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Bucky’s back.
It’s nine p.m. on a Monday night—just some typical random Monday night—and Steve’s just said bye to Sam in the lobby of his apartment complex, trekked up the stairs, turned on the light to the living room, and Bucky’s back.
Bucky is sitting in his living room, perfectly still, his hands resting on the arms of the seat he’s occupying, calculating with dark blue eyes that flick to Steve the second he enters the room. He’s sat in Steve’s singular armchair, the one across from the fireplace that currently holds no fire. There’s a lamp beside him, too, but he’s elected to keep it off. Steve wonders how long he’s been sitting there in the dark.
He slows his steps immediately upon entering, the creak of a floorboard in his threshold sounding akin to a gunshot, hovering by the doorframe that’s still cracked open. His stunned blue eyes linger on Bucky across the room, now bathed in the dim shimmer that his overhead light has cast. It illuminates greasy black hair that hangs in soft curtains over his forehead, framing his sunken cheekbones and downturned mouth. His lips are still that deep shade of pink. Strawberry juice.
Steve flutters his lashes and holds the doorknob so tight he’s worried he might crush it. Any sudden movements, and he might spook Bucky away. It’s been months since Steve has seen him, since Bucky pulled him from the river and left him on the shore. It’s been months, and now he’s just… back. He’s just back and sitting in Steve’s armchair.
Steve can hear the beat of his heart in his ears. He opens his mouth, lets it hang open, and wonders if he should speak first. They’ve been looking for Bucky for months and months and months, and Steve was losing hope fast, but here he is, sitting in Steve’s apartment. Like that’s just something normal for him to do.
Slowly, so carefully and as quietly as he can, Steve shuts the apartment door behind him with a faint click.
Something indiscernible flashes in Bucky’s eyes at the sound, and he breaks from the stoic posture—that pristine, bolt-right position he was sitting in—to tilt his head just so to the side and regard Steve.
Steve lets his hand slip from the doorknob and says, reserved, “Hey?”
He wants to say Buck but isn’t sure if the name will trigger him; he doesn’t want to risk him running off again. Just having him here within a hundred feet feels surreal, like something that can’t actually exist.
His blue eyes haven’t left Steve’s face for a second. He doesn’t say hi back. He just sits. And he stares. He’s wearing a heavy jacket, some sort of black hoodie that’s zipped up to his chin. His heavy boots are sitting flat to the floor.
If it weren’t for the sluggish bat of his lashes as he stares and the uneven drag of his chest as he breathes, Steve would think he was a wax statue.
Steve takes a small step closer into the apartment, sending a sideways glance around to make sure they’re entirely alone. For a moment, he wonders how Bucky managed to get in until he notices the crack between the window and the sill, the subtle breeze from outside shifting his curtains in smooth waves.
Steve says, looking back, keeping his voice low as he catches Bucky’s gaze in his own, “You know me?”
He wants Bucky to say yes. More than anything in the world, he wants for Bucky’s face to break into a smile—the dumb cocky one he used to have whenever he teased Steve, or whenever he was flirting, or whenever he was doing both because they often came together—and he wants Bucky to say, don’t ask stupid questions like that, Stevie, you know I do. Sorry for scaring you, I just thought it’d be funny. C’mere and hug me.
Bucky keeps blinking at him, all lifeless and hollow. There’s no trace of the smile he used to have. When his voice meets the air, it cracks against it like a bird hitting glass. “You’re Steve.”
Just hearing Bucky’s voice say his name makes his chest tight. It sounds like him, but… not quite. Not the same as he used to. His voice is a bit scratchier, a bit more subdued. Bucky always spoke with confidence and charm, something suave and enticing. But this voice is… small. Scared. Unsure.
Steve presses his lips tightly together and stands on his own threshold, both hands hanging limp at his sides to show Bucky he isn’t carrying anything. He takes in a heavy breath through his nose and responds, “Yeah. I am Steve.”
Bucky blinks up at him expectantly through what look like clumpy lashes. Still long and dark as ever. Still sporting baby blues. Deeper contusions in the sockets of his eyes, though. Deeper bruises. He looks older. So much older. He has an unkempt, scruffy beard shadowing his sunken cheekbones. He never used to like having facial hair. Said he hated the way it rubbed his pillow. Steve used to shave him some days.
Steve isn’t sure quite who he looks like now. But he has the same eyelashes. Lips are shaped the same. Lips are the same color.
“And you’re… Bucky, right?” Steve says softly, brows arching. “Aren’t you?”
He may be testing the waters too much, pushing toward a tide, but the second he says his name, Bucky lets out a sharp breath that hitches up in the middle. It makes Steve flinch back.
His eyes hover on Steve, wide and wet and thinking. Steve isn’t sure what the expression is. He’s never seen it on a person before, he doesn’t think. Not on a human being. This is something reserved for an animal. Something raw and vulnerable and… pathetic. Something primal, that crawls up out of the belly of prey when met with a predator.
Steve automatically shifts back, afraid he’s done too much, gone too far. His lips are parted in a soundless apology, unsure of what to say, what to do, but Bucky replies in a short, sharp nod of his head.
His voice is still scratchy when he says, “I’m Bucky.”
It’s with a sincerity and confidence that makes Steve’s stomach turn over. Like this is the first time Bucky’s been allowed to say it.
“I didn’t—” Bucky takes in a breath, his face scrunching up like he’s struggling to come up with the words; it makes his entire face crease with wrinkles and confusion— “I didn’t want to come so soon, not until I was—I’m still not… not right. Not all of me is here. Only some.”
He sounds genuinely distressed, his eyes searching Steve’s face, looking for some type of recognition that what he’s saying makes sense.
Steve hates how much distance is still between them, the entire stretch of the living room rug feeling like a mile. He breathes, “That’s okay.”
Any part of Bucky, any sliver of what’s left, Steve wants. His breathing is getting shaky as he stares at Bucky across the room. So he wanted to come back. That’s what he just said. He’s always been planning to come back to Steve.
“But I’m, uhm—” Bucky seems to be struggling to find the words, and he clasps the arms of the small chair with fingers so firm they turn white as he starts to stand up— “I need help, and I don’t… I didn’t know where else to go.”
It almost makes Steve sick how scared he sounds, how Bucky is regarding him with trepidation, like he wants to trust him, wants to get close, but won’t make himself. He’s about to ask Bucky what he needs help with when, as Bucky stands from the chair, his eyes are brought to the crimson stain that’s spread into the seat’s cushion.
He breathes, eyes bugging, stepping forward, “Oh, shit, Buck, are you—”
Bucky’s legs just about buckle underneath him as he stands, and Steve doesn’t think about it for a moment as he surges to catch Bucky before he falls, hands rushing to the zip of Bucky’s jacket. He’s heavy. Steve remembers how heavy he felt in Azzano when Steve first saved him; how, at the same time, he was shockingly light due to Steve’s new strength.
Bucky’s blue eyes droop, his eyelids barely staying up, following Steve’s hands as they clamber to get the jacket off and reveal the blood-soaked shirt he’s hiding underneath.
“Bucky,” Steve gasps in a panic, “what happened? When did—”
“I haven’t slept in 97 hours,” Bucky murmurs, eyelashes fluttering, staring down at Steve’s fingers touching him. Everywhere they land, his skin trembles. “I couldn’t—can’t until… I need someone to keep watch. Can you keep watch?”
“Bucky, holy shit.” Steve barely processes the words, grappling with the bottom of Bucky’s shirt to lift it and see the laceration on his stomach, how blood has splattered out and matted itself amongst the prickly, wispy hair across his belly and happy trail. Steve squints momentarily. It used to be longer. This is just growing in.
The wound is clearly fresh
Bucky whispers, sounding petrified, staring down at the wound, his own hands reaching for it with fidgety fingers, “I don’t know how to patch it on my own. I don’t—I can’t remember.”
Steve doesn’t send a look to his face, his brain too busy spiralling through what he needs to do, how he should patch the injury the best. If Bucky took a similar serum to Steve, or any type of replica, he most certainly has a regenerative healing factor. That means stitches are out of the question; God forbid Bucky’s body heals with them and seals them into his skin, it’ll be a bitch to pluck them out afterwards. The wound won’t kill him on its own, but with it being so open, the blood loss on top of the sleep deprivation must be causing him to panic, thinking about how vulnerable he is, how exposed.
He needs a safe place to rest and to heal while someone keeps watch, that’s what he was saying.
Steve glances at him and affirms, gentle, “I can take watch, Buck. Let’s get this taken care of first, huh? I’ve got a first aid kit in my bedroom. Come with me. Keep pressure on that with your hand. Come on now.”
Bucky does as told, leaning heavily on Steve as they hobble to his bedroom together. Just like he did in Azzano, pressing close to Steve, arm around him, his feet dragging on the floor.
As Steve kicks the bedroom door to open it, his brain flashes memories of the two of them toppling into bed together, hands all over, kissing and giggling in their Brooklyn apartment, and hushing each other between movements as they went.
He tries to push the thoughts aside as he helps Bucky onto the bed, but it’s hard not to let them linger when he starts helping Bucky shrug off his jacket and his shirt, when Bucky kicks off his boots onto the floor with a thunk and struggles his way out of his pants too because the hem is constricting on his stomach.
Steve can’t help but think about times when they fell into bed together, when Bucky would shed his clothes just the same, but the room didn’t smell like blood, and Bucky used to be smiling. He used to crack jokes and touch Steve all over with eager hands, but now his fingers are shivering and his eyes are obviously fighting to stay awake, flittering around, unseeing and unfocused, and his mouth is downturned in a painful grimace. It makes Steve’s stomach ache to look at him now.
“I just need someone to keep watch,” Bucky breathes, looking up at Steve imploringly as Steve drags out the first aid kit and grabs the chair from his bedroom desk to haul it to the edge of his bed and sit.
He starts shuffling through for a large enough bandage to cover the wound. Blood is rolling down Bucky’s side when he shifts, dripping onto Steve’s blue comforter. Bucky doesn’t seem to notice, too busy looking at Steve’s face fearfully for a response.
“I’m keeping watch, pal,” Steve assures him, pulling out a roll of bandages, reaching for Bucky to get access to the wound and fix him up. His skin is warm. It’s soft. It’s alive. It’s Bucky.
It’s covered in scars that Steve’s never seen before.
His throat clenches, and he tries not to stare at the mangled mess of pink tissue and claw marks that make up Bucky’s shoulder that connects a metal arm to his body. Up close, Steve can see the plates in it shifting, hear the subtle click and whirr as they move. It makes him nauseous. It makes him want to puke.
The smell of blood has filled the entire bedroom and slicked Steve’s hands when he starts using a wet wipe to clean Bucky’s stomach and around the slice. If he can just get pressure on it and use a bandage to hold it closed, Bucky’s body will naturally be able to heal it in a day or two, Steve is sure of it. That’s what would happen to him if he had a cut like this.
Bucky’s stomach is panting heavy and fearful beneath Steve’s palms. He hasn’t taken his blue eyes off Steve’s face once, the cloudy expression fighting to stay focused on Steve’s jawline and his cheeks and his nose, darting this way and that like he’s taking Steve in.
He repeats, tripping over himself, “I needed somebody to—I needed someone to keep watch.”
“I know you did, pal,” Steve replies, knowing his face is contorted in pain as he sets to wrapping a bandage around Bucky’s trembling, thin stomach, trying to ignore the knife marks and healed bullet wounds that Bucky never had before. They’re all new. What happened to Bucky in the years Steve was away? Could Steve begin to fathom it? Who did this to him? Who hurt him now?
“Where did you get this?” Steve asks, pressing a palm flat and hard to the bandages to make sure they pull taut as he wraps another layer around Bucky’s middle, watching red flower out across the part he’s already covered. “Who did this to you?”
Bucky’s eyes are half-lidded, hovering directly on Steve’s mouth as he mumbles like a scratched record, “I jus’ needed s’meone to keep watch for me. Can you—” His words form a whisper. “Stevie, will you? You will wont’cha?”
Stevie.
That sounds like him.
A shiver runs down Steve’s entire back like a centipede crawling down his spine. He flashes a helpless look up at Bucky’s face, fingers momentarily tripping up as he wraps Bucky’s wound. He says, choked, “Of course I will.”
Bucky is still staring at Steve’s mouth. “I didn’t wanna come s’soon,” he murmurs. “I wasn’t—M’not ready. M’not me. Not yet. I don’t—I don’ know who—Just needed someone to watch.”
His words are getting slurred. It’s clear that the more Steve wraps him up, the more Steve touches him, the more Steve talks to him, the more his body begins to realise he’s safe and that it can begin to shut down. In some part, Steve finds himself relieved by the prospect of Bucky passing out so he can rest and so Steve can process this, but, at the same time, Steve wants to hear him speak more. He wants to hear Bucky’s voice.
It’s been two years since he heard it, since he talked to Bucky properly, heard him laugh. His stomach clenches. It’s been seventy years since Bucky heard him. Seventy. And here Steve felt like two was a lifetime. Selfish.
One of Bucky’s hands clumsily grabs at Steve’s wrist to hold onto him. Steve startles, glancing down to where Bucky’s flesh hand is gripping tight to him, fingers biting hard into the pressure point of his wrist like he’s trying to feel his heart beat through it.
He says, voice weak but frantic, staring at Steve with lost, pleading eyes, “Don’t let ‘em take me, Steve, please. You’ve gotta keep watch.”
Steve stares back at him, horror-stricken. Immediately, he wraps his own hand tight around Bucky’s, squeezing him tight. He promises, swears on his life, “I won’t. Buck, I won’t. You’re safe. I’m here.”
Bucky nods in what seems to be a daze. His eyelids are heavy, and he’s swaying, body trembling with the exertion of trying to keep himself upright in bed. With Steve’s words, though, it seems to be enough to let himself wobble backwards and then collapse into Steve’s sheets, his head falling to the side on the pillow so his black hair fans out across the cushion and his face, a messy crown all over. His eyes are lolling back, still not fully closed.
The bandage is tight, and Steve watches it stretch around Bucky’s stomach when he breathes in those shallow little pants, the kind a dog takes after running a good long distance. Steve wonders when the last time Bucky ate was. The last time he slept a full night. The last time he stayed still.
Bucky’s slack mouth fights to say, “Keep watch f’r me,” but barely makes out the last syllable before he finally passes out.
Steve sits there in silence, looking at Bucky spread out on his bed, turned on his side with his hair fanned out and his mouth slack and his breathing evening out from those scared breaths to a normal pace. Quiet and shallow and sweet.
It reminds him of only three years ago, when he was smaller, when Bucky curled up in his bed and fell asleep right after work. When he snored and rolled around in his sleep, when Steve crawled in beside him and kissed his bare back.
Steve fights back any tears that threaten to come as he settles back into his chair, staring at Bucky, not daring to take his eyes away for more than a second. They’re safe here. They have to be. This apartment is under constant surveillance from the Avengers. Most likely, someone already knows that Bucky is here; probably Tony. Tony’s a good person to know, though. He’ll have doctors or something who can help. Sam can help. Steve’s mind is already turning with how they can take care of Bucky, how they can fold him into this new life and protect him and kill anyone who’s ever touched him. But what matters now is that Bucky is safe and asleep in Steve’s bed. Who cares about the blood stains on the sheets or the dirt in Bucky’s hair that’s now on his pillow? Tomorrow, they’ll worry about getting Bucky a proper bath and figuring out where his head is at.
For now, Steve is going to let Bucky sleep.
He leans back in his chair and props his feet up on the edge of the bed to be more comfortable. He’s going to be sitting here; he might as well get comfortable.
The second he does, Bucky shifts in his sleep, and Steve freezes up, worried the jostling of the mattress will jolt Bucky awake but, instead, he watches as Bucky grumbles in a small, withdrawn way, forehead creasing up like something is hurting him, and then curls his body closer, pressing in against Steve’s socks.
Steve’s throat closes up, watching Bucky snuggle in close, curving himself around the small part of Steve that’s touching him. Yeah. Steve’s not going anywhere for a good, long while. He’s going to let Bucky sleep. And he’s going to keep watch.