Strange Turns
Title: Strange Turns
Fandom: Captain America
Link: On AO3
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Other tags: Established relationship, Bittersweet
Summary: In Wakanda, after everything, Steve and Bucky share breakfast and talk. For a prompt meme prompt: Stucky; things you said at the kitchen table.
*
It’s a far cry from the tiny little apartment they used to share back in Brooklyn, the narrow set of rooms with a window that overlooked a garbage alley and a bathroom shared with half a dozen other families, the rusted iron tang to the water and the stink of cat piss and boiled cabbage that never quite went away. Steve never really figured on looking back on that place fondly, but his life has taken a lot of strange turns in the meantime, not all of them good. And nostalgia has a way of lending a pleasant sheen to even the worst memories, which that fifth-floor walk-up definitely isn’t.
It wasn’t exactly great, either, but things were simpler then.
“I can hear you thinking,” Bucky remarks, moving through the dim coolness of his little hut, two bowls cupped deftly in his one hand. They look like porcelain, or something close to it, colorfully and cheerfully painted, but there are glittering geometric threads of what is probably vibranium woven seamlessly through the pattern. Bucky deposits one of them on the table in front of Steve and takes the other to the far side of the kitchen, where the open window overlooks rolling yellow fields and distant mountains. There’s nothing at all familiar about the vista, but it’s beautiful all the same.
Steve takes the cup, spins it on the polished tabletop. The contents are steaming, some kind of fragrant tea, but the outside is perfectly cool. More of that strange Wakandan technology that seems to be woven seamlessly into their daily lives. He can’t decide if it’s fascinating or unsettling, or maybe both.
Bucky would have loved that, once upon a time. Back when they were kids, he was always keen on that kind of science fiction stuff. Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and all of those guys. Those days were a lifetime ago, though, and not just in years. He loves Bucky-that’s as much a part of him as his own skin and bones. More, in some ways. But he doesn’t really know him, not anymore. He doesn’t know what to say to this quiet, thoughtful shadow of a man who wears bright cloth wrapped around his body where his missing arm ought to be and doesn’t seem to mind its loss, who speaks rarely and smiles even less, who is beautiful and beloved and still sometimes seems like a total stranger.
He spins it again, then looks up to see Bucky smiling at him, just a slight curl of his mouth. “What?”
“Nothing,” Bucky says, and it’s soft and fond. “You haven’t changed a bit, that’s all.”
And that’s a lie, if a kind one, but Steve doesn’t say so. Bucky’s smile broadens like he can read that, broadens until he looks properly like the boy he hasn’t been in more than seventy years, and then he sets the cup down on the windowsill, crosses the room with slow deliberation, and leans down to kiss Steve on the lips.
It’s soft and slow, almost painfully careful, and it makes a sparking, fizzy kind of giddiness well up in Steve just like it did the very first time they did this, a lifetime ago. Bucky strokes a thumb over his cheekbone when he pulls back, and Steve lets out a shuddering breath and opens his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed shutting them.
Bucky’s face is still very close to him, something unspeakably tender in his expression. His voice is soft when he says, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Steve murmurs, and swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat that might be tears or joy or some strange combination of both. “I just. I really missed you, that’s all.”
Fandom: Captain America
Link: On AO3
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Other tags: Established relationship, Bittersweet
Summary: In Wakanda, after everything, Steve and Bucky share breakfast and talk. For a prompt meme prompt: Stucky; things you said at the kitchen table.
*
It’s a far cry from the tiny little apartment they used to share back in Brooklyn, the narrow set of rooms with a window that overlooked a garbage alley and a bathroom shared with half a dozen other families, the rusted iron tang to the water and the stink of cat piss and boiled cabbage that never quite went away. Steve never really figured on looking back on that place fondly, but his life has taken a lot of strange turns in the meantime, not all of them good. And nostalgia has a way of lending a pleasant sheen to even the worst memories, which that fifth-floor walk-up definitely isn’t.
It wasn’t exactly great, either, but things were simpler then.
“I can hear you thinking,” Bucky remarks, moving through the dim coolness of his little hut, two bowls cupped deftly in his one hand. They look like porcelain, or something close to it, colorfully and cheerfully painted, but there are glittering geometric threads of what is probably vibranium woven seamlessly through the pattern. Bucky deposits one of them on the table in front of Steve and takes the other to the far side of the kitchen, where the open window overlooks rolling yellow fields and distant mountains. There’s nothing at all familiar about the vista, but it’s beautiful all the same.
Steve takes the cup, spins it on the polished tabletop. The contents are steaming, some kind of fragrant tea, but the outside is perfectly cool. More of that strange Wakandan technology that seems to be woven seamlessly into their daily lives. He can’t decide if it’s fascinating or unsettling, or maybe both.
Bucky would have loved that, once upon a time. Back when they were kids, he was always keen on that kind of science fiction stuff. Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and all of those guys. Those days were a lifetime ago, though, and not just in years. He loves Bucky-that’s as much a part of him as his own skin and bones. More, in some ways. But he doesn’t really know him, not anymore. He doesn’t know what to say to this quiet, thoughtful shadow of a man who wears bright cloth wrapped around his body where his missing arm ought to be and doesn’t seem to mind its loss, who speaks rarely and smiles even less, who is beautiful and beloved and still sometimes seems like a total stranger.
He spins it again, then looks up to see Bucky smiling at him, just a slight curl of his mouth. “What?”
“Nothing,” Bucky says, and it’s soft and fond. “You haven’t changed a bit, that’s all.”
And that’s a lie, if a kind one, but Steve doesn’t say so. Bucky’s smile broadens like he can read that, broadens until he looks properly like the boy he hasn’t been in more than seventy years, and then he sets the cup down on the windowsill, crosses the room with slow deliberation, and leans down to kiss Steve on the lips.
It’s soft and slow, almost painfully careful, and it makes a sparking, fizzy kind of giddiness well up in Steve just like it did the very first time they did this, a lifetime ago. Bucky strokes a thumb over his cheekbone when he pulls back, and Steve lets out a shuddering breath and opens his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed shutting them.
Bucky’s face is still very close to him, something unspeakably tender in his expression. His voice is soft when he says, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Steve murmurs, and swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat that might be tears or joy or some strange combination of both. “I just. I really missed you, that’s all.”