that’s okay.

Bucky swallows. Sam never meddles, and when he does, it’s usually because he thinks it’s worth it.

Bucky [9:01:32 P.M.]
yeah it’s fine.

On second thought, Bucky follows that up with a quick:

Bucky [9:02:00 P.M.]
what’s up?

Bruce Banner [9:03:11 P.M.]
I hold yoga sessions every week. You’re welcome to join if you want to.

Bucky [9:04:04 P.M.]
yoga?

Bruce Banner [9:06:24 P.M.]
It’s yoga for people who have endured trauma. Sam’s been to a few sessions, and it’s helped him. I was just going to offer it to you to see if you would be interested.

Bruce doesn’t beat around the bush. Bucky likes it, is so used to most of the people he’s encountered treating him like he’s made of fine glass, easily breakable, that’s refreshing not to have to deal with it.

Bucky likes Bruce. He likes Bruce a lot.

Bruce Banner [9:07:01 P.M.]
Don’t feel obligated to say yes, Bucky. The ball is in your court on this one.

Bucky’s heard of this before, at least. He knows yoga is supposed to be relaxing for both the mind and the body, but it’s never really been something he’s considered seriously before. Bucky’s not used to genuine offers from anyone other than Sam–and now Steve–but things are different now too.

Normally he would just ignore it, or politely decline, but Sam’s disappointed face pops into his head, and he finds that he can’t do that.

Bucky [9:10:27 P.M.]
count me in

Bucky’s shoulders feel lighter. He has no idea why.

*

He starts meeting with Bruce on the days he’s not holed up in the call center.

The sessions are grueling, and his muscles have never ached more in his life, but his mind is clear, his hand doesn’t shake as much, and Bucky finds the little things aren’t as easy to focus on anymore.

“I hear you’ve taken up yoga,” Steve hollars, one day when Bucky comes home a sweating mess and he’s checking his mail. Fucking figures.

“Is that what’s going through the grapevine these days?”

Steve laughs. Bucky’s heart lights up at it. “Something like that,” he agrees, easily. He eyes Bucky curiously and he tries not to squirm under the weight of his gaze. “You look better.”

Bucky snorts. “As opposed to a beaten pulp? I’d say so, pal.”

Steve’s cheeks redden and his shoulders go tense. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve starts, licking his lips. “And you know it.”

Bucky does know it. He just ridiculously enjoys the way Steve turns the color of a lobster in .02 seconds when he’s embarrassed.

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ bout,” Bucky drawls. Seeing Steve scramble is actually sort of fun.

“Jerk,” Steve mutters. His eyes are smiling, and his mouth is curling up, up, up at the edges, and Bucky hasn’t felt this in a long time.

His voice doesn’t even stutter, he doesn’t even hesitate, when he throws a, “Wanna come in for coffee?” over his shoulder, leaving his door open for Steve to follow.

(He does.)

* 

He’s with Sam at their Starbucks–and it is theirs, it’s theirs enough that they have a table ata window and all of the baristas know them by name, call them Sam and Bucky and ask them how their days are going–when it hits him.

It knocks the breath right out of him, enough so that he has to grip the side of the table.

Sam, as always, takes this in stride.

“Shit.”

“Shit?” Sam’s eyes are telling Bucky to elaborate. Bucky hates elaborating.

Bucky has known on a subconscious level at least, that his feelings for Steve weren’t just superficial. Steve is attractive, sure, but it’s not just that; not that every spare thought of Bucky’s is about Steve’s pouty lips or the obscene stretch of his shoulders, either. It’s difficult to describe, really, and he doesn’t want to think about it all that much. But, like how he knows how to ride a bike, and how the sky isn’t always going to blue, Bucky fucking knows he’s in love with Steve Rogers.

It’s not as terrifying as he thinks it might have been, once.

“Steve,” He says, weakly.

Sam raises his eyebrows. “Care to share what that’s supposed to mean?” He’s sure Sam already knows, the bastard has probably known since the beginning, but Bucky remembers admittance being one of Sam’s Miraculous Steps to Recovery.

And the thing is, Steve is different. It’s not that Bucky doesn’t want to talk about Steve, because he does, and it’s ridiculous really, how much he wants to talk about him all of the fucking time, but not about this. This part about Steve is not something Bucky wants to share.

“Later,” Bucky says, instead. He’s shocked to find that he means it.

Sam must see this, because he smiles easily enough. “On your own time, Barnes,” and it’s like a weight has been lifted off of his chest.

*

The thing is, Bucky isn’t stupid.

Bucky’s not stupid, has never actually been stupid, he can play it like a champ when he has to, but he’s always been like a sponge, soaking up information and holding it close to his chest. He’s also not blind–just willfully oblivious, sometimes–so he sees the way Steve looks at him, when he thinks no one is watching and he can get away with it. Bucky has always noticed it, he thinks, but just as he’s good with playing dumb, he’s twice as good at lying to himself.

He knows, well, at least, he’s about 95.59% sure that his feelings are returned.

So, he really does plan to do something about it. To maybe walk over to Steve’s and ask him out for a drink, but he doesn’t get a chance to.

Cap beats him to it.

* 

Steve is at his door. 

Steve is at his door and he’s impossibly red and the jeans he’s wearing hug the curve of his ass exceptionally well when he turns around and Bucky is having a hard time concentrating on anything else. His eyes glance at his face and he looks contrite, guilty even, and Bucky can’t help but lean against the door. If he had two arms–which he doesn’t, he just doesn’t and that is starting to become alright–he would fold them across his chest, but he doesn’t, so he lets his arm just hang there awkwardly. 

“Steve,” Bucky says, warmly.

Steve shakes his head, and shoves his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and it makes Bucky nervous. Steve is never like this, always talks to Bucky and is never a wall of silence that he’s not sure how to deal with.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, warily.

“It seems that I lied,” Steve blurts.

“What the hell are you talkin’ bout, pal?”

“Cap has been the one taking your newspapers,” Steve elaborates, and Bucky’s mind goes blank for a second, but Steve is still talking, “I found him underneath the house today and there was a pile of newspapers dating back a few months. I’m sorry.” For good measure, because apparently Steve doesn’t think Bucky can take his words at face value, the other man steps slightly to the right to reveal a pile of chewed up newspapers, stacked haphazardly on top of one another. 

Cap has been stealing his newspapers. For months. Cap has been stealing his newspapers and Bucky can’t–he can’t do it anymore, can’t help the way he collapses against the doorframe hysterical, hand grasping at the wood hard enough to hear it creak.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, though it’s distant and hard to make out through the tears. “Are you alright?”

Bucky can’t find it in him to answer him, so he just waves his hand manically. 

“I broke him,” he hears Steve muttering to himself. “I broke a veteran and my dog stole his newspapers. I’m going to hell.” It’s enough to send him into another fit. 

“No,” Bucky wheezes eventually. “No,” he repeats. “Don’t be ridiculous, Steve.” 

Steve blinks. “You’re not mad,” he says, perplexed.

“I’m very far from mad,” Bucky admits and his shoulders are still shaking. The newspapers don’t matter much anymore, haven’t for a while actually, and he can’t remember a time that he has ever laughed this much. It hasn’t been since the war, at least, and it fills his chest with such a warm light that it makes it hard to breathe for a second. 

“But, your newspapers.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, again, warmly, “Your dog has been trying to set us up, don’t ya think it’s kinda hard to be mad at that?” It sends him into another wave of laughter when he thinks about it hard enough, because, animals. If Steve didn’t think something went loose in Bucky’s brain before, he definitely does now. 

“What.” 

“Your dog,” he clarifies. “Has been trying to set us up this whole time.” 

“Oh,” Steve says, and then, “Oh.” 

Bucky can’t even be angry about it because he thinks maybe Cap recognized something in the both of them that complimented each other. He hasn’t known Steve for very long, but looking back he can’t pick out a single moment that wasn’t colored by Steve or where he wasn’t with Steve or thinking about him and amazingly it doesn’t freak him out like it would’ve a month ago. 

“How do, you, uh,” Steve clears his throat. Bucky looks up at him and takes in the flush that runs up his neck and covers his cheeks, takes in the blue of his eyes that he’s not sure there’s even a name for yet, and thinks that he’s really fucking tired. “How do you feel about that?” 

“About what?” Bucky asks, even though he knows. He just wants to hear Steve say it. 

Steve’s eyes narrow, like he’s caught on, but he’s never been a coward. “About Cap.” 

Bucky shrugs, aiming for nonchalant and probably ending up firmly in ‘obvious’ instead. “I dunno,” he says, carefully. “I think we fit.” 

Steve freezes, and for a second Bucky thinks maybe he said something wrong, said something too real and not at all what the other man was aiming for, but then a wide, satisfied smile spreads across his face and he brightens like the fucking sun. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs. “Now, stop bein’ coy and ask me out to dinner.”

“Oh,” Steve says, and then smirks, “So I have to do the asking?” 

Bucky grins, “that’s the idea, isn’t it?” And then he adds, “It ain’t my dog that was stealin’ my newspapers.” 

Steve immediately flushes, and he’s always liked that a lot, maybe too much. “Jerk.”

“That’s not asking,” Bucky points out. 

Steve rolls his eyes, but takes a step forward, and it’s then that he realizes they’ve been doing this at his front door like a bunch of losers. “So, how about it? Let’s go out on a date sometime.”

Bucky pauses, just to be a dick, and eventually says, “Eh, I guess you’ll do,” but the face-splitting grin betrays it.

*

The date goes well.

Dinner is, of course, delicious, but Bucky likes the way Steve presses him into the door after even better.

Steve’s mouth is soft and chaste at first, testing the waters. Bucky doesn’t like it, well he likes it but he knows he’ll like dirty better, so he slides a thigh between the two of Steve’s own and bites down on Steve’s lips. Steve’s lips open on a gasp, helplessly turned on, and Bucky used to be an opportunist, once, and he’d like to try to be one again; he thrusts his tongue into Steve’s mouth.

“Fuck,” Steve says against Bucky’s lips.

Bucky grins, unable to help it, and presses into the kiss more, hot and searching, tangling his tongue with Steve’s own. Fuck, he’s waited so long for this, so, so long, and he’s about to burst in his pants like a teenager.

“Shit,” he groans, aloud, and holds Steve away at arms length. “No,” he says, and curses when Steve’s face falls. Bucky is a moron. “No, Stevie, not like that, not like that. Just don’t wanna come in my pants like a fuckin’ teenager, is all.”

Steve’s face brightens then, flushed and pleased, and Bucky’s breath catches in his throat. “Well,” he murmurs, kissing a line up Bucky’s jawline. “Why didn’t you just say so, huh?”

“Was a little preoccupied,” Bucky whines–actually fucking whines, what the hell–and bares his throat.

Steve levels him with a look that is filled with faux anger. “Didn’t know you still had the inhibitions to be preoccupied with anything, Buck.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and flips them so Steve is the one pressed against the door, legs spread obscenely, his very considerable bulge on display. Fuck. Bucky can’t help but lick his lips, an entirely new wave of lust clouding his brain at the sight. Steve is devastatingly good-looking, and it’s made all the better like this, when he’s feisty and mouthy and already taking Bucky apart.

He loses his train of thought again. “Hmm,” Bucky muses, trailing biting kisses down the pale expanse of Steve’s neck. “Don’t think I’m too preoccupied to do this,” he says into his skin, and revels in his answering shiver.

Steve is about to say something, his kiss-bruised lips open, but then Bucky starts sinking down, down, down, and his mouth clamps shut. Bucky would laugh, he would, but he loses his balance halfway down and almost face plants against the floor, only Steve’s hand reaches out and stabilizes him with a touch to his shoulders. Bucky can feel his cheeks heat up in embarrassment, because he should’ve known a move like that would be too fucking difficult for him, but Steve looks at him with lust and a fondness buried underneath that Bucky can’t help but preen under.

“You don’t gotta do this, Buck,” Steve says, like a fucking idiot, really, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Don’t gotta do nothin’, I know,” Bucky grumbles, but his fingers stutter on the clasp of Steve’s pants, and he’s unsteady in pulling them down. “I want to get my mouth on you. I’ve wanted to for months.”

And, he has, waited. He’s waited without realizing he’s waited, wanting to get his hands and his mouth on Steve’s skin, and it’s as glorious as he thought it would be. As it turns out, though Bucky hasn’t done this in years, hasn’t taken someone to his bed and laid them out, pliant and willing and so, so satisfying in what feels like decades, his mouth and his hands and his muscles all remember.

Once Steve’s pants are down and his boxers are hooked under his balls–Bucky’s too impatient to slide them all the way down his thighs–Bucky stares. He can’t fucking help it, alright, not when Steve’s cock is perfect, flushed deep-red at the tip, hard as a rock and curved slightly toward the left, reaching for his belly.

“You’re beautiful,” Bucky hisses, and feels like a idiot saying it, because he’s not the kind of person who says things like that, not anymore–but maybe, he can be again. Maybe it’s not so hard, like it’s not hard to sink further into the floor, to wrap his calloused fingers around the base of Steve’s dick.

“Bucky,” Steve grunts, and looks like he sees stars. Bucky knows the feeling well.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, because he gets it. “Yeah,” he repeats, and then licks a line up the length of Steve’s dick. He tastes clean, like he spent extra time in the shower this morning making sure that he washed up right, and the thought sends a searing-hot jolt straight to Bucky’s groin. He really is not going to survive this. On his gravestone it will say, in bolded letters: Died with his mouth on Steve’s dick. And he doesn’t even care.

Bucky really hasn’t done this in a while, is a little rusty, so he spends a bit of time exploring. He runs his hand from the base of Steve’s cock to back behind his balls, playing with them a bit and decides that he likes the feel of Steve against his fingers, likes the way his hips roll into his mouth, every muscle in him coiled tightly like it’s been an upward battle not to do it all along.

He thrusts into Bucky’s mouth then, like a twitch, and it takes everything in Bucky not to moan wantonly. He decides then, that someday, maybe not today, but sometime, Steve’s going to fuck his throat until he’s raw with it. Bucky would like that very much.

“Sorry,” Steve pants, looking flushed and delicious and breakable. “Shit. I didn’t mean to do that, Buck.”

Bucky pulls off with a pop and grins up at him. He lets his eyes travel from Steve’s flushed cheeks to his equally as red looking chest and likes the way it seems to cover his entire body. “Don’t,” he murmurs, “Don’t apologize.”

He’s about to go back at it, cause really, he didn’t even get that much of a taste of Steve’s dick, when Steve’s hands burn like brands on the top of his shoulders, his fingers ducking under Bucky’s chin, to bring him up, up, up.

“I was kinda busy down there,” Bucky grunts as Steve pushes him into the the door again, but Steve just smiles at him, eyes blown black and presses his lips to Bucky’s own.

Steve kisses like he does everything, determined and raw, tongue sliding into Bucky’s mouth immediately. There’s a desperate edge to it now though, and when his hands settle on Bucky’s hips he can’t help the way they shift into Steve’s touch. Bucky doesn’t realize how hard he is until Steve’s fingers brush against his crotch.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Steve breathes into his mouth. It should be disgusting, it really should, but it just makes Bucky’s head clink against the door.

“Shit,” he grunts. He runs his hand up the shirt that Steve is wearing, and presses a finger to one of his nipples, rolling the nub underneath it until it’s pointed and hard. “Can say the same about you, pal.”

The grin Steve gives him this time is lecherous, and he leans close to Bucky’s ear. “Gonna have to change that, huh?” In one fluid motion Steve’s naked from the waist down, and fuck, if Bucky has ever seen him look so pretty.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Bucky says, pointedly.

“Looking forward to it,” Steve says, and then makes a face. “Bedroom.”

Bucky blinks, the words taking a while to register, before he nods. “Bedroom,” he agrees, because he is not a teenager anymore, thank fuck, and there’s just something a little too undignified about getting off against his front door.

Steve smiles at him, Steve is always smiling at him, Bucky now realizes, and leads him into the bedroom. It feels like a promise.

*

Bucky wakes up with a crick in his neck, and his arm is bent oddly underneath a mobile, heated brick house, but that brick house turns out to be Steve, and it sends his heart racing.

Bucky hasn’t woken up next to someone since he was young and moronic, when he snuck Peter Jacobson in through his window right after his dad died, when he was still broken and confused and didn’t understand why life took parents from good kids. He hasn’t done this in a while, and it’s getting harder to breathe, the walls closing in on him again, and he’s working himself into a panicked hazed that rivals the one with Ms. Carter’s cupcakes when a steadying hand lands on his waist.

He doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close call.

Steve must sense this, because Steve has always been observant, too observat for his own good, and his hand slides up to rest on Bucky’s cheek. Bucky still can’t bring himself to open his eyes, even when Steve’s thumb brushes across his lips.

“Hey,” Steve whispers, voice like honey. It smooths Bucky over a million times, but he still can’t bring himself to meet Steve’s gaze. “Hey, you’re alright.”

Bucky snorts. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, focuses on the breathing techniques Bruce taught him for when he got himself worked up like this and traced patterns along the inside of his eyelids.

“I’m no good for you, Stevie,” Bucky says, quietly.

Steve tenses, his thumb stopping it’s motion on the side of his cheek for a split second, and it’s enough to make Bucky wish he’d never opened his big damn mouth at all. He continues, again, after a moment, and Bucky can feel his breath tickling his nose.

“Bucky,” Steve says, and his index finger reaches out to kiss the edges of Bucky’s eyes. “Bucky. Look at me.”

“Don’t think I can do that right now.”

“Please look at me,” Steve says, and Bucky does, because Steve never begs, and it’s not like he’s ever been very good at denying Steve anything, anyway. Steve’s eyes are a dusty, bird’s egg blue, shadowed by the streams of sunlight at his back, and his mouth is curled down into a worried frown. Bucky wants to reach out and smooth it away with his fingers, but he doesn’t.

Bucky wants to do a lot of things, but he doesn’t.

“What happened to we fit, huh?”

Bucky shrugs. He thinks that’s still true, but that was a few days ago, and a few days ago he wasn’t laid in bed with Steve Rogers, waking up to the ruffled halo of blonde hair on top of his head, wasn’t close enough to smell the severity of his morning breath (it’s pretty awful), he didn’t know what Steve’s legs felt like pressed up against his own, and he doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m fucked up,” he says, instead.

Steve smiles at him but it’s sort of sad and distant. “Everyone has things they struggle with,” Steve says, finally.

Bucky finally peels both of his eyes wide open and starts at the lines in Steve’s face. “I can’t ask you to put up with me, Stevie. I can’t.”

“Then don’t ask,” Steve says, and his smile is for real this time. It’s big and bright and makes every horrible feeling in Bucky’s chest collapse in on itself. “I wouldn’t be putting up with you, anyway.”

“No?”

Steve races his fingers along Bucky’s side. “For some reason, I sorta want you around all of the time.”

Bucky grins, then, dopey like a lug, and utterly too big for his face. He knows this won’t fix anything, that Bucky will still have problems and Steve will still have problems, but they don’t seem so big now that Bucky doesn’t have to face them without Steve.

“Good,” Bucky murmurs, and let’s Steve kiss him, morning breath be damned.

*

Three months later, Bucky walks out to get their–their–newspaper and sees a note on his mailbox.

Fuck you. Stop forwarding Steve’s damn newspapers to my fucking house. This is the 21st century, you regressive little shits.

— Sam.

P.S. Natasha wants you both over for dinner Friday night – please lay off the amputee jokes, they make everyone uncomfortable.

P.S.S. I still hate you. Both.

Bucky laughs all the way back into their house, and doesn’t stop, not even when Steve presses him against the counter and sticks his tongue down his throat.