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"Is this a test?"
Bucky doesn’t know what he’d expected, but he had hoped for something better than this. A kiss maybe, hell, a smile. Instead Steve holds himself like he’s expecting a blow. He stares at Bucky, but he must not really see him, because the look is all fear.
"A trick?"
The words come out of Steve clipped and harsh. The way he’s standing, big hands in fists, shoulders squared, the whole of him tense like a spring, it could be taken as threatening. Threatening he could do, now, that enhanced body of his promising a hell of a wallop to anyone who’s got on his bad side, but Bucky knows him. Seventy years and Bucky still recognizes the way he’s set his jaw, knows the tightness in his eyes for what it is; Steve trying to hold back tears.
Tony opens his mouth and Bucky raises his hand to shush him without taking his attention from Steve. Then he shows Steve his open palms, friendly-like. He half-wishes he’d covered his arm after all. Maybe this is too much at once, he doesn’t know. He just wanted to be honest. He pushes on anyhow.
"No," he says, "no, ‘s notta trick." He steps closer, watching the way Steve draws in a sharp breath, watching as his eyes roam Bucky’s face, watching how he’s steeling himself against whatever he’d decided Bucky must be. Bucky keeps stepping forward until he’s close enough he can offer Steve his flesh-and-blood arm. He throws up a smirk for good measure. "Genuine article, hand t’God."
Steve doesn’t take the bait. He’s trying his damnedest to be stone, to appear impartial in the face of this, and that’s just like him, that’s just like him to hold it all in. Bucky guesses Steve’s just out of patience at this point, and he doesn’t blame him, can’t blame him for that. He knows he’s too good to be true, its only smart to expect a catch. What he is is impossible, but so is Steve, and Bucky’s already cried himself sick over the damn perfect match they make, when he learned Steve was back again and where they’d found him.
"I watched you fall," Steve says.
"I know." Bucky stops putting on such a front, starts showing his understanding, letting sympathy soften his eyes. "I know, I fell."
“Seventy years ago,” Steve says, as his expression pinches and his brows bare down harder and Bucky can see he’s just about shaking out of his own skin, he’s so tense. “I watched—” Steve’s been trying to keep his voice low, but it catches anyways. The guilt is written all over his face. “I just watched—”
"You remember Zola,” Bucky says, interrupting, because he hates that guilty look, won’t stand to hear Steve blaming himself, not now. Steve’s shoulders tense at the name, but he doesn’t nod or nothing, just keeps staring. Bucky dares another step, putting them only a foot or so apart, and continues, “When he had me, he did somethin’ to me. I survived that fall.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Haven’t really aged much since.”
Steve’s lips go from a tight line to a tighter frown, lips curling in as he comes to some decision and reaches out quick-like, gripping Bucky’s right shoulder in something close to a vice. Bucky wishes those big hands felt more familiar, but he was only just starting to get used to them when they’d lost each other, and that was a long time ago. He smiles up at him anyways. Says quietly, “It’s me, Steve. I swear.”
Something in Steve crumples, and then Steve starts to, too, his shaking shoulders hunching in as they lower, his chin tucking in toward his sternum. He doesn’t take his eyes off Bucky’s. “I let you—”
Bucky takes him by the collar and gives it a jerk. “Shuddup, punk. The hell you did.”
“Stop,” Steve says and he makes like he’s gonna push Bucky away and just manages to catch himself. He takes both of Bucky’s shoulders instead, and looks hard at the left one when it doesn’t give under his palm.
"I’ll explain later," Bucky says, nodding to his prothesis.
"Explain now," Steve says and he says it so fast, Bucky thinks it’s just an automatic response, so he waits, giving him room to elaborate. He does, starting to sound breathless. The tears are close now. "How is this—Bucky—”
God, he can’t stand to hear Steve’s voice go so raw. His own cracks when he says, “y’know, I thought you were dead too, right?”
That seems to do it. Steve’s lips twist, but Bucky can tell by the tilt to his eyes that what he’s trying to suppress is a smile, and he’s pulling Steve to him before anyone else can see he’s started to cry. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders, fingers of his right hand sinking into his hair. Steve holds his waist, and then he’s holding Bucky to him by the waist, just about pulling him onto his tip-toes and Bucky laughs, right in Steve’s ear. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to the height, or the strength. He could now, though. They have the time.
Steve gives a wet gasp against Bucky’s neck before he tries speaking again. “The hell’s wrong with your hair?” he asks. Bucky gives another laugh.
"The dames love it, and so do you," he says. Gives the back of Steve’s head a squeeze, turning to nose into his sideburns. "Stop kidding around and kiss me already."
Somewhere behind them, his son makes a strangled sound. He makes it again, higher, when Steve takes Bucky up on the offer and fits their mouths together.
Then Steve has Bucky’s complete and undivided attention. He lets his perception of the world narrow down to just them, and then even tighter until there’s not a damn thing but their lips, their kiss, and perhaps the feel of Steve snapping his hair tie before grabbing a fistful of Bucky’s long hair.
(He does hear when Tony says to Pepper, “I can’t watch. Tell me when its over. Tell me when they stop.” And he honestly has to stop himself from flipping his own son the bird. It’s so juvenile, but God, Bucky feels it, he feels twenty-five, he feels nineteen. The cells that make him up, the ones that don’t know how to die, finally feel alive, for the first time in decades, maybe for the first time since he fell.)
He’s not sure how long they go on for, how long Steve crowds over him and sucks on his mouth like he’s the only source of air around and Steve’s just about drowning, but when they pull apart with a wet, crude sound, they’re both breathless.
Bucky grins at the mess he’s made of Steve; the near-bruised lips and the finger tracks in his hair. “Lookit you.” He can only hope he looks half as gorgeous, for Steve’s sake. Bucky starts putting him back together, trying to work Steve’s bangs back into the side-part the way he likes it. “Came in here all dolled up and I had t’go and ruin it.”
"Didn’t mind much," Steve says. His voice is still tear thick, but most of those tears have fallen already and been wiped away under Bucky’s thumbs.
“Wow."
Steve’s head jerks up and Bucky lets out a sigh before he turns to give Tony his attention.
"A little warning would’ve been nice," his son says, "before you started deflowering a national icon and hero to children everywhere right in front of my eyes.” He puts up his hands, like Bucky’s got him dead-to-rights instead of just watching him dispassionately as he rambles, “I’m just saying. There was no reason your coming clean letter couldn’t have included you coming out. What was I gonna do, disown you?”
Steve’s gone tense again and Bucky looks up to find him glaring at Tony. He remembers that look being a lot more endearing when he was five foot three. Now, not so much. He gives his waist a squeeze, says, “Easy, Steve, it’s okay. There’s a lot to explain, but Tony’s family.” He opens his own stance up enough to start really including Tony (and Pepper, if she dares to navigate this growing minefield) in the conversation.
"Like I said," Tony says, "he raised me. And kept a lot of secrets from me, and he was supposed to have told them all at this point, but apparently—”
"Enough," Bucky says. He guesses he sounds especially fatherly because Steve gives a snort.
"He’s as bad as you," Steve says, nodding to Tony with his chin while his eyes, his damn beautiful eyes are all Bucky’s.
"Believe me; he’s worse."
"But at least I’m honest," Tony says.
Bucky rolls his eyes so hard it half knocks his head back. He steps away from Steve enough to make a sweeping gesture toward him with his metal hand. “Do you really want to get into this now, kid, I’m a lil’busy.”
"Oh well if that’s the case, I can just see myself out—"
"No," Steve says, taking a step towards Tony, hand outstretched. The sincerity of his tone seems to stop the kid in his tracks. "Please, if. If he’s your—if you two are—" Bucky can’t tell if he’s struggling with the idea he may have a son, or if he’s not wanting to make the assumption when Tony may consider himself something else. Bucky isn’t sure Steve would be wrong in that. "Please," he finishes lamely.
Pepper, bless her, comes to the rescue. “Of course we’ll stay.” She puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder and gives him a smile that Bucky roughly translates to ‘arguing would be a bad idea, so don’t’, before crossing over to them and offering Steve her hand. “Pepper Potts.” Bucky realizes belatedly that he’s still got Steve by the waist, but when he tries to step away, the hand on his back tightens. He doesn’t move another inch. If Pepper notices, she doesn’t show it. The woman has a hell of a poker face.
"Steve Rogers," Steve says, giving her one of those polite smiles. He shakes her hand, then glances between Pepper and Tony, the question obvious, because Steve has no poker face.
"I’m Tony’s personal—"
"Girlfriend."
"—assistant. I’m his assistant."
"We’re dating."
"Tony."
"We’re giving it a shot anyways. Are we just gonna stand here? All day, there’s a whole living room we could be enjoying. With couches."
Pepper gives Steve another polite smile and then one of her ‘That’s Tony For You’ looks. “Don’t worry,” she tells Steve. “This the most civil they’ve been in years.” Then she’s letting go of Steve’s hand and crossing over to where Bucky’s goof of a son is motioning like a damned air-traffic controller at one of the sofas. Steve gives Bucky’s waist one last squeeze before he steps away. They share some lingering eye-contact before he follows Pepper.
"You know, I grew up with your comics," Tony says, conversationally, as Steve steps past him.
"You did?"
"In Portuguese.”
"…oh?"
Bucky shakes his head disapprovingly at his son—he can already tell he’s going to have too much fun pushing Steve’s buttons, and he’s pretty sure if Steve thought it’d help, he’d let him—before sliding in next to his long-lost friend. He told himself he’d be honest, that he’d tell Steve everything, that Steve deserved that much. He tries to sound casual when he comes clean. ”Those stupid comic books,” Bucky says, “are the thing that finally broke my programming.”
Steve and Tony both stare.
"Seriously?" asks Tony. “Seriously, were you just planning on carrying this torch to your grave? Are we even sure you can die?"