Chapter Text
November 2023 - Brooklyn, New York
“Are you sure?” Bucky asks once more, peeking over the stack of cardboard boxes piled high in his arms to look at Steve.
“Buck,” Steve laughs, a small smirk splitting his deadpan-straight lips. “You’re acting like we never lived together.”
“Yeah, a hundred years ago, when I had two arms and you were about a third of your size,” Bucky scoffs. “Steve, are you really–”
“We had this discussion,” Steve shakes his head. “Dr. Raynor said it would be beneficial for you to live with someone, especially to ensure you go to therapy and fulfill the conditions of your pardon. I think it’ll be good for both of us, too, I get pretty lonely, and there aren’t many… y’know. Extracurriculars for hundred-year-old supersoldiers.”
Bucky knows there’s something unsaid, too. Should the improvements he made in Wakanda regress, Steve is the only one capable of taking him out. If he wakes up in the middle of the night thinking he’s somewhere in Siberia in the 90s, Steve can wrangle him back to docility. Or put a bullet in his head if need be.
They lapse into silence, staring wordlessly at the imposing grey-painted door, before Bucky lets out a little laugh. “You gonna open the door, or are you finally having second thoughts?”
“I don’t…” Steve shifts all the boxes to one ridiculously-muscled arm and pats his pockets. “I don’t have the key,” he laughs sheepishly.
Bucky grins a bit, setting the boxes down and reaching into his own pocket. “Is that why you keep me around? A century later, Steve Rogers still can’t buy a goddamn keychain.” He locks eyes with Steve as he pulls the key from his pocket and unlocks the door with a small flourish.
“Yup,” Steve teases. “Now get your ass inside, my arms are starting to get tired.”
“I’m Steve Rogers,” Bucky mocks, voice high and whiny, as he hoists the boxes into his arms. “I can stop helicopters with my bare hands but boxes full of t-shirts are too heavy for me.”
“Like hell they are,” Steve scoffs, setting the boxes down heavily on top of Bucky’s.
“Hey, jackass,” Bucky scoffs, offended, peeking his head from the side to glare at Steve.
In a swift motion, Steve lifts Bucky, boxes and all, into his arms, and walks him through the threshold. Bucky takes stock of the apartment as he’s carried in. It’s huge, considering Bucky’s previous living conditions– various huts, cells, and rented rooms spanning nearly every continent– and already half-furnished. Steve came to check out the apartment one day while Bucky was in therapy, and showed him an overwhelming amount of photos taken from every conceivable angle that night over dinner. It’s odd, though, for Bucky to know that he’s allowed to live in a place so pristine, so elegant-looking. It’s much brighter, much fresher, but it reminds him of the Director’s apartment. Pierce’s. Pierce’s apartment.
Steve plops Bucky down on the couch and lifts the boxes from him with one hand, winking cheekily over his shoulder as he walks off.
“Alright, alright, you’re very strong, Stevie,” Bucky calls after him, holding back an amused giggle. “Sorry if I made you feel self-conscious.”
Steve smirks as he sets the boxes on the kitchen floor. “Well, I suppose we’re moved in, aren’t we?”
“Put my two shirts in the closet and we’ll call it a day,” Bucky chuckles. He finds himself sitting somewhat awkwardly on the couch. It’s cream-colored and plush. The fabric feels so fine under Bucky’s fingertips. He doesn’t feel like he’s supposed to sit on it. He focuses his eyes on Steve, nothing but Steve, and tries not to sink to his knees next to the expensive furniture.
“That reminds me, we should get you some clothes,” Steve nods, padding about the kitchen and looking in various drawers, cupboards, et cetera. He examines the fridge like he’s never seen one before. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow.”
Bucky nods nervously.
“You wanna check out the rest of the apartment?” Steve asks, ducking his head into the freezer. “The bedrooms are pretty much identical, but you can pick whichever one you’d like.”
“Yeah, okay,” he nods, standing from the frightening couch and wandering down the hall. There’s three rooms beyond the living room and open-concept kitchen. Two bedrooms, one on each side of the hallway, and a large bathroom straight ahead.
Bucky looks at the bathroom first, mostly to delay the uncomfortable suggestion that he has to choose something, really choose something, for the first time in years. It’s a nice bathroom. Clean, uncracked, un-mildewed tiles. A bath, big enough for two, and a shower, with two caddies built into the wall. The vanity has a big mirror with lighting that makes Bucky’s dark circles turn an even angrier purple.
He leaves the bathroom and paces up and down the hall a couple times before looking into the first bedroom. There’s a simple bedframe and mattress, and a closet built into the wall. Steve mentioned they’d need to buy more furniture, too. More things to buy. More things Bucky can’t repay Steve for. Things he doesn’t deserve. Groceries, his life, a new pair of jeans, a name.
“Have you decided?” Steve asks, startling Bucky slightly.
“You can just choose,” Bucky shrugs. “I don’t… I don’t really have a preference.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, why don’t you take the west-facing room? That way the sunlight won’t wake you up in the morning. I know how grumpy you get when you’re woken up early.”
Bucky looks at him, a soft, pleased smile on his lips. “Yeah, sure. Yeah, I’ll take that one.”
Steve leaves Bucky with his single box. Bucky sits cross-legged on the floor next to it as he summons the courage to lift the flaps. He pulls out his shirts, his other jacket, his mismatched assortment of socks and boxers, and piles it all in a heap on the hardwood. Steve will probably advise that he throw most of it away. Two of the shirts are pre-blip, with little tears and moth bites in the hems. The majority of the socks and boxers were shoplifted and in some government locker for a few years along with the backpack they confiscated from him in Romania.
He tucks his journal underneath the mattress and shoves the box of protein bars between the bedframe and the wall. He isn’t allowed to own weapons, but Steve gave him back the silver pocketknife he carried with him in Bucharest. Bucky drags his fingertips across the gleaming blade. It was the first non-necessity he bought after leaving. He took odd jobs, construction or painting or anything he didn’t need documentation for, once the safehouse money dried up. He saved every leu he could, hid it well away, and finally had enough to earn the right to defend himself. He had his Handler’s– Brock’s– gun, but it wasn’t his. It was a sick reminder, at best. He never ended up needing to use the knife, but he’d tap his thigh every so often to feel the metal sheathed just beneath the fabric of his pants.
“Let me know when you’re up for dinner,” Steve calls from the living room.
“Alright,” Bucky shouts back.
He sits among his sparse belongings for a few more minutes before joining Steve with a put-on smile that he hopes comes off as genuine. “Where do you want to go?” Steve asks, tapping at his phone for a moment before standing up and pocketing it. He changed into khakis and a greyish-blue knit sweater. He looks so goddamn pretty.
“Wherever,” Bucky shrugs.
“Oh, you should get to choose. You must be pretty tired of fast food and room service, huh?” Steve subtly leaves out the ‘and prison food,’ but Bucky catches the meaning in his tone.
“No, really, Stevie, I’m too tired to choose, I’d rather you do.”
Steve knows Bucky better than he knows himself. Steve remembers real Bucky, the Bucky before HYDRA inhabited his mind and violated his agency. The Bucky who loved sufganiyot and watched Snow White three times because he thought animation was mankind’s greatest invention and would buy Steve new paints even when they barely had enough money for groceries.
“How about Italian?” Steve offers.
“Yeah, sure,” Bucky nods, and follows Steve’s brisk lead from the apartment.
The restaurant is nice enough that Bucky instantly feels embarrassed when he walks in. It’s not terrifically fancy, but there are pretty ivory tablecloths and candles and napkins meant to be placed in your lap. He can only remember being in a nice restaurant once in his life. It was an assassination. His Handler brought him to some lavish restaurant somewhere in Europe, with socialites and celebrities and politicians milling about in the dim light. Bucky followed his target into the bathroom, took him out with a needle in the neck, and never mussed up his tuxedo.
They’re seated shortly after arriving and Bucky fiddles with the overwhelmingly large menu as the waiter fills their water glasses and places a basket of bread on the table.
Bucky stares at the basket for a moment as the waiter walks away. There’s a few types of bread– pale, doughy rolls, crispier buns sprinkled with sesame seeds, chunks of brown bread. There’s a little dish of oil next to it, herbs suspended in the golden-green liquid.
“You can have a piece,” Steve says kindly, like it’s a normal thing to be confused about.
Bucky nods tentatively and picks up the smallest roll. He breaks off a piece and takes it into his mouth, before placing the rest down on the little plate. Steve takes a slice of his own, ripping off a chunk before dipping it in the oil, as if to subtly suggest to Bucky what he’s meant to do.
“So, Steve…” Bucky begins, before they’re interrupted by a waiter asking for their drink orders. Bucky’s eyes widen with panic and Steve easily orders some sort of fancy white wine for both of them, and a side of arancini and bruschetta for their appetizers.
“Are you still keeping kosher?” Steve asks, taking a sip of his ice water.
“I don’t really know,” Bucky says, after a moment of hesitation. “I suppose I haven’t thought about it. Maybe I’ll try again.”
Steve smiles slightly and nods. “What were you going to say before?”
Bucky fiddles with his glass, drawing a line in the beaded condensation. “I… I wanted to ask about… paying you back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Paying you back for everything. The apartment and food and everything… I know I don’t have any income, obviously, but I’d–”
“Buck,” Steve says softly. “All of that is a gift to you. You deserve the opportunity to heal and find your peace, you don’t need to worry about money or paying me back or anything.”
“It’s too much, though,” Bucky whispers.
“Not to sound like some idiot in some corny movie, but a billion dollars couldn’t possibly bring me the happiness that you do. I have money, Buck, that’s never a burden or a problem for me. If we start running out, I’ll write a memoir or something.”
Bucky snorts softly, unable to force down his grin.
Steve guffaws. “What? I’m real interesting, people will read it.” He sobers slightly. “But, really, all I want is to know you’re safe and taken care of. If you ever feel like you really want a job, then we can discuss the matter again. But right now your job is to go to therapy and recover.”
Bucky nods.
“Now, what would you like to order?” Steve asks, in a good-natured reminder to Bucky that he actually needs to look at the menu eventually.
Bucky desperately tries to ignore the numbers next to each item. He settles upon amatriciana, it seems unoffending, and once the appetizers have been dished out and entreés ordered, Bucky begins to relax marginally.
“What’s arancini made of?” Bucky asks.
Steve explains, without despairing that old Bucky used to love arancini, and when Bucky makes no move to serve himself, Steve scoops one up and places it on his plate next to his abandoned roll. “C’mon, doll, promise it won’t bite you,” Steve chuckles.
“Doll?” Bucky’s eyebrows draw up, in marginal shock, as the pet name registers.
Steve laughs nervously, shrugging. Bucky takes a bite, pleasantly surprised at the taste. He finishes but doesn’t move to serve himself another one. Steve wordlessly places another on his plate, self-satisfied when he eats that one too.
Bucky thought they used to be lovers. In Bucharest, before he even really knew who Steve was to him, he remembers having such strong memories of them together. Intertwined on their couch, sharing a joint, soft pecks from Steve’s plush lips. He remembered Steve calling him his ‘best guy’ and he remembered waking Steve with soft kisses to the back of his neck. But Steve hasn’t alluded to a thing since they reunited.
Still, Bucky can’t help the fluttered shivering he felt when Steve called him ‘doll,’ or the overwhelmingly sentimental feeling that each of Steve’s kind gestures instills in him.
“What were you thinking in terms of furniture?” Steve asks, taking a sip of his wine.
“I dunno,” Bucky shrugs. “Furniture still feels pretty novel.”
Steve’s grin flickers slightly and Bucky feels horrifically guilty for daring to bring up HYDRA, when all Steve wanted was a nice, uneventful, un-traumatic evening. “Well, this century’s got a bunch of fun shit, we certainly didn’t have catalogues when we were moving into our first apartment.”
Bucky thinks for a moment. “We didn’t drag that couch in from the street, did we?” he chuckles.
“We did,” Steve nods, amused. “Some poor family got evicted and left their couch behind. It would’ve just been destroyed or repossessed, why let a perfectly good couch go to waste?”
Bucky laughs to himself, slightly giddy at his ability to remember. “I mended it…” he trails off, brow scrunching as he tries to think. “Did you rip the side of the couch?”
“I did,” Steve grins, hoping to coax more memories from Bucky. “Fainted with a pencil in my hand and carved a nice gash in the side.”
Bucky’s laugh fades and he smiles to himself. “You’re still healthy.”
“I am.”
“When I was… after I fell, I kept thinking about you. About how you’d eventually… you were so big and strong when you rescued me from Azzano. After a while I think I convinced myself I was delirious. That you never saved me in the first place. That you were still sickly little Steve, cooped up in Brooklyn, waiting for me to return. But you’re real.”
“I am,” Steve repeats sincerely. Then, “I should’ve looked for you.”
Before Bucky can respond, their waiter returns and places down the plates of carbonara and amatriciana. They each take a few bites before Bucky begins to speak again. “If you’d saved me and then you went down in that plane crash, I’d have spent the rest of my life alone. And then they woulda’ thawed you out and I’d already be dead. And we’d both have lived a lonely life. At least now, we can be lonely together.”
Steve grins slightly. “Guess so.”
They eat their pasta quietly, listening to the hum of surrounding patrons as they do. Once or twice, Bucky looks up to find Steve studying him like a painting. The first time, Bucky looks away. The second time, he doesn’t.
They order tiramisu for dessert.
“Buck,” Steve chuckles, gesturing to the side of his face. Bucky reaches up to wipe the corner of his lip, trying to mirror Steve’s movements. “No, Buck, you…” Steve reaches over and drags his thumb across the smear of whipped cream. Once the intensity of the touch registers, Steve lingers for a moment before he can manage to pull his hand away.
“I think you’d look nice in green,” Steve suggests, holding up a cable-knit sweater.
“I’d look like a teddy bear in that thing,” Bucky scoffs. He intended to walk into the store, find as many long-sleeved black shirts as possible, and leave. Steve, however, seems to think that Bucky’s wardrobe needs variety.
“Cuddly,” Steve chuckles to himself. “What, is forest green too much color? How about navy blue? That’s almost black.”
“You’re thinking too much, how much clothing do I need?”
“You should have options,” Steve shrugs. “C’mon, charcoal grey is basically black. Baby steps.”
“Stevie…”
“Fine, but just for now. Eventually we’ll get you a proper wardrobe.” Steve fills the cart with sweatpants and whole packs of socks and boxers and as many t-shirts as they have in Bucky’s size.
Bucky was so hopeful that there was no more shopping to be done, but Steve wheels the cart toward the aisle full of soaps and toothpaste and hair ties. Bucky gawks at the selection.
“What kind of shampoo do you like?”
“Steve,” Bucky giggles tiredly. “What on Earth would possess you to assume I have a favorite shampoo?”
Steve’s grin breaks into a smile and he tries to stifle a giggle under his breath. “I dunno, man, which one speaks to you?”
Bucky closes his eyes and points. “That one.” It’s a purple bottle with a squiggly line wrapped around it. Bucky figures it’ll do. Steve happily tosses it in the cart alongside the accompanying conditioner. They buy a whole tube of pepperminty toothpaste to replace Bucky’s hotel-sized sample one, and a bright green toothbrush that Steve promises is really all his.
“What’s a scrunchie?” Bucky asks, pointing to a colorful package of ruffled-looking fabric loops.
“It’s meant to tie up your hair,” Steve explains. “You can get them if you’d like.”
Bucky stands in front of the display. Some of the scrunchies are velvety, some have patterns, some are dark jewel tones, some pastel. He eventually selects a pack with deep maroon and emerald scrunchies, much to the delight of Steve, who would’ve bought every scrunchie in the tri-state area to see Bucky smile.
“I’ve never worn sweatpants,” Bucky admits that night at dinner.
“They’re–”
“No, I have worn sweatpants once,” Bucky corrects himself, brow furrowed and a forkful of macaroni half-lifted to his mouth. His eyes cloud over for a moment as he ponders. Eventually, he sets his fork down and stares at his glass of seltzer. He looks like he’s debating something in his mind. “I never really wore anything but the tac gear,” he explains. “And sometimes, a suit or lay clothes, whatever would help me blend in. But I don’t know why I would’ve been wearing sweatpants.”
“Dr. Raynor said memories would come back like this,” Steve assures. “Why don’t you write it down in your journal?”
Bucky scribbles the half-remembrance in his little notebook and tucks it back into his pocket. “It’s weird. I remember every murder, but barely any of the stuff in-between.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“How do you figure?”
Steve hesitates. “Well… there isn’t much utility in you remembering all those days between assassinations. More than likely you spent much of it unconscious. But remembering the assassinations helps you improve each time.”
“Huh.”
“Do you… can I ask a sensitive question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you prefer remembering or forgetting?”
“Remembering,” Bucky responds immediately. “There’s no use in forgetting the specifics, I know I murdered dozens of people anyway, whether or not I want to remember individual faces. It feels… not good, but… settling. To remember, I mean. They never let me remember anything. Said I didn’t deserve to. But I like being able to have memories now.”
Steve grins wider.
“What’re you mugging at?” Bucky scoffs.
“No, no, I just like hearing you talk like that.”
Bucky takes his first shower in the new apartment that night. He turns on the water, then, after some thought, twists the handle further, until the room fills with steam. After double-checking that he locked the door, he shucks his clothing and steps into the shower. The shampoo smells like apricots as he lathers his shoulder-length hair. It feels good against his scalp. He conditions after reading the instructions on the side of the bottle thoroughly, and then scrubs his whole body with the coconut body wash and what Steve called a ‘loofa’ or something likewise silly-sounding.
He steps out of the bathroom with a steam-flushed face and a tired, dopey smile.
“How ya’ feeling, Buck?” Steve chuckles, looking up from a tangle of television wires and various cables.
“I’ve never conditioned my hair before. It feels so soft. I love warm showers so much, Stevie, never in my life have I smelled soaps so wonderful,” Bucky gushes, plopping down on the floor next to Steve.
“I’m glad you liked it,” Steve beams.
Bucky sits quietly with Steve as he wrangles the wires into more of a tangled nest. Occasionally Steve will startle Bucky with a muttered curse or a frustrated grunt, but Bucky finds it oddly soothing to coexist in such a domestic setting.
“I’m fucking done,” Steve declares, falling onto his back with a dramatic sigh.
Bucky giggles softly and lays down on the carpet next to him. “Big, strong Stevie. Could bench press a Jeep, can’t figure out how to plug in a television.”
“Why don’t you figure it out, then?” Steve whines in a most theatrical manner.
“Too comfy,” Bucky murmurs, wiggling over to Steve’s side and letting the back of his hand graze Steve’s. They lay there until Steve hears Bucky start to snore.