Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Don’t pay her no mind, Stevie,” Bucky slings an arm over Steve’s shoulder as Steve slumps on their table at the edge of the dance floor.

Another attempt at finding Steve a nice girl to spend the evening dancing with had spiraled down the drain. Admittedly, Bucky had seen this coming the moment the girl, Francesca, laid eyes on Steve; the bright spark of excitement in her eyes that he’d managed to kindle by gushing about how kind-hearted and smart and artistic and funny and brave and just generally terrific Steve was died the moment she saw him in person. She hadn’t been interested in him all night – a group of girls she recognized from work were far more thrilling, and gave her the perfect opportunity to flee the scene. So now she was walking home with them instead of Steve, and Steve was nursing the gin and tonic she hadn’t bothered to finish. Waste not, want not.

“She don’t know what sh’s missin’,” Bucky slurs, pinching Steve’s bony little cheeks between his thumb and forefingers, pushing his lips out into a goofy pout. “Look atchu.”

“Nugh,” Steve grumbles weakly in protest, still far too stuck in the melancholy stages of drunkenness to put up a decent fight. “Noo.”

“Hey! He-hey, Bett! Betty!” Bucky reaches out to the gorgeous woman in the yellow polka-dot frock and meticulously-styled blonde up-do sat beside them.

Betty McCarthy; Bucky has been flirting with her for three weeks now, and they finally got a weekend free to go out on the double date Bucky promised her. It would be a lie to say she’s been a delight this evening – it’s not the first time a woman has taken personal offense when the perfect gentleman Bucky promised for her friend wound up being Steve – and she’s refused every drink Bucky’s offered to buy her since she finished the first one.

“Bett, lu-look. Look at this guy.”

“Get-g’doff, Barnes!” Steve makes a feeble attempt at shoving Bucky’s hand’s away from his face.

Bucky just smiles all the wider, locking his arm around Steve’s neck in a loose headlock. “Ain’t he the purty-est lookin’ guy you ever seen?”

“Shuddup,” Steve grumbles.

“Ain’t he a doll? Look.”

Betty, chin raised as part of her perfectly poised posture, looks down at them both over her nose. “It’s so sweet you care so much about your little friend, Bucky.”

Steve either doesn’t hear or doesn’t pay attention to her, continuing his battle of witlessness with Bucky like they’re the only two in the room. “Ain’t nobody’s doll, blockhead.”

“Punk,” Bucky jostles Steve lightly.

“Shut it!” Steve demands, but doesn’t fight back, letting his body go loose and letting his head lop against Bucky’s chest as he’s shaken.

“Pretty, pretty punk.”

“I gotta busted nose, I ain’t pretty,” Steve says, a touch firmer.

Bucky loves winding Steve up sometimes. It’s a left-over instinct from their younger years as stroppy teenagers with no one else – or, rather, no one more fun – to take their frustrations out on. They’ve been winding each other up for so long that he thinks, at this point, it’s not ever going to be something they grow out of. It’s not something he ever wants them to grow out of. He loves the fire in Steve. Loves the way it ignites something in him too. It scares him, sometimes, that heat. He knows it’s dangerous. But, right now, he’s had far too much drink to care.

“You kiddin’? Shut your face, Rogers, I love your busted nose,” he continues, poking and prodding limply at Steve’s snout. “Makes you look even prettier.”

“I’m gonna bite y’ fingers off, Barnes,” Steve snarls, and Bucky feels a rush of laughter bubble from within his chest at the sheer adoration he has for this fiery little shit.

“Feisty too.”

“Guys ain’t pretty.”

“You are! Ain’t he, Bett?” Bucky turns briefly to his date, but she pays no heed, so he turns right back to Steve, lightly slapping at his rosy cheeks with his clumsy hands and cupping those sharp cheekbones in his palm. “Ain’t he the prettiest. Lookit those lashes. Long, pretty lashes y’got, Stevie. Stevie got eyelashes long as- as Jean Harlow’s legs.”

“Buck!” Steve closes his eyes tight, protesting with a wince and jerking his face away from Bucky’s hand. “Tha’s so- you’re so crass.”

“Stevie loves Jean Harlow, Betty,” Bucky continues his taunts, not really directing the conversation to Betty at all anymore. “Don’t’cha, Stevie? Gotta big poster ’bove your desk.”

“Shut it, Barnes.”

“Y’look at her legs all day.”

“Barnes!”

“Stevie wants to kiss Jean Harlow, don’t’cha, Stevie? Mwah-mwah-mwah!” Bucky uses the arm he’s still got slung over Steve’s shoulder to sway him back towards him, making silly kissy noises and leaning in closer than he knows he really ought to.

“Ugh,” Steve finally summons enough drunken strength to shove Bucky away from him and, as he sways back into his own seat, roll Bucky’s arm off his shoulder.

“Y’think Jean has good taste? Better taste than- wh- what’s her name, Bett?”

“God,” Steve groans, slumping onto the table, hot head against the cool surface of it and arms slung over his head as if to blot out the world.

“No, dumbass, it—”

“—Francesca,” Betty interrupts.

“Frank-chester, yeah! Better’an her. Jean’d kiss ya, Stevie. Anyone wi’ taste’d kiss ya, Stevie,” Bucky prods Steve’s arm, smug as all hell when Steve actually looks back up at him, then feeling his insides turn to goo as Steve holds his gaze – ocean eyes bright and searching, like he’s hanging on Bucky’s every word to try and find the truth in it. Softly, with a clumsy brush of his knuckles against Steve’s flushed cheek, Bucky mutters with as much honesty in his voice as he can convey through his drunken slurring; “Got too pretty a face to let it go t’ waste.”

And then the moment is ruined.

“I’m sure Stevie here spent just as much time making his face look pretty before this evening as I did. Maybe we ought to exchange nose-powdering techniques in the little girls’ room, Steven, seeing as you’ve been getting all the compliments tonight.”

The gears in Bucky’s brain come grinding to a halt and all the lights suddenly feel like they’re shining a spotlight directly onto him. He grimaces.

“Oh. Oh shit, Betty, I—”

“—Save it, Bucky Barnes,” Betty sighs, picking up the purse that matches her dress from the table and standing to straighten out the skirt.

Bucky stands up too, cringing at himself as he has to catch his chair before it clatters to the floor when he moves too quickly. “No, Bett, c’mon, I was jus’— look, his date up an’ left him,” he tries explaining pathetically. “I’m jus’ bein’ a good pal.”

“Well, my date up and left me too, about two drinks ago.”

“Betty, please…”

“I’d like to go home now please, Bucky.”

“Shit…” Bucky mutters, rubbing at the back of his neck. It’s useless trying to stand his ground – he knows she’s right and he’s the asshole in this situation. God, he’s such a jerk. “Yeah. Yeah, a’course. We’ll walk you.”

Betty glances at the third person at the table, who’s currently back to holding his head in his hands and staunchly not looking up at either of them. “Sure your friend’s capable of walking anymore?”

“Shit,” Bucky says again, dumbly. And then, even more dumbly; “C-could we maybe go past our place on the way?”

“Well, how else are we gonna get your pretty girl back home safe?”

He finds Steve again after dropping Betty off at home. He hadn’t bothered walking her all the way up to her door – just stood at the bottom of the steps and waited until she shut the door behind her – and she in return hadn’t bothered to turn and give him one last wave goodbye, as he was so used to girls doing to bookend their date when they were too shy or too well-to-do for a kiss. He wasn’t getting a second date.

Steve is right where he left him; on the steps outside their apartment building, passed out with his head drooping against the railings.

“You been sat on the stoop all this time?”

“Wazzat?” Steve jolts and looks up, blinking blearily in the dim light of the streetlamps and not quite registering Bucky’s presence.

“You coulda been mugged. If y’ had anything worth muggin’.”

Steve doesn’t respond, closing his eyes again and leaning forward, slowly, making a foreboding little groaning noise at the back of his throat. It was like watching a cat before a hairball.

“No no no, don’t throw up yet!” Bucky moves forward quickly to tilt Steve’s head back up and slap his shoulders, trying to jostle him back into semi-consciousness. “Wait ’til we get inside. C’mere. Alley-oop.”

Getting Steve into the building and up the stairs to their apartment isn’t as difficult as he was worried it might be; he can half carry Steve on his hip for most of the way up. As soon as they stumble in through their door, they collapse back down against it and just sit on the floor for a while.

Bucky figures he should wait until the room stopped spinning before even thinking about making any decisions on standing up again. He jumps a when Steve’s head flops against his shoulder, worried he might be about to throw up all over his nice dress shirt, but Steve just sighs and mutters a quiet “Mmm… my Buck.”

And isn’t that just the cold hard truth of it.

Bucky is his. For better or – as per tonight – worse, there is nowhere that Bucky feels he belongs more than wrapped tightly around Steve’s little finger. He’s Bucky’s Achilles heel. Bucky hates himself for it. He hates himself because he ought to be full of righteous anger; he ought to be spitting mad that no girl seems to want to look past his height or his crooked spine to see his beautiful mind and heart made of pure, twenty-four carat gold. But, in all honesty, the best moment of the whole evening for Bucky was when the Francesca girl announced she was calling it an early night. It meant that Bucky could spend more time with Steve – it gave him a reason to pester and rile him up. It turned him into a big jerk who ignored a perfectly beautiful woman who set aside her whole evening to spend it with him.

“Am I a piece’a shit?”

“What!? Where’s’is comin’ from?”

“I’m a piece’a shit.”

“No! No you’re not. Yu-you’re- best,” Steve slurs sleepily, patting Bucky’s chest in an attempt at a reassuring gesture. “Best guy I ever met, Buck.”

“No, I’m shit. I didn’t pay enough attention to Betty all night, Steve. You,” he groans, rubbing his hands down his face. “I was too- god! - you! You distract me too much sometimes, y’know, Rogers.”

“Aw, jeez, if tha’s how y’feel, Barnes…”

Suddenly, Steve’s trying to clamber to his feet, hoisting himself up off from Bucky’s chest and almost falling over the moment he’s up on his knees.

“Wai- no,” Bucky catches him quickly before he falls and breaks something. “Ste- no. Come back.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t.”

“No, fuck you, James,” Steve waves him off, pushing himself off of the door and staggering across the room towards the sofa.

“Don’t you go callin’ me ‘James’, fuck you!” Bucky manages to pull himself to his own feet too, clinging to the doorframe for stability as the room spins even worse.

“Fuck you!”

Steve collapses gracelessly, face-first onto the sofa.

Relenting, Bucky moves over to the sofa and kneels in front of Steve. “Stevie… ’m sorry.”

Steve just stubbornly turns his face away.

“Don’t be like that. Look, c’mere,” Bucky takes hold of Steve’s shoulder, and Steve doesn’t resist but he does make another irritable grumbling noise. Bucky sighs and stands back up. “Look. I’mma drink some water. You oughta drink some too.”

And, of course, Steve perks right back up at that. “Drink?”

“Water,” Bucky reiterates.

Steve loses interest again with a glum “Ugh.”

In the kitchen, Bucky fumbles through the cupboards to find the big glass they always fight over who gets to use, and waits impatiently at the sink as the water pours out in juddery spurts from the broken tap. He really ought to sort that out at some point, but the last time he attempted to fix their plumbing their water was dirty with flakes of rust and muck for a week.

Actually, thinking about it, he really ought to be saving up to hire a handyman. And not splashing out on half-assed date nights.

It’s an impossible temptation to resist, though, when poor Steve’s so clearly been slipping slowly into stir-craziness, unable to find work outside of his commissions. He deserves the break. He deserves to get drunk enough to forget the world, even if just for a while. It always seems as though whenever Steve is healthy and the sun is shining, he’s cooped up indoors working tirelessly on some new piece of advertisement without any respite – but as soon as his health takes a turn for the worse, or the weather starts getting bitingly cold, all the employers that would’ve turned him away a month or so ago start getting desperate enough for workers to let folks like Steve earn their keep.

Once the glass is full, Bucky chugs the contents in it’s entirety, not realizing just how dehydrated he is until he starts drinking. He fills the glass up again for Steve, and walks back out to their dull and dinky little living room. Steve’s sat up on the sofa with his head in his hands when Bucky sits beside him.

“Dizzy.”

“Yeah, me too, pal,” Bucky says softly, holding the glass out under Steve’s nose.

Steve takes the glass, but doesn’t drink. Just sits there swirling it around for a moment. The way his body begins to sway where he’s sitting, as if in tandem with the way he swishes the water in the glass, makes Bucky worry he’s about to fall face-forward right into it, until he mutters a quiet “…Buck?”

“Yeah, Steve?”

“D’y’think I’m a girl?” Steve asks, not looking up from the glass.

“Wh—? Wait, what? Where is this—?” Bucky frowns. “Is this cus’a what Betty said?”

“No, Buck… y’know I don’t pay no mind ’bout what anyone else thinks’a me no more…”

“Then why—?”

“—You!” Steve snaps, suddenly glaring up at Bucky with the kind of flagrant vehemence in his stormy blue eyes that makes Bucky’s breath catch in his throat. “Y’kept callin’ me… pretty. Talkin’ ’bout my eyes ’n lashes an’ callin’ me a punk an’ how I’m always distractin’ you like…” Steve clenches his jaw and looks back down again, freeing Bucky from his glare, “…like I’m some dame.”

Bucky doesn’t know why Steve’s words set his heart pounding in his chest quite so hard. Actually, that’s a lie. He does know why. He just… can’t admit to that. He swallows it all down and struggles to find the right thing to say, but it doesn’t come. Instead, words strung together in a pathetic excuse for comfort come stuttering out of him; “W-what’s so wrong with bein’ pretty?”

“Girls are pretty, Buck,” Steve mumbles quietly, tracing a spindly forefinger around the circumference of the glass. “Not guys. Not men. But hey! I guess I’m not a man anyway. Real men don’t get pneumonia when there’s a cool breeze outside.”

“Steve,” Bucky sighs helplessly.

There’s nothing Bucky can really say to that. Nothing he ever says seems to make any difference – however many times Bucky reassures Steve just how strong and brave he is, it doesn’t matter. The words don’t even go in one ear and out of the other, because Steve doesn’t even let them in in the first place. He’s always trying to prove himself, but it never does any good, Bucky thinks, because he’d never accept it if he did manage to prove anything. He could beat up ten guys single-handedly in a dark alley, win a hundred boxing championships, woo a million dames, and he’d still feel inadequate. It hurts like hell to know he’ll never see himself as Bucky does.

“Maybe I shoulda been a girl.”

“You’re way too drunk right now, Steve.”

“No,” Steve’s bottom lip trembles, his eyes closed tight and brows knitted together. “No, cus if I was a girl, it’d be okay. An’ I wouldn’t have’ta hate myself – an’ Ma wouldn’t have’ta be turnin’ in her grave outta shame – a-an’ you—”

“—Woah, woah, easy, Rogers, easy now!” Bucky interrupts, taking the glass from Steve’s tightening fist and setting it safe on the floor. He knows Steve’s head is in a shitty place whenever he brings up Sarah like that. That’s the other problem with Steve and his dumb fucking sense of inferiority; he’s got it in his head that, if he isn’t good enough, his mother is up there looking down at him like her son – the son she never once expressed one ounce of disappointment for in life – is nothing but a failure. And it’s ridiculous, but, ever since she died, Steve has felt like he’s been letting her down somehow. Especially when he’s drunk and sad.

“Time out, Rogers,” Bucky says as soothingly as he can, curling an arm around Steve’s shoulder and pulling him close, not letting Steve succeed in his half-hearted attempts to wriggle away. “Drink’s gone to your heart, ain’t it, pal?” With his other hand, Bucky gently takes Steve’s face and tilts him to look him in the eye. “It’s makin’ you feel cruddy, huh? That’s all it is, Stevie. Whatever you’re feelin’, it’s just the drink.”

“You’re wrong, Buck…” Steve chokes out, his bony little chin crumpling as his bottom lip still wavers. “Feel it all the time… You make me feel it all the time…”

And, Jesus Christ, what the fuck is Bucky supposed to say to that? His gut twists in a tight knot, and maybe the alcohol’s gone to his heart too, because his eyes are starting to sting. Before Steve has a chance to see any sign of weakness, Bucky pulls him into his arms, wrapping them tight around him and exhaling sweet relief when Steve wraps his arms around him too.

“C’mere,” He mutters, tucking his legs up onto the sofa and dragging Steve with him as he lays back. Steve doesn’t try to fight back – thank God – and Bucky crowds him against the back of the sofa, letting him hide his face in Bucky’s chest and, in turn, letting Bucky hide his own face from him.

Bucky strokes Steve’s back in a slow, repetitive motion. Initially, it’s to soothe Steve, but the repetition ends up soothing Bucky in tow, and gives him a chance to compose himself as Steve’s breathing calms and evens out. Bucky may hate the winter months for what they do to Steve, but he misses them every summertime when it’s too hot to warrant cuddling close for warmth, and Bucky has to go back to his own bed. He wished he could hold Steve this close every night. Every goddamn night of the whole goddamn year.

“I can’t lose you, Buck…” Bucky hears and feels Steve’s warm breath mutter into the fabric of his shirt. “You’re the only… you’re all I got in this whole world, Buck, I can’t…”

“Lose me? Where you think I’m goin’, huh, pal?” Bucky gives Steve’s shoulders a squeeze. “I’m right here.”

“You’re gonna leave me when you find out,” Steve says, voice so quiet it’s barely there.

“Find out what, Stevie?”

“You know… The big secret.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat. Steve’s pressed so close to his chest he must hear how fast Bucky’s heart is thudding. He’s scared as he asks, but he knows he’ll regret it for the rest of his life if he doesn’t. “What big secret?”

“That I’m in love with you.”

And there it is.

It’s been said out loud now.

It feels like everything stops for a moment. The world that spun like a wild carousel around the two of them shudders to a halt just for a second; even the dust that floats in the air of their run-down tenement freezes and hangs in the air.

Everything – and yet nothing – changes in an instant.

“Can’t ever find out…” Steve continues, quiet voice gliding through the heavy silence that the sudden end of the world he has caused creates. “Nobody can’t never ever find out… S’pecially not you, Buck. You’d hate me… An’ I don’t think I could bear livin’ in a world where you hate me.”

Bucky wants to say something. He wants to so bad it hurts his chest. But it all gets caught up in his throat. He feels like he’s choking on it. Steve looks up at him with those glimmering baby blues – unfocused, still drunk and roaming indecisively over Bucky’s face and neck – and suddenly Bucky realizes he has forgotten how to breathe.

“S’you gotta promise…” Steve whispers, “you gonna keep it secret…”

“Y-yeah… yeah. I promise, Stevie…”

Steve smiles, all lop-sided and sleepy. “You call me purdy. Look at ’em eyes…”

Bucky flinches – not that Steve notices – as his hand reaches up and cups his cheek, thumb running over his cheekbones, just in Bucky’s peripheral vision. The way Steve gazes into his eyes is so soft that it feels like an attack. And then his hand is brushing – feather-light – down his cheek, eyes following slowly, taking in all the details of Bucky’s face. So like an artist.

“That chin… Y’got a dimple on y’chin, Buck, d’you know that?” Steve’s thumb presses gently into the divot and Bucky is vaguely aware of his own lips parting of their own accord. “I think all the girls like your chin dimple. I know I do…” Steve looks at him now with the kind of glint in his eyes he gets when they share the stupid jokes only the two of them understand. “Told ya I oughta been a girl.”

Bucky returns the same look. He can’t help it. He feels helpless in his own body right now, and there’s no alcohol in the world, he thinks, that could make him feel this high. “You’d’a made a terrible girl, Rogers. Get in too many scraps for a lady.”

“Yeah… But you might’a loved me back.”

“Who says I don’t right now…?”

Steve’s face contorts into an awful, sad little smile. And, god, Bucky hates it. “Cus you ain’t a fairy, Buck. You’re a real… man.”

The truth is, Steve’s half right. Bucky isn’t a fairy; not all the way. Girls are beautiful and fun. They set his blood pumping when they make eyes at him across a crowded room. He loves the way they make him feel when he holds them in his arms – and he loves the way their skirts billow out when he twirls them on the dancefloor – and the way they sound when he’s kissing down their necks – and the way they smell when – and the way they taste when – and – and – and…

And yet he’s not not a fairy.

Sometimes just looking at another man sets his heart racing faster than making love to a woman ever could. Because the way it feels the same as looking at a girl scares the shit out of him. Same butterflies, same sweaty palms. And a hundred times worse when the man that makes him feel that way is Steve.

But there’s no way he can put that into words right now – not in any way that would make any sense.

“I thought real men weren’t ‘pretty’,” he says instead.

The world brightens once again when Steve grins right back at him. “Y’got me there, Barnes… Y’got the prettiest lips I ever seen…” Steve traces across Bucky’s jaw, and back up to the corner of his smirk. Bucky splits the difference by tilting his head into Steve’s hand, letting his thumb brush over his lips. He knows Steve wants to. He wants it too. He wants Steve’s hands – those perfect artist’s hands – on him. Wants them everywhere. “No dame’s ever had lips prettier’an yours… paint ’em as red as they like, no one’s ever gonna have lips like this… You’re always poutin’, Barnes…”

“You always givin’ me a reason to pout,” Bucky replies softly, but Steve isn’t listening. His eyes are far too glazed; he’s somewhere else entirely.

“An’ they’re always so pretty an’ pink… like… like cotton candy…” They’re so close now that Steve’s warm breath tickles Bucky’s lips; he smells like gin and smokes and the cologne he had to borrow from Bucky that evening. It stirs something primal and possessive within Bucky. “You let me share your cotton candy one time when I dropped mine off the side of the pier at Coney Island… you remember? Must’a been fourteen… Made me wonder…”

“Wonder what, Stevie…?”

“Your lips, Buck… Are they soft an’ sweet like cotton candy…? ’Cause they sure as hell look like it…”

And who the hell is Bucky to deny Steve the answers to such a burning curiosity? Bucky leans the last inch closer to fill the space between their lips. It’s harmless at first – gentle, chaste – and Bucky doesn’t know whether his own lips are as soft or sweet as Steve had hoped but, Jesus Christ, in spite of how chapped they are – they’re always chapped, and Bucky fucking always wants to kiss them until they’re wet and plump and rosy – Steve’s lips are warm now, and giving, and Bucky can’t help but take more than he ought to – can’t help but press a little harder, push both their boundaries just that little bit wider. He feels Steve’s palm run down his cheek and clasp around the back of his neck, pulling him in, their noses bumping uncomfortably, and reaches out with his own hand to cup Steve’s – hot, bright, burning – face, and when Steve’s tongue laves at his bottom lip he finds himself groaning, opening up for Steve like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like they’ve been doing this forever.

God, Bucky’s chest hurts. His hands have been up more than his fair share of girls’ skirts; he’s had plenty of girls kissing him deep and dirty with tongues and teeth and moans, but none of it – nothing before this – had felt so outright filthy – Steve’s lips crushed against Bucky’s own like he’s starving for it, but his tongue moving so tentatively in his mouth like he’s scared he’ll hurt Bucky – or felt so damn right. God, does it feel right to kiss this man.

“Fuck, Steve…” Bucky exhales hotly when they part. He holds Steve as close as he can, foreheads pressed together, wanting as much of Steve’s skin against his own as possible.

“Buck…” Steve shudders in his arms, fist gripping now at Bucky’s shirt collar.

They lay there, cradling each other, catching their breath. Bucky wants to kiss him again so bad, but he’s scared. He doesn’t want to ruin this. They’ve already gone too far tonight as it is.

He wonders how Steve is feeling right now – needs to know, but doesn’t want to ask.

Steve loves him. Steve kissed him back. And what the fuck does that actually mean? What does that mean for them now? Where do they go from this?

He should get up and go to bed, but if he leaves Steve’s embrace now the world will collapse in on itself and Bucky’s heart might just tear itself in two.

So he stays. He stays until Steve’s grip on his collar loosens and his breathing evens out into a slow and steady rhythm. He’s convinced Steve is asleep, and makes a move to get up to carry Steve to bed, when Steve grabs at his shirt again.

“Ng-no,” Steve grumbles, eyes still closed. “Shh. No. St-stay. Bucky’s’sleep in th’bedroom. Sh. Don’ wake ’im. Stay.”

Bucky takes a breath, unable to prevent the shudder in it as he does, and settles back down. “Alright… Alright, Stevie.”

“He can’t ever know.”

They shouldn’t have done this.

“I won’t ever tell him, pal. I promise.”

They shouldn’t be doing this now.

“Mmm… S’why I love you, Buck.”

They should have done it years ago.

Bucky wakes up to a horrible, horrible ache in his stomach and a godawful pounding in his head. He sits up abruptly, not knowing why, but feeling some sort of sense of urgency, and immediately regrets it. He finds himself keeling over, groaning and gripping at the blanket over his lap.

Oh shit. He’s gonna throw up.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

He should probably move and make a dash for the bathroom, but his body refuses to cooperate. It’s like the message that he’s awake now only made it down his body as far as his hips, and his legs are still unconscious.

“I’m gonna throw up,” he says again, a touch more urgently, as if willing himself to get the fuck up, but it doesn’t happen.

Enough time passes – he’s not exactly sure how long because he has currently lost all awareness of the passage of time – for his stomach to settle enough that he can collapse back into the pillows without worrying too much about imminent vomiting all over the bedsheets.

“I’m not gonna throw up,” he updates for the man beside him.

“Oh, god, everything hurts,” the man groans.

And, yeah. Steve’s right. Oh, god. Everything does hurt. His mouth is dry and yet his body is covered in sticky, gross sweat. Everything hurts and everything is gross and all Bucky can do right now is lay down facing upwards at the ceiling in the hopes that gravity will help prevent the bile from gurgling up from his stomach – his poor, poor mistreated stomach that he filled with far too much drink last night.

“How the fuck did we get home? Did we walk?” He grumbles, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hand. It doesn’t help the dizziness but it does feel good for some reason.

“Oh my god,” Steve moans, unhelpfully, clearly still processing having woken up in the first place.

“We gotta find out if anyone dropped us off,” Bucky presses. “I feel like we owe ’em a fruit basket or something.”

“If I wasn’t so hung-over right now I’d make a joke about you being the fruit basket.”

“If I wasn’t so hung-over right now I’d sock you in the jaw,” Bucky retorts with a smirk – despite himself – and turns to Steve. God, the big lug is beautiful in the mornings. No matter how hung-over he is.

“You could, but I’d just throw up on you,” Steve mutters, eyes closed tight and frowning like he’s concentrating on something – probably on not throwing up.

“Oh, god. Don’t mention throwin’ up.”

“Vomit.”

“Don’t.”

“Puke.”

“Fuck, I hate you so much,” Bucky finds himself laughing.

“Why’d you marry me, then?” Steve gives him a feeble kick on the shins beneath the sheets.

Bucky shrugs and stretches, his strained muscles and aching bones making themselves known as he does so. “Someone’s gotta keep you outta trouble.”

Bucky rests his arm on the pillow just above Steve’s head, and his husband takes that as an invitation to shuffle closer, hand flopping lightly on Bucky’s chest as he snuggles up to him. Bucky smiles adoringly at the sleepy idiot.

They hadn’t drank like that – like last night – for years. Hadn’t been able to. But one of Steve’s buddy’s – a god, apparently, which honestly didn’t surprise Bucky as much as he feels it probably should have – brought a keg of something that actually did manage to get them both plastered like teenagers again. Being hungover again feels bizarre, though. And yet all too painfully familiar.

Finally, Steve manages to pry his eyes open to blink up at Bucky. God, those eyelashes. Bucky always did love those eyelashes.

“G’morning,” Steve smiles.

“Morning,” Bucky smiles right back.

Politely, Steve turns his head away to yawn. “Urgh. How much do you remember about last night?”

“Uhh…” Bucky squinted into the middle distance, mentally retracing his steps back as early as he could take them. He’d had enough practice with remembering things, and he’d liked to consider himself quite the expert. “There was… twister?”

“Oh shit. Yeah. Twister… Did I straddle someone?”

“I think you straddled Thor.”

“Oh,” Steve says, sounding kind of smug. “Good for me.”

“Kinda jealous.”

“Aw. Don’t like seeing me with other guys, huh?” Steve adds, sounding far too smug.

“Nah, jealous of you,” Bucky quips. “Wish I got to straddle Thor.”

Steve looks wounded at the comment, though Bucky sees the way his lips – wide open in gaped offense – turn up at the corners. The hand that was resting on Bucky’s chest is lifted limply to slap Bucky’s cheek, though it’s more of a tap with the palm of his hand than an actual slap, and Steve doesn’t remove it, so now he’s just cupping Bucky’s face.

“You’re such a jerk,” Steve grumbles as he strokes Bucky’s cheek with his thumb. “I married a jerk.”

Bucky chuckles, tilting his head into Steve’s touch to kiss the heel of his hand. “Damn right you did. You’re stuck with me now, pal.”

Steve smiles at him, and for a moment or two Bucky forgets the aches and pains in his body. Because, as long as he has woken up beside Steve, nothing else matters. Nothing in the whole world matters more than Steve. He is the ultimate painkiller. Ultimate pain in the ass, sure, but ultimate painkiller too.

Not that the moment lasts very long, that is; they’re soon back to wallowing in mutual self-pity over their achy bodies and spinning heads.

“God, I want potato waffles so bad right now,” Steve voices both their thoughts so eloquently.

“I feel like if I don’t get caffeine in me in the next few minutes I might actually die.”

Taking one for the team, Steve sits up and, grunting with discomfort at having to move at all, shuffles to the end of the bed. “I’ll make breakfast,” he announces, and grabs at his dressing gown hung up on the bedroom door.

“If I could marry you again I would,” Bucky calls as Steve leaves the room.

“Love you too, pal.”

Apparently Bucky passes out again, because the next thing he’s conscious of is the – distinctly smoky when it really oughtn’t be – scent of Steve’s cooking, and someone prodding at his shoulder.

“Wakey wakey.”

“Mrph…?” Bucky looks up, and is treated to the wondrous sight of Steve with a wide tray of breakfast. “Oh. Oh my god, I love you so much,” he makes a grab at the cup of coffee first, moaning indecently as he lifts it to his lips and takes a gulp of the fucking glorious libation. “Oh my god, I love you so much,” he whispers again, not knowing if he’s saying it to Steve or the coffee.

“Uh huh,” Steve says as he shuffles back into bed beside him, scarfing one of the potato waffles with his bare hands like an animal, even though he had put a couple of forks on the tray. “Y’know, the best part is this is the very first batch I made. I didn’t burn the first batch and there’s absolutely no reason you should check the trash later.”

“Soon as my stomach stops doin’ flips I’m suckin’ your dick,” Bucky informs with gratitude in-between chugs of his coffee.

“How romantic,” Steve scoffs with his mouth full. “Just brush your teeth before you kiss me.”

“Noted.”

Bucky digs into a potato waffle – using a fork because, unlike Steve apparently, he wasn’t raised in a barn – and the relief at having solid starchiness in his stomach is almost immediate. It doesn’t make the stomach ache go away, but it helps. They eat in a comfortable silence for a while, each making little noises of satisfaction as they munch through an entire pack of potato waffles and their coffees.

But slowly, Bucky starts to notice the change in atmosphere.

The silence becomes a less comfortable, and a little more weighty. In the corner of his eye, he sees Steve fiddling with the handle of the fork anxiously, and he can sense he’s building up to something.

“Hey… Buck?”

Here it comes.

“Mhm?”

“D’you… do you remember our… first kiss?”

Bucky finishes his mouthful of waffle and licks at this lips, fighting back the nerves. “In that tent in Switzerland? The mountains at sunset?” he asks softly. “Sure I remember. We swapped tags and made love for the first time. Couldn’t possibly forget… Why?”

“Oh, no, it’s… no, nevermind.”

Bucky puts the fork down to refrain from poking Steve with it in his irritation. “What is it?”

“No, it’s just…” Steve is determinedly avoiding eye contact with Bucky now, and Bucky doesn’t appreciate it. “It’s such a nice memory, ain’t it?”

“Sure. One of my favorites.”

“Yeah… Yeah, that’s all.”

“Except…?”

Steve sighs and, finally, turns back to Bucky. “Except… well, what if… what if that wasn’t our first kiss?”

Bucky swears he feels his heart stop for a second.

Shit. What has he forgotten this time?

So many times Steve has struck up a conversation about their shared past, always ever-so-carefully trying to tease the memories from Bucky’s tangled mess of a brain so they can reminisce on them together, but so many times Bucky has had to sit there without any recollection of what Steve is talking about, and it hurts. He knows it hurts Steve too. It never stopped Steve trying, though. And Bucky’s glad it didn’t, because it happens a lot less now; Bucky has discovered that, when you’ve had it wiped from you and felt it being torn apart from the inside of your own mind, memory is more of a practiced skill than an instinct. But it still happens sometimes. Sometimes Steve will ask him if he remembers something and… there’s just nothing there in his head.

“Oh…?” He asks cautiously.

“What if… what if we kissed… before then?” Steve looks at him. His eyes are pleading, and Bucky feels so wrapped up in guilt that he can’t remember and it’s making his stomach turn and, god, Bucky has to grip at the covers and swallow hard to stop himself throwing up because he does not need this this morning…

Until…

“Wait…” the penny drops. “…But you… you told me you didn’t remember that night!”

Steve’s cheeks light up a rosy hue. “I didn’t. Not at first, but… it came back to me. Later on.”

“You remembered it,” relief washes over Bucky as he exhales. “You son of a bitch.”

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve murmurs sheepishly.

“C’mere, you punk,” Bucky grins and throws his arms around Steve before he has the chance to hug Bucky first. “D’you know how stressed out I was after that night? D’you know how awful it was pretending like nothin’ happened?”

He ruffles Steve’s hair, perhaps a tad too harshly than he should for someone who’s working off a hang-over, but Steve deserves it. Steve just laughs softly and presses his face into Bucky’s neck arms wrapping tight around Bucky’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” he says against Bucky’s skin. “Forgive me, Buck. Say you forgive me.”

“You asshole! D’you know how long I had to live with the memory of that night? God, it ate me up inside, Stevie!” Bucky carried on scolding, no malice in his words at all as he holds Steve tight. “Havin’ to act like I didn’t know how perfect those goddamn lips of yours are – not bein’ able to kiss you again! Do you have any idea—!?”

Bucky’s list of grievances are interrupted as Steve tilts his head up and surges forward to kiss him, prior demands for dental hygiene clearly brushed to the wayside, just this once. Bucky laughs into the kiss as Steve presses against him, firm and playful. He finds his hands tangling in Steve’s golden, disheveled bed hair and pulling him in.

Steve only pulls away with a snort of laughter when Bucky gives his bottom lip a little nip. He doesn’t pull away entirely though, keeping those big super-soldier hands resting on Bucky’s back, holding him close, and his forehead pressed against Bucky’s. They’re both grinning like idiots.

“You taste like coffee.”

“Oh?” Bucky quirks an eyebrow. “Not cotton candy?”

“Fuck off, jerk,” Steve chuckles. “I changed my mind. Ain’t nothin’ about you that’s like cotton candy.”

Bucky beams at Steve, and he finds himself wondering – for the billionth time in his life – just what it was he did to deserve this gorgeous bastard at his side, let alone as his husband. Even after everything they’ve been through, they’re still waking up together.

What was it that the museum had said? Inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Yeah. Yeah, Bucky liked that thought. Inseparable.

“I didn’t tell you that night, did I?”

“Tell me what?” Steve asks, voice soft and warm on Bucky’s lips.

“I’m in love with you too, Stevie. And I always have been.”