I taught you to swing dance in the living room of your apartment. We had the curtains closed and the record player on as loud as it could go. I kept trying to teach you the lead, but you kept taking the woman's part instead. "Я научил вас танцевать свинг в гостиной вашей квартиры. У нас были закрыты шторы и проигрыватель проигрывателя как можно громче. Я продолжал пытаться научить тебя вести, но ты продолжал брать женская часть вместо." He said quickly, looking up at Steve. He didn't seem to realize that he had reverted to Russian. "Я помню."
"Hey," Steve said, taking a cautious step forward, not even thinking about his shield in the corner. "It's okay." He sighed, trying to speak softly, and offer perhaps a bit of comfort to Bucky, though he felt like he didn't know how.
He took another slow step, pacing himself, meeting Bucky's dark and frantic eyes,
"I'm never going to let you fall again."
Bucky shook his head quickly. "Мы не могли позволить людям увидеть, что мы делаем, потому что, если бы они думали, что мы странные, они бы никогда не позволили мне заручиться поддержкой. Тогда это было незаконно. Но ты споткнулся, и я поймал тебя и почти …" He stared up at Steve. We couldn’t let people see what we’re doing, because if they thought we were queer, they would never let me enlist. It was illegal, then. But you tripped and I caught you and we almost…
Bucky was having some type of flashback, Steve decided. "I don't.." He wanted to say he didn't understand but realized that whatever Bucky was saying was important to him, and it was some type of…self-soothing way for Bucky to confront the thing he was talking about, "Hey," Steve said softly, reaching for his arm so slow, like he was afraid to touch him. That he might shatter at any moment and spiral into shock.
Bucky blinked up at him, clinging to that one single memory as he watched Steve. He swallowed, shaking his head quickly to clear it. His brown hair was still drying, and his pale blue eyes were wide and slightly unfocused. He was finally silent, done speaking. He was still watching Steve carefully.
Steve's eyes might have hindered on the now still Bucky for a moment too long. He shook his head. The music. He noticed, Bucky– here, It felt like a dream. The record playing skipped and started playing something slow, and familiar.
Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore trees
Dream a– little dream of me.
He chuckled, nervous and held out his hand,
"Care to dance?" He smiled, repeating the words Buck once told him to say.
"Depends, you gonna step on my feet again?" Bucky's mouth was forming the words in a way that felt all too familiar, though his mind had no idea where they came from, what he was trying to say. He blinked in surprise, looking up at Steve. The song sent an itch through his mind, sending faint traces of memories winding through his brain.
Steve laughed quietly, the first real laugh he'd had in a while,
"I guess you're going to have to see." And slowly, Steve's hands met Bucky's, a shiver going down his back, and there they moved, swaying in a gentle waltz.
What was this feeling? Longing, perhaps. Whatever it was, Steve thought, it made things seem a little less painful. Bucky leaning onto his chest, head on his shoulder, and them together, moving slowly side to side. The music, almost foggy in an ethereal moving.
Bucky had his head on Steve's shoulder mostly out of instinct. He had no idea what he was doing like this. His body remembered this, but his mind didn't. He could remember snatches from HYDRA. That he behaved better with blonde handlers. That if he was taken out of cryofreeze on July 4, he went ballistic and couldn't be controlled. That when he was in the city, he checked alleyways. For what, his handlers were never sure. It was the same memory of his body that controlled him now, telling him how to move and what to do.
Steve lowered his heavy gaze, nearly closing his eyes, After all these years, He thought, He still smells the same.
He thought of all the times Bucky swooped in to save him from some fight, his firm grip lifting him off the ground, and later pushing each other affectionately, side to side, on their way to wherever they were going.
I could stay like this forever, Here, at this moment; nothing could be confirmed or denied. Just us.
Bucky stayed silent, eyes closing and inhaling and Steve's scent, which was both familiar and not. He sighed softly. He didn't know what he was doing, and he wasn't sure he ever would. He could remember teaching Steve to swing dance. Could remember holding the man in front of him. But…he had been smaller, then. And he couldn't remember why.
Steve exhaled, sighing in his state of peace. The fact that it wasn't a dream—something telling the truth wrapped in the physical, touchable fact of the body—healed him in ways that he could not have known were possible.
This was no dream; or maybe it was…for one day or forever. The whole thing made him feel there was no turning back. He was going to walk away from his past, leave it behind—and focus on his future, which, right now, was helping Bucky. Slowly, he drifted away, taking the smallest step back so he'd meet Bucky's eyes,
"C'mon," Steve said playfully, "Let's get you some supper."
Bucky nodded, and let go of Steve, stepping away as his eyes opened. He didn't know what was expected of him. Didn't know what Steve wanted from him. He took a deep breath, and let it out in a sharp sigh. He was wearing Steve's pajamas, which, while long sleeved, did nothing to hide the metal arm and hand. He knew that that wasn't normal, but he wasn't quite sure why.
Steve served the mac n' cheese into two bowls, placing them across from each other at his small dinner table, and went back for some cutlery and water. As he set the table, he smiled to himself, though he didn't really know why. Maybe it was the thought of settling down– or rather, having time to sit down to a meal, seemed so appealing right now.
His purpose was to serve his country in the war of the past, and seventy years later, he found out they'd won. Maybe, he'd had enough. Maybe this was a sign that the world didn't need him anymore…but Bucky did.
Bucky hesitantly sat down. For some reason, this felt vaguely familiar. As if he had done this before…but when, he couldn't imagine. He couldn't imagine when he would have done something like this, but… based on that one memory, maybe he had. He didn't know.
Steve sat down with Bucky and began eating, not realizing how hungry he was. All he'd had today was a bagel, and coffee from a diner down the road with a neon sign that said "World's Best Coffee," in which he thought to himself,
"sure, sound's good." Sighing, he shook his head, "So much has changed, Buck." Steve said.
"Apparently, we got into another war. Vietnam." He shook his head again. "You'd think, by now we'd understand…"
Two generations of war were enough, and he didn't understand why this kept happening to people. He almost let himself frown, thinking of the quicksands of his memories, of mud and cold and gunfire, the sharp chill of speeding wind cutting his face, the traumas that shook men to their core. Steve clenched his jaw. Anything but ice and cold, a sliver of black river set against unforgiving white cliffs, and the way the howling winds stole the screaming falling from his reach.
To make people go through pain like that again seemed…unforgivable.
Bucky took a bite of food, looking at Steve. Vietnam… A flash of memory. A well-loved president. An actor. "I killed Kennedy." he blurted, without preamble. "At least, I think that's who it was." he blinked, looking at Steve still. He didn't remember anything more than that. Just that he had killed Kennedy on HYDRA's orders. Bucky The Soldier had killed a lot of people on HYDRA's orders.
(lmao)
"Oh," Steve said, trying to sound like it wasn't a big deal. "Well, shit happens, and it wasn't your fault." He said, trying to steer his thoughts from all the possibilities and assassinations his best friend might have had a part in. Picking at a fraying splinter of wood, he looked down, "You do know that it wasn't your fault, right?"
Bucky shrugged a little. "Does it matter if it is?" He responded, eating more of the food and trying not to wolf it down like a starving animal. Because he was. He was starving and desperate for food, but he wasn't going to show that. It was a weakness.
"I don't know…" Steve replied, surprised at his answer.
"They did something to be ashamed of, and you paid the price."
HYDRA Steve thought to himself in a menacing tone, I’m all about moral correctness in my work, but I wouldn’t say no to snapping a few of their necks. Of course, he couldn't say that to Bucky, but fantasizing his revenge on HYDRA was easier than trying to wrestle with the demons lurking in memories thrown into too sharp to relieve.
"I'm gonna make this right." Steve promised, casually, "In any way I can."
Bucky shrugged again, and continued eating. "Nothing to make right." he replied after a moment of thought, then went back to eating. He really wasn't sure what the right things to say here were. So he just tried to say something before returning to the food. He ate carefully but quickly, the supersoldier metabolism demanding as much as he could possibly eat.
"Of course there is," Steve said slowly, pausing his meal and looking up at Bucky.
"They hurt you. You were everything to me and I lost you– hell, I'm still trying to find you. They took away your life; you could have had lived a whole lifetime of your own…A wife, a family. Everything." Steve stated sharply, trying not to lose his composure.
Bucky blinked slowly, watching Steve. "Then what do you want me to say?" he replied after a long moment. He didn't know what he was expected to say in this situation. In HYDRA, he had known what to say, if he was expected to say anything. But this wasn't HYDRA, and Steve seemed to expect something from him.
"I don't know.." Steve groaned, "How you feel? What you remember? If you're hurting. Anything." He shrugged, Bucky was always the one who knew what to do. He was the only thing in Steve's life that he was sure of. Now, he wasn't sure of anything, except that he needed to be there for Bucky.
