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Steve slips a hand through the soft hair on Bucky’s chest. Bucky wiggles a little beneath him, chuckling before swatting Steve’s hand away. “Tickles,” he mutters. Steve smiles as he pulls his hand away and flops down on the other side of the bed. Moments later, he feels Bucky’s arm snake up around him. “Didn’t say you should stop touchin’ me,” he says.
“I should go,” Steve says, looking over at Bucky. “It’s gonna be an early morning.”
“You can sleep here,” Bucky suggests. “Set an alarm or somethin’.”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s tempting. I hope you know that.”
“Think you mean I’m temptin'," Bucky says, with a grin. He slinks away from Steve and props himself up on the pillows, his body on display. God, Steve wishes he could stay.
Steve doesn’t really do one-night stands. He’s a relationship guy, and always has been. But when he saw Bucky sitting at the airport hotel bar they were both stranded at after canceled flights, he knew he had to sit down and talk to him. There was just something about his smile, his relaxed demeanor in an airport full of unhappy, stressed people — Steve included — that drew Steve in. When Bucky offered Steve a drink, he accepted.
He doesn’t really know if he’s doing this whole one-night stand thing right, though. He probably shouldn’t feel so tender, so sad that he has to leave this room and fly to a destination far away from Bucky.
“You are,” Steve says.
“I know,” Bucky says with a grin. “Maybe stay for just a little longer? I don’t think I’ve shown you everything I can do quite yet.”
Steve swallows hard, nods, and moves back towards him.
It’s just a one-night stand, he tells himself as he leans forward and kisses Bucky again. Just a one-night stand.
— —
Steve spends the plane ride the next day trying to work on his next publication proposal, but it’s difficult to think about American Socialists during World War II when he can practically still feel Bucky’s lips against his skin. Halfway through the flight he abandons his laptop, shuts his eyes, and thinks about whether he should have given Bucky his number.
He should have.
— —
He gets home late, and after fixing himself a sandwich, he goes straight to bed. The next day is just as uneventful. He half-heartedly works on his publication proposal, but abandons it halfway through the day to read a new novel that he’s been excited for and mentally prepare himself to face his colleagues for the first time since he took his sabbatical.
It was a nice year, traveling and doing research in archives and special collections. With the tenure process behind him, he’s been able to spend his time really digging into his research and it’s produced some interesting results. But at the same time, he’s missed teaching his classes. Not so much grading papers and there are some colleagues he could do without, but he’s been looking forward to returning to school and returning to normalcy.
He’s not, however, looking forward to tonight’s mixer.
They hired a new professor while he was away, a specialist on the October Revolution who is on the tenure track. Apparently, he’ll be teaching some classes in conjunction with the Russian Department, so everyone was excited at his arrival.
Steve was, admittedly, pretty absent in the hiring process. Typically, he takes an active roll when the department needs someone, but he gave himself a break this time around because he wasn’t even there.
He’s not particularly excited to see this new guy, James Barnes. Their last Russia specialist was a bit of a prick. Steve can only hope that James isn’t much of a prick, but he doesn’t have a lot of hope.
— —
“Steve!” Sam says, grinning as Steve walks into the bar. There’s a bit of a cheer from a few of the other faculty members already there, and Clint even raises a beer.
Steve smiles and shakes his head. “No need to get excited. I’m still the same, boring guy,” he says.
“Yeah, but you’re my boring guy,” Sam says, elbowing Steve’s side as Steve walks up to him. “Want your boring Revolution IPA, or something else?”
“Revolution is great, thanks,” Steve says. “We got a tab?” he asks.
“Yeah, and it’s on the new guy,” Sam says, calling over the bar to where the new guy must be.
Steve follows Sam’s gaze over to the new guy, turning just in time to see Bucky flip Sam off.
Bucky. The guy who he slept with two nights ago.
Steve stares. Bucky drops his finger and stares at Steve, too.
“Hi,” Bucky says, voice cracking.
“You specialize in the Russian Revolution?” Steve asks, the ‘and I slept with you’ part implied.
Bucky rolls his eyes.
“Your beer,” Sam says, handing it to Steve. “Why you staring so hard at the new guy?” Sam asks, quiet.
“No reason,” Steve says, taking the beer and downing half of it in one go.
Sam raises an eyebrow. “Sure looks like it,” he says.
Steve glares at him, then finishes the beer all together.
— —
“Feels like deja vu,” Bucky says, sitting down next to Steve on an empty barstool.
The crowd dissipated pretty early because, despite the History Department’s affinity for alcohol and open tabs, orientation starts tomorrow and they’ll soon have to field a thousand questions from overeager first-years who don’t realize they won’t be able to handle their 400-level class quite yet and want to sign up. It takes a heck of a lot of patience for Steve to kindly tell them that just because they got a 5 on their AP US History exam doesn’t mean that they’re ready to conduct the kind of research necessary to a passing grade in his seminar, and there’s nothing wrong with starting out with the basics. There’s always that one, though, who takes the class and ends up dropping at the last minute or failing. That’s a hard lesson for them to learn, and it’s hard for Steve to look at their tear-stained cheeks during the week of finals and tell them that they can’t save their failing grade. He never says “I told you so” but there are moments where he wishes he could.
Steve stayed, though, because he wanted to talk to talk to Bucky alone. They ignored each other most of the night — an unspoken contract between the two of them — but now that everyone besides Professor Xavier has left, it seems safe to talk.
“A little bit,” Steve admits. “You never said you were a professor.”
“Neither did you.”
There’s a pause.
“I was on sabbatical the last year. I got tenure the year before.”
“You have tenure? At your age?” Bucky asks. “Wow,” he says.
Steve shrugs. “I was lucky to get the tenure-track position early. You’ll be there soon enough.”
“Just need fifteen hundred publications, six outreach projects, and to carry the sins of the world on my shoulders, but after that.”
“Carrying the sins of the world on your shoulders makes them look nice.”
“You’re one to talk,” Bucky says with a bit of a smirk.
“About that—“ Steve starts, but Bucky interrupts him as he slides a piece of paper along the bar towards him.
“My number,” Bucky says.
“What?” Steve asks.
“It’s my number.” He pauses, sighs. “Listen, I know you’re thinkin’ that this whole situation is awkward and that you regret the other night and all that shit, but I don’t. We hit it off, we had a great night, and if I didn’t think we were headed to totally different places, I would’ve wanted to call you, anyway.”
“Why were you on a flight to Minneapolis when your final destination was Iowa?” Steve asks. They teach at a small school in the middle of nowhere Iowa, but there are more convenient places to fly in than Minneapolis.
“Had to pick up my car. Drove the rest of the way. Anyhow,” Bucky says, pointed, “I spent the whole goddamn flight thinkin’ about what a mistake I made by signin’ you off like that. If you feel awkward and don’t wanna try, I get that. But if you wanna maybe grab dinner tomorrow night, I’d like that a lot.”
Steve nods, clears his throat. “Someone has to show you the decent places to eat in this town,” he says.
Bucky barks out a laugh. “Really?” he asks. “I’ve been practicin’ that speech all night and you just come out with somethin’ that smooth just like that?”
“To be fair, I had a speech prepared, too. You just beat me to it.”
Bucky bites down on his bottom lip for a few seconds, then shakes his head. “Jeez,” he says.
“You know what’d be even smoother?” he asks.
“Your chest?” Bucky says, and it’s Steve’s turn to laugh.
‘That, but also to say that we can start your education off with the best grilled cheese in Iowa.”
“Oh? Where’s that?” Bucky asks.
“My place,” Steve says.
“Pretty smooth,” Bucky says, standing up. He takes the slip of paper with his phone number off of the bar and holds it out to Steve. Steve takes it and holds it tight in his hand. Bucky smiles. “Lead the way.”