Chapter Text
Steve leaned back against his bed, monitoring his breathing. That had been a lot of work, but everything was in place now. He looked around at his room proudly- granted, it wasn’t all his, but half of it was, and he liked his half. And he’d moved in all on his own. It wasn’t his mom’s fault she couldn’t get the day off- he’d FaceTime her later and show her. The point was, he’d done it without needing people helping. He was completely capable on his own.
He examined the walls, pleased at his choices. The posters had been a precarious feat to get up there at the right height without a ladder, but he’d balanced on the chair and had gotten them up. Now, his side was covered in art technique posters, an old military poster from his dad’s regiment, a few movie banners, and diagrams of anatomy and things to help with sketching. It looked like he’d always wanted and imagined his dorm room to look.
He sat on the bed, looking at the empty side of the room. Last year, he’d lived in a dorm with another boy and it hadn’t gone well in the slightest. In fact, the constant noise had made it almost impossible for Steve to sleep and the vaping had set Steve’s asthma off, so he had had to spend most of his time away from the room, sleeping in lounges and wherever else he could, doing his homework in the library. He was praying he’d have someone better- the constant fighting and animosity with his roommate had worn on him and all he wanted was to go to school and sleep. Maybe make a few friends, but nothing extreme.
Hopefully the new guy wasn’t an asshole, he thought grimly. They were stuck together for ten months and there was no privacy here. Hopefully he was at least tolerable. That’s all Steve needed. He could spend time in the library, or the art building, or one of the lounges. As long as his roommate stayed out of his stuff, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t pleasant.
He glanced at the door again, which he’d left propped open solely because nearly every door on the hall had been left propped open. Voices chattered back and forth in the hallway, shouting across the space. It was amazing how easily his peers made friends. Steve had never been able to do that so easily-- he was too skinny, too small, too awkward, too unable to participate in sports. He got too angry too quickly for a lot of the nerdier groups, and once he had made friends in high school… he’d moved to college. He hadn’t had a strong friend group, more acquaintances than anything, and he was hoping this year would be different. He was going to try something different this year, maybe join a group or a club, something.
On the door were two ‘door decs.’ Both were designed like cassette tapes. One had Steve across where the song title would be. The other had James scrawled in the same space. Steve had gotten his roommate confirmation email about a month beforehand, but hadn’t been able to find a ‘James Barnes’ on social media, so he knew next to nothing about who he was rooming with. The confirmation had stated that he was a philosophy major, but that was the most information he’d gotten.
Steve took a deep breath and moved to sit at his desk, pulling out a sketchbook and starting to doodle. He wasn’t sure what all he was supposed to be doing, but he did want to be there when his roommate appeared, to say hello. He’d probably leave after that, so James’ parents or family or friends or whoever could help him move in, but it was important to say hello and get a good idea of who the other boy was.
He’d only started shading his sketch of an apple when there was a scritch sound from the door. Steve turned just in time to see his roommate tear his own door decoration off the doorframe and stared. The boy was tall and muscular, the kind of muscles he definitely had to work out to get. The sides of his head were shaved, the rest of his hair long enough for him to tie back into a messy bun at the back of his head. He had a large duffel bag over his shoulder and two large boxes balanced in one arm. He turned his head to glance at Steve as he set the boxes down, and Steve caught a glimpse of earrings in his cartilage and an eyebrow piercing that glittered in the light from their open window.
Steve felt heat flow across his skin and cursed himself as he tried to think of something, anything to say that was somewhat coherent. He knew he was turning either red or pink, but both were embarrassing. He felt like he’d been hit over the head, like he was straining for breath even though his lungs were working fine.
This was probably the most attractive man he had ever seen, and Steve resigned himself to having their room filled with incredibly hot girls all the time and getting a lot of hey maybe don’t come home rn texts at midnight.
People should be warned when they were going to be confronted with someone who looked like James Barnes.
“Hey,” he said after probably too long. “I’m Steve. You’re James?”
“Bucky,” the boy disagreed, tossing his duffel onto his bed. He turned more fully, eyes flicking over Steve, taking him in, and then looked at the posters, studying them intently for a moment. A smile touched his lips and he held out a hand. “Bucky Barnes,” he said, but Steve’s attention had been heavily diverted by the tattoo sleeve across his roommate’s left arm. It was a massive, detailed, black-and-grey piece of art, a piece that transformed his skin into what looked like a metal prosthetic arm like something out of Fullmetal Alchemist.
“Wow.” Steve stared at it, entranced. He had seen plenty of tattoos, had thought often about designing some himself, but he’d never seen anything like this. It was gorgeous and so well-done, rippling along the muscles and bones, every line and shading in place. It genuinely looked like Bucky had a metal arm. He shook himself after a moment and took Bucky’s hand, embarrassed again. “Sorry. I like tattoos. That’s great, I’ve not seen a sleeve like that before.” At least he knew enough to talk about it and use the right verbiage. “Okay, your name’s Bucky. Is that why you tore off the dec?” He bit back a smile. “Our over exuberant RA is going to be very upset when he finds out. He talked to me about them at length.”
“Yeah, well.” Bucky grinned at him. “I told him what my name was, it’s his own fault. I don’t want to be correcting people for the next ten months because they keep looking at the door.” He rifled around in the duffle bag and pulled out a sharpie, writing on something before slapping it onto the door. Steve leaned over slightly to find a Hi my name is Bucky sticker now pressed onto the wood. Bucky waved a hand as Steve laughed. “They’ll take it off and give me a real one so that I stop ‘destroying’ property, I’ve been through it before.” He started rifling around his boxes, pulling out a pile of books and setting them on top of his desk. “You have any ink?”
“Yeah, I’ve got-” Steve reached for his ink pens before he realized that Bucky probably had no interest in his art supplies. Good god, if he didn’t learn how to think with the other boy in the room, this was going to be a difficult semester. He busied himself with organizing his desk drawers, trying not to let Bucky see how red he was now. “Sorry, my brain’s everywhere, it’s been a long day. No, I don’t. Not yet.” He had so many health issues, the extensive research he had done had advised against it. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t-- pretty much everything he did was ill-advised- it just meant he had to choose placement and size carefully, as well as monitoring when his health was stable.
“It’s all good.” Bucky glanced over at him with a bit of a grin, then pulled out clothes from the duffel and started to load them into his dresser. “You’re an art major, right? Education or just art?”
“Education.” He shook his head. “Art is something that you can’t do a lot with a major in, so I decided go for education so I can make money and do my own thing on the side. What about you?” He turned more fully in his seat, telling himself that he wasn’t enjoying watching Bucky’s muscles flex as he moved stuff around. “What do you want to do?”
“Ostensibly, my major is philosophy, but that’s just to piss my old man off. I’m actually taking classes to swap my major over to deaf education.” He pulled out a shirt, frowning at it for a moment before tossing it into the drawer haphazardly.
“That’s going to wrinkle,” Steve said automatically, staring at him. Deaf-ed? “That’s really cool. What do you want to do? Teaching deaf kids would be an interesting challenge. I’ve worked with some blind students before with art- sculpture is a really helpful creative outlet for them.”
“Oh, god.” He grimaced, glancing at Steve. “I don’t know why blindness is so much harder for me to be casual about, but I always end up putting my foot in my mouth. I was talking to a blind German exchange student last year… and I asked her if Germany was beautiful. I about stepped in front of a car to just end it right then and there, I was so horrified.”
Steve laughed, grinning at him. “They’re just people who can’t do one thing. Just… you know, don’t ask if something is beautiful.” He laughed again, shaking his head and going back to the sketch of the apple. “That’s terrible, Bucky. It’s like asking a deaf person what their favorite song is. Though I guess if they’ve got hearing aids, that works.”
“I know.” He sighed heavily. “I never make that mistake normally, but something about it just throws me off. I even have a blind friend! Luckily, Matt takes it really well and plays off it. Anyways. I’m just planning to teach at a deaf school. I don’t know if it’s what I’m going to stay in. I thought about joining the force, and my pop wants me to enlist, so we’ll see where I end up.” He glanced at Steve as he set a picture frame on his desk. “Do you have a concentration? You art guys do, right? You focus on glass or sculpture or drawing or painting or something?”
Steve nodded. “I’m a drawing concentration. I like to sketch things. Sculpture is cool and I can do it, but I don’t really like it. It’s not the same. Painting is all right, but I never really got to work with it when I was younger, so I just like sketching better.” He shrugged, thinking. Bucky wanted to work with deaf children. That was… that was really cute. He forced his mind back to the conversation. “I’ve never worked with glass. I will this semester, though.” He was actually very excited about that.
“That’s cool.” Bucky considered this, abandoning his empty duffel on the floor and kicking it under his bed carelessly. He looked back at the two boxes and sighed heavily. “I pack less than anyone I know, and I still hate unpacking,” he muttered, then opened the nearest one again and dropped a handful of mechanical pencils onto the desk. “So what do I need to know about you, Steve?”
Steve blinked, glancing over at him. What did he need to know about him? He considered. “Well. I guess the main thing is I’ve got some stuff going on healthwise.” He hated this conversation. Hated how it made him look weak, seem weak. How people always treated him so differently afterward. But Bucky was living with him, and this conversation did actually have to be had. “I’m not like dying or anything, but smoke and particulates can set it off and I can’t breathe.” I also can’t hardly run or climb stairs or almost anything else. “So if you’re dusting or spraying stuff, let me know so I can go somewhere else for a while. If you smoke in here, I need to leave too.” He cleared his throat. “My art stuff is really expensive and hard to replace, so I’d rather you or your friends not mess with it. My last roommate broke some of it, and it was really difficult to get more. I don’t care if you look at stuff that’s around, but if you drop one of these pencils, the graphite shatters and then you can’t use it anymore. Same with my charcoal.” He shrugged a little. “If I think of something else I’ll let you know, but I guess that’s the main stuff. What do I need to know about you?”
There was a small frown on Bucky’s face, his eyes flickering to Steve’s desk, and then he seemed to shake it off. “Hm. Me?” He rubbed the back of his neck, bringing to attention a tattoo on the right side of his throat that looked like it might be in Russian. “I don’t like music or television on if I’m trying to sleep, so use earbuds. I box, so I might come home less than pristine sometimes. Ah… I think that’s about it. I’m pretty easygoing for the most part, despite the tattoos and piercings.” And he winked.
Steve’s heart actually lurched and he closed his mouth when he realized it had fallen open slightly. “I don't watch a lot of TV,” he said after a moment, trying desperately to think of something to do or say other than just staring. “You box? That’s really cool. Is that for fun or as a competitive sport?”
“Both.” Bucky tossed one box to the ground, looking at it as if he had personally acquired victory over it, then started the second. “I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I used to hate it, but start something early enough and it gets in you deep, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that.” Steve smiled at him. He did understand- his mother and father had encouraged him to read and draw and create from a very young age, and it was a part of him now, as much as his eyes or heart or faulty lungs. “Well, that’s cool. It’s important to have outlets like that. What’s the tattoo on your neck?”
“Ah. Means winter.” He gestured to it absently. “I forget it’s there sometimes. Are you allergic to anything?”
“Winter.” He thought about that for a moment or two. “Allergies?” He grinned. “Allergies are about the only thing I don’t have to deal with. I get sinus infections easy during spring and fall, but that’s seasonal stuff, it’s different than regular allergies.”
“There you go.” Bucky offered him a grin, one that made his brown-blue eyes crinkle up and sparkle somewhat. “Gotta count your blessings somewhere, right?”
Steve pointed at him with his pencil, feeling the weird little lurch in his stomach again. He was definitely going to be getting a lot of stay out of the room texts. There was no way that every single person on this campus didn’t know how attractive Bucky Barnes was. “I’m also not balding. So there’s that too.”
“And you said you had health problems,” Bucky scoffed. “You won the gene pool, punk.”
Punk. Steve grinned down at his sketchbook, noting with a certain level of resignation that now he just wanted to draw brown-blue eyes and the way they crinkled up. “Shut up, jerk. I could never pull off a man-bun or a full sleeve, so you still win.”
“Nah, you could rock some ink,” Bucky disagreed, flattening a single poster over his bare wall. “It would need to be in color, though.”
Steve turned around in the chair, surprised. No one had ever expressed an opinion that a tattoo made sense on Steve. Normally, they just laughed at the idea because Steve, in his button-ups and trousers and suspenders and sweaters, was the last person they’d think of to have a tattoo. “Why in color?” He examined the poster in interest. It was a mandala, hand-painted and beautifully vibrant. When Steve leaned forward slightly, he could see small words written atop each line, though he couldn’t make out what they were.
“You just seem… bright.” Bucky shrugged a little, leaving his poster to grab a water bottle from his box. “Too bright to be weighed down with black and grey and a lot of shading.”
Steve grinned at him, feeling his face heat a little. You’re just bright. “Unfortunately, you’d have to pick out the colors. I can’t actually see them all the time; there’s a reason I sketch in charcoal and graphite instead of paint.”
“You’re colorblind?” He blinked at him, turning. “Really? To what extent?”
“It’s called protan color blindness.” Steve rested his arms on the back of the chair. “I can see color, kind of. But greens, yellows, oranges, reds, certain shades of brown, they’re all sort of muddy. I can see blue, and I guess most shades of purple are blue to me. I can’t see pinks hardly at all, they’re just gray, unless they’re really light. If they’ve got reds in them it’s all gray.” He shrugged. “With reds, they usually look really dark. Almost black half the time.”
So, for example, he could see how gorgeous Bucky’s eyes were, because the brown was the right color, the blue the right color. He was very happy, now, that he’d been able to keep blue.
Bucky studied him in fascination, then, “That must be beautiful,” he marveled quietly.
Steve blinked. He’d never heard that before. Most people were apologetic. “Beautiful?” he echoed in surprise. “Why’s that?”
“Well, blue’s my favorite color,” he noted off-handedly. “But everyone else is stuck seeing the world in the same way, and you see something totally different. That’s just really cool to me.”
Steve felt a smile cross his face. “That’s true,” he agreed after a moment, trying to ignore the erratic way his heart beat when Bucky smiled like that. That definitely wasn’t a good thing. He was far too attractive for Steve’s good. “Well, I’m glad. Some people get weird about it. Like it’s contagious or something.” He rolled his eyes. “People are weird.”
“People suck,” Bucky agreed mildly, factually. “It’s one of the few foundations of life. Are you hungry?”
“I am, actually.” He stood and stretched. “We can go down to the cafeteria, they’ve got some pretty good food, apparently.”
“Where were you last year?” He turned, grabbing a beaten and worn leather jacket from the last box and pulling it on smoothly before leading Steve out into the hallway. Steve stared for a moment, feeling his fingers itch at the sight, and shoved it down. Most men did not appreciate other men drawing them. It didn’t matter how gorgeous he was.
“I was across campus, in Deho.” He caught up with Bucky’s long legs with a little difficulty. “Where were you? Why’d you switch roommates?” Most people stayed with theirs, unless they had issues.
“Up in Johnson.” He pulled out his bun, ran his fingers through his hair, and Steve tried to disguise just how closely his eyes caught that action. “I would have killed Clint if we’d stayed together. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy, but my chaos and his chaos just… don’t mix well one-on-one long-term.”
“Hey,” a guy called as they passed him, voice in that tone, and Steve felt his muscles already clenching up. “I didn’t know they let girls on our floor!”
He’d been called much worse, and he could take much worse. Getting into a fight day one was a terrible decision that he’d promised his mom wouldn’t happen, and also, Bucky wouldn’t appreciate finding out that his roommate was prone to flying off the handle. Unfortunately, none of this kept Steve from turning sharply, obeying the anger that pulsed through him, because no one was that comfortable insulting a stranger unless it was a frequent occurrence. It didn’t even matter so much that it was Steve being insulted, but instead more that the guy was comfortable insulting just anyone who he found different. He opened his mouth, ready to go off, aware that this was going to ruin Bucky’s first impression of him.
Bucky, however, was already in motion, fluid and sharp. Steve barely caught the actions, his eyes straining to catch the detail of Bucky’s hand closing around the man’s wrist and spinning him away from the doorway and to the wall, his ‘metal’ arm suddenly held against the man’s throat. The eye contact was intense once the motion settled, the offender wide-eyed and openly frightened. Bucky was calm and still.
“Try again,” he ordered, tone low and deep.
Steve stared at him, all his anger gone. He’d never had anyone do that. He’d never had anyone actually… defend him like that. His friends, as they were, had protested a little, nervously, and tried to keep Steve back, but he’d never had anyone do anything like that before.
It didn’t help just exactly how hot Bucky was right now, all cool anger and deep voice and flashing eyes.
The guy cleared his throat hard. “Ah- my bad, dude. I didn’t know he was your-”
“Roommate.” Bucky pushed up, the guy’s feet leaving the floor slightly. “So watch your ass and spread the word, or you and me can go one-on-one. Got it?” The undergraduate being so threatened nodded quickly and Bucky dropped him back to his feet, turning away and continuing down the hall with Steve. “Anyways. You’ll like Clint when you meet him. He’s a dumbass, but he’s funny when he’s not watching cat videos at three a.m.”
Steve blinked up at him, lost for words for a moment, then, “You don’t have to do that. I’ve heard worse and fought bigger guys. They’re just words. It didn’t hurt my feelings.” He pushed his hands in his pockets, looking away. Did Bucky think he was weak? Easily pushed around? That made sense- most people looking at him thought that. “Clint sounds cool. Cat videos sound interesting, but not at 3am.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about me,” Bucky said casually, a smile playing on his lips. “Gotta build up the street cred, you know? Can’t let people think they can insult me or my roommate and I’ll be chill with it.”
Steve grinned a little, shaking his head. “I’m scrappy,” he informed him. “I may be little, but I can take care of myself. My mom made me promise not to fight for the first week at least, so I have to try. I can’t really promise anything, though.” He laughed. “You’ll come in from your boxing and I’ll come in from a street fight and we’ll be well-matched. I won’t break your image.”
“Okay, I’m making you show me your moves.” Bucky looked up at the ceiling with an expression of mock-suffering. “You’re going to throw a punch wrong and break your hand, and then your art career is going to be over and I’ll have to watch from my desk as you drink yourself into a stupor and cut off your ear. It’s going to be terrible, Stevie.”
Stevie? His stomach did the funny little lurch again and he tried to temper how wide his grin was. “Excuse me, but you have to realize I take very good care of my hands. I did learn how to punch after breaking a few fingers when I was younger. And Van Gogh had a million mental health issues, it had nothing to do with his art. His art was his safe place.”
“Yeah, but no one remembers that, do they?” He arched his eyebrows with a smile down at Steve. “All they remember is a painting made of blue and depression. So we’re going to go over your moves at some point, and if you get in any street fights, you’re going to call me. It’s for me, not you. Ear-less people just freak me out. I don’t want to look at that all day.”
Steve laughed, grinning up at the taller boy. “And you, a deaf-ed major? Shame on you. What if they’re deaf because of some terrible accident and they don’t have an ear? You can’t say, oh, I’m sorry Van Gogh, you freak me out, I can’t teach you.”
He’d never call Bucky during a fight- not that he’d have time anyway, things usually escalated really quickly- but the idea that Bucky wanted him to, even as a joke, was… nice. He’d never had a friend like that.
He straightened. “And excuse me, Bucky, but his Starry Night piece is not just depression, it’s also an incredible work of art.” One of the few that his colorblindness didn’t wreck.
“It reminds me of drowning,” Bucky disagreed absently, holding the door open for Steve. “I can’t imagine it made him feel much differently. It’s a good thing to be able to create with your pain, and it won’t always be pretty when you do that, but it’s a shame that that’s the piece people remember him for.”
Steve agreed. “The sunflower piece is actually amazing, and there’s a lot of others that deserve more recognition. He wasn’t always so unhappy. But people just like that one and forget the rest.” He headed down the stairs. “Are you into art at all?” Everyone knew Van Gogh, so that wasn’t that abnormal.
“No,” Bucky admitted, somewhat ruefully. “My sister likes it. She dragged me to a few museums here and there, but I was always more interested in chasing down my brothers than sitting and looking at paintings. Some art, though, I could stare at for hours. You just have to find the right piece.”
“That’s true.” Steve smiled, thinking about that. Everyone connected differently, so everyone’s enjoyment of a different piece was unique. Clearly the mandala meant something to him- it was the only art or decoration he’d brought at all. Steve would need to examine it later. “You have siblings? How many do you have?”
“Three,” he said, sliding his hands into his pocket with a smile. “One sister and two brothers. They’re my half-siblings, but I like most of them.” He grinned at that. “What about you, any family?”
Three siblings. Steve wondered what that would be like. “Just my mom,” he said with a smile. “She’s very cool, though. She’s an ICU nurse.” Which was ironic, that as strong as his parents were and as involved as she was with medicine, her son would be born with so many issues. It was lucky for him though- she was probably the reason he’d survived this long. “My dad was a soldier, he was killed in action when I was a kid.”
“Yeah?” He glanced down at Steve, his ever-present smile quelling very slightly. “I’m sorry about that. What branch was he in?”
“He was a Marine.” Steve was always proud of that. “It’s okay. He did what he loved, he would’ve been happy going out like that. Sucks for us, because we miss him, but he would be glad he served his country.”
“My brother’s a Marine,” Bucky told him, a smile returning to his lips. “It’s what my old man wants me to be, too. I guess Eli’s probably under the same pressure, but he was the smart one.” He laughed. “He ran off and joined a hippie commune in Cali just to prove a point. I don’t even know how he found one, it’s not like we’re in the sixties.”
Steve snorted. “A hippie commune?” He picked up a tray of food. “That’s kind of cool. What exactly does he do there?”
“Grow vegetables.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure, really. They own some land out in the country and are all just trying to live off it. I know it sounds like a cult, believe me. I went out there to make sure it’s not.” He grinned. “It’ll probably go down in flames someday… but he’s happy now, you know?”
“What about your sister? What’s she like?” He was a good big brother. Steve smiled up at him, then frowned a little when Bucky headed straight for the candy shelf and Steve followed. “Are you about to eat candy for lunch?”
“Dude, we live in the dorms.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “This is the one time in my life where I can eat pre-packaged donuts for a meal and no one thinks twice about it.”
“Bucky, you cannot just eat pre-packaged donuts for lunch.” Steve tried to look severe. “If you want to box, how are you going to stay healthy?”
Bucky grinned down at him and added a pack of Twizzlers to his tray. “Fruit,” he stated, pointing at them. “It balances it out.”
“That’s not fruit.” Steve stared up at him. “It’s all sugar! It’s just food coloring and sugar! You’re going to die of nutritional deficiency.” He put an apple on Bucky’s tray. “Fruit,” he informed him.
“The apples here taste like plastic,” he complained, but he didn’t take it back off, instead accompanying Steve to the grill and observing as Steve took a basket of French fries. “Will you think I’m a hypocrite if I tell you to increase your protein and watch your nutritional balances?” He asked, eyeing the fries shrewdly.
“Yes,” Steve informed him. “For your information, I take a ton of supplements and things. I eat much better than you do.” He eyed him, then sighed and grabbed some chicken tenders. “Happy?”
“Yes.” And Bucky’s smile was wide and white and bright, the kind of smile that romcom actors and superheroes had. “Very.”
Steve focused back on his tray. No one should have a smile like that in real life, he thought as he felt his face burn. No one should be that gorgeous. It was just rude and Steve could never do it justice in art. “Well, good,” he said when he realized he’d been quiet for a moment too long. “That’s what I live for- making my new roommate happy.”
“Well, then how could we not get along?” Bucky sounded cheerful. “You need to put some muscle on and I can help. Come on, I have way too much Dining Plus, I’ll buy your lunch.”
“No, you don’t need to do that,” Steve protested quickly. “I’ll be okay, I’ve got money.”
“Yeah, and when I’ve burnt through every cent I have, you can buy me lunch.” He swiped his card, ignoring Steve’s further protests. “Put the food on the counter and let’s find a place to sit.”
Steve sighed. “Jerk,” he informed him, unable to keep the smile off his face this time. “You will burn through it all, eating donuts all the time.” They were expensive, like all the junk food.
“Shut up, punk.” Bucky laughed, pushing him aside and carrying his tray over to a table.
“Psst. Steve.” He was woken by what felt suspiciously like a balled-up sock being thrown at his face. “Steve, wake up.”
“I’m gonna kill you,” Steve moaned, rolling over. “If you’re drowning just get on with it.”
Quiet snickering. “We’re in a dorm room, how would I be drowning, Steven?”
He opened an eye. “I don’t know. What do you want?”
Bucky was perched atop his bunk, legs dangling down as he pulled his black combat boots onto his feet. “I’m going to meet up with some friends. Do you want to come, or do you want to sleep? If you’re a good student, that’s okay too.”
Steve considered this for a long moment, then sighed and pushed himself up. “Fine,” he groused. “I’ll go. Just to make sure you don’t get yourself killed or do something really dumb.”
“I have yet to get myself killed, though dumb actions are my everyday,” he remarked cheerfully, hopping down to the ground and landing surprisingly lightly. “You’re the street fighter, remember?”
Steve laughed and hopped out of bed, pulling on a jacket and his shoes. “That’s true. I’m a street fighter. I’m going to have a shirt made.” He stretched and looked at the clock. “God, why do your friends hang out at time ungodly hour? Do they have something against visiting each other in daylight? Are they vampires?”
“Well, jury’s still out on Natasha.” He laughed, pulling on his leather jacket. “But no- really, she just works late and this is the only time she’s ever free on Sundays. Don’t give her sass or she might kill you, by the way.”
Steve snorted. “What does she do for a living? Isn't she a student?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, tying his hair back in the usual bun. “But she’s trying to pay off her loan as she accrues it, so she’s gone at random hours. She’s one of those loss prevention people that catches theft. It’d be cool if she wasn’t so frightening.” He gestured and led Steve down the hall to the elevator, leaning against the wall as they waited.
“Wow.” Steve blinked up at him. “So she catches people in stores who try to steal?” That would be a cool job. “Are they hiring?”
“You’ll have to ask her when you see her.” He glanced down at him, openly fond. “You know you can’t just tackle anyone who tries to take stuff though, right?”
Steve had never met anyone who was so upfront with their feelings and emotions. He gave a smile back, unable to look away from those crinkly warm blue-brown eyes. “That’s what it sounds like I’d be doing,” he informed him, huddling closer into his coat as they left.
“Is that the best coat you have?” Bucky asked after a few minutes, raising an eyebrow down at him. The moonlight shimmered across his skin, smoothing his imperfections and making his eyebrow rod glint.
Steve tried very hard not to stare at how pretty his roommate was. “It’s fine,” he informed him. “I’m just skinny.”
“Skinny and asthmatic, do you know how far the temperature drops at night, you punk?” He was shrugging out of the leather jacket before Steve could reply to that, revealing rippling muscles and ink. “No. No,” he said over Steve’s breath when Steve opened his mouth to protest. “No, put it on before you freeze to death and I hafta lug your corpse back to your momma. Now.” He waved the leather at Steve, immovable.
Steve took it reluctantly, shrugging into it and inhaling the scent. It smelled like leather and something vaguely woodsy. Bucky wore cologne, he realized absently. He’d never realized how hot leather was. “If you die, how the hell am I going to lug your corpse back?” He grumbled. “I’m not glass.”
“No one said you were glass.” Bucky continued walking. “But you’re my roommate and my responsibility. Got it?”
Steve looked up at his stubborn face and gave a smile. “Got it,” he agreed, a little embarrassed, but mostly just enjoying how warm and good-smelling the jacket was. “So your friends. What should I expect? You’ve told me about Natasha and Clint.”
“Yeah.” He looked vaguely uncomfortable now. “The only other one is Tony. He’s… a lot. I don’t really know how to describe him, you’ll either want to kill him or be his best friend.”
Steve snorted. “I don’t know how to take that. I guess we’ll see.” He put his hands in the jacket pocket. “I look like a little kid. You’re giant.” He grinned up at Bucky. “Unnecessarily tall.”
“Stuff a sock in it.” He laughed, turning away and continuing. They were off the edge of campus now, and seemed to be headed towards a small and pretty house only a stone’s throw away. Steve would have assumed that it belonged to a professor or dean, but Bucky jogged up the steps, rapped on the door with his knuckles, and opened it without waiting for a response. “After you.”
“Thanks.” Steve gave a quick smile, heading up the steps and steeling himself, then walking into the front room and looking around. Maybe one of the professors had a kid at the school and that’s why they were here, he thought, examining a framed piece of artwork in the entryway. It was nicely geometric, a design full of angles and diagonals. Bucky rested a hand briefly on his back in reassurance, then passed him and stepped through the doorway.
“Hey,” he greeted the people there, and Steve edged around him to inspect them.
There was a gorgeous redheaded girl sitting on the floor who was unlacing a pair of boots from her feet. She glanced up, giving a small nod to them, and Steve tried to ignore the way her eyes lingered on him, clearly assessing. This would be Natasha, then.
Beside her was a guy in a black T-shirt with a purple design on it. He was holding a Nerf gun and was talking to Natasha animatedly, gesturing with one hand and the gun. She redirected her attention from Steve to glance at the other boy, eyebrows raising, and Steve tuned in enough to catch the end of his statement. “-be there, slaughtering all in our path, and we will be victorious. You’re going to love it, and we’re going to kick ass, but we can’t do it without you. You have to ask off work. Come on, Thor already is in, and Tony, and-” he glanced around at Bucky, who nodded as he moved to sit on the floor opposite them, tossing a beanbag into the air for Steve to catch.
“Yeah, I’m in,” Bucky agreed grimly. “Hydra’s gotta pay for last year’s embarrassment.”
“You’re going to kill people with Nerf guns?” Steve asked interestedly, fumbling the beanbag a little bit but catching it in the end.
The blonde eyed him. “Okay so you could maybe be a guerilla fighter,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re small, you could hide in places we can’t. Are you in or out?”
Steve grinned a little and sat near Bucky. “I’ve never shot a Nerf gun.”
“Aw, shit.” The boy sighed. “Bucky, I told you we need another sniper. Not a newbie.”
“We have you and me, that’s plenty of sniping potential,” Bucky dismissed. “Clint, Natasha, this is Steve. He’s my new roommate, he’s cool. Steve, this is Natasha and Clint.”
“Hey.” Natasha gave him a small lift of her chin as greeting, looking down as she began relacing her boots. “Clint, Bucky, and Thor are avid members of Humans versus Zombies. You’ve probably seen them around campus.”
With the name, it clicked. Steve had in fact heard of them on campus. They were hated by the ‘normal’ people, mainly because sometimes the nerf bullets missed and popped off the shoulders or heads of bystanders who had nothing to do with the game. The game, so far as Steve had ever understood, was a complex sort of game of tag. Once a human was tagged, they became a zombie. If a human shot a zombie with a nerf gun, they were stunned for a while. Inside buildings was safe, he’d been told once in a long-suffering tone, because professors had gotten mad about the war going on even in class.
“Clint’s trying to get me and Tony in,” Natasha continued.
“We already got Tony in,” Bucky disagreed. “We need you, Nat. We need your ferocity. Think about how much pent-up rage you could release. You could help us show Steve the ropes, if he wants in.”
Steve blinked at them, then started laughing. “I wondered where you crazy people were the rest of the year,” he said with a grin. “My classmate got shot by a man wearing a bald cap and an actual sequined cape last year because his jacket had a stripe of green on the sleeve.”
“Just another glorious adventure,” Clint agreed happily, then focused on Nat. “Aw come on, you’re going to love it. I won’t ask you to wear any costumes or anything, I promise. Maybe just the bison hat.”
She let out a laugh. “A bison hat? What in god’s name is that?”
Clint leapt to his feet and pounded up the stairs. Steve grinned up at Bucky. “So that’s your old roommate? I can see why your chaos and his chaos were problems together. Who’s Tony?”
“He’s our friend, and he lives here.” Bucky grinned back, then glanced at Natasha. “Where is he? We’re in his house.”
“It’s my house too,” she reasoned. “Okay, it’s mostly his. He’s making bean dip in the kitchen. Tony!” She turned her head to scowl into the kitchen.
“Shut up, I’m making dip!” a guy yelled back.
“Bucky and his roommate are here!” She called, rolling her eyes.
“Well, unless they want to get in here and slave over this bean dip, they’ll have to wait.” His laughter drifted down the hallway and Bucky laughed, nudging Steve’s shoulder.
“His bean dip is actually amazing,” he told him confidentially.
“Is it?” Steve felt a strange wash of warmth. He’d never made friends easily, but as he watched Clint bound down the stairs and plunk a giant hat on Natasha’s head, he thought he might be happy with these insane people.
The bison hat, as it turned out, was a two-foot towering structure made of questionable fur, a short horn curling out of the left and right sides. Clint looked at Nat wearing it with undiluted adoration.
“Just imagine destroying those fuckers in that and your purple leather jacket,” he said dreamily. “They’ll cry. Most of them are already afraid of you, rightfully so.”
“Take this hat off my head, or I will destroy it.” She stared up at him until he did, then pointed at it. “Get it out of my house, never let it in my sight again, and I’ll join in the stupid game.”
“Yes.” Bucky punched the air, looking aggressively pleased with this turn of events. He grinned down at Steve. “You’re going to love it. And if you get turned, we will avenge you.”
“By killing you in a variety of badass ways,” Clint agreed. “Because you are the enemy, once you’re tagged. Just so you know.”
“Do the humans ever win?” Steve asked in interest and Clint shook his head.
“We end up collapsing under the weight of the Horde. But we’ve got Nat now. And a dude who can hide in the lake or under the bridge and get those sons of bitches.” He pointed at Steve. “You could be our secret weapon. You could be launched over a damn wall.”
Steve stared at him. “I could,” he marveled, the idea a fascinating one as he tried to consider just how cool that would be.
He’d never had friends who didn’t treat him like glass. This was kind of awesome.
“No. No one’s launching anyone over a wall,” Bucky protested immediately as Clint started cackling. “Absolutely not, we’re not flinging him anywhere. He can lie in ambush, but that’s all. We can’t risk the mods getting mad at us again.”
“All right, gremlins. Here’s your dip,” a dark-haired guy said, emerging from the kitchen with a bag of tortilla chips and a large bowl of some sort of cheese-and-bean dip. He set it down and inspected Steve, smiling. “Hey, I’m Tony,” he said, offering a hand as Natasha stole the dip.
Steve blinked at him. Tony was their age and had dark hair and brown eyes like Bucky, though he was less muscular. His beard had been cut into a somewhat-whimsical goatee, and his smile was a cute one. Bucky had friends who were nearly as attractive as he was, apparently.
“Thank you,” he said, taking a chip. “They’re convincing me to join Humans Versus Zombies.”
“We’re going to fling him over bushes and walls,” Clint informed Tony, grinning at Bucky. “C’mon, Barnes, how many times have you thrown me off Deho’s balcony onto unsuspecting humans below?”
“At least three,” Bucky agreed promptly. “But you deserved it and Steve is actually a good person. Also, that was last year, before we pissed off the moderators.”
“Hm. He has a point.” Natasha ate her chip, smiling, and Bucky rolled his eyes.
“You’re all insufferable people.”
“You’re desperately fond of us,” Tony told him, settling to sit beside Steve. “You’re Bucky’s new roommate?”
“Yeah.” Steve gave him a quick smile. “He said this is your house? It would be cool to be this close to campus.”
“You ever want a short commute in the morning, you let me know.” Tony winked and Bucky threw a chip at him.
“Shut up and tell us about your summer,” Bucky said, a little shortly, and Tony’s grin was wide as he launched into a story about spending the summer at his dad’s house in Malibu.
Steve listened and watched as they laughed and talked, pulling up battle plans and sharing what had happened to them during the summer, fitting him into their little circle with little to no effort, and wondered happily if this was going to be what his sophomore year was like.