Chapter Text
Nowadays, it’s rare that Steve and Bucky really get to talk.
Not that they were doing more than biking around town, eating pizza and causing trouble with Sam when they were in junior high, but these days Steve barely ever sees him at all.
He knows it wasn’t just football that was holding them together, but Bucky quitting forced open a space that only grew over time. The summer before high school they spent almost every day together, and by winter break of freshman year, they only managed to see each other on Christmas Eve. And that was mostly orchestrated by Bucky’s mom, curious and concerned for all the things she’d heard about Steve ‘getting close’ with another boy.
Steve tried to find time to see him outside of their houses and away from their families after that, but between Bucky’s new friends and the supernova of his relationship with Tony, he never did quite manage to capture any of the same feelings of time’s past.
Most of the time, Steve’s life distinctly out of his control - he’s become so much to so many people without much say in any of it - but his friendship with Bucky is something he gets to choose for himself, over and over. They’re still friends. Brothers, really, and despite the rumors and weird, invasive questions, Steve can’t imagine a future where Bucky isn’t in his life.
That doesn’t mean things between them aren’t sometimes a little weird.
Steve knows they just don’t have time anymore to meander from one topic to another, to only get to the point in a conversation after so many tangents they’d forgotten where they started, but still, when Bucky plops down in the chair across from him in the library, starting to talk before Steve can even get his headphones off, it takes him a second to catch up to the bluntness of it.
“I got a bone to pick with you, pal,” Bucky says, pulling a notebook from his bag that stays closed as he leans forward. “You never told me you were gay.”
“I…” Steve blinks, “I have a boyfriend, Buck, remember Tony? You’ve met him.”
“Yeah, asshole? I never noticed, must be dumb as I am pretty.”
Steve shrugs, knowing Bucky will get to his point eventually. He’s dressed down today, only a tight black t-shirt under his leather jacket and fewer chunky rings on his fingers than the last time Steve saw him.
“You know what I mean,” he says eventually, crossing his arms. “You never told me, we never talked about it.”
It feels wrong to admit, but he’s right. They never had that talk.
Steve never really thought about coming out, or what it meant to like like Tony until they’d already become a thing. He’s barely talked to Tony about it at all in the three years they’ve been together. Steve’s been lucky that he hasn’t really had to explain or justify himself to anyone.
Bucky doesn’t know any of that, though. And Steve can’t immediately figure out why it matters now. He thought they’d be old and grey before having to tell Bucky that it was his punching Teddy Morrison in seventh grade that made him realize he probably liked boys.
None of it was ever really a secret, exactly, it just never came up, and now Bucky is… mad?
Not mad. Slighted? The tilt of his head says Steve’s cheated him out of an important best friend conversation, but. Steve’s out now. What’s there to discuss?
Unless… this isn’t about him. Bucky isn’t the only one who’s been acting weird lately.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
"No,” Bucky scoffs. “Told you we were friends no matter what.”
Bucky’s expression is serious, and it still warms Steve’s heart, Bucky’s love and loyalty, automatic and unwavering. Steve gives him a grateful smile, but holds his tongue so Bucky can continue.
“I was just wondering, y’know, how you knew? That he… felt the same way you did?"
“Oh.” Hindsight provides more clarity, and Steve finds even more gratitude. He got to skip most of the wondering and the aimless crushing with Tony. There was only about a month between their first Social Studies texts and getting posted as their town’s first gay couple on Facebook. “I asked him.”
“You asked him,” Bucky repeats with deadpan disbelief.
“Yeah.” Steve can’t help but huff a laugh thinking about it now. “We’d been… y’know, texting and stuff, and he kept making all these jokes about letters written between lovers and I was starting to like the idea more than just a joke, so, I asked him. Said ‘Tony, do you have feelings for me?’ and… I guess the rest is history.”
“And he just said yes,” Bucky responds skeptically. Steve doesn’t exactly blame him.
“No,” he answers with a smile. “Wouldn’t be Tony if he could answer a question directly. He danced around it until I admitted that I liked him too. Then, he asked if I’d go on a date.”
Steve forces himself out of that memory - Tony unmoving and not meeting his eyes, but his voice as flippant as always - and back into the present when Bucky hums thoughtfully. He’s got a far off look of contemplation that makes Steve’s fingers itch to pick up a pencil.
Steve’s suddenly sure this isn’t about him and Tony. When people corner him like this, it never really is. And maybe he is always looking, hoping, in a way Tony with his queer college friends and focus on their lives after high school never is, but maybe he and Bucky are even more similar than he thought.
“Why do you care?” Steve asks. Bucky twists his face in offense, so Steve clarifies, “why are you asking me now?”
Bucky isn’t quick to answer, providing even more evidence that this ambush wasn’t just about his curiosity or feeling left out. Steve longs for the days when there weren’t secrets between them, when they were eager to spill every silly half-thought to each other as soon as possible.
Eventually, Bucky shrugs, visibly shakes himself out of whatever fantasy or debate is running through his mind.
“Idunno,” he says, leaning back to flip his notebook open. “We’re best friends, but you never told me the story.”
“Uhhuh,” Steve replies, as gentle and casual as he can manage, “and there’s no one you got your eye on at school?”
Bucky scoffs, but he’s looking away to dig around his backpack when he responds, “you know there’s never just one.”
“So, are you just going to keep making out with any girl that bats her eyelashes at you? How do you pick which one to take to prom?”
Something strange flashes across Bucky’s eyes when he sits up, but he forces an eye roll and it lands properly annoyed. “One, that’s not what I'm doing, and two, why the hell are you thinking about prom so early?”
Steve shrugs. He knows better than to press any of it.
“Is that…” Bucky chews his lip and tries again, “is that what people think?”
Steve gives him a look. Bucky knows that’s what people say, and he never bothers denying it, never tries to give anyone a different impression. “Since when do you care about what people think?”
“I don’t, not really. But, y’know, just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t wanna know,” Bucky says with a laugh that’s lost on Steve. “Is that what your little football friends say about me? Call me a slut when they think you can’t hear?”
“No, Buck. No one cares about what you do,” Steve replies honestly. “If you were a girl running around like you do, maybe –”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m not, so. What do they say?”
Steve rolls his eyes. “Idunno, same as everyone else?”
“Which is –?”
“What’s it to you? You could come talk to them any time, you know, ask them yourself.”
“Oh my god,” Bucky snorts. “Why the hell would I do that? Your friends ain’t my friends anymore.”
“They’re nice, most of ’em,” Steve says. “You’re friends with Sam.”
Bucky huffs, crossing his arms again. “Barely.”
“Oh come on. I know we don’t hang out as much –”
“We never hang out anymore, Stevie.”
“Well,” Steve frowns, the sudden dejection in Bucky’s voice cutting him to his core, “we can change that. What’re you doing later? Wanna go get donuts with me and Tony? I’m playing COD after school.”
“And watch you two make pathetic heart eyes at each other over Tony’s seventh coffee of the day?” Bucky shakes his head, “no thanks, I got plans.”
Steve rolls his eyes, abruptly reminded how annoying Bucky can be when he wants to be. “With who? You can bring them, you know Tony’s got space.”
“No can do, Stevie,” Bucky finally smiles again, somehow open and opaque at the same time. “Maybe next time.”
Steve manages a smile back, and promises himself next time will come sooner rather than later.