Who: Bucky Barnes jbuchananbarnes & Steve Rogers kidfrombrooklyn What: Settling into the new apartment When: Monday, May 11, morning Where: Their apartment, 112A Hope Springs Rating: Audience Discretion is Advised Warnings: Discussion of unpleasant topics, death, betrayal, torture, bullying, and probably just general wangst. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
Test City had moved him in with Steve Rogers on Thursday, May 7th. He had woken up in a bed exactly the same as his only different. His ears had hurt from the sound of someone else breathing in the same vicinity as him. It hadn't taken long to figure out from the smell alone it was Steve. HYDRA had been good about enhancing his senses. Bucky Barnes would have likely known it was Steve from the sound of his soft snores alone. The soldier knew him from his smell which seemed fitting given he was closer to an animal than a man these days.
He had spent a few hours with a woman who had professed to him she was a vampire only to learn she wasn't joking after she started telling him about her family troubles. It had made him feel strange. She had more than a few reasons to be upset with her lot in life. There seemed to be no end to the amount of heartbreak she would have to suffer if she couldn't die. She had been complaining about her family though---and all he could think about was how he couldn't remember if he'd ever been that man.
Pulling on his work clothes for the day, he made a pot of coffee and leaned against the counter in the kitchen until the smell of the fresh brew woke up Steve. It didn't take long. Steve had always been a fairly light sleeper. His illness had kept him that way in the beginning. Now, it was more likely to be his senses being too enhanced, same as the soldier's though he hadn't asked. It wasn't his place.
"I listened to a vampire complain about her family and all I could think was how she had it better than me. Weird, right?"
Steve wanted him to be his friend again. He had been trying to avoid Captain America more than anything else. This was the first time he'd sought him out on his own to talk. They had been ships passing in the darkness in their shared apartment. He'd made certain to never be on the move when Steve was up. His door to his room had remained closed until this moment.
No one needed to give him more memories for him to know Steve Rogers wouldn't barge through a closed bedroom door. It was a given the man lived by an old-fashioned code of ethics. They weren't the kind of men who burst into bedrooms without an offer on the table to invite them in.
"Coffee's ready if you want some."
He said it to avoid asking him questions such as -Did I ever complain about my sister? or Was I a good brother?- because he wasn't ready for those answers. The only reason he knew he had a sister was because he'd read it in a brochure from the Smithsonian. Where he was a display. It wasn't his place to ask about those people as if he had a right. They'd probably needed him only to have him disappear much the same way his father had while off in some war.
~*~
It had been unbearably hard, trying to give Bucky the space he needed to come to terms with his memories and what had been done to him by HYDRA’s hand. Steve wanted to be there for him, to help him deal with the fact that he’d been reduced to merely a weapon, when he was so much more. James Buchanan Barnes was a good man, who’d stood by his side for years when it would’ve been so much easier to just walk away and let him die. Every time, without fail, Bucky had his back and kept him alive, at great personal cost.
The guilt of surviving seemed so much heavier now that he knew what his failures had led to. They’d both been meant to die, and fate had ensured their intertwined destinies found each other again after traveling such different paths. Steve felt it was his greatest fault, his worst mistake, not pushing harder to find Bucky’s body. Everything HYDRA had put his best friend through could be laid at his feet. Steve wished Sam was in Test City with them, because the other man always knew exactly what to say and would probably know how to help him deal with everything that was going on in a healthier way. Working at the General Store and organizing the Citizen’s Watch were good ways to pass the time and contribute, but it still felt like he was going through the motions all the time. Peggy helped make him feel more present when they shared a meal or chatted, and Natasha was always stopping by for a few minutes for one thing or another. There was a part of him that wanted to ask Natasha for insight on how to talk to Bucky, but he had a feeling she simply had shared life experiences with him that Steve wouldn’t ever be able to fully comprehend. Her past was something she could share with him if and when she wanted to.
He just wished he could feel the same way about Bucky’s past, but he couldn’t. He wanted to know all of it, so that he knew how much to blame himself. The nightmares were getting worse, and nearly impossible to hide from Bucky, who was now staying in the next room. It was a blessing, in some ways, that Bucky purposefully kept their schedules alternated. Steve also knew he didn’t usually yell out during his nightmares, only whimpered and thrashed in bed. They could pretend, especially since there wasn’t any kind of pattern as to when he’d get them.
Waking up to the smell of coffee, Steve came to with a start. This was something new, something they hadn’t done before in this new time. Unsure of what to expect, he made his way cautiously into the kitchen, dressed in gray sweatpants and a white tank, barefoot since he’d kicked his socks off in the night. Before he could even say good morning or ask what was wrong, Bucky was talking. Steve was fairly certain this was meant to be an olive branch of sorts, but it felt weird. Vampires?
“Uh yea, I’ll- Coffee. Thanks.” He moved stiffly toward the cabinet where they kept the mugs and poured himself a cup. After he took a long sip and ran a hand through his hair, Steve looked over at Bucky. Did he want to know about his family? Steve decided no, that if he did, he would have asked outright. So instead, he went with, “I know I shouldn’t be surprised about vampires being here, but I am all the same. Like Dracula?”
~*~
Coffee tasted better with milk in it, but they'd had precious little of it during the war so Bucky had gotten used to drinking it black. He didn't enjoy it the way he had when he'd had milk to give it a creamy cap. It was only a means to an end. A way to feel more alive when he was hardly more than a dead man walking---that was all he considered coffee to be when he was drinking it. Steve was one who had never needed much for his. He'd come from people who hadn't had much. Bucky wasn't sure if he preferred his black due to liking the taste or because he'd adapted to it.
They were both too adaptable for their own good.
Shrugging, Bucky looked down into his coffee cup to avoid looking at Steve, "No. Not really. She was pretty. Blonde. More my type than yours. She was out during the day, too. She does drink blood. She is immortal. Over a thousand years old. Her name was Rebekah. I liked talking to her."
He hadn't talked to a woman as comfortably in years, Natasha Romanoff withstanding.
Bucky felt strange considering Natasha Romanoff only a woman. She wasn't a woman. She was an asset the same as him. They'd both been turned into something else at the hands of their respective sculptors. Neither of them were what they had been at birth. He was luckier than her in some ways. Bucky had memories of a childhood, a real one with a real family. Natasha Romanoff had no memories other than a life of servitude and service as far as he knew and he liked to think he knew her better than most.
"I let her drink my blood."
He didn't know why he'd confessed it. As soon as the words left his mouth, he'd looked up at Steve, shocked out of his own mental funk by his faux pas. It wasn't any of Steve's business what he did with his body or who he let handle it or how. Bucky had done it because she'd been hungry. He had liked talking to her. There was no reason not to do it from his perspective given if it had hurt, he could handle the pain better than some civilian, and if it was a lot of blood she needed, it'd likely not kill him while it would a standard human.
They'd both gained something from the experience.
He thought of it with fondness. It was only saying it out loud to Steve when he felt stupid about it. What if she'd killed him? What if he'd actually died under the onslaught of her hunger? Would someone have missed him? Would Steve? Bucky knew the answer without asking the question. It shamed him to think he'd done something so foolish, so reckless when all he'd been trying to do was drink away a few bad memories from his head which had felt too full of them.
~*~
He leaned against the counter as Bucky offered up more information about the woman he’d spoken to. Steve wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that there were vampires around, but at the end of the day, more residents with abilities were probably more helpful than they were hurtful. None of them had volunteered for the Citizen’s Watch, but perhaps they would be inspired to help when a crisis struck. All of that could be thought on more at a different time, when Bucky wasn’t actually making an effort for them to start rebuilding their friendship.
Living without his best friend was painful. For so long in his life, Steve had Bucky to rely on in a way that was what Sam described as co-dependent. It wasn’t healthy, maybe, but life just wasn’t the same without James Buchanan Barnes at his side. They’d always been able to balance each other out, providing more when the other had less. They just worked, but now everything felt so out of balance that Steve wasn’t sure which way was up half the time. Natasha seemed confident that the world would right itself, but he couldn’t be as optimistic as she was. It was hard to even think of a world where he and Bucky existed without a strong bond between them, so he tried to ignore it for the most part. That was easiest.
“I think blondes are more your type there, pal,” he replied jokingly. Bucky had really been making an effort with the other residents of Test City. Steve had seen it the most with Ella, the young blonde who worked at The Greenthumb and often could be seen in the park or working on adding splashes of color all around the apartment complexes. She was a wonderful friend for him, and Steve hoped that she could show Bucky that he wasn’t only the Soldier anymore. He wasn’t a clear and present danger to others in the way he thought.
Steve couldn’t help that his smile faded at the thought of a vampire drinking Bucky’s blood. Vampires had either been bloodthirsty villains if they were men, or sexual predators if they were women. There was a flash of ‘what if’s that ran through his mind, all the way from ‘what if she’d killed him?’ to ‘what if they did it as some kind of foreplay?’. He found himself unhappy with both, which he hid behind taking another sip of his coffee. He’d been taking it black for so long that he just didn’t know how to take it any other way.
“I’m uh-” he forced himself to manage a small smile. “I’m glad she didn’t take too much You were always willing to help a dame out.” Usually it was buying her a drink, sharing a cigarette, or necking with her for a little while. Steve held onto his mug tightly to stop himself from asking Bucky not to do it ever again. “Just- be safe, yea? I know it’s not my place-” the ‘anymore’ went unsaid “-but I just. I’d appreciate it, is all.”
Steve cleared his throat. “You want something to eat before you start work?” He glanced at the clock, trying to gauge how much time Bucky had. “Eggs and bacon? With some fruit, we’ve got in the fridge.”
~*~
"As long as you eat with me? I'm okay with food. I remembered that---having to talk you into eating. You never seemed to have enough or want enough or it was something. There was always something."
Sickness had lingered over Steve for as long as he'd been alive from what Bucky remembered. He felt as if The Grim Reaper had been held back from him only because of his ma's love and then, later, Bucky's stubbornness. They'd never have let Death take him. He would have had to take them, too. It was a journey he had been unable to imagine Steve making without him. All the memories he had were tinged with the fear they would be the last memory of Steve. His last smile, his last laugh, his last something because he was always living on borrowed time.
Bucky had wanted to give him all the time in the world. He had managed it in a way since he'd been there to help Steve get into the service. Steve had wanted to serve his country. They'd joined on their own free will. Their enlistment had been voluntary rather than the result of any draft. Bucky had done it for Steve. Steve had done it for Bucky as much as for himself. There was so much goodness in Steve. His nobility transcended the life he'd been born into. Surely he was meant to be more than some poor kid from Brooklyn with bad health.
Captain America was a long way from that kid from Brooklyn.
It didn't mean he couldn't see his friend in the man before him. His thought was Steve hadn't been turned into a better man by the serum. No, all that serum had done for him was turn him into the man he'd always been meant to become. Erskine had seen in Steve what only Bucky had seen before. That doctor had given Steve the life he'd deserved while Bucky had only managed to hold him back right up to the day he'd died on up to the day he'd come back again to haunt him as an old memory of an old life where he'd not been able to protect anyone the way he'd wanted.
"I'm glad you aren't sick anymore. In my dreams, nightmares," he shrugged, "You die a lot. I hold onto you, but you die anyway. No matter how hard I hold on, you still slip away. I hear you at night. Waking up. Do you die in your dreams, too?"
~*~
Steve had been very lucky as a child, to have a mother who sacrificed endlessly to make sure that he had medicine, clothes, food, and drawing supplies, oftentimes at the expense of her own needs. When he’d become friends with Bucky, it was always a fine line between not wanting to be a burden and wanting to enjoy spending time with his friend and his friend’s family. It helped that the Barnes’ had only been a little better off, but he always made sure to behave a little better and not drag Bucky into any fights for a little while. He tried, at least.
“Didn’t have much, growing up,” Steve replied, moving about the kitchen to gather up what he needed to make them omelettes and bacon. “When I got sick, we had less anyway, but I wasn’t hungry most of the time because I couldn’t keep it down.” He cracked all ten eggs into a bowl, mixing in milk, salt and pepper as he continued. “I was also stubborn as a mule, and so were you. Usually after I’d been sick, that Sunday, you’d have me over for dinner because my mom was still working doubles to cover what little medicine she’d been able to get me. I’d always feel guilty anyway, because I was taking food off your table, meant for you, your sisters. Your parents worked hard too, you know?” He got two frying pans going, one for the bacon, which was starting to sizzle, and one for the eggs.
It was a lot easier to focus on the words when he was looking at frying pans instead of Bucky. Particularly when he started talking about his own nightmares. Steve wished they could keep pretending that the nightmares weren’t real, but that didn’t change anything. If wishes were horses…
His grip was so hard on the handle of the frying pan that the metal yielded under his touch, contouring the grip that much deeper. “You die,” Steve replied quietly, forcing himself to let go of the pan before he broke the handle entirely. “Every night. It’s different, but you always die and it’s always my fault.” He turned the bacon over. It would only need another few minutes. “That day on the train, watching you fall. That was my nightmare for a long time. Still is.” He paused to scramble the eggs and get his thoughts in order. Talking about his nightmares hadn’t been on his agenda for the day, especially since it was difficult to even think about.
Lately, his dreams had shifted to their fights in DC, on the bridge, and then on Insight. They always ended the same way, with the Soldier being completely oblivious to who he was, and wouldn’t recognize Steve, no matter how hard he tried. Sometimes, his dreams involved him killing the Soldier before his mask came off, only to discover after the fact. Other times, it was Natasha who killed him, all while Steve desperately tried to get her attention, to tell her who he was. Steve was never able to save him in time.
A piece of bacon sizzled and popped, grease landing on his arm. It jolted him out of his reverie. The bacon was getting just a little too well done for his liking, so he pulled the first set off and put them on a plate, on top of the folded paper towels and added more strips to the pan before returning back to the eggs.
“Think we’ll ever get a good night’s sleep?” Steve was almost certain that it was more likely he’d get used to going with less sleep.
~*~
No one in his memories had much in the old days. Bucky Barnes had been a poor kid who knew other poor kids. He'd been working from the time he'd been able-bodied enough to do anything which would pay; he'd done everything from delivery work to the docks where he'd landed the longest prior to enlisting. There were so many types on the docks it'd been a good fit for him. He'd never been average enough for the average anything which made him great for a melting pot of everyone.
People trusted him to do his work. He was dependable. Timeliness had been a real priority for him, too. People didn't want to keep a man around who couldn't show up on time. Even if he was a good worker, if he was late every shift? That meant he was still not appreciating the work the way he should and there had been too many people who would have done better for that kind of man to keep the position. Bucky knew all too well how many people were standing in line waiting on his position.
He'd always been on time, worked hard, and offered to pick up every shift he could.
Too many people had depended on him for him to turn down work for any reason, school included.
Breakfast had always been his favorite meal. It turned out Steve was much better at cooking it now than he had been when they were young. He wasn't sure if Steve had learned in the service or after he'd been awakened. They hadn't spent enough time together talking for him to know anything which was so paltry about Captain America. When had he stopped being Steve Rogers? Was he still Steve Rogers and only he, what was left of Bucky Barnes, seemed to realize it?
"I'm hard to kill."
It wasn't much of a comfort, but it was all he could think of at the time. Bucky had a reason to dream of Steve dying. All the good memories in his life were about Steve. He supposed Steve had the same reason to dream of him---or maybe it was on account he'd literally seen Bucky die from his fall off the train. Any accident of that nature was liable to leave someone scarred in some way or another. Even if they hadn't watched their best friend fall to their death, it would still leave a person shaken.
"We could get over it. Time. I hear it heals all wounds. We seem to have a lot of it. I haven't aged. You were frozen. Me? I was awake off and on, off and on, off and on, but I'm still the same. No aging."
Bucky stopped before he began to think about it too hard. He wanted to think about it sometimes, but not in this moment with Steve. All he wanted was a morning with Steve where they were two men who'd been friends who had one another back after years. They could reconnect. Steve wanted that. He'd said it. He'd even asked if he could spend time with Bucky. No one had forced him to ask for another chance to be friends with who he was now. He knew Bucky was different.
They were both different.
Yet they were also both the same.
"You slept better when you slept with me. We could try that. I've got a big bed. Pretend we're kids again? Isn't that what we're trying anyway? Learning to be friends again?"
~*~
Steve laughed humorlessly. “So am I, these days,” he replied. Even though he knew Bucky had meant it as a comfort or reassurance, it wasn’t much of one. He didn’t want to know what it would feel like to lose his best friend again. He’d barely survived the first time around, due to a fluke with the serum that he hadn’t even thought of, and he’d been prepared to die if it meant proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no trace of Bucky Barnes in The Winter Soldier. Steve couldn’t have survived hurting Bucky, even if it wasn’t really him. He just wasn’t strong enough to fight against his best friend with everything he had. Natasha knew it. Sam knew it. Fury knew it, too. If it was a choice between Steve and Bucky, he would always choose Bucky, even at the cost of his own life.
That was something he didn’t want to have to think about for a long while. Bucky remembered everything, and even though Steve wanted to be able to take away the memories of what he’d been forced to do as The Winter Soldier, he was grateful that his best friend was still in there somewhere, even if it was just in his memories. The relationship was there, and that was all Steve needed to build a new relationship. He would’ve started all over from scratch if that was what it took, but he was grateful for the stepping stone he’d been given.
Steve pulled the bacon off the pan and added the last of the strips. The eggs were done already, so he divided them in half and plated them, divvying up the bacon as well. “Grab the fruit from the fridge?” he asked. “I think we’ve got cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, and blueberries. Whatever you want,” he added, unsure of what Bucky’s preferences might be now. Better to let the man pick, particularly since he hadn’t been able to make decisions on his own these days.
“I don’t know if I can age, but time will tell.” He managed a small smile. “Talking about it helped, when I actually gave it an honest go. Sam’s been pretty patient with me, but then again, he asks all the questions I don’t want to answer or have answers for.” He’d thought having Bucky around would make it better, but his nightmares were proof otherwise.
Steve looked over at Bucky when he suggested they share a bed again, to see if that would help. He wanted to gauge how serious the other man was, but all he saw was the genuine offer and that almost made him start crying. Steve smiled widely and nodded, because his throat was too tight with emotion to offer a verbal answer. By the time he finished off the last of the bacon and set their plates on the kitchen table, Steve was able to reply, “I’d like that very much, Buck.” Hopefully, it would help the both of them. Maybe it could.
“What are you going to be working on today?” he asked, wanting to take a step back from the heavy conversation for a little while. “Working more with Ella today on the flower beds?” Steve personally loved the colorful additions to the apartment complexes. It made it feel more like it could be a home.
~*~
Setting the table had been the girls' job in his house. Steve hadn't been lucky enough to have sisters so he'd been the one setting their table at his house; when Bucky had been over, he'd set the table to give Steve a break, to help his ma out, to show his appreciation for them sharing what they barely had enough of with him. It had been the least he could do. It felt as if it weren't nearly enough in that moment. He wished he had a serving bowl for the fruit, but he settled for bringing the fruit over in its individual clear containers to open each one with its own fork to serve.
Overall? It was the nicest spread he'd set down to since before he'd become The Soldier.
Strange.
A few plastic containers of segmented fruit were the best he could have set a table with in nearly eight decades.
"I think it'll help."
He wasn't sure it could hurt. They could both use a return to a more innocent time in their lives. Steve wasn't as innocent as he'd been. His ideals were much the same, but he wasn't. He'd been hurt too much. He'd seen too much. He'd even killed too much to be that young boy from Brooklyn again. There was no harm in trying to remember being boys again. It could be they'd fail at it. Could be they'd have smashing success with their pretense. Bucky Barnes had never been able to predict the future.
Bringing over silverware to set for each place, he offered, "You could help me. With the flowers. Ella wouldn't mind the company I'm sure and today it was only going to be me. I'm doing the hard work. Moving roots, debris, removing weeds, tilling, putting in some fresh topsoil. It's not glamorous, but it's a good feeling to know how it's going to be used at the end of the day."
They could work on it out. Their days. Their schedules. Their friendship. It might be they could never have what they'd had before, but they could have something different. Might be what they managed to have could be better.
"Thanks for breakfast. Again. If I've said it already. I hope this becomes a thing for us. Meals together. It's nice not to eat alone."
It was nice not to have to do anything alone. Bucky was tired of being by himself. He was tired of the solitary soldiering life. Could be Steve was tired of the same thing. One way or another? It'd work out.
He was a man without faith, but with Steve Rogers around he could have hope once more.