Chapter Text
“Tony is going to lose his shit,” Steve gasped, sides heaving, and fell back against the destroyed fragments of the couch. It crunched under his sudden weight. “Oh my god. We wrecked the place. The only thing we left alone is that lamp.”
He wasn’t… wrong. In the past 24 hours, they’d crashed their way through the plumbing, glass sliding door, and countertops when the showerhead had ripped out of the wall, then every upholstered item and flat surface in the living room when they’d moved the party out of the flood zone. Bucky had particularly enjoyed being bent over the coffee table, and Steve came in like three seconds when Bucky held him down and arched over the arm of the sofa. Unfortunately, the furniture hadn’t really been made to take the abuse; it looked like someone had gone through with a pallet of knives and sledgehammers.
And yet the lamp stood intact and unmarred on its side nearby, the shade not even bent.
Bucky, sweating heavily from the exuberant cardio they’d just completed, ran a hand through the tacky mess he’d left across the side table earlier. Then he leaned across Steve, bit his ear lightly, and smeared supersoldier jizz right down the side of the ceramic.
Steve laughed so hard he started coughing, and Bucky grinned, dropping a kiss under the curve of Steve’s jaw.
“I love you,” Steve wheezed, falling back again on the splintered upholstery. “But you are disgusting.”
“You love getting me disgusting,” Bucky hummed, trailing little bites along Steve’s neck and across to his shoulder, “but if you want to clean up, blowjobs in the bathtub sound good.”
Steve hmmed and raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure we destroyed enough in there when I pulled a little too hard on the ropes,” Steve told him thoughtfully. “In retrospect, shower bondage is not the amazing idea it seemed like at the time.”
“Are you kidding me, Rogers,” Bucky said with mock incredulity, rearing back as if mortally offended. “That was a fantastic idea, you came on the ceiling. Plus, it’s probably giving Tony a hernia to sit around hearing about it from Friday. He has to yell at us, but he can’t, because he might have to see a superpenis if he busts in.”
That set Steve laughing again, and Bucky kissed Steve at the corner of his mouth, hefted him over the metal shoulder, and headed for the guest bathroom down the hall. Holding on to Steve when he was covered in the mess they’d made and laughing like a loon was hard enough, but when Steve started kissing him anywhere he could reach, it got significantly harder. Bucky almost dropped him on the tile of the bathroom twice while getting the bath started.
They got in before the water was past the halfway mark, which made the bath completely gross on its own, then got distracted and made everything even grosser by the time it was full. Eventually they ended up fucked out enough to take the time to drain it all and refill, and Bucky curled up with his back against Steve’s chest and let him wash his hair.
They’d half swamped the bathroom without even touching the plumbing, this time, and the water seeping off the little step to the lip of the tub made a steady Drip. Drip. in the quiet room. Bucky let his head loll to the side as Steve rinsed his Deep Nourishing Avocado Shampoo out, watching water soak into the thick pile of the bathmat.
“You know,” Steve said into his shoulder after a while, “it’s okay if you wanted to break the chip and it wasn’t for me.”
Bucky froze. The bathmat was suddenly super interesting.
Steve tried to give him some time, rubbing fingers through Bucky’s hair, but eventually filled the silence himself. “I know you’d give up any part of yourself for me, Buck. I’m not trying to question that. But you broke the chip before you even knew you’d need to. It’s okay if this was for you, too.”
Bucky picked at a new crack they’d made in the enamel for a moment. Then, “I didn’t…” He frowned, then tried again. “Shit. It’s selfish.”
Steve made an encouraging noise and rubbed his back, but didn’t say anything.
Bucky sighed. “I wasn’t ready to leave. I wasn’t ready to let him take this back.”
Steve’s arm went tight around him at that, and he made a pained noise. “Who is—I—Wait. Do you think we’ve been talking about putting a different Bucky in and taking you out?”
Bucky shrugged.
“Hold on. I can’t. Hold on.” Steve took some deep breaths, and eventually his hold on Bucky eased. The water sloshed around him and he levered himself to a more upright position. “I would never,” Steve finally said, every word flat and careful, “allow anyone to erase you to put a new person in. Not Tony, not me, not even you. That is not what this has all been about.”
Bucky finally turned and stared at him, disbelieving. “Tony and Natasha are both pretty sure that it is.”
“Picking and choosing which parts to remember, making an entirely new version, got close enough to…shit, to scare me, yeah. I was scared Tony would erase you,” Steve admitted, “but I calmed down. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I thought he was gonna murder you and stick a new person in your skin, Bucky, Christ. I know you. No,” He said when Bucky tried to shrug it off. “I know you. There has never been anyone else inside your head. It has always been you.”
“I want to be who I am now,” Bucky said. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“Then I’ll destroy the backup,” Steve promised. “If it makes you feel better about, shit, believing all your friends are trying to kill you, I’ll set it on fire and stuff it down the garbage disposal.”
“There is no backup,” Bucky said, a little hysterical. He flopped back against Steve, more water splashing onto the floor. “Tony didn’t want me loose in his system. You’re stuck with me and you’re not getting the Winter Soldier back.”
“Of course there’s a backup,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “I know how to use computers, Buck, and so does Natasha. We weren’t going to risk your memories sitting around where one of Tony’s robots could just knock them over by accident.”
Bucky sat back up and stared at him.
“I’m not a moron,” Steve said, visibly annoyed.
“You’d do that,” Bucky said, ignoring that for the moment. “You’d destroy him for me.”
“You’re not in there,” Steve insisted. “I’ll destroy your memory of the time I threw up on your shoes in front of your mother, sure. I kind of think you’d like to keep it since you love to give me shit for it, and I still think the bad stuff is still a part of you, and so it’s important. But they’re not someone else.”
Bucky dropped slowly back against Steve again, staring at the ceiling where the condensation was starting to drip, too. “Maybe,” he said after a moment. “Maybe don’t set things on fire just yet. I don't want ‘em,” he added quickly, turning a little to side eye Steve. “But…maybe don’t delete everything for a little bit.”
“Whatever you want, Buck,” Steve agreed, and started working in the conditioner.
***
Natasha showed up the next morning, took one look at Bucky, Steve, and the apartment, then turned right back around again and walked out.
“I’m fine, by the way!” Bucky shouted after her, standing naked in the catastrophe of the kitchen, holding a mug of instant coffee and a handful of Froot Loops. The coffeemaker had been one of the many casualties of the weekend. Natasha gave no sign she’d heard him, though, and continued into the elevator before mashing the ‘close door’ button. “We’re good! Man,” he said, turning to back around. Steve, warm and clean and marginally more dressed in sweatpants and a smile, was looking at him fondly over the edge of his own mug. “You’d think they’d be used to us trashing shit by now. Bionic arm, super strength, and endless libidos aren’t exactly a fresh development.”
Steve went a little red around the ears. “Uh,” he managed.
Bucky gave him a look. “Don’t tell me this is new,” he said skeptically. “You already admitted we didn’t do much aside from kill people and bone.”
Steve scrubbed at the back of his neck. “We had…We’ve got that history, is all. We tended to be a little more…careful with each other, before.”
Bucky chewed on that for a moment along with the Froot Loops. “Huh,” he said, swallowing. “You miss it being gentle at all?”
“Uh,” Steve said again, looking like the deer Tony’s caught in the hovercraft headlights.
“Baby,” Bucky purred, setting down his horrible coffee and drifting closer to card his metal fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve made a soft, involuntary-sounding noise and leaned into it. “Sweetheart, all you gotta do is ask.”
“I don’t gotta ask, though,” Steve breathed, eyes fluttering shut. “I like it the new way, too.”
“Yeah you do,” Bucky agreed, and Steve started laughing. “But we can do it sweet sometimes. I bet I like sweet just fine.”
Steve slipped his hands around Bucky’s waist, Bucky slipped his hands down Steve’s sweats, and they didn’t break anything.
***
That night Bucky snuck out of bed, crushed the lamp, whispered “Fuck you, Tony,” at the ceiling, and snuck back into the bed again.
***
“I want you both to know,” Tony declared from behind the pages of Ladies Home Journal, “that the first trauma I’m talking about is you two assholes.”
Bucky gave him a ‘fair enough’ shrug.
The therapist’s office Bucky had finally dragged the group of them to was filled with potted plants, cozy furniture, and a white noise machine droning comfortingly in the corner. Bucky had assumed anywhere Friday recommended would be intimidatingly classy and expensive, the kind of place he’d be afraid to touch anything, but it was actually pretty warm and inviting. Natasha had claimed the armchair and a copy of Vogue with the regal assurance of a queen taking her throne, so Steve and Tony had awkwardly squished themselves into opposite sides of the couch before grabbing their own magazines at random and hiding in them. Bucky had flopped down half on top of Steve with his feet on the coffee table and promptly stuffed his face full of the chocolates in the bowl in the center.
“I’m billing you for the repairs to my guest apartment, too,” Tony assured them. He was still refusing to look directly at Bucky since Friday had told him about the lamp, but Bucky could tell he wanted to put on that same disgusted glower he made every time the serum won out over table manners. “The place needs a complete remodel after your bulldozer fuckfest, Jesus.”
“Do it,” Bucky agreed. “Steve says we’re rich. We’ve got so much money I’m free to lounge around with my dick out as a kept man for the rest of my probably immortal life.” He leaned back harder against Steve and tilted his head enough to leer at him.
Steve pretended to be super interested in casual yet elegant summer outdoor table choices, but what Bucky could see of his face was bright red.
“You’re minorly rich,” Tony said, completely unimpressed, “thanks to me, since I got the government to unfreeze all your backpay.”
“And now you get that backpay as your reward,” Bucky said magnanimously, turning back to him. “You’re welcome.”
And then he swung his swanky new caramel leather boots up onto the couch and rested his feet on Tony’s lap.
Tony froze. The room froze. Hell, Bucky froze—he’d only done it because he was getting so used to just letting his body do whatever it was comfortable with, and until now he hadn’t realized he was comfortable enough with Tony to use him as furniture. Still, there was no going back now. Bucky studiously examined the ceiling and pretended he’d meant to.
Tony stared at Bucky’s feet, then looked at Natasha. She gave him a thumbs up and ignored him otherwise. Bucky still couldn’t see much of Steve’s face, but what he could said there were soggy feelings going on behind the magazine.
“You’re going to ruin my suit,” Tony complained eventually, but didn’t move to shove Bucky off. “And why is Natasha here? Natasha, why are you even here? Wait, scratch that, why doesn’t she have to see a therapist?”
Natasha didn’t even look up. “I’m here because James can only bodily tackle one fleeing manbaby at a time, and there’s a chance both of you might make a break for it at once,” she said carelessly, flipping a page with one manicured finger. “And I don’t have to see the therapist because I wasn’t stupid enough to promise that I would.”
“It’s not stupid,” Steve said loyally, which was rich, considering the whining Bucky had been forced to put up with that morning. Bucky had needed to break out the crazy eyes and repeat ‘Suicide. Talk.’ no fewer than 18 times in a row. He made sure that thought was stunningly clear on his face, but Steve just pretended he couldn’t see it. “It’s healthy. It’s important to take care of your mental health.”
“I feel like promises made in the heat of furious sarcasm shouldn’t be binding,” Tony grumbled. “I’m pretty sure that’s in the Geneva Conventions somewhere.”
“Oh, now you care about the Geneva Conventions,” Bucky said. “And Natasha doesn’t have to go because she seems like she has her shit pretty well together, honestly. You two are walking breakdowns.”
Steve’s head shot up, incredulous, and he met Tony’s eyes for a second before they both turned to stare at Natasha. She smiled sunnily back, licked her thumb, and turned another page.
“Your bar for mental stability is way too low,” Steve finally told Bucky. “We really need to reintroduce you to Sam.”
“I want you to think about the logic of that statement,” Bucky told him, “and consider what it says that I am so concerned about how completely fucked up the three of us are anyway.”
Steve looked like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t come up with anything convincing. Tony gave Bucky’s ‘fair enough’ shrug from earlier.
“You’ll learn to use ‘I feel’ statements,” Natasha offered. “It helps with communication. Maybe you two can start talking instead of yelling.”
“I already know about ‘I feel’ statements,” Steve protested. “Watch. Tony, I feel angry when you’re a huge dick.”
“Yeah?” Tony said, slapping down his magazine. “Well I feel frustrated when you’re an overbearing jerkoff.”
“Those are not ‘I feel’ statements,” Natasha told them.
“Steve feels helpless when you risk your life and the lives of others and he has no power over everyone’s safety,” Bucky said blandly. “Tony feels sad when you don’t give his ideas a chance and work with him to make them better.”
“Don’t pretend you know anything about this either,” Natasha told him. “You have amnesia.”
“I feel like I don’t like ‘I feel’ statements anymore,” Tony said, making to get up. “I feel vulnerable. Let’s get a cheeseburger and complain about Nanny Barnes instead.”
Bucky’s legs turned to iron and Tony flopped right back into the couch with an oof.
“No,” Steve said. “We promised. We’re doing this. We’re learning to communicate and deal with our issues.”
“Thank you,” Bucky said, relieved.
“And then we can get cheeseburgers and complain about Bucky,” Steve assured Tony, looking serious. Tony cocked his head, nodded, and sat back in the cushions to wait.
“Maybe while we’re here you can both work on not being assholes,” Bucky said, and buried his nose in Cat Fancy.