Chapter Text
"Congrats!" Natasha says when she reaches their tables and throws her arm around Bucky's shoulders, somehow balancing her tray with one hand even as she leans forward.
"On my face?" Bucky asks and Steve thinks yes, fair because Bucky is beautiful. With his dark hair and blue eyes and toned muscle, Bucky's a teenage dream.
Bucky and Steve are sitting at their little group's usual table, one in the back of the cafeteria, eating their lunches while Bucky copies Steve's notes from Pre-Calc and Steve compares Bucky's highlights in the novel they are reading for Literature with his own. Bucky color-codes in a way that makes no sense to Steve but he always has interesting points written in the margins.
Sharon appears on Natasha's side, carrying a stack of papers two of which she hands to Bucky and Steve. "You were nominated for the Homecoming Court."
Where most people would be flattered, Bucky groans. He covers it up quickly with a blinding smile. "Can I keep this?" he asks, waving the paper. Steve studies the one in his own hand. There it is, among the list of nominees for the Homecoming Court, James Buchanan Barnes nominated for the Homecoming Prince. "I'll put it on the fridge. So Mum can stop pestering me about not getting involved enough."
"Sure," Sharon says but places about a quarter of the stack she's holding in front of him. "You can help me hand out these." She puts another pile on the side of Steve's tray.
"That seem self-indulgent," Bucky mutters but doesn't really protest. It's difficult to argue with either Natasha or Sharon and impossible to argue with both of them at once. They both put up a sweet front, a beautiful red-head with a soft Russian accent and a blonde with the shy smile mastered, but they never need to so much as raise their voices to get things done.
The girls take seats at the table and Sharon grabs a sandwich from Natasha's tray.
"Where are Clint and Sam?" Steve asks. He folds the paper in half and then again and shoves it in his pocket. Bucky's the only one from their little group who is nominated. He and his letterman jacket fit in oddly with the misfits, but somehow it works.
"Clint's in detention," Natasha says.
"And Sam's here," says Sam, coming to the table. He punches Bucky's arm, mutters "congrats", and sits down between Steve and Sharon. "So, Homecoming."
"Yeah, Homecoming," Steve mutters. It's in three weeks, yet the school's been talking about it for weeks already. He'd like to think he's too cool with being uncool to care, but apparently it's not the case for his friends.
Beside him, Bucky moves the rest of his fries to Steve's tray and reaches out to attack Natasha's fruit salad with his fork. She lets him fish out a piece of apple but when he has it, Natasha grabs his wrist and pulls his arm forward so that the fruit ends up in her mouth. Bucky whines, Steve rolls his eyes, and Natasha grins.
"So, who are you guys going with?" Sam asks.
Steve sighs. "I'll leave the mating games to people with better genes." He isn't trying to be self-deprecating, but he knows all too well what he looks like. There's a lot of things he is, many of them good, but desirable isn't one of them. From a scrawny kid, he turned into a too short and too thin a teenager with a thick medical file.
"Nothing wrong with your genes," Bucky says. He ruffles Steve's hair so roughly Steve almost ends up with his nose in the tray. Then Bucky runs his hand down Steve's neck and back and then wraps his arm around Steve's waist casually. Steve doesn't even think about protesting; he loves these little affectionate gestures he sometimes receives from his best friend.
"If Clint gets out of detention for long enough, I'm asking him to be my date," Natasha says.
Sharon turns to her. "Can I ask? Are you two dating or…?"
With a smirk, Natasha leans to her. "Why, which one of us do you want to go with?" There is a range of smiles and smirks Natasha uses and this one says: I know things about you that even you aren't aware of.
Sharon blushes and laughs and shakes her head.
"Hey, Steve," Sam says. "If you don't have anyone else you'd like to go with, we could go together."
Steve snorts. "We tried that before, remember? You decided you were straight."
"What about you, Bucky? Anyone you're going to ask?"
Bucky shrugs with one shoulder, rubbing absent-minded circles into the small of Steve's back with his thumb. "I haven't really thought about it."
///*///*///*///
Bucky's wearing a black t-shirt with patches of sweat and his hair is messy. He makes his way past Steve into the bathroom and there he shoves his head under the tap in the bathtub; water is dripping off his bangs and the tip of his nose when he straightens up again. Steve wants to lick the droplets off his skin but he has some self-restraint.
"Eggs and bacon?" he offers and Bucky nods eagerly.
Steve's mother is working and so it's just the two of them, but that's nothing unusual. In fact, it's very much their Saturday routine until it's time to drive to a diner for a lunch and then for Bucky's football practice. They eat and then settle in Steve's bedroom, Steve curled on the bed with a sketchpad, Bucky on the floor, head rested against Steve's legs.
"So, about the Homecoming…" Bucky starts.
Steve sighs. "Et tu, Brutus?" He honestly doesn't want to think about the Homecoming Dance, because as all dances, it's simply a reminder of how impossible it is for him to find someone who'd like him enough to take him out for a date in front of all the school.
"C'mon, Stevie. You know it's going to be awesome. You know you wanna go." He leans back so that he can look at Steve easily. Steve continues to stubbornly shade the curve of Bucky's left cheek and doesn't look at him at all.
"I don't think I'll go."
"But Steve," Bucky whines, stretching the vowel in the name. "Hey, what if someone asked you to be their date? Someone who was proper interested, I mean."
"No one's gonna ask me."
"But-"
"Leave it. What about you? Whom are you going with?" It isn't exactly a change of topic, but at least it takes the attention off of him.
Bucky lets out a sigh and shuffles. "I don't know."
"One of the cheerleaders?" Steve suggests and ignores the pang of jealousy in his chest. "Darcy, perhaps? I saw her looking at you." When Bucky's answer is a non-committed shrug, he asks: "Isn't there anyone you'd like to take?"
"Someone, yeah. But I don't know if they'd go." Bucky sounds so shy and uncertain it's almost impossible to bear.
"Of course they would. No one's gonna say no to you, Buck." Bucky is handsome and charming, smart and athletic. A complete package. People love him.
"Yeah, well." Bucky reaches for Steve's sketchpad with a grabby fingers gesture. "Can I see?"
Steve shrugs and hands it to him and then delights at the way Bucky's face lights up. Bucky makes a content noise as he studies the sketch. It's of him, of course.
"You make me feel beautiful, Rogers."
"That shouldn't be much of a problem," Steve says as he reaches out to take his sketchpad back.
Bucky smiles at him, happy and open. "Hey, Steve," he says, wrapping his fingers loosely around Steve's ankle. "Will you- You'll come to the game, though, right?"
///*///*///*///
Then puberty hit and Bucky grew almost a foot in one summer. He was turning heads soon afterwards. He joined the football team and was the first one in their year to kiss a girl (Natasha; but it turned out they were better friends than sweethearts and Natasha joined their duo which afterwards grew into their little group). Meanwhile, Steve was still too short and with too many ailments to count.
It made no sense, for Bucky to keep Steve around. Yet the only time Steve had seen Bucky actually angry with him was when he once mentioned this mystery. Bucky didn't speak to him for five whole hours before calling.
"Just… never put yourself down, Steve. You're great. The best. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even yourself."
It was the sappiest Steve heard him get.