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Five times Bucky got his ass landed in detention for Steve
And the one time Steve went to detention for Bucky instead
1.
The first time, it was an accident.
Alexander Pierce had poured glue on his shoes during Art - intentional or not, it had pissed Bucky off, so in a fifth grade act of petty revenge he caught the taller boy by the collar and sucker-punched him in the face,
It was only after Miss Hill pulled them apart - Bucky and Alex wrestling rather viciously on the floor, that Bucky realized he had inadvertently saved a small blond kid with the brightest eyes, who had spoken up to get Bucky a single afternoon’s worth of detention instead of the week’s worth that Alex had gotten.
He never got the kid’s name, the small boy - Bucky wondered what grade he was in, maybe third? - was quickly shooed to the nurse’s office to treat his cuts and bruises, and he and Alex to Miss Hill’s classroom.
2.
The second time, however, it was intentional.
The small blond kid cried out when shoved off the third step of the stairway and onto the floor, Alexander flinging the contents of his bag onto the hallway. They both looked worn for wear, Alex sporting a bruise on his cheek from a punch of a bony hand, and on the small blond a scrape on his knee from the fall.
Bucky got three days of detention for kicking Alexander behind the knees, but seeing the blond’s large eyes light up beautifully, a brilliant smile on his face, Bucky thought it was rather worth it.
3.
The third time, well, Bucky didn’t even think he could have gotten detention for that one.
The same same blond - Bucky learnt his name was Steve Rogers, swapping stories over their many overlapping afternoon detentions - looked close to tears, when Arnim Zola had made a face at the single Valentine’s card he had gotten, because Wanda Maximoff wrote a card for everyone.
Bucky wasn’t sure why he had decided to walk through the fifth grader’s section, but he had barged in and given Steve the sloppiest and most dramatic kiss on the lips, and proudly proclaiming that Steve would be Bucky’s only Valentine.
They ended up sharing chocolates during detention, and then Bucky kissed Steve again, to Mr Fury’s chagrin. The sixth graders never stopped teasing him, but it didn’t matter because Steve smiled shyly at him when they passed in the hallways.
4.
The fourth time, Steve wasn’t directly involved.
Alexander sneered at him, saying that he had terrible taste in boyfriends. The only gay ship involving him was Stucky, so Bucky immediately knew who Alex was referring to, and in a fit of unjustified rage Bucky punched Alex in the cheek.
A fight between them was nothing new, but Tony Stark who happened to pass let loose the reason for the fight, and Stucky was revived and brought up from the sixth to the seventh grade.
Steve blushed when he walked past Bucky on the hallways, but Bucky leaned over to kiss him in the hair anyways, and the hallway cooed.
5.
The fifth time, it was all Bucky’s fault.
Everybody in school, even Alexander, had long learnt not to mess with Steve Rogers if they didn’t need a Bucky Barnes knocking them over, so it was a new transfer student that landed himself into the most painful misunderstanding.
Sam Wilson had befriended Steve and they hung out at recess, which sparked some sort of jealousy in Bucky, but it wasn’t like he and Steve were actually boyfriends, so he kept it to himself. That was, until he saw them practically clinging onto each other, and angrily threw his wallet at Sam’s head.
It turned out that Steve had sprained an ankle, but now both he and Sam had to be treated at the nurse’s office, and Mr Coulson had dragged Bucky by the ear to sit in front of a disapproving Mr Fury for detention.
Steve ignored Bucky for a week in the halls, until Natasha Romanoff yelled at him because Bucky was being miserable and not contributing to their group project, and they hugged in front of Bucky’s classroom for an embarrassingly long moment.
+1.
And then there was that one other time that was all Steve.
Now, it was more often than not a Bucky-defending-Steve situation, because Bucky was larger and stronger and Steve’s barely-growth-spurt put him about two heads shorter and much smaller than Bucky. But when Bucky Barnes left his new phone in his class when the school gates locked, it was Steve’s size that gave him the advantage.
He was surprisingly agile and flexible, so Steve pivoted himself over the gates and through the eighth grade classroom window, grabbed the phone, and ran straight into the night janitor, Mr Happy, who was not at all happy to see Steve at 8pm in the night.
He hustled Steve out, and he got a week’s worth of detention later, but Bucky got his phone back and bought him a milkshake every two days after detention.