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1) Internet Lingo
Steve wasn’t kidding when he told Sam he loved the internet. There’s all kinds of philosophical reasons about the free exchange of knowledge and giving voice to the voiceless, along with the practicality of how convenient it is. But the truth is he also loves the sarcastic and dry humor of it, the way language has evolved through it.
He spends a lot of time on tumblr and other similar sites and at first doesn't even realize how much of it he's absorbed until he's having dinner with the team one night and Natasha asks Clint to pass the salt and he doesn't immediately respond because his hearing aids are turned off. He turns them back on when she keeps pointing at the salt shaker to his left and asks what she wanted. "She craves that mineral," Steve automatically says and the entire table goes quiet.
It’s silent for a couple heartbeats, and then Bucky groans and buries his faces in his hands and says, “Can’t take you fucking anywhere, punk.” Steve just grins and gives a cocky smirk and suddenly everyone is buzzing around them. Tony starts on his expected “but you’re an old man” speech, but all Steve really cares about is that Bucky’s grinning.
After that he just kind of embraces it, because it’s really amusing to see the expressions on his teammate’s faces and how it makes Bucky look so affectionately frustrated. So when he trips on a kitchen chair the next morning, and yells “fight me!” at it, the dull thud of Bucky dropping his forehead onto the counter in frustration is immensely satisfying.
The following Saturday Bucky walks into the living room post-workout, wiping sweat off his face with his t-shirt. Steve looks over at him and smirks to himself. “Hey handsome,” he calls over.
“Hi,” Bucky grins, and Steve hums appreciatively.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Steve starts, and Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. “Too hot. Hot damn.”
Bucky throws the shirt at him.
Steve catches it with his superhuman reflexes and gives the other man a shiteating grin. "What? Don't appreciate my compliments anymore Buck?"
"Not when they're so stupid," Bucky retorts and heads for the bathroom, throwing his shorts at Steve for good measure.
A few days later, they're both feeling bored and a little restless, pent up with energy, but no will to actually put it anywhere, so Steve suggests a walk. They get dressed and walk out of the tower aimlessly, just walking wherever their feet take them. They make a stop at a Starbucks and Bucky seems to unwind a little as he sips at his syrupy concoction that tries to pass itself off as coffee and that's when the relative calm is interrupted by a car horn wailing loudly and plaintively and Steve lets out a heavy sigh and says, "same."
Steve grins into his coffee cup, raising an eyebrow at Bucky in a question or a dare, he’s not even sure which. Bucky just sighs, though, and says “I can’t believe you’re my boyfriend,” before slipping his hand into the back pocket of Steve’s jeans and giving an affectionate squeeze.
“Yeah, me neither,” Steve says softly, and Bucky’s playful annoyance melts into pure affection.
___
2) Nicknames
Steve cycles through a lot of names for Bucky in his phone before one sticks. Early on, when Bucky’s sense of self is still fragile, he’s just “Bucky” because anything else feels like looking for trouble. But the more stable Bucky is with himself, the more of their old dynamic comes back. So in a fit of pique, after Bucky won’t stop texting Steve during an important meeting, Steve changes his name to “Jerk.”
That one doesn't last very long though, because he can never stay mad at Bucky for prolonged periods of time. That and Bucky ends up browsing through his phone for Clint's number, instead of just asking for it like a normal person, and gets all pouty when he notices his own contact. The pouting doesn't stop all through the afternoon and Steve caves when Bucky adds his big sad eyes to the pout while they eat dinner, and it's all a trick, a decades old trick that Steve is somehow still not immune to, so he ends up getting up in the middle of dinner to get his phone and change the contact back to Bucky.
But the floodgates have been opened now, and the next time Steve goes to text Bucky he notices the contact has been changed to “Handsomest Boyfriend Ever” and he might be annoyed at the violation of privacy if he wasn’t so fucking endeared by Bucky himself. Still, he acts annoyed as expected, changes it to “Bedhog” instead (which isn’t even a little bit true, Bucky is an aggressive spooner, and the only part of the bed he wants to be on is the bit with Steve in it).
When he goes to call Bucky a few days later, he can't find his contact right away and then bursts out laughing when he scrolls down the list. Bucky has changed "Bedhog" to "Most Adorable Little Spoon", and well, it's true, but Steve can't be seen caving here, so he changes it to 'Warmth Stealer' and then makes his call.
Steve changes his contact to "The Bae" after that, and to his surprise this seems to annoy Bucky more than any of the others. “I think you spelled my contact wrong, punk,” Bucky says one lazy afternoon after stealing Steve’s phone. “Babe has a ‘b’ in it.”
Steve snorts, leaning over Bucky’s shoulder to steal his phone back. “No I didn’t. You’re my Bae,” he says, and presses a quick kiss to Bucky’s cheek.
Bucky scrunches his nose and turns around to frown at Steve. "Is that another one of your internet words Steve? You know how I feel about those. And what the hell is it with people and taking a letter out of an already existing word to make it more 'trendy' or whatever," Bucky rants and he even makes the air quotes with his hands. "Are people too lazy to spell out the entire word, is that it? Because it's absurd. 'Babe' is a perfectly good word that's been around for a long time, why the need to mess with it? People on the internet are ridiculous Steve and you're the most ridiculous of 'em all. Change my name to something normal." he finishes and pokes Steve in his ridiculous chest for emphasis.
“You realize you actually sound 99 years old, right?” Steve snarks back, and Bucky glares. Smirking, Steve leans in and kisses his forehead and wanders out.
He does change the contact though, to “Bae <3” and that’s what sticks this time. Bucky keeps stealing it and changing it to other things (on one memorable occasion, Bucky was “The Buckinator” in Steve’s phone for an entire world-ending-crisis) but Steve always changes it back.
Steve isn't the habit of stealing Bucky's phone, but all the name changing in his phone makes him curious what his number is saved under in Bucky's phone. Curiosity gets the best of him eventually and he ends up checking Bucky's phone while the other man is in the shower. He honestly expects it to be just under 'Steve', so his face grows hot when he finds a contact labeled 'Babydoll' and what is definitely his number saved under it.
"Didn't really think you wouldn't have a nickname, did you?" Bucky's voice suddenly comes from his left and Steve jumps, turning to see Bucky, still damp from his shower and only a towel wrapped around his waist, smiling at him over his shoulder.
"How did you-"
"Super sneaky assassin, remember?" Bucky says, eyebrow raised adorably, and right, yeah, Steve is never going to get used to how silent Bucky can be now. "You weren't going to change it, were you? Cause I got the impression you really liked that nickname," Bucky purrs and nuzzles at the back of his neck.
Caught off guard, Steve has no recourse but honesty. “I do,” he admits, and when Bucky’s arms wrap around his waist, flesh and shower-warm metal, he leans back into Bucky’s chest. He always had, even when he was small and viciously defensive about it, Bucky could wrap him up and call him ‘Babydoll’ and he would feel nothing but loved.
Bucky smiles against his neck and places a soft kiss there before he lets go of Steve and tugs him towards their bedroom. "Come on babydoll, I'm in the mood to get dirty again."
___
3) Bath bombs
The thing is, Steve knows that Bucky secretly LOVES bath bombs. He hasn’t bought any himself, but Natasha has given him a couple with a smile and a few whispered words in Russian, and Steve has noticed that he’s been rationing them out for Bad Days. He himself prefers showering, baths remind him too much of drowning now, but he can understand that there’s something so entirely hedonistic about sitting in foamy bright pink water that smells like cherry, that it’s practically a ‘fuck you’ to the people who tried to strip away Bucky’s humanity.
He considers just telling Bucky where to buy more of them, but they've never talked about it and he doesn't want to draw attention to it in fear that it might ruin the whole thing for the other man. He's seen people post about the bath bombs on tumblr, and most of them mention a store called Lush, so he figures going there is his best bet. It has the added bonus of not having to ask Natasha and have her tease him about it.
He hasn’t spent a lot of time in malls unless they’re being attacked by aliens or robots or mutant lizards, but the store is pretty easy to find. He stands in the entryway, a little overwhelmed by the smells and colors, and thinks vaguely back to when soap smelled like lye and baths took place in the kitchen. But he doesn’t have to stand there long before he’s being approached by a enthusiastic girl with a nose ring and maroon hair.
“Hello, can I help you with anything?” she asks cheerfully and Steve fumbles for a moment before he nods.
“I'm looking for bath bombs?” he says and she grins.
“Of course! We have a wide range of those, if you'll follow me this way,” she says and leads him to a shelf filled with different colored shapes of all sizes. “Are you looking for anything specific?”
“I have no idea,” Steve admits, reaching out and picking up a bomb shaped like a pale blue robot. “Someone special to me loves these, but I don’t even know where to start buying them.” Most of them seemed to be seasonally themed, and the ones Bucky had gotten from Natasha were Christmas shapes and colors, but now it was all flowers and gardens and pastel spring colors.
"Perhaps you could get them a selection of different bath bombs? They're sure to like some of them and then you and come back for more when they give you some feedback," the girl suggests.
"Yeah you're right, getting a selection of them is probably my best bet. I'll take one of each. No wait, make it two of each," he decides and the girl's eyes bug out of her head a bit.
"Two... of each, are you sure?" she asks looking at the huge display of the bath bombs.
"Yes, I'm sure," Steve nods. It might be a little excessive, but then Bucky will have a steady supply of them and not have to worry about running out.
He ends up with several bags of colorful bombs stashed in the saddlebags of his bike, and a complimentary massage bar from the very appreciative sales girl. He stashes the bar in the medicine cabinet, and puts the bath bombs in a couple mason jars near the bathtub.
He knows Bucky has found them when he gets kissed awake from a nap later. Bucky smells like vanilla and lemon and his hair is still wet, which indicates that he's fresh out of the bath, and he's smiling at Steve, no trace of tension or bad memories. "Thanks for getting me more," he says before he snuggles into Steve's side.
"How'd you know it was me, could've been Natasha again," Steve murmurs and Bucky shakes his head.
"She wouldn't have sneaked them in, she'd just give them to me."
“Yeah, you’re right,” Steve admits, “I didn’t know if you had a preference, so I just got, well. All of them.”
Bucky laughs and nuzzles at Steve’s shoulder. “Not that you need to do this again, because those will probably last me months. But I like the ones that don’t foam too much.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Steve says fondly, and buries his nose in Bucky’s sweet smelling hair.
Bucky uses the bath bombs a bit more often now that he doesn't have to ration them and it's still his thing, but Steve's in on it now, getting constant updates from Bucky as he goes through all the different options Steve got for him. He gets pictures of multicolored bath water when he's out shopping or on missions and they're always accompanied by adorable captions. His favorite is a selfie of Bucky almost fully submerged in purple glittery bathwater with the caption 'I'm swimming in outer space.'
He’s in a meeting when that comes in, but he spends so long grinning down at his phone that Hill says coolly “Are we boring you, Captain?” She’s kind of terrifying in the same way Peggy always was, and he feels genuinely bad not paying attention, no matter how adorable his boyfriend is.
“You got me in trouble,” he says to Bucky later that night, and there’s slight sheen of glitter to his skin even after a couple hours.
"Aww, were you too busy trying to spot my dick through all that glitter to pay attention?" Bucky teases and dodges as Steve tries to punch his shoulder.
"I'm serious Bucky, you need to stop distracting me while I'm in meetings," he insists.
"One, you could just not check your texts while you're working," Bucky says as he puts his feet in Steve's lap. They're in the living room, about to watch a movie, and Bucky looks extra snuggly in sweatpants and one of Steve's old hoodies, but Steve is mad at him right now, damnit. "And two, you love my bath time pictures, don't even lie."
“I do, they’re just poorly timed,” Steve sighs, but Bucky just rolls his eyes, poking Steve with his toe.
“Start the movie, Punk.”
___
4) Full Homo
As with most things nowadays, Steve first became familiar with the phrase on the internet. At first it seemed like a joke he didn't understand, but when he looked it up, it turned out it wasn't really funny, it was pathetic really.
“So men really feel the need to announce that they're not gay anytime they show affection for their male friends?” he asked Sam over lunch the next day, still feeling perplexed by the whole concept.
“A lot of them,” Sam says with an eye roll, leaning back in his chair. “I think it’s pretty dumb, to be honest with ya, but it’s like they gotta preserve their masculinity.” Steve’s level of unimpressed must show on his face, because Sam laughs. “I know, man, it’s stupid.”
"I really don't understand, I would have figured it wouldn't be an issue now, considering gay relationships seem to be more accepted," Steve says, "It wasn't unusual for men to be close when I was growing up, Bucky and I were pretty affectionate with each other even before we were an item and nobody batted an eyelash at two men hugging in the streets."
“It’s probably connected. Back then, no one would dare be that open being gay, so no one would assume two guys being affection in public are doing it because they’re a couple,” Sam reasons, and he’s got that serious “socio-professional” face on now. “Now, because gay couples can be that open, straight guys are more concerned about not being mistaken. It’d be easy to hand wave it as part of hyper-masculine culture, but I think there’s a lot of internalized homophobia in it.”
"Huh..." Steve trails off. "It's still stupid. But I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. Not everything is automatically better in the future.”
"No, it's sadly not," Sam says and then the topic of conversation switches to a baseball game Steve wants to go to next week. It would probably be the end of it if Steve hadn't gotten bored that evening and decided to browse tumblr before bed and happened upon a post that made it clear he wasn't the only one who thought the whole thing was stupid.
“Hey Buck,” he calls into the bathroom from his place on the bed, and Bucky sticks his head around the door frame, toothbrush in his mouth muffling the “wah?” he calls back. “You’re my best friend. Full homo.”
Bucky tilts his head, raising an eyebrow and pulls the toothbrush out of his mouth. “I would hope so, since I think i just flossed out some of your pubic hair.”
"That's gross and not really the point, you were my best friend before you were my sexy time friend and it was still full homo back then," Steve insists.
"Okay one, never call me your 'sexy time friend' again," Bucky says and disappears for a moment to spit toothpaste into the sink. "And two, what the hell are you talking about?"
“This whole ‘no homo’ thing guys do now,” he says with an irritated sigh. “Like you can’t give your buddy a hug without making sure everyone around knows you’re not gay for each other.”
“We were always pretty gay for each other,” Bucky says with an amused smirk, and laughs when Steve glares at him. “I get it, yeah, it’s pretty dumb. But what are you going to do about it? You can’t change the culture by yourself.” And oh. Challenge accepted.
He decides to have breakfast on the team floor the next morning and runs into Tony. Quite literally as the other man pops out of nowhere and shoves something at him.
"Steve, I need you to test this out for me," he says and Steve looks down to find what looks to be an odd looking communicator in his hand. And then he looks up at Tony and sighs. The other man looks tired beyond belief, eyes bloodshot and hair all over the place.
"Tony, have you slept at all since Pepper left?" he asks.
"No, but that's not important now, you need to test this, so I know if I need to make it more Hulk-proof," Tony says and keeps on babbling, but Steve's not listening anymore, going for the one thing that he knows will stop the other man in his tracks. He hugs him.
Tony freezes. Literally freezes, arms down at his sides, stiff as a board in Steve’s grip. “What,” he says flatly, and he sounds confused, like he’s not entirely sure he’s not hallucinating. Bucky, who’d trailed up after Steve, stops in door way, and raises an eyebrow in question.
Steve smirks, an idea forming in his head, and then tilts his head in and whispers “full homo,” before releasing Tony and sliding past him into the kitchen.
"What?!" Tony exclaims and turns around to look after Steve, eyes big as saucers and then turns to Bucky. "What? No seriously what? Did he just hit on me? Aren't you two a thing? Oh god, did you break up. Did you break up because of me?" He whirls around and walks over to Steve quickly. "Because I know I'm hot, okay, men have been known to fall for me and I might've said yes once or twice, but I've got Pep now and things are good, I'm not really looking to rock the boat."
Bucky blinks, nonplussed, and tiredly rubs his face. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s left testicle, it’s too early for this. We didn’t break up. Yet.” he says ominously, glaring at Steve.
Steve just grins back, little shit that he is. “Your Ma woulda washed your mouth out with soap if she heard you talk like that.”
“Leave my Ma outta this,” Bucky grumbles, and steals a bagel right out of Steve’s hands. “I’m going back to bed. Play nice with Tony.”
Tony's eyes are darting back and forth between them and he still looks poleaxed. "No seriously, seriously Cap, what's going on?" he asks and Steve sighs.
"What's happening Tony, is that you really need to go to bed and get some sleep," Steve says and puts the next bagel in Tony's hand. "Eat this first and no coffee, go straight to bed after," he instructs and quickly spreads some cream cheese on the rest of the bagels before putting them all on a plate. "No coffee," he reminds, pointing a finger at Tony for emphasis before exiting the room.
Tony stands there with his bagel, staring at Steve's retreating back and feeling completely lost. "Seriously, what the fuck?"
After that it kind of becomes a thing Steve does. He’d never been particularly physically affectionate with his teammates before, except Bucky and even that he tried to keep to a minimum in a professional environment. But now, after a particularly good training session (in which Sam had carried him around a course while he practiced shield-ricochets from above) he throws his arm around Sam’s shoulder, pulling him in affectionately. “That was awesome, man. Full homo.”
Sam gives him an odd look, but then bursts out laughing. "Yeah, it really was. Awesome and full homo," he says, shaking his head, and this is exactly why he loves Sam. He gets it without Steve even needing to explain it.
"Are you hitting on Wilson now too?" Stark pipes up from the other end of the gym. "Are you trying to build a harem? I'm all for that, but I'm still gonna have to decline."
The biggest surprise is Clint, though, who takes to it like a house on fire. He lights up after Steve compliments a particularly spectacular shot with a“full homo” and a hug. “Full homo to you too, man,” he says seriously, signing (fingers extended, middle finger slightly down, brushed back across the side of his head), and gives them a thumbs up before he wanders away.
Curious, Steve glances over at Bucky, who’s ASL is a lot better than his. “Queer, I think?” Bucky suggests. “I think he’s just returning the sentiment.”
Steve beams and Bucky rolls his eyes at him, but Steve doesn't care, he's too happy that his plan is apparently working.
The rest of the team isn't all that happy with the results, at least initially, as now Steve and Clint regularly go around the tower hugging everyone hello while loudly proclaiming 'full homo'. Tony's still a little confused, but he returns the hugs when he gets them, while Bruce is a little more cautious at first, but then takes to them fully. There's some confusion when it comes to Natasha and Pepper, as nothing about hugging them is in any way homo, but everyone else is getting hugs and Steve would feel rude to leave them out.
All in all, it turns out to be a nice team togetherness exercise. Bucky's just kind of glad Thor's off planet for this one.
____
5) Video Games
People kind of expect Bucky to be a vicious and competitive video game player. He just gives off that vibe, that “I will murder you with this Wii controller and have no remorse” kind of murder stare that makes pretty much everyone nervous. No one really seems to expect how vicious Steve gets about it, though.
That changes the first time they play video games together as a team. Clint had suggested video game night instead of movie night for a change and when Steve said that he'd love to play against someone other than Bucky for once, everyone was on board, because no one had even known that Steve was into video games.
"I'm not actually ninety, you know that right? It's normal for people my age to like video games," he'd said to Tony when the engineer made a comment about Grandpas and technology.
Tony is still making a lot of skeptical noises as they settle into the common room of the tower, but Steve has elected to ignore him. “So what are we playing?” Clint asks, settling onto the couch with a controller. “I’m assuming none of the people in the room with PTSD really want to play a first person shooter.”
“He just doesn’t want to test if I’m a better sniper than him in a game AND in real life,” Bucky stage whispers from where he’s sitting in front of the couch, back resting against Steve’s shins. “Anyway, I don’t care, I just don’t want Steve playing Mario Kart.”
"Why shouldn't we let Steve play Mario Kart?" Clint asks, perplexed.
"Yeah, why shouldn't they let Steve play Mario Kart?" Steve chimes in and Bucky just gives him a look.
"Okay, I wanna know what that's about, we're playing Mario Kart," Clint says and sets up the Wii.
Bucky just sighs, "it's your funeral."
“I’ll get in on that action,” Sam pipes up, and Clint tosses him a controller and passes one over to Steve. “I got one more, who’s playing. Barnes? Tasha?”
“Sure,” Natasha says, sounding bored, and Clint tosses a controller up to her chair.
The game starts to boot up, and Bucky sighs, standing up. “Where are you going?” Clint asks, and Bucky responds “Out of range of Steve’s feet,” as the start screen appears.
Clint frowns, but shrugs, more focused on picking his character. Everything seems normal at first, the game starts and Clint is immediately in the lead, making good progress, and then Steve elbows him, making him mess up a turn. Clint shoots him an annoyed look, but Steve's eyes are firmly focused on the screen. "Sorry man," he says and his Princess Peach whizzes by Clint's Luigi.
“Oh yeah?” Sam snarks, smashing buttons on his controller. “Is that how you wanna play?” and shoots a shell at Steve, knocking him onto the grass.
“Motherfucking asshole,” Steve swears, glaring as Sam and Natasha both zoom past him. “Son of a bitch."
"You kiss your assassin boyfriend with that mouth?" Sam says, visibly pleased that he's first now, and doesn't notice that Steve is inching closer to him as he regroups and gets back on the track.
"Bucky loves my mouth, haven't had any complaints," Steve says and extends his leg, so his socked foot is resting against Sam's cheek.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Sam jerks back, but it’s enough for Steve to pull ahead of him, and drop a banana peel for good measure, sending Sam’s Donkey Kong character spinning out of control.
“Oh I’m sorry, I thought we were playing to win,” Steve says mildly, and sets his sights on Natasha’s Bowser, currently fighting to pull ahead of Clint.
"You're a damn cheater Rogers," Sam accuses, but Steve just smirks, waiting for the right moment to free up one of his hands and throw a pillow at Natasha, who automatically dodges it and keeps playing like nothing's happened.
"Gonna have to do better than that Cap."
“Bucky, get her!” Steve calls and Bucky looks at him, affronted.
“Excuse me?!” he says, glaring at Steve, then muttering. “Ты думаешь, я хочу умереть?” Natasha cackles and Steve glares.
“No blowjobs for a week,” he says darkly and aims to hit a power-up, looking for something to throw at Natasha’s character.
It's not looking good for him. Natasha has a nice lead and the game doesn't seem inclined to help him out and apparently neither is Bucky, but Steve's not throwing in the towel yet. As they're nearing the final stretch of the course, Steve suddenly gets up and siddles sideways until he's standing right in front of Natasha, blocking her view of the TV.
"What the fuck Steve?!" she curses trying to lean around him, but Steve's not taking any chances and sits on her lap.
Somehow she’s still holding on though, and they zip past Clint, neck and neck, knocking him off the track. “Whatever,” he hisses, and flips them off, but they’re not paying any attention to him. Steve wiggles in Natasha’s lap, trying to block her view, but she’s small and nibble, and can out maneuver him.
In a last ditch attempt, Steve twists around, licking a wet stripe up her neck. When she yells in surprise, he throws out a shell, knocking Bowser well off the course, and sliding into first place just in time to finish the race.
He throws his arms up in victory and tumbles to the floor laughing when Natasha pushes him off her lap.
"You are such a disgusting cheater, I can't believe you," she whines, wiping at her neck furiously. "We are never playing Mario Kart again, you are banned from playing this game forever."
“Wow, shocker!” Bucky snorts, crawling over to sit on Steve’s chest where he’s sprawled out on the floor. “If only someone had warned you about that.”
“You love me,” Steve says smugly, and ain’t it fucking something that he can do that. That he can be so fucking in love with his best guy and not have to hide it. That when their friends make pretend retching sounds or tell them to get a room, it’s all friendly affection, no malice at all.
“Yeah, I do,” Bucky sighs, and Steve grins.
The future’s awesome.
1+
Steve would probably admit, if anyone thought to ask, that about half the reason he brings up pop culture as much as he does is because it annoys Bucky. Well, maybe more like 35% of the reason, tumblr really gets inside your brain until you barely even notice.
Bucky just really likes to make a lot of noise about missing the good old days. Sure, he’s as on board with the better quality of life and slightly more equality as Steve is, but he likes playing up the grumpy grandpa card as much as Steve likes dispelling it.
The one thing Bucky never counted on though, was that he and Steve spend a lot of time around each other.
It's another sunny day in New York, another villain on the loose trying to destroy it, and the Avengers are once again in the field to stop him. Steve’s not sure what this guy's deal is, but he's strong and doesn't go down easy and even when they get him down, he won't stay down.
The worst part about this guy, though, is that he’s annoying as shit. Not only is he refusing to go down and stay down, but apparently he’s got an ego big enough to give Tony a run for his money, and every shot he deflects just seems to inflate it more.
“You shall rue the day you thought to challenge Montgomery the Magnificent!” he bellows at Tony as he knocks him aside, and Steve’s had just about enough of this guy. And then his Magnificentness turns towards Bucky, who’s crouched over with his back turned, talking to a wounded civilian, and well. He really didn’t think this through.
He's advancing towards Bucky slowly, but before he can even get close, Steve is on him, literally. He takes a running leap and jumps on the guy's back. It's enough of a surprise that they both sway dangerously to the side, but Montgomery seems to already be getting his bearings, so Steve aims a kick to his knees and pulls. He's got enough momentum that he rolls on top when they hit the floor and doesn't even pause before he starts hitting at the guy's face, shoulders, anything he can reach in an attempt to knock him out.
“You shall never take down–“
“Shut the HELL up, you fucking coward,” Steve yells, and snatches up his shield, bracing it in front of the guy’s face. One swift punch through the back of the shield knocks into Montgomery’s skull with a satisfying ringing THUNK and he goes still, apparently finally unconscious.
Steve grins, and looks up, only to be met with the stunned faces of the other Avengers around him, and Bucky still crouched in front of the civilian but now turned to face Steve. It's almost deathly silent now and Steve's starting to feel a little sheepish, opens his mouth to offer an explanation, an apology maybe, when Bucky beats him to it.
"Wow Steve, you have no chill," he says dryly. It takes him a moment to realize what he said and when he does, his face falls and he promptly looks disgusted with himself. Steve can't help it, he bursts out laughing.
“Oh god, no, that did not just happen,” Bucky says, sounding horrified, and Steve’s laughing so hard he literally tips over, falling off of the prone form of Montgomery the Egotistical. Bucky still looks ashamed of himself, and the other Avengers are laughing now too, looking fondly at their Captain and his assassin boyfriend. “I think you’re rubbing off on me,” Bucky says grudgingly, and Steve smirks at him, high on adrenaline from the battle and delightfully in love.
“If you’re lucky maybe I will later tonight.”
"Oh gross, I don't need to be hearing this," Tony whines, but no one's really paying attention to him. Thor and Clint move to pick up the unconscious bad guy while Natasha walks over to take care of a de-hulked Bruce and Steve's still making eyes at his boyfriend.
Bucky huffs, reaching out a hand to Steve so he can help him stand up, and doesn’t stop frowning even when Steve goes in for a kiss.
"No, no kisses, you made me say a bad word," he says grumpily.
“Awww, baby,” Steve coos, and is about to steal his kiss anyway, when they hear the artificial shutter noise of a cellphone camera. They both glance over to the civilian Bucky had been protecting, a girl in her mid twenties, who’s looking at them sheepishly, apparently unconcerned about her broken leg.
“Can I put that on Tumblr?” she asks, and Bucky groans in defeat.