Too Long We Have Tarried | Steve/Bucky | NC-17 | Part Two
When he steps out of the bathroom in a towel, Natasha is stretched out on the bed with a neatly-folded pile of clothes next to her. She looks up at him and smiles, showing all her teeth. “Ready to-?”
There’s a very loud bang from outside the bedroom, followed by a series of rattling thumps and voices raised in alarm. Natasha is on the floor with her PSM aimed over the bed and Bucky has a knife in each hand when above the general clamor comes, “STEVEN! WHAT A JOYOUS DAY WE HAVE UNWITTINGLY WOKEN TO! ALLOW ME TO OFFER MY MOST SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR IMPENDING UNION.”
There’s more, but someone persuades Thor to moderate his tone and the rest of his speech is inaudible except for “VIRILE BEAST,” “FEAST AS THEY DO IN THE GOLDEN HALLS OF VALHALLA,” and “DEPART AT ONCE.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Natasha says, straightening from her defensive crouch.
Another round of thumping and Steve yelps, “Wait a second, I don’t-”
Bucky is halfway down the stairs when Thor blasts out of their front door with a joyful, “We shall return!” to Jane, who accepts the smacking kiss he lands near her lips with a sleepy smile and steps well clear of his swinging hammer.
Steve, tucked under one bulging arm, manages to get out, “Thor, put me daaaaa-” before they’re disappearing into the cloudless sky, Thor’s red jacket flapping in the breeze.
Bucky comes to a stop in the middle of their foyer, staring out the open door. Across the street, Mrs. Bickle and her horrible excuse for a dog are staring as well. Bucky glares at them on principle.
“Before you go charging out to rescue your moon and stars,” Natasha says from behind him, dry as Mosul in July, “might I suggest some clothes? You’re scandalizing Jane. And the neighbors.”
Jane, drinking out of Pepper’s half-finished mug, flicks her eyes up and down Bucky’s body and says, “Eh.”
She wanders off towards the kitchen and Natasha slowly collapses into a ball of snorting laughter on the stairs. Bucky is left to scowl after her, then step forward and slam the door closed on Mrs. Bickles’ affronted face.It’s not that Bucky doesn’t trust Thor, but something sharp and grinding like a stripped gear in his stomach eases when Sam texts sorry no flowers just got kidnapped by a thunder god to the group. Natasha seems to think this is all incredibly funny, if the smirk under her broad-brimmed hat is any indication.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” she says breezily, slinking down the brick steps. “What trouble could they possibly get up to?”
“You’re not helping,” Bucky grumbles, locking the door and turning to the keypad to arm the alarm, the biometric alarm, and the .22 caliber turret mounts Steve doesn’t know they have.
“I wasn’t joking about the dress shopping, you know,” she says when he joins her on the sidewalk, linking their arms. The day is hot, the sun leaching away the colors until Brooklyn looks like an overexposed photograph of itself. The heat feels good on his arm. “We have some time before we have to be downtown. Let’s have lunch, and find me something to wear.”
“I thought my best man was supposed to take me drinking,” Bucky says, wishing desperately for sunglasses. In the rush of everything, he’d almost forgotten how hungover he was. Natasha catches him squinting and pulls off hers, holding them up. Bucky sighs, but takes them; they have horned rims and tiny tasteful rhinestones all over the frame.
“We did enough drinking last night,” Natasha says, steering them towards her car. It’s red and low-slung, and looks menacing even parked. “Remind me to have more water the next time I try anything designed for gods and supersoldiers.”
While she seems to have accepted that he doesn’t want to talk, that doesn’t mean she’s nice about it. They drive in on the Williamsburg Bridge with an eighties pop station blaring and park in front of a row boutique shops with pretentious names and cramped aisles. She looks at and discards a hundred different sundresses, each with their own inevitable, unsalvageable drawbacks- too short, too long, too heavy, too light, too expensive, not nearly expensive enough. She drags him up and down several streets and they drift through Greenwich into Soho, then west towards the water. The heat downtown is a hellish brick-oven blaze, the sun reflecting back from every imaginable surface. By the fifth store and twelfth dress Bucky’s feeling every beat of his pulse like a hammer to the temple and he’s almost praying for that alien invasion, so he’d at least have an excuse to stab something.
Adding to his misery, Natasha keeps looking at her phone and laughing. He’s not about to give her the satisfaction of asking what’s going on, but his eyes slide to the phone involuntarily whenever it buzzes, and of course she notices. She notices everything.
“Oh, okay, you need to see this one,” Natasha says over lemonade and sandwiches outside some pretentious little bistro. She pushes the phone across the table at him and takes an enormous bite of turkey club. “Jus’ ‘ook at tha’.”
It’s a photo, most of the frame dominated by trees and an impressive view out over open forest. Sam is in the foreground, grinning and posed in that modern style where it’s clear he’s holding the camera himself, a little ways above his head. Behind him, Thor is striding off into the woods, arms flung wide to encompass the whole of the scene before them. Steve is trailing along behind and glaring over his shoulder at Sam and the camera. If looks could maim, they’d both be in pieces.
“What the- where the hell are they?” Bucky says, bringing it up to his face and shading his eyes. “Are those mountains?”
“Catskills, I’d guess,” Natasha says, nipping the phone neatly out of his grip. “Now, let’s try around the corner. I think I saw something adorable through that first window.”
Bucky wants to argue, wants to grab the phone back and call Steve and demand to know what the hell he’s doing, but Natasha’s watching him expectantly, eyebrows raised.
“Sam better remember the damn cake,” he says instead, and stands.
Nothing happens, and nothing continues to happen. No aliens, no more messages from Sam, nothing. Bucky doesn’t see so much as a purse-snatch, and eventually his headache dissipates, replaced by the normal pains of a New York summer: the technicolor press of humanity, the scream of traffic, the stewed-garbage stink. Even the oppressive heat becomes a background note. Natasha buys him a milkshake and fans him with a menu when he complains one too many times, and he pretends not to enjoy it as the last of his hangover seeps away.
The dress she finally settles on is a soft yellow and, thinking back over their route through the stores, was probably picked out within the first few minutes of their arrival in Soho. Natasha notices his sour expression and laughs, doing a little twirl in front of the mirrors. “What? You don’t like it?”
“It looks amazing,” Bucky says grudgingly, lifting her purse from his lap. “Can we go now? We’re gonna be late for Stark’s thing.”
“Your dress-fitting,” she says, singsong. “Can’t be late for that.”
She wears the dress outside, and dazzles a few pedestrians so thoroughly they almost walk into traffic. They drive to the tower with the windows open, and when Natasha parks the car in the underground garage her hair is a wild tangle of red. Bucky doesn’t have that problem anymore, he realizes, and rubs a self-conscious hand over the back of his neck as they walk into the elevator to the penthouse.
“You’re going to have to speak to him at some point,” Natasha says idly, somewhere between floors eighty and ninety.
“Yeah,” Bucky says.
“Ideally before the Avengers assemble to witness your nuptials.”
“Yeah.”
“Because that would be awkward, all of us watching you two play ultimate gay chicken.”
What the fuck is gay chicken.
“And, James?” she says, looking down at the hat in her hands. “Even if you don’t remember, Steve should know there’s something there. Just in case.”
She doesn’t spell it out, doesn’t have to. Bucky is well aware that certain memories have the power to shatter, that both of them have walked through that minefield with only blind faith to tell them there’s another side. “Yeah,” Bucky murmurs.
“Which means that you should tell him,” she says dryly.
“I got it, okay? Jesus,” Bucky mutters.
What can he really say to Steve, though? His head is full of shadowy maybes, pale lace and a summer night. If even he doesn’t know what’s in there, how can he expect Steve to tell him?
They’ve barely taken two steps into Stark’s enormous glass-and-steel foyer when Banner ambushes them, or comes as close as a man who moves with the mindfulness of a yogi can come to ambushing. He’s holding a handful of printed pages and has a determined gleam in his eye.
“Do you like lamb?” he demands.
“Hi, Bruce,” Natasha says. “How are you?”
Banner sighs and takes off his glasses to clean the lenses with his shirt. “Sorry. Sorry, Tony’s been driving me crazy. James, congratulations again on your- engagement and wedding, right? I think that’s what’s happening? Natasha, you look lovely.”
“Thank you,” she says, dimpling, and he smiles distractedly back at her.
“But the lamb,” he persists, pushing the glasses back up his nose with a forefinger. “If you don’t like it, we can do beef. It needs to be a red meat, though.”
“Lamb is fine,” Bucky says. He doesn’t think he’s ever had it, but they ate a lot of mutton as kids.
“And Thor wants to butcher an entire boar,” Banner says. “A boar, not a farm-raised pig. He’s out hunting for it right now, and he took Steve and Sam with him.”
Mountains explained, though the thought of Steve wrestling with a wild pig is simultaneously hilarious and extremely concerning. And who’s going to get the cake if Sam gets gored?
“Luckily you can make a curry out of pretty much anything,” Banner says, and sighs again.
Natasha pats Banner’s shoulder soothingly. “Do you need any help?”
“I have three sous-chefs- two trained at the Cordon Bleu and one as an astrophysicist- and a massive kitchen I didn’t know existed literally steps from my bedroom. JARVIS is ready to order anything we could possibly need and Thor is, apparently, bringing me a veritable cornucopia of dead animals. I’m set.”
“Whereas you,” Natasha says, giving Bucky a nudge, “have an appointment.”
“I’ll have a tasting menu ready by two,” Banner says, already looking far more stressed than is probably good for the structural integrity of the tower, and lets Natasha steer him away.
Bucky takes the stairs up to the second floor, then the third as the sound of Stark arguing with someone filters down from a room on the next level. The man is pacing around the sunken floor in concentric rings, circling a straight-backed man in uniform who watches him with the kind of fond exasperation Bucky’s only seen on Pepper.
“And if we can’t tailor the shoulders we should at least- Barnes.” He lunges for Bucky and latches onto his arm, and only untold hours of desensitization training stop him from ending up on the ground with a knife in his neck. “Finally! Rhodey got here twenty whole minutes ago, where have you- oh, nice haircut, very fifties. Forties. Whenever. The Cleavers approve. Come on, move- don’t make me get the boosters.”
Bucky allows himself to be pushed towards the center of the room, and can’t quite suppress a grimace of instinctual horror once he realizes the man waiting beside Stark’s ridiculous little couches with a garment bag is a colonel.
“Sir,” he says, coming to a stop and ignoring Stark’s attempts to pull him further. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
“Are you kidding?” Stark demands, switching to hover around them like a particularly persistent fly. “There were manly tears, there were-”
“My sincerest congratulations to you both,” Colonel Rhodes interrupts, and offers the bag. It’s heavier than Bucky expects when he takes it. “Tony had very precise measurements, which I hope you offered willingly.”
“What are you implying? I design his uniforms!”
“You’d better try that on,” Rhodes says, ignoring him with ease. “I don’t want to make it all the way back to my plane and have this guy call me complaining about the drape of the placket or something.”
“Go change,” Stark says, flapping his hands imperiously. “And Rhodey, you can’t leave, there’s going to be a party-”
“Some of us have jobs, Tony.”
“It’s a matter of national security! Captain America is getting married-“
Bucky escapes, and ducks into the first room he finds. It happens to lead to a library with floor-to-twenty-foot-ceiling bookshelves and a ludicrous glass fireplace. The couches are fat and backless, and someone has left a half-assembled telescope propped up against the acres of window; he eyes the unobstructed glass, and goes behind a shelf to change.
The ‘dress blues’ are only partly blue, and definitely not the khaki green he didn’t realize he was expecting until he slides the zipper down. There’s a yellow stripe up the leg that looks borderline absurd, and the bag was so heavy because there’s a whole mess of ribbon, pins, and medals resting in the bottom. He doesn’t know what to do with those, so he leaves them there for the time being.
The trousers and jacket are well-tailored, the shirt new and crisp. There’s a feeling of satisfaction that bubbles up when he straightens his collar and sees the way the uniform hugs his shoulders and tapers at the waist. It hasn’t been a part of his reality for a while, but before- the Bucky from before liked clothes. Liked to dress well. It’s his satisfaction Bucky feels, and it’s as foreign as it is familiar.
“Damn, I look good,” Bucky tries. The quiet, sober delivery in an empty room lacks a little something, but it seems like the right thing to say.
Although his hands remember the recoil of every gun class on the market, they can’t seem knot a damn tie. Bucky’s gone at it for five solid minutes and about to leave it lying around his neck, but he stops and considers the mangled length.
“JARVIS,” he says to the air.
The mirror above the fireplace lights up with a looping movie of a man tying a Windsor knot. “A pleasure, Sargent Barnes,” JARVIS intones. “May I also offer my sincere congratulations on the occasion of your marriage? I wish you and Captain Rogers many happy years together.”
“Right,” Bucky says, squinting down at his fingers. “Wait, does it go-?”
“Under. Yes, just so.”
Bucky smoothes the tie down his chest and considers himself. “Anything else?”
“Sir, the medals?”
“Oh. Right.” He kind of remembers which bars go where. Maybe.
“I believe the correct configuration would be this,” JARVIS says, displaying it in bright color in the mirror, and Bucky squints at it.
“Yeah, okay. Keep that up there.”
The brass piece that holds the ribbon is finicky and hard to work with a metal hand, and Bucky is scowling down at it in frustration when JARVIS notes, “Sir, you have an incoming call.”
“Oh, thanks,” Bucky says distractedly, and jumps when Steve’s voice blares out from his pile of discarded clothes.
“Bucky? Bucky, where are you guys?”
The call has a tinny whistle in the background, like they’re up someplace high and the wind is blowing. Bucky reaches for his discarded pants, pulling his phone from the pocket. “We’re at the tower. You saw Stark’s message, right?”
“Well, stay there. Thor just got us banned from a national park, and we had to pay these fines and buy hunting permits and he’s still- I just don’t know how long it’ll be, and now Sam’s making noise like he wants to get those damn flowers after all, but I’ll come and-”
“Don’t,” Bucky says. “It’s bad luck.”
“What? What’s bad luck?”
Bucky tries to calm his breathing, hoping the sound doesn’t carry to the phone. His chest is tight and the glass-walled room is too small, and he doesn’t want Steve to know. “You seeing my wedding dress. Suit. Whatever.”
“Bucky-”
“So I’ll see you at City Hall,” Bucky gets out. “Three o’clock. Bye.”
“Bucky, wait.”
Bucky waits, metal fingers slowly denting the phone as they tighten. He can hear the case start to groan and shift.
“You know that I,” Steve starts, “I, uh.”
“Pardon me, sir, but I don’t believe the Starkphone was built to withstand that amount of pressure,” JARVIS says.
“You know I won’t. I mean, if you want to-”
The phone makes a sad, very final fizzing noise and goes black as the glass screen fractures.
“Ah,” Bucky says. “Oops.”
“I am certain we can repair that,” JARVIS says delicately. “Would you like to receive calls through the house in the meantime, sir?”
Bucky slowly convinces his mechanical fingers to unclench, and the phone drops to the carpet in shards. “Not. Not for the next couple hours, okay?”
“Absolutely, sir,” JARVIS says, and goes quiet.
What exactly had Steve been trying to say, anyway? That he wouldn’t crow about it, if Bucky did back out? That he wouldn’t mind getting married, if Bucky wanted to?
God, he’d do it, wouldn’t he. He’d do it. He’d do any damn fool thing under the sun if he thought it was what Bucky wanted, that stupid-
Bucky focuses all his attention on the ribbon rack and doesn’t let himself think about it. He’s good, very good at compartmentalization when he needs to be, and he doesn’t think about it once as he assembles and slides all the bars in place and folds his street clothes into a neat pile to carry with him. He’s in the hallway and his hems are a very regulation half-inch from the floor and he’s not imagining Steve in this same uniform, with his cover under his arm and his shoulders set in a straight, determined line as he waits at the altar.
There’s that twinge again, that sense of right-not-right. Bucky pauses, staring sightlessly out at the New York skyline as he gropes after the thought, trying to make it fit with what he knows. What he thinks he knows.
Steve never stood at an altar for him, that he’s sure of, and he’s pretty sure he’d remember if he’d ever done the same.
If he’d ever…
There’s a picture in his mind’s eye, old Father MacNamara and his Irish-laced Latin and the dim flicker of candles in a dark church. It’s so strong he smells the myrrh and beeswax burning, feels the unforgiving solidity of the wooden kneeler and the warm press of Steve’s shoulder against his.
Esto eis, Domine, turris fortitudinis.
“A facie inimici,” Bucky whispers, “fuck, what.”
It doesn’t mean anything. They must have gone to a hundred weddings, let alone masses in that cramped little church, it doesn’t mean they’d…
They couldn’t have.
Could they?
No, he thinks with a sudden viciousness, and forces himself to start moving again. No, and no again. Something like that, he’d know. He’d know and if he didn’t Steve would have told him, and he can’t start doubting Steve now. Steve is, he’s, he’s just-
Whatever he is, he’s never been Bucky’s. Not on that roof in Brooklyn, not in the cold starved forests of Europe, and not now. Not even now. Not like that.
When Bucky finds his way back to the room with the sunken couches, Stark turns to look at him and his eyes go wide.
“Well,” he says, and stops.
“What?” Bucky asks belligerently. He’s in even less of a mood to deal with Stark now.
“Oh. Nothing. Wait a second, shoes, I forgot shoes, Rhodey, the man can’t go to City Hall in combat boots. He’s a size eleven, JARVIS, do we have any-?”
“Momentarily, sir.”
“What Tony is trying to say is that you look good,” Rhodes says, with a sidelong glance at Stark.
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” the man says easily. “You get everything on okay?”
“This, ah. This is a lot more ribbon than I remember,” Bucky says, running a steel thumb over the bright brass and rows of stitching, reds and greens and blues.
“A few things were awarded, you know,” Stark says, bouncing up to tug at the shoulders and creases. “Posthumously. Hey, Rhodey, you’re the greatest, have I mentioned you’re the greatest?”
“Always nice to hear again,” Colonel Rhodes says with a smile.
“I mean, Barnes looks almost-“
“Tony,” the colonel sighs.
“What? I was just going to say he looks-“
“Tony,” Pepper says, poking her head in the room.
“Why is everyone assuming I’m going say something bad?” Tony demands. “I’m nice, I am a nice person, I was just-“
“No, Tony, right now,” Pepper says urgently, motioning him up. “Bruce ran out of roasting pans and he’s getting a little frustrated.”
“Shit,” Tony says, much less cheerfully, and jogs quickly from the room. “Rhodey, do not let Barnes wrinkle those.”
Their running footsteps fade away, and Bucky is left sharing awkward silence with a superior officer fifty years his junior.
“Know any card games?” Colonel Rhodes finally asks, nodding at a glass coffee table.
“None you do, too,” Bucky says from experience. “Teach me one? Sir?”
“That is so- wrong, so wrong,” Rhodes says with a deeply pained look. “Call me Rhodey. Please.”
Half an hour and five terrible hands later, the bakery sends a picture of the cake to Pepper, who forwards it to everyone.
“Good God,” Rhodes says, passing his cell to Bucky and leaning in to look with him. Probably sneaking a peek at Bucky’s cards, too, the cheating bastard. The Avengers are lousy with them. “Look at that monstrosity. You could eat for weeks on the first layer alone.”
“Steve’s gonna blow a gasket,” Bucky predicts.
“Hey, you do smile,” Rhodes says. “Now let’s see if you can play gin rummy any better than you can Texas hold ‘em.”
“Ah, fuck you.”
“That’s more like it.”One in the afternoon becomes two, and at some point Natasha slips into the room to say, “Thor found a butcher in Greenpoint willing to sell him whole ostriches,” then demands to be dealt into their next round.
“Greenpoint’s close,” Bucky observes, very casually he thinks. “They’ll come here after?”
“Pepper has them running other errands,” Natasha says disinterestedly, though she pokes him pointedly in the calf with a bare foot. “They won’t be back for a while.”
“Okay.”
She slides him a sidelong look. “Steve’s been trying to get a hold of you, you know.”
“Mm,” Bucky says noncommittally.
“Left about ten voicemails on my phone alone.”
“Hm.”
“That’s what I thought,” she says. “He had a message for you.”
Bucky risks a glance up at her, and sees she’s smiling. Never a good sign.
“He says we’ll be eating like 1944.”
“Oh, God,” Bucky says reflexively, “the fucking cow. No cows.”
“I don’t think Thor got that memo,” Natasha says. “Oh.” She makes a moue of consideration and splays her cards across the table. “Gin, I think.”
“Oh, you did not,” Rhodes says.“So I’m trying to get three cards in order?” Jane says, for the third or fourth time, and Bucky takes another bite of aloo gobi while Banner explains the rules again. The man’s apron is streaked with bright yellow and red-orange, and there’s a broad green smudge on his forehead that all of them have neglected to mention for reasons of self-preservation as well as comedy.
“This one is good,” Bucky decides, setting the small dish aside. They’re in the kitchen now, sitting at a big table in a corner next to the walk-in freezers. “That brown one tastes like trenchfoot, though.”
Everyone at the table subtly braces for impact, but Banner just snorts. “I guess you’d know,” he says ruefully. “All right, next!”
The Cordon Bleu sous-chefs scurry back to their bubbling pots and hissing pans, and Jane says, “But what if I have seven?”
Pepper sighs and drops her hand on the table. “Then you’ve won, dear.”
“Well done Jane,” Natasha says approvingly. The only things she has in the pot are boot knives, so she can afford to be magnanimous, but that’s Bucky’s favorite karambit getting swept up with Rhodey’s pen, Bruce’s glasses and Pepper’s diamond earrings.
“Incoming from the field team,” Stark says, spinning his pad computer on one beveled corner to face them. “I’m surprised we don’t have a nickname for this pose yet. Righteous Thunder? Man with A Plan? Anyone?”
Bucky knows the one he’s talking about, and Steve is displaying a particularly stiff-backed version in the photograph on Stark’s machine. He and Thor and Sam must be back at the house, because he’s shined up to the nines in his own dress uniform, brocade and medals and his own stupid yellow stripes. He’s standing at almost rigid attention, squared shoulders and raised chin, and he looks-
God, he looks good.
“He kind of looks like a fancy Ken doll,” Jane says. “Um. Sorry, did I say that out loud? He looks very nice.”
“He says to tell you he has his spats on,” Stark says to Bucky. “I’m going to be very generous and assume that’s military jargon and not some kind of grandfatherly support garment.”
“It’s a shoe thing,” Bucky mutters, still staring at Steve’s face. He’s got his hair combed back and his gonna-do-it mug on, the kind of look that got them into trouble everywhere they went. It’s terrible. It’s making his breath stop up in his throat and his hands clench into fists under the table.
He might have gone on staring forever, but Stark spins the computer back around and starts typing again. “All in favor of Righteous Thunder, raise your hands. No? What about Studly Do-Right? Oh, wait, he was Canadian-”
Jane tells Rhodes to deal again already and the room settles back into comfortable cacophony. A plate of fried pea things appears and disappears with equal rapidity, and two hands later a narrow victory nets Bucky all the military-grade steel on the table. As they argue over what he thinks is inspired use of the joker, JARVIS pitches his broadcast to be heard above the squabbling.
“Excuses me, ladies and gentlemen. Agent Barton is on his way to the penthouse.”
“Oh, finally,” Natasha says into her knees, sitting with her legs drawn up and her cards inches from her nose. “I want to see the rings.”
“I want to see the stones,” Pepper says with an arch look.
“And if they’re red, white and blue,” Jane adds, to general affirmation from the group. Bucky’s kind of disappointed in himself for not thinking of that earlier.
“Huh,” Stark says.
He’s been hunched over the computer flipping through screens too quickly to actually be reading them. Now he’s paused on one, and his eyebrows are slowly rising towards his hairline.
“We may have a problem,” he says, pursing his lips. “A small problem.”
“What,” Bucky says, instantly on alert.
“Oh,” Natasha says, who now has her own phone at eye level. “Problem. I see.”
“What,” Bucky says flatly, starting to stand.
Barton chooses that moment to slam into the room at a dead run, and he pitches a small velvet box at Bucky as he skids to a stop and pants, “Uh, guys? Are we-?”
Stark drops off his stool. “Bruce?”
“Coming,” Banner sighs, pulling his apron over his head.
Natasha jerks away the dish cloth she’d tucked into Bucky’s collar as a makeshift bib and unfurls from her chair in a single fluid motion. “Operation Bride-to-Be just got jumpstarted. Let’s move.”
“What in the hell,” Bucky says as he’s unceremoniously hustled out of the room by three determined-looking women. Banner and Rhodes blink after them, looks of identical bemusement on their faces. Barton waves. Stark cups his hand to his mouth and yells, “Meet you on the helipad!” as the door closes behind them.
“Where are we going?” Bucky demands. “Is Steve-?“
“Don’t worry about Steve,” Natasha says on his left. “Sam and Thor won’t let anything spoil his big day.”
“Here’s the plan,” Jane says on his right. “Put your army hat on, you have to look dashing.”
“Dashing?” Bucky says incredulously, but puts the damn hat on when she tries to wrestle it out of his grasp.
“We’re putting you in the limo,” Natasha says. “Tony got the limo, right?”
“I got the limo,” Pepper says, striding ahead of them in stiletto heels longer than the stilettos Bucky actually owns. “Tony spent the entire morning writing JARVIS a new DJ program and buying hundreds of disco balls for same-day delivery. The limo is-“ Impatient tapping on her phone. “Ready and waiting in the garage, good.”
“Why,” Bucky says, trying for menace and mostly hitting petulance. “What’s happening?”
“Operation Bride-to-be,” Jane says, slowly and carefully.
“I got that, thanks, and- hey, who are you calling a bride-to-be?”
“You, obviously,” Natasha says, “and we’re not going to let anything spoil your big day either.”
They’re in the hallway and there aren’t many exit routes, but there are enough; Bucky could probably escape, assuming he could incapacitate Natasha quickly enough. She catches his eye like she knows he’s considering it, and arches a single brow.
Bucky lets them crowd him into the freight elevator at the end of the hall instead, and they fall down dizzying numbers of flights to emerge in Stark’s garage, warmth clinging to the concrete walls in soft echo of the heat outside. Bucky is lead to what can only be the promised limousine.
“I guess Tony did get to it after all,” Pepper says faintly.
There is crepe. There are flowers. There are cans, fucking tin cans and old shoes tied to the bumper and a sign in the back window that announces to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street they’re JUST MARRIED!. Natasha is predictably in ecstasies. “I take back every bad thing I’ve said about that man.”
Bucky feels fucking ridiculous just looking at it. “I’m not getting in that thing, are you kidding me?”
“White stretch limo,” Natasha says, practically purring in satisfaction as she runs a hand along the gleaming roof. She pulls the passenger door open to peer inside. “Black leather seats, champagne on ice. Perfect.”
“We’ll take the cans off,” Pepper says, rallying. “I don’t know if we have the time for everything else, really. Happy, can you-? Thank you,” she says as a broad man ducks out of the driver’s seat to start sawing at the strings. She turns back to Bucky to press a densely-printed sheet into his hands. “This is your waiver. You’ll submit it along with the rest of your paperwork, so don’t lose it or you won’t get your license.”
“Now get in,” Jane insists, trying to shove Bucky forward.
“City Hall is about twenty minutes downtown from here,” Pepper continues. “Sam says Steve will meet you there, and he and Natasha will join as witnesses.”
“After we resolve this small situation,” Natasha says. “Bye.”
“How small,” Bucky says suspiciously, as she turns to walk away. “Natasha, how small?”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Pepper says, not at all like she believes herself, and settles a hand on Bucky’s arm. “The rest of us are going wait at the tower, to make it easier for you to get in and out of the building. Congratulations again, James. We’ll see you soon.”
“Time to go now,” Jane says, and knocks a very sharp elbow into his kidney. He folds into the car with a pained grunt, hat knocked off his head and falling inside with him. “See you at the party!”
She almost closes the door on his legs, too, but he manages to pull them inside before it bangs shut. The limousine’s engine turns over bare seconds later, and Bucky is suddenly on the way to his own wedding.
The thought locks up his body, sudden as a punch, and there’s a moment where he can’t breathe around the weight of it.
It’s his wedding day. He’s not getting married, but it’s his wedding day. There’s a sign in the window to prove it, and a piece of paper in his hand that says he has no reservations about making Steven Grant Rogers his lawfully-wedded husband. Steve is going to meet him at City Hall. They’re not getting married, but they’ve got their best drapes on and they’re bringing witnesses.
What in the name of God are they doing, if they’re not getting married?
The sudden intrusion of the driver’s voice makes Bucky twitch, dropping instinctively lower into the footwell. “Hi there!” the man shouts, wide smile and cheery wave visible through a small window at the front of the cabin. “I understand congratulations are in order, Mr. Barnes! I’ll try to make the trip as quick as possible. If you’d like a drink, the bar is fully stocked, and if you’d like your privacy this panel closes-“
Bucky bares his teeth and immediately launches himself across the car to close it. There’s a brief second of silence, and then from somewhere an intercom pings.
“Alrighty then!” the driver says. “The bulletproofing makes it pretty hard to hear you otherwise, so please hit the red button below when you’d like to speak with me!”
Bucky glares at the closed window, but that seems to be the end of the speech. The intercom pings again, there’s a thunk beneath him as the driver shifts gears, and the car starts to move. Bucky settles onto the floor of the car in a heavy slump, back against the rear-facing seats and his hands gripping the hilts under his arms. Just in case.
Two turns, and the car is rolling up the ramp to the street. A brief pause for the garage door, and the midday sun strikes shines in the heavily tinted windows. There’s a pair of shiny size eleven wingtips sitting on the bench seat that runs along the side of the limousine, eye-level with Bucky’s position. Tucked into the left one is a piece of paper, and after a moment, he lets go of one knife to reach over and pull it out.
These are Bruce’s, return on pain of Hulk, reads Stark’s slashing script. Bucky gives the shoes a black look on principle, but after the car pulls onto the street he pulls a knee to his chest and begins unlacing his boot.
Midtown traffic is the usual afternoon crush and the limo moves slowly, creeping down Park Avenue with its boulevard trees and endless construction zones. Bucky gets the shoes on, and they’re roomier than expected. The leather seats smell new and look clean, and after a few more streets of nothing happening, he reluctantly uncoils from the floor.
More sluggish intersections, and there’s a parade of squad cars and firetrucks with their lights and sirens blazing that comes screaming up the northbound lane. Bucky, now slouched across the long bench seat with one foot up, turns in place to track their progress. With Manhattan’s solid skyline dominating the view, there’s no telltale plume of smoke or other sign to tell him where they’re heading, and they’re soon lost to sight as traffic moves on. For the first time he can remember, Bucky misses having his stupid little Starkphone.
Of course, thinking that makes him remember why he doesn’t, which in turn reminds him that at the end of this ride is New York City Hall and Steve Rogers and all his terrifying determination.
There’s a creak from inside his metal hand, and it’s only then Bucky remembers the box Barton had thrown at him, the box he’d caught reflexively and carried with him to the garage. He’s crushed the velvet case from square to oblong and the hinges are completely done for, but he manages to coax it open.
He’s halfway expecting that red, white and blue. He wouldn’t put it past Barton to get something gaudy beyond belief, something so huge it’d take an eye out if you weren’t careful. Something like their five-tier lemon-blueberry cake, or Thor’s boar, or the splash of medals across Bucky’s chest.
It’s so much worse than that. Bucky stares down at Sarah Rogers’ wedding bands, gold gleam subtly lighter where they’ve been widened, and knows with sudden cold clarity that he needs to get the hell out of this car. Possibly the city. Possibly the continent.
As if in response, there’s a knock on the car window. Bucky slowly drags his eyes up from the rings, and there, face pressed to the glass like a kid at the zoo, is Steve.
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