Archive of Our Own ^beta

Bucky’s new hiding spot is at the tippy top of Avengers Tower, where no one is really supposed to be out of concern of falling off and dying.

And really Bucky knows he shouldn’t be coming up here but honestly he’s coming off of being the goddamn Winter Soldier and is having a really hard time dealing with it. This is also what he’s been telling himself for the last six months. Because if he starts thinking too much about still being in love with Steve Rogers after all these years, he’s going to vomit. Seriously.

Steve is on another date tonight. Bucky saw to it, helping him pick out his outfit and flowers for his date. Before he had left, Steve was fiddling with his shirt collar in the bathroom mirror. “How do I look?” Steve had asked.

Bucky was staring at him with his head leaning on the door frame. “You look good, Stevie.” And then Steve had left without another glance back at Bucky. Bucky was fine. He was getting over it.

Bucky’s climbing to his spot to mope and watch the city because it’s always just the right amount of distracting when he startles at the sight of Steve sitting in his spot. “What are you doing here?” he blurts out.

Steve glances over, eyes alert until meeting Bucky’s. They fade into something soft, something Bucky doesn’t want to think about. “Hey, Buck.”

Steve sounds tired. He’s been sounding tired as of late. Bucky isn’t really sure why. They’ve had a couple missions here and there, just a few alien attacks and bad guys who need a good beating up. Nothing they couldn’t handle. Nothing Steve couldn’t handle. Bucky makes his way over to where Steve is sitting but tries not to get too close. It’s bad for his heart, seeing Steve sitting there, the city lights reflecting off his shining eyes.

Steve watches as Bucky sits next to him on the edge of the building. His blue eyes pierce Bucky’s before Steve looks away into the distance. As far away as he is.

“How was the date?” Bucky asks. He tucks a lock of his long hair behind his ear but it falls right back in front of his face. He turns to face Steve who refuses to look back at him. So confident before, but it’s lost now, somewhere in the city.

“I didn’t go,” Steve says.

“You stood them up?” Bucky asks, disappointment laced in his voice.

“No. Just told them I got sick. Then I walked around for a while. Now I’m here.”

“Are you okay, Steve?” Bucky looks over at Steve. He looks so lost.

There’s a silence for a minute or two.“How do you fall out of love with someone?” Steve says out of nowhere.

Bucky feels his heart drop. “Out?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky pauses for a moment. “Someone you need to fall out with, Stevie?” It comes out quieter than he wanted it to. More intimate. He feels nauseous. God, he should have never come here tonight.

Just last night he was up here, willing the sounds of the city to distract him from the hurt in his heart. Begging someone, something, to let him let it go. Let Steve go. It’s been 90 years and he still can’t get over his first love.

Bucky’s learning a lot of new things about himself in the 21st century. Like how he’s allowed to more openly love who he wants to now. How it should be easier for him to love Steve now. But he’s also learning now that it hurts just the same as it did in 1942. He’s learning how to Google “Is it normal for your heart to hurt after heartbreak?” He’s managing. He’s getting through it.

Steve chuckles and finally looks up at Bucky through his fringe. “You could say.”

Bucky stares at Steve, willing himself not to leave right now and curse the world for this sick joke it’s playing on him. It’s like Steve knew he had this internal battle with himself 24 hours earlier in the same exact spot.

“C’mon Bucky. Humor me for a second,” Steve breaks him out of his stupor. “Maybe I'm speaking in hypotheticals.”

Bucky looks up at Steve. Breathes in and out and then looks out at the city in front of them. The city that had once been theirs. Nothing but two young boys with no clue of what the world had in store for them.

“Well. I guess it depends. Why do you need to fall out of love?”

When Bucky looks up, Steve is still staring at him. He wishes he wouldn’t. It feels like he knows what Bucky is thinking. He knows. He knows. He knows.

He knows it all.

“The thing is, Buck, I don’t think I’m meant for this century. I go on so many dates, I meet all these people Nat sets me up with and every time, I look across the table and wish it were him. And I don’t get it! I don’t. After all this time, I only see him. Maybe I’m dating wrong in this century. Makes no sense to me.”

Bucky sucks in a breath. “Him?”

“Hypotheticals,” Steve chastises with a wag of his finger.

“Okay, so hypothetically, you're in love with someone and you're always thinking about him?”

“I’m stuck in the wrong century. I still feel like I’m in the last century with him.”

“You’re stuck with me, I guess,” Bucky breathes out a laugh. A bit self pitying, like he feels bad Steve’s stuck here with him if he really hates it that much.

“Oh come on, Bucky. There’s no one I would rather be stuck with,” Steve says, so earnestly Bucky’s heart hurts.

“Don’t say that.” Bucky looks away from Steve, away from the city in front of him.

They’re quiet for a moment. Bucky is trying to take it all in but it’s hard. He looks back at Steve who hasn’t taken his eyes off of Bucky.

“How come you never told me? I was with you in the last century, too,” Bucky says after a moment.

“You don't need to know everything going on in my life,” Steve bites.

Hurt flashes across Bucky’s face. Maybe Steve wouldn’t want to tell his best friend who’s clearly in love with him, but wouldn’t he want to tell his best friend? His best friend who stayed with him when he was as scrawny as a string bean waiting for pneumonia to take him? His best friend who recognized him even in his Winter Soldier state?

Steve backtracks. “I didn't mean it like that, I just…” He pauses.

“What?”

“There’s some things I’m just embarrassed about,” Steve admits while scratching his neck.

“You're embarrassed to love him?” Bucky asks.

“No! No. God, I’m so bad at this. At all of this,” he gestures around him. “I’m in a century I don’t belong in, I’m living in the future, and I’m still in love with this guy from my childhood. I don’t know how anything works here and I feel fucking stupid.”

Steve and Bucky sit there for a moment, taking that all in.

“Tell me about him,” Bucky says, despite everything in him saying no.

“I can’t,” Steve says.

Bucky huffs out a sigh of relief. “Why not?”

“Because I've never admitted I'm in love with him. Until, right now, I guess. Right now, when I'm saying I need to fall out of love with him.” Steve says.

“That’s sad,” Bucky blurts out despite himself.

Steve laughs. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Why was it so hard to admit that? To say that out loud.” Bucky asks.

“It makes it real,” Steve admits. “I can’t pretend it’s not there if I tell someone else.”

They’re quiet for a moment, sitting with the weight of that. Looking off into the distance, the sounds of the city fade into the background for just a moment. It’s just them now. Just them.

“I made myself fall out of love once, too,” Bucky says after a beat.

Steve looks over at Bucky. “Did it work?”

Bucky looks down at his hands, avoiding Steve’s questioning eyes. “No. For a little bit, maybe. But no.”

“You were in love with someone and didn’t tell me?” Steve asks, quietly and seriously.

Bucky goes to make an excuse, before Steve laughs and punches his shoulder. “I’m messing with you, Buck,” Steve says. “You can have your secrets,” he says quieter.

“I guess I had a similar situation to you,” Bucky pauses after this and Steve waits for him to continue. “I didn't want to admit it to myself. That I loved him. Even that made it too real. To say that to myself.”

Steve moves closer to Bucky. “Does it still feel real?”

Bucky is brave now. He stares Steve down as he whispers “Yes.” Timid and fragile, but still confident.

“As much as I don’t want to admit it,” Bucky says with a small shrug of his shoulders.

“So what’d you do to stop it?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know. Moved out of Brooklyn, stopped talking to him for a while. Went on dates with other people but imagined him on the other side of the table. Joined the war, met him again, realized it never went away. Lost him. Lost myself. But through it all, it was still… it was still him.” Bucky admits.

“Still?” Steve’s so close now that Bucky can count his eyelashes. They're pretty and long, and Steve’s eyes glisten with the moonlight.

Bucky just nods, unable to say it. It’s real now. There’s no way Steve doesn’t know now.

“That’s funny because…” Steve pauses. “I remember it all like that, too.”

“Remember what?” Bucky asks.

“How you left and came back to me,” Steve says with a pretty pink blush on his cheeks.

All Bucky can muster up is a weak “Huh.” He knows. He has to. Bucky’s not sure if that terrifies him or excites him. He’s frozen in place, unable to say anything. He waits for Steve to say something.

“Bucky, I’ve been on more first dates than I can count this year alone,” Steve finally says.

“I know, Steve.”

“And every single time, I’ve been the person to get rejected. At the end of the date, they stand up and say ‘Thank you for a nice dinner but I don’t see this going farther.’ I always ask them why. Why? I’m just trying to make it in this century, trying to understand how dating works. I want to be better. And my date always says ‘Your mind is somewhere else with someone else.’” He points to Bucky.

Bucky’s breath catches in his throat. “Don’t say that. Don’t blame your failed dates on me, Steve,” he whispers

Steve huffs. “Bucky, I’m blaming myself! I’m putting it on me! I’m putting it on,” he gestures between him and Bucky. “I’m blaming it on all of this,” he says gesturing to his body. Steve laughs.

Bucky stays quiet for a moment. “It was never gonna work, Steve.”

“Maybe not back then,” Steve says.

“Maybe not now either,” Bucky argues back.

“We’ll never know unless we try.”

“What does trying entail?” Bucky asks.

Steve looks at him for a second before making his mind up. “Bucky, can I kiss you?”

Bucky stares. “Are you fucking with me?”

Steve laughs quietly. “No, I’m not fucking with you.” He moves closer to Bucky. “I would never, Buck.” Steve puts his hand on Bucky’s cheek. Bucky can’t look him in the eye.

“Bucky.” Steve tilts Bucky’s head up a bit, so that he’s able to make eye contact with him. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Bucky whispers.

Steve pulls Bucky’s face closer to his and waits for a moment. They’re breathing in each other’s air. For a moment, Bucky thinks Steve is going to pull back, say “gotcha!,” and pretend this never happened. They can come back from this, right? Best friends can have a moment of homoerotic misjudgement. It might be awkward for a while, but they can come back from it.

Just as this thought hits Bucky’s mind, Steve dips in and catches Bucky’s lips with his own.

Bucky sighs into the kiss. He’s only been waiting 90 years for this. And boy, is it worth it. He’d wait another 90 if it meant he got to kiss Steve Rogers just one more time.

Steve has both hands on him now, cupping his head and Bucky grabs Steve’s shirt, grasping for something, for Steve. He has him now though. He doesn’t have to grasp.

“Bucky,” Steve mumbles against Bucky’s lip. His name coming out of Steve’s lips sounds like a prayer. Bucky breaks the kiss for a minute to stand up and straddle Steve’s thighs.

“Steve, we can’t come back from this.” Bucky says, voice shaking.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all or nothing, pal. I can’t not have you after this.”

Steve smiles. “Good. ‘Cause I was thinking the same thing.”

Bucky smiles. Steve knows. He knows. And thank God he does.