Work Text:
Bucky stirred as consciousness tugged at him. There was no discernible light behind his eyelids so either it was very late or very early, and he didn’t particularly care to find out which. He groaned softly, wanting to slip back to sleep; to bury himself further into the warmth of the blankets and the solid body next to him. Except that body pulled away, untangling their limbs, and the weight on the mattress shifted as his companion sat up. Well, fuck .
He listened for a moment; the creak of the bed, the rustle of fabric, and the click of a phone being unlocked filtering through the nighttime chorus of crickets and cicadas. “E'rything' okay?” he mumbled, voice muffled further by the pillow, and kept his eyes closed. Maybe if he didn’t move at all it would entice the other back to bed.
He heard the man huff and the wisps of denim gliding over skin. Double fuck. “Steve?” Bucky finally opened his eyes, sight adjusting to the darkness almost instantaneously, and propped his head up on his hand.
Steve paused, arms in his shirt with it stretched over his chest, not yet pulled over his head. His shoulders sagged and he sighed but finished dressing. He then sat back down on the bed, his back to Bucky though he looked over his shoulder at him. “Text from Nat.”
Bucky schooled his expression, decades of practice not letting any emotion show. This was how it had been anytime Steve had visited over the last several months. He’d come, stay for a few days, maybe even a week if they were lucky. And then he would leave to go right back into the fight, all forms of communication cut off until he returned.
They weren’t together again, not like they were before the ice and the torture. And they certainly didn’t talk about the past either, or at least not about what they used to be. Mostly because Bucky tried to keep Steve at arms length. It was a lot of quiet companionship, marveling at the insanity of the future and the beauty of the country keeping Bucky safe from the rest of the world. Or keeping the rest of the world safe from Bucky. Sometimes it felt like both.
During the nights however, Bucky let himself be selfish. There was just the one bed in his hut and while Steve had offered to sleep on the floor Bucky would roll his eyes and tug him close. They’d slept cuddled together throughout their entire lives, it was just natural. Didn’t have to mean anything deeper. He wouldn’t let it mean anything deeper, even though he wanted it so badly. It was against his better judgment and Steve deserved more than the absolute mess that was Bucky Barnes, ex brainwashed murderer and living weapon. Especially when he would wake Steve by screaming in his sleep, jaw clenched with the memory of a bite guard. Steve never complained but that just made it worse, silent stoic suffering just to protect a broken man who was an echo of someone he loved once.
And yet every time Steve left, every time he responded to the call for help, Bucky died a little more. As if he had any fucking right to demand anything.
“Where?” Bucky asked, keeping his voice as even as he could manage. He pushed himself upright so he was sitting, having finally gotten used to the new weight of his body and figuring out balance without his left arm.
He watched Steve stare at his phone for a minute, brows pinched as if he was trying to decide something. Eventually he typed a quick message and slid his phone into his pocket but didn’t turn back to Bucky. “Chongqing. Suspicious shipments passing through the docks.” He didn’t elaborate further, and Bucky didn’t ask.
They’d almost talked. A few times, actually, though it would either end with Bucky shutting Steve out and changing the subject or unfortunate timing of a text from Sam, Natasha, or Wanda. Sometimes Steve would see the text but not answer, or pretend he didn’t get a message at all. But then Bucky would still push him away, knowing if he didn’t it would continue to eat at Steve no matter how much he denied it. Steve stopped ignoring his phone after the fourth or fifth time.
“How long?” Bucky asked, his voice barely above a whisper. It felt wrong to disturb the night with the well of emotions he was barely holding back.
Steve turned his head toward the door of the hut as he spoke. “WIthin the hour.”
He nodded even though Steve was turned away. His mind kept screaming, begging him to ask Steve not to go, tell him the truth, say literally anything to keep Steve here. But he couldn’t make his mouth move. He was trying to protect Steve from bad decisions, like shackling himself here with him.
After a long silence stretched between them, Bucky shifted so he could lay back down. He wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep but he didn’t want Steve to know that. Just as Bucky started to turn, Steve grabbed his wrist, “Wait,” and Bucky held his breath. He shifted around so he was fully facing Bucky, one bent leg up on the mattress. “Buck, what… What is this?” he asked, gesturing between them. “What are we doing?”
Bucky wasn’t sure how to answer that. ‘I’m selfishly holding onto you as tightly as I can while also keeping you at arms length to protect you,’ felt a bit too raw. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.
Steve hadn’t let go of Bucky’s wrist and he pulled it closer to himself. For a brief moment Steve started to lean in, or was Bucky imagining that?, and then he got another text. Steve huffed, irritation written all over him as he sat back and pulled his phone back out of his pocket, reading over the text.
“Tell me to stay,” Steve whispered, eyes still downcast. “Just one word and I will.”
He wanted to. Bucky ached with how much he wanted to never let Steve go. But he knew that wouldn’t work. They both did. He was too damaged and Steve too restless. They could pretend for a little while that they were still two dumb kids in Brooklyn who hadn’t been torn to shreds by war, but reality would always rear its ugly head eventually.
“They need you,” he said instead, voice sounding wrecked even to his own ears.
Steve closed his eyes for a moment as if steeling himself, then nodded and stood. He grabbed his backpack off the floor and turned to leave. He paused, turning back to Bucky and quickly pressing a kiss onto the top of his head before sweeping out of the room.