Chapter 5
I wake up a bit agitated, breathing heavily and with a strange weight over my chest. I don't remember my dream, but I think that maybe that's for the best. Doesn't feel like it was a nice one. I try to listen to have an idea of what's going on in the apartment. I can hear music playing pretty quietly, and Steve singing over the track, like he used to do when we were back in Brooklyn. I can't help smiling. The song fades and a new one begins.
I hear him singing along quietly, not getting all the notes right. "The lengths that I will go to, the distance in your eyes… Oh, no, I've said too much…" I sit up and stretch my arms over my head mindlessly. My shoulder complains a bit and the stitches come to mind. I check the bandages, but they seem to be OK. Didn't pull too hard. I get out of the bed and open the door silently. I'm not trying to surprise him, but I want to see him like this, I want to keep this with me, for it to be a new memory. "Every whisper… every waking hour, I'm choosing my confessions". I lean on the doorframe and cross my arms as I look at him. He's cooking, going from one end of the kitchen to the other. His singing is barely a whisper, but he seems… happy. He looks like he doesn't have a care in the world, although I'm sure he's got too many. I can barely handle the way I feel seeing him like this.
"Enjoying the show?" he says without looking at me, and my smile gets wider. I really was. "Interesting music" I say instead of answering. "Is that what music sounds like these days?" he lets out a laugh.
"Not exactly from these days, but you could say it's relatively new. Emphasis on the relativity part". "How old is it?" he shrugs as he serves scrambled eggs on two plates. I get the napkins and glasses. "A couple decades. Maybe more". I let out a whistle. "Guess I've missed a lot", I say quietly as the song fades.
He picks up on the serious note immediately, and offers me a smile as he sits down in front of me. "Don't sweat it. You'll have plenty of time to catch up". He starts reaching for the arm I have resting on the table, but pulls away when he looks at it. Maybe the metal upsets him, so I get the arm off the side of my plate and put it on my lap, hiding it under the table. I try to smile at him, but I don't think he buys it.
We talk about some of the other things I've missed as we eat the breakfast he made. He mentions some movies, a couple singers… it's pretty obvious that he's trying to keep it light, and I appreciate the effort. Everything's been so heavy in my head lately, it's nice to have a break.
"What do you have to do today?" I ask when we're clearing out the table. He shrugs. "Not much. I'm still supposed to be recuperating"
I feel my throat closing up immediately. I asked him if he was OK when I first got here, but didn't push him to give me any details. I'm so fucking scared to know what I did to him, but I try to put on a brave front. "That asshole really did a number on you, uh?" I mean to say it as a joke, but my tone has a lot more resentment than I intended to give it. He puts away the bread before answering, shrugging again "I've had worse", he says simply.
"Have you really?" I ask, suddenly curious about it. Maybe I'm just putting off hearing about how bad I messed him up, but he's kind enough to let me do that, and tells me unbelievable stories about aliens and gods. About fighting off goons from another fucking planet, and trying to get away from one of his own brain-washed friends. "And here I was thinking I was special", he leaves out a small laugh. "That happens to you a lot, doesn't it?" he shrugs, apparently amused by the joke. "It's all cool as long as they come back", he says, and he sounds so kind.
He talks about his team, tells me about each one of them. The way Natasha's been there for him when I couldn't -she's the one I also almost killed-, and how Clint can't miss a shot. He tells me the winged guy's name, he's Sam, and he's a war veteran too, although he didn't fight in the same war we did. He talks about Dr. Banner and his dangerous alter ego, and about Thor and his magical hammer. I'd bet my right hand that Steve would be able to lift it. There's not a doubt in my mind. I try to figure out if helping me would make him more or less 'worthy'. Probably less. 'Birds of a feather…'
The idea of bringing him down to my level hunts me for a few hours after that, but knowing Steve, he wouldn't leave me to fend for myself right now, even if I'd brought it up, so I keep quiet. He's too good to even think about leaving a friend behind.
In the afternoon, I discover that the couch really does turn into a queen size, pretty comfy bed. We watch a full colored movie in what he insists is a modern TV. To me, the thing just looks impossibly flat to be considered as even remotely the same apparatus. He tells me it's pretty common for people to have one, these days.
When the movie ends, he turns it off and sighs. After a few seconds of silence, he speaks without looking at me. "You know I'm gonna have to check on those stitches soon, right?" I nod. "Want to do it now?" I ask. Might as well getting it out of the way. He agrees, so I take my -his- shirt off and rip off the bandages as he gets the same kit from last night. I'm half lying half sitting on the bed that came out of the couch, so I lean back a bit more to give him room for working.
He inspects the wounds thoroughly, cleans them, and covers them again in no time. "It'll take a bit longer to heal, but not much", he says as I put the shirt back on. He clears the kit and brings back two beers. I thank him and take a sip. We stay quiet for a while, and then I break the silence.
"I was trying to see how far inside it reached. The metal, I mean" I say in a whisper. "Oh". He pauses. "That actually makes sense"
"You don't have to worry about me doing it again" I assure him. "Not worth it"
"Curiosity almost killed the Bucky" he jokes, and I relax a bit. It's really nice to hear him joke, even if the joke's so stupid. "You know, there's a photo in your file. An x-ray of your torso". I frown. "It's right at the end, that's probably why you didn't see it. You want me to get it for you?"
I think about it for a second. I'm not really sure if I can handle looking at myself again, but I really want to know. "Could you just tell me?" I ask shyly, and he nods and uses his own body to gesture as he speaks.
"If the metal is visible to about here, then it goes into your torso, under your skin reaching to about here" he explains, pointing at his chest, tree or four inches away from the invisible line of metal he had established before. "But it's not all the same kind of material. It's attached to something a bit softer, and that thing fusses into your own bone structure" he finishes and I nod slowly. I notice my fingers tracing the things he mentions in my own body. My shoulder, the spot where the metal is supposed to end, the bones where I think it must be attached to.
"I think they did it like that so that it wouldn't be ripped off if you were to use it at full strength" he adds more quietly. "Sounds… logical" I throw out when I don't know what to say, and he shakes his head a little.
The silence builds up for a couple of minutes again, until I find the guts to ask what's been eating me alive.
"Have you healed completely?" I say in a whisper, and he makes a face. "I remember shooting you" I add, touching my lower back. "How bad was it?" he shrugs. "Not great, but I'm OK now. The one in the leg and the one in the shoulder were pretty easy to get rid of"
"Can I see the other one?", I ask quietly, reading between the lines, and he dismisses the question with his hand, grabbing the remote again. He turns the TV back on and starts changing the channels mindlessly, but I don't take my eyes off of him. "Must be really bad if you don't want me to see it".
He looks at me again with a tired expression. I hold his gaze and he sighs after a moment. "It's almost completely healed. It went right through, so they didn't have to fish it out…"
"But…?" I press, and he looks away again, clenching his jaw. I hide my head in my hands at the true weight behind his silence. "Hey…" he whispers. "I'm OK now. I swear I'm OK" I dare to look at him and he offers me a small smile. I feel like I'm about to cry. I really could've killed him. "Here, look" he says, and pulls up his shirt, leaning back on the armrest of the couch. There's a bandage in his stomach, but he rips it off to show me.
I swallow hard, trying to pass the knot that's forming in my throat. The wound looks red and infected and I feel my chest tightening even more. It looks more like the kind a knife would leave, and I slowly realize that they had to open him up.
"The bullet did some damage to a few organs, so I had to have a little surgery", he explains. "Nothing major, you don't have to worry about it", I can feel myself getting sick, but he raises his voice. "Buck, calm down. Breathe". I do as he says, and I see his hand hovering my arm. He doesn't touch me, though. "That's good. Now look at it, please". I gather the balls to do so and he smiles approvingly, leaning back again to give me a better look.
After the initial shock, I can see that it is almost completely healed. The stitches remain there, but they don't seem totally necessary anymore. It's not infected or even red. The brown-ish stuff around it that I thought was dry blood is in fact that liquid he used on my own wounds. It looks OK. He's OK.
Without a conscious order from my brain, my hand goes to him and I brush my fingers on the side of the injury, more delicately than I thought I was capable of. He takes in a sharp breath and I pull away, realizing that I might have made him uncomfortable. It feels like he's fine now. "Thank you", I say, and I'm not sure if I'm thanking him for showing me, or for not dying. Maybe both, but I won't tell him that. That'd definitely be too much.
Over the next few days, we fall into a nice little routine, something I haven't had in a long time. We eat together, watch movies, cook, talk… we even take care of each other's injuries like we used to back in the day. I know it can't last forever, but I'll be damned if I don't enjoy it to the fullest while it does.
He tells me about the list of things he wants to catch up to, and shows it to me. Apparently, the United States landed on the fucking moon. We talk about that for a while and then watch a video of the mission. A couple of guys walking up there as if it's normal. I can hardly believe it.
I start my own list after that. I'm not talking to anyone else, so I can only write down the stuff he recommends, but it feels amazing to have something to look forward to again. It's been way too long.
I take it upon myself to try and make sure that he fulfills his list. We watch the movies, hear the songs, order the exotic food, look up the topics. He shows me what the internet is, and I start to look up things by myself. I suck at it, and apparently I'm impossibly slow, but the google is pretty easy to use. I kinda like it.
I look for the presidents that have been elected since the fifties, the wars and conflicts of the world, the most popular inventions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries -there's a lot-. Everything I search for is somewhat serious, it's the things that I don't want to talk about with Steve, in case I accidentally bring up something bad and ruin the good mood. I was right, the bad kind of stuff comes up way too often. One topic leads to another, and almost every time is something I'd rather not mention.
About a week after my arrival, he tells me that he'll have to go out during the afternoon. He needs to do some training if he's gonna get back in the saddle with the whole defending the world thing.
"It'll just be for a couple of hours, ok?" he says, and his voice sounds weird. I assure him that it won't be a problem, I'll just look up some more stuff and read the google for a while. That's interesting enough. "I don't... " he starts, but his voice fades, so I look at him, waiting. "Will you be here when I get back?" The question takes me by surprise.
"You want me to leave?" I ask right back, because he didn't make me feel like he wanted me to leave. "No", he answers, and then sighs. "It'll just be a couple of hours, OK? We'll have dinner when I get back". I nod and shrug. I'm not sure what the hell he's talking about, but I can tell he was being sincere when he said he didn't want me to leave, so I won't.
I grab the lap computer and sit in the bedroom as he takes a shower before leaving. I've tried to get him to sleep in his own room, but he won't budge. He says this way he can get out of bed in the morning and roam around the apartment without worrying about waking me up. Eventually, I just give up and follow along.
I'm searching for information on the Berlin wall when a small moving image on the side of the screen gets my attention. It says "hot single German girls are waiting for you in this chat room". I'm not sure what that is, but I swallow hard and get a bit closer to get a better look of the picture. The woman in it is not wearing anything, and she's moving up and down pretty suggestively.
My heart starts pounding immediately and I try to get a grip. It's been so long since I have thought about that aspect of life. I almost forgot how it felt like to… want, how it felt like to be aroused. I get a bit hard before I can even register what's happening, but I fucking jump in my seat when I hear the bathroom door opening. I'm forced to think fast. I adjust myself as best as I can so Steve won't notice my condition, and then close the computer. I have no idea if that'll take the woman out of the screen, but I sure as hell hope so.
The door's open, and I kinda wait for Steve to pop his head in to say goodbye before leaving, but he's not leaving yet. Instead, he walks in with a towel wrapped around his waist. "Hey, man. Forgot my clothes" he explains without even looking at me and going right for the drawers.
I try to look away, but my eyes are fixed on him. I can see the way the muscles in his back move as he looks for a pair of pants and my dick twitches almost painfully in my pants. What the hell is going on? I pretend to look at the ceiling when he turns around and walks to the other drawer.
I sneak another look as he searches for a t-shirt. This time I look at the way the towel curves around his ass, and at his legs. What's wrong with me?
"Got it" he says, unaware of the fact that I've been staring at him like a fucking perv, and walks out. I'm left breathing heavily, but I shake it off. Must've been the moving picture I saw in the computer. That'd turn anybody on, and it caught me by surprise, I wasn't prepared. Getting worked up because of something like that is a perfectly normal thing to happen to someone who hasn't been intimate with anybody in over seventy years. Completely understandable.
When Steve leaves I take a long cold shower. Not because I need it, of course, but because I don't have anything useful to do, and I had to take a shower anyway.
I make dinner to wait for him. There's not much I know how to cook, but I manage to turn some vegetables into a decent soup. We watch a movie afterwards, one that he's seen already, so we don't pay much attention to it. He talks to me about his afternoon, and asks me about mine. There's not really much to tell, but I talk about making the soup. I'm pretty sure that he pretends to be interested.
The second day Steve leaves I try and read a book. Emphasis on the 'try'. When he comes back I can barely remember enough to tell him something about it. He brings back a cell phone for me and teaches me how to answer a call. I had communication devices when I was fulfilling missions, but nothing like this, just a little mic inside the mask and a thing inside my ear, for the voice to tell me what to do.
We decide to watch another movie after dinner, even though it's pretty late, and I can only assume that I fell asleep at some point, because when I wake up it's already daytime. I blink against the light and frown. I'm lying on my stomach, right arm and leg stretched to the side. I notice that my arm is moving slowly up and down and open my eyes to see it's resting on top of Steve's chest. "Morning" he says when he sees that I'm awake. "I'm sorry". I reply, taking my hand away slowly. He shrugs. "It's ok. I don't mind you touching me, Buck".
His voice is as kind as always, but I know it's not OK for me to steal this bed too. Once I'm entirely off of him, he looks at me for a while and then gets up. "Want some breakfast?" he asks a bit too loud after clearing his throat. "Sure" I reply, both because I'm starving and because I can feel my face going hot, and I don't want him to see me blushing like a fucking schoolgirl.
That's the third day Steve leaves, and I can't take it anymore. I have to do something about these thoughts, or I'll end up going insane. Well, more insane.
I get in the shower and go right to the point. I just need a quick relief, and then these weird ideas will get off my head. I'll be back to being able to concentrate, to think properly. It's weird how I went so long without this, and now that that side of me is awake I just can't ignore it anymore. It's like I'm unbalanced somehow.
I close my eyes and try to think about one of the dames I had sex with back in the day. I know there's a few, but I can't remember well enough to get it to work. I remember the moving picture from a few days ago, and it's better.
Her moving up and down was great, her breasts following the movement. I can tell I'm close, so I try to focus on that. But then I remember what interrupted me from looking at her and it all turns wild. I fall onto my knees the second he erupts into my mind and I have to hold on to the bath with my free hand just to get everything to stop spinning.
Now I can't get him out of my mind. His broad back with the tight muscles working under the skin, the shape of his ass only covered by the towel, his wet hair all messed up. I think about him taking that shower and I let out a moan when the pleasure hits me by surprise. The orgasm is sharp, overwhelming and ends fairly quickly.
I'm left panting and a little disoriented afterwards. Maybe my body's not used to feeling pleasure anymore… or maybe is the fact that I got it thinking about a man. Thinking about Stevie. God, I'm just sick. That's sodomy. Have I always looked at him in this way? No, for God's sake, it was just an accident. I was thinking about the moving picture, I was already too worked up when I accidentally thought about him. It doesn't mean anything.
I do my best to ignore the whole thing. It's probably just that he's the only person I talk to, the only one who has been even remotely nice to me in decades.
When I get to the bedroom I lie down face up on the bed and sigh. I feel like a fucking perv. I am a fucking perv. Steve's been nothing but nice to me, and here I am, thinking about him while I touch myself. My dick reacts to the association of Steve and masturbation. I leave out an out loud cry and cover my eyes. I really didn't need something else to feel guilty about.