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It happens because of his asthma of all things.
As soon as he feels short of breath he starts rooting through his messenger bag for his inhaler, finding it buried under his phone and sketchbooks and taking it out with a little “Aha!” He slows down for just a moment, which is still too much time in a city like New York because someone shoves past him and he loses his grip on the thing.
Steve has a moment to think fuck, before it’s skidding across the pavement and into an alleyway. He groans and makes a move for it, hoping it hadn’t fallen into a puddle or anything.
He crouches down at the corner and picks it up, sighing in relief when he sees it isn’t wet. Steve takes out his little spray bottle of alcohol, wipes it down with a handkerchief before taking two puffs of sweet, sweet albuterol—
—then he freezes when he realizes he’s not alone.
Steve hears a muffled sound coming from behind the dumpster, but that’s not what makes him look; no, it’s the metallic scent in the air which, with a creeping feeling of dread, he hopes isn’t blood. He looks. It’s blood.
And there’s a man sitting right in a puddle of it, leaning heavily against the brick wall and clutching his side with a metal hand.
Steve’s done a lot of stupid things in his life. Dropping to his knees in front of the man and checking to see if he’s conscious ranks pretty high up there in terms of stupid, but he does it anyway. He lets out an unsteady breath and says, “I’m gonna call for an ambulance, okay? You’re gonna be alright.”
The man growls and that lets Steve know exactly how he feels about that. He looks pretty lucid, too alert for someone who’s dying, but Steve has to insist.
Before he can, however, there’s the sound of movement from the street—someone coming up from behind him, so he turns, ready to ask the bystander for help… but Steve pales, suddenly faced with a gun pointed at him.
There’s a click as the bystander disengages the safety.
The next few things are a blur.
The man beside the dumpster is up in an instant, shoving Steve to the ground. It happens quickly, too fast for Steve to even see what’s happening—there’s a cry of pain and Steve’s stomach lurches, but the gun doesn’t go off.
The bystander— not a bystander, Steve’s mind supplies blankly—is on the ground, unconscious. The wounded man tucks the gun at his back and looks at Steve like he’s relieved he hadn’t gotten hurt. Killed. Because that just happened—someone tried to kill him.
Steve makes a decision then and there.
“No hospitals, then,” he says slowly, trying not to let what just happened get to him. “Right. My apartment is two blocks down if you can make it.”
⍟
The first thing Steve does after the man passes out on his couch is hurry to the bathroom to get the first aid kit and some spare towels; all in all, it takes him about five minutes. The second thing Steve does is kneel beside him on the floor and reach out to tug up his shirt to assess the damage. The third thing Steve does is cry out in pain, because suddenly the man’s awake and has his wrist in a vice grip, glaring at him something fierce.
The fourth thing Steve does is take harsh, shallow breaths, hoping that his wrist isn’t broken.
In the next second, the man snatches his hand back—he’d used his right hand, the flesh one, thank god—and looks at him with wild eyes. They dart down to Steve’s wrist and he jerks away, pressing himself against the back of the couch to put as much space between them as possible.
He looks terrified. The man is afraid of Steve.
Or maybe—the man’s horrified that he’d hurt him.
Steve ignores the throbbing of his hand, eyes roaming the man’s face for signs that he’ll lash out again. Whatever he sees makes him steel himself, his mouth pressing into a thin line while his brows draw together with resolve.
“You’re safe. You’re in my apartment—you came here with me, remember? After you saved me from the man with the gun.” Steve licks his lips, hoping he’s getting through to him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help.”
By the time he’s finished, the man has schooled his face into something unreadable. Steve knows he’s way out of his depth but he tries again anyway.
“My name’s Steve,” he says quietly. Then he repeats himself, earnest. “I just want to help.”
It takes a long while, but the man relaxes a little, enough for Steve to feel like he can reach out once more. The man lets him raise his shirt to reveal the wound, and Steve sucks in a breath when he finally sees it.
He thinks it’s a gunshot wound, maybe, but he’s not sure; it’s not bleeding as much as he thought it’d be. “Did it—did the bullet pass straight through?” God, he hopes so. Even he knows you need a hell of a lot more than guts to be able to dig a bullet out of someone’s stomach.
After a moment, the man nods. Okay, good. Steve can work with that.
“It’s okay. I’ll just stitch up the wound, alright?”
Steve tries to disinfect it as best as he can, and the man is quiet as he does his work. Sometimes, he hesitates; he’s sure he’s missing a step, or that he’s doing something wrong, but the man just reaches over to hand him what he needs.
The man knows how to treat a gunshot wound. He has a metal arm. He has whipcord muscles and eyes like a feral animal. And yet, Steve doesn’t even think twice about helping him.
He’s always been fond of strays.
“What’s your name?” Steve says without looking up. He bites his lip as he makes each stitch painstakingly and with care.
The man doesn’t answer, but Steve hadn’t really expected him to. So instead, he fills up the silence with soothing words—nonsense, really, but it helps ground him nonetheless.
“My Ma used to be a nurse,” he explains, even though he can’t tell if the man even cares. “She used to patch me up when I’d get into fights as a kid. After she passed on, I had to learn how to do it myself.” He smiles, and maybe it’s not as sad as it once was. “I’m not the best at this, though, sorry.”
It takes maybe an hour to do everything, and an hour for Steve to realize that he’s gonna have to get rid of this couch. Somehow, he can’t bring himself to care.
✪
“You don’t have to stay,” Steve says; the man hadn’t given any indication of bolting, but something makes him blurt it out anyway. “But you’re free to—you can rest here for the night, I mean. I’d prefer it if you did.”
The man doesn’t answer, just giving him a steely look in return.
“Or you could eat,” Steve adds lamely, but the man doesn’t say anything to that, either.
In the end, the man stares at Steve and he stares at the man all night. Steve leans against the coffee table with his arms around his knees, trying not to nod off but his eyelids are so heavy. Right as he’s about to drift off to sleep, however, the man speaks quietly into the silence.
“Bucky. My name is Bucky.”
Steve smiles before sleep finally claims him.
He’s disappointed all the same that Bucky’s not there when he wakes up. It seems at first like it had all been a dream, but the dried blood on his couch and the soreness of his wrist say otherwise. Steve feels a weird emptiness at his absence, like the most intriguing person to ever enter his life has just slipped through his fingers.
He goes about his day in a daze. Showers in a daze, eats leftover Thai in a daze—belatedly, he realizes that he hadn’t actually had much to feed Bucky last night.
Steve mourns the loss of… not excitement, really, but the lack of closure about yesterday’s events. He’ll never know why the bystander had tried to kill him and Bucky, or why Bucky has a metal arm of all things. Steve only has his name to remember him by.
His routine is the same each day. He goes for his morning jog in the park to stay fit (others would say it’s done a whole lotta nothing, but Steve’s of the opinion that every little bit counts), he visits his favorite coffee shop on campus, and he attends his classes.
Going to Starkbucks everyday is something he really looks forward to. Steve knows all the regulars: there’s the pretty blonde woman and her even prettier sister with the brown curls and is just Steve’s type; there’s the man in the business suit with the balding hair and mysterious smile; there’s the kid with the spring in his step who’s a little young to be at university, but Steve has spoken to him a couple of times and knows he’s too damn smart for his own good.
It’s not uncommon for the coffee shop to be crowded this time of day, so it’s strange that he notices the redhead that walks in.
She comes up behind the line and a man offers up his place in the queue—she’s that pretty, and that alluring. Steve’s not blind, he can tell she’s attractive, but surely she doesn’t get special treatment like that all the time…? Then she meets his eye and smiles, and Steve thinks he understands why.
Then he’s at the front of the line. He orders his usual, a dirty chai latte with almond milk, not regular—sucks to be lactose intolerant—before moving to wait by the pickup counter. Steve’s already forgotten about the woman when she comes to stand beside him, awfully close. He can’t help but think she looks familiar, but he can’t place her exactly.
The barista calls out, “Chai latte for Steve!” and his hand bumps into the redhead’s as they reach for the drink at the same time. Steve startles, head whipping up to look at her, and she uses the opportunity to take the coffee cup and raise it to her lips. She takes a drink, not batting an eyelash.
Steve’s indignant response is cut off when she asks coolly, “What happened to your hand?” He’s taken aback enough by the non sequitur that he can’t answer, and after a moment she shrugs and says, “See you later, Steve.”
She walks away. Steve stares after her.
He only emerges from his stupor when the barista calls out confusedly, “Chai latte for Bucky?”
Steve grabs the coffee cup and runs after the woman, only to find that she’s gone. He’s baffled, and he looks down at the cup for answers. There’s a number written on the cardboard sleeve, and Steve wonders what even is his life.
⍟
When he gets home that day, it’s quiet in his apartment.
Steve sighs as he puts away his messenger bag, feeling quite possibly even more tired than he had been this morning. He’d kept an eye out for the redhead all day, to no avail, and he’d been so distracted that even Professor Erskine had called him out after class to check up on him.
“I apologize for today, Professor. It won’t happen again.”
Erskine had just given Steve a pointed look, one that seemed like he saw right through him; it hadn’t been the first look like that he’d gotten that day, and he’d started to tire of it. “Are you sure? You seem unwell, Steven.” His accented words were light but they still made him feel like a chastened child.
“I’m fine,” Steve had insisted, a flush creeping up his neck.
Thankfully he isn’t kept behind for too long; still, he’s exhausted when he returns to his apartment… and later on he tells himself that’s why he hadn’t noticed Bucky climbing in through his fire escape.
Steve turns towards the breeze and yelps as he comes face-to-face with Bucky. He drops his coffee mug in surprise. Bucky catches it without spilling a drop, which— of course he’d be able to do, he’s some eerily competent guy who seems like he’s well-versed in all sorts of things (Steve remembers his steady hand from last night, Bucky not faltering once as he’d instructed Steve how to sew up his own side).
“ Bucky, ” he breathes, clutching at his chest. “Oh my god, how did you get in here?!” he hisses, but its force is undercut by his comically wide eyes.
Bucky blinks. Slowly, he glances behind him.
“Wh—the fire escape?” Steve sounds bewildered; they’re six floors up, and those ladders don’t seem like they’d hold up under someone of Bucky’s weight.
He lifts his shoulders just the tiniest bit. A shrug.
“Huh,” Steve muses, peering around him. “I didn’t even know that window opened.”
Bucky stares. Steve looks back at him, hand still over his frantically beating heart. Bucky holds out the coffee cup. Steve laughs breathlessly, delighted.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing to the couch, “lemme check out your wounds. Do you want a drink?”
Steve doesn’t wait for an answer, just goes to the little kitchen to get him his own cup of coffee. He doesn’t hear Bucky move behind him—hell, he doesn’t even sense that he’s there, but Steve’s gut tells him Bucky’s just waiting for him to come back. Sure enough, when Steve turns back towards him he’s standing politely in the center of the living room, quietly studying something on Steve’s coffee table.
“Do you like them?” he asks, tilting his head at the papers and handing over the mug to Bucky, who takes it distractedly. He looks transfixed by the figure sketches, just everyday people Steve had drawn when he’d felt like it, none of the more polished works of his portfolio. He sips his drink, smiling at Bucky over the rim of his mug.
Bucky doesn’t answer, and Steve holds some hope that he does like them. His smile widens. Steve tells him to sit on the couch where he’d thrown some sheets over the upholstery that morning and has him lift up his shirt.
It’s—
The skin at his side is unmarred. There’s no sign of there ever being a gunshot wound, except for the blood crusting his shirt.
Steve balks. He lifts a hand but then catches himself abruptly, eyes darting up to Bucky’s face; all Bucky does is dip his head in a nod, so Steve feels alright about reaching out to touch.
It’s smooth. Bucky’s warm, so warm that it can’t be just because of Steve’s hands, which are always cold from poor circulation. He’s about to insist Bucky take some meds or something because he has to be running a fever—
“My body temperature is significantly higher than a baseline human’s. It’s normal for me.”
He doesn’t know exactly how Bucky’s able to read him so well, because that’s really just spot on. Steve shakes his head and sighs, more soft than exasperated.
“Aren’t you full of surprises,” he intones, droll.
Steve pulls his hand back, and he notices Bucky staring at the bruises on his wrist. He looks so guilty that Steve just smiles.
“I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, but you’re forgiven. Okay, Buck?” He has to prod when Bucky won’t look at his face.
Bucky seems more subdued then. Steve’s no expert on body language but it’s obvious that the undercurrent of tension in his form is gone, replaced only with a quiet air as he’s lost in thought.
He likes it when Bucky’s this way. It feels like there’s—he’s hesitant to use the word trust, but that’s what Steve feels is between them. A comfortable silence between… friends.
In fact, they’re so comfortable that Bucky’s eyes have closed in thought. Steve’s about to mention that he should take some of the coffee to perk up, and that’s when he remembers.
“Oh. I met your friend today,” Steve says, sobering. Bucky’s head whips up at that, and Steve sighs, disappointed that the moment has to end. But if this is as important as he thinks it might be, then Bucky needs to know. “Here, wait.”
Steve digs out the cardboard sleeve from his messenger bag as he details what happened to him at the coffee shop this morning. When he finishes telling the story, Bucky’s expression has closed off. Steve’s mouth presses into a thin line.
“Are you in danger?” he finds himself asking, even though he knows the answer.
When Bucky leaves through the fire escape, Steve doesn’t protest.
✪
Steve wakes up with marbles rolling in his head.
It’s not a good sign but he copes, he always does. He’d actually gotten into bed last night and his back doesn’t seem to be acting up—it’s just a heaviness in his chest and the cotton in his mouth that tells him he should rest but, well. When has Steve ever listened to what he’s told to do?
He forgoes the morning run and grabs Starkbucks extra early instead. He gets actual coffee today, a venti flat white (soy milk this time, to mix things up a bit), and an extra chewy, extra smooshed lemon poppy seed bagel without the cream cheese. When he steps out of the coffee shop, he groans.
The redhead is there, arms crossed and leaning against a tree, even though Steve’s an hour earlier than usual. This time, however, she’s not alone; there’s a tall black man with her, looking terribly conspicuous in a pair of shades and a baseball cap.
“Hey,” the man calls out, and Steve’s frown deepens. He grips his coffee cup tighter and stalks up to them, which seems to surprise the man but doesn’t seem to faze the woman. “Oh. That was easy,” he says with a gap-toothed smile.
It’s friendly and open but that’s not why he falters. It’s because Steve recognizes him—how could he not, when he’s—
“You’re… Falcon , ” Steve says, awed; hell he stutters even, cheeks heating up in embarrassment. His eyes dart towards the redhead— Black Widow , who he’d never have recognized in a hundred years if she hadn’t allowed him to—but his head swivels back to Falcon, because oh man.
Oh man.
“Looks like you have a fan,” Romanoff says to Wilson, amused maybe. Steve sputters, indignant; Wilson just grins. Romanoff raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
It occurs to him then that there are more important things to discuss than his mild crush on a superhero, so Steve frowns even harder, clenches his fists, and demands, “What do two Avengers want from me? What do you have to do with Bucky?”
God, he feels lightheaded with anger and a strange sort of protectiveness for a man he hasn’t even known for a week.
They exchange a glance. It’s Wilson who ends up responding, which is for the best because Steve doesn’t trust Romanoff after the stunt she pulled yesterday. Wilson dips his head, and when he speaks he sounds genuinely concerned.
“Listen, man. We don’t mean Barnes any harm.” Barnes. Bucky Barnes, that’s his name. “We’re here as friends—he’s running from some pretty nasty people, and we just wanna help.”
Steve… believes them.
They don’t tell him much else; he figures it’s all classified, anyhow. But they ask him to deliver a message to Bucky and, heart feeling much lighter, he agrees.
The lightness in his chest doesn’t last long—literally, not figuratively. It’s his goddamn asthma again, it always is.
Steve doesn’t remember the rest of the day; he knows he’s not well, knows he should rest, but this isn’t high school and professors aren’t going to send you home because you look a little green around the gills. He puts up with it, knowing he’s going to pass out right after he gets home.
He gets home and passes out.
Steve has these episodes sometimes: fatigue that turns into breathing problems that turn into full-blown respiratory infections, which are not good, really not good. He knows this isn’t one of those, but he still feels like shit, and so he decides that yes, after the past few days maybe I do deserve a break, and feels less guilty about passing out.
But halfway through the night, something wakes him up.
Steve isn’t sure what it is at first, but then they filter in through his senses—noises, they’re noises, distressed noises, and he doesn’t know where they’re coming from. He opens his eyes to look up at their source blearily.
“Bucky? What’s wrong?” His voice is thick with sleep, so he clears his throat.
And Bucky… reaches out to smooth the hair back from his forehead.
He does it hesitantly, delicately, as though Steve is made of glass—and under those fingers, Steve might as well be. The pads of his right hand are strong and calloused and have gone through so much. The fingers of his left hand seem at first cold and unforgiving, and yet they eventually warm to the touch.
Steve’s seen what those hands can do. Steve knows the damage they can do. But when Bucky touches him now, careful as he thumbs at the skin of his cheek, he trusts Bucky to take care of him.
That night, Steve has no nightmares; he trusts Bucky, and Bucky keeps them away.
⍟
He wakes to sunlight streaming in through his window.
Steve feels… not rested, exactly, but not tired either. His eyelids feel heavy but he fights through the grogginess, sitting up in his bed; the sheets are tucked around him and he’s comfortably warm, cozy, and—the sheets are tucked around him.
“Bucky?” he croaks, inhaling deeply. He pushes aside his blanket and slides off the bed, a little unsteady on his feet once they’re on the ground. “Buck?”
He manages to not break out into a coughing fit, but he can feel the phlegm in his throat, gross as ever. He shuffles outside of his bedroom only to find his living room undisturbed.
Steve’s disappointed. Not at Bucky but at himself, for expecting more of Bucky than he should reasonably be able to give.
It’s easier to plop down on the floor—his couch is still… well, crusty—than to stay standing, so he does exactly that, sighing and curling up into a ball so he can rest his cheek against his knees.
He feels helpless like this. He always does. Steve has managed to survive this long on his own, but it’s—it’s tiring, and he shouldn’t have to be alone. It’s hard, though, to let anyone close; it’s difficult to have anyone see him at his lowest and feel their pity for him.
Steve hadn’t felt any pity from Bucky last night, though. He’d felt an overwhelming sense of worry, of patience as he’d kept vigil at his bedside all night long.
He knows he’s still sick, and that he should rest, but Steve tells himself five more minutes, and then he’ll get up and go to school. Just a nap, and then he’ll force himself to get up. It’s difficult to fall asleep, however, at the breeze coming in through his window.
Steve blinks slowly.
“You should be in bed,” says a voice that’s rough with disuse, and Steve’s head snaps up. It rattles his brain, but he doesn’t wince, too caught up in his surprise. Bucky’s standing there in his ratty henley and torn jeans, a cap on his head, looking for all the world like he’d been there all along. “Steve.” He repeats, “You should be in bed.”
Steve’s expression is filled with wonder as he sucks in a breath. “You finally said my name.”
Bucky shifts awkwardly on his feet, which looks strange for someone so graceful. He hesitates only slightly before giving a curt nod.
“Yes, I remembered. I also… looked you up.”
He feels laughter bubbling up, and he gives into it. “I’m glad. We can be proper friends, then.”
It might be his imagination but Bucky seems to perk up at that. Steve suppresses a giggle; if Bucky were a dog then his tail would be wagging, perhaps.
There’s a crinkle of a plastic bag and Steve realizes Bucky’s got one in his grip.
“What’s that?” Steve asks, sitting up straighter. His back gives a satisfying pop.
Bucky’s eyes dart away from his as he considers how to answer. “It’s… breakfast.” He heaves a heavy sigh as though it pained him to say the words.
Steve bites his lip to keep from smiling too wide. “Yeah? Whatcha get?” He tilts his head, standing up and reaching out with a gimme. Bucky hands over the bag—Steve lets his fingers brush against his, and Bucky drops his gaze to the floor—and Steve hums as he rummages through it. It’s a blueberry bagel and what looks to be a strawberry smoothie.
“It doesn’t have any milk,” Bucky offers lamely. Steve beams at Bucky, realizing that he must’ve taken note of the marks on his coffee cup. “I—yeah.”
They lay out the food on the coffee table, sitting comfortably on the floor.
“Thank you for coming back,” Steve says, eyes crinkling at the corners. Bucky watches him eat but Steve manages to convince him to take a sip of the smoothie.
✪
Steve takes the week off.
Bucky listens in on the phone call with his doctor and stares at him intently until Steve asks if he’d like to pick up his prescription at the local pharmacy. Bucky looks like it’s his one mission in life to get him his meds, and it takes him an efficient 17 minutes to and from the Duane Reade.
(It would’ve taken Steve at least double that amount of time. What did Bucky do to speed up the pharmacists, he wonders; was it the glare this time, the murder strut, or the puppy dog eyes, perhaps?
Some things you’ll just never know.)
He comes in through the fire escape again, and Steve has never been the romantic type but there’s something almost dashing about him climbing in through the window with the wind whipping through his hair. Speaking of which…
“Do you wanna borrow a comb?” Steve asks, because Bucky had been flicking his hair out of his eyes again. Bucky stares (what’s new) but actually gives a curt nod, so Steve starts rummaging through his drawers.
He finds a bunch of old prescription bottles, hospital bands, a blood pressure cuff… That’s not the right table. Steve always keeps his apartment clean and free of dust, but that doesn’t stop him from forgetting where everything is. He finds his comb in the medicine cabinet, go figure, but there’s something else he’s missing; he checks the back of his closet too, in the shoeboxes with his exes’ things, to be safe. Steve’s sure he has one here somewhere, he just knows it…
“Here!” Steve brandishes the hair tie in his fist, a small victory. He hands it and the comb out to Bucky, who Steve realizes has been studying him this whole time.
That’s not strange in itself, Bucky always does that—but what makes Steve nearly drop the things in surprise is that Bucky’s smiling.
It’s gone quickly enough, but Steve finds his heart fluttering nonetheless.
That’s one of many moments in the past week that stand out in his mind. It’s nice having Bucky as company, but because he can only be absent for so long, on Monday he’s slinging his messenger bag on his shoulder once more, ready for the classes ahead of him.
Bucky comes with him to the coffee shop. He’s well-behaved as always, and infinitely more relaxed than the first time they’d met, but Steve senses an undercurrent of anticipation from him.
Sure enough, Romanoff and Wilson make an appearance outside near the tree again. She’s in shades this time and so is he, but Romanoff still doesn’t look as ridiculous as Wilson waving them over with a frappe in his hand.
“Do you want me to stay?” Steve says to Bucky by the entrance of the coffee shop, but he shakes his head resolutely.
“I’ll be alright. Go to class,” Bucky replies, shaking his head. He gives Steve one last, long look before he makes a beeline for the two of them, unwavering. He’s not afraid.
Steve smiles and leaves the three to their business.
It’d be a lie to say he isn’t anxious about them; the rest of the day, he’s filled with a nervous energy as he waits for the end of each class. Professor Erskine walks out with him after the lecture, and Steve apologizes for being absent for so long.
“Not at all,” Erskine says, waving him off with a kind smile. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Steven. Where are you headed now?”
Steve’s tucking in a notebook into his messenger bag when he turns to Erskine to answer—only to stop, eyes widening in horror as he notices the man behind them, about twenty feet away.
It’s the man from the alley, the one with the gun. The one who’d tried to kill him to get to Bucky, the one that Bucky had almost killed, and now he’s stalking towards them, hands clenched and looking positively murderous.
DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
Like that first night, the next few things are a blur.
His body moves on autopilot, stepping in front of Erskine even though it’s laughable , the idea that Steve could shield him from anything. The man isn’t holding a gun this time, but Steve thinks he can see the glint of a knife in his clenched fists.
The man is going to kill him right in the middle of campus or drag him away from everyone and torture Bucky’s location out of him—all of these possibilities flash through his mind and he’s terrified, terrified for himself and Professor Erskine and for Bucky and for all these people—
—He’s in the middle of campus.
It’s instinct, then, that makes him grab it from his bag. It’s in his hand a second later, Steve moving faster than he ever has in his life, and the man is three feet away when Steve whips the canister from his bag and pepper sprays him right in the face.
The man goes down hard, dropping his weapon and clawing at his eyes.
“He has a knife, ” Steve shouts, drawing as much attention to him as possible because they’re in the middle of goddamn campus and everyone turns to look.
There’s a shriek and people running towards them, not away from, and Steve thanks the gods above for the fact that college students have no fucking sense of self-preservation.
About ten seconds have passed and there’s a crowd forming around them. Professor Erskine comes from behind him to kick the knife away, and Steve quickly pulls him back because—pepper-sprayed or not—that man is dangerous.
People are taking videos. The man is wiping his face while on the ground but Steve knows how much that shit hurts; it’d take a regular person a couple of minutes to fully recover.
“Are you okay, Professor?” Steve says, perhaps a little louder than he normally would, and he plays up the shakiness in his voice.
Campus security comes quickly enough to drag the man away. Steve doesn’t think they’ll be able to hold him long, and he hopes no one gets hurt.
He makes some excuses and Erskine, reluctantly, lets him slip away; he doesn’t want to get questioned by anyone, so he rushes home. He needs to get home as soon as possible.
Steve’s panting when he reaches his floor, shoving the key into the lock and twisting his doorknob, half-expecting there to be even more men in his apartment.
But when he swings the door open, the only person there is Bucky, perched on the side of the couch that isn’t covered in blood. Bucky takes one look at him and is up on his feet in an instant, moving swiftly towards him to pull Steve further into the room, hands gripping his arms.
His eyes dart over Steve’s form, and he doesn’t relax even when he sees Steve isn’t injured. Bucky’s lips are pressed into a thin line, worry in his eyes.
Steve sags against him and, unbelievably, starts laughing. It’s a little hysterical and maybe he’s tearing up, but he’s so relieved to see Bucky safe in his home.
“I’m okay, Buck, I’m alright. I’m alright.”
He wills the words to be true, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle any sounds. He shouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. He hadn’t been the night they’d met. But today, Bucky hadn’t been there—he hadn’t known whether Bucky was alright, whether they’d gotten to him, whether they’d tortured him, whether he was still alive. The sob escapes him anyway.
But Bucky doesn’t let go. Instead, he wraps his arms around Steve and just holds him tighter, hand curling at the back of his shirt. Steve feels so impossibly small in his embrace, but also so— safe.
“I will never let anyone hurt you,” Bucky whispers harshly, enough that Steve flinches. But when he smooths back Steve’s hair, Steve clenches his eyes shut because there is no one he feels safer with than Bucky. Bucky, who’s curled protectively around him; Bucky, who presses a kiss to the top of his head like it’ll ward Steve from those who try to hurt him. “Never, Steve.”
Steve squeezes his eyes shut.
“I’ve got you.”
⍟
The living room is bathed in sunlight, a light breeze coming in from the window. The pollen in the air is making his allergies flare up and his asthma, as usual, has come back full force.
Steve’s nose is itchy.
He resists the urge to scratch because he has a pen to paper and he doesn’t wanna screw things up. In the six months that he’s known Bucky, he’s just now managed to catch him asleep, and although Steve has the suspicion that Bucky isn’t asleep at all he doesn’t particularly care. This is Bucky relaxed and content in their living room and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t immortalize it in ink.
Steve’s phone buzzes with a text message but he ignores it—it can wait, at least until the curve of Bucky’s chin has been sketched out and the stubble on his jaw detailed. He’s crosshatching the shadows on the hollow of Bucky’s throat when the phone buzzes again, and again, and again. Steve sticks his tongue out and focuses on the shading, going over the darkest areas of the drawing until it comes to life.
His phone rings.
Steve sighs, scratches his nose, and puts down his pen to answer, not bothering to look at the caller ID.
“I’m busy,” he says bluntly into the receiver as he studies his drawing, only to blink when he hears Sam snort. He has it in him to smile and say sheepishly, “Whoops. Thought you were Nat.”
“I figured. Still haven’t forgiven her for last Thursday?”
Steve wrinkles his nose. “I told her it was alright, but she hasn’t quit trying to bribe me with food.”
“To be fair, Buck’s been encouraging the Care and Feeding of One Steven Grant Rogers,” Sam says with a chuckle. “How’s it going between you two?” Sam’s voice has softened with concern, something that’s been happening a lot lately since Bucky formally moved in with Steve three weeks ago.
A lot’s happened since the incident with the man at his university. Steve, for one, had been questioned by the police—who would’ve thought that a knife-wielding maniac would warrant a whole investigation by the university and the police? Turns out, the man had managed to get out of police custody because of some bullshit excuse from the higher ups, much to Steve’s understandable anger.
Romanoff and Wilson had apologized for not being there, but no one was as guilty as Bucky.
Thinking about the day Bucky opened up about his past made him shake, not only with fear but with fury. Bucky had been utilized by an organization called Hydra, which is where the man with the knife had come from. They considered him and asset, which—fuck. Fuck everything for making Bucky go through all that shit.
Romanoff and Wilson—now Natasha and Sam, as they’d insisted—had explained to him the situation in full.
(Steve still had no clue how much trust they’d put in him for involving him in this. He’d just assumed they were trying to explain out of good will.
He’d never know that Bucky had given himself up to the Avengers in exchange for his protection.)
“So?” Natasha had managed to wrestle the phone out of Sam’s hands, apparently. “You’ll be at the Tower for movie night tomorrow, won’t you?”
Any other person and Steve would’ve described them as eager. But Natasha says things as cool as a cucumber, always, as though she knows without a doubt that he’d come anyway.
“… Fine. But only because Jarvis sent me a formal invitation through email,” he says, laughing.
“Traitor. See you tomorrow, Steve,” Natasha replies, and Steve knows she was inwardly relieved anyhow.
He puts down the phone with an amused huff, stretching his arms above his head. He yawns with his mouth open wide, which is a bad, bad idea.
Steve sneezes. It’s always his goddamn asthma.
“Cute,” Bucky says quietly.
Steve’s head snaps to look at Bucky, who… is awake on the sofa. Steve doesn’t pout because he’s a grown ass man who can restrain himself from pouting, but he comes close.
“Aw, you’re up.” He furrows his brow, trying to keep his cheeks from flushing. “M’not finished with my sketch yet.” Steve gestures at him with his sketchpad.
Bucky has sat up by then, drawing his knees up to his chest and perching on the couch. He stares intently at Steve who pretends he doesn’t understand what Bucky wants.
The first time it happened, Steve had been cooking breakfast. He’d felt the prickle of someone looking at him, and since Bucky was the only other person in the room, Steve had turned to peer back over his shoulder. Weird.
The second time, they’d been out furniture shopping. Steve had been bouncing on a plush sofa, chattering away, while Bucky had just stood there, unblinking.
The third time, the two of them were out for lunch with Nat and Sam and… you get the drift.
It’s a game now. See which of them breaks first.
There’s about thirty seconds of silence where Steve puts the finishing touches on his drawing, and Bucky just stares.
In the end, it’s always Bucky that caves.
“Steve,” he says, quietly. Steve looks up with a tiny smile, and Bucky’s brow furrows. “Steve. I—can you… come here?”
It’s an exercise in Bucky using his words and Steve practicing restraint from smothering him with attention, which still occasionally causes Bucky discomfort. But when Bucky asks like this, so sweet and hesitant and brave, Steve can’t help but indulge him.
Steve slides off his armchair to join Bucky on the sofa, and Bucky rearranges his limbs so that Steve can settle on his lap, back to front. Steve tilts his head to press a kiss on Bucky’s cheek and shows him the sketch. Bucky smiles. Steve tucks his head under Bucky’s chin and sneezes when his hair tickles his nose.
“Not one word from you.”
Bucky says three instead.
♡