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So much had happened after waking up from the ice: the attack on New York, the Winter Sol- Bucky , Project Insight and the fall of SHIELD, god-but especially Bucky, just...so much. Tony had offered them an apartment (“Tony, this isn’t an apartment, this is an entire floor , what the-”) in the tower, and all of its resources at their disposal, for as long as they needed. Seemed the safest and smartest place for both Steve and Bucky to find their footing—what with Steve’s old place belonging to SHIELD and Bucky’s being-
In the relative calm that follows, Steve starts drawing again. Well, with whatever pen is within reach, and on napkins or briefing copies... it’s doodling, really. He didn’t have much time nor was he in the headspace for it before, but more and more he’s carving out time for himself, and he’s finding his hand itching to get back to his favorite hobby. He even does research—going to the museums and reading up on all the newer techniques. He’s surprised to find how valued artists are now. There are whole stores devoted to just art supplies. It’s a lot to take in, honestly. He isn’t sure where to start.
Steve's somewhat overwhelmed by shopping in general, and has lived three years in a state of near-paralysis over just the prospect of simply choosing a decent pair of pants. It’s Pepper—noticing his discomfort during an informal press conference—who he finally confides in.
“Someone made the comment...about me being literally old fashioned, after asking the question about my clothes. Like, I must prefer fashions of the 30s because there was less variety, less to choose from.”
“Steve, that was only a joke. In poor taste, yes, but-”
“No, I know. That’s- that doesn’t matter. That's not the point.”
“Okay, so explain it to me.”
“People think because my mind works faster, processes more, that I’m somehow better equipped to-” He shook his head. “None of the clothes I wear are mine. Not a single shirt or jacket or sock. Why the fuck would I pick khakis? Every article of clothing I own was issued to me, by quote-unquote highly experienced and trustworthy personel . I went with it, because it was easier, at first. But then I tried, you know… to find things for myself and, and… I couldn’t do it. All the options — do you know what it’s like having an eidetic memory when you’ve looked at 57 pairs of blue jeans, 123 shirts, 18 hats, 11 coats, and 39 different shoes in one day? The outfit combinations alone, springing up and crowding in and then expanding outward, like an ever multiplying army of empty scenarios — Jesus — felt like I was about to have an asthma attack for the first time since before the war, right there in the middle of Macy’s.” (He finds out from his therapist when relaying this story that he’s having anxiety attacks, not asthma relapses, and feels sort of foolish. But when Bucky realizes he’s been having them without a single person noticing for years, he lays into everyone, and Steve is treated like an especially fragile puppy for two weeks.)
Pepper works her magic. She offers to handle a lot of things for him, with minimal input from Steve on what he prefers as far as color and style, until he has a better hold on it all. “That way you’re still involved in the process, and I get a feel for who you are, and who you mean to be.” She says, tapping away on a StarkPad resting on the table between them. “The rest JARVIS and I can do.” Within days, his and Bucky’s place has been filled with a sizable wardrobe, homewares, groceries… Pepper Potts is a gift to mankind. Steve starts greeting her with a warm hug every time he sees her, which both thrills her to no end and appears to send Tony into some sort of tizzy. (“So a win all around in your book?” Bucky asks when he tells him this. Steve shoots him a wink back.)
Sometime months after moving in, he’s watching a show on Netflix, and he mentions pencils. Just a passing mention, how nice it would be to have a proper set, like the young lady on screen. A package shows up on his doorstep two days later. Steve’s hands threaten to shake as he picks up container after container of pencils--regular looking wood and graphite, and chunky mechanical types, and so many colors that it’s mind boggling. Sure as hell beats the old pieces of charcoal he'd pick out of rubble piles, that’s for sure. There’s also several sketchpads of various sizes at the bottom of the box.
“JARVIS, what does he have to look forward to on Christmas morning if you and Ms. Potts are spoiling the man rotten?” Bucky gripes playfully.
“I am certain the Captain is most looking forward to the general merriment and company of loved ones this holiday season, Mr. Barnes.”
“If that’s what he told you, he was fuckin’ lying.”
He draws Bucky.
Bucky, holding a coffee cup and looking out across the city. Bucky reading. Bucky’s hair when it falls in waves, a buffer between him and the world. The stretch of denim across one of his thighs. The arch of his propped up foot. The bend and shine of an elbow as he works at the kitchen table. The dip in his chin. The plain of his back when he's fast asleep, and the softness to his hips where the sheets rest. The creases of his eyes. The uptick of his mouth.
He used to draw Bucky...before.
Before everything. In their other life. Especially when he’d get too sick to go outside. Bucky would dig one of Steve’s old paperbacks out to read, or just tell him what was going on around town that week, and while he did, Steve would sketch him.
There was no metal arm back then. No glossy, ridged scars marring his left shoulder. His eyes had a spark and his smile came with ease. Bucky would get so excited over seeing Steve’s charcoal renderings of him, he’d spend a good hour making remarks about it. Steve would catch him picking it up, fingers smudged from repeatedly dragging them across the page, an awed ”gosh” whispered like it was the first one he’d ever seen.
Sometimes, Steve wants to cry and scream, wants to beat his hands bloody and destroy things, at the rage he feels for that Bucky Barnes being ripped away from all that he was.
But he’s still Bucky. Still has a birthmark that looks like New Jersey to the right of his tailbone. Has the same nervous habit of running his right hand through his hair. After all this time, he still has the worst accent when he gets wound up about something, which you can predict coming by the vein thumping away just above his collarbone. And the chipped molar from that fight at Farrell’s (Steve had it under control, okay, Buck just wanted to show off)—it’s there as well.
His lips. Those look the same too. Same shape. Same shade of pink. Now though, Steve knows how they feel and how they taste. You can’t capture that in a drawing.
There’s this selfish, selfish part of him that isn’t sure which he’d choose, if he was given the choice: take Bucky back to what he was, before Hydra and before the war; or keep this haunted, guarded Buck—who’s finally his.
Nah, he knows he’d choose to spare Bucky all the unimaginable pain, of course he would. But… he’d hesitate. Knowing he’s got this deep, dark jagged bit lodged within him, it eats at him.
Steve feels so rotten about it that he eventually confesses to Bucky. Late at night, when they’re laying in bed, it’s a common occurrence for them to whisper (or cry or tremble until they break apart in each other’s embrace) over bad memories or long lost moments or simply the overwhelming matter of their existence. Neither of them have the respect nor fear they once did for God or any of His saints, so see no point in attending mass—no use for a priest, when each cares only that his sins are forgiven by the man who lies within arms reach of him every night.
Steve curls in on himself in the dark, tries to become smaller than he knows he ever will be, as he feels Bucky climb in beside him. The air feels heavy, like it always does on nights like this. Nights when they want to speak but guilt strangles the words before it all comes rushing out.
“...It’s so fuckin selfish, and I’m sorry for it. To even think that, to want that. All the...what you went through the past 70 years, and there’s some part of me that’s happy about that Buck!” Steve says in disgust. “How fucked up does a person have to be to think like that?”
“Well,” Bucky sighs, “I’m gonna go with fucked up pretty bad, but I can’t tell ya off for it, seein as Ma didn’t raise me a hypocrite.”
Steve cranes his head up to see Bucky smirking at him.
“What?”
“I knew there wasn’t any way that serum could make everything better—too much heart before brains, it’s always been that way—“
“Are you calling me stupid ?!”
Bucky rolls his eyes, then reaches across to roll Steve over so that they’re facing each other.
“I’m callin you you . Stevie, do you honestly think I’d pick any other life than the one where this, right here, is happening? And that includes a different, better life for either one of us. Yeah, it’s been a nightmare. We’ve been through some shit . But Steve,” he puts metal to Steve’s shoulder, a flesh and blood palm against his cheek, “look at where it’s led us . Ninety odd fuckin years. And you’re not sick, and I’m not dead in some German ditch. You aren’t buried in half a mile of ice, I’m not a murderous amnesiac. We’re here. In this bed. Together. I never, in a million dreams, thought I’d have this back then. So. I’d rip apart any time machine or banish all the wish-grantin’ genies that tried to change a single thing. If that makes me selfish or crazy then so be it.”
“I can feel you looking at me.”
“Congratulations. You might just make a swell sniper one day, with skills like that.” Steve nods at Bucky in mock approval, as his eyes flick back down to his sketchpad. Thanks to the serum, he doesn’t need to keep looking at a subject for reference once he’s seen it, but he’s found it’s a hard habit to break. And when the subject is Bucky, Steve never really tries in the first place.
“You’re hilarious, truly. You do gigs down at the comedy club? Because I want tickets. C’mon, whatcha got over there, Stevie? You drawin’ pictures of me?”
Steve switches over to shading. “Why do you ask questions you already know the answers to?”
Bucky gets up from his spot in the armchair by the far wall and makes his way across the room, “So I sound clever and intuitive more often.”
Steve snorts, tilting the sketchbook up against his chest. “What scholarly source did we pick this week’s tidbit up from?”
“Buzzfeed.” Bucky plops down in his lap. “Now hand it here, Rogers.”
This goes almost the exact same way every single time, because Bucky is shameless, and Steve indulges him.
“Just remember it’s not finished-”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re all works in progress, sweetheart.”
Steve rolls his eyes and flips the pad into Bucky’s hand. Like always, Bucky exhales harshly at the first sight of his most current likeness, his eyes going wide with wonder. Like always, it’s entirely genuine, which never fails to throw Steve.
“Damn, this is something else. I swear you’re getting better all the time, and I didn’t really think that was possible.” A metal finger brushes reverently down the locks of hair fanned out along most of the page. “It’s…” Bucky looks nervous. He always gets nervous. As if Steve’s response would differ—would ever not be true, when the proof is right there in Bucky’s hands. “It’s gorgeous, Steve.”
Steve takes Bucky’s chin in hand and waits for him to meet his eyes. “ You’re gorgeous, Buck.” He feels Bucky swallow against his palm, pale gaze unwavering from Steve’s own. “I’m just drawing what I see.”