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Bucky wakes up, alone in a massive bed. It’s also a ridiculously comfortable bed, piled high with pillows and soft quilted blankets. The room around him could be described as “simple but elegant,” full of dark wood furnishings that are perfectly polished and dusted. There’s a chair in the corner with a heap of unorganized clothes that threaten to spill over onto the floor, and there’s a jumble of watches, colognes, hair products, and other knickknacks on the vanity. It has the odd sensation of feeling comfortable and safe, and his , even though this is only the second time he remembers waking up here.
There’s a soft mechanical whir from the pillow next to him as the robot that’s been ‘sleeping’ there stirs. Because this is the future. This is the future where Steve and Bucky are somehow impossibly rich, where they live alone in - comparative to the shoebox apartment that Bucky remembers living in two days ago - a huge, beautiful house. And also the house is full of robots. Because this is the future.
The robot is shaped roughly like a tyrannosaurus rex, except that it’s only two feet tall, and is what Steve called “slightly cartoon-ified.” The metal plates running from their snout to the tip of their long tail shift and readjust before settling back into place in a wavelike movement that simulates a stretch, which Ace emphasizes by opening their mouth into a toothy and entirely unnecessary yawn accompanied by a sound that’s something like a mix between a low roar and a chirp.
Bucky can’t help but to grin and reach out to pat the little robot’s head - which causes the plates of his own metal arm to do a similar shifting and resettling. It had been weirder yesterday, when he woke up with no idea where he was or what the thing on his pillow was; but Steve and JARVIS - who is, apparently, their computer-butler, because this is the future - had spent a chunk of the morning explaining everything. It still feels weird, but also inexplicably comfortable. “Morning Ace,” he greets, and the robot makes a chirping sound again, pressing it’s squarish, oversized head into Bucky’s hand.
Then Ace pulls back, opens their mouth, and Steve’s voice comes out:
Morning Buck. Sorry, I had to leave early to get started training the new recruits. I’ll probably be over at the Compound all day, but you’re welcome to come join us any time you want. Love you.
Because this is the future, where Steve and Bucky live in a fancy house full of robots, and Steve’s a superhero , who is apparently semi-in charge of an organization of superheroes .
Ace, duty done, closes their mouth again and hopes off of the bed to chitter around on the floor. Bucky takes that as a cue and - semi-reluctantly - tosses off the blankets to get up and get dressed. There’s the faintest nip of lingering winter in the air, and the trees outside of the windows are full of freshly budded leaves. Bucky takes his time getting dressed - because he and Steve are ridiculously rich, and Bucky doesn’t have a job, and doesn’t actually have anywhere he has to be.
Bucky makes his way downstairs with Ace clattering along beside him, hopping down the steps on their short legs with apparent cheerfulness.
“Good morning, Bucky,” says a crisp, British voice.
“Morning, JARVIS,” Bucky answers automatically, glancing up toward the ceiling where the voice came from.
“There is a fresh pot of coffee waiting for you in the kitchen,” JARVIS reports, because JARVIS is a robot-butler and basically the entire house is his body.
The downstairs of their house is mostly one large open room, filled with comfortable furniture. There’s more plastic and chrome in the living room, a strange mix of the cozy old fashioned upstairs and what Bucky can only assume counts as “modern” in the future.
There’s a whirring from the wall of glass that makes up the west side of the large square room, accompanied by an insistent tapping on the glass. Bucky ignores it long enough to pour himself a mug of fresh, fragrant coffee before going over to the glass.
“I know you can open the door yourself, Dummy,” Bucky tells the robot that’s chittering at him from the other side. This robot is taller than Bucky, essentially a clawed arm attached to a big chassis. Dummy bounces his claw up and down in a way that somehow imitates an excited puppy. Bucky rolls his eyes and taps the code into the keypad and Dummy barely waits for the door to open all the way before whizzing inside and heading straight for the kitchen.
Bucky lingers in the doorway, peering out into the massive workshop that makes up Dummy’s “room”. It’s all bare cement, metal, and chrome, littered with bits of machinery and easels holding canvases painted with complex geometric patterns. There are robots all over the place at the Avengers Compound where Steve works - he and Bucky had spent the afternoon there yesterday, Steve showing Bucky around the place and then Bucky helping Steve run some of the newest superheroes through some training drills. Unlike Ace, who is apparently special and specifically designed to be Bucky’s combination pet and helper, Dummy is a lot like the other robots over at the Compound. Bucky had asked why Dummy lives here in their house, instead of at the Compound with the other robots, but Steve had gotten a sort of pinched, pained expression on his face and said “Dummy’s special” before quickly changing the subject; Bucky had decided not to push it.
Bucky meanders around the house aimlessly while he sips his coffee. It’s beautiful, almost overwhelmingly so. There’s a green lawn and thick trees around the house - they must be somewhere upstate, far away from the city. It’s nothing that Bucky would have ever even dreamed of, back in the day when Steve was still tiny and they shared a rickety bed in a tiny one room apartment surrounded on all sides by yelling neighbors.
He’s so distracted staring out of the window at the gently waving trees that he almost startles when Dummy whirs over to his elbow, a tall glass containing a thick pink smoothie in his grasp. Apparently, Dummy loves preparing smoothies, and Steve had taught Bucky better than to refuse. So he takes the drink with a polite thanks and an instinctive pat to the top of Dummy’s camera-eye.
Steve’s message had said Bucky could come join him at the Compound, but the quiet stillness of the house, punctuated by the whirring and chittering of the bots feels soothing and right. So instead Bucky settles himself onto the puffy, comfortable couch with his coffee and his smoothie facing the massive screen hung on the wall. He picks up the glass-like rectangular tablet that Steve had called a remote and taps the surface, causing it to blink to life with list after list of options nestled into neatly organized folders.
Folders such as:
- Rom-Coms
- Cartoons
- Cute Animal Videos
- Drama
- Fake History
- Dumb Shit People Have Done Since 1940
- Amazing Shit People Have Done Since 1940
- Spongebob
- Documentaries
- Classic Movies
- Comedies
- Don’t Watch Without At Least Three Boxes Of Tissues
- Cooking Shows
- Never Again Steve, I S2G
That last one, perversely, piques Bucky’s curiosity and he almost clicks on it. But instead he selects the folder labelled Memories . It’s the biggest folder, and inside it’s subdivided by year, and then subdivided again into months. At the top right hand side of the screen is a blue button labelled Random . Bucky hesitates for a moment, something uncertain and cold twisting in the pit of his stomach, and he almost changes his mind about going to the Compound with Steve. But instead he pulls one of the throw blankets off of the back of the couch, wrapping it tight around himself as he hugs his mug of coffee in against his chest and presses the Random button.
The video opens on a shot of Steve wearing what looks like a fluffy pineapple the size of a car tire on his head and grinning like a loon.
*****
Steve bounds up the three steps to their front porch in one step. He’s not quite winded from the two mile jog over from the Compound, but there’s just the beginnings of a pleasant ache in his chest and his whole body is warm with rushing blood; it’s invigorating. They’d had a productive morning of training, and Steve had decided to come home for lunch and to see if Bucky wanted to join them for the afternoon session.
But the moment he opens the door he knows something is wrong and his good mood vanishes.
“Bucky?” he calls, closing the door behind him as Dummy whirs over to him beeping anxiously and grabbing hold of Steve’s shirt to drag him toward the living room.
Bucky is sitting cross legged on the couch, a blanket wrapped around him like a cape and Ace cuddled up in his lap. Bucky’s whole face is red and puffy from crying, and he startles violently when Steve comes in.
Steve crosses the room so fast he almost isn’t aware of moving. He sits down on the couch, automatically pulling Bucky into a hug, which Bucky collapses into with a soft sound that’s almost a sob. Steve doesn’t have to ask what’s wrong - one glance at the TV screen mounted on the wall tells him all he needs to know.
The video Bucky had been watching is paused, and Steve has to look away and blink hard for a minute. It’s Tony. Tony with no brown left in his hair, having finally given up on dying it, deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, but just as alert, just as full of life as he’d ever been. He’s in his workshop - of course he is - it looks like he’s testing some new improvement on one of the bots. He’s squatting down - the cane that he’d been too proud to use most of the time cast aside at the edge of the frame - and he’s elbows deep in the bot’s chassis. But he’s looking at the camera, a grin lighting up his whole face.
And fuck, Steve loves that man so much it hurts.
“Where is he?” Bucky asks quietly, his voice hoarse from crying and half muffled in Steve’s shirt. He’s still got his legs crossed and the blanket clutched around his shoulders, but he’s tilted sideways to rest his head against Steve’s chest. He’s still staring at the screen like he can’t look away; unlike Steve, who can barely stand to look.
Even after all these years, it hasn’t gotten any easier.
“He’s, um, he’s gone, Buck,” Steve says quietly, though he has to force the words out through a throat that is too tight and too dry. “He’s been gone for a while now.”
“I-I don’t understand,” Bucky sobs, and it cuts straight through Steve. They do okay, most of the time. They’ve had plenty of practice, developed a good routine, and most of the time things are… things are fine. But then there are days like today, and Steve is pretty sure those days will never get easier.
He tightens his arms around Bucky because he can’t actually do anything to fix this, the best he can do is hold on tight to what he has left, to try and ground Bucky, and to just… power through it. “Some of the things that happened to us… the serum, it means that we don’t age like normal people do. It means that the people around us grow old and… and we stay the same.” He has to swallow hard, to close his eyes, and he presses his face into Bucky’s hair, planting a kiss against the crown of Bucky’s head and breathing in Bucky’s scent; he doesn’t bother lying to himself that it has anything to do with comforting Bucky.
“He’s dead,” Bucky says, his voice going bland and flat and Steve just nods, because he can’t say it himself, not today.
Bucky is silent for a long time, blinking bleary, swollen eyes at the frozen image on the screen. “How old are we?” he asks eventually.
Bucky could do the math himself, Steve told him what year it is, but Steve won’t make him bother. “You had your one hundred and seventy-sixth birthday last month,” he says quietly.
Bucky twitches, and then he lets out a sound that is almost definitely a hoarse choked giggle pressed into the now very wet and very wrinkled fabric of Steve’s shirt. “What the fuck,” Bucky whispers, a rhetorical expletive that brings a tiny smile to the corner of Steve’s lips. “The future is crazy.”
Steve makes himself sit up a little, stroking the hair back from Bucky’s face - it reaches well past Bucky’s shoulders currently, he refuses to cut it more than a couple times a decade, which Steve doesn’t understand but he’s come to love playing with Bucky’s hair so he isn’t about to complain. He rubs distractedly at his own too hot, itchy eyes with one hand while reaching for the tissues with the other. A square metal head butts against his hand and he blinks to find Ace there, tissue box helpfully clutched in their short stubby arms.
“Thanks,” Steve says politely, accepting the tissue box and shaking out a couple to mop up first Bucky’s then his own face. Bucky lets him without protest, sniffing and blinking despondently.
“I don’t even remember knowing him,” Bucky says plaintively, his voice still teary but now also tinged with irritation as he pulls back to sit upright again. “How can I miss him so fucking much?”
“He just…” Steve takes a breath and shrugs helplessly. “Tony’s not really someone you get over. Not ever.” He glances toward the screen again, and it hurts a little less this time, but Steve knows from experience that if he lets himself keep looking he’ll waste the whole day wallowing in the past. He digs the remote out of the folds of Bucky’s blanket and turns off the TV.
Steve takes extra care in setting the remote down on the coffee table, then putting the box of tissues next to it, then carefully throwing away the used tissues. When he finishes and looks up, Bucky is sitting ramrod straight and staring at him with an expression of horror.
“What? What is it?” Steve asks, immediately bracing himself for Bucky to launch into a - thankfully rare - panic about his lacking memory, or the future, or… frankly, there are so many things that Bucky would be perfectly justified in freaking out about. Steve is relieved he usually handles things so calmly, but to be honest it still kind of surprises him how much Bucky can take in stride.
“I’m a selfish asshole,” Bucky says, low and wide eyed like he’s having a horrifying epiphany. “Fuck, I’m the worst. How do you put up with me?”
Steve blinks; he did not expect that. “What?” he asks dumbly.
“Here I am, blubbering like a baby and you-” Bucky stops, his voice cracking and he wipes at his eyes again with jerky irritation. “Shit, Steve, I’m so sorry.”
Steve shakes his head, still confused but instinctively reaching to pull Bucky into another hug. “You don’t have to apologize, Buck,” he says. “It’s not your fault. Your condition-”
“I don’t remember him,” Bucky says. He catches Steve’s hands, refusing to be pulled into another hug, but he curls his fingers delicately around Steve’s wrists instead and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “I don’t have to remember. But you do.” Bucky doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes, scowling down at their joined hands as he chooses his words carefully. “You remember everything, don’t you? You love him too. And not just him, all the others. There are dozens of people in those videos. How many of them did you have to watch grow old? How many of their funerals did you have to go to? I don’t have to remember all of that shit. I can watch these videos, and miss people that I’ve never met and that really fucking sucks. How much worse is it for you?”
Steve is speechless for a long time after Bucky finishes talking. He sits very still, staring at Bucky slowly running his thumbs over the backs of Steve’s hands. Bucky doesn’t try to say anything else, his gaze also focused on their hands because it’s easier than looking at each other’s faces. It’s as though the painful truths Bucky had spoken were now physical things hanging in the air between them and neither of them dares to look at it head on.
“It does suck,” Steve admits quietly. His voice cracks a little at the end, but also a low, nearly hysterical snort bubbles up in his throat. He doesn’t let himself analyze his life too closely very often, for exactly this reason, but he has to admit that it is - in a sort of horrible way - absurd. “I used to tell myself it’d get easier, but it doesn’t. Not really.”
“And on top of everything you have to drag my sad, brain damaged ass around,” Bucky mutters, shaking his head.
That’s too much, and Steve immediately drops Bucky’s hands to cup his face instead. He tilts Bucky’s chin up, forcing him to meet Steve’s eyes. “Don’t talk like that,” he says firmly, hoping that the intensity of his gaze will help reinforce how absolutely serious he is. “You’re the only thing-” He has to stop and swallow again, the muscles in his jaw ticcing. “I love you,” he says instead, quiet and serious. “God, Bucky, I love you so much. I couldn’t do this without you. And yeah, there are… some days really suck.” He chuckles weakly, shaking his head, but the pinched guilt in Bucky’s eyes is fading and that’s what Steve was aiming for. He can’t think of the right words to even come close to expressing the complicated storm of emotions in his chest, so he stops trying. Instead he leans in, pressing a firm kiss to Bucky’s lips.
Bucky responds immediately, over a century of experience having dug that instinct in deep as he melts into Steve with a low moan. They move in easy tandem, the kiss evolving quickly to Steve straddling Bucky’s lap, the two of them tangled up together so closely a sheet of paper wouldn’t fit between them.
When they finally break apart to breathe, Steve keeps one hand in Bucky’s hair but uses the other to dig out his phone and send a text over to the Compound letting the others know he won’t be back that afternoon after all.
Thanks to the serum, Bucky’s face is almost back to normal now, but his eyes are still red rimmed and he keeps glancing toward the - now blank - TV screen. Bucky’s chewing on his lower lip, and there’s a look in his eyes that’s all too familiar.
“Come on,” Steve says quietly. He stands, pulling Bucky up with him and steering him toward their bedroom. Bucky follows him trustingly, threading his fingers between Steve’s and squeezing tight. Ace clatters after them, but Steve gestures for Ace to go back downstairs and give them some privacy, which they do with a pouty whine.
Steve closes their bedroom door behind them - it isn’t necessary, since they’re alone, but it provides a comfortable sense of intimacy. He then strips off his own clothes, and after a moment Bucky gets the idea and undresses too. Bucky lets Steve pull him into the bed without comment, and as soon as they’re settled presses in to start kissing Steve’s neck. But Steve pulls back, gently nudging Bucky away and shaking his head. “Not that,” he says. Bucky looks faintly confused, but also a little relieved which tells Steve he’s made the right call.
He pushes Bucky back against the pillows and drags the blankets up to cover them, wrapping them both in a cozy cocoon of blankets and skin. Bucky shifts, curling himself in against Steve’s side like he’s drawn there by magnets and tucking his head under Steve’s chin. Steve hugs him close and kisses his hair tenderly, letting them rest in the quiet, familiar comfort for a moment.
“Do you want to hear about him?” Steve asks quietly, after several minutes of silence.
Bucky jerks back a bit to blink at Steve’s face. The smile Steve gives him is small and sad, but it’s genuine, heavy with bittersweet nostalgia. Bucky swallows hard and nods.
“Tony Stark… was an asshole,” Steve starts with a crooked grin.
Bucky huffs out a laugh and nestles his head back under Steve’s chin, settling in to listen.
“Tony Stark was an asshole,” Steve repeats, “And we love him.”