WHO: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes WHEN: recently WHERE: Steve's house WHAT: Cuddlin' because Bucky can't sleep. WARNINGS: Talk about brainwashing and murder STATUS: completed
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It was that part of the early morning where it was hard to say if it was morning or night. It was dark, and cool out for the time being and Bucky had been trying to sleep with the windows open where he could hear the wind and the water at times. There was no sleeping though. First he could manage it because there was too much on his mind, then it was a mess of nightmares when he finally did fall asleep. When he finally got on his bike he was dressed in little more than a white undershirt and the kind of pants he might sleep in.
He smelled like the night air when he finally let himself into Steve's place, closing the locking the door behind him like he was nervous of something rather than the truth that with the two of them in a house nothing bad could really get in even if it wanted to. He looked as if he hadn't slept well in a few days as he finally made his way through the place. "Steve?" He called out softly even though he was almost positive he could hear Steve in the bedroom.
Steve was happy in this new place. The talk about what to tell Tony bothered him a bit, along with his conversation with Bruce. But other than that, he was free. He wasn't Captain America. He was just another guy, living on the beach. There was no room for a normal life back home. Preya gave him that.
When he got the text from Bucky, he smiled goofily. He then expected Bucky soon, and got up to make his bed. It was rumpled from him tossing and turning. He didn't have nightmares, but it was hard to get comfortable. The bed felt like it'd swallow him whole. He was dressed in pajama pants and a tank, barefoot with uncombed hair. He heard the door open and his name, returning with, "Over here, Buck," from the bedroom.
Bucky appeared in the bedroom doorway and took a moment to just look in at the other man, reaching with his metal hand to rub at the back of his own neck and through his wind swept hair.. "Did I wake you up?" He asked as he finally decided to walk farther in, coming right up to the bed and sitting on the edge of it despite that he really wanted to lay down--it was too hard of a thing to do without an invitation just yet though, when Steve was still more of a dream to him then a physical thing he remembered knowing. He did notice that he was immediately calmer once he was in the room with Steve, as if his body just knew it was a safe place to be.
Steve was sitting on the bed by the time Bucky came in. He scooted back until his back hit the pillow. "No, I was haven't a hard time sleeping, too. Not used to this much time to do it nor this comfortable of a place." He paused, watched Bucky sit awkwardly at the edge of the bed and moved the duvet back. He pulled it over him. "C'mere."
He wanted to lay down, and he looked over the place Steve had basically opened up for him on the bed for a long moment before reaching to start unlacing his boots to pull them off so he could lay down. "I get that--the too comfortable thing. I threw a shitty mattress on the floor, sleep better on it than I do the real fluffy comfortable thing." He'd read that prisoners had that problem too--they got used to hard beds and comfort was to weird.
He finally did move to lay down with Steve though, pulling the cover up over him as he laid next to his friend. For a moment he was tense but he found that quickly faded away.
Steve nodded, “Sam brought that up. He said the bed felt like a marshmallow. When I first met him. It was what had me continuing to talk to him.” When Bucky finally got his boots off and laid down, Steve turned and curled towards him. He put one arm over Bucky’s middle. “Is this any better?”
He tensed at first when Steve threw that arm around him. It had been a long time since anyone touched him. His whole body tensed but if Steve went to pull away he'd tell him not to. He needed it--it just scared him at first. A moment of closing his eyes and breathing Steve in was enough to make him finally start to relax again. "Better than at my place." He admitted. "Everything was just--too loud" was finally what he came up with, and he didn't mean the noise--he meant all of his thoughts. They were all just too loud bouncing around his head.
Steve didn’t pull away. He felt Bucky tense up but didn’t recoil. He didn’t force himself on his friend, just let his arm go limp around him. “I’m sure it is.” He knew Bucky had been through so much. He didn’t even remember himself when Steve first saw him alive. How many times was his brain wiped?
“It’s quiet here.” He reached up and brushed a little bit of hair out of Bucky’s face. Bucky was on his right, so the arm was on the other side. It didn’t freak Steve out, but he thought Bucky might get self conscious of it.
He usually didn't care who saw the arm and who didn't other than it being recognizable--only with Steve did it sometimes feel odd, like he didn't want it to be seen. For some reason with Steve it felt like a glaring difference between who he was then and now. He rolled onto his side a bit so he was facing Steve more than anything, letting that warm arm of Steve's weigh him down.
He leaned just barely into the touch to his hair, soaking up the attention and affection without even realizing he was. "You make it quieter." He admitted, "But I don't understand why."
Steve’s voice was just above a whisper. “You don’t have to understand it.” He was still conflicted, knowing this wasn’t the man he used to know. So much time had passed between them. What with Steve sleeping in ice and Bucky being brainwashed. But they found their way back to each other. And that was the most important thing to Steve.
“Can I kiss you?”
His head lay on a pillow near Steve's just looking at him, studying his face, looking for things he recognized and what might be different than his memory. "But I want to." He said honestly, "I'm tired of things just happening to me." He was tired of not knowing what was going on and he wanted to feel like he had some control.
And then Steve asked that, "I thought you weren't looking to date?" He asked almost teasing as he thought about it and then a soft nod. Yea, he could.
“Maybe because I was a constant in your life before the Winter Soldier program. I was there when you died. I was there after you enlisted. You saved me from bullies that I picked fights with.”
Steve shook his head gently, “This isn’t a date.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips against Bucky’s. A chaste kiss, a little longer than a peck. He pulled away and grinned. “Another?”
"Then what is it?" He asked then, if this wasn't Steve looking for something more than just getting to know his friend again. He took a breath though, and he leaned in to press his mouth to Steve's in a kiss once more, longer than the last one, deeper perhaps. He lingered that time, taking a moment to taste the other man before laying his head back down again.
"When you figured it out I was under the mask--was there a moment, even a moment when you thought that maybe I wasn't worth going after?"
“It’s you coming to my apartment late at night,” Steve said with a grin. He closed his eyes when Bucky kissed him and it was just like old times. It was just like every other time Bucky kissed him. He was a child in love again.
“No. Not even a moment. When I saw you, I knew I had to bring you back from whatever happened.”
"I couldn't sleep." He said like that was the only reason he had come over. He stayed where he'd found a comfortable spot with Steve's arm around him and his head half buried in a pillow.
"There was never a moment where you thought about all the terrible things I've done and just--and just thought maybe your friend isn't there anymore?" Because sometimes he felt like that, like he was too weighed down from the things he had done to do anything else or push them off.
“And you came to me. That means something.” He scooted closer, tucking himself against Bucky. He studied his friend’s face, how it hadn’t aged a bit. But how his hair had grown long. Bucky would sometimes slick it back when it got too long, before his mother told him to get a haircut.
“I don’t believe in leaving people behind. And I know the things you did weren’t your fault. You were mixed up in the head. I saw it. One minute you were telling me the things you remembered, then after that doctor-- Zemo, spoke with you, you were unchained. I know you’re still in there. And even if you aren’t, you’re still my friend.”
Again he seemed to still, like he did when Steve first touched him, and then moved into it after a moment of thought. Someone moving into him, cuddling into him, leaning on him--it was all so new and different and he wasn't sure if he trusted it or not. And then the smell of Steve's hair and the warmth of his body registered--and he lifted an arm to wrap back against Steve to hold him there.
"And if it happens again?" Because that was his fear, getting close to someone and then it happening again, letting them down, hurting them--something like that, it terrified him.
Steve let out a small sigh when Bucky held him back. Finally. He realized now he had to approach Bucky like a feral cat. The kind he’d find in the back alleys and try to feed when he was a kid. You have to earn trust. It was a shame he had to earn Bucky’s trust again. He thought he’d always have it.
“It won’t happen again. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Or let anyone make you hurt anyone else.”
The fact that he came there when he couldn't sleep meant he trusted him. He trusted Steve to some real degree, but he also--well he wasn't used to being touched, not by anyone that wasn't looking to hurt him or use him. He just wasn't used to letting his guard down like that. He knew that he trusted Steve--but the issue was he didn't remember why he trusted him and so that trust itself was scary to him.
"You promise that? You promise you'll stop me if you have to?"
Steve didn’t think that Bucky came here for sex. He knew he came here because Steve was something familiar. Bucky was trying to remember. The kiss was just because… Steve really wanted to.
“I promise. I won’t kill you, but I won’t let you …” He trailed off, not wanting to talk about Bucky killing people. “I won’t let it happen again.
He looked at Steve's face, wanting to believe him but needing a moment of looking at him so he could. He knew Steve would do everything he could before he'd hurt him--but he needed to know he would if he had to. He didn't want to be hurt--but more than that he didn't want to hurt anyone.
He moved himself somewhat closer to Steve, wanting to breath him in almost. "I remember this you know." He commented then, "I remember sharing a bed in my apartment because we couldn't afford two of them--how I'd come home smelling like fish from the docks and you'd sometimes have food ready for me." Some of it was there, some of those memories--the biggest issue was really that sometimes it was hard to pick out what was real and what was something his mind made up to fill things in.
“I remember staying over at your house when we were kids, before the serum. You took up the whole bed compared to what I took up.” Steve chuckled, “And yeah, you did smell like fish. It was hard to share a bed with you then.” His smile was genuine and wide.
“During the war, sleeping close to keep each other warm. Sleeping to the sounds of gunfire and shells over our heads.”
"Shut up, I showered best I could." In their small place with what they had. He cleaned up best he could but a day of sweating in that environment sometimes felt like it leaked its way into him. He smiled at Steve's smile, at how real it was-how content the other man seemed to be.
He moved just a bit, closer to Steve's chest so his face was almost in it. "You saw my notebook, in the apartment, before the SHIELD agents or UN or whoever they were closed in--" The notebook he had been keeping of memories and information on Steve in that bare apartment. he'd been staying in after running from HYDRA.
Steve’s hand gingerly moved to the back of Bucky’s head. Cradling it as if it were a baby bird. “At least it was better than my paper route.” A small laugh from deep down in his chest.
“Yeah, I saw it. You were trying. There’s still time, it’s all okay.” If he hadn’t been put in cryo and he stuck around Steve, maybe there was a chance he’d get Bucky back.
"When you could manage it with your asthma." He snapped back without thinking. He remembered things the most when he wasn't thinking about remembering them. If he tried too hard the thoughts didn't come. He did best in moments where something just felt right and came back.
He took a few deep breaths with his face against Steve's chest staying right there against him. "This is the most okay I've felt in a long time." He admitted, this place, it just felt safer immediately than anywhere else he'd been lately. "What about Stark? I just--I don't want this all to come back to a head again."
Steve laughed lightly, “Ouch.” But Bucky was right, Steve was a mess before the serum He needed Bucky back then, more than Bucky needed him.
“I’m glad I can be this for you. Because you’re home to me…” He gently pet Bucky’s hair. Why did he keep it so long now? Then again, Steve let himself grow a beard, so maybe it was just a way to keep some control over your body. “We’re not telling Stark. None of us. He doesn’t have to know. I told Natasha. But I trust her, I trust her very much.”
Steve gently scraped his fingernails along Bucky's scalp. Slowly, comfortingly. When his back was touched, he shivered a little. The nights were getting colder and he had the windows open. But they had their blanket. Maybe it was just Bucky's touch.
He slipped one hand under Steve's shirt just so you could touch skin along the other man's back. He seemed to relax more and more as his hair was touched. It was something he'd always liked the feeling of but even more now. It was reassuring and the repetitive touch was calming.
"What did you tell her?" Because as far as he knew she was from the same time that they were, "I trust Natasha with almost everything." He admitted then, though he wouldn't get into their shared past he figured Steve would assume it was because of their HYDRA connection.
Steve gently scraped his fingernails along Bucky's scalp. Slowly, comfortingly. When his back was touched, he shivered a little. The nights were getting colder and he had the windows open. But they had their blanket. Maybe it was just Bucky's touch.
"I told her that you killed Tony's parents. I assume she understands it was under HYDRA command. She's smarter than both of us combined."
He made a soft sound when Steve's nails touched his scalp. A soft exhale and contented sound. He was finally completely relaxed, just enjoying the touch against his hair and head and feeling like he could be lulled to sleep by it. His hand on Steve's back started tracing random patterns against his skin.
He nodded a bit against Steve's chest. "Would prefer you tell me before next time." He answered honestly, "But I trust her--not mad or anything."
He could feel Bucky’s body relax under his arms. He was malleable now, Steve could probably move and Bucky would stay boneless. But he didn’t move, just kept scratching Bucky’s head.
“I’m sorry, Buck. I trust her more than anything and she needed to know. I won’t tell anyone else. Bruce almost got it out of me because I mentioned Tony tried to kill us. I’m just going to keep quiet on the subject. Sorry, still.”
"Okay." He said finally, unable to get mad about it because he would have told Natasha himself if he had remembered that she hadn't known. It felt like she knew everything sometimes and it was easy to forget that wasn't necessarily true.
"Be careful with Bruce though--I don't trust him." He knew Steve knew them all better than he did, but he had spoken to Natasha and in the end he thought the scientist would side with Tony, and probably tell Tony if he was to find out and Bucky wasn't ready for that just yet.
“Bruce doesn’t have to know, so he won’t know. He’s a good man but that’s something Tony would have to tell him, and we’re not telling Tony.”
This whole thing made him feel awful, he didn’t like keeping things from people or lying. Ducking the truth was against his core.
Steve had kept his secret for a long time, or that was the feeling he'd gotten from Steve telling Tony he knew. He doubted Steve had known it was Bucky in particular till he put it all together. Maybe he had only known it wasn't a car accident, and that it was a HYDRA assassination--but still. He figured the information did more harm than good, both to Tony and to them.
He was quiet for another long moment there, just feeling the warmth off Steve's body, especially with the hand under his shirt touching Steve's back before he finally spoke. "Do you mind if I stay here sometimes?"
Steve read as much stuff on HYDRA as he could after Nat dumped it on the internet. He wanted to know if Red Skull somehow survived. Either way, the thing he started did.
“You can stay here anytime. My bed is open to you.” He sounded a little silly when he said it, but he was completely honest. “Anytime.”
"Thanks." He said softly though he knew it wasn't needed. His eyes were closing and considering he hadn't slept well in a few days, and not at all yet that night, it was likely he'd fall asleep soon enough if Steve kept touching his hair. He was exhausted, more exhausted than he'd realized till he finally managed to relax and it all hit him at once.
Steve didn’t move. He could feel Bucky’s chest moving slower as his breathing became less and less shallow. He stayed awake for a little bit, brushing his hands through Bucky’s hair, before falling asleep too.