fannishliss

title: A Cruel Time
author:

fannishliss
pairing: Steve Rogers/James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes; Steve/OC
genre: slash
rating: Adult
words: 3110
warning: period typical homophobia and language; period attitudes toward gender identity; internalized homophobia

summary: Steve tried to hide what he was; he didn't want Bucky to be anything other than himself.

notes: This ends well. Also if there is any interest, I know what happens to Sally. :)

-- also at AO3 --

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Steve Rogers was not ninety-six years old.

Yes, technically, he was born in 1918, but decades of his life were locked away from him by the ice and then he woke up in a strange new world and had to fight aliens.

He still put on the uniform when they told him to and drove a bike and carried the shield. He ran and trained, followed orders and fought, and when he went home at night, he didn’t turn on the television like it seemed so many people did. He didn’t sit there alone absorbing so-called classic movies. He read history books and tried to get his bearings. He listened to music on long-playing records.

He tried to wear out his new body that didn’t feel fatigue, he tried to fill up his sharpened brain and near-photographic memory with a million details of the decades he’d lost, because as soon as he went into that sad, empty bedroom, the ache of that tidy double bed nearly killed him.

He remembered Bucky on the floor on couch cushions, over so often it was almost like they were brothers. (Almost.) Bucky had family of his own, of course, but Steve and Bucky stuck together like glue, and Steve’s Ma loved to hear the two of them laugh and chatter, or the silences when Bucky was reading the latest astonishing tale of wonder he’d managed to scrape a nickel to afford, and Steve was drawing, Bucky’s face soft and lush on the page.

Steve had always known, about himself. It wasn’t the kind of thing you spread around. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bucky — of course he did, he trusted him like a brother. That was the point, right? Bucky liked the dames, and they liked him, and that was so much simpler, so much safer, than what Steve saw when Bucky was out alone, and Steve went to the clubs up near the Navy Yard.

Gaiety, laughter, paint and feathers, gorgeous creatures who broke every rule and dared to wear their inner glamour out where the world could see — Steve was fascinated, frightened, heartbroken by the fairies and the queers and he couldn’t stay away. He drew them, drank with them when friends were buying, ran with them when the vice squad raided, threw the stones he kept in his satchel when the crude and the brutal tried to tear them apart.

Bucky didn’t know. Steve couldn’t ever let him know how Steve yearned after forbidden fruit: the bright, inextinguishable glory of Bucky’s red lips, the starry gray blue depths of Bucky’s hooded eyes so much more entrancing than any he’d ever seen lined in kohl in smoky rooms.

God help him, Steve had even tried walking out with a boy, a really beautiful boy, slender and ethereal and sweet, his girlish beauty singing out loud into the world, impossible to hide. Sally he was called, Salvatore Rossetti, third kid of seven, a stock boy at the family grocery by day, but a creature of nearly mystical allure by night, with feathers in his hair and old flapper dresses he’d stolen from his ma’s sisters’ attics. Steve didn’t dance, but it was enough to watch Sally sway, the rhythms of jazz rippling hypnotically along the layers of fringe.

It was when Steve and Bucky were still kids really, when Steve was suddenly struck by such a yearning for his friend that it almost made him sick whenever Bucky walked out, when dreams came at night that made him scared to have Bucky too close on his bedroom floor, for fear he’d moan out Bucky’s name as he woke himself, spilling into the sheets.

Steve was no coward, he had a good Irish temper and his Ma had always taught him to stand up for what he believed. But in this, he was hopelessly adrift. He believed in his friendship with Bucky first and foremost, the lodestar of his life. But this thing, this other thing, this obsession, this bodily need, so strong, like if Bucky wasn’t near enough for Steve to breathe him that Steve would die, like Bucky was the only cure for Steve’s wasted lungs. But Bucky wasn’t like the men Steve knew from the clubs and Steve didn’t want him to be. He wanted Bucky safe, and he wanted him just who he was, not hiding, pretending, sad beneath the gaiety.

So when Bucky went dancing with dames, Steve went out with Sally, met him furtively at the clubs, walked him back to his neighborhood like a guy should walk his dame, and he didn’t let on to Bucky that he was walking out with anyone, certainly not that his girl was another boy. Sally was a little older than they were, almost 18, and had been in love before. He was a wonderful kisser, breathing soft as a girl and letting Steve drown his desires in something simple and easy in the darkest back corners of the clubs where they met.

How many times did they walk out? Not so many, Steve guessed, when he thought about it now, here and now in the strange new century. He’d been a dumb, scared kid fighting to survive in a cruel time. Sally’s soft kisses, the delicate way he held his strong, work-roughened hands, the tender touches Steve allowed in the hopes his thoughts would turn away from Bucky. It didn’t work. Steve, like a heel, slipped inside Sally’s body for the first, the only time, and cried out the wrong name when he came. Sally slapped him, called him a heel and a cad, and he deserved it.

And it hadn’t done Steve a bit of good. Sally hadn’t taken Bucky off Steve’s mind - - just the opposite. Steve now knew what it would be like, and it gutted him, wanting it, and Bucky was always, always around. After his Ma had passed, Bucky had claimed that moving in only made sense, that his folks’ place was too crowded with his three younger sisters always carrying up a storm — he’d changed his tune from his previous attack that there was always room for Steve, when he saw that Steve was too stubborn. Steve couldn’t make Bucky go, and so there he was, and they got a new place, a little smaller, a little rougher than the place Steve’s Ma had made home.

Winter was rough. Steve coughed and shivered and Bucky slipped into bed with him to keep him warm, but Steve put his back to Bucky to preserve a little decency.

Summer was worse. Bucky worked down at the dockyards, came home and stripped off and ran cold water in the tub, pouring cupfuls of cold water over his head, howling as the icy rivulets ran down his back. It made Steve laugh and so Bucky just howled louder, his gorgeous smile lighting Steve up in a way that honestly could never feel wrong, no matter what other feelings Steve tried to keep down.

Truly those days in that dingy apartment, nearly starving, nearly dying of pneumonia, were the happiest days of Steve’s life. Bucky was there, and Steve had learned how to guard his silences, and the love they shared was very nearly pure — until the war came and Bucky was gone.

Finding Bucky in the Hydra camp, fighting beside him — it hadn’t been as glorious as Steve had always dreamed. For one thing, there was Peggy. Steve pinned his hopes on her as his new North Star. She was a dame any guy would be proud to call his own, and Steve respected her with every fiber he had. And she returned that respect, which only his Ma and Bucky had ever done before.

Something in Bucky had dimmed, and Steve didn’t understand it, but at least they were together.

Then Bucky fell, and just a few days later, Steve flew his plane straight down into the ocean.

Waking up in a new world was one thing, and yeah, almost everyone he’d ever known was dead, but what Steve could hardly bear was living in a world without Bucky. To him, it was a deep, fresh wound, a cut that would take so much longer than frozen decades to scar over.

When the mask fell from the Winter Soldier’s face, when that hardened killer’s visage fastened on Steve’s without a hint of recognition — it was like a nightmare, but worse than any nightmare, worse than Bucky falling from the train, because in those dreams Steve always, always dove after and sometimes they flew, together, laughing over the snow. Or sometimes they crashed against the rocks, and Steve’s spirit tore free. But this, the torment in Bucky’s flat gaze — it was real. Bucky was alive, and maybe worse than dead.

Steve couldn’t fight him. And really, he should’ve been wearing layers of kevlar and a helmet that would stand a chance against unrifled Russian slugs. But instead he’d worn colorful antique canvas, parading himself like a chorus girl one last time — maybe Bucky would remember.

But he didn’t, did he?

Or did he?

When his arm, hung, poised, ready to crush Steve’s cheek into the side of his head, ready to pulverize the face he used to tenderly clean when Steve wouldn’t stay down — Steve stayed down, and Bucky’s fist froze, his eyes widening with sudden, dawning horror —

what was that horror? was that recognition, or simply a more abject chasm of loss in the Soldier’s eyes?

But someone had pulled Steve onto the bank of the Potomac. And Steve had seen the footage of Bucky, drab and slouching, as he stared at the images of his old self.

Stark wanted the Avengers to assemble. He had a new floor for Falcon, would build new wings, and did Steve know where Natasha had gone?

Natasha had gone to earth Steve knew not where. If he needed her, he trusted she would find him.

Steve went back to his old place, tried to scrub Fury’s blood out of the floorboards, and dreamed of Bucky’s eyes, pain and blankness, rage and horror…. sometimes one glimpse of something under the rim of a ballcap that looked just slightly like curiosity.

Steve was trying to adapt. This new world had Bucky in it. No one called them fairies anymore. Queer was a term men and women wore with pride. Men in DC and New York called each other husband, walked out in the daylight hand in hand, held elected office, served the body of Christ.

Sam even asked him, straight out, if it had been that way between Bucky and him. It hurt so bad when Steve shook his head, he could hardly breathe. The fear that had held him in its horrible grip still wounded this big, strong version of himself.

Steve went out, to the clubs, just once. He wanted to see men laughing and kissing and dancing, without that fear and despair just under the gaiety. He saw it. He went home and wailed, bawled into his pillow like a girl, wore himself out with the pain of regret for all he hadn’t dared to want.

Steve felt a little emptier. His throat stopped aching. If bullet wounds and drowning couldn’t take him down, what could a few hours of soul-wrenching sobs really do.

Steve went in and ran a tub of cold water and sat in it, pouring cups of water over his head like Bucky used to do, and it made him feel better somehow. The cool, sweet water washed away the sticky, salt heat of his sorrow.

Steve dried off and went back to the bed. He lay down, stared at the ceiling. He felt empty; sorrow had crashed through like a wave. But Bucky was alive. And it looked like Bucky had saved him from the river.

That was at least something.

Steve closed his eyes. Lying there under the sheet, Steve tried not to think about the battles, the bullets, the battering. He tried to remember the beauty, and truthfully, Bucky’s face had always held that teasing hint of darkness. Lord Byron, supposedly thinking of some dame, had written of someone’s beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies,
and all that’s best of dark and bright
met in her aspect and her eyes.

Steve smiled, thinking how Bucky would mercilessly taunt him for spouting poetry, like Bucky was a girl (like Sally), like Steve was some artsy queer (he was). What would Bucky do, if Steve (like Sally), if Steve lay back, soft and alluring (pinned, crushed), if Steve put his fingers just there with slick and stretched himself until he was as open and inviting as a girl?

Would Bucky take him?

Oh, the heat, the miserable, thrilling heat that boiled through Steve, it was better almost than the memories of Bucky’s body, hard from the docks, pressed against his weak and shivering body in the dead of winter.

Steve dared then, he dared to reach behind himself, some slick from the little bottle in his drawer that every drugstore carried “for personal lubrication,” and his finger slipped inside, and Steve’s heart skipped a beat, thinking, Bucky, Bucky, I would let him touch me there…

and two fingers slipped in, and Steve arched his back and dropped his shoulders and slid those fingers deep inside, and touched himself in the place that had made Sally cry out so long ago…

Steve said, “Bucky, oh Bucky,” just like he’d said then…

and Bucky made a noise, some little noise, little more than a rustle of fabric, and Steve’s eyes flew open, and Bucky was on him, fast, strong, pinning him, implacable, but not yet deadly.

Bucky’s dear eyes stared down, not dead, questioning, curious. Not so blank, not full of despair.

“Steve,” he whispered.

He stank. He was dirty. He still had on the same clothes Steve had seen from the museum camera footage from a week ago. His hair was hanging lank from under the ballcap. His breath was very bad — though, to be honest, Steve had nursed Bucky through a couple of terrible benders, so his rotten breath at least was not something new.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered back. His fantasy abruptly became reality. He lay there, willing, open, ready to be whatever thing in the world Bucky needed.

Bucky’s face didn’t make the shapes it used to make. His face was quiet, almost blank, but as he stared, he frowned, just ever so slightly, as though he’d hidden his emotions deep inside. But his eyes peered into Steve’s with recognition and intent.

Steve held still, his heart pounding in his chest. He was still hard, interrupted, no way to hide it.

Bucky held both Steve’s hands in his metal hand, captive.

Steve didn’t struggle.

Bucky smoothed his right hand over Steve’s body, questingly.

“Yes,” Steve said. “Whatever you want. It’s okay. Please.”

“I want this,” Bucky said. “I want you. We used to sleep together, like this, when it was cold.”

Bucky turned Steve onto his side, facing him away, and slipped in behind, fitting improbably as he had when Steve had been so much smaller.

“But … I don’t remember this,” Bucky said, flat inflection just slightly hesitant, as he pressed his warm thumb just there, where Steve had been working himself open.

“We never did,” Steve gasped. “But I wanted to. I didn’t think you were like me.”

“Sunlight and shadow,” Bucky said, and Steve marveled that such a sweet and simple thought had been saved back by that ravaged mind. He’d read the file, the horrors, Bucky’s resistance, the torture, the wipes. Bucky had fought, he’d even run away, more than once, but he hadn’t had anyone to run to.

He did now, though. Steve swore he’d never, ever let Bucky fall again.

“I’m like you,” Bucky said. “No. Not like you,” he said.

Steve shuddered, hearing the recriminations he’d heaped on himself for a lifetime.

“Part of you. You — me — part of each other,” Bucky said. “Am I right?” Bucky’s strange flat tone lifted and the boy from Brooklyn was right there, rough in Steve’s ear where he’d always been.

“Yeah, pal,” Steve said, sighing, more than ready to confess all the secrets he’d held back. “Part of me. Hurt so bad when you were gone.”

“I felt it,” Bucky said. “The ache. You gone. Even when I couldn’t remember your name.”

“Oh god, Bucky,” Steve cried, jolting in Bucky’s arms with the pain of it.

“Let me do it,” Bucky said. “Be in you. Feel — feel like I’m really part of you.”

“Do it,” Steve said, pushing back. “Get your clothes off, man!”

Bucky shucked his layers in a few efficient moves. Steve heard the clang of knives and at least one handgun hitting the floor. And then Bucky was pressing in, inside him, one smooth ruthless push, and Steve just took it, the timid reach of his fingers nothing like the hardness that thrust inside him, but slick, and hot, and home, all, all the way home.

Bucky pressed against Steve’s back, warming him from the inside out, carving out a place inside Steve that would always belong to him, from now til ever after.

“Yes,” Steve hissed, pressing back. “Yes, please, Buck.”

Bucky withdrew just slightly, jabbed forward.

“Ah!” Steve cried out. It wasn’t gentle. Bucky didn’t have much gentleness now to draw on. He wasn’t trying to hurt Steve, but all he had was need and longing and a few tattered wisps of the past, what Steve had (almost) been to him.

“Take me,” Steve begged, though gritted teeth.

“Mine,” Bucky whispered, barely a breath. “Mine.”

“Always,” Steve swore.

Bucky came inside him and Steve grabbed his own dick and finished himself off in a few, harsh strokes.

They lay together, catching their breath, Bucky’s metal arm curled under Steve’s head, his flesh arm wrapped, very strong, around Steve’s body.

“I held you like this,” Bucky said. “I remember the smell of your hair. How I wanted to kiss the nape of your neck. But when I got hard, I’d pull away, cause we weren’t like that.”

“Kiss,” Steve said, and Bucky’s gentleness was in his lips on Steve’s skin, just at the juncture of spine and skull.

“We were like that, all along,” Steve finally said, shivering in pleasure at the soft touches of Bucky’s lips and tongue, the hands, one cool, one warm, that were learning him anew. “But we can be more of who we are now.”

Bucky just went on kissing him, well on his way to being more than a cruel time had made of him.