The Weight of Water

“This is a terrible idea,” Bucky says.

Steve turns to look back at him. He’s standing far back away from the edge of the water with his arms folded across his chest. His black uniform is a smudge of charcoal against the crisp, untouched white of the snow. A passing breeze whips his still-long hair in front of his face. The two of them don’t feel the cold the way other people do, but Steve can still feel the heaviness of it against his skin, and he can still see it in their misty-white breaths.

As kids, it was Steve who was always pushing, always reckless, and as captain, Steve was the always the one holding them back, always the responsible one. Now they’re in this new, uncomfortable future, and Steve doesn’t know if they count as friends or teammates anymore, and how exactly they work together is still hazy and uncertain.

“You always said,” Steve says. “We’d go out to Coney Island and walk up and down the Boardwalk, and you’d say—”

“I remember what I said,” Bucky says.

Steve turns again, looks out at place where the tide has washed away the snow, leaving behind graying sand. There’s no sun today, just thick white clouds. It matches the caps of the waves as they rush up against the shore. He takes off his shirt. “We doing this or not, Buck?” he shouts over his shoulder.

“It was all bullshit, you know,” Bucky shouts, but he’s reaching down to unlace his boots. He’d always been particular about the order with which he undressed.

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve says. He unbuckles his belt and slides his pants down before he steps out of them.

All of a sudden, Bucky is there at his side, dressed only in his boxers, glowering in the way he does these days. The cold has a bit of a bite to it, but neither of them are shivering.

Steve’s the one who plunges in first. He doesn’t remember what it was like, being buried beneath the ice for decades upon decades, but when he does, he imagines it like this, overwhelming, freezing, something to drown in. But it’s good. Steve has wanted to crawl out of his own skin for a while, and here that restless part of him has settled.

Bucky is there with him, as he somehow always manages to be. Steve treads water, keeps his head above the surface. It’s so much, having to always be on guard, to always be watchful, to know the weight he carries on his shoulders.

It’s nice to do something stupid for once, something reckless and foolish. Steve knows that Bucky will put a stop to things before they go downhill. “You pulled me out,” Steve shouts, “last time.” The sea water tastes bitter in his mouth.

“Yes,” Bucky yells back. It’s easy to spot him amongst the waves by the bright silver casing of his arm.

It’s not— it’s not close enough, and Steve swims over to him, so that they’re bobbing in the ocean together, facing one another. Steve says, “And you didn’t even know who I was.”

There’s a shadow of a smile on Bucky’s face. “I had an inkling,” he says. The way he shakes his head is new, a jerky, aborted gesture that looks all wrong to Steve’s eyes. “Let’s go back.”

They swim back to shore. The winter sun breaks through the clouds, sudden and bright. Steve flops face-up on the sand and wonders if his engineered body is still at risk for frostbite.

“This was a terrible idea,” Bucky says as he squeezes the water from his hair before pulling his shirt back on.

“I don’t know, Buck,” Steve says, closing his eyes. “I’m glad we got a chance to try it once.” He remembered their conversations during Bucky’s funeral, the stupid, idle musings of teenage boys, and he’d felt the loss of it, their silly little dream together, as keenly as a physical ache.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, his voice steady and calm. He smiles for real, and Steve can see the old Bucky in it. “That part was nice.”

He sits down next to Steve, and they stare out at the horizon, and they don’t say anything again for a long while.

FIN.