Work Text:
part one.
“Captain America is haunting me,” Bucky says over a bowl of ramen.
His pronouncement is met with a round of silence.
Natasha raises an eyebrow. Sam looks up at him with concern. Clint--well, he’s still trying to figure out how to work chopsticks, so it’s unclear whether he’s been paying attention to anything over the little sounds of his frustrated grunting.
“Captain America,” Natasha says. “As in--”
“The first Avenger,” Bucky confirms. “Supersoldier and hero of World War II. The fabric of the American conscience.”
“Huh,” Natasha says. She takes a beef dumpling.
“But he’s--dead,” Sam says. His look of perplexed concern, ever perplexed and ever concerned, only increases. “You’re aware of that, right?”
“I know,” Bucky says. “That’s why I said he’s haunting me.”
He takes noodles between his chopsticks, sticks them in his mouth, and slurps.
*
It starts like this: Bucky sees a listing for a beautiful brownstone in a pre-war building in the middle of Prospect Heights. At first Bucky thinks he’s mistaken when he sees the rent price. The building is old, but not rent-stabilized. It’s a five minute walk from the subway. If he falls out of bed just the right way, he’ll roll right into the Brooklyn Museum.
There’s no way, all things considered, the price for an entire brownstone should be modestly within the budget of a kindergarten teacher who’s recently lost his only and best roommate to the love of his life, or whatever.
He checks the listing once. He makes Sam check the listing. He makes Natasha check the listing. When they both tell him he’s not hallucinating, he makes Maria, the aforementioned love of his best friend’s life, or whatever, check just to really make sure. Third time’s the charm and anyway, Sam and Natasha like to fuck with him on occasion.
“No, that checks out,” Maria says, staring over his shoulder at his phone (a battered iPhone 6, because, again, he’s on the salary of a kindergarten teacher). “I mean it doesn’t, it might be a murder dungeon, but that definitely says the number you think it says.”
So Bucky ends up calling and visiting this too-good-to-be-true dream of a Brooklyn brownstone in a too-good-to-be-true location and what the kind, old lady landlord tells him is this:
“I’m afraid,” old Mrs. Dougherty says, “the place is haunted.”
Well, Bucky Barnes is down one roommate and teaches four and five year olds for a living, so he says the only thing a young man of sound body and dubious paycheck can in this situation:
“I’ll take it.”
He submits his application and is approved for the brownstone by the next day.
He can live with a ghost or two. What’s the worst that can happen?
This is what Bucky thinks at the time.
*
He moves into his Prospect Heights dream house, drags boxes of his clothes and books over from his former apartment with Sam, and pays Sam in pizza to help him move the couch, dresser, and wardrobe too.
“I like it,” Sam says, at the end of the night, when they’re both sprawled across the couch in exhaustion, two large boxes of pizza (one pepperoni and one olive, both extra cheese) laid on top of Bucky’s coffee table, beers cooling on the corners.
“I can’t believe it,” Bucky says, looking around at the light and airy space around him. “There’s enough space for my books and my hair products.”
Sam snorts and lazily takes a beer off the coffee table.
“There’s enough space for another human,” Sam says. “Time to get yourself a man.”
“Men are gross, Sam,” Bucky says dramatically. He eyes another slice of pizza, even though he’s already had like, five. His belly, usually kept carefully tucked under a layer of muscle he maintains, is a little lump under his soft t-shirt. He’s having a baby. It’s Sam’s. He’ll have to find a way to tell Maria. “I’ve given up on them. No Men 2K19.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Sam snorts and takes a sip of his beer.
“I mean it this time,” Bucky says and inches forward to take his sixth slice. “This year is about me. I’m in self discovery. I don’t need a man to make me happy, I just need a wall of science fiction books and--”
“A shrine to Idris Elba?” Sam asks, tilting his head back and looking at an unopened box labelled “IDRIS ELBA.”
“He’s the hottest man alive, Sam,” Bucky says. “That’s just science.”
Sam rolls his eyes and finishes his beer.
“Get yourself a man you can actually attain,” Sam amends his earlier sentiment.
“Maybe I’ll get a cat,” Bucky says instead.
*
That night, after Sam leaves and Bucky unpacks half of his boxes and scrubs the brownstone down to an inch of its (and his) life, he takes a shower, and crawls into bed, exhausted but happy.
He turns over in his comforter, wriggles this way and that, flops from side to side, and finally, when he’s wrapped up in an absolute cocoon of sheets and comforter, falls fast asleep.
He wakes up in the middle of the night, hair standing on the back of his neck. He gets the feeling he’s being watched, although he’s not entirely sure why.
Blearily, Bucky sits up in his bed, looks wildly around the room.
To his immense relief, he doesn’t see anyone in the room. Heart beating fast, he lays back down.
A large clanging, groaning sound clatters around the brownstone and his heart ticks up again before Bucky realizes it’s just the tell-tale sound of New York CIty boilers heating up apartments that haven’t had their heating systems updated in well over a century. It kind of sounds like two people dueling. It’s loud, and definitely terrible, but not unusual.
Bucky turns himself back over in his self-made swaddle and falls right back asleep.
*
All in all, Bucky’s not entirely certain why Mrs. Dougherty warned him about ghosts or looks worried every time he knocks on her door to pay rent. The brownstone is a dream and about a twenty minute walk from school. Instead of waking up at 5 am every morning, like before, he wakes up at 6 am, groans blearily, wishes for a swift death, and rolls out of bed to get ready.
He gets coffee and an everything bagel with plain cream cheese from the Yemeni-owned bodega at the corner and walks the twenty minutes to school, even in the cold, and by the time he gets there, he’s almost ready to deal with fifteen screaming kindergartners.
Most days, Bucky walks the twenty minutes home from school smelling like fingerpaint, with playdough in his hair and a minimum of three to four nursery rhymes stuck in his head. He likes cooking at home, but when he’s feeling particularly tired or if more than two children have sneezed in his mouth that day, he will stop at the Thai place in between school and home and pick up an order of shrimp pad see-ew and spring rolls and, if he’s feeling particularly daring, a Thai iced tea.
Anyway, Sam and Maria and Natasha and Clint manage to drag him out on a school night every once in a while, telling him he needs to “get out there” and remember “to be young” and that he’s not “an octogenarian yet,” but most nights it’s just him and his television, or a book, and whatever he’s cooked that night, or a container of shrimp pad see-ew and an order of spring rolls, and Bucky doesn’t mind, at all, but he’s binged four seasons of The Wire in like two weeks, so he’s thinking maybe he really should get that cat.
“How is the ghost?” Mrs. Dougherty asks when he goes to give her his rent for January.
“Very quiet,” Bucky says with a smile. “Not like Casper at all.”
*
So maybe he curses himself, but he didn’t mean to.
He loved Casper as a kid.
*
He’s hanging up pictures of his family, paintings that Becca, his younger sister, who is an artist and the pride and joy of the Barnes family (mostly because she can get their parents into museums for free) (“What can you offer me, son?” George asked Bucky once. “Golden child status is negotiable.” “I work with kids, dad,” Bucky had replied. “So I can offer you a free cold any day of the week, you just gotta ask.”), has made especially for him.
He’s hammering in a nail to hang some abstract piece she gifted him for Christmas when the wallpaper tears. Sighing, nail in mouth, hammer in hand, Bucky tries to put the piece back up. No luck; the wallpaper falls down again, tearing a little farther.
Frowning, Bucky tugs at it a little and it comes away easily enough.
Under the floral horror there’s a little drawing someone must have made, a long time ago. It’s a little kid with blond hair, holding his mother’s hand.
Bucky shifts the hammer to his other hand and reaches forward, touches the picture with his fingertips.
He jerks back as something a little like an electrical charge shoots into his hand.
“Shit,” he mutters, nail falling out of his mouth.
The hairs at the back of his neck stand up again.
“What the hell was that?” Bucky says. He bends to pick up the fallen nail and when he gets back up, the drawing seems to be staring at him. “Creepy.”
He puts the wallpaper back up and starts to hammer the nail in to cover what’s underneath.
He puts the hammer down and picks up Becca’s painting and is about to put it up when he hears something behind him.
No--not something.
Someone.
A voice.
“That’s not very nice,” it says. “You can’t just go around insulting people’s artwork. Didn’t your Ma teach you any manners?”
Bucky lets out something like a very manly, high-pitched shriek and Becca’s painting slips out of his hand, shattering to the ground.
He turns around wildly and there--right behind him, standing straight, shoulders solid, absolutely unapologetic, is a blond man in a ridiculous red-white-and-blue outfit.
*
“What the hell?” Bucky says out loud, heart beating fast, thoughts spiraling out of control.
He thinks about what weapons he has within reaching distance.
He has--the shards of glass from Becca’s formerly lovely painting. He has shoes, somewhere. He has the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in one hardback volume. He bets he could throw it at the Big Blond Stranger and knock him out long enough to get away.
He has a--oh! Hammer!
Bucky picks it up quickly, brandishing it like a particularly ineffective sword.
“Stay back--” Bucky says. “I’m warning you!”
“Oh relax,” the Big Blond Man says. His face is disapproving, his arms crossed at the chest. “What are you doing with that? Put that down.”
“You’re in my house,” Bucky says. “Get out!”
“No, you’re in my house,” the Blond Man replies. “So I can’t.”
“This is preposterous,” Bucky says, hammer out in front of him. “I signed a lease. I pay rent. I’ve been here since November.”
The Blond Man rolls his eyes.
“How great for you,” he says. “I’ve been here since 1947.”
*
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” the Blond Man says as Bucky’s brain makes some kind of unintelligible squawking noise. 1947. 1947?? “Honestly, it’s like you’ve never seen a ghost before.”
And then, before Bucky can squawk any further or do something stupid, like, throw the hammer at him, the Big Blond Man reaches forward for the tool and, much to Bucky’s horror, when he touches Bucky, his hand passes through him entirely.
*
It takes a good hour of shrieking and squawking and threatening to call the authorities before the Big Blond man, ignoring Bucky’s (justifiable) theatrics, just shrugs and goes out into the living room.
He takes a seat on Bucky’s couch and crosses his legs.
“Hey, that’s my couch!” Bucky says.
“What are you going to do?” the Big Blond Man says, tilting his head backwards to look at Bucky. “Tell the cops a ghost is bothering you?”
“Y--” Bucky starts and then stops. He scratches his nose. He abandons the hammer.
He thinks through his situation and decides--well fuck him, the ghost is right. What’s he going to do? Tell the NYPD he has a specter who’s laying claim to his furniture?
“Mrs. Dougherty tried to warn you,” the ghost says, almost sympathetically. “She’s nice. I knew her mother.”
Bucky looks at the ghost and he looks at the couch and he thinks about the contract he had signed with her.
He’s not entirely sure there hadn’t been some kind of a binding non-liability for spectral hauntings clause, all things considered.
“Fuck me,” Bucky grumbles. He finally sighs and rubs his hand over his face. “What the fuck’m I supposed to do with a ghost?”
The ghost shrugs.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But your stew is burning. Would you mind getting that? I don’t want my house smelling like carcinogens.”
“What kinda mid-20th century ghost knows about carcinogens?” Bucky mutters to himself as he rushes over to the kitchen in a half-panic.
“A well-read one,” the ghost says. “I’ve been browsing the Internet in my spectral form. I love your century. Everyone yells about dumb things and I think you might be killing the planet, but the Internet’s great. So helpful.”
“I hate this,” Bucky says out loud and turns the stove off. He prods the burnt stew with a wooden spoon sadly. It congeals at the bottom, flakes of charred black coming off the pot. “It’s ruined.”
“Ah,” the ghost says. “Time for more pad see-ew.”
*
He’s honestly the most annoying, talkative ghost that Bucky has ever had the misfortune of meeting, let alone, you know, sharing a home with.
“You talk a whole lot for a dead guy,” Bucky grumbles, eating his noodles. He’s on the opposite side of the couch, staring out the corner of his eyes at the Blond Man.
“It’s been a lonely 80 years,” the ghost shrugs. “I haven’t materialized before now.”
Bucky frowns.
“Just my luck,” he says around a mouthful of noodle. “Why now? Why me?”
“Who can say?” Ghost shrugs again. “I was in the radiator before this. And sometimes in the walls. The lights--those were fun.”
“Wait, that was you?” Bucky asks, mouth agape. “You couldn’t have picked a better time to haunt the pipes than three in the morning?”
The ghost tries to scratch his nose, but his hand doesn’t quite make the requisite amount of contact.
“I’m an insomniac,” Ghost explains. “I wanted company.”
“You’re the worst,” Bucky grumbles. He chews angrily on a shrimp, then turns to look Ghost in his annoying, ghostly blue eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Steve Rogers,” Ghost replies.
“Steve Rogers,” Bucky grumbles some more, chewing on the shrimp. He takes another mouthful of noodles and considers.
Steve Rogers.
Why does that sound so familiar?
Steve….Rogers.
It’s a common enough name, he supposes. But like, really familiar.
Steve Rogers.
Wait. No, hold on--
Bucky turns to face Steve again.
No, like he really turns to face him. And then he takes it all in--the blond hair, the blue eyes, the red-white-and-blue puffy, ridiculous outfit.
“Holy shit!” he exclaims, spitting out a bit of noodle. “You’re Captain America.”
“Oh yeah,” Steve says, nodding. “Sure, him too.”
*
So that’s how Bucky Barnes comes to live with the ghost of Captain America, he guesses.
He doesn’t tell anyone except his kindergartners, because he’s not a crazy person and he’s not stupid, he’s just a modern day millennial who happens to be living in a cheap, Brooklyn brownstone haunted by the ghost of an old, American legend and superhero.
It could happen to anybody.
It just, you know. Had to happen to him.
The kindergartners love it, incidentally.
“Can you get his autograph??” a hyperactive child named Javier asks.
“I don’t think so, Javier,” Bucky says to him, sadly. “I don’t think he can read or write. Also, he can’t hold a pencil.”
*
“I can read and write!” Steve protests to him later that night, when Bucky comes home, gives him a glare, and starts cooking a whole pot of spaghetti. “I was a very advanced child.”
Steve is waiting for him when he gets home, all materialized and shit, in his star spangled suit, like the most patriotic, unwelcome house guest or a persistent pet he didn’t ask for.
“My mistake,” Bucky says flatly, dumping spaghetti into boiling water.
All he had asked for was a cat and what he had gotten was a salty ghost.
Just his luck.
*
They work out a kind of rhythm, although it’s not one Bucky expected and it’s certainly not one he asked for. He comes home from work and Steve is waiting there, on the couch. He goes to work and Steve is waiting there, by the unused coffee machine.
Sometimes, he tries to use his ghostly, spectral powers to turn things on, help Bucky along when he’s groaning in the morning or lying prone on the couch at night.
“Stop,” Bucky complains after the twelfth time the lights go out because Steve is trying to turn the rice cooker on for him. “You’re giving me a headache.”
“Haunting electrical circuits isn’t as easy as you’d think,” Steve advises, sighing and giving up on his endeavor.
He paces the living room like an overlarge, much beleaguered--well, not cat. Lion, maybe. Cheetah. Something big and loud.
Because Steve is loud.
Sometimes, Bucky’s trying to read or he’s trying to grade some papers or he’s trying to figure out the source of some meme that Sam sent to him that he just doesn’t understand but doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t understand, and Steve will just go crashing into something or he’ll crash into something else and it’ll just be a string of shouting and curse words.
“Rogers!” Bucky always barks then. “Some of us are alive and trying to work! Can those who are dead and not contributing to the rent please keep it down!”
That always makes Steve droop a little bit, which Bucky, to his horror, finds makes him feel just a little bad.
“It’s not like I’m enjoying the freeloading,” Steve says morosely, standing in the middle of the kitchen counter. “I like pulling my own. But, well--”
“You’re a ghost,” Bucky sighs, in the middle of writing A+ on a sheet of poorly traced letter Bs.
“I don’t think I can leave here,” Steve says, looking around the four corners of the brownstone. “I think I’m stuck.”
That gives Bucky pause and he looks at the superhero haunting his living room.
“Why’s that?” Bucky asks.
“I don’t know,” Steve says quietly. “I’ve never been a ghost before.”
*
There are certain things ghosts can’t do, Bucky learns quickly--like touch solid objects or smell things or taste food or speak to other people. Once, Bucky’s too slow to get up for his delivery and Steve steps through the door of the brownstone to the top of the stairs and waves his hands vigorously in front of the delivery boy.
By the time Bucky gets to his order, Steve’s drooping in the foyer.
Steve droops a lot when he’s sad, which is ridiculous, because he’s Captain America and also like 6 foot 5 and weighs 250 lbs of ghostly muscle or something.
“He couldn’t see me,” Steve says quietly. “I don’t think anyone can.”
Bucky does feel a pang of sadness for him then. He doesn’t know how he would like that, being a ghost for eighty years, haunting a building, and one day finally materializing only to find that there’s a single person in all the world who can see you and all he’s interested in is Thai delivery and the newest season of Star Trek Discovery.
“I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky says. “I can see you, though.”
“You’re the only one,” Steve says.
Bucky would hope that’s enough, but what’s he saying? He’s a poor millennial and Steve Rogers is Captain America, spirit of a legend eternally trapped in a Prospect Heights brownstone. Of course he’s not enough.
“Want to pass through the curry to see if you can taste it?” Bucky asks, hoping to cheer his ghost friend up.
“Okay,” Steve agrees. “The last thing I remember eating is boiled potato with boiled meat.”
“Gross, Steve,” Bucky makes a face.
“You’re telling me,” Steve says, sadly.
*
Okay, so once he gets over the talkative ghost thing, Bucky realizes he doesn’t mind having a roommate that much.
Steve is loud and he swears like a sailor and he turns up exactly where and when Bucky doesn’t need him to, but he’s funny and he’s smart and he’s really interesting.
One Saturday, when Bucky’s sick as a dog with the flu, Steve keeps him company by telling him stories about his childhood and his time as Captain America. Bucky is sneezing rapidly and mostly drugged, but there’s something about Steve’s voice that’s soothing to his burning ears. Steve tells him about getting into fights with kids twice his age and being sick all the time and his Ma and how she was his best friend in the whole world and being orphaned by the time he was eighteen and trying to enlist and failing and Erskine and the serum and becoming Captain America and all of that.
“Why did you stop?” Bucky asks, eyes watering, his lungs heavy with phlegm.
Steve tries to push the box of tissues toward him. Bucky can tell because they don’t really get there, but the tissues ruffle a little bit, as though touched by a slight breeze.
“I died,” Steve says sadly.
“How’d ya die?” Bucky sneezes.
“I don’t know,” Steve says, looking through Bucky, eyes seemingly distant. “I can’t seem to remember.”
“Why’re you stuck here?” Bucky says through a fit of coughing. “To this place?”
Steve is quiet for a moment and then the water by Bucky’s bedside ripples a little.
“It’s the last place I remember, I think,” Steve says. “I wanted to go home, before I died. And this is home.”
Bucky falls asleep to the sound of Steve telling him about the Howling Commandos.
When he dreams that night, it’s to sepia-colored images of him as a child, wearing suspenders, one tooth knocked loose, playing in the sandbox with a small blond boy. A newspaper flutters by and it says the year is 1925.
*
"What's it feel like?" Bucky asks Steve, one day.
They're both sitting on the couch, Bucky with a bowl of popcorn and Steve with a bag of chips he can't eat, but he likes to pretend to hold. They're having one of their weekly movie nights.
Okay, Bucky is having one of his weekly movie nights and Steve is his only ghost friend, who has taken to 21st century cinema with great enthusiasm.
"Watching television in color?" Steve asks. He moves his hand through the bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. "I'm a big fan. I watched Snow White when it came out in theater. Never thought I could watch it from my home. Guess maybe I wouldn't have left my couch if I did."
They're not watching Snow White. They're watching Moana, at Steve's request. Okay, at Bucky's request, it's his favorite movie.
"No," Bucky says. "Haunting. Is it everything you dreamed it would be?"
"I don't know about all that," Steve says with a wry smile. "But I guess it could have been worse. You're not the worst person I've haunted."
"Gee thanks," Bucky says through a mouth full of popcorn. His eyes are glued to the screen. Moana is getting on a boat. This is his favorite part. (Actually, all of it is his favorite part.)
"It was worse before," Steve says. "All of those decades, inside the walls and the pipes. Without a form. I was here and I wasn't. I think it's harder being caught in between than I thought."
"Why didn't you move on?" Bucky asks, finally looking at Steve. Then he looks horrified at himself. "Sorry. If that's not appropriate to--"
Steve shakes his head.
"It's okay," he says. He looks at the ceiling. "I don't know. Maybe I couldn't. Or maybe...I wasn't supposed to."
"Did you leave something unfinished behind?" Bucky asks. That's how it usually is in the movies or books. Someone leaves something behind that he needs to finish. His spirit is caught until he does.
Steve shrugs.
"Guess everything was kinda unfinished, wasn't it?" he looks at Bucky. Sometimes, when he sits still long enough, Bucky can see it in his eyes--how sad he is. Tired, maybe. Lonely. "I spent so long being sick and then being Captain America, I think--I dunno. Maybe I just never lived."
Bucky doesn't know how to fix that. He doesn't know how to free a spirit whose greatest regret is not living for himself. All he can offer Steve is his friendship and the hope that one day, that will be enough.
He offers his hand to Steve now, knowing he won't be able to take it. Steve looks at it and looks at him and with a soft, grateful kind of smile, presses his hand on top.
It goes through Bucky's fingers, of course. But it looks like they've touched and maybe that can be enough too.
"If I had to be haunted by someone, I'm glad it was you," Bucky says, quietly. "You're the best ghost pal I've ever had."
That makes Steve laugh, sad and sweet.
"I'm glad you moved in, Buck," Steve says, looking at him. "I'm glad it was you."
*
“Okay, there’s a guy,” Natasha tells him at work a week later. “I just need you to give him a chance, James. He’ll be good for you.”
Bucky, who’s just trying to enjoy his goddamned salad in goddamned peace, looks up at Natasha.
“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching kids how to play the recorder or whatever?” he squints at her.
“That’s Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Natasha says. She looks deadly, with her Hot Pocket in hand. Why does Natasha eat a Hot Pocket for lunch every day? How does she maintain the figure she does while eating a Hot Pocket for lunch every day? Bucky looks down mournfully at his salad. “Focus.”
“I’m focused,” Bucky says with an aggrieved sigh.
It’s times like this he wishes Clint was a teacher and Natasha was the weird start up guy...woman, or whatever. But Clint is too busy leading a team of nerds in building some app that does something weird, like bird watching for you. Bucky’s not entirely sure. He doesn’t think the app is compatible with his iPhone 6.
“You haven’t been on a date since--” she begins and Bucky motions for her to be quiet.
Listen, he knows. He knows he hasn’t been on a date since he accidentally went on a date with Tony Fucking Stark, like that hadn’t been the worst idea of his life, because even though Stark was insufferable but fine , Bucky’s face had been all over BuzzFeed for one of the worst and most awkward weeks of his life.
“I’m focusing on myself,” Bucky insists. “No men 2K19.”
“One date,” Natasha says and pushes him a business card with a name on it. “Go out, get some drinks, bring him home, get laid. When’s the last time you got laid?”
“Sex is overrated,” Bucky mutters.
“No it is not,” Natasha says, patting his hand sympathetically, just like someone who is regularly having sex would say. “Go get laid, James. You hang around your brownstone too much, people are gonna start to think you’re in a relationship with your apartment.”
And well, he couldn’t really tell Natasha, who was sure to tell Clint, who would text Sam immediately, who was living with Maria, so there went his whole social circle, that he was cohabiting with the ghost of Captain America, now could he?
*
“You’re going where now?” Steve asks as Bucky gets ready.
*
Bucky had taken Natasha’s advice to heart, complained to Steve for a solid week, and then felt guilty when Steve had said, quietly, “In my day, we couldn’t do that, you know. Just...go out with a fella. Wasn’t worth our life to do so.”
Bucky had looked over at Steve from his position, prone and dramatic on his couch, and made a thoughtful noise.
“Steve, are you--?” he asked.
Ghosts can’t eat or yodel or do a bunch of things, but they sure can blush. The pink crept up Steve’s neck.
“I’m not picky,” he said. “If it’s the right partner--man or woman, doesn’t matter to me. I like both. I liked both.”
“Did you have both?” Bucky had asked. “Both kinds of partners?”
Steve had turned nearly tomato red then, as though it wasn’t a proper question befitting Captain America. Not that Bucky had cared, really.
To him, Steve was beginning to be Steve. Not Captain America.
“No,” Steve had said quietly. “But I wanted to.”
*
So Bucky had agreed to call -- M’Baku was the guy’s name -- and they had said they’d meet up for drinks.
“To a bar closeby,” Bucky says, spraying cologne along his neck.
“That’s not so different from when I was alive,” Steve says. He watches Bucky as he gets ready, big arms across his big chest, leaning against the wall next to Bucky’s dresser and mirror situation. “Hey, I can almost smell that.”
“Yeah?” Bucky smiles. He starts to fix his hair. He used to be good at this. He used to know how to look and smell good for guys and, sometimes, girls too. “Smell good?”
“Yeah,” Steve says softly, after a minute.
Bucky puts gel into his hair and makes sure to style it just so. Steve watches him quietly. It was weird, at some point, Bucky thinks, having Steve watch his every move. Nowadays it’s not so bad. He likes talking to Steve, spending time with him even. He likes knowing that Captain America, at the heart of it, is just a normal guy, who happens to be a ghost stuck to his home.
He finishes and turns to Steve. He’s still in his star spangled suit, just like he always is, his blue eyes soft and translucent, his cheekbones high, a dusting of pink just across it. Steve must have been a vision when he was alive, because he’s a vision dead too.
Bucky thinks if he was alive, he would consider--
“You’re not gonna be lonely without me here, right?” Bucky teases.
A quiet kind of something flickers across Steve’s features.
“I’ll be waiting for you to get back,” Steve says by way of answer.
Bucky grabs his leather jacket and his keys and his chest is a little tight and a little warm as he leaves for his date.
*
M’Baku is, well--fuck, he’s gorgeous.
He’s hot as fuck and he’s funny as hell and when he tells Bucky straight off that he had lifted Natasha up by the shoulders when she had tried to set him up yet again and promised to tell Clint about the time she had made excuses to not come to the tech holiday party and he had found her smoking outside of a sports bar, watching hockey, well Bucky laughs so hard he nearly falls off his stool.
They buy drinks and lean in close and Bucky’s having such a good time, they agree to get dinner.
They get dinner and they talk some more and laugh some more and by the end of the night, Bucky’s way more many drinks in than he had realized and M’Baku’s hand is on his thigh.
His voice is hot in his ear as he leans over and asks Bucky, “Is it too forward to say I wouldn’t hate ending the night together?”
His voice and the heat, Bucky’s head spinning, M’Baku’s strong hand, firm against his leg, all go straight to his dick.
“My place is a few blocks away,” Bucky says in a low whisper, returned to M’Baku’s ear.
He forgets to tell his date about his living situation.
Frankly, he forgets himself that his roommate is dead.
*
They get in through the door, only barely, before M’Baku’s mouth is on his, hot and fast, hands a little desperate and everywhere. Well, Bucky’s. M’Baku seems to move with the strength and confidence of someone who is very very good at this and Bucky seems to move with the nearly cataclysmic flailing limbs of someone who hasn’t gotten fucked in almost a year.
It’s all very hot and very fast and slightly overwhelming, but Bucky manages to get his shirt off and he manages to get his hand on M’Baku’s zipper and they fumble together until Bucky’s back leg hits the sofa and they both go careening over.
Bucky makes a sound and M’Baku’s mouth is at his throat, his hand pressing into Bucky’s groin and there’s about to be a whole lot of unzipping and sucking action when, suddenly, out of nowhere, everything starts going haywire.
The furnace starts boiling really hot and then cools down to freezing. The boiler makes awful whining, clanging, war noises. The lights flicker on and off. There’s some kind of a howling in the walls.
“What the--” M’Baku, half-panting, hand halfway down Bucky’s pants, sits up, blinking rapidly.
“Shit,” Bucky says, lips red, half-panting himself. “Fuck.”
A glass shatters in the kitchen.
“Barnes,” M’Baku rasps. “What kind of white magic is this?”
“I--it’s not,” Bucky tries, but the light turns on with a loud buzzing sound, goes brighter and brighter and brighter and then goes pitch black again.
“Uh,” M’Baku says. “Listen, I like you and you’re hot and we can--finish this another time, but--”
“M’Baku, wait,” Bucky tries as the other man gets off his lap. “Wait, I can explain--”
M’Baku doesn’t listen, which Bucky isn’t surprised by. He tries to protest, explain that there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this, but M’Baku is to the door within a minute.
“Listen,” he says. “My Mama taught me not to ignore the signs of a haunting. And Barnes, this is a fucking haunting. Thanks for a fun night. Call me.”
He gives Bucky a rough, quick kiss, and leaves.
The moment he does, everything goes very swiftly back to normal of course.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bucky shouts, slamming the door. “Rogers!”
It barely takes a breath before Steve materializes out of nowhere.
“What?” he asks. He looks innocent. Too fucking innocent for a dead guy from the 1940s.
“What. Was. That.” Bucky growls at him.
“I thought...you were being attacked,” Steve says. He delivers the statement with as much confidence as a supersoldier can, but it doesn’t reach his translucent fucking eyes, which is how Bucky can tell he’s lying, even though it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to figure out that much anyway.
“I was on a fucking date,” Bucky growls.
Steve crosses his arms at his chest.
“I didn’t know you were going to bring him back,” Steve says. “This is our place. I was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection,” Bucky, so angry he think he’s seeing Steve in red, nearly shouts. “And it’s not our place. It’s mine. It’s my place!”
Bucky is so furious, he’s so livid that he doesn’t really notice the hurt that crosses Steve’s face.
“Fine,” Steve says, coldly. “It’s your place, Bucky. You’re right, I don’t belong here.”
Bucky’s still chewing through his absolute fury, but he doesn’t like the sound of that. He stops mid-rant brewing and frowns.
“That’s not what I--”
“I mean I just died eighty years ago trying to save the whole country,” Steve says. “And I’ve been stuck in between living and dead since.”
“Steve, that’s not what--”
“--and I haven’t had a single person to talk to in that time,” Steve goes on.
“Come on, you just can’t--”
“--and I’m stuck to this goddamn fucking brownstone like it was my dying fucking wish to become one with the bricks or something,” Steve says hotly. His expression is so angry that it’s terrifying. Bucky suddenly understands why everyone listened to him. Why his enemies cowered to him. Why Steve was Captain America. “But sure, Buck. I’m sorry for ruining your date in your place.”
Steve disappears in a pop of light.
There’s silence left behind in his place.
“Fuck,” Bucky says. He drags his hands down his face and slams his fist into the door. “Fuck!”
He tucks himself back into his pants and goes to his room, slamming the door shut behind him.
He gets undressed, washes his face, waddles himself in his cocoon, and falls asleep immediately.
He has dreams and they’re all bad. It’s Steve and he’s trying to crash with the quinjet and Bucky’s there, just behind him, a ghost, trying to save him, but he can’t.
He can’t, and Steve dies.
*
Steve ignores him for the next two weeks.
Bucky tries his best to coax him out of hiding, to apologize, to leave out things that he knows Steve can almost smell or almost taste, as an offering. He’s still frustrated about his aborted date with M’Baku and he knows he needs to have a talk with Steve about boundaries, but Bucky knows he was out of line too.
It’s not fair of him to tell Steve he doesn’t belong in the only place he has left to him.
And he does belong.
As loathe as he is to admit it, the place doesn’t feel the same without his big, dumb, blond, dead roommate.
Bucky misses his voice and his stories. He misses coming home and seeing him waiting for him, eager, always, as though there’s no person else he would rather be waiting for.
He misses Steve’s terrible attempts to move objects or to help him with everyday tasks.
He misses cooking with Steve--him cooking and Steve trying to cut vegetables and yelling out curses every time his hand goes through the cutting board.
He misses Steve’s presence.
He misses Steve.
*
Natasha’s mad at him too, which is just great.
“M’Baku told me your date didn’t end well,” she glowers at him. “Are you kidding me, Barnes? You’re sabotaging your dates now too?”
Bucky sighs and rubs his temples.
Sam and Maria look at him over their noodles.
Clint wrestles with chopsticks.
Bucky picks up his chopsticks and looks at his assorted friends. Well if they’re going to be annoying assholes about it, they might as well learn the truth.
He looks them in the eyes, unimpressed.
“Captain America is haunting me,” he says.
**
part two.
Bucky starts thinking about it differently after that.
As everyone is getting their jackets and making to leave the restaurant, Sam grabs his wrist. Sam, his best friend. Sam, who’s seen him through more messes and nights in the toilet in college than Bucky thinks he’s ever going to be able to pay him back for.
“Bucky,” he says. “I care about you a lot, you know that right?”
“Yeah,” Bucky says uneasily. He doesn’t like the look on Sam’s face or the tone of his voice.
“Don’t--” Sam starts and stops. He looks at Bucky and then sighs. “I know you. Better than anyone. I’ve seen you fall for people and get your heart broken. I’ve seen you hit rock bottom and get back up. I’ve seen you with your kids and I know how you look when you look happy and fulfilled, right?”
“Sam, what’s this about?” Bucky asks.
At the front of the store, Natasha and Maria are looking back at them curiously.
“Don’t fall in love with a ghost,” Sam says, tightening his grip on Bucky’s wrist. “Promise me.”
“I’m not stupid, Sam,” Bucky says and takes his wrist back. “I’m not going to fall in love with the ghost of Captain America.”
*
First of all, he isn’t stupid.
Second of all, no one would believe him; not even his therapist.
*
Third of all … okay, maybe he’s a little stupid.
*
Bucky has a secret passion for baking. He thinks in another life, he would have opened up a bakery and coffee shop, called it something cute and quirky like the Perkatory. He loves his kids and he loves sitting down and finger-painting with a bunch of like-minded, hyperactive four and five year olds for a living, but sometimes he thinks he could have been just as happy making bundt cakes to sell.
Anyway, it’s the end of March and it’s almost his birthday, so he starts making himself a birthday cake.
It’s very clearly one, with copious amounts of sprinkles, just the way he likes, and bright blue frosting, also just the way he likes.
He’s moving his hips to whatever’s coming on through his Spotify account--some top hit from Ariana Grande, probably--and also singing to himself Happy Birthday to me when he hears a loud pop behind him.
It rolls over him like a wave of cool air. It’s not a tangible thing, just the feeling of someone else beside him. A presence.
“It’s your birthday?” Steve asks.
Bucky pauses his frosting, his heart tumbling a little in his chest, and he looks up.
Steve is standing there, hands in his pockets, a little expression on his face like he’s shy or maybe a little abashed.
“Steve,” Bucky breathes out and feels his spirit lift. Then his eyes widen. “You’re not in your uniform anymore.”
Steve presses a hand to the back of his neck and his blond hair, neatly combed over like a good boy from the 1940s, flops a little into his face.
“Yeah,” he says. “I uh, learned some stuff. While I was away. I was getting tired of the stupid uniform.”
Bucky bites his bottom lip and looks Steve over. His hair--blond and combed over, his cheeks, pink up high, a pair of dark pin-striped pants across surprisingly thick thighs, a white t-shirt under a light blue, checkered button up, and a brown leather jacket pulled across on top.
Bucky’s always known that he’s being haunted by a handsome ghost, but he had never before quite realized that Steve wasn’t just handsome, he was--Jesus Fuck. Bucky tries not to drool.
He can’t quite help whatever’s happening in his chest; it’s a bit of a mess.
“It looked good,” Bucky says softly. “But this does too. You look good, Steve.”
Steve ducks his head, pink crawling up his neck, and the two of them stay in silence for an awkward minute.
“Do you forgive me, Buck?” Steve finally asks, and Bucky’s startled by it.
“What?” he says. “I was going to apologize. Steve, I’m so sorry--”
“What’re you apologizing for?” Steve asks, eyes wide. “You didn’t--listen, I was completely out of line. I don’t know what I was thinking. This is your place, you can bring whatever fella you like home and--”
“It’s not just my place,” Bucky interrupts him. “It’s yours too. It was your home first and now it’s mine and it’s--ours. It’s our place, Steve. I know it’s unorthodox or whatever, but this place doesn’t feel like home without you. You make it feel like home.”
Steve nearly glows pink now, but his eyes soften and Bucky can tell he feels as warm and soft as Bucky does. Maybe it’s a grand statement to make, but Bucky means every word of it.
“I’m sorry,” Bucky says.
“Me too,” Steve says.
They both smile at each other, a little goofily, and Bucky’s heart skips a beat.
“So, your birthday?” Steve asks.
“Yeah,” Bucky says. “It’s tomorrow. I was baking a cake for myself. I guess to take it in to school on Monday, though the kids are gonna be on a sugar rush all day and I’ll have no one to blame but myself.”
Steve’s quiet for a minute. And then he asks.
“Can I help?”
Bucky’s almost done, but he smiles a bit anyway.
“Sure,” he says.
They stand side by side at the counter, Bucky icing and Steve not really helping, but pretending to. He tries to pick up the frosting when Bucky does, tries to use the spatula to spread it all around when Bucky does. He reaches for the sprinkles first and pretends to hand it over to Bucky.
It’s not perfect, but Bucky doesn’t mind.
Steve speaks warmly to him and Bucky laughs at every story he has to tell.
Apparently he’s been spending a lot of time in the Internet since he left, so he has about three dozen of the weirdest stories from Reddit that either of them can imagine.
By the end of the night, Bucky’s sticky from frosting, but warm from laughing.
“Happy Birthday, Buck,” Steve wishes him from his doorway, at midnight.
“Thanks, Stevie,” Bucky says brightly.
Steve turns a near perfect shade of pink and Bucky laughs some more.
He closes the door and turns to his bed and finds, for the first time in a long time, that he doesn’t want to swaddle in his cocoon by himself.
*
Bucky goes on a few more dates, not because Natasha asks for him to or even because Sam and Maria are living together and every day Bucky wakes up with the fear that this is the day they’re going to get engaged.
Some of them are with M’Baku, who Bucky calls and apologizes to and who has such a good sense of humor that he laughs it off and agrees to get drinks with Bucky again.
Some of them are with people he matches with on apps.
They’re all fine. Nice, even. Fun!
Bucky thinks that if he was a little less preoccupied, he’d really give this thing with M’Baku a go because he’s hot as sin and a good kisser and the one time he goes home with him (back to M’Baku’s place), it’s really good.
But there’s always something missing from the dates.
Bucky always gets home from them, sees Steve sitting on his sofa, watching some animated movie on TV, and when the ghost of Captain America looks up at him, Bucky feels happier and warmer than any time he’s with anyone else.
It fits into place and if that’s a problem, he’s not going to tell Sam about it just yet.
*
“Let’s go dancing,” Natasha says one Friday evening. The group is all gathered at their favorite bar in Brooklyn, two beers in, half-lazing around watching Clint try to solve a Rubik’s Cube, and half just waiting for something to happen.
Bucky’s halfway into his third beer and wondering what Steve’s doing back home. He thinks he left the TV on for him this morning, but he’s not sure. In his half-tipsy state, he’s worried that his best ghost friend is bored and lonely and he’s out here getting drinks on a Friday night without warning him that he’ll be home late.
He misses him.
“Yeah, okay,” Clint says, sighing and giving up on the Rubik’s Cube.
“We haven’t been in a while,” Maria agrees, leaning close into Sam. “Dance with me, Romanoff.”
“I only dance dirty,” Natasha says with a wolf-like grin.
Maria, flaming bisexual that she is, leans forward on her elbows.
“That a promise?” she asks lowly.
“You think those two ever hook up?” Clint asks blandly, finishing his beer.
“Oh yeah,” Sam says, finishing his too. “Without a fucking doubt.”
*
They go to a club that Natasha knows about, not too far from the bar. They’re not dressed for it, particularly, but they’re in their late 20s and it shows. Bucky complains about his creaking knees to Sam nearly every other day and Sam says he can’t drink without feeling the hangover start almost immediately after.
The club is loud and overly lit and there’s about a hundred people more than Bucky is used to and he woke up at 6 am to go to work today, so he’s ready to go home the minute they get into the middle of the dancing. He used to love this, he knows. He’s always been a fun-loving, music-playing, dancing-with-his-entire-body kinda guy.
He still loves it, it’s just he’s tired and a little drunk and everyone keeps pressing up against him.
He tries to play nice, for Natasha and Maria’s sake anyway.
They play about a dozen songs he doesn’t know, a handful of songs he knows, and he feels the pounding of electronic beats rattle around his skull. He dances with Sam and he dances with Clint and at some point, he and Maria get into a dancing competition that requires everyone around them to form a protective circle and the subsequent cheering is less noise and more din.
He’s laughing so hard at Clint trying to do a single dance move that he nearly ruptures his spleen.
Sam leaves to go get them more drinks and when he returns, it’s with shots, and everything feels a little better after that.
It’s nearly two in the morning before he decides, no he can’t do this anymore, he’s absolutely going to die in the middle of this moshpit.
Luckily for him, Sam and Maria, almost-engaged old couple that they are, feel similarly.
Maria’s hanging onto Sam and Sam’s grinning at Bucky and jerking his head toward the door to motion they’re going to leave. Bucky looks around to bid Natasha farewell, but he finds her and Clint necking somewhere in the corner.
“I always forget how handsy she gets when drunk,” he mutters into Sam’s ear as they leave.
“Luckily, she’s dating the human embodiment of silly putty,” Sam laughs back.
By the time they get back into the cool Brooklyn night air, the sweat is drying on his skin, Bucky’s head is pounding with phantom music beats, his throat is scratchy, and he thinks he smells like a hundred sweating, stinking human bodies drenched in liquor.
“Night, Barnes,” Sam says as Maria groans next to him. Sam props her up, strokes her back and says, “There, there, babe. Yeah, I know, of course we’re never doing that again. Yeah, you and Nat kissed. No I’m not jealous. Yeah, it was hot.”
Bucky chuckles, sticks his hands in his pockets, and walks the fifteen minutes home.
*
When he opens the door, he doesn’t realize he’s so excited to be back until he notices Steve slumped on the couch.
Bucky hadn’t realized that ghosts can sleep too. Or maybe Steve is pretending for his benefit.
Pretending like this is normal, like they’re normal roommates (or partners, his brain whispers treacherously), Bucky goes to Steve’s side.
He pretends to shake him wake.
“Hey Steve,” he says. “Stevie. Sweetheart. I’m home.”
Steve opens one eye and blue peeks up at Bucky.
There’s no way he was asleep. So he was pretending for Bucky’s benefit. Bucky’s heart swells at that and he has the sudden, drunken urge to kiss him for waiting.
“Oh, hey,” Steve says and gives a pretend yawn. “You’re home.”
“Yeah, sugar,” Bucky says, dropping his voice low. “Just got outta work.”
“Yeah?” Steve says softly. “How was it?”
“Hard,” Bucky says, kneeling by him. “The water was rough today. Had a lotta crates to pack and the docks were swayin’ under us.”
“You’re sweating,” Steve says. He reaches out and his hand hovers by Bucky’s cheek, as though he’s touching it. “They work you too hard down there.”
“Gotta keep food on our table, don’t I?” Bucky whispers. “I don’t mind, long as I can come home to you.”
Steve’s eyes close. He stays still, very very still, hand still on Bucky’s cheek. His chest rises, up and down, as though he’s breathing.
Bucky can almost feel the longing roll off of him.
It’s funny.
It’s almost as much as the longing rolling off of Bucky.
“We were supposed to go dancing tonight,” Steve says after a moment, opening his eyes. “Thought I’d take you after you got home from work. I know a place, just for us two.”
“Yeah?” Bucky breathes out. His heart rate is picking up, softly, in his chest.
“Yeah,” Steve says.
“How about we dance now, then?” Bucky asks. “Just the two of us?”
Steve sits up. Moonlight streams into the room from Bucky’s window. It passes through Steve, illuminates him. He’s here and he isn’t.
He’s beautiful either way.
“Buck,” Steve says and his voice changes. “I love to dance.”
Bucky smiles and gets up. He offers his hand to Steve.
“Me too,” he says. “Dance with me, Cap.”
Steve flushes, but he pretends to take Bucky’s hand. He stands and Bucky pretends to pull him close, one hand to his shoulder, the other intertwined around Steve’s own.
There’s no music to accompany them, but they sway together anyway, softly, gently, round and round in the living room.
Steve puts his head on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky rests his chin on top of Steve’s head. They circle around each other in silence. One of them is dead and one of them is alive and they can’t touch but for one of them passing through the other, but they fit together anyway.
Bucky hears a little crackling sound and suddenly, from his phone, there comes music, something old and soft. Ella Fitzgerald.
“Oh hey,” Bucky says softly. “You did it.”
There’s another little flicker and something glows around them. Bucky blinks and steps back and suddenly everything around them has changed.
Steve’s in a suit, black, white shirt, bowtie at his throat. Bucky too, is in a suit, his own a dark blue, white ruffle shirt, a button open at the throat. Their brownstone is no longer a brownstone. They’re at some club, old, from the 30s. The floor is wooden, the walls and curtain black and white. Ella’s playing somewhere in the background.
Bucky feels like he’s caught in a dream.
“Is this okay?” Steve asks, quietly. “I wanted to dance with you here, in my memories.”
Bucky’s throat constricts and he nods.
“Course it’s okay,” Bucky says. “I’ll dance with you wherever you want me to, sweetheart.”
Steve presses his arms around Bucky’s shoulder this time, his blond hair swept across, his eyes bright and happy, nearly twinkling under the lights.
Bucky smiles, nearly dizzy with feeling, and they turn slowly, one foot after the other, one after the other, in tune with Ella, gently, softly, sweetly.
They dance close, Bucky’s head resting on Steve’s shoulder, Steve nestled an inch away, one hand on Bucky’s back, and Bucky swears--he swears, he can nearly feel him.
They dance until the sun comes up and the memory slowly fades around them.
*
Bucky wakes up halfway through the next day and looks over in his bed. The sunlight is streaming in bright through the windows and there’s plenty of space right there for someone else. Someone bigger than him. Someone with blond hair and blue eyes and shoulders Bucky wants to run his hands over, again and again.
He’s not there though and that’s when it hits him, like a punch to the gut, his insides twisting with an aching loneliness and yearning that he can’t swallow.
He loves Steve Rogers, every aching part of him.
Despite Sam’s warning, Bucky had done it.
He had fallen in love with a ghost.
*
The realization doesn’t change anything, is the worst part.
He still wakes up, happy to see Steve awake by the coffee pot.
He still comes back from work, happy to see Steve watching the TV he’s left on for him.
It’s not so much of a routine they start to make as much as a home, a life, together.
*
In June, Bucky breaks things off with M’Baku. M’Baku takes things well and they more than agree to stay friends.
Natasha and Sam and Maria and Clint don’t ask why.
“How’s Captain America?” Natasha asks one day at dinner and Bucky shrugs a shoulder.
“Fine,” he says.
“Still haunting you?” she asks.
“Still haunting me,” he says.
He can’t quite meet Sam’s eyes as he say it, which is why he knows that Sam knows.
He leaves almost immediately after dinner, claiming he’s tired, but school’s out by now and he doesn’t really have an excuse for it.
When he gets home, he and Steve go up to the roof and lay on a blanket, close together, watching the stars above them.
He lays his palm out in between them and Steve lays his palm on top and neither of them say anything and neither of them physically feel anything, but it’s not what’s tangible that matters, but what they feel in between them.
Steve loves him too, of that, Bucky is almost positive.
*
“It’s almost your birthday,” Bucky says, the last week of June.
It’s hot and he’s started wearing shorts and tank tops around the house. Steve can’t feel temperature, but he wears these tight shirts with his jeans that are driving Bucky absolutely insane.
“Oh yeah,” Steve says, with a grin.
Bucky’s making lemonade and Steve is flipping through Bucky’s Kindle. Since Kindle books are in the Kindle themselves, Steve’s found that he can reach in and flip the pages electronically. A neat ghost hack.
“Twenty nine going on one hundred one,” he says. “Well, thirty I guess. I was twenty nine when I died.”
Bucky hates that thought. He turned twenty nine this year and to equate that with Steve, with Captain America--he hates it. It twists his stomach in the worst of ways. Sometimes he forgets that even though Captain America is timeless, Steve was young when everything happened to him. Bucky can’t imagine bearing that kind of weight.
“Gotta do something for your thirtieth, Stevie,” he says. He finishes blending and pours the lemonade into a glass. “It’s a big one. What do you want?”
Bucky pours another one and sets it down in front of Steve.
They know he can’t drink it, but it’s nice anyway, the gesture.
It makes Steve feel normal, like he could still be alive.
Steve looks at the glass of lemonade, a controlled expression on his face, but Bucky can read the lines of sadness in the corners of his eyes.
“I got what I need, Buck,” Steve says.
“I said what do you want,” Bucky says quietly. “Not what you need.”
Steve looks from the lemonade to Bucky. His eyes flicker down to Bucky’s mouth. His expression tightens and he turns away.
“Nothing,” he says. “I don’t want anything.”
*
Bucky does it anyway. He bakes a nice cake for Steve, turns on an old movie in the background, and sets up the rooftop with stringed lights and speakers to hook his phone up to.
Steve is reluctant at first, but then he ducks his head and smiles. A tell-tale sign that Steve Rogers is pleased. Happy, even.
“We’re having a barbecue,” Sam calls Bucky to say. “Come over. We’ll drink beer, eat ribs, and watch fireworks.”
“That’s okay,” Bucky says, looking at Steve lean over his cake. “I got plans. Thanks though, Sam. Tell Maria I said thanks too.”
There’s a bit of a silence over the line.
“Okay,” Sam says. “Barnes--”
Bucky says nothing.
Sam sighs.
“Tell Steve I said Happy Birthday, okay?”
Bucky ends the call and feels weird.
He feels strange about all of this--unsettled and uncomfortable. He’s restless. He watches Steve pretend to eat a slice of cake and feels sad.
“Was that Sam?” Steve says brightly as Bucky returns to his side.
“Yeah,” Bucky says. “He says Happy Birthday.”
Steve smiles.
“Maybe I can meet him one day,” he says.
They both know Sam will never be able to see him.
Just as the delivery boy wasn’t able to. Just as Mrs. Dougherty isn’t able to.
No one can see Steve except for Bucky. And that’s okay, usually.
Except, that’s not how to build a life with someone.
*
Is that what he wants? Bucky thinks.
They climb the stairs to the rooftop. Bucky’s spread a blanket across the ground. There’s a picnic basket there, for Bucky to eat and for Steve to pretend.
Steve has to pretend everything.
Does he want to build a life with Steve?
But then--how does he do that?
Bucky sits next to Steve and Steve tips his head onto Bucky’s shoulder.
He doesn’t feel it, of course.
How does he build a life with a ghost?
*
The day grows old, the darkness of night peeking out from behind clouds of peach.
Bucky has champagne open, he has sandwiches on plates, an apple pie with a caramel drizzle, and slices of birthday cake.
Steve is telling him about whatever he’s read on the Internet today and their hands should be touching and god--
Bucky’s breath closes in over him.
He can’t take it.
He honestly cannot fucking take it.
He jerks away from Steve and Steve’s voice quiets.
Bucky pulls his knees up and puts his arms around them. He sets his forehead against the top and tries not to shake.
Steve’s quiet for a few minutes before talking again.
“If I was alive, I’d take you in my arms,” he says quietly. “My whole life I waited for a guy like you, Buck. I didn’t have that in my life. There was always a guy here, a gal there, but no one I ever wanted like I want you. I never wanted to wait for someone at home. Never had someone I wanted to write back to, once I went off to war. And when we were in Europe--well, there was Peggy, kind of, but it was never the right time with her. Maybe I could’ve made a life with her, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now.”
Bucky focuses on breathing in deeply.
“There’s never been someone who I wanted to wake up for in the morning. Someone I wanted to kiss goodbye at night. And even if there was, I couldn’t have done it, you know?” Steve’s voice comes to him as though from far away. “There was never a person I could call home.”
Bucky’s throat is thick. He can’t swallow past whatever’s making it lump there.
“I was Captain America for a while, but I was Steve Rogers for longer,” Steve says. Bucky can feel his eyes when he turns his gaze on him. “And I want you to know, Bucky, that I don’t care what Captain America woulda done, but Steve Rogers, if he had you--if I’d had a chance with you, well.”
His voice softens.
The night grows darker all around them.
“What I would’ve done to have a chance to make you my home, Bucky Barnes,” he says softly.
Bucky could weep from the feeling heavy around his chest.
He doesn’t, though.
He can’t.
Above them, someone starts the fireworks.
“Hey, look,” Steve says, his voice lighter. “Happy Birthday, America.”
Bucky swallows and he unwinds himself.
He puts his hands on Steve’s shoulders, surprising him, and hovers over him.
Steve slides back, as though he can feel it, as though Bucky can push him back, even though he can’t, even though neither of them can feel a single thing.
Steve looks up at him and Bucky looks down at him and he feels like crying, he feels like every part of his fucking body is being torn to pieces.
Steve tries to slide a hand into Bucky’s hair. He cups his face, a hand hovering just above.
“Don’t cry, Buck,” Steve says. “One day, you’ll find your someone. I found mine a lifetime too late, I guess, but I don’t regret it. I’d never regret meeting you.”
Something wet slides through Steve’s face and Bucky thinks it’s the rain before realizing no, it’s him. One drop falls and then another and then another.
*
“Fuck you,” Bucky squeezes out.
*
Because the thing is--
*
“You’re my someone,” Bucky says.
*
Home isn’t a place--
*
“Happy Birthday, Captain America,” Bucky says with a sad, strangled laugh.
*
--sometimes, it’s a person.
*
Bucky leans down and kisses him.
*
And much to both of their surprises, his lips don’t pass through air.
Almost as though magic, Bucky’s heart beating and breaking in his chest, another mouth presses into Bucky’s own.
It’s warm and firm.
It’s solid.
*
“Oh,” Steve gasps and both of their eyes flutter open.
“Steve?” Bucky asks, eyes widening.
Under him, where there was nothing--where there was just air, is a person.
His hands are on Steve’s shoulders and Steve’s hands are on his waist.
He can feel him.
Bucky stares.
He can feel him.
“I guess my home isn’t a place anymore,” Steve says with a smile--a wide, breathless, heartbreaking smile.
Bucky’s hand goes to his face, touches it, fingertips brushing his cheeks. He traces his eyebrows, the curve of his nose, nails brushing the lines of his lips.
“You’re real, Steve,” Bucky says, in wonderment, with emotion. “Steve, you’re alive.”
Steve wraps his arms around Bucky, pulls him down, and kisses him.
*
Bucky feels it, from his mouth, to the curl of his toes.
He feels it everywhere.
He feels him. He feels, Steve.
Not ghost; not cold; not dead.
Not undead, either.
Steve’s warm, solid fingers tangle with Bucky’s hair. He cups the back of Bucky’s head, draws out a happy, disbelieving gasp into his mouth.
Overcome with--hope, and relief, and the kind of overwhelming, heart-rending, shocked happiness that makes him tremble, Bucky sinks into the kiss. Steve feels warm and he smells familiar--like Bucky’s soap, like books and old memories and the scent of the brownstone on a cool spring day--and that’s enough to make Bucky believe, but his hand finds the place above Steve’s heart anyway and he presses, hard.
There’s no give there. It’s hard, solid muscle. And underneath, a warm, vibrant, beating, alive, human heart.
*
Bucky doesn’t cry again, but he almost does.
He gets his arms around Steve and Steve keeps his arms around Bucky and they drink each other in, foreheads pressed close, noses touching, hearts beating in a rhythm, together, in tandem, and they open their mouths and they kiss, and they kiss.
And when they break apart, laughing, to take a shaky, giddy breath, well.
They just come back together and kiss again.
**
part three.
“Captain America is living with me,” Bucky says over a bowl of ramen.
His pronouncement is met with a round of silence.
Natasha raises an eyebrow. Sam looks up at him, dazed and confused. Clint--well, he’s still trying to figure out how to work chopsticks.
“Well that does appear to be him,” Maria says, fascinated.
Steve sits next to Bucky, a bowl of ramen in front of him too. The color is high in his cheeks and he still looks like a 1940s nerd, all khakis and plaid button up and leather jacket across his broad--very broad--shoulders.
“The first Avenger,” Natasha says. “Supersoldier and hero of World War II. The fabric of the American conscience.”
“Yup,” Bucky says. He pats Steve’s shoulder. “Isn’t that right, babe?”
“Uh,” Steve says and colors a brilliant shade of pink.
“Let me get this straight,” Sam says, leaning forward. “So you were dead.”
“Yeah,” Steve says.
“And then you were a ghost.”
“Yup,” Bucky confirms.
“Living in the walls of Bucky’s new brownstone,” Maria adds.
“Eh,” Bucky makes a so-so motion.
“And now you’re alive,” Natasha adds. “A real live, human super soldier who died in 1947 and is now alive again and living with our best friend.”
“And sleeping with him!” Bucky says cheerfully. Steve flushes and everyone glares at him. Bucky opens his mouth in protest. “What! You all keep telling me to get laid and now that I am--”
“How did all this happen?” Sam says, seeming stumped. “Like--what? Are you a wizard?”
“I don’t think so,” Steve says, dubiously. “But we kissed and then I was suddenly there. Here.”
“This is some true love’s kiss fairytale bullshit!” Sam exclaims. “I can’t believe this. I need like. Twelve more dumplings.”
Maria pats her fiance’s shoulder comfortingly. On her ring finger is a huge rock.
“Go order yourself some dumplings, babe,” she says. She leans forward. “Now Steve, I want to know. Tell me. All about the gay bars in the 1930s.”
“For the love of God,” Sam mutters.
“Actually, that’s not a bad topic,” Natasha pivots. She picks up her chopsticks. “Tell us, ghost boy. I’m tired of hearing these other idiots talk, it’s your turn now.”
Steve looks at Bucky as though for confirmation, but Bucky just grins happily. Under the table, he puts a hand on Steve’s thigh.
Steve leans forward and starts his tale, but under the table, he puts his hand over Bucky’s, laces their fingers together.
Bucky feels it; the press of every finger.
Once he starts talking, the others get sucked in--even Sam, who has, indeed, ordered twelve more dumplings--and then there are questions and there’s laughter and Bucky feels--well, he feels like nothing could be better than this.
He should send Mrs. Dougherty a real nice Christmas present this year.
Halfway through Steve’s story, they all hear a shout.
“Aha!” comes Clint. “I got it! I picked up a dumpling! Did you see?”
“Yes darling, we saw,” Natasha says, patting his shoulder.
Clint tries to pick some more things up and Sam ends up eating all of his dumplings and Maria and Natasha and Steve start debating queer culture or something and Bucky.
Well.
Bucky takes noodles between his chopsticks, sticks them in his mouth, and slurps.