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This time - unlike the last time, the last hundred times, any of the last times at all that Bucky can actually remember - when he wakes up from a nightmare, Bucky isn't alone. The weight of Steve's arm rests heavy and solid against his ribcage and the tops of Steve's cold feet are pressed against the backs of Bucky's calves.
They'd tussled, rolled back and forth, trying to find a comfortable way to fit their bodies together, two bulky men in a big bed tugging the comforter from one side to the other because there wasn't quite enough of it to go around. Steve had complained that Bucky was a blanket hog and that he wasn't going to sleep with his ass hanging out from under the covers. Bucky had complained that Steve was a giant horse with sharp elbows and it was a good thing Bucky had a metal arm or it'd be going numb underneath him.
Neither of them had called the other out on their foolish grins. The bedroom was dark enough to pretend to not see - but not all the way dark. Neither of them liked all the way dark anymore.
But now it's 4am and Bucky's always hated 4am. Those sorts of realizations still come to him, just moments where his Swiss cheese brain slips him a little something like passing a note and then acts surprised when it gets caught.
He probably ought to talk to his therapists about how he thinks about his brain as being independent from himself but Bucky also doesn't think they're going to sweat a little anthropomorphizing at this point in his recovery.
Come to think of it, he's not sure anthropomorphizing would even be the right word. Bucky mulls it over and stays where he is, too hot and sticky where Steve's skin touches his. It's not actually very pleasant but Bucky's spent longer in worse conditions, by a long shot. Besides, Steve's still snoring in his ear.
The serum fixed Steve's deviated septum but not his habit of sleeping with his mouth half open, apparently.
But a sleeping Stevie means a Stevie who isn't going to bug Bucky when Bucky just needs half a minute to think about things. Like the nail polish he'd palmed without considering it the last time he'd hung out with Natasha. He definitely couldn't be making a habit of that or she'd actually kill him - or at least try to, and he doesn't want to find out who's better, not after all the work he's put into not being a mindless killer - but this time she'd just given him a little nod and let him slip the glass bottle deep into the pocket of his hoodie.
The nail polish was a shade of blackened emerald that would probably just look black after two coats, at least according to the information he'd found about it online. And the reviews that Tony had sent him links to after the fact.
He really needs to talk to Tony about maybe not monitoring his search history. But it just keeps being useful so Bucky isn't going to make it an urgent to-do just yet. Privacy is still something he has a different idea of than even Steve, he guesses.
It's just a pretty color. Bucky wants to wear it. He shifts around so he can take a look at his flesh hand in the barely there hum of the nightlight. The plug-in unit is a blue canary, and the light from it makes his skin look pale. His nails are clean and trimmed, filed and smooth. The nail polish would look nice.
***
One of the first sense memories that really came back to Bucky was of standing hunched down in front of the little mirror tacked up over the sink in the bathroom their shared with the whole floor in the cold-water flat he shared with Steve. The mirror had been hung low so that everyone could at least get a glimpse of themselves; he had always had to bend his knees and creak forward so he could make sure his hair was just right.
Steve had laughed at Bucky, trying to get an at-home hackjob to lay right, but Bucky had just used a little extra hair treatment. He'd save up, he told Steve, and next time Bucky would go to the barber.
Next time, they'd both known, probably wouldn't come for a while, would see Bucky once again sitting on the edge of a chair in the kitchen while Steve tried to neaten up a trim with their old scissors. But it was easier not to talk about that.
Still, there was enough ritual to primping in front of that mirror that even the remnants of the Winter Soldier knew the feel of it when Steve had shown Bucky to his very own bathroom. Hands empty, Bucky had brushed at his hair with rough fingers and Steve had bitten his lip and promised Bucky whatever he wanted for grooming.
***
They may be sharing a bed from here on out, Bucky thinks, but he's gonna need to keep his own bathroom. Steve's a neat freak, and Bucky's got too many products that he likes to use every day to put them away in any of the little organizers Steve's brought him from IKEA.
Hell of a place, IKEA. Bucky wants to never go there. Though he maybe liked Sweden that one time he was there on a mission. He doesn't have all the details of that, just cured fish and akvavit for days.
All of his products are free of scents but he's got moisturizers for the morning and another set for the evening. He's got cuticle cream and a manicure kit. He's got deodorant for every day and antiperspirant for those damn charity events Tony still makes him dress up for.
Bucky complains, but he does like those suits. The trips to the tailor aren't his favorite by a longshot but it satisfies something old in him to know that his jackets are built from the pattern draft up to accommodate the slightly thicker girth of his metal arm.
Yoga pants are his favorite thing to wear because they're soft and he knows he’s never going to get too far into his own head when he’s wearing them. But a good suit, cut just right - he likes how that makes him look, even when he's not sure he wants people looking at him.
***
He'd had one good blue suit. He'd worn it dancing at least once a week, trotted it out to the nicer clubs with the dames he'd had to work hardest to impress. Even then he knew most of them said yes because the girls in the neighborhood all whispered to each other. Bucky didn't mind that they tended to trust him to be nice.
He'd had one older suit, less good, brown as mud, bought secondhand and extra cheap. He'd unpicked the hem of the trousers to get a little more length in the leg, had carefully mended the wear on the jacket elbows. The girls he'd gone with to shadier dancehalls might have been a little bit fast but they'd still trusted him to be nice and he would have hated to disappoint. He'd gotten sweaty in that suit for a lot of reasons.
Both of those suits had looked as sharp as Bucky could make them.
***
His hands still shake too much to apply the nail polish neatly. Bucky scowls at the way the enamel pools at the edges of his fingernails, unbearably messy.
The color is, at least, as promised, nearly black but not quite.
Natasha is good at keeping secrets but this won't be a secret. It will be on his hands and everyone will see it. He wants it to look nice. Clean.
The nail polish remover stinks, especially in the confines of his bathroom, so Bucky flips the exhaust fan on and takes shallow breaths through his mouth while he soaks a cotton pad and tries to scrub his nails clean of his mess.
***
On Tuessday night, Billy and the other kids - Bucky still thinks of them as kids even though he knows they aren't, not really - are distracted. Lorraine isn't there but Nora and Mikki have already rolled their eyes for a solid twenty minutes.
"If you don't stop fucking around, you're gonna break your neck." Bucky knows he sounds like an asshole, voice too abrupt and harsh but he can't help it. Jessie keeps trying inversions that she's not balanced enough for and if she falls and injures herself in pretty much any way, Bucky will never forgive himself.
Ryan and Billy both flinch back from where they were helping lift Jessie's legs over her head. Jessie catches herself and her face is a study in confused hurt, all tight mouth and drawn-together brows.
Bucky sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. "That came out bad. I'm sorry." He gestures for all of them to join him, sits cross-legged on the mats.
Nora and Mikki sit easily enough, Mikki leaning into Nora's space to bump their shoulders together. But the kids approach more cautiously, Jessie in the lead. Billy puts a little space between all of them when he sits.
"I had some plans for today but they don't seem to be holding your attention. So I'd rather know what's going on; that way we can do what you need." He'd reworked his curriculum to offer his Tuesday night group some more advanced self-defense techniques during this second session but he can move stuff around if he needed to. His students aren't machines.
He’s not a machine, no matter what his nightmares sometimes try to tell him. He’s had a lot of them lately; every time he tries to put on that damn nail polish and gets it everywhere, in fact. There’s something in his head telling him its wrong, but Bucky’s stubborn - he didn’t just learn it by hanging out with Steve - and he’s damned well determined to figure out why this nail polish thing is such a big deal.
It’s Ryan that finally speaks. Jessie has become the most physically confident in class, and Billy can be relied on for the most embarrassing questions, but it’s Ryan who hasn't ever seemed nervous around Bucky and he’s always been glad of that.
“We cut class today. There’s been kind of a lot going on with this one dude who won’t leave Jessie alone so she didn’t want to be there.” Ryan shrugs. “Her mom knows we all stayed over at her place all day but we didn’t want to miss class tonight.”
“And then I was a jerk about you being distracted.” Bucky feels like he’s got gravel in his throat. "I'm sorry for taking my shit out on you. That's never right." Bucky is careful to make eye contact with all of them but especially Jessie. "I'll work on not doing it again. If you catch me at it, let me know."
Billy is the last to nod but even he does, shaking something off like a literal weight from his shoulders. He doesn't move in closer though, and Bucky figures it's going to take a little while to mend that trust.
Jessie mimics Ryan’s shrug. “My mom’s calling the school, they’re supposed to make him stop. I just didn’t feel like dealing with it.” She’s making an effort to be casual about it, her whole body tense with the effort to appear like she doesn’t much care.
Bucky sucks his teeth and considers. “Look, you want to try more advanced yoga stuff, I’ll see if I can get Glenda to agree to a friend of mine coming down to show you how.” He doesn’t think Banner has taken any teacher training but there’s no telling what the man’s qualified for unless Bucky asks. “But in the meantime, what’s gonna make you feel safe enough to go back to school? We’ll focus on that for tonight. It’ll be good for everybody.”
If some shithead kid is giving Jessie a hard time, Bucky especially needs to stay away from the school. The others are still ribbing him about what happened at the clinic with Lucy - not that he has any regrets.
Jessie slouches just a little. “It’s mostly that, um.” She looks at the others, side eyes Nora and Mikki, and then looks at her lap. It’s a strangely defeated posture and it looks wrong on her wiry frame. “It’s mostly that he keeps trying to follow me into the bathroom.”
It’s easy, sometimes, to think like the Soldier. High schools are seething masses of humanity. Teenagers pay more attention than adults give them credit for but he’s pretty sure he could infiltrate Jessie’s school without too much trouble.
Bucky blinks back the preliminary plans that his brain wants to form.
“So. Um. Two choices: evading a threat before they corner you or self-defense in a small space like a bathroom. Jessie gets to pick.”
Jessie looks up, and Bucky can tell he’s got her full attention finally.
“Why can’t we learn both?” Ryan has that same old defiant edge to their voice, like they’d had when Bucky had mentioned their earrings.
“Oh, you’re going to. We just got to start with one tonight.” Bucky is going to have to rearrange the curriculum again but maybe he can get Banner to come to all the classes, actually, give each group a little time.
“I’d rather not get stuck in the bathroom with anyone in the first place, I guess.” It’s grudging at best.
Billy frowns. “Blake’s such a jerk. I don’t know why you don’t want to kick the shit out of him.”
Jessie’s eye roll is, Bucky thinks, best described as epic. If the rec center taught eye rolling classes, Jessie would be the one to teach them.
“Just going to interject - the best fight is the one you don’t have to have.” Bucky had tried that argument on Stevie back in the day and it hadn’t worked. He doesn’t expect it to work now either but he’s going to put it out there. “You win by staying alive, right?”
Mikki surprises them all with a bitter chuckle. “That’s one way to put it.”
***
Back in the Brooklyn he remembers, Bucky had won and Clive Jackson had lost. Back in the war, Bucky had won some against the Nazis and then figured he was about to lose before Steve showed up and changed the whole game.
The Winter Soldier had won and won and won.
Bucky’s done enough work with his therapists to remind himself that he wasn’t playing that part of the game, not really, not as Bucky. That’s HYDRA’s scorecard, not his.
It doesn’t help a whole lot when he has a nightmare but it’s something, a tiny ledge he can cling to with cramping fingers. And if there’s anything Bucky’s good at, it’s holding on past what other people think he ought to be able to endure.
***
Glenda approves Bucky’s request to bring in a guest as long as the guest understands they aren’t getting paid and has some kind of yoga teacher accreditation. Banner, much to Bucky’s surprise, blushes and nods when when asked if he’s ever had any teacher training.
Turns out Banner can’t sit still real well, no matter where he’s living, and he hadn’t felt good about trying to lead yoga classes for the Avengers without the proper paperwork behind it. Bucky raises an eyebrow but lets it go. He’s spent way too much time on YouTube looking up cute cat videos and dance tutorials; he’s not going to judge Banner for how he spends his spare time, especially when it works in Bucky’s favor.
***
“So, I promised I’d bring a friend to show you some more advanced stretching stuff. This is him. Um. Banner. Mr. Banner? I should have asked what you want them to call you.” Bucky stands beside Banner in front of his Tuesday night class and fidgets. It’s worse than introducing himself; he’s got that speech pretty well rehearsed at this point.
Banner’s probably just as nervous. He’s been cleaning his glasses on the hem of his shirt for the last five minutes while they waited for everyone to show up. He finally perches them on his nose and eyes the class. “Bruce, just Bruce should be fine. And Bucky says everyone gives pronouns as well, so I’m he and him.”
Bucky can’t help but puff up a little bit as he introduces his students. “So, uh, this is Nora and Mikki, they’re both she and her, and this is Jessie, she’s she and her also. She’s the one trying to stand on her damn fool head.” He manages a grin for her and she smiles back, reminds him of Steve all over again. “This is Ryan, they and them, and Billy, he and him.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.” Banner is quiet and still, gentle like Bucky’s students are wild animals. He’d used that tone with Bucky a lot in the beginning. Bucky had been annoyed by it even as it had calmed him. It’s got a similar effect now.
Bucky snorts. “We’ve got a warm-up we usually go through. So maybe we can all go through that and you can figure out where to go from there?” It’s what he and Banner had agreed on when they planned this visit.
Banner gestures for them to go ahead. “That sounds great. And, everyone, please, if you don’t mind me touching you to adjust your position, put a shoe at the upper right corner of your mat. Otherwise I’ll assume you’d rather not be touched.”
Bucky’s students all trade looks but they fall to it. Mikki and Billy both tuck their shoes carefully away.
***
There were other clubs Bucky had gone to without a date. Clubs in Harlem where he’d fallen in love with real jazz. He’d kept going back, even after the riot in ’35, putting on his good blue suit and making sure his hair was combed back.
Harlem had been educational for a Jewish boy from Brooklyn. There had been the music but also the literature. The poetry. The politics. He’d rushed home after the Italians invaded Ethiopia and surprised the hell out of Steve with a rant about the League of Nations.
And then there were the clubs in the Village. He wore his brown suit to those, owed more favors to Mackey Thompson for telling him about them in the first place. They were safer than the baths, especially shady joints like the Post Penn. The clubs were run by the mob, and the drinks were shit, but the music was decent and they were hardly ever raided. The Howdy Club had put on a hell of a floor show.
Bucky danced with all-comers at the fairy clubs, until his hair treatment lost its hold and he had to take a smoke break just to catch his breath.
He never accepted any of the invitations he got there. He had Steve at home. There was no reason to risk that; he’d never wanted to.
***
Clint slugs back their coffee, nudges Bucky with a foot under the table. “Aw, Grumpycat, no.” They sign one-handed, which Bucky is supposed to be practicing.
Bucky glares but he can’t really work up too much ire. “He’s great at it. Got Jessie upside down exactly like she wanted to be.” His hot chocolate needs more whipped cream but not enough for him to get back up and ask for it at the counter.
“So what’s the problem?” They pitch their empty cup and do a little fist pump when it goes straight into the trash can. Clint will take their victories where they can get them.
Tony hadn’t mentioned the nail polish in person, despite that email full of links. Tasha hadn’t brought it up either, though she’d raised an eyebrow the last time he’d visited her apartment. The nightmares and the memories are still churning, and Bucky can’t unpack one from the other.
He should mention it to his therapists. He should call them and set up a special appointment. Instead he’s drinking coffee with Clint.
“Have you ever worn, you know, stuff for girls?” It comes out gruff, which has been an issue ever since Bucky started thinking his way through all of this. He isn’t angry about it but he can’t seem to stop himself from sounding like it. Steve is tiptoeing around Bucky carefully in their apartment.
Clint’s body language is easy to read when you’ve spent any time with them. Bucky has no idea how they were ever a covert operative, the way they broadcast their reactions. Clint hunches over a bit, cautious and guarded. “Why do you want to know?”
Bucky shrugs, leans forward. “I don’t mean anything bad by it. I just was thinking about nail polish? And I’m shit at applying it.” Bucky grimaces. “And I can’t figure out why my head is all twisted up around about it.”
The nail polish isn’t hidden away. The bottle is sitting in the basket on the back of the commode tank, where he keeps all of the rubber bands and whatnot for his hair. Bucky’s not ashamed of it, not really. He just doesn’t know what to do with it. How to be with it.
Clint exhales long and slow, body easing. “You kind of sprang that on me.” Their fingers are a little slow, thoughtful in their movements. “That conversation hasn’t gone real good for me before, you know?”
He should have thought of that. Clint’s got scars, Bucky’s seen them, and they aren’t all from running with a team of superheroes. And Coulson, he’s protective, that can’t be for no reason. Bucky berates himself - he should have set this up better, instead of springing the conversation on Clint.
“You’re doing that thing where you blame yourself for everything, aren’t you? You should stop that.” Clint kicks Bucky’s leg again. “My shit isn’t your fault.”
It’s tempting to kick them back. But that sort of thing always escalates with Clint and Bucky doesn’t want to have to explain to Steve how the two of them can’t go to this coffee shop anymore. Bucky traps their ankle between his calves instead, smirks when Clint tries to pull their leg back.
“To answer your totally friendly and not at all traumatic question, because I know you don’t have any intention of trying to beat the queer out of me, yes.” Clint squirms again and then lets their ankle rest in the Bucky’s grip of Bucky's legs. “I have, on occasion, indulged in a little something pretty.”
Bucky can’t control his flinch, the way he looks to make sure no one else can hear them.
Maybe he’s more ashamed of that nail polish than he realized. No, not ashamed.
Afraid.
"Does it feel good?" Bucky knows he sounds hoarse and small with fear he can't identify the source of.
Clint is the most casually physical of all the Avengers, the most likely to touch a teammate without making an elaborate production of it. Having Clint's trust and friendship means a quick touch on his flesh arm to catch Bucky's attention, a bump of shoulders as they walk together in camaraderie, a tug at the end of his braid to tease Bucky for letting Tasha at his hair while they all watch a movie in silent companionship.
So it isn't a surprise when Clint slips their ankle free and leans forward across the table to grip both of Bucky's wrists. "It feels good if it's something you want. You just have to figure out what you want." They let go and lean back. "Sometimes, for me, that's dressing up or makeup. For you, maybe it's doing your nails. You just have to try it."
"What if I do it wrong?" Bucky feels a little like he's locked into his chair and the feeling isn't helping his heart rate. What if he does it wrong? He doesn't think there will really be consequences, not like there were for failing on missions. This isn't a mission.
Clint shrugs. "Then you stop doing it because you don't like it or you try it again or try something else. Just figure out what works for you."
***
"Hey, Buck?" Steve sticks his head out from the kitchen. "How was coffee with Clint?"
His tone is far too innocent, Bucky thinks. “Fine?” He doesn’t mean to make it sound like a question but he’s not sure what answer Steve’s expecting. “We didn’t get kicked out or anything.”
Steve’s expression makes it clear he’ll be asking more about that later but for now he shakes his head. “Go sit on the couch, okay?” He flashes Bucky the same kind of grin that has gotten Bucky in trouble across decades and continents.
There’s not any doubt that he’s going to go sit on the sofa anyway so Bucky doesn’t bother to argue. He curls up where the cushions are showing a little wear from the way he always nestles himself back into the corner. He listens to the way Steve is clanking around in the kitchen. It’s probably something food related, he thinks. Ice cream has been their thing and Bucky’s definitely not complaining about sharing any of that, not now that they’ve worked themselves out a little bit.
It’s still a little bit of a surprise when Steve comes out carrying a tray.
There’s room on the tray for some kind of weird looking cake, a couple of small candles that Steve has lit, and a little vase with a sad looking flower in it.
“Did I forget my birthday?” Bucky doesn’t think he has. That sort of thing is saved in his phone to prevent embarrassing moments like this one. “Or, um, do we have an anniversary or something?”
Steve puts the tray down on the coffee table and fusses with the flower until it stands up a little bit more. Then he straightens the candles again. “No, nothing like that. I was just saw this and thought we should try it. You know, it seemed fun. And it’s apparently a traditional thing.”
The cake is slightly melty, probably because of the candles. And it’s in the shape of a whale.
Bucky blinks down at it. “It’s a cake. Made out of ice cream?” One thing at a time; he’d deal with the whale part of it later. Maybe. Maybe this would just be one of the future things that he just let be.
One of the candles gutters and goes out. Steve frowns at it like it has personally disappointed Captain America. Bucky has no idea how that candle can live with itself.
“Ice cream cake. It just seemed fun.” Steve hands him a fork. “And, well. I think it’s cute. And you’ve been really kind of unsettled lately.”
There it is. Steve takes after his mother, takes after Bucky’s mother for that matter. The first step to comforting someone is making sure they’ve got a tasty something in their belly. Bucky’s been a dick lately. So Steve’s gonna feed him up.
Bucky reaches with his fork and then hesitates.
“You don’t think it’s a little creepy to eat it? I mean, it’s got a face. It’s real happy looking.” Maybe he can start at the tail but that seems kind of gruesome, too.
Steve shrugs and digs right into the face. “It’s called Fudgie the Whale. It’s chocolate and vanilla.”
It’s a pretty strong argument, Bucky figures. He shifts so he can bump his shoulder against Steve’s. But he still starts eating at the tail end. It’s not the fancy gourmet stuff Steve’s been so focused on bringing home but there’s something comforting about the indulgence of it, the textures and richness. Bucky relaxes a little bit more with every bite.
His mother would approve, he thinks.
The cake is half gone before Steve nudges at Bucky’s knee. “So, you want to talk about what’s got you all turned around?”
Steve looks like he’s concentrating on his fork way more than the dessert warrants and Bucky can feel how tense he is, pressed up next to him. Bucky’s got a lot more practice at talking about his feelings than Steve does so he appreciates the effort.
Doesn’t mean he has any idea how to put what he’s trying to untie right now into words.
“You probably noticed I’m having some trouble sleeping lately.” That’s probably at least part of why he’s being an asshole all the time. His routine is still pretty important.
Steve nods and hunches over the cake a little bit. “I, uh, wasn’t sure if it was because we were sharing the same bed now.”
Bucky winces. He should have seen this coming. Of course Stevie’s worried that it’s his fault. “No, doll, that’s a good thing. I, uh. I like waking up with you.” He’d blushed like anything when he’d admitted that to his therapist but at least it had given him some practice so he can say it to Stevie now. “Makes me feel safer.”
One thing Bucky has always loved, he knows he’s always loved it, is the way Steve’s skin can’t hide a flush to save his life. The rush of pink takes over Steve’s ears and works all down his neck and Bucky bites the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t smile at the quick color of it.
“I’ve just been trying to paint my nails. And it’s making my head do some bad things.” He thinks he’s been too hard on himself about that. “But I’m, you know, working my way through it. Or trying to. Clint helped.”
The conversation is still replaying in the back of Bucky’s head.
“That’s really good.” Steve finally puts his fork down. He’s got a crumb of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe I could help, too. If you wanted me to.”
Steve always wants to help and that’s one reason Bucky tries not to bring Steve his problems. He doesn’t want Steve to have to worry. But he thinks about all of those brushes Steve carries around with him to his art classes. And he thinks about the way Steve watched Bucky brush off his suits at the end of a long night dancing, the way he was so patient when Bucky went to hang his clothes up.
And Bucky thinks maybe Steve will understand.
“Actually, do you think you could paint my nails for me?” He puts his own fork down, the remnants of the cake more a soggy puddle than anything else.
It probably sounds like a non sequitur. But Steve just blinks at it. “Sure. I can do that. Do you mean right now?”
That actually sounds perfect. Before Bucky loses his nerve. “I’ll be right back.” He pushes up from the couch, scrambles to retrieve the bottle that’s been causing him so much damn trouble. He turns back before he can leave the bathroom and grabs his nail polish remover and the bag of cotton balls as well. Just in case. He doesn’t have to like it. Clint gave him that permission, not to like it.
Bucky thrusts all of his supplies into Steve’s surprised hands.
***
No one back in the neighborhood would have ever called Bucky a pansy to his face. Or to Steve’s face. Even the toughs who liked to provoke alley fights by hinting that Steve bent over for Bucky weren’t willing to cross that line and suffer the consequences. Bucky might take care with his appearance but he was still from Brooklyn. That still deserved some respect.
His mother had made him a small collection of ties to go with each of his suits.
***
Steve’s got a deft hand with a small brush and the nail polish goes on cleanly. He considers Bucky’s metal hand, with the indentations that demarcate where he would have fingernails. Steve’s jaw goes stubborn and he shifts Bucky’s metal hand so that it’s flat on the table between them.
***
In the sunlight, when Bucky can bring himself to leave the apartment, the nail polish gleams dark green, like a thick layer of algae on the underside of a submerged log. Bucky thinks it probably isn’t supposed to be a pretty color but he loves it, loves the secrecy of it, the way it changes its nature if the light is just right.
In the blue canary nightlight glow, after he’s woken up in the middle of the night, the color makes his hands match each other. It relaxes something in him, the same something that likes those suits tailored for his arm. Both sides of him fit.
And he’s still not alone when he wakes up from a nightmare. This is Bucky’s new normal, he guesses, Steve’s cold feet and that god-awful snoring right behind his ear where Steve insists they share a pillow like Bucky’s going to disappear in the night if Steve can’t smell him.
It adds up to him being quiet on the walk to the rec center with Banner, thoughtful where he’d usually feel at least a little obligated to make more small talk. Banner hasn’t ever seemed to mind when Bucky doesn’t have much to say, though.
His students pick up on the mood. Jessie acts like Banner’s a gift Bucky brought just for her. And while there’s some truth to that, Bucky would rather she made him work for forgiveness a little harder. Billy is still wary but of all of them, he seems to have noticed the nail polish. Kid has good situational awareness. Bucky approves of him keeping an eye on the details.
“Remember, if somebody tries to hurt you, that’s their decision and it isn’t your fault.” It’s habit to end class with the reminder now but Bucky thinks it’s always going to be a good thing to repeat. He still needs to say it just as much as he thinks they need to hear it. It’s always going to be true and fuckers are always going to try to test it.
Jessie pulls Banner away to ask a question and Bucky only realizes he’s been ambushed and out manuevered by teenagers when he looks up to find Ryan has everyone else consulting on their new haircut. Billy stands in front of him. Bucky mourns his own failure to pay attention to his surroundings and raises an eyebrow but doesn’t move, content to wait for Billy to speak.
Billy tugs on his blue bangs, straightens them and then messes them back up. “So, um, I noticed you were wearing nail polish?”
Bucky has been waiting for someone, anyone to mention it. He wound himself up so badly just getting to the point where he could ask Steve to paint it on for him that the lack of consequences has seemed a little anti-climatic. Not that Bucky’s going to complain about that.
His therapists said he was waiting for his fears to be confirmed and validated by negative reinforcement. Bucky couldn’t argue with that. He’d been braced for them to tell him he was doing something wrong and that he was going to be punished for it.
Instead, his therapists had told him pretty much the same thing that Clint had: there wasn’t a wrong way to experiment with the things he wore, the things he liked. Bucky thought he might owe Clint the same exorbitant fee that his therapists earned. He’d work it out in coffee or something though.
In some ways, Billy is the best choice if this is a reconnaissance mission. He’s the one most likely to hit Bucky with questions he isn’t expecting, to demand honesty with a steady gaze even if it’s something Bucky would never have discussed in public in the Brooklyn he remembers. Bucky’s gotten used to answering his questions by now. So his hand only shakes a little as he lifts it to let Billy better see. “Yeah. I like the color.”
Bucky breathes like Banner taught him, keeps himself from bolting. Billy is his student. Bucky doesn’t have to be scared.
“It’s nice. Have you worn nail polish before?” Billy is casual. “Or are you experimenting?”
Bucky snorts at the tone. “Is this going to turn into another question about my sex life?”
Billy shrugs, tugs at his bangs again. “You haven’t worn it to class before, we’d have noticed. So I figured I’d ask. Because you’re pretty cool? But we can’t figure out if you’re like us so I decided to ask.”
“Like…the three of you?” Bucky wants to laugh but there’s no way he’s going to insult Billy’s earnestness like that. Especially since he doubts the kid would stick around for Bucky to explain that he’s laughing at himself. He hasn’t felt this confused since the last time he’d hallucinated while coming off the benzos Hydra had him hooked on.
“Yeah.” Billy’s posture is straight the way Steve’s always is before a fight, chin forward like he’s ready to make himself a target if it’ll protect someone else. “Queer. Like us.”
Bucky can’t help his flinch at the word, something hooked deep in the back of his brain where his oldest memories sit screaming that it isn’t safe, that he can’t let anyone get away with calling him that.
Whatever’s happening with his face, Bucky doubts it’s good. He’s a little numb all over. “That’s what me painting my nails makes you think?”
Billy rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, the same preparation for running out of a bad situation that Bucky taught the class a few weeks ago. “No? Not entirely. A little? I mean, I just wondered? We have nail art parties as part of the Queer Student Alliance.”
And here, Bucky thinks with a sharply hysterical edge, is what he’s been afraid of after all. Apparently they really do have some kind of club and he might actually be a member of it.
He and Steve had worked hard to stay safe. And it had cost them; Bucky can look back over those memories and compare the past to what he hopes he and Steve will have now and see the difference. He can see how much easier it is now. But his mother’s voice is in his ear, warning him to be careful.
“That something people just ask each other now? If they’re queer?” Bucky can’t hold eye contact. He knows he’s acting shifty but he feels shifty, feels like something is crawling across his shoulders. Feels like Clive Jackson and his boys are going to try to kill him in a back alley after making him beg.
“Not really.” Billy rolls his eyes. “I mean, I guess people have a right to privacy and stuff. Mostly I wanted to ask because we need another adult to work with the club.”
If he’d known wearing the nail polish was going to lead to this, Bucky thinks he’d have left it on Tasha’s bathroom counter.
He knows that’s a lie as soon as he thinks it. But it’s a comforting one; it preserves the illusion that he has some control over his life. Because of course now that one of his students has asked him for this, his fear can’t be allowed to speak for him.
Bucky takes a couple of deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. “So, I told all of you to let me know if you ever need help so I’m real glad you brought it up. I just haven’t ever talked about this stuff before.”
“Oh, shit, are you in the closet?” Billy’s eyes get wide. “We wouldn’t out you. Sorry, you don’t even have to answer me.”
“Kid, calm down. I haven’t talked about it before but that doesn’t mean I can’t. Probably.” As long as he can keep his breathing regular, Bucky thinks, he can talk about it. “I got someone you’d probably call my boyfriend. We’ve never put a label on it.”
That’s a realization he probably should have saved for therapy. Or at least for when he was at home on the sofa, under Steve’s arm while they watched some cartoon or something.
“Um, if he won’t say you’re his boyfriend, you should probably dump him and find someone who isn’t ashamed of your relationship. You deserve better.” Billy has that ready-to-fight-about-it stance again and it’s all too much.
Bucky coughs to hide how much he wants to laugh at that, the idea that there’s anyone who could be better for him than Steve. “It’s not like that, but I appreciate you looking out for me. Just, whatever you need, let me know about the club thing. I’ll do it.”
There’s still suspicion in the narrowing of Billy’s eyes but he drops it, just nods. “If you’ve got an email address you can share, I can send the information over.”
If that’s what it takes to finish the conversation so he can go back to the apartment and hide then that’s what Bucky is willing to do. Billy would have scared the shit out of half of Hydra just based on Bucky’s willingness to do what the kid asks, and Bucky is going to laugh about that later, he’s pretty sure.
***
There’s no easy way to suffocate himself on the couch; Bucky’s been trying for two hours by the time Steve gets home from class. He listens while Steve putters in the kitchen, soothed by the routine of it.
Then he grunts when Steve’s full weight settles on his ass. “Punk, get off.”
Steve chokes on whatever he’s shoving in his mouth, probably that strawberry sassafras he thinks he’s been hiding in the back of the freezer. Bucky uses the moment to twist his upper body and squirm around so that he can shift Steve off of him and onto the floor with a thud.
When he looks, Steve is blushing, pink from his ears all down his neck, more delicate than the ice cream that he’s managed not to spill out of his bowl. Bucky rewinds what he said and can feel his own face heat up a little bit.
“That’s not what I meant.” He’d go back to smothering his face with a cushion but Steve would probably just sit on him again. “Are we boyfriends?”
Steve chokes again.
“Steve. Steve. Stevie. Come on.” Bucky does hide in a pillow this time. He wants the answer to be yes and he wants to not be worried what other people will think if he calls Steve his boyfriend. He wants this nail polish thing to have been simple instead of some kind of trigger for a whole identity crisis.
The clink of Steve’s bowl and spoon being set down on the coffee table is plenty of warning that Steve is going to touch him. So Bucky doesn’t startle at the feel of Steve’s broad palm on Bucky’s stomach. It’s warm and heavy, firm enough to settle him without making him feel trapped. He peeks over at Steve from under his cushion.
Bucky’s always been a sucker for Steve’s smile, the honest grin reflecting genuine happiness and not that teeth-gritted USO-show smile that Steve had perfected. That smile still shows up when there’s media around, practiced and professional. Bucky hates that smile. But this one - he can admit that he’s always been willing to work to earn this one.
“I kind of like saying partner but boyfriend is nice, too.” Steve is just as pink, and his eyes have crinkled up at the corners. He looks like he’s particularly pleased with himself.
With that as motivation, Bucky finds it’s easy to lean across and put his lips almost on Steve’s lips. He likes to almost kiss nearly as much as he likes actually kissing, all that anticipation and the intimacy of being so close.
“Jerk.” Steve’s voice is very soft, the kind of fond that he’d only shared with Bucky when they were drunk and alone, curled up together for warmth once upon a time.
It wasn’t a fairy tale, Bucky thinks. But parts of it have started to feel that way.
He reaches out to cup Steve’s cheek with his flesh and blood hand, watches the light catch on his nail polish. It looks good, he thinks. It looks good and he likes to look good and he’s allowed to do that. He’s allowed to sleep safe with Steve, not alone in the middle of his nightmares when he has them.
“Yeah, yeah. Share your ice cream and I’ll tell you what happened in class tonight.” Bucky’s just as quiet, just as shy about it. But boyfriend. He likes the sound of that.