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Steve pulls up the zipper on his hoodie, ‘til it reaches his mouth, warding off the January chill. Around him, the low murmur of pedestrians and the hum of the train serves as background noise. He flicks his eyes to the lit sign—the train is still fifteen minutes away. He slips gloved hands into his jacket pockets, pulling out his phone.
He unlocks the screen and taps his game folder, starting a game of Pac-Man.
Dimly, he’s aware of more people coming in to wait, a man standing by his side near where the train doors are. Even as he’s concentrating on his game, a quarter of his attention is left to his surroundings, just like everyone who lives in a city like New York.
Steve hears the rumblings of the subway, the increased bustle of people moving closer to the doors. He pauses the game (Blinky, the red ghost, is just setting off after Pac-Man in a new level) to enter the train. It’s a little crowded. He maneuvers his way inside (pretty easy, for someone of his size) until he can stand in front of a row of seats. As the train begins to move, he realizes it's too cramped to pull out his phone and play without disturbing anyone. He sighs. He casts around for something to do and ends up thinking of his fridge, what he’ll have for dinner, ultimately deciding on take-out since his fridge is almost empty.
Two stops pass and enough passengers leave to free up seats. He looks around—there are no elderly people, pregnant women, disabled persons, or children in his immediate area in need of a seat. He sits down. The train’s barely started moving again when he pulls out his phone.
Go left to lose Blinky, he thinks, launching the Pac-Man app and pressing play. He leads Pac-Man to the right, Pac-Man making it’s chomping noise as he eats the little dots on screen and disappears only to re-appear on the other side of the screen. He drags his finger up, leading the character north. Pinky is heading towards him now, with Blinky on his tail, so he leads Pac-Man to eat as much little dots as he can. When Inky, the cyan ghost, leaves the den, Steve drags Pac-Man to the corner to eat one of the big circles then starts chasing after the flashing blue and white ghosts.
He manages to make Pac-Man chomp two of the ghosts down, while running from Clyde, the recently-released orange ghost. He’s aiming to grab the fruit at the start point, directing Pac-Man to the middle when his touch screen freezes, ignoring the drag of his finger. Steve’s heart clenches, watching as Clyde creeps behind Pac-Man and Blinky respawns, making its way out of the cage. He drags his finger on the screen again, Pac-Man making an aborted move to the left, narrowly missing Clyde and finally eating the fruit—but crashes head on with Inky, who was still on the loose.
“ARGH!”
Startled, Steve jumps, glasses slipping down his nose and banging his elbow on the subway seat. “Fuck, ow.” His heart’s still racing, even as the pain from his elbow tries to distract him.
“Shit, sorry,” the guy next to him says sheepishly. Steve spares him an annoyed glance, clutching his phone closer to his chest, one hand moving to rub his elbow.
He blinks.
The guy next to him is built, that much is obvious even under a dark puffy jacket. He flicks an embarrassed smile from under his red cap, shoulders hunching in.
He’s adorable.
If you can call a 6-foot beefcake adorable.
“For yelling or for looking at my phone?” Steve asks, because hey. 6-foot beefcake who’s invested in Pac-Man may be adorable but watching over a stranger’s shoulder while they use their phone is still kind of creepy.
The man winces. “Both. I… don’t get out much?” he tries.
Steve snorts and shakes his head. The pain from his elbow’s died down, so he puts his hand back on the seat, fingers closing around the edge. “It’s alright.”
“I used to play Pac-Man at the arcade all the time when I was little,” Adorable Beefcake says. “There was an arcade down the block from school—spent all my lunch money there. When I saw you were playing, I couldn’t help watching.”
“Blast from the past, huh?” Steve grins, tucking his phone back into his jacket pocket.
“You could say that,” Adorable Beefcake says.
“You should download the game,” Steve says. “It’s free and has a ton of levels.”
“Can’t,” Adorable Beefcake says, holding up his left arm.
Steve squints. His hand is in a black glove, his arm covered by his jacket.
Adorable Beefcake knocks on his left wrist with his right hand, and Steve can faintly hear the sound of metal.
“Oh,” he says. A Stark arm. Stark getting into prosthetics is a fairly new development, only in the last two years. While he’s managed to make safe functioning limbs for everyday use, he hasn’t figured out a way to make the metal work on touch screens yet. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” He smiles at Steve. “I could use my right hand, but I’m left-handed, and I’m still getting used to using my phone with it.”
The train rolls to a stop. They both sit still, more people leaving the train than entering. Once the doors close, Adorable Beefcake catches his eye again.
“Hi,” he smiles, holding his hand out. “I’m Bucky. I have a metal arm and sometimes I yell in excitement but I promise I’m not that creepy.”
“Steve,” Steve says through a laugh. “I can’t see without my glasses and I apparently can’t tell if someone’s watching over my shoulder when I play Pac-Man, despite living here all my life.”
“To be fair, I am very stealthy.” Bucky says, a smile Steve can’t decipher crossing his features.
“Thanks for trying to save my pride.” Steve says, solemn.
Bucky snorts, eyes crinkling in genuine mirth. He shakes his head and looks at Steve again.
His eyes are a beautiful shade of gray.
They stare at each other. Steve wants to angle his body towards Bucky, wants to see him better. His heart is thump-thump-thumping in his chest, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Bucky bites his lip.
The train hits a bump. Bucky flushes, breaks eye contact.
Steve drags in air to his lungs.
“You know,” Steve starts. He licks his bottom lip, internally calling out to the game gods and promising to offer Pac-Man to Blinky the first chance he gets if this works out. “If you can’t play Pac-Man on your phone, there’s an arcade nearby.”
His fingers are back to being clenched around the bottom of his seat. He squeezes.
“What? No shit,” Bucky says, whole body facing him in excitement, eyes round.
Steve laughs. His fingers loosen the death grip on the seat. “Yeah, it’s a couple of stops away from here, near my apartment.” He’d sacrifice Pac-Man to Blinky, Inky, Clyde, and Pinky, in that order. “I can bring you there. And then maybe we could grab dinner? There’s a diner near there that serves the best bacon with waffles.”
“Dinner for breakfast and Pac-Man,” Bucky laughs.
Steve waits, heart in his throat.
“Just my kind of evening.” Bucky says, beaming at him.
Steve grins.
“On one condition,” Bucky says, still smiling.
Steve feels the train pull, beginning to pull as they near the next stop.
“What’s that?”
“I get to treat you to dessert.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Steve says.
They grin at each other until the train stops.
(Later, Bucky will say, “It’s like you’re playing to win but also aiming to lose,” as he watches Pac-Man sputter out after running away from Blinky, Inky, Clyde and running straight into Pinky as Steve uses his fourth turn. Steve will just laugh, eyes bright and heart full.)