home•com•ing
/ˈhōmˌkəmiNG/

возвращение на родину
/vozvrashcheniye na rodinu/

—————

"Happy birthday, Steve," Bucky whispered in my ear, waking me up.

"Mmm... mornin' Buck," I turned around and gave him a kiss.

"I have a surprise for you today."

"Oh yea? What's that?" I asked.

"I guess you'll just have to get up and get dressed to find out," he responded.

"Ughh so this surprise involves putting clothes on? Not taking them off?" I whined jokingly.

He laughed, "oh my God, Steve." He paused and lowered his voice. "That's later... no worries. But now, we have to celebrate your one hundredth birthday a little bit more appropriately for your age... old man."

"Hey!" I shoved him playfully. "You're older than I am!"

"Yea yea yea, just get dressed and we can get the birthday fun started," he explained, getting up and walking out.

I sat up on the side of the bed and thought for a moment about just how lucky I was to have someone like him who cares so much. I really don't know how long either of us would have lasted without the other.

I finally stood and shed my boxers, only to put on new ones. Then, some black slacks with a tight white t-shirt and a white button up shirt. Lastly, I bent over to put on my somewhat new black dress shoes... Bucky told me to dress nice so that's what I did.

I started out of the room only to find him waiting for me in the kitchen. The island was set up with its little light on. There were two place settings on the beige-brown marbled granite countertops. Eggs on toast with orange juice.

"How do I look?" I asked, seeing that he was dressed similarly.

"Good, you're just missing these," he held up an unidentifiable article of clothing. I took it and held it before me.

"Suspenders?" I asked.

"Need help getting them on?"

"Well, no. But help me anyway," I said with a smirk.

He smiled and walked over, collecting the suspenders from my hands. He ran his metal fingers up down my pant leg a bit after putting the first side into its place. He, next, put the other on, lightly touching around it as well.

Then, he spun around to my backside, keeping his body tightly formed onto mine and holding his right hand on my abdomen. He attached the last clip to the back of my trousers, lingering there for a moment... letting his hands wander and pressing himself on me.

I bit my lip so the moan that was creeping up my throat couldn't escape. I held onto it because I knew he was just messing around. I knew he was playing with me but no matter how much I told myself not to want it in this moment, I couldn't help my body from feeling otherwise.

He pulled away, almost reluctantly, and walked back around to my front. "Ready to go?" He asked quietly.

"Yea, let's go... you jerk."

• • •

"How can it be a surprise if we're walking there? It's New York City, Buck, I've seen everything here," I pointed out.

"Sure you have, but there's something here I'm certain you've forgotten about." I looked at him on confusion and continued walking in his footsteps.

We walked down the sidewalk, passing so many unknown faces, so many posters and street signs and cars. So different from what it was almost 80 years ago.

We turned down a backstreet and it felt familiar. It felt like déjà vu... like I had been here before in a dream or something.

"Where the hell are we even going?" I asked.

"Jesus what's with all the questions?" He replied, laughing.

"Sorry, just curious."

"Awww come here..." he came over and gave me a kiss. I smiled. "Well, we're here anyway so there ain't no point in askin' anymore..."

I looked around to see if I recognized anything. It seemed like a little alleyway... bricks and old stone roadways. It looked like it had been preserved like this and the road hadn't been used in a while. I didn't see anyone around either. An old street lamp hung dark and unused with a small bird perched on top of it, singing out its lonely song.

I looked back at Bucky. "What is this place?" I was so confused. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. Almost like everything around me was shrinking and I was stuck in the middle to be inevitably crushed. Like my mind was closing in on itself trying to search for an answer.

"Hmmm now who's confused?" He commented slyly. He's right. I felt like Bucky must have. It's like the memory was there but it was masked. I couldn't see it but I knew something had to be there.

I looked back at him after more careful observation.

"Alright, enough fun. Lemme show you what you're missing," he said, taking my hand and pulling me towards the door. He reached into his right pocket and pulled out an old key. Butterflies filled my stomach after seeing it. I observed all of its bronze curves and rigid worn out edges.

He ran his fingers over its old metallic surfaces and I looked up at him to see he was already looking at me. His eyes were filled with something of a dream. Like a pure white joy and clear happiness that had somehow been tainted with a splotch of spreading, red lust.

His lips separated just before he licked them and looked back down at the key. I did the same. He then approached the wooden door with his right hand and slowly inserted the key into the hole.

My eyelids fluttered as I watched him do so... my mind was wandering to other places at the moment and it was quite evident as to why. Everything he does seems to be seductive... and it's mesmerizing how he manages to captivate me each and every time.

His wrist turns ever-so-slowly as the key rotates in its socket. I listened to the clicking and churning mechanics within the aged door with fascination. As it clunked into its final position, Bucky placed ons hand on the old chipping door frame and the other on the door itself.

He looked over at me as if this moment was the most pivotal thing that had yet to happen all year. I held my breath as he struggled to shove the door open. It was stuck, but eventually it skidded back a bit. It hadn't been opened completely, but it was getting there.

With one final push, it creaked open. Bucky stood there, eyes bulging out of his head, beside me.

I simply could not believe my eyes.

"Buck..." I froze up. I couldn't think of what to say.

I took a slight step foreword to get a better look and was hit with something I hadn't experienced in, quite literally, almost 100 years. A scent, a sight of...

Wood. Old wooden floors and furniture.

Cloth. An aged sofa, and lined kitchen chairs.

Parchment. Used paper and ink left out.

Books. Dusty, yellowed, untouched collections.

"Bucky... is this..." I stopped. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. The breath had been sucked from my lungs and the words from my brain as I stood there in a cloud of confusion and pure joy.

"Yea, Steve. It is," he confirmed. He knew what it was, even, yet he was as astonished by it just as much as I was.

I stepped into the doorway and examined everything I saw. I examined the walls and the floors. The furniture and old electronics. The light fixtures and kitchen tiles. The door, way across the room that led to a place that I had only dreamt of seeing again.

This whole thing. All of it. It's a dream. There's no way it's real. No way. But here I am. And there it is, just before me.

The old place Bucky and I shared in the 1930s.

Perfectly preserved, too. It was as if no one had been in there since we left it. It was exactly as it was all those years ago, too. Well, maybe because no one knew it even existed. I mean, what would the media give to see Captain America's old apartment?

But none of that mattered. What mattered were my and Bucky's roots.

And this?

This, is where it all began.

This, is where we began.

"I- I don't even know what to say. How did you... how'd you remember? What even made you think to come back here after all this time? I mean- how did you know it would still be here?" I asked.

"Remember when we first got the place? We were too young so your mom quote on quote 'bought' it for us, even though we used our collective money. The deed was under Sarah's name. It was, for all those years... even after everything with us during the Second World War. And while you were presumed dead... killed in action... as was I... I guess her death wasn't ever documented correctly because she died at her house all those years ago. And with the money you and me and Sarah saved up... I guess it got payed off and it was all okay. And so, then, I had the deed switched last week to dual ownership," he paused and smiled at me. "It now belongs to Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes."

I looked at him, dumbfounded. My throat was closing on me and my chest was compressing. I felt like I was going to cry. "This... it's incredible, Buck. I can't even imagine all the trouble you went through." I blinked away the tears and sniffled.

"Nah, it was nothing. Really," he replied, a hand on my shoulder.

I looked down at my shoulder and back at him. "What are we? Fifteen? It's the twenty first century, Buck. Kiss me."

He blinked and moved closer, planting a kiss on my lips. "Let's go in," he added, eventually.

"Okay..." I leaned through the door frame before taking my first step into the room.

I was hit with a blinding white when I first entered. Memories flooded my brain, like flashes.

I remembered our first day together. It was a completely different dynamic. It was so much more... I don't know. We were closer. In more ways than just one. We had to share that old mattress for a month (not that I cared).

We had no heat in the winter... it was so cold when he wasn't there to get me warm. Well, not like that. At least not at first.

I heard a muffled noise growing closer and closer. Something warm on my arm and this quiet voice that was getting increasingly louder, yet still incomprehensible, was about to hit me square in the face.

"Steve?... Steve? Steeeeve???" I snapped back into reality as his voice surfaced in my mind. My eyes flickered over at him. "You alright there, pal?"

"Yea, I'll be alright." I confirmed.

"Good." He looked at me. At me, longingly. Like he always did. From the get go, his wed always meandered. They always longed at me like I was missing something... and I was.

I never knew what the hell he was doing until our faces nearly collided that one night at the theater... we were seeing Black Cat. Then, one day, when he kissed me for the first time... I knew. I finally knew.

Those memories, though, I'm sure turned to dust in his former blender of a brain a long while ago. I'm surprised he remembered this old place.

Just those thoughts. The little things. The minuscule memories are the ones that threw me. Those were the ones that put butterflies in my stomach. Those were the ones that gave me chills and that feeling I just couldn't seem to shake. I still can't.

So I gave in.

I turned around and closed the door. The pitch blackness surrounded us as I reached for the string that would turn on the light. It flickered on and filled the room with a golden yellow glow from the center. I looked down and rested my hand on the string when my eyes met Bucky's, as he was standing just before me.

His eyes lit up in that golden sand color to match his ocean blue. I reached forward and tucked his long, brown locks behind his ear.

He smiled and chuckled. Yea, yea, I know. I'm such a dork. But you love me for it. And you know you do.

I moved closer to his face and he stopped me. "Steve. Now, now... this isn't appropriate for two young boys of the 1930s, you know," he scolded, playfully.

"Well then, Buck, I guess I shouldn't be so... obvious."

"Obvious? Please. You were everything but obvious. I took a leap of faith getting this apartment with you back then, hoping all the while you felt the same as I did."

"Hmm, yea. I know. It was a real struggle, not knowing," I paused. "Oh well, we did it. Plus, we're here now... so, c'mere," I grabbed his waist and hoisted him in. He rested there, inches from my face, for what felt like hours. Finally, I leaned in and kissed him; everything I had went into that kiss.

He hummed as I pulled him closer to my body and ran my fingers slowly through his hair. I exhaled in the moment, attempting to savor it, but he only pulled me in for more.

My mouth opened as he pushed his tongue in, dominating me once again. His hands traveled up my chest and rested on my neck, as if he was trying to pull me in more than physically possible.

His mouth, it was so wet and warm and... his quickening breath. It was like I hadn't kissed him in forever. The things I wanted him to do to me with those lips, that tongue...

His hands moved across my body as he grinded his hips until I felt him hard against my thigh. He slowly pulled up my button down shirt out of my trousers and dragged his cold metal fingertips down the center of my abdomen all the way to the brim of my boxers.

I shivered and looked over at his icey blue eyes. They were foggy. Lost in a haze of lust and remembrance.

I pulled away as he moaned into my mouth, "Buck-" I paused. He groggily opened his eyes and looked into mine as I bit my lip and swallowed the lump in my throat. "Is it really—"

"Appropriate? To be doing this here?" He said. But then, suddenly,  his whole demeanor changed. It was like he had one idea in his mind a moment ago, and somehow was on a completely different path now. Like there was this burning question in his mind that I could sense was there but I just couldn't seem to pin point what it was specifically.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," I replied, trying to figure out what he was thinking now.

"I know you all too well," he smiled. "And, no, Steve. It's completely appropriate, actually. This..." he let go of me and walked across the creaky wooden floor to a white door. He pushed it open, "here." I saw a room come into view. A small, blue bedroom with a full bed that had been properly made some 80 years ago. It was the room we had shared in the years before the war. "This, is where we fell in love, Steve. This is where it all began. Where I realized that I couldn't handle living a single day without you..."

I looked over at him in disbelief. We'd never said that it loud even though we both knew how true it was that neither of us could live without the other. "This feeling that I get when I'm with you is like nothing I've ever felt in the past 100 years of my existence... and if I were to lose you? I would spend the rest of my life in pain. Like a knife in my side telling me that I will never feel with anyone the way I feel when I'm with you. I love you, Steve, more than anything..." he walked back over to where I was standing.

He took my head in his hands and pulled our faces together, resting our foreheads on one another. As he looked into my eyes I saw a sparkle ripple through his pupil and a single tear fall down his face. "And that..." he cleared his throat. "That's why..." he pulled away from me. His eyes were noticeably glassy and reddening. As I observed him and tried to decipher his intentions, I noticed how that single tear had stained his face, leaving an obvious trail sparkling in its path.

His feet shuffled back a step and I watched his every move, still trying to put all the little pieces together. It hit me when his right hand reached back to his pocket. My eyes were flooded with a burning sensation as his knee hit the ground. "That, Steve, is why I would like to ask you... to marry me," he smiled up at me as he pulled a silver ring from behind his back. "Will you marry me?"

I looked down at the ring for a moment and back at him. A red heat ripped through my cheeks as a tear fell from each eye. My heart raced and I could feel myself shaking. He was visibly nervous too, awaiting my answer, in these few seconds that had felt like an eternity. Though, throughout all of it, his smile never faded. And that is how I knew my answer would be the right one.

"Yes."

He stood and put the silver ring on my finger. He kissed me and I knew in that moment that we both felt the happiest we had ever felt in either of our lives.

"And, Steve, I just thought you should know that it's not silver... er, the ring."

"White gold, then?" I asked. He shook his head no. "Platinum?"

"Vibranium," he replied, smiling smugly.

"Bucky—"

"Relax, Steve. I figured I should spend money on a ring that we could both relate to. That ring was made from the same stash of metal as my arm was. I figured that since I can't wear a ring..." he held up his metal arm. "You might as well wear one that matches where mine would have been."

"I love you," I whispered as I pulled him into a hug.

"And I, you."

—————
James_BuchananBarnes