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“You know this isn’t working anymore.”
I just sighed. “Peggy, do we have to do this now?”
She pushed my book down so I had nothing to distract me from her. Nothing to hide behind. “If we don’t, this conversation will never happen. And it needs to happen. Steven, look at me.” My face was heating up from embarrassment and frustration and anger. I was mad but not at Peggy. Never at Peggy. I was mostly angry at myself for letting this go on for so long. “We haven’t Marked each other in a while now. We both know this, and we’ve been pretending we haven’t for the other’s sake.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. The air cooled around us, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as she let me see her Aura, something she hadn’t done in a while. It made me wonder how long ago she realized our attraction had faded into the numbness that was settled in our hearts now. With her Aura showing, Peggy looked like the days between summer and autumn: all deep greens, soft browns, and bright reds. We’d been together for almost two years, so the forest green that had blossomed every time we touched had covered most of the blue and purple from her past relationships in high school. I reached out to touch the space on her forearm that was devoid of color, and when I backed away, it was still just her skin. No color. No green. No Mark.
“See?” And her Aura was gone. That felt like a slap in the face. A lot of couples never hide their Auras from each other, but Peggy and I were never like that. It’s not like we never showed each other; we just didn’t find a need to in normal circumstances. Except, now, it felt like I was invading her privacy to see the colors that painted her skin. Even though I was the one who painted them.
“How long have you been pretending things were okay?”
“I don’t know, Steve. A few months. Maybe longer.”
I nodded, feeling like I should be moving. Doing something. So, I nodded a little longer than was necessary. “I’m sorry you felt you had to pretend that long. I didn’t want you to be unhappy for my sake.”
“You were doing the same.”
I was, but I didn’t want to admit that to her. “What do we do now?”
Peggy bit her lip and looked away. I knew she was waiting for this question, but she didn’t know how to answer it. “Do you think it’s possible to still be friends? Or will that be too much? Too soon?”
“I think we could try.” And I meant it. I wanted to try to be friends like we were before. At the end of our relationship, it felt like we were only friends, so there wouldn’t be much of an adjustment. “I’ve got to go, Peggy.” I stood and kissed her on the cheek. It wasn’t a romantic gesture, but it wasn’t a solely friendly one either. It was just a ghost of what we’d been.
“I’ll see you around, Steve.”
Walking back to my apartment didn’t take as long as it should have. One second, I was leaving the library in a daze, the next I was home.
“Pizza’s on the table,” Scott called from the living room. It sounded like he and Sam were watching something in there. Probably Law & Order if T’Challa wasn’t home. He was always correcting parts of the show, especially when it came to the legal aspects. They liked it anyways, but they preferred it without the commentary.
“Where’s T’Challa?” I mumbled. Without really thinking, I grabbed a slice of pizza. I wasn’t hungry, but it felt like I should be eating.
“Special seminar tonight,” Sam answered. “It’s the one with the fancy lawyer he’s been talking about for a while.”
“Oh, that was tonight?”
One of them paused the TV. The silence echoed around the apartment.
“It’s not like you to forget that kind of stuff,” Sam said.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
Silence again. Then they were both in the living room giving me looks. Sam was seeing right through me in the way only a psych major could, and Scott was trying to figure out a way to fix the problem like a good engineer.
I sighed, knowing it’d be useless to lie to them. “Peggy just broke up with me.” They started going on and on about how sorry they were and that I deserved better, but I stopped them. “It needed to happen. It was mutual, really.”
They glanced at each other, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth. Sam shrugged. “I think we should go out tonight, then.”
Scott nodded, probably too enthusiastically. “Yeah, we gotta get you back out there. We could-”
“You know I don’t like clubbing.”
He rolled his eyes. “I know. I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say we could go to this party a friend’s having tonight.”
“Do we have to?”
They exchanged looks again. “Yes,” they both said.
***
“I can’t believe you guys dragged me here. Whose house is this anyway? What college kid has a house like this? Or has a house period?”
Scott laughed, “A rich one.”
“How do you know this guy?”
“We had some engineering classes together before we started specializing. You’ll love him.” He looked at me again, thinking for a second. “You might hate him, actually. Or both at the same time. That’s how most people feel about him.”
A voice cut through the crowd, “Scott, you made it!”
“Hey, Tony.”
The shorter man pulled Scott into a hug, then took a long look at me and Sam. Mostly me. “Who do we have here?”
“This is Steve and Sam, my roommates. Steve just got dumped by his girlfriend, so we thought he should do something to keep his mind off her.”
Tony tilted his head, his eyes with an almost predatory glint to them. “That’s a shame, but you’ve come to the right place then. I'm sure we could find you something or someone to keep you busy. Let me know if you need any help,” he said with a wink.
We all watched him slide back into the crowd before I said anything. “Was it just my imagination or was he flirting with me?”
“Well,” Sam laughed, “at least we know someone’s interested in you. Too bad he’s a guy, huh?”
“Huh?” But they weren’t listening. Too busy looking around for something to do or someone to talk to.
It only hit me right then that I’d never told my roommates that I was bisexual. I guess it never came up over the years, and they assumed I was straight since I was only with Peggy since they’d known me. Probably should tell them at some point.
“Steve, are you coming?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
Scott and Sam stopped us a few times throughout the night to talk to people they knew or people they thought were interesting. But it just felt like I was trailing behind them, not quite present. They tried to introduce a few girls in the hopes that we would hit it off, but I just wasn’t interested. Not in any of them but also not in this entire party.
“Oh, hey guys,” Sam said, backtracking when he saw a group of people he obviously knew. It seemed like Sam knew just about everyone on campus sometimes. “Scott, Steve, this is Natasha, Clint, and James. My roommates,” he clarified, pointing at us. “I didn’t know you guys knew Tony.”
The girl, Natasha, laughed. “Who doesn’t know Tony?” I wanted to point out that before tonight, I didn’t know Tony. But I guess the STEM majors lived in their own world sometimes. “We know each other from way back, though.”
“James, are you third wheeling again? I’m surprised you don’t have a girl of your own here.”
The guy with the dark hair shifted in place. He let out a nervous laugh and crossed his arm over his stomach. I couldn’t help but notice that he only had the one. He caught me staring at him, but I couldn’t manage to be embarrassed. How could I feel anything like that when his beautiful eyes were on me? Because those were the most extraordinary eyes I’d ever seen. I could get lost in all those shades of grey, all those emotions hidden behind the cloudy hues, all that warmth. James smiled at me. “You know how it is. We all need a break sometimes.”
I smiled back at him, then looked over to see if anyone had caught it. Sam was too focused on the conversation with Natasha that had picked up again, and Scott was staring into the crowd. The other guy, Clint, was holding back a grin of his own, though.
Before I could do or say anything, Scott perked up and took off into the space he was looking into. “Hope!” he started calling.
“We won’t be seeing him for a while,” I laughed. “Maybe he’ll finally ask her out tonight.”
“Hopefully,” Sam agreed. “Then we just need to get you a date, and this night will be worth it.”
Clint spoke up for the first time, his voice softer than I was expecting. “Maybe Bucky could help with that.” He turned to James. “You could, right?”
Bucky?
“Oh,” Sam said, nodding slowly as his brain began to work something out. “Great idea, Clint. I’m sure James has plenty of girls he could send Steve’s way.”
Natasha glanced at James with a smirk on her red-stained lips. “I’m sure he could. Ladies’ man, over here.”
They seemed to be sharing some inside joke, but I was lost, and Sam was oblivious. “That’s okay. Thanks, though.”
“Let us know if you change your mind.” They said goodbye to Sam, and James gave me an awkward smile.
I wanted to say something to him, but Sam was already filling their silence. “Why’d you say no? He could’ve set you up with someone.”
“Sam,” I groaned. “I don’t want to be set up with anyone. It’s been,” I looked at my watch, “less than four hours since Peggy and I broke up. And why did you think he could anyways?”
“James is notorious for all the girls he’s been with in college. If there’s anyone who could introduce you to someone, it’s him.”
It was useless to tell him I didn’t want to find someone so soon because he was dead set on finding me a girl tonight. Even if it was just for tonight. I managed to dodge the last three that he started talking to, but Sharon was a different story.
She was nice enough. Pretty enough. She wasn’t bad company, but I just didn’t want to be at this party any longer. But before I could make an excuse to leave, Sam got an SOS text from Scott. “Gotta save him from himself. You two have fun.”
And we were alone.
“So, you said you were an artist? What’s that like?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Pretty normal, I guess. Lots of deadlines and artist’s block.” Speaking of deadlines, I should go finish my next assignment. No, it’s Friday night; that won’t work.
“Oh, come on. It has to be fun creating things all the time. Creating something beautiful and new.”
“I mean, it is. I love painting and drawing. It’s just a lot of work.” Which I should get back to, really.
“I can’t draw to save my life,” she giggled. “The best you can get out of me is a pretty awkward stick figure.”
“It’s just practice. But I-”
A touch on my back, a bit lower than I was ready for. Not that I was ready for anyone to touch me at all. “Steve, hey, it’s really good to see you again.” James flashed a smile to Sharon. “Sorry, you mind if I steal him for a bit? It’s been ages since we’ve seen each other.”
“Sure, it’s fine.” It wasn’t fine; you could hear it in her voice.
“See you around, Sharon.” And I was following James wherever he was taking me, his hand still resting on my lower back. When we were far enough away, I raised an eyebrow at him. “We just saw each other.”
“And that was too long,” he quipped. “You looked like you were in trouble. I thought you needed rescuing,” he confessed.
“Thanks.”
James continued to weave us through the crowd until we made it to a door at the end of one of the halls. He opened it, gesturing for me to go through.
“Are we supposed to be in here?” It looked like someone’s bedroom. Definitely not somewhere some guests at a party should be.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry. Natasha and I grew up with Tony. This is a guest room, and it’s where I stay when I visit.” James walked toward the doors at the edge of the room and pushed them open onto a balcony. “You can’t break into a place that practically belongs to you.”
“Oh, well, why did you bring me here?” I followed him but hovered beside where he leaned on the railing.
“I told you, you seemed like you needed rescuing.” He suddenly looked up at me, and my lungs felt like they were going to burst. Oh, that wasn’t fair. He couldn’t keep doing that. He couldn’t keep looking at me like that. “And I have to admit, I thought you were cute.”
I could feel my cheeks heating up despite the cool autumn breeze outside.
“And obviously, you think the same about me. Seeing as how we Marked back there, and you’ve been too distracted to turn your Aura off.” He looked me up and down. “That’s a lot of green you have there.”
I quickly forced my skin to return to normal, and I only wished I could do the same to my blushing face.
“Don’t be shy now, Steve.” He moved over to look at me better. “What? Are you afraid your friends might find out?” My face must have been doing something he didn’t like because his smile fell. “You are, aren’t you?”
“It’s not that I’m afraid. It’s just that…” I leaned on the railing. “They think I’m straight, and I don’t exactly know how I’m supposed to tell them I’m not, especially after we’ve known each other for years. I’ve only been with Peggy since we met, so I understand why they made that mistake. I don’t want them to feel like I lied to them or that I felt I couldn’t be honest or something. I honestly just never felt to bring up my sexuality to them.”
James touched my hand, and I swear I could feel the etching of color onto my skin. Which was crazy because you can’t feel a Mark happening. It just happens. “Maybe this is the best way to tell them.”
“James-”
“Bucky.” He didn’t move his eyes off me. “Call me Bucky.”
“Bucky.” I smiled, suddenly at a loss for words. What was I saying before? I couldn’t think straight with those eyes on me. “Sorry,” I said suddenly, “I’m just dumping all this on you. I’m sure this wasn’t the way you expected your night to go.”
He laughed, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles. “It’s not unwelcome, though.”
I didn’t know how to respond. Really, I wasn’t even sure what he was referring to when he said that. So, I just watched him for a moment, enjoying the way the dying sunlight hit his face. He had light freckles dusting the corners of his cheekbones, something I could only see now. When Bucky realized I wasn’t going to speak, he lifted my hand, almost as if he was going to kiss it. The gesture seemed to be too much because he simply lifted his eyes to mine again.
His soft breath hit my skin, and I wanted to grab his face and kiss him. He was driving me crazy with this tenderness. And it hit me that that’s probably what he was intending. I looked at him. “Is this how you do it?”
He dropped my hand from his face, but he didn’t let go. Our arms draped lazily over the balcony as he entwined our fingers. “How I do what?”
“Win over all those girls of yours? Save them from trouble and do all these sweet gestures until they fall for you? Tease them with acts of affection ‘til they’re about to lose it? Look at them like that and-” I meant it as a teasing comment, but his eyes had hardened on the street below. Definitely not the look I was talking about.
He sighed and pulled himself away from me. “Even you.” He shook his head and turned to face the busy street below us. It made me think that I shouldn’t be outside by the street this long or my asthma would start getting worse. But I left that thought alone and focused on Bucky. “Who told you about that?”
“My friend Sam. Why? Was I not supposed to know about them?”
“No, because none of that’s true. Honestly, you can’t even have friends without people making the worst assumptions.” He faced me again. “They’re all just friends, Steve. Just friends and rumors.”
“Okay, I believe you.”
Bucky groaned. “No, you don’t. You think I’m lying just to get to you.”
“I don’t-”
“I’ve seen that face before. You think I’m just saying all of this to get you in my bed or something. You already have all these assumptions about me, and you think I’m a bad person who just wants to be with anyone and everyone. But I promise.” He came back to me and waited for me to look at him. “Steve, I promise whatever you heard about me wasn’t true. I don’t just collect girls like trophies, and I’m not just using you.” The air shifted around us. There was so much emotion to the way he revealed his Aura, the air turned warm. Somehow, it wasn’t cold like I’ve always felt before. I wondered, briefly, if that meant anything. If that meant things were different with Bucky. But then, I was focused on the Marks that covered his body and couldn’t give that any more thought. His Marks. Red prints that covered very little skin, only his face and his arm. His hand was covered in a layer of silver-grey, but that was it. Other than our new Mark, he had maybe a dozen red Marks that looked weathered and faded. I’d never seen someone who actually had faded Marks before, Marks so old that they had been worn away by the years. Everyone’s Marks fade eventually after the attraction also fades, but they are usually covered by other Marks, other relationships and feelings. Bucky had loved someone long ago and hadn’t moved on to anyone else since them.
“How long?” It was a question I couldn’t help but ask.
“Going on six or seven years now. I hadn’t found anyone since him. Not until you.”
I ran my hand over his exposed skin, turning red to silver. When I met Bucky’s eyes, I expected to see pain or remorse, but I only saw peace. “I’m sorry I thought poorly of you before I actually got to know you.”
Something occurred to me as I was watching Bucky. I reached out to touch his face and let my thumb trace his lower lip. His pale skin turned silver under my touch. Bucky had never been kissed before. Or at least, not by anyone he was attracted to. “I want to change that.” And I wasn’t sure if I was continuing the thought from before or if I was expressing how much I wanted to kiss him. Because I wanted to get to know him, but I really wanted to kiss him.
“You can.”
“I can?” I wanted him to clarify because I still didn’t know exactly what we were talking about.
And he absolutely clarified. He tilted his head just enough that our lips were millimeters apart. I could feel his breath, and that alone almost sent me over the edge. I wanted to pull him into me and kiss him until we couldn’t breathe. I wanted to let my hands stain every inch of his skin as his lips turned silver and swollen. I wanted to see him red in the face and with tousled hair. But I made myself slow that train of thought. This was his first kiss, and if I didn’t screw this up, we’d have plenty of seconds and thirds to do all of that.
“Please,” he whispered. And I couldn’t remember what I had said before. I couldn’t remember anything, and I didn’t care to remember. It was just Bucky, and oh my God, he’s so beautiful.
I closed that tiny, insignificant gap that had felt like the Grand Canyon, and kissed him gently, slowly. My hand found his face as our lips glided together, smoothly as if we’d done this a thousand times before. I wasn’t one to believe in fate or soulmate or anything like that, but as I kissed Bucky and he kissed me back, I started to rethink everything. There was this buzzing in my head like I was drunk without having any alcohol. It was just from him. He had managed to get on and under my skin in such a short period of time. I swore, if he asked me to run away with him right then, I probably would've. I just felt like it was no coincidence that we had found our way here tonight. Bucky pecked a quick kiss onto my lips when we separated, and I felt like I was going to pass out from how tender it all was.
Bucky was blushing: his entire face was pink except his lips and the side of his jaw. Those were silver, and that just made me want to kiss him all over again.
“’s not fair.”
“Hm?”
“It’s not fair,” Bucky repeated, letting his fingers explore my face. “I can’t see you. I want to see you.”
So, I let him see what he wanted to see. The green that had dominated my skin slowly being replaced by silver. And he was trying to cover every bit of green that was exposed, it seemed. He let his fingers trail over my arms, my chest, my face.
“You’re so beautiful.” I stammered something in response, but even I didn’t know what it was supposed to mean. He pushed my hair out of my face. “Don’t tell me no one has ever told you that before.” I simply shrugged. Bucky swiped his thumb under my eye like he was wiping away tears. “All that green and they never told you how beautiful you are?”
I pulled him by the hips until there was no space left between us. When he pressed a steadying hand to my chest, I thought my heart would burst right then and there. “I’ve spent my life trying to find the beauty in everything and capturing it on paper and canvas, but Bucky, nothing- no one compares to you. And I- I just-” I shook my head and laughed. “I can’t talk around you. I can’t even think.”
“So don’t.” And if that wasn’t an invitation to kiss him again, I didn’t know what was.
This time, I let myself go a little more. My hand instinctively slid into his hair, loosening the messy bun even more while I held him close with my other. He melted into me at the touch, obviously enjoying his hair being played with. He tried to mumble something against my lips, but the words were lost on me. Whatever he wanted to say couldn’t have been too important because he happily went back to kissing me. After Bucky’s hand tightened around my shirt, trying to pull me even closer, I bit down on his bottom lip, earning a gratifying gasp. I took that as my opportunity to deepen the kiss and pin him against the balcony railing.
“Steve,” he panted when we reluctantly separated. “My God, Steve.” And I couldn’t even say anything in response. I was doing my best to keep my lips off his for the moment. It took all my willpower to stay on that balcony and not carry Bucky into that bedroom and turn every lost inch of his skin silver. And I was hanging by a thread with the way he was saying my name and looking at me.
I leaned back in but pulled away when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. “Gotta get this,” I mumbled. “Hey, Sam.” I leaned on the railing by Bucky.
“Where are you, man?” He was obviously still at the party by the sounds in the background. “Scott and I have been looking all over for you.”
“Busy,” I answered simply. Bucky raised an eyebrow, but I just smiled softly.
“Really?” Sam sounded surprised. “Thought you’d be hiding away from everyone until we came to rescue you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already been rescued.” Bucky stifled a laugh and wrapped his arm around my stomach in a tight hug. I put my arm around him while I continued my conversation with the other.
“Who was that? Steve, did you find a girl all on your own?”
“Not exactly.”
But he wasn’t listening to my response. He was relaying the information to Scott, sounding more excited about my love life than he should’ve been. “Well, we’ll leave you to that. We’ll be here, so just let us know if you need anything. Man, good for you.”
“Alright, Sam. Hopefully you can meet him soon.” I looked down at Bucky; he was already watching me with a sweet smile on his face. “He’s really something else.”
“Wait- he?”
“Bye, Sam.” And I hung up, despite his protests.
“You want me to meet your friends?” He sounded a bit apprehensive.
I pressed a kiss to his temple, the silver print shining in the dim light while I stared at him in awe. “Absolutely. That is... if you want to stick around.”
He nodded eagerly, then settled his cheek on my shoulder. “Where have you been all these years?”
“Uh, the other side of campus.”
Bucky laughed at that. “Let’s go,” he said suddenly, pulling me back inside.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t care. Food, a movie, my place, yours. Doesn’t matter, I just want to be with you.”
I didn’t even have to think about that. “My apartment is empty tonight. We can have some privacy and talk or continue this or whatever you want to do.”
Bucky’s face lit up with this mischievous smirk, and I was being pulled through the crowd to the front door. Tony tried to get us to stop and talk when he found us, but he saw our interlocked hands and let us go. There was a glimmer of sadness in his eyes, though I couldn’t focus on it long. Bucky led me to his car and hurried onto the street toward the edge of campus where I lived. We filled the short time with idle conversation, learning new things about each other between glances. Bucky spent more time looking at me than at the road, and my hand settled on his upper thigh halfway through the drive. I gave him the final directions and sighed in relief when I saw T’Challa hadn’t made it back yet. We’d barely made it through the door when Bucky started kissing me again. I laughed between kisses while we tried to take off our shoes.
“Shit,” he said, giving up and sitting on the floor to unlace his boots. “Stupid shoes.”
I pressed a kiss to the crown of his head before shrugging off my jacket and dropping it in my room. “Bucky,” I called, “do you want anything to-” Oh. He was standing in my doorway looking like everything I’ve ever wanted. Mismatched socks and shirt tight across his chest and hair falling to his shoulders in soft waves. My God. “-drink?” I choked out.
He bit his bottom lip and shook his head, meeting me in just a few long strides. When my brain finally caught up to what was happening, I was sitting on my bed, Bucky in my lap. He pulled away for a second, lips parted, but he just shook his head again and touched my face. A smile spread across his face and his eyes lit up when my expression matched his.
“Bucky.”
“Hm?” His eyes never left mine, and nothing mattered beyond us.
I tightened my arms around his waist like I was afraid he’d run away. “Stay with me.” He was already nodding. “Tonight, I-” Already pressing his lips to mine, effectively shutting me up.
“Not going anywhere,” he mumbled after a moment. And I decided right then, that’s how I wanted to spend the foreseeable future. Maybe not the rest of my life, not yet. But I’d get to know him, and it wouldn’t be hard to change my hopes from right now to forever. The longer I spent with Bucky Barnes, the more I wanted to get lost in him. The more I wanted to be with him. The more I just wanted him.
And that look on his face seemed to say he felt the same way.
***
I woke up with my curtains drawn and the other side of my bed empty. There was a moment where I panicked and wondered if Bucky was gone. I thought that I was wrong about him and I really was just being used for the night.
Then I saw his clothes were still on the floor and realized the voices I heard from the kitchen included his. I felt guilty for second guessing him and got dressed.
When I found Bucky, he was wearing just a pair of my sweatpants as he talked to my three roommates. Coffee was brewing, and it smelled like Scott was making omelets. Bucky laughed at something T’Challa said and met my eyes. His skin was still shining with his Aura, and I was so glad the rest of them couldn’t see our Marks. Bucky was covered in silver: handprints that swiped across his shoulders and arm, kisses that trailed down his chest and disappeared beneath my sweatpants, Marks here and there that didn’t have clear shapes. And I knew that I was just as bad. That’s a lot of green, Bucky said when we first met. Well, there wasn’t much left of that green now.
“Morning,” he said, waiting for me to cross the room to him where he leaned against our counter.
“Good morning.” I kissed him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I hope they haven’t been causing too much trouble.”
Bucky smiled up at me. “Just telling me some interesting stories about you.”
Sam snorted, and I suddenly didn’t want to know what they had told him. “Lots of interesting revelations this morning. For all of us.” He met my eyes, lifting his fork to his mouth.
I glanced down at Bucky, but he had moved to look at something over my shoulder. Maybe he was just avoiding my gaze. “Oh, yeah. Sorry I never told you guys that I’m bi. Honestly, it just never came up, and I never really thought about the fact that you didn’t know.”
“Don’t apologize,” Scott said, pulling plates from the cabinets. He finished off T’Challa’s omelet and slid it across the table to him. “None of us mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I already knew,” T’Challa said simply.
“You did?”
He just shrugged.
Alright then.
And after that, things were back to normal: Scott was talking like he hadn’t seen us in months, T’Challa was laughing at Sam’s ridiculous stories from the night before, his hands waving in front of him like he was trying to paint the images into the air, the apartment smelled of coffee and sounded like happiness and felt like home. I smiled as I watched them pull Bucky to the table, instantly welcoming him, and Scott offered him breakfast. It was like this was how we spent every morning.
It was like this was how it was always meant to be.
Sam caught my eye and gestured for me to follow him down the hall. I put my coffee mug in front of Bucky as he listened to Scott tell him about his freshman year project with Tony Stark that ended in a total disaster. I kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
Bucky’s eyes followed me out of the room, then I was face to face with Sam.
“James Barnes, huh?”
I knew what he was thinking. It was the same thing I thought last night before I really met Bucky. “He’s not what you think, Sam.”
He shook his head, smiling despite himself. “I will never understand you, Steve. One minute, you’re trying to convince us to leave because it was too soon after Peggy; the next, you’re off hooking up with some random guy. Are you gonna tell me what happened last night?”
I thought about Bucky’s hand on my chest, his lips pressed to mine that first time, the sound of his breathing as he drifted off to sleep, and I smiled. “No. No, I don’t think I will.”
He punched my shoulder. “Asshole. Must have been some night then.” I looked back to Bucky who was laughing, his entire face lighting up. He was beautiful. “He must be some guy.”
“He is, Sam. He’s really… just something else.”
Bucky caught me staring, and his blush seeped through the silver that still decorated his skin. He looked down and forced all the coloring to fade.
“He makes you happy.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, it’s crazy, but he really does.” I looked back to my friend. “A lot happier than I’ve been in a long time.”
“Well, I guess that’s all that matters.”
Later, after breakfast was cleaned up and my roommates had settled into their weekend plans, Bucky and I laid on the sofa, not quite watching the movie we’d turned on but not quite doing anything else. I was playing with his hair when his eyes settled on me with an intensity I hadn’t seen from him before. “What does this make us now, Steve?” His arm tightened around my waist where it was comfortably resting a moment ago. He was afraid to know my answer. Afraid it wouldn’t meet his expectations.
“Whatever you want us to be.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s such a cop out,” he scoffed. “I’ve never done any of this before. Not really. My last relationship was in high school, and I don’t even know if you could call it a relationship. But I want to try with you. If that’s what you want, that is,” he said shyly.
I propped myself on my elbow, hovering over Bucky while he just looked up at me with those big grey eyes. “Nothing would make me happier.”
“Even if it’s so soon after your last girlfriend?”
I sighed. “Peggy and I were over long before we broke up. We were just waiting for the other to say something first, I think. So, no, it’s not too soon. Even if it was, I wouldn’t want to lose you just because I met you at a weird time.” He seemed lost in thought, so I tried to bring up something I’d wondered about all night. “It’s been six years for you. How have you not been with anyone?”
He shrugged, almost burying himself in my chest. “I don’t fall for people easily. I’m almost never attracted to guys right away. It usually takes time for me to develop feelings, then when I do, they’re gone before I have a chance to act on them. I guess I just have really high standards. Even higher expectations.”
“Does that make me special?”
No hesitation. “Absolutely.”
“Good, because I think you’re something special too.” I pressed my lips to his temple. Probably more than I can reasonably say right now. Probably more than any sane person would admit after knowing someone for a day.
But I didn’t want to scare him off with big confessions. I was content with simply holding him in my arms and dozing off to dreams of silver freckles and bright grey eyes.