#maybe if i was actually dying id be less ashamed. like. at least then people would get it

[catboyfurina]

The problem with Crohn's is that it makes me into a huge flake but I can't actually explain to people Why I am being flaky because !!! It's TMI!!!!!!!!

[sapphiclecterarchive]

the 1:30 train - fic

Fandom: MCU Pairing: Steve/Bucky Desc.: Before We Go AU. In which Steve is a trumpet player avoiding his ex, and Bucky is stuck in Manhattan for the night. Warnings: Mention of domestic violence (no graphic descriptions, just a brief mention) Words: 11k A/N: I posted this fic on my AO3 last year, before my account was deleted for no reason. I thought all my fics were gone for good until yesterday, when I found that they’d all just been orphaned! Anyway,  I thought I’d re-edit this and post it again here. Enjoy :)

There was a man playing the trumpet in Grand Central Terminal. He had been there for a few days, filling the hours between opening and closing with music. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people had passed by him in this time; some would drop money into his open case, others would pass without acknowledgment, others would give him a smile and a “sorry, no change”. Over the course of these days, he saw engagements and break ups and first kisses, he experienced anniversaries and provided the soundtrack to reunions, and those things alone were enough to make up for those who didn’t give him the time of day.

As the station began to quieten, the regular flow of people dwindling down to late-night commuters and cleaning staff, the trumpet player reclined against the wall. His legs had started protesting against standing all day almost two hours ago. Sitting, even on the hard floor of the station, was a relief.

His phone rang, and he placed his trumpet next to him on the floor to answer it.

“Steve’s phone."

“Man, you know you don’t have to say that every time?”

Steve chuckled at his best friend, “What’s up, Sam?”

“I just wanted to know if you were coming downtown. Where are you?”

By the sounds of it, he was still downtown; Steve could hear the muffled sound of music and talking on his end. It had just passed 1:30 in the morning, so he really wasn’t surprised the party was still in full swing. It was a Tony Stark party, after all.

“I’m still at Grand Central.” Steve rolled his head back against the wall, averting the gaze of the cleaner who’d been staring at him for a while. “Is she there?”

There was silence for a few moments. “She’s here. I’m sorry, man. You should still come down, though.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, I don’t know...”

“Okay,” Sam said, resigned. “I’ll text you the address anyway, you should come.”

Sam had just hung up when a number of things happened all at once.

A dark haired man came reeling through the station like a whirlwind, flying past Steve in his expensive shoes and catching himself on the trumpet case still lying on the floor. The money inside of it scattered across the marble, and the guy just about managed to stay on his feet as he sprinted towards one of the terminals and disappeared from view.

Steve didn’t have a chance to be angry about the case, as he quickly noticed something the guy had left behind.

A black iPhone was lying face-down on the floor a few feet away from Steve. He reached forward to pick it up and inspect it. It had shattered pretty badly, and when he pressed the power button the screen gave one, pathetic flicker of light before dying.

The guy came back around the corner a minute or so later, and Steve watched –while packing away his trumpet and pocketing the money – as he approached a worker, who looked like she was on her way home.

“Can I use this ticket for another train?” He desperately showed his ticket to her. “I missed it and I really have to get home.”

The woman shook her head. “No more trains tonight, love, anywhere. We have a cab rank outside.”

She was about ready to move on, but he stepped in her way, “I can’t get a cab, I have to get home and I don’t have enough to get a cab back to Boston. Please, my wallet –”

Before he could say anything else, and without acknowledging him further, she walked away.

He huffed, his shoe squeaking on the floor as he kicked it petulantly and turned to leave.

“Hey!” Steve yelled to catch the guy’s attention.

He didn’t look exactly happy to be talking to Steve, and probably thought he was going to ask for money. Most people assumed that, so he didn’t mind.

Steve held out the phone, “I thought you might want this back.”

The guy glanced at Steve’s face, then at the phone, and then back at his face again, as if he didn't believe that he was real, and then he took the phone and slid it into his pocket. He seemed like he wanted to smile but couldn’t bring himself to, only achieving a slight twitch of one side of his mouth.

“Thanks, I wouldn’t have got very far without that.”

Steve smiled, “Don’t worry about it.”

The guy just nodded, and then did another twitch-smile before turning and heading out of the station.

By the time he'd packed away his stuff completely, Steve felt a bit like he'd overstayed his welcome. He smiled at the worker, anyway, before leaving. It was never particularly warm in New York at this time of year, but tonight seemed especially biting, so he did up the buttons on his coat to avoid the cold.

There was an agitated sigh from his right, and Steve turned to see the dark-haired man slam his phone against the wall of the station, as if breaking it more would somehow fix it.

“Can I ask why you’re standing outside?” Steve asked, like he hadn’t heard the entire conversation with the worker.

“They closed the station.”

He gave no further explanation, so Steve continued, “You plannin’ on standing out here all night?”

The man glared at him. “My wallet was stolen. All I have is a useless thirty dollar train ticket, a broken phone, a lighter and exactly two dollars fifty in cash.” Steve frowned, and held up his hand. “Don’t. I’ll figure something out, I don’t need your pity.”

His breath was visible in the air. There was no possible way Steve could leave this guy alone in Manhattan with so little money and nowhere to sleep.

“Look,” Steve said. “I’ve got about eighty bucks. Take it, buy yourself a room somewhere for the night so that you’re not sleeping on the street.”

He held out the cash, and the guy shook his head.

“I told you, I don’t need charity.” He turned away and sighed hard. “God, I need a cigarette.”

“At least let me help you with that.” He had to do something to help this guy; he wouldn’t sleep if he didn’t. He pulled a ten dollar bill out from his wallet and held it between them, “Please.”

It took a moment of staring at each other before the guy snatched the bill out of his hand.

“Fine. But this is only because I’m a filthy addict on the verge of a panic attack and not because I want your help, right?”

He was using the note to point at Steve, who couldn’t help but laugh. “Right.”

Steve decided that it was probably best if he leave him alone and just get into a cab, now. As much as he wanted to help, he didn’t want to bother him any more than he already had. “Good luck.”

The guy’s tone was sharp, “Thanks.”

Steve had just started to walk towards the cab rank when the guy called out for him.

“Changed your mind?” Steve said as the man came rushing back up to him. His hand was shoved into the pocket of his pea coat to keep it warm.

“No. I - uh - I just realised that I don’t actually know where to buy anything here.”

This guy was still firmly standing his ground. It didn’t seem like he was going to let up anytime soon, although it was progressively becoming more and more obvious how much he needed Steve’s help. Of course, he wouldn’t admit that, but Steve didn’t think he would have, if their roles were reversed.

However stubborn he was, he let Steve take him to the nearest convenience store where he could pick up a pack of Marlboro Red – and reluctantly took the extra four dollars needed, because apparently cigarettes were just that expensive in Manhattan. He did seem to relax a little after silently making his way through one. As he lit his second, he side-eyed Steve.

“Why are you still here?” he asked.

“You don’t seem to have many other options right now.”

The guy chuckled, smoke rolling from his mouth as he did so, “You’re right. I don’t know anyone here, and I don’t have a cell phone or an ID or a wallet or a credit card anymore. I’m gonna need a little more than company, no offence.”

He cringed almost immediately after saying that. “I’m sorry, I just really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Wanna go find your wallet?” The guy raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you never know how these guys work. Sometimes they take the cash and dump the bag, push comes to shove you can live off mints for a few days.”

The man didn’t laugh at his joke, but did reluctantly say; “I don’t have much else going for me. It’s worth a shot.”

“That’s the spirit,” Steve said, as the guy crushed his cigarette out on the wall behind him. “I’m Steve, by the way.”

The guy froze for a second, as if he’d forgotten his own name.

“Buchanan.”

The air around them felt less tense as they walked down the street, towards where Buchanan – as Steve now knew him – remembered last seeing his wallet.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Buchanan said.

Steve mirrored his tone, “You don’t need to keep rejecting my help."

They’d stopped outside the bar, now, and the cold was beginning to creep back to Steve’s skin. He just really hoped that it wouldn’t get cold enough that he’d have to get his inhaler out, because as much as he didn’t think his asthma was anything to be ashamed of, it would definitely just give Buchanan more reason to decline his help.

“Look,” Buchanan sighed. “I’m sure my husband would really appreciate you helping me, but I can look after myself. Being disabled doesn’t mean I can’t handle this on my own.”

Steve stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“The husband thing,” Steve replied. “I’m not trying to get you in my bed or anything. I’m not like that.”

“Not gay?” Buchanan snapped.

“Not an asshole,” Steve corrected, softer.

Buchanan sighed deeply and ran his hand over his face, “I’m sorry, I’m a dick. You just – you’re just being so nice to me! Why can’t you just try to fuck me so that I can have a reason to hate you?”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Steve said, slightly humoured. “I just don’t want you lost in Manhattan. Not because you’ve got one hand, or whatever; Manhattan’s confusing even if you know the place, so getting lost isn’t great for a first trip. Now, do you want to find your wallet or not?”

The bar was sort of the opposite of what Steve was expecting. It was dimly lit and sold craft beer. Considering how he looked, Steve hadn’t expected Buchanan to be a hipster.

The bartender was a fairly tall guy, with a thick ginger beard and round glasses that perfectly reflected the general vibe of the bar.

“Is there anything distinctive about the wallet?” he asked once Buchanan had told him what they were looking for.

Buchanan did an absolutely horrendous job at describing the wallet. Steve, however, could only fixate on the fact that he’d said it was authentic Louis Vuitton, and he started to wonder exactly how much money had been inside it. If he owned a Louis Vuitton wallet, he’d probably be worried about it, too.

The bartender’s expression didn’t change, “I’m gonna need more than that. Was there any ID in the wallet? A driver’s license or credit card?”

“My driver’s license was in there!” Buchanan suddenly exclaimed.

The bartender seemed happy with that, “Name?”

Buchanan glanced at Steve, and then sighed before looking back at the bartender, “James Barnes.”

Steve probably should have expected that.

The bartender wandered off into the back room, and Steve leaned his forearm on the bar, “Nice to meet you, James.”

James sighed, “You can’t blame me. I’m in the middle of Manhattan; it’s late; you’re a stranger. I panicked, okay?”

“Right,” Steve chuckled to himself.

Buchanan, fucking hell.

“Besides, it wasn’t really a lie. Buchanan’s my middle name.”

Steve found this whole situation highly amusing, “Oh, really?”

“Yes, really!” he said. “James Buchanan Barnes. Most people call me Bucky; ‘s less formal.”

“James Buchanan,” Steve repeated. “Like, President James Buchanan? 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan?”

Bucky shot him a cold look, and Steve held up his hands, “Hey, don’t worry, my birthday’s the fourth of July.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

The bartender chose that moment to come out of the back room. He told them that he hadn’t had any luck, although he didn’t seem too apologetic about it. Steve thanked him anyway before they headed back out of the bar. Bucky seemed vaguely grumpy about the whole situation. He tried to be nice about it, anyway, because he figured he’d been enough of a dick to Steve so far.

“Thanks for this, seriously, and sorry about the name thing,” he said as they stopped just outside the door.

“It’s fine; I can’t think of anything better I could be doing,” Steve replied.

They were walking again, but neither of them really had any idea where they were going. Or, at least, Bucky didn’t think either of them knew. For all he knew, Steve could be preparing to murder him and dump his body in a back alley somewhere, and at the moment he was going willingly.

He really needed to stop being so negative.

He studied Steve for a moment. “Are you... sure? I mean, anything would be better than walking aimlessly around Manhattan with a broke, one-armed guy who has to borrow your money to buy cigarettes.”

Steve shrugged. “I dunno. I was in town with my friend Sam for a thing which I didn’t go to, then I fly back to DC tomorrow. I was gonna go back to Brooklyn for a few days, but I didn’t think there was much to see.”

“You’re from Brooklyn, too?”

Bucky didn’t seem to know how to continue that string of the conversation when Steve nodded, so it died.

Steve managed to pick it back up by asking, “What about you? There must be something better you could be doing.”

There was a moment of pensive silence where Bucky seemed to think hard about that, and eventually he settled on an answer.

“Not really. I’m an art critic, I was just here to buy a piece.”

“Oh?” Steve said, interest piqued. Art was one thing he could talk about. “What was it?”

Bucky brushed him off. “You wouldn’t know it.”

“Try me, I went to the California Institute.”

Bucky stared at him blankly, and Steve nearly rolled his eyes. More lies, wow.

“You have no idea what that is, do you?”

After a few more seconds of indignant staring, Bucky groaned, “Fine, so I’m not an art critic. But I’m not lying about the husband thing; I have a husband.”

“Right,” Steve looked very pointedly at Bucky’s bare hand. He was definitely missing something vital which signified marriage, but Steve decided not to bring it up. “So, what are you? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“A dancer.” That did surprise Steve a little. “Hey, don’t look so surprised. I was a principal performer at the American Ballet before...” He didn’t finish that thought. “I run my own classes back in Boston, now, for kids and teenagers, y’know. Occasionally do shows if someone asks, but I’m past my prime.”

Steve shouldn’t have been so quick to judge; the thought of Bucky teaching kids how to dance was pretty sweet.

“So, if you’re not buying art, what brought you to Manhattan?”

That apparently triggered something in Bucky that made him freeze where he stood. It took Steve a few seconds to realise, so he had to walk back a few steps so that they were beside each other again.

“Can I borrow your phone?”

“Not gonna steal it from me, are you?” Steve teased, but he was already reaching into his back pocket.

He handed the phone over, already unlocked, and Bucky wasted no time in dialling a number and turning away from Steve. For the sake of being polite, Steve took a few steps back so that he was a little more out of earshot. He couldn’t help but overhear, though, the street was so quiet it would be impossible for him not to hear what Bucky was saying.

“Hey, baby,” is what Bucky opened the conversation with.

Steve immediately guessed he was talking to his husband. And if he wasn’t, well, that was a situation Steve didn’t think he was qualified to address. He couldn’t hear the person on the other end of the call, but Bucky’s side of the conversation was pretty interesting.

“No, no, everything’s fine. I just wanted to tell you that I love you, ‘s all.”

There was some more talking from the other end that Steve couldn’t hear, and Bucky suddenly stiffened.

“What?” he all but choked. “You – you’re... No, that’s great, I’m happy! But, don’t you want to rest before you come home? I’m sure you’ve been working hard...”

More talking, and Bucky sighed deeply.

“Brock, don’t... Nothing’s going on, I just... Okay, of course. I’ll see you in the morning. Love you, too.”

He hung up, then, and handed the phone promptly back to Steve.

“Everything okay?”

“It’s over.” Bucky’s voice cracked on the last word. “It’s fucking over.”

Before Steve could say anything else, Bucky had started to cry. He’d pinched the bridge of his nose and his face was all screwed up, so it was difficult to see, but he was definitely crying.

Steve tried to make his voice as soft as possible, but he really had no idea what to do with a crying person, “Hey, hey, it’s alright. Come on.”

He led them to a step which was low down and less than comfortable, but it allowed Bucky a moment to sit down and collect himself. Steve just sat beside him, at a loss.

Once Bucky had calmed down a bit, Steve deemed it safe to continue, “What’s over?”

“My marriage.” Bucky said. “I had to be home before him.”

It didn’t exactly take Steve an age to fit the pieces together. Bucky was in Manhattan late at night; he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; he had to be home before his husband... it finally made sense.

He must have made some sort of noise of revelation, because Bucky was looking at him with a confused stare. His eyelashes were still wet and clumped together, which softened the look a little.

“What was that supposed to mean?”

“Sorry,” Steve said. “I just... it makes sense now.”

Bucky’s stare and voice hardened, “Are you accusing me of having an affair?”

Steve probably should have denied that.

“I’m just calling it like I see it,” was what he decided to say instead. Because he was a big, stupid idiot.

“Asshole.”

Bucky pushed himself up from the step and started to walk away.

Steve didn’t really know what he was doing when he followed him, “Wait, Bucky, that’s not what I meant.”

Bucky turned sharply on his heel, “What did you mean, then?”

Steve couldn’t come up with a good answer to that. So, Bucky just shook his head and turned to carry on walking.

“Bucky!” Steve called after him.

He tried to follow him, but Bucky walked fast as hell and Steve was lumbered with a heavy trumpet case.

“Thanks for your help, but it’s over. Just go back to whatever you were doing before I ruined your night!” Bucky called over his shoulder.

He moved his hand to flip the middle finger at Steve, but as he raised it, Steve grabbed his wrist. It wasn’t a hard grip, and Bucky definitely could have shaken him off. But he didn’t. He just whipped around fast as anything and stared down at his wrist, and then up at Steve’s face.

“You didn’t ruin my night, okay? I was having a shitty night, and I was hiding out in Grand Central to avoid...” Steve stopped there, collected himself for a moment, and then said, “You didn’t ruin my night.”

Once Bucky didn’t look so much like he was going to run away, Steve let go of his wrist. Bucky left his hand there, elevated as if Steve was still holding it, for a moment before he dropped it back to his side.

“If it means anything, you didn’t ruin mine, either,” Bucky said. “But I’d like to be back in Boston before the sun comes up.”

“I think I can help you with that. I have a friend who might be able to help.”

Bucky’s eyes widened, “Are you fucking serious?”

His tone made Steve a little wary, one hand came up in front of him despite himself. “Are you gonna hit me?”

Bucky scoffed, “Of course I’m not gonna fucking hit you, Steve. This is awesome. Who’s your friend?”

“He’s at that thing I’m avoiding,” Steve said, and Bucky made a little hissing sound. “Yeah, I know. But, anything to be the hero of this story.”

“You’re a dick,” Bucky said, but it was somewhat fond.

They ended up on a bus to the other side of Manhattan, which Steve paid for with more of his eighty busking dollars that he was sure would be spent by the end of the night. He also called Sam, asked him to ask Tony for four-hundred and sixty dollars (because apparently that’s how much a cab to Boston would be, holy shit) and to text him where the party was.

Bucky wasted no time in getting comfortable – he took off his jacket and balled it up behind his head so that he could lean against the window, facing Steve with one knee pulled up to his chest, foot planted firmly on the seat and slightly tucked underneath Steve’s right thigh, the other on the ground.

“How long have you been playing trumpet for?” Bucky asked.

That was an odd question, but since they were getting to know each other...

“My whole life,” Steve replied. “It was harder when I was a kid, I was a scrawny little thing and deathly asthmatic, so for a couple years I just couldn’t get the breathing right, and my ma kept trying to convince me to give it up because I was having an attack every other day, but I wouldn’t because I was a stubborn little shit.”

Bucky laughed at that and he felt a little accomplished.

He continued, “My lungs got stronger as I grew up, and although I wasn’t gonna be playing Major League baseball anytime soon, I could get through a song without having to take a break. It’s always felt like the only thing I could do well. I couldn’t play football, but being head of the band suited me just fine.”

Bucky was staring at him, looking a little in awe, “Wow, Stevie. And to think I took you for a quarterback type.”

He couldn’t tell if Bucky was sincere or not, but it seemed like he was. Steve didn’t know how he felt about the nickname.

“Your turn,” Steve said. “I’m sure your story is far more interesting than mine.”

“My turn,” Bucky mouthed, and then thought for a moment before speaking. “I’m not that interesting. ‘m a normal kid from Brooklyn, with a twin sister and a husband who’s the head of security for an important politician.”

“That’s a pretty interesting job,” Steve said, and Bucky shrugged it off. “How’d you two meet?”

Bucky smiled slightly, “It was about six years ago, a year or so after my accident. I was feeling pretty lost, y’know, I was twenty-two and I finally had everything I dreamed of. My whole life had been devoted to dance, I felt like everything I ever did was leading up to that moment. And then, the second I get my dream and become a principal dancer, it’s over in the blink of an eye.”

He swallowed and looked down at his lap for a second, picking at the knee of his jeans until it didn’t feel like he was going to cry anymore. Crying in front of a stranger once was bad enough, but twice in one night? Fuck, Barnes, pull yourself together.

“Anyway, I was feeling lost and I didn’t want to be in America anymore because I felt like everything here was attached to bad memories, so I up and moved to London."

“Big step,” Steve said.

Bucky chuckled, “Yeah. Like I said, bad memories. Anyway, so I’m in London and I really hadn’t planned up to that point. I had an apartment and enough money off the back of ballet to live off of for a year, but I didn’t know where anything was, what to do with myself, how to make friends. Then, I met Brock and everything just... I dunno, clicked into place.” He looked up at Steve, “Is that cheesy?”

“A little,” Steve admitted.

“It wasn’t even him,” Bucky said, and he seemed sad. Not like he was going to cry again, but a different kind of sad. Worse, somehow. “It felt like we were in the same boat, y’know? Both of us were Americans in London who really didn’t know what we were doing, and it just felt right. I came back to America a couple months after he did. We found a place in Boston, because I wanted to be close to my ma but I didn’t want to be in Brooklyn, and, well, the rest is history.”

He was picking at the knee of his jeans again.

“Does it not feel right anymore?” Steve asked, probably prying too much.

Bucky’s expression closed, and then he furrowed his eyebrows and then sighed, “I don’t really know what right is. I don’t think I ever have. I just... you know when you meet someone, and you know they’re gonna play a major part in your life? You don’t even know if it’s good or bad, you just know they’re gonna be there?”

A number of people flashed through Steve’s mind and he really tried not to tack Bucky’s face onto the end of that list. He couldn’t help it, though, this coincidental meeting was something right out of a movie. It was too perfect to not mean something, right?

“But, it doesn’t matter anyway. We’re running out of time. If this thing with your friend doesn’t work out, I’m fucked,” Bucky sighed, leaning his head back against the window in a way that couldn’t have been at all comfortable.

Steve wasn’t going to let him give up that easily, “I’m sure there’s still something we can do.”

“We’ve done everything we can, Stevie.” There was that nickname again. “Apart from build a fucking time machine.”

That gave Steve an idea. “Well, maybe we can.”

Bucky looked at him like he was insane, because it definitely sounded it.

“Now would be a really good time to tell me if you’re delusional,” he said warily.

“Shut up.” Steve reached into his back pocket for his phone, and pretended to dial a number, then held it out to Bucky. “It’s you, from the past.”

The dark-haired man didn’t look impressed, but he went with it anyway. He grabbed the phone and, a little dubious, held it to his ear.

“Bucky? It’s you, from the future...” he said, slightly uncertain, and then looked up at Steve. “He doesn’t believe me.”

Steve raised his eyebrows as if it was oh-so-obvious. “Of course he doesn’t. You’ve gotta tell him something secret, something only you would know.”

Bucky met his eyes for a moment, wondering if Steve was serious about this stupid game, and then brought the phone back to his ear.

“Remember when dad was in the hospital? And you and Becca decided it would be really funny if you took off your shoes and slid over the polished floor of the ward,” he paused as if someone was answering. “Right, yeah. And you miscalculated how fast you were going, and ended up slamming into a trolley of medical equipment and had to get five stitches in your knee? See, I know that scar isn’t from rock climbing like you told everyone it was.”

Steve was laughing hard at that, and Bucky smiled, mouthing, “He believes me now.”

“Of course he does,” Steve mouthed back.

“Okay, listen to me now,” Bucky said into the phone. “Tomorrow, you’re gonna go to Manhattan. Whatever you do, don’t talk to any strangers in Grand Central.”

“Ouch,” Steve whispered.

Bucky shushed him. “In fact, skip New York altogether. Think about it first, decide against it, stay home, rent Mean Girls – because you are definitely that gay, even if you pretend not to be – get some takeout from that Thai place Brock doesn't like, and go to bed. Just relax, because everything will be fine in the morning.”

Steve didn’t know if Bucky thought that them meeting was a good thing or a bad thing, but he didn’t want to ask.

“Feel better?”

Bucky exhaled softly and handed the phone back, “Not really. I mean, I’m still fucked.”

“It may sound crazy,” Steve said, and Bucky made a face. “But why don’t you just call your husband and tell him you’re in Manhattan?”

Bucky scoffed, “Yeah, right. I hope you like domestic battery.”

That struck a chord in Steve that he hadn’t even known was there. “He hits you?”

Bucky was suddenly much more alert, having realised what he’d said.

“No! it’s not like that, that’s not why I...” he huffed. “He gets angry sometimes but that’s it, he’d never...” he pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Fucking hell, Steve. It was just a joke, okay? Drop it. God.”

“Consider it dropped,” Steve knew it would still play on his mind. “Why do you have to beat him home, though? I don’t get it.”

“There’s something I’ve gotta do,” Bucky said.

“Right, okay…” Steve said, just so that he could have an extra moment to think. “Well, can somebody else do it?”

Bucky straightened up at that, and his sudden springing to life made Steve smile a little. “Stevie, you’re a genius. Give me your phone.”

Steve handed it back over without question. Bucky dialled in a number and spent a few moments tapping his foot and anxiously waiting for the line to be picked up.

Once it rang through, Bucky was talking almost immediately, “Nat? It’s Bucky.”

Despite being considerably closer this time, Steve still couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end of the line. Bucky seemed to relax upon hearing the voice of whoever it was, though, so Steve was content to only hear one side.

“I need a huge favour, like, a ‘you’re definitely going to hate me afterwards because I woke you up at 2AM’ kind of favour.”

There was some talking from the other person, and then Bucky spoke again.

“Right, so I want you to go to the apartment and climb up the fire escape. Y’know the one I climbed out... yeah.”

Steve really didn’t want to think about what kind of situation meant that Bucky had to climb out of a fire escape, so he tried not to.

“Alright, there’s a key taped underneath the right windowsill. I need you to grab it and go in through the back door, on the bed there’s a letter addressed to Brock and I need you to take it and save it for when I get back. And, look, I know you’re a nosey bitch but promise me you won’t read it?”

Steve could vaguely make out laughing on the other end, and then Bucky relaxed again.

“You’re the best, Nat. I love you.”

‘Nat’ said something in response, and handed the phone back. Steve didn’t ask, but the relieved look on Bucky’s face did wonders at lightening the mood.

They found the building Sam had sent him the address for without much strife, which was quite surprising considering their track record. Steve couldn’t help the anxiety welling up in his chest when he pressed the button for the elevator and watched the numbers slowly decline.

“Is it really that bad?” Bucky asked.

That knocked Steve out of his trance.

“What?”

Bucky glanced at the elevator, “Whatever’s waiting for you up there. Is it that bad?”

“It’s nothing,” Steve said, flippantly, turning back to the elevator and watching as the numbers crawled down. “It’s an ex...” he eventually admitted. “...Ex-something.”

“Does this ex-something have a name?”

God, this was the slowest elevator Steve had ever seen.                           

“Peggy,” Steve said. “I... uh... it’s been a while, since I saw her.”

Bucky nodded, he seemed to understand, but was still staring at Steve inquisitively, “Was it a bad breakup?”

“I’m not sure there’s another kind.”

The elevator finally opened then, and it took about as long going up as it had coming down, and when they finally stepped out onto the floor, Steve felt his heart drop to his feet. There were maybe ten or fifteen people there, and all of them were far too old to be at the party that Steve had been told was happening.  

“This isn’t the right place,” Steve groaned, patting Bucky’s shoulder to direct him back to the elevator.

So, there they were, back to walking the streets of Manhattan with nowhere to go and nothing to do and no money to do anything with.

“Your friend wasn’t there,” Bucky said.

Steve laughed humorlessly, “No. Sam gave me the wrong address, but it’s not his fault; his dyslexia is really bad when he’s been drinking.”

“Right,” Bucky said. “Well, are you gonna call him, get the right address?”

Steve kicked at a can on the sidewalk, “I don’t think it matters, I’m not gonna bother. Y’know, I hear Central Park’s really safe this time of night.”

Bucky stopped in his tracks, and Steve was a little scared he was going to start crying again. He didn’t, though, he just stared at Steve with a slightly shocked expression.

"Christ, it really is bad."

Steve fought the urge to roll his eyes, because he was sure if he did it again they’d roll right out of his head and down the street. “Maybe it is, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not going.”

He turned defiantly and started walking again.

“I think you should,” Bucky called.

“And why is that?” Steve asked, turning around. “What’s in it for me? Well, other than facing my ex and her new, much smarter, more talented and attractive, boyfriend."

“Well, I’d be on your arm, wouldn’t I?” Bucky said. “You might not swing that way, Stevie, but you can’t deny that I’m excellent arm-candy.”

As if to prove his point, he slid his arm through the crook in Steve’s elbow. He snuggled up into Steve’s side, and Steve would be lying if he said the warmth wasn’t comforting. “You helped me, let me help you.”

Steve took a deep breath. “Fine, I’ll be your fake boyfriend.”

Bucky made a point of melodramatically celebrating that, making Steve laugh.

“And, for the record,” he said. “I swing both ways. So, this isn’t that unexpected.”

Bucky stared at him with an unreadable expression for a moment, and then said, “Damn, I wanted to be the guy who turned you gay. Now, that would have been an excellent story.”

“I preferred moping Bucky,” Steve said, and Bucky bumped their hips together.

The place the party was actually in was much nicer than the hotel Steve had been sent to. It was a small bar with warm lighting, which was full of chatter and laughter when they opened the door. To Steve, it felt like entering a lion’s den, but it was a little easier with Bucky a warm, comforting, solid presence on his arm.

“Is this the right place?” Bucky said, as the door swung shut behind them.

Steve surveyed the party for anyone he recognised. He actually didn’t know that many people who were going to be there. Besides his childhood friends from Brooklyn, most of his friends were back in DC, not New York.

“Steve!” came a loud, drawn-out yell from somebody, which got closer and closer as his friend approached. He wrapped Steve in a bone-crushing hug, and Steve politely pushed him off.

“This is Sam?” Bucky eyed the guy up and down.

The man was pretty short, and the glaze over his eyes showed just how drunk he was.

“No, this is Tony. Tony, this is Bucky.” Steve lowered his voice a little to talk to Bucky. “It’s actually Tony’s engagement they’re celebrating tonight.”

Bucky made a quiet, “Oh,” sound, and Tony held out his hand for Bucky to shake. When Bucky just blinked at it, Tony realised he was holding out the wrong hand, laughed, dropped it and didn’t try again. He spoke to Steve, instead.

“I tried to get you the whole four hundred and sixty, but I only had two hundred on me and Sam had one and I wasn’t gonna go to an ATM, so we got, like, fifty dollars from Quill but that was all we could get because apparently I don’t have enough rich friends. So, you’ve got... what, three hundred and fifty?”

Bucky interjected, “It’s alright, we sorted it out. I don’t need the money anymore.”

Tony looked genuinely crestfallen for a moment, “But... I sold a kidney to get this.”

He was so sincere that there was a split second when Bucky was actually worried that this guy had sold a kidney. Steve just stared, unimpressed, at Tony, because he knew where this was going.

“I mean, it wasn’t my kidney. But what am I gonna tell the hooker when she wakes up?”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. Tony clapped Bucky on the shoulder, “Don’t look so scared, Buckaroo, I’m joking. She’s not gonna wake up!”

Thankfully, Sam stepped into the conversation at that exact moment, so Bucky didn’t have to reply to him. Sam was tall, dark and extremely attractive. Before he got married, Sam would have been the exact type of guy Bucky would go for.

“Steve, man, I’m so glad you could make it!” he pulled Steve into a hug that was definitely more comfortable than Tony’s had been.

“Hey, man,” Steve said, just as Tony noticed somebody else and wandered off to talk to them.

Sam clapped him on the shoulder, “Were you at Grand Central all day? I haven’t seen you since this morning.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. Bucky cleared his throat from beside him, catching the attention of both men, and Steve realised what he wanted when he looked at him, “Oh, yeah. Sam, this is Bucky. Buck, this is Sam.”

The nickname slipped out without Steve thinking about it, and Bucky stared at him for an extra second but didn’t say anything, instead he shook Sam’s hand and they slipped into an easy dialogue. Steve, zoning out on the conversation, caught sight of someone over Sam’s shoulder.

It was as if everything slowed to a halt when he saw Peggy, and the familiar curl of dark hair and the curve of her jaw made his heart seize. She turned and caught his eye. He quickly looked away back to Sam and Bucky, who were now talking about Sam’s VA work back in DC. Bucky seemed genuinely interested by it, which was a first for people listening to Sam’s work stories.

Steve didn’t even notice Peggy was coming over until he was all-encompassed by her smell and a light hand was on his elbow.

“Steve?”

He turned like he hadn’t noticed her yet, “Peggy!”

She pulled him into a hug, and Sam shared a look with Bucky before disappearing back into the crowd of people.

They stepped back from each other, and Steve remembered who was stood beside him. He gestured between Bucky and the woman, “Peggy Carter, James Barnes.”

“Steve, come on.” Bucky admonished gently, the back of his hand softly brushing Steve’s chest. Peggy followed the movement with careful eyes. “Call me Bucky, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Lovely to meet you, too, James,” Peggy said. She appeared to almost forget that Bucky was there after that, speaking to Steve again. “Sam told me that your flight got in late, I’ve been meaning to catch you all week so that we could chat, but I just keep missing you.”

Steve couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone, “Yeah, you do.”

It seemed like Peggy didn’t really know how to respond to that. She rolled her red-painted lips for a moment, tucked her hair behind her ear, shuffled her feet, until she decided that speaking to Bucky was probably the easiest route.

“So, do you know Pepper and Tony? I know they’ve been taking people on for the internship programme...” she asked.

Bucky laughed politely. He was charming as hell, no doubt about it. Even Peggy seemed impressed. “No, no, I wish I was young enough to still be an intern. I’m just here with Stevie tonight.”

The nickname warmed Steve’s chest a little, and Bucky slipped his hand around the crook of Steve’s elbow again, leaning in a bit. It was almost admirable how good he was at this.

“Oh,” Peggy looked between them. Steve could practically see her brain fitting the pieces together. “Right, so, you’re from DC?”

“No, Brooklyn. Me and Stevie met when we were kids, we ran into each other again when I was in DC for work, reconnected...”

He seemed a little lost, so Steve finished for him, “And the rest is history.”

There was a small smile on Peggy’s face, now. Steve felt bad. He felt really, really bad.

“And the rest is history,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Could I get you both a drink?”

Bucky looked like he was going to agree, but Steve interrupted before he could, “No. Thanks. We – uh – we actually have a thing... Bucky wanted to meet the gang, so that’s why we stopped by...”

“Have you been telling people about me, Rogers?” Peggy laughed.

“Always,” Steve said. "Well, we have to go. I'll see you around?"

“Bye, Steve,” she said, just as they left.

They found a bench to sit on a block away. Steve had seemed determined to carry on and get as far away as possible, but Bucky practically forced him to sit down. He stayed stood up, though, looking down at Steve and the self-pity that was coming off him in waves.

“Why did we have to run out of there?” Bucky asked.

Steve was bent almost completely forward, elbows resting on his knees and head in his hands so that Bucky couldn’t see his face. His voice was muffled. “I’m not running.”

“Really? Because, what you did back there definitely looked like running,” Bucky said. “Take it from me; I’m practically the poster boy for running from my problems.”

Steve didn’t reply, so Bucky kicked the toe of his shoe. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make Steve look at him. There was some silent confrontation between them that Bucky didn’t think either of them understood, and then Steve shook his head and chuckled breathily.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. You’d think after not seeing her for six years, rehearsing that moment in my head, I’d have had something more interesting to say,” Steve buried his face in his hands again.

“Hey,” Bucky said, softly, just as Steve had done earlier. He sat on Steve’s left side so that he could place his hand on Steve’s knee comfortingly. “I’m sure she felt the same.”

Steve murmured something that vaguely sounded like “I don’t think so,” and Bucky sighed, his breath visible in the cold air. He dropped his hand from Steve’s knee and ran his tongue over his dry bottom lip.

“Six years... How’d you meet?” he asked.

“The army, if you’d believe it.” Steve said, and Bucky whistled. “Yeah. I... uh, I enlisted a couple months after my mom died. She would never have approved me enlisting but, well, it was always just me and her, so when she died I didn’t have anything. Before me, she was an army nurse, and my dad died in Libya a couple months before I was born. A part of me always wanted to be like them, no matter how much my mom insisted that she would never let me enlist. I guess it was uh... a way to honour her, or something. Feel close to her and my dad when they were both gone,” he swallowed thickly and hoped Bucky didn’t notice.

Bucky had been listening intently, “I’m so sorry.”

Steve huffed out a breath, “Don’t be. That’s not the point, um... So, we were sent to the camp after our training, and I remember being all lined up in a row for briefing by Peggy – who was this officer, or agent or something. She was far more successful than any of us would ever be and she was only, what, twenty-two?”

“That’s amazing,” Bucky said, just so Steve knew he was still listening.

“She is,” Steve agreed. He cleared his throat, “I think a lot of the guys felt quite intimidated by her... So, we’re all lined up and one of the guys starts acting up. He’s, y’know, trying to flirt with her and grab at her and she’s not having it. Instead of calling over a superior officer like she should have done, she asks him to step forward – deadpan as anything – and punches him right in the face. Sends him to the ground, too. None of us tried to mess with her after that.”

Bucky laughed, “Oh, my god. That’s incredible.”

Steve had a fond, reminiscent smile on his face, “I know. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I think that was the moment I fell in love with her.”

He seemed to have perked up a little, telling that story, but Bucky was a little bit confused.

“I have one question...” he said. Steve glanced at him expectantly, “How did you get into the army if you have asthma?”

Steve chuckled like he’d been expecting that question, “Another reason I joined the army after my mom died is because nobody would be able to prove that I lied on the enlistment form.”

“You lied...” Bucky said, in disbelief. “I can’t believe you. Is that why you don’t serve anymore?”

Steve shook his head, “No, uh, I was discharged two years in after an evac mission went wrong. I... well, I was abducted and tortured and then sent home.”

He said it so casually, like it was every day you got kidnapped and tortured, and Bucky couldn’t help his eyebrows raising in shock. “Fuck...”

“It was fine, though. I met Sam at one of his VA meetings, he pushed me to pursue art, go to college – I’d spent the years after high school looking after my mom, so I’d never had the chance – and I started playing the trumpet again. It helped... uh... with the tremors.”

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking very minutely, and Bucky felt extremely ignorant, because all this time he’d thought that was because of the cold. The view he’d had of Steve had completely changed, now, he hadn’t thought this guy had that much to him. But there was so much lying under the surface that Bucky was happy he’d heard. He wanted to hear more but wasn’t sure if Steve wanted to tell him.

“So, what happened with Peggy?” he eventually asked.

“She stayed on for two years after I was discharged,” Steve said. “We stayed together, video called a lot, and one day she tells me that she’s got big news that she wants to tell me when she gets home – she tried to come home as much as she could, a day or two here and there. For months, I’d been planning on proposing to her on her next visit.”

“Oh, no...” Bucky couldn’t help from saying.

Steve looked like he wanted to laugh but didn’t, “So I wait for her at the airport, and I’d been thinking about doing it there, but I knew she hated attention like that. So, I brought her home, where I’d set up the apartment all romantic. She walked in, saw the rose petals, I got down on one knee, and she told me that she’d been offered a position at MI6, and was moving back to London.”

“Steve...” Bucky exhaled.

Closing his eyes, Steve nodded once, “She wanted me to go with her, but I’d spent the last two years building a life for myself in DC, and I couldn’t let that go. She didn’t want a long-distance relationship again, which I understood, so we broke it off. The last time I saw her she was packing up her stuff and moving out. Until tonight.”

There was something in Steve’s expression that Bucky knew too well, from first-hand experience. He put his arm around Steve and pulled him close just so that he didn’t have to see it anymore, but the guy was far too broad for Bucky to hold properly, so he just buried his own face into the crook of Steve’s neck and hoped it was comforting.

“I’m sorry...” he said into Steve’s jacket.

“About what?” Steve asked, and Bucky felt the rumble of his voice.

“For letting you sit here and talk about it and not making you go back.”

Steve jumped back at that, immediately standing up and breaking their embrace.

“No,” Steve said. “That’s not happening.”

Bucky groaned inwardly, “Steve, you didn’t come all the way to New York to do nothing.”

“I didn’t come all the way to New York to get my ass kicked, either,” Steve said, because yeah, he was sure if he tried anything with Peggy she’d kick his ass. That would definitely happen. He could see it.

Bucky pushed himself up from the bench, “I’m not letting you leave without trying. I swear.”

“I hate you,” Steve said, but there was no heat behind his words, which Bucky took as a good thing.

He held out his hand toward Steve, “Come on.”

Steve couldn’t quite believe he was doing this, as he took Bucky’s hand and let himself be led back towards the bar. He saw Peggy the moment they walked in, and nearly turned around and walked back out. Bucky pushed back against him though, forcing him inside.

“I can’t do this,” Steve said, through gritted teeth.

“Yes, you can,” Bucky insisted. “Go.”

Letting Steve’s hand go felt a lot like watching a child take their first steps. Steve was unsure as he stepped into the crowd, but once he was a few feet away from Peggy, who was facing the bar, he took a deep breath, set his shoulders and strode confidently towards her. Watching him talk easily to her, Bucky felt full of pride, and a little bit of something he didn’t quite want to address.

He stepped outside so that he didn’t have to, and leaned up against the wall of the bar. He blindly flicked open the cigarette box where it was at the bottom of the deep pocket in his coat, placed one in his mouth and tried to light it.

It was really just his luck that his lighter chose that moment to not work. No matter how many times he tried, it would only give him a pathetic little spark and nothing more. He groaned, dropping his head back against the wall.

“Need a light?” someone asked.

Bucky opened his eyes to see Steve’s friend from earlier. Not the short one with the hooker, but the handsome one... Sam.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth so that he could answer, “Could I?”

Sam held out his lighter, and Bucky placed the cigarette back in his mouth to light it. The relief that hit him the moment he took the first drag was just what he’d needed. He handed the lighter back, and Sam lit his own cigarette.

“Your boy’s in there,” Sam said, nodding to the bar.

“I know,” Bucky replied, smoke coming out of his nose as he did so.

“You not worried he’s gonna talk to his ex?” Sam asked.

“I told him to,” Bucky said, flicking off the ash and putting it back in his mouth.

Sam looked confused but didn’t pry. “Steve hasn’t mentioned you before.”

Bucky glanced at his feet, “We didn’t want to rush into anything. We, uh, we haven’t been together that long. Since I live in New York, it's, uh, difficult.”

“Right,” Sam said, and Bucky was slightly worried that he didn’t believe him.

Then again, it didn’t really matter if Sam believed him or not. It wasn’t him Steve wanted to make jealous.

“He really cares about you,” Sam said, after a moment.

Bucky glanced at him, humored, “He tell you that?”

He wondered if Steve had put Sam up to this so that Bucky wouldn’t be alone. If he’d actually convinced his best friend like that, this lie really had gone too far.

Sam shook his head, “I can tell. Steve’s been my best friend for the best part of ten years. When you’re close to someone like that, you just know. It’s in the eyes.”

He made a weird gesture around his eyes, and Bucky laughed.

“Sure it is,” he took another drag.

“Hey!” Sam pointed at Bucky with his cigarette. “Don’t try and be smart. I know Steve, alright? The guy doesn’t have a poker face. Also, nobody calls him Stevie and gets away with it.”

Bucky really didn’t know how to process this information. A couple of hours wasn’t enough for Steve to actually start caring about him so much that even his best friend could tell, right? Besides, he was still hung up on Peggy. He was just good at keeping up the act.

There wasn’t time to dwell on it, though, because before they could talk any more the door slammed open – so hard Bucky was surprised the glass didn’t shatter – and Steve was storming past them. Bucky shared an apologetic look with Sam, stubbed out his cigarette and chased Steve around the corner.

“Steve? How did it go?”

He had a pretty good idea of how it went. Like Sam said, Steve didn’t exactly have a poker face.

“She’s happy I came back, we’re going to lunch tomorrow,” Steve said.

It was Bucky’s turn to race to keep up. Steve was walking seriously fast. Surely lunch was a good thing, though?

“I told you!”

“The three of us,” Steve said.

“She invited me?” Bucky asked.

He wasn’t surprised but did feel a little bad, since he wasn’t going to be here tomorrow. He didn’t want to fuck this up for Steve.

Steve shook his head, “No.”

“Another guy?”

Steve had crossed his arms, now, “Nope.”

Who else could she have possibly invited that Steve could feel so mad about?

“Steve, who the hell did she -?”

Steve suddenly stopped, almost making Bucky run right into the back of him, and turned around.

“She’s pregnant,” he said.

Bucky’s face fell, “Steve... I’m...”

“If you’re gonna say you’re sorry, save it,” Steve said. “I’m fine, probably the most fine I’ve been in six years. Because at least I finally know something. I finally know it’s over. So, I guess I should thank you for that.”

There was nothing Bucky could do but wait for the other shoe to drop, because surely that wasn’t all Steve had to say. If he was Steve right now, he’d probably have punched Bucky and yelled in his face and gotten angry at him for ruining his life. At least, that’s what Bucky had wanted to do to himself a few hours ago. He guessed Steve would feel somewhat the same. He kind of hoped he did, because then at least he had a chance at understanding.

“She said she’s never been so happy,” Steve said, voice breaking, and he turned and ran a hand over his face to stop himself from crying. He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t. “I guess I’ve gotta be okay with not being okay. Grow up a bit. So... thanks for that, too.”

Bucky was at a loss. Steve had all but accused him of ruining his life, but somehow, he was still being chivalrous about it.

“What do you want to do now?” was all Bucky could think to ask.

“Walk,” Steve said. “Think.”

Bucky nodded silently, and he felt helpless as walked by Steve’s side, unsure whether they should talk about it or not. He didn’t know whether to touch Steve, put his arm around him and hug him or bump their shoulders together to remind him he was there, or if he should just leave him alone.

He did an excellent job at leaving him alone until they reached the riverside, where the silence had become too stifling and Bucky couldn’t handle it anymore.

“I understand, y’know,” he said.

Steve looked at him for the first time in almost half an hour, and Bucky didn’t know where he was going with this.

“What it feels like when they love somebody else. I get it.” Bucky continued.

Steve scoffed, “Sure you do, Buck. You, with your marriage and your rich husband and your ballet. I’m sure you understand exactly how I feel.”

“I never said he was rich,” Bucky said, because apparently he couldn’t help but jump on the defensive rather than try to diffuse the situation. Good job, Barnes.

“You didn’t need to,” Steve said, and he was so fucking angry, and Bucky wished he wasn’t, but he really understood. He would be too. “You’ve run off to Manhattan in a peacoat and red bottom shoes and a Louis Vuitton wallet, and I’m pretty sure kids’ ballet coaching doesn’t pay that much. You don’t get it, Buck, you never will.”

“But I do!” Bucky hated how pathetic he sounded. “I fucking get it, Steve, okay? Other people have problems too. If you got off your fucking high horse for once you might actually realise that.”

The sudden anger from Bucky seemed to knock Steve down a peg. He chewed on his bottom lip, and then dropped down onto a bench. Bucky sat beside him.

“My anniversary with Brock is July 20th,” he said.

Steve cocked his head a little to the side, seeming confused why Bucky was bringing this up, so he took it as his cue to continue.

“He spends a lot of time in DC, because of his work. This year, he was gonna be there on our anniversary, so I wanted to surprise him. I went into his emails and, as I was looking for his schedule, a notification popped up. The subject was just ‘the 20th’. I thought maybe he’d planned something romantic for us, for our anniversary. I hate surprises, though, so I had to look. It was definitely a date. But not for us. It was at some fancy hotel in DC, signed off with ‘S.’.”

“He was...” Steve muttered.

Bucky nodded as if he couldn’t stand to hear Steve say it, “Yeah... He has the same password for everything, always has, so I signed into his email on my phone and put on alerts for that address. Over the next couple of months they emailed back and forth, he would call her Susan and she would sign back ‘Suzie’.”

He took a deep breath.

“I was so fucking angry. I couldn’t stop thinking about every time he’d pushed me around, taken out his anger on me, told me I wasn’t good enough, and...” He cleared his throat because fuck was somebody choking him right now? “I wondered why she was getting the best side of him, and I wasn’t.”

Steve seemed to be processing what Bucky was telling him, “What’d you do?”

“Nothing.” Bucky’s mouth was dry. “Until yesterday. He was going back to DC, and I saw the email where he told her that he was gonna be back in town and I wanted to fucking rip out his eyes. So, when he left, I wrote him a letter. I told him everything I knew and everything I wanted to say. And then, I took my ring and I put it in the envelope, put it on the bed where I knew he’d see it, and left.”

“Why Manhattan?” Steve asked.

Bucky shrugged, “I thought about going to Nat and Clint’s but I knew that would be the first place he’d check, so I was gonna go back to Brooklyn and stay with my ma, but I chickened out when I reached Grand Central. So, I got off the train, found a bar and spent a couple of hours feeling sorry for myself because I thought my marriage was over...”

“But now he’s coming home instead of seeing her,” Steve guessed. His eyes hadn’t moved from Bucky the entire story.

Tears stinging his eyes, all Bucky could do was nod.

“Sat in that bar, I realised all the moments that we shared and would share and everything that’s ever happened between us and I realised that I’d thrown away my one chance at happiness,” Bucky said, voice threatening to break.

Steve seemed sure of himself, his voice was soft, and his hand was grazing Bucky’s shoulder blade, “I don’t think you’ve thrown anything away. I think you deserve something much better than someone who is gonna cheat and lie and break your heart.”

Bucky smiled through his tears, which he hadn’t even realised had happened, “That’s nice, Stevie, but Brock is all I have.”

“Look at me, Buck,” Steve said, shifting slightly so that he was facing Bucky directly, “That’s him talking. He’s convinced you that you have no other option, that he is the only person who is ever gonna love you but it’s not true, okay? You have so many more people than that. Don’t let him trap you.”

Now Bucky really was crying. An ugly, painful sobbing sound that he couldn’t stop coming from the back of his throat, and he covered his face with his hand to try and calm himself down. He didn’t want Steve to see him cry, not again, but Steve didn’t seem to mind. Steve inched forward so that he could wrap his arms around Bucky and hold him close to his chest.

“I have a hotel room,” Steve said against Bucky’s hair, because he really didn’t know what else to suggest. “I’m sharing with Sam but I’m about eighty percent sure he’s gonna go home with Maria, so it should be free.”

Bucky laughed, and the movement was nice against Steve’s chest.

“I’m not trying anything, we just need somewhere warm.”

Bucky leaned back a little, hand lingering on Steve’s chest. “I know.”

Steve could have sworn, for a moment, Bucky’s eyes flicked to his lips. He didn’t mention it, though, and instead stood up and offered his arm.

The hotel wasn’t exactly the Ritz, and Steve was sure it was much shabbier than what Bucky was used to. He didn’t seem to mind, though, and Sam wasn’t there when they got there.

“Room service?” Steve asked, as Bucky took off his coat and scarf.

“I’m starving,” Bucky replied.

Steve nodded towards the bathroom, “You go first.”

Bucky thanked him quietly and disappeared into the bathroom. Steve waited until he could hear the shower running to order the food – the cheapest thing on the menu, because he only had about twenty dollars left.

Steve was stood in the middle of the room when Bucky came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a white hotel towel, wrapped around his waist. Steve couldn’t help it when his eyes were immediately drawn to Bucky’s left side.

Bucky’s arm stopped just below the shoulder, and there was puckered skin and scar tissue most of the way across his chest and partly up his neck. Steve wasn’t disgusted by it, or anything, because it wasn’t disgusting, but all he could think about was how much that must have hurt, and how it must have happened.

“Like what you see?” Bucky grinned, and he had stepped forward so that he was in Steve’s personal space.

“Could use a little work,” Steve teased.

Bucky made an offended scoffing sound and smacked Steve on the arm, “Asshole!”

His hand stayed on Steve’s arm, and fuck, okay, now he was definitely staring at Steve’s lips. He wasn’t doing anything about it, either, wasn’t moving away. If anything, he was moving closer. It could have just been Steve’s mind playing tricks on him, but Bucky’s face was getting closer and closer to his.

Before he knew it, Bucky’s mouth was pressed softly against his, and his hand had moved from Steve’s arm to the nape of his neck to hold him there. It took Steve’s body a moment to catch up with his mind, but when it did, his hands immediately moved to frame Bucky’s face.

They kissed like that, softly and close-mouthed, until Steve moved his hands again and pushed Bucky softly backwards.

“Buck,” he said gently, Bucky still looked like he wanted to pounce on Steve, so he made sure to hold him back a little. “Not that I don’t want this, but you need to be sure.”

Bucky’s mouth was slightly open, and his gaze flicked from Steve’s eyes to his lips to just past his shoulder. Then, he pushed Steve away and stepped backwards until he was sat on the bed.

“I’m not sure.” He looked like he’d just been slapped.

Steve tried to be reassuring, “That’s okay.” He sat down beside him. “It’s okay if you don’t know. You’re confused and upset, and I understand.”

Bucky ran his hand through his hair, “Why are you so nice, Steve? You’re just... like, absolutely fucking perfect, but you’re so perfect that it makes you an asshole because you don’t know when to stop being nice.”

“I think you’re just not used to being treated right,” Steve replied.

Bucky called him an asshole again, but it wasn’t biting.

“Do you think we met for a reason, Stevie?” he asked after a beat of silence.

“I think we were meant to find each other,” Steve replied truthfully. “I think you were meant to miss that train, that your phone was meant to be broken and I think that we both have things we’ve been putting off for way too long. I think we’ve both realised that it’s time to stop running, and we were meant to meet so that we could learn that.”

Bucky’s eyebrows drew together for a moment, and he nodded once. He slipped his hand down Steve’s arm to until their palms were pressed flat together, and then laced their fingers.

“We can run later,” Bucky said, eventually. “For now, let’s just enjoy this.”

A few hours later, they were in a cab on their way back to Grand Central. They were both exhausted, their meeting – only five and a half hours before – felt like days ago. The cab ride was painfully quiet, with Bucky spending a large part of it anxiously picking at the knee of his jeans and repeatedly checking that he had his ticket.

Eventually, Steve placed his hand over Bucky’s to stop the fidgeting. Bucky stared at their hands, and then twisted his wrist so that he could link their fingers together again, much like he had the previous night. He smiled up at Steve, and Steve just smiled back.

Bucky didn’t let go of his hand as they got out of the cab, and as they walked into the station. He only let go when they reached a payphone which Steve insisted on picking up. Bucky couldn’t help but smile when he realised what Steve was doing.

“Steve? Hey, buddy, it’s you from the future.”

He covered the receiver with his hand and stage-whispered, “He bought it, sucker.” to Bucky, who laughed – a little teary, and then he put the phone back to his ear.

“I just wanted to give you a piece of advice. You’re gonna be playing one night, in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, thinking of every reason in the world to not go see the girl who broke your heart. Then, you’re gonna meet somebody. At first, he’s gonna seem cold, and you’ll know right away that he’s trouble. He’s gonna take all your money, lie to you, keep you awake and walking around Manhattan all night, you might even get punched, but... stick with him; you’re gonna end up needing him a lot more than he needs you.”

He locked eyes with Bucky as he spoke, and his voice wobbled a little bit, but he tried to control it as much as he could. They both had cried far too much over the past few hours. Bucky didn’t seem to have even noticed that a tear had slipped down his cheek.

“At the end of the night, when you’re seeing him off at Grand Central, you’re gonna wanna say some things. But, don’t. It’s nothing he doesn’t already know.”

Bucky wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand and Steve carried on talking.

“Just give him a kiss, wish him good luck, and say thank you. Because he taught you something you would never have been able to teach yourself.”

As soon as he said that, Bucky surged forward, grabbed the lapel of Steve’s coat and kissed him. Steve dropped the phone in shock. The kiss was wet from tears, and Steve couldn’t tell if they were his or Bucky’s. Both of them, he thought, when Bucky moved back again. They kept their foreheads pressed together for a few more moments.

“Thank you,” Bucky said, quietly.

Then, he stepped back and walked away.

Steve was frozen in place. All he could do was watch Bucky as he walked down onto the platform. And, if Bucky glanced back at Steve a few times, nobody had to know.

There was a man playing the trumpet in Grand Central Terminal. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people passed by him while he played. Some would drop money into his open case, others would pass without acknowledgment, another would enter and leave his life in the same night.

The night would be insignificant in the grander scheme of things, and, in the time after, he would meet so many more people. They would laugh and cry and have weekly poker nights, and he wouldn’t think about Peggy no matter how much it hurt. He would go on trips to Las Vegas and California and he’d go back to Brooklyn, visit his mom’s grave and spend hours talking to her as if she could hear. His hands would still shake, but he would spend hours mapping out long, dark hair and a sharply curved jaw in his sketchbook.

He would be back at Grand Central Terminal before he’d even realised that he’d left, and he would be knocked off his feet by a man in a hurry.

The man would turn around to help him up, and he’d look up into grey eyes flashing with recognition, and the man would exhale, “Steve.” and Steve would chuckle out a “Buck.”, and it was as if they had never left at all.

[sending-the-message]

Case #1- Suspected Supernatural Activity In A Strip Club by JacobMielke

When I first moved to Milwaukee, I spent my days lounging about my new home, avoiding human contact. Eventually I figured it wasn’t healthy to be a shut-in at my age and I should make an effort at pretending to be a socially adept person.

That was why I found myself sitting in a dive bar, staring at a young woman sitting by herself at a table across the room. Her hair was dyed bright red and her arms were adorned with tattoos of various religious symbols, a pride flag, several pokemon, and a facial portrait of Linda Blair. She was stirring a martini and looked bored.

Now, I’ve never known how to chat up people. My one and only relationship came about when both of us realized we were already dating, so it’s not like I know how to make conversation.

Still, one must do what one can.

To this day, I am too ashamed to share my fumbling attempts to seem cool. I must have done something right because she let me sit with her and we conversed. Her name was Moxxy, which she told me was a play on her actual name, Molly. I introduced myself.

“It’s nice to meet you, Moxxy. My name’s Jacob. Mielke, in case you… I don’t know, wanted to know.” I internally screamed. Both the angel and the devil on my shoulders cringed.

“Milky? Like, the Milky Way Galaxy? Got Milk? Milk duds?”

“I’ve been called all of those at some point, yes. Jacob Mielke, like the drink, only not spelled the same.”

“How do you spell it?”

“M-i-e-l-k-e. It’s Italian.” I tried to pull off the accent and failed. I’m about as Italian as Olive Garden.

“Why does that sound so familiar? Did we go to school together?” She leaned forward, smiling mischievously. I didn’t have a clue who she was, and I think I’d remember meeting someone with such a unique sense of fashion.

“No, I lived in Pennsylvania my whole life. Just moved here a while ago.”

She grabbed my arm in a vice grip and I let out a rather unmanly yelp. She stared hard into my eyes. They were a lovely hazel, not that it mattered to me at the moment. “Do you write scary stories?”

As it turned out, Moxxy was a fan of my story A Lack of Empathy, which I’d posted on a creepypasta website years earlier. We had a long discussion about my bibliography, which culminated in her agreeing to check out more of my stories. And thus began a long and fruitful friendship. I never did end up getting into her pants like I’d originally planned but truth be told, it was nice just to have another friend in this strange, new city.

One day, several months after our meeting, I mentioned in passing that I wanted to try writing nonfiction work. She… took it to heart, would be a polite way of putting it.

“Oh my God, we have to go ghost hunting or something. You could be like a supernatural detective and you can write about your findings! People will love you!”

I admit, the idea was intriguing. I don’t think there are any horror writers who don’t believe, in some small way, there’s a hidden world under our own. A world that can’t be explained or seen, only glimpsed. Personally… well, let’s just say I’ve seen some things that absolutely inspired my work.

For our first “case”, as she called it, Moxxy suggested we go to a strip club she knew. I’m going to omit the name so as not to piss off the wrong people (the heavily armed people, that is). It didn’t take much prompting for me to agree to go. Can’t imagine why. Anyway, Moxxy said that some of the dancers at the club quit after experiencing “supernatural activity”. The plan was to go, buy private dances from a few of the women and question if they’d noticed anything out of the ordinary. I thought it might be easier (not to mention cheaper) to try asking them at the bar or something but if she wanted to do it via private dances, then damn it, I was going to respect her wishes.

I did some research on the club to prep for our investigation. Most of what I found was articles and opinion pieces posted online by people who have dedicated their lives to combating the evils of what consenting adults do in private. There were, however, a few that caught my eye. One article referenced an incident in which an employee disappeared. Apparently a bouncer named John Doe (totally his real name, guys) showed up for work one night and was never seen again. The owner and dancers confirmed seeing him there, doing his job, but at some point no one was paying attention to him anymore and then when they went to find him later, he was gone.

Another was a post on reddit (now deleted) claiming that a dancer had gone missing on a night she was scheduled to work. They attached a photo of her as well. It’s hard to tell how reliable that info is, as there were no sources to back it up and none of the commentators knew anything useful.

Eventually the night arrived. Moxxy and I took the bus to the club, where she just strolled right in without the bouncer saying shit about it. She winked at me and I stared murder at her while the bouncer took my money and ID. The club was packed; every seat around the stages held a man (and the occasional woman) with a fist-full of dollars. Moxxy suggested we split up to cover more ground (her investigative technique was plopping down in one of the chairs and staring at a voluptuous woman dancing upside-down on a pole). I was approached by my first dancer less than a minute after taking a seat at the bar.

“Hey, baby. You mind if I sit here?” She had a heavy Russian accent. I consented to her presence and we made small talk while I waited for her to propose a dance, as per experience dictated.

Did I say experience? I meant research. I’d researched strip club etiquette, not experienced it.

I paid for three dances and hinted that I was willing to spend more if kept happy. It was hard to get a question at first, she was really a fan of that thing exotic dancers do when they rub their breasts on your face. Eventually though, I asked: “So I heard that some weird things happen here. Like maybe the place is haunted. Ever notice anything weird around here?”

She stopped grinding on my lap abruptly, which was a sufficient answer in and of itself. “Where did you hear that?”

“A friend of mine knows some people who used to work here. She said they were scared by ghosts or something?”

“There’s no ghosts here.” She hesitated, then leaned in and whispered: “But I think there might be something. Sometimes when I walk by the basement door, I can hear my Babushka talking, telling me to come down. But she’s been dead for years.”

“How do you know it’s not her ghost?”

“I know my Babushka.” She dropped her eyes and I saw goosebumps appear on all over her. “I loved her and she loved me. Whatever that thing is, it does not love me. I can hear it in the voice.”

The remaining time in our dance was awkward. I let her wiggle, passionless and tense, on my lap until the songs were over and tipped her extra. I looked for Moxxy while returning to my seat at the bar but couldn’t find her in the crowd. Maybe she’d gotten a private dance. I waited but when four songs had passed she was still nowhere to be seen. The first inklings of doubt entered my mind. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to go looking for… whatever this thing was. Another five songs passed and my concern blossomed into worry.

I found a man at the bar who looked like he belonged there and tapped his shoulder. “Hey buddy, have you been here before?”

He turned slowly to look at me with one eye (his other was too obscured by a drooping eyelid to be of much use). When he spoke I noticed his breath was infused with enough alcohol to sterilize a hospital. “Sure am.”

“Do you know where I can find the basement?”

He slurred some directions and pointed to the back of the club, near the restrooms.

“Thank you.”

“Welcome. I love you, man.”

“I love you too, sir. You have a nice night.”

It took me a minute to actually find the basement entrance. All the other doors in the establishment were painted black but the basement door was the same shade of red as the walls of the club. I couldn’t help but feel like they were intentionally hiding it from customer view (understandable). I made sure no one was watching and pressed my ear to the door.

Three things happened in the space of a few seconds. The first made my blood cold (you think that’s a silly saying? It’s not. When gripped in a state of intense fear, your brain releases epinephrine and cortisol to prepare your body to fight or flee. A side effect is a perceived rapid temperature drop). Someone (something) was scratching the door on the other side. It was too soft to be heard over the music, unless you were as close as me. I tried to think of a reason why a person would rake their nails on the door like that but I couldn’t. No one would do that unless they were crazy or intentionally trying to scare someone.

The second thing to happen… well, I’m not sure anything did happen. Materially speaking, at least. What I thought was happening was some kind of energy was pouring from the door and mixing with mine. For a split second I became convinced that some kind of consciousness was touching my mind. Something not human. More than that, just as I knew it was there, it was also aware of me.

And that was that. Mind made up, time to go. Except… you know that moment in a horror movie where a character does something really stupid?

The third thing to happen was the scratching stopped and the whispering began. I couldn’t make out what the voice was saying but the longer I listened, the more convinced I became that it was Moxxy’s.

Occam’s Razor: something, some ghost or demon or mimic monster, was using Moxxy’s voice to lure me into the basement. I’d become the next person to disappear in the club. The smart thing to do was obviously to walk away. And yet… Moxxy was missing. Why would she leave without me? It was her idea to come here in the first place. What if she went down there while I was getting a dance?

What if it wasn’t too late to save her?

I opened the door wide. Nothing stood before me. There was a light switch on the wall at the top of the stairs and I used it before taking a few steps down. Light flooded the basement and the terror that gripped me only moments ago vanished. I descended the rest of the way and looked around. The basement was a single, open room supported in places with cement pillars. Boxes were everywhere, piled from floor to ceiling in some places. Moxxy wasn’t down here but on the far side of the room was something that caught my attention: a hole in the wall. I crossed the room for a closer look. It was a perfect circle, like a laser beam cut through the concrete. It was about two feet across. While I examined it, two footsteps thudded at the top of the stairs. I turned and saw a man wearing the bouncer’s uniform standing in the doorway. His face was grim.

“Whatever you do, don’t scream.”

He retreated through the door and shut it. Before I could take a step in its direction, the light vanished. The fear returned. There was something in the basement and it was between me and the door. I could feel it there, feel its malice.

When flight is impossible and fighting isn’t an option, the human animal has a third defense mechanism rarely used: freeze. I didn’t so much as twitch a muscle in the dark. My breath was as shallow as I could make it without passing out and I squeezed my eyes shut. There was a shuffling in front of me and a raspy hiss that grew louder as my companion inched closer. Then it was in front of me, then all around me. The noise ceased completely and something touched me, just barely brushing the hairs on my arm.

Light shone in the basement and I saw it even through my closed eyelids. There was a bang and a voice I didn’t recognize: “Over here!”

I opened my eyes and turned my head in the direction of the sound. A young woman wearing flashy lingerie and body glitter (a dancer from the club?) stood in a doorway on the side of the basement. I hadn’t even noticed it was there before, I was so fixated on the hole in the wall. The dancer waved me over urgently. “This way!”

I moved for the door but a voice from behind once again froze me in place before I could reach it. “No… stay. Stay here with me. I won’t hurt you. I have things I want to show you.”

I raised a foot to step forward but moving was slow, like the air had turned to tar.

“Stay, Jacob. You’re just like me, a child of darkness. Stay. You can accomplish so much more down here with me. Just turn around… look at me.”

The woman in the doorway shook her head. “Don’t do it!”

A small puff of cold air hit my ear and a voice whispered mere centimeters from me, “Look at me.”

I bolted for the door. The woman turned and ran as well and I heard her high heels clanging on something metal. It was a staircase. The door led outside from the basement to an alley behind the club. I rushed up the stairs, but couldn’t resist looking back. The basement door was swinging shut on its own. In the moments before it closed, I saw a pair of eyes looking at me from the dark. They flashed green and yellow, like cat eyes. It was less than a second. But I looked. I saw.

I didn’t see the woman in the alley, nor did I see her when I went around to the front of the building. But I did see Moxxy, standing near the front door. She looked surprised to see me. “Sorry man, I got kicked out. Apparently you’re not allowed to put your fingers in the girls here. I was expecting you to come out the front. Did you learn anything from that Russian chick?”

I looked around. The woman couldn’t have gone so far so quickly. But she was gone. “Hey, did you see one of the dancers come running out before me?”

“No, just you. Jesus dude, are you okay? You’re shaking!”

It took two days to convince Moxxy I wasn’t making up a story. Two days for her to believe there really was something in the basement, something not as physical as a person yet not as immaterial as a spirit. She wasn’t very sensitive about how close I came to… well, something tells me death isn’t a strong enough word to cover it. More than anything else, she was excited. In her mind, our new investigation team was in full force and we’d just opened our first case.

Though I was too terrified to realize it at the time, the bouncer who stood at the top of the stares and the dancer who led me to safety had faces I’d seen before, in pictures on the internet on articles and posts about missing strip club employees.

The terror I’d experienced faded over time. I think the mind has a way of refusing to feel certain things, in order to protect itself. I still think about that day sometimes and I’ve never forgotten those eyes (“Look at me.”). Still, life has mostly gone on as normal.

Well, not normal. Over the years, Moxxy and I encountered a great many things that could generously be referred to as unusual. I didn’t get around to publishing our stories or the adventures of the tiny amateur group that would eventually become Mielke Investigations until now. I did write about them though, keeping my musings and notes and findings in folders on my computer marked as cases. This one, obviously, was Case #1.

I do plan on sharing more of our cases once I figure out the technical details and rules (like should I put a series tag on these posts even if they’re all stand-alone stories?) both on this site and my professional author page (which you can view here by the way).

I’m not sure why I want to share these stories or even why I seek out the paranormal in the first place. I think it has something to do with what that thing in the basement said about me being a “child of darkness”. I don’t consider myself a bad person but I do write about evil. Not only as fiction but now also as my experiences with it. I record the dark things and then bring them to you. Maybe that’s enough to count me among them.

Or not, I’m basically talking out my ass at this point. Thanks for reading about my experiences. There will be more cases to come. In the meantime, some advice: when you go to a strip club, try to stay with the crowd. And don’t go in the basement.