Steve stirs and glances around warily before sitting up straight and reaching for the cold cup of coffee sitting on the table in front of him. He sips it and grimaces at the bitter taste. He feels the ghost of fingertips on his cheek.
II. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” Steve had said, his blue eyes nearly swollen shut. He refused to fight back, and his hands faltered, he couldn’t kill him. He sits on the roof of the tower of London, sniper rifle lined up with Steve Rogers’ skull, finger poised on the trigger. Steve turns and from here he can see how blue his eyes are. He curses, and throws the rifle aside.
III. He gets flashes sometimes of a life that’s not his, warm smiles, blond hair, scratchy records on a dusty record player. It’s not his life, he tell himself, all that he knows is blood, and pain, and cold, cold winters. Steve is in a hotel room just outside of Rome, head buried in a too soft bed, covers shoved to the bottom. It is a hot night, and he’s lying vulnerable, it would be so easy to sneak inside and kill him any way he likes. So easy. He slides open the balcony door, quiet as breath. He sits in a chair by the bed contemplating the sculpted Adonis three feet away, sleeping. His metal fingers reach forward and run across Steve’s exposed calf, feeling the tense of muscle. Steve shivers and Bucky recoils, bolting up and out the balcony door. Steve wakes to the soft breeze coming through the open balcony door—the one he’d locked before going to sleep.
IV. Ever bolder, Bucky, as he is loath to be called, steps across the threshold of that same hotel room three nights later, and Steve is awake waiting for him. He is unarmed and harmless, his face fallen and his shoulders slouched. “Buck.” He says, just one word that nearly sends him crumbling to the floor. He raises a slim pistol, silencer already attached to the end, “Please don’t.” Steve says, making no effort to move out of the way or to defend himself. “You could’ve killed me on the train, or the other night when you were here, but you didn’t.”
His hands shake on the gun and he casts it aside and charges at the bed where Steve is sitting. Perhaps it’s gotten too personal and this conflict is inevitable. He raises his fist as if to strike him, but is unable to. His hand stills along the curve of Steve’s cheek and further down to grip loosely at his neck. “Fight back.” He whispers, his other hand joining the first.
“I won’t hurt you.” Steve says, tilting his head back as if his throat is some kind of offering. Bucky’s hands tighten and Steve swallows, closing his eyes and waiting. Bucky’s eyes are wide and he’s so angry, but his hands won’t squeeze any harder.
“Why.” He says. “Why won’t you just fight back!” His hands fall free from Steve’s neck.
His hands slide to Steve’s shoulders and grip tightly as he nearly falls to his knees, weight falling heavy into his ankles. “Just fight me. I could kill you right here, and you would be defenseless.” He says, voice rising in pitch and breath getting shakier and shakier by the second.
“I won’t fight you, Bucky. If you want to kill me, then kill me, I won’t stop you.” Bucky slides the rest of the way to the floor, knees hitting the carpet. “You’re my friend, not my enemy.”
“That guy you remember isn’t me. I don’t know that life.” Steve sighs and cautiously cards a hand through Bucky’s hair. He doesn’t even flinch. “Why won’t you just kill me and get it over with?” He raises his eyes and they’re bloodshot, tears dripping down his face and hitting the carpet.
“I would rather die by your hands than to wake up every day and look at the hands that killed you.” Bucky’s eyes widen and he surges up like a caged animal. He runs off the balcony and jumps, landing on the street below before Steve can even say, “Wait.”
V. The next night as Steve sleeps, Bucky slithers in the balcony door, now left open. He doesn’t make a sound as he creeps close to the bed where Steve rests. Maybe he’s frustrated, or maybe he’s out of his mind, but he had felt something, a stirring of something dormant. Something buried beneath the cold winter and the orders and the rage.
“You’d kill me to get him back.” He says, not caring whether Steve hears him or not. He climbs over Steve’s body and leans mere inches from his face. Without thought to reason why, he leans forward and kisses him. As he pulls back, Steve’s eyes blink open.
“Bucky?” He whispers, his hands coming up to Bucky’s thighs and upwards towards his hips. Bucky’s hand covers Steve’s mouth and he rests his forehead on Steve’s chest.
“Don’t talk.” Steve nods and he removes his hand, moving instead to cup Steve’s face with both as he dives in for another kiss. Steve’s nose knocks against his as he responds, fingers gripping tightly on Bucky's hips. “I want you to remind me what it’s like.”
Steve sits up just a bit, Bucky sliding back further into his lap. “Okay, Buck, anything you need.” Bucky tugs at Steve’s hair and nudges his cheek. Steve’s hands trail up and Bucky shoves them back down. They both fight for more touch, pushing and shoving at each other. Steve topples them over, caging Bucky beneath him, hands in his hair and mouth at his ear. Bucky bites his lip and grinds up like a man starved for it.
“Touch me.” He pleads, and Steve is slave to his whim, going too hard and too fast and it’s all wrong and after all this time it shouldn’t be like this, but it is, and there’s no going back.
There aren’t words after that point, just tongues and teeth and hands, groping and tearing at clothes and flesh like they’re trying to crawl inside each other.
Afterwards, when he’s come down enough to realize what he’s done, he traces every bruise with his mouth and fells Bucky wince softly beneath him. “I’m sorry.” He whispers, over and over, and Bucky laughs like a man broken.
Steve falls asleep with his hand over Bucky’s chest, and awakes alone.
VI . When Steve walks into the hotel room that night, Bucky is already waiting on him. His legs are curled under him and his face is scrubbed clean. He’s wearing Steve’s clothes.
“Tell me about him, about who I was.” Steve sits across from him, but he doesn’t know where to start.
