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The secret of it was, back in their own time, it wasn’t really a secret at all.The Howlies knew. Howard, for certain, and Phillips, most likely. The SSR folks probably suspected, but it was war , for Christ’s Sake, no one wanted to blue card Captain America and Bucky Barnes. Truth was, no one gave a good goddamn, really, as long as they were doing their jobs and kept things to themselves. The little gossip there had been about them faded to nothing once they saw Peggy’s picture in his compass, even though he had Bucky’s picture on his pistol.Sweetheart grips they called them, when the GI’s started to replace the wooden grips on their Colt M1911 pistols with plexiglass from downed planes over photos of their sweethearts.Steve’s grip had a picture of Bucky on it. It was a photo he’d been carrying around for a long time, long before the war, from when the Barnes family had gotten themselves a camera back in ‘35.In the photograph, Bucky was only just eighteen, young and bright and sitting on the steps of the old brownstone apartment building his folks lived in. He was in a light, short-sleeved shirt that Steve had always loved because of the way it fit and the softness of the fabric, something he appreciated when he had his hands all over Bucky the second they got the chance.Bucky always told him it was blue, the same color as Steve’s eyes which is why he loved it, and Steve had taken his word for it.Bucky was smiling, eyes crinkled almost closed and nose wrinkled just slightly. His ever-present lit cigarette was dangling from the hand between his knees, legs long, one foot planted on the step below him and the other stretched out in front of him.
He was beautiful, and when Mrs. Winnie had sent Bucky to get the picture made, the rarest of luxuries in those days, he’d spent some of his hard earned pocket money and gotten an extra one for Steve.When Bucky saw what Steve had done, how prominently displayed he’d made the photograph, he’d cornered Steve in his tent on the way to dinner. “Why isn’t Agent Carter there, too? Ain’t she your girl?”Steve looked at him like he was slow or something. “Buck,” he said, hands reaching out to cup Bucky’s elbows where they were pressed to his chest, arms crossed tight. “Honey, I’ve been fighting with you by my side my whole goddamn life, and there is no way in hell I’m not gonna stop now.” Steve kissed Bucky roughly then, alone as they were at the very edge of the camp, and then they hadn’t needed to talk for a long while.“Besides,” Steve joked later, cuddled up with Bucky on the little camp cot, heart still racing as he dragged his fingers through Bucky’s hair, still damp from exertion. “Now you can keep me safe from up top and down below.”Bucky groaned at the bad joke and rolled on top of Steve to give him something better to do with his mouth. When Bucky asked again about Peggy, Steve rolled his eyes so hard he thought they’d fall out of his head. Peggy had understood, of course she had, since she and Steve had already had that conversation. Once Steve explained it to Bucky, had laid out that Peggy didn’t expect Steve to give Bucky up, would like to get to know him better, too, and see if they couldn’t come to a mutual understanding, there’d been no issue.When Peggy’s initials joined Steve’s on the butt of Bucky’s rifle, no one questioned that either.—What Steve couldn’t understand was why no one seemed to know about it when he woke up alone, seventy years away from the people he loved.“I don’t get it,” he’d told Peggy when he’d gone to see her at last. It was all over the place that they’d found his compass right there on the instrument panel of the Valkyrie, the whole Wartime Sweethearts narrative hauled back into the light, regardless of the fact that Peggy had gone on to lead one hell of a life, with a good man by her side supporting her every step of the way like she deserved. “As soon as I knew I had to put the plane down, I had the compass on the panel and the pistol in my hand, staring at my sweethearts one last time. Why isn’t that all over the news?”The look Peggy gave him threw Steve back in time for a second, to a time when it had been directed at him by the matched pair of firecracker brunette’s he’d had loving him. It was half the reason he knew Peggy was going to find a way into his heart, the first time she sent him that look. It was the English version of Bucky’s “Don’t be an idiot, Steve,” look that had been making its appearance on Bucky’s handsome face since 1926.“Don’t be daft, Steve,” she’d said then, just as she said now. “It may have been an open secret, then, but it wasn’t something that needed telling after we…lost you both. The Howlies and Howard mostly did it out of respect for me, then. I was the grieving sweetheart, whose relationship had never really gotten the chance to start, and only because I was Captain America’s sweetheart. God knows that wouldn’t have been the case if the world had known the truth.”“So they just buried the truth?”Peggy sighed and held out her hand, nails still perfect and red, the same as they ever were, even in the knobbed and wrinkled hands that surrounded them now. “Steve, the world would have destroyed it. They would have tarnished what the three of us were just starting to have, what you and Bucky had had for a decade, just because they couldn’t understand it. The Howlies and Howard then, and I daresay Fury and Coulson now, refused to let your memories be blackened by the moronic opinions of people who would never understand.”Steve could appreciate that.But he didn’t like it.Which is why he’d asked Peggy if she’d be alright if he cleared things up at some point.“Of course, darling. I’m ninety-two years old and have kept this secret long enough.”—First, he went to Fury, who wasn’t happy but also didn’t try to dissuade him.“It’s your life,” he’d said. “As long as you can still do your job, it makes no difference to me.”So Steve had gone to Coulson, who had been holding onto something for him.“I always knew you’d come for it,” Coulson said, taking the pistol from the gun safe in his office. “And I didn’t want someone who didn’t approve, or thought they were helping to ‘accidentally’ lose it somewhere.”“I appreciate it,” Steve told him, taking the gun and cradling it to his chest. “More than you know.”He slept with the pistol propped up against the lamp on his bedside table, falling asleep next to Bucky for the first time in seventy years.And in the morning, he made a phone call.—A year and a half later, when the Asset had escaped from HYDRA after dumping his friend ( Mission! ) on the riverbank, he made his way to the Smithsonian, because a voice in his head that had been mostly quiet for a lot of the Asset’s long existence got very loud, very quickly after seeing the mission.The Asset, Bucky (if the Mission, Steve , was to be believed), was starting to think that half the reason he needed the chair so frequently was to keep the voice quiet.“You know me!” The Mission had said. “You love me!”Did he?Flashes were coming back to The A— to Bucky the longer he was awake and away from his handlers. Flashes of a scrawny blond who looked an awful lot like the— like Steve, and then flashes of Steve-as-he-is. He got glimpses of young women who looked like the reflection he saw in the mirror and an older couple who looked like him if he combined their faces in the right way.He saw a beautiful woman with cherry red lips, standing next to Steve, a smile on her face and a hand outstretched.Were these memories?The Smithsonian exhibit, he hoped, would be able to help.Past the people with angry signs out front, past the jubilant people standing opposite them with flags and pins and those circular shields in a cacophony of color combinations, Bucky went into the museum, and through the exhibit, slowly.There was a face like his, etched into the glass, with dates next to it.For the first three months, he never made it past his own memorial.By month four, he had enough memories back to know who he was. Or who he used to be, at the very least.The first time he made it past the monument, he didn’t make it past the uniforms.Or the second time.Or the fifth.The seventh time, though. The seventh time he made it to the theater.There was grainy footage of the Bucky-That-Was and Steve, laughing, both looking gaunt and tired and happy as could be, eyes only for each other, the film silent while the narrator spoke.“ For most of the last seventy years, the world has known of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers as best friends on the schoolyard and the battlefield, but a year after coming out the ice, Captain Rogers changed everything.
In a landmark interview with Anderson Cooper, Steve Rogers turned all preconceived notions of his life on their head.”
There was Steve, now, sitting on a couch across from a good looking man with silver hair.“So, Captain—”“Steve, please.”“Alright, then, Steve. I’m honored to be speaking with you today, especially in your first interview in this century.”Steve, the big lug ( what?) , was sitting ramrod straight on the sofa, staring seriously into Anderson Cooper’s eyes.“I’m happy to do it, Anderson, and I was very particular as to who to give this interview.”“Oh?” Polite. Casual.“Yes. You see, it couldn’t be handled by the wrong people. Couldn’t have the narrative be anything other than the truth. To wake up in this century, and have everyone think they know me, to have my life taught about in schools, is as ridiculous as it is astounding.”“Well, Steve,” Anderson chuckled, “You’re an icon, a hero. Part of the American Pantheon now, right up there with Washington and Lincoln.”“No, you mistake me,” Steve said.Quizzical eyes from Anderson Cooper.Steve blew out a breath, the sound loud in the near-deserted theater. Bucky was leaning forward, straining to get closer to the screen, closer to Steve.“I don’t mean that it was astounding because I didn’t expect them to teach about me. After the way they played me up, I expected to at least be in there as a joke.” A humorless laugh here before Steve leaned forward to take a drink of water. “No, I’m astounded by how much is wrong.”Silence.“So you’re saying, the history that we all know, or think we know about you, is incorrect?”“Yes.”“In what way?” Anderson was good, Bucky’d give him that. Leading Steve easily through the questions to get them where they needed to go.“Well, see, this is why I needed this interview to be done by you.”A raised eyebrow.“Why me?”“Well, as a gay man, you probably won’t condemn me when I tell the world that Bucky Barnes and I were about as married as two fellas could be in those days, and had been together for over a decade before he fell. And I hope you won't judge me when I say that, had the three of us been given the choice and the chance, we would have both been married to Peggy Carter in the same kind of way.”What.Bucky felt himself start to panic and ran out of the theater. Visit eight went better.He made it through the interview at least.Steve talked about how the biggest secret to the whole thing was that back then, it wasn’t really a secret.“Not with the people who mattered, anyway. My ma knew. Didn’t much care, seeing as I wasn’t expected to live to twenty-five and she figured that whatever little happiness I could scrape together for myself was my reward for the terrible hand I’d drawn otherwise. I don’t know if Bucky’s parents knew for sure before we left, but his sisters did, and I’m told I’ve been Uncle Steve to their kids and grandkids forever. The Howlies knew, and Howard and Peggy figured it out just about the time I dropped into the heart of enemy territory alone to save one man.” Steve gives a rueful smile here, shaking his head. “Peggy called me out on it when I first started trying to be sweet with her. ‘Won’t Sergeant Barnes have something to say about you stepping out on him?’ she said to me, cool as you please. My jaw could not have dropped farther, I tell ya.”“You mentioned that yourself, Bucky and Peggy Carter were also together?”Steve nods, a beatific smile on his face, and Bucky feels his heart swell in his chest. So those memories are real, too. “That didn’t take as much talking as I expected. I have a type, is what the Howlies said to me later: strong willed, competent, fiery brunettes who keep me in line, and boy if that ain’t the truth. And now that they had each other to commiserate with?” Steve laughed, a real one. “Nah, we fell in together like a dream.”“Why did no one talk about your relationship with Bucky after you both had died? Or the relationship between the three of you? Was it just how it was done, then?”Steve got somber again, eyes haunted. “Anderson, you have to remember a couple of things: if it had gotten out that Peggy was involved in a relationship like the one we all had, she would have been ruined. A woman’s reputation was everything in those days. No one would have focused on her work, on her competence and intelligence and drive. She already had to work twice as hard as everyone around her just to get her foot in the door. Bucky and I may have fallen in love with her and had the very great honor of her loving us back, but the Howlies and Howard respected her and trusted her with their lives, and they would be damned if they would breathe a word that could do her harm.”Steve took a deep breath and drank some more water, eyes sadder than before when he focussed on Anderson again.“The Howlies did what they did for Peggy out of respect, but they did what they did for Bucky out of the kind of love that I learned about in mass. John 15:13: ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ Now, I’m not a practicing Catholic anymore, and the church and I had our quarrels long before I left for war. But if you haven’t lived through the things we lived through, relying on each other for everything and knowing that just as surely as you’d give your life for the man next to you that he would do the same? You may not understand why the Howlies kept their mouths shut even after all this time.”Steve’s eyes are bright and his jaw is set, and Bucky knows that's the face he makes when he’s trying not to cry.“I’ve loved Bucky Barnes damn near my whole life, and while I appreciate that the Howlies kept his memory sacred all these years, kept the bigots and the hateful, cruel people of this world from trying to take away from Bucky’s sacrifice, I know that there are people out there who would have benefited so much more from knowing that one of the greatest heroes America has was just like them. That he loved his family, and his country and his friends. But most importantly, he loved me and I loved him, and there was never any question that we would be together for the rest of our lives.”The lights came up after that, and Bucky sat still and quiet in the little theater, watching as Steve’s image faded from the screen, watched until the lights went back down and the screen lit up again, the grainy newsreel footage starting once more. Bucky watched the interview until he felt the truth of it in his bones, until he knew in the very marrow of him that those out of focus memories, the half-remembered sensations on his skin, all of them were real and true and very much his and he didn’t know what to do with that information so finally he got up to leave and stumbled upon the final display.—After getting most of his personal effects back from the Smithsonian and some forgotten Stark storage facility, courtesy of Tony Stark (and probably some prompting from Peggy), Steve had enough sketches and photos of his loved ones to feel good about what he wanted to do.Steve knew it was the right thing to accompany the interview he was going to give. The exhibit had his compass now, rescued from the Valkyrie and installed while he was still unconscious. The curator had sheepishly asked Steve if he wanted it back when he finally woke up, but Steve declined, saying it was better where it was.Rebecca Proctor, neé Barnes, had donated many pictures to the exhibit when asked, she hadn't donated them all, and the curator told Steve he should ask her if he could look through them.“She got everything after her mother passed. Both you and Sergeant Barnes had Winifred Barnes listed as Next of Kin. Rebecca married a lawyer in ‘44 and they made sure as many of your things as they could get ended up with Mrs. Barnes. We have the letter here, somewhere. She said you'd given enough, both of you. ‘Both of my boys have given everything, and you've got no right to them anymore.’”Steve smiled even as he cried. God bless Winnie Barnes.Steve made a visit to Becca in Brooklyn to look through the photos and trinkets leftover from before. Among them was Mrs. Winnie’s copy of the picture on Steve’s pistol, and it set them both off, seeing Bucky that young and happy.Becca had cried as Steve held her, Steve’s own tears falling onto her snowy white hair, mourning their loss anew until Becca’s children and grandchildren, not one of them who had moved away from Brooklyn, bustled through the front door and surrounded Steve with the family he didn’t know he had.“This is your Uncle Steve,” Becca told everyone. “He was married to my brother.”“Uncle Bucky!” One of the little ones shouted. He was the spitting image of the eight-year-old Bucky Steve had first met. Steve felt himself choke up all over again.If he'd had any doubts about his decision to share the truth about himself and Bucky, the afternoon spent with the Barnes-Proctor clan took them away. Here were more people who'd kept the secret, while still honoring the truth, and they deserved to have that burden lifted.He got a plain little frame for the photograph on his way home, stuffed full of Sunday Chicken that tasted exactly like his childhood, and set it up in his nightstand before he turned in.“G’night, sweetheart,” he said, caressing the youthful curve of Bucky’s smile as he drifted off to sleep.—The final display, Bucky discovered, consists of two glass cases lit brightly from within. Both cylindrical, there was a single item contained in each, seeming to hover in a column of light.On the left was Steve’s compass, lid open to display Peggy’s face. Bucky could remember the exact texture of her hair, the color of her eyes, the taste of her lips. His love for her had been so new, so fresh. It had come on quick, but then, they’d been in the middle of a war— they didn’t have the luxury of a slow courtship. Bucky would always regret that he’d never gotten to take her out, dressed to the nines, and treat her exactly how she deserved to be treated.When he trailed his eyes over to the second case, he felt his breath catch in his throat. Of all the things he’d expected, this was never one of them.Held by an almost invisible stand, cleaned and bright in a way Bucky had never seen in life, Steve’s 1911 pistol gleamed in the light, the sweetheart grip on full display.Before he knew fully what he was doing, Bucky’s crowding the glass, hand reaching out to touch only to bump up against the glass of the display case. There’s a little placard below the pistol, the writing in what Bucky recognized as Steve’s incredibly precise penmanship.
Colt M1911, Plexiglass, and Photograph of James “Bucky” Barnes
“Sweetheart Grip” c. 1943
From the personal collection of Steven G. Rogers
Bucky didn’t know he was crying until he felt the tears hit his outstretched hand.—It was late when Steve made it back to his little carriage house in Red Hook. After everything that happened in D.C., Steve couldn’t stay there. SHIELD was in ruins, both literally and figuratively, and there was nothing left for him among them. He went home to Brooklyn, using some of his back pay to splurge on a house that he could never have dreamed of when he was young. He let his city, changed though it was, welcome him home and surround him with the particular comfort that only the place that forged you could provide.He tossed his keys in the bowl by the door before turning around and almost having a heart attack.There was someone in his house, and the shield was upstairs.He was raising his hands when the person stepped into the light, broad silhouette limned in a faint gold from the streetlights outside.“Stevie,” Bucky said, voice breaking as he smiled a watery smile.“Bucky?”Bucky was across the room and in Steve’s arms before he realized what was going on, but then he was laughing and crying, their tears staining their faces as they kissed in the dim light filtering into the living room.“You’re here,” Steve whispered, at last, pulling away to cradle Bucky’s face in his hands. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”“Steve,” Bucky breathed, voice catching on a shaky breath. “I had to figure out who I was. I had to remember.”“Do you?”Bucky smiled. Not the one Steve remembered, not by a long shot. That Bucky grinned fit to split his whole face in two. This smile was soft and small, barely a smile at all, but Steve’s heart clenched at the sight.“Yeah, Steve. Took me a while, and about thirty trips to the Smithsonian, but I remember. Not everything, mind.” Bucky’s right hand came up and traced the length of Steve’s nose, the proud jut of his cheekbones, the curve of his lips. “But I remember you. I remember us .”Steve kissed Bucky again, and Bucky returned it, and they stood in the living room on the threshold of a new life, holding each other tight.A better version of a sweetheart grip.