MCU: "And a good floor for dancing" (Bucky/Steve, g)
title: and a good floor for dancing
author: fannishliss
pairing: Bucky/Steve
Rating: G
5551 words of domestic fluff :)
Summary: Steve moves to New York so Jarvis can help him locate Bucky, and he makes the floor in Stark Tower a home.
Note: My action figures of Bucky and Steve often travel with me, and at a restaurant recently, a great Duke Ellington song came on the jukebox, which made Bucky really want to dance, and Steve was sorry there wasn't a dance floor. So in this story, I remedy that. Don't forget to open a window to play the music when it comes up. :)
===
After the fall of Shield, Steve didn’t stay long in DC. He packed up his apartment with Sam’s help, and moved his boxes to Sam’s place, which was only their base of operations until Sam put his foot down.
“Steve, you know I will do anything to help,” Sam said. “But honestly, you are an Avenger. You are personal friends with Tony Stark. And you’re sitting at my kitchen table trying to hack through Shield’s entire database on my crummy three year old laptop. Man, you need to get real.”
Steve thought Sam’s crummy three year old laptop was pretty swell actually but he had to admit, it had nothing on Jarvis. Steve knew very well how prone he was to the deadly sins: pride, and its special footpath leading to wrath, were his Achilles’ heels. Bucky was out there, in who knew what kind of shape- maybe Hydra was close to catching up to him - maybe they already had him - maybe they were storing him in some bunker in a cryo tube and they wouldn’t let him out again for another ten years - maybe they were wiping him with that disgusting chair, like the one Steve had personally crushed when they’d raided the Bank as soon as he was back on his feet. Anyway, all that meant that Steve didn’t have time to cater to his own tetchy pride. Bucky was still out in the cold, and Steve needed, more than life itself, to find him and bring him in, no matter what it took. If it took going to Stark and begging on bended knee for resources, then down on bended knee he would go, no matter how much it hurt. He owed Bucky that. Whatever it took.
It turned out that no groveling was actually required. Steve didn’t have to try out any new red and gold costumes, or awkwardly try to grow his sparse blond facial hair into a fetching goatee, or any of that. He called Maria Hill, and Maria set him up with a Stark Industries employee who was now his very own personal assistant, Tricia Turner, pronounced Tree See Ya, who organized a moving van that collected Steve’s boxes that very afternoon, and by ten that night, he and Sam were ensconced in guest quarters in Stark Tower, its glowing red A still announcing that Stark meant business with the Avengers.
“Damn, this place is swank,” Sam said, emerging from the bathroom the next morning. Steve had already done two hours in the gym and showered there. He hadn’t even destroyed any punching bags. He was too eager to get to work.
Tricia called, and spoke to Sam at length. Sam hadn’t completely made up his mind to move to New York, but Tricia arranged to put through his papers for a leave of absence from the VA and hired a security firm and house sitters to look after his place, making it looked lived in, taking care of the lawn and watering the plants. Sam had brought his jet pack and the wing he still had, and Tricia told him which of Tony’s labs to take it to for repairs. Sam was beyond elated to think that the Falcon would soon fly again.
Steve ate breakfast that morning chatting with Jarvis around mouthfuls of hearty granola.
“Any sightings of Bucky in DC?” he asked.
“Yes. A man vaguely fitting Sergeant Barnes’s description was spotted on the Smithsonian security tapes, five days after Insight.”
“Five days!” Steve shouted. “That was last week!”
“Steve, you were barely out of the hospital,” Sam said. “Give yourself a break.”
“The Smithsonian,” Steve muttered. “He went to the exhibit?”
“Yes. He spent approximately fifty-four minutes in the exhibit, and he can be seen examining each panel closely. Would you like to see footage?”
Steve’s heart jumped painfully in his chest. The thought of Bucky, blank and furious and terrified - it hurt, bad. Hydra would burn, Steve swore for the umpteenth time.
“Yes, please, Jarvis, show us the footage.”
“Steve, man,” Sam began, but it was no good. Steve drank it in.
There stood Bucky, dirty, disheveled, a full beard starting on his face. The footage was too grainy to see his eyes, but Steve could imagine the sad, hollow look of despair as Bucky moved methodically from point to point within the exhibit, carefully taking it all in and missing nothing.
Steve’s memory fed the voiceover back to him as he watched Bucky - “Rogers and Barnes, best friends since childhood.” Would it reinforce what he’d tried to prod Bucky into remembering when they were fighting? If he’d saved Steve from the Potomac (Steve knew for sure he hadn’t gotten to the shore under his own steam), then wasn’t that proof he recognized something about Steve? The way his deadly arm had suddenly held back from the beating - the look of horror in his eyes - weren’t those signs that Bucky had begun to remember? Even in the fight on the street, when Bucky’s mask had come off and Steve confronted him with his name, he’d come to a halt and asked, “Who the hell is Bucky?” before abandoning the fight and disappearing without a trace. All of it put together, it had to mean something. Steve chose to think it meant that Bucky was somehow still able to remember, despite the hell Hydra had put him through.
Steve feasted his eyes on the blurry footage of his closest friend. Fifty-four minutes, then Bucky left the exhibit.
“Any more footage from DC?” Steve asked.
“No, sir. As you can see, Sergeant Barnes has concealed himself in non-descript clothing. Upon leaving the museum, he avoided street cameras and evaded detection.”
“You can’t pick him out?” Steve asked.
“No, sir. As you’ve seen, he keeps his head down and has minimized every distinguishing feature.”
“Damn it!” Steve said.
“What about the surveillance around Steve’s apartment?” Sam asked.
“Nothing so far, sir, but would you like me to continue to scan camera footage around certain key DC locations?”
“Yes, Jarvis - please list the locations you’re considering.”
“Captain Rogers’s apartment. The Bank. Five other Hydra strongholds exposed in the District, Maryland, Virginia area. The Triskelion and helicarrier wreckage site.”
“Six Hydra sites in or near DC?” Steve whispered, aghast. “Are any still active?”
“No, Captain Rogers. You and your team took down the Bank, of course, and two more sites were taken care of by agencies acting on standing Federal directives to bring any known Hydra agents into custody. The three remaining were rendered inactive by unknown forces.”
“Unknown forces?” Steve asked. “What does that mean?”
“Site one, three days post Insight: a warehouse in Northern Virginia for the storage of artifacts was rifled with casualties to seven personnel. Survivors reported a solitary attacker who removed weaponry and ammunition.”
“Bucky?” Steve breathed.
“Witnesses’ composite description is inconclusive. None of them got a good look at the perpetrator, and all surveillance equipment was destroyed, but the speed and efficiency of the attack suggests the Winter Soldier.”
Steve cringed. “Please, Jarvis - don’t call him that. But you said all footage was destroyed.”
“My apologies, Captain, it seemed the appropriate moniker. All footage onsite was destroyed, but there may be surviving footage in cameras around the area.”
“What good does it do us to get intel more than a week old?” Sam asked.
“Anything we can learn about his activities and his mental state is vital for us to gather,” Steve said firmly, not wanting to admit out loud that he was desperate for any glimpses of Bucky he could get.
“Site two, on day six, the sub-basement of an office building in suburban Maryland was attacked covertly. All surveillance was disabled, all personnel killed, and all computer equipment destroyed. On day seven, an underground bunker adjacent to Andrews Air Force Base south of DC was completely destroyed by an explosion that rendered any evidence of what it may have contained extremely difficult to reconstruct.”
Steve thought for a moment. “So, what you’re saying is that all locations associated with Hydra in and around the District have already been destroyed - three of them almost certainly by Bucky.”
“That does appear to be the case,” Jarvis replied.
“So the question is, was it a bad move for us to come to New York?” Sam asked. “I mean, did he take out of the Hydra bases around DC only to have us fly the coop?”
Steve slammed his hand down on the desk, rattling his coffee cup and making Sam jump. “Sorry,” Steve said. “But this is - I can’t - I have to find him. I have to. Jarvis, any further unauthorized destruction of Hydra bases or speculation on what he might be doing now?”
“Shield was thrown into disarray by the destruction of the Triskelion, but several other agencies including the CIA, FBI, certain Armed Forces detachments, and police forces, have taken on Hydra in their jurisdictions. Using the information made public by Ms. Romanov, two hundred thirty-seven sites controlled by Hydra were raided post Insight across the continental US.” Jarvis brought up a map and the array of Hydra sites was staggering. Most were ranged around big urban areas, but some were more remote or located near military installations.
“Holy shit,” Sam said.
“Over two hundred Hydra sites in just the last few days? How is that possible?”
“When Ms. Romanov leaked the Shield information, it was downloaded many millions of times by users all across the country and around the world. Anyone, anywhere could demand their local jurisdictions go after suspected Hydra locations. As a matter of fact, Stark Industries has also been tasked with exposing Hydra, so part of my attention has been devoted to just this sort of activity.”
“So while you’re talking to us-” Sam laughed.
“I’m sending emails about Hydra locations to law enforcement officials around the country as we speak,” Jarvis confirmed, and Steve thought he did sound a little bit smug.
“Huh,” Steve said, as he sat back in his chair. “So…. this is not going to be me and Sam running around destroying Hydra single handedly.”
“No, sir,” Jarvis said.
“Sometimes it’s nice when things change,” Steve said. “But now I feel a little useless. If we don’t target Hydra bases, how can we predict where Bucky might go?”
“You are said to have been his best friend, Captain Rogers. Perhaps there is no one better equipped to speculate on what he might do next than yourself.”
Steve pushed back from the desk and rubbed his face with his hands. “Now would be a good time to have the power of being simultaneously everywhere at once.”
“I already possess that capability,” Jarvis said helpfully.
“Thanks, Jarvis,” Steve sighed, “but I mean - I don’t know where to go or what to do to help Bucky find me, or how to increase my chances of finding Bucky.”
“As Captain America, your activities are always considered newsworthy. You need only appear in public for your location to become widespread common knowledge.”
“This is true,” Sam said. “Sounds like you ought to embark on a dedicated campaign of getting kittens down from trees and helping little old ladies cross the street.”
Steve frowned, but he didn’t have a better plan. “Jarvis, please do continue to monitor any suspected Hydra sites, and if any connection whatsoever with the Winter Soldier project comes to light, pay special attention. And keep your eyes peeled. Cameras. What have you.”
“I will keep my eyes peeled for Sergeant Barnes, Captain. Meanwhile, Ms. Turner has asked that you meet with her in regards to moving into your suites.”
Sam and Steve looked at one another. “Uh, didn’t we already do that?” Sam said.
“These quarters are reserved for temporary guests,” Jarvis explained. “Mr. Stark has arranged for each Avenger to have their own floor of Avengers Tower, to do with as they see fit.”
Sam’s mouth fell open. “Me? Does that mean me? Tell me I’m an Avenger, Steve!”
“You are an Avenger,” Steve said, very officially, pointing at Sam with his best Buy War Bonds finger.
“Hot damn,” Sam crooned, and did a complicated nod of victory. “I guess that helps me decide on whether to move up here or not.”
“I don’t know how I feel about living on Tony’s dime,” Steve complained.
“Look at it this way,” Sam said seriously. “You spent the last hour seeing for yourself how incredibly helpful Jarvis can be. And you’ve worked with the Avengers before, you know that it’s strategically useful for all of you to have a shared home base, even if you don’t stay there twenty-four seven. Don’t beat yourself up to much. If one of the Avengers happens to be a poor little lonely billionaire who likes to throw money - you’ve earned it. You’ve more than earned it.”
Steve didn’t stop frowning, but he had to admit the truth in what Sam had to say.
Time ticked by. Steve watched as Hydra strongholds were ferreted out all over the country. Sometimes it just meant that two or three Hydra agents would be arrested and whatever materials Hydra hadn't already destroyed would be seized.Other times it involved more extensive maneuvers by armed forces or local police departments. Hydra was down, but still kicking, and their tenacity at holding on while already compromised was surprising. Eventually another pattern emerged - a swath of destruction, as locations that Shield had never known about were utterly eradicated by “unknown forces.” It was incredibly frustrating to Steve, who could only know for certain where Bucky had recently been, but never where he’d go next. He had hope though, because the locations that were destroyed did trace a trajectory, one leading north, up the Eastern seaboard from DC toward New York.
A fact that nearly staggered Steve, but that he should have predicted, was that New York City and its environs had held more than two dozen known Hydra locations, everything from stockpiles and boltholes to a research complex under a house on Long Island, to a luxury condo on Park Avenue wired into the Hydra communications network, to safe houses in every borough. It made Steve sick, but what was worse was the surety that for all the locations that had originally belonged to Shield, that Hydra had mad their own, there were still many locations that Shield was completely ignorant of. Almost every day, Jarvis would report to Steve and Sam that “someone” had eradicated another of these sites, leaving no trace and no clue as to where he intended to strike next.
Steve didn’t exactly go out looking for kittens and old ladies, but he instructed Jarvis to let all the area agencies know that Captain America was more than ready to take part in any offensives against Hydra. He made sure to get out there, to get seen, and to get his picture put up -with the helmet off.
“Anyone trying to put an end to Hydra should know: I am on your side,” Steve said, directly to the camera. He couldn’t get much more obvious without waving a sign that read “BUCKY COME HOME” all in bold and big letters. He’d doodled such a sign on some scrap paper back at the Tower, which embarrassed him horribly when Sam found it. But Sam didn’t laugh, he just smiled and patted Steve’s shoulder.
“He will come home, Steve,” Sam said.
“Ya think?” Steve said, hopefully.
“Yeah, I think,” Sam said.
Tony had already upgraded Sam’s wings, and the EXO-10 weren’t even red and gold, though they did boast a very discreet Stark logo at the end of each wing. Sam spent a lot of time in the air, soaring around and weaving in and out between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, landing in Central Park and glad-handing the tourists. Tony, Pepper, Jarvis, Maria, Steve and Sam had a meet up every other day, and the consensus was that Steve and Sam were doing well with the public relations. A recording of Steve’s speech before he’d taken down the Helicarriers had gone viral along with the Shield files, and though he wouldn’t have done anything differently, he was glad that the American people seemed swayed by his argument that defeating Hydra was worth the high cost.
Sam went ahead and sold his house in DC and Tricia organized his move with perfect efficiency.
“Money is so much more effective than beer and pizza,” Sam enthused, as the moving team carried in boxes and unpacked everything. Sam’s suite had come together nicely, and he was very pleased.
It had taken Steve a while longer, even though (or perhaps because) he had fewer things. Tricia had had Sam’s house photographed and his design preferences analysed so that she was able to present whole layouts for him to pick and choose from for his suite. He was a level headed guy, but he wasn’t going to refuse a giant state of the art tv with full surround and enormous leather couches and chairs to lounge about it while watching.
Steve preferences weren’t so easy for Tricia’s team to grasp. Steve had books, a record player, some records, a few items for his kitchen. In short, he had almost nothing. His place in Brooklyn when he first woke up had been bleak and depressing even by his own meager standards, and the DC place where he’d lived for over a year hadn’t been much better. He’d never had much of anything. He had a well developed artistic aesthetic, but that didn’t translate in his mind into opinions about decor. After a day or two of getting nowhere with Steve, Tricia hit on the method.
She’d show Steve a layout and watch his eyebrows. When that little crease came in deep between his brows, that was what he hated the most. Working backward, Tricia’s goal was Steve’s placid, unwrinkled brow, broad and serene as a god’s.
Hardwood floors. Pale pastel walls- pale blue and very pale yellow were his favorites. He liked checked cotton curtains. Tricia somehow pried out of him that he wouldn’t mind a big kitchen. She got him a retro Viking stove, butcher block counters, and green and white tile on the floor. He liked the big luxurious bathrooms of the future, so she fixed him up with a rain shower. She thought he’d want a claw-footed tub, but was surprised to learn that growing up in the tenements, he had no memories of such things. He preferred the jacuzzi, because the heated jets helped relax him after battle. Slower than Sam’s, Steve’s suite came together, until he walked in one day to find a floor of Stark Tower full of light, cleanly decorated, with deco posters and reproductions of modern art on the walls, and a sound system so advanced that Jarvis actually chuckled at his reaction. Steve’s cupboards were full of food - he’d mentioned how often he’d gone hungry as a kid and Tricia had worked with Jarvis to source all his favorite things, placed standing orders, and would ensure that Steve was kept wanting for nothing. It was unnerving to say the least, but he couldn’t really say he minded the security.
Steve maybe felt a little weird about the time and thought Tricia had encouraged him and Sam to put into home decorating, but Hydra was slowly but surely going down. The known bases had long been taken care of, and the unknowns coming to light after their destruction had slowly trickled to a halt.
Then, all of a sudden, one day, it happened.
“Captain Rogers, I see Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis announced.
Steve was on his feet before he knew he’d even moved. “What? Where?”
“He’s in Brooklyn. He’s sitting on a bench on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Aha. Captain, he just winked at me.”
“He what?” Steve was skidding around his suite, trying to find shoes.
“I’m not sure how he identified the camera - but he looked straight at it, and winked.”
“Corner of Montague and Henry?”
“Yes sir,” Jarvis affirmed.
“That’s our old bus stop,” Steve said, sliding into the elevator, riding it straight down to the garage, where he vaulted onto his new motorcycle and was halfway across the bridge before he knew it.
He pulled up at the familiar corner, and there was Bucky, in a clean plaid shirt like a hipster, pale but well-groomed, waiting for Steve with a smirk on his face.
Steve beckoned with a dip of his chin, and Bucky swung on behind him, just like days off in London, on their way to Peggy’s place, or once or twice touring the countryside.
The warmth of Bucky at his back made Steve’s heart pound, and he felt like he could hardly breathe. He’d ridden to Brooklyn like a bat out of hell, and now he obeyed every traffic rule scrupulously, with the most beloved passenger he could imagine alive and real and holding on behind him.
He felt like the ride could never be long enough, Bucky right there, solid and pressed up against him. He didn’t want to stop the bike, turn off the engine, wait to see what Bucky would say. He eased the bike into its space in Stark’s underground garage, and just sat there for a moment, savoring the feel of Bucky’s arms around him - even the metal arm, unnaturally solid and cold, felt good because it was Bucky holding onto him, something achingly precious that not so long ago he never thought he’d feel again.
Bucky got off the bike first, but he stood close to Steve in the elevator. Bucky and Steve had had a kind of secret language, growing up in Brooklyn together. They had a sense of when people might be watching, whether it was safe to stand as close as they wanted, or whether some fortuitous circumstances might allows them to press a little closer. Bucky stood close, because he always had, just so his right arm could casually lift and drop across Steve’s shoulders. Steve was just an inch taller than Bucky these days, but he never for one second stopped yearning for the weight of that arm behind his neck, even though his shoulders were now so much broader, ready for a heavier load.
They rode up the elevator, breathing together in silence. It almost felt like a kind of dare to see who would speak first. Steve’s tongue felt clumsy with so much churning through his mind- how much he missed Bucky, how glad he was to see him, how sorry he was for all Bucky had suffered, how determined he was to be whatever Bucky needed now that he was back - but he couldn’t say any of it, because words were all too shallow and trite for the depth of feeling that threatened to consume him. Bucky had the right idea - just smirk and breathe and stand close and wait for the elevator to spill them off somewhere where they could really begin to take that silence apart.
Jarvis spoke, and Bucky didn’t flinch. “Welcome to Stark Tower, Sergeant Barnes. I’m Jarvis. Please let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks, will do,” Bucky said, sounding so much like he always had that Steve almost felt like he would faint.
The doors slid open to Steve’s new place. The smell hadn’t settled in yet - it was a little much new furniture and paint. But it wasn’t too bad.
“Nice digs, Stevie,” Bucky said, with a smile.
“Glad you like it,” Steve said, cool as a cucumber.
“Ain’t you gonna offer me a soda?” Bucky said, just to watch Steve trip over his own feet in his urge to open the fridge, which was well-stocked with the best old-fashioned sodas he could find. Bucky settled at Steve’s kitchen table. It was a beautiful table, plain pale birch, with sturdy kitchen chairs, the kind of thing they’d always leaf past in the Sears Roebuck catalog, dogearing the page for someday. Bucky rocked the front two legs off the ground, the way he always had if the chair was strong enough to hold him.
Steve rooted through his enormous stainless steel fridge, and pulled out a bottle of celery soda for Bucky, just like the kind they used to get at Weinstein’s deli. God bless Tricia for her thoroughness with the grocery list. Bucky took a swig, and Steve could see in his face the memories hitting him.
“Weinstein’s,” Bucky murmured with a smile.
If Steve cried now, Bucky would never let him live it down. But he’d read the file, he knew the lengths Hydra had gone to destroy Bucky’s memories, and here he sat pulling up little details from his old life easy as pie. He buried his feelings being busy, pulling together all the things Bucky liked best in a sandwich, piling it all on thick slices of “artisanal” bread, with a big kosher pickle to boot.
“I sure am glad to see you, Buck,” Steve said, sliding the plate toward Bucky.
Bucky nodded with a sigh. “Likewise, Steve.”
“Can you stay? Please stay,” Steve said, like the sap he knew he was.
“There’s a whole lot I need to sort out,” Bucky said, and the shadows fell into place on his face, the marks and hollows left by the Winter Soldier’s missions. “There’s more I need to do, more places and people I remember.”
“I’ll help you,” Steve said. “I’ve got a good team. We’ll all help.”
“I think I killed Howard Stark, Stevie,” Bucky said, and his right hand flexed and unflexed on his knee. “How can I stay in this Tower, with the kid I orphaned?”
Steve grimaced, glad he’d had this talk with Tony as soon as he and Sam had unravelled the intel. “Everyone knows what they did to you, Bucky. No one’s going to blame you for the missions they sent you on.”
“I tried to fight them, Steve, I swear,” Bucky said, low and soft.
“I know you did. I read the file. I know the hell they put you through to make you comply.”
Bucky shuddered.
“Can we talk about something else?” Steve begged.
Bucky laughed, a cold, dry laugh. “A little short on conversation topics. Brainwashed assassin is pretty much the extent.”
“Well, at least I can give you the tour,” Steve said. They walked away from the Dagwood sandwich on the table, but Bucky dangled the soda bottle from his fingers.
He liked the kitchen, praised the light from the windows, whistled at the size and luxury of the bathroom. Steve showed him the bedroom he’d set aside.
“My own room?” Bucky said, side-eyeing Steve.
“Sam - my friend, he’s a counsellor - he said you might want space to call your own.”
“Maybe,” Bucky allowed. “Nice big bed in your room, Stevie,” he said, and Steve blushed, as though he hadn’t lived for years, after his ma died, in the little place Bucky had picked out on Montague street. Brooklyn Heights had been a declining neighborhood in those days, the grand old buildings divided up into smaller apartments to let, the architecture clean and light and a hell of lot nicer than the tenements he’d lived in as a kid. The air was fresh and clean in the Heights, important for someone with lungs like Steve, and it was a short trip over the bridge to Manhattan for Steve’s art classes and the few jobs he landed before the war.
Bucky had adored that apartment. He’d slaved at the docks to pay the rent, but he didn’t care, as long as he came home to Steve in the evening. Two guys living together was nothing out of the ordinary, not in that neighborhood, and nobody gave them any problems. Still, they kept up the pretense of two beds for if Bucky’s sisters came around or the landlord ever looked in for any reason - two iron frames they religiously pulled apart every morning, and pushed back together every night.
“The other room, Buck, it’s not for show, it’s only if you need a place that’s all for you. It’s all right nowadays, whatever folks get up to, in private, or even - it’s legal now to marry.”
Steve managed to shoot a glance at Bucky, and found that Bucky was looking right back - his beautiful bedroom eyes still just as full of love for Steve as ever, not a bit dimmed by the dark smudges fatigue had left beneath them. Steve fell into those eyes as quick as he always had.
“God damn it, Bucky - how are you still so good looking,” Steve asked. Involuntarily he moved toward Bucky, and Bucky didn’t pull away a bit.
“Just lucky I guess,” he said, like always.
Steve couldn’t help it. He’d told himself he’d wait, they’d talk, he’d take it slow, but he fell toward Bucky like a star fell to earth - pulled inexorably toward those plush, parted lips.
“Is this okay?” he managed to breathe.
“Kiss me, Stevie,” Bucky answered, and they crashed together, ravenous, starved. Bucky tasted was the same, kissed Steve back exactly the same - Steve thought it had to be a miracle, that Bucky could have survived so much and his kisses had not changed one bit.
“Tell me, Bucky,” Steve gasped, between kisses, tearing himself away just so he could breathe. “Tell me what you want, I swear, whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
“You gonna buy me the moon, angelface?” Bucky asked. His sweet smile, his soft eyes, he was setting Steve on fire.
“Anything,” Steve swore. “Name it.”
“Dance with me, Stevie,” Bucky smiled.
“Huh?” Steve asked, momentarily dumbfounded.
“Dance with me,” Bucky repeated, simple and straightforward. “The floors in this place are gorgeous. Jarvis, I bet you can spin us a record, huh?”
“Certainly, Sergeant Barnes. Captain, would you like to express a preference?”
“umm,” Steve said. A million songs had flown past Steve in the year and a half he’d been out of the ice, and out of the ones he’d like, nine out of ten he’d desperately dreamed of sharing with Bucky, who loved a good dance tune more than anything.
“Duke Ellington,” Bucky said. “Take the A Train.”
Steve knew the song well. Bucky had always ruled the dance halls, thrilling the ladies with his expert moves and putting people off the scent of his relationship with Steve, who didn’t have the coordination or the lungs for dancing. The A train, running from Brooklyn to Harlem, was real to Bucky and Steve, and having the Duke reward it with its own theme song had seemed like a personal gift to them.
As the notes swept through Steve’s floor in Stark Tower, it was like those the intervening years had never passed - for Steve, trapped in the ice, they subjectively hadn’t, while for Bucky, the years had been stolen from him by cryo, the wipe, or the haze of the drugs they used to control him. For both of them, the music was alive, personal, and it sounded like the love they’d shared those precious years together in Brooklyn, kept secret but no less utterly devoted to one another.
Bucky held out his arms and Steve stepped in. He’d always known who his ideal dance partner would be; it was Bucky, never anyone but Bucky. Even Peggy, wonderful as she was - enticing as a relationship with her would have been - she hadn’t known him all that long, and though Steve was pretty sure she understand about Bucky, they hadn’t gotten to the point of really hashing things out. When Steve went out dancing in his dreams, it was Bucky whose strong arms and confident feet whirled him unerringly through the moves until he felt like he was flying.
Ellington’s tune had a moderate, rocking tempo, and Bucky eased Steve into it, leading him gracefully into the basic. A helpless grin stole over Steve’s face as Bucky stepped, forward and back, and Steve instinctively followed. The steps gently grew more complicated without Bucky pushing Steve; he could feel when Steve was ready to learn the next bit, and moved him effortlessly into it. By the end of the song, Steve was relaxed in Bucky’s arms, stepping and turning like his name was Ginger.
As the music faded, Bucky leaned in and kissed Steve, easy and slow and deep.
“I don’t want to rush you, Buck,” Steve said. He was panting, but not from exertion, and he knew he was flushed and his pupils were probably the size of dimes.
“Seventy years, it ain’t likely you could rush me,” Bucky said, smiling.
Steve knew they had hurdles that couldn’t be solved overnight, but for right now, Bucky was here - alive, and safe, and smiling with Steve in his arms.
“Can we go to bed?” Steve asked, sounding like the kid he’d been when he first knew Bucky so very long ago.
“Sure, Stevie,” Bucky said. “Just so as you know, I won’t be needing that other room for much.”
The smile on Steve’s face was so big it hurt. It would take him a while to get used to smiling that big again, but with Bucky alive and home with him, to Steve it felt like he had all the time in the world.
author: fannishliss
pairing: Bucky/Steve
Rating: G
5551 words of domestic fluff :)
Summary: Steve moves to New York so Jarvis can help him locate Bucky, and he makes the floor in Stark Tower a home.
Note: My action figures of Bucky and Steve often travel with me, and at a restaurant recently, a great Duke Ellington song came on the jukebox, which made Bucky really want to dance, and Steve was sorry there wasn't a dance floor. So in this story, I remedy that. Don't forget to open a window to play the music when it comes up. :)
===
After the fall of Shield, Steve didn’t stay long in DC. He packed up his apartment with Sam’s help, and moved his boxes to Sam’s place, which was only their base of operations until Sam put his foot down.
“Steve, you know I will do anything to help,” Sam said. “But honestly, you are an Avenger. You are personal friends with Tony Stark. And you’re sitting at my kitchen table trying to hack through Shield’s entire database on my crummy three year old laptop. Man, you need to get real.”
Steve thought Sam’s crummy three year old laptop was pretty swell actually but he had to admit, it had nothing on Jarvis. Steve knew very well how prone he was to the deadly sins: pride, and its special footpath leading to wrath, were his Achilles’ heels. Bucky was out there, in who knew what kind of shape- maybe Hydra was close to catching up to him - maybe they already had him - maybe they were storing him in some bunker in a cryo tube and they wouldn’t let him out again for another ten years - maybe they were wiping him with that disgusting chair, like the one Steve had personally crushed when they’d raided the Bank as soon as he was back on his feet. Anyway, all that meant that Steve didn’t have time to cater to his own tetchy pride. Bucky was still out in the cold, and Steve needed, more than life itself, to find him and bring him in, no matter what it took. If it took going to Stark and begging on bended knee for resources, then down on bended knee he would go, no matter how much it hurt. He owed Bucky that. Whatever it took.
It turned out that no groveling was actually required. Steve didn’t have to try out any new red and gold costumes, or awkwardly try to grow his sparse blond facial hair into a fetching goatee, or any of that. He called Maria Hill, and Maria set him up with a Stark Industries employee who was now his very own personal assistant, Tricia Turner, pronounced Tree See Ya, who organized a moving van that collected Steve’s boxes that very afternoon, and by ten that night, he and Sam were ensconced in guest quarters in Stark Tower, its glowing red A still announcing that Stark meant business with the Avengers.
“Damn, this place is swank,” Sam said, emerging from the bathroom the next morning. Steve had already done two hours in the gym and showered there. He hadn’t even destroyed any punching bags. He was too eager to get to work.
Tricia called, and spoke to Sam at length. Sam hadn’t completely made up his mind to move to New York, but Tricia arranged to put through his papers for a leave of absence from the VA and hired a security firm and house sitters to look after his place, making it looked lived in, taking care of the lawn and watering the plants. Sam had brought his jet pack and the wing he still had, and Tricia told him which of Tony’s labs to take it to for repairs. Sam was beyond elated to think that the Falcon would soon fly again.
Steve ate breakfast that morning chatting with Jarvis around mouthfuls of hearty granola.
“Any sightings of Bucky in DC?” he asked.
“Yes. A man vaguely fitting Sergeant Barnes’s description was spotted on the Smithsonian security tapes, five days after Insight.”
“Five days!” Steve shouted. “That was last week!”
“Steve, you were barely out of the hospital,” Sam said. “Give yourself a break.”
“The Smithsonian,” Steve muttered. “He went to the exhibit?”
“Yes. He spent approximately fifty-four minutes in the exhibit, and he can be seen examining each panel closely. Would you like to see footage?”
Steve’s heart jumped painfully in his chest. The thought of Bucky, blank and furious and terrified - it hurt, bad. Hydra would burn, Steve swore for the umpteenth time.
“Yes, please, Jarvis, show us the footage.”
“Steve, man,” Sam began, but it was no good. Steve drank it in.
There stood Bucky, dirty, disheveled, a full beard starting on his face. The footage was too grainy to see his eyes, but Steve could imagine the sad, hollow look of despair as Bucky moved methodically from point to point within the exhibit, carefully taking it all in and missing nothing.
Steve’s memory fed the voiceover back to him as he watched Bucky - “Rogers and Barnes, best friends since childhood.” Would it reinforce what he’d tried to prod Bucky into remembering when they were fighting? If he’d saved Steve from the Potomac (Steve knew for sure he hadn’t gotten to the shore under his own steam), then wasn’t that proof he recognized something about Steve? The way his deadly arm had suddenly held back from the beating - the look of horror in his eyes - weren’t those signs that Bucky had begun to remember? Even in the fight on the street, when Bucky’s mask had come off and Steve confronted him with his name, he’d come to a halt and asked, “Who the hell is Bucky?” before abandoning the fight and disappearing without a trace. All of it put together, it had to mean something. Steve chose to think it meant that Bucky was somehow still able to remember, despite the hell Hydra had put him through.
Steve feasted his eyes on the blurry footage of his closest friend. Fifty-four minutes, then Bucky left the exhibit.
“Any more footage from DC?” Steve asked.
“No, sir. As you can see, Sergeant Barnes has concealed himself in non-descript clothing. Upon leaving the museum, he avoided street cameras and evaded detection.”
“You can’t pick him out?” Steve asked.
“No, sir. As you’ve seen, he keeps his head down and has minimized every distinguishing feature.”
“Damn it!” Steve said.
“What about the surveillance around Steve’s apartment?” Sam asked.
“Nothing so far, sir, but would you like me to continue to scan camera footage around certain key DC locations?”
“Yes, Jarvis - please list the locations you’re considering.”
“Captain Rogers’s apartment. The Bank. Five other Hydra strongholds exposed in the District, Maryland, Virginia area. The Triskelion and helicarrier wreckage site.”
“Six Hydra sites in or near DC?” Steve whispered, aghast. “Are any still active?”
“No, Captain Rogers. You and your team took down the Bank, of course, and two more sites were taken care of by agencies acting on standing Federal directives to bring any known Hydra agents into custody. The three remaining were rendered inactive by unknown forces.”
“Unknown forces?” Steve asked. “What does that mean?”
“Site one, three days post Insight: a warehouse in Northern Virginia for the storage of artifacts was rifled with casualties to seven personnel. Survivors reported a solitary attacker who removed weaponry and ammunition.”
“Bucky?” Steve breathed.
“Witnesses’ composite description is inconclusive. None of them got a good look at the perpetrator, and all surveillance equipment was destroyed, but the speed and efficiency of the attack suggests the Winter Soldier.”
Steve cringed. “Please, Jarvis - don’t call him that. But you said all footage was destroyed.”
“My apologies, Captain, it seemed the appropriate moniker. All footage onsite was destroyed, but there may be surviving footage in cameras around the area.”
“What good does it do us to get intel more than a week old?” Sam asked.
“Anything we can learn about his activities and his mental state is vital for us to gather,” Steve said firmly, not wanting to admit out loud that he was desperate for any glimpses of Bucky he could get.
“Site two, on day six, the sub-basement of an office building in suburban Maryland was attacked covertly. All surveillance was disabled, all personnel killed, and all computer equipment destroyed. On day seven, an underground bunker adjacent to Andrews Air Force Base south of DC was completely destroyed by an explosion that rendered any evidence of what it may have contained extremely difficult to reconstruct.”
Steve thought for a moment. “So, what you’re saying is that all locations associated with Hydra in and around the District have already been destroyed - three of them almost certainly by Bucky.”
“That does appear to be the case,” Jarvis replied.
“So the question is, was it a bad move for us to come to New York?” Sam asked. “I mean, did he take out of the Hydra bases around DC only to have us fly the coop?”
Steve slammed his hand down on the desk, rattling his coffee cup and making Sam jump. “Sorry,” Steve said. “But this is - I can’t - I have to find him. I have to. Jarvis, any further unauthorized destruction of Hydra bases or speculation on what he might be doing now?”
“Shield was thrown into disarray by the destruction of the Triskelion, but several other agencies including the CIA, FBI, certain Armed Forces detachments, and police forces, have taken on Hydra in their jurisdictions. Using the information made public by Ms. Romanov, two hundred thirty-seven sites controlled by Hydra were raided post Insight across the continental US.” Jarvis brought up a map and the array of Hydra sites was staggering. Most were ranged around big urban areas, but some were more remote or located near military installations.
“Holy shit,” Sam said.
“Over two hundred Hydra sites in just the last few days? How is that possible?”
“When Ms. Romanov leaked the Shield information, it was downloaded many millions of times by users all across the country and around the world. Anyone, anywhere could demand their local jurisdictions go after suspected Hydra locations. As a matter of fact, Stark Industries has also been tasked with exposing Hydra, so part of my attention has been devoted to just this sort of activity.”
“So while you’re talking to us-” Sam laughed.
“I’m sending emails about Hydra locations to law enforcement officials around the country as we speak,” Jarvis confirmed, and Steve thought he did sound a little bit smug.
“Huh,” Steve said, as he sat back in his chair. “So…. this is not going to be me and Sam running around destroying Hydra single handedly.”
“No, sir,” Jarvis said.
“Sometimes it’s nice when things change,” Steve said. “But now I feel a little useless. If we don’t target Hydra bases, how can we predict where Bucky might go?”
“You are said to have been his best friend, Captain Rogers. Perhaps there is no one better equipped to speculate on what he might do next than yourself.”
Steve pushed back from the desk and rubbed his face with his hands. “Now would be a good time to have the power of being simultaneously everywhere at once.”
“I already possess that capability,” Jarvis said helpfully.
“Thanks, Jarvis,” Steve sighed, “but I mean - I don’t know where to go or what to do to help Bucky find me, or how to increase my chances of finding Bucky.”
“As Captain America, your activities are always considered newsworthy. You need only appear in public for your location to become widespread common knowledge.”
“This is true,” Sam said. “Sounds like you ought to embark on a dedicated campaign of getting kittens down from trees and helping little old ladies cross the street.”
Steve frowned, but he didn’t have a better plan. “Jarvis, please do continue to monitor any suspected Hydra sites, and if any connection whatsoever with the Winter Soldier project comes to light, pay special attention. And keep your eyes peeled. Cameras. What have you.”
“I will keep my eyes peeled for Sergeant Barnes, Captain. Meanwhile, Ms. Turner has asked that you meet with her in regards to moving into your suites.”
Sam and Steve looked at one another. “Uh, didn’t we already do that?” Sam said.
“These quarters are reserved for temporary guests,” Jarvis explained. “Mr. Stark has arranged for each Avenger to have their own floor of Avengers Tower, to do with as they see fit.”
Sam’s mouth fell open. “Me? Does that mean me? Tell me I’m an Avenger, Steve!”
“You are an Avenger,” Steve said, very officially, pointing at Sam with his best Buy War Bonds finger.
“Hot damn,” Sam crooned, and did a complicated nod of victory. “I guess that helps me decide on whether to move up here or not.”
“I don’t know how I feel about living on Tony’s dime,” Steve complained.
“Look at it this way,” Sam said seriously. “You spent the last hour seeing for yourself how incredibly helpful Jarvis can be. And you’ve worked with the Avengers before, you know that it’s strategically useful for all of you to have a shared home base, even if you don’t stay there twenty-four seven. Don’t beat yourself up to much. If one of the Avengers happens to be a poor little lonely billionaire who likes to throw money - you’ve earned it. You’ve more than earned it.”
Steve didn’t stop frowning, but he had to admit the truth in what Sam had to say.
Time ticked by. Steve watched as Hydra strongholds were ferreted out all over the country. Sometimes it just meant that two or three Hydra agents would be arrested and whatever materials Hydra hadn't already destroyed would be seized.Other times it involved more extensive maneuvers by armed forces or local police departments. Hydra was down, but still kicking, and their tenacity at holding on while already compromised was surprising. Eventually another pattern emerged - a swath of destruction, as locations that Shield had never known about were utterly eradicated by “unknown forces.” It was incredibly frustrating to Steve, who could only know for certain where Bucky had recently been, but never where he’d go next. He had hope though, because the locations that were destroyed did trace a trajectory, one leading north, up the Eastern seaboard from DC toward New York.
A fact that nearly staggered Steve, but that he should have predicted, was that New York City and its environs had held more than two dozen known Hydra locations, everything from stockpiles and boltholes to a research complex under a house on Long Island, to a luxury condo on Park Avenue wired into the Hydra communications network, to safe houses in every borough. It made Steve sick, but what was worse was the surety that for all the locations that had originally belonged to Shield, that Hydra had mad their own, there were still many locations that Shield was completely ignorant of. Almost every day, Jarvis would report to Steve and Sam that “someone” had eradicated another of these sites, leaving no trace and no clue as to where he intended to strike next.
Steve didn’t exactly go out looking for kittens and old ladies, but he instructed Jarvis to let all the area agencies know that Captain America was more than ready to take part in any offensives against Hydra. He made sure to get out there, to get seen, and to get his picture put up -with the helmet off.
“Anyone trying to put an end to Hydra should know: I am on your side,” Steve said, directly to the camera. He couldn’t get much more obvious without waving a sign that read “BUCKY COME HOME” all in bold and big letters. He’d doodled such a sign on some scrap paper back at the Tower, which embarrassed him horribly when Sam found it. But Sam didn’t laugh, he just smiled and patted Steve’s shoulder.
“He will come home, Steve,” Sam said.
“Ya think?” Steve said, hopefully.
“Yeah, I think,” Sam said.
Tony had already upgraded Sam’s wings, and the EXO-10 weren’t even red and gold, though they did boast a very discreet Stark logo at the end of each wing. Sam spent a lot of time in the air, soaring around and weaving in and out between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, landing in Central Park and glad-handing the tourists. Tony, Pepper, Jarvis, Maria, Steve and Sam had a meet up every other day, and the consensus was that Steve and Sam were doing well with the public relations. A recording of Steve’s speech before he’d taken down the Helicarriers had gone viral along with the Shield files, and though he wouldn’t have done anything differently, he was glad that the American people seemed swayed by his argument that defeating Hydra was worth the high cost.
Sam went ahead and sold his house in DC and Tricia organized his move with perfect efficiency.
“Money is so much more effective than beer and pizza,” Sam enthused, as the moving team carried in boxes and unpacked everything. Sam’s suite had come together nicely, and he was very pleased.
It had taken Steve a while longer, even though (or perhaps because) he had fewer things. Tricia had had Sam’s house photographed and his design preferences analysed so that she was able to present whole layouts for him to pick and choose from for his suite. He was a level headed guy, but he wasn’t going to refuse a giant state of the art tv with full surround and enormous leather couches and chairs to lounge about it while watching.
Steve preferences weren’t so easy for Tricia’s team to grasp. Steve had books, a record player, some records, a few items for his kitchen. In short, he had almost nothing. His place in Brooklyn when he first woke up had been bleak and depressing even by his own meager standards, and the DC place where he’d lived for over a year hadn’t been much better. He’d never had much of anything. He had a well developed artistic aesthetic, but that didn’t translate in his mind into opinions about decor. After a day or two of getting nowhere with Steve, Tricia hit on the method.
She’d show Steve a layout and watch his eyebrows. When that little crease came in deep between his brows, that was what he hated the most. Working backward, Tricia’s goal was Steve’s placid, unwrinkled brow, broad and serene as a god’s.
Hardwood floors. Pale pastel walls- pale blue and very pale yellow were his favorites. He liked checked cotton curtains. Tricia somehow pried out of him that he wouldn’t mind a big kitchen. She got him a retro Viking stove, butcher block counters, and green and white tile on the floor. He liked the big luxurious bathrooms of the future, so she fixed him up with a rain shower. She thought he’d want a claw-footed tub, but was surprised to learn that growing up in the tenements, he had no memories of such things. He preferred the jacuzzi, because the heated jets helped relax him after battle. Slower than Sam’s, Steve’s suite came together, until he walked in one day to find a floor of Stark Tower full of light, cleanly decorated, with deco posters and reproductions of modern art on the walls, and a sound system so advanced that Jarvis actually chuckled at his reaction. Steve’s cupboards were full of food - he’d mentioned how often he’d gone hungry as a kid and Tricia had worked with Jarvis to source all his favorite things, placed standing orders, and would ensure that Steve was kept wanting for nothing. It was unnerving to say the least, but he couldn’t really say he minded the security.
Steve maybe felt a little weird about the time and thought Tricia had encouraged him and Sam to put into home decorating, but Hydra was slowly but surely going down. The known bases had long been taken care of, and the unknowns coming to light after their destruction had slowly trickled to a halt.
Then, all of a sudden, one day, it happened.
“Captain Rogers, I see Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis announced.
Steve was on his feet before he knew he’d even moved. “What? Where?”
“He’s in Brooklyn. He’s sitting on a bench on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Aha. Captain, he just winked at me.”
“He what?” Steve was skidding around his suite, trying to find shoes.
“I’m not sure how he identified the camera - but he looked straight at it, and winked.”
“Corner of Montague and Henry?”
“Yes sir,” Jarvis affirmed.
“That’s our old bus stop,” Steve said, sliding into the elevator, riding it straight down to the garage, where he vaulted onto his new motorcycle and was halfway across the bridge before he knew it.
He pulled up at the familiar corner, and there was Bucky, in a clean plaid shirt like a hipster, pale but well-groomed, waiting for Steve with a smirk on his face.
Steve beckoned with a dip of his chin, and Bucky swung on behind him, just like days off in London, on their way to Peggy’s place, or once or twice touring the countryside.
The warmth of Bucky at his back made Steve’s heart pound, and he felt like he could hardly breathe. He’d ridden to Brooklyn like a bat out of hell, and now he obeyed every traffic rule scrupulously, with the most beloved passenger he could imagine alive and real and holding on behind him.
He felt like the ride could never be long enough, Bucky right there, solid and pressed up against him. He didn’t want to stop the bike, turn off the engine, wait to see what Bucky would say. He eased the bike into its space in Stark’s underground garage, and just sat there for a moment, savoring the feel of Bucky’s arms around him - even the metal arm, unnaturally solid and cold, felt good because it was Bucky holding onto him, something achingly precious that not so long ago he never thought he’d feel again.
Bucky got off the bike first, but he stood close to Steve in the elevator. Bucky and Steve had had a kind of secret language, growing up in Brooklyn together. They had a sense of when people might be watching, whether it was safe to stand as close as they wanted, or whether some fortuitous circumstances might allows them to press a little closer. Bucky stood close, because he always had, just so his right arm could casually lift and drop across Steve’s shoulders. Steve was just an inch taller than Bucky these days, but he never for one second stopped yearning for the weight of that arm behind his neck, even though his shoulders were now so much broader, ready for a heavier load.
They rode up the elevator, breathing together in silence. It almost felt like a kind of dare to see who would speak first. Steve’s tongue felt clumsy with so much churning through his mind- how much he missed Bucky, how glad he was to see him, how sorry he was for all Bucky had suffered, how determined he was to be whatever Bucky needed now that he was back - but he couldn’t say any of it, because words were all too shallow and trite for the depth of feeling that threatened to consume him. Bucky had the right idea - just smirk and breathe and stand close and wait for the elevator to spill them off somewhere where they could really begin to take that silence apart.
Jarvis spoke, and Bucky didn’t flinch. “Welcome to Stark Tower, Sergeant Barnes. I’m Jarvis. Please let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks, will do,” Bucky said, sounding so much like he always had that Steve almost felt like he would faint.
The doors slid open to Steve’s new place. The smell hadn’t settled in yet - it was a little much new furniture and paint. But it wasn’t too bad.
“Nice digs, Stevie,” Bucky said, with a smile.
“Glad you like it,” Steve said, cool as a cucumber.
“Ain’t you gonna offer me a soda?” Bucky said, just to watch Steve trip over his own feet in his urge to open the fridge, which was well-stocked with the best old-fashioned sodas he could find. Bucky settled at Steve’s kitchen table. It was a beautiful table, plain pale birch, with sturdy kitchen chairs, the kind of thing they’d always leaf past in the Sears Roebuck catalog, dogearing the page for someday. Bucky rocked the front two legs off the ground, the way he always had if the chair was strong enough to hold him.
Steve rooted through his enormous stainless steel fridge, and pulled out a bottle of celery soda for Bucky, just like the kind they used to get at Weinstein’s deli. God bless Tricia for her thoroughness with the grocery list. Bucky took a swig, and Steve could see in his face the memories hitting him.
“Weinstein’s,” Bucky murmured with a smile.
If Steve cried now, Bucky would never let him live it down. But he’d read the file, he knew the lengths Hydra had gone to destroy Bucky’s memories, and here he sat pulling up little details from his old life easy as pie. He buried his feelings being busy, pulling together all the things Bucky liked best in a sandwich, piling it all on thick slices of “artisanal” bread, with a big kosher pickle to boot.
“I sure am glad to see you, Buck,” Steve said, sliding the plate toward Bucky.
Bucky nodded with a sigh. “Likewise, Steve.”
“Can you stay? Please stay,” Steve said, like the sap he knew he was.
“There’s a whole lot I need to sort out,” Bucky said, and the shadows fell into place on his face, the marks and hollows left by the Winter Soldier’s missions. “There’s more I need to do, more places and people I remember.”
“I’ll help you,” Steve said. “I’ve got a good team. We’ll all help.”
“I think I killed Howard Stark, Stevie,” Bucky said, and his right hand flexed and unflexed on his knee. “How can I stay in this Tower, with the kid I orphaned?”
Steve grimaced, glad he’d had this talk with Tony as soon as he and Sam had unravelled the intel. “Everyone knows what they did to you, Bucky. No one’s going to blame you for the missions they sent you on.”
“I tried to fight them, Steve, I swear,” Bucky said, low and soft.
“I know you did. I read the file. I know the hell they put you through to make you comply.”
Bucky shuddered.
“Can we talk about something else?” Steve begged.
Bucky laughed, a cold, dry laugh. “A little short on conversation topics. Brainwashed assassin is pretty much the extent.”
“Well, at least I can give you the tour,” Steve said. They walked away from the Dagwood sandwich on the table, but Bucky dangled the soda bottle from his fingers.
He liked the kitchen, praised the light from the windows, whistled at the size and luxury of the bathroom. Steve showed him the bedroom he’d set aside.
“My own room?” Bucky said, side-eyeing Steve.
“Sam - my friend, he’s a counsellor - he said you might want space to call your own.”
“Maybe,” Bucky allowed. “Nice big bed in your room, Stevie,” he said, and Steve blushed, as though he hadn’t lived for years, after his ma died, in the little place Bucky had picked out on Montague street. Brooklyn Heights had been a declining neighborhood in those days, the grand old buildings divided up into smaller apartments to let, the architecture clean and light and a hell of lot nicer than the tenements he’d lived in as a kid. The air was fresh and clean in the Heights, important for someone with lungs like Steve, and it was a short trip over the bridge to Manhattan for Steve’s art classes and the few jobs he landed before the war.
Bucky had adored that apartment. He’d slaved at the docks to pay the rent, but he didn’t care, as long as he came home to Steve in the evening. Two guys living together was nothing out of the ordinary, not in that neighborhood, and nobody gave them any problems. Still, they kept up the pretense of two beds for if Bucky’s sisters came around or the landlord ever looked in for any reason - two iron frames they religiously pulled apart every morning, and pushed back together every night.
“The other room, Buck, it’s not for show, it’s only if you need a place that’s all for you. It’s all right nowadays, whatever folks get up to, in private, or even - it’s legal now to marry.”
Steve managed to shoot a glance at Bucky, and found that Bucky was looking right back - his beautiful bedroom eyes still just as full of love for Steve as ever, not a bit dimmed by the dark smudges fatigue had left beneath them. Steve fell into those eyes as quick as he always had.
“God damn it, Bucky - how are you still so good looking,” Steve asked. Involuntarily he moved toward Bucky, and Bucky didn’t pull away a bit.
“Just lucky I guess,” he said, like always.
Steve couldn’t help it. He’d told himself he’d wait, they’d talk, he’d take it slow, but he fell toward Bucky like a star fell to earth - pulled inexorably toward those plush, parted lips.
“Is this okay?” he managed to breathe.
“Kiss me, Stevie,” Bucky answered, and they crashed together, ravenous, starved. Bucky tasted was the same, kissed Steve back exactly the same - Steve thought it had to be a miracle, that Bucky could have survived so much and his kisses had not changed one bit.
“Tell me, Bucky,” Steve gasped, between kisses, tearing himself away just so he could breathe. “Tell me what you want, I swear, whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
“You gonna buy me the moon, angelface?” Bucky asked. His sweet smile, his soft eyes, he was setting Steve on fire.
“Anything,” Steve swore. “Name it.”
“Dance with me, Stevie,” Bucky smiled.
“Huh?” Steve asked, momentarily dumbfounded.
“Dance with me,” Bucky repeated, simple and straightforward. “The floors in this place are gorgeous. Jarvis, I bet you can spin us a record, huh?”
“Certainly, Sergeant Barnes. Captain, would you like to express a preference?”
“umm,” Steve said. A million songs had flown past Steve in the year and a half he’d been out of the ice, and out of the ones he’d like, nine out of ten he’d desperately dreamed of sharing with Bucky, who loved a good dance tune more than anything.
“Duke Ellington,” Bucky said. “Take the A Train.”
Steve knew the song well. Bucky had always ruled the dance halls, thrilling the ladies with his expert moves and putting people off the scent of his relationship with Steve, who didn’t have the coordination or the lungs for dancing. The A train, running from Brooklyn to Harlem, was real to Bucky and Steve, and having the Duke reward it with its own theme song had seemed like a personal gift to them.
As the notes swept through Steve’s floor in Stark Tower, it was like those the intervening years had never passed - for Steve, trapped in the ice, they subjectively hadn’t, while for Bucky, the years had been stolen from him by cryo, the wipe, or the haze of the drugs they used to control him. For both of them, the music was alive, personal, and it sounded like the love they’d shared those precious years together in Brooklyn, kept secret but no less utterly devoted to one another.
Bucky held out his arms and Steve stepped in. He’d always known who his ideal dance partner would be; it was Bucky, never anyone but Bucky. Even Peggy, wonderful as she was - enticing as a relationship with her would have been - she hadn’t known him all that long, and though Steve was pretty sure she understand about Bucky, they hadn’t gotten to the point of really hashing things out. When Steve went out dancing in his dreams, it was Bucky whose strong arms and confident feet whirled him unerringly through the moves until he felt like he was flying.
Ellington’s tune had a moderate, rocking tempo, and Bucky eased Steve into it, leading him gracefully into the basic. A helpless grin stole over Steve’s face as Bucky stepped, forward and back, and Steve instinctively followed. The steps gently grew more complicated without Bucky pushing Steve; he could feel when Steve was ready to learn the next bit, and moved him effortlessly into it. By the end of the song, Steve was relaxed in Bucky’s arms, stepping and turning like his name was Ginger.
As the music faded, Bucky leaned in and kissed Steve, easy and slow and deep.
“I don’t want to rush you, Buck,” Steve said. He was panting, but not from exertion, and he knew he was flushed and his pupils were probably the size of dimes.
“Seventy years, it ain’t likely you could rush me,” Bucky said, smiling.
Steve knew they had hurdles that couldn’t be solved overnight, but for right now, Bucky was here - alive, and safe, and smiling with Steve in his arms.
“Can we go to bed?” Steve asked, sounding like the kid he’d been when he first knew Bucky so very long ago.
“Sure, Stevie,” Bucky said. “Just so as you know, I won’t be needing that other room for much.”
The smile on Steve’s face was so big it hurt. It would take him a while to get used to smiling that big again, but with Bucky alive and home with him, to Steve it felt like he had all the time in the world.