When Steve found Bucky, she was inside her own bedroom, that had gone unused since they came back from their trip to Tony's private island. She sat in the corner furthest from the door and had her knees pulled up to her chest. Her arms tightly wound around her legs and shivering, she looked so sad and hurt, Steve damned himself for his words.
"Buck... look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that", he approached her. She lifted her head and thick streams of tears shone on her cheeks. "I don't know what you're apologizing for, punk", she ground out and got up to walk away from him.
Steve felt tears prick in his own eyes and he wanted nothing more than to hug her. But he kept his distance, knowing that she would run again if he came any closer. Instead, he said: "I'm apologizing for my words. I should have never said that, it was just utterly dumb of me."
Bucky snorted and answered: "Yes, it was. But this is not the reason you're apologizing, is it?" Anger filled Steve and he growled: "I will not apologize for falling in love with you, nor for seeing a life without you by my side as unbearable and worthless. All I ever wanted was to have you by my side. I didn't realize it at first but I wanted to be with you for as long as I can remember! Looking back, I think I was afraid to admit my feelings for you! And you never seemed to care anyway, seeing as you went on dates countless times and rarely ever remembered the guy's name!"
Bucky whirled around and shouted: "I loved you for as long as I can remember! I went on those dates, so you would never realize how much you meant to me! I never remembered their names, because I wished it was you I was going out with! I was happy to have you as my best friend! I hoped that I could stay your best friend for the rest of our lives, if you just never found out what I felt! I tried to protect you, seeing as you always got into fights on your own! I just didn't want you to be beaten up because of me! When I left for the army, I thought, I hoped, I wished that you would be safe back home in Brooklyn, that you would find the woman you wanted to marry, have children with her, your own home! That you would forget about me! I was prepared to die! All I ever wanted was for someone else to see the light inside you, this gigantic strong heart! But you just had to go and get all muscled up and follow me into certain death! I wanted to protect you and give you the chance I would have never had!"
Steve stood there completely dumbfounded. "What...?" He seemed to deflate entirely as he saw Bucky's anger dissipate into thin air and she plopped down on her bed. A deep sight emerged from her and she said: "i cared about you too much, that's why I left for the army. Hoping you'd forget about me and marry some lucky girl I would never get to know. And then there was Peggy. It hurt to see you two so close to one another but I thought that maybe, just maybe you'd be happy with her. So I kept out of the way. And then there was the train... I saw that you would fall if you took another step to get closer to me. So I decided to get out of the picture entirely. To save you."
Steve sat down beside her and took her into his arms. Bucky didn't fight it and leaned against his chest. He was sure, she could feel him shiver from his own tears but if so, she didn't say a word. She never did. She had been his weak spot for years, but also the point where he was strongest. She had been with him at all times. And she never judged him when he cried.
"Buck, I never wanted you out the picture. I always wanted you with me. I thought I loved Peggy. But after you fell and we all thought you were dead... I realized that she didn't mean half as much to me as you do. She was a very good friend and she tried her best to keep me going. But she knew, she'd never be the woman I wanted to spent my life with", Steve mumbled into Bucky's hair.
She sniffed one last time and looked up at him. She gave him her best lopsided grin and wiped away his tears softly. "We're idiots, aren't we?", Steve chuckled and wrapped his arms even closer around her growing waist. "We sure are, Buck...", they both chuckled and Bucky settled back on his chest.
"Buck, we need to get going if we want to go swimming with the others", Steve smiled down at her and she sighed. "Alright. Let's get going", Bucky said and grabbed the bag behind her. They went down to the others. Nobody said anything about them being gone for fifteen minutes or their red cornered eyes.
"Let's get going. Well, we need to split into groups. Who's going with whom?", Tony said as everyone settled down in the team area. Natasha spoke up first: "Clint and Bruce are coming with me." Both men nodded. "Okay, then I'll take Pepper and Point Break." The blonde woman and the thunder god looked at each other and smiled. "I'll be going with Fury and Hill", Rhodes announced and the one-eyed man nodded. "I'll take the Maximoff twins and Spiderling here", Sam ruffled Peters hair and they laughed.
"We'll take my bike, right Buck?" Said woman nodded and everyone took off to the garage. Tony, Pepper and Thor took the billionaires only four-seat-car. Natasha, Clint and Bruce took the woman's black sportscar and Fury, Hill and Rhodes took Rhodes black van. Sam took his own car, a blue VW Golf and while Wanda and Pietro took their places in the back seat, Peter sat in the passengers seat and Sam took the driver's. Bucky adjusted herself on Steve's Harley Davidson before the owner himself climbed on in front of her.
He kick-started the engine and it roared to life, before it settled for the low grumble. "T's been a while since I last rode a motorcycle. I remember that you always took me with yours when we came back from missions. Never let me go with the others", Bucky chuckled before she wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Had good reasons for it", Steve shrugged and they went after Rhodes' black van. "You gotta explain these to me, Stevie!", Bucky shouted over the roaring of the engine beneath her and the sharp wind. Steve just smiled and made a mental note to be careful what he says around his pregnant girlfriend.
The swimming pool Tony choose was awesome. It was a gigantic thing, the ground floor held swimming pools of differing sizes and shapes as well as a whirlpool, a wave-pool and a pool with an opening to the outside. The second floor was mostly sauna rooms of differing temperatures and sizes.
They made big eyes all over. Tony arranged for the entire thing to be empty by the time they arrived and so they actually did have the entire thing for themselves. Natasha, Pepper, Maria and Bucky moved to the whirlpools in an instant, while the Maximoff twins, Peter, Sam and Steve stayed at the wave-pool. Fury ventured off to a pool in the back to swim a few lanes and Rhodes joined him. Tony and Bruce were off to the second floor.
"This is great... I mean, Tony does have a whirlpool on every damn floor in the tower and they are good as well", Pepper sighted and relaxed into the warm bubbling water. Bucky followed suit and replied: "Yeah, already tried those... But feeling like a normal human every once in a while is good too." "Yeah, especially since none of us is actually normal", Natasha threw in and Maria just snorted: "To say the least, Romanoff."
Natasha giggled and a pleased smile spread over her face. "Well, Snowflake's the least normal out of all of us, Hill. She's got this weird serum and she's like 100 years old", the red-head mused. Bucky scrunched her nose and replied in a playfully angry tone: "Well, thank you Tasha. I'm 97, not dead."
Natasha chuckled and said: "That's exactly what Steve said when we were on the run from HYDRA." "Steve's a year younger than me, Tasha." The other two smiled at their friends' exchange. Bucky and Natasha looked at each other and broke down into furious laughter.
"What's so funny here, girls?" Bucky shot around and nearly fell. Steve, who had showed up behind her and asked the question, caught her and smiled. "Careful there, babe. Ya don't wanna hurt yourself or the baby, do you?", he said and helped Bucky back in the warm water.
Sitting down to her side, he looked through the group and fixated his gaze on Natasha. "So, care to tell me what's so funny?", he asked and Natasha had that glint of mischief in her eyes. "Oh, we just talked about this and that. And how you reacted after I asked you if the kiss I gave you was your first since 1945."
Steve chuckled and wrapped an arm around Bucky's shoulders. "Copied quite a few of her behaviours. What can I say, I love her", he shrugged with his brightest smile and pressed a kiss on Bucky's right cheek. "Awwww", Natasha cooed and they started talking about some things regarding the Avengers.
"So, what does that mean, normal? None of us is. Take Banner. He's turning into a green rage monster if he looses his cool. Or Tony. I mean, okay, he's just a genius who invented an armoured suit but that's not entirely normal too. He build this thing to fight his own work", Natasha waved her hand dismissively and Bucky snorted.
Steve replied: "Yeah, well, none of you has lived through the Depression and the second World war." Mentioning the war, the brunette stiffened. Steve pulled her in a little bit closer and ruffled her hair. "M'fine, Stevie. Just... don't like to remember that."
Now she felt the blonde stiffen. She knew very well why. They both didn't like to remember it. "C'mon, we wanna have fun here. What do you say, wanna go test the slides?", she chirped and batted her lashes at Steve. "This is not gonna turn into the Cyclone on Coney island, is it?", he grinned back at her and they laughed.
"Gonna tell us, what this whole thing about Coney island is about? Heard it's one of the most lame amusement parks ever", Natasha chimed in and Bucky looked at her in bewilderment. "Lame? Back in the 1940's it was the best thing around. We went there once and I made Stevie ride the Cyclone with me", she explained and Steve rolled his eyes: "Yeah, and I threw up afterwards. Was a little too much for me."
Natasha, Pepper and Maria laughed and Bucky simply pulled Steve with her to the slides. They slid each one of the three different slides at least once before going back to the others. Tony and Bruce came back from the saunas ad suggested water-ball.
"It's a game where we like play volleyball but in the water. It's real fun", Tony explained and threw a ball in the air to pass it over to Steve. They played for a long time and only stopped, when Bucky dived under.
"Say, how does this arm work? I need to see it sometime, it's metal, it should blow up at contact with liquids", Tony mustered her left arm with interest. "I don't really know what they did or how it was built. It's just kinda part of me so... works like a normal arm", she shrugged in reply and moved it around to emphasize her point.
"Can I take a look at it sometime?", Tony was back to his scientist mind and shot the woman a hopeful glance. Bucky rolled her eyes and nodded with a smile: "Sure. Just make sure you don't take it apart or something, I really need this thing to keep my balance, Stark." "Besides, we are here to have fun. Not to talk about work, Tony", Steve added and threw the ball at him with so much power, the billionaire nearly got knocked off his feet.
"Watch it, Capsicle!", he shouted and threw the ball back, directly aiming for Steve's face. Bucky jumped between the ball and her boyfriends face to give it a jab with her left arm and shouted: "Got it! Next time, take better aim, Cola Can!"
They continued to play like this and some bruises were ensured during that game. At the end of the day, they went back home exhausted but happy and plopped down in their beds for the night.
Bucky cuddled up close to Steve and wrapped his arms around his back. "I was all skin and bones last time we did that", the blonde chuckled. She took his hand and squeezed it. "Still the same bones", she yawned and after a small good night kiss, they both fell asleep.