Chapter Text
Steve’s a great roommate.
He does his half of the chores well on time, and while the few accidental glimpses Bucky caught of his room looked like a wardrobe exploded in the middle of it, he keeps his mess out of the common areas. He doesn’t wash his dishes immediately, but he rarely lets them sit for more than a day. He gets up obscenely early in the morning but sneaks around the house quietly, trying not to wake Bucky. He comes back from his run and makes breakfast for Bucky, and alright, breakfast is the only thing Steve can make without poisoning someone, but Bucky appreciates stumbling out of his room, pretending he got more than three hours of sleep, and finding a mug of strong coffee and something solid waiting for him.
Steve’s ex-military but doesn’t get all weird about Bucky being a WWII soldier turned brainwashed Hydrabot turned Avengers affiliate. He doesn’t get weird about any of those things separately either. Their interactions are pleasant at worst and deeply relaxing at best. Steve’s got kind eyes and a wide smile and an easy, non-threatening way of touching that makes Bucky feel some kinda way.
Steve is, in short, damn near perfect. Sam was right, not that Bucky will ever admit that to his face.
The problem, as always, is Bucky and the thrice-damned knockoff serum Zola shoved into his veins.
Steve’s not in the house every night, and Bucky doesn’t think much of it. It’s usually late by the time he comes back from his tattoo parlor. Some nights, he doesn’t come back at all, though he usually drops Bucky a text saying as much. He never says why. Bucky never asks.
And then, Steve does come back, the time edging closer to early morning than late night, and he doesn’t come back alone.
Bucky, who’s been lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for the last two hours, doesn’t think much of the hushed whispers in the hallway. He might be able to hear them if he tries, but he doesn’t care to. Unless the last five months have been an elaborate ploy and Steve’s brought backup to kill Bucky, it’s not his business. Though to be fair, Bucky trusts Sam’s recommendation and Natasha’s thorough vetting more than the five months of peaceful, pleasant cohabitation. He’d be sad if Steve turned out to be Hydra or some flavor of Neo-Nazi. Bucky’s therapist has been working diligently on his trust issues and would not be pleased either.
The steady stream of whispers moves closer and passes Bucky’s door. It enters Steve’s bedroom.
The lightbulb goes off.
It doesn’t occur to him, not until it’s too late, that Steve’s and his rooms share a wall and that Steve doesn’t know Bucky has super-fucking-hearing. He knows he’s enhanced but doesn’t know the details, and Bucky never told him because he was thinking in terms of assassinations and sensitive information rather than roommate etiquette.
There’s a loud thud from Steve’s room, like someone’s back got real personal with the wall. Bucky knows the sound. He feels like a heel when he sends up a desperate prayer that Steve’s wrestling some assassin in there.
“That all you got, Rogers?” says an unfamiliar male voice. Bucky can hear his smirk. “All that—mmph.”
Was that—was that a slap?
There are more thuds and telltale sounds of two bodies slamming around in the modest-sized room, with pained groans and the occasional, very unmistakable moan to punctuate exactly what’s happening.
Bucky intensifies his staring contest with the ceiling and thinks of Jesus.
He’s pretty sure he hears cloth tearing.
“Always gotta fight, don’t you.” It’s not quite a question. The voice is familiar but deep with something Bucky has never heard in Steve. “Would be easier for you just lie there and take it, Wilson.”
“Fuck you,” says the other guy. “All you got is that big mouth—fuck.”
That’s a scream.
That is definitely another scream.
And Bucky can hardly not recognize the sounds of open palms impacting flesh.
What is Steve doing to that guy?
He shouldn’t be hearing this. He wouldn’t be able to, without the serum. He might pick up the louder sounds, but both men are talking quietly and the walls aren’t that thin. Bucky should throw himself out the window and take a long walk.
He doesn’t move.
Someone groans. It’s a gut-deep sound, helplessness etched into it. Bucky’s breathing hitches, body flashing hot. He curls his fingers into his sheets and doesn’t let go even when they tear under his grip.
There’s another punched-out noise. Bucky can hear them breathe, loud and ragged.
“See?” Steve says, darkly satisfied. His voice sinks into Bucky’s gut. “You just needed a dick in you. All sweet now.”
“F-fuck you, fuck you,” pants the other man, but there’s no heat in it. He sounds like he’s begging.
Bucky shifts restlessly.
“I will,” Steve says. “Be quiet, alright? I’ve got a roommate now, and I don’t want you to wake him up with your mewling.”
“Choke on a dick, Rogers.”
“Won’t be yours, Wade.”
There’s a high-pitched yelp that makes Bucky cross his legs tightly. He releases them the next moment because it’s harder that way to ignore his own situation.
In Steve’s room, someone’s whimpering, moaning, sobbing. Wood creaks with an odd rhythm.
They are not quiet.
And when it’s done, Bucky lets out a relieved gasp of his own. He kicks his blankets off, too hot to stay under them, but doesn’t move otherwise. He’s half-scared of what he’ll do if he tries.
He ignores the sounds from Steve’s room, easier now that they aren’t loudly fucking. But then they start talking again, and Bucky can’t tune that out if he tried. It’s one thing to zone out when there’s a crowd roaring around him, another entirely to purposefully not hear a pair of clear voices in a quiet house.
“Staying the night?” Steve asks.
“Nah,” says the other guy—Wade? “Could use a nap though.”
“Can’t walk, can you?”
“Wipe that smug look off your face, asshole.”
“Are you honestly complaining?”
Wade grumbles something incoherent.
“Shove over,” Steve says.
“Hey!”
“Shut up and get cuddled. My bed, my rules.”
More grumbling, but even from a room away, Bucky can hear it’s not all that sincere.
He lies there like a log for a long time. There’s an ache between his legs that he does not address.
-
The man leaves sometime before dawn. Bucky falls into an uneasy rest.
-
It’s almost noon by the time he wakes, hours later than usual. Steve’s gone already. There are cold pancakes on the table and a note under the plate.
Text me if you need anything, it says.
Bucky stares at it for a while. He goes to throw it in the trash, but it finds its way into his pockets first and then into a drawer where miscellaneous knickknacks find themselves.
He eats the pancakes for lunch.
-
Bucky’s almost done with dinner when Steve comes back.
“Hey there,” he calls, keys dropping into their designated bowl with a clang. “Didn’t see you in the morning.”
It’s not phrased as a question, but there’s one in the tone.
Bucky shrugs without looking away from his pasta. Steve doesn’t say anything before going to his room. He’ll be out soon, after a quick shower, and Bucky takes that time to gather his thoughts. He spent most of the day wondering whether he should say anything. He’s been ping-ponging between both options, and he’s not proud to say that he’s not any more decided now than he was when he woke up, shaking off the vestiges of confusing dreams and thoroughly ignoring his boner.
He doesn’t register the minutes tick by and before he knows it, Steve’s there, leaning beside Bucky and making heart-eyes at the food.
“Smells so good.”
“You say that every night. Make yourself useful and get the plates.”
“Okay, Buck,” he says cheerfully, clapping Bucky gently on the shoulder as he goes.
Bucky valiantly pretends that he doesn’t forget to breathe for a moment. Steve just does these things, calling him Buck and touching him, generous and casual with his affection. He doesn’t pretend that Bucky’s not scarred to all hell and got a robot arm, but he takes it all in with an easy acceptance that found Bucky stumbling headfirst into confused adoration in their very first week as housemates.
Steve is very, very easy to like. It’s a problem.
But until last night, Bucky never saw Steve as a—as a sexual anything. He hasn’t been seeing anything or anyone, not since he fell out of a flaming Helicarrier and hit his head hard enough to shake something loose. Natasha has tried incessantly to set him up in creative ways, and if nothing else, she’s been keeping Bucky’s skills sharp. It’s a game at this point.
Bucky doesn’t want to date. At least, he doesn’t want to date some random S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha is testing her matchmaking skills on.
He squints at Steve. He’s a mountain of a man, with shoulders Bucky could sit on and biceps he wouldn’t be able to wrap both hands around. There are tattoos on nearly every inch of bared skin, and Bucky knows at least a few of them cover scars Steve got from his service.
Bucky doesn’t know whether he wants to date Steve either, but he can’t say he doesn’t want it, and the uncertainly alone is novel. Natasha can never know.
“Bucky?” Steve calls, breaking Bucky out of what he realizes must be some creepy staring.
“Yeah, sorry,” he mumbles. “Coming.”
They eat in unusual silence. Bucky’s aware of Steve sneaking glances at him when he’s not looking. He wonders whether Steve knows Bucky’s doing the same.
They’re almost done when Steve speaks.
“So, uh, how’d you sleep last night?”
Despite everything, Bucky has to bite back a grin. Subtlety isn’t and will never be Steve’s strong suit. Then again, the question isn’t all that odd. Steve’s found Bucky curled up on the couch plenty of nights, when he couldn’t bear to lie in bed any longer. And Steve wouldn’t judge, because Bucky knew he wasn’t the only one who woke up in the middle of the night sweating and shouting.
They didn’t talk about it, but they didn’t pretend not to know what the fuck was up.
“Well enough,” Bucky says, straight-faced. “Took me a while. Woke up late.”
Steve nods and shovels pasta into his mouth. He eats like a pig. Bucky should check himself for brain damage for how adorable he finds it, but well, he already knows he’s got it bad.
Steve swallows his mouthful and spends some time staring thoughtfully at his plate. Bucky waits, taking small bites of his own portion.
“Did I keep you up?”
There it is, what Steve really wanted to ask, probably since the morning. Bucky’s mind still hasn’t yielded the perfect answer, but looking into Steve’s blue, blue eyes, he finds that he can only give one answer.
“Nah,” he says. “Heard you coming in though.”
Steve blushes easy. Embarrassment, anger, tears—all of it turns his skin a pretty red. Bucky has lost count of the times he heard Steve curse his delicate Irish complexion while sniffling over a sad movie. Bucky has found it endearing from the beginning, but now, he’s imagining Steve with his red cheeks and bright eyes spewing the sort of filth he did last night.
It’s Bucky's face that heats this time.
“Had a, uh, friend along. Wade and I get loud. You sure we didn’t disturb you?”
He’s so earnest. Eyes wide and so damn blue. Bucky briefly forgets how to English.
He shoves pasta into his mouth and thinks while he chews.
The thing is, Steve was trying to be quiet. It’s just that Bucky’s serum-enhanced hearing can pick up Steve’s heartbeat from two rooms away if the house is quiet enough.
“You didn’t,” Bucky lies, sweetens it with a smile.
Steve stares, blinks, and looks down at his food with a grin of his own.
-
The next two weeks are normal, like it used to be before Steve brought a guy home and Bucky’s dick perked up in interest.
It’s not the sex that’s a problem. It’s the kind of sex Steve had. The violence. And Bucky doesn’t know whether it’s apt to call it a problem. He’s not judging Steve. It’s a brave new world that he’s woken to. He read up on a lot of history while chasing and being chased across Europe and Asia. He kept reading after too. The internet is glorious.
The internet also has a lot of porn, most of which, Bucky has found, does nothing for him. He tried a few flavors before giving it up as a lost cause. The chemical castration wore off. Everything Hydra did wore off; Zola’s serum was a double-edged blade for Hydra, and for Bucky too. But his libido isn’t that active. He remembers fucking before the war. Girls with pale curls and soft skin. He remembers looking during the war. Men with broad shoulders and sharp eyes.
The Winter Soldier didn’t fuck, didn’t think of it. Sex was for people, and he was a weapon.
Natasha has thrown people of all genders at him. Bucky has squirmed out of every blind date and accidental meeting.
Until he heard Steve slap a guy around and fuck him into the mattress, Bucky’s dick didn’t react to anything except the touch of his hand.
It’s a hell of a way to discover new things about himself.
-
He tries to put the incident behind him. Then Steve brings a woman home.
Bucky wakes up to it this time. There’s a long, blissful moment where he registers the moans but doesn’t process what they mean. It doesn’t last very long.
She’s…vocal.
Not the way Wade was. She gasps and whines, praises and curses Steve in turns. The wet, fleshy sounds of their coupling worm their way under Bucky’s skin, burns him from the inside.
“One more, sweetheart,” Steve says, voice low and husky, and Bucky’s whole body jolts. “That’s it, just like that.”
“Daddy!” the woman says, and Bucky tries to sink into his mattress. “I can’t, I can’t, oh god.”
“You can,” Steve purrs, and Bucky needs to crawl into a hole and die, and his dick needs to shut up.
The woman makes a high, shuddering noise.
The night, Bucky realizes a good ten minutes later, is going to be very long.
-
He makes it out of bed by his usual time because he didn’t sleep the whole night. Steve wasn’t fucking the whole time, but they sure went for hours.
And his mistake, Bucky realizes later, was in assuming that the woman left when the door opened an hour or so after Steve’s usual running time. But it’s too late by the time he figures it out, and he’s already staring down Sharon Carter over an oversized mug of coffee.
“Hi,” he offers warily.
She waves a mug of coffee at him. Her eyes are only half-open, but Bucky doesn’t dare take that as carelessness. She’s part of Peggy’s salvaged S.H.I.E.L.D., and Bucky has worked with her once or twice. She’s got the kind of calm viciousness that makes Bucky respect her from a healthy distance.
“Heya,” she says. “Steve said you might wake up before he came back.”
“Where is he?”
“He was late for his run. Said he’ll buy breakfast.”
“Ah.”
Bucky half-hopes the universe will look on him with favor and return Steve right now.
Of course that doesn’t happen. He used up all his luck in the first twenty-six years of his life. It’s been an escalating shitshow since then.
Fixing himself a cup of coffee eats up some time. He opts to perch on the counter instead of joining her on the table. Sharon seems content to ignore him, sipping at her coffee and thumbing at her phone. Bucky’s phone is back in his room; he could use the distraction, but for some reason, the idea of leaving her alone here rankles. This is his place. Steve’s too, yeah, but Steve isn’t here, and he’s loath to leave Sharon unattended.
This is exactly why he wanted to have his own place and talked himself out of it.
Bucky takes a hurried sip and almost burns his tongue. The pain is a decent distraction from the fact that he spent three hours last night listening to this woman call his roommate Daddy.
Oh god. He’s blushing, he knows he’s blushing, he hopes Sharon won’t look at—fuck.
She blinks at him, eyes opening all the way. Horror curdles in Bucky’s gut as realization dawns on her face.
Then she laughs.
“Did we disturb your beauty sleep, Barnes?”
“No!” he squeaks very convincingly.
Her grin slides into a sly little smirk.
“You’re all red, this is adorable.”
Bucky hides his face behind the mug. He wants to flee, but he’s not very sure he can move. Sharon is merciless.
“It’s funny, pretty sure I should be the who’s shy here. Is it the 40s you’re channeling there, old man?”
Bucky glares at her and takes a loud, slurping sip of his coffee. Steve is such a bad influence, but Bucky can see why he uses atrocious food habits as a defense mechanism.
It’s pointless. Sharon’s expression turns distinctly evil.
“You should ask Aunt Peggy, you know. She’d adapted remarkably well to modern sexual mores, she can give you a tip or—”
“I know them!” Bucky snaps, pure self-defense.
It’s a mistake.
“Oh? Then if that’s not it—” Her eyes widen, her smirk turns sharp. “Oh. It’s not me, I can tell. Is it Steve? You wanna take him for a ride?”
Bucky sputters and damn near drops his coffee mug before he sets it aside, using that as an excuse to turn away from Sharon.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s my friend.”
“Oh, Steve’s got no problem fucking his friends, I’d know. You should ask him, trust me, you won’t regret—”
Bucky flees. She can burn the house down for all he cares.
-
When he emerges after a two-hour nap to soothe his bruised pride, Steve’s the only one in the house.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Bucky blurts out.
“It’s Friday,” he says, eyeing Bucky with blatant concern.
Bucky shuffles awkwardly. It’s not that he forgot Steve took Fridays off, just that he didn’t notice today’s one. In his defense, he’s had a trying night.
And morning. The morning was worse, actually.
“I ordered takeout,” Steve says, a peace offering if there ever was any.
Bucky seizes it like the desperate man he is.
They eat on the couch, some romcom playing. Neither of them likes romcoms. Bucky leans towards documentaries and cheesy horror. Steve seems to eschew movies entirely for long series that mingle humor and dark themes. They can both tolerate the other’s tastes.
And yet, there’s a romcom playing on Netflix, with no one paying attention, which is probably for the best.
With every moment that passes, Bucky is wound tighter. The food sits like a brick in his belly. He can’t taste shit, which is a fucking pity because Steve ordered from Bucky’s favorite Korean place.
Steve knows Bucky’s favorite Korean place. And probably all his other favorites too because he’s terrifyingly observant and cares so much that it ties Bucky up in knots when he thinks about it for too long.
Sharon was very wrong and also very right.
“Okay,” Steve says, blankly staring at the screen, where a random blonde is making cow eyes at a random brunette. “We should talk.”
Bucky contemplates denial. He also contemplates moving across the country. He discards both, the first because his dignity cannot take another blow today and the latter because the thought of not living with Steve is a little painful.
It’s been barely half a year and here he is, hopelessly attached. Maybe he should become a hermit after all.
“Sharon told you, huh?”
“She implied you’d heard us last night.”
Bucky grimaces.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Steve says stiffly. He’s still staring intently at the screen. His whole body’s so tense that Bucky feels like he’s sitting next to a rock.
It’s terrible.
“You didn’t,” Bucky blurts out.
That gets Steve to turn his head, pinning Bucky with an incredulous look. Bucky grimaces, logic warring briefly with a strong blend of paranoia and embarrassment. It nearly wins out. But behind Steve’s stony façade, there’s real uncertainty, a waver to those pretty blue eyes that makes Bucky ache a little.
“It’s not your fault,” he says quietly. He reaches out and tentatively lays a hand on Steve’s knee. “It’s my—my hearing. It’s…acute. To put it lightly. It’s part of why I wanted to live in a house and not an apartment complex. The serum, it wasn’t just my body, you know? All of my senses, they’re dialed up to eleven. And then some.”
He’s rambling, Bucky realizes distantly.
Steve’s eyes are wide for an instant before they narrow, expression turning thoughtful. He doesn’t shift away from Bucky’s touch.
“How acute?” he asks.
“I can hear your heartbeat right now,” Bucky answers. “And smell a piece of rotten meat that made it under the refrigerator. Somehow.”
Steve has the grace to look sheepish for a second. Then it sinks in, what Bucky said. Red creeps down his neck. Bucky resolutely doesn’t think about how far down the blush goes.
“That means…”
“No matter how quiet you are, I’ll hear you.” Bucky risks a wry grin. “Not that you’re all that quiet anyway.”
Steve’s blush darkens. And he looks guilty, of all things.
“It’s not your fault,” Bucky repeats firmly.
“I can stop—”
“Absolutely not.”
Steve looks mulish.
“Steve, pal, this is your place. You have every right to bring whoever you want over.”
“It’s your place too,” Steve points out, as stubborn as always. “And Bucky, I’d rather follow my…partners to their places than make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” Bucky says without thinking. Steve looks justifiably skeptical. “Listen, it’s new. I wasn’t expecting it. Now, I will be. It’s you who should be uncomfortable, with me listening in like some creep.”
“What, no! You’re not doing it on purpose, Buck, that’s different.”
No, Bucky thinks darkly, but that doesn’t seem to curb his body’s reaction to hearing Steve get hot and heavy in ways he doesn’t even understand fully. It’s one thing to have an abstract understanding and acceptance of how some people got in bed, another entirely to find himself reacting to it in ways he never expected.
“Rethinking living with a supersoldier?”
Steve gapes at him.
Then his hand comes up—a fast, efficient motion that abruptly reminds Bucky that Steve’s quick smiles and easy kindness hide a man who’s as dangerous as Sam or Clint—and flicks Bucky on the forehead.
Bucky blinks, too stunned to even rub the spot.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Steve says gruffly, glaring, face red for a whole other reason than embarrassment. “You’re the best fucking roommate I’ve had. I’m considering editing the lease to trap you here forever.”
It’s ridiculous, but it makes Bucky smile, and Steve puffs up like a proud Labrador.
“You can’t actually do that, but I appreciate the sentiment, creepy and obsessive as it is.”
Steve doesn’t seem to know whether to be flattered or offended. Bucky can relate.
The levity fades though, the original discussion rising silently to the air between them. Steve’s got a furrow between his brows and a familiar expression that says he won’t rest until a solution is found.
Bucky should be thinking too but finds that he can’t look away from Steve.
He sees the lightbulb moment; Steve’s whole face brightens. It’s blinding.
He’s so unfairly pretty.
“Noise-cancelling headphones! Would those work? And I could, I don’t know, give you some advance warning if I bring someone over?”
Bucky considers that.
“They don’t work very well on me,” Bucky says slowly, but when Steve’s face starts to fall, he adds, “But they do help some. It will definitely reduce the range. I can play some weird loud music.”
His lack of enthusiasm at that particular idea must show on his face because Steve cracks up.
“Don’t torture yourself too much.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
That sets off another wave of sniggering. Bucky stares placidly and with great patience as Steve struggles to get himself under control. He almost regrets it when it happens because Steve gives him a look filled with such fondness that Bucky’s heart does a painful flip.
“We’ll figure it out,” Steve says, and Bucky nods numbly, not even registering the words until a few seconds later.
He’s in so much trouble.
-
The conversation pries his third eye open to how much more severe than expected his thing for Steve is. And he still managed to have a calm, rational discussion on Steve bringing other people home to fuck without anyone privacy paying the price. Bucky’s proud of himself. He’s a sane and functional member of society. More or less.
Of course, he then promptly gathers the whole mess of his feelings for Steve and the budding feelings for kinky sex with Steve and shoves it all to some deep, dark corner of his mind, determined not to take it out until the next time he’s forced to. And he will be, he knows it; his life’s just like that. But until then, it’s staying in its lane and everything will be normal.
And it is.
He and Steve continue enjoying peaceful cohabitation, eating two meals together and watching shit of varying qualities on Netflix. Bucky is haunted for about a week after learning of the phrase ‘Netflix and chill,’ but he gets over it. Netflixing and chilling non-euphemistically is perfectly wonderful. Bucky could spend the rest of his life doing that, which is somewhat more concerning. He dwells on it for all of five minutes before thrusting it into its designated corner.
He ventures into porn once more and exits out of the window just as fast. Apparently, his dick’s only into it when Steve’s the one crooning filthy nothings and edged endearments. Random internet blonds with gleaming muscles and big cocks just make his libido crawl into some dark crevice. That suits Bucky just fine too.
Steve hasn’t brought anyone home after Sharon—after his and Bucky’s conversation.
The first few weeks are fine. Bucky doesn’t know if Wade is the first person Steve brought home since Bucky moved in; it’s equally likely that he was just the first when Bucky was home. He’s spent days to weeks away on missions.
But the Avengers have been quiet for now; aliens, supervillains, and terrorists are collectively giving world domination a break. The weeks turn into months. Bucky and Steve get closer, and Bucky keeps shoving more thoughts and emotions into that corner to writhe and wriggle with its siblings.
And Steve continues not to have sex. He spends every night in the house too, so Bucky strikes out the possibility of him following his partners home. Unless Steve’s getting laid in his tattoo parlor or during his weekly drinking nights at Sam’s place, he’s not having sex at all; Bucky wouldn’t rule that last part out, except he knows that Sam’s happily committed to Peggy and Natasha and wouldn’t dare step out on them, and not just because either of them could break his dick with a pinkie finger.
Now and then, he acknowledges that he is a little too fixated on Steve’s sex life. He tries not to be creepy about it. He also doesn’t ask despite the guilt that steadily grows worse because there’s just no way to bring it up gracefully, and another awkward conversation with Steve about sex will likely make everything Bucky has stashed in that little corner burst out of him with all the vengeful rage of a natural disaster.
He very staunchly refuses to jerk off thinking of Steve. It means he doesn’t jerk off much. Or at all.
Life is…interesting.
The mission to Albania, when it comes, is a relief.
-
In his relief, he forgets his fucking house key.
And when he returns eight days later, having washed alien bugs out of his hair at the tower and longing for the sweet oblivion of his bed, he finds himself staring blankly at the front door with his pockets conspicuously empty of a key.
He knew should have talked Steve into biometric locks.
He briefly considers breaking the door down. Or calling Steve and waking him up. But it’s two in the morning, yesterday was Thursday, and Steve’s probably passed out in his bed. He would wake if Bucky called or banged on the door, but Bucky’s ma didn’t raise an animal.
He breaks in through his bedroom window.
It’s not easy, but it’s not very hard. Steve’s got his own dose of healthy paranoia, but he’s also someone who has spent years very deliberately trying to leave war and violence behind. His security is good but not insane.
Bucky goes a little weak-kneed at the sight of his bed. He feels very old.
He’s halfway across the room and about to faceplant on the mattress when he hears it.
A moan, long and deep. Theatrical, almost.
More follow, accompanied by the wet slap of flesh on flesh. There are words scattered in between, but they’re nonsense. Scripted nonsense, all of it coming from something electric rather than Steve’s mouth.
Bucky thought, in that split-second between hearing the first sound and the second, that Steve had someone over. Now he knows Steve’s just watching porn.
And jerking off, probably.
He’s not very sure whether this knowledge is objectively better.
There’s a grunt, deeper and louder, and Bucky doesn’t know how he knows, but it’s Steve.
He stands, frozen, as he listens to Steve touch himself. His heart’s pounding, hands are clammy, and there’s a telltale warmth spreading through his veins. He should jump back out the window. Run back to the tower. Crash at Sam’s. Get a fucking hotel.
He should dig out those noise-cancelling headphones Steve got him and refused payment for.
He should do literally anything other than stand here and listen like a creep as Steve’s breathing grows louder, more ragged, and—and cuts off entirely, right before he moans, low and long.
“Bucky. God.”
Bucky turns to stone, cold all over for a single, stunning second before fire erupts under his skin.
He flees to the bathroom and remembers in the nick of time to close the door quietly instead of slamming it. He strips quickly, mechanically, mind ringing with the sound of his name.
Steve has never said his name like that, for all that he loves using Bucky’s name, throwing Buckys and Bucks into every other line like he’s somehow fascinated by the way his tongue shapes the sounds. And Bucky has never minded, liked it, likes it, but this—Steve’s voice deep and hoarse, his name a wrecked whisper, that’s not something he was ever supposed to hear.
But god help him, he likes that too.
Bucky stumbles to the sink. He looks half-dead, eyes sunken deep and skin an unhealthy pallor, as exhausted as he felt five minutes ago. The tiredness still tugs at him, but it’s buried under another electric want.
His cock’s heavy between his legs, and it’s embarrassing, how easy he is, how it only took hearing Steve choke out Bucky’s name like that to send blood rushing to his dick. A handful of minutes, and Bucky’s panting, raring to go, aching for a touch.
He braces his left arm on the sink and doesn’t look at his reflection when he takes himself in hand. The tip’s a little wet, and he hisses when his thumb slides the foreskin back. It’s almost too much, the warmth of his fist around his cock. He’s wound up tight, and it won’t take long, but Bucky can’t bear to even try and make it last either.
He strokes himself hard and fast, biting his lips when pleasure sinks fangs into his gut, so sharp it might as well be pain, but fuck, he likes that and maybe he’s not that bad a match for Steve.
It’s that thought he comes to, a sudden release that almost buckles his knees.
Pristine porcelain cracks under his metal fingers as Bucky clings to the sink. His other hand’s a mess, dripping come.
The burning want under his skin hasn’t abated.
Bucky looks at the wet mess on his hand and thinks of Steve growling, You just needed a dick in you, and then he stops thinking, just acts, bending down and reaching behind himself.
The counter is cool against his cheek, and his fingers feel strange against his hole. He rubs them against the rim for a few, indecisive seconds, smearing come on the insides of his cheeks.
He drops his hand, straightens up.
He washes the mess off his hand and wets a towel to wipe down his front. His soft dick throbs a bit when he pats it clean. The urge to do more, the wants he can’t name and can’t push aside—they all linger even when he’s clean. Bucky stands there, hunched over the sink for a few moments, need warring with something he doesn’t dare call fear.
Pining for Steve was easy. It was never urgent, Bucky’s want for him, because he already had Steve in all the ways that mattered. Steve offered his affection freely, and Bucky lapped it up like a starving man, almost as if the struggles to connect with Peggy and Nat and Sam prepared him for opening so easily for Steve’s warm regard. Maybe that’s not fair to anyone involved, but the truth remains that it was breathtakingly simple to fall into Steve’s orbit.
Bucky doesn’t need sex to sweeten the deal.
But now, his body is reminding him starkly that he wants it, and the rational part of him knows that it wouldn’t change anything to touch himself to the memory of Steve’s tastes, but the soft, aching bits that Hydra tried so hard to kill are screaming that everything will change.
He doesn’t know how long he spends stewing in indecision, but his mind drifts after a while, out of his control as it flits from thought to thought, all of it Steve. His strong hands, the blue of his eyes, the way he smells after a hard run, his warm touch. The sounds he made deep inside another person, the radiant red of his blush, how his voice dips low and turns dark when he’s crooning filth.
Bucky caves.
He bought lube some time ago, part of his erratic journey of self-discovery, and he’s used it maybe twice. It’s conveniently close, stashed in the cabinet above the sink. He lathers a generous amount of it on his fingers and doesn’t think very hard about why the mere idea of this is making his cock swell again.
He bends over again, and yeah, he could do this more comfortably in bed, but he’s spent hours in positions far more strenuous and anyway, he doesn’t quite trust that he won’t lose his nerve during the trek from here to his bed, and for some reason, it’s important that he not stop now.
The lube’s cold on his heated skin. He remembers, vaguely, that there was this one girl he went with who liked it up the ass. That’s the extent of it. His mind blanks on the details. Bucky bites his lips and pushes it in anyway.
It’s both easier and harder than porn makes it seem.
His body sucks his finger in, right until the first knuckle. He pushes a bit more and grimaces when the pressure turns from strange to unpleasant. He almost stops but settles into it instead, working that lone finger inside him, tugging at the rim and pushing against oddly yielding muscle. It remains strange, but he gets used to it. His cock remains half-hard, dully pleasurable.
Bucky risks his delicate equilibrium by taking his hand off the counter and taking his cock in hand. He doesn’t make a habit of jerking off with his left hand, but he did try it once, part curiosity and part the desire to splatter come over something only used to spill blood. It’s the kind of thing Zola would have seen as sacrilege, and that was cause enough, really.
His dick rises to full hardness in his grip. He realizes belatedly that he’s got a finger casually stuck in his ass, hooked and immobile. He moves it, fucks himself awkwardly to the rhythm of the hand on his cock, and his shoulders ache from the position, but the sensation’s not half bad. It’s mostly the novelty of it that gets to him.
Then he makes the mistake of thinking of Steve doing this to him. Steve’s got thick fingers and large hands and an artist’s grace. He has ink on his knuckles, and callouses on the pads of his fingers, and he’s strong and skilled, he could—he could do so much with those hands, touch so good, and Bucky knows the drag of those rough palms over his arms, his shoulders, his hair, but it could be different. Steve could reach for places that don’t remember another’s touch, and Bucky would let him, and it would be—
It would be so good.
Bucky doesn’t feel the surge, lost in a budding fantasy, but the wave sweeps over him with a vengeance. His muscles flutter around his finger as his cock spills over his hand again, and it’s new, that tight, shuddering clench, and he imagines something longer, thicker, something he couldn’t bear to breathe around, and he nearly bites through his lip stifling a moan.
After it’s over, Bucky’s dazed, with another mess to clean up.
He wipes himself down shoddily, soaping his fingers to be rid of their sticky slickness.
At the last moment, he snatches the lube and carries it to bed and, without looking, stashes it in the bedside table.
Despite everything, sleep is quick to take him.
-
He sleeps like the dead and wakes up like it too, stumbling out of the room sometime in the evening.
His mind’s firing on half-cylinders and utterly unprepared for the sight of Steve, lying on the couch with a potato chip hanging off his open mouth. As Bucky stands there and blinks, it loses the battle with gravity and falls on Steve’s chest. He’s got enough of his brain cells to be relieved that it’s intact and not half-chewed goop.
“Bucky?”
Steve is wide-eyed and frozen. Bucky places the reason for that the same instant he realizes why he’s equally unprepared for the sight of Steve in the house.
Bucky didn’t tell Steve when he’d return and broke in through the window.
Bucky forgot that today’s Friday.
In a flash, he is painfully awake.
“Hi?” he offers blankly.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” Steve says, eyes still wide though he seems to be breathing again.
Bucky’s tempted, for a moment, to say that he came in late and Steve probably slept through it, but well, Steve never sleeps through the door opening. He doesn’t come out, ever, but he always greets Bucky with perfect equanimity in the morning and told him, once, that he just stays up long enough to hear Bucky’s bedroom door open and drops back to sleep.
“I broke in through the window.”
Steve blinks owlishly.
“I…forgot my key,” Bucky’s compelled to add.
“Ah.” Steve sits up and frowns at the chip that falls on his thigh. He eats it, watching Bucky as he chews. “When?”
This time, the temptation to lie is much, much stronger. He considers it. Considers Steve, shirtless and wearing his boxers, so much of him bare that Bucky kind of wants to put his mouth all over him. Among other parts.
He tells himself he’s never been a coward and can’t start now. Steve looks more and more concerned with each passing second.
“Around two.”
Steve blinks again. It’s visible, how he mentally connects the dots. His brows furrow deeper, his mouth opens wider, and a bright blush slowly but surely takes over his entire face. But it’s Bucky who cinches it. Steve looks at his face and whatever he sees there makes him slump.
“You heard,” he says, a quiet statement.
There’s an apology building; Bucky can see it, taste it, and he wants nothing of it.
“I liked it.”
Steve goes very still. His eyes sharpen.
“Oh?”
There’s a challenge there, almost, and the ballsy stupidity that carried Bucky to this point triples in quantity.
“Figure it’s not creepy if I like it,” he says, shrugging with a casualness he doesn’t feel. “Well, not any creepier than me listening in the first place.”
“Thought we’d established it ain’t your fault if you can’t help it.”
“I had the headphones. I could’ve shoved a pillow over my head and sang really loud instead of lying there like a log with a boner.”
And yeah, there it is. A flash of heat in Steve’s wide blue eyes.
“You left that bit out when we talked.”
“Didn’t seem relevant then.” Bucky smiles, a little crooked. “Seems to be now.”
Steve stands up.
Bucky, who wasn’t aware that he was drifting closer to the couch as they talked, almost starts at the proximity. Steve has a way of towering without threatening. It’s consuming, his presence, but it’s more a weighted blanket than a crushing wall. Bucky’s always wanted to sway closer into it.
He almost does, now, but keeps himself rooted to his spot with great effort.
“It would have been relevant then too,” Steve says softly.
It’s Bucky's turn to gape.
“Oh,” he breathes. “I didn’t—didn’t know it’s been that long.”
Steve doesn’t have much of a poker face. It’s obvious that he’s debating whether or not to say something, and Bucky’s glad to see his expression settle into lines of determination.
“Wanted you since I first saw you. Knowing you just made it worse.”
Bucky ignores his fluttering belly and warming cheeks, asking, with a steadiness that impresses him, “Worse how?”
Steve takes a step closer. Bucky does jump a little, but when Steve starts as if to back off, he’s reaching out helplessly, grabbing Steve’s shoulder and yanking him close.
They collide roughly, but Steve’s arms come around Bucky to steady him, and Bucky finds that he physically cannot step away from the heat of Steve’s body.
Steve’s very close, jaw and lips and eyes all looming. Bucky’s knees threaten to give in, but he locks them tight and stays standing. He locks his arms too, right around Steve’s barrel of a torso. And Bucky’s not half-naked like Steve, but the thin, worn t-shit he’s wearing only serves as a burning reminder of the scant barrier between their skins.
Steve is staring. Bucky licks his lips, a nervous act rather than anything with intent, but his gut tightens when Steve tracks the motion with interest.
“Was easier when you were just a pretty face,” Steve says. His thumb is rubbing gently, thoughtlessly against the small of Bucky’s back. “Lust, I can handle. But been a long time since I’ve had a—a, uh, crush.”
“A crush,” Bucky repeats flatly.
Steve gets redder and holds Bucky tighter, a contradiction down to his bones.
“Putting it lightly,” Steve tells him, vaguely pained. “You got me—crazy, you don’t know.”
“You hide it well.”
Steve looks pained now.
“No,” he says very clearly. “You’re just oblivious.”
“Hey!”
“I asked you on so many dates.”
“What? No, when?”
“The movie last month? The dinner the week before? Ring any bells? You said yes, and then you said it’s nice to be out with a friend.”
“I—yeah, those are friend things, you do them with Sam all the time!”
Steve looks heavenward. That’s a Sam expression. He uses it on Bucky all the time, and Steve echoing it is very unfair because Bucky’s right. Steve didn’t mention any of those were dates. Of course Bucky thought it was just roommates’ nights out.
It hits, then, that Steve asked him out, that he wants to date Bucky, and this time, Bucky does sway a little.
“Woah there. Buck?”
“I’m fine,” Bucky says dazedly. He is not fine. “You wanted to date me?”
“Want to,” Steve corrects, eyeing Bucky with blatant concern. “I touch you all the time.”
“You touch everyone!”
“Not like this! You think I’ve spent half an hour stroking Sam’s hair?”
“Sam doesn’t have hair.”
Steve opens his mouth and closes it. Bucky is too stunned still to even feel vindicated.
“I didn’t want to push,” Steve says a bit helplessly. “I mean, I hate the concept of friendzone, you know? Being your friend is great, it’s perfect, I’ll be perfectly happy if it never changes, and I didn’t want to make it seem like—I don’t know.”
Bucky takes a moment to digest all that. He slumps a bit more against Steve and realizes, abruptly, that he’s practically nosing at Steve’s throat. He almost withdraws but then just…doesn’t. Steve’s holding him tight and close, and the last thing Bucky wants is to put distance between them.
“You’re my best friend,” Bucky mumbles against Steve’s pulse.
“What?”
“You’re my best friend,” Bucky repeats more clearly, squeezing his eyes shut even though he’s not looking at Steve’s face. “And I was—am—happy with that too.”
“But you’d like more?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank fuck.”
There’s a flash of amusement at Steve’s vehemence, but Bucky’s brain blanks the next second when fingers slide under his chin and lift it up and into a kiss.
A light, fleeting pressure, and then Bucky’s opening his eyes to a very nervous-looking Steve.
Steve’s lips, he registers belatedly, are chapped like he spends all day gnawing on them. Which he does. Bucky went to his parlor once, half to watch him work and half to see if tattoos can withstand the serum’s healing prowess. The answer to the latter was a solid no, but the first was worth the visit. Bucky stared the whole time Steve worked on him, warm all over from being the target of all that careful focus. And Steve kept his face blank through the whole process, except for his mouth, which was twisted this way and that as Steve bit deep into his lower lip.
“Bucky?” Steve calls. His voice is nervous too.
“Yeah?”
“Was that—was that okay?”
And Bucky, with his mental filters shot to shit between last night and these last several minutes, blurts out the naked truth.
“If you kiss me like that, Rogers, you’re gonna have a hard time convincing me you want to fuck me.”
Steve makes a high, strangled noise, shock splashed across his pretty face. It shifts the next second, amusement flashing briefly before a narrow-eyed smirk takes over. Bucky’s heart skips a beat.
“Can’t have that,” Steve says and—
And the fucker bends Bucky back like this is a goddamn romcom and kisses the everloving shit out of him.
Bucky doesn’t think he reciprocates all that well. Yeah, he remembers the bare bones of how to smash mouths, but it’s been a long time, it’s been seventy years, and even the cocky shit he used to be wouldn’t be able to do more than cling to Steve and gasp against his mouth because the mad motherfucker is holding him parallel to the floor like Bucky’s not nearly three hundred pounds of muscle and metal.
Steve breaks the kiss, and Bucky’s left panting in the aftermath, but Steve’s not much better off, breathing hard with dark eyes and wet lips.
“Convincing enough?” Steve asks between rough breaths.
Bucky just stares at him.
He thinks he’s in love.
That’s when Steve tries to straighten up, loses his balance, and sends the two of them crashing to the floor in a painful tangle of limbs.
-
Steve’s holding an ice pack to Bucky’s head and making big guilty eyes at him. Bucky can’t stop laughing, except every peal that slips past his mouth makes Steve turn a darker shade of red. Bucky feels a little sorry for the guy, but for the most part, he’s—
Well, he’s happier than he has been in a long time. It’s too soon for the honeymoon stage to set in, but tell Bucky’s addled mind that.
“Bucky,” Steve whines in the manner of a grown man who’s trying hard to make it seems like he’s not whining. “Stop laughing, you’ll hurt your head.”
Bucky laughs harder.
“Bucky!”
“It’s—it’s barely a bump, come on. Only thing getting hurt is your dignity.”
“It’s dead,” Steve mutters, finally relenting and taking the pack away. It was unnecessary to begin with, but to be fair, Bucky didn’t try very hard to dissuade Steve from using it. He’s still feeling that guilty thrill from being fussed over. No one has done that in a very long time. In the past, before Hydra, it was because Bucky didn’t let them, drunk on some sort of machismo, and even his ma gave up after a while. And after, well, the Winter Soldier commands fear and respect, and he’s gotten along fine with the Avengers after the initial attempts at mutual murder, but if he gets injured, he walks it off, and even Peggy doesn’t dare interfere beyond strict orders for rest.
That’s fine, he likes it that way, but it’s different with Steve. Everything’s different with Steve. It would be terrifying if it weren’t so exhilarating.
It’s still a little terrifying.
Fingers gently slide into his hair, feeling around where Bucky hit his head. The swelling has already gone down, the area aching with the telltale tingle of enhanced healing.
Bucky tips his head back and catches Steve’s eyes.
“It’s fine, Steve.”
Steve just sighs.
Bucky reaches for him. Steve bends down easily, letting out a surprised yelp when Bucky yanks him into a clumsy, upside-down kiss. It’s about as chaste as their first, lips sliding together briefly. But Steve’s smile is bright when he pulls back, and Bucky is light like he’s filled with helium, so it’s good. Very good.
“So I didn’t fuck it up beyond hope?” Steve asks.
Bucky grins, so wide that it sits unfamiliar on his face. He tugs at Steve until he’s standing in front of Bucky. Steve slides down to his knees, chest pressing against Bucky’s knees, hands sliding up his thighs to grip his sides lightly.
Bucky finds it hard to breathe, looking at him.
“Definitely my most memorable first kiss,” he says. “And I’m impressed you could handle my weight.”
Steve preens a little, though there’s still uncertainty at the edges of his smile. Bucky tries to kiss it away and lingers for a long time, kept trapped by Steve’s rough lips and teasing tongue. His heart beats double-time in his chest, threatening to jump out and into Steve’s teeth.
When Steve finally lets him go, Bucky’s bones are melted wax. Steve strokes the side of his face and trails gentle fingers down his throat, his eyes bright with awe, and Bucky can’t stand to look at that expression so he shuts his eyes and trembles under the weight of such blatant adoration.
“Sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, voice warm and syrupy. Bucky sucks in a sharp breath, face burning. “Yeah? You like that.”
Bucky nods jerkily, eyes still closed.
There’s a kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth, and when Steve talks, his lips brush Bucky’s skin.
“Heya, Buck. Look at me. C’mon.”
Bucky can’t fathom saying no. He opens his eyes. Steve grins at him, wide and proud, and Bucky’s heart goes a little crazy.
This man’s trouble.
“We should—” He swallows, throat dry at how Steve’s eyes grow intent at the words. It’s a—it’s a good expression. “We should, well, we gotta talk about this. Because I haven’t—it’s been a while—and I’ve never—”
Steve gently squeezes Bucky’s shoulder, smile soft and calming. It doesn’t quite work, Bucky’s still so nervous he can taste it, but it helps, Steve’s unassuming support. He doesn’t say anything, just kneels by Bucky, waiting, expression so similar to the one he wore that one time he found Bucky huddled on the porch after a bad night. Steve wrapped a blanket around him and brought him tea, and neither of them said a word, but Steve sat with him until dawn broke, a steady, calming presence.
Bucky wonders, sometimes, whether he ever stood a chance in hell.
“I’ve never been with a man,” Bucky says. “I liked—like—both, but—it was easier to go with girls, so I did. And I could have, in the army, but I didn’t.”
Steve listens intently, smile never wavering.
“Thank for you telling me,” he says. “It’s not an issue for me, you know. We all had our firsts. I’d be honored to be one of yours.”
And that’s tooth-rottingly cheesy, but Steve practically exudes sincerity, and there’s not a soul on earth who wouldn’t believe him. Bucky trips a little deeper into his orbit.
“Me too,” Bucky manages to say without stumbling over his words. “Haven’t—I haven’t been into anyone, any of this in a long time. It’s you, I just—it’s you.”
It comes out helpless, plaintive. Bucky was suave once, but that’s another life, and Steve’s the kind of man who short-circuits his brain from another room. Bucky quietly resigns himself to self-induced embarrassment.
But Steve’s looking at him like he’s never seen anything so good in his life, and what’s a man to do when he’s looked at like that?
Bucky ducks his head. He’s pretty sure his face is on fire. He can never again tease Steve about his blush.
“If it helps,” Steve says after a pause, voice suspiciously thicker, “I’m out of practice too.”
Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. Steve swats at his chest.
“Put that expression away. Yes, I know I’m a manwhore—”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You were thinking it,” Steve says, and he’s grinning, not the least bit self-conscious, but Bucky burns righteously all the same.
“Nope, no, hell no. I’ve heard you fuck all of two people, and yeah, you stay out some nights, but you know what, you can bring a different person home every day, and I still wouldn’t give a fuck.” He pauses, reconsiders. “Well, I would, but I’d just be confused and jealous.”
Steve’s got that expression again, delight and awe all mixed together. It makes it hard to look at his face.
“You’re sweet,” he says.
“Steve!”
“Ssh, it’s true. I wasn’t lying, you know. I am out of practice. I haven’t dated in a long time. Haven’t wanted to, till you. Last was Sharon, some five years ago, and we decided we’re better off as friends. Who occasionally screw but still just friends. I haven’t dated much in general. We’re both going in blind, buddy.”
Bucky doesn’t think that’s as reassuring as Steve thinks it is. Because the dating isn’t what Bucky’s worried about. And he probably should save this conversation for a later date, when they’re sure it’s not better off to remain as roommates who look at each other a bit too long, but Bucky has spent long weeks haunted by memories of Steve taking other people apart and knows his mind won’t let up just because Steve’s his for the time being. It’s better to get it out of the way, even though it makes his gut twist in on itself, not altogether unpleasantly.
He drags in a fortifying breath and takes Steve’s hands in his, linking their fingers together. Steve grips tight like he never plans to let go. Bucky looks down at their mismatched hands, his flesh and metal, Steve’s dark with ink. S A R A H, spells the knuckles of his right hand. He never asked, but Steve offered some time back, when he caught Bucky looking.
“My mother,” he said, and that was that.
Steve’s a good man, a kind man, and he makes Bucky feels so safe that it scares him, and that’s not why he needs to talk about this, but it’s why he wants to.
“It’s the sex I’m worried about.”
Steve doesn’t freeze or react in any way that’s obvious. But his breath is a slow, measured thing.
“Bucky, we don’t ever have to have sex if you don’t want to. We can work something out, to suit us both.”
Bucky blinks at Steve. He considers smacking his chest again, but that would require untangling their fingers, and he doesn’t want to do that. He settles for staring at Steve with an unimpressed glare that has Steve leaning away, visibly nervous.
“Let me rephrase,” Bucky says once he feels Steve has suffered enough. “I want to have sex with you.”
Steve perks up like a puppy. Bucky’s vindicated, but there’s pleasure too, curling tight in his stomach. It’s not so bad to be wanted, and this is Steve, who’s not wholly a stranger to the scars Bucky wear, the ones on his flesh and the ones on his mind, and the desire means something more coming from him than the dates Nat shoves on him and faceless strangers on the internet who appreciate his…aesthetic.
“Hey,” Steve prompts gently, squeezing Bucky’s hands. “Anything wrong?”
“Nah, just thinking.”
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Fuck you.”
Steve grins impishly, and there he is, Bucky’s friend.
“That’s the plan,” Steve says, laughing when Bucky growls at him. “Said you had a problem though.”
“I said I was worried, asshole. I’ve heard you fuck, remember?”
Realization dawns. Steve’s smile doesn’t fade, but his eyes are serious. Bucky talks before the earlier exchange repeats itself.
“Still not saying I’m opposed. Just—I don’t know. I’ve never.”
Steve cocks his head. “I hear a but in there,” he says.
Maybe they should have had this conversation via text.
Hey, Bucky could say. I got hard hearing you slap a man around and put him through the mattress, but let’s like take it slow, yeah?
“Buck, we can talk later if you want to. There’s no hurry.”
“I know, just—been thinking about this for a while, Steve. There’s a reason I felt like a creep, hearing you guys.”
“Oh,” Steve breathes. Then, sharper, “Oh!”
“Yeah,” Bucky says flatly. His ears are hot now. “Oh.”
“That’s—that’s the opposite of a problem.”
Bucky snorts a laugh. He leans in for a quick kiss, gratified when Steve chases his mouth for another, then one more.
“Just take it slow?” he asks when they separate. “This, all of this, is new for me.”
Steve’s face does a lot of complicated things, and every expression he cycles through wraps Bucky in layer after layer of gentle warmth. It’s not much of a surprise that Steve understands, but the affection that underlies it wreaks holy havoc on Bucky’s poor, abused heart.
“I’d never do anything you don’t want,” Steve says and cuts off Bucky’s protest with a laughing, “Yes, sweetheart, I get that’s not what you meant. Just saying. Of course we’ll take it slow. We’ll figure out what works for us. Together.”
“Together,” Bucky echoes faintly. He clears his throat. “Yeah. That sounds real good.”