Always There (Stucky One Shots and Short Stories)

Sad Nights (Stucky)

Steve pounded the punching bag like there was no tomorrow. The adrenalin, the ache of his fists from each impact, the crash of the bag as it broke loose from its hook and landed heavily on the gymnasium floor, it was no help to him. It only temporarily dulled the pain that he felt deep inside him, pain that had turned to pure anguish since that horrible train battle long ago...

It began with adolescence. Steve already knew that he loved Bucky, that he thought him handsome and charming, but he always noted that this admiration seemed like more than admiration; he had no words for it other than that he loved Bucky and thought that he was handsome. Then when he reached fourteen years of age and his hormones swept him along with their hurricane strength, Steve's body began to enlighten him to the nature of his attraction to Bucky.

He was so ashamed. It was bad enough that he barely grew out of his scrawny, awkward body, but that he found himself thoroughly infatuated with his best friend, that he wanted to kiss Bucky. But it hurt, too. The erotic feelings that Steve now had for Bucky had the cruel side effect of deepening and intensifying how much he loved him. Steve felt like crying when he saw Bucky charming yet another girl, even though Bucky invariably returned to him. Steve figured that as long as Bucky was happy and was always there for him, it was good enough.

The war had changed so much. Refusing to be parted from Bucky and refusing to sit on the sidelines in this war, Steve was willing to risk his safety with Erskine's serum. To his amazement, it had worked wonders for him. He was a tall, strapping figure now, robustly strong and healthy... he had become Captain America.

He didn't care how outrageous that it was to carry out a rescue mission himself, Steve refused to believe Philips when he said that Bucky and the other men were as good as dead. He had to find Bucky.

It had been all that he could do to keep from crying to see Bucky strapped to that laboratory table and find that he was alive. It was all that he could do to keep from kissing his lost friend on the lips. He was the most beautiful thing in the world in that moment.

But so soon after rescuing Bucky from Schmidt and Zola's laboratory, Steve lost him again. He still saw Bucky's poor body helplessly falling into the valley below. He allowed a few tears, but he knew that he had to buck up and be a man. Nobody would take kindly to Captain America in love with another man.

Qué triste es, It's so sad
no tenerte junto a mi lado not to have you beside me
besar tus labios, to kiss your lips,
qué triste es, no poder... tocar tu piel, it's so sad, not to... touch your skin,
acariciarte y abrazarte, pero muy fuerte... to caress you and embrace you so strongly....
vivir a plenitud este romance y otra vez To live this romance fully and to listen again
escuchar tu voz gritarme, te amo... to your voice calling to me, I love you....

Steve still remembered his confused disappointment upon awakening in New York in 2011, a good seventy years after he had crashed Schmidt's airship after defeating Schmidt himself. Such an empty victory, since Bucky was still dead. Now, here he was, working for SHIELD. As much as his newfound coworkers were beginning to grow on him, he still felt little outside of the agony of a wound that was still raw, that made him pound the punching bag even harder.

He'd taken worse injuries from bullies and Bucky was there to patch him up. The dull ache in his heart swallowed him, accentuated by the fact that Bucky was gone.

Yo sólo sé... que esta noche, te extraño tanto I only know.... that tonight, I miss you so much
y no sabes... lo que yo... sufro por... tu querer. and you don't know... how much... I suffer.... for your love

The Winter Soldier made Steve's jaw drop. Although the assassin's face was half-covered by a mask and his hair reached his shoulders, although his eyes were narrowed and menacing, Steve recognized those eyes. They belonged to the man he couldn't forget, to the boyhood friend he thought was dead.

Bucky...!

How could this happen??? Steve quickly decided that how Bucky survived was unimportant. All that he cared about now was to revive him, to free him from his captors once again.

"Captain Rogers, why do you look so shocked? It's like you recognize Yasha." Natasha's voice cut into Steve's thoughts.

"Yasha?" Steve asked, bewildered as ge saw the Avengers assembled around him.

"That's what he called himself around me. He trained me," Natasha replied.

Steve gulped, taking his heart into his hands, his voice trembling, "We grew up together... his name is James Buchannan Barnes, but we all called him "Bucky"... he was my best friend...!"

Natasha, her poker face failing somewhat, gaped, "What? Captain, are you sure that this is the same man?"

"Unless he's a time-traveler also, I don't see how it could be him," Tony added.

"I know his eyes anyplace," Steve continued, feeling his whole being beginning to shake, "The Soviets must have done something to him, because he never looked at me like that before...!"

A stray tear rolled down Steve's cheek, a sight that stunned the Avengers. Captain America, upset?

"I'd be shocked, too, if my dead friend turned up alive," Clint blurted, trying to be supportive. Steve could only nod.
Bruce, returned to human form, laid a hand on Steve's back, "What else, Captain?"

Steve hesitated, but years of holding his true feelings inside and hiding his true self were exhausting him. Breathing heavily, the emotions that he had tried to bury were resurfacing with a vengeance.

"I love him...!" Steve's voice was soft and frightened. He'd never even said it aloud to himself and he'd blurted it before he could stop himself. He awaited the hostile reaction that he was sure would follow.

To Steve's relieved surprise, Bruce pulled him into a half-embrace and Natasha squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "I thought that you seemed rather eager with LGBT rights, Captain," she remarked.

Steve tried to smile, but his face twisted in agony as the reality of what he'd said sunk to his core. He couldn't hold his brave face any longer. Bruce instinctively pulled him close as Steve began sobbing.

"I've loved him ever since we were just kids...!"

Natasha sympathetically squeezed Steve's shoulder, "Why didn't you say anything about this to us?"
"Yeah," added Clint, "It's not something that you have to endure alone, Cap."

"Agent Coulson and I are together," Bruce added, "You could have said something."

"Some things are just hard to say...!" Steve squeaked, "When I was growing up, if anybody knew about this, I'd have been through...!"

"Times have changed, Cap," Tony was uncharacteristically tender, "People change."

"All this time he's been alive, and who knows what's happened to him...!" Steve remembered Bucky's fall from the train with a new kind of regret.

"Even if he's still Bucky, I don't know that he'll ever feel the same way about me..." Steve's winced and his heart contracted as he heard his own words, "It hurts...!"

Years of pain struggled to escape from Steve, but he felt reassured by the newfound support.

He tratado de enterrar mis emociones I tried to bury my feelings
y no logro continuar engañándome, es inútil... and I can't keep fooling myself, it's useless
el seguir negando... que te amo. to keep denying.... that I love you.

"Bucky?" Steve knew that the process would be slow and difficult, but it rattled him like nothing else to see Bucky wearing such a hostile expression.

"I am the Winter Soldier, you Yankee fool," the assassin scoffed, "You think that it's so easy to return to how things were, don't you?"

The Winter Soldier held a steady stream of insults as Steve fought to keep himself calm and to counter every manipulation that the captive assassin dealt him.

Steve felt that he was beating his head against a stone wall. Unknown to him, the Winter Soldier's armor had cracked.

"Steve...??? You're here, but I still don't quite believe it!" Bucky began to seep back into his own mind, his own body, although the Winter Soldier resisted.

Deep within a mind that had been thrashed with much brainwashing, Bucky still remembered Steve. He remembered how much that he wanted to tell him how much he loved him and how terrified that it would end with Steve rejecting him. He remembered how hollow and dissatisfied that he was under the confident front when he went out with woman after woman. He tried to forget, to bury his true feelings. Even his romance with Natasha when she was his student left him feeling disappointed.

Steve...! Steve had become stunningly handsome with the serum, but even before he'd received it there was something about Steve that Bucky found unbearably charming. He enjoyed cuddling with Steve more on cold winter nights in a drafty flat than he ever felt making out with a woman. He was always terrified that Steve would discover that his arousal. What would he think?

It didn't matter now. Below the reach of the memory wipes, everything was slowly but surely trickling back into Bucky's mind. He remembered how Steve had rescued him from Schmidt and Zola's torture chamber; Bucky had surrendered all hope by then and when he saw Steve, recently become tall and muscular, looking at him with such worry in his eyes, that was when he knew, beyond doubt, that he loved Steve. Now he was here, before him, again trying to rescue him...!

Dentro crece cada día más, Inside of me, everyday grows more,
la pasión que siento por ti... the passion that I feel for you....
ninguna se puede igualar... no other can compare....
al bello recuerdo que vive en mí... to the beautiful memory that lives in me...

It had been three months since SHIELD had taken the Winter Soldier into custody. Steve looked wearily at him as he entered the cell to try to bring him further from his shell. It was after eleven in the evening and he was exhausted, but he could hardly sleep with everything that occupied his mind.

Bucky was no longer cursing people right and left, levelling especially cruel vitriol at Steve. He had moved toward sitting in his cell most of the time, staring blankly at the wall. Steve knew that Bucky seemed to recognize him, but he could hardly read the blank expression.

"Remember me, Bucky... remember us...! Please remember...!" Steve urged desperately, "Whether you remember me or not, I only want you to know that I love you...!" Steve blinked his watering eyes, hoping that Bucky would register his message, "I've loved you since I was just fourteen...! Whether you return what I feel for you, I only want you to know how much I've missed you...!"

In that moment, any hold that the Winter Soldier had in Bucky's mind crumbled. "You love me...?!?" Bucky's face bore no expression, but under the surface he was stunned. Steve loved him in the same way?! Joy flooded him, dissolving the work of the Red Room that had caked in his heart, mind, and soul.

"Steve...!" Bucky's voice was soft and brittle from disuse, but it caught Steve's attention instantly.

"Bucky...! You remember who I am...?" Steve asked gingerly, trying to contain his excitement.

"Do you mean what you just said?" Bucky asked, his eyes turning glassy.

Frozen, Steve could only nod slightly, unsure of what would happen next.

Yo sólo sé... que esta noche... I only know.... that tonight,
te extraño tanto y no sabes, I miss you so much and you don't know,
lo que yo... sufro por... tu amor... how much... I suffer.... for your love

Lunging forward, Bucky embraced him, eagerly kissing his face, "I've wanted to tell you since we were kids-! I love you more than you'll ever know...!"

Momentarily speechless, Steve managed to stammer, "Bucky, a-are you serious about this? Please tell me that you are-!"

In response, Bucky wiggled into a full-body embrace. Steve could feel Bucky's arousal against his own loins, and his body responded in kind. "Yes," Bucky gasped, his face red and streaked with tears, "Yes, I am...!"

Their first kiss was clumsy, but they nearly came. Neither of them had ever felt so exhilarated before. Laughing and crying for sheer joy, the new couple curled into each other.

"It's been so long, Buck...!" Steve murmured into Bucky's hair.
"It sure has been...!" Bucky whispered against Steve's collarbone, both relieved at their familiar scents, "Oh Babe, I wish that I'd done this a long time ago...!"
"We're here now...!" Steve kissed Bucky's brow. Bucky cuddled in closer, winter melted into springtime.