Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Let me make sure I understand this right,” he says. “We either put our studio under your branding and trademark, or you’ll evict us.” He’s so mad his hand is trembling.

Casually, Pierce intones, “A simplified version, but I suppose that’s correct."

“Well, fuck that.”

Bucky’s strong, but the man across from him is terrifying, tall and lean, wrapped in sinew, and really fucking pissed. The redheaded woman seated next to him seems unaffected as she puts a hand on his arm, frowning when he shakes it off.

“But we pay for the space. With interest. Fucking exorbitant interest. You can’t do this.”

Pierce sounds bored. “I assure you, it’s quite legal. This meeting is merely a courtesy.”

It’s not a courtesy. Pierce lives for this, luxuriating in the anguish of poor souls foolish enough to sign their lives over to him. Souls like Bucky, too, but he doesn’t dwell on it, safely ensconced in mental numbness. It’s the only way to get through this job without losing his damn mind, but then Steve Rogers turns his furious gaze from Pierce to Bucky.

Like an electric shock Bucky’s yanked back into his body, into the present moment, suddenly more aware and alert than he’s been in years. Blue eyes flash at him, angry but also surprised, as if seeing something for the first time.

For a reason completely unbeknownst to him, Bucky feels the need to buy Rogers and his business partner some time, so he leans over to whisper in Pierce’s ear. “Maybe give them an extension. If they feel they’ve been given a choice, they’ll be more likely to sign.”

“The law is on our side, James.”

“Of course, but going to court costs money, even if we win. There’s no rush.”

Pierce sighs. “I suppose.”

Turning to the two (beautiful) people seated across the long meeting table, he says, “I’ll give you two months to decide. If you haven’t signed the agreement by then, we’ll repossess the property. You can take us to court, but I assure you, our attorneys are better than any you could afford.”

The redhead holds herself stock still, belying no emotion. Rogers, however, still looks furious. Bucky watches as his anger swells, rises, hits a ceiling, and then he deflates, growling, “But why?”

“Your little endeavor,” Pierce says, gesturing between the two of them, “Has quite the reputation. With some strategy, it could incredibly lucrative.”

“Lucrative?” The woman murmurs incredulously at the same time at the man yelps, “That’s not the point!”

Bucky sees the sneer, but he doubts anyone else does, on Pierce’s face as he dismisses them. “It’s always the point, Mr. Rogers. Barnes will show you out.”

Standing, Bucky opens the door for his boss then holds it for the clients. “We’ll be in touch,” he says with a practice smile.

“Fuck you, buddy,” the guy snaps, looking profoundly exhausted as he walks briskly through the doorway, but he locks eyes with Bucky for just a moment too long. The redhead, in contrast, gives him a once over and her reaction makes him think he’s been found wanting.

No fucking kidding, he thinks.

“We’ll see ourselves out.”

--

Bucky’s ma used to dance all the time. He has a vague, fuzzy recollection of being no more than three years old, dancing with her around the kitchen.

Dinner was on the stove, Dad was still at work, Patsy Cline was playing on the radio. Ma had held his hands and let him toddle around to the beat but every once in awhile, on a big crescendo, she’d scoop him up and swing him through the air as he shrieked and giggled.

At his fourth grade dance recital he’d done a tap routine. He’d loved his small suit jacket and the clacking of his shoes. But more than anything, he loved the way his body opened up, came alive with the very first pulse of music. He was made for this, every phrase a breath bigger than his lungs could hold.

Over time dance began to cost more, not just in terms of supplies and costumes but in social and emotional currency as well. Kids at school would make fun of him, and his friends couldn’t understand why he was never around in the afternoons to play with them. Bucky didn’t care.

When he danced, his dad’s angry voice, his own too-thin and dark-haired for such a pale complexioned face, the kids at school who couldn’t see what they were missing, they all fell away, not into silence or nothingness, but light and color and form and sound and the glorious stretch and bend of muscle.

He hasn’t danced in twelve years.

--

Detaching is harder since that meeting with Steve Rogers. Maybe that’s why Bucky’s struggling with these lately.

“Mr. Barnes, please,” Ms. McCoy whispers tearfully, and he shakes his head, steeling himself.

“I’m sorry, Helen.” He is. So fucking sorry. He hates this, every single time, not that anyone would guess. He’s mastered the art of a blank face. Job requirement. “You knew the rent wasn’t fixed when you signed the lease.”

“Of course, but this...it’s insane. We can’t possibly pay that.”

He wants to tell her it’s not his fault, that it’s Pierce who’s so greedy, so ruthless. He wants to apologize a million times. He wants to fix this.

“What am I going to tell my kids?” she murmurs to no one in particular, and that’s what breaks him.

Sometimes he does up to four evictions in a week, he should be hardened to it, but he remembers trying to figure out how to explain to Becca about mom, and then about dad, about the weeks when there wasn’t quite enough food to go around, or why his arm set off metal detectors at her high school. He knows that feeling: desperation, inevitable failure, ultimate fear, and suddenly, he can’t do it anymore.

Sighing and rubbing his eyes, he pulls out his phone. “Give me one second, ok?”

She barely responds, lost in her own thoughts as she heads to the kitchen, leaving him in the hallway. It doesn’t matter anyway, he’s quickly sifting through emails ‘til he finds what he’s looking for, and it takes a few minutes to get the information sorted.

Entering the kitchen he says, “Could I borrow a sheet of tinfoil?” He shuts his work phone off as he talks, leaving email open on his personal cell.

“Uh, ok?” She looks understandably irritated and confused, but hands him the roll of aluminum just the same. He rips a few feet from it then carefully folds his phone inside it, creasing the foil over and over until he has a phone shaped lump of crinkly metal.

“What-”

“I don’t have much time, you gotta listen carefully.

“O...K?” she repeats nervously.

Bucky collects himself and forges on. “I can’t stop the eviction. I can’t, I’m sorry. What I can do is misplace some paperwork that will delay the order for a few weeks.”

Helen smiles, looking surprised, then tired before saying, “Thanks, that’s very kind, but we’d still-”

“I’m getting to that,” Bucky interrupts. “One of our clients is looking for a tutor for his kids. I could put in a good word for you.”

Speaking slowly, she thinks through the offer. “I suppose I could take it...extra income until school starts again.”

Bucky shakes his head. “It would be long term, full-time.”

“I can’t imagine it would pay enough…”

“Hundred thousand a year starting salary,” he says, checking the listing on his phone.

Her silence is so profound Bucky can hear the next door tenant’s TV but it’s perfect timing because at that very moment Allan Gregory, the investment banker who posted the tutor listing, emails him back. Buck reads the response, mentally highlighting the words “interested” and “more information”.

“Great. Ok. He wants to set up an interview. If you get this job, the hike in rent shouldn’t be an issue. It won’t be great, but you’ll be able to stay.” He’s typing out the response email as he speaks. “Though I’ve gotta be honest, Pierce does this shit frequently and on purpose, so you might want to look for a new place anyway. Alright!” he says, finally looking up. “I forwarded him your contact information. Oh. What’s wrong?”

Helen is standing in the center of the room, body stiff, tears pouring down her face. “You didn’t - have to do - that,” she hiccups softly and Buck awkwardly steps forward to pat her shoulder. “Why are - you helping me?” When he doesn't respond she adds, “Will you get in trouble for this?”

Ah. There it is, the sixty-five thousand dollar question, and it’s still the easier of the two. “I might. It’d help me out a lot if you didn’t mention any of this. Make something up if you have to, but try to avoid bringing me or Pierce into it.” He hopes she’ll forget the other query. She doesn’t. They never do.

“Why are you doing this?” she repeats and he sighs, retrieving his work phone from the table. To speak of it would be to lift the burden if only momentarily, and he doesn’t deserve that so just smiles small and sad, and bobs his head by way of a farewell. “Good night, Helen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barnes!” She calls after him. “Thank you so much.”

He doesn’t respond. He sold his soul when he agreed to work for Alexander Pierce, no matter how valid his reasons. It doesn’t matter how many of Pierce’s victims he bails out, there’s no redemption, just harm reduction.

It’s warm out, and he loosens his tie as he walks to the subway. The neighborhood isn’t great, but he doesn’t worry. He’s fairly fit, and also worthless, so whatever happens, it’s fine.

--

Becca rolls her heavily lined eyes when she catches sight of him where he’s snuck into the back of the lecture hall, but he sees the soft smile on her mouth when she turns back to the canvas.

The last few classes of the summer semester are open to friends and family as the students finish up their works for the upcoming arts gala, and Bucky hasn’t been able to make it until today. Becca’s excited about the show and she loves this class, always talking about her professor, explaining in quick, soft sentences about their assignments from the day, gesturing with long fingers covered in paint and pencil dust. She won’t tell him what she’s working on, only that she hopes he’ll like it.

It’s not like he can say, “Of course I’ll like it, you’re amazing, I love you, you’re the only good thing left,” so instead he’d made some sarcastic comment that he’s sure Beck saw straight through, but it made her chuckle.

She looks younger when she laughs. Happy. Like herself, instead of a tired, old soul wrapped in a slender body. Bucky misses that. Misses her. Himself, too if he’s being honest, but that’s an even rarer occurrence than Becca’s smile.

He falls so far into memory that he doesn’t notice the man approaching him, which is telling considering the fact that the guy is drop dead gorgeous, and also Steve Rogers.

Apparently, Rogers recognizes him too. Arms crossed, mouth pressed into a thin line he mutters, “What the fuck are you doing here? Come to harass my students too?”

Bucky bristles, drawing himself up. “No, fuck you. I’m off the clock. Becca Barnes is my sister and I was under the impression this was open to family. If it’s not you really should lock the front-”

“Hey brother.” Bucky snaps his jaw closed as Becca slides her arms around him. He fixes his face and presses a kiss to her temple, holding onto her for a second.

“Heya sis.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.”

As she pulls away she glances between the two men and quirks a brow. “You’ve met?”

How is this possible? How is this crazy, angry, hot dude the same guy that Becca’s been raving about for months? The tense silence strains for just a moment too long before Bucky cuts in with an amicability he hopes doesn’t come off as forced.

“Just about to.” Extending a hand he says, “James Barnes. Nice to meet you. Becca loves your class.’

Steve takes his hand and for a moment Bucky is nervous. If he decides to blow their cover, there’s nothing Buck can do about it. Becca doesn’t know a whole lot about his job, and that’s on purpose. She still thinks her big brother is a decent human being. It’s a lie, but one that he’d rather keep telling for now, thank you very much.

In an act of mercy, Steve smiles, only a little tight at the corners. “Pleasure. Becca is incredibly talented. We’re lucky to have her.”

Jesus christ the guy is attractive. The dark circles under his eyes don’t detract from how fucking gorgeous he is, and it takes monumental effort to keep from eyeing his body under the tight tee, or the tattoos creeping from beneath the fabric, and Bucky was never that good with self-control.

He distracts himself by giving his sister a gentle shove and a grin, and though hers is small and shy she returns it saying, “I was hoping you could give me some pointers.”

“Beck, you know as well as I do you got all the artistic genes.”

She huffs a tiny laugh. “True. But my painting is of mom, and you remember her better than I do. Come take a look?”

It’s so startling that Bucky’s “Ok” sounds more like he got the wind knocked out of him than an actual word.

Their mom has been gone for long, brutal years, gone another lifetime ago, but his heart still aches, deep at the back of his throat and near his spine. He misses her so badly it’s a jolt to think of her, though not always a sad one.

That’s the worst part, perhaps. Bucky loved his father once, but that got beaten out of him. He thinks of him sometimes, the way he was when Bucky was small, but the horror between the good times and his death stretched out too far, and Bucky doesn’t miss him.

With his mother, it’s different. His ma made everyone around her feel welcome. She was home. And that’s what he lost when he lost her.

It’s fine, he’s fine, he thinks as he follows to the work space. He’s interested to see her interpretation of their mother; Beck was so young when she died.

“Ok,” Becca murmurs, pulling her work stool around. “Sit.”

‘Bossy,” he teases, but of course obeys.

“Close your eyes.”

“Oh come on.”

“Bucky.” Her voice is stern, and it calls to mind a dark haired little girl at the top of the stairs in their old house, hands on hips, tapping her little foot when he took too long to come up and read to her. Bucky.

He does the same thing now he did then. “Alright, alright punk,” and he scrunches his eyes closed.

The sight before him when he blinks again makes it so hard to breathe that Becca has to say, “Well?” to bring him back to the present.

“Becks. This is – It’s so – It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. “Did I get her right?”

“Right?” It’s better than right. The laugh lines, her eyes, and mouth - the way that one corner twitches higher on one side. “It’s perfect. Did you do this from memory?”

She shakes her head and untucks a wrinkled photo from behind the canvas. “Got it from your box. Sorry I didn’t tell you, you just get…”

“Weird, sometimes.” Bucky interrupts quickly. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She shrugs. “You grieve how you grieve.”

“Yeah.” His voice is barely there.

She looks concerned, and Bucky realizes he’s fucking this up, selfishly lost in his own mind. It takes everything he has, but he drags on a smile, willing some energy back into his body and voice. “Is this the finished product?”

It works. She relaxes and turns back to the painting, thoughtful. “Mostly. I’ve got a little more work to do on her shirt, but if you think I got her face right…”

“It’s incredible, Becks. Really.”

They talk for a while, until he can’t take it any longer and leaves a little early. He barely makes it outside before doubling over, forearm to the brick of the building, and weeps so hard his jaw hurts. It doesn’t last longer than a minute, and then he’s scrubbing at his face and straightening his tie. Steve Rogers steps out the side door.

“You forgot your - whoa.” He holds Bucky’s coat out, the irritation in his voice fading. “You ok?” His eyes widen like he’s waking up. It’s not unkind, and it makes his face even more painfully beautiful.

“Peachy fucking keen.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out quite so harshly but he can barely breathe. Steve’s face seals right back up again. Fuck. “Sorry. I -” A residual sob interrupts him, but he swallows it away, catching it in his shirtsleeve. “Beck did a real good job.”

“With the painting,” Steve clarifies carefully. He’s staring, and Buck must look a mess.

“Yeah.”

“Your ma?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Twelve years.” Bucky can’t believe he’s saying this, much less to a guy who hates him, but something about the softness around Steve’s eyes just cracks him open.

It could’ve gone horribly. Bucky hasn’t communicated with another human being in years, and even then, nothing of this weight. Steve has a quick temper, that’s one of the only things Bucky knows about him, but in the next instant he finds out one more.

“Ten for me.” He tucks his hands into his jeans and grimaces down.

Stepping towards him Buck says, “Sorry for your loss” reflexively, hoping Steve hears the sincerity.

“You too.”

Buck can feel the beginnings of a smile, a real one, twitching tentatively at the corners of his mouth and Steve looks like he’s thinking of smiling back, but then his phone buzzes, Pierce’s ringtone, and he’s Pavlov’s dog, he’s an addict, he’s pathetic, because he digs his it out and answers without pause. “Barnes.”

It’s Pierce’s secretary, and as she starts talking Bucky looks up, hoping maybe he’ll get to say ‘Thanks’ or ‘Sorry’ before he has to bail, but Steve is gone.

--

Stretch, pull, open across his chest and back, down his spine, through the muscles of his legs, up his neck into the crown of his head. It feels like heaven. All of it.

Ms. Sovereign’s class had been small, maybe ten kids, and everyone was there because they wanted to be.

Bucky remembers the shine and give of the hardwood floors, the tall mirrors - one at the end of the room with a crack in it. He remembers the way Ms. S would turn off the overhead lights in the early morning and at dusk and let them dance in the soft rose-gold of the sun easing into it’s next phase.

He remembers flying, jumping impossibly high. He remembers sliding across the floor, laughing. He remembers lifting his partner towards the ceiling, strength and youth pushing her up. He remembers having terrible days at school, or with dad, getting to the studio early, taking off his shoes, and Ms. S would just leave the big book of CDs open next to the boombox on the floor, kiss his forehead, and murmur, “Leave it here, sweetheart. Let it go.”

She would say the place was magic, cleansing. It was worship, celebration, mourning, god, faith...it was humanity. It’d sound crazy, except that even as kids, they knew she was right.

--

Two evictions this week, and this time, Bucky doesn’t break. He follows through, kicks those people to the curb, watches their worlds crumble while trying desperately to stay numb.

He wonders what his ma would think of him now.

--

He may not dance anymore, but he sure as hell runs.

Mornings are best, still and clean and new, though late night runs can be wonderful too, with their tableau moments of people kissing on front steps and tired bouncers smiling at him as they catch a smoke. If he has to run during the day, though, he sticks to parks. He can keep his speed without making people uncomfortable, and he doesn’t have to dodge stoplights and pedestrians and dogs tied up outside coffee shops.

The worse he feels the harder he runs, until everything else falls away, and today is no exception. He’s somewhere in hour two when he figures he should head home so he diverts his route towards the road. Fate has it perfectly timed, the light changes, giving him the walk signal before he reaches the street and he bounds across gleefully.

There’s a terrible screeching sound and then something hits him and it’s not fucking around - Bucky feels his organs remain vertical as he flies, catching up with him a few seconds later.

He’s dazed, but in one piece, which is remarkable all things considered. He didn’t hit his head and nothing feels broken. His shoulder’s probably bleeding, but other than that, he’s fine. The realization is both relieving and disappointing.

A few people gape from the sidewalk, but when Bucky starts to sit up most of them continue on their way. There’s one guy, though, that comes shooting out from behind the gawkers and slams his fist onto the hood of the car that had blown the red.

“The fuck’s the matter with you?” The guy bellows. “You don’t know what a fuckin’ red light looks like? Tryna get somebody killed?” The car honks, but it can’t very well go anywhere with not one, but two, bodies in it’s way. “Yeah, go ahead and honk, motherfucker!”

It’s Steve.

Bucky peels the rest of himself off the pavement. “Hey, let it go. I’m fine.”

The blond looks down at him, and Bucky swears that behind all that anger he sees worry dancing in the guy’s eyes. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. Don’t get arrested on my account. Just…” He grins mischievously and Steve looks momentarily more concerned. “…Hang on.”

Leaving Steve blocking the car, Bucky limps over to the driver’s side and wipes his hand up his injured arm. Collecting as much blood as he can, he swipes it liberally over the windshield and window then gives a gleeful, bloodstained middle finger to the guy who’s face goes from enraged to horrified in the space of a second, before tottering away, pulling Steve along behind him.

“You sure you’re ok?” Steve asks, looking dubious and impressed simultaneously, and Bucky shrugs. He’s honestly not sure.

“I think so. It’s all good,” he amends. Steve shouldn’t be worrying about him. Steve is one of the good guys.

“You’re dripping blood on the sidewalk,” Steve deadpans, and Bucky points to a hotdog stand a half a block away, exasperated. “Then get me fuckin’ napkin, man!”

Steve’s eye roll is a thing to behold. He does get the napkins, but upon handing them over mutters, “Come on.”

Maybe Bucky did hit his head. He follows.

Steve gives him the side-eye while Bucky’s busy trying to keep his own blood from ruining his favorite running shorts, and by the time they stop in front of an old brownstone with a teal door, Bucky has used the whole pile of napkins. He’s lucid enough now to wonder what the fuck is going on, but he’d do just about anything for another minute of Steve’s time. There's nowhere he’d rather be, even if he did get hit by a car.

Steve lets them into the foyer and they climb one, two, three flights of stairs to Apartment 3W. Bucky is certain, upon entering, that this is his new favorite place in the world.

It’s perfect. Bucky may not be an artist but of course he has a preferred aesthetic, and just like Steve’s body fits every one of his physical preferences, Steve’s apartment is just about everything he’d ever wanted in a home.

The couch is huge and red and soft-looking, and there’s an worn armchair next to it. Raw wood coffee table, bookshelves, old looking lamps with green glass shades on the wooden end tables. No TV. Art is hung everywhere in mismatched frames and different sizes, but they fit together like some sort of patchwork puzzle, and the similar style makes it feel unified instead of cluttered.

The kitchen, which Bucky can see through the cutout wall, has an actual old-style refrigerator, rounded edges and pastel aqua in color. The table is scuffed and scratched and surrounded by half a dozen chairs that are not even pretending to come from the same set. Cast iron pans hang from the ceiling, knives are stuck to a magnetic strip anchored into the wall. More art, and white linen curtains at the window over the sink. There’s a sliding glass door leading to a short balcony behind the table, and Bucky goes to it, about to open it up, when he hears Steve, who’d disappeared and returned again in the time it took Bucky to simply absorb the fact that this apartment exists, with first aid supplies.

“If you drip blood on my floors-” Steve starts, but Bucky interrupts him, paragon of good manners that he is.

“This place is fucking incredible.”

Steve stares, and Bucky wonders if this is what it’s like to be art in a museum. Rooted, vulnerable, just hoping to be understood. It’s terrifying.

“Why?”

“Why?” Buck repeats, surprised.

Steve just raises an eyebrow and drops into a chair, so Bucky rips a paper towel from the rack by the sink to make sure he won’t actually bleed on anything, and wanders back towards the living room.

“Why…” he breathes, considering. “Why? Because…” God he sucks at explaining things and it makes him so angry that he tries again. “Because it’s a home, you know? People come here to eat and drink and laugh. You could be sick here and feel safe, you could have a party and be proud of what it looks like. Sturdy. Functional. Beautiful. I haven’t been in a place that felt like this since…” He realizes he’s been ranting, that he’s still bleeding, and that Steve’s frozen at the kitchen table, probably contemplating how fucking weird Bucky is, so he turns back to him, embarrassed.

Steve is smiling, young and sweet and kind and shy, completely unlike anything Bucky’s ever seen from him before, and he falls in love with him right then and there.

“Since?”

Bucky just shakes his head. Can’t talk about it.

“C’mere,” Steve murmurs, still smiling softly, and gestures to the chair across from him. Bucky sits, and with deceptively gentle fingers, Steve starts patching him up. The shoulder is the worst, and while Steve works, Bucky stares at his arms and pretends he’s not, not only because Steve is incredibly well-muscled, but he’s got beautiful tattoo sleeves that wrap all the way down to his wrists. Bucky must not be quite as subtle as he thinks though, because Steve says, “It’s alright. You can ask.”

“Ask?”

“How many do you have? Did it hurt? What do they mean?” He’s reciting, obviously.

“Can I touch them?”

Steve blinks in surprise and doesn’t answer, just tapes the gauze down firmly and Bucky hisses.

“Sorry. Let me get your hip.”

“My hip?”

“Are we playing an echoing game I’m not aware of?”

Bucky stands. “There’s nothing wrong with my - oh.”

It’s not nearly as bad as his shoulder but there’s a chunk of skin missing for sure, on his right hip above the waistband of his shorts.

Steve is eyeing him, the wound, but the body around it as well, and Bucky’s stupid wishful brain makes it look like there’s appreciative hunger in Steve’s eyes. With a shuddering sigh Bucky mutters, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I should get -”

“You could get an infection.”

“Nah, it’s ok just-”

“If you let me tape up your hip I’ll let you touch my tattoos.” It’s a silly bargaining chip and he says it lightly, giving Bucky a million outs. Bucky should take one of them. He doesn’t.

“Ok.”

Twisting his body so Steve can get to the hip, Bucky crosses his arms to keep them out of the way. If Steve notices the scar running the length of Bucky’s left one, he doesn’t mention it.

It’s no surprise that Steve’s hands, so skilled in making art, would be delicate and precise over the torn skin, but Buck still isn’t ready for the way Steve steadies them on Bucky’s hip bone, one in front, one in back, and smoothes ointment into the freshly cleaned wound with his thumbs before carefully taping a smaller square of gauze into place. Bucky tries desperately to remember the quadratic equation in an effort not to get visibly turned on.

When Steve’s done with the bandaging he stands too, offering his arms to Bucky who swallows hard, unmoving.

“Come on. I’m not that scary,” Steve jokes, but there’s something in his voice that’s not laughing along, and the omnipresent exhaustion that hovers about him seems to intensify.

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Bucky blurts out, and he reaches forward.

Some sleeves are random compilations of images the inked or the artist found meaningful, stand alone pictures fit together cleanly. Steve’s aren’t like that.

Each arm is a fucking mural, one in color, one in black. The sleeve without color creeps up beneath Steve’s shirt, and Bucky tucks a finger underneath the fabric to view the art in full, antique fighter planes, noses rounder than their modern brethren, soaring and plunging down Steve’s arm through swirling cloud cover. In their descent they gradually morph into birds, some with wings spread, some tucked against their bodies, fluttering and diving to circle the wrist. It’s beautiful artwork, intricate, and full of movement.

Bucky follows the planes down with a fingertip, tracing over the lines of vein and muscle draped in ink. He hears Steve inhale deeply but doesn’t look up. His own shoulder and hip are starting to ache more severely, but he’s entranced by the clean, dark lines.

The other arm is the complete opposite. Where the right arm is black and precise, the left is awash in color. Vivid hues splash up and across the skin, watercolor swirling and blending into a tree with pale blossoms, and a faded space in the trunk. There’s rain, and grass, and petals in flight across the surface of the skin, and because there are no finite lines to follow, he just smoothes the flat of his palm up the limb.

Bucky knew the tattoos wouldn’t feel like anything. He has a small one on his ribs, his parents birth and death dates, and Becca’s birthday, in roman numerals, knew they wouldn’t be raised or a different texture, but Bucky experiences things physically, always has, and Steve’s so fucking beautiful he wants to memorize him before he figures out what a mistake it is to let Bucky get so close.

He may not be an artist, but he has always appreciated beauty.

The sound of the front door clicking open startles them both, and Bucky withdraws his hand, but not with any alacrity. Steve is staring down at him and his pupils are huge but his face is impassive.

“Rogers?” calls a female voice.

“Kitchen,” he replies, not looking away from Bucky

“You want a ride to that volunteer thing, you goddamn workaholic?” The redhead who co-owns the studio bounces into the room and freezes at the sight. Her smile falls and she says cooly, “The hell are you doing here?”

It’s jarring. Even with the potential weirdness between he and Steve, he’d felt safe, welcomed. Steve had said, “Come on” and Buck followed for christ sake; he didn’t invite himself. The reflex is to be defensive, but then he remembers: he doesn’t get to be upset when people treat him like he deserves.

So he steps back, making sure his face shows nothing but arrogant politeness. “Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll see myself out.” Repeating back the words from the end of their first meeting hurts, but the worst is the expression on Steve’s face at the change in demeanor, like he’s been slapped, fondness replaced immediately with anger.

Good. Anger is better than hope. He’s safe like that.

Chapter Text

“Is that a different shirt?” Becca asks watching him search through his pockets for the house keys.

“Other one had a stain on it,” he lies easily. The truth is that he’s changed clothes three times.

“You look nice,” she offers quietly.

“You too. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

She leans into him on the train and he’s reminded again of how far she’s come, from a solemn, sassy little girl, to a shy and sarcastic teenager, to a young woman, talented and kind. And still kind of a smartass. Momentarily overwhelmed, he wraps his arms around her tight and they both fall asleep so hard they’re yawning and blinking as they walk up to the event space.

It’s incredible to see so many students with so much potential. Bucky remembers a time…

“Becca! You look beautiful!” A young woman bounces up to them, blonde hair flying behind her.

“Sharon!” To Bucky’s absolute surprise, Becca lets go of his waist to embrace the girl, who leads her away, waving back at him apologetically.

He’s grinning as he enters the small ballroom serving as the gallery for the evening. Becca is the only thing in his life he hasn’t completely fucked up. He’s made mistakes of course, but she’s grown up better than he could’ve hoped, and his only worry is that her shyness will get in the way of making friends, but it seems like she’s conquering even that, remarkable woman that she is. He doesn’t want for her the kind of loneliness he’s accepted for himself.

“Where’s Becca?”

Bucky startles and turns to see Steve looking so fucking breathtaking in a black tux that he chokes and barely manages to respond. “With Sharon.”

“Ah,” Steve nods. “Sharon’s a sweet girl.”

“Glad to see her making friends. She was always so quiet, didn’t start comin’ out of that shell of hers until our dad kicked the bucket.”

Too much honesty. He panics, and maybe Steve sees because he asks, “How’s the shoulder?”

Remembering their last interaction, Bucky winces, not because of the injury but because of the way they’d parted. Staring in the vicinity of Steve’s sternum he mutters, “Fine. Thanks for patching me up.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve says, voice quiet, and when Buck looks up they’re too close, he can smell fabric softener and the spice in Steve’s cologne, and the useless wishing is starting to rise in his throat and choke him so he steps quickly backwards to see something that couldn’t possibly be disappointment in Steve’s face. He says, “Join me?” anyway.

Steve’s eyes sparkle warmer than Bucky thinks they should, for him. “Yeah, alright.”

They wander the gallery for a while talking about the different pieces and the students who made them. They’re just starting to relax into teasing when they arrive at Becca’s painting, and his ma smiling down from the canvas halts the conversation. Steve doesn’t press, just stands a little ways back with his hands in his pockets. Bucky gets right up close where he can see every brushstroke, every highlight. It’s done so lovingly, with such care. He notices a few places Becca touched up since the last time he saw it, adding shading and detail, and the overall effect is breathtaking, even if he wasn’t related to the artist and her subject.

“You raised Becca,” Steve says softly from behind him.

Bucky doesn’t look away from the painting, but answers. “Yeah.”

“You did a great job.”

He shakes his head. “Nah. She’s always been a good kid. I just kept her fed,” he jokes, but Steve’s not laughing. In fact, he looks angry. Bucky hates being responsible for that expression, so he changes the subject and begins to meander towards the next painting. “So you teach at the college, you teach at the studio, you do some sort of volunteering...You ever...I dunno, sleep?”

That surprises a laugh out of Steve and he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh...not much actually, no.”

Bucky bumps elbows with him in understanding. “I’m just giving you shit. I know how it goes.”

“Do you?” Steve’s smiling, but there’s a prayer behind his eyes, hesitant and vulnerable.

“Running because if you held still it’d all fall apart?” Steve lets out a shaky breath and Bucky’s eyes fall to his mouth then sweep back up, taking in the lean man beside him. “But you shouldn’t have to…”

Bucky thinks of the way Becca has talked about Steve, about his kindness during critiques, about his incredible skill that he somehow uses to inspire instead of intimidate. He thinks of the way the other students looked at him: absolute trust. “You deserve better. Wish you felt the way you make people feel.”

“How do I make people feel?” Steve whispers, and they’ve stopped walking without either of them realizing.

Bucky shrugs, trying to deflect but the word comes out anyway, small and sure, and why is his hand reaching for Steve’s arm, he didn’t give it permission to do that -

“Worthy.”

The moment is too fragile, the look in Steve’s eyes is too soft, too nervous. Bucky wants to kiss him so badly he aches.

“Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes, I had no idea you two were acquainted.”

“Dr. Cassidy,” Steve greets curtly, but Bucky draws himself up to full height and immediately adopts his work persona. Tom Cassidy is easy to read, rich and cruel, though on kinder days Bucky wonders if the later was always the case. Today though, with Cassidy standing across from one of the only two people in the world Bucky cares to protect, he acts quickly, not stopping to consider what Steve would see.

“Tom,” he says with too much jovial warmth and a sickening amount of holier-than-thou attitude, and shakes his hand.

“James, good to see you. Rogers, nice little show you’ve got here.” The ‘little’ is grating, and Bucky sees Steve’s mouth tighten.

“Thank you.” Cassidy is a donor to the college, and Bucky is profoundly aware that if Steve didn’t have to play nice for the sake of his students and his job there would probably have been a fight by now. Bucky’s worked with the guy before, through Pierce, so he sees the way Tom’s eyes narrow at Steve’s defensive expression, about to start some shit he shouldn’t.

Side-stepping smoothly, Bucky puts his body between Steve and Cassidy and says with casual confidence, “I hear your start-up company is doing well. I’d love to hear about it. Let’s find some whiskey worth drinking and talk it over.”

Cassidy can’t resist talking about himself and agrees readily, and as Bucky follows him to the bar he mentally prepares himself to be insulted, talked over, and worst of all, bored out of his mind. He can’t bring himself to look back at Steve.

If he weren’t there for Becca he’d have consumed much more than two whiskeys throughout their conversation. Cassidy is grating and pretentious, and most decent people (like Steve) couldn’t stand a minute in his company before cussing him out. It’s worth it though, to keep him away from Steve, and eventually Bucky escapes, only a little worse for wear when Becca finds him.

“I’m going out with Sharon, I’ll see you tomorrow sometime.”

“Sure, Becks.”

He hugs her and as she releases him she gestures to a room adjacent to the bar from which music is floating. “You should check that out.” Bucky agrees without thinking, and only after she’s gone does curiosity draw him back until he’s hovering at the door.

Dancers.

A duet, a boy and a girl.

Buck watches for one song, numb. The next song, thawing. He makes it halfway through the third and whirls around to leave, certain his heart is literally breaking, his chest hurts so bad, and he runs right into Steve.

“Buck? What’s wrong?”

Bucky breaks away, shoving Steve off of him in spite of the nearly incapacitating desire to do the exact opposite, moving toward the nearest exit. He can’t do this right now, can’t keep telling his heart it can’t have all these things it wants, and if he’s not careful he might do something unforgivable.

“Bucky!”

Collapsing inward Buck snarls, “Leave me the fuck alone.”

--

The nightmares are horrific, father hurling slurs and bottles, Steve’s heartbroken face, and something that’s not even a memory, something his mind created to torture him: his mother looking so, so sad as she murmurs, “My sweet boy. What happened to you?”

--

“Kale-”

“Ew.”

“Spinach-”

“Ew.”

“Mushrooms.”

“Ew.”

“Apples.”

“Ew.”

Becca looks up from their grocery list laughing and shoves him. “Shut up. You like apples. And kale and spinach and mushrooms.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Despite busy and very separate schedules, Bucky and Becca try to eat together when they can, and they’re both good cooks, despite Bucky’s complaining. He’s actually excited to explore, this market is the best in the area and the day isn’t too hot. He can almost manage to forget how little sleep he’s been getting, or the fact that he and Pierce have a meeting with Steve tomorrow.

It’s not the life he wanted, but thanks to dear old dad he’d had to make some hard choices early on. When Pierce found him his first year of college he’d already spent three years going to school and working anywhere from one to three jobs at a time depending on what it took to keep food on the table and pay for Becca’s school fees and art supplies. Pierce offered to pay his tuition with the agreement that Bucky would work for no other compensation. This meant that for a year he actually had two jobs, the one with Pierce and some manual labor to pay the rent, but then Becca got a job and the year after, Pierce started paying him, and somehow, eight years later, he’s stuck.

It’s not what he wants to be doing, but he’s done enough damage that what he wants isn’t really a concern anymore.

“Quit thinking so hard,” Becca comments, squeezing his arm.

“Shut up.”

She scowls right back at him but butts her head against his shoulder as they mozy to the next stand. They buy greens from a little old lady in a huge sunhat and continue on.

“Are you happy?” she asks.

Bucky stops in his tracks, but pretty quickly manages to jumpstart his legs again. “Am I happy?” he repeats. “Sure Beck. We’ve got food and an apartment, you love your school...why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. You don’t really have any friends.”

“Jeez, don’t sugarcoat it now,” he mutters, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “I’m fine. I don’t have time, anyway.”

“You’re full of shit, big brother.”

The tall, beautiful, dark skinned man that owns the bakery down the street from their apartment is selling bread at his stall, and they stop to chat.

Becca is incorrigible. On their way to get blueberries she says, “You haven’t dated anyone. Ever.”

“Ok, that is just not true. I dated Julia-”

“You were not dating, you were fucking.”

“Ugh. Fine. But Jack and I-”

“Were friends with benefits, and it’s sick that that’s the longest and healthiest relationship you’ve had.”

Stung, he asks crossly, “What’s with you today?”

“Mr. Rogers!”

Bucky immediately blushes. “What?”

Becca points. “Let’s go say hi,” and she’s bounding off into the crowd towards Steve where he’s looking over bushels of fresh peaches.

Following more slowly, Bucky tries desperately to figure out how to play this. The last time they’d spoken he’d yelled at the guy, and tomorrow his boss is going to try to harass Steve into signing over his whole life. There are still weeks on the deal, but Pierce likes to check in, push where he can, and he never misses an opportunity to antagonize people who react to him.

Becca’s chatting amiably with Steve by the time he catches up. Handing Becca some money and says, “Hey, will you get the cookies? There are only two left.”

She rolls her eyes, but takes the money and goes.

Steve and Bucky stand facing each other, Steve in his go-to hands-in-pockets stance, tall despite his obvious exhaustion, Bucky with his cool, formal work posture.

Steve’s face is impassive, if not a little cold, and Bucky matches it, but he needs to ask. “Please don’t tell Becca.”

“Don’t tell her what? That you work for an evil sonofabitch?”

“That-”

“Or that your boss is trying to scam me out of my business?” he snaps, taking a step closer, and Bucky notices a silvery-pink scar in the very center of his sternum, peeking out at the neckline of his v-neck.

“No, Steve-”

“Or should I keep it to myself that you’re fucking two-faced bastard who can turn on the charm as long as he can make a few bucks.”

That one actually wounds in a way that Bucky wasn’t expecting. He tries to cover his hurt, but Steve’s not wrong. “Please,” he says, more quietly.

The rest of the explanation is stuck at the back of his throat, but Steve rolls his eyes and says, “Fine. Fucking fine.”

“Thank you.” Bucky doesn’t mean for it to come out as grateful as it does, but he doesn’t have time to cover because there was no line at the dessert stand and Becca is bouncing back, small cellophane bag of cookies in her grasp.

“Here you go, you addict,” she mutters with a hidden smile.

“Why thank you. And I’m not an addict, I just have good taste.”

“You have terrible taste.”

“Hey, I like you don’t I?”

“You might just be proving my point,” she snips.

“Bec-”

He pauses mid-volley as he realizes Steve is still standing there, and Becca seems to notice at the same moment. She looks between Bucky who’s smiling awkwardly, and Steve who’s looking torn between affection and anger, and says like the little shit that she is, “Mr. Rogers. Come to lunch with us.”

“What?” Steve and Bucky say at the same time.

“Buck and I always go out to breakfast after the market. Come with us.”

“It’s not actually breakfast, to be fair,” Bucky warns. “It’s dim sum…”

“Please, Mr. Rogers?” Becca begs, uncharacteristically sweet, and Steve rolls his eyes again.

“You and your brother both use that charm to your advantage,” he mutters, but Bucky can tell he’s about to relent.

“Nah,” Becca smiles wickedly. “Bucky’s much better at it.”

Steve looks surprised at himself when he says, “No kidding,” and then, flustered, he agrees. “Alright, yeah. Dim sum sounds great.”

And that’s how Bucky finds himself walking between his two favorite people in the world, despite the fact that one of them hates him and the other is hell bent on embarrassing him. Most of lunch had been Steve and Becca energetically discussing art at a level that renders Bucky useless to the conversation, but he's happy to sit back and watch his sister light up about something she loved. He tries not to watch Steve.

Now, they’re meandering slowly to Becca’s favorite bakery for sticky buns and Steve’s arm keeps accidentally bumping into Bucky’s, warm from the sun and sending little shocks up his spine.

“Natasha’s kids did beautifully at the gala,” Becca says, and Steve gives Bucky the side-eye before murmuring, “Yeah, they did.”

“Bucky ever tell you he used to dance?”

“Becca,” Bucky pleads. “Don’t.”

“No he didn’t,” Steve says quietly.

“He was wonderful.”

“Becca.”

“Well you were!”

“Why’d you stop?”

“I - there wasn’t time.” It’s the simplest explanation.

“He worked a bunch of jobs,” Becca explains.

Bucky wants to disappear into the floor. “It was the right thing to do. You were too young to work, and anyway, you deserved an actual childhood.”

“So did you,” she counters.

“Too late now.” The delivery is a little too curt and he amends it with, “I don’t regret it, Beck.”

“But you hate your job.”

Dancing is one thing, but this...it’s too close, too personal between him and Steve and he stops that discussion abruptly. “I’m asking you, please Becca, to leave this alone, ok?”

She acquiesces. Steve is staring at him, but only when he thinks Bucky isn’t looking, brows pulled in as he worries his bottom lip.

Thankfully, they arrive at the bakery and Bucky excuses himself to the corner store while Becca goes in to buy her pastries. When he comes back out Steve’s leaning against the brick of the building, hands in pockets. Bucky joins him, lighting a cigarette.

In silence they watch Becca through the bakery window where she’s chatting with the little old lady who owns the place, and Bucky feels a surge of gratitude.

“Thanks. For being so good to Becca.”

“She’s a great kid.”

“She is.”

With heart wrenching sincerity Steve glances over at him and Bucky has to cover the ache in his chest with a cocky smile.

“You’re a good brother.”

“I’m not... I just… She deserves a good life.”

“And you don’t?”

“Not anymore.". The warm brick is relaxing the muscles in his back, and Steve looks beautiful in his v-neck. So beautiful, in fact, that Bucky forgets himself and says, “I’m glad we got this...today.”

Steve blinks slowly at him, curious and hopeful, and its problematic because those blue eyes are incapacitating.

Bucky shrugs. He can’t possibly explain. Thankfully Becca comes out of the bakery, paper bag in hand and headbutts Bucky in the chest before stealing the cigarette from his fingers. He lets her take a drag before stealing it back.

“Cut that out,” he mutters. “‘S a nasty habit.”

She huffs and blows smoke in his face and he retaliates by snatching the bag from her hands and stealing a pastry from it, taking a comically large bite while she squawks at him. By the end of the tussle he’s got a scratch on his arm and a whole sticky bun crammed into his cheek like a chipmunk, and Becca puts Steve between them for protection from pastry thieves as they head home.

Bucky doesn’t miss the smile Steve gives him, that warm, soft thing that makes his face look young and open.

--

“Have you made any decisions?”

“We have another month,” Steve says calmly.

“You have to understand that taking the deal is in your best interest.”

“I don’t have to do shit,” and it’s the first time in their nearly thirty minutes of meeting that there’s been any anger in Steve’s voice at all.

Bucky is standing at the door, eyes on the adjacent window, while Steve and Pierce argue. Natasha isn’t here today, and in some ways it’s better, less judgement from her sharp eyes, but it’s also worse because he’s the only other person in the room, and he’s not on Steve’s side of the table.

“We’ll still allow you control of the facility, if you agree. It’s just that the current pay rate doesn’t quite cut it anymore.”

“Where has our rent been going then?”

Pierce shrugs. “Investments. But that’s really none of your concern.”

“It’s my damn business, I’d say it’s entirely my concern. Ms. Romanoff and I built that studio from the ground up.”

“On my property.”

There’s no arguing that, and the ensuing silence agrees. Steve sighs and rubs a hand down his face. The crack in his angry confidence tears at Bucky’s heart, makes him feel so damn helpless, but he’s distracted by the rumbling of a text in his pocket.

It’s Helen McCoy, to his personal cell, a photo attachment. Her two kids sitting at the kitchen table in their apartment, doing homework. They’re cozy and happy in their pajamas, and it looks like they’re drinking hot chocolate. The message just says, “Thank you.”

The timing feels prophetic somehow, and it gives him an idea. If there’s one person who deserves some help, it’s Steve. And maybe Bucky can be the one to do it.

Pierce is saying, “You can do what you like Rogers, but James will be by the studio in the next few days to take some appraisal photos.”

“Appraisal photos? I thought you weren’t going to sell?”

The tone in the room shifts completely, from amiable business to cold and threatening. “I’m going to make money off it one way or another. I won’t waste the potential of that property.”

Steve looks horrified beneath the façade of professionalism. “Please,” he says quietly, and Bucky can see that the concession of weakness is killing him. “I’ve given this everything I have.”

“Then sign it over,” Pierce says lowly.

Stalling. Four weeks. “I...I have to talk to Natasha.”

Good. Four weeks for Bucky to find some way to help.

“Suit yourself,” Pierce mutters, rising. “Barnes’ll see you out. My office when you’re finished here,” he adds to Bucky, who responds with a curt nod, not trusting his voice.

When they’re alone in the room, Steve finally stands and crosses to Bucky, shoulders drawn in on himself under the weight of the awful situation. “Buck. You gotta help me. What do I do?”

Bucky shakes his head, clinging desperately to his composure. He’s sure the room is bugged, and he can’t risk it. Besides, just because he wants to help Steve doesn’t mean he’ll succeed. No use in getting his hopes up.

It’s only because of years of training that he can say without trembling, “Mr. Pierce has explained your options.” His voice is calm, calculated, nothing that will alert the analysts. “I’m sorry.”

Steve’s face goes from open and pleading to cold and closed in the space of a breath, and Bucky can’t take it. He smiles, but it’s not his own. This expression belongs to his boss, he belongs to his boss, and Steve shouldn’t expect anything from him. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Rogers. If you’ll follow me-”

“Fuck you,” he bites out, and Bucky hates the hurt in his voice fluttering beneath the rage. “You’re a fucking piece of work, James Barnes.”

Nothing he hasn’t heard before, so he shrugs, still smiling. “If there’s nothing else…”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Steve walks quickly through the door and Bucky’s relieved. He’d been dreading this meeting. The mask takes a lot more energy to uphold around Steve.

As he gets in the elevator, Steve turns back, stating coolly, “Talk about wasted potential.”

Bucky wasn’t prepared for a glancing blow, for the swift delivery of everything he hates about himself from the man he loves, and he has to clap one hand to his mouth and the other to his gut to catch the broken noise that escapes, completely shattering his composure. Steve sees the movement, his eyebrows go up, and he lurches forward, horrified.

With an insultingly cheerful ding, the doors seal shut.

Chapter Text

This is gonna fuck Bucky right up with the ceaseless waves of love and joy and might-have-beens. He’d tried to get out of this, taking the appraisal photos, but Pierce had threatened termination, and Bucky’s a coward.

He gets through the small reception room, cluttered and homey with random furniture, when he notices the patch of faded paint on the wall behind the front desk. Bucky clicks a photo of it on his phone then leans in to peer at the wear. There are smudgy fingerprints and at the realization that the paint is worn from hands, small and large, swinging around the corner hundreds of times so exuberantly they needed a pivot point to change direction, he lets out a broken sound.

It takes a few breaths but the wave passes and he lays his own fingers over the wear as he turns down the long hallway. All the doors are open.

Welcome.

In the room on the left there are paint brushes in old rusted coffee cans and glass jam jars which clutter the wide windowsill that runs the length of the room. Like the foyer with it’s recycled couches, this room has easels and tables and stools but none of them match and all are in various states of comfortable disrepair.

Steve’s classroom.

It’s not the mismatched furniture, or the casually artful storage scheme that gives it away, but instead the way each and every sketch and painting on the wall or left on the easels has an air of love, of honor, of energy, even the crappy doodles that were clearly done by the little ones. On a little blackboard propped against a closet door is written ‘Self Portrait’ and the table beside it is scattered with a dozen sheets of thick white paper.

Buck can’t help himself.

It must have been the intermediate class, the art is beautiful and well above average skill level, but there are still rookie mistakes: a too long, too slender nose, one where the eyes are too close to the sides of the girl’s face, but they’re all incredible, even the most lopsided. They’re honest and vulnerable and joyful. Open.

Closest to the wall Buck recognizes a face, but not the expression on it. Steve, laughing so hard his head is thrown back and Buck can see in the reference photo clipped at the bottom of the page that he’s clutching his chest.

Clicking a few photos, he moves on. He can’t think about Steve for too long. The general sense of discontent that plagues him sharpens and turns inward when he does. Makes him feel like he’s balancing at a precipice, one toe a little too close to the edge.

Across the hall is another art classroom - pottery and sculpture, wire and wood. Buck gets wise and moves quickly through this one, though he wants to stay and stare. The experience is tearing his heart up, and he can’t physically stand to draw it out even a moment more.

Or so he thinks, but then he gets to the next classroom, and he can’t bring himself to leave.

The dance studio on the left has costumes lining the walls, but the one on the right looks empty and Bucky’s feet walk him inside before his brain catches up.

He’s instantly reminded of Ms. Sovereign’s class. The studio is beautiful but well-loved, worn wooden floors and tall mirrors smudged with the occasional fingerprint. There are shelves at one end of the room where the students store their belongings, but there’s also a speaker system set at the end of one of the planks and without thinking, Bucky crosses to it.

His work pants have a bit of give to them, but he sheds his shirt and suit coat, and kicks off his footwear. Who cares? It’s the middle of the night. There’s an auxiliary cable. Easy. Power. Easy. Plugs his phone in. Easy.

He knows the song he wants. When he first heard it (blaring from Becca’s room) he’d hated it. The music was moving, so powerful, that choreography jumped into his head unbidden, torturing him with an unquenchable ache in his muscles, and he’d charged out of the apartment. Ran for so long he gave himself blisters.

Now though, it’s perfect.

The Story starts slow, guitar then vocals, and he uses the time to dip and bend experimentally, twisting around. See how far his muscles will move. A small spin, knee up, catching himself a moment before his body drops. It feels right. The music begins to build.

He knows what’s coming. In his head, he’s danced this phrase a hundred times. Maybe more. He moves to the edge of the studio. He needs some space.

The opening verse ends and he turns back to the room and starts to run, and as the music breaks open, so does he, flinging his body into the air, spinning into the jump, legs bent, arms out. Flies.

He lands letting the momentum carry him on. The beat is driving and the guitar solo becomes a series of spins and jumps, ceaseless until the singer’s soft voice comes back in and his body softens immediately, dropping to the ground and arching his back, then rolling back over to his knees, lean right, lean left, drop back down to lie face up on the floor. More, he thinks. I need more, so he projects himself up, letting verses course through him, blood and pulse and forgiveness.

As the last soar of sound echoes through the room he launches himself into the air, finishing out the song with limbs reaching, movements slowing, and when the guitar ebbs, steadies, and fades, the skeleton of music slips from his body and he falls roughly to his knees, bends his face into his hands, and begins to cry.

It was never gone. It was always here, always this, and he’s nothing, no one, but he is a dancer. This isn’t his father’s or Pierce’s, or even his ma’s. It’s his own.

A soft hand touches the nape of his neck and he startles defensively. It’s Natasha.

At the realization that she’s not a threat the tears start to roll again, but the expression on her face is so unfamiliar that he doesn’t look away. It’s not loathing or anger or disgust or blankness. It looks unnervingly like...empathy.

“Steve told me you were a dancer. I didn’t know he meant like that.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I’m not. Anymore.”

“Hate to break it to you, but that hasn’t been true a day in your life. Never will be.” She’s not wrong. He knows that, has known that, and ran from it for years. “You’re good.” She watches him appraisingly for a moment before murmuring, “Dance with me?”

She stands, holds out a hand as the next song begins. Now that he’s started, he can’t stop, couldn’t dream of denying her. He takes her hand.

He’s not sure how long they move in the dusky light, improvising a conversation. but at the end Bucky feels like he’s done well, like he’s left baggage on the studio floor and swept it into nothingness with a thousand beautiful gestures.

“Thank you,” Bucky whispers as they slow and ease into a sweet and steady sway at the center of the floor, holding each other loosely. It feels good to be touched. Safe.

She presses a kiss to his forehead. “Good night, James.”

The corner of her mouth just barely twitches up at him before she’s slipping out the door, and she reaches for something, someone, just beyond the threshold. Blue eyes glint back at him in the dim light, and then everything falls quiet.

--

It’s perfect timing, Saturday morning and Bucky is off work but he rises early anyway and collects his things. He’d carefully turned off his brain as he showered, but now, walking in the early morning cool towards the coffee shop, muscles that haven’t ached in over a decade twinge as he moves and everything is shaking loose inside of him.

Steve had crash-landed into his world and changed his life. The least Bucky can do is try to repay the favor.

Warm yellow light sweeps the floor of the coffee shop as Bucky orders and settles at a table. The job he’s here to do hovers persistently in the back of his mind, but he takes a moment to enjoy the sweet cream in the coffee he’s drinking, the way his body feels looser, lighter, and how his chest feels too small for everything inside of it when he thinks of Steve.

The effort to avoid that train of thought helps him focus on the task at hand, and he digs into his bag. The folders are stacked neatly behind his laptop, stuffed tight with page after page of information that Bucky had printed out while logged on as the secretary, then deleted the trail.

Humming absently, he lays the first copies across the table and hunches over to begin reading. Somewhere, something doesn’t add up; something isn’t quite as foolproof as Pierce thinks. He just has to find it. Endorphins from dancing the night before flood his brain and have him immersed within seconds, so when a paper flutters down on top of the chart he’s looking at, Bucky startles.

“Fuck, Steve, you scared the shit out of - what is this?”

“The fuck does it look like?” Steve mutters, looking worn out and profoundly uncomfortable, and so fucking lovely. He’s standing there, hands in pockets, bathed in morning light, and Bucky can’t help it, he smiles up at him.

“Join me?”

Tired and wary he sits. “What are you doing?”

Maybe it’s the absolute improbability of the situation, maybe it’s the weeks of tension behind them, maybe it’s the dancing, but instead of nerves or dread, Bucky just feels at peace. Calm.

“Looking for a loophole.”

“Huh?”

Bucky sets aside whatever the hell Steve had dropped on his research in order to shuffle some papers around. “Pierce is all about cutting corners, increasing profits...he’s got good lawyers but he’s only human, and a shitty one at that. Somewhere, he’s gotta have fucked up. Business money to personal accounts...something. Anything. Leverage. I’m hoping.”

“Why?” Steve asks and Bucky blinks at him. There’s no reason why Steve would know, to be fair. Up until now, Bucky’s played the part of Pierce’s minion better than the role of friend.

“So you guys can keep the studio. It’s yours. He has no right to it.”

Steve’s jaw drops. “Buck,” he breathes, so full of emotion that Bucky has to distract himself, so he picks up the paper Steve had tossed. It’s a sketch, hasty, in pencil, of he and Natasha dancing together in the dimly lit studio, movement and muscle. It’s beautiful.

“You - you saw.”

“Yes.”

Bucky stares at the table. He’d known, even before the sketch, suspects he’d know those blue eyes glimmering just about anywhere and he finds himself bashful but also, proud.

“This,” Bucky says, waving the sketch, “Is fucking incredible.”

“You were fucking incredible last night. Dancing.”

The phrasing is too much, and Bucky blushes, shrugging to cover it. “It’s been a while. Like...a decade,” he adds, laughing only a little self-deprecatingly, but Steve doesn’t let him brush it off, reaching across the table to slide a hand on top of Bucky’s, who freezes, but doesn’t pull away.

“I owe you an apology.”

“Steve. You don’t owe me sh-”

“I’m an asshole.”

Buck snorts, smiling shyly. “Maybe a little.”

“I am. I know I am. I’m so fucking sorry for what I said before.”

He shouldn’t be apologizing, Bucky’s the one still knowingly employed by a corrupt businessman. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not a good guy, just...trying to be less of a bad one.”

Steve squeezes his hand once before withdrawing. He sounds proud as he says, “It’s a start.”

“Yeah.” The feeling of Steve’s hand is burned into his own.

Glancing down at his watch, Steve says, “I gotta run, but I was wondering...would you want to maybe…Uh...come over for dinner tonight? Becca’s welcome, too, Nat’s coming over, but I thought...If you want…”

“Steve. Yes. That’d be great.”

“Cool.” He stands nonchalantly, but he’s grinning so big he can’t very well hide it. As his shirt billows, Bucky catches sight of that vertical scar on his chest again.

“What time?”

“Around five? I’ll text you.”

“Great. Wait. Where’d you get my number?”

Steve has the good sense to look a little embarrassed. “I may have asked Becca.”

“Is that how you found me?” Bucky asks, voice rising in surprise.

“Maybe.”

“Wooow. Steve Rogers, using a student for nefarious purposes.”

Shaking his head, Steve mutters, “It’s not nefarious if she’s been trying to set us up for weeks.”

He’s so shocked, Steve’s halfway to the door by the time Bucky gets out, “I’ll have to thank her.”

Steve turns back over his shoulder with that sweet, soft smile and Bucky feels himself melt. “Me first.”

--

Bucky spends the rest of the day at the coffee shop pouring over numbers. He only makes it through one of six folders, but there are already a few things that have peaked his interest.

He tries not to think about Steve.

He knows better to have expectations of anything or anyone, and besides, he and Steve have a bad habit of getting real close to something, then sabotaging it with their own selfish bullshit.

For right now, they’re just friends. Friends who flirt. Friends who stare longingly at each other from across a shared meal and smile for each other like they smile for no one else. Friends. So he tries not to be nervous as he raps on the door of his friend’s apartment.

Natasha answers and gives him a small but genuine smile. “Good to see you, James.”

As he enters and drops his bag in the foyer he mumbles, “And you.” Getting it out of the way, he asks the question that’s been hovering right behind all the Steve-related what-ifs. “Natasha...where do we stand? You and I.”

Hands on hips Natasha says, “In Steve’s apartment.” He thinks she might be smiling.

Rolling his eyes he mutters, “You know what I mean.”

She loops an arm through his and tugs him towards the kitchen. “I do.”

“So? I still work for the guy trying to steal your life’s work.”

“You’re trying to help us get the studio back.”

“I might fail, and even if we succeed...Natasha...I’m not -”

She stops at the doorway to the kitchen. Over her shoulder he can see Steve at the stove, stirring something. He gives Bucky a little wave, but turns immediately back to the food, leaving Bucky at Natasha’s mercy.

“Real talk, James? You’re a good man in a bad place, and you’re fucking up a lot, but you’re trying, and that’s more than most people can say for themselves. Besides, I’ve seen you dance.”

“So?”

“So I know you.”

“You do not.”

She considers him for a moment before leaping up at him, lightning fast. He catches her easily, and she wraps her legs around his waist like a weirdly attractive koala. His reflexes would be impressive except that he works out daily, and besides, he’s a dancer.

He’s a dancer.

“See?” she says, looking entirely too self-satisfied. “You’re a natural. You experience the world with your body first. Steve’s the opposite. For him it’s all about the view.” At that, Steve turns to glance at them, and for a moment there’s a glint in his eye. If Bucky didn’t know better, he’d call it jealousy.

“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” Bucky says matter of factly as he sets her down.

“Why thank you.”

“I’m not sure I meant it as a compliment.”

That makes her laugh. “What I’m trying to say, James, is that despite our previous disagreements, between what I’ve learned in the past few days and what Steve’s told me about you, I’ve decided you are a person worth knowing. You’re helping us, and I think we can help you. Fair?”

“I...uh...yeah,” he murmurs. “Thanks. Wait. What has Steve told you about me?”

Startled, Steve locks eyes with her and they stare a moment too long. She starts to speak, still staring, then huffs and bites her lip, acquiescing to his silent plea. “Fine.”

“What is happening?” Bucky yells and Steve finally laughs.

“We’re making dinner. Come help.”

Just like that, Bucky goes from outsider to belonging. While Natasha rips fresh basil and Steve cooks the sausage, he cubes little ripe tomatoes into a bowl and listens to the two of them amiably harass each other.

The easy way they have together shows they’ve clearly been friends for a long time. Natasha ribs him about working too much, Steve gives her shit for being a crazy person, and every word drips with the kind of affection that Bucky recognizes from his relationship with Becca.

“What’re you smiling about?” Steve asks later.

“Nothing,” Bucky shrugs, tossing the pasta and the sausage together in the pan. “Just...ha-” He stops and has to swallow. “Happy.”

--

“You work a fuckton,” Bucky observes distractedly as Steve kicks off his shoes. He’s been at Steve’s apartment for almost two hours, since he got off work and Nat let him in. His lap and the floor around him are covered in paper. “I ordered pizza though, if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks.” He sounds exhausted.

“You ok?”

Steve doesn’t reply right away, instead going to the fridge and getting them both a beer before collapsing on the couch. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Bucky resettles where he’d been leaning, arm on one of the couch cushions as he says, “You should take some time off.”

Shaking his head adamantly, Steve replies, “Nah. No need for that.”

“Except, you know, your mental and physical health.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ talk to me about health,” Steve snips and Bucky stiffens. They’ve been hanging out almost daily for the past two weeks, and every once in awhile Steve’ll get like this. Bucky understands, but he still doesn’t like it and in this case also doesn’t know how to respond without being a shithead back, so he stays quiet.

The silence is brief. “Sorry.”

Bucky shrugs, still staring at the papers balanced on his knee, though he’s no longer reading them. “It’s whatever, man.”

“It’s not - ugh, it’s not ‘whatever’, Bucky. You don’t have to put up with me being an ass, ok?”

“Ok. Quit being a fucking asshole, Steve.” It startles a laugh out of him and Bucky feels triumphant. With the tension broken Steve fetches himself some pizza, and his bag from by the door, and flops back down.

They work together in silence for what feels like hours. Somewhere in the focused stillness, Steve drops a hand to Bucky’s arm and draws lazy patterns on it as he plans, and while at first it’s all Bucky can think about, eventually the sensation sinks him into hazy relaxation. Sighing, he slides down to lay against the couch and when Steve’s hand lazily wanders to card through his hair instead, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

This is how the past few weeks have been. They continue to haul around the title of “friends”, but Steve is always touching him, a hand at his back, fingers light at the nape of his neck. Bucky, for his part, tries to keep his hands to himself because Natasha was right, he experiences the world physically, and if he started touching Steve, he’d never fucking stop.

As it is, the little gestures of affection threaten to overwhelm him nearly constantly, but Steve hasn’t said anything, and Bucky figures he’s not ready for anything bigger, or more probably, simply isn’t interested.

The nails scratching lightly over his scalp are so soothing, though, that all that extra baggage just eases from his brain and he slumps even further, allowing his eyes to close.

The dreams whip through him, a whirlwind of agony, familiar. He shoves them down for awhile, he knows this game, but eventually they surge up and take him. They always do. He forgets he’s with Steve, forgets that he’s safe, forgets his dad is dead, and when he wakes again to Steve’s saying his name softly, he jerks up and away to scrub the dampness from his face.

“Buck.”

“‘M fine.”

“I know you are, Buck. Look at me.”

Against his better judgment, Bucky shuffles around to face Steve, but keeps his body hunched in.

“You’re safe here, you know that right?”

“Of fuckin’ course I know, Steve.”

The blond doesn’t chastise him, just observes without judgment, then murmurs, “You wanna talk about it?”

Bucky’s already shaken his head a few times when he realizes that actually, with Steve, he kind of does.

Staring down at his hands he says gruffly, “When ma died I had to get a job, but I could’ve kept dancing. I had a little time.”

“They why’d you stop?”

“Dad. He’d say, “Fuckin’ faggot. That why you do it? Let those pretty boys fuck you, Jimmy? Real men have real jobs, make real money, not prancing around in a fuckin’ leotard.” He shrugs. “I didn’t care what anyone else said, but ma was gone and Beck was so small and I just...I was scared he’d disown me, break us apart. So I quit. Got a real job. Like a real man,” he finishes and the bitterness in his voice surprises even him.

“How old were you?” Steve asks.

“Fourteen? Fifteen? I dunno. Million years ago now.”

“I’m so sorry, Buck,” Steve whispers, and he reaches out again, running a comforting hand across Bucky’s jaw. “He’s a fuckin’ idiot. You’re an incredible dancer. And a great man.”

Bucky huffs, smiling, and wants to be embarrassed about the tears dancing in his eyes, but when he looks up, Steve’s are shimmering too. “You’re a fuckin’ nutjob.”

Steve shrugs. “It’s been said.”

Offering up his arm, Bucky says, “Got this scar from him. He was trashed, we were arguing, he shoved me down the stairs, shattered the bone. I told Becca I fell. I dunno if she believed me, whenever I visited her high school the plates in my arm would set off the metal detectors. Very subtle,” he adds dryly.

Steve nods empathetically, eyes focused on Buck, but he’s absently massaging the space on his own chest where his scar hides beneath a dress shirt, and Bucky, caught up in a moment of suspended reality and magic uses one hand to pop the first few buttons and brush the collar open. He places a hand where Steve had been, gentle. A blessing.

Steve doesn’t say anything, just stares down where Bucky’s hand lays, and Buck can feel his breath rise and fall, a little faster perhaps than before. He stares for so long that Bucky almost moves away, wrought with nerves, but then Steve slowly lifts his own paint-stained palm and rests it over Bucky’s, holding it there.

“My ma and I had the same heart condition. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.” He scoffs. “What a mouthful. I was sick all the time as a kid, but she hid her own illness much better. We were put on a transplant list. Ours were particularly bad cases.” His voice is full of subtle pain. “‘Bout halfway through high school a donor came up. Only after my surgery did I find out he’d been a match for both of us, and Ma never told me. She died three years later.”

He’s staring blankly into the room, but this is something Bucky knows how to speak to, so he catches Steve under his chin with a finger and murmurs, “She gave you life, Stevie. She wanted to make sure you kept it.”

“But I -” his voice catches. “I don’t deserve it. Never did.”

The truth slides into place like an atomic bomb, or a puzzle piece.

“Is that why you’re always working? Trying to earn the life she gave you?”

Steve doesn’t answer. He might as well be shouting ‘yes’ from the rooftops.

Bucky moves so fast the pages falling from his lap barely flutter as he leaps up and lands feather light in Steve’s lap, knees on either side of his hips. With the starched collar of Steve’s shirt clenched in white-knuckled fists Bucky snarls, “Listen here you fuckin’ idiot. You saved my life.” The truth of it rushes in and chokes him but Steve has been brave so he can be too. “But even if you didn’t, even if you didn’t teach classes or volunteer, even if we’d never met, you deserve to be happy. You deserve to live. You deserve -” He loses it then, couldn’t keep going for a million dollars, and Steve’s body is sturdy and warm beneath him, and his eyes are bright and his mouth is red and Bucky can’t look away. He thinks he might be pulling Steve up by the collar -

Becca’s ringtone goes off on his phone and they both jerk apart, startled. With a shocking amount of grace Bucky swings off Steve’s lap and crouches on the floor. His heart is beating so fast that when he answers Becca’s first comment is, “Hey Buck. Sorry, did I catch you running?”

--

Bucky hangs out at the studio occasionally, more and more as Natasha harasses him about it. It doesn’t take much. He likes it there.

The first few times he just sat in the foyer talking to the insanely cool girl who works at the front desk, then the next few times he hung out in the back of Steve’s classroom pretending not to watch him teach and looking over the documents he’d taken from the office. He’s getting close, he can feel it. Today though, Natasha pokes her head in a few minutes before the classes start and says, “James. Come here.”

Steve shrugs at him, then returns to setting up the room, so Bucky sets his notebook aside and follows Nat into the dance studio. He’s surveying the room, noting that it’s an older class, advanced, mostly young adults, when something soft hits him in the side of the head.

He catches the gym shorts as they slide down his shoulder and rolls his eyes at Natasha. “What’s this?” he mutters, holding them out.

“Put them on. You’re gonna earn your keep today, pretty boy.”

“I didn’t sign up for this,” he gripes. “You got a shirt for me?”

She shakes her head. “Nah. You don’t need one.”

“Oh my god,” he mutters, but obeys, stripping off his work clothes from earlier in the staff bathroom and changing into the shorts. By the time he gets back to class, they’ve already started warming up, simple stretches, and he moves to the back of the room to join in. It’s oddly relaxing, so when Natasha calls him back up front, he complies calmly.

“This is my friend James,” she explains. “He’s going to be helping out today.”

“He’s ripped,” someone whispers, but he can’t tell who.

“Places, please,” Natasha instructs, and suddenly the whole room is alive, and class has started. Any residual nerves leave Bucky almost immediately. The pattern of rehearsal is familiar, even ten years later and with a completely different instructor. He moves through the students, adjusting form and giving pointers. When they start working on choreography, he learns the piece with ease and helps Natasha tweak some combinations at the end. By the time class ends, the students say goodbye kindly and enthusiastically, and Bucky is grinning from ear to ear.

He and Natasha go over some more choreography after the students are gone, for long enough that eventually she pauses and he blinks over at her. “What?”

She gestures to the doorway where Steve is leaning, arms crossed, and like always Bucky is struck dumb by how gorgeous he is, so much so that by the time he finds his voice, Natasha is gone.

“Hey,” he manages, weakly.

“Hey.”

He’s going for something normal like, “How was class?” or “You making dinner tonight?” but what comes out is, “Wanna dance?”

Steve huffs a laugh but steps inside the studio. “I’m a terrible dancer.” His eyes sweep Bucky’s body, and for some reason, bites his lip.

“That’s alright. I can teach you.”

“That might be a little optimistic,” he says, but he’s crossing to where Bucky’s standing frozen in the middle of the room.

“I like a good challenge.” How is his mouth so sassy while he his brain is shutting down?

“Then this’ll be perfect.” Steve stops in front of him. “Well?”

“Gimme a fuckin’ second, will ya?” He has to figure out what’ll be easiest to teach, and to dance, while profoundly distracted. In the end he settles on a simple box step in 3, basic waltz. “Alright, gimme your left hand, put your right one on my waist.”

Class had gone so smoothly that until Steve’s hand settles big and warm on his side, Bucky had completely forgotten that there would be no fabric between them. Magically he manages to keep his shit together enough that he can say, “Good, ok, step forward with your left foot.”

Steve complies, looking down. The tops of his cheeks are just a little pink and Bucky wishes it were because of him.

“Good. Now right with your right foot. Ok, now feet together.” They repeat the first half of the box, and by the time they’ve done the second half a few times, Steve can do it without staring at his feet. “Not bad,” Bucky grins approvingly. “Now let’s see if you can do that with music.”

He hears Steve groan as he plugs his phone into the speakers. “This is waltz music?” he grumbles as the first few bars of Hendrix’s Red House echo through the room.

“Shut up. It’s perfect. You’ll see.”

He right. It’s too perfect. The tempo flows easy, no rush to remember footwork, and the guitar and plodding bass make for an inconveniently sensual background.

“You’re not so bad,” Bucky comments, trying to keep the mood light.

“Had a good teacher.” His fingers flex and Bucky can feel them against his ribs. “Distracting, but good.”

“Distracting?”

“You’re missing half your clothes.”

Bucky laughs. “Blame Natasha.”

“I’ll be sure to thank her.”

Blushing, Bucky murmurs, “Her and Becca, right?”

Steve nods and lets his hand slide down to Bucky’s hip, a beautifully mischievous grin creeping across his face. He opens his mouth to say something then seems to change his mind and instead tilts his head, eyes sweeping Bucky’s collarbone then up to his lips. Bucky chokes on every sarcastic comment he’s ever made and thinks, fuck it.

Pierce’s text tone rings out offensively loud in the empty studio, and they both flinch. Before Bucky’s even decided to check it, Steve’s let go of his hand. He knows Bucky can’t ignore it.

His phone glares at him from the shelf as he swipes it open numbly. It’s a reminder that he has an eviction tomorrow, and Bucky lets out a sigh so abruptly it almost sounds like a sob.

“What’s up?”

Bucky whirls around, genuinely surprised Steve’s still there. Steve’s not a passive guy by any means and he’s been increasingly vocal about his disapproval that Bucky’s still employed by Pierce. He’s right, obviously.

“Eviction tomorrow. I forgot. Fuckin’ hate this.” His voice is heavy in his own ears, he can only imagine how it sounds to Steve.

“So quit.”

“Steve I - I can’t.”

“Why? Come on, Buck, you’re better than that.”

“I am not, and I just can’t ok? Shit man, leave it alone.” He unplugs his phone from the speakers with just a little too much viciousness and the resulting thud makes him wince, but the mood is broken anyway.

He figures the discussion is over and crumples over his stuff to collect it into a manageable ball, but then, spite in his voice that could almost be confused with pain, Steve says, “Is it the money?”

Appalled, Bucky whispers, “What?”

“Or are you just a coward?”

Stumbling to his feet Bucky gapes at him. “What the fuck do you want me to do?”

“You could work here with Natasha!”

“I should be in jail, you fucking asshole, not teaching sweet little kiddies how to land a jump without blowing out their knees.”

“But you like it here!” Steve shouts.

“That’s the fucking point!” he screams, and silence falls heavy.

“Oh I see.” He paces towards Bucky. “You think you don’t deserve it, so instead of doing something good with your life, you’re just digging yourself deeper." The sarcasm lays thick. "Makes tons of sense!”

“Fuck you,” and Bucky’s so mad his voice comes out a whisper, but gets louder as he goes. “This is so fucking rich coming from you, the guy who’s working himself into the ground trying to earn his life! You think your ma wanted that for you?”

Steve’s face is quickly losing it’s flush, and his hands are curled into fists. Watching his heaving chest for a moment Bucky wonders what it would be like to cause that reaction in a positive way, what it would be like to take Steve apart with his hands, his mouth...He shudders. Let it go. He's got nothing.

“Have fun fucking over people’s lives,” Steve finally spits.

“Yeah, you enjoy working yourself into an early grave,” Bucky retaliates, coldly.

Bucky reminds himself why it was so important not to get involved in the first place, and tries to let go of the ache in his chest as he cloaks himself in familiar numbness.

What’s he so upset about? You can’t lose something that was never yours to begin with.

Chapter Text

Bucky runs.

It’s been four days. He hasn’t heard from Steve.

He runs in the morning, before work, then in the evenings. He smiles when Becca talks about her day, school and her job at a local coffee shop, but he can tell she’s worried.

He hasn’t stopped pouring over the paperwork from the office, in fact he’s added to the collection. There are now upwards of ten folders of information, and he knows Pierce isn’t anywhere near as squeaky-clean as he likes to pretend. There are several “investment funds” that don’t seem to go to any projects, and a few million dollars unaccounted for unless he’s way worse at math than he thought.

He’s wiped out when he arrives at work, grey suit pressed, and hair combed back, and properly numb for the task at hand.

There’s a memo on his desk that Pierce wants to speak with him, so Bucky heads to his office without even putting his bag down.

“Morning, sir.”

“Barnes. Good morning. Have a seat won’t you?”

Bucky freezes, immediately on edge. Pierce never asks him to sit, never dictates the location of his body so long as he’s getting the work done. Bucky’s spent entire meetings hovering nervously by the door and Pierce never said shit. Why now?

Pierce watches silently as Bucky perches on the edge of a chair, then a moment longer just to draw out the tension before speaking.

“You know, obviously, that we have a number of analysts.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Some of them analyze my investments, some oversee projects, and some oversee employees.”

“Alright,” Bucky replies, nerves mounting.

“So I can’t imagine you’d be surprised when I inform you that I’m aware you’ve been accessing information that’s not terribly pertinent to you.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

“It’s incredibly pertinent that I be familiar with all aspects of the company.”

“Certainly. I’m just wondering why you’re so curious about our finances.”

“It’s an important part of the work we do?”

“Are you sure about that rationale, Barnes?”

“What?”

“Because it’s come to my attention that you’ve been spending a disproportionate amount of time with one of our clients.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a rule against that, sir.”

“There’s not, no no of course, there’s not.” He pauses, smiling, and Bucky wonders if maybe, just maybe, this’ll pass. “There is however, a rule against trying to financially undermine your boss for the gain of a fuckbuddy. An employee who did that would almost certainly regret it.” His face is calm but his voice is a growl, and it sends chills down Bucky’s spine despite having been on the man’s good side for the better part of a decade.

But also, he’s tired. He’s tired of the threats and the guilt and the lying. He’s tired of putting devastated looks on people’s faces. On Steve’s face.

“Good thing I’m not an employee anymore then, sir. Consider this my formal resignation.”

Pierce’s eyebrows ascend, genuinely surprised, and it’s an unfamiliar expression for him. Bucky pulls his ID badge, company card, and work phone from his pocket and lays them on the desk. Standing, he murmurs, “I’d wish you the best of luck, but I think it’s abundantly clear that’s not something either of us really wants for the other. Goodbye.”

And he walks out of the office.

It should be a triumphant moment, a moment to breathe easy, but Bucky knows better. The second he steps out of the elevator he’s calling Becca on his personal cell.

“Hello?”

“Becks, I need you to grab my black bag and anything of yours you can fit into a backpack and get the fuck out of the apartment. Go to Steve’s.”

“What?”

“Now! Go!

“Shit ok, ok, calm down! I’m going.”

He hangs up and dials Steve next.

“What,” Steve answers flatly.

“Steve.”

“What’s wrong, Buck?” He sounds immediately concerned and invested, all chill gone from his voice, and Bucky wonders how terrible he must sound to garner that reaction in spite of everything.

“Becca’s comin over, ok? I need you to keep her there.”

“What’s going on?”

“I quit.” He hangs up. It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is that Pierce must know he’s onto something. Bucky’s been working for the guy long enough that he has no doubt Pierce will be looking get even, to make an example of him, and Bucky’s not about to let him use Becca as leverage.

Five minutes later she texts him that she’s heading to Steve’s, so instead of flagging down a cab, he hops on the train. He’s not sure what he’s expecting when he gets home, so there’s no hurry as long as Becca’s safe.

A half an hour later he’s getting off at the station a few blocks from the apartment. It’s hot as fuck out so he shrugs off his suit jacket and drapes it over his arm, then reconsiders and tosses it in a dumpster. He doesn’t need it anymore. Feeling lighter than he has in years, he jogs the last few blocks, and as he skids ‘round the corner he sees Steve running right at him, away from the apartment.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky shouts. The days apart only made Steve more beautiful. “Is Becca with you?”

Steve shakes his head, and as he catches up to Bucky, grabs him roughly by the arm and tugs him backwards. “What the fuck?”

“She’s with Natasha. Guy just went into your apartment wearing a damn parka.”

“It’s ninety fuckin’ degrees out, why would -”

In lieu of Bucky finishing his sentence, his apartment explodes.

--

Becca stands up from the table where she’s sitting with Natasha as Bucky bursts through the door of Steve’s apartment and they crash into each other’s arms. He squeezes her too tightly, but she doesn’t comment, leaning into his embrace.

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry, Becks,” Bucky murmurs heavily.

Steve supplying “Pierce blew up your apartment,” are the first words he’s said since the explosion. The entire bus ride over he’d stood silently furious, jaw clenched tight, and it stings a little. Bucky’d had the ridiculous notion that Steve would be proud that he quit.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Got us into this, now all your stuff is gone…”

“Buck, you couldn’t have known your boss was a fuckin’ nutjob,” she says wryly.

“That’s the thing, Bec. I did know.”

“Then why’d you stay?” She sounds a little horrified.

What’s he supposed to say? That he’s a coward and a villain? He goes with the original reason.“The money was good.”

“The only thing you spend money on is me,” she sasses back, then repeats it softly, realizing. “You only spend money on me. Oh Buck, nothing is worth you being miserable. I wish you’d told me.”

He nods. “I know, I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

She’s quiet, considering for a moment, then says, “Why’d you have me grab your work bag?”

Bucky’s eyes widen. He’d completely forgotten. “I found something.”

“What kind of ‘something’?” Natasha asks, but she’s frowning at Steve where he stands in the foyer, hands in pockets.

“Your rent has been going into one of Pierce’s investments. It’s labeled for the studio, but obviously none of it is going to you guys, unless you’ve spent a quarter of a million dollars in overhead the past few years.”

“We have not,” Natasha says slowly, but Bucky’s already digging through his bag, looking for the right paperwork.

“It’s not just you though,” he continues. “There are over a hundred clients who’ve been paying rent that’s now tied up in investments under a variety of names and titles, and even then, there’s so much money unaccounted for…”

“What are you gonna do, Buck?” Becca asks, and he sighs and looks at all three of them.

“I dunno. What should I do? What can I do? I’m not a cop or a lawyer.” The sheer enormity of the situation is beginning to settle in his gut. “What do I do?”

Natasha must see how he’s unraveling because she takes charge smoothly. “Well, here’s how we’ll start. Becca will move in with me down the hall, you stay here with Steve, and I,” she pauses triumphant and mischievous, “Will call a lawyer.”

Nat and Steve each have a pull out couch, and as soon as Bucky can convince himself that Becca is alright, she and Natasha head next door to get her situated and he and Steve are left alone in the apartment.

Steve still hasn’t said more than a handful of words, but he smiles tightly when he brings out a spare set of sheets and a pillow.

“Thanks,” Bucky murmurs. “I know this is inconvenient. I’ll stay outta your way as much as I can…”

“You don’t have to do that, Buck. You’re not in the way.”

He’s a grown man, he should have better control over his own damn mouth, but he blurts out, “Then what’s with you? I thought you’d be…”

Steve ventures softly but still so distant, “Thought I’d be what?”

Bucky shrugs and starts making up the bed. “I dunno,” he says to the pillow. “I guess… Proud.”

He hears a small, hurt noise and then his whole body is being spun around and Steve’s arms are wrapping around him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says, and though Steve’s voice is steady, Bucky can feel him trembling slightly. “I was so worried.”

“Steve. I’m fine,” Bucky murmurs. Steve should never be upset, not like this, even if he is an ass, so Bucky sweeps his hand down the long length of his friend’s back, comforting.

Shit. Shouldn’t have done that.

He feels every knob of Steve’s spine, every sinew beneath his palm, and it makes his whole body itch for more. He wants to taste the ridges of Steve’s shoulder blades, he wants to sink his fingers into Steve’s hips, wants to find every tender spot on that masterpiece of a body and suck bruises there.

Brusquely slapping Steve’s shoulder, he withdraws, trying to even out his breathing. He quit his job, had his apartment blown up, and the most overwhelming thing to happen today was a damn hug. There’s a flicker of pain on Steve’s face as he withdraws.

“Really, man. I’m fine. Thanks for letting me crash here.”

Steve bobs his head and steps back, hands in pockets, a safety blanket, and Buck thinks they’re out of the woods. He’s wrong.

Swallowing harshly, Steve says, “I am proud of you. Sorry I’m shit at telling you that.”

Louder than he means to Bucky blurts, “Thanks.”

Steve nods, and smiles small. “Let me know if you need anything.” He disappears to his room leaving Bucky screaming in his own head, You! I need you.

--

It’s still too damn early to be awake but Tony, Natasha’s lawyer friend, is pouring over the folders of information stolen from Pierce. Steve’s pacing nervously, Nat’s texting from the couch, but Bucky’s curled up in a chair at the kitchen table nursing a huge cup of coffee, still half-asleep.

“You’re brilliant,” Tony says matter-of-factly and Buck hasn’t been paying attention at all, completely immersed in increasingly caffeinated contemplation, so he smiles at Natasha, assuming she's the topic of conversation. She is brilliant, he knows and loves that about her, but Tony shakes his head, gesturing to Bucky with a packet of papers, “No. You’re brilliant.”

“What?”

“I can’t believe you caught these errors, they’re incredibly well hidden. Such minute details.”

“Minute? There’s like twelve million dollars missing.”

“True. But subtly. I’m assuming you noticed Steve and Nat’s money issues?”

Swilling coffee around in his mouth, Bucky nods. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?” Tony’s eyebrows are pulled up and together, and he’s got one lip tugged between his teeth. Flirtatious.

That was not what he was expecting. “I think their money’s still...theirs.”

“What?” Steve says from behind him, and Bucky startles a little.

“Told you,” Tony smirks. “Brilliant.” Steve’s face is icy but Natasha doesn’t look concerned. In fact she looks...pleased as she glances between him and Steve. “You should explain it to them.”

Bucky shrugs, flustered, but then Steve puts a hand on the back of his neck and immediately he feels grounded. Letting himself smile up into warming blue eyes, he murmurs, “Ok.” Steve sinks down next to him but at the smallest suggestion of pulling away Bucky leans in, following that point of grounding contact so Steve leaves his hand there, draped at Buck’s shoulder.

“Pierce’s been skimming. He’ll invest in a promising project, if the owners sign the property over to him he allows them to keep up appearances, remain the public face of whatever the project is, but he takes the money and invests it. Which is just good business, so - legal. If the clients refuse to sign over the property,” and here he gestures to Steve and Nat, “Pierce has them paying rent at a hugely inflated rate. That I’m guessing is genuinely illegal.”

“What does that have to do with our money?” Nat asks softly.

“A lot of the money has gone missing...some of it into non-business or offshore accounts, some of it’s just...Gone? Unaccounted for? Real shady. He doesn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket so he leaves different names on all the accounts. The portfolio that the studio rent has been feeding into is still under your names. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, but the account number is his.” He sifts through the documents until he finds the right sheet.

“Ok, but it’s his company. Doesn’t he ultimately decide where the funds go, even if it’s shady?” Steve murmurs, scanning the page.

“Yes, and no,” Bucky replies, leaning forward now and unfolding himself from the chair. “It is his company, but it was founded and backed by a group of investors, and those investors still make a percentage off our gross annual profits. By deferring so much money into offshore accounts and “unclaimed” investments, he’s robbing those investors of a lot of money. Which is both illegal, and hopefully, useful. If we can get those investors to back our case…” He pauses, realizing this is where his knowledge dead ends.

The whole room remains silent, until Tony starts an obnoxious slow clap and Bucky rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, so can you work with that? Get them the studio back?”

“Of course,” Tony says. “I could win this with half the supporting documents. But…” He looks uncomfortable. “May I be honest here?” Bucky nods once. Only here.

“This is a big case. Huge. And in order to win it hands down and get your friends the money you think they deserve, you’ll probably have to testify. And then there will be some prying in the name of witness credibility…”

“My record is awful.”

“Yeah,” Tony affirms. “I managed to get a hold of your file -”

“How the fuck?”

“Entirely illegally, let’s not talk about it. The point is, there’s plenty of ammunition here for the defense, and statute of limitations only rules out a handful of your indiscretions. If anyone presses charges…” His voice gets soft, and for the first time in the conversation, he looks genuinely serious. Concerned. “They could put you away for a long time.”

Silence. Weight. Steve’s hand tightens on his neck.

Finally Bucky says, “I know.”

“You know?” Steve and Tony murmur in surprised chorus.

Natasha’s unfazed. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

He decided weeks ago, hell, maybe even months. He’s tired of being ashamed. He’s tired of feeling guilty. He wants to try his hand at being a decent man, and until this shit is behind him, it’ll never happen.

“I’m in. File the charges.”

“This could take months. Are you -”

“Tony,” Bucky bites out. “Listen. I started working for this guy when I was an idiot kid trying to keep my sister fed, and I did some fucking terrible shit for him. If a jury wants to convict me, let ‘em. I need to see this through.”

The last sentence is what seems to convince the lawyer, and he nods, sparkle returning to his eyes. “Good man,” he says, then gestures to the papers. “Can I take these with me?”

Bucky slumps back into the chair, suddenly weary despite the coffee. “Be my guest. Fair warning though, Pierce tried to blow them up, so be careful.”

“Ah! That’s the other thing!” Tony shouts and Bucky winces. The guy is a lot. “I assigned you a protective detail. Until this blows over.” He pauses. “Get it? Blows?”

“Oh my god,” Natasha groans and Steve says, “Thank you.” Bucky thinks he sounds a little begrudging, but it’s good enough. They see Tony out and he shakes all their hands, Bucky’s the last and longest as he says, “Thanks for doing so much of my job for me,” and then winks. Nat watches with raised eyebrows and excuses herself in the time it takes Steve to yank open the door and say, “Goodbye, Mr. Stark.”

“That was a little brusque, don’t you think?” Bucky laughs, turning back to Steve, Steve who is standing in the foyer with his hands clenched to his sides, eyes flashing, red dusting the tops of his cheeks. “Steve?”

“Buck-” he says, choked, and closes the space between them with hurried steps, reaching out and cupping Bucky’s face between his palms. His eyes are wide, astonished and angry and affectionate and - Oh.

There’s not an instant of hesitation, the second Steve’s mouth is on his, he’s kissing back fervently, grabbing Steve’s hips to pull their bodies flush. They kiss like they do everything else, one part fight, one part hopeless affection.

Steve holds him tightly, moving from rough but sweet to unequivocally commanding in the space of a minute and Bucky loves every second of it. He leans into Steve’s unyielding form, pressing them together.

“Oh fuck,” he murmurs, slumping against the wall, overwhelmed as he slides one hand up Steve’s abs.

“Oh fuck,” Steve agrees, staring down at him with pupils blown.

There is a moment of stillness, where they observe the other, cautiously hopeful and basking in the feeling of mutual understanding. Finally. Bucky’s not sure what his face looks like, but Steve is smiling hugely, corners of his eyes crinkled, and he reaches forward again to brush a thumb across Bucky’s bottom lip.

“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful Buck.”

It tears a gasp out of him, a visceral reaction to a sweet and simple compliment, but it means the world, coming from Steve - Steve who measures his world in form and color and art. He has a million replies but of course they get stuck behind his collarbone so instead he grins and tugs at Steve’s shirt, pulling it up and over his head.

“Subtle,” Steve teases, arching an eyebrow.

“I want to touch you,” he says, dropping the shirt and pulling Steve in. “I want my hands on every inch of you, I want your cock in my mouth, I wanna make you come harder than you ever have before. How’s that for subtle?”

Steve’s mouth falls open, and then he grabs Bucky by the wrist and pulls him back through the apartment, into his bedroom.

They don’t make it to the bed, not at all, they’re barely through the door and Steve is kissing him again, holding his head still with fingers wound in Bucky’s hair and tugging tight, and Bucky’s suddenly grateful for putting off a haircut; a million little pins and pressure points spreading the feeling across his body. It’s fantastic, but they’re still vertical and there’s no way for Bucky to find those hidden, secret spaces: behind Steve’s knees, below his asscheek, at the nape of his neck. Steve starts to tug Bucky’s shirt off, but Bucky stops him. He’s got an idea.

“Wait.”

“What?” Steve immediately stops. “Is this not ok?”

“What? No, yes, oh my god, this is amazing, shit. Sorry. I meant...I wanna try something.”

“Ok…” The smile returns to the corners of Steve’s mouth. “What?”

“Go sit on the bed.”

Steve goes without a fight, for once.

“I wasn’t kidding about wanting to touch you.”

“Back at ya.”

“Good, I’m glad, but you’re very distracting. I want three minutes to explore that body, take you apart, with your hands above your head. No touching me. I want to be able focus.”

“What’s in it for me?” Steve snarks, biting his lip to dampen what Bucky suspects is a totally uncool and incredibly adorable giggle.

Bucky grins. “I’m gonna strip for you.”

“What?” Steve’s voice comes back faint and awed, but Bucky doesn’t reply, just crosses his hands at the hem of his shirt and circles around, back to the bed.

Slowly, achingly slowly he tugs the shirt up, making sure the fabric drags against the skin of his back, rolling his shoulders as he gets to the top. He turns back to Steve, running a hand through his hair, and is beyond pleased with the result. The blond is lounging back on his hands, and his smile is predatory, the very image of carnal enjoyment, but Bucky can see Steve’s pulse where it jumps rapid on his neck, and the way he’s fisting the blankets. Restraining himself.

It makes Bucky bold and he walks over, straddling one of Steve’s legs and leaning over, undoing the button and zipper of his own jeans. Stopping an inch from Steve’s mouth, he murmurs, “Like what you see?”

Steve nods, open mouthed and sly, but affected, Bucky can tell by how wide his pupils are blown leaving barely any blue left.

Grinning, Bucky backs up, and rolls his hips as he eases the denim down a little. He doesn’t finish the job though, just lets the jeans hang loose while he continues to sway, undulating as he runs his palms over his own chest, then turns back around. He keeps dancing, small and sinuous, and in one smooth motion pulls the pants down over his ass, down his thighs, then kicks them to the side.

It’s clear he’s hard, has been since Steve pinned him against the wall, but it’s even more evident in boxers, and Steve’s eyes light up and devour him as Bucky returns to stand between his knees.

“You know what you’re doing,” he says, approvingly

“Obviously. And how are you doing?” Bucky asks teasing but also genuinely wanting to check in. This is...a lot. For both of them.

“Fine,” Steve responds, fists tightening.

“Really? Cause your hands are saying otherwise,” and he looks pointedly down to where the fabric is clenched between fingers. Steve immediately releases the quilt and sits up, almost flush to Bucky’s chest, and there’s no denying it, the muscles of his chest are rising and falling much more quickly.

“I’m fine,” Steve insists, smiling and playing it cool, but as he lets his eyes sweep Bucky’s body, a little sound escapes his throat, a whimper. Triumphant, Bucky tucks thumbs under the waistband of his boxers and pulls down just a little, exposing one hip.

Steve pants, “Buck,” and the sound of that beautiful voice, fucking wrecked, breaks him. He yanks the boxers off and his cock springs free, and he doesn’t really have time to think about anything else because Steve growls and grabs him, throwing him down to the bed.

Bucky laughs, it’s fucking perfect, but is silenced with a kiss that’s more like getting tongue-fucked than anything, which is even better. Steve brackets him between strong arms and allows his weight to sink down, pinning Bucky to the bed. They’re both increasingly desperate, but it’s easy, obvious how they fit together, and he reflects on their stupid asses and how close they came to missing out on this.

Steve’s hips starting to rock against his own is real fucking distracting from that thought process though, and Buck pushes back a little, gripping around the taller man’s biceps to use as leverage. The muscle shifts under his fingers and he groans.

It’s great just-sex until Bucky opens his eyes. Steve’s hair is a mess, and his forehead is creased with such heart-wrenching need and vulnerability that Bucky grabs his face to pull him back and check on him, to trace his lips, his eyebrows, his nose, with tentative fingertips, before smoothing a too-gentle hand across Steve’s cheek, who gives a shuddering breath and turns into Bucky’s palm, letting his eyes slide closed again.

“Stevie?”

“M’fine,” he mutters gruffly.

Calmly, Bucky murmurs, “I’m not.” Steve blinks and starts to pull back but Bucky keeps him there, running his hands up Steve’s arms, down his back, around his ribs. “You’re so fuckin’ gorgeous and I’ve wanted you for so damn long and now we’re here and I can barely…” He has to pause and get a hold of himself. “I can barely breathe.” He runs a hand through Steve’s hair, silk against his callouses, the tugs him back down.

“You’re incredible,” Steve murmurs against his lips and Bucky chuckles.

“I don’t know about that.”

Steve sits back, heavy lidded, and rolls his hips emphatically. Whimpering, Buck jerks upward at the sensation.

“Then I’ll just have to convince you,” he says, sliding down, leaving a trail of wet kisses and blooming red marks down Bucky’s chest and stomach.

“Hey now, I was promised three minutes,” Buck chastises, catching him at his shoulders, immediately distracted by the feel of Steve’s incredible shoulders.

Cheeky and teasing, Steve mutters, “You didn’t say when. And besides,” he whispers, breath ghosting over Bucky’s cock. “Do you really want me to stop?”

It’s good he doesn’t give Bucky a chance to respond, they’re both so goddamn argumentative that it might’ve started something, but Steve just slides his mouth torturously slowly down Bucky’s cock. Watching this is better than porn, better than fantasies, Bucky’s ruined for everyone else forever, and his eyes get larger and larger the further Steve sinks, until his nose brushes Bucky’s stomach and he lets out a sharp cry. “Fuck! Steve!”

The blond is fucking grinning around his cock, sassy motherfucker, but Bucky can’t bring himself to be upset. Steve bobs up and down, pulling long scratches down Buck’s thighs, leaving behind pink lines that will (hopefully) last ‘til tomorrow. The sting in contrast with the velvet heat of his mouth is sending Bucky dangerously close to orgasm and he tries to back away from that edge, but Steve does something goddamn magical with his tongue and instead Bucky ends up twitching up, chasing the feeling.

Immediately he withdraws. It’s kind of bad manners to choke a guy with your cock without ask first, but then he realizes, Steve’s not choking at all. In fact, he’s blinking up, eyes blazing with lust, and when Bucky experimentally fucks up again, Steve groans, almost a growl and it’s too much.

It’s not too much.

Too much is when Steve slides his hands roughly under Bucky’s ass and presses him up, essentially facefucking himself on Buck’s cock. That’s too much, more than enough, fucking miraculous and Bucky comes so hard he’s actually grateful for the charlie horse in his thigh that pulls him back to his senses or he might’ve just come until he died.

“God fucking damnit, Rogers,” he pants, and Steve slides off gently as Bucky yanks him back up for a kiss. He looks mouthwatering, but he’s also Buck’s best friend, with the beautiful striated muscles and crinkly blue eyes and gold in his hair and so fucking kind. “You’re…” He’s lost for words. “You’re so -” Steve throws his head back and laughs, flushed red and still hard against Bucky’s hip. “Fuckin-” I love you. Oh shit, oh god, I love you - Abandon ship! “You owe me three minutes.”

That wicked grin returns as Steve nuzzles into his neck, kisses him once more, then flops down on the bed. He crosses his hands above his head obediently, then flips Bucky the bird with of them. “And that’s all you’ll get without any distractions, so make that shit count.”

“Bet on it,” Bucky sasses back.

“You got a timer?”

Incredulous Bucky yelps, “You’re actually gonna time it?”

Steve shrugs. “You made the rules.” He’s laughing, Bucky can tell, but he’s doing an ok job of hiding it.

“Fuckin’ fine, ya punk.” He swings off the bed and grabs his phone from the denim pile that is his jeans. He sets the alarm while standing next to the bed and places the device in one of Steve’s crossed hands. “There. You’ll have to hit start but now you’ll know. Goddamn tightass.”

He’s expecting a shitty reply but instead Steve’s just staring at him, mirth fading into awe as he sweeps Bucky’s body with his eyes.

“What?” It’s incredible and humbling and terrifying. That artwork in a museum thing again.

Steve lets the phone fall the pillow he’s propped up on and extends one hand to run the backs of his knuckles down Bucky’s abs, tracing his hip, sliding up and around to tug him closer. “You’re so beautiful Buck. That night you taught me to dance I thought I was gonna die, no way...I mean, someone as gorgeous as you...and then you danced and I...was lost. In a good way.”

In an uncharacteristic moment of seriousness, Bucky hops up into Steve’s lap and kisses him sweetly. “It’s funny you say that. I’m pretty sure I was lost until you danced with me.”

They both graciously ignore the shimmer in Steve’s eye, and Bucky lets the mood slide back into something easier to survive. “Now. Three minutes. Go.”

Steve presses start, and Bucky gets to work. No time for Steve’s back, that’ll have to wait. On the other hand it’s probably better, there’s already so much to get his hands on that it’s a bit overwhelming. And mouth, but he’s always been good at multitasking.

Leaning down, he twists his fingers into Steve’s hair, pulling his head to the side and whispering the command, “Give me my minutes.” Steve nods and shivers. Satisfied, Buck bites his neck lightly, then a little harder into the meat of his shoulder. Steve breathes a curse, and that’s the most satisfying sound on earth, Bucky decides.

Pinning him in place with a hand on his collarbone Bucky works his way down, laving at nipples (Which makes Steve gasp), sinking his teeth into Steve’s hipbone (that one’s a keeper), roughing up his whole torso, then delicately running his tongue and cool breath back over the abused skin. It makes Steve’s whole body quiver, some parts more than others, and in the really great spots Bucky earns repeated whimpers, little tiny cries that ignite a weird combination of caretaker and Dom in Bucky (though he almost never tops), and it’s a complicated, if glorious feeling.

Velvet against his tongue, groans from above, and the feel of Steve’s body under his own almost distracts him, but he remembers: “Time?”

“One down.”

“Perfect.” He slithers down further and uses Steve’s ankles to push his knees up. Bites at the inside of his thighs and scratches the outside, taking a page from Steve (which they both seem to enjoy) before working his way down, down…

“Fuck! Bucky.” Hips jerk up as Buck sucks Steve’s balls into his mouth and slides one spit-slick finger over his hole.

“Time, Stevie.”

“Minute fifty.”

Steve’s cock is angry red and leaking against his stomach but Bucky ignores it for now, working over all the sensitive spots beneath it until Steve’s trembling and sweaty and says, “Two minutes you teasing fuckin’ asshole.”

“Hey,” Bucky protests. He’s trying for lighthearted and silly but his voice just sounds epically fucked out and they both groan a little. “Patience is a virtue.” He licks up Steve’s shaft and finally sucks his cock between wet lips and Steve shouts.

Bucky doesn’t have the apparent lack of gag reflex Steve is blessed with, but he lets Steve’s cock get nice and wet, sinking down as far as he can go, and slicks his hand over the rest. Twisting his tongue over the head, he blinks up at Steve and puts together the fact that Steve’s been staring at him the whole fucking time, heavy lidded and gasping, and he remembers what Nat had said. For Steve, it’s all about the view.”

So naturally, he winks.

Steve groans and sinks his head back in the pillow to check the time. “Thirty seconds left...dunno if I’m even gonna make it…”

“Come when you want to Stevie. I wanna feel you, remember?” He keeps his hand moving as he speaks, but gets back to it as soon as possible. He’s never going to get tired of the weight of Steve’s thick cock on his tongue.

“I know, baby,” Steve whispers, and the endearment pulls them both into a different headspace, almost a swap, where Bucky is more urgent, desperate to make Steve come, and Steve sinks into worship.

Bucky can feel him tensing. Blinking up at the beautiful man, he’s blindsided by how physically gorgeous Steve is, deep breaths shifting sweat-sheened muscles, and that fucking brilliant and generous soul beneath. The timer goes off, and he stiffens. Buck wonders what he’ll do with his newly freed hands. If their positions were switched, Buck would probably grip his partner’s head down on his cock and hold it there as he came, but they’re opposites, balanced, it’s why they work.

Steve reaches down. Sweetly, gently brushes a curl of hair from Bucky’s face, then with careful fingers, cups his cheek, stroking one thumb over the corner of Buck’s lips were they’re stretched over his cock, tracing, a caress, worshipful, how he’d paint, how he loves.

With a broken groan, he spills down Bucky’s throat, tensing every muscle in his body but that hand.

--

Bucky wakes to his phone going off. Again. It’s Becca’s number. He and Steve spent the day snacking and napping and seeing how many times they could make each other come. A perfect day.

With a chuckle, he picks up, wondering if maybe she’s calling with a faux-irritated, genuinely grossed out, but ultimately thrilled noise complaint.

“Hey Beck.”

“Buck.”

He jerks up, clutching the sheet around his waist. Steve rubs a palm over his back. “Who is it?” he grunts.

“Buck there’s someone outside.”

“Outside?” He’s already out of bed.

“On the fire escape. I’m in the bathroom, Nat made me go but...Buck, he’s got a gun.”

Chapter Text

Steve and Bucky stand just inside the apartment door, loading the handguns.

They’ve been mostly silent, listening for any sound of movement or break in. Bucky’s fairly certain he’s having the world’s longest heart attack, and the only thing staving off a mental breakdown is the knowledge that Becca needs him.

Ready, Bucky puts his hand on the doorknob, but Steve stops him. “Don’t fuckin’ get yourself shot.” Buck hears it for what it is. "I can’t lose you now.”

“I won’t if you don’t.”

“Deal.”

They open the door.

There’s a guy all in black standing outside Natasha’s door, peering through what looks to be a hole drilled into the door next to the peephole. Bucky creeps silently behind and cracks him one good one to the temple, catching him as he crumples to muffle the sound.

“I think we’ll have to have a conversation about how certain personal skills were acquired,” Steve whispers as he unlocks Nat’s door without a sound, and Bucky appreciates the effort at levity, though it’s completely ineffective.

They share a nod, and swing the door open, weapons raised.

Natasha is standing tall in the middle of the room looking almost bored, which is amazing considering there’s a giant with a .9 mm trained on her.

“Hello boys,” she says calmly.

“Shut up, lady,” the man spits, and Bucky knows that voice.

“Cartwright?”

The guy is dressed in black and Kevlar, fucking towering. He feels Steve’s body next to him, taught. Ready.

“Sorry Barnes,” his ex-coworker says. “You fucked Pierce over real good. He’s probably gonna have to skip town, and all cause your dumbass suddenly got honest.” He shakes his head. “Not a great move.”

“Fuck you,” Bucky spits. “You gonna kill me, Cartwright? That why he sent you?”

The guy chuckles. “Nah, he knew that wouldn’t bother you much.” Bucky hears Steve’s harsh exhale. “That pretty little sister of yours though,” he says, drawing out the words strangely and Bucky doesn’t understand until he sees Becca crouched behind the corner of the hallway, still visible in the mirror over the mantle. Cartwright jerks his hand in her direction, and three shots ring out.

There’s a moment of crystallized silence where they’re all frozen and a slide show of moments run through Bucky’s head. Every time Becca’d ever been in real danger, the only time he worried his heart had stopped: when she fell at soccer practice and passed out. When she had walking pneumonia. When she cut her finger and bled all over their countertop. He sees it all, but then he’s watching Cartwright drop the gun and fall to his knees, grasping his arm. Bucky’s bullet pierced the gunman’s wrist, Steve’s his thigh, and Natasha jumps forward, kicking the firearm out of reach while she dials her cell. Bucky vaguely hears her talking to a cop, but he’s already sprinting around the corner to yank Becca up into his arms.

“What were you thinking?” he yells into her hair. “You could’ve been killed.”

Soothingly she murmurs, “I’m fine, Buck. Really.”

His heart is still racing. It’s not enough. This was too close. “The fuck did you come outta the bathroom for?”

He feels her smile against his shoulder as she pulls back a little, holding up her phone. “Video. Dicks like that just love to monologue.”

“Tony’ll appreciate that,” Nat calls from the other room. “I’m calling him right now, I’ll let him know.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Bucky whispers shakily, hugging his sister to him again. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt.”

“I didn’t get hurt. No one got hurt. Except for that asshole, and he had it coming.”

“You could’ve though,” he continues, spiraling dangerously into his own mind.

“James Buchanan Barnes, you listen to me.” His ma’s voice through his baby sister’s lips. “You have tried to do the right thing every fucking step of the way. Did it always work out? Of course not. Life never does. But you are a good man and a good brother, and you’re gonna be a great boyfriend if you and Steve ever get your damn act together.” Her voice and eyes soften as she continues. “You’ve looked out for me our whole lives. Let me return the favor.”

The only sound is Cartwright’s whining. And Bucky’s heart beating out of his chest.

“Ok.” He doesn’t mean it, but he knows she’s right.

She slaps his arm. “Ok.”

Steve’s still got his weapon trained on Cartwright, and doesn’t move until the police arrive, jaw set, forehead tight.

--

It’s not fair really. If it had been just Becca, or Nat, or Steve trying to get him to chill the fuck out and release himself of any culpability related to the incident, he’d have gotten his way, wandering into self-loathing. He’s stubborn like that.

But he’s no match for a red-head with a genius level IQ, a sister with the tone of his mother and the quickest of wits, and Steve who...well, Steve holds all kinds of power over him, whether he likes it or not. The four of them spend hours on the couch in Nat’s apartment in a tangle of blankets and limbs until they all remember how to breathe again, soothing each other in the way families should.

In the wee hours of the morning, after the police have taken everyone’s statements and checked gun licenses, after Becca assured Bucky a hundred times and then literally slapped him and told him to go the fuck to bed, they get back to Steve’s apartment and he finds he wants to do anything but. He can’t hold still right now, can’t be inside his own head.

“Where’d you learn to use a gun?” he asks an a desperate attempt to distract himself, following Steve into the kitchen. Dawn is creeping into the sky.

“When I was a kid. Ma ‘n’ I were both so damn sick all the time, I wanted to make sure I could protect her if I needed to. Asked a friend from school who’s dad had a place up north, went out there a bunch of times, got good enough to earn my license, bought a gun a month later.” Under Steve’s shirt, his muscles roll as he pulls a loaf of bread from the fridge, and Bucky can’t help but stare. “You?”

“Work,” he says shortly, and it’s enough.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah, I can make it.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Need something to do with myself,” he grits through clenched teeth, trying desperately not to start another fight, and Steve hears. He’s getting better at that. Or maybe he always has been, and couldn’t understand why Bucky’s actions so badly contradicted his truths. Regardless, he says, “Alright. Could you do the dishes too?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, grateful.

The warm water is soothing, calms him down a little, but it’s nothing compared to when Steve goes to the cupboard for sugar and on his way back to the counter wraps his arms around Bucky and presses a kiss to the nape of his neck. Immediately, Bucky slumps against Steve’s shoulder, and Steve nuzzles under his jaw, breathing him in, arms tightening around his waist. Protective.

“Thanks for coming with me today,” Buck whispers.

“Thanks for not getting shot.”

“Ha.”

“I’m so fucking serious Bucky.”

“I know,” he concedes gently and turns in Steve’s embrace to kiss him until the oven beeps the alert that it’s preheated, and then just a moment longer. “What’re you makin’?”

“Cinnamon toast,” Steve says shyly as he breaks away to set the sugar down. “My - uh - my ma used to make it for me when I was feeling shitty.”

Bucky grins into the sudsy water and tries not to blush. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t work. “And now you’re makin’ it for me.”

“Yep.”

“‘Cause you like me.” He says it teasingly, like they’re in middle school instead of grown, dangerous men. Giving an out if Steve wants it.

But Steve just grins. “Yeah. Somethin’ like that.”

“Cool.” Bucky’s having a really great conversation with Steve’s kitchen sink, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind the lack of eye contact. He’s busy spreading butter in a thick layer over slices of bread laid out on a cookie sheet, then tapping out sugar and cinnamon from a spoon to cascade over the toast. And smiling to himself.

To fill space more than anything else, Bucky says,“I gotta get another job.”

“I’m sure Nat would love to have you.”

“Is she looking for another instructor?”

“Oh,” Steve says, like he’s just remembering they haven’t been talking for a while. “Yeah, she’s been lookin’ for somebody, and when you came along and helped out it lightened the load a bit, but we’ve got the money to pay you, so if you want it, it’s yours.”

“Wouldn’t there be some conflict of interest there?” He’s trying not to get his hopes up, but it’s not really working.

Sliding the bread into the oven Steve says, “No more than there already is, Buck. Nat and I have been friends since college, and we work together just fine.”

“But you’re not fucking.” Only as the words leave his mouth does he realize they’re tinged with jealousy. “Anymore?”

“Ever,” Steve corrects, eyes twinkling. “Would it be a problem if we had?”

“No.” He sounds defensive, even to himself, and he realizes the mug he’s been scrubbing furiously is most definitely clean. Rinsing the ceramic, he sets it in the drying rack and looks up in time to see Steve stalking over to him.

“Are you jealous, Barnes?”

“No.” He has to lean back into the counter as Steve invades his space.

“You sure about that?”

“Sure. Why would I be?”

Steve considers for a moment, and though he’s got a wicked look about him, there’s sincerity hovering in the background, about what, Bucky’s not sure. “The thought of someone else touching me. Getting their hands, their mouth on me, making me come -”

Bucky growls and shoves him back but only so he can box Steve in against the kitchen table and kiss him so hard that when he pulls back they’re both panting. “No.”

“No, you’re not jealous?” Steve clarifies with a shit-eating grin.

“No, no one’s getting their hands on you. No one else is gonna touch you, no one else is gonna make you come. You ruined me for anyone else. The least I can do is return the favor.”

Steve makes a broken noise deep in his throat. “Buck, you’ve had me. Since that first fucking day you’ve had me, been yours, fuck -”

He breaks off as Bucky unzips both their jeans in record time and pulls Steve’s cock out, stroking a little roughly, but Steve’s eyes roll back into his head, and somehow Buck manages to think through the haze long enough to shove his own pants down, then spits into his palm and slicks it over them both.

Steve thrusts into his fist, adds his own hand over Bucky’s, increasing the pressure, and crushes their mouths together. They move in tandem, arched backs and stuttering breaths, quick and artless, coming minutes later and within seconds of each other.

After Steve’s cleaned them off with a napkin and Bucky’s collapsed into his chest, hiding a grin, he says, “Ok. Maybe not jealous, but...possessive. A little,” he adds quickly, not fooling Steve in the slightest.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve teases, then pauses to tilt Bucky’s chin up. “I like it, Buck. Knowing you want me.”

“Was that ever a question?”

Steve shrugs, passive in a way that answers for him.

“I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t want you.”

“You’d be surprised. I was awfully scrawny when I was younger. And maybe a bit...guarded, for a while. Might’a...driven people away.”

“Gee, ya think?” Bucky snarks, then leans back a little, keeping his arms twined firmly around Steve. He’s not used to this, but Steve still looks uncertain, nervous. “I want you, Stevie. You’re amazing. Changed my life.” Pausing, he fights to keep eye contact, even as the heat in his face gives away the struggle he’s having with the conversation. “And I’m pretty sure I’d have loved you all skinny and sick and shitty at 18, same as I do now.”

Steve’s jaw drops and Bucky worries it’s too much too soon, but then a slow smile starts, easing its way across Steve’s face like a sunrise, light and youth. He doesn’t reply, but he kisses Bucky and in the wake of his orgasm in sends shivers across his skin.

The timer goes off. Steve pulls the cookie sheet from the oven and pours them both a mug of milk.

They fall asleep on the couch wrapped in each other’s arms, and eat the toast for lunch the next day.

--

Tony assigns twice the guards, the police interview both of Pierce’s men, and Pierce himself is placed on house arrest without possibility of bail until the arraignment, and it’s a weight off Bucky’s shoulders to not have to worry quite so much about the people he loves.

Best case scenario. Even Buck finds it hard to be too down about the way things turned out.

Within a few days, he’s working with Natasha in the studio. For now he’s assisting and not teaching any classes, and most of the time he feels completely useless, though Nat assures him his presence is incredibly beneficial to both her and the kids.

Speaking of which…

There’s this girl in one of the intermediate classes that Bucky’s worried about. She’s younger than the other dancers, only by a year or two, but it makes a difference in their willingness to spend time with her. She’s quite good, obviously, to have made it this far at such a young age, probably no more than twelve, but it only serves to ostracize her further.

She’s still performing with incredible skill, but Bucky’s seen a change in her the past few weeks, starting even before his fight with Steve: she’s quieter, and her once exuberant gestures now seem almost inverted, like she’s trying to make herself smaller. He’s been filing it away as a wait-and-see issue in his brain, but during class she’d looked miserable, honestly sad instead of the joy and energy that usually fills her little body and face, and he’s had enough of waiting.

“Kiana?”

She sounds weary as she sighs out, “Yeah Mr. Barnes?”

“You got a sec?”

“Uh, sure.”

They step to the side of the studio as the rest of the students congregate around their stuff at the end of class, pulling shorts back over leotards, changing socks and shoes.

“Are you ok? You seem...down.”

“I’m fine,” she answers too quickly.

“Kiana.” He hopes the deadpan doesn’t come across as condescending. They both face out into the room, shoulder to shoulder and watch the other dancers absently ‘til she finally murmurs, so small he almost misses it, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.” He leans against the wall and folds his arms. Not going anywhere. When she doesn’t answer he tries, “Why wouldn’t I understand?”

She’s blushing, but says, “Because you’re handsome.”

“Which impairs my mental acuity … how again?”

A few of the dancers file out, and one of them sneers, “See ya next time, Storm.”

“Storm?” Bucky mutters.

“Thunder thighs,” she fills in miserably, and all of a sudden it makes sense.

He turns to her and says earnestly and concerned, “Kiki are people messing with you because of the way you look?”

She throws her hands in the air. Defeat. “Because I’m fat. Because I’m black. Because I’m younger then all of them. Take your pick.”

“Kiana…” he breathes.

“It’s fine. I don’t care.”

There’s a surprised silence. “Then you’re stronger than I was,” Bucky responds finally, and leans back against the wall.

She’s got her arms folded grumpily, fuming for a minute before she concedes to curiosity. “What?”

“I cared. When I was your age. When people would make fun of me for the way I looked.”

“Were you fat?”

“No, and not black either, I’m afraid,” he jokes gently. “I was...gangly. All knees and knuckles and my face took some growing into. Being a dancer didn’t make me too many friends in public school. And people didn’t know what to do about a skinny, silent little queer kid with bruises all over.”

“From dancing?” she asks quietly.

“And my father.”

“He hurt you?”

He’s pretty sure you’re supposed to sugarcoat stuff like this for kids, but he can’t bring himself to do that to her, not when she’s living that pain, so he answers honestly. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I looked like my ma, and she died and he missed her. I was mouthy. He was a drunk. But he was a sad man. Lonely, I think. So maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Maybe that’s just life.”

“It still sucks.”

He nods. “It does.”

“What did you do? To make it...better?”

It didn’t get better. Not really, not for a long time, but he wants more for her than what he gave himself, so he says, “I wish I would’ve talked to someone about it. I danced, and that always helps. I made a plan, and I did my best to ignore anyone who got in my way. Do you have a plan?”

She nods emphatically, but doesn’t share. Doesn’t need to, because a small smile is creeping across her face, something that looks promisingly like hope.

“Kiana?”

The deep voice echoes from the doorway, a dark skinned, handsome man dressed in what Bucky recognizes to be an incredibly expensive suit. He realizes most of the kids are gone, and that class ended almost ten minutes ago.

“Hey Papa.” Kiana crashes into his arms before hurrying back across the floor to retrieve her things. While she’s getting herself collected Bucky says, “Sorry I kept her so long. Didn’t even realize what time it was.”

“That’s alright. I was kind of hoping to get here earlier honestly, wanted to watch a little bit of class. Unfortunately my job doesn’t allow for much wiggle room.” He sounds exhausted.

“I know how that goes. My little sister’s an artist and it took me a whole freakin’ semester to take off an hour from my old job to watch her studio class. You’re always welcome to come in though, and there’s free dance on Thursday and Friday at five if that’s easier to make.”

“Thanks,” the guy says, dark face breaking into a smile that almost manages to erase the tiredness around his eyes. “I appreciate it. Are you Mr. Barnes?”

“Oh Jesus, yeah, sorry,” Bucky laughs, offering his hand. “Call me Bucky.”

“No, no it’s fine. David.”

“Pleasure.”

“Kiana talks about you all the time. Thanks for everything. It’s meant a lot to her.”

Bucky blinks, surprised. He hasn’t really done anything other than check in with her every once in a while, more casual versions of the conversation they had today. “I’m glad. She’s very talented.”

“She is,” David replies, mouth tight. “Like her mother was.”

Oh.

There’s no precedent, no experience he can draw from, so he just offers what he can. “My ma was a dancer, too. Died when I was just a little older than Kiana. She loved it, loved seeing the joy it brought me. Guessin’ she still does.” Into the room he says softly. “Kiana’s ma too.”

“Ready to go, Dad?”

“Yeah, sweetie.” Blinking hard he shakes Bucky’s hand again, more forcefully this time. “Thank you. Again. You really...she’s lucky to have you as a teacher.”

He’s uncomfortable, but it’s ok. It’s a genuine feeling. “Have a good afternoon.” He turns away, ready to finish tidying the studio when a tiny vice clamps around his waist: Kiana, hugging the crap out of him and he hugs back.

“You’re an incredible dancer, Kiki. Forget anyone who tells you anything else.”

“Thanks Mr. Barnes,” she chirps, then scampers after her dad.

He cleans up, feeling buoyant, larger than life. These exchanges are completely unfamiliar, and if this weren’t a safe space for him he doubts he’d be able to give so much of himself, but it is, and he feels bigger, better, more in a way that’s new to him.

Zipping his bag, he heads to the foyer to wait for Steve, but hears voices, the receptionist Darcy and someone else, agitated maybe, or impassioned, and he pauses behind the corner of the wall.

“They can’t close!”

“Who said anything about closing?” Darcy asks demurely and Bucky freezes.

“I saw in the paper that Alexander Pierce is under house arrest, assets frozen...Doesn’t he own this place?”

“He owns the land,” Darcy says calmly. She’s the fuckin’ best, diffusing the situation without breaking a sweat. “But I can’t imagine Mr. Rogers or Ms. Romanoff would allow that to happen.”

A new voice says, “Hell, I won’t allow it to happen. This place is a goddamn community landmark.”

Another parent cries, “I know! My daughter got into college on a dance scholarship because of this studio.”

“My son has depression. Two weeks into Mr. Roger’s class he started talking to me again, showing me his artwork…”

“My daughter too! Not depression, just...being a teenager, but we were both miserable and then suddenly... He’s just so good with them.”

“Yeah, excited, encouraging, I love sitting in on his classes."

Bucky squints, trying to get rid of the wetness in his eyes. He’s not sure what’s so moving, pride in Steve, or empathy for those kids…

“And Mr. Barnes is something else.”

“Great addition. The kids really like him, too. Trust him.”

“Plus he’s hot as hell.”

“Hey now,” Darcy interrupts, but Bucky can hear the smile in her voice. Bright red, he backs down the hall to find Steve.

--

“Are you making dinner? Smells delicious.” Steve nuzzles behind Bucky’s ear, wrapping his arms around the brunette where he stands at the stove.

“Yes. And contrary to popular opinion, I can actually cook.” It’s hard to remain snippy with a Steve Rogers attached to your back and he grins over his shoulder to give Steve a kiss. “How was your day?”

“Good. Long. Took the kids to look at some street art.”

“They like it?”

“Loved it. Wouldn’t shut up about it,” he chuckles. “How was yours?”

“Alright,” he contemplates, stirring the sauce. “There’s this kid...Kiana?”

“I know her, yeah.”

“The other kids are being assholes and it’s getting to her. We talked today. I dunno if it helped, but at least now I can keep an eye out for her.”

Steve huffs and lets go, fetching a beer from the fridge. “Kids can be dicks.”

“Yeah,” Buck murmurs into the broccoli sautéing on the stove. Steve looks lost in thought where he’s perched at the edge of the kitchen table, brow furrowed, and Bucky stirs everything before going to stand between his splayed knees.

Lifting Steve’s chin with a finger he murmurs, “Hey. You ok?”

Steve nods. “Fine.”

Bucky just raises an eyebrow, calling bullshit, and Steve caves. “Got the shit beat outta me a lot as a kid. Kills me to think that other people are going through the same crap.” He looks up, blue eyes clear and pleading. “What’d you tell her?”

He shrugs and glances out the sliding glass door. “Told her she’s a great dancer. Told her that shit is hard sometimes, but you gotta make a goal and forget anything that doesn’t help you get there.”

“Good advice,” he says, and though there’s anguish behind it, his smile is genuine.

“Yeah. Wish that was what I’d done,” Bucky teases dryly. He kisses Steve’s forehead and returns to the stove. “Heard some parents talking today, ‘bout how much they appreciate the work you guys do.”

“We.”

“Huh?”

“We do.” Steve’s voice is much closer now. “You do just as much for those kids as me and Nat.”

Buck shrugs. “I’m workin’ on it.” He huffs and diffuses the seriousness in Steve’s voice by saying, “One of the mom’s said I’m hot.”

Steve barks a laugh and comfirms, “Distractingly so.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He’s behind Bucky again, hands resting lightly on Buck’s hips. “I love having you around, but sometimes I catch a glimpse of you and I’m just…” He sounds a little embarrassed, admitting, “I feel like a horny teenager.”

Most of the food is done so Bucky turns off the burners and takes Steve by the hand, pulling him into the living room and shoving him down on the couch, to climb into his lap, grinning wickedly.

They haven’t fucked yet. They haven’t even talked about fucking. Even that first day when Bucky came so many times he physically hurt, they came on each other’s mouths and fingers, but never fucked, and to be honest, he’s a little relieved.

Not that he doesn’t want to have sex with Steve. He does, more than almost anything else in the world, but the thought of something so intimate legitimately terrifies him. He trusts Steve implicitly, but it’s been a long time since he’s let someone fuck him, and even longer since he let it mean something, and now he’s in love and he’s not certain he won’t just break apart if he let that happen.

But they haven’t, and Steve hasn’t pushed, because he’s wonderful like that. And wonderful with the red flush working it’s way down his neck, and wonderful with his eyes shining up at Bucky, and wonderful with his full, soft mouth brushing so lightly at the crook of Buck’s neck, his cheek, his ear, that Bucky can feel it in his spine.

“So gorgeous,” Steve whispers into his shoulder. “Like art.”

“Speaking of which, get that shirt off.”

Steve complies, and Bucky immediately runs his hands over every inch of skin he can reach and bends his head to bite at one dusky nipple. “Shit Buck. You feel so good.”

Between kissing and touching they eventually end up breathing into each others mouths as Bucky rocks on Steve’s lap, fucking into his own fist and Steve follows suit, never looking away from Buck’s face.

Bucky's already licked his palm, and he’s leaking enough that it was probably unnecessary, but Steve hasn’t. It’s gross, sure, but Steve is watching and Buck wants to, so he collects a mouthful of saliva and leans over, letting it slide off his tongue and over the tip of Steve’s cock. The blond beneath him lets out a breath so intense it sounds like it hurt, like maybe he got punched, and he grabs Bucky by the back of the neck to kiss him fiercely, neither of their hands slowing.

“Fuckin’ incredible.”

“Keep it up, ya sweet talker,” he teases.

Steve smiles beautifully, hearing all the shit he’s not saying as Buck leans back a little. He wants to watch.

Those eyes. Blue in a way the sky is only just a few times a year, when the air is perfectly clear. A few freckles. Beautifully, naturally tan, like a fuckin’ commercial, from running without a shirt all the damn time. A gift to New York City. A jaw you could cut yourself on. The slightest furrow between his brows.

That mouth. Steve’s been chewing the shit out of his bottom lip, and now it’s pinned beneath his teeth in a last ditch attempt at control, and when he lets it go all shiny and full and blood-red the most primal, basic part of Bucky’s brain thinks, I wanna come on that mouth. On, not in, splash across that pretty face, dirty up his golden boy a little bit.

Bucky staggers to his feet to shuck his pants, and Steve makes a sound that is far too cute and grumpy for the context, but it’s not enough of a distraction from the way his collarbones protrude, from the way his body’s trembling, from the way he somehow manages to look absolutely wicked and completely innocent and the same time, and Bucky steps up onto the couch, one foot on either side of Steve’s quads. A hand shoots out, steadying him on his thigh, and when he looks down, Steve is peering up at him through those fuckin’ incredible eyelashes.

“Want me to suck your cock baby?” he asks, and he’d sound calm to an outsider, but Bucky can hear how close he is to losing it. Leaning in, he gives a little kitten lick to the head, and Bucky’s amazed that he doesn’t come right there, but he doesn’t and shakes his head instead.

“Nah. Wanna - oh fuck.” He groans and has to steady himself with fingertips on the ceiling as a bolt of pleasure races down his back. “Wanna come across that pretty face. Dirty you up. Can I doll?”

Steve’s gasp resounds in the room, shocked in the best way and a little whine escapes him before he can whimper, “Yes, please.”

“Fuck, so good for me, god Stevie, more than I deserve -”

He’s up in his head, floating, close to release but keeping an eye out on Steve, trying to decide if Steve wants this or is just indulging him, but then he hears, “Please Buck, give it to me, come on, I’m yours, come on baby -” The steady stream of gentle, desperate pleas ends when Steve runs his hand and eyes up Bucky’s hip, back down, squeezes, and then tilts his head back and comes with a silent shiver.

That does it. Bucky’s orgasm slams through him, painting stripes of white across golden tan, and the sight sends another shudder through his body. Just as he thinks he’s finally coming down, Steve’s eyes clear a little and he pokes just the tip of his tongue out, pink on red, and licks some come off his lip, smiling coyly, almost sweet up at Bucky as he does, and Buck’s knees give out. He collapses back into Steve’s lap and grabs his face, tasting himself, making a mess - doesn’t matter. Steve is his.

--

Everyone’s heading out, Steve’s chatting with Darcy, and Bucky catches her in the foyer. “Kiana!”

“Mr. Barnes!” She smiles at him. “Did I forget something?”

“No, I did,” he says a little breathlessly, digging through his messenger bag ‘til he finds what he’s looking for, two slim novels wrapped in plastic. He hands them over.

“What’s this?” she asks, setting down her stuff and using the corner of the front desk to open up the packaging.

“I -”

“Storm,” she interrupts. He can’t read her tone of voice, so he continues as she flips through them.

“The top one is the most recent version of her, and the bottom came out in 1975, it’s the first time she appears in the Marvel Universe...She’s a badass - pardon my language - and I thought, well I hoped...maybe you could change your perception of that name, because there’s nothing to change about yourself.. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re great just the way you are. You’re a badass.” He gestures to the comic. “So’s she.”

He doesn’t know what else to say, so he looks down, watching caramel colored fingers trimmed in bright blue polish reverently trace the covers, and Bucky notices the whole room is much quieter. Everyone must’ve left. A tiny dot of wetness drops to the cover of the newer comic, and it makes Bucky second-guess himself so hard he actually flinches, but then he’s got an armful of stocky little twelve year old, and she says into his stomach. “I love it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She’s beaming as she rewraps the novels, and David and Bucky wave at each other through the glass front door as she tears out hollering, “Papa! Guess what Mr. B gave me! They’re so badass!”

Bucky winces. Oops.

Chapter Text

“We need you to testify.”

“I already told you I would. What?”

Bucky's heart sinks at his expression as Tony sighs and takes off his glasses to rub his eyes.

“Pierce is pressing charges.”

--

“Well fuck,” Natasha mutters.

“Well fuck is right,” Sam replies.

They’d all been watching the news. It wasn’t like they’d ignored the storm warning, but nobody really thought…

In the end it didn’t matter what they thought. They’re now sitting around Steve’s kitchen table, Nat, Becca, Steve, Bucky, and the bodyguards Sam and Clint, faces illuminated by flickering candle light because the whole damn block lost power in the thunderstorm.

“We’ve got plenty of beer?” Steve offers as an amiable question and Becca grins. “Fuck yes.”

“Oh to be twenty one again,” Sam teases, but takes a beer when Steve offers.

“So...now what?”

The awkward silence stretches, and it’s weird how the quiet is more jarring than the sound of the fridge and the fan and the whistling radiator. “OH!” Natasha shouts, bolting out of the room and then the front door.

Wearily, Sam gets up to follow her, taking his beer with him. “No one else do that please.”

“We should go to the living room anyway,” Clint adds gesturing to the sliding door. “Glass isn't great for security.”

The forest green of the living room walls looks pitch black in the shadows, but the thick blue-grey carpet welcomes them and Nat and Sam return to find the four of them lounging in various positions on the floor.

“Well this isn’t weird at all,” Nat says cheerfully, before setting a black box on the coffee table.

Becca sits forward.

“What is it?” Clint asks.

“A game.”

“What game?”

“Cards Against Humanity,” Steve reads, squinting in the dim light. “The fuck is that?”

“Oh my god you’re a thousand years old,” Becca says quietly. “Who hasn’t heard of Cards Against Humanity?”

Defensively Bucky argues, “Uh...grown people with jobs?”

“Hey,” Clint cuts in. “I have a job and I love this fucking game.”

“Fine. Fucking fine. How do you play?”

And thus begins an evening that would go down in history. Literally. Steve and Bucky still talk about it decades later, much to the chagrin of their children.

Everyone except for Clint and Sam gets blackout drunk, and even they get good and wasted. Becca cleans up at Cards Against Humanity, winning by an embarrassing amount and Bucky is so proud. Sam makes them weirdly delicious no-bake cookies out of random crap in the kitchen. Bucky and Natasha sing eighties pop, badly and so ferociously that the downstairs neighbors bang on the ceiling. Steve laughs so hard he shoots beer out his nose. More than once. He also kisses Bucky enthusiastically after Bucky picks his card for the third round in a row.

“Oh my god!” Becca shouts.

Sam practically screams, “Finally!”

“When did this happen?” Clint asks, sounding a little lost. “I had money on this.”

Bucky’s glad for the low light because his face is on fire and Steve looks to be in the same shape. They both shake their heads and shrug and mumble, and because Natasha is well on her way to lit, she leaps across the room and tackles them both in a hug. “I’m so glaaaaaaad!”

Drunk Natasha uses way more vowels than sober Natasha.

Drunk Becca, it turns out, gets sleepy, and she passes out in Steve’s bed around midnight. Clint and Sam excuse themselves from the hilarity to sober up and do a sweep before one of them takes a first shift nap in Steve’s office, so Nat, Steve, and Bucky find themselves draped over one another, pleasantly drunk, in the wee hours of the morning.

As Nat stretches, her fist knocks into something below one of the end tables where some of Bucky’s crap is still being stored, despite his having moved into Steve’s bed full time. It makes a hollow sound and she tugs at whatever it is, retrieving it from the shadows.

“What is this?” she muses, slouching back into Bucky’s hip.

He takes it gently from her. “Memory box.”

It’s probably the beer that lets him open it in front of people. Or maybe it’s the fact that he trusts them, these kind and strange and lovely humans.

And open it he does, then sets it on the floor between Nat and Steve. “May I?” she asks quietly.

He nods. Just once.

It’s full of crap, most of it’s literal trash: ticket stubs, photos, little drawings Becca’s done for him over the years on the backs of receipts. There’s a dried up corsage from a school dance a million years ago from when he’d gone with a boyfriend and had such a lovely, normal time that for a night he’d felt like a regular kid.

Nat’s smilingly at some of Becca’s receipt sketches, but Steve is holding a handful of plastic strips, looking murderous. Shit.

Bucky snatches the hospital wristbands out of his hand, but he snatches them right back and looks through them one by one. There are probably a dozen in there all together, some dating back to his early teens. “What’re these from?”

The reflex is to deflect, to start something, to argue, but with Steve’s heart condition Buck knows he’s spent plenty of time in hospitals, knows what that weakness feels like. Besides, even if the feeling’s not reciprocated, he in love with Steve, and for once in his life is determined to do right by his family, so he sighs and responds, “Dad, mostly. One of those was from high school, drank too much, got sick. One was for bronchitis.” He shrugs. “Long time ago.”

Steve nods slowly, breathing deeply through his nose and tosses the macabre bouquet back into the box to reach out and run his fingers gently over Bucky’s cheekbones, his brows, his lips. It looks like he’s struggling with words caught in his throat, but he finally lets them go, leaning in and kissing Bucky’s forehead instead.

“Who’s this?” Nat asks quietly.

Buck leans over to look at the picture. “My ma.”

“She’s beautiful. Looks like you.”

“Yeah. And yeah. It was hard for my father, when she passed, 'cause I was still around, lookin' like her.”

“It was hard for you, too.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for him.”

“I know. But I’m trying not to stay angry, and if I’m gonna let that shit go...” He stops, hoping they understand.

Steve looks surprised and fond. Nat smiles softly. “That’s brave of you.”

He shrugs. “I’ve had some time to get there. What about your parents?”

“Don’t remember. They were arrested when I was three. Grew up a ward of the state.”

“What?” He's shocked, never would've guessed, but Steve is just listening with quiet affection.

“I had great foster parents though, a few different sets over the years, but all of them were nice enough. And then I met Steve at school, and now I have family again.”

Steve gives her a one-armed squeeze, casual, and cracks a joke, but Bucky catches the shimmer in his eyes, dancing in the candlelight.

As they continue, he watches his friends pour over his most treasured items, marveling at the lack of panic he feels. Other people, people who could do some real damage, touching his most personal possessions and he feels...peaceful. Trusting. Freer.

Nat’s chuckle distracts him from his existential musings. “Is this you?”

“Yeah, I was nine. Dance recital.” He takes the picture from her hand. “Jesus. What a weird lookin’ kid.”

Steve takes the picture from him, peering at it in the light of the flashlight he’d dug from the junk drawer. “You were not. You’re adorable.”

“Nah I -”

“You really were,” Nat interrupts, as Steve slowly murmurs, “Who told you otherwise?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky says lowly with a warning glance. The night’s been so pleasant, and he’s still a little tipsy, warm next to his boyfriend, with Natasha curled on the floor between them like a cat. He’s not looking for any drama.

“Hey Buck?”

“Yeah Nat,” he replies, still glaring at Steve.

“Thanks for letting us see this.”

“Oh hey, no problem.”

“It’s your past, sweetie. It’s personal. It’s not a problem, it’s trust, and I love you for it. Thank you.”

“Aww, Nat, I love you too,” he teases, trying to ignore the tension in his gut.

It’s so stupid. Really, it is, and Bucky’s been doing his best not to think about it, about what's been left unsaid between he and Steve. He wasn’t lying when he'd spoken those words that day in the kitchen, but hadn’t meant to say it so plainly. At first Steve’s glowing reaction eased his worry. He was happy about it, loved him back.

But in the darker moments that still crept in, during a particularly long day, or when he hadn’t heard from Becca, or before when Tony had updated him about the case all alone in Steve’s living room...then Steve’s silence became more of an ache. A question. A ‘maybe’ that Bucky can’t bear to look at. He changes the subject.

He gestures out the window, past the silhouetted form of Clint where he’s perched on the small balcony outside the sliding glass door. “Guys. It’s getting light out.”

Nat sighs. “And on that note, I’m going to sleep.”

Bucky kisses the top of her head as she hugs him. “Night. And thank you. For everything.”

She squeezes him so tight his ribs ache a little, forcing home the reminder that he belongs here. That he’s family. “I’m proud of you,” she says into his sternum, and he feels his own lopsided grin as he says, “Shit. Thanks.”

She leans over and Steve gathers her in his arms, tucking her small body close to his impossibly large one. “Night darlin',” he says so quietly Bucky almost misses it. “Night, idiot,” she replies, then whispers something that he really can’t hear. Whatever it is makes Steve’s arms tighten around her for and moment, and he nods before letting her go.

Unfolding herself to her feet she yawns, “This was so much fucking fun. We’ll have to do this again with the power on.”

“I’m in,” Bucky chuckles, slumping back against the couch and stifling a yawn of his own.

And then they're alone. Steve pulls him in for a long kiss, running gentle fingers through Bucky’s hair, then dancing along his neck, until the angle and the floorboards force them to get up.

Rising creakily, Bucky collects some bottles from the floor and heads to the kitchen to throw them out. “Hey, Tony came by.”

“What’d that slimy motherfucker want?”

Bucky laughs, trying to dislodge the nervousness, a weight settling in his gut. “Pierce is pressing charges.”

Steve drops some empties in the recycling then hugs him tight. “I’m sorry Bu-”

“And they need me to testify.”

He feels Steve stiffen. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re gonna do it?”

Bucky pulls back, stung. “Of course I’m gonna do it, Steve. I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but is that the best idea?”

Why doesn’t Steve trust him? He spent so long arguing with Bucky about being a good man and fulfilling his potential, and the second Buck tries to do that Steve questions his judgment? Bucky’s dead set on testifying, that’s not going to change, but it had never occurred to him that Steve would be anything other than proud of his decision.

It’s one part cognizance that Nat and Becca are asleep in the other room, but the rest of it is just that he’s so angry he doesn’t trust himself to speak above a growl.

“What the fuck.”

He’s sure, somewhere in the back of his head, that Steve has a reason for saying this, but Bucky’s been drunk for hours and only newly sobering up, he’s exhausted, physically and mentally, and he’s had too much time to ruminate on the little cracks in their relationship, and how if his past is indicative of his future, those tiny imperfections are gonna blow wide open any day now.

It’s that fear that keeps him from arguing, and instead sends him back to the living room to continue tidying. He tries to keep his mouth shut. He really does. You’d think after so many years of practice under Pierce he’d be a little better at it, but again, Steve turns everything upside down so he shouldn’t be surprised when he spits, “Is that what you think of me? That I’m some coward who’s gonna run away the second something comes up?”

“Buck, no.” Steve sounds appalled, following after as Bucky storms the place, folding blankets violently. “Just...is it safe-”

“Who the fuck cares, Steve? I destroyed people’s lives. Yeah, hear that again,” and he slows down to repeat, “Destroyed people’s lives. Who gives a fuck if it’s safe?”

“What if your testimony hurts your own case?”

With searing sarcasm Bucky grinds out, “You want me to repeat myself, or can you just replay the last ten seconds on your own? No? Ok. Who cares?

“I do! You can’t just tell me you love me then leave!” Steve roars, then claps a hand over his mouth.

The empty bottle Bucky’d been holding slips from his fingers and luckily hits the carpet before rolling off onto the hardwood floor. “But you didn’t...you never…”

Understanding spreads slowly over Steve’s face, a mirror of the sunrise outside, and into the silence Steve whispers, “Can I show you something?”

Curiosity overwhelms the hurt and Bucky nods, watching Steve walk to the bookshelf, pull a slim book from it, and disappear into the kitchen. By the time Bucky meets him there with an armful of cups and bottles, he’s sitting slumped at the table with the little softcover opened to a dog-eared page.

He dumps everything in the sink and wipes his hands carefully before joining Steve at the table. “Ok. What.”

Steve hands him the book and he scans the cover. “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Pablo Neruda. Becca's got some of his stuff.”

Steve nods. “Yeah. My ma -” He stops and clears his throat. “My ma really liked him. She got me that for my sixteenth birthday. We were in the hospital at the same time, and she bribed a nurse to go out and buy it for me.” He laughs hollowly. “Not that she had to try that hard. Everyone was the fuck in love with her.”

Unconsciously, Bucky steps forward and slips a hand over his shoulder. Steve leans into it.

“Anyway. It was my birthday and I was so fuckin’ pissed that we were there, just fuming in my bed and then this nurse comes in with some cake from the hospital cafeteria with candles, and presents…” He sniffs and Bucky finds himself doing the same. “A sketchbook, drawing pencils, and this. I read the whole thing twice in the time we were there. This one was my favorite.”

He points. Love Poem XIV. Bucky begins to read.

A paragraph in and he already understands why both Becca and Steve love Neruda. It’s all imagery, a story in pictures, and even he, who needs to feel the world to know it, is touched by this.

It’s love, glorious and tragic and mundane and divine. It makes him want to dance. He chuckles at one paragraph, and Steve cocks an inquisitive brow. Buck shrugs. “Just...this verse...It reminds me of us.”

“Which?” Steve breathes.

He reads, “How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.”

Steve nods, smiling tightly. He looks...terrified. “Keep going.”

As Bucky finishes, the rustle of cloth and his now shirtless boyfriend completely distracts him. “Whoa. Not that I’m complaining, but...what?”

Steve stands, that glorious chest rising more quickly than it should for sitting at the kitchen table. He rolls his shoulders, sending muscle rippling, and Bucky notices a small gauze pad taped over the pink-blossomed tattoo tree on his arm. “First, you should know: I have. Since before you said it, I have. But when you said it you looked so uncertain, so scared, and the last person I said it to before Nat was my ma, and I've never said it like I mean it with you and -”

“Steve. What...?” If he’s wrong…

“Read the last lines.”

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

“I was so lonely, for so long but I knew when I got the sleeve... I was just waiting.”

Bucky steps forward, hands on Steve’s hips. “Waiting for what?”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, then shrugs, giving up, and carefully peels the gauze away from his skin whispering, “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

In the slightly faded space at the center of the tree trunk, there are now three letters, in delicate script, as if carved into the wood.

J.B.B.

Awed, Bucky touches just below the fresh ink, blinking. “Steve, this is a tattoo.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

He laughs, grateful for a release of the feeling tightening his chest. “It’s forever.”

Steve nods, taking Bucky’s face between his hands. “It is.”

He can be brave. He can take the first step. He can be the kind of man Steve deserves. “I love you.”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve whispers, leaning in. “I love you.”

Steve's mouth slides over his own without hesitation, sure and certain and claiming. His tongue memorizes the roof of Bucky’s mouth, his teeth tug at Bucky’s lip. Anchored by the hands on his jaw, Buck lets himself relax into it, melting against Steve’s body until they’re more like one person than two. One argumentative, hard-headed, good-hearted person.

“There is absolutely nowhere to fuck right now,” Bucky points out as he rolls his hips against the hard body in front of him. Steve throws his head back and laughs so hard Bucky has to clap a hand over his mouth. “Sleeping people, remember?”

Steve shrugs, still grinning. “I fucking love you. Would you settle for a blowjob in the shower?”

Bucky waggles his eyebrows and Steve starts laughing all over again.

They do end up in the shower, coming into each other’s hands and mouths, sleepy, smiling, with murmured sweetnesses between them, and it feels good to follow up such an emotional night with something so simple.

But the real magic, the thing that tells Bucky he’s really home, is the way Steve curls up against his back as they fall asleep on the couch, and wraps his arms around him, one large, paint-stained hand resting just above Buck’s heart.

--

It’s the day before Pierce’s trial, all the students are gone, and Bucky’s got the mats out on the studio floor, practicing tumbling a little more violently than necessary when Nat pokes her head it.

“Did Steve fucking tell you he loves you?”

Bucky misses the landing and just barely catches himself.

“Hello to you too, Natasha,” he pants.

“Well? Did he?”

“You’re awfully aggressive for someone so small.”

“If you don’t answer my damn question you’ll get a taste of that aggression.”

Hands in the air, Buck rolls his eyes. “Ok, ok. Yeah. He did.”

“He’s nervous about the trial.”

“Mine or Pierce’s?”

“Both.” She joins him on the mat to spot him as he does a few standing backflips. “Are you ok?”

He pauses, hands on hips. “Yeah. I am. I’m finally doing the right thing. On my terms, you know?”

“He’s proud of you.”

“I know.”

“He loves you.”

“I know.”

“If you go to jail, it’ll kill him.”

Bucky freezes, stilling even his breath. He wants to argue, but he can’t. That reality is one of the only aches left in his chest. “I know,” he whispers.

“It’ll be me and Becca doing the killing.”

He chuckles. “I know.”

She jumps on him, hugging him around the shoulders so hard her feet are dangling off the ground.

“Hey! Get off my boyfriend!” Steve calls from the doorway.

She drops to the floor gracefully. “You’re safe, don’t worry. I’m just threatening his life.”

“Oh,” he says, crossing to them, hiking his backpack further up his shoulder. “In which case, continue.”

“Wanna see something super sexy?” Nat teases, eyes flashing.

Steve looks nervous. “Uh…”

She holds out her arm to spot and Bucky gets the message. He plants his feet, extends his arms, and flips backward, not even touching Natasha, sticking the landing.

“Nice!” Nat hollers, and they both turn to Steve.

Bucky feels his knees go weak at the sight, Steve in a tight white tee and jeans, looking absolutely fucking predatory, and Natasha groans, backing out of the room. “Do not get jizz on my studio, you hear me?”

Steve drops his backpack with a thunk, not taking his eyes off Bucky for a moment. “Loud and clear.”

The door slams, and he tackles Bucky to the ground, pinning his hands above his head.

“The fuck you think you’re doing,” he growls into Buck’s neck. “Looking so goddamn sexy all the time?”

“Ah! Right the fuck back at you.” He sinks his teeth into the meat of Steve’s shoulder just to feel him shudder.

Not even bothering to take off his shirt, Steve yanks Bucky’s shorts off, and Buck gasps. “Jesus christ, Steve.”

Everyone’s emotions have been running high, so he’s not really surprised. The past week has been a confusing combination of absolute joy and profound nervousness.

Bucky’s arraignment is the day after Pierce’s trial, and the double whammy of unpleasantness has even Natasha on edge. Somehow, though, in between comforting Becca and distracting Steve, they’ve still managed to have a great week.

One of Steve’s high school students won a scholarship to attend a college course. Natasha let Bucky take over some classes and they all went great. Kiana saved her allowance to buy a few more Storm comics and insisted on showing them off to Bucky, then a few of the other dancers took interest, and when her dad came to pick her up he had to wait an extra ten minutes because so many kids were asking her questions.

He and Steve fall asleep in each other’s arms every night. Still no sex (Bucky’s not sure what it is, but at this point it's very clear that they’re both waiting for something), but there’s no shortage of orgasms, and Bucky’s had to wear a shirt to class this whole week because his torso is covered in hickies and scratch marks. Sometimes, when he gets overwhelmed, he’ll press a hand against them through the fabric, anchored by the twinge.

He’ll never get tired of seeing Steve’s bright blue eyes looking up at him over Bucky's hip bones, warm breath ghosting over his cock, blinking up at Bucky through thick lashes.

“You takin’ a tour down there or something?”

“Patience is a virtue,” Steve murmurs, sucking a mark into the crease of his thigh.

“Oh that’s rich,” Bucky pants, slamming his head back into the mat.

“Whatever do you mean?” The faux innocence in his voice fools absolutely no one.

He means to reply, but Steve sucks one of Bucky’s balls into his mouth. “Oooh fuck.”

The blond leaves bite marks up and down his thighs, sits up to kiss him until he can’t breathe, then slips back down, flicking his tongue over Bucky’s cock only occasionally, a stripe up the center, a lick to the head, until Bucky shouts in frustration and grabs Steve’s hair, giving it a sharp tug.

“Hands above your head,” Steve growls, adding when Bucky hesitates, “Now.”

“Goddamnit!”

He complies.

“Good. I’ll let you know when you can move them.

Bucky assumes Steve forgets about that promise, because for the next fucking decade he absolutely tortures the guy. Mouth and hands everywhere, fulfilling only half of Bucky’s need for touch because his hands are obediently clasped above his head, nails digging into palms. Eventually, it gets to be almost too much, he’s floating in his head, cock leaking on his stomach, eyes starting to dampen when he hears Steve say, “Buck. Baby.”

“Yeah?”

“You can move your hands now.”

“I can?” he mutters faintly.

“Please baby. Pull my hair.”

He’s coming back to himself a little. “What?”

Steve smirks, and much less gently says, “You heard me,” then leans down, sucks the tip of Bucky’s cock into his mouth, and slides slowly down. Of their own accord, Bucky’s hands fly down, twining into the honey colored locks and tugging. Instead of easing back off, though, like Bucky expects, Steve freezes there, Bucky buried in his throat, and breathes in deeply through his nose. Buck nearly passes out.

“Steve?” Bucky whispers, and feels his boyfriend swallow around his cock, sending a jolt of pleasure tearing up his spine. “Stevie?”

The corners of Steve’s mouth stretch slightly. Smiling. Bucky can’t help it, it feels so fuckin’ good, his fists tighten and he yanks hard on Steve’s hair. The blond rolls his hips, groaning and the vibration sends Bucky over the edge, hard enough that his hips arch up away from the mat.

Steve eases off, fumbling his jeans open and down as he shudders to his knees and starts jerking himself roughly. Bucky’s barely coherent, but he uses all his remaining brain power to watch.

So beautiful. Corded muscles stand out in Steve’s neck as he pants, staring at Buck with fierce need and affection. The blush that rises to his face tells Bucky he’s close, and as he comes his head falls back and he lets out the smallest sound, a whine that sound like agony and nirvana wrapped into one, then slumps forward, catching himself elbow to knee on the side of his body he didn’t just come all over.

Bucky rolls to his side and reaches out, taking Steve’s hand.

“What are you doing?” Steve rasps as Buck licks across his palm and up his fingers.

“Nat told us not to get come on the studio,” he responds demurely. “I’m just cleaning up.”

The only noise is the punched out sound Steve gives at the comment, then harsh inhales as Buck finishes up his hand and leans forward, dragging his tongue over Steve’s thigh, then giving a nice hard bite for good measure.

“Holy fucking shit, Buck,” Steve whispers, pulling him up into his arms and kissing the taste of himself off Bucky’s lips. “How did I get so lucky?”

--

“I’ll do the dishes tomorrow,” Becca mutters from where she’s smashed against Bucky’s ribs. Steve, who’s sandwiched between Buck’s other side and the couch arm, made lasagna for dinner and Natasha is grabbing them more wine from the kitchen, and everyone has essentially agreed to be lazy for the night. There’s some old western flickering on Becca's laptop but no one paid attention for the first half, and they aren’t about to start now. Buck doesn’t think he could muster the energy to do anything else.

He’s simultaneously exhausted and nervous, bouncing between panic and calming himself down. The other three are clearly experiencing their own version of the phenomenon, occasionally shooting him nervous glances, or hugging him too long, but they’ve also laughed a lot the past few days.

“Ta da,” Natasha intones, brandishing a freshly uncorked bottle of wine and a bag of sour gummy worms.

“Hey, those are mine,” Bucky whines, making grabby hands as Natasha lays across all three of their laps, but she smacks him away.

“Thanks for sharing,” she says dryly, and tucks them under her arm.

She wiggles til her head is resting up on the arm of the couch, takes a swig of the wine, passes it to Steve, and for a moment, they all sit in silence.

Bucky takes the bottle next, then a calming breath before admitting, “I’m scared.”

Steve makes a little hurt noise and loops an arm around his back. Bucky leans into the embrace, letting the warmth sink into him.

“Makes sense,” Natasha mutters, chewing a worm thoughtfully. “I am too, for you. But you’ll be alright. You’re stronger than any of us.”

He huffs and steals a gummy. “Yeah right.”

“No, she’s right,” Becca pipes up, plucking the bottle from his fingers. “I mean, you just admitted you’re scared. Last year you wouldn’t have admitted to having a cold.”

They all chuckle and reach for a worm at the same time, resulting in a small tussle before Steve says, “I love you Buck, and I’m so fuckin’ proud of you. And I’m terrified of losing you.”

“Damn,” Natasha says into the silence while Bucky beams at her boyfriend. “That’s more truth at a time than I’ve ever heard from you.”

Steve shrugs a little defensively. “Buck’s not the only one who’s changed.”

“No kidding. You took a whole day off last week,” Nat teases and he smacks her lightly on the leg.

“Shut up.”

Becca loops her arm through Bucky’s. Nat pats his chest. Steve kisses his cheek. They all end up in their own beds at some point, but for long hours on end they lay there, talking and laughing and clinging to one another, painfully aware that this could be the end.

--

Steve’s pacing the hall of the courthouse when Bucky emerges from the bathroom, but he freezes a the sight, and even through his nervousness, smiles.

“You look incredible.”

“Thanks,” Buck says dryly, tugging down the sleeves of his suit. It’s too hot, but hell if he’s going to look anything but professional.

“You’ll be amazing.” Steve adjusts his tie out of sheer nerves and the need for physical contact.

“I …” Bucky swallows hard. “Steve, if shit goes sideways in all of this...If the arraignment doesn’t go my way, if this trial fucks it all up, just...I understand if you gotta back out. This is a lot, and we haven’t even known each other that long and-”

Steve shoves him a little, looking genuinely hurt. “Shut the fuck up.”

Bucky shrugs, accepting the anger. “I’m just saying. I’m not trying to … trap you or anything.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Steve snarls, dragging him back in by his lapels and ignoring the scandalized look on the face of an older woman as she passes. “I’m the fuck in love with you. I’m not leaving. I’m never leaving. How many times do I have to say that before you’ll believe it?”

Mouth hanging open at the ease with which Steve makes the declaration Bucky finally manages, “I’ll let you know when to stop.”

Steve’s face softens marginally and he kisses Bucky once, desperately. "I can live with that."

“I’m sorry. Don't worry, doll. I’ll be ok.”

“You’d better,” he growls.

A hard-looking cop pokes her head out of the courtroom, but when she smiles it brightens her face into something almost kind. It doesn’t really help though, because she says, “Mr. Barnes? They’re ready for you.”

Chapter Text

The judge has an eye patch. It’s the last rational observation Bucky makes for approximately twelve hours.

Buck thought he’d mentally prepared himself. He thought about what it’d be like to see Pierce again. He thought about what Tony had said. (“Concise and honest. Don’t get emotional. You’ll be fine.”)

He is not fine.

As he mounts the witness stand, he catches sight of Pierce and is suddenly reminded of why he ended up working for the guy for a decade, why he never quit when he should’ve. Bucky’s terrified of him.

In his grey suit, hair freshly dyed, he looks cool and collected and not at all concerned that Bucky might destroy his entire world. He hasn’t even broken a sweat.

Tony asks some questions. Bucky gives some answers. The defense interrogates him mercilessly. He doesn’t remember any of it. The entire world shrinks down into one tiny point of fear in his chest surrounded by self-loathing at his lack of control.

The room becomes a haze. He’s pretty sure he’s still speaking English, that he’s doing his job acceptably. Tony even gives him a tiny thumbs up at one point, though that might’ve been out of pity.

The court adjourns. “Get some lunch. Drink some water. Take a piss. I’ll see ya at two,” Tony instructs, and Bucky must smile because the shorter man walks away, and he’s left standing outside the courtroom door. He stands there for the entire fifty minute recess, only shaking back into his body when Tony comes back. “Barnes?” he asks cautiously. “You ok?”

Years of practice allow him to grin and loosen his shoulders. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

The second half is worse. He’s not hungry, but he can tell his blood sugar is low. His head is light, his throat is dry. Every time he looks up at Pierce, the guy is smiling.

When he’s done testifying he sits on one of the courtroom benches and folds his hands, sitting up tight and proper. Like he would at the office. For another two hours.

The room clears. He doesn’t notice until it’s quiet. And then there’s a voice.

“James. Long time, no see.”

He freezes.

Bucky’s dad had beat on him for so long that it barely even registered when Pierce started. It was always casual, too, a blow to the face without even blinking, or whipping the butt of his gun into Buck’s kidneys. It stopped after the first few years because Bucky learned how to keep him happy, but his body hasn’t forgotten the bruises.

As Pierce sits down next to him, his paralysis breaks in a hard flinch. “You shouldn’t be here. Aren’t you...arrested?”

“My bodyguard is exceptionally easy to distract.”

What is there to say? He says nothing, and Pierce fills the void, sounding sadistically impressed. “I can’t believe you had the balls to do this, honestly. You think you can get guards to follow you around your whole damn life? ‘Cause that’s what you’re gonna need to do to survive this one, boy.”

It could be a bluff, but if the past has set the precedent, it isn’t. At all.

“I’m not sure what you think you’re doing, Barnes. We both know none of this will stick. And then I’ll be back in business. And you? What? Dancing?” He huffs. “Fuckin’ faggot. You know, real men have real jobs-”

There’s the crack of a door flying open and then shouting. “Hey! Get the fuck away from him!” Bucky hears slamming, some voices in person and through a radio, then Pierce snarling, “Stay safe, Buck-o.”

Silence.

“Bucky? Baby?” Steve’s voice is coming from so far away, light years, continents, some other dimension where good things happen. Not this one. He repeats himself, and this time the tone is more serious. “Buck?” Now scared. “Bucky answer me. Did he hurt you?”

He turns to Steve. Empty. Scraped out. In another life, Steve had said he loved him. Must have been a mistake. Hollowly Bucky supplies, “Did you know? Real men have real jobs.”

--

Becca and Nat greet them at the door and Bucky summons inhuman amounts of energy to fake a smile and a yawn as he hugs them. “Long day today guys. I’m gonna crash.”

They're suspicious, but they let him go.

Steve stares at him as he undresses, perched on the edge of their bed, long legs swinging like a child. “Buck?”

Standing awkwardly in the center of the room, Bucky gestures the his pile of freshly shucked clothes. “I’m gonna...shower.”

And he does. Sort of. He gets in the tub. Sits down because he hasn’t eaten in so long he can’t stand up, but he lets the water run over him, chilled rivulets that don’t wake him like they should. Floating.

Ma. He misses his ma so damn much. Misses her cooking and her smile. Misses the way she’d brush back his hair when she kissed him goodnight. Misses her laugh. Misses her dancing. Her smell. Her safety.

He thinks of his dad, thinks of how it felt to live in constant terror, then mindless numbness. So much numbness, for so many years, with his father, then Pierce, and now he’s sinking back into it’s grey, stagnant arms. It’s safe here. No surprises. Anything that happens, he deserves.

Even his skin is numb. He taps his forearm with a finger and barely feels it. Cold lips. How long has he been in here?

A presence drifts into his awareness, kneeling by the bathtub. “Buck? Oh, baby...” Steve must realize what’s going on, because he yanks off his shirt and gets in the tub behind Bucky, wrapping his arms around him and leaning them forward to slowly increase the temperature. It takes seven or eight adjustments, while they wait, Steve rubs Bucky’s hands between his own, tucks his still-clad legs under Buck’s, pants dark with water. He rocks them, chest to back, soothing.

The water warms finally, and Steve hums softly into his shoulder, voice breaking every so often and it takes almost a half an hour for Bucky to realize it’s because Steve is crying.

He looks down at the tattoos on Steve’s arms where they’re wrapped around his middle. Thinks of his initials carved in the cherry tree. Hears the tremor in Steve’s beautiful baritone, the echo of his voice against tile. “I love you Buck.” He blinks up, and Steve looks exhausted and terrified but he cups Bucky’s jaw and runs a thumb across his cheekbone. “I’m here, baby. You’re safe.” HIs voice trembles and cracks as he continues, saying, “Please, Buck. Come back.”

Bucky’s skin had thawed gradually but the ice in his chest shatters all at once, into a thousand pieces, and a harsh sob escapes him. He turns in Steve’s arms so his forehead is tucked into Steve’s neck, curls into a ball, and weeps.

He cries so hard his chest hurts. He cries so hard his sobs stop making any sound for a while. He cries because Steve is crying. He cries for his ma, missing her so badly. He cries for his dad, so full of anger. For Nat’s lost family, for Becca who he’ll always worry about, and then, finally, when he sighs and Steve tightens his embrace, he cries with relief for the lightening tension in his chest, the dissipation of a decades-in-the-making storm cloud, because he can feel again: pain yes, but joy too. It's too good to be true, but it is: that he had a family once, and now has another one. That he’s free of Pierce. That he’s dancing again. That he’s in love. So, so in love.

He finally looks up and kisses Steve who asks shakily, “What happened?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Panic attack? World turned gray, I went under for a bit, but you…” He pauses in awe, unable to explain, but Steve always understands, so instead he says, “I love you so fuckin’ much.”

“Oh god, I love you too, Buck. Christ almighty you scared me so damn bad.”

“I’m sorry."

“Don’t - you don’t have to apologize. I’m just glad you’re ok.”

“Steve?”

“Hm?”

“Can we go to bed?”

“You mean you want me to get up and take these itchy-ass, soaking fucking wet pants off and crawl under the covers with my incredible boyfriend? Hard call, lemme think.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky smiles tiredly, poking his broad chest, and Steve pulls them to their feet but doesn’t let go.

He gazes at Buck, fond and protective, but he's not fucking around when he says, “Not a chance.”

--

“So he can come with me?”

“I asked the judge, he said it was fine.”

“What a badass name,” Steve mumbles. “Judge Fury. Can I have that name?”

Tony and Buck both roll their eyes at him.

“What?

Checking his watch, Tony says, “Ok. Let’s go.”

For a moment, Bucky starts to white-out again, but then Steve’s hand is warm and strong on his back, tethering him to here and now and self and he walks into the courtroom, head held high.

He and Tony sit at the table before the judge’s stand, and Steve takes a seat on the very closest bench. Bucky breathes deeply and waits.

“Mr. Barnes,” the judge’s voice booms out. Same guy as yesterday.

“Sir.”

“Mr. Pierce has filed quite a few charges.”

“I can imagine,” Bucky says dryly, then freezes. He’s not trying to be a smartass.

Instead of anger, something weirdly close to a smile hovers on Fury’s face. “Indeed. Could you explain to me how you came to work for him?”

“My...my ma died when I was fourteen, and my dad took it hard. Lost his job. Drank a lot.”

“I have your medical records here. They indicate quite a few hospital visits that were flagged for domestic violence.”

“Yeah, DCFS came by a few times. I made sure they left.”

“Why on earth?” the judge asks, but in a way that suggests he already knows the answer.

“I have a little sister.” He says it almost coldly, and again regrets the inflection, though when Fury purses his lips in frustration, it doesn’t seem to be aimed at Bucky. “My dad passed when I was 19, I was workin’ a lot, needed the money. Pierce paid for a year of tuition, then hired me on full time. Suddenly, I could pay rent. I bought bedframes. We moved into an apartment with windows that actually closed.”

“What did your job with Pierce entail?”

“Dirty work. Evictions, threats, negotiations. ”

“Did you ever physically assault someone?”

He glances at Tony who murmurs, “Best to tell the truth.”

“Yeah. A few times. People who didn’t comply. People who looked for help elsewhere.”

“Were you ever assaulted?”

“Yeah. A few times.”

“By Pierce?”

“Yeah.”

“As well as your father.”

This time it’s harder, but he repeats himself. “Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“Then I quit.”

“Why?”

“I hated the person I’d become. Wanted something different.”

“What changed?”

Surprised, he answers immediately. “I fell in love.”

“Your candor is refreshing.”

“My candor is freaking me out.”

Fury does smile this time, though he smothers it quickly. “With Captain Buff behind you there?”

Bucky chuckles. “Yeah. He was one of Pierce’s clients. I couldn’t let Pierce undermine the work he and Nat - his business partner had done.”

“So you figured out a way to get around it.”

“I guess.”

“That wasn’t a question.” Fury sounds pleased.

“Oh.”

“Then?”

“Pierce threatened me. Said if an employee double-crossed him, they’d regret it, so I told him I wasn’t an employee anymore. He still blew up my apartment.”

Scowling into the documents on his desk Fury mutters, “And then an armed man broke in and threatened you and your family at gunpoint.”

Bucky loves that he said ‘family’. It’s accurate, but most people wouldn’t have been able to make the distinction. “Yes.”

“You and Mr. Rogers both shot him.”

“Correct.”

“But you didn’t kill him.”

“Correct.”

“Why? If someone breaks into my house, makes an attempt on my life, I’m gonna kill a motherfucker.” He doesn't look the slightest bit abashed.

Bucky laughs aloud, then more seriously says, “I can’t speak for Steve, but I...he was just doing his job, like I had done. He’s an idiot, but so was I.”

“And your sister’s video from that day has helped us put Pierce away for a long time.”

The surge of emotions in Bucky’s chest might be nerves, or joy, or a heart attack. He’s unsure.

“It did?”

“Pierce was sentenced today. There were several charges that stuck, but in the end he’ll be serving approximately two life sentences. Without parole.”

There’s a strangled noise behind him that sounds like Steve whooping and trying to quiet himself and Bucky laughs again, shocked. Elated. “Oh. Oh.”

“Indeed,” Fury says, allowing this smile to linger. “So. I could read you your charges, but I’m guessing that will be unnecessary.”

“Sorry, uh...why?”

“You saved the company investors about ten million dollars each.”

For all the research Bucky had done, he’s still surprised by the numbers. There were five original investors, and fifty million dollars is an impressive sum. “Whoa.”

“Correct.”

“Sorry, what does that have to do with my charges?”

“Ah. Yes. Well, it turns out that you and your partner have some connections to a few of the investors. They’ve taken a personal interest in your case and requested some...lenience. Since it’s their company that Pierce represented, it is, in the end, their call, and after speaking with you, I am inclined to agree with their judgment.”

“You - holy shit. What? Really?” Tony elbows him under the table. “Sorry. Thank you.”

Fury nods decisively. “You're welcome. I hereby clear you of all charges filed in this case.”

“Thank you so much,” Bucky says too loudly, and then tries really very hard to calm himself. “And the investors...is there any way... I don’t know who they are, but I’d like to thank them. Could you get a message to them?”

Fury shakes his head and Bucky’s heart sinks a little, but then he points toward the empty seats in the courtroom. “Thank them yourself.”

Bucky stands, turns, and past his gorgeous, beaming boyfriend he sees that the seats are no longer empty.

“David?” It’s Kiana’s dad, among others.

“Bucky,” David says, hand extended and nods to the man next to him “This is Allan Gregory.”

The name sounds so familiar… “Helen McCoy tutors both my children. We love her very much, and she told us how you helped her.”

In a small voice, Bucky manages, “Oh. Nice to meet you.”

“This is Debra Carter.” Her daughter paints at the studio.

“You’re Jessica’s ma? You look just like her. Thank you so much ma’am.” He hears the sincerity in his voice, vulnerable and honest, and despite his extreme discomfort, remains present.

She shakes his hand warmly, clasping it between both of yours. “Thank you. Jess adores you and Mr. Rogers both. You do good work at that place.”

He can feel the blush rise to his face and he smiles at Steve's expression of amazed gratitude as he says, “Thanks.”

David step forward, reclaiming focus. “After hearing your story, I’m especially glad we could do this for you. And,” he adds, smiling at Steve, “Pierce has been mandated to pay back anything unlawfully redistributed. The studio should be safe.”

“And if not,” Debra interrupts, beaming. “You know some people who could help out.”

--

They go home. They go home.

Steve pins him to the entryway wall and kisses him senseless when they walk in, but they’re still too full of nervous energy.

“Let’s go for a run.”

It’s incredible to have a companion that can actually keep up, and Steve and Bucky tear through the city at a breakneck pace. It starts frantic, an attempt at dispelling all the bullshit of the last few weeks. At some point though, they fall into a rhythm, shoulder to shoulder, pounding the pavement. The steady pulse of Steve’s inhale-exhale soothes Bucky like a lullaby, until his shoulders are loose and his mouth starts to curl upward. A few more miles and Steve bumps his shoulder, accidentally the first time, then playfully the next few, ‘til they’re giggling and shoving like little kids, the absence of the previously omnipresent burden driving them to hysterics.

As they lap back towards the apartment Bucky hollers, “Last one to the steps does dishes for a month!” and takes off, dodging around pedestrians as he sprints. Behind him he can hear Steve apologizing profusely to random passers by and it makes Bucky laugh so hard that Steve actually catches up, grabbing him by the back of his shorts.

They tussle all the way upstairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen, stopping long enough to drain two glasses of water each, then pick right back up again when Steve tosses the rest of his glass down Bucky’s front. Snorting, Buck knocks him to the ground and pins him there, panting from mirth and exertion. Steve smiles wildly back up at him, ribcage heaving, but in the silence, his expression begins to change, awed and warm and joyous.

“Buck,” he breathes. “You did it. I’m so proud of you.”

The truth bowls over them both and Bucky slumps down a little, hunching in over Steve. They did it. He’s free, they both are, perfectly free to live their lives on their own terms, if they can be brave enough to let the past go.

“Steve?”

“Hm?”

“I wanna be with you.”

Steve looks briefly nervous. “I thought we were already together.”

“Yeah, of course, but…” Bucky knows that love isn’t the defining factor in the success of a relationship; He’s seen hundreds of them soar and then plummet over the years, one or both of the partners too stubborn, clinging too adamantly to their own brokenness to grow and change with their counterpart. “I want a life with you.”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s not sure what Steve’s expression means. Fear? Hope?

“A real one. With dinners and fights and bills and...you know...vacations.”

Steve barks a laugh, then admits softly into the air between them, “I want that too.”

“Enough? Enough to take a break every once in a damn while?”

Steve frowns. “I do take breaks.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I took a day off last week! And half a day yesterday.”

A day and a half does not a habit make, but Steve’s getting a little riled up so Bucky keeps it to himself. “Ok fine. Then do you want this enough to admit that you deserve the good things that come to you? That we’re good together and we deserve this? That -”

He squeaks in surprise as Steve’s face darkens, and he flips them in an instant, catching Bucky and pressing him tightly to the floor. “Are you asking me if I love you enough to make this work?” he growls accusingly, but this time, Bucky doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t budge or retreat, just leaves his body language open and stares up into Steve’s beautiful eyes. “Yes.”

The anger drains from Steve’s entire being in an instant, and he falls forward letting his hands frame Bucky’s face, brushing his thumbs over his lips. “God Buck. I’m a mess, but I swear -” He pauses, wide-eyed and fervent. “I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be everything that you - that we,” he corrects, “Deserve. Is that enough? You should have more, you should have everything, but -”

Bucky sits up into him, crushing their mouths together, shutting him up, and as an answer to Steve’s question, in his own way, in their own language he says, “Steve, please fuck me.”

In a heartbeat he finds himself up off the floor, face to face with blue eyes and a few days’ scruff, and in another they’re standing the bedroom, Steve’s beautiful, paint-stained hands reverently undressing them both.

They jostle each other as they prepare, teasing and shoving as they’ve always done, but it feels spun-glass fragile. As Steve tosses the lube on the bed Bucky grabs the blond by his elbows, holding him still and reverently kissing his own initials on the other man’s skin. He thinks about what Steve had said, “I was just waiting,” and he understands. Every step, every tear, every ache, every laugh led him here, to this, to Steve.

“I love you,” he says softly, hating the remaining wariness in his mind, but Steve doesn’t hesitate this time.

“I love you, Buck.”

He needed to hear it, but the moment is too heavy so he grins and bites Steve’s neck. “Well? You gonna fuck me or what?”

Steve shoving him onto the bed is a kink Bucky didn’t know he had, and he gasps a little, eyes widening at the sight of the most perfect man, his man, crawling on top of him, eyes narrowed and dark. “You got a fuckin’ mouth on you, ya know that?”

“Do I?” Bucky gasps, fighting to keep control of his voice as Steve nuzzles below his ear.

“Mm-hm.” The hummed vibrations on his neck send a shock up his spine.

“You gonna let me put it to good use?” Teeth nip at his jaw before the warmth disappears as Steve leans back, face serious but not stern. “No.”

Confused and a little hurt, Buck repeats, “No?”

“If you put that beautiful fuckin’ mouth anywhere near my cock this’ll be over much more quickly than either of us wants.” Maybe Buck still looks unconvinced because he adds quietly, “You’re too fuckin’ gorgeous.”

Bucky yanks him down, blushing, and as they kiss Steve reaches a magically slick hand between them to stroke Buck a few times, then wander lower. Buck bends his knees up but doesn’t stop kissing, reveling in the feeling of their chests pressed together, Steve’s body on his, that it’s not until Steve pushes the first finger in, not far, probably not past the first knuckle, that he remembers where this is going, how vulnerable a position this is, and he cries out, not from physical pain but emotional overload. Steve freezes.

“Buck? Talk to me baby, you want me to stop?”

Bucky shakes his head vigorously, breathing in and out through his nose. “Don’t stop.”

“What’s...what’s going on?”

“I said don’t stop!” He doesn’t know what to say. He wants Steve to keep fucking him, it’s just...overwhelming, but Steve is shaking his head and starting to pull out.

“I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“It doesn’t hurt, it just -” Frustrated, he pulls Steve in for a quick kiss then breaks away saying, “I haven’t done this in a long-ass fuckin’ time and I want you so bad and the idea of having you in me after all of the shit we’ve been through…It’s a lot, is all. Ok?”

“Ok,” Steve breathes.

“I want you.”

Smiling, he echoes, “I want you, too.”

“I’ll tell you if it hurts.”

“You’d fuckin’ better.”

Mischievously Bucky says, “Then come on, doll. Open me up.” Steve gives a punched out breath but doesn’t move. “Come on, Stevie. Can’t take that cock unless you get me nice ‘n’ wet, want you to sink right in all the way, right away, come on baby, I can take it - ah!”

Steve turns his finger slowly then presses further, pupils blown wide. “Christ, Buck.” He leans back to watch and Bucky gives himself over to the feeling as Steve works him open.

The whole time, Steve is running his free hand soothingly over Bucky’s body, up his thigh, squeezing his hip, broad strokes across his stomach. They murmur back and forth, little nothings to keep each other grounded.

“Mm. Feels good baby.”

“Fuck, you’re so tight.”

“Quit lookin’ at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like getting your fingers in my ass is some sort of spiritual experience.”

Leaning over and adding a third Steve crooks his fingers up sending shockwaves through Bucky’s body. With a shit-eating grin he says, “You try’na tell me it isn’t? ‘Cause I can stop if you -”

Bucky smacks his arm hard enough to leave a mark if it weren't already covered in ink. “Don’t you dare.”

For as light-hearted as they attempt to keep it, by the time Bucky’s loose enough to take Steve without doing any damage, they’re both strung so tight it’s a miracle they’re still coherent.

“You ready baby?” Steve’s voice is a little shaky.

“Yeah.”

“Need you to stay with me ok?”

“Ok,” Bucky whispers, and it’s only because Steve asked that he manages to keep his eyes open instead of letting them roll into the back of his head. The sensation is fucking incredible and a wave of goosebumps roll out across his skin as Steve impales him in one slow thrust, and then they’re breathing each other’s air, struggling for control. It’s intimate all right, Steve’s literally inside of him, but instead of the fear Bucky’d been so nervous to feel, he instead finds himself feeling complete and calm, albeit so turned on it hurts. But he’s not scared. He trusts Steve. He trusts himself. He plants his heels on the bed and roll his hips up, fucking himself on Steve’s cock.

“Oh fuck baby.”

This time it’s Bucky that grins, and he shoves Steve backward. As Steve sits back on his heels, Bucky presses his hips up chasing the movement, 'til he’s leaning back on his hands and sitting in Steve’s lap. This time, he moves in a wave from chest to pelvis, putting on a show as he slides up and down Steve’s cock. Steve’s hands scramble, finally finding purchase on Bucky’s hips, touching every inch of available skin as he watches Bucky work, open-mouthed and panting.

Bucky can see him getting more and more tightly wound, and when Steve finally snaps he pulls out and rolls Bucky to his stomach quickly, then sinks back in, blanketing the brunet with his body. The heat, the embrace, it feels like heaven and Bucky shouts. Steve’s hands find his own, fingers lacing together, and the mood shifts from playful to insistent in the space of a breath.

Steve drives into him roughly and they cling to one another, and when the man above him starts making these little whimpering sounds Buck turns over his shoulder to see Steve looking fucking wrecked, sweat shining on his temples, eye wide, hair a damn mess and suddenly Bucky is excruciatingly aware of the fact that he’s not the only one feeling laid bare.

“Fuck, Stevie,” he gasps into the pillow.

“Yeah baby. God,” Steve shudders, speaking into the space between Buck’s shoulder blades. “So fuckin’ amazing. So good for me. Fuck, Bucky I’m not gonna last much longer.”

“Me neither. Fuck me. Come on baby, make me come on your cock.” He’s never done it before, come without someone touching him, but he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to help it. Steve’s nailing his prostate with every thrust and they’re both shaking. Steve obeys, fucking him until they’re a step from the edge, then pulls out and rolls Bucky one last time, catching him under the knees as he sinks in again, folding Buck in half to kiss him.

Bucky twists his hands into Steve’s hair trying to anchor himself as he surges towards release so fast it’s making him light-headed, feeling the corded muscle at the nape of Steve’s neck and the way his jaw is clenched tight.

Steve nods, understanding, awed and almost smiling, and against Bucky’s mouth whispers. “Come on, fucker. Can’t hold out much longer.”

“So sweet to me, Stevie,” Bucky manages the sarcasm through his gasping breaths, rolling his eyes. “You wanna come so bad? Go ahead.”

Steve shakes his head. “Not before you.”

“You sure about that?” Bucky challenges, clenching around Steve’s cock, amazed he can still talk. He feels the beginnings of his orgasm coiling so tight his lower back is lifting up off the bed. Steve shouts and slams his hands down, fisting the blankets, but he angles his last few thrusts just right, slamming into Bucky’s prostate, somehow managing to look smug even a breath from coming. Bucky yanks him down too hard by the hair, biting and licking his way into Steve’s mouth, and then they’re both tumbling over the edge.

There's an indefinite about of time where they're just drifting, and all Bucky can think of is how this, here, now, is Home.

Steve is still on top of him and out of it when Bucky resurfaces, so he runs his hands in long strokes up and down the lines of muscle that run along Steve’s spine. Up, down, up, down...he kisses Steve’s cheek, his temple, his nose, and finally, Steve opens his eyes, red-lipped and smiling. “Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey.”

They stare at each other for a long moment and Bucky wants to make fun of Steve for looking so damn starry-eyed, but he’s sure he's not much better. Steve presses the gentlest of kisses to his lips, reverent and sweet, then pulls back saying, “I am fucking starving.”

Bucky barks a laugh. “Me too. Take out?”

“Holy fuck yes,” he agrees starting to roll off but going incredibly slow, probably due to the fact that Bucky’s hands are still sliding comfortingly up and down his torso.

“Will you order your own damn dumplings this time?”

“Hey,” Steve protests, finding his phone by the bedside table. “I only had three.”

“They come in orders of four you asshat.”

Steve’s still giggling as he orders for them both, but he does get an extra carton of dumplings.

They cuddle while they wait, one part octopus, where Bucky winds his limbs around Steve and Steve wraps him up against his chest, one hand possessively gripped in his hair, and one part play-fighting that occasionally turns real.

Bucky’s got an impressive handprint on his pec as he answers the door in his boxers. The delivery guy, Daniel, raises an eyebrow and grins. “Oh thank god.”

It was not what Bucky was expecting to hear. He signs the receipt and hands it back saying, “What?”

“I was beginning to worry you two would never get together. Like for real, you two are the densest fucking - pardon the language - bros on the planet.”

“What?” he repeats, slightly louder this time, taking the bag of food.

“Rogers’s been pining after you so fuckin’ hard - pardon the language - although when you’re fighting it’s great for business. That week you weren’t here I made like a hundred bucks in tips from him alone.”

This time it’s only air. “What?”

From inside the apartment Steve hollers, “I fucking love you Buck, but if you don’t get your ass back in here with some dumplings, this relationship is gonna be short lived.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “You two’ve got it bad, dude. But hey, it’s good, work up a fuckin’ appetite. Par- ”

“Don’t. You’re pardoned.”

“Cool. Anyway, I’m not complaining, apparently wild sex is good for business. ”

Bucky a year ago would’ve cussed him out. Bucky six months ago would’ve turned bright red.

Today, Bucky grins, and not just his polite business grin either, but roguish and bright, and winks. “I guess I’ll see you soon then.”

Chapter Text

“It’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb.”

“It’s probably not gonna work out, so…”

“Steven Grant Goddamn Rogers will you fucking tell me al-”

Natasha interrupts him. “He submitted those pencil sketches of you as his entry to a contest. That art gallery down the street? They’re doing a local artist highlight show, and he sent them in, and now he’s panicking mindlessly.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“Am not!”

“You’ve eaten sixteen ice cream sandwiches in the past two days.”

“I was wondering where those went…” Bucky muses.

“OK! I’m panicking! So what?” Steve hollers.

“So... come watch us dance?” Nat volunteers.

“Duh.”

Bucky grins.

Steve curls up in the corner of the studio next to the sound system with a sketch pad and a pint of ice cream. There are a few students practicing in the next room, but Bucky and Natasha are trying to choreograph a routine for the upcoming arts fundraiser. They spend almost two hours working on it with Steve dutifully rewinding and restarting the song upon request.

They finally plan enough to start teaching the routine, and Steve has a spoon in one hand and a pencil in the other, so when Bucky’s phone shuffles to the next song neither of them say anything about it.

At first.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha murmurs. “Is this...Beyoncé?”

“Don’t hate,” Bucky says defensively. “She’s got some great stuff!”

Nat looks like she really wants to make fun of him but gets totally distracted because Bucky is right. Beyoncé does have great music, not just for listening, but to dance to. She listens for a minute or so then shouts, “Rogers, restart this!” Then to Bucky, “Go sit down center.”

He grins and obeys.

As the song starts, she creeps up behind him and hooks onto his back, and they do a few versions of choreography there based on the lyrics, Steve poking the restart button with the one finger that doesn’t have ice cream or pencil lead on it, though he’s paying more attention now. They get through another version of the opening, but as the song continues and they both jump up, something happens, a beautiful something that only occurs when you’re very, very lucky, and it just...flows.

The song is angsty, for sure, and he and Natasha vibe off each other exquisitely. She throws her body around, he catches her, throws her, she trusts him to make it work. And it does. Oh my god does it, bar after bar until the ending sneaks in and Bucky deposits himself in the sitting position he’d started in, with Natasha wrapped around his back as the song fades away.

They both sit, panting for a split second before whistling and applause cracks out across the empty space.

“Holy shit that was amazing!” one of their best jazz dancers screams.

“Incredible!” Kiana yells. “Is that our song for the fundraiser?”

Natasha shakes her head. “No, we finished that. This was just … fun?”

“I’ll say,” Steve murmurs stalking over to Bucky with a distinctly hungry look in his eyes, which fortunately, the kids are too far away to see.

“I can’t believe you just made that up!” another kid hollers, then Kiana interjects thoughtfully. “You guys should do that for the fundraiser.”

“Have one of the other groups do it?” Bucky asks.

“No,” Kiki grins. “You and Nat. Should dance that. It’d make a crap-ton of money.”

“Oh my god, it would,” the jazz girl breathes. “Do it! You have to do it.”

Nat turns to him. “Well?”

He shrugs. Anything is possible. Why not?

--

He’s washing dishes when Becca bounces through the kitchen of Steve’s apartment. “Hey Beck.”

“I have a question.”

“Ok, shoot,” he mutters, elbow deep in suds.

“Are you or are you not going to marry Steve?”

Bucky promptly drops a plate into the sink, splashing water up and soaking his shirt. “Um.”

“You’re so articulate.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

She steals an apple from the bowl on the counter, chomping into it. “Well?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you love him.”

“I do.”

As she hops up to sit on the kitchen table she continues, “And because you’re good for him, and vice versa.”

“True.”

“And because I think it’d make you both very happy.”

“Shit, Beck,” Bucky mumbles. “Look. I don’t know.”

“Why? You don’t wanna get married?”

“No, I -”

“You don’t wanna marry Steve?”

“No, of course that’s not-”

“You’re a bitchass coward?”

“It’s -” He sighs. “Yeah, mostly that one.”

“Get over yourself.”

“Jesus, Rebecca, what the fuck is your deal?”

“It’s been a year,” she says matter of factly. “And you guys are still over the moon. You’re ready. I’m ready to dance at your wedding. And also, I may have caught Steve not so subtly checking out wedding rings.”

“You WHAT?”

“When we went to that jeweler to get Nat’s watch fixed? He was all over that.”

“Holy fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Well shit. What should I do?”

She hops off the kitchen table looking satisfied. “Hell if I know. You’re the big brother here!” She pecks him on the cheek. “I gotta get to lunch. See you later!” And she’s gone, leaving Bucky covered in soap suds and also, hyperventilating.

--

Thing is, he really does actually want to get married. He even wants to be the one to propose. He’s just fucking terrified.

It’s been a year, and their lives have been pretty fuckin’ close to idyllic. He and Steve still argue, but they’re increasingly better at solving shit quickly. They run together and work and hang out with people they love. Bucky joins Steve at his volunteering crap, and Steve occasionally takes a day off to lay around the house with Bucky.

And yet, every once in awhile, it’s just too much and Bucky can’t believe it. It has to be a fluke, an accident, he’s fallen into a parallel dimension, and those nights are hard, because even the good things in his life can’t bring him comfort. Some things just trigger that reaction, that mindless fear, and marriage is one of them. His life has never been stable enough to have something like that, no matter how he’s dreamed it.

But if Steve wants to…

He’ll have to think about it. He does. For four whole hours.

When he gets home that night, Steve is sitting at the kitchen table holding a sheet of expensive looking paper and Bucky watches him from the kitchen threshold for two whole minutes before he interrupts Steve’s staring match with a sheet of cardstock.

“You ok there, baby?”

Steve blinks up, startled, and upon seeing Bucky just holds out the paper, looking disturbingly stoic.

“Mr. S. Rogers,” Bucky reads. “We are pleased to inform you have been selected as our guest artist for our Brooklyn Highlights show. We would like to include the pieces you submitted as well as up to four more of your choosing - Steve this is great! You got it! What’s wrong?”

Steve shrugs, jaw jutting forward, and Bucky knows that look. Steve has spent over a year of their lives reading his mind, and Bucky can finally return the favor. He sets the page gently on the table (that shit’s going on the fridge) and kneels at Steve’s feet. “Steve? Babydoll, look at me.”

Bright blue eyes focus in on him then blink, and Bucky knows Steve is with him now. “Listen. You listening?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, asshole, I’m listening.”

“It isn’t a mistake, and they shouldn’t have picked someone else. You deserve this. You work hard, you’re incredibly talented, you meet the submission criteria, and...guess what? They liked your stuff best. Because your work shows technical skill, but it also has heart. Your stuff is worth seeing. You deserve this, ok?”

“Ok,” Steve finally whispers, and Bucky leans up to kiss him. “Ok.”

Bucky sinks his teeth into Steve’s bottom lip just a little too hard and Steve whines into his mouth. Bucky tugs him to his feet and shoves him in the direction of the bedroom.

He’s made a decision.

--

“Would you fucking GO?” Bucky bellows.

“Christ, sorry, Jesus, just trying to be a supportive boyfriend here, but whatever you -”

Exasperated, Bucky steps out of the bathroom, sighing, “Oh my god.” He’s bareass naked, trying to get ready for the fundraiser, and Steve has to leave a little earlier, both because he has obligations, and because Bucky’s getting into costume here at home, then changing at the gala, so he needs a little more time.

He crosses to Steve, grabs him by the tie, and yanks him in, kissing him hard. Steve catches him by the hips, and Bucky can feel his angry façade fading. “Fuck you,” he mutters.

“You will. Tonight,” Bucky promises. “But right now, if you don’t get out of here, I’m going to put you on your knees and fuck your face until we both come, and that would not be good for anyone's focus, would it?”

Steve neither agrees nor disagrees, choosing instead to back away, hands raised saying, “If I do anything to fuck up your guys’ performance, Natasha will kill me. So I’ll leave. But I’m not happy about it.”

“Nice to know you’re more afraid of a tiny ballerina that your buff boyfriend!” Bucky calls after him.

“She’s wily!” Steve calls back. “Like a ninja!”

Bucky’s only teasing. He’s terrified of Nat too.

He gets to the venue with plenty of time to squeeze Becca who’s got another piece on display, this year a silhouetted skyline, and someone has already bought it an hour into the event. Bucky is completely unsurprised.

He’s unsurprised by the pre-performance jitters. He’s unsurprised by how adorable Nat looks in her jeans and crop top. He’s unsurprised by their students’ performance bringing down the house. He’s unsurprised by how hard it is to dance in a jacket. He’s unsurprised that he and Nat kill it, dancing flawlessly, aggressively, affectionately.

He is surprised, shocked really, when a lovely, caramel skinned woman with dark curly hair approaches him with a business card in hand. She passes it to him, saying, “I’m Elaina Vega, I’m with Brooklyn Dance Project. I understand you’re employed elsewhere, but we’d love to hire you as a guest teacher and performer if you’re interested.” Bucky’s jaw is on the floor but she seems unfazed, smiling. “Just give me a call.”

“I will!” he calls to her retreating form.

Kiana prances up next to him, slapping him on the back. “Was that Elaina Vega? She’s so cool man, BDP is doing some really revolutionary stuff.”

“How do you know about her?” Bucky asks, still so shocked he’s floating.

She stares incredulously in that way that teenagers have. “Uh, the internet?”

--

It’s the night of Steve’s show and they’re both a mess, but it’s Bucky who has to pretend like he’s not.

“Do I look ok?” Steve asks for the four hundredth time, and Bucky drags him away from the mirror.

“You look dashing, professional, and about to be late. Let’s go!” Bucky teases, but doesn’t miss the way Steve’s chewing his lip nervously.

“You’ll be incredible, doll. And I’ll be right here.”

Steve smiles at him and exhales. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

Bucky’s right, as usual. Steve is magnificent. He stands tall and glorious in the hall fielding questions, shmoozing the gallery owners...If Bucky weren’t losing his goddamn mind with nervousness, he’d be even more impressed. As it is, he watches Steve in affectionate awe and tries not to drink too much wine.

“How’s it goin’?”

Carlie, one of the gallery owners and his partner in crime, sidles up to him with a glass of wine, which she hands to him. “Bless you child,” Bucky murmurs, taking it. “He hasn’t noticed, if that’s what you mean.”

“He’s just distracted.”

“I know.”

“The frame is so different -”

“Carlie,” Bucky interrupts. “I know. It’ll be fine.”

She nods seriously, then convulses in on herself, squeaking gleefully. “I’m just so freakin’ excited.”

He laughs. “Good. Now go host, you’re raising my blood pressure.”

The night goes swimmingly. Bucky ends up talking to a number of people including David, who came out for the event, and it’s getting late, the gallery is emptying by the time Steve gets a chance to wander the room, and Bucky joins him.

“Well? Did you survive?”

Steve chuckles, looking fucking mouthwatering in a tux, with a little bit of beard. “Yes. So far, I'm alive.” He pauses. “I wish my ma was here.”

“Me too,” Bucky replies with sincerity. He wishes she were here to see this. All of it. “She’d be proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Steve says quietly, and they smile at each other, soft and adoring, then Steve notices something over Bucky’s shoulder.

“Hey. They changed the frame.”

He paces over to the piece in question, and Bucky hurries behind.

“What the hell?” he mutters. “I gotta talk to Carlie, this wasn’t supposed to be dark wood, it doesn’t make any sense with the-”

And then he sees it.

About half of Bucky’s nerves have to do with the actual proposing, but the other half has to do with the fact that he tampered with Steve’s art.

The piece is a pencil sketch of the two of them sleeping on the couch based on a photo Nat had taken. It’s pretty close up, zoomed in on their upper bodies and faces, so it’s pretty clear and easy to see where Bucky’d gone in and added rings to the fourth fingers of both of their left hands, twined across sketch-Bucky’s chest.

Steve still hasn’t said anything, and Bucky’s pretty sure he’s dying, but then the blond turns around to look him in the eye.

“Buck…” he says slowly. “Did you do this?”

He nods.

“Wh-why?” He looks like Bucky feels, like he doesn’t dare hope, so Bucky digs into his pocket and finds the counterpart to the ring he’s been wearing all night, and holds it out. An offering. He can’t say the words, not yet, not when he’s still so terrified, but Steve takes it and slides it on, face brightening as he does, then he hiccups, surprised by the tears that collect along his bottom lashes.

Bucky finally gets with the program, stepping in and wiping the tears away. “Ah shit, baby, don’t cry.”

“You really wanna marry me, Buck?”

“More than anything,” he responds fervently.

“Oh, good.” Steve whispers and Buck kisses him more gently than usual, but then he makes up for it.

“So, you gonna marry me or not ya fucker?”

--

“Steve? Steve! Where’s my tie?” He skids into the living room. No Steve. He’s about to slide down the hall to check the bedroom when Helen comes out of the kitchen, tie in hand. “Would you cut that out? He’s in the nursery. She’s almost asleep and you’re bangin’ around like a damn elephant.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but quietly and only once she’s turned away. Natalie would sleep through a fucking earthquake in Steve’s arms. Nevertheless, he creeps instead of thunders to the nursery, tying his tie as he goes, and cracks the door open.

He gets it, now, why Steve’s all about the view.

Streetlamp light is the only illumination in the room, but it’s enough to see by. Steve, looking fucking beautiful in a black suit, with the top collar button undone and his tie hanging loose around his shoulders. His beard is longer now, full and reddish in the soft glow, and looking impossibly small in such large arms, is their daughter.

Steve's humming something that at first Bucky thinks is tuneless, but upon closer listening might be Cher, so he chooses not to ask, opting instead to join the two of them by the window. He bends down and kisses Natalie’s forehead, breathing in her baby smell, then picks his head up to kiss Steve.

“Time to go?” Steve whispers, and Bucky nods, grinning as Nat grabs onto his finger with one chubby fist in her sleep. “I’ll put her down.”

Buck watches him lower her into the crib and she starts to stir, whimper, but Steve places one calloused hand on her little chest and murmurs, “Sleep, baby girl.”

And like everyone else in the presence of that commanding baritone, she listens. The moment is so perfect that Steve has to brush a tear from Bucky’s cheek as Buck does up his button and ties his tie. He doesn’t mention it, but he does kiss Bucky again, long and sure.

Pulling up to the studio and seeing it all lit up at night is a little strange, but even weirder is the whole damn wing of building that didn’t used to be there. Steve grins as they get out of the car and takes Bucky’s arm.

“Can you fucking believe it? A whole new wing.”

“Sure you’re responsible enough to handle a whole 'nother wing of studio, Rogers?”

“Well I handle you and Natalie just fine.”

“Hey, what about Becca?”

“What about her? She’s a joy. She’s my co-babysitter in the crusade against you children.”

“I am not!” Bucky replies, mock scandalized.

“You flooded our entire bathroom with bubbles.”

“I seem to remember someone distracting me with a mouth on my dick while I was pouring the bubble bath.”

Steve shrugs. “Semantics.”

Bucky shoves him. “Ass.”

Steve shoves back. “Fucker.”

“Children, behave,” Natasha’s voice comes from behind them.

“Holy shit Nat, you look incredible.”

She does, in a little black dress and heels. “Also, Steve won’t be handling the responsibility of that new wing all on his own. He’s got us,” Nat adds.

“I don’t know if that makes it better or worse,” Steve groans.

“Well, I paid Helen to stay overnight and I got two rooms at the hotel down the street. Thought we could celebrate in style after the grand opening is over, but hey, if you want to be rude…”

Steve starts to backpedal but Bucky cuts in first, grinning. “What are you gonna do in that big ol’ hotel room all by yourself?”

“She won’t be all by herself,” comes a voice. Clint, in a suit, who takes her arm.

“Holy shit,” Bucky breathes.

“This,” Steve says, “Is gonna be good.”

“So what do you say?” Nat asks. “You think you can let loose a little?"

Bucky kisses away all of Steve’s smartassed remarks and takes his hand, not missing the way his thumb traces possessively over the wedding band. “I’m in,” Bucky hollers. “What about you?”

Steve smiles at him, sweet and shy and Bucky can tell just by the expression that whatever comes next will be pure, unfiltered Steve. “‘Course. I wanna be wherever you are.”