Work Text:
Bucky checks his watch and sighs. His ride was supposed to be here two minutes ago. He's not in a rush, really, but it's colder than channel 4's Johnny Fuckin' Storm said it would be, and Bucky's in just a tee and his denim jacket. And was that a raindrop? He doesn't have his goddamn umbrella, it wasn't supposed to rain today, Johnny....
Sure, he could go down into the subway and he'd get close enough, but his gym bag stinks like something died in it—something honestly might have, since it'd been sitting next to his door for probably three weeks since his last workout, and the rats are bolder in the colder weather. The subway isn't exactly known for its rosy bouquet, but he doesn't need to put anyone in a foul mood because they got stuck with their nose right above this stealth stink bomb.
So, he's called for a rideshare, and it's now four minutes la—ah, there it is.
A lime green Kia Soul pulls up, and Bucky has to double-check the license plate, because what the actual hell? Are those... undercarriage flashing lights?
He heads for the back passenger-side door, and since the windows are tinted, it's not until he's opened the door that he realizes someone else is already sitting there.
"Oh. Uh. Sorry."
It's a... large man. A large, jacked man, with shoulders that might be wider than the seat. He's in a tiii-eeeght shirt that matches his eyes, and then he smiles and it's a fuckin' perfect smile, cheeks bunching at the top of his impeccably groomed beared, and Bucky is so instantly turned on that he forgets how to human, his brain shorting out.
"Would you prefer if I move over?" the swole gentleman asks in a terribly polite tone. He sounds like he's from New York but with these manners? In this economy?
Bucky's still standing still like an idiot. And he's got a boner? Christ.
The driver looks back over his shoulder. "You James?"
His given name jolts him back to reality. "Uh. Yes. Yeah. Sorry." He clears his throat and waves Mr. Shoulders off. "I'll go to the other side, you're fine." More than fine, holy shit. He closes the door before the guy can do something else endearingly and insufferably polite, scurrying around to the driver's side, and he quickly hops in.
"I didn't realize I'd picked the carpool option," he mutters, trying to tuck his bag under the seat, which doesn't really work well. "I'm so sorry for my bag. It... smells."
"Had worse in here," says the driver as he slips back into traffic. Bucky startles, having forgotten that there was a driver.
His carpool buddy just laughs softly. "I can't smell anything, so I think you're okay, man."
Bucky swallows and smiles, nodding. "Right. Good." He dares a look over at this personified sunbeam, and he realizes that this wonderfully blue shirt that is working overtime to keep hugging those marvelous pecs is actually a sweater? Short sleeved, and...
His eyes widen further. It's cropped. He can see belly.
Bucky is about to goddamn faint from a lack of blood in the brain.
Crop-Top shifts a bit in his seat, and the seatbelt catches on the sweater, which of course makes it ride up even more. Fuck Bucky's entire life.
"Whereabouts ya headed?" asks Crop-Top, and Bucky swallows down a whine over how earnest he sounds.
"Just, uh, headed home." He probably should lie, he realizes too late. Should've said it was a friend's house. If he gets dropped off first, then Crop-Top will know where he lives. And, shit, maybe Crop-Top is a serial killer. Becca's been listening to that weird F-Word Murder Mystery podcast or whatever, and she tells him about all the serial killers and how much work women have to do to not be serial killed, and he's almost proud of himself for realizing he fucked up because that means he listened to her!
Crop-Top is, of course, unaware of Bucky's inner monologue. "Me too. Guess we must not live too far apart, huh?"
Bucky eyes him carefully. "Or maybe I'm lying so you don't stalk me and put me in a tub of ice and steal my kidneys."
The guy gawks at him.
"Ha ha?" Bucky tries.
"Well." He rubs at his chin, and Bucky tries (fails) not to imagine how the beard would feel on his fingers (thighs). "I'd promise I'm not out to harvest your organs, but then again I think that's just what an organ-harvester would say."
Bucky nods "I imagine you're right. Which you'd know from all your experience."
The driver clears his throat. "Should I drop Steve off first so no one has to fear being murdered?"
Crop-Top—Steve, apparently—snickers, and Bucky ducks his head, feeling his cheeks heat. "Not necessary. I mean. Just go however you were originally planning it." The driver grunts and goes back to appearing to ignore his passengers.
Bucky pulls his phone out, deciding it's time to stop saying stupid shit to a stranger. Even if he is disgustingly attractive and wearing a completely weather-inappropriate outfit. Actually...
"Okay. Gotta ask." He gestures to Steve's... Steveness. "What's with the...?"
Steve looks down at himself. "What?"
"Your, uh. Fashion choice?" Was that rude? It felt kinda rude.
"Oh. Uh." The tips of his ears go red, and Bucky is delighted. He tries to hold back the grin, at least until Steve can confess this story. "Would you believe it shrunk in the wash?"
Bucky just stares at him.
"Okay, so. Not believing that." Steve clears his throat. "Ugly elephant at an early holiday party with my, uh, book club."
"Wait. What?"
Steve sighs, and it's more like an impatient huff. "Like, you know an white elephant gift exchange? With the stealing and shitty gifts and the one creepy guy who hopes the hot secretary will end up with the box of elephant-dick-sized condoms he brought?" He plucks at the sweater. "Instead of gifts, we all wear ugly sweaters, and then we end up doing the stealing game, and, well, I guess I was the hot secretary this time?"
Presumably, in some version of reality, the words Steve said all make sense in the order in which he said them. But Bucky's not living in that version of reality.
"You stole the sweater from a creepy guy at work?" The driver snickers, but doesn't comment, and Steve just stares at Bucky with a look of such intense nonplussed-ment that Bucky wonders if, perhaps, he's not speaking English or something. "No, wait, seriously. Go over it again?"
Steve starts lifting fingers to emphasize his points. "It wasn't a work party, it was a book club. I wore a different, yet still appropriately ugly, sweater to the party. The game lets you go and turn and swap your sweater with someone else's, until everyone's had a go, and you might end up with a really dumb sweater as a result." He gestures to himself. "You can see that I definitely did."
Okay. That seems to make... well it's not quite sense, but Bucky's picking up what Steve's putting down.
"That is either the dumbest holiday gift exchange in the world, or the best." He shakes his head, leaning closer to look more at the sweater in question. "Did this originally belong to a much smaller person? Is it a woman's?"
"Everyone in the club is male-identifying," Steve says, and Bucky absolutely catches that language and now totally understands more about the "book club". "The guy who brought this sweater was smaller than me, but honestly, most people are. But this was tiny on him, too. That's what made it ugly."
Bucky shakes his head. "No, it really doesn't. You are the hot secretary!"
"You think I'm hot?"
The car comes to a sudden halt, a shrill moment of tires squealing, and Bucky looks around, realizing they're about a block short of his building. "Uh."
The driver turns around. "Why don't you both just, ah. Look, ride's on me, you two crazy kids just name your firstborn after me, mm'kay?"
"Uh."
"It's Tony," the driver adds. "My name. But seriously. Get the fuck outta here, my dudes. Ride has ended." He hits something on his phone and then shakes it at them. "Tips are appreciated, still."
Blinking quickly, still not entirely sure what is happening, Bucky just nods and wrangles his bag and gets out of the car. The green piece of ridiculousness pulls away with the undercarriage lights flashing, and Steve is on the curb, watching with Bucky it goes.
After a too-long moment, Bucky clears his throat and steps over onto the sidewalk. "So, um, are you gonna leave him a tip?"
Steve pulls up his phone and the app, considering it. "I dunno. I'm still a few blocks from where I told him to drop me. But he did comp the ride." He doesn't lift his head when he looks at Bucky, instead looking through some rudely long soft eyelashes. "What about you?"
Bucky licks his lips, looks Steve over from top to bottom, not bothering to hide it, and then says, "I have a hoodie you could borrow, if you want? At my place."
"I do own other shirts, James."
Bucky makes a face. "Call me Bucky. Only my folks and Lyft drivers call me James." He nods towards his building. "And yeah, I figure you own lots of clothes, but my place is just a block over, and it's starting to rain harder."
Steve looks up, and then squints suddenly against the quickening raindrops. "Yeah, I guess you're right...."
"Also I have a five-year-old neighbor who could use a sweater."
"Jesus," Steve mutters, but he starts walking with Bucky.
The next morning, the crop-top sweater is on Bucky's floor, and both Steve and Bucky have tipped Tony handsomely.