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“I think I might be bisexual,” Steve says. His voice is steady, but he’s looking at the floor, hands curling slightly where they rest on his knees.
“Oh yeah?” Natasha is sprawled across his coach, feet thrown over the armrest. She rolls over and props up on an elbow.
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been talking to Sam and he’s bi, you know, and just…it wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about. You were gay or you weren’t. And I’ve always liked women. Not many women used to like me, but...” He shrugs, a half-grin on his face. “That was the whole small, sickly, might die if you step on him thing, apparently.” He pauses, thinks about all those women after the serum – that one dame in the office that Peggy caught him kissing, what was her name? He wasn’t used to that kind of attention, appreciative eyes following his taller frame, women pausing just half a second longer when he walked by to watch him where before they looked over him like he wasn’t even there. It was still a bit hard to stomach sometimes. Nat’s eyes are intent on his face, but she doesn’t say anything, so he continues, “Anyways. I’ve been doing some reading. There’s a lot of really useful information out there about gender and sexuality these days – things I had never heard of or thought about. So I started thinking about bisexuality and talked to Sam about it, and I think I’m bi.”
When he looks to her for a response, Nat shrugs, picks up the Time magazine sitting on his coffee table. “To be honest, Steve, I kinda just assumed you were. You totally have a crush on Brad Pitt…”
“Are you kidding, the man has a perfectly symmetrical face. That’s like, classically ideal beauty, right there.”
She smirks. “And that’s what I’m talking about. How anyone ever assumed you were straight is a mystery. Plus, the way you talk about Barnes…” she shrugs. “Guess I just figured there was something there.”
“Bucky?” Steve’s blushing, he knows he is, but he can’t help it. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Whatever you say, Rogers.” Nat flops over on her back and starts thumbing through the magazine.
“So it doesn’t…bother you?” Steve asks, after a moment.
“Why would it?” She continues flipping pages, then lowers the magazine to add, “Although it would have saved some time if you would have told me this before SHIELD all went to shit. Here I was trying to hook you up with all the ladies, when maybe all along the trick was just to set you up with a nice boy.” She winks.
Steve groans and throws a pillow at her.
**
It’s a couple hours after she leaves when Bucky comes over. Steve’s in the kitchen making grilled cheese sandwiches and Bucky just walks in like he always does. Or rather, materializes sitting at his bar.
“If you really want to catch me unaware, Buck, you’re going to have to do something besides use the front door,” Steve says without turning around. He flips the sandwiches, turns to grab a couple of plates from the cupboard and sets them on the island in front of Bucky.
“What makes you think I was trying to sneak up on you?” Bucky feigns nonchalance, but the little gleam in his blue eyes is one Steve recognizes all too well. He raises his eyebrows at Bucky instead of responding and Bucky chuckles. “Don’t tempt me. Now I have to sneak in through a window next time on principle, just to see how alert you are.”
“Swell,” Steve says dryly, and turns to pull the sandwiches. “You staying for dinner?”
“You seem to have anticipated that I will,” Bucky says, eying the six sandwiches Steve is now divvying up between the two plates. “And you know how I feel about free food.”
“Careful, Bucky, or I’m going to get to feeling unappreciated, like you come over here just to eat my food.” He sets one plate in front of Bucky. “Some friend you are.”
Bucky just rolls his eyes and digs in, and Steve slides onto the stool beside him with his own plate. He takes a bite and thinks about what Nat said earlier. The way you talk about Barnes…guess I just figured there was something there. But there isn’t anything there, not like that; there never has been. It was another century, a different world back then. And if he sometimes thought about the shape of Bucky’s lips or the way his hair looked when it got wet, just this side of curly and messier than Bucky ever let it get when he could help it, that hadn’t meant anything. Sure, he’d thought how good Bucky looked when he got cleaned up, clothes all neat and shiny shoes and a dab, just a dab, of that cologne he almost never used. Mostly he’d thought about Bucky the way he looked when it was just the two of them after a long day, Bucky stripped down to just a white t-shirt. God, he got so good-looking when he got that job down at the docks and money wasn’t so tight; you could see it in the way he filled out all his clothes, but only Steve and Bucky’s girls ever got to see what Bucky looked like when he was down to just shirt-sleeves. All that lifting all day paid off, that was for sure.
Steve shivers. So yeah, maybe he’d thought about Bucky even then. He hadn’t put much stock in it before – he liked girls, he knew he did. He’d figured the way he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Buck sometimes, well, that was just admiration for a friend, appreciation of the obvious.
And now? Now he realizes it was more than that all along. He can’t argue with the fact that there have been a lot of men – actors, admirers, strangers on the street – that he finds himself drawn to. So he likes men, and now he’s told Sam and Natasha, who both took it really well. But what to tell Buck? Oh, by the way, I figured out I’m bisexual. And I think maybe I’ve been in love with you all these years.
“Steve?” Bucky is looking at him oddly and for one brief, panic-filled moment, Steve thinks he said that last bit out loud. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Steve says and his voice comes out squeaky. He clears his throat. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Dunno, you just looked like something was bothering you.” Bucky watches him closely for a moment and then shrugs, turning back to his plate. “Forget it.”
Steve sighs, watches Bucky take a bite and swallow, holding a sandwich loosely in his hand. He notices then that there are crumbs on Bucky’s chin, just beneath his lower lip.
“Buck, you’ve got…” Bucky turns back to look at him and Steve laughs. “Here, let me just…” And then he’s reaching out and brushing his thumb over Bucky’s chin, crumbs tumbling unnoticed to the floor. Bucky stills, and Steve realizes that he’s leaned in close. It would be easy, the easiest thing in the world, to just…tilt Bucky’s chin this way a bit and kiss him, to touch lips whose softness he has imagined a thousand times, each time only to pretend he wasn’t thinking about kissing his best friend and deny that he felt anything beyond normal friendship. But it’s so damned familiar, this fluttering in his stomach. It feels like the breath before a dive, and Steve knows what he hasn’t let himself realize ever before. They’ve been here already, so many times, just on the edge of something terrifying and exhilarating. Steve will look at Bucky and Bucky will look at him, and just for a moment Steve will think about what it would be like if they weren’t what they are, and then he’ll pull back and the moment will be lost. Except this time Steve doesn’t move away, even though he thinks his fingers on Bucky’s face might be trembling. I like men, he thinks, and it’s not wrong or bad, it’s part of who I am. And I’ve liked Bucky for years.
It’s like coming home, that thought, like so many things he’s never seriously thought to question or just dismissed out of hand suddenly fit together. It’s finding the key piece in a puzzle that makes all the other pieces make sense. He smiles, and Bucky’s got this confused crease between his eyes, but he hasn’t pulled away. Steve takes a breath, leans in, and kisses him before he loses his nerve completely.
It’s…not much like he has imagined, actually. It’s better, Bucky warm and unresisting under his lips, the smell of this-century’s version of him (all aftershave and clean soap with a hint of sweat) all around Steve, and god, it’s so good Steve isn’t able to keep down the soft noise, moan or keen or whatever it is, that starts in his throat and works its way out. The texture’s weird; he doesn’t think he’s ever come away from kissing anyone without lipstick smeared all over his lips, but Bucky’s mouth is rough, just slightly chapped, and he tastes like the cheese from the sandwiches, and…
Bucky pulls back abruptly. “Stevie, what’re you doing?” he whispers. His voice is wrecked, lips kiss-swollen. At some point he grabbed hold of Steve’s collar, and he doesn’t let go now, just stares at Steve like he’s lost his mind.
“I…” Steve licks his lips, noticing the way Bucky’s hand tightens its hold when he does so. “I’m sorry, Buck, I just…I was just…I like men,” he blurts out. “Sam helped me figure it out; I’m bisexual, too, and I told Natasha today and I was trying to figure out how to tell you and then you were just so close, and fuck, I’ve wanted you for so long and never realized it, Buck, I had to…” He stops because Bucky isn’t saying anything, just staring at him wide-eyed. Steve pulls back enough that Bucky’s hand drops and closes his eyes, rubbing at his temple. “Shit,” he mutters.
“You fucking idiot,” Bucky says.
“Yeah,” Steve mumbles before he realizes that Bucky’s tone was warm, not angry. He opens his eyes. “Uh, what?”
“Took you long enough to figure that one out,” Bucky says. He reaches for Steve when Steve just stares, uncomprehending, and wraps his hand around the back of Steve’s neck. “C’mere,” he murmurs, and then they’re kissing. Again. Steve is kissing Bucky again.
“Bucky,” Steve groans, and he is an idiot, definitely, because it’s quite possibly the best kiss he’s ever had. Why the hell didn’t they do this years ago?