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“Come on, we used to do this all the time,” Steve says, flopping down on the couch beside Bucky, a bottle of some dark liquor in his hands. Bucky is afraid to look, afraid to acknowledge the offer that Steve has put out there.
“Yeah, back in basic training, in the 1940s,” he snaps back, his finger pressing the channel button on the remote a little too hard. “And who invited you, anyway? I thought you were busy.”
Alexei laughed from the kitchen. “I invited Mr. Rogers, of course,” he says, and Bucky wants to scream at the grin in the man’s voice. “We needed all the help we could get.”
This pulls Buck up short. He turns his head, his eyes locking on the Red Guardian. “What’s that supposed to mean, Shostakov?”
Alexei pulls two more bottles from a cabinet under the sink and holds them up triumphantly. “You’ve been down lately, Bucky! You needed some, ah, cheering up, yes? And so, I invite your friends! Well, your friend, the one friend who doesn’t live here, that is and-”
“Enough,” Bucky growls, his eyes turning back to the TV. This team is going to kill him.
“Have you been down?” Steve asks, his voice low. He leans forward, his knee bumping gently against Bucky’s. “I know I’ve been busy, but you know I’m always-”
“No. I’m fine,” Bucky says, cutting him off. He knows he’s being irritable, which only proves their point, but these bozos are talking over Wheel of Fortune, and he doesn’t want to drink.
“Come on, Buck! Let’s play a game, like we used to. It’s just a few of us, and I won’t let you do anything you’ll regret.”
“You say that like I don’t have proof that’s untrue.”
Cap scoffs, but takes a second to formulate a comeback. “You don’t have proof,” he settles on.
Bucky rolls his eyes and leans back into the couch. He knows he’s not going to win this argument. He sends one pleading glance around the room, but everyone has settled into their usual spots, and Alexei is already pouring three shots.
-+-+-
This is their third bottle. Alexei tapped out an hour ago. Turns out the Russian’s alcohol tolerance is significantly lower than theirs. Weird, considering the Russian diet of vodka and more vodka.
Steve has been leaning heavily on him after each shot for most of this bottle. Bucky has missed the closeness, misses Steve in general. They were so close, and then there was all of the drama with the Avengers and The Falcon. He thought he was going to lose Steve forever. To be close to him again feels so good, even without the alcohol warming him from the inside out.
“Your cheeks are turning red,” Steve comments, looking up at Bucky from his shoulder. “You finally feeling it?” His words are slurring around the edges, but only barely.
Bucky smiles, small and a little sheepish. “Not really, I was just…thinking, I guess,” he says, his eyes tracing the edge of his glass.
Steve giggles and holds out his own glass to clink against Bucky’s. “In vino veritas, Buck old boy. What’s on your mind?”
Bucky turns his head slightly and studies Steve’s face. The man is drunk now, he knows, and he’s sure he’s not far behind. Maybe he won’t remember this in the morning. “Steve, I-,” he stops himself. Maybe he will remember this in the morning. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Steve takes a second to study Bucky, and his brow knits in frustration as his eyes struggle to focus. God, Bucky wants to kiss his little scowl away. He tries to wipe the thought from his brain, but his body is betraying him, thinking of the warm smoothness of Steve’s forehead.
“Can I kiss you?” Steve asks, his face deadly serious.
Bucky blushes, hard. “Wh-what?”
“In vino veritas, Buck. I have been thinking about how bad I want to kiss you all night, but we haven’t talked about it before, and-”
Before Steve can talk one or both of them out of it, Bucky leans in. Their lips meet, halting and cautious. An electric pulse hums through Bucky, like every nerve ending is on fire. Was it like this before? Back in basic training? He’s trying to remember but that was so, so long ago and this- this is now and it’s so, so good.
Steve pulls away first, after much too short a time. His cheeks are flushed. As he processes the kiss, Bucky can watch the play of every emotion he’s feeling. Confusion, lust, guilt, lust, shame, more lust, then, looking up at him, meeting his eyes, there’s just joy. Unbridled joy that makes Bucky’s heart sing.
But maybe this is just the alcohol talking. They don’t know what Alexei put in that liquor; what was in those bottles. Bucky knows passable Russian, but not enough to decipher the Cyrillic on the label. Maybe it is worse than what they’re used to, maybe that is the only reason-
Steve’s lips on his again shock his mind into silence. It’s a quick kiss, and then Steve murmurs, “I could see you spiraling. I knew that would work.” His lips brush against Bucky’s as he speaks, sending shivers down his spine.
“Come to my room,” Bucky murmurs against his lips. “I just want to do more of this. Talking, maybe kissing, but not out here, where anyone could walk in at any moment. Will you?”
Steve nods, then rests his forehead against Bucky’s. “I’ve missed you,” he whispers after a second, his eyes flitting up to meet his, then down and away. “I’m sorry I was away for so long.”
Bucky tilts Steve’s chin up so their lips meet again. “You can start making it up to me now,” he whispers, a smile playing on his lips.
-+-+-
Sunlight streaming through the blinds wakes Bucky. His head pounds incessantly, and he would like the whole world to turn itself down about three notches. He rolls over in bed, reaching for his second pillow to throw over his eyes when his hand hits skin. He cracks open an eye, somehow shocked to see Captain America in his bed, shirtless, the sheets wrapped around him like he’s a washing machine.
“Oh shit,” Bucky manages before having to close his eyes again. His hangover is not ready to confront this, that is for sure.
As he lays back, his brain starts playing through the night’s events, much to his chagrin. He did not want to do this first thing in the morning. He sighs, remembering Steve in his arms because he couldn’t take more than a step without stumbling. Steve pushing him into a chair and then climbing into his lap. Steve kissing his neck while they talked about all the things that they had missed in each other’s lives. Steve falling asleep there, against his chest, in his arms, and Bucky feeling whole for the first time in a very long time.
Steve groans from the other side of the bed, his hand finding Bucky’s shoulder in the same way that Bucky found his. “What the hell did we-,” he starts, then groans again. “Buck, is that you? I think I’m dying.”
Bucky rasps out a chuckle, then a soft groan as the sound pierces through his head. “Yeah, Rogers, it’s me. Also dying.”
Steve rolls onto his side, cracking one eye open to see him. “What the hell happened last night?” He asks, and Bucky can see that at least some of their drinking is blank in his head.
“What do you remember?” He asks, also rolling onto his side, wanting to close the distance between them, but not sure where they stand in the cold light of day.
“After bottle two things get a little fuzzy,” Steve admits. “Did I speak Latin?”
Another laugh pours from Bucky before he can stop it. “You did. In vino veritas, I believe.”
Steve presses a hand to his face. “Tony taught me that one, if you’ll believe it,” he says with a sheepish grin. “In drink there is truth, more or less.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What was the truth I wanted to tell you?”
“Why do you think you wanted to tell me?”
Steve blushes at this. “You know, that’s a good question. What did you want to tell me, then?” He asks, artfully dodging the question.
“You don’t remember, then?” Bucky asks, his hands itching to run his fingers along the stubble on Steve’s jaw.
“I remember the feelings. I was warm and safe. And that’s all that matters in the end, I think.”
Bucky makes a noise of confirmation in his throat and rolls onto his back again, trying to hide the turmoil in his body from his friend. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Anyway, I don’t remember us taking off our shirts. I don’t know when that happened.”
Steve grins. “Ah, so you didn’t undress me?”
“Not unless it happened after I was already asleep?”
“As much fun as that sounds, I think we probably did it during the cuddling session. I was shirtless when you put me in bed.”
Bucky’s head whips over, but he winces as pain shoots through him. Cap iss grinning at him. “You remember?” He asks.
“I do, most of it,” Steve says. “Sorry, Buck, I wanted to see how much you remembered before I tipped my whole hand.”
Steve closes the distance between them, their skin hot against each other. Their lips meet again, but Bucky just feels dizzy. He pushes Steve away, gently, and the other man obeys for once in his life. “Sorry, Steve, I just - this hangover is killing me.”
“Let’s have some water and go the hell back to sleep then, yeah?”
Bucky nods, relieved.
Steve pecks him on the cheek. “We will have plenty of time together, I think.”
They face the mother of all hangovers together, and it’s the beginning of something beautiful. Alexei never, ever lets them forget that his liquor was the “seal of the deal” as he puts it.