Archive of Our Own

The thing was, Steve wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly, he was feeling. Since being thawed out, Steve hadn’t had the best grip on his emotions. Or maybe that wasn’t correct. Maybe he had too good a grip on them, one that only loosened from survival to gloom with not a whole lot in between. Well, at least until Bucky came around and the scale slid towards uplifted.

But, what Steve was feeling right now? He couldn’t place it with one hundred percent certainty. Only, he knew it probably wasn’t good. It didn’t feel particularly good. Watching from across Stark’s ridiculously large and glassy living room as Bucky smirked and flirted with Wanda Maximoff. Yeah, no, not a good feeling.

Steve turned sharply away, hands deep in the pockets of his suit, and wished it was time to leave. They’d barely just arrived, at least by Tony’s standards. You had to attend his parties for at least two hours before he set you free. As it was, Steve had barely made it to the half hour mark.

Jesus. Steve was not social. He had never been social. This was torture. He slunk around the edges of the room, inching himself closer to the door and escape. Maybe no one would notice. There were a lot of people here, Avengers and SHIELD members alike. Tony probably wouldn’t –

“Steve?”

A wave of ‘fuck everything’ crashed over Steve. He forced a grin and met Pepper’s competent smile. “Hello, Ms. Potts.”

“Leaving so soon?” she whispered, her smile curving into a smirk that she politely hid behind her champagne flute.

Steve hunched his shoulders up in his ‘aw shucks’ shrug. “Not much for parties, I’m afraid.”

Pepper nodded her understanding. “And Tony’s parties are a particular brand of party.”

This was true. Tony’s parties had a flair that no one else could ever hope to compete with. Or for Steve, that had a certain flair that made him hope the floor would open up and swallow him whole, especially when his best friend was flirting with a teammate across the room.

“So . . . is it okay if I?” he hedged, making another subtle move toward the door.

“Well, you happen to be in luck, Mr. Rogers,” Pepper said, setting her flute down on the nearest surface and hooking her arm through Steve’s. “I just happen to need to show you something very important.”

“Oh?” Steve asked, offering a real real smile for the first time that evening.

“Mm,” Pepper hummed.

Arm in arm, they walked casually out the door and shut it soundly behind them. “Shit,” Steve cursed, slumping against the wall. He really hated parties.

Pepper studied him for a moment. “You need a ride home? I can have Happy take you?”

“I rode the bike,” he negated.

She nodded. “Better make it quick, Tony’ll notice any moment you’re not there and start a search party.”

Steve groaned, shoving off the wall and heading for the elevator. He turned on his heel, walking backwards to offer Pepper a salute. “Thank you, ma’am, for your courageous actions.”

She laughed brightly. “I’m fairly certain it’s my job to save people from Tony, including himself.”

“Like I said,” Steve grinned, “courageous.” He depressed the down button and listened to the quiet electric hum as it moved up the floors.

“Does Bucky know you’re leaving?” Pepper asked, her hand hesitating on the door knob.

Steve shrugged. “He’ll know where I am.”

The elevator doors opened smoothly and Steve stepped in, offering Pepper one last salute before he was safely closed inside. Steve rubbed both hands across his face with a quiet groan. Fuck. Socializing. Jesus. Worst thing ever.

It wasn’t that Steve didn’t like to do things. He did. Just, those things didn’t necessarily involve other people. He liked drawing, but he could do that just fine on his own. He liked boxing. He could do that with a bag. He liked running. He could run all by himself. He liked reading. That was a legitimate one person activity. He liked road trips. The radio kept him company. So yeah, there were plenty of things Steve liked to do, he just tended to prefer doing them without other people.

Which probably meant it made no sense he lived with a roommate. But Bucky didn’t really count. He had never really counted. Bucky was such a part of Steve’s life that he hardly saw him as a separate person. Except when Bucky was flirting with Wanda Maximoff. Then they were completely different people.

Because Steve, not so hot with women. He never knew what to say and once he got going he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Peggy hadn’t been like other women he knew, she was straight forward and unlike anyone else Steve had ever met. She didn’t care when he rambled himself into a corner or picked the worst topic of conversation. She’d just smirk and go along with him, eventually steering him towards a topic of mutual interest.

Bucky though, could charm anyone, male or female, old or young, Bucky had a way with words that set everyone at ease, that made people want to be his friend. It wasn’t something Hydra had burned out of him either. It seemed that being charming was of use to a spy. So while other aspects of his best friend had been burned to ash, this one piece remained fully intact. Not that Steve begrudged him the easy socializing, just wasn’t something Steve knew the first thing about.

Steve flicked on the television and pushed the couch out of the way. He bent down, pushing himself up on his hands and stared at the television upside down. Steve was weird, he got that, he just didn’t really give a fuck either.

On the screen, the nature documentary followed a Komodo dragon. They wanted to see it take down another animal, but it didn’t appear to be showing any interest. Steve lifted a brow as it bypassed a wounded animal, tongue flicking intently into the dry air.

He got why they called it a dragon, looked like one, with the scaly skin and general reptile-ness. But that was where the comparison seemed to end. The thing looked beyond lazy. Like impressively lazy. Like if Bucky had a spirit animal, this would be it, fierce looking and utterly lazy as fuck.

Steve grinned. He flipped himself upright and grabbed his cell phone off the displaced coffee table. Pausing the television on an image of the Komodo dragon glaring at the camera, Steve snapped a picture and texted it to Bucky. Found your spirit animal.

Fuck you. Bucky’s response came a minute later.

Steve grinned broader, texting Bucky an emoji of a dragon.

Bucky replied with a picture of him flipping Steve the bird.

Steve saved the picture to his images and tossed the phone down on the table again. He unpaused the television and pushed back up into his handstand.

“You ducked out early,” Bucky accused when he pushed open the door to their shared apartment. He kicked off his shoes and hung up his suit jacket on the coat racket attached to their wall.

Steve was sprawled on the floor before the tv, now intently watching an episode of Ancient Aliens. “You know they think aliens made the pyramids?”

Bucky scoffed. “Who told you that, Thor? Guy’s got an ego complex.”

“Nah, it’s on this show.” He pointed a socked foot towards the tv.

Bucky dropped down beside him, the crease of his pants tight over his knee caps. “How do you even find this shit?” he asked, helplessly intrigued.

Steve shrugged against the carpet. “TV Guide.”

Bucky rucked his fingers through his hair until it was standing on end. It wasn’t as long as it had been when he’d resurfaced. It was cut in a familiar fashion to what he’d worn when they were in the army together, but longer on top, because apparently that was the style now. Steve had never known anything about style. He let Darcy boss him into haircuts and outfits. It pleased her and kept Steve from having to waste any time on it.

“Did Tony notice?” Steve asked.

“Of course he did. He made a big speech about it. It was annoying as hell,” Bucky groused.

Steve grinned. “Yeah, well, I escaped so.”

“Asshole.” Bucky punched his thigh a little too hard to be friendly.

Steve quirked a brow. “Thought you looked cozy.”

Bucky made a face. “Man, the senator for Nebraska totally tried to cop a feel.”

Steve burst out in bright laughter. “Not what I meant. I meant you and Wanda.”

“Oh.” Bucky tilted his head, seeming to think it over. “She’s nice.”

Steve squinted at his best friend. “Er, sure. Did you ask her out, I mean?”

A sly smile stole across Bucky’s mouth. “Why, you jealous?”

And shit. Steve blinked. Once, then twice, then a few more times for clarity. “Jealous?” he repeated, trying it on for size.

“Yeah, jealous cuz I got to her first,” Bucky explained, eyeing his friend with interest.

Steve shook his head quickly, because no, he wasn’t jealous of Bucky, but he was starting to think he had been very jealous of Wanda. Which . . . that was something. Something that wasn’t exactly settling into place where it should.

He curled upright, one hand tugging at the ends of his hair in agitation. “Hey, I’m gonna take a run. See you after.”

Before he could go for his running shoes, Bucky snagged his wrist in the circle of his fingers. “You alright, pal?”

Steve frowned, shaking off Bucky’s hold, but his metal fingers cinched tighter. “Just – pent up here, you know?”

Bucky didn’t look like he believed him. “Let me change and I’ll come with you.”

“Nah, Buck, you don’t gotta do that. I’m just feeling restless is all.”

Bucky eyed him critically for a moment before releasing Steve from his grip. “Alright, sure.”

Steve bobbed his head, aiming for reassurance and missing by a mile if Bucky’s frown was any indication. That was the problem with fitting with someone so well the line between you blurred, they always knew when you were lying. Still, Bucky didn’t stop him when he returned in a pair of sweats and t-shirt, his feet tied into his beat-up running shoes.

Steve was out the door in a shot. It was dark out, well past midnight, in fact, it was probably closer to dawn now than it was to night. And, it was a nice night. He was focusing all of his attention on the night/morning or the cold air, or the stars poking out overhead, little pinpricks in the dark velvet of the sky. Such a nice fucking night.

He wasn’t avoiding the ‘jealousy’ issue, no. He was simply . . . musing. Yes, that was exactly the word he wanted. He was musing. The night was beautiful, he should appreciate it. Hell, he could still be stuck in the ice not able to see any stars at all and –

Holy fuck. How could he be jealous of Wanda? How was that a thing that was happening? He loved Bucky, of course he fucking did. But not like – Jesus. Not like that. Bucky was his best friend. His best friend. They had been best friends forever and that was it. Of course it was. It had never been anything else. Why should it?

Steve hadn’t noticed how far he’d run until he tripped over a fallen branch and found himself in Central Park. Well, shit. That had to be a new speed record for him. He frowned. This was ridiculous.

‘Jealousy,’ honestly, probably wasn’t even the word he wanted, he just hadn’t, exactly felt stuff correctly for a while, so yeah, he could sort this out. This did not have to be a thing. It definitely didn’t have to be a thing Bucky ever knew about. For god sake’s Bucky could not know about it. Bucky wouldn’t do anything awful like make it awkward between them, but just imagining the teasing he would have to endure from his best friend was enough to bring even someone like Steve to his knees.

So, okay, good. Steve had a plan. He was the star spangled man with a plan and he completely had a plan. Be chill. That was his plan. Darcy chanted it like a mantra every time he saw her. Be more chill. He could do that. That was something he could definitely do.

Right. Steve peered around him at the park. Light was just creeping up in the distance. Steve swung his arms to the side giving his back a refreshing crack and tried to center himself once more. Be more chill. He totally had this.

Steve one hundred percent did not have anything at all. Chill wasn’t even in his personal dictionary at this point. They were at another god forsaken social event and Pepper wasn’t in sight anywhere to save him. This one was a charity gala, which Steve fully supported, he just didn’t support the part where he had to show up and rub elbows with the rich and famous in the hopes they would contribute to the charity.

He was terrible at it anyway. He might have been little more than a chorus girl back in the day, but whatever charm he’d sustained as a man in tights selling bonds had seemed to dissipate with age. Now he was hovering as close to the finger foods table as he could without looking like he was stuffing the pigs in a blanket down his pockets.

Bucky, stupid charming Bucky, was swaning in between the high society like it was his birth right. Sharing smiles and soft arm touches on everyone within his circle. It was impressive, really, like watching an ancient ritual come to life before Steve’s very eyes. It was also awful because it reinforced just how completely awkward and alone Steve was by the stupid fucking pigs in a blanket.

Steve slunk closer to the peeled shrimp. He hadn’t had one before. He used to be allergic to shell fish. Maybe he would like them. Steve picked up a shrimp, eyed it warily, then ate it quick. A second passed before he swiftly sprinted to the nearest subtly placed wastebasket and choked out the mangled remains of the shrimp.

Holy shit. Shrimp were a heavy no go. Jesus! It had been like chewing on a large insect. One that tasted distinctly of ocean. He spit once more wishing it would be acceptable or at least unnoticeable if he grabbed a napkin and tried to wipe his tongue clean of the taste.

A firm clap on the shoulder assured him that at least the latter would be impossible. “Classy, Cap, really classy.” Tony’s grin was fully evident in his amused tone. “You know, I heard you men from the forties were real gentlemen, but until this exact moment, I had no idea of how true that was.”

Steve grimaced. “Ha, yes, you got me, Tony. I’m a real Prince Charming.”

Tony shook his shoulder lightly. “Cheer up, Cap, you look like someone’s shoved splinters beneath your fingernails.”

Steve was impressed because that was a fairly accurate description of how he felt. Apparently this showed because Tony let out a surprised whistle. “Hell. Pep was not kidding about how extremely this is not your gig.”

Steve shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, feeling like he’d be letting down the team to admit as much.

“Looks like your old pal is doing just fine though.” Tony pointed with his glass towards where Bucky was now chatting up – Wanda. Bucky was talking to Wanda again. No, not talking. Steve knew exactly what that canted smile and certain bend to Bucky’s body language meant. Bucky was flirting with Wanda. And shit. Steve was definitely jealous.

“Yeah, well, Bucky’s always been good at these kind of things,” Steve said, mentally chanting ‘be more chill, be more chill, be more fucking chill, Rogers.’

Tony quirked a look in Steve’s direction, his gaze probing. Steve shifted uncomfortably, wishing he could ditch Tony’s arm around him without being the completely awkward goof he was. Then, to his surprise, Tony used the arm around Steve’s shoulder to steer them towards the nearest exit.

“You’re in luck, Cap. I’ve got this super important new sciencey thing to show you. And it just so happens that we have to leave briefly for me to do that. And if, by some chance, you don’t return and I do, well that’s just because what I showed you was so sciencey and important you just couldn’t drag yourself away.”

Steve couldn’t help his wide eyed stare. Tony did not help him with stuff like this. Not ever. Tony harassed the hell out of him and then teased him endlessly. It wasn’t exactly a painless procedure either. Steve knew he was awful at social stuff, it would have been nice if Tony could not make it worse.

“Steve, don’t look at me like that,” Tony said with feigned offense. “When have I ever led you wrong?”

Steve’s hiked brow was enough of a response, but he let Tony lead him from the crowded room and from there to a back stairwell. Steve waited for the catch, the part where maybe Tony pantsed him before shouting “Loser!” or . . . something less childish and more Tony, but really, Steve was under enough duress as it was, he couldn’t be expected to keep up with the antics of playboy billionaires.

Nothing happened though, just Tony, gesturing widely around them. “Now, you go be footloose and fancy free and leave the schmoozing to experts like myself and Barnes.”

“Okay . . .” Steve said hesitantly.

Tony’s smile was less sharp than normal as he said, “Believe it or not, but I know what it’s like to hate the public eye. On occasion, I have been known to hate things like this myself. And if I can help a fellow sufferer out of that, well, then that’s my responsibility as a superhero, isn’t it?” He winked at Steve.

Steve blinked and shook his head try to dislodge the surrealness of Tony being sincere instead of sarcastic. “Uh, thanks, Tony, really.”

Tony’s smile slipped back to its usual smirk and he twisted around on his heel. “At least flirt shamelessly with some lovely woman or man out there on my behalf, alright?”

With a breath of laughter, Steve agreed. “Sure, Tony. I’ll pass on your business card for you to the first looker I see.”

Tony shot him finger guns and made his way back to charity gala. Steve pushed open the heavy doors to the fire escape stairs and jogged down them without a single look backwards.

A half hour later, Steve was playing Queen at volume levels that were definitely questionable in their loudness, dancing in socked feet around the kitchen. The tiles were smooth enough that with very little effort, Steve could slide across them with ease. He was holding a wooden spoon as a microphone, one of the sparse cooking items he and Bucky actually had in their kitchen, singing his tone deaf lungs out to Fat Bottom Girls.

And alright. Steve was possibly not at his classiest, but Queen was awesome. Darcy had been insistent he listen to their greatest hits album and Steve had fallen in love immediately. Bucky wasn’t quite as onboard but Steve was willing to give the benefit of the doubt that repeated cryo-freeze had damaged his best friend’s ability to appreciate truly good music.

On a particularly loud verse, Steve threw one arm out, spinning his socked feet neatly on the tiles, other hand clutching his wooden spoon microphone close to his mouth. The front door opened simultaneously and Bucky stood in the doorway, a wicked smirk on his lips. Steve waited for embarrassment to kick in and when it didn’t, he shimmed his way over to Bucky, grabbing his metal hand and dragging him into the house as Steve kept singing.

Bucky kicked his black shoes off and pushed the door closed behind him, pressing his lips tightly together to hold back his laughter as Steve crooned away to him, even abandoning his makeshift microphone to grab Bucky’s free hand and pull them closer together for better dancing. Well, it wasn’t actually real dancing, just a kind of jiggle and slide mix across the tiles as the song continued to pound away behind them.

Bucky didn’t hold out long, succumbing to helpless laughter as Steve twirled him on the tiles. “Idiot,” he intoned fondly, crowding in on Steve and forcing him into more proper dance steps that still fit with the beat of the music.

It wasn’t until two more songs had played out that they called it quits, collapsing on the couch as Steve turned the volume down on his computer speakers. “You ducked out early again,” Bucky accused, kicking his feet up into Steve’s lap.

Steve shrugged. “Tony gave me an out. I took it.”

“I saw you spitting out something in the wastebasket,” Bucky said pointedly, lifting a critical eyebrow.

“Oh god, Buck, I tried the shrimp,” Steve whined, feeling no shame in the presence of his best friend. Spitting food out in a garbage can was hardly the worst thing Bucky had ever seen him do.

Bucky’s laugh was sharp and honest. “Jesus, Steve. You won’t even try clam chowder but you thought shrimp was the way to go?”

“Everyone else likes them!” Steve protested.

“You don’t even like barbeque sauce, Steve, what the hell do you know about good food?”

Steve rolled his eyes, grabbing the cushion from the side chair and tossing it in Bucky’s smug face. “Saw you talking to Wanda again.” And – and where the hell had that come from? What the fuck, Rogers. That was not chill. That was the complete opposite of chill. That was hot – or – or something that made more sense as an opposite to chill. Damn. No chill at all. Zero chill.

Bucky tucked the thrown pillow behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, a soft smile playing on his lips. “Told you, she’s nice. I like her. Bet you’d like her too if you ever even spoke to her.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, his feelings settling uncomfortably back into jealousy, at least he recognized it off the bat this time. “Sure I would.”

Suddenly hanging out and dancing around the kitchen didn’t seem as much fun anymore. Steve extricated himself from beneath Bucky’s feet. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

Bucky propped himself to look at Steve, a furrow between his brows. “You okay, pal? You got weird like this after the last big social event too.”

Steve felt himself bristling defensively. “No, I’m good. Just feeling sweaty.”

“Sure,” Bucky nodded like he didn’t believe Steve at all.

Steve didn’t really care. He ducked down their hallway all the same, grabbing a change of clothes from his dresser first, then locking himself safely in the confines of the bathroom. He set his clothes on towel stand before turning to face his reflection.

He frowned at his familiar features. “Be more chill,” he whispered sternly. Yeah. Right. Like awkward Steve Rogers was ever going to be good at being chill.

“What the hell is this?” Steve hissed to Darcy, wedging himself awkwardly behind her.

“You’re being weird,” she informed him offhandedly.

“I don’t do well in large social situations,” he explained unhappily.

Darcy looked around them at the frolicking children and smiling families. “It’s a picnic barbeque, Steve, it doesn’t get more American wholesome than this.”

“Wonderful. Hundreds of people eating roasted flesh and popping balloon animals.” And okay, maybe Steve wasn’t doing a great job of masking his unease.

“Geez, you’re a real crowd pleaser, huh, Steve? Like, they should definitely have you going to all the big publicity events, kissing babies and shaking hands with ex-senators. You’d totally rock that. As in, somehow the world would burn down around us, but you know, it’d still be exciting.” Darcy grinned blindingly at him.

“Yes, thank you, all of those images are exactly what I needed to calm down my social anxiety.” Steve made a face at her, edging more solidly behind her, even as he had to stoop to match her height.

“Hate to break it to you, Cap, but everybody is going to notice the awkward Doritos shaped shadow I’ve acquired this afternoon. Especially your best bud, Bucky.” She pointed with her corn dog in said best bud’s direction.

He was talking to Wanda. Again. Of fucking course he was. Steve slumped more successfully into Darcy’s back. “Just don’t make any sudden movements, I can pull it off.”

“Weird,” she reiterated but without judgment. “Come on, Captain Shadow, shift with me over to the desserts. I want to get a caramel apple before all the little gremlins eat them up.”

It was very similar to a crab walk that Steve had done in basic once, but they made it over to the caramel apples unscathed and unapproached. Steve was just counting it as a victory when a horribly familiar cough snagged his attention.

He turned slowly. Bucky was looking at him with an amused quirk to his mouth. “You busy, Steve, or you got a second to spare from the strange performance art you’ve got going on with Ms. Lewis?”

“Bucky,” Darcy said in faux shock, “I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no one here except me and my shadow. My very not Steve Rogers shadow.”

Steve blessed Darcy from head to toe. He’d even let her talk him into one of the dreaded v-necks she’d been trying to push on him the next time they went wardrobe shopping together.

“Ah, is that right?” Bucky asked tilting his head to Steve’s cramped position.

“My presence is an illusion,” Steve earnestly assured his best friend.

Both of Bucky’s eyebrows rose at that but after a few seconds he nodded. “Okay, Stevie, sure. Just, this time, when you duck out, have the decency to take me with you?”

Something close to guilt tickled at Steve’s senses, but he batted it off quickly. Bucky was just saying that because he’d been worried about Steve running off then acting weird when Bucky got back home. Bucky didn’t really want to leave early. How could he when he was busy chatting up the lovely Wanda?

“Course,” Steve promised, tasting both the lie and jealousy on his lips.

“Course,” Bucky repeated, hesitating an extra moment before moseying his way back to Wanda.

Darcy, of course, had watched the whole thing with unabashed glee. “You so totally have a crush, Mr. Captain America,” she decreed excitedly once Bucky was out of ear shot.

“No,” Steve said firmly, because he had a plan dammit, be more chill, and being more chill definitely meant he didn’t have a crush on his best friend.

“You do,” she insisted. “My god, I could practically see your heart eyes. It was epic, even better than Titanic.”

“She should have shared the damn door!” Steve blurted because honest to god, the door was big enough for both of them, and really Steve did not see the romance of that movie. It dragged on forever and all the wrong people died.

There was a slight pause before Darcy broke into tinkling laughter. “Hot damn, Cap, I really like you. Now, let’s get out of here so we can gossip all about your lovebird crush on the smoking hot Sargent Barnes.”

“No, really, I’d rather stay with the babies, and the families, and the moms, and the children, and the – the socializing – “ Steve could feel a totally irrational panic attack descending on him.

Darcy grabbed his hand and yanked him behind the nearest oak tree before the panic could hit base. “We’re leaving, Rogers, deal with it.” She linked their fingers together and marched them out of the park and to the relative safety of her tiny apartment.

“So, spill,” Darcy commanded, hopping up onto the counter of her small kitchen. She had a coffee mug full of Dr. Pepper clutched between her hands and her eyes were narrowed behind the large lenses of her glasses.

Darcy was gorgeous. A pin-up girl come to life. Steve liked everything about her. How she was too loud, how she always said what she was thinking, damn the consequences, how she didn’t care that Steve was more or less awful at being a twenty-first century kind of guy. But right now, he really really didn’t like Darcy.

“There is nothing to spill,” he gritted out, pacing the small carpeted area that claimed to be her living room.

Darcy rolled her eyes dramatically. “Lies, lies, oh my god, the lies, Steve!”

He cast a dark look in her direction. “We aren’t talking about this, Darcy.”

“Whoa, boy, are you wrong. We are one hundred percent talking about this. I’ll make it easy for you though. Let’s start with the Sergeant’s ridiculously squeezable ass.”

Steve’s jaw dropped open. The hinges of his jaw just failed to work and he was left swinging in the breeze, waiting to catch flies. People did not talk about Bucky’s ass. At least, the people Steve associated with didn’t. Which, okay, yes, that was like three people. Bucky – Sam – Natasha. But still! This topic? Never brought up.

“Darcy – “ he floundered, nothing else came out, not a single other word.

Darcy was grinning like the devil, completely smug and utterly wicked. “You think Wanda has squeezed it?”

His entire face went red. Steve was dying, surely, this is what it actually felt like. Not cold water pulling him relentlessly down, but this, his entire body going up in flames until he was nothing but a charred mark on Darcy’s less than impressive carpet.

Maybe this was how the Red Skull had become the Red Skull, Steve thought hysterically. Maybe one of his friends had embarrassed him so heinously the super serum couldn’t compete with the blush taking over his entire face – “Darcy,” it came out a weak plea.

“I bet she has,” Darcy continued on as if nothing was amiss, “I bet when they’re all alone and Bucky’s all up in her business, Wanda just reaches around with those nimble fingers of hers and – “

“Then good for her!” Steve burst out, shoving his burning face into his hands.

There was a hesitant moment of pause before Darcy asked, “But – I mean, isn’t that not good for you?”

Steve’s laugh was awkward in its harshness. “Bucky is my best friend, Darcy. My best friend. Whatever this is,” he waved a weakly self-deprecating hand in the general direction of his chest and heart, “this is nothing compared to that.”

Another pause. He heard Darcy take a contemplative sip of her Dr. Pepper. “Well, sure, unless Bucky feels the same as you.”

“He doesn’t.” Steve shook off his uncomfortable embarrassment like dust after a battle. “He doesn’t. And this’ll just . . . I mean, it was never like this before, so – so it’ll just go away. It – it has to right?” He lifted his pleading gaze to Darcy.

She didn’t look smug anymore. “Geez, Steve. I thought it was the fun kind of romance, not the broken and bleeding heart kind.”

Steve shifted his weight uncomfortably, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Darcy’s eyes went wide before she shook her head sharply. “Uh, no, no that is not how this works.” Setting aside her mug, Darcy leapt down from the counter and crossed to Steve, grabbing his hand in hers and pulling him around to her secondhand loveseat.

“I’m sorry for being kind of an asshole about the crush you obviously don’t want to have,” she said in earnest before bending completely in half to drag something out from beneath her loveseat.

Steve watched with raised brows. He was having a rather whiplash sort of day and he half expected Darcy to emerge with the entrance to Narnia or the one ring to rule them all at this point. Instead, she resurfaced with two toy guitars in her hand.

“Ever play Guitar Hero?”

Bucky was already crashed on their couch when Steve got back from Darcy’s, high on his Guitar Hero victory. Holy shit was that game awesome. It was on some older console, Darcy told him, she’d enthused it as retro but since it wasn’t nearly as old as Steve he couldn’t consider it as anything less than new wave.

And he was just bursting to tell Bucky about it. They needed it. A deep seeded need. Steve needed to completely whoop Bucky’s ass at Guitar Hero then taunt him about it endlessly until he was waking up in the middle of the night to find Bucky trying to sneak practice. It would be great. Just like shit they used to do in the –

“Bucky?” Steve asked, frowning at where his best friend appeared to be . . . well, honestly, it looked like Bucky was glaring at him. And not just his ‘you’re annoying me, Steve’ glare, but his ‘you done messed up, Rogers’ glare.

“Where the hell were you?” Bucky pushed off the counter he had been leaning on to glare more directly at Steve.

It set Steve immediately on the defensive. “I left early, went to Darcy’s.”

“Thought I asked you to take me with you when you took off.” Bucky gestured between the two of them.

Steve bristled. “Didn’t think that was a direct order, Sergeant.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky snapped.

And – and this was out of hand. This didn’t make any sense. They were not going to fight about something as stupid as this. “Okay – okay,” Steve held his hands up and backed up until the space between them was a neutral zone. “I’m sorry, Buck. I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, honest.”

If anything, his apology just seemed to tick off Bucky further. “Right, yeah. You just skipped off with Darcy two fucking minutes after I asked you to leave with me because you were being a great pal, right?”

“Bucky, come on,” Steve urged, because he wasn’t getting this, why Bucky was so upset. “It wasn’t like I left you alone, Wanda was there.”

“Would you shut the fuck up about Wanda?” Bucky shouted.

Steve stared at him in shock. Bucky was practically panting, his shoulders rounded defensively like he was ready to take a swing at Steve if he said even one more word. The whole thing, it was just completely blown out of proportion and Steve had no idea where all of this had gone wrong.

They stared at each other, separated by three feet of well worn carpet, with the flicker of the television casting them in off colored hues. Steve was waiting for the resolution or the ‘just kidding.’ Anything that would put this back into the sphere where Steve could understand what was happening. And as the seconds passed into minutes, the tension eased from Bucky’s posture.

Steve gave it an extra few moments before tentatively asking, “Are we okay?”

Bucky inhaled deeply, eyes closed, then blew out a breath. “Just, next time, for Christ’s sake, Stevie, let me know before you go? Give me the chance to see if I want to come along.”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve promised, meaning it this time.

“These are you fucking friends, you know? And your fans? This bullshit, it’s not mine. I go because you go,” Bucky continued as if Steve hadn’t spoken.

That threw Steve for a hard loop. He didn’t see it like that, not in those terms. They were Avengers things and Bucky was an Avenger and they all suffered through the same hell because they were all Avengers and Steve ducked out early every damn time because he was a coward like that.

He wasn’t sure how to broach that though, not sure if he even should. So Steve crossed the distance between them, grabbed his best friend by the back of the neck and said, “Twenty bucks says I can beat you at Speed.”

Bucky tilted a sideways look at him and Steve felt a wave of fear that Bucky might shrug him off. That things really weren’t okay between them and it didn’t even have to do with Steve’s stupid crush that he had been fretting about for the last few weeks. Except the moment passed and Bucky bobbed his head. “You’re going down, Rogers.”

They’d played the card game since they were kids. Speed was stupid and easy and fairly difficult to cheat at. So of course, they were utterly vicious at it. The cards spread out between them, Bucky kicking Steve in the thigh to distract him, Steve grabbing the cards from Bucky’s hand and throwing them across the room.

Their game ended the same way it had since they were kids. Wrestling on the floor with Steve squashed against the carpet, dust in his eyes, while Bucky tried to wrangle him into a sleeper hold.

“You fucking cheater! You’re goddamn Captain America and you fucking cheat at cards!” Bucky shouted, his legs tight around Steve’s waist, grinding him into the carpet.

“Fuck you!” Steve choked on his laughter. “I learned to cheat from you, you asshole.”

And it was all fun and games until Steve realized all of the wriggling and grinding and friction was leading to a situation. There was a situation going on. A situation in his pants and he wanted to die of shame.

Never had Steve tucked and rolled out of danger faster. He was on his feet, sprinting to the bathroom before Bucky had even realized what had happened. Steve left his best friend, disheveled and perplexed on the living room carpet, to douse himself in a cold shower, from which he slunk to his bedroom for a change of clothes.

When he reappeared in the living room, Bucky was stretched out on the couch, rug burn on his left elbow visibly healing. He threw a fistful of popcorn at Steve’s face without even looking. “You’ve been acting fucking weird, Steve. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but could you cut it out? It’s enough to give a guy a complex.”

And Jesus. Like Steve needed anymore of a reminder that he was doing a shit job of being chill? He ducked his head in shame, scooping up the fallen popcorn and tossing it in the wastebasket. “I know, Buck, and I’m real sorry about it.”

“Wanna tell me what’s going on then?” Bucky asked offhandedly, like it didn’t matter to him either way.

Steve dropped himself down in front of the couch, tilting his head back so it was resting against Bucky’s thigh. “Really really don’t. That okay?”

“Whatever, pal,” Bucky assured. Then he turned up the volume. They ended up watching Terminator, the first one. Bucky was enthralled, Steve vacillated; he found the story played out to him as more of a tragedy than a thriller.

But that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was for right now, he and Bucky were okay again. There were some problems, obviously, because Steve seriously did not need to be getting boners for his best friend. That was a lot more than he was honestly willing to deal with. And it wasn’t all that great that Bucky was feeling how weird things were. So, really, Steve needed to recommit to being more chill. He needed to be more than chill. He needed to be the chillest.

Carli, very beautiful and politically active in all the things Steve supported, was flirting with Steve. Flirting with him. Like he wasn’t an honest to god, spent seventy years in the ice, awkward turtle. It was horrifying. Steve had no idea what to do.

Women didn’t flirt with Steve. Or if they did, he was too awkward to notice it. Peggy hadn’t even flirted with Steve. She had just been honest, up front, and Steve appreciated that more than he would have ever cared about a well timed compliment.

Steve didn’t flirt with women. Or men. Or anyone at all. Because when he tried to, all that came out of his mouth was an awkward ramble that didn’t know where to stop. It wasn’t that Steve was completely useless, he was real good at the talking thing when it came to matters he believed in. Talking to his men, the troops? He had that on lock down. Starting shit with some asshole who thought he was better than everyone else? Please, Steve was old hat at that.

But flirting. Holy shit. It was awful. Possibly worse than shrimp dipped in barbeque sauce. And there was poor, beautiful, intelligent Carli, flirting without a thought to the landmine she was stepping on.

“You’re so much more outspoken than I thought you would be,” she said, smiling softly, small hand catching on Steve’s elbow with a gentle squeeze. Steve took a mistimed step back and eyed Carli’s hand left hanging dejectedly in the spot his elbow used to be. Honestly, it was bound to only go downhill from there.

“My mother taught me that when you had something to say and you believed in it, then you damn better well say it.” The words fell out of his mouth like lead, like some kind of bizarre lecture on the importance of speaking your mind. Yep, it was horrible.

Carli blinked, the hand still sadly reaching into empty space dropping heavily to her side. She nodded slowly, faltering before regaining momentum. “Your mother sounds like she was a really great lady.” She quirked her mouth up in a welcoming grin.

“She’s dead.” Steve’s eyes clamped shut as he mentally willed himself to die as well. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why would he say that? Why on earth would those be the words his brain chose to spit out? She’s dead? Could he have gone with anything more morbid or off-putting?

Carli stuttered and when Steve finally dared to open his eyes, she was looking wildly around them, obviously desperate for a reprieve. Steve sincerely wished she would find one and save them both from Steve's torturous lack of social skills.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky’s voice heralded his arrive before a warm hand clamped down around Steve’s shoulders. “You’re not boring this poor girl to death with old war stories are you?”

Carli lit up instantly. “You’re – oh my god, you’re Bucky Barnes!”

Steve sank gratefully into Bucky’s hold. Had it been socially acceptable, he would have buried his face in his friend’s neck and never resurfaced or at least not until they were safely ensconced in their own apartment once more far away from awful things like speaking to other people.

“That I am,” Bucky replied and Steve could hear the charming smile in his voice.

“I have to say, I think you are amazing,” and Carli was practically gushing, not the smooth flirting of earlier. Even then, she was still no where even close to the territory of awkward that Steve had claimed all for himself. “Everything you went through, and you came out a true hero.”

If Darcy had claimed to see hearts in Steve’s eyes, Steve could clearly see the stars in Carli’s. Bucky shifted from one foot to the other. He didn’t do so hot with the hero stuff or the casual mentions of the torture he had endured with Hydra.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, stepping in for his best friend because he didn’t want Bucky to feel uncomfortable. “Any day now he’ll be taking over the shield for me.” He quirked a grin at Bucky, tipped his head in Carli’s direction as a farewell, and steered his best friend away toward the drinks table.

Bucky was sagging into him slightly, his breath puffing against Steve’s ear. “Thanks for the save, Stevie. Thought I was coming over to help you out, seems I had it backwards.”

Steve shrugged, wasn’t really like that, he had been drowning before Bucky arrived. “She was flirting with me,” Steve said by way of explanation.

Bucky let out a long whistle. “You sink that like a stone?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve agreed heartily. “Told her my mom was dead. Just laid it out there, just like that. She’s dead.” Steve shook his head swiftly. “Who the hell says that?”

Bucky broke up laughing. “You do, you asshole, and you don’t even mean to be a jerk about it.” He squeezed Steve’s shoulders. “And here I was worried I had something to be jealous about.”

Steve frowned, sliding a glance at Bucky as he reached out for one of the glasses of fruit juice. Steve had thought Bucky and Wanda had a thing going on, but maybe that had gone stale? Steve might have been too busy trying to channel his inner chill to even notice? It left him feeling off kilter, especially when thoughts of Bucky wanting to be the one chatting up Carli did nothing to abate Steve’s twisty feelings of jealousy.

“If you like her, Buck, no reason not to say something to her. She was looking at you like you planted the flag on the moon.”

Bucky eyed Steve a little warily. “Sure, pal.”

“She was,” Steve argued, craning his neck back to find Carli still staring longingly after them. “Here look, I’ll go back and say something to her for you. Be your wing man. Sam’s been giving me lesson. And I won’t flub it up this time, cuz I’ll be talking to her about you and not me so – “

Bucky’s covered Steve’s mouth with his hand. “Steve, pal, I don’t need you to go chat me up to that pretty dame, got it?”

Steve nodded, perplexed. He cast his gaze around the room and found his answer. Wanda, leaning against the door frame of the banquet hall in a red dress that hugged her curves and flashed against her pointed black boots. Of course. Why would Bucky need Steve to chat him up to Carli when he already had a perfectly beautiful woman to spend his time with?

Steve’s enthusiasm at having Bucky’s arm around him flagged. Bucky probably wanted to be over there talking to Wanda right now, but here he was, stuck saving Steve from shoving his foot in his mouth for the umpteenth time.

Steve chugged down the juice, pineapple, and set the empty glass back on the table. “Hey, so, now that I’ve suffered through this glorious event in a show of support against fracking, which is fucking preposterous that we even need to show support against it. Why anyone would ever think fracking was even an option – “

“You wanna leave, Stevie?” Bucky asked, cutting him off before Steve could really get going with his fracking rant. It was one Bucky had heard abundantly, so Steve could understand the desire not to listen to it again.

Steve shrugged. “I mean, I was gonna wait until the speeches started, so no one would notice. You don’t have to come though, Bucky, if you wanna stay. I recorded Mythbusters debunking James Bond, just gonna go home and watch it.”

Steve thought Bond was an asshole. He would much rather there have been a series of books and movies based off of agents like Peggy. Agents who weren't focused on how big their dick was and assumed everyone else wanted to get on it. Steve was going to enjoy Mythbusters proving all of Bond’s stuff was crap.

Bucky rolled his eyes, his mouth pulling into a tight frown. “I’m coming with you, Steve. You aren’t ditching me a fourth time.”

“Well,” Steve cut his gaze to Wanda, still lounging casually and beautifully in the doorway. “Just thought you might want to stay is all.”

Bucky elbowed Steve hard, yet subtly, in the ribs. “And I just think you’re an idiot. Let’s go.” He turned them towards the back doors.

“You don’t even want to say hi?” Steve asked, more than a little confused. Bucky liked Wanda, Steve knew he did. It didn’t make sense that Bucky was just going to ignore her to leave with Steve. Yeah, they were best friends, but Bucky knew when to put his pal first or his girl, well, most of the time at least.

“I’ll text her,” Bucky said nonchalantly, still propelling Steve to the doors. They slipped through without a goodbye to anyone, and made their way back out onto the street. “Anywhere you want to go, or you really want to go home and watch Mythbusters?”

Steve shrugged uncertainly, thrown by the turn of events. He scratched at the back of his neck, using the move to dislodge the arm Bucky had resettled around Steve's shoulders. “We could go bowling, I guess?”

“In our best shoes?” Bucky asked, casting cheeky a glance down his own attire before doing the same to Steve.

“They rent you shoes, Buck, that’s kind of how it works,” Steve smirked. “We can even hang up the suit jackets on the chair and take off our ties. Maybe unbutton our shirts around the collar.”

Bucky fanned himself. “Hoo boy, stop it with your dirty talk, Steven Rogers, you’re getting me all heated up over here.”

Steve cracked out a laugh, elbowing Bucky solidly in the ribs. Jerk deserved it. “Yak it up, asshole, are we going bowling or not?”

“We’re going alright,” Bucky declared, grabbing Steve’s hand in his metal one. “And when I destroy you with my perfect strikes, you’re gonna swear to tell me what the hell crawled up your ass and died, because you’ve been acting really strangely, Stevie, and you’re going to tell me why, so help me god.”

Steve felt panic ripple through his calm. That would not be chill. Any confession of weirdness and why said weirdness existed would be one hundred percent not chill. Zero chill. The anti-chill. The opposite he still didn’t have a name for.

“Come on, Buck, I ain’t been weird,” Steve deferred, “or at least, no weirder than normal. You just forgot how weird I was, probably.”

“Doing headstands while you watch tv isn’t weird, Steve, that’s just you. Avoiding me and making faces at a nice girl like Wanda when you think I’m not looking, that’s weird. And you’re gonna tell me why, punk.” He lashed his pinkie in Steve’s direction.

With a grimace, Steve hooked his own around it, the pinkie swear their formal pact of honesty since age seven. He couldn’t not. Not to would be a confession of guilt all on its own. His only recourse would be to beat Bucky at bowling. He could do that. He could definitely do that.

Steve could not do that. He was terrible at bowling. Atrocious. Bucky had offered to get the bumpers put up for him. It was humiliating. Captain America could not bowl even if it was to save his country from a hostile takeover by billionaires.

Bucky was unabashedly cackling at him, just having a grand old time watching his best friend fail abysmally at bowling. It was horrible. Or it would have been, if Steve didn’t love it so much. He loved watching Bucky laugh, the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners, his mouth going wide in a smile. That smile was gold.

The thing was, Bucky did a lot of smirking, even before Hydra, even before the war. He did a lot of grinning too. What he did not do was a lot of honest to god smiling. Steve figured that he could count on one hand the number of people who saw Bucky’s real smile and in this current year, that number had dwindled to two fingers, probably three now with Wanda. So Steve cherished the smiles and the laughter and the way Bucky’s hand ruffled up Steve’s hair as he teased him. And it was all great.

Steve was lined up, staring hard at the little triangles, trying to decide if he should aim for straight down the middle or go for the right angle since he had a ridiculous left curve that Bucky said came from not following through correctly, whatever the hell that meant.

“Hey,” Bucky said softly behind him, and Steve turned back to look on instinct.

Bucky’s head was tilted down, his eyes on the computer monitor marking their score, he was smiling, a real one, soft and gentle and small. It would have been perfect moment, Steve thought, his bowling ball failing to weigh down his arm and his mouth already forming Bucky’s name, confession on his lips, ready to spill unprompted.

It would have been the perfect moment, except for the phone pressed to Bucky’s ear.

“Yeah, we ducked out early,” Bucky said and Steve didn’t have to guess who was on the other line. Steve’s stomach took a swooping dive, the ball dropping off his numb fingers with a heavy thunk. Bucky quirked a curious look in his direction as he kept speaking. “Nah, not much, just bowling. Why, you want me to stop by later?”

The swooping sensation turned to churning and Steve hastily stooped to pick up his ball. He chucked it down the lane without looking, hearing the solid clank as it landed in the gutter not even halfway down the lane.

Steve wanted Bucky to be happy, he did, he really really did. Steve just didn’t want Bucky to know about his embarrassing crush, that’s why he was feeling like this. That was the only fucking reason he felt like this. Like his whole world was crumbling where the pillars of happiness had been slowly rebuilding. Honest.

Suddenly the half full bowling alley seemed jammed packed, people’s voices pressing in on every side, the sound of the rolling balls echoing endlessly, the oil and stale cigarette smoke oppressive. Steve had turned around and stalked out of the building before he was even aware he was doing it.

He pressed his back against the cool bricks of the building and fisted two hands against the hollows of his eyes. “Be more chill,” he scolded himself.

This was not chill. Steve was fucking awful at chill, just like he was awful at flirting, just like he was awful at socializing in general, just like he was awful for being jealous of the girl Bucky wanted to be with. Wanda was probably wonderful, handled all social situations with grace and ease, flirted like a queen, could bowl three-hundred while blinded folded, watched tv without doing handstands, didn’t cheat at Speed, actually knew how to talk to Bucky instead of running away.

Steve grimaced. Jesus but he was turning into a sad sap. Yes, all his flaws existed, but it wasn’t like they were new to him. He was bad at social things because he was never what anyone wanted. Before, when he was too skinny and too sickly, he was also too outspoken. People didn’t want that annoying little kid chattering at them non-stop.

After, he was too hyper aware of his size, trying to make up for it by shrinking in on himself, only offering thoughts when prompted. It disconcerted people, this big guy without the personality to match. And now? Now he was a fossil, something dug up and put on display of the glorious past. He wasn’t supposed to have the opinions he did, he could never follow the prompts, say what people wanted to hear.

Wasn’t it wonderful? Good old Steve Rogers, not really dead, just frozen! All the wonderful parts of our past, the glory days of Rosie the Riveter and socking Hitler in the jaw and D-Day! Here yesterday, here today, here forever! Hats off to Captain America! Just don't let him open his mouth.

Steve was never going to be who other people wanted. He was never going to get it right. It had never mattered before, not with Bucky, because Bucky had always wanted exactly who Steve had been. Except now, Steve wanted more and this time, Bucky wasn’t going to want him, not like that.

“Steve!” Bucky’s harsh call was followed by metal fingers clamping around his wrist. “So help me god, Stevie, you are not bailing out on me tonight, not fucking tonight.”

Steve looked guiltily up at his best friend. “Wasn’t trying to, Buck, honest. Just needed some air was all.”

Bucky eyed him warily. “You’ve been needing a lot of air lately, pal. How about next time you ask me to get some with you?”

Steve gave a disjointed shrug. “Do you think we could head back now? I know we’re not done with the game yet,” he hurried to add, “but I’m already losing spectacularly and the grease smell is kinda getting to me and –“

“Of course, Stevie,” Bucky said with undue seriousness. “We can always leave if you wanna leave.”

So Steve just nodded his head and waited patiently while Bucky ran back in to get their stuff.

Steve waited until they were safely in their apartment before broaching the topic of Wanda, because he was going to be happy for Bucky, dammit, he was.

“You, uh, you got anywhere else you need to be tonight?” he asked, aiming for chill and light and airy and any other adjective that meant casual.

Steve stared hard at the tv screen, not deviating his attention from the Mythbusters episode so that he couldn’t give away any less than chill feelings. Jamie and Adam were destroying the mythos of James Bond and Steve took real glee in that. Every Bond failure felt like a miniature victory for Peggy and all that she had accomplished without jackass nonsense technology.

Bucky tossed another handful of popcorn in the air, catching it in his open mouth. “Nah,” he said with his mouth full.

Steve jerked out of his feigned reverie, eyes slicing to the side. “Oh. I just thought . . .” he trailed off, not sure if he should fess up to eavesdropping on Bucky’s conversation with Wanda.

The impressively put upon sigh that Bucky emitted was followed by him tossing the entire bowl of excessively buttered and salted popcorn in Steve’s face. The kernels cascaded across his cheeks, catching in his hair, and smearing across his lips. It was disgusting. Steve hated popcorn just as much as he hated shrimp and barbeque sauce.

“What the hell, exactly, do you think is up with me and Wanda?” Bucky demanded after Steve had scrubbed most of the popcorn from his face and into his lap instead.

Steve’s eyes went wide, caught out and so entirely not ready to have this conversation. “Nothing, Buck, just think you like her is all.”

“I do,” Bucky agreed, arms crossed over his chest like he was getting ready for a fight, the kind where he would pull hair and jab elbows into sensitive places. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing!” Steve repeated earnestly. “Only, I’m glad is all, that you like her. Because, you know, I want you to be happy.” He shrugged weakly, not trying on a smile because he knew Bucky would see it for a fake the moment he curved his lips.

Bucky ran a frustrated hand down his face, eyes closed as he sighed, “I am happy, Steve.”

“Good! Good, that’s good, I’m glad,” Steve hastily covered. He didn’t mean to piss Bucky off, but maybe that had changed too.

It was Steve’s fault, of course, that he was pissing off Bucky. His fault that he cared about Bucky in this new scary way that made him into someone Bucky didn’t want to talk to. Steve’s shoulders hunched up around his ears, his right hand rubbing anxiously against the back of his neck. “I’m gonna take shower, get this butter off me.”

It was a terribly weak excuse, they both knew it, but Bucky let him go anyway.

Afterwards, since chill was utterly failing him, Steve decided that his only chance left at a normal friendship with Bucky was avoidance. He took longer jogs in the morning; hung out at Darcy’s, Sam’s, and Natasha’s apartments uninvited and way past his welcome; he spent more time than anyone should in the gym destroying punching bags like they were made of cotton candy.

The worst part was, Bucky allowed it. He didn’t ask where Steve was going, when he’d be back, if he could come with. He didn’t say anything, just watched Steve go. The worst part was, Steve would come back to an empty apartment, a note on the counter top that Bucky was over at Wanda’s. The worst part was that Steve desperately wanted to be happy that Bucky was spending time with Wanda but all he could feel was awful, choking, jealousy.

The worst part was, Steve didn’t know how to stop running. The worst part was, Steve didn’t know if he could ever go back to how he used to feel about his best friend. The worst part was, Tony was having another gala and Steve couldn’t decline the invite.

Steve was caged in against the finger foods table, stuck talking to a senator who kept eyeing the plate he’d handed to Steve piled high with shrimp and, for some ungodly reason, barbeque sauce. “So, as you can see, Captain America,” the senator was continuing on in his high nasally voice, and honest to god, no one called Steve Captain America. No one. Cap, maybe, Captain Rogers, Sir, sometimes, but Captain America? That just didn’t even make sense, not said like that, not addressing him as a person in a conversation.

“What we really need to do is put a stop to all this nonsense in school. Abstinence, that’s the key. Shut down Planned Parenthood, get our kids’ minds off sex, out of the gutters, into their studies,” and the man just kept droning on, stupid leaking out of his ears, and he kept goddamn eyeing the plate of horrifying food choices he’d handed to Steve like he was waiting for Steve to salivate over them, cram them all down his throat, and then beg for more.

And Steve, well, he just couldn’t fucking take it. Not today, Satan, not today.

With no attempt at subtly, Steve dumped the untouched plate into the nearest wastebasket and rounded on the senator. “You’re supposed to be the voice for your people, Senator,” Steve started off as calmly as possible, “and I gotta tell you, I don’t think this is what the people wanted their voice to say. You really think the right thing to tell our kids is to simply not have sex? To let them walk in blind without knowing all the ways they could be safely participating in the sexual activities we all know they are bound to have?”

He gave the senator his best, ‘I’m disappointed in all you choose to be and I stand as the face of America’ frown. Then he added, as the senator began to puff up in indignation, “By the way, I hate shrimp.” Turning on his heel, Steve ignored the tingling anger in his palm and looked for the nearest exist.

Steve was fairly certain, about eighty percent sure, that fighting with a senator was a completely valid reason for an early exit. His bases were probably safely covered since Clint had been close enough to them to overhear the entire conversation. His jaw was still hanging, a speared shrimp on his toothpick as he tracked Steve’s progress towards the exit. He’d spread the tale, how Captain America went haywire over the sexual education of the youth. And his apparent hatred of shrimp.

Great. Now Steve would have smear campaigns from the conservatives and the shrimp industry. Bubba fucking Gump was going to show up on Steve’s doorstep and demand retribution. Steve’s shoulders slumped, this had not been his day, he should have stayed in fucking bed. He kept his face down as he neared the door to the hall.

But of course, because this was already the worst day in a spectacularly crappy two weeks, Steve didn’t make it out before seeing them. His feet stuttered to a stop, head snapping up as his eyes chased after the crisp press of Bucky’s pants, the perfect fit of his suit jacket, to the arm he had wrapped around Wanda Maximoff’s scarlet covered shoulders.

If Steve had kept going, just two more damn feet, he would have been out the door and missed it entirely. He would have lived his life without having seen Bucky kiss a woman in the twenty first century.

Instead, Steve watched it all play out in real time. The soft press of Wanda’s lips to Bucky’s, the way Bucky’s features brightened, the way Steve’s stomach turned over on itself. Redirecting his gaze firmly to the ground, Steve crossed the remaining space to the door and slid out.

He made it halfway down the block before he fished out his cell phone and called Darcy. She answered with a sing-song, “Hello,” after the third ring.

“I might have miscalculated,” Steve said, finding his voice awkwardly strained, like his lungs weren’t releasing enough air.

“Damn. You thought the chips were buy one get one free and ended up paying for both instead because it was really the pretzels that were on sale?” Darcy groaned in empathy.

Steve took a moment to adjust himself to the person he had called in his hour of need. “No. No, Darcy, what the hell? Are you watching a Lays commercial or something?”

“Scanning the interwebs for coupons, actually, if you must know.”

“Forward them to Sam?” he requested without thinking, because, well, his friend loved a great deal. As in, had actively missed their skype date last week because of some intense clearance sale going on at Bath and Body Works. It was serious.

“Got it,” Darcy noted and he heard the clack of her fingernails against the computer keys. “Now, what’s got you all knotted up in such despair that you placed a phone call to me when I know you should be at some fancy hoopla because Jane was forced to go and bitched for twenty minutes about having to wear heals citing that she finds them confining and uncomfortable?”

“I don’t have a crush on Bucky,” Steve said, hushing his voice and glancing nervously around him as if at any moment Bucky would jump out from behind the bushes and tackle him for this confession.

“My god, the lies,” Darcy protested.

Steve ignored her. This was more dire than that. “I don’t have a crush on him because I’m in love with him.”

Then Steve froze on the corner of the intersection because – yes, holy shit, he was completely in love with Bucky and this was horrible. So much worse than a stupid crush could be. There was no way in hell Steve could be chill about this. He was not chill about love. He had creepy torn out a picture of Peggy from the newspaper and glued it into his compass. That was so not chill. That was zero percent chill!

The silence echoing from the other line was also about zero percent comforting. Steve pulled the phone away from his ear to check that they were still connected. “Darcy?”

“Oh my god,” Darcy breathed. “This is so intense. I’m like your confidante. I am Captain America’s secret keeper!” By the end, she was shouting.

Steve rolled his eyes, the shouting enough to spark his body back in motion and get him to cross the street. “Are you going to offer advice or is secret keeping your only job?”

“But like what are you going to do?” Darcy asked in awe.

And . . . no, not helpful at all. “What? Darcy, that’s why I called you! So you would tell me what to do and I could settle for freaking out on the ten mile walk back to my apartment. Which, apparently, I share with the man I love. Oh my fucking god.”

Steve had to take a break, subsiding to sit on the questionable looking bench in the bus stop shelter. He shoved a frantic hand through his hair, getting stuck on all the gel he had smeared into it before leaving the house with Bucky that afternoon.

“Okay, like breathe,” Darcy coached. “Because, you know, fainting would be the only thing that could possibly top your dramatic revelation.”

“Yes, thank you for that,” Steve grumped.

“What brought about the realization, if I can ask that without you getting crotchy, grandpa.”

The image flashed behind Steve’s eyelids and he grimaced. He wanted to be happy for Bucky. He wanted to be so damn happy that his best friend had found someone he could be with. “I saw him kiss Wanda.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Just bam! I love Bucky and it’s tearing me apart to see him kiss Wanda because I – I want him to be kissing me, and sneaking out of charity events with me to watch fake documentaries on the Megladon. Which, by the way, I wrote a letter to the Discovery Channel about their purposeful negligence of proper disclaimer usage because that was just shoddy media.”

“H’okay then,” Darcy puffed out a laugh. “I promise not to send you articles from The Onion and you should probably avoid watching Fox News if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life writing similar letters.”

Steve dropped his head into his free hand, massaging hard at his temples. “What am I going to do, Darcy?”

“Opt out of cable? Or better yet, avoid all televised news reporting and stick with NPR and The Guardian?”

“No,” Steve groaned. “About Bucky? How am I going to face him when I can’t even – I can’t even be happy for him?”

Darcy was quiet for a moment before sighing. “You’ll get over it, Steve, I promise. You don’t have to stop loving him, but you’ll figure out how to do it so you’re not ripping your heart out in the process. He’s your best friend and you’re a good guy, Steve, the best even. You will figure this out and you will be happy for him, I promise. It just doesn’t have to be today, or even tomorrow.”

“Be more chill?” Steve asked emptily.

“Nah, be more honest. Tell Bucky how you feel. Sure, it’ll be awkward as hell, but at least it will get you guys to the same point and you can figure things out together from there,” Darcy said.

“That sounds completely awful,” Steve admitted.

“Lots of stuff in life is, but he’s your best friend, Steve, and you don’t want to lose that over something like this. Now,” Darcy cleared her throat, “I’m sending you a long distance hug and cheek peck. Once you’ve received them, get back on your feet, solider, and march home. You’ve got an uncomfortable love confession to make and a best friend to mend broken fences with.”

Steve groaned loud and long before saying, “Yeah, alright, thanks, Darcy.”

“No problem whatsoever. I am your secret keeper after all.” Then, with a whoop of celebration at this new title, Darcy hung up.

Steve glowered at the gum stains on the cement for a good five minutes before hauling himself upright and beginning the trudge home. He wasn’t marching, per say, but his feet were definitely taking him step by step closer to his destination. Maybe on the way, he hoped, he prayed, he’d come up with what exactly to say to Bucky.

Except it didn’t come to that. It came to an apartment that was half in boxes. Steve had detoured, trying to psyche himself up, stopped by Bucky’s favorite deli and bought them both sandwiches and chips. The plan was something along the lines of offer Bucky the food to go along with the stomach ache Steve’s emotions were going to give him.

The line had been long, though, and somehow the thirty minutes it should have taken Steve to get home had rolled into an hour. And now – now he was standing knee deep in half filled cardboard boxes, mouth gaping, heart racing.

“Bucky?” he asked, one hand gripping the door frame so hard he worried it might crack.

From down the hallway, Steve could hear the rustle of boxes being shoved around. Steve forced himself to move into the apartment, to kick the boxes out of his way as he waded through them and down to Bucky’s room.

Bucky was kneeling at the foot of his bed, holding two sweatshirts in his hands, glaring down at them. He didn’t look up as Steve entered, not even when Steve tossed their boxed food onto the mattress.

“What the hell, Bucky?” Steve demanded.

“Is this yours or mine?” Bucky asked, shoving the gray hoodie in Steve’s direction.

“They’re both mine,” Steve snapped, snatching the gray and blue hoodies from Bucky’s grasp and sending them sailing in the direction of his own room. “What’s going on, Bucky? Thinking about making a hefty donation to the Salvation Army?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, reaching back into his closet and hauling out another armful of clothing. “Could you get rid of any of the rest of your stuff from here?”

And – no, no Steve would not get his stuff out of Bucky’s closet because that was exactly where his shit belonged, just like Bucky’s gym shorts and weird orange socks belonged forgotten in Steve’s dresser drawers. “Stop.”

Bucky chucked a familiar pair of slacks at Steve. “Do those even fit you? Cuz they ain’t mine, but I don’t know how they can be yours either.”

“They’re Sam’s,” Steve said, grabbing them up from the floor and tossing them onto the bed instead. He reached forward, hand anchoring on Bucky’s metal shoulder and tugging hard to get him to turn around. “What the fuck are you doing, Bucky?”

“I’m clearing out, ain’t it obvious?” Bucky asked and he didn’t need to sneer to step on exactly every single one of Steve’s heart strings.

“Why the hell would you be clearing out? This is your fucking apartment,” Steve argued, voice going low with anger and fear.

“You’ve made it pretty fucking obvious you don’t want me here, pal. Don’t worry, I got those messages loud and clear.” Bucky jerked out of Steve’s grasp and wrenched the remaining clothes free of their hangers, dumping them heedlessly into the waiting boxes.

Steve’s head spun, when the hell had Steve ever given the impression he didn’t want Bucky with him? Steve spent part of every waking moment wishing he never had to be without Bucky, that he could shrink Bucky like Ant-Man and carry him around in his pocket, you know, if that wasn’t completely creepy and stalkerish.

“I don’t – what are you?” Steve fumbled, his anger subsiding to utter confusion.

Bucky scoffed, hand pausing from where it was pummeling a set of t-shirts into the collapsed sides of box hazily labeled my shit. “Haven’t seen you in two weeks, before that, you’re out getting ‘air’ every damn time I want to talk to you and you can’t stop abandoning me at events you fucking drag me to. So yeah, I fucking get it, Steve, you need me gone and I’m going.”

“That’s not even – “ and for the first time in over seventy years, Steve felt like his lungs were too tight. He waited for his vision to pop with black spots the way it used to when he was about to have an asthma attack. That didn’t happen of course, but he kept gasping for air all the same.

“Lay off, Steve,” Bucky said with a quiet fierceness, “I’ll be out by tonight. Just take yourself on another long search for ‘air’ and you’ll come back to a nice empty home, just like you want.”

“For fucking – that is not what I want,” Steve said vehemently, dropping to his knees so fast the floorboards shook. Desperately, Steve grabbed both of Bucky’s shoulders and yanked him around. “The last fucking thing I want in this life is for you to leave me.” He stared hard at Bucky, fingers bruising in their hold.

Bucky stared right back. “Bullshit.”

Steve’s eyes popped wide in shock. “Bucky – “ words failed him. Bucky grimaced like this was confirmation, moving to throw Steve’s hold off of him, but Steve held tight. “I’m – I – I’m in fucking love with you, you complete asshole!” Steve shouted then released Bucky like he’d been burned because holy Jesus, not chill at all, not even in the same reality as chill.

While Bucky watched him in frozen silence, Steve scrambled backwards. He could – he could save this. There were sandwiches, chips! Steve had had a plan. Well, he’d had an outline. Okay, shit, he’d had the start of a topic sentence.

But that was – this was going to be – Steve was crouched on the bed, grasping the sandwiches so tightly their insides had burst out and were now staining Bucky’s comforter. It was possible, remotely, that someone might have been speaking to him, but the ringing in Steve’s ears utterly drowned out anything but the abject horror swirling around his mind.

“Steve!” Bucky forced Steve’s claw like grip free of the sandwiches; he tossed them into an unoccupied box on the floor. “Jesus Christ, Stevie, look at me.”

Familiar calloused hands cupped Steve’s face, thumbs rubbing against the angles of his cheekbones. “I got you olive baloney even though I think it’s disgusting. It’s not even meat, you know?” Steve said, blinking blankly at Bucky’s worried blue eyes. He felt . . . numb. Like when he’d first gone down and the water slowly crept up on him.

Bucky was leaving, and why wouldn’t he? Steve had made a royal mess of everything, pushing Bucky out, torn up by jealousy and too stupid to even think about what that would look like to Bucky, how that would make him feel. So really, he deserved to lose Bucky; Wanda deserved him, she at least made Bucky happy, let him know she wanted him around. What was Steve but an awkward fossil who, at practically one hundred years old, still couldn’t get a handle on making small talk with people he didn’t know?

“That was real nice of you, pal,” Bucky was saying gently, tipping his forehead until it rested against Steve’s. “Specially seeing as you hate it so much. Gotta remind me every time I eat it, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Steve said, the word breaking at the end and holy god, Steve realized he was on the verge of crying.

“Stevie,” Bucky whispered, closing his eyes and breathing softly for a moment. “Steve, you complete fucking moron, I am absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, utterly and irreversibly in love with your dumbass.”

Steve stuttered on an inhale. Because, wait, no. No, Bucky loved Wanda. He had kissed Wanda. He had soft smiling phone conversation with Wanda. So, obviously, Bucky wasn’t picking up what Steve was throwing down. “Bucky, no, not like, not like I love you as a friend. I love you like I want to marry you, like I want to have semi-public sex with you, like I want to hold hands and mock the Mission Impossible movies with you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes even as the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile. Not a smirk, not a grin, but a ‘Steve Rogers, you are such a pain in my ass’ smile. “If we leave the windows open, is that public enough for you?" He glanced towards his bedroom window then back at Steve. "I didn’t know you were saving up for a ring, Stevie, not with the way you’ve been shelling out cash for all the installments of the Guitar Hero franchise.”

“Bucky,” Steve breathed anxiously, “I’m not kidding here, okay? I’m in love with you. Totally in love with you and I’ve been so jealous over you and Wanda that it’s killing me. I stay out of your way because I know I should be happy for you and I promise I’m working on it but, hell, Bucky, I’ve never been in love with you before and it’s proving real hard to be chill about.”

“Who the hell is asking you to be chill about it? You’re a superhero aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be out there proclaiming your love for me from the tops of skyscrapers so the whole damn city knows it?” Bucky teased, but he was inching forward, lips brushing against Steve’s with every word.

“I saw you kiss Wanda,” Steve persisted because this was not reality. Steve had watched enough movies, had seen enough modern tv shows to know that the awkward mess up did not get the gorgeous guy. The beautiful girl with the feisty quirky side did. And no one did feisty and quirky better than Wanda – well, except for maybe Darcy, but Darcy was a Queen so that hardly counted.

Bucky laughed softly, eyes closing as he pressed his mouth against the side of Steve’s cheek, right above the corner of his mouth. “You gave Senator Asshat a patriotic speech on sex education, Wanda and I decided to offer our contribution in the form of performance art. She got her hand down the front of my pants before security and a purple faced Senator Asshat kicked us out.”

“Bucky,” Steve choked, startled into a laugh. “There is no way that helped my cause.”

“Nah, but it was fun and it made you laugh,” Bucky countered, “which is pretty much all the outcome I cared about.” He pulled back the slightest bit to look at Steve. “So, you gonna believe me now? That I love you?”

Steve didn’t know what to say. He didn’t. There was nothing. None of this was processing correctly. “You and Wanda though – “

“Me and Wanda are friends. Good friends. You’d be good friends with her too, if you gave her a chance instead of wasting valuable time, when we could be sucking face, being jealous of her.” Bucky ducked in for a quick nip of Steve’s bottom lip.

Steve sucked in a sharp breath, heart beat shifting from its ‘the word is ending’ tempo to ‘joyous montage.’ “You love me?”

“Yeah. A lot. Enough to move out cuz I thought I was making you miserable being shacked up with you here.”

And well . . . Darcy was right. Steve had needed to be a lot less chill and a lot more honest. To think, he and Bucky could have been flicking shrimp at gala assholes and making out in fancy bathroom stalls for the past three months instead of Steve sadly wallowing in jealousy.

So yeah. Plan ‘be anything but chill in action.’ Steve surged forward, arms banding around Bucky’s ribs, and tackled him down on the stained comforter. Bucky laughed against his mouth before kissing Steve sweetly on the lips.

“You’re such an asshole, Rogers,” Bucky groused happily, metal fingers smoothing back the hair from Steve’s face. “You’re in love with me and you show it by convincing me you’ve finally had enough of my shitty personality.”

“Fuck you, I love your shitty personality.” Steve kissed Bucky roughly to reinforce this sentiment. “And yeah, I’m an asshole, but I didn’t mean to be one, Bucky, honest.” He smashed his lips to the bridge of Bucky’s nose, then his forehead, then each eyelid, then the corners of his mouth, the dip in his chin, the apples of his cheeks, and finally his lips, half parted and warm. “Fuck, I love you, Bucky.”

“Finally,” Bucky sighed, both hands carding through Steve’s hair, tugging at the ends. “I’ve only been in love with you for ages. Nice of you to finally catch up.”

And – yeah, yeah it really was. Lips pressed to Bucky’s, tongues sliding together, Steve felt his jealousy fizzle into absolutely nothing. This, this was what it felt like to be totally and utterly happy, tangled up in Bucky, fingers desperately trying to drag Bucky’s shirt over his head while Bucky attempted to hold Steve’s face in place long enough to make out properly.

Being chill was definitely overrated, Steve was doing just fine as the anti-social spazz that he was. Bucky loved him after all and there was really nothing else Steve wanted in this world than to be in love with his best friend. Well, except for possibly the extinction of shrimp as a finger food.