Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Steve startled when the door to his class slammed open.

“James-“

“I’ve told you to call me Bucky.”

“-don’t you have a class right now?” Steve ignored the interruption to instead rub his temples to alleviate his oncoming headache.

“What the hell was that video you made us watch? Shouldn’t that be Mr. Banner’s job or some shit?” Bucky went on with his rant, ignoring each time Steve said “Language!” when he cursed. “Like you do know that no actual teenager is going to come to a teacher if they are getting the snot beaten out of them at home right? Like don’t all adults get that?”

“Bucky, the hope is that if the student feels safe enough, we want them to know that the teachers are willing to listen,” Steve sighed. “And Bruce asked me to play it in my class because he knows that by the end of the day, no one wants to listen to boring psychology videos.”

“Oh but American History is so enthralling?” Bucky raised his eyebrows in a joking manner.

Steve sighed. “American-“

“-History is a class dedicated to teaching the American youth about their roots and to respect their elders blah blah blah…” Bucky interrupted. “You really do say that a lot, not the ‘blah blah blah’ part but you know what I meant.”

“What’s this really about, Bucky?” Steve asked, no longer letting his student dance around why he actually came bursting into his classroom.

“Huh?”

“You came in practically foaming at the mouth, did you have a problem with the video?” Steve watched as Bucky shifted where he stood.

“I don’t know, do adults really believe that kids will come to them with issues?” Bucky looked at the ground.

“I don’t know if its a belief or more of a hope,” Steve explained. “I hope anyone needing help would tell someone, I hope anyone needing anything would feel safe enough to ask for it.”

Bucky hummed in a way that made Steve think that he was skeptical of it still. Steve still didn’t think Bucky was telling him everything, no one should have gotten that mad at the video. Hell, it was barely three minutes long, it wasn’t like it had tortured anyone with how boring it was.

“So your only problem with it was that it seemed unrealistic?” Steve asked.

Bucky was silent for a few moments.

“Why did Mr. Banner want you to make us watch it anyways? Is some kid getting abused?” Bucky asked cautiously.

“What? No, and even if they were I couldn’t tell you,” Steve noticed how Bucky had pretty much avoided his question. “I think Bruce just wanted kids to know.”

“Well, no other psych teacher has done that, so it's not like it’s in the curriculum or anything,” Bucky looked like he was… pouting?

“Like I said, I think Bruce just wanted kids to know.”

“I think I should get back to class, this has been quite the long bathroom break.”

“Do you need me to write you a note?” Steve was already pulling out a pen and paper.

“Why would I come back with a note from the bathroom, Rogers? You gotta think things through,” Bucky gave his signature smirk before turning to leave.

“Bucky!” Steve managed to get Bucky to look over his shoulder. “Just know that if you need to talk, I’m here!”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky huffed before leaving.

When the door closed Steve thought about Bucky’s reaction to the video. Did all of the students really think it was bullshit? He shook off the thought and went back to grading his tests.

Chapter Text

Steve didn’t see Bucky at school for two days after that interaction. He wasn’t particularly worried, Bucky missed days left and right, so this was nothing new. At first he had tried to make a connection between their conversation and the fact Bucky was gone for two days, but he had rationalized it in his mind, and with Nat in the teachers lounge.

Natasha was the health/gym teacher who almost every student seemed to love and yet also be scared shitless of. She was also one of Steve’s best friends.

“He misses school all the time, plus his father is one of the richest men in the town, I’m sure he went on some impromptu trip to Disney or something,” Natasha said after taking a sip of coffee.

“So we are writing this off because his dad is rich?” Steve asked.

“I’m just saying that one coincidence is nothing to get worried about, Steve. I’m not saying write it off, I’m saying maybe you should wait until you have something else to go on.”

“You’re right, I’m jumping to conclusions, it was one thing, nothing to worry about,” Steve sighed and put his head in his hands. He was getting worked up for nothing.

“Steve, it’s good that you are looking out for your students, you just need to slow down when it comes to your conclusions.”

“Thanks Nat. You’re a great friend.”

“I know.”

Bucky did end up back at school the next day, all assignments he had missed in his hand, yet there wasn’t a stupid grin on his face.

He moved right passed Steve without so much as a glance and sat as far away from Steve’s desk that he could. Even more than that, Steve could tell something was off physically, but he couldn’t quite place it.

He had his signature black hoodie with a red star on the chest on, but the hood was pulled up. The sleeves were rolled down, when normally they were pushed up to his elbows. He was wearing jeans which was normal, but one leg was slightly ridden up, which let Steve catch a glimpse of something that looked like a soft cast or brace around his ankle.

Steve tore his eyes away as more students started to fill the room. When the bell rang he started giving his lecture on the first world war.

When class was over and all the students were filling out, Steve called out to Bucky.

“James, can you stay after so I can go over some of the things you missed?” Steve asked. He didn’t miss the way Bucky didn’t correct him about his name.

Bucky didn’t say anything but did wait patiently at Steve’s desk.

“I did what I missed,” Bucky offered an essay to Steve.

“If you were sick, why did you do your homework?”

“Pierce wanted me to,” Bucky mumbled. “He didn’t want me to get behind just cause I was sick, said it would look bad.”

Steve saw how Bucky’s fingers fidgeted with the end of his sweatshirt sleeve.

“Well, having it all done shows you care,” Steve took the essay with a smile. Bucky tried to return the smile, but he winced slightly, and Steve assumed it was from his split lip. “What happened to your lip?”

“Oh! Um, when I was sick, um, I guess I had a high fever and I bit through it?” Bucky chuckled, though he sounded nervous.

“Oh, well, I hope you aren’t pushing yourself too hard to be here today,” Steve looked intently at the cut. When he realized he had paused and created an awkward pause, he coughed and continued, “there’s no shame in needing time off, try not to make it a habit, though.”

The bell rang.

“I should get to class,” Bucky said.

Steve noticed how tense the air had gotten.

“I’ll write you a note, just hold on a second.”

Steve turned around to grab a pen, but when he turned back around, Bucky was gone.

Steve was distracted for the rest of the day. The cut had been on Bucky’s upper lip, and also it had been vertical, something that would be hard for him to do with his teeth, even in a fevered state.

Steve stayed after for an hour, hoping Bucky would continue with how he sometimes would come into the class and just chat about almost anything. But Bucky didn’t show.

Steve sighed and packed up his things, shoving papers and answer keys into his bag haphazardly. He exited the classroom and locked his door.

“Oh, hey, Rogers!” Steve’s shoulders sank.

“Hey, Tony,” He halfheartedly greeted.

“Any chance you want to come over and have some drinks with me and some other staff?” Tony asked.

“Tony, not today? Okay?” Steve groaned. “I’ve had a long day and just want to go home, next time?”

“Oh, come on, Grandpa!” Tony whined. Steve frowned at his nickname. “You always say that you are too tired, and proceed to say that ‘maybe next time’ yet you never come out!”

Steve rubbed at his temples, “I promise, next time I promise to go out to drinks with you, okay?”

“Ay, ay, cap’n!” And with that Tony was gone.

Steve took a deep breath and then headed home. This would be a long weekend.

Chapter Text

When Bucky left school he was more terrified than he had been on the way in. He didn’t know why Mr. Rogers had pressed him so intently. It wasn’t like Mr. Rogers had ever really cared when Bucky had missed school before, why should he start now?

Bucky kept his gaze to the ground when he saw the black SUV pull up. The window rolled down and he was met by a disgusting man with even more of a disgusting personality.

“Your Pops sent me to get you, he was stuck in a meeting,” Brock Rumlow grinned.

“Wow, seems like he’s stuck in a meeting every day, weird,” Bucky mumbled as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Bucky held back a groan when Brock slipped his hand onto his knee. Bucky closed his eyes and counted to ten. If he tried to get Brock to move his hand he would only make things worse than they were going to be.

“So, the meeting is supposed to last until after four,” Brock hummed, starting to move his hand slowly up. “That gives us about an hour of the house to ourselves.”

Bucky hummed, still looking out the window.

“James, look at me.”

Great. Brock was getting mad.

Bucky shifted his gaze over to the older man.

“That’s better,” Brock smiled. The worst part was that it wasn’t a devilish smile. Something in Bucky told him that Brock didn’t know Bucky wasn’t as into this as he was. Brock seemed to think both of them were enjoying this game. “Are you still not feeling well?”

Bucky shrank back. “No, and I can only say that all of me aches, not one specific part.”

“Well, I can be gentle,” Rumlow sent a smirk to Bucky that made him shudder in his seat.

When they pulled up to the mansion, Bucky couldn’t have been more relieved to see Pierce’s car in the garage.

Brock’s hand fell from Bucky’s upper thigh and he had a saddened look on his face. Entering the mansion made Bucky’s relief flee his body. Pierce was pacing. That wasn’t good.

“Oh, James, I’m glad you are finally home.”

“I was just at school-“

“Did I ask you a question?” Pierce demanded.

“N-No?” Bucky stuttered. So this was the game they were playing today.

“Then don’t interrupt me,” Pierce growled. “It has come to my attention that your American History grade has fallen, I thought you told me you had done all the work you missed.”

“I did, sir, the grade must have been put in as missing when I was gone and just not put in the gradebook yet.”

“Well, until that grade is an A again, you know you need to be grounded.” Pierce waved his hand as a signal for Rumlow to leave.

“Yes, sir,” Bucky nodded, eyes on the ground.

“Next time you pull any of your shit, don’t lie to me afterwards,” Pierce was now up in Bucky’s face, gritting his teeth in anger, and had a rough hold on Bucky’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Bucky whimpered.

“You’re sorry for what? Lying to me?”

“I didn’t lie, but I’m sorry I put you through this. I will do better.”

“Damn right you will, you should be grateful for the home I have given you, you can at least try to stick to the few rules I give you,” Pierce stepped away from Bucky. “No food for five days, you have enough meet on you for that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky muttered.

Bucky spent the weekend doing all of his homework under the watchful eye of both Pierce and Brock. Brock was his ‘handler’ when Pierce was busy. But Brock expected more of Bucky. More close proximity. More secret touches. More things that made Bucky’s skin crawl.

Every time Bucky’s stomach would growl, Pierce would make a remark about how only smart boys got food. About how smart boys that didn’t disappoint were treated better. About how if he wasn’t so dumb he wouldn’t be in the mess he was in.

By the time Monday came around Bucky was ready to kill someone for food. Before Friday’s lunch at school, Bucky hadn’t eaten due to his ‘sickness’ and Pierce hadn’t wanted to upset his stomach any further. Granted, Bucky had two small bags of pretzels stashed under his bed in his room for cases like this and had sparingly eaten those throughout the weekend, but pretzels didn’t count as actual food.

Bucky held himself together until he managed to get into Mr. Rogers’ class. He knew the old man had some peanut butter crackers stashed in the second row of his desk drawers on the left hand side. And Mr. Rogers would normally never tell him no.

Except when Bucky reached the American History classroom he realized, Mr. Rogers hadn’t put in his essay grade. Mr. Rogers was the main reason he had been starved for three days.

The anger rose quickly in his chest. Why would Mr. Rogers do that? Had he wanted Bucky to be punished? Was it because he had stormed into his office? Was it because he cussed in front of a teacher?

Bucky had been rude to Mr. Rogers. Bucky figured Mr. Rogers had good reason to punish him.

Bucky took his seat without asking Mr. Rogers for food.

Bucky spent the class trying not to think about how he soon would have lunch. But that of course made him spend even more time thinking about food and them making him more hungry.

The bell rang and Bucky flew out of the classroom, eager to get to Calculus, the last class before he would be in lunch.

He took his usual seat next to Sam Wilson, Bucky’s best(?) friend and Wanda Maximoff, Bucky’s other friend who seemed to force herself into Bucky’s life, but he couldn’t find it in him to be annoyed at the intrusion.

“Barnes, did you do the homework?” Sam whispered.

“Yeah, of course,” Bucky replied, already pulling it out to hand over so Sam could quickly copy the answers he had failed to do.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Sam smiled as he handed his paper to Mr. Stark.

“Do anything fun over the weekend?” Wanda asked when Mr. Stark moved to the front to start his lecture.

“No, not really? You?” Bucky replied calmly.

“Vis came over, but we didn’t do much that was exciting,” Wanda answered.

‘Vis’ or Vision, was Wanda’s boyfriend. He had hippies for parents who had wanted to be spiritual or some shit when naming their kid, saying that he was the vision the world needed. Or at least thats how Vis told the story.

The trio kept quiet for a while, trying to pay attention to the lecture so that Mr. Stark wouldn’t make them do something random in front of the whole class. One time, he had made some kid play AC/DC on a recorder. It was hilarious.

When the lecture was over, Sam turned to the group, “God, I’m so hungry.”

Bucky hummed in agreement.

“My mom made me some chicken pesto pasta, but I’m not that hungry, you can have half if you want,” Wanda offered Sam. Bucky wanted to protest and say he deserved it more since it had practically been five days since he had eaten.

The bell rang and Bucky hightailed it out of the room, shooting right for the cafeteria. He scowled when he saw that the free lunches were only haphazardly made salads with chicken on top of them served with three packs of crackers, but it was food, and Bucky wasn’t about to turn it down.

The lunches you had to pay money for were some delicious looking parmesan chicken served with a roll and some mashed potatoes, but if he got that, Pierce would know he had eaten and punish him more for it.

He grabbed a salad and sat down. Vis and Wanda were already seated.

“Hungry, Buck? You dashed out of Calc like your ass was on fire!” Wanda laughed.

“Yeah, feels like I haven’t eaten in a week,” Bucky managed a laugh.

“I’d offer you my extra lunch, but Sam might have a panic attack if I give it away after promising it to him,” Wanda chuckled.

“Here,” Vis offered Bucky an oatmeal cream pie.

“Vis, I love you,” Bucky said as he took the treat from the blond haired angel. “Wanda, I’m taking your boyfriend from you, he’s mine now.”

The three of them laughed.

By the time Sam sat down with his parmesan chicken, Bucky had eaten his salad, shoved the crackers into his pocket so he could have them later that day, and devoured the oatmeal cream pie.

“This roll is stale,” Sam complained.

“You expected better from the cafeteria?” Wanda laughed.

“Hey, I’ll take it,” Bucky shrugged. Sam gave it up without a fuss.

Bucky was still hungry, but at least he had enough food to keep him on his feet for the rest of the day.

When the day was over, Bucky slid into Mr. Rogers’ room to beg him to update his grade.

“Oh, hi, Ja-“

“Bucky.”

“Bucky. Right.”

“Have you put in the essay grades yet?” Bucky asked.

“Yes.”

“All of them? Cause I have a B+ in your class right now which leads me to believe that you haven’t,” Bucky pointed out.

“Well, Bucky, your fever really showed in your essay, you went off on unrelated tangents, there were many grammatical errors, and I’m not sure you actually made an argument,” Mr. Rogers said.

“Well is there anything I can do? Can I rewrite it? Is there any extra credit I can do?” Bucky begged.

“Bucky, it’s one essay, you can bring your grade up with the test on Thursday, a B+ really isn’t that bad.”

“I really need an A now,” Bucky protested. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do?”

“You can study for the test on Thursday,” Why did Mr. Rogers hate him?

“Mr. Rogers-“

“Bucky, its the middle of the semester, there are kids failing right now that don’t care, you are doing fine with a B+, like I said, if you get an A on this test I’m sure your grade will go up,” Mr. Rogers smiled.

“Ok,” Bucky let it drop. “Can I have some crackers?”

“Of course,” Mr. Rogers rolled his eyes and tossed a pack to Bucky. “Don’t worry too much, you’re grades are fine.”

Bucky just nodded before leaving. He wanted to smack himself. Mr. Rogers wasn’t the reason he hadn’t been given food in five days, that was all on Pierce.

Bucky winced when he saw Rumlow’s car pull up. No way Pierce would be home two days in a row to save him from Brock’s advances.

“How was your day at school, James?” Brock asked as Bucky climbed in.

“Good, I have a test on Thursday I really need to study for,” Bucky said.

“Maybe I can help you,” Brock suggestively smiled. “I could give you a reward for every right answer.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Bucky wanted to vomit. But agreeing was the best way to not get punished more than he already was. He didn’t like how things turned out last time he had told Rumlow no. He didn’t want to relive the experience.

When they pulled into the mansion, no one else was home. Lucky him.

“Let me go to my room and set my things down and I’ll be right back,” Bucky promised Rumlow.

“Be quick,” Brock ordered.

Bucky shot up to his room and pulled his new stash of snacks under his bed and threw his backpack on the bed.

When he went downstairs, Brock was sitting on the couch, legs splayed open.

“How about you come here and help me relax, James,” Rumlow suggested.

Bucky swallowed his pride, stepped forward, and kneeled.