fossilised | werewolves

werewolves

Pumpkin Spice.

It hits the shelves the moment the temperature dips below eighty, before the summer officially ends and the leaves give hint at changing color. It's become an American way of life. Lattes might claim it to be proof of their success and staying power but it's expanded into hand soap and e-cigarettes now. You can't find anything, really, that hasn't been pumpkin spiced these days. Pumpkin pie is too humble to try and reclaim it anyway, and has quietly retreated to Thanksgiving where it waits to mark the end of the most beloved season in New York among straight white girls.

Steve Rogers, while neither straight nor a girl, has whole heartedly embraced the trend and the moment Starbucks announced that it had come back out for a Limited Time Only, Steve had rummaged in his sock drawer for a gift card he was sure had money left on it and stood in line with the masses to claim his holy grail.

It's a comfort. It's a promise that there's going to be something else to look forward to in the coming months when holidays rear their ugly and beautiful heads to remind you that your family is dead and most of the kids you lived with in foster care and group homes have disappeared out of your life. It makes Steve's day and he's already day dreaming about boots and puffy vests the moment he takes his first, iced sip. Steve isn't really a day dreamer, but his head can get stuck in the clouds on the best days and distraction comes easily in a city where you're never and always alone at the same time.

There's charcoal under his nails and a moment of joy in his heart from the iced latte he grasps so fiercely the day he sees Bucky across the street. He'd know him anywhere, even with that long fringe of hair he hasn't seen since before he went off to basic training. The light to cross the street between them is red but Steve ignores the risks. There are two lanes each direction, and all four are packed with yellow cabs and black Uber cars. No one can go fast enough to do him any damage.

The latte gets dropped along the way and Steve doesn't care. It's been over a year and a half since he's seen Bucky. It's been six months since he last heard anything from him actually. He hadn't even gotten a birthday card this year.

"Buck!" Steve is just a skinny guy, five foot four, maybe 100 pounds if he's got art supplies and an easel on him. He has fallen arches and a heart arrhythmia, but they aren't keeping him from shimmying between cars and nearly getting run over. He's out of breath when he makes it across the street and though he's lost his drink, he needs to bend over and cup his hands on his knees to steady himself anyway so it all works out. "Hey." It's smooth and followed by a smile. Something bright and cheery and all too Steve Rogers hopped up on artificial sugar and flavorings.

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Bucky Barnes has been best friends with Steve Rogers since they were stupid little kids, and he saved a gap-toothed twig of a boy from six others twice his size, and then got yelled at for interfering. Six years old, and somehow best friends for life. He kept waiting for what his folks always said happened when two kids from different backgrounds made friends, that things would change and they'd grow apart as they got older.

Never happened.

Steve was this poor kid with an overworked nurse for a Mom, living in a run down old tenement building with drug addicts for neighbours. Sarah had died when Steve was still in school, caught an infection from someone on the wards and slipped away quickly, leaving Steve a ward of the state. Bucky was from a middle class family with a fairly nice home, two living parents, and three younger sisters. Their fortunes had disappeared when Bucky had been about to graduate - turns out his Ma and Pop had decided that taxes were for other people to pay for about a decade, and both of them ended up in jail, leaving him and his sisters penniless and alone. His sisters had gone to one of their Aunts to finish schooling, but as Bucky was about to graduate he had altered his plans of college and getting a place with Steve. He couldn't afford that now.

So he enlisted.

Not because he had any great desire to serve his country, but because if he served a minimum term then they'd pay his way through college when he got out. A free degree and money saved up for after, seemed like a no-brainer to him. He'd miss his sisters, and he'd miss Steve, but it was only a few years and he had no comprehension of what he was letting himself in for.

How bad could war be?

For the whole of basic training and then the first six months of being shipped out, Steve wrote religiously to Becca (with notes for the two younger ones) and to Steve. And then it all went to hell and back. Now it's months that feel like years later and somehow he's still alive and back on American soil. He's down an arm, not that it shows with the prosthetic strapped to him and hidden by a long sleeved sweater, and he has a head full of holes.

He stands as if he's been shot when he hears the unexpected shout of his name, and then stares as Steve - looking as perfect and beautiful as a goddamn sunrise - sprints across the road towards him as if it hasn't been over a year since they last saw each other and he doesn't blame Bucky at all for not writing, not even telling him that he was back Stateside.

"--Jesus, Steve, do you even have your inhaler on you?"

“What?” The first thing out of Bucky’s mouth is exactly what he expects it to be and yet it still takes Steve aback. He straightens, though his back is aching, and his hands leave his knees so that they can feel along the pockets of his skinny jeans. Phone, check. Wallet, check again. Inhaler? “Shit. No. I left it at home.”

It’s not much of a home. He gets some money from the government and his art classes are paid for thanks to New York being kind to the arts and still setting aside funding for it. He works two jobs to afford his third of the rent in a tiny two bedroom apartment where he’s got the closet. It works. He can afford it. A mattress, a filing cabinet where he keeps his underwear and art supplies, and hanging shelves are all he really needs anyway. He’s gotten pretty good at creatively carving space for himself and it’s not like he needs that much of it. He doesn’t even need a window either. The view would just be another building two feet away and a dirty alley anyway.

“But I’m good!” he continues, thankfully no wheeze in his voice to highlight a potential lie. And he is good. Really good. He can’t stop grinning, like he’s been trying out to be the Joker and his face has just gotten stuck that way.

Steve isn’t going to ask when Bucky got home. He’s not going to ask how he is either. There no need to because it doesn’t matter. Bucky is right in front of him now. He’s standing here. He’s here.. Steve could cry but he won’t do that either. He doesn’t want his friend to make fun of him for being soft like he had when Bucky called him the day before he was being deployed overseas.

“What are you doing right now? If you say you’re busy, I’m going to have to hit you. Fair warning.”

Steve looks like a goddamn idiot, grinning at him like he's in training to be a clown or something. It used to be that Steve's smile could always make him smile in return, but there's something broken in his head where that reaction used to be, and his face apparently doesn't get the message. He looks wary up close, dark smudges under his eyes that suggest he doesn't sleep well, and there's no hint of the ready smile that he used to be able to charm pretty much any girl alive with.

But Steve-- god, he looks perfect.

He always had a thing for his best friend, figured it out when he woke up from a dream about Steve that had been anything but innocent and needed him to wash his bedsheets after. But he'd never said anything. He knew Steve wasn't straight, just figured if Steve felt the same way then he would have said something himself, he wasn't the sort of guy to keep things to himself. He had dreamed of Steve overseas a lot, different dreams that gave him strength, but the real thing is better. And worse. Seeing Steve, he's scared of seeing the changes in himself reflected.

"Uh-- actually, I was just going grocery shopping. I can do it another time."

Grocery shopping? Steve’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s smart. He can figure out what that means, reading between lines that Bucky hasn’t really known he was drawing. It’s easier to focus on that than on the deadness he’s seeing in typically playful sapphire blue eyes. That bothers him. It makes his whole gut twist up, so he’d rather focus on less awful things.

Like being told that Bucky is going grocery shopping because he has a place he’s staying at and needs food for it. He’s been back for awhile, long enough to get himself settled. He’s been back and he hasn’t tried calling him. No text. No email. Not excited phone call from Becca trying to plan a welcome home party for Bucky’s first leave.

The blond puts his weight on his back foot. It’s his sign, the one Bucky has always looked for to see if his friend is going to lunge himself at a shop lifter or purse snatcher. He’s preparing for a fight.

“I can go with you.” It’s a testing phrase to see if Bucky will try to brush him off. “My shift doesn’t start for another two hours.” He won’t be caffeinated for it, but the art supply store has its own sort of charge to it and maybe he can talk his boss into letting him have a painting demo that evening so he can mess around in oils—

His mind snaps back to the present, not because he’s getting distracted (he isn’t), but because there’s a weird twitch on Buck’s face that requires all of his attention. Something is really wrong here. It has nothing to do with Bucky not wanting to see him since he’s been back, either. There’s something deeper there and before his best friend can even answer his not quite question about the company, Steve can feel his heart breaking. It comes with an unfortunate side effect, however, of making him more stubborn than somber.

The phrase is repeated, though the wording changed to be more definite. I can go with you becomes: “I’m going with you. Bodega or actual supermarket?”

Bucky knows Steve maybe even better than he knows himself, and so he knows exactly what that slight shift of weight means. He also knows that Steve is stupidly dumb when it comes to matters of his own safety, and if he's decided that Bucky needs a slug in the jaw then he'll deliver one even though he's a skinny asshole and Bucky is six feet tall and army trained.

His own body language shifts too on instinct. He would never have defended himself from Steve in the past, let alone fought him back, but now his whole posture is radiating danger. He doesn't know what will happen if Steve touches him, tries to hit him, but he's willing to bet that it won't be pretty. He laid out four orderlies in the army hospital who came up on him without warning, and that was half sedated and down an arm.

But something changes and the fight slips out of Steve, though it's replaced with that stubborn set to his jaw that Bucky knows all too well. He doesn't want rid of his friend, now that Steve is here he wants to drink in the sight of him and never stop, and at the same time he wants to disengage before it all goes really wrong. This isn't the fight he wants to go down for, though, and he can see Steve isn't going to be dissuaded and so he shrugs.

"I was just going to the bodega, I only need a couple of things and it's closer than the supermarket."

And quieter.

"You still working at the supply store?"

Steve’s last three minutes have sent him on a path from elation to annoyance to willful idiocy to sadness to relief. It’s exhausting, and that dash across the street certainly hasn’t done him any favors in the stamina department. He lets his shoulders drop and slips his hands into his pockets. He’s been called too touchy too many times and while it’s in his nature to be tactile, even in 2018, being that way in public isn’t always the best course of action. Besides, if he hugs Bucky now, he’ll never let go. He’s like a catfish that way, like an army ant. He’s tenacious. That’s not always a good quality.

“I still work at the supply shop,” Steve answers, though he decides not to mention that he’s always working at the school bookstore because it’s hard to scrape together the funds he needs, on top of the aide he already gets, to live in Brooklyn. “They started letting me have the testers and the damaged stuff. It works out pretty good.”

With his head, Steve gestures that they could start walking.

“You back in Brooklyn? Or are you with Becca in Long Island?” Ten years ago and Steve might reach out to take Bucky’s hand. He kind of wants to anyway, if only to keep from sobbing at the next corner.

It still feels like Bucky’s gone.

It lights a tiny fire of anger in Bucky's heart to know how much struggling Steve is concealing behind those few words. He gets given the damaged stock because he can't afford paints of his own, even with working and the grants he gets to go to school. It's not fair, damn it, not for someone like Steve. It's not fair because he was gonna take care of this stuff when he got out, he'd have stuff saved to take care of them both, and-- His brow furrows and he stops, finally looking up to meet Steve's eyes properly.

"I missed you, Steve."

He should have called.

He should have done anything other than what he did, but he hadn't been ready. He still isn't ready, but now the choice has been taken away from him, and maybe that's a good thing. Would he ever have been ready if he'd been left to his own devices? Or would it all just have got too much one day, and he'd have eaten a bullet from the gun he shouldn't have?

"It's kind of complicated, I have a place here in Brooklyn. Becca-- the girls don't know I'm back Stateside."

There are so many questions but Steve can’t ask them. He latched onto the four words that mattered the most to him without him even knowing it and he lets that sustain him for the moment. There’s a snide comment in the back of his mouth, a retort that might question how Bucky can miss him when he hasn’t called in forever and a day, but that dies on the vine, unplucked.

“You know I’ve missed you too, you idiot,” he says instead, these words kind and gentle in tone if not content. He even moves to tap Bucky with his bent elbow, smirk drawn across his lips. “Stuff isn’t the same without you getting in my way all the time trying to mother me to death.”

Steve can fend for himself, he’s been doing it a long time now, but Bucky’s always just been there. Steve might not have needed to lean on him but that had always been an option until Bucky got into the Army and Steve had gotten rejected.

Fifteen times.

“But Hey— Where you’re staying? It’s not too far from here then, huh? We’re practically back to being neighbors again!” Except now Steve isn’t in a group home. He aged out. He’d written to Bucky about it but he isn’t sure the other guy ever got his letters or his emails. “I’m just down there on Sanford.”

It’s back to living next door to drug dealers and prostitutes again in the pockets of town that haven’t been taken over by the rich and well to do. But that’s okay. He still sends Old Marge, the hooker who used to watch him sometimes when his mom had to work doubles, Christmas cards. Steve isn’t one to judge.

He had read that letter, though not until long after it had been written. The doctors had given him all the mail that had been collected while he'd been-- away, and gave it to him in the hopes it would help. It did in some ways, the curve of the way Steve formed his letters and the gentle sarcasm in Becca's letters had helped remind him of home, and a world outside of the one he'd got trapped in.

"A few blocks over, I've got an apartment on Goddard."

It's a place that's not quite the rich part of Brooklyn, but better than the place Steve is staying. His is mostly hipsters and the people hoping that their part of Brooklyn will soon be subsumed and made into the trendy part so that they can move up in the world.

He has an irrational urge to turn Steve around and make him go and get his stuff from Sanford and put it in Bucky's apartment, to make him live somewhere safer and better. The frown on his face looks more like the old Bucky than anything has before, concern and affection blended together.

"You've gotta get out of that dump, Steve, it ain't good for your lungs. There's rot in all the walls and mould in the ceilings."

Up shoots Steve’s eyebrows. “Excuse you? Five minutes back in my life and you’re already assuming that my walls are full of mold?! Maybe I like the mold! Maybe I’ve joined a campaign to ensure that all mold, everywhere, gets a good place to live too. Jeez, don’t be a species-ist, Buck.” He's shifted his hands from pockets to hips, ready to tell off anyone that comes his way. Bucky had better watch himself.

Truthfully, Steve likes his little closet. It fits a twin mattress perfectly and his filing cabinet sits right outside with a rolling clothing rack he can hang his stuff on. His roommates are pretty good too. Natasha is never home because of her practice schedule and Clint... uh. Actually Steve has no idea what Clint does but he keeps arrows under his bed and that’s good enough to indicate to Steve that he isn’t up for a lot of conversation. Not even when he comes home all bruised and cut up and then hides out in his room eating pizza for a week. Really weird guy.

“I don’t want to have another block brawl with you because I’ve gotten loads tougher from the last time you saw me. I can take you down in two seconds, Barnes.” That might just be because Bucky let him but Steve has always talked a big game for a guy his size.

He’s already making mental notes not to let Bucky see his apartment though. He’ll flip out.

"No, Steve, you can't."

That would usually be the point where he went along with the threats with a good natured laugh about how Steve was always ready to fight the world. Not this time. His response was soft, almost gentle for how quiet it was, but firm. It was a warning for Steve to not try and pick a fight, because this wasn't the same Bucky Barnes who let him win because he knew how to take a punch. If Steve hit him, Bucky might well hit back. Hard.

"But that doesn't change that I'm right. Don't give me that damn stubborn look, you know I'm right. Steve-- c'mon, I told you to take care of yourself while I was gone, you call this taking care of yourself?"

He paused outside the bodega store front and finally let a tiny smile touch his lips.

"Knew you needed me around to watch out for you. Too damn dumb to do it yourself."

There’s something in the way Bucky looks that keeps Steve from punching his shoulder. The guy beside him keeps going from the Bucky he knows to a complete stranger. Steve isn’t sure if he’s putting s mask on or taking it off.

“I’m doing pretty good, Buck,” Steve shoots back, his eyebrows furrowing. “You’re acting like I’m covered in dirt and wearing rags. I’m better off than a whole lot of people.” He’s not panhandling and he’s never had to look for less savory sources of income.

He works. He goes to school. He can feed himself and clothe himself and the government makes sure that he’s not too bad off medically.

But— And isn’t there always a but? Steve doesn’t really want to push the point that he’s independent here when Bucky is back and maybe needs someone to look after. Or someone to look after him? Those can be the same thing really.

“But hey, maybe you’re right. Guess it means you have to call me some times and check in on me or I might accidentally eat pictures of food in magazines.”

A lot of people never bothered to look past the skinny body that Steve was trapped in and see the heart and mind underneath. He was whip-smart, always had been, and maybe the only reason he had never made the honour roll at school was a combination of having so many sick days off, and the fact that he got hauled into the principle's office for fighting nearly every other week. The fact that he was doing it to defend kids against bullies never seemed to hold much weight with the teachers.

But Bucky knew he was smart and, even if he had been seen through, he was grateful that Steve didn't push it. Even just in these few minutes with Steve, nagging him about his home, he felt more human than he had in a long time. More like the man he used to be. He wanted that desperately, and if Steve would let himself be mothered, maybe it could help them both.

His smile hitched a little higher, though it disappeared almost at once when he stuck his head through the bodega door to check how many people were inside, shifting to the intense focus of someone looking for traps and assassins. Seemingly seeing nothing worrying, he stepped the rest of the way inside and grabbed a few tins of soup awkwardly in one hand, the other still shoved into the pocket of his jeans to hide that it was fake.

"Here, make yourself useful instead of running your mouth for once, and grab some dog food from the next aisle over. Big breed stuff."

“You have a dog,” Steve breathed as if the words themselves carried a sacredness to them. There’s no way to fight a guy back from so called peace keeping missions who also somehow owns a dog. Steve’s about ready to explode with excitement.

He can’t exactly call off his shift since he needs every hour they give him but he’s going to rush Bucky out of the store as quick as possible so he can spend time with his new pet.

At least he isn’t allergic to dogs. A cat would have been another story. It’s the one thing that he’s been blessed with, though sometimes his lungs don’t really like all the hair. He’s just going to hope that Bucky doesn’t bar him from some rough housing with a dog on account of the fact that he doesn’t have his inhaler on him.

“Your mom never let you get a dog!” Steve’s arms are laden with canned goods and he’s juggling them and a half gallon of milk, trotting after Bucky the way he’d use to when they hit up the arcade or went to the mall to hang out with some girls from school. “You’re such a rebel,” he laughs, shaking his head in amusement. It’s too bad they don’t have anyone he can claim he’ll tell about this craziness.

He wonders when Steve figured out that he wasn't just on leave, or if he has even figured it out. Maybe he's just too excited to see his best friend and play with a mysterious new dog that he hasn't questioned why Bucky would have such a time-intensive animal if he were only on leave.

In response to all the questions, he only rolls his eyes with a raspy sounding half chuckle and lets Steve hustle him out of the store and along the street at double time, as if the prospect of a dog was the best one in the world. Honestly, he's still getting used to her. VA services provided her, she's a trained support animal for veterans suffering severe PTSD with flashbacks. She's also trained to help him around the house for things he finds difficult to do one handed, but Steve doesn't need to know that.

"I see how it is, you're more excited to meet Penny than you are to see me again."

It's not at all far to his place, and they're going to be there in no time at all with the rate that Steve is frog marching him down the street.

"Slow down, you can see her any time."

“Hell yes I’m more excited to see her,” Steve barks, huffing slightly with the effort of their quick progress down the street. He had just gotten over a chest cold a few days ago and he’s still feeling it in his rib cage. It’s nothing like it had been for the past month and a half but it’s still uncomfortable and getting progressively more so as he forces himself to keep up with his own pace.

He’s never liked being weak. He doesn’t let it define him. If he can be stubborn about everything else, it’s all stemmed from his stubbornness to even be alive. It’s a small miracle that he made it to age ten, let alone nineteen.

He’ll need to remind Bucky that he owes him a present still, later, after they’ve both decided to come clean about understanding the situation the other is in. They’ve never really called each other out on it before and it’s not going to happen now, not when there’s more than just time separating them.

Steve shifts the bag he’s been given to his other hand to try and save the skin across his fingers from the heavy load. He watches Bucky set his own bag down to get his keys out and realization hits him smack in the face.

Bucky has never been a hands in pockets guy. And that hand, the one he’s kept on the far side of Steve, hasn’t moved. The blond narrows his green flecked blue eyes at his friend’s back, pressing his lips together. Bastard, hiding this from him! He wants to hit the guy so bad. He’ll do it too. He’ll lay his straight out for being a dick head and trying to hide from him for who knows how long.

He can feel the tears welling up again and this time he can’t stop them. He shifts the bag to his other hand again and tips forward until his forehead is against the back of Bucky’s shoulder.

“God, you’re such a god damned asshole,” he murmurs. His mother would hate the way he runs his mouth now. He likes to think she would understand though.

Bucky has always been a fairly well muscled guy, he worked out in high school and was on the boxing team. But time in the army has only honed that, and Steve will feel an added layer of tension beneath the muscle to make Bucky's back hard as steel. He almost turns and pushes Steve back when he feels the other guy's head hit him from behind without warning, instinct screaming at him that he's vulnerable to attack.

It's only because it's Steve, and because he feels the warm dampness of tears soaking through, that he manages to keep his head and do nothing. He's not sure what exactly of the many things he's trying to hide that Steve has figured out, but he feels his stomach sink. This is one of the reasons he didn't seek them out, he didn't want any of the people that he cared about to get hurt seeing what had happened to him.

More than that, he knows Steve. He knows that if Steve finds out everything, then the asshole will cope with it better than he does. He'll research every goddamn thing about amputations and PTSD, he'll go to rallies and fight for better treatment of vets injured in service, he'll force Bucky to go to his VA meetings and physiotherapy appointments. He'll be, in short, his annoyingly stubborn and perfect self.

"Don't..."

It's soft and hesitant, and he's not even sure what he's asking Steve not to do. Don't cry, don't ask, don't find out his secrets.

"...come on, I thought you wanted to meet the dog."

Don’t feel? That’s impossible for Steve. The guy over-feels, like he’s an empathic sponge. There’s no way in hell that he’s going to be able to shut any of this off in the next two minutes so Bucky is just going to have to wait for one god damned second as Steve pulls himself together again.

It won’t be without a question though. Bucky can’t get away Scott free this time.

“Of course I want to meet your dog but she’s not disappearing in ten seconds,” Steve grumbles, still face planted against too much muscle with too much heat under it. His voice softens, the question almost demanding itself to be whispered. “Did you decide not to see me because you were trying to spare yourself...? Or because you were trying to spare me?”

One is far worse than the other.

“If you were trying to spare me, I’m going to kick your ass so hard you’re going to taste my shoe.” Actually, Steve doesn’t even think his leg is long enough for that but the threat still stands. He can’t be overly emotional without throwing in some guy-language for Mister Tough Guy Brooklyn here. He’s got a reputation, and Steve intends to let Bucky hang onto that if he needs to. “I’ve been a few streets away all this time.”

At least the tears are turning to anger. Steve’s always been able to deal with that better.

“How many times have you been there for me? Come on, Buck. I’ve got a bad heart, but that doesn’t make me too weak to be there for you.”

Steve is still leaning against his back and, in a way, it makes it easier because he doesn't have to look into fierce blue eyes while he's being berated. It's not like anything Steve is saying is false, he knows with a certainty that he knows water is wet that Steve would be there for him. Becca would too, and she'd marshal the two younger ones as well so there was an army of idiots for him to lean on.

He doesn't say anything for a few long moments.

It's hard to find the words for any of this stuff a lot of the time, he struggles even with voicing it to himself. But he's never been able to lie to damn Steve Rogers, and he's not about to start now. Even if it's going to get him his ass kicked.

"Both. I didn't want you to see what happened, and-- I'm ashamed, I'm kind of a mess and it ain't pretty being around me a lot of the time."

He privately thinks that it would have been better for all involved if he'd been shipped home in a box draped with a flag. At least that would have been clean for all involved, not this drawn out process of crap that his life was now.

"I haven't been in the apartment long. Five weeks, maybe. Just-- come on, can we get off the stoop? I'll answer your damn questions inside and you can yell at me after."

Because God knows it's too late to save face now.

Steve agrees to the demands. They make sense to him anyway. He’s going to yell, Bucky has given him permission for it. They’re on the same page. That’s more valuable than anything else is right now. Steve also knows that there’s an ice breaker just inside the door. He can hear her snuffling at the space between it and the jamb. He can hear a heavy tail lightly whacking the edge of something hard too. It’s enough to make him stand back up on his own two feet and rub at his already red eyes. It doesn’t do anything but make them even more red.

Such is life.

Steve can’t hear the tumblers in the lock click, which only goes to show how loud Penny is about her desire to be reunited with Bucky. Steve’s almost completely deaf in his right ear, after all. None of that is important, however, because there’s a nose and a snout to contend with the moment that there’s a gap large enough for it to fit. Steve is instantly charmed.

“Peeeeeeenny,” he croons, just about able to see the dog around Bucky’s arm. “Hi sweetheart! Has mean old James been keeping you a secret from me for the last five weeks? Yes he has!”

Maybe it will sting less if Steve just baby talk berates Bucky through his murmurings to the dog?

Penny is a light grey husky dog with bright blue eyes and a tail wagging nineteen to the dozen. She's very well trained and she's a working dog first and foremost so, even though she really wants to greet this newcomer, she pushes against Bucky first to make sure he's okay and waits for his signal before she pushes against Steve and licks his hands enthusiastically.

Bucky's place hardly looks lived in. There's a kind of dusty couch that was here when he moved in, a harness on the side that says WORKING DOG: DO NOT DISTURB, a couple of library books, a huge pencil about four times the size of a real pencil, and a purple heart in a display case that's been shoved to one side.

Resigned to getting flayed, especially since Steve just called him James, he sits down on the edge of the couch and looks warily over.

"Okay-- so what do you want to know?"

He said he'd answer questions, and this is pretty much a one time deal because he really doesn't enjoy talking about this shit.

It hurts to get down on the floor and Steve knows he’ll pay for it later but there is a dog here and Penny is amazing and Steve knows already that he’s gotta do this with his arms around the service animal or he’s going to lose it again. It’s not that he’s angry at Bucky, he really isn’t. It makes a lot of sense why the guy wanted to be alone. Objective Steve can understand that, but Objective Steve isn’t having s really good track record staying in control here.

It’s why he presses his face against gray and white scruff and lets Penny half bowl him over in the playful way dogs do while cans rolls by the door from discarded grocery bags.

He does peek one blue eye over Penny’s shoulder at Bucky, though. He’s here. He’s got his attention on his friend and not the Purple Heart or the bum arm. “I want to know what you want for dinner,” Steve says, because Bucky’s got to know by now that he still respects his space. “I’m going to be putting a lot of chili powder and cracked red pepper flakes in yours though, if that helps you make up your mind.”

What Steve wants is for Bucky to love him. He wants his best friend and brother back. There might be a brooding, long haired hipster overlaying the suave, cool dude that used to be his best friend, but Steve has got a big heart. It might be damaged but that just makes it easier to mold around change.

“And then I want your phone number. And for you to promise me that you’re not gonna just stalk my neighborhood without me anymore.”

If Steve thinks that Bucky ever stopped loving him, then he's a goddamn idiot.

But this is one of the main reasons why he didn't call, didn't reach out. He doesn't want to disappoint Steve with the man he is now, knowing that he's struggling so hard to get back to being even half the man he was. He doesn't want to be second best, or see the pity in anyone's eyes as they remember how he used to be, or worst of all to become an obligation that they put up with for the sake of a memory.

He looks tired for a moment, and then a sudden snort of laughter escapes him, seemingly taking even him by surprise.

"Jerk."

Putting spice in his food, what are they, twelve? Penny seems to sense that Steve needs comfort and that's what she's trained for, so she sits next to him good as gold and licks his ear once in a while.

"I don't have a phone, so I can't give you my number. But I won't stalk about without you, I've gotta start making sure you're not breathing in mould."

If Steve isn't going to ask, Bucky isn't going to volunteer it. He's not quite that brave. Not yet.

"Besides, we can't have dinner, don't you gotta get to work?"

“Shiiiiit.” There goes Sarah with her scolding and the pepper canister popped open, shaking her head at him in his mind. Steve ignores her as he lays his cheek against Penny’s fur. “Second dinner. Tonight. I’m done at nine.” He never minds closing except when he actually has something he wants to do. The store is a few stops on the subway away from here and while he does have class in the morning, it’s not until ten. That gives them some time to catch up.

Steve sort of hopes it goes more smoothly than this time did because a lot of the shock should be over by then.

“I’ll bring something.” It’s going to be a sack of burgers and some lattes. He can’t balance a pizza and coffees or he’d go that route. Even so, it’s going to be pretty predictable.

He stretches his legs out to try and relieve a little bit of the stress on his lower back and lightly fondles one of Penny’s ears.

“How do you not have a phone, Buck? How am I going to call you incessantly when I think I see Robert Downey Jr walking around by the zoo?”

And here it goes.

Bucky knew that Steve would latch on tighter than a limpet and refuse to let go, and he's not so sure that's a good thing for either of them. Steve is going to want to fix him, he's never going to understand that Bucky's changed over there, and it's going to frustrate and upset him.

Bucky's going to want to be the person he was before, and seeing his failures reflected in Steve is going to make it all a hundred times worse. He knows he's going to feel like a piece of shit by the time this is done, because he can't give Steve that easy companionship he wants. Not yet. And it's not because he doesn't trust or love his best friend, it's just because he needs to relearn how.

He looks sad and tired, but he nods all the same. Steve is going to have to find out for himself that Bucky is different, and it's going to hurt them both.

"Phones can be bugged," he mutters, knowing full well the look he'll probably get for it. "Besides, you've never seen Robert Downey Jr. at the zoo, you saw that guy from the schwarma stand that copies his beard."

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