There's always been a tether between them, Bucky thinks, like a rubber band that pulls them back together whenever it stretches too thin. It had pulled Steve to him in Azzano, it had brought the Winter Soldier knocking down Steve's door and it had brought Steve to him right before he'd been arrested. Now, it's pulling them together again, having been pulled tight with loss and grief and distance. The distance is too much. It's been too much for a while now, but the tension of that tether is there, palpable and frightening in its own way, because the harder they pull at it, the harder it throws them back together.

He feels Steve shiver and instinctively rubs his hands over Steve's back like he would have all those years ago when Steve was so small and always so cold in the winter. There's a need in him to always take care of Steve that he'll never outgrow or leave behind entirely.

The kiss doesn't catch him off guard. He can see it coming and maybe he's been waiting for it, anticipating with equal parts want and fear as they tip over that edge they can't come back from. So he kisses back, just as gentle when his lips move carefully against Steve's. Even if he'd been staving this off himself, he's never been good at denying Steve.

"Me, too." The words are mumbled against Steve's lips.

He needs this. They both do.