Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mr. Hall smiled at Bucky as he pulled up his motorcycle to the driveway (or Goddamn Mr. Hall, as Bucky called him in his head around this time of the year, as in “Goddamn Mr. Hall has already put up a huge bloodstained skeleton on his yard and it’s only October 2nd) (Bucky’s ma called him “Fucking Lenny Hall”).

The whole thing had started when Bucky was around 7, and the Halls moved in next door. Or it had started before that, maybe, with whoever had created the Annual Birch Lane Scariest House Contest, which the Barneses had steadily and effortlessly won ever since Bucky could remember, mostly because no one else in the neighborhood cared as much about it as they did. That was, until the Halls moved in next door, and Lenny Hall offhandedly said he had the scariest Jack O'Lanterns in town. Bucky could remember the way his ma's hand had twitched on the pumpkin she was carving, as if she could barely suppress the urge to stab him.

After that, it had become a tradition. All the neighbors gathered around the two houses on October 31st to vote for the best decorations. Sometimes the Barneses won, sometimes the Halls did, death threats were uttered by the losers and candy was eaten. It was one of Bucky’s favorite times of the year. And he was feeling a little guilty because the year before he hadn’t been able to help much, because he’d been having a lot of work at college, and the Halls had won. So he’d arranged a schedule of dates for him and Becca to come back home around the month to help and this year they were fucking going to win .

-

“Add a little more green,” Bucky’s dad told him, as they were bent over a papier mache corpse in the wooden table at the Barnes’ garage. The garage smelled like paint and glue and pumpkins, which wasn't a really good combination.

“He's gonna look like a zombie, not a dead man,” Bucky answered, one hand on the corpse’s cheek and the other trying to make it look dead-er.

“But a zombie is a dead man,” Jo said, elbows deep in a pumpkin larger than her head, as their mother carved their own pumpkin based on the Pinterest picture on the tablet in front of her.

“It’s different,” Bucky shot back at her, nevertheless trying to dab a little more green on the man’s cheek.

“How is it different?” Abby asked, carrying a box of rubber bats into the garage.

“It just is,” Bucky says, exasperatedly. “Normal dead people don’t walk around eating brains.”

“Zombies don’t eat just brains,” Jo huffed. “They eat any squishy human parts they can sink their teeth into.”

“In my days zombies ate brains,” Bucky’s dad said, stretching until his back cracked.

“They've branched out, hon,” Bucky’s mom said, viciously stabbing the pumpkin. “I’m really glad we’re paying for Engineering and not Arts, sweetie,” she added, taking a look at Bucky’s work on the corpse.

-

In the shower, Bucky had to scrub his skin nearly raw to try to get the smell of paint and glue off. Afterwards, he laid in bed checking his Instagram feed. Becca had just posted a picture of the brown leaves on the tree outside her dorm window. Which led him to tap Halloween on the search box.

After countless pictures of #tbt's of girls with sugar skull makeup and tons of “Welcome, October”, and so much orange his brain hurt, there was an ass. Bucky had to double check it was an ass, because he didn't think anyone would… but there it was, in all its glory, a nice round ass below a bony waist, and painted as a Jack O'Lantern. With glitter.

Bucky could only imagine the pain of removing glitter out of your buttcrack, so he decided to check the guy's page (Bucky was pretty sure it was a guy, and he was an expert on male asses) to see what might lead a person to do something like this. The picture itself revealed nothing, the caption was only: FUCK YOU, SAM #halloween. Comments were locked.

The Instagram wasn't locked.

sgr_art
Steve Rogers
Brooklyn
Message me about comissions

The ass picture was the last, and the two others before were pencil sketches. Beautiful pencil sketches. A stone archway on one, two girls laughing as they clung to each other on the next. There were just so many details.

Bucky scrolled down, and there were more drawings and then, a picture of a blond guy Bucky assumed was Steve Rogers himself. And, well, Probably Steve Rogers was hot . Bucky enlarged the picture to take in all the details. The caption said only by @angie.martinelli . In the picture, Steve was bent over a sketchbook, his brow furrowed in concentration, elegant fingers wrapped around a pencil. A ray of sunshine from the window made his blond hair seem golden. His lips looked full and pink and so kissable Bucky had the urge to lick the phone screen.

He scrolled down some more and there were other pictures of the same man amidst the art. Steve Rogers really didn’t seem like the kind of guy to post a picture of his ass with glitter. Maybe he hadn’t meant to post it? Maybe it was a dare?

Well, then. He now knew three things about Steve Rogers:

• He was an artist. A good one. An artist who might have the ability to paint a realistic face on their zombie doll.
• He was from Brooklyn, so, nearby.
• He was damn fine.

He immediately followed Steve’s Instagram and sent him a DM.

-

It had been like this for three days, since Steve had lost that stupid bet to Sam. Three days of his inbox full of lame jokes and eggplant emojis. Three days of scrubbing glitter off his body and still finding it in improbable places.

So when his phone beeped with a new Instagram DM, Steve sighed before checking it, hoping  for the best but expecting the worst.

Um, that was not so bad. Still, the pic screamed fuckboy, and Steve really wasn’t in the mood.

Steve got his attention back to Netflix, but soon his phone beeped again. He hated it when they got insistent.

Great job scaring off potential clients, Steve. He quickly tapped an answer.

Out of curiosity, he tapped on the tiny picture to see the guys page and it turned out the guy was fucking gorgeous. For a second, Steve considered if it wasn't a fake account, but there were a lot of pictures that seemed really personal, including one of a pretty redhead asleep on his shoulder (his girlfriend? The caption said “if I go missing you know who did it”).

The DM tone bleeped again, and Steve opened the message.

Well, there it was. It was the third or fourth invitation for him to show his portfolio in person. Fuck his life.

Steve was about to block the guy, but he was still typing. For some reason, Steve decided to wait and see what it was.

Ok. Steve was definitely getting paranoid. If he lost this job, he would get Sam to pay the price of a full commission. In color.

He was debating what to answer, then another message came, which made him almost drop his phone.

-

The next day, Steve nervously rechecked his portfolio folder as he sat at the coffee shop near Flatbush station. This Bucky guy was supposed to meet him in less than five minutes, and Steve was lowkey panicking. Not only was Bucky gorgeous, but also he had seen Steve’s ridiculous ass pic, and they had spent almost an hour flirting the night before.

Had it been flirting? Maybe the guy was just being funny and friendly. Maybe the pretty redhead really was his girlfriend. Maybe he really was just interested in Steve’s art. Maybe not even that, maybe he just thought it would be funny to have Steve come up here just so he could-

“Hi, you’re here already.”

For some reason, Steve stood up. Automatically, as if an electric current had gone through his body. His portfolio fell from the table and opened, scattering a couple of pictures.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Bucky said, and immediately bent down to pick it up.

“It’s okay, my fault,” Steve mumbled, and tried to close his folder before anything else could slip out.

“Here.” Bucky handed the pictures back to Steve, who put them back into the folder. “Hi, I’m Bucky.” He extended his hand, and Steve took it, staring stupidly at his smile. “Nice to meet you in person. I know I’ve already said it, but those drawings are really good.”

“Steve Rogers,” he said. “Uh, thanks.”

Fortunately, the waitress chose that moment to interrupt Steve’s incredible display of eloquence by asking for their order. When she was gone, Bucky leaned forward into the table, and put his chin on his hand.

“Ok, I’m sorry, but I gotta ask,” he said, in a rush. “What’s up with the ass pic?”

Steve could feel his cheeks getting hot. “It was a bet,” he mumbled.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Bucky smiled, and leaned back. “You just don't seem like the kind of guy to post your ass online.”

This rubbed Steve off the wrong way. People were always judging him, Nice, Soft, Vanilla Steve. “You don't know me,” he said, trying to make his voice sound nonchalant. “I could have hidden depths.”

“Hidden, exhibitionist, definitely masochistic to deal with all that glitter depths?” Bucky asked, biting his lip.

God, this was flirting. This was definitely flirting and Steve didn't know how to flirt with a hot guy he'd met through a naked picture of his glittery ass. He shrugged, with a smile he hoped was flirty enough.

“Did you paint it yourself?” Bucky asked, openly laughing now.

“No, my friend Sam did it. He’s the one who won the bet.”

“Well, Sam’s a really lucky guy,” Bucky leered.

The waitress chose that moment to return with their drinks. As soon as they thanked her, Bucky opened three packets of sugar and dumped them on his frappuccino.

“That… is a lot.”

“I need the energy,” Bucky shrugged and took a sip of his drink. “So, Steve,” another one of his grins, “as much as I want to stay here and talk about your ass, which is fantastic, by the way, we have business to discuss.”

-

“I need to move a little to the left.”

That weekend, Steve found himself on top of a ladder outside the Barneses’ house, starting a 10 foot mural that hung from the roof. He had it in his mind: a dark tunnel, but here and there you could see touches of eyes and night creatures, ready to jump out and eat children. Steve was really excited to do it.

“Bucky? I need to get down,” Steve repeated.

Bucky, who had been holding the ladder, smiled at him. “Sorry, just admiring the view.”

“Jerk,” Steve said, flicking his paintbrush at Bucky’s nose. Bucky fake growled at him and grabbed his waist. Both of them fell to the ground, the paintbrush jammed under Steve’s armpit. Bucky kissed him, and though Steve tried to get away, he could feel the paint spreading around his nose and cheek.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Steve immediately froze, but Bucky just got off him and looked up. Steve turned his head back and got an upside down glimpse at a balding middle aged man looking at them furiously. Great.

But Bucky looked unconcerned. “Yes, Mr. Hall?”

“Are you cheating, Barnes?” The man narrowed his eyes. “Right in plain sight?”

“As per the agreement of 2011, boyfriends, girlfriends and spouses who have a significant presence in the family, even if not blood related, may have a participation in the decorations.”

Bucky recited this in a very formal voice. The whole thing was ridiculous, but also very cute, and Steve had to struggle to keep a straight face.

“And Steve here is my boyfriend,” Bucky added, beaming at Steve. He still looked gorgeous even with black paint smeared across his face. Also, he’d just called Steve his boyfriend .

Mr. Hall took a deep breath. “Congratulations,” he said, through clenched teeth, and marched back to his own house. Bucky started laughing so hard he collapsed on the ground next to Steve. It was infectious and soon Steve was laughing too.

“Mr. Hall is nice, this is just for October,” Bucky said, when he caught his breath. He took Steve’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “The rest of the year he calls me Lil’ Bucky Barnes and ruffles my hair and once he tried to set me up with his co-worker’s son. His gaydar’s shit, though, awkwardest moment of my life, locking myself up with a cute guy in the Halls’ upstairs bathroom just for him to ask me if I was cool with him hitting on my sister.”

At that, Steve laughed again, but he soon sobered up. “Am I…?” he started, and stopped. It hadn't even been a week. It was crazy, he shouldn’t...

“Do you want to be?” Bucky asked, suddenly serious too.

Steve could feel his face pull into a grin. The  past four days had been some of the best of his life. Plus, he had just met Bucky's family and it was big and loud and they seemed absolutely thrilled to have Steve there, not only as an artist for the Halloween contest, but as Bucky's guest. “I know it’s really soon, I just… I like you.” Bucky was blushing just a little, and looking expectantly at Steve.

Did Steve want to be his boyfriend? The first thing that came to his mind was fuck, yeah , because God, Bucky was amazing. They had hit it off right away, and the talk was great. At first, Steve had been taken by Bucky’s looks, but it turned out he was really fun to be with and seemed to be a genuinely nice person. And the sex… Steve’s legs would turn to jelly if he thought too much about the previous night. He decided to go with his first instinct.

“That depends.” Steve pretended to think, even though he couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “If I’m your boyfriend, do I still get paid for the art?”

Bucky stared at him for a second, before his face lit up in a devilish grin. “I’m sure I can find ways to...” He stopped then, swiped his thumb across Steve’s lower lip, and Steve had to resist the urge to suck on it. They were outside, after all. “ Compensate you for your time.”

He kissed Steve then, deep and tasting a little of paint, a promise for later .

“Get a room, you two!” One of Bucky’s sisters yelled from inside the house, and Bucky pulled away with a final peck to Steve’s lips.

“We are on a timetable, sweethearts,” Bucky’s mother's voice came through the window. “You can have all the sex you want-”

“MA!” Bucky yelled, his face going bright red. Steve laughed even though he could feel his own face burn.

“But after my mural is finished,” she added, liberally adding fake blood to the decapitated head on the window sill.

“Kill me now,” Bucky whispered to Steve.

“Also Bucky, dear?” She called again, poking the fake head’s eye so it looked more swollen.

“Yes, ma?” Bucky asked, getting up with a long sigh.

“Why is there glitter on your face?”