AN- I had this idea and found it so darkly funny that I had to use it. And then I just made it dark, as I am prone to do. And then, as I am also prone to do, I made it fairly shippy. Actually, I'd posted this before, but I realized that I'd made a few errors after re-watching the first movie and much to my horror, I'd put a typo right in the summary, so this is a reposted version with a more proper ending. So, thank you, remember that I own only my ideas and also this is the first time I've ever written anything in the MCU, and enjoy! -Twilight Joltik

Fondue

by Twilight Joltik

It made Steve so happy to see Bucky cracking up as he scanned the room service menu.

Or, at least it did until the fact they were ordering what effectively amounted to his last meal set in.

Still, he wouldn't have their last memories together for God-knows how long be bitter, so he tried to push that thought back with a half-chuckled question of "What's so funny?"

In response, Bucky simply shoved the menu towards him, pointing at one of its options. "Cheese Fondue- served with bread", it read. He wanted to cry.

"You know, I've always wanted to try this," Bucky stated with a smirk. "Ever since Stark…"

The joy that he remembered that offset the sudden surge of repressed embarrassment. "Well, it's just cheese and bread," he joked back. "Sure that's what you want?"

A shrug, which looked a bit off without the metal arm. "Why not? I mean, it's now or never, right?"

That was true. The flight that would bring them Wakanda, to T'challa's more than generous offer for protection but an inevitability Steve really didn't want to face, left in the morning. The casualty with which Bucky seemed to regard this was stunning and a bit terrifying.

"Well, if that's what you want, I'll call up," he offered, standing up and lunging for the phone.

While they waited for it to come, they sat back on the floor, neither saying a word. Every second felt like it was on a time bomb, being ticked down until the inevitable explosion, and he was just standing there, not rushing to defuse it or even get people away. But what could he even say? There was too much to be said, where would he even start?

The words tried to force themselves out his throat:

"I've missed you so much and it's great to have you back-" But he didn't have him back. The bandage on the wound would soon be brutally ripped off, leaving it even sorer than before.

"I'm so sorry for everything they put you through-" But what apology could ever measure up to so many decades of hell?

"Please don't go back under, I'll protect you, I won't let anything ever happen to you again-" But he'd made his piece on that. Besides, it was Bucky's decision, and as much as he hated to admit it, he saw the logic.

So they did little more than breath next to each other, the same air, in a silence that not even the radio playing in the background could make less painful. The knock on the door was sweet relief, it was the arrival of something to do, some way to use the finite hours.

And yes, Howard had been completely correct. Fondue was just cheese and bread. Good cheese and good bread, yes, but it just tasted like cheesy bread. But Bucky, he went from shoving cube after cube in his mouth, only pausing to wipe melted cheese off his cheek, to suddenly barely poking at the food and sighing.

"Everything alright?", Steve asked, grateful he'd finally remembered what words were and how to use them around old friends.

Bucky stared at his reflection in the metal fondue pot. "Not at all," he very bluntly admitted.

Well of course it wasn't. Why had he even said that now, when nothing at all was alright. "No, I mean, d-do you not like the fondue?", he tried to clarify, but heck, he'd gotten the gist the first time.

"It's fine," Bucky stated in the way that only people who weren't fine in the slightest might. "I just…"

He trailed off and then became intensely interested in poking a bread cube. "What?", Steve quickly questioned.

Steve tried not to take offence that his best friend, on his last night, was far more interested in bread than him. "Nothing, it's silly," he muttered.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine," Steve assured him. "But you're talking about 'silly' to the guy who used to get up on stage in a blue jumpsuit with a line of chorus girls."

Bucky shot him a smile, a genuine one, not the faked, "try to forget about imminent freezing" one both of them had been bearing for the past few days.

Taking a deep breath, Bucky started with "Steve, I barely remember that. I mean, I know it happened from the museums and books and articles, but, I don't remember anything about it."

"Well why would you have, I don't even think you ever went to one!", Steve exclaimed. "Of course you wouldn't remember, why would you be worried about that?"

"I don't remember most things, to be honest," he practically whispered, stirring the fondue a bit as he did so. "Little details, sure, but not much… coherent. I can remember days, I can remember jokes, I can remember incidents, but not longer strings."

"That's how memories work, though. You don't need to be worried, you're not-"

"It's not like that!", he cried, suddenly looking up from their meal and staring at him straight-on with an intensity that made him remember the Winter Soldier on the rooftop. "I know what memories feel like, and this isn't what it is. I can't explain it, I just…"

Bucky's eyes darted back to his plate and he sighed. "I just don't know, he muttered. But I know I was really proud of myself for remembering about this Fondue thing, about remembering how we all used to tease you about it, how you told me you actually sort of wanted to try the thing that 'ruined your life', how I promised we'd find some after the war."

Vaguely, Steve could recall that conversation, had while everyone else was half drunk and had decided once more that "Fondue" was hilarious as he just watched on with amusement. "You… remembered that? To be honest, I forgot…"

A sharp inhale, and Bucky clenched a fist around his fork. "Really? I thought it was important," he muttered, sounding disappointed.

Some damage control flooded out of his mouth. "No, it's fine! It was important, I just hadn't thought about it in a while, that's all!"

"I- I'd just sort of thought, that once everything had calmed down and I was in control and it was safe, that we'd go out to a nice dinner and order fondue," Bucky sighed. "I was really looking forward to it…"

"Well, we're having it now!", Steve exclaimed, grabbing his friend's hand without thinking. "See, everything's fine!"

He looked up at him once more, eyes much less biting. "I had it all planned out," he murmured. "We'd get to talking, and I'd tell you how my memory was all screwed up, and then I'd tell you how it started to come back, how you were the throughline that got me as far as I could. And then I-I'd-"

Bucky stopped and looked away. "I'd tell you that I still have no idea who or what I am but that you're important to 'me', whoever that is."

The way he said it made it sound… intimate. Like a confession, not a reassurance.

"Buck, you're important to me, you're so important to me, you don't even know-"

"Stop, I- I was going to say…" Bucky looked back at him, a steely determination filling every corner of his face. "I was going to say that you're the thing that brings back emotions in me. You're the one that makes me feel like more than a machine. I don't know what to call that, but I think it's a bit deeper than friendship."

Steve's breath caught in his throat in an oddly nostalgic way. This was a confession.

All at once, things rushed together. Emotions crashed, knocking down some door in Steve's brain he hadn't realized existed. "You… love me then?", he questioned. "In the romantic sense."

A nod. "I'd say so. That must be strange, but I…"

He gave a humorless laugh. "I was going to say something witty here, about how now it seems a lot more acceptable for two guys to have fondue together, and you'd laugh and forget I ever said anything personal."

Steve repeated the laugh. "No, I'm not forgetting that." He squeezed Bucky's hand, and a pain he didn't quite understand flooded his heart. "Not in a hundred years."

The ticking time bomb seemed to stop momentarily, but Steve knew he'd only made the blast more devastating. But he understood now, why he'd go to the ends of the earth and rip everything he loved apart for Bucky's sake. The silence of the room seemed smothering, filled with a hollow tune from a radio he wished he could bring himself to turn off. He wanted to say something else, but the words had left him again.

Heartbeat after heartbeat pounded in his ears. He prayed Bucky would say something else, but he just kept glancing down as red filled every corner of his face.

Something needed to be said, but he wasn't sure what. Something needed to be done, but he didn't know how. A voice in the back of his head, one that sounded strangely like Nat, seemed to be egging him on, to act on the feeling of urgency in the pit of his stomach.

Finding his eyes lingering on Bucky's lips, he tried to talk himself out of the idea. It would only make the parting harder for both of them, once the wound opened the blood would never stop falling out. Once he let himself want that, once he accepted the fact that his feelings weren't platonic, it could only cause problems.

A sick feeling crawled up his throat, familiar in a dull way. Desire, desperation, longing. Could he-? No, surely not. It would just-

He jumped, a hand had found its way to rest on the side of his face. Bucky was smiling at him as he stroked his cheek. "You really are fine with this," he remarked. "Heh, sorry, didn't mean to make things any harder on you."

"Don't apologize," Steve practically ordered, surprising himself with the force in which it came out. "Not to me, at least."

"Why not?", he questioned, but it sounded more like he was egging him on, begging him to say everything out loud.

Closing his eyes, losing himself in his touch and in the swirl of emotions, he tried to say something. "Because I understand, because you're the one I'm holding onto."

"So I'm not allowed to apologize why? Because at very least I probably owe you something for tomorrow."

His eyelids flickered open involuntary to find Bucky a bit closer than he remembered. "Because I-" He paused for a moment to reposition, to pull him in closer. "Because I know this'll pass. Because we'll find a way to help you and you'll wake up and we can see what these emotions mean properly."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I've found you before. What makes you think this will be any different?"

Their foreheads were touching, but he could still make out a familiar grin. "Nothing at all. So, if this isn't the end, it won't tear you up too much to kiss me goodbye?"

Something in the words sounded weird, sounded a little wrong, like the ticking of a clock. It would take him a while to get used to that, but even if he didn't have that time, he'd be happy to wait. He returned the grin. "Not in the slightest."