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If there was a single skill that every Avenger unequivocally possessed, it was the ability to leverage a truly devastating “not impressed with you or anything you choose to be” bitchface .
The look Steve was now receiving from Sam, however, was a truly remarkable achievement in that field.
“That is not,” says Sam. “How you make pasta sauce.”
Steve rolls his eyes, and stirs the crushed tomatoes glurping and burbling away on the stove. All he’d added to the pot with them was a peeled, halved onion and nearly two-thirds of a stick of butter. Sam is a minute away from sinking to juvenile gagging noises. Steve just laughs.
“Ooo, Buck, what do you think Mrs. Romanetti from upstairs would have had to say to that?” Bucky looks up from where he is perched on the shadowiest end of the kitchen counter, and faint, rare smile flickers across his face. Steve and Sam both go still at the sight, not wanting to ruin the moment.
“She’d box your ears, that’s what she’d do,” Bucky says. Steve blinks rapidly for a moment like he always does when Bucky remembers something from before, then subdues his traitorously damp eyes to smile widely back at Bucky.
“I can almost hear her scolding now!” Steve grins.
“Zitto, idiotii! Basta! Tsk!”
Bucky’s accent is perfect, his intonation spot on. The departure from his usual flat monotone is startling. Steve dissolves into a fit of (very manly) giggles against the edge of the kitchen island. He’s imminent danger of getting tomato sauce everywhere, so Sam takes the wooden spoon away from him, and licks it.
“Huh.” he says, meditatively. “Amazing.” Steve looks smug, and takes the spoon back.
“Where was she from again, Buck? Some town with a pretty name. She’d have us over for coffee and those powdery anise cookies and just talk and talk about it.” Steve paused. “I realize now that she was probably very homesick.”
“Gatteo A Mare.” Bucky murmurs in a soft, lilting sing-song. GatTEo A Marrr-rey . Just like Mrs. Romanetti used to say it, the last word, “Sea,” rolling out like a sigh.
“Mm,” Steve responds, and tries to make his face do something normal. His heart isn’t so easily contained. It feels like it’s ruptured and bleeding out into his chest cavity. Warmth and pain all wrapped up together. Indistinguishable from each other. It’s like that all the time now, with Bucky home. Bucky-but-not-quite-Bucky. Bucky-but-not-always-Bucky.
Bucky seems to be himself tonight though, of sorts. It’s a good night. The rich smell of pasta sauce is flooding the warm kitchen. Sam is cheerfully nattering on about his own experiences while being stationed in Italy. And Bucky is looking at Steve from his spot on the counter, a smile ghosting the corners of his mouth, blue, blue eyes soft in the comforting yellow glow of the stovetop light.
Letting Sam’s talk wash over him, Steve leans into Bucky’s space, with the pretext of reaching for the paper towels. Bucky leans in too, and their shoulders press together, Steve facing the cabinets and Bucky facing out. Steve doesn’t move for the space of a heartbeat, then drops his head to briefly press his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder before quickly stepping away, back to the stove. Bucky isn’t good with touching. Steve’s whole body sometimes aches with the need to touch him. Anchor himself in the knowledge that Bucky’s here, Bucky’s alive. Bucky came back to him. He clatters around with the pot of water for the pasta. Hoping. Yearning.
***
Sam smiles to himself as he continues telling a story nobody is listening to, watching Bucky watch Steve. Steve has demonstratively busied himself with the stove again, and Bucky is gazing at Steve's bent golden head like a dying man stumbling out of a desert into an oasis. If Steve only turned around and saw that look. He wouldn't worry half so much about Bucky being physically here but lost to him in all other ways. Bucky, Sam thinks to himself, is the furthest thing in the world from lost right now.
Oh, they’re going to be all right, these two. They’re going to be just fine.
Sam closes his eyes for the briefest of moments, letting the peace of the evening fill him for a moment, too.