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"Look, I don't want to be the asshole that just straight up objectifies the new hires, but have you seen the pastry chef?" Tina slung a plastic bin full of ice and oysters onto the bar and set it down with a clunk.From where he was polishing wine glasses, Bucky's ears perked up, although the comment hadn't been addressed to him. Instead Valencia, one of the waiters' assistants, turned from where she was restocking the coffee station so fast her braid whipped around and hit her in the face. "Oh my god, yes I have." She touched her fingers to her lips and held them to the sky. "And when I did, I found Jesus.""Really." Tina tilted the bin and raised her voice over the sound of oysters and ice clattering into the bin below the bar. "Because Jesus wants nothing to do with what I was thinking.""Tina!" Valencia smoothed down her hair. "I'm just saying the experience had a lot in common with finding religion.”Bucky slid the clean glass into the rack over the bar and abandoned the unpolished ones. He cleared his throat as he edged around Valencia. "Excuse me," he murmuredValencia jumped. "Oh, sorry, James!" He didn't know why she was apologetic; the Hilltop Bar and Grill was in an old building, and a lot of the spaces were narrow, the hallway between the bar and coffee station among them. He angled his left side away from her as he brushed by.He smiled. "It's fine. I just need something from the kitchen."Three minutes later, Bucky had threaded his way through line chefs and dishwashers in the main kitchen into the smaller space that was the pastry chef's domain. There were ovens, of course, and special coolers, and mixing stands, and a lot of shit he wasn't sure what the purpose was. He didn't really know desserts, beyond what flavors tended to pair well with what wines. Wines, he knew.The counters were covered with cheesecakes and pies and ramekins full of something that was probably some kind of chocolate. Everything smelled fucking fantastic.And towering over it all was an absolute brick shithouse of a man, with shoulders that could span continents, his narrow waist evident even underneath his chef's apron. He was blond, and his remarkably handsome face was creased into a frown as he leaned over a probably-chocolate ramekin and piped something out of a pastry bag onto its surface. The sleeves of his chef's coat were rolled up, and Bucky allowed himself a moment to appreciate the play of muscles in his forearms, the dusting of sugar interspersed between light arm hair.Bucky decided that Tina and Valencia had a point."Can I help you?" Swole Pastry God straightened up as he finished with the bag."Only if I'm not interrupting," Bucky said. He took a step inside the room so he would project more friendliness and less doorway creeper, left hand tucked into his pants pocket. "I wanted to introduce myself. James Barnes. I'm the sommelier.""Steve Rogers." He set down the bag, started to extend a hand, stopped to wipe chocolate off his finger on the bar towel hanging from his apron, and tried again. Was Bucky imagining the faint flush along his cheekbone? Probably. "Nice to meet you.""Likewise." Bucky took his hand and shook. He had a firm grip—but not so firm it was a dick measuring contest—and his palm was rough and striped with callus. Bucky maybe let his grip linger a little long trying to map the exact pattern of the rough skin, because Steve's very blue eyes narrowed a little. Bucky let go. Possibly he had graduated from doorway creeper to slimy overfamiliar handshake guy. "Let me know if you have any questions about anything we do over at the bar. Or if you ever want to pair anything specifically with a dessert. Sometimes I print wine suggestions next to the descriptions on the dessert menu.""That'd be great. I don't know that much about wine, to be honest." Now he was smiling again, and Bucky smiled back without even meaning to."If you ever want to learn, I'd be happy to help." Bucky stepped away. "I'll let you get back to it."Steve picked up the piping bag and returned to the ramekins. Bucky left, though not without shooting one last look at Steve's wide back. Bucky could already tell Steve Rogers was trouble, not even counting the near-religious experiences he inspired among the staff. It wasn’t that Bucky didn’t appreciate him as well; he did. He just tended to appreciate people he found attractive from afar, because explaining the metal arm was hard, and because he didn’t really know how to handle letting someone in close.But that wasn’t why Steve was trouble, not really.Bucky wanted to know why their new pastry chef had gun calluses on his right hand.🍷Bucky no longer had gun calluses on his own right hand. He no longer owned tactical gear fit to his specifications. He only carried two knives on his person most of time, and the last time he'd drawn them had been when a couple of over-enthusiastic muggers had decided he looked like an easy mark. (They'd been very wrong, but he hadn't killed them.) He'd spent years—decades—turning himself into a civilian. It wasn't his business why Steve Rogers carried a gun as long as he knew how to brulée a crême.His business was making sure the staff knew about the latest additions to the wine list. Once a week, he had a tasting for the staff to make sure they were up to date on anything new. He thought it was important that the cooks know about the flavors in relation to the food as well. Happily, the executive chef agreed with him, so the kitchen staff had a standing invitation as well.This week, there was a towering blond Adonis jammed into one of the corner tables. The cinnamon streaked across his forehead had entirely too much of Bucky's attention. So did the fact that he was not yet wearing his chef's coat. Steve was wearing a white t-shirt. That was not unusual for chefs. But the size of it was; it looked like a much smaller man had bought it, passed it on to Rogers, who had then applied it to his torso with a vacuum sealer. Bucky could probably do an anatomical drawing of his chest, not that he was looking.Bucky went around the room and poured a few sips into each small tasting glass. Steve smiled up at him as he did, and again he smiled back. It was a wide-open smile on a wide-open face, and Bucky was a closed-off person. He had to be; when one had such a well-developed collection of past horrors as his, closing off was best for everyone. But he still wanted to smile at Steve Rogers.Steve frowned intently at his glass as Bucky talked about the plum notes in the Argentinian malbec that Bucky expected to move a lot of. "It's at a lower price point," Bucky told the room, "so I'm glassing it out as well. It'll pair well with the skirt steak or the lamb tagine." He moved on through the new rosé (dryer than the previous rosé, fantastic with the salmon, quail, or pork) and a merlot that Bucky personally found a little dull (not that he would ever describe it that way out loud) but that would probably sell quite well.Then everyone wandered off to set tables, or cut bread, or whatever needed to be done before opening. Bucky started racking the dirty tasting glasses. To his surprise, a giant set of hands wandered into his field of vision, clutched around three glasses. He turned his head, and Steve Rogers's incredibly blue eyes were only a couple feet away.Huh. He moved really quietly for such a big man."Thanks," Bucky said, and took the glasses from him with his right hand. He slotted them into the rack."Sure thing," Steve said. "Hey, did you mean it that you would teach me about wine? I, uh, I really enjoyed listening to you, but I'm very aware of what I don't know when it comes to wine."Oh, no. Devastatingly handsome with shoulders like the rock of Gibraltar, graceful enough to move quietly even to Bucky's ears, mysterious gun calluses, secure enough to admit when he didn't know something, and interested in Bucky's area of competence. This wasn't fair.
"Of course," Bucky said, and shit, he was smiling again. Argh. "I can come in a little early tomorrow if you want. We can run through some of the basics.""If you're sure you don't mind.""Tomorrow, then," Bucky said, and racked the rest of the glasses.🍷The pastry chef got into the restaurant early, while the sommelier really didn't need to be there too long before opening. Hilltop wasn't open for lunch, so Bucky's schedule had become more nocturnal over time. He found himself waking up before his alarm the next morning. He hummed as he went for his usual jog, and smiled as he made his coffee and toast, and then stopped, suspicious of himself. Fuck. He was looking forward to this. Idiot. There were reasons he didn't let himself get close to people. He had too many secrets, a past that didn’t make sense as soon as anyone asked a question, and a metal arm that didn’t stand up to close examination.But he'd kind of promised, he rationalized. What kind of oenophile would he be if he neglected an opportunity to introduce someone to wine? Steve Rogers probably drank beer. Maybe whisky. He could work with that.Eh, with a physique like that, he might not drink much at all. Bucky was aware he had an unfair advantage in that department. He did work out—if he didn't, he had too much energy no matter how much time he spent on his feet at work—but even if he didn't, his muscles pretty much maintained themselves. The American supersoldier program hadn't gotten off the ground in the 1940s, but thanks to Hydra, and Zola specifically, he'd gotten a metabolism that turned everything he ate into musculature, and ensured that he had to eat a lot. He also couldn't get drunk, which was a boon given his current position.But then again, Steve Rogers was a pastry chef. He probably wasn't on any kind of low-carb diet. Bucky didn't need to devote any further thought to Steve’s workout program. He wasn't trying to get him drunk, just expand his horizons.Bucky stopped at a bodega and bought a selection of foods he wanted Steve to smell. He worked with flavors too; it shouldn't be hard for him to find them in wine.Bucky strolled into the restaurant about an hour earlier than he usually got there, a plastic bag mostly full of fruit hanging from his left hand, his shirt, tie, and jacket on a hanger in his right. He hung the clothes in the wait station, dropped the bag on the bar, and headed toward the kitchen. None of the waiters were here yet, but he waved hello to the line cooks doing prep as he went up the steps to the dessert kitchen.Steve was leaning over the counter, shaving curlicues of chocolate off a huge slab. He was in a too-tight t-shirt again, but Bucky couldn't complain; watching the muscles around his spine and shoulder blades move beneath it was like watching tectonic plates shift. Bucky waited until he seemed to have reached a break and said, "Hi, Steve."Steve straightened and smiled at him like he was the best thing to happen to him all day, which Bucky doubted. "Hey, James. Time for my wine lesson?""If you're at a stopping point with all this." Bucky waved his hand at the chocolate shavings. Steve picked up the baking tray full of curlicues and covered it with plastic wrap, then slotted it into one of the refrigerators."I am now." He wiped his hands on the towel at his hip and shot Bucky a look he couldn't interpret."Then let's go to the bar," Bucky said. He led the way through the kitchen, through the empty restaurant, not looking over his shoulder at the man following him. The restaurant looked different in daylight, with no one in it, bigger and smaller at the same time. A little old but scrupulously clean; dingy around the edges, maybe, but it only ever looked welcoming and warm at night.The bar was Bucky's realm. He shared with the bartenders, of course, but practically speaking, they all deferred to his expertise. He supposed he'd earned it. He also supposed tutoring someone completely ignorant in the basics ought to be beneath his pay grade, but he enjoyed it, even when the person in question didn't look like a mountain range crammed into a too-tight shirt.Bucky slid behind the bar and pulled down several glasses, lining them up on the polished copper bar. "I thought we could start with white," he said.Steve picked a barstool opposite the line of glasses and looked at Bucky expectantly. "Sounds good to me. Is there a reason?"Bucky liked that he asked. "Yes. White wines tend to be more accessible. It's a good starting place. We can try reds another time—I don't want to get you sloshed before work." Bucky eyed the wines by the glass and poured a California chardonnay, an Australian sauvignon blanc, a Spanish Albariño, and a dry French rosé."I'm not too concerned," Very Large Steve said. "It takes a lot to get me drunk.""Well, I'm not trying to get you drunk today, just introduce you to a few flavors." Bucky pulled an apple, a peach, a grapefruit, and a cantaloupe out of his bag and set them on the bar next to the glasses. Steve raised an eyebrow. Bucky slid the sauvignon blanc across the bar. "Smell the wine."Steve lifted the glass sniffed. "Smells like wine."Bucky laughed. "All right, but what else?"Steve tried again. "Something citrus?""Good! Take a sip, see what you think.""It's tarter than I expected. But it's good."Bucky sliced the grapefruit with a bar knife and slid it over to him. "Smell that and take another sip.""Oh, wow. Yeah, that's definitely it." Steve smiled at him."Where a wine is grown dictates how it tastes. You get strong grapefruit notes in Australian sauvignon blancs, but from one grown in, say, California—"A shriek rang out from the kitchen. It wasn't a someone-dumped-ice-down-my-collar shriek, nor even a the-knife-slipped-and-now-my-thumb-is-bleeding shriek. Even before someone else yelled "Help!", Bucky knew it was the sound of something-is-seriously-wrong.He took off, slinging himself out from behind the bar. Steve was a couple steps ahead of him, not having had the bar to navigate. There was something about the way he was running—and he was fast for someone so big—his hand moved up, twice, like he was reaching for something on his back—something that wasn't there at the moment.But the mystery of Steve Rogers would have to wait, because when they got into the kitchens, one of the line cooks was convulsing on the floor. John was a skinny white kid in his twenties, covered in tattoos, not at all unusual in a kitchen. His friend Oscar was standing next to him looking terrified and useless. Bucky shouldered past Oscar and dropped to his knees beside John."Give him some room," he barked. "Oscar, call 911."John had been chopping carrots. Bucky tossed the knife away and rolled John onto his side. He pulled the kitchen towel down from John's station and slid it under his head. The kid's eyes were rolling back under his fluttering lids, and his skin was cold and clammy."Fuck," Bucky muttered."He was fine one minute and then he just—he just dropped like a rock," Oscar was saying to the dispatcher on the phone. "Yes, ma'am. We'll stay with him until the ambulance gets here.""He have epilepsy or something?" Steve said."I don't know." Bucky was pretty sure this was an overdose. John, you stupid kid. Bucky didn't know him well enough to guess what he might have taken. He looked up, leaving his hand on John's throat so he could feel his pulse, thready and erratic. "Oscar, you know if he was on anything?""I, um, what? No." Oscar was off the phone with 911, clutching his phone like a talisman. "Uh. No.""I don't care what he was doing, but the paramedics are going to need to know so they can treat him. You don't have to tell me, but it would really help if you could tell them." Bucky looked at him, maintaining eye contact as the warring desires to protect his friend played out across Oscar's face."Please don't tell chef," Oscar finally blurted out. Bucky mentally rolled his eyes, but he just nodded. All the other line cooks and dishwashers were watching, and the manager had come down out of the upstairs office. Bucky wouldn't have to tell chef anything. This incident would spread through the grapevine like wildfire."I won't," he said.Oscar lowered his voice. Everyone else visibly craned forward, but Oscar's eyes were still locked on Bucky. "He's been—he's been taking Ex.""If this was Ecstasy, it must have been cut with something else." Rat poison, maybe.Oscar shook his head. "Not Ecstasy. Extremis." Bucky shrugged. He hadn't heard of it. But then, he didn't really try to keep up. "It's—it's pretty new, I guess?""Thanks, Oscar. You did good. That's really going to help." Oscar went back to twisting his phone in his hands and Bucky looked back down at John. He was sweating profusely, but the convulsions had stopped. Bucky was going to leave him on his side in case of sudden puke. He looked terrible. He looked young.Thankfully, it wasn't long until the sound of sirens cut into the silence. Bucky sent Oscar to lead the paramedics in through the kitchen door, and when they strapped him to the stretcher board, Bucky made him repeat what he'd told them about the drug. Only when the ambulance was screaming away did Bucky notice how sick he felt with adrenaline."Christ." He dragged both hands down his face."You all right?" The low voice next to him made him jump a little. Steve was standing right next to him, blue eyes filled with concern."Yeah. Just nerves. I hope the kid'll be okay." He looked down. There were pieces of carrot peel stuck to the knees of his pants, which were wet, either with spilled food or mop water.
"Is there a lot of that here?" The space between Steve's eyebrows furrowed up.Bucky stared at him. "It's a restaurant. I don't really pay attention to what the staff do, as long as they're not doing it here."Steve bit his lower lip. Bucky tried not to pay attention to that, either. "You were really good with him. Both of them, I mean.""Thanks." Bucky shrugged, uncomfortable with praise for doing what needed to be done. "Think we're going to need to take a rain check on wine school, though. I've got to start getting set up for opening.""Yeah, I don't think I could really give it the right kind of attention right now," Steve said. He put his hand to the back of his neck, putting structural strain on the t-shirt sleeve trying valiantly to encircle his bicep."Maybe tomorrow?""I've got tomorrow off." Steve shrugged."You could come to my place," Bucky's mouth said, without conscious direction from his brain. What? No. Bad mouth. He never had people over. "Or we could wait till your next shift—you probably don't want to work on your day off."It was a way out if Steve didn't want to spend that much time with creepy handshake guy, but Steve didn't take it. "No, tomorrow sounds great. I have some errands to run in the morning, so would around noon work for you?""Sure. That'll give us plenty of time before I need to be here." Apparently, he was really going to do this. Bucky pulled out his phone. "Give me your number, and I'll text you the address."Steve rattled off a number, Bucky saved it, then texted his address. It was only after they'd said their goodbyes and Steve had retreated to the dessert kitchen that Bucky saved the contact as Swole Pastry God.🍷Bucky really never had people over. He tried to look at his apartment after work with the eye of someone who had never been there. It was a little sparse, but he kept it clean and tidy; a remnant of his army days, maybe. The walls were given over to bookshelves. Mostly, though he'd slowed down acquiring physical books some after e-readers came around. A couple of prints hung between shelves, and a medium-sized flat-screen tv had a little bit of his wall's real estate. The living room and kitchen opened into each other, and in addition to the regular fridge in the kitchen, he had a Eurocave with his wine collection stored in it.He didn't have an epic collection like some people; he was mostly of the opinion that wine was meant to be drunk, not held on to. Besides, in a way, the wine list at the restaurant was his professional collection.But there were a few special bottles that he was saving for the right occasion.A Mouton-Rothschild 1973 Picasso label that was undoubtedly on the downhill slide toward vinegar, that he hadn't yet opened because until he did, it was the Schrodinger's cat of wine and might be fucking amazing.A bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle cabernet; Howard had given him half a case in 1998, to celebrate the anniversary of the end of his SHIELD-unfucking Hydra-killing spree and decision to commit to a murderless life. They'd shared the first bottle together that night. Bucky missed Howard and Maria.A bottle of 2009 vintage brut Veuve Clicquot, a gift from Peggy upon his getting certified as a Master Sommelier.He pulled a few bottles of everyday whites and a rosé, and put them in the refrigerator to chill, then he turned on the tv to listen to the news as he cleaned up.There wasn't too much to do, but he shuffled some laundry and abandoned shoes back to the bedroom. He wasn't going to worry about making the bed until tomorrow. He wiped up a toothpaste spill on the counter in the bathroom and scrubbed the toilet and put a new hand towel on the rack.As he was wiping down the counters in the kitchen, he heard something about the Avengers from the newscaster. He dropped the sponge and moved closer, wiping his hands on his jeans before picking up the remote to turn up the volume.He always paid attention when the Avengers were on the news. He couldn't help it. He and Tony had never had an easy relationship, though they had common ground on the subject of Peggy, but he was Howard and Maria's son. Bucky couldn't stop worrying about him.This was a clip from a post-action press conference from a couple of weeks ago, trotted out again to buttress some point the news anchor was making. Bucky's shoulders relaxed a little, but then he paid attention to the Avengers flanking Tony: Thor, Hulk, and the new supersoldier, Captain America."What the actual fuck," Bucky muttered.He had helped Howard with the supersoldier project after Howard had helped him save himself. Letting Howard take his blood and break it down to component parts had been, very literally, the least he could do. Project Rebirth had been something he hadn't known about until decades after it had resoundingly failed, but he'd been carrying the German crib notes in his DNA. Howard hadn't lived to see the success of his reverse engineering, but SHIELD had used what little remained of Erskine's notes and whatever they'd gotten out of Bucky's blood to build their own Avenger a couple of years ago. No one knew who Captain America had been before the first successful superserum since 1945.Bucky suddenly had an inkling, because that vast, geological physique looked awfully familiar. Cap stood behind Tony, shield strapped to his back, nodding here and there at something Tony said, but not speaking for himself.Bucky pulled out his laptop. Maybe he was being an actual stalker, but he started googling Steve Rogers. That could be his real name—maybe it wasn't—but it was a starting place. Thirty minutes later, he wanted to chew his own lips off. There were a lot of Steve Rogerses in the world, at least on Facebook and Twitter. None of them appeared to be either the man he'd met or Captain America. Then he googled "pastry chef steve rogers" and an article from 2006 popped up; a Food and Wine "30 under 30" to watch. There was a grainy photo of thirty young people jammed together. Bucky could just about recognize the square jaw and slightly-askew nose, but the man in the picture was slight, shorter than most of his compatriots. It was possible—it was plausible—that Howard and Tony's new and improved serum could have changed someone more than Zola's rip-off of Erskine's serum had changed Bucky.Bucky could. Bucky could call Tony and ask. It would be one more awkward conversation in a lifetime of awkward conversations. Or he could let Steve show up tomorrow and tell him about wine. He could try not to give a shit whether he was Captain America. Whatever he was doing at Hilltop was nothing to do with Bucky. Surely.Right?Bucky turned off the television. The news had moved on to something else, anyway, and he suddenly felt very tired.He looked over his apartment one more time, decided it was presentable, and stumbled back into his bedroom. Tomorrow was soon enough to worry about Steve Rogers.
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Steve slid his entry card into the reader of the parking garage entrance to Avengers Tower. Three years since Project Rebirth, and he still sometimes didn't believe that this was his life: fighting with the Avengers, missions and assignments, undercover work, and above, below and beyond it all, the new body. Three years in, and he still sometimes surprised himself with his own reflection. What would his mother have thought?Sarah Rogers would have been proud he had the opportunity to help people, he thought; and happy the laundry list of ailments he'd had to deal with growing up was gone; and a little sad, maybe, because his shape was so changed, a new, unfamiliar configuration of the face she’d kissed to sleep.Or maybe he was projecting.He took off his ball cap and sunglasses. He didn't really need a disguise—the public had no idea that Captain America was Steve Rogers—but he tried to be cautious regardless. He didn't want anyone to draw the line that connected Cap to Steve. He’d seen how Nat lived and he’d seen how Tony had to interact with the public, and he knew which looked more comfortable to him.He nodded to the security guard and stepped into the elevator, a paper bag swinging loosely in his hand. The last three years had gotten him used to a lot of things, because he didn’t jump at all when Jarvis's smooth voice came out of the walls. "Good morning, Captain.""Hi, Jarvis. Are Nat and Tony around?" Natasha was acting as his liaison with Maria Hill and SHIELD for this particular op, so he'd be shocked if she wasn't here for this meeting, but Tony was a wild card."Indeed. Ms. Romanova and Sir are both awaiting you in the conference room.""Thanks," Steve said. He had stopped feeling weird about replying to thin air, and he had stopped trying to decide to what degree Jarvis was sentient, and just treated him like a person. It seemed to be working for him so far.The elevator doors opened and Steve stepped out into the lobby of the fortieth floor. The receptionist nodded at him as he lifted a hand, but he didn't stop to chat. Not today. Not when he actually had something to report—the first tiny crack in the Extremis case."Hey, Steve," Natasha said as he walked in. He shot her a quick smile and waved at Tony. Today Tony was wearing a suit rather than a coverall and goggles, so he probably had a day full of Stark Industries meetings to get through rather than tinkering around in his labs."How's undercover working out for you?" Tony said."Can you really call it undercover if you're using your own name?' Natasha mused. "Fair point," Steve admitted. "But overcover sounds kind of dumb." Natasha had offered to set him up with a fake identity, as she had on other occasions, but Steve had been attached to the idea of getting this job with his own resumé. Before Project Rebirth, becoming a pastry chef at a Beard Award-winning restaurant would have been his dream. Since no one knew that Steve Rogers was Captain America, there hadn't really been a need for a cover. "I brought cookies. Chocolate chip and cranberry raisin."He set the bag down on the glossy surface of the conference table, and Tony and Nat both eyed it. "Did you make these at work?" Nat asked, grabbing one of each kind of cookie."No, at home." He still liked to unwind after missions by making food; stress-baking, his mother had called it. He couldn't count the times he'd woken up as a child to Sarah Rogers pulling a pan of cinnamon rolls or a loaf of banana bread out of the oven after a long shift at the hospital. When he was eight or so, he'd started to help her, and by twelve he was making up his own recipes."So what's the word, Cap?" Tony stopped flipping an Allen wrench over his knuckles to grab a handful of cookies."One of the cooks overdosed at work yesterday," Steve said. "His friends said it was Extremis.""Good," Natasha said. "Now if you can find out who he bought it from...""I don't have a lead on who sold it yet, but I do have an in at the bar." He kept having to remind himself to keep his distance from James. It seemed unlikely that the guy who had hopped in to help with John yesterday was the one who'd sold him the drugs, but he could be. "I'm meeting him before work today, so I'll have a chance to find out more. The problem is that a lot of the bar staff don’t come in until I'm getting ready to leave. Nat, how would you feel about a dinner date tonight? Nice place. Beard Award-winner. I hear the desserts are really good.""Steve," she purred, "I'd be delighted."🍰Steve told himself he was feeling a normal account of anticipation about his wine lesson with James. It was interesting to learn new things, and he liked the man, that was all. It had nothing to do with his sharp cheekbones, or the way he fit his suit, or the competence with which he talked about wine—or the way he'd dropped to the dirty kitchen floor without a second thought to help John. How he'd taken control of a shit situation and told people what to do and how to help.No, Steve was strictly interested in James for his connection to whoever was selling Extremis in the bar.He took the subway to the stop nearest the address James had given him, then followed his phone to a brownstone on a quiet street. The building had been split into apartments. James's was on the top floor. After James buzzed him up, Steve climbed the stairs, bakery box of cookies held against his hip. His mom would have shamed him from the grave had he shown up empty-handed as a guest, especially to someone who was doing him a favor.He knocked on the door at the top of the stairs and waited. The door swung open and James smiled at him from the entryway. The square line of his jaw and his high cheekbones hit Steve all over again. His hair was loose instead of pulled back the way he wore it at work, and Steve tried not to stare. He looked different with it down. More open, somehow. Stop, Steve told himself. Try to act like you have any chill at all."Hi." James pushed the door all the way open and stepped back, making room for Steve to come inside. "Come in.""Thanks so much for doing this." Steve offered him the cookies. James smiled as he took them, popping open the top of the box so he could sniff admiringly. The corners of his eyes creased with his smile. Steve tried not to appreciate those lines too obviously. Now that his hands were empty, his fingers wanted to trace over them. "It's chocolate chip and Heath bar, and peanut butter.""Wow, thanks. And what's this?" James lifted it the wrapped loaf of bread."Soda bread," Steve said, and inexplicably blushed. "My mom's recipe." It was almost cheating to have included it, really; it was one of the first things he'd learned to bake, and he could have made it in his sleep. It was a comfort to make, and the other Avengers had, rather bemusedly, he thought, gotten used to multiple loaves showing up in the common room after particularly difficult ops. Steve hadn't been that stressed last night, but he'd thought that James almost had to like bread even if he didn't have a sweet tooth."Thanks," James said again. "You really didn't have to, but it all smells delicious, and I'm definitely not going to say no.""Well, you didn't have to offer to fill in some of the gaps of my ignorance, but you did, so..." Steve shrugged, smiling.James led him in. The apartment wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. The door opened directly into a spacious living room. A picture window looked it out onto the street and the buildings across the way. The walks were lined with bookshelves, and Steve suppressed the urge to go look at the titles. A comfortable-looking leather couch and armchair bracketed a coffee table, and a roll-top desk lined the wall under another window. The living room ended in a low wall with a cut-out bar that looked into the kitchen. A big black refrigerator was right next to the door to the kitchen."That's the wine cave," James said. Steve lifted an eyebrow in response and James laughed. It was a nice sound. "I'm not that much of a hoarder, I promise. There's just the one.""I was just thinking there was something weird about calling a fridge a cave.""It's the brand name. Eurocave." James led him into the kitchen. It was surprisingly large, with ample counter space and a square wood table in the center. The table was already set with several empty wine glasses and a selection of foods, mostly fruit. Steve was touched at how much thought James had put in to furthering his education. Wine was the man's job, but it definitely wasn't his job to put in extra work before his actual work to educate a curious coworker; Steve really was curious, despite the fact that he was also here to find out more about the bar.James set the baker's box on the counter and waved at the table. "Take a seat." Steve did. James leaned over to pull a bottle out of the fridge. Not a cave fridge; just a regular fridge.He was dressed much more casually than he’d been at the restaurant, in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt in a deep blue. The material in the shirt shifted as the muscles in his back moved. He straightened up and Steve tried to look like he hadn't just been ogling him. Steve's own physique had been formed by science indistinguishable from magic. James's was the result of effort, and whatever he did to get it was clearly effective. Possibly he'd already worked out that morning; his hair was mostly dry, but the ends of it were damp, and Steve could smell his shampoo. Steve probably ought not want to touch it so much, at least not while he was working."I thought we'd start with a prosecco this time." James sat down across from Steve. "This is a split." He offered Steve the little half-bottle, and Steve took it, turning it over in his hands."Is this a champagne?""It's a sparkling wine," James corrected. "A wine can only be a champagne if it comes from the Champagne region of France. But bubbly can come from anywhere. Prosecco comes from Italy." He peeled back the foil around the circle and showed Steve how to interpret the cage, then held the cork and gently twisted the bottle until the two separated with a pop. He poured them each a short glass and slid one in front of Steve. "Cheers.""Cheers," Steve said and tapped his glass carefully against James's."It's bright," Steve said after a thoughtful sip. "It's a little like apples.""That's great." James took a sip of his own glass, watching Steve. "Prosecco tends to be sweeter and have more fruit flavors than champagne. It pairs really well with salty flavors. Try it." He passed Steve a slice of cheese wrapped in prosciutto. Steve took a bite, then tried the prosecco again."Oh, wow." The salt of the meat complemented the sugars of the wine and made both sets richer and fuller. "Kind of like salting caramel. The opposing tastes bring each other out."James nodded approvingly. "Makes sense you'd be good at picking out the flavors, since you do it with desserts." That, and the serum had left Steve with enhanced senses, scent and taste among them. "So what do you think it? Do you like it?""I do," Steve decided. "I might not want to drink a lot of it all at once.""Then let's see what you think of the Pinot grigio," James said, and brought another bottle out.By the time James had walked him through the Pinot grigio, a chardonnay, an albariño, and a rosé, Steve felt like he had more of a measure of him, in addition to an expanded appreciation for wine. There was something very calming about James; he didn't look much older than Steve, but somehow Steve got the sense that he'd seen a lot and could handle anything life threw at him."So which one was your favorite?" James asked.Steve thought about it. "I think I liked the Pinot grigio best. It was easy." Ugh, that sounded naive. "I don't have the most sophisticated palate, I guess." He hadn't been able to drink at all before the serum—he'd been on far too many medications to risk throwing alcohol into the mix, and his experiences with wine were mostly limited to drinking whatever Tony or Pepper had put in his glass—all of which he was sure were good wines, but he hadn't been trying to develop a taste for them."No one does when they're first learning," James said. "It's something you develop over time, if you like it." He capped the bottle. "You can take the rest of that home, if you want.""Thanks," Steve said, startled."I have to go into work later, but you can have some more if you want to." James shrugged. "Have you eaten? I was going to make something, and I've got plenty.""You sure you don't mind?" Steve was glad; he wasn't ready to be done. For one thing, he hadn’t learned anything about the bar yet. For another—he was enjoying spending time with James."Wouldn't have offered if I did.""Then yeah. Thank you."James shot him another smile and poured them both a glass of rosé. "So how'd you end up at Hilltop?""I applied for the job." Steve shrugged.James pulled a pack of bacon out of the refrigerator and a cast iron pan from a cabinet. "Sure. But where did you work before that?" He set the pan on the stove top and flicked on the eye. "I googled you," he said unapologetically. "I didn't see anything for the last couple of years."Steve's pulse kicked. "Yeah, you wouldn't." Because his former social media accounts had been scrubbed when he became Captain America, and there wasn't much else out there. "I had to take a hiatus for a couple of years for health-related reasons, but a friend got me in for an interview, and chef decided to give me a chance." Nat had pulled some strings to get him the job, actually, but it wouldn't have worked if he didn't have the chops in the first place. That was one thing the serum hadn’t given him.The pan must have heated to James's satisfaction; he dropped slices of bacon in."Glad he did," James said, raising his voice to be heard over the sizzle of the bacon. "It's nice to see some new items on the dessert menu.""It's been fun to get to put the menu together." Steve was at least able to be completely honest about that. He had missed doing the work he'd trained for during the last several years of doing the work he'd fallen into. Fighting bad guys was important but making desserts with interesting presentations was a blast, and there were no life-or-death repercussions. It was nice. "Anything new coming up I should know about?"Steve spent a pleasant few minutes outlining possibilities while James listened and asked a few questions while he crumbled the bacon (he handed a piece to Steve to taste test) and folded it with onions and herbs into a pan full of eggs. He sliced the bread Steve had brought and made bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches while Steve watched, finally serving up two plates of sandwiches with a heap of salad greens dressed in a sharp vinaigrette."Sorry, I've been kind of going on," Steve realized."Don't be sorry. I asked, and I enjoyed listening." James slid back into the table across from Steve and split the last of the rosé between them."Cheers." Steve lifted his glass and they flicked them together for at least the third time.His sandwich was delicious. They ate in appreciative silence for a little while."Can I ask you something?" Steve said as he chased the last bit of his salad across the plate. "The thing with John the other day. Is that common at Hilltop?"James grimaced. "No. I mean, it's a restaurant. I haven't worked in one where I could promise that nobody was on anything, but people don’t usually show up to work high.""I guess most places I've worked it's been more pot than anything that could cause that kind of reaction."James pushed his plate away. "I've worked at places where cooks were on heroin or coke. I haven't heard of Extremis before yesterday, and I didn’t think John was that kind of guy, but I guess you never know what's happening with people."These didn't sound like the words of someone helping sell drugs in the bar. Between his reaction yesterday and this, Steve thought he could cross him off the list of potential sellers. It would be ideal if Steve could make him into an ally.Steve shrugged. "I know this makes me sound extremely square, but I don't really like drugs. Not the kind that make you have a reaction like that.""What makes you sound extremely square is the fact that you just said extremely square." Steve snorted a laugh, and James smiled. "I don't really like having them in my restaurant, either, but I can't really do much about it. I run the bar, not the kitchen. All I can do is be sure chef knows, and believe me, pal, he knows.""Is John gonna lose his job?""I don't know." James shook his head, then took Steve's plate over to the sink. It was probably a sign that it was time to leave."Thank you for this." Steve stood. "I already feel smarter. I enjoyed it.""We can do it again sometime, if you want." James flashed a smile at him that was just a hint uncertain."I'd like that, if you don't mind." Steve ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, I don't know anything, so I'm not sure how entertaining it is for you...""I like teaching people." James turned away from the sink and walked with Steve back into the living room."Well, if it's not too busy at the bar tonight, a friend of mine is visiting, and I thought I'd bring her in for dinner. Let her see where I work, get the experience from the other side.""You haven't dined in yet?" James's eyebrows rose up, crinkling his forehead."Haven't had a chance. Seems like it's overdue." A couple of titles on a bookshelf caught Steve's eye. "Oh, hey, you like reading about World War Two?"James followed Steve's gaze, and, inexplicably, his shoulders tensed. Had Steve somehow put his foot into his mouth? The books were right there in his living room, hardly hidden away. The Silent Commandos in Memoir: A Collection of Letters, Journals, and Interviews, edited by Gabriel Jones, Jr. Letters from the Front Lines, by Professor Jean Artois. Maus, by Art Spiegleman. "Like might be the wrong word," James finally said."Sorry—I'm not trying to pry," Steve said, because it seemed to need saying. "I was a history major, and I've read some of these.""You were a history major in culinary school?" At least now he was smiling again.Steve went with the deflection gracefully, still not sure how he had misstepped. "I was a history major for a couple of years before my scholarship defunded. Never went to culinary school—got my training on the job.""I'd like to hear about that sometime," James said. Was he flirting? He might be flirting. Steve had a hard time telling sometimes. He had gone from small and argumentative and intense to very large and argumentative and intense, and while more people wanted to date him since his muscles kicked in, he was a lot more suspicious of their motives. Add to that his very weird and secretive job, and Steve hadn’t dated much since he got big, not seriously. Not that he needed to worry it about right now; he was on the job."I'll be happy to tell you about it sometime, then," Steve said. He was flirting or he wasn't, but Steve still needed to find out more about what was going on at the bar."Maybe the next time we talk about wine," James suggested."Sounds good to me," Steve said. "See you tonight.""I'll look forward to picking something good for you and your friend." James leaned a little closer and Steve sucked in a breath in surprise, but James was just reaching by him to open the door.Steve gave him an extremely sloppy salute from the landing outside his door as he walked out, hoping his face wasn't too red.As it turned out, he was looking forward to tonight too.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
🍷Bucky was absolutely not waiting for Swole Pastry Steve, 99% Sure He's Captain America, to show up for dinner with his…date? He’d said friend. Friend could cover a lot of ground. Roommate? Buddy? Significant other? He'd said she. Bucky was also absolutely not trying to read too much into the gender of his dinner date. The fact that he was Most Likely Captain America was far more interesting than who he might want to bone. It was.Bucky loathed that he kept watching the door and checking the clock. He wasn't bringing his A-game to the tables requesting his expertise. He was distracted. So Steve was built and handsome and maybe an Avenger, but he also liked to learn and seemed to enjoy spending time with Bucky. So what? Bucky was only getting himself in more trouble, setting up wine lessons because he felt some connection there. It was...It might have been stupid, but fuck. He wasn't going to stop, was he?He knew he wasn’t good at this. He’d gotten very good at acquaintance level relationships. His coworkers mostly liked him, he could casually talk to people, he had on a few occasions in the last decade picked up a stranger at a bar for sex. But he never tried for anything like a relationship, because he had too many secrets. But Steve had weird secrets too. Steve was maybe like him, a little bit. Steve was someone he wanted to get closer to, if he could just figure out how.And then Steve walked into the restaurant with his date on his arm and. Well. Shit."Oh my god," Valencia said in a small voice behind him.Bucky had to concur. Steve apparently had no better idea how to size a button-down shirt than he did a t-shirt, because his sleeves were fighting a losing battle against his biceps, and his pecs were putting severe structural strain on his buttons.His date had no such problem. The petite redhead shrugging out of her coat wore a dress that fit her perfectly, neither too tight not too loose but just right. Steve hung her coat carefully on the peg next to the door, and Bucky took the opportunity to ask himself What. The Actual. Fuck.Because Christ Jesus, something about the redhead put his hackles up. He was feeling like an asshole, and it was only one step further to acting like an asshole from there, and he'd pretty much decided to not do that once he left Hydra. It wasn't just that he found Steve hot. That was a conclusion that anyone with eyes could draw. Evidence for the defense: Valencia patting her hair into place beside him before she grabbed a pitcher and went to fill their waters. The redhead was setting off alarm bells in Bucky's head, and he didn't think it was anything as simple as jealousy. He grabbed a wine list.They'd been seated in the bar. The bar was more slightly more casual than the main dining room, and tended to skew a little younger and a little louder. They were in one of the corner booth tables. Valencia was already filling their waters, and Bucky took a minute to survey the other tables while she poured.It was still pretty early, but the tables were filling up and people already lined the bar two-deep in places. Tina was shucking oysters at the oyster station, and Carlos and Brock were busy behind the bar, uncapping beers, pouring wine, and mixing the restaurant's signature cocktails. A woman leaned forward to say something to Brock, and even from across the bar, Bucky could see his gaze drop to her cleavage. Ugh, he was going to have to say something, wasn't he? Again. How difficult was it to just…not be sleazy while you were at work?But for now, he crossed the bar with the wine list and handed it to Steve, smiling down at him and the redhead as he welcomed them to the restaurant."James, this is my friend, Natasha," Steve said when he was done."Nice to meet you," Bucky said, and smiled at her. She had pale eyes and a cool, assessing gaze, even as she smiled back. He didn't recognize her, and she looked too young to have been anyone he knew before—but then again, he looked much younger than he was, so who knew. And if she was hanging around Probably Captain America, then she might be somehow enhanced too."You seem familiar," she said. "Have we met before?""I don't think so," he said. His pulse jumped a little. He took a breath to settle himself and set the wine list on the table between them. "Can I get you something to start you off? Our feature cocktail tonight is a bellini.""Which is...?" Steve's lips curved up into a smile."Prosecco and peach nectar. We get our peaches from an urban farm on Randall's Island.""I'll try one of those," Steve said."I'll start off with a vodka, please. Neat." Natasha shook her hair back and smiled at Steve."Certainly." Bucky tilted his head toward the wine list. "Let me know if you want to get a bottle, or if you prefer, we can select wine by the glass based on what you order.""Thanks, James," Steve said, and Bucky left the table. He keyed in their drink order at the computer by the bar, went ahead and filled it under his number, then slid behind the bar to make their drinks himself rather than wait on the bartenders, who clearly had their hands full."Hey, Brock," he said. The bartender shot him a glance, busy with a mixed drink in a shaker. "Try not to visibly ogle the clientele while you're serving them. It's gross.""I wasn't," Brock protested, apparently automatically."If I could tell from across the bar, the guest could certainly tell," Bucky said firmly. "Knock it off."Brock grumbled, but Bucky stopped listening and made his drinks. He put them on a tray and carried them back to Steve's table. The redhead leaned close to him and whispered something in his ear that made Steve laugh. Bucky told himself he was glad they were having a good time.🍰Steve watched James walk away after he took their drink order. He had a confident stride and an awareness of his body's place in relation to people and objects that fascinated Steve. He'd seen him slip around and between people, and once catch a falling tray so gracefully that not so much as one water glass spilled."So that's your contact for the bar," Nat said. "Good-looking guy.""Not that it matters," Steve said virtuously. "But yeah.""Mmmmhmmmm," Natasha said, and then said nothing as their waiter came over to drop menus at the table until he’d gone again. "The way he moves is familiar." She scanned the menu, seemingly not looking at anything but the printed words. Doubtless she was aware of everyone and everything in the room."Familiar how? Did you recognize him?" Steve tried not to tense up. There weren't many places she could recognize him from that meant anything good."No." Steve's shoulders relaxed a little bit. He'd assessed James and thought he was an ally; he hated to think that his judgment was that bad. "It's not his face. It's—it's the way he moves. Like I said. I've seen something like it before." Her forehead wrinkled. "I just can't place where."Natasha's past was a murky blur to Steve, but she'd dropped a few hints here and there. The things the people that made her had done to her were—well. Steve had been angry about a lot, growing up. He'd been poor, disabled, and queer, and he'd felt the world was stacked against him even before his mother got sick. But he knew that all his memories were real, and there weren't any gaps in his past. It wasn't that it made him appreciate what he'd had that much more—he and his mom had gotten a raw deal in a lot of ways—but fuck, what Nat had gone through was so much worse."You think he might feature in one of your blank spots?" he murmured."I don't know." She smiled suddenly, fiercely. "But I'm watching him.""I don't think he's who we're really looking for, though." Steve glanced at the war, where James was putting drinks on a tray. Two other bartenders, both dark-haired men, one white, one Latino, were mixing drinks, the white one frowning at something James said. James gave a little one-shouldered shrug and balanced the tray on his left hand. "And he doesn't move like he's been in the military.""No, it's something else.” Then Natasha leaned forward and whispered in his ear. "Besides how much you like watching him."Steve laughed out of startlement and embarrassment. "Nat—" But then James was there with their drinks, smiling at them. It was a professional smile, different from the ones he'd given Steve earlier at his apartment. Steve wished he didn't know the difference; now he was unsatisfied with the professional version."The bellini," James murmured, setting a fluted glass in front of Steve, "and the vodka." He put a tumbler in front of Natasha. "Mamont. I hope that's all right."Natasha's eyebrows lifted, and she raised her vodka in a 'cheers' motion. "So tell me, what's it like running the bar here?"James tucked the tray under his left elbow and smiled. This one was professional, too, but there was a thread of real amusement to it that Steve turned to without meaning to, like a tulip toward sunlight. He answered Nat, but he looked at Steve as he said, "I don't really run the bar. I just manage the wine list.""Just," Natasha said, flirty in a way that Steve wished he knew how to be. "And the bar runs itself?""Well, no." James ducked his head to the side, his lips crooking up. "There's a bar manager for that, and then of course these guys." He tipped his head toward the bar. "Let me know when you've decided on your order and we can talk about the wine if you'd like.""Thanks," Steve said, and they both watched James walk away, deftly slipping between two customers."He holds his left side differently," Natasha murmured. "Doesn't let anyone touch it.""Maybe because he's holding a tray?" Steve said. "He's not the mystery we're here to look into, Nat.""No, he was doing it before, too." Natasha shook her head very slightly, curls bouncing. She held up her glass. "But you're right. Here's to finding a clue."Steve clinked the edge of his glass against hers and took a sip. The bellini was delicious, sweet and tart at the same time. It tasted like summer and sunshine.He wasn't here for the drinks either, but it was a nice bonus.🍰 "One of the bartenders," Steve muttered as the waiter whisked away the remains of their appetizers. "The white guy. Couple of times now people have passed over cash and he's passed something back.""That's not even sneaky," Natasha said, apparently disappointed in the lack of subtlety of their bad guys. "I bet there's a code, a catchphrase they use to differentiate from regular tips. I'm going to try to get closer and overhear. Mind if I leave you for a little?""Not at all." It made more sense for her to go. Steve had barely met the bartenders, but they knew he worked here. He didn’t need to be compromised by sniffing around their operation. He watched her for a minute, sitting on a bar stool, striking up a conversation with the woman next to her. Leaning forward, fingers resting on the rim of her near-empty glass. She was so good at finesse, at people, whereas he sometimes felt like no more than a blunt force instrument. But he was doing useful work here, he reminded himself. He looked away from Nat and pulled out his phone."Did your date abandon you?"Steve hadn't heard James walk up. Not that he'd been trying to listen, but he was usually aware of people's footsteps whether he wanted to be or not. Going from half-deaf to enhanced hearing could do that to a guy. Coming on the heels of Nat's speculation, it made him look at James in a new light, but he looked the same as he always did: shockingly handsome, but ordinary. His voice sounded half-teasing, half...disapproving?"She's not my date," Steve said. "She's my friend.""She still left you at the table." James shrugged. Steve was touched that he was a little indignant on his behalf."It's okay. She gets antsy. I don't mind." He smiled up at James. "I liked the bellini."James slid into the seat across from Steve. "What did you order for dinner?"Steve leaned forward. "I'm getting the hangar steak. Nat's getting the salmon.""Do you want a bottle, or by the glass?" James's eyebrows tilted up."A bottle, probably?" Steve bit his lip and tried not to notice the way James's gaze followed it."The pinot noir, then." James smiled and inched a little closer. "I don't want to lecture you about the wine while you're here for fun, but if you want, maybe later—"Natasha slid up to the table, a glint in her eyes that Steve interpreted as meaning she'd seen or heard something.James immediately stood, relinquishing his seat and standing aside to let her into the booth. She let her hand rest casually on his arm as she did so; his left arm, of course, because Nat wasn't one to let things lie. James didn't seem to react at all, just told Nat about the wine he and Steve had been talking about and made sure it sounded good to her too.They both watched him walk away. Nat was right; he did generally deflect people away from his left side. It was subtle, though."You got something?" Steve said when James was far enough away that he shouldn't be able to hear."They're not sneaky," Nat said. "You make a comment on the weather and make sure to include the word 'extremely.' Well, I think the weather part is right. I'm going to have to come back and observe again to be sure." She twisted her mouth into a flirty little smile. "Get to know the bartenders, watch what happens. If I can get a sample for Bruce and Tony to take apart—""That'd be ideal." Steve tilted his head in acknowledgement. If she smiled at the guy like that, she probably wouldn't have too difficult a time getting him to say a lot more than he'd intend to, and once she was sure of the code word, they’d have something for the scientists to analyze.“You keep an ear out while you work.” Her smile went from flirty and fake—it had taken him a long time to figure out which of Nat's smiles were fake—to teasing and real. "So about your friend.""Nat, let him be. He's not why we're here.""I know, but aren't you curious?"Steve tried to make a Captain America is Disappointed face at her, but since she was the one who'd helped him come up with it, it didn't work on her. It was useful to have for when the media asked him stupid questions, like how the Avengers had gotten there so fast to fight the giant slug people (Tony's AI algorithm for spotting their kind of cases was a little better developed than Google alerts), or who he was under the cowl (classified.)He'd accidentally intimidated people once he got big, and Natasha had taught him how to hold his body to look threatening or not depending on the situation. He owed her a lot, not least because she was his friend and he liked her. But that didn't give her license to invade someone else's privacy.Unfortunately, he was curious and maybe had a crush, and Nat could tell. Her smile ticked upward again. "Come on, Steve, I've already violated his privacy. Can't unring that bell. Don't you want to know?""Fine," Steve said, and immediately regretted it. "No, not fine. I shouldn't—""Steve," she said, very softly. Unenhanced ears probably wouldn't have heard her. "I know you like this guy, but you're here for a reason. Don't give up any advantages. You never know when you might need them. Just because you think he's not involved doesn't mean he isn't."He took a piece of bread out of the basket and shredded it over his bread plate. Good texture, he noted absently. Not too doughy. "Okay," he finally said, reluctant but also, if he were honest with himself, hungry for more information.Natasha leaned back and popped a cornbread muffin in her mouth. "Got a prosthetic on his left side.""What? No way. I've seen his left hand. You saw his left hand when he brought our drinks over. Nobody has a prosthetic shoulder and a flesh hand.""Bold of you to assume I just touched his shoulder." Natasha smirked when he glared at her. "I don't know why his hand looks normal, but his arm felt like metal." And just like that, her face froze, the smile still in place but her eyes distant in a way he knew meant her mind was racing behind it. No one else would have noticed that the interface had frozen while her memory was chugging away but Steve had seen it before. He gave fifty-fifty odds at best that she would share whatever was happening with the class, but he had to ask. "Nat? You want to tell me what's going on?"The corner of her mouth twitched down. She glanced toward the bar and then back at him, suddenly all easy smile and relaxed shoulders. "Not yet," she said, and her eyes flicked right.Steve didn't look—he was getting better at this—and sure enough, James rolled up a minute later, wine bottle in hand. He presented the label to both of them—Steve just raised his eyebrows and shrugged his ignorance.James poured them both a tasting glass, smiling faintly. "It's good," Steve said. Natasha only nodded her approval, and James poured more into their glasses, then set the bottle on the table, rotating it so the label faced Steve."Your food should be out soon." He walked off.Steve waited until he was on the other side of the bar to lean in to Nat. "Nat." He lifted his eyebrows."I just remembered a ghost story." She lifted her glass, looked at it, shrugged, and took another sip. "About a man with a metal arm. But he disappeared a long time ago. I don't see how the timeline could possibly line up...""It doesn't matter." Steve leaned back in his seat. "We're not here for him."🍷Bucky twisted his wine key savagely, the corkscrew digging into the cork all the violence he allowed himself. Steve's friend had him off-balance. There was something about the way she moved that had him rattled. And she had touched his left arm. Only lightly, only for a second, but she had to have felt it. He was usually better at keeping people away from that side of his body, but he'd been careless. Focused on Steve, not on his surroundings, he supposed.What was it about the way she walked? Poised on the balls of her feet, even when she was just going to the bar, always in control of her limbs and moving with a dancer's grace. It reminded him of......of himself, actually, before he'd spent a decade training himself out of being a weapon.His fingers went still on the bottle. He shot a glance at the table that had had most of his attention since they sat. Steve and Natasha were leaning towards each other, talking intently in low voices.All right. Say his crazy feeling that his pastry chef was also Captain America was right. Say the woman with him was an agent of SHIELD or something. Why the fuck would they be here? Initial paranoia would suggest that it had something to do with him, but he'd been out of the game a long time now. And if the Avengers wanted him for some reason, Tony could just...call him. There was no need to send Captain Fucking America and whatever she was after him.He poured the malbec by the glass and took it to table 12, along with a martini that Brock sullenly slid over to him. Still pissed about being called on his behavior, Bucky guessed, but he didn't really care. The man was an ass. He frowned as a man in a suit leaned across the bar and slid Brock a folded bill. Tip, maybe?Then he had to talk to table fifteen—regular customers—about the rather lovely (and expensive) Bordeaux they had brought with them. He opened it for them, and they were kind enough to give him a taste. He swirled it around, and tried to stop thinking and give it the attention it deserved.But when he turned away, he couldn't stop thinking about what the fuck was going on. He started to work himself into a bit of a lather about Tony sending an Avenger to his goddamn restaurant before it occurred to him that Tony might or might not actually know where he worked. They had each other's numbers—Bucky had a dedicated Tony phone that he always kept charged, just in case—but Tony might or might not keep up with him. Howard had, before he died. Peggy had, before...well. Bucky kept up with her, now that she couldn't keep up with him. But if there were agents in his restaurant, he was mostly certain it had nothing to do with him.He glanced back over from the main dining room into the bar; Steve was flicking through his phone, brow a little wrinkled; his friend Natasha was in the alcove by the front door, phone to one ear, finger in the other, hunched over as she tried to take a call. Someone walked up behind her, and as Bucky watched, she turned without even appearing to really notice the person behind her and blocked his hand coming down on her shoulder. She immediately whirled, apologetic, but Bucky couldn't unsee what she'd done. She had caught the motion she hadn't even been paying attention to, behind her. Like he would have.Maybe it was time to give Tony a call after all.🍰Natasha came back to their table looking grave. "I talked to Nick," she said.Steve let his eyebrows rise up the way they wanted to. "And?""I wasn't sure if I remembered the ghost story right.” She cocked her head to the side. "Turns out I did. The man with the metal arm was called the Winter Soldier. He was an assassin, a sniper. Death from a distance. Untouchable."Steve turned, tracking James from across the room. He didn't look like any of that; he looked ordinary. Well, very fucking hot, but other than that..."The timeline still doesn't line up. The Winter Soldier disappeared in the nineties."Steve snorted. "Well, that rules him out, then. I'd be shocked if he's in his thirties."Natasha shrugged, her face unreadable. "I've heard of stranger things, Steve."He decided it was past time to change the subject. "What's our next move at the bar?"She shot him a look that said she wasn't fooled. "I come back later and try to get a sample. You keep watching for anything else behind the scenes." She took a long sip of her wine. "And I guess you try and figure out if the guy you want to bone used to be an assassin.""Nat," he hissed, face hot, but it it wasn't like she was wrong. About the assassin part, probably, but not about what Steve wanted from him."So what should I get for dessert?" she said, taking pity on him. Steve narrowed his eyes, but this at least he had no problems talking about.💊In the kitchen, Oscar, the line chef, discreetly tilted his phone in his apron pocket so he could read the screen after it buzzed.John: chef fucking fired meJohn: i'm so pissedJohn: that asshole better watch outOscar looked around, but no one was paying attention to him. His thumb moved quickly over the screen Oscar : man, don't do anything stupidBut then Chef was coming back to his station and Oscar let his phone slide out of his hands. What did John, expect, though, after overdosing at work? John had been hardheaded before he started taking Ex. Oscar didn't know why he expected anything different after he started doing more drugs.He touched the medal of Saint Lorenzo at his throat and spared a moment's prayer that his friend would be all right.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
🍷In the morning, after his run and a shower, Bucky picked up his Tony phone. He stared at it for a long moment, took a deep breath, and dialed. He half expected it to go to voicemail, for Tony to call him back—he never doubted that Tony would call him back—but instead, Tony picked up after three rings."Barnes?" His voice was short, but not actually irritated. Yet. "Everything all right?""Hey, Tony," Bucky said. "Yeah, everything's fine.""Then why are you calling?"Bucky suppressed a sigh. He really wished he had a better relationship with Tony, but these days the only thing they really agreed on was Peggy. And maybe Steve. Though Tony presumably didn't harbor the same kind of fantasies Bucky was entertaining about being crushed beneath his chest. "I have to wonder why you've got Captain America baking cookies in my restaurant."Tony was silent for almost ten full seconds, which was probably a record of some kind. "Captain America's identity is classified.""He's built like a fucking brick shithouse. He has gun calluses. He was in tonight with a woman with combat reflexes. I put two and two together." He waited until Tony took a breath to speak. "I got four.""You're such an asshole, freezer pop." Bucky could hear the laughter in his voice, though. "Fine. Yes, Stars and Stripes is undercover in your restaurant. In my defense, I didn't know it was your restaurant or I'd have given you a heads up.""Yeah, well." Bucky rubbed his hand over his chin. He needed to shave before he went into work. "Is there something going on I need to know about?""It's not my op," Tony said. "Maybe you should just try to stay out of Steve's way."But I could help, Bucky thought. "You gonna tell him about me?" he said instead, and he could hear Tony thinking."I don't know, Sarge." Bucky suppressed a sigh. Tony knew he hated being called that. He hadn't been a sergeant in a long time. "You think I should?""It's your call," Bucky said finally. "If he needs it, I'd help." He ran his fingers over the knuckles of his left hand. Without the photostatic veil, it was shiny and metallic and obviously a weapon. "And if you ever need anything, Tony—""Yeah," Tony said before he could actually offer to help. "He's a good kid. He can handle himself. But I'll let him know there's backup if he needs it." Tony cleared his throat. "How much, uh. What should I tell him?"Bucky clenched his metal fist. "Whatever you think he should know."Tony blew out a breath. "All right. See you at Aunt Peg's birthday party, I guess.""Sure, Tony. Take care." Bucky hung up, not sure whether the churn of his gut was anxiety or anticipation. He hadn't done anything like this in years. And Steve might not want his help anyway, depending on what Tony did or didn't tell him.Maybe both.🍰Steve was running late to work that morning. Natasha was supposed to be coming in to the bar that night to get a sample of the drug if at all possible, and they had stayed up maybe a little too late after their dinner, running over stratagems at Avengers Tower with Tony and Bruce.He ran into the restaurant twenty minutes after seven and went straight back to the pastry kitchen after clocking in. Chef wasn't likely to be angry as long as the work got done, but he hated having to rush. He checked that his dessert menu had been approved and laid out his ingredients. He decided to start with the individual fruit tarts, and fell into a rhythm of repetitive creation. Dough, fruit, glaze. Dough, fruit, glaze. Crème fraiche and a drizzle of raspberry honey would be the responsibility of the waiters plating the desserts. His phone buzzed in his back pocket, but he ignored it. It wasn’t the Avengers alarm, and as sad as it was, who else would be calling him? By the time he was done with the triple fudge cheesecakes, he was a lot calmer. This was just his cover, but he wanted to be good at it. He'd always wanted to be good at it.When someone rapped on the door frame, Steve realized that the serum did fuck-all about the back pain that followed spending hours bent over."Just a second." He finished drizzling dark chocolate sauce over the top layer of ganache, then stretched, listening to his vertebrae pop. Then he turned to the door.James was standing in the doorway, watching Steve with an expression he couldn't interpret. "Steve?""Hey, James." Steve tilted his head from side to side, pretending his neck wasn't about to crack. "Can I help you with anything? We didn't have a wine lesson, did we?" He knew very well they didn't, but he wasn't sure why else James might come to see him. Besides reasons that were not appropriate to an undercover op, anyway.James's eyebrows lifted. "Did you, um. Talk to...anyone?""Should I have?" Steve set the icing bag to the side and really looked at the sommelier. James wasn't dressed for work yet; he had on a pair of grey suit pants, but a dark green sweater over it rather than a dress shirt. Furthermore, he was biting his lip as he looked at Steve. Steve had been working nonstop for hours with only a half-cup of coffee to keep him going. James ought not be allowed to swan in and just handsome at Steve like that. It seemed unfair.James recrossed his arms across his chest. It looked extremely shifty and also it did things to both his biceps and chest. Steve chewed on the inside of his lip."We have a friend in common," James said. "He really didn't...? That asshole.""I haven't checked my phone. I was running late this morning." Steve fished his phone out of his butt pocket and saw there were a number of missed calls from Tony. "I—uh. Um?" His brain tried to process Tony Stark knowing James and pulled up a giant blank. "You know Tony?"James brushed his hand through his hair, which was all Steve needed to feel absolutely pathetic. Agents like Nat didn't fixate on swoopy hair, he was certain of it. They didn't watch the way green sweaters stretched over chests and they probably didn't speculate on what said chests looked like un-sweatered, because it was unprofessional. James cleared his throat. He looked embarrassed. "Yeah, I know Tony. Listen, I should tell you—"Multiple people screamed. Steve was moving before he thought about it, running toward the disturbance, James at his side. The sounds were coming from the main kitchen, not the front of the house, so they didn't have far to go.The line cook who had overdosed was standing in the door, and no wonder people were screaming because his hands were on fire. An accident, but not Steve’s usual sort of situation. Not combat. There were multiple fire extinguishers in the kitchen, because kitchen. Steve grabbed the closest and aimed it at the guy's hands. This seemed to take him aback for a second, but then he shook the foam off his hands. Red glowed in his eyes, flashed in veins along his face. Steve's breath caught."John, don't—" James said beside him, but John just shook his head and lifted his hands—his unburned hands—again.They burst into flame. He lurched forwards, hands lifted, and growled, "Where's chef?"Ah. Steve's kind of situation after all. He shifted into a fighting stance and tried to move between John and everyone else."What are you doing, John?" James said, his voice calm. "You're upset, I understand that, but stop and think. This is only going to make things worse." James was right at his side, and Steve spared a moment of annoyance that he hadn’t stayed behind him like Steve wanted him to. It was a lot easier to be a human shield when he was wearing his uniform.The corner of John's mouth curled into a sneer and he lunged for James.Steve grabbed his forearms, trying to avoid his fists where flames still burned. John pushed back against him—he was strong, much stronger than Steve expected from his wiry frame—but Steve didn't move.Until John's forearms suddenly pulsed with heat. Steve sucked in a gasp and involuntarily loosened his grip enough for John to slip free. He eeled away from Steve and rounded on him with his fiery hands. Steve braced himself, looking for an opening.But suddenly James was there, blocking John, pushing back against him with his left arm. The sleeve of the green sweater smoked and scorched as he shoved him against the wall, and Steve winced as James didn't let what must be considerable pain stop him."John," James gritted out. "You don't—what the fuck—"The red veins and red eyes flared again, and Steve clocked the guy. John was much stronger than he'd expected, and he had to punch him twice. John's eyes rolled backward and he slumped down the wall.James sucked in a breath, his nostrils flaring. He pulled his arm away from John and clamped it over where he'd been burned, drawing the charred edges of his sweater sleeve together. Steve saw a flash of silver. James turned toward the shocked kitchen staff. "It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry that happened. Is everyone okay?" There was a round of muttered yeses. Someone was sniffling. "Okay, Valencia, why don't you run upstairs to the offices and tell Maryann what's going on. She might want to ask for statements or something before she calls chef." He waited a second and turned back to Steve. "Can you help me get him out of here?" he said, more quietly. "I'm not sure how long he's going to be out and if we have to fight him again, I don't want it to be here.""Of course." Steve leaned down to get an arm around John and started to heave him up."Let me get his feet." James gave him a flat look, and Steve realized he'd been about to toss John over his shoulder like a sack of flour. That was probably not something most pastry chefs would do, no; he was still in fight mode, adrenaline-high. And James had stopped him. Fuck. What did he know?John was an awkward weight between the two of them as they maneuvered him through delivery door. Once they were outside, Steve and James eased him back down to the ground, Steve careful not to drop his head in anything dank. Whatever had happened in there was almost definitely connected to Extremis, but Steve doubted it was this guy's fault. Chasing a high didn't mean you deserved to be turned into a fire-shooting...whatever this guy was."What now?" James said quietly. Steve bit his lip, trying to figure out how much to say. James blew out a breath, a not-quite frustrated sound. "I told you I know Tony. I don't think we want to try to call the cops to handle this guy, not when he can…incinerate his own hands. I know you guys have to have much more secure facilities.""You guys?" Steve said cautiously."Call in whoever you call when you're doing Avengers stuff," James said.Steve mentally counted to ten. It would have been nice to have a heads up—but then, that's probably what Tony had been trying to give him when he hadn't answered his phone. It hadn't been the alert to assemble, so he'd thought it could wait, and here they were. "Okay," he said, instead of the thousand other things he could have said, and dialed Tony."Cap!" Tony answered on the first ring. "Thanks for getting back to me, eventually. I've got to tell you—""It'll have to wait, Tony, there's a situation at the restaurant." As talkative as Tony was, actual work usually shut him up, and this time was no exception. "The cook I told you about, the overdose? He came back significantly fierier. Can you send containment asap? We'll sit on him until then.""Sure thing, Stars and Stripes." Then, after a tiny beat, "We?""Yeah. Turns out I'm working with a friend of yours." He shot a glance at James and didn't miss the wry twist of his mouth."Someone I know, anyway," Tony said. "Listen, about that guy—""You can tell me later, or I can ask him while we wait. See you in a minute." Steve hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He was, he realized, still wearing his apron, so he took it off.James shot him a look, his mouth still curved up. "It's gonna take longer than a minute, pal, if you want my life's story."Steve shrugged. "Maybe you can give me the Cliffs Notes."James took in a breath. "Yeah. Okay, short version. I got something a little like whatever you got. I'm stronger than most people, faster, heal quicker." He glanced at Steve. It looked like he was waiting for some response, so Steve nodded. "I was a—a soldier for a while, working for some nasty people. Tony's dad helped me get out."Steve frowned. "Were you here for an op?""No," James said immediately, "no. I don't do that anymore. I really am the sommelier here.""But you helped me," Steve said.James ducked his head. "Yeah, I guess I did." He turned a little away and metal shone through his charred and ripped sleeve."Hey, are you okay?" Steve reached out without thinking and caught his left arm. "Did he burn you?"James went utterly still as Steve's hand closed around his wrist. The metal wasn't a brace or anything—his hand beneath Steve's, now that Steve looked at it, was solid metal, too. His fingers twitched slightly, and the overlapping plates whirred. "Is this—Are you okay?" He wanted to ask how his hand had looked like normal flesh and bone before, but first things first."It's—it's not new." He looked at Steve, tense. Steve let go of his wrist. "Thanks. Look, I should probably—"Tires screeched at the mouth of the alley. They both planted themselves, ready for anything, but Steve at least relaxed as the white van swung around the corner toward them. It was one of theirs—armored, and with the back solidly partitioned from the front—and as good as they were going to get for transporting someone like John with whatever the drug had done to him.The van slid into park and Natasha hopped out of the driver's seat. She took in the situation, eyes jumping from Steve to James, then to the unconscious cook. Her gaze returned to James, lingering on his charred shirt and the exposed metal there. "Maybe you should come in with us," she said to him.James sighed and looked down at his metal fingers. "Yeah. Looks like I've got to ask Tony for a favor."🍷The Black Widow was driving the van; Bucky and Steve were in the back with John. The silence wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but it was not fucking comfortable either. Bucky's metal arm was just out there for anyone to see, and Steve kept shooting him these assessing looks, like he was trying to figure him out, and coming up with something different every time. After a few minutes, Bucky couldn't take much more of it."If there's something you want to ask, just ask me." He spoke quietly, hoping that the distance and noise of the car would keep Natasha, if that was her name, from hearing too much of it.He was, he realized, disappointed that Tony hadn't told Steve about him already. Now he was going to have to see realization flood Steve's face, and whatever small connection that had bloomed between them would wither and die before it even really got started. He liked Steve; it wasn't just that he was hot, or that he was secretly Captain America. Bucky just liked him. He wanted to find out more about him: why he'd become a pastry chef, why he'd become Captain America, what books he liked to read, what he did for fun. He wanted to see him match a flavor to a wine again, see that broad happy smile. He wanted to let him in closer, even though it was a terrible idea. Fuck, he was in trouble."You're enhanced," Steve said just as softly. "Like me." More like you than you know, pal, Bucky thought, but he just nodded. "How did it happen?"Bucky chewed on his lip, thinking, then let it pop out from between his teeth. Steve met his eyes and Bucky realized he'd been watching his mouth. Trying to interpret his tells, maybe. "It's a long story." He looked toward Natasha in the driver's seat and John, still unconscious at their feet. Natasha had injected him with something that was probably a lot more precise, timing-wise, than a conk to the head. "The short version is I was in the army. I got captured by bad guys, and they experimented on me." He took in a deep breath. Even now, he didn't like to think about Zola, and that first awful time in Italy. "I lost my arm trying to escape."Zola had taken him on the train with him, en route to see Schmidt, so proud that he'd finally found a successful test subject. He'd had Bucky drugged to the gills, but even then the serum was working on him, changing him, and he'd burned through the sedation and overpowered his guards. He'd wanted to get back to his specialist unit—they called them the Silent Commandos now, those who remembered them, but they'd just been SSR Team 135 then—but he'd take death at that point rather than stay a second longer with Zola.He'd made it to the top of the train, shivering in his prisoner's clothes, and been shocked to find Dum Dum, Monty, and Gabe, who’d come to find him. But he was emaciated and weak, and when it came down to a firefight with him isolated from his friends and Hydra soldiers closing in... he hadn't jumped. But he hadn't tried too hard to keep from falling, either."I'm sorry," Steve said. Bucky thought he meant it; but then, Bucky hadn't told him the worst of it yet."I was recaptured." Fucking Russians. They were supposed to be American allies, but they didn't return him home. Instead he got a metal arm with a nice shiny star on it, and the first in a series of brainwashings. "They gave me the arm and, and...reconditioning. Made me do things." Do things, Christ, if that wasn't the weakest, most pablum way to say what the Red Room had done to him.But Steve was looking at him even more intently now. "Nat mentioned someone called the Winter Soldier." His voice was low and it seemed to go straight to the base of Bucky's spine. He had to force his body to stay lax and easy instead of tensing up the way he wanted to. He glanced at John; still out."Yeah," Bucky said, and wished he could make his voice casual. "That was me. Everything they said I did, I probably did it.""Probably?" Steve's voice was so soft, Bucky could almost pretend it held the promise of absolution."I don't remember everything." Bucky had to turn away from Steve's eyes. He looked at his metal hand instead, watched the finger plates shift as he curled it into a fist. "Enough to know I was as bad as whatever you've heard.""You don't do it anymore." Steve sounded confident. Bucky wished he knew why. He risked a look; Steve's gaze hadn't left Bucky's face, and he felt too seen beneath his steady regard."No. I got out.""Tony's father helped you." They went over a bump in the road and Steve tensed, looking down at John again, but the cook didn't wake up with the jostling. Bucky looked out the window; they were at Avengers Tower, disappearing into a parking garage."Yeah. I—" He bit his lip and looked toward the front seat. "Look, I don't want to get into it in front of your whole team.""Nat's good people." He said it with such confidence. Bucky wished that anyone could say it about him with so much surety, but anyone who might have qualified was dead or forgetting. For a second there was nothing Bucky wanted more than that deep voice telling him he was good."Sure," he said. "I'm sure she is. But I don't know her. I know you."A smile like the sun peeking over the horizon creased Steve's face, and he put one hand to the back of his neck. Oh, Bucky was in terrible trouble. "All right, James. All right. Maybe you'll tell me about it later?""Sure." And in that instant, he couldn't bear the way his given name sounded on Steve's lips. It was a risk, sure, but wasn't everything? "Listen, my friends call me Bucky."If the last smile had been like dawn light, this one was full sun at midday. "Thanks, Bucky."The car pulled to a stop, and a second later, Natasha opened the doors from the outside. A gurney was next to her, with restraints along the sides, and Bucky no longer felt like smiling. He and Steve manhandled John onto the board and strapped him in.Time to figure out what the fuck was going on.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
🍰
John looked small, strapped to his medical bed, IVs and monitors hooked up to him. Even though he’d attacked them, Steve still felt uncomfortable at how frail he looked.
James—Bucky was staring at the ground, face pale, refusing to look at the bed or its occupant, the fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching.
The door swinging open was a welcome distraction as Natasha came back with Dr. Cho and Bruce Banner. Steve moved out of their way and coincidentally closer to Bucky, since he seemed on edge. His face smoothed out into an expressionless mask and he tucked his metal arm behind him when the door opened. Natasha at least had already seen it—in the alley, while they were getting John onto the gurney, if not before.
Dr. Cho checked John's vitals, and consulted her clipboard. Bruce watched, his fists clenching and unclenching. Steve kept a cautious eye on him. "I'm going to run a number of tests," Dr. Cho said.
Bruce’s voice was mild despite the motion of his hands. "I'll need his blood work to—"
Bruce kept talking, but Steve stopped listening, because Bucky made a tiny sound, like someone trying to keep quiet around a fist to the belly. Steve knew that sound. He'd swallowed all manner of pain before he got the serum, and gut punches were something he knew intimately. Bucky slipped away, silent except for the sound of the hinges swinging closed. Natasha looked to the door. Bruce was still speaking, and Steve caught her eye and nodded. Her brow wrinkled, but she nodded back, and that was all Steve needed to slide out after Bucky.
Bucky was leaning against the wall outside the room, head tilted back, eyes closed. Steve wanted to draw the angular line of his jaw, to capture the arch of his neck to his shoulder, the curve of his Adam's apple. But his breathing was fast and uneven, and tiny beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked.
Bucky's eyes cracked open, a thin slice of blue visible between his long lashes. "No." He drew in a shuddering breath. "I have a tough time with doctors since..." He shrugged, then turned his left arm so Steve could see the gleam of metal through his ruined sleeve. "And I know everyone's just trying to figure this shit out, but no one's getting John's consent for any of this."
"Oh." Steve felt like an enormous asshole. He hadn't even thought about it. Of course, he'd walked into his own medical procedures with open eyes and of his own volition.
"But thanks for coming out to check on me." Bucky’s smile was a mere shadow of the one Steve had seen at his apartment, and he wished he could bring back the other one.
"I'm sorry you got dragged into this," Steve said.
Bucky shrugged. "Yeah, well. You didn't ask this guy to OD in my restaurant." His eyes went a little wider. "But how did you know this guy was going to OD in my restaurant?"
"I didn't." Steve watched his face, the tiny wrinkle between his brows as he though. "We heard the drug was being moved through the bar."
Bucky straightened. "Through
my
bar? God damn it." His brows drew together. "Fuck. It's fucking Brock Rumlow, isn't it."
It wasn't a question. Steve nodded a confirmation anyway. "Dr. Cho and Bruce and Tony are going to figure out how to help John."
Bucky put a hand over his face. His shoulders hunched for a minute, but then he straightened. "I can help too."
Steve looked at him, trying not to immediately shoot him down. "How long have you been out?" he said instead, but he could see immediately that Bucky got was he was driving at. His eyebrows gave him away, pulling together like two angry caterpillars who could no longer resist the attraction between them.
"Steve—"
A door swung open, and Tony burst through, then stopped dead when he saw Bucky. "Sarge, what the hell? We just talked, you didn't have to show up."
Bucky rolled his shoulders back. "Yeah, I did, Tony. The guy in medical is one of the line cooks at my restaurant. He came back and tried to blow it up with fire he made without any accelerants."
"Well, shit." Tony's eyes darted to Steve and his face creased in a frown. "Cap, we gotta have a quick debrief, you, me, and Nat."
Steve nodded, but hesitated, not wanting to leave Bucky. Bucky's gaze snapped to him. "I'm not going anywhere," he said.
"Well, you don't have to stay here," Tony said. "Seventy-fifth floor, head on up, make yourself at home. There's a bar, stuff to eat. We'll meet you up there when we get done, figure out a plan of attack."
"I know where the bar is, Tony." Bucky straightened up. "Okay. I'll see when you're done." He gave Steve a look he wished he could decipher, then turned and headed for the elevator bank.
Tony gave a low whistle under his breath as the doors closed on Bucky. "Well, there's a complication," he said in a low voice.
"He offered to help," Steve said, and had the pleasure of watching Tony's eyebrows try to ascend into his hairline.
"Hmmm." Tony seemed to be actually considering it. "Let's get Nat and have a conference."
There was no shortage of conference rooms in the Avengers tower; they ducked into one and Tony immediately made himself an espresso, Natasha made her horrible tea, and Steve snagged a bottled water.
"We're in a bit of a holding pattern," Natasha said, "until they finish the analysis on the line cook."
"Is he going to be okay?" Steve asked.
"Don't know yet." Nat looked at Steve and shrugged. "You wanna tell me about your new friend and his metal arm?"
"I think Tony knows more about Bu—about James than I do."
Tony's eyes narrowed, focusing in on Steve like a shark who'd caught the scent of blood. "You got the nickname?"
Steve shrugged. Natasha tapped her forefinger against her thumb and said, "Nickname? Who is this guy, exactly?"
Tony looked at Steve, who said, "I think you know more than I do, Tony."
"I dunno, Cap, you seem pretty close. Fine. He said I could tell you, so—" Tony heaved a sigh. "He was, uh, an assassin for a while. A long while. Hydra had him brainwashed or something—"
"Hydra's gone, though, right?" Natasha said. "General intel around the intelligence community is that they went belly up in the early aughts."
"Yeah, well, the reason why is upstairs on the seventy-fifth floor, hopefully pouring himself a nice whiskey."
"Probably not," Steve said. "He likes wine."
"Yeah." Tony drained his espresso and slid the cup back into the machine to make another. "So. Here's his deal. 1991, he gets sent to assassinate my mom and dad. But it turns out dad knew him from when he was a sergeant in the army, before he was an assassin, and I'm not really sure how, but they broke through the assassin programming. Then Sarge spent about a decade taking Hydra apart, mostly with guns and explosions. When he was done, he hung his Glocks on the wall or threw them away or whatever, I've never asked and he's never told me, and then he went to fucking wine school, and now he works in a restaurant." Tony stopped, for breath more than anything, Steve suspected.
"Fury owes me twenty bucks," Natasha said. "I knew he was the Winter Soldier. Are we sure he's not involved with this Extremis stuff?"
"He just had to leave the room at the thought of a non-consensual medical procedure on John," Steve said, "and the guy tried to light him on fire not an hour ago. I don't think he'd be involved in anything like this."
"He's a good guy," Tony said reluctantly. "I don't like him, but this is the kind of shit that was done to him. I don't think he'd do it to anyone else."
Steve was sure, somehow, in the marrow of his bones, that Bucky wouldn't. How much horror had Tony elided over in that brief description? He wanted to ask Bucky, to learn whatever Tony wasn't saying, what Tony didn't know. "He said he'd help with this," he said. "If we need him."
The machine whirred and Tony pulled out his espresso cup. "Yeah, about that. Fury wanted him for the Avengers initiative and he said no. He said, and I quote, 'I don't do that anymore.' And he hasn't, not since Hydra bit the dust. So how come he wants in on this one?" Tony drained his espresso in one long slurp, his dark eyes focused on Steve's face like he thought the answer was there.
Steve wanted it to be, but he didn't believe that it was. "Maybe it's because it was in his restaurant, who knows. We could go upstairs and ask him."
Natasha heaved herself up from where she'd been leaning against the conference table. "Do we want him on this op, Tony? Why don't you like him?"
Tony threw back the rest of his coffee. "He was the best at what he did. I don't know how rusty he is. My dislike is personal—it has nothing to do with his abilities. I don't like him because he came back into my father's life when I was personally trying very hard to drink, fuck, and snort my way into oblivion and dear old dad's energy was suddenly devoted to backing Sarge's personal crusade instead of, oh, my mom or me." Tony almost snorted a breath out. "I guess we can assess where he is now and see if we want him. I'd be fine with him. It's not his fault my dad was an asshole."
🍷
Bucky had been to the seventy-fifth floor before.
Tony
had brought him to the seventy-fifth floor before.
To be fair, the last time had been after Howard died, so maybe he shouldn't really expect him to remember it—or to acknowledge it if he did.
Bucky walked to the bar and examined the contents. All the liquors were top shelf, no surprise. There were a selection of coffees and teas and sparkling waters, and several craft beers in the cooler next to cavas and Italian pinot grigios. And where...? Ah. In a tall wine rack to the side of the bar were a couple of cases of Peggy's favorite cabernet sauvignon. Bucky pulled out a bottle, a familiar ache settling in his chest. When he'd first met her, in 1991, she'd drunk claret as they compared their war stories. He'd been humming with his terrible purpose then, not so much a person as a revenge plot and a few coping mechanisms held together with rubber bands and hatred.
Howard had been doing all he could to help, but he couldn't do it alone. He'd brought in the Director of Shield. And she had already read his file, maybe, or maybe Howard’d had guilt of his own to unload, because she'd sat down next to him and said, "I'm sorry," and it had taken him aback enough that he had looked at her, really looked at her.
"I was at Azzano too," she said simply, and every muscle in his body tensed, the metal plates in his left arm whining like unsettled dogs. She'd ignored all of that. "I failed you."
She'd had all of his attention then. "No one could have known," he'd said. His throat had sounded like someone had taken coarse-grade sandpaper to it, but it had just been a long time since he'd spoken much. "Zola had me...no one could have..."
She'd leaned forward and pressed his hand. "Zola's dead. He died in 1972. And James...I got the rest of them out. I should have gotten you."
"I know," he'd said. "They...they came to get me on the train. Dum Dum and Jones and Monty. Did you...how did you..."
"I coordinated that mission, Sergeant Barnes," she'd said softly. "They told me quite a bit about you."
She'd helped coordinate his missions, too, after that. He'd been a weapon that wanted targets, and she'd aimed him. And then, when there was nothing left of Hydra but the smoking crater he'd made of them, she'd helped him turn himself into a reasonable approximation of a human being. He'd had to figure out how to become something more than his violent impulses. It hadn't been easy.
He found a wine key, opened a bottle of Peggy's cab, poured himself a glass, and raised it in a silent toast to her.
The lounge was full of leather couches and overstuffed chairs, little tables around which one could have intimate conversations, but Bucky was too antsy to sit in any of them. He left the wine on the bar, untouched except for the toasting sip and walked over to the window. Manhattan stretched out below him, glittering canyons of buildings stretching in all directions. What was he doing? He had offered to help out with the Extremis situation.
He hadn't fought—he hadn't
wanted
to fight in years. Nick Fury had offered him a place on his team, and he'd turned it down without a second thought, or a first thought even, really. But it had been as easy as anything to step in next to Steve when John attacked the kitchen, and it wasn't just because it was his restaurant. It had been because he'd been stepping in next to Steve.
Fuck, the restaurant. He pulled out his cell and called the office, telling them that he and Steve were at the police station making a statement and that he wasn't sure how long it would take. The office manager, Maryann, thanked him and he hung up feeling vaguely guilty, only moments before the elevator dinged and Steve, Tony, and Natasha walked into the room.
"Still here, freezer pop," Tony observed. Bucky sighed, but only internally. It was better than Sarge. That one still gave him the sweats every time Tony used it.
"Yeah, well." He shot a glance at Steve. "What's the plan?"
"Keep our heads down until we get an analysis of what this guy's been shot full of," Natasha said. "What can you tell us about this guy Rumlow? He's the source for Ex at your restaurant—" Bucky couldn't help bristling a little at that; not at her, but because that dickbag was peddling this shit in front of him and he didn't notice. "—so anything you can tell us about his habits and known associates would be helpful."
Bucky bit his lip and thought. "There's a friend that visits him at work sometimes. Rollins. I don't know his first name. And, uh, I think Rumlow lives in Queens. We've talked about the subway." He shrugged. "I'm sorry I don't know more. He's an asshole."
"It's more than I had before," Natasha said, and Bucky thought about Rumlow leering at the clientele in the bar. He did have more useful information; it was up to her to decide if she wanted to use it.
"He's kind of a pig," he told her. "I've had to reprimand him for staring at guests' cleavage more than once. He's probably more susceptible to a woman interrogating him because he'll underestimate her." Let her do with that information what she wanted.
She nodded at him, thoughtful and cool. "Thanks, Barnes. That's useful."
He shrugged and crossed over to the bar to retrieve his wine glass. He wiggled the bottle at the rest of them in a silent question and pulled out three glasses at their nods.
"Aunt Peg's wine," Tony said quietly when Bucky slid his glass across the bartop.
"Well, yeah, of course," Bucky said, and passed a glass to Steve and one to Natasha.
Tony gave him a look, inscrutable behind his pale sunglasses, then held up his glass, and Bucky toasted Peggy for the second time that day. He wasn't sure what the Avengers had been talking about before they came here, but it wasn't a plan of action, because they didn't have one to speak of.
"I'll go to the bar and talk to Rumlow tonight," Natasha decided after they'd talked their way through a couple of scenarios without a resolution. "It’s not that late. Tony, you stay with me on comms for this one. The two of you, just show up for work tomorrow and we'll see what happens." She shook her head at Steve and her eyebrows drew a couple of millimeters closer together. There was some kind of silent conversation happening there, probably about not getting too close to the Winter Soldier or something; it was completely opaque and Bucky was too tired to try to try to transluce it.
"Okay," Bucky said, and drained his glass. "I'll keep an eye on the bar. Tony, if you get a chance..." He held out his left arm. "The fire messed up the photostatic veil. Would it be possible for me to get another one?"
Tony snorted. "Yeah. I can handle that. I'll get it to you tomorrow."
"Thanks." Bucky set his empty glass on the bar. "I'm heading back to Brooklyn. Take care, Tony. You need help, I'm here."
"I'll come with you." Steve stood up immediately, ignoring the slightly skeptical looks that his teammates shot him.
"I can make it back on my own," Bucky said. "You don't have to..." He trailed off in the face of the look Steve gave him.
"Yeah, I know. You don't need an escort, but..." Steve shrugged.
"Hmmm," said the Black Widow.
"All right," Bucky said. It wasn't like Steve's company was an imposition. "I need to stop by the restaurant. I left my wallet there, and we should probably let chef know John is in custody of the authorities."
Steve nodded, a quick, abrupt motion. Then he stood. "Natasha, get in touch if you need to."
"And vice versa," she said.
Steve and the Widow exchanged a complicated series of microexpressions, and then Steve and Bucky were in an elevator, riding down, Tony only an awkward goodbye behind him. Bucky's shoulders relaxed with every second he was alone with Steve. When they walked out of the tower and into Grand Central Station, Bucky leaned forward and bumped his human shoulder into Steve's. Steve looked back, a little surprised, but then relaxed, and the two of them navigated the subway with no more than standard levels of irritation until their stop.
It wasn't late at all, which caught Bucky by surprise. The restaurant was busy, the bar full, and they had to sneak up the backstairs to the office. Bucky flicked on the lights, then rooted through the managers' cubby to find his backpack with all his stuff in it.
"Nat'll be down there," Steve said quietly. "To try to get a sample."
"Good." Bucky pulled his leather jacket over his work clothes and slung his backpack over his shoulders. "You want to stay in case she needs backup?" He leaned over the desk to scribble a note for chef. "Come on, we can go out the back way so we don't interfere with service."
Steve followed him down the stairs and through the kitchens. There was a brief delay as the two of them stopped to answer questions from the staff about John and what had happened. Bucky kept it short, though, and since everyone was busy, no one protested too much.
They slipped out of the back door, into the alley next to the reeking dumpster. Bucky almost started walking toward the street, but then he heard it; someone talking very softly, far enough away that no one should have been able to hear it. He put a hand on Steve's arm and jerked his head toward the sound, deeper into the shadows, much further away than the unofficial employee smoke break area. Steve went still immediately, listening, then nodded.
Steve could move very quietly for someone so large; but then again, so could Bucky. The two of them crept down the alley, sticking to the edge, creeping from dumpster to dumpster. When they were close enough to hear clearly, they stopped.
"Motherfucking Rumlow," Bucky mouthed, because his bartender was there handing over a stack of bills to a tall, older man in exchange for a plastic bag full of much smaller plastic bags. What kind of asshole did this at work? Bucky wanted to strangle him. He must have made some abortive movement, because a solid hand settled around the curve of his bicep.
"No," Steve whispered almost silently. "Let him go back so Nat can get him. We'll follow," and he jerked his head toward the man. Bucky nodded, a little reluctantly, but he trusted Widow to give Rumlow enough rope to hang himself, and he trusted Steve to put him to best use. He'd offered to help, after all.
Rumlow seemed to be concluding his deal. He and the other man were setting up their next meeting for the following week. The man said something about tracking the deals and Rumlow muttered acquiescence. Bucky had a strange mental picture of spreadsheets, but the man surely meant following the people who'd bought it.
He and Steve held very still as Rumlow walked right past them, a spring in his every dickish step. Bucky was only slightly surprised at how quickly he'd slid from mild antipathy to outright loathing. Rumlow had to have known what kind of effects Ex would have, and he not only sold it to strangers, but to a coworker.
Once Rumlow was gone, they set off. Bucky had a moment to regret when Steve's hand slid off his arm. It wasn't that he'd forgotten that it was there. No, he'd been aware of the slight pressure of his grip, of the warmth of his hand even through his jacket, even while he was assessing what they needed to do next and one part of his brain, the soldier, was coolly calculating the best ways to kill the men down the alley. But now they took after the man, still sticking to the shadows, still quiet, and when they reached the other end of the alley, they were just quick enough to see him snake into a side street down the block.
When he was out of sight, they both moved seamlessly into a quick jog, strides in pace with each other. Steve sped up a little and shot Bucky a sideways grin when he matched him effortlessly. Neither was breathing hard when they reached the side street the man had turned down.
A warehouse door, heavy and scarred by a lifetime of people kicking it open, was swinging closed halfway down the block.
"Do we go in?" Bucky whispered. His words were barely a breath on the air.
"Are you armed?" Steve's gaze dropped for a second to Bucky's jacket, his backpack.
Bucky reached out with his unveiled hand and clenched his metal fist. "Always."
Steve rolled his eyes and Bucky tried to bite back a grin. He didn't think he succeeded all that well. "Do you have a gun?"
"I have a couple of knives," Bucky said, and watched Steve's brows unfurrow just a little.
Steve unholstered a gun at the small of his back and passed it to Bucky. "Take it."
Bucky checked the magazine. "You have another? Don't give me your only weapon, Steve."
Steve pulled another gun from a shoulder holster. "I didn't." Bucky liked a man who was prepared.
"All right." Bucky tilted his chin toward the door, now swung shut. "Let me go in first." Steve's jaw squared up, and Bucky poked him with his metal arm. "You don't have your shield, and I can stop bullets."
Steve nodded reluctantly, and Bucky tested the door. Locked, but locked doors hadn't been a problem for him since 1945. He shoved hard, and the deadbolt snapped. He shot Steve a glance, raised his metal arm to head height, and walked in.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
🍰Steve was listening, muscles tensed, every sense stretched to the snapping point, but when he and Bucky first entered the warehouse, he couldn't hear another person. Bucky cleared the room, turned back to him, and whispered, "They're further in."Steve followed him down a hallway, both of them alert. Steve felt the way he did on ops: sharp, focused, conscious of his body and the ease in it he'd never had before Tony and Bruce gave him the serum. He was also, this time, acutely aware of Bucky next to him, the smooth, sure motions of someone who knew what he was doing.Steve heard a noise from one of the doors he'd passed, and he stopped and motioned toward it. Bucky drew even with him. He tested the door—not locked. He pulled it open and Bucky slipped past him, through the door, metal arm held ready to deflect if need be. Steve was right on his heels. For a moment, the people in the room just stared.It was a group of mostly men in lab coats bent over computers and what looked like chemistry equipment. One of them slammed a button next to his computer and Steve sighed before he jumped past Bucky to start immobilizing the scientists or whatever they were. They had to assume reinforcements were on the way. Steve didn't have the zip ties he'd have had in his utility belt, but he and Bucky were able to make do, tying them up with their own lab coats. It wouldn't hold forever, but for long enough. Some of the scientists had tried to fight back, but they were easily subdued. The black-clad goons that streamed into the lab next were another thing; they were like the Strike teams Steve had worked with in the past, and they came in hard, holding shock sticks and guns.Bucky whirled as one of them fired, his metal hand moving to intercept the bullets. Steve couldn't help flinching, but the bullets clanged against the metal and fell to the floor, and Bucky kept coming. It was a sight to inspire existential dread from the front, judging by the other guy’s face, but Steve watched the flex of muscle across Bucky’s shoulders and back, and felt the opposite: light and full of life, wanting only to get closer to him, not to flee.He shunted all that to side for the moment and bowled past Bucky to intercept two assholes with shock batons. He wasn't sure exactly what Bucky's arm was made of, but if they were going to zap one of them, it should probably be the one with two guaranteed non-conductive arms.Steve knocked them down before they could do much more then gently beat him about the chest with the shock batons. It hurt, but not enough to slow him down, and certainly not as much as it would if they electrocuted him. He threw the closest guy into the second one with enough force to knock both of them into a counter and take out some lab equipment. One guy was out cold and the other was at the very least dazed, but Steve couldn't bring himself to care too much, because the sound of another gunshot rang out, oddly muffled.Steve turned to see Bucky's hand around the crumpled barrel of a gun, the owner of the gun staring at him in disbelief. Bucky bent the gun's muzzle, then opened his metal fingers. A deformed bullet dropped to the floor, and Bucky punched the guy with his right hand.The two remaining assholes were staring at Bucky's hand, but one had started to lift his gun and aim it at him. Steve tackled that one and batted the firearm away. The guy screeched; maybe Steve had hit a little harder than he usually would. By the time Steve had the man's arm twisted up behind his spine, Bucky had the other guy pinned to the floor with his knee and was shooting a censorious glare toward the scientists."Don't fucking move," Bucky said. The guy beneath him tried something, and Bucky grabbed his head—with his right hand—and slammed it against the cement floor. Then the guy was still, and Bucky was standing up, walking toward the scientists with a certain fluid grace to his movements that was like his normal walk dialed up to eleven, a predator's stalk.Steve licked his lips. He had never seen anyone move quite like that. The scientists flinched away as Bucky came forward, but he walked past them and Steve realized there was another door, hidden in the wall like it was part of it.Bucky stood in front of it for a second, his head cocked, listening, and when he turned back around, his face was drawn into a deep scowl. He took a deep breath, then his face went blank in a way that was much more frightening than his anger had been. Some of the scientists leaned away from him as he turned back to them."Somebody's gonna want to tell me what's through that door, and they're going to want to tell me now." He leveled a flat stare at the scientists. Steve wasn't surprised that one of them broke almost immediately."That's where we keep the, um, the experiments," the man said, and suddenly Bucky wasn't flat-eyed anymore but furious. Steve crossed the room to his side, keeping an eye on the scientists and the injured goons."Let me call in SHIELD," he muttered. He shot a text to Nick Fury with the address asking for pickup of a group of hostiles, organization unknown.Bucky nodded tersely, and now Steve could hear it too: muffled whimpering coming through the wall. It didn't sound like animal experimentation. It was definitely people.This door was locked, with a biometric scanner, but it took Bucky a single punch with his metal arm to completely crumple it. Steve probably shouldn't have found him destroying doors quite as hot as he did, but once the door was gone, that thought fled.Bucky went completely stiff next to him. There were three people in sealed plastic rooms, two men and a woman, cowering back against the back of what were effectively cages. Steve couldn't see any immediate injuries to them, but they were in cages. Bucky turned to look at the scientists and Steve put a hand on his flesh arm, gently restraining him. The look on his face was not something Steve ever wanted to see again.Bucky strode forward to the closest cage and punched right through the door. The subject and Bucky both flinched away from each other."It's all right," Bucky said after a few seconds of awkward not-quite-meeting-the eyes on both their parts. "We're not here to hurt you. We're here to help."The woman looked at him, and Bucky held out his right hand, fingers loose and open, unarmed, unthreatening. She took in a shuddering breath, then laid her hand on his."I might hurt you," she said. "I won't mean to.""It's okay," Bucky said, and Steve's heart thumped painfully, because Steve both wanted to believe the words said in that gravelly voice and wanted the woman to believe them. "You can't hurt me. I'm like you."Her fingers closed around his, convulsively, and then she stepped over the shattered plastic wall. "That's Steve," Bucky said, and jerked his chin toward Steve. "You'll be safe with him. I'm going to get these guys out of here." Steve tried to look trustworthy and safe. She stepped up next to him, her hands clutching her own biceps, small and hurt and maybe dangerous.Bucky went to the other two cages and punched giant holes in them as well, and by the time both of the men were free, SHIELD was there, clearing the room, tying up the scientists, medics checking out the people who had been in the cages. Bucky stayed by the victims, reassuring them, while Steve texted Fury and Natasha. Finally, all of the people from the warehouse were in SHIELD custody, and Steve could go to Bucky.Bucky was staring after the medical team, a deep furrow in his brow. "We didn't get the guy," he said distantly. "The guy that was talking to Brock.""It's okay," Steve said. "We didn't get that guy, but we got all the scientists, and most of all, we got those people out of those fucking cages. You did that."Bucky shuddered, and his expression shifted like the shadow of storm clouds over a landscape. Steve thought about the texts from Fury and Nat."We're done," Steve said quietly to Bucky's ear. He had just made the executive decision to skip debrief, and Nick could call him on it if he wanted to. Bucky looked like he was going to twitch himself to pieces. Steve wanted to offer him anything he wanted, but he looked at Bucky’s terribly impassive face and leaned into his shoulder, bumping up against him. The muscles were tense against his arm. "Hey," Steve said. Bucky turned to look at him, and everything he saw in his eyes made Steve want to curl him closer to his chest. "Let me—please—would you come with me?" Steve asked. "I don't really want to be alone after that." A ghost of a smile flickered across Bucky's lips. Steve knew he was obvious, not good at people that way Nat was, but that was all right, and besides it was the truth. Steve didn't want to be alone. He just wanted to be sure Bucky wasn't alone more."I don't want to go to Manhattan," Bucky said. His eyes searched Steve's face."I've got an apartment in Brooklyn too." Steve shrugged. "Huh," Bucky said. "I like it. But if we go to my place, I don't have to scope out all the new sight lines while I'm freaking out."Steve's breath caught. Bucky was still looking at him. "Do you want me there?"Bucky blinked, then let out a breath. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."They just left. Steve was going to catch a lot of shit for that, probably, but he texted Nat as they walked.Steve: I'm headed back to James's place. Let me know if you need usNat: yeah don't get too involved with anything, we might need you on short noticeSteve: Nat, I'm a professionalSteve: Also come onSteve: Nat don't make this weird🍷Bucky was nervous as he let Steve into his apartment, even though Steve had already been here before. But Steve hadn't known about him then. It felt different. Thinking about the ways it felt different was a good distraction from thinking about the people in the cages, but it wasn't enough of one. A full body shudder coursed through him before he could stop it, rippling down the muscles of his back."Do you want to talk about it?" Steve said as Bucky shut and locked the door behind them.Bucky rested his forehead on the door. Did he? He barely knew Steve, not really, but if there was anyone who might understand about having a body made to be a weapon, about a life of violence, it would be him. Even if he had chosen what was done to him.Bucky looked over his shoulder. Steve was watching him, waiting. Even if he barely knew him, what he knew was good. He could have gone back to Manhattan, could have stayed to help SHIELD, but he'd come with Bucky because he'd seen that he was freaking out and he hadn't wanted to leave him alone. Bucky turned away from the door and jerked his chin at the couch."Did it hurt?" he asked as they crossed the room. Here was the other part of the equation; could Steve be honest with him?"A little bit," Steve said. Then he looked at Bucky and deliberately sat on one end of the couch. "Then after that it hurt an awful lot. I thought I was going to die." Steve shrugged. "I didn't.""Steve," Bucky said. He didn’t know what to say.Steve leaned forward, his shirt straining to cross the national park of his chest. "You're gonna have to tell me if it was different for you.""It hurt." Bucky drew in a breath and sat on the other end of the couch. "It was...a long time ago.""Tony said you got out of Hydra in 1991."Bucky laughed, a short, ugly sound that included no actual mirth. "Yeah. Did he tell you how long I was in?""No. He said you knew his dad from a war."Bucky bit his lip, but he didn't look away from Steve. "It was World War Two."Steve rocked back against the couch cushions, his eyebrows lifting. "Fuck. Fuck! James Barnes. You were a Silent Commando."Bucky's mouth actually dropped open in shock. "You've heard of the Commandos? I didn't think most people remembered—""I was a history major," Steve said. His forehead wrinkled, trying to remember what were doubtless obscure details. Bucky had always been sorry that not more people remembered his friends, but he’d never been sorry that his own story was forgotten. "You were—they thought you died.""I did." Bucky folded his hands around each other, the metal fingers shining, the flesh fingers tense, knuckles pressed against the skin. "I don't remember everything about being him. Me. Before they captured me.""What happened? What did they do to you?"Bucky's fingers convulsed around each other before he could stop them. "Zola shot me up with his version of Erskine's serum. Maybe you know about the first Project Rebirth.""I read up on it," Steve said, with a little smile. "After I signed my dumb ass up, though. Enough to know it was a series of spectacular failures.""It made people monsters," Bucky said quietly. "They gave it to me to make me a monster too.""You're not a monster," Steve said, and it was nice of him to say. Bucky hoped he’d still think that after he told him everything he’d done."Only because I've put a lot of effort into not being one." Bucky tilted his head back. "They experimented on me. Like those kids in the cages today. They turned me into a supersoldier, and then they broke me. Not at first," he added to Steve's frown. "I wasn't the only experiment. Just the most successful. A lot of guys, this version of the serum didn't take. But when I fell off the train and lived—just down an arm—then I got turned into their prize pig.""Did they put that arm on you?""Not this one, no." Bucky thumped it with his knuckles, making a dull chunk noise. "Howard made this one for me. Tony's kept it working." He swallowed and dropped his gaze from Steve's face to his own knees. "But yeah. After the fall, after the arm, they were really determined to make me useful. I thought it was torture before that.""What did they do?" Steve moved a little closer on the couch.Bucky breathed out, his hands curling into fists, and made himself say it. "They mindwiped me and reconditioned me and sent me off to kill people. I killed a lot of people. I didn't know who I was." He let out a long breath, and jumped when Steve’s big hand settled over his clenched right fist. His skin was warm and Bucky kind of hoped he’d leave his hand there forever. "But they fucked up. They sent me to kill Howard. He called me by name, and it was enough to make me hesitate, and that gave him time to talk. God, he could talk.""It's a family trait," Steve said, and Bucky snorted."He and Maria brought me to Peggy Carter and she..." He met Steve's eyes, thinking. How best to tell him about his murder spree? Not the one that he’d been made to do, but the one he’d chosen."What did she do?" Steve asked quietly, but he looked about ready to punch someone. Not Bucky, though. His big, warm hand was still resting gently on top of Bucky's own."She helped me find all the fuckers that did this to me." Bucky tried to smile. He wasn't sure it worked, judging by Steve's concerned expression. "She helped me hunt them down and destroy them. It was messy. Then after I took them apart, she helped me figure out how to be a person." Steve took a breath, and Bucky jumped the gun. "If you're about to say I was always a person, I really wasn't. I mean, I was a human being, but I really didn't know how to do anything but blow shit up and kill people. Peggy helped me figure out everything else, like feeding myself and interpersonal interaction. Paying work that wasn't assassinations."Steve watched him, ridiculously blue eyes boring into his own. "Why wine?"Bucky rolled his lower lip between his teeth and chewed it thoughtfully. At the time, he hadn’t really been examining his own motivations. "When Hydra had me," he said slowly, "food was fuel. Actually, food was a carefully-calculated nutrient shake that was fucking disgusting. Picking stuff with flavors was..." He blew out a breath. "It was something to do that was normal. A normal human everyday thing. And wine doesn't serve a purpose for me, at all. It's nutritionally mostly useless and I can't even get drunk. So it's really all about the flavor. Peggy liked it. It made me think of her."Steve moved a little closer. "And you became a sommelier because...?""I had to do something with my time." Bucky looked down at his metal fingers. "I had a purpose when I was taking down Hydra. Once I was done, I was starting to drift. It gave me a goal, and got me used to interacting with people in nonviolent ways." Steve didn't know what it was to know nothing but being a weapon—or maybe he did; it wasn't like Captain America lived a peaceful life. "And then it gave me work to do." Not that he needed the money, since he'd taken quite a bit of Hydra's funds when he took them out. Much more than that, he needed things to do, a way of breaking up time so that he didn't endlessly drift. People to interact with, to remember that he too was human."And you haven't fought since then," Steve said. "Not until tonight." His eyes were too perceptive."Yeah, not to speak of." Bucky shrugged. "But I wasn't going to not help out, not when I could." When you needed me, he didn't say, but maybe he didn't have to. Steve's eyes were suspiciously soft on him. Steve gave his hand one last squeeze and let go. "What about you? How did you get from Steve Rogers, pastry chef, to Captain America?""I never liked bullies," Steve said, and the corner of his mouth ticked up. "But I didn't have much of a way of standing up to them when I was younger. I was sick growing up—asthma, hearing loss, heart trouble, you name it, I had it. And I was poor, living with my single mother, and I figured out pretty quick that I was queer. I got a lot of shit thrown my way and I got some shit trying to step in between other people's fights.""You needed someone watching your back." Bucky could picture it; the kid in the newspaper article jumping in front of bigger guys to keep then whaling on somebody else."I did have someone. I had my mom." Steve smiled sadly. "But she got sick. I was donating blood visiting her at the hospital one time and signed a form for a voluntary screening. SHIELD got in touch when the screening turned out to be for viable candidates for the serum. At first, I said no, but after Ma died..." He shrugged. "I was angry and I was sad, and they said the chances it might not work were pretty big, but at the time I didn't much care. But it did work, and now I get the chance to fight bullies on a much larger scale that I ever did before."Bucky reached out with his flesh hand and pressed a finger into his shoulder. "You're on a much larger scale than you were before.""Yeah." Steve ducked his head to the side. Bucky couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or not. He let his finger drop away. Steve tracked the movement. "I didn't expect it."Bucky snorted. "Bet that was a big surprise. Is that what they were aiming for?""You'd have to ask Tony.""Maybe I will. It'd be interesting to hear how much he had to change." He met Steve's eyes. "Howard and Tony were working from samples of my blood. Whatever they were aiming for, Hydra was trying to make a monster.""You're not a monster." Steve said again, his voice a little deeper."Just because I'm not doing what they made me for now doesn't mean I didn't do a lot of shit, Steve. You might want to look at the files before you make that call.""That's still your original face, right?" Many of the subjects in the original Project Rebirth had had...other faces after the serum had gone through them. Not many people would know that, but Steve had said he'd studied history.Bucky rubbed his flesh hand over his jaw. "Yeah, it's the one I was born with. I didn't need Tony to make me a veil like for the arm.""They told me the serum amplifies what you are to start with," Steve said. "What I see is someone who didn't have a choice and then has tried to make the best of it since then." Moving slowly enough that Bucky could have stopped it if he wanted, he reached out and took Bucky's left hand, rubbed his thumb over the plates.Bucky jumped a little; no one ever touched him there, except Tony during recalibrations, and that was clinical—or mechanical, he could never decide which."Steve," Bucky said, and then couldn't think of where he wanted to go from there. He hadn’t had many friends since he remade himself as a person; Howard and Maria and Peggy, but almost no one since them. He had a lot of acquaintances—work friends, a couple of smile-and-nods on his jogging route—but not anyone he could be honest with about the most meaningful things to him. He'd never told anyone as much about himself as he had Steve. Howard and Peggy had helped tell him his own story, but he hadn't shared it. He hadn't wanted to, until tonight."I want to help," Steve said. "If you want to come on ops for this mission, then I want you there. If you don't, I still want to know you." He rubbed the back of his neck. This did interesting things to his bicep. "I, um. You have this entire normal life and mine's the opposite of that. But. There's not many people I can talk to about this stuff. And there's exactly no one else who knows what the serum is like.""Yeah?" Bucky hoped his face wasn't looking too eager, or too weird, or too anything."Yeah." Steve's jaw firmed up. "Though, I don't know...tell me if I'm wrong? I don't want to be some kid who bugs you..."Bucky laughed. "Steve. I don't remember all that much of my first life. Some of it, sure. But not most. Then I have flashes of horror for years. In a lot of ways, I was born in 1991, and spent my first ten years as the world's most murderous child. I'm not..." He tugged on his ponytail, not sure how to say it. He felt younger and older than he should be if he measured his life in objective years. There were so many experiences he had forgotten, or maybe missed out on in the first place. So many things he hadn't tried to do and hadn't missed until now. He was thinking of all of them now, looking at Steve. He wasn't sure if he wanted a new best friend, a partner in the fight, or the first person he wanted to touch all over since the 1940s. Maybe all of the above."I don't see a kid when I look at you," he said."What do you see?" Steve kept a steady gaze on him. Bucky couldn't keep from looking at Steve's eyes, his shoulders, his lips. He hoped he wasn't being as obvious as he felt, but in all the time since he'd woke up from his nightmare life, he had never met someone who made him feel this way, like he could hold his own with him. Like he could trust him in a fight, like he wanted him in his life for something more than the casual interactions he maintained with everyone else. He had thought he had interpersonal interaction pretty much covered, but he realized now that he didn't. "A good man," Bucky said. But that wasn't all, either. He'd found Steve attractive before he knew him, but now that he knew more about him, he found him devastating, and he didn't know what to do about it, or even if there was anything to be done.Steve had said he wasn't a monster, but he wasn't a complete person either. A complete person would have known what to do with these feelings, and Bucky didn't. It wasn't that he hadn't had sex since 1991, but he hadn't had any that meant anything. It was hard to when you didn't want to let anyone close enough to see your cyborg arm—Tony's photostatic veils were a lot better than what Howard had cooked up for him the nineties, but they weren't perfect, and he hadn't risked it. And, well, there wasn't really anyone he'd trusted enough and wanted enough in the same person, until now.Steve turned a little red and rubbed the back of his neck. "Funny. That's what I see in you too." Bucky shook his head, but Steve talked over him. "You didn't have to help tonight, but you did. You could have picked keeping your secret over getting involved.""I'd already told Tony he could tell you about me." Bucky chewed on his lip. They were going to be here for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting on Widow's call. He couldn’t spend it all thinking about what to do about his pants feelings. "Are you hungry? I can make us something to eat while we wait.""Sure," Steve said. "Thanks." He trailed after Bucky into the kitchen, leaning against the opposite counter, arms folded across the geological epoch of his chest. Bucky knew himself to be in above-average physical condition, but he didn't think his biceps did that when he crossed his arms.Bucky opened his refrigerator and scanned the contents, excruciatingly focused on Steve. He hadn't been this hyper-aware of him the last time he'd been over, but now he knew him. He couldn't remember ever being this focused on physicality, this wanting, around anyone else, but then he already felt that he knew more about Steve than he did about people he'd known for years. He blew out a breath into the cold air of the refrigerator and told himself to chill the fuck out. They had bigger worries than his dick.There was a prosciutto-tomato sauce that he'd made a few days ago that would still be good. He'd just boil up some pasta and reheat the sauce. That'd be fine. He pulled the plastic container out, set it on the counter, and turned to Steve, who was watching him intently. He guessed it was different coming here now that Steve knew about him, no matter what he said about good men."Is pasta all right?" he said. "If you're like me, your caloric needs are pretty high.""That's fine," Steve said. "Did you make this?"Bucky scooped the sauce into a pan and turned the burner to low. "Sure. I'd rather cook for myself than order takeout all the time." He filled a stockpot with water and set it on another burner, this one on high, then salted the water generously. He still had some of the soda bread Steve had brought over, so he set the oven on warm and put the bread in. The whole time he felt the pressure of Steve's gaze on him, like a hand on the small of his back. He wished he knew how to make that actually happen, but he couldn't envision the bridge between idea and actuality."I can bake almost anything," Steve said, "but I don't actually know how to cook that much."Bucky took his favorite wooden spoon out of the drawer and gave the sauce a stir. It was starting to loosen up with the heat. He shot Steve a sidelong look. "These are valuable life skills, Steve. You should know how to feed yourself.""It hasn't been an issue so far." Steve heaved himself out of his lean on the counter and stepped a few steps closer to Bucky, into the sphere of his personal space, just on the right side of Bucky's peripheral vision. "Maybe I should learn."Bucky took a breath, said to hell with this, in a heartfelt but only mental way, and took a half-step closer to Steve. "You angling for cooking lessons on top of wine lessons?""Yeah, maybe I am." And then Steve did put a hand on the small of Bucky's back. He felt it like electricity, hot even through the layer of his shirt. "What's Hilltop's policy on interpersonal relationships between employees?"Bucky bit his lip and dropped the wooden spoon into the sauce. It wasn't going to get that hot. Steve had taken his to hell with this and raised him a fuck it, let’s do this. Bucky turned around so he was facing Steve, so close to him. Steve's hand ended up on Bucky's side. "Do you really care? Looks like the assignment will be over soon, so you won't have to worry about the restaurant after that."Steve was still looking at Bucky. Bucky kind of wanted to turn away and kind of wanted to stay here forever. "I don't want this to be done when the assignment is," Steve said quietly.Bucky swallowed. He knew Steve could hear it. "What do you think this is?"Moving slowly enough that Bucky could easily have stopped him if he wanted to, Steve laid his hand along Bucky's stubbly jaw. "I don't know. Someone I think a lot of, who I hope thinks well of me back."Bucky looked at him, but Steve's gaze was intense and steadfast. Bucky leaned his face harder into the curve of Steve's hand, feeling each phalange and metacarpal against the muscle of his cheek. "Steve," he said, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice. "I do. Think a lot of you. But I haven't done this...""This?" Steve said. His hand was big and warm against the side of Bucky's face, and his thumb was gently brushing Bucky's cheekbone. Bucky's pulse thudded along his wrist, in his ears, so loud he wondered if Steve might hear it."Let someone get close." Bucky tugged Steve's waist, pulling him in until their bodies were flush. "Wanted someone close."Steve's eyes were so near, and so blue, bluer than his own, not more innocent, exactly, but tempered by different pains and joys. He thought—he hoped—that the world had taken a little less of the shine off of him. He wanted to know. And he wanted other things, too; to map Steve's body with his own, to discover what desire felt like with someone he trusted. To touch another body with no fear that he could break it.Moving as slowly as Steve had, he wrapped his mismatched fingers in his shirt and tugged. Steve swayed forward, closing the distance between them, and Bucky leaned just slightly up to kiss him. His lips were soft and warm and Bucky parted his own without thinking. Steve licked into his mouth, and then they were kissing much deeper, tongues against each other, wet and hot. Bucky leaned against him, his chest against the broad expanse of Steve's, his arms sliding back to wrap around his torso. Steve slid his hand back from Bucky's face to tangle in his hair, and his fingertips along Bucky's scalp left trails he could feel after the touch was gone.The kiss deepened, and Bucky thought he could stay here forever, encircled in strong, warm arms, stubble scraping against Steve's cheek, the taste and smell and feel of him on his mouth, his hands shaping the planes of muscle along Steve's spine and shoulder blades. They fit against each other like puzzle pieces, and Steve didn't seem to care that one of his arms was metal. Steve made a little sound into his mouth, a cut-off groan, and Bucky was on fire with it.He didn't think, just closed the tiny distance between them, rocked against Steve, and then both of them were groaning. He could feel that Steve was hard, his erection a hot line against his hip, and as for himself, he was exerting every effort not to move against Steve again. He was aching to rut against him, anything for friction on his cock, but..."Sorry," he said against Steve's mouth, and Steve huffed a little laugh that he felt as much as heard."Why? I'm not." Steve leaned forward so their foreheads rested against each other."Not sorry about this." Bucky kissed the corner of his mouth. "Just sorry because we're waiting on the Widow's call.""Yeah, there's that." Steve kissed him again, not without heat, lingeringly, but not as frantically as they had before. "Let's pin that thought for later." "Yes." Bucky pulled away only as far as to see whether he'd burned the sauce, and then turned back to try out a smile on Steve. It must have been all right; Steve smiled back at him. "While we're waiting on that, how about I feed you."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
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Both of them jumped when Steve's phone rang. Steve leaned back and ran a thumb over Bucky's lower lip, red and kiss-swollen, while he fished his phone out of his pocket. They'd agreed not to get too deeply involved, but no one had said anything about making out like teenagers while they waited to hear from Natasha."Cap," Nat said on the other end of the line."You've got something?" He let his hand drop from Bucky's lip, apologetically, and leaned forward, listening."Yeah," she said. "I got the sample to the lab tonight, but even better, I got a tracker on Rumlow. The place in Brooklyn is done, but the boss had to go to ground somewhere, and Rumlow's our best bet of finding him.""All right, where do you want us?" "Are you sure—" Nat started."I'm sure," Steve said firmly. He met Bucky's eyes. Natasha had been speaking quietly, but Steve would've been able to hear what Nat had said, so he assumed Bucky would as well. Bucky bit his lip."Okay, Steve," she said, and that was that. She trusted his judgment. She might be more worried about the Winter Soldier than she was letting on, but she knew Steve had a read on him; and she had seen him earlier that evening and would have drawn her own conclusions. "I need you and the...and Barnes in case there are more enhanced individuals there. In case they're more like soldiers than like the people we saw earlier tonight.""We can handle that." Steve cleared his throat. "I don't have my uniform.""I don't have tac gear anymore," Bucky said quietly.Natasha barked a laugh. "You know, Tony anticipated this. Don't sweat it. Give me an address and gear will be there in ten minutes. Suit up and follow the tracer. We'll meet you there. I'll send you the plan on the way. Tell Barnes his call sign is Soldier."She hung up before Steve could, and he texted the address then shoved his phone back into his pocket. Bucky was frowning."Is that okay?" Steve said. "The call sign. She didn't ask.""It's fine." Bucky shoved himself to his feet off of the couch where they'd been lounging against each other. Steve mourned the loss of his warmth already. "It's not...I don't care what she calls me."The buzzer rang. They both tensed, but Bucky went to buzz up the courier. When the door opened, it wasn't some kid with a package, but several drones with several packages."Huh," Bucky said as the packages fell in a pile in the doorway. "How concerned should I be that Tony has his own delivery drones?""I don't know," Steve said. "Did he have your address before?"Bucky groaned and pulled both hands down his face, but started slinging in the packages rather than answer.Steve found one of his stealth suits in one package and black tac gear in another, which he tossed toward Bucky. Bucky opened it with an ambivalent expression."Are you okay?" Steve asked. He was already halfway into his stealth suit, but Bucky was still pulling a black tank top over his head. Steve looked away; just because they’d made out didn’t mean that Bucky wanted him staring at his metal arm."It's, uh." Bucky pulled up the very custom tactical jacket Tony had sent him, with no left arm. "I'm a little concerned that Tony just had this sitting around.""He never said anything about it to me," Steve said. "Maybe he was hoping you'd be able to help out."Bucky snorted quietly and shot Steve an amused look. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it probably had more to do with Nick Fury's wishes than Tony's." Bucky cinched tight a series of buckles and straps that emphasized the breadth of his chest and the narrowness of his waist. Steve took a breath and turned away again as Bucky dropped his trousers and picked up the tactical pants, getting his own uniform pants on while he was at it. When he turned back around, Bucky was lacing up a pair of black combat boots.The all-black gear emphasized his everything. Steve had admired pretty much every part of his body in slacks and a button-up shirt, but the tactical pants clung to the swell of the muscles of his thighs in a way that office casual absolutely did not. He was strapping a series of knives to bands around his thighs, and loading several holsters with handguns and snapping a Skorpion to the harness across his back."Fury wanted you for the Avengers initiative," Steve said through suddenly-dry lips. "But you didn't want to be part of it." He checked his comm unit and jammed the helmet on top of his head. "But you're okay with it now?"Bucky tilted his head back to pull his hair into a tail. "Yeah, well. I did say no, but that was before these assholes came into my restaurant." He rolled his shoulders back to settle his gear. "Besides, I didn't know you then."Steve swallowed, but whatever he might have said to that would have to wait. His phone buzzed again."You boys ready?" Nat said on the other end of the line."Good to go," Steve said."Glad to hear it." Nat's voice was dry. "Rumlow's on the move. I need you to get on him and take him down.""We're on our way, Widow," Steve said, and hung up. He pulled out the tracking device and assessed their best route to the little blip that meant Rumlow. When he turned around, Bucky had smeared a line of kohl around his eyes, presumably to make himself less immediately identifiable. Even through the war paint, Steve could see he was looking murderous. "You okay?""Yeah." Bucky checked the knife at his hip. "I just realized—however this plays out, that asshole Rumlow's gonna leave me short staffed tomorrow night."🍷It didn't take them long to catch up with Rumlow, shadowing him from a block away; and then it didn't take long after that for the Widow to catch up with them. She made a few hand signals that Bucky didn't know but that Steve nodded at, and then she was a shadow among other shadows, along with them, only Bucky wasn't aware of her every moment the way he was Steve's.Cap, he reminded himself. They were on an op now, not kissing in his apartment—good god, that had really happened. Later. He would think about it later.This time, Rumlow led them to an office building, not a warehouse. He punched a code into a door lock, looking shiftily from side to side as he did so—not suspicious at all, asswipe—and then disappeared behind the door."Cameras," Widow said almost silently, and pointed to two points on the corners of the buildings. Bucky could have easily shot them out, but that would be a head's up that they were on their way. Widow held up her phone and waggled it at them. The screen displayed a loop of the empty street. She slid to another screen and tapped what looked like a Candy Crush app. "Ninety seconds," she whispered, and the three of them crossed the street in a single, quick motion.Then they were at the door, and the Widow was holding her phone up again,cracking the door code, and they were in.There were guards, but he and Steve moved almost as one to intercept them, taking them out with metal arm or shield. The Widow ran between them, disabling security cameras, electrocuting goons as need be. Bucky tried to incapacitate rather than kill as they went. These guys were security and probably didn't know too much about the workings of this operation.The cameras going out was likely to alert someone that things were amiss, but at least they wouldn't know who exactly was coming to beard them in their den. They came to a stop in front of a door with a keypad on it. Natasha pulled out her phone and disabled the lock in seconds.Steve and Bucky flowed through the door in tandem, Steve with his shield up, Bucky's gun out. There were five goons standing around in various stages of surprise, Rumlow, and the older man they'd seen giving him the drugs in the alley."Protect the Scientist Supreme!" shouted one of the goons, and Bucky felt his lips twist. Scientist Supreme? What a bunch of assholes.Rumlow launched himself at the Widow, and Steve and Bucky bowled into the goons trying to cover the Supreme Asshole's retreat. Between the shield and the metal arm, it was a matter of moments to get the first four jerks out of the way.The fifth was another matter. This one was enhanced. He swung around at Bucky and tried to get his flaming hands on him. Fucking Extremis. Bucky blocked with metal arm, and Steve got his attention by bouncing the shield off his ribs. The man staggered back, then braced his feet and raised his burning arms.Why weren't more of the guards enhanced? Maybe AIM had trouble finding willing volunteers for their bullshit. Bucky thought of the people in the goddamned cage in the warehouse and clocked the guy, hard. He staggered back into Steve's waiting grip, and Bucky vaulted over a desk covered in computers and small baggies of pills to stop the Scientist Supreme from wiggling away from them into a door that had been concealed by shelving until he smacked a red button. This guy was a walking cliché.Bucky caught up with him easily and hooked the metal arm around his throat while he fished in the many pockets of his tactical gear for zip ties."Soldier, don't kill him!" Widow yelled. "We need him alive."Bucky was a little affronted that she thought he would immediately revert to murder given the slightest provocation, but then Steve's voice rang out, a little strained, but totally assured. "He's got this."Tony or Nick Fury had seen fit to outfit him for most contingencies, it seemed. He was able to locate the ties, restrain the scientist, and get glared at while patting him down for identification, all accompanied to the soundtrack of Steve (hopefully) beating the shit out of the Extremis guy."Andrew Forson," Bucky announced once he had the Scientist Supreme's driver’s license.“Won't SHIELD be interested to know that," the Widow purred.The Extremis goon that Steve was sitting on tried to protest, and either Steve knocked him out, or he came to a realization about the better part of valor after Steve whomped him one in the head. Either way, he was still.Rumlow was slumped against a chair, his arms zip-tied behind his back at what looked like a very uncomfortable angle. He had a cut over a shiner that was already turning purple. He saw Bucky watching him and his eyes widened, but then he looked away. It didn’t matter; he wouldn’t be selling drugs or harassing the guests at Hilltop any time soon.Bucky still had Supreme Forson's arms tucked behind his back, so he frog-marched him over to the other two. "Well, here's this asshole," he said."What a nice chat we're going to have," Natasha said, deadpan. Bucky was just pleased that he wasn't going to have to be there for that part. Now that the action was over, he wasn't quite sure how he felt, whether he needed some time to come apart or if he was okay. But the only person he felt right about processing that in front of was Steve, not the Widow and the assorted goons of AIM. And then once SHIELD showed up, it seemed better to keep his face impassive during all the boring processing parts.“Debrief at the tower,” the Widow said once Forson and his minions were bundled into black vans and en route to wherever SHIELD was taking them. She looked from Steve to Bucky and back again, then smiled. "If you don't mind," she said to Bucky."Sure," he said, because he had the sinking feeling that he didn't really have a choice, no matter how politely she was asking. If he didn't come now, would Fury send someone for him later? He'd go now, find out what they expected of him, and decide how badly he'd fucked up his normal civilian life.🍰Why didn't anyone ever think for five minutes before they decided they wanted supersoldiers? Every other attempt since Bucky—besides Steve himself—had only ended in tragedy, and these Extremis guys were no exception. Tony and Banner were working on getting them stabilized, the ones who hadn't volunteered for this and the (so far) single one who had. Rumlow and the Scientist Supreme were being debriefed separately from the science experiments.Steve had tried to take the brunt of the questions, deflecting away from Bucky whenever possible, but Bucky had seemed amused the first couple of times he'd tried, and Nick had hit him with a look that said he saw what Steve was trying to do and wasn't impressed, so he gave it up.He didn't know what he expected, anyway; Bucky was fine. He answered Nick's questions economically, but was never withholding information. Finally, after they'd run through the op a couple of times from different angles, Nick said, "Why'd you help out with this one, Barnes? You were pretty clear that you didn't want to be involved before.""Yeah, well. Before, mad scientists weren't showing up in my place of work." Bucky leaned back. He looked loose and relaxed, but Steve felt the tension in him, in the long lines of his legs, in the tendons of his right hand."You reconsidering your stance on the Avengers initiative?" Nick’s eye narrowed."I'll let you know," Bucky said, and Nick just nodded.As the meeting broke up, Steve stood and stretched, feeling the strain of muscles that had been used and then forced to stay still as he sat through the long meeting. Bucky blew out a long breath next to him, and Steve nudged him gently with an elbow. "Don't go?" he said, just as Nat caught his eye. "I gotta talk to Widow, but...can you stick around a minute?"Bucky chewed on his bottom lip, then nodded. "Sure. I can wait."He moved over to the snack bar and poured a coffee, Steve was ninety-eight percent sure solely to keep his hands occupied while Natasha oozed over and struck a fake-casual pose next to Steve.She smiled up at him brightly. This was deeply unnerving; Natasha's general attitude was studied indifference, which meant she cared. This was the kind of smile she turned on marks. Steve wasn't sure if she was adopting it now for Nick's benefit or Bucky's, but either way it grated."Steve," she said in a falsely bright voice. "What are you doing?""Finishing up a debrief, Nat." He met her gaze and shrugged. "Unless I'm starting another one, you tell me.""I haven't seen you fight like that with anyone," she said softly. "Like the two of you were magnets orbiting around each other. I don't know. Is there something you want to tell me?"He tried not to look at Bucky, but he was pretty sure that he could probably hear every word they were saying, and Nat probably knew it. What was she doing?"Not right now, no." He tried to project back off at her. She just lifted an eyebrow at him."Just...be careful, okay?""I always am," he said, and was faintly surprised that lightning didn't strike him down. From the angle of her solitary raised eyebrow, Nat agreed, but she just slinked away.He caught back up to Bucky, who was staring down at the coffee mug in his hands like it held some desperately-wished-for answers."Hey," Steve said. "Do you want to come up to my place here? I, um—" He spared a moment to curse his pale complexion; he could feel the blood rushing to his cheekbones. "—I'd just like to talk to you."Bucky looked at him for a long few seconds, then the corners of his mouth ticked up. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"Steve's face immediately felt like a furnace. "I really would like to talk." He took a deep breath. "Or whatever else you want to be on the table." He walked to the elevator bank, Bucky at his back. He could feel him, an electric presence over his shoulder. It took all of his self-control not to turn around and just stare at him.He mashed the call button, and Bucky drew even with him, still in his tac gear. He could see Bucky weighing his options, could almost see the wheels turning. "You live here, right? Most of the time?"Steve cleared his throat. "Yeah."Bucky rolled his shoulders. "Tony's not going to like it. Me coming up."The elevator dinged and they both stepped in. "It's Tony's tower, but it's my house." Steve leaned maybe a little closer to Bucky than he needed to. "You're welcome here." Bucky swallowed and Jarvis tactfully rang a small bell instead of saying something snarky at Steve when they got to his floor.Steve stepped into the lobby and Bucky followed him, his eyes flicking from side to side, taking in details. Steve wanted to know so much. If it came down to it, Steve wanted to know everything.Steve held his thumb to the biometric scanner and listened to the faint click of the lock."Please come in," he said, and Bucky followed him into the apartment. Steve tried to see it with fresh eyes; he had brought in some of his old things, and Tony had provided others. The walls were covered with art: framed prints of painting he liked, a few originals from galleries. His own were hanging mostly in the bedroom, and now he was thinking about the bed with Bucky here, in his apartment."Do you mind if I..." Bucky swung his hand toward the windows and doors."Go ahead," Steve said. What followed was a quick but thorough perimeter check. Steve could see the set of Bucky's shoulders ease as he came back into the living room."Sorry," Bucky said. "I don't usually have to do that, but after tonight...""Don't apologize. I understand," Steve said, because sometimes he had to check the exits and put his back to a wall too. "Are you okay?""I think so, yeah. It's just been a while since I used this particular skill set." He smiled at Steve, and Steve felt something in his chest crack open. It was maybe the most open expression he'd seen on him since the end of the op, and he hadn't realized until just now that he'd been worried that he wouldn't see that expression again. That Bucky might have broken something within himself that he'd spent a lot of time rebuilding."Make yourself comfortable," Steve said. Bucky's smile turned wry and he started divesting himself of the knives and guns strapped pretty much anywhere they could go on his body. Steve took off the shield harness and his jacket, stretching with the feeling of being freed. When he looked back, Bucky was half-out of his tactical jacket and watching him intently.Steve felt a little self-conscious, but not in a bad way. He had sort of gotten used to the way people looked at him since the serum, but this wasn't people, this was Bucky, and the thought that Bucky liked the way his body looked had him breathing a little faster already.They were dirty from the fight, and both still in tactical pants, and Steve should be offering him a shower and some comfortable clothes and they should probably talk about this, but...He walked closer instead. "Do you need help with that?" He nodded toward the tactical jacket and Bucky laughed, a quiet, slightly breathless sound."Don't need it, but I wouldn't say no, either."Steve closed the distance between them and slid the leather and kevlar over Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky was wearing a tank top instead of a compression shirt like Steve's. Steve leaned closer and pressed a kiss to his flesh shoulder, then pulled the jacket the rest of the way off of his arms. He rubbed his thumb over the metal plates of his left shoulder and asked, "Do you feel anything in this arm?""Some," Bucky said. They were close enough now that Steve could feel the heat rising off of his torso, could see the dilation of his pupils. "Mostly pressure."Steve leaned forward to kiss him, his hands still framing his arms, the muscle of one, the lack of give of the other. He wasn't expecting the tight clap of Bucky's arms around his waist, flesh fingers and metal sliding over the curve of his spine to grab at the muscle of his ass.Steve might have been embarrassed at the sound that came out of his mouth, a breathy gasp into Bucky's mouth, except that Bucky groaned back, and Steve's dick went from semi-hard to very, very hard. "Oh, fuck," he said."Is this okay," Bucky said, his lips moving against Steve's neck, and Steve slid his hands up to Bucky’s face and kissed him like he was drowning. His skin was burning all of a sudden and he wanted nothing more than to press every inch of his skin against Bucky's."Very okay," he said between kisses. "Can I take your shirt off?"Bucky hesitated, so Steve dropped his head to the metal shoulder and licked over the scars. Bucky's hands clenched almost painfully on his ass, and that sent an entirely separate thrill through him; not only would he not have to be careful around Bucky, Bucky could probably pin him down for real, shove him against a wall, keep him from moving unless he wanted him to. Bucky looked at Steve from beneath his lashes, then pulled his tank top over his head. Steve watched the hem slip up the curve of his ribcage, up over his face, and then his entire chest and arms and everything from the waist up was naked and beautiful in front of Steve. He slid his hands up the arc of his sides, feeling the curve of his muscles, the solidity of him."Steve," Bucky said, and tugged at his shirt. Steve pulled his arms up and let him tug his shirt over his head, feeling trapped just for a second by the fabric, kind of liking the idea of that too; maybe for another time.And then the two of them were both shirtless, and Bucky took a second just to look at him, and Steve felt the thrill of it again, of someone—of Bucky—wanting him. And he looked back, taking in the slide of his skin over muscle as he moved, the splayed scars radiating from his metal shoulder. Bucky put his hands on Steve's hips and pulled him close, and his naked skin was so warm against Steve's where their chests were pressed close, the skin of their bellies; and even through tactical pants, Steve could feel that he was hard, as hard as Steve, and Steve ached with wanting him, even though they were both right there.Steve kissed him again, because it seemed incredible to him that they had stopped kissing even long enough to get their shirts off. He wanted—he wanted—"Can I," Bucky murmured against his lips and then his right hand was pressed against the line of Steve's dick, palming him over the fabric."God, yes." Steve pressed into Bucky's side, trying not to rock forward into his hand. Bucky traced the shape of Steve’s cock through his tactical pants, and he groaned. It was heat and pressure and not enough, but it felt so good. Bucky's metal hand moved to his chest, rubbing against his nipple, and Bucky licked and kissed against his neck. Steve felt like he was on fire, like this moment was perfect and he wanted it to never end, and at the same time, it wasn't enough, and wouldn't be until his skin was touching all of Bucky's.And then Bucky's fingers were fumbling with Steve’ss fly, unbuttoning and unzipping, and the release of the pressure of the kevlar around his dick had him gasping on Bucky’s shoulder, less kissing the skin there than mouthing against it, tasting the salt of his sweat. Bucky's fingers curled around the length of his cock, under the kevlar but over the fabric of his underwear. Compared to the muffled way it had felt through the heavy fabric, the slightest movement of Bucky's fingers sent heat thrumming through Steve's skin."God, that feels good," he said against Bucky's shoulder.Bucky muttered something that was more a sound than a word and kept stroking him with long, slow motions. Steve tried to reach for Bucky's fly, to get his hands on him, but Bucky pushed him away, so Steve let his head rest against Bucky. He looked down to see the metal hand on his chest, and Bucky's wrist disappearing into his pants, and god, it was an image he’d remember forever.Bucky found the slit at the front of Steve's boxer briefs and wrapped his hand through it so Steve felt half skin against skin and half fabric rubbing over him. Steve groaned as Bucky rubbed his fingers over the head of Steve's cock, dragging them though pre-come and over the underside of the head of Steve's dick. It only took a few strokes like that before Steve was coming helplessly, still in his underwear. Bucky held him through it, and as soon as Steve could move, he kissed him again."Good?" Bucky said."So good." Still kissing him, Steve went for the fly of Bucky's pants, and this time Bucky didn't stop him. Steve unbuttoned him, some small part of his brain slightly surprised—but grateful, in the interest of expediency—that there weren't straps and buckles here, too.Steve got him unzipped and then wrapped his hand around Bucky's cock. He felt so good against Steve, blood-hot, the skin soft over the hardness of his erection. Steve felt a sudden surge of personal grievance at his pants. "Can I, please," he said. "I want my mouth on you."Bucky kissed him, hot and sloppy, and then panted against his mouth. "Yes, fuck. Yes. It's been a while."Steve couldn't have cared less, except that it was more incentive to make it good for him. He dropped to his knees and hooked his fingers over the waistband of Bucky's pants and underwear, dragging them down slowly. Bucky groaned and staggered back when Steve got his cock free. Steve angled him toward the kitchen island since that was closest, so he could lean back.Steve licked from his balls to the tip of his head, slowly jacking his foreskin, tasting the bitter-salty bead of pre-come, and then taking as much of him into his mouth as he could. Bucky made a strangled noise above him, and Steve rubbed his left hand along the soft skin over his hipbone. He wrapped his other hand around the base of Bucky's cock, sliding along the skin in time with the slow strokes of his tongue.God, the sounds Bucky was making, groans punctuated by shaky breaths like he couldn't help himself. Steve wanted to learn his every sound, wanted to make him make new sounds just for him. He moved his hand from Bucky's hip to the strong muscles of his thighs, feeling them tremble as he licked and sucked. He kept it slow as long as he could, wanting to draw this out as long as possible, but before long, Bucky's hands were clenching along Steve’s shoulders, threading through his hair."Steve, please, come on, please," he said, his voice breathless, and Steve sped up his rhythm in earnest, and then Bucky was coming down his throat, his hips jerking, a low groan punched out of his lungs.He pulled Steve up and kissed him again, slower this time, sweeter."I wanted to do that since the first time I saw you," Steve said.Bucky huffed a laugh and kissed him again. "I was pretty sure you thought I was creepy for staring at you from the doorway of the dessert kitchen."Steve kissed him again. "Not for a second." He looked down at what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable mess in his underwear. "We should take a shower," he said."Yeah?" Bucky tugged him closer. "What about after that?""I don't know," Steve said. "Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll let me do it again."🍷Epilogue:six months laterBucky was coming back to the tower with Steve. This time, as his plus-one. Steve looked sharp in a tux, and Bucky didn't think he was too shabby himself, though his was a rental instead of bespoke. The two of them threaded through a side entrance, Steve’s ID opening the door while a crowd of guests slowly filed through the front entrance. He liked the look of Steve, broad shoulders stretching the seams of his shirt beneath his perfectly-fitted jacket, the way Steve still seemed to think his clothes ought to fit a smaller body. People looked at him, but no one seemed to see Captain America; they mostly just seemed to see a big body in a well-fit suit, and so far no one had connected Steve Rogers to Captain America.And no one had connected Bucky to Cap, or to anything. He got to keep working at the restaurant, but he knew if Steve needed help, he could. He got to keep dating Steve. It was good.It was better than good. It was nights spent together, mostly at Bucky's apartment. It was learning what Steve's favorite foods were. It was telling Steve about wine, and Steve teaching him how to make his mother's soda bread. It was finding out he had a side of the bed, and keeping two toothbrushes by the sink, and trusting Steve with his past, even the hard parts, and his present, even the parts that still weren't altogether whole. It was thinking about the future.And tonight, it was going to a fundraising gala that Pepper Potts was hosting as Steve's date, because Steve wanted him there and because he could. The passed through security without incident, and headed up to the gala. It wasn't in the cozier room where the Avengers spent their downtime, but rather in a ballroom. There were tables and a buffet, tall, elegant floral arrangements, and swathes of cloth draped on the walls. And people. The room was full of people in tuxes and long dresses. Bucky decided to treat it as a night at work, more or less, and summoned his professional smile.He made small talk pretty successfully, because it was part of his job to be good at it, and a couple of times he caught Steve giving him a look, but it wasn't until they were at Tony’s private bar and Steve was pouring them both a glass of Peggy's wine that Steve asked him about it."You're good at this." He put the glass in Bucky's hand and looked at him for a minute, until the question he was asking sunk in. There was a lot that Bucky wasn't good at, that he let himself be honest with Steve about."Yeah." Bucky nudged into Steve's side, because it was just the two of them for the moment, until Tony and the other Avengers got there. "It's like work, right? Figuring out what people like, putting on a face." He took a sip of his wine while he thought. "It's different with you," he said finally. "I've had a lot of practice learning to do the easy people things, but I never wanted to do the ones where you got close to anybody."Steve's smile was impossibly fond. "How'd I get so lucky?"Bucky curled his fingers around Steve's tie and tugged him a little closer. "By being you." He leaned into him and pressed a kiss against his lips, just a little one, because he could; Tony and the rest would be here soon, and he didn't want to start something this wasn't the time or place to finish, but he wanted to kiss him. "I love you."Steve's eyes went a darker shade of blue, and he pulled Bucky flush against him, kissed him hard despite the time constraints and where they were. "I love you, too, you know that?"Bucky felt happiness bubbling up in him like champagne. "I do now,” he said, and kissed him again.