Work Text:
One minute, it was dancing out there. Possibility. Potential. It was the thing between them that they didn’t talk about, that made them both chuckle quietly, awkwardly, when they looked at each other too long …
It was the thing that made them look away.
Friends had pointed it out, but never directly. Teased Bucky that he had a bad habit of following Steve around, still trying to protect him from getting into (too much) trouble. Poked at Steve that he looked at Buck like he hung the damned moon.
Bucky hung the moon. Steve knew it.
For a long time, this thing had crackled between them. The back of Steve’s mouth went a little dry when Bucky had his shirt off and Steve could see the curved bird-bones of his collar in front of those mismatched, beautiful shoulders; when he squatted on the floor to dig shoes out from under the bed, and Steve could watch the pull of muscle in his thighs. His heart pounded once, twice, and hard, when Bucky turned up after some time (too much time), smiling and knocking Steve on the shoulder in greeting.
And maybe for awhile Steve believed Bucky didn’t notice it or feel the same way, but, hey, if anyone knew Bucky Barnes, it was Steve, and Steve could feel the hot prickle up his nape when Bucky was staring at his back. Could tell just as much as any of their amused friends how often Bucky chose him to sit near, or turned down invitations just to stay, quietly, with Steve. Reading, or talking, or making something to eat.
Bucky loved to watch Steve cook. Steve loved feeding Bucky.
So.
For a long time, it was out there, within reaching distance. All he had to do was put his hands on Bucky, or have those hands settle on him.
The day it finally happened, it was less an epiphany, an explosion, than just a single, tiny click into place. It was a slow day, and, for no reason, everyone was gathered in a common room. Bruce first, then Tony, then the others, and Steve was sitting in a corner debating over making work for the team by sending them after some criminals who were themselves laying low. Just to have something to do--just to keep them sharp when their city wasn’t at immediate risk.
Bucky moved quietly through the door on the other side, crossed the entire room (of course he did), and perched himself on the padded arm of Steve’s chair. Only had eyes for Steve, and the time they didn’t speak grew a little too long for even their normal. Bucky eventually curled his arm behind Steve’s back, rested his hand on the opposite shoulder, and rubbed his thumb a little bit on the tight tendon that ran from Steve’s ear down his neck.
The whole room was too quiet, aside from Clint’s throat-clearing.
So.
One minute, it was dancing out there. And the next--
“Do you … uh … need to talk to me?” Steve asked.
Bucky slipped into a slow smile, and Steve’s breath hitched.
Oh. Now.
His toes curled inside his socks.
Later, Steve would be embarrassed that they’d made it so damned obvious, basically announced, “We’re going to bed now,” as they left the room. Lord, as if Laurel and Hardy--that would be Tony and Clint--needed any more fodder for their barely-above-reproach teasing. But, there was nothing to be done for it, after, and it was best if everyone knew where they stood.
Bucky didn’t even try to sound anything other than--yeah, like that--when he replied, smooth as cream, “Sure, I need to talk to you, Steve. Can you give me a minute?”
Neither one of them flinched at the snort that came from across the room.
They didn’t say goodbye to any of their teammates, nor did they speak to each other as they caught and rode the elevator to their floor. Steve poked at Bucky’s hand with a fingertip, a hint, and Bucky took Steve’s hand in his, because if there was anything Bucky knew, it was how to read Steve.
“Why now?” Steve asked once they got to his room--more they didn’t talk about, but they both knew his was cleaner.
“You got a better time in mind?” Bucky drawled, and, hell, yeah, Steve did. That first time Bucky came home from a job a thousand years before, sweaty with his hair curling up in the back, and immediately stripped off his shirt to get cool, and Steve had stared at his matching, beautiful shoulders, his upper arms, the tuft of hair poking out of his undershirt, and …
Bucky in the spanking-new uniform in the alley, peering down at him with that smug look, and they were already in an alley anyway, hidden and private, and it wouldn’t have been anything for Steve to go to his knees just to have Bucky keep looking at him that way, and …
Bucky after the battlefield, covered in soot and hands trembling from gripping the rifle all day long, bottom lip swollen from getting chewed on when he concentrated, and making dirty jokes about needing a gal to work off his energy, his nerves, but Steve knew they weren’t jokes, and he wasn’t talking about a gal, anyhow, as his eyes darted toward Steve and away, and …
Last year and last Christmas, Steve’s birthday and two weeks ago, when Bucky sidled up to Steve in the kitchen or the conference room or that one time at the grocer’s, pressed his chest right up against Steve’s arm, dropped his chin to Steve’s shoulder, and muttered, “You doin’ all right there, Stevie?” just into his ear, smooth as cream, and …
“Nope. No better time,” Steve answered, finally, after Bucky had started giving him that look that told Steve he was being an idiot and thinking too hard again, and, also, Bucky was halfway through unbuttoning Steve’s shirt, and had gotten started on his belt because it was obviously in the way.
Steve wasn’t sure what they were gonna do. If there was one thing he hadn’t told Bucky--maybe the only thing, come to think of it--it was what he’d done with other people. He’d told Natasha early on that he wasn’t dead, which was technically true but obscured the fact that he hadn’t been with anyone before those missing years. Since then … Bucky didn’t really need to know how Steve had taken comfort in his loss. So he knew a few things, about what men did, had had some practice, but this was Bucky, and Bucky--
Bucky got Steve’s clothes and his own off awfully quick. And Steve felt bad for making him do all the work, so he leaned down for Bucky's face after he’d gotten his socks off, caught him and pulled him up, smiling, for their first kiss. Used his hands on Bucky’s head, fingers tucked around his ears, to lead him forward toward the bed, Steve walking backwards and trusting his familiarity with the room to keep him from falling flat on his---
Yeah, Bucky pushed him, and he hit the bed hard.
“Hey!” And Steve was laughing, and scrambling back toward the headboard, and watching Bucky get on all fours on the mattress and crawl up it after him was the single most erotic thing Steve had ever seen. His laugh broke and his face went slack, mouth open, and that was the opportunity Bucky needed, he guessed, to lay himself flat on top of Steve and just kiss the hell out of him.
No, there was no better time.
Steve loved the tickle of Bucky’s chest hair, the way their naked skin pressed and tugged together as they moved, that Steve’s whole face stung of tiny kisses and his wrist ached from being held in Bucky’s stronger hand. He could look, now, and so he moved enough to get a real look at Bucky’s dick, which was thick and ruddy, wet at the tip and pointing directly at Steve, like it had been waiting long enough, buddy. Steve knew that feeling.
Their legs were threaded together, and Steve was wondering how this was gonna go when Bucky just said, “Can I jerk you off?” and yeah, that was good, too. Steve’s room was neater, and probably better prepared, and Bucky only gave him a half-questioning look as he found the mostly-empty bottle of lube. (Most of it was solo, the rest was before Bucky returned, and Steve made a note to buy a fresh bottle at the store--or, you know, order it from JARVIS.) (That might be better.)
Bucky shifted just enough to keep Steve’s legs tangled with his own, got himself up on the elbow of his metal arm to douse his other palm with the lube, and … Steve didn’t know what to do with his hands. Keep touching Bucky, or leave them at his sides, or reach up and put them on the headboard, which sent a white-hot flare through him, thinking of getting his arms out of the way and letting Bucky do things, but maybe next time. He really wanted to touch, so he did--put one hand on the side of Bucky’s head to toy with his hair, and the other--
As Bucky took him in hand, as he started to work Steve’s cock with firm jerks, thumb teasing under the head and fingers playing carefully with his foreskin, Steve rested his own hand on top of Bucky’s, not to guide, but to feel. He didn’t take his eyes off Bucky’s face. Bucky watched him back, lids fluttering shut just briefly when Steve combed through his hair or touched his temple in some particular way Bucky liked, and Steve traced a fingertip behind the shell of Bucky’s ear.
“It’s not going to--uh--not gonna take long,” Steve panted, and he figured Bucky could tell by the way Steve was pushing his hips up to complement Buck’s rhythm, the way Steve was leaking all down his own shaft, his fluids catching in Bucky’s fingers and further smoothing his strokes.
“Then do it, ya punk.” A perfect goad, and Bucky’s eyes were avid, predatory, and Steve wondered if he already knew what he wanted to do next, once Steve was too boneless and sated to debate the point. (Steve’s entire point of debate would hinge around “you’re not doing it fast enough, ass,” which Bucky probably already knew.)
When Steve came, seconds later, Bucky squeezed his fist even tighter and angled the spurts over Steve’s own abdomen, which clenched and spasmed as he groaned Bucky’s name.
So, boneless and sated, Steve welcomed Bucky back into his arms, let him rut through the come on Steve’s stomach and the lube that had smeared off his hand and Steve's dick, and there were more kisses, and this …
This was just the beginning.
Would there have been a better time? Steve thought about it. There might have been different times, and, in the coming days, Steve would allow himself to lament, here and there, not giving Bucky what he’d so clearly wanted, at seventeen, at twenty, in Brooklyn and Italy and that first time they’d seen each other after HYDRA, when Bucky had followed Steve into his hotel room and collapsed in his arms, pulling tiredly at Steve's shirt.
They’d denied each other what they both wanted, which was, God, such a waste.
But now--
Now they were both strong. Now they were both healed. They both looked to a future, shared. And so this time and all the times to come?
These would be the best ones.