Bucky Barnes (notzimniysoldat) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2016-10-28 08:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, [plot] powers, ~2016 october, ~25 points, ~~bucky barnes (notzimniysoldat), ~~steve rogers (neverdanced) |
Who: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes
What: BestBoyfriends actually drinking together and getting drunk
When: Thursday night (backdated)
Where: Their house
Warnings: Smoochyfaces?
Status: Closed/Complete
The first sign that something was different was not being hungry. Steve and Bucky both, thanks to the serums that had enhanced them, lived almost constantly just a little bit hungry. They metabolized so quickly that they had to take in a lot just to keep up with it. Suddenly waking up one day without that, eating a fraction of what was normal and not being able to take in more was unusual, questionable, but it had wound up being okay. Everything else seemed the same, physically, and when it became apparent that something weird was going on in town, it became a question of how far they could push things.
Who’s idea it was to start drinking was anyone’s guess. Steve would insist it was Bucky’s bad influence and Bucky would probably say Steve was being stupid again.
It didn’t really matter. Because for the first time in a lot of years, it was working. The alcohol was doing exactly what alcohol should, and about as quickly as it would have done before the Serum, when Steve wasn’t even 100 pounds on a good day. It didn’t take long at all before he was pleasantly tipsy, reaching out to clap his friend on the shoulder.
“Have I mentioned lately how glad I am you’re here, Buck? Just wasn’t the same without you.”
***
Bucky had forgotten what being full felt like. He hadn't been full in a long time, not since he was a kid and there was enough food on the table for everyone. And when he'd been taking care of Steve? Food went to him first, always. Now they had plenty of food to last them through however long this thing was going on and maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.
Drinking was definitely Steve's idea, but Bucky didn't put up all that much of a fight about it because while getting drunk wasn't a solve for their problems, it would be nice to just forget about all of it and be those two kids from Brooklyn again, although this time they didn't need to break into Bucky's Pa's stash. They'd gotten themselves a bottle of scotch to drink between them and they were only about halfway through by the time there was a pleasant buzz in the back of Bucky's skull.
"Not really me," he muttered before swallowing another sip. "I'm glad we're together, though. Feels better. Right." Bucky felt better being around Steve. He wasn't so sure he would've survived being in Madison Valley if Steve hadn't been there.
***
Steve was completely convinced Bucky would have, the same way Steve had had to, a lot of places. They’d spent so much of their lives together, though, that any time they were apart just didn’t feel right. Steve had gotten used to not feeling right until Bucky had come back.
“Yeah. It does,” he agreed. “Even when things like this,” he waved a hand vaguely, meant to encompass their situation, “happen. Actually, might be it’s easier to deal with it if I’ve got your help.”
Everything was easier with Bucky’s help.
***
Bucky finished off his drink and poured himself another one before offering to top off Steve's glass for him. "We've always been better together," he pointed out. That wasn't even up for debate because it was true. He'd spent that time in Bucharest trying to piece everything together, to find a timeline of events and to verify his memories, but it wasn't until Steve that everything started to make a little more sense. Getting shot at tended to do that, apparently.
"Everything is clearer when we're getting shot at. Watch each other's backs, get out alive. Hell of a lot simpler than this." He took another sip of his drink, enjoying the burn of the liquor down his throat. "Who would've thought til the end of line included a place like this?"
***
Accepting the top off wasn’t even a question. They were drinking, enjoying that it did something for a change, not just doing it for the taste. That bottle was being finished.
“This’s what it was supposed to be like, pal” Steve protested with a laugh. “More or less.”
They were supposed to both have come back from the war, settled down together, found a couple of nice girls and had a little family together. Always together. They weren’t supposed to have dropped out of the world for years, become different people who’d changed while they were apart. Not completely, but different enough that they could recognize it in each other. Steve still loved Bucky, no way he could be so different that he’d stop, and he was sure that went both ways.
***
"Think I was supposed to be the neighbor," he teased, grinning more widely than he had even since the war. "But you bet we'd be living in each others' pockets, raising our kids like they were siblings 'stead of cousins." That had been the dream. Now, Bucky wasn't so sure he'd ever have kids.
"Think we'd get this once T'Challa figures out a way to unscramble my brain?" Bucky thought a lot about what their life could be like in 2016. "World's changed a helluva lot." The more he learned about how the world had changed, the more Bucky wondered if there was something to Molly's insistence that he and Steve were a couple. He loved his best pal more than anyone and anything in the whole world, whole universe for that matter, and now it wasn't a death sentence if people found out they shared a bed.
***
“I’d like to think we could do it.” But Steve didn’t think that kind of life was possible for them at home anymore. Even after Bucky came out of it, and he would come out of it, they weren’t on the good side of the law. For good reason, and Steve wouldn’t have done differently if they could have had this sort of life there, but it did mean that settling down and starting a family probably wasn’t in the cards. No matter how much he might like to think they’d be able to.
“I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know that I want it back home anyway.” Their world had changed a hell of a lot. “Not sure I could find anyone but you who I’d have much in common with.”
At least not enough to build the kind of relationship that led to that kind of life.
***
Bucky knew they'd be on the run if they were returned home, that they'd have to live off the grid as much as possible. While he couldn't exactly picture Steve living as a hobo all that effectively, that was basically their only option. The government wouldn't be able to see James Barnes as a victim behind the mask of the Winter Soldier. Their only option would be to go under ground.
He knocked their shoulders together, understanding what Steve was saying. "You always were looking for the right partner," Bucky said fondly, more to himself than anything else even if it was loud enough for them both to hear. "We'd've gotten along just fine, the two of us. Til the end of the line, remember? Means I'm gonna be right here, no matter what." And by right here, he meant being right by his side.
***
If it meant living a life with Bucky, Steve would take it in whatever form he could. Whether that was settled down in a house with a teenager in their care or living under a railway bridge. He’d happily live a hobo life if that was the only way to be together.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” he said with a grin. “I’ve lost you enough times for one life.”
Once had been enough and it had been more than that now. But Steve knew that, no matter what happened, if Bucky disappeared again, went home or if something happened, he’d still fight to find him again. It was like Bucky always said; til the end of the line.
***
Bucky took a healthy sip as he considered things. They'd already declared they'd be with each other forever if they had a say - Bucky wasn't naive enough to think they'd always have a choice - and if they couldn't have relationships with other people in their world, could they have that kind of relationship with each other?
He turned slightly to study his best pal more carefully, considering the option. Steve deserved everything in life, and that included a romantic relationship. Bucky decided fairly quickly that he'd fill that need if he needed to, but did he want to? That was the question.
Two and a half glasses of scotch suggested now was as good a time as any to figure it out. Bucky leaned into Steve's space and kissed him tentatively. It was chaste, of course, but it was good for him. Kissing Steve was different than kissing Kara. He enjoyed it though. He could learn to love it, to add that dimension if Steve needed it.
***
It wouldn’t be true to say doing exactly that had never crossed Steve’s mind. There were any number of times over the years that Steve had, for a second or two at a time, wondered, never in any seriousness. Bucky was Bucky, not just a friend, not family, but something different altogether, unique. The only thing he wasn’t was someone Steve had ever harboured romantic interest toward.
But why couldn’t he? They knew each other better than anyone, had all the same experiences growing up and into adulthood. Things had gotten off the rails a little, no thanks to Steve, no thanks to the goons who had dragged his friend out of that canyon, but they were as close as ever.
There was Veronica, though. Things were going well with her, and Steve saw the potential for a future. One that could be easily stopped in its tracks just by kissing someone else.
Steve didn’t consider that too deeply. Didn’t retreat from the kiss though a part of him knew neither of them were in a position to be doing it. Instead, he leaned into it, returned it. A few glasses of scotch said the consequences be damned.
***
Compartmentalizing was something that Bucky was working on, but he was still guilty of it even now, especially with alcohol involved. Sitting with Steve, drinking with him, that was all he was thinking about. He was happy with Kara, cared about her more than he could admit even to himself, but he was just thinking about the future he and Steve had waiting for them if they were ever returned to their world. That wasn't home, though. The place Bucky called home was the house they were currently in, but the person he called home was Steve. It would always be Steve.
When Steve didn't pull away, when Bucky realized he was leaning in, he thought that it was a good idea to see just how far they were currently comfortable with. Testing the waters, Bucky parted his lips just slightly to see if Steve was comfortable with that, too. He could definitely get used to this.
***
It never even occurred to Steve to think anything of what was happening. Kissing seemed like a completely natural addition to their relationship, and despite what everyone always seemed to think of Steve and the assumptions they made about his views of the world, he’d never thought one way or another about men who happened to like men. It was just an expression of affection, and that Steve had for Bucky in spades. He was the exception to all the rules that made up Steve’s life.
And so comfortable wasn’t a question. Anything Bucky wanted, Steve was okay with, even eager for. He simply responded to the shift in the kiss in kind, even pressed it deeper, a hand coming to rest on his friend’s leg.
Maybe if their circumstances had been different, this would have been their life. If it was Bucky, it made perfect sense.
***
It felt like the rest of the world had stopped as they kissed. Bucky didn't really feel the gravity of the moment because it was just figuring out a back up plan. He smiled a little into the kiss as he leaned back on the couch, pulling Steve with him so they could keep kissing. The intimacy didn't seem so scary with his best friend. Maybe he'd been over thinking it when it came to Kara, and he decided to test the theory by deepening the kiss with Steve. His tongue slipped between his best friend's lips and he could taste the alcohol on his tongue.
Bucky put his glass down on the floor next to the couch so that he could slide his hands up and down Steve's back as they kissed. He'd gotten some chances to feel the differences in the other man's body, but this had a different feel to it that Bucky realized he enjoyed. He could love Steve like this. When they finally came up for air, Bucky knew his pupils were blown and he was grinning the way he hadn't in a long time. The way he had when they were living together back in that crappy little apartment in Brooklyn.
He couldn't resist pressing another long, lingering kiss against his best guy's lips before he let his head fall back against the armrest. "That was nice," Bucky decided, looking to Steve for confirmation that he felt the same.
***
Nice, sure, but probably not the best choice on either of their parts.
Still, Steve grinned right back, staying close for a moment before shifting away with a laugh. “It was something.”
A good kind of something. One of the best somethings he’d done in his hundred, or thirty depending on how it was looked at, years. He had no desire for it to be anything more than kissing, it wasn’t like it was with the women he’d loved in his life, and that hadn’t ever been a consideration at all, but it had been nice. Maybe in small part because he and Veronica weren’t at that stage in their relationship yet and that kind of connection was something that had been missing from his life for a long time.
In larger part because of who it was with.
Steve couldn’t ever deny that he loved Bucky the best, more than anyone else who had ever entered his life.
***
Bucky just smirked playfully as he watched Steve sit back up a bit. "We could be okay. If we get sent back." He didn't want to be sent back, no more than Steve did, but he knew it could happen same as he knew there was a risk that the Winter Soldier could be triggered again. "I had'ta know I could give you what you need." Now that it was after the fact, Bucky realized he never really needed the confirmation at all. He'd always love Steve, and if how he loved him needed to change, he could.
He picked up his glass and sat up again so he could finish it off. "Wasn't so scary with you, pal," he added, knocking their shoulders together the way he had before. "Maybe it doesn't have to be scary at all." Bucky knew he cared about Kara, but it was finally starting to sink in that he was capable of loving someone. It was just a matter of there being room in his heart for someone else next to Steve.
***
“You know I’ve never needed any of that.” It wasn’t about need. Steve had lived a lot of years never having that kind of relationship, and all that while there’d been Bucky. A lot more years on his own and without him. After Peggy, which hadn’t had the chance to go anywhere, he hadn’t had much opportunity between finding his feet and trying to save the world to try again. Romance was nice, a physical relationship was nice, but Steve didn’t need any of it. “Just you, Buck.”
He’d be perfectly happy either way so long as Bucky was there.
With another laugh he picked up his own drink too, decided it wasn’t full enough and topped it off, did the same for Bucky’s, before surveying his friend. “Are we talking about your girl now?”
Who else? What else? He could guess why Bucky was hesitant about that relationship, but Steve saw the good in it. He saw the influence Kara had already had on Bucky and he he liked her for it. She was good for him.
***
"You deserve it, though. An' I'll remind you a' that when you need it," he replied, accepting the top off with a nod of thanks. Scotch was much better when it actually did something as far as Bucky was concerned. Especially with Veronica being a possibility for Steve, he didn't want his best guy to think he didn't need love like that.
"Kara's somethin' else, like you," he tried to explain, but he knew that wasn't completely it. "Makes me think I could be more'n jus' the shell of the guy I was back then, an' more'n what HYDRA did." He still didn't quite believe it as much as he wanted to, but the fact that Kara and Steve were in agreement on that made it seem a little more true. It helped that so many others seemed to be on 'his side' but he couldn't really understand why. That was what bothered him the most.
***
Want and need were different things. Steve wouldn’t protest that he didn’t want it, he did, but for him it wasn’t about need. And deserve was another question altogether. But it wasn’t a debate worth having. They were both the same way. When it came to themselves, they would never look at things the same way. They put one another on too high a pedestal.
“You know how I feel about that.” That he’d never think Bucky was anything but almost perfect and deserving of the very best. “Only way you’re going to start buying that for good is if you let her in, you know.”
Steve trusted the woman with his best friend, and that should mean something.
***
Bucky smiled a little sadly as he clapped Steve on the shoulder. "I don' think I'm ever gonna understand why, but I'm ready to stop questioning it so much," he decided. The Winter Soldier's history would always be his history too, but he didn't have to let it hold him back. Maybe compartmentalization could actually come in handy for this, if it helped him separate the memories in his mind.
He finished off his drink and looked between the empty glass and the mostly empty bottle of liquor. "You think anyone'll hold it against us if we spend most of however long this is drunk?" Bucky didn't see the point of drinking if it wasn't going to do anything for him, but he knew Steve didn't mind drinking even with the full effects of the serum.
***
Steve would never understand why Bucky took everything so hard. He hadn’t been in control of his own actions, none of it was the man he was. Steve didn’t realize that, if their situations were reversed, he’d have blamed himself just as much if not more. He already carried a lot of guilt for the things that were out of his control. And far less death had resulted in it. Had he done what Bucky had been made to do, he wouldn’t have come out as well as his friend did.
“Might be good to try, Buck.” He knew that Bucky probably couldn’t stop questioning his worth any time soon.
Downing the rest of his own drink, setting the glass on the table, he laughed, lighthearted and comfortable in a way he rarely was. “I’d say we’ve earned it.” There wasn’t much of a point in drinking usually, Steve did it out of habit mostly, because he still liked the taste even if it was useless, but if anyone had earned a few days, it was them. “Probably shouldn’t, though.”
They had a kid to mind. Responsibilities.
***
It was hard to believe that he shouldn't be held responsible for the Winter Soldier's actions because he had still pulled the trigger. He had been put on a leash and he should have fought harder or held onto himself longer or a dozen other things that he thought of to beat himself up over the past. Bucky knew he had to sidestep that hole before he fell in too deep, otherwise he'd get in so deep that he wouldn't be able to pull himself out of it anymore. That was a risk he couldn't afford to take.
"S'all I can do," he murmured, figuring that was the truth of it. He could try, and Steve would be there to keep him honest, same as Kara, Molly and the others. Eventually, he'd find a way to be 'okay', for whatever value of 'okay' existed. Things were good now, and Bucky didn't want that to change. Even if that meant being drunk the next few days probably wasn't a good idea.
"Could send the kid on a sleepover for a couple'a days," he suggested, but he was only half serious. Being responsible for Molly was a big deal, and that wasn't something he was keen on just shoving off for a couple of days just so they could get drunk. That wouldn't be good parenting in the slightest, as much as he wanted to. "At least we got this," he said with a shrug.
"Prolly should sleep this off then, huh?"
***
Steve wasn’t against suggesting to Molly that she go off to Darcy’s, or to Veronica’s, or someone else he trusted to keep an eye on her and keep her safe, for a day or two. Given that she, too, was affected by whatever was going on, though, it might not be the best idea.
Something to sleep on.
With a deep sigh, he nodded. “Probably should,” he agreed.
He was drunk enough to think kissing his best pal was a good idea, everything that made it a bad one completely forgotten. If things continued, who knew what else might seem like a good idea. Better to sleep it off.
***
Bucky nodded and hauled himself up off the couch. "Come on then," he encouraged, pulling Steve up to his feet. This was just one more thing that was familiar, even if the walk to their room was shorter and they weren't quite as stumblingly drunk as Bucky knew he'd gotten in the past. Anything familiar was worth holding onto in his mind, especially when he was drunk enough that the lines were all starting to blur a little.
"Always get to sleep when 'm drunk. You're the only thing't'll keep the nightmares away aside from drinking." He figured Steve knew that already, considering how few and far between the nightmares were these days. He still had days where he only managed a couple hours or where he didn't end up in bed at all, but most days he could get a good six hours. That was more than he ever thought possible.
***
Steve did know that, and never said that having Bucky around made it easier on him too. His own nightmares weren’t nearly as bad, were manageable most nights, but with Bucky around they were all but nonexistent. He was glad to be able to provide even a fraction of that comfort in return.
“I guess you’re in for the best night’s sleep since ‘45 then,” he said lightly. There was no reason for them not to sleep together just as they normally did. The last of the bottle and their glasses were abandoned on the table, they could tidy up in the morning, without the worry that Molly would get into it. One of the small blessings that came in every whacky thing that happened in town.
***
Bucky huffed a laugh at Steve's reply. "Here's hopin'," he replied as he led the way upstairs. It never even crossed his mind that curling up together might not be the best idea after trading the losses they had, but that was the beauty of the way he looked at the world. Madison Valley wasn't the place for kisses or sex, but he could go there - be that for Steve and want it for himself - in their world.
This house with its white picket fence and kid was home now. It had become home a long time ago, but he hadn't quite realized it until recently. Kara had become important to him, he'd made friends somehow - despite himself most times - and he was managing to hold down two jobs. All of that spoke to a level of normal that hit Bucky full force only recently. Maybe it was time to talk a little more with Kara, wine and dine her a bit more and let her in. There wasn't the slightest chance of having a nightmare tonight.
***