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adolphuslongestaffe · 5 years

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Like it Always Should Have Been

How do you tell your best friend you’re in love with him? The answer, of course, is you don’t. Because in real life, people don’t fall in love with their best friend and hide it for years and let it fester like an infected tooth until every smile hurts so bad they give up and confess just to be rid of the ache. If they do, it doesn’t end in a nice way. Friends don’t tend to respond well to, “I’ve been secretly in love with you all these years when you thought I was your best friend. Surprise!” Because that’s creepy as fuck.

But what if you really were his best friend and you loved him like a brother, and those other feelings were something that grew out of that. Slowly, over long years of seeing each other through trial and hardship, sticking together through thick and thin, and by the time you even admitted it to yourself, you were too far gone to do anything about it. And what if you felt like a piece of shit for letting him think he was still just a pal to you, so you decided to tell him, no matter how he might react, because you had to get it off your chest.

And what if you kept meaning to tell him, but every time you were just getting up enough courage to do it, a war happened. Or you were kidnapped by Nazis. Or you fell off a train and sort of but not really died and then came back brainwashed seventy-odd years later and tried really hard to kill him. Like, seriously, you shot him a bunch of times, then beat the living shit out of him with your cybernetic arm. You did drag his heavy ass out of that river, though. Hypothetically.

The point is, people don’t secretly fall in love with their best friend, wait seven decades to tell him, do all that shit with the Nazis and kind of dying and coming back and shooting and punching, and then confess their love and expect to get back a “holy shit I love you too” and live happily ever after. It doesn’t happen. It especially doesn’t happen when your best friend is Captain fucking America, and you’ve been sleeping on his pull-out sofa for three months because, technically, you’re a dead Soviet assassin with no credit score or bank account, and that doesn’t look great on a rental application.

This was absolutely not the situation James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, formerly-deceased war hero and currently-unemployed ex-assassin found himself in. Even if he had found himself in such a hypothetical conundrum, he would never have dreamed of admitting it to said hypothetical best friend, because, as previously stated, that doesn’t get you a happy ending in real life.

In real life, you shut the fuck up, be grateful you’re not locked up in a steel box for the safety of your fellow man, and try not to stare at Steve’s perfect ass while he’s cooking steak and eggs. Again. It’s like he doesn’t eat anything else. Hypothetically.

Bucky, being the pragmatic, real-life type of man, swallowed his excellent black coffee and Steve’s passable steak—and godawful scrambled eggs—and kept his feelings and his eyes to himself. Just like his dad taught him. In 1935. Because that’s what real men do. Or, they did in the 1930s. He’s seen an awful lot of men crying and talking about their feelings since he woke up out of that fucking nightmare.

“Hm?” he said, emerging from his reverie just in time to realize he was being spoken to, and hadn’t heard a word of it. “Sorry, what’d you say? My mind was…wandering.”

“You’re getting senile, old man,” Steve said, waving the cast-iron pan at him. “I asked if you want some more eggs. I made plenty.”

“Oh, no thanks. I’m watching my figure, you know?”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Buck,” Steve admonished, with that mixture of paternal firmness and youthful buoyancy that only he seemed capable of. He walked over to the table and scraped another helping onto Bucky’s plate anyway. “Your body is an engine and if you don’t fuel it properly, it won’t keep running. Now eat your eggs.”

Steve sat down and dug into his breakfast with hearty enthusiasm, while Bucky took up his fork and poked at the yellowish pile on his plate. He’d just gotten up enough resolve to shove a rubbery wad into his mouth and start chewing through them, when Steve burst out laughing.

“What?” Bucky frowned. “What’s the joke, wise guy?”

“Buck, why don’t you just admit you hate the eggs?”

Bucky blinked. “Why don’t I—wait, you knew?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, though his laughter. “I’ve been watching you struggling to choke them down for three months.”

“Oh, I am going to kick your ass to the moon, Rogers, you rotten little sneak! Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I wanted to see how long you’d keep it up, but it’s just getting mean at this point. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I was being polite!” Bucky exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Your face wasn’t. You’re not very hard to read, for a spy. Everything in there is all out here,” Steve replied, gesturing toward Bucky’s cranium and face respectively.

Bucky’s traitorous face, of course, flushed with heat at the idea that what was going on in his head was so plainly visible to Steve, which made his war buddy and best friend laugh even harder.

“I wasn’t a spy, I was an assassin,” he grumbled into his mug. “You don’t have to hide your feelings from people you’re gonna kill anyway. Sorry about the eggs. I didn’t want to offend you.”

“It’s just eggs, why would I be offended?” Steve said, hopping up to clear the dishes. “You have to learn to say what you’re thinking, though, Buck. That’s how people are nowadays. They expect you to be a lot more forward than the way we were taught. Otherwise, they won’t know what you really want.”

Bucky decided he’d best disregard this advice for the moment, since what he really wanted was for Steve to stop talking and put his mouth on his mouth, and there was no way he’d ever heard of to say that kind of thing to another man without getting socked for it. He turned to look out the window, lest his apparently legible face divulge this tidbit to his friend, and sipped morosely at his coffee.

“How you doing?” Steve asked, as he reseated himself at the table with a glass of milk, which he still insisted upon drinking with every meal. “You feeling up to this thing tonight?”

From anyone else, this kind of treatment would’ve made Bucky’s stomach turn. Steve, however, had more than earned the right to frankly address his condition, and his particular brand of steady, tenacious concern didn’t carry the same sting as would the saccharine sympathy of others.

“I’m doing as well as usual,” Bucky answered stiffly, pre-WWII habits regarding talking about feelings being hard to break. “I’m not sure about the thing tonight, though. Dr. Barenbaum thinks I need to try some low pressure social situations before I jump headfirst into trying to make friends.”

“That’s why it’s perfect,” Steve smiled. “It’s just a casual get-together. They do this kind of thing all the time.”

“I don’t know if hanging out with the Avengers in Stark Tower counts as low pressure. Maybe for you, but you’re Captain America. I’m just…the guy who tried to kill Captain America.”

“No, you’re my best friend, a war hero, and an original Howling Commando. There wouldn’t even be an Avengers without you guys and every one of them knows it.”

“That’s not true,” Bucky said, wavering.

“Come on, Buck, you have to come,” Steve cajoled, amping up the intensity of his already devastating smile. “I told them you’d be there. Besides, I need another old guy around to not get anyone’s references with me.”

“Ugh…alright, fine. But I’m gonna sit in the corner and look really dark and broody the whole time.”

“You will if you want me to entertain everyone with stories about you from when we were kids. I think they’d enjoy hearing about the time you threw up on the Cyclone at Coney Island.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would.”

“You’re a real hardass, Rogers, you know that?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Steve said, looking eminently pleased with himself.

Bucky raised a doubtful eyebrow “Do they really?”

“Well…no. But they would if I weren’t so intimidating. I am their boss, you know.”

“Yeah, you keep saying.”

“And you keep not being impressed by it. Would it kill you to fake a little starstruck giddiness?”

“I think it might.”

“Ok, but you have to at least act like you think I’m cool at the party.”

“Nope,” Bucky said, getting up to carry his mug to the sink. “They’ll see right through that.”

“I changed my mind,” Steve called after him. “You’re uninvited.”

“Well, now I’m definitely coming.”

Several hours later, just after sunset, Bucky found himself standing before the entrance to the massively ostentatious Stark Tower, wrought in glittering steel and glass, and erected in the heart of most famous city in the world, a monument to technological superiority (not to mention its owner’s titanic ego). He followed Steve across the palatial lobby to the bank of elevators, and they began their ascent.

As they drew nearer the stratosphere, he found his courage swiftly waning. He had tried to kill a lot of these people, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some of them to be harboring some negative feelings about that. To add to this, was his difficulty with anxiety and hypervigilance, especially in crowds, since the Soviet sickos torn his brain apart and rebuilt him as a killing machine.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said, halting abruptly as they stepped off the elevator. “It seemed like an ok idea before we got here, but I’m, uh…kind of panicking.”

Steve smiled encouragingly, laying a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be alright, I promise. If it’s not, just tell me and we’ll get out of here, ok? I’m not trying to torture you.”

Compelled by Steve’s charismatic sanguinity, Bucky reluctantly allowed himself to be led through the marble-floored foyer into a rather large, posh lounge. The place was already fairly full, mostly with people he didn’t recognize at all, sitting at tables and on couches, or standing about in groups and pairs, laughing and chatting energetically. There was jazzy piano music coming from somewhere, and the wall on the far end was basically a huge window, with doors that opened on a wide patio.

“Hey old timers,” a smooth, smoky voice said beside them. “Glad you could make it.”

Bucky turned to see a beautiful, auburn-haired woman in a tight, black cocktail dress, smiling up at Steve.

“Hey, Nat, you look lovely this evening,” Steve said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “You remember Bucky.”

“I do.” Natasha turned her big, green eyes on him. “Nice to see you again, Bucky.”

“Likewise,” Bucky said awkwardly. “I’m, uh…sorry I shot you.”

“Well, I’d say I’m sorry I tried to strangle you with piano wire, but I’m doing a new thing where I don’t lie unless I have to for work.” Natasha said, with a sly twinkle in her eye. She held out her hand. “Let’s call it even?”

“Deal,” Bucky laughed, shaking her proffered hand.

“So, there are a lot of people here you guys don’t know, but they’re not that important,” she said, getting right to business. “The team is scattered around. Sam and Clint are at the bar arguing about whether pinball is a legitimate e-sport, Thor’s over there by the fireplace, Wanda is smoking on the patio, and Tony is late.”

“Tony is not late because this is Tony’s party,” Tony’s voice cut in. The three turned to see him strolling up behind them. “Hey look, it’s the Captain and Tennille!”

Steve and Bucky stared blankly at him.

“The Captain and Tennille,” he repeated.

Steve cocked his head perplexedly. “Um. He’s Bucky.”

“Come on, that was funny,” Tony sighed. “Nat, tell them how funny that was.”

“Eh,” Natasha shrugged.

“Traitor. Am I allowed to fire you?”

“Nope,” she grinned. “And Steve knows exactly who the Captain and Tennille are. He was fucking with you. Which actually was pretty funny.”

“Thank you, Nat,” Steve beamed.

“I really don’t know who they are,” Bucky offered. “Are they Avengers?”

“Musicians,” Tony corrected. “Well. Sort of.”

“Hey Nat, who’s that guy talking to Thor?” Steve asked, indicating to the fireplace a few yards away, where the god of thunder was engaged in conversation with another tall, blonde, athletic-looking man. “He looks familiar.”

“Oh, that’s the unhinged psychopath Nat keeps letting into my house,” Tony answered for her. “What is he doing here, Nat?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Natasha said. “You don’t want him here, go tell his Asgardian boyfriend yourself.”

Tony made a sour face. “Boyfriend, huh? Great. Thor has bad taste in men, so now we’re stuck with him and the alien tapeworm.”

“I thought Thor liked women,” Steve said, frowning thoughtfully.

“He does,” Natasha laughed. “People can be bisexual, Steve.”

“Bisexual?” Steve and Bucky asked in unison.

“And that’s my cue,” Tony interjected. “Enjoy your sex-ed talk, have some free booze, and try not to break anything too expensive. Oh, and don’t kill anyone. It’s a nightmare for the PR department.”

“Later, Tony,” Natasha called after him, as he retreated into the crowd. She turned back to Steve and Bucky, who were still peering curiously at Thor and his male companion. “Hey grandpas, I don’t really have to explain to you what bisexual means, do I?”

“Of course not!” Steve said, crossing his arms on his chest. “We are adults.”

“Yeah, adults who totally know what that means,” Bucky agreed, adopting a similar posture.

“Even if we didn’t, we could figure it out from context clues,” Steve continued staunchly.

“But we definitely did,” Bucky added.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “If you two get any more adorable, I might actually puke. I’m going to go check on Wanda. I’ll catch up with you in a little while, ok?”

“Ok, Nat. See ya,” Steve said cheerfully.

“It means liking men and women, right?” Bucky asked, once she was out of earshot. “I’ve actually never heard that before.”

“Neither have I. I mean, I knew that was a thing, but I didn’t know there was word for it.” Steve’s blue eyes flickered over Bucky’s face, then quickly away. “Let’s go get a drink, huh?”

Bucky felt an odd little wrench in his gut at this, and he cast an apprehensive glance at his friend as he followed him to the bar. What was that look about? Did Steve suspect something about him? As his anxiety spiked, of course, his dull, reticent demeanor returned. Fortunately, Sam and Clint spotted Steve and waved them over as soon as they had ordered.

“Hey, Cap,” Clint said, as they approached with their drinks. “Tell me you’re not actually drinking an old fashioned.”

“That’s right,” Steve said, with mock sternness. “What about you? Do they make a drink called a mouthy punk?”

“You’re pretty sharp, old man,” Sam laughed, as both men shook hands with Steve. “Hey, Buck, how you doing? Keeping this guy out of trouble?”

“I try, but he’s a real pain in the ass,” Bucky said. “I’m thinking about putting him in a home.”

Sam and Clint voiced hearty approval of this idea, and the ice thus broken, quickly drew Steve into their lively conversation. Bucky was more than happy with this arrangement, since it meant he didn’t have to do much, aside from hide in his drink and make sure to smile when everyone else did.

Things proceeded comfortably enough for a while, but he found that his energy was so engaged in not whipping his head around to investigate every flash of movement in his peripheral vision, he didn’t have any to expend in blocking out the din of voices and laughter, punctuated incessantly by the clinking of glassware. His head began to swim, and his jacket suddenly felt overly warm and constricting. He couldn’t take it off without exposing his very noticeable metallic arm, however, so he persevered as long as he could.

Finally, beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He nudged Steve and said he was going out to get some fresh air, then escaped to the patio as quickly as he could without attracting attention. Steve looked after him, but let him go, understanding his need for a moment alone to decompress.

Once out of the stifling atmosphere of lights and motion and noise, the tight feeling in Bucky’s chest eased somewhat. He chose a spot well away from the few other people who were outside, and leaned on the patio railing, letting the cool night air wash over his clammy skin.

Calling to the mind a coping technique his doctor—or therapist or whatever they were calling headshrinkers these days—had been teaching him, he took some deep, meditative breaths, and concentrated on being aware of each part of his body, one by one. Gradually, the vague nausea dissipated, and his hands stopped shaking. The human one did, at least. The cybernetic prosthesis was always steady as stone.

He’d trained himself many years ago to stop reaching up reflexively to clutch his shoulder every time he thought of the thing, but that didn’t stop the mangled nerve fibers from making their displeasure known, with hot, itching little needles of pain. He sighed and stretched the arm out to the side, then across his chest, then dropped it and shook it out, till the nerves calmed down and returned to proper operation.

His enhanced hearing made him aware of a purposeful step headed in his direction, well before its owner got near him. He leaned on the railing again, body relaxed, pretending not to notice. It’s not an enemy, here. No need to wind up your muscles for a fight. No need to brace your pain receptors against the slip of a hidden blade.

The steps halted a few feet back and Steve’s voice said, “Hey, Buck,” before he came closer. A habit developed through years of familiarity with soldiers who’d seen heavy combat, and a wise procedure for approaching jumpy PTSD cases possessed of superhuman strength and speed, and trained to kill without thinking.

“Hey,” Bucky said, keeping his eyes on the city lights, twinkling far below like a chaos of multicolored stars.

Steve leaned on the railing beside him. “This city’s gotten so big since we were kids. I hardly recognize it.”

“I don’t think I’d recognize it from up here anyway. Even if my memory of it wasn’t buried under a hundred layers of coordinates and terrain maps and blueprints of every manmade structure from here to New Rochelle.”

“They did that? Put all that stuff in your head?”

“Yep. Every major city in the world. Sort of takes the thrill out of exploring new places.”

“At least you’ll never have to worry about getting lost,” Steve said, with a resigned sigh.

Bucky cast a sidelong glance at him. “I’m ok on my own, you know. You should be inside with your friends.”

Steve shook his head. “They’re not my friends. They’re my team.”

“Oh, give it a rest. Your team are your friends. You’re the one who always says the best teams are the ones that bond.”

“The best teams are the ones who do their jobs. A leader who lets emotional attachments affect his judgement is not doing his job.”

Bucky bridled at this, detecting something personal in it. “So, you weren’t doing your job when you risked your life to pull me out of that Nazi prison camp?”

“That was different. I didn’t put anyone in danger but myself.”

“What about on the helicarrier? Millions of lives were in danger, then. So why didn’t you just kill me?”

Steve gave him a look, then turned back to stare out at the city, his jaw muscles visibly working beneath his skin.

“Exactly,” Bucky persisted. “You didn’t do it because we were friends. Because you cared about me.”

“We are still friends and I still care about you. I don’t regret it,” Steve replied flatly. “But it was extremely reckless, you’re right. Thank you for reminding me.”

“Don’t fucking do that!” Bucky said, with sudden heat. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean, Buck?” Steve asked, turning to face him again. “Please tell me, because I’m honestly at a loss.”

“I mean that I’m stronger than you and faster than you—I’m a literal combat machine—but I could never be Captain fucking America, and do you know why? Because I’m not a leader. You are. You care about people and it shows in everything you do. That’s why they’re willing to follow you, no matter what. So don’t give me that ‘they’re my team not my friends’ shit. They are your friends, and that’s a good thing.”

Steve gazed at him silently for a long moment. “You know…being an assassin has sure done a number on your language, Sergeant Barnes.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Rogers,” Bucky retorted. “How about I show you how colorful I can get.”

Steve cocked an eyebrow. “Be my guest. I’ll smack the sass right out of your mouth, soldier.”

“You can try,” Bucky said, with a wicked grin. “Hit me, assho—”

Steve’s fist flew like a shot toward his face, but the blow never connected. Quicker than sight, Bucky’s cybernetic hand caught his wrist and clamped down like a vise. In fractions of a second, he had twisted Steve’s arm behind his back, flipped him around, and pinned him to the balcony railing with his body.

“Come on, Steve,” he laughed, releasing the hold. “You’re not even trying.”

Steve turned around and leaned his back against the railing, chafing the wrist Bucky had twisted with his other hand. “We can’t play-fight like that, Buck. We’re not kids anymore.”

Bucky’s smile dissolved as he studied his friend’s face. Steve kept his eyes fixed on the ground, avoiding his gaze, but his brow was furrowed and there was a flush of color in his angular cheeks. So it was that. It must be. He must have perceived Bucky’s feelings for him, and now things were going to be weird and tense and fucked up between them. Bucky would rather die than have this lifelong friendship disintegrate that way.

“I didn’t mean to—” he began, then immediately realized there was no way to disembark this conversational train except to jump off before a full-on crash. “I’m sorry.”

Steve lifted his head to squint up at him. “What? Why are you sorry?”

“I thought…I hurt you or something,” Bucky said lamely.

“Are you kidding me?” Steve smirked, the spark instantly jumping back into his blue eyes. “Remember when you shot me a bunch of times and I still kicked your ass?”

“I mean, it wasn’t a bunch of times. And I kicked your ass. And you watch your language!”

“You know I just lecture people about swearing because I think it’s funny, right?”

“Yes. I knew that. Obviously.”

“You didn’t.”

“I should have,” Bucky grinned. “You’re still the same sarcastic little shit under all that muscle.”

“I am,” Steve said, in uncharacteristically serious tone. “And you’re still the guy who took care of me after mom died, and made sure I didn’t get killed for shooting my mouth off to the wrong people. Everything has changed but you, Buck. You’re the only one who comes from the world I remember. You’re all I have left.”

Bucky’s voice choked in his throat at this unexpected onslaught, and he could only nod in response.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you when you brought up the helicarrier,” Steve continued. “I was angry because you made me see something I didn’t want to admit. It wasn’t that I endangered lives hoping to get through to you. It was that I wouldn’t have done the same for anyone else. So, maybe those people on my team are my friends, but not like you. There’s no one I care about more than you. I love you.”

“I know,” Bucky said, a bit hoarsely. “There’s no one I care about more than you, either.”

He leaned on the railing beside his friend and clapped him on the shoulder in a companionable fashion, thinking this was the end of the interchange, but Steve went on.

“You know, for all the trouble my mouth got me into, that was the one thing I regretted not saying,” he said, with a sad smile. “Then I thought you died. A couple of times. When you came back…it was like I’d been given another chance. No one gets another chance. I couldn’t risk you dying again without ever knowing what you mean to me. Anyway, thanks for letting me get it off my chest. And for not freaking out.”

“Get what off your chest?” Bucky asked, bewildered. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

Steve frowned. “I don’t know how much clearer I can be than ‘I love you’, Buck.”

Feeling himself poised on the bleeding edge of something terrifying and spectacular, and finally goaded past the point of caution, Bucky took Steve by both shoulders and looked fiercely into his exasperatingly handsome face.

“Listen to me very carefully, Steve,” he said slowly. “There is a huge difference between ‘I love you’ and ‘I am in love with you.’ Which one are you saying?”

“Ohhhh, got it,” Steve nodded. “I see how that’s confusing now. The second one. I’m in love with you.”

Bucky’s stomach lurched, pulse pounding in his ears, as the concrete patio seemed to tilt beneath his feet. He already had a hold of Steve’s shoulders, or he may have actually lost his balance and fallen. Instead, he let his weight pitch forward into his friend, wrapping his arms tightly around him. Steve’s arms came up to encircle his waist as Bucky’s mouth covered his, devouring it with half-starved desperation.

Steve gasped and groaned in his throat. He’d been entirely unprepared for the intensity of the kiss, and the crushing force of Bucky’s embrace. He probably should have been, having experienced his friend’s power firsthand in a more violent context. In all fairness, though, he’d never been kissed by a man before, let alone a superhuman man with almost a century of stifled desire burning in his body like rocket fuel.

He let go, losing himself entirely in the moment he had longed for since he was a teenaged kid with a crush on his handsome, older best friend, but no words with which to articulate it, even to himself. Strong arms pulling him close, bodies pressed together, breathing the same breath. Holding and touching and tasting him, until he permeated every sense, and there was nothing in the world but them, together. Like it always should have been.

Bucky pulled away at last, leaving him flushed and hazy-eyed, panting through wet, kiss-bruised lips. Intoxicated and reeling himself, he buried his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, inhaling his masculine scent, and feeling the reassuring warmth and solidity of his body. Steve’s arms tightened around him and his chest vibrated with a soft laugh.

“What are you laughing at, you snarky little shit,” Bucky mumbled into his shoulder.

“It’s just that, I’m a hundred years old, I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen, and I only heard the term bisexual for the first time tonight. That’s pretty funny.”

Bucky lifted his head to look at him. “Is that what you are?”

“I guess so. Is that ok?”

“As long as you’re aware that your ass belongs to me, now.”

“Uh, no, your ass belongs to me,” Steve retorted, sliding his hand down onto the specified area of his friend’s anatomy.

“Hey! Cut that out!” Bucky said, swatting it away. “I’m not that kind of guy, mister.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? What kind are you?”

“Why don’t you take me home and find out.”

Bucky leaned in for another kiss, but at this perhaps belated moment, it occurred to him that the wall dividing the lounge and the very well-lit patio was comprised entirely of glass panels, making it essentially one massive, floor to ceiling window.

“Shit,” he winced. “You don’t think anyone saw us, do you?”

Steve turned to look toward the lounge, where it appeared that nearly every patron was watching through the glass, like he and Bucky were fish in an aquarium. He smiled and gave a sheepish wave, at which point the entire place erupted in thunderous applause, complete with shouts of “get it, Cap!” and “God bless America!” and other expressions of ribald encouragement.

He turned back to Bucky and shook his head. “Nope. I don’t think they did.”

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky #pg-13 #old men pretending to be hip #sass #first kiss

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