Steve let out a decidedly unmanly giggle that verged on hysteria at Bucky's macho men joke. "Shhh," he replied, his voice shaking with emotion. "I won't tell anyone if you won't."
Just then, Steve's phone pinged loudly in his back pocket.
"Hold that thought." He reached for it automatically, intending to turn it off or toss it in the fountain, but he held it up long enough to see Bruce's message that he'd seen Bucky, confirming this was real. Steve laughed again, and sent a hurried message of thanks back before turning the damn device off and shoving it back in his pocket.
"Sorry. That was Bruce, confirming he'd seen you." He gazed at Bucky in wonder, seeing through the stoic surface to the broken soldier underneath. His Bucky needed him. Steve's chest throbbed with how much he felt.
"This is real." Steve's eyes seemed to be trying to memorize his friend all over again. He was mesmerized by the man's stormy blue eyes. "Bucky," he said, suddenly breathless. "So much. I m— We can't. I can't waste any more time. I can't lose you again. I have to tell you. I have to. Buck... I..." Love you, he couldn't say. But it was written all over his face. His eyes lowered to Bucky's mouth and his chest deflated as the breath left him all over again.
Steve barely registered a very young trio on one of the benches a little distance away, but he vaguely heard sighs and someone muttering something that sounded like 'I ship it', whatever that meant, at the same time that another of the group aww'd at them.
"I choose you. Always. I'll always choose you, Buck," he muttered, hypnotized by the sight of the other half of his soul. He kept gravitating closer, drawn by an invisible force. "D-do you..." Understand? Feel the same? Think I'm crazy?