Chapter Text
Rogers could hear the downpour outside, the din of the heavy rain pounding on his bedroom window. Though it would usually soothe him to sleep, and was quite comforting, Steve couldn’t help but stare unblinkingly up at the ceiling of his bedroom.
Then he heard the sound of the window in the living room slide open and the quiet sound of a booted foot hit the floorboards. Listening closely, a touch of a smile crossed his face. He knew exactly who was lurking in his apartment by the sound of his weight across the hardwood. Steve slipped out of his bed and padded out into the hall, switching on a light once he reached the common area.
"I gave you a key for a reason, Buck," he said matter-of-factly, crossing his arms and pinning the dripping-wet brunet with a pointed look.
Bucky was soaked to the bone, hair plastered to his mildly-guilty face and clothes clinging to his frame like a second skin. He seemed to have already shucked a jacket that laid in a soggy lump by the window he snuck in through, and stood there before Steve in his water-heavy jeans, and a transparent white t-shirt. The blond couldn’t help his wandering gaze as it traveled down Bucky’s chest, and he very nearly blushed at the way his eyes lingered on the brunet’s peaked nipples. Licking his lips quickly, Steve’s gaze flickered upwards, steadfastedly ignoring the rivulets of rainwater that snaked their way down the metal of his friend’s left arm.
Bucky of course, had a twinge of smugness to his face and lifted his hand—the real one—to his hair to shake some of the water out of the drenched mop. “Do you actually mind?”
"Well you did track mud through my living room, which you wouldn’t have if you used the front door," Steve said, stepping close to the other man, a smile beginning to split his face at the steadily returning affection between them, as few and far between these moments could be.
The man was doing better in the months since Steve found him after the events in DC, his memories coming back to him slowly and gradually, though each batch that did return had Bucky disappearing for days at a time while he processed new information. He had most of them back from what Steve could tell, though there were a few things that hadn’t been mentioned yet, though he wasn’t sure if Bucky even would. Their past…intimacies were just that, in the past and from a somewhat simpler time before they almost had to kill each other.
There was a moment of sheepishness that passed over Bucky’s face before he shrugged, and Steve’s eyes were drawn to the flex of his friend’s shoulders through his transparent shirt, and of course his attention drifted further southward to Bucky’s abdomen where the wet material rode up and stuck above the waistband of his denims. The heaviness of them dragged the garment low on his hips and exposed far too much of his body to be accidental.
"It’ll clean up pretty easily, don’t worry about it," Steve muttered distractedly before dragging his attention back up to Bucky’s face. By now the shaggy ex-assassin was smirking lightly, his eyes a bit guarded, but otherwise he was amused. Somewhat awkwardly, Steve cleared his throat and stepped aside so that Bucky could go down the hall to his own room. "Well, I’ll leave you to getting changed into something dry then."
Bucky closed the space between them, his features focused as he kept their eyes locked until they were barely an inch apart. “You could help me with that if you wanted,” he said softly, but still firmly. His words were testing something, an invitation and a confession all in one.
"Do you…?" Steve trailed off before he could finish the question, swallowing thickly when Bucky lifted a damp, cold, flesh hand to rest on his shoulder before sliding upward so that his palm cupped the side of his neck. The metal hand came to rest lightly on the blond’s hip before he was dragged forward against a drenched, frigid body and an impossibly hot mouth was pressed against his. There wasn’t even a moment to register what happened before Bucky was pulling back, face somewhat unsure.
"So, want to help me get into something drier?" the brunet asked, confirming that he remembered at least some of what they once had together, and that he might even want to try to get some of that back.
"My bed is pretty dry," Steve finally answered, and Bucky actually smiled.