Chapter Text
Bucky and the Hulk make eye contact through the reinforced plexiglass partition currently enclosing the monster. The monster’s eyes are different from Bruce’s: Bruce is gentle, brilliant, wry, a little playful, but very kind. The monster is furious. Any intelligence the Hulk may possess is drowned by the powerful desire to smash.
Bucky knows the horror of having been a weapon. For Bruce, a horrendous destructive force is hiding inside him, just waiting to burst out. The monster is the living embodiment of Bruce’s rage — whereas the Asset had no emotions, no will of his own, just a deadly emptiness ready to be wielded.
Incredibly, compared to Bruce, Bucky has it so much better.
Bruce offered friendship to Bucky, when Bucky had been treated no different than a weapon for decades. Cautiously, Bucky approaches the plexiglass.
“I don’t know about that,” says Steve.
Bucky says nothing, but lays his metal hand on the clear partition.
The monster frowns, then steps back and throws a punch at the wall of the airplane.
Bucky expects that the Starkjet’s “special modifications” will be strong enough to resistant the mighty blow — but just the opposite is true.
A panel falls away from the side of the plane —wind whips around inside the partition — and Bruce steps up to the gaping hole and jumps out.
“No!” Bucky shouts, clawing at the plexiglass.
“Bucky, stop!” Steve shouts. “A fall like this won't hurt him!”
Bucky stares in horror at the void where Bruce had been standing a moment before. Reality falls away like it has no meaning. Years fall away. Bucky is clinging to the side of a train, speeding through snowy mountains. Steve is reaching for him, holding out his hand — and the bar he is clinging to snaps. Bucky falls, falls, falls, and the fall takes forever, Steve screaming and reaching for him, quickly dwindling to nothing and fading from sight. Then the horrifying crush of impact, the bone-deep cold— and then the long nightmare began.
“No—“ he screams — it’s no more than a whisper.
“Bucky— “ Steve says. He doesn’t have to shout. Servos are already repairing the breach in the hull of the plane. But Bucky is still frozen in place, replaying the fall — if only — if only— but he doesn’t even know what could possibly have changed. The fall was some kind of turning point in his destiny. It was always going to happen — always going to take him away from Steve — always going to betray him to the deadliest of enemies, who would make him into something soulless, a thing without feelings or humanity.
“Bucky — “ Steve repeats, and he’s come a little closer, lightly touching Bucky’s hand with his own, a gentle query.
“Bucky,” Steve says, as though it’s the only word he knows. But it works — it brings Bucky back to himself. Bucky remembers another moment now — Steve falling from the Helicarrier, landing in the Potomac — and Bucky himself, jumping after without hesitation, to save Steve when he barely remembered his own name.
Bucky took that risk, and Steve is alive beside him because of it, and because Steve is alive and well, Bucky is free and getting better every day.
“Steve,” Bucky breathes, and turns, and pulls Steve close, and huddles against him. Steve is big now, strong, but he holds onto Bucky like something precious — even though Bucky is just as full of serum as Steve is, bigger too and harder than he used to be, with a treacherous metal arm grafted onto his scarred and mistreated body.
“Sh, Bucky — I promise, Bruce will be okay,” Steve swears.
“The fall — “ Bucky whispers.
“I know,” Steve says, and doesn’t let go. Steve holds him close and lets him breathe. Jarvis pilots them onward toward New York.
The intercom crackles into life. It’s Tony.
“The Big Guy found them on the ground pretty quickly,” Tony says. “Hulk smash.”
“How’d he find them so fast?” Steve asks.
“I may have prompted him a little,” Tony says. “There won’t be any more missiles from that quarter anyway.”
Steve sighs. “The modifications worked out just like you planned.”
“Good,” Tony says. “I’m sorry Bruce has another ‘smash’ on his conscience—“
“—but they were shooting missiles at us,” Steve finishes.
“Hulk no like, Tony no like much either,” Tony agrees.
Throughout this conversation, Steve hasn’t let go of Bucky, just walking him back to the comfortable flight chairs and sinking down with him, keeping him safe in his arms.
“I’m going to follow Bruce and make sure everything is under control,” Tony says.
“Good,” Steve says. “And Happy will meet us at LaGuardia.”
“Yes,” Tony says. “Have fun at the tower.”
The rest of the flight is without incident. Bucky eventually lets go of Steve and lies back in his seat. The flight is not that long and was already half over when the missiles interrupted it. They are cleared for landing at LaGuardia, though no one on the ground seems to realize that Jarvis is flying the plane.
Happy meets them right on the tarmac and drives across the East River and down Park Avenue to the Tower. Bucky watches the bridges and the buildings flow past with a weird sense of detachment — some things seem so familiar, but so much is different.
Steve is like that — different, but so very familiar. Bucky remembers holding him at night, when he was so much smaller — trying to keep him warm, keep him well and safe — but Steve had never wanted to be kept safe. He was always a fighter; he and Bucky were alike in that. It’s no surprise to Bucky that Steve is friends with a man in flying armor and a doctor who turns into a giant green monster. These are the kinds of folks he’d always dreamed Steve belonged with — heroes, men of renown.
They arrive at the Tower where of course, Jarvis is expecting them.
Steve is a little sheepish about the fact that Tony has given him one whole floor of the Tower. It’s even more opulent than Tony’s penthouse in DC, and Steve’s barely around to live in it. Few of his things are there, except changes of clothes, but Bucky notices the art on the walls is in line with Steve’s tastes. He stops staring at a painting, seeing the line and the blocks of color and knowing exactly what made Steve like it, and feeling amazed that with so much missing from his life, he still knows Steve this well. Deep down inside, Bucky is still the man who knows Steve best.
Jarvis orders in for them, a delicious traditional Italian meal of spaghetti bolognese, salad and garlic bread.
Bucky savors every bite. It tastes like the most delicious thing he’s ever had.
“If I may, Sergeant Barnes — Doctor Banner suggested that you eat your food slowly, giving yourself plenty of time to readjust to a varied diet.”
“I’m starving here, Jarvis,” Bucky complains, but he follows the suggestion and has no complaints.
Steve pours from a bottle of red wine. Neither of them feels the alcohol, but the flavor is rich and comforting.
“We never had it so good, did we, Steve?” Bucky asks.
“No,” Steve says. “It’s just another thing I can’t get used to. We were so damn poor, Bucky. And Tony is the richest of the rich. He makes Daddy Warbucks look penny ante.”
“Cars -- houses — jet planes — skyscrapers —“ Bucky says.
“But the thing is — he really is a genius. Works all the time, never stops building, improving. And wait till you meet his gal, Pepper,” Steve says.
“A looker?” Bucky says.
“Sure, but so smart, runs the company while Tony just plays around, making new stuff all the time. He has so much money, he just gives it away.”
“He wants to make amends,” Bucky says.
“Because Stark Industries worked with the military?” Steve asks, a little dubious.
“He told me he made the trigger a little easier to pull,” Bucky says.
Pensive, Steve looks down. “I don’t always give Tony enough credit.”
“He’s really not that much of an asshole,” Bucky says.
Steve laughs. “Yeah, I know, but sometime he’ll just do or say something that irks me somehow.”
“What,” Bucky says, playing shocked. “That’s not like you at all.”
Steve blushes and laughs again, and Bucky knows he’s never seen anyone, woman or man, look more beautiful than Steve does right at the moment, and he’ll be damned if he lets even one more second go by without telling Steve so. Hell, Hydra, whatever could blow up all around him — it has before — and this time, he wants what he wants and damn tomorrow.
“Steve,” Bucky says.
“Yeah?” Steve says. He looks up, dark lashes around gorgeous blue eyes — full red lips — and such a strong, handsome face.
“You sure are a knockout,” Bucky breathes, staring and staring, refusing to look away.
Steve blushes harder. “You trying to sweet talk me?”
“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Is it working?”
The blue eyes darken, the red lips part. “Yeah, I think it is.”
Bucky leans forward and Steve meets him halfway. Their lips meet so softly, getting reacquainted. So much time has passed — for Bucky, years lost to the cryo tube and the missions and Hydra’s awful schemes — for Steve, decades lost to the ice of the Arctic Ocean. Steve has two years out to understand just how much he’s lost, while Bucky’s had only a handful of days to recover the basics of who he is.
Still, with so much gone awry, the pull between them is just as strong as it ever was. Bucky has the feeling he would always end up in Steve’s arms, whether they were friends running the streets of Brooklyn, or whether they’d met in the army, or maybe even if they hadn’t met until the heat of battle, pitted against each in the deadliest dance. Bucky remembers a flash of fighting Steve in the street, the ferocious joy that built inside him as Steve matched him blow for blow. It had never happened before— he’d known even then, in the clear void of the wipe — no one had matched him like this fair-haired warrior who wielded a shield with such grace, such elegance. Bucky had wanted to fight and fight, but then Steve had said his name and the fight had shivered to a halt. Clean-up arrived and Bucky disappeared, gnawed inside by worry about the man he’d fought, the man he’d somehow remembered.
Now, Steve is here and real and they are alone — an opulent tower all around them — a powerful AI keeping watch over them — friends planning on how best to help them. Nothing could be better — could it?
Bucky savors Steve’s kisses. He tastes like red wine.
“Steve, take me to bed,” Bucky says — and then he’s the one blushing.
Steve just smiles, a wicked delight shining deep in his eyes. His lips, moist from kissing, now look even better, sinful and tempting.
“Bucky — I’m so glad, you know? So damned glad. You’re alive,” Steve says. HIs voice is a comfort, rumbling into Bucky where he is pressed close.
“I am,” Bucky says. “And so are you — so let’s get busy.”
He tries a smile and at last it feels easy. The smile spreads across his face to mirror the one Steve is wearing. Their kiss-warmed lips go together perfectly.
They fall into Steve’s bed, shedding clothes, pressing up together, and everything is perfect. Steve’s strength is everything Bucky has craved for so long, without even knowing what he’s been yearning for. He burrows into Steve and it feels like home. They press against each other, just as they’ve always done —like all the years they’ve lost dissipate like a mist, leaving only the truth of Steve and Bucky. Nothing can keep them apart.
“Is this okay?” Steve says, as his hand slips lower.
“Yes,” Bucky says. All that’s been done to him, no one has ever cared if he says yes or no — but he’ll never say no to Steve, he’ll never need to.
It feels so good it washes everything out of Bucky’s head — not the terrible emptiness of the wipe — but a blissful beauty, a miraculous unity like a cloudless sky or an endless ocean — clear and perfect and right. Bucky lets Steve touch him, can’t believe it can feel so wonderful, remembers that for them, it has always been this way.
“Steve,” Bucky shouts, letting go.
Steve holds him even tighter, Bucky’s bliss carrying Steve along with him.
They come down slowly, panting. Steve pulls away a little, and Bucky clutches on, kissing him, snuggling into the mess they’ve made.
“Let me go, Buck, I’ll get a cloth to clean us up,” Steve says, laughing.
“Don’t ever let me go, Steve,” Bucky says, but smiles as he says it, releasing Steve’s hand, knowing Steve will be right there.
“I never will,” Steve swears, and Bucky knows he can count on it.