Work Text:
Steve is doing the dishes, elbow deep in suds when Bucky says it.
“Let’s go to the Grand Canyon.” Bucky's eyes are wide and eager, and he’s got that expression on his face — the one he had when they were kids and he was about to talk Steve into something.
“What, now?” Steve frowns; they can’t just take off like this.
Someone has to be the responsible adult here, and besides, it's only been a few months since he got Bucky back. It had taken time to break through HYDRA’s brainwashing, for Bucky to reclaim the sense of self that was taken from him, and he's still working on it. Six months have passed since Bucky moved into Steve’s Brooklyn apartment, and though he's doing a lot better, he still isn’t sleeping well, plagued with nightmares that leave him exhausted most days.
For all those reasons, Steve doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Bucky to skip out on his daily therapy regimen — even if he seems okay, they shouldn’t be going anywhere right now.
“Yeah. Why not?” Bucky is grinning now, a little manic but entirely serious.
Then Steve remembers that Bucky’s always been like a dog with a bone: if he’s got this idea into his head, he won’t rest until Steve gives in. Underneath it all, he’s still the same boy who used to flash Steve a beseeching smile and say, “Aw, c’mon, Steve” every time he insisted on dragging him out to the dancehall for another disastrous double date.
Steve has never needed much convincing to do anything Bucky suggests. He gives in.
“Let me do something first.” Steve grabs a tea towel to dry his hands and digs into his pocket for his phone.
The call connects on the second ring. “Hey, Phil,” he says. “It’s Steve Rogers.”
“Steve. Good to hear from you.” Phil Coulson’s tone is friendly, if slightly terse; probably, Steve’s caught him in the middle of something.
"You know you said I could ask you for a favour if I needed one?”
“Yeah?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see Bucky tapping his foot impatiently, and stifles a laugh.
“How would you feel about me borrowing Lola for a few days?”
Bucky’s eyes light up like chandeliers, and Steve has to turn away to hide his smile.
* * *
They’ve got bags in the trunk of Coulson's shiny red convertible, an iPod full of whatever music Sam loaded onto it when he came over last week, and the open road ahead of them.
Bucky insists on having the top down, and Steve doesn’t argue, though it’s a little cold in the night air.
“I’m still not sure why we had to set off tonight, Buck,” Steve says, somewhere near the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Bucky shrugs. “Just didn’t feel like waiting. When you want something, you gotta go for it, right?”
He stretches back and puts his sneakers up onto the dash. Steve opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it again.
Bucky’s pulled his oversized hoodie up so it's almost covering his eyes, and he’s leaning back in the passenger seat with this goofy smile on his face: feet up, looking as lazy and comfortable and sprawling as the Bucky that Steve remembers. It’s not that Bucky’s all that different these days — he’s not. He still punches Steve on the arm when he says something dumb, can still tell jokes dirty enough to make Steve blush, and sometimes he looks at Steve with that same old twinkle in his eye, like he’s got a secret he’ll never tell.
It all just seems a lot more considered these days, like it’s something Bucky has to think about. Steve worries about it, because he doesn’t want Bucky to be putting up a front for him, not after all they’ve been through.
Right now, Bucky looks so much like that boy from Brooklyn that it makes something inside Steve ache; a tug under his ribs that’s nothing to do with the two chimichangas he just ate (they had to stop for Mexican food back in New Jersey, when Bucky announced he was starving).
In their pre-war Brooklyn apartment, Bucky used to shove his feet up on their rickety old chairs, and Steve would swat at his ankles with a newspaper until Bucky grumbled and put his feet back on the floor. Back then, Bucky would talk about all the places they’d go when Steve was a famous artist and keeping them both in luxury on his dime, eyes shining and mouth going a mile a minute. That was the old Bucky, but there are shades of him in this new Bucky, too.
Steve allows himself a fond smile, and concentrates on the road. Sure, he’s got good reflexes, and it’s not like either of them would come off badly in an accident — they’ve both died already, and survived that — but it wouldn’t set a good example for Captain America to be a reckless driver.
* * *
Steve checks them into a motel room in West Virginia, and they sleep the day away.
Hours later, Steve wakes to dim light and the soft touch of Bucky’s hand on his cheek. He doesn't open his eyes straight away; the tenderness of Bucky's touch is like a dream, all warm and unreal.
Steve blinks. Bucky is still touching his face, and his fingers are callused but gentle; Steve wants to press into the touch. Instead, he asks, “What time is it?”
“Six.” Bucky leans back where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and Steve can see his hair is damp, curling a little at the ends. He’s wearing a new t-shirt and jeans and must have showered already; clearly, he’s been up for a while. Bucky doesn’t sleep much anymore, and Steve suddenly feels guilty for leaving him to potter around by himself for hours. “Thought I’d let you sleep,” Bucky adds.
Yawning, Steve raises his head from the pillow and rubs his eyes. “Let me hit the shower, then we’ll go and get something to eat.”
Bucky goes back to his own bed and flops down on it, folding his arms under his head. “Hurry up, Rogers. I’m starving.”
They go to a diner, the old-fashioned kind with unlimited drip coffee and a friendly waitress, who beams at them and doesn’t seem to pay a blind bit of notice to the glove on Bucky’s left hand. She’s looking at Bucky when she smiles — Steve remembers this, the way Bucky would always pull girls into his orbit with his blue eyes and crooked smile — and Steve feels something twist low in the pit of his stomach. He’s not jealous or anything, but it’s oddly familiar, Bucky being the one who gets the attention.
Her gaze shifts to Steve. “Don’t I know you from somewhere, sweetheart?”
Steve’s got a baseball cap on — “Worst disguise ever, punk,” Bucky had said earlier — but he knows that doesn’t exactly make him unrecognisable.
“Guess I’ve just got one of those faces,” Steve says. He forces himself to smile broadly, trying not to meet Bucky’s eyes, because he can see his shoulders already starting to shake with silent laughter.
The waitress seems to accept the explanation; she takes their orders and leaves without another word.
Bucky immediately bursts out laughing, the sound bubbling out of him, breathless and uncontrolled in a way that warms Steve’s heart.
“You’re a real smooth one, Steve — I ever tell you that?”
Steve laughs, his cheeks pinking up.
“Remember we used to talk about going to the Grand Canyon?” Bucky says after their food arrives, digging his fork into a mountainous stack of pancakes slathered in maple syrup and butter.
Steve does remember. “Yeah,” he replies, carefully unwrapping a pat of butter and sliding it onto his own pancake stack.
During the war, everything was different. After the factory and Zola, there were new, sharp edges to Bucky, and something hollow behind his eyes. They didn’t talk about it, but Steve saw it, and he knew — he knew how Bucky slipped away sometimes and came back with shaking hands and red-rimmed eyes, he knew the horrible sounds Bucky would make in the middle of the night when he was trapped in the throes of a nightmare. Steve never forgot a bit of it: he would lie awake on cold nights in their small tent, listening to Bucky breathe, trying to be grateful Bucky was alive, all the while feeling like his heart was breaking with how powerless he felt.
That Bucky didn’t talk about his boyhood dreams anymore, but the one thing he always came back to was the Grand Canyon. “It’s so big, Steve,” he used to say. “Can’t imagine anywhere that big. I just want to be somewhere I can breathe, where you can see the sky for miles around.” For two New York born-and-bred boys used to living in cramped tenements and walk-ups, the scale of the place had seemed like an impossibility. Maybe it was a modest dream, but it had gotten Steve and Bucky through a lot of long nights on the freezing ground of Europe.
“I never really thought I’d get to see it, you know,” says Bucky, matter of fact, through a mouthful of pancakes.
“Me neither,” Steve admits: back then, he couldn’t imagine a life that wasn’t fighting (that hadn’t changed after he woke up in the twenty-first century, not until Bucky).
Bucky looks at him, his expression open, and Steve can see the dark circles under his eyes from what must have been a bad sleep. All he wants to do is take Bucky back to bed and make sure he gets his rest, but he knows how much Bucky hates being coddled. Steve keeps his mouth shut.
They eat the rest of their pancakes in silence, and Bucky knocks back four cups of coffee in a vain effort to stave off his exhaustion.
“I’ll drive,” he offers when they’re loading their bags into the car. “Need something to keep me awake.”
Steve tosses Bucky the keys, and even lets him stick on a seventies playlist (HYDRA must have woken him for a lot of missions in the seventies, because Bucky has an excellent memory for disco lyrics. It’s a shame Steve can’t stand it, but he puts up with it anyway).
It’s later when Steve realises letting Bucky drive might have been a bad idea. Sitting in the passenger seat just gives him license to stare at Bucky for hours. There’s something strangely familiar about it. All those years ago, he’d sketched Bucky in their tiny apartment, smudging graphite all over his fingers from the effort of pressing pencil to paper. He’d made a study of his features: Bucky’s strong jaw, the sweep of his eyelashes, the curve of his chin. In Phil Coulson’s car, Steve finds himself doing the same, with nothing but his memory to record it.
Bucky’s hand is sure on the steering wheel, his lips pursed in concentration, humming softly along to the music. But sometimes he looks back at Steve, and when he does, Steve can almost feel his heart jumping under his skin.
* * *
They take shifts driving: neither of them tire easily, but Steve still insists on taking the lion’s share and letting Bucky nap whenever he can.
Bucky suggests they stop off in Minneapolis for some obscene cheese-stuffed burgers he’s seen on the Food Network, and then Steve sees a place with two hundred types of hot chocolate, so they go there afterwards. He doesn’t really go out much in New York — he’s usually kept too busy with missions — and it’s nice to have the time to do frivolous things, to be impulsive for a change.
Or maybe it’s just the fact he’s here with Bucky.
At the café, Steve gets some kind of dark Mayan cacao thing with spices: it’s good, rich in a way that warms him down to his toes. Bucky has some ridiculous concoction with white chocolate, caramel syrup and a chocolate stirring stick in the shape of a heart: he’s always had a revoltingly sweet tooth.
“Gonna rot your teeth, James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve says, remembering how Bucky’s ma used to say that when Bucky was sitting in her kitchen, munching his way through a bag of black liquorice.
Bucky laughs. “Never did listen to my ma, did I?” He blows on his chocolate to cool it and takes a sip. “Mmm. It’s good.”
There’s chocolate on Bucky’s top lip, and Steve is struck by the sudden urge to lick it off. He compromises, and leans in to brush it away with his thumb. Electricity crackles under Steve's skin from the touch, and judging by the flush creeping up Bucky’s cheeks, he isn’t the only one it’s having an effect on.
Bucky pulls away. He drains the rest of his cup and gets up from the table. “Better get on. Still got a lot of miles to go.”
Steve shudders out a breath, trying not to think about the pink of Bucky’s lips, and follows him out to the car.
* * *
Steve wakes to the sound of Bucky whimpering in the dark.
Their Oklahoma hotel room is hot and stuffy — the air-conditioning broken and the wallpaper peeling — but they were too tired to give accommodation much of a thought when they checked in.
He’s out of bed in an instant, padding over to Bucky and slumping onto the mattress beside him.
Bucky comes awake, gasping. Then his eyes fix on Steve’s, and they’re full of tears. He turns his face into the pillow, embarrassed.
Steve wants to touch him, to offer comfort, but he knows better than to push it. “You cold?” he asks, because he can feel Bucky trembling next to him. Bucky nods, though he still doesn’t look up.
Quickly, Steve goes to get the spare blanket from the dresser and tucks it over the top of the comforter.
Bucky pulls his head off the pillow and looks at Steve. “You don’t have to, you know,” he says.
“Hey,” Steve says, “hey, no. It’s okay, Buck. I’m here. I want to be here.” He puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky curls into the touch, seeking the warmth of Steve to ground him.
“Can you stay?” Bucky asks. He reaches for Steve’s hand and tugs at it, as if he’s afraid Steve will leave if he lets go.
“Yeah,” Steve says, already climbing into the bed beside Bucky. He moves until his body’s aligned with Bucky’s spine, buries his face in Bucky’s sweaty hair and strokes a hand down his arm. “Whenever you need me.”
Bucky makes a soft noise of relief. “Thanks,” he says, voice thin.
Impulsively, Steve presses his mouth to Bucky’s neck; it’s hardly a kiss, barely any pressure, but Bucky shakes against him, and Steve stops worrying. This is what he wants: to look after Bucky, to hold all the pieces of him together when Bucky is desperately trying to stop himself from shattering.
They fall asleep like that, pressed close in a narrow hotel bed. It’s the best sleep either of them have had in ages.
The next day, Bucky doesn’t say a word about it, but there’s a spring in his step and that old mischievous look in his eyes, like he’s got a secret.
Steve smiles to himself and keeps his eyes on the road.
* * *
It’s three hours into New Mexico when Steve realises just how hard he’s fallen for Bucky.
If he’s honest, it’s not a new thing — he probably fell for him when they were around twelve, back when Bucky was whole, when he still laughed and smiled with his whole heart, like his heart was big enough for the both of them (it was). Steve never allowed himself to really consider it, not even in the war when the stakes were higher.
Then Bucky fell, and Steve lost his chance to say any of the unspoken words locked inside him; the words he still isn’t saying to him.
Steve’s had a lot of practice at turning his feelings inward, and he’s good at it, but it’s not so easy these days as it was when they were kids. It was easier to pretend when his days were busy, filled with Avengers missions and worrying about Bucky. Now they're spending every minute of every day together, with nothing but the open road and the wind in their faces, and Steve has too much time on his hands — too much time to think about how he wants Bucky.
Wanting Bucky feels like an itch Steve can’t scratch, a splinter that won’t come out; it’s always there, gnawing at his insides. All Bucky has to do is look at him, and Steve is gone, completely lost in the idea of having him. But he’s decided he doesn’t have the right to just spring this on Bucky. Maybe he doesn’t feel the same way, and Steve would never want Bucky to feel like he owed him anything. Better to say nothing.
“I can’t believe we’re on Route 66,” Bucky says, flashing him a toothy grin. “You and me, kid. Took us a hell of a while to get here, huh?”
Steve murmurs a noise of agreement, his left hand steady on the steering wheel. “Feels like a dream sometimes,” he says. “Never thought I’d get you back, Buck.”
“I know.” Bucky stretches out his metal fingers, reaching for Steve's free hand. “Afraid you’re stuck with me, pal,” he says, his voice catching.
Steve has to look back at the road, but he keeps hold of Bucky’s cool, smooth fingers.
* * *
After another late-night visit to a diner for chilli cheese fries, there’s another motel room, another night for Steve to obsess over how he feels about Bucky. By their reckoning, they’ll get to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, and Steve feels like he’s running out of time.
Bucky is perched cross-legged on his bed, flipping through the guidebook, his brow furrowed with concentration. His dark hair has fallen into his eyes — it’s messy from how often he keeps running his hand through it, an old habit — and he’s swallowed up by his baggy hoodie. There’s a lump in Steve’s throat from how content Bucky looks, just sitting there, like he hasn’t been through hell and come out the other side.
Something breaks inside Steve. He goes to Bucky and sits close to him, throws a casual arm around his shoulders.
Bucky looks up from the book, leaning into the touch. His face is open and trusting, and Steve thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.
It’s now or never. Steve sucks in a breath and tips Bucky’s chin up with his hand. There's a thump as Bucky tosses the guidebook on the floor.
Steve doesn’t expect it to be Bucky who turns his head, aligns their mouths and kisses him, but then, he's always been the braver one. Bucky kisses him with soft lips, and it quickly gets heated, his tongue in Steve's mouth while Steve shoves a hand up the back of his shirt. When Steve bites down on Bucky’s lip, Bucky makes a tiny sound that sends sparks straight to his cock.
Bucky is laughing when Steve pulls back, his eyes bright and a slightly dazed expression on his face.
“What’s funny?” Steve asks, aware of how rough his voice already sounds.
Bucky hooks his fingers into Steve’s belt loops and tugs him closer. “I was wondering when you’d take the hint, Rogers,” he says, grinning. “I’ve been working my ass off here.”
“Oh,” is all Steve can say, overcome by the idea that Bucky’s had his own agenda all along. “This why you suggested going on the trip?”
“Thought it might actually get you to lighten up long enough for me to do this.” Bucky grins, but he’s flushing a little: it's obviously true. “Now shut the hell up and kiss me again.”
Steve’s not about to argue. They go back to kissing, drowning in each other’s mouths while they neck like teenagers. Steve pulls Bucky into his lap, his whole body feeling overheated from every blazing touch of Bucky’s hands on his skin.
After a bit of fumbling, Steve gets Bucky’s shirt off and runs his fingers over the planes of his chest, enjoying the way Bucky’s breathing goes ragged. He bends his head to scrape teeth over Bucky’s nipple, and Bucky makes a strangled noise, twisting his fingers in Steve’s hair.
Bucky sits up, and before Steve can do a thing, he’s flipped him onto his back, straddling him. There’s solid intent in his eyes, and Steve can feel the hard length of Bucky’s dick through his jeans. When Bucky grinds his hips against him, Steve can’t stop the whimper that falls from his lips.
With a soft smile, Bucky pulls Steve's shirt off and slides down his body, pausing to press bites to his chest and lay teasing kisses on his belly, just above the trail of soft hair leading into Steve’s pants.
It’s so good; Steve is panting already when he says, “God, Bucky, please.”
Then Bucky licks a hot, wet stripe along his hipbone and Steve lifts his hips, wanting more. He’s always imagined Bucky as a tease, but when it comes down to it, Steve has wanted this, fantasised about it for too long to wait much longer.
Bucky lifts his head to look at Steve, and it’s like sunlight breaking through clouds; Bucky’s skin is flushed, his smile lazy, and Steve has never wanted anything more.
“I’ll make you feel good,” Bucky promises, with another bite to Steve’s hip that makes his cock twitch.
“You don’t have to, you know,” Steve manages — it’s not exactly easy to say anything when Bucky’s fingers are at his fly, unzipping his jeans slowly.
“I know.” Bucky pauses. “I want to. I don’t do anything I don’t want to, these days.”
It’s good enough for Steve. He lifts his hips to let Bucky tug down his pants and boxers, and the rush of cool air on his cock as it’s bared makes Steve hiss out a sharp breath from between his teeth.
That’s nothing compared to the sound he makes when Bucky reaches down to grip him at the base, licking around the head of his cock.
“Bucky,” Steve mutters, twisting a hand in Bucky’s hair. Bucky breathes through his nose and sucks him right down, until Steve is letting out small, desperate noises while the heat spreads throughout his body, white-hot and raw.
He scrambles for Bucky’s metal hand, bringing it closer to place it on his hip. Steve loses himself in the feel of Bucky’s hot mouth and the bruising pressure of the metal on his skin; it doesn’t take much before he’s coming down Bucky’s throat, yanking at his hair while his entire body shakes, the world fading out before his eyes.
Pulling off with a wet pop, Bucky wipes his mouth and kisses the dip of Steve’s stomach, making him tremble.
“Guess I found something to shut you up,” Bucky says hoarsely, and his lips are red and shiny.
Steve kisses and kisses him — though the taste of himself in Bucky’s mouth is bitter, it’s really not that bad — until he shifts to feel Bucky’s fabric-covered dick pressing against his stomach and remembers he hasn’t got off yet.
Feeling guilty, Steve reaches down to unfasten Bucky’s pants, hurrying over the task, wanting to touch and kiss, to make Bucky feel as good as he’s just made him feel. He presses Bucky back into the pillows and mouths a wet trail down his body, laying gentle bites on his skin as he goes.
“Feels good,” Bucky says faintly, eyes half-closed, chest heaving as Steve licks under the waistband of his boxers, tracing coarse hair and the warm skin beneath with his tongue.
Then he drags fabric down, until there’s nothing but Bucky’s cock in his hand, hard and heavy. Steve takes Bucky into his mouth and tastes the sweat-salt tang of him, licks a long line from base to tip.
Bucky groans, his body trembling already, all stretched muscles and knife-sharp tension; he’s incredible like this, Steve thinks, before he busies himself with the task of getting Bucky off. He breathes deep and sucks at him, and it isn’t long before Bucky comes, spilling into his mouth with a few choice curses. Steve swallows and licks him clean, coughing a little as he draws back.
“Steve.” Bucky reaches for Steve’s face with shaking hands, rests their foreheads together. “Steve.”
Steve doesn’t say a word, just kisses him slow and deep, tangling his fingers in Bucky’s rumpled hair.
Their jeans and underwear are still trapped around their ankles, so they wrestle them off. Steve throws an arm over Bucky and presses him close, rests his head in the crook of Bucky’s neck where it’s warm.
“You okay?” he murmurs into Bucky’s skin.
“I’m good.” Bucky yawns and relaxes into Steve’s arms, already succumbing to sleep.
Steve spends a while listening to the restful sound of Bucky’s steady breathing before he follows him into slumber.
* * *
Finally, they make it to Arizona and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The sun is setting in the sky, casting a faint glow over the horizon. Bucky insists on using Lola’s flying abilities to cut down their trip to the bottom of the canyon, and Steve hopes to God they aren't about to get an angry call from Coulson for using classified SHIELD tech on a vacation.
Bucky climbs on top of the hood of the car and stretches out his metal hand.
“C’mon, Steve.”
Steve lets Bucky haul him up, and doesn’t let go of his hand once he’s standing beside him.
They stare into the endless space, taking in everything: the high walls of ridged rock as far as the eye can see; the bend of the Colorado river, snaking into the distance just beyond where they’ve parked the car; the orange-purple hue of the sunset.
Steve turns his head towards Bucky and kisses him, giddy and feeling like there's fireworks jumping under his skin. Bucky sighs into his mouth in contentment and they stay like that for a while, mouths pressed lazily together as the light slowly bleeds from the sky.
“Love you, Bucky,” Steve whispers.
Bucky squeezes his hand. “Love you, too,” he says.
Steve feels warm right down to his bones, with Bucky at his side and in his heart; he wouldn’t trade this for the world.