fic: Let's do some living after we die (Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg)
Let's do some living after we die
Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg; no Cap 2 spoilers; 6,315 words
In which Steve decides to jump before he falls.
Title from the Rolling Stones. Thanks to
angelgazing for talking it out with me when I needed to, and to
fox1013 for helping me choose the summary. To reiterate, NO Cap 2 spoilers.
~*~
Let's do some living after we die
Steve gets the text while he's meeting with Fury. Pack a bag. Be ready at three, it says. He has just enough time to get back to Brooklyn and toss some underwear and a couple of clean shirts into a bag before Bucky shows up in front of the brownstone at five after three with a car--a dusty, beat-up old Chevy that doesn't look like it will make it across the neighborhood, let alone the country--and says, "Get in, Rogers. We're going for a ride."
Steve looks at the car, at the determined look on Bucky's face, so familiar even after all these years and calamities, and climbs into the passenger seat. He has eighty-seven dollars in his wallet and a Starkphone in his pocket. He tosses his duffel and the shield onto the backseat and hopes he's packed right for whatever Bucky's got in mind.
"I hope this wasn't stolen," he says once they're on the Gowanus. He's pretty sure Bucky knows he's joking. Bucky's been better the past couple of months, less likely to get angry and more likely to accept Steve's awkward attempts to make everything between them like it used to be, but Steve still feels like he's walking on eggshells sometimes. He doesn't blame Bucky, and he knows Bucky doesn't blame him, but it's still hard, with their lost decades stretching like a phantom minefield between them. And neither of them has ever done well against opponents they can't punch. He lowers the visor against the late afternoon sun and when that doesn't help, he puts his sunglasses on. Eyes hidden, he cuts a quick look over, but Bucky just seems pleased with himself.
"Nope. Got the registration from Natasha this morning." Bucky glances over, grinning like he knows how incongruous it sounds and he's waiting for Steve to ask.
So Steve does. "This doesn't look like it's Natasha's style." He runs a hand over the worn and faded vinyl. "I'm sure you're going to tell me she single-handedly defeated HYDRA with this car or something, though."
Bucky laughs, a sound Steve will always be thankful to hear, even if he doesn't get to hear it often enough. "If anyone could, it'd be Nat. But no. She just won it off Logan in a card game."
Steve grunts. "It definitely looks like Logan's style. Almost as old as he is."
That makes Bucky laugh again, which makes Steve smile, because he's always liked being the one who makes Bucky laugh. "The one guy older than we are."
"Yeah." Steve tugs at his seatbelt--he only wears it because the last thing he needs is for Captain America to show up on the news having gotten a ticket for not wearing one--and says, "So what's the plan?"
Bucky shrugs. "Go west, young man. Go west."
Now it's Steve's turn to laugh. "Sounds good to me." He wonders if Bucky remembers the conversations they'd had as kids, the grandiose plans to hop a freight train and live like hoboes when the orphanage was too miserable to bear, as if Steve's health would allow it, and then later, the whispered conversations in tents and foxholes about seeing the Grand Canyon or swimming in the Pacific after the war. He doesn't ask, though. He can wait for Bucky to tell him.
Instead, he fiddles with the radio for a while, but it's nothing but traffic reports and commercials.
"There's an iPod in the glove compartment," Bucky says.
The thing is small and shiny--Steve will never get over how small everything is now--and when he turns it on, the familiar sound of Tommy Dorsey plays through the speakers.
He doesn't know how long or how far they drive. They sit in rush hour traffic through the city, but the evening is warm, the summer twilight is long, and they've got Ella Fitzgerald on the stereo, so it doesn't feel like a chore. Steve finds a couple of Clif bars in the glove compartment, and when Bucky waves off the offer of one, he eats all three while they cross the George Washington Bridge.
(He knows the tunnel would have been faster, but sometimes he still has trouble with the thought of all that water above him, pressing down. He's never said anything to Bucky about waking up in a cold sweat, the phantom weight of it sitting on his chest, but it doesn't surprise him that Bucky's figured it out. That's why Steve's not afraid to get in a car with him, to drive aimlessly west with him. Whatever else has happened, whoever else Bucky might have been once, he would never hurt Steve now.)
The sun sets and the moon rises, Ella gives way to Sassy Vaughn and Lady Day, and it's only when Steve's stomach rumbles that Bucky pulls off the interstate and into the parking lot of a diner that looks like it's seen better days.
"Where are we?" Steve asks, looking around the mostly-empty parking lot and rolling the kinks out of his shoulders.
"Somewhere in Pennsylvania," Bucky answers, rubbing his forehead. He's wearing a sweatshirt and gloves, even though it's probably still eighty degrees, and the hair at his temples is damp with sweat. "This state is fucking endless."
Steve huffs softly. "Yeah, I once spent eight hours on a train from Philly to Pittsburgh."
"With thirty lonely USO dames," Bucky says. "My heart bleeds for you." He raises an eyebrow rakishly. "How did you manage to pass the time?"
"We played poker," Steve answers with a grin. He holds the door open for Bucky, who's shaking his head.
"I don't know where I went wrong with you," he says sorrowfully, but his mouth is curved in a familiar smirk that makes Steve think of all the times Bucky talked about some girl he'd gone out with, or some girl he wanted Steve to go out with, and it feels so good to think of something from the past without a pang of regret that he just stares at Bucky's face for a couple of seconds and basks in his amusement.
A waitress startles him out of his reverie and waves them over to a booth in the window. The air conditioning is up too high, and even though Steve doesn't really feel the cold much anymore, he's a little envious of Bucky's sweatshirt now. The menu is a little sticky with maple syrup, but the place smells like coffee and grease and Steve's stomach rumbles again hungrily. Bucky snorts and nudges his knee against Steve's and Steve nudges back.
"What can I get you?" the waitress asks, filling their brown mugs with coffee.
Steve smiles up at her even as he's still attempting to pin Bucky's foot beneath his boot. "I'll have two eggs over easy with a side of hash browns and bacon." He hands her the menu. "Oh, and some rye toast, too please."
"And I'll have the pancakes, side of bacon," Bucky says. "And keep the coffee coming, doll."
She tips him an exaggerated wink. "Sure thing, hon."
The meal is hot and filling, which is good enough for Steve. Sometimes he still can't believe the abundance and variety of food available, even in the bodega on the corner.
Bucky's distracted by his bottomless cup of coffee, so Steve gets the upper hand--or foot, in this case--in their little under-the-table battle, pinning Bucky's feet beneath his with a triumphant, "Ha!" that makes Bucky choke on a mouthful of coffee.
After Bucky's done coughing, he gives Steve a wry look. "Not while I'm drinking next time, okay?"
Steve snorts. "And give you the advantage? What am I, stupid? Wait, don't answer that."
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," Bucky says, and even though his feet are still pinned, he bumps his knee against the inside of Steve's thigh. The flash of heat at the touch makes Steve look away, but he's pretty sure he's blushing. Bucky just smirks over the rim of his coffee cup.
When they pay the bill, the cashier points them at a Motel 6 just up the road a bit, and Bucky hops out of the car to get them a room when they arrive, then drives them around back to park next to the pool. Steve stifles a small pang of disappointment when he unlocks the door and sees two beds. He didn't honestly expect anything else, but occasionally, he still hopes. That's one of the few things that hasn't changed.
He wakes a couple of hours later at the quiet click of the door closing. He tells himself that Bucky's gone to the ice machine or the vending machine, though why he'd want stale candy at--Steve rolls over to look at the clock--3:24 am is a mystery. Steve waits a few minutes, but Bucky doesn't come back. He hates himself for being paranoid, but maybe he's wrong and it isn't Bucky in control right now. Though he can't imagine why the Winter Soldier would drive hundreds of miles and eat pancakes with him if he was just going to put two bullets in the back of Steve's skull. Steve tries not to think of the myriad things that could have triggered him along the way--the music, the traffic, the font on the menu, all coalescing into some horrific internal command he'd be powerless to fight. While Steve still has his doubts about SHIELD, Natasha seemed more confident in Bucky's recovery, though the day Bucky moved into Steve's apartment, she provided him with the secret code that would knock Bucky out if it looked like the Winter Soldier had taken control. He just hadn't thought it was truly possible.
The sound of a splash from the pool shakes Steve out of his depressing thoughts. He pulls on his jeans and tucks the room key in his pocket before he walks out to the pool. The moon has set, but Steve doesn't need much light to see, and the pool itself is illuminated with low lights that reflect the aqua color of the tiles.
Bucky is doing laps, his body cutting through the water as sleek as a shark, his hair slicked back from his forehead, and his arm gleaming dully. He glances up and nods in acknowledgement but doesn't stop swimming. Steve watches for a few more minutes, and then goes back to the room, lulled back to sleep by the rhythmic splashes of Bucky's strokes.
He doesn't bring it up in the morning. He remembers his first few weeks out of the ice, the hours and hours he spent pounding pavement with his feet and an endless stream of heavy bags with his fists. If driving all day and swimming all night helps Bucky outrun his ghosts, Steve will do everything he can to facilitate that.
They go back to the diner for breakfast--he has a Western omelet this time, and Bucky a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich--and he's mopping up the last of his eggs with some toast when his phone beeps. He texts Natasha back that everything is okay. We're on a road trip.
Send me a postcard, she answers.
Roger that.
Bucky watches him but doesn't ask, so Steve shrugs and says, "Natasha wants a postcard." Bucky hums in response. Steve chooses to read it as an affirmative as he tucks his phone away. Once they're back outside, he asks, "You want me to drive?"
"I'm good," Bucky says, shielding his eyes and squinting into the sun.
Steve doesn't think he has anything special in mind, but an hour later, they're pulling into the parking lot of an art museum.
"Buck?"
"They got an exhibit of baseball photos. It seemed like a thing to do." He shrugs, but Steve can tell he's a little anxious under his nonchalance.
Steve smiles. "Sounds great."
Bucky pays the suggested entrance fee before Steve can get out his billfold, and Steve has a sudden memory of him doing the same thing on a sweltering July day in 1939, in the cool, cavernous entrance to the Met. It had cost a lot less back then, but was still out of their meager budget range, except when Steve was healthy for a few weeks and Bucky could take extra shifts down at the warehouse.
"Nice and cool in here," he says when Steve thanks him. It's what he always said back then, too.
They do have a large exhibit of baseball photos, and though Steve only recognizes a handful of the subjects, the game is familiar (though he still disapproves of the designated hitter). "Hey, maybe we should go see a Dodgers game when we hit California."
Bucky gives him a small half-smile. "Maybe we should."
After the museum, they have pierogis from a food truck; they sit on the hood of the car and bask in the sunshine while they eat. Then it's back on the road until the sun goes down. Bucky doesn't talk nearly as much as he used to, but Steve doesn't mind. It's enough to have him there in the car, as wholly himself as he can be, as any of them are, really.
They follow the same routine that night, somewhere in Indiana. Steve wakes up sometime after three to the sound of the door closing and then he listens for the splash of Bucky diving into the pool. In the morning, he's not sure he didn't just dream it, but he can still smell the chlorine on Bucky's skin when Bucky hip checks him in the parking lot. They tussle playfully, and Steve, feeling daring, shoves a hand in Bucky's pocket to grab his keys. He tries not to think about the warm skin beneath the worn cotton of Bucky's pocket, the split-second Bucky freezes at the touch. He holds the keys up over his head and crows in triumph. Bucky hip checks him again, but Steve just laughs and bumps him back.
"Shove over, pal," he says. "Today, I'm driving."
"You don't even know where we're going."
"Ah yes, I can see how meticulously you've planned this trip to--where are we?"
"Indiana?"
"You wanted to visit the old homestead?"
"What? No." Bucky shakes his head and huffs a soft laugh. "I didn't even think of that. No. Chicago's not too far, though. I hear they have an Art Institute."
"And I always wanted to see a game at Wrigley."
"Okay, then. Let's get this show on the road."
The day passes in a blur of sunshine and watered-down ballpark beer (the Cubs lose 3-1 to the Braves), Italian beef, and modern architecture. They eat Chicago-style pizza for dinner, even though Bucky eyes it skeptically and laughs when Steve quotes Jon Stewart's rant about it being tomato soup in a bread bowl.
Steve thinks a normal person would be exhausted after all that, but they're not normal people (maybe they never were), so when Bucky suggests they keep on driving, he says, "Sure."
They head for St. Louis, since the Cardinals are playing the Pirates the next day. "And we didn't get to see them in Pittsburgh," Bucky says.
Steve goes along with it. They don't have anywhere they need to be, and if something comes up, Natasha knows how to reach them. Back in the Forties, it never would have occurred to either of them that they could see games in every ballpark in the country, because they never could have afforded it. Now, when ticket prices still give Steve a shock every time, it's not a problem at all.
After St. Louis, they hit Kansas City, because Steve gets a hankering for ribs for dinner. They hit a jazz club afterwards, and Bucky, who used to love to go dancing, sits with Steve like a wallflower when the dance floor fills up.
"You can," Steve gestures at the people dancing.
"It ain't like it used to be," Bucky answers with an easy shrug.
"You said a mouthful, Buck."
Bucky grins and clinks his beer bottle against Steve's.
When they check into the motel, Steve sleeps through the night, and he thinks Bucky might have, too, until he finds the damp towels in the bathroom, and neither of them have showered yet. He doesn't say anything, though he wishes Bucky would wake him up before he goes. Even if he wants to be alone. Just so Steve won't worry.
"I know it's not the Grand Canyon," Bucky says once they're in the car again, "but you wanna see Mount Rushmore?" Steve glances over at him, but Bucky's eyes are on the road, and his voice gives nothing away.
Steve smiles ruefully. "Yeah, I'd like that."
"It'll probably take all day," Bucky says. "And we should call ahead and make sure we can get a hotel room."
"I've got a fancy platinum credit card and about eight days of music on this iPod," Steve answers. "I think we can handle it."
It's drizzling when they get there, and Bucky checks them into a Best Western that has both an indoor and an outdoor pool, which Steve only learns when he wakes up and Bucky's not in the room. The indoor pool is locked, but a locked door has never kept either of them out of somewhere they want to be. And Steve really doesn't want to go out in the rain barefoot and half-dressed.
The lights around the pool are warm and yellow and they gild Bucky as he glides through the water, muscles flexing under his skin. Steve's throat goes dry, and he sits on the edge of a lounge chair to watch, all the old feelings that never really went away buzzing back to the surface. Steve tries to ignore them, but it's harder than it used to be, now that he knows what life is like without Bucky. Now that they wouldn't have to hide.
Bucky doesn't swim for much longer after that, and they head back up to the room together. For once, Bucky goes back to bed, so Steve turns in again, too.
Sunlight is streaming through the window when he wakes up, and Bucky's sitting at the little table, drinking coffee. "Come on, sleepyhead," he says. "We gotta go see some presidents."
Mount Rushmore is amazing, more for the fact that people carved it than for anything it represents to him.
"You should be up there," Bucky says, reaching up to lean his elbow on Steve's shoulder the way he used to when he was the tall one. "You're a certified goddamn American hero and you already look like you're carved out of fucking granite. "
Steve flushes, the warmth of Bucky's words flooding his chest, and shakes his head. "You know that's not true. I'm just trying to do my best, like everyone else."
"It's sweet that you think that," Bucky answers, and then he gets distracted by a troop of Girl Scouts behind them. His gaze narrows, as if he's assessing a threat, and Steve feels a pang of concern before he says, "You wanna get out of here before someone recognizes you?"
"Yeah," Steve says, tugging his baseball cap down while the scout leader eyes them suspiciously. Maybe they look seedy instead of famous. He buys postcards for the team, though, and writes them out while Bucky finishes his fries.
They head west again after lunch and drive until the daylight's gone, and then they drive a little bit more. Steve doesn't ask what demons are chasing them. He keeps hoping Bucky will tell him on his own.
They're somewhere in Utah when Bucky finally pulls over into the parking lot of a Days Inn. Steve hops out of the car almost before it's come to a complete stop. He rolls his neck and stretches his legs, and says, "I'll get the room," before Bucky can say anything.
He's dozy and peckish--it's been hours since they ate, and his metabolism is relentless--and the girl behind the reception desk looks surprised to see him, so maybe he's not as clear as he could be when he asks for a room, or maybe she just misunderstands, but when they unlock the door to the room, there's only one large bed instead of the two Bucky's been getting.
"Huh." Steve blinks but the single queen doesn't separate into two.
"This is why you let your sergeant handle logistics," Bucky says, nudging him out of the way. Steve opens his mouth to argue, but it's the first time Bucky's joked about his time in the army since he's been back, and Steve's not sure how to respond. So he toes off his sneakers and drops face-first onto the bed.
"Don't worry," he says, muffled by the pillow, which smells of bleach, "I won't steal the covers."
Bucky huffs but doesn't contradict him.
They shared a bed plenty of times in the orphanage, and then later, in a series of boarding houses and cold water flats in Brooklyn, and in tents across Europe during the war, but it's different now. They're not being shot at, and even if they were discovered in bed together--even if they were doing the things Steve's imagination doesn't shy away from when he takes himself in hand in the shower--they wouldn't be arrested or even attacked (though they might get some dirty looks, but Steve's been getting those his whole life). Which should make it much easier to relax, but Steve finds himself tensing up when Bucky climbs into bed beside him in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. And Bucky's clearly not as wound up about it as Steve is, because he rolls onto his side and his breathing evens out fairly quickly, while Steve lies awake in the darkness beside him.
He's finally started to doze when Bucky flails awake, kicking the covers to the floor and jumping out of bed like he's under attack. Steve guesses he is, even if it's from the ghosts in his own head.
"Hey," he says softly, sitting up slowly and raising his hands to show that they're empty.
"Steve?"
"Yeah."
"Is it really you?"
"It really is." Steve holds out a hand and Bucky takes it. His fingers are warm and sweaty against Steve's, and Steve holds on tight for the few seconds Bucky allows.
"Okay," Bucky says, disentangling himself. He pushes a hand through his hair. "I'm going for a swim."
"Okay," Steve says. "I'll come with."
"You don't have to."
"I know."
Bucky gives him a long look and then heads for the door. Steve follows, too afraid that somehow Bucky's the one who isn't real, that this is all a dream he's having, to pull on his jeans.
Bucky's all sharp angles as he dives into the water at the deep end and swims; Steve stands at the edge for a moment, the concrete rough and warm against the soles of his bare feet. He looks at the water and swallows through an unexpected tightness in his throat before he lowers himself to the edge and dangles his feet in. The cool water laps against his ankles and calves, and he breathes deep and slow until the panic threatening to choke him disappears. He leans back on his hands to watch Bucky as he does his laps. He swims until the sky starts to lighten to gray, and the girl from the office comes out to stare wide-eyed at them.
"The pool is closed after ten pm," she says, bewilderment in her voice.
"Okay," Steve says, rising to his feet. She looks him over, faint flush on her cheeks, and he remembers he's in his underwear.
Bucky waits until she's gone to lift himself up out of the water. "It's before ten," he mutters petulantly, but he looks a lot more clear-headed than he had a couple of hours ago, even if there are still shadows beneath his eyes.
Steve sends his daily check-in text to Natasha while Bucky's in the shower, and then checks them out of the hotel. The clerk blushes again and can't look him in the eye.
"How about I drive?" Steve says when they're done throwing their stuff in the car. Bucky frowns for a second but then he shrugs and tosses Steve the keys.
Once Steve is settled behind the wheel--he has to push the seat back just a little--Bucky says, "How do you feel about Vegas?"
"Why? You feeling lucky?"
Bucky smiles enigmatically and doesn't answer.
Steve enjoys driving, even if this old clunker of a Chevy isn't as fast or fun as his bike. He's got Bucky in the passenger seat, a playlist Natasha made him on the speakers, and the wide open road ahead of him. It's something he never thought he'd get to have, even if it's not everything he secretly wants. With the wind blowing in his hair and Bucky grinning beside him, it's enough.
Bucky falls asleep about twenty minutes into the drive, and Steve raises the windows, turns on the air conditioning, and lowers the volume. The soft murmur of Judy Henske's voice carries them along.
It's lunchtime when they hit the strip, and Steve's ravenous. Bucky checks them into a suite under a fake name, and when Steve shoots him a surprised look, he just shrugs.
The suite has two bedrooms and a living room, all of it ridiculously garish by Steve's standards, the kind of thing that would probably look a lot classier in black and white. Bucky waves Steve into one bedroom while he dumps his stuff in the other. Steve flushes with embarrassment. He hadn't meant to get a room with only one bed; he hadn't meant to make Bucky feel uncomfortable, but he must have. It's fine, though. He washes his face, runs a hand through his hair, and squares his shoulders.
"I'm gonna hit the blackjack table," Bucky says before Steve can suggest lunch.
"Okay," he says instead.
He eats lunch by himself and then wanders into the casino. He enjoys a card game as much anyone, but he's never been a gambling man--not with money, anyway--so the glamour of it palls quickly. It's not baccarat in Monte Carlo (not that he's actually gone with Tony to do that, but he's watched a few James Bond movies), and there's something sad about the blue-haired ladies working the one-armed bandits, though he supposes if they're having fun he shouldn't judge. (He totally judges them, and then himself for doing it.)
He buys a swimsuit and heads to the rooftop pool, but he can only manage to get his feet wet again before he feels like he doesn't have enough air. He doesn't like to admit that he can remember drowning, that he still dreams of icy water closing over his head and filling his lungs, and he's managed to avoid having to swim since they got him out of the ice, but he also knows he's got to face it sometime, before it comes up in a life or death situation. He also knows the pool at the Venetian Hotel is probably not the place to do it.
He showers and changes before he meets Bucky for dinner in the hotel's restaurant, where the staff is obsequious in a way that reminds Steve of his USO days. Bucky ignores them, focusing instead on how much he won and lost and eventually won again at blackjack. "Not enough to be suspicious," he says, "but enough to pay for this very nice steak dinner we're having, and a few drinks at the bar after."
It is a very nice steak dinner, and Steve enjoys having a drink with Bucky--with friends--but he also feels like a switch has been flipped somewhere, and while it's not the one that turns Bucky back into a relentless, emotionless assassin, it's also not the one that turns him back into the Bucky Steve misses most, the guy who looked after him his whole life and let him see the vulnerabilities behind the tough guy front he wore with everyone else. He reminds Steve of how he was after he was rescued from the HYDRA lab--brittle and distant beneath his good-time guy façade. Maybe a drink or two will collapse that, and bring back the man Steve was getting to know again on this trip, the one who doesn't laugh as much or as loud as he used to, but whose eyes still crinkle in genuine humor at stupid puns and in wonder at some of the marvels of this modern age.
His phone beeps as they're finishing dessert, and Bucky frowns.
"It's Natasha," he says apologetically, firing off a quick 'all's well' text in response. "If I don't answer, she'll come after us."
"Think you could convince her to wear a bikini?" Bucky asks. "I wouldn't mind that at all."
Steve laughs. "I'm telling her that question is from you."
"Spoilsport."
Then they move to the bar, with its tinkly piano music, flat screen TVs, and slot machines in every corner.
After the first round, Steve excuses himself for a moment, and when he comes back from the men's room, Bucky is flirting with a guy. And the thing is, Bucky always flirted, it came as natural as breathing to him, but not so much in the now--that was definitely a then-thing with Bucky. But now, there's a guy who looks like he stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue making eyes at Bucky, and not only hasn't Bucky punched him, Bucky's laughing in a way that Steve hasn't heard often in the time since he got him back. Steve didn't even know Bucky liked guys; he still kind of wishes he didn't, not because he's got a problem with it, but because it just makes it that much more painful when the guy he chooses isn't Steve. At least with women, Steve could tell himself he didn't have the right parts or whatever, but now. Now he knows he's still not good enough. Not that he wants Bucky to want him because of what the serum gave him, or because he's Captain America, or, God forbid, because he feels obligated, but sometimes he thinks that as long as Bucky wanted him, he wouldn't look too closely at why.
He sits back down on the stool next to Bucky and gulps his Scotch much too quickly. Maybe Bucky got two rooms because he wanted some privacy to bring someone back with him. He taps the rim of his glass to let the bartender know he wants another, even if it's not going to help him forget the way Bucky tips his head back and gives this other guy a slow, appraising once-over.
"Hey, Steve, slow down there, buddy," Bucky says, when Steve downs his third drink.
"I'm all right," he answers, just like he always had back when two drinks would knock him flat on his ass. At least now it has the virtue of being true. Sort of.
Bucky gives his suitor a reluctant smile. "Sorry, man, I've gotta get this guy back upstairs before he passes out. He's too heavy for me to carry." And with that, Bucky slings Steve's arm across his shoulders and settles an arm around his waist. "Just play along," he mutters. Steve doesn't need the help, of course, but he follows Bucky's lead.
The walk across the lobby to the elevator, pressed tightly to Bucky's side, is one of the longest of Steve's life. It's this thing between them that always reels them back together, no matter how far time and distance conspire to keep them apart. Steve remembers the first time he felt it, this tension between them. He was thirteen and Little Frankie Hanrahan had just given him a bloody nose. Bucky's hands were warm and gentle on Steve's skin, tipping his head back and stuffing his nostrils with shreds of tissue, but all Steve could focus on was the chapped pink curves of Bucky's lips, close enough that Steve could smell the Juicy Fruit on his breath and wonder what it would taste like. Which was dumb because he knew what Juicy Fruit tasted like. Seventy years later, when Bucky smells of beer instead of gum, he still wonders.
Once they're back in the room, Bucky lets him go, and Steve feels the loss of his warmth. Frustrated, he bursts out with, "If you wanted to bring that guy back up here--if that's why you got separate rooms--you could have just said."
Bucky looks at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. "What? I just dragged your ass up here to get away from that guy. I thought you understood that."
"No," Steve says, deflating. Suddenly he feels small and tired. Maybe the alcohol did have an effect.
"And they comped me this suite. I didn't ask for it. I just didn't want to bother you with my nightmares and," he waves his still-gloved left hand, "stuff. Figured you could use a good night's sleep. You haven't had one the past few days, 'cause of me."
Steve reaches out and wraps his fingers around Bucky's wrist. "I want you to bother me with your stuff," he says. "I always have." He tugs and Bucky takes a stumbling step towards him.
"You can't even handle being in a pool up to your knees," Bucky replies, but his voice is soft. "How are you going to help with the shit in my head?"
Steve shakes his head and gives Bucky a small, sad smile. "I want you to help me with my stuff, too."
"I always knew you'd be lost without me," Bucky says, but the joke falls flat because it's true.
"You were right." And maybe Steve's never been one for gambling with cards or dice, but he knows when to take a chance, how to jump before he falls, or maybe he's been falling this whole time, and the risk now is finding the right place to land. He thinks he knows though. He always has.
He cups Bucky's chin in his other hand and gently tips his face up, giving him plenty of time to pull away if he wants to. And then Steve is kissing him. Bucky's mouth is warm and wet and beery under Steve's, and it's better than seventy years of fantasies could have ever predicted.
Bucky makes a small, hungry noise, his fingers clenching in Steve's shirt, and Steve wants to make him do it again, wants to hear all the different kinds of noises he'll make when Steve has him laid out on the bed, naked and open to Steve's touches and kisses. He tugs at Bucky's wrist again, and this time they stumble onto the sofa in the living area, never breaking the kiss, and Steve is grateful for his extra lung capacity, because he never wants the kiss to stop. Bucky straddles him and they spend a long time just kissing, until Steve is dizzy and breathless with it, his mouth swollen and tingling, and his heart pounding like a drum.
They shift and tug at each other, unbuttoning shirts and unzipping jeans until they can touch bare skin, and when Bucky wraps a hand around him--a warm, human hand (not that Steve would object in the slightest to the other, but maybe that's for later; God, he hopes that's for later)--his whole body is on fire with heat and need in a way that makes him feel warmer and more alive than he has since he woke up. With a hoarse moan, he comes, his hips jerking up against Bucky, who echoes his moan before muffling it with his mouth. He gets his hand around Bucky, and with a couple jerks of his wrist, Bucky comes, too, with his fingers digging into Steve's shoulder hard enough to leave bruises that won't fade in the next ten minutes.
They slump together, still trading eager kisses, and Steve thinks he could stay right there and never move again.
"Hey," Bucky says, pulling back just the slightest bit. Steve chases after him and captures his mouth again, and has almost forgotten he ever said anything at all when Bucky does it again. "Hey, you wanna get out of here?"
"Um." Steve blinks at him in confusion.
"California's only a few hours' drive from here. We can make it by morning."
Steve makes a humming noise that might be agreement--he isn't even sure himself--but Bucky takes it that way. He lifts himself off of Steve, pretty gracefully for a guy who's pants are shove down and sticky with come, and heads to the bathroom. Steve wrinkles his nose at the mess on his own body, and then sighs in acceptance of the inevitable.
Twenty minutes later, cleaned up and changed, they're back in the car heading west, with Bucky at the wheel. Steve slips in and out of sleep, a silly grin on his face every time he glances over at Bucky, who tangles their fingers together and drives with one hand, like he's afraid Steve'll think better of this and jump out of the car to get away or something.
They hit the coast just as the sun is coming up, and the glow of it rising turns everything to rose and gold. The air is warm and smells of the ocean, and Steve can hear it pounding on the shore, echoing in his chest. He still gets that little hitch of fear in his breath at the thought of all that water closing over his head, but Bucky's hand is warm and strong in his, and Steve's sure that together, they can face anything. And maybe on the way home, they'll stop and see the Grand Canyon.
end
~*~
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Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg; no Cap 2 spoilers; 6,315 words
In which Steve decides to jump before he falls.
Title from the Rolling Stones. Thanks to
angelgazing for talking it out with me when I needed to, and to
fox1013 for helping me choose the summary. To reiterate, NO Cap 2 spoilers.
~*~
Let's do some living after we die
Steve gets the text while he's meeting with Fury. Pack a bag. Be ready at three, it says. He has just enough time to get back to Brooklyn and toss some underwear and a couple of clean shirts into a bag before Bucky shows up in front of the brownstone at five after three with a car--a dusty, beat-up old Chevy that doesn't look like it will make it across the neighborhood, let alone the country--and says, "Get in, Rogers. We're going for a ride."
Steve looks at the car, at the determined look on Bucky's face, so familiar even after all these years and calamities, and climbs into the passenger seat. He has eighty-seven dollars in his wallet and a Starkphone in his pocket. He tosses his duffel and the shield onto the backseat and hopes he's packed right for whatever Bucky's got in mind.
"I hope this wasn't stolen," he says once they're on the Gowanus. He's pretty sure Bucky knows he's joking. Bucky's been better the past couple of months, less likely to get angry and more likely to accept Steve's awkward attempts to make everything between them like it used to be, but Steve still feels like he's walking on eggshells sometimes. He doesn't blame Bucky, and he knows Bucky doesn't blame him, but it's still hard, with their lost decades stretching like a phantom minefield between them. And neither of them has ever done well against opponents they can't punch. He lowers the visor against the late afternoon sun and when that doesn't help, he puts his sunglasses on. Eyes hidden, he cuts a quick look over, but Bucky just seems pleased with himself.
"Nope. Got the registration from Natasha this morning." Bucky glances over, grinning like he knows how incongruous it sounds and he's waiting for Steve to ask.
So Steve does. "This doesn't look like it's Natasha's style." He runs a hand over the worn and faded vinyl. "I'm sure you're going to tell me she single-handedly defeated HYDRA with this car or something, though."
Bucky laughs, a sound Steve will always be thankful to hear, even if he doesn't get to hear it often enough. "If anyone could, it'd be Nat. But no. She just won it off Logan in a card game."
Steve grunts. "It definitely looks like Logan's style. Almost as old as he is."
That makes Bucky laugh again, which makes Steve smile, because he's always liked being the one who makes Bucky laugh. "The one guy older than we are."
"Yeah." Steve tugs at his seatbelt--he only wears it because the last thing he needs is for Captain America to show up on the news having gotten a ticket for not wearing one--and says, "So what's the plan?"
Bucky shrugs. "Go west, young man. Go west."
Now it's Steve's turn to laugh. "Sounds good to me." He wonders if Bucky remembers the conversations they'd had as kids, the grandiose plans to hop a freight train and live like hoboes when the orphanage was too miserable to bear, as if Steve's health would allow it, and then later, the whispered conversations in tents and foxholes about seeing the Grand Canyon or swimming in the Pacific after the war. He doesn't ask, though. He can wait for Bucky to tell him.
Instead, he fiddles with the radio for a while, but it's nothing but traffic reports and commercials.
"There's an iPod in the glove compartment," Bucky says.
The thing is small and shiny--Steve will never get over how small everything is now--and when he turns it on, the familiar sound of Tommy Dorsey plays through the speakers.
He doesn't know how long or how far they drive. They sit in rush hour traffic through the city, but the evening is warm, the summer twilight is long, and they've got Ella Fitzgerald on the stereo, so it doesn't feel like a chore. Steve finds a couple of Clif bars in the glove compartment, and when Bucky waves off the offer of one, he eats all three while they cross the George Washington Bridge.
(He knows the tunnel would have been faster, but sometimes he still has trouble with the thought of all that water above him, pressing down. He's never said anything to Bucky about waking up in a cold sweat, the phantom weight of it sitting on his chest, but it doesn't surprise him that Bucky's figured it out. That's why Steve's not afraid to get in a car with him, to drive aimlessly west with him. Whatever else has happened, whoever else Bucky might have been once, he would never hurt Steve now.)
The sun sets and the moon rises, Ella gives way to Sassy Vaughn and Lady Day, and it's only when Steve's stomach rumbles that Bucky pulls off the interstate and into the parking lot of a diner that looks like it's seen better days.
"Where are we?" Steve asks, looking around the mostly-empty parking lot and rolling the kinks out of his shoulders.
"Somewhere in Pennsylvania," Bucky answers, rubbing his forehead. He's wearing a sweatshirt and gloves, even though it's probably still eighty degrees, and the hair at his temples is damp with sweat. "This state is fucking endless."
Steve huffs softly. "Yeah, I once spent eight hours on a train from Philly to Pittsburgh."
"With thirty lonely USO dames," Bucky says. "My heart bleeds for you." He raises an eyebrow rakishly. "How did you manage to pass the time?"
"We played poker," Steve answers with a grin. He holds the door open for Bucky, who's shaking his head.
"I don't know where I went wrong with you," he says sorrowfully, but his mouth is curved in a familiar smirk that makes Steve think of all the times Bucky talked about some girl he'd gone out with, or some girl he wanted Steve to go out with, and it feels so good to think of something from the past without a pang of regret that he just stares at Bucky's face for a couple of seconds and basks in his amusement.
A waitress startles him out of his reverie and waves them over to a booth in the window. The air conditioning is up too high, and even though Steve doesn't really feel the cold much anymore, he's a little envious of Bucky's sweatshirt now. The menu is a little sticky with maple syrup, but the place smells like coffee and grease and Steve's stomach rumbles again hungrily. Bucky snorts and nudges his knee against Steve's and Steve nudges back.
"What can I get you?" the waitress asks, filling their brown mugs with coffee.
Steve smiles up at her even as he's still attempting to pin Bucky's foot beneath his boot. "I'll have two eggs over easy with a side of hash browns and bacon." He hands her the menu. "Oh, and some rye toast, too please."
"And I'll have the pancakes, side of bacon," Bucky says. "And keep the coffee coming, doll."
She tips him an exaggerated wink. "Sure thing, hon."
The meal is hot and filling, which is good enough for Steve. Sometimes he still can't believe the abundance and variety of food available, even in the bodega on the corner.
Bucky's distracted by his bottomless cup of coffee, so Steve gets the upper hand--or foot, in this case--in their little under-the-table battle, pinning Bucky's feet beneath his with a triumphant, "Ha!" that makes Bucky choke on a mouthful of coffee.
After Bucky's done coughing, he gives Steve a wry look. "Not while I'm drinking next time, okay?"
Steve snorts. "And give you the advantage? What am I, stupid? Wait, don't answer that."
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," Bucky says, and even though his feet are still pinned, he bumps his knee against the inside of Steve's thigh. The flash of heat at the touch makes Steve look away, but he's pretty sure he's blushing. Bucky just smirks over the rim of his coffee cup.
When they pay the bill, the cashier points them at a Motel 6 just up the road a bit, and Bucky hops out of the car to get them a room when they arrive, then drives them around back to park next to the pool. Steve stifles a small pang of disappointment when he unlocks the door and sees two beds. He didn't honestly expect anything else, but occasionally, he still hopes. That's one of the few things that hasn't changed.
He wakes a couple of hours later at the quiet click of the door closing. He tells himself that Bucky's gone to the ice machine or the vending machine, though why he'd want stale candy at--Steve rolls over to look at the clock--3:24 am is a mystery. Steve waits a few minutes, but Bucky doesn't come back. He hates himself for being paranoid, but maybe he's wrong and it isn't Bucky in control right now. Though he can't imagine why the Winter Soldier would drive hundreds of miles and eat pancakes with him if he was just going to put two bullets in the back of Steve's skull. Steve tries not to think of the myriad things that could have triggered him along the way--the music, the traffic, the font on the menu, all coalescing into some horrific internal command he'd be powerless to fight. While Steve still has his doubts about SHIELD, Natasha seemed more confident in Bucky's recovery, though the day Bucky moved into Steve's apartment, she provided him with the secret code that would knock Bucky out if it looked like the Winter Soldier had taken control. He just hadn't thought it was truly possible.
The sound of a splash from the pool shakes Steve out of his depressing thoughts. He pulls on his jeans and tucks the room key in his pocket before he walks out to the pool. The moon has set, but Steve doesn't need much light to see, and the pool itself is illuminated with low lights that reflect the aqua color of the tiles.
Bucky is doing laps, his body cutting through the water as sleek as a shark, his hair slicked back from his forehead, and his arm gleaming dully. He glances up and nods in acknowledgement but doesn't stop swimming. Steve watches for a few more minutes, and then goes back to the room, lulled back to sleep by the rhythmic splashes of Bucky's strokes.
He doesn't bring it up in the morning. He remembers his first few weeks out of the ice, the hours and hours he spent pounding pavement with his feet and an endless stream of heavy bags with his fists. If driving all day and swimming all night helps Bucky outrun his ghosts, Steve will do everything he can to facilitate that.
They go back to the diner for breakfast--he has a Western omelet this time, and Bucky a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich--and he's mopping up the last of his eggs with some toast when his phone beeps. He texts Natasha back that everything is okay. We're on a road trip.
Send me a postcard, she answers.
Roger that.
Bucky watches him but doesn't ask, so Steve shrugs and says, "Natasha wants a postcard." Bucky hums in response. Steve chooses to read it as an affirmative as he tucks his phone away. Once they're back outside, he asks, "You want me to drive?"
"I'm good," Bucky says, shielding his eyes and squinting into the sun.
Steve doesn't think he has anything special in mind, but an hour later, they're pulling into the parking lot of an art museum.
"Buck?"
"They got an exhibit of baseball photos. It seemed like a thing to do." He shrugs, but Steve can tell he's a little anxious under his nonchalance.
Steve smiles. "Sounds great."
Bucky pays the suggested entrance fee before Steve can get out his billfold, and Steve has a sudden memory of him doing the same thing on a sweltering July day in 1939, in the cool, cavernous entrance to the Met. It had cost a lot less back then, but was still out of their meager budget range, except when Steve was healthy for a few weeks and Bucky could take extra shifts down at the warehouse.
"Nice and cool in here," he says when Steve thanks him. It's what he always said back then, too.
They do have a large exhibit of baseball photos, and though Steve only recognizes a handful of the subjects, the game is familiar (though he still disapproves of the designated hitter). "Hey, maybe we should go see a Dodgers game when we hit California."
Bucky gives him a small half-smile. "Maybe we should."
After the museum, they have pierogis from a food truck; they sit on the hood of the car and bask in the sunshine while they eat. Then it's back on the road until the sun goes down. Bucky doesn't talk nearly as much as he used to, but Steve doesn't mind. It's enough to have him there in the car, as wholly himself as he can be, as any of them are, really.
They follow the same routine that night, somewhere in Indiana. Steve wakes up sometime after three to the sound of the door closing and then he listens for the splash of Bucky diving into the pool. In the morning, he's not sure he didn't just dream it, but he can still smell the chlorine on Bucky's skin when Bucky hip checks him in the parking lot. They tussle playfully, and Steve, feeling daring, shoves a hand in Bucky's pocket to grab his keys. He tries not to think about the warm skin beneath the worn cotton of Bucky's pocket, the split-second Bucky freezes at the touch. He holds the keys up over his head and crows in triumph. Bucky hip checks him again, but Steve just laughs and bumps him back.
"Shove over, pal," he says. "Today, I'm driving."
"You don't even know where we're going."
"Ah yes, I can see how meticulously you've planned this trip to--where are we?"
"Indiana?"
"You wanted to visit the old homestead?"
"What? No." Bucky shakes his head and huffs a soft laugh. "I didn't even think of that. No. Chicago's not too far, though. I hear they have an Art Institute."
"And I always wanted to see a game at Wrigley."
"Okay, then. Let's get this show on the road."
The day passes in a blur of sunshine and watered-down ballpark beer (the Cubs lose 3-1 to the Braves), Italian beef, and modern architecture. They eat Chicago-style pizza for dinner, even though Bucky eyes it skeptically and laughs when Steve quotes Jon Stewart's rant about it being tomato soup in a bread bowl.
Steve thinks a normal person would be exhausted after all that, but they're not normal people (maybe they never were), so when Bucky suggests they keep on driving, he says, "Sure."
They head for St. Louis, since the Cardinals are playing the Pirates the next day. "And we didn't get to see them in Pittsburgh," Bucky says.
Steve goes along with it. They don't have anywhere they need to be, and if something comes up, Natasha knows how to reach them. Back in the Forties, it never would have occurred to either of them that they could see games in every ballpark in the country, because they never could have afforded it. Now, when ticket prices still give Steve a shock every time, it's not a problem at all.
After St. Louis, they hit Kansas City, because Steve gets a hankering for ribs for dinner. They hit a jazz club afterwards, and Bucky, who used to love to go dancing, sits with Steve like a wallflower when the dance floor fills up.
"You can," Steve gestures at the people dancing.
"It ain't like it used to be," Bucky answers with an easy shrug.
"You said a mouthful, Buck."
Bucky grins and clinks his beer bottle against Steve's.
When they check into the motel, Steve sleeps through the night, and he thinks Bucky might have, too, until he finds the damp towels in the bathroom, and neither of them have showered yet. He doesn't say anything, though he wishes Bucky would wake him up before he goes. Even if he wants to be alone. Just so Steve won't worry.
"I know it's not the Grand Canyon," Bucky says once they're in the car again, "but you wanna see Mount Rushmore?" Steve glances over at him, but Bucky's eyes are on the road, and his voice gives nothing away.
Steve smiles ruefully. "Yeah, I'd like that."
"It'll probably take all day," Bucky says. "And we should call ahead and make sure we can get a hotel room."
"I've got a fancy platinum credit card and about eight days of music on this iPod," Steve answers. "I think we can handle it."
It's drizzling when they get there, and Bucky checks them into a Best Western that has both an indoor and an outdoor pool, which Steve only learns when he wakes up and Bucky's not in the room. The indoor pool is locked, but a locked door has never kept either of them out of somewhere they want to be. And Steve really doesn't want to go out in the rain barefoot and half-dressed.
The lights around the pool are warm and yellow and they gild Bucky as he glides through the water, muscles flexing under his skin. Steve's throat goes dry, and he sits on the edge of a lounge chair to watch, all the old feelings that never really went away buzzing back to the surface. Steve tries to ignore them, but it's harder than it used to be, now that he knows what life is like without Bucky. Now that they wouldn't have to hide.
Bucky doesn't swim for much longer after that, and they head back up to the room together. For once, Bucky goes back to bed, so Steve turns in again, too.
Sunlight is streaming through the window when he wakes up, and Bucky's sitting at the little table, drinking coffee. "Come on, sleepyhead," he says. "We gotta go see some presidents."
Mount Rushmore is amazing, more for the fact that people carved it than for anything it represents to him.
"You should be up there," Bucky says, reaching up to lean his elbow on Steve's shoulder the way he used to when he was the tall one. "You're a certified goddamn American hero and you already look like you're carved out of fucking granite. "
Steve flushes, the warmth of Bucky's words flooding his chest, and shakes his head. "You know that's not true. I'm just trying to do my best, like everyone else."
"It's sweet that you think that," Bucky answers, and then he gets distracted by a troop of Girl Scouts behind them. His gaze narrows, as if he's assessing a threat, and Steve feels a pang of concern before he says, "You wanna get out of here before someone recognizes you?"
"Yeah," Steve says, tugging his baseball cap down while the scout leader eyes them suspiciously. Maybe they look seedy instead of famous. He buys postcards for the team, though, and writes them out while Bucky finishes his fries.
They head west again after lunch and drive until the daylight's gone, and then they drive a little bit more. Steve doesn't ask what demons are chasing them. He keeps hoping Bucky will tell him on his own.
They're somewhere in Utah when Bucky finally pulls over into the parking lot of a Days Inn. Steve hops out of the car almost before it's come to a complete stop. He rolls his neck and stretches his legs, and says, "I'll get the room," before Bucky can say anything.
He's dozy and peckish--it's been hours since they ate, and his metabolism is relentless--and the girl behind the reception desk looks surprised to see him, so maybe he's not as clear as he could be when he asks for a room, or maybe she just misunderstands, but when they unlock the door to the room, there's only one large bed instead of the two Bucky's been getting.
"Huh." Steve blinks but the single queen doesn't separate into two.
"This is why you let your sergeant handle logistics," Bucky says, nudging him out of the way. Steve opens his mouth to argue, but it's the first time Bucky's joked about his time in the army since he's been back, and Steve's not sure how to respond. So he toes off his sneakers and drops face-first onto the bed.
"Don't worry," he says, muffled by the pillow, which smells of bleach, "I won't steal the covers."
Bucky huffs but doesn't contradict him.
They shared a bed plenty of times in the orphanage, and then later, in a series of boarding houses and cold water flats in Brooklyn, and in tents across Europe during the war, but it's different now. They're not being shot at, and even if they were discovered in bed together--even if they were doing the things Steve's imagination doesn't shy away from when he takes himself in hand in the shower--they wouldn't be arrested or even attacked (though they might get some dirty looks, but Steve's been getting those his whole life). Which should make it much easier to relax, but Steve finds himself tensing up when Bucky climbs into bed beside him in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. And Bucky's clearly not as wound up about it as Steve is, because he rolls onto his side and his breathing evens out fairly quickly, while Steve lies awake in the darkness beside him.
He's finally started to doze when Bucky flails awake, kicking the covers to the floor and jumping out of bed like he's under attack. Steve guesses he is, even if it's from the ghosts in his own head.
"Hey," he says softly, sitting up slowly and raising his hands to show that they're empty.
"Steve?"
"Yeah."
"Is it really you?"
"It really is." Steve holds out a hand and Bucky takes it. His fingers are warm and sweaty against Steve's, and Steve holds on tight for the few seconds Bucky allows.
"Okay," Bucky says, disentangling himself. He pushes a hand through his hair. "I'm going for a swim."
"Okay," Steve says. "I'll come with."
"You don't have to."
"I know."
Bucky gives him a long look and then heads for the door. Steve follows, too afraid that somehow Bucky's the one who isn't real, that this is all a dream he's having, to pull on his jeans.
Bucky's all sharp angles as he dives into the water at the deep end and swims; Steve stands at the edge for a moment, the concrete rough and warm against the soles of his bare feet. He looks at the water and swallows through an unexpected tightness in his throat before he lowers himself to the edge and dangles his feet in. The cool water laps against his ankles and calves, and he breathes deep and slow until the panic threatening to choke him disappears. He leans back on his hands to watch Bucky as he does his laps. He swims until the sky starts to lighten to gray, and the girl from the office comes out to stare wide-eyed at them.
"The pool is closed after ten pm," she says, bewilderment in her voice.
"Okay," Steve says, rising to his feet. She looks him over, faint flush on her cheeks, and he remembers he's in his underwear.
Bucky waits until she's gone to lift himself up out of the water. "It's before ten," he mutters petulantly, but he looks a lot more clear-headed than he had a couple of hours ago, even if there are still shadows beneath his eyes.
Steve sends his daily check-in text to Natasha while Bucky's in the shower, and then checks them out of the hotel. The clerk blushes again and can't look him in the eye.
"How about I drive?" Steve says when they're done throwing their stuff in the car. Bucky frowns for a second but then he shrugs and tosses Steve the keys.
Once Steve is settled behind the wheel--he has to push the seat back just a little--Bucky says, "How do you feel about Vegas?"
"Why? You feeling lucky?"
Bucky smiles enigmatically and doesn't answer.
Steve enjoys driving, even if this old clunker of a Chevy isn't as fast or fun as his bike. He's got Bucky in the passenger seat, a playlist Natasha made him on the speakers, and the wide open road ahead of him. It's something he never thought he'd get to have, even if it's not everything he secretly wants. With the wind blowing in his hair and Bucky grinning beside him, it's enough.
Bucky falls asleep about twenty minutes into the drive, and Steve raises the windows, turns on the air conditioning, and lowers the volume. The soft murmur of Judy Henske's voice carries them along.
It's lunchtime when they hit the strip, and Steve's ravenous. Bucky checks them into a suite under a fake name, and when Steve shoots him a surprised look, he just shrugs.
The suite has two bedrooms and a living room, all of it ridiculously garish by Steve's standards, the kind of thing that would probably look a lot classier in black and white. Bucky waves Steve into one bedroom while he dumps his stuff in the other. Steve flushes with embarrassment. He hadn't meant to get a room with only one bed; he hadn't meant to make Bucky feel uncomfortable, but he must have. It's fine, though. He washes his face, runs a hand through his hair, and squares his shoulders.
"I'm gonna hit the blackjack table," Bucky says before Steve can suggest lunch.
"Okay," he says instead.
He eats lunch by himself and then wanders into the casino. He enjoys a card game as much anyone, but he's never been a gambling man--not with money, anyway--so the glamour of it palls quickly. It's not baccarat in Monte Carlo (not that he's actually gone with Tony to do that, but he's watched a few James Bond movies), and there's something sad about the blue-haired ladies working the one-armed bandits, though he supposes if they're having fun he shouldn't judge. (He totally judges them, and then himself for doing it.)
He buys a swimsuit and heads to the rooftop pool, but he can only manage to get his feet wet again before he feels like he doesn't have enough air. He doesn't like to admit that he can remember drowning, that he still dreams of icy water closing over his head and filling his lungs, and he's managed to avoid having to swim since they got him out of the ice, but he also knows he's got to face it sometime, before it comes up in a life or death situation. He also knows the pool at the Venetian Hotel is probably not the place to do it.
He showers and changes before he meets Bucky for dinner in the hotel's restaurant, where the staff is obsequious in a way that reminds Steve of his USO days. Bucky ignores them, focusing instead on how much he won and lost and eventually won again at blackjack. "Not enough to be suspicious," he says, "but enough to pay for this very nice steak dinner we're having, and a few drinks at the bar after."
It is a very nice steak dinner, and Steve enjoys having a drink with Bucky--with friends--but he also feels like a switch has been flipped somewhere, and while it's not the one that turns Bucky back into a relentless, emotionless assassin, it's also not the one that turns him back into the Bucky Steve misses most, the guy who looked after him his whole life and let him see the vulnerabilities behind the tough guy front he wore with everyone else. He reminds Steve of how he was after he was rescued from the HYDRA lab--brittle and distant beneath his good-time guy façade. Maybe a drink or two will collapse that, and bring back the man Steve was getting to know again on this trip, the one who doesn't laugh as much or as loud as he used to, but whose eyes still crinkle in genuine humor at stupid puns and in wonder at some of the marvels of this modern age.
His phone beeps as they're finishing dessert, and Bucky frowns.
"It's Natasha," he says apologetically, firing off a quick 'all's well' text in response. "If I don't answer, she'll come after us."
"Think you could convince her to wear a bikini?" Bucky asks. "I wouldn't mind that at all."
Steve laughs. "I'm telling her that question is from you."
"Spoilsport."
Then they move to the bar, with its tinkly piano music, flat screen TVs, and slot machines in every corner.
After the first round, Steve excuses himself for a moment, and when he comes back from the men's room, Bucky is flirting with a guy. And the thing is, Bucky always flirted, it came as natural as breathing to him, but not so much in the now--that was definitely a then-thing with Bucky. But now, there's a guy who looks like he stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue making eyes at Bucky, and not only hasn't Bucky punched him, Bucky's laughing in a way that Steve hasn't heard often in the time since he got him back. Steve didn't even know Bucky liked guys; he still kind of wishes he didn't, not because he's got a problem with it, but because it just makes it that much more painful when the guy he chooses isn't Steve. At least with women, Steve could tell himself he didn't have the right parts or whatever, but now. Now he knows he's still not good enough. Not that he wants Bucky to want him because of what the serum gave him, or because he's Captain America, or, God forbid, because he feels obligated, but sometimes he thinks that as long as Bucky wanted him, he wouldn't look too closely at why.
He sits back down on the stool next to Bucky and gulps his Scotch much too quickly. Maybe Bucky got two rooms because he wanted some privacy to bring someone back with him. He taps the rim of his glass to let the bartender know he wants another, even if it's not going to help him forget the way Bucky tips his head back and gives this other guy a slow, appraising once-over.
"Hey, Steve, slow down there, buddy," Bucky says, when Steve downs his third drink.
"I'm all right," he answers, just like he always had back when two drinks would knock him flat on his ass. At least now it has the virtue of being true. Sort of.
Bucky gives his suitor a reluctant smile. "Sorry, man, I've gotta get this guy back upstairs before he passes out. He's too heavy for me to carry." And with that, Bucky slings Steve's arm across his shoulders and settles an arm around his waist. "Just play along," he mutters. Steve doesn't need the help, of course, but he follows Bucky's lead.
The walk across the lobby to the elevator, pressed tightly to Bucky's side, is one of the longest of Steve's life. It's this thing between them that always reels them back together, no matter how far time and distance conspire to keep them apart. Steve remembers the first time he felt it, this tension between them. He was thirteen and Little Frankie Hanrahan had just given him a bloody nose. Bucky's hands were warm and gentle on Steve's skin, tipping his head back and stuffing his nostrils with shreds of tissue, but all Steve could focus on was the chapped pink curves of Bucky's lips, close enough that Steve could smell the Juicy Fruit on his breath and wonder what it would taste like. Which was dumb because he knew what Juicy Fruit tasted like. Seventy years later, when Bucky smells of beer instead of gum, he still wonders.
Once they're back in the room, Bucky lets him go, and Steve feels the loss of his warmth. Frustrated, he bursts out with, "If you wanted to bring that guy back up here--if that's why you got separate rooms--you could have just said."
Bucky looks at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. "What? I just dragged your ass up here to get away from that guy. I thought you understood that."
"No," Steve says, deflating. Suddenly he feels small and tired. Maybe the alcohol did have an effect.
"And they comped me this suite. I didn't ask for it. I just didn't want to bother you with my nightmares and," he waves his still-gloved left hand, "stuff. Figured you could use a good night's sleep. You haven't had one the past few days, 'cause of me."
Steve reaches out and wraps his fingers around Bucky's wrist. "I want you to bother me with your stuff," he says. "I always have." He tugs and Bucky takes a stumbling step towards him.
"You can't even handle being in a pool up to your knees," Bucky replies, but his voice is soft. "How are you going to help with the shit in my head?"
Steve shakes his head and gives Bucky a small, sad smile. "I want you to help me with my stuff, too."
"I always knew you'd be lost without me," Bucky says, but the joke falls flat because it's true.
"You were right." And maybe Steve's never been one for gambling with cards or dice, but he knows when to take a chance, how to jump before he falls, or maybe he's been falling this whole time, and the risk now is finding the right place to land. He thinks he knows though. He always has.
He cups Bucky's chin in his other hand and gently tips his face up, giving him plenty of time to pull away if he wants to. And then Steve is kissing him. Bucky's mouth is warm and wet and beery under Steve's, and it's better than seventy years of fantasies could have ever predicted.
Bucky makes a small, hungry noise, his fingers clenching in Steve's shirt, and Steve wants to make him do it again, wants to hear all the different kinds of noises he'll make when Steve has him laid out on the bed, naked and open to Steve's touches and kisses. He tugs at Bucky's wrist again, and this time they stumble onto the sofa in the living area, never breaking the kiss, and Steve is grateful for his extra lung capacity, because he never wants the kiss to stop. Bucky straddles him and they spend a long time just kissing, until Steve is dizzy and breathless with it, his mouth swollen and tingling, and his heart pounding like a drum.
They shift and tug at each other, unbuttoning shirts and unzipping jeans until they can touch bare skin, and when Bucky wraps a hand around him--a warm, human hand (not that Steve would object in the slightest to the other, but maybe that's for later; God, he hopes that's for later)--his whole body is on fire with heat and need in a way that makes him feel warmer and more alive than he has since he woke up. With a hoarse moan, he comes, his hips jerking up against Bucky, who echoes his moan before muffling it with his mouth. He gets his hand around Bucky, and with a couple jerks of his wrist, Bucky comes, too, with his fingers digging into Steve's shoulder hard enough to leave bruises that won't fade in the next ten minutes.
They slump together, still trading eager kisses, and Steve thinks he could stay right there and never move again.
"Hey," Bucky says, pulling back just the slightest bit. Steve chases after him and captures his mouth again, and has almost forgotten he ever said anything at all when Bucky does it again. "Hey, you wanna get out of here?"
"Um." Steve blinks at him in confusion.
"California's only a few hours' drive from here. We can make it by morning."
Steve makes a humming noise that might be agreement--he isn't even sure himself--but Bucky takes it that way. He lifts himself off of Steve, pretty gracefully for a guy who's pants are shove down and sticky with come, and heads to the bathroom. Steve wrinkles his nose at the mess on his own body, and then sighs in acceptance of the inevitable.
Twenty minutes later, cleaned up and changed, they're back in the car heading west, with Bucky at the wheel. Steve slips in and out of sleep, a silly grin on his face every time he glances over at Bucky, who tangles their fingers together and drives with one hand, like he's afraid Steve'll think better of this and jump out of the car to get away or something.
They hit the coast just as the sun is coming up, and the glow of it rising turns everything to rose and gold. The air is warm and smells of the ocean, and Steve can hear it pounding on the shore, echoing in his chest. He still gets that little hitch of fear in his breath at the thought of all that water closing over his head, but Bucky's hand is warm and strong in his, and Steve's sure that together, they can face anything. And maybe on the way home, they'll stop and see the Grand Canyon.
end
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