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Don't let the war swallow you up, my darling
Steve looks around and is confused when he can’t find Bucky. The room where they’re holding the debriefing meeting is sticky and full of soldiers who eagerly watch Captain America, each and everyone of them hanging on his words.
The last mission had been one of the least classified ones, basically a rescue mission and barely approved by Colonel Phillips. But as soon as Steve had learned of the group of soldiers captured in the facility they have prepared to destroy for a month the choice had been made.
It had been one of the few missions that didn’t start or end in a fight between Steve and Bucky.
This time, they had made preparations and Steve didn’t even once try to pull a “dumbass stunt”, as Bucky likes to call it. Besides, all Howling Commandos treat imprisonment by Hydra as a personal affaire.
Steve and Bucky know that the ‘debriefing’ isn't necessary from a strategic point of view, but rather for the mood of the crowd. Soldiers tend to fight better when they believe that Captain America and his elite combat unit have their backs. All of them try to give hope and security to the soldiers whenever they can, particularly Bucky who always tries to have a joke and good advice for everyone. He fights tooth and nail to make Jim and Gabe stop calling him Mother-Hen-Barnes.
Steve knows that Bucky has a problem with stuffed rooms and loud noises these days, especially after an assignment that has reminded him of all the things he never speaks about. That’s why Steve declines every offer to go have a drink or tell another story from combat.
When he finally makes it outside, he takes a long, deep breath and looks up to the starlit sky. The temperature must have dropped steadily over the evening as he can see his breath as a white cloud in front of his face.
Steve's feet start to move automatically to the place were Bucky is. Sometimes it's like there’s an invisible line between them. Before the war, Bucky knew where to look in Brooklyn when Steve disappeared. And Steve knows where to look now.
His steps lead him to a small bridge, away from the base. He can see his outlines, Bucky sitting on the railing, his back bent and a cigarette in his hand. It seems as if he’s watching the water flowing through the small river but Steve can't really tell. Bucky’s face remains in the shadows, even when Steve is standing right behind him.
“Buck?”, Steve asks carefully. Bucky doesn't look up. “Hey, Stevie.”
Steve doesn't know if Bucky wants him to sit down but he does so anyway. It is only now that he can see Bucky’s face from the side.
He looks incredible tired. Beautiful grey eyes linger in a thousand-yard stare emphasising the bags under his eyes. Their breaths are visible in the silence that follows, crisp air mixing with cigarette smoke from Bucky's hand.
“Do you remember when I told you about Captain Davis?”, Bucky asks in a flat voice taking a last drag from the cigarette and flipping it into the river right when Steve was losing hope that they’d be talking more.
“Of course, I do. What’s the matter with him?”
“Killed in action two days ago, a baby-faced draftee mentioned his name at the debriefing. I asked how the old Captain was doing and this guy just says he's dead...”, Bucky whispers in Steve’s direction. “Captain’s got blown up in a way that they didn't even have something to send back home.”
Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath from the cold air, his stomach turns.
Every time Bucky talks about his time on the front, Captain Davis is part of the story. Steve had never met him but he would have liked to. Some part of him wants to thank the person that saved Bucky's life and therefore his own.
“Without him I’d never have survived the first three month in combat,” Bucky once said when trying to teach Steve how to use his rifle properly after he’d complained about Steve's lack of training, ”This guy was better at teaching us how to survive than any fucking Colonel in basic training ever was. Christ, he always called us greenhorns and made it sound like the worst insult ever spoken.”
Anyone who would listen to Bucky talking about Davis could hear the gratitude and respect for the old Captain. In the 107th, Davis nickname was Captain D for various dirty reasons but mainly because he was a dick.
“Kinda like you, but older and prettier,” Bucky said a few weeks ago, a smug smile on his face. He had to duck to avoid Steve's punch. Of course, he had been lying, there’s no one prettier than Steve.
Sadly, Davis was needed elsewhere after some time leaving Bucky's unit with the words, “If anyone of you fucking dies, I’ll personally drag you back from the grave and beat the shit out of you. Now, give them hell, boys!”
Bucky tried to give them hell. But he now knows that to raise hell means to walk through hell. And sometimes he asks himself if his legs even work after all the hell fire he walked through. Most of the time they do, because he’s running for his life again. His hands are always awfully functional and steady when taking another men’s life.
Steve has suspected for a while now that Bucky isn't alright. Despite Bucky insisting that Steve will die because of his stubbornness, Steve believes that if Bucky doesn’t talk, his own stubbornness will kill him long before Steve has the chance to die.
With all this on his mind, Steve can tell that the news hit Bucky hard. His eyes are red-rimmed and his whole body seems to be heavier for him to carry around than usual.
“Can I do anything to make it hurt less?”, Steve asks in a compassioned voice.
For a moment Bucky looks him directly in the eyes, then he rises from the railing and takes out another cigarette. He fumbles in his pockets for a moment, searching something.
“Do you have fire? Don't know where I put mine.”
“Sure thing, Buck.” Steve gets up as well and rummages around his pocket. When they both try to protect the flame from the breeze, their fingers touch.
“You're cold as ice,” Steve says with disapproval so thick in his voice that Bucky can't possibly miss it. But Bucky doesn't respond, just takes a drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke in Steve’s face.
“You're punk,” Bucky says, his voice soft.
“Oh, shut up, Barnes, you better practice what you preach. You’re always trying to strangle me with thousands of scarfs, so I won’t freeze like you do now!”, Steve says with an expression on his face that says, I will not take any shit from you, James Buchanan Barnes.
Instead of starting a fight about who’s the more irritating in their need to worry all the time, Bucky steps on the cigarette stump. “Yeah, but now you don't need any warming up anymore…”
Once again Bucky looks tired and sad, like he’s barely holding everything together. Steve can't stand to watch the strongest person he knows crumble. But they all do. War is war.
“Come here,” Steve speaks softly and pulls Bucky in for a hug.
Bucky hides his face in Steve’s neck and clings to his back like a lifeline. Steve caresses his neck, his hair.
They both just stand there for a moment allowing themselves to feel the other body pressed against their own. Steve doesn’t want it to end because Bucky's hugs always feel like home, even after his mom died. Words start to form on his tongue, words that he wanted to say for a while.
He doesn't, instead he just buries his nose in Bucky’s hair.
After a while Steve notices the wetness of his uniform and how Bucky’s grip tightened.
“It's gonna be alright, Buck,” Steve whispers in his best friend’s ear feeling a bit helpless. He never knows what to do when Bucky cries.
“I'm sorry, Steve,” Bucky whispers back, shame in his voice. “I'm sorry.”
A few moments of silence fall over them. Steve tries to hold Bucky so tight that all of the words in his head magically transfer into Bucky's body, right into his heart. However, magic never helped anybody in anything. Steve breathes Bucky's scent in and out of his lungs and tries to think of something he can do, giving himself a headache in the process.
“Do you remember when I had the longest asthma attack in '39?”, Steve asks all of a sudden. Bucky snorts.
“What do you think?”, he notes dryly. “You sounded like you were choking to death, of course, I fucking remember! And all that because you were fighting in the streets again.”
Steve rolls his eyes. “You know what I remember about that day?”
Bucky breaks away from Steve's shoulder and frowns, face red and wet. “Me screaming at you?”
Steve laughs. “No, not that part. Before that, you sat with me and rubbed my back. You told me, that you’re right there with me and that you would not allow god or anyone else to take me away from you.”
Bucky blushes even more than he had from crying. His greyish-blue eyes locked with Steve’s, clearly surprised and slightly embarrassed that he brought it up.
Normally, they don't speak about things like that. But when has been the last time that things had been normal for both of them?
“Buck, I know you've been fighting this war longer than I have. You neither speak about your time as a prisoner nor about your time at Italy's front. And I get it, I really do. But Buck, don't ever think I would allow the war to take you away from me.” Steve’s voice is desperate and his eyes stare with an intensity that creates goose bumps all over Bucky’s body. “I don't fucking care who tries, at the end of the day, you’re my home, my best guy, and that’s all that matters. Alright?”
Bucky’s eyes shine full of tears. “Yeah, alright, Stevie.”
Steve can't tear his gaze away from Bucky. His lips are dry and cracked, open and vulnerable like the rest of him this evening. Bucky leans even closer, takes his ice-cold hands and cups Steve’s cheeks. “Steve, I..”
But Steve is faster. When their lips collide, the world seems to stop. Breathing out shakily, Steve opens his mouth a little bit and Bucky takes it as an invitation slipping in his tongue carefully.
Steve closes his eyes feeling Bucky’s hands on his cheeks and in his hair. They're both panting into each other's mouth.
Steve’s hands on Bucky’s hips embrace him pressing him against his own body. They kiss and kiss and kiss. They cling to each other like they could get ripped apart and never see each other again any moment.
“Steve, I...,” Bucky begins after they’ve caught their breaths. He’s still holding Steve’s head with his hands. “Steve, don't you ever leave me. That's the only thing I can think of that would kill me now, the only thing that matters.”
Steve’s gaze softens even more as he mirrors Bucky with his hands on his cheeks before pulling Bucky’s head gently against his own until their foreheads touch.
“Bucky, I don't know what all of this means but I do know that I won't leave you. It's like you’ve always said,” Steve whispers caressing Bucky’s stubbly cheek with his thumb. “Until the end of the line.”
Bucky smiles thanking god for Steve Rogers. He believes that he’s probably damaged beyond repair but it doesn't matter, not really.
Because he knows, as long as Steve is his companion through life, as a best friend or lover, bad thinks never have the chance to last.
Not even the hate of all Nazi-Germany and Hydra combined.