Chapter Text
Chapter 1
31 Months, 10 Bucks and a Handful of Fries
“So…“, Sam huffed as he sat down next to Bucky at the curb. “How’s it going?”
“Fuck off, Wilson”, Bucky mumbled as he took another swig from his beer bottle.
“Aw, come on, man”, Sam replied easily and bumped Bucky into the shoulder with his. “Merle’s just running his mouth, don’t mind him.”
Bucky tensed, as if on instinct, when Sam connected with his bad shoulder.
Not that it hurt. Not anymore at least.
Not for real. Sometimes, there was that phantom of the pain Bucky knew so well by now.
Nothing more than a memory, Dr Raynor had called it. And like all memories, it would get paler and fade with time. Eventually.
Bucky wasn’t too sure about that. Twenty-three months, and he still woke up sometimes, in the middle of the night, a scream lodged inside his throat because it felt as if his arm was about to be torn off.
“Just out of curiosity”, Sam continued, fidgeting with the beer in his hand, “how long has it been?”
Bucky cast his eyes skyward in annoyance, praying for God or whatever there was to lend him patience. “How long has what been?”, he asked, despite already knowing the answer.
Merle had been pestering him about that a lot lately.
‘All your problems might get a lot easier if you just got laid, Barnes’, he had hollered through the entire bar-area. ‘How long has it been since you’ve gotten any?’
Not that Merle really knew what exactly Bucky’s problems were. He only knew that there were some.
The only ones who knew what had really happened were Steve and – regrettably so – Rumlow.
Sam and Nat knew some of it. Steve had told them only what they absolutely needed to know to help Bucky settle back in.
“You know, the whole thing Merle was going on about”, Sam ducked his head slightly, as if he already knew that Bucky would not appreciate this line of questioning at all.
“Are you seriously telling me that you believe his bullshit?”, Bucky’s gaze was so cold on Sam that he could see some of Sam’s easy-going nature shrink away under the accusatory glance.
“I think there might be an inkling of truth in there, somewhere”, Sam defended himself nonetheless. “You didn’t used to… be shy about it in the past, didn’t you?”
“I – “, Bucky grit his teeth in anger. “I’m not shy about it, I am just currently not interested –“ He couldn’t believe that he was discussing his sex life – or lack thereof – with Sam Wilson.
“According to Steve, you used to be quite the player –“
“Sam –“
“Okay, okay”, Sam threw his hands in the air in another defensive motion, spilling some of his beer over the street. “I’m just saying, if you want to go back to normal, you might want to try and do things that were… normal. To you.”
Bucky shook his head, downing the rest of his beer. There was no way he could explain to Sam or anyone else that it wasn’t about the things he did.
Fixing cars was something he had used to do with Steve all the time. He had started doing so again, but it didn’t feel the same.
He had used to hit the gym, work out almost obsessively, before. He had continued to do so once he’d gotten back. It also didn’t feel the same.
Neither did driving his bike.
Or hanging out with Steve.
Nothing he had used to do and continued doing felt the same.
Because it wasn’t about the things he did, it was about him. He wasn’t the same.
“Thirty-one months”, he finally admitted, hoping that honesty would somehow shut this conversation down.
“What?”, Sam asked curiously. He had obviously not heard him right.
“Thirty-one months”, Bucky repeated without any particular kind of inflection on the words. “It’s been thirty-one months since I ‘got any’”, he drew quotation marks into the air mockingly.
Sam spluttered and some of his beer ran down his chin in an unflattering way. “Are you serious?”, he coughed again. “Man, you must be wound up like some –“
“And it doesn’t matter”, Bucky insisted angrily. “It’s not going to fix what happened. It’s not going to fix me.”
That finally shut Sam up. For a few tense moments, the both of them sat there in companionable silence.
“Are you still having nightmares?”, Sam asked then, almost impossibly quietly.
“All the time”, Bucky admitted without looking at him, squinting into the street lights instead. “All the damn time.”
“I’m sorry, man”, Sam whispered and sounded way too sincere for Bucky to stand it. “If there’s anything I can –“
“Yeah”, Bucky interrupted him and pushed back to his feet, holding his empty beer bottle out to Sam. “Take that back inside for me? I’m gonna hit it.”
“Come on, I’ll just tell Nat to shut Merle up and it’ll be fine. If anyone can make him shut his mouth it’s her”, Sam argued but still took the beer bottle from Bucky’s hand.
“Nah”, Bucky shook his head, feeling way too tired for all this bullshit all of a sudden. “I’ll just head home, air my head out a little.”
Sam’s brows furrowed, obviously worried. It wasn’t as if the both of them were best friends. Bucky would even deny that they were friends at all, even though he knew that they were. It was just… Sam hadn’t known Bucky before all of it had happened. He had only met Bucky after, and even during those first months, during which Bucky had been absolutely unbearable – even in his own opinion, in retrospect – Sam had always been friendly to him.
Kind.
But he didn’t know what Bucky had been like before. How similar the both of them had been, with their easy-going smiles and charming swagger. And sometimes, in his darker, bitterer moments, Bucky envied Sam for still being everything he himself wasn’t.
“You want me to tell Steve?”, Sam asked, indicating his head back to the club house.
Bucky shook his head, trying to hide at least some of his annoyance this time. “Steve’s not my mom, Sam, I can come and go without him having to know every one of my moves.”
“Okay, okay”, Sam nodded and clapped Bucky on the shoulder (his good one, this time).
Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, Bucky ignored the sounds coming from the club house as Sam entered again and stomped to his car.
________________________________
Bucky hadn’t planned any of this.
It was pure coincidence that they had done their weekly get-together on a Friday instead of the usual Thursday night that week.
It was also pure coincidence that he had decided to take his car instead of his bike.
That he left early. That he stopped at the small convenience store around the corner for a pack of cigarettes (which he had promised Steve to quit, but on nights like these, when he was angry with Merle and the club and the entire world and most of all himself, smoking was easier to justify than punching a hole through his garage wall and breaking two bones in his hand in the process).
Had he taken his bike, he would have had his wallet inside of his jacket instead of forgetting it in the car.
“That’s 10.60$”, the annoyed teenage cashier with an awfully big and ugly dragon tattoo on his forearm drawled as he rung him up.
“Hang on”, Bucky mumbled as he padded his jacket down. “Fuck.”
“What?”, the annoyed Goth boy asked as he chomped away on bubble gum.
“Listen, kid”, Bucky started, feeling an embarrassed flush crawl up his neck, “I just gotta run back to my car, I left my wallet and –“
“It’s not kid for you, old man”, the kid hissed, still chomping away in a way that made Bucky’s blood boil, “and we’re closing in about five minutes. You either pay now or you”, he made a throw-away hand gesture, “piss off and try to scrounge some place else for your little death sticks.”
Bucky’s right hand curled into a fist. First Merle’s stupid comments that had tempted Bucky to break a chair over his head (hadn’t he been inside his own club house), then Sam’s annoying interrogation and now some insolent kid, that dared to assume he had to –
“Excuse me”, a voice mumbled from behind him and someone’s fingers tabbed him on the shoulder.
Bucky tried to suck in a deep breath, tried to recount the rules Dr Raynor had given him for when he felt close to losing control, and turned around.
There were three things he noticed about you immediately.
One, the fact that you were over a head shorter than he was, forcing him to bend his head down to get a clear look at you, which he hadn’t expected, blinking into the empty space over your head for a few seconds.
Second, the abnormally open expression on your face. No normal person should look this friendly in a convenience store at 23.54 pm on a Friday night after just tapping a strange biker on the shoulder. Especially one who looked as gruff and grumpy as Bucky felt in that moment.
Third, you had pretty eyes. It surprised him, that he even noticed. You weren’t some magical, unheard-of beauty, your eyes weren’t beautiful, but they were pretty. Maybe it had something to do with that open expression of yours. Maybe it had something to do with how big your eyes seemed inside your face.
It surprised him, because he had never been the kind of guy to notice a woman’s eyes first. Not before, and not after it had happened.
You cleared your throat awkwardly when he kept staring at you, waving your hand through the air once more. Bucky’s eyes zeroed in on the object in your hand, staring at the crisp twenty-dollar-bill you were holding out to him.
“Oh, uh…”, he cleared his throat as well, feeling too hot inside his leather jacket all of a sudden. “I don’t –“
“It’s fine really”, you interjected, trying to get him to just take the stupid bill.
“I don’t need –“, Bucky tried again, more insistently this time.
“No offence, but you really look like you need it, buddy”, you insisted with a strained smile, your eyes pointedly falling towards his tightly clenched, slightly shaking fist.
Okay, now he definitely felt like he was going to melt inside his leather jacket.
You gave up on the effort to make him accept the cash and instead pushed past him, threw a bag of chips onto the counter next to the cigarettes and extended the twenty dollars towards the very annoyed cashier. “It’s on me.”
“Fine by me”, the kid gave out the change and pointedly started to turn off some of the front lights.
Clamping the bag of chips between your elbow and your ribs, you threw the cigarettes in Bucky’s direction and sorted your change back into your wallet with your now freed hands.
The cigarettes bounced off of Bucky’s chest before he could catch them awkwardly. By the time he was done staring at them, you were already out of the door, a strange kind of cheery bounce in your step.
“Hang on”, Bucky called once he had caught up with you (which wasn’t that hard, considering that his steps were almost twice as long as yours).
“Hm?”, you made and turned around towards him when you felt his hand curl around your elbow.
Once he had your eyes on him again and felt your slim arm beneath his rough fingers, he didn’t really remember what he had wanted to say.
“I…”, he swallowed painfully and then threw a glance over his shoulder. “My car’s parked right over there, I can pay you back.”
You rose onto your tiptoes to peek over his shoulder, looking at his car with the dark-tinted windows and for the first time there was a guarded expression growing on your face. “Oh, that’s fine, I don’t mind, really.”
Guessing that it was better to accept your ten bucks instead of coming off as a creep, Bucky let go off your arm. “Well, okay… thanks.”
You smiled at him. “You’re welcome”, and turned away so fast that he could hardly process what had just happened.
Bucky watched you walk down the street with your bouncy steps and round the corner. Sighing deeply and running a hand over his tired face, he went back to his car, checked that his wallet was there and lid up a cigarette.
The kid from the register left the store and locked up, not without giving Bucky, who was still leaning against his car, a dirty look for causing him to be three minutes late.
_________________________
You shook your head to yourself as you fumbled with your headphones before putting them on, the chips still awkwardly pressed between your ribs and your elbow as you tabbed around on your phone.
You should have brought a bag.
Or you should have just stayed home instead of going out so late just because you had felt snacky.
Well, but you finally lived somewhere again where you could still go out and buy stuff, almost in the middle of the night. If you had stayed in the city, that wouldn’t have been a problem, with the kind of stores that were open 24/7. Still, this medium-sized, quiet town had been as far as you had dared to go all on your own, after everything that had happened in that smallest of towns with under a thousand residents you had grown up in and in the big city afterwards.
Be more adventurous, you had told yourself. Do whatever the hell you want.
That was the point, wasn’t it? Moving away from everything you knew, no family, no boyfriend.
Finding out whether you could make it on your own.
You shook your head once more as you hopped onto the bench at the bus stop, ass perched on the backrest with your feet on the seat, remembering the stranger’s dumfounded expression.
At first you had wanted to help him because you wondered what you would have felt like if you’d been in his shoes. Embarrassed. You would have felt super embarrassed. And it didn’t cost you much to help him out, so it was no big deal.
Not that it didn’t help that he was super handsome. You had felt bad for staring at him for a moment before remembering the twenty bucks in your hand.
He was significantly taller than you and looked a little gruff in his dark, weathered leather jacket, with his slightly outgrown brown hair, his scruff and that dark expression on his face.
Gruffly hot, especially with those steel blue eyes that didn’t seem to quite fit into the rest of his face. Some weird, girlish part inside of you, that wasn’t as mature as the rest of you, wished that he would somehow come back and ask for your number or something silly like that.
A car passed you.
You sighed and skipped to the next song as you stared out into the night and checked your phone to see whether you had already missed the last bus home.
With screeching brakes and a U-turn on the middle of the street, the car came back and came to a stop right next to your bus-stop bench.
One of the windows slid down with an electrical hissing sound and your handsome stranger stared back at you, still with that dark expression.
Well, not your handsome stranger, but…
______________________
“You’ve got to be kidding me”, Bucky grumbled to himself as he spotted you at the bus stop, sitting high on the bench and tapping one of your feet against the seat obviously in beat to the music you were listening to.
Forcing his car into a semi-illegal turn and slamming down on the brakes next to the bus stop, he rolled the window down to stare at you.
“What the hell are you doing?”, he asked once he saw your big eyes on him and knew that he had your attention when you took off the headphones.
“Uh…”, you shuffled around on the bench a little awkwardly. “Waiting for the bus?”
“It’s the middle of the night”, Bucky himself heard the admonishing note in his voice.
Jesus, what was he doing? He had no idea who you were, or where you were going.
He had no idea why he cared if you were out and about on the streets in the middle of the night.
“Well, a little late in the evening, maybe”, you mumbled as you fidgeted with the bag of chips in your hands.
“It’s after midnight”, he argued back.
You were young, he could see that. You were at that age where it was almost impossible to say, could have been everything between 18 and 28, especially underneath the dim streetlights in the dark.
Young and alone, and for some reason, that made him uneasy.
This wasn’t a big town, nothing ever really happened here, but…
But, sometimes, when he closed his eyes at night, he could still hear Dot’s screams.
Maybe that was enough reason to care.
“I’m just heading home”, you replied and looked at something on your phone again.
“Is there even still a bus coming?”, he asked, sounding doubtful.
Something inside your face fell as you obviously found what you had been looking for on your phone.
“Apparently not”, you bit at your lower lip as you scratched your nose nervously. “Last one left at midnight.”
Midnight. Bucky let his head hang low as he sighed deeply. Had you not been waiting behind him at the cash register, you would have most likely been able to catch your bus. Had he not stopped you –
“Do you need a ride?”, he finally asked, raising his eyes back to your face.
You hesitated, looking down the street as you climbed off the bench. “I, uh…”, you scratched your nose again. “I can just walk…”
Bucky’s hands tightened around the stirring wheel, thinking about Dot and the letter and –
“I’d really feel much better if I could give you a ride”, he admitted then, realising himself that his voice sounded a little softer now.
Your fingers curled around your phone tightly, looking down the street once again and back at him.
You sucked in a deep breath.
“Okay”, you nodded to yourself and stepped towards his car.
Leaning over the middle console, Bucky pushed the passenger door open for you and pulled back as soon as you slipped inside.
Holding the chips between your thighs, you buckled the seatbelt nervously, licking your lips.
Bucky tightened his hands on the stirring wheel again, not for the first time wondering what in the hell he was doing.
You had obviously been reluctant to just jump into some stranger’s car, and who could blame you? This was not at all how he had expected his night to go either.
“Where to?”, Bucky asked into the tense silence as he put the car back into drive.
“Just, turn again and head back down the road”, you instructed vaguely, looking down the street once more.
Deep in his gut, Bucky pitied your nervousness, but there was nothing he could say that wouldn’t make him seem even more creepy.
Glimpsing at you from the corners of his eyes, he took in the rest of your form, everything he hadn’t noticed before due to the open-ness in your face and your pretty eyes.
You wore chunky, slightly dirty trainers. Skinny jeans and one of these big over-sized hoodies that girls seemed to be wearing these days. No jewellery or handbag. The only other thing on you was the bag of chips.
You must have noticed his looks, because a strained little laugh slipped out of you as you plugged at the plastic with your fingernails.
“Missing the bus and having no other way home because of feeling snacky round about midnight”, you muttered as you looked down at the dirt on your shoes. “Not my brightest moment.”
“Can’t be much worse than not even having ten bucks to get a pack of cigarettes”, Bucky argued back, glad that you had relieved at least some of the painful tension.
Smile widening slightly, you leaned your head back to look openly at the side of his face. “I just moved a couple of days ago and still haven’t really stocked up in the kitchen, so chips at midnight it is.”
Bucky hummed in acknowledgement. “You’ll have to tell me when to make a turn.”
“Uh, yeah”, you looked around again. “Now that I have a ride”, you continued fidgeting, “you wouldn’t happen to know where I could grab a real bite to eat… you know, besides the chips.”
“Now?”, Bucky asked, staring at the watch above his radio.
00.11.
“Haven’t had anything since lunch”, you defended yourself weakly and, as if to prove your point, your stomach gave a deep growl.
Even in the dim interior lights of his car, Bucky could see the way your face flushed red up to your hairline.
Stupid, he thought to himself as he set the blinker and took the next right turn. “Might get lucky at Danny’s if they had some late customers.”
Something lit up inside your face. “Cool.”
“Will most likely only make you some fries”, he grumbled to himself as he pulled up next to the blinking lights of the diner, missing one of the n’s, and peered inside through the window.
Daisy, an elderly waitress with strawy bleached hair and a motherly smile was still running around some of the tables, bringing some customers cups and glasses.
“Thanks for the ride”, you tore his attention away and sounded so sincere that he was surprised once more. There was something strange about you, an almost innocent quality that didn’t simply stem from being young. “I recognize the place, I live down the street, so it’s fine.”
“You’re welcome”, he rasped.
You opened the passenger door, still holding your chips tightly as you put one foot out of the car.
…and then hesitated.
“You, um…”, blinking furiously at nothing in particular, you turned back to him. “You wanna join me?”
Bucky swallowed painfully as he stared out the windshield, trying to fight that feeling of whiplash. A few minutes ago, he had felt as if he had to force you into his car and now you invited him for…
For what exactly? A shared midnight-snack?
Slowly, he shook his head.
“O-okay”, you mumbled and pushed all of the way out of the car. “Goodnight and… thanks.”
The door was pushed shut with a resounding bang.
He saw how you went up to the door, padded down your hoodie to check that you still had your phone and wallet and then stepped inside.
Daisy greeted you with a warm smile and the both of you exchanged some words. You sat down in a booth then, still fumbling with your chips. Your leg was bouncing beneath the table and you turned your head, throwing a look outside.
Your eyes were trained at his general direction, but he knew that you couldn’t see him in the dark with his headlights still on.
The tips of his fingers drummed against the stirring wheel unconsciously.
It was stupid, it was so stupid…
…but Sam’s words were ghosting around his head, causing his thoughts to get stuck and move on more slowly, as if he were wading through honey.
‘…try and do things that were normal… to you.’
Bucky had loved to go out, having drinks at a bar or go dancing. Making girls blush with his charm and easy smiles. He had also liked to treat them well, despite the fact that he had never gotten further with any of them than a one-night stand or a couple of flings. Always casual. He had felt too young, hadn’t wanted to be tied down before joining the army.
Everything only ever got worse with someone waiting at home, he had seen that with his fellow soldiers.
Everything would have been so much worse if he had had someone waiting for him at home…
Treating girls well, inviting them out to dinner, teaching them how to dance, really dance, having a good time with them… in and outside of the bedroom.
Bucky had used to like that.
‘I’m just saying, if you want to go back to normal, you might want to try and do things that were normal… to you.’
Bucky would have loved for things to go back to normal.
_____________________
You flinched as your nervously bouncing knee connected with the underside of the table.
The diner was nice. Small, simple, old-school.
Daisy even wore one of those old-fashioned uniforms.
Usually they closed at midnight, but there were always some people staying late, she had said and that her and Danny (the cook, and no, the Diner was apparently not named after him) weren’t that stingy with their time.
The kitchen was closed, but Danny offered to fry you a handful fries with some cheese and roasted onions.
Daisy set a soda down in front of you, your eyes immediately training on the condensation water running down the glass and staining the coaster after you had thanked her.
“And what can I bring you, James?”, she asked then and your eyes flitted up, looking at the stranger standing awkwardly next to your booth, shrugging out of his dark brown leather jacket.
“Just a coffee is fine, thanks Daisy”, he mumbled as he threw the jacket over the bench opposite yours and slid in afterwards.
“Steve says that you are not supposed to drink coffee this late”, she stated with a motherly tone in her voice, drumming the back of her pencil against her notepad. “Keeps you up all night, wandering around the house.”
The stranger – James, apparently – rubbed a hand over his face, lingering to scratch at his beard. “Yeah, well, Steve’s not my wife yet, so I don’t care.”
Daisy simply gave a huff and went back to the counter to pour a cup of coffee.
Your eyes met awkwardly underneath the warm yellow light hanging over the table. You couldn’t help the smile that pulled on your lips. “But what are you gonna tell Steve when you get home and can’t sleep”, you asked, widening your eyes in mock-horror, as if you had any idea who you were talking about.
“Steve’s hopefully inside his own house, with his own girlfriend, and won’t care either way”, James said gruffly, drumming his fingers against the table impatiently.
“A girlfriend?”, you asked, voice taking on an even more openly mocking quality. “So, once you get Steve the ring, it’ll be like a ménage-à-trois?”
“Huh, because he’s not yet my wife, funny”, he made dryly.
You shrugged, shifting the coaster around nervously as Daisy brought the coffee, her eyes shifting from James to you curiously before smoothly pulling away again.
“Sooo…”, you dragged the sound out, “you are James, I guess?”
He nodded, eyes trained on his coffee. “Yeah… and you?”
You told him your name and he nodded once more, then silence fell over the both of you once again.
Trying to ignore the awkwardness of it all, you took a big sip of your soda and immediately had to fight the hiccup that wanted to crawl up your throat.
As inconspicuously as you could, you tried to glimpse at him from beneath your lashes. It had been dark on the street and in the car and in the shop, you hadn’t had enough time to look at the finer details of him.
The first thing you noticed were his hands. His hand had seemed almost comically huge curled around your elbow, but warm. Almost safe.
Now you could see that he had short nails and the skin around them looked as if he had been picking at it a lot lately. Even from where you were sitting you could see that they were calloused. You guessed that he worked with his hands regularly.
He wore a dark grey Henley, a very tight-fitted dark grey Henley that stretched over his chest and around his wide shoulders. After taking a sip from his coffee, he put his elbows on the table, letting his forearms rest on the surface (which caused his biceps to bulge underneath his shirt, giving you stupid thoughts) and clasped his hands together tightly.
If you didn’t know any better, you would have believed that he seemed even more nervous than you felt.
Which was stupid, really.
You had been hesitant to get into his car, remembering very clearly the talk your parents had given you dozens of times while growing up, when you had started kindergarten and school, had started walking to and from friends on your own, when you had started going to your first parties:
Never ever talk to strangers. Don’t accept anything from them. Don’t tell them anything personal about you, especially where you live.
And under no circumstances get into their car.
Which, well, clearly, you had already done, so maybe you sucked at being a daughter. Still, once inside the car, a spike of panic had shot through you, causing you to refuse to just give your address and having him drive you to this diner instead.
To be fair, you were hungry, as your stomach had proven. But still… this had felt safe. Some people still around, you could safely exit the car, wait for him to leave and walk down the street to your flat.
So… why the hell had you asked him to come in?
Why had you stepped into his car in the first place?
You shook your head at your own stupidity. You knew why.
Because he was devilishly handsome. Because, the moment some part of you had wished for him to come back, he had.
Because you hadn’t met anyone, hadn’t been with anyone since dumping the guy you thought you would one day marry.
Because…
“Are –“, you cleared your throat awkwardly, trying to stop your train of thought by breaking this terribly awkward silence, “are you hungry too?”
His brows furrowed, as if he had to force himself to remember why the both of you were here in the first place. “No”, he said then.
Your brows rose slightly at that.
“I thought it’s as good a way as any to pay your ten bucks back”, he elaborated then.
“Oh”, you pulled a face. “Yeah, okay… wouldn’t have been necessary, but thanks.”
Daisy came back and sat down a plate with delicious smelling cheesy fries in front of you.
A truly humongous plate.
“I…”, you blanched at the sight and leaned over the table slightly, conspiratorially, towards him, “He said he’d be throwing in a handful of fries?”, you whispered.
For the first time since you had met him there was a pull on the corner of his mouth, the hint of a smile, that changed everything all at once.
If he had been handsome before, the smile made him even more so. His bright blue eyes lit up and he looked a little younger, a little less gruff as he sucked his lower lip between his teeth (giving you even more stupid thoughts).
“Yeah, well, have you seen Danny’s hands?”, he shot back and you snorted an unflattering laugh, immediately flushing red.
“Fine, but you’ll have to help me out here”, you demanded, pushing the fries into the middle of the table, “I don’t care if you’re not hungry, I can’t send half of this back. And you’re paying anyway.”
His smile faltered for a moment before he resigned himself to his fate, taking a fry.
_______________________
“You eat cheesy fries on Friday nights with strange girls often?”, you asked after a while.
Bucky tensed slightly, not knowing what to say. He had used to do a lot of things with strange girls, but that had all been before…
Now, he didn’t do anything with strange girls anymore. With any girls, really, except for Nat, who didn’t count in that way.
So, what was better? Sounding like some fuck-boy or a middle-aged virgin?
“No, never”, he replied honestly, watching the slight surprise wash over your face.
You had a very expressive face. Maybe it was the huge eyes or the way you had about forty different ways to smile, but Bucky liked it. He didn’t have to guess whether you were nervous or found something funny or strange. It was just right there, no manipulation or mind games.
“Me neither”, you admitted then, scrunching your nose up slightly. “Not that I would have had many chances to do that back at home. Back there, everyone knows everyone since they have been about… yay big”, you held your hand underneath the table’s surface as a sort of measurement. “No strangers to be found for miles.”
Oh, yeah, you had mentioned moving here only a couple of days ago. “Yeah, I know the feeling”, he muttered quietly, staring back at the fries. “Seems like everyone back at home knew everyone too, before we got out.”
“Where are you from?”, you asked, obviously curious.
“Brooklyn.”
Your face lit up again. “I’ve never been to New York. Can’t imagine that everyone knows everyone though, it seems like such a big and bustling place.”
“Well, we were a very tight-knitted community in our street, so…”, he shrugged dismissively.
“Ah”, you made, obviously disappointed that he let the topic die down so quickly.
Bucky pulled at the skin around his nails awkwardly. He wasn’t sure how much he should say about himself, how much was appropriate… or how much would send you running…
God, he hadn’t done anything like this in such a long time.
“I – I’ve known Steve since then too”, he blurted out suddenly. “Since I was about ‘yay big’.”
Your smile widened at that. “Well, if you’ve known him almost all your life, you should definitely put a ring on it”, you joked, “people dig boy-next-door stories like that.”
“Hm, I don’t know”, he went in on it, just for fun. “I mean, I love him and all, but he’s always nagging me. Don’t know whether I wanna be tied down to that for the rest of my life.”
You laughed. “Nagging, like how much coffee you should be allowed to drink and when?”
“For example”, Bucky feigned a scared expression. “If he knew that I went to get cigarettes today, he’d make me sleep on the couch for a month.”
Your laughter bounced off the walls of the diner, loud and pearly. On any other night, on any other person, Bucky would have perceived it as obnoxious… but right there and then, with all of your attention on him, it warmed his insights in a strange way.
“He things he knows everything about me”, he added without really thinking about it. Maybe there was some bitterness in it, too.
Steve hadn’t been there. He didn’t know everything.
“Like Marjory the Trash Heap?”, you asked, still giggling.
Bucky almost choked on his coffee. “Like what?”
“Majory, the all-knowing, all-seeing Trash Heap”, you elaborated, completely serious. “She’s from –“
“From Fraggle Rock, I know”, Bucky interrupted, still staring at you incredulously. Immediately, he was filled with memories of him and Steve, being annoying little shits because his little sister had gotten to watch Fraggle Rock on TV and him and Steve hadn’t gotten to choose the program. “How on earth do you know the Fraggles? That stuff aired in the 80s or something.”
You shrugged smugly, leaning back in the booth. “My dad used to watch it as a kid and showed me once. I know a lot of stuff.”
“Like fancy French names for threesomes?”
Your face blushed a pretty shade of red at that. “Well, as long as its fancy. Speaking of threesomes”, you tapped your finger against the table’s surface as if to make a point, “I don’t gotta worry about Steve making a scene because you invited me to a couple of fries, right?”
Bucky huffed a dry laugh. “Nah, considering the fact that I am merely paying you back and he has a girlfriend, I doubt that this will be an issue. And if worse comes to worse, I’ll just have to hide you in the closet.”
You were still smiling, but your face burned even redder at the insinuation.
He swallowed tightly and checked his watch while taking the last fry.
00.58.
Jesus Christ, time had flown by.
“Anything more for the two of you?”, Daisy re-appeared suddenly and you jumped in your seat in surprise. Looking around, the both of you noted that you were the only two costumers left.
Something bristled inside Bucky as he declined and paid the bill. As soon as Steve set foot in here again, Daisy would tell him all about the coffee and the cigarettes and what she undoubtedly perceived as a late-night date. That waitress and her blabber-mouth…
You both slid out of the booth and Bucky could feel your eyes on him as he put his jacket back on. He held the door open for you and saw Daisy wave at him as he threw one last glance at her over his shoulder. Her smile was way too bright for comfort.
The both of you stood in the parking lot awkwardly, you with that damned bag of chips in your hands and him with his hands shoved deeply into his pockets.
Bucky couldn’t help but stare at you, being slightly in awe at the situation. He had not expected his night to go like this at all. But there was something about you…
You weren’t the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. To be completely honest, you weren’t even really his type…quite the opposite, actually.
He had liked tall girls, with long and strong limbs, long hair and bold, red lipsticks.
Now, he didn’t really know what he liked anymore.
You were short, that much was clear. That big hoodie you were wearing didn’t give much of your figure away, but your legs seemed slim inside those jeans. Your hair didn’t seem that long. From what he could tell, you were wearing little to no make-up.
You were pretty. You had that expressive face, with the thousand smiles and those big eyes.
Bucky didn’t know whether he would want to break the thirty-one months – or the ‘dry-streak’ as Merle liked to call it – for you. Didn’t even know whether he wanted anything like that at all.
However, after hearing Merle’s stupid shit all evening, after talking to Sam about it and thinking about Dot and her screams… he didn’t feel like being alone right now. Didn’t feel like letting go of that girl just yet, the girl that knew the Fraggles and joked about his almost-marriage to Steve.
Just like Sam, you didn’t know who he had been before. But unlike Sam, you didn’t even know that there was a before. To you, he was just some guy you had met at a store.
Some guy you had shared a handful of fries with.
Maybe that was why he felt strangely warm with you. He wanted to be just some guy again, not the broken Sergeant Barnes with the terribly traumatising past.
You were already looking down the street you had pointed to earlier, where you lived.
“Hey, uh”, Bucky scratched at his brow with the back of his thumb. “How – how old are you exactly?”
You turned back to him, seeming only a little taken-aback by his question. “Twenty-five.”
His brows rose in surprise. “You look younger”, he blurted out without thinking. He really wouldn’t have thought that the age difference between the both of you was ‘only’ ten years.
“Yeah, I get that a lot”, you looked at him thoughtfully.
“You”, Bucky swallowed again, but ultimately decided to just take the leap. “You wanna head back to my place?”
He could practically see the wheels turning behind your eyes as you thought about it. The bag of chips was held so tightly between your hands that he was surprised it hadn’t torn yet, after everything it had went through in the past hour.
“I told you to drop me off here so you wouldn’t know where I live and could come back to murder me”, you admitted then, all of a sudden.
“Ah”, Bucky made in acknowledgement, feeling a little dejected but not all that surprised.
“Of course, in a time of gender-equality, you should be equally worried that I might kill you in your own home”, you rambled on, still searching his face for something.
Bucky shrugged sort of helplessly.
“Can you promise me that you are not some kind of sick bastard who’s going to skin me alive or somethin’?”, you asked then.
“Well, I wasn’t planning to, but if you’re gonna put ideas in my head…”, he shrugged again.
You actually laughed at that. “Okay”, you mumbled and bit your lower lip.
“Let’s go back to your place.”