I was up until three in the morning last night. Basically: ugh.

15

He calls Steve early the next morning after going grocery shopping (Rom—Natasha had recommended a brand of less processed chocolate, and after trying it, Bucky approves) and he has to stifle a wave of guilt in response to the relief in Steve's tone when Bucky invites him over for brunch.

"You weren't avoiding him," James says, but James is wrong.

Bucky has most definitely been avoiding Steve. Just like he had done for those six months after Insight, when his brain had been broken cells firing jagged thoughts through shattered connections.

The man on the bridge.

He only has bits and pieces of that first fight, but he knows that Steve (familiar shield familiar face who the hell is Bucky) had stuck in his brain. And Bucky had known since he dragged Steve out of the Potomac with the helicarriers burning in the distance that Steve would have more answers than Bucky's brain could provide (as if Bucky could really trust his brain in the first place) but Bucky just—he hadn't been able to stay, to talk to the man he knew he'd known. He'd needed space and he'd needed time to figure the world out again so he'd left.

And somewhere along the way he had dragged some semblance of a personality out of the missions and orders and skills, a personality that grew with every memory that flashed through his brain.

Then, he'd had a reason to stay away. He hadn't known who (or what) he was, or what his purpose in being alive had been. He'd just known that he needed to survive, and he had. The man on the bridge had taken a backseat to Bucky's life.

And now Bucky is here, in his own apartment, inviting Steve over for brunch because they haven't seen each other face-to-face in over a week. Bucky stares at the dark phone screen, and knows he should have done this sooner.

James watches with a neutral expression as Bucky throws together a simple brunch of French toast, bacon, sausage, fruit, and pancakes. Normally Bucky would decide between French toast and pancakes but with Steve coming he needs to make more food than usual.

It's lucky that he had bought everything he needs from the grocery store earlier.

He's putting the last of the pancakes on the plate when he hears footsteps coming up the rickety stairs. He recognizes that gait.

Steve.

Bucky finishes up just in time to open the door right before Steve would have knocked. Bucky smiles, and it isn't forced or pretend because having Steve standing there eases tension in his chest he hasn't realized he's been holding. "You're on time," Bucky says to cover the way his face slipped out of his control.

Steve blinks, dropping the hand he had been about to knock with. "I am," he agrees, still looking at Bucky with a strange expression on his face.

"I bet it's the bun," James says. "Steve can't handle his best pal wearing a bun."

Well he'd better get used to it because Bucky's discovered that having his hair up is a hell of a lot more efficient than having it flying around his face while he's working.

Anyway, Steve is still standing there like a dumbass so Bucky gets him inside, shuts the door, and directs Steve to the small table set up right by the kitchen. He can see Steve examining the apartment as he walks through it, but there isn't much to observe. Bucky has gone out and bought a few paintings and plants to decorate, but the place still feels empty.

Well. Less so now that Steve is here.

Steve pulls himself together enough to whistle when he sees all the food Bucky's put out on the table.

"Guess I don't have to worry much about your diet anymore," he says. Bucky stiffens—tries not to—but it's. Uncomfortable. To talk about his health. Steve must realize that too because he tries to backtrack.

"Did the smoothies—you don't need them anymore?"

Bucky nods, swallows, and gestures to the table. The movement is stiff. Inefficient without being human. "Sit down, Steve."

"Yeah, okay."

Steve's concerns for Bucky's physical health are valid, but Bucky has been adjusting to an actual diet for months now. The knockoff version of the serum has helped his recovery, and as long as Bucky avoids extremely processed foods—candy, things like that—he'll be okay.

Besides, the smoothies were awful. French toast and pancakes are much better.

Steve takes his first bite and Bucky watches as his eyebrows shoot up. He says something around the food in his mouth but even with enhanced hearing Bucky can't understand it. He cocks his head, signaling that he hadn't understood.

Steve gets the message and swallows, taking a drink of juice before he says, "I didn't realize you were practicing your cooking."

"Can't have protein bars all the time," Bucky replies. Steve smiles in response to that, but his eyes are tight.

And then Bucky realizes that Steve has dark circles under his eyes. That his hair is messier than Bucky remembers it usually being. That his clothes are rumpled despite an obvious attempt on Steve's part to dress better.

Oh.

Oh.

Steve. Pal.

He—he needs a minute. Bucky eats his food and watches Steve and catalogues all the other signs that Steve is not okay.

He should have noticed sooner. During their calls Steve has been so eager to talk, so eager to ask questions and too quick to find something else to talk about whenever Bucky deflected instead of answered as though the idea of Bucky not saying anything was worse than talking about nothing.

Steve has been hanging on Bucky's every word, anxious to know that Bucky is doing okay and Bucky hasn't even noticed, too busy building up his fake life.

This cannot continue. Bucky doesn't know Steve Rogers as much as he wants to but he knows seeing Steve like this makes static in his head and makes him want to punch the nearest convenient wall.

Which is…a strange urge. Unusual, one that is and isn't familiar. One that is worth documenting.

"Steve," Bucky says. He has to repeat it before Steve finally meets his eyes. "Are you sleeping?"

Guilt. Without a doubt, that is guilt in Steve's eyes. "Yeah, Buck, I am. Why?"

"Liar," James says.

"Liar," Bucky says. Steve looks surprised and Bucky presses, something bursting into life in his head that hasn't been there before, hasn't been so warm. "Are you eating? Hydrating? Socializing? Exercising?"

"I'm—"

"Don't lie to me, Rogers," Bucky says. "Is it because I left?"

Steve doesn't even have to speak. His eyes give it all away. Bucky has to look away, working his jaw until his body is vibrating so much he can't take it. He stands, pushing his chair back and taking fast, deliberate steps into the living room area where he goes to the wall and draws his hand back and almost—

He doesn't punch the wall. Stops himself at the last second, reduces the attack to a tap and then he's resting his forehead against the wall, trying to even out his breathing and reassert control because what the fuck was that.

Steve is getting closer, his footsteps softening when he transitions from kitchen tile to carpet and Bucky still hasn't gotten his own body under control.

"Buck?" Steve asks. "Is there anything I can do?"

Stop speaking like that. Stop worrying about me. Stop treating me like I'll shatter when you're the one on the edge. Stop, stop, stop.

Bucky knocks his closed fist against the wall one more time and takes a deep breath before he turns to face the man still stirring the firestorm inside of Bucky that he's never noticed before but now it's raging in his head, swirling his thoughts and he thinks Steve sees part of it in Bucky's eyes because there's a look on his face that Bucky thinks is familiar not from recent months but years and years and years ago.

"You didn't answer my question," Bucky finally says, somehow keeping his voice level.

"I—I'm fine, Buck. I'm a damned super soldier. I can handle myself. Ar—"

"Liar," Bucky repeats. The storm surges. "You aren't handling anything, Steve, I'm not fucking blind. I thought the brunch would help but clearly you need more than that."

And Bucky won't admit that he needs more of Steve because now that he's here, standing in front of him, Bucky is realizing that he's been cold this whole time and Steve is everything he needs to keep warm, a lighthouse in an awful storm.

"Buck, I—"

"No protesting," Bucky interrupts. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. He has to calm down. He has to tame whatever emotion is trying to take control—whatever emotion is dislodging instincts and memories at a rate that has Bucky acting barely within reason—or he's going to do something stupid. "Steve, you're gonna come here every day, if that's what it takes to get you functioning well again."

"Functioning well?" Steve blinks, shakes his head a little. "You meant for this to be your place. I'm not going to intrude daily on your space. Besides, the neighbors will recognize me pretty quickly."

James is both there and not there but Bucky is pretty sure they speak in unison.

"I don't give a shit Rogers, you are not wasting away over me."

Steve's eyes go wide. The storm inside Bucky whirls to an uneasy stop, leaving Bucky shaken and chilled but he keeps his eyes trained on Steve's and tries to mentally force Steve to get the message.

Steve does. Bucky watches the fight leave him to get replaced with a slow, drained sigh. "Okay, Buck. Okay. If you say so." And then the worry comes back. "Are you o—I mean, is there anything you need?"

Right. Freak out. Weird memory-emotion lapse episode-thing.

He's tired. But they only got most of the way through breakfast and Bucky is still hungry.

So Bucky heads for the table. "I need more pancakes."

That doesn't diffuse the tension in his apartment entirely, but it makes the rest of brunch bearable. Steve hangs around afterwards and Bucky doesn't see any advantages in making him leave. So while Steve uses the bathroom, Bucky sends a text to Ro—Natasha. It's tricky with his left hand, but he manages once he discovers that the tips of the fingers do work with the touch screen. He finds it amusing that HYDRA thought to put in touch screen compatibility with his metal hand, though it would be useful when breaking into places for assassinations. Keeping their pet monster updated with all the latest tech.

Steve here. Idk how to entertain

The dots appear and disappear a couple of times before she replies.

Movie marathon? Works for me and Clint. Could also go walking. Big city

A pause. Then:

Do u need backup? :)

The idea of him needing backup is so odd it's almost funny. The smiley face is a little confusing, but he replies with a quick negative and a thank you just as Steve comes back to the kitchen.

Bucky slides his phone back into his pocket, ignoring Steve's curious glance, and then begins to look for popcorn. He's not sure if he has any; it isn't a common food, and it tends to be processed enough to make his stomach uneasy, but he'd bought a lot of things on impulse and if he did he would probably put it—

"What're you lookin' for?" Steve asks.

"Popcorn," Bucky replies. "We can watch a picture. Unless you have somewhere to go."

"A—wow. Yeah, that would be—that'd be great. Um. Do you have any movie in mind?"

"No."

He finally finds the popcorn—shoved way in the back, untouched in its proper place—and scans the instructions.

"I have a list," Steve offers.

"Sounds fine."

He finds a bowl and shoves the package into the microwave, plugging in the appropriate time.

"I'll see if Tony has a way for us to get them," Steve says while the machine hums.

By the time they have everything set up, Bucky has grabbed his memory notebook and begun writing everything that has happened. He's also provided Steve with a sketchbook and pencil. Neither one of them is really paying attention to the movie—which has animated people fighting glowing green things—but that's fine. Bucky's thoughts have finally stopped rushing around and Steve doesn't look as though he's going to cry anymore.

Well, not cry. But the next closest thing for super soldiers with super emotional issues.

While he writes, Bucky tries to figure out what emotion had him shouting at Steve, being rude to Steve, and just. Losing control.

It's not something he can easily identify. Just that heat—like anger but directed, existing because of something and Bucky doesn't know what. He's writing what it felt like—a firestorm, swirling and igniting every word passing through his brain—when he glances at Steve and realizes what it is.

Because what had started it was seeing Steve tired. Seeing him stressed. Seeing him not taking proper care of himself.

That was—had been—had to have been—protective something. Protective instincts or anger Bucky can't tell, but it's one of the two or both. And it had been for Steve, coming with the deep-rooted familiarity that lets Bucky know that this is something from before the serum, the war, everything. He's always been protective of Steve. Always.

"Get outta here. Go pick on someone your own size."

"I had 'im on the ropes."

"I know you did, punk."

He writes that down, too.

They notice the movie is over about halfway through the credits, and that's only because they both reach for the popcorn and realize the bowl is empty. But Bucky has written everything down (and figured some stuff out) and Steve appears to have finished his drawing.

"What did you draw?" Bucky asks, and Steve gets a sheepish expression on his face.

"A lotta things."

"What?"

"The room. Some stuff from the movie. You."

"Me?" Bucky doesn't much care about the other stuff. He tries to catch a glimpse of Steve's sketchbook but Steve leans just enough to cut off Bucky's line of sight.

"Yes, you. I'm not done with that one yet, though. You can't see it until I'm finished."

"Oh come on," James mutters, peering over Steve's shoulder. "You can't hide the drawing, Steve."

"What is it?" Bucky asks, to both James and Steve.

"I'm not saying," Steve says. James just stares at Bucky.

"Pal. I can only see what you see, even if I'm standing over here. I have no idea what the drawing is, just that Steve's being dumb and not letting us look at it just because he isn't finished."

That makes sense, but Bucky still finds it annoying. What's the point of hallucinating if the hallucinations don't help him?

"I do help you!" James protests.

Not when it counts.

"Asshole."

The whole time Bucky has been surreptitiously trying to lean over and find out what Steve is so determined to keep secret, but Steve is just as surreptitiously keeping the sketch out of sight.

Finally Bucky gives up. "Fine."

He grabs the empty bowl of popcorn—now just sad, unpopped kernels—and carries it over to the kitchen. He rinses it out after dumping the crumbs in the trash, and then spends a few seconds drying off his metal hand. Water tends to slide between the plates, and while the mechanisms are entirely waterproof, having liquid stuck in there can get annoying when it slides out onto whatever Bucky is holding or wearing.

Which is half the reason he rips the sleeves off his combat gear, the other half being that the shifting plates can accidentally tear the material.

By the time he returns to the couch, Steve has gotten up and is examining one of the plants in the corner.

"It's not dead," Bucky says. Steve jumps a little.

"Right, 'course. I was just wondering where you got it."

"There's a small florist a few blocks away."

"Oh."

Steve looks uncomfortable. Bucky supposes it's time to separate. He hopes—somewhat sarcastically—that Steve can make it through the night without him.

And then he regrets the sarcasm.

These protective instincts aren't going to go away, are they?

"No, they are not," James says, and he sounds far too proud.

"See you tomorrow?" Bucky says before things can get awkward. Steve nods quickly.

"Yes—yeah. Noon?"

"Works for me."

"Bye, Buck."

"Bye, Steve."

The door closes and Bucky spends a few minutes listening to Steve leave. Steve hesitates outside the door and Bucky wonders what's going through his mind, whether Steve will make some excuse to come back inside or just leave.

Two more seconds pass. Bucky hears Steve sigh, followed by his footsteps retreating down the hall and then down the stairs.

He's…not disappointed. Not surprised. He just.

"It's like you two are joined at the hip."

"With how fast Stevie walks, I don't thi—ow!"

"Jerk."

"Punk."

He just doesn't know what to do. He knows he can't become too reliant on Steve, but he doesn't want to hurt Steve by staying away. And it doesn't help that watching Steve leave hurts Bucky too. It's a mess. One that Bucky is unprepared to deal with. He shoves it in with all the other messes he doesn't want to deal with yet—including the vague nausea bubbling in his gut.

His bedroom is as he left it hours ago, the sheets still rumpled from when Bucky had messed with them that morning just in case Steve saw them neat and thought Bucky wasn't sleeping.

(He is sleeping. A little.)

There's something on his bed. Bucky approaches with a knife in hand, mentally rewinding the past few hours to find a point at which an intruder could have snuck in and planted what he suspects is an explosive.

"Steve is the only other person who's been here," James says from the doorway. "And that's not an explosive. It's a piece of paper."

James is right. Bucky sheathes the knife and picks up the piece of paper. Steve must have put it in Bucky's room while Bucky was distracted.

One the one hand, it is sloppy on Bucky's part. On the other, it is sneaky on Steve's.

The drawing brings with it echoes of the first time Bucky saw one of Steve's drawings post-HYDRA. But this drawing is not of Bucky sleeping with his face turned away; this drawing is of Bucky awake. He has popcorn in one hand, his eyes fixed on something not drawn on the page. Bucky does not remember sitting on the couch with his legs tucked like that, but if he thinks about it his muscles remember the position.

Steve put…a distressing amount of effort into Bucky's facial features and hair. Especially his eyes. It is. Disconcerting.

Holding the paper makes the floor sway under Bucky's feet and old voices that have no source bounce around in his head. He sets it down and looks away until the vertigo passes. Once he is sure he is not going to get unwillingly thrown into his memories, Bucky takes the drawing and pins it up next to the first one Steve gave him as a housewarming gift.

He steps back and examines the two pictures. They were not drawn far apart, relatively speaking. But Steve's style is distinctly different between them.

"Things have changed pretty quickly," James says. "A year ago we didn't know who we really were. Now we do."

"Roughly," Bucky corrects.

"Give yourself a little more credit. You're getting there."

"Hm."

That night, it storms for the first time in weeks. Bucky had been watching the clouds all day, so when they finally open up and the rain comes down in sheets Bucky is ready on his couch with a mug of hot cocoa and a book. The drink isn't as good as Barton's, but it will do.

The first low rumble of thunder has the plates in his metal arm shifting with soft clicks and Bucky has to forcibly unclench his jaw. He puts down the mug.

He can do this.

His room flashes blue and thunder crashes in the wake of the lightning bolt and it's good that Bucky had set his mug down because he certainly would have shattered the handle.

One breath.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Another flash of lightning bleeding through the curtains, thunder quieting before it booms again.

One.

Two.

Three.

He's wearing his most comfortable shirt and sweatpants. The slippers on his feet are designed for maximum fuzziness. He has a blanket draped over his legs. He is in his own apartment. Steve had been here mere hours ago.

He is safe.

Another flash of blue and roll of thunder, but Bucky manages to breathe this time. He drinks his hot chocolate between lightning strikes and focuses on his reading.

But then the storm hits full-force and Bucky is in his room, the door slammed shut and mattress flipped to cover him against the wall, and he can't—

One.

Two.

Thr—

A boom that shakes Bucky's bones and he screams, he can't help it, there are images flashing in front of his eyes that he can't stop he can't close his eyes and make them go away he has no control he can't—

Another flash and Bucky doesn't know how long he spends curled up with his metal hand digging onto his head hard enough to bruise but he can't—

When he's able to move again the storm is still raging, paying back all the peaceful days and Bucky bites the inside of his cheek, the negligible burst of pain still enough to give him focus. He grabs his phone, fumbles through the contact list and selects the only person his brain can come up with.

The phone rings once, twice.

"Buck? Are you okay?"

It's hard to tell over the phone, but it sounds as though Steve's voice is shaking.

"He's worried," James says, but James has been rocking in the corner and his voice comes out strained so Bucky thinks listening to James right now is a bad idea.

"The storm," Bucky says, because Steve understands this. He has to, right?

"Do you need me to—"

Thunder rumbles and Steve goes silent for almost a minute. When he talks again, he speaks very slowly.

"Do you need me to come over?"

"Why the fuck would he want to do that?" James mutters. "He shouldn't, anyway, too dangerous with his...his conditions, he might get sick, he might get really sick, he's done it before…" His words fade to inaudible mumbling and Bucky tunes him out alongside the headache now beating a rhythm into the left half of his brain.

"No. I—" Bucky bites his lip. He shouldn't need Steve's help. He shouldn't need to hear Steve's voice to feel grounded. He shouldn't need anyone's help to manage himself, he's a goddamned assassin he shouldn't be terrified by a storm—

"Bucky? Are you still there?"

One.

Two.

Three.

"Yes. I'm here."

"Do you want to talk?"

He's a goddamned assassin but he's also a broken soldier hiding between a mattress and a wall with blood dripping onto the floor from where his nails have dug into his skin.

"Yes."

"Okay."

The storm passes within the next half hour, but Bucky spends the entire time talking with Steve about nothing and trying not to crush the phone in his grip when lightning flashes and makes his brain scream.

When the only sound in Bucky's apartment is the rain pattering against the window and Bucky can feel his body again, he ends the conversation with Steve. James is gone, but Bucky avoids the corner where he had stayed and puts the mattress back on the bed. The sheets and blankets are a mess.

Bucky goes into the living room and lies down on the couch. He drags the blanket over himself as an afterthought.

Despite the fact that his mind keeps turning on itself, Bucky manages to force himself into a restless sleep. The nightmares wake him every few hours, but his exhaustion pulls him back under each time.

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