Archive of Our Own ^beta

The problem with ultimatums is that they don’t always work.

A man plays a somber tune on the saxophone that echoes through the F train subway platform somewhere in Brooklyn, New York. People mill about; it’s gotten steadily less crowded as time has gone on and rush hour came and went. Everyone left is waiting for the last train that will come this way in the next half hour or so. There’s a couple standing near the train tracks, each on their phone , looking up at each other every so often to show the other something they’ve found while surfing the net. Sitting on a bench is a group of girls in matching plaid school uniforms, all looking tired, one holding a large poster board. There are a few people in work clothes — suits and uniforms, all variations of uncomfortable outfits they’re forced to wear and can’t wait to get out of — sighing as they shift their weight from foot-to-foot, looking like they’re itching to change their shoes.

Steve shoves his hands in his coat pockets and takes one last glance around. He doesn’t see a familiar head of blonde hair or hear the tell-tale click of Sharon’s favorite pair of boots. Sharon isn’t on this platform. For all Steve knows, Sharon isn’t even in Brooklyn.

He checks his phone; there are no messages.

People start gathering at the edge of the track as the F train makes its way into the station.

Steve doesn’t think about it; he just gets on board.

— —

The F train is heading to Coney Island.

The subway car isn’t packed, but it’s not empty, either. Most of the seats are filled by tired-looking adults just trying to get home at the end of a long day, but there’s a kid or two hanging around. Steve slinks to the end of the car and sits across from a sleeping man in a hoodie holding a backpack. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and drafts a text:

It’s okay. I understand. I’ll see you soon.

He swallows hard and sends it, then immediately turns his phone off and shoves it back into his coat pocket. It doesn’t matter if Sharon responds or if she doesn’t; nothing she has to say will make him feel better. Staring at his brown loafers, Steve takes one breath, then another. It takes him two subway stops to feel like he’s back in control of himself, but disappointment still wells in the pit of his stomach. He knew that he isn’t what she wanted and that he couldn’t change the things about himself that made them incompatible. But there was still the small part of himself that thought she’d meet him on the subway platform, take his hand, and go back with him to his apartment like he’d dreamt of.

It had been a stupid plan and he’d known it from the moment it formulated in his mind the night before. The plan lacked even the romanticism of a grand gesture — it was just a desperate reach in a relationship that was already broken. But he’d always been lucky when it came to leaps of faith, and thought it may work again if he tried one with Sharon.

Now he’s just on a train to nowhere.

Well, not nowhere. He’s on a train to Coney Island. It doesn’t feel like much of a concession.

He sighs and looks up just in time to see a kid sneak across the seats in front of him and reach for the sleeping guy’s backpack.

“Hey—” Steve starts, standing up, but the sleeping guy’s eyes open in a flash. He’s up, twisting the kid’s arm around behind his back, like he has some experience in self defense. But a moment passes, and then the formerly-sleeping man frowns. “What the fuck?” the guy asks, seeming more quizzical than pissed off. It looks like he’s already loosening his grip on the kid’s hoodie.

“I’m sorry!” the kid cries. Just about everyone in the car is staring at the scene as it unfolds, Steve included. It’s not the sort of thing that happens on his typical subway ride, to say the least.

The guy sighs. “How old are you?” he asks, sounding resigned.

“I’m eighteen,” the kid says, big brown eyes welling up with tears. There’s no way the kid’s telling the truth. He looks terrified and incredibly young, practically swimming in his oversized hoodie.

“Bullshit,” the guy says, letting go of the kid’s sweater. He puts his gloved hands on the kid’s shoulders, then turns the kid around so he’s facing the man. “How old are you?” he asks again, voice steady. There’s something almost tender about the way he says it, patient but stern.

“Twelve,” the kid says with a sniff. That seems right.

“You need cash?” the guy asks.

“I’m s-s-s-sorry,” the kid stutters, obviously choking back a sob.

“You know where your dinner’s comin’ from tonight?” the guy asks. When the kid hesitates in his response, the guy adds in a quiet voice, “You can tell me.”

The kid doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head, a few tears spilling from his eyes and onto his cheeks. Steve’s heart aches for him.

The guy takes one of his hands from the kid’s shoulder and pulls a battered leather wallet from his back pocket. “Stay put,” he says as he takes his other hand from the kid’s shoulder, opens the wallet, and pulls out a wad of bills. From Steve’s vantage, it looks like all of the cash he’s carrying on him. He folds up the bills, then slips the money into the kangaroo pocket of the kid’s ratty hoodie. “Buy somethin’ healthy,” he says as the subway pulls into the next station. “Now scram.”

“What?” the kid asks, looking at the guy with wide, confused eyes.

“This your stop?” the guy asks. The kid nods as the subway doors start to open. “Then get off. Keep yourself safe.”

The kid looks at the open doors, then runs off the train without another word.

The guy exhales, then looks to the other end of the car. Almost everyone who hasn’t gotten off already is still staring at him. “This ain’t some CW drama. Go back to your knittin’, you fuckers,” he spits at the spectators.

Steve snorts. He can’t help it — it was such an unexpectedly hilarious insult, out of place given the context.

The guy turns to face him, looking peeved and like he’s ready for a fight, but then his eyes widen. He pulls down the hood of his own hoodie and looks at Steve with an expression halfway between wonder and disbelief, blue-grey eyes wide. “Steve Rogers,” he says with a growing smile. “Holy shit.”

Steve feels his own face slacken with surprise, like his body remembers who this is before his mind catches up. It takes a moment to add up the features on the man in front of him: those blue-grey eyes, a cleft chin, high cheekbones. Sure, he’s older, dirtier, taller, but there’s only one person Steve knew who looked like that. “Bucky?” he asks. “Bucky Barnes?” It’s been so long since he’s said that name out loud.

“Yeah, I…” Bucky pauses, looking over to the electronic banner that announces which stop the subway is on. “Oh fuck,” he says. “I missed my stop.”

Steve smiles. “Wanna get a burger?” he asks, noting the happy coincidence that Bucky Barnes, of all the people in New York, fell asleep in the same subway car that Steve would walk into, and missed his stop.

“Sure,” Bucky says with a shrug. “I could eat.”

— —

They get off at the next stop, somewhere near Prospect Park. “Used to live around here,” Steve says. “I just moved to Williamsburg last year, though,” he adds as they walk up the steps out of the subway station and onto the street.

He’s almost surprised that it’s still light out; he’d been in the subway station for nearly four hours, and he just expected it to be dark when he stepped out. He’s happy that there’s still light — it gives him the opportunity to take a good look at Bucky.  He’s taller, of course, and broader. It seems like he’s in good shape, but it’s hard to tell underneath his hoodie and jacket. His long hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail at the nape of his neck with a few stray strands framing his face.

From the look of his clothes and hair, it doesn’t seem like Bucky pays much attention to his appearance, which almost strikes Steve as odd. Not that Bucky looks bad , per se, but just that he doesn’t give off a vibe that he gives his looks a lot of thought. He remembers how Bucky agonized over his appearance when they were younger, making sure his hair was perfect and his clothes all matched. It would drive Steve nuts, how much time it took Bucky to get ready in the morning when they still needed to walk to school. Steve just hadn’t seen the point of spending ten minutes doing his hair like Bucky did; for Steve and his cowlicky mane, no amount of time seemed to make a difference. Besides, at the time, Steve thought Bucky looked great no matter what he wore. So it’s all the more startling to see Bucky walking around in dirty jeans now.

But that’s a stupid thought. Of course Bucky’s looks and priorities have changed since the eighth grade — whose hadn’t? Steve’s preferences have changed probably the same way Bucky’s have. And so what if Bucky looks a little different than he did back then? Steve shot up a foot and gained about ninety pounds of muscle and Bucky still managed to recognize him.

Which is kind of a miracle unto itself, to be honest, that Bucky would recognize him when, after the growth spurt,  some of Steve’s own relatives couldn’t tell it was him. There were about two years where no one Steve knew recognized him. It had made him feel like such a stranger in his own body and life, but he’s gotten used to it by now. Still, it makes something warm bloom in his chest to know that after so much time, his oldest friend would know him by sight.

But  it’s weird to be walking with Bucky Barnes down familiar streets when he’s simultaneously so familiar and unfamiliar. Steve keeps sneaking glances Bucky’s way, half-sure that he’ll be gone any moment, that Steve is hallucinating all of this, and that he’s walking down the street alone. It wouldn’t have been the first time that Steve saw someone in the distance and half-thought it was Bucky Barnes; this would just take it to a new extreme.

“So you’re out in Williamsburg livin’ the dream?” Bucky asks, snapping Steve out of his own thoughts. He’s looking at Steve in a searching way, and Steve wonders what he’s thinking. A few minutes ago, Bucky was asleep on the train, and now he’s here with Steve. It must be disconcerting for him, too.

Steve shrugs. “Trying to,” he says.

“Your art in the Met yet?” Bucky asks.  Steve can’t help but laugh. Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Stupid question?” he asks.

“Not stupid,” Steve says, looking down, a little embarrassed at his reaction. “I’m not working as an artist or anything, is all. I studied art in school, but I’m a graphic designer now. It’s creative, but not exactly the same. But maybe one day I can design a nice pamphlet for the Met or something. That seems about more my speed nowadays.”

“That’s a shame,” Bucky says. “Not that you have a good career and prospects, but about your art. I always thought your art was great.”

“I think you were the only one. My senior show got panned by the student magazine; basically said the entire thing was trash.” He purses his lips. Steve was one of the few devoted readers of The Prattler during his school years. He’d opened up the magazine with trembling fingers just to read a review of his work so nasty that he’d cried. After a childhood of difficulty, Steve was not someone who was easily brought to tears, but he’d done it then, knowing that if his student show was trash, the chances of him making it as an artist were slim. Coupled with the raw sadness of his mother’s recent death, it had felt too personal. After school, he’d gotten an MA in graphic design, hoping he’d make art on the weekends, but he barely opens a sketchbook nowadays, let alone paints the canvases that he used to love making.

“They probably got no taste,” Bucky says with a shrug. “Student critics are just lookin’ for an ego trip. It’s not like they got any real authority. Havin’ nothin’ good to say just means you’re a shitty critic looking to hurt people because you can’t do the things they’re doin’. And even if it’s not always successful, the fact that you put yourself out there to be criticized? That’s somethin’.”

Steve sighs. “I wish you were an art critic,” he says. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about. Maybe if you’d reviewed my show, I’d be a starving artist today.”

Bucky snorts. “I am,” he says.

Steve’s eyes go wide. “What?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m an art critic. I write mostly for the New Yorker but also freelance around for…” He glances at Steve, then trails off. “Oh shit, Steve, look at your face. I’m sorry; I’m not an art critic. I’m just a piece of shit. I don’t got any basis to criticize anyone for anythin’, let alone art,” Bucky says, all in a rush, basically tripping over the words in apology.

“You’re not a piece of shit,” Steve says, an automatic response. Even if he doesn’t know who he is today, he’s sure that Bucky Barnes would never end up a piece of shit. “And you don’t have to apologize; I was just surprised. You never seemed to like it when I dragged you to art museums when we were kids, so the idea of you becoming an art critic...” He pauses, smiles apologetically. “I mean, it’d be great if you did, but it would’ve been a surprise.”

“Sorry to break it to ya, but I’m still not interested in art. Yours? Maybe.” Bucky says. “Always liked whatever you made, even if it was just finger paintings. But it’s probably just because you were the person makin’ it. Not sure I understand anythin’ else about art, though. Been years since I walked into a museum.”

“Most people just need an introduction to art,” Steve says. They’re a couple blocks away from the subway station now. Steve keeps looking around, trying to find somewhere decent to grab a bite to eat. So far, he hasn’t seen much. “I swear I didn’t know much of anything until I took my first real art history class. After that, going to the museum got so much better. One class makes a lot of difference.”

“But didn’t you used to just go around and sketch things?” Bucky asks.

Steve nods. “Yeah, but now I know how to learn about art, if that makes sense.”

“Sure it does,” Bucky says. “But it didn’t seem to matter much to you what the correct way to look at art was back in the day. You just liked the art.”

It’s true. The two of them would go to the Met and the Whitney with Steve’s ma, Steve carrying around a spiral notebook and sketching things in pencil as they walked around the galleries. Bucky and his ma would humor him, let him take time in front of all of the canvases. They were good memories of the past he and Bucky shared before Bucky left.

The last time Steve saw  Bucky was at their eighth grade graduation ceremony. They had carpooled to the event, even, Bucky’s mom packing the two of them, Sarah Rogers, and Bucky’s two sisters into her battered blue minivan. She was the only person Steve knew who actually owned a car in Brooklyn, but it was a necessity for her with three kids and a husband who didn’t seem to care. Steve can still picture a photograph his ma took of the two of them after the ceremony with their diplomas in hand. In the photo, he and Bucky  stood in front of their junior high in matching blue graduation caps and gowns, Bucky grinning, his arm slung over Steve’s shoulders as they held their diplomas out to the camera. It was a silly sort of ceremony, one that didn’t mean much, but at the time it felt like the biggest accomplishment of their lives. The ceremony stood in front of them as a gateway to high school, to the future , and both of them went into it with an awed sense that when they left, they would be entering into a new part of their lives together.

But the future ended up being so much more than a new school. Neither of them knew that they wouldn’t be seeing each other again; in fact, they’d had plans to go to the mall the next day. All Steve’s ma would tell Steve about what happened was that Mrs. Barnes was in a very tough situation and had to make some very difficult decisions about where she would raise Bucky and his younger sisters, Rebecca and Alice. Steve remembered how, a few weeks after graduation, Bucky’s dad knocked so hard on their apartment door that it seemed like the door would fly off the hinges. His ma told him to stay in his room, then answered it. She wouldn’t tell Bucky’s dad anything about where Bucky and his ma and his sisters were, though Steve thought she knew where they ended up. After that, his ma had to call the police with shaking fingers, but Bucky’s dad didn’t show up again. And neither did Bucky.

It took a long time for Steve to stop feeling betrayed by Bucky’s disappearance. He’s not sure he’s ever consciously forgiven Bucky for leaving Brooklyn and for leaving him. There was barely a day of Steve’s childhood spent without Bucky Barnes, but his presence disappeared so quickly that Bucky became a near-ghostly memory in Steve’s mind. How could he consciously forgive someone when it felt as if Bucky never existed in the first place?

Steve looks over at Bucky, who has his hands shoved in his jean pockets. His lips are pursed, and he’s looking down at his shoes as he walks. There’s a hunch in his shoulders, and a nervous energy radiating off of him. Then he looks up at Steve. “So, since you’re the one who lived around here, got any places in mind for that burger?” Bucky asks. “Not to be pushy, but I had to work late and could really use some dinner. It’s been a long day.”

Pushing back the instinct to step back and ask Bucky if he really wants to do this — since he already said he would, and because Steve doesn’t want to give Bucky an out — Steve pauses, thinks for a moment, then smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “There’s a diner a few blocks away, I think. I used to go there all the time when I was working the late shift at this gallery uptown to pay for school. It’s nothing fancy but the food is good,” Steve says. “Would you mind?”

“‘Course not,” Bucky says. “Do I look like I’m eatin’ at Per Se every night?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Steve says. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to Per Se’s dress code.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I’m fine with just about anythin’ as long as I can pay with my debit card.” He looks at Steve. “I’m a little short on cash today,” he adds with a shrug and a sheepish grin.

Steve can’t help but grin back at him.

He’s always had a weakness for Bucky Barnes’ smile.

— —

“There are people out there who just forget to eat,” Bucky says as he strips the paper off of a plastic straw. “You know that?” he asks, but plows on, not waiting for a response from Steve. “They just don’t eat lunch or dinner and don’t think about it and don’t get hungry. I eat breakfast fifteen minutes later than usual and I’m so ravenous I could eat an entire cow. I don’t think I’ve skipped a meal since uh...” He trails off, sticking the straw into his water glass. “In a long time,” he says finally.

They’re sitting together at Martinelli’s, a cheap diner that’s been around for eighty years or so, and is owned by Steve’s old landlords, Peggy and Angie Martinelli-Carter. They started the diner together after World War II and have kept it running since on the sheer quality of their roast beef sandwich, which is locally famous. Back when he was a broke grad student, Steve would come and sit by himself at the counter, where he’d spend hours chatting with Angie and Peggy while drinking coffee and eating toast and eggs, the cheapest thing on the menu. He’d just started his masters program, having just given up on being an artist and feeling raw with the loss of his mother and the career he could’ve had. He didn’t have much cash to spare, and while he could’ve cooked for himself, hours of sitting alone in his apartment eating eggs and rice just made him think about all of the ways his life seemed to be going wrong. Peggy and Angie would sit with him, happily serving him cup after cup of coffee and telling him to stay whenever he made the move to head home. He honestly doesn’t know where he’d be if it weren’t for the two of them.

He should’ve been back here so much sooner. It’s ridiculous that he hasn’t been.

They’re not in tonight — he asked the host before they sat down — but he resolves to come back when they are. He owes it to them, and to himself.

Steve laughs at Bucky’s remarks, knowing that he oftentimes works through lunch and occasionally dinner. He’ll be at his standing desk, working on some problem or another in InDesign, just to look up and see that it’s six o’clock and most everyone else has already left the office. By that point, he’ll usually just stop at the Halal cart down the street and eat a bad hot dog on his walk to the subway, then dump some near-expired dressing into one of those bags of salad and eat it out of the bag with a fork once he gets home.  “I know what you mean,” he says, taking a sip of his vanilla milkshake and not meeting Bucky’s eye.

Bucky, who ordered a Cinnamon Toast Crunch milkshake as well as  a Coke, for good measure, nods. “Yeah, you probably gotta eat like, an entire plate of meat every ten minutes with those muscles.” He gives Steve an exaggerated once-over that makes Steve laugh. Normally he’s not a fan of being surveyed like that, but it’s okay when it’s Bucky. He knows Bucky isn’t judging him, nor is he looking at him like a piece of, well, meat. He’s just looking. Looking in the same way that Steve has been looking at him for the past half hour.

Steve snorts. “Yeah, I’ve got a boiled chicken breast in my pocket right now,” he says. “Want some?”

“Depends — which pocket has it been in?”

“Front left,” Steve says.

“Then nah.” Bucky picks up his milkshake and starts sipping it through the straw.

“And why’s that?” Steve asks, curious about Bucky’s logic here.

Bucky puts his glass down and swallows. He gesticulates with his hand while he talks; the movements are achingly familiar to Steve. Even if Bucky’s appearance has changed, this hasn’t. Bucky had always been a storyteller with a dramatic flair. Everyone’s eyes would be on him when he started to speak. Only Bucky Barnes could make a conversation about pocket chicken and make it interesting.  “If it’s in the front pocket, it’d be lukewarm. Back pocket? It’d be warm. Simple as that. I don’t want to eat lukewarm pocket chicken. Warm pocket chicken? I could be convinced under the correct circumstances.”

“But wouldn’t back pocket chicken be flattened and gross?” Steve asks.

“You mean tenderized?” Bucky asks, eyebrow raised.

Steve smiles. “Got me there,” he says as their server approaches with a full tray of food.

“Here you boys are,” she says as she sets up a stand for the tray. “Got the double burger with cheddar and bacon for you,” she says, setting a burger and fries in front of Steve. “And we’ve got the patty melt and uh, my number for this guy,” she says, setting a napkin with her number on it down next to Bucky’s plate as she blushes. Steve looks down at his plate.

Bucky grins up to her. “Darlin’,” he says, “you’re a wonder.”

She blushes even harder.

“But I’m gay.”

Steve looks up from his food in an instant,  like a meerkat on lookout. Bucky is just smiling at the server in an apologetic way, seemingly ignoring Steve’s spastic movement at his off-handed comment.

Steve hadn’t known that Bucky was gay.

But he knows that he wants Bucky to look at him. He just wants Bucky to look at him.

He doesn’t try to think too deeply about that urge.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m gonna go to the back and jump into the fryer now. Hope you guys enjoy your food.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Bucky says. “Pass that napkin over to Steve. He’s interested in women and very good looking. Look at that charmin’ face. See those muscles?  Ain’t nobody in the world would pass that up for the likes of me.”

Steve looks down at his burger, then reaches out and kind of pokes at a french fry so he can pretend to have something to do other than blush. “I actually just got out of a relationship… uh, today,” he says, voice cracking a little on the last word. He glances back up at Bucky. “Just before I got on the train, actually.”

Bucky’s face falls. “Fuck, Steve,” he says quietly. His eyes don’t leave Steve’s face.

“Oh honey,” the server says, frowning. “That’s a shame. Want a piece of pie?” she asks.

“Oh no, I’m—”

“He’ll have pecan,” Bucky says. “And your number,” he adds, sliding the napkin with her phone number towards Steve’s side of the table. He shrugs. “It’s never too early to try again when it comes to love, right?”

“You sound like Lizzie McGuire, but okay,” Steve says. He smiles up at the server. “Thanks,” he says.

“Enjoy your food. I’ll be out with that pie in a minute,” she says, turning around and heading back towards the kitchen.

Finally tearing his eyes from Steve, Bucky grabs his sandwich and takes a big bite. “Shit, that’s good,” he says through a mouth full of food. A little something dribbles out from the side of his mouth, which would probably gross Steve out if the person chewing were anyone besides Bucky. It just manages to be charming on him.

Steve takes a bite of his own burger and hums in agreement. When he’s chewed and swallowed — because Sarah Rogers instilled impeccable manners in her son — he asks “So you’re gay?” because he can’t help himself. His manners only go so far, and he would’ve never guessed. Even in eighth grade, Bucky was kissing girls near the dumpsters behind the school and he always had a date to dances. On more than one occasion some girl who never talked to Steve before would ask him to pass a valentine along to Bucky, only to be disappointed when Steve refused to be a carrier pigeon. It would have never occurred to Steve to even contemplate Bucky being anything but straight. But maybe he was just too busy trying to figure out his own sexuality to pay any attention to Bucky’s. It’s just that Bucky was such a big part of figuring out his own sexuality that it comes as a surprise. There’s something sort of crazy about your childhood fantasies becoming realities.

Bucky glances up, then back down at his plate. He doesn’t answer straight away, just dips a fry in ketchup for a moment too long. “Yeah,” he says after a long pause.

“I’m bi,” Steve blurts out before taking another bite of his burger. It’s not something that he talks about all that often. He’d known he was interested in men since, well, Bucky walked up to him on the beach one day with a shell in his hand and a smile on his face, and told Steve that he’d found it specifically for him. That was when a little voice in his head went oh and he realized that what he had felt for Bucky was more than just friendship. Still, it had taken him a while to accept that part of himself, but he knows who he is today. Since he’s been in a long-term relationship with a woman, though, it’s been something that he’s been able to push aside and ignore.

Maybe he hasn’t accepted it as much as he tells himself he has.

Bucky looks back up. Steve gives a little self-conscious one-shouldered shrug. “Guess we know why we would gravitate towards each other as kids, huh.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, the gay kids always seem to find a way. Though, I didn’t really realize it until high school.” He pops the fry in his mouth and starts saying, “I wondered why I was missin’—”

“Here’s that pie,” their server interrupts, setting a slice of pecan pie down in the middle of the table. There’s a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of it, just starting to melt at the edges.

Bucky smiles up at her. “Thank you,” he says.

She smiles and walks away.

Steve goes back to his burger. There’s a companionable kind of quiet between them while they eat; well, almost quiet. Bucky is kind of a noisy chewer, but Steve doesn’t really mind.

It’s a different kind of quiet than his hot dog cart meals, and from the recent dates he’s had with Sharon. He and Sharon would sit across from each other at the long wooden IKEA table in her apartment, poking at take-out kale salads from the place next door that Steve never really liked but was her favorite. She’d always be too tired for conversation, or Steve couldn’t think of something interesting to talk about. There would always be an air of tension between them, the feeling that there should be something to fill the silence even though there just wasn’t.

The fact of the matter was that never really had much in common. There was never something appropriate to fill the silence.

“You okay?” Bucky asks.

Steve looks up, not realizing that he was just staring at the remnants of his food. “Just thinking,” he says.

“About your ex?” Bucky asks. His plate’s almost clean.

Steve nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I was thinking about how it was hard to talk to her,” he admits. “We’d been together for three years, but it was like we stopped talking after six months.” He sighs, shakes his head. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be maudlin.”

“You don’t gotta apologize,” Bucky says. “Apologizin’ for what you’re feelin’ is like apologizin’ for a rain storm. Doesn’t change anythin’ and just makes you feel guilty and small.”

Steve smiles. “That’s a good way of putting it,” he says before drinking the last of his milkshake.

“I stopped apologizin’ for existin’ a while ago,” Bucky says, not quite meeting Steve’s eye. He starts playing with the straw in his empty glass of Coke, then looks over and smiles. “And I’m not gonna apologize for eatin’ your pie either.”

“You’re the one who ordered it,” Steve says, smiling as he sets down his empty glass. “Enjoy.”

“I will,” Bucky says, taking a forkful of the pie and eating it. He grins, not looking away from Steve’s gaze. “It’s good,” he says, once he’s swallowed.

“Hey Buck?” Steve asks.

“Yeah?”

“You wanna go to the beach?”

Bucky puts down his fork and looks up at Steve. “Coney Island?” Steve nods. It seems appropriate to go where the train would’ve taken him if he’d stayed on, the same place where he had dozens of memories with Bucky from childhood.  “Sure,” Bucky says. “I got nothin’ better to do.”

Steve smiles, picks up his own fork, and takes a small piece of the pie.

It really is good.

— —

It takes them nearly an hour to go back to the subway station and get to Coney Island. They were lucky that a train was leaving at the right time, but looking at Bucky, Steve feels like he’s had some luck with subway trains today. Still, it’s nearly ten o’clock by the time they get to the abandoned Coney Island boardwalk. The park will open up in a few weeks when the weather gets warmer, but walking past the Cyclone and Luna Park when they’re deserted for the season is lonely. It makes Steve feel like he and Bucky are the only two people in New York; though, he’s sure there are others wandering around Coney Island that he just can’t see.

“Been a while since I’ve seen this,” Bucky says, looking out at the dark waves hitting the sand. They’re still standing on the boardwalk, leaning on the railing above the beach. “Think the last time I was here must’ve been with you and your ma.” He looks over at Steve. “Remember? When you screamed so hard on the Spook-a-Rama that you chucked?”

“I barfed because of the Cyclone,” Steve says. “ You were the one who screamed so hard on the Spook-a-Rama that you cried. Ma had to buy you an ice cream to calm you down and you spent the rest of the day jumping at everything.”

“Hmm, not so sure about that,” Bucky says, not meeting Steve’s eyes.

“Wanna bet? I’m pretty sure I still have that photo they took of us on the ride somewhere in storage.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe you’re right.” Bucky laughs, then looks out at the ocean. He’s quiet for a long moment, then says, “I’m sorry” in a soft voice.

“For what?” Steve asks.

“I read her obituary,” he says, still looking out at the water. “But I never got in touch with you.”

“Oh,” Steve says, quietly. He never thought that Steve or his mother would even be on Bucky’s radar because Bucky was never on his. But it would make sense that Bucky would keep up with Sarah — she was a huge part of his childhood in a way the Barneses weren’t part of Steve’s. Sure, Steve knew Bucky’s ma, but he didn’t stay over at the Barneses’ apartment the same way that Bucky stayed with him and his ma when they were kids.  “It’s okay,” Steve says. “It’s been a few years now.”

“I was on leave,” Bucky says. “I could’ve come to the funeral but…” He shrugs. “I don’t have an excuse, really. I didn’t go. That’s it.”

“You don’t need an excuse,” Steve says. “Not that she wouldn’t have wanted you there, but as long as you were doing okay, she would’ve been happy. She always really cared about you, Buck. You know that.”

After Bucky left, she didn’t mention him or his family often. Steve got the feeling that she and Bucky’s ma talked sometimes on the phone in quiet voices late at night when she thought Steve was asleep. It made sense; they were just as good of friends as Steve and Bucky were, having known each other long before the two boys were born, when they were both nurses on the late shift. But Steve thought that Sarah didn’t talk about the Barneses because Steve felt so rotten about Bucky leaving without saying a word. That must’ve been hard on her, but at the time, Steve appreciated it. Forgetting about Bucky was easier that way.

Steve swallows hard. “So you were in the Army?” he asks, changing the subject away from his ma.

Bucky nods. “Yeah,” he says. He’s still looking out at the ocean and not at Steve. The waves lap gently on the rocks that jut out from the beach and Steve can hear seagulls cry in the distance.

“You haven’t said much about what you’ve been up to since the eighth grade,” Steve says, trying to smile. “Feels like we went through everything on my end but haven’t touched on yours.”

“Haven’t been up to much,” Bucky says, suddenly contorting himself so he can slip through the railing on onto the sand below. He starts making his way towards the water.

“I find that kind of hard to believe,” Steve says, following Bucky down the sandy beach.

Halfway to the water, Steve watches Bucky toe off his shoes and socks, then as he slips his jacket off. He drops his backpack on the sand and pulls his hoodie off over his head, dropping that next to his backpack, and revealing…

Steve’s words get caught in his throat.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “It’s real shiny, but it ain’t from Tiffany’s,” he adds, finally pulling off the gloves he’s worn the whole time they’ve been together, and revealing the metallic fingers of his left hand. He gives Steve a little wave before dropping his hand to his side. “Wanna go for a swim?” he asks.

Normally, Steve would look around at the beach and see the signs telling them that there’s no lifeguard, and that the beach is closed to swimmers.

Normally, Steve would recognize that it’s still only spring and that the water is probably too cold for a casual dip, especially at night.

Normally, Steve would realize that despite the feeling of knowing Bucky, he still has no idea who Bucky is today, and that getting nearly-naked in a unpoliced area with him is probably a bad idea.

But there’s nothing normal about this situation, so Steve starts taking off his clothes.

He trusts Bucky. There’s no real reason he should besides nostalgic past precedent, but he does. If he learned one thing from his relationship with Sharon, it’s that it’s hard for people to change. While there are parts of Bucky that may be different now, he’s sure that Bucky’s fundamental core hasn’t shifted. Bucky wouldn’t lead Steve into the water — metaphorically or literally — if it weren’t safe.

As Steve is thinking that, Bucky pulls off his shirt, revealing the whole of his metal arm, as well as  a well-defined chest and abs, but also a torso riddled with ropey white scars. Steve, pulling off his own shirt, can’t help but look; though, he knows he shouldn’t.

He swallows hard and takes a step closer to Bucky. “Buck,” he says in a quiet voice, almost lost against the sound of the waves. “What happened to you?”

Bucky smiles. “Wanna touch the arm?” he asks, not answering Steve’s question.

Steve nods and reaches out, letting his fingertips trail the metal of Bucky’s forearm. “It’s really cold,” he says.

Bucky nods. “Yeah, Shuri’s working on that.” At Steve’s blank expression he adds, “She built it,” he says. “She’s a genius. She saved my life.”

Steve looks up again. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Now?” He hates how his voice breaks.

The corner of Bucky’s mouth ticks upwards. “Sure,” he says, voice soft and sarcastic.

Whatever words Steve may’ve said die in his throat when he looks up at Bucky’s face. Bucky is staring at where Steve’s fingers touch his arm, and while he may be smiling, there’s something so forced and vulnerable about the curve of his lip and the tension in his brow. Steve lifts his hand off of Bucky’s arm and slowly brings it to Bucky’s face, tracing the lines on his forehead until they smooth out. “Are you okay?” he asks again in a quiet voice when Bucky’s face finally slackens to something more relaxed.

“I haven’t…” Bucky says, voice cracking. He stops, closes his mouth, then exhales through his nose. He looks almost frustrated with himself for being unable to control his tone. “I’ve never let anyone get this close,” he finally whispers, looking down at his left arm.

They’re standing so close together now, shirtless and cold as the Atlantic Ocean laps up on the beach next to them. Steve’s fingers linger on the side of Bucky’s face, like the reunion scene he would imagine so often when he was a heartsick teenager aching over his missing best friend.

“Thank you,” Steve says, voice barely a whisper.

“For what?” Bucky asks.

“For letting me be this close,” Steve says.

Bucky looks up, eyes flicking from Steve’s eyes down to his lips, then back up again. He swallows hard. “I missed you,” he says. “So fuckin’ much.”

Steve nods. “Me too,” he says, throat feeling thick.

He looks at Bucky, pale and small in comparison to the ocean behind them, and Steve realizes that he’d like to kiss him. He’d like to kiss him very badly.

“I…” Steve starts, but doesn’t know how to end the sentence. He feels so off-kilter and strange, like the whole axis of his life has been thrown off in just a few hours. It feels like weeks since he turned off his phone on the F train, like months since Bucky came back into his life. The fact that it’s only been hours seems like it’s a lie when it’s the truth. And this moment? He wants it to last forever.

But then Bucky smiles, close-lipped, and pulls away. “Let’s go,” he says, gesturing to the water.

Steve nods, a sudden rush of adrenaline pouring through him. “Yeah,” he says, unbuttoning his pants and letting them fall to the sand beneath him. Then he sticks a finger in the elastic lining of his boxers and starts slipping them down. Bucky glances back at him, eyebrows raised. Steve shrugs. “Why not?” he asks.

Bucky grins. “Sure,” he says, pulling down his own boxers, then shyly turning just a little so Steve’s view is blocked. “Ready?” he asks from over his shoulder.

Steve nods, unable to keep himself from grinning. “Yeah,” he says, then starts running towards the water. He looks back and Bucky is following him, close at heel before they step into the freezing ocean. Steve yelps after he takes a few steps in and a wave hits his bare thighs — he can’t help it. The Atlantic is frigid, so cold that he contemplates turning right back around, but then Bucky runs up alongside him, grabs his wrist and pulls Steve further along and deeper with him.

Bucky is grinning, waist-deep in the water as he looks back at Steve. He drops Steve’s arm and raises an eyebrow as he smirks.

“What now?” Steve asks with chattering teeth, pulling his arms up to rub at his shoulders for warmth.

Bucky doesn’t say a word, just smirks before plunging himself into the water, submerging his body completely. Steve stares wide-eyed at Bucky, who stays under the water for just a few seconds before popping back up, bare chest glistening with sea water. “That’s horrible,” he says with a grin.

“This is horrible,” Steve agrees, unable to keep his own spreading smile despite his discomfort.

“C’mon down,” Bucky says. “The water is terrible.”

“Only if you do,” Steve says, holding out his hand to Bucky.

Bucky rolls his eyes, but takes it, entangling his fingers with Steve’s. “One, two…” On three, he pulls Steve down with him into the water.

The water is even colder than he thought it would be, and Steve can feel the waves lap against his body, stronger than he anticipated. Normally, he’d try to open his eyes, but he knows that he’ll regret it if he opens them in the salt water and wakes up in the morning with them completely bloodshot. Instead, he squeezes Bucky’s hand and just tries to focus on the sensation of being very small in a body of water that is so very large. It’s kind of amazing though, that even in this large world, he managed to make his way onto the same subway car where his oldest friend was sleeping. That shows that the world isn’t actually that big, right? That in some ways, it’s very small; or, at least, Brooklyn is.

But it’s still like things are clicking into place.

He feels Bucky start to pull up, and Steve follows, still holding his hand. When his head breaks the surface of the water, Steve takes a gasping breath, opening his eyes and seeing Bucky doing the same. Bucky’s long hair hangs over his eyes like dark seaweed. Steve reaches out and gently pushes it away. “That’s better,” he says, once he can see Bucky’s blue-grey eyes once again. His fingers linger at the side of Bucky’s face, and Steve wonders again if he should just do it. If he should inch closer, bring his bare body up to Bucky’s, stroke down his cheekbone with his thumb, and then kiss him.

He sees rivulets of water drip from Bucky’s hair down his bare chest, catching on the ropey scars that cover so much of his shoulders and torso. Steve wants to trace those scars with his fingers.

“Steve,” Bucky says quietly, sounding almost like a warning.

“Wanna get outta here?” Steve asks, the Brooklyn accent he’s always tried so hard not to let out sounding obvious to his ears. He’s too cold and too full of adrenaline to care. Besides, Bucky wouldn’t judge.

Bucky nods. “Let’s go put some pants on,” he agrees, dropping Steve’s hand as he starts wading through the water back to the beach.

— —

Ten minutes later, they’re laying together on the sand in their boxers, waiting to dry off just a little more before they put on the rest of their clothes. It’s chilly outside, especially cold when wet, but Steve isn’t worried. He doesn’t have concern himself about pneumonia the same way he did back when he and Bucky were young and he was much more fragile.

Which reminds him.

He looks to Bucky, who is staring up at the cloudy sky. “How’d you recognize me, Buck?” Steve asks in a quiet voice. “I’ve changed a lot but you recognized me.”

Bucky doesn’t respond immediately. He closes his eyes, eyelashes long and dark against his pale skin, takes a breath, then speaks. “I’ve looked you up,” he says simply.

“You have?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods. “Yeah. The first time was after your ma died. My ma let me know what had happened, so I found your Facebook. I was gonna send you a message or somethin’.” He pauses, takes another breath. Both of them know that Bucky sent no message. “I’ve done it a couple times since then, just tellin’ myself I was checkin’ up on an old friend. I looked at a lot of your pictures —  you should change your privacy settings, by the way — and just saw your life. You have friends, you wear khakis. You grew up. You have things figured out. I didn’t wanna insert myself into somewhere I didn’t belong even if I wanted to talk to you again.”

“Buck,” Steve says in a quiet voice.

“I also…” Bucky continues, but trails off when his voice cracks. He exhales, shuts his eyes again. “I didn’t want to reach out and have you look at my life and realize that I’m not worth knowin’. I couldn’t help comparin’ myself to you. I was sitting in a basement with one arm and nothin’ to my name except a medicine cabinet full of pills, starin’ at your photos and wonderin’ how everythin’ went so wrong for me but so right for you. I don’t begrudge you for it. It’s just hard for me to see it.”

“I’d never,” Steve says, pulling himself up and reaching over for Bucky’s hand. “Buck, I’d never,” he repeats, interlacing their fingers once again. It’s the metal hand, but Steve doesn’t give a shit. He holds onto it like a lifeline. “I don’t care where you’ve been or where you are now. I just want to know you.”

“Steve, I’m not a good guy,” Bucky says from the sand.

“I don’t believe that, but even if you were, I don’t care,” Steve says.

“I’m not… you shouldn’t get attached,” he says.

“I already am,” Steve responds with a smile, running his thumb over Bucky’s metal knuckles. He doesn’t even know if Bucky can feel it. He doesn’t care.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” Bucky says. “I’m just figurin’ out how to be a person again.”

“That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.”

“God, Steve,” Bucky says, finally, finally cracking just the smallest of smiles. “You always knew what to say.”

“It’s been a really good night,” Steve says. “I never expected it to be. I felt lower than dirt, then you were there, reminding me that life is full of surprises. I never expected you to be here, but you are. We are.” He pauses. “I want to see you again after tonight.”

“Why?” Bucky asks.

“I like you,” Steve says. “I always have, but I like you right now, who I’ve been talking to tonight. If you want, I’d like to continue getting to know you.” Heart beating fast, Steve pulls Bucky’s metal hand towards his face. He presses his lips down gently, feeling the cool metal mixed with the taste of salt water. He looks up to see Bucky staring at him with wide eyes. “Are you busy tomorrow?” Steve asks.

“No,” Bucky says. “I’m not busy tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “It’s a date.”

— —

Two Years Later

— —

“Oh shoot,” Steve says as the F train pulls out from the platform. He runs down the remaining stairs, but it’s too late. The train is gone. There’s another one coming in ten minutes, so he pulls out his phone to shoot off a quick text to let Sam know that he’s running late. Sighing, Steve finds a place on the platform to wait.

He’s been playing solitaire on his phone for two minutes when there’s a tap on his shoulder. “Steve?” he hears a voice ask as he looks up.

“Sharon,” he says, honestly surprised. “Hello.”

Sharon smiles. “Kind of funny to run into you here,” she says, pushing her blonde hair back behind her ear. She’s looking great. It’s a warm day, and she’s wearing a pair of jeans with a button-down shirt and a vest, not an unusual outfit for when she was off-duty. Her eyes are bright, lacking the bags that she would wake up with around the end of their relationship. He’d had bags under his eyes, too. In the weeks after their breakup, more than one person pointed out that he was looking a lot healthier, better rested. He can’t help but agree.

“Why’s that?” Steve asks, shutting off his phone and putting it in his back pocket.

“Isn’t this where you wanted to meet?” she asks, looking around the platform. “When we…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to.

“Oh,” Steve says, realizing what she meant. “I guess it is,” he says, smiling. “Man, that feels like a lifetime ago.”

“It really does,” Sharon says. She pauses, looks down for a moment before looking back up at Steve. “I’m sorry I didn’t even respond to you that night,” she says.

Steve shakes his head. “I’m sorry for putting you in that position in the first place. You don’t need to apologize for anything.” He pauses. “It’s a good thing you didn’t come,” he says. “It didn’t feel great when I realized that you weren’t going to show, but it’s a good thing you didn’t come.”

“Why’s that?” Sharon asks, a small crease forming on her brow.

“We weren’t right for each other,” Steve says with a shrug.

She smiles. “That’s true,” she says.

“And if we had tried to hang on any longer, we would’ve just made each other more miserable.” He stops and lets a mother with a gaggle of kids following her pass in front of them. “Are you happy?” he asks.

She nods. “I am,” she says.

He smiles. “Good.”

“Are you?”

He bites down on his lip for a second and looks down, unable to keep himself from grinning. “I really, really am,” he says.

“You look happy,” she says before they fall into companionable silence, waiting for the train to arrive. Once it does, they end up in different cars. Steve doesn’t mind; they’re headed to different places, anyway.

— —

“Took you long enough,” Sam grumbles, stepping down from the stepladder he’s on and shoving a pile of streamers at Steve. “You’re tall. You do this.”

Steve laughs, accepting the streamers from Sam. “Okay, okay,” he says, setting down his briefcase near the front door of his apartment. “Where do these need to go?”

“You’re the artist,” Sam says. “You figure something out.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but steps up onto the ladder and starts putting up the streamers, careful not to let them touch the canvases on the wall. They’re new, added one by one over the past year or so as Steve’s finished painting them. Even if he was hesitant to hang them at the beginning, he can admit now that they bring a lot of color to the room.

“Thanks for helping out,” he calls to Sam, who is now moving across the room to futz with some of the appetizers that were delivered that afternoon. After Steve found out he’d need to finish something up he’d been slacking on at work, Sam agreed to come to the apartment to get the food delivery and help set up for the party. Steve owes him three months’ worth of bartabs for the help, but he doesn’t mind. Since they met at a VA event a year and a half ago, they’ve become fast and best friends. He’ll take any excuse to hang out with Sam that he can.

Sam looks up. “You’re welcome,” he says. “You don’t have a monopoly on being proud of your boy.”

Steve beams down at Sam. “He’s pretty great, isn’t he?”

“Keep it in your pants,” Sam mutters as he starts filling a bucket with ice.

— —

In the next hour, the guests start to arrive. Steve’s apartment starts to feel full very fast, with Steve’s friends mingling with Bucky’s buddies. Even Shuri and T’Challa flew in for the occasion, even though Steve assured them that wasn’t a huge deal and probably didn’t warrant them flying all the way from Wakanda. Still, they came, and now Steve has actual royalty walking around his Brooklyn brownstone. When Bucky told him how he got his new arm, Steve’s eyes had bugged out. He’d been aware that Bucky was doing really high-powered work for the military, but he didn’t realize that he had a special relationship with Wakandan royalty. But after a few times visiting with Shuri and T’Challa, Steve now considers them friends.

“Everything ready?” Sam asks, sidling up to Steve with a bottle of Stella Artois in hand.

Steve nods. “Think so.” He squints up at the ‘Congratulations Graduate’ banner hanging above his refrigerator. “Is that crooked?” he asks.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Do you think Bucky will care?” he counters.

“No,” Steve says, feeling something like relief bubble in the pit of his stomach. Bucky won’t care. While Steve is, and has always been, a bit of a perfectionist, Bucky is not. It’s been startling to be with someone who just appreciates that things are there, who doesn’t nitpick or gripe or spend all of their time trying to take the unnoticeable and improve it. It’s made Steve reevaluate a lot of things in his own day-to-day life, and he feels healthier and happier having Bucky there to remind him not to take things too seriously all the time.

Still, he wants everything to be perfect for Bucky.

“Maybe I can…”

He trails off, feeling his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulls it out and sees a text from Bucky.

t-minus 5 minutes till arrival

He smiles and yells over the crowd. “Five minutes!” There’s a cheer, in response — a notable hollar from Dum Dum, one of Bucky’s old Army buddies — and Steve turns to Sam. “I’m going to go wait outside for him,” he says.

Sam nods. “I’ll hold down the fort,” he says, gesturing to the room full of people.

Steve takes a moment to survey the crowd, all of the people that have come together to celebrate Bucky. It’s a mix of both of their lives, squished together in the small Brooklyn brownstone that they chose together six months ago. It’s full and it’s warm and Steve is glad to to be there.

Smiling, Steve grabs his jacket from where it’s hanging in the front closet and heads outside to meet Bucky.

It’s still a little bit cold for the first week in May, so Steve shoves his hands in his coat pockets and tries not to stare at the direction he knows Bucky will be coming from like a dog eagerly awaiting their owner’s return, even if that’s the kind of anticipation he feels any time Bucky is about to come around.

He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket again and he pulls it out, half expecting a photo from Sam with some joke about trashing their apartment. Instead, it’s another text from Bucky:

whyre you just standing there creepzilla

He looks up, trying to find Bucky, and  sees Bucky on the opposite side of the street — the sneak must’ve crossed it once he saw Steve just to throw him off — and grins. “Buck,” he calls, grinning and waving.

Bucky left this morning before Steve was awake, careful and quiet, but also kind enough to make a fresh pot of coffee so Steve would have some once he woke up. He’d told Bucky to wake him up before he left because he’d wanted to wish him luck on his final, but of course Buck wouldn’t hear of it. If he weren’t so dang proud of Buck and relieved that the stress of finals is over, Steve would be miffed. But honestly, he’s just happy to see Bucky. He usually is.

Bucky waves at Steve, looks both ways, then crosses the street. “Hey,” he says. “What’re you doin’ out here?” he asks, glancing up at their building. “Somethin’ happenin’ in there?”

“No, I was just waiting for you,” Steve says.

Bucky nods, then gets up close to Steve. He wraps his arms around Steve’s torso and lets his head fall into the crook of Steve’s neck and shoulder. Steve wraps his arms around Bucky, who just lets himself flop over, letting Steve bear the brunt his not-insubstantial weight. That metal arm adds a few pounds. “God, I’m tired,” he says.

“But you did it,” Steve says, rubbing circles onto Bucky’s back.

Bucky kind of grunts in response. “Unless I failed,” he mutters.

“You didn’t fail,” Steve says. “You’ve got a three-point-eight GPA and studied so hard. You’re not going to fail. ”

“How do you know I didn’t just leave the test blank, huh? Maybe I just gave up halfway through and decided it wasn’t worth it.”

“I know you didn’t do that because you’d never do that,” Steve says. He presses a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head. His hair’s a mess, like he’s been running his hands through it over and over in that nervous habit of his. “And even if you did, that failing grade won’t keep you from graduating, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. Congratulations, buddy,” he says in a quiet voice. “You’re a college graduate.”

“Not that much of an accomplishment. Thousands of morons get a bachelor’s degree,” he grumbles, grabbing the fabric of the back of Steve’s coat and holding on on tight, head still pressed to Steve’s shoulder. “Guess I’m fine with gettin’ that fancy piece of paper, though.”

“Not everyone graduates from NYU with a degree in mechanical engineering,” Steve says. “Some people just get art degrees.”

“You gotta be talented to get an art degree,” Bucky says, lifting his foot and gently kicking Steve’s ankle. “Don’t be modest, Steve.”

“Only if you promise not to be,” Steve says. “Graduating is an accomplishment and I won’t hear anything less from you.”

“You suck,” Bucky says, snuggling in closer. “And don’t think I don’t know why you’re waitin’ out here for me. I’m not stupid; I’ve got a bachelor’s degree.”

Steve chuckles. “I just wanted to see you,” Steve says, and it’s not a lie. He did come out here because he wanted a moment alone with Bucky after his last final just to do this, to tell him how proud of him he is and how much he loves him. The party will be great, and Steve loves their friends, too. But there’s something special about holding Bucky like they’re the only two people in the world.

“How many people are upstairs?” Bucky asks.

Steve doesn’t say anything.

“How many, Steve?” Bucky asks again, poking Steve’s side with his metal index finger.

“About thirty,” Steve admits after a long pause.

Bucky groans. “I hate you.”

“We don’t have to—”

“Of course I want to, Jesus,” Bucky interrupts, pulling away. Steve has to resist the urge to pull him back in. “I love attention,” he adds with a toothy grin. “Good call puttin’ the party today instead of my actual graduation ceremony. If it weren’t for a certain loose-lipped friend of yours, I would’ve actually been caught off-guard.”

“I know,” Steve says, stepping in close to Buck and putting his hand in the back pocket of his jeans. “Who told you?” he asks as they make their way towards the entrance of their building, though he has a pretty good idea of who it probably was.

“Sam. Obviously.”

Steve rolls his eyes. He’s gonna have words with Sam. Those words will probably include one joke about this, then several declarations of their eternal friendship, but he’ll make sure that joke is pretty biting.

Bucky pauses. Before Steve can ask what’s wrong, why he’s hesitating, Bucky reaches up and cups Steve’s face with his left hand, swiping a metal thumb over his cheekbone. “Couldn’t have done this without you,” he says.

“You started without me. You did two years without me,” Steve says.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Lemme be nice to you, ‘kay? Can you give that to me?”

“Just today,” Steve says with a grin. “Then it’s back to reminding you how amazing you are.”

And Bucky is amazing. If Steve’s learned one thing over the past two years, it’s just that. Bucky works so hard, but looks at life with humor and balance. He’s kind, he’s fair, he’s funny. He’d never let Steve get away with something as stupid as issuing an ultimatum in their relationship, but their relationship isn’t one that needs one. They fit together, and Steve knows that Bucky is the person he’s going to spend the rest of his life with.

“I love you,” Bucky says, the corners of his blue-grey eyes crinkling up in the joyful way that they do. “Thanks for bein’ my person.”

“I love you, too. Thanks for being mine,” Steve says before Bucky closes the space between them for a kiss.

— —

Fin