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Steve would’ve flown out of his seat and cleared every hallway leading to the exit like a first place Olympian by now, if Natasha’s death grip on his thigh wasn’t pinning him in place.
The doctor looks at him after a minute of silence, the only sound filling the room being Steve’s labored panting.
“Are you okay, Mr. Rogers?” he asks. Steve laughs, albeit a little hysterically. Natasha openly rolls her eyes.
“Steve knows it’s just a routine blood test, he'll be fine.”
He doubts it. He severely doubts it. Hell, this doctor he’d first met ten minutes ago looks like he doubts it. His bushy eyebrows cover his eyes as he frowns, salt and pepper moustache twitching as he speaks.
“There’s a water cooler out in the waiting area, if you feel faint.”
“Thanks, Doctor.” His voice trembles, but he plasters a smile on his face despite his heart thundering away in his chest. His leg bounces beneath Natasha’s grip, palms clammy. He wipes them against his shirt.
“Nurse Barnes is currently on break and I’d prefer you to see him, since you’re so nervous. If you sit tight for fifteen minutes I’ll send him your way.”
Steve all but throws himself out of the room, Natasha following at a leisurely pace.
He finds himself draped across the water cooler, pressing his heated face against it as he clutches a little plastic cup. Natasha rubs his back.
“It’s over in a second, Steve.”
“Easy for you to say,” he moans, a shoe scuffing against the floor. The urge to run for his life bubbles over again and he practically tap dances in place with the need to leave.
“I’ll come in and hold your hand, if you like?” she says, and Steve can hear the smirk in her voice.
“What, and give you more material? Hell, no. No way. Never again.”
“Spoil sport.”
“Mr. Rogers?” Comes a smooth voice, and instead of stepping towards it, he steps back. Steps back twice. Steps back quickly, because oh fuck, he can’t do this—
Natasha takes his elbow like a vice, dragging him away from where he’s latched onto the water cooler, cup crushed to pieces in his fist.
“He’s a little skittish right now,” Natasha says monotonously, prying the plastic out of his hand.
It’s either Steve’s worst nightmare or his lucky goddamned day, because the Nurse. This Nurse—Nurse Barnes—Jesus Christ, he looks like he belongs on the front of a family magazine. Not here, sucking the life force out of Steve.
“I noticed,” he says with an easy grin. Steve huffs out a noise that sounds so much like a horse that he has to check his surroundings for a horse.
“Would you like to come with me? Your friend can come too, if she likes.”
“Oh, she likes—"
“No!” Steve barks, breaths impossibly shallow as he takes a shaky step away from Natasha’s side. She pushes him forward, enjoying his agony far too much for somebody here purely as moral support. When he turns to look at her over his shoulder, her face is split wide with a grin.
“Good luck, Steve.”
Good luck trying not to embarrass yourself in front of the oh-so pretty nurse, Steve, is what her eyes say.
“Screw you,” he hisses under his breath.
She laughs.
Nurse Barnes is patient even as Steve struggles to enter the small, secluded room. He knows what happens in there, what’s about to happen in there. He doesn’t want to go in there.
He grips the doorframe with force, willing his legs to move. Eventually, they do their job and carry him inside to face the next obstacle. Sitting down.
“Take your time, Mr. Rogers,” says Nurse Barnes, moving to take a seat by his desk. He doesn’t pull anything out yet, which Steve is secretly thankful for.
The last time he’d laid eyes on the... instruments, specifically the pointy ones, he’d blacked out. Natasha never fails to mention it.
“Sorry,” he stammers, wringing his hands as a ball of emotion swells up in his chest. He doesn’t want to do this. “I can’t help it.”
“I understand,” Nurse Barnes murmurs, a knowing smile on his face. “Got a sister who’s the same way. Boy, the downright demonic noises that come outta her mouth. You wouldn’t believe it.”
Steve notices that Nurse Barnes has a tooth in the front that sticks out a little further than the rest. It’s adorable, and mixed with the bright blue of his eyes under the fluorescent lighting, it has Steve wanting to wither away into the cold tile beneath his feet.
He decides that he wants to see them a little closer, then takes a tentative step towards the empty seat meant for him.
As he sits, Nurse Barnes grins proudly at Steve like he hadn’t done something as mundane as sit in a chair.
His stomach lurches.
“Okay, Mr. Rogers—”
“Steve.” God, he sounds like he’s about to cry. He’s both taller and wider than Nurse Barnes, yet he’s sat here with tears flooding his eyes like a child.
“Steve. You can call me Bucky, in that case. How would you prefer to do this? Is it easier to not look?”
Briefly, he wonders what kind of name produces a nickname like Bucky. He feels the urge to crack a joke about a horse, but finds himself very quickly distracted by the question. Bucky is making no move to pull out any equipment, still.
Steve jerkily nods his response, hands practically glued together. He knows what’s coming. He can’t pry them apart.
“Okay.” A glove covered hand comes to rest atop Steve’s clasped, sweaty ones, squeezing tight. If Steve wasn’t already frozen in place, he damn sure would be now.
When Steve looks up, blue eyes are intent on his colorless face. It makes him shift in place. There’s a soft upturn to Bucky's lips—calming, professional, unbelievably and unnecessarily handsome.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I do this day in, day out. If you can relax for, what, ten seconds? It won’t hurt. You’ll be fine.”
Steve forces out a slow, steady breath. It shakes, but it’s a start. He knows he’s being irrational, he knows he’s a grown ass man damn near hysterical over nothing but a pinprick. He knows all this, yet he can’t seem to stop himself from panicking.
“Alright,” he breathes, swallowing thickly. Bucky nods with encouragement, using both hands to pull Steve’s apart. Then, he guides Steve’s elbow to rest atop the desk.
When Steve tries to yank his arm back to his side in a spike of terror, Bucky simply tightens his grip on his forearm.
“You’re okay,” he says, using one hand to hold onto Steve’s arm as the other disappears into a drawer. Steve’s heart jackhammers in his chest and he’s about a second away from hopping out of the seat like it's on fire. Bucky seems to sense this.
“It’s just an antibacterial wipe.” He holds up a little square package, leaving Steve’s arm unsupervised for a second as he rips it open.
Steve watches with wide eyes as Bucky presses the cold square to his inner elbow. He’s blatantly ignoring Steve’s attempts to pull his arm away, calmly wiping over the area with a barely-there touch of his gloved fingers.
“Not so bad, hm?” Bucky jokes as he disposes of the wipe, using his feet to drag himself and his wheeled seat closer to Steve.
“I can’t do this,” Steve murmurs, staring down at his knees as he pins his arm to his chest. It’s all so pathetic. He feels pathetic and hell, he knows he looks pathetic.
Bucky rests his elbows to his knees, now low enough to tilt his head into Steve’s line of sight. He’s smiling patiently, and Steve would laugh at how much this all makes him look like a child in any other circumstance.
“It’d be over by now, you know,” Bucky jokes, licking his lips as he sits back up. He reaches over to circle Steve’s wrist. “Relax. C’mon, I’m not gonna kill ya.”
No, the heart failure will take care of that.
Steve tells himself to just fucking do it, begs himself to not start yelping like a wounded animal.
Or faint.
Or run.
Or threaten to fight his way out of here, single handedly.
Not with Bucky staring at him.
With all of his willpower, he lets the Nurse stretch his arm back out across the desk. It takes everything in him to not drag it back like some backwards game of tug-of-war. Steve tingles with the nausea, legs jiggling violently.
“Look away now, Steve,” Bucky says, and it’s so gentle that Steve actually feels himself relax a fraction in the midst of irrational panic.
He covers his mouth with his free hand as he turns his head towards the door. Don’t you fuckin’ scream. Don’t you do it, Steve.
Bucky's touch is soft as he straps the tourniquet around Steve’s bicep. As he tightens it, Steve’s muscles lock up with anticipation, hand trembling in a fist. He’d rather throw himself out the window than do this. He'd rather do burpees than this. The room is sweltering hot.
“You’re doing fantastic.”
He erupts with a burst of shaky, too-loud laughter at that. Bucky probably saw toddlers with more grace and civility.
When fingertips tap at the bend of his elbow, his face screws up as he hunches over a little. It’s a damn good job they'd decided on a late lunch, otherwise it'd be in his lap by now.
The door is giving him little to no distraction—it’s just blue, there’s nothing more to it. At least before, Natasha was there to hold him in a headlock so tight that his sweaty face print was left behind against her shirt. Now, he has nothing.
Well, he has something.
When Steve hears the Nurse rummaging for (probably a pointy) something, he turns his head to look at him. Watch him, even. He breaks out into a cold sweat, but doesn’t do anything but look at Bucky, whose face is so focused and professional that Steve’s stomach rolls over for an entirely different reason.
He looks at the dark slope of eyelashes fluttering as Bucky concentrates, the soft pinch between his brows, the unholy pink tint of his lips as the tip of his tongue pokes out of the corner.
Steve can’t decide if he feels warm or cold anymore.
Bucky’s dark hair is quaffed up out of his face like something straight out of the 1950s, and as he turns to face Steve again, they lock eyes.
He knows he looks like a deer caught in the headlights, but Bucky looks determined.
“Not gonna hurt you,” he reminds Steve quietly, like a secret. It sends a rush of something serene through Steve, who can do nothing but sit, frozen.
Steve watches the tense of Bucky's jaw as he looks away, watches the way his eyelashes brush against his skin—hell, even the dainty slope of his nose. He has a spattering of faint freckles upon his cheekbone, Steve notices, and is suddenly curious to know if he has any matching ones on the side he can’t see.
He goes as far as to study the details of Bucky’s ear, itching for a pencil. He would make a phenomenal model.
There’s an instant relief as the tourniquet disappears, and when Steve glances away from the long, attractive line of Bucky’s neck, he finds that he’s been caught.
He shrivels a little beneath a friendly gaze, Bucky’s smile broad and knowing as he presses a ball of cotton to the wound. Steve hadn't even felt the damn thing go in. He could've been sitting there for an hour and he'd be none the wiser.
“Y’did it,” Bucky praises as he places a small, circular band-aid over the minute hole. It looks downright comical across the bulk of Steve’s arm. “Wasn’t so bad, huh?”
The dizziness hits Steve like a truck. He sways in place, swallowing despite not having a damn thing to swallow.
“Shit,” he whispers, clutching the edge of the seat for dear life. The room spins like he’s sat in a particularly aggressive teacup ride. “Gimme a sec—”
“Do you need some water?”
Steve nods. Bucky places a steadying hand on his shoulder as he stands, urging Steve to sit back. He disappears after that.
This happens every time, like all of his feelings hitting him at once. Steve’s lucky it’s simply nausea in this specific instance and not him, sprawled out unconscious across the floor. He groans, palming his face at the memory.
He can almost hear the ghost of Natasha’s laughter.
“Here, drink,” Bucky says as he approaches, tiny cup in hand. He holds it up to Steve’s lips as if it were life and death, not a simple blood test.
Steve doesn’t dare complain, however, just glances up at Bucky’s apparently-amazing-from-every-angle-imaginable face with a grateful smile before he takes a sip, then takes the cup entirely to chug the cool liquid.
Bucky sits, elbows moving to lean against the desk.
“Feel better?” he asks, and Steve nods when he notices the room has slowed to a stop.
“Sorry,” he croaks. Bucky waves a dismissive hand.
“Don’t be. Like I said, my sister’s the same way.”
There’s an odd silence. Odd because Steve can’t drag his eyes away from Bucky's face long enough to leave the room, like he should be.
Steve’s delirious, high as shit, floating on air. The fact that they’re simply looking at each other doesn’t strike him as strange in the slightest, not with the adrenaline and the rush of blood loss pounding through his veins.
“Want a lollipop?” Bucky breaks the silence with a laugh. His laugh is higher than Steve would’ve expected—almost bordering on a giggly sort of sound. He finds that he likes it.
“I don’t think it’s fair that they’re just for the kids. We’re adults, not tasteless fuckin' sadsacks,” Bucky babbles on, hands flitting across his desk in search of said lollipops.
Steve’s hands tremble with excitement, his mouth apparently a few steps ahead of his brain.
“I’d rather have your number.”
Bucky stops still with his back facing Steve. He's still for so long that Steve starts to think he’s hallucinated the stopping of time and space. Then, he's looking across his desk again, quickly and stilted and so damn awkward that Steve flushes hot.
“You’re a patient,” he says eventually, voice firm. He turns in his seat, producing a blue lollipop in his outstretched hand. Steve takes it, because he’s petty, but not that petty.
“That's fair. I apologize.”
Their fingers brush—or, Steve makes their fingers brush. Bucky yanks his hand away and sits back in his seat, clearing his throat.
“Er… there’s a vending machine. Y’should—there’s food.”
Steve pushes himself to stand, wincing at the sensation of the band-aid against his arm. It's disgusting and cringeworthy, but not painful.
“Thanks.”
Natasha still manages to laugh at the pale, stricken look on his face as she pushes away from the wall, tucking her phone away.
“Is that a lollipop? Was my little Stevie so brave?” she coos, looping an arm through his non-wounded one.
“I was, actually,” he replies flatly, his insides a tangled mess of embarrassment and humiliation and disappointment once the fresh air hits his face and sobers him up a little.
He can’t believe how blunt he’d been. God, how unbearably fucking awkward. He'll never live it down.
Natasha plucks the lollipop from his clenched fist, unwrapping it and stuffing it into her mouth.
“Hey—!”
“Oh, shut up. We’re meeting Sam for lu—”
She stops dead in her tracks, forcing Steve to stumble backwards a few steps. She’s fiddling with the lollipop, head tilted.
“Oh, my god,” she mumbles. Steve frowns as he watches her, lip curled up in confusion.
Natasha unravels something from around the stick of the lollipop. Whatever it is, it’s attached to sticky tape that she struggles to pull from her fingers.
“Steve, you dirty dog,” she croons, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “What’d you do in there?”
"I had my blood barbarically sucked from my—"
Steve glances at the square of paper as she holds it up to him. She's smirking, her eyebrow shooting up to her hairline.
"—body."
His heart immediately sputters and he has to bite his lip to keep from grinning. His cheeks find their color again as he plucks it from her fingers, lifting it up to his face.
It's a phone number. More specifically, Bucky's phone number.